Good grief, Obama. It’s just like Charlie Brown and Lucy

Watching Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on Tuesday night reminded me of Charlie Brown and Lucy all over again.

All our loveable Charlie Brown, aka Barack Obama, has to do is kick the football. It shouldn’t be that hard to do. Of course, Lucy, aka Hillary Clinton, is holding the football.

Charlie Brown, trusting that Lucy will play by the rules, charges to the football and tries to kick, only for Lucy to move the football and have him land flat on his back.

Good grief, Barack. When will you learn?! She’s never going to let you kick the football!

While you lay on your back looking up at the stars, let me offer a couple observations. First, stop playing her game. Lucy holds the football. Lucy decides it’s time for you to kick. Lucky decides where to place the football. And finally, just as you are about to kick, Lucy changes the rules by moving the football. Charlie Brown, you will never kick the football as long as Lucy dictate the terms of the game.

You’d think Barack Obama would have picked up on that trend by now. For the last few weeks, he’s been playing Hillary’s game. She determined that Pennsylvania was more important than any of the states that came before or after it. She set it up as a “must win” for them, just as she did for Ohio and Texas. The two states that follow Pennsylvania, Indiana and North Carolina, yield more delegates, but somehow they weren’t as important as Pennsylvania in the HRC grand narrative. As a result, Pennsylvania took on a far greater significance than it might have without her setting the agenda.

Second, she continues to control the narrative on what constitutes a win. To the amazement and disbelief of many observers, Hillary Clinton continues to bend and ply the metrics to suit her fancy. The Democratic rules are fairly straightforward; the candidate with the most delegates wins. This would have been an acceptable had Hillary Clinton been winning, but since she’s not, she has deemed it unacceptable.

Winning has been defined as having the greatest popular vote result, as winning the states most important to Democrats, as winning the states that would correlate to those needed in the electoral college, and as winning states that had primaries only.

Amazingly, pundits and reporters debate and report each of these mutations as though they have been given the stamp of validity from the DNC. Even more amazing, the Obama camp measures themselves by each of these morphing yardsticks while grumbling that we shouldn’t be using them.

Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton will always move the football.

Your only path to victory is in playing your game and controlling the narrative. The rules call for the candidate with the most delegates to win. Do not allow her to change the rules for her convenience. Call her on it loudly and forcefully each time. You cannot waffle on this count at all. If you do, she will always move the football, and you will always end up on your ass.

Clinton: Nuke, nuke Iran

I shuddered when I heard John McCain singing, 'bomb, bomb, Iran,' but I never thought he would be outdone by a Democrat.

Repeating a line that most people seemed to miss during the Philadelphia debate, Hillary Clinton promised to nuke Iran if it threatened Israel. And when asked if that's what she really meant to say, she took it up a notch and said the US could obliterate them:

"The question was, 'If Iran were to launch a nuclear attack on Israel, what would our response be?' And I want the Iranians to know that if I'm president, we will attack Iran" to retaliate against an Iranian nuclear hit on Israel.

She added: "And I want them to understand that, because it does mean that they have to look very carefully at their society. Because whatever stage of development they might be in their nuclear weapons program in the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

Wow! Whappened to diplomacy?

Obama took a more restrained view in the Guardian's report.

Obama, responding to Clinton's interview, said: "One of the things that we've seen over the last several years is a bunch of talk using words like 'obliterate'. "It doesn't actually produce good results. And so I'm not interested in sabre-rattling."

So now I'm wondering, what in the world would cause her to say something so hawkish that she is even appearing to be to the right of McCain? Is this her attempt to triangulate his message? Am I the only one who finds this just a little bit disconcerting? You'd think promising to nuke a Middle Eastern country would be the lead story, but it still seems to be buried. What gives?

Clinton has more baggage, but we haven't been through it all

In making her electability argument during last week's debate, Hillary Clinton asserted that she had lots of baggage, but everyone has already been through it.

Hillary Clinton thinks just because she endured years of Republican bashing in 1996 that she is vetted for 2008. She thinks because Barack Obama hasn't really gone after her, it means there is nothing negative there. Worse yet, she seems to believe that since she isn't now the recipient of the Republican-style assault she is waging, it must mean she is most electable.

It's a delusion even worse than her Bosnian tarmac experience.

Whether she realizes or acknowledges it, Barack Obama's unwillingness to go negative makes Clinton the beneficiary of his civility. She would not enjoy that benefit during the general election.

While she runs around Pennsylvania warning us of what the Republicans will do to Obama, we should also take into consideration what she would receive from Republicans.

First, she starts with a 50 percent disapproval rating. Literally half of the country doesn't like her. Now we learn that almost as many don't think she is honest and trustworthy. Half the country also doesn't trust her. It won't take much negative campaigning to raise those numbers by five points and effectively end her dream.

How could Republicans nudge her up five points? By raising issues Obama never would:

We could relive Travelgate, Vince Foster, Monica Llewinsky, the impeachment, and a host of other Clinton character issues we already know about. It will be old news repackaged, for sure, but it will have a cumulative effect for the part of the electorate already weary of Clinton scandals.

Then there are the records from her tenure as First Lady that don't seem to corroborate any of her claims of experience. Barack Obama didn't really poke at that 35 years of experience claim, but plan for it to get the full vetting from Republicans. There are the Clinton donors to his presidential library and the potential favors he might have granted in return. Speaking of favors, anyone remember the presidential pardons? Again, Barack didn't give those the full airing they deserved, but we can guarantee that the McCain agents won't be as restrained.

Then of course there is the Bosnia gaffe, which can be construed to pit her against the military while running against a war hero. All her time building up her military cred would be out the window with that obvious and blatant lie. (Yes, it was a lie. That's why half the country doesn't trust her.) Think national security will be an issue? Do you think John McCain would be able to contrast himself with someone who was caught in a lie on a military issue?

This is just a glancing look at the obvious stuff. This doesn't even begin to consider the results of any opposition research.

Any one of those issues in the hands of relentless Republican operatives could push Clinton's negatives up five percent or more. At that point, it's over for her and for Democrats.

We know for a fact that whoever the Democratic nominee might be, that person will take an onslaught of negative attacks. With Clinton starting at a 50 percent negative and distrustful ratings, she is a lot closer to eventual defeat. That doesn't strike me as being a more electable candidate.

Barack brushes off debate

I'm pleasantly surprised at the blogosphere backlash against ABC for the debate performance last night. The early morning punditry roundly criticized Obama, but there has been a wave of outrage against ABC from the citizen journalist class. In fact, I've seen a number of petitions being gathered to express outrage to ABC. The best of all, however, is the candidate's response himself. There's hope yet. :-)

Obama's debate debacle; grappling with the gotchas

I think we were beyond the halfway point of last night's debate when Charlie Gibson announced that 'now we will move to the issue Americans care most about, the economy.'

An interesting admission from anchors who seemed to glee in the endless stream of gotcha questions. From bitter, to Rev Wright, to Bosnia sniper fire, the debate seemed to deliberately avoid anything that looked like a substantive issue.

Too bad for Obama because he never fares well in those kinds of formats. Positioning himself as the gentleman of the race, he clings (yes, I said it) to being civil when the situation clearly calls for a street fight. A gentleman will never hit a lady, even if she is backhanding him with the broad side of a shovel.

I've often wondered why, after leading for so long, he can't or won't knock her out already. If Clinton had the advantages that Obama has presided over for the last few months, I'm sure she would have ended him in a grand a brutal fashion by now. Obama's the guy in the coliseum who has his opponent down on her back and rather than deliver the final blow, he turns and walks away. Everyone in the stands knows that were the situation reversed, she wouldn't hesitate to lower the hammer.

Clinton smells blood. The beating Obama got last night will pale compared to the beating to come. That is, unless he learns to shed the nice guy image and fight back. We all want to think optimistically about the new, diplomatic era of politics, but it ain't here yet. And you won't get to the big dance until you master the old fight.

I guess this is what the ABC anchors realize when they tossed both candidates into the ring and let them pummel each other for the first half of the debate. It's not the substance we hoped for but it's probably a fight they were destined to have.

I like the way Gail Collins sums it up in a NY Times op-ed:

I know it’s been a hard couple of weeks, people. You were all excited about this election and now you feel like someone who got all dressed up for a great event and wound up at a B-list party with a cash bar. You never want to hear the words “bitter” or “Bosnia” again. And the only political story that you’ve really enjoyed lately is the one about Cindy McCain’s list of favorite recipes being cribbed from The Food Network.

STFU Award: Bob Johnson

Today I'd like to unveil a new award that I have been giving privately with my friends. It's time to introduce it to my blog.

The STFU award is given to an individual who says something so ridiculous, so inane, so utterly stupid, there is only one rational response.

Today's award goes to Bob Johnson, founder of BET. In an interview with the Charlotte Observer, Johnson said this:

"What I believe Geraldine Ferraro meant is that if you take a freshman senator from Illinois called `Jerry Smith' and he says I'm going to run for president, would he start off with 90 percent of the black vote?" Johnson said. "And the answer is, probably not... ."

"Geraldine Ferraro said it right. The problem is, Geraldine Ferraro is white. This campaign has such a hair-trigger on anything racial ... it is almost impossible for anybody to say anything."

What is up with Bob Johnson??? In a week when Hillary Clinton finally got to attack Barack Obama on a topic where no one could call her racist, Bob Johnson comes dragging the shackles of race right back to her.

The Obama Campaign rightly pegged this as one in a long line of absurd comments from Robert Johnson. Long after everyone had forgotten Geraldine Ferraro, Robert Johnson brought her back up and said she was right.

Never mind that the substance of Johnson's quote is wrong: Barack Obama didn't start with 90 percent of the black vote. In fact, leading into the beginning of primary season, Hillary Clinton led Barack Obama by as much as 60 - 20 percent of the black vote.

But how else would you explain that sudden reversal? It couldn't be because of competence, talent or hard work. That's impossible. It has to be because of his race. And this from a black man.

Robert Johnson, for the most ridiculous, self loathing quote I have heard in a long time, you are the unworthy recipient of Peoples Pundit STFU Award.

SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!

With respect to PA, I'm bitter... about the coverage!

Folks from Pennsylvania might say they are not bitter, but I certainly am.

I'm not bitter about the economic conditions that spawned the latest controversy. I'm bitter at the way it is being covered.

Let's review in the off chance you missed the theatrics. On Friday, Mayhill Fowler posted an article on the Huffington Post that was critical of Barack Obama. Six long paragraphs into her article she quoted Obama:

"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said. "And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Still wincing from an inopportune statement Bill Clinton just made about Hillary Clinton's Bosnia recollections, the Clinton campaign sprung into full exploitation mode.

As CNN reports, Hillary Clinton said:

"Sen. Obama's remarks are elitist and out of touch," she said. "they are not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans, certainly not the Americans I know, not the Americans I grew up with, not the Americans I lived with in Arkansas or represent in New York."

Clinton aides said they planned to make Obama's comments central to their message on the campaign trail this weekend. The New York senator will campaign across Indiana Saturday, and will return to Pennsylvania on Sunday.

And this ran in full hype cycle until Obama had to clarify his remarks and then deeply regret if anyone was offended.

Now I'm offended and bitter.

How dare someone who has lived her entire life in a political bubble and has now earned $109 million accuse anyone of being out of touch or elitist? Even worse, accuse a candidate who is the product of a single mother and is the product of a meager lifestyle? Up until a few years ago, Barack Obama was still buried in student loans. Elite?

The man got a good education and built himself up by his own talents. Throughout his two books and hosts of speeches, he speaks with the voice of understanding and empathy. So much so, that Mayhill Fowler, in the same post that caused the uproar, conceded Obama's decency:

To give Obama his due, he spoke about working class Pennsylvanians likely because he had been thinking about them a great deal. And he spoke, as he often does away from large rallies, in a calm, even, matter-of-fact way. Every town hall meeting I've observed, from California to Iowa, Nevada to Texas, has showcased Senator Obama's core decency and high measure of regard for each individual.

Of course this little nugget doesn't get picked up, which leads to why I am bitter with this coverage. I am sick of stories that replay every charge without consideration to the source or the substance.

If there is any bright spot, it is the knowledge that she will eventually overreach. She always does. The woman doesn't know when to stop. It's the reason that she repeated the flawed Bosnia story not one, not two but three times. She could have gotten away with in once or twice, but she kept pushing it.

Just like the red phone commercials, which got her a bit of publicity. Then she had to rerun the same commercial and force fit the economy into an already shaky premise. Of course that one tanked because it was so implausible. She could have stopped after the first red phone, but she lacks restraint.

Now we see the beginnings of her overreaching. Here's what she told a crowd in Indiana yesterday:

“You know, my dad took me out behind the cottage that my grandfather built on a little lake called Lake Winola outside of Scranton and taught me how to shoot when I was a little girl,” she said.

“You know, some people now continue to teach their children and their grandchildren. It’s part of culture. It’s part of a way of life. People enjoy hunting and shooting because it’s an important part of who they are. Not because they are bitter.”

Ah yes... fondly remembering her dad taking her shooting. Didn't even take YouTube to expose her hypocrisy. Just a simple question, 'when was the last time you've shot a gun or gone to church?'

Here's what CNN reported today:

After a weekend spent making direct appeals to gun owners and church goers, Hillary Clinton said Sunday a query about the last time she fired a gun or attended church services "is not a relevant question in this debate” over Barack Obama’s recent comments on small town Americans.

“We can answer that some other time,” Clinton said at a press conference held in a working class neighborhood here. “This is about what people feel is being said about them. I went to church on Easter. I mean, so?”

We can answer that some other time?! Give her some more rope and wait. Maybe she can help cure my bitter mood.

'Endless war on the installment plan'

For all the grief MoveOn.org gets, they really know how to boil an issue down to the sound bite. I got this video from them today. Sorta puts everything into perspective.

We, too, sing America

I love America, and I agree with Reverend Wright. Whether or not the main stream understands or realizes it, I don't think I am different from many African Americans.

In fact, I'd argue that many African Americans experience a different kind of patriotism than our white counterparts because our history and experiences are so vastly different. This is what many people who scratch their heads at Rev. Wright fail to understand.

Generally speaking, African Americans don't wear flags on our lapels or post bumper stickers on our cars to display our patriotism. In barber shops and basements, we often speak harshly of this country. But we pledge allegiance, pay taxes, vote reliably and serve in our military. And when we see injustice, we forcefully speak out against it.

Jeremiah Wright was not the first to damn American. In 1852, Frederick Douglass was asked to give a speech at an event commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence. At Rochester's Corinthian Hall, Douglass delivered a biting oratory, in which he told his audience:

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

This is the same Frederick Douglass who later wrote that "Truth is of no color. God is the father of us all, and we are all brethren." The same Douglass who conferred with presidents and became the first African American to be nominated as vice president.

Slavery and Jim Crow have long since been banished, but many of Douglass' sentiments remain with America's sons and daughters of color. The feelings often simmer beneath the surface. We know better than to voice them around the water cooler at work, but when we are among "family," we let our guard down and speak more honestly.

And when that frank talk bubbles up to the surface and out in the open, a confused majority wonders, "why?"

Our history and allegiances are complex. Shortly after Douglass' speech, African Americans in the 10th Cavalry of the U.S. Army earned the name Buffalo Soldiers, serving with distinction for a country that frequently treated them with indignity. In fact, there is no war in American history in which African Americans did not participate.

I think I am fairly safe in assuming that many of them often damned America in the same hearts that pumped the blood they willingly spilled for it. The two emotions can co-exist and have a long history of doing so in the black community.

But this is 2008. This is the America where black men could rise to lead institutions such as Beatrice Foods, American Express and Aetna. It is the America where Robert Johnson and Oprah Winfrey could lift themselves from poverty to billionaire status. It is the America where a second generation African immigrant could be a serious contender for president.

It is also the same America shamefully exposed during Hurricane Katrina.

So when Barack Obama said that he could no more distance himself from Rev. Wright than he could from the black community, we understood.

Can you rise to the level of presidential contender in the United States yet still feel at home in a community that would curse it?

Absolutely. Sometimes when a wound heals, a scar remains. Sometimes pain outlasts forgiveness. And sometimes, when we still see symptoms of the old sickness, we rise up with righteous indignation and curse the sinner as well as the sin. It doesn't mean we don't hope or that we don't love.

Patriotism is not the absence of criticism. The mouth that damns America can still speak for the heart that loves it. For Frederick Douglass, for Rev. Jeremiah Wright and for generations of African Americans in between, love is not blind. That's the complexity of African American patriotism.

I, Too, Sing America
by Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

Clinton and the credibility gap

It's probably not fair to call the latest Hillary Clinton dust up a lie, but it fits so neatly into the narrative, it's not surprising why so many people do.

A New York times article, Ohio Hospital Contests a Story Clinton Tells, details yet another Clinton story debunked by the people who were there. Naturally, when it follows the Bosnia bungle so closely, observers start connecting the dots.

I've never had a problem with a Hillary pile-on, but I don't think she deserves it here. Unlike her Bosnia 'misstatement', we can clearly establish where she got this story:

The sheriff’s deputy, Bryan Holman, had played host to Mrs. Clinton in his home before the Ohio primary. Deputy Holman said in a telephone interview that a conversation about health care led him to relate the story of Ms. Bachtel. He never mentioned the name of the hospital that supposedly turned her away because he did not know it, he said.

Deputy Holman knew Ms. Bachtel’s story only secondhand, having learned it from close relatives of the woman. Ms. Bachtel’s relatives did not return phone calls Friday.

As Deputy Holman understood it, Ms. Bachtel had died of complications from a stillbirth after being turned away by a local hospital for her failure to pay $100 upfront.

“I mentioned this story to Senator Clinton, and she apparently took to it and liked it,” Deputy Holman said, “and one of her aides said she’d be using it at some rallies.”

At worst, she's guilty of not checking the story out before using it, which is a stunning oversight. Negligence but not necessarily dishonesty.

But that's the problem that results when you are caught deliberately saying things that aren't true. Clinton's well deserved credibility gap has made an issue out of what looks like an honest mistatement.

We should give her a break on this one. I'm sure she'll earn our scorn soon enough.

Hillary channels Rocky

Maybe someone forgot to tell her how the movie ends.

Yesterday Hillary compared herself to Rocky Balboa, the fictional gritty boxer from Philadelphia.

Speaking on April 1 at an AFL-CIO event at a downtown Sheraton, Mrs. Clinton suggested that Mr. Obama lacked the stomach for a prolonged primary fight.

“Senator Obama says he’s getting tired of it—his supporters say they want it to end,” said Mrs. Clinton. “Well, could you imagine if Rocky Balboa had gotten halfway up those Art Museum stairs and said, ‘Well, I guess that’s about far enough?’ That’s not the way it works. Let me tell you something, when it comes to finishing the fight, Rocky and I have a lot in common. I never quit. I never give up.”

Rocky? Really Hillary? Will someone tell her the movie didn't end when he ran up the stairs? The movie ended when he got pummeled to death and lost to Apollo Creed, a Black man. Let's not make too much of analogies to that movie, shall we?

Clinton propses bowl off, Insert groan here

You knew it was coming, folks. After Obama's abysmal attempt at bowling (37 points in seven frames), Hillary Clinton today challenged Obama to a bowl off. It was utterly predictable, not very clever, full of cliche's and plays on words, and a pretty sad April Fool's joke. You even hear the polite applause and laughter.

Just in case you were wondering if Hillary was capable of exercising any kind of restraint, the pandering continues...