Category: Barack Obama

My nineteen year old son and I just finished listening to Obama’s speech from today. To say I was moved would be an understatement. I can’t recall being brought to tears by a political speech before today, though I’m not so sure you could really call this speech political at its core. What I heard from Barack today was a plea to humanity to pause for a moment, to reflect on the reality of the divided culture we have created, and to see through our anger, resentment and suspicions, that the ties that bind us together are stronger than those that would seek to tear us apart. If there were any lingering doubt about this mans authenticity, his incredible will or his warrior spirit, they were certainly laid to rest today.

Please join me below for my personal thoughts and my own families journey with racism.

Right-wing reactionaries thought manna had fallen from heaven along with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s denunciation of the crimes of America. That’s because Rev. Wright is Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama’s personal preacher. But while the demagogues falsely label Wright’s sermons as racist and anti-white, his remarks express truths that resonate with the experience of black Americans and cannot be forever hidden.

Anyone can go and watch excerpts from Rev. Wright’s sermons, edited for maximum incendiarism by arch-conservative, Fox Network Hyas muckamuck, Bill O’Reilly. Yet, all the editing tricks in the world cannot paint Wright’s sermons racist. But then that’s the cry raised when African-Americans say anything on the mark about the experience of racism in America, an experience that has made them sensitive to the crimes and injustices of this country perpetrated abroad, as well.

As if four hundred years of slavery, and one hundred years of Jim Crow state segregationism were not enough to prove the racist legacy of this country, African Americans are still subject to discrimination across the entire society, with inferior schools, inferior health care, wage discrepancies, housing discrimination, racist assaults, unfair drug laws and a still racially insensitive judicial system. CalexanderJ over at Daily Kos hit the mark with this quote from the comedian Chris Rock:

He certainly had the examples of what to do by the Nixon administration he adored from puberty.

History is being repeated with almost identical methods, and unfortunately so are falling for them that if we don’t expose them it may cost us the General election!

In a 1996 The Washington Post article By George Lardner

Buchanan Outlined Plan to Harass Democrats in ’72, Memo Shows

Rove stated that he IS an adviser to the McCain campaign, he also works for FOX news.

Republican presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan strongly favored a plan of “covert operations” to harass and embarrass Democratic contenders in the heady days at the Nixon White House before the Watergate scandal.

Buchanan laid out his ideas in an April 10, 1972, memo looking ahead to that summer’s Democratic National Convention

On the memo’s last page — one never turned over to Watergate congressional investigators — Buchanan and his top aide recommended staging counterfeit attacks by one Democrat on another, fouling up scheduled events, arranging demonstrations and spreading rumors to plague the rival party, all the while being careful not to run afoul of the Secret Service.

John “100-Years-War” McCain, on his way to Iraq, worries that Al Qaeda will do something this fall to hurt his candidacy for president.

Why would Al Qaeda do that?  Because the Democrats are weaklings who offer aid and comfort to the enemy, of course. What would be more natural that for Osama to endorse Obama?  

McCain didn’t go that far, but he went far enough. Reuters reports:

SPRINGFIELD, Pennsylvania (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate John McCain said on Friday he fears that al Qaeda or another extremist group might attempt spectacular attacks in Iraq to try to tilt the U.S. election against him.

McCain, at a town hall meeting in this Philadelphia suburb, was asked if he had concerns that anti-American militants in Iraq might ratchet up their activities in Iraq to try to increase casualties in September or October and tip the November election against him.

Yes, I worry about it,” McCain said. “And I know they pay attention because of the intercepts we have of their communications …

In fact, my worries have been the opposite — that Still President George W. Bush will engineer some kind of wag the dog crisis in hopes that the American people will rally around him and his tougher-than-nails, would-be successor, John McCain.

It would not, of course, be the first time Republicans have used real or imagined threats from abroad to help themselves at election time, as others have pointed out.

But to suggest that Al Qaeda would launch attacks to try to help his opponent — presumably Obama, but either Democrat — is very much like saying that Democrats who want to end the war are aiding the enemy.  Al Qaeda would simply be repaying them for their help, apparently.

The worst new is that this claim didn’t spark any controvery, and McCain wasn’t asked to explain himself.  The media were all too busy running and re-running video clips of Obama’s pastor, and even with 24-hour news channels it is clear they can only cover one story at a time.

McCain also continued to plant the seeds of the need to “Bomb, Bomb Iran,” which could be Bush’s October surprise.   AP reports:

McCain told reporters later that al-Qaida remains smart and adaptable despite an increase of U.S. troops in Iraq.

“We have had great success with the surge, but to think they’re not capable of orchestrating really strong attacks … I think is an underestimation of the enemy,” McCain said.

“We still have the most lethal explosive devices coming across the border from Iran into Iraq,” he said. “We still have suicide bombers landing at the airport in Damascus and coming into Iraq as we speak.

“So I would not be surprised if they make an attempt. I believe that we can counter most of it, as we are countering. But there will still be spikes and difficulties and challenges associated with this conflict. Otherwise, I’d be advocating that they come home,” he said.

If only.  Instead, he’s prepared to leave them there for 100 years.  

It was a brilliant summer day in Atlanta, and the lumescent, blue sky lifted my already risen spirits as I was planning my wedding. A coworker and I were shopping for wedding dresses in an upscale suburb, both of us dressed in the standard uniform for such an event: sweats and sneakers. My coworker carried the look off with much more chic than I, with her tall frame, warm brown eyes and rich, espresso colored skin giving her the natural grace of a woman for whom sweats is a weekend indulgence.

Me? I just looked a little dumpy.

Cross posted on Kos

I don’t think Obama’s Olbermann appearance is enough to stem the Wright tide.  The best argument is the much worse connection between McCain and the crazy right preachers. Because the traditional media never will do it, Obama may have to be the one to reveal the outrageous double standard of excoriating him for Wright, while not touching McCain for embracing Hagee and Parsley.  

I’ve put together a draft Obama speech that tries to weave together his message with an attack on the double standard.

In the comments or a diary, let’s try to put together an “open source” speech for Obama (or a surrogate who will have a platform).  Here’s my try:

The past few days my campaign has been engulfed in nearly constant, furious attacks of guilt by association.  The words of Pastor Wright, which I have repeatedly denounced, have been broadcast non-stop on radio, television and the internet.  Despite my rejection of these statements, so-called pundits have seen fit to tie me irrevocably to them, and impugn my patriotism and tolerance.

And yet, my campaign is based on patriotism, as exemplified by tolerance, unity and hope.  We have been trying to appeal to the best in people, not the worst.  For too long, our discourse and our elections have been dominated by the forces of fear, demagogy and, yes, hate.  We have been trying to change that, and to bring hope to this country after years of fear, war and economic insecurity.  But there are many who will do anything to fight against hope, to continue the fear-infused politics of the past eight years.

Unfortunately, John McCain, the probable Republican candidate, has openly welcomed the support of those who would divide our country by religion, race or ethnic group.  Rather than distancing himself as we did, he has sought out and embraced the Rev. James Hagee, whose shameful statements have not been nearly as widely disseminated as those of Pastor Wright.

Senator McCain has said he was “very honored” by the endorsement of someone who has said:

—  Catholicism is “‘The Great Whore,’ an ‘apostate church,’ the ‘anti-Christ,’ and a ‘false cult system.'”

— Hurricane Katrina was inflicted upon New Orleans by God because of the city’s supposed “immorality.”

— Those who live by the Koran have a scriptural mandate to kill Christians and Jews.

—  Just before us is a nuclear countdown with Iran, followed by the final battle, the battle of Armageddon.

—  Jews brought the Holocaust on themselves by rebelling against God

Senator McCain has said his “spiritual advisor” is Rod Parsley, someone who has said:

— “Americans must be ‘Christocrats’ — citizens of both their country and the Kingdom of God”; “And that is not a democracy; that is a theocracy”; “That means God is in control, and you are not.”

I have specifically repudiated the noxious statements of Reverend Wright.  John McCain has sought and welcomed the support of those who espouse these noxious and unpatriotic ideas, with only the vague and mildest of “disagreements”.

I call on John McCain to specifically address each one of the statements by these preachers.

Let us make this a campaign about hope, about the future, and about policies that will protect and sustain our children.

I’m guessing that tens of millions of people today know the name of the young woman Eliot Spitzer was paying for sex. I’m guessing that no one outside their circles of family, friends, and colleagues knows the names of Kevin S. Mowl and Christopher S. Frost. They are the last two named American servicemen to have been killed in Bush’s Iraq disaster. Mowl died in late February, from wounds suffered in an IED attack. Frost died last week, in a helicopter crash. Thirteen more American service personnel have been killed more recently, but their names have not been released to the public. Three were killed yesterday, in a rocket attack near An Nasiriyah.

We all know about Geraldine Ferraro. We found out about Samantha Power not because she’s an expert on one of the most important issues humanity faces, but because she made some stupid comments to a Scottish reporter. We’ve recently heard more about obscure Canadian embassy officials than we have about the people who are dying in Iraq. Little wonder, then, that support for the war is at the highest level since 2006. Little wonder that more Americans think the number of U.S. casualties is closer to 3,000 than the actual 4,000. The Iraqi people are a little more realistic. As reported by the Associated Press:

In just a week, Baghdad has seen a spate of suicide bombings that have killed scores of Iraqis and five U.S. soldiers – among 12 Americans who have fallen in the line of duty during the past three days in Iraq.

Suddenly, the city is feeling the unease of the period before violence eased partly as a result of the U.S. troop buildup, which is now coming to a close.

“Violence has increased dramatically” over the past few days, said Haitham Ismael, a 33-year-old father of three living in western Baghdad.

After five years of war, Iraqis interviewed said they were not necessarily changing their daily routines. But all said the growing bloodshed was present in their minds, clouding what had until recently been a more hopeful time.

On Monday, the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law released its 2007 Congressional Poverty Scorecard. The President of the Center, John Bouman, noted that in states with the highest poverty rates, their congressional delegations tended to score the worst.

“Poverty is everywhere in America, but it is interesting that in states with the highest concentrations of poverty, the Congressional delegations seem least interested in supporting initiatives that fight poverty,” said John Bouman, president of the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, which released the study. “This appears deeper than simply opposing spending. A member could have opposed any of the measures we analyzed that called for new spending and still could have voted to support half of the poverty-fighting measures on our list.”

Former presidential candidate John Edwards was also on the center’s conference call with reporters.

“We can get the national leadership and we can get the congressional leadership we need,” Edwards said. “But first voters need to be educated as to who is doing the work and who is not.”

Lest we think that opposition to the war and occupation of Iraq is limited to the left in this country, consider the lineup of speakers for a March 16 Iraq Moratorium event in San Francisco:

Several of the usual suspects: Sean Penn; Cindy Sheehan; the Rev. Gregory Stewart, senior minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church; Matt Gonzalez, ex-president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and rumored vice presidential candidate on the Green Party ticket.

And one Justin Raimondo, libertarian and paleoconservative (look it up; we did) author who also runs the website Antiwar.com, where he writes things like:

Our foreign policy has put us in mortal danger, and not only because it empowers the worldwide Islamist insurgency that aims to attack the American homeland, but also because the “Iraq recession” is fast threatening to become the Iraq depression. The U.S. is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and the $3 trillion war is going to sink us if it isn’t stopped.

It’s an interesting mix, to say the least, and helps explain how Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich could at least agree on one thing – that the invasion of Iraq was a terrible mistake, and we should bring our troops home now. (It was interesting, at the Oct. 27 regional antiwar march in Chicago, that Ron Paul’s was the only presidential campaign represented, with signs, campaign material and even an airplane flyover with a banner.)

When I posted this on another unnamed blog, some commenters pointed out that Raimondo’s politics leave a little to be desired, and that I probably wouldn’t agree with him on much besides the war.  OK, granted.  My whole point here (aside from some shameless promotion of the Moratorium) is that if antiwar sentiment in this country includes nearly two-thirds of the population, the Iraq Moratorium must be a big tent — or big umbrella, if you will — that brings together people who have the common cause of ending the war and occupation of Iraq.  That single issue unifies us.  I met a Ron Paul enthusiast at our March Iraq Moratorium vigil in Milwaukee, so it’s not just hypothetical; people are uniting to end this war.

Details on Sunday’s event, sponsored by the Iraq Moratorium-SF Bay Area, are listed in the March events on the Iraq Moratorium website .

Crossposted from Daily Kos

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Obama campaign responds to this hit piece in NYT: Obama in Senate: Star Power, Minor Role, by Kate Zernike and Jeff Zeleny.

The fact check rebuttal can be found here:

Fact Check on New York Times Story that Minimizes Obama’s Senate Accomplishments

March 08, 2008

You’ve just got to feel sorry for Hillary Clinton.  She just can’t seem to do anything right in this campaign.  It’s not just her underestimation of the Clinton Rules, under which anything she says or does — no matter how innocent or mundane — is transformed into some conniving attack formed from evil intentions (just look at the false hype over the “dark” ad).  It’s that things like this happen.

One of the actors in the Hillary Clinton ad was shocked to see herself, especially because she’s a fierce supporter of Barack Obama.

The so-called “red-phone ad” was played all over the country and helped turn the tide for Hillary Clinton leading up to her big win in Ohio. The ad shows a sleeping child and asks voters who they would want to see answering a 3 a.m. emergency phone call to the White House.

But the young girl starring in the ad will actually be voting age next month and says she’s no fan of Hillary Clinton.

One of the unintended consequences of using recycled video footage, obviously.  Which is why it’s probably better to use original material.  Time to fire the poor schmuck who failed to consider something like this happening, eh?

I originally saw this posted on the Rude Pundit‘s blog.

Hillary Clinton denigrated Obama’s lifetime  when she said:

I think that I have a lifetime of experience that I will bring to the White House. I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002,” Clinton says.

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