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March 2, 2008

Helen Thomas: Time To Get Out Of Our Blood Debt In Iraq

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: , , , , , , — Volt @ 10:47 am

Helen Thomas, The Hearst Newspapers, February 28, 2008

Will the next president be the second coming of Jimmy Carter? Given Thursday’s economic headlines, full of dire warnings about the return of 1970s-style stagflation, you might think so.

Bush wants to leave to the next president the burden of ending the debacle he started five years ago when he ordered the invasion of Iraq under false pretenses, against a people who had done us no harm.

Bush cannot explain his reasons for the war without compounding his folly. To this moment, Bush has not given a logical explanation for his disastrous militarism.

How can he tell American families that their sons and daughters died for a terrible, tragic mistake committed by his administration?

History shows that other presidents have found ways to end U.S. involvement in wars. Most times there has been a public sigh of relief when that happens.

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Bob Herbert: A Democratic Nominee? Or a Debacle?

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: , , , , — Volt @ 3:21 am

 

Bob Herbert, The New York Times, March 1, 2008

When does a dandy fight become an ugly brawl?

For the Democrats, perhaps on Tuesday.

If Barack Obama wins in either Texas or Ohio, the race for the nomination will effectively be over. At that point the Clintons, if they have any regard for the fortunes of the party, will be duty-bound to graciously fold their tents and try to rally their supporters behind a candidate who will be stepping into a firestorm of hostility from the other side.

If Hillary Clinton wins both Texas and Ohio, the Democrats will need a trainload of aspirin and a shrink.

The superdelegates currently sprinting toward Obama would suddenly look over their shoulders and wonder what happened to his O-mentum. The Clintons would declare themselves (yet again) the Comeback Kids, although they would still be behind in delegates. They would continue their push to have the Michigan and Florida delegations seated. They would step up their attacks on the Obama forces with understandable glee. And they would use whatever persuasive powers they could muster to push the idea with party regulars that Senator Obama is unelectable.

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March 1, 2008

“When an Emergency Letter from Richmond Comes to the White House…”

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: , , , , , — Volt @ 6:02 pm


Democratic Underground, February 29, 2008

When an emergency letter from Richmond comes to the White House at 3:00 in the morning, who do you trust to pick up the quill?

An unknown golden-tongued trial lawyer from Illinois, who’s only served in Congress for one 2-year term?

Or James Buchanan, a man with 40 proud years of service to his country under his belt?

SAY NO TO LINCOLN. RE-ELECT JAMES BUCHANAN IN 1860.

In a difficult time, the experience we need.”

“I’m James Buchanan, and I approve this lithograph.”

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February 29, 2008

Designated Front Runner

Filed under: Toon — Tags: , , , , , , — Volt @ 9:42 pm

Obama Backs Law Assuring That McCain Can Run For President

Filed under: News — Tags: , , , , — Volt @ 1:24 pm

Shailagh Murray,The Washington Post, February 29, 2008

FT. WORTH, Texas — Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign announced he would co-sponsor legislation introduced yesterday by his political ally Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill to ensure that John McCain can become president, even though he was born in the Panama Canal Zone.

The issue of McCain’s eligibility was raised in a New York Times article noting the constitutional requirement that a U.S. president be a “natural-born citizen” had never been fully defined.

The McCaskill bill, submitted immediately after she scrawled it onto a notepad on the Senate floor in response to the Times story, would establish the eligibility of anyone born to a U.S. citizen who is serving overseas as an active or reserve members of the U.S. Armed Forces. The Arizona senator’s father was a Navy officer serving in the Canal Zone when McCain was born there in 1936.

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February 27, 2008

Obama’s Farrakhan Dilemma

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: , , , — Volt @ 9:37 pm

Earl Ofari Hutchinson, New America Media, February 27, 2008

Here’s what a spokesperson for Democratic Presidential contender Barack Obama said when he got wind of former Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan’s virtual endorsement of Obama’s White House bid, “Senator Obama has been clear in his objections to Minister Farrakhan’s past pronouncements and has not solicited the minister’s support.” Farrakhan made the glowing tout of Obama at the NOI’s annual Savior’s Day confab in Chicago. Obama’s denunciation of Farrakhan was blunt and pointed. But he did not reject Farrakhan’s implied endorsement.

Even after Hillary Clinton publicly demanded that he forcefully reject Farrakhan’s endorsement, Obama waffled. He weakly said after more Clinton cajoling that he rejected the endorsement. He still did not mention Farrakhan by name. A candidate shouldn’t need to be prodded by his opponent to emphatically reject the endorsement of a controversial, and in the case of Farrakhan, much vilified figure. Obama, of course, does not endorse Farrakhan’s views, politics, or his organization, and he has made that clear on more than one occasion.

Yet his failure to flatly say he does not want his endorsement is no surprise. Farrakhan may be a controversial and much vilified figure but he is not a fringe figure within black communities. He is still cheered and admired by thousands of blacks. They are also voters too and most have embraced Obama with almost messianic zeal. This zeal has been a driving force in powering Obama’s surge past Clinton. Many blacks are exhilarated by the prospect that a black man will sit in the Oval office. In other words, Obama is a racial fantasy come true for many blacks.

Few blacks publicly demand that he assume the role of a black leader. They have made no demand that he tell what he’ll do to boost civil rights protections, fight the HIV/AIDS plague, or take strong positions on the other pressing social issues. It’s just as well they haven’t since his image is that of the new generation African-American elected official who thinks and speaks as a unifier and consensus builder, not a racial crusader.

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February 26, 2008

Robert Parry: Why the War on Obama?

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: , , , , — Volt @ 5:45 pm

Robert Parry, Consortium News, February 26, 2008

While some cynics still view Barack Obama’s appeal for “change” as empty rhetoric, it’s starting to dawn on Washington insiders that his ability to raise vast sums of money from nearly one million mostly small donors could shake the grip that special-interest money has long held over the U.S. government.

This spreading realization that Obama’s political movement might represent a more revolutionary change than previously understood is sparking a deepening resistance among defenders of the status quo-and prompting harsher attacks on Obama.

Right now, the front line for the Washington Establishment is Hillary Clinton’s struggling presidential campaign, which has been stunned by Obama’s political skills as well as his extraordinary ability to raise money over the Internet. Obama’s grassroots donations have negated Clinton’s prodigious fundraising advantage with big donors.

Powerful lobbies-from AIPAC to representatives of military and other industries-also are recognizing the value of keeping their dominance over campaign cash from getting diluted by Obama’s deep reservoir of small donors. It’s in their direct interest to dent Obama’s momentum and demoralize his rank-and-file supporters as soon as possible.

So, neoconservatives and other ideological movements-heavily dependent on grants from the same special interests-are now joining with the Clinton campaign to tear down Obama by depicting him as unpatriotic, un-vetted, possibly a “closet Muslim.”

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February 23, 2008

Frank Rich: The Audacity of Hopelessness

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: , , , , , , , — Volt @ 10:50 pm

Frank Rich, The New York Times, February 24, 2008

When people one day look back at the remarkable implosion of the Hillary Clinton campaign, they may notice that it both began and ended in the long dark shadow of Iraq.

It’s not just that her candidacy’s central premise — the priceless value of “experience” — was fatally poisoned from the start by her still ill-explained vote to authorize the fiasco. Senator Clinton then compounded that 2002 misjudgment by pursuing a 2008 campaign strategy that uncannily mimicked the disastrous Bush Iraq war plan. After promising a cakewalk to the nomination — “It will be me,” Mrs. Clinton told Katie Couric in November — she was routed by an insurgency.

The Clinton camp was certain that its moneyed arsenal of political shock-and-awe would take out Barack Hussein Obama in a flash. The race would “be over by Feb. 5,” Mrs. Clinton assured George Stephanopoulos just before New Year’s. But once the Obama forces outwitted her, leaving her mission unaccomplished on Super Tuesday, there was no contingency plan. She had neither the boots on the ground nor the money to recoup.

That’s why she has been losing battle after battle by double digits in every corner of the country ever since. And no matter how much bad stuff happened, she kept to the Bush playbook, stubbornly clinging to her own Rumsfeld, her chief strategist, Mark Penn. Like his prototype, Mr. Penn is bigger on loyalty and arrogance than strategic brilliance. But he’s actually not even all that loyal. Mr. Penn, whose operation has billed several million dollars in fees to the Clinton campaign so far, has never given up his day job as chief executive of the public relations behemoth Burson-Marsteller. His top client there, Microsoft, is simultaneously engaged in a demanding campaign of its own to acquire Yahoo.

Clinton fans don’t see their standard-bearer’s troubles this way. In their view, their highly substantive candidate was unfairly undone by a lightweight showboat who got a free ride from an often misogynist press and from naïve young people who lap up messianic language as if it were Jim Jones’s Kool-Aid. Or as Mrs. Clinton frames it, Senator Obama is all about empty words while she is all about action and hard work.

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Obama Goes After GrandPa McCain

Filed under: News — Tags: , , , , , , , — Volt @ 8:56 pm

David Espo, The Associated Press, February 23, 2008

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – Sen. Barack Obama said Saturday that the Republican presidential nominee in waiting, Sen. John McCain, has lobbyists as top aides and “many of them have been running their business on the campaign bus while they’ve been helping him.”

The Democratic presidential hopeful also said McCain’s health care plans reflect “the agenda of the drug and insurance lobbyists, who back his campaign and use money and influence to block real health care reform.”

Jill Hazelbaker, a spokeswoman for McCain, said the Arizona senator “has been an agent for change for his entire career – he is the greatest change agent in our party – and we plan to highlight that record in this election.”

Obama has criticized McCain increasingly in recent weeks, while running off 11 straight primary and caucus victories over his Democratic rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Polls taken during the primary season show that independent voters are drawn in large numbers to both Obama and McCain, suggesting the two men would compete intensively for their support if they wind up opposing each other in the general election this fall.

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February 22, 2008

Paul Krugman: Don’t Rerun That ’70s Show

Filed under: Commentary — Tags: , , , , , — Volt @ 1:55 am

Paul Krugman, The New York Times, February 22, 2008

Will the next president be the second coming of Jimmy Carter? Given Thursday’s economic headlines, full of dire warnings about the return of 1970s-style stagflation, you might think so.

Realistically, though, the parallels between the problems facing the U.S. economy now and those of the late-1970s aren’t that strong. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the economy probably will look similar to, but worse than, the economy that undid the first President Bush. And it’s all too easy to see how the next president could suffer a political fate resembling that of both the elder Mr. Bush and Mr. Carter.

Let’s talk first about the Carter-era economy.

Jimmy Carter’s overall economic record was much better than most people realize — the average economic growth rate under his administration was 3.4 percent per year, slightly higher than the growth rate under Ronald Reagan and far better than growth under either Bush.

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