Bachmann’s J. Steven Wilkins Problem

This article reports a dismaying association between Michelle Bachmann and J. Steven Wilkins, the author of a biography of Robert E. Lee that makes disgusting assertions about the relationship between slaves and slaveholders in the antebellum South. Bachmann evidently promoted this book as a 'must read' on her campaign website.

So, while we spent months a few years ago fixated on the fact that Obama was a member of a church whose pastor had made incendiary comments about America, a church that by most accounts he attended rarely, we will undoubtedly spend no time whatsoever being furious over Bachmann's explicit endorsement of Wilkins' incendiary comments. Why?

There is simply a right-wing bias in our country, wherein those who go too far rightward are just over-indulging their essentially decent 'American-ness,' but those who go too far leftward are exposing their basic indecency, untrustworthiness, and 'un-American-ness.' Until and unless Bachmann's association makes her just as much (or more) an object of suspicion as Obama's association, I don't think we as a society will ever get back on the narrow road to righteousness.

Mandatory Voting?

When I encountered the statistic that only 37% of eligible voters cast votes in the 2010 election, I started to feel that may be the principal reason we are encountering such dysfunction in Washington. When the only people who vote are those with an axe to grind or an interest to preserve, we shouldn't be surprised when our legislature reflects that. The only solution I can see is to require all eligible people to vote. For those who see that as an infringement on freedom, I remind you that we require people to serve on juries, under pain of imprisonment. Certainly, voting is as grave a responsibility as jury duty.