March 14, 2008
Two seemingly disconnected events have created a suddenly dangerous turn regarding the future of U.S. wars in the Middle East.
One was the abrupt resignation of the person who has been the biggest obstacle to a U.S. military strike against Iran, Admiral William Fallon, the chief of Central Command which oversees U.S. military operations in the volatile region.
8 comments:
I agree; this is a dangerous turn.
The "group think" of the Hilary campaign team - as if identifying with the conservative-Repulican political attack machine (identifying with the aggressor) - is revealing their own weaknesses in criticizing Senator Obama.
They are mirroring the Bush Administration group think and addictive pattern of destructiveness compounded by poor judgment. It takes creativity to build trust, alliances and parties - and nations.
Paul Overman, Ph.D.
Obama needs to replace Axelrod who is the dominant source of race baiting in my opinion. It accomplished its goal of aligning more than 90% of African Americans with Obama but at the cost of damaging the Dem party. I don’t think you can blame Clinton for all this. When you have a guy parsing every word spoken by anyone near the Clinton camp for any possible signs of racism and then running to the press with it, it should surprise no one that we spend so much time putting out race fires. What Ferraro said could have been worded a lot better but her intent was to point out that the campaign is a numbers game -- you win some votes due to your race and you lose some. She believes that Obama has won more votes than he lost due to race identity -- do the math before calling it "ridiculous" (Obama). Is it? It may have been in earlier times. At this time I don't know but I would not be surprised if it is the case. Can a man of any talent get 90% of the black vote? I actually don’t know but I believe it would be very difficult. This is also not to say that any black man could get 90% of the black vote either. Obama is talented AND he is black.
From the start I never thought Obama had much chance of wining the election. Besides being too far left for many voters he has a lot of potential show stoppers in his past that have yet to be addressed. His church alone would prevent most people from voting for him. This is currently in the news and not looking too pretty.
Hillary has her own issues but at least we’ve already done a lot of the vetting process with her. She can be reigned in and knows how to control the message far better than the Obama camp. The Republicans are going to give him far worse treatment than Hillary so if you believe he is already so damaged that he cannot win after her kid gloves then you must see that his chances in November are slim to none and always were.
It's alright for Obama to say it:
Obama acknowledges, with no small irony, that he benefits from his race.
If he were white, he once bluntly noted, he would simply be one of nine freshmen senators, almost certainly without a multimillion-dollar book deal and a shred of celebrity. Or would he have been elected at all?
Obama's church certainly is in the news, Bob (comment above):
Barck Obama's pastor's inflammatory words are a problem?
Pastor Wright playing the race card
Does his church have a tax exempt status?
Consortium wrote:
"The second is the ugly direction that the Democratic presidential competition has taken, with Hillary Clinton’s campaign intensifying its harsh rhetoric against Barack Obama, reducing the likelihood that he can win the presidency – and thus raising the odds that the next president will be either John McCain or Sen. Clinton, both hawks on Iran."
BUT OBAMA IS ALSO A HAWK:
From Paul Street published at BlackAgendaReport
‘Join the movement to end the war'...by caucusing for Barack Obama."
But for my money the worst example of Team Obama's taste for truly audacious deception is their effort to appropriate the spirit and support for the antiwar movement.
Never mind some basic facts of history. In late July of 2004, for example, Obama admitted to the New York Times that he did not know how he would have voted on the 2002 Iraq war resolution had he been serving in the United States Senate at the time of the vote. Here is the relevant Times passage: "In a recent interview [Obama' declined to criticize Senators Kerry and Edwards for voting to authorize the war, although he said he would not have done the same based on the information he had at the time.' But, I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports,' Mr. Obama said. 'WHAT WOULD I HAVE DONE? I DON'T KNOW.' What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made'" (New York Times, 26 July, 2004).
"Obama admitted to the New York Times that he did not know how he would have voted on the 2002 Iraq war resolution had he been serving in the United States Senate at the time of the vote."
Obama has never opposed the "war" (naked and one-sided U.S. imperial aggression) on the same terms as the actual antiwar movement. His much-ballyhooed "antiwar speech" in Chicago during the fall of 2002 followed much conventional wisdom in the foreign policy establishment by criticizing "dumb wars." It said absolutely nothing about the obviously criminal and imperial, oil-motivated nature of the great international and human rights transgression Cheney and Bush were preparing for Iraq and the world community.
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Both Obama and Clinton voted over and over to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan until they decided to run for President. They had vote for over $300 billion to continue the wars.
...Hillary Clinton’s campaign intensifying its harsh rhetoric against Barack Obama, reducing the likelihood that he can win the presidency...
No, he can't win the presidency because his balloon -- the myth -- has been punctured. Finally. It was inevitable that Obama's starry-eyed supporters would trot out the "it's Clinton's fault" meme, but sheesh! I didn't expect it this soon!
No, he can't win because he's a phoney, opportunistic politician, beholden to lobbyists and special interests just like most of them. Before he realized he could raise BIG bucks, he was all for public financing of campaigns. Now? He's against it. He's a phoney on addressing climate change, too...in the hip pocket of coal and corn.
Studs Terkel was right...in politics we get a two foot midget, then along comes a two foot four inch midget and we turn him into a giant.
I think Obama will probably be the Dem nominee and may very well be elected in Nov. I will be very happy.
With that said, if Clinton's campaign or its affiliates have permanently damaged Obama's chance at the presidency then I would have to say he never had much of a chance. This is nothing compared to what he will face in the Fall from the GOP. Does he have a glass jaw?
Also, to characterize Clinton's support of the war and enthusiastic or as even similar to McCain's shows that the author has never read her floor speech with regards to SJ Res 45 ("use of force"). Distorting the truth and name-calling is unbecoming on ANY side of the issue.
Paul of Brooklyn
"Replacing Obama’s message of reform and reconciliation is a Clinton message of resentment and victimization, as voiced by former Rep. Geraldine Ferraro who claimed that Clinton confronts “sexist media” bias as a woman while Obama gets an easy ride because he’s black."
“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” Ferraro, the former Democratic vice presidential candidate, told The Daily Breeze of California. “And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is.”
GUESS THE TRUTH HURTS. Too bad all the Obama lovers can't accept it. Ferraro was right. And what does she get for telling the truth? Death treats!!!!! WOW. I think there's a problem with some Obama supporters. And still no apologies from Obama for the death threats to Tavis Smiley and his mother or the threats made by Jesse Jackson, Jr. to other CBC members who have not come out in support of Obama. What was the statement about judging one's character by the company one keeps? How about that pastor and the buddy Rezko that just casually helped him "look at the property he purchased" with "no strings attached", but also actually raised hundreds of thousands of campaign funds for him. Well, he says he gave away $85,000 of it. Hummm. What about the rest, and has anyone asked who he gave the $85,000 to? Now about Pastor Wright: Contrary to Barack Obama's claim that he was unaware of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's penchant for spewing hateful rhetoric, and that he personally had never been present in Trinity United Church of Christ during any of Wright's more objectionable sermons, it has now been learned that Obama was indeed in the pews last July 22 when the pastor blamed America's "white arrogance" for the world's suffering -- particularly the oppression of blacks. According to Newsmax correspondent Jim Davis, Wright's expletive-laced sermon that day condemned the "United States of White America." Wright also asserted that "young African-American men" were "dying for nothing" in an "illegal war" that was "based on Bush's lies" and was being "fought for oil money." Throughout the sermon, Obama "sat in his pew and nodded in agreement," said Davis.
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