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Our Mad Mad World: Is it time? |
Category: Opinions 31 comments 24 Mar 2008 @ 20:54 by quinty : Here's an interesting piecefrom Huffingtonpost....... Is the Media's Pursuit of Horserace Coverage the Reason Sen. Clinton is Still Considered a Viable Contender for the Democratic Presidential Nomination? Posted March 22, 2008 | 12:44 AM (EST) {link:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-hasen/is-the-medias-pursuit-of_b_92872.html|Media's pursuit} That's the provocative thesis of this article by Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen in The Politico. And at Slate, Christopher Beam gives a similar answer: "Today's the New York Times A1 piece on Hillary Clinton, 'Clinton Facing Narrower Path to Nomination,' is an exercise in understatement. It nudges the candidate ever closer to the cliff but, maybe because of politeness, or business savvy, or maybe even a perceived need for objectivity, refrains from pushing her over." See also Josh Marshall. Now, with news of Clinton's campaign debt and an admission by her staffer that she has no more than a 10% chance of securing the nomination, expect these stories to proliferate. Could it be that the media has kept the story alive? I think that's an overstatement. Of course Clinton can't catch Obama, but it is also true that Obama cannot formally clinch without the superdelegates. So long as Clinton has the hope of an Obama implosion or major gaffe, she has a reason to remain in the race. So don't blame the media; blame the DNC's system for leaving this in the hands of superdelegates---something the DNC surely must reconsider for 2012 and beyond. 24 Mar 2008 @ 21:02 by quinty : Frank Rich Here's Frank Rich in the NY Times, Sunday, March 23, 2008. "That she [Hillary Clinton] has never given a forthright speech on Iraq is what can happen when your chief campaign strategist is a pollster. Focus groups no doubt say it would be hara-kiri for her to admit such a failing. But surely many Americans would have applauded her for confessing to mistakes and saying what she learned from them. As her husband could have told her, that's best done sooner rather than later. "It's too late now, and so the Democratic stars are rapidly aligning for disaster. Mrs. Clinton is no longer trying to overcome Mr. Obama's lead in the popular vote and among pledged delegates by making bold statements about Iraq or any other issue. Instead of enhancing her own case for the presidency, she's going to tear him down. As Adam Nagourney of The New York Times delicately put it last week, she is "looking for some development to shake confidence in Mr. Obama" so that she can win over superdelegates in covert 3 a.m. phone calls. If Mr. Wright doesn't do it, she'll seek another weapon. Mr. Obama, who is, after all, a politician and not a deity, could well respond in kind." For the complete {link:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/opinion/23rich.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin|NY Times piece}. 25 Mar 2008 @ 15:19 by jmarc : I'm surprised at Hillary I thought at the start of this primary season that she would do much better than she has done. I think if she had stuck to her more likable side, (" I'm proud to be on the stage today with a great man like Barrack Obama") rather than her bulldog side, ("Shame on you Barrack Obama!"), that she would have done much better. Although teachers liked to remind us in school that when voting for class president, that we should vote for what the candidates stood for and that it wasn't a popularity contest, the truth is that politics is a popularity contest. Barrack is a much more likeable candidate, leaving aside whether or not he really has a plan that he can pass or that he will stand up for. She should quit. I won't vote for either candidate, or McCain though. 26 Mar 2008 @ 09:12 by jazzolog : Others Wondering Too The first time I heard a pundit call for Hillary to get out of the race was way back before the Ohio/Rhode Island primaries, when talk show host Ed Schultz did it. Even then he had it figured out the numbers just weren't stacking up for her---even if the superdelegates could be wooed. Now ponderings about why she's hanging in there can be heard on all sides. The major argument of course is what she's doing to the Democratic Party...especially while McCain has a free ride and continues to pile up more support. Yesterday conservative columnist David Brooks set out his view, which sounds very convincing to me. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/25/opinion/25brooks.html?ref=opinion Today Maureen Dowd follows a similar path, but naturally takes an even more radical turn. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/opinion/26dowd.html?th&emc=th The longer this goes on, the more I'm reminded of just how tarnished the Clinton legacy truly is. PS Is there anyone in America who knows WHO his or her superdelegates are? 26 Mar 2008 @ 16:37 by Quinty @72.195.137.102 : Good pieces, Richard. I wonder how much such opinion pieces reflect the concerns and thinking of Democratic bigwigs? And if any are asleep I hope they read some of these things by Brooks, Dowd, and others. I would like to see someone have a talk with Hillary now..... From Brooks.... "For the sake of that 5 percent [chance of Hillary winning], this will be the sourest spring. About a fifth of Clinton and Obama supporters now say they wouldn’t vote for the other candidate in the general election. Meanwhile, on the other side, voters get an unobstructed view of the Republican nominee. John McCain’s approval ratings have soared 11 points. He is now viewed positively by 67 percent of Americans. A month ago, McCain was losing to Obama among independents by double digits in a general election matchup. Now McCain has a lead among this group." Now there's something to consider..... 26 Mar 2008 @ 20:34 by Quinty @72.195.137.102 : A great comment I found over at Huffington Post.... "The Clinton strategy: Obama's run is a fairy tale, Obama wasn't really against the war, Obama took cocaine, Obama's middle name is Hussein, Obama is like Jesse Jackson (they're both black, get it), Obama isn't pro-choice, Obama is for latte drinkers, Obama only wins caucuses, Obama only wins states that don't matter, Obama is all talk and no action, Obama plagiarizes, Obama's followers are a cult, Obama isn't ready on day one, Obama might cause or not be able to handle a terrorist attack, McCain is better than Obama, Obama has no experience -- only a speech in 2002, Obama's pastor is no good, Bill says Obama's picking on me, Obama shouldn't win because I am entitled, even if it takes superdelegates overturning the will of the voters." Indie17 27 Mar 2008 @ 21:10 by tlingel : {link:http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v232/__show_article/_a000232-000658.htm|Is Time making fools out of us, again?} 29 Mar 2008 @ 19:50 by Quinty @72.195.137.102 : Slate's Hillary Deathwatch To see the latest - {link:http://www.slate.com/id/2187558/|Daily Deathwatch} That is, unless a miracle occurs. 19 May 2008 @ 21:54 by b : Jesus is coming There will be spasmodic convulsions, disbelief, upheavels, then the light. We will see Hillary in a dress, off the shoulder, bust line, high heels. Then watch out when she struts. Forget the numbbers. It's the figure. 19 May 2008 @ 22:26 by Vibe @76.173.37.120 : Hey Quinty Have you seen this? Obama said he's visited 57 states, and has two yet to go. In his own words... http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=EpGH02DtIws 19 May 2008 @ 22:38 by Quinty @72.195.137.102 : Ehrenreich on Clinton Hillary Revealed That Women Can Be Nasty, Deceptive Candidates Too By Barbara Ehrenreich, Barbaraehrenreich.com. Posted May 17, 2008. Hillary Clinton smashed the myth of innate female moral superiority in the worst possible way -- by demonstrating female moral inferiority. In last Friday's New York Times, Susan Faludi rejoiced over Hillary Clinton's destruction of the myth of female prissiness and innate moral superiority, hailing Clinton's "no-holds-barred pugnacity" and her media reputation as "nasty" and "ruthless." Future female presidential candidates will owe a lot to the race of 2008, Faludi wrote, "when Hillary Clinton broke through the glass floor and got down with the boys." I share Faludi's glee -- up to a point. Surely no one will ever dare argue that women lack the temperament for political combat. But by running a racially-tinged campaign, lying about her foreign policy experience, and repeatedly seeming to favor McCain over her Democratic opponent, Clinton didn't just break through the "glass floor," she set a new low for floors in general, and would, if she could have got within arm's reach, have rubbed the broken glass into Obama's face. A mere decade ago Francis Fukuyama fretted in Foreign Affairs that the world was too dangerous for the West to be entrusted to graying female leaders, whose aversion to violence was, as he established with numerous examples from chimpanzee society, "rooted in biology." The counter-example of Margaret Thatcher, perhaps the first of head of state to start a war for the sole purpose of pumping up her approval ratings, led him to concede that "biology is not destiny." But it was still a good reason to vote for a prehistoric-style club-wielding male. Not to worry though, Francis. Far from being the stereotypical feminist-pacifist of your imagination, the woman to get closest to the Oval Office has promised to "obliterate" the toddlers of Tehran -- along, of course, with the bomb-builders and Hezbollah supporters. Earlier on, Clinton foreswore even talking to presumptive bad guys, although women are supposed to be the talk addicts of the species. Watch out -- was her distinctly unladylike message to Hugo Chavez, Kim Jong-Il, and the rest of them -- or I'll rip you a new one. There's a reason why it's been so easy for men to overlook women's capacity for aggression. As every student of Women's Studies 101 knows, what's called aggression in men is usually trivialized as "bitchiness" in women: Men get angry; women suffer from bouts of inexplicable, hormonally-driven, hostility. So give Clinton credit for defying the belittling stereotype: She's been visibly angry for months, if not decades, and it can't all have been PMS. But did we really need another lesson in the female capacity for ruthless aggression? Any illusions I had about the innate moral superiority of women ended four years ago with Abu Ghraib. Recall that three out of the five prison guards prosecuted for the torture and sexual humiliation of prisoners were women. The prison was directed by a woman, Gen. Janis Karpinski, and the top U.S. intelligence officer in Iraq, who also was responsible for reviewing the status of detainees before their release, was Major Gen. Barbara Fast. Not to mention that the U.S. official ultimately responsible for managing the occupation of Iraq at the time was Condoleezza Rice. Whatever violent and evil things men can do, women can do too, and if the capacity for cruelty is a criterion for leadership, as Fukuyama suggested, then Lynndie England should consider following up her stint in the brig with a run for the Senate. It's important -- even kind of exhilarating -- for women to embrace their inner bitch, but the point should be to expand our sense of human possibility, not to enshrine aggression as a virtue. Women can behave like the warrior queen Boadicea, credited with slaughtering 70,000, many of them civilians, or like Margaret Thatcher, who attempted to dismantle the British welfare state. Men, for their part, are free to take as their role models the pacifist leaders Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. Biology conditions us in all kinds of ways we might not even be aware of yet. But virtue is always a choice. Hillary Clinton smashed the myth of innate female moral superiority in the worst possible way -- by demonstrating female moral inferiority. We didn't really need her racial innuendos and free-floating bellicosity to establish that women aren't wimps. As a generation of young feminists realizes, the values once thought to be uniquely and genetically female -- such as compassion and an aversion to violence -- can be found in either sex, and sometimes it's a man who best upholds them. 19 May 2008 @ 23:10 by Quinty @72.195.137.102 : Hey Vibe That's known as a gaff. A slip of the tongue. A thoughtless mistake. Does it imply that in negotiations he would trade the Empire State Building for the replica of the Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas? Hardly. Let's give a President of the Harvard Law Review his due. He can manage the English language, routinely think straight, and hold two opposing ideas and function all at the same time. Obama is no George Bush. He does not mangle, tread upon. waste, spit out, foolishly giggle, and lie through his smirking teeth when he employs the English language. He is a politician, true enough, and we won't know how for real he actually is until he settles down to business in the White House. But to dump on him - and even the Republican Party hasn't picked up on that gaff - for a tiny lapse, an expression of exhaustion, of fatigue perhaps, is only trivial and demeaning. There has been much of that in this campaign. Like crawling all over Hillary for giving LBJ some credit for passing the Civil Rights Act. Details express character, sure enough, but we all have them. It's the larger ones that count. What’s more, we can all use editors from time to time. 22 May 2008 @ 16:29 by Quinty @72.195.137.102 : It occurs to me - Hillary may be throwing this latest tantrum in order to demonstrate to the Democratic Party bigwigs (and Obama) that she still has a great deal of power. That if she doesn’t get what she wants she is thoroughly capable of upsetting the party-table at the Democratic Party’s get together in Denver. No one even slightly clearheaded would take her arguments seriously. Comparing the Florida primary to Zimbabwe’s elections? Did the candidates there sign an agreement not to campaign because the election’s results wouldn’t count? Yet she expects us to believe that the only reason she is raising a fuss is because she is concerned about the rights of Florida’s voters? That hers is a lofty posture, as if Jefferson and Madison stood at her side? “Kitchen sink” is right. No matter how feeble, warped, or twisted the argument if it makes a good brick brat she will throw it. Perhaps all this nonsense is a way of leveraging the VP spot? Showing how much trouble she can create if she doesn’t get what she wants? 22 May 2008 @ 17:33 by jazzolog : Barack's VP Choice He should, with all the honest, gentle gallantry he can muster, offer it first to Hillary. I have no idea whether she would accept, but she should...as a way of unifying the party she has risked dividing in perhaps a fatal way. I'd prefer Edwards, but he says he doesn't want it. Maybe once was enough...but the VP could very easily find him/herself the president in 8 years. 22 May 2008 @ 18:16 by Quinty @72.195.137.102 : I've come to loath Hillary. For me it began a few years ago when it appeared the Christian right would be the king makers and Hillary showed up to offer her solidarity. And these were people who want to shove their idiotic religious scruples and beliefs down the throats of all the rest of us, with their bans on stem cell research, abortion, gay marriage and all the rest. (Anything to make others miserable.) Then she voted for the war. Clearly not because she even believed in it but because she didn’t want to take any heat for opposing that great patriotic cause. All this should have told us something. And it did. For she has behaved in the same manner to the umpteenth power throughout this entire primary campaign. What is this little Machiavelli capable of? How much dirt and filth is she willing to enter into to have her way? The woman sickens me and like many other Democrats wish she would just go away. She failed at obtaining the presidency so when her term in the Senate ends she can go home and write the self justifying story of her life. Her latest tantrum may twist Obama’s arm into offering her the vice presidency. Frankly, I think Maureen Dowd was correct a few weeks ago when she wrote that Hillary cramps Obama’s style. She would quite likely be a distraction in the White House, perhaps seeking a Dick Cheney-like role. Big Bill would be in the wings. There would be an air of deep hypocrisy if they ran together on the same ticket, which McCain (rightly) could exploit. And if they were elected who knows what tensions there would be in the White House. No, let her go away. She is a spoiled, selfish child. And if she destroys Obama’s chances - her own party’s. after all - bringing us McCain then there is no pit deep enough for her. 23 May 2008 @ 18:25 by jazzolog : Hillary The Cheerleader http://harpers.org/media/image/blogs/misc/hillarybarackfinger.png 24 May 2008 @ 04:36 by Vibe @76.173.37.120 : But, oh-bama It's Obama - in his own words, saying he has visited 57 states and has a few more to go! He doesn't even catch his mistake! Is this who you want as president? http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=EpGH02DtIws 24 May 2008 @ 18:38 by Quinty @72.195.137.102 : How very apt. (The cartoon that is.) 24 May 2008 @ 18:39 by Quinty @72.195.137.102 : Oh, Vibe yes I want a moron. 27 May 2008 @ 22:00 by Vibe @76.173.37.120 : hmmm You said it. He'll say anything for a vote, even make another error. I'm glad to know at least somebody in his family helped, though: The Republican National Committee accused Barack Obama Tuesday of a lack of judgment after the Illinois senator mistakenly stated that his uncle helped liberate the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz while serving in the American military during World War II. In fact, that concentration camp was liberated by Soviet soldiers in 1945. Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton released a statement later Tuesday clarifying the remarks, saying the Illinois senator meant to refer to the Buchenwald camp, which American soldiers did liberate. Obama was also apparently referring to his great uncle. “Senator Obama’s family is proud of the service of his grandfather and uncles in World War II – especially the fact that his great uncle was a part of liberating one of the concentration camps at Buchenwald. Yesterday he mistakenly referred to Auschwitz instead of Buchenwald in telling of his personal experience of a soldier in his family who served heroically,” Burton said. In a statement released earlier Tuesday, Republican National Committee spokesman Alex Conant said Obama's comments "raise questions about his judgment and his readiness to lead as commander in chief." Obama's comments came Monday during a question and answer session after a Las Cruces, New Mexico speech marking Memorial Day. The Illinois senator was calling for better care for veterans who experience post-traumatic stress syndrome when he made the reference. "I had a uncle who was one of the, who was part of the first American troops to go into Auschwitz and liberate the concentration camps and the story in our family was is that when he came home, he just went up into the attic and he didn’t leave the house for six months," Obama said. "Now obviously something had really affected him deeply but at that time there just weren’t the kinds of facilities to help somebody work through that kind of pain." Obama's great uncle, his grandmother's brother, served in the 89th Infantry Division that liberated one of the subcamps of Buchenwald, according to the Obama campaign. 28 May 2008 @ 13:41 by Quinty @72.195.137.102 : Dreck Yeah, this campaign has often concentrated on pure dreck. Dreck, dreck, and more dreck. No doubt about it. Parsing and examining inconsequential slips of the tongue. Making a big deal out of nothing. I guess that within the terms of our frivolous media culture this can substitute for knowledge, memory, and intelligence. Also, there's that damnable "fair and equal..... " like when refering to the dispute between, let's say, Hitler and the Jews making some favorable comments about the Jews. But then to be "fair and balanced," saying some nice things about Hitler too. Anything else would be "unbalanced" and "one sided." Dreck. 29 May 2008 @ 06:55 by Vibe @76.173.37.120 : True But, slips of the tongue could be revealing the subconscious mind - a la Freud. What good could one possibly say about Hitler? Why didn't Obama mention any of this previously? I'll tell you why - because now he feels the Jewish vote is important (even though Jews are a minority), and he'll say anything to kiss up to them for votes. Never mind that at the onset of his campaign, he said he would sit down with our enemies and ask them what they want. He's no different from all the other politicians, Quinty. Just in a new outerwear with a cliche slogan. No different. 29 May 2008 @ 09:07 by Vibe @76.173.37.120 : but Obama flubbed the concentration camp. Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet army. Fine, he corrected it today. It was Buchenwald. I find it in bad taste for Obama to use his uncle in this way - as if by association and relation it makes Obama a better man. What Obama did not talk about was what the Nazis did, and then want to talk with Iran who denies the Holocaust ever happened. How could I ever take this man seriously and that his heart is in the right place, that he really gets is? I can't and don't and won't. 29 May 2008 @ 14:21 by Quinty @72.195.137.102 : A little more on Obama's gaff This is from today's Huffington Post...... Using the Holocaust to smear Obama Menachem Rosensaft http://www.huffingtonpost.com/menachem-rosensaft/using-the-holocaust-to-sm_b_103990.html Posted May 28, 2008 | 06:57 PM (EST) I never thought I'd see the day when the Holocaust would be used as a tool for "gotcha" politics. But over the last two days, we have seen John McCain's supporters at the Republican National Committee and at Fox News launch tasteless attacks on Barack Obama. In their attempt to score a few political points, they have diminished the experience of those who suffered and died at Buchenwald, and disrespected the service of the heroic American troops who liberated them. It started yesterday when the RNC put out a statement slamming Obama for referring to Auschwitz as he related a family story on Memorial Day. Instead of merely asking for clarification, the RNC smeared Obama's "dubious claim," and suggested -- tongue in cheek -- that perhaps Obama's uncle "was serving in the Red Army." They went on to say that the story raised questions "about his judgment and his readiness to lead as commander in chief." It turns out that Obama's great uncle -- the brother of the grandmother who largely raised him -- served in the 89th Infantry Division of the United States Army, which liberated Ohrdruf, part of Buchenwald. But astonishingly, that only served to fan the flames for those on the right who saw an attempt to use the heroic service of Obama's uncle against him. In their breathless attempt to damage Obama, Fox News has stooped to a level that is truly depressing. This morning on the program Fox and Friends, one of the hosts said: "It wasn't Auschwitz. It was a labor camp called Buchenwald." Just in case the point was missed, she repeated. "It wasn't Auschwitz, it was a labor camp. You would think you would want to be as specific as possible if you are telling one of these anecdotes." Meanwhile, a news "crawl" at the bottom of the screen reinforced, in bold letters, that this was "a work camp, rather than an extermination camp." Here are some facts about Buchenwald, which is one of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps. At this "work camp," prisoners were often worked, starved, tortured, or beaten to death. Sometimes they were simply murdered. Roughly 250,000 people were imprisoned there between 1937 and 1945, many of them Jews. Over 50,000 people lost their lives. At Nuremberg, the world was shocked to learn that some of Buchenwald's victims were skinned, and the human skin was then used to make lampshades, book covers, and other keepsakes. Buchenwald was also a site for the infamous Nazi "medical experiments" on prisoners, which were often nothing more than crude and horrific forms of torture. To take just one anecdote about the "work" done at Buchenwald, prisoners had to build the camp road, and camp guards used to shoot those who were not carrying stones that were heavy enough. In the final days before liberation, some 10,000 prisoners from Auschwitz and Gross-Rossen were marched to Buchenwald, adding to the horrific scene that awaited American troops. On April 4, 1945, Ohrdruf became the first Nazi concentration camp to be liberated by American forces. U.S. troops -- including the 89th Infantry Division -- found a scene that was vividly described by the Eisenhower Memorial Commission: "The scene was an indescribable horror even to the combat-hardened troops who captured the camp. Bodies were piled throughout the camp. There was evidence everywhere of systematic butchery. Many of the mounds of dead bodies were still smoldering from failed attempts by the departing SS guards to burn them." Dwight Eisenhower and Omar Bradley would tour the camp in the days ahead. Eisenhower was so moved by the atrocities at this "work camp," that he wrote to his wife Mamie that it was "beyond the American mind of comprehend." He made both his own men and all of the citizens of the German town of Gotha tour the camp. He wanted the Americans to know the evil that they were fighting. He wanted German citizens to see what had been done in their name. After this tour, the Mayor of Gotha and his wife hanged themselves. Many of the terrible photographs and videos that we have seen of the Holocaust come from these days. Eisenhower said that he wanted, "to give first-hand evidence if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to 'propaganda.'" The carefully documents atrocities at Buchenwald are thus part of the record that we use to confront anyone who would deny the horror of the Holocaust. The men who liberated Buchenwald were heroes, plain and simple. That includes Barack Obama's great uncle. In their march across Europe, the 89th Infantry Division suffered over 1,000 casualties, with over 300 men killed. In their liberation of Buchenwald, they put an end to one of the most horrible concentration camps of the 20th century. We must honor them, just as we must remember each and every victim of the criminal Nazi regime. To those who continue to use this story to damage Barack Obama, I have a simple question: have you no shame? You attempts to diminish his uncle's service for your own political gain says a lot more about you than it does about Barack Obama. 29 May 2008 @ 18:28 by Vibe @76.173.37.120 : pathetic excuse of an article You're still in denial, Quinty. Reread my posts before you posted that article. Obama's great uncle was a human being who cared and suffered trauma from what he saw. What the hell does that have to do with Obama? Obama doesn't really give a damn and it doesn't make him a better person because his great uncle did something good, and then he disrespects him by getting the facts wrong! 1 Jun 2008 @ 23:02 by Quinty @72.195.137.102 : Speaking of denial Hillary pushes on. After running the dirtiest national campaign a Democrat has run in decades, taking pointers even from the Republican playbook, Hillary still fans the hopeless fantasy she can and should win. Only if Obama is caught selling nubile sex slaves - aged thirteen - out of the basement of his house and is forced to do the perp walk to the Cook County jail can she still possibly win. It has been apparent for quite a long time - perhaps it only seems long? - that her slash and burn tactics can only hurt her own party now. She has employed racism, sexism, her unbounded imagination, every dirty trick which could possibly stick - even implying McCain would be a better president than her opponent - to wrestle away the nomination. Do we have to believe in such tactics? Only if you are in denial, denial of the truth. And will believe any fantasy in order to win, such as the Michigan primary was a legitimate vote. But that is her last hope: that the Super Delegates will be as unrealistic and illogical as she is. So tonight, let's hope, was her last hurrah. In a few days the Super Delegates will probably put Obama over the top. Will Hillary and her fanatic, willfully blind supporters remain in denial? Those claiming Florida and Michigan were legitimate primaries? We'll see. Let's just hope they don't help McCain burn his way toward victory. Who, by the way, is much in denial himself. Especially over the Middle East and Iraq. 2 Jun 2008 @ 17:36 by jazzolog : Turning The Tables On L'Hillary http://harpers.org/media/image/blogs/misc/rfk.jpg 4 Jun 2008 @ 23:03 by Quinty @72.195.137.102 : Hillary's power play is for whom? Her backers or herself? Is she insinuating Obama doesn't care about women, the poor, or Latinos? That she is their true champion? Believing that would be delusional. There is nothing in Obama's background which would indicate that he doesn’t care. He dedicated himself to public service in the Southside of Chicago, returning to this vast underprivileged area of Chicago upon graduating from the Harvard Law School as the President of the Law Review: a sure ticket to wealth, success, and power. Was he interested even then in politics? Probably so. Many are the reasons for entering into politics, including a desire to help build a better world. A sense of justice. That can be, as anyone who has ever experienced it knows, a powerful drive. A little high minded, perhaps, but nevertheless true. Power and greed are not the only motivations. I never saw anything quite like Hillary’s speech last night. She actually appeared to be attempting to bully Obama and the Democratic Party into giving her whatever she desires. Insisting upon her overblown importance and relevancy not with reason but with threats. And this is someone we would want in the White House? This "dream ticket" could easily turn into a nightmare. Hillary: It Ain't Over Yet! by Beverly Davis http://www.huffingtonpost.com/beverly-davis/hillary-it-aint-over-yet_b_105065.html Posted June 4, 2008 | 12:53 AM (EST) In a defiant speech ignoring Barack Obama's historic win as the first African-American to become a presidential nominee -- a giant step toward righting our horrific racist past, precisely 200 years since the slave trade was abolished in 1808 -- Hillary Clinton delivered a Valedictory speech initiating a 'write in' campaign to force Obama into offering her the Veep spot or to redeem her and her husband's legacy. Of course, for Mrs. Clinton, her decision not to concede was all for the 'good' of those "invisible voices" she claims to represent -- Latinos, women, and working class voters. She didn't mention black voters. The tone of her speech was so laden with self-preservation and self-aggrandizement that one wonders what Kool-Aid she's been drinking these past three months that has brought her to the end of her run for the presidency but not the end of her self-deluded power plays. Instead of taking her loss like (dare I say it?) a man, she told her basement audience at Baruch College in Manhattan, "I will be making no decisions tonight....The question is where to go from here?" She ended by asking her supporters to write in to tell her what to do: www.hillaryclinton.com and we know they'll tell her to fight on to Denver. Led by Lanny Davis, there will also be a campaign by her supporters to pressure Obama to make Hillary his running mate. If he does give in to this latest 'Clinton campaign' they will weaken him. If he can't stand up to Hillary Clinton and her creepy cohorts, he can't stand up to the tough guys around the world. Clinton supporters were blasting emails to the talking heads on television during Tuesday night's campaign coverage protesting: "Give her time. Tonight should be her night." They're deluded too. She's had months to get ready to concede, but instead kept firing at Obama with her Gatling-gun surrogates, most especially former President Bill Clinton, who just yesterday blamed Obama for the recent unflattering Vanity Fair article and all the other 'unfair' press she's received since the Iowa caucuses. Another email rushed into CNN. "She deserves to be treated with respect." Why doesn't she respect the party rules and the delegates -- elected and superdelegates -- that have put Obama over the top to make him the presumptive nominee? Why can't she respect Barack Obama and leave center stage? Obama needs to focus on McCain and not on Hillary's shenanigans and dark-hearted strategies to create a co-presidency with Obama. The time for redeeming her and her husband's legacy has long past. Clinton expressed no desire to disband or bring her army of supporters under the party tent, insisting on preserving her powerbase and forcing Obama into offering her the Vice Presidential spot or some other position she wants. The Obama campaign has to be displeased as Hillary was introduced as the "Next president of the United States" before she took the stage in New York and delivered one of the least gracious speeches on record, completely ignoring the historicism of the moment when the first black man becomes his party's nominee. It's doubtful this tough and unreasonable position will yield the results Mrs. Clinton desires. While John McCain was busy blasting Barack Obama in New Orleans and the Clintons refusing to suspend their campaign and promising more offensive attacks, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee was basking in the glory of his moment -- and extolling the virtues of and the trustworthiness of the American people -- when he announced to a crowd of 17,000 happy supporters in St. Paul, Minnesota: "I will be the Democratic nominee." 29 Jun 2008 @ 08:36 by Vibe @76.173.37.120 : Obama's accomplishments yadda yadda... http://www.ourlighterside.com:80/videos/obama.html 2 Jul 2008 @ 15:28 by quinty @72.195.137.102 : Obama's antics Here some comments I liked which appeared today and last night on Common Dreams. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/01/10005/ They’re replies to something by Arianna Huffington called: Memo to Obama: Moving to the Middle is for Losers. There other good comments too. This is just a random sample...... By iwhunt330 As it turns out, the only difference between Obama and Hilary Clinton is that Clinton triangulated earlier, and, of course, it cost her the nomination. So in a sense Obama was smarter. Now Obama’s triangulation might cost himself the election, so in a sense he is less smart than John McCain, and that lowers the bar beyond belief! Where do the Democrats get all of this insainly stupid advice?? A trained monkey could win the election against this failed Republican government, and the Democrats are finding ways daily to piss off their base and make potential voters stay home. Sucking up to the religeous right, wobbling on telecom immunity and torture, and buying into the surge. Why not just pick John Kerry for the VP slot and finish themselve off! By Thought_Into_Action Huffington is correct that Obama’s “center-ward” shift is a losing proposition, as so many elections have proven for the Democrats. However, it’s more correct to say that Obama is now espousing the positions of the hard right. 1. Bombing Pakistan. 2. Supporting Israel while ignoring its occupation of Palestine and its army attacks on that population. 3. Having Zbigniew Brezinski, war hawk, as advisor. 4. Retaining Chicago School economists as advisors. 5. Voting for telecom immunity after the phone companies tapped our communications, violating the Constitution. 6. Voicing support for Bush’s un-Constitutional program of diverting U.S. taxpayer monies to religious groups. 7. Supporting insurance companies with a fake healthcare reform proposal. 8. Funding the wars and being vague about a timeline for withdrawal. There is noting centrist about the above Obama stances, and I’ve probably missed a lot in my list. It’s still very possible for Obama to lose this Presidential contest. However, I disagree that his “shift” is just a bad campaign strategy. You are now seeing the real Obama, and it’s ugly. By Bluetickle Well, I was a highly motivated Obama supporter. Now I am not. Nobody is worthy of my vote now. FISA pushed me over the edge. I’m 34 years old and I work in a hospital and I live in Florida. I thought the world was going to become a better place with Obama. I was ready to volunteer and give money regularly. NOT! I was lied to! And, the Obama lies are increasing daily. I was sent an email from Obama asking for money. I replied: FISA Amnesty = No Donation. I got a form letter back… from some automated system, some inhuman machine spitting out Obama form letters. Obama is scum just like all the others… end of story. We are all going down the drain and there’s nothing we can do about it… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktIECyzf4YM I am angry and ready to rip the Obama bumper sticker off the back of my car and re-join the sane people who ignore this political blather. By Little Brother Although I was still in parochial school during the Summer of Love, the “counter”cultural tsunami emanating from the West Coast had begun to reach the East Coast by then. And I took to it like the proverbial duck to water. Thus, it may not be surprising to find that I draw a sharply negative inference when anybody repudiates or disses the Sixties from any point on the political spectrum. I don’t intend to defend my prejudice here, but I will say that no, I don’t look back on the Sixties culture as flawless or utopian. All this to say that I flinched more than once when Obama saw fit to criticize Sixties politics and culture in favor of lauding Decent Amerikans who believe in respecting government, religion, and even guns, for that matter. Ironically, in my own way I doubted if Obama was “one of us”. I’ve mentioned often in CD posts that I’ve been having a friendly running dialogue with someone who’s generally at least skeptical of the hopelessly warped and corroded Amerikan political process, but who became impressed with Obama. When Obama picked a bunch of Clintonista retreads to form his Foreign Policy Work Group, my friend responded to my squeals of dismay by suggesting that I not place too much important on this routine party-building and campaign-building. Who did you expect he’d pick? Noam Chomsky? If he did, the media coverage and wingnut blowback (same thing) would drive his campaign right off the cliff! I mulled that over for a while, but after the FISA debacle and other developments that don’t need to be reiterated here, I e-mailed back with a bit of an Aha! point. True conoisseurs of Obama seem to consider him a political Miles Davis– a breakthrough genius whose consciousness is so superbly attuned to the essence of his craft that ordinary Philistines can’t begin to pick up what he puts down. We’re always told that we don’t “get it”, insofar as Obama is playing a transcendental game that breaks traditional lables or dualities like left/right, progressive/reactionary. And it hit me: if Obama is truly so fucking transcendental, how come he’s consistently, even EXCLUSIVELY, turning his back on the progressive section of the audience and positively ROMANCING the reactionary elements? Yeah, I “get” that he’s an expert in political behaviorism, so to speak, and that obviously the first non-white presidential candidate is going to be challenged and distrusted most strongly by Silent Majority types. To me, Obama’s like the father in the Prodigal Son story– a parable that may have a redeeming spiritual message, but which aggravates anyone who reads it simply as a story. Obama is pandering to the returned prodigal son, and falling all over him with feasts and gifts while the loyal, respectable sons are treated like crap. In short, taking the non-prodigal sons for granted. As I wrote to my interlocutor, I’d have felt a whole hell of a lot better if Obama HAD stuck a Chomsky in there somewhere, or if he sincerely “reached out” to progressives instead of following the standard Democratic candidate script of Sistah Souljahing what remains of the “left”. Frankly, I don’t think he gives a damn if disgruntled “purist” progressives rattle our cages; like his predecessors, he probably calculates both that we’re expendable, and that in any case he’s got the lesser-evil vote anyway. One can’t be sure– especially if one doesn’t feel compelled to Read His Books! for the revealed truth– if he’s “secretly” more progressive, or if he is playing to the right-hand galleries because he really favors the orthodox, complacent Silent Majority constituency. I hoped otherwise, but I suspect that as a self-conscious Good Shephers, he prefers the company of sycophantic sheep. 29 Apr 2016 @ 05:31 by Bandar Togel @103.12.162.4 : brilliant! I would like to share this ar Togel Online Singapore Togel Online Hongkong Bandar Togel Singapore Bandar Togel Togel Online Terpercaya Bandar Togel Online Terpercaya Togel Online Agen Togel Online Terpercaya Agen Togel Online Other entries in Opinions 13 Jun 2009 @ 23:10: Communal Capitalism 6 Mar 2009 @ 17:33: One Writer's Oddyssey 15 Jul 2008 @ 23:06: Not Peace but Apartheid 4 Mar 2008 @ 21:24: Writers Take Sides 4 Feb 2008 @ 19:45: Citizen McCain 31 Jan 2008 @ 19:53: The King of Mountebanks? 14 Jan 2008 @ 19:59: "Yes We Can" 21 Nov 2007 @ 23:59: An Easy Solution Missed 6 Oct 2007 @ 20:17: Bringing Back the Fairness Doctrine 12 Jul 2007 @ 23:14: Fighting them there instead of here
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24 Mar 2008 @ 20:50, by Paul Quintanilla