Every one of our Obama Alternates was needed and all of them who hung in there got seated as delegates. We only ended up with two unused Obama delegate slots from the Jefferson County delegation compared to the 30 Clinton delegate slots left on the table for lack of attendance. Yes, we can!!!!
THE battle for the Democratic presidential nomination could be won outright by Barack Obama this week, a senior adviser to the Illinois senator said this weekend.
As support for Hillary Clinton evaporates, former senator Tom Daschle told The Sunday Times: “He’s going to get closer and closer and he could cross the magic threshold as early as [this] week.”
Daschle, known as the Wizard of Oz for his influential, behind-the-curtain role in Obama’s campaign, was speaking in his home state of South Dakota, which will hold the last primary contest with Montana on June 3. He said he expected Clinton to continue in the race until the last votes were counted, but claimed that Obama might already have enough delegates to win the nomination before then.
If so, Daschle will have played a huge role in Obama’s victory over the New York senator, who was once considered a shoo-in for the nomination.
Obama, 46, described Daschle affectionately this weekend as an “early investor” in his campaign. “I could not have a better friend or greater supporter. He was on board when nobody gave me a chance and has been with me through thick and thin,” he said.
Daschle, 60, was the leader of the Democrats in the Senate with presidential ambitions when he lost his seat in the 2004 election. He advised Obama to seize the chance for a White House run while other wise heads cautioned him to wait.
“I took a lesson from my own life,” Daschle said. “I decided not to run for president four years ago and fate took its turn. I told him, ‘Don’t expect to have another window like this’.”
After his defeat, Daschle transferred some of his best Senate staff and campaigners to Obama, then an inexperienced new senator, including Peter Rouse, who became his chief of staff, and Steve Hildebrand, the master-mind of Obama’s triumph in Iowa and other caucus states. “We kept it in the family,” Daschle said.
The Obama campaign’s nimble electoral tactics caught Clinton’s powerful but rusty machine off guard and helped to build up his unassailable lead in the number of pledged delegates who select the nominee at the Democratic party convention in August.
When Oregon and Kentucky go to the polls on Tuesday, Obama is certain to gain enough delegates to grant him a majority of the 3,253 pledged delegates even if he performs poorly, as expected, in Bible-belt Kentucky. He needs only 132 more pledged delegates and superdelegates to clinch the nomination.
He intends to celebrate at a rally in Iowa, the scene of his first victory, bringing his campaign symbolically to a close.
At that point the daily trickle of superdelegates - the party leaders with a casting vote at the convention - could turn into a flood.
Obama has Daschle to thank for his thick contacts book and ability to charm superdelegates off the fence.
“We’re not counting on it,” Daschle added cautiously. “There will be a lot of celebrating and rightly so whenever it happens, but we’ll wait for the convention for the final declaration of victory.”
At a rally in a sawdust-filled barn in Watertown, South Dakota, Obama admitted: “We’ve got a little more work to do.” But he aimed his fire at McCain, accusing him of “hypocrisy and fear-peddling” in foreign policy, without once mentioning his Democratic rival. There had been concern that Obama was stuck in electoral no man’s land while John McCain, the Republican nominee, took shots at him.
“At some point along the way, Hillary Clinton became ‘poor Hillary’ and it stuck,” The Washington Post reported last week. The paper explored how the doughty fighter and would-be first woman president has come to be described with the same pitying condescension that marked her years as first lady, when Bill Clinton’s infidelities were exposed.
In a sign that the reality of defeat is sinking in, Clinton spent the previous day in South Dakota talking to her farming audience almost exclusively about rural affairs instead of attacking Obama.
One of her supporters brought her two sons to see Obama. Ash-ley Morris, 34, a nurse, said: “I’d like to see a female president, but I know she won’t make it. She’s too far behind. I brought the boys because maybe some day Obama will be a famous president and they’ll be able to say, ‘We saw him’.”
Clinton also defended Obama in the face of President George W Bush’s broadside in the Knes-set, the Israeli parliament, against the “appeasers” who wanted to talk to “terrorists and radicals”. It was clearly directed at Obama.
“It was a very encouraging sign that she criticised Bush,” said Daschle, who is hoping that Clinton will make a graceful exit.
Prominent supporters of Clinton also rallied to Obama’s defence, indicating that the party was closing ranks around the likely nominee. Clinton’s fantasy that she could somehow persuade the superdelegates to back her against the wishes of the majority of pledged delegates collapsed last week when the former presidential candidate John Edwards endorsed Obama.
It put paid to any lingering doubts that Obama would win the nomination, even though he had just been trounced by Clinton in the West Virginia primary.
The late-night comedian Jay Leno joked cruelly that Clinton was the “big winner of West Virginia, which means that one day she could be president of . . . West Virginia.”
Edwards thrilled a huge crowd in Grand Rapids, Michigan, when he declared: “The Democrat voters of America have made their choice, and so have I.” The day after his coveted endorsement, seven of his pledged delegates transferred their loyalty to Obama, bringing the prospect of victory that much nearer.
As if to confirm Obama’s impending win, McCain concentrated his fire on the Illinois senator last week, joining in Bush’s attack on him for being soft on terror and too willing to talk to the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who recently described Israel as a “stinking corpse”.
“What is it that he wants to talk about?” McCain scoffed. When John Kerry ran for president in 2004, he was depicted as unAmerican for turning against the Iraq war. McCain last week accused Obama of being the preferred candidate of Hamas, the radical Islamic Palestinian group (although Obama insists he would not negotiate with them).
Obama, who began wearing a patriotic American flag pin on his lapel last week, told The Sunday Times on his campaign plane that he did not consider foreigners’ support for his candidacy to be a hindrance back home.
“If they don’t have a vote, then it’s not going to help me win a general election,” he said. “On the other hand it might help me as president, as I govern and try to bring alliances that have been frayed over the last eight years back together. One of the things I’m looking forward to is reaching out all around the world and doing repair work.”
He also cast himself last week as a foreign policy realist in the mould of the President George H Bush, saying he had “enormous sympathy” for the elder Bush’s policies. “I don’t have a lot of complaints about their handling of Desert Storm (the first Gulf war). I don’t have a lot of complaints with their handling of the fall of the Berlin Wall,” he said.
Daschle believes the political climate today is very different from 2004, when there was considerable support for the Iraq war and he lost his seat. “Given the concern people have about the decline in America’s standing in the world, the fact that Obama is so popular in other countries is likely to be viewed much more favourably,” he said.
However, Republicans are determined to besmirch Obama as much as they can for being weak on national security.
David Bossie of Citizens United, a conservative attack group that is spending $10m on an antiObama documentary and advertising campaign against him, said his organisation was turning its attention to Obama’s thesis on Soviet nuclear disarmament, written in 1983 - a year of huge antinuclear protests - while he was an undergraduate at Columbia University.
“We’re trying to uncover new material and issues that haven’t been talked about,” said Bossie. “I find it very intriguing that his thesis was written at the height of the cold war at a time when we know from his own memoir that he was influenced by the left.”
Columbia University claimed to have no record of the thesis, which it could not, in any case, release without permission. However, Michael Baron, Obama’s former thesis adviser, said he could “guarantee” there was nothing in it that could damage him.
“I don’t think it will cause him any harm whatsoever,” said Baron, who remembered awarding Obama an A grade. “It was a very nonideological course. The purpose was to present a balanced paper, not to take sides or to state that this solution was right or wrong.”
Bossie said he was astonished that Clinton’s campaign had not made more early on of issues such as the nuclear disarmament thesis, and Obama’s associations with Tony Rezko, an indicted financier, Jeremiah Wright, his radical former pastor, or William Ayers, the former leader of the Weather Underground domestic terrorist group. “I suppose it was a case of people in glass houses not wanting to throw stones,” he said.
The Clinton camp failed to appreciate the seriousness of Obama’s challenge until it was too late. In particular, it overlooked his ability to rack up huge victories in caucuses that were largely dominated by party activists, while she concentrated on winning primaries in big states that yielded few pledged delegate gains under the party’s system of proportional representation.
As a result, the Democratic party looks set to fight the 2008 election under the leadership of a charismatic candidate with proven weaknesses among white, blue-collar workers and Hispanics in several key swing states. Despite Obama’s strength in the national polls, McCain leads him by a small margin in Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin and is not far behind in Pennsylvania.
Clinton won all but one of the primaries in these states, although the status of the delegations from Florida and Michigan is in dispute after they broke party rules by holding their contests early. Neither candidate campaigned in Florida and Obama’s name was not on the ballot in Michigan. Some voters said they resented Clinton’s attempt to pocket their votes.
Jerry Pearson, 50, a limousine driver from Detroit, said: “I wanted to vote for Obama but I didn’t bother because he wasn’t on the ballot. She’s cheating. She just stuck her chest out and said, ‘I’m going to win’. Yes, well, we’ll see.”
A source on the rules and bylaws committee, which meets on May 31 to decide what to do about Florida and Michigan, said there was likely to be a compromise that would benefit Obama. Even if Clinton had her wish and the delegations were seated in full, she is so far behind Obama in the delegate count it would no longer make the difference between victory and defeat.
Obama will head to Florida immediately after this Tuesday’s contests to try to shore up his support.
“He’s going to be campaigning hard in the swing states and have a very visible presence there,” Daschle predicted. “You’ll see him extensively in Ohio, Wisconsin, Missouri, Michigan and Florida. We think we’re going to be in a good position against McCain when Obama focuses on his differences with him.” First, however, Clinton has to be shown the door.
Obama was a little more reluctant than Daschle to anticipate victory this week. Asked if he would declare victory when he won a majority of pledged delegates, he responded drily: “We will declare we have a majority of pledged delegates.” It cannot be long before the superdelegates follow.
Thank you, NARAL, for your endorsement of the ONLY honest, woman-affirming choice, Barack Obama!!!
Hillary is reaping what she sows... She lied about Barack Obama's pro-choice record in both Iowa and New Hampshire.
This video prepared by a former president of Chicago NOW must be seen by all Pro-Choicers!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVuMYKs8iJs
Pass it along to any of your feminist friends and colleagues who are hanging on to Hillary for dear life. They'll sink with her and her lies.
Patricia Lynn Reilly
Feminist for Obama
Be Inspired by "Brooke in Charleston, WV's" Post from Today's Blog:I live in Charleston, West Virginia. And I voted for Barack Obama today.So did my wife. And my mother-in-law, my father-in-law, my Presbyterian pastor and his wife, my friend the retired Episcopalian priest and his wife, my bank teller, my boss, my co-worker, the lady who runs the business on the second floor of our building and her husband, the waitress at my favorite restaurant, at least two dozen of my neighbors, my State Senator, my United States Senator, my company's tech guy, my college Sociology professor, a couple who runs a bed and breakfast in Sutton, WV and several of their staff, several first time voters from my church's youth group, several more church members, the cooks at The Purple Fiddle in Thomas, WV, a local Municipal Judge and his wife, and the older lady who exited the polling place alongside my wife and I this morning.These folks represent black and white, rich and middle class, young and old, religious and not... just like every other town in America. As Barack says, we are not as divided as our politics suggest. That being said...Yes West Virginia) Can!OBAMA '08***********Hi Brooke,Thank you for your fantastic message about your family's vote for Obama, and the vote of pretty much everyone else in your life!!!I made calls to West Virginia and found that, just as Obama always says, the American people are good people and know the truth when they hear it.Wherever Obama and his team go, we move forward. This is a given in WV, Obama will move forward, cutting Hillary's lead, as good folks hear his message.Yes, although they will say Hillary "won" WV, we know that Obama just keeps moving forward and she moves backward!Please post your post over and over again today! Patricia Hussein Reilly
DECLARATIONSBy PEGGY NOONAN Damsel of DistressMay 9, 2008
This is an amazing story. The Democratic Party has a winner. It has a nominee. You know this because he has the most votes and the most elected delegates, and there's no way, mathematically, his opponent can get past him. Even after the worst two weeks of his campaign, he blew past her by 14 in North Carolina and came within two in Indiana.And the Democratic Party, after this long and brutal slog, should be dancing in the streets. Party elders should be coming out on the balcony in full array, in full regalia, and telling the crowd, "Habemus nominatum": "We have a nominee." And the crowd below should be cheering, "Viva Obamus! Viva nominatum!"Instead, you know where they are, the party elders. They are in a Democratic club on Capitol Hill, slump-shouldered at the bar, having a drink and then two, in a state of what might be called depressed horror. "What are they doing to the party?" they wail. "Why are they doing this?"You know who they are talking about.The Democratic Party can't celebrate the triumph of Barack Obama because the Democratic Party is busy having a breakdown. You could call it a breakdown over the issues of race and gender, but its real source is simply Hillary Clinton. Whose entire campaign at this point is about exploiting race and gender.Here's the first place an outsider could see the tensions that have taken hold: on CNN Tuesday night, in the famous Brazile-Begala smackdown. Paul Begala wore the smile of the 1990s, the one in which there is no connection between the shape of the mouth and what the mouth says. All is mask. Donna Brazile was having none of it.Mr. Begala more or less accused the Obama people of not caring about white voters: "[If] there's a new Democratic Party that somehow doesn't need or want white working-class people and Latinos, well, count me out." And: "We cannot win with eggheads and African Americans." That, he said, was the old, losing, Dukakis coalition."Paul, baby," Ms. Brazile, who is undeclared, began her response, "we need to not divide and polarize the Democratic Party. . . . So stop the divisions. Stop trying to split us into these groups, Paul, because you and I know . . . how Democrats win, and to simply suggest that Hillary's coalition is better than Obama's, Obama's is better than Hillary's -- no. We have a big party, Paul." And: "Just don't divide me and tell me I cannot stand in Hillary's camp because I'm black, and I can't stand in Obama's camp because I'm female. Because I'm both. . . . Don't start with me, baby." Finally: "It's our party, Paul. Don't say my party. It's our party. Because it's time that we bring the party back together, Paul."In case you didn't get what was behind that exchange, Mrs. Clinton spent this week making it clear. In a jaw-dropping interview in USA Today on Thursday, she said, "I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on." As evidence she cited an Associated Press report that, she said, "found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."White Americans? Hard-working white Americans? "Even Richard Nixon didn't say white," an Obama supporter said, "even with the Southern strategy."If John McCain said, "I got the white vote, baby!" his candidacy would be over. And rising in highest indignation against him would be the old Democratic Party.To play the race card as Mrs. Clinton has, to highlight and encourage a sense that we are crudely divided as a nation, to make your argument a brute and cynical "the black guy can't win but the white girl can" is -- well, so vulgar, so cynical, so cold, that once again a Clinton is making us turn off the television in case the children walk by."She has unleashed the gates of hell," a longtime party leader told me. "She's saying, 'He's not one of us.'"She is trying to take Obama down in a new way, but also within a new context. In the past he was just the competitor. She could say, "All's fair." But now he's the competitor who is going to be the nominee of his party. And she is still trying to do him in. And the party is watching.Again: amazing.Who can save the situation? The superdelegates.You know them. They're the ones hiding under the rock, behind the boulder, and at the bar.They are terrified, most of them. They want the problem to go away. They want it handled, but they don't want to do it. They don't want to tell Hillary to stop, because they would likely pay a price for it, and not just with her.They are afraid of looking as if they're jumping on a train that's speeding down the tracks and is about to roll over the damsel in distress.Which is how Hillary -- and her supporters -- will paint it. Even though she's no damsel, and she causes distress.Some insight from a superdelegate I spoke to Thursday:It's not math anymore, it's psychodrama. If she can't have it, no one can have it. If she has to tear the party apart, she will.Nancy Pelosi can't make her drop out. The Clintons think the speaker is for Obama anyway, her San Francisco district went for him 70% to 30%; they'll dismiss her. Chuck Schumer can't do it, he'd offend women in New York. Harry Reid can't do it, he'll offend women, period. If black political figures go to the Clintons and make a plea, they'll be dismissed as Obama partisans.So who, I asked, can do it?White women have been Mrs. Clinton's most reliable base of support and readiest crutch, the superdelegate said. And maybe they're the only ones who can break through, both to Mrs. Clinton and to the country, and tell her to stop. "If it's a man, she goes back to gender: Men are always picking on me, you just don't want women in power. If it's a black, it's You betrayed us, how can you call on me to get out after what I've done for you?"Sen. Dianne Feinstein made a feint in the direction of stopping Hillary this week. Mrs. Clinton should offer a rationale for her continuing the campaign at this point, Ms. Feinstein said.The superdelegate mentioned Maryland's Barbara Mikulski. "I can assure you that Sen. Mikulski is 100% behind Clinton," her office told me. The superdelegate mentioned Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Ellen Malcolm of Emily's List, the No. 1 political action committee in the country. "They can say, 'We've stood with you, you've got true grit, but now you have to go.'"The question "Who will tell her, who can make her go?" is really the question "Who will save the Democratic Party in 2008?" It cannot be doubted at this point that real damage is being done to its standard-bearer and to all those who will be on the ticket with him.Maybe the superdelegate is right, and maybe saving the party this year will be women's work. Maybe the Democratic Party establishment, such as it is, men and women, black and white and all other colors, will rise up together. Maybe that would be a perfect rebuke to race-baiting and gender-gaming.It will be amazing if someone doesn't start up that train, someone doesn't get in the cab, someone doesn't shout, "All aboard!" But then it's been an amazing year.URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121027865275678423.html
As we turn toward May and Mother's Day, I want to share with you the words of Julia Ward Howe. She wrote the song "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and also successfully advocated for the official celebration of the first Mother's Day in Boston, Massachusetts in 1870. Her proclamation, written during another war-torn era in American history, is just as appropriate for us today, wherever we may live in the world.
Julia challenges all women to join together and stop the madness of war and violence. This Mother's Day, let us use our powerful voices and actions to bring peace to our homes, neighborhoods, Island, and world!
"Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have heart, whether your baptism be of water or of tears! Say firmly: We will not have questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us for caresses and applause, reeking of carnage. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have taught them of charity, mercy, and patience. We mothers of one country will be too tender to those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.
"From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says 'Disarm! Disarm!' The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession. As men have forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after his time the sacred impress not of Caesar, but of God."
Obama is a peace-maker. Let's do all we can to support his journey to the White House, bringing peace to our communities, country, and world!
Patricia Hussein Reilly
After hearing all the polls numbers with Hillary Clinton way ahead of Obama, I got fired up and made 25 calls to West Virginia to learn about West Virginians from their own mouths. Left many messages. Three wrong numbers. Two fantastic conversations:
1. With a young mother with baby crying in background was initally for Clinton because of her years in the limelight. She didn't know Obama at all. As she has learned about Barack she became torn between the two. As Hillary's negativity and "saying things just to get elected" became apparent to ordinary Americans, and to this young mother, she find herself leaning toward Obama because he is positive and honest. I wished her well as she considered them both and made her decision.
2. With a wonderful older women who asked me about Obama's Pro-Life stance. She said this was a major conscience issue for her. We had a great conversation. Her husband is voting for Barack! And she wishes she could vote for the "first African-American president because he holds all of us in his history!" I thanked her for remaining true to her conscience.
So my conclusions:
1. Do NOT believe the polls. Obama has worked his way into people's choices because he is unmistakably authentic, truthful, and principled. They ONLY knew the Clintons when the primaries began, but over time EVERYONE, including the good folks in West Virginia and Kentucky, has gotten to know Obama and good people everywhere have moved toward him.
2. Obama always moves forward, winning hearts and minds, while Hillary always moves backward. They say she will win...but we know that he actually wins. He moves forward while she moves backward!
Phone West Virginians. Phone Kentuckians. Don't let the pollsters tell you what they think. Hear the truth from their own mouths!
Call and email to say thank you, if you have an extra moment today:
Congressman Brad Miller, NC: 919-836-1313; rsvpnc13@mail.house.gov
Rep.Rick Larsen, WA: 360-733-4500
Rep. Peter DeFazio, OR: 202-225-6416
Rep. Donald Payne, NJ: 973-645-3213; dmp@mail.house.gov
John Gage, Prez of Amer. Fed. of Gov't Employees: 202-639-6434; comments@afge.org
They're joining the team because:
There is no tide to turn...it has turned and politics will never be the same.
There is no decisive victory to achieve...it has been achieved by Obama's team of over 1.5 million of US!!
There is no deal to seal...it has been sealed by the people, over and over again, state by state, caucus by caucus.
There is no new metric to change the outcome...the original metric agreed on by all has been met and will withstand continued games, diversions, redefinitions and challenges...
There is no new distraction that will alter BHO's path to the White House...they've all been exploited and do not ring true...
Now we must step up to Obama's call... UNITY. INCLUSION. RESPECT.
Together we will heal our communities, our nation, and the world!
In Response to Blog's Obsession with Clips from The War Room
Let's chill out and take a moment and remember why we are drawn to Obama...and then let go of anything that isn't in alignment with those qualities. We are on his team. He made clear that he wanted a team that was honest, drama-free, and joyous. The posts this morning about statements allegedly made over 15 years ago by Clinton folks are pointless to bring up now.
Obama is winning this thing by his personal integrity and principled campaigning. Audre Lourde (a fantastic poet and thinker) wrote, "You can't dismantle the master's house using the master's tools." Obama is showing the world that we don't have to use the ploys and spins and diversions that have been the mainstay of American politics to win the hearts and minds of the American people and elections!
What is it that draws every "super delegate" away from Hillary, including yesterday's Joe Andrew? It was Obama's principled stance on the gas holiday and his authentic response to Wright that swayed Joe to join our team. Everyone is inspired by him and KNOWS in their hearts that he is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our country to choose a new path.
Do you really think making this doctored, grainy video viral will turn the tide? THE TIDE HAS ALREADY turned without these antics.
Today's Actions for Obama:Every time we're tempted to focus on Hillary, Wright, and other DISTRACTIONS today, let's act up for Barack, spreading the non-drama and gratitude of this campaign with those hopping on the Obama Train. Send thank-you emails, faxes, and phone messages to: THANK-YOU PHONE CALLS AND EMAILS: Hill: Southern Indiana Congressman Email: chris.marshall@mail.house.gov DC Office: 202-225-5315 IN Office: 812-288-3999Bruce Braley: Representaive of 1st District of Iowa DC Office: 202-225-2911 Iowa Office: 319-287-3233
Today's Actions for Obama:
Everytime we're tempted to focus on Hillary today, let's act up for Barack, spreading the non-drama and gratitude of this campaign with those hopping on the Obama Train. Send thank-you emails, faxes, and phone messages to:
1. IFPTE 202-239-4880 Matt Biggs, Legislative Coordinator http://www.ifpte.org/
2. Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry http://www.governor.state.ok.us Tulsa Office 440 S. Houston, Ste. 304 Tulsa, OK 74127 Telephone: (918) 581-2801 Fax: (918) 581-2835 State Capitol Building 2300 N. Lincoln Blvd., Room 212 Oklahoma City, OK 73105 Telephone: (405) 521-2342 Fax: (405) 521-3353
3. Indiana Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel Mailing address: Weinzapfel for Mayor P.O. Box 3111 Evansville, IN 47730 Phone: (812) 434-6700 Fax: (812) 434-6701
4. Oregon Congressman David Woo : DC Office 2338 Rayburn HOB Washington, D.C. 20515 Phone: (202) 225-0855 Fax: (202) 225-9497 Portland Office 620 SW Main, Suite 606 Portland, OR 97205 Phone: (503) 326-2901 Fax: (503) 326-5066
5. NC's 43 Mayors and 29 State Legislators: Contact, fax, phone, email NC Democratic Party http://www.ncdp.org/ 220 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh, NC 27603 (ph) 919-821-2777 (fax) 919-821-4778
Hi Friends!
I just finished an e-mail blitz to every e-mail address found at NC Republican Party site:
http://www.ncgop.org/ I sent a truncated version of the following article with the question:
"Who is this veteran? The one you malign in your current anti-Obama ad!"
Join in this action by e-mailing the RNC and including your own creative blurb about Reverend Wright, patriot and prophet!
Patricia Hussein Reill
Factor military duty into criticismBy Lawrence Korb and Ian MossApril 3, 2008In 1961, a young African-American man, after hearing President John F. Kennedy's challenge to, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," gave up his student deferment, left college in Virginia and voluntarily joined the Marines.In 1963, this man, having completed his two years of service in the Marines, volunteered again to become a Navy corpsman. (They provide medical assistance to the Marines as well as to Navy personnel.)The man did so well in corpsman school that he was the valedictorian and became a cardiopulmonary technician. Not surprisingly, he was assigned to the Navy's premier medical facility, Bethesda Naval Hospital, as a member of the commander in chief's medical team, and helped care for President Lyndon B. Johnson after his 1966 surgery. For his service on the team, which he left in 1967, the White House awarded him three letters of commendation.What is even more remarkable is that this man entered the Marines and Navy not many years after the two branches began to become integrated.While this young man was serving six years on active duty, Vice President Dick Cheney, who was born the same year as the Marine/sailor, received five deferments, four for being an undergraduate and graduate student and one for being a prospective father. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, both five years younger than the African-American youth, used their student deferments to stay in college until 1968. Both then avoided going on active duty through family connections.Who is the real patriot? The young man who interrupted his studies to serve his country for six years or our three political leaders who beat the system? Are the patriots the people who actually sacrifice something or those who merely talk about their love of the country?After leaving the service of his country, the young African-American finished his final year of college, entered the seminary, was ordained as a minister, and eventually became pastor of a large church in one of America's biggest cities.This man is Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the retiring pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, who has been in the news for comments he made over the last three decades.Since these comments became public we have heard criticisms, condemnations, denouncements and rejections of his comments and him.We've seen on television, in a seemingly endless loop, sound bites of a select few of Rev. Wright's many sermons.How many of Wright's detractors, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly to name but a few, volunteered for service, and did so under the often tumultuous circumstances of a newly integrated armed forces and a society in the midst of a civil rights struggle? Not many.While words do count, so do actions.Let us not forget that, for whatever Rev. Wright may have said over the last 30 years, he has demonstrated his patriotism.Lawrence Korb and Ian Moss are, respectively, Navy and Marine Corps veterans. They work at The Center For American Progress. Korb served as assistant secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration.Copyright © 2008, Chicago Tribune
Obama made it very clear when choosing campaign staff that they were to be honest, non-drama queens/kings, and joyful. His team reflects his most powerful qualities. We are on his team. Today I am reflecting on the ways I can embody more of his team's qualities in my thoughts and choices.
1. By letting go of the drama of being tossed to and fro by the fickleness of the media. We all know that their primary motivation is viewership and money. Let's focus on the few places where sane folks abide: BHO's speeches, event video from blog, You Tubes of the creative songs and videos inspired by Barack's candidacy, Comedy Central (!), Daily Kos, Huffington, Ed Schultz, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow. Let their words, songs, laughter fill our minds...
2. By letting go of the drama of following every movement and misstep of Hillary. Everyone sees through her veneer to the narcissistic, game-player she is. Giving her so much attention on this blog and in our minds and hearts actually HURTS the campaign because in turning toward her, we turn away from our candidate.
3. By acknowledging all the positive outcomes of the time, money, and energy spent in PA:
• BHO moved from 20+ points behind in a solid Clinton-state to 8 points behind. They say she won...but we know that he actually won. He moved forward while she moved backward!
• He (and his teams) used the time in PA to introduce BHO to millions of people who didn't know him before. His message got out there and once people hear him, and begin to know him, they can't help but recognize the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity we have as a country to do the right thing! He's preparing the ground for the general election in all 50 states!
• Wherever Obama and his team go, the pure goodness of BHO's message touches the people. We are our brother's, sister's keeper and this message shines from all the volunteers and staff of this campaign. We're preparing the ground for a MOVEMENT that transcends this particular election!
• Obama is now aware of the nature of the "swift-boating" that will (is) hammering him from many fronts. His team of advisors is brilliant and I have total confidence that GOOD is more powerful than evil. That there is a way to act and respond with integrity while effectively neutralizing lying words and assaults. I'm turning my mind toward this creative challenge today when I'm tempted to blame Hillary or Rove or this year's version of the "swift-boaters." We are not VICTIMS!!!!
• We can trust BHO's team. They knew exactly what the outcome of yesterday's primary would be. They weren't spinning it to seem like BHO was the underdog. They knew that Obama had made advances and that he wouldn't be the victor in the traditional sense of winner-loser. BUT again, he moved forward (YAY) and she moved backward just as she did in Ohio and everywhere.
The energy and passion against Hillary has been growing here at Obama's site in a way that does not serve Barack or the democratic party. Leave Hillary to her own devices. She reaps what she sows. And so does John McCain, whose ineptness is obvious.Last time around, we had greater passion for ousting Bush than we did for electing Kerry. If I were to come to this blog to learn about Obama, I would notice great passion and outrage about Hillary's latest antics and wonder why folks weren't posting about Obama, the candidate they support.
This time let's keep our minds, hearts, spirits, choices, and involvement focused on the GOOD that is embodied within Obama, his clear vision, sound judgement, regal statesmanship, and global heart...for the sake of our party, our country, and our world.We have seen over and over again that they throw the kitchen sink at BHO and nothing sticks for long. If Wright-Gate didn't stick neither will Bitter-Gate. In fact every attempt they've made to anihilate this campaign only increases the GOOD.BHO's deepest qualities of integrity, intelligence, compassion, wisdom, courage, and clear vision are embodied in this campaign and resonate with millions of people around the world. Everyone is weary of the way things have been in the past 8 years. The entire planet and Mother Earth herself support our candidate. The entire world is saying YES to Obama. Even his Republican colleagues, some openly, others in the secret of their good hearts, applaud this movement for change.
We are not alone in our journey to the White House. For such a time as this, this remarkable man, family, strategic partners, and community of supporters has risen up to transform the world.
Let's count up the posts at the end of the day and discover that at least 90% of them were about Obama's vision for our shared future! What words will you speak today, what actions will you take today, in support of Obama?Patricia Hussein Reilly
Yeah, under George Bush we've had to take a bitter pill...and it's not surprising we do whatever it takes to dilute the bitter taste in our mouths.Yeah, we cling to guns (to feel safe),to religion (to experience hope),to suspicion of people not like us (to manage our fears), to anti-immigrant sentiment (to eliminate future assaults on our livelihoods), to anti-trade sentiment (to protect the little we have left). All the while the dispensers of the bitter pill, a government that disregards us and shapes policies in favor of special interests goes unchecked.Barack Obama offers working families real hope and no more bitter pills. Finally we will be represented in Washington...and his inauguration days will be the sweetest day of our lives. Obama's got our backs.
Patricia "Hussein" Reilly
WOW!!
That's over $10,000 in honor of each of the 4,000 US soldiers killed as a result of Bush's war in Iraq.
That's over $40 in remembrance of each of the almost 1 million Iraqis killed as a result of Bush's war in Iraq.
Words of Wisdom from Alice Walker, Buddhist author of The Color Purple:
"When I have supported white people, men and women, it was because I thought them the best possible people to do whatever the job required. Nothing else would have occurred to me.
If Obama were in any sense mediocre, he would be forgotten by now. He is, in fact, a remarkable human being, not perfect but humanly stunning, like King was and like Mandela is. We look at him, as we looked at them, and are glad to be of our species."
