Dear Editor:
You know, in the old days, when a youngster told his mother that he/ she wanted to be President of the United States, the parent would tell the youth something like this…
1. You need to be much smarter than the average person so you will have to work hard and be very serious about your studies. You will need some kind of advanced degree too because a college degree will be worth about as much as a high school diploma by the time you are grown up.
2. You will need to be a good communicator and know yourself. If you are comfortable in your own skin and know that you are a good, principled, capable and deserving person, you will project that to the world.
3. You will need to work much, much harder than the common man. This could mean that you will be working when others are sleeping, playing, exercising, enjoying free time.
This latest kerfuffle over President Obama’s education speech has really tripped my trigger. After all, what happened to the Republican mantra, “Pull yourself up by the bootstraps, work hard and you will succeed”? If there is anyone who fits that bill, it is Barack Obama. Born to a single mother with no father for support, he did just that. He made mistakes but pulled himself up by the bootstraps to not only get into Harvard ON HIS OWN, he graduated magna cum laude and was the President of Harvard Law Review which is the cream of the cream of the crop.
These parents who were so strenuously opposed to letting their children hear Obama’s inspiring story are ridiculous, if not, hysterical. And then to hear about the parents that were allowing their children to board a bus to go and hear President Bush give a speech the next week- unbelievable!
The sad thing is that so many of these Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh followers do not even see the irony in this. You want your children to hear a speech delivered by GW Bush, a C student, who exercised 2 hours a day for his entire presidency and did not even interrupt his vacation while thousands died in the Katrina Disaster. I stand corrected, he did fly over it.
There is one more virtue that Obama has that makes him even more equipped to be president that anyone in the last 50 years, and that is his courage. No president has more reason to fear assassination than Obama. Every day that President Obama kisses his children good-bye and sends them off to school, he has to have, in the back of his mind, the ominous notion that this could be the last time that he will be able to do this.
I am a politically moderate person and I do not endorse all of President Obama’s policies but we have finally returned to the standard of what a President of the United States should be and it is about time. Starting with smart, disciplined and courageous is a very good start indeed.
Is it me, or does Glenn Beck seem to be losing touch with reality? A month ago he was saying that Pres Obama hates white people and now he was been seen on his show talking about eugenics and crying about what he thinks will happen to his daughter with CP if national health care gets through.
The guy seriously needs professional help and he looks like a bipolarama. If not, at the bare minimum he needs to man up... Uhhggggg, I cannot believe that he gets any air time at all!
All-
WE HAVE LOTS MORE WORK TO DO! The smear machine has released the following video and tauts it as the OCTOBER SURPRISE!
http://www.obamacrimes.comBerg Obama Lawsuit link still works. Here it is.
Of course the charges are coming from a turn-coat democrat (Berg) who seeks to destroy Barack's campaign, not sure of his motivation... maybe just his 15 minutes of fame. Of course I found this video on gretawire.com - Fox blog.
After viewing the video I went to the "Fight the Smears" section of myobama.com. Sure enough the lie about a bogus birth certificate was there but it was at the bottom of the list. In light of these recent ramped up smear/ swiftboat tactics, that rebuttal needs to go to the top of the list with the correct copy of this birth certificate which is posted but most people may not have seen.
Team Barack, this is all the McCain camp has to attempt to steal the election once again. By releasing this video this late, they are hoping that you will not have enough time to respond (as with Kerry) and they will capture those undecided voters.
Funny thing though, with all of this fuss about Barack's records, why has Palin never released her medical records? Could it be that if she does, then we will all find out that she did not give birth last April. How will she explain the tangled web of lies she has spun? Anybody still not clear on all of the suspicious details of the birth should google the Vanity Fair article on Gov. Palin.
OK, Team Barack, you must get out in front of the latest swiftboat tactic!!!! I am asking help from fellow bloggers to help fight this recent smear. I was kicked off the Fox blogs for fighting with neocons and racists. Please jam all of the FOX other neocon blogs to rebut these rediculous charges.
As Berg says, "I don't think I am wrong"... but he does not have to be correct on this charge that Obama is not a naturalized citizen. All he has to do is put doubt in the voters minds until the election is over... just like with Kerry.
Please send e-mails to all of your contacts and warn them about this video and give them the words to counter the attacks.
If I hear one more news commentator talk about the Ayres issue, I'm gonna scream!
OK, So McCain did not bring up Ayres at the last debate because he did not want to be perceived as changing the subject and get accused of stearing off the economy. It must have taken every bit of will power he had. You know him... he is an impulsive, emotional, erratic and angry old man. I am sure that his aides (even Rove) told him, "under no circumstances should you bring up the Ayers thing... you will unleash hell because Obama will fire back about Charles Keating." But McCain is growing more and more impatient every day and so Barack should prepare for Ayres to come up at the last debate because it is McCain's last chance and he is, after all, quite the gambler.
So, while Barack has explained his affiliation with Ayres, working on a board with him, McCain has yet to explain why he has taken some 9 junkets with Charles Keating to know whether this man was a good and descent contributor. In 1989, the Arizona Republic reported that "the McCains, sometimes accompanied by their daughter and baby-sitter, had made at least nine trips at Keating's expense, sometimes aboard the American Continental jet. Three of the trips were made during vacations to Keating's opulent Bahamas retreat at Cat Cay." After McCain's realized that people were looking at Keating, he did repay Keating for some of the trips years after they were taken, after he learned that Keating was in trouble over Lincoln S & L.
McCain's handlers keep saying that McCain was exonerated and so the Obama campaign cannot imply impropriety. Bull$%^&! You cannot tell me that McCain did not subscribe to Keating's deregulation fantacy. I do not beleive for a minute that on those 9 trips, McCain told Keating what a bad idea that was and how it would undermine the solvency of S & Ls. McCain and Keating were and still are birds of a feather and John had a great affinity for people who held strong views against regulation. That was why McCain's buddying up with "Foreclosure Phil" was just so predictable.
So Barack, get ready for the Ayres thing to bubble up at the next debate and you should be ready and not accept the fact that McCain has been "exhonerated"... go with the fact that he took 9 trips to lavish resorts with Keating and then we are supposed to believe that he was not influenced by the man. And if you can mention "Foreclosure Phil", that would be a very strong and lasting soundbite. Be the attorney we know you are and show intent, general pattern and his own history to clean his clock.
What is this? I am seeing people defending Sarah Palin on this blog??? Come on people. People keep trying to sell us that she is like Ron Reagan or Bill Clinton because her main experience is being govenor. But comparing the act of governing Alaska to governing CA is like comparing the governance of Germany to Grenada. California is #7 in gross national product in the world and that is ahead of countries like China and Mexico. You have to be kidding me...
As for comparing Palin to Bill Clinton. Yes, Bill Clinton was the Gov in a relatively small state with low population. But Bill Clinton is a Rhodes Scholar and has like a 170 IQ. The reason that the 90s were so good for Americans is not because of Clintons experience in running the poor state of Arkansas.... things were good because Clinton was so flippin smart! How can anyone who does not even hold an advanced degree (honestly a BS is like a high school diploma was 20 years ago) possibly think she can hold her own with heads of state. After all, Americans are some of the least educated citizens in the world, with or without college degrees.
And since we are on the subject of education, I heard that the Gov of Michigan is prepped Biden for the debates. People are making a lot out of the fact that Gov. Jennifer Granholm is a Harvard Law grad. Yes, that is wonderful and this woman has excellent credentials. But very few people really talk about how smart Barack is. Good God, yes, a Harvard Law Degree is excellent and very difficult to achieve. Then to make Law Review is even harder. And then to be the Editor in Chief of the Harvard Law Review... well, what we have here, folks is a man who has a superior intellect and ability to problem solve and deal with many complicated issues at a time. BO's intelligence is very understated and it should not be.... We need another brainiac like Bill Clinton about now. OK, well, we will be even better off because Barack is not as distractable and he is not the skirt chaser that Bill was (is?).
I was just watching MSNBC and they announced that a US warplane was just forced to land after it violated Iranian airspace. What???? It is happening all over again... just as McCain sent Rove over to Georgia when he was slipping in the polls... and he told the Georgians that we had their backs and that they would never get another chance like this, so go ahead and provoke the Russians. Now McCain is sorely hurting in the polls again so, low and behold, we have an attempt to provoke Iran into a conflict, because why... oh that's right... McCain gains when there is an aggressive act against us or our allies.
This is all so reminiscent of the account that Vincent Bugliosi gave when testifying before the House Judiciary and as is laid out in his book, "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder". Bugliosi gives compelling testimony from the Tony Blair's secretary who stated that he recorded notes of a meeting between Dubya and Blair. Bush told Blair that if a stong case could not be made for weapons of mass destruction to start the war with Iraq, we could disguise a UN plane and the Iraqis will shoot it down and then the war will begin.
When will this "might makes right" gang get it... we are on to them. We now know that if there is an act of aggression or terrorism in the weeks before this election, it has to be either "allowed" or trumped up to help the greatest hawk of all times, John Syndey McCain. Well, even spiderweb can catch a tiger if you weave it tight enough and that is what the Obama campaign is doing to McCain.
And since we are on the subject of education, I heard that the Gov of Michigan is prepping Biden for the debates. People are making a lot out of the fact that Gov. Jennifer Granholm is a Harvard Law grad. Yes, that is wonderful and this woman has excellent credentials. But very few people really talk about how smart Barack is. Good God, yes, a Harvard Law Degree is excellent and very difficult to achieve. Then to make Law Review is even harder. And then to be the Editor in Chief of the Harvard Law Review... well, what we have here, folks is a man who has a superior intellect and ability to problem solve and deal with many complicated issues at a time. BO's intelligence is very understated and it should not be.... We need another brainiac like Bill Clinton about now. OK, well, we will be even better off because Barack is not as distractable and he is not the skirt chaser that Bill was (is?).
OK, so I never had a taste for Reaganomics- trickle down type. But there is something that he did very well which helped him get elected. That skill was for making sound bites. How many times did we hear him say, "Well, there you go again..." And it worked. As for dubya, his attention span is so limited that sound bites are all he was capable of... and yet, even dubya was effective in using sound bites in a debate and so was elected.
Barack and Joe, here you go:
1. You must talk about McCain and his penchant for surrounding himself with aristocrats and kings of deregulation... so you should mention "Foreclosure Phil" as being the author of McCain's ecomomic policy. It does not matter that Gramm is no longer co-chair for McCain's campaign. Say that. Barack.... "Well, why should we all be surprised that you would adopt the ecomomic policy of the king of deregulation, Foreclosure Phil... and your alignment with his policies is very evident in
a. b. c..."
2. The other sound bite that you should use is to call McCain, his cronies and the Bush Admin, "the borrow and spend crowd". We all know that Barack will not spend money needlessly and will be wise and careful with the taxpayer's money, HOWEVER, WE GOT TO WHERE WE ARE TODAY NOT JUST FROM SPENDING BUT FROM BORROWING MONEY UNWISELY. That goes against every conservative principle there is but the Reps like to pee on our shoes and tell us it is raining again.
Thank goodness for the Katie Couric interview... maybe now people Joe Q Public will understand what most of us have known since the day that Palin was announced as VP pick. Palin is a simple-minded, black and white, myopic and maybe even mentally ill person. She really is another George W Bush... just with ovaries. And remember, most of the RNC knew that Dubya was the lesser son, the n'er do well son of George and Babs Bush; they just DID NOT CARE and even wanted an overly emotional, less logical person in the presidency as dumb people make better puppets.
For an objective portrayal of the origin of Dubya's f%$#@ up personality, read "Bush on the Couch" written by a licensed psychiatrist. As for Palin, I do not know how she came to be such an arrogant, grandiose and self-absorbed person but she is exactly what the Christian Taliban (my name for the over-reaching and inflexible Christian right) wants for this country. It just goes to show you that a black man with impeccable credentials and a genius IQ cannot get fair and equitable treatment from these people, but they can and will say that a vapid, sheltered, good ol girl beauty queen has what it takes to exricate us from some of the most complex problems that our country has ever seen. As for Barack, I do not know why you would want to be president NOW, as you could have such a nice and easy life... but I am grateful that we will have you at the helm as our fearless, steady and calm leader. Palin- she is not in touch with reality and that is why she thinks she can do the job... just like Dubya.
Has anybody heard about this.....?
Thom Hartman on Air America was just talking about the fact that he is wondering if McCain had a stroke or something. He said that McCain's left eye keeps sagging and blinking and that his left side looks swollen. I hope the man is not ill but, could it be, that the real reason he wants to suspend the debate is to recover what whatever is going on with him?
Of course, if he was going through some medical difficulty, we cannot rely on his campaign being transparent and honest... after all, Palin is the person who they really want and she cannot get in on her own... so old John needs to hang on until at least November.
Has anybody else noticed this eye sagging and swollen side of McCain... even more than usual.
KJaneway- you are right on in your assessment of Dubya and Palin is just like him!
Dufus is right! I bet Yale considers Bush their worst college admission they ever enrolled! Just imagine how embarrassed they must be everytime someone says that Bush was a Yale grad. Well, we all know that Bush's dad and grandad were Yale alums and if there is enough endowment, the admission rules for these prestigeous colleges could be bent quite a bit?
McCain was 5th from the bottom of his graduating class at USNA and that is out of over 800 people. Isn't it time that we give the presidency back to the best and brightest? Bill Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar with a genius IQ. In order to be the Editor in Chief of Harvard Law Review, one has to be the cream of the crop and that is hard to be among Harvard Law School students. And Palin, well, isn't she just Bush with big hair? There is no depth there... just simple, pat answers. And if a person does not even think that getting an advanced degree (she only has a 4 year degree)is necessary to compete in this comlex world, how can we believe that she puts any stock in education... after all, her arrogance and gradiose view of self is what makes her think that she can do this job, when other, more educated people with a balanced self-concept would back away from the role for a few more years until they could get more experience... AND see to it that her family will be OK with the new set of needs that will become fully realized in the next 6 months.
McCain and Palin deserve each other... but we deserve much better!
Obama/Biden... now more than ever!!!!!!
I have not seen a poll that indicates George Bush's approval rating lately. Some 3 months ago it was hanging at 29-30%. Boy it has to be down in the teens now.
Team Obama, please try to get us current approval ratings. It will be good for our moral and I think it really helps sell the notion of a need for change when people see how other people feel about this current administration. Then, if a person expresses their disdain for this administration, the next logical step is to VOTE for someone who is unlike this president in as many ways as possible.... and that would be a vote for Obama/ Biden!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Boy, my grandfather must be rolling over in his grave about now. I am in my late 40s and I had to listen to my grandpa constantly tell me, "If it seems too good to be true, it is." "A fool and his money are soon parted." "Honest men may want to get rich, but they are not obsessed with doing it QUICKLY". "There is honor in all work and never think you are above shoveling manure or cleaning the crumbs from tables. He also talked, even back in the 60s about people who were foolish with their money... spending it as fast as they made it, living for today and only today and talked about how credit would be the bain of our existence.
That is not to say that the unscrupulous mortgage and lending industries are not to blame for this ecomomic fiasco, but if more of these families had listened to their inner voice and not to the prevalent matra of today, that is, "Everybody is doing it so it must be OK" and "I work hard so I deserve a big house" and "I do not have to wait until I can have a 20% downpayment to own a house." which is just plain good common sense since we all, ultimately, have to repay the loan.
So our speed dial society with nano-attention spans and appetites for fast bucks and even faster results (the video game mentality) have all contributed to this problem as well.
Contrast this mentality with Obama who owns one car (a Ford Hybid) and talks about turning off computers and picking up books. Obama who talks about personal responsibility and is a shining example of it. Obama and Michelle who invested the right way, in their own educations that nobody could ever take away from them and that could yield them quite a fortune if they were to leave politics.
So many criticize Barack for not being edgy enough...too cerebral... not emotional enough, not common enough. Well, the reason that we are in this mess is because of people who are overly emotional, impetuous, impulsive. When I look at Barack, I see and hear my grandfathers voice and that is very comforting to me. Oh, by the way, back in the 20's, it was a black doctor who saved my gradfather's life. Though my grandfather was a carpenter living in a rather segregated community, he never forgot this man's skill and compassion and he never again sat idly by while people uttered racist comments.
Let's get back to fundamentals and go back to basics. Books, savings, hard work, throw the bums out, responsibility, and compassion for our neighbors... they served us well for so long.
Respectfully... do you think that the McCain campaign putting Obama in an ad with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton is "decent"? Come on, we all know that if he could have made that point by putting Brad Pit, George Clooney, Oprah, Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, Celine Dion or any of a hundred Hollywood liberal loons in that ad, but they chose 2 vacuous, young, pretty white girls and added a couple of phalic symbols(the Washington Monument and the Victory Tower) to boot...you know, to paint the image that would irritate the average white person who shakes their head, "tisk, tisk" whenever they see a black man with a pretty white girl.
Or how about the McCain ad that states that Barack is in favor of teaching sex education to kindergartners when we all know that what those lessons will be is information to protect themselves from predators.
Obama was above all of the crap, and then average Joes said that they would not vote for him unless he swung back... and now he is... though he really does not have a taste for nasty politics.
If you think McCain does not have a bigotted bone in his body, then you are very naive and you need to go back and review his arguments against Martin Luther King holiday. I am a white, middle aged person and I am seeing bigotry in this country everyday, covert and overt... McCain is just so McNasty that he prefers to be covert about it... you know, like throwing a rock and hiding your hand.
That diabolical, tubby, little dough-head, Karl Rove, is about to do it again.... He is selling us a dubya in drag but this time he has found one with who is more eloquent. Americans are so emotional and so it worked with Dubya and it will work with Palin if we let it.
The similarities between Dubya and Palin are striking:
1. Both exercise about 2 hours a day... how nice but isn't this excessive when you have a country and children with needs?
2. Both have a very simplistic view of the world... black or white... you are with me or against me... I can do whatever I want and do not need to conserve or be thoughful about God's creatures, the environment or our finite resources.
3. Both do not care much about higher education. Palin went to 5 colleges just to get a 4 year degree... Yale accepted Dubya because his dad was an alum. To this day, Yale probably regrets that admission because he is a great embarrasment.
4. Both will pee on your shoes and tell you it is raining like Palin imposing a sales tax on everything and then getting rid of the personal property tax. Bush with his constant lying and manipulation to get his war in Iraq and all of his big business interests covered.
5. Both are narcissistic... read "Bush on the Couch" and it will explain his sadistic streak. I do not know where Sarah gets her distorted view of the world but will will find out if we live through her term as she seems to embrace the end of days theory.
6. Both are Pseudo-Christians... telegraphing to the world that they are righteous all the while they act with extreme arrogance and disregard for the truth.
So, you see, Karl Rove is going to the same well and this time we have to be smarter and let everyone know that that one is poison. Good God, the republicans talk about cool-aid...
Psychologist say that Dubya is a self-loathing dry drunk who has ascended to the presidency just to prove that he is "good enough" since Daddy and Babs Bush were not so good at nurturing. Gee, I wonder if Daddy Bush, ran his home like he did the CIA... if so, no wonder Dubya is the mess he is. Dubya has a sadistic streak.
As for Palin, she is in her own little world...now we know that she has a tanning bed in her home... how nice...and in pictures, one can easily see that she gets french manicure and pedicures... really nice. Taking care of oneself is one thing but this woman is positively narcissistic. Most of the working moms I know can hardly have time to shave our legs and this woman with 5 kids thinks she can effectively have a 100 hour per week job with extreme stress AND that she can effectively parent her children... who cares if Todd is wonderful we'll see how well he does with less attention too.
Again, Dubya and Palin have a lot in common... the trait that is the most dangerous to us as American citizens is that neither has a good grip on reality and for that we are paying dearly and we will pay even more dearly if Palin gets in because of her grandiose self image. We have all seen this personality trait before- Hitler, Napoleon, Cheney, Bin Laden... pretty scary, huh?
McCain is up to old tricks by saying that Barack received lots of money from Freddie and Fannie but this is not entirely true. In making donations, one has to give the name of their company and over $100 K was given to Barack from those firms... my guess is that the employees knew they were going down and they wanted to get someome in the presidency who is not a simpleton to head up these complex problems. So McCain, with the help of Karl Rove again, is twisting the truth again to damage BO.
I imagine that thousands of GM employees have donated to Barack also, but nobody blames these individual employees for GM's poor leadership decisions to drag their feet on CAFE standards... nor should we.
OK, we've all heard McCain dismiss Barack's view of the Iraq war because Barack has no military experience. Excuse me, but it seems that you have missed a major lesson in history, Mr. McCain.
How do you exprect us NOW to continue to aid the Iraqi government when our our economic system is on the brink of collapse. County first, right... and so... if you really believe that, McCain, the next words out of your mouth should be that you are calling for an automatic withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq. We may need increased forces in Afghanistan to try to finally get Bin Laden... if that is even possible, due to so many blunders by the gang who cannot shoot straight... but how dare you stand your ground and say that we need to continue poring lives and money down that black hole.
Worse yet, this financial disaster has weakened our country. We are like over-ripe fruit that are ready to fall off the vine. China owns us, Russia is severely irritated with us, and Iran is licking their chops over this internal strife that they know has weakened us. This American tiger is very sick and not very ferocious right now. How patriotic is it for a person like McCain (who knows better because of Keating 5) to have embraced and endorsed the policies of a person like Phil Gramm who is probably singularly the one person who is most to blame for this fiasco because of his intense desire for deregulation and less transparency in the subprime market. Good God, with a guy like Gramm as your ecomomic policy author, McCain, maybe you should consider a person like Abramoff to be in charge of your campaign contibutions... I hear he has lots of time on his hands these days. Gramm's wife was even on the Enron Board with Ken Lay. Birds of a feather flock together!
No matter what, Barack needs to be careful as so many of the hateful republicans have finally gotten over trying to spread the rumor that Barack is a muslim... now that that myth has been debunked by the press. So now the same liars are telling everyone that Barack is a socialist, Marxist, etc. Of course, we know he is not but the BO campaign needs to work harder to get the surrogates out there refuting that lie. Just because a person does not believe that capitalism should run amok and enable destructive greed does not mean they are a socialist. If anything, with the airline industry and the financial industry we have learned that deregulation only works if we do not have viciously opportunistic, greedy people. How eutopian is that to think that we will never have more people like Gramm? We always will and so now is the time for Barack to step in as Medicare and Social Security are sure to have similar fates if we do not have a person who has the IQ and integrity to lead us out of more pending disasters.
Obama/ Biden '08 Now more that ever!!!!!
