The Brand New Respectful Presidential Campaign Thread
Comments
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Hi,
jumping in for a sec to tell you I heard from Amy and she is ok. I got worried about her and tracked her down.
I wanted to ask something political... don't know if you all have covered it or not.
How do you all feel about doing away with STATE primaries and doing REGIONAL primaries instead?
If they had four regional primaries instead of all these endless states, think how much money the campaigns could save for the general election.
I also don't understand why a party would bother with a big convention when the candidate is a shoe-in. For example, McCain is going to have a gigantic convention that will cost millions I am sure and he is unopposed. Why not skip it and use that money for his campaign?
I would say the same thing for the Democratic Convention, but I think we are going to go down to the wire and not have a nominee until the convention, which is why they were created anyway. And those last minute convention votes are what made politics so exciting back in the day.
I also don't like this Super Delegate business. It muddies the waters as far as I am concerned.
hugs,
g
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Gina I think the conventions are just a way of rally the troops..........let's face it the Democrats are going to have to have their convention to sooth hurt feelings and try to reunite a divided party and us Republicans are not happy either..........most of us especially the Conservative side of the party are not happy that McCain is going to be our nominee and for us really to get behind him he is going to need to give one hell of a speech at the Republican Convention......as far as state primaries I think beside it just being tradition its a way for the states to keep a sense of control over the national political seen................of course it would make more sense to go to a regional system but since when do politics make any sense......ha.............that would take away power from the politician........good to see you stop by........I hope as we get closer to the general election we see more of you sweetie..........Shokk
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Nicki,
How are you on this rainy day. Obama used drugs in college; he did not sell them. While I am not a fan of his, I don't like seeing false things attributed to him.
Cherryl
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ooops! Another chemobrain mistake!
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Rosemary,
After we've had so many good discussions here about our health, and for which I'll be eternally grateful, I respectfully disagree with your choice of candidate.
A friend sent this article to me today.
May 10, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Seeds of Destruction
By BOB HERBERT
< http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists
/bobherbert/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
The Clintons have never understood how to exit the stage gracefully.
Their repertoire has always been deficient in grace and class. So there
was Hillary Clinton cold-bloodedly asserting to USA Today that she was
the candidate favored by "hard-working Americans, white Americans," and
that her opponent, Barack Obama, the black candidate, just can't cut it
with that crowd.
"There's a pattern emerging here," said Mrs. Clinton.
There is, indeed. There was a name for it when the Republicans were
using that kind of lousy rhetoric to good effect: it was called the
Southern strategy, although it was hardly limited to the South. Now the
Clintons, in their desperation to find some way - any way - back to the
White House, have leapt aboard that sorry train.
He can't win! Don't you understand? He's black! He's black!
The Clintons have been trying to embed that gruesomely destructive
message in the brains of white voters and superdelegates for the longest
time. It's a grotesque insult to African-Americans, who have given so
much support to both Bill and Hillary over the years.
(Representative Charles Rangel of New York, who is black and has been an
absolutely unwavering supporter of Senator Clinton's White House quest,
told The Daily News: "I can't believe Senator Clinton would say anything
that dumb.")
But it's an insult to white voters as well, including white
working-class voters. It's true that there are some whites who will not
vote for a black candidate under any circumstance. But the United States
is in a much better place now than it was when people like Richard
Nixon, George Wallace and many others could make political hay by
appealing to the very worst in people, using the kind of poisonous
rhetoric that Senator Clinton is using now.
I don't know if Senator Obama can win the White House. No one knows. But
to deliberately convey the idea that most white people - or most
working-class white people - are unwilling to give an African-American
candidate a fair hearing in a presidential election is a slur against
whites.
The last time the Clintons had to make a big exit was at the end of Bill
Clinton's second term as president - and they made a complete and utter
hash of that historic moment. Having survived the Monica Lewinsky
ordeal, you might have thought the Clintons would be on their best
behavior.
Instead, a huge scandal erupted when it became known that Mrs. Clinton's
brothers, Tony and Hugh Rodham, had lobbied the president on behalf of
criminals who then received presidential pardons or a sentence
commutation from Mr. Clinton.
Tony Rodham helped get a pardon for a Tennessee couple that had hired
him as a consultant and paid or loaned him hundreds of thousands of
dollars. Over the protests of the Justice Department, President Clinton
pardoned the couple, Edgar Allen Gregory Jr. and his wife, Vonna Jo, who
had been convicted of bank fraud in Alabama.
Hugh Rodham was paid $400,000 to lobby for a pardon of Almon Glenn
Braswell, who had been convicted of mail fraud and perjury, and for the
release from prison of Carlos Vignali, a drug trafficker who was
convicted and imprisoned for conspiring to sell 800 pounds of cocaine.
Sure enough, in his last hours in office (when he issued a blizzard of
pardons, many of them controversial), President Clinton agreed to the
pardon for Braswell and the sentence commutation for Vignali.
Hugh Rodham reportedly returned the money after the scandal became
public and was an enormous political liability for the Clintons.
Both Clintons professed to be ignorant of anything improper or untoward
regarding the pardons. Once, when asked specifically if she had talked
with a deputy White House counsel about pardons, Mrs. Clinton said:
"People would hand me envelopes. I would just pass them on. You know, I
would not have any reason to look into them."
It wasn't just the pardons that sullied the Clintons' exit from the
White House. They took furniture and rugs from the White House
collection that had to be returned. And they received $86,000 in gifts
during the president's last year in office, including clothing (a
pantsuit, a leather jacket), flatware, carpeting, and so on. In response
to the outcry over that, they decided to repay the value of the gifts.
So class is not a Clinton forte.
But it's one thing to lack class and a sense of grace, quite another to
deliberately try and wreck the presidential prospects of your party's
likely nominee - and to do it in a way that has the potential to
undermine the substantial racial progress that has been made in this
country over many years.
The Clintons should be ashamed of themselves. But they long ago proved
to the world that they have no shame.
< http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/clientside/273f60f5Q2FveAXdQ51y.XdFd!Q5E
eJAQ7DFeCydJ>
It's about their character...and terminator seeds...and they are up to their eyeballs in this type of mess.
Yes they are smart....without question. It is the manner that they choose to use their intelligence that I find very distasteful....from the beginning.
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Shokk, the unscientific one. You may be right about Hillary's association with Bill--in fact I'm sure you are right--but isn't that in itself a form of gender bias. When was the last time you heard a husband blamed for his wife's mistakes--it happens but rarely. I beliieve it's all of a kind. But I'm feeling encouraged by reading what some women on here (Republicans) are saying about Hillary--positive stuff. I think this is because we, all of us, as women are angry at the way she's been treated. In the end, we're women first, and we've all been there.
I think my anger is about at the same level as Jaybird's--boiling over! Fortunately, for me, my husband agrees with me on this one. We both see the bias. And Nancy Pelosi, someone I previously only wished well, has me totally pissed. If that's not jealousy showing, can't think what else it might be. Maybe, she sees herself in the future as the first woman president and wants to be sure Hillary isn't there first!
And, I disagree with Bob Herbert, who has from the beginning been an Obama supporter, and has shown very little objectivity since the race began, long before that comment came from AP. And, this from one of the few people who voted for Jesse Jackson, and changed her affiliation from independent to do so! One thing I do agree with, though, is that the race card is being played, but the question is, I think, which side is doing the playing?
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Marilyn,
It's very hard for me to read that type of rhetoric. I read the first part. If you look at the numbers after the voting, a clear pattern has evolved. Yet that article is finding fault with Hillary trying to bring it forth to us and the superdelegates.
I have no problem with what the numbers are saying. 92% of the black folks are voting for Obama. We should make nothing of that. Ok, we won't. Hillary is getting the white women and white blue collar men's votes. It's clear, the pattern has been there for quite a few States. To denegrate her because she brings it forth, is what...exactly? It's bashing. It's only the facts but look at what they do to her.
I don't think Hillary was able to give anyone a pardon, but we'll take it out on her anyway. She's a woman, strong, resourceful, she can take it.
Today it's Hillary, and some day it will be another woman. If we want to sit by and let them keep doing it, then we reap what we sow for other women who would like this position in the future.
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Well...Anneshirley, I got to agree with you again! IMHO the race card is being played and I think we all know who is playing it.
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Regarding the primaries: the parties don't pay for the state primaries, the government does. Isn't that ridiculous? The parties do pay for their conventions. You'd think that the government would rather spring for the one big one than 50 little primaries!
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Once upon a lifetime ago, I liked Bob Herbert, but some of the pieces he's written since Obama became a nominee reflect an ugly bias, easily as ugly as what he's saying about the Clintons. In supporting his candidate, he'll say anything, whether proven or not, much as people who don't want Obama in the White House do, not just to him but to his wife. Neither is fair, just as mentioning the Vince Foster case indirectly is unfair (and without any basis in fact).
When Bill Clinton ran the second time, it was the only time in my long voting life that I didn't pull the lever for president, but it had nothing to do with any scandals, sexual or otherwise. He had moved so far away from the things he had promised that I couldn't in good conscience vote for him. Every administration, for as long as I can remember (possible exception Jimmy Carter), has had its scandals, some much worse than those associated with the Clintons. JFK had women in and out of the White House yet we're supposed to celebrate the new JFK in Obama and actually accept Caroline's endorsement.
I could care less about what the president does in his private sexual life--it's for his wife to object (I sure would!). If she doesn't, why should we? What I do care about is what the person can do for the country, to improve it. And Barack Obama is the most unproven of any candidate we've had in my lifetime. Even George Bush had been governor of Texas.
Can we stop throwing scandals around and keep ourselves focussed on the platforms and if the candidate has the credentials to implement his or her platform? Whatever bad you may say about Bill Clinton, he certainly improved the economy! I suppose some American died somewhere on some battlefield during his administration, but I can't remember any.
Anyway, Bob Herbert's way of putting down Hillary Clinton (to elevate his own candidate, and he certainly has a candidate) is the worst kind of politics. It's his shame that's hanging out for all to see!
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And one last note (I'm a bit wound up today) on Obama and pandering! In today's New York Times (same paper for which Herbert writes) is a front-page article on Obama that is not meant to be critical, but if you read it carefully you can't come away with any other view--at least not if you're like me and you like your politicians to have hard and fast principles. It shows in about ten examples how Obama changes with the flow. It was particularly telling concerning his moving between support of Israel and support of the Palestinians. But it also goes beyond that, showing how Obama started with one group in Chicago and when he saw he couldn't achieve what he wanted (and we all know now what that was) he moved to other groups. If we're to believe this article the man has no principles, other than pragmatism In fact, he's much closer to Bill Clinton than any other politician I can think of! Maybe Hillary should be his veep; she certainly has ample experience dealing with such men!
I'll paste it here if anyone can't get it online, but it's rather long.
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Bob Herbert said....
"I don't know if Senator Obama can win the White House. No one knows. But to deliberately convey the idea that most white people - or most working-class white people - are unwilling to give an African-American candidate a fair hearing in a presidential election is a slur against whites."
....and I agree.
When this primary began, I had no idea who would capture my attention. I'm a white, 59 y.o., Irish/English/French heritage, blue collar family influence, Woodstock attendee, hard working, single mother, night school grad of both Wharton U of P and Neumann liberal arts college, expat, bc survivor, and......tired of lies and greed.
Hillary lost me when she went negative, divisive and leaned so hard on her husband's money and influence. She could have built it all for herself on her own merits...I have no doubt....but she didn't.
The best lesson in life for me is that "It is never too late....for anything". It would be wonderful to watch Mrs. Clinton transform her experience into something more positive.
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Unless some sort of miracle is in the making, Hillary won't be around too much longer.
Obama has promised to bring the Keating 5 Bank scandal to our attention where it's hinted strongly that McCain asked for special treatment of his Banking friend Keating. I don't recall the full story but we'll find out more about it as the campaigns get into full swing. Or, it could be a dud. He sent out the first volley about it already. I wonder if McCain will be able to hold to his promise of running a fair and square campaign if this is the start of things to come?
For those of us who like to be on top of who the players were at the time:
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Hello political junkies.......I'm sleepy..........(overslept).......so I may have to come back later and edit this post..........Italy you went to Woodstock?......my brother tried to go......he got as close as NY state and so many miles from the farm but couldn't get in because of traffic............I think there may be some white middle Americans that don't vote for Obama because they think he is black...........after all he is just as much white as he is black.........but when he loses (imo) in November holy smoke everyone in his camp is going to be crying the Republicans are raciest........and it will never occur to them that maybe it is because of his voting record, his basic inexperience and his negative (American is a mean place) wife Michelle.............Jeez I have MNSNBC on this morning and Chris Matthews is sitting in for Joe and boy he is whining about WV..............I am praying (Anneshirley I just hate Science) that Hillary kicks his a$$ tomorrow......ok guys going to get youngest off to school........and get ready for work..........I will be back in a couple of hours..........Shokk
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Some Americans are racist but I doubt that racism is keeping Hillary's supporters from voting for Obama. I wish I could say that Obama's supporters are not biased against women, but I can't. At least, African Americans are supporting Obama, in great numbers, and I think that's great. Why not? What bothers me is that so many women are biased against their own sex. Psychologists have talked about and researched this phenomenon for ages (I'll post a few of their articles later this week), and I certainly see a lot of it around. As my husband has said, so many times, we are our own worst enemies. We could control every election in this country if we wanted to. And we should. It's about time we all knew it and made sure that the things we want for ourselves and our children--like decent health care and superior educational facilities--came about. At least half the members of Congress should be women, yet we're very far from those numbers. I'm too old now to run for public office but some of you younger women (Democrats and Republicans) should give it serious thought. A lot of passion on this thread--why let it go to waste?
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Anne Shirley--A bit wound up today--
"It was particularly telling concerning his moving between support of Israel and support of the Palestinians. But it also goes beyond that, showing how Obama started with one group in Chicago and when he saw he couldn't achieve what he wanted (and we all know now what that was) he moved to other groups. If we're to believe this article the man has no principles, other than pragmatism"
You wound up? LOL---
As soon as anyone mentions Obama's name --as a Jew knowing his list of foreign policy advisers and previous questionable statements made by him, my blood pressure sky rockets.
Even Nader is pissed at Obama's pandering to the Jewish vote because
Nader knows it's a complete about-face.
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Nader told Tim Russert on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Democratic frontrunner Obama had been an advocate for the Palestinians before he ran for the Senate in Illinois, but has since shifted gears.
“His better instincts and knowledge have been censored by himself, and I give you an example: the Israeli-Palestinian issue, which is a real off-the-table issue for the candidates,” said Nader. “Don’t touch that, even though it is central to our security and to the situation in the Middle East.
He was pro-Palestinian when he was in Illinois, before he ran for the state senate, during the state senate.=========================================
Even though Samantha Power is no longer with his campaign (Hillary=Monster comment) the fact that
she lead his foreign policy team is troubling to me. Samantha Power also recently told an audience at Columbia University that she expects to be back with Obama as soon as the furor calms down.
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"Obama's statement that he never "heard" his "pastor" express any anti-Semitism, "neatly elid[es] the whole issue of Wrights repeated anti-Israel comments over the years, Wright's trip to Libya, etc." Apparently, no one tried to pin Obama down on this, nor (I'm told) did anyone bring up the issue of Obama's anti-Israel advisers.Moreover, as Trager points out (along with some on the left), Obama's recent pro-Israel positions almost surely amount to pandering of the most cyncial kind:
After all, Obama is on record as having called for an "even-handed approach" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2000, just as the Palestinians commenced the Second Intifada following Camp David. According to Electronic Intifada founder Ali Abunimah, Obama's pro-Israel epiphany occurred shortly before his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign—an about-face for which Obama apologized to Abunimah. "Hey, I'm sorry I haven't said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I'm hoping when things calm down I can be more up front," Obama said at the time.
As Trager concludes, the mixture of Obama's advisers (at least two of whom -- Zbigniew Brzezinski and Samatha Power -- subscribe to the Walt-Mearsheimer thesis that that the U.S.-Israel relationship is the product of Jewish power politics, rather than strategic interest) and the candidate's own past statements "are hardly reassuring" when it comes to thinking about what an Obama presidency would mean for Israel."
And he continues to add more of these types to his foreign policy team--the most recent Merrill McPeak.
"He also has a penchant for bashing Israel or, more particularly, Jews who oppose negotiating with terrorists.
McPeak has a long history of criticizing Israel for not going back to the 1967 borders as part of any peace agreement with Arab states. In 1976 McPeak wrote an article for Foreign Affairs magazine questioning Israel's insistence on holding on to the Golan Heights and parts of the West Bank.
In recent years McPeak has echoed the Mearsheimer-Walt view."==========================================
And now another guy! What a cast of characters.
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Commentary Magazine's Gabriel Schoenfeld has noted that another Obama adviser, Joseph Cirincione, seems to have anti-Israel views. His senior aide on nuclear non-proliferation had denounced reports that North Korea had been helping Syria build a nuclear reactor and said such reports were nonsense and were, in part, promoted so as to derail talks with Syria.
Cirincione had written after Israel's strike against the suspected Syrian nuclear plant that stories about it being a North-Korean designed and built plutonium reactor were a lie -- a fiction being spread just as reports had been spread before the Iraq War that misled the press regarding Iraq's program. Shcoenfeld writes:Who was behind this nefarious manipulation? It appears, wrote Circincione, "to be the work of a small group of officials leaking cherry-picked, unvetted 'intelligence' to key reporters in order to promote a preexisting political agenda." What exactly was that political agenda? "[I]t appears aimed at derailing the U.S.-North Korean agreement that administration hardliners think is appeasement." There was also a dose of Zionist mischief thrown in: "Some Israelis want to thwart any dialog between the U.S. and Syria."Based on evidence shown to Congress yesterday, there is now incontrovertible proof that the building bombed by Israel was a plutonium-producing reactor that was geared toward the production of material for nuclear weapons -- exactly what Cirincionne had previously dismissed as lies, in part, cooked up by Israelis trying to influence America's foreign policy.This tendency to blame and castigate Israel was not the first time phenomenon for Joseph Cirincione. He seems to have a penchant for targeting Israel for opprobrium.
In 2002, he wrote that Israel's possession of three diesel nuclear power submarines that can launch nuclear missiles complicates American efforts to restrain a nuclear arms race. He also claimed that the US Navy monitored the Israeli testing of a new cruise missile from a submarine in 2002 off of Sri Lanka, according to unnamed "former Pentagon officials".
There is no verifiable proof that Israel launched such missiles, just a claim by Cirincione. He also blamed Israel for stoking an arms race that is creating a difficult situation not just for the United States, but also for preventing other nations that have signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty from breaking away.
Israel's has followed a principle of ambiguity regarding its nuclear program. Surrounded by an array of enemies that dwarf its own resources, Israel -- a nation founded after the Holocaust -- might reasonable be seen as needing such a nuclear force to protect its existence. It has been rumored that when Israel was on the brink of defeat during the Yom Kippur War , it made known that it might be forced to resort to a nuclear option. Cirincionne looks in askance at Israel's possession of such a deterrent and sees it as a problem for America and for the world.
In 2006, he declared that Israel's raid on the Osirak nuclear reactor was a "failure". This was despite the stunning success of the daring raid (only one man died) in derailing Iraq's program. Years later, Dick Cheney thanked Israel for disabling Iraq's nuclear program, for if Osirak had been allowed to be completed, Iraq might well have had a nuclear arsenal during the Gulf War in 1991. Instead, Cirincione held that it sped-up the Iraqi program and led to a more devoted effort to secretly build nuclear capabilities. This, of course, paradoxically conflicts with his other belief that Iraq did not have such a nuclear program and that America should not have invaded Iraq absent such proof!He is in favor of persuading Israel to give up its nuclear program which, as noted above, might be the only thing that can prevent Israel's destruction. One book reviewer noted that Cirincione's believes (as shown in his book, Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons):Quite significantly, Cirincione thinks that Iran would also be encouraged to give up nuclear weapons building if it does not face a nuclear threat from what it considers to be its biggest enemy in the Middle East -- Israel. The nuclear balance in the Middle East is always going to be contingent on the political atmosphere in that politically and historically volatile continent, and Israel is a key player in these developments. While Israel giving up its nuclear program may sound utopian, Cirincione is optimistic that Israel with its vast and superior conventional forces could be encouraged to incrementally reduce or even eliminate its nuclear capability, perhaps starting by shutting down its production reactor at Dimona.Cirincione states:"The world does well to remember that most Middle East weapons programs began as a response to Israel's nuclear weapons," said Joseph Cirincione, director for nonproliferation at the liberal think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and co-author of its recent study, "Universal Compliance: A Strategy for Nuclear Security.
"Everyone already knows about Israel's bombs in the closet," he said. "Bringing them out into the open and putting them on the table as part of a regional deal may be the only way to prevent others from building their own bombs in their basements."If this were not enough to give one qualms about the views of this important adviser to Barack Obama, Cirincione has expanded on these themes in a short article for The Globalist. He criticizes America for not publicizing Israel's weapons programs. He calls for an end of this practice.
If you do not know much about Israel's programs, it is not surprising. Israel is never mentioned in semi-annual reports the U.S. Congress requires the intelligence agencies to prepare on "the acquisition by foreign countries during the preceding six months of dual-use and other technology useful for the development or production of weapons of mass destruction."The agencies provide their assessment of programs in Iran, North Korea, India, Pakistan and others, but Israel (and Egypt) are omitted. This pattern is repeated across the board.For example, the 2003 report on the ballistic and cruise missile threat from the National Air and Space Intelligence Center lists 18 nations with missiles, including U.S. allies Bulgaria, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Yemen, and Egypt — but not Israel.Yet, Israel is the only nation in the Middle East with nuclear weapons and an array of medium-range missiles that could deliver them.He wants to put U.S. muscle behind a plan for seeking a nuclear-free Middle East region. This, of course, would be flexed against Israel. He wrote (in 2005) that Israel was never more secure from external threats and has less need for nuclear weapons than any time in its history. He calls for an "even-handed" approach toward nuclear weapons programs and calls for Israel's nuclear program to be "put on the table" as part of a regional deal to prevent nuclear proliferation.There are more such policy pronouncements by Joseph Cirincione. They all reveal a stunning naiveté regarding the nature of the regimes that are engaged in nuclear proliferation in the region. Pakistan and North Korea have engaged in a nuclear bazaar to sell nuclear technology; Iran has spent billions to develop a nuclear weapons arsenal; Syria is cooperating with North Korea (and probably Iran) on weapons of mass destruction . They all have monetary or geopolitical reasons to do so. Iran wants to be a hegemonic power in the region-and also may very well have theological "reasons" for developing nuclear weapons. Saddam Hussein was a megalomaniac who wanted nuclear arms to expand his power.
Yet somehow, Cirincione blames Israel for nuclear proliferation and seemingly wants to pressure Israel to shut down its nuclear program and strip itself of any nuclear weapons it may or may not have in its inventory. This man was chosen by Barack Obama to be one of his top advisers in the area of nuclear proliferation. He is also another in a disconcertingly long line of Obama advisers, who seemingly have an anti-Israel bias and who would be very willing to apply American pressure on our tiny ally to disarm itself in the face of its mortal enemies.-----------------------------------------------------------------------============================================I truly do not trust Obama judgment or lack of judgment.The fact is Iran is nearing the capability of having nuclear weapons in the very near future.Senator Obama seems either to be a woefully bad judge of character orhas been lying when he said, he never heard Rev Wright's anti-semiticcomments. Either way the thought of him negotiating with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad frightens me.Now here is another thought---When we secretly hope that Israel takesout that nuclear reactor how will a President Obama respond if they do?Or better yet, if Obama gets his way and Israel is emasculated (after allthe US and the rest of the world will defend them!-LOL)---Will a President Obama take out the reactor himself?---Or will he choose to believe Ahmadinejads promise that it's only for electricity?I could have easily voted for Hillary and I may not agree with the Republican platform but I do trust McCain's judgment and his true ability to work across the aisles.Guess it's just a matter of time now before my McCain sign goes on my lawn. -
By the way--Here is another beauty on Obama's foreign policy team--
and I don't care about the degrees--I care about the judgment.
(by the way she said He's not ready for that three in the morning call)
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“Clinton hasn’t had to answer the phone at three o’clock in the morning and yet she attacked Barack Obama for not being ready,'’ Ms. Rice said. “They’re both not ready to have that 3 a.m. phone call.”
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"Zbigniew Brzezinski and Samantha Power aren't the only dangerously soft and muddled members of Barack Obama's foreign policy team. Obama has also tapped Susan Rice, who held a similar role in John Kerry's campaign and before that in Howard Dean's.
As Bulldog Pundit reminds us, during Bill Clinton's second term, Rice played a major role in the decision to refuse Sudan’s offer to hand over Bin Laden. According to Richard Miniter, author of Losing bin Laden, Rice persuaded Sandy Berger to turn Sudan down because she doubted its credibility and was offended by its human rights violations. But our ambassador to Sudan argued far more sensibly for calling Khartoum's "bluff." Mansoor Ijaz, who was involved in the negotiations with Sudan provides the same account.
No doubt, Rice will urge Obama (in the unlikely event he needs urging) to rush into talks with Iran and Syria notwithstanding any reservations about their credibility and human rights records, on the theory of "why not; how can it hurt?" But when offered the opportunity to take out the world's leading terrorist -- as opposed to appeasing rogue terrorist supporting states -- Rice drew the line." -
I've been out of town. Lot's of reading here.
Rocktobermom, I wanted to stop and this page before going forward, and tell you I loved the article you posted. Michelle Obama must be an alien from another planet.
I even get "proud" watching presidential funerals! Watching the military, the military band, listening to the choirs, listening to the speeches about his (so far no her) achievements EVEN if I was not in favor of that candidate...well, just call me a sucker!
My father had a "military" funeral..LOL We wanted the flag draped over his casket...no flowers. They sent out a recorder, played taps on it, and the two "little guys" folded the flag and handed it off. No gun fire, no jets overhead, but I was still proud of my daddy who fought in WWII. Not only was I proud of him, but for all the troops in all wars. When I hear about another young man or woman signing up AGAIN for the military and volunteering to go back to Iraq, it makes me proud. I would much rather the war be OVER, but it makes me proud to see these men and women so dedicated to their country and they have chosen to sign "on." Our country hasn't forced (drafted) them.
I could go on and on about the reasons I'm proud of this country and proud to be an American, but I'm sure I'd only bore you.
Keep on Rocking, Rocktobermom!
Shirley
BTW, our rebate of $800 will go toward my Arimidex prescription of $743!
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Okay, I've gotta get caught up with political news. Being out of town, I've seen NADA! I was almost having a withdrawal from not knowing what's going on. Soooo, off to watching the news networks.
Before I leave I want to say I DO CARE WHAT OUR PRESIDENT IS DOING while in office. I expect him to keep his zipper zipped! And pants on. I don't want to picture in my head what Clinton and Lewinsky did in that Oval Office. It's wrong...just plain wrong. So, I think we need to hold ALL of our elected officials to a higher standard WHILE in office. And, some of these men stay in there for many, many years. By the time they leave PERHAPS they will need a little help from a prescription drug to perform extramarital affairs!
WATCH FOX NEWS!!!
And, I'll never forget this. It still makes me angry to this day!
I HATED him wagging that finger!
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/01/27/clinton.main/
Dallas paper retracts Clinton-Lewinsky story
The Dallas Morning News retracted an online article shortly after it was published late Monday, in which an unidentified source told the paper a Secret Service agent was prepared to testify he saw Clinton and Lewinsky in a compromising situation.
The paper said in a statement posted on its online edition that the report was pulled because "the source for the story, a longtime Washington lawyer familiar with the case, later said the information provided for that report was inaccurate."
The grand jury convened a day after Clinton denied with force and anger the allegations of a sexual relationship.
"I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again. I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky," he said at the White House on Monday, wagging his finger for emphasis.
"I never told anybody to lie, not a single time -- never. These allegations are false and I need to go back to work for the American people," the president said before returning to work on his State of the Union speech to Congress on Tuesday.
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Saluki,
I read your trepidations and still I'm sure that it is time to plot another course toward peace. Clearly this conversation has been going on now for over 70 years. The Isreal - Palestine conversation began in the British White Papers of 1939. .... two links ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Paper_of_1939
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/brwh1939.htm
This issue has it's genesis in the same fears as the race/gender. Territory is precious to everyone as are their belief systems.
There is a problem of credibility on all sides...Gaza and the West Bank are settlements that do not belong there. US has interests to keep nuclear capability in that region for it's own national interests not those of the Jews or Palestine.
The escalation of weapons of mass destruction is a slippery slope...we've been there before in world history...it goes hand in hand with money and power....we'll probably always be there for reasons of the human condition.
To say that negotiation for peaceful insterests are a mistake?
To say that pre-emptive attacks, assassination and torture are acceptable foreign policy?
Then what is peace really? What really is the US Constitution? only a matter of convenience?
I am not Jewish. I am an American citizen and soon to be a European citizen. It pains me deeply to watch the affects of a divided world, let alone country, when it is truly United We Stand. (My heritage of Irish/French/English I'm certain has DNA of arab or jewish somewhere as most Europeans over the centuries of empire building.) But I've accepted that this is the human condition.
I do not wear blinders and I refuse to accept that peace is not possible. It is for this purpose that human rights organizations exist under a single banner of basic human rights for everyone, everywhere in the world irrespective of race, creed or color. I know people personally who work these organizations. It's not easy work, and they never give up.
Thank God.
Do you really believe that Obama and his advisors are to be feared for sinister plots? foolish plots? careless plots?
I think that best describes the last eight years--a statement with which very few people disagree.
Maybe the best combination is Obama and McCain. I like McCain because he is respected and honest. His ability to work toward issues rather than political affiliations. I suspect that this too is the manner that the Isreal/Palestine issue needs to be approached and managed. And I suspect that this is the approach that Obama will use too.
Washington was "no Party".
Jefferson, Madison and Monroe were Dem AND Rep affiliated.
Just and idea.
It is not my intent to raise your blood pressure on this subject as I respect you very much. It is with that respect that I open the topic of the British White Paper for discussion as it is very relavent to the place we find ourselves in today.
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They are going to miss Hillary when this is over. Yesterday I turned on the TV, everyone of the shows was about how she is going to exit this compaign. Then if they weren't talking directly about her exit, they were talking about how others are talking about her exit.
This so boggles my mind. I'm speechless. Who gave the press permission to tell us who our candidates should be and when they should either stay or exit a campaign? Maybe I just don't understand the process well enough. We go to a convention and have voting for only one person? I get it now. It's not suppose to be a race to the end anymore. We just want to crown the person the press tells us is the right one. Got it.
Just for grins, had FL and MI votes counted, after today's primary, Hillary would be up in the popular vote:
Popular vote (w/FL & MI) Obama 16,579,735 Clinton: 16,466,237
Obama + 113,498 +0.33%
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Susie--there was an interesting book review in the Times on Sunday (written by a Jewish historian) about how some Jewish leaders actually viewed the Palestinians and their claims of being disposed from their homes--that these same leaders (Ben Gurion is one) stated they would have felt the same, if they had been Palestinians. I wasn't suggesting that Obama was wrong in his initial view of being "even handed" in this conflict--I agree with him. How can anyone object to even-handedness?
Like Marilyn I believe in the rights of all men (and women). I'm objecting to Obama, as Nader is doing, because he changes his positions depending on the polls. His principles have wings and those wings are directed towards the White House. (I would prefer it if Hillary were fairer towards the Palestinians, but at least her position is, and has been, consistent across the years.)
I also am not trying to get your BP up, as I also like and respect you, but I thought I should be clear that my objection to Obama is that, like so many other politicians who know better, he appears to be turning his back on a people who are in desperate straits. The only president we've had since I turned 21 that I actually respect is Jimmy Carter. He is a man of principle, and in politics such men are few and far between.
I don't want to hijack this thread to discuss the Israel/Palestine question, or we'll never get back to the subject of this year's election, but I beieve my earlier post may have led some to think I was saying something different.
Go Hillary! I'm hoping for a huge win in West Virginia. And if she doesn't get the nomination, then I hope McCain picks Olympia Snow as his running mate.
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Ok first of all Anneshirley.....Jimmy Carter?.....ewww.......sorry just can't stand him......as far as the Israel and Palestine conflict.........you have to admit that considering Israel is just 60 years old democracy seems to work..........but let's move on to today's primaries.......for the life of me I can't remember who the third state primaries are today.......WV, Puerto Rico and ?.....is it MO.........I hope Hillary wins all three.....so there...........I too am so disgusted by the way she is being treated by the media......and Anneshirley I am totally insulted that she is having to pay for her husbands misbehavior..........hasn't she been humiliated enough?..........how dare the media decide that Obama is going to be the Democrat nominee..........now they are telling Hillary how to bow out.........jeez.........this morning Chris Matthew was just beat down on the Morning Joe show......I think today may be a turning point in Hillary campaign and the "bias media" isn't even talking about it but instead how she should "bow out".......awgggggggg..........I need some duct tape to wrap around my head to keep it from exploding.........Shokk (the running sentence science hater)
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This is one battle I'm not getting into on this thread. I think Obama is too naive and lacks judgment and that is reflected by who he chooses to surround himself with as well as his choice of advisers. That is my opinion.
Yes- I am too close to this one. My grandparents had 18 children and 10
of my Mom's sister's and brothers died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Treblinka as well as their babys and my cousins so this is burned in my memory never to happen again. No more Chamberlains.
No you cannot know. When you know what true evil is and what true horror is your rest is uneasy.
So forgive me if I don't want to take a chance on kumbayah.----And I can't even say Carters name without nearing a stroke and my head is pounding so I'm taking a break.
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(((((Susie)))))))..........your grandparents had 18 children? That is amazing........did your grandparents die in the concentration camps as well?........here I am handing you some aspirin.........but don't leave........your posts the last few days have been outstanding (not that they aren't always)..........Shokk
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My grandparents were able to get out with the five youngest children.
My Grandfather was very badly beat up the night of Kristallnacht. One of my Aunts had married an Englishman so they were able to vouch for them.
Thank G-D for England.
Ironic-One of my Uncles papers finally came through the day the borders closed and he perished.
One of my aunts that made it to England was a twin who was still at home. Her sister was married with children and she perished with her
babys and husband.
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I am surprised they are even saying she should bow out!! Why don't they admit they are gender biased and tell her to give us a curtsy and a smile????
And I thought this was 2008.
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Shokk--I have plenty of duct tape, although I may need it all in the next three weeks to keep my own head together. Yes, what's happening with Chris Matthews? He seems to be turning, somewhat! I guess it's all those women in his family. I read that his wife contributed the full amount allowed in contributions to Hillary.
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I just received an e-mail from Hillary's campaign - she is victorious in WV!
I swear this ain't over yet!!!And, I agree with Anneshirley about Jimmy Carter. I was too young in the early 80's to see what he was all about but totally admire and respect him now. He truly is a man of principles.
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Hey Shokk,
I have lots of duct tape, if you can stand using something a science loving, left leaning liberal has tainted, I mean touched!!!
Way to Hillary! I'm so pissed at the Big O talking about his campaign in the fall. Hello, we don't have a nominee yet!!! Forget the duct tape, I need a stiff drink!!!!
Cherryl
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