The election is a long way off. There are always lots of twists and unexpected turns. Who knows what can occur over the next while. Its not over till its not even part way started

Adam,

Were you listening to Hassidim singing MashiaH! MashiaH! when you wrote this? Like the good Jewish boy you are, you write about redemption - not salvation. No matter how hard you run, you can't get away from the peyelekh and the tzitzis, can you?

I actually enjoyed reading this. It even made sense. But there will be no redemption for America. Nothing personal. It just ain't gonna happen. It may be that Obama makes the girls sing, and he may even be elected. And if he has the sense not to put Hillary on as VP, he may even live for a while as president....

But forget redemption, kid. This guy ain't gonna' be more than another pretty face with a lot of nasty goons surrounding him.

So when he ran again for governor, the Clintons made sure to vanish right up Tyson's sphincter, and won back the office they'd lost.

Best line in the article, Adam. But if it had been me writing about the chicken man Tyson, I would have written made sure to vanish right up Tyson's cloaca.... Would have given the chickeny, barnyard feeling of the whole thing....

Good rant, AA. You've got it right. Hillary is completely baffled. Perhaps some of that Dimestore Evangelism has rubbed off on her and she thinks she's the next messiah and attaining power justifies anything.

Once again, Nalle illustrates his ignorance "While I think you're still clinically insane...".

Obama held a Political speech yesterday, flags and all, to basically blame his own campaign problems that are associated with his mentor Rev. Wright, spewing slurs on whites and other ethnic groups and Anti-American hate. He never answers why he stayed for 20 years! And why he takes his children to this church to now raise a new generation, his OWN children, with these slurs on race and Anti America. He will never win..pant suit or dress!

PMC...

"why he takes his children to this church to now raise a new generation, his OWN children, with these slurs on race and Anti America"

Simple answer because this is what he believes, it is his religion.

JOM

That's right it's America's fault for having the "audacity" to question a man running for the highgest office in the land who is asking us for our vote.

If Obama was a white guy who for the past twenty years had been attending a church where the pastor just happened to be some crazy white guy who was fond of making racist remarks about black people and who was also fond of spouting whacked out conspiracy theories about the government and our American society we would all be reading his political obituary written in every major newspaper today.


Throw in some political correctness and a health dose of inane liberal white guilt and we get the circus we bore witness to yesterday.

If you're a white person who doesn't feel guilty about America's past and intend to manifest this guilt by voting for Obama you just don't have a clue.

Screw that. Most normal Americans will see through this bullshit and tell Osama Obama to go fuck himself.

He's done.

The racists left in our country won't vote for Obama, but every sensible person who wants a change from the Bush-Cheney disaster will.

Obama will bury John McCain in the general election. The two will stand side by side, and it will be very clear to anyone with half a brain that the old doddering white-haired geezer is the past and the bright young inspiring guy is the future.

The GOP and McCain are toast. America is at last set for a progressive agenda, probably for the next 16 years, after which the Democrats will be so corrupt the country will change back to a GOP which will need at last 16 years to put itself back together again.

Adam Ash

This election is very interesting from the standpoint of nobody can call what is going on here. It is anyone's game at this point.

The interesting thing is that 'change' is the catch phrase. I think the change is starting with the voters and I think we will see a swell of a few different demographics making a statement. The change is a step ahead of the candidates.

Anyway, I know who I am for (Hillary) and will just let the smoke clear and see who crosses home plate in the final inning.

best,
DM

Obama is cool and all (especially next to Hillary) but to stipulate he stands for progressive thought is odd. In some way he does represent the chance for progress but who gets to determine what this entails? Why does he get a free pass to this; because he's eloquent?

His policies and ideas are "static." As for that "old geezer," perhaps he is, but he IS a war hero. This counts for something one can argue. It cuts right through to the core of his character. Character over articulate musings can prevail. But I can't vote so I should shut up.

I've often wondered who owns the word "progressive."

The racists left in our country won't vote for Obama, but every sensible person who wants a change from the Bush-Cheney disaster will.

The catch is that most of those racists are in the Democratic party and a lot of Obama's supporters in the primary were crossover Republicans who will swing back to McCain in the general election.

Dave

Liked the article very much. Too bad it ended up an advertisement for your song. I disagree that Hillary should have run touting her femaleness. That, too, would have been devisive. But you are right on regarding her moral failings. I pray America sees the gift we have before us in Obama. YES WE CAN!!

I was watching the Obama speech while prepping the "I Am Legend" DVD for later viewing and transferring some Miles Davis to my Palm, reading that Al Young is the new poet Laureate, and suddenly I realized:

Black is the new White!

bliffle,

I keep my Miles (and other jazz - a particular favorite: Ben Webster) on my iPod.

My all time favorite Miles album is an oldie: Kind of Blue. Not only Miles himself, but the rest of the personnel on that album are also favorites in their own right; especially Bill Evans.

Throw in some political correctness and a health dose of inane liberal white guilt and we get the circus we bore witness to yesterday.

If you're a white person who doesn't feel guilty about America's past and intend to manifest this guilt by voting for Obama you just don't have a clue.

Bing, I was going to tell you to wait till you saw how some poll numbers came out before you made pronouncements - but then I remembered that lots of voters are dealing out their opinions from the bottom of the deck. Heck, the rubes ain't playin' the game anymore; they're a lot harder to read now.

So, the whole thing is up in the air.

There is one point, though. If people are posting songs about Obama without his prompting, he's reaching them. Music reaches down into the soul, Bing. Deep down.

Those darn people have been nagging us for years, for Civil Rights, for Equal Opportunity. Nag, nag, nag. Seems like all they do is nag. Just because they've got the best music, best athletes, best poets, best dentists, you'd think they'd be happy! But nooooo. Now they want the Best President, too. After 400 years of our kindly demonstrations that We are superior and They are inferior you'd think those darn naggers would get the idea.

The racists left in our country won't vote for Obama, but every sensible person who wants a change from the Bush-Cheney disaster will.

Typical leftist tripe.

I guess by that logic the reason i didn't vote for Kerry in 2004 is because I'm racist toward white people.

If ignorance is bliss why are all of the leftists so angry?

Uh, biffle, re: #16...is that really you speakin' like that? mean, sure, one reason the tension is still around is that segregation was still around since the early 60s. I was in 1st grade at the time... Not that long ago as far as social history goes...at the same time, long enuf to let the smoke clear...but there are those who were around then, still living now and remember...

ANYWAY, my point is that the way this whole race thing is being played up. Obama is whiter than Tiger Woods. Very fair skinned.

If he was as black as Kunta Kinte (sp?), he would not even be in the game.

ugh,
DM

most of those racists are in the Democratic party and a lot of Obama's supporters in the primary were crossover Republicans who will swing back to McCain in the general election.

More nonsense from the Nalle file. The number of crossover Republicans in the primaries is not entirely known, but it's not enough to swing an election in the fall. And quite a few of those folks actually like and support the guy...what makes you so sure they'll switch back?

Obama has nearly 8 months to work his charm on the working class Catholic whites who have mostly been supporting HRC. More amazing speeches like yesterday's could do it. Current polls have him beating McCain in Ohio, but either HRC or Obama losing Florida in the fall, albeit narrowly. Ohio and Pennsylvania are Reagan-Democrat territory, but they will be up for grabs in this election.

Much can change in 7-1/2 months. But most people who hear Barack speak like him. A lot. Don't "misunderestimate" the importance of that.

And if the economy is still bad [it usually takes a while for those perceptions to change], and Obama is able to debate McCain effectively on Iraq [as he already has been doing], there is no way the Republicans will win. He doesn't have to convince you, just normal people.

Adam,

You zeroed in again.

I however think that part of Hillary's problem is that she is playing the game to hard. Come to think of it perhaps you are saying the same thing.

She is obvious. The platitudes of the CEO worshiping, type A era are now flat. She is still stuck in that world. In my career, statements like "I'll make it happen" rule(d). Whether the evidence exists that whatever endeavor is plausible is never the point, it's just that one must sound as if they are capable. It is the mastery of this non-speak that illuminates the cream of the crop. Silver tongued incompetents rise to the top and we end up with ENRON and Bear Stearns (CEO playing bridge while Rome burns).

The Clintons matured during Regan's time. They learned a huge lesson, "It's the cocky platitudes stupid".

The article, and most of the comments posted concerning it, are disappointing.

Had the article been set to rap "music," it might have been entertaining. It wasn't, and it isn't. I will ignore the attacks on President Bush (who, by the way, is not running for office) as irrelevant tripe. It would be fun to counter them, but it is not worth the effort. All I will say is that adjectives must very inexpensive, and to paraphrase Mark Twain, Truth is very dear and must, therefore, be used sparingly.

I will also ignore the article's comparisons between Senator Clinton and Senator Obama -- most of which would be relevant to a vote for the "Queen for a Day" or the "Survivor," except to note that tactics (as distinguished from strategy) during a political campaign have very little to do with the subsequent performance of the winner.

Having said that, permit me to make my present intentions clear: I would never vote for Senator Clinton, even if all the angels in Heaven were to rest upon her shoulder and proclaim her a saint. I might vote for Senator Obama, and I might vote for Senator McCain. I will decide that question once they have done combat.

What is most disturbing are the comments on Senator Obama's 18 March address on racism in America. Had I simply read the short sound bites concerning the speech and the short snippets of his preacher's hate filled monologues, I would probably have agreed with many of those comments. Senator Obama said something quite similar about his preacher's diatribes -- if all he knew were what was poorly sketched in the press, he would not only disavow and disparage his preacher's comments, he would disown him. Obama went on to say that while he strongly disagreed the the preacher's wrong headed, harmful and divisive racist diatribes, there was more to the man than that. Having read the entire Obama speech, I can only conclude that most of the comments here are based solely on short sound bites and preconceptions reinforced by them.

Read the entire 18 March speech. Think about what he says. There IS a racial divide in the U.S., and it is harmful to all of us. Obama is the first politician I have heard acknowledge this problem articulately, and to acknowledge that the blame lies on both whites and blacks; he may have hurt himself tactically or even strategically by doing so. But read the entire speech. Please. This is too important to rely solely on press snippets.

Dan Miller

Good comment, Dan, especially about the speech. It was a hell of a good oration, and may wind up being the final nail in HRC's coffin.

More nonsense from the Nalle file. The number of crossover Republicans in the primaries is not entirely known, but it's not enough to swing an election in the fall. And quite a few of those folks actually like and support the guy...what makes you so sure they'll switch back?

Hell, I like Obama. So? There has to come a point in this election when issues begin to get discussed and once you get past the rhetoric and the oratory, Obama's extreme socialist beliefs aren't going to be acceptable to moderates much less anyone who isn't in the GOP by pure accident.

Dave

"There has to come a point in this election when issues begin to get discussed and once you get past the rhetoric and the oratory, Obama's extreme socialist beliefs"


Dave....stare into the spinning pinwheel I have in my hand for a moment.....

Change..... vision....... Obama...... yes we can....hope...... change you can believe in.....you want to vote for Barack Obama.......change............audacity of hope.......you're excited by Barack Obama's vision for change...........si se puede........change......you will vote for Barack Obama......change........pay no attention to the crazy pastor behind the curtain....hope.......Barack Obama will bring about racial harmony and world peace.....change......hope......Obama

That oughta work. He's shown before that he can be hypnotized by bright shiny objects.

Yeah Nalle and the Osama Obama Lemings.

Nothing's shinier than an emtpy platitude one word catch phrase during an election season.

Hope.

Change.

No thanks.

Ugh! Well, the drummer of a punk rock band I was putting on stage last month said it well. Their singer was really drunk.

He said she was "Obomba'd"

Yeah, it seems like the politics of it all has us obomba'd...

we'll just see how the game plays out.

what is real, what is illusion? They don't even know...

DM

@ #24:

Contrary to any previous impression one might have gotten, apparently Arch does have a sense of humor.

Dave re post 23

The socialism to which you refer in my opinion has nothing to do with the left per se. That is just how it appears to the un-informed. Both the left and the right are controlled by EXACTLY the same people, bar none. That is what you fail to see. You think the socialist battle is being fought between mules and elephants of various hues. It is not, the same people that control Bush's cabinet, will control Obama's or Hilary's. It is ONE big happy family, as shown by elder Bush's bosom buddy relationship with Clinton.

I do however think that you and I put different labels on it. You call it socialism, I call it the New World Order. In either case it represents totalitarianism, I think you would agree.

The whole purpose of the left/right paradigm is to keep people separated politically while the sharks eat the fish. I am surprised you do not see this, and continue to sit on your "right" side of the fence.

Dan Miller,

Why won't you vote for Clinton.

You were quite vocal about your thoughts on this author's assessment on why Clinton is wrong for this moment. Why do you think she is not good for the job?

Zedd, yeah, I vote for Hillary also. The problem is that Obama is a guy...black or white, he still is male...

Good question, Zedd

Part of it is plain old fashioned gut feeling:

"I do not like thee, Doctor Fell.
The reason why, I cannot tell.
But this I know and know full well,
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell."

I do not like her, I do not trust her, and I do not want another round of the "Clinton Team" in the White House.

However, it goes beyond mere gut feeling and visceral distaste. I acknowledge that my gut feelings and visceral distaste color my views, but that is a common failing.

Having watched how incompetently Senator Clinton's campaign has been run, I think she would be an incompetent executive. Strategic and tactical blunders have continued from "day one," due to flattering but erroneous initial perceptions of her inevitable success as nominee. Her campaign staff appear to have been consistently out of touch with themselves and with reality, and to some extent with Senator Clinton as well. The in-fighting has been remarkable. The President needs to have consummate management skills, and Senator Clinton seems to lack them. FDR had unusual, but quite effective, management skills which he exercised very well in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. In some cases, he relished in-fighting, but used it as a management tool. Sometimes he intentionally used ambiguously defined areas of responsibility to encourage in- fighting, because he knew that he could control it and use it to produce good results. If Senator Clinton could travel back in time and replace Vice President Truman when FDR died, would she have been "ready on day one" to take over? Vice President Truman did very well, even though he had been kept completely in the dark on many important happenings, e.g., the atomic bomb. I cannot conceive of Senator Clinton doing as well.

Senator Clinton seems to take seriously Mark Twain's sarcastic observation that the truth is very dear, and thus should be used sparingly. I could provide a long list, but won't bother. Here are just a couple: She stoutly proclaimed that she had opposed NAFTA early on. However, that seems to be untrue, based on her recently and reluctantly released schedules. She claimed substantial responsibility for bringing peace to Ireland, but that claim now appears, generously, to have been highly exaggerated. Her other various claims of high level responsibility during President Clinton's time in office now seem to be equally disingenuous. Aside from her botched health care work early during President Clinton's first term -- which might well have presaged her executive abilities more recently demonstrated during the present campaign -- she appears to have functioned as first lady, and little more. Perhaps one day someone will write a scholarly thesis comparing Senator Clinton's time as first lady with that of Eleanor Roosevelt as first lady. Somehow, I think Mrs. Roosevelt would be shown as having been much more active for good than was Senator Clinton. Mrs. Johnson did a very good job as first lady in beautifying Washington D.C. and in other first lady activities; I do not recall anyone suggesting that she would on that account make a good president. I simply do not believe that the truth is in Senator Clinton.

Compromise does not seem to be one of Senator Clinton's strong points. Even if she could grow to be a competent executive, I do not think that she could be effective in her relations with the Congress. For the same reason and others, I think that her foreign policy would be a disaster.

Perhaps none of these perceived defects alone would be disqualifying. All of them put together suggest to me that Senator Clinton would be an incompetent executive and a very poor president.

Dan Miller

I don't think Clintons judgement is good. On 3 occasions (at least) she didn't study the issues and alternatives and solicit information and opinions:

1-the 1993 healthcare plan where she assumed existing healthcare ins. cos. would have to survive intact.

2-the AUMF, when she didn't read the NIE

3-the Iran AUMF, when she didn't read the NIE.

In each case , I believe, instead of investigating and then making a good decision she substituted political advantage for forethought. Pretty cynical. And the irony is that she lost her supporters in each case without securing new supporters. Another mistake in judgement.

Plus, now that I see her campaign, I have further reservations about her judgement since she seems to be taking a Rule Or Ruin approach that may deprive her party of an election win. That's dumb. In office, would she do something contrary to the best interests of the USA just to secure her personal power?

Dan,

Which modern day politicians do you deem honest?

Zedd,

I am afraid that I have come to the conclusion that the phrase "honest politician" is and has long been an oxymoron. While a great president, FDR had his problems with truth and with traditional moral behavior. I understand that when he died, he was in the company of a woman not his wife. President Truman, whose popularity ratings at the end of his term of office were even lower than those of our current president, was a product of the Pendergast machine. His failings notwithstanding, I consider him one of our best presidents, certainly during my lifetime.

The choice, unfortunately, is between lesser evils. In the present contest, my response to your earlier question presents my view that Senator Clinton is the greater evil. I think that, his flaws notwithstanding, Senator Obama is the lesser evil. I sense that he was at least trying, subject to obvious political constraints, to be honest in his racial issues speech. I can't imagine Senator Clinton making a similar effort in any context.

Will I vote for Obama if he is the Democrat nominee? I don't know. I have never voted for a Democrat. This may be the first time. Let's wait and see what happens once Obama and McCain face of in the general election, as I think they will.

Dan Miller

I was thinking just the other day that Obama may not have even been a contender if Ryan did not have to reveal his divorce papers... remember the husband of Jeri Ryan (aka 7 of 9), who divorced him because he wanted to perform sex with her in very public places... well, the papers are made public, Ryan resigns from the campaign, Keyes takes the podium and Obama wins 70% of the vote. Wow, deja vu, all over again.

Didn't similar escapades (i.e. sexual scandle)reduce Bill Clinton's public stature?

Da' rest is history; ain't it the truth? Right Spitzer?

As Jimma' Swaggart used to say "let us pray."

Isnt it curious how the passport story disappeared from the news as soon as it was revealed that the contractors who breached the files were actually working for a company whose CEO is an Obama consultant?
If there was anyone that doubted that the media is in the tank for Obama - this is a clear indication of that fact.

Krutic, the passport story was also stupid and pointless and involved nothing even vaguely controversial much less criminal.

dave