Anyone who thinks they have all the Answers before they've even heard the Question - is Dangerously Deluded! Real Truth Requires Vigilance, Perseverance and Courage, regardless of Party and who wields Power. Left, Right, Center, Corporations, Government, Unions, Criminals or the Indifferent.
“I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” she said in the interview, citing an article by The Associated Press.
It “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.”
“There’s a pattern emerging here,” she said.
Oh, No she D'int!
Oh yeah. She did, but the funny part is that all she did her was repeat what the Press has been doing for months. Just do a search on Yahoo News for "Obama, White Voters, Polls" and this is what you get.
1. >Obama Faces White Resistance In South, Polls Show - Politics on The ... Obama Faces White Resistance In South, Polls Show - The Huffington Post ... Obama did less well among white voters nationally in a CBS poll released January ... huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/19/obama-faces-white-resista_n_82300.html - 87k - Cached
2. Voters question Clinton's trustworthiness. - By Chadwick Matlin - Slate ... ... Times/CBS News poll says the country prefers Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton by 12 ... Six percent of Democratic primary voters think Obama is a Muslim. ... www.slate.com/id/2175496 - Cached
3. Obama Support Among "Bitter" Voters Unchanged ... poll can help address the issue directly because it asks voters if ... to live in small towns, Obama probably had white voters in mind when he made his ... gallup.com/poll/.../Obama-Support-Among-Bitter-Voters-Unchanged.aspx
4. Election Center 2008: Primary Exit Polls - Elections & Politics news ... ... .com delivers the latest exit polls for the Democratic and Republican ... The Political Ticker • Barack Obama • Hillary Clinton • John McCain • more topics " ... www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls - Cached
5. ABC News: White Working-Class vs. Change in Indiana EXIT POLL: White Working-Class vs. Change in Indiana; Blacks Lift Obama to N.C. Victory ... 51 percent of voters picked it, and they went to Obama by about his ... abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/Politics/story?id=4798314&page=1 - 94k
6. ABC News: PA exit polls: Whites, blue-collar voters stick with Clinton Working-class white voters rallied around Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday as ... Survivor: Clinton Closes In on Obama. WATCH: Rocky Road to the White House ... abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=4706022 - 93k
7. Obama struggle to attract white voters continues ... in Denver is whether Obama's weakness with white voters could endure and spell ... The poll found that white voters who say equal rights for minorities have been ... www.startribune.com/politics/national/president/18095979.html - 56k - Cached
8. Clinton Hangs On, Obama Drops in Polls, With Negative Media Attention ... ... well Clinton and Obama do relative to each other among White voters when each is ... percentage of White voters who will not vote for Obama based solely on ... www.talkleft.com/story/2008/4/28/204817/799 - Cached
9. Voters agree Wright furor hurt Obama : Politics : Commercial Appeal Black and white voters in next week's primary states agreed on one thing on Wednesday: Barack Obama's preacher had hurt the Democratic presidential candidate at a ... commercialappeal.com/news/2008/may/01/road-to-the-white-house-voters... - Cached
10. Polls: Obama falters with working-class whites - Barack Obama News ... ... Barack Obama discusses his connection with working-class white voters with NBC's ... In exit polls, one in five of the state's white voters who haven't completed ... www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24447399 - Cached
Far from being a taboo subject, this issue has been constantly debated since both Rev. Wright and Bitter-gate.
How does Obama win back the Springer Vote? How is he going to appeal to the Double-Wide Demographic?
Don't look so shocked, we all know what we're talking about here. White, Working-class, un and under-educated. C'mon. Where do you really think these people can afford to live? A condo? Who do you think Rush Limbaugh is talking to day in and day out?
Some of my best friends used to enjoy semi-mobile living conditions. Really.
Anywho...
The sad part about this discussion isn't the fact that it's being discussed, it's that it's being portrayed as some kind of failure on Barack's part! instead of the very obvious implication that we still, even in the 21st Century, have some dumb-ass reactionary redneck's left in this country.
Again, don't get all offended - isn't that the core idea behind Jeff Foxworthy's entire career?
You might be a Redneck if...?
You won't vote for the Black man for President, even when he's the best candidate, he's won the popular vote, he's (practically) won the delegate vote and he's won the most states.
I thought that was the entire point behind CMT. and "Blue-Collar TV"?
Instead of asking, gee - what the hell is wrong with these people? - the press has been putting all the blame in Barack's lap?
And now that Hillary is echoing them, people are up in arms?
Oh my God, the Sherrif Nominee is a Nig...!
Just figuring that out now are ya? Very astute. But Guess what...
Oh my God, the Country's Full of Ignorant Red-Necks too...!
Which of course, according to the Press, would be Clinton's base.
But here's the really interesting thing that the Press and Hillary haven't said, something that our own DemfromCT pointed out last week.
Since July 2006, long before both Bitter-Gate and Rev. Wrong, Barack Obama's favorability has actually maintained a net 5 points gain in support from White Voters, Hillary has lost 36 points from the Black Vote.
I wonder why the Press doesn't ask "What in the world is Hillary going to do about her Black Voter problem?"
Instead we get all this blather about how we're supposed to expect Black people to vote not based on issues, or facts, but skin color.
Y'know - cause they're just naturally racist. They see everything through the prism of color. It's in their blood, don't cha know?
Never mind the fact that both Bill and Hillary used to have massive support Black Voters. Why doesn't the Press ask - What went wrong sour between Hill and Black people?
Oh wait, they did ask that and the answer was - Bill.
But White people, when they reject a perfectly good Black candidate it's got nothing to do with race - except for everything! You see, he's too leftist and radical (A hidden Black Panther), he's too elitist (Uppity!), Educated (Effete!), and he' too damn Muslim (Barack Hussein Obama - Farrakhan and Hamas' new Puppet President!) and we shouldn't bother to call them out on it. No, don't even think about it. Don't get them all riled up by saying they're "bitter" or anything...
That's like tossing raw meat at a starving dog.
For those who can't take a hint:/Snark Off!
It's about time we started realizing that we have some big big problems in this country and it's not all the black peoples fault, nor is it all the white peoples fault. It's our fault if we let ourselves be manipulated in this way. If we fail to see the obvious. If we let injustice happen in our laps and just brush it away.
We need to admit that Racism for a minority of say 17% of Democratic Voters in the South has become acceptable. It's expected now.
We have to do better than this. This isn't just Barack's problem, it's a problem for all of us.
We need to get enraged and fight back not just because Hillary repeats this nonsense, we need to fight back All the Time when the media repeatedly attempts to pit us all against each other.
We need to fight fear with truth.
Black people are not slaves to their skin-tone, and White people - even the "uneducated" ones - are a lot smarter and a lot less racist and reactionary than everyone from ABC to FOX seems to think.
Barack can get the White Vote back, in fact he's already started to - and if Hillary keeps insulting her own "base", she's going to lose all of it.
The Judiciary Committee has voted this morning to subpoena Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff David Addington to testify and explain the development of the administrations interrogation program.
Listening to the Vice-President's Chief of staff explain how Pouring water down someone throat isn't as bad as Forcing it down their throat - never mind the ensuing suffocation either way - should be a real popcorn moment.
More from Thinkprogress which discusses ongoing efforts to bring Doug Feith, George Tenet and John Ashcroft before the committee as well.
If this had happened last year before Stonewall-Gate basically stole every once of energy from the DOJ-purge investigation, I'd be a lot more optimistic.
The best we can hope for - assuming that Fred Fielding doesn't kneecap the process with executive priveledge claims - is that these hearing may force the congress to seriously reconsider the Military Commissions Act, restore Habeaus Corpus, dismantle Gitmo, end the Kangaroo Combatant Courts and remove the immunity for torturers who acted between 2001 and 2005.
The eyes of the world are watching, particularly when we held an al Jazeera journalist for 6 years without charges or trial...
Hajj is the only major mainstream news journalist ever to be held at [Guantanemo] prison. His supporters claimed that he was being held in retaliation for US anger over the Arabic television network.
The cameraman was never prosecuted. The US never published its allegations, but said in a hearing that Hajj was classified as an enemy combatant because he worked as executive secretary for a beverage company whose director allegedly aided Muslim forces in Bosnia and Chechnya. He was also suspected of transfering money to a charity the US labeled as terrorist, and had interviewed Bin Laden.
The man worked at the company where the director was suspected of helping Muslim forces in Bosnia? In Chechnya? Talk about Guilt by Association. He gave money to a charity? He interviewed Bin Laden? So did Peter Arnett of CNN.
But Hajj isn't the worst case, the truth needs to be told. Here's what Human Rights First said about Torture two years ago in it's report on Gitmo: Command Responsibility
Since August 2002, nearly 100 detainees have died while in the hands of U.S. officials in the global "war on terror." According to the U.S. military’s own classifications, 34 of these cases are suspected or confirmed homicides; Human Rights First has identified another 11 in which the facts suggest death as a result of physical abuse or harsh conditions of detention. In close to half the deaths Human Rights First surveyed, the cause of death remains officially undetermined or unannounced. Overall, eight people in U.S. custody were tortured to death.
Despite these numbers, four years since the first known death in U.S. custody, only 12 detainee deaths have resulted in punishment of any kind for any U.S. official. Of the 34 homicide cases so far identified by the military, investigators recommended criminal charges in fewer than two thirds, and charges were actually brought (based on decisions made by command) in less than half. While the CIA has been implicated in several deaths, not one CIA agent has faced a criminal charge. Crucially, among the worst cases in this list – those of detainees tortured to death – only half have resulted in punishment; the steepest sentence for anyone involved in a torture-related death: five months in jail.
The War Crimes Act, even after it received it's Bybee inspired downgrade, still considers torturing someone to death to be a Capital Offense. High level government officials who sanction U.S. policies which led to these deaths could be charged with Conspiracy and as accesseries to Murder.
That's a conspiracy that includes Yoo, Bybee, Gonzales, Addington, Cheney - and Bush.
In a way I almost wish they would wait until the next administration, because the more that Congress shows that these people are at criminal risk, the more likely they are to get pardoned as they sneak out the back door - and we really don't need that.
MR. RUSSERT: One issue that has really defined the two campaigns here in Indiana is this debate over gasoline...
SEN. OBAMA: Right.
MR. RUSSERT: ...the price of it and whether there should be a tax holiday...
SEN. OBAMA: Right.
MR. RUSSERT: ...from the federal taxes. This is Hillary Clinton's ad talking about you. Let's watch.
(Videotape of political ad)
Narrator: Now gas prices are skyrocketing, and she's ready to act again. Hillary's plan, use the windfall profits of the oil companies to pay to suspend the gas tax this summer. Barack Obama says no, again.
People are hurting, it's time for a president who's ready to take action now.
(End videotape)
MR. RUSSERT: Why are you against giving taxpayers in Indiana, North Carolina, a relief from federal gasoline tax this summer?
SEN. OBAMA: You're right, Tim, this defines, I think, the difference between myself and Senator Clinton. This gas tax, which was first proposed by John McCain and then quickly adopted by Senator Clinton, is a classic Washington gimmick. It, it is a political response to a serious problem that we have neglected for decades. Now, here's, here's the upshot. You're looking at suspending a gas tax for three months. The average driver would save 30 cents per day for a grand total of $28. That's assuming that the oil companies don't step in and raise prices by the same amount that the tax has been reduced. And, by the way, I have some experience on this because in Illinois we tried this when I was in the state legislature, and that's exactly what happened. The oil companies, the retailers were the ones who ended up benefiting.
MR. RUSSERT: You voted for it, too.
SEN. OBAMA: I did. Exactly. And that...
MR. RUSSERT: When gas was only $2 a gallon.
SEN. OBAMA: And, and that's my point. I voted for it, and then six months later we took a look, and consumers had not benefited at all, but we had lost revenue.
MR. RUSSERT: So you learned from a wrong vote.
SEN. OBAMA: Yeah, I learned from a mistake.
Barack Obama made a mistake and learned from it. He gained the benefit of Experience (Ding Ding Ding!) on this issue, and instead of continuing to give the people empty meaningless Happy Talk about it, he's telling the truth.
The Gas Tax Holiday is not going to work.
What's worse, it won't be paid for...
Obama: And, in addition, what happens is, is that this would come out of the Federal Highway Fund that we use to rebuild our roads and our bridges. And if we don't have that fund, then we're looking at thousands of jobs being lost in Indiana and in North Carolina.
Now, Senator Clinton says that she's going to use the windfall profits tax to fill it. First of all, she's already said that she's going to use the windfall profits tax for something else, as I have, and, and that is to invest in clean energy and, and other important measures. So that money, she's already spending twice. More importantly, nobody thinks that George Bush is actually going to spend--or is actually going to sign a law for windfall profits taxes, so that's not going to happen this summer.
So what this is, is a strategy to get through the next election. And Senator Clinton's own staff told The Washington Post, "We don't think this is really going to go anywhere. We don't think it's going to work, but we think it's a good issue to use in a campaign." And that's what Washington does. We, we, we don't deal with the serious issues that are in front of us, we try to figure out what's going to poll well and what can we do to get through the next election.
There is no practical way that George Bush, who is already threatening to Veto the Webb G.I. Bill if it's attached to the latest war supplemental, is going to RAISE TAXES ON THE OIL COMPANIES.
Not. Gonna. HAPPEN.
The result will blow a $6 Billion hole in our infrastructure budget that simply won't be replaced. This kind of cynical irresponsibility is not what we need in a President.
We don't need Clinton. We really don't need McSame.
We need Barack Obama.
Let me just close by saying this proposal will only save people 30 cents a day, 30 Pieces of Silver (well ok, "copper" whatever) - if it even worked, and it's not going to work. Comedian Lewis Black of Root of All Evil said it best when he describes his reaction to a previous tax scheme from Congress.
It would be better if my Congressman simply came to on my door and just pissed on my foot!
Are your socks all wet and squishy? That's not rain.
Despite all the huffing and puffing over just when and how Hillary Clinton will finally pull a heroic Rocky-II-like comeback knock this black teenager out of the race - all the real numbers say she's already lost.
Barack Obama will be the Democratic Nominee, all he has to do is sit back and wait for it.
And you can prove it for yourself and all your friends with CNN's handy-dandy popiel-o-matic Delegate Calculator.
With this pocket-size tool, You Too, can be a Pundicator.
(Isn't it odd that no-one who actually appears on CNN knows how to use their own website?)
As of today, May 4th - my wife's birthday - the Delegate Calculator indicates that Obama has a lead of 1736 total delegates (with 289 needed to win) and Clinton has a total of 1,599 total delegates (with 426 needed to win).
The only numbers that really matter are the number of delegates needed to win - which again are 289 and 426 respectively. That's how close the nose each of our candidates has come to crossing the finish line.
What we have to remember is that either candidate must reach the magic number of 2025 only using the pledge and Superdelegates that remain, of which - according to the calculator - there only 695.
Simple, very simple, basic math says that in order to win Clinton has to gain 61% of all the remaining delegates. Each time she falls short of that number, it gets larger for the next contest. Obama on the other hand only needs 41%, as long as he stays above that number - HE WINS.
He could lose Indiana, lose North Carolina, lose Kentucky - but as long as he doesn't collapse below 41% - he will be the Nominee. Period.
And if he does better than that, things continually get worse for Clinton.
As of today the results in Guam and some of the recent Superdelegate shifts have not been counted on the calculator but that is of little matter, you and I can put them in ourselves.
Grab the Guam slider and set it 50% Obama/50% Clinton, it automatically allocates 2 delegates to each. That puts Obama at 287 and Clinton at 428 with 691 available. Their percentage requirements to win remain at 41% and 61% respectively.
The latest Zogby Poll for the Indiana Primary gives Obama a one point lead (43/42%) over Clinton. Adding this to the Calculator as best you can (52/48 Obama) gives Obama an additional 37 delegates, bringing him to 1,775 and another 35 for Clinton bringing her to 1,636.
Are you following along at home kiddies? I knew that you were, because this is where it gets fun.
With a small victory in Indiana Obama's Magic Number drops to 250 - and his percentage required for final victory also drops a bit from 41% to 40.3%. Clinton's does the opposite, with still 389 needed to win her required percentage for the remaining delegates shifts upward slightly to 62.8%.
This means simply put, that as time goes one things get worse for her - not better.
Let me just say this again, after this point Clinton has to beat Obama by an average of 22 points on all remaining contests and on all remaining Superdelegates to win the nomination.
Who in their right minds thinks that's gonna happen? (Oh, yeah, most of punditocracy on on CNN, MSNBC, FOX, ABC, NBC, and CBS - except for Chuck Todd who seems to have actually passed 5th Grade math - continues to maintain the ridiculous delusion that Hillary still has a chance to win, silly of me not to notice....)
Ok, let look at North Carolina - where the latest polls places Obama with a nine point lead (46 to 37%) over Clinton. Let's be generous and say that Obama only wins by 8 points (because the slider won't go to nine - damn you CNN!) Obama would receive 62 delegates and Clinton 53. After this contest there are only 504 available delegates, and in order to win Obama would only need to 37.3% of the remaining delegates and Clinton needs a whopping 67% to win.
Anytime she doesn't beat him by greater than that number she falls further behind and can't catch up.
If Clinton doesn't win both West Virginia (where she leads 55/27) and Kentucky (where she has a massive lead) by a pair of double digit 20 point blowouts it's still all over but the whining because those states - with only 28 and 51 delegates at stake respectively - are both too small to make up the difference.
That's right Hillary, "Small States really don't count that much" do they?
Just one week from now - there will only be 425 delegates left (which in reality is an over-estimate since many more Supers will probably be committed by this point next week) and Clinton will need to get 298 or at least 68% of them all (which is assuming that she does blow Barack out by 22 point in Kentucky and again in West Virginia as predicted)
A 22 point landslide is what she needs just to stay even at this point, she has to do much better than that to win.
Once you plug in all the remaining poll estimates, which really only includes Oregon which has Obama up by 6 points, and assume he basically loses every other state by at least 8 points except Puerto Rico where Clinton is strongly supported and there he gets again blown out again by at least 22 points...
You get this:
Even with all that, with every break she could possibly get, Clinton still needs 212 delegates to win, while Obama only needs 95. All of the 287 Superdelegates would have to break for Clinton by 73%. She needs to get almost 3 to 1 of the Supers over Obama to Win. But if Obama just barely manages to squeek by with just 33% of the Supers - it's over, it's done, finito.
He wins.
See?
Your mileage may vary depending on your assumptions generally speaking, and the Calculator isn't perfect, but even if you give her every benefit of the doubt and 2/3 of the Supers - whom she happens to have been leaking lately like water from an old radiator - she still can't win.
By all reasonable measures, she already lost, her campaign is dead - a load of sound and fury signifying nothing - she just hasn't realized or admitted it yet.
Let's get real here people. We all know what this is, we all know what this is about.
Hillary Clinton and John McCain are trying to BUY YOUR VOTE for a measley $30.
A half a tank of gas.
Is that all they think it's worth? Really? A 5% drop in the gas tax for three months that consumers may actually see only half of, which will blow a giant hole in the infrastructure budget and likely put about 6000 people in Indiana and North Carolina out of work?
Are you kidding me. We don't need to take money away from our infratructure when we already have Bridges Falling Down>
How much difference is a few more pennies a day going to make when you don't have a job to get those pennies in the first place?
Obama: This isn't an idea designed to get you through the summer, it's an idea design to get them elected in November.
This is just politics as usual, but the sad part is that this cheap parlor trick just might work with some of the voters in the upcoming primary.
Are Americans really this stupid?
Are they really going fall for it Again? Another cheap, easy, quick fix solution that won't work and is not what we need.
We need to do the right thing, we need to do the hard thing and actually implement a workable energy policy. We need to start talking about real bio-fuels, plug-in hybrids, full on electric vehicles, wind, solar and permanently ending our dependance on foreign oil.
For people who don't we can have viable electric vehicles, the Mythbusters on Discovery channel just broadcast an episode where they had an electric car drag race against a Ferrari and WIN. It also nearly beat an F1 race car.
Hello everybody, glad you could stop by. Welcome to America. Home of Fragile and the Scared. The Nation that doesn't want to "embolden the enemy" by saying anything nice about them while we smoke 'em out of their holes. The Nation that's going to round all the evil doers up and teach 'em a lesson, unless they say something mean about our troops - like call them a bunch of Doody Heads and hurt our feelings.
Even Hillary Clinton, who certainly isn't some kind of pansy and has lots of testicular fortitude - would have run away from Reverend Wright screaming.
O'Reilly: What do you think when you hear another American Citizen say things like that?
Clinton: I would not have stayed in that church. I take offense to it.
That's it, run way - Flee. That'll show him. If you can't take on the crazy reverend in the daishiki - how are you going to take on Al Qeada Hillary?
Oh, let this not be another defending Reverend Wright Post.
Well, it's not. He's toast, but what about all those things he said? Anyone else every say stuff like that before?
Anyone remember that crazy Colorado Professor who dared to hurt America's poor little feelings by saying - the terrorist aren't just a bunch a crazies and might have had a reason for 9/11?Remember Ward Churchill?
BOULDER, Colo., Feb. 4 -- The University of Colorado staunchly defends its faculty's rights of free speech and open academic inquiry. Most of the time.
But Friday, interim Chancellor Phil DiStefano launched an "academic investigation" that could lead to the firing of Ward Churchill, a tenured full professor who ignited a national firestorm by applauding the 9/11 terrorist attacks and condemning the victims as greedy, arrogant and cruel.
In a commentary he says he wrote on 9/11, Ward Churchill called some victims "little Eichmanns." In a rambling, acidic commentary he says he dashed off within hours of the attacks, the 57-year-old professor of ethnic studies described the bankers and stock traders who died in the World Trade Center as "little Eichmanns." He called their deaths a "penalty befitting their participation in . . . the 'mighty engine of profit' to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved."
Thank God he didn't mention anything about Chickens roosting.
Still they did eventually run a tenured professor out of town on a rail! - because well, y'know, we can't have people saying that kind of stuff. It might scare the children. The tiny tiny, helpless little babies - THAT ARE RUNNING OUR COUNTRY!
Hey, anyone remember that crazy Colorado School teacher that dared to compared Bush to Hitler? Whatta Maroon that dork was, eh? Anyone Remember Jay Bennish?
Officials declined to say whether social studies instructor Jay Bennish faced disciplinary action, but his attorney, David Lane, said Bennish would be back in the classroom Monday "with full pay."
Bennish had been on paid leave from Overland High School in suburban Aurora since March 1 while Cherry Creek School District determined whether he violated a district rule that teachers must present balancing viewpoints in the classroom.
During a Feb. 1 lecture in a geography class, Bennish said some of Bush's State of the Union address the night before "sounds a lot like the things that Adolf Hitler used to say."
Man, what was that guy smoking? Good thing we put the smack down on him. We can't possible tolerate anyone making the suggestion that an American President could have anything at all in common with a crazed genocidal dictator..
That's just plain CRAZY talk, right?
He sounds almost like that nutty comedian chick. What was her name, oh yeah - Rosie O'Donnel.
Oh. MY. GOD. How could she say that? It's not like any radical Christians have set off bombs or deployed chemical biological weapons like Anthrax on American soil. I mean, as long as you don't count the Selma Church Bombings, WACO, Oklahoma City, the bombing of dozens of gay clubs and shootings and murder at abortion clinics by people such as friends of Randal Terry of Operation Rescue and the Bombing of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta by Eric Robert Rudolph.
Except for all that, it's not like we've every had any Christian Terrorism. What the frak was she thinking?
We can have people saying stuff like that IN AMERICA. We're all like Lee Greenwood, we're Proud To Be Americans, where at least we know we're free (to be harassed, harried and threatened for speaking our minds.) Where the hell does she think she gets the right, or the freedom to say batshit like that?
amendment 1. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Oh ok, fine - so Congress can't make it illegal - but we can sure make it pretty damned uncomfortable can't we?
Where did Rosie get the naked gall to suggest the the deaths of a half-million Iraqis might just be the fault of - gasp - America. If the terrorists killed all those people - except obviously for those who got Shock and Awed into the next life right up front - and you say it's America's fault, you must be saying that Americans are Terrorist right?
On Wednesday’s show, O’Donnell (who leaves the show for good in three weeks) blasted Hasselbeck for not coming to her defense on the matter. "Do you believe that I think our troops are terrorists, Elisabeth?"
She pressed: "Yes or no? Do you believe it, yes or no?"
"Excuse me, let me speak!" Hasselbeck snapped. "Let me finish!"
At this point, the conversation moved into split screen mode.
"I don’t believe that you believe troops are terrorists. I have said that before," Hasselbeck continued, "but when you say something like, ‘655,00 Iraqis are dead. We invaded them...who are the terrorists?’..." She trailed off.
O’Donnell repeated: "Do you believe that I think our troops are terrorists, Elisabeth?..You would not even look me in the face, Elisabeth, and say, 'No, Rosie.' "
Hasselbeck shot back: "Because you are an adult, and I am certainly not going to be the person for you to explain your thoughts...Defend your own thoughts!"
...
O’Donnell, 45, continued: "I asked you if you believed what the Republican pundits were saying. You said nothing and that’s cowardly. Nothing, Elisabeth."
Why can't people like Rosie Support the Troops with nice shiny happy talk? Doesn't she know all they need is a little puppy love, some kisses, and smoke blown up their ass to help them get through the day? You wouldn't want to Make a Marine Cry would you? God, how could she be so insensitive? Why do they always have to Blame America First when America initiates an unprovoked invasion of an unarmed country, then completely botches the security and the reconstruction effort? Why? Why! WHY!?
Maybe because sometimes these things have to be said.
About 60 years ago there were riots in the streets over Elvis and his swiveling hips. Congress got involved to protect our youth and with the help of Dr. Frederick Wertham Batman was branded a pedophile and Wonder Woman a bondage fetish deviant.
About 40 years ago there were riots at the Democratic National Convention over Vietnam, while the Beatle's sang of Love and the Rolling Stone's sang "Street Fighting Man"
About 30 years ago we were having Congressional Hearings over "We're Not Gonna Take it" and "Animal F#ck like a Beast".
About 15 years ago there were riots in Los Angeles following the Rodney King verdict - just two year's after the release of the Bodycount's song "Cop-Killer".
In his outrage at what the song suggested - that some brutal racist cops in LA just really needed some killin' - Moses himself, Charlton Heston took some time out from a few gun toting NRA rallies to rail against this vile irresponsible hate speech. How could anyone suggest that it might be "OK" to consider fighting back against the police? (Or to consider fighting back against a currupt government that was unable or unwilling to protect the people from it's own enforcers gone wild?)
What Anti-American CLAP-TRAP is This?
How could anyone suggest that we should consider taking up arms against the most visible agents of the government itself? Against the Police?
How could anyone agree with Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 28?
, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state. In a single state, if the persons intrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair. The usurpers, clothed with the forms of legal authority, can too often crush the opposition in embryo.
This is why we haev a 2nd Amendment - to allow the people to protect themselves from a Government gone wrong. Rather sad that Mr. 2nd Amendment, Charlton Heston, so clearly misunderstood the 2nd Amendment.
And let us not seriously consider the words of James Madison in Federalist 46.
That the people and the States should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterupted succession of men ready to betray both; that the traitors should, throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment; that the governments and the people of the States should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to every one more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism.
Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made.
Extravagant a suggestion as it is - let it be made. Outrageous though it may be - let it be said. Infuriating and Offensive it is - but let it be heard.
For only if we continue to openly speak our minds and express even our most outrageous concerns, to redress our deepest grievances with our government may we yet stave of that extravagant last ditch effort, having nothing left but our courage and dispair to save our country from itself.
Amen.
I've sometimes wondered, in all seriousness, if the tendency for some Americans to react with such shock and horror to incendiary comments which have a perfectly reasonable basis in fact might just because it hits far too close to the bone. It's like we have our own national Toxic Shame.
Toxic shame, the shame that binds you, is experienced as the all pervasive sense that I am flawed and defective as a human being. Toxic shame is no longer an emotion that signals our limits, it is a state of being, a core identity. Toxic shame gives you a sense of worthlessness, a sense of failing and falling short as a human being. Toxic shame is a rupture of the self with the self.
Toxic Shame is like a viral infection of the soul. Unlike normal, healthy shame where you understand your limits and responsibilities - Toxic Shame is a deep humiliation, one that's goes right to the core of your being and existence. It is the mistake you can not undo, the stain that can't be washed out - the permanent flaw in your creation. It's a conflict that caint be reconcilled, a wound that can't be healed unless those people come to realize that what you do, and what you ARE - are two different things.
People make mistakes, Governments make mistakes - but they themselves aren't the mistake. They react like a Patriotism-Addict, who will lash out as soon as anyone tries to pull the Flag-Juice Ripple from their lips. People that can't take criticism of America, react in irrational outburst of outrage because they are hiding their own seated deep toxic shame, shame that they've tried to drown in flag-pins and rabid gingoism, hiding even from themselves that they know deep down that the criticism is not only true - bit that, in their own warped obsessive view, it can never be fixed.
They think, somewhere in their subconscious, that it can never be any different. It can never get any better.
But it can be fixed. We can heal this nation in so many, many ways. We can move forward and closer to the promise of A More Prefect Union if if we can just stand to address the issues truthfully, painful though that will be. But we can't do that yet, the last few weeks have clearly shown that America isn't ready.
Now is not the time.
But soon, soon America needs to have a frank, honest, brutal Intervention. Just like all other addicts, we need learn to accept ourselves, flaws and all. We need to have the solice and wisdom to recognize what we can't change, and the courage to change what we can.
Only then can we start fixing things. Only then can we start making the Better America, the America Of our Dreams.
So now we've reached the final chapter in the Rev. Wright novella and my overall feeling after the entire sad soap opera is disappointment.
Maybe I expected far too much.
I had hoped that some of the truth behind many of Wright's comments would eventually be examined. I wasn't so naive as to think the media would admit that they got it wrong, but that Barack would find some way to improve the quality of our discourse.
Unfortunately, Rev Wright turned out to be his own worst advocate - and Barack was left with no choice but to toss him under the bus, backup and start doing donuts.
It's really Wright's own fault, the blame has to start with him and his Grandstanding. He got start-struck. He went Hollywood. He was drunk with the power of being in the spotlight and drove his own car into the ditch, with Barack's Presidency strapped into the passenger seat.
I clearly understand that Barack had to cut him loose.
I just wish he didn't have to. I wish he didn't have to confirm all those smug media pundicators who've spent the last month mostly debating just how high the railway bridge needed to be when Barack finally kicked Rev. Wright from the train.
Those lazy ass-clown hacks don't deserve to be vindicated, and I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. But, I admit I was surprised when Obama himself bought into the spin.
Obama feels that Rev. Wright dissed him when he said that he was a pastor and Obama was politician. Somehow Wright's rather lengthy discussion before the NAACP on how some things can be different but not deficient, was completely missed.
He wasn't insulting Barack by saying he was a "politician" - he is a politician. That's not a dirty word, it's just descriptive.
The problem wasn't that Wright wouldn't repent and renounce his previous statements, it's that in some cases he simply refused to show any sensitivity to those who may disagree or misunderstand him. When he was asked whether Barack was in the pews when he was smack talking he said...
MODERATOR: You just mentioned that Senator Obama hadn’t heard many of your sermons. Does that mean he’s not much of a churchgoer? Or does he doze off in the pews?
WRIGHT: I just wanted to see — that’s your question. That’s your question. He goes to church about as much as you do. What did your pastor preach on last week? You don’t know? OK.
Oh, OUCH! That wasn't pretty.
He also didn't really take anywhere near the proper care he should have when he finally asked the AIDS question.
MODERATOR: In your sermon, you said the government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. So I ask you: Do you honestly believe your statement and those words?
(UNKNOWN): Do you honestly believe that (OFF-MIKE)
WRIGHT: Oh, are you — is that one of the reporters?
MODERATOR: No questions -
(CROSSTALK)
WRIGHT: No questions from the floor. I read different things. As I said to my members, if you haven’t read things, then you can’t — based on this Tuskegee experiment and based on what has happened to Africans in this country, I believe our government is capable of doing anything.
In fact, in fact, in fact, one of the — one of the responses to what Saddam Hussein had in terms of biological warfare was a non- question, because all we had to do was check the sales records. We sold him those biological weapons that he was using against his own people.
So any time a government can put together biological warfare to kill people, and then get angry when those people use what we sold them, yes, I believe we are capable
So in response to the question he refers to a book by a Harvard researcher, but doesn't really bother to explain that quite a few doctors and scientists have been looking at weather polio and other vaccines first tested in Africa may have caused the HIV virus to jump species from monkey's to humans, and whether agencies such as the CDC have stonewalled and blocked attempts to either verify or refute this hypothesis.
I first came upon this idea ten years ago in the New Yorker Magazine, and based on that and some pretty simple research on wiki - there has been a lot of pushback on this and various agencies and medical journals have refused to even entertain the suggestion.
So Wright isn't really wrong here - he's not saying that it happened, he's saying we're fully capable of it and we are - he saying most of us haven't heard the whole story, and we haven't - but telling someone to "just go read the book" isn't all that convincing. It's not going to bring people over to his side of the argument.
Here's another comment I fully agree with, but I understand can't possibly go down well.
What I said about and what I think about and what — again, until I can’t — until racism and slavery are confessed and asked for forgiveness — have we asked the Japanese to forgive us? We have never as a country, the policymakers — in fact, Clinton almost got in trouble because he almost apologized at Gorialan (ph). We have never apologized as a country.
Britain has apologized to Africans, but this country’s leaders have refused to apologize. So until that apology comes, I’m not going to keep stepping on your foot and asking you, "Does this hurt? Do you forgive me for stepping on your foot?" if I’m still stepping on your foot.
Understand that? Capiche?
Holeey Crap!
It's almost frustrating that he's absolutely right, America has Not Apologized for Slavery. When Rep John Conyers was circulating a bill to simply study the idea of Reparations a decade ago it was shot down like Gary Powers over Russian.
But no one who experienced or perpetrated Slavery is still alive? Isn't an apology an admission of guilt? It's not my fault, I wasn't there - I didn't do it, why should I be held accountable and who am I supposed to be accountable too?
It was just plain pathetic.
The point is simply that admitting that it was wrong is the first step to making sure it doesn't happen again. How many people even realize that the 13th Amendment doesn't completely abolish slavery or indentured servitude?
Amendment 13 - Slavery Abolished. Ratified 12/6/1865. History
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
So all you need to become a slave is for a judge and jury to sanction it. And just guess who happens to be crowded into our jails even though the Stats indicate that they don't commit most of the crimes or do most of the drugs?
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Yeah.
Funny how it still works out this way, even in this day and age. Even in 2008.
The stuff that Wright was discussing is all, to one degree or another, true but you really can't treat people this way when talking about it. You can't come off like a dick!
Understand that? Capiche?
Oy vey!
My greatest regret is that Barack was forced by Wright's own arrogance and lack of caution in how he was speaking to initiate this split. Wright has discredited himself. He's undermined and undercut his own ideas. Now if you even attempt to discuss this kind of thing in the future you're likely to be branded as a "Rev. Wright Wackadoodle".
I think race relations and even the ability to seriously discuss sensitive subjects such as this may have just taken two giant steps backward. Our great ambitious nation conversation about Race in America is now over. Done. Finito. Stomped into oblivion at least for the time being. (Which is exactly how the Just Get Over it crowd would like it to be.)
Barack could have fixed this, I believe, but it might very well have cost him his Presidency. It would have taken every ounce of energy his campaign had to rehabilitate this mess. He ultimately had no choice. He had to pick the needs of the nation of the needs of Rev. Wright.
I myself have written something of at least a half dozen diaries defending Rev. Wright's right to speak his mind, and I've taken a ton of heat for some of it. This discussion is now dead.
Another sad thing is that this seems as much personal as political for Barack. Obama felt personally disrespected and hurt. This wasn't easy for him. Watching a 20-year friendship crash and burn isn't pretty.
What Church does he go to now? Can he mend fences with the TUCC Congregation and it's current pastor Rev Moss? Which direction do black people go, with Wright or with Obama? Will this hurt his Black Vote and are they likely to go for Hillary who was talking ridiculous smack about Wright weeks ago?
This is a mess.
And it's ironic that Obama, who has long argued that he had the willingness to reach out to people he disagreed with like Ahmadenejad, and Syria, now can't find himself sitting at the same table as Rev. Wright while Louis Farrakhan as at the far end and extreme AIDS theories are on the plate.
He simply can't go there.
And the truth is he's not the only one. America isn't ready to go there either. Not yet. And there's no telling when it will ever be ready to go there and get it all this racial baggage out on the table, the good, the bad and the ugly.
Oddly enough Barack is now turning his back on one of his own primary arguments, that he can work with just about anyone, may just be the final example of his showing some backbone and fight that a lot of Democrats have needed to see for quite a while. Being willing to diss a prominent Black preacher has shown that Barack isn't a slave to Black Orthodoxy, and just might bring a few reluctant White voters his way.
Make no mistake, my support for Obama for President is still strong I just wish he could get this outraged over torture, domestic spying, 4th branch, crony contracting, lead paint on our toys or mercury in our water instead of over Louis Farrakhan and Rev. Wright.
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