Yes. We Did.

Upon Bill Clinton’s election to his first term as President, his defeated rival, George H.W. Bush said “If the way he ran his campaign is any indication of how he will govern, then the country is in very good hands.” John McCain could have said the same thing about the historic election of Barack Obama. 

There is no doubt that the racial component to this story is the dominant and historic one (especially when one considers that the first sixteen Presidents of the United States could have legally owned Barack Obama as property), but this blog has always focused on what is not being said in the newsrooms around the world (at least yet). 

To me there are a few points that have gotten lost in the well deserved euphoria of this historic event: 

Obama’s campaign owes no favors to any but the millions of ordinary Americans who have given small amounts to help him raise the largest campaign war chest of any candidate in recent history. No government positions or favors will be given to cronies or big contributors and/or lobbyists. 

The campaign tactics first developed by Lee Atwater and perfected by Karl Rove that used trivial non-issues to scare the electorate have been discredited. The common notion that, while people say that they dislike negative campaigning, but it works nonetheless, has now been proven false. Future candidates will think twice about employing slash and burn divisive tactics even when they are losing and scared. This campaign proves that it simply does not work. 

I must note at this point that a comparison of the crowd reaction to both President-elect Obama’s victory speech and Senator McCain’s concession speech is telling. When McCain addressed his supporters in defeat and asked them to help the new President unify the country, that call was answered with boos from the crowd. Contrast that with Obama’s praise of McCain’s honorable service to this country — there was not a peep of dissension. 

I was quite frankly frightened by the irresponsible use of hateful speech that the McCain campaign had used which prompted cries of “kill him!” and “traitor!” at his rallies. When President-elect Obama started the section of his victory speech that seemed to paraphrase Martin Luther King’s Memphis Mountain Top speech immediately before his assassination, I was scared and wished that the Secret Service would triple its Presidential Protection detail for the next for years. 

Obama was trying to hold down expectations by saying that his inspired vision for the country “might not get done by end of the first year or even the first term”, it sounded eerily like Dr. King’s “I may not get there with you…” To me, if any lunatic actions are visited upon President Obama or his family, I will hold McCain at least partially responsible. 

But for me, the most important underreported aspect of the election is the return to an appreciation for intelligence and judgment. This is coupled with an appeal to our better angels, a steadfast, even hand on the tiller, an intellectual curiosity, and a true commitment to selflessly serving the country. 

When you think of the campaign, it is sobering to note that Tony Rezco, Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Rhashid Khlidi, Michelle Obama’s being proud of our country for the first time in her adult life, calling Obama  a socialist, are of zero impact on the Obama Presidency. Yet how much of the campaign was wasted on these non-issues? 

I figure it will be six weeks before Joe the plumber and Sarah the idiot will no longer be mentioned anywhere in the news. But for anyone who tries to reverse engineer the Obama campaign strategy to try to figure out how they can utilize the Obama strategy to win their own election, they must start with “First, get Barack Obama”. 

In my opinion, this was not about race or America’s maturity so much as the ascendance of an extraordinary human being of extraordinary intellect and temperament after the mirror opposite for eight years that did incalculable damage to this country and the world. 

And after two elections that were considered by most to be illegitimate and two terms of a President who had no regard for the Constitution or the American people, a certain amount of schadenfreude is to be expected. So it feels good to be part of history, but it feels equally good to have been able to “throw the bastards out.” 

So, is it possible to change history, change the status quo, change the rules of the game, and change the image of our country throughout the world and be proud again? 

Yes. We did.

The Democratic Death Wish

While John McCain is being tutored by Joe Lieberman on the difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, the Democrats are squandering their chances by extending their internecine squabbling so as to give the Republican candidate a free and open opportunity to coalesce his support and win the general election.

The media won’t say this, but here are the facts:

1)    No matter how many states either Democratic candidate win between now and the Denver convention, neither can win the magic number of pledged delegates necessary to clinch the nomination. This means that fighting it out all the way through Puerto Rico will have no effect on the outcome other than to prolong the time for John McCain to solidify his support.

2)    The Democratic outcome is solely in the hands of the Super Delegates, and most of these will withhold their announcements of support until the Denver convention toward the end of August.

3)    Hillary Clinton will not drop out because, although she is mathematically shut out of the pledged delegate lead, she is hoping for a celestial event to similar to the Reverend Wright  fiasco to somehow enable her to convince the Super Delegates to overturn the Barack Obama’s clear delegate lead and the will of the people.

Clinton’s specious argument so far has been based on the fallacious notion that her wins in the “big states” gives her credibility in the general election as if a win in a Democratic primary automatically translates into a win against John McCain in November.

The endorsement of Bill Richardson this week is a hopeful sign that the Super Delegates are coming to their senses and are not willing to wait until the very end of the primary process to anoint a Democratic candidate. To do that would hand the Presidency to John McCain who is proving to be even more dangerous than the current administration.

So we can only hope that the courage of Governor Richardson will spill over and encourage the Super Delegates in time to salvage some of the General election season so McCain doesn’t get a free ride.

Speaking of free rides, we must once again ask ourselves why the media continues to portray the Democratic primary race as if it were an even two person contest. If Obama and Clinton were switched in delegate count, Obama would have been relegated to the “where are they now?” file currently occupied by Dennis Kucinich and Mike Huckabee.

Please, Democrats, give the country a chance to have a decent election with the two obvious candidates, Republican and Democrat fighting it out in time to address issues and character without one side being bloodied and shortchanged.

Nothing else in this campaign matters at this point.

Race To The White House

Barack Obama did something this week that has, to my recollection, not been done in American politics since the Lincoln – Douglas debates: he spoke to us as if we were adults.

To be sure, some of us are adults, and some of us are still infants. But it was refreshing that, faced with the incendiary sideshow of his Pastor having some of his inflammatory and ugly rhetoric making the rounds on YouTube, rather than simply denounce and reject, as Senator Clinton might have encouraged him to do, he took the opportunity to address the issue of race in a way that has not been seen in national discourse since the time of Martin Luther King.

By denouncing the inflammatory statements of Reverend Wright, but not throwing him under the bus, Obama brought up the subtleties that make the ingrained racism in this country more complex than words that neatly fit on a bumper sticker can adequately describe.

Growing up in a suburb of New York City, I felt that racism was something that happened in the only in the American South. After all, that was where the civil rights movement was focused. But while the southern racism was more overt and institutionalized, the northern brand of racism was less obvious, but no less insidious. The bussing issues in the Boston suburbs brought some of that to light. The idea of real estate practices like redlining were even less obvious to whites while a very real issue for blacks.

But none of that that was what made Obama’s speech unique. Obama, for the first time in recent national public discourse, addressed the notion that otherwise good people had racist tendencies within their seemingly liberal personalities. He spoke of the era during which Reverend Wright grew up and his frame of reference. He was careful to understand it without condoning it. He compared this with his white grandmother who loved him, yet displayed a racist view of blacks.

This hit home to me because I went through something very similar in my own upbringing. My mother, who was by all measures, a white Democrat, and who supported the most liberal of candidates, once showed me a side of her that was indeed racist:

My father was a dentist who practiced in our community which was middle class white. There were no blacks within miles. Most of my father’s patients were blue collar workers most of whom were employed at the local aircraft manufacturers like Grumman or Republic. For awhile, my parents employed a black woman to clean our house. She used to bring her son, who was my age, with her. I used to play with him out in front of our house. At that age, I literally had no notion of race. But my mother felt that our neighbors might form opinions about my father’s dental practice if they saw me playing with this little black boy, so she told me not to play with him.

This never struck me as racist because it was economically based. It wasn’t that she didn’t like my little black friend, or thought him inferior. She just thought it might hurt my Dad’s practice.

We saw a lot of that attitude in the north where otherwise liberal thinking pancultural types would abridge their principals when it affected their own economic interests. The phrase, “not in my neighborhood” became the motto of those whites who were very supportive of racial equality as long as it didn’t devalue their homes.

So the nuance that Barack Obama brought out in his historic speech is now out on the table. That speech has been downloaded in its entirety as many times as the clips of Wright’s incendiary sermons.

This leads me to the campaign itself: Does this speech not show leadership on a scale yet unseen in recent American political discourse? Does this speech not indicate that “just giving a speech” as Senator Clinton says derisively of Obama’s gift, matter? Does the ability to inspire sometimes transcend into the ability to teach, and to start a long absent dialogue that goes to the core of American society?

Can the election of a once in a lifetime leader of Obama’s unique gifts actually matter?

And, can it make us at least start thinking about our attitudes in terms greater than a line on a bumper sticker?

Ultimately, can we as a nation, change our understanding of each other’s unique life experience, and finally come to terms with what makes us harbor the resentments, and begin to adjust our prejudiced views of those who do not share our own version of the American dream?

In my opinion, the answer is: “Yes we can.”

Hillary: I Have A Dream Ticket

The Clinton campaign has yet again stooped to the lowest tactics and has taken another stab at Obama supporters with the always complicit media in tow. In hinting about a “dream ticket” with her at the top and Obama as Vice President, she is using a very subtle but underhanded tactic that is designed solely to suppress the Obama vote in the upcoming primaries.

The idea is, of course, to lead potential Obama supporters and undecided voters to vote for Hillary while thinking they’ll get a free Obama anyway. This makes the voters think that they will get a “twofer” with one simple vote.

The problem is that Obama has a rightful place at the top of the ticket because he has and will have more pledged delegates than Hillary could possibly amass even if she runs the table with the rest of the primaries.

Additionally, Obama has never indicated that he would accept (except for the cautious “never say never” responses he has sometimes given).

Finally, how does anybody see a Barack Obama as Veep functioning with Bill Clinton the Vice President in spirit if not in fact. Ask Al Gore what it feels like to be Vice President in a Clinton White House.

Hillary is trying to do a few things here. In addition to the tactical Obama vote suppression, she also wants to lower the potential anger from the millions of newly minted Democratic supporters who would likely “storm the Bastille” if yet another Presidential lection were stolen from a Democrat.

Hillary needs Obama.

But Obama does not need or want Hillary.

If Obama is able to claim his right as the Democratic nominee (assuming he can fend off the underhanded manipulation of the Karl Rovian Clinton team), he would do real damage to add Clinton as Vice President to his ticket because that would sabotage his message as a change candidate. Additionally, it is easier for Clinton supporters to get with Obama than for Obama supporters to accept a candidate who fought her campaign as deep in the gutter as Hillary has.

I never pretend to know what “the people” want, but I think they often want something at variance with their voting record. I don’t think those who voted for George W. Bush actually wanted an unending war, a recession, a housing crisis, unemployment, and the world wide loathing of our country to the point where travel outside our borders is dangerous and Canada sells Canadian maple leaf emblems for U.S. citizens to sport “just in case”.

No. The folks who voted for George W. Bush wanted to feel good about the U.S. and they bought the line about our military bringing that about. They also dreaded the very image of men kissing. So they voted for a man who would stop gays from getting legal protection on a par with straights. They also didn’t like the dubious morality of “slaughtering” millions of innocent stem cells just so some scientists could do research into curing cancer, AIDS an other diseases. Republicans tend to not like slaughtering until people are fully grown.

But those people didn’t want what we have now anymore than those who vote for Hillary want to lose to a Republican in November (the polls clearly show Obama having a double digit lead over McCain while Hillary has about 6% advantage right now).

So if we end up with John McCain as President, those people who think that being a woman is enough reason to vote for someone will wake up in November with a very old, very Republican, and very male Commander in Chief who will probably be fast asleep at 3:00 AM.

John McCain and Hillary Clinton In Crisis: Be Very Afraid

Anyone who has seen John McCain get angry needs to be afraid. Very afraid.

While those of us who have been even remotely influenced by Senator Clinton’s now famous “3:00Am” ad may be thinking about which candidate would best deal with a late night crisis, remember that what we are looking for is a character trait, not a resume.

Being in the Senate, or having endured combat and torture are not the criteria. It is in the darkest hour to which  the “3:00am” ad  tries to allude. That hour is not one for which any candidate is truly prepared.

When FDR died in the middle of World War II (remember, we didn’t know it was almost over then), Harry Truman was not at all qualified or tested. He was a haberdasher from Missouri, and the President was a well tried leader during War time.

But upon the President’s death, this little, unqualified man stepped into the breach and won the war. He was decisive (deciding to drop the atom bomb has to be a decision that I hope Senator Clinton or McCain would never have to make).

Abraham Lincoln was similarly unqualified and yet managed to save the country and be a great Commander In Chief.

We’ve seen John McCain lose his temper on the campaign plane, and several Generals and other associates have told extremely frightening stories about McCain being so volatile that once, he ran down the hall after one person who had pissed him off.

We’ve seen Hillary Clinton burn down her own party, whine about press coverage, and generally lose her grip on which personality she wants to show us at any given time. In her book Living History, Senator Clinton said that the only real crisis she faced was when she heard the news about Monica Lewinsky and her husband. She describes trembling, and other generally panicked states. This is very much at variance with her cool, glasses wearing demeanor in the TV ad.

There are countless stories about Clinton in some level of crisis, but we’ve all seen the evidence first hand: She exhibited three distinct personalities in the past primary cycle. While declaring she had “finally found her voice”, she went from tearing up about the pressure of running for President to being honored to share the table with Barack Obama to scolding him with an angry “shame on you, Barack Obama” the next day. Imagine her dealing with something like a new Cuban missile crisis with a grab bag of possible responses and personalities.

Indeed, the only impressive response to crisis came from the unflappable Barack Obama during just about all of the debates and Primary events. No matter what underhanded or unfair accusations he has had thrown at him during the high pressure campaign for President of the United States, he remains diplomatic, consistent, and cool. One can only imagine him under   real emergency fire. Remember, in the White House he’d have all the generals and high level experts around him for instant advice and information.

And, unlike George W. Bush, he’d know who to appoint, and who to listen to. Then he’d have the intellectual curiosity and analytical ability to make that tough decision by himself.

It is that ability to remain cool under fire that makes for a good Commander in Chief, not some image of a work at home mommie alone (and in business garb in the dead of night looking studious while answering that call after about twenty rings (I think Barack Obama would probably have a cell phone next to the bed).

John McCain is indeed a war hero. But, as an associate who has worked with him and knows him well has said, “I wouldn’t want him anywhere near the button.”

If McCain, or Hillary get anywhere near the Oval Office, be afraid. Be very afraid.

[NOTE: If you read and enjoy these blogs, please forward them to a friend and CNN, MSNBC or any other media outlets.]

John McCain and Hillary Clinton In Crisis: Be Very Afraid

Anyone who has seen John McCain get angry needs to be afraid. Very afraid.

While those of us who have been even remotely influenced by Senator Clinton’s now famous “3:00Am” ad may be thinking about which candidate would best deal with a late night crisis, remember that what we are looking for is a character trait, not a resume.

Being in the Senate, or having endured combat and torture are not the criteria. It is in the darkest hour to which  the “3:00am” ad  tries to allude. That hour is not one for which any candidate is truly prepared.

When FDR died in the middle of World War II (remember, we didn’t know it was almost over then), Harry Truman was not at all qualified or tested. He was a haberdasher from Missouri, and the President was a well tried leader during War time.

But upon the President’s death, this little, unqualified man stepped into the breach and won the war. He was decisive (deciding to drop the atom bomb has to be a decision that I hope Senator Clinton or McCain would never have to make). Similarly, a very underqualified Abraham Lincoln got this country through the biggest crisis in its history.

We’ve seen John McCain lose his temper on the campaign plane, and several Generals and other associates have told extremely frightening stories about McCain being so volatile that once, he ran down the hall after one person who had pissed him off.

We’ve seen Hillary Clinton burn down her own party, whine about press coverage, and generally lose her grip on which personality she wants to show us at any given time. In her book Living History, Senator Clinton said that the only real crisis she faced was when she heard the news about Monica Lewinsky and her husband. She describes trembling, and other generally panicked states. This is very much at variance with her cool, glasses wearing demeanor in the TV ad.

There are countless stories about Clinton in some level of crisis, but we’ve all seen the evidence first hand: She exhibited three distinct personalities in the past primary cycle. While declaring she had “finally found her voice”, she went from tearing up about the pressure of running for President to being honored to share the table with Barack Obama to scolding him with an angry “shame on you, Barack Obama” the next day. Imagine her dealing with something like a new Cuban missile crisis with a grab bag of possible responses and personalities.

Indeed, the only impressive response to crisis came from the unflappable Barack Obama during just about all of the debates and Primary events. No matter what underhanded or unfair accusations he has had thrown at him during the high pressure campaign for President of the United States, he remains diplomatic, consistent, and cool. One can only imagine him under real emergency fire. Remember, in the White House he’d have all the generals and high level experts around him for instant advice and information.

And, unlike George W. Bush, he’d know who to appoint, and who to listen to. Then he’d have the intellectual curiosity and analytical ability to make that tough decision by himself.

It is that ability to remain cool under fire that makes for a good Commander in Chief, not some image of a work at home mommie alone (and in business garb in the dead of night) looking studious while answering that call after about twenty rings (I think Barack Obama would probably have a cell phone next to the bed).

John McCain is indeed a war hero. But, as an associate who has worked with him and knows him well has said, “I wouldn’t want him anywhere near the button.”

If McCain, or Hillary get anywhere near the Oval Office, be afraid. Be very afraid.

[NOTE: If you read and enjoy these blogs, please forward them to a friend and CNN, MSNBC or any other media outlets.]

McCain: When You Are a Hammer, Every Problem Looks Like a Nail

Today there was an small explosion in New York City near a military recruiting station. As I write this, police are investigating. Acts like these have happened many times as have other violent crimes in our large cities. Yet John McCain lost no time in characterizing this event as an “attack”. It is clear that, to McCain, every aberrant event will from now on be characterized as a terrorist attack.

Many have said that McCain is the most credible candidate if the issue is defined as terrorism related. This is because to McCain, every problem has a military solution. When you are hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Of course, McCain has the most military experience of all three candidates, and thanks to Hillary Clinton, who, unable to play the chess game more than one move ahead, has given the issue to John McCain in her misguided attempt to make Barack Obama look weak.

Americans may feel safer with McCain now that Senator Clinton has hammered the point home in her now infamous “3AM” TV ad and on the stump. This plays on fear in the same way that the George W. Bush administration so deftly did in the run up to the misguided war with Iraq. When fear comes in the door, reason goes out the window.

But let’s look at John McCain’s qualifications and history a bit:

No one can deny that McCain is a true hero who selflessly gave to our country. He is no accidental hero who happened to endure hardship and got a medal. His heroism is real. He made selfless choices during the Viet Nam war to save his buddies at his own expense. Nobody should deny his brave service, and attempts to Swift Boat him would never work.

But McCain comes from a military family with generations of service. As a person of courage, he is well equipped to handle the exigencies of combat, and to a somewhat lesser degree, military strategy. He understands what the Bush administration does not: That use of torture is ineffective and hurts our country not only morally, but strategically. He understands that in Iraq, the operation was bungled badly leaving us no choice but to increase troop strength in order to stem the bloodshed while we are sitting in the  midst of a civil war.

But I worry deeply about having a man in charge whose solution to every problem is military. McCain does not have the goods to run the country, only a part of which involves military strategy. If the answer to every problem we are facing is military, then we are very likely to get bogged down in a true quagmire. If Iran, the Isreal Palestine conflict, North Korea, Russia, Latin America, trade, the economy are all dealt with in John McCain’s style, we’ll have wars all over the world to the degree that we have troops to fight them. Next will come a draft to feed our dependence on the ever growing military machine. And we’ll have a man in charge who only knows the dimension of the battleground.

This is a a very dangerous candidate. If all our problems are answered with force, we will soon run out of money and lives to throw at them. And we will never regain respect and cooperation from the ever shrinking ranks of our friends and allies.

But let us be clear: A McCain presidency would not be a continuation of the Bush presidency. It would be intelligent and competent. But it will be military at its core. The only solution John McCain knows and understands is military.

Thanks to Hillary Clinton, the big issue has been framed to coincide with McCain’s strength: We are not electing a President, we are electing a Commander In Chief. That may help cut Obama down in some voters’ eyes, but it does not elevate Clinton. It elevates McCain.

McCain has no credentials in any other area. He has already stated that he knows nothing about economics. McCain is indeed a maverick. And that should tell us something.

He is a gunslinger.

Hurricane Hillary: Katrina Was a Gentle Breeze By Comparison

Senator Clinton fear-mongered and dirty-tricked her way to popular vote wins in Texas and  Ohio last night, aided and abetted by the media. I’m leaving out her win in Rhode Island because that was mostly conceded by the Obama campaign because of the high Catholic population there (a strong Clinton voting block) and the strong party machine the Clintons have in place there.

But none of this changes the delegate count in any significant way. In fact, by the time the Texas caucus vote is tallied, Obama may very well net more new delegates in Texas than Clinton despite her popular win.

So, does that matter? Well, yes. Hurricane Hillary has done incalculable damage to the Democrats’ potential to beat John McCain, who sewed up his party’s mathematical lock last night, sparing the country of more speeches by the affable and always entertaining Mike Huckabee of Arkansas.

Barring some unimaginable cataclysm beyond the potential of even the Clinton campaign to manufacture, Obama will end the delegate collection process with about a hundred or more pledged delegates than Clinton. Neither Clinton nor Obama has the ability to get a mathematical lock on the delegates without the addition of the unpledged, or super delegates. The super delegate system was put in place by the Democratic party in order to avoid the chaos we now face. It was designed to stop a brokered convention that would hurt the party’s chances in the general election.

In recent weeks, several of the super delegates moved into Obama’s column because they wanted to stop Hillary from doing exactly what she is doing right now: plowing ahead to a full out scorched earth campaign that will enhance John McCain’s chances in November. The Obama campaign had hinted last night that they had fifty additional super delegates that they would announce over the next few weeks. Hopefully, more will do their job and sew it up before Hillary gets to fully carpet bomb the country with her blind ambition and lack of concern for either the Democratic party or the country.

But here’s why last night is troublesome:

1)    Hillary won Ohio and Texas after a so-called “kitchen sink” strategy of going so totally negative against Obama that she actually said that only she and John McCain were qualified to be Commander In Chief. She ran a fear-mongering ad designed to scare mothers of young children into thinking that only she (and John McCain) could deal with a disaster that might come in a late night phone call.

2)    Hillary, when given a chance to denounce (and reject) the rumors that Obama was a Muslim in an interview with Steve Kroft on Sixty Minutes, said “He isn’t a Muslim . . . as far as I know”.

3)    The Clinton Campaign successfully argued that the press was overly favorable to Obama. Eventually, the press caved and we were treated to  a solid three days of almost no Obama coverage before the primaries in Ohio and Texas. Only Clinton speeches were aired on CNN and MSNBC, and the heat was turned up on Obama in areas that were manufactured: His guilt by association with Tony Rezco, whose corruption trial began one day before the primaries, and a discredited story which implied that an Obama staffer had told the Canadian government that Obama was only using his anti NAFTA rhetoric for campaign purposes and shouldn’t be taken seriously. Admittedly, Obama could have handled this better. He at first said that no meeting had taken place at all, then the Canadian government admitted that a meeting had taken place but that no discussion of NAFTA had occurred. In either case, this was between a staffer, not Obama, and since the content of the discussion was denied by both parties, there was nothing to the story. But with a complicit and complacent press, and a nefarious Hillary, the story had resonance (especially with the media’s self imposed Obama blackout).

4)    Hillary has now said that she is going to campaign straight through to the Denver convention. This will cost millions of dollars (MSNBC has estimated that it will cost about $70 million just to campaign in Pennsylvania. All the while, John McCain is free to start his general election campaign right now. So the Republicans will be given the advantage of having the time to consolidate their base, start their campaign and watch Hillary beat up on Obama and take the best pieces of her strategy and use them to win in November.

5)    Hillary’s attacks on the very inspiration that is at the core of Obama’s movement is the height of cynicism. To replace hope with fear and denigrate the inspirational tone of Obama as “just speeches” is an insult not only to Obama, but to the millions of new political activists he has inspired to enter the political process. What a tremendous amount of party wrecking ego for a political candidate to make fun of the hopes an dreams of a new generation of voters.

Even without the pledged delegates, the Clinton campaign is going to cause damage by claiming that the super delegates should defect from Obama and come over to her side citing the two important wins last night and saying that she won the big states even though Obama won twice the number of states she won and has a triple digit lead in pledged delegates.

But here’s the real problem. Even if you grew disaffected with Obama and started to feel that he lacked substance or gravitas, where do you go? I wouldn’t support a Hillary Clinton candidacy under any circumstances. I probably wouldn’t vote for John McCain – especially after he goes around the country with George W. Bush’s endorsement. Voting for McCain does not send a strong enough message of dissatisfaction with the Republican rule over the past eight years.

But how could I vote for Hillary? She has shown that she is easily a continuation of the worst aspects of the Bush administration. She cheats and fights dirty when cornered just like Karl Rove, and she operates in secrecy once she ties up an election. Finally, she cannot admit a mistake. She is as inside Washington as any Republican and she is just as unscrupulous.

Additionally, this country was never designed to have a co-presidency, and that would be what we’d have with Bill and Hillary.

Oddly, I think one of the reasons that Hillary won in Ohio was because of Bill Clinton nostalgia. The misguided Ohio voters remember the halcyon days of the Bill Clinton presidency and were overcome with thoughts of all those good economic times before the face of the George W. Bush economic disaster.

The huge influx of idealistic and energized young first timers that the Obama campaign brought in will not easily go over to Hillary’s side. Especially after they have witnessed her cruel and divisive strategy that will have won her the nomination if in fact she does manage to pull off some sort of upset through intimidation. I don’t think they’ll go over to McCain, so my guess is that after Hillary has drained every ounce of hope out of the campaign and replaced it with fear, these young political neophytes will just stay home.

I’m not a neophyte. But I couldn’t vote for McCain or Hillary. I certainly don’t want to encourage Ralph Nader, but I probably would find myself having a beer with several of those newly disaffected on election day and for the first time in my adult life sit out the election.

Before you condemn me as an unpatriotic non voter, remember one important thing: Hillary cannot win in a general election. She has never polled above 50% and she is divisive even before she ran this awful campaign of mutual assured destruction. Hillary’s negatives are the highest of any political candidate, and while Republicans might not like Obama, they might stay home in an Obama McCain match-up. But those same stay-at-home Republicans would all come out just to vote against Hillary.

It wasn’t too long ago that the National Weather Service named hurricanes after women only. None of those storms ever packed the punch and destruction of Hurricane Hillary.

Media Does Penance For Obama

Not since Spiro T. Agnew’s attack on the media (penned by William Safire) calling them “nattering nabobs of negativism” in 1970 has the media caved in so unequivocally to a politician’s claim of unjust coverage.

In response to the Clinton campaign’s constant complaint of the press’ so-called Obama favoritism, the press started an “All Hillary, All The Time” program this weekend. I was able to count only three short clips of Obama while the press continued to talk about Hillary’s so-called issues and show every campaign stop she made in Ohio and Texas.

The now infamous ‘red phone” ad that the Clinton campaign unveiled last week was given hundreds of minutes of free air time by positioning it as “news”. Additionally, the discredited story about an Obama economic advisor’s supposed contact with the Canadian government over Obama’s NAFTA remarks was referred to on The McLaughlin Group, CNN, and MSNBC as if it had actually happened. Even when playing the Canadian Parliament’s debate over its non involvement in the non story, the talking heads proceeded as if the story were something worth discussing.

Additionally, the Tony Rezco trial got covered all day in the context of Obama’s involvement even though the media kept saying that Obama had not done anything worthy of the story. Rezco was seen as a decent person when he started to donate money to Obama’s Illinois Senate campaign. When Rezco got into trouble, Obama gave the money to charity. Unfortunately, Obama had the misfortune of closing on some property on the same day as Rezco, but that is the extent of the “guilt by association” between Tony Rezco and Obama.

Hillary keeps saying that she has been through the most intense scrutiny of any candidate in history as if to say this proves she is without sin. But the fact is that the scrutiny she has been under has revealed a lot that is still swirling around the undercurrent of America’s political scene. And it will come back to haunt her in the general election if she does the impossible and wins. [NOTE: Obama still needs the super delegates to win, and they could be influenced by the media.]

Clinton is not inoculated against the deeds of herself and her husband. The names Mark Rich, and Norman Hsu, along with the mysterious Whitewater files that disappeared then miraculously reappeared, the investment Hillary made of $1,000 back in Arkansas that somehow turned into a hundred times that, Travelgate, all will come back in the general election if she is lucky enough to be there when it happens.

Last Summer, FoxNews (not my most favorite news source, but I am showing what is to come), said this: 

“Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign announced late Wednesday that it will give all money donated by a leading contributor to charity after it was revealed that the donor, Norman Hsu, was a fugitive from the law.”

The reason Senator Obama has avoided mentioning these stories is that he has not needed to mention them, and because voters hate this sort of mud slinging. When the candidates talk about these sideshow events, they are not talking about anything the voters care about.

What is far more revealing and damaging to the Clinton Campaign is the newly reported story that Senator Clinton, before voting on the Iraq War resolution, did not read the intelligence report that was given to her. Obama has brought this up, but my guess is that he has had to spend too much time fending off the nonsense that the press has seen fit to emphasize in order to save their souls to give the subject the scrutiny it deserves.

Most voters have grown weary of Obama’s constant references to Hillary’s misguided vote on the Iraq war resolution. It is easy for John McCain to say that it is all in the past and that we should look to the future. Obama back atcha with the notion that it shows faulty judgment misses the bigger issue that she didn’t read information that was handed to her immediately before her all important vote.

This smells too much like the Bush administration and the President’s  not reading the Presidential Daily Briefing of August 8^th, 2001 that would have clued him in to 911 a month ahead of time. If he had read that, perhaps he would have cut his reading of My Pet Goat to the kids short in time to hop under a desk somewhere.

For Hillary to have shirked her duty to read all important information such as this before a major and far reaching vote, is very much in keeping with the way the Bush administration has bungled the country’s security. It is one very  important reason why we should worry about her answering that red phone.

But the press is having none of it. They got their wrists slapped by the Clinton campaign, and now they’ve got religion: It’s showing the Clinton campaign’s ads every time they get a new one. It’s showing repeats of any Saturday Night Live sketch that shows Hillary in a favorable light (she brought one of those skits up in the last debate but her reference fell flat, so now the press is lending a hand to make sure we all get it).

So, with one day to go, I call your attention to a blog I wrote a few days ago which predicted that the media would do the Clintons’ bidding after the election. In it, I said that regardless of the delegate count, the press would portray any Clinton win as a major turnaround in the campaign.

What I didn’t know then was that they’d start their spineless complicity a few days ahead of time before the Texas and Ohio Primaries.

 

Hillary Tested Under Crisis?

A few months after 9/11, I sent an urgent plea via email to Senator Hillary Clinton’s Office. It seems, a local news plane had buzzed Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant for twenty minutes and the U.S. government did nothing to stop it.

Indian Point is fifty miles north of New York City. The World Trade Center has just been leveled, and a Cessna 150 is buzzing a nuclear power plant. So what was Senator Clinton’s response? “We’ll look into it.” And then nothing.

Over the months that followed, a few people managed to walk right into that power plant without being stopped and the commission that regulates nuclear power plants issued a rating saying that it had the lowest safety rating of any power plant in the country.

Today, the Clinton Campaign debuted their fear mongering ad that shows children sleeping and asks us who we would want in the White House if a phone call dealing with a national emergency came in at three in the morning.

Today, in a conference call with the press, Howard Wolfson, the Clinton campaign’s communications director, was asked by someone when Senator Clinton had been tested in a crisis. Chris Matthews said you could have knit a sweater in the time it took for a response which was not substantial.

Nobody can seem to find a way to back up what Clinton is claiming: That she is ready for a crisis. That is really what is behind her overuse of the phrase “day one” by her campaign. It all is designed to scare people into voting for her.

I hope it doesn’t work.

Indian Point is still up and running, and no safer than it was on 2001 right after 9/11.