Those of us that have been paying close attention to this election have noticed that Republicans have been quick to exploit any news story that can be distorted to discreditBarack Obama. But with the Edwards story, John McCain and the Republicans are treading lightly this time.Why? Because John McCain's vapid, shallow and crotchety campaign has been based on two things:First, the McCain campaign is out to assassinate the character, policies and campaign narrative of Barack Obama with an alarmingly vitriolic and immature tone that more and more voters are finding repulsive.The second part of the McCain campaign strategy is to continue his hyperbolic glamorization about his service and character. John McCain wants you to believe that getting shot down and beaten up is a qualification to lead, and that taking on populist policy positions as part of an image-making strategy after the Keating Five scandal somehow validates the assertion that he is an independent minded maverick.There is a growing consensus throughout the voting community that John McCain’s self-manufactured image as maverick-foreign affairs guru-former fly-boy is little more than a thin marketing strategy that worked better eight years ago.So, of course John McCain doesn’t want the public to be reminded of his character flaws, which includes his violent and vulgar temperament as well as his dozen or so marital infidelities.John McCain’s first wife, Carol waited years for her husband while he was in a P.O.W. camp. When he came home to find that the former model was severely injured in a car accident.Despite his apparently catastrophic war injuries on the behalf of the Viet Cong, he was able to muster the strength and virility to commit hundreds of infidelities with dozens of women.When he finally found an FWB who had extensive connections in Republican politics and who was a millionaire heiress to the Anheuser-Busch fortune, he left Carol outright.McCain even had the audacity to get a marriage license to wed Cindy McCain, (the infamous pill-popping Stepford Wife) before his divorce with Carol was final.So, while John Edwards was egregiously unfaithful, I’m sure McCain would like it better if the public wasn’t talking about the marital infidelities of politicians.Especially when his character-myth is the lynchpin of his campaign narrative.
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http://TheTruthOrSomethingLikeIt.blogspot.com/
Iran News Shows Iraq Didn't Have To Happen
Recently U.S. Intelligence has confirmed that Iran ended its nuclear weapons program over five years ago. The thing that I think angers me most about the most recent revelation is that all the saber rattling by the Bush administration in recent months was just a carbon copy of their unsubstantiated case to invade Iraq. It confirmed some of the most biting cynicisms within many of us. The White House has known for months that the 2005 assessment that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapons program was false.
Despite knowing this Bush, Cheney and the rest has embraced an unthoughtful and provocative rhetoric against Iran. In addition, the administration has pursued acts of congress that would give Bush and Cheney the legal power to go to war with Iran. (This includes a resolution supported by Hillary Clinton, FYI.)
The news for the past two days I think reveals perhaps how events might have unfolded had accurate intelligence been presented during the lead up to the War in Iraq throughout 2002 and 2003. The administration would have been exposed as being the most devious, secretive and nefarious since that of Richard Nixon. We wouldn't have invaded Iraq, George Bush wouldn't be President and this would be a very different world. Oh, hindsight.
Keith Olbermann
RICHMOND, Va. - Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine will endorse Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, perhaps as early as the weekend, two officials said Wednesday.
Kaine, a Democrat who took office last year, has decided to endorse the Illinois senator in his bid for the party nomination, according to two officials with political ties to the governor. They spoke on the condition they not be identified because the decision had not been made public.
Obama will headline the Democratic Party's annual Jefferson-Jackson Day fundraising gala in Richmond on Saturday night, an event Kaine will attend along with Democratic Sen. Jim Webb and former Gov. Mark R. Warner.
Kaine has a strong political relationship with Obama, who traveled to Virginia the last two years to campaign for Kaine's gubernatorial campaign in 2005 and for Webb last fall.
"He has been real helpful, yeah," Kaine said at a news conference Wednesday. He would not directly confirm the report, but said there would be weekend developments.
"I'm still pondering (it) in deep detail and am likely to make an announcement sometime soon," Kaine said with a grin. "I think it's going to be a great day Saturday is what I think."
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Teddy Roosevelt Had The Worst Valentines Day Ever, And Then He Changed The World.On February 14, 1884 Theodore Roosevelt endured much. On that day, his mother died of typhoid, his wife passed away due to complications with childbirth, and he was a father for the first time.In his diary entry that day he drew and "X" and wrote a single line that said, "The Light Has Gone Out Of My Life".Teddy was a 26 year old man in Victorian society whom was now the father of a daughter, now without the two most important women in his life.The man who would eventually envision the construction of the Panama Canal and global hegemony of the United States saw himself unfit to be a parent and he felt ill-equipped to go on with life as he had long known it. He resigned his seat in the state assembly, left his new daughter in the care of his older sister, and left his native New York City to live in the Dakota territory to be a rancher.T.R. had one of the strongest wills to self of any American president, yet he was so broken at this moment in time when he was faced with profound loss and new responsibilities.His time as a rancher in the Dakotas transformed him from a trust fund New York aristocrat to an eccentric strong willed giant of a human being. During his time there he was vigilante bounty hunter and cattle rancher. These experiences prepared him to weed out corruption out of the New York City police department as commissioner. Later he would mobilize the worlds largest Navy as Assistant Secretary of the Navy. To much of the chagrin of the Republican party, he ushered in a new era of progressive reform as Governor of New York and as President, forever changing the role of the role of government in the United States. He would change U.S. foreign policy to assert the dominance of the American economy and military and connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.What we can learn from Roosevelt is that we should not be distressed if we embark upon a desire to reevaluate our purpose and identity. Sometimes it is good for people to travel unwalked paths and try on new lives. It can be positive to test oneself by immersion in the unfamiliar in order to gain the confidence and fortitude to pursue meaningful new endeavors.This Valentine's day as some of us celebrate love, let us appreciate how tragedy and sadness can shape our souls and prepare us to move the world.
