{"id":416,"date":"2008-03-21T11:26:33","date_gmt":"2008-03-21T16:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/index.php\/2008\/03\/21\/what-honesty-comes-to\/"},"modified":"2008-03-21T12:51:12","modified_gmt":"2008-03-21T17:51:12","slug":"what-honesty-comes-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/03\/what-honesty-comes-to\/","title":{"rendered":"What Honesty Comes To"},"content":{"rendered":"

Copyright 2008 Ben S. Pollock<\/small><\/p>\n

In the last couple of weeks, American politics took a big turn — all of it, from national to state to local.<\/p>\n

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., gave a speech<\/a> to explain how he has devoted his life to acting on inclusive feelings of love and harmony while following the ministry of a man who preaches hatred of entire races and classes of people. We all can identify with such candor. None of us is running for president like Obama is, so we just can deal with the faulty people we like as best we can without major policy addresses.<\/p>\n

The new governor of New York, David Paterson, who rose from lieutenant governor when its holder was found to be a prostitution client, pre-emptively announces he is an adulterer. Not only that but his wife had been an adulterer, too. Campaign donations<\/a> used for hotels have joined the headlines.<\/p>\n

Locally, a former Arkansas attorney general, Steve Clark,* began preliminary moves toward running for mayor<\/a> of Fayetteville. He’s only lived here a couple of years, not counting his college days — and a teaching stint — decades ago. Clark, however, became an ex-attorney general in 1990 by being convicted and fined for credit-card fraud.<\/p>\n

Clark in preliminary research found that because he can vote again, having paid his debt to society, he could run. But now it’s reported that Mike Huckabee’s pardon isn’t enough<\/a>. It’s a shame, because being a convicted felon and a recovering alcoholic might be keys to electoral success in the beginning of the nation’s post-celebrity century.<\/p>\n

Consultant Walt Eilers, businessman Jeff Koenig and Alderman Lioneld Jordan so far are the only candidates. None is a convicted felon. None admits to being a drunk. None has spoken of questionable sexual practices, nor has come clean about defending loudmouth bigots.<\/p>\n

How does any of them expect to win like that? -30-<\/p>\n

* Disclosure. I’ve met Steve Clark. He won’t remember me, but he and other state leaders played a croquet tournament in 1986 outside the state Supreme Court with Mallets Aforethought, the croquet team of the Arkansas Democrat then Democrat-Gazette. My team. They won. (I have met Lioneld Jordan a couple of times, too, not the others, but Jordan and I have played no games.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Copyright 2008 Ben S. Pollock In the last couple of weeks, American politics took a big turn — all of it, from national to state to local. U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., gave a speech to explain how he has devoted his life to acting on inclusive feelings of love and harmony while following the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-body-home-street"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":708,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/11\/pleading-the-first\/","url_meta":{"origin":416,"position":0},"title":"Pleading the First","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"November 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.\" Copyright 2008 Ben S. Pollock\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":655,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/08\/palin-comparison\/","url_meta":{"origin":416,"position":1},"title":"Palin Comparison","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"August 29, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Sen. John McCain chose Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate. Details are a click away, but here's quick thoughts from the hour since the announcement. McCain just evened the Brick odds of winning. Once the primaries indicated the top candidates, I never saw him\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":253,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2006\/12\/half-staff-is-half-mast\/","url_meta":{"origin":416,"position":2},"title":"Half staff is half mast","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"December 10, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"(... unless the old sailor or old soldier gets insulted then you never forget that here in landlocked Arkansas it's always half staff) Several American flags in the town of Lowell, home of the headquarters of J.B. Hunt Transport Services, have been flying half staff the last few days. Of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Brick Bats Reportage"","block_context":{"text":"Brick Bats Reportage","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/brick-bats-reportage\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4143,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2013\/02\/chasing-a-tale\/","url_meta":{"origin":416,"position":3},"title":"Chasing a Tale","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"February 25, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Book report: A Dog's Journey: Another Novel for Humans by W. Bruce Cameron, 2012 Bruce Cameron's novels make me scream. I read novels, not as many as I would like, maybe one and a half a month. Literary novels -- the popular ones far more than ones from small publishers,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mr. Boo Klist"","block_context":{"text":"Mr. Boo Klist","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/mr-boo-klist\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Bo, the dog of President Barack Obama, amuses Burmese Opposition Leader Aung San Suu Kyi","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/Aung-San-Suu-Kyi-Barack-Obama-200x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":402,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2008\/01\/the-green-candidate\/","url_meta":{"origin":416,"position":4},"title":"The Green Candidate","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"January 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Four years ago Charlie Rose interviewed Garrison Keillor, who said something so provocative that for a detectable millisecond Rose was speechless, a rarity. Keillor of course was on promoting A Prairie Home Companion, but early on they discussed the just-ended 2004 election, where the progressive Keillor nailed John Kerry's defeat\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2289,"url":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/2010\/10\/its-just-a-show\/","url_meta":{"origin":416,"position":5},"title":"It’s Just a Show","author":"Ben S. Pollock","date":"October 30, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Here we are, 2010, a week before the national midterm elections. Where does the president appear to support his party and his policies and other endeavors. Not an interview with Katie, Brian or Diane -- or their seconds, even though they're all trained journalists. He didn't drop in on Dave\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News, Spin"","block_context":{"text":"News, Spin","link":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/category\/news-spin\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benpollock.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}