President Barack Hussein Obama

In 2004 I heard about a speech given at the Democratic National Convention. After watching it my first thought was: my God, this man has a future in this party.

My second thought was: why does he have to be named Barack Hussein Obama?

But after today's historic events I understand.

America has, for the past eight years, worked to destroy itself, its place in the world as a leader, not only militarily and finacially, but as a beacon of reason and sanity.

Perhaps we could be forgiven the first four years of a Bush administration transformed by the disaster of 9/11 from merely blandly incompetent to actively evil.

But then came 2004.

We re-elected him.

To the world, and to ourselves, that was a nearly unpardonable sin.

And make no mistake, the blame then lay not only on the shoulders of Bush's supporters and voters, but on those of us on the left as well who failed to defeat him.

Which is why it is so important that a black man named Barack Hussein Obama is now President-Elect.

Because we on the left had to work that much harder to get him there. Because it forced the saner of Bush's former supporters to realize that they had to choose between the reason and sanity Obama represents, and the madness represented by their rabid far-right wing.

Which is why I'm also (now) thankful for Sarah Palin who made the choice even more stark.

And (while I'm feeling magnanimous) let me express my thought that we have done John McCain a great service by rejecting his presidential bid.

The McCain I saw tonight reminded be of the McCain I admired not so many years ago, like his soul had been held prisoner to the worst elements of the GOP campaign machine, but had suddenly been released.

So now the beginning is ended. Tomorrow (after sleeping late) we begin to face the many challenges that confront us, individually and as a nation. But now, as I never have before, I truly believe that we are up to the task.

We can do it together.

Yes, we can.

VOTE FOR HISTORY!

[I]n no other country on earth, is my story even possible.

- Barack Obama, 2004 keynote speech to the Democratic National Convention.

Some endorsements matter more than others.

I understand, and frankly agree, that endorsements don't make all that much difference, especially this late in the game.

But still you have to believe the optics on the last round of endorsements might be telling.

Sure Barack Obama racks up endorsements from Colin Powell, and even neo-con Ken Adelman, but hey, McCain just got a high=profile endorsement of his own:

Al Qaeda.

"Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election," said a commentary posted Monday on the extremist Web site al-Hesbah, which is closely linked to the terrorist group. It said the Arizona Republican would continue the "failing march of his predecessor," President Bush.

Maybe that's their reasoning. Personally I think bin Laden just has the hots for Sarah Palin.

So, how was your weekend?

weekend

(wēk'ĕnd') n. - A time period usually extending from Friday night through Sunday.

Once upon a time (last month) weekends were used to rest up from a busy week's activities and recharge yourself for the week ahead. A time when the most pressing news events happened on ESPN and the Golf Channel.

So much for that.

First, late Friday, Minnesota Representative and McCain supporter Michelle Bachmann got into a heated exchange with Chris Matthew's on Hardball were she not only questioned the patriotism of Barack Obama and the Democratic party, but also suggested the media should conduct a witch hunt on capitol hill to expose unpatriotic congressmen as well.

The effect of all this right-wing blather?: Nearly $500,000 was donated to her Democratic opponent in the next 24 hours and the DCCC has decided to put resources into this suddenly competitive district! (BTW, if you'd like to donate follow the links from the dkos article on the affair from Ms. Bachmann's Democratic rival, Elwyn Tinklenberg.)

Then came Sunday with two huge announcements, Obama's stupefying $150,000,000 haul in September donations, and his long-anticipated endorsement by General Colin Powell.

Oh, and also, Mrs. CaliBlogger and I saw W yesterday. Almost made me feel sorry for the guy.

Well, almost.

Obama v. McCain: the last (thank God) debate

Winner: Bob Scheiffer. Not only a good questioner, he actually got the candidates to engage in what, mostly, sounded like an actual debate.

Winner: Barack Obama. Given the fundamentals, Obama's challenge throughout these debates was much like Reagan's in 1980, to make people in whose interest it would be to vote for him comfortable enough to do so. I.e. to look and act presidential.

Mission accomplished!

Loser: McCain (what did you think I was going to say?). Faced with Mission Impossible: to revitalize his campaign without going negative (which has only hurt him with independents), McCain has shown he's no Tom Cruise, or even Peter Graves.

And he forgot that it's the message that's supposed to self-destruct.

Prescient Obama

Barack Obama said in the most recent debate (I paraphrase) that we need a president who can not only see what's right in front of him, but see around the corner.

He's both correct in that observation, and capable of such vision:



[H/t Andrew Sullivan]

No complacency: just a win is not enough

And since the O-man is high-minded enough for the both of us, I have no qualms about agreeing with what kos says about today's GOP:

Break their back, crush their spirits

Frankly, the only divide I want to see Obama bridge is between progressive and Bluedog Democrats. I just don't think Republicans in their current state are salvageable, with the ones surviving the coming firestorm being the hardest of the hard right.

Obama: the right leader for our time

According to the oft cited quote from Winston Churchill: “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.”

And certainly it seems that, by design, by luck, or by divine providence, whenever the US has been faced with a major crisis it has eventually brought forth a leader to deal with that crisis. FDR saw the country through both the great depression and World War II, Abraham Lincoln successfully defended the union and ended slavery during the civil war, and at the nation's most critical moment, its birth, George Washington set an unmatched example of how to lead, and transfer leadership for the new republic.

As the US stares down the worst economic crisis since the great depression, as it finds itself embroiled in two land wars, as it sees its military, political, and economic leadership at new lows, will we be again so fortunate as to choose a man who historians will rank with Washington, with FDR, with Lincoln?

Reformed religious right leader, author, and Obama supporter Frank Schaeffer certainly thinks so:

Great presidents are made great by horrible circumstances combined with character, temperament and intelligence. Like firemen, cops, doctors or soldiers, presidents need a crisis to shine.

Obama is one of the most intelligent presidential aspirants to ever step forward in American history. The likes of his intellectual capabilities have not been surpassed in public life since the Founding Fathers put pen to paper. His personal character is also solid gold. Take heart, America: we have the leader for our times.

As a skeptic and cynic by inclination, as well as training, I have a hard time buying into the totality of Schaeffer's paean.

And certainly such belief would be mocked incessantly by the right (despite, of course, some of the rather silly things they've said about W over the years).

The thing is though, I really want to believe.

And, even as an agnostic, even I might be inclined to say a word or two in prayer to whatever gods there may be, that Obama become the man we so desperately need him to be.

You can read Schaeffer's whole post over at Huffingtonpost.com.

Paris for prez

And why not? Her policies make more sense than McCain's, and she can talk in complete sentences unlike Sixpack Sarah. Plus she's getting the advise from one of the greatest fake president's of all time.

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

Obama v. McCain Part II

I'm a terrible judge of how these things are viewed through non-partisan eyes.

I thought Obama was his usual calm, certain self on economics.
On foreign policy I liked his "crush al qaeda" fire, Also I frankly think Obama's position towards going after them with or without Pakistan's help is very main street. McCain loses points every time he goes after Obama on this.

McCain was much better composed for this one than the first, though I wonder if the "that one" comment about Obama is going to be a sound bite that ends up biting McCain.

Those are my first thoughts, for an Obama rave from an experienced debater I suggest Andrew Sullivan.

McCain plans to cut Medicaid/Medicare

McCain plans to cut Medicaid/Medicare by 1.3 Trillion!
What's this?
Some left-wing scare tactic?
Is the Obama campaign getting desperate?
Um, no.
From that bastion of pinko sympathizers, the Wall Street Journal:

John McCain would pay for his health plan with major reductions to Medicare and Medicaid, a top aide said, in a move that independent analysts estimate could result in cuts of $1.3 trillion over 10 years to the government programs.

The Republican presidential nominee has said little about the proposed cuts, but they are needed to keep his health-care plan "budget neutral," as he has promised. The McCain campaign hasn't given a specific figure for the cuts, but didn't dispute the analysts' estimate.

Brilliant.

The only people the McCain camp hasn't entirely managed to scare off are seniors who largely depend on these medical insurance programs. And now he's trying to scare them off too?

As an Obama supporter all I can say is thank you.

Gloves officially off

For those of you out there who were afraid the O-man couldn't throw a punch, well, that's not much of a question anymore is it?



Devastating doesn't nearly say it.

Wow.

Sarah Palin and aversive racisim

Like he needs my help, but I'll anyway recommend Nicholas Kristof's NYT op-ed, Racism Without Racists.

You should read it yourself, but his main point is that overt racism is a minor problem for Obama. More important is what he refers to as "aversive racists":

“In the U.S., there’s a small percentage of people who in nationwide surveys say they won’t vote for a qualified black presidential candidate,” Professor Dovidio said. “But a bigger factor is the aversive racists, those who don’t think that they’re racist.”

Faced with a complex decision, he said, aversive racists feel doubts about a black person that they don’t feel about an identical white. “These doubts tend to be attributed not to the person’s race — because that would be racism — but deflected to other areas that can be talked about, such as lack of experience,” he added.

Keeping this in mind helps focus on two recent campaign developments, the "Obama as a terrorist sympathizer" being so repugnantly parroted by McCain's lipsticked bit-bull, and that pit-bull's recent debate performance.

The first is an easy call of course. Character assassination by association is a tried and true political tactic, most often used against people of sterling character for one simple reason: if the candidate is clearly of the highest charater, such as Obama clearly is, what other choice do you have?

Palin's debate performance is another matter. Many on the left have criticized it as being a verbal lapdance for rightwing fanboys (see Lowry, Rich). Let me, however posit a different take. Whatever else you think of Palin's winky, hokey, barely intelligible debate performance, one thing is crystal clear: she has got to be the whitest woman in the US.

And as such, to sub-concious racists across the land, much more qualified than the, um, darker-hued gentleman from Illinois.

Biden v. Palin, First Thoughts

1. Most authentic moment by either side: Biden's voice catch rcalling the death of his first wife in that terrible accident.
2. Promise fulfilled: Palin warned up front that she had no intention of answering any questions she didn't have note cards on.
3. Speaking of note cards: do you have any idea how that went over with the public. Given my opinions I, of course, think needing to use note cards in a debate about who should be a heartbeat from the presidency is a little, ah, Bush league.
4. Biden should always have a timer to look at when he's speaking (I thought this during the primary debates as well. When he's forced to be brief he's smart, concise, and much less likely to put his foot in his mouth.
5. Palin scaled the rather low bar set for her by putting nouns and verbs in proper order when she spoke.
6. Biden's best (like I said) with a time limit, very strong performance, and excellent self-control (I only noticed one peeved galnce at his opponent).
7. Outcome: slight edge for Biden for providing the only honest human emotion of the night.

Overall: Neither delf-destructed, which, given Obama's lead, means he (and the rest of us) are the winners.

McCain/Palin Ifillibuster

You may have heard that, in their continuing efforts to lower expectations for Sarah Palin's performance in tomorrow's debate, the new rightwing kerfuffle is about debate moderator Gwen Ifill's upcoming book on Obama.

This makes sense for GOPers because, with Palin's competence already at ground zero because of her incoherent* responses to Katie Couric's lob-ball questions, the only thing left is to work the ref.

Of course, the fact that Ifill's book deal was public knowledge before she was accepted by the McCain camp to moderate does make their last minute whining seem just a tad disingenuous.

But they claim they just didn't know about it.

And hey, I kinda believe them given that, like their candidate, they just don't hold with no book-larnin'.

*Random thought, Palin is incoherent, Wasilla is the meth capital of Alaska, co-incidence? Hmmmm.

Palin Interview Here!

You want to be just like Katie Couric don't you? Well don't you?

OK , maybe not Katie, but surely you think you're better than David Gregory. Who doesn't?

And now you can land the interview that any big-time journo not surnamed Gibson or Couric has failed to get (sorry, Hannity does NOT qualify as a journalist): Sarah Palin.

Eye Contact

I'll never hire someone who doesn't have a firm handshake and look me in the eye while s/he's speaking.

I don't have an explanation for this, but it's something I've learned in over two decades of hiring and firing salespeople. If you can't look me in the eye while you're talking I don't trust you, and more importantly my customers won't trust you.

Barack Obama had no problem looking John McCain in the eye, McCain could not. Not once.

That tells me one thing. McCain isn't as confidant of the product he's selling as he claims to be.

And, though I'm obviously an Obama supporter, such things are not lost, however subliminally on most people.

And, to be frank,I suppose it's to McCain's credit as a human being, that he's unable to fake a sincerity he certainly doesn't feel.

Fly in the ointment

I'm not thrilled by need for the proposed bailout, nor am I entirely convinced of the efficacy of the scant provisions that have been floated.

But I'm sure of one thing: the LAST thing the bailout negotiations needs right now is an injection of partisan campaign politicking into the mix.

John McCain, apparently disagrees:

But after the meeting broke up about an hour later, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Richard C. Shelby (Ala.), who strongly opposes the bailout, told reporters, "I don't believe we have an agreement." He said he voiced his concerns in the meeting, calling attention to a letter from leading economists that lays out objections to the plan. The bailout plan "will create more problems; we're rushing to judgment," he said in summarizing the economists' argument....

A visibly irritated Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, summarized the impasse in more pointed terms. He told CNN that the meeting was thrown off when Republicans brought up "some new core agreement" that supposedly had been floated by McCain and was being considered by the Treasury Department.

"What this looked like to me was a rescue plan for John McCain," Dodd fumed. "This is a sad day for the country." He said he still hopes that a deal can be struck but that the Republicans "need to get their act together and decide what they're for."

And so McCain's policy of government by gimmick continues.

Seriously, is this REALLY what you want for the next four years? To live in a state of constant anxiety about what the man with the red button (and I'm not talking about this clown's nose) will do?

Free Sarah Palin!

Well, it's about time. Even members of the dread MSM are sick and tired of the sexism being aimed at McCain veep selection Sarah Palin:

Frankly I have had it, and I know a lot of other women out there who are with me on this. I have had enough of the sexist treatment of Sarah Palin. It has to end.

She was in New York on Tuesday meeting with world leaders at the U.N. And what did the McCain campaign do?

They tried to ban reporters from covering those meetings. And they did ban reporters from asking Gov. Palin any questions.

I call upon the McCain campaign to stop treating Sarah Palin like she is a delicate flower who will wilt at any moment.

Like I said, it's about time.

McCain too risky?

Sure I believe that John McCain 2008 has shown himself to be unsuitable for the office of president.

But don't just ask me, ask conservative columnist George Will:

Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?

And sure, progressive that I am, I believe Sarah Palin's nomination to be nothing more than a clever campaign gimmick which reflects poorly on McCain's judgment. But don't take my word for it, ask conservative columnist David Brooks what he thinks of Palin:

Democracy is not average people selecting average leaders. It is average people with the wisdom to select the best prepared.

Sarah Palin has many virtues. If you wanted someone to destroy a corrupt establishment, she’d be your woman. But the constructive act of governance is another matter. She has not been engaged in national issues, does not have a repertoire of historic patterns and, like President Bush, she seems to compensate for her lack of experience with brashness and excessive decisiveness.

Please read both columns (especially Will, who I always enjoy even when I'm grumbling at him through the computer screen).