Category Archives: Politics & Government

Reading Hillary’s mind

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I admit it. The political campaign has been my O.J. trial. I can’t pull myself away. I think I’ve said before that I suspect this will be the last election I get my knickers in a knot over.

I’ve been thinking about the “Tonya Harding” analogy. If Hillary doesn’t make the finals, Obama damn sure isn’t going to.”

I think Senator Clinton and I are the same age: 60. So I’ve been trying to “get inside her head,” as the Quantico profilers say.

Zoltar1“I’m not gonna win the fucking nomination. After all I’ve been through. Barack will beat McCain like a red headed stepchild. And probably get a second term. Eight … long… years. Jesus H. Christ! In 2016 I’ll be 68 years old. Damn, I’m telling you… I will NOT go back to Iowa.

But if I can jam Obama enough for McCain to beat him, I can take Grampa John in four years. Shit, I’ll only be 64.

Bill! Run out to the car and bring me the tire iron. I’ll tell you what to do with it when you get back.”

obama@whitehouse.gov

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The Obama campaign seems to have their online shit all in one neat pile. The email I’ve received suggests they’ve got someone smart doing their digital stuff. So I offer this suggestion, in the event O. goes the distance.

President Obama reads, answers and acts on one email –from an American citizen– every week. Let’s say, on Friday. Here’s how it might work:

Anybody can email the president once a week. Yes, people will try to find ways to scam this but you can deal with that.

On Friday morning, 10 emails are selected at random and forwarded to President Obama’s in-box. He looks through them, picks one and responds –personally– to the sender.

If action is required, the email is forwarded to the appropriate subordinate who has to DO something because the president –and the country– will be watching.

The media gets a copy of the original email, the president’s reply, including what –if anything– will be done.

Think about it. If the president actually made something happen –personally– 50 times a year, that would be pretty cool. Of course, some will ask the president to do things he cannot. And he can simply reply, "I don’t know what the hell to do about that."

The odds of your email being selected are about the same as winning the Lotto but so what. Somebody’s email got through.

John McCain’s Magic 8 Ball

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Eightball
One finds the most amusing things at 23/6.com. Like John McCain’s Magic 8 Ball. A clever post with a delightful headline ("John McCain will turn this war around right now if you don’t shut up").

Q: Do you remember where you parked your car?
A: My feet hurt.

Q: Would you bone Hillary?
A: How about you say that to my face?

Q: When did you have your last bowel movement?
A: Would you like some hard candy?

Spooky how dead on the answers all were.

Why liberals more likely to be online

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Karl Rove on why liberals are more likely to be online than conservatives:

“…a lot of people on the right have got active lives and are doing other things,” Rove said. “The idea of spending a lot of time on the internet and taking their talents and displaying them there is not something [conservatives] really do.”

That’s not counting the hours spent deleting White House emails.

“Hillary’s Last Stand”

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Writing in the March 20th issue of Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi explores “The tragic self-martyrdom of a groundbreaking politician.”

“The Clintons always represented the notion that the old Democratic Party of unions and LBJ liberals was a thing of the past and that the way forward involved making nice with big business and the military. Her husband passed NAFTA, deregulated Wall Street, rammed through welfare “reform,” bombed Kosovo, chided Sister Soulja, opened the Lincoln bedroom to any foreign nation with spare cash and won two elections.

Winning convinced both of them that they were saviors of everything right and decent in the world. They’d discovered the winning formula, and we were welcome to kiss their asses for finding it. And so what if the formula involved selling out the unions on a series of draconian and insane trade deals, or cozying up to one of the most regressive employers in the world in Wal-Mart, or hiring an evil lobbyist stooge like Mark Penn to be your chief campaign strategist, or voting to give George Bush the authority to launch an illegal invasion of Iraq?”

Matt Taibbi is far and away my favorite political reporter (right after Kay Henderson!) and I buy a copy of Rolling Stone just for his pieces.

His latest leaves the reader with the impression that Hillary is kaput. I’m not so sure. He calls her “one of the most awesomely complex and fascinating public figures in the history of our country.”  But not in a good way.

I couldn’t find the article online but will update this post if I do.

Where are all the black kids?

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When I was in the first grade (1954) we lived a few blocks from the city park, the centerpiece of which was the municipal swimming pool. You could swim from open till close for 10 cents. I don’t know this for a fact, but I don’t think most small towns in southeast Missouri had a pool. Come to think of it, Kennett had another pool. At the country club, although I’m not sure it had been built in ’54.

I never noticed that the city pool was segregated, until it wasn’t. That happened in the sixties due in no small parts to the efforts of Sol Astrachan, Kennett’s first Jewish mayor. No connection implied. It was a big deal. I seem to recall some white families forbidding their children going to the pool once “anyone” could swim there.

Barack Obama’s speech today started me thinking about growing up in a segregated community. I don’t think most of us were even aware there were no black kids in our classes. We just didn’t think about them. They had their own school somewhere, didn’t they?

It was called Willoughby School and it was located in what most white people in Kennet called “colored town.” Did the kids sitting in those classrooms wonder where all the white kids were, or –like us– did it never come to mind?

Growing up, I never had a black friend close enough to ask. We just didn’t talk about those things back then. Props to Obama for talking about them today.

Tracy Morgan funnier than I thought

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MorganI almost never watch Saturday Night Live. Just got out of the habit. Didn’t find it amusing anymore. I’ve watched Tina Fey and Tracy Morgan on 30 Rock and fell in love with Tina. As for Tracy, not so much. Thought he was one of the weak elements of the show. But I think I’ve sold the man short. (And he’s not afraid of Tina Fey)

This past Saturday, Tracy Morgan responded to Tina Fey’s promotion of Hillary Clinton three weeks ago with his own defense of Barack Obama.

MORGAN: Why is it that every time a black man in this country gets too good at something, there’s always someone come around and remind us that he’s black? First Tiger, then Donavan McNabb then me. Now Barack. I got a theory about that. It’s a little complicated but basically, it goes like this: we are a racist country. The end. It’s not the people in this room, but if we’re not a racist country, how did Hillary Clinton convince everybody in Texas and Ohio that Barack didn’t know how to answer the phone at 3 in the morning? Let me tell you something, Barack knows how to answer that phone. He’s not going to answer it like, (soft, frightened voice) “Hello, I’m scared. What’s going on?” He is gonna answer it like I would get a phone call at 3 in the morning: “Yeah, who’s this? This better be good or I’m going to come down there and put somebody in a wheelchair.”

Some things never change, Seth. People saying he’s not a fighter. Let me tell you something. He’s a gangsta, he’s from Chicago. Barack is not winning because he’s a black man. If that was the case, I would be winning. And I’m way blacker than him. I used to smoke Newports and drink Olde English. I grew up on government cheese, I prefer it. Now there’s all this stuff and all this talk about the pastor. Barack has to stay away from the pastor, ‘cause he’s too black. But just because he knows the dude doesn’t think…doesn’t mean that he’s gonna think like him. Look, I have a friend who goes to strip clubs, that doesn’t mean that I am gonna go to the strip club.

SETH MEYERS: But you do go to strip clubs.

MORGAN: Yeah, but I go for the girls, not because my friend is going. I have integrity. Barack is qualified. Personally, I want to know what qualifies Hillary Clinton to be the next president. Is it because she was married to the president? If that were the case then Robin Givens would be the heavyweight champion of the world. If Hillary’s last name wasn’t Clinton, she’d be some crazy white lady with too much money and not enough lovin’. That’s where I come in. I know women like that, you do not want them on the phone at 3 in the morning. In conclusion, three weeks ago, my girl Tina Fey went on the show, she declared that “bitch is the new black”. You know I love you, Tina. You know you’re my girl. But I have something to say. Bitch may be the new black, but black is the new president, bitch.”

Ron Paul: Still a candidate, but no longer a “contender”

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A reporter for one of our networks referred to Ron Paul the “former GOP presidential candidate”  in a story we ran on Saturday and posted on our website.

It didn’t take long for Paul supporters to discover the error launch an obviously coordinated email blitz. Some were nicer than others.

This evening Bob Priddy –the news director– posted a response on the network blog. I think he struck precisely the right tone. I’m sure we’ll find out if Ron Paul supporters agree.

But, all in all, this is a good thing. Our story was technically wrong. Ron Paul is not a “former” candidate. And his supporters let us know about, quickly and in larger numbers. And our network corrected the mistake and responded.

Obama’s feet of clay

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“Barack Obama said Friday that he got more political money from indicted Chicago businessman Antoin “Tony” Rezko than he has previously acknowledged. Rezko helped raise up to $250,000 for his various political races, Obama’s campaign said. The campaign had previously put the figure at $150,000 but now says that amount was only for his 2004 Senate race.

(Obama’s) long friendship with Rezko has hampered his efforts to campaign as a new-style politician who abhors backroom deals and insider favors.” [AP]

File under Irony: Turns out Obama really didn’t need to take questionable money. Millions of little people (like me) would have given it (ARE giving it!) to him. I feel like I just crawled into the back seat on prom night. I haven’t been violated yet but don’t like it back here. Sigh.

Bright spot: The sit-down with the two newspapers was the right thing to do. Answer every question. I’ll give him points for that.