Since Barack Obama announced his candidacy for president, we as a nation have adopted, and tried to adapt, the concept of “post racial,” whatever the hell that means. Post racial what? Doesn’t the term suggest that until now, we were a country defined by race? Or, is it just about our national attitude about race? Wouldn’t “post-racism” be a better phrase? We are still a nation composed of many people of many races, and many combinations and variations of those races. How do you get beyond being whatever you racially are? And why would you want to?
That seems to be the point of an article by Krissah Williams Thompson in today’s Washington Post. Thompson examines her own racial perceptions and how they were shaped, altered, and crystallized while covering Barack Obama on the campaign trail, concluding that whatever “post-racial” is, she’s not that.
Another WaPo article today, by Marie Arana, claims that since his mother was white, Obama is not black. Arana, who claims to be of mixed race, and Thompson, self-identified as black, struggle to place the significance of the election of a non-white president in context, based on their own unique racial experiences. Neither is technically wrong in their conclusions, yet neither writer sums up the “post-racial” reality in any definitive way. Such a thing simply cannot be done.
Going back to a March 2008 article in The New Republic, the point was being made that Obama and “post-racial” racism was not only confounding the whole question of race in America, it didn’t seem that race was nearly as big a deal as many would have expected it to be. At least, not in any predictable way. Citing white supremicists like David Duke, TNR’s Michael Crowley found that Obama’s “blackness” was not as offensive to proponents of “white pride” as was the “betrayal” of Europeans like John McCain, and to a lesser extent, Hillary Clinton (they hate her on principle.)
Yet, far from railing at Obama’s rise, Duke seems almost nonchalant about it. Self-described white nationalists like himself, he explained cordially, “don’t see much difference in Barack Obama than Hillary Clinton–or, for that matter, John McCain.” Sure, Duke considers Obama “a racist individual,” citing his Afrocentric Chicago church. But soon the founder of the National Association for the Advancement of White People was critiquing Obama as overhyped and insubstantial in terms you might hear from, say, Clinton strategist Mark Penn. “They say he’s for change. What change? He’s become almost a cult figure. I don’t see any shining light around Obama’s head. I don’t see any halos,” Duke said.
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But there may be one more factor at work: hatred overload. It’s a testament of sorts to Hillary Clinton that, by virtue of her cartoonish image as a leftist man-hating shrew, she manages to arouse more vitriol among white supremacists than a black man. Meanwhile, white racists absolutely despise John McCain for his support of George W. Bush’s immigration reform plan, which they view as a dire threat to America’s European-based culture. “I don’t think Obama will be any more negative for the United States than Hillary or John McCain,” explains Duke. “In fact,” he added, “we probably have less preference for a European like a John McCain or a Hillary who has betrayed our interests, our heritage, our rights.”
There have been those who have made the point that the election of Barack Obama is primarily significant for the sense of racial possibility it represents for young people. However, unless one is trying to suggest that anyone can be president as long as he’s a male with at least one white parent, that argument doesn’t really hold water. There has never been a female, Asian, Native American, Hispanic, or openly gay American, nor Viet Nam veteran, little person, or circus clown elected president, either. In fact, to be specific, there’s never been a traditionally defined black American president, and there still isn’t. Are those children not allowed to dream of what most Americans perceive to be ultimate success? What about those who don’t even rate a mention in articles like this?
There are those who feel that we are now “post-racial exploitation.” That, now that we have a black president, the need for black activism has been eliminated. Those “subconciously racist racists” eager to rejoice and celebrate the demise of the Civil Rights Movement are deluding themselves into believing that merely putting a black face on the conductor of the political machine of systemic racial oppression is the same as eradicating it. Nothing can be further from the truth. The “illusion of inclusion,” and the exploitation of tokenism is as much a part of America’s racial fabric as slavery, Jim Crow laws and minstrel shows. From “The Man In The Middle: The Black Slave Driver:”
Wise planters of the ante-bellum South never relaxed their search for talent among their slaves. The ambitious, intelligent, and proficient were winnowed out and recruited for positions of trust and responsibility. These privileged bondsmen—artisans, house servants, foremen—served as intermediaries between the master and the slave community; they exercised considerable power; they learned vital skills of survival in a complex, often hostile world. Knowing, as they did, the master’s needs and vulnerabilities, they were the most dangerous of slaves; but they were also the most necessary.
Let’s face it, “post-racial” is a public relations slogan for a successful presidential marketing campaign, nothing more. “Vote for me in spite of the fact that I’m not white and you’ll feel better, and, if you’re black, then vote for me because I look like you and this is as close as you’re gonna get to the White House,” was too long to fit on a banner. To be painfully obvious, if we were indeed “post-racial” we wouldn’t need a word for it. The subject simply would never have come up.
Everybody still seems to be up in arms about the fact that President-Elect of the World, Barack Obama seems so hard to get a handle on. Is he a centrist? Progressive? Socialist? Liberal, conservative, communist, neocon? None of the above? All of the above? Some of the above and a few of the below? The short answer? Yes. Hillary Clinton has always known exactly who Obama is:
In an interview with ABC’s Cynthia McFadden, Sen. Hillary Clinton, when asked about the Barack Obama phenomenon, used a quote from Obama to describe her opponent. “I think the best description actually is in Barack’s own book” Clinton said, “where he said that he is a blank screen and people of widely different views project what they want to hear.” Clinton continued saying “he just hasn’t been around long enough.” Clinton continued saying “But with the blank screen it gives you a chance to just really infuse it with whatever you hope for, whatever you want without knowing.”
“I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views. As such, I am bound to disappoint some, if not all, of them.” (p. 11, 134, 355-61)
So, now that’s it’s semi-quasi, unofficially official that Obama will almost certainly for sure announce that his appointment of Clinton as Secretary of State is probably a 99% done deal, we can expect, with much more certainty, people from all over the political spectrum to continue howl in outrage about his cabinet appointments being a “betrayal” of his “base, whoever they think they are. The question is, as it has always been, what’s up with the fuss? Didn’t these people get the memo?
Some have compared Obama to limp lame duck president, George Bush, on policy, and more superficially. However, the true thing both men have in common is much more basic than most people recognize; it is the essential element that makes them tick, and it is the one thing to which they owe their success.
They’re actors.
Neither man fits the description of a classic politician. One gets the feeling that Obama would be far more comfortable pontificating in a classroom, while Bush seems like he’d be right a home in a bar. Yet they both have an uncanny ability to morph into a compelling image of whatever it is we wish a president to be. In 2000, after the press and the “vast rightwing conspiracy” had successfully designated Bill Clinton as a lying whoremonger, the country desperately needed a leader they felt they could trust. Who better than the “good ol’ boy” down at the end of the bar in the “place where everybody knows your name?” Similarly, Americans wanted to trust somebody this year too, anybody, as long as they bore no resemblance to the now lying warmonger, Bush. So, just as Bush was able to play the part of drinking buddy while simultaneously claiming to be a Bible thumping teetoatler, Obama is adept at assuming the role of anti-war hawk, or whatever else you want him to be.
Obama, like Bush, is a tightly scripted front man. In Obama’s case, he is so deficient as a natural politician that even his stump speeches came to be read from a TelePrompTer. That this caused little controversy is a testament to the abilities of his handlers and the sway they hold over the mainstream media. Though we know for a fact that he says whatever he’s told to say, his Messianic p.r. campaign is so effective that supposedly intelligent professional pundits argue passionately about his leadership qualities, his instincts, his acumen, his eloquence, his ability; even though the only evidence they have to back them up is of his reading skill.
The truth is just as Obama himself said; he’s a deliberately blank screen disguised as an adaptable political genius. Like his predecessor, he is far from presidential, he’s just pretty good at playing one on TV. In fact, Obama told Lynn Sweet just that after winning a Grammy for “Audacity of Hope” in 2006:
“I am going for an Emmy next. The best actor in a drama involving John McCain.”
Like many people, I was skeptical, and a little offended, when Barack Obama insisted upon anointing himself the Obamessiah by repeatedly invoking phrases like “a light will shine down,” and “the oceans will rise,” etc., but it seems that many in the black community, even some in the clergy, bought that crap believe that he is indeed divinely inspired, ordained by God, or even possibly fully divine himself. According to the Dallas Morning News, Larry Younginer, while not a clergyman, still went to his suburban Atlanta church the day after His Preciousness’ ascension to the presidency, and offered this prayer to the congregation:
“Lord, we have again come to you in prayer, and you have heard our cries from heaven, and you have sent us again from the state called Illinois, a man called Barack to heal our land,” said Younginer, a 62-year-old retired information systems worker at Coca-Cola in Atlanta. “We pray that you will build a hedge around him that will protect him from those who would do him harm.”
Despite the fact that the Obamessiah has not attended church on a regular basis, if at all, since he threw the pastor who “brought him to Jesus,” and who may or may not have baptized him, under the bus along with all the other inconvenient members of his flock, including the minister who some call the first viable black candidate for president, and his grandmother, the Morning News article is full of quotes from the faithful, many of whom see a direct line from Jesus through Martin Luther King to The One:
King’s sister, Christine Farris, would not say that Obama was sent by God. But she said she believes that, like her brother, Obama has a divine order from God and he has prepared himself to follow in the direction he believes God would ordain.
Yet, it is Younginer who seems most eager to play the role of proselytizer to the Star, comparing him to the Biblical John and Abraham as well as MLK and Jesus. And, he wasn’t finished:
Obama’s positive message during the campaign was a signal that he had been anointed by God, Younginer said. And, he added, God put events such as Sen. Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the primaries, the economic crisis and Sen. John McCain’s selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his Republican running mate in place so that Obama could win the presidency.
“I felt it in my bones that this was what God wanted,” Lowery, 87, said of his civil rights work. “We were called by God to preach the word and to minister. Obama was not called to preach, but he was called to lead.”
Well, I guess it’s a good thing that God’s on Obie’s side since he is the “change” we’ve been told that “now is the time” we’ve been waiting for. If that’s the case, though, doesn’t that mean his work is done?
With the recent news that former Obama “monster-calling-the-kettle-monster,” Samantha Power, has re-upped (now that a suitable amount of time has passed since her “resignation“) as one of 14 members of the Agency Review “team-within-a-team” for the State Department transition, another “where are they now?” question comes to mind. Where’s Patti Solis Doyle? Given that the two women (Doyle and Power) have both been hostile to Hillary Clinton, putting Power in a position to influence Clinton’s appointment as Secretary of State is as much a slap in the face as was Solis-Doyle’s June addition to Team O, ostensibly as chief of staff to the then “as yet to be named” vice-president. Now that Jo(k)e Biden has “as yet been named,” and elected vice-president, and has appointed Ronald Klain as his chief of staff, where’s Doyle? And what was the purpose of hiring her for any position in the first place?
Solis-Doyle, was allowed to step down (shitcanned) as Clinton campaign manager in February, and was replaced by Maggie Williams, who served as chief of staff to First Lady Clinton, and had recently joined the team. It was said at the time that Doyle’s “resignation” was primarily due to “family considerations,” not hurt feelings because of the addition of Williams to the staff, or Doyle’s soap opera watching incompetence in the face of a string of caucus losses which derailed Clinton’s air of “inevitability.” However, make no mistake, she was canned. So, why would Obama reward such incompetence with an obviously meaningless, mythical job? Was it really just the big “eff yew and your veep hopes” many Clinton supporters took it to be? On Nov. 10, AP’s Beth Fouhy reported that Obama had offered Solis-Doyle a cabinet related position she was supposed to be mulling:
Democratic officials say President-elect Obama’s transition aides have approached Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s former campaign manager about taking a senior White House post.
These officials say Patti Solis Doyle is considering taking the job, although she worries about the effect it would have on her two young children. She was contacted about possibly becoming Cabinet secretary, a job that involves coordinating the efforts of the White House and cabinet-level agencies.
That’s the last word I could find on Solis Doyle’s whereabouts. But it makes you wonder, was Obama merely paying a political debt to an ally’s family member, as MSNBC reported he said in June?
“Patti Solis Doyle I think is a terrific experienced campaign hand. She’s from Chicago. Her brother and I organized on the southeast side of Chicago when I first moved to Chicago as a community organizer, so I’ve known the family for a very long time. I think that she will bring not only a set of skills that we’re gonna need as we put our ticket together but shes going to be a terrific adviser and offer insight and judgment that will help us.”
It should be noted that due to Doyle’s longtime association with Obama campaign manager David Axelrod, as well as her Chicago family connections, her name was being bandied about by the Obama camp in mid-May, according to Politico:
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s former campaign manager and confidante, Patti Solis Doyle, and Sen. Barack Obama’s top adviser have informally discussed the former Clintonite’s going to work for the Obama campaign in the general election.
So, was Obama just clueless or cunning? Or, both? Was Solis-Doyle a mole planted in Camp Clinton by Obama/Axelrod? Or is she just a walking screwup-waiting-to-happen, turning everything she touches to crap? That prospect makes knowing where she might pop up pretty relevant. Then again, maybe Obama is just a lying manipulator, releasing Axelrod-inspired, Astroturf press releases designed to play the public. A strong case could be made along those lines since “hiring” Solis Doyle put a female with a Hispanic surname on his roster, and Power always believed she would end up in his cabinet. Speaking at Columbia University in March, Power said:
And, to the delight of many in the crowd, she even hinted that she could be part of that hypothetical cabinet. “Because of the kind of campaign that Senator Obama has run,” Power said, “it seemed appropriate for someone of my Irish temper to step aside, at least for a while. We will see what happens there.”
Considering that with her views on Israel, Power is considered worthy of State Department related rehire by The Most Awesomest President-elect Ev-er, and that Solis Doyle was given a job to nowhere for unfathomable reasons, it kinda makes Barack Obama’s “judgment to lead” a wee bit suspect, doncha think? And it makes the prospect of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State seem like a deliberately laid rug about to be yanked just for the Camp Obama fun of it.
In late October, MIA Vice President-elect, Jo(k)e Biden told the country to “mark his words,” that if we elected his running mate, Barack Obama, it “will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy,” to “remember he said it,” that “we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.” After alluding to Hercules’ Fifth Labor, cleaning Augean’s Stables, and all sorts of “doom and gloom” scenarios that would cause the country to find Obama’s response lacking, and react with comments of “Whoa, wait a minute, yo, whoa, whoa, I don’t know about that decision,” Biden exhorted us to believe him because he has “forgotten more about foreign policy than most of my colleagues know, so I’m not being falsely humble with you.”
“Falsely humble”? Where’s the humility in “Oh, shit, you’re gonna elect a doofus and blame me when he fucks up!”? No wonder Camp Obama keeps him locked up, whenever he sneaks out, he says something stupid, or frighteningly revealing. Sometimes, like in the “gird your loins” speeches, he does both at the same time.
So, now that the country has gone ahead and elected the guy we were warned about, anyway (by a guy who should know, even if he is stupid) a world crisis has indeed erupted. Though Obama has not yet been inaugurated, and George (The Lamest of Ducks) Bush is the only politician keeping a lower profile than Biden, the media, and even Obama himself, to an extent, with his “Office of the President-elect,” have dubbed them “co-presidents,” at the very least. And, there are those in the press who see the horrific attacks in Mumbai as the Obama test to which Biden referred. From Der Spiegel:
The crisis could be Obama’s first big foreign policy test. The world is going to dissect his response. The president-elect has already been in the spotlight for days because of the worsening financial crisis. Given the extent of the economic catastrophe, the January 20th inauguration date seems too far in the future for an ever-growing number of Americans. For three straight days, Obama has held press conferences in order to introduce economics experts who will advise him and stimulus programs that should help the country out of the crisis. His message was clear: “Help is on the way.”
Now, Obama may also be forced into taking responsibility for foreign policy earlier than expected. Indeed, the attacks could be seen as a personal warning directed against him. During the campaign, his vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden attracted attention for announcing that, in the first six months of his presidency, Obama would be tested on the international stage.
With the revelation that British and American citizens were targeted in the attacks, it seems that many are looking to see how Barack Obama reacts. The Australian reports that Obama has previously consulted with former president Bill Clinton during their meeting in Harlem about the potential for conflict in the region, even going so far as offering him the position of “peace envoy,” a prospect that has been explored over on No Quarter. While Obama has issued a statement about the Mumbai attacks, and is said to have called Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, some see Obama’s “strong condemnation” as a rather weak response. And while speculation about Bill Clinton’s future is fun to contemplate, the burning question in my mind is, with the emergence of this “test” of Obama’s foreign policy strength, what are the new implications of his possible appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State?
The New York Times Caucus blog is reporting that President-elect In Taining, Barack Obama made his very most important staff announcement today. He’s making Jon Favreau, his speechwriter, not the actor, move to the White House:
In his latest round of White House staff announcements, Mr. Obama said Wednesday that he was naming Jon Favreau as his director of speechwriting. Mr. Favreau, 27, has had a hand in practically every speech that the president-elect has delivered over the last four years, following Mr. Obama from his Senate office to the presidential campaign.
“Had a hand?” Where? Up his bu In his back? Oh, the “TelePrompTer in the boudoir” jokes I could write! But, alas, I’ll restrain myself (this time,) and just move the story along. The Caucus gently tries to lay to rest the notion that the Really Wannabe President writes his own speeches:
While legend has it that Mr. Obama writes his own speeches longhand on a legal pad, a better historical account will show that he offers input and Mr. Favreau crafts them.
No, history will show that publications like the New York Times make stuff up to try to make Barack Obantos appear to be qualified. Gotta try to justify those baseless endorsements somehow. In other news, with food stamp use nearing a record-high, the Obamessiah and his family took the photo-opportunity to feed the hungry.
After holding his third press conference in as many days, President-elect Barack Obama, his wife, Michelle, and their two daughters volunteered at a South Side parish that operates a food bank every Wednesday.
No mention was made in the article of the congregants’ reaction when His Preciousness multiplied the loaves and fishes and changed the water to wine, however. He did allow supplicants to “call me Barack” after they kissed his ring.
Lastly, but not leastly, the image above is the one that inspired Rev. Jeremiah (Uncle Wackadoodle) Wright’s “Audacity of Hope” sermon, that in turn inspired Barack Obama to write a book, which then inspired easily impressed voters to lose their minds and elect an inexperienced slacker guy who has been forced to admit to all those nervous about his “business as usual” appointments, that he is the change they’ve been waiting for, not the other way around.
“What we are going to do is combine experience with fresh thinking,” he said. “But understand where the vision for change comes from. First and foremost, it comes from me. That’s my job.”
Yeah, Obie, but how’re you gonna make ‘em listen? Pout? Tell Mommy?
The Hyde Park, Chicago guy, Abner Mikva, a “mentor” of Barack Obama, of whom it was said, “we don’t want nobody nobody sent,” gave a TimesOnline UK interview to the guy Michelle Malkin accused of fabricating war stories, and is quoted as being concerned about the appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State:
One of Barack Obama’s longstanding mentors and oldest friends said yesterday that he believes Bill Clinton will be a complicating factor for the new president and that his list of foreign donors could prove embarrassing.
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“I worry about the difficulty not that she brings, but that her husband brings,” he said over breakfast at the University of Chicago, where he recently retired as a law professor. “His entire career since leaving the White House has involved foreign contacts, foreign speeches and foreign contributions,” Mr Mikva, also a former US congressman, said.
My response? So what? Didn’t we deal with this issue last week? Why is one of Obama’s “boys,” who’s not affiliated with the transition team in any way, rehashing this now, and why is the Times reporting it? And, why is this being played up in the British press? Who cares what they think, anyway? Haven’t they embarrassed themselves enough?
There’s a political war being waged in America, with the internet being it’s primary battlefield. No, it’s not between the Democrats and Republicans, that one’s over for now. Nor is it the over-hyped, fake Clinton/Obama Drama, orchestrated just to keep the bad boyz of the blogosphere busy by allowing them to pretend to be relevant. It’s not the war between the mainstream media and the blogosphere either, given the corporate influence and partisanship of most publications and blogs, the blogger bully “pioneers” have now seamlessly been integrated into the “establishment” and are little more than their ideology enforcers. This point is explored by the National Review Online in an article about how the Center for American Progress-lead progressive left movement beat the GOP at it’s own game with the election of Barack Obama as president:
The Left has created not just a collection of unshaven bloggers but a machine that beat the Right at its own game. The Left’s response to idea mills like the Heritage Foundation and AEI is the Center for American Progress, except that it produces few ideas: A reported 40 percent of its budget is given over to marketing. The tip of the spear is ThinkProgress.org, a site written ostensibly by CAP policy wonks. Its sole function seems to be to discredit conservative candidates and personalities; it contains 11,000 pages with the words “Sarah Palin” on them, according to Google. ThinkProgress entries aren’t all that original, but they frequently serve as jumping-off points for the left-wing blogosphere and Countdown with Keith Olbermann.
The entire article is worth a look, but, as I said, I don’t think this is exclusively a “progressive/conservative” battle. The Soros-backed Center, lead by Obama transition team leader, John Podesta, does seem to be the architect of a “psuedo-movement,” however, it’s just part of the story. George Soros has not hidden his desire to remake the Democratic party in an image more to his liking, and it should be noted that in the primaries, he backed Obama over Clinton, even though she is supposed to be a co-founder of CAP. He did, however, claim to be fine with a Clinton win, and I take him at his word on that. Whether it was Soros himself, the Center for American Progress, the Democratic party, or some other, unknown entity who was crafting the game plan is not important; it seems clear, at least to me, that whoever the ultimate power brokers are, they were indeed fine with a win by either Democratic candidate.
The Black Agenda Report has been making the case all along that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were war-mongering, corporatist, ideological twins with not a soupcon of difference between them. Whether or not you agree with their assessment as a whole, it’s hard to argue with the main thrust of it, Clinton and Obama agree on more than they disagree. Both candidates have themselves made that point. So, their primary battle was not about ideology, but the methodology of implementation of their mutual policy philosophy; Clinton representing the old-school, tried and true fundraising and campaign approach, Obama, the new, experimental Howard Dean, web-based, 50 state one. If the trail-blazing, Wild, Wild West of the internet approach paid off, so much the better; if not, as many of the major donors and architects likely believed, their first choice would be enshrined in the Oval Office. Win-win, no difference, safe bet. Considering that a Democratic victory was almost a sure thing, such a gamble was pretty much a sucker bet, guaranteed to pay the house no matter what.
Many groups and individuals enthusiastically took that bet, though, believing that their efforts would pay off in a way that we now see will not come to pass. A lot of the cheerleading was done by those with a vested interest in the outcome, either financial or political, some were volunteers, some were big-time, self important bloggers, others were supposedly “objective” faux journalists. Then there were those who were skeptical all along, sensing that the primaries were a sham, the outcome was a done deal, and the fix was in, without being able to put their fingers on just what was wrong. A lot of that skepticism came from reasonably informed, but not overly invested, regular voters. The kind of workaday everyman and woman people who are the backbone of politics, though the outcry came from the slightly more involved faction of that group. In other words, PUMAs.
Lets face it, the average American voter on either side is not steeped in the knowledge and traditions of the respective political parties and their policies and positions, most folks could not care less. Most Democrats see the Republican party as the predominantly white, holier-than-thou, stingy busybodies who screwed everything up. The Democrats are everybody else. Most of the time, this rather simplistic view, and it’s equally simple alternate, work just fine. We are only called upon to exercise our obligations to decide who will make decisions for us every two to four years, and we’re content to believe that if we will only vote for the best-looking candidate with the most money who we like the best, everything will be cool. Frankly, we don’t have time or energy to dedicate to becoming better informed and more involved, we’re too busy working, raising families, paying taxes and doing all the things we rely on our government to help us do, to worry about political science. And our elected officials know it, in fact, they depend on it, it’s how they keep getting elected.
But a funny thing happened when the machine tried to run it’s usual game a slightly different way this time. The very means they tried to exploit, the internet, allowed those usually docile housewives and husbands sitting behind their laptops at the kitchen table, at their makeshift home office/den/bedroom desktops, in cars, trains, buses with Blackberries and I-Phones, in office cubicles, in coffee shops and libraries, or wherever they found internet access, to actually become not only informed, but involved. Unsatisfied with the unwitting accomplice role into which they had been cast in the farcical theatricalization of the democratic process, some of them began to howl in outrage. “Party unity, my ass!”
Without funding from the shadow forces, or donations from influence peddlers or seekers that power campaigns, with no access to daily talking point memos or press releases designed to tell them what to tell other people to think, these “kitchen table PUMAs” took matters into their own hands. When their indignant objections to the party line pushers got them kicked off the mainstream media enforcement-arm blogs, they founded Blogger, WordPress and Typepad blogs of their own, countering the party driven propaganda being spewed by dedicated, though misguided partisans convinced that the official party endorsement of their point of view regarding their candidate made it not only superior to anyone else’s, but them solely responsible for his/her success. Unlike the party-supported mainstream blogs whose proprietors were motivated by either party influence or financial reward, PUMAs are motivated only by principle. We know that when the illusion of democracy is shattered, the whole house of cards falls apart. Americans have to believe that the smiling, handsome, well funded guys we elect are nobly motivated, and the process fair. Otherwise, we have to suspend our complicity and really get involved.
Thus, PUMAs objected to the caucus fraud and crossover primary voting exploitation, as well as the results of the Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting, not because they promoted a candidate they didn’t like, but because those activities made a mockery of democracy, and rendered the democratic process moot. Those same Democrats, former Democrats, Independents and even some Republicans comprising the PUMA membership were equally outraged by the treatment of “Joe the Plumber” and Sarah Palin for the exact same reasons.
So, while we consider the future direction of our own patriotic “movement,” as well as the recent appointments of people like CAP’s Melody Barnes, Tom Daschle, and John Podesta, by president-elect Obama, and of his entire economic team, and what it all means, I submit we only need to continue doing what we started out to do, monitor the process. The uncontrolled, uncontrollable American voters whose ultimate allegiance is to country, not party are the bane of the establishment’s existance. Since we can no longer expect the press or the media to objectively report or investigate, if, indeed we ever could, we now have the means and opportunity to assume that role for ourselves. As we become more knowledgeable and enlist more of the disgruntled, kitchen table electorate, our path and direction will continue to make itself clear.
We’re the squeaky wheels, the masses who reject the opiates, answering to no one, now fully awake and ready to roar. And if we keep making noise, we will continue to grow, we will not be silenced, and we will be heard. And our David will ultimately defeat the political Goliaths, because we’re right, and there’s a lot more of us than them.
In looking over the rather pointless “all things Obama” website, Politico 44, “A Living Diary of the Obama Presidency,” it is obvious that the parent company, in it’s attempt to take over Washington, D.C. press coverage, has more staff and money than they do innovative ideas and common sense. As if there’s not enough media coverage of a guy who’s not even officially president, and who schedules 2 back-to-back- press conferences on successive days, when one was too many, just to announce what could have been released to the media over the telephone, passed in a note or shouted out a window, we now have a dedicated transition site, complete with a nifty “what’s Obie doing now?” widget. Bite me.
Covering the same damned news everybody else does, Politico 44 also tells us that at 8:39 am Eastern time:
Obama left his home and heads to his gym at the nearby Regents Park apartment building for his regular workout.
At 10:04 am:
Obama’s motorcade left his gym and heads back to Obama’s home, where he showered and changed. Next, he will be heading to the Chicago Hilton hotel for a scheduled noon EST press conference.
At 10:29 am:
The president-elect leaves his home.
You get the idea. Who is this site widget designed for? Stalkers? Assassination plotters? Who else would possibly care? In a world of Obama media excess on steroids gone mad, this is over the top.
It was January 1999, President Clinton’s impeachment trial was just beginning in the Senate and Hillary Clinton was scheduled to speak at the foundation’s fund-raiser in Chicago. Despite all the fuss back in Washington, Clinton kept the appointment. She spent hours that day in the epilepsy ward at Rush Presbyterian hospital, visiting children hooked up to machines by electrodes so that doctors might diagram their seizure activity and decide which portion of the brain to remove. At the hospital, a local reporter pressed her about the trial in Washington, asked her about that woman. At the organization’s reception at the Drake Hotel that evening, Clinton stood backstage looking over her remarks, figuring out where to insert anecdotes about the kids. “She couldn’t stop talking about what she had seen,” Susan Axelrod recalled. Later, at Hillary Clinton’s behest, the National Institutes of Health convened a conference on finding a cure for epilepsy. Susan Axelrod told me it was “one of the most important things anyone has done for epilepsy.” And this is how politics works: David Axelrod is now dedicated to derailing this woman’s career.
Below is a portion of the event, featuring master of ceremonies, Paul Begala, introducing now President-elect, then, Senator Barack Obama, roasting Rahm Emanuel.
Former political director to Bill Clinton, demoted to “closet-sized office” occupying policy adviser by Hillary, and advocate of mandatory Civilian Defense training, Emanuel, known as “Rahmbo” is, as you can see, well-known for his abrasive nature, which was highlighted in a Saturday Night Live skit this weekend that did not make the West Coast cut.
After days and days of speculation, allegations, accusations and just plain gossip about Barack Obama’s pending “official” appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, today – nuttin’. Result? Dull as dishwater news. Who cares if Hannity and Colmes split up? Colmes might as well have never been there in the first place. We already knew who Obama was going to name as economic advisers; big freakin’ deal. So, some guy is taking Jo(k)e Biden’s old job. Nobody’s gonna miss Jo(k)e, nobody even thinks about him until he says something stupid. That’s why he’s veep. Duh. Yeah, yeah, bailouts, stocks up, Bush sucks, blah, blah, blah. Where’s Hillary?
Okay, CNN is reporting that Bush’s scriptwriter says Obama will “own” Hillary if she takes the SOS job. And, we should care what he thinks because…? He’s a flippin’ Canadian neocon for Goodness’ sakes. Fat lot I care about his opinion.
Let’s face it, Obama needs Hillary, and so do we. Without her, Barack Obama’s presidency will be a snoozefest. He’s boring. They can write about his exciting, historic, rousing campaign until they’re blue in the face, the fact is, the primary campaign was only exciting when Hillary was in it. It has always been the conflict between Barack and Hillary that made things interesting. When she dropped out, we were stuck with unevenly matched, dueling TelePrompTer readers in the Obama/McCain powder puff slugfest, until Sarah Palin gave the media a new female subject to kick around. And, though she provided a few giggles for news junkies, she’s no Hillary, not by a long shot.
The bottom line is, Hillary makes everybody sit up and take notice. Love her or hate her, without her, Obama’s screwed. The American people can tolerate a lot of things; incompetence, corruption, condescension, arrogance, etc., are all fine. We’ll even take goofy.
Straight from the office of the president-elect, the official announcement of the financial team you’ve been hearing about for weeks now! Okay, so, either the tight ship run by the No Drama Obama Bestest Campaign/Transition Team Ever has sprung an “iceberg to the Titanic” sized leak, or, today’s chance to stand behind the shiny new podium with the cool seal was entirely gratuitous. But, who cares? He spoketh! Now, if we could just figure out who he taketh orders frometh, we’d have a much better handle on just how screwedeth we areth. Because, like The Man says, it’s going to get (much, much) worse before (we can even think about) it gets better:
With the economy in crisis, President-electBarack Obama urged the new Congress to pass a quick economic stimulus bill, pledged help for the troubled auto industry and blessed the Bush administration’s bailout of the financial industry.
Even so, he conceded, “The economy is likely to get worse before it gets better,” a downbeat forecast, delivered 57 days before he takes the oath of office and as Americans headed into the year-end holiday season.
Barring swift action, “most experts now believe that we could lose millions of jobs next year,” he said, urging the newly elected Congress to act quickly on his plans after opening its session on Jan. 6.
I know, I know, nothing new was revealed during the desperate attempt to appease the stock market by reannouncing financial team coming out party, but, didn’t seeing our Junior President In Training standing up there behind his big-boy Fisher Price podium looking just cutely adorable make you feel better knowing that he’s going to be an absolutely darling world leader when he grows up, and the training wheels and braces come off?
Obama made his comments as he unveiled the top members of his economic team, beginning with New York Federal Reserve President Tim Geithner to be his treasury secretary. Geithner, 47, is a veteran of financial crises at home and overseas and has worked closely with the Bush administration in recent months.
Obama chose Lawrence Summers as director of his National Economic Council. Summers was treasury secretary under former President Bill Clinton.
Obama said his newly minted economic team offered “sound judgment and fresh thinking” at a time of economic peril.
He expressed confidence the nation would weather the crisis “because we’ve done it before.”
Obama also announced two other members of his economic team in the making: Christina Romer as chair of his Council of Economic Advisers, and Melody Barnes as director of his White House Domestic Policy Council.
Isn’t that sweet? And so smart of him to offset the sexism of Summers by appointing two chicks. You just wait until the training wheels come off. It’ll be, “look Ma, no hands!” before you know it. And on that day, in our moment of shared national parental pride, we can look back at the photo above and blame ourselves be fulfilled.
I’ve just come up with a great idea for president-elect Barack Obama to consider. Change! Real, ballsy, “I’m not fucking around,” change! Instead of raising taxes, or delaying tax cuts, or economic stimulus plans and/or big bloated bailouts for big bloated companies or any of those rehashed prescriptions for failure, why not try what worked so well during his campaign? Online donations! That way, whenever your government needed money to give to dying franchises in a futile attempt to needlessly prolong our collective agony, they could just send out spam! Foreign governments could purchase prepaid credit cards in bulk and donate to their hearts’ content in order to protect their interests in our government’s success. Why not put that FISA vote to good “super-email list collection” use? Failing financial institutions convinced they would get their money back million-fold could set up PACs and other “special government fundraising alliances,” pool their money and give, give, give. If the coffers of ObamaLand ever appeared to be in danger of becoming dry, he could give a once-in-a-lifetime TelePrompTed speech about some random topic economic racism and sell tickets offer free attendance to donors, with bonuses to attendees who solicit the most from friends and neighbors who couldn’t make the event on their cell phones. The possibilities are endless. T-shirt giveaways, raffle tickets, no lottery lotteries, even bake sales could all be used to replenish the nations’s coffers. Why just make our elected officials resort to begging to get elected? Make them all justify their continued office space occupation by bringing in quotas of donated revenue. And, if they come up short, make ‘em borrow it from Citibank.
Since it’s been a slow Sunday, and gym rat Barack Obama still has not gone to church since…what, Father’s Day, I decided to write about other post-racial rock star celebrities in religious news. The Artist Formerly Known As Michael Jackson, Jehovah’s Witness, will now be known as Mikaeel, the Muslim. Whereas, The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, religion; Prince, is…still Prince, but he’s a Jehovah’s Witness, and as far as I know, has never been a Muslim. But, hey, who can keep up with these guys, huh? The UK Telegraph reports on the Michael/Mikaeel conversion:
The singer, who was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, converted to Islam in a ceremony at a friend’s house in Los Angeles.
He is said to have sat on the floor and worn a small hat while an imam officiated.
According to The Sun, the ceremony took place while Jackson, 50, was recording an album at the home of Steve Porcaro, a keyboard player who composed music on his Thriller album.
Guess you never know when or how the music’s gonna move you. Moving on, The New Yorker’s Claire Hoffman visited Prince, the “small, limping, 50 year old man,” at his new house in Los Angeles to talk about moving and religion and stuff:
Prince has lived in Los Angeles since last spring, after spending years in Minneapolis, holding court in a complex called Paisley Park, where he made thousands of songs, far away from the big labels. Seven years ago, he became a Jehovah’s Witness. He said that he had moved to L.A. so that he could understand the hearts and minds of the music moguls. “I wanted to be around people, connected to people, for work,” he said. “You know, it’s all about religion. That’s what unites people here. They all have the same religion, so I wanted to sit down with them, to understand the way they see things, how they read Scripture.”
I wonder what religion “they” all have. Anyway, both men claim that their conversions came about due to the influence of musician friends, Larry Graham (Sly and the Family Stone, Graham Central Station) for Prince, and “David Wharnsby, a Canadian songwriter, and Phillip Bubal, a producer, who have both converted” who counseled Jackson. Jackson gave no credit to brother Jermaine, a longtime Muslim convert who claimed in 2007 that his brother would soon follow suit.
Maybe Mikaeel and Prince could team up on a new album, “The Mid-life Crises of the Rich and Famous Spiritually Evolved Artists Formerly Known as Freaky.” With a very special guest appearance by recently divorced, Kabbahlist, Madonna. Too bad George Harrison died; who’s gonna play sitar?
For many of us, this year’s election cycle has seemed to be nothing more than theater, a scripted playlet mounted on the world stage with a predetermined outcome, performed to appease, rather than entertain, enlighten or engage the masses, at the same time occupying the time and attention of the fourth estate in order to minimize their relevance. I’d like to make the case that, at least for the Democratic party, that’s exactly what happened. So, get your tinfoil hat strapped on tight, your Orville Redenbacher ready, and your Barcalounger seatbelt tightened. We’re going on a bumpy ride.
At about 2:20 on the above You Tube clip from Yearly Kos, August 2006, Senator Clinton says:
We are certainly better prepared and more focused on, you know, taking our arguments, and making them effective, and disseminating them widely, and really putting together a network, uh, in the blogosphere, in a lot of the new progressive infrastructure, institutions that I helped to start and support like Media Matters and Center for American Progress.
Now, most of the information about this quote and what it means for future generations, blah, blah, blah, comes from conservative sites who seem to have had a real bug up their butts about HRC’s “confession” at the time. The other side seems noticeably silent on the issue. Discover The Networks, American Thinker, and Newsmax have all spun tales of evil Hillary witchery at political play in conjunction with equally evil billionaire Georege Soros. The theory goes, Hillary Clinton and George Soros hatched a plan in 2003 to take over the world. Or, at least, the country. The means for doing so, was to establish a think tank (Center for American Progress) and a media watchdog group (Media Matters) to manage the message and combat the “vast rightwing conspiracy.”) In 2006, the Washington Post ran an article claiming that CAP was funded by a group of mega-money men, Democracy Alliance, Soros included, who determined which “progressive” entities received funding, and which ones didn’t. One that didn’t is the Clinton-centric Democratic Leadership Council. What’s up with that? Why would a group reportedly founded to fund “progressive” entities give money to one organization supposedly founded by the Clintons and not another? Is the DLC an old school Bill Clinton faction and CAP Hillary’s new way of doing things? If so, where does Rahm Emanuel fit in? Tom Daschle? Are the Clintons the architects of the Democratic resurgence using both the DLC and CAP? Too much tinfoil?
Okay, moving on. On November 18, Bloomberg News ran a piece claiming that CAP was setting Barack Obama’s foreign policy. Say what? The Bill Clinton chief of staff-lead organization Hillary Clinton helped found, by her own admission, is now at the forefront of the new Democratic president-elect’s policy panel? Huh?
Thanks in part to funding from benefactors such as billionaire George Soros, the Center for American Progress has become in just five years an intellectual wellspring for Democratic policy proposals, including many that are shaping the agenda of the new Obama administration.
Now, in case you’ve forgotten, Barack Obama is said to be “thisclose” to naming Hillary Clinton Secretary of State. The recent media reports have been full of speculation about the impact and implications of such an appointment, with some praise and much gnashing of teeth, but there also has been specualtion that this deal was done in June when Obama and Clinton met at Dianne Feinstein’s house, though MSNBC says the Obama/Clinton “good vibrations” relationship began to evolve after the Democratic National Convention. Not only does MSNBC’s characterization seem unlikely, it also seems irrelevant.
Hillary Clinton is “dragging her feet” in accepting Barack Obama’s “unofficial offer” because it too, is irrelevant. This seems to me to have been a done deal all along. With the news that Clinton will choose her own team, with Obama’s loyalists being relegated to White House staff, or booted completely, it’s hard not to see this as a preordained fait accompli. Not that everybody was in on the deal, that wouldn’t be necessary, in fact, too many people in the know would likely screw things up. It’s not even like the outcome of the primaries was absolutely fixed, the deck was stacked to increase the likelihood of the ultimate desired result, but Clinton as president wouldn’t have been considered failure. After all, the goal, as stated by HRC, over, and over again, was to “get a Democrat in the White House.” However, Obama as president allows the Democratic party to not only re-brand itself while reinforcing it’s inclusive image, it redirects the party in the age of the internet in the manner John F. Kennedy did in the age of television. Therefore, with Obama as the puppet-face of the Democrats and Clinton actually wielding the power, an argument could be made that an impressive win-win situation resulting from a well-planned, long-term “plot” has been achieved.
Maybe all the angst and interplay between competing Democratic factions played out in the news and blogosphere was merely smoke and mirrors distractions all along. Perhaps PUMA was born out of the frustration of knowing something was wrong that we just couldn’t put our finger on. Could it be that the frustrations of those feeling disenfranchised by the results of the Rules and Bylaws Committee and the subsequent farce of the Democratic National Convention were just a byproduct of the implementation of a foregone conclusion? Is that why Obama selected an HRC supporting veep nobody would pay much attention to?
Could be.
Or, not.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
Are you smarter than a government official? Probably. But probably not by much. At least not according to the results of a civics test given to ordinary citizens as well as those elected to serve just for giggles.
US elected officials scored abysmally on a test measuring their civic knowledge, with an average grade of just 44 percent, the group that organized the exam said Thursday.
Ordinary citizens did not fare much better, scoring just 49 percent correct on the 33 exam questions compiled by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI).
This test has been going around the blogosphere for a few days, with high scorers boastfully posting them, and everybody else noticeably silent, so we don’t know what the internet average really is. If you believe the posted bloggers and commenters, those who hang out online are friggin’ genii, scoring on average 30 out of 33, let them tell it. I didn’t do that good, I got 74%. So, while I’m no Joe Cannon, I’m smarter than a college professor, a government official and most of the people who elected them.
“No Drama Obama?” What a curious handle to bestow upon a professional TelePrompTer reader so obviously type-cast to play a real-life Matt Santos in the current installment of the reality show called “American Presidential Politics” that he should be a card carrying member of the Screen Actor’s Guild and be forced to show it to the country on You Tube along with the vault copy of his birth certificate before inauguration day. Are you kidding me? Barack Obama’s presidential campaign was one drama after another, yet there’s this larger-than-life myth of a seamless, leak-free campaign run with military precision, conceived of, and directed by, the greatest political general ever, Barack Obama. Puhleeze. The Telegraph is the latest media outlet taking that erroneous theme and running it ragged, quoting yet another source not close to anybody involved in anything:
Most shocking to Mr Obama’s team is the loss of discipline and control that they have experienced since coming to Washington.
The President-elect’s campaign was tightly controlled, with very few uncoordinated leaks. The candidate was known as “No Drama Obama.” David Corn, Washington Bureau Chief of the left of centre magazine Mother Jones, summed up the problem: “The presidential transition of no-drama Obama became infected by the never-ending soap opera of the Clintons. And it really is time to turn that programme off.”
No leaks? NAFTA-gate? The HuffPo “race memo?” Or, were those “coordinated leaks?” No drama? Can you say “Bill Ayers?” “Jeremiah Wright?” “Monster? “ “The Rezko he didn’t know?” “Illegal immigrant auntie?” Nothing soap operatic about “Bitter-gate,” right? What is wrong with people that they think they can just push a blatant, outright, bold-faced lie far enough, and long enough that it becomes an accepted truth? Maybe the most tightly controlled, well run, internet-savvy gaffe machine political campaign in history has conveniently forgotten about a little-known invention called “Google.” Which would be bad news to one of his biggest legitimate donors.
Who, besides, presumably Barack Obama, cares about Michelle Obama’s butt? Erin Aubry Kaplan, aka Erin J. Aubry, that’s who. She’s a columnist whose work has been featured in the L.A. Times, Essence Magazine, L.A Weekly, and Black Enterprise among others. She’s also contributed essays to books like Body Outlaws, and Mothers Who Think. And, she has a thing about butts. Big, black, female butts to be exact. The author of a 1998 Salon article about Jennifer Lopez’s abundance, entitled “Back Is Beautiful,” (she thinks Lopez is “a possibly African-descended Latina,”) Ms. Kaplan is back in Salon with a dissertation on the First Lady-elect’s derriere called “First Lady Got Back.”
Why?
Beats the hell outta me.
Again I ask, who the hell cares about Michelle Obama’s butt, let alone what it means to society? Forget about examining the socio-dynamics of it’s size and shape, and it’s impact on American women of color’s self-esteem and/or lack thereof, has anybody else ever even looked at it? I mean, I’ve seen Ms. Obama sitting down, so I assumed she had a butt, (when I happened to think about it, which was never) but, frankly, there’s nothing about her face that would make me want to look at her ass. Though many have spoken of her beauty, grace and charm, she “don’t float my boat,” if you catch my drift. Not to be indelicate, but as a woman who has enjoyed the company and favors of a few other women in my day, as far as I’m concerned, she’s a dog.
But that’s beside the point. Why would anyone, especially a woman, especially a straight woman, ever write more than one treatise on booty? I can’t imagine why any woman would write one, but I’m trying to give Kaplan the benefit of the doubt. But, really, what’s up with that? I’m a black woman and I’ve never once wondered what impact my ass had on society at large. Or anybody else’s, for that matter.
Yes, some people objectify women, but writing article, after article, about the particular cultural implications of black women’s behinds and the impact on the feminine psyche due to the exploitation of such objectification in our shared popular culture, runs the risk of objectifying us further under the guise of social commentary. Kaplan writes:
Lord knows, it’s time the butt got some respect. Ever since slavery, it’s been both vilified and fetishized as the most singular of all black female features, more unsettling than dark skin and full lips, the thing that marked black women as uncouth and not quite ready for civilization (of course, it also made them mighty attractive to white men, which further stoked fears of miscegenation that lay at the heart of legal and social segregation). In modern times, the butt has demarcated class and stature among black society itself. Emphasizing it or not separates dignified black women from ho’s, party girls from professionals, hip-hop from serious. (Black women are not the only ones with protruding behinds, by the way, but they’re certainly considered its source. How many gluteally endowed nonblack women have been derided for having a black ass? Well, Hillary, for one.)
Now, Hillary Clinton has a “black ass?” What the hell is Kaplan talking about? Black women are considered the source of the big ass? How? Is it just me, or is there something wrong with this picture? Don’t get me wrong, Ms. Kaplan seems to be a fine and justifiably accomplished writer, but this obsessive “thing” she has about her and other people’s butts is an issue she might want to spend some time discussing with an expert. It needs to be examined. It’s not healthy. And, if she really thinks Michelle Obama’s rear end is worth celebrating, for any reason, Erin Aubry Kaplan can forget about the doctor, any fool could tell her she has lost her mind.
And I bet her ass is huge.
UPDATE: Mr. Kaplan responds to her critics. Basically, she says she wrote the article because she felt like it. No other reason is valid, imo, regardless of other people’s reaction. If you have to explain it or apologize for it, you shouldn’t write it. If you do, let it stand.
The PUMA side of the blogosphere is just as conflicted about Hillary Clinton being appointed Secretary of State by Barack Obama, the president-elect we all know and loathe, as are their mirror image, alter ego, Obamabot blogger bullies. The hand-wringing, teeth-gnashing, clothes rending faction of PUMAs wailing about Clinton’s betrayal sound like a Kos/HuffPo “Paul is dead” recording about Obama’s selection played backwards. Get over it.
Yeah, I said it. It’s hard to see what the fuss is all about. First of all, Hillary as Secretary of State pisses the Clinton Derangement Syndrome suffering blogger bullies off royally. Reason enough for me to support it. But, more importantly, Clinton will likely be the “Best Secretary of State EVER;” she not only deserves the job, she’ll be great at it. Plus, we all know Obama is still the same unqualified, inexperienced candidate he’s always been, and was never going to be more than President In Name Only, so, if he’s going to be the public face of a “shadow” administration, it might as well be a Clinton one. A cabinet full of Clintonites with Hillary herself in the lead is the very best we could hope for, given the circumstances.
All of Obama’s appointments seem to be laying the groundwork for Hillary. His loyalists have been relegated to positions answerable to him, not the country. Axelrod, Gibbs, and Jarrett are White House staff hired to manage perceptions and don’t pose much of an impediment to actually getting work done. Let them send out “hope and change” memos while the Clinton contingent handles things. They’re good at it, and that scenario is probably the one sold to Bill and Hillary by the Democrats at the end of the primaries.
Hillary Clinton is a practical politician, smart enough to know where real power lies. Keeping the Obama p.r. machine out front insulates Clinton from the kind of counter-productive right wing maneuvering that hampered the first Clinton administration. Obama might be the president, but if Hillary becomes the Secretary of State, he’ll be president of the second Clinton administration, only this time, Hillary will be in charge. And, if the Democrats are smart, this is the way they’ve planned it all along.
In the mainstream media’s attempt to boost it’s deservedly shrinking profile, the battle of the “unnamed sources” vs. the absolute truth rages on. The Reuters headline quoting the New York Times screams “Clinton Accepts Obama Secretary of State Offer: NY Times.” Citing Clinton “confidants,” when they’re not citing each other, both articles are basically rehashing variations of the same themes everybody’s been pushing since Clinton and the president-elect met in Chicago. The only “twist” is that now she’s said to have “decided.” Right.
Mrs. Clinton came to her decision after additional discussion with President-elect Barack Obama about the nature of her role and his plans for foreign policy, said one of the confidants, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the situation.
Mr. Obama’s office told reporters on Thursday that the nomination is “on track” but this is the first word from the Clinton camp that she has decided.
So, Clinton and Obama talked, but she didn’t tell him she’d accepted an offer he hasn’t officially made yet? And this is news? Now, in another “unnamed sourced” article, Reuters is walking it back from the edge of satire in a new article claiming that Obama has now unofficially selected Timothy Geithner as Secretary of Treasury.
A senior Democrat told Reuters in Washington that Obama wanted Geithner for the Treasury job, but had yet to make a offer. He did confirm that Summers was no longer under consideration.
Reuters is also quoting NBC as saying that Bill Richardson might “officially” be offered Secretary of Commerce:
NBC also reported that New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson — who was one of a crowded pack of Democratic presidential early this year — could receive Obama’s nod to become commerce secretary.
Associated Press says Geithner is “likely” and Clinton is “on track.” In other words, nobody knows nothing, but they’ve got deadlines and phony-baloney jobs to justify. To put my two cents worth of speculation in the mix, absolutely nothing has changed since Obama offered the job to Clinton in Chicago and she accepted. In fact, an equally plausible case could be made that they worked out the deal when they met at Dianne Feinstein’s house back in June after Robert Gibbs played “hide the candidate” with the press on Obama’s campaign plane. Everything reported since the Chicago face-to-face has been mainstream media gossip and blogger bully bullshit. He offered, she accepted, done deal, game over, it’s a wrap.
“What school you go to?” “I go to Obama.” Yep, 440 mostly black and Hispanic kids will be answering that question that way from now on.
It was only a matter of time. A New York school has been renamed in honor of President-elect Barack Obama.
The former Ludlum Elementary School, in Long Island’s Hempstead Union Free School District, was renamed at a school board meeting Thursday – effective immediately. The new name is the Barack Obama Elementary School.
School officials say most of the 440 students there are black or Hispanic, and Obama’s victory is a source of great pride.
“Good afternoon. Let me begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances.” Barack Obama, October, 2002.
Barack Obama has never been anti-war. Let me repeat that. Barack Obama has never been anti-war. On the contrary, he has actively advocated for war, his promise to “end the war in Iraq” was only to facilitate moving the troops to Afghanistan and maybe Pakistan. By his own admission, he has only ever objected to “dumb wars.” So, why are so many anti-war types so surprised and disillusioned about his “hawkish” cabinet picks? And what makes them think they won the election for him?
Not being the most politically savvy person in the room (yeah, yeah, take your shots,) the terms “liberal” and “progressive” seem to me to be used almost interchangeably in the media. And, from what I can tell, both groups are royally pissed at the candidate they supported with all their hopey changey hearts, who now seems determined to renege on all the promises they feel he made them. But what did he really promise?
“There is a line between ‘moving to the center’ and stabbing your allies in the back out of fear of being criticized. And, of late, he’s been doing a lot of unnecessary stabbing, betraying his claims of being a new kind of politician,” said Markos Moulitsas, founder of Daily Kos, the top site of the liberal netroots community.
That quote is from a July, Washington Times article. Have the progressive/liberal factions currently crying, “Oh my God! Oh, my God! He’s betraying his base!” like latter day Chicken Littles with a new mantra, just now woken up from a self-induced hypnotic spell? Marc Armbinder makes a wishy-washy case for Obama to appoint Republicans to his administration to help push through his liberal/progressive agenda, but it doesn’t make much more sense to me than Salon’s “liberals-in-the-closet vs. so-called progressives” essay which seems to suggest that the true meaning of “liberal” is “center-left, neoliberal progressive.” Or, vice-versa. Whatever.
Brave New Films, part of the Brave New Foundation and associated with Brave New Pac, the rah-rah Obama political PAC that has produced anti-McCain campaign ads in conjunction with Howard Dean’s Democracy For America, is running a Firedoglake post on it’s website which claims that even Pat Buchanan is feeling sorry for the way the “progressive netroots” is getting screwed by Obama. In July, Kirk Tofte, reporting on this year’s “Netroot Nation” and quoting many of the event’s attendees who described themselves as “libertarian progressives,” said their confusion about their own identity made Obama the perfect candidate for them.
However, all this Obama Drama is pretty disingenuous, if not patently bogus. Only the most KoolAid-drunk self-delusioned fringe folks could have ever seriously believed that Obama was really the “Kumbayah, Teach The World To Sing” poster boy they tried to make him out to be. If his NAFTA-gate, 2nd Amendment, FISA, and pro-war stances didn’t give them a clue, some of their favorite leg-tingling media outlets should have. In July, Salon ran a piece on OpenLeft’s post, “Why It’s Important to Note That Barack Obama is NOT Liberal or Progressive.”
Of course, most of the latest “Barack’s Breaking My Heart” lamentations center around reports that Obama has/is going to offer Hillary Clinton the office of Secretary of State. Given the realities of Obama’s policy positions, it’s hard to make an ideological argument against Clinton’s appointment without twisting oneself into a pretzel. Therefore, the “betrayal” is characterized as being one of the always empty promise of “hope and change.” Which means that these “progressive/liberals” are either trying to couch their “Clinton Derangement” in acceptable terms, or they just haven’t been paying attention.
John Ziegler, the documentarian who commissioned the “How Obama Got elected” video documentary and corresponding Zogby poll showing Obama voters as “media-influenced” but less than knowledgeable about key issues, tried to commission another Zogby poll featuring McCain voters this time. According to Politico, however, Zogby said no:
Pollster John Zogby has rejected a conservative commentator’s offer to sponsor a poll to test the knowledge of people who voted for John McCain.
The commentator was proposing to mirror a poll of Obama voters that caused a political uproar when it suggested that Obama supporters didn’t know what they were voting for.
Why? Zogby just doesn’t want to:
“I am happy to do a poll of both Obama voters and McCain voters, with questions that I formulated and sponsored either by an objective third party or by someone on the left, in tandem with a John Ziegler on the right — but poll questions that have my signature,” Zogby said.
“I believe there was value in the poll we did,” Zogby added. “I also believe it was not our finest hour. This slipped through the cracks. It came out critical only of Obama voters.”
“Only critical of Obama voters?” That’s probably because only Obama voters were interviewed. Duh. Predictably, Ziegler’s pissed:
Ziegler told Politico: “I’m outraged. I find this amazing. There was nothing wrong with the original poll. I’m the exact same person I was last week. The left-wing blogosphere basically demanded this.”
Reuters and the L.A. Times are still reporting, as that did last night, that Penny Pritzker will be Barack Obama’s Secretary of Commerce. They both claim CNN as a source, and they both “break” the story of Janet Napolitano being tapped for Homeland Security. But the Chicago Tribune says nuh-uh:
Chicago billionaire Penny Pritzker has told Barack Obama’s team she does not want to serve as Commerce Secretary, said a senior Obama official.
“Penny Pritzker ultimately has decided she does not want to do the Commerce thing,” the senior official said.
The official also said reports that Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano will be Secretary of Homeland Security are premature.
“I expect Napolitano will end up in the cabinet. But whether she ends up where the speculation is (has her), I don’t know,” the official said.
Which only proves that whenever the press doesn’t bother to do it’s homework, they just make stuff up and copy.
The Congressional Black Caucus can expect no favors from the post-racial president elect of a racially divided country hellbent on pretending it isn’t. In fact, some are arguing that the fact of Obama’s election renders the organization that Obama never had much use for anyway, now obsolete. The public jockeying for position now happening within the caucus while some members pretend that such maneuvering indicates that the nation has moved beyond race, creates a unique situation whereby the mere fact of their existence argues against their position. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune writes that the CBC has a rather strained relationship with Obama, and in fact, at a news conference announcing new leadership, they didn’t even mention his name.
The all-Democratic, 43-member group has had a somewhat uneasy relationship with the president-elect, who for four years when he represented Illinois in the Senate rarely participated in caucus activities. Some black lawmakers wished he had been more involved.
Of course, this could all be a rather theatrical attempt on behalf of Obama and the caucus to appear to have an arm’s distance relationship in order to reassure white Americans who might be uncomfortable with a too cozy alliance. However, in October more than half the CBC initially voted against the bailout bill Obama supported, and during the primary contest, he did not enjoy the sort of monolithic support from the CBC afforded him by black voters:
Many caucus members endorsed Obama’s Democratic rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, before Obama’s campaign gained momentum. Some, including Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., switched their support to Obama under pressure from their constituents. Obama ended up winning 95 percent of the black vote — a higher percentage than caucus members can always claim.
Andra Gillespie of Emory University put it bluntly:
“Obama doesn’t enjoy a close personal relationship with members of the Congressional Black Caucus,” she said.
Caucus members have always been less likely to bow to the historic nature of Obama’s election; many of them made history too, and many did it years ago. Thus, when pundits and other fools try to chalk everything up to a generational divide, they miss the point. Longtime members of Congress are far more likely to want to play traditional “quid pro quo” politics, than the type of “consensus by symbolism” tactics newer black politicians like Obama seem to embrace.
William Jelani Cobb, a Spelman College history professor who’s writing a book on Obama, contended that the caucus has “tried to minimize the extent to which Obama’s emergence has changed the nature of their position.”
“A good bit of the old politics, the old positioning, was as brokerage. They have people who can be the brokers, the middle person, between the Democratic Party — largely the white Democratic Party — and the black voting base,” Cobb said. “Obama is the first president who doesn’t need them for that.”
Cobb misses the point that, in a way, Obama’s refusal to “respect his elders” is a large source of the tension between him and many black politicians. Seen by them as not having “paid his dues,” yet climbing up the ladder on their backs, some folks are understandably resentful. The dismissive attitude he has displayed on occasion doesn’t help. It was at a CBC meeting in June that Obama told Hillary Clinton supporters to “get over it.” Jake Tapper reported at the time:
According to Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., Obama then said, “However, I need to make a decision in the next few months as to how I manage that since I’m running against John McCain, which takes a lot of time. If women take a moment to realize that on every issue important to women, John McCain is not in their corner, that would help them get over it.”
Not everyone was offended, but Maxine Waters was. Waters, who has been in politics for over thirty years, and has been in Congress since 1991, took exception to being told to get over it, and said so. Responding to Waters’ assertion that there was a lot of healing to be done after the grueling campaign, Obama’s answer didn’t help:
“I agree,” Obama said. “There’s healing on both sides.”
Obama then said two sources at the meeting said that he’d held his tongue many times during the campaign against Clinton in the interest of party unity and sensitivity. Clinton and her allies had suggested he was a Muslim, had said he wasn’t qualified to be president.
Regardless of who is right or wrong, Obama’s apparent cluelessness about respect does not bode well for his future relationship with the Congressional Black Caucus, or black people in general. His election is historic, but in a very real sense, not much moreso than the nature of the candidacies of many of his former collegues in the CBC. Most black Americans who have achieved success have broken through barriers to do so, and the trend does not end with Obama. One need only look at his own appointment of Eric Holder as America’s first black attorney general to make that point. Until Obama acknowledges and embraces the fact that triumphs of his black brothers and sisters in politics, sports, medicine, business and plain old American life have laid the foundation that has allowed him to pretend to be “post-racial” to their common advantage, he’ll never transcend anything. And statements like this one by Arthur Davis, quoted in the Star Tribune article, will always ring false:
Artur Davis, a centrist Democrat and caucus member from Alabama who is close to Obama, said he doesn’t sense tension. He said black lawmakers simply understand that Obama is a new breed of politician who transcends race.
“I think that’s something that’s understood by the majority of the caucus,” Davis said. “Barack Obama is not a black president of the United States. He’s a president of the United States who happens to be black.”
And be a goddamned insult, to boot. Either he’s black or he’s not. If not, he has no right to claim the mantle of the first black president, post-racial or anything else. If he is, he owes a debt of gratitude to the very people he tries so hard to keep at bay until it’s convenient not to. And sooner or later, he’s going to have to pay up.
Those “unnamed” sources are at it again; this time saying Arizona governor Janet Napolitano will be Barack Obama’s choice to head the Department of Homeland Security, according to Politico:
Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D) has been chosen to serve as secretary of the vast and troubled Department of Homeland Security for President-elect Obama, Democratic officials said. Napolitano is a border governor who will now be responsible for immigration policy and border security, which are part of Homeland Security’s myriad functions.
The move is not entirely unexpected, the Washington Independent speculated about in on the 14th:
The Arizona governor is even being mentioned as a possible member of the Obama administration. Napolitano, a graduate of the University of Virginia law school, is a leading candidate to be the next U.S. attorney general, or, barring that, head of Homeland Security. With two years remaining on her second gubernatorial term, she refuses to discuss the possibility of joining the new administration — but she hasn’t taken herself out of the running either.
Unsurprisingly, Napolitano has Clinton ties. From American Prospect:
By all accounts, Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona agonized over the decision of whom to endorse in this year’s presidential primary. Sure, the choice was fraught for most Democratic politicians who built their careers during the 1990s. But not every politician worked on Bill Clinton’s campaign in 1992, or owes her subsequent career to a Clinton appointment. Not every politician is one of just eight female governors in the nation, making her acutely aware of the symbolic power of a woman coming in reach of the presidency. And not every politician’s endorsement was so highly coveted, due to her leadership of a conservative state in a swing region seen as key to a Democratic victory in November.
In short, Napolitano was under a lot of pressure. Nevertheless, on Jan. 11, a few weeks ahead of Arizona’s Super Tuesday primary, she announced her support for Barack Obama, citing his ability to attract independent voters and his appeal to national unity. For those who’d been tracking Napolitano’s rhetoric and career, the move didn’t come as too much of a shock, despite her Clinton connections. Napolitano has been dropping buzzwords like “unity,” “compromise,” and “nonpartisanship” since her first campaign for attorney general in 1998 — years before a young Illinois state senator burst onto the political scene.
Oh, and she has a unique relationship with Jo(k) Biden; she was Anita Hill’s lawyer for the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings Biden presided over. From WSJ Washington Wire:
A lawyer, U.S. attorney and state attorney general before being elected Arizona’s governor in 2002, Napolitano represented Anita Hill when she accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment.
During her term as Arizona’s attorney general, Napolitano was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy in 2000 and an ovariectomy in 2004.
Oh, and Reuters and the L.A. Times say it’s Chicagoan Penny Prizker for commerce secretary. And on Anderson Cooper 360 just now, it was said that if Hillary Clinton decides not to accept the position of Secretary of State, Harry Reid and other Democratic leaders are prepared to create a whole new leadership position for her in the Senate.
Hillary Clinton should be president. Everybody knows that. That’s the one thing all PUMAs have always agreed, and each post-election Clinton-era appointment Barack Obama makes underscores that point. PUMAs are a loose coalition of diverse entities with various points of view and opinions, as they should be, in my opinion. Any group founded upon the myth of Democratic party unity would be suspect if all it’s members agreed on everything. The only thing necessary to be a PUMA, in fact, is the unshakable faith that Hillary Clinton was the best candidate in the field this year, and that the Democratic party erred by pre-selecting Barack Obama as it’s standard bearer and then shoving him down the country’s throat.
All the talk during the primary season about the danger of the “Clinton Dynasty” Hillary was accused of feeling entitled to, was always hooey. Sure, she’s married to a former president, so what? America has a tradition of trusting family members of presidents to follow in their predecessor’s footsteps, or do the names Roosevelt and Adams not ring a bell? No, the demonization of the Clinton family was not about hierarchies, dynasties, or entitlement. It wasn’t even about seizing power, per se. The Democrats who aided and abetted the Grand Theft Obama were motivated by a desire to control the true ruling “Clinton Dynasty,” not eliminate it. PUMAs always knew that.
With every Dashle, Holder, Podesta appointment, Team O proves that West Wing Wannabe Barack Obantos is simply playing the part of the face of the Clinton party. Hillary’s current “I‘ll think about it” consideration of what has been reported in various outlets to have been a firm offer of Secretary of State, only points up her power. Wondering what Hillary’s going to do is what is motivating all the nervous sounding “yes she will, no she won’t” pronouncements attributed to “Democratic sources” and other such shadowy non-entities trying to determine in just what capacity they will have to serve her and her husband. If she takes the job, the Dems’ machinations can effectively remove Bill Clinton from the world stage (they think,) but put her on it. If she doesn’t, Bill remains a wild card, and so does she.
The only thing really to be determined is just how many Clinton loyalists will take positions of power, and how best the “Clinton Dynasty” decides they can be used to their advantage.
Oh, and no matter what the media and their “unnamed sources” think, according to Gallup, about 80% of Democrats like the idea of HRC SOS.
Associated Press is reporting that Al-Qaida insulted president-elect Barack Obama with Malcolm X’s famous characterization of those he considered to be “collaborators” with, and “appeasers” to white oppressors of black Americans as “house Negroes.”
Al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader used a racial epithet to insult Barack Obama in a message posted Wednesday, describing the president-elect in demeaning terms that imply he does the bidding of whites. The message appeared chiefly aimed at persuading Muslims and Arabs that Obama does not represent a change in U.S. policies.
Ayman al-Zawahri said in the message, which appeared on militant Web sites, that Obama is “the direct opposite of honorable black Americans” like Malcolm X, the 1960s African-American rights leader.
In al-Qaida’s first response to Obama’s victory, al-Zawahri also called the president-elect — along with secretaries of stateColin Powell and Condoleezza Rice — “house Negroes.”
Speaking in Arabic, al-Zawahri uses the term “abeed al-beit,” which literally translates as “house slaves.” But al-Qaida supplied English subtitles of his speech that included the translation as “house Negroes.”
The message also includes old footage of speeches by Malcolm X in which he explains the term, saying black slaves who worked in their white masters’ house were more servile than those who worked in the fields. Malcolm X used the term to criticize black leaders he accused of not standing up to whites.
Most Americans are aware of Malcolm X statements, what they don’t seem to get is that he was clearly speaking of Martin Luther King’s non-violent, “hat-in-hand” approach to Civil Rights. In this 1963 interview with Louis Lomax, Malcolm makes his feelings clear:
LOMAX: Reverend Martin Luther King teaches a doctrine of nonviolence. What is your attitude toward this philosophy?
MALCOLM X: The white man supports Reverend Martin Luther King, subsidizes Reverend Martin Luther King, so that Reverend Martin Luther King can continue to teach the Negroes to be defenseless�that�s what you mean by nonviolent�be defenseless in the face of one of the most cruel beasts that has ever taken people into captivity�that�s this American white man, and they have proved it throughout the country by the police dogs and the police clubs. A hundred years ago they used to put on a white sheet and use a bloodhound against Negroes. Today they have taken off the white sheet and put on police uniforms and traded in the bloodhounds for police dogs, and they�re still doing the same thing. Just as Uncle Tom, back during slavery used to keep the Negroes from resisting the bloodhound or resisting the Ku Klux Klan by teaching them to love their enemies or pray for those who use them despitefully, today Martin Luther King is just a twentieth-century or modern Uncle Tom or religious Uncle Tom, who is doing the same thing today to keep Negroes defenseless in the face of attack that Uncle Tom did on the plantation to keep those Negroes defenseless in the face of the attack of the Klan in that day.
Now the goal of Dr. Martin Luther King is to give Negroes a chance to sit in a segregated restaurant beside the same white man who has brutalized them for four hundred years. The goal of Martin Luther King is to get the Negroes to forgive the people the people who have brutalized them for four hundred years, by lulling them to sleep and making them forget what those whites have done to them, but the masses of black people today don�t go for what Martin Luther King is putting down.
So, while black and white liberal Americans get their knickers in a twist about al-Zawahri’s “insult,” perhaps they should put Malcolm’s words in his context and compare them to their own attempts to characterize Obama as a latter day MLK, as well as Obama’s own. In his acceptance speech at the Democratic national convention, Obama embraced Dr. King’s legacy, without mentioning him by name:
“America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this.”
Interrupted dozens of times by applause as flash bulbs flared, the 47-year-old U.S. senator from Hyde Park resurrected King’s memory and quoted from his 1963 speech to draw a modern-day parallel.
” ‘We cannot walk alone,’ the preacher cried. ‘And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back,’ ” Obama said. “America, we cannot turn back. Not with so much work to be done.”
But if Hillary Rodham Clinton could emotionally and authentically mention Harriet Tubman, couldn’t the man who has implied that he is the inheritor of the dream bother to mention Dr. Martin Luther King more explicitly than as “a preacher from Georgia”.
Some folk say that Obama didn’t have to invoke King, and that he, indeed, should not have. Some said that in order to reassure majority America, any explicit mention of race, and of Dr. Martin Luther King, should be avoided. But Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is an American hero, not an African-American hero. Dr. King is celebrated, not only in the African American community, but also in our nation. King’s dream was not a dream for African-American people; it was a dream for a more inclusive America. While Obama’s speech was not required to be a tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it should have acknowledged him.
“Reassure majority America?” Is that like, “reassure white people?” By his continued refusal to actually promote Dr. King’s or Malcolm X’s philosophy while cashing in on Dr. King’s celebrity, it seems to me that Obama is behaving in a manner consistent with Malcolm X’s definition of a “house Negro.” Insulting black men repeatedly, as he did in his Father’s Day speech, as he has often done by using stereotypical “Cousin Pookie” and “Popeye’s fried chicken” references, Obama consistently proves himself to be neither Martin Luther King nor Malcolm X, to the relief of white Americans. However, he also does not prove himself to be above Malcolm X’s pejorative description.
According to News4Jax.com, Hillary Clinton got more write-in votes in Duval County, Florida than Jesus. While neither name was on the ballot, 736 voters decided to express their displeasure with the 13 candidates who were by writing in their preferences:
Some voters expecting to vote for Barack Obama or John McCain two weeks ago were surprised to see 11 other names on the ballot. But 736 voters in Duval County weren’t happy with any of the choices and wrote in 191 other names.
Among the write in votes were those who really ran for president or vice-president during the long primary campaign: Sen. Hillary Clinton, Rep. Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, Sarah Palin and even Steven Colbert.
George W. Bush got two votes to serve a third term.Others getting multiple votes were Jesus, God, Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Tim Tebow and that perennial favorite, “None of the above.”Perhaps surprisingly, Joe the Plumber and John Doe only got one vote each, tying Bill Clinton, Theodore Roosevelt, Bill O’Riely, Tiger Woods, Bobby Bowden, Tommy Chong, Willie Nelson and Homer Simpson.
WRITE-IN VOTES FOR PRESIDENT
Votes
234
HILARY CLINTON
174
RON PAUL
23
NONE OF THE ABOVE
23
JESUS
21
MIKE HUCKABEE
14
MITT ROMNEY
8
COLIN POWELL
6
GOD
6
LEFT BLANK
5
UNDECIDED
4
AL GORE
4
BISHOP V.M. MCLAUGHLEN
4
FRED THOMPSON
4
OBAMA
4
RUDY GIULLIANI
4
STEVEN COLBERT
3
DONALD DUCK
3
DONALD FOY
3
MICKEY MOUSE
3
T. BOONE PICKENS
2
BILL COSBY
2
BILL McMILLON
2
BILL NYE
2
CHUCK NORRIS
2
CONDOLEEZA RICE
2
FRANK HARDEN
2
FRANKLIN GRAHAM
2
LOU DOBBS
2
PAGO POSSUM
2
SARAH PALIN
2
SEANATOR BROWNBACK
2
GARY BENZENBERG
2
GEORGE W BUSH
2
JOHN EDWARDS
2
LEE GODDARD
2
TIM TEBOW
Among those getting a single vote: Abstain, Against All, Alfred E. Newman, Bill Clinton, Bill O’Riely, Bill Richardson, Bobby Bowden, Bugs Bunny, May the best man win, Me, Morgan Freeman, Mr. Bill, Newt Gingwrich, None (Anarchy), Oprah, Pat Buchannan, Ralph Nader, Hilary Bush, Homer Simpson, Jay Plotkin, Jimmy Carter, Joe the Plumber, John Doe, Lieberman, Theodore Roosevelt, They Both Suck ‘08, Tiger Woods, Tommy Chong, Truman, Weird Al Yancovic, William Crosby and Willie Nelson.
Hmmm…”Me” only got one vote, same as Oprah. Good to know that at least in some places in America, Jesus and God trump ego. Then again, Jesus tied with “none of the above,” and God tied with “blank.” That says something profound about us as a nation, I’m sure, but it’s way too deep for me to figure out exactly what. Sadly, these results do make you wonder how Barack Obama got elected, when four people wrote him in instead of checking his name.
The Concord Monitor reports that Hillary beat Ron Paul in the New Hampshire write-in vote; doesn’t say how Jesus did:
Clinton, the Democrat who finished first in New Hampshire’s presidential primary last year, also took first among all the write-in candidates in last week’s general election. She garnered 1,124 write-in votes. Clinton’s husband, former president Bill Clinton, also had his supporters, claiming 13 write-in votes from around the state.
Libertarians also made a strong showing in write-in ballots. Libertarian icon and Texas Republican Rep. Paul snagged 1,092 write-in votes. Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party nominee, snagged 226 votes.
Remember when speculation was swirling back in August about Barack Obama’s veep pick? Is it Kaine? Bayh? Sebellius? Whoever it was to be, Jo(k)e Biden famously told reporters camped outside his house before the announcement, “Hey, guys, I’m not the guy.” Of course, as it turns out, he was the guy, and likely knew it all along. Now, the “will she or won’t she” drama surrounding whether or not Hillary Clinton is to be Obama’s Secretary of State seems to be evolving along the same lines.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has engaged three prominent lawyers to help President-electBarack Obama vet her candidacy for secretary of state even as some insiders criticized the pick and advisers to the former first lady said she was weighing whether to take the job if Obama offered it.
If Sen. Hillary Clinton is to be picked by President-electBarack Obama as his secretary of state, it may well depend on a review of the business activities of her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
AFP wonders if Obama has taken leave of his senses:
Signs that Barack Obama may make once bitter foe Hillary Clinton his secretary of state are provoking a flurry of questions over the president-elect’s motivation and vision for foreign policy.
Politico claims HRC might be motivated by a desire to retire her debt:
If Hillary Rodham Clinton becomes Barack Obama’s secretary of state, she could wipe away her lingering $7.6 million presidential campaign debt.
But Bloomberg says her campaign debt might be a problem:
Hillary Clinton will face a financial decision if she is nominated as secretary of state: what to do about the more than $7 million in debts left over from her presidential campaign
Politico reported earlier today that Hillary might turn the job down:
Hillary Rodham Clinton isn’t certain she would accept the Secretary of State post even if Barack Obama offers it to her, several people close to the former first lady say.
Hillary Clinton plans to accept the job of secretary of state offered by Barack Obama, who is reaching out to former rivals to build a broad coalition administration, the Guardian has learned.
So, obviously, nobody in the press really knows shit. However, none of the so-called obstacles seem to amount to much, and the “she’s thinking about it” stuff sounds like “I’m not the guy.” And, we all know how Jo(k)e feels about Hillary.
Can you say, FISA? How soon the blogger bullies of the “progressive left” forget that they are, in the eyes of real politicians, completely expendable. While they like to pretend they, and they alone, are responsible for every Democratic victory since Ned Lamont, the truth is, not. Unlike PUMAs, they keep being surprized at the realization that Democratic “party unity” is the same sort of public relations sales pitch tool as “hope and change,” and that nobody really in charge actually expects anybody to buy that crap, let alone to be held to it as a principle. Maybe now that Joe Lieberman will be allowed to keep his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, as president-elect Barack Obama hoped, (Lieberman was his mentor) they will finally get the message that they simply exist to suck up as they’re told.
Howard Dean gets it. Nobody invested as much of himself and his reputation into getting Barack Obama elected as Dean did, putting his position as chairman of the DeaNC, his Democracy for America, and his 50 state strategy at Camp O’s complete disposal. DFA lobbied hard against FISA, at one point even asking Senator Obama directly to vote against it on their website. Of course, I can’t find that page now, but I remember it well. At any rate, it seems Dean has learned his “Obama is a fair-weather friend” lesson well. From the Huffington Post:
“My point of view is that Barack won,” Dean said. “He can afford to be magnanimous. And if we happen to win both recounts and Georgia, Joe is the 60th vote. And the truth is — and I certainly don’t have to defend Joe Lieberman because, you know, we have an interesting history — but the fact is, he does vote 90 percent of the time with the Democrats. And no, he shouldn’t have said all those things. But why not clean the slate? Why not start all over again? Why not allow him to vote with us on the 90 percent of the stuff? He will be a good vote on climate change — and this matters. He may be a good vote on election reform, which I hope we will get to. So, you know, he may end up – though it is a little against the odds — he may end up being the vote that allows us to conduct business when Mitch McConnell decides we shouldn’t.”
Greg Sargent over on TPM sounds a bit snippy in his description of a conversation he had with Dean:
Howard Dean says that he’s “fine” with the Senate’s decision not to kick Joe Lieberman off the Homeland Security committee and suggested that the Senate had acted in accordance with what Barack Obama wanted.
In a phone interview with me just after the vote concluded, I asked Dean if he thought the Senate should keep Lieberman. He said that the Senate had acted “in the spirit of unification, which is what the President-elect wanted.”
“He called the shots, and that’s fine,” Dean said, in an apparent reference to the tone Obama has tried to set in Washington as he prepares to take power.
Dean also said he understood the natural human desire for “revenge,” a description that will dismay many of Dean’s allies in the liberal blogosphere, who maintain (as do I) that this wasn’t solely about retribution.
Greg and all the other pissed off bloggers don’t understand the lesson Dean has learned so well; Barack Obama doesn’t give a spit what you think, want, or care about. Not only that, Dean knows that as far as Obama’s concerned, anybody who thinks they might be uniquely useful might as well be Kleenex tissue or toilet paper; use it once and throw it away. As Hillary Clinton also learned, you either hop aboard the Obama Express and hold on for dear life, or you stand on the platform and watch the train pass you by. Your choice. But then, TPM knew that, too. Or, should have.
In the case of both Senator Hillary Clinton’s and attorney Eric Holder’s damned near certain appointments to Secretary of State and Attorney General, respectively, the Obama team seems almost pathologically obsessed with popular approval. Will the Senate approve? Of course. Do Republicans support it? Doesn’t matter. Are the blogger bullies upset? Who cares, they caved on their big, bad FISA position, they’ll suck up as they’re told. What about the public? They’re clueless.
Doesn’t this guy realize he won? Is he the only person on the planet who doesn’t get how popular he is? He could appoint Zippy the Pinhead to head Homeland Security and get away with it. Somebody should tell him, he gets to choose. And the bottom line is, no matter what, the chips are going to fall where they may. Sooner or later, he’s going to have to decide which is worse, making a potentially unpopular decision, or looking like a wimp.
Given the fact that during the primaries, nothing excited the tinfoil hat wearing lunatic fringe of the PUMAsphere and the right wing like a good “George Soros backs Barack Obama” conspiracy theory, an article in today’s Bloomberg News should send PUMA-inspired sales of Reynolds Wrap straight through the roof. Entitled, “Soros Funded Idea Factory Becomes Obama Policy Font” the article documents the influence of the Soros-backed Center for American Progress:
Thanks in part to funding from benefactors such as billionaire George Soros, the Center for American Progress has become in just five years an intellectual wellspring for Democratic policy proposals, including many that are shaping the agenda of the new Obama administration.
Much as the Heritage Foundation provided intellectual heft for the Republican Party in the 1980s, CAP has been an incubator for liberal thought and helped build the platform that triumphed in the 2008 campaign.
“What CAP has done is recapture the role of ideas as an important political force, something the Republicans had been better at for 25 years,” said Walter Isaacson, president of the Aspen Institute, a non-partisan policy-research organization in Washington.
CAP’s president and founder, John Podesta, 59, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, is one of three people running the transition team for president-elect Barack Obama, 47. A squadron of CAP experts is working with them.
Claiming that though the group is not the largest think tank in the business, it may well be the most influencial to the Obama administration with at least 10 members on Camp O’s transition team, the article features a few enthusiastic quotes from CAP’ers on their mission:
“Others strive to be objective, we don’t,” said Jennifer Palmieri, CAP’s vice president for communications.
Podesta likes to say, “we’re not a think tank, we’re an action tank,” said Dan Weiss, an environmental activist who joined CAP last year.
George Soros has been quoted as saying that removing George Bush from office was the central focus of his life and something he would sacrifice his entire fortune to achieve if somebody could guarantee it. Since that wish was going to come true this year anyway without costing him a dime, maybe Georgie found a better use for all that leftover dough. Quoted in the New York Times in January, he said this:
‘’I personally support Obama, but I don’t have any particular relationship,’’ said Mr. Soros, who has sometimes been a contentious figure in criticizing American economic and political actions. ‘’If he talks the way I talk, he would have no chance of getting elected: So I wish him well, but I don’t talk to him.’’ (Mr. Soros did help play host at a fund-raiser for Mr. Obama at the home of Paul Tudor Jones II, another prominent hedge fund manager, in May.)
Mr. Soros added that he had ‘’very high regard’’ for what he depicted as Mrs. Clinton’s statesmanlike qualities. ‘’I prefer Obama because I think he would bring more radical change,” he said. “But if she is the candidate, I will be very supportive of her.’’
Maybe Soros’ think tank figured out that his interests would best be served with Clinton as Secretary of State in an Obama administration. If so, the fact that the self-appointed blogger bullies and Obama staff KoolAid drunken true believers are being reported by Politico as being “roiled” is an even more delicious irony than it otherwise would be.
From his supporters on the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, to campaign aides of the soon-to-be commander-in-chief, there’s a sense of ambivalence about giving a top political plum to a woman they spent 18 months hammering as the compromised standard-bearer of an era that deserves to be forgotten.
“These are people who believe in this stuff more than Barack himself does,” said a Democrat close to Obama’s campaign. “These guys didn’t put together a campaign in order to turn the government over to the Clintons.”
Runnin’ ’round the ‘net, found these William Ayers tidbits. Seems Biily Sunshine was ready to hand out “get out of jail free” cards when he gave a “talk” (that’s ’60’s-speak for “informal speech,” like “had a coffee” is similar hippie jargon for “hosted a coming out party in my home for a good friend of mine”) somewhere in Washington D.C. tonight; the details are rather sketchy. The Washington Post says he will be at “Busboys and Poets” Tuesday to talk about his two books on education, but that the event has already occurred. Neato – time travel, far out.
This Ain’t Hell says they and a bunch of FReepers protested Ayers at a Washington event that was originally scheduled to be held in a bookstore, but was moved to a church to accommodate all 100 people who showed up.
William Ayers came to DC today to pimp his new book about race as only a pale white guy can pimp a book about race to a roomful of other pale white people. Some of my Free Republic friends were there to inform the public about William Ayers including This Ain’t Hell’s own Encyclopedia Raoul who ended up being the spokesman for the group.
Kerry Pickett, of Eyeblast TV, on their Video Done Right website, (Newsbusters also carried the story) says she was at a D.C. event where Ayers was supposed to be dicussing American education, but was really slamming Fox News and Sarah Palin. Pickett says the audience was a bunch of Ayers lovers and that pissed her off (I’m paraphrasing, here) so she busted up the lovefest with a little major-league hardball. (Not the Chris Mathtews, “oooh, my pants are wet, leg-tingling” kind of Hardball, the “you better have on a cup and a helmet” kind.)
PICKET: Professor Ayers you had an unusual dedication to Sirhan Sirhan in your previous book. Do you regret that?
AYERS: Absolutely, but that wasn’t a dedication…show me. You heard it somewhere. The dedication in Prairie Fire in 1974…It was a manifesto was to all prisoners, and if I were writing a book like that today, I would dedicate it to 2.1 million people in prison. I think it was a stupid thing to single him out, but I also think that we have created a monster in the prison system. We ought to abolish the prison system. That’s what I think.
Abolish the prison system, huh? Wonder what motivated that little philosophical development? Maybe years underground as a roadie for the Partridge Family while running from prosecution will make you disdain legal authority. And anyway, what does he mean, if it wasn’t a dedication, why was it stupid to single him out? What Pickett was referring to was this “Prairie Fire” dedication page listing a whole bunch of political prisoners Ayers obviously hearts, one of whom is indeed RFK assassin, Sirhan Sirhan:
In his first public event since the election, William Ayers, an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and co-founder of the Weather Underground, spoke to more than 250 people in Washington’s Universalist All Souls Church Monday night as part of his book tour. The Weather Underground claimed responsibility for bombing government buildings in the early 1970s and the McCain campaign used Ayers’s early associations with Barack Obama to accuse the president-elect of “palling around with terrorists.”
“I’m a little overwhelmed,” began the soft-spoken Ayers, squinting into the light of several television cameras and speaking over the chatter of camera shutters. “When I set this up six months ago, I pictured ten people sitting around a circle.”
Awww, the bomber guy is shy, isn’t that sweet? And he said he all those people who act like he killed people, or he’s a violent person are just mean, ‘cuz he’s not. Him’s a puddy tat, yes he is, who just wishes he knew Barack Obama better, like everybody else. Humph. So, there. (Yep, paraphrasing.)
But, I digress. Anyway, Three Dollar Bill also came under scrutiny by somebody named Doug Ross (sorry if I’m supposed to know who you are, Dougie, I’m not really as up on my Ayers chroniclers as I should be, my bad) says Ayers is not just a master Fractured Fairy Tale teller, he’s an outright liar. Ross takes exception to Ayers recent Good Morning America assertion that he first met Obama at the “coffee” he and his wife Bernadine/dette Dohrn held to launch the political career of some guy they didn’t know in their home:
I was asked by the state senator to have a coffee for Barack Obama when he first ran for office and we had him in our home and I think he was probably in 20 homes that day, as far as I know, but that was the first time I really met him.
Ross seems to think that since Cannonfire ran a piece showing that event to have been held in November of 1995, the photo above showing Obama on the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge in May of that same year, means either Ayers is in the habit of putting total strangers in charge of dispersing large sums of money, or he’s a bald faced liar. (Paraphrasing, again)
A website called How Obama Got Elected asks the question, “how the hell did Obama get elected?” In an attempt to answer the question of how exactly how a guy who only served a years worth of days of a term of office he won by kicking everybody else in the contest off the ballot, could come out of nowhere with a gazillion dollars in the bank, and win the presidency; a question burning in everybody’s mind who was paying attention, the documentarians (whoever they are) running this site filmed 12 Obama voters and asked them stuff. What they found is, stupid people who watch the news, vote. My only question about their findings is, knowing that “man-in-the-street” interviews can be easily manipulated by interviewing a large number of people and culling the answers that illustrate your point from them, such interviews are inherently suspect. However, the way the site reads, it looks like they might only have talked to the 12 people shown. If that’s the case, well, then, fuck all the assholes who put the Obaseeuh in office and the media they rode in on:
On Election day twelve Obama voters were interviewed extensively right after they voted to learn how the news media impacted their knowledge of what occurred during the campaign. These voters were chosen for their apparent intelligence/verbal abilities and willingness to express their opinions to a large audience. The rather shocking video below seeks to provide some insight into which information broke through the news media clutter and which did not.
To bolster their credibility, the producers offer this info:
Because obviously interviewing a relative handful of Obama voters, while interesting, is hardly scientific proof of anything, we also commissioned a Zogby telephone poll which asked the very same questions (as well as a few others) with similarly amazing results.
97.1% High School Graduate or higher, 55% College Graduates
Results to 12 simple Multiple Choice Questions
57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)
81.8% could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)
82.6% could NOT correctly say that Barack Obama won his first election by getting opponents kicked off the ballot (25% chance by guessing)
88.4% could NOT correctly say that Obama said his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket (25% chance by guessing)
56.1% could NOT correctly say Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground (25% chance by guessing).
And yet…..
Only 13.7% failed to identify Sarah Palin as the person on which their party spent $150,000 in clothes
Only 6.2% failed to identify Palin as the one with a pregnant teenage daughter
And 86.9 % thought that Palin said that she could see Russia from her “house,” even though that was Tina Fey who said that!!
Only 2.4% got at least 11 correct.
Only .5% got all of them correct. (And we “gave” one answer that was technically not Palin, but actually Tina Fey)
Seems that every church in Washington D.C. is eagerly anticipating the increased prestige and revenues associated with President-elect Barack Obama’s decision as to where he and his family will worship once he takes office. Cynical? Perhaps. But according to an AP-Yahoo (whose CEO, Jerry Wang is stepping down, btw) News article, since resigning from Trinity United Church of Christ in return for four of Hillary Clinton’s delegates, Obama has not attended any church he wasn’t slamming black fathers in, preferring instead to go to the gym:
Obama has attended church sparingly in the past several months. Since winning the election, he has spent Sunday mornings at the gym. Many Washington-area churches hope that will change after he is inaugurated.
Why anybody would expect that the Obamessiah would deign to go to church when he could spend his Sunday mornings worshiping himself, and Michelle and the kids could sleep in, is beyond me. Besides, there was no more political advantage to be gained by regular church attendance once the Rules and Bylaws Committee essentially handed him the nomination on May 31, so why go? And anyway, AP-Yahoo says some presidents don’t go to church at all:
Or he could choose, as many presidents have done, not to attend services at all. President George W. Bush, for instance, has only infrequently attended services in Washington, occasionally going to St. John’s.
Now that he’s been elected, a lot of people, especially black Christians, will be expecting a little something in return for their support:
Churches in the nation’s capital have started extending invitations to President-electBarack Obama and his family, touting their African-American roots, their ties to presidents past and to Obama himself.
While any number of Christian churches of all denominations are launching an all out public relations assault for the president-elect’s attention, they acknowledge there may be pitfalls associated with his attendence:
“I’m sure he’s going to be careful. He got burned,” Balmer said, referring to the Wright controversy. “He probably will be a little bit cautious with whom he associates.”
Pastors at D.C. congregations said they understand that their own words would be scrutinized more closely if the First Family were sitting in the pews, but universally said they wouldn’t change what they preach.
“I hope that I am deliberate and thoughtful about what I say every Sunday,” Snyder said.
He got burned? Wright burned Obama? Who sought who out? Who brought scorn and ridicule on whose life’s work? Who disowned who? Why are Columbia University religious history professors like Randall Balmer re-writing history this way? Are these eager-beaver preachers sure they want to compete with a guy who can make “lights shine down” and “oceans rise?” Who will they be asking their congregants to pray to, “Our Father, Who art in Pew 54?”
If Hillary Clinton does not become president-elect Blameless Obama’s Secretary of State, it will be all her own damned fault. Or, her husband Bill’s. But certainly not Barry’s; he’s a saint, doncha know? Oh, and Claire McCaskill’s a peach. But more on that later, first, let’s dig into this juicy little bitchpost from Politico with the headline, “Bill Vetting Could Cost Hillary Her Cabinet Post.” This particular “out” for Camp O disguised as a media-driven drumbeat is gaining traction in a self-generated, self-fulfilling kind of way. Paint the former president as a kinda sorta shadowy double dealer just in case Obie (or, more likely his brain trust) has a better idea, or she says “no.” In which case the Teflon TelePrompTer Reader would need a plausible excuse to retract his non-offer that he only extended as a courtesy in the first place. Get it?
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is President-electObama’s first choice for secretary of State but his aides are becoming exasperated by the Clinton camp’s pokey response to demands for extensive information about former President Bill Clinton’s finances, according to numerous Democrats involved in the process.
“Numerous Democrats involved in the process?” Hmmmm…wonder whose side they could be on, since they seem to be pissed off at the “Clinton Camp?” Now, this is important to note, because further into the “Cover His Ass As A Favor” Politico hitpiece, we learn exactly who is twying to hut widdle Bawwy’s pwesidenshul chances:
““The ball is very much in her court, but the president’s finances have been a major point of sensitivity from day one,” the well-connected Democratic official explained. “Given that everyone’s mystified by how deliberately public the Clintons have made this once secret process, the assumption is either that the Clintons are trying to use the public buzz to steamroll their way in, create a sense of inevitability that overcomes those concerns, or that it’s just a matter of time before they … satisfy vetting somehow, some way. Otherwise, after all this speculation, there’ll be a permanent dark cloud hanging over his finances.
”How deliberately public the Clintons have made this once secret process?” They employ the “well-connected Democratic official” sourced by Politico? What’s their motive? “A permanent dark cloud hanging over his finances?” Could creating that possibly be the reason for this whole silly exercise? Hmmmm. This stuff would be much easier to figure out if we didn’t live in a universe parallel to the mainstream media’s. All this alternate reality sure gets confusing sometimes. Like the Claire McCaskill thing. It’s her fault She gets the credit for encouraging Axelrod’s Puppet to run for president in the first place. She’s a pip, all right, that Claire. So says McClatchy:
It was on Barack Obama’s third trip to Missouri in 2006 to help Claire McCaskill win a Senate race that she urged him to run for president.
“We’re talking about it,” he confided after a rainy Sunday night rally in St. Louis , two days before the 2006 election. “Win on Tuesday and we’ll talk more.”
McCaskill did win, and she and Obama did talk. They became Senate allies and friends. A year later he was a presidential candidate, and she provided a pivotal endorsement. She quickly emerged as one of his most visible and nimble defenders.
Hmmmmm, again. They weren’t friends and allies until after she won her Senate seat, so…why’d he make three trips to Missouri on her behalf? And the fact that they were like, what, 99th and 98th ranked in Senate seniority couldn’t have had any bearing on forging a friendship after she got elected, right? And just how “pivotal” can an endorsement from the actually 97th ranked Senator be, anyway? And just what the hell was so “impressive” about the guy barely in front of her in line that it made her liver quiver to the point that she felt compelled to encourage him to run for president? His smooth, caramel skin perhaps, Claire? Whatever did it for her, it was going around. Republicans for Obama got the same thrill up their leg about Obie at just about the same time:
Republicans for Obama is a grassroots organization of proud party members who all share one important trait— we are Americans first and Republicans second. (Even if it is a close second.) Founded in late 2006 as part of the nationwide effort to encourage Senator Obama to run for the Presidency, our volunteer-run, grassroots group now includes thousands of members from across the nation. Together, we represent a cross-section of the millions of Republican and conservative independents who voted for President-Elect Obama in 2008.
Imagine yourself at the podium talking to a huge crowd, and the words on the teleprompter say things like: “This is the moment that the world is waiting for. . .” or, “I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.” How do you pull it off? Maybe you flash to Peter O’Toole as Lawrence of Arabia, running across the top of a train shouting, “Acaba! Acaba!” with stirring music underwriting your every move. Even so, something in you hesitates at throwing your full self into such grandiosity. Something healthy in you that feels it’s just too way over the top. Besides, isn’t it up to other people to say whether you are a transformative figure?
Not only is it hard to understand how anyone could read an Obama speech aloud with a straight face, it defies belief that anyone could bear to listen to the silly twaddle he spews, let alone be taken in by it. As he steps down from the Senate to twiddle his thumbs until he is inaugurated a couple of months from now, in order to avoid actually doing anything substantive, like, oh, say, his job, Our Messiah-elect “wrote” (yeah, right) a “letter of thanks” to the people of Illinois for allowing him to serve, at least for the brief, intermittent moments he did so between running for yet another office. Full of the same sort of nebulous obfuscations, half-truths, outright lies, and “what the fuck” verbosity we’ve come to know, reading it in the state’s morning papers must have caused more than a few breakfasts to be lost. In what, I assume, is a gallant effort to help all Americans keep to their diets, the Washington Post has magnanimously reprinted the “thank you note to the Land of Lincoln” for those who might otherwise have gratefully missed it, for us to be sickened by it, too. I won’t reprint it all, I wouldn’t do that to a dog, as Stevie Wonder said in “Rocket Love,” but, just for giggles, here’s a snippet:
“It was in Springfield, in the heartland of America, where I saw all that is America converge — farmers and teachers, businessmen and laborers, all of them with a story to tell, all of them seeking a seat at the table, all of them clamoring to be heard. It was there that I learned to disagree without being disagreeable; to seek compromise while holding fast to those principles that can never be compromised, and to always assume the best in people instead of the worst. Later, when I made the decision to run for the United States Senate, the core decency and generosity of the American people is exactly what I saw as I traveled across our great state — from Chicago to Cairo; from Decatur to Quincy.”
I haven’t seen such sappy drivel since Lassie rescued the crippled kid. Here’s the predictable denouement:
With your help, along with the service and sacrifice of Americans across the nation who are hungry for change and ready to bring it about, I have faith that all will in fact be well. And it is with that faith, and the high hopes I have for the enduring power of the American idea, that I offer the people of my beloved home a very affectionate thanks.
“Your help…” “service and sacrifice…” “hungry for change…” have faith…” “high hopes…” “enduring power…” “beloved home…” and “affectionate thanks” all in one, two-sentence paragraph! Wow! It takes traveling tent revival, jackleg, lay “preachers” 2 or 3 hours to get that many kitschy cliches into one sermon! Lucky us, after two years of constantly being bombarded with infinite variations of the same theme and a similarly interminable number of reworkings of the same tired, “hope and change” jabberwocky, we get to hear pontification in lieu of policy, happy crappy like this everyday for at least the next four years.
Bill Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist (say it with me) and Barack Obama’s “family friend,” and his equally unrepentant wife, “lawyer” (she doesn’t have a law license, she’s a criminal, duh) Bernadine/dette Dohrn, were interviewed on Democracy Now, and, boy! was it an eye-opener. For one thing, the reason they are “unrepentant” is that, according to them, they didn’t do anything. At least, nothing everybody else wasn’t doing too. It was the sixties, man! Everybody was against the war! What they don’t say, is that everybody was against war, period, not “the war” per se. War is a major buzz kill, dude, and in the sixties and seventies, it was all about the buzz. Everybody wasn’t setting bombs, either. Some people were sticking flowers in National Guardsmen’s rifles and not taking the brown acid at mega-concerts. But, I digress. Anyway, after listening to the Ma and Pa Kettle of bored rich kid activism spin their revised history Fractured Fairy Tales, I am now convinced that these two spent their fugitive years underground as roadies for the Partridge Family. Perfect cover, and, after ‘74 when the show went off the air, they could keep all the drugs and Boone’s Farm they scored for themselves. Remember, the Weather Underground was involved with getting drug guru Timothy (Come Together) Leary out of the country after his escape from jail on (trumped up) drug charges.
We are a nation of schizophrenics. Not in the clinical sense; in the popular culture definition sense of happily holding dear diametrically opposed views at the same time. We are tolerant bigots who elect a black man president while the majority of black voters vote down a gay rights measure. We support equal rights for all, except when it’s inconvenient. All men are created equally superior to women. We champion religious freedom for those who believe as we do. Those who don’t, have no place at our table. That’s just who we, as a nation, are. Deal with it.
At the forum shown in the following video clip, whenever and wherever it was, a panel of men discuss sexism against women in this year’s presidential election. Seriously. One of them, outgoing DeaNC chairman Howard Dean, makes clear the case that racism trumped sexism in the Democratic primaries, unfairly marginilizing Hillary Clinton, and trvializing the concerns of women who supported her as fervently as black Americans embraced the historic nature of Barack Obama’s candidacy and ultimate election. Not that Dean admits personal culpability, no siree, Bob. Everybody hated his neutrality, according to him. Somehow, the fact that he has been actively involved with Barack Obama since his Democracy for America (formerly Dean for America) tapped him as one of Dean’s Dozen in 2004, and whose 50 state strategy, DFA grassroots mobilization, and internet fundraising model was used to help him get elected to the Senate and the presidency, just didn’t happen to come up.
Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting “Assassinate Obama.” Black figures hung from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars.
Incidents around the country referring to President-electBarack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America.
From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts have been delivered by adults, college students and second-graders.
Yet, who can forget the Asheville, North Carolina grade school teacher, Diantha Harris, intimidating children for supporting John McCain?
Then there’s the Sarah Palin thing. Just like nobody but Hillary supporters cared about “Bro’s Before Ho’s” t-shirts, “Sarah Palin is a cunt” t-shirts were perfectly fine with most Democrats, it seems. And it’s okey-dokey to hang Palin in effigy, doing so might raise the ire of some neighbors and other rabid feminists, and eventually garner attention from the authorities, but hang Obama the same way and expect to get arrested, pronto. Everybody knows hanging a black man is worse than hanging a white woman. Sheesh, even the L.A.County Sheriff’s Department spokesman said so:
Whitmore said that potential hate crimes are evaluated on a case-by-case basis. If the same display had been made of a Barack Obama-like doll, for example, authorities would have to evaluate it independently, Whitmore said.
“That adds a whole other social, historical hate aspect to the display, and that is embedded in the consciousness of the country,” he said, adding he’s not sure whether it would be a hate crime. “It would be ill-advised of anybody to speculate on that.”
Yep, we like our prejucices, and do not believe for a minute that whichever one we like the most is nearly as bad as the one you prefer. Let’s face it, the only use we have for “honest” discussions about various forms of “feel good about yourself by putting down others” hate, is when it comes to assigning blame for our problems to somebody else.
The day after the “historic election of America’s first black president” I wrote a post called, “The Struggle Is Over,” where I speculated that white Americans who voted for a black man for president, whatever their stated reasons, were partially motivated by a desire to free themselves and the nation from the burden of “white guilt,” and would no longer tolerate protestations of systemic disadvantage by black people. I wrote:
Now that America has elected Barack Obama, “the struggle” is officially over. We are all equal; if you’ve got problems, they’re your fault. The feel-good liberals who voted to disprove the validity of our shared racial history will have no further patience for complaint. “Whaddaya mean? Ya got a black president!” Expect to hear variations of that refrain a lot in the next four years.
Well, it seems that not only “feel-good liberals” who voted for Obama are “feeling good” for their liberalism, staunch conservatives are positively giddy. Tom Adkins, said to be the publisher of CommonConservative.com, writes for the Philadelphia Inquirer:
The Era of White Guilt is over.
This seemingly impossible event occurred because the vast majority of white Americans didn’t give a fluff about skin color and enthusiastically pulled the voting lever for a black man. Not just any black man. A very liberal black man who spent his early career race-hustling banks, praying in a racist church for 20 years, and actively working with America-hating domestic terrorists. Yet white Americans made Barack Obama their leader. Therefore, as of Nov. 4, 2008, white guilt is dead.
So today, I’m feeling a little “uppity,” if you will. For more than a century, the millstone of white guilt hung around our necks, retribution for slave-owning predecessors. In the 1960s, American liberals began yanking that millstone while sticking a fork in the eye of black Americans, exacerbating the racial divide to extort a socialist solution to the country’s problems. But if a black man can become president, exactly what significant barrier is left? The election of Barack Obama destroys the validation of liberal white guilt. The dragon is hereby slain.
Adkins gleefully dismisses all the black individuals and entities he can think of who have dedicated themselves to the fight for racial equality as being suddenly, yet emphatically, irrelevant:
Congressional Black Caucus? Irrelevant. U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.)? Shut up. ACORN? Outlawed. Black Panthers? Go home and pet your kitty. Black separatists? Find another nation that offers better dreams. To those Eurosnots who forged careers hating America? I’m still waiting for the first black French president.
No more quotas. No more handouts. No more complaining that “the man” is keeping you down. “The man” is now black.
Even as they rail against the election of the nation’s first black president, some white supremacist leaders are claiming that people have flocked to their organizations since Barack Obama’s victory.
“The League of the South is reporting a surge in new members within hours of the results from yesterday’s elections,” proclaimed an E-mail that the neo-Confederate group sent to supporters the day after the election. “League president, Dr. Michael Hill, stated that it is from an awakening of many Southerners that the constitutional Republic is now dead and has been replaced with a national socialist empire.”
Don Black, who runs the leading white supremacist hate site Stormfront.org, boasted in an online post Wednesday afternoon that his website was seeing six times its usual traffic. “There are a lot of angry White people out there looking for answers,” he wrote. “Let’s show them. We will not be defeated.”
The same kinds of claims were made after Obama secured the Democratic nomination however, it didn’t seem to hurt him in the general election. There was that thwarted “top hat and white tuxedo” assassination attempt, though. And just the other day, CNN reported that most Americans thought Obama would heal our racial divide:
The public thinks it’s likely that Obama will improve race relations, improve economic conditions, bring stability to the financial markets, make the U.S. safer from terrorism, reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil, reduce global warming, win the war in Afghanistan and remove U.S. troops from Iraq without causing a major upheaval in that country.
As many African Americans bask in the reflective glow of Obama’s so-called “monumental, historic achievement” on their (our) behalf, Reuters has a story today of young black people who say, “wait up, not so fast:”
The election of the first black president in U.S. history should send a powerful signal to young black Americans: If Barack Obama made it, so can you.
But some African Americans living in inner city Atlanta said that while Obama is a role model his life appeared so far removed from their own struggles that it was difficult to see how they could use it to spur their own success.
There are about a gazillion “what Obama means for racism” stories floating around on the internet, but the truth is, Obama’s election doesn’t amount to much in that regard at all. Race relationships in this country are just as complex today as they were the day before the election, as they were thirty years ago. While those who voted for Obama pat themselves on the back, and those who didn’t, pat themselves on the back for being part of a country that has progressed to the point that it can pat itself on the back, disproportionate numbers of black men still languish in jail, huge numbers of black families still live in poverty, and inner-city schools still suck. Nobody sitting in an overcrowded county hospital emergency room seeking substandard medical care they couldn’t pay for on November 3, can suddenly walk into a private hospital today and demand treatment.
If we’re completely honest with ourselves and each other, we would admit that a politician like say, Bobby Rush or Willie Brown probably wouldn’t make it past the primaries, even if they could marshal the forces necessary to get into them in the first place. They’re too black. For Democrats. If Barack Obama didn’t have an exotic background story to tell, he wouldn’t be…well, Barack Obama. He’s be just another Illinois state senator, since it’s doubtful an ordinary black guy gets the support and greasing through the system Obama enjoyed. If he had a mustache, or was a beefier, darker-skinned, “by his own bootstraps” kind of black man, he’d be toast. The truth is, racism wasn’t overcome with the election of Barack Obama, racism is what got him elected.
I guess West Wing-lite President-elect Barack Obantos is so uncomfortable making decisions that the idea of sitting back and letting Chris Matthews’ frat brothers in the media who want to help him be a success ‘cuz it’s their jobs, do it for him, is just fine. After handing out a couple of plum gigs to his ace boon cronies Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett, and naming a “transition team” straight out of the library of past Harvard year books, the soon-to-be-Waffler-In-Chief was tapped out. Since even he knows he’s got to name somebody to something sooner or later, he, or most likely David Axelrod, since Obie never thinks anything Axelturf doesn’t think first, dispatched a couple of the professional “unnamed sources” they keep on the payroll to metaphorically stick their fingers in the wind to see which way which trial balloons would float.
That’s what it looks like with the “Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State” rumors. Whether Camp O put Clinton’s name out as a serious contender, or for appearances sake in an effort to avoid a replay of the “not even vetted for veep” uproar, or, if, as I believe, the job really is hers for the taking, it’s also pretty clear that final approval comes not from the O Team or the Senate, but from the public, via the media. That’s why, in this American Idol-inspired public vetting process, AP has been running, and continuously updating, a story about Bill Clinton being a potential threat to a possible Hillary appointment:
Former President Bill Clinton’s globe-trotting business deals and fundraising for his foundation sometimes put his activities abroad at odds with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and could cause complications if President-electBarack Obama picks her to be secretary of state.
It’s doubtful that the current Senate-elect would reject any Democrat for anything for any reason. And if Joe (Gird Your Loins) Biden’s plagiarizing, racially insensitive, gaffe-prone ass can be a heartbeat away from the most powerful office in the world, which is soon to be occupied by the least experienced candidate for president in the world, Peewee Herman should be able to qualify any other job available. Therefore, I’m willing to bet Obama did indeed offer Clinton the job Friday, and she, as reported, said, “maybe.” Thus, the AP assist on a semi-plausible “out” in case “maybe” becomes “I’ll pass.”
With the economy headed into the crapper, I think a regular “Recession Recipe” feature might not be a bad idea. It came to me while reading PUMA Pac, where Murphy had posted a link to a New York Times article about how in this economy, Spam, the quasi-meat, not the web junk, sales are booming.
But these days, consumers are rediscovering relatively cheap foods, Spam among them. A 12-ounce can of Spam, marketed as “Crazy Tasty,” costs about $2.40. “People are realizing it’s not that bad a product,” said Dan Johnson, 55, who operates a 70-foot-high Spam oven.
While the article notes that the economic downturn is responsible for such an increased demand for Spam that workers at the Hormel plant can get all the overtime they want, it also says Spam is not the only cheap stomach stretcher selling off the shelves:
Pancake mixes and instant potatoes are booming. So are vitamins, fruit and vegetable preservatives and beer, according to data from October compiled by Information Resources, a market research firm.
“We’ve seen a double-digit increase in the sale of rice and beans,” said Teena Massingill, spokeswoman for the Safeway grocery chain, in an e-mail message. “They’re real belly fillers.”
Kraft Foods said recently that some of its value-oriented products like macaroni and cheese, Jell-O and Kool-Aid were experiencing robust growth. And sales are still growing, if not booming, for Velveeta, a Kraft product that bears the same passing resemblance to cheese as Spam bears to ham.
I don’t know about instant potatoes. Seems to me a bag of real potatoes is a better bargain. But, other than that, cheap, preservative-laden, chemically-processed, pseudo-foods just might be the way to go, considering the way the latest financial news is going.
Now, this could all be part of a nefarious plot by Barack Obama to promote Hawaii’s state meat. Just like he’s lobbying hard to bring the Olympics to Chicago, it’s conceivable that he’s planning to keep the overall economy depressed in order to help boost attendance at Waikiki’s “Spam Jam.” From Wikipedia:
In the United States, the residents of the state of Hawaii and the territories of Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) consume the most Spam per capita. On average, each person on Guam consumes 16 tins of Spam each year and the numbers at least equal this in the CNMI. Guam, Hawaii, and Saipan, the CNMI’s principal island, have the only McDonald’s restaurants that feature Spam on the menu. Burger King, in Hawaii, began serving Spam in 2007 on its menu to compete with the local McDonald’s chains.[9][10]
In Hawaii, Spam is so popular it is sometimes dubbed “The Hawaiian Steak.” [11] It is traditionally reheated (cooked), resulting in a different taste than Spam eaten by many Americans on the mainland, who may eat Spam cold.[12] One popular Spam dish in Hawaii is Spam musubi, in which cooked Spam is combined with rice and nori seaweed and classified as onigiri.[13]
So, all things considered, maybe we should all stock up on Spam, Velveeta and free packs of ketchup from fast food restaurants. A couple packets in hot water makes a decent cup of soup. Laugh if you will, but if you don’t work for Hormel, these recipe suggestions just might be more handy in the coming years than any of us currently want to think.
Country Spam Casserole Recipe
Ingredients: 1 can Spam luncheon meat; cubed
1 Onion; chopped
1 pound Bag frozen mixed vegetables; thawed, drained
2 cans Cream of potato soup
3 cups Prepared instant mashed potatoes
1 package (3 oz size) Chives and onion cream cheese; softened
1/4 cup Grated Parmesan cheese
Directions:
Heat oven to 400 degrees. In skillet over medium-high heat, saute Spam and onion until browned. In bowl, combine vegetables, Spam mixture, and soup. Spoon into 3-quart casserole dish.
In bowl, combine mashed potatoes and cream cheese. Spread over Spam mixture. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until hot and bubbly.
No shit! I am not freaking kidding! Okay, maybe I am, but not by much. I’ve pretty much given up on the API soap opera; like all sudsers, they get tedious and predictable after awhile, then they inevitably “jump the shark.” But, checking in on the API website today, I find that they have not only “jumped” the shark, they have played hopscotch on it’s back before grabbing a fin and hanging on for a flight. First, seems that yesterday,(or maybe tomorrow or the day after, who knows Nowegian time?) Chief Editor Korir, (who has been exposed as a fraud many times by Mountain Sage) wrote his API “family” an open letter promising to “reach the mountaintop” and “overcome” the “evil doers” who “sabotoged the airing of the (mythical Michelle Obama) tape.” I have no flipping idea what this means, but hey, no matter, because today, (or tomorrow, or whenever the 15th of November is in Norway) an “imposter,” pretending to be Korir, “took over” the site in order to give API a “bad name.” So now, (or, later, or whenever Korir came up with this scheme, Norway time) the site has been “closed” so that it can be “cleared.” (The original post claiming Michelle Obama had called API saying that her husband was adopted, but still eligible to be president, has been already “cleared.”)
Now, I don’t know about you, but I say, props must be given for Olympic-grade execution of “shark jumping.” Korir might be a hoaxter and scammer, but he has definitely raised pointless posturing to a fine art.
Just when speculation surrounding Barack Obama’s possibly imminent appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State was reaching a fever pitch, AP had to throw Bill Richardson’s name in the mix. This pisses me off for two reasons. One, if this is some sort of lottery approach to filling the job, it’s an insult and a slap in the face to Senator Clinton. Why float her name if the decision is up in the air? Two, Bill Richardson? Are you kidding me? Considering Richardson’s Judas-like abandonment of his “dear friends and mentors,” Bill and Hillary Clinton, to make him the other one of two being considered for the job is beyond insulting, it’s a slap in the face with a dirty jock strap. What the hell is Obama thinking? Just when you’re ready to give him the slightest benefit of the doubt, he and/or his faithful servants do something monumentally stupid like interview Hillary Clinton’s arch-enemy for the job she’s perfect for (if she deigns to do it) and frankly, that he needs her to do.
President-electBarack Obama has interviewed primary election rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bill Richardson for secretary of state, according to Democratic officials who revealed his secret meetings with both as he weighed the decision on folding former foes into his new administration.
Obama met with Richardson late Friday afternoon, a day after conferring one-on-one with Clinton at his Chicago office, said several Democratic officials. He plans to meet there Monday with his Republican opponent, John McCain, but advisers to both of the general election rivals say they don’t expect Obama to consider McCain for an administration job.
Gee whiz Obie, grow a pair and make a decision just because it’s the right thing to do. President by Popularity is impossible to pull off, and a recipe for disaster to boot.
Recession, what recession? Some people just don’t need a bailout. President-Elect-Of-The-Universe, Barack Obama, is spreading the wealth around, according to the New York Daily News. It seems that the Obama treasure chest is so flush with cash after raising umpty-gazillion dollars for his campaign, that staffers are getting all kinds of goodies in return for services rendered:
Long-suffering political footsoldiers who toiled tirelessly, at least since September, to put Obama in the White House recently learned they will be getting extra paychecks worth a month’s salary, the Daily News has learned.
Hmmm, they worked a couple of months and are getting an extra full month’s salary. That’s “long-suffering? Better update my Funk and Wagnall’s. Anyway, Camp Obie has so much dough leftover, the perks don’t stop at cold, hard cash:
In addition to the cold cash, staffers also have the option of keeping their campaign-issued computers and BlackBerrys – but must pay income tax on the hardware if they do.
Positively “Oprah-esque,” that Obie. But, don’t get it twisted, there’s a limit to the King of All Media’s generosity. Oh, sure, campaign staffers get un-earned ducats and booty, but the DeaNC only gets a plea for help from Obama to his loyal donors who make the gift-giving possible. Guess they couldn’t just give those leftover t-shirts away. Wouldn’t want to over-extend himself, money-wise, to the all guys and girls who helped him get elected, just the ones who answer to him directly.
In other, totally non-related “news” the Huffington Post is claiming that Obama formally offered Hillary Clinton the job of Secretary of State during the meeting he requested with her in Chicago yesterday. Supposedly, she played coquette:
President-elect Barack Obama offered Sen. Hillary Clinton the position of Secretary of State during their meeting Thursday in Chicago, according to two senior Democratic officials. She requested time to consider the offer, the officials said.
“I’ll think about it?” Is that like, “Don’t hold your breath?” I guess all that sniping about “sniper fire” and “drinking tea” is not enough to keep Obama from issuing his own emergency “3:00 a.m. phone call.” When little boys playing dress-up actually get elected and realize they can’t just play president on TV, calling Mommy for help is the most natural thing in the world.
As we all know, Barack and Michelle Obama live in the neighborhood surrounding the University of Chicago, Hyde Park. So does Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, Louis Farrakhan (who thinks Obama is the Messiah,) Tony Rezko (when he’s not in jail,) Jesse Jackson, and on Obama’s block, James and Barbara Bowman, Valerie Jarrett’s parents, in the home in which they raised their family after returning to this country from London. Ms. Jarrett herself now lives just a few blocks away.
Why is this important? Well, there’s an old saying, “tell me who you are by the company you keep.” And while our new president-elect and King of All Media certainly “keeps company” with lots of people who don’t live in and around Hyde Park, and conversely, is not likely to spend time with most of the denizens of the area, given that it’s an oasis of wealthy academia surrounded by, shall we say, less well funded, much less intellectually curious people, some of those Hyde Park dwellers who are in Obama’s inner circle have often proven problematic in the past, and likely, will continue to do so.
Take for example, “unrepentant terrorist,” (say it with me) William Ayers. Obama has continuously tried to distance himself from the radical professor with the now famous “just a guy in my neighborhood” line, even though, from all indications, the two are quite close. During the campaign, Ayers obediently kept his mouth shut and did not contradict Obama’s characterization of their relationship. After the election, however, Ayers has crawled out of hiding, and yet, in his attempts to corroborate his “neighbor’s” assertions, has let a little too much truth slip out. Or, so says the Chicago Tribune. In a new afterword to the re-issue of his book, “Fugitive Days, which he will promote on “Good Morning America” Friday, Ayers writes:
“[W]e had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fund-raiser at my house, where I’d made a small donation to his earliest political campaign.”
Uh-oh. “Family friends?” Ooops? Or is Ayers just an egomaniac incapable of keeping quiet about anything?
Then, there’s Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s extremely close adviser and very close personal friend to the Obama family. Jarrett, who has been rumored to be a potential replacement for Obama in the Senate, though she says she’s not interested, has more plausibly been said to be in line for a cabinet appointment, possibly in the Department of Housing and Urban Development, or Department of Transportation. With her background, with the Chicago Transit Authority, and as CEO of Habitat Company, which develops “mixed income housing,” such specualtion is not surprising. But it’s the Habitat association that could do her in. Habitat’s goal of eliminating public housing projects by developing privately owned housing projects for government assisted and other low-income families, hasn’t proven to be an overwhelming success. With the involvement of folks like Allison Davis and Tony Rezco and questions surrounding Obama’s assistace in acquiring subsidies for the developers, Jarrett’s background just might not be much of an asset. And now, Judicial Watch is sniffing around. From Standard Newswire:
Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has obtained documents linking Valerie Jarrett, an advisor to Barack Obama and the co-chairman of the President-Elect’s transition team, to a series of real estate scandals, including several housing projects operated by convicted felon and Obama fundraiser/friend Antoin “Tony” Rezko.
According to the documents obtained by Judicial Watch from the Illinois Secretary of State, Valerie Jarrett served as a board member for several organizations that provided funding and support for Chicago housing projects operated by real estate developers and Obama financial backers Rezko and Allison Davis. (Davis is also Obama’s former boss.) Jarrett was a member of the Board of Directors for the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corporation along with several Davis and Rezko associates, as well as the Fund for Community Redevelopment and Revitalization, an organization that worked with Rezko and Davis.
(According to press reports, housing projects operated by Davis and Rezko have been substandard and beset with code violations. The Chicago Sun Times reported that one Rezko-managed housing project was “riddled with problems — including squalid living conditions…lack of heat, squatters and drug dealers.”)
As Chief Executive Officer of the Habitat Company Jarrett also managed a controversial housing project located in Obama’s former state senate district called Grove Parc Plaza. According to the Boston Globe the housing complex was considered “uninhabitable by unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage…In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale – a score so bad the buildings now face demolition.” Ms. Jarrett refused to comment to the Globe on the conditions of the complex.
“Like Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett is a product of the corrupt Chicago political machine. And it is no stretch to say that she was a slumlord,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “We have real concerns about Jarrett’s ethics. Washington already has plenty of corruption. We don’t need to import more of it from Chicago.”
Characterized as “the other side of Barack Obama’s brain” by CBS News, Jarrett first met the Obamas seventeen years ago when she offered Michelle Obama a job. While speculation has arisen that Jarrett could take Obama’s place in the U.S. Senate, the New York Times reported that it is more likely she will become a senior White House adviser, thus continuing her long record of being an important influence and mentor to Barack and Michelle Obama.
So, while Mr. Obama awaits his coronation inauguration, which is supposedly going to be witnessed by a million people live, (yeah, right, they said the same thing about the election night Grant Park celebration, turned out to be about 100,000) it might well be safe to bet that getting out of his old neighborhood can’t come fast enough.
Perhaps “President-Elect -For-Life” Obama shouldn’t have sold himself as the “Omnipotent Obamessiah of Hope and Change”. All that talk about “lights shining down” and “oceans beginning to rise” and whatnot has people who voted for him actually expecting him to deliver. Big time. Go figure. According to a CNN/Opinion Research survey, most people in America, and some from around the globe, are clearly delusional:
Nearly two-thirds of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Thursday say President-elect Barack Obama will change the country for the better, with 25 percent saying Obama won’t change the country and 9 percent indicating that he will change the country for the worse.
But wait, there’s more:
The public thinks it’s likely that Obama will improve race relations, improve economic conditions, bring stability to the financial markets, make the U.S. safer from terrorism, reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil, reduce global warming, win the war in Afghanistan and remove U.S. troops from Iraq without causing a major upheaval in that country.
And, that’s not all:
“My fervent prayer is that there will be peace on Earth in all nations, and let all countries unite together to make this dream come true,” said iReporter Shari Atukorala of Kandy, Sri Lanka. “To the President-elect Barack Obama: Sir, you can do this for all of us.”
While the “hopey-changey true believers” are busy gratifying themselves truly believing in visions of hope and change, MSNBC via the New York Times is reporting that world leaders are not quite so “hopeful.”
The Russians want him to hold off installation of a missile defense shield in Poland. The Europeans want him to renounce the idea of “regime change” when it comes to Iran, while the Israelis want to be sure he doesn’t give Iran a pass when it comes to nuclear weapons.
Oh, and let’s not forget the Taliban, which issued a statement this week urging him to “put an end to all the policies being followed by his Opposition Party, the Republicans, and pull out U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Iraq.”
America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past. Our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love.
The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. This was the moment—this was the time—when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.
Well, King-Elect ObiWanNaBePresident, “this is your moment, now is your time.” Take it away, Obie!
Camp Barack Obama is famous for floating “trial balloons” to test the waters (mixed metaphor, yeah, yeah, I know) of it’s more controversial considerations. Pathologically fearful of doing anything the public could credibly hold the “Teflon President-Elect” directly accountable for, the Obama staff prefers to leak information to the media through “unnamed sources,” and see if it flies. The latest such “balloon” has Hillary Clinton’s name on it, and concerns speculation that she is being considered by the Beneficent One to be his Secretary of State. The earliest hint I’ve found is a Bloomberg News blurb buried in an article about Obama’s transition team and it’s ties to the Bill Clinton presidential era, dated November 10:
Obama’s most dramatic step would be to name New York Senator Hillary Clinton, his defeated rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, as secretary of state. Two Obama advisers confirm the idea has been discussed, though they say they don’t know how seriously the president-elect is considering it or whether Clinton would accept it.
Two Obama advisers confirmed Clinton is under serious consideration, according to NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell.
Adding to the intrigue, Clinton was seen aboard a flight to Obama’s hometown of Chicago today, but aides insisted she was on personal business.
Officially, the Obama campaign has declined to discuss any of the administration positions that have not yet been filled and made public.
The NY Post also speculates that Team Obie might have another motive:
Others wondered last night if the Obama camp – which is very disciplined about unwanted leaks – is even serious about floating her name or simply trying to compliment her by suggesting she’s in the running.
Whatever. Whether any of this pans out or not, it is definitely in keeping with Obama’s modus operandi. Which probably means that, barring any hue and cry, it’s a done deal. Or maybe it’s just a make-up play for the botched veep thing.
Barack Obama will give up his Senate seat Sunday since (duh) he’s been elected president. The only question I have is, will they save the meager records he’s accumulated in the brief time he’s been in the Senate, or will they get “disappeared” like the ones from Illinois? Obama, who only worked in the U.S. Senate long enough to establish his presidential run, probably doesn’t have much of a paper trail, since he never even held committee meetings unless they were personal ones that pertained to his presidential campaign, and they don’t count. In fact, Obama isn’t even sure what Senate committees he’s on. However, I bet requests for what documents do exist will be met with the same kind of “Uh…ummm, records? I don’t have no stinkin’ records,” answers earlier requests elicited. From AP, here’s the signature kind of “hopey-dopey-happy-crappy” statement from Obama that we’ve all come to know and loathe:
In a statement, the junior Illinois senator called his four-year term “one of the highest honors and privileges” of his life and said the people of Illinois will stay with him as he leaves the Senate to begin “the hard task of fulfilling the simple hopes and common dreams of all Americans as our nation’s next president.”
“Fulfilling simple hopes and and common dreams.” Awwwww. Heats up the old heart cockles, doesn’t it? Sounds like something Robin Leach would say on a Hallmark card. Anyway, Sunday is the last day of what seems like the first day Obama’s Senate life, and the first day our “champagne wishes and caviar dreams” go right out the window and down the toilet.
On September 7, 2008 Barack Obama told George Stephanopoulis that he registered with the Selective Service when he graduated high school, in compliance with the law.
“I had to sign up for selective service when I graduated from High School,” Obama said. “I actually always thought of the military as an ennobling and you know, honorable option.”
Obama suggested his decision not to enlist was an issue of timing, not service. “I graduated in 1979. The Vietnam War had come to an end. We weren’t engaged in an active military conflict at that point. And so, it’s not an option that I ever decided to pursue,” he said.
Pajamas Media, on August 12, 2008, had already established per the Selective Service System, that Obama was not required to register for the draft until 1980.
* Men born from March 29, 1957 to December 31, 1959 were never required to register because the registration program was not in operation at the time they turned 18. The requirement to register was reinstated in 1980 and applies to all men born on or after January 1, 1960.
The above is a direct quote from the Selective service website as of today. Pajamas Media, claiming to debunk No Quarter’s allegations regarding Obama’s draft status, printed this email:
Mr. Owens,
Barack Hussein Obama registered at a post office in Hawaii. The effective registration date was September 4, 1980.
His registration number is 61-1125539-1.
Daniel Amon
Public Affairs Specialist
Fine, but that’s a year after Obama graduated high school, when he presumably was attending Occidental College in Los Angeles. So, what did he do, fly home and register as soon as he heard the law had been changed? Now, Debbie Schlussel is asking questions about Obama’s draft status and the validity of his claims. In short, she seems to think the draft card reproduced here from her website, is a fake.
The official campaign for President may be over. But Barack Obama’s Selective Service registration card and accompanying documents show that questions about him are not only NOT over, but if the signature on the document is in fact his, our next Commander-in-Chief may have committed a federal crime in 2008, well within the statute of limitations on the matter. If it is not his, then it’s proof positive that our next Commander-in-Chief never registered with the Selective Service as required by law. By law, he was required to register and was legally able to do so until the age of 26.
But the Selective Service System registration (“SSS Form 1″) and accompanying computer print-out (“SSS Print-out), below, released by the Selective Service show the following oddities and irregularities, all of which indicate the document was created in 2008 and backdated:
In an exercise reminiscent of the whole “fake birth certificate” brouhaha, Schlussel points out a number of “inconsistencies.”
Regarding Schussel’s questions about Obama’s signature, here is a copy of it from Wikipedia:
I dunno. Is this just another “tinfoil hat conspiracy theory?” Possibly. At any rate, it probably won’t matter much in the long run. Even if it’s true that Obama and/or his minions faked the whole thing, it’s doubtful that revelations of such would have any more impact than the plethora of legal challenges to his eligibility based on questions regarding his Certificate of Live Birth as opposed to his long-form vault copy of his birth certificate have had thus far. Or, even of the undisputed fact that one of his supporters, Helen Jones-Kelley, misued her authority to breach Joe the Plumber’s records. Since nothing seems to stick to Obama, anyway, the whole thing is probably just another “pissing in the wind” tinfoil hat moment, no matter what.
Certain issues facing our nation cause entire “square peg” groups of individuals to force themselves into the “round holes” of an illusionary united front, whether those individuals really want to accede to the pressure or not. All black people must support Barack Obama, all Hispanics, mustnot support immigration reform, all gays must support gay marriage. The fact that individuals comprising these and other voting blocs may have divergent opinions about these and other issues, for a myriad of reasons, is beyond beside the point; birds of a feather must stick together for the common good, or face being ostracized.
There are no gray areas in politics, today, no celebration of the rugged individual willing to take a stand based on his or her personal beliefs. It’s either “for” or “against.” You’re black, you don’t support a black president, just because he has a resume you could print on a gum wrapper, what’s wrong with you? He’s black. You’re a second, third, fourth, twentieth generation Mexican American who thinks illegal immigrants unfairly tax the system to the detriment of all, what’s wrong with you? They’re your brothers and sisters, don’t they deserve a chance at a better way of life? What’s wrong with you, you (fill in the blank) homosexual, that you don’t care one way or the other about marriage or civil unions? What do you mean, not having to live up to society’s arbitrary marital standards is one of the perks of being gay? What are you, nuts?
Thus, 95%+ of African Americans voted for a man just because he’s black, and it’s time. Don’t believe me? Here’s a quote from a commenter on Black Agenda Report’s website regarding an article he felt unfairly critical of the new president-elect:
So who cares if Obama doesn’t live up to all of our expectations, or if he totally screws Black folk like all the past Presidents have..So what? We deserve our time to SCREW UP Too! I’d rather break my own cup than for someone else to break it, and thus, we as Black folk have allowed America to break our hopes and dreams since we were brought here as slaves. So, if Obama doesn’t meet YOUR expectations, at least we’ve earned the right to screw up like all the rest have.
Of course, that comment does not reflect the opinion of all black people, yet it is indicative of the mindset of many. I have read other comments all over the web from black Americans revealing that they did not vote for Mr. Obama, but could only reveal that fact with the anonymity of the internet, to do so to their friends and family would subject them to scorn and ridicule.
Now, the LGBT community is facing a similar situation due to California’s Proposition 8 banning gay marriage. Activists calling for blacklists and boycotts of the proposition’s supporters are pressuring less political gays to join forces against the evil bigots. Dissent, from those who voted for the measure as well as those in the gay community less committed to activism, is not an option. Case in point, a website called AntiGayBlacklist, “outs” everybody they can find who donated money to groups supporting Prop8, and calls for them to be boycotted by the gay community. One such individual, Scott Eckern, artistic director of the California Music Theatre, has been forced to resign after 25 years with the group, after it was revealed he donated 1,000 dollars to the “Yes on Proposition 8″ campaign, and a boycott was called for against the theater. According to the Sacremento Business Journal, Eckert said this in a prepared statement:
“I am leaving California Musical Theatre after prayerful consideration to protect the organization and to help the healing in the local theatre-going and creative community,” he said. “I am disappointed that my personal convictions have cost me the opportunity to do what I love the most.”
Performer Susan Egan circulated a long, angry, emotional letter on social networking sites, according to the San Francisco Examiner, which reprinted it in it’s entirety. I won’t, it’s too long, you can find it at the link. However, I will also post a link to Scott Eckern’s entire response. Eckern subsequently made a $1,000 donation to an unnamed equal rights group, and his supporters have launched a website supporting him.
My personal feelings about these issues are complex, much like abortion, which is debated by “pro-life” and “pro-choice” factions as if one can ever truly only be one or the other, it just seems to me that everyone has a right to their own opinion. These are complicated issues, full of conflicting emotion no matter which side you ultimately come down on. To force or pressure anyone to go along with a group, or to expect people to take simplistic, cartoonish stances on complex, life-and-death issues simply because it furthers your particular agenda, is just as wrong to me as any other example of intolerance. Might does not make right, it just makes already pissed off people hate you for life.
Barack Obama’s successful exploitation of the internet is a thing of beauty to be celebrated for some, and a frightening opportunity for unprecedented government privacy intrusion and information manipulation for others. Some even see a threat to journalism as we know it inherent in Obama’s White House internet plans. According to AP:
Transition officials call it Obama 2.0 — an ambitious effort to transform the president-elect’s vast Web operation and database of supporters into a modern new tool to accomplish his goals in the White House. If it works, the new president could have an unprecedented ability to appeal for help from millions of Americans who already favor his ideas, bypassing the news media to pressure Congress.
In sort of the political version of “MTV cops, Miami Vice” spinoff, Joe Trippi says “fireside chats” might give way to You Tube videos:
“He can do a half-hour YouTube address every Saturday, addressing millions,” Trippi said. “The networks would never give the president that much television time each week, but the press is still going to have to cover what he says on YouTube.”
In another wrinkle to the new internet government, Obama’s ties to Google and the Netroots (a contentious relationship, but one the netroots seem curiously reluctant to give up) are also rather worrisome. Politico reports that given that Google was one of Obama’ s biggest contributors, and that Google CEO Eric Schmidt is one of Obama’s financial advisors, competitors like Microsoft (another, even larger donor) are shaking in their boots:
Google CEO Eric Schmidt didn’t say anything as he flanked President-elect Barack Obama during his first post-election press conference. He didn’t have to.
The image alone of Schmidt standing elbow-to-elbow with Obama’s top economic thinkers was enough to send shivers up the spine of Google’s competitors.
“This terrifies Microsoft,” said a Democratic lobbyist familiar with the industry. “There’s a reason why people are scared to death of Google.”
Schmidt also donated $5,000 to Google NetPAC, Google’s very own political action committee. This site shows how Google’s PAC spread it around. Wonder what impact all this will have on Obama’s and the Democratic legislature’s stance on net neutrality? Matt Stoller of Open Left is getting worried about that, too; not about Google, per se, but about Obama’s tech transition team.
The potential marginalization of journalists by Obama due to his plans for a “straight to video” presidency, is not the only thing his media cheerleaders have to worry about, either. A bigger, more pressing threat is Obama’s spokesman, soon to be White House Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, a man quick to anger, and known to hold a grudge. Said to be so close to Obama he’s called “Barack Whisperer,” like Obie’s a wild horse, or something, Gibbs is the guy kicking reporters off of planes and limiting their access when they write articles he doesn’t like, according to the Washington Post. Gibbs is also the guy who yelled at Sean Hannity for booking Andy Martin for a segment about Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers, since Martin has been accused of being a rabid anti-Semite.
With all this cowboy-like exploration of the Wild, Wild West of the World Wide Web, opportunities exist for not only Obama, the Democrats and other politicians to get their message out efficiently at the speed of light, but for those opposed to his more thug-like tactics and methods, too. While the blogger bullies have intimidated net surfers on Obama’s behalf with great success, PUMAs stand ready to pounce back and give as good as we get. They must no longer be allowed to spin WORMs (what Obama really meant) to their advantage, especially since nobody ever really knows what Obama really meant, since everything he says is deliberately ambiguous.
Though PUMAs were late to the party, we’re good at playing catch-up, and while we experience inevitable growing pains as we feel our way through our next baby steps, internet watchdog is a role we’re already set up to play. In a way, the fact that we weren’t already in place during the primaries cost Hillary Clinton the nomination. That’s not our fault, we were born out of the injustice of the caucus and primary process and the need to push back against the Obots and blogger bullies. Let’s face it, Obama won because of a better p.r. campaign, using “astroturfing+ratfucking=astrofucking” Axelrodian techniques combined with Howard Dean’s inspirational use of the Netroots. In the AP article, Peter Daou, Hillary Clinton’s internet operations manger, indirectly spoke to the reality of PUMA’a potential influence:
Peter Daou, who ran Internet operations for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, said her campaign’s Web outreach was limited by the fact that older and lower-income people — demographic groups most supportive of the former first lady — weren’t using the Internet for communication. Obama will need to find ways to reach those people, Daou said.
“We spent a year trying to bring these people to the Web, and President Obama and his team will have to do the same thing,” Daou said. “It requires a huge public relations effort, using more traditional communications efforts to invite then to participate this way.”
So, PUMA’s it’s up to us. We need all those friends, neighbors, and grannies and granpas who were inspired to vote for John McCain or a third party candidate rather than reward Obama and the DeaNC’s unDemocratic behavior, to get online, now. Teach them the bascis, how to use Microsoft to Google PUMA sites. Let’s beat the bastards at their own game, or at the very least, make ‘em play fair.
We might never have another chance this good to get in on the ground floor of making a real difference.
Boy, oh, boy, talk about a thick plot. Sammy Korir, Chief Editor of African Press International, the little news web that couldn’t, is fighting back against those who say that his claims of having audio tapes (cassettes, are you kidding me?) of a surprise Michelle Obama telephone call are false. Korir, in a long, rambling post, says they’re just picking on him because he’s black. Yep, he went there. If you want to read his explanation, go here. If not, I more than understand, I overstand. Korir’s story of legal agreements to air the tapes, all sorts of allegations about mainstream media involvement and subsequent denials, combined with various elements of international intrigue is just..well, weird, and far too long, complicated and frankly, tedious, to recap in depth. For all the juicy details though, API, Mountain Sage, my archives, and the following video are good places to start. Get your popcorn and tinfoil hat ready though, and a mop to clean up your brains from the floor after your head explodes, and maybe some hip waders ’cause baby, this stuff is deep. All I can say is, it sure beats the hell out of daytime TV for mindless entertainment by a mile.
Barack Obama needs to do something soon; anything. For a guy whose whole smoke’n mirrors campaign was based on personality and charisma, the kiss of death would be to appear ordinary. Face it, an inexperienced, junior Senator from Illinois just isn’t that big a deal. He needs the grandiose backdrops, the sweeping, ghost-written, TelePrompTer-read speeches, the fake seals and such, or else he’s just a dubiously funded, mysteriously backed…guy. If he’s not careful, articles like this one on Ben Smith’s blog, just might do him in:
President-elect Barack Obama’s motorcade left his gym at 8:58 a.m., and Obama returned home seven minutes later. Staff said Obama showered and changed at home as press pool held outside. Pool unable to get clear view of Obama. Obama motorcade and press pool now (9:40 a.m.) en route to Obama’s transitional offices downtown.
C’mon, Obie, appoint somebody wierd, or something. Otherwise, the press just might start looking for something interesting to write about. And even Chris Matthews won’t be able to help you, then.
Every election cycle in America “protecting traditional marriage” becomes an issue. For some reason, gay people seem to only have the urge to attack “traditional marriage” during election years. The rest of the time, either gays are perfectly content to live their lives blissfully unwed, or straight people just don’t give a shit one way or the other. However, let somebody run for dogcatcher in Bumfuck, Wherever, and gay people go on the “marriage is my right” warpath, and straights collectively, and instinctively, band together and go, “yechhhh!”
Why?
What is a “traditional marriage,” anyway? If I remember my Old Testament correctly, “doing it” with somebody was enough to consider you wed, unless one of the partners had already “done it” with somebody else, then that was enough to get you smote. But, unless I missed the news one day, God has not smote (smited?) an adulterer or fornicator in years, and if “doing it” constituted marriage, instances of bigamy and the divorce rates would be more than twice as high as marriage rates, and the courts wouldn’t have time to do much besides process property dispute claims. In Genesis, Lot’s daughters got their father drunk and seduced him in order to reproduce, thinking they were the only people left on Earth. Were they both then married to him? And, how come nobody thinks that story is yucky?
30Lot went up from Zoar, and (IA)stayed in the mountains, and his two daughters with him; for he was afraid to stay in Zoar; and he stayed in a cave, he and his two daughters.
31Then the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to (IB)come in to us after the manner of the earth.
32“Come, (IC)let us make our father drink wine, and let us lie with him that we may preserve our family through our father.”
33So they made their father drink wine that night, and the firstborn went in and lay with her father; and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.
34On the following day, the firstborn said to the younger, “Behold, I lay last night with my father; let us make him drink wine tonight also; then you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve our family through our father.”
35So they made their father drink wine that night also, and the younger arose and lay with him; and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.
36Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father.
37The firstborn bore a son, and called his name (ID)Moab; he is the father of the Moabites to this day.
38As for the younger, she also bore a son, and called his name Ben-ammi; he is the father of the sons of (IE)Ammon to this day.
Jesus never married, as far as we know. Doesn’t that make marriage un-Christian? Why not, holier-than-thou Nosy Parkers?
“Marriage should be between one man and one woman.”
What man? Which woman? What about everybody else? Once you find that “one man” and the “one woman” he’s supposed to be married to, what happens? Is everybody else supposed to wander the earth alone? Of course, these arguments can be considered silly. But so can the whole emphasis on “traditional marriage.” Biblical considerations aside, what’s “traditional” in some countries, families, communities, eras, etc. can be very different than others.
Interracial marriage is pretty common in America today, but would you be lying if you said it was an American tradition? Maybe not. We were all taught the story of Pocahontas and Sacajawea, yet miscegenation was against the law until 1967. In 1961, when Barack Obama was born, his parents’ marriage would have been considered illegal, and certainly not “traditional” in most parts of the land he is now poised to lead.
What if everybody in your family had married blondes for generations, but you hooked up with a brunette? Not “traditional.” Or, what if you come from a long line of drunks who beat the crap out of each other for fun, but you find happiness with a quiet teetotaler? “Traditional?” How about the middle class girl who finds love with a filthy rich heir to a fortune, or a penniless bum? Her family just might not think either choice is “traditional,” but that probably wouldn’t have much to do with whether or not they were happy about the relationship.
People obsess about other people’s sexuality because they’re nosy and judgmental. No human has the moral authority to grant another absolution in any regard, especially with respect to affairs of the heart. Who cares who anybody else sleeps with, loves, makes a home with? Is your straight relationship better than, and morally superior to, my gay one, even if you like to sleep around with strangers and make them dress up like Little Bo Peep while you poke them with cattle prods, while I’ve been “spiritually married” to the same person for twenty years? (I haven’t really; not into the Bo Peep thing, either, just making a point, play along and don’t ask questions.) Is a child molester who only abuses kids of the opposite sex more likely to find favor with God and gain entrance to Heaven than same-sex offenders? If the abuser is married, are his or her offenses still crimes or merely infidelity?
We need to stop trying to legislate the un-legislate-able. Either all marriages are civil unions, or all civil unions are marriages. There is no reason to define marriage as anything other than a contractual agreement between two consenting adults. What race, religion, gender or anything else they are is completely beside the point. In my opinion, anybody who doesn’t see it that way, truly can’t claim to worship a loving God.
The PUMAsphere has been alive lately with “The Great Hillary Stance Debate.” Now assuming epic proportions, two opposing factions have emerged, those who feel that Hillary Clinton betrayed her supporters by stumping for Barack Obama and doing everything in her power to deliver the bulk of her 18 million voters to the Democratic selectee, and those who feel that HRC did what she had to do. On blog after blog, PUMAs are venting their frustration at the outcome of the election by yelling and screaming at each other over this issue.
I understand both sides. When I first started this blog, some of my earliest posts were of me telling Senator Clinton to take her pleas of “party unity” and shove them. Barack Obama’s methods for securing the nomination were unforgivable; there’s just no way in hell I can ever respect him. For me, the racial manipulation used as a p.r. tool in Axelrod’s “astrofucking*” campaign on Obama’s behalf, without regard to the damage done to both Hillary’s and former president Clinton’s reputations, not to speak of the potential damage to America’s youth and minorities when Obama’s inexperience shows itself to be as insufficient as it has always been, disillusioning those needy, gullible, and idealistic people who bought the snow job, hook line and sinker, is enough to disqualify him from even speaking in public, let alone running for any office, in my opinion.
But, I’m not Hillary Clinton. My career and political future is not tied up in my party affilliation. For me, changing parties was as easy as filling out a form online the night of the Rules and Bylaws Committee rape of democracy, and waiting for the mail. I suspect, Hillary’s choices are a bit more complicated.
To those ranting and raving about getting their donations to Clinton’s campaign back, about how her actions classically resemble those of a woman suffering from “battered woman’s syndrome,” those typing in all caps on website after website about their devastating sense of betrayal, I ask, what would you have Hillary do? Better yet, what would you do?
If your career was threatened by people you knew to be greedy, unscrupulous opportunists, easily seduced by the lure of record-breaking fundraising and the illusion of power unfettered, would you stand on principle and take on the bullies, knowing you would likely do so alone? To whose advantage do you imagine such actions would be? Would they not only hasten your demise? Wouldn’t you feel at least a little motivation to do all you could to deflect the inevitable blame sure to come your way from the adolescent finger-pointers who would be only too happy to heap scorn and derision on your head, simply for the pleasure of it?
It’s easy to sit on the sidelines and play Monday morning quarterback when the only thing you have at stake is your opinion. However, when it’s your ass on the line, when the thundering horde of humanity hurtling your way is made up not only of opposing team members, but the bulk of your own teammates, as well as half the people in the stands, the natural reaction is to try to get the hell out of the way and live to fight another day.
Am I happy about Hillary Clinton’s post-primary “support” of Barack Obama?
Yeah, that’s a lot to put in one headline, but after perusing the news this morning, that’s “all the news that’s fit to print,” as they say. Well, except for the fact that President-elect Obama tried to Bogart President-now Bush into doing his bidding with the auto industry yesterday, then had his boys drop a dime to the media in an attempt to show off his flex, but Bush got his boys to hip Drudge to the fact that Obie’s actions are crass and out of line. Being lectured about etiquette and protocol by Bush has to suck, but it’s just one more example of how Obie rolls.
But I digress. At a mainstream media panel discussion last night, reported here, here, and here, Joe Scarborough professed his love for Hillary Clinton:
Discussing the perceived bias against Sen. Hillary Clinton, Scarborough joked, “I love Hillary. She’s my girlfriend. We don’t like to talk about it much.” (She already asked him to be her running mate.)
Oh, what might have been. Clinton/Scarborough; beats Obama/Biden and Joe and Mika all to hell, doesn’t it? Moving on, last night’s festivities gave the mainstream media-types a rare opportunity to good-naturedly bash themselves while simultaneously patting themselves on the back. Neat trick, glad we finally figured out what they’re good at.
Next up, Ms. “If she can’t run her own house” Obama, suddenly feels that Hillary Clinton can run a house just fine, especially the White House. In fact, Shelley wants tips. Oh, happy day. Just what we need more of in the media, political “women’s place is in the home” girl talk.
“Michelle may not have loved the senator, but she always respected how the Clintons raised Chelsea,” said a person familiar with Clinton’s end of the call. “They need to talk. There just aren’t too many people who have shared that kind of experience.”
An aide briefed on Obama’s side of the chat said she was “grateful” for Clinton’s “pointers” on “raising children in the public eye.”
What’s next, friggin’ meatloaf and macaroni recipe swaps? I guess the two women do have something in common, though; they’re both being used and abused by the same man.
Yet a half-dozen Clinton insiders told Politico they are disappointed that Obama’s vaunted fundraising operation hasn’t reciprocated by planning new events or an Internet campaign to help Clinton pay off the $7.9 million she owes to vendors. (Clinton has already written off the $13 million she loaned the campaign during the primaries, aides say).
And in other news, talk about adding insult to injury; looks like Barack Obama’s prodigious, yet apparently dubious, fundraising will escape scrutiny, while John McCain is going to be audited up the yingyang, by law. Again, according to Politico:
The Federal Election Commission is unlikely to conduct a potentially embarrassing audit of how Barack Obama raised and spent his presidential campaign’s record-shattering windfall, despite allegations of questionable donations and accounting that had the McCain campaign crying foul.
Adding insult to injury for Republicans: The FEC is obligated to complete a rigorous audit of McCain’s campaign coffers, which will take months, if not years, and cost McCain millions of dollars to defend.
Obama is expected to escape that level of scrutiny mostly because he declined an $84 million public grant for his campaign that automatically triggers an audit and because the sheer volume of cash he raised and spent minimizes the significance of his errors. Another factor: The FEC, which would have to vote to launch an audit, is prone to deadlocking on issues that inordinately impact one party or the other – like approving a messy and high-profile probe of a sitting president.
So, if I’ve got this straight, Obama gets away with collecting gazillions of dollars from Doodad Pro and other fictitious donors, some from foreign countries, by disabling the security features on his donor site, because he decided to do it that way. Humph, imagine that. If he had actually agreed to play by the rules, like he promised, he would actually have had to play by the rules. But since he didn’t, he doesn’t.
Ya gotta hand it to the guy, he and his boyz and blogger bullies might be thugs, but they’re damned good at it. And, according to his ace gangsta bitch chick, Valerie Jarrett, he’s ready to “take power and rule” from Day One. Thug life, president for life, ride or die, a’ight?
A man claiming on his blog, and anywhere else he can find people who’ll listen to him, to be the source of the recent Sarah Palin smears, has “outed” himself. Other sources have “outed” him as the source of many other outrageous stories. Still others claim he doesn’t exist at all.
Somebody calling himself Martin Eisenstadt, of the “Eisenstadt Group,” says he works for the John McCain campaign and is “proud” to be the one who leaked the information that Palin didn’t know Africa was a continent to Fox News’ Carl Cameron. Eisenstadt has also, on occassion, claimed to represent efforts to have a casino built in Iraq. He also blames another blogger, William K. Wolfram, for spreading the “lie” that he (Eisenstadt) doesn’t exist. Whether or not Wolfram exists is unclear.
What does seem clear is that there is no Washington area think tank employing Eisenstadt, as he claims, called the “Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy,” named after Warren G. Harding, supposedly America’s worst president ever. There is a website for the institute, however, though it seems, that like everything associated with Mr. Eisenstadt, it’s part of an elaborate hoax.
Last week, the “Harding Institute’s” You Tube channel posted a video denying “BBC claims” made against him as part of “UK Sam’s” 10-part documentary, “The Last Republican.” It’s okay if you’re not quite following all this, neither am I, to tell you the truth, I’m just writing it up as it comes. It’s hard to be sure if the videos posted are supposed to be part of the “BBC thing,” or Eisenstadt’s multi-part response to the “BBC thing.”
Some of Eisenstadt’s whoppers; John McCain and Michelle Malkin did not “do it,” as the “BBC documentary” claimed Martin claimed, Joe the Plumber “canoodled” a SNL cast member ,and something about a Photoshopped Iranian missile picture. The Huffington Post ran the Palin story, and while they claim to know Eisenstadt himself is a hoax, they stand by the hope that the “stupid Palin/Africa” part is true. They even make fun of MSNBC for falling for the hokum, but they quote Wolfram, who seems to me to be part of the scam. His website is even subtitled, “Bill Wolfrum’s world of satire and commentary,” for gosh sakes.
Anyway, here’s Marty in his own words, from his blog, for whatever it’s worth:
So yes, to be clear, last week I was the one who leaked those things to a producer at Fox News who works with Cameron. Carl and his producers are good guys, and I don’t want them to have to worry about protecting their sources (and going through the wringer ala Judith Miller or Matt Cooper) on something like this.
As you know, I was one of the foreign policy advisers on the McCain campaign who worked with Randy Scheunemann to help prep Sarah on her debate with Joe Biden. Did we outright give her a geography quiz when we started the prep? No, of course not. But yes, in the context of the prep, it slowly became apparent that her grasp of basic geo-political knowledge had major gaps. Could she have passed a multiple choice test about South Africa or NAFTA. Probably. But it was clear that she simply didn’t have the ease of knowledge that we come to expect from a major party political candidate. Other slights came up, too: Not knowing the difference between Hezbollah and Hamas. Or the difference between the Shiites and Suni. Or when it came to international terrorist organizations, knowing that the IRA was in Northern Ireland, and ETA in Spain.
The real thing we had to constantly remind her was to never, ever compare herself in any way to Hillary Clinton, as she had at her announcement speech. We had it on good authority that Biden was prepping to unleash the inevitable line, “I know Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is a friend of mine. And Sarah, you’re no Hillary Clinton.” Alas, Biden would have been right.
Hot Air, Zimbio, Celebgalz, and all manner of other websites have variations of the complicated story, but, to be perfectly honest, all these tangled webs make my head hurt. As far as hoaxes go, I like Sammy Korir’s “Michelle Obama yelled at me” African Press International saga much better. It’s a lot more fun, and much easier to follow, even though Sammy’s got a much smaller budget.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post asking if Howard Dean was soon to become the Democratic Party’s most powerful man, given the fact that he is the architect of the once hated, now-hallowed “50 State Strategy” that many people credit with winning the election for Barack Obama and others. I concluded that since Howard is, by and large, a clueless, Dagwood Bumstead-type, lucky bungler, he would not; rather, that Obama would find him imminently expendable. Seems Howard Has come to the same conclusion. Adam Nagourney of the New York Times writes:
Howard Dean will not seek a second term as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, ending a tenure marked by an aggressive attempt to reshape the mission of the committee – and to court support by the so-called Netroots – but also marked by frequent quarrels with Democratic leaders over his abilities and the direction he was taking the party.
The truth is, nobody much likes Howard. Far from being the well-oiled machine the well-oiled, astroturfing, Obama pr machine promotes, the Democratic Party seems to be a loose coalition of back-biting factions, thugged into submission by Camp O. Though some may claim Obama owes at least a portion of his success to Dean, in reality, Obama basically sucked the juice out of Howard’s brain, took what was useful, and discarded the rest. Dean may have provided the blueprint, but Team Obama built the car Obama drove across the finish line.
Chris Cilliza tells us newly appointed White House Chief of Staff-elect, Rahm Emanuel, hates Dean, and his plan, and has never been shy about colorfully saying so. Paul Begala once said on CNN that Dean’s 50 State Strategy amounted to hiring people to “wander around Utah and Mississippi and pick their nose.” James Carville called Dean’s DNC “Rumsfeldian in its competence,” and called for his resignation. Though she seemed to be an active collaborator with Dean to disenfranchise Florida and Michigan to Obama’s benefit, Donna Brazile and Howie-baby have clashed, too, most notably over the inclusion of gay rights into the DNC’s Affirmative Action platform. Uptight Howard Dean testified in a deposition that sensible shoe-wearing Donna is against it, claiming it was an “affront to the Civil Rights Movement.” Though Brazile claimed to have no interest in being DNC Chairperson in 2004, her name is currently being bandied about as a possible replacement, as are Claire McCaskill, Tim Kaine, Kathleen Sebelius, and Bill Richardson. Given the Obama campaign’s rather complete takeover of the DNC operation, however, whoever gets the job will likely be nothing more than a glorified figurehead.
Not a lot of love going ’round, to put it mildly. But, since Brazile’s vision relative to gay rights most closely resembles Camp Obama’s, and since she was invaluable during his campaign with her “cheerleading disguised as neutrality,” on CNN, and her considerable input as Chair of DNC Voting Rights Institute, I’d say put your money on the “dark horse.”
Sometimes, the urge to just throw caution to the wind you’re tilting three sheets towards, and say, “piss on ‘em!” is just too strong to ignore. At least it was for New Jersey City Councilman, Steve Lipski, Friday night, according to the Washington Post:
A City Council member from Jersey City was arrested over the weekend after patrons at a Northwest Washington nightclub complained that someone had urinated on them from the balcony, according to police and media reports.
The WaPo article indicates there might be some confusion as to the identity of the “pisser,” however, yesterday’s New York Daily News offers no ambiguity at all:
A drunken Jersey City councilman was arrested for urinating on a crowd of concertgoers from the balcony of a Washington nightclub, police and club sources said Saturday.
Councilman Steven Lipski was caught relieving himself onto several revelers at the 9:30 Club during a concert by a Grateful Dead tribute band Friday night, club sources said.
“He was very drunk,” the source said, noting that it wasn’t the first time Lipski had caused a ruckus at the popular concert venue.
“We’ve dealt with this man before,” the source added. “He’s never peed on anybody, but he gets really belligerent and drunk.”
The Post article mentions that Lipski has been called a “wonderful and caring person,” who always put “the well-being of his fellow human beings first.” So, maybe Lipski just hated the band and wanted to make sure nobody had to listen to it. Or maybe it was the Grateful Dead tribute band he was aiming at. Or, maybe he just hates standing in lines. At any rate Lipski, says, no more booze.
“I’ve resolved not to touch alcohol again,” two-term Jersey City councilman Steve Lipski told the Fox 5 New York.
Many of Barack Obama’s “former” friends who had been shoved under the proverbial bus for appearances sake, obviously now feel comfortable enough to crawl out from under, now that he has been elected. Seeming none the worse for wear, Louis Farrakhan, William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, loquacious all, are delightedly spewing forth long pent-up words of praise and frustration. The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that Minister Farrakhan spoke glowingly about the new president-elect, who he once called “the Messiah,” and explained his recent reticence:
“For nine months, I kept quiet because I saw that the good words that I spoke about this beautiful young man at our Saviours’ Day convention and the way they were misused,” Farrakhan said of Obama. “I decided it would be better for me to just be quiet rather than be drawn into the controversy that was swirling around his pastor, Father Pfleger, and others.”
Farrakhan then added with a smile, “I feel freer today to say the things that are in my heart.
William Ayers, the “unrepentant terrorist” (say it with me) obviously feels pretty free now, too, according to the Washington Post. The day after the election, Ayers complained to WaPo that Obama’s opponents were trying to turn him into a “cartoon character,” even though he and Obama are “not that close.” And they most certainly do not “pal around.”
“Pal around together? What does that mean? Share a milkshake with two straws?” Ayers said in his first interview since the controversy began. “I think my relationship with Obama was probably like thousands of others in Chicago. And, like millions and millions of others, I wish I knew him better.”
Poor Bill. How well can you get to know a guy you share office space with, huh? And it must be hard to sit idly by while your good name is being besmirched by both the “liberal media” and the Republicans. Especially if you’re innocent:
“I didn’t do anything. It’s all guilt by association. They made me into a cartoon character; they threw me up on stage just to pummel me,” Ayers said. “I felt from the beginning that the Obama campaign had to run the campaign and I had to run my life.”
Seems old Bill is making up for lost time, when it comes to the spotlight, though. On Friday, he attended a Northwestern University appearance of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who was speaking at the university’s first “State of the Black Union” in Cahn Auditorium. It was a make-up date for Wright, who had been dis-invited last spring when the school rescinded it’s offer to issue Wright an honorary degree. Much like Obama dis-invited Wright to his coming-out speech. Anyway, Ayers, obviously scarred by Tom and Jerry during a troubled childhood, repeated his “cartoon” characterization comments to reporters at the event:
“Both Rev. Wright and I were brought up as cartoon characters in this campaign because disinformation and dishonest news,” Ayers said. “I did not suffer as much as he did, but we both got out of it with a certain amount of dignity.”
The Chicago Sun-Times says Wright’s speech was uncontroversial, yet their headline screams, “Wright Rips Media in NU Talk.” The article claims Wright lead off his remarks by “criticizing” the media, then immediately quotes Fox News:
In a recent interview with Fox News, he said he’d been asked if he thought the media had treated him unfairly. His response, he said, was, “Ray Charles could see that.”
Other people under the bus, like Jesse Jackson and Father Michael Pfleger, are probably still going to have to stay there, and though Ayers, particularly, seems blind to the reality, there’s no guarantee that he, Farrakhan, and Wright are going to be allowed to stay out. Maybe that’s what Rev. Jesse was crying about. Maybe he’s the only one who knows the truth.
People, especially pseudo-journalists in the mainstream media and blogger-bullysphere, faux-celebrating the heralding of America’s new racial Kumbayah era being ushered in by the super-duper, “uber-historic” groundbreaking election of a self-described presidential “mutt” with at least one black parent, have written some amazingly stupid freaking things throughout the interminable nominating and election process. But today, on Jonathan Martin’s blog, we’ve gone from the ridiculous to the “you have got to be out of your fucking mind.” Quoting Dr. Alvin Poussaint as well as Dr. William H. Cosby, Jr., in a New York Times Arts piece with a hinky link, we learn that we owe the Huxtables for Barack Obama’s success:
Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint, a psychiatrist at the Jude Baker Children’s Center in Boston and a professor at Harvard Medical School who was a script consultant on “The Cosby Show,” said in an interview that “there were a lot of young people who were watching that show who are now of voting age.”
Dr. Poussaint added: “When ‘The Cosby Show’ first came on, it was a professional, middle-class family. And they said, ‘That’s not a black family.’ We heard it from blacks and whites. I think that’s why Karl Rove calls it postracial, because it was universal.”
In an interview on Thursday Mr. Cosby praised Mr. Obama and his campaign operation as “the architects of the almost perfect run for, and winning of, the office.” He added, “This isn’t something that happened just because of a TV show.”
But Mr. Cosby strongly suggested that his series, which ended in 1992, had a lasting effect on America’s racial views. Its legacy, he said, might have played a role in the country’s embrace of Mr. Obama and his family.
“I would not be surprised with the comfort level of people looking at a family and not being afraid of them, and not holding them to some strange old thoughts of a nation,” he said. “It’s what people have done with themselves by watching that show and believing in it.”
The link for the more in-depth, but no more deep, NYT article is here. The Guardian wonders if rap music won the election for Obama, and on 60 minutes the Camp O architects lie about their efforts to exploit the race issue.
Please people, Obama has brown skin. That is no reason to vote for him, though it was promoted as such, and sadly, was used as an excuse to do so, while dire warnings that the opposite would be true blared from every electronic and print orifice as a sort of perverse motivational technique. All this happy crappy about “the fact that he’s brown represents a cosmic shift in the fabric of the universe” and all other such bullshit and drivel being shoveled by the dumptruck-full in order to sell newspapers, air time, and the office of the president, is beneath contempt and an insult to rational people. Anybody who swallows this kind of pap whole probably owns a Chia Pet and more than one Clapper.
There are plans underway to declare a Barack Obama holiday. Okay, take your time, read that sentence again if you need to, take a deep breath and I’ll continue. Better now? Anyway, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal Online, rallies and special fast-food cakes and everything are in the works:
Plans are being made to promote a national holiday for Barack Obama, who will become the nation’s 44th president when he takes the oath of office Jan. 20.
“Yes We Can” planning rallies will be at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. every Tuesday at the downtown McDonald’s restaurant, 1100 Kansas Ave., until Jan. 13. The goals are to secure a national holiday in Obama’s honor, to organize celebrations around his inauguration and to celebrate the 200th birthday of President Abraham Lincoln, who was born on Feb. 12 1809.
At 7:30 a.m. on Inauguration Day, Obama Cake will be served at the downtown McDonald’s, and a celebration is scheduled for 8 p.m. to midnight Jan. 20 at the Ramada Hotel and Convention Center, 420 S.E. 6th.
Oh, happy-hopey-joy-joy! Obama cake! I wonder what that is, white cake with chocolate icing? I can hardly wait to find out. You? Like always, though, we’re one step behind the Kenyans; they’ve already declared a National Obama Day:
Barack Obama’s Kenyan relatives and Africans across the continent sang, danced in the streets and wrapped themselves in U.S. flags Wednesday to cheer for America’s first black president. Kenya will party for two days, after the president declared a national holiday.
Scenes of jubilation broke out in the western village of Kogelo, where Obama’s late father was born. A group of exuberant residents picked up the president-elect’s half-brother Malik and carried him through the village.
TimesUK Online says those Kenyans really know how to party; slaughter a couple of large animals, pop a few sodas, and it’s on. A freshly purchased goat presented to the Obama family by the article’s writer was to be part of the merriment:
He was to be only one small part of a vast celebration feast starting last night and comprising four bulls, 16 chickens and assorted sheep and goats.
“We are Africans, so our plan is to slaughter a bull and have friends come over,” said Abongo, the candidate’s oldest half-brother.
“We invite Kogelo (the village where Mr Obama’s Kenyan family lives) to come over and it will be open house. People will just come on over and bring a couple of sodas.”
African Press International, according to African Press International, has received $500,000 dollars (US) from an anonymous American company grateful for their (API’s) efforts to bring the audio tapes they possess of Michelle Obama going off about her husband being adopted, but still eligible to be president, that have not yet been aired, but assuredly will be, though discussed no further, so don’t ask again; and if that’s not enough, they have confirmation that a Mombasa Imam who has knowledge of Barack Obama’s Kenyan birth, as well as possession of his stolen, official Kenyan birth certificate, has left Kenya and will soon be safe in the U.K.:
The Imam who came forward to assist in the search�of Barack Obama’s identity left Kenya secretly last night, and will arrive in the UK this morning. He will meet with a US contact person who will assist him in recording an asylum statement in the UK after handing over the documents that caused the blessing of Obama when he was born and to confirm�the origin of the name Hussein.
The man will join relatives in the UK because his life will be in danger if he were to return to Kenya after removing the documents from the Mosque’s archives and taking them out of the country. The man has been informed about the on-going case filed in� the US Supreme Court by attorney Philip Berg challenging Barack Obama’s citizenship.
When the man heard that Jerome Corsi was in Kenya a few months ago, he took a decision to try and meet him, but had to travel back to Mombasa from Nairobi on hearing that Corsi had been bundled and taken to the airport on deportation orders.
The Imam is the grandson of the late Imam who blessed Barack Obama when he was born in Mombasa on the 4th of august 1961.
While in the UK, the Imam and the American contact person will visit Amnesty International before handing himself over�to the authorities where he will formally deliver his application for asylum. The contact man has arranged so that they get an official from Amnesty international to accompany them to the home office desk where he will inform them on he dangers that will face him if he were to return to Kenya after delivering the documents on Obama.
This may now bring to close the speculations on Obama’s citizenship and the secrecy on where he was born.
API will dispatch a detailed letter in support of the Imam’s -�application for asylum�and protection� – to the UK Home Office Secretary later today. The letter will be made available on the site here, but minus the names of the Imam.
Whew! Just when you thought it was safe to…I don’t know, ignore the madness? go back to reality? trust human nature? something this deliciously juicy comes down the pike. I mean, how can you not enjoy the sheer spectacle (balls) of such an operation? Who cares what the motive is? What difference does the outcome make? This is James Bond meets Shaft In Africa plus Jimmy Stewart’s big white rabbit, Harvey, all rolled into one! Wow! Popcorn is not enough for this one, I need Jujubees…and a big, fat Hersheybar…oh, and a Slurpee…and maybe, a hot dog…no, pizza, yeah, that’s it. And a Taffy Apple…ooooh, gotta have some Jr. Mints…this is gonna be good!
You know, God, or whatever you call that Holy Being you worship, dismiss, believe or don’t believe in, the One that most of us normal people pray to and ask for stuff, and recognize as Divine, you freakin’ heathen, is one smart Higher Power. I mean, Whoever came up with the system of people making new people and then living long enough to tell those new people “I told you so,” was clearly on to something. That’s the meaning of life, or, at least, the fun of it. Just as we allow our children to stumble and fall as they learn to auto-navigate on the planet, only to pick them up and comfort them as we stifle our sadistic laughter at their misfortune, opportunities increase, rather than diminish as we age to make fun of young people.
Yes, it is painful to watch younger people suffer, to lose their innocent optimism, but one of the most valuable things we learn in life is that suffering from your own foolish mistakes is the only real way to make a lesson stick. Good advice is just too easy to ignore. Besides, we’re all high-school minded at heart, now that we’re the upperclassmen in life, it’s just plain fun to sell freshmen non-existent elevator tickets, just because you know some of them are stupid enough to buy them.
While good-natured ribbing of your children’s missteps is part of parenting, personal or cosmic, witnessing those children’s exploitation by nefarious forces is hard to handle. You warn them, you counsel them, when possible you isolate your kids from those nogoodniks, and if you can, you take those scam artists aside and threaten to beat the crap out of them if they don’t leave your child the hell alone. However, the wrinkle in God’s plan is that where we were once 20, 25, 30 times older than those we are charged to love, nurture and protect, we are now simply 20, 25, or 30 years older than they are, and no longer allowed to nurture and protect, only to love them. Therefore, when we see them about to stumble and fall, all too often we are consigned to stand idly by and watch the impending horror unfold. Only when we assess the damage and are assured only their pride is damaged and self-confidence shaken, are we allowed to laugh. But we must never knock them down for their own good.
Which brings me to this year’s election. Those of us too old for the “new Democratic coalition” who were so unceremoniously brushed aside, dismissed and diminished, tried to warn those “hopey-changey” KoolAid-cooled, hopium-bong smoking, snot-nosed dependents that they were being played by a “system” just as corrupt and inept as the one they were so desperately trying to replace, only their front man was an incompetent sham, hired not to be a president, but to play one on TV. Straight from Central Casting, primped, permed and primed for the part, then scripted, produced and marketed by experts, their leading man might as well have been a Hula Hoop, Beanie Baby or Xbox 360 for all the substance he offered. Was it obvious? Of course.
IMAGINE the following scenario: A handsome, charismatic minority candidate defeats a heavily favored Democratic insider for the presidential nomination in an acrimonious race that drags out all the way to the convention. He then finds himself running in the general election against an aging, moderate Republican senator frequently at odds with his own party.
The current presidential race? Maybe, but it’s also the plot of the final season of The West Wing, which aired in 2005 and 2006. The similarities are not entirely coincidental.
Barack Obama’s chief strategist, legendary political consultant David Axelrod, was fresh off Obama’s successful Senate race when Eli Attie, a former speechwriter to Al Gore who was writing for The West Wing, had several conversations with him. Attie says he drew considerable inspiration from Axelrod’s impressions of Obama when conjuring Hispanic congressman Matt Santos, the successful dark-horse candidate on the show. Earlier this year, the web magazine Slate even edited the speeches of Obama and Santos together into an almost indistinguishable whole.
That was from a National Review article dated Nov 3. This one, dated Feb. 21, ran in the GuardianUK:
Devotees of the West Wing have been talking about it for weeks: the uncanny similarity between the fictional presidential contest that dominated the final seasons of the acclaimed TV show and the real-life drama of this year’s election.
Both the real and imagined campaigns have centred on a young, charismatic candidate from an ethnic minority, daring to take on an establishment workhorse with a promise to transcend race and heal America’s partisan divide.
But there’s a twist.
For what those West Wing fans stunned by the similarity between the fictitious Matthew Santos and the real-life Barack Obama have not known is that the resemblance is no coincidence. When the West Wing scriptwriters first devised their fictitious presidential candidate in the late summer of 2004, they modelled him in part on a young Illinois politician – not yet even a US senator – by the name of Barack Obama.
Did these brazenly targeted, easily influenced, young voters deliver for Barack Obama? Many sources, like this one, say yes. However, AARP begs to differ:
Over 25 million 50+ Americans voted for Obama compared to fewer than 14.5 million 18-29 year olds, 12 million 30-39 year olds, and 13 million 40-49 year olds.
So, while God invented old people to watch over and protect the young, when you consider that there’s no fool like an old fool, the kids are on their own. Maybe we’re not living West Wing after all; maybe it’s Star Trek.
And remember, he who laughs last didn’t get it the first time.
*UPDATE: Commenter “gmanedit” points us to this New York Times article that says that voters over 60 rejected Obama. Maybe God’s appointed protectors didn’t completely fall down on the job, after all.
After refraining from commentary about the mischief-making Kenyan-in-Norway, “Chief Editor” Sammy Korir’s African Press International and it’s wickedly outlandish claims of possessing audio tapes of a scandalous Michelle Obama telephone call for a few days, I decided to check in and see what was going on. Well, honey, let me tell you, a whole helluva lot seems to be happening with ol’ Sammy and Co. Looks like November 7, was a particularly busy day, what with API’s call for a national protest march against Barack Obama’s right to take office due to questions of eligibility. See, according to API, M. O. let it slip in her telephone call that Barack Obama was adopted by his stepfather, but that shouldn’t disqualify him from being president. Okay, stay with me now. Now that API has not released the tapes of this alleged phone call, and FOX News’ Greta Van Susteren has flat-out called API-generated rumors of a deal between them to air the tapes to be a bald-faced lie, and websites like Mountain Sage have exposed Mr. Korir’s rather colorful past flights of fancy, API is, rather than backing away from these imaginative claims, weaving them all together. In other words, we must protest Obama’s election because we haven’t seen his true birth certificate and we know he was adopted because Michelle Obama said so on the mythical tapes. Get it?
Also on the 7th, API says the tape thing is not a dead issue, by a long shot; according to them, they will be aired. When, where, how; who knows? They’ll get back to us on that, they say. Later, that same day, or earlier, who the hell knows? API claimed that a Mombasa Imam would release Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate…soon:
We have stated earlier that Barack Obama was born in Mombasa, Kenya.
A confirmation to the effect will now be forthcoming. A Mombasa Mosque Imam has decided to release documents of birth that will indicate Barack Obama was born in Mombasa, given his middle name on the day he was born and blessed by the Imam of the day.”
All other documents pertaining to his registration of birth in Kenya have been sealed and categorised confidential.
Gotta hand it to Mr. Korir, I love a good story-teller, and in my humble opinion, he’s damned good. Who needs truth when you’ve got a fertile imagination?
In an AP News story about the “partisan shift” in Tuesday’s election is this nugget of wisdom, truth and beauty every PUMA has always known to be true in his or her heart; had Hillary Clinton been the Democratic nominee, she would have won by larger margins than Obama:
What if it had been Hillary?
There’s no way to be sure, but she might have won by even more than Obama did.
Voters in the Obama-McCain race said they would have preferred Hillary Rodham Clinton over McCain by 51 percent to 41 percent, a larger margin than Obama’s 53-46 win.
Among the differences: Women say they would have backed Clinton over McCain by 18 percentage points, bigger than Obama’s 12-point advantage with them. Whites favored McCain over Obama by 12 points but leaned toward the Republican by a narrower 5 points against Clinton. Eighty-six percent of blacks would have backed Clinton — solid, but shy of the 95 percent who supported Obama. Clinton almost matched the two-thirds of people under age 30 who voted for Obama, but nearly one in 10 of them said they wouldn’t have bothered voting at all.
And that’s without Hillary being given a chance to show her stuff and make her own case, instead of delivering almost, but not PUMA quite, all of her 18 million votes for Obama.
Oh, baby. Take a look at (ex) journalist from the Birmingham Mail, Steve Zacharanda, aka Adam Smith, who says he “jumped on a plane to volunteer for the Barack Obama campaign,” got drunk, and ended up in a Dutch video admitting to cutting and pasting his Mail report from the BBC. So goes the story from Times Online:
Sometimes, you wake up following a drunken night out and realise you have sent an inappropriate text to an ex-girlfriend or your boss.
And sometimes you realise you have drunkenly admitted to plagiarism to camera, and spectacularly resigned from your job, shouting “F**k you’ to your boss.
This is what happened to Birmingham Mail reporter Adam Smith on Wednesday morning, as footage appeared on YouTube of him writing a report on the US election, slumped on a Miami pavement, and barely able to speak.
Mr Smith, who also calls himself Steve Zacharanda in the hit video which was viewed almost 20,000 times in 48 hours, had taken a week’s holiday to go to Miami to volunteer for the Barack Obama election campaign.
A MySpace page for Steve Zacharanda, journalist, can be found here. He’s also on Facebook.
Barack Obama called himself a “mutt” and received kudos from at least one “journalist” for his racial ease and awareness. WTF? Isn’t a “mutt” by definition, a “son of a bitch?” Or maybe I’m too sensitive. Maybe expecting people who are obviously uncomfortably clueless about the realities of ethnicity to provide objective analysis of stupid statements from black people is too much to ask, even of people whose job it is to do just that. Otherwise, how could you excuse Alan Fram’s AP article entitled, “‘Mutt like me’-Obama shows ease discussing race”?
It popped out casually, a throwaway line as he talked to reporters about finding the right puppy for his young daughters.
But with just three offhanded words in his first news conference as president-elect, Barack Obama reminded everyone how thoroughly different his administration — and inevitably, this country — will be.
“Mutts like me.”
This is not satire; this Fram guy is dead serious:
If he thought nothing of such a remark in his first news conference, doesn’t that signal that over the next four years, the country is likely to hear more about race from the White House — and from the perspective of a black man — than it ever has before?
So, does Fram think all black people are “mutts?” Or does he think that’s what Obama thinks? Or, is Fram unaware that everything Obama says is likely to be from the perspective of a black man, since Obama is a black man, albeit one who thinks of himself as a “mutt?” Also, nothing Obama says will ever be representative of all black people, since he is only ever going to be one black person. Does Fram know this? Is this as stupid as I think it is? The article is full of such nonsense. Fram ends it (mercifully, eventually) with a quote from Silvio Berlusconi:
Ironically, Obama’s remarks came just a day after Italy’s Premier Silvio Berlusconi, in an apparent joke, described Obama as “young, handsome and even tanned.” Critics called the comment racist, while Berlusconi defended it as a compliment.
Just like John Kerry’s comment that Obama’s blackness is a foreign policy asset, and Jo(k)e Biden’s “clean, articulate black man” characterization, Fram’s article is an example of America’s discomfort with the reality of the “historic nature” of the bullspit they’ve bought into in electing this man. Calling himself a “mutt” can be classified as an insult to his mother, no matter what color she was. It’s dumb and unnecessary. By Obama’s definition, aren’t his daughters “mutts,” too? Is it a big deal? No. Is it a signal of the refreshing change in the hearts and minds of men and women suddenly able to embrace a new racial dynamic, blah, blah, blah? Please. To elevate such drivel to racial progress is a startling revelation of the utter cluelessness driving this phenomenon that is Obama. The only thing it shows is that given the level of racial discomfort existent in this country, Barack Obama can get away with just about anything.
Word History: Clipping not of sheep but of a word having to do with sheep has given us our term mutt for a mongrel dog. Clipping or abbreviating words, a standard process of word formation, sheared mutt from muttonhead, a pejorative term meaning “a stupid person” based on the notion that sheep are stupid. Mutt in its first recorded use in 1901 is used in the same senses as muttonhead, but it is soon recorded (1904) as a term of contempt for a horse and then (1906) for a dog. We can be reasonably certain that the New Yorker critic writing in 1970 that “The cast includes a Sheepdog, . . . a Mutt Bitch,” had no awareness that a sheepdog would make the ideal mutt.
Office of the President Elect? What’s next, Office of the President In-Training? Complete with little wheels? Then Office of the President In-Crisis? With a seal of Mr. Bill screaming, “oh, nooooooo!”? All leading to Office of the President of the World! That one comes with an embossed global seal of Obama in full Burger King regalia sitting on an ornate throne with a lion and a lamb at his feet and a serpent under the left one. All hail!
Ah, the Dawning of the New Day has arrived! We are standing on the precipice of deliverance from all oppression, despair, and yucky stuff. Oh, yes, Barack Obama will now lead us to betterness. Like all Americans, I want the next president to succeed. However, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to fervently praying for just one good “told ya so” smack upside the head moment to rub in the face of all the balloon heads who voted for pr driven campaign slogans of “hopey-changey-happy-happy” as if that had something to do with actually governing this country out of the hell or handbasket we’re riding so jubilantly toward. And even if “hopey-dopey-happy-crappy” really was a governing strategy, how on earth could a dour, humorless theoretician who’s natural reaction to anything is “Umm, uh, let me think about it and consult with some smart people” lead us skipping trippingly to NeverLand? But anyway, like I said, good luck with that. Because where we once could limit repercussions-suffering to Obots, what happens from now on is on all our heads.
And, oh, are we in for some fun, fun, fun. While everybody was busy watching the Obamessiah’s “happy-changey” right hand, nobody was paying attention to what his (dominant) left hand was doing; which is basically flexing for the screwing we’re going to get. If Obama has his way, we’re all about to get “volunteered.” Media Matters quibbles that Obama’s “we need a Civilian National Security force” statements refer to expanding existing programs:
Summary: On Bob Grant’s radio show, Ann Coulter suggested that President-elect Barack Obama’s “civilian national security force” would lead to “a lot more Waco raids, Elian Gonzalez snatchings.” In fact, Obama’s comments about the necessity of a “civilian national security force” referred to expanding the Foreign Service, AmeriCorps, and the Peace Corps.
Their point is that Obama’s comments were taken out of context. Hmmm, where have I heard that before? Anyway, here’s the whole July 2, Colorado Springs, “Call To Service” speech, with the money quote coming at about 16:42, judge for yourself.
Whatever it means, Examiner.com says Obama’s new Chief of Staff agrees with it. Quoting from Rahm Emanuel’s book, “The Plan: Big Ideas For America:”
It’s time for a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us. We propose universal civilian service for every young American. Under this plan, All Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation and community service. …
Here’s how it would work. Young people will know that between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service. They’ll be asked to report for three months of basic civil defense training in their state or community, where they will learn what to do in the event of biochemical, nuclear or conventional attack; how to assist others in an evacuation; how to respond when a levee breaks or we’re hit by a natural disaster. These young people will be available to address their communities’ most pressing needs.
Obama and his running mate, now veep-elect, Jo(k)e Biden, believe in community service, too. For college students:
Obama and Biden will make college affordable for all Americans by creating a new American Opportunity Tax Credit. This universal and fully refundable credit will ensure that the first $4,000 of a college education is completely free for most Americans, and will cover two-thirds the cost of tuition at the average public college or university and make community college tuition completely free for most students. Recipients of the credit will be required to conduct 100 hours of community service.
Retired Americans have a wide range of skills and knowledge to contribute to local and national public service efforts. Obama and Biden will engage more interested seniors into public service opportunities by expanding and improving programs like Senior Corps to connect seniors with quality volunteer opportunities.
Obama and Biden will set a goal that all middle and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year. They will develop national guidelines for service- learning and will give schools better tools both to develop programs and to document student experience. Green Job Corps: Obama and Biden will create an energy-focused youth jobs program to provide disadvantaged youth with service opportunities weatherizing buildings and getting practical experience in fast-growing career fields.
Just about everybody. Now, I’m all for doing my part, but “volunteering” for government stuff is spooky. Especially when you remember Michelle Obama saying this:
“Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zone . . . Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual – uninvolved, uninformed.”
Oh, happy, happy, joy, joy. Bring on the freakin’ prancing unicorns, will ya?
That’s my prediction; when all is said and done, the Obama administration will look like the VIP section of Comiskey Park . The selection of Rahm (Take Your Knitting And Shove It) Emanuel is the first step in that South Side headed direction. Other names to look for, in my opinion, will be Valerie Jarrett, William Daley, and Jamie Dimon, to name a few. AP reports Obama will be meeting with his finance committee Friday, Dimon and Daley, both of JP Morgan Chase, are on it, as well as Chicagoan Penny Pritzger.
Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden were to meet Friday with 17 members of their transition economic advisory board. Members include former presidential Cabinet officials and executives from Xerox Corp., Time Warner Inc., Google Inc. and the Hyatt hotel company. Investor Warren Buffett was participating by telephone.
In a July 28, CBS News article, Obama’s finance team was partially named thusly:
The list of attendees was long and impressive: Warren Buffett participated by phone; former Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J.; Gov. Jon Corzine, D-N.J.; JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, former SEC Chairman under President Bush, William Donaldson; Chairman of Pepsi, Indra Nooyi; Former Treasury Secretary under Bush, Paul O’Neill; Former Treasury Secretary under President Clinton, Robert Reich; Google CEO, Eric Schmidt; AFL-CIO President John Sweeney; former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, among others.
Dimon’s name has been floated as possible Secretary of Treasury, Google it, the stories are numerous. Jarrett has already been named to Obama’s transition team according to the Telegraph:
In one of his first appointments, Mr Obama named Valerie Jarrett – an African American businesswoman, senior advisor and close family friend – as one of the leaders of his White House transition team.
Transition team appointee John Podesta is also a Chicagoan, while Pete Rouse, the other team member named by the New York Times, is linked to Obama through Harvard Law. I expect that most of Obama’s administration will be made up of Harvard and Stanford alumni and/or Chicagoans. Pay no attention to the media insistence on Clinton links, they’re coincidental. Also look for the names David Axelrod, David Plouffe and Austan Goolsbee to be prominent in the coming days. One prominent Obama supporter with University of Chicago ties, Lawrence Lessig, just might not make the cut. It’s a very telling toss-up on that one. At any rate, the Hyde Park-ization of the Democratic party will soon be extensive and dramatic, unless I’m wrong. In that case, Obama’s cabinet will be entirely different. But I don’t think so. Like the move of DeaNC headquarters in June, “Washington to Chicago” is likely the “change” Obama has always been talking about.
PUMA site after PUMA site, mine included, repeatedly warned Republicans not to fall for the tactics employed by “Axelrod’s Tools of Astroturfing,” i.e., the mainstream media and the bullies of the blogosphere. We told you they would try to create a culture of inevitability designed to suppress Republican enthusiasm and voter turnout. We told you we would do our part and vote against the Democratic ticket, “Country Before Party” was the PUMA rallying cry. Did the Republicans listen? No. And I blame Karl Rove.
For some reason, the Republican leadership was perfectly content to let this one go; hell, that’s why John McCain got the nod in the first place. But cross-partisan Americans could have prevented an Obama presidency if Republicans had held up their end of the bargain. However, it seems that cross-partisanship the other way held sway. Karl Rove and Donna Brazile have had a weird kind of “strange relationship” since at least 2000. From Donna’s website:
Last year, following the Supreme Court intervention in the 2000 presidential campaign, I called my friend and Bush chief strategist Karl Rove to wish him well. I offered to send him a map of Washington, DC and recommended that the President sit down early with Mayor Tony Williams and with members of the Congressional Black Caucus. He listened and I appreciate Karl’s tenacity and commitment to making things happen. We also talked about cooking — one of my favorite hobbies when I am not running around stirring the pots and cooking up ways to win a campaign.
Karl and I met over a year ago at a small restaurant in Manchester, New Hampshire. Like most political operatives who meet for the first time, we made a bet on the outcome of the 2000 presidential election. Karl also likes a hot kitchen, so we bet on a meal. The winner would cook his/her favorite dish; the loser would probably pick up the tab. Back in December, Karl reminded me that it was time to get back to cooking. We planned the menu: I’ll stir up some Louisiana-style Creole — red beans and andouille sausage. Karl will likely provide some Texas-style chili and rice. With the election no longer in doubt, and two Southerners in the kitchen, all we have to agree to is who will fry the chicken.
The final Rove & Co. electoral map of the 2008 election cycle points to a 338-200 Barack Obama electoral vote victory over John McCain tomorrow, the largest electoral margin since 1996. All remaining toss-up states have been allocated to the candidate leading in them, with Florida (27 EV) going to Obama, and Indiana (11 EV), Missouri (11 EV), North Carolina (15 EV), and North Dakota (3 EV) going to McCain. The two candidates are in a dead heat in Missouri and North Carolina, but they go to McCain because the most recent polls conducted over this past weekend show him narrowly ahead. Florida, too, could end up in McCain’s column since he’s benefited from recent movement in the state.
However, CNN had this to say about the actual voter turnout:
“A downturn in the number and percentage of Republican voters going to the polls seemed to be the primary explanation for the lower than predicted turnout,” the report said. Compared to 2004, Republican turnout declined by 1.3 percentage points to 28.7 percent, while Democratic turnout increased by 2.6 points from 28.7 percent in 2004 to 31.3 percent in 2008.
If Republicans had just matched their 2004 totals and added a lousy 1.4 percent, or maybe held on to those “Obamacans” who voted for “hope and change,” we’d be talking about President-elect McCain right now. So, to those Republicans who care, don’t blame us. We did all we could.
Poor Diantha Harris, Cumberland, North Carolina fifth grade school teacher. She has no idea she’s as out-of-bounds as she clearly is. In an article from today’s Asheville Citizen-Times comes the story of a Swedish documentary capturing Harris “belittling” a young student for supporting John McCain back in May:
Just a short note to say I’m taking the day off, but I’ll be back. Barack Obama did not suddenly become experienced or qualified in my eyes just because a lot of people voted for him, and other people who should have voted against him, stayed home. Plus, there are lots of other things to talk about too. So, I’m not going anywhere.
The truth is, the adrenaline ran out and a wicked cold caught up with me so, I’ll be nursing myself back to strngth for a day or so. Or less, I’m a fast healer.
You know, I’ve been black my whole life, and for the life of me, I can’t think of one occasion when, in the company of other black people, the conversation turned to lamentations of the fact that we had never before had a black president. Nobody I know or saw, ever wailed in church, “Oh, Lawd! When we gon’ put a black man in the White House?” I never walked by a group of kids at a bus stop and overheard, “You know, if we had a black president, I could get a job!” I don’t believe anybody ever went to the landlord with the excuse that the rent was going to be late because there has never been a black man elected president. And I never saw a news story with marchers marching and chanting “What time is it? Time for a black president.” In fact, I can’t think of one conversation with friends, acquaintances or co-workers where the subject came up at all. At least, not until after Barack Obama announced his candidacy. Sure, we often discussed the problems we faced, job discrimination, the condition of our inner cities, the influx of drugs into our communities, the quality of our children’s education, the dynamics of often hostile police interaction, lack of affordable, quality health care access, and all the other examples of injustice that plague our unique segment of society in such disparate numbers. But, not once, did I hear it suggested that any of these problems could be erased if we only had a black president. In fact, a case can be made that having a black president ensures that the opposite is true.
Now that America has elected Barack Obama, “the struggle” is officially over. We are all equal; if you’ve got problems, they’re your fault. The feel-good liberals who voted to disprove the validity of our shared racial history will have no further patience for complaint. “Whaddaya mean? Ya got a black president!” Expect to hear variations of that refrain a lot in the next four years.
Those black Americans who held their tongues and made no demands of candidate Obama, understanding that a too-cozy public relationship with them could queer his chances with all those not-so-enlightened, not-quite-bigots who would see a more-than-arm’s-distance relationship as a threat, now face the reality that as president, nothing is likely to change. Those same uncomfortable-with-too-much-blackness factions of society are not suddenly going to take kindly to President Obama “representing,” know what I mean? He’s still going to have to diss a brother or two on a semi-regular basis in order to appease nervous, possibly mythical, “Joe America” types; and funneling large sums of money and resources to address the problems of black Americans doesn’t appease the myth, or reality, of old Joe at all.
“He ain’t runnin’ for the president of black America, he’s running for the president of all America.” Yep, heard that. Did you? Because now, if you’re black, you’re just another American, except when those “possibly mythical Joe America” types on the police force, or school board, or hospital staff, “forget” and treat you like a black guy. After all, when it comes to racial equality, “Joe” has done his part. He voted for the “Dream That Never Was.”
First of all, like I said in an earlier post, buck up, guys, it’s not the end of the world! And, contrary to what anybody says, PUMA is a HUGE success. Or, it can be. Sure, the naysayers in the mainstream media, the blogger bullies, and the disappointed Republicans who didn’t know we were alive until they got desperate and now want to blame us, are minimizing us, our numbers and our impact. What makes it easy to discount us and our numbers is the same thing that makes us unique and powerful; PUMA is a true grassroots movement. Unlike those well-organized “Astroturfing Tools of Axelrod”, we have no corporate funds to buy ad time, and pr firms to bump up our “presence” in the media, no political sponsorship giving us decades old, well researched membership lists to exploit, just like-minded people, united in principle, dedicated to effecting change. That’s power, baby, and it blows that “GOP sponsored, ratfucking operation” nonsense straight to hell. We’ve got what Howard Dean exploited and turned into Democracy for America, even though he did have his Dean for America base to build on. But we’ve got a PUMA base to build on, now, too. If we want to. If not, hey, it was a helluva ride, and before we do anything rash, it might be prudent to sit back and wait to see how this thing shakes out. I’ve got a feeling we might be desperately needed in the very near future.
A lot of us have the blues right now, that’s to be expected. But the truth is, there’s so much to be admired about all of you who call yourself PUMA, and those of you who sympathize with what PUMA stands for, that it’s hard to know where to start. You guys forced the DeaNC to at least pretend to live up to it’s principles. With no money, no headquarters, no nothing, really, but integrity, spirit, devotion and hard work, you took a contingent of real Americans to the freaking Democratic National Convention and were heard! Ignored, but heard. All things considered, that’s pretty amazing for a loose-knit coalition of people scattered across the country, connected only by the internet and faith. There isn’t really even one central PUMA…anything, other than the absolutely unshakable belief that democracy should be central to the Democratic party, and the willingness to play David to the DeaNC’s Goliath, if need be.
Just because it’s the right thing to do.
I am so grateful to all of you, you are what America should be. So, have a long hot soak and a glass of wine, watch a DVD, get some rest, and chill. This movie just started.
The election of a black man as President of the United States of America makes a profound statement. For many, of all races, the mere possibility of such a thing happening was the sole motivating factor in their decision to vote for Barack Obama. And, as I monitor the news tonight, the historic impact is proving to be the predominant theme. Boyd Reed, on TPM, writes that he allowed his 5 year old son, Alexander, to actually cast his a vote for his (Alexander’s) future:
And so it came to pass that Alexander Reed, age 5, read the voting screen, found the right candidate, touched his name, and actually cast a vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
edit
So, no, I didn’t vote for Barack Obama. I voted for a boy who now has every reason to believe he, too, can grow up to be anything he wants…even President.
(emphasis Boyd’s)
AP’s headline: “Obama Sweeps To Victory As First Black President” seems to sum it up pretty neatly. Yet deep within it’s recap of election events is buried this, more illuminating truth:
Obama sought election as one of the youngest presidents, and one of the least experienced in national political affairs.
That wasn’t what set the Illinois senator apart, though — neither from his rivals nor from the other men who had served as president since the nation’s founding more than two centuries ago. A black man, he confronted a previously unbreakable barrier as he campaigned on twin themes of change and hope in uncertain times.
What does that say to precious little Alexander Reed? Is his proud, black father really content to give his son the message that he can grow up to be president, even if he’s not really qualified, just because he’s black? While black and white Americans pat themselves on the back for their accomplishment, maybe we should all take a minute to ask, “what have we really won?” At what cost? While we’re being regaled with stories of black people, like Lisa Boone, weeping with joy in celebration…
In the park crowd was Lisa Boone, 42, of Chicago, who said she burst into tears earlier in the day pondering what an Obama victory would mean.
Boone said she is distantly related to Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black Chicagoan who was abducted and killed in Mississippi in 1955, purportedly for whistling at a white woman. Boone said her great-grandfather was the brother of Till’s uncle.
“I was thinking of all the things done to Emmett and injustices to black people,” she said. “This is amazing, simply amazing.”
Gertrude Baines’ 114-year-old fingers wrapped lightly over the ballpoint pen as she bubbled in No. 18 on her ballot Tuesday. Her mouth curled up in a smile. A laugh escaped. The deed was done.
A daughter of former slaves, Baines had just voted for a black man to be president of the United States. “What’s his name? I can’t say it,” she said shyly afterward. Those who helped her fill out the absentee ballot at a convalescent facility west of USC chimed in: “Barack Obama.”
…are we really sending the right message to our children? To the world?
“It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.”
Considering the tactics employed by the Obama campaign and the DeaNC in this election, can we avoid being accused of parental hypocrisy when we try to teach our young people the principles of fair play? Are these tactics only okay when used by, and on behalf of, black people, just because we’re black? As Americans, we’re going to have to ask ourselves some tough questions about the true meaning of victory as it relates to racial reality.
First of all, to all those who voted for Barack Obama, congratulations, you won! To all those who didn’t, buck up, it’s not the end of the world, even if it does feel that way right now. We survived George Bush, we’ll get by. Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t drunk the KoolAid, I still stand behind everything I’ve written about my feelings for the new president-elect. That being said, the majority of voters did not agree with me, and he will soon be the leader of my country. I intend to hold his feet to the fire every step of the way, too.
For all those who voted for “hope,” how will you know if you get it? You’ve already gotten “change,” America has it’s first black president, that’s “change” for your ass! Whether it’s ultimately enough, remains to be seen. Anyway, good luck to all, and Obots, try not to gloat. You won. Celebrate. The real world resumes spinning tomorrow.
Okay, I admit it, I’m a wimp. I can’t watch the election results. I PUMA voted, could not for the life of me bring myself to let my race trump the Democratic candidate’s inexperience and lack of accomplishment, nor the DeaNC’s treachery in selecting such a candidate by undemocratic means to represent them and the things they’re supposed to stand for. If that revokes my black card, take it. And stick it. So, if any kind souls care to keep me updated, please do. I’ll be busy measuring my oven for headspace.
I haven’t yet voted; it’s still early here on the West Coast, but as I contemplate, still, how exactly I’m going to cast my protest vote, there are a few things about this election I find hard to believe. I find it hard to believe that millions of people are willing, nay, enthusiastic, about voting for a man of little accomplishment and experience, just because he’s black. I find it equally hard to believe that millions of people are willing to vote for a man whose own party is lukewarm about, just because he’s not the black guy. In other words, I find it hard to believe that these are our two choices for the highest office in the land. Is this really the best we can do?
We will wake up tomorrow to a new president-elect, and the only thing we can be sure of, is that we will get the government we deserve.
Obama wins! At least according to the mainstream media pre-election, vote-suppression, cheerleading. It seems that among 7-11 customers participating in their unofficial, unscientific 7-Election, Barack Obama is favored by people who drink cheap coffee. Huzzah!
North Carolina and New Hampshire show the candidates being tied, 18 states have no 7-11 representation, and the rest of the map on the 7 Election webpage has the contest 60% Obama – 40% McCain.
If that’s not bad enough, McCain lost Dixville Notch. Yep, ’tis true. U.S. News and World Report tells us that two tiny towns in New Hampshire validate the 7 Election findings:
Barack Obama came up a big winner in the presidential race in Dixville Notch and Hart’s Location, N.H., where tradition of having the first Election Day ballots tallied lives on.
Democrat Obama defeated Republican John McCain by a count of 15 to 6 in Dixville Notch, where a loud whoop accompanied the announcement in Tuesday’s first minutes. The town of Hart’s Location reported 17 votes for Obama, 10 for McCain and two for write-in Ron Paul. Independent Ralph Nader was on both towns’ ballots but got no votes.
I guess Nader was too busy looking for Obama’s nuts to campaign. All is not lost, however. Take heart you McCainiacs. The AOL unscientific, unofficial presidential straw poll shows an almost completely red map with McCain up 57% – 42%, with McCain getting 493 electoral votes to Obama’s 45. Take that, Obamabots! Ha!
People trashing Sarah Palin have extra-strength blinders on when it comes to Joe (If I Said It And Didn’t Steal It, It’s Probably Stupid) Biden. One never need question whether what Biden says is stupid, one need only note if his teeth are showing. Today, FOX News is reporting that Joe, though relatively good at telling time, lacks comprehension about much of anything else, and is largely unintelligible:
Biden called his sister a “girl-boy,” meaning a tomboy, and then explained that girl-boys are softer than “girl-girls.”
“You know why I think Jill likes Claire McCaskill so well, Senator McCaskill? Jill is one of five sisters, Claire is one of three sisters. And I tell you what, you women raised with sisters are different than women raised with brothers,” Biden said as both women joined him on stage.
“My sister is smart, runs every one of my campaigns; is beautiful; graduated with honors from college; is homecoming queen. But she’s a … she is what I call a ‘girl-boy’ growing up, you know what I mean?”
“And I tell you what? Girl-girls are tougher than girl-boys,” he said. “But there’s one important thing I noticed.The great thing about marrying into a family with five sisters, there’s always one that loves you. ‘Cause you can count on splitting them a bit. You know what I mean?
“I shouldn’t be going off like this, but — hey, folks, 37 more hours, 37 more hours,” he then said.
One can only imagine the stunned silence and blank expressions of those exposed to this gibberish. The perplexity continued as Joe kept talking:
“In the most recent debate between John McCain and Barack Obama, John McCain felt the need to say to Barack, to the commentator and to all America that he was not John McCain,” Biden said in the slip-up. “I mean, he was not President Bush.”
After all the ballots are cast and all the votes counted, one of two men will be President of the United States of America.
One is a war hero with 26 years of service in the Senate.
The other is a junior Senator with more time logged on the campaign trail than actually spent legislating.
One Senator’s whereabouts and associations are, and have been, pretty well documented for over thirty years.
The other has large, unexplained gaps in his slim resume and refuses to provide documentation regarding those gaps, as well as rather dubious relationships.
One Senator won his party’s nomination fairly.
The other was selected by his party’s elite in a sham of electoral theater.
One man has raised more money than has ever been raised by any two presidential candidates in any given presidential contest; much of it “questionable.”
The other accepted public financing, as he and his opponent had previously agreed to do.
On Wednesday, one of these men will be President of the United States of America.
Yep, that’s African Press International, alright, and then some. The wonderfully melodramatic website that claims to have in it’s possession “explosive” audiotapes of a Michelle Obama rant, as well as an agreement with FOX News to air them, (which has been flat out denied by Greta van Susteren, one of the anchors API names in it’s “agreement) is now saying that since FOX has ignored their ultimatum to air the tapes immediately, they’re just going to have to go ahead and cancel the deal. Oh, boy, that’s…audacity, maybe?
There is no exaggeration when we�say we�struck a deal with Fox N.N�in good faith and that was done due to information we had at the time causing us to believe that the network was serious to air the tape.
API has waited this long for the release of the tape, while at the same time giving hope to many who wanted to listen to the contents of the tape.
We will not drop the idea to release the tape to the public because we are well aware API�s credibility has been put on the line.
There’s more, you can go there and read it, if you wish, I’m tired of…the whole thing really, but of providing links, specifically. The above’s cheeky enough, don’t you think, but the “chutzpah” comes into play with their posted “cancellation” letter, sent as an attachment to a “pre-cancellation” email:
Re: Our contract: anticipatory repudiation
We have to face the fact that you have decided not to comply with the letter and spirit of our agreement entered in good faith insofar as we are concerned.
We hereby anticipatorily repudiate our agreement with you and hold you responsible for all the damages we have incurred and will incur by your breach of the agreement.
It is clear that, with the repudiation of the contract, we are no longer by its confidentiality provisions and its terms and conditions.
We will publish the substance of this letter so as to�inform the public and interested organizations of the legitimacy and reasonableness of your actions to perform your obligation to broadcast the tapes as well as any other of the obligations you had agreed to perform.
The genuineness of the tapes has been verified by your organization and we trust that you will advise any interested party accordingly, In any event, this is now a largely theoretical question, since a fair number of independent�persons will be able to make their own opinion on the matter.
We wish to thank you for the courtesy you have shown to us at the personal level.
As to the actual damages, our counsel will contact you after we have performed your obligations and reviewed the whole situation.
It’s all deliciously complicated, given that API has always had the option to simply post the transcript, if not the actual tapes, on their website at any time they saw fit. Obviously, “fit” they never saw. Anyway, that’s the Michelle Obama/API Drama update for today. I keep thinking each one will be the last, but API manages to come up with something new on a pretty regular basis, so we’ll see how it goes. Like my mother never said, keep smiling, it can only get worse. And if it does, people will leave you alone if you’re standing there grinning like a fool.
Barack Obama has a bad habit of scratching his face at exactly the same time he’s delivering scathing remarks about an opponent. He might want to get that in check. Tends to tick people off, whether he meant to do it, or not.
The race baiting of camp Barack Obama has pissed me off since the primaries. His “post-racial” both sides of his mouth, in your face, hands off, passive/aggressive, taunting/pleading has been both painful and frightening to watch. As I head off to the voting booth tomorrow, I will do the one thing in my power to stop such “race-rallying by proxy,” I will vote against it.
“Selma got me born” was a bald-faced lie. Selma, the violence associated with the historic march across the Edmund Pettis Bridge and it’s impact on the Civil Rights Movement had nothing to do with Hawaiian teen hot pants for Kenyans, and to even have the gall to suggest such a thing is worthy of rebuke and scorn.
Lyndon Baines Johnson passed the Civil Rights Bill. Martin Luther King’s leadership created an environment where doing the right thing by the president became imperative, regardless of the political implications. Saying that one will take a Johnsonian approach to today’s black issues is a promise to pursue a results-driven agenda. To demean this sort of commitment, as Camp B.O. did of Hillary Clinton’s Martin Luther King Day speech, is shamelessly inexcusable. That he got away with his lame, yet now predictable “unfortunate” characterization, is worse. Clinton’s “it took a president to get the job done,” is historically accurate grade school civics. It takes a president to sign legislation. Obama’s comment makes no sense for a “constitutional lawyer:”
“She made an unfortunate remark about Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson,” he said. “I haven’t remarked on it. And she offended some folks who thought she diminished the role about King and the civil rights movement. The notion that this is our doing is ludicrous.”
“I’d have to see him dance.“ This one did it for me. The Jim Crow buck-and-wing stereotype is so ingrained in our culture that Barack Obama was not only not called to task for invoking it, he was applauded by blacks and whites alike. How dare they? Yet, when some marginal Hillary Clinton surrogate used the phrase “shucking and jiving,” it, along with other, more dubious examples of “race-baiting,” was decried as “proof positive” that the Clinton campaign was wholly comprised of vicious, unscrupulous, race-baiters willing to engage in the worst sort of low politics in their brazen attempts to smear a black man to their advantage.
The other, well documented instances of Obama and his minions crying foul at every reference to the color black, while at the same time claiming post-racial “above-it-all-ness,” while at the same time exploiting and demeaning black Americans for the sake of scoring Brownie points with “color-blind” white Americans, are too numerous to mention. Yet, guilt-ridden, smug-assed, supercilious white people of influence who have likey never been closer to an inner-city neighborhood than their morning commute will allow them to skirt, perpetuated the myth that there was something noble in supporting a “not-too-black” candidate, primarily for the symbolism involved.
Barack Obama and his merry band of assuagers have played the one-note racism song with virtuosity. They should not be allowed to exploit America’s troubled racial legacy this way. As we head into election day, the song sung black is getting louder and more discordant, yet, unfortunately there is no sign that it will be any less effective. The Christian Science Monitor is running one such piece online. In a story of an insular white man, coerced into canvassing for Obama by his wife, we are treated to his eye-opening epiphany that black people need something to believe in. Guess what Mister, they’re human. Buy a freaking clue. This sappy, drippy essay proves only that the author needs to get out more.
A New York Times article headlined, “McCain Finds Some Hope In Philadelphia,” assures us that the large number of bigots in the area gives McCain a shot. We have been told over and over again that being black is a disadvantage that could cost Obama up to six points due the “Bradley effect,” or the cowardliness of white voters determined not to vote for a black man, but too chicken to admit it. Or, maybe, a “reverse Bradley effect” will net him six points. What about the “novice effect,” or the “empty suit effect,” or do no other factors come into play when a candidate is black? What about the hoped-for increase in African American voter turnout? Where’s the cute, comfy, feelgood name for that effect?
As a black woman, I’m tired of watching my “positive image-starved” sisters and brothers be played by this overconfident “cock-of-the-walk” con man whose only accomplishment is running for office, and whose only known attribute is a willingness to win using any means neccessary. While la-di-da liberals and all other manner of starry-eyed white Americans vote for their own need to reinforce a mythical image of an America that never was, and is unlikely to be, as long as rubber-stamping Hollywood script-written “reality” is the extent of committment to real social change, I’ll cast my vote elsewhere. A lie of this magnitude should not be rewarded.
ACORN , the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has consistently refuted claims of voter fraud against them as being voter suppression “stunts.” According to the L.A. Times, after a Nevada raid that seized records of bogus registrations, ACORN rep Bertha Lewis said just that:
Bertha Lewis, interim chief organizer for ACORN, said the group has been working with election officials to weed out fraudulent forms from those submitted by its canvassers.
“Today’s raid by the secretary of state’s office is a stunt that serves no useful purpose other than to discredit our work registering Nevadans,” Lewis said.
Lewis also said that ACORN is diligent in scrutinizing their records:
“For the past 10 months, any time ACORN has identified a potentially fraudulent application, we turn that application in to election officials separately and offer to provide election officials with the information they would need to pursue an investigation or prosecution of the individual,” Lewis said.
However, a Politico article disputes ACORN’s claims:
ACORN’s second line of defense has been that fraudulent registrations can’t turn into fraudulent votes, as if the felony of polluting voter lists was somehow not all that serious. But that defense goes only a short distance. “How would you know if people using fake names had cast votes in states without strict ID laws?” says GOP Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita, who this year won a major Supreme Court case upholding his state’s photo identification law. “It’s almost impossible to detect and once the fraudulent voter leaves the precinct or casts an absentee ballot, that vote is thrown in with other secret ballots there’s no way to trace it.”
Anita MonCrief, an ACORN whistle-blower who worked for both it and its Project Vote registration affiliate from 2005 until early this year, agrees. “It’s ludicrous to say that fake registrations can’t become fraudulent votes,” she told me. “I assure you that if you can get them on the rolls you can get them to vote, especially using absentee ballots.” MonCrief, a 29-year old University of Alabama graduate who wanted to become part of the civil rights movement, worked as a strategic consultant for ACORN as well as a development associate with Project Vote and sat in on meetings with the national staffs of both groups. She has given me documents that back up many of her statements, including one that indicates that the goal of ACORN’s New Mexico affiliate was that only 40 percent of its submitted registrations had to be valid.
MonCrief also told me that some ACORN affiliates had a conscious strategy of flooding voter registration offices with suspect last-minute forms in part to create confusion and chaos that would make it more likely suspect voters would be allowed to cast ballots by overworked officials. Nate Toller, who worked on ACORN registration drives and headed an ACORN campaign against Wal-Mart in California until 2006, agrees. “There’s no quality control on purpose, no checks and balances,” he told me.
Supporters of Hillary Clinton have our own bone to pick with ACORN and caucus fraud in the primaries as documented here and here. In February, the website Writes Like She Talks was one of many to print an email supposedly received from the group:
GOTV for Obama! Ohio ACORN is doing a Get Out The Vote project with the OBAMA Campaign. Ohio ACORN is hiring canvassers to go door to door encouraging voters to vote for Barak Obama.
ACORN is hiring in Cleveland (216)431-3905 , Columbus (614)425-9491, Cincinnati (513)221-1737, for Dayton (call Cincinnati), and for Toledo call Cleveland. Or email polnatoh@acorn.org and your inquiry will be routed to the appropriate person in each of these cities. Intake and training will be held daily at local ACORN offices. Canvass begins on Wednesday Feb. 27th and will work through election day. Please, only persons wishing to work all or most of these days (Saturday and Sunday included) should inquire.
Please do not contact the Obama campaign directly regarding this post as they are not the organization doing the hiring and it will only distract their staff and volunteers from the other important work they are doing on behalf of Senator Obama.
ACORN has not only been accused of employing thug-like tactics on behalf of Obama during the primaries, caucuses and general election, the New York Times says they’ve exaggerated their legitimate efforts:
On Oct. 6, the community organizing group Acorn and an affiliated charity called Project Vote announced with jubilation that they had registered 1.3 million new voters. But it turns out the claim was a wild exaggeration, and the real number of newly registered voters nationwide is closer to 450,000, Project Vote’s executive director, Michael Slater, said in an interview.
The remainder are registered voters who were changing their address and roughly 400,000 that were rejected by election officials for a variety of reasons, including duplicate registrations, incomplete forms and fraudulent submissions from low-paid field workers trying to please their supervisors, Mr. Slater acknowledged.
Is that newly registered, or eligible newly registered? And given the fact that some of them can, and have, voted fraudulently, presumably on behalf of, and possibly at the behest of Barack Obama, shouldn’t somebody do something about it?
First, Barack Obama’s running mate Joe (Will Somebody Shut Me Up?) Biden tells at least two different audiences (Seattle and San Francisco) that Obama, if elected, though made of steel (like Superman) would be tested as soon as he got in office, so “gird your loins,” because you’d never want to be caught in a crisis with an inexperienced president with your loins ungirded, everybody knows that. Before that, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, told a crowd to vote for Obama, just to piss Bill O’Reilly off. Now, according to ABC’s Jake Tapper (a reporter everybody hates for the right reasons since he’s one of the last decent journalists left, imo) via Atlas Shrugs, another Obama supporter has made it difficult for the novice junior senator to get by with this kind of help from his friends:
Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, was down in Florida over the weekend, and one supposes that he thought he was helping Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., but it will ultimately be hard to make that case.
Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugged has posted some video of Nadler at a synagogue in Boca Raton trying to explain why Obama was able to stay in Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s church for 20 years.
He starts off my saying he has no idea of what he’s talking about. And then he proceeds to open mouth, insert foot.
Tapper proceeds to tell Nadler’s tale, editorializing along the way. For purposes of inserting my own editorials economically, I’ll just post Nadler’s direct quotes; you can read Jake’s takes later:
Says Nadler: “I have no personal knowledge of what I’m about to say. What I’m about to say is my guess…”
“My guess,” Nadler said, “knowing how politics works, what I’m about to say is not particularly…”
“…not particularly complimentary towards Sen. Obama,” he says.
“Think of the history here,” says the six-term New York congressman. “You have a guy who’s half-white, half-black. He goes to an Ivy League school, comes to Chicago … to start a political career. Doesn’t know anybody.
“Gets involved with community organizing — why? Because that’s how your form a base. OK. Joins the largest church in the neighborhood. About 8,000 members. … Why did he join the church? … Because that’s how you get to know people.
“Now maybe it takes a couple years,” Nadler says, suggesting that soon Obama starts to think of Wright, “’Jesus, the guy’s a nut, the guy’s a lunatic.’ But you don’t walk out of a church with 8,000 members in your district.”
Suggests a woman: “You don’t walk in though.”
“He didn’t know it when he walked in, presumably,” said Nadler.
“Now, what does it tell me?” Nadler asked. “It tells me that he wasn’t terribly political courageous. Does it tell me that he agreed with the reverend in any way? No. It tells me he didn’t want to walk out of a church in his district.”
“He didn’t have the political courage to make the statement of walking out.
Tapper says this is not the first time Nadler has been less than supportive of Obama. Supposedly, when asked by Hillary Clinton in 2005 for his support for a potential presidential run, Nadler said, “sure,” explaining:
“‘I don’t see a lot of other good possibilities in our party,’ said Nadler… ‘Someone like Barack Obama, who is suddenly a real candidate, always worries me, because he is a novice candidate. He hasn’t done it before. Novice candidates, not always, but 95 percent of the time make a mistake. I made some terrible mistakes in office, when I was district leader, no one remembers what they are. I wasn’t in front of all the news cameras.’”
Golly, Nader says Obama’s got no nuts, and now Nadler says, “ya got that right.” So, remind me why anybody should vote for him, again?
According to Politico, Ralph Nader is accusing Barack Obama of being nutless:
Ralph Nader’s 2008 presidential campaign has been defined by bizarre Web videos intended to attract attention away from the two major-party candidates. So it should be little surprise that in the campaign’s final days, he’s doing it one last time.
The subject line of the release announcing the video: “Nader Campaign says Obama has no nuts.”
The video, “The Obama Nuts,” debuted Sunday and chronicles an “Obama supporter,” at least according to the release, wearing a Nader T-shirt and in search of said nuts.
Whether Nader thinks Jesse Jackson made his Obama nuts dream come true is unclear, what’s for sure is Nader is convinced Obama ain’t got ‘em. Maybe Barack sold ‘em for candy. Oh, well, sometimes you feel like a nut…
The PUMA Movement, composed largely of Democrats and recently former Democrats who supported Hillary Clinton in the primaries, is, and has always been, warily dismissed as a myth or ridiculed by those deliriously supporting Barack Obama. Because PUMA is a loose-knit coalition of websites dedicated to the proposition that an unfairly selected nominee is unworthy of true Democratic support, pooh-poohing the reality is easy to do. However, the sentiments driving the movement are not so easily dismissed. There is no true PUMA Party in the same sense as other organized political parties, in fact, not all PUMAs-at-heart even know that they are, thus the stealthy PUMA is harder to identify. Yet, to think that a quiet setting denotes safety from prey, is to invite being preyed upon.
It’s also rather funny to realize that those attempting to minimize the PUMA effect were perfectly willing to exploit mischief making Republicans hellbent on undermining the Democratic nomination process by registering as Democrats simply to vote against HRC. When pre-PUMAs were decrying the process, Obots were applauding it.
Payback’s a bitch, ain’t it?
Just think about it this way Obama supporters, we’re just following your leader’s example and “working across the aisle.” Only, we’re doing it where it counts, and we’ll see how dismissive you’ll be come Tuesday.
Whether you consider the African Press International Michelle Obama Adoption Drama to be soap opera, mystery, spy thriller or high camp, ya gotta admit, it’s been rollicking good fun. I must have gained twenty pounds over the last couple of weeks from the amount of popcorn I’ve consumed following this fiction. In keeping with my recent tradition of bringing you the twists and turns as they develop, I offer you API’s “ultimatum” to FOX News to release the doggone tapes immediately or…or, I’m not sure what. Seems to me, API could have released a printed transcript weeks ago, which probably would have even gotten MSNBC into the act. Anyway, here goes:
API chose Fox News Network as a partner in Michelle Obama tapes’ deal, due to the advise received from all the readers who informed API that the News outlet was one we could trust to air the tape unedited.
Now that the Network has not done as agreed on the 28th of last month, API remains with only one choice in order to force the issue to be resolved immediately. The choice API has now chosen is to give an ultimatum to Fox News Network and hope the situation will be resolved in a few hours to come.
Today afternoon, API took a bold step to give Fox News Network a six hours ultimatum to decide on an immediate release of�the tape�- “that the tape be aired as soon as possible,�latest tomorrow the 3rd of November if it has to have any value in connection with the US Presidential elections taking place on Tuesday the 4th of this month.
In a strong worded letter dictated by API’s Canadian Counsel, Fox News Network has been given the ultimatum to come to its senses and respect the agreement reached in New York on the 28th of October.
API has reminded Fox News Network of the responsibilities that the News outlet took upon themselves in connection with the Michelle Obama tape.
API is not ready to give up on this. The tape must be aired as agreed by the parties. This tape has caused a lot of headache to many people. Demands to release the tape has been enormous and some people have gone as far as getting angered because they do not think the deal is there, and have resorted to the assumption that API is pulling their legs.
Any denials by any one in Fox News Network that seeks to embarrass API will not be taken lightly. Any such denials will be treated as a breach of contract and API will not hesitate taking legal action against the Network. We view the tape as a very important instrument that will serve to enlighten a number of people whose total interest is to have a leadership that earns their trust and will serve them diligently no matter what their beliefs are in today’s America.
The ultimatum has been necessitated by the News outlet’s laxity in taking a decision favourable to the political�environment that many voters finds themselves in, after discovering that there is a taped conversation bearing the voice of�their “probably incoming First Lady.”
We still hope that our readers and the American people who are interested to listen to Michelle Obama’s voice will not be deprived of that opportunity and we are hopeful that the tape will be aired latest tomorrow the 3rd of November., unless Fox News Network chooses to remain arrogant and deny the American people the right to listen to the tape and interpret the meaning of the contents themselves before the main election day on the following day.
New York’s Working Families Party was first organized in 1998 by a coalition of labor unions, ACORN and other community organizations, members of the now-inactive national New Party, and a variety of public interest groups. The party blends a culture of political organizing with unionism, 1960s idealism, and tactical pragmatism. The party’s main issue concerns are jobs, health care, education and energy/environment, and it has won notable policy gains at the city, county and state level by piggybacking on Democratic or Republican candidates.
New Party members and supported candidates won 16 of 23 races, including an at-large race for the Little Rock, Ark., City Council, a seat on the county board for Little Rock and the school board for Prince George’s County, Md. Chicago is sending the first New Party member to Congress, as Danny Davis, who ran as a Democrat, won an overwhelming 85% victory. New Party member Barack Obama was uncontested for a State Senate seat from Chicago.
Candidates must be approved via a NP political committee. Once approved, candidates must sign a contract with the NP. The contract mandates that they must have a visible and active relationship with the NP.
The political entourage included Alderman Michael Chandler, William Delgado, chief of staff for State Rep Miguel del Valle, and spokespersons for State Sen. Alice Palmer, Sonya Sanchez, chief of staff for State Sen. Jesse Garcia, who is running for State Rep in Garcia’s District; and Barack Obama, chief of staff for State Sen. Alice Palmer. Obama is running for Palmer’s vacant seat.
Twice in the last week, Barack Obama has said his relationship with ACORN — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — began and ended with legal work he did for the group in 1995.
Besides, even though ACORN makes no bones about helping found the Working Families Party, they claim to be non- partisan:
ACORN is a non-profit, non-partisan social justice organization with national headquarters in New York, New Orleans and Washington, D.C.
As a PUMA (Party Unity My Ass) survivor of Camp Barack Obama’s brand of slash-and-burn campaign tactics, I think it only fair to give dispirited Republican and Independent voters a heads up. Snap out of it! You’re being played, big time. The inflated polls, the mainstream media predictions of a blowout, the pervasive blogosphere contention that “President Obama” is a done deal the whole world wants, are all examples of Team Obama’s business-as-usual tactics designed to discourage you from exercising your voting power. I mean, if he’s as good as elected already, might as well stay home, right?
Over at Riverdaughter’s place, the Confluence, they call what’s happening a haka, named after the Maori war dance designed to intimidate opponents and discourage them from fighting. I call it “astrofucking,” a practice perfected by David Axelrod, combining his successful shadow p.r. technique of manufacturing fake grassroots support, with old-fashioned Republican Segretti/Rove dirty tricks, i.e. “ratfucking.” Given the success of “astrofucking” in the primaries (with a lot of help from the DeaNC) I implore those Republicans and Independents interested in actually winning this thing, to vote. No matter what you hear; no matter what “authority” says otherwise.
Now, just as the PUMA position of actively promoting the Republican ticket is unusual, so too is the largely ignored-by-the-media reality that some Republicans don’t really want to win. Whoever wins the White House is going to inherit a shitload of trouble; in one of his rare moments of clarity, even Joe (What The Hell Am I Talking About?) Biden admitted that much. It’s even plausible to me that the active participation of Bill and Hillary Clinton as campaign surrogates, is the result of the post-primary realization of this reality and the implications relative to Obama and the DeaNC. So, a lot of Republicans, understandably, are willing to sit back and let the Democrats take the blame for the massive screw-up on the way. Personally, I think that’s a bad idea if you care about your country and really believe your party has a better way of doing things.
This is an unusual election year for a lot of reasons, but the bottom line is, this is not Barack Obama’s race to lose. From what we experienced in the primaries, PUMAs know that this election is up for grabs, no matter who says what. If you, like us, resent having your elections rigged from on high, if you believe that the voters should decide who becomes president, not the media, blogger bullies, or big money, backroom, corporate wheeler-dealers, the solution is simple.
Vote.
Like your life depended on it.
Take it from PUMAs, you can still win, as long as you don’t buy the hype.
Barack Obama is, by his own admission, the most clueless man the American public has been acquainted with since Hogan’s Heroes’ Sgt. Schultz never saw contraband being smuggled in and out of Nazi Germany through a tunnel under a POW camp on that old TV show. Obama “didn’t know” William Ayers was a terrorist, he “didn’t know” Tony Rezko was indictable, he “didn’t know” Rev. Jeremiah Wright preached sermons not exactly embraceable by most American Christians. He “knew nuttink!” Now, according to his campaign surrogates, he “didn’t know” his aunt was living illegally in the United States, but as far as he’s concerned, she can just crawl right under the bus with the rest of ‘em. From Politico:
Barack Obama did not know a relative was living in the United States illegally for the past nearly four years prior to today’s Associated Press report, “but obviously believes that any and all appropriate laws be followed,” the campaign said Saturday in a statement.
The Democratic nominee last heard from Zeituni Onyango, who attended his swearing-in ceremony to the U.S. Senate in 2005 and is a half-sister of Obama’s late father, two years ago, when she called to say she was in Boston, the campaign said. Campaign officials said they did not assist her in getting a tourist visa and had not known that she was living in America.
Obama, who also has a tendency to point fingers like a little boy caught arm-deep in the cookie jar insisting upon blaming his imaginary friend, also says “the Republicans did it!” Since Obama never says anything Axelrod didn’t say first, we can treat any statements from either as interchangeable:
“The American people are pretty sensible,” said Obama chief strategist David Axelrod, “and I think they are pretty suspicious of things that are dumped in the marketplace 72 hours before a campaign, so I am not concerned about that.”
Asked whether he was suggesting there were political motives from a Republican administration, Axelrod said: “I am not saying anything at this point.”
Seems like a strange reaction from a group who “benefited” from leaks about “Joe the Plumber” traced back to Obama supporter, Helen Jones-Kelley, who according to the Las Vegas Examiner, now seems to be lying and pointing fingers herself:
The Ohio employee who ran a child support check on Joe the Plumber says a supervisor told her the man contacted the social services agency about his case.
Niekamp told The Columbus Dispatch she is unfamiliar with any policy in which the records of the newly famous are checked.
That sounds like Camp O, alright. First, deny, then blame somebody, anybody, else. If that doesn’t work, just stop talking about it, like Obama surrogate Robert Gibbs is now trying to do about “Auntie-gate:”
Senior strategist Robert Gibbs shut down any line of questioning Thursday when news broke about Obama’s relative, telling reporters, “I’m not going to get into it.”
He likes to be called African Press International’s Chief Editor Korir; that is, when he’s not being called “officer.” Is he either? Apparently not. Mountain Sage has done a tremendous amount of research on the guy, rather than do it any injustice, I recommend you go over there and take a look see for yourself. In case you don’t know, African Press International is a website making claims of being in possession of “soon-to-be-released” audiotapes of Michelle Obama ranting, complete with CIA and FOX News involvement, as well as threats and bribes from the Obama camp. Again, rather than regurgitating their words ad nauseum, as I have been doing, just for the fun of it, I suggest you head over there and take a look see for yourself.
I have personally read 2 articles from the Norwegian newspaper site, Dagbladet.no, that accuse Korir of being a major nogoodnik. This one, dated today, examines this year’s campaign “smears” and links back to an earlier Dagbladet.no story re: Sammy Korir’s claims of being an undercover Norwegian police agent, that I posted a few days ago, here. The translations are kinda rough, but the meaning is pretty clear.
I also recieved a report in my comment section of an email solicitation alledgedly tied to Korir’s API, supposedly posted originally on the API website. Don’t know anything about it, but I’ll pass it on.
It’s an email harvesting operation folks…
Just opened my comcast account… I’ve had this email account for five years.. no spam…. tonight I had several… Anyone else getting email from ‘Shopper’s Discount’? I’ve never heard of them.
Did you verify an email from one sent to you by Mr Korir (I don’t address semi-literates as ‘Editor.’)
I did get an unsolicited email from Mr Korir the other day…with a request to verify receipt…
Guess I know now why he uses the verification system.. he wants to sell his email lists as verified…
Say it isn’t so ‘Sammy’….
‘Clowd’.. try finding two brain cells to rub together… you’re pathetic. Same goes for Meg, Hope, W00sh, Kathy etc, etc…
Anyone who believes that tripe at the the top of the page about FOX being worried about how their employee’s will find jobs in government must be delusional.
This man has a documented history from news sources.. REAL News sources, like the BBC and the local media there in Norway..showing a clear pattern of extortion and deceits.. He fits the typical pattern of the anti-social personality… he has no concious…
He only has attention seeking games and promises he can’t deliver on, because ultimately he is a big zero. He belongs in jail in Kenya for the crimes he comited against those kids, but you ‘god-fearting’ people just wink at extorting money from impoverished kids like it was mere jay-walking..
You are emotionally stunted and intellectually vulgar. You’d have an excuse if you were just a casual passerby, but you have become colluders with this snake.You have earned my distain.
I hope a pleasant time was had by all.
Spelling errors aside, the email is credible in the sense that, to be fair, Korir has not asked for money in relation to his “bombshell” story, as far as I know, and every scam needs a payoff. To this point, however, it’s unclear whether any API readers have actually been fleeced; so far, it seems they’ve just been played for the hell of it. As far as the other scams are concerned, I know nothing about them. If I find out more, I’ll pass it on, too.
That’s what Barack Obama wanted to know as he walked his daughter to a Halloween party at a friend’s home. Walked? A friend? In his neighborhood? Wonder who that might be? Okay, that’s neither here nor there, I just brought it up because I felt like it. Anyway, it seems like the “cool,” “unflappable” “first viable black candidate for president” lost his “cool” and got majorly “flapped” at a bunch of reporters who just happened to catch him out and about. You buying any of this? Me neither, but let’s pretend he didn’t know the press was lodged outside his house, or wouldn’t notice him walking down the street with a kid dressed as a “corpse’s bride.” What the holy cow was he thinking with that? Reuter’s says:
Barack Obama had taken a break from the campaign trail for a few hours of Halloween fun at home with his family four days before the election, but ended up visibly annoyed when news crews dogged their footsteps in their Chicago neighborhood.
“That’s enough. You’ve got a shot. Leave us alone,” Obama told reporters as he walked down the block with his 7-year-old daughter Sasha in her costume on the way to a party at a neighbor’s home.
Okay, I think I get it now. The press, who followed him home, was supposed to know that they were supposed to act like they do when it comes to any other Obama story. Don’t really report it.
He grew especially testy when a Polish television cameraman tried to approach them.
“Come on guys, get back on the bus,” he pleaded with journalists, many of whom had accompanied him from the airport to Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood.
Obama, wearing sunglasses but no costume, and his daughter, dressed up as what campaign aides said was a “corpse’s bride,” then broke into a sprint, leaving the journalists behind.
Too bad the rest of the neighborhood didn’t get the “ignore all those Secret Service guys following the Greatest Black Man Ever and his child” memo. They didn’t go back to their homes; they thought there was something to see there.
Secret Service agents and vans followed closely behind, and stunned trick-or-treaters broke into shouts of “Obama, Obama” as he rushed past.
There was no neighborhood trick-or-treating for the Obama family. “He didn’t want to cause a disruption to the neighborhood,” campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
Instead the family attended a Halloween party behind closed doors at a friend’s home. Obama’s 10-year-old daughter Malia had planned to dress up as an “evil fairy,” the campaign said.
Suuuure, he “didn’t want to cause a disruption.” Yeah. Right. Got it. Uh-huh. Now, you may ask, why would I even snarkily suggest that an honest, trustworthy, transformative, messianic figure like Barack Obama would stage a committed Dad “Kodak moment” so close to the “Most Important Election In Our Lifetime?”
The fact that Obama took time out for Halloween showed a candidate feeling confident about his chances on Tuesday, with polls showing him leading Republican nominee John McCain.
Well, you gotta give African Press International credit for one thing; they’re imaginative. First they claim to have tapes of a Michelle Obama initiated phone call letting it slip that her husband was adopted, but it won’t affect his qualification to be president, while ranting at the news site for not properly worshiping at the feet of The One. Next, they claim to have audiotapes, then that they will be released, but Team O will pay 3 mil for them, and if they don’t take it Camp Obama will get them. Then, there’s an agreement with FOX News that FOX denies; now the written agreement for a deal was initiated by FOX, so if the tapes never see the light of day, don’t blame API. Whew! There were a few more claims about the CIA and riots and stuff between the time the phone call was supposedly made and now, after all it’s been two weeks with an average of a development a day, but who can keep up? API’s Chief Editor Sammy Korir has been outed as “dubiously truthful” by me, and to a much greater extent, by Mountain Sage. At any rate, with today’s latest wrinkle, heeeeerrrre’s Sammy!
Some readers have criticised the way we have handled Michelle Obama tape issue. We believe the criticism has come about because the readers have got no insight in what has been going on behind the scenes. Some people in Fox News Network were not happy with the negotiations because they felt the tape would hurt some people’s interest in political life.
Those who argued against the release were more concerned with the lives of people who left their jobs to support a particular candidate. The argument has been that these people left their jobs and if their candidate does not win, their their lives will be destroyed as well because they will have no jobs to return to.
The negotiation was initiated by Fox News Network not API. This point has to be understood and that means they are interested in doing the right thing.
API was contacted by Fox News Network the same day the story broke out on the 15th of October. Negotiations started the same day in the UK and a week later it moved to New York in order to streamline the facts that each party involved had raised.
�The agreement on, and verification of Michelle Obama tape was concluded on the 28th October at 10.00 am (N.Y time), in Fox News Network Offices, 18th floor, located at 1211 Ave of the America�s in New York�
Therefore, the tape will be aired by the Sean Hannity Show and Greta Van Susteren Show as stipulated in the agreement. The agreement states clearly that the tape will be aired before the elections that takes place on November the 4th.
Therefore, according to the agreement, FOX NEWS NETWORK has not breached the contract. One thing we cannot do is to direct them on the timing of the release.
On releasing the few details above, we are not breaching the contract in any way because we have not made public any document in that there is no need as yet due to the fact that the date stipulated – the 4th of November, has not been ignored by Fox N.N.
Direct anger at us does not help the situation. Such behaviour will not shake the people in FOX in any way. They have the exclusive rights and will do the right thing as agreed.
Oh, well, stay tuned. See you tomorrow, same Bat time, same Bat channel.
Since Barack Obama announced his candidacy for president, we as a nation have adopted, and tried to adapt, the concept of “post racial,” whatever the hell that means. Post racial what? Doesn’t the term suggest that until now, we were a country defined by race? Or, is it just about our national attitude about race? Wouldn’t “post-racism” be a better phrase? We are still a nation composed of many people of many races, and many combinations and variations of those races. How do you get beyond being whatever you racially are? And why would you want to?
Like many people, I was skeptical, and a little offended, when Barack Obama insisted upon anointing himself the 
With the recent news that former Obama “
In late October, 
I’ve just come up with a great idea for president-elect Barack Obama to consider. Change! Real, ballsy, “I’m not fucking around,” change! Instead of raising taxes, or 
Since it’s been a slow Sunday, and 
Are you smarter than a government official? Probably. But probably not by much. At least not according to the results of a civics test given to ordinary citizens as well as those elected to serve 
“No Drama Obama?” What a curious handle to bestow upon a professional TelePrompTer reader so obviously type-cast to play a real-life 
In the mainstream media’s attempt to boost it’s deservedly 
Those “unnamed” sources are at it again; this time saying Arizona governor Janet Napolitano will be Barack Obama’s choice to head the Department of Homeland Security, according to 
Hillary Clinton should be president. Everybody knows that. That’s the one thing all PUMAs have always agreed, and each post-election 
According to 
Remember when speculation was swirling back in August about Barack Obama’s veep pick? Is it 
A website called 
The day after the “historic election of America’s first black president” I wrote a post called, “
Just when speculation surrounding Barack Obama’s possibly imminent appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State was reaching a fever pitch, 
Perhaps “President-Elect -For-Life” Obama shouldn’t have sold himself as the “Omnipotent Obamessiah of Hope and Change”. All that talk about “
Sometimes, the urge to just throw caution to the wind you’re tilting three sheets towards, and say, “piss on ‘em!” is just too strong to ignore. At least it was for New Jersey City Councilman, Steve Lipski, Friday night, according to the 
People, especially pseudo-journalists in the mainstream media and blogger-bullysphere, faux-celebrating the heralding of America’s new racial Kumbayah era being ushered in by the super-duper, “uber-historic” groundbreaking election of a self-described presidential “mutt” with at least one black parent, have written some amazingly stupid freaking things throughout the interminable nominating and election process. But today, on 
After refraining from commentary about the mischief-making Kenyan-in-Norway, “Chief Editor” Sammy Korir’s African Press International and it’s wickedly outlandish claims of possessing audio tapes of a scandalous Michelle Obama telephone call for a few days, I decided to check in and see what was going on. Well, honey, let me tell you, a whole helluva lot seems to be happening with ol’ Sammy and Co. Looks like November 7, was a particularly busy day, what with API’s call for a 
