Yesterday, Senator McCain came before you. He is a man who has served this nation honorably, and he correctly stated that one of the chief criteria for the American people in this election is going to be who can exercise the best judgment as Commander in Chief. But instead of just offering policy answers, he turned to a typical laundry list of political attacks. He said that I have changed my position on Iraq when I have not. He said that I am for a path of “retreat and failure.” And he declared, “Behind all of these claims and positions by Senator Obama lies the ambition to be president” - suggesting, as he has so many times, that I put personal ambition before my country.

That is John McCain’s prerogative. He can run that kind of campaign, and - frankly - that’s how political campaigns have been run in recent years. But I believe the American people are better than that. I believe that this defining momenttan, demands something more of us.

Now, anyone who remembers reading Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in the 10th grade will recognize the “honorable man” remarks for what they are. Damning with faint praise. (more…)

Q. WHAT’S THE MOST SIGNIFICANT — LET ME ASK IT THIS WAY: WHAT’S THE MOST GUT WRENCHING DECISION YOU’VE EVER HAD TO MAKE AND HOW DID YOU PROCESS THAT, COME TO THAT DECISION?

A. WELL, YOU KNOW, I THINK THE OPPOSITION TO THE WAR IN IRAQ WAS AS TOUGH A DECISION THAT I’VE HAD TO MAKE NOT ONLY BECAUSE THERE WERE POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES BUT ALSO BECAUSE SADDAM HUSSEIN WAS A BAD PERSON AND THERE WAS NO DOUBT THAT HE MET AMERICA ILL.

BUT I WAS FIRMLY CONVINCED AT THE TIME THAT WE DID NOT HAVE STRONG EVIDENCE OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION AND THERE WERE A LOT OF QUESTIONS THAT AS I SPOKE TO EXPERTS KEPT ON COMING UP, DO WE KNOW HOW THE SHIITES AND THE SUNNIS AND THE KURDS ARE GOING TO GET ALONG IN A POST SADDAM SITUATION, WHAT’S OUR ASSESSMENT AS TO HOW THIS WILL AFFECT THE BATTLE AGAINST TERRORIST LIKE AL-QAEDA, HAVE WE FINISHED THE JOB IN AFGHANISTAN?

SO I AGONIZED OVER THAT AND I THINK QUESTION OF WAR AND PEACE GENERALLY ARE SO PROFOUND YOU KNOW WHEN YOU MEET THE TROOPS, THEY ARE 19, 20, 21-YEAR OLD KIDS AND YOU ARE PUTTING THEM INTO HARM’S WAY THERE IS A SOLEMN OBLIGATION THAT YOU DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN TO GET THAT DECISION RIGHT.

AND NOW AS THE WAR WENT FORWARD, VERY DIFFICULT ABOUT HOW LONG DO YOU KEEP FUNDING THE WAR IF YOU STRONGLY BELIEVE THAT IT’S NOT AMERICA’S NATIONAL INTEREST AT THE SAME TIME YOU DON’T WANT TO HAVE TROOPS WHO ARE OUT THERE WITHOUT THE EQUIPMENT THEY NEED. SO THAT ALL THOSE QUESTIONS SURROUNDING THE WAR HAVE BEEN VERY DIFFICULT FOR ME.

Say WHAT, OBush?? YOU did not have to make ANY decisions on the War in Iraq! YOU were not in the SENATE yet!! How in the WORLD does this guy get away with these blatant lies and mind-boggling (delusional) revisionist history??

Wait - here’s another goody. Oh, dear goddess, McCain is going to have a FIELD day with this statement come August 28th. I’ll show you why after the question and answer: (more…)

Mr. Hedges emphasizes a critical component I mentioned in a previous piece, but from the perspective of a world-class journalist. He writes: (more…)

The part time occupation of the part time Jews in the major media outlets for the last week or so has been to tackle Obama’s Jewish problem head on, in the same way that major corporations tackle the public revelation their product is fatally toxic to babies– by shaking their heads, smiling weakly and assuring us that it’s all in our heads.

If we’re to believe the New York Times, the Washington Post and the rest of the good people at Media Central, the whole Jewish problem with Obama is the result of some provocative emails sent out by Karl Rove in his spare time that unfairly paint Obama as a Muslim to some gullible senior citizens.

“There, there,” the media assures these elders, “Obama isn’t a Muslim. He’s the Messiah come to lead us to the promised land of big government, Cuban quality health care and environmental taxes on every ounce of bread we eat.” And on the way there he may stop by the Middle East to lead Hamas to Jerusalem.

“Hasn’t Obama said that he’s Pro-Israel,” the columnists bewails, “how many times does he need to say it.” They don’t stay to hear the reply that he doesn’t need to say it, he needs to be it. For a skeptical profession they seem oddly offended that anyone is taking a politician’s statements in an election year with a grain of salt. “Listen to the man,” they say, “pay no attention to the Zbigniew Brzezinski, George Soros, Tony Lake, Samantha Power and Robert O. Malley behind the curtain.” (more…)

Upon being discharged from the Navy, John F. Kennedy worked briefly for the Hearst newspapers covering the newly formed United Nations. He wrote to a friend from San Francisco:

When I think of all those gallant acts that I have seen…it would be a very easy thing to feel disappointed…You have seen battlefields where sacrifice was the order of the day and to compare that sacrifice to the timidity and selfishness of the nations gathered at San Francisco must inevitably be disillusioning.

As a young man, Kennedy understood the realities of realpolitik, the idea that nations work primarily for their own self-interests. To use the parlance of today, Obama’s notion of meeting with your enemies without preconditions is so breathtakingly naive and dangerous that it raises serious concerns about his judgment.

In the May 22nd, op-ed piece from the NYT:

In his inaugural address, President John F. Kennedy expressed in two eloquent sentences, often invoked by Barack Obama, a policy that turned out to be one of his presidency’s — indeed one of the cold war’s — most consequential: “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.

On the same day but in a different article, the Times points out that Obama is currently traveling through Florida, where he knows he has problems, and the people interviewed for their piece told the Times:

…they had reservations about Mr. Obama’s stated willingness to negotiate with Iran — whose nuclear ambitions and Holocaust-denying president trigger even starker fears among Jews than intifada uprisings and suicide bombings.

(more…)

For Al Qaeda, the answer – and the implication – is clear.

By Shireen K. Burki
from the May 19, 2008 edition of The Christian Science Monitor

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0519/p09s02-coop.html 

Stafford, Va. - Osama bin Laden must be chuckling in his safe house. After all, the 2008 campaign could very well give Al Qaeda the ultimate propaganda tool: President Barack Hussein Obama, Muslim apostate.

I'm not a religious person and I could care less if Obama is an atheist but I wondered what this Apostate thing is.   Sometimes understanding the words helps one to understand the meaning of an Op-Ed.

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But as Susan notes below, the Republicans are not waiting for the convention to start hanging the albatross of Jeremiah “Goddamn the KKK of Amerikka” Wright around the neck of anyone who supports Obama.  This is guilt by association and standard politics.  

Obama sitting in church with Wright for 20 years and calling him Uncle is not guilt by association.  He is guilty because of close association.Little comfort to other Dems running for office who tie themselves to Barack’s coattails. They will find Barack’s name to be useful currency only if it is in predominantly African American districts or wealthy enclaves where said black folks normally aren’t welcome to hang around.  Otherwise, said politician will be toast.

It is only a matter of time before Obama’s ties to questionable characters like Ayers, Rezko, and Wright will become a staple for Jay Leno and David Letterman.

For example, there is a joke circulating among Hillary supporters.  It is in poor taste and juvenile and therefore, in my view, very funny: (more…)

I was at my desk in Washington, D.C. the morning of 9/11 — watched the Pentagon burn from the rooftop of our building — labored over whether hubby and I should pack up the car and get us and our infant daughter out of the city.  I also watched as our city turned into a ghost town at night for the next 7 or 8 months, got used to the sound of F-16s criss-crossing our skies at regular intervals, and listened as the news readers explained how to tape up a safe room and put together grab and go bags.

My friends who worked in the Pentagon were lucky that day — they worked in another corner of the building.  But I’ll never forget the pregnant wife of a guy named Eddie who sat vigil on a hillside near the smoldering corner that did get hit.  She refused to leave until he was found (hopefully alive) and the news talked with her one evening.  My heart ached for her and her 3 kids.  Thousands of families went through what she endured and the Jersey Girls made news when they fought for an honest investigation into what happened that day.

Kristen Breitweiser is one of those women.  She and her friends used their loss and grief — channeled into a force for the truth and spent more time here in DC than many members of Congress.  They earned the respect of a lot of us and when one of them has something to say — I listen.

Well Ms. Breitweiser posted something in the Huffington Post today that caught my attention.  She was surprised to hear that Obama and Rice have something in common.  Neither thinks anyone could have predicted what happened on 9/11.  Take a look…

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I know that many who once supported Senator Obama are in complete shock over the revelations of his 20 year intimate association with a bigot and a racist. It doesn’t fit into the mold of who we think Barack Obama is. His pastor surely doesn’t preach the “message” of hope that Obama is associated with. In fact his pastor preaches what one could only define as hate. But just why is it that we so strongly believe that Senator Obama has a message of hope and a new kind of politics? In the preface of his book The Audacity of Hope which he patterned after a sermon of his spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright, Obama gives us a glimmer of an answer.

Audacity of Hype

“I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views. As such, I am bound to disappoint some, if not all, of them.”

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