At Long Last

I have avoided writing anything for quite some time because it felt like everything to say had already been said. When everybody is opining about what will transpire, how it will transpire and everything in between – there leaves little room for the punditry of an amateur. Now that all is said and done, I feel the need to reflect on this monumental election (especially since Senator Obama has emerged victorious). This is without question a sea-change in the American political landscape and a referendum, not only on the Republican Party, but all in which it stands for. I would like to think that a considerable number of citizens have finally seen the light, in that the GOP is just that: old (and really, not so grand). The only thing grand about that party is the degree that is has managed to impede and retard the progress necessary in restoring this country to some semblance of its former (pre-Reagan Revolution) self. The so-called Reagan/Thatcher model of governance has proven itself to be an abject failure time and time again and I implore that we as a nation are never subjected to this madness again. To be sure, there still remains some semblance of an influential constituency that believes strongly in the principles of further empowering the wealthy at the expense of the not wealthy, and all that this entails. There will always be ideologues such as these, but the same people who volunteered/voted for and put their faith in Barack Obama must continue to make bold statements such as this. As President-Elect Obama said, his victory is not the end but merely the beginning…

http://pinocchiopolitics.org/

Incomplete Letter to a Maverick

Dear Senator John Sydney McCain III (R-AZ):

Were I in your extraordinarily unenviable position, I would keep my fake campaign fake suspended and simply admit to the American people once and for all that this campaign has been a sham of epic proportions and I would apologize profusely for so blatantly presuming that a large enough majority of Americans are so stupid as to not see through your every transparent move. Your campaign slogan would be entirely more credible if it read “My Pathetic Campaign First”. If you really wanted to put your Country First, you might have stayed the hell away from Washington [Thursday] when it was made infinitely clear there was no need nor desire for you to be anywhere near the beltway. You might have also considered ACTUALLY suspending your campaign like you said you would – this goes to the point of thinking the American people are stupid, see... It is not hard to find out if you are still running TV ads, still running operations at campaign offices across the country, still making political speeches on your own behalf. In the end, there was really no point in doing so, since you made absolutely no positive contributions to the proposed bailout legislation, in fact causing the GOP to fracture at the seams. The whole will he or won’t he show up for the debate charade was capital “P”athetic (not exactly very honorable in my estimation, mavericky perhaps, but not in a good way). Where’s the straight talk, Senator? My friend? Your performance in the debate was commendable, considering how low you set the bar for yourself. Yet you continued to mischaracterize and outright lie about your opponent’s positions and past actions (not exactly very honorable). You talked down to him and continually stated he did not understand or was too naïve, You presented absolutely no ideas for the future, only murmurings of the past.

P.S. I have stated throughout this general election campaign that if Barack Obama were to make just one of the numerous gaffes, ploys, misstatements, lies, cover-ups, campaign shakeups, etc. that have been the trademark of this McCain campaign, the junior Senator from Illinois would be dead in the water.

I obviously have not written anything in quite some time – namely because I haven’t had much, if anything, to add to the widespread political discourse. Frankly, I do not want to write about Sarah Palin, as that campaign is desperate to draw attention away from their lethargic, uninspiring, lackluster presidential candidate, John McCain. To be sure, Palin is a very cruel joke being perpetrated upon the American people by the same folks that brought us this gem of a current presidency, and while it may seem cute and funny at first, I hope people will wake up and realize this is no laughing matter. This woman is a minor league ballplayer being called up to pitch the seventh game of the World Series. She has demonstrably little-to-no knowledge of current events outside her great state of Alaska. She is a Christian fundamentalist who at best blurs the line between separation of church and state, has supported a party in Alaska that wishes to secede from the union, is currently under investigation in her great state for abuse of power, and she didn’t even support John McCain in the primaries to boot (she hearted Huckabee, I believe). I’m sorry – I said I didn’t want to talk about her, but look what happens at the mere mention of her name! The diatribe doth floweth like a mighty Alaskan river.

Up until the most recent, shocking developments in the financial world, John McCain had been riding a wave of scurrilous and deliberate lies, deceptions, misstatements, mischaracterizations and lies (I’m aware I said that twice) that was bound to carry him right into the Oval Office. This still remains a distinct possibility, but the press has been surprisingly calling the campaign, both McCain and Palin alike, on their numerous mistruths; perhaps most hilarious – their lying about the attendance at candidates’ speeches. Oh, another humdinger is the one Palin keeps spouting about how her teleprompter malfunctioned at the RNC. We won’t mention the bridge to nowhere (apparently there were actually TWO of ‘em!), or the fact that Alaska receives more government pork per capita than any other state in the union, which she wishes to secede from. That being the case, it would seem foolish for a candidate to run on a platform of reform and anti-pork barrel spending (“thanks but no thanks, etc., etc…”). I guess I can now understand why Palin has gotten so much attention – there’s just sooo much gold out there to be dug up! It is also my understanding that much like Bush (in both Texas and the Union), Palin has taken budget surpluses in Alaska and turned them into rather staggering deficits. I also loved how sure of herself she was when answering Charlie Gibson’s questions, even when she is so clueless and wrong it seemed like Gibson was about rap her hands with a ruler. It has also been reported that while she continually touts being the mother of a ‘special needs’ child (her son has Down’s syndrome) on the campaign trail, she eliminated $275,000.00 from her state’s budget that was supposed to support the… you guessed it: Special Olympics. I’m sure I have only scratched the surface, and this is only Palin! McCain is a walking, talking gasbag of contradictions, flip flops and I’ll say it yet again, lies. His position on the economy has been steadfast over the past twenty-six years: deregulate, deregulate, deregulate – Keating Five, Savings & Loan debacle anyone?! But now the maverick is all of a sudden all about supposedly regulating the very same financial companies so many of his own campaign worker/lobbyists are working for! So we can believe McCain just about as much that he’ll reform Wall St. that he’ll be fair and impartial when handling matters in the Caucasus (his chief foreign advisor is a lobbyist for Georgia). Wasn’t he supposed to have kicked out all those pesky lobbyists from his campaign staff many moons ago when it was determined to be more than slightly politically inopportune?

Regardless of what goes down on the campaign trail over the next fifty or so days, it has continually been overlooked that in many states (and Districts of Columbia) there are still electronic voting machines that continually fudge the results, not to mention a new push by Michigan Republicans (among other state parties, no doubt) to cage voters, only this time by exploiting the mounting foreclosures in that particular state – challenging votes due to the registration address no longer being the actual residence (á la Karl Rove protégé Tim Griffin and co.). Stay classy, GOP, stay classy.

Georgia On My Mind

Do not be surprised if the conflict in Georgia is dragged out on into November, for while this “October Surprise” may have occurred in August, it is entirely plausible that feet will be dragged and more sabers will be rattled for the next two months. Remarkably, despite being generally incoherent, intentionally belligerent and all the while running one of the most poorly organized and ill coordinated campaigns in recent memory, John McCain remains within striking distance of Barack Obama. The McCain campaign seems to have gambled on and won their wager that the American people for the most part would not pay much attention to his fledgling campaign until the fall, when perhaps it might actually buckle down and stay on message. This can already be seen in McCain honing his relentless attacks on Obama’s patriotism (that is, lack thereof), and how Obama wants the US to “lose” in Iraq, essentially entailing treason.

It was unfortunate that Obama was essentially forced into participation at Rick Warren’s mega-church, mega-presidential forum or whatever over the weekend – religion has not exactly been his friend this campaign cycle, what with it being insinuated that he’s a Muslim and his ties to Rev. Wright and Father Pfleger, etc. etc. I didn’t watch the event but I did happen to catch Warren tossing McCain softball, Larry King-style questions: “What is your definition of marriage?” (Union between only man and woman… applause) “What is your position on abortion?” (It should be outlawed… applause) The best was when McCain managed to tie together his devout belief in Christ to his POW experience in ‘Nam; anything to summon the good old POW days.

Dr. Strangelove-McCain

Everybody knows by now that whenever some international conflict occurs, either at home or abroad, a Republican gets his wings. Unfortunately, the war between Georgia and Russia is no different, and John McCain can already be heard from the mountaintops excoriating the former Red Menace and rattling sabers a la Dick Cheney. This plays so well to McCain’s advantage for many other reasons, for one this is at least a familiar adversary to him; it’s not as hard as trying to remember Sunni from Shiite from Kurd from whomever brown people the US happens to be decimating at any given moment. His tough talking about the Ruskies hearkens back to the glorious time when the US was actually a respected superpower, not just some mere hollowed out shell of one. No one seems to be able to put together that McCain has the exact same policies, if not even more bellicose and fascist rhetoric than Bush-Cheney, many only see this seemingly affable old maverick, war hero, POW of a senator who couldn’t possibly be any worse than Bush-Cheney… Right?... Right?! It is assumed that because he was in the military, he must have an extraordinary grasp on National Security, Foreign Affairs and the sort. This has time and time again proven to be demonstrably false. I fear Mark Penn was right in those leaked memos and e-mails from his time with the Clinton campaign; it may not be until 2050 that a candidate like Obama is truly viable and given the same “fair shake” as a candidate like McCain.

Bayh, Bayh, Obama Bayh Bayh?

http://koulflo.wordpress.com/2008/08/05/obama-bayh-08-on-wednesday/#comment-357

When most pundits offer up their opinion regarding the fall election, I barely look once much less twice. However when a highly regarded astrophysicist predicts that McCain will beat Obama, but would lose to Clinton, it makes me just a tad nervous.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/06/opinion/06tyson.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Neil+DeGrasse+Tyson&st=nyt&oref=slogin

A considerable amount of the criteria employed is based upon a large cross-sample of polls and prior Electoral College results, which seem rather fallible yet correctly predicted the results in 49 of the 50 states in 2004. It seems so very improbable to anyone who is actually familiar with the candidates, their policies, their sanity, etc. Yet it makes a great deal of sense considering how significant a number of Americans have simply not progressed enough socially to vote for a black man named Barack Hussein Obama. Even if his name were Joe Simpson Smith, he would still have a difficult time picking up votes from people who probably thought twice about voting for a Vice President named “Lieberman”. The mistake the Democrats continue to make every four years is that they actually have to get back into the White House (or Uncle Barack’s Cabin, according to a German newspaper) again before they can continue down the progressive path of equality; unfortunately both cannot likely be accomplished at once. No matter how dire the situation in America gets, the Republicans can always rely upon a substantial number of voters to make their decision based upon non-substantive matters. Thus no matter how incoherent, inconsistent and insane John McCain really and truly is, he’s an old white guy-war hero that sounds like he knows what he’s talking about and most importantly, he ISN’T an elitist Muslim terrorist.

Similar to my mentioning Scott McClellan’s memoir months before all the hoopla, I also posted a video clip of Rev. Michael Pfleger going toe to toe with some hack from Fox/Faux News attempting to demonize Rev. Jeremiah Wright and by proxy, Barack Obama. Something that must be considered is who exactly benefits from more of Obama’s “Pastor Problems,” which puts both Hillary Clinton and John McCain in the same boat (again). I was contemplating just the other day how if Obama’s campaign wanted to go eye for an eye with Clinton, they would hint at Hillary’s ties to “The Family” – a super scary Christian Political group that wields enormous influence in Washington and use that as another example of how closely tied she is to the Washington inner-workings and how Obama is not. What we are witnessing, though, is as clear cut of an example why religion and politics do not and should not mix. Any politics that take place in a religion should stay within the religion and not seep in to the already murky world of politics. That being said, I do think this is problematic for Obama regardless of the fact it really shouldn’t be. There are considerable numbers of voters in the US and all around the world, for that matter, to whom it is of infinite importance where one chooses to worship his God. If the house of worship in question is considered to be radical, or in any way varying considerably from the accepted religious mainstream, the offending worshipper/politician will likely be called to task. Obviously, the timing of Father Pfleger’s sermon being revealed is especially damaging considering the potentially decisive and hopefully conclusive events upcoming in the Democratic Party schedule.

Really Nice, Hillary

Yet another reason why this Primary needs to come to a close..



This is a very disturbing trend that began with Hillary making the same comment in early March, but since it was in writing nobody paid a great deal of attention (remember, if it doesn't happen on TV - it didn't really happen). Next came Mike Huckleberry-bee at the NRA convention and now this again.

Endgame

When I play chess, I am generally quite proficient at drawing the game out to a point that would be considered the “end game”. It is almost without fail at this point when blunders start to occur and the game ultimately slips between my fingers, inevitably followed by an angry tirade. The Democratic Primary has reached the end game and Barack Obama has performed more or less masterfully up until this point. He and his campaign just don’t seem to be able to get that elusive checkmate, much less a resignation. Obama is correct when he says the nomination is within reach, which is why it would be so much more devastating if he were to let said nomination slip away. Hillary Clinton, who seems to lose a little more touch with reality every day (e.g. Florida & Michigan = Civil Rights & Suffrage), has made it clear that she will take this fight to the convention – essentially a Mutually Assured Destruction, making the issue all the more pressing for Obama. He absolutely must get his cache of super-delegates to reveal themselves before it’s too late, i.e. Denver in August. It has been said all along that the most important matter for the Democrats is to get themselves an opponent against John McCain and since Hillary has made it abundantly clear she is far more interested in her possible presidency than a potential Democratic one, this should be the cue for super-delegates to begin the painful process of ushering her out the door. Hillary knows all too well that Democrats are painfully civil and will avoid dropping the hammer at all costs, which is one of the primary (pun intended) reasons she has been permitted to make such a fool of herself. Another being that she is a Clinton, and Clintons hold way too much sway (and swagger) within the party to simply bow out gracefully. For this same reason, Obama must not let this content go to Denver, where any number of Clintonian strings can be pulled. No, the time is now; Obama says he wants change and this is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate his willingness to induce the changing of the guard. Make Florida and Michigan a moot point, brandish those super-delegates like a knife in the knife fight this primary has been.

Coming Soon, To A Town Hall Near You!!

I have been known to be grossly mistaken, but the prospect of a series of McCain-Obama town hall-style debates on its face seems like it would stand to benefit Obama immensely. One would think that the McCain campaign would want nothing to do with literal face-to-face confrontations, I mean look at their faces! Perhaps this is mere fantasy, but I could very easily see Obama running rhetorical and oratorical circles around McCain, at which point Senator Bomb Bomb might just try and deck his opponent. McCain is a ticking time-bomb and if his campaign knows anything about anything, I would hope for their sake that the good Senator is undergoing some serious psychoanalysis. To reference Seinfeld, I’m not talking about seeing a therapist once a week; I’m talking about going to Vienna and being constantly monitored around the clock. Even then, I still believe there is a strong possibility of him short-circuiting and reverting back to being a P.O.W. in Hanoi. I’m not trying to make light of McCain’s rather serious psychological problems (and then of course, there’s also the age problem), I’m merely trying to illustrate just what a dangerous individual he is and subsequently how even more dangerous he would be in an office of the oval variety. McCain obviously has the gift of gab and what I imagine is a very commanding martial presence, yet if a Pepsi challenge is going to be made of this contest – I simply can’t foresee people thinking McCain tastes better.

More on McCain… He is now attempting, a) to distance himself from Bush and b) to make it seem as though he is Mr. Environmentally friendly by asserting his ‘belief’ that greenhouse gas emissions must be limited, yet out of all the 450+ legislators in the House and Senate, he ranked dead last in 2007 according to the League of Conservation Voters' National Environmental Scorecard (see page 14).
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200802/NAT20080229a.html
I don’t like the concept of “cap and trade” either, although I’m aware that all three candidates are in favor of it. I realize that a certain degree of pandering to the corporations is necessary to stay financially competitive in these campaigns, although Obama has generated an astonishing amount of small contributions, yet there is no longer any time to be permitting unabashed polluters to continue chipping away at our fragile environment.

I’m happy to say that The New York Times at least alluded to McCain’s “mixed record,” but for virtually every single issue McCain raises, he has at one point said one thing and done the exact opposite and this must continue to be driven home. The man is NOT the maverick, straight-talkin’ sonuva gun he says he is and there is ample evidence to back that up. If Clinton is going to stay in this race, she must join forces with Obama and they must expose these blatant canards. Howard Dean and the DNC can’t do it all by themselves; there are two Democrats in the spotlight and they have every opportunity to try and keep knocking McCain off his high horse.

Where It's At

I began writing this post on Tuesday and obviously much has changed since then... or has it?

"Frankly, I am flummoxed by this Clintonian argument that the Michigan and Florida primaries should be counted as is (Also Known As the so-called “Nuclear Option”). Hillary and her supporters have consistently made the argument that Obama is out to deliberately disenfranchise the voters in these two states, yet these voters were already disenfranchised to begin with when their respective state legislatures foolishly and flagrantly decided to move their primary dates earlier."

Earlier today, an open letter surfaced from Senator Clinton regarding this exact same matter.

The same blogger, M.S. Bellows, Jr., who cites this letter proceeded to write a dead-on analysis of exactly where this primary campaign is at this point titled Clinton's Hail Mary.

Thank You, Senator Kerry!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/30/kerry-rips-msnbc-on-wrigh_n_99491.html

http://Bush-McCainChallenge.com/?rc=challenge-friends&r_id=12556-7947518-P4YlPw

http://www.moveon.org/

Reverend Who?!

It is truly disheartening, albeit not at all surprising, that the corporate media continues to make a mountain out of Barack Obama’s former pastor, whose name I refuse to mention. I am a big fan of Bill Moyers and his Journal, which airs Fridays on PBS and thusly thought he did a fine job of giving a certain aforementioned Reverend a typically eloquent forum where he could finally clear the air and give his side of the story. Perhaps his Journal appearance went straight to his head; for there he was merely a few days later spouting off, only not so eloquently, on his own terms minus the calm and cool Bill Moyers to moderate and mediate.
Obama said what he had to say about the matter and that should be that, but upon leafing through The New York Times this morning – I saw not one, nor two, but THREE stories either about said Reverend or alluding to his impact on Obama’s campaign. I come to expect this, even of the Times, but repeatedly overhyping such non-policy related stories is unfortunate nonetheless as it necessarily detracts from considerably more substantive issues being addressed.
It is likewise demonstrative of how the same attention and over-magnification is not paid to individuals related to the other candidates that utter considerably more inflammatory and insensitive statements. I have written of John McCain and his ties to various bigoted Christian righties, along with the ‘gentleman’ who referred to Obama as the ‘Tiger Woods candidate’. But outside of Countdown I hear little to no mention of Hillary Clinton’s most recent endorsers respectively saying she makes the fictional Rocky Balboa look like a pansy and that (supposedly unlike other Democratic candidates) she possesses ‘testicular fortitude’.
For some reason, both McCain and Clinton are able to rather easily dismiss the misstatements of their supporters as ‘not their own’ – yet Obama gets repeatedly nailed. I am also reminded of when so much hay was made over Obama supposedly wanting to bomb Pakistan (just the regions were Al Qaeda is known to be hiding, actually), and G.I. Hillary talks about decimating Iran! He is much too savvy to publicly imply that this discrepancy is somehow race-related, but race certainly has something to do with it.
It is considerably easier for the media to report on something that is intriguing, which a majority of citizens are bound not to understand first hand, as a majority of Americans are not black. In the end, this nonsense truly does not have any bearing at all on what kind of President Mr. Obama would be; a really rather good one I believe.

Clinton, McCain, Obama & John Adams

While watching the Pennsylvania Primary Pregame (how’s THAT for alliteration!) on MSNBC, I found it commendable that since the two Democratic candidates have shown little to no desire to attack McCain, the DNC (Democratic National Committee) chose to run a hard-hitting ad that nailed many of John McCain’s talking points (very effectively using his very own words & voice) as counter-intuitive and essentially ludicrous. On a side note, I also like that The Nation is now advertising on MSNBC, as well! After viewing the aforementioned ad, I very nearly made a beeline to the computer to donate money to the DNC; unfortunately I have not the funds to do so at this point in time. Anti-McCain ads are good, very good in fact. It would obviously be even better if the attacks came from either Dem candidate, but we take what we can get at this stage in the game.



According to Howard Dean, head of the DNC, the ever-elusive Florida and Michigan delegates will be seated somehow by the end of June. This being the case, a halt must be called to the continuing Obama-Clinton bloodbath, for there is nothing that can be said or done before then that will be ultimately determinative. As I, and many other more prominent pundits, have stated before – these candidates would be doing themselves a great service if the two tag-teamed McCain until this is all settled (after all, the three of them had spots before a WWF wrestling match). The DNC ad touched on so many valid points and there are certainly more where those came from, thus it is almost a little scary to think of how much damage the two of them could inflict on McCain if they just got their priorities straightened.

This really does all come back to Hillary though, because she knows the only way she has a shot at pulling this out is if she continues tearing down Obama. After watching the conclusion of the HBO miniseries John Adams, it occurred to me that his example should be followed in that his ultimate concern was doing what is best for the country, not his party nor his own personal popularity. Clinton abiding by these guidelines would benefit both the party and in the long run, the country; yet I fear Hillary Rodham Clinton is no John Adams. The shining achievement of Mr. Adams’ presidency was his ability to prevent getting drawn in militarily to the ongoing struggle between France and England, despite the fact that military action would likely have bolstered his reelection campaign. We now live in an age where party politics most always trumps allegiance to country and we are at present on a fast track to yet another war that would seemingly benefit the Republican Party, particularly their candidate. The American people do not want another war. John McCain has explicitly said: “There’s gonna be more wars, sorry to tell ya this…” If the American people elect John McCain, or allow Republicans to get away with more electoral tomfoolery that would usher in the ‘President Bomb Bomb’ era, there will indeed be more wars – that is, if more wars have not already been started by President Dumb Dumb. The Democrats must convey this message and stop their petty bickering; in the long run it will most assuredly make up for not wearing a flag pin.

Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Bitter

The most recent attacks on Senator Obama certainly seem to highlight how much hot water one can find oneself in if he dares to speak truth to power. First, it was the harsh criticism of Obama’s longtime minister, Rev. Wright, for preaching a message regarding American History that while inconvenient, is quite true. Now Obama himself is being attacked for saying something that is essentially true, but likewise politically inconvenient: “it’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” There is nothing in this statement that is not in some regards true, but because the passage came from an intelligent, well-spoken black man, it is considered to be demonstrative of his elitism. If John McCain said that exact same quote, he would be LAUDED for being such a straight-talkin’ maverick, who isn’t afraid to tell it like it is.

Senator Bomb Bomb