I'm hoping against hope that Mark Warner just gave a self-serving speech to win his Senate seat in Virginia because that is the ONLY POSSIBLE WAY you can explain why he took ZERO shots at a President sitting at 30% approval and the man who is running for his third term.People always wonder why Democrats always snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.....watching Mark Warner's speech just showed you why. If you try to govern and lead everyone then you will be followed by no one.
I understand why they used Monday night as a heart tugging night with Senator Kennedy and Michelle Obama. But why by the second night of the convention there is not a MINUTE of anger about the last 8 years and a MINUTE of anger why John McCain has totally sold out his maverick legacy to continue Bush's term?
I know Joe Biden will rip into John McCain and George W. Bush. But for god sakes, can Hillary at least try to do the same while she's carrying the flag of Wonder Woman?
I don't know about you guys, but for the first time since Obama won the nomination, I feel a sense of energy and excitement coming from his campaign after selecting Senator Joe Biden as his VP! If you're a fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, you'll know that the KRAKKEN is the big, bad monster who lives deep in the ocean and is called upon to wreck havoc and destroy the opposition.
Even though Wesley Clark was my personal favorite, I understand that even now, he still isn't ready for prime-time. Even though Biden poses the risk of undercutting the "Change" message because of his years of experience, the Obama campaign is smart to redefine "Change" as away from the Bush administration and the Republican party instead of this grandiose idea of changing the mechanics Washington DC forever.
If you have never heard of FiveThirtyEight.com, I think you should bookmark this website throughout this entire election. It is probably two steps ahead of the great Chuck Todd when it comes to "scientifically" staying on top of this polling non-sense and which candidate is truly ahead, by how much, and where!
This morning, they posted a great message about how Senator Obama can own the energy issue just like he currently owns the Iraq War, Afghanistan, and Pakistan issues. Basically, the post says he should join the bipartisan Gang of 10 and make it 11. He is currently leaning towards their position but hasn't fully embraced it as he's trying to walk the tightrope on the drilling issue. At the same time, John McCain is leaning against it because it doesn't offer any financial benefits to the oil companies.
If Senator Obama joins the Gang of 10 by signing on to this legislation, then he would team up with the likes of Senator Lindsay Graham (McCain's best friend and chief surrogate) in pushing bi-partisan legislation to really tackle the issue. Yes, it does involve offshore drilling in states that welcome it (like Florida), but continue to ban it in states that oppose it (like California). The biggest benefit is that it represents his themes of change, working across the aisle, and it forces McCain to either join his position or defend his opposition which is nothing more than protecting the oil companies.
Senator Obama has to take this position before Senator McCain smartens up and flip flops towards it.
Here is the link to the article: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/08/gang-of-10-obamas-checkmate.html
The full article is posted in my extended text.
I'm very bothered by the idea that Senator Obama is considering a compromise on his stance of offshore drilling. His position at least through yesterday was that it was a gimmick and all of our time, energy, and effort should be in the investment and development of long-term alternative energy solutions that doesn't include oil. Now he has shifted his position as of yesterday to say that he would consider limited offshore drilling if the compromise was necessary to pass a full comprehensive plan.
Sorry Senator Obama, you're about to walk down a path that I refuse to follow!
Black Man's Burden.
You can't have any doubts about America and its opportunities without being called angry and unpatriotic.
You can't underperform without being called lazy and ignorant.
You can't be comparable to white people without being called an uncle tom and sell-out.
You can't be confident and an overachiever without being called uppity and arrogant.
As a Black man, can someone please tell me what is an "acceptable" attitude and behavior so I won't be criticized by all sides including what is supposedly my own?
We all can’t be Oprah.
I haven't done my research on this issue, but I'm just using info off the top of my head to arrive at a common sense conclusion:
Isn't Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden a enemy of both the United States and Iran?
Al-Qaeda is mostly made up on Sunnis. Even though Saddam Hussein was a Sunni and Sunnis were in power when Saddam was the President of Iraq, Osama Bin Laden publicly stated he did not like Saddam because of his secular policies. Iraq is now Shiite led and they are forming a strong alliance with Iran. Iran is a majority Shiite nation with a Shiite government. They supported the Iraq Shiite government in its systematic ethnic cleansing of Sunnis and Al-Qaeda. Though the Ayatollah still has immense power, the youth of Iran are not diehard Muslim extremists which flies in the face of Al-Qaeda.
I don't believe for a second that Osama Bin Laden would try to attack or provoke the Iranians. Yet they are far from friends being that the Iranians supplied the Shiite Iraqis with weapons to defend against them.
Being that we have a common enemy, isn't that reason alone for the United States government to talk directly with the Iranian government to work towards a peaceful resolution to all of our issues?
A UK newspaper called The Daily Mail has reported a VERY SAD, but true, story of how John McCain divorced his first wife, Carol McCain, for a wealthy beauty queen who is 17 years his junior, Cindy McCain.
Link to story:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1024927/The-wife-John-McCain-callously-left-behind.html
I'm not one for rumors and overblown stories based on how Senator Obama undergoes too much guilt by association. As he said today, he cannot "vet his vetters". That's why I'm asking if the story about Carol McCain is fair game by the media to report, and for the public to discuss, in regards to Senator John McCain's morals and values.
I'm a card carrying member of ObamaNation, but I'll be the first to shred it to pieces and burn up the scraps if Senator Barack Obama doesn't include Republicans or members of other parties within his cabinet.
Former Bush White House Chief of Staff, Andrew Card, recently answered a question about how Democrats would raise taxes if they were to take over all three houses and highlighted other negative consequences to one party rule. I dismiss Mr. Card's intentions, which is little more than trying to scare up Republican votes, and because he's a hypocrite as he never said anything of the like during the recent Republican rule. I do agree with his overall point: "Power corrupts, and absolute power absolutely corrupts!"
Here is a excerpt from Jane Smiley's blog post on HuffPo. The last part almost brought tears to my eyes.
"So now, Barack Obama tells the truth about conditions as we know them--that the countryside and the small towns are dying in many places in our country, and that the corporatocracy doesn't care enough to do a thing about it. He points out that immigrant-baiting, gay-baiting, gun-baiting, and religious pandering have helped to destroy those towns and that countryside, that those being destroyed have been cynically enlisted by their very own destroyers to provide the votes that help accomplish the destruction. And this is what Senator Hillary Clinton says about it: "Senator Obama's remarks were elitist and out of touch. They are not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans."
From Senator Clinton's remarks, I infer that to actually see what has gone on in the US in the last 20 years is unAmerican. It doesn't matter who you are, where you were born, what you pay in taxes, what else you might have contributed to the culture, how you vote, who you support. If you don't support fundamentalist religion, job outsourcing, and free access to guns, then you are not even American.
I cannot believe how angry this makes me. I cannot believe that after the last seven and a half years, I can even get this angry. Yes, I know she is pandering to her audience. Yes, I know she will do anything to get elected. Yes, I know that she and Bill Clinton are corrupt to the core, and that I should have never expected anything better of her. But, please, any of you angry white women who still support this craven shill, don't mention it to me. Do me the following favor -- apologize to your children for not stopping the war that HIllary voted for, the war that is going to impoverish them. Then apologize to them for the effects of global warming that are going to make their lives hell. Then apologize to them for the school shooting they may someday see, the one where the kid gets the guns out of his father's gun case, or buys at a gunshow. Apologize to them for the meaningless wars they are going to fight and pay for. Then tell them that "American values" killed their hopes and maybe killed them. And ask them if they think it's going to be worth it."
When did America become England?
The English pride themselves for never grieving or expressing any type of frustration or "bitterness" regardless of how bad their situation may be because many of the elders can still remember living under air raid sirens from Nazi bombings during World War II. After their subway terrorist attack a few years ago, the same day, Prime Minister Blair expressed how important it was for him to return to the G-8 to discuss fighting AIDS and poverty in Africa.
I respect the English for their resilience. I have a strong feeling that if 9/11 had of occurred to them not the U.S., they wouldn't have used it as an excuse to invade another country that had no role in the attack. But I'm not English, I'm American. And I'm not trying to stand strong against a foreign threat, because the primary threat to my quality of life and quality of living lies within.
Senator McCain and Senator Clinton are now attacking Senator Obama because he said that "small town America is feeling bitter over the current economic situation." I'm attacking Senator Obama too, because "bitter" is not a strong enough word to express how I feel about how I feel about the "powers that be" and the direction they are taking America right now.
With consumer confidence down, unemployment on the rise, companies going out of business and reporting losses, and well over 70% of this nation believing we are headed in the wrong direction....
How dare John McCain and Hillary Clinton begin to imply there is some type of "Pride in Poverty"???
If I was Senator Obama, my one and only response would be: "Senator Clinton and Senator McCain believes that you shouldn't express your frustration and anger about America regardless of the size of your town because they probably won't listen in the first place."
First and foremost, I do not believe in any way, shape or form that Hillary Clinton can be, or will be, a clone of George W. Bush if she was elected President of the United States…..as far as I know.
BUT…
There are some striking similarities between how Senator Clinton has managed her campaign in relation to how Bush has managed the Iraq War.
Most experts will agree that there is no correlation between the best run campaigns and the best candidate. These same experts did not study if there is a correlation between how a candidate runs their campaign and how they perform if they are elected to office. They cite such examples as Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul as financially sound campaigns that didn’t go anywhere. I disagree. The Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich campaigns fizzled out because of how they performed as candidates. Most elections are glorified popularity contests. If it was about experience and who did the best job, instead of who is most likely to get elected, boring candidates like Kucinich and Gore would win every time. No one doubts that in office, these men would perform exceptionally well.
As I outlined before, Senators Obama, McCain and Clinton do not have any executive experience of any type whether in the private sector or in public office. Their campaigns are the largest and most complex organizations they have run to date. Therefore, I believe every voter should factor in how each have performed as CEO of their respective campaigns if they applying for the job of CEO of the United States.
In my opinion, if you have loved Bush’s leadership on Iraq, then you will love Hillary Clinton.
I promised that I would no longer attack the Clinton campaign, her supporters, and the mainstream media that is single-handedly keeping her campaign afloat after Senator Obama weathered the Reverend Wright storm according to the current polls.
BUT SHE MAKES IT SOOOOOOO TEMPTING!!!
Electoral votes should matter in a Democratic Primary? We are to believe that she will carry Texas, New Mexico and Arizona in the general election but Barack Obama will lose New York, California and Massachusetts?
The one thing that really gets under my skin is her argument that the 10 largest states in population are more important than the other 40 combined.
"Her chance of destroying the Democratic Party is greater than her chance of winning the nomination."
- Democratic Senator from Indiana
Outside of the fact that it is better for the Reverend Jeremiah Wright controversy to occur in March 2008 instead of November 2007 or November 2008, the Clinton campaign and Republican attack machine can no longer imply that Senator Obama is a Muslim.
I'm a progressive thinking Independent so I believe there shouldn't be a issue if he was a Muslim. But Muslim is the new Communist after 9/11, just like Communist was the new Nazi after World War II. So it would have a negative impact on his campaign with those same people that will not vote for Senator Obama because of his association with Reverend Wright.
Reverend Wright was the pastor of a Christian church. If Senator Obama is a member of his church, then the Muslim line of attack is officially dead and buried.
Nearly two months ago on Real Time with Bill Maher, I first heard the legendary Bob Costas compare Barack Obama to Jackie Robinson. He said that just as Jackie Robinson was strategically selected to be the first Black man to integrate baseball, Senator Obama possess the same characteristics that make him the first viable Black candidate to integrate the Oval Office as President of the United States.
Like Robinson, Senator Obama is very intelligent, articulate, educated, experienced (in life), and has the composure and persona to professionally handle the "race issue". When Jackie entered the major leagues, he was targeted in every city he played with racial epithets and threats by the fans, media, and players alike. Through it all, he remained professional and only responded by becoming a Hall of Fame player for his skills more than his social contribution to the game.
Senator Obama is currently facing a "crisis of race" in the pursuit of his political goal. If he succeeds, I believe history will compare him more to Muhammad Ali than to Jackie Robinson.
Click the Link Below to see many of the 4,000 faces of the Men and Women from the United States military who have died in Iraq. And two of the many culprits behind this ongoing tragedy:
http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/15983/original.jpg
Every once in awhile, an individual will come along of such remarkable skill and character, that his/her admirers and opponents alike will have great difficulty in quantifying their success.
Brett Favre in football. Bill Clinton in politics. Michael Jordan in basketball. Michael Jackson in dance. Alexander the Great in military warfare. Tiger Woods in golf. Mother Theresa in religion. Muhammad Ali in boxing. Mahatma Gandhi in peaceful rebellion and revolution. Elvis Presley in music. And so on and so forth.
These men and women were so great at what they do, that the only way to quantify their success is to compare and contrast them against themselves.
Their abilities transcended their respective fields and they set their own standard!
And Senator Barack Obama may soon join the list.
Unfortunately, Geraldine Ferraro has introduced the discussion and debate into this already bloody election season about whether or not Barack Obama's race is the primary reason he has been so successful in his Presidential campaign so far.
Without reminding everyone of how previous Black candidates have tried and failed terribly (two in 2004), or how Senator Obama was once questioned if he was Black enough, I'll sum up his success to this:
Senator Obama is preaching hope and change to a politically depressed nation in a change election.
It's not the "concept" of his color.
IT'S HIS MESSAGE STUPID!
