bRink, I think that was three or four cents' worth -- and very well spent.
Yeah, it's getting "real" I guess. Hope there aren't many gaffs or goofs. Barack said in a message to his troops (made weeks or months ago and shared with donors this week) that he's made mistakes and may make more. . .
and i would say that admitting a fundamental lack of economic understanding is a slightly larger problem than admitting that mistakes are gonna happen like any human being. but at least both of them are prepared to admit mistakes and take some responsibility for their actions for a change.
i have to think that better decisions come from one who owns up to their mistakes, as opposed to someone who, after 7+ years in the driver's seat can't muster even a single regret about any decision he's made.
I think our great national nightmare is just begining, and has nothing to do with who's in the White House. "It's the economy stupid" seems like the appropriate line.
My bets are that in the not so distant future people will look at the 2002-2007 time frame with fond memories - cheap gasoline/energy costs, rising real estate values keeping everyone flush with cash, SUV's, vacations to exotic places like Hawaii and the caribbean, plentiful food anytime of year and a stable electrical grid.
All of this I don't think will be as cheap or available in the future. When standard of living falls, even if just perceived, the nightmare is just begining for the public. Whoever the next president is will go down in history as another Herbert H. Hoover. Mark my words.
this depends... you're assuming that an inflated real estate bubble and driving around in SUV's, and going on vacations to "exotic" places like Hawaii and the caribbean... is all that makes Americans happy... I think the fact that the housing bubble burst, that gasoline prices are coming of age and beginning their climb due to market forces now, as opposed to two years from now, people will instead think about the Bush administration as the scapegoat... Whoever takes office next, will simply be perceived as having "inherited" the problems... Besides, scapegoat or not, lets get real: Bush's administration hasn't helped the economy much... Starting a misdirected war that has made us less safe, that has put us billions of dollars a day into further and further deficit, after inheriting a surplus from the previous administration... This guy is not a conservative, he's just bad... Nevermind that pissing off every other country in the world is not good for business in a global marketplace... I think the next President will be measured by his ability to repair foreign relations and deal with all of these economic and energy problems as well...
But aqua, you are also assuming that America won't change and we won't overcome these economic circumstances in the next 4-8 years... I'm optimistic that cars will become more fuel efficient with the right policy, and with resourceful people and companies and consumers responding to changes in the market... People in Europe have been paying way more for gasoline than we pay even now.... And they've been paying this for years... They take vacations alot more than we do, but take the train, travel within their continent, this is good for the economy... They live closer in more livable cities than we do and are arguably actually more happy day to day than we are in terms of their urban contexts...
Come on, lets have a little more optimisim in the depth and resourcefulness or Americans... I'm just generally cynical of cynics...
Watching Hillary give a speech to a chant of 'Yes We Can' seems surreal. I dont know why she always seems more at ease and real when she is not actually campaigning. She is funny and seems genuine.
Carmella Lewis, with her Hillary T-shirt and Hillary placard, came all the way from Denver to make sure there would be plenty of ambiguity, duality and ferocity in Unity.
Just as Hillary was testing out the unfamiliar familiarity “Barack and me” Friday and talking about “his grace and his grit,” Carmella began loudly booing and waving her sign.
“We want Hillary!” screamed the 57-year-old retired ad saleswoman and Clinton delegate.
“It’s over, lady!” yelled some Obama supporters a few yards away.
Standing between the Sharks and the Jets, David Axelrod took pity on an older friend of Carmella’s who was suffering from aridity in the Unity humidity. The chief Obama strategist fetched a glass of water and brought it to the woman, who was wearing five Hillary buttons.
This amenity did not stop the disunity. Carmella and her friends continued to cry, “Nobama!” “We love you, Hillary!” and “We need Hillary!” as Barack Obama sat onstage on a stool behind his former rival, his finger studiously at his lips.
Carmella was not impressed with all the kissing, laughing and whispering that Hill and Bam were diligently doing for the cameras, so that the moment could produce, as Obama press aide Robert Gibbs put it on “Larry King Live,” “a great picture.”
When it was Obama’s turn to speak, Carmella announced loudly, “I wish I had ear plugs.” Then, as Obama tried to ingratiate himself with the Hillary partisans in the crowd by saying that because of the New York senator, his daughters “can take for granted that women can do anything that the boys can do and do it better and do it in heels,” Carmella put her fingers in her ears.
As Obama tried to curry favor with Hillary, looking over at her sensible, sturdy shoes and marveling, “I still don’t know how she does it in heels,” Carmella tore up a tissue and stuffed it in her ears.
When Obama pandered with a line about how he wouldn’t “perpetuate a system in which women are paid less for the same work as men,” she put her hands over her tissue-stuffed ears.
“Maybe she’d like what she heard if she listened,” sighed Axelrod.
When Obama talked about moving beyond “all the petty bickering,” as Hillary robo-nodded at his side and CNN’s Candy Crowley applied pre-broadcast lipstick above her, Carmella glared at people applauding.
Afterward, Carmella got her idol to autograph her sign, telling the smiling Hillary, “You’re going to be the next president.”
She told The Times that she and her friends were all voting for John McCain and that Hillary was just doing what she had to do.
“But I have a gut feeling,” she said with macabre faith, “that something’s going to happen so that she becomes the nominee.”
Some people were mingling well on unity day.
Hillary’s chic body woman Huma Abedin got along great with Obama’s charming body man Reggie Love; the two, with their dates, shared a dinner the night before at a Georgetown hot spot.
The Bamary press corps meshed effortlessly. The Hillary Fox producer nodded to the good old days by passing around a video mashup of the former foes’ greatest hits: Hillary mocking Obama, saying, “Enough with the speeches and the big rallies!” and Obama saying, “Shame on her!” after Hillary said, “Shame on you, Barack Obama!”
Reporters and photographers crept toward the front of the plane where the victor and the vanquished sat side by side, trying to analyze every smidgen of body language for amity and jollity.
Endless hours were spent analyzing the shade of her pantsuit and his matching tie. Was it powder blue? Cornflower blue? Peacock blue? Cerulean?
The new political allies engaged in what one Obama aide sanguinely described as “comfortable, jovial small talk.” Obama told Hillary about using his Mac to keep in touch with his daughters, and she regaled him with tales of completely unidentifiable dishes you get served on overseas trips. They commiserated about the loss of privacy.
They did not, however, commiserate about Bill Clinton, who is in a self-pitying meltdown about not being Elvis anymore, trying to shake down Obama for more — more apologies for perceived snubs and more help paying off the $22 million Clinton debt.
It’s hard to fathom why Obama should be mau-maued into paying off the debt that Hillary and Bill accrued attacking and undermining him, while mismanaging the campaign and their nearly quarter-billion-dollar war chest so horribly that one Hillaryland insider told The New Republic that it bordered on fraud.
But the former president can’t stand being a loser, so he’s taking it out on the winner. When it comes to Bill, there’s a lot of vanity but very little humility in Unity.
i don't think wesley clark should apologize. what for? all he said was, just because mc cain was a prisoner of war and a young pilot in the war doesn't auto qualify him as a commander in chief. basically.
i can understand obama doesn't want to rock anything at this stage but he is turning into a little shopkeeper.
he is distancing himself from his own messages and previous alliances and positions continuously.
what a fucking good ol' boy he is turning into... just like his opponents.
and, the whole entourage of hollywood celebrity culture popping up on every election in last decade and a half is just too much of a of show biz if you ask me. it is already like oprah all over the place in white house.
i hate to say this but i might just not vote...
this is turning into an election between younger and older republicans.
and mccain;
every other day a speech about gas prices. i hope this doesn't become an election about who is going to fill the gas tank for few months, which is always something republicans better at it. simple minded stuff like that playing the public psyche card. similar to, we should stay the course with the same commander in chief during the war time.. remember 2004, giving another 4 years to the same clan who got us in trouble to begin with.
I think Obama has stayed true to his message and the things he stands for... It's always been a campaign about lifting people up and bringing the country together, not about tearing people down... Seems a pretty revolutionary politics to me... Preferring to focus on issues rather than personal attacks which are just smoke and mirrors.
mccains fellow republican senator Kyl runs a alternative fuel station only for government employees in downtown phoenix where he overcharges them in violation of the law Arizonans passed to make bio fuels available for everybody at the pump.
just goes to show you have corrupt the Arizona senators are, these scoundrels will do anything to gain a overhand and serve their own self interest in violation of the publics will.
what the hell is up with barack obama? who is this guy? he's certainly not the same person now that he was one everyone was writing in furiously attacking or defending him. his stumble to the middle has virtually taken all excitement out of his campaign. as a former hillary supporter, now half-hearted obama supporter, i'm not feeling too confident i will make it to the polling place this november.
I think what's going on is that people are discovering that Obama is, in fact, pretty much a center-left moderate when they were all projecting their own left-wing ideology on him.
I'm pretty much a flaming liberal myself, and nothing would make me happier than seeing a true progressive in the White House (along with sizable majorities in the House and Senate), but I also realize that a real social democrat wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning a nationwide election in the US.
I'll admit feeling a little less enthusiastic about Obama now than during the primaries (his FISA vote was a big disappointment to me, although I still support his candidacy), but I think part of it just might be exhaustion from such drawn-out primary season. We're in sort of a lull right now, but the excitement will pick up again when we get closer to November. In the meantime, I'd caution the Obama campaign not to get too complacent as the presumptive front-runner... A lot can happen between now and Election Day.
Meanwhile, here's the cover of the next New Yorker issue:
Hilarious satire, completely inappropriate, or somewhere in between?
Predictably, I suppose, the New Yorker cover is making a stir. I wish Barack and Michelle (at least) would take it with a grain of salt, and (dare we hope) even use it in it's intended meaning (taking Yes for an Answer ?), as a pointed satire on Red-side fear-mongering.
(Has the irony of "Red" as the new symbol of former Red-baiters been lost on everyone ? I've seen no mention of this anomaly. . .)
yes by getting offended they are setting them selfs up for violent communication
when it looks like the purpose is to mock and bring out of the woodwork the extremist fundementalist republican conservatives defensive biases for all to see?
and for the rest to laugh
but it does show how the media has so much control over people or at least tries to, to the point of interfering with and swinging elections.
The New Yorker has a long tradition of comment and satire, and there have been a number of "political" covers like this one in the last couple of years. As far as I know this is the only one to have caused a kerfluffel. I doubt it will last long. . .
Moving on from the disappointing New Yorker cover...
I found this goody on CNN's comments page,[http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/07/16/two-potential-vps-join-obama/]
"First McCain said Obama was irresponsible for saying he would attack Al Queida in Pakistan if their was solid intelligence. Since calling Obama 'irresponsilbe' our miliarty has attacked Al Queida 4 times in Pakistan.
McCain calls Obama naive and reckless for wanting to set a timetable to get out of Iraq. The sovereign Iraq government demands we set a timetable.
McCain calls Obama reckless and an appeaser for saying he will sit down with leaders of countries unfriendly to the U.S. 3 months later the U.S. successfully appeases and negoitiates with N. Korea ('axis of evil') and they begin to dismantle their nuclear plants.
McCain and Bush call Obama an appeaser and irresponsible for saying he wants direct diplomacy with unfriendly countries rather than threats of war. Just yesterday the State Department announces they are sending a top level official to Iran to sit down and have direct talks.
I think all the talk about Obama's "move to the right" is b.s... He hasn't moved to the right. If you mean move to the center, he has never really been the far left, and his candidacy has always been about bipartisan support for progress, and about making positive changes.
You can't get anything done in Washington, in fact you can't get elected, and you can't unite people or make any real progress and bring any kind of change if you polarize people to either extreme on issues. He hasn't changed his stance on the war or on energy. That's just the media and other political interests constructing a story based on sound bites. He has never said that the withdrawal from Iraq would be sudden and unconditional, that's just spin. Lets be smart about it, you need to do it as soon as possible but in a way that ensures the security of your troops and is safe and strategically sound. On energy, I think his policy is strong. This is about economic progress as much as it is about environmental issues. It's about real solutions, not about compormising your principles, but all things are a means to an end. You have to deal with the short term economic situation, and short term energy solutions as well as long term ones to transform the energy economy to sustainable renewable solutions. 10 years to dramatically expand plug in hybrids, transform the energy grid to allow for renewable energy sources while bringing the economy along sounds like a good ambitious goal to me...
Can those democrats who claim that Obama has "moved to the right" please clarify with specifics rather than make broad sweeping sound-bite generalizations, and can you please explain to me how not voting for Obama, or voting for McCain is going to further democratic causes? Why do Democrats always stone their own candidate and then complain when they lose? Stupid party politics, there are some Democrats and Republicans who just insist on throwing an egg at the other party's eye while winning, fighting for their own sake, or else they refuse to play, but that's precisely why nothing ever gets done. F*ck partisan politics, self-centeredness, and the us vs. them mentality, and all the synics... This is about real people and their needs, real issues and real solutions, doing what's right for all Americans and for progress generally...
why did he vote yes to spying when he was the only person who could have stopped it? y did he become subservient to Isreal and let them build more illegal settlements/apartheid colonies with out saying something?
Nader looks better every day that Obama moderates/compromises values that people want to see a different direction on.
can you please explain to me how not voting for Obama, or voting for McCain is going to further democratic causes?
My state will go for Obama whether I show up or not unless he is headed toward a landslide loss. Beyond that, with the Dems expected to see big gains in both chambers of congress, I don't see an Obama presidency as absolutely essential. We saw what a disaster one party rule was during the Bush admin.
Why do Democrats always stone their own candidate and then complain when they lose?
It's easy when they give so little love to their base/left wing. Dems like Dennis Kucinich are treated as if they're complete nutjobs by the mainstream of the party.
My state will go for Obama whether I show up or not unless he is headed toward a landslide loss. Beyond that, with the Dems expected to see big gains in both chambers of congress, I don't see an Obama presidency as absolutely essential. We saw what a disaster one party rule was during the Bush admin.
That may be true, but voting is also your voice in your democracy. It is a vote on issues, and where you stand on issues.
It's easy when they give so little love to their base/left wing. Dems like Dennis Kucinich are treated as if they're complete nutjobs by the mainstream of the party.
I don't think anybody thinks Dennis Kucinich is a nutjob, but most people are pragmitists... Voters I mean. Voting on prinicple is one thing, but it doesn't necessarily bring about real change or progress which requires bipartisan support. I think the "us vs. them" mentality is the reason nothing ever progresses, and I think alot of so called right wing and left wing people can find common ground. I think there are core democratic values that are shared by both democrats, some republicans, and most independents, and it's how you bring people together that brings progress, you can't have change and leave people out... Even people can change, I have optimism in the general decency of people in this country which is why I think it's not progressive to hate on people because of their party affiliation, or their label...
in that a 3rd 4th 5th or how every many other parties want to partake can not get representation because there is no representative voting or run off voting like in most all other democracies in the world that form coalition governments.
you have heard the saying that usa is run by 1 corporate party with 2 symbolic heads? This setup has failed us many times over, it is time for a change where people can get true representation and not be scared of winner take all tactics to vote for the part(ies) that most closely represent their views and actually have a meaningful outcome.
VOTE OBAMA
he is playing a mainstream ticket (of the 1 corporate party) and trying hard to appeal to everybody
what i wonder is how much of it is lie. because allot is
bRink, I think that was three or four cents' worth -- and very well spent.
Yeah, it's getting "real" I guess. Hope there aren't many gaffs or goofs. Barack said in a message to his troops (made weeks or months ago and shared with donors this week) that he's made mistakes and may make more. . .
Who else is so up-front ?
mccain said he didn't understand economics that is up front is it not?
I suppose. I don't understand economics either. But I'm not trying to be President of the United Stakes. . .
and i would say that admitting a fundamental lack of economic understanding is a slightly larger problem than admitting that mistakes are gonna happen like any human being. but at least both of them are prepared to admit mistakes and take some responsibility for their actions for a change.
i have to think that better decisions come from one who owns up to their mistakes, as opposed to someone who, after 7+ years in the driver's seat can't muster even a single regret about any decision he's made.
Also, he mistook Rita Moreno for Chita Rivera, at the White House recently. Can the man not get ANYthing right ?
207 days until our great national nightmare is over.
One way or another. . .
I think our great national nightmare is just begining, and has nothing to do with who's in the White House. "It's the economy stupid" seems like the appropriate line.
My bets are that in the not so distant future people will look at the 2002-2007 time frame with fond memories - cheap gasoline/energy costs, rising real estate values keeping everyone flush with cash, SUV's, vacations to exotic places like Hawaii and the caribbean, plentiful food anytime of year and a stable electrical grid.
All of this I don't think will be as cheap or available in the future. When standard of living falls, even if just perceived, the nightmare is just begining for the public. Whoever the next president is will go down in history as another Herbert H. Hoover. Mark my words.
Hey at least Hoover has one of the most famous dams in the world named after him instead of this.
this depends... you're assuming that an inflated real estate bubble and driving around in SUV's, and going on vacations to "exotic" places like Hawaii and the caribbean... is all that makes Americans happy... I think the fact that the housing bubble burst, that gasoline prices are coming of age and beginning their climb due to market forces now, as opposed to two years from now, people will instead think about the Bush administration as the scapegoat... Whoever takes office next, will simply be perceived as having "inherited" the problems... Besides, scapegoat or not, lets get real: Bush's administration hasn't helped the economy much... Starting a misdirected war that has made us less safe, that has put us billions of dollars a day into further and further deficit, after inheriting a surplus from the previous administration... This guy is not a conservative, he's just bad... Nevermind that pissing off every other country in the world is not good for business in a global marketplace... I think the next President will be measured by his ability to repair foreign relations and deal with all of these economic and energy problems as well...
But aqua, you are also assuming that America won't change and we won't overcome these economic circumstances in the next 4-8 years... I'm optimistic that cars will become more fuel efficient with the right policy, and with resourceful people and companies and consumers responding to changes in the market... People in Europe have been paying way more for gasoline than we pay even now.... And they've been paying this for years... They take vacations alot more than we do, but take the train, travel within their continent, this is good for the economy... They live closer in more livable cities than we do and are arguably actually more happy day to day than we are in terms of their urban contexts...
Come on, lets have a little more optimisim in the depth and resourcefulness or Americans... I'm just generally cynical of cynics...
ya Hoover keeps Phoenix growin fastest biatch ;)
Watching Hillary give a speech to a chant of 'Yes We Can' seems surreal. I dont know why she always seems more at ease and real when she is not actually campaigning. She is funny and seems genuine.
I am a little nervous but hopeful for Obama.
keeping her away would be way wiser she is obviously corrupt and psychotic
June 29, 2008
OP-ED COLUMNIST
‘It’s Over, Lady!’
By MAUREEN DOWD
UNITY, N.H.
Unity was spared the banality of unanimity.
Carmella Lewis, with her Hillary T-shirt and Hillary placard, came all the way from Denver to make sure there would be plenty of ambiguity, duality and ferocity in Unity.
Just as Hillary was testing out the unfamiliar familiarity “Barack and me” Friday and talking about “his grace and his grit,” Carmella began loudly booing and waving her sign.
“We want Hillary!” screamed the 57-year-old retired ad saleswoman and Clinton delegate.
“It’s over, lady!” yelled some Obama supporters a few yards away.
Standing between the Sharks and the Jets, David Axelrod took pity on an older friend of Carmella’s who was suffering from aridity in the Unity humidity. The chief Obama strategist fetched a glass of water and brought it to the woman, who was wearing five Hillary buttons.
This amenity did not stop the disunity. Carmella and her friends continued to cry, “Nobama!” “We love you, Hillary!” and “We need Hillary!” as Barack Obama sat onstage on a stool behind his former rival, his finger studiously at his lips.
Carmella was not impressed with all the kissing, laughing and whispering that Hill and Bam were diligently doing for the cameras, so that the moment could produce, as Obama press aide Robert Gibbs put it on “Larry King Live,” “a great picture.”
When it was Obama’s turn to speak, Carmella announced loudly, “I wish I had ear plugs.” Then, as Obama tried to ingratiate himself with the Hillary partisans in the crowd by saying that because of the New York senator, his daughters “can take for granted that women can do anything that the boys can do and do it better and do it in heels,” Carmella put her fingers in her ears.
As Obama tried to curry favor with Hillary, looking over at her sensible, sturdy shoes and marveling, “I still don’t know how she does it in heels,” Carmella tore up a tissue and stuffed it in her ears.
When Obama pandered with a line about how he wouldn’t “perpetuate a system in which women are paid less for the same work as men,” she put her hands over her tissue-stuffed ears.
“Maybe she’d like what she heard if she listened,” sighed Axelrod.
When Obama talked about moving beyond “all the petty bickering,” as Hillary robo-nodded at his side and CNN’s Candy Crowley applied pre-broadcast lipstick above her, Carmella glared at people applauding.
Afterward, Carmella got her idol to autograph her sign, telling the smiling Hillary, “You’re going to be the next president.”
She told The Times that she and her friends were all voting for John McCain and that Hillary was just doing what she had to do.
“But I have a gut feeling,” she said with macabre faith, “that something’s going to happen so that she becomes the nominee.”
Some people were mingling well on unity day.
Hillary’s chic body woman Huma Abedin got along great with Obama’s charming body man Reggie Love; the two, with their dates, shared a dinner the night before at a Georgetown hot spot.
The Bamary press corps meshed effortlessly. The Hillary Fox producer nodded to the good old days by passing around a video mashup of the former foes’ greatest hits: Hillary mocking Obama, saying, “Enough with the speeches and the big rallies!” and Obama saying, “Shame on her!” after Hillary said, “Shame on you, Barack Obama!”
Reporters and photographers crept toward the front of the plane where the victor and the vanquished sat side by side, trying to analyze every smidgen of body language for amity and jollity.
Endless hours were spent analyzing the shade of her pantsuit and his matching tie. Was it powder blue? Cornflower blue? Peacock blue? Cerulean?
The new political allies engaged in what one Obama aide sanguinely described as “comfortable, jovial small talk.” Obama told Hillary about using his Mac to keep in touch with his daughters, and she regaled him with tales of completely unidentifiable dishes you get served on overseas trips. They commiserated about the loss of privacy.
They did not, however, commiserate about Bill Clinton, who is in a self-pitying meltdown about not being Elvis anymore, trying to shake down Obama for more — more apologies for perceived snubs and more help paying off the $22 million Clinton debt.
It’s hard to fathom why Obama should be mau-maued into paying off the debt that Hillary and Bill accrued attacking and undermining him, while mismanaging the campaign and their nearly quarter-billion-dollar war chest so horribly that one Hillaryland insider told The New Republic that it bordered on fraud.
But the former president can’t stand being a loser, so he’s taking it out on the winner. When it comes to Bill, there’s a lot of vanity but very little humility in Unity.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
nobama
ha!
i don't think wesley clark should apologize. what for? all he said was, just because mc cain was a prisoner of war and a young pilot in the war doesn't auto qualify him as a commander in chief. basically.
i can understand obama doesn't want to rock anything at this stage but he is turning into a little shopkeeper.
he is distancing himself from his own messages and previous alliances and positions continuously.
what a fucking good ol' boy he is turning into... just like his opponents.
and, the whole entourage of hollywood celebrity culture popping up on every election in last decade and a half is just too much of a of show biz if you ask me. it is already like oprah all over the place in white house.
i hate to say this but i might just not vote...
this is turning into an election between younger and older republicans.
Sweet jesus what??
Bush Gives His Own "Terrorist Fist Jab"
and mccain;
every other day a speech about gas prices. i hope this doesn't become an election about who is going to fill the gas tank for few months, which is always something republicans better at it. simple minded stuff like that playing the public psyche card. similar to, we should stay the course with the same commander in chief during the war time.. remember 2004, giving another 4 years to the same clan who got us in trouble to begin with.
I think Obama has stayed true to his message and the things he stands for... It's always been a campaign about lifting people up and bringing the country together, not about tearing people down... Seems a pretty revolutionary politics to me... Preferring to focus on issues rather than personal attacks which are just smoke and mirrors.
mccains fellow republican senator Kyl runs a alternative fuel station only for government employees in downtown phoenix where he overcharges them in violation of the law Arizonans passed to make bio fuels available for everybody at the pump.
just goes to show you have corrupt the Arizona senators are, these scoundrels will do anything to gain a overhand and serve their own self interest in violation of the publics will.
what the hell is up with barack obama? who is this guy? he's certainly not the same person now that he was one everyone was writing in furiously attacking or defending him. his stumble to the middle has virtually taken all excitement out of his campaign. as a former hillary supporter, now half-hearted obama supporter, i'm not feeling too confident i will make it to the polling place this november.
I think what's going on is that people are discovering that Obama is, in fact, pretty much a center-left moderate when they were all projecting their own left-wing ideology on him.
I'm pretty much a flaming liberal myself, and nothing would make me happier than seeing a true progressive in the White House (along with sizable majorities in the House and Senate), but I also realize that a real social democrat wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning a nationwide election in the US.
I'll admit feeling a little less enthusiastic about Obama now than during the primaries (his FISA vote was a big disappointment to me, although I still support his candidacy), but I think part of it just might be exhaustion from such drawn-out primary season. We're in sort of a lull right now, but the excitement will pick up again when we get closer to November. In the meantime, I'd caution the Obama campaign not to get too complacent as the presumptive front-runner... A lot can happen between now and Election Day.
Meanwhile, here's the cover of the next New Yorker issue:
Hilarious satire, completely inappropriate, or somewhere in between?
Fidler, you'll make it to the polling place. . or ELSE ! How dare you. . .
or else we get a senile wanna be war mongering sexist.
Predictably, I suppose, the New Yorker cover is making a stir. I wish Barack and Michelle (at least) would take it with a grain of salt, and (dare we hope) even use it in it's intended meaning (taking Yes for an Answer ?), as a pointed satire on Red-side fear-mongering.
(Has the irony of "Red" as the new symbol of former Red-baiters been lost on everyone ? I've seen no mention of this anomaly. . .)
yes by getting offended they are setting them selfs up for violent communication
when it looks like the purpose is to mock and bring out of the woodwork the extremist fundementalist republican conservatives defensive biases for all to see?
and for the rest to laugh
but it does show how the media has so much control over people or at least tries to, to the point of interfering with and swinging elections.
The New Yorker has a long tradition of comment and satire, and there have been a number of "political" covers like this one in the last couple of years. As far as I know this is the only one to have caused a kerfluffel. I doubt it will last long. . .
Moving on from the disappointing New Yorker cover...
I found this goody on CNN's comments page,[http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/07/16/two-potential-vps-join-obama/]
"First McCain said Obama was irresponsible for saying he would attack Al Queida in Pakistan if their was solid intelligence. Since calling Obama 'irresponsilbe' our miliarty has attacked Al Queida 4 times in Pakistan.
McCain calls Obama naive and reckless for wanting to set a timetable to get out of Iraq. The sovereign Iraq government demands we set a timetable.
McCain calls Obama reckless and an appeaser for saying he will sit down with leaders of countries unfriendly to the U.S. 3 months later the U.S. successfully appeases and negoitiates with N. Korea ('axis of evil') and they begin to dismantle their nuclear plants.
McCain and Bush call Obama an appeaser and irresponsible for saying he wants direct diplomacy with unfriendly countries rather than threats of war. Just yesterday the State Department announces they are sending a top level official to Iran to sit down and have direct talks.
Who has the judgement?"
sounds like mccain and bush are bitters and hatters
Sadly, due to Obama's move to the right on the war and energy, I am forced to withdraw my support of his candidacy.
He needs to get elected -- and we need him, too.
As the old saying in the profession has it, "First, get the job !"
I think all the talk about Obama's "move to the right" is b.s... He hasn't moved to the right. If you mean move to the center, he has never really been the far left, and his candidacy has always been about bipartisan support for progress, and about making positive changes.
You can't get anything done in Washington, in fact you can't get elected, and you can't unite people or make any real progress and bring any kind of change if you polarize people to either extreme on issues. He hasn't changed his stance on the war or on energy. That's just the media and other political interests constructing a story based on sound bites. He has never said that the withdrawal from Iraq would be sudden and unconditional, that's just spin. Lets be smart about it, you need to do it as soon as possible but in a way that ensures the security of your troops and is safe and strategically sound. On energy, I think his policy is strong. This is about economic progress as much as it is about environmental issues. It's about real solutions, not about compormising your principles, but all things are a means to an end. You have to deal with the short term economic situation, and short term energy solutions as well as long term ones to transform the energy economy to sustainable renewable solutions. 10 years to dramatically expand plug in hybrids, transform the energy grid to allow for renewable energy sources while bringing the economy along sounds like a good ambitious goal to me...
Can those democrats who claim that Obama has "moved to the right" please clarify with specifics rather than make broad sweeping sound-bite generalizations, and can you please explain to me how not voting for Obama, or voting for McCain is going to further democratic causes? Why do Democrats always stone their own candidate and then complain when they lose? Stupid party politics, there are some Democrats and Republicans who just insist on throwing an egg at the other party's eye while winning, fighting for their own sake, or else they refuse to play, but that's precisely why nothing ever gets done. F*ck partisan politics, self-centeredness, and the us vs. them mentality, and all the synics... This is about real people and their needs, real issues and real solutions, doing what's right for all Americans and for progress generally...
why did he vote yes to spying when he was the only person who could have stopped it? y did he become subservient to Isreal and let them build more illegal settlements/apartheid colonies with out saying something?
Nader looks better every day that Obama moderates/compromises values that people want to see a different direction on.
A vote for Nader is a vote for John McCain.
I don't think that's true this time around considering Bob Barr is in the race.
thankfully...
My state will go for Obama whether I show up or not unless he is headed toward a landslide loss. Beyond that, with the Dems expected to see big gains in both chambers of congress, I don't see an Obama presidency as absolutely essential. We saw what a disaster one party rule was during the Bush admin.
Why do Democrats always stone their own candidate and then complain when they lose?
It's easy when they give so little love to their base/left wing. Dems like Dennis Kucinich are treated as if they're complete nutjobs by the mainstream of the party.
vote Nader.
Elections with two candidates might as well be no elections at all.
That may be true, but voting is also your voice in your democracy. It is a vote on issues, and where you stand on issues.
It's easy when they give so little love to their base/left wing. Dems like Dennis Kucinich are treated as if they're complete nutjobs by the mainstream of the party.
I don't think anybody thinks Dennis Kucinich is a nutjob, but most people are pragmitists... Voters I mean. Voting on prinicple is one thing, but it doesn't necessarily bring about real change or progress which requires bipartisan support. I think the "us vs. them" mentality is the reason nothing ever progresses, and I think alot of so called right wing and left wing people can find common ground. I think there are core democratic values that are shared by both democrats, some republicans, and most independents, and it's how you bring people together that brings progress, you can't have change and leave people out... Even people can change, I have optimism in the general decency of people in this country which is why I think it's not progressive to hate on people because of their party affiliation, or their label...
This is just my 2 cents.
only if there is representative elections and runoffs would a 3rd party even be worth considering voting for, the system is rigged
the system is rigged. . .in what way ?
in that a 3rd 4th 5th or how every many other parties want to partake can not get representation because there is no representative voting or run off voting like in most all other democracies in the world that form coalition governments.
you have heard the saying that usa is run by 1 corporate party with 2 symbolic heads? This setup has failed us many times over, it is time for a change where people can get true representation and not be scared of winner take all tactics to vote for the part(ies) that most closely represent their views and actually have a meaningful outcome.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/opinion/13graff.html?th&emc=th
Block this user
Are you sure you want to block this user and hide all related comments throughout the site?
Archinect
This is your first comment on Archinect. Your comment will be visible once approved.