If I look at the states that Obama has won I see small states Red states not blue states, So. Carolina, No. Carolina, Missisissippi, Louisiana, Kansas,oklahoma, Nevada, etc. Most of the states he has won will not vote Democrat in November, Illinois forgettaboutit. In the states that Hillary won, many of them states with large populations are traditional Democratic states. I can't see giving the nomination to Obama based on the delegates as the ones he won were primarilly caucus states which I hope after this years debacle will go straight voting.Interesting piece below.
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Projection: Clinton Wins Popular Vote, Obama Wins Delegate Count
March 28, 2008 02:31 PM ET Michael Barone
The Clinton campaign has taken to boasting that its candidate has won states with more electoral votes than has Barack Obama. True. By my count, Clinton has won 14 states with 219 electoral votes (16 states with 263 electoral votes if you include Florida and Michigan) while Obama has won 27 states (I'm counting the District of Columbia as a state, but not the territories) with 202 electoral votes. Eight states with 73 electoral votes have still to vote. In percentage terms, Clinton has won states with 41 percent of the electoral votes (49 percent if you include Florida and Michigan), while Obama has won states with 38 percent of electoral votes. States with 14 percent of the electoral votes have yet to vote.
The Clinton campaign would do even better to use population rather than electoral votes, since smaller states are overrepresented in the Electoral College. By my count, based on the 2007 Census estimates, Clinton's states have 132,214,460 people (160,537,525 if you include Florida and Michigan), and Obama's states have 101,689,480 people. States with 39,394,152 people have yet to vote. In percentage terms this means Clinton's states have 44 percent of the nation's population (53 percent if you include Florida and Michigan) and Obama's states have 34 percent of the nation's population. The yet-to-vote states have 13 percent of the nation's population.
Thus the Clinton campaign could argue that Obama cannot win states with most of the nation's people even if he wins all the remaining eight primaries. Could argue—but I don't think that's going to persuade any superdelegates that Clinton is the real winner.
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Join the Club A new poll shows Obama's unfavorability rating is similar to Hillary Clinton's.
By Mark Blumenthal and Charles FranklinUpdated Friday, March 28, 2008,
Yesterday we wrote about a new poll (PDF) that suggested Hillary Clinton's unfavorability rating reached a new high of 48 percent, while Barack Obama's rating was significantly lower at 32 percent. Considering Obama's rough press coverage over the past few weeks because of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons, this was a blow to the conventional wisdom that Obama's candidacy had been harmed by Wright's rhetoric.
However, a new SurveyUSA poll shows the two candidates' unfavorables to be much closer. Obama and Clinton have similar numbers in this poll, with Clinton polling unfavorably among 42 percent of voters. He is viewed unfavorably by 40 percent of the voters. She is viewed favorably by 35 percent of voters, while Obama is viewed favorably by 38 percent of voters.
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Op-Ed: Did Your Grocery List Kill a Songbird?
THOUGH a consumer may not be able to tell the difference, a striking red and blue Thomas the Tank Engine made in Wisconsin is not the same as one manufactured in China — the paint on the Chinese twin may contain dangerous levels of lead. In the same way, a plump red tomato from Florida is often not the same as one grown in Mexico. The imported fruits and vegetables found in our shopping carts in winter and early spring are grown with types and amounts of pesticides that would often be illegal in the United States.
In this case, the victims are North American songbirds. Bobolinks, called skunk blackbirds in some places, were once a common sight in the Eastern United States. In mating season, the male in his handsome tuxedo-like suit sings deliriously as he whirrs madly over the hayfields. Bobolink numbers have plummeted almost 50 percent in the last four decades, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey.
The birds are being poisoned on their wintering grounds by highly toxic pesticides. Rosalind Renfrew, a biologist at the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, captured bobolinks feeding in rice fields in Bolivia and took samples of their blood to test for pesticide exposure. She found that about half of the birds had drastically reduced levels of cholinesterase, an enzyme that affects brain and nerve cells — a sign of exposure to toxic chemicals.
Since the 1980s, pesticide use has increased fivefold in Latin America as countries have expanded their production of nontraditional crops to fuel the demand for fresh produce during winter in North America and Europe. Rice farmers in the region use monocrotophos, methamidophos and carbofuran, all agricultural chemicals that are rated Class I toxins by the World Health Organization, are highly toxic to birds, and are either restricted or banned in the United States. In countries like Guatemala, Honduras and Ecuador, researchers have found that farmers spray their crops heavily and repeatedly with a chemical cocktail of dangerous pesticides.
In the mid-1990s, American biologists used satellite tracking to follow Swainson’s hawks to their wintering grounds in
Argentina, where thousands of them were found dead from monocrotophos poisoning. Migratory songbirds like bobolinks, barn swallows and Eastern kingbirds are suffering mysterious population declines, and pesticides may well be to blame. A single application of a highly toxic pesticide to a field can kill seven to 25 songbirds per acre. About half the birds that researchers capture after such spraying are found to suffer from severely depressed neurological function.
Migratory birds, modern-day canaries in the coal mine, reveal an environmental problem hidden to consumers. Testing by the United States Food and Drug Administration shows that fruits and vegetables imported from Latin America are three times as likely to violate Environmental Protection Agency standards for pesticide residues as the same foods grown in the United States. Some but not all pesticide residues can be removed by washing or peeling produce, but tests by the Centers for Disease Control show that most Americans carry traces of pesticides in their blood. American consumers can discourage this poisoning by avoiding foods that are bad for the environment, bad for farmers in Latin America and, in the worst cases, bad for their own families.
What should you put on your bird-friendly grocery list? Organic coffee, for one thing. Most mass-produced coffee is grown in open fields heavily treated with fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides and insecticides. In contrast, traditional small coffee farmers grow their beans under a canopy of tropical trees, which provide shade and essential nitrogen, and fertilize their soil naturally with leaf litter. Their organic, fair-trade coffee is now available in many coffee shops and supermarkets, and it is recommended by the Audubon Society, the American Bird Conservancy and the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.
Organic bananas should also be on your list. Bananas are typically grown with one of the highest pesticide loads of any tropical crop. Although bananas present little risk of pesticide ingestion to the consumer, the environment where they are grown is heavily contaminated.
When it comes to nontraditional Latin American crops like melons, green beans, tomatoes, bell peppers and strawberries, it can be difficult to find any that are organically grown. We should buy these foods only if they are not imported from Latin America.
Now that spring is here, we take it for granted that the birds’ cheerful songs will fill the air when our apple trees blossom. But each year, as we continue to demand out-of-season fruits and vegetables, we ensure that fewer and fewer songbirds will return.
Bridget Stutchbury, a professor of biology at York University in Toronto, is the author of "Silence of the Songbirds."
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Land Deal Could Open Alaska Wildlife Refuge to Oil Reuters
Wednesday 26 March 2008
Anchorage, Alaska - A controversial land swap proposal could open portions of an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling, dividing Alaska natives and stoking opposition from environmentalists seeking to protect the bears, moose and birds that live there.
Supporters of the plan to exchange land in the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge, which lies just south of the more-famous Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, say they would like the plan to be approved by the administration of US president George W. Bush before the election in November.
"The window is the election," Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young, a staunch backer of the plan, said at an Anchorage news conference. "We'd like to have an executive order out of the administration before they leave office."
The proposed land trade would give 110,000 acres of hydrocarbon-prone uplands within the refuge, plus mineral rights to another 97,000 acres, to Fairbanks-based Doyon Ltd. In exchange, the refuge would gain 150,000 acres of bird-friendly wetlands now owned by Doyon, plus 56,500 acres on which Doyon has pending land claims.
Doyon, owned by Athabascan Indians of interior Alaska, has long envisioned such a trade to give economic benefits to its shareholders while preserving traditional culture and the environment on which it depends.
"You can have both the subsistence lifestyle and the protection of that lifestyle, and you can have oil and gas exploration," said Norm Phillips, Doyon's resource manager.
But many people living closest to the potential development - many of them Doyon shareholders - oppose the plan because of the likelihood of oil pollution and the possibility of social upheaval such as a flow of drugs, alcohol and poachers over new roads.
"Usually, the indigenous people are at the losing end of any sort of oil development," said Dacho Alexander, first chief of the Gwichyaa Zhee Gwich'in Tribe in Fort Yukon, a village of 600 near the proposed exchange parcels.
Alexander said the dispute illustrates the perennial clash between corporate goals and non-economic Native values.
The Yukon Flats basin holds an estimated 173 million barrels of oil - accounting for less than nine days of US consumption at current rates - along with 5.5 trillion cubic feet of gas and 127 million barrels of natural-gas liquids, according to the US Geological Survey.
It also holds unique ecological values.
Straddling the Arctic Circle, cradled by two mountain ranges and bisected by the Yukon River, the refuge encompasses boreal forests that support moose, grizzly and black bears and many other mammals.
Its network of lakes, streams, ponds and sloughs attract Alaska's highest concentrations of breeding ducks. It has some of Alaska's coldest winter days and, thanks to around-the-clock sunlight, scorching summer temperatures as high as 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the hottest for this latitude in North America.
Fran Mauer, a retired Fish and Wildlife Service biologist and prominent critic of the land exchange, says the trade plan violates the refuge's conservation mission.
"I just don't see that it's in the public's interest to do it," he said.
But Doyon officials say that no matter what land the corporation ends up owning, oil and gas drilling is inevitable in the Yukon Flats.
"Even if the land trade doesn't happen, Doyon is still going to move forward with exploration out there," Phillips said.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
TGIF
I really think that Obama's 20 year affiliation with a church and a pastor who spews hate from his pulpit should give pause to anyone who is thinking of voting for him. If that sort of relationship was in Hillary's backround or McCains or anyone else running for president the mains stream media would be all over it. Oh sure a little pasting here and there but not the kind of going over they gave Clinton over say white water.
BTW- don't be surprised by a McCain/Romney ticket.
The republicans go mainstream appeal to the general public while Democrats do what?
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Is Al Gore the ‘way out of a mess’?
The political world spent a fair amount of time last year mulling over whether Al Gore would run for president, who his running mate would be, whether he could win, etc. Once it became clear that Gore wouldn’t run, speculation shifted to who he’d endorse, when, and what kind of impact it might have.
Now, however, we should probably get ready for a new wave of Gore-related scuttlebutt, centered around a new idea: Al Gore, compromise candidate.
The first I heard of this was earlier this week, when Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fla.), considering the prospects of a brokered convention, told a Florida paper, “If it (the nomination process) goes into the convention, don’t be surprised if someone different is at the top of the ticket.”
A compromise candidate could be someone such as former vice president Al Gore, Mahoney said last week during a meeting with this news organization’s editorial board.
If either Clinton or Obama suggested to a deadlocked convention a ticket of Gore-Clinton or Gore-Obama, the Democratic Party would accept it, Mahoney said.
The comments didn’t generate much in the way of attention, in part because Mahoney isn’t an especially high profile lawmaker, and also because he made the remark to a small paper with a limited audience.
But when Time’s Joe Klein starts talking about the same idea, one gets the sense a small boomlet might be in the works.
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On Monday, the NYT’s Paul Krugman wrote some fair criticism of all three presidential candidates: they’re talking about the economy in general, but they aren’t sufficiently addressing the ongoing fiscal crisis. More importantly, they aren’t offering the kinds of regulations the system needs.
Now, the shadow banking system is facing the 21st-century equivalent of the wave of bank runs that swept America in the early 1930s. And the government is rushing in to help, with hundreds of billions from the Federal Reserve, and hundreds of billions more from government-sponsored institutions like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks.
Given the risks to the economy if the financial system melts down, this rescue mission is justified. But you don’t have to be an economic radical, or even a vocal reformer like Representative Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, to see that what’s happening now is the quid without the quo.
Last week Robert Rubin, the former Treasury secretary, declared that Mr. Frank is right about the need for expanded regulation. Mr. Rubin put it clearly: If Wall Street companies can count on being rescued like banks, then they need to be regulated like banks. […]
[Clinton and Obama] are running more or less populist campaigns. But at least so far, neither Democrat has made a clear commitment to financial reform.
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* At a townhall meeting in North Carolina yesterday, Barack Obama was asked about the role that Jesus and his teachings have had in the senator’s life. “I’m a Christian,” Obama said. “What that means for me is that I believe Jesus Christ died for my sins, and his grace and his mercy and his power, through him, I can achieve everlasting life.” He added, “I think it’s very important to think that you do not have to have the same faith as me to be a moral person – there are a lot of Jewish people who are as moral, or more moral than I am, there are a lot of Muslims who are decent kind people. I don’t think they are any less children of God.”
* Bill Clinton said yesterday the Obama and Clinton camps should “just saddle up and have an argument.” Obama told reporters he didn’t have a problem with that, but he added that one of his goals in politics was still “to see if we can change the tenor a little bit so it’s more productive.” Obama said he agreed with Clinton’s point about the intensity of politics, saying it was “a contact sport,” but emphasized he didn’t want to see this go too far. “There’s a line that can be crossed where you stop focusing on the American people’s business and it just becomes about sport.”
* Obama’s electability argument got a bit of a boost this morning when a new Public Policy Institute of California poll showed Obama leading McCain in a general-election match-up by nine points (49% to 40%), while Clinton leads McCain by three (46% to 43%).
* Joe Lieberman’s support for McCain doesn’t appear to be especially helpful in Connecticut, with a new Quinnipiac poll showing McCain trailing both Dems in general-election match-ups in the state. Obama leads McCain by 17 (52% to 35%), while Clinton leads McCain by three (45% to 42%).
* The first Mitt Romney sighting in a while: “In their first campaign swing as allies, Romney planned to meet McCain at the airport in Salt Lake City and appear with the likely Republican nominee at a fundraiser. The two then were traveling to Denver for a second fundraiser.”
BTW- don't be surprised by a McCain/Romney ticket.
The republicans go mainstream appeal to the general public while Democrats do what?
______________________________________
Is Al Gore the ‘way out of a mess’?
The political world spent a fair amount of time last year mulling over whether Al Gore would run for president, who his running mate would be, whether he could win, etc. Once it became clear that Gore wouldn’t run, speculation shifted to who he’d endorse, when, and what kind of impact it might have.
Now, however, we should probably get ready for a new wave of Gore-related scuttlebutt, centered around a new idea: Al Gore, compromise candidate.
The first I heard of this was earlier this week, when Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fla.), considering the prospects of a brokered convention, told a Florida paper, “If it (the nomination process) goes into the convention, don’t be surprised if someone different is at the top of the ticket.”
A compromise candidate could be someone such as former vice president Al Gore, Mahoney said last week during a meeting with this news organization’s editorial board.
If either Clinton or Obama suggested to a deadlocked convention a ticket of Gore-Clinton or Gore-Obama, the Democratic Party would accept it, Mahoney said.
The comments didn’t generate much in the way of attention, in part because Mahoney isn’t an especially high profile lawmaker, and also because he made the remark to a small paper with a limited audience.
But when Time’s Joe Klein starts talking about the same idea, one gets the sense a small boomlet might be in the works.
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On Monday, the NYT’s Paul Krugman wrote some fair criticism of all three presidential candidates: they’re talking about the economy in general, but they aren’t sufficiently addressing the ongoing fiscal crisis. More importantly, they aren’t offering the kinds of regulations the system needs.
Now, the shadow banking system is facing the 21st-century equivalent of the wave of bank runs that swept America in the early 1930s. And the government is rushing in to help, with hundreds of billions from the Federal Reserve, and hundreds of billions more from government-sponsored institutions like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks.
Given the risks to the economy if the financial system melts down, this rescue mission is justified. But you don’t have to be an economic radical, or even a vocal reformer like Representative Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, to see that what’s happening now is the quid without the quo.
Last week Robert Rubin, the former Treasury secretary, declared that Mr. Frank is right about the need for expanded regulation. Mr. Rubin put it clearly: If Wall Street companies can count on being rescued like banks, then they need to be regulated like banks. […]
[Clinton and Obama] are running more or less populist campaigns. But at least so far, neither Democrat has made a clear commitment to financial reform.
_____________________________________
* At a townhall meeting in North Carolina yesterday, Barack Obama was asked about the role that Jesus and his teachings have had in the senator’s life. “I’m a Christian,” Obama said. “What that means for me is that I believe Jesus Christ died for my sins, and his grace and his mercy and his power, through him, I can achieve everlasting life.” He added, “I think it’s very important to think that you do not have to have the same faith as me to be a moral person – there are a lot of Jewish people who are as moral, or more moral than I am, there are a lot of Muslims who are decent kind people. I don’t think they are any less children of God.”
* Bill Clinton said yesterday the Obama and Clinton camps should “just saddle up and have an argument.” Obama told reporters he didn’t have a problem with that, but he added that one of his goals in politics was still “to see if we can change the tenor a little bit so it’s more productive.” Obama said he agreed with Clinton’s point about the intensity of politics, saying it was “a contact sport,” but emphasized he didn’t want to see this go too far. “There’s a line that can be crossed where you stop focusing on the American people’s business and it just becomes about sport.”
* Obama’s electability argument got a bit of a boost this morning when a new Public Policy Institute of California poll showed Obama leading McCain in a general-election match-up by nine points (49% to 40%), while Clinton leads McCain by three (46% to 43%).
* Joe Lieberman’s support for McCain doesn’t appear to be especially helpful in Connecticut, with a new Quinnipiac poll showing McCain trailing both Dems in general-election match-ups in the state. Obama leads McCain by 17 (52% to 35%), while Clinton leads McCain by three (45% to 42%).
* The first Mitt Romney sighting in a while: “In their first campaign swing as allies, Romney planned to meet McCain at the airport in Salt Lake City and appear with the likely Republican nominee at a fundraiser. The two then were traveling to Denver for a second fundraiser.”
Thursday, March 27, 2008
MSM Succeeds in it's Goal of Killing Clinton
NBC-WSJ poll: New Clinton lows
Posted: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 6:30 PM by Domenico MontanaroFiled Under: Democrats, 2008, Clinton, Obama, Polls
From NBC's Chuck ToddAs expected, one of the two major Democratic candidates saw a downturn in the latest NBC/WSJ poll, but it's not the candidate that you think. Hillary Clinton is sporting the lowest personal ratings of the campaign. Moreover, her 37 percent positive rating is the lowest the NBC/WSJ poll has recorded since March 2001, two months after she was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York.
The poll was conducted Monday and Tuesday this week by Hart-McInturff and surveyed 700 registered voters, which gives the poll a margin of error of +/- 3.7 percent. In addition, we oversampled African-Americans in order to get a more reliable cross-tab on many of the questions we asked in this poll regarding Sen. Barack Obama's speech on race and overall response to last week's Rev. Jeremiah Wright dustup. (Watch Tim Russert's analysis of the poll results.)
On that issue specifically, 32 percent of voters overall said Obama "sufficiently addressed the issue," while 26 percent of folks believe he needs to address the Wright controversy further; 31 percent did not see the speech or had no opinion.
Interestingly, of those voters who said they saw the speech, 47 percent said Obama sufficiently addressed the Wright issue while 37 percent said he needs to address it further. Among whites, 45 percent were satisfied with Obama's explanation, 38 percent were not. Among blacks, 67 percent said the speech was sufficient, while 25 percent want him to address it further.
Overall, 55 percent of voters told us that they were "disturbed" by the videos of Wright that circulated so widely on cable TV and the Internet.
As for the damage this controversy did or didn't do to Obama, it's a mixed bag. Yes, Obama saw some of his numbers go down slightly among certain voting groups, most notably Republicans. But he's still much more competitive with independent voters when matched up against John McCain than Hillary Clinton is. And he still sports a net-positive personal rating of 49-32, which is down only slightly from two weeks ago, when it was 51-28. Again, the biggest shift in those negative numbers were among Republicans.
On one of the most critical questions we've been tracking for a few months, Obama showed resilience. When asked if the three presidential candidates could be successful in uniting the country if they were elected president, 60 percent of all voters believed Obama could be successful at doing this, 58 percent of all voters said McCain could unite the country while only 46 percent of voters said the same about Clinton. All three candidates saw dips on this issue, by the way. In January, 67 percent thought Obama could unite the country; 68 percent thought McCain could do it; and 55 percent said Clinton would be able to pull it off.
The fact that all three dropped equally in the last three months is a sign that the campaign is becoming more ideological and partisan.
In the head-to-head matchups, there weren't huge shifts in the numbers, with Obama and Clinton dead even at 45 percent in the national Democratic primary matchup (a slight increase for Obama from early March). In the general-election matchups, Obama led McCain by 2 points, and McCain led Clinton by 2 points; all margin of error results and nothing to get too excited over.
One thing about these head-to-head matchups: Our pollsters found that for the second poll in a row, more than 20 percent of Clinton and Obama supporters say they would support McCain when he's matched up against the other Democrat. There is clearly some hardening of feelings among some of the most core supporters of both Democrats, though it may be Obama voters, who are more bitter in the long run.
Why? Because among Obama voters, Clinton has a net-negative personal rating (35-43) while Clinton voters have a net-positive view of Obama (50-29). Taken together, this appears to be evidence that Obama, intially, should have the easier time uniting the party than Clinton.
Considering the doom-and-gloom some predicted for Obama with regard to the Wright controversy, the overall tenor of the electorate appears to still be favorable for him. He's mortal, but he's survived ... for now. It's not clear whether he'd be this resilient if another controversy exploded as big as Wright, but it appears that voters are giving him the benefit of doubt. There's lots of evidence inside these numbers that voters still would like to know more about Obama, and that is both an opportunity and a potential obstacle.
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The North Carolina Primary will be a Racist Vote With Obama the easy winner!
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Smears and Tears: How Obama's National Security Week Turned Into the Mendacity of Hype
Joseph C. Wilson
The past week marked the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War and the milestone of the 4,000th American soldier killed in that
disastrous adventure. Commemorating and underscoring the urgent need for a new policy direction, Senator Clinton delivered a serious and detailed address clearly setting out her vision for and commitment to ending the conflict. Her approach includes a direct critique of the most glaring failures of the Bush administration: its unwillingness to use political pressure and intense international diplomacy to effect a resolution of the outstanding differences that have driven the region into a proxy war within Iraq with the United States manning and supporting combatants on all sides. For years American generals have been telling the administration, the Congress, and the public that Iraq is not a situation that lends itself to a military solution and will only be resolved politically. While the focus of American opprobrium has been on the Iraqi government for its failure to find those solutions, Senator Clinton, in her speech, is the first presidential candidate to spell out in a precise plan the elements required for an international effort, including co-opting and controlling the enablers of the ongoing violence in Iraq, to promote political reconciliation and reform.
My wife, former CIA agent, Valerie, and I accompanied Senator Clinton to Philadelphia the day after her speech. Valerie pointed out in her comments how, in the run up to the invasion, the administration lied to the Congress and the American people about the nature and the seriousness of the weapons of mass destruction threat posed by Saddam Hussein. The Bush administration's willful twisting of intelligence was crucial to manipulation of the press, the public and the Congress. Not until months later, after the invasion, did the facts of the administration's distortion of intelligence slowly begin to trickle out, partly as a result of my own efforts in a New York Times opinion piece in July 200
Understandably, Senator Obama's speech on race relations overshadowed Senator Clinton's policy pronouncements. While laudable in intent, Senator Obama would never have made the speech had his relationship with fiery pastor Jeremiah Wright not become a public relations nightmare for him. Among other things, Wright preaches that the United States government unleashed the HIV virus in Africa to kill blacks. (Having worked in Africa for much of my adult life, including with one of the early AIDS researchers, Dr. Jonathan Mann, I can safely say that there is absolutely no evidence to sustain Wright's reckless charge.) Obama had no choice but to address his 20-year close relationship with a man he still considers, as he made clear in his speech, a mentor.
In the immediate aftermath, the Obama campaign dispatched several foreign policy surrogates to blitz the airwaves, supposedly to offer alternatives to Clinton's recommendations. But that's not what happened. Instead, Hillary was subjected to yet another round of personal abuse, denigration and ridicule rather than a serious debate of the issues. The real subtext of the Obama campaign was to attack Hillary in order to distract from Obama's association with his anti-American preacher. National security went un-addressed. Rather than filling in his largely absent record, Obama had his surrogates engage in what can be termed the mendacity of hype.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, an otherwise serious person, made the extraordinarily silly comment belittling two-term Senator Clinton by comparing her experience to that of Mamie Eisenhower and his own travel agent after offering an analysis of the situation in Iraq and the path to a resolution that essentially mirrored the basic points Senator Clinton made in her speech. Brzezinski was not asked and did not explain why Obama early embraced him as an adviser and openly praised him, but recently has coldly distanced himself because of Brzezinski's controversial views on Israel.
Nor did Brzezinski address the bloody issue of mercenary forces like Blackwater, which Obama states should be allowed to remain part of our military force in Iraq -- a position challenged by Senator Clinton, who has called for phasing them out. In place of practical policies, Brzezinski offered his vague "sense" that Obama is a person who understands change before it takes place and is therefore capable of making "transcendental" decisions, whatever that might mean. For a man with a reputation as tough-minded, Brzezinski retreated into cloudy abstraction in his defense of Obama, who, according to the Senator, he, Brzezinksi, knows hardly at all.
Senator John Kerry, another Obama surrogate, offered the startling observation that Obama is better equipped than anyone else to bridge the divide between the U.S. and the Muslim world and end Islamic extremism and terorrism -- "because he's a black man." There is absolutely no empirical evidence to sustain that claim, the notion that a single individual, even one with a resume filled with appropriate experience, would be able to halt terrorism because of the color of his skin. It is patently absurd. But Kerry presented nothing to back up his astounding racial reasoning. And the Obama campaign was remarkably silent on Kerry's racialization of the foreign policy discussion.
Next, Governor Bill Richardson, who campaigned on his resume as a foreign policy practitioner, "agonized," he explained, before putting his faith in a "once in a lifetime leader" and endorsed Obama, repudiating his own rationale of experience as a prerequisite for being President. Rather than state why he believes Obama has superior national security credentials and positions, he opted to complain instead about James Carville comparing him to Judas Iscariot. Since Richardson made foreign policy the centerpiece of his campaign -- a direct consequence of President Bill Clinton's appointments -- and of the salience of foreign policy as an issue in the election, he owed an explanation of how Obama's foreign policy would make us stronger and more secure that Clinton's. But, preferring to defend himself against the charge of having betrayed the Clintons he neglected to discuss such policy.
Then, there was retired Air Force General, Merrill "Tony" McPeak, whose media appearance last week consisted of making the outrageous charge that Bill Clinton was using "McCarthy-like tactics" simply because he mentioned, in the event of a Hillary-McCain match-up, that Hillary and McCain are good patriots and that the campaign should be devoted to a substantive debate of the issues. Even the right wing National Review's Kathleen Parker, who was at the event, felt compelled to correct the record. "Bill Clinton was saying that Hillary and McCain are both good patriots who love their country, not that all those unmentioned are something else."
Bill Clinton, of course, was not using "McCarthy-like tactics," but the Obama campaign was eager to smear him. Which was guilty of "McCarthy-like tactics"? Attack the character of your adversaries; demean them; turn them into caricatures; while lying about someone, claim they are liars.
Finally, the Obama campaign pushed a compliant press corps, all too eager to do its bidding rather than maintain its standards of objectivity and skepticism, into hyping a mini-pseudo-scandal: whether Hillary "misspoke" about being under sniper fire when she paid a visit to Tuzla in Bosnia in 1996. In fact, the then-First Lady was told the plane was diving to land to avoid possible sniper fire. Whether there was or not is irrelevant. Anybody who has been involved in these situations, as I have, knows this. The threat was apparently real enough for U.S. military on the ground, the pilot and her security detail to engage in evasive procedures. That should have been the end of the matter. But the cable TV talking heads nattered the Obama campaign talking points endlessly.
Obama's week of rolling out national security surrogates and talking points was not a pretty sight and turned out to have almost nothing to do with bolstering his thin credentials. His distracting efforts were a clear attempt to deflect attention from them, in fact. In response to Hillary's detailed, substantive speech on Iraq, Obama replied with ad hominem insults. Instead of presenting his own plan, his campaign indulged in character assassination.
David Axelrod, the top Obama political strategist, for one, knows better. After all, he and his wife were direct beneficiaries of Hillary Clinton's personal kindness and public policy experience when, in the midst of the impeachment trial of her husband, she travelled to Chicago to support Susan Axelrod's efforts to raise money for her foundation, Citizens United for Research on Epilepsy (CURE), established by her after one of the Axelrod children was afflicted with the malady. As reported in the New York Times in April, 2007 (with thanks to eriposte of the Leftcoaster blog for his research):
"It was January 1999, President Clinton's impeachment trial was just beginning in the Senate and Hillary Clinton was scheduled to speak at the foundation's fund-raiser in Chicago. Despite all the fuss back in Washington, Clinton kept the appointment. She spent hours that day in the epilepsy ward at Rush Presbyterian hospital, visiting children hooked up to machines by electrodes so that doctors might diagram their seizure activity and decide which portion of the brain to remove. At the hospital, a local reporter pressed her about the trial in Washington, asked her about that woman. At the organization's reception at the Drake Hotel that evening, Clinton stood backstage looking over her remarks, figuring out where to insert anecdotes about the kids. "She couldn't stop talking about what she had seen," Susan Axelrod recalled. Later, at Hillary Clinton's behest, the National Institutes of Health convened a conference on finding a cure for epilepsy. Susan Axelrod told me it was "one of the most important things anyone has done for epilepsy." And this is how politics works: David Axelrod is now dedicated to derailing this woman's career."
Senator Obama and his campaign should get back to defending his policy positions and record rather than diminish a good person and an accomplished public servant. They know better
Posted: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 6:30 PM by Domenico MontanaroFiled Under: Democrats, 2008, Clinton, Obama, Polls
From NBC's Chuck ToddAs expected, one of the two major Democratic candidates saw a downturn in the latest NBC/WSJ poll, but it's not the candidate that you think. Hillary Clinton is sporting the lowest personal ratings of the campaign. Moreover, her 37 percent positive rating is the lowest the NBC/WSJ poll has recorded since March 2001, two months after she was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York.
The poll was conducted Monday and Tuesday this week by Hart-McInturff and surveyed 700 registered voters, which gives the poll a margin of error of +/- 3.7 percent. In addition, we oversampled African-Americans in order to get a more reliable cross-tab on many of the questions we asked in this poll regarding Sen. Barack Obama's speech on race and overall response to last week's Rev. Jeremiah Wright dustup. (Watch Tim Russert's analysis of the poll results.)
On that issue specifically, 32 percent of voters overall said Obama "sufficiently addressed the issue," while 26 percent of folks believe he needs to address the Wright controversy further; 31 percent did not see the speech or had no opinion.
Interestingly, of those voters who said they saw the speech, 47 percent said Obama sufficiently addressed the Wright issue while 37 percent said he needs to address it further. Among whites, 45 percent were satisfied with Obama's explanation, 38 percent were not. Among blacks, 67 percent said the speech was sufficient, while 25 percent want him to address it further.
Overall, 55 percent of voters told us that they were "disturbed" by the videos of Wright that circulated so widely on cable TV and the Internet.
As for the damage this controversy did or didn't do to Obama, it's a mixed bag. Yes, Obama saw some of his numbers go down slightly among certain voting groups, most notably Republicans. But he's still much more competitive with independent voters when matched up against John McCain than Hillary Clinton is. And he still sports a net-positive personal rating of 49-32, which is down only slightly from two weeks ago, when it was 51-28. Again, the biggest shift in those negative numbers were among Republicans.
On one of the most critical questions we've been tracking for a few months, Obama showed resilience. When asked if the three presidential candidates could be successful in uniting the country if they were elected president, 60 percent of all voters believed Obama could be successful at doing this, 58 percent of all voters said McCain could unite the country while only 46 percent of voters said the same about Clinton. All three candidates saw dips on this issue, by the way. In January, 67 percent thought Obama could unite the country; 68 percent thought McCain could do it; and 55 percent said Clinton would be able to pull it off.
The fact that all three dropped equally in the last three months is a sign that the campaign is becoming more ideological and partisan.
In the head-to-head matchups, there weren't huge shifts in the numbers, with Obama and Clinton dead even at 45 percent in the national Democratic primary matchup (a slight increase for Obama from early March). In the general-election matchups, Obama led McCain by 2 points, and McCain led Clinton by 2 points; all margin of error results and nothing to get too excited over.
One thing about these head-to-head matchups: Our pollsters found that for the second poll in a row, more than 20 percent of Clinton and Obama supporters say they would support McCain when he's matched up against the other Democrat. There is clearly some hardening of feelings among some of the most core supporters of both Democrats, though it may be Obama voters, who are more bitter in the long run.
Why? Because among Obama voters, Clinton has a net-negative personal rating (35-43) while Clinton voters have a net-positive view of Obama (50-29). Taken together, this appears to be evidence that Obama, intially, should have the easier time uniting the party than Clinton.
Considering the doom-and-gloom some predicted for Obama with regard to the Wright controversy, the overall tenor of the electorate appears to still be favorable for him. He's mortal, but he's survived ... for now. It's not clear whether he'd be this resilient if another controversy exploded as big as Wright, but it appears that voters are giving him the benefit of doubt. There's lots of evidence inside these numbers that voters still would like to know more about Obama, and that is both an opportunity and a potential obstacle.
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The North Carolina Primary will be a Racist Vote With Obama the easy winner!
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Smears and Tears: How Obama's National Security Week Turned Into the Mendacity of Hype
Joseph C. Wilson
The past week marked the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War and the milestone of the 4,000th American soldier killed in that
disastrous adventure. Commemorating and underscoring the urgent need for a new policy direction, Senator Clinton delivered a serious and detailed address clearly setting out her vision for and commitment to ending the conflict. Her approach includes a direct critique of the most glaring failures of the Bush administration: its unwillingness to use political pressure and intense international diplomacy to effect a resolution of the outstanding differences that have driven the region into a proxy war within Iraq with the United States manning and supporting combatants on all sides. For years American generals have been telling the administration, the Congress, and the public that Iraq is not a situation that lends itself to a military solution and will only be resolved politically. While the focus of American opprobrium has been on the Iraqi government for its failure to find those solutions, Senator Clinton, in her speech, is the first presidential candidate to spell out in a precise plan the elements required for an international effort, including co-opting and controlling the enablers of the ongoing violence in Iraq, to promote political reconciliation and reform.
My wife, former CIA agent, Valerie, and I accompanied Senator Clinton to Philadelphia the day after her speech. Valerie pointed out in her comments how, in the run up to the invasion, the administration lied to the Congress and the American people about the nature and the seriousness of the weapons of mass destruction threat posed by Saddam Hussein. The Bush administration's willful twisting of intelligence was crucial to manipulation of the press, the public and the Congress. Not until months later, after the invasion, did the facts of the administration's distortion of intelligence slowly begin to trickle out, partly as a result of my own efforts in a New York Times opinion piece in July 200
Understandably, Senator Obama's speech on race relations overshadowed Senator Clinton's policy pronouncements. While laudable in intent, Senator Obama would never have made the speech had his relationship with fiery pastor Jeremiah Wright not become a public relations nightmare for him. Among other things, Wright preaches that the United States government unleashed the HIV virus in Africa to kill blacks. (Having worked in Africa for much of my adult life, including with one of the early AIDS researchers, Dr. Jonathan Mann, I can safely say that there is absolutely no evidence to sustain Wright's reckless charge.) Obama had no choice but to address his 20-year close relationship with a man he still considers, as he made clear in his speech, a mentor.
In the immediate aftermath, the Obama campaign dispatched several foreign policy surrogates to blitz the airwaves, supposedly to offer alternatives to Clinton's recommendations. But that's not what happened. Instead, Hillary was subjected to yet another round of personal abuse, denigration and ridicule rather than a serious debate of the issues. The real subtext of the Obama campaign was to attack Hillary in order to distract from Obama's association with his anti-American preacher. National security went un-addressed. Rather than filling in his largely absent record, Obama had his surrogates engage in what can be termed the mendacity of hype.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, an otherwise serious person, made the extraordinarily silly comment belittling two-term Senator Clinton by comparing her experience to that of Mamie Eisenhower and his own travel agent after offering an analysis of the situation in Iraq and the path to a resolution that essentially mirrored the basic points Senator Clinton made in her speech. Brzezinski was not asked and did not explain why Obama early embraced him as an adviser and openly praised him, but recently has coldly distanced himself because of Brzezinski's controversial views on Israel.
Nor did Brzezinski address the bloody issue of mercenary forces like Blackwater, which Obama states should be allowed to remain part of our military force in Iraq -- a position challenged by Senator Clinton, who has called for phasing them out. In place of practical policies, Brzezinski offered his vague "sense" that Obama is a person who understands change before it takes place and is therefore capable of making "transcendental" decisions, whatever that might mean. For a man with a reputation as tough-minded, Brzezinski retreated into cloudy abstraction in his defense of Obama, who, according to the Senator, he, Brzezinksi, knows hardly at all.
Senator John Kerry, another Obama surrogate, offered the startling observation that Obama is better equipped than anyone else to bridge the divide between the U.S. and the Muslim world and end Islamic extremism and terorrism -- "because he's a black man." There is absolutely no empirical evidence to sustain that claim, the notion that a single individual, even one with a resume filled with appropriate experience, would be able to halt terrorism because of the color of his skin. It is patently absurd. But Kerry presented nothing to back up his astounding racial reasoning. And the Obama campaign was remarkably silent on Kerry's racialization of the foreign policy discussion.
Next, Governor Bill Richardson, who campaigned on his resume as a foreign policy practitioner, "agonized," he explained, before putting his faith in a "once in a lifetime leader" and endorsed Obama, repudiating his own rationale of experience as a prerequisite for being President. Rather than state why he believes Obama has superior national security credentials and positions, he opted to complain instead about James Carville comparing him to Judas Iscariot. Since Richardson made foreign policy the centerpiece of his campaign -- a direct consequence of President Bill Clinton's appointments -- and of the salience of foreign policy as an issue in the election, he owed an explanation of how Obama's foreign policy would make us stronger and more secure that Clinton's. But, preferring to defend himself against the charge of having betrayed the Clintons he neglected to discuss such policy.
Then, there was retired Air Force General, Merrill "Tony" McPeak, whose media appearance last week consisted of making the outrageous charge that Bill Clinton was using "McCarthy-like tactics" simply because he mentioned, in the event of a Hillary-McCain match-up, that Hillary and McCain are good patriots and that the campaign should be devoted to a substantive debate of the issues. Even the right wing National Review's Kathleen Parker, who was at the event, felt compelled to correct the record. "Bill Clinton was saying that Hillary and McCain are both good patriots who love their country, not that all those unmentioned are something else."
Bill Clinton, of course, was not using "McCarthy-like tactics," but the Obama campaign was eager to smear him. Which was guilty of "McCarthy-like tactics"? Attack the character of your adversaries; demean them; turn them into caricatures; while lying about someone, claim they are liars.
Finally, the Obama campaign pushed a compliant press corps, all too eager to do its bidding rather than maintain its standards of objectivity and skepticism, into hyping a mini-pseudo-scandal: whether Hillary "misspoke" about being under sniper fire when she paid a visit to Tuzla in Bosnia in 1996. In fact, the then-First Lady was told the plane was diving to land to avoid possible sniper fire. Whether there was or not is irrelevant. Anybody who has been involved in these situations, as I have, knows this. The threat was apparently real enough for U.S. military on the ground, the pilot and her security detail to engage in evasive procedures. That should have been the end of the matter. But the cable TV talking heads nattered the Obama campaign talking points endlessly.
Obama's week of rolling out national security surrogates and talking points was not a pretty sight and turned out to have almost nothing to do with bolstering his thin credentials. His distracting efforts were a clear attempt to deflect attention from them, in fact. In response to Hillary's detailed, substantive speech on Iraq, Obama replied with ad hominem insults. Instead of presenting his own plan, his campaign indulged in character assassination.
David Axelrod, the top Obama political strategist, for one, knows better. After all, he and his wife were direct beneficiaries of Hillary Clinton's personal kindness and public policy experience when, in the midst of the impeachment trial of her husband, she travelled to Chicago to support Susan Axelrod's efforts to raise money for her foundation, Citizens United for Research on Epilepsy (CURE), established by her after one of the Axelrod children was afflicted with the malady. As reported in the New York Times in April, 2007 (with thanks to eriposte of the Leftcoaster blog for his research):
"It was January 1999, President Clinton's impeachment trial was just beginning in the Senate and Hillary Clinton was scheduled to speak at the foundation's fund-raiser in Chicago. Despite all the fuss back in Washington, Clinton kept the appointment. She spent hours that day in the epilepsy ward at Rush Presbyterian hospital, visiting children hooked up to machines by electrodes so that doctors might diagram their seizure activity and decide which portion of the brain to remove. At the hospital, a local reporter pressed her about the trial in Washington, asked her about that woman. At the organization's reception at the Drake Hotel that evening, Clinton stood backstage looking over her remarks, figuring out where to insert anecdotes about the kids. "She couldn't stop talking about what she had seen," Susan Axelrod recalled. Later, at Hillary Clinton's behest, the National Institutes of Health convened a conference on finding a cure for epilepsy. Susan Axelrod told me it was "one of the most important things anyone has done for epilepsy." And this is how politics works: David Axelrod is now dedicated to derailing this woman's career."
Senator Obama and his campaign should get back to defending his policy positions and record rather than diminish a good person and an accomplished public servant. They know better
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Rich and Poor
Wall Street May Face $460 Bln in Losses, Goldman Says (Update1)
By Zhao Yidi
March 25 (Bloomberg) -- Wall Street banks, brokerages and hedge funds may report $460 billion in credit losses from the collapse of the subprime mortgage market, or almost four times the amount already disclosed, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Profits will continue to wane, other analysts said.
It is hard to feel sorry for them when I compare the following!
Food stamps double since '01
But price of food means they don't go as far now
Saturday, March 22, 2008 3:20 AM
By Catherine Candisky
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Nearly one in 10 Ohioans now receives food stamps, the highest number in the state's history.
Caseloads have almost doubled just since 2001, with 1.1 million residents now collecting benefits, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
Low wages, unemployment and the rising cost of groceries, gasoline and other necessities are to blame for financial hardships facing many Ohio families.
Caseloads have been rising steadily in the past seven years, said Brian Harter, spokesman for the state agency which oversees the food-stamp program.
"Look at unemployment during this time," he said.
Ohio's jobless rate is 5.3 percent, up from 4.4 percent in 2001.
"The economy and loss of manufacturing jobs are at the root of what's going on. But lately (it's) the rising cost of transportation and food -- people who were barely getting by, are not getting by," said Jack Frech, director of the Athens County Department of Job and Family Services.
"It has pressed folks to the edge to have to rely on food stamps."
Advocates estimate another 500,000 Ohioans are eligible but not enrolled in the food-stamp program.
Individuals in households with incomes up to 130 percent of the federal poverty level and with assets no greater than $2,000 in most cases are eligible for food stamps. That's earnings of no more than $22,880 a year for a family of three.
Recipients receive $100 a month. The federal government pays for the benefits while the state covers administrative costs.
But as the price of milk, fruits and other groceries climb, advocates say, recipients can buy less and less with that $100.
"Food stamps provide only about $1 per person, per meal. Who in the world is buying groceries with that?" asked Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Food Bank.
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By Zhao Yidi
March 25 (Bloomberg) -- Wall Street banks, brokerages and hedge funds may report $460 billion in credit losses from the collapse of the subprime mortgage market, or almost four times the amount already disclosed, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Profits will continue to wane, other analysts said.
It is hard to feel sorry for them when I compare the following!
Food stamps double since '01
But price of food means they don't go as far now
Saturday, March 22, 2008 3:20 AM
By Catherine Candisky
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Nearly one in 10 Ohioans now receives food stamps, the highest number in the state's history.
Caseloads have almost doubled just since 2001, with 1.1 million residents now collecting benefits, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
Low wages, unemployment and the rising cost of groceries, gasoline and other necessities are to blame for financial hardships facing many Ohio families.
Caseloads have been rising steadily in the past seven years, said Brian Harter, spokesman for the state agency which oversees the food-stamp program.
"Look at unemployment during this time," he said.
Ohio's jobless rate is 5.3 percent, up from 4.4 percent in 2001.
"The economy and loss of manufacturing jobs are at the root of what's going on. But lately (it's) the rising cost of transportation and food -- people who were barely getting by, are not getting by," said Jack Frech, director of the Athens County Department of Job and Family Services.
"It has pressed folks to the edge to have to rely on food stamps."
Advocates estimate another 500,000 Ohioans are eligible but not enrolled in the food-stamp program.
Individuals in households with incomes up to 130 percent of the federal poverty level and with assets no greater than $2,000 in most cases are eligible for food stamps. That's earnings of no more than $22,880 a year for a family of three.
Recipients receive $100 a month. The federal government pays for the benefits while the state covers administrative costs.
But as the price of milk, fruits and other groceries climb, advocates say, recipients can buy less and less with that $100.
"Food stamps provide only about $1 per person, per meal. Who in the world is buying groceries with that?" asked Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Food Bank.
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McGovern: Hard to Elect Female President
WASHINGTON (AP) - Former Sen. George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, said Tuesday it would be easier for a black man to be elected to the White House than a woman. "I have a feeling that in this country where we're at today in our thinking, it's going to be harder to elect a woman than to elect a black man," he told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "I wish that weren't true ... I'd love to see Hillary as president."
McGovern says he occasionally chats with men who don't think a woman is ready for the responsibility.
"Some guy will say, 'Well, I think that's too big a job for a woman, I don't think she can handle those terrorists,'" he said, adding that he seldom hears the same thing said about a black man.
"I think we've never had a woman so well-qualified that's on the national scene," he said of Clinton.
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AH The GOOD LIFE
Filmgoers get a taste of the good life
Luxury exhib chain plans $35 film tickets
By MARC GRASER
A recession may be looming, but a group of investors thinks Americans are ready to pony up $35 for a movie ticket.
Village Roadshow Ltd., Act III, Lambert Entertainment and the Retirement Systems of Alabama pension fund have partnered to bring the luxury cinema circuit Village Roadshow Gold Class Cinemas to the U.S.
The partners will spend $200 million to build 50 theaters nationwide over the next five years, with the first two venues set to open in South Barrington, a suburb of Chicago, and the Seattle suburb of Redmond in October. Others are planned for Fairview, Texas, near Dallas-Fort Worth, and Scottsdale, Ariz.
Each complex will sport theaters featuring 40 reclining armchair seats with footrests, digital projection and the capability to screen 2-D and 3-D movies, as well as a lounge and bar serving cocktails and appetizers, a concierge service and valet parking.
But the circuit will especially push its culinary offerings -- made-to-order meals like sushi and other theater-friendly foods from on-site chefs (a service button at each seat calls a waiter). Moviegoers will have to pay extra for any food they order, however.
The Burbank-based company's hoping to attract 10 million "upscale and affluent" consumers per year to its theaters that will be housed in high-end shopping centers and malls. Each complex will typically house eight screens.
"It's a new way to go to the movies," said Graham Burke, managing director and CEO of Village Roadshow Ltd. "It's like what Mercedes is to a Toyota or like flying first class in an airplane
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Coming Soon To A Station Near You!
Gasoline Sticker Shock Shocks Tourists Along Highway One
If you think you're paying a hefty price at the pump, wait until you see what we found at a gas station just south of the Bay Area. NBC11's Bob Redell traveled to the city of Gorda where a gas station is charging $5.40 for a gallon of full service premium. It just might be the most expensive gas in the country, Redell reported. Gorda is in Monterey County along Highway 1 and the closest gas station is 40 miles away. Tourists couldn't believe what they were seeing, NBC11 reported. Many said they would never pay that much for a gallon of gas. Others said they had no choice.
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Thought it Wasn't over Till it's Over
Reid: "Things Are Being Done" To End Dem Primary Before Convention
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) hints at some behind-the-scenes activity to bring the Democratic nomination race to a close:
Q: Do you still think the Democratic race can be resolved before the convention?
Reid: Easy.
Q: How is that?
Reid: It will be done.
Q: It just will?
Reid: Yep.
Q: Magically?
Reid: No, it will be done. I had a conversation with Governor Dean (Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean) today. Things are being done.
Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum adds, "My mind is now at rest. Thanks, Harry."
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Hillary-Barack or ?
Slouching Toward Denver by Noam Scheiber
With little chance that either candidate this time around can clinch the nomination at the polls, it's not inconceivable that Democrats will re-enact this spectacle ( CarterVs Kennedy) in Denver this August. (One direct link: Clinton operative Harold Ickes oversaw Kennedy's convention effort in 1980 and would likely oversee Hillary's.) The sequel could be even more damaging. It's true that the ideological gulf separating Kennedy and Carter doesn't divide Obama and Clinton. But, precisely because the substantive differences are so small, the temptation to court delegates along racial and gender lines would be even greater. And the sense of alienation among the losers would be overwhelming. Says former Al Gore campaign manager (and undecided superdelegate) Donna Brazile: "I don't have the 1980 experience, but that was two white men. This is a woman and a black. What's different about this fight is that, when they attack each other, supporters feel like they're attacking them personally." Remember the recent firestorm over Geraldine Ferraro's comment that, "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position"? Well, imagine that flap playing out continuously over four days among hundreds of people with no other news to displace it, and you begin to see the problem.
The good news is that an ugly convention fight is highly preventable. The one advantage of a scenario that's both completely hair-raising and utterly foreseeable is that everyone has an incentive to stop it. The bad news is what's not preventable: a contest that rolls into June. Even without a messy convention, the current trajectory of the primary campaign could easily destroy the party's White House prospects.
Democrats have never been known for Spock-like rationality, but even they see the logic of avoiding a convention fiasco. "It's in nobody's interest in the Democratic Party for that to happen," says Mike Feldman, another former Gore aide. "There is a mechanism in place--built into the process--to avoid that." That mechanism, such as it is, involves an en masse movement of uncommitted superdelegates to the perceived winner of the primaries. Almost everything you hear from such people suggests this will happen in time. "I think once we have the elected delegate count, things will move fairly quickly, " says Representative Chris Van Hollen, who oversees the party's House campaign committee. Increasingly, there is even agreement on the metric by which a winner would be named. Just about every superdelegate and party operative I spoke with endorsed Nancy Pelosi's recent suggestion that pledged delegates should matter most.
Assuming Feldman and Van Hollen are right, that means Democrats won't wait much past June 3--currently the last day on the primary calendar--before crowning a nominee. At the same time, it means there's very little chance of ending the contest sooner. Undecided superdelegates on Capitol Hill, along with party elders like Pelosi, Gore, and Harry Reid, "don't want to be seen as elites coming in and overturning the will of the people," says one senior House aide. A Senate staffer says his boss "thinks this give and take is natural, it will be helpful in the end." "That's a view held by a majority of these guys who have been through the cut and thrust of politics," he adds. Which means early June it is.
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Mark Tomasik: Don’t discount Gore-led ticket
By Mark Tomasik (Contact)Monday, March 24, 2008
U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney
U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney, whose district includes much of Martin and St. Lucie counties, is hoping he won’t have to attend the Democratic Party national convention in Denver in August.
If he does go, that will mean the Democrats still haven’t decided a nominee for the presidential election. And if neither Sen. Hillary Clinton nor Sen. Barack Obama has clinched the nomination by August, Mahoney says we may see a brokered convention, meaning the nominee could emerge from a negotiated settlement.
“If it (the nomination process) goes into the convention, don’t be surprised if someone different is at the top of the ticket,” Mahoney said.
A compromise candidate could be someone such as former vice president Al Gore, Mahoney said last week during a meeting with this news organization’s editorial board.
If either Clinton or Obama suggested to a deadlocked convention a ticket of Gore-Clinton or Gore-Obama, the Democratic Party would accept it, Mahoney said.
Mahoney, who is one of the superdelegates who gets to cast a vote at the convention, hasn’t endorsed a candidate. He said he doesn’t intend to endorse anyone because “I don’t see it as my job as a district representative” to endorse a nominee for the presidential race.
If neither Clinton nor Obama has enough delegates to secure the nomination by the time the convention starts Aug. 25, Mahoney will have to cast a superdelegate vote for someone. Superdelegates make up about one-fifth of the total number of delegates to the convention and are free to support any candidate for nomination. Most superdelegates are current or former elected officeholders or party officials.
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Inventive Dems on verge of discovering of new way to lose presidential election to McCain
The infighting between the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is benefiting John McCain. A new Franklin & Marshall College poll states that 1 in 5 Democrats would vote for McCain if their candidate does not get the nomination. Explained University of Illinois political science professor Doris Graber: "A vote for McCain wouldn't be that difficult. He does appeal to the middle.
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Political Sheet
* AP: “Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton called on President Bush on Monday to appoint ‘an emergency working group on foreclosures’ to recommend new ways to confront the nation’s housing finance troubles. The New York senator said the panel should be led by financial experts such as Robert Rubin, who was treasury secretary in her husband’s administration, and former Federal Reserve chairmen Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker.” (Don’t most Democrats believe Greenspan helped create the current mess?)
* This might be my favorite online DNC project ever: the McCain Debates. Jonathan Martin explained, “While meant to contrast McCain statements at different times about the conflict, the cartoon also is as much about tying the candidate to President Bush. Hence the upside-down ‘W’ insignia turned around to read ‘M 2008′ on one of the podiums, the appearance of a smiling and thumbs-upping Bush after every answer and the message at the end: ‘No Matter Which McCain You Listen To, He Only Offers A Third Bush Term On Iraq.’”
* McCain’s lobbyist problems continues: “Republican presidential candidate John McCain has condemned the influence of ’special interest lobbyists,’ yet dozens of lobbyists have political and financial ties to his presidential campaign — particularly from telecommunications companies, an industry he helps oversee in the Senate. Of the 66 current or former lobbyists working for the Arizona senator or raising money for his presidential campaign, 23 have lobbied for telecommunications companies in the past decade, Senate lobbying disclosures show.”
* Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) will inevitably endorse John McCain’s presidential campaign, right? Well, maybe not. Hagel told George Stephanopoulos he’s waiting: “I want to understand a little more about foreign policy, where he’d want to go.”
* Rasmussen polled Nevada, expected to be a key battleground state, on the general election. Clinton leads McCain by one (44%-43%), and Obama leads McCain by four (45%-41%).
With little chance that either candidate this time around can clinch the nomination at the polls, it's not inconceivable that Democrats will re-enact this spectacle ( CarterVs Kennedy) in Denver this August. (One direct link: Clinton operative Harold Ickes oversaw Kennedy's convention effort in 1980 and would likely oversee Hillary's.) The sequel could be even more damaging. It's true that the ideological gulf separating Kennedy and Carter doesn't divide Obama and Clinton. But, precisely because the substantive differences are so small, the temptation to court delegates along racial and gender lines would be even greater. And the sense of alienation among the losers would be overwhelming. Says former Al Gore campaign manager (and undecided superdelegate) Donna Brazile: "I don't have the 1980 experience, but that was two white men. This is a woman and a black. What's different about this fight is that, when they attack each other, supporters feel like they're attacking them personally." Remember the recent firestorm over Geraldine Ferraro's comment that, "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position"? Well, imagine that flap playing out continuously over four days among hundreds of people with no other news to displace it, and you begin to see the problem.
The good news is that an ugly convention fight is highly preventable. The one advantage of a scenario that's both completely hair-raising and utterly foreseeable is that everyone has an incentive to stop it. The bad news is what's not preventable: a contest that rolls into June. Even without a messy convention, the current trajectory of the primary campaign could easily destroy the party's White House prospects.
Democrats have never been known for Spock-like rationality, but even they see the logic of avoiding a convention fiasco. "It's in nobody's interest in the Democratic Party for that to happen," says Mike Feldman, another former Gore aide. "There is a mechanism in place--built into the process--to avoid that." That mechanism, such as it is, involves an en masse movement of uncommitted superdelegates to the perceived winner of the primaries. Almost everything you hear from such people suggests this will happen in time. "I think once we have the elected delegate count, things will move fairly quickly, " says Representative Chris Van Hollen, who oversees the party's House campaign committee. Increasingly, there is even agreement on the metric by which a winner would be named. Just about every superdelegate and party operative I spoke with endorsed Nancy Pelosi's recent suggestion that pledged delegates should matter most.
Assuming Feldman and Van Hollen are right, that means Democrats won't wait much past June 3--currently the last day on the primary calendar--before crowning a nominee. At the same time, it means there's very little chance of ending the contest sooner. Undecided superdelegates on Capitol Hill, along with party elders like Pelosi, Gore, and Harry Reid, "don't want to be seen as elites coming in and overturning the will of the people," says one senior House aide. A Senate staffer says his boss "thinks this give and take is natural, it will be helpful in the end." "That's a view held by a majority of these guys who have been through the cut and thrust of politics," he adds. Which means early June it is.
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Mark Tomasik: Don’t discount Gore-led ticket
By Mark Tomasik (Contact)Monday, March 24, 2008
U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney
U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney, whose district includes much of Martin and St. Lucie counties, is hoping he won’t have to attend the Democratic Party national convention in Denver in August.
If he does go, that will mean the Democrats still haven’t decided a nominee for the presidential election. And if neither Sen. Hillary Clinton nor Sen. Barack Obama has clinched the nomination by August, Mahoney says we may see a brokered convention, meaning the nominee could emerge from a negotiated settlement.
“If it (the nomination process) goes into the convention, don’t be surprised if someone different is at the top of the ticket,” Mahoney said.
A compromise candidate could be someone such as former vice president Al Gore, Mahoney said last week during a meeting with this news organization’s editorial board.
If either Clinton or Obama suggested to a deadlocked convention a ticket of Gore-Clinton or Gore-Obama, the Democratic Party would accept it, Mahoney said.
Mahoney, who is one of the superdelegates who gets to cast a vote at the convention, hasn’t endorsed a candidate. He said he doesn’t intend to endorse anyone because “I don’t see it as my job as a district representative” to endorse a nominee for the presidential race.
If neither Clinton nor Obama has enough delegates to secure the nomination by the time the convention starts Aug. 25, Mahoney will have to cast a superdelegate vote for someone. Superdelegates make up about one-fifth of the total number of delegates to the convention and are free to support any candidate for nomination. Most superdelegates are current or former elected officeholders or party officials.
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Inventive Dems on verge of discovering of new way to lose presidential election to McCain
The infighting between the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is benefiting John McCain. A new Franklin & Marshall College poll states that 1 in 5 Democrats would vote for McCain if their candidate does not get the nomination. Explained University of Illinois political science professor Doris Graber: "A vote for McCain wouldn't be that difficult. He does appeal to the middle.
_______________________________________
Political Sheet
* AP: “Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton called on President Bush on Monday to appoint ‘an emergency working group on foreclosures’ to recommend new ways to confront the nation’s housing finance troubles. The New York senator said the panel should be led by financial experts such as Robert Rubin, who was treasury secretary in her husband’s administration, and former Federal Reserve chairmen Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker.” (Don’t most Democrats believe Greenspan helped create the current mess?)
* This might be my favorite online DNC project ever: the McCain Debates. Jonathan Martin explained, “While meant to contrast McCain statements at different times about the conflict, the cartoon also is as much about tying the candidate to President Bush. Hence the upside-down ‘W’ insignia turned around to read ‘M 2008′ on one of the podiums, the appearance of a smiling and thumbs-upping Bush after every answer and the message at the end: ‘No Matter Which McCain You Listen To, He Only Offers A Third Bush Term On Iraq.’”
* McCain’s lobbyist problems continues: “Republican presidential candidate John McCain has condemned the influence of ’special interest lobbyists,’ yet dozens of lobbyists have political and financial ties to his presidential campaign — particularly from telecommunications companies, an industry he helps oversee in the Senate. Of the 66 current or former lobbyists working for the Arizona senator or raising money for his presidential campaign, 23 have lobbied for telecommunications companies in the past decade, Senate lobbying disclosures show.”
* Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) will inevitably endorse John McCain’s presidential campaign, right? Well, maybe not. Hagel told George Stephanopoulos he’s waiting: “I want to understand a little more about foreign policy, where he’d want to go.”
* Rasmussen polled Nevada, expected to be a key battleground state, on the general election. Clinton leads McCain by one (44%-43%), and Obama leads McCain by four (45%-41%).
Friday, March 21, 2008
Mostly Politics
Happy Spring!! Even if it doesn't feel on the skin like it is.
More Politics News
State Dept. Contractors Snooped on Obama's Passport RecordsPoll: Divisive Dem Contest Could Boost McCainClinton Papers Suggest 'Co-Presidency,' Conservative SaysTax-Control Advocates May Go to Jail in OklahomaJudiciary Chair 'Struggling' With Decision to Impeach BushWith Spitzer Out, Pro-Abortion Bill May Go NowhereLiberals Mobilize $350 Million for 'Aggressive' Election EffortObama, Seizing on Divisive Comments, Aims for Unity Archive
Top Headlines
Frustrated Anti-War Leader Pleads for Congress to ImpeachState Dept. Contractors Snooped on Obama's Passport RecordsGov. Richardson Backs Obama
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Poll: Divisive Dem Contest Could Boost McCainBy Fred LucasCNSNews.com Staff WriterMarch 21, 2008(CNSNews.com) -
The lengthy Democratic primary contest bodes well for Republican chances of holding the White House, a new poll suggests. As Democratic Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Clinton of New York slug it out for the nomination, many of their supporters -- at least in Pennsylvania, site of the next major primary -- aren't committed to the party's ticket in November, according to a Franklin & Marshall College Poll. Among Obama supporters, 20 percent said they would vote for Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican nominee, if Clinton beats their candidate for the nomination. Among Clinton supporters, 19 percent said they would support McCain in November if Obama is the Democratic nominee. (See poll) The significant number of potential defectors underscores how divisive the Democratic primary has been.Democrats won Pennsylvania in the 2000 and 2004 presidential races, but it was a competitive state in both election cycles. McCain, meanwhile, has touted his appeal to swing voters. "Pennsylvania is a must-win state for a Democratic presidential nominee," Nathan Gonzalez, political editor of the Rothenberg Political Report, told Cybercast News Service. "If there is a significant weakness for a Democrat in Pennsylvania, it could indicate a weakness in Ohio or other key states."Even a few months ago, the presidential race looked like a major uphill climb for any Republican candidate. But recent polls suggest a toss-up between McCain and either Democratic candidate.Obama and Clinton both have many negatives, which doesn't make the Pennsylvania poll too surprising, said Doris Graber, a political science professor at the University of Illinois."Obama is very liberal, more liberal than we've seen on the campaign trail. Also, there is still racism out there," Graber told Cybercast News Service . "Hillary, we've known all along, has strong supporters. But there are also a lot of people who would never vote for her. There is some antipathy from the Clinton years. Some wouldn't vote for her because she's a woman."Graber believes it is "almost a certainty" that the Obama-Clinton battle will be decided at the Democratic National Convention, which could drive a wedge through the party. "Democratic voters could be persuaded not to vote for a candidate with vulnerabilities," she continued. "A vote for McCain wouldn't be that difficult. He does appeal to the middle."However, Gonzales cautioned not to read too much into a single poll, or discount the desire of Democratic voters to move beyond the George W. Bush years, of which McCain has become the heir. "This is a very personal and competitive Democratic primary," he said. "Clinton and Obama supporters have trouble seeing themselves with the other now. A healing period will have to happen."
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It’s one daily tracking poll, but…
Posted March 20th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
This Rasmussen poll seems to be getting quite a bit of attention, bolstered in part by a big Drudge headline about McCain’s “double digit” lead.
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows John McCain’s lead growing against both potential Democratic opponents. McCain currently leads Barack Obama 49% to 42% and Hillary Clinton 51% to 41% margin. African-American support for Clinton has collapsed, falling to 55% in the general election match-up. Obama, on the other hand, earns solid support from African-American voters but attracts only 36% of white voters in a match-up with McCain.
Over the past month, McCain has gained ground in Ohio, Michigan, Colorado, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania. Both Democrats continue to lead in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and California.
This either a very big deal or not at all a big deal, depending entirely on one’s disposition.
If you’re among the latter, you’ll note that it’s only one poll — a daily tracking poll, at that — and Rasmussen, while not bad, is still an automated system that hasn’t batted 1.000 this year. McCain enjoys a relatively comfortable lead, but that comes at a time when he’s facing very little scrutiny, and the media has decided that Jeremiah Wright is the single most important person on the planet.
And if you’re among the prior, Rasmussen is reinforcing your worst fears.
_______________________________________
More Politics News
State Dept. Contractors Snooped on Obama's Passport RecordsPoll: Divisive Dem Contest Could Boost McCainClinton Papers Suggest 'Co-Presidency,' Conservative SaysTax-Control Advocates May Go to Jail in OklahomaJudiciary Chair 'Struggling' With Decision to Impeach BushWith Spitzer Out, Pro-Abortion Bill May Go NowhereLiberals Mobilize $350 Million for 'Aggressive' Election EffortObama, Seizing on Divisive Comments, Aims for Unity Archive
Top Headlines
Frustrated Anti-War Leader Pleads for Congress to ImpeachState Dept. Contractors Snooped on Obama's Passport RecordsGov. Richardson Backs Obama
-->
Poll: Divisive Dem Contest Could Boost McCainBy Fred LucasCNSNews.com Staff WriterMarch 21, 2008(CNSNews.com) -
The lengthy Democratic primary contest bodes well for Republican chances of holding the White House, a new poll suggests. As Democratic Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Clinton of New York slug it out for the nomination, many of their supporters -- at least in Pennsylvania, site of the next major primary -- aren't committed to the party's ticket in November, according to a Franklin & Marshall College Poll. Among Obama supporters, 20 percent said they would vote for Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican nominee, if Clinton beats their candidate for the nomination. Among Clinton supporters, 19 percent said they would support McCain in November if Obama is the Democratic nominee. (See poll) The significant number of potential defectors underscores how divisive the Democratic primary has been.Democrats won Pennsylvania in the 2000 and 2004 presidential races, but it was a competitive state in both election cycles. McCain, meanwhile, has touted his appeal to swing voters. "Pennsylvania is a must-win state for a Democratic presidential nominee," Nathan Gonzalez, political editor of the Rothenberg Political Report, told Cybercast News Service. "If there is a significant weakness for a Democrat in Pennsylvania, it could indicate a weakness in Ohio or other key states."Even a few months ago, the presidential race looked like a major uphill climb for any Republican candidate. But recent polls suggest a toss-up between McCain and either Democratic candidate.Obama and Clinton both have many negatives, which doesn't make the Pennsylvania poll too surprising, said Doris Graber, a political science professor at the University of Illinois."Obama is very liberal, more liberal than we've seen on the campaign trail. Also, there is still racism out there," Graber told Cybercast News Service . "Hillary, we've known all along, has strong supporters. But there are also a lot of people who would never vote for her. There is some antipathy from the Clinton years. Some wouldn't vote for her because she's a woman."Graber believes it is "almost a certainty" that the Obama-Clinton battle will be decided at the Democratic National Convention, which could drive a wedge through the party. "Democratic voters could be persuaded not to vote for a candidate with vulnerabilities," she continued. "A vote for McCain wouldn't be that difficult. He does appeal to the middle."However, Gonzales cautioned not to read too much into a single poll, or discount the desire of Democratic voters to move beyond the George W. Bush years, of which McCain has become the heir. "This is a very personal and competitive Democratic primary," he said. "Clinton and Obama supporters have trouble seeing themselves with the other now. A healing period will have to happen."
_______________________________________
It’s one daily tracking poll, but…
Posted March 20th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
This Rasmussen poll seems to be getting quite a bit of attention, bolstered in part by a big Drudge headline about McCain’s “double digit” lead.
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows John McCain’s lead growing against both potential Democratic opponents. McCain currently leads Barack Obama 49% to 42% and Hillary Clinton 51% to 41% margin. African-American support for Clinton has collapsed, falling to 55% in the general election match-up. Obama, on the other hand, earns solid support from African-American voters but attracts only 36% of white voters in a match-up with McCain.
Over the past month, McCain has gained ground in Ohio, Michigan, Colorado, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania. Both Democrats continue to lead in New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and California.
This either a very big deal or not at all a big deal, depending entirely on one’s disposition.
If you’re among the latter, you’ll note that it’s only one poll — a daily tracking poll, at that — and Rasmussen, while not bad, is still an automated system that hasn’t batted 1.000 this year. McCain enjoys a relatively comfortable lead, but that comes at a time when he’s facing very little scrutiny, and the media has decided that Jeremiah Wright is the single most important person on the planet.
And if you’re among the prior, Rasmussen is reinforcing your worst fears.
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Buying Bottled Water is something I could never understand when for a few dollars filtering devices for your tap water are available and you don't need to lug 8lbs per bottle home nor dispose of the empties!
Seattle Bans Sale Of Bottled Water
Read More: Bottled Water, Bottled Water Ban, Chicago, Plastic Bottles, San Francisco, Seattle, Seattle Bans Bottled Water,
First San Francisco banned it. Then Chicago started taxing it. Now, the city of Seattle is taking action against bottled water; last week, Mayor Greg Nickels signed an executive order to stop the city from buying bottled water. That means no more bottled water at city facilities and events, which may sound like a small step, but it'll make a big difference; last year, the city spent $58,000 on the stuff (and that's not including the true cost and carbon footprint of bottled water). We're willing to bet that the city's taxpayers can probably think of about 58,000 ways to better spend that money.
The move isn't just an issue of saving money, though that is a nice ancillary effect. It's also a strong vote of confidence in the city's municipal water supply and treatment systems; in light of the fracas about prescription drugs in our water last week, it's good to see the city standing behind its tap water and encouraging its employees and citizens to drink up.
Further, "This is a matter of leading by example," Nickels said. "The people of Seattle own one of the best water supplies in the country, every bit as good as bottled water and available at a fraction of the price. When you add up the tremendous environmental costs of disposable plastic bottles clogging our landfills, the better choice is crystal clear."
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Lest we forget
McCain compounds al Qaeda gaffe by repeating for a fourth time
Posted March 19th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
When John McCain got confused yesterday about Sunni and Shiite, Iran and al Qaeda, his campaign issued a statement insisting that McCain “misspoke and immediately corrected himself.”
The explanation is far less plausible when McCain makes the same mistake and pushes the same bogus argument four times in two days.
This time, in a statement from his campaign honoring the fifth year anniversary of the war, McCain wrote:
“Today in Iraq, America and our allies stand on the precipice of winning a major victory against radical Islamic extremism. The security gains over the past year have been dramatic and undeniable. Al Qaeda and Shia extremists — with support from external powers such as Iran — are on the run but not defeated.”
For those keeping score at home, McCain 1) made the claim on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show; 2) repeated the claim at a press conference in Jordan; 3) repeated the claim again at the same event (before Joe Lieberman whispered in his hear that he was wrong); and 4) in a written statement. He “misspoke”? Hardly.
Now, readers may wonder whether it’s worth piling on like this, and raising such a fuss about McCain’s confusion regarding Middle East 101. But I’d argue that this is receiving too little attention.
As Ilan Goldenberg explained, “This is a man who thinks it’s OK for us to leave a troop presence in Iraq for 100 years. He thinks that Iraq is the central struggle of our day. He thinks that all of our other interests should be subverted to sticking it out in Iraq. He is running on his foreign policy experience. Yet he doesn’t even understand who we are fighting. Is this the person we want answering the phone at 3 in the morning?”
And as for the media, NBC News’ Chuck Todd conceded this morning, “[H]ad Clinton or Obama done something like this, this would have been played on a loop, over and over
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Posted March 19th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Before the political world moves on from the controversy surrounding the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama’s speech on race in America, it’s worth taking a moment to consider Michael Gerson’s WaPo column today, which I believe is largely representative of the conservative response to the week’s news.
Unlike the cartoonish, knee-jerk responses seen in some (ahem) corners yesterday, Gerson concedes from the outset that Obama made his case “as well as it could be made” yesterday, adding, “It was one of the finest political performances under pressure since John F. Kennedy at the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in 1960.”
But Gerson seems to believe that there is literally nothing Obama could do. That Obama forcefully rejected Wright’s most offensive remarks is fine, Gerson argues, but it’s too late for history, context, and explanations.
The problem with Obama’s argument is that Wright is not a symbol of the strengths and weaknesses of African Americans. He is a political extremist, holding views that are shocking to many Americans who wonder how any presidential candidate could be so closely associated with an adviser who refers to the “U.S. of KKK-A” and urges God to “damn” our country.
Obama’s excellent and important speech on race in America did little to address his strange tolerance for the anti-Americanism of his spiritual mentor.
Obama, Gerson concluded, “is not a man who hates — but he chose to walk with a man who does.”
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Wednesday’s campaign round-up
Posted March 19th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
* It looks like the Obama campaign has effectively ruled out the idea of a Michigan revote, making it unlikely the state will host a second primary. In a campaign memo, Obama aides cited legal and organizing difficulties: “Whether the state can achieve its goals here depends on the nature and seriousness of the legal and administrative questions presented by this initiative — questions that, raised after the election, could put at risk the running of the election, undermine acceptance of the results if the election is held, and in both cases effectively deny Michigan voters, a second consecutive time, meaningful participation in the nominating process.”
* Hillary Clinton is still pushing aggressively for a Michigan re-vote, and will visit Detroit today to bring attention to her case. “We will go and make the case for a revote,” said Mo Elleithee, a Clinton spokesman. Phil Singer, a Clinton spokesperson, accused Obama’s campaign of a “passive-aggressive effort to disenfranchise the voters of Michigan and Florida.”
* Hillary Clinton picked up a very helpful endorsement yesterday, when Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) announced his support for the senator. “Sen. Clinton is the candidate that will forge a consensus on health care, education, the economy, and the war in Iraq,” Murtha wrote in a statement about his decision. Murtha is, of course, a superdelegate, in addition to being an influential veteran from Pennsylvania.
* I doubt there will be any major revelations, but the materials will at least be out there: “Over 11,000 pages of Hillary Clinton’s schedule as first lady are set to be released to the public on Wednesday, the National Archives announced…. In a statement Tuesday, the Archives said the documents are from the files of Patti Solis Doyle, the director of Clinton’s scheduling while she was first lady, and later the manager of her presidential campaign…. ‘Arranged chronologically, these records document in detail the activities of the First Lady, including meetings, trips, speaking engagements and social activities for the eight years of the Clinton Administration,’ the statement said.”
* Mark Penn is going to get a little company — the Clinton campaign has finally hired a second pollster.
Posted March 19th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
When John McCain got confused yesterday about Sunni and Shiite, Iran and al Qaeda, his campaign issued a statement insisting that McCain “misspoke and immediately corrected himself.”
The explanation is far less plausible when McCain makes the same mistake and pushes the same bogus argument four times in two days.
This time, in a statement from his campaign honoring the fifth year anniversary of the war, McCain wrote:
“Today in Iraq, America and our allies stand on the precipice of winning a major victory against radical Islamic extremism. The security gains over the past year have been dramatic and undeniable. Al Qaeda and Shia extremists — with support from external powers such as Iran — are on the run but not defeated.”
For those keeping score at home, McCain 1) made the claim on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show; 2) repeated the claim at a press conference in Jordan; 3) repeated the claim again at the same event (before Joe Lieberman whispered in his hear that he was wrong); and 4) in a written statement. He “misspoke”? Hardly.
Now, readers may wonder whether it’s worth piling on like this, and raising such a fuss about McCain’s confusion regarding Middle East 101. But I’d argue that this is receiving too little attention.
As Ilan Goldenberg explained, “This is a man who thinks it’s OK for us to leave a troop presence in Iraq for 100 years. He thinks that Iraq is the central struggle of our day. He thinks that all of our other interests should be subverted to sticking it out in Iraq. He is running on his foreign policy experience. Yet he doesn’t even understand who we are fighting. Is this the person we want answering the phone at 3 in the morning?”
And as for the media, NBC News’ Chuck Todd conceded this morning, “[H]ad Clinton or Obama done something like this, this would have been played on a loop, over and over
_______________________________________
Posted March 19th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Before the political world moves on from the controversy surrounding the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama’s speech on race in America, it’s worth taking a moment to consider Michael Gerson’s WaPo column today, which I believe is largely representative of the conservative response to the week’s news.
Unlike the cartoonish, knee-jerk responses seen in some (ahem) corners yesterday, Gerson concedes from the outset that Obama made his case “as well as it could be made” yesterday, adding, “It was one of the finest political performances under pressure since John F. Kennedy at the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in 1960.”
But Gerson seems to believe that there is literally nothing Obama could do. That Obama forcefully rejected Wright’s most offensive remarks is fine, Gerson argues, but it’s too late for history, context, and explanations.
The problem with Obama’s argument is that Wright is not a symbol of the strengths and weaknesses of African Americans. He is a political extremist, holding views that are shocking to many Americans who wonder how any presidential candidate could be so closely associated with an adviser who refers to the “U.S. of KKK-A” and urges God to “damn” our country.
Obama’s excellent and important speech on race in America did little to address his strange tolerance for the anti-Americanism of his spiritual mentor.
Obama, Gerson concluded, “is not a man who hates — but he chose to walk with a man who does.”
_______________________________________
Wednesday’s campaign round-up
Posted March 19th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
* It looks like the Obama campaign has effectively ruled out the idea of a Michigan revote, making it unlikely the state will host a second primary. In a campaign memo, Obama aides cited legal and organizing difficulties: “Whether the state can achieve its goals here depends on the nature and seriousness of the legal and administrative questions presented by this initiative — questions that, raised after the election, could put at risk the running of the election, undermine acceptance of the results if the election is held, and in both cases effectively deny Michigan voters, a second consecutive time, meaningful participation in the nominating process.”
* Hillary Clinton is still pushing aggressively for a Michigan re-vote, and will visit Detroit today to bring attention to her case. “We will go and make the case for a revote,” said Mo Elleithee, a Clinton spokesman. Phil Singer, a Clinton spokesperson, accused Obama’s campaign of a “passive-aggressive effort to disenfranchise the voters of Michigan and Florida.”
* Hillary Clinton picked up a very helpful endorsement yesterday, when Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) announced his support for the senator. “Sen. Clinton is the candidate that will forge a consensus on health care, education, the economy, and the war in Iraq,” Murtha wrote in a statement about his decision. Murtha is, of course, a superdelegate, in addition to being an influential veteran from Pennsylvania.
* I doubt there will be any major revelations, but the materials will at least be out there: “Over 11,000 pages of Hillary Clinton’s schedule as first lady are set to be released to the public on Wednesday, the National Archives announced…. In a statement Tuesday, the Archives said the documents are from the files of Patti Solis Doyle, the director of Clinton’s scheduling while she was first lady, and later the manager of her presidential campaign…. ‘Arranged chronologically, these records document in detail the activities of the First Lady, including meetings, trips, speaking engagements and social activities for the eight years of the Clinton Administration,’ the statement said.”
* Mark Penn is going to get a little company — the Clinton campaign has finally hired a second pollster.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
When in Rome ?
Gov. Paterson admits to sex with other woman for years
Goldfield for News
Gov. David Paterson admits to sleeping with another woman while he was married to wife, Michelle.
David Paterson married Michelle Paige in November 1992.
The thunderous applause was still ringing in his ears when the state's new governor, David Paterson, told the Daily News that he and his wife had extramarital affairs.
In a stunning revelation, both Paterson, 53, and his wife, Michelle, 46, acknowledged in a joint interview they each had intimate relationships with others during a rocky period in their marriage several years ago.
In the course of several interviews in the past few days, Paterson said he maintained a relationship for two or three years with "a woman other than my wife," beginning in 1999.
As part of that relationship, Paterson said, he and the other woman sometimes stayed at an upper West Side hotel — the Days Inn at Broadway and W. 94th St.
He said members of his Albany legislative staff often used the same hotel when they visit the city.
"This was a marriage that appeared to be going sour at one point," Paterson conceded in his first interview Saturday. "But I went to counseling and we decided we wanted to make it work. Michelle is well aware of what went on."
In a second interview with Paterson and his wife Monday, only hours after he was sworn in to replace scandal-scarred Eliot Spitzer, Michelle Paterson confirmed her husband's account.
"Like most marriages, you go through certain difficult periods," Michelle Paterson said. "What's important is for your kids to see you worked them out."
The First Couple agreed to speak publicly about the difficulties in their marriage in response to a variety of rumors about Paterson's personal life that have been circulating in Albany and among the press corps in recent days.
They spoke in the governor's office even as scores of friends, family members and political supporters were celebrating in the corridors of the Capitol his ascension to the state's highest post.
Given the call-girl scandal that erupted last week and forced Spitzer's stunning resignation, Paterson conceded that top government officials are bound to come under closer scrutiny for their personal actions.
The governor flatly denied what he called a "sporadic rumor in Albany that I had a love child" by another woman. "That's just not true," he said.
"Don't you think he'd take care of a child if he'd had one?" Michelle Paterson said, in obvious disgust over that persistent rumor.
The romantic relationship he did have, Paterson said, lasted until sometime in 2001. He did not identify the former girlfriend.
Asked if he had stayed with anyone else since 2001 at the same West Side
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ON DEADLINE: Obama walks arrogance line
By RON FOURNIER, Associated Press Writer Mon Mar 17, 1:57 AM ET
WASHINGTON - Arrogance is a common vice in presidential politics. A person must be more than a little self-important to wake up one day and say, "I belong in the Oval Office."
But there's a line smart politicians don't cross — somewhere between "I'm qualified to be president" and "I'm born to be president." Wherever it lies, Barack Obama better watch his step.
He's bordering on arrogance.
The dictionary defines the word as an "offensive display of superiority or self-importance; overbearing pride." Obama may not be offensive or overbearing, but he can be a bit too cocky for his own good.
The freshman senator told reporters in July that he would overcome Hillary Rodham Clinton's lead in the polls because "to know me is to love me."
A few months later, he said, "Every place is Barack Obama country once Barack Obama's been there."
True, there's a certain amount of tongue-in-cheekiness to such remarks — almost as if Obama doesn't want to take his adoring crowds and political ascent too seriously. He was surely kidding when he told supporters in January that by the time he was done speaking "a light will shine down from somewhere."
"It will light upon you," he continued. "You will experience an epiphany. And you will say to yourself, I have to vote for Barack. I have to do it."
But both Obama and his wife, Michelle, ooze a sense of entitlement.
"Barack is one of the smartest people you will ever encounter who will deign to enter this messy thing called politics," his wife said a few weeks ago, adding that Americans will get only one chance to elect him.
Obama's cool self-confidence got him into trouble in New Hampshire when he said Clinton was "likable enough," faint praise that grated on female votes who didn't appreciate him condescending to the former first lady.
Privately, aides and associates of Obama tell stories about a boss who can be aloof and ungracious. He holds firmly to views and doesn't like to be challenged, traits that President Bush packaged and sold under the "resolute" brand in the 2004 election. For Bush, those qualities proved to be dangerous in a time of war and in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
If arrogance is a display of self-importance and superiority, Obama earns the pejorative every time he calls his pre-invasion opposition to the war in Iraq an act of courage.
While he deserves credit for forecasting the complications of war in 2002, Obama's opposition carried scant political risk because he was a little-known state lawmaker courting liberal voters in Illinois. In 2004, when denouncing the war and war-enabling Democrats would have jeopardized his prized speaking role at the Democratic National Convention, Obama ducked the issue.
It may be that he has just the right mix of confidence and humility to lead the nation (Obama likes to say, "I'm reminded every day that I'm not a perfect man"). But if the young senator wins the nomination, even the smallest trace of arrogance will be an issue with voters who still consider him a blank slate.
That may seem unfair to a candidate who's running against Clinton, the former first lady who is the model of overbearing pride. This is a woman, after all, who claims experience from her eight years as first lady but won't release her White House records; who trails Obama in delegates but deigned to suggest he'd be her running mate; and who has more baggage than Samsonite yet says Obama lacks "vetting."
But voters expect arrogance from Clinton and her husband, Bill. It's part of the package. It's a 90s-thing. The Clintons' utter self-absorption comes with a record of achievement and brass-knuckle passion that Obama cannot match — and that Democratic voters know could come in handy against GOP nominee-in-waiting John McCain.
Voters won't cut Obama as much slack on the humility test because he's sold himself as something different. While rejecting the "me"-centric status quo and promising a new era of post-partisan reform, Obama has said the movement he has created is not about him; it's about what Americans can do together if their faith in government is restored.
The power of his message lies in its humility. As he told 7,000 supporters at a rally last month, "I am an imperfect vessel for your hopes and dreams."
Nobody expects Obama to be perfect. But he better never forget that he isn't.
______________________________________
My Goat Ate the Economy
Marty Kaplan,
If George W. Bush had read The Pet Goat to his Economic Club of New York audience on Friday, his speech would have been no less infantile. If the first 9/11 was caused by a massive failure of intelligence about terrorism, the second 9/11 -- the slow-motion collapse of the American, and maybe the global, economy -- has been caused by a catastrophic failure of intelligence about Wall Street rapacity. If the now five-year-old Iraq war was the inevitable, tragic consequence of the neoconservatives' Project for the New American Century, then the subprime mortgage quagmire, the Bear Stearns bailout, and the foreclosure fiasco are the foreordained outcome of the Republican ideology which holds that regulation of corporate financial behavior is the domestic equivalent of Islamofascism.
The economic meltdown is the new 9/11, and it's George W. Bush's fault -- his, and the fundamentalist free-marketeers who have been living high on the hog, feeding at the public trough, intimidating Democrats, and getting away with capitalist murder ever since Ronald Reagan made "government" a dirty word."An interesting time," Bush called it at the Economic Club. That's the financial version of Rumsfeld's "stuff happens" analysis when rioting and looting engulfed Baghdad. (Will the media celebrate that five-year anniversary, too?) Every cocky corporate titan who has been caught in flagrante delicto has been written off by Republicans as an isolated exception. Every ingenious, computer-assisted Ponzi scheme has turned out, Milton Freedman be praised, to be legal. Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling? A couple of bad apples. Pump and dump? In the eye of the beholder. Slice-and-dice derivatives? As patriotic as a flag lapel pin.
"Moral hazard" is a term given currency by today's subprime mortgage crisis. It means that people will take a stupid risk if they believe they won't have to pay a price if things go sour. Years ago, during the savings and loan crisis, the principle of moral hazard was front and center; gamblers like Neil Bush, of Silverado Savings and Loan, flourished because buccaneers of his ilk were protected from the downside of their speculation by no-fault taxpayer-funded insurance. (No doubt that's what his brother the President meant in his first inaugural about ushering in an era of personal responsibility.) Today, the Fed's rescue of Bear Sterns -- the poster child of Wall Street greed and recklessness -- has brought "moral hazard" back to the fore. Bear Stearns says these guiding principles are the blueprint for how it does business: "respect, integrity, meritocracy, innovation and a commitment to philanthropy." In the wake of the bailout, maybe they should switch their motto to Alfred E. Newman's: "What, Me Worry?"
"Moral hazard" is how we got into Iraq. Colin Powell's Pottery Barn rule -- "you break it, you own it" -- is wrong. Bush broke Iraq, but we own it. Just as we, the taxpayers, are being forced to pay for the crockery broken by the Bush Party on Wall Street, we -- the taxpayers, the soldiers, their families, and America's reputation in the world -- are being forced to pay the price for the hubris of the neocon "freedom agenda." Is it too farfetched to compare Bush's pardon of Scooter Libby with Ben Bernanke's pardon of Bear Stearns? If you want to see why the insane risks of invading Iraq seemed so tolerable to the White House, look no farther than the unitary executive, the signing statements, and an opposition that would take impeachment off the table.
Toxic dumps are required to have warning signs on them. It would be fitting if schoolchildren saw a mandatory DANGER: MORAL HAZARD notice when, on a day that can't come too soon, they enter the George W. Bush Presidential Library.
Goldfield for News
Gov. David Paterson admits to sleeping with another woman while he was married to wife, Michelle.
David Paterson married Michelle Paige in November 1992.
The thunderous applause was still ringing in his ears when the state's new governor, David Paterson, told the Daily News that he and his wife had extramarital affairs.
In a stunning revelation, both Paterson, 53, and his wife, Michelle, 46, acknowledged in a joint interview they each had intimate relationships with others during a rocky period in their marriage several years ago.
In the course of several interviews in the past few days, Paterson said he maintained a relationship for two or three years with "a woman other than my wife," beginning in 1999.
As part of that relationship, Paterson said, he and the other woman sometimes stayed at an upper West Side hotel — the Days Inn at Broadway and W. 94th St.
He said members of his Albany legislative staff often used the same hotel when they visit the city.
"This was a marriage that appeared to be going sour at one point," Paterson conceded in his first interview Saturday. "But I went to counseling and we decided we wanted to make it work. Michelle is well aware of what went on."
In a second interview with Paterson and his wife Monday, only hours after he was sworn in to replace scandal-scarred Eliot Spitzer, Michelle Paterson confirmed her husband's account.
"Like most marriages, you go through certain difficult periods," Michelle Paterson said. "What's important is for your kids to see you worked them out."
The First Couple agreed to speak publicly about the difficulties in their marriage in response to a variety of rumors about Paterson's personal life that have been circulating in Albany and among the press corps in recent days.
They spoke in the governor's office even as scores of friends, family members and political supporters were celebrating in the corridors of the Capitol his ascension to the state's highest post.
Given the call-girl scandal that erupted last week and forced Spitzer's stunning resignation, Paterson conceded that top government officials are bound to come under closer scrutiny for their personal actions.
The governor flatly denied what he called a "sporadic rumor in Albany that I had a love child" by another woman. "That's just not true," he said.
"Don't you think he'd take care of a child if he'd had one?" Michelle Paterson said, in obvious disgust over that persistent rumor.
The romantic relationship he did have, Paterson said, lasted until sometime in 2001. He did not identify the former girlfriend.
Asked if he had stayed with anyone else since 2001 at the same West Side
_______________________________________
ON DEADLINE: Obama walks arrogance line
By RON FOURNIER, Associated Press Writer Mon Mar 17, 1:57 AM ET
WASHINGTON - Arrogance is a common vice in presidential politics. A person must be more than a little self-important to wake up one day and say, "I belong in the Oval Office."
But there's a line smart politicians don't cross — somewhere between "I'm qualified to be president" and "I'm born to be president." Wherever it lies, Barack Obama better watch his step.
He's bordering on arrogance.
The dictionary defines the word as an "offensive display of superiority or self-importance; overbearing pride." Obama may not be offensive or overbearing, but he can be a bit too cocky for his own good.
The freshman senator told reporters in July that he would overcome Hillary Rodham Clinton's lead in the polls because "to know me is to love me."
A few months later, he said, "Every place is Barack Obama country once Barack Obama's been there."
True, there's a certain amount of tongue-in-cheekiness to such remarks — almost as if Obama doesn't want to take his adoring crowds and political ascent too seriously. He was surely kidding when he told supporters in January that by the time he was done speaking "a light will shine down from somewhere."
"It will light upon you," he continued. "You will experience an epiphany. And you will say to yourself, I have to vote for Barack. I have to do it."
But both Obama and his wife, Michelle, ooze a sense of entitlement.
"Barack is one of the smartest people you will ever encounter who will deign to enter this messy thing called politics," his wife said a few weeks ago, adding that Americans will get only one chance to elect him.
Obama's cool self-confidence got him into trouble in New Hampshire when he said Clinton was "likable enough," faint praise that grated on female votes who didn't appreciate him condescending to the former first lady.
Privately, aides and associates of Obama tell stories about a boss who can be aloof and ungracious. He holds firmly to views and doesn't like to be challenged, traits that President Bush packaged and sold under the "resolute" brand in the 2004 election. For Bush, those qualities proved to be dangerous in a time of war and in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
If arrogance is a display of self-importance and superiority, Obama earns the pejorative every time he calls his pre-invasion opposition to the war in Iraq an act of courage.
While he deserves credit for forecasting the complications of war in 2002, Obama's opposition carried scant political risk because he was a little-known state lawmaker courting liberal voters in Illinois. In 2004, when denouncing the war and war-enabling Democrats would have jeopardized his prized speaking role at the Democratic National Convention, Obama ducked the issue.
It may be that he has just the right mix of confidence and humility to lead the nation (Obama likes to say, "I'm reminded every day that I'm not a perfect man"). But if the young senator wins the nomination, even the smallest trace of arrogance will be an issue with voters who still consider him a blank slate.
That may seem unfair to a candidate who's running against Clinton, the former first lady who is the model of overbearing pride. This is a woman, after all, who claims experience from her eight years as first lady but won't release her White House records; who trails Obama in delegates but deigned to suggest he'd be her running mate; and who has more baggage than Samsonite yet says Obama lacks "vetting."
But voters expect arrogance from Clinton and her husband, Bill. It's part of the package. It's a 90s-thing. The Clintons' utter self-absorption comes with a record of achievement and brass-knuckle passion that Obama cannot match — and that Democratic voters know could come in handy against GOP nominee-in-waiting John McCain.
Voters won't cut Obama as much slack on the humility test because he's sold himself as something different. While rejecting the "me"-centric status quo and promising a new era of post-partisan reform, Obama has said the movement he has created is not about him; it's about what Americans can do together if their faith in government is restored.
The power of his message lies in its humility. As he told 7,000 supporters at a rally last month, "I am an imperfect vessel for your hopes and dreams."
Nobody expects Obama to be perfect. But he better never forget that he isn't.
______________________________________
My Goat Ate the Economy
Marty Kaplan,
If George W. Bush had read The Pet Goat to his Economic Club of New York audience on Friday, his speech would have been no less infantile. If the first 9/11 was caused by a massive failure of intelligence about terrorism, the second 9/11 -- the slow-motion collapse of the American, and maybe the global, economy -- has been caused by a catastrophic failure of intelligence about Wall Street rapacity. If the now five-year-old Iraq war was the inevitable, tragic consequence of the neoconservatives' Project for the New American Century, then the subprime mortgage quagmire, the Bear Stearns bailout, and the foreclosure fiasco are the foreordained outcome of the Republican ideology which holds that regulation of corporate financial behavior is the domestic equivalent of Islamofascism.
The economic meltdown is the new 9/11, and it's George W. Bush's fault -- his, and the fundamentalist free-marketeers who have been living high on the hog, feeding at the public trough, intimidating Democrats, and getting away with capitalist murder ever since Ronald Reagan made "government" a dirty word."An interesting time," Bush called it at the Economic Club. That's the financial version of Rumsfeld's "stuff happens" analysis when rioting and looting engulfed Baghdad. (Will the media celebrate that five-year anniversary, too?) Every cocky corporate titan who has been caught in flagrante delicto has been written off by Republicans as an isolated exception. Every ingenious, computer-assisted Ponzi scheme has turned out, Milton Freedman be praised, to be legal. Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling? A couple of bad apples. Pump and dump? In the eye of the beholder. Slice-and-dice derivatives? As patriotic as a flag lapel pin.
"Moral hazard" is a term given currency by today's subprime mortgage crisis. It means that people will take a stupid risk if they believe they won't have to pay a price if things go sour. Years ago, during the savings and loan crisis, the principle of moral hazard was front and center; gamblers like Neil Bush, of Silverado Savings and Loan, flourished because buccaneers of his ilk were protected from the downside of their speculation by no-fault taxpayer-funded insurance. (No doubt that's what his brother the President meant in his first inaugural about ushering in an era of personal responsibility.) Today, the Fed's rescue of Bear Sterns -- the poster child of Wall Street greed and recklessness -- has brought "moral hazard" back to the fore. Bear Stearns says these guiding principles are the blueprint for how it does business: "respect, integrity, meritocracy, innovation and a commitment to philanthropy." In the wake of the bailout, maybe they should switch their motto to Alfred E. Newman's: "What, Me Worry?"
"Moral hazard" is how we got into Iraq. Colin Powell's Pottery Barn rule -- "you break it, you own it" -- is wrong. Bush broke Iraq, but we own it. Just as we, the taxpayers, are being forced to pay for the crockery broken by the Bush Party on Wall Street, we -- the taxpayers, the soldiers, their families, and America's reputation in the world -- are being forced to pay the price for the hubris of the neocon "freedom agenda." Is it too farfetched to compare Bush's pardon of Scooter Libby with Ben Bernanke's pardon of Bear Stearns? If you want to see why the insane risks of invading Iraq seemed so tolerable to the White House, look no farther than the unitary executive, the signing statements, and an opposition that would take impeachment off the table.
Toxic dumps are required to have warning signs on them. It would be fitting if schoolchildren saw a mandatory DANGER: MORAL HAZARD notice when, on a day that can't come too soon, they enter the George W. Bush Presidential Library.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Country On The Way To The Poor House
Dollar falls below parity vs Swiss franc
NEW YORK, March 14 - The dollar fell below parity with the Swiss franc for the first time on Friday as fears about more credit turmoil and a U.S. recession sparked broad selling of the U.S. currency.NEW YORK, March 14 - The dollar fell below parity with the Swiss franc for the first time on Friday as fears about more credit turmoil and a U.S. recession sparked broad selling of the U.S. currency.
_______________________________________
Bear Stearns to Get Backing From J.P. Morgan, N.Y. Fed
Firm's Shares Sink Amid Liquidity Fears
By KEVIN KINGSBURY, ANDREW DOWELL and SERENA NGMarch 14, 2008 2:15 p.m.
NEW YORK -- In a dramatic move Friday, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York stepped in with emergency funds to keep beleaguered investment bank Bear Stearns Cos. afloat.
The move, during a week of worry about whether Bear could continue to meet its obligations, took the credit crisis to a new, more serious stage and was a reminder of how quickly an erosion of confidence can undermine even leading financial institutions.
_______________________________________
Despite the Federal Reserve's efforts Wall Street fears a big US bank is in trouble
Siobhan Kennedy and Suzy Jagger
Global stock markets may have cheered the US Federal Reserve yesterday, but on Wall Street the Fed's unprecedented move to pump $280 billion (£140 billion) into global markets was seen as a sure sign that at least one financial institution was struggling to survive.
The name on most people's lips was Bear Stearns. Although the Fed billed the co-ordinated rescue as a way of improving liquidity across financial markets, economists and analysts said that the decision appeared to be driven by an urgent need to stave off the collapse of an American bank.
“The only reason the Fed would do this is if they knew one or more of their primary dealers actually wasn't flush with cash and needed funds in a hurry,” Simon Maughan, an analyst with MF Global in London, said.
Mr Maughan said that the most likely victim was Bear Stearns, the first bank to run into trouble in the sub-prime crisis and the one that, among all wholesale and investment banks, is most reliant upon the use of mortgage securities for raising funds in the money markets.
_____________________________________
From the Bowery to the Taj Mahal, Falling Greenback Loses Clout As King of Currencies
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- Antique store owners in lower Manhattan, ticket vendors at India's Taj Mahal and Brazilian business executives heading to China all have one thing in common these days: They don't want U.S. dollars. making life
more expensive for American tourists and business people abroad; its clout is evaporating worldwide as foreign businesses and individuals turn to other currencies.
Experts say the bleak U.S. economic forecast means it will take years for the greenback to recover its value and prestige.
Negative dollar sentiment is growing in nations where the dollar was historically accepted as equal or better than local currency -- and dollar aversion is even extending to some quarters in the United States.
At the Taj Mahal, dollars were always legal tender, alongside rupees, for entry into the palace. But because of the falling value of the dollar, the government implemented a rupees-only policy a month ago. Indian merchants catering to tourists have also turned bearish on the dollar.
"Gone are the days when we used to run after dollars, holding onto them for rainy days," said Vijay Narain, a tour operator in the city of Agra where the Taj Mahal is located. "Now we prefer the euro. It gives us more riches."
In Bolivia, billboards feature George Washington's image on a $1 bill alongside a bright pink 500 euro note, encouraging savers to turn to the euro to tuck away money earned abroad or sent home in remittances.
"If the dollar's going down ... save it in Euros!!!" say the signs popping up around La Paz for Bolivia's Banco Bisa.
And in neighboring Brazil, the Confidence Cambio money-changing service was the first to start offering yuan so travelers to China no longer have to change the money into dollars first. The service is already a hit because Brazil does big business with China, and lots of Brazilians are heading to the Olympics this summer.
"Now we tell people not to take dollars when they go abroad, it's better to change it directly to the local currency," said Fabio Agostinho, one of the firm's managing partners. "If people leave here with dollars and go abroad, they lose when they exchange them. It's the same thing whether they're heading to China, Europe or even Argentina."
In Manhattan's Bowery district, Billy LeRoy, the owner of Billy's Antiques & Props, prefers payment in euros so he can stockpile the currency for his annual antique buying trip to Paris.
"Whip out dollars at the French flea market now, and they'll shoo you away," he said at his store near apartment buildings where Europeans are snapping up units because they've become dirt cheap. "Before it was like the second coming of Christ, but now they don't want it or if they do take dollars, they're going to take their pound of flesh."
The dollar has steadily eroded in value against the euro and other currencies since 2002 as U.S. budget and trade deficits ballooned, but fears of an American recession and credit crisis have sent the dollar to stunning lows amid predictions the slump will continue for a long time.
______________________________________
Obama's Pastor, Prompts Candidate To Address Comments
Huffington Post March 14, 2008 11:24 AM
The appearance of video by Jeremiah Wright, pastor to Barack Obama, has caused a recent frenzy as both Democratic candidate struggle with the issue of race on the campaign trail. Here's an excerpt of an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:
Q: I don't know if you've seen it, but it's all over the wire today (from an ABC News story), a statement that your pastor (the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's South Side) made in a sermon in 2003 that instead of singing "God Bless America," black people should sing a song essentially saying "God Damn America."
_______________________________________
Late-Night Wins for Pro-Choice Americans
Posted March 14, 2008 12:21 PM (EST)
It was a late night last night for the U.S. Senate. In the past, when anti-choice politicians controlled the process, that would have meant something dreadful would have happened to women's freedom and privacy.
Previous Congresses were famous for votes at 3 a.m., hoping their shenanigans would go unreported and slip under the public's radar screen.
But, pro-choice Americans, I am pleased to report different news: Last night, the Senate rejected two anti-choice amendments, but the razor-thin margin by which we won these votes is a reminder of why elections matters.
To what amendments am I referring?
Well, you can depend on anti-choice politicians to lack creativity and imagination, and last night was no exception.
In a blatant attempt to entangle the budget resolution in anti-abortion politics, Sen. Wayne Allard (R-CO) offered an amendment intended to codify a controversial Bush administration regulation, put in place in 2002, which allows states to make an embryo or a fetus -- but not a pregnant woman -- eligible for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The amendment failed 46-52. Last year, a coalition of pro-choice and pro-life senators defeated a similar Allard proposal -- but last night we picked up a few new senators. The tide is moving in the right direction!
As I said, the same stuff over and over again.
And speaking of items off the anti-choice shelf, Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) put forth an amendment modeled after the so-called "Child Custody Protection Act" [PDF] (CCPA). This divisive and controversial proposal would prohibit anyone other than a parent -- including a grandparent, aunt, adult sibling, or member of the clergy -- from accompanying a young woman across state lines for abortion care if the home state's parental-involvement law has not been met.
Here is another sign of progress: the Senate's rejection of CCPA late last night, by a tie vote of 49-49, is a major milestone for pro-choice Americans.
Our message of how this proposal jeopardizes the health and safety of young women who can't reach out to their parents for fear of violence, or in cases of rape or incest, really got through this time, thanks to our allies in the Senate for making the case to their colleagues.
We applaud our pro-choice friends in the Senate who blocked these anti-choice measures. They stood up against the divisive attacks which were simply trying to distract the public from our nation's true priorities like fixing the economy or making health care more affordable.
Pro-choice Americans made tremendous gains in the 2006 elections and restored pro-choice leadership in Congress, but anti-choice members still outnumber pro-choice lawmakers in both chambers. Until the numerical composition of Congress matches America's pro-choice majority, we will continue to see dangerous and divisive assaults on the values of freedom and privacy.
It is fantastic that new senators, such as Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Jon Tester (D-MT), and James Webb (D-VA), who defeated anti-choice incumbents in 2006 continue to show why elections matter, vote by vote.
So, celebrate today -- we won by a whisker -- and then volunteer tomorrow for a pro-choice candidate for the House or Senate.
NEW YORK, March 14 - The dollar fell below parity with the Swiss franc for the first time on Friday as fears about more credit turmoil and a U.S. recession sparked broad selling of the U.S. currency.NEW YORK, March 14 - The dollar fell below parity with the Swiss franc for the first time on Friday as fears about more credit turmoil and a U.S. recession sparked broad selling of the U.S. currency.
_______________________________________
Bear Stearns to Get Backing From J.P. Morgan, N.Y. Fed
Firm's Shares Sink Amid Liquidity Fears
By KEVIN KINGSBURY, ANDREW DOWELL and SERENA NGMarch 14, 2008 2:15 p.m.
NEW YORK -- In a dramatic move Friday, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York stepped in with emergency funds to keep beleaguered investment bank Bear Stearns Cos. afloat.
The move, during a week of worry about whether Bear could continue to meet its obligations, took the credit crisis to a new, more serious stage and was a reminder of how quickly an erosion of confidence can undermine even leading financial institutions.
_______________________________________
Despite the Federal Reserve's efforts Wall Street fears a big US bank is in trouble
Siobhan Kennedy and Suzy Jagger
Global stock markets may have cheered the US Federal Reserve yesterday, but on Wall Street the Fed's unprecedented move to pump $280 billion (£140 billion) into global markets was seen as a sure sign that at least one financial institution was struggling to survive.
The name on most people's lips was Bear Stearns. Although the Fed billed the co-ordinated rescue as a way of improving liquidity across financial markets, economists and analysts said that the decision appeared to be driven by an urgent need to stave off the collapse of an American bank.
“The only reason the Fed would do this is if they knew one or more of their primary dealers actually wasn't flush with cash and needed funds in a hurry,” Simon Maughan, an analyst with MF Global in London, said.
Mr Maughan said that the most likely victim was Bear Stearns, the first bank to run into trouble in the sub-prime crisis and the one that, among all wholesale and investment banks, is most reliant upon the use of mortgage securities for raising funds in the money markets.
_____________________________________
From the Bowery to the Taj Mahal, Falling Greenback Loses Clout As King of Currencies
SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- Antique store owners in lower Manhattan, ticket vendors at India's Taj Mahal and Brazilian business executives heading to China all have one thing in common these days: They don't want U.S. dollars. making life
more expensive for American tourists and business people abroad; its clout is evaporating worldwide as foreign businesses and individuals turn to other currencies.
Experts say the bleak U.S. economic forecast means it will take years for the greenback to recover its value and prestige.
Negative dollar sentiment is growing in nations where the dollar was historically accepted as equal or better than local currency -- and dollar aversion is even extending to some quarters in the United States.
At the Taj Mahal, dollars were always legal tender, alongside rupees, for entry into the palace. But because of the falling value of the dollar, the government implemented a rupees-only policy a month ago. Indian merchants catering to tourists have also turned bearish on the dollar.
"Gone are the days when we used to run after dollars, holding onto them for rainy days," said Vijay Narain, a tour operator in the city of Agra where the Taj Mahal is located. "Now we prefer the euro. It gives us more riches."
In Bolivia, billboards feature George Washington's image on a $1 bill alongside a bright pink 500 euro note, encouraging savers to turn to the euro to tuck away money earned abroad or sent home in remittances.
"If the dollar's going down ... save it in Euros!!!" say the signs popping up around La Paz for Bolivia's Banco Bisa.
And in neighboring Brazil, the Confidence Cambio money-changing service was the first to start offering yuan so travelers to China no longer have to change the money into dollars first. The service is already a hit because Brazil does big business with China, and lots of Brazilians are heading to the Olympics this summer.
"Now we tell people not to take dollars when they go abroad, it's better to change it directly to the local currency," said Fabio Agostinho, one of the firm's managing partners. "If people leave here with dollars and go abroad, they lose when they exchange them. It's the same thing whether they're heading to China, Europe or even Argentina."
In Manhattan's Bowery district, Billy LeRoy, the owner of Billy's Antiques & Props, prefers payment in euros so he can stockpile the currency for his annual antique buying trip to Paris.
"Whip out dollars at the French flea market now, and they'll shoo you away," he said at his store near apartment buildings where Europeans are snapping up units because they've become dirt cheap. "Before it was like the second coming of Christ, but now they don't want it or if they do take dollars, they're going to take their pound of flesh."
The dollar has steadily eroded in value against the euro and other currencies since 2002 as U.S. budget and trade deficits ballooned, but fears of an American recession and credit crisis have sent the dollar to stunning lows amid predictions the slump will continue for a long time.
______________________________________
Obama's Pastor, Prompts Candidate To Address Comments
Huffington Post March 14, 2008 11:24 AM
The appearance of video by Jeremiah Wright, pastor to Barack Obama, has caused a recent frenzy as both Democratic candidate struggle with the issue of race on the campaign trail. Here's an excerpt of an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:
Q: I don't know if you've seen it, but it's all over the wire today (from an ABC News story), a statement that your pastor (the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's South Side) made in a sermon in 2003 that instead of singing "God Bless America," black people should sing a song essentially saying "God Damn America."
_______________________________________
Late-Night Wins for Pro-Choice Americans
Posted March 14, 2008 12:21 PM (EST)
It was a late night last night for the U.S. Senate. In the past, when anti-choice politicians controlled the process, that would have meant something dreadful would have happened to women's freedom and privacy.
Previous Congresses were famous for votes at 3 a.m., hoping their shenanigans would go unreported and slip under the public's radar screen.
But, pro-choice Americans, I am pleased to report different news: Last night, the Senate rejected two anti-choice amendments, but the razor-thin margin by which we won these votes is a reminder of why elections matters.
To what amendments am I referring?
Well, you can depend on anti-choice politicians to lack creativity and imagination, and last night was no exception.
In a blatant attempt to entangle the budget resolution in anti-abortion politics, Sen. Wayne Allard (R-CO) offered an amendment intended to codify a controversial Bush administration regulation, put in place in 2002, which allows states to make an embryo or a fetus -- but not a pregnant woman -- eligible for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The amendment failed 46-52. Last year, a coalition of pro-choice and pro-life senators defeated a similar Allard proposal -- but last night we picked up a few new senators. The tide is moving in the right direction!
As I said, the same stuff over and over again.
And speaking of items off the anti-choice shelf, Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) put forth an amendment modeled after the so-called "Child Custody Protection Act" [PDF] (CCPA). This divisive and controversial proposal would prohibit anyone other than a parent -- including a grandparent, aunt, adult sibling, or member of the clergy -- from accompanying a young woman across state lines for abortion care if the home state's parental-involvement law has not been met.
Here is another sign of progress: the Senate's rejection of CCPA late last night, by a tie vote of 49-49, is a major milestone for pro-choice Americans.
Our message of how this proposal jeopardizes the health and safety of young women who can't reach out to their parents for fear of violence, or in cases of rape or incest, really got through this time, thanks to our allies in the Senate for making the case to their colleagues.
We applaud our pro-choice friends in the Senate who blocked these anti-choice measures. They stood up against the divisive attacks which were simply trying to distract the public from our nation's true priorities like fixing the economy or making health care more affordable.
Pro-choice Americans made tremendous gains in the 2006 elections and restored pro-choice leadership in Congress, but anti-choice members still outnumber pro-choice lawmakers in both chambers. Until the numerical composition of Congress matches America's pro-choice majority, we will continue to see dangerous and divisive assaults on the values of freedom and privacy.
It is fantastic that new senators, such as Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Jon Tester (D-MT), and James Webb (D-VA), who defeated anti-choice incumbents in 2006 continue to show why elections matter, vote by vote.
So, celebrate today -- we won by a whisker -- and then volunteer tomorrow for a pro-choice candidate for the House or Senate.
What Lies
CHICAGO - Democrat Barack Obama expressed frustration Wednesday that racial issues keep rising to the top of his presidential battle with Hillary Rodham Clinton, but he said the great majority of voters will base their decisions on substantive issues.
Likely Dem Voters Nationwide
Black: Obama 81% Clinton 7%
White: Clinton 50% Obama 39%
Women: Clinton 51% Obama 40%
Men: Obama 60% Clinton 28%
Well it is obvious race is not an issue look all of 7% of BLACKS will vote for Clinton! WOWEE
Whites are obviously LESS Racist as 39% will vote for Obama
_______________________________________
The Texas National Guard Hero?
Serving "Romantic" Mission In Afghanistan
March 13, 2008 06:11 PM
President Bush let his inner adventurer out while discussing the state of the war in Afghanistan with military and civilian personnel. While those in Afghanistan detailed the logistical and diplomatic problems via teleconference, the President took a much more whimsical approach to their mission. Via Reuters:
"I must say, I'm a little envious," Bush said. "If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed."
"It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history, and thanks," Bush said.
Meanwhile, over 40 Taliban insurgents were killed in a battle in Southern Afghanistan, and six Afghani civilians were killed in a suicide bombing aimed at an American convoy.
____________________________________
Sam Stein
The Huffington Post
Only Senate Republican To Oppose Iraq War Speaks Out
Lincoln Chafee Interview: "Everyone Was Silent" On Iraq
March 13, 2008 05:40 PM
As the war in Iraq completes its fifth year this week, The Huffington Post is featuring interviews with and essays by those journalists, elected officials, policymakers and former military officials who spoke out early and boldly against what they saw as an inevitable disaster. They join our Iraq Honor Roll.
Lincoln Chafee: "Everyone Was Silent"The Only Republican Senator to Oppose Iraq War Authorization Speaks Out
In the fall of 2002, as the United States Senate was granting the White House authorization to go to war in Iraq, only one Republican member of that body opposed the course of action. Lincoln Chafee, a moderate Rhode Island Republican, served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time that he expressed his skepticism. In his view, the administration had clearly failed to make its case to invade Iraq. Nor did he believe that the attacks on 9/11 were connected to Saddam Hussein. History, so far, has proved Chafee prescient.
In the summer of 2007, Chafee formally abandoned the Republican Party after loosing his re-election run to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse.
In this interview with The Huffington Post, he recounts how, at the time he opposed the initial war authorization, he felt like a sheep amidst the wolves.
What was it like to be in the opposition to the Iraq War five years ago, with the drums beating loud and the majority of the public and Congress supporting the rush to war?
When the president first started talking about Iraq, it was just met with incredulity. There was no connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The intelligence was questionable. But there was all this fear from 9/11.
Colin Powell was the coup de grace with his testimony at the United Nations. And you heard it here in Rhode Island. People were saying, 'Well Colin Powell presented all this evidence about weapons of mass destruction and Saddam being a threat.' He sold the war for them.
The administration was just brilliant with their marketing. I still marvel at the weapons of mass destruction. It never got defined. What were the weapons they were talking about? But it worked. People believed these weapons existed. People got the feeling that the [terrorists] were going to come down the shores and onto the main streets and that we were in danger.
What was going on in the Senate at the time? Was there just too much pressure by the administration for a majority anti-war coalition?
We just got through Vietnam. And we were about to do it all again. The Democrats were abysmal. They controlled the Senate in 2002. And none of the right questions were being asked. There was a minority led by Sen. [Robert] Byrd. He was terrific. But the floor was generally silent.
How could that be?
Sept 11th had everyone angry. It was a difficult atmosphere. It was a time you needed cool heads. But we didn't have them. And then you factor in the mistake the Democrats made on the first Gulf War. They didn't want to do that again.
When you think about it, all the leaders who were contemplating running for president - Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Tom Daschle - they all voted for it. Why? They all were making a calculated personal decision and didn't want the war hanging over them.
What were your thoughts on the media's role in the run up to the war? Did they do their jobs, or were they too acquiescent to the Bush administration?
I thought The New York Times was good. The Washington Post was okay. But, for the most part, the press went along. I can remember the talk shows, Imus and the like. The only people they were interviewing were war proponents. I used to listen to Imus driving into work and I used to scream: 'Can you get one person opposed to the war?' There were 23 of us in the Senate. You couldn't talk to Barbara Boxer? Russ Feingold? Paul Wellstone?
Was there a point in time during the war where you thought it could be a success? Or did you think, from the beginning, that it was doomed to be a lost cause?
There was a moment when I said to myself, 'You were wrong.' That was a moment right after "Mission Accomplished," right after 2003... [All these regional leaders] were all in the Jordanian seaside town of Aqaba, and they were all standing there saying that with the removal of Saddam Hussein, in Iraq was going to energize the peace process for Israel and Palestine. And I said 'Wow, if this all pans out that would be amazing.' Maybe I had misjudged it after all, Paul Wellstone called it dual victories in the war on terror, the fact that we could take out Saddam and restart the peace process. But it never happened. It never panned out. From that moment on it was just a series of bad decisions and blunders. And we lost any chance for success.
So, five years later, we are still in Iraq. And it seems that, until President Bush leaves office, we will remain there. What does the U.S. need to do in order to facilitate an end to the war?
We need to have stronger efforts on peace negotiations. I also believe that the six countries that share a border with Iraq - Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Iran, Kuwait - those are the key countries if we want to get this thing resolved. They share a border with Iraq. They know the Iraqis. Two of them, people say, shouldn't be at the table - Syria and Iran. But we need to make stronger efforts to get them to share responsibilities if we want to end this war.
It seems as if the war has become almost an accepted reality for the American public. We are not shocked by news of deaths. And in some voter surveys, Iraq registers as the third most important issue.
With no draft it is almost like this is somebody else's war. But when the violence spikes [they pay attention]. And Vietnam is still fresh in people's minds. Yes, the war is down on page 8 [of the paper]. But now with the economy softening, I do think that people will make the connection. They will look at all these proposals and say: 'How the heck can we afford these things.' And they will look at how much money we are spending on the war.
Will our society be divided by this war even after it ends? Will the political and social fault lines be drawn around Iraq - much like they were, in the 80s and 90s around Vietnam?
The president still gets that standing ovation by saying it is the right thing to do. Yeah, that is a different crowd from the rest of America. And it is tied into continued fear about terrorism. So, yes, the potential is there for this battle to be waged for a long time.
______________________________________
Likely Dem Voters Nationwide
Black: Obama 81% Clinton 7%
White: Clinton 50% Obama 39%
Women: Clinton 51% Obama 40%
Men: Obama 60% Clinton 28%
Well it is obvious race is not an issue look all of 7% of BLACKS will vote for Clinton! WOWEE
Whites are obviously LESS Racist as 39% will vote for Obama
_______________________________________
The Texas National Guard Hero?
Serving "Romantic" Mission In Afghanistan
March 13, 2008 06:11 PM
President Bush let his inner adventurer out while discussing the state of the war in Afghanistan with military and civilian personnel. While those in Afghanistan detailed the logistical and diplomatic problems via teleconference, the President took a much more whimsical approach to their mission. Via Reuters:
"I must say, I'm a little envious," Bush said. "If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed."
"It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history, and thanks," Bush said.
Meanwhile, over 40 Taliban insurgents were killed in a battle in Southern Afghanistan, and six Afghani civilians were killed in a suicide bombing aimed at an American convoy.
____________________________________
Sam Stein
The Huffington Post
Only Senate Republican To Oppose Iraq War Speaks Out
Lincoln Chafee Interview: "Everyone Was Silent" On Iraq
March 13, 2008 05:40 PM
As the war in Iraq completes its fifth year this week, The Huffington Post is featuring interviews with and essays by those journalists, elected officials, policymakers and former military officials who spoke out early and boldly against what they saw as an inevitable disaster. They join our Iraq Honor Roll.
Lincoln Chafee: "Everyone Was Silent"The Only Republican Senator to Oppose Iraq War Authorization Speaks Out
In the fall of 2002, as the United States Senate was granting the White House authorization to go to war in Iraq, only one Republican member of that body opposed the course of action. Lincoln Chafee, a moderate Rhode Island Republican, served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time that he expressed his skepticism. In his view, the administration had clearly failed to make its case to invade Iraq. Nor did he believe that the attacks on 9/11 were connected to Saddam Hussein. History, so far, has proved Chafee prescient.
In the summer of 2007, Chafee formally abandoned the Republican Party after loosing his re-election run to Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse.
In this interview with The Huffington Post, he recounts how, at the time he opposed the initial war authorization, he felt like a sheep amidst the wolves.
What was it like to be in the opposition to the Iraq War five years ago, with the drums beating loud and the majority of the public and Congress supporting the rush to war?
When the president first started talking about Iraq, it was just met with incredulity. There was no connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The intelligence was questionable. But there was all this fear from 9/11.
Colin Powell was the coup de grace with his testimony at the United Nations. And you heard it here in Rhode Island. People were saying, 'Well Colin Powell presented all this evidence about weapons of mass destruction and Saddam being a threat.' He sold the war for them.
The administration was just brilliant with their marketing. I still marvel at the weapons of mass destruction. It never got defined. What were the weapons they were talking about? But it worked. People believed these weapons existed. People got the feeling that the [terrorists] were going to come down the shores and onto the main streets and that we were in danger.
What was going on in the Senate at the time? Was there just too much pressure by the administration for a majority anti-war coalition?
We just got through Vietnam. And we were about to do it all again. The Democrats were abysmal. They controlled the Senate in 2002. And none of the right questions were being asked. There was a minority led by Sen. [Robert] Byrd. He was terrific. But the floor was generally silent.
How could that be?
Sept 11th had everyone angry. It was a difficult atmosphere. It was a time you needed cool heads. But we didn't have them. And then you factor in the mistake the Democrats made on the first Gulf War. They didn't want to do that again.
When you think about it, all the leaders who were contemplating running for president - Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Tom Daschle - they all voted for it. Why? They all were making a calculated personal decision and didn't want the war hanging over them.
What were your thoughts on the media's role in the run up to the war? Did they do their jobs, or were they too acquiescent to the Bush administration?
I thought The New York Times was good. The Washington Post was okay. But, for the most part, the press went along. I can remember the talk shows, Imus and the like. The only people they were interviewing were war proponents. I used to listen to Imus driving into work and I used to scream: 'Can you get one person opposed to the war?' There were 23 of us in the Senate. You couldn't talk to Barbara Boxer? Russ Feingold? Paul Wellstone?
Was there a point in time during the war where you thought it could be a success? Or did you think, from the beginning, that it was doomed to be a lost cause?
There was a moment when I said to myself, 'You were wrong.' That was a moment right after "Mission Accomplished," right after 2003... [All these regional leaders] were all in the Jordanian seaside town of Aqaba, and they were all standing there saying that with the removal of Saddam Hussein, in Iraq was going to energize the peace process for Israel and Palestine. And I said 'Wow, if this all pans out that would be amazing.' Maybe I had misjudged it after all, Paul Wellstone called it dual victories in the war on terror, the fact that we could take out Saddam and restart the peace process. But it never happened. It never panned out. From that moment on it was just a series of bad decisions and blunders. And we lost any chance for success.
So, five years later, we are still in Iraq. And it seems that, until President Bush leaves office, we will remain there. What does the U.S. need to do in order to facilitate an end to the war?
We need to have stronger efforts on peace negotiations. I also believe that the six countries that share a border with Iraq - Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Iran, Kuwait - those are the key countries if we want to get this thing resolved. They share a border with Iraq. They know the Iraqis. Two of them, people say, shouldn't be at the table - Syria and Iran. But we need to make stronger efforts to get them to share responsibilities if we want to end this war.
It seems as if the war has become almost an accepted reality for the American public. We are not shocked by news of deaths. And in some voter surveys, Iraq registers as the third most important issue.
With no draft it is almost like this is somebody else's war. But when the violence spikes [they pay attention]. And Vietnam is still fresh in people's minds. Yes, the war is down on page 8 [of the paper]. But now with the economy softening, I do think that people will make the connection. They will look at all these proposals and say: 'How the heck can we afford these things.' And they will look at how much money we are spending on the war.
Will our society be divided by this war even after it ends? Will the political and social fault lines be drawn around Iraq - much like they were, in the 80s and 90s around Vietnam?
The president still gets that standing ovation by saying it is the right thing to do. Yeah, that is a different crowd from the rest of America. And it is tied into continued fear about terrorism. So, yes, the potential is there for this battle to be waged for a long time.
______________________________________
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