Would Thomas Jefferson want a nuclear plant?

By DOLPH HONICKER

People are so tired of dealing with two-foot midgets, you give them someone two foot four and they start proclaiming him a giant.

--StudsTerkel

After 43 years in the newspaper trade, I’ve seen any number of shooting stars burst across the sky only to fizzle into swampland. Former Secretary of State Colin Powel, a decent man, a warrior, shot himself in the foot carrying water for President George W. Bush in leaky aluminum tubes before the UN. Security Council.

George McGovern, a kind, decent soul, a former B-17 Flying Fortress pilot during World War II, was shot down by Richard Milhous Nixon, a Navy supply officer and poker player who returned home with a $10,000 kitty that he’d won off combat pilots to launch his race for Congress, painting his opponent as the “Pink Lady.”

“I won‘t say that my opponent is a Communist, but ...”

And then there‘s U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), the latest rising star who, after a brilliant and progressive career in the Illinois State Legislature, now in the race for president. Meanwhile, there’s been talk of drafting Condoleezza Rice and Ophra to run for the White House.

We should draft the daughters of George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and send them to Iraq before even thinking of draft movements for Oprah and Condi.

Ken Silverstein, writing in the November 2006 issue of Harper’s, says: “After a quarter century when the Democratic Party to which he belongs has moved steadily to the right, and the political system in general has become roughly dominated by the corporate perspective, the first requirement of electoral success is now the ability to raise staggering sums of money. “

For Obama it was like pulling that first olive out of the bottle -- the rest popped out easily.

“The first $250,000 I raised was like pulling teeth,” Obama tells Silverstein. “No Democratic donors knew me ... then we sort of clicked into the public consciousness.”

There are questions whether Obama’s idealism trailed him from the Illinois Legislature to the Beltway.

Silverstein quotes the senator: “Since the founding, the American political tradition has been reformist, not revolutionary. What that means is that for a political leader to get things done, he or she ideally should be ahead of the curve, but not too far ahead. I want to push the envelope but make sure I have enough folks with me that I’m not rendered impotent.”

If this sounds like Jim Hightower’s axiom that the only thing in the middle of the road is a yellow line and dead armadillos, then so be it.

Obama’s list of donors would be the envy of GOP heavy hitters: corporate law and lobbying firms ... Wall Streeters such as JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. Most disturbing is his fourth largest patron, the Illinois-based Exelon Corp., the nation’s leading nuclear operator.

It has donated $74,350 to his campaigns. A quid per quo?

“During debate on the 2005 energy bill,” says Silverstein, “Obama helped to vote down an amendment that would have killed vast loan guarantees for power-plant operators to develop new energy projects” (read nuclear). “The loan guarantees were called ‘one of the worst provisions in this massive piece of legislation’ by Taxpayers for Common Sense and Citizens Against Government Waste; the public will not only pay millions of dollars in loan costs but will risk losing billions of dollars if the companies default.”

It’s not a question of what would Jesus do. But would Thomas Jefferson, who said the roots of democracy needed to be fed by the blood of revolution every now and then, want a nuclear plant built next door to Monticello?

Copyright 2007, Dolph Honicker