Napolitano For Homeland Security?

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.

Obama Picks Prove PUMAs’ Point

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.

Party unity, my ass.

Obama House Negro?

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 state Colin 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.”

Black Voice News took exception:

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.

Hillary Beats Jesus, Jesus Beats God

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.