Barack Hussein Obama wins Iowa (97% Whites)

[STOIC]

Shniff, Shniff , what’s that Smell? Hello race pimp Jesse Jackson. How are you this morning? How does it feel to be caught off guard by the microphone of that wretched Fox News Channel Station when you were delivering your ultimate greatest insult to Obama. I know you are the kind of guy who will never pass out an opportunity for even a little publicity, but how does it feel this time around? I bet you think now this is the most vicious hate-filled word you ever said, but I got good news for you on how to redeem yourself. You don’t need to apologize anymore to the young sensitive, personable Obama. I know there are a lot of qualities you and the old-guard civil right leaders like John Lewis and Andrew Young envies about Obama whether it is his brain or success. It is your personal imputations and denials about the black family structure today that is sweeping the main issues under the rug. Experience has proven that it is the family that keeps the fabric of society together; this comes through self-control and responsibilities. I request that you pass on the knowledge of father’s responsibility within our community instead of being divisive and bitter about someone else’s success. As the tree bent so shall the tree grow? Start talking on black family issues where it matters most. Because for the need of strong black family, it will both be interesting and profiting the black folks if you start a million man march towards responsibility instead of waiting for the next opportunity to condemn someone.

[Miriam1]

OMG ^ American politics so ever entertaining

 

....while Canadian political parties continue to sue each other into oblivion

[Baashi]

I gotta tell you folks the thrill is gone. Obama has lost his magic touch. He's moving to the center which means he has to eat back his words and dish out lame explanations. For those who didn't know now they know the man is just another politician.

 

Still I am going to vote for him. Between the two politicians running, his rhetoric is more tolerable.

[Geel_jire]

STOIC bro.

 

can you enlighten me on this Jesse jackson issue what is the big deal .... I dont admire the man but in this instance he didnt say anything alot of people were'nt already thinking.

 

Obama did talk down to them ... furthering the stereotypes ... it is not his job to teach other people about parenting .... Obama is a politician not a preacher ... & saying i wanna cut off his jewels is not blasphemy .. it's just a figure of speech

 

the man is being made into a saint ... which makes the eventual disappointment that much harder ... even now no-where near the general election alot of people are having second thoughts due to his complete reversal on almost all of his prevoius positions

[Geel_jire]

as Muslims we share more common principles with conservatives especially thier social policies (anti-abortion, anti-homo's).... the deal-breaker however is that aboslute hate & prejudice againts muslims.

 

if not for that, I would vote conserative every single time

[STOIC]

^^^As much as any other thing, the black family reflected both the themes and the contradiction of black leaders today. Despite the frustrations and the difficulties black family faces Jesse Jackson and the old guards civil right leaders wants to down play the AA family institution. Jesse wants us to believe that When Obama talks about the black family structure we got be a profoundly suspicious about his rhetoric. Instead of focusing on the cultural and the economic logic behind this fall, Jesse wants to charge Obama with elitism. Interesting enough the lure of publicity has wreaked havoc the old-civil right leaders. As a politician of course Obama will be blamed and criticized, which is rightly so most of the time, but our race pimp Jesse wants to dent Obama with the primary slogan of “Obama is out of touch”. He is trying to deflect the attention to unnecessary things instead of highlighting the more dramatically or effectively problems; lack of family structure that stood at the heart of continuing failure of our race. Central to Obama’s position (or even to any sensible person) is that AA fathers need to take responsibility. Like the civil right movement in symphony, Obama campaign highlighted things that are important to our race by highlighting it in the churches’. Jesse and his pals have lost the spirit of the civil right movement of standing for dignity.

[Pujah]

Originally posted by Baashi:

I gotta tell you folks the thrill is gone. Obama has lost his magic touch. He's moving to the center which means he has to eat back his words and dish out lame explanations. For those who didn't know now they know the man is just another politician.

 

Still I am going to vote for him. Between the two politicians running, his rhetoric is more tolerable.

The only thing the man reversed on himself is the FISA bill which by the way Hillary voted against it yesterday just to twist the knife little bit. I don't think he is moving to the center, only difference in his positions is how he phrases it and which words he emphasizes. But overall his policy positions haven’t changed.

[Pujah]

The Audacity of Listening

 

By GAIL COLLINS

Published: July 10, 2008

 

We have to have a talk about Barack Obama. I know, I know. You’re upset. You think the guy you fell in love with last spring is spending the summer flip-flopping his way to the right. Drifting to the center. Going all moderate on you. So you’re withholding the love. Also possibly the money.

 

I feel your pain. I just don’t know what candidate you’re talking about.

 

Think back. Why, exactly, did you prefer Obama over Hillary Clinton in the first place? Their policies were almost identical — except his health care proposal was more conservative. You liked Barack because you thought he could get us past the old brain-dead politics, right? He talked — and talked and talked — about how there were going to be no more red states and blue states, how he was going to bring Americans together, including Republicans and Democrats.

 

Exactly where did everybody think this gathering was going to take place? Left field?

 

When an extremely intelligent politician tells you over and over and over that he is tired of the take-no-prisoners politics of the last several decades, that he is going to get things done and build a “new consensus,” he is trying to explain that he is all about compromise. Even if he says it in that great Baracky way.

 

Here’s a helpful story: Once upon a time, there was a woman searching for a guy who was ready to commit. One day, she met an attractive young man.

 

“My name is Chuck,” he said, grinning an infectious grin. “I’m planning to devote my entire life to saving endangered wildlife in the Antarctic. In five weeks I leave for the South Pole, where I will live alone in a tent, trying to convince the penguins that I am part of their flock. In the meantime, would you like to go out?”

 

“I have just met the man I’m going to marry,” she told her friends. She had been betrayed by poor listening skills, which skipped right over the South Pole and the tent. Of course, after five weeks of heavy dating, Chuck flew away and was never heard from again.

 

A year and a half of campaigning and we still haven’t heard Obama’s penguins, either. It’s not his fault that we missed the message — although to be fair, he did make it sound as if getting rid of the “old politics” involved driving out the oil and pharmaceutical lobbyists rather than splitting the difference on federal wiretapping legislation. But if you look at the political fights he’s picked throughout his political career, the main theme is not any ideology. It’s that he hates stup!dity. “I don’t oppose all wars. What I am opposed to is a dumb war,” he said in 2002 in his big speech against the invasion of Iraq. He did not, you will notice, say he was against unilateral military action or pre-emptive attacks or nation-building. He was antidumb.

 

Most of the things Obama’s taken heat for saying this summer fall into these two familiar patterns — attempts to find a rational common ground on controversial issues and dumb-avoidance.

 

On the common-ground front, he’s called for giving more federal money to religious groups that run social programs, but only if the services they offer are secular. People can have guns for hunting and protection, but we should crack down on unscrupulous gun sellers. Putting some restrictions on the government’s ability to wiretap is better than nothing, even though he would rather have gone further.

 

Dumb-avoidance would include his opposing the gas-tax holiday, backtracking on the anti-Nafta pandering he did during the primary and acknowledging that if one is planning to go all the way to Iraq to talk to the generals, one should actually pay attention to what the generals say.

 

Touching both bases are Obama’s positions that 1) if people are going to ask him every day why he’s not wearing a flag pin, it’s easier to just wear the pin, for heaven’s sake, and 2) there’s nothing to be gained by getting into a fight over whether the death penalty can be imposed on child rapists.

 

His decision to ditch public campaign financing, on the other hand, was nothing but a complete, total, purebred flip-flop. If you are a person who feels campaign finance reform is the most important issue facing America right now, you should either vote for John McCain or go home and put a pillow over your head. However, I believe I have met every single person in the country for whom campaign finance reform is the tiptop priority, and their numbers are not legion.

 

Meanwhile, Obama has made it clear what issues he thinks all this cleverness and compromising are supposed to serve: national health care, a smart energy policy and getting American troops out of Iraq. He has tons of other concerns, but those seem to be the top three. There’s definitely a penguin in there somewhere.

 

OP-ED Piece

[GoldCoast]

Originally posted by STOIC:

^^^As much as any other thing, the black family reflected both the themes and the contradiction of black leaders today. Despite the frustrations and the difficulties black family faces Jesse Jackson and the old guards civil right leaders wants to down play the AA family institution. Jesse wants us to believe that When Obama talks about the black family structure we got be a profoundly suspicious about his rhetoric. Instead of focusing on the cultural and the economic logic behind this fall, Jesse wants to charge Obama with elitism. Interesting enough the lure of publicity has wreaked havoc the old-civil right leaders. As a politician of course Obama will be blamed and criticized, which is rightly so most of the time, but our race pimp Jesse wants to dent Obama with the primary slogan of “Obama is out of touch”. He is trying to deflect the attention to unnecessary things instead of highlighting the more dramatically or effectively problems; lack of family structure that stood at the heart of continuing failure of our race. Central to Obama’s position (or even to any sensible person) is that AA fathers need to take responsibility. Like the civil right movement in symphony, Obama campaign highlighted things that are important to our race by highlighting it in the churches’. Jesse and his pals have lost the spirit of the civil right movement of standing for dignity.

I agree with the previous poster who stated that it wasnt in Obama's position to lecture black families about parenting, especially from a very condescending soapbox in front of a national media audience that simply did not consist of the target base of the speech. Why is Obama spending Father's Day making a speech about the black family towards a TV audience thats overwhelmingly white? I hate to get into race politics but the fact is Obama has increasingly shied away from his role as a leader in black relations, and although I do not believe it is in his capacity to do so, he also cannot pick and choose the issues he wants to address in the black community. What exactly was new or refreshing about his criticism of black fathers in that speech? What exactly did that speech achieve, or help set in terms of improving the foundation of the black family? All I heard was completely overused rhetoric about the role of black fathers in very ambiguous terms. There was nothing that Obama helped contribute in that speech, that the civil rights leaders of the past have failed to touch upon. He seems to be learning from the Bill Cosby school of thought in terms of selective vision when it comes to black issues. Like Obama, Cosby in his prime failed to touch upon potentially polarizing issues in his community out of fear of losing his mostly white base audience, only to present himself as an unapologetic black leader as of late. Problem with him is that, just like with Obama's speech, he has never set forth any concrete ways to help the black community, never has touched upon the socio-economic factors that contribute to the current state of the community, and have instead chosen to focus on the much used media talking points in relations to the problems facing blacks in America. I hope Obama wins the presidency just as much as the next man, however people must realize just like every other politician he definitely has his faults. Its a bit disturbing how folks will go to no end to justify every single aspect of his campaign, almost blindly at times.

[GoldCoast]

Originally posted by Baashi:

I gotta tell you folks the thrill is gone. Obama has lost his magic touch. He's moving to the center which means he has to eat back his words and dish out lame explanations. For those who didn't know now they know the man is just another politician.

 

Still I am going to vote for him. Between the two politicians running, his rhetoric is more tolerable.

Agree wholeheartedly with you and Geel jire.......I never set my expectations too high because I knew time would reveal that he is simply a politician however I would be lying to you if I said I'm not disappointed.

[STOIC]

Gold Coast,

 

Correct me if I’m wrong here (and I’m not afraid to admit when I’m wrong), I clearly remember Obama addressing father’s day from the pulpit of an all black church. The media as usual picked up this story and spin it around. Whatever the ultimate explanation for him choosing to address this issue, it seemed clear to me that he was a black leader who had the privilege to get the ears of so many black folks. I think, Obama is guided by two interrelated objectives; the need to remind his fellow black folks to take responsibilities and of course the need to score some point as a politician (You will see many times where I referred to him as just a politician in this thread).Although he is a politician I refuse to accept to label him as a white appeaser who will stab his people in the back. The expectation of black fathers taking responsibility in fostering the cognitive and social growth of their children is all time low. We all know that differential achievement among all various communities depends heavily on how fathers get involved in their children’s lives. The attitude towards parenting has a cultural origin since parenting results from your cultural environment. If you are fortunate enough to have two parents in your family the quality of your parental involvement must have played a crucial role in your development. Obama and Cosby, though two different people, have both called for black father’s involvement of their children’s lives in the context of shared extended-kin responsibilities in child-rearing.

[Libaax-Sankataabte]

New Yorker Magazine Cover

 

 

 

Obama Camp calls it "Tasteless And Offensive"

[Libaax-Sankataabte]

The Week That Should Have Ended McCain's Presidential Hopes

 

Let's unpack McCain's week in a little more detail.

 

1. McCain unambiguously called Social Security "an absolute disgrace." This is not a quote taken out of context. John McCain called one of the most successful and popular government programs, which uses the tax revenues of current workers to support retirement benefits for the elderly "an absolute disgrace." This is shocking - and if uttered from Obama's mouth would dominate the news coverage and the Sunday shows, as pundits would speculate about the massive damage the statement would cause him among retirees in Florida.

 

2. McCain's top economic policy adviser calls Americans a bunch of "whiners" for being worried about the slumping economy. Words cannot fully explain how devastating this statement should be from Phil Gramm. You would think it would be enough to sink McCain's campaign. Of course McCain only thinks that the economic problems are psychological.

 

3. Iraqi leaders call for a timetable for U.S. withdrawal, McCain gets caught in a bizarre denial and flip flop. The Iraqis now want us to begin planning our withdrawal - McCain however wants to stay foooorrreeevvveerrrr. So what does McCain say - First, he refuses to accept Maliki's statement as being true. Then he concedes that it was an accurate statement, but was probably just a political ploy to curry favor with his own people and WOULD NOT influence his determination to keep US troops in Iraq indefinitely. Yet, McCain in 2004 at the Council on Foreign Relations said that if the Iraqis asked us to leave, we would have to go. No matter what. But that was apparently a younger and less experienced John McCain.

 

But let's just look at his comment that Maliki's statement is "just politics." If that is true, then it must also be true that the American military presence in Iraq is so unpopular with Iraqis that the government is forced to push for a timetable in order to survive at the ballot box. That's a reason to stay for 100 years.

 

4. McCain's economic plan to cut the deficit has no details and is simply not believable. There are so many things here. McCain pledges he would eliminate the deficit by the end of his first term (the campaign latter flip flop flipped about whether it was four years or eight years), but does not provide any details about how he would do it. Economists on both sides of the political aisle said that this was simply not believable, especially given McCain's other proposals to a) cut individual and corporate taxes even further, b) extend the Bush tax cuts and c) massively increase defense spending on manpower (200,000 more troops) and d) maintain a long-term sizable military presence in Iraq.

 

5. McCain's deficit plan includes bringing the troops home represents a major Iraq flip-flop. Speaking of the long-term military presence - a story that has gotten absolutely no attention is that McCain now believes the war will be over soon. The economic forecasts made by his crack team of economists predict that there will be significant savings during McCain's first term because we will have achieved "victory" in Iraq and Afghanistan. The savings from victory (ie the savings from not having our troops there) will then be used to pay down the deficit. The only way this could have any impact on the deficit in McCain's first time is if troop withdrawals start very soon. So McCain believes victory is in our grasps and we can begin withdraw troops from Iraq pretty much right away -- doesn't sound that different from Obama's plan does it. Someone should at least ask McCain HOW HE DEFINES VICTORY - and why he thinks we will achieve it in the next couple of years.

 

6. McCain campaign misled about economists support. In the major press release the McCain campaign issued to tout its Jobs for America economic plan that would balance the budget in 4 years, it included the signatures of more than 300 economists who the campaign claimed to support the plan. Only problem is that the economists were actually asked to sign up to SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. Um, hello?

 

7. McCain makes a joke about killing Iranians. Haha... that's just McCain being McCain. I am sure that is exactly how it is being reported in Tehran. This guy is running for President not to become a talk radio pundit. Yet according to the AP this was just a humanizing moment between candidate and spouse - I am not sure when joking about the deaths of civilians became humanizing.

 

8. McCain denies, flatly, that he ever said that he is not an expert in economics. Are you kidding?

 

 

9). McCain distorts his record on veterans benefits in response to a question from Vietnam Veteran, who then proceeds to call McCain out on it.

 

 

10.) McCain demonstrates he knows nothing about Afghanistan and Pakistan. McCain said "I think if there is some good news, I think that there is a glimmer of improving relationship between Karzai and the Pakistanis." Pat Barry notes how crazy this comment is..."Just what "glimmer" is McCain talking about?? Maybe he's referring to President Karzai's remarks last month, which threatened military action in Pakistan if cross-border attacks persisted? Or maybe McCain is talking about Afghanistan's allegations that Pakistan's ISI was involved in a recent assassination attempt on Karzai? Maybe in McCain's world you could call that a silver-lining, but in reality-land I'd call it something else."

 

Any one of these incidents and comments would dominate the news cycle if they came from the Obama campaign. Yet McCain barely gets a mention. The press like to see themselves as political referees - neutral observers that call them like they see em'. But they want this to be a horse race and so all the calls right now are going one way. How else can you explain the furor last week over the Obama "refine" comment - which represented zero change in Obama's position on Iraq - and the "swift boat" mania over Wesley Clark's uncontroversial comments (psss... by the way McCain exploits his POW experience in just about every ad - yet he says he doesn't like to talk about it).

 

This Sunday expect the ten incidents above to get short shrift from pundit after pundit, because after all Jesse Jackson said he wanted to cut Obama's nuts off.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-bergmann/the-week-that-should-have_b_111983.html

[N.O.R.F]

Barack Obama is overwhelmingly Britain's choice to be the next US president, five times more popular than his Republican rival, John McCain, a Guardian/ICM poll shows today. Carried out ahead of the Democratic candidate's visit to Britain next week, the poll reveals that 53% feel certain he would make the best president, with only 11% favouring McCain; 36% declined to express an opinion.

 

Obama will soon set off on a marathon trip that will take in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Jordan, Germany, France and, lastly, Britain. The exact timing of the visit to Iraq and Afghanistan is being kept under wraps for security reasons, but he is expected in Britain on July 25 or 26. His campaign team and the British government had originally discussed making the UK his first stop but, citing diary clashes, rescheduled it as the last.

 

It will be his first trip overseas - apart from a holiday weekend in the Caribbean - since he launched his bid for the White House in February last year. The aim is to counter accusations from McCain that he lacks foreign experience.

 

Obama's poll lead may have as much to do with his high profile and recognition factor as it does his policies. But it underlines the desire among US allies to see a change of political direction there after eight years of George Bush. Obama's campaign team hopes to use the European leg of the trip to press home to the US public that replacing Bush with the Democratic candidate should see America's popularity in Europe restored.

 

McCain is less well known than Obama, despite having visited Britain several times and attending the House of Commons and the Conservative party conference.

 

The survey, carried out late last week, found that Obama's support is strongest among male voters - 57% of whom want him to be president. There are small regional variations in support: 50% back him in the south-east, against 57% in the north of England. But overall enthusiasm for an Obama presidency is solid across people of all ages and backgrounds. Unlike the US, there is no evidence of young Britons being keener on Obama than older people.

 

Obama, who met Gordon Brown in Washington earlier this year, is scheduled to meet him again. In keeping with diplomatic etiquette, he also plans to meet the Tory leader, David Cameron.

 

He wants to fit in time to thank British-based Americans who have been raising funds for his campaign and for a photo-opportunity that would win him airtime on US television. The centrepiece of his visit to Europe will be Berlin, where he plans to deliver a speech about establishing a new transatlantic relationship. Obama's extensive foreign policy team have promised a complete rethink for the post-Bush era. He will stress that, in contrast with Bush, he will listen to Europe. According to an adviser, he is also likely, to avoid being portrayed as soft, to call on Germany and France to play a bigger military role in Afghanistan.

 

There is confusion about how long Obama has spent in Europe before. Some reports claim he has only spent 24 hours in total, but he told a local paper in the US last year: "I've travelled extensively in Europe ... I love Europe."

 

Obama, who likes being compared with John F Kennedy, opted for Berlin in part because of the former president's much-quoted speech outside the town hall, in which he declared "Ich bin ein Berliner."

 

Pictures with foreign leaders are useful during election campaigns in establishing foreign policy credentials. But the main purpose of his trip is to be filmed in Iraq with US troops. Obama, who has pledged an early withdrawal of most American troops from Iraq, has been in Iraq before but has been repeatedly taunted by McCain about his failure to visit the country since becoming a presidential candidate.

 

ICM Research interviewed a random sample of 1,009 adults aged 18+ on July 9-10. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults. ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/14/barackobama.johnmccain

[Khayr]

This is for all those SOLers that are infatuated with Obama's run for Presidency - mainly because he is a Black Man (He is acutally Bi-racial).

 

Obama visits Israel and says Stopping Iran from obtains nuclear weapons is a priority

 

 

Sounds like there is no limit of a politician as to how low they will stoop to win.

 

Its a good political move on his part to go to Iraq and Israel to ride the bandwagon of "fight agains Muslims aka Terrorism".

 

Whats next - expansian of Guantonmy Bay into South Florida in the name of 'Justice and Fairness'