Symbolic Acts and Symbolic Words

We like to think that we are rational beings moved to take action upon reading or hearing or mongering up for ourselves some rational argument favoring taking that action. In fact, that is rarely the case. We much more reliably respond to symbols (the flag) and symbolic speech(I regret that I have but one life to give to my country).

Many Americans respond with anger if they see anyone, especially another American burn the flag. The people who burn one know this. They could have chosen to burn their Levis but didn't. In recent months, reprobates of the worst sort have taken to hanging nooses in various places. We all know what that means. Just hanging a rope would mean nothing. Flags and nooses are mere things but they have meaning just as "I hate America" and "I hate Niggers" do but with the possible exception of the word "Nigger," they are more powerful than the language.

Today, I saw the power of actions and words in politics, when Teddy Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy, JFK's daughter and Teddy's niece, and Patrick Kennedy, Teddy's son, all spoke at a Barak Obama rally in Washington by way of endorsing him. They made quite clear that they meant to be passing on the Kennedy "torch." The Kennedy political line is coming to an end and I think they saw Barak Obama as a way of keeping its social and political values alive.

I first saw Teddy when he spoke on behalf of his brother in his campaign against Lyndon Johnson for the Democratic Nomination. Later, during the campaign against Nixon, I saw JFK give a political speech in Houston, Texas and then latter that evening saw him face a bunch of Baptist Preachers who thought they needed reassurance that he would not be answering to the Pope. Don't be surprised if desperate Republicans start questioning whether Mitt Romney will be answering to the Mormon church Elders.

Their speeches as well as that of Barak Obama were powerfully moving to someone of my age. As I watched Obama's speech, I could see Patrick and his gaze was riveted to Obama and he smiled and applauded when you would expect a true believer to do so. I suspect that Teddy was moved to act in part because what Obama had been saying resonated with him in the way his brother's speeches must have and in part because he was pissed off by Bill Clinton's attacks on Obama. As I began writing this blog, it occurred to me that Teddy might have seen what Bill Clinton was doing to Obama as little different from what Johnson and his supporters did to JFK in their effort to defeat him for the nomination.

Before they spoke, Hillary had a nice edge nationally over Barak. We will see if the action the Kennedy's took in endorsing Obama and the especially eloquent language in which they expressed their support will have a power that goes beyond your garden variety endorsement and endorsement speech. Super Tuesday may give us the answer. Alas that is the day I undergo a hip replacement and I may be too groggy that night to follow the election returns.

Race and Gender in the Democratic Race

Were it not for George Bush, the worst President in American history, and a dismal array of Republican candidates, I would be somewhat fearful of the fact that H. Clinton and Obama continue to be the leading candidates for the Democratic party, for we have never elected a woman or an African-American President before. People are slaves to their habits and voting for white men for President has been our habit from the beginning.

Democrats do have a white male in the race but he has not been able to compete successfully. How much this has to do with him as a campaigner and how much it has to do with the qualities of H. Clinton and Obama I can't say with any assurance. Since Edwards is a quintessential Democrat, in fact a liberal Democrat by today's standard (as opposed to the standard in the 1960's), and is quite presentable, I have to assume that it is H. Clinton's star power (fame and notoriety) and Obama's novelty (the first African American to run who did not come out of the civil rights movement) that is forcing him into the shadows.

Obama's initial appeal to Whites, I believe, was that he has not been running primarily to advance the cause of African Americans or what the very tiresome Jesse Jackson has called the Rainbow Coalition. Rather, he has represented himself simply as running for the Democratic nomination, just as Hillary and Edwards have been. That was a real novelty. African Americans could expect that he would look after their interests, although he was not saying so, but so would the other candidates I imagine.

Then Hillary said, what seems to me to have been a quite innocuous point that it took politicians to enact Martin Luther King's dream and Obama took exception to that. That was, I think, a very stupid thing to do. Her remark would not have been questioned were neither running for President. Obama knows that activists all by themselves can't accomplish very much of anything besides winning the hearts and minds of the people. It takes politicians to realize or, much more commonly, almost realize the reforms of activists. Obama knows this.

Why Obama simply didn't leave this alone I can't say. It has clearly helped him in garnering Black votes and, I suspect, he will win in S. Carolina today thanks to stripping away Black voters (especially women) who might have supported Hillary. But this victory will I think be a Pyrrhic one.

Americans, in contrast to others, have sometimes been described as less racist than racially conscious. Of course both could be true. A symptom of one's being racially conscious is feeling the necessity of including the word "Black" (or whatever other word you use) in sentences like, "I saw this Black doctor yesterday who said I have a stress fracture in my foot." Clearly, the doctor's being Black is totally irrelevant. This verbal behavior is a clear sign that you are racially conscious. Men very commonly would include "female" as a descriptor in the same sentence evidencing clearly that they are gender conscious.

Even if Obama hadn't taken issue with Hillary's statement, race would have become an issue because the media would make it one. It wasn't an issue in the early caucuses and primaries. They all occurred in states in which Blacks were a small minority. But it is an issue in S. Carolina and inevitably the media in analyzing pre-election polls, and the exit polls taken on election day and in post-election analyzes, will break down the voting by race. Once that has happened Obama is doomed unless something unforseable now occurs.

Why do I say he isn't going to win? A continuing problem in America is that while White Americans are often or even usually perfectly comfortable with individual Blacks they are not, I think, all that comfortable with Blacks in general. And in my experience, African Americans are no different from Whites in this respect (except it is Whites in general they aren't comfortable with). I will never forget a Black friend of mine telling me that he would root for an African runner in an Olympics event over a White American. I was stunned. And, I saw Black college students cheering the O. J. Simpson murder trial verdict on TV. That came very close to breaking my heart. They were no different in my mind from the racist Whites that cheered when KKK murderers were found innocent by White juries.

All of this goes back to the fact that we are hard-wired to be suspicious of those who are different from us. During the period in which humans were quite primitive, one's survival depended making sound judgments as to who were and who were not a threat to us. Strangers would normally I think have been perceived as dangerous until they showed they were not. This provides the seed for racist feelings today.

Here is my prediction: Obama will win S. Carolina. (I have not turned the TV on to any news or information channel so I am not cheating here.) This victory will be due to the fact that some whites will vote for him and most Blacks will. Hillary and Edwards will split the rest of the votes. I have heard that Edwards might edge Hillary out. This victory due to Black solidarity -- as ugly a phenomenon as White solidarity or male solidarity -- will, I think, inspire Blacks to gravitate to him and this will lead Whites to move away from him and toward Hillary and Edwards. The net effect will be that Obama will not get the nomination.

Many years ago, I heard a paper at a conference at Georgetown concerning a class room experiment the speaker had run at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He raised a question for debate that he had earlier determined was one that did not break down as to the yeas and nays on racial lines. He picked a Black male and a White male and gave one the nay and the other they yea. By the time the hour was up, the entire class had polarized along racial lines. In a nutshell (the speaker gave a deeper analysis) the division in the class had more to do with debate style than the arguments that were given. The Black speaker was more aggressive than the White speaker and Whites began to see the Black male as hostile when he wasn't at all and the Blacks saw the White speaker as lame though his arguments were as robust as the Black guy's.

I fear there will be considerable racial polarization within the electorate as the campaign continues. It is hard to say whether gender polarization will also occur but it will be very hard to tell sexist attitudes from anti-Hillary attitudes in such a case. What I hope is that Clinton and Obama quit fighting and spend their time and energy on presenting their views on the issues. I think Bill may not let that happen. One benefactor could be Edwards.

The "I smoked pot but I didn't inhale" Excuse

When people in the public eye are suspected of doing something wrong and are questioned about it, some opt for a variation of Bill Clinton's account of his use of illegal drugs. He said he had smoked pot but hadn't inhaled it. He is fortunate that not many people cared about his pot usage but the credibility of his account of his drug use was zero on a scale of zero to 10.

Clinton could have made his lie/true account much more credible if he had said, "Yes, like many young people of the time, I smoked pot a few times but stopped because it wasn't doing anything for me. A few years later, I discovered why it didn't do anything for me -- you have to inhale the smoke and I didn't."

The key difference between these two accounts of Clinton's pot smoking is my account provides a reason for his stopping that is credible -- he didn't get high. People might have made fun of him for not inhaling but wouldn't see him as lying even if he was. It is very important when giving a mea culpa to actually say one is guilty but give account that minimizes the extent of the illegal or immoral action that is believable.

Recently, Andy Pettite, a pitcher for the New York Yankees was outed for his use of illegal performance enhancing drugs by a man who claimed he had injected Pettite with HGH (human growth hormone) some 2 to 4 times. The claim by the trainer was published in the Mitchell report. I understand that when Pettite was asked about having used performance enhancing drugs (henceforth PEDs) before he was outed in the Mitchell report. he denied it. This is a serious mistake. The odds that someone will out you is much too great to reasonably believe one will be able to get away with a total denial.

After being "formally" outed, Pettite did a Clintonian mea culpa. He admitted to using HGH twice, the lower figure used by the trainer who injected him, and he explained that he had been injured at the time. He goes on to say

I felt an obligation to get back to my team as soon as possible. For this reason, and only this reason, for two days I tried human growth hormone.

His actual "apology" was

If what I did was an error in judgment on my part, I apologize.

There are several problems with Pettite's account of his use of HGH.

The first problem is that he didn't actually give a mea culpa. Saying "if what I did was an error in judgment, I apologize" is too ridiculous for words. It is obvious to all that what he did was make an error of judgment. If he hadn't made an error of judgment he wouldn't have been outed. Rule one of an admission of guilt -- don't make it conditional. Say what you did was a mistake or error in judgment. The second problem is that his account is totally self-serving in that he represents his use of HGH as altruistic -- he wanted to get back pitching regularly as soon as possible to help his team. This plays into a basic sports mantra, namely that athletes must focus their efforts entirely on helping their team. If they are ever seen as acting to further their own interests rather than the interests of the team, they will be in deep trouble with the press and fans. The third problem is that his claim that he only used it twice is itself not credible since the trainer said it was 2-4 times. Admitting one did it "several times" would have been much better. A fourth problem is that he gives no explanation for quitting. If it wasn't an error in judgment, then why quit? My version of Clinton's mea culpa admitted his use and explained why he quit. You have to do both things in an apology or explanation.

If I had been advising Pettite, I would have said that I had used HGH a few times because I had been told that it would facilitate a quicker recovery from my injury and I was afraid that if I didn't heal quickly enough I might not get my spot back on the Yankees' starting rotation. But I knew that this was a prescription drug and I was therefore taking it illegally. Since I am not by nature a law breaker, I decided I had to stop even if there was some risk that I might not heal as quickly. The virtue of this account is that Pettite would have pled "guilty" but given a very credible explanation of both why he took HGH and why he stopped and in the process painted a picture of himself as being basically law abiding. Sports fans would have found it easy to forgive him. Everyone understands the pressure of trying to keep one's job.

Andy Pettite's sidekick, the 40-something medical marvel, Roger Clemens, who despite his advanced age remained a first rate pitcher with one of the lowest earned run averages in baseball, was also outed. He could still throw the ball hard and managed to win something like 3 Cy Young awards during the "steroids" era we have recently gone through and are probably still going through. A real problem with Roger is that like Barry Bonds, the first major star to be outed, Roger was a much bigger and stronger at 40-something than he had been as a 30-something pitcher. Since he had always worked out hard this didn't make much sense but his taking steroids would make sense out of it. Steroids allow one to recover more quickly from work outs and therefore allows one to work out hard much more frequently.

Roger Clemens, unlike Andy Pettite, flatly denied using PED's after the Mitchell report came out. This denial puts him in the awkward position that for him to go on and confess he must first admit that he lied about his use of PED's and then admit that he took the illegal drugs. Pettite too had lied but not after a "formal" charge had been leveled at him.

Barry Bonds is no longer the sole poster child for use of PED's. He has been joined by Roger Clemons and a legion of others. Barry himself gave a Clintonian style defense of his use of PED's. He claimed that he didn't know that what he was getting (the cream and the clear) was illegal. No one believes that either.

Another group that is in denial is baseball writers. They are poking holes at the report on a variety of grounds. Some have claimed, for instance, that it is based on hearsay. In fact, the report, insofar as it concerns Pettite and Clemens, is based on confessions by the person who administered the drugs, which makes the claims stronger than eye-witness testimony, and where it does involve hearsay evidence (i. e., Roger or Barry or Andy tells the report's source that he used PED's), the evidence would be admissible in court under the exception that it was an "admission against interest." The fact that baseball reporters are so angered by the report is interesting. They have been shown to be lousy reporters since they didn't dig up this information themselves, unlike the reporters who outed Bonds several years ago. And, if they pile onto those who had been outed, they are unlikely ever to get an exclusive interview with the athlete they have criticized. Furthermore, their jobs are seen by themselves and many others as important because they cover the actions and thoughts of people others deem important.

I have no useful advice to Clemens as to how he can get out from under the allegations against him. As Pete Rose, who continues to be denied entrance into the Hall of Fame, can tell Roger, it doesn't help to admit one lied about one's actions (Rose's actions were betting on his own team when he was a manager) if one waits too long.