Regarding the swiftboat type documentary about Barack Obama that Hannity and Colmes of FOX news is going to air this Sunday, October 12th, I think that It's pure unadulterated bull pucky, let alone reckless and dangerous. Getting people all worked up to hate a man who many find to be refreshing and genuine person, is wrong on so many levels. Resorting to this level of attack on this man of character absolutely repulses me. I guess the lesson that Sarah Palin and John McCain learned from stirring up hatred amoung the crowds didn't register with Hannity and Colmes. It appears they wish to keep stiring up hatred and fright amoung the people just to get votes for McCain. Well, hate material won't work with me and a lot of other people ... Senator Obama is a very good man, husband and father and a true American. Their continual portraying of Senator Obama tells me they have lost touch with reality.
This is an update to a blog I wrote below. As many anticipated, the attacks by association against Senator Obama were going to get even more brazen. If you look at the quote below from
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/10/palin-defends-a.html
you see that now, instead of just tangentially knowing Mr. Ayers, now Barack Obama is being accused of supposedly being, "associated...with a known domestic terrorist group." Think of how ludicrous that is, how it moves farther from the initial lie to a greater lie. How could Barack Obama be associated, in 1995, with a group that had not existed for 30 years, a group that existed 40 years ago from today, when Barack was 8 years old?
What we need to recognize is that guilt by association is what happened during the McCarthy era and America supposedly learned how horrible that was, that we should never repeat that, that when our government, when our politicians, support such behavior, we are on the brink of an ideology that is what America stands against, a corrupt government fueled by propaganda and fear. Using this guilt by association tactic, Senator McCain, who knows Senator Obama, would in the 1950's be guilty as well and be called up by the Senate to explain his link to terrorism. Is this what we want for America today and in the future, a return to the 1950's and McCarthyism? This sort of right wing radical government is what leads to regimes such as what is in North Korea and China, an "electorate" that is manipulated by falsehood and held in place by fear of association and reprisal.
The quote from the latest Palin remarks are below and below that is my original blog on this issue.
"And he of course, having been associated with that group, a known domestic terrorist group, it's important for Americans to know," Palin said of Ayers. "It's really important for Americans to start knowing who the real Barack Obama is.
ORIGINAL BLOG ON THIS SUBJECT MATTER:
Anyone who cares about Senator Obama should not stay silent on a resurrected lie that is now being used by Palin and McCain. If you can, please forward this to everyone you know, as this latest slander could hurt Senator Obama seriously enough to cost him the election.
Now that McCain and Palin are becoming desperate, hardcore "Swift Boating" is ratcheting up to a level that is once again trying to destroy Senator Obama by making him responsible for the actions of other people he has met or known.
Never underestimate the power of an outrageous lie. Here's the story:
On the stump, Sarah Palin and John McCain are now routinely spouting a shameless sensational lie, that "Obama pals with terrorists." One could not even imagine that such statements could be made and believed, but they are being made and they are being believed.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/04/palin.obama/index.html
It's such a distortion, that it is amazing that McCain and Palin have the guts to lie to this level. In case you're curious about the facts, Bill Ayers (who was a militantin the 60's, accused and by all accounts guilty, but not convicted, of bombings that did not kill but did damage property) lives in my and Barack Obama's town, Chicago. Bill Ayers' days of militancy was when Barack Obama was 8 years old. These days, Bill Ayers is a reformed establishment guy, and amazingly, a professor of education at the University of Illinois. He's even consulted for Chicago's Mayor Daley on issues of education. His reformation is as improbable as his past was despicable.
Senator Obama and Bill Ayers crossed paths a few times, as you, me and everyone in the world cross paths with thousands of strangers who become momentary acquaintances. Barack Obama doesn't know Bill Ayers as a friend, confident, "pal" or anything of the sort, anymore then I can be said to know someone I sat next to and met on a plane.
When you look into the specifics of how Bill Ayers and Barack Obama crossed paths, you find that it was moments like a cocktail party thrown for an outgoing politician as the public welcomed Barack Obama into the State Senate, or a chance encounter on the streets of Barack's hometown suburb, Hyde Park, Illinois.
That's it.
There is no relationship. They are not "pals." as Sarah Palin distorts. In defense of these unbelievable attacks, Barack publicly has stated many times, vehemently, that he obviously disagrees with Bill Ayers'past and finds his horrible acts completely distasteful. For Sarah Palin and John McCain to say that Obama is cavorting with terrorists, and the implication being that by association Senator Obama might be one as well, is shameless. That sort of slander shouldn't even be legal.
Want to know some actual facts about John McCain?
See:
http://www.johnmccainrecord.com
Yes, these facts are from Obama's viewpoint, but factual nonetheless and diametrically opposed in substance and style from the way John McCain and Sarah Palin are trying to "reveal facts" about Senator Obama.
“All that is necessary forthe triumph of evil is that good people do nothing”
The Obama team desperately needs to bring in Mike McCurry, the former White House press secretary who almost turned it around for John Kerry in 2004, after the Swift boat attacks.
Tighten up the message, call them on unethical behavior, and most of all, put them on defensive.
HERE'S THE QUESTION voters should be asking themselves this week: Just how stupid does the McCain-Palin campaign think I am?
The answer: Dumb enough to hoodwink with charges so contrived and cynical they make your teeth ache.
Let's start with the most insidious of the assertions: that Barack Obama has supported teaching "comprehensive sex education" to kindergartners. The McCain campaign has put up an ad making that claim, citing legislation Obama voted for as an Illinois state senator.
Actually, the intent wasn't to teach young kids all about sex, but rather how to recognize improper physical contact, says Kelvy Brown, legislative coordinator for the Chicago Department of Public Health, which backed the bill.
"It was about teaching them what's not appropriate when it comes to touching, fondling, those types of things," Brown said.
Further, the 2003 legislation stipulated that any school sex education program had to be "age and developmentally appropriate" and have a parental opt out.
As the nonpartisan campaign watchdog FactCheck.org has made clear, this is a thoroughly dishonest ad.
No matter. The McCain campaign has shown it's ready and willing to say preposterous things to win.
Now, it's true the Obama camp has been guilty of some distortions of its own. Still, it's the McCain team that has made leveling false or misleading accusations its modus operandi.
Witness this week's other foray into flimflam: the charge that Obama had called GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin a porcine politico on Tuesday by saying "you can put lipstick on a pig - it's still a pig."
That expression is one that McCain himself has used a number of times, most notably to criticize Hillary Clinton's 2007 healthcare proposal. And in context, it's clear Obama invoked the phrase to portray McCain's policies as a continuation of the Bush administration's, and not to disparage Palin.
Indeed, the notion that it was a barb belittling Palin is so self-evidently absurd that Republican Mike Huckabee refused to play along. "It's an old expression," he told Fox News' Sean Hannity. "I do not think he was referring to Sarah Palin."
Of course he wasn't. And yet, the McCain camp quickly put up a Web ad portraying it as a sexist remark, and on Wednesday McCain spokespeople and surrogates served up similar accusations of disrespect on TV. Pressed about those claims on MSNBC, McCain senior policy adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer stumbled into a revealing moment. "It doesn't matter what the media thinks," she said. "What matters is what the American people think."
Translation: If we can dupe voters into believing Obama disparaged Palin, we can score political points.
Sadly, one of the McCain allies pushing this manufactured controversy has been former Massachusetts acting governor Jane Swift, who on a Tuesday McCain campaign conference call flatly accused Obama of calling Palin a pig.
On Wednesday, I noted to Swift that a reading of Obama's remarks simply doesn't lend credence to that charge. And, further, that McCain has used the same expression himself.
Well, replied Swift, Palin's convention speech joke about lipstick meant the word was very much associated with her in the public mind. "If it didn't intend to bring her into it, why would you choose that particular" formulation? she asked.
What's more, she said, some in the crowd listening to Obama had also taken his comment as a reference to Palin.
Think those arguments are flimsy? Well, consider her further contention: "Nobody but Barack Obama . . . can know what he intended," but the fact that she and others had found it offensive meant that he should "make the whole thing go away by saying, 'I shouldn't have said it.' "
So, let's see: Obama employs an everyday expression to make a legitimate political argument. His opponent's camp then strains an Achilles in a ludicrous attempt to twist his comment into a sexist insult.
And now, to end the controversy, Obama should apologize?
There's some pretzel logic for you.
McCain and Swift are the ones who should apologize.
Voters, meanwhile, should be insulted that the McCain campaign is trying to peddle them this kind of transparent trumpery.
Scot Lehigh can be reached at lehigh@globe.com
My friend, Jake, responded to the San Francisco Chronicle article "Swift boating 2008" by Debra J. Saunders. This article appeared on page B - 7 of the San Francisco Chronicle on September 11, 2008 and is available on the SFGate Website.
Jake's response is quite lovely! His post is available through the SFGate blog and below...
"There's one key element Saunders has accidentally missed/blatantly ignored; the rumors of Mrs. Palin's indiscretions are simply public exaggerations the press has picked up on, whereas the sideswipes at Mr. Obama come directly from within the McCain campaign itself. It's the difference between hearing some dishy water cooler talk at work and, say, holding a nationally televised press conference meant to skewer your opponent like a roast pig (with lipstick). Rumors will abound, but at least the Obama campaign is above spreading them. (Doesn't look as though they need to help!)"
In essence, John McCain, you can stick feathers up your butt, but that doesn't make you any more of a chicken than you already are.
Following up on Senator Obama's fantastic rebuttal of the Lipstick Jungle yesterday, I think now is the time for an ad about Hope and Change I see it like this:
Barack Obama speaking to the camera, walking through a bright, sunny town. "My opponents have been talking a lot about lipstick and celebrities and swift boat attacks. They want you to believe there's nothing we can do to make our country better - because after eight long years, they don't have any new ideas.. I say, enough."
Barack, surrounded by a small crowd of adults and kids. He continues, "This is a new day. This is a new time. I believe we should talk about how to move our country forward - talk about homes, and health care, jobs, energy and the environment. Let's turn our back on petty, political mudslinging - turn off the TV when those attack ads air. This is a new day, and together we can find new answers."
Yogi Berra is in the house and it's deja vu all over again. The Democratic ticket is being Swift Boated again and it seems they don't realize it. In 2004 the tactic was to directly attack Kerry's strongest suit: his very impressive miitary record. Here was a guy who volunteered for dangerous duty, earned 3 Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and Bronze Star. Returned home and became a successful prosecutor and then a Senator as contrasted to Bush's feeble history. And they stripped Kerry naked.
And that is what they are doing now. They swiped Obama's change creed, attacked his excellent work in the community and are completely diminishing his ample accomplishments. Where is the quick response teams to point by point refute their slanderous statements and outright lies? In Denver, the most noise was made by Republicans running around. I saw nothing like that from Democrats at the Republican convention.
When Palin and Giuliani were belittling Obama's work in Chicago where was the response? People across the country now think that he sat in a small store front handing out pamphlets. Obama grew up with a single mother of modest means and they have painted him as a rich privileged pantywaist. While McCain, the real son of privilege paints himself as the guy you want a beer with. Where have I seen this tactic before?
McCain's camp, the so called change agents is littered with Bush/Rove people. Why did no one point out that Palin's big speech was written by Bush speechwriters. She's a former newsreader. She reads what's put in front of her.
Plouffe and the other folks running this campaign better get their heads out of their ass. Or come November 5th they will be looking at the biggest election collapse in history. We have the worst president in history, a tanking economy, a fiasco of a war, more crimes and failures that can be recounted, a candidate joined at the hip with this administration and you guys have let him redefine who he is without a fight.
If you are going to campaign not to lose YOU WILL LOSE! I cannot imagine a worse scenario than giving this president the ultimate victory by electing another Republican to be president. This is what you are staring at. Don't count on the country not being stupid. We are.
Hello! Is anybody home?? People in the blogosphere and most importantly Barack Obama and the Obama campaign team.... We cannot take this lying down... Guiliani and Palin speeches make it abundantly clear..... It is Karl Rove redux! It is Lee Atwater and Joseph McCarthy redux...TOO!
Please e-mail comments...and let me know you are out there and share my belief that we cannot let this re-play of the '04 campaign unfold. We have to unite any way we can and stand up to these bullies...FIGHT BACK...NOW! AND FIGHT BACK EFFECTIVELY and not in a way that allows the Swift Boaters to roll over our candidate like they did in 2004... the only way to beat a bully is to stand up and push back...and hard....never yield! We must!
Will the majority of voting Americans reject this bullying and nasty devisive speech and demogoguery? How long will we continue to tolerate insulting righteous innuendo from hypocritical right wing politicians who use not so-veiled words and rhetoric to spread hatred and contempt for fellow Americans who do not share their political views and who are citizens with the same rights entitled to respect. No one, who has any common decency, would talk to anyone the way Guiliani in particular addressed our candidate and those of us who support him. This is intolerable especially from a man who is a hypocrite.
Speak out! Let me know you're there....the silence is deafening!
The American people, regardless of whether they are on the left or right, need to rise up unite and reject this behavior. Our country must be better than this? Especially after what we've been through after 8 years.... who is more patriotic? This b.s. has gone on long enough. Conservatives must be pressed to see the reality of the toll that 8 years have taken on our country -- not the least of which is exemplified by the fiscally irresponsible siphoning off of our blood and treasure into a war without any connection to 9-11 and our personal security.
It is not acceptable in our public discourse for this kind of talk to go unanswered and, more importatly, fully and effectively challenged and DEFEATED! .... And, where's Pastor Rick Warren who, professing good old Christian values, should be speaking out loudly and vociferous-ly against the betrayal of the bible by Guiliani, Palin and others -- love thy neighbor...oh, I guess that only applies to neighbors who agree with right wing demagogues like Guiliani (and McCain)!
Everyone: we've got to stand up, unite and fight this and elect Barack Obama. Enough! Please speak out and by your comments let me know you care and not allow this year to be a repeat of 2004!
Please respnd to the Action Wire request to email big advertisers to pull their ads from stations airing the AIP lying ad. Use the address is below, or click on the PEER CONTACT in your profile. I modfied the text to both the advertisers and the Ohio stations so they may get read separately.
Takc action at
http://my.barackobama.com/advertisers
"The opponent's swift-boat campaign against Barack and his family shows that he does not check the facts. America and the world can't take four more years of not checking the facts on imminent threats, the economy, health care, America's precious resources and over dependence on fossil fuels."
kdenni 8/24/2008
So, I think we have all heard the news. Jerome R. Corsi has released yet another slanderous book, this time about Barack Obama. Mr. Corsi, in my opinion, symbolizes everything that is wrong with America. First off, he is a bigot. He has proven this many times, and although he "apologizes" for his actions, he continues to do them. Just look, he made an appearance on "The Political Cesspool" to promote his new book. "The Political Cesspool" is a well known white-surpremacist, anti-Semitic radio show. Second, he goes around acting like the fact that he has a Ph. D. makes everything he says true. Third of all, he writes poorly researched, slanderous books, and expects us to believe all the lies he tells us because he has over 600 footnotes referencing his sources. He fails to tell us that if you look up his sources, most of them are unreliable, a lot of them he interprets wrong, and some of the stuff he cites are other things he wrote.
The Obama Nation is a total pack of lies. If Harvard could repeal Corsi's Ph. D, they would, the book seems like it was written by an uneducated Obama hater, not a Ph. D. holding Harvard grad. It is a mockery of modern argument and of the non-fiction genre as a whole. In no way can it be called non-fiction. Corsi lies to the extreme all so he can accomplish his mission of bringing down Obama. He's hoping to Swift boat Obama just like he swift boated Kerry.
Well, I got news for ya Corsi, we WON'T be swift boated! Starting today, I would like to start a new initiative. I'm going to begin printing out copies of "Unfit for Publication" and putting them in my local library’s copies of The Obama Nation. I will also be handing out "Unfit for Publication" to all of my friends and family. I'm going to keep several copies with me whenever I go door knocking, in case a Republican mentions this book. If we can all do this together, we could stop Corsi in his tracks! I'm writing letters to editors of local newspapers talking about the book, and I have written reviews on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc. talking about this book's lies and providing links to FightTheSmears.com.
Let's work together to stop the attack machine that is Jerome R. Corsi!
Here we go again. The Republican attack machine is going full speed ahead and the Democrats sit back and take it. I know all about the moral high ground. You should ask John Kerry about the moral high ground. It is nice to think that you can run a nice clean race, only advertising about how good you are, but the Republicans will crush you if you take this stance.
There is nothing more frustrating than watching a good man get beaten because he doesn't stand up for himself and reply to the attack ads. All John Kerry had to do in '04 was to say "Hey, at least I went to Viet Nam!" and it would have shut up all the swiftboaters. But, no, he took the moral high ground. At least he can say that he fought a nice, clean fight. Of course, he is not saying it from the White House.
I have put in time for Obama and will continue to do so, but I don't know if I can sit back and watch the Republican machine roll over another good man. It is time to stand up and fight back otherwise you may as well call it quits.
I know what most of you will say; we don't want to sink to their level. That isn't the question. The question is do you want to win. You can't effect change from the outside looking in.
I'm not taking credit for anything happening, but having written the original post a few days ago, you cannot imagine my profound relief at the campaign's nimble, hard and loud retort to James Corsi's smear, Obama Nation.
As I wrote at the time, "Fight back hard. Not dirty, but hard." I'm ecstatic that someone in Chicago or camping out in Hawaii did just that. Whoever it was, thank you!
And a special thanks to Media Matters for pushing the MSM to write about the lies and distortions in the book.
Also posted on Fox News. com
What sickens me are the positive responses of people in this forum (Fix News online forum), giving credence to fallacies, lies and bigtory. Obviously they are as racist as Corsi, who obviously has a racial intolerance for a white woman (Obama's mother) marrying men of colors marrying colors: “a second man of color to be her mate.”When Frey wrote his "A million pieces", some shred of fiction presented as facts in a non-fiction book raised the irk of millions, and had the publishing houses re-assessing how they put forth branding a book in a particular genre. In Corsi's book, Simon and Schuster should be ashamed of putting forth a work of fiction as a non-fiction.If one shred of fact is easily counteracted in any book as Corsi's, as in his claim of Obama getting a fundamental Islamic training in Indonesia, because he went to a public school in a Muslim country where the Koran was taught in schools in the same way that the bible was taught in many other Christian countries, then, such a book is open to various suspicions, relegating it to a quasi-fictional genre.I agree with the commentator who questioned the libel liability of such deliberately crafted mis-informative writing, meant to slander.Obama is no John Kerry, this won't take hold as the swift response to debunk has been, and will expand in days to come.Once again, shame to the publishing agent, who also happened to be Dick Cheney's one time aide. How credible, you wonder?
We forget that when vicious, personal attacks are made, there is a simple, fallible human being behind each of them. We all saw how McCain's negative ad campaign kicked into high gear when he hired Bush's ad team.
Why do we only take on the ad itself, or the "journalistic work", instead of it's creator?
The Bush team's advertising men are fair game, and so is Jerome Corsi, of swift boat fame, and more recently, his new Obama hatchet job. McCain himself is protected, his problems are "vetted", and we don't want to be seen on his low road, but the people around him can be poked, prodded, inspected and ultimately, thrown under the bus. The individual people behind the smears may whither beneath the kind of scrutiny given to a presidential candidate, and we can pick them off, one by one.
FOX news could not care less about how we refute the claims against us, step by step, but they will certainly cover a story about how so and so cheated on his wife, etc. The whole idea is to get on FOX news. That's the only way to get to the unconverted.
We're well into the real underpinnings of the "swift-boating" of Obama to come.
The swift-boating by Bush and Rove in '04 started with the candidate himself (i.e., Bush)...he was his own "mouthpiece"...almost nothing too nasty, sarcastic or sneering was too low for Bush to say in the '04 campaign. And, it almost doesn't matter what Obama says (i.e., no matter how carefully he chooses his words), McCain will belittle anything he says...because he'll use any words of Obama to belittle him which is the technique they use to make Obama the issue..instead of the economy, Iraq and other issues people should really care about. McCain is already keeping warm the "coals" for the ongoing swift boating of Obama that is occuring in the internet.... But even without any more "formal" swift boating....say like a published book...the fix is already in. It's the definition game "stupid" so to speak.
Swift boating by any other name is manipulation, smear and defamation...and most importantly, the rubrique for the technique that the Republicans have long used to McCarthy-ize their presidential opponent. Why can't some key democrats and campaign advisors better see this...and develop effective counter strategies? It is a paradox...particular given the "deer in the headlights" reaction of the Kerry campaign when it victimized him.
McCain is well ahead of Obama in defining Obama...he doesn't have to worry about Obama defining him* because the Obama team hasn't figured out yet that they have to define McCain...and not just talk about the issues... Bill Clinton did a masterful job of this when he first ran in 1992. If Clinton, a guy who said he never inhaled, can figure out how to play the "definition game"...so can Obama. But he and his team better get cracking because every day is a day he's losing on that front...the central front of any presidential race! We need all need to hope and pray that team Obama catches on before it is too late!!!
*just calling McCain Bush III, as Obama has dones, is not enough to win this game!
Now begins a new phase of the 2 front media war - when both blogs and select press outlets use the techniques of psyops to manage the Barack problem. How do we dominate perception with the truth?
I am not sure of all strategies here, but the problem is illuminated by this Media Matters article on the Swift Boat books under Kerry. [http://mediamatters.org/items/200807300005]
On the Swiftboats against Kerry campaign, "from a column by William Raspberry published in The Washington Post on October 25, 2004:
Indeed, for me the most important complaint about mainstream coverage of the Swift boat affair was not that the mainstream press ignored it, but that mainstream journalists waited too long to get beyond the they-said-he-said "objective" reporting and try to figure out who was closer to the truth.
From an October 8, 2007, washingtonpost.com Media Backtalk Web chat with Howard Kurtz: Oviedo, Fla.: What, if anything, about the even-faster media pace of blogs, vlogs, etc. would help stop a Swift Boat story from taking hold, as happened last time? Does the ultra-fast news cycle help dilute the impact of these type of trumped-up scandal stories? Howard Kurtz: Any story, trumped-up or not, gets out there faster in these days of digital media. Real reporting, it turns out, takes a bit of time. In the case of the Swift Boat ads, a tiny buy in three markets ballooned into a huge story because the spots were constantly replayed on cable news. It took two or three weeks for a handful of newspapers to realize that this had become an important story and to do the digging that raised questions about the claims that some of Kerry's ex-mates were making. The papers did a good job, but they were too slow.
So now here is the "script": they are rolling out, since they can't beat him on the facts, on public opinion regarding his positions, or on his policy preference, it must be a full court press to the script: the shorthand, single-phrase description of a candidate that, once established, all future coverage must fit. Example: Al Gore "aloof serial exaggerator." Bush II was "down to Earth, like to have a beer with him." Kerry: "flip-flopper." John McCain: "straight-shooter maverick" Note that the script need have no relation to reality, its only needs are that it be established. Well, it appears the script for Barack Obama is being written, and it reads "arrogant and presumptuous." (this is a loose quote that someone borrowed from The Daily Howler, by the way)
So "responding with the truth" is critical - I sent an letter on the Milbank hit-job to the Post, to the Ombudsman at the Post, posted it on my blog and on the Clark08 site where I saw it.
But we need to ramp up these skills, to multiply their power and speed - pronto.
Do we have ready access to even old, recirculated BS that didn't make the Smear list? For example I know Obama was a professor, though the term used was different, but searching for the University of Chicago quote that confirmed this was not simple, as attacks show up on the topic on Google far more than the one or 2 places you can find the true answer. So now I keep the quote on my computer, but I can't be the only person having this sort of problem. We need sort of a rapid responce cache of facts and articles (like the "Know the Facts" one on Obama's site but more full and more fully searchable) The stuff is out there, but how do we get to it, keep it easily accessed and get it into peoples hands rapidly and forcefully - and how can we network better to force the media to deal with their own untruths, as today. Please let me know if you have suggestions/existing solutions.
My Mother got an email forwarded to her from someone she knows. After reading the email, her first reaction was forwarding it to me. I am going to paste here the content of that email and my reply to my mother who is undecided.
--------EMAIL---------
****** MY REPLY TO THIS EMAIL *********
I do not think this article is entire truth. This seems to be another swift boat attack, I would not vote for or vote against just because of an article which has no quotations or any proof to back it. I think Mr. McCain and Obama both are patriot and smart. It just depends that who has better plans as far as economy, healthcare and foreign policy is concerned. I am open to listen to plans of both candidates but not negative campaigning. I met an student of computer science, Caucasian, born and raised in Butte, Montana. I asked him what he was thinking about the presidential race and he said, “It’s time we bring change in Washington”. It seems like young Americans want “change”, I just hope that it’s for good and whoever becomes President does good and fixes the health care, economy, gas prices and homeland security. Today’s news is that IndyMac Bank is shutting down and it will cost tax payers Billions. Bear Sterns was also just recently bailed out. Gas is over $4 a gallon, My health insurance (under 40, spouse and kids) costs over 1K a month. On top of all this everyone in the world hates us because of our foreign policies. I think we do need change. I also strongly believe that Obama will bring this CHANGE.
Love You,
John
