Tuesday, November 4, 2008

From Jeff to Nadine

Nadine,
I'm totally broken up about this decision. Last weekend I went down to Los Angeles for my niece's baptism and my family had something of a family feud over the election. My Dad's voting Obama and he's never not voted Republican, but my Mom admitted she wanted to vote for McCain. Then my aunt and uncle who live in Orange Country (which is very conservative) got in an argument with my other aunt who is VERY liberal. She had to leave the room, she was so upset.

They brought up this PLO guy I think you're talking about and my brother-in-law whose parents are from Iran (but he calls himself Persian, I've been wanting to ask him what's up with that?) said he's not bad at all. He went to the University of Michigan (my brother-in-law not the PLO guy, whose name is Khalidi) and took a class from someone named Juan Cole who is a Middle east professor and has written books and is now often quoted on the news, so my brother-in-law says I should check out his blog, and I do and there's this bit on Khalidi and I don't know how much of it is true, but apparently he's a well-respected academic and a group McCain chaired even gave Khalidi's group $400k, check it out here : http://www.juancole.com/2008/10/mccain-racism-hypocrisy-on-khalidi.html

I don't know how much of it to believe, but even Lou Dobbs thought McCain was being hypocritical, and I trust him.

I grew up in LA, I was 12 when the hostages were taken in Tehran, and let me tell you my dad did not have a lot of nice things to say about Iranians, so you can imagine what it must be like for him to have a "Persian" son-in-law, but let me tell you, after meeting more of his family at the baptism, they are really nice people, his dad even apologized about the embassy hostages.

He explained, though, that those were religious extremists that were responding to the US propping up the Shah in the fifties. He was a moderate and when the muslims took over he left the country, but he thinks right now foreign policy in Iran is being driven by fear, everyone's supposed to be afraid of the Great Satan America, while many people watch western TV on satellite and really want to be more open, it's just the fanatical religious zealots who are driving public opinion. Anyway, it was a very interesting conversation, and I just think it's fascinating that my dad who was not the most open-minded person in the world has embraced my sister's husband.

I'm not sure about all the other stuff, the Rezko deal, I'm sure Mccain didn't make any mistakes like that when he bought any of his houses, and Ayers who sounds like he did really bad stuff even if he is a teacher now, and Iraq and all that, but if my dad, who has looked closely at all of this stuff, feels comfortable enough to vote for Obama then I think I can, too.

I just looked at that clip from Glenn Beck, btw, and yes, that woman does appear dimwitted (what can you expect), but there are plenty of kooky mCcain supporters, did you hear about the woman who carved a "B" in her own face and said Obama supporters did it to her? You can't make sweeping judgments about a campaign based on a few whacked out supporters.

Anyway, I'll be glad when the whole thing is over, it seems to be ripping apart the country (and my family!) and I'd like to go through the night without someone from one campaign or the other calling me up!
Take care Nadine.
-Jeff

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