Beth Arnold

1968 to 2008: We Must Not Screw This Up

This column first appeared on HuffingtonPost.com.  Comments not included here.

Forty years ago my family was taking its annual vacation, which in the summer of 1968 was a trip to the Democratic National Convention, where my father was an Arkansas delegate.  We loaded up our station wagon, as we always did for our summer road trips across the USA, and my parents, Bill and Bobbye, drove us from Batesville, Arkansas to Chicago.  Once there, we checked into the Palmer House, which we made our headquarters to enjoy the city, attend the convention, and stay out of the way of the violent clashes between protestors and police.  Bill and Bobbye weren’t going to let their children get close enough to get their heads bashed in.  We were there to elect and support the next Democratic presidential nominee and have some fun.

The New Colosseum: The Internet

This column first appeared on HuffingtonPost.com.  Comments not included here.

by Beth Arnold

So John and Elizabeth Edwards have become the latest sacrifices to the new Colosseum: the Internet. Thumbs down to John's for his extramarital affair with Rielle Hunter! Then the mob turned to Elizabeth. This sad situation may have actually happened to her, but she doesn't have the right to decide how to handle it herself. Thumbs down for Elizabeth! The mob has no respect for her decisions about her own private life. The blogosphere will support or condemn her, according to the dictates of its own mob-heated blood lust.

Yes, I know he was a candidate. But he's not now. Various people have written, oh, but if he was the nominee and this had happened. Well, it's done. He's another politician who got caught with his pants down. What's new about that? If they don't all do it, then most do.

Woe Is Me Signals McCain

This column first appeared on HuffingtonPost.com.  Comments not included here.

by Beth Arnold

John McCain got his panties in a wad when Senator Barack Obama, during his recent trip overseas, clearly demonstrated to voters in the United States, as well as to the 6.6 million Americans who live abroad that he is a world-class leader, raring and ready to go. The fact that the majority of the rest of the world shares the viewpoint that Obama is a tremendous -- in fact, the best -- candidate for the U.S. presidency was only icing on our nation's cake.

It was good news indeed that the reputation of the United States can be so remarkably rehabilitated after the last eight years that have worn even us Americans down to the nub of wondering if we had a democracy left. It was momentous to see the world so amply demonstrating that it still wants to hold us up with respect and admiration, and Obama hit all the right notes. He showed people around the globe what a gifted most powerful leader of the most powerful nation he would make, and the world showed us it wants positive leadership. It was plain to see that after the last years of the Bush administration's dark cloud covering the earth that all people of all nations are starving for it.