Saturday, May 24, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
Annie Oakley?
Clinton Kennedy Assassination Reference: Raises Bobby's Death To Explain Why She Stays In Race
Hillary Clinton's argument for staying in the race took a disturbing turn today. While meeting with the editorial board of South Dakota's Sioux Falls Argus-Leader, she raised the specter of assassination while discussing why she would stay in the race:
"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it."
The Obama camp has offered the following response to Sen. Clinton's comments:
"Senator Clinton's statement before the Argus Leader editorial board was unfortunate and has no place in this campaign," said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.
The Clinton camp is denying any implications beyond historical comparison in her reference to Bobby Kennedy's assassination:
"She was simply referencing her husband in 1992 and Bobby Kennedy in 1968 as historic examples of the nominating process going well into the summer. Any reading into beyond that would be inaccurate and outrageous."
UPDATE: Sen. Clinton has issued the following apology for her statements, a quick departure from her campaign's initial response:
"Earlier today I was discussing the Democratic primary history and in the course of that discussion mentioned the campaigns that both my husband and Senator Kennedy waged in California in June 1992 and 1968 and I was referencing those to make the point that we have had nomination primary contests that go into June. That's a historic fact.
The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator Kennedy and I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation, and particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive. I certainly had no intention of that, whatsoever. My view is that we have to look to the past and to our leaders who have inspired us and give us a lot to live up to, and I'm honored to hold Senator Kennedy's seat in the United States Senate from the state of New York and have the highest regard for the entire Kennedy family."
Marc Ambinder wonders about the explanation of her Bobby Kennedy reference:
For those who contend that Clinton was referring to competitive contests or example, why didn't she bring up Ted Kennedy in 1980? Or Gary Hart in 1984? I think she was pointing to primary races where the eventual nominee was unknown at this point in the cycle.... But 1984 would apply more, her husband was the de-facto nominee at this point, and the compressed calender really renders such comparisons null and void.
Even if her point is legitimate, surely she is aware of the sensitivity of the subject.
The issue of assassination has been a sensitive one this election. Black voters have repeatedly expressed concern that Barack Obama would be assassinated during the race, sentiment that hearkens back to the murders of civil rights leaders, Bobby Kennedy's assassination included. Reports the Telegraph:
Mr Obama, 46, was given full Secret Service protection last May.
It was the earliest juncture for any presidential candidate since the practice was first introduced following the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy, two months after Dr King died from a shot fired by James Earl Ray, an escaped convict and racist.The prospect of Mr Obama meeting a similar fate is etched deep in the collective psyche of many American blacks, particularly those old enough to remember the events of 1968, who overwhelmingly back the Illinois senator over his rival Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination.
Earlier in the campaign, a Clinton surrogate also raised the issue of assassination, this time with a more direct reference to Obama. The Clinton camp immediately distanced itself from the suggestion:
Today, in Dover, Francine Torge, a former John Edwards supporter, said this while introducing Mrs. Clinton: "Some people compare one of the other candidates to John F. Kennedy. But he was assassinated. And Lyndon Baines Johnson was the one who actually" passed the civil rights legislation....
Phil Singer, a Clinton spokesman said: "We were not aware that this person was going to make those comments and disapprove of them completely. They were totally inappropriate."
Nobel laureate Doris Lessing also raised a stir when she suggested that Obama would be assassinated were he to become president:
Obama, who is vying to become the first black president in US history, "would certainly not last long, a black man in the position of president. They would murder him," Lessing, 88, told the Dagens Nyheter daily.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
WOW! WOW! WOW!
May 18, 2008, 8:01 pm
Obama Draws Record Crowd in Oregon
Barack Obama embraced his daughters and his wife Sunday during a campaign event in Portland, Ore., which drew about 75,000 people. (Photo: Greg Wahl-Stephens/Associated Press)
An estimated 75,000 gathered on the banks of the Willamette River in Portland on Sunday to see Barack Obama.
“Wow! Wow! Wow!” were his first words, as he surveyed the multitude, which included people in kayaks and small pleasure craft on the river.
Tom McCall Waterfront Park in Portland on Sunday. (Photo: Chris Carlson/Associated Press)
It is “fair to say this is the most spectacular setting for the most spectacular crowd” of his campaign, he told the crowd.
Previously, the campaign’s biggest crowd was when the candidate spoke to 35,000 on Independence Mall in Philadelphia.
Obama supporters in Portland on Sunday. (Photo: Chris Carlson/Associated Press)
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Sunday, May 18, 2008
A Day at the Village
Spent a few hours at the Village in Rochester Hills with Jim and Jeff. Star and Rosso came along for the ride as well and ended up getting the majority of attention.
It rained on and off, was a bit windy and cool, but there were some nice sights to warm the day (more of that to follow).
The Village is a manufactured "town", if Mayberry was a shopping mall that is! Still, I DO love consumerism even as I rail against it. What can I say, born and bred American....
Saturday, May 17, 2008
The General Begins
Obama Responds To Bush, McCain Appeasement Attack
MIKE GLOVER | May 16, 2008 11:36 PM EST | 
WATERTOWN, S.D. — Barack Obama laid into John McCain on Friday for advancing a tough-guy foreign policy that he called "naive and irresponsible," serving notice that he's ready to launch a full-throttle challenge to the Republican presidential contender on international relations in the general election campaign.
Lumping McCain together with President Bush, Obama declared: "If they want a debate about protecting the United States of America, that's a debate I'm ready to win because George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for." He blamed Bush for policies that enhance the strength of terrorist groups such as Hamas and "the fact that al-Qaida's leadership is stronger than ever because we took our eye off the ball in Afghanistan," among other failings.
McCain agreed, at least, that there were huge differences between himself and Obama on foreign policy, and said he'd be happy to let the American people decide who was right.
"It would be a wonderful thing if we lived in a world where we don't have enemies. But that's not the world we live in. And until Senator Obama understands that reality, the American people have every reason to doubt whether he has the strength, judgment and determination to keep us safe," McCain said in a speech to the National Rifle Association in Louisville, Ky.
McCain rejected the naive comment, saying Obama should have known better, and added: "Talking, not even with soaring rhetoric, in unconditional meetings with the man who calls Israel 'a stinking corpse,' and arms terrorists who kill Americans, will not convince Iran to give up its nuclear program. It is reckless. It is reckless to suggest that unconditional neetings will advance our interests."
His campaign issued a statement accusing Obama of making a "hysterical diatribe."
The three-way dustup over foreign policy _ Bush vs. Obama vs. McCain _ began a day earlier, when Bush gave a speech to the Israeli Knesset in which he criticized those who believe the United States should negotiate with terrorists and radicals. Obama said Bush's criticism was directed at him, and took umbrage; the White House denied the president had Obama in mind; McCain said Obama must explain why he wants to talk with rogue leaders.
Obama continued the debate on Friday at a town-hall meeting in a livestock barn. He said he had planned to focus on rural issues during his swing through South Dakota, but felt compelled to answer the remarks from Bush and McCain.
"I'm a strong believer in civility and I'm a strong believer in a bipartisan foreign policy, but that cause is not served with dishonest, divisive attacks of the sort that we've seen out of George Bush and John McCain over the last couple days," he said.
Obama said McCain had a "naive and irresponsible belief that tough talk from Washington will somehow cause Iran to give up its nuclear program and support for terrorism."
Speaking of McCain and Bush together, he added: "They aren't telling you the truth. They are trying to fool you and scare you because they can't win a foreign policy debate on the merits. But it's not going to work. Not this time, not this year."
Obama vowed to turn the foreign policy debate back against Bush and McCain, rejecting the notion that Democrats critical of the war in Iraq are vulnerable to charges of being soft on terrorism. Meeting with reporters, he argued that tough-minded diplomacy and engagement with rivals have long coexisted, citing the foreign policies of former Presidents Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan.
"That has been the history of U.S. diplomacy until very recently," Obama said. "I find it puzzling that we view this as in any way controversial. This whole notion of not talking to people, it didn't hold in the '60s, it didn't hold in the '70s ... When Kennedy met with (Soviet leader Nikita) Khrushchev, we were on the brink of nuclear war."
He also noted that Nixon opened talks with China with the knowledge that Chinese leader Mao Zedong "had exterminated millions of people."
Laying down a marker for the fall campaign, Obama offered a challenge to the GOP nominee: "If John McCain wants to meet me anywhere, any time to have a debate about our respective policies ... that is a conversation I am happy to have."
Other Democrats accused McCain of hypocrisy Friday, saying the certain GOP presidential nominee had previously said he would be willing to negotiate with the militant Palestinian group Hamas.
McCain told reporters in West Virginia: "I made it very clear, at that time, before and after, that we will not negotiate with terrorist organizations, that Hamas would have to abandon their terrorism, their advocacy to the extermination of the state of Israel, and be willing to negotiate in a way that recognizes the right of the state of Israel and abandons their terrorist position and advocacy."
McCain said there was a "huge difference" between his own statements and Obama's willingness to negotiate with "sponsors of terrorist organizations."
"I'll let the American people decide whether that's a significant difference or not," he said. "I believe it is."
Obama said he has stated "over and over again that I will not negotiate with terrorists like Hamas."
Obama closed out his campaign day with a noisy rally in Sioux Falls before about 6,500 cheering backers, perhaps showing some of the strain of a long campaign day. "Thank you Sioux City," Obama said, as a roar greeted his entrance. He quickly corrected his reference to a nearby Iowa town.
"I've been in Iowa too long," said Obama, referring to his long campaign to win that state's leadoff caucuses in January.
___
Associated Press writer Glen Johnson in Louisville, Ky., contributed to this report.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Sacrificing for the Nation
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Bush: I Gave Up Golf For The Troops
The Huffington Post | May 13, 2008 06:30 PM
As violence in Iraq continues -- clashes today left 11 dead and 19 injured -- President Bush has for the first time revealed the great sacrifice he's made for the sake of our soldiers: he's given up golf.
From an interview with Politico and Yahoo News:
"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf," he said. "I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."
Bush said he made that decision after the August 2003 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, which killed Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top U.N. official in Iraq and the organization's high commissioner for human rights."I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man's life," he said. "I was playing golf -- I think I was in central Texas -- and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, 'It's just not worth it anymore to do.'"
Rough Neighborhood
Looks as though we have a new neighbor.
Nice house, but like they say, LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION.
Barring a cyclone, tornado, earthquake or summer breeze for that matter, all should be well.
I'm sure everything will be just fine....
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Toasted
Campaign Desk
Russert Watch 4-12-08
In Which Hillary Surrogates Get Got
By Todd Gitlin Mon 12 May 2008 02:30 PMWhat’s a Sunday morning show to do when it specializes in political prophecy and the expectation is a foregone conclusion? Bring some players on, ask them routine questions, register their spin, try to trip them up when the spin is ridiculous, and move on.
By all conventional measures, the news is that Hillary Clinton’s campaign is sinking beneath the weight of arithmetic. Senator Chris Dodd, an Obama supporter, came on Meet the Press and said so, and since the arithmetic is on his side, he didn’t present any trip-up potential. Clinton proxy Terry McAuliffe, on the other hand, crammed himself into the absurd position of sticking up for the remote possibility of a game-changing event that could resurrect the expiring Clinton campaign. When he plumped for counting the Michigan votes in a primary where Obama’s name was not on the ballot, all McAuliffe could summon up in support of that argument was to insist that Obama had taken himself off the Michigan ballot. Russert countered with a passage from McAuliffe’s own book insisting that when it comes to the way the party chooses its delegates, “The rules are the rules.”
This is the sort of gotcha moment where Russert’s research staff excels, and McAuliffe must have known it. Russert offered no more than a perfunctory nod in the face of McAuliffe’s feeble prayer—for a bolt from the blue—he offered the pathetic historical precedent of a onetime come-from-behind victory by (surprise!) the Buffalo Bills. Nice try but no cigar.
The other morning “issue” was Clinton’s maladroit remark May 8 about “white Americans.” She referred to an Associated Press poll “that found how Senator Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.” Russert confronted McAuliffe with the thunderous objections from her supporter, Representative Charlie Rangel, and from The New York Times’s Bob Herbert, in the Saturday paper, charging her with arousing white West Virginia voters to see her as their champion and, in effect, to vote their race prejudice. Curiously, thrust into a corner, a possibly ill-briefed McAuliffe scrounged around but scraped up nothing but boilerplate to toss back.
He could have offered a defense to the effect that Clinton garbled her words. It could have been argued—myself, I’d be inclined to argue—that Clinton meant to say two distinct and true things, and erred when she crammed them into a single sentence: first, that she does better than Obama so far among white working-class voters; and second, that working class Americans are “hard-working.” This benign interpretation would hold that she was merely pandering-as-usual, though even so, this sort of constituency-calculating is the sort of thing that a candidate best leave to journalists and academics. It’s her business to present herself as potential president of all the people, not a slicer and dicer of factions. But I can’t believe that she was impugning black voters for not being “hard-working.”
Well, it’s not Russert’s job to untangle a candidate’s garbled syntax. (On the Stephanopoulos show, Harry Reid stumbled around trying to cast a rosier light on her words and then flatly gave up.) If she gaffes it up so badly that her surrogates can’t put out the fire, then maybe she’s not just “TOAST,” as the New York Post screamed last week, but burnt toast.
- Columbia Journalism Review 08
Monday, May 12, 2008
Happy Birthday Jeff!!!
Jeff's Big Day! Loaded up the Car (jeep) and headed to... TROY!!
Dinner with the Birthday Boy.. Ruth's Chris, Ummmmm.....
Brownies as a appetizer, what a concept!
Actually, Everyone was happy.. except for the Cow.
DELICIOUS!!
The Waiter, Brian, was a case. Not sure why, but he had a penchant for Card Tricks and racial whispers during dinner, neither of which were very good. Can't say I have ever had a waiter do that as I ate, and in the state I was in, I had no idea what his true motives were.
And the evening ended on just the right note. We introduced Jeff to AbFab... All so Fitting!
So good to have you as a friend.. Love you Jeff!!
Dinner with the Birthday Boy.. Ruth's Chris, Ummmmm.....
Brownies as a appetizer, what a concept!
Actually, Everyone was happy.. except for the Cow.
DELICIOUS!!
The Waiter, Brian, was a case. Not sure why, but he had a penchant for Card Tricks and racial whispers during dinner, neither of which were very good. Can't say I have ever had a waiter do that as I ate, and in the state I was in, I had no idea what his true motives were.
And the evening ended on just the right note. We introduced Jeff to AbFab... All so Fitting!
So good to have you as a friend.. Love you Jeff!!
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Friday, May 9, 2008
ANOTHER Great Idea...
Thanks go out to My Jimmy for suggesting I move the audio player up higher in the blog. I of course love the music (hey, I picked it!), but sometimes it does get in the way, especially if you are trying to listen to a video clip. Having it more accessible makes it easier to turn down or pause (or off as the case may be).
He is my Beautiful Man with the mind... me, I'm just here for entertainment purposes, having lost my mind years ago.
Love You Jim!!
He is my Beautiful Man with the mind... me, I'm just here for entertainment purposes, having lost my mind years ago.
Love You Jim!!
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Deja Vu (all over again)
A 'Fighter' in the White House
Posted May 8, 2008 8:49 AM (EST)
If you've been listening to the pundits, the campaign staff and the candidate herself, Hillary's pugilistic display is a prime reason to back her. Surely we want this fighter in the White House. It doesn't matter that the election numbers are overwhelmingly against her. It doesn't matter that party leaders and political experts are screaming about the damage to the Democratic Party. Pay no heed to glaring reality; damn the torpedoes -- full speed ahead.
Who does this remind you of? Who else is a fighter in the face of overwhelming opposition? Who else listens to no one holding contradictory opinions? Is there another politician who ignores the numbers, the advice of experts and the popular consensus on critical issues?
Can you say 'George Bush'?
Yes, Hillary has displayed great tenacity. Yes, she is impressive in her drive and commitment to her campaign. But these characteristics are not inherently valuable. We have an outstanding example of this residing in the White House right now.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Reality Check
Who Will Tell the People?
Traveling the country these past five months while writing a book, I’ve had my own opportunity to take the pulse, far from the campaign crowds. My own totally unscientific polling has left me feeling that if there is one overwhelming hunger in our country today it’s this: People want to do nation-building. They really do. But they want to do nation-building in America.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Thomas L. Friedman
Thomas L. Friedman
They are not only tired of nation-building in Iraq and in Afghanistan, with so little to show for it. They sense something deeper — that we’re just not that strong anymore. We’re borrowing money to shore up our banks from city-states called Dubai and Singapore. Our generals regularly tell us that Iran is subverting our efforts in Iraq, but they do nothing about it because we have no leverage — as long as our forces are pinned down in Baghdad and our economy is pinned to Middle East oil.
Our president’s latest energy initiative was to go to Saudi Arabia and beg King Abdullah to give us a little relief on gasoline prices. I guess there was some justice in that. When you, the president, after 9/11, tell the country to go shopping instead of buckling down to break our addiction to oil, it ends with you, the president, shopping the world for discount gasoline.
We are not as powerful as we used to be because over the past three decades, the Asian values of our parents’ generation — work hard, study, save, invest, live within your means — have given way to subprime values: “You can have the American dream — a house — with no money down and no payments for two years.”
That’s why Donald Rumsfeld’s infamous defense of why he did not originally send more troops to Iraq is the mantra of our times: “You go to war with the army you have.” Hey, you march into the future with the country you have — not the one that you need, not the one you want, not the best you could have.
A few weeks ago, my wife and I flew from New York’s Kennedy Airport to Singapore. In J.F.K.’s waiting lounge we could barely find a place to sit. Eighteen hours later, we landed at Singapore’s ultramodern airport, with free Internet portals and children’s play zones throughout. We felt, as we have before, like we had just flown from the Flintstones to the Jetsons. If all Americans could compare Berlin’s luxurious central train station today with the grimy, decrepit Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who lost World War II.
How could this be? We are a great power. How could we be borrowing money from Singapore? Maybe it’s because Singapore is investing billions of dollars, from its own savings, into infrastructure and scientific research to attract the world’s best talent — including Americans.
And us? Harvard’s president, Drew Faust, just told a Senate hearing that cutbacks in government research funds were resulting in “downsized labs, layoffs of post docs, slipping morale and more conservative science that shies away from the big research questions.” Today, she added, “China, India, Singapore ... have adopted biomedical research and the building of biotechnology clusters as national goals. Suddenly, those who train in America have significant options elsewhere.”
Much nonsense has been written about how Hillary Clinton is “toughening up” Barack Obama so he’ll be tough enough to withstand Republican attacks. Sorry, we don’t need a president who is tough enough to withstand the lies of his opponents. We need a president who is tough enough to tell the truth to the American people. Any one of the candidates can answer the Red Phone at 3 a.m. in the White House bedroom. I’m voting for the one who can talk straight to the American people on national TV — at 8 p.m. — from the White House East Room.
Who will tell the people? We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes. We still have all the potential for greatness, but only if we get back to work on our country.
I don’t know if Barack Obama can lead that, but the notion that the idealism he has inspired in so many young people doesn’t matter is dead wrong. “Of course, hope alone is not enough,” says Tim Shriver, chairman of Special Olympics, “but it’s not trivial. It’s not trivial to inspire people to want to get up and do something with someone else.”
It is especially not trivial now, because millions of Americans are dying to be enlisted — enlisted to fix education, enlisted to research renewable energy, enlisted to repair our infrastructure, enlisted to help others. Look at the kids lining up to join Teach for America. They want our country to matter again. They want it to be about building wealth and dignity — big profits and big purposes. When we just do one, we are less than the sum of our parts. When we do both, said Shriver, “no one can touch us.”
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
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The Huffington Post | May 23, 2008 03:41 PM