God’s Busy Weekend

Oh, boy.  Yesterday I thought this year’s presidential campaign would be a snoozefest from now on, but was I wrong!  The hits just keep coming!

MSNBC’s Athena Jones is reporting that Rev. Jeremiah Wright managed to crawl out from under Barack Obama’s bus long enough to sing his praises at Houston’s Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church today:

“The Lord turned the ordinary into the extraordinary. Y’all just saw it this past week. It was on national television,” Wright said to applause. “This ordinary boy just might be, come November, the 4th, this ordinary boy from a single parent home with a daddy from Kenya and a mama from Kansas. This ordinary boy just might be the first president in the history of the United States to have a black woman sleeping at 1600 Pennsylvania, legally.”

You think the good reverend was referring to White House guests during the Kennedy administration?  Okay, probably not.  But depending who you talk to, God’s either a Republican or a Democrat with a curiously mean generosity streak.  The Wall Street Journal says Quinnipiac’s Peter A. Brown thinks God’s with the GOP.

No Republican in his right mind will acknowledge it, but Hurricane Gustav affords the GOP a political opportunity that could boost Sen. John McCain’s odds of winning the White House.

On the other hand, Michael Moore is convinced that his God is a Democrat.  The Chicago Tribune reports:

“I was just thinking, this Gustav is proof that there is a God in Heaven.” Moore said with a chuckle in a televised interview.

“That it would actually be on its way to New Orleans for Day one of the Republican convention up in the twin cities at the top of the Mississippi River,” Moore said, in an interview with MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, on Countdown.

Mike’s not the only one who thinks God’s out to get the Republicans, remember?  According to the LA Times, former DNC Chair Donnie Fowler, of the stupid “unity” e-mail fame, had to apologize after he was videotaped making this observation:

“That just demonstrates that God is on our side,” Fowler added, according to a video posted on YouTube under the headline: “Fowler Fouls: Hurricane is God’s Favor To Democrats.”

Considering the potential for destruction Gustav represents, I feel comfortable saying, screw all of you.  The people facing the wrath of yet another devastating hurricane with no confidence in their government’s commitment to their safety and well being deserve better than the lot of you.  And whatever God’s plan, I’m sure neither He, nor the weary, frightened, beleaguered residents in the path of Hurricane Gustav appreciate your ill-timed, self-important, pitiful attempts at bad humor.  You should be ashamed, but then, that would be expecting too much from you.

In an unrelated note, just to clear our mental palates of the bad taste left in our minds by the above, Seacoast Online examines Barack Obama’s “just words” in his speeches and comes to some interesting conclusions.  Given what we know about his running mate’s history with plagiarism, this could be a problem.

*I swiched out the video because, well, I just had to.

P.S., Diddy, you’re not helping.  Trust me.

PUMA

Just Say, Whatever

How DO You Attack A White Woman?

Barack Obama may have thought he had put Jesse Jackson, Jr.’s famously stated dilemma behind him, but he was wrong.  A January 4, 2008 story in the Wahington Post quoted Jackson, The Younger:

“The natural reminder here is O.J. [Simpson] — how does an African American candidate attack a white woman?” said Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), a fellow Chicagoan whose father ran for president twice in the 1980s but was never as close as Obama is now to securing the Democratic nomination.

Seems like the answer to that question is, you get somebody else to do it for you, even though enlisting the help of his “boys” to do the bulk of the dirty work of dispatching Hillary Clinton didn’t entirely eliminate Obama’s problem with white women.  Now that John McCain has tapped Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, Obama finds himself in exactly the same position.  Deja vu all over again, eh, Obie?

Yahoo News has noticed Obuhbuh’s reluctance to engage:

Barack Obama seems to have only one problem with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for vice president: She holds the same positions as John McCain, the GOP presidential candidate who tapped her.

That may seem like a “well, duh” observation on his part, but Obama has tiptoed carefully around Palin as he tries to attract female voters. So far he has criticized her only for her ties to McCain.

His surrogate Bill Burton, predictably, wasn’t so delicate, however.

“Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency.

The “she’s not experienced” argument is unlikely to work, no matter who makes it.  Bloomberg News says even fellow Alaskans are skeptical:

“She’s not qualified, she doesn’t have the judgment, to be next in line to the president of the United States,” Larry Persily, who until June worked in the governor’s Washington office as a congressional liaison, said in a phone interview yesterday.

Of course, HRC made the same observation about BHO in the primaries:

“I think that I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. Sen. John McCain has a lifetime of experience that he’d bring to the White House. And Sen. Obama has a speech he gave in 2002.”

Think Johnny Mac noticed?

Did I mention he’s black?

PUMA

Just Say, Whatever

Forget Experience, Try Judgment

While America plays, “he’s more experienced, no she’s more experienced” games, Hurricane Gustav is illuminating a judgment gap between the presidential candidates.

One candidate urges Americans to help:

White House hopeful John McCain urged all Americans to reach out and help those caught in the path of deadly Hurricane Gustav Sunday after touring an emergency response center in the coastal state of Mississippi.

“America needs all of us to do what American have always done in times of disaster and challenge, and that is join together and help our fellow citizens,” McCain told reporters.

The other promises to ask his donors:

Obama said Sunday he will mobilize his vast donor list to send money or volunteer to help with recovery efforts.

“We can activate an email list of a couple million people who want to give back,” Obama told reporters after attending church in Lima, Ohio.

Notice, one guy travelled to the region, the other:

Obama said was planning to “stay clear of the area until things have settled down and then we’ll probably try to figure out how we can be as helpful as possible.”

One guy gets it:

“I pledge that tomorrow night, and if necessary, throughout our convention if necessary, to act as Americans not Republicans, because America needs us now no matter whether we are Republican or Democrat,” McCain said.

The other, is Barack Obama:

“We just hope that by the time this storm hits land that it has dissipated somewhat. Right now that doesn’t appear to be the case.”

I’m not a Republican and it would probably take an Act of God to make me vote for him, but right now, the old man’s got it goin’ on.

PUMA

Just Say No Deal

Heeeeeerrrre’s Howard!

This is the second in a series of posts about the reasons for my disillusionment with the Democratic party and the way this nomination process played out in the words of the people involved.  Today, Howard Dean.

Speech to California Democratic party convention, March 15, 2003:

I am Howard Dean and I here to represent the democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

Fox News, Jan 21, 2004:

“Not only are we going to New Hampshire …, we’re going to South Carolina and Oklahoma and Arizona and North Dakota and New Mexico, and we’re going to California and Texas and New York,” he said. “And we’re going to South Dakota and Oregon and Washington and Michigan. And then we’re going to Washington, D.C. To take back the White House. YEAHHHH!!!.”

From Democracy For America on Barack Obama being named one of the initial  “Dean’s Dozen” on May 12, 2004:

Several months ago I put out a call to the hundreds of thousands of grassroots activists who had worked on my campaign to run for office themselves. Hundreds of volunteers answered this call. Our new organization – Democracy for America – is dedicated to using its resources to support those candidates in their fight to take our country back from the right-wing conservatives who dominate our government. Today, Democracy for America announces the Dean Dozen – twelve diverse candidates that represent the spirit of grassroots democracy.

edit

Barack Obama for United States Senate from Illinois. In the race to regain control of the U.S. Senate, Democrats have few better chances to pick up a seat than in Illinois. DFA volunteers all over Illinois helped Obama win his primary, now it’s time to help him win the general. Stay tuned: I will be on the trail with Barack soon. www.obamaforillinois.com

Time Magazine, Oct. 23, 2006:

“I didn’t expect much to come of this strategy for four or even six years,”

BeyondChron, Aug. 3, 2007:

The Internet is the most empowering and democratizing invention since the printing press.”

The Washington Blade reports on March 28, 2008 that in a deposition regarding the case of Donald Hitchcock, a gay man fired from the DNC for poor job performance, Dean blames Donna Brazile for deteriorating relationships with the LGBT community:

Dean said some “influential individuals” within the DNC Black Caucus, such as Donna Brazile, opposed the plan because it was seen as “an affront to the civil rights movement.”

edit
“I wanted equal representation for gay and lesbian Americans,” he said, “and I wanted to achieve it in a way that wasn’t offensive to the history of the civil rights movement.”

March 28, 2008, Marc Ambinder:

“Well, I think the candidates have got to understand that they have an obligation to our country to unify. Somebody’s going to lose this race with 49.8 percent of the vote. And that person has got to pull their supporters in behind the nominee.

Reuters, May 31, 2008:

“We are strong enough to struggle, and disagree, be angry, disappointed
and still come together at the end of the day and be united. The reason we
are able to do this is because all of us, together in our passion and our
emotion realize that this race is not about me, it’s not about Hillary
Clinton, Barack Obama, the RBC or the reporters who are here to cover the
event. It’s about restoring our great country.

From Taylor Marsh, April, 2008:

“If it’s very very close, they [the superdelegates] will do what they want anyway,” said Mr Dean.

“I think the race is going to come down to the perception in the last six or eight races of who the best opponent for McCain will be. I do not think in the long run it will come down to the popular vote or anything else.”

Talking to reporters re: PUMA protesters in Charlotte, N.C., July 25, 2008:

“I’m not sure all of them are Clinton supporters,” he said. “I think some of them are having fun at the Democrats’ expense. I think shouting through somebody’s speech is low-class.”

Fox News, Aug. 16, 2008:

“If you look at folks of color, even women, they’re more successful in the Democratic Party than they are in the white — excuse me — in the Republican Party.”

Washington Post, Aug 25, 2008:

“Looking out from this podium tonight, I see this diverse assembly of Democrats as a testament to the strength and unity of our party and the fruition of our 50-state strategy,” the party chairman told the throng as he gaveled the convention to session.

PBS NewsHour, Aug. 26, 2008:

I don’t think we have a unity problem at all. I think there’s a few people who can’t be satisfied, but we’ve got some very happy delegates with our ticket.

* Click here for Daily Kos review of Dean/Obama, March 2, 2008.

PUMA

Just Say, Whatever