Ro Khanna shines on Real Time; but he made one big mistake
Campaign Finance Spotlight: Oakland mayor; Agenda notes
Rep. Ro Khanna’s appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher last Friday night was a success. His overwhelmingly positive outlook for the country amid those who believe democracy is in its last throes, shocked the pessimistic Bill Maher. It was good look for Khanna on the national scene. Candidates running for office in the East Bay might do well to mimic Khanna’s uplifting outlook. Watch a short clip HERE.
But Khanna made one slip up that only political insiders watching the 10th State Senate District race in the East Bay may have noticed. During the interview, Khanna criticized a recent decision by a Tennessee school board to ban the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel “Maus,” a work that depicts the horrors of the Holocaust.
The McMinn County Board of Education found the book created by Art Spiegelman to be objectionable “because of its unnecessary use of profanity and nudity and its depiction of violence and suicide,” the board wrote on its website last week.
There’s literary irony here because the situation in Tennessee is identical to the storyline Fremont mayor and now 10th State Senate District candidate Lily Mei created as a school board member. More than a decade ago, Mei voted to ban the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Angels in America” from the school curriculum in Fremont. The work by Tony Kushner focused on the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. It’s one of her votes that Alameda County Democratic Central Committee members used to charge her last September with having a history of disparaging stances against the LGBT community. Mei said she opposed the play because it was discriminatory towards Mormons.
Similar to the Tennessee school board’s reasoning for banning “Maus”, Mei said two years later, that she banned the novel “Bastard Out of Carolina” from Fremont school curriculum for a second time because it contained objectionable scenes, including rape. At the time, Mei said other books containing rape scenes have “better endings.”
Khanna’s disconnect for admonishing a decision in far-flung Tennessee, while supporting a candidate in his district who used the same rationale for banning books, continues to confound. Especially, a number of insiders who don’t understand his strong support for Mei, despite the gathering storm over her campaign.
MORE IN THIS ISSUE: Candidates eyeing open ALCO supe seat | Campaign Finance Spotlight: Oakland mayor | Agenda Notes from Oakland, San Leandro, Fremont |
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