I am so happy, and so amazed and what America has done tonight, what we did tonight. Seeing Jesse Jackson cry and hearing so many African American pundits echoing my sentiments of a few days ago that now they can say to their children, if you work hard you really can be president. That is all so powerful.
At the same time, my friend George and I joked tonight that they waited until the country was is the worst possible shape before handing the reins over to a black man. Sad but true! It took extraordinarily tough circumstances for America to understand that change is needed. How many of us have been calling for change since 2000? How many of us have been calling for change since 1968? How many have been calling for change since 1954? Finally America, finally.
I am unfortunately, also reminded how much more work we still have to do to understand and appreciate our common humanity. Proposition 8 has narrowly passed in California. This says so much about how little Americans understand the intensions of the Founding Fathers – the framers of our Constitution who meant to limit the power of a government to intrude into our homes and our lives. Hey while you’re at it folks – let's throw out Roe Vs. Wade. It is exactly the same right to privacy issue. And it’s a slap in the face to Barack Obama’s presidency. This is not what Barack is about.
Does being attracted to a person of the same gender take away one’s basic humanity? Does it take away one’s capacity to love and be loved? Obviously no. Marriage is about love and commitment, not about passing judgment in the name of religion. If the Lord can tell us to love our enemies you can bet he loves all of us, gay or straight. NOT THAT THIS IS AN ISSUE FOR GOVERNMENT TO DECIDE.
Is it right that simply because gays are in the minority that the rest of us should legislate their lives differently from our own? How anyone thinks that they have the right to legislate the love that two people feel for each other is incredible, and disappointing. Just one straight man's opinion but we spent eight years fighting to get rid of that government.
America we took a giant step forward today, but we still have further to go. Good luck everyone and congratulations.
I dug up this year old article because it says a lot of things that I’ve thought over the last four or five months. Specifically in regard to the impact of the United States electing a man named Barack Hussein Obama on the Middle East and the Third World in general. Again a possible game changer - to our benefit. The article really was surprisingly insightful - not the least by predicting Obama and McCain as the two most suitable presidential candidates and Obama as the necessary winner. Sullivan really sets out the political environment in which we, the United States exists at this time. I think it’s worth a review:
DECEMBER 2007 ATLANTIC
Is Iraq Vietnam? Who really won in 2000? Which side are you on in the culture wars? These questions have divided the Baby Boomers and distorted our politics. One candidate could transcend them.
by Andrew Sullivan
Goodbye to All That: Why Obama Matters
" ... Consider this hypothetical. It’s November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America’s soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama’s face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can.
The other obvious advantage that Obama has in facing the world and our enemies is his record on the Iraq War. He is the only major candidate to have clearly opposed it from the start. Whoever is in office in January 2009 will be tasked with redeploying forces in and out of Iraq, negotiating with neighboring states, engaging America’s estranged allies, tamping down regional violence. Obama’s interlocutors in Iraq and the Middle East would know that he never had suspicious motives toward Iraq, has no interest in occupying it indefinitely, and foresaw more clearly than most Americans the baleful consequences of long-term occupation.
...
But if you sense, as I do, that greater danger lies ahead, and that our divisions and recent history have combined to make the American polity and constitutional order increasingly vulnerable, then the calculus of risk changes. Sometimes, when the world is changing rapidly, the greater risk is caution. Close-up in this election campaign, Obama is unlikely. From a distance, he is necessary. At a time when America’s estrangement from the world risks tipping into dangerous imbalance, when a country at war with lethal enemies is also increasingly at war with itself, when humankind’s spiritual yearnings veer between an excess of certainty and an inability to believe anything at all, and when sectarian and racial divides seem as intractable as ever, a man who is a bridge between these worlds may be indispensable.
We may in fact have finally found that bridge to the 21st century that Bill Clinton told us about. Its name is Obama."
Andrew Sullivan, an Atlantic senior editor, blogs at andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com. His most recent book, The Conservative Soul, has just been published in paperback.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200712/obama
Politics is right smack above religion in the list of topics we don’t discuss in my family. This explains why I have no idea who my aunt or uncle or any of my cousins is going to vote for. The subject does concern me though, because my relatives live in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Texas. As an Obama/ Biden supporter I don’t see a lot of blue in that list (at least not until recently). If you looked at my family from a distance you’d see the typical Scots Irish/ German stock that makes up much of the Midwest. In fact we can trace most of our ancestors back to the 16th century on the other side of the Atlantic so we can literally point out exactly when someone got on a boat and came to America. We can chart their movements from (mostly) Virginia to our beloved homeland, Iowa. Members of our family fought in the Revolution, the War of 1812 and for Lincoln’s army during the Civil War. All of which is to say, we’re pretty darn American. That said, zoom in a little and there’s a more complex story. On one side of my family my grandparents were both (like Obama) mixed race, what used to be called Mulatto. On the other side of the family my closest cousins were raised in Guatemala and not only speak Spanish fluently (and primarily), but one wonderful cousin married into an old Guatemalan family that traces their roots back to medieval Spain. In our opinion these two factors make us even more American (take that Sarah – we’re more American!), because we share that broader American narrative. As I started off, I have no idea how the individuals in my family are going to vote. But no matter how they vote, each and everyone of them is good, decent, loving, intelligent person. There are no stereotypes in my family. No Joe Six Packs, no Joe the Plumbers, no Joe nothing. And no Sarah Moose-killers either. Even the most evangelical, religious members of my family are smart, thoughtful and insightful individuals. I’m proud to be related to them and I enjoy every moment I spend with them. And I can understand why some in my family will be voting for John McCain. He is after all a veteran of twenty-six years in the Congress and the Senate and he has a lot of political experience. For most of his career he has been someone I would call honorable. I even think – Palin aside – he’s been honorable in this campaign. He clearly doesn’t take his attack ads seriously otherwise he wouldn’t undermine them in his interviews. He hasn’t attacked Obama’s on religion, or attacked Obama’s wife or children – things that Bush and Rove did to Senator McCain in 2000. So why am I not voting for the McCain/ Palin ticket? The reason is simple. It is simply and specifically that the Republican Party allowed our country to be misled and mishandled for eight years. Worse than Nero fiddling while Rome burned, the Republicans lauded an incompetent leader, celebrated him and supported his profligate spending, his war-mongering and his actions to isolate of our beautiful and amazing country on the world stage. On economic issues Mr. Bush and the Republican led congress supported their personal financial interests above the needs of the majority of the American people. Let me quote Simon Rosenberg, “ … incredibly, McCain's economic plan has been so similar to the approach Bush took in his years in office that it has been stunning to watch. The GOP's economic strategy this decade has left the average American making less money while giving huge tax breaks to the most privileged among us. The inability of the Republicans to come to terms with this outcome of their years in control of government has been central to their dramatic fall from power. That John McCain did not understand this, and did not offer any real proposals to deal with the struggle of every day people, is what allowed Obama to successfully tie him to President Bush and his failed Presidency. I think McCain never really believed that the Democrats would pull off making him a Bush clone because of his own hatred for Bush. But the ideological blindness of the modern GOP to the struggle of every day people is what drove the GOP from office in 2006, and will likely be the central cause of their defeat once again in 2008.” Worst of all, the Republican Party allowed George W. Bush to ignore the one task that we the American people asked of him after 9/11. The assignment we expected of the President and the Congress after 2001 was to find and kill Osama bin Laden and to destroy Al Qaeda. Whether that meant sending Special Forces into the mountains of Pakistan or building schools in the plains of Afghanistan. But that Republican president ignored the best opportunity to kill Bin Laden back in 2002, and then he misled us into a war in Iraq that distracted our military and financial resources from what surely should have been their primary task. Having been savaged so badly in 2000, Mr. McCain may have felt that he must align himself with Bush, the populist master, and learn Karl Rove’s campaign techniques in order to have a any chance to be president someday. In effect Senator McCain now appears more like a victim of Stockholm syndrome, but nevertheless in aligning himself to George Bush for the last seven years he's courted the ruin of our country, of my country. Mr. McCain, your party was given the stewardship of our nation for eight years, and they - you - handled that responsibility like a fifteen year old behind the wheel of a hot-rod on a back country road. And for that, Mr. McCain, as we would with the same errant teenager, we take away the keys. Your party must be made to account for its irresponsible behavior.As an opinion against McCain, this does not make the case for my support of the Obama/ Biden ticket. Any sensible, intelligent person – ignoring the superficial issues of race and name – has to ask themselves how they could vote for someone with the limited national and international political experience of the first term senator from Illinois. My answer is as simple as my position on the Republicans, I support Barack Obama because he acknowledges the issues facing our country. That’s it. For me, the reason to support Mr. Obama is not because I have some kind of miraculous faith in him (although I do); it is not because I think he’s a good person (which again I do); it’s not because I believe in the tooth fairy or any other mystical powers that will make the next presidency easy or smooth. It’s because Mr. Obama has articulated the issues and challenges that face our great nation. Mr. Obama has called them out while Mr. McCain and the Republican Party have ignored them, denied them and tried to avoid addressing them at every turn. If we are ever going to make this country better; if we are ever going to fix the things that are wrong with this country; if we are ever going to make the American Dream available to every citizen, we must elect a leader who is willing to attack our challenges head on. If you can’t even admit that the problems exist, you will never fix them. Since only one person in this election has been discussing them, there can only be one person to vote for, Barack Obama. Only now, when pressed with a clear deficit in the polls has Mr. McCain begun to discuss the real issues facing this great nation. Sorry Mr. McCain, in my opinion you are too late. Real leadership stood up and revealed itself months ago.
So my family, I love you, and will continue to love you no matter what happens in this election. Still knowing that you love America as much as I do, I ask you to consider my candidate.
This election and Black America
In any war there are some of us who don’t make it. The soldiers that don’t return from the front, the ones that don’t get to celebrate victory with the rest of us. I’d like to take a moment to remember and thank all of those who are not with us to savor this moment in time. Those who made their voices heard, who worked so hard so that this day could come, and who fought the battles that helped us win this war.
While I’m not a single issue voter and had I been, this particular issue has not been my most pressing (America’s standing in the international community tops that list), nevertheless I have to pinch myself whenever I think about the fact that we're about to elect a black man President of the United States of America. For many of us this is a day that we didn’t think would come in our lifetimes. It’s made all the sweeter by the fact that we’re electing a good man. I don’t think many of us have felt this positive about a candidate since Robert Kennedy was running. I know I haven’t and I was only seven at the time.
Now I know the election of Barack Hussein Obama won’t magically make four hundred years of history disappear, or eradicate poverty in black communities over night, but this is still a game changer. For those of you reading this who are white, try to imagine what this event is going to do for African Americans. Understand that in a few days, African American parents are going to be able to do something white parents have been able to do since – well - since forever. They will be able to look down at their children and tell them – sweetheart, when you grow up if you work hard you can go to the best college in the country, and if you want one day you can be President. And it’s going to be true. They are going to tell their children, you are not second-class citizens; you do not belong on the back of the bus. And it’s going to be hard and fast, rock solid, nothing but true.
There were many soldiers who helped this day come – of course we all think of John and Bobby and Malcolm and Martin. On the top of my personal short list is Jimmy and Ossie and Romare and Gordon (James Baldwin, Ossie Davis, Romare Bearden and Gordon Parks if you have to ask). Brothers from the community of artists who helped form both my aesthetics and my political opinions. On Election day, may I suggest we each take time out to to make our own list, and remember those we knew personally, family and friends.
My list has all kinds of people on it - black, white, Jewish, catholic and even people from foreign countries. It starts with my father, who was white. He was white, and he was from Iowa, and he was pretty far to the left in his politics. But he was a patriot. He loved America, and he believed in America, and he believed that everyone should share America's benefits no matter what their skin color. And that’s what he raised his children to believe.
I get a tickle when I think of my (white) uncle who lives in conservative, republican Kentucky, and whom I imagine hasn’t pulled the lever for a democrat in some time. My uncle who protested and fund-raised with his brother, my dad, in those tumultuous days of the Civil Rights movement, and who is exactly that same kind of patriot (although not ah a leftie). To this day, he recounts with pride the story of when his Columbia University classmates, international students from all over the world, lined up to donate blood to his African American niece, my sister, after a near fatal accident. No matter how my uncle is voting this year, I can’t help but think he must be hiding a snicker of satisfaction, thinking about this coming day that he and his brother fought to make a possibility as it becomes a reality.
Remember on Election day, cast your vote, then make your list, and remember the soldiers. They fought the battles, and we won the war.
Carl Davidson
Posted October 27, 2008 | 12:53 PM (EST)
In Working-Class Pennsylvania, Union Reps and Football Stars Make Strong Case for Obama -- and Against McCain
… "We've been getting the shaft," Girard said, "but this is our time, we're going to turn it completely around. We've never had a candidate like Barack Obama." After the thank-you's and standard lines, Girard asks the workers here to follow a thought experiment with him: to imagine a candidate born to wealth and privilege of the high officer class. Follow him as he fritters away his studies. Recognize and respect his service, but when he gets back, he dumps his first wife and marries into brewery millions. He goes to Congress with the goal of letting the banks run wild, and voting against the unions 85 percent of the time. He's so wealthy, he doesn't even know how many homes he has.
Now imagine, Girard went on, a candidate with a single mother, who works hard, but leaves him mainly with Kansas grandparents to raise him. They sacrifice everything to get him an education. He gets to Harvard, top of his class. Wall Street is offering hundreds of thousands of dollars just for sign-up bonuses, but what does he do? He decides to give something back. He works for a church group on the South Side of Chicago, with the unemployed laid-off workers, many of them steelworkers, helping them get retrained, helping them find a future.
"The Republicans want to talk about character!" Girard shouted. "What does this tell you about it? What does this tell you about the difference between these two men? I listened to rightwing radio yesterday, making fun of Obama for going to visit his dying grandmother, the woman who gave everything to see him succeed. He set aside the time to see her while she could still hear his voice, and they mock it."
"McCain and the Republicans have been running around like 'Robin Hood in Reverse,' then dump all this slime on Obama and us, and we're supposed to shut up and like it?," he asked. "No, take the measure of these two men. Take the measure of which one stands with family as we know it, take the measure of which one can benefit the working class that we're part of. Obama is going to be a great president, and we're going to put him there." …
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carl-davidson/in-working-class-pennsylv_b_138210.html
After finally getting around to reading the Week in Review Op-Ed section from this past Sunday's NY Times, all I can say is I'm impressed. Every article hit the ball out of the park - even David Brooks, who I usually can't read because of his inability to admit he admires Barack Obama.
Check it out:
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/index.html
Here's a sample:
OP-EXTRA COLUMNIST
The Party of Yesterday
By TIMOTHY EGAN
Published: October 26, 2008
SEATTLE
Two years ago, a list of the nation’s brainiest cities was put together from Census Bureau reports — that is, cities with the highest percentage of college graduates, which is not the same as smart, of course.
These are vibrant, prosperous places where a knowledge economy and cool things to do after hours attract people from all over the country. Among the top 10, only two of those metro areas — Raleigh, N.C., and Lexington, Ky. — voted Republican in the 2004 presidential election.
This year, all 10 are likely to go Democratic. What’s more, with Colorado, New Hampshire and Virginia now trending blue, Republicans stand to lose the nation’s 10 best-educated states as well.
It would be easy to say these places are not the real America, in the peculiar us-and-them parlance of Sarah Palin. It’s easy to say because Republicans have been insinuating for years now that some of the brightest, most productive communities in the United States are fake American — a tactic that dates to Newt Gingrich’s reign in the capitol.
Brainy cities have low divorce rates, low crime, high job creation, ethnic diversity and creative capitalism. They’re places like Pittsburgh, with its top-notch universities; Albuquerque, with its surging Latino middle class; and Denver, with its outdoor-loving young people. They grow good people in the smart cities.
But in the politically suicidal greenhouse that Republicans have constructed for themselves, these cities are not welcome. They are disparaged as nests of latte-sipping weenies, alt-lifestyle types and “other” Americans, somehow inauthentic.
If that’s what Republicans want, they are doomed to be the party of yesterday.
Timothy Egan writes Outposts, a column at nytimes.com.
Elizabeth Austin
Posted October 23, 2008 | 03:13 PM (EST)
An Invitation to Governor Palin
As I rode my bike through the carefully restored prairie, I realized that Sarah Palin's skewed, constricted vision of urban America has been shaped by movies, television shows and newscasts offering gory, violent visions of city life. She doesn't know that my block, my neighborhood, my Midwestern community are as tightly interwoven, as truly American, as her own hometown.
I reminded myself that Sarah Palin was just a little girl in a tiny Alaska town when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. She has never taken the El through Chicago's West Side and seen decades-old scars of boarded-up buildings and vacant lots -- the miles of barren landscape left behind when thousands of hearts were suddenly, violently broken. She can't comprehend the fierce, fragile, and fearful hope that Senator Obama inspires in inner-city neighborhoods across America, and the pain that her ill-chosen words inflict on citizens who have been told for generations that they are not part of the "real America." …
Sarah Palin and her furious, overwrought supporters call me and my neighbors anti-American because they don't know us -- and we respond in kind because we don't know them, either. But if Barack Obama wins this election, we owe it to him and to our shared national future to drop the invective, the insults, the relentless snark. Whether we like it or not, we are all in this together. …”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-austin/an-invitation-to-governor_b_137198.html
Robert Gates dueled with the Soviets, but even he's daunted by today's challenges.
From the magazine issue dated Nov 3, 2008
I'm not even going to quote from this article, I just urge you to go read it in it's entirety. Robert Gates is an intelligent person, he knows his job and he knows that the military is not the only answer. Please take a look:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/165654
Obama for president
Palin's rise captivates us but nation needs a steady hand
Published: October 25th, 2008 07:37 PM Last Modified: October 25th, 2008 08:10 PM
… “Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee, brings far more promise to the office. In a time of grave economic crisis, he displays thoughtful analysis, enlists wise counsel and operates with a cool, steady hand. The same cannot be said of Sen. McCain.
Since his early acknowledgement that economic policy is not his strong suit, Sen. McCain has stumbled and fumbled badly in dealing with the accelerating crisis as it emerged. He declared that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" at 9 a.m. one day and by 11 a.m. was describing an economy in crisis. He is both a longtime advocate of less market regulation and a supporter of the huge taxpayer-funded Wall Street bailout. His behavior in this crisis -- erratic is a kind description -- shows him to be ill-equipped to lead the essential effort of reining in a runaway financial system and setting an anxious nation on course to economic recovery.
Sen. Obama warned regulators and the nation 19 months ago that the subprime lending crisis was a disaster in the making. Sen. McCain backed tighter rules for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but didn't do much to advance that legislation. Of the two candidates, Sen. Obama better understands the mortgage meltdown's root causes and has the judgment and intelligence to shape a solution, as well as the leadership to rally the country behind it. It is easy to look at Sen. Obama and see a return to the smart, bipartisan economic policies of the last Democratic administration in Washington, which left the country with the momentum of growth and a budget surplus that President George Bush has squandered.
On the most important issue of the day, Sen. Obama is a clear choice.” …
http://www.adn.com/opinion/story/567867.html
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Real Plumbers of Ohio
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: October 20, 2008
“… the G.O.P. was able to keep winning elections even as its actual policies became more pro-plutocrat, and less favorable to working Americans, than ever.
John McCain’s strategy, in this final stretch, is based on the belief that the old formula still has life in it. …
But what’s really happening to the plumbers of Ohio, and to working Americans in general?
First of all, they aren’t making a lot of money. You may recall that in one of the early Democratic debates Charles Gibson of ABC suggested that $200,000 a year was a middle-class income. Tell that to Ohio plumbers: according to the May 2007 occupational earnings report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual income of “plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters” in Ohio was $47,930.
Second, their real incomes have stagnated or fallen, even in supposedly good years. The Bush administration assured us that the economy was booming in 2007 — but the average Ohio plumber’s income in that 2007 report was only 15.5 percent higher than in the 2000 report, not enough to keep up with the 17.7 percent rise in consumer prices in the Midwest. As Ohio plumbers went, so went the nation: median household income, adjusted for inflation, was lower in 2007 than it had been in 2000.
Third, Ohio plumbers have been having growing trouble getting health insurance, especially if, like many craftsmen, they work for small firms. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, in 2007 only 45 percent of companies with fewer than 10 employees offered health benefits, down from 57 percent in 2000.
And bear in mind that all these data pertain to 2007 — which was as good as it got in recent years. Now that the “Bush boom,” such as it was, is over, we can see that it achieved a dismal distinction: for the first time on record, an economic expansion failed to raise most Americans’ incomes above their previous peak.
… I don’t want to suggest that everyone would be better off under the Obama tax plan. Joe the plumber would almost certainly be better off, but Richie the hedge fund manager would take a serious hit.
But that’s the point. Whatever today’s G.O.P. is, it isn’t the party of working Americans.”
OCTOBER 20, 2008 11:52 Incoherence
Posted by Joe Klein
… “3. He attacks Obama's tax plan as a form of "spreading the wealth"--the words Obama used when talking to Joe the Unlicensed Tax Dodger in Ohio--because Obama would reduce taxes on the middle class and pay for it by restoring Clinton-era marginal tax rates on the wealthy. And yet, McCain proudly voted for a major tax hike and wealth redistribution scheme in his early days in his early days in Congress. In fact he touts it regularly, including on Fox News Sunday, as bipartisan cooperation at its finest: In fact, that was an enormous--and necessary--tax increase, but it tilted heavily against working Americans. Payroll taxes have been increased no fewer than seven times since Reagan was President and, so far as I know, never been cut--but large capital gains and marginal rate cuts, and all sorts of corporate loopholes, have been built into the tax system during that same period--a massive redistribution of wealth toward the wealthy. Finally, McCain had this exchange about his campaign's skeevy robo-calls this weekend on Fox: WALLACE: ... and you said the following [after the South Carolina primary campaign in 2000], "I promise you, I have never and will never have anything to do with that kind of political tactic." Now you've hired the same guy who did the robo calls against you to — reportedly, to do the robo calls against Obama and the Republican Senator Susan Collins, the co-chair of your campaign in Maine, has asked you to stop the robo calls. Will you do that?
MCCAIN: Of course not. These are legitimate and truthful, and they are far different than the phone calls that were made about my family and about certain aspects that — things that this is — this is dramatically different, and either you haven't — didn't see those things
Legitimate and truthful? I supposed that's why Susan Collins, one of McCain's closest friends in the Senate, criticized him for this trashball tactic. Oh, and the "same guy" Wallace was referring to is none other than Warren Tompkins, whose name was a synonym for satan among the McCain inner circle in 2000. I can imagine John breaking the news to Cindy, "Hey, honey, great news! Remember that guy who was involved in spreading the rumors about your addiction to pain killers and Bridget being an illegitimate interracial child? Well, we've got him doing that same sort of high-minded stuff for us!" http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/10/incoherence_1.html
'Meet the Press' transcript for Oct. 19, 2008
Former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell (Ret.), Chuck Todd, David Brooks, Jon Meacham, Andrea Mitchell, Joe Scarborough
GEN. COLIN POWELL (RET.): “… I also believe that on the Republican side over the last seven weeks, the approach of the Republican Party and Mr. McCain has become narrower and narrower. Mr. Obama, at the same time, has given us a more inclusive, broader reach into the needs and aspirations of our people. He's crossing lines--ethnic lines, racial lines, generational lines. He's thinking about all villages have values, all towns have values, not just small towns have values.
And I've also been disappointed, frankly, by some of the approaches that Senator McCain has taken recently, or his campaign ads, on issues that are not really central to the problems that the American people are worried about. This Bill Ayers situation that's been going on for weeks became something of a central point of the campaign. But Mr. McCain says that he's a washed-out terrorist. Well, then, why do we keep talking about him? And why do we have these robocalls going on around the country trying to suggest that, because of this very, very limited relationship that Senator Obama has had with Mr. Ayers, somehow, Mr. Obama is tainted. What they're trying to connect him to is some kind of terrorist feelings. And I think that's inappropriate.
… Now, I understand what politics is all about. I know how you can go after one another, and that's good. But I think this goes too far. And I think it has made the McCain campaign look a little narrow. It's not what the American people are looking for. And I look at these kinds of approaches to the campaign and they trouble me. And the party has moved even further to the right, and Governor Palin has indicated a further rightward shift. I would have difficulty with two more conservative appointments to the Supreme Court, but that's what we'd be looking at in a McCain administration. I'm also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he's a Christian. He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, "He's a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists." This is not the way we should be doing it in America. …
So, when I look at all of this and I think back to my Army career, we've got two individuals, either one of them could be a good president. But which is the president that we need now? Which is the individual that serves the needs of the nation for the next period of time? And I come to the conclusion that because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities--and we have to take that into account--as well as his substance--he has both style and substance--he has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president. I think he is a transformational figure. He is a new generation coming into the world--onto the world stage, onto the American stage, and for that reason I'll be voting for Senator Barack Obama. …”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27265369/
Robert L. Borosage
Posted October 17, 2008 | 07:47 AM (EST)
The Horror, The Horror Yet To Come
The Wall Street Journal editors peer fearlessly into the increasingly likely terror of an election that produces a Democratic President with larger Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. Disregarding the delicate sensibilities of women and children, the editors expose to all the stark horrors that could ensue:
Voters will be registered. Workers organized. Banks regulated. Health care provided for all. Government investment will drive a green revolution that generates millions of jobs. The wealthy will pay more in taxes. Guantanamo will be shut down; torture will end. Net neutrality will be mandated. Citizens may even be able to sue corporations that negligently do them harm. And that doesn't even mention ending the war in Iraq.
The horror of it all. Can the Republic survive? The editors hold out one slim hope. Perhaps Democrats will divide. Perhaps the entrenched lobbies, the interest of the corporations and the wealthy will buy enough support to stand in the way of the tumbrels.
And that defines our job pretty clearly: to organize engaged citizens to hold Democrats accountable to the promises that have been made and the agenda the country needs. If we do that well, just maybe we can deepen the Wall Street Journal's lamentations. Cut the military budget. Forge a national strategy for the global economy. Make college affordable for all. Provide the basics in education, from pre-school to small classes, to lifelong learning. Revive national service. Rebuild trust in government. Launch the unspeakable -- a true war on poverty.
The horror, the stark horror of it all. Can Americans -- after Iraq, Katrina, bankers run amok, gilded age inequality, Robber Baron corruption -- actually have the gall to vote the bums out? Say it ain't so, Joe the plumber, say it ain't so.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-l-borosage/the-horror-the-horror-yet_b_135499.html
Senator Barack Obama
October 17, 2008
"So let's talk about the issues that matter. In the debate this week, Senator McCain felt the need to inform me that he's not President Bush.
And in fairness, I don't blame Senator McCain for all of President Bush's mistakes. After all, he's only voted with George Bush 90 percent of the time.
But it is fair to say that over the course of three debates and twenty months, Senator McCain still hasn't offered a single thing that he would do differently from George W. Bush when it comes to the most important economic issues we face today. Not one.
He wants to keep giving tax cuts to corporations that ship your jobs overseas just like George Bush. I want to give tax breaks to companies that create jobs right here in America.
He wants to give tax cuts to Exxon-Mobil and big corporations and their CEOs – cuts we just can't afford – just like George Bush. I want to give a break to 95 percent of middle class Americans – folks who need it and deserve it. I want to give tax breaks to the small businesses that create more than two-thirds of our jobs. That's how we'll strengthen our country. That's how we'll grow our economy again.
I know I'm not running against President Bush. But I am running against his policies – the policies John McCain has supported. The policies John McCain would continue. Because that's something we can't afford. ...
So in the end, Senator McCain can keep trying to attack me and distract you – but it's not going to work. Not this time – not now. Because while John McCain thinks this campaign is all about me – the truth is, this campaign is about you. Your jobs. Your health care. Your retirement. Your children's future. That's what this election is about. That's what I'm fighting for. Because I can take 3 more weeks of these attacks from John McCain, but the American people can't take four more years of the same failed policies and the same divisive politics. That's why I'm running for President of the United States. ...
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/17/happening-now-obama-stumps-in-red-virginia/
Mitchell Bard
Posted October 16, 2008 | 10:28 AM(EST)
"I'mNot President Bush": Uh, Senator, Sorry, But Your Voting Record Says You Are
“McCain can't change history now. It's too late.The numbers are there, mocking his claim of separation from Bush. In 2007,McCain voted with Bush 95 percent of the time, and since Bush took office,McCain voted with him 89 percent of the time (according to a CongressionalQuarterly voting study). McCain has been even more loyal to hisfellow Republicans in the Senate, voting with them 98 percent ofthe time in 2007 (43 of 44 times).
When McCain said "I'm not President Bush,"it was like he was realizing that he had miscalculated, that siding with Bushfor eight years might have gotten him in the race, but it also left him unableto win it. Now, in the last three weeks of the campaign, he wants to make theargument that he is the person to change the policies of the failed Bushadministration. But with McCain's history, these assertions of change ringfalse. And deep down, he must know it. That's why he seemed so anxious and likehe was begging the American people to believe that he was a reformer. …
But, in the end, I think nothing made McCainmadder than the realization that his support of Bush for eight years willultimately cost him his chance to win the general election. McCain might have beenangry at Obama, but, really, at least to some extent, he has to be angry athimself.
"I'm not President Bush." Arguably,there was some truth to that statement in 2000. But after eight years ofsupporting a disastrous administration, and after adopting a Rovian campaignapproach (like the one that smeared him in 2000), in 2008, Senator McCain is,for all intents and purposes, President Bush. And McCain knows it. No wonderhe's so angry.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mitchell-bard/im-not-president-bush-uh_b_135190.html
News & Opinion
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
McCain's unraveling began with Palin
… “Unmoored from strategic coherence, the candidate (McCain) and his advisors jump from tactic to tactic searching compulsively for the latest trick. This is the driving force behind the campaign’s biggest mistake: selecting the unvetted, unserious Sarah Palin as a running mate. The hasty turn to Palin was based on a series of off-the-cuff assumptions—that she could attract Hillary voters, appeal to women generally, and substitute for the unacceptably pro-choice Joe Lieberman as a way to restore McCain’s brand as a maverick. The aim of this Hail Mary pass was somehow to switch the playing field from the economy to earmarks.
The calculation was wrong on every count. After an initial bounce generated by the bouncy Palin, most Hillary supporters recoiled from a caricature of the woman president or vice president they someday hope to see. Palin’s obvious lack of competence has pushed a rising tide of moderate women and independents toward Obama. Palin can’t even get through a Sunday talk show or a non-Fox network interview. She can do a fraction of the job of a running mate—read a speech—but the rest is beyond her. Palin hasn’t broadened McCain’s appeal; she has narrowed it to a shrunken Republican base that is seething with resentment, often openly bigoted and clearly insufficient to win the election. The vituperation that marks rally after rally on the Republican side is alienating voters. Palin, who is now far more barracuda than hockey mom, has become the symbol of it. …
And what kind of “reformer” picks a running mate under active investigation for abusing the power of her office? Now when Americans think of McCain’s vice presidential choice, they see him as someone willing to do anything, say anything, to get elected. The impression overhangs his entire campaign. Maybe that’s why, in his latest game plan, Palin has been assigned to a back seat on McCain’s express to nowhere. …
As he lurches toward November, McCain’s Palin experience is the political equivalent of a lost college weekend—that wacky, self-indulgent party where you tied one on and spent the night with the wrong date. It’s fun for a moment. But then comes morning and a hangover and—oh no—the wrong person is still there."
Robert M. Shrum
http://www.theweek.com/article/index/89750/3/3/McCains_unraveling_began_with_palin
Interesting what's being brought to light in the popular press. This is an excerpt from an article in the current Rolling Stone. The story covers his childhood to the present day, drawing the unfortunate comparisons to George W. Bush. It's almost painful to read the article and see how close we are to doing it all over again. Rather than relating the most damning parts of the article I just highlight SOME of what he's done while he's been in Congress:
BY TIM DICKINSONPosted Oct 16, 2008 7:00 PM
In this context, McCain's recent record — opposing the new GI Bill, voting to repeal the federal minimum wage, seeking to deprive 3.8 million kids of government health care — looks entirely consistent. "When jackasses like Rush Limbaugh say he's not conservative, that's just total nonsense," says former Sen. Gary Hart, who still counts McCain as a friend." ...
AND WE HAVEN'T EVEN GOTTEN TO KEATING OR BUSH IN THE STORY YET!!!
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain
Amusing, but Not Funny
By BOB HERBERT Published: October 13, 2008
"Sara Rimer of The Times wrote an article last week that gave us a startling glimpse of just how mindless and self-destructive the U.S. is becoming. ...
The idea that the U.S. won’t even properly develop the skills of young people who could perform at the highest intellectual levels is breathtaking — breathtakingly stupid, that is. ...
New Orleans was nearly wiped from the map in the Hurricane Katrina nightmare, and 13 people were killed when a bridge in Minneapolis broke apart during rush hour, hurling helpless motorists 60 feet into the Mississippi River. Neither of those disasters was enough of a warning for us to think seriously about infrastructure maintenance, repair and construction. ...
We haven’t even got sense enough to keep an eye on the water we drink. Citing a report from the American Society of Civil Engineers, Mr. Rohatyn and Mr. Ehrlich write: “Current funding for safe drinking water, amounts to ‘less than 10 percent of the total national requirement.’ ” ...
This is about more than the election of a president in a few weeks. The American people have to decide what kind of country they want.
Do they want one in which the top 1 percent hauled in more than 21 percent of all personal income in 2005? Do they want a country in which, as my former colleague at The Times, David Cay Johnston, has noted: the tax system “now levies the poor, the middle class and even the upper middle class to subsidize the rich”?
Do they want a country in which their democratic freedoms are eroded by a deliberate exploitation of their fear of terrorism, and their earning power is diminished by a crippling dependence on foreign oil?
These are exactly the kinds of issues that could be thoroughly explored, argued about, even obsessed over in a presidential campaign. Americans could drag their eyeballs away from their flat-screen TVs and give serious thoughts to important matters if they wanted to. Instead, we get silliness. ...
An article in Monday’s Times spotlighted some of the serious problems that have emerged in the No Child Left Behind law. Among the law’s unintended consequences, as Sam Dillon reported, has been its tendency to “punish” states that “have high academic standards and rigorous tests, which have contributed to an increasing pileup of failed schools.”
Say what?
Surely this is a good issue for discussion and analysis in the presidential campaign. Let the candidates have at it in their final debate. Let the pundits weigh in. And why not interview a few teachers, principals and thoughtful citizens?
Don’t hold your breath. Neil Postman warned us years ago about amusing ourselves to death."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/14/opinion/14herbert.html?ref=opinion
Posted October 14, 2008 | 11:02 AM (EST)
John McCain's campaign is in shambles. His advisers are bickering. He looks like he's finished. Sound familiar? It's where McCain was in the Republican primary season before he rebounded from the precipice to win the nomination. With polls pegging McCain at some 10 points behind Barack Obama, most commentators are writing him off again. Not so fast. In an election season as volatile as this one, Obama's supporters should not become overconfident. While the third debate has historically been of little significance, the final stand-off between Obama and McCain offers the chance to finish him and Palin off once and for all. Instead of playing it safe, Obama should go on the offense against McCain tomorrow night, who is bragging to his supporters that he will whip Obama's "you know what." If Obama simply delivers canned lines and fails to deliver a strong message of reform, he could end up taking the McCain campaign off its life-support system.
McCain, who has nothing left to lose, will grossly exaggerate Obama's inexperience and claim that he and the Democrats are single-handedly responsible for the current economic mess. Obama needs to remind voters, again and again, that it is McCain who has failed to push for real reform on government regulation and, by the way, that he knows next to nothing about economics. Obama does. He should play up the community organizer skills that he honed during his years in Chicago--the very ones that the egregious Sarah Palin scoffed at during her speech at the Republican convention. It's Obama, not McCain, who has hands-on experience with the difficulties that average Americans are experiencing. In recent weeks, Obama, as the British say, has come on song, speaking with real passion and fervor about changing America. Obama's advisors should continue to let Obama be Obama when he squares off against McCain tomorrow.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-heilbrunn/let-obama-be-obama-in-deb_b_134499.html
Civil rights icon says McCain stirs hate
By MIKE ALLEN & JONATHAN MARTIN | 10/11/08 6:13 PM EDT Updated: 10/11/08 6:13 PM EDT
Statement by Rep. John Lewis:
"As one who was a victim of violence and hate during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, I am deeply disturbed by the negative tone of the McCain-Palin campaign. What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history. Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.
During another period, in the not too distant past, there was a governor of the state of Alabama named George Wallace who also became a presidential candidate.
George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.
As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all. They are playing a very dangerous game that disregards the value of the political process and cheapens our entire democracy. We can do better. The American people deserve better."
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1008/14488.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27130171/
