This doesn’t really surprise me, because I read “Audacity of Hope.”  In the book it is very evident that Obama has made his Christian affiliation based on convenience and politics (he essentially says it).  It didn’t really disturb me too much, but I’ve made it evident before (can’t find the post–but I’m sure I did…really) that it wasn’t my favorite thing about him.

But to be a member of this Church goes a little beyond the pail.

As someone who has recently (admittedly cautiously–and so far unsuccessfully) confronted the racist tendencies of his own Church back home, it disturbs me that someone with as good of a chance to be President as Senator Obama would be a member of a Church with so much racist dogma that it would give Lewis Farrakhan an award for “Person of the Year.”

My good friend, Jimmy, constantly tells me:  Satan is a divider.  Anyone who not only visits, talks to, acknowledges, but is a member of such a divisive and racist congregation is going to have a hard time convincing me that he’s really a uniter.

You see, I’m beginning to think that Senator Obama thought that if he wrote this cool book, that people would just stop paying attention and trust him.  The problem I suppose is that the book made many START to pay attention to him.  And that hasn’t been good for him.

There’s only one question for me really:

If a high-profile Presidential Candidate belonged to or closely affiliated with a WHITE racialist Church, would we hear about in the press?

And the corollary: And what if they were a pro-choice, Universal Health Care-supporting, anti-war, Democrat that belonged to a WHITE racialist Church?

In other words:  Is Obama getting a free pass on this relationship because he’s a Democrat or because he’s Black?  Or both?

WooHooooo!!!

I’m surprised he didn’t stick it through to the convention and cut a deal, but it’ll all depend on who he chooses to support, and when.  One would think, given his message of “Change, change, change, for the sake of change,” that he would support Obama, but that would assume a modicum of intellectual honesty that I would not credit the populist son of a factory worker.

According to the article below, BILL Clinton seems to define voter intimidation today in Nevada.

Huffington Post article

Does anyone get this feeling that the Clintons had a lot at stake here? Seems the intimidation worked better for the Clintons, because she won:

Mouth of the Potomac

Does anyone but me find the whole Caucusing concept the opposite of Democratic?

WSJ article and a The Nation article (fair and balanced as usual) which talk about the Clinton camp’s efforts to suppress the casino workers’ votes in Nevada, after their unions endorsed Obama.

Of course Clinton doesn’t miss a beat and accuses Obama’s camp of orchestrating Voter Intimidation (via union bosses staring down employees if they dare to go Clinton).

Suppressing the vote by disenfranchisement and voter intimidation is never taboo if it fits the right interests. If Republican candidates every did anything resembling suppressing an inner city vote…or having church leaders intimidate members into caucusing the right way, we would all NEVER hear the end of it.

“…It seems my hypocrisy knows…no bounds.”

I thought I’d post this for you guys since I’m sure you’ll get a huge laugh out of it

Happy New Year!

I’m so tired, I’m just going to give you my play-by-play and then summarize my impressions on each candidate. Most of the questions were from YouTubers and those questions (abbreviated) are in Italics:

Dodd vs Obama: Experience vs. Change

What does the word Liberal mean?

• Hillary makes a great point about the term, it doesn’t mean what it used to mean: limited government. “Modern Progressive” is what she prefers to call herself, {meaning…um…not-limited government.}

Gravel: Takes on Obama as taking “bundlers.” Obama gets huge applause. “the reason you know is that I passed a law saying I had to disclose it.” {Didn’t really answer the question.}

What Republicans would you work with?

• Joe Biden: Chuck Hagel as his VP, and Dick Luger at Sec of State.
• Edwards: How do we bring about change? Take power away from political opponents instead of compromising with them. FIGHT!

Reparations?:

• Edwards: African Americans pay more for mortgages in South Carolina? {It apparently never occurs to him that your African American in South Carolina would have worse credit than an average White American (for a plethora of reasons). But hey…let’s FIGHT the Mortgage Lenders. Take them on. It’s a war.}
• Obama: invest in Education. That’s a better form of reparations.
• Kucinich supports Reparations? Or does he? It was unclear whether he was actually supporting it. Could have been rhetoric. But it sounded like he really supported it.

Katrina?

• Dodd: shame, shame, shame…{Gulf States…white people were wiped out, too.}
• Richardson: (bad sound quality). Eliminate any red tape? Predatory lending of insurance companies? {I think he’s drunk.}

Authentically black? Authentically female?

• Obama: Catching a cab in Manhattan. I believe in core decency of American people.

Who would be better advocate for women? Edwards or Clinton?

• Hillary running not because she’s a woman
• Edwards I don’t want racists’ and sexists’ votes. 9+ minimum wage. Fight Fight Fight.
• Hillary I’ve advocated for Women all my life.

Gay Marriage?

• Kucinich: Tough answer: “All are created equal.”
• Dodd distinguishes marriages and civil unions.
• Richardson same distinction; don’t ask don’t tell should go. No discrimination.

Gay Marriage and Religion, put by a Reverend:

• Edwards: Do not believe in opposing civil rights. Distinguishes Civil Rights and marriage. YouTube viewer is there. Fair Housing connection. Using faith as a basis is bad.
• Difference between interracial and same-sex? Obama makes distinction even better. It’s up to the denominations to determine marriage. Rights granted by States should be equal. {Best case for Civil Unions vs. Marriage redefinition.}

Darfur: What action do you commit to?

• Richardson: UN troops. EU sanctions. No fly zone. Humanitarian workers. Caring about Africa.
• Biden: Where we can, we should send. Troops on the ground.
• Clinton: Divestment sanctions on Sudan. No fly zone. Will not commit to troops in Darfur.

How do we pull out now?

• Obama: send a clear message to Iraqi government that they need to stop going off on vacation.
• Biden: It would take a year to get them out. Separate jurisdictions. Begin to draw out now, get majority of . {He seems agitated.}
• Hillary: There is no military solution. Not getting answers from the Administration.
• Kucinich: No more funds.
• Dodd: Need dipolomacy. Noone listens to us when it comes to foreign policy.
• Richardson: Bring them home, now! 6 months!
• Gravel: Soldiers died in vain in Vietnam. Dying in vain, now. Major close up on Gravel. He’s mad.
• Obama: Soldiers doing everything asked of them. Not dying in vain because serving their country.
• Edwards: Never die in vain. put the heat on Bush.

Women register for draft?

• Dodd: sure. Recommends required selective service.
• Obama: Tuskegee Airmen. equates Women with African American soldiers.

Arab states do not respect women. How is Clinton to be taken seriously. (Stupid softball questions for Hillary).

• Clinton: First Lady laundry list. No doubt in anyone’s mind. Germany, Chile, Liberia. Very appropriate for woman to represent U.S.

Meet with Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea?

• Obama: Yes. Not meeting with them doesn’t hurt them.
• Hillary: back to diplomacy. High level Presidential envoys. Why meet with them until we know what the way forward is?
• Edwards: Restore American confidence.

By what date out of Iraq? How many family members do you have in Iraq (relevance?) ?

• Dodd: April of next year. January of 2009 all out.
• Richardson: 6 months and no residual forces. {This guy was ambassador to the UN?}
• Biden: lambasts Senators who voted against funding of equipment to prevent deaths from IEDs. As long as they’re in the field, they need the right equipment. {Thank you, Joe}.
• Clinton: same realistic view. Maybe 1 or 2 brigades a month. That’s a lot of months.
• Kucinich: {completely ignoring reality.} Text him and they’ll magically be able to bring them home…like immediately.

Education: Who was your favorite teacher?

• Gravel: teacher who recognized his learning disabilities.
• Obama: someone who had also been to kenya and made him feel proud of his International experience.
• Biden: (Unintelligible–sound quality).
• Edwards: teacher that believed boy from mill could make something of himself

NO child left behind–Scrap or Salvage?:

• Richardson: takes funds away that aren’t doing well. 40,000 a year minimum pay, art, dance, etc.
• Biden: voted for it because of Ted Kennedy, but now feels it needs to me scrapped. Smaller classrooms, better teachers.

Would you send your kids to private school?

Edwards: two kids in public school.
HIllary: tough decision to send Chelsea. {WHAT? Her dad was the fricking President. Why was it a tough decision?}
Gravel: need a little competition in public schools. Not sure whether he’s talking about vouchers or what.
Dodd: accountability in schools is important.

Planned Parenthood. Sex Education.

• Edwards: “inappropriate touching”
• Obama: echoes Edwards. Some parents don’t take responsibility, though (so of course schools should)

Does the Al Gore question hurt your feelings?

Global Warming?

• Kucinich: Away from reliance on oil. Connects foreign policy and energy.

Alternative energies?

• Gravel: Change our tax structure. Tax spending.
• Dodd: 50 mile/gallon by 2017…Corporate carbon tax?
• Cooper asks who flew Private jets to the debate. Almost everyone raises their hand. Kucinich and Gravel did not.

Global Warming? Nuclear power?

• Edwards: very costly.
• Obama: no silver bullet. national interests ahead of special interests.
• Clinton: taking money away from oil companies and setting up a special fund.

Standardizing voting policies?

• Richardson: paper trails…50% turnout unacceptable. Get the Republican party to stop suppressing minority vote.

Will you work for Minimum wage?

• Clinton: sure.
• Everyone else: Raise minimum wage.
• Obama: we all have money. Of course we could do it. (A little stab at Romney).

Social Security–raise contributing salary above 90,000?:

• Dodd: no privatization
• Richardson: 401k universal pension. Bipartisan.

Taxes?

• Biden: Change the tax structure. More progresive of course. “We need more revenue.” (Shivers go down my spine.)
• Kucinich: no wars, no NAFTA. No more taxes.

Alzheimers? Diabetes? Preventative medicine? Health Insurance?

• Obama: not mandating coverage, but giving all opportunities. Obama says he’s gonna fight drug and insurance companies.
• Edwards: must be mandated. Cleft pallate story. When are we gonna DO something about it. FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT.
• Clinton: Universal Health Care is an American value.

Health Care coverage for undocumented workers?

• Dodd: Yes
• Richardson: yes, and prevention is crucial.

Bush Clinton, Bush….Clinton?

• Clinton: sure
• Gravel: Wall Street money
• Obama: uniting, changing, fighting.

In God we trust?

• Biden: deep religious beliefs and ability to use reason are not mutually exclusive (great point).
• Edwards: Never will I impose my religious beliefs on the American people.

Atheist…concerns over pandering to evangelical vote.

• Obama: faith informs what I do.

Guns:

• Richardson: mental imbalanced and criminal
• Biden: Assault weapons ban.

Overall impressions of each candidate:

Clinton: very on key. Very studied. Very polished. Looked, acted, and spoke the part.
Obama: thoughtful, usually very “audaciously hopeful”, but managed to pick up a little too much of Edwards’ vibe.
Dodd: Nothing really stands out.
Gravel–just mad.
Kucinich–very happy. Very proud of his “text for peace” deal. Acted like a kid.
Biden–Seems like the Ron Paul, just looking around trying to figure out why everyone has gone so crazy.
Edwards–Fight. I’m a fighter. I’ve fought Big Oil, Big Insurance, Big Pharma, Big Tobacco, Big Grape. FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!
Richardson–Seemed to ramble. Incomprehensible on Iraq. Definitely didn’t come across as a former UN Rep.

Conclusions: Look everyone knows that I disagree with 90% of everything all these chumps say, so I’ll do the best I can. In my opinion, there are only three people on the stage that really make any sense: Obama, Hillary, and Biden. The others (in my right-wing-nut-job view) are just clowns. Edwards is the most disturbing to me, not because he’s the most nutty, but because he’s nutty and has such a broad-based appeal.

Hillary, as much as I’d love to simply look at her ideas and not who she is, it becomes really hard to do when I hate all of her ideas. Obama, I really want to believe is what he’d like us to believe he is–new blood, reasonable, empathetic to the conservative view, hopeful. It’s hard to believe that, though, when most of his recent speeches are very familiar boiler-plate liberal rhetoric.

Biden is my favorite on the stage. When he talks about foreign policy, he knows what he’s talking about. If I had to vote for one of them, it would be him. I think he’s wrong on a lot of things, but I wouldn’t be scared at night knowing he was Commander-in-Chief. His domestic politics is predictably not in line with mine (”tax cuts to the top 1%”, “need more revenue”, etc.), but I could live with that if I knew he would not just start throwing our troops around. I’m aware he’s not always on this target, and guilty of petty party politics and grandstanding to Pentagon interviewees he most definitely is. But at least he speaks English.

But he doesn’t have much of a shot…I know. But can you imagine a Hunter/Biden runoff? Or a Huckabee/Obama?

Sadly, at this point, I’d put my money (if not necessarily my vote) on a Hillary/Rudy runoff.

Back to the debate, it was very disappointing that very little attention went to:

• Immigration
• War on Terror (or whatever it’s supposed to be called)
• Iran
• Taxes
• National Debt

Truthfully, even the issues that were discussed were not discussed substantively. It’s not hard to figure out why, though…

Number one: very few serious questions were asked from the conservative point of view. The tax question was asked with a song, and the gun question was asked by someone who called his assault rifle his “baby.” The liberal position did not need to be defended, argued, or questioned. Many things were taken as gospel truth from the get-go: A military victory in Iraq is impossible; Universal Health Care is obviously to answer to the Health Care; Global Warming was so obvious it was barely discussed.

Number two: it’s the challenging party, so a lot of time can be spent bashing the incumbent without requiring too much bashing each other, or arguing your point.

I made it through it, though…the whole gruelling 120 minutes. Give me a fricking medal.

In an attempt to remember to watch the Democratic Presidential debates tonight, I wanted to point to this article about Dodd’s dissatisfaction with the debate format.

Tonight is the first Democratic National Committee-sanctioned debate in Charleston, SC. After watching a few of these debates, I have to agree with Mr. Dodd wholeheartedly on this:

“They’re not even debates. You get 30 seconds to answer a question. It’s insulting to the audience,” Dodd said to a Des Moines Register reporter following a stop Saturday night at Ritual Cafe in downtown Des Moines. “If you have a 30 second answer on these issue, you have no business running for the presidency, or ever being elected.”
…
“It’s not terribly enlightening. It’s like throwing bumper stickers out – who gets an applause line. As if somehow that’s an informative discussion for the American people to draw better conclusions for who these people are,” Dodd said. “It demeans the office of the presidency, it minimizes the office – you look like a bunch of third graders.”

Of course the interesting thing about the debate is the fact that YouTube (a Google company, of course) is helping sponsor the debate by letting YouTube users submit questions over video. The L.A. Times talks about this question posed by one of these said users:

Sen. Clinton, I think you would make a great president. But there’s a question that deserves to be answered before the end of the primaries, because it could affect your ability to run against a strong Republican: Has your husband, Bill Clinton, engaged in adulterous behavior since he’s left office?

Wow…I’m sure that one will make the cut. Although, I’m not an Anderson Cooper fan (by a LONG-shot) I promise I will do my best to make it all the way through the debate and offer commentary.

DesMoinesRegister.com

Caught the GOP debate on politico.com tonight. Not going to go into the candidates here, but something I saw that relates to Loudoun politics.

I think the politico.com submitted questions are a great example of why a convention is the right choice for the Loudoun GOP. Admittedly I have no proof, but still it was blatantly obvious to me that a number of those questions were written by liberals/Democrats for the candidates… “What’s one thing you hate about America?” “What’s the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?” Or the question to Giuliani about his regrets and blacks in NYC.

This is the kind of nonsense you get from libs trying to interfere with the GOP’s debate, and it’s no different than having a nomination process that is open to Democrats.

Jim

Posted at 09:51 pm by Johnny B

Posted at 11:35 pm by Johnny B

	Posted by Logipundit @ 09/15/2005 11:57 PM PDT
	I’ve got my CPA working overtime already. Maybe we should write a paper to raise awareness on the wastefullness of academic pursuits for the sake of academic pursuit. One of these days I’m going to do a full post on why the space program is a dismal failure, and always will be unless our PURPOSE is more than “knowledge” and “exploration”. The problem with “awareness” is that the only people that give a flying flip about academic “awareness” campaigns are other academics.

	Posted by Rothell @ 09/16/2005 12:34 PM PDT
	You guys crack me up. “Awareness” had never struck me as a particularly liberal word. But, Broussard, if that’s what you think, then consider words that for me have lost their value in contemporary Republican rhetoric. “Freedom.” Bush loves to use this word. It is like kryptnonite to the evil “TERRORISTS!” That’s what they want to “destroy.” Yeah. That always made sense to me. Bad guys rubbing their hands together, hatching plots to blow up the world because the idea of “freedom” just drives them bonkers. Other words: “destroy,” “victorious,” “resolved.” These typically come straight from the horse’s mouth, George W. Bush, whose speeches might go well as narration for a Rocky movie but not as real speech pertaining to our own reality. My favorite, though, is “terrorist.” Acts of “terrorism” have been a military strategy since the invention of war. That is a fact, not my opinion. Did the United States (and its allies, particularly Britain) drop bombs on hundreds of villages and cities in Germany during Worlds War 2? Yes. Did we do the same in Vietnam? Yes. Fact: we dropped more bombs on a New Jersey-sized country than all the bombs dropped on Europe combined in the second worlds war. What do we call that? Well the U.S. government doesn’t want to call that terrorism! But is it? (I hate to write this because these are dark days when you cannot openly discuss acts of criminality under U.S. government direction without fearing some Bush cronie is going to come and arrest you.) The plane-hijackers and suicide-bombers are terrorists. But that word should mean little to people who can think for themselves, because its sad but true that the U.S. has got blood on its hands too.

	Posted by Logipundit @ 09/16/2005 06:46 PM PDT
	Hey Rothell, Real quick, remind me of your address. Just…uh…curious.

	Posted by Logipundit @ 09/16/2005 07:03 PM PDT
	speaking of words…here’s a reason to be selective of what Thesaurus you buy…kind of interesting. http://brain-terminal.com/posts/2005/09/07/rogets-arab Oh and by the way, here’s some other words that I feel that the left has hijacked: “choice”–basic right applied only to women and only to the right to have an abortion…no choice of schools, or religions, or anything else. “progressive”–making sure that every single aspect of the “great society” is completely unchanged from it’s original structure established in the mid 1960’s. “nuanced”– a form of logic and reason carefully crafted to fall in line with every left-leaning thought conceived since the dawn of birth control. “enlightened”–atheist “intellectual”–atheist “priveleged”–those who pay taxes I could go on and on…we should write a dictionary.

	Posted by Logipundit @ 09/16/2005 07:16 PM PDT
	OH and by the way…it’s interesting you mention the word “terrorist”. I really don’t really see the problem with the word as a practical matter. If I was German when we were bombing Dresden, I might indeed have called the US terrorists. And if I were a VietCong soldier, I may have indeed called the US military terrorists…but what’s your point? Are you saying it’s a matter of perspective? Of course it is. Would you rather we use less generic words? How about Islamic terrorists? Or Muslim extremists? Or ragheads? What do you want? I think terrorist is the most politically correct, practical, and precise term for the people that we are indeed fighting against. Maybe they call us terrorists, too, but what difference does that make? The whole world has been using the word terrorism since at least the 70s, and even the most politically left have to acknowledge that there is a certain type of violence or fighting or whatever you call it that can be easily defined as terrorism. Anyway, I’m having trouble getting your point, but that’s OK…I know you really don’t need one. It was indeed a great way to remind us all that the US is still evil and imperialistic, and I sure appreciate the reminder.

	Posted by john broussard @ 09/17/2005 08:54 AM PDT
	Rothell, I had thought about “terrorist” and “freedom” too. Those are fair points in that the value of the words is kind of lost for now, but #1 You’ll get no sympathy for German villagers from me. WWI was much to a more inconclusive standstill, and twenty years later there was another war. Bombing into submission was a policy is the price the Germans had to pay. #2 It was the rise of communism, not American bombing, that drove massive Vietnamese immigration. As the bad as the former was, you got to question which is worse. If America wins the war the Vietnamese would be about a million times better off…they were truly the losers there.

	Posted by john broussard @ 09/17/2005 10:12 AM PDT
	Hey Rothell, What’s your take on the German election? http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1134885