Obama: Some of my best friends make me unelectable

What does it mean when you have white people voting for the black candidate and black people voting for the white candidate?

That’s the situation news reports seemed to suggest last week. Barak Obama’s centrist appeal is drawing record numbers of crowds — of white people. Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, who have previously enjoyed support in black communities, are going back there to fight for the black vote — with good results.

At first blush, this development could be construed as a progress. This is the dream Martin Luther King Jr., spoke of, where a man can be judged not by the color of his skin but the content of his character. So why isn’t this news being reported or received that way?

On some level, we know what we are witnessing probably has more to do with our own insecurities than the reality of any Utopia. For white people, Obama is safe and nonthreatening. He makes Colin Powell look like Bobby Seale. His much celebrated multicultural background (child of a Kenyan father and white Kansas mother who grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia) and can’t-we-all-get-along approach is probably very appealing to a group of people who are weary of feeling guilty for the sins of their forebears. They desperately want to believe that racism no longer exists, and everyone can achieve the height of their aspirations with a little hard work. Sen. Obama permits them to do so. "Here's one I can support. See, the problem is not me."

For black people, that same nonthreatening appeal is a reason for distrust, probably because he is an unknown entity. Sen. Obama represents the ascendancy of the first non civil rights leader. He didn't derive his power by coming up through the ranks of the normal civil rights activist channels. As a result, he isn't beholden to them. He has been thrust into the position of a national leader without going to the brethren for their blessing. That has got to make the brethren uncomfortable, if not downright suspicious.

So there he floats. White people like him too much, so now black folks don't trust him. Can he do any good from that position?

Sen. Obama has probably astutely recognized that the candidate the tra-ditional civil rights crew wants him to be is not an electable one. He is also about to learn that the candidate the white voters want him to be will cost him his natural political base — also making him ultimately unelectable. His is a precarious road.

To be successful, he will have to buy each suitor flowers and make them feel pretty, but he can't sleep with them. If he can make that juggling act work, he will have earned the nomination.

My old Ma's a white old Ma
And my old Pa is black.
If ever I cursed my white old Ma
I take my curses back.
If ever I cursed my black old Pa
And wished he was in hell,
I'm sorry for that evil wish
And now I wish him well
My old Ma died in a fine big house.
My Pa died in a shack.
I wonder were I'm going to die,
Being neither white nor black?

-Adapted from Langston Hughes’ Cross

Old is the new new

After four years of sending troops to Iraq to fight his war against terror, Presi-dent Bush this week announced a new strategy: He's going to send troops to Iraq to fight his new war on terror.
Now I know what you're thinking.

“That sounds just like the old strategy."

Well it's not. Why? Because the president said the old strategy is now new.

He went on to say that he wasn't sending our troops over into an open ended war. Then he said he didn't have a specific end date in mind. He really didn't know when the extra 20,000 troops would come back.

Now I know you're wondering.

"If there is no end, isn't that open ended?"
No it's not. Because the president redefined open ended.

He said that he is no longer in a 'Stay the Course' strategy.
He will change the course by sending the troops to help Iraq stabilize its de-mocracy.

I know... I know... You're thinking "that sounds remarkably like the original course?"
Well it's not. You know why.

So it should have been no surprise to see Sec of State Condi Rice testifying be-fore Congress, scowling at the notion that adding 20,000 troops is an escala-tion. It's an "augmentation," she corrected.

augmentation noun: the action or process of making or becoming greater in size or amount.

Obviously that wasn't taken from an administration dictionary.

With enemies like these...

I hardly count myself a conservative, but this editorial by The American Con-servative caught my attention:

GOP Must Go
Next week Americans will vote for candidates who have spent much of their campaigns addressing state and local issues. But no future historian will linger over the ideas put forth for improving schools or directing funds to highway projects.
The meaning of this election will be interpreted in one of two ways: the American people endorsed the Bush presidency or they did what they could to repudiate it. Such an interpretation will be simplistic, even unfairly so. Nevertheless, the fact that will matter is the raw number of Republicans and Democrats elected to the House and Senate.
It should surprise few readers that we think a vote that is seen—in America and the world at large—as a decisive “No” vote on the Bush presidency is the best outcome. We need not dwell on George W. Bush’s failed effort to jam a poorly disguised amnesty for illegal aliens through Congress or the assaults on the Constitution carried out under the pretext of fighting terrorism or his administration’s endorsement of torture. Faced on Sept. 11, 2001 with a great challenge, President Bush made little effort to understand who had attacked us and why—thus ignoring the prerequisite for crafting an effective response. He seemingly did not want to find out, and he had staffed his national-security team with people who either did not want to know or were committed to a prefabricated answer.
As a consequence, he rushed America into a war against Iraq, a war we are now losing and cannot win, one that has done far more to strengthen Islamist terrorists than anything they could possibly have done for themselves. Bush’s decision to seize Iraq will almost surely leave behind a broken state divided into warring ethnic enclaves, with hundreds of thousands killed and maimed and thousands more thirsting for revenge against the country that crossed the ocean to attack them. The invasion failed at every level: if securing Israel was part of the administration’s calculation—as the record suggests it was for several of his top aides—the result is also clear: the strengthening of Iran’s hand in the Persian Gulf, with a reach up to Israel’s northern border, and the elimination of the most powerful Arab state that might stem Iranian regional hegemony.
There's more! Read it at http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_11_20/feature.html

Yes, Red America, God does answer prayers

One evening in the West Wing, the mood was especially glum. The President's poll numbers were in the tank. In Iraq, his pet war was out of control, and re-cord numbers of troops were dying.

Across town in Congress, many allies he'd counted as reliable votes were leaving in disgrace and scandal. His domestic policy, stalled. His international agenda, botched.

The president's ears drooped. His eyes cast downward. Laura, sensing the enormous burden on her husband's shoulders, touched his arm, closed her eyes, and whispered a prayer.

The same scene replayed itself in the homes of Republican members all over Red America. A precocious six-year-old girl clutches her teddy bear, dismisses her servant for the evening, and squints her eyes as tight as they would shut. Her lips move but no words can be heard as she makes her wishes known only to the Creator. In unison, congressmen and their children, the president and politicians, all petition the Almighty for a miracle.

God looked down at his children, so supplicant and earnest, and God was moved. Then, in a majestic display of mercy and love, God answered their prayers...and sent John Kerry.....
...a microphone.

Rummy for life

Ex Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards used to joke that the only way he could be convicted in Louisiana was if he were caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy. It seems that Don Rumsfeld might have the same deal.

Bush said he wanted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the top architect of the war, and Vice President Dick Cheney to remain with him until the end of his presidency.

"Both those men are doing fantastic jobs and I strongly support them," Bush said.

Because of his stellar performance at the helm of the Pentagon, President Bush has promised that Rumsfeld will serve out the rest of the term with him. He's on the record pledging Rumsfeld's job security. Now, no matter what Don Rumsfeld does, he stays. Not that he could do any worse at this point. After all, the generals in the field are really the ones in charge, right?

So...the dead girl, which felled Gary Condit, or the live boy, which downed Mark Foley, will be no match for Rumsfeld.

By the way, Edwin Edwards eventually got convicted and is serving out the rest of his life in prison. Hmmm.

WWAD

Because the line between real life and fiction isn't blurred enough, CNN had to run this piece:

What would Alex P. Keaton do?
POSTED: 6:13 p.m. EST, November 1, 2006

By Thom Patterson
CNN

(CNN) -- After a nearly 20-year absence, Nixon-loving, Reagan-worshipping Alex P. Keaton is again slinging his political views on television.

Michael J. Fox, who played the conservative teen on the 1980s sitcom "Family Ties," says that if the right-wing, tie-wearing Keaton were a real person, Alex would disagree with the Republican stance against increased embryonic stem cell research.

"I was recently asked what my character, Alex P. Keaton would think of me campaigning for stem cell research," Fox said Monday during a speech in Kea-ton's TV hometown of Columbus, Ohio.

Up next, What would President Bartlett of the West Wing do about Don Rumsfeld? Let's get Martin Sheen to channel him. And later in the newscast, traffic..and what would KITT of the Knight Rider do about your commute home? Maybe CNN could do a series.

It's the course, Stupid

In the debate over the debate in Iraq, it's come to this: Americans must now choose between Stay the Course and Staid with No Course. Both sides vocal and venomous. Wrestling with the political and the patriotic. And not a reasonable plan in sight -- only the course.

Neither side can offer a reasonable plan forward because they are both looking backwards. And so rather than having an honest debate about the future, both sides justify decisions past and disguise them as visionary.

Stay the Course
By now we all know the oft repeated refrain. Thousands of Americans killed in Iraq. Stay the course. Many more thousands are maimed and lie in hospitals. Stay the course. The image of Americans occupying Iraq has been a virtual recruiting poster for terrorists. Stay the course. There’s no WMD in Iraq after all. Stay the course. It turns out Sadam wasn’t much of a threat to us. Stay the course. Osama is chilling in a cave somewhere watching American Idol with contempt. Stay the Course. For two years, stay the course has meant that any mention of changing courses would be construed as an acknowledgment that we were on the wrong course, even if all evidence suggested we were. We couldn’t even send in enough troops to do the job properly because that would be off course.

You’d think a situation like this would be easy pickings for an opposing party. An administration marching mindlessly down what appears to be the tragically wrong path. Parading soldiers to their death, like sheep to slaughter, chanting stay the course. Of course…not.

Staid with No Course
From day one in this debate, the opposing party has been too worried about how they might be portrayed. Too worried that Americans might not like them if they told the truth. Too conservative to take on a popular president in his war of folly. Too unsure of themselves to clearly and convincingly speak their minds. Too busy pointing fingers to pen their own plans. Too calculating to stake out a strong position without offering every other viewpoint some consolation.

For instance, here’s John Kerry’s speech on the floor during the first war debate. Some have trotted out this speech as evidence that Kerry has some predictive powers:

"In giving the President this authority, I expect him to fulfill the commitments he has made to the American people in recent days--to work with the United Nations Security Council to adopt a new resolution setting out tough and immediate inspection requirements, and to act with our allies at our side if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force. If he fails to do so, I will be among the first to speak out.

"If we do wind up going to war with Iraq, it is imperative that we do so with others in the international community, unless there is a showing of a grave, imminent--and I emphasize "imminent''--threat to this country which requires the President to respond in a way that protects our immediate national security needs.

"Prime Minister Tony Blair has recognized a similar need to distinguish how we approach this. He has said that he believes we should move in concert with al-lies, and he has promised his own party that he will not do so otherwise. The administration may not be in the habit of building coalitions, but that is what they need to do. And it is what can be done. If we go it alone without reason, we risk inflaming an entire region, breeding a new generation of terrorists, a new cadre of anti-American zealots, and we will be less secure, not more secure, at the end of the day, even with Saddam Hussein disarmed.

"Let there be no doubt or confusion about where we stand on this. I will support a multilateral effort to disarm him by force, if we ever exhaust those other options, as the President has promised, but I will not support a unilateral U.S. war against Iraq unless that threat is imminent and the multilateral effort has not proven possible under any circumstances."

In other words, I am voting against the war before I vote for it. What was the point of all of that gas bagging if you were going to authorize the president to go to war? Did anyone seriously doubt at that time that George Bush planned to go to war? Seriously? It was Congress' authority to declare war. If you have serious concerns about the way we should go to war, then you keep that power of the checks and balances to make sure that the president cannot act unilaterally. For a senator to hand his responsibility over to the executive branch with an ominous warning is irresponsible not visionary.

And now most Democrats spend an inordinate amount of time explaining nuanced statements like Kerry’s. Three years later, still no clear alternative plan to victory only “we told you so’s” when actually they didn’t.

It's clear both sides are shackled by their past mistakes. I'd like to just forget what everyone said way back when and focus on the course. From the reason we invaded to the way we occupy, it’s become increasingly clear that this course is a wrong one. We've spent too much in dollars and lives while the other side of the balance sheet offers very little to offset it in the way of what we've gained.

But, there appears to be good news on the horizon. The American public has stopped hitting the Iraq snooze button and is waking up to the reality of our situation -- we're off course. I think the time is right to start a new chorus. It isn’t nuanced and complicated. In fact, in light of the current situation, it is rather simple.

Change the course.