February 2, 2008
Barack Obama argues that the Democrats will have a better chance for victory in November if they have a presidential nominee who opposed the Iraq War from the start and who can contrast that judgment against John McCain’s enthusiasm for a centuries-long U.S. occupation of Iraq.
What Sen. Obama didn’t say out loud, but what Democratic voters surely recalled was the endless baiting of John Kerry for having been “for the war before he was against it,” earning a place – as George W. Bush put it – “in the flip-flop hall of fame.”
7 comments:
I quit reading at the "Obama has the eloquence edge" part.
If you call mulling over "greatest Presidents" and coming up with Reagan over FDR, Kennedy, and Clinton as the biggest beacon of "change" because Americans were "tired" of the "excesses" of the civil rights era as an example of his "eloquence" you need to keep twisting until your head is screwed on straight again. It's one thing if Teddy and Caroline want to tar JFK's memory by claiming Obama is Mr. 1960 instead of the Mr. 1980 he really is. After all, Caroline's kids are part of the dumbed-down youth strategy Obama is capitalizing on and she was following their enthusiasm instead of doing her job as a mom and trying to teach them something.
We don't need a PREACHER. We don't need LIKABILITY. All you need to get a clue is remember the last time Oprah said all "it all comes down to" likability. Not to mention the last time the MSM tried to anoint a "UNITER." Obama's "eloquence" makes some of us VOMIT. That is, those of us not given to being hoodwinked by preachers and those of us not at all ready to hold hands with thugs and sing kumbaya...we'd prefer a fighter who puts to rest all the FAILED policies and bankrupt ideas of the thugs. It's not a matter of "One Amerikkka" ---an Orwellian at worst and Rovian at best slogan --- it's a matter of YOU REPUBLICAN ASSHOLES PUT AMERICA IN THE TOILET and we will forgive you if you repent and crawl back to reality and shut up and learn who has always held the road to progress. Progressives. Promoting thug myths is not the way to "reach out" to rightwing morons . We need tough love. And if they can't handle the truth, tough titties.
At least the BOBBY KENNEDY clan realizes who is better able to wrench us yet another Bush mess. Despite the media blackout on who those Kennedys endorse, it's a fact. One that the Church of Obama acolytes willfully ignore.
Vote for B.H.O. on Tuesday. Obama's the one who can put America Barack on track.
zee,
I like your enthusiasm and your sincere conviction akin to "the only good Nazi is a dead Nazi." Having said that, Denis Kucinich has dropped out of the race and he didn't have a snowball's chance in hell, anyway, given the Corporatocracy controls the Mass Media in this country.
How were you going to get out the message to the American People that Obama is a Corporate Shill? Do you have any idea what percentage of Americans would actually believe you even if you presented the 2 minute proof-positive synopsis? Sorry, zee, America has been a Corporatocracy since it's founding and has only gotten much, much worse since Raygun and his band of thugs in 1980.
The Corporatocracy is scared shitless of those 2 million home owners that are losing their houses. God forbid these people organize protests in New York, Chicago or Los Angeles.
They realize they have to do something. Obama is their answer. He will unite Repuglicken Reactionary Policies with Democratic Populism. It's all BS, but then again, the Corporatocracy did this once before in 1860 - making Abraham Lincoln their token Populist. Of course we know what happened after that. Our racist brothers of the South just couldn't stomach a Wall Street Lawyer as president since only a good ole fashion fascist would do as president of these United States of America. Of course, once the Civil War was overed, Lincoln was history, too. He was murdered within one week of the surrender at Appomatox, Virginia.
Obama will have a great deal of trouble staying alive since the Bush Boys and their CIA, KKK, White Supremists, et al buddies really don't like Blacks.
Having said that, America has browned a great deal in the last 50 years. The Corporatocracy has made a brilliant move in recruiting the slick talking Obama. He will be able to push through legislation that no white man would be able to. On the other hand, if he doesn't deal with the structural fascism that Bush has put in place over the last 7 years as well as the structural fascism that has been implemented since Reagan before Bush.
Thank you Zee, couldn't have said it better myself. I especially like the phrase "Church of Obama"
I hope you don't mind if I use it.........
About a month ago a friend of mine wondered who is backing Obama, as in "behind the scenes" corporate backers. Indeed.
Caveat
As much as I admire Mr. Parry's writing, and the basis of his arguments (that a powerful right-wing has institutionalized media control while progressives have floundered), I think he continues to overlook the obvious.
The media ultimately cares little whether an election winner is called a "Republican" or a "Democrat". The vaunted "attack machine" does not exist to attack Democrats per se, but to hinder anyone who questions a system that favors corporate global hegemony (think someone like Ralph Nader), and to promote the candidate who will best ensure it (definitely think Hillary Clinton).
Why should we persist to think of Hillary Clinton as a progressive or a liberal just because she mouths her opposition to the war now?
Doesn't she (and Obama to a lesser extent) feed us, like her Party leadership, the Orwellian-speak of smart re-deployments and a new focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan, while being strangely reticent to speak out against neocon bluster about Iran? Don't they both, like Republicans, extoll the sanctity of free trade based on labor arbitrage and dollar-denominated petroleum (albeit with more, not less, fuel-efficient cars-- the new chicken-in-every-pot)?
Doesn't it seem peculiar that corporate interests are fielding weak and painfully flawed Republican presidential candidates this year? Could it be because, having installed a buffoon with two stolen elections, they know labels no longer matter much at all?
My sad intuition is something like McCain + a global "incident" might be their fallback choice if the Democrats show any rebelliousness-- unlikely since all true antiwar or rebel candidates have been chastened or purged from the race.
Ralph Nader has been quick to point out evidence that Hillary Clinton may well be the corporate choice this year: thus his desperate and probably futile re-entry into making himself available to run again.
Neither he or Cynthia McKinney (another who better understands the perversions of our current political system) alone are likely to tickle the radar waves of the corporate or self-described progressive media, especially when neither Dennis Kucinich or Ron Paul can.
What will it take to wake Americans up? Do we really want to know?
Have our corporate masters no concern for the lives of their own children?
I recently heard Michael Parenti say something which I cannot forget: Democrats exist to keep the snake from devouring itself.
That is little comfort.
What Robert Parry has forgotten (or didn't know -- which is what angers so many of us that these "writers" attempt to put their own mark on this election w/out knowing all the facts...) is that circa 2004: Obama -- "my views on the war in Iraq are the same as President Bush's" -- but by this time, he was in the Senate; not outside it -- where it really is much easier to be liberal (in a GOP controlled gov at that time) -- once in the Senate he had to play by their rules... his votes reflect; so does that 2004 statement that he made while in the senate -- that he is so eagerly forgetting to tell everyone he made.
The fact is-- I was against the war and always have been -- it was wrong! It was a lie! And -- Bush and many in his administration should be imprisoned for their criminal actions -- but, politics are complicated -- way more than Senator Obama presents (and he knows that so in so many ways, he is "simplifying" his campaign down to whatever will get him elected... just as Bush did... and thus, he is hiding alot too -- whether it is him or Clinton (my choice), both will have to answer for some of their votes -- I think Senator Clinton is a fighter and she will stand up to the GOP better; but at least (I guess w/either -- though again, hillary is the one who has the backbone to be in charge) a Democrat in the WhiteHouse will listen to the people's voice more than the criminal who stole (x2) the nation's elections and has barracaded himself into an Imperial position where he uses the United States population in a manner more akin to Serfdom than anything close to a democracy for the last 8 yrs to make himself and his supporters wealthy at the cost of everyone elses' wellbeing!
Quit beating up the "other" candidate until you're sure you know who you are supporting.
Senator Clinton -- we know who she is -- and she will change things -- the world loves the Clintons -- they were very good for our nation while [Bill] was the president ...and the attacks on them were only because they were so "revolutionary" and could proof Reagonomics wrong -- frankly, if it had made President Bush a better, more thoughtful, less greedy president, I would have personally paid for "the girl" to pop out of a cake for the idiot... in the OVAL OFFICE even!!! and called it an improvement over what we've been saddled with for the last eight years!
First premise: the corporate media (aka mainstream) is owned by corporate America. Why even talk of bias. They are active participants in keeping issues out of the campaign and putting The Money Party in the White House.
The Republican candidates are pathological. The compete for body county in foreign policy and have no domestic solutions. My God, McCain is on record as saying it's OK to be in Iraq for 100 years !
The Democrats are perhaps the weakest field of candidates in memory. Edwards wanted us to believe that he'd changed after cosponsoring IWR and voting yea on Bankruptcy 2001 and the Patriot Act. This isn't populism, it's neopopulism.
Obama wants to go in to Pakistan if his adviser Brzezinski says so. Joe Lieberman is his mentor (and he supported Joe in CT). He admires Reagan (recalling this - "at least he made the trains run on time"), he's missed several key votes this year, and he knows voting rights backwards and forwards yet says nothing, and he's been around for only a few years. He's a corporate "bot."
Hillary is simply too dreadful to contemplate. Severn years in the Senate based on name recognition, she wants to bootstrap on her "spousal" journey as vicarious experience. She voted for IWR and other affronts to the citizenry. Taking to Chris Wallace this morning, she supported leaving Iraq and he said "Why do you want to declare defeat?" Her response should have been - "We went based on lies, the Iraqi's want us out. 1.2 million civilians are dead, there are 5 million orphans now. What do you think about that Chris?" She just took it. Bill knew how to handle this thug.
There's no reason to think that either of these candidates would be able to rise to the tremendous responsibilities required of the next president.
This collection of hacks and goof balls is the ultimate election fraud.
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