Tuesday, March 18, 2008
From Ed in NY:
I'm a decade older than Reverend Wright, a theatre director who had the good luck to bring the "Great White Hope" to Broadway in 1968 in the midst of the turmoil of the Black Power movement. We witnessed the incredible force for good that bringing the truth of Jack Johnson's demise at the hands of racist America brought to our theatre audiences. It was a time never to be forgotten and it inched our country forward toward a clearer understanding of its history. So, today, Barack Obama, taking the risk that only a brave and clear-headed man could take, put himself squarely in the center of our racial controversy and spoke the truth. The "talking heads" will make whatever hash out of it that their sponsors require. But the irrefutable truth is that he is taller, wiser more intellectually and spiritually ready to lead this nation out of moral despair and economic darkness than any leader in modern history. Grant that he may have the power to continue and the enlightened support necessary to become the next president of our country.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
From Judy:
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George Speaks, Badly
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By GAIL COLLINS
Published: March 15, 2008
Watching George W. Bush address the New York financial community Friday brought back many memories. Unfortunately, they were about his speech right after Hurricane Katrina, the one when he said: “America will be a stronger place for it.”
Skip to next paragraph
Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
Gail Collins
Blog: Public Interests
Leave a Comment for Gail Collins
Go to Columnist Page »
Related
Columnist Biography: Gail Collins
Times Topics: Gail Collins“You’ve helped make our country really in many ways the economic envy of the world,” he told the Economic Club of New York.
You could almost see the thought-bubble forming over the audience: Not this week, kiddo.
The president squinched his face and bit his lip and seemed too antsy to stand still. As he searched for the name of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia (“the king, uh, the king of Saudi”) and made guy-fun of one of the questioners (“Who picked Gigot?”), you had to wonder what the international financial community makes of a country whose president could show up to talk economics in the middle of a liquidity crisis and kind of flop around the stage as if he was emcee at the Iowa Republican Pig Roast.
We’re really past expecting anything much, but in times of crisis you would like to at least believe your leader has the capacity to pretend he’s in control. Suddenly, I recalled a day long ago when my husband worked for a struggling paper full of worried employees and the publisher walked into the newsroom wearing a gorilla suit.
The country that elected George Bush — sort of — because he seemed like he’d be more fun to have a beer with than Al Gore or John Kerry is really getting its comeuppance. Our credit markets are foundering, and all we’ve got is a guy who looks like he’s ready to kick back and start the weekend.
This is not the first time Bush’s attempts to calm our fears redoubled our nightmares. His first speech after 9/11 — that two-minute job on the Air Force base — was so stilted that the entire country felt like heading for the nearest fallout shelter. After Katrina, of course, it took forever to pry him out of Crawford, and then he more or less read a laundry list of Goods Being Shipped to the Flood Zone and delivered some brief assurances that things would work out.
O.K., so he’s not good at first-day response. Or second. Third can be a problem, too. But this economic crisis has been going on for months, and all the president could come up with sounded as if it had been composed for a Rotary Club and then delivered by a guy who had never read it before. “One thing is certain that Congress will do is waste some of your money,” he said. “So I’ve challenged members of Congress to cut the number of cost of earmarks in half.”
Besides being incoherent, this is a perfect sign of an utterly phony speech. Earmarks are one of those easy-to-attack Congressional weaknesses, and in a perfect world, they would not exist. But they cost approximately two cents in the grand budgetary scheme of things. Saying you’re going to fix the economy or balance the budget by cutting out earmarks is like saying you’re going to end global warming by banning bathroom nightlights.
Bush pointed out — as if the entire economic world didn’t already know — that Congress has already passed an economic incentive package that will send tax rebate checks to more than 130 million households. “A lot of them are a little skeptical about this ‘checks in the mail’ stuff,” he jibed. Jokejoke. Winkwink.
Then, after a run through of “ideas I strongly reject,” Bush finally got around to announcing that he was going to “talk about what we’re for. We’re obviously for sending out over $150 billion into the marketplace in the form of checks that will be reaching the mailboxes by the second week of May.
“We’re for that,” he added.
Once the markets had that really, really clear, Bush felt free to go on to the other things he was for, which very much resembled that laundry list for Katrina (“400 trucks containing 5.4 million Meals Ready to Eat — or M.R.E.’s ... 3.4 million pounds of ice ...”) This time the rundown included a six-month-old F.H.A. refinancing program, and an industry group called Hope Now that offers advice to people with mortgage problems.
And then, finally, the nub of the housing crisis: “Problem we have is, a lot of folks aren’t responding to over a million letters sent out to offer them assistance and mortgage counseling,” the president of the United States told the world.
But wait — more positive news! The secretary of Housing and Urban Development is proposing that lenders supply an easy-to-read summary with mortgage agreements. “You know, these mortgages can be pretty frightening to people. I mean, there’s a lot of tiny print,” the president said.
Really, if he can’t fix the economy, the least he could do is rehearse th
Opinion All NYT
Opinion World U.S. N.Y. / Region Business Technology Science Health Sports Opinion Arts Style Travel Jobs Real Estate Autos Editorials Columnists Contributors Letters The Public Editor Op-Ed Columnist
George Speaks, Badly
Sign In to E-Mail or Save This Print Share
Del.icio.usDiggFacebookNewsvinePermalink
By GAIL COLLINS
Published: March 15, 2008
Watching George W. Bush address the New York financial community Friday brought back many memories. Unfortunately, they were about his speech right after Hurricane Katrina, the one when he said: “America will be a stronger place for it.”
Skip to next paragraph
Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
Gail Collins
Blog: Public Interests
Leave a Comment for Gail Collins
Go to Columnist Page »
Related
Columnist Biography: Gail Collins
Times Topics: Gail Collins“You’ve helped make our country really in many ways the economic envy of the world,” he told the Economic Club of New York.
You could almost see the thought-bubble forming over the audience: Not this week, kiddo.
The president squinched his face and bit his lip and seemed too antsy to stand still. As he searched for the name of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia (“the king, uh, the king of Saudi”) and made guy-fun of one of the questioners (“Who picked Gigot?”), you had to wonder what the international financial community makes of a country whose president could show up to talk economics in the middle of a liquidity crisis and kind of flop around the stage as if he was emcee at the Iowa Republican Pig Roast.
We’re really past expecting anything much, but in times of crisis you would like to at least believe your leader has the capacity to pretend he’s in control. Suddenly, I recalled a day long ago when my husband worked for a struggling paper full of worried employees and the publisher walked into the newsroom wearing a gorilla suit.
The country that elected George Bush — sort of — because he seemed like he’d be more fun to have a beer with than Al Gore or John Kerry is really getting its comeuppance. Our credit markets are foundering, and all we’ve got is a guy who looks like he’s ready to kick back and start the weekend.
This is not the first time Bush’s attempts to calm our fears redoubled our nightmares. His first speech after 9/11 — that two-minute job on the Air Force base — was so stilted that the entire country felt like heading for the nearest fallout shelter. After Katrina, of course, it took forever to pry him out of Crawford, and then he more or less read a laundry list of Goods Being Shipped to the Flood Zone and delivered some brief assurances that things would work out.
O.K., so he’s not good at first-day response. Or second. Third can be a problem, too. But this economic crisis has been going on for months, and all the president could come up with sounded as if it had been composed for a Rotary Club and then delivered by a guy who had never read it before. “One thing is certain that Congress will do is waste some of your money,” he said. “So I’ve challenged members of Congress to cut the number of cost of earmarks in half.”
Besides being incoherent, this is a perfect sign of an utterly phony speech. Earmarks are one of those easy-to-attack Congressional weaknesses, and in a perfect world, they would not exist. But they cost approximately two cents in the grand budgetary scheme of things. Saying you’re going to fix the economy or balance the budget by cutting out earmarks is like saying you’re going to end global warming by banning bathroom nightlights.
Bush pointed out — as if the entire economic world didn’t already know — that Congress has already passed an economic incentive package that will send tax rebate checks to more than 130 million households. “A lot of them are a little skeptical about this ‘checks in the mail’ stuff,” he jibed. Jokejoke. Winkwink.
Then, after a run through of “ideas I strongly reject,” Bush finally got around to announcing that he was going to “talk about what we’re for. We’re obviously for sending out over $150 billion into the marketplace in the form of checks that will be reaching the mailboxes by the second week of May.
“We’re for that,” he added.
Once the markets had that really, really clear, Bush felt free to go on to the other things he was for, which very much resembled that laundry list for Katrina (“400 trucks containing 5.4 million Meals Ready to Eat — or M.R.E.’s ... 3.4 million pounds of ice ...”) This time the rundown included a six-month-old F.H.A. refinancing program, and an industry group called Hope Now that offers advice to people with mortgage problems.
And then, finally, the nub of the housing crisis: “Problem we have is, a lot of folks aren’t responding to over a million letters sent out to offer them assistance and mortgage counseling,” the president of the United States told the world.
But wait — more positive news! The secretary of Housing and Urban Development is proposing that lenders supply an easy-to-read summary with mortgage agreements. “You know, these mortgages can be pretty frightening to people. I mean, there’s a lot of tiny print,” the president said.
Really, if he can’t fix the economy, the least he could do is rehearse th
Friday, March 14, 2008
From Ohio Joe:
As I have said.........I believe the Whitehouse is being handed over to the GOP once again. The only way the DEMS will take the Whitehouse is if we unite together whether it be Hillary or Obama and stand strong, that is the stragery of the GOP. When push comes to shove, do you think the conservatives will vote for a DEM because McCain does not fit their "perfect agenda" - they will support McCain in the end.
The bickering, etc. is part of a campaign..........if we think this bickering, low down tricks,etc. are bad wait until the DEM candidate is finalize......at that point the GOP will "let the games begin" . This bickering is just seasoning the DEM candidates for the real "cook off".
In a perfect world the DEMS would shock the GOP and set the ticket with Obama and Hillary............with this card the WHITEHOUSE WOULD BE OURS. Obama needs to take some hits, etc from Hillary, this is only grooming for the crap from the GOP.
The bickering, etc. is part of a campaign..........if we think this bickering, low down tricks,etc. are bad wait until the DEM candidate is finalize......at that point the GOP will "let the games begin" . This bickering is just seasoning the DEM candidates for the real "cook off".
In a perfect world the DEMS would shock the GOP and set the ticket with Obama and Hillary............with this card the WHITEHOUSE WOULD BE OURS. Obama needs to take some hits, etc from Hillary, this is only grooming for the crap from the GOP.
From Anne in Chicago:
Subject: The Media Repeats Stream of Lies About Obama
Reply-To:
The Media Repeats Stream of Lies About Obama
By Ari Berman
EXCERPT: http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/79627/?page=entire
He's been defended by AIPAC on his Israel views, made it clear that he's Christian, yet the media keeps swallowing right-wing lies.
He's a Muslim. He was sworn into office on the Koran. He doesn't say the Pledge of Allegiance. His pastor is an anti-Semite. He's a tool of Louis Farrakhan. He's anti-Israel. His advisers are anti-Israel. He's friends with terrorists. The terrorists want him to win. He's the Antichrist.
By now you've probably seen at least some of these e-mails and articles about Barack Obama bouncing around the Internet. They distort Obama's religious faith, question his support for Israel, warp the identity and positions of his campaign advisers and defame his friends and allies from Chicago. The purpose of the smear is to paint him as an Arab-loving, Israel-hating, terrorist-coddling, radical black nationalist. That picture couldn't be further from the truth, but you'd be surprised how many people have fallen for it. The American Jewish community, one of the most important pillars of the Democratic Party and US politics, has been specifically targeted [see Eric Alterman's column in the March 24 issue, "(Some) Jews Against Obama"]. What started as a largely overlooked fringe attack has been thrust into the mainstream -- used as GOP talking points, pushed by the Clinton campaign, echoed by the likes of Meet the Press host Tim Russert. Falsehoods are repeated as fact, and bits of evidence become "elaborate constructions of malicious fantasy," as the Jewish Week, America's largest Jewish newspaper, editorialized.
What floods into one's inbox these days bears little or no relation to Obama's record. "Some of my earliest and most ardent supporters came from the Jewish community in Chicago," he has said. Obama ran for the Senate promising to help reconstitute the black-Jewish civil rights coalition. His first foreign policy speech of the campaign was before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), where he pledged "clear and strong commitment to the security of Israel." He has occasionally angered pro-Israel hawks by urging direct negotiations with Iran and Syria, but Obama's foreign policy record is well within the Democratic Party mainstream. He's committed to a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, supported Israel's incursion into Lebanon in 2006 and has criticized Hamas. During his campaign for the presidency, Obama has been defended by AIPAC, the neoconservative New York Sun and The New Republic's Marty Peretz, a noted Israel hawk. And yet no defense of Israel by Obama -- or of Obama by the pro-Israel establishment -- seems to be enough. "When one charge is disproved, another is leveled," says Rabbi Jack Moline, who leads a synagogue in Alexandria, Virginia.
It's nearly impossible to decipher where the smears originated [for a comprehensive account of how such campaigns are generated and spread in the age of the Internet and e-mail, see Christopher Hayes, "The New Right-Wing Smear Machine," November 12, 2007]. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency traced one e-mail back 200 people before it stopped with a filmmaker in Tel Aviv who didn't receive a return address. "No one knows if it's the Clintons, a rogue agent or a Rove agent," says Congressman Steve Cohen, a Jewish Obama backer who represents a largely black district in Memphis. Likely it's a combination of the three.
At the fulcrum of this effort is a little-known blogger from Northbrook, Illinois, named Ed Lasky, whose articles on AmericanThinker.com have done more than anything to give the smear campaign an air of respectability. Lasky co-founded AmericanThinker.com in 2003, modeling it after Powerline, a popular conservative blog. Before that, he had frequently written letters to newspapers defending Israel and criticizing the Palestinians. Though his background remains a mystery, Lasky didn't hide his neoconservative leanings. He wrote a blog post in 2004 titled "Why American Jews Must Vote for Bush," made three separate donations to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, contributed $1,000 to Tom DeLay and has given more than $50,000 to GOP candidates and causes since 2000. Lasky sits on the board of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, headed by Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, whose close affiliations with Christian-right operatives like Ralph Reed has made Eckstein a controversial figure in the Jewish community.
A lengthy article from January 16, "Barack Obama and Israel," put Lasky on the map. "One seemingly consistent theme running throughout Barack Obama's career is his comfort with aligning himself with people who are anti-Israel advocates," Lasky wrote. To reach that conclusion, Lasky laughably warped what it meant to be "pro-Israel," criticizing Obama for, among other things, opposing John Bolton as UN ambassador and hiring veteran foreign policy hands from the Clinton and Carter administrations. By Lasky's criteria, every Democrat in the Senate, and more than a few Republicans, would be considered "anti-Israel." "Lasky's piece is filled with half-truths, omission of 'inconvenient facts,' innuendo, deeply flawed logic, undocumented charges, hearsay, and guilt by distant association," wrote Ira Forman of the National Jewish Democratic Council in the Philadelphia Jewish Voice.
Despite -- or perhaps because of -- its propagandistic nature, Lasky's column and subsequent follow-ups circulated far and wide.
Even if the false claims about Obama originally emanated from the neoconservative right, the Clinton campaign has eagerly pushed them. Clinton operative Sidney Blumenthal has e-mailed damaging stories about Obama to reporters, including a recent article by John Batchelor, a right-wing talk-radio host for KFI-AM in Los Angeles. Clinton fundraiser Annie Totah circulated a column by Ed Lasky before Super Tuesday, with the inscription "Please vote wisely in the Primaries." Clinton adviser Ann Lewis falsely referred to Zbigniew Brzezinski, a critic of AIPAC, as a chief adviser to Obama on a conference call with Jewish reporters. "I can tell you for a fact people from the Clinton campaign are calling reporters and asking them to pay attention to things involving Obama and Israel," says Shmuel Rosner, Washington correspondent for the Israeli daily Ha'aretz. The volume of e-mails about Obama in a given state tends to track the election calendar -- hardly a coincidence.
Large American Jewish organizations, like AIPAC and the Orthodox Union, have repeatedly defended Obama. Yet they've had little sway over reactionary elements in both the United States and Israel -- including Jewish hate groups -- who are eager to keep the smear campaign alive. The website Jews Against Obama, for instance, is run by the Jewish Task Force, which funnels money to the radical settler movement in Israel. (Curiously, John McCain's alliance with Pastor John Hagee of Christians United for Israel, a leading proponent of "end times" theology, and his recent endorsement by former Secretary of State James Baker have received far less scrutiny from pro-Israel pundits. It was Baker, after all, who reportedly told George H.W. Bush, "Fuck the Jews. They didn't vote for us anyway.")
Respected news outlets have stoked these smears, even as they attempt to debunk them.
Among conservatives, Fox News has endlessly amplified such rumors. Karl Rove, a new hire by the network, recently speculated that Obama would withdraw funding for Israel.Sean Hannity has asked if Obama has a "race problem." Fox News radio host Tom Sullivan compared Obama to Hitler. "Fox News are on to him and all the arguments our 'smear' camping [sic] is making and for the most part it is running with them," right-wing blogger Ted Belman, of Israpundit, wrote in a recent e-mail.
The attacks on Obama reek of racism and Islamophobia but, as John Kerry learned in 2004, any Democrat should expect such treatment. "If Moses was the Democratic nominee, he'd still be the victim of this hate mail," says Doug Bloomfield, a former legislative director for AIPAC. The right-wing smear machine grinds on, with the mainstream media and rival campaigns lending a helping hand.
READ MORE: http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/79627/?page=entire
Ari Berman is a contributing writer for The Nation and a Ralph Shikes Fellow at the Public Concern Foundation.
Reply-To:
The Media Repeats Stream of Lies About Obama
By Ari Berman
EXCERPT: http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/79627/?page=entire
He's been defended by AIPAC on his Israel views, made it clear that he's Christian, yet the media keeps swallowing right-wing lies.
He's a Muslim. He was sworn into office on the Koran. He doesn't say the Pledge of Allegiance. His pastor is an anti-Semite. He's a tool of Louis Farrakhan. He's anti-Israel. His advisers are anti-Israel. He's friends with terrorists. The terrorists want him to win. He's the Antichrist.
By now you've probably seen at least some of these e-mails and articles about Barack Obama bouncing around the Internet. They distort Obama's religious faith, question his support for Israel, warp the identity and positions of his campaign advisers and defame his friends and allies from Chicago. The purpose of the smear is to paint him as an Arab-loving, Israel-hating, terrorist-coddling, radical black nationalist. That picture couldn't be further from the truth, but you'd be surprised how many people have fallen for it. The American Jewish community, one of the most important pillars of the Democratic Party and US politics, has been specifically targeted [see Eric Alterman's column in the March 24 issue, "(Some) Jews Against Obama"]. What started as a largely overlooked fringe attack has been thrust into the mainstream -- used as GOP talking points, pushed by the Clinton campaign, echoed by the likes of Meet the Press host Tim Russert. Falsehoods are repeated as fact, and bits of evidence become "elaborate constructions of malicious fantasy," as the Jewish Week, America's largest Jewish newspaper, editorialized.
What floods into one's inbox these days bears little or no relation to Obama's record. "Some of my earliest and most ardent supporters came from the Jewish community in Chicago," he has said. Obama ran for the Senate promising to help reconstitute the black-Jewish civil rights coalition. His first foreign policy speech of the campaign was before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), where he pledged "clear and strong commitment to the security of Israel." He has occasionally angered pro-Israel hawks by urging direct negotiations with Iran and Syria, but Obama's foreign policy record is well within the Democratic Party mainstream. He's committed to a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, supported Israel's incursion into Lebanon in 2006 and has criticized Hamas. During his campaign for the presidency, Obama has been defended by AIPAC, the neoconservative New York Sun and The New Republic's Marty Peretz, a noted Israel hawk. And yet no defense of Israel by Obama -- or of Obama by the pro-Israel establishment -- seems to be enough. "When one charge is disproved, another is leveled," says Rabbi Jack Moline, who leads a synagogue in Alexandria, Virginia.
It's nearly impossible to decipher where the smears originated [for a comprehensive account of how such campaigns are generated and spread in the age of the Internet and e-mail, see Christopher Hayes, "The New Right-Wing Smear Machine," November 12, 2007]. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency traced one e-mail back 200 people before it stopped with a filmmaker in Tel Aviv who didn't receive a return address. "No one knows if it's the Clintons, a rogue agent or a Rove agent," says Congressman Steve Cohen, a Jewish Obama backer who represents a largely black district in Memphis. Likely it's a combination of the three.
At the fulcrum of this effort is a little-known blogger from Northbrook, Illinois, named Ed Lasky, whose articles on AmericanThinker.com have done more than anything to give the smear campaign an air of respectability. Lasky co-founded AmericanThinker.com in 2003, modeling it after Powerline, a popular conservative blog. Before that, he had frequently written letters to newspapers defending Israel and criticizing the Palestinians. Though his background remains a mystery, Lasky didn't hide his neoconservative leanings. He wrote a blog post in 2004 titled "Why American Jews Must Vote for Bush," made three separate donations to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, contributed $1,000 to Tom DeLay and has given more than $50,000 to GOP candidates and causes since 2000. Lasky sits on the board of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, headed by Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, whose close affiliations with Christian-right operatives like Ralph Reed has made Eckstein a controversial figure in the Jewish community.
A lengthy article from January 16, "Barack Obama and Israel," put Lasky on the map. "One seemingly consistent theme running throughout Barack Obama's career is his comfort with aligning himself with people who are anti-Israel advocates," Lasky wrote. To reach that conclusion, Lasky laughably warped what it meant to be "pro-Israel," criticizing Obama for, among other things, opposing John Bolton as UN ambassador and hiring veteran foreign policy hands from the Clinton and Carter administrations. By Lasky's criteria, every Democrat in the Senate, and more than a few Republicans, would be considered "anti-Israel." "Lasky's piece is filled with half-truths, omission of 'inconvenient facts,' innuendo, deeply flawed logic, undocumented charges, hearsay, and guilt by distant association," wrote Ira Forman of the National Jewish Democratic Council in the Philadelphia Jewish Voice.
Despite -- or perhaps because of -- its propagandistic nature, Lasky's column and subsequent follow-ups circulated far and wide.
Even if the false claims about Obama originally emanated from the neoconservative right, the Clinton campaign has eagerly pushed them. Clinton operative Sidney Blumenthal has e-mailed damaging stories about Obama to reporters, including a recent article by John Batchelor, a right-wing talk-radio host for KFI-AM in Los Angeles. Clinton fundraiser Annie Totah circulated a column by Ed Lasky before Super Tuesday, with the inscription "Please vote wisely in the Primaries." Clinton adviser Ann Lewis falsely referred to Zbigniew Brzezinski, a critic of AIPAC, as a chief adviser to Obama on a conference call with Jewish reporters. "I can tell you for a fact people from the Clinton campaign are calling reporters and asking them to pay attention to things involving Obama and Israel," says Shmuel Rosner, Washington correspondent for the Israeli daily Ha'aretz. The volume of e-mails about Obama in a given state tends to track the election calendar -- hardly a coincidence.
Large American Jewish organizations, like AIPAC and the Orthodox Union, have repeatedly defended Obama. Yet they've had little sway over reactionary elements in both the United States and Israel -- including Jewish hate groups -- who are eager to keep the smear campaign alive. The website Jews Against Obama, for instance, is run by the Jewish Task Force, which funnels money to the radical settler movement in Israel. (Curiously, John McCain's alliance with Pastor John Hagee of Christians United for Israel, a leading proponent of "end times" theology, and his recent endorsement by former Secretary of State James Baker have received far less scrutiny from pro-Israel pundits. It was Baker, after all, who reportedly told George H.W. Bush, "Fuck the Jews. They didn't vote for us anyway.")
Respected news outlets have stoked these smears, even as they attempt to debunk them.
Among conservatives, Fox News has endlessly amplified such rumors. Karl Rove, a new hire by the network, recently speculated that Obama would withdraw funding for Israel.Sean Hannity has asked if Obama has a "race problem." Fox News radio host Tom Sullivan compared Obama to Hitler. "Fox News are on to him and all the arguments our 'smear' camping [sic] is making and for the most part it is running with them," right-wing blogger Ted Belman, of Israpundit, wrote in a recent e-mail.
The attacks on Obama reek of racism and Islamophobia but, as John Kerry learned in 2004, any Democrat should expect such treatment. "If Moses was the Democratic nominee, he'd still be the victim of this hate mail," says Doug Bloomfield, a former legislative director for AIPAC. The right-wing smear machine grinds on, with the mainstream media and rival campaigns lending a helping hand.
READ MORE: http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/79627/?page=entire
Ari Berman is a contributing writer for The Nation and a Ralph Shikes Fellow at the Public Concern Foundation.
From Ashley: A Must Watch commentary!
Hi all,
First, a youtube “must watch”… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ2JtUmB3kc
First, a youtube “must watch”… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ2JtUmB3kc
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
From Hank:
From Hank:
Hillary is a mean-spirited, self-centered, two-faced phony, who made a deal with her sex-crazed husband to stay with him if he backed her for President. If elected, which is highly doubtful, she will surround herself with “yes” people ala George W. Bush, and will come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who disagrees with her. She will be a disaster on foreign policy as she will not be accepted by the Muslim world, and she will be shrill and unyielding with our allies, who by the way already mistrust her. She WILL NOT BEAT JOHN McCAIN! We will have 4 more years of Bush, even though he will not be in office. We will NEVER get out of Iraq while McCain is President.
This is a fucking disaster, and all those who sit back and say, He’s still in the lead”, are idiots!
What I sent you needs to become part of every single speech and ad from the Obama campaign! Get Clair and the other leading Dems (Biden, Richardson, etc.) to use the strongest possible language and lambaste Hillary every chance they get. It is time to punish her!
Hillary is a mean-spirited, self-centered, two-faced phony, who made a deal with her sex-crazed husband to stay with him if he backed her for President. If elected, which is highly doubtful, she will surround herself with “yes” people ala George W. Bush, and will come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who disagrees with her. She will be a disaster on foreign policy as she will not be accepted by the Muslim world, and she will be shrill and unyielding with our allies, who by the way already mistrust her. She WILL NOT BEAT JOHN McCAIN! We will have 4 more years of Bush, even though he will not be in office. We will NEVER get out of Iraq while McCain is President.
This is a fucking disaster, and all those who sit back and say, He’s still in the lead”, are idiots!
What I sent you needs to become part of every single speech and ad from the Obama campaign! Get Clair and the other leading Dems (Biden, Richardson, etc.) to use the strongest possible language and lambaste Hillary every chance they get. It is time to punish her!
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
From Hank:
Sent: Sunday, March 02, 2008 9:48 AM
To: 'letters@nytimes.com'
Subject: To The Editor
“Horrifying and Unnecessary” – Editorial – March 2, 2008
What is truly “horrifying” is that George W. Bush is still relevant, and what is absolutely “unnecessary” is that the Congress allows him to have any say in governing the country whatsoever. Mr. Bush has had it his way for over seven years, and he has no plan to sit out the remainder of his presidency as a lame duck.
Bush claims that his generals on the ground make the decisions as to troop deployment and tactics, until those decisions no longer suit the President. Now even his puppet General Petraeus claims that torture, in any form is wrong. Still, Bush pushes on and defies his own advisors, his Attorney General, the Congress and the overwhelming majority of American’s who abhor the disdainful torturing and rendition of prisoners of war.
The horror of the Bush years is drawing to an end, but this President is still a very dangerous and evil man. We must not allow him to do any more harm.
To: 'letters@nytimes.com'
Subject: To The Editor
“Horrifying and Unnecessary” – Editorial – March 2, 2008
What is truly “horrifying” is that George W. Bush is still relevant, and what is absolutely “unnecessary” is that the Congress allows him to have any say in governing the country whatsoever. Mr. Bush has had it his way for over seven years, and he has no plan to sit out the remainder of his presidency as a lame duck.
Bush claims that his generals on the ground make the decisions as to troop deployment and tactics, until those decisions no longer suit the President. Now even his puppet General Petraeus claims that torture, in any form is wrong. Still, Bush pushes on and defies his own advisors, his Attorney General, the Congress and the overwhelming majority of American’s who abhor the disdainful torturing and rendition of prisoners of war.
The horror of the Bush years is drawing to an end, but this President is still a very dangerous and evil man. We must not allow him to do any more harm.
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