Biden's mistake?

Much has been made of Vice-President Joe Biden's speaking out of turn – at length – in announcing his support of gay marriage, and how that "forced" President Obama to proclaim his support. In spite of Biden's reputation for uncontrolled discourse, that is almost never how things are done at that level. In fact, Biden was not alone among top administration officials making this position public. His and others' alleged errors were almost certainly trial balloons released to soften the President's inevitable statement on the subject, planned for sometime in the coming weeks. This both lessened the shock to voters still uncomfortable with gay marriage and gave the President some cover as he made this move to energize avid supporters of gay marriage and their substantial wealth to work for his re-election. The challenge was to make the gains from this shift outweigh any losses from more conservative potential supporters. He seems to have convinced two-thirds of voters that political gain was his main reason for announcing the switch.

Except for black voters, those strongly and steadfastly opposed to gay marriage are not likely to vote for Obama anyway. His problem in announcing his support was to avoid alienating those who view gay marriage as immoral, but possibly tolerable, because they feel compelled to accept – or at least not reject – the actions of gay friends or relatives. So the Biden scenario likely was calculated to help those with reservations about gay marriage see the President's predicament as similar to their own. In this view, Obama's thinking evolved because of the actions and prodding of friends, as he said in his statement. And, he spoke about it only because someone else forced his hand.

Make no mistake, Obama took a high road in finally coming out on this politically charged issue that some think cost John Kerry the Presidency in 2004. But few Presidential policy positions or their timing in a election year are an accident, despite Biden's apology and Obama's chastisement of his number two. The White House apparently decided that public sentiment has finally evolved to the requisite threshold. (But see this caution.) So any praise due also should go to the millions of Americans who contributed to that change.

[Note: why do I use NY Times' articles here and in the book? Two reasons: They are fact checked and corrections always posted if found later. Unlike most other news sources, the Times provides permanent links that will not expire.]

Making the truth believable

Author Tracy Kidder said “I think that the nonfiction writer’s fundamental job is to make what is true believable.” I agree. In nonfiction that relies on the anecdotal stories of composite characters, I immediately distrust the expansion of “facts” to a truth about a larger universe. I need to know that the author relied on verifiable data or peer reviewed studies, and sometimes I want to see the raw data myself so I can draw my own conclusions.