asking Al Gore to run in 2008!
Playing to Win
Posted October 16th, 2007 by BLACK CELL
The Art of War
By Sun Tzu
http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html
Tactical Dispositions
1. Sun Tzu said: The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.
2. To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.
3. Thus the good fighter is able to secure himself against defeat, but cannot make certain of defeating the enemy.
4. Hence the saying: One may know how to conquer without being able to do it.
5. Security against defeat implies defensive tactics; ability to defeat the enemy means taking the offensive.
6. Standing on the defensive indicates insufficient strength; attacking, a superabundance of strength.
7. The general who is skilled in defense hides in the most secret recesses of the earth; he who is skilled in attack flashes forth from the topmost heights of heaven. Thus on the one hand we have ability to protect ourselves; on the other, a victory that is complete.
8. To see victory only when it is within the ken of the common herd is not the acme of excellence.
9. Neither is it the acme of excellence if you fight and conquer and the whole Empire says, "Well done!"
10. To lift an autumn hair is no sign of great strength; to see the sun and moon is no sign of sharp sight; to hear the noise of thunder is no sign of a quick ear.
11. What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease.
12. Hence his victories bring him neither reputation for wisdom nor credit for courage.
13. He wins his battles by making no mistakes. Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated.
14. Hence the skillful fighter puts himself into a position which makes defeat impossible, and does not miss the moment for defeating the enemy.
15. Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.
16. The consummate leader cultivates the moral law, and strictly adheres to method and discipline; thus it is in his power to control success.
17. In respect of military method, we have, firstly, Measurement; secondly, Estimation of quantity; thirdly, Calculation; fourthly, Balancing of chances; fifthly, Victory.
18. Measurement owes its existence to Earth; Estimation of quantity to Measurement; Calculation to Estimation of quantity; Balancing of chances to Calculation; and Victory to Balancing of chances.
19. A victorious army opposed to a routed one, is as a pound's weight placed in the scale against a single grain.
20. The onrush of a conquering force is like the bursting of pent-up waters into a chasm a thousand fathoms deep.
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It is time to start using plurals
Their new word should be WE not I or Barack Obama .
I am noticing McCain's operatives trying to out flank our team; they are trying to create chaos, by any means.
I hope the Obama / Biden staff are getting ready to muck up McCain's convention with hard hitting campaigns ads that attack McCain's voting record & on all issues.
I also hope the MSM have looooong conversations about the ads, ways that forces Fuax news to debate them.
Many of their loyalist ignored the Democratic convention & will be paying close attention to their own convention. The next week is a matter of war & peace. We have to get into the same mode they are in, THEY ARE IN WARFARE MODE.
We should be treating them like they are no different than the foreign dictators & despots -- even thought they are not. Because, America wants to know is Obama fit to be commander & chief.
Give them reason to marvel at how the war veteran got treated like a peon during his brittest moment from all angle.
The best way to take out paralize them is to not to allow them to come out of their convention running . We want to cripple them in a way that will, hopefully flip some of their insiders.
The next week should be also a week that we find entertainment in muckraking.
Welcome to the Art Of Verbal Warfare
Translated by Lionel Giles
I. Laying Plans
1. Sun Tzu said: The art of war is of vital importance to the State.
2. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.
3. The art of war, then, is governed by five constant factors, to be taken into account in one's deliberations, when seeking to determine the conditions obtaining in the field.
4. These are: (1) The Moral Law; (2) Heaven; (3) Earth; (4) The Commander; (5) Method and discipline.
5,6. The Moral Law causes the people to be in complete accord with their leader, so that they will follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger.
7. Heaven signifies night and day, cold and heat, times and seasons.
8. Earth comprises distances, great and small; danger and security; open ground and narrow passes; the chances of life and death.
9. The Commander stands for the virtues of wisdom, sincerely, benevolence, courage and strictness.
10. By method and discipline are to be understood the marshaling of the army in its proper subdivisions, the graduations of rank among the officers, the maintenance of roads by which supplies may reach the army, and the control of military expenditure.
11. These five heads should be familiar to every general: he who knows them will be victorious; he who knows them not will fail.
12. Therefore, in your deliberations, when seeking to determine the military conditions, let them be made the basis of a comparison, in this wise:--
13. (1) Which of the two sovereigns is imbued with the Moral law? (2) Which of the two generals has most ability? (3) With whom lie the advantages derived from Heaven and Earth? (4) On which side is discipline most rigorously enforced? (5) Which army is stronger? (6) On which side are officers and men more highly trained? (7) In which army is there the greater constancy both in reward and punishment?
14. By means of these seven considerations I can forecast victory or defeat.
15. The general that hearkens to my counsel and acts upon it, will conquer: let such a one be retained in command! The general that hearkens not to my counsel nor acts upon it, will suffer defeat:--let such a one be dismissed!
16. While heading the profit of my counsel, avail yourself also of any helpful circumstances over and beyond the ordinary rules.
17. According as circumstances are favorable, one should modify one's plans.
18. All warfare is based on deception.
19. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.
20. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.
21. If he is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior strength, evade him.
22. If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.
23. If he is taking his ease, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them.
24. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected.
25. These military devices, leading to victory, must not be divulged beforehand.
26. Now the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple ere the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that I can foresee who is likely to win or lose.
II. Waging War
1. Sun Tzu said: In the operations of war, where there are in the field a thousand swift chariots, as many heavy chariots, and a hundred thousand mail-clad soldiers, with provisions enough to carry them a thousand li, the expenditure at home and at the front, including entertainment of guests, small items such as glue and paint, and sums spent on chariots and armor, will reach the total of a thousand ounces of silver per day. Such is the cost of raising an army of 100,000 men.
2. When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men's weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength.
3. Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain.
4. Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.
5. Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays.
6. There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.
7. It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on.
8. The skillful soldier does not raise a second levy, neither are his supply-wagons loaded more than twice.
9. Bring war material with you from home, but forage on the enemy. Thus the army will have food enough for its needs.
10. Poverty of the State exchequer causes an army to be maintained by contributions from a distance. Contributing to maintain an army at a distance causes the people to be impoverished.
11. On the other hand, the proximity of an army causes prices to go up; and high prices cause the people's substance to be drained away.
12. When their substance is drained away, the peasantry will be afflicted by heavy exactions.
13,14. With this loss of substance and exhaustion of strength, the homes of the people will be stripped bare, and three-tenths of their income will be dissipated; while government expenses for broken chariots, worn-out horses, breast-plates and helmets, bows and arrows, spears and shields, protective mantles, draught-oxen and heavy wagons, will amount to four-tenths of its total revenue.
15. Hence a wise general makes a point of foraging on the enemy. One cartload of the enemy's provisions is equivalent to twenty of one's own, and likewise a single picul of his provender is equivalent to twenty from one's own store.
16. Now in order to kill the enemy, our men must be roused to anger; that there may be advantage from defeating the enemy, they must have their rewards.
17. Therefore in chariot fighting, when ten or more chariots have been taken, those should be rewarded who took the first. Our own flags should be substituted for those of the enemy, and the chariots mingled and used in conjunction with ours. The captured soldiers should be kindly treated and kept.
18. This is called, using the conquered foe to augment one's own strength.
19. In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns.
20. Thus it may be known that the leader of armies is the arbiter of the people's fate, the man on whom it depends whether the nation shall be in peace or in peril.
III. Attack by Stratagem
1. Sun Tzu said: In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them.
2. Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.
3. Thus the highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy's plans; the next best is to prevent the junction of the enemy's forces; the next in order is to attack the enemy's army in the field; and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities.
4. The rule is, not to besiege walled cities if it can possibly be avoided. The preparation of mantlets, movable shelters, and various implements of war, will take up three whole months; and the piling up of mounds over against the walls will take three months more.
5. The general, unable to control his irritation, will launch his men to the assault like swarming ants, with the result that one-third of his men are slain, while the town still remains untaken. Such are the disastrous effects of a siege.
6. Therefore the skillful leader subdues the enemy's troops without any fighting; he captures their cities without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the field.
7. With his forces intact he will dispute the mastery of the Empire, and thus, without losing a man, his triumph will be complete. This is the method of attacking by stratagem.
8. It is the rule in war, if our forces are ten to the enemy's one, to surround him; if five to one, to attack him; if twice as numerous, to divide our army into two.
9. If equally matched, we can offer battle; if slightly inferior in numbers, we can avoid the enemy; if quite unequal in every way, we can flee from him.
10. Hence, though an obstinate fight may be made by a small force, in the end it must be captured by the larger force.
11. Now the general is the bulwark of the State; if the bulwark is complete at all points; the State will be strong; if the bulwark is defective, the State will be weak.
12. There are three ways in which a ruler can bring misfortune upon his army:--
13. (1) By commanding the army to advance or to retreat, being ignorant of the fact that it cannot obey. This is called hobbling the army.
14. (2) By attempting to govern an army in the same way as he administers a kingdom, being ignorant of the conditions which obtain in an army. This causes restlessness in the soldier's minds.
15. (3) By employing the officers of his army without discrimination, through ignorance of the military principle of adaptation to circumstances. This shakes the confidence of the soldiers.
16. But when the army is restless and distrustful, trouble is sure to come from the other feudal princes. This is simply bringing anarchy into the army, and flinging victory away.
17. Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory: (1) He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight. (2) He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces. (3) He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks. (4) He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared. (5) He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.
18. Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
IV. Tactical Dispositions
1. Sun Tzu said: The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.
2. To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.
3. Thus the good fighter is able to secure himself against defeat, but cannot make certain of defeating the enemy.
4. Hence the saying: One may know how to conquer without being able to do it.
5. Security against defeat implies defensive tactics; ability to defeat the enemy means taking the offensive.
6. Standing on the defensive indicates insufficient strength; attacking, a superabundance of strength.
7. The general who is skilled in defense hides in the most secret recesses of the earth; he who is skilled in attack flashes forth from the topmost heights of heaven. Thus on the one hand we have ability to protect ourselves; on the other, a victory that is complete.
8. To see victory only when it is within the ken of the common herd is not the acme of excellence.
9. Neither is it the acme of excellence if you fight and conquer and the whole Empire says, "Well done!"
10. To lift an autumn hair is no sign of great strength; to see the sun and moon is no sign of sharp sight; to hear the noise of thunder is no sign of a quick ear.
11. What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease.
12. Hence his victories bring him neither reputation for wisdom nor credit for courage.
13. He wins his battles by making no mistakes. Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated.
14. Hence the skillful fighter puts himself into a position which makes defeat impossible, and does not miss the moment for defeating the enemy.
15. Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.
16. The consummate leader cultivates the moral law, and strictly adheres to method and discipline; thus it is in his power to control success.
17. In respect of military method, we have, firstly, Measurement; secondly, Estimation of quantity; thirdly, Calculation; fourthly, Balancing of chances; fifthly, Victory.
18. Measurement owes its existence to Earth; Estimation of quantity to Measurement; Calculation to Estimation of quantity; Balancing of chances to Calculation; and Victory to Balancing of chances.
19. A victorious army opposed to a routed one, is as a pound's weight placed in the scale against a single grain.
20. The onrush of a conquering force is like the bursting of pent-up waters into a chasm a thousand fathoms deep.
V. Energy
1. Sun Tzu said: The control of a large force is the same principle as the control of a few men: it is merely a question of dividing up their numbers.
2. Fighting with a large army under your command is nowise different from fighting with a small one: it is merely a question of instituting signs and signals.
3. To ensure that your whole host may withstand the brunt of the enemy's attack and remain unshaken-- this is effected by maneuvers direct and indirect.
4. That the impact of your army may be like a grindstone dashed against an egg--this is effected by the science of weak points and strong.
5. In all fighting, the direct method may be used for joining battle, but indirect methods will be needed in order to secure victory.
6. Indirect tactics, efficiently applied, are inexhaustible as Heaven and Earth, unending as the flow of rivers and streams; like the sun and moon, they end but to begin anew; like the four seasons, they pass away to return once more.
7. There are not more than five musical notes, yet the combinations of these five give rise to more melodies than can ever be heard.
8. There are not more than five primary colors (blue, yellow, red, white, and black), yet in combination they produce more hues than can ever been seen.
9. There are not more than five cardinal tastes (sour, acrid, salt, sweet, bitter), yet combinations of them yield more flavors than can ever be tasted.
10. In battle, there are not more than two methods of attack--the direct and the indirect; yet these two in combination give rise to an endless series of maneuvers.
11. The direct and the indirect lead on to each other in turn. It is like moving in a circle--you never come to an end. Who can exhaust the possibilities of their combination?
12. The onset of troops is like the rush of a torrent which will even roll stones along in its course.
13. The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon which enables it to strike and destroy its victim.
14. Therefore the good fighter will be terrible in his onset, and prompt in his decision.
15. Energy may be likened to the bending of a crossbow; decision, to the releasing of a trigger.
16. Amid the turmoil and tumult of battle, there may be seeming disorder and yet no real disorder at all; amid confusion and chaos, your array may be without head or tail, yet it will be proof against defeat.
17. Simulated disorder postulates perfect discipline, simulated fear postulates courage; simulated weakness postulates strength.
18. Hiding order beneath the cloak of disorder is simply a question of subdivision; concealing courage under a show of timidity presupposes a fund of latent energy; masking strength with weakness is to be effected by tactical dispositions.
19. Thus one who is skillful at keeping the enemy on the move maintains deceitful appearances, according to which the enemy will act. He sacrifices something, that the enemy may snatch at it.
20. By holding out baits, he keeps him on the march; then with a body of picked men he lies in wait for him.
21. The clever combatant looks to the effect of combined energy, and does not require too much from individuals. Hence his ability to pick out the right men and utilize combined energy.
22. When he utilizes combined energy, his fighting men become as it were like unto rolling logs or stones. For it is the nature of a log or stone to remain motionless on level ground, and to move when on a slope; if four-cornered, to come to a standstill, but if round-shaped, to go rolling down.
23. Thus the energy developed by good fighting men is as the momentum of a round stone rolled down a mountain thousands of feet in height. So much on the subject of energy.
THERE'S MORE!!
http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html
A Brief History of Bush's Time
August 27, 2008
By Randall Hoven
The current narrative of the Bush Presidency is that it is a failure (believed by 107 of 109 historians surveyed) and that George W. Bush is the worst President in history (believed by 61% of those surveyed historians). Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said, "The president already has the mark of the American people -- he's the worst president we ever had."
That's one narrative. I have another.
Despite being handed one of the worst situations in history from President Clinton, and being fought tooth and nail by his opponents in government and the media, literally from the day of his election, President George W. Bush persevered to restore prosperity at home and to make the US and the world more free and secure.
The 2000 Election and Transition to Office
On November 7, 2000, voters went to the polls and elected George W. Bush to be President of the United States. After initially conceding defeat in a private phone call to Bush, Al Gore decided instead to contest the outcome in Florida. He sued for various recounts and was joined by the Florida Supreme Court, while Bush fought for counting votes per the rules in place prior to the election.
Complaints that Bush "stole" the election boiled down to two: (1) we should use a method of determining the winner other than the one in the Constitution, and (2) we should use a method of determining "voter intent" other than by counting legally cast ballots per the rules in place prior to the election.
Later recounts would show that George W. Bush would have won the election in Florida under any method considered by either Al Gore or the Florida Supreme Court.
"The Miami Herald and USA Today reported George W. Bush would have widened his 537-vote victory to a 1,665-vote margin if the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court would have been allowed to continue."
Al Gore would not concede in public until December 13, more than a month after the election. But the Clinton administration denied the Bush team the keys to the transition office set up two blocks from the White House and waiting since November 8, until December 15. Normally a newly-elected President is provided a transition office the day after the election. George W. Bush was finally allowed to use his just 36 days before being sworn in as President, or less than half the transition time allowed other Presidents-elect.
The Pre-Bush Situation and His First Eight Months
A year before Bush took office, the stock market peaked and subsequently declined 8% by the end of 2000. The last four fiscal quarters under President Clinton showed steadily declining GDP growth rates of 4.8, 3.5, 2.4, and 1.9 percent, respectively. When Bush took office, the US Government was still operating under the fiscal budget signed by President Clinton, and would remain so for more than another eight months. Within six weeks of Bush being sworn in, the economy was officially in recession.
On the defense front, President Bush was handed a smoldering crisis that had been brewing throughout President Clinton's two terms.
* The World Trade Center was bombed by Islamists in 1993, killing six and injuring 1,042.
* We lost 18 US Special Ops forces in Mogadishu while fighting Islamist allies of Osama bin Laden.
* Osama bin Laden declared war against the U.S. in his fatwa of 1996.
* The Khobar Towers used to house our servicemen in Saudi Arabia were bombed by Islamists in 1996, killing 19 US servicemen.
* Our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were bombed in 1998 by bin Laden supported Islamists, killing at least 223 and injuring thousands.
* Pakistan and India both successfully tested nuclear warheads in 1998, to the surprise of our CIA.
* The USS Cole was bombed in 2000 by Islamists, killing 17 US sailors.
* In Israel, the Oslo accords had broken down, the PLO had rejected the most generous "peace for land" deal ever offered, and the intifada was back in business by the end of 2000.
* Nations pursuing nuclear weapon capability (beyond Pakistan and India, who had it by 1998) were North Korea, Iran, Iraq and Libya.
Saddam Hussein's Iraq had kicked out the UN weapons inspectors in 1998 and was in defiance of multiple UN resolutions from 1991 through 2000. Saddam's Iraq had tried to assassinate former President Bush and fired thousands of times at US and coalition forces enforcing the resolutions of the United Nations.
Throughout this time, President Clinton's administration forbade communications between the CIA and the FBI regarding terrorists or terrorist activities. Clinton withdrew US forces from Somalia shortly after the Mogadishu incident. And he treated the terrorist incidents as crimes to be dealt with by our legal system.
When he did send missiles into Iraq, he made sure it was at night so no one would get hurt. According to the Washington Post,
"Clinton ordered the attack Friday, but the raid was delayed a day so it would not fall on the Muslim sabbath... The missiles struck late at night -- between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. Baghdad time -- because Clinton wished to minimize possible deaths of innocent civilians."
I'm thinking a strike at 2 am would also minimize possible deaths of guilty Baathists.
On September 11, 2001, or less than eight months after President Bush took office, Islamist terrorists perpetrated the worst attack by foreigners on US soil since the burning of Washington, DC, in 1812, killing almost 3,000 civilians. The attackers had been planning and preparing it for five years.
That was President Bush's welcome to office. A recession within two months. The 9/11 attacks within eight months. And an Iraq in continual defiance of its terms of surrender, multiple UN resolutions and WMD inspectors. And this after being given only half the transition time as usual.
The Following Seven Years
By November 2001 the recession was officially over, just one month under Bush's own budget, weeks after 9/11 and just 10 months into a Bush Presidency. It was an historically short and shallow recession. From 2003 through 2006, all under President Bush and a Republican Congress, real GDP grew over 3% per year, considered a healthy and sustainable pace. By early 2008, the real economy had grown about 20% since Bush took office. Since President Bush took office, the economy has grown in every single fiscal quarter; there has been no quarter of negative real growth.
Are you better off now than you were eight years ago? If you are anywhere near average, yes. Personal, disposable, inflation-adjusted income grew 9% in the first six years under Bush. Since Bush has been President, the unemployment rate has remained under 6.3% and averaged 5.2% (In Clinton's eight years it remained under 7.3% and also averaged 5.2%.)
On the foreign front, President Bush used "aggressive diplomacy" to convince Pakistan to support us in fighting against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban and to allow us insight into the status of its nuclear weapons. India, the other new member of the nuclear club, remained on good terms with us throughout.
President Bush, with Congressional support, our NATO allies and our first-rate military, freed the people of Afghanistan from the Taliban warlords, helped install a democracy there, captured or killed hundreds of al Qaida there and drove those remaining, probably including Osama bin Laden and his top commanders, to remote mountains and caves. By also cutting off funding sources and communications channels, al Qaida appears to have been rendered ineffective as a coordinated network of terrorists under any kind of effective command and control. It's possible ad hoc "cells" of those sympathetic to al Qaida might still do some damage on US soil, but none have so far.
President Bush, with large and bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress, support from more than 45 countries and our first-rate military, freed the people of Iraq from Saddam Hussein, helped install a democracy there, and captured or killed hundreds of al Qaida, radical Islamists and other terrorists there. Saddam's WMD capabilities, programs and remaining weapons were removed from an outlaw regime. I have written elsewhere on the justification of the Iraq war, which was supported by both pre-war and post-war intelligence.
President Bush, with diplomacy, the example of Iraq and the assistance of foreign allies, convinced Libya to cease its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
President Bush, using diplomacy and working with China, Japan and South Korea, appears to have reached a breakthrough with North Korea, getting it to dismantle its plutonium creating sites and to allow intrusive inspections. While this all needs to be finalized and verified, such progress illustrates President Bush's skill at effective diplomacy - one that has real results, not paper promises quickly broken and never verified.
Iran is still a problem, but even there President Bush is waging diplomacy in concert with our allies and the United Nations.
In short, all the new and major WMD proliferation threats were dealt with one way or another: Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya. They are not all put to rest, but about three-and-a-half of the five biggies appear to have been dealt with sufficiently. And terrorists, even those inside Iraq and Afghanistan at this point, seem to be kept at bay for now as well.
I think these are tremendous achievements, and ones that would not have occurred under either a President Gore or President Kerry.
But what have been the costs? In dollars, defense spending has gone from 3% of GDP to 4%. That's it -- a level that is still below where it was for over 50 years, from World War II through 1994.
In US lives, 4,147 servicemen lost their lives due to hostile or non-hostile action in Iraq to date. Each lost life is a tragedy, and I am deeply grateful to our lost troops and their families. From 2001 to 2006, the worst year for active military duty deaths was 2005, with 1,941 deaths due to all causes. In 1980, President Carter's last year, there were 2,392 such deaths in a larger military establishment. Each year in which we had troops engaged in both Iraq and Afghanistan saw fewer US military deaths than any year from 1980 through 1987, all years without major conflicts. The major conflicts of World War II, Korea and Vietnam had 405,399, 36,574, and 58,209 fatalities, respectively.
Judging A President
"However tempting it might be to some, when much trouble lies ahead, to step aside adroitly and put someone else up to take the blows, I do not intend to take that cowardly course, but, on the contrary, to stand to my post and persevere in accordance with my duty as I see it."
If we use these words of Winston Churchill to judge our presidents, did President Bush "step aside adroitly" or did he stand his post and "persevere"? He has surely taken the blows.
Here is a link to my blog called, "The Politico Insider."
URL Changed.
http://thepoliticoinsider.blogspot.com/
Packed with BS
Where do you get this stuff? That is an amazing article -- amazing in that there is a blatant lie in almost every single paragraph. This is typical con BS... making everything negative that has happened in the past 7.5 years somehow Clinton's fault, while everything good that happened (even if it allegedly happened after just one month on Dubya's "magic" budget) is because of Dubya.
Dubya was never "fought tooth and nail by his opponents in government and the media" -- especially not by the media.
But a lot of the public believes this version of history.
Horse manure
I hope the Repub convention is filled with that stuff.
Here is a link to my blog called, "The Politico Insider."
URL Changed.
http://thepoliticoinsider.blogspot.com/
Our Desperate Need For A Conservative Idiot
Since the Repubs have a mad desire to muck things up for Dems, with their Mini Me version of Hillary Clinton's kitchen sink strategy & their goofy attempts to divide our Party; we should not have any problems mocking & making their propaganda look & sound silly.
The goal is to shame them out of their radical talking points.
Here is a link to my blog called, "The Politico Insider."
URL Changed.
http://thepoliticoinsider.blogspot.com/
Mitt Romney to the rescue?
Oh Black Cell, there are sooo many conservative idiots to choose from. The challenge is to get the public to see them for the idiots they are. The public thinks Sean Hannity is brilliant. I think our best hope is for McCain to choose Romney as his VP. That would be the most mockable ticket I can think of. I don't think he'll dare to chose Lieberman, and I don't think Lieberman would want to wreck his phoney-Dem game by signing on as a "real" Repug.
Who else would be so bold as to sign on as McCain's VP? It would be as desirable as traveling back in time to take a deck-hand's job on the Titanic.
Ol' McSame has dug himself a big hole by attacking Obama for not choosing Hillary. It seems like now, whoever he chooses, he's going to be open some very snarky and damaging responses.
Of course McSame will just whine, "You can't attack me, I was a POW!"
Mitt Romney can't save them
The only thing that can save the Republican Party is a loss. If they lose, they will work hard to do what every successful business does when it loses: make the necessary changes to rebuild their Party.
Here is a link to my blog called, "The Politico Insider."
URL Changed.
http://thepoliticoinsider.blogspot.com/
The deck is stacked
In case you watched the convention on television, you may have gotten the impression that the Dems are grumpy and inattentive and mostly minorities and women. FOX was controlling the video feed for all networks (they use a "pool" system and FOX won the draw, I guess) so all the cutaway shots were of people who were not smiling and mostly not even paying attention. The shots were overwhelmingly blacks, women, or black women... probably calculated to prevent white viewers from identifying with the Dems.
I am not sure the outstanding speeches were enough to overcome the dismal visuals.
But back to my topic.... Black Cell, no, I agree, Mitt Romney can't save them... if anything choosing Mitt would be the worst they could do to themselves. Giving Mitt to McSame would be like throwing a boat anchor to a drowning man.
But you are right... they will pick themselves up and do what they have to do to regain power. They will pull out all the stops to make Barack Obama a one-term president. And they'll use every tactic -- including biased coverage by Fox, and dirty tricks from every one of their allies.
Who is playing to win?
Two Against The One
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
In the dead of night in a small hideaway office in the deserted Capitol, a clandestine meeting takes place between two senators with one goal.
They grin at each other as they lift their celebratory shots of brutally cold Stolichnaya.
“Our toast to The One,” they say in unison, “is that he’s toast.”
“Obama should have picked you, Hillary,” John McCain tells her. “It isn’t fair, my friend. But it just makes it easier for me to whup him.”
“Don’t worry, John, I’ve put it behind me,” Hillary replies. “I’m looking toward the future now, a future that looks very bright, once we send Twig Legs back to the back bench.”
They chortle with delight.
“He’s a bright young man, but he got ahead of himself,” McCain says. “He needs to be taught a lesson, and we’re the ones to do it. Have you seen the new Bloomberg poll? Obama’s dropped and we’re even again. The Bullet’s getting all the credit, but you and I know, Hillary, that it’s these top-secret counseling sessions we’re having. And thanks again for BlackBerrying me the Rick Warren questions while I was in the so-called cone of silence.”
“Oh, John, you know I love you and I’m happy to help,” Hillary says. “The themes you took from me are working great — painting Obama as an elitist and out-of-touch celebrity, when we’re rich celebrities, too. Turning his big rallies and pretty words into character flaws, charging him with playing the race card — that one always cracks me up. And accusing the media, especially NBC, of playing favorites. It’s easy to get the stupid press to navel-gaze; they’re so insecure.”
“They’re all pinko Commies,” McCain laughs. “Especially since they deserted me for The Messiah. Seriously, Hill, that Paris-Britney ad you came up with was brilliant. I owe you.”
Looking pleased, Hillary expertly downs another shot. “His secret fear is being seen as a dumb blonde,” she says. “He wants to take a short cut to the top and pose on glossy magazine covers, but he doesn’t want to be seen as a glib pretty boy.”
McCain lifts his glass to her admiringly. “If I do say so myself, while the rookie was surfing in Hawaii, I ate his pupus for lunch. Pictures of him pushing around a golf ball while I’m pushing around Putin. Priceless.”
“I have a little secret to tell you about that, John. Bill made it happen. He loves you so much. He called Putin and told him that if he invaded Georgia, he could count on being invited to the Clinton Global Initiative every year for the rest of his life.”
“Wow. Should I call him? I saw your husband’s kind words about me in Las Vegas on Monday, saying I’d be just as good as Obama on climate change.”
“I think he’d like that,” Hillary smiles. “He’s still boiling at Obama. And you don’t have to worry about my army of angry women. We’ve spread the word in the feminist underground — as opposed to that wacky Obama Weather Underground — that ‘catharsis’ is code for ‘No surrender.’ My gals know when I say ‘We may have started on two separate paths but we’re on one journey now’ that Skinny’s journey is to the nearest exit.”
“But Obama’s says he’s finally ready to hit back,” McCain says, frowning. “He’s starting a blistering TV campaign and attacking me for attacking his patriotism.”
“Now, John, you know that every time he tries to get tough, he quickly runs out of gas. Sometimes in debates, he’d be exhausted by the third question. He must use up all his energy in the gym. He doesn’t have any stamina, and he certainly doesn’t have our bloodlust. Besides, you can throw that Mark Penn stuff at him that I couldn’t use in a Democratic primary about how he’s not fundamentally American in his thinking and values. While he’s up on his high-minded pedestal, you’ll scoot past him in your Ferragamos.”
“How can I ever thank you, my friend?”
“You can announce that you won’t be running for re-election because you’d be 76, and you can pick somebody really lame to run with, like your pal Lieberman. That means one term for you, and two for me.”
“It’s a deal,” McCain says, sticking out his hand to shake on it. “That was inspired to snatch his convention away — makes him look so weak. Listen, why don’t you stop in Sedona on the way to Denver? Wear a black wig and I’ll spirit you up to the cabin for the night. I’ll catch a catfish in the mill pond and grill it for you. It will be an adventure.” There’s a knock on the door. Jesse Jackson sticks his head into the meeting.
The Political Strategist vs the News Anchor
Political strategist & news people are different.
An effective political strategy is based on redundancy. News is based on the news cycle. That cycle has a short life span.
McCain is changing the news cycle by shifting subjects when they don't benefit him.
Hold him accountable by using opinion pieces to remind the voters things they tend to forget, because the average person forgets what he saw or read pretty quick.
Here is a link to my blog called, "The Politico Insider."
URL Changed.
http://thepoliticoinsider.blogspot.com/
Hmm!!
I am very surprise that Democrats didn't notice McCain saying he would hunt Been Forgotten where ever he goes. Just like Bu$h said it.
McCain has also attacked Barack Obama for saying he would capture or kill Been Forgotten in Pakistan without their permission.
What would repugs do with this?
Here is a link to my blog called, "The Politico Insider."
URL Changed.
http://thepoliticoinsider.blogspot.com/
The Morally, Bankrupt War Monger
* View
* Edit
Posted August 18th, 2008 by BLACK CELL
in
* John McCain
MOST WARS ARE WON BY THE SIDE THAT TAKES THE MORAL HIGH ROAD; AMERICA WILL FALL IF SHE CONTINUE GIVING UP THE MORAL HIGH ROAD.
IT SEEMS LIKE MCCAIN HAS DECIDED TO HANG AROUND THE WRONG CROWD. THEY HAVE CONVINCED HIM TO DO WHAT THEY HAVE BEEN GETTING AWAY WITH FOR OVER SIX YEARS. ...HAVE BEEN USING WAR TO WIN ELECTIONS & WILL CONTINUE, UNLESS WE VIGOROUSLY STOP THEM.
RETHUGS LIKE TO PLAY POLITICAL POKER: THEY LIKE TO BLUFF THE MSM & DEMOCRATIC PARTY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS.
I, AS A FIGHTING DEM, SOMETIMES PLAY POLITICAL CHESS.
POLITICAL CHESS IS A STYLE OF FIGHTING THAT USUALLY SET THE OPPOSITION PIECES UP TO BE REMOVED FROM THE BOARD.
I HAVE SAID VERY LITTLE ABOUT RUSSIA'S DEFENSIVE ATTACK AGAINST GEORGIA, BECAUSE I KNOW THE RETHUGS WANT TO SELL WAR FOR VOTES: I ALSO KNOW THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE TIRED OF THE WAR MONGERS WAR SCHEMES.
WE HAVE LEARNED MUCH ABOUT WHAT MCCAIN IS WILLING TO DO TO WIN AN ELECTION, BY SILENTLY WATCHING HIM PUSH THEIR PIECE IN TO THE POLITICAL TRAP.
HERE'S ONE!!
Jeremiah 34: 2-3
34:2 Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel; Go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah, and tell him, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire:
34:3 And thou shalt not escape out of his hand, but shalt surely be taken, and delivered into his hand; and thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth, and thou shalt go to Babylon.
... AT SOME POINT, WE HAVE GOT TO GET PASSIONATE ABOUT OUR LIVELIHOOD OR THEY WILL SELL IT OUT TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER, USE IT TO PROMOTE EVIL, & DESTROY AMERICA.
IF WE KEEP ALLOWING THE WARMONGERS TO GET AWAY WITH WAR CRIMES, THE WORLD WILL SIDE WITH THUGS LIKE AL QAEDA & SHOW NO MERCY AS THEY PLUNDER US.
At center of conflict, South Ossetians direct bitterness at Georgia
By Peter Finn, Washington Post | August 18, 2008
TSKHINVALI, Georgia - The windows were blown out of the old synagogue here, and the wooden bimah splintered and partly collapsed. Shattered glass covered the floor, and parts of the ornately painted walls were torn off.
But the old building held, and it protected 40 people who took shelter in its spacious basement as the neighborhood above them was reduced to rubble.
"Three days we were here, without water, without bread," said Zemsira Tiblova, 60. "We had 14 children with us."
"Unforgivable," said her husband, Georgi Bestaev. "It was inhuman to bomb us."
The war between Georgia and Russia was centered on this South Ossetian town of about 10,000 people, and it cut a swath of destruction, severely damaging many homes and apartment buildings.
In one neighborhood, along Telman Street, house after crumpled house was a scorched shell. The area is about 200 yards from destroyed separatist government buildings in central Tskhinvali, an acknowledged target of Georgian forces.
A school, a library, and a kindergarten were blackened and pockmarked from small-arms fire. And the city was strewn with the ruined armor of both Georgian and Russian forces.
Here in Tskhinvali, residents have no doubt that Georgia started the war with Russia and there is much bitterness about the rain of artillery and rockets that the government of President Mikhail Saakashvili used in its efforts to capture the city.
The Georgian government said much of the destruction of Tskhinvali was caused by a Russian counteroffensive, but that argument carries no weight with residents.
People insist that a terrible barrage struck the city late Aug. 7 and continued into the morning - accounts supported by Western monitors who were also forced into their cellars. Even buildings used by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe were damaged, one severely.
The scale of the destruction is undeniable; some streets summon iconic images of Stalingrad during World War II or Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, much of which was leveled in two wars between Russian and Chechen separatists.
But the number of dead remains in dispute. Mikhail Minsayev, the minister of interior in the separatist South Ossetian government, told reporters that as many as 2,100 people had been killed. As of yesterday, Tskhinvali Regional Hospital had confirmed the deaths of 40 people in the violence. Minsayev said people quickly buried the dead in their yards or took the bodies to North Ossetia in Russia for burial
During the trip from the Georgian city of Gori and out to the Roki Tunnel that connects with Russia, the revenge taken by some of the inhabitants of South Ossetia was visible in the Georgian fields set on fire and the blackened, abandoned homes in Georgian villages north of Tskhinvali.
.
Two homes in those Georgian villages were ablaze Saturday.
A United Nations aid convoy entered Gori yesterday, the first time UN officials have reached the city since fighting started a week and a half ago. They said they found extensive signs of looting.
Russian military officials attributed the destruction and looting to marauding South Ossetian militias and said officials are trying to restore order. The Georgian government denied that yesterday.
The headquarters of Russian peacekeepers in Tskhinvali was destroyed. .
Vladimir Ivanov, deputy commander of the Russian peacekeeping force stationed here, said that 15 Russian peacekeepers were killed during the war and that many more were wounded.
The peacekeepers have been in South Ossetia since the early 1990s, when a cease-fire was declared after an earlier conflict. This province of Georgia has since had de facto independence from the central authorities in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital.
Georgian officials accused the Russian peacekeeping force of backing the South Ossetian separatists and failing to rein in their attacks on Georgian villages and territory in Georgia proper.
The war has poisoned people here against a future connection with Georgia though the province remains within Georgia's internationally recognized borders.
"Georgia is finished here; they are never coming back," Bestaev said. "We cannot live without Russia."
* BLACK CELL's blog
The Art Of Political Warfare
On August 18th, 2008 BLACK CELL said:
I wish I could laugh with Mc Not So Lame at Team Ofumble =(
Behind the Scenes at McCain HQ
http://blogs4mccain.com/2008/08/03/behind-the-scenes-at-mccain-hq/
Here is a link to my blog called, "The Politico Insider."
URL Changed.
http://thepoliticoinsider.blogspot.com/
P.S. I can't fight all day; I got to go back to school.
Warrior John McCain: Far More Dangerous Than Bush
On August 18th, 2008 BLACK CELL said:
By Steve Weissman, TruthOut.org
Posted on August 18, 2008, Printed on August 18, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/95373/
During the hottest days of the Cold War, Gen. Thomas Power headed the Strategic Air Command, whose nuclear-armed B-52s were meant to deter the Soviet Union. General Power, like many of the Air Force brass at the time, believed that nuclear war with the Soviets was inevitable. He thought the United States would do better to fight that war sooner rather than later and believed we could emerge victorious. "At the end of the war," he argued in 1960, "if there are two Americans and one Russian, we win!"
Listening to John McCain talk about Iraq and Iran, I keep thinking of Power. Counter-insurgency and nuclear obliteration are poles apart, I know. But McCain's insistence on "winning in Iraq," remaining there "until Iraq is secure," and "bomb-bomb-bombing Iran" reveal the same mindset that made General Power so dangerous. Caught up in his fear that a military failure would encourage America's enemies, McCain can see no alternative to military victory, no matter what the cost. This might be a laudable spirit to drum into raw military recruits, but could prove extremely self-destructive in a commander in chief.
The question, if only Obama would ask, is simple: What in McCain's mind would a military victory in Iraq look like? One of the key instigators of the US invasion, McCain has suggested different answers over the years.
As president of the New Citizenship Project, founded in 1994, he helped create and raise funding for the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which neo-conservatives such as William Kristol, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz used to push their plans for a pre-emptive war against Iraq. McCain also gave early support to Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi exile who widely fabricated and skillfully publicized deliberate disinformation to scare Americans into believing that Saddam Hussein had links to al-Qaeda and active weapons of mass destruction. McCain has recently tried to play down his relationship with the still-active Chalabi, especially since the CIA and others accused the Iraqi of secretly working with Iran.
A top Republican on the Senate Armed Forces Committee, McCain began publicly urging the United States to overthrow Saddam Hussein as early as 1997, calling on the Clinton administration to set up an Iraqi government in exile. The following year, he joined with Senator Joe Lieberman and others to introduce the "Iraq Liberation Act of 1998," committing Washington to fund Chalabi and other anti-Saddam opposition groups.
In the run-up to the invasion in 2002 and early 2003, McCain continued to join with his neo-conservative allies in parroting Chalabi's scare stories about terrorist links and WMD and in publicly promoting Chalabi as "a patriot with the interest of Iraq at heart." McCain also competed with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld in telling Americans how easy the war would be, how few troops we would need, how the Iraqis would welcome us as their liberators, and how the example of regime change in Iraq would lead to a new wave of democracy throughout the region.
McCain was wrong on every count, and the image of victory he projected - our friend Chalabi leading a peaceful, democratic Iraq that would welcome American military bases for as long as 100 years - now seems, at best, quaint. In fact, the single Iraqi issue on which McCain can conceivably claim to have made a sound judgment was his support for the so-called "surge," last year's escalation of American forces that many observers credit with a relative decrease in violence. Other observers point to two factors that McCain doesn't want to discuss - the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad's neighborhoods, which forcibly separated feuding Shi'a and Sunnis, and the Pentagon's effort to win over Sunni tribesmen and former insurgents, often by putting them on the US payroll.
According to Congressional testimony from Gen. David Petraeus, the rapprochement with the Sunnis actually began well before the new troops arrived. More importantly, it will likely prove short-lived if the Shi'a-led government in Baghdad does not move quickly to give the Sunnis a fair share of the economic and political future of a united Iraq. As McCain and others originally proposed it, the surge was supposed to create time and space for these and other political steps, but the Iraqis see no reason to seek political solutions as long as they believe that American troops will remain in country to protect them from their domestic rivals.
McCain does not dispute this. He ignores it, just as he refuses to see that the continued presence of American troops in Iraq has helped to recruit far more anti-American jihadists in Iraq and out than we can ever hope to kill, a point CIA and other analysts have repeatedly made. This is the political side of our current military disaster, and McCain just does not get it. For all his much-vaunted experience, he simply cannot see that a foreign military presence will generally create a hugely negative response, as it has in post-colonial lands from Iraq to Afghanistan -- and just as it would in his native Arizona.
A veteran of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the New Left monthly Ramparts, Steve Weissman lived for many years in London, working as a magazine writer and television producer. He now lives and works in France.
© 2008 TruthOut.org All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/95373/
Here is a link to my blog called, "The Politico Insider."
Dump the Clinton Strategist / Spies
On August 18th, 2008 BLACK CELL said:
The more I hear people complaining, saying Barack Obama is not fighting hard enough; the greater the likelihood he will lose.
Just like the more I heard the Repub base complaining about the Repubs the more they fell in the polls.
Here is a link to my blog called, "The Politico Insider."
URL Changed.
http://thepoliticoinsider.blogspot.com/
Obama vs. Lincoln
On August 18th, 2008 BLACK CELL said:
Lincoln: 2 years in the House, helped create the new Republican Party, could have been U.S. senator but allowed someone else to be appointed for party balance (former Democrat given the spot. Lincoln was a former Whig). Total: 2 years
Here is a link to my blog called, "The Politico Insider."
URL Changed.
http://thepoliticoinsider.blogspot.com/
Here is a link to my blog called, "The Politico Insider."
URL Changed.
http://thepoliticoinsider.blogspot.com/
Dump the Clinton Spies
III. The Use of Spies
1. Sun Tzu said: Raising a host of a hundred thousand men and marching them great distances entails heavy loss on the people and a drain on the resources of the State. The daily expenditure will amount to a thousand ounces of silver. There will be commotion at home and abroad, and men will drop down exhausted on the highways. As many as seven hundred thousand families will be impeded in their labor.
2. Hostile armies may face each other for years, striving for the victory which is decided in a single day. This being so, to remain in ignorance of the enemy's condition simply because one grudges the outlay of a hundred ounces of silver in honors and emoluments, is the height of inhumanity.
3. One who acts thus is no leader of men, no present help to his sovereign, no master of victory.
4. Thus, what enables the wise sovereign and the good general to strike and conquer, and achieve things beyond the reach of ordinary men, is foreknowledge.
5. Now this foreknowledge cannot be elicited from spirits; it cannot be obtained inductively from experience, nor by any deductive calculation.
6. Knowledge of the enemy's dispositions can only be obtained from other men.
7. Hence the use of spies, of whom there are five classes: (1) Local spies; (2) inward spies; (3) converted spies; (4) doomed spies; (5) surviving spies.
8. When these five kinds of spy are all at work, none can discover the secret system. This is called "divine manipulation of the threads." It is the sovereign's most precious faculty.
9. Having local spies means employing the services of the inhabitants of a district.
10. Having inward spies, making use of officials of the enemy.
11. Having converted spies, getting hold of the enemy's spies and using them for our own purposes.
12. Having doomed spies, doing certain things openly for purposes of deception, and allowing our spies to know of them and report them to the enemy.
13. Surviving spies, finally, are those who bring back news from the enemy's camp.
14. Hence it is that which none in the whole army are more intimate relations to be maintained than with spies. None should be more liberally rewarded. In no other business should greater secrecy be preserved.
15. Spies cannot be usefully employed without a certain intuitive sagacity.
16. They cannot be properly managed without benevolence and straightforwardness.
17. Without subtle ingenuity of mind, one cannot make certain of the truth of their reports.
18. Be subtle! be subtle! and use your spies for every kind of business.
19. If a secret piece of news is divulged by a spy before the time is ripe, he must be put to death together with the man to whom the secret was told.
20. Whether the object be to crush an army, to storm a city, or to assassinate an individual, it is always necessary to begin by finding out the names of the attendants, the aides-de-camp, and door-keepers and sentries of the general in command. Our spies must be commissioned to ascertain these.
21. The enemy's spies who have come to spy on us must be sought out, tempted with bribes, led away and comfortably housed. Thus they will become converted spies and available for our service.
22. It is through the information brought by the converted spy that we are able to acquire and employ local and inward spies.
23. It is owing to his information, again, that we can cause the doomed spy to carry false tidings to the enemy.
24. Lastly, it is by his information that the surviving spy can be used on appointed occasions.
25. The end and aim of spying in all its five varieties is knowledge of the enemy; and this knowledge can only be derived, in the first instance, from the converted spy. Hence it is essential that the converted spy be treated with the utmost liberality.
26. Of old, the rise of the Yin dynasty was due to I Chih who had served under the Hsia. Likewise, the rise of the Chou dynasty was due to Lu Ya who had served under the Yin.
27. Hence it is only the enlightened ruler and the wise general who will use the highest intelligence of the army for purposes of spying and thereby they achieve great results. Spies are a most important element in water, because on them depends an army's ability to move.
Here is a link to my blog called, "The Politico Insider."
URL Changed.
http://thepoliticoinsider.blogspot.com/
Somebody is playing to lose
The Shape of the Race Changes
By Richard Baehr
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the contest for President has become a real horse race, close to a tossup (Obama maintains a 1-2 point lead in the tracking polls). The 17 days of the Olympics and the exploits of Michael Phelps have driven most political stories off the front burner, other than Russia's aggression against Georgia.
The Russia-Georgia story played into John McCain's hands, with McCain quickly and forcefully condemning Russia's actions, and Barack Obama, vacationing in Hawaii, seeming to offer little in response but a call for a Security Council meeting and a ceasefire. Obama, a believer in the effectiveness of international organizations, may have forgotten that Russia is a permanent member of the Security Council and was unlikely to agree to anything counter to its interests. It is not from lack of effort that the US has been unable to move China and Russia to endorse tougher sanctions against Iran in the Security Council.
So too, Americans seem to always rally around our athletes during the Olympics. By a 3 to 1 margin, Americans now approve of President Bush attending the games, a much higher percentage for this than before the games began. It is hard to remember the last time there was such an endorsement of any action by President Bush. So too, as the candidate perceived as the soldier/warrior, McCain stands to benefit more from any burst of patriotic fervor associated with the Olympic Games than Obama.
Senator McCain and the GOP also got out in front on high oil prices with their call for opening more areas in the country and some offshore areas to drilling for oil. Americans seem to have caught on that we will grow ever more dependent on some of the most thuggish regimes in the world, if we continue to send hundreds of billions of dollar oversea each year for imported oil (as much as $700 billion in 2008 at current prices). Despite years of incessant preaching by the media and educational system at all levels on the catastrophe awaiting us all from global warming fifty or a hundred years from now, the price of oil and the need to increase domestic supply (and alternatives) has for now clearly trumped this more distant and unproven threat.
Finally, there was Rick Warren's very well-run debate at his Saddleback Church Saturday night, at which Senator Obama was, as usual, calm dispassionate, and verbally agile, but McCain was more direct and passionate on issues that mattered to the crowd. The performance at this debate cannot but help solidify McCain's standing among evangelicals, and attract some of the volunteers needed to counter Obama's unprecedented ground game in many states.
Both candidates stumbled on some questions: Obama refused to say when life began, suggesting the answer to that one was above his pay grade. If he does not have an answer to this question, why is so willing to deal with the uncertainty by approving of abortion, and alone among US Senators, appearing to also favor infanticide when an abortion "fails" and a baby is delivered alive? Pro-choice advocates are usually more consistent; if you believe life begins at fetal viability or delivery, then you can argue for abortion rights before that. McCain gave a poor answer on what defines a rich person. When McCain talks too long, he gets in trouble at times.
But the most significant contrast in the debate was between McCain's anecdotal references to his life experiences, particularly those in North Vietnamese captivity, which offered a far clearer view of what shaped McCain and created his passion for country and national service than anything that can be gleaned from Obama's background.
The race this year is very difficult to forecast. Will young people, for the first time, turn out in great numbers? Will Obama's registration effort produce a few million more African American voters? Will Obama's huge investment in field organizing prove the difference (turning registered voters into actual voters)? Most pollsters do not reach cell phone only users, who are a high percentage of both young Americans and African Americans. Will the polls overstate Obama's likely performance? (the Bradley effect) Nate Silver has studied this issue and argued that Obama underperformed compared to exit polls, which are not a random sample, and are often unreliable predictors, but actually exceeded his pre-poll averages in many states. However, a close look at the results by state, suggests Obama exceeded poll results in caucus states ,where estimating turnout is very difficult , and where there may be psychological factors in play related to the public nature of one's vote (a reverse Bradley effect, in essence), and in primary states in the South, with very high African American populations, where pollsters seem to have systematically underestimated black turnout.
In many of the large state primaries, on the other hand, Obama underperformed the last polls in those states before the primary (e.g. Ohio, Pennsylvania). Pollster Peter Hart believes as many as 10% of those who say they back Obama, may not, or be undecided. If 10% of Obama's presumed supporters turn out to vote for McCain, McCain would win in a landslide, regardless of Obama's ground game, and heavier participation by young voters and African Americans. I am less convinced that voters are lying to pollsters when they say are for Obama, but think the reason that the number who say they are undecided is double what it was in 2004, may be because this is a more acceptable way of hiding one's preference without lying.
I look most closely at Rasmussen's 's numbers, because Rasmussen not only has a daily tracking poll, but conducts polling in many states (for some odd reason, Indiana has not been polled for months, though it is a state targeted by Senator Obama). By and large, Rasmussen's state numbers tie to his national tracking numbers. There are exceptions: Rasmussen has a recent poll with McCain ahead by 10% in Ohio, which seems out of line with a small Obama lead nationally. In 2004, Ohio almost exactly tracked Bush's national margin of just over 2%, so for Ohio to be 12% stronger for McCain than his national numbers is unlikely.
In pretty much all of the tossup states, McCain has gained ground this month. He now leads, sometimes by very narrow margins, in Rasmussen's most recent surveys in Virginia, Colorado, and Nevada, and has opened up a 6 point lead in North Carolina, another state targeted by Obama. McCain has come from far behind to significantly narrow the gap with Obama in Minnesota, New Hampshire, Michigan, New Mexico, Iowa ,and Wisconsin. Rasmussen's most recent poll had Obama up by 2% in Florida, but most other polls of the state have given McCain a 3 or 4 point lead. Florida has been more Republican in its voting pattern than the national average in 13 of the last 14 Presidential elections, all but 1976. With McCain likely to do far better with Jewish voters in the state this year than Bush did in 2004 (about 6% of the state's electorate), the state is an uphill climb for Obama.
As of this point, a week before the Democratic convention, there are only 2 red states where Obama leads: New Mexico (5) and Iowa (7), each by about 5 points. If those were Obama's only pickups, McCain would win 274-264 in the Electoral College. Obama's advantage is that there are plenty of red states in which he is competitive: Virginia (13), Ohio (20), Florida (27), Colorado (9), Nevada (5), perhaps Montana (3), and even Indiana (11), if Evan Bayh is the VP pick. But Obama's odds of winning each of these states have declined in the last month according to Nate Silver's latest 538 Battlegrounds survey.
Realistically, McCain seems to have a real shot at only two blue states: Michigan (17) and New Hampshire (4). In Michigan, the state with the nation's worst economy, the Democratic Party is in big trouble, with the Mayor of Detroit on trial, and a Governor with lower approval ratings than President Bush. If McCain can win Michigan and New Hampshire and hold Ohio and Florida, he is likely to win. Obama would have to sweep Virginia, Colorado , Nevada, New Mexico and Iowa to then win 270-268, an unlikely possibility I think.
The good news for McCain is that the contests in Minnesota (10) and Wisconsin (10) have tightened, and the race has gotten a bit closer in Pennsylvania (21) as well. McCain needs to have Obama forced to play defense in blue states, not just be free to go after red states. If McCain picks Tim Pawlenty for VP at a convention in his home state, could that move Minnesota to a real battleground? Possible, though I would not make a wager on McCain winning the state (I was burned in 2004, as this was the only state I missed) . Would Mitt Romney deliver Michigan to McCain, perhaps a wiser bet if the VP pick is to used primarily to secure one state? Jay Cost thinks so.
If I were in the McCain camp, I would be breathing a sigh of relief if Obama follows what is now the conventional wisdom and selects Joe Biden as his VP pick. Biden does not help in any particular state, supported the Iraq war, and while he is respected by some within the Beltway, is also regarded by many as someone who talks too much. I am not convinced he would do much to shore up Obama in the national security area. Selecting Biden gives McCain a free pick -- in essence he does not have to respond to Obama's pick.
Because of his financial and organizational advantage, Obama remains a slight favorite to be elected. But the recent trend line favors McCain. Obama's campaign camp, which exudes optimism, has to be concerned about why they have not closed the deal with so many voters, despite all the favorable free media attention and almost $300 hundred million in campaign spending on ads and organizational efforts to date. There may be a saturation level that is reached with advertising and voter contact efforts. Obama outspent Hillary Clinton by 3 to 1 and 4 to 1 in some late primary states, and still lost. After a while, voters may just tune out, as they do with most solicitations.
The McCain camp, which has been nervous about the three fall debates, has to feel better about things after the Saddleback event, where McCain certainly held his own. McCain and the RNC will have enough money to get their message out the next 11 weeks. The late dates for both party conventions, means that both candidates have to spend all their money in just two months, and the saturation issue becomes real.
The GOP convention follows the Democratic convention by just one week, which is very unusual. Will this enable McCain to blunt Obama's post-convention surge, or will Obama's surge continue into the following week, and weaken any McCain convention bounce? Nate Silver has looked at this too, and says it is very hard to figure.
I am a betting man, and if I could get 2 to 1 odds on McCain winning at this point, I would take them.
Here is a link to my blog called, "The Politico Insider."
URL Changed.
http://thepoliticoinsider.blogspot.com/
John McCain Said He Didn't Love His Country
Super Boom!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hVeWZjB8zM
Here is a link to my blog called, "The Politico Insider."
http://thepoliticolinsider.blogspot.com/
Something Big
Today, Thursday July 17th 2008, Al Gore will make a very important speech.
We need leaders with vision to outline a chart that will help lead us to make good choices; informed and rational decisions. We will find a better way. We will use our innovation and American know-how to promote creative ways to protect and promote our economy, our national security, and our environment.
The People, Not the Powerful
Obama '08
Dear Wayne,
Something important is happening today.
In a speech in Washington, DC, Nobel Laureate and Former Vice President Al Gore will issue a major challenge, essentially pressing the "reset" button on how we think about energy and climate, and how we can create prosperity in America.
His speech will generate a great deal of attention. Since you are a We campaign member, we wanted to make sure you heard about it in advance. We'll email you when we've posted the video highlights, action steps and other resources -- so stay tuned for breaking news!
Sincerely,
Cathy Zoi
CEO
http://www.wecansolveit.org/
Al Gore Hit the Ball Out of the Park Yesterday!
There is an interview that Gore gave talking about his goals on my blog.
http://thepoliticolinsider.blogspot.com/
The Force Is With Us
Fortunately for the United States, we are in an excellent position to create new green energy. Our vast land mass that includes the American southwest is a great resource for us to harness the power of solar energy. The Cascade mountain range contains enormous potential for geothermal power. We have the university researchers and scientists. We have the workforce and production capacity.
All that's required to move forward is political will. And political will, as a great man once said, is a renewable resource.
The Electric Car ???
I am hoping to market Gore's position. But, I am having a hard time understanding his position.
I was hoping someone would explain the logic behind gore's support of the electric car. I am under the understanding that the car is too small.
Here is a link to my blog called, "The Politico Insider."
http://thepoliticolinsider.blogspot.com/
The brilliance of Gore's plan
There are big hurdles to widespread adoption of electric cars. The brilliance of Gore's plan is that he is the first to focus on the "grid" instead of the automotive/transportation industry. If the nation's electricity came from renewables -- which are not subject to price fluctations due to reliance on resources in unstable/unfriendly regions of the world -- then use of electricity in "new" applications, such as electric cars, will follow.
I have not seen or heard Al Gore directly promote the electric car.
Federal Reserve Chairman Predicted Lower U.S. oil Consumption
THE STATEMENT THAT THE FED. RESERVE CHAIRMAN MADE ABOUT WHY THE PRICE OF OIL DROPPED IS PROOF THAT CREATING WAYS TO GET MORE MILES PER GALLON (HYBRID CARS) MAKE SENSE.
REPUGS WANT TO TAKE THE CHAIRMANS STATEMENT & TURN IT ON ITS HEAD BY SPINNING & INDULGING IN PROPAGANDA.
MOST OF THE CONSERVATIVES ARE ACTING & SOUNDING LIKE THEY HAVE ALWAYS BEEN SUPPORTERS OF ALTERNATIVE ENERGY; CONSERVATIVES HAVE BEEN SERIOUSLY ATTACKING ALTERNATIVE ENERGY FOR OVER 18 YEARS.
Pelosi Statement on Today's Record Drop in Oil Prices
Last update: 9:18 p.m. EDT July 15, 2008
WASHINGTON, July 15, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement this evening on the record drop in oil prices today -- the largest drop in 17 years:
"Today, the price of oil per barrel dropped $6.44 in one day -- the second highest one-day drop in history -- when the Federal Reserve Chairman predicted lower U.S. oil consumption. The biggest drop in history came 17 years ago, when President George H.W. Bush released oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in 1991 and the price per barrel dropped 34 percent in one day.
"President Bush tells us that there are no quick fixes -- but history proves otherwise. President Bush should free our oil by releasing a small amount of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and bring the price down further. Obstinance does nothing to help Americans struggling with record gas prices and a host of economic concerns."
SOURCE Office of the Speaker of the House
Copyright (C) 2008 PR Newswire. All rights res
Here is a link to my blog called, "The Politico Insider."
http://thepoliticolinsider.blogspot.com/
Hard Ball Playing Smash Mouth Football
Please put the link into your search engine. You will see a real debate, talking about real issues & a Democrat, the President of Air America, playing Smash Mouth Football.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/25694139#25694139"
Here is a link to my blog called, "The Politico Insider."
http://thepoliticolinsider.blogspot.com/
The Real Elitist Fly Sees Little Value in Flyover Country
Black Cell: The term "fly over country" is popular to repugs. They tell their supporters who live in fly over country that liberals don't value them. It is one of the reasons average republicans cling to the Faux News.
Small-state plan pays dividends for Obama
Caucus wins helped fuel delegate lead
By Sasha Issenberg, Globe Staff | May 4, 2008
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - Last July, as Barack Obama's campaign began considering how to allocate resources among the two dozen states that would vote on Feb. 5, Jon Carson realized that some of the biggest gains could come from the smallest states.
Idaho, for instance, would have one caucus site in each of its 44 counties - which made a trip to a polling place so burdensome in 2004 that only a few thousand people bothered to vote. A campaign that was able to identify its supporters and move them across long, often mountainous, distances could overwhelm the caucuses and take a large share of the 18 available delegates.
Obama's national voter-contact director.
Seven months later, it did, as Obama won the state by a margin rarely seen outside autocracies. Obama carried Idaho with 80 percent of the vote against Hillary Clinton; in Kansas, where caucuses were held in each of the 40 state Senate districts, Obama won 74 percent. Because the states allocated delegates on a proportional basis, Obama left Idaho with a net gain of 12 delegates and Kansas with 14. That same day, Clinton won New Jersey's primary by 10 points, but earned only 11 more delegates there than Obama.
Obama's commitment to the votes of small states the week of Feb. 5 - the culmination of months of largely unrivaled attention to those states - has come to define the race. In the week's 10 caucuses alone, Obama tallied more than twice as many delegates as Clinton, a net gain of 113 delegates that Clinton is still trying, vainly, to overcome.
"That's really the heart of his advantage," said Tad Devine, a delegate strategist for Michael S. Dukakis in 1988. "In a system of proportional representation, if you get ahead in elected delegates, it's almost impossible for the trailing candidate to catch up."
As Obama confronts his first prolonged downturn of the campaign - with a sequence of major primary losses to Clinton, a shrinking popular-vote margin, and new skepticism about his general-election viability - he continues to guard the slender but apparently insurmountable lead in pledged delegates accrued with wins in early February. Now up to 154 delegates, according to Associated Press estimates, Obama's advantage continues to set the terms of negotiation for the support of superdelegates who will be essential to either candidate's nomination.
"If the votes of the superdelegates overturn what's happened in the elections, it would be harmful to the Democratic Party," House speaker Nancy Pelosi told ABC in March.
What has now become a structural advantage for Obama had its roots as a tactical gambit conceived over a series of meetings last June at his Chicago headquarters. At the time, the Democratic primary calendar was just beginning to take form, and a number of states moved up their primaries and caucuses to Feb. 5, the earliest date permitted by new party rules. That day, nearly half the total number of elected convention delegates would be up for grabs, creating a broader - and potentially more expensive - playing field than many campaigns face in a general election.
Clinton's campaign approached the day as an insurmountable hurdle for Obama and former senator John Edwards, assuming that only a nationally established candidate could have the stature and resources to compete in a de-facto national primary.
"They thought they would win enough early support in the early states and on Super Tuesday to convince other candidates to drop out," said Barbara Norrander, a University of Arizona political scientist who specializes in presidential primaries.
Obama, however, had already begun looking past the early states whose votes were the primary focus of attention of the media and the campaigns. "We were relatively sure that the first four contests - Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada - would not end the race, and that it would go on to Feb. 5 and probably beyond that," said Steve Hildebrand, a deputy campaign manager.
If Obama passed that threshold, he would probably enter a long race that would be determined not by attrition but by arithmetic. "Right from the start, they said this is a race for delegates," said Gordon Fischer, a former Iowa party chairman who endorsed Obama. "Even before I came onboard, I heard that."
Obama's campaign divided the Feb. 5 states into three categories: primaries like Illinois and Georgia they expected to win; those like New York and New Jersey where Clinton would be strong but Obama could work to minimize her delegate advantage; and the caucuses, the most demanding to organize but where Obama's appeal to party activists offered him a potential base of support.
"Our hope at that point was that we would have enough money to fully compete in all those states," said Hildebrand. "We just didn't know how our fund-raising would go. It was a little bit of a leap of faith."
In early June, the campaign used a "Walk for Change," a nationwide day of canvassing, to test its strength among activists and volunteers - assigning extra canvassers to Feb. 5 states to gauge Obama's potential in each.
"What we knew was that in caucus states you can't go in 30 and 60 days out [from the caucus day] and expect to be able to compete," said Hildebrand. By September, Obama had begun opening offices and assigning staff to many of them.
"I was slightly surprised and intrigued by their willingness to do it," said Wayne Holland, the Democratic party chairman in Utah, a primary state where Obama eventually had three offices. "We've never had even one single presidential campaign set up shop for a long time in Utah."
By the end of 2007, both Clinton and Obama had raised nearly equal sums of money, around $100 million each. "What differentiated the two campaigns was the nature of the investments each of the campaigns made," said Alan Solomont, Obama's Northeast finance chairman.
After Obama won Iowa and Clinton won New Hampshire, Obama sent his well-regarded Iowa field director, Anne Filipic, to Utah, which he eventually won by a margin of 58 to 42 percent, earning five more delegates than Clinton. "Without the resources they put in to the field organization in January, it would not have been" such a decisive margin, said Holland, a superdelegate who later endorsed Obama.
Obama's commitment to small states came often at the expense of large ones, where candidates had traditionally sought strong performances to generate national momentum and demonstrate strength to party elites, fund-raisers, and the media.
"The Obama people could have spent more money in California on television and reduced the margin here a little more, but they didn't see the delegate gains they would get out of that," said William Carrick, a Los Angeles consultant not working for a candidate.
And Obama was already making a concerted effort to nudge the media to focus on the delegate race. When early news reports after Nevada's caucuses on Jan. 19 declared Clinton the winner based on the statewide popular vote, Obama's campaign hastily called reporters to claim victory after it became clear he would emerge with more delegates, 13 to 12.
"It was a very smart move to work so aggressively to get the media to recognize that," said Devine. "In retrospect, that one delegate was a big one."
Clinton and Obama split the Feb. 5 delegates almost evenly, and his campaign expected to end the primary season with 1,806 delegates to 1,789, according to an internal campaign projection obtained by Bloomberg News. The next morning, Obama announced that whoever won the most pledged delegates should be the presumed nominee.
"If this contest comes down to superdelegates, we are going to be able to say we have more pledged delegates, which means the Democratic voters have spoken," Obama said.
A week later, Clinton dismissed Obama's small-state victories as irrelevant to the general election. "Unless there's a tsunami change in America, [Democrats] are never going to carry Alaska, North Dakota, Idaho," she told the Politico, a Washington news organization, in mid-February.
She has continued making that argument to the party's superdelegates - that the states she has won prove her to be a stronger nominee even if they yielded fewer elected delegates - while Obama has maintained his numerical advantage and moved closer to the nomination.
"Obama did it the old-fashioned way," said Donna Brazile, a strategist and uncommitted superdelegate. "He went everywhere to pick up anything available."
live free or die trying!
The Price for Gas has went up over 250%
International Herald Tribune
Push for ethanol blamed for driving up food prices
By Andrew Martin
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Shopping at a Whole Foods Market in suburban Chicago, Meredith Estes said food prices had jumped so much she had resorted to coupons. Charles Rodgers Jr., an Arkansas cattle rancher, said normal feed rations were so expensive and scarce he was scrambling for alternatives. In Oregon, Jack Joyce, the owner of Rogue Ales, said the cost of barley malt had soared 88 percent this year.
For years, cheap food and feed were taken for granted in the United States. But now the price of some foods is rising sharply, and from the corridors of Washington to the aisles of neighborhood supermarkets, a blame alert is under way.
Among the favorite targets is ethanol, especially for food manufacturers and livestock farmers who seethe at government mandates for ethanol production. The ethanol boom, they contend, is raising corn prices, driving up the cost of producing dairy products and meat, and causing farmers to plant so much corn as to crowd out other crops.
The results are working their way through the marketplace, in this view, with overall consumer grocery costs up roughly 5 percent in a year and feed costs up more than 20 percent.
Now, with the U.S. Congress poised to adopt a new mandate that would double the volume of ethanol made from corn, ethanol skeptics say a fateful moment has arrived, with the United States about to commit itself to decades of competition between food and fuel for the use of agricultural land.
"This is like a runaway freight train," said Scott Faber, a lobbyist for the Grocery Manufacturers Association, who complained that ethanol has the same "magical effect" on politicians as the tooth fairy and Santa Claus have on children.
"It's great news for corn farmers, but terrible news for consumers."
But ethanol critics are not getting much traction with their argument. Last week, the Senate voted 86-8 for a new energy bill containing expanded ethanol mandates, and the House is expected to follow suit this week.
Experts with no stake in the argument say ethanol has indeed contributed to rising food costs, but that is only one of several factors. Higher fuel costs are driving up the expense of growing and transporting food. And strong economic growth abroad is increasing demand for agricultural commodities, allowing once-destitute people to augment their diets with meat and dairy.
It is also a tough time, politically, to make a case against ethanol. With continuing turmoil in the Middle East, sky-high gas prices and U.S. presidential candidates stumping in Iowa, the heart of the Corn Belt, a new renewable fuel standard has plenty of supporters on Capitol Hill.
"We did get whipped," said Jay Truitt, vice president of government affairs for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.
"We continue to be caught up in this fervor, almost spirituality, about ethanol. You can't get anyone to consider that there is a consequence to these actions."
He added, "We think there will be a day when people ask, 'Why in the world did we do this?' "
The bill in Congress would increase the mandate for renewable fuels to a striking 36 billion gallons, or 136 billion liters, by 2022. That is far beyond a requirement on the books now for 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol by 2012.
Much of the newly required ethanol could be made from agricultural wastes like corn stalks and straw, and its production would not compete directly with food production. But the proposed mandate, known as a renewable fuel standard, also calls for 15 billion gallons of ethanol made from grains, primarily corn.
Ethanol advocates say they believe that yield increases will supply much of the extra corn needed to meet the new mandate.
Joe Victor, vice president for marketing for Allendale, an agricultural research firm in the Chicago suburbs, said Midwestern farmers would face a pleasant quandary in the spring in deciding what to plant because wheat and soybean prices are at or near record highs and corn prices remain bullish.
The price increases for corn have had a broad impact, both because farmers are planting more corn and less of other crops and because livestock producers are scrambling for feed substitutes. For instance, soybean acreage planted this year was about 16 percent less than in 2006.
Feed costs have increased 25 percent to 30 percent in the past year, according to David Fairfield, director of feed services at the National Grain and Feed Association. He attributed virtually all of the increase to the demands of the ethanol industry.
The impact of ethanol on prices at the grocery store is less certain.
In a study completed in May, researchers at Iowa State University concluded that retail food prices had already increased by $47 per person in the previous year or so as a result of higher corn prices.
If corn prices near $4.50 a bushel next year, as many people expect, the research suggests that retail food prices for meat will increase about 7.5 percent and egg prices will go up 13.5 percent.
But researchers for the Renewable Fuels Association dispute that math and contend that the link between corn prices and grocery prices is weak.
As the debate continues, one thing is certain: American shoppers are increasingly frustrated over rising prices.
"It's the staples, the cheeses, the milks and produce," said Estes, shopping at the Chicago-area Whole Foods. "It's going up, and my grocery bill at the end, it's like, 'Are you kidding me?' "
Eric Ferkenhoff contributed reporting from Chicago.
Obama's Clinton-problem
Watching the faux news Sunday contributors trying to influence Barack Obama to play their game was like watching a snake trying to trick the mongoose into its nest.
I later watched a tape of Obama playing their game, talking about how he would fight for them & I said to myself, "When the snakes get the mongoose in their nest they are going to prove to the world that this guy has only one thing on his mind... winning at all cost! "
They are slowly laying the foundation so they can say that Obama is just a smile filled with manipulative rhetoric.
Obama's Clinton-problem
by smintheus
Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 07:35:05 AM PDT
Barack Obama missed an opportunity yesterday when he was interviewed on Fox News Sunday. Whether or not it's advisable to agree to appear on Fox, it's certainly a mistake and a disfavor to Democrats to treat the network as if it's a normal, that is legitimate, news venue. Fox is a Republican propaganda outlet that aspires to be granted a respectability it refuses to earn. More to the point, Fox has been down in the dirt spreading malicious and false rumors about Obama for well over a year...for example, the ridiculous and anyway irrelevant "information" that the presidential candidate is a Muslim.
The right approach to an interview on Fox, if Obama really thought it acceptable to reward rumor-mongerers, would have been to use the appearance to denounce the network's lack of integrity, enumerate the lies it has propagated, and demand that Chris Wallace acknowledge that they're false. That's how one deals with bullying, by publicly humiliating the perpetrators - and Murdoch's network is nothing if not a Republican bully-boy.
Trying to persuade a Fox "News" personality that he's reasonable and moderate is just about the last thing Barack Obama should have been doing on that of all networks. Aside from Republican fanatics, who will always insist that the Democratic nominee shares every malign view and every reprehensible trait of every friend, associate, and neighbor, the rest of America has already figured out that Obama is fairly temperate, thoughtful, and likeable personally.
So why in the world, when Chris Wallace raised the topic of Reverend Wright over and over again, did Obama feel the need to assure him that it's a "legitimate political issue"? Even Wallace latered admitted that it's a distraction "from the real issues"! It's nonsense to link the two men's views; it has nothing to do with the future of the US; American voters don't seem to think Obama needs to justify Wright's comments; and in any case questions about his Christian church directly contradict the Muslim myth that Fox has been spreading with abandon. This is where the candidate, if he'd had his wits about him, should have picked up the club and whacked such a hole in the great wall of stupidity erected by Fox "News" that the sun shone on through. Instead, Obama conversed in the sweet voice of reason, portraying himself as a centrist who is passionate about nothing so much as political compromise.
That in a nutshell also is Obama's Clinton-problem. Unlike many commentators, I don't fear that the prolonged primary battle and the shrillness of the attacks leveled by the Clinton camp are doing lasting damage to Obama's reputation. Voters tend to discount desperate political charges, if they even are paying attention at this stage. Vague and silly attacks have a half life of a few days during a spring primary. Nor does it matter in the end that more and more pundits, ignoring the delegate math, are speculating that Clinton can retrieve her lost chances or take the nomination-battle as far as the convention. There are only three kinds of pundits: Those who can count, and those who can't.
No, Obama's Clinton-problem stems from the fact that he is well and pretty safely ahead in this contest and has been for a long time. His strategy for a few months has been to avoid stumbling and to run an unobjectionable, unifying campaign. He recognizes that he needs to avoid antagonizing the substantial minority of Democrats who've backed Hillary Clinton, in order to bring the party together as quickly as possible once the nomination is clinched. That means that he's chosen to pull many of his own punches while allowing himself to be used as a punching bag by the Clinton camp. It takes stomach to rise above the fray like that, especially in the kind of scrap this has become the longer Obama remains in the lead.
The sort of voter who admires moderation and quiet determination will be drawn to that kind of campaign. But many voters are looking for something else, or more, than purposefulness. They're looking for backbone in a president. And Obama's campaign, no doubt unintentionally, is sending the wrong signals to such voters now. I'm not suggesting that Obama lacks backbone. I've seen no evidence that he does; if anything there are hints that the opposite is the case. But at the moment there appear to be many voters who misread him in that way.
The point was brought home to me forcefully this week while I talked about the candidates with voters in the politcally moderate Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania. I was looking to gauge emotional reactions toward the candidates so I asked people to tell me what they thought their greatest strengths and weaknesses would be as potential presidents.
Few had any clear or coherent ideas about John McCain, but the opposite was true of their impressions of Hillary Clinton. Her backers and even most of her critics kept offering the same word to describe her most positive attribute: "strong". I believe that idea was underlined by the attacking strategy she's employed against Obama; Clinton has given voters the impression, whether they like her or hate her, that she has backbone.
The people I spoke to used other adjectives to describe Obama's positive qualities: "calm", "determined", "moderate", "intelligent". None of that was very surprising, except nobody offered "strong" or any synonym. One dyed-in-the-wool Democrat working at a feed store told me that Clinton had "pushed around" Obama at the Philadelphia debate. Several other Democrats expressed similar ideas about Clinton's "toughness" and her refusal to let others push her around, while expressing various degrees of skepticism whether Obama has what it takes.
In any case, by far the most common negative attribute used to describe Obama is "inexperienced". It's rather an anodyne term that, whatever its descriptive value, never really attached in the past to other genuinely inexperienced candidates: not to George W. Bush in 2000 (though he was vastly less experienced than Obama in both national and international matters) nor to Bill Clinton in 1992, nor Reagan in 1980, nor... "Inexperience" has a purchase for now on Obama's public image at least in part, I'd say, because of public uncertainty about whether he has a forceful personality (something that those other outsider/change candidates clearly did project).
That is Obama's real Clinton-problem. In wanting to be seen to take the higher ground, in turning aside attacks (some of them quite outlandish) rather than responding in kind, Obama risks giving a certain part of the electorate the impression that he