By the way, while the Obama supporters are no doubt saying, “See? He’s great offering this to HER,” they miss the point. His word cannot be taken at face value. That is, he’s a LIAR. His attacks on Hillary fueled a misogynistic rage in the US the likes of which I have never seen in my fifty years on this planet. Meanwhile, his smearing of her was joined in GLEEFULLY by his supporters, who bought every lie and smear against her he threw out there - are they not seeing the conundrum this presents for THEM?? How can they hate her so much and keep demeaning and belittling her if The One makes her the Secretary of State? Uh, yeah.

If he does offer it to her, I hope she says no. Hell no. Hell TO the no. Not that I don’t think she would be BRILLIANT at it, of course she would. She has the experience, the ability, and the personality to be an outstanding Secretary of State, and if this was John McCain asking her, I’d say she should go for it. The difference? McCain RESPECTS her, and has always TREATED her with respect. He would value her input, and would trust her to do the heavy lifting without micromanaging.

Obama, on the other hand, has not shown her the respect she deserves, and since all cabinet members serve at the pleasure of the president, there is absolutely NOTHING to guarantee that he wouldn’t fire her at the least provocation. So, there’s that little piece. How do I say this? He doesn’t deserve to have her in his cabinet after the way he and the ONC stole the nomination from her and US in the first place. Makes me nuts.

And then there is this. I had just been wondering the other day what in the world Obama was going to do now that he can’t borrow off the smart kid’s work any longer like he did all during the Primary and the Election seasons. I mean, really, what was he going to do for policies once he slithers his way into the White House? Lo and behold, SOMEHOW the news leaks out he is considering Hillary Clinton for the Secretary of State. Call me cynical, but I don’t think it’s because of his great care and concern for the country. I think it is to use her to create his work for him (again), have someone to blame if things don’t go well, and take the credit for things that go well. But that’s just my opinion…

Senator Clinton can do great work in the Senate, assuming she can get past The Old Boys Club, who seemed determined to mess with her. She is a leader, though, and her constituents are counting on her. WE’RE counting on her. Senator Clinton will do what she thinks is best for her, and the country. At least THIS time, we won’t have to go through 18 months of her being dragged through the mud to to find out how this will be resolved. Either way, though it might be a hard pill to swallow…

The image above was posted on Post Secret on November 8, 2008. I have no doubt that the dominate narrative of this campaign — the forceful suppression of women — is responsible for the author’s “secret.” In the Obama-realm, feminism isn’t just bad, it’ll ruin your life. One only need to look to Hillary and Sarah Palin as examples.

Dr. Violet Socks writes:

A few days ago I was asking you all to think about why there is still so much deeply-felt resistance to women’s equality. This is the lesson of radical feminism: that the gender revolution requires just that — a revolution.

Why does there need to be a revolution for equality? Because this year misogyny was used a political tool. As many of us witnessed, this election was so poisoned with hate speech against women that it’s not an exaggeration to say that the FBI would have been investigating the perpetrators if it had been against any other oppressed group.

Let’s be clear: Hillary Clinton was the choice of most Democrats this year. The Democratic establishment, consisting of Donna Brazile, Howard Dean, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and many others, worked furiously to keep Hillary Clinton from receiving the Democratic nomination. Their left-wing allies and the media worked to sabotage her campaign at every turn.

It’s not entirely clear why there was such intense animous towards Hillary by such a large and diverse group. We do know, however, that the most vile tactics were used to suppress Hillary’s campaign; caucus fraud, race-baiting, and outright misogyny comes to mind. As examples, the Obama campaign initiated a not-so-secret whisper campaign that President Clinton was a racist when Clinton called Obama’s Iraq War position a “fairy tale,” Hillary was accused of waiting for the unthinkable to happen to Obama when she mentioned the length of the 1968 campaign and Bobby Kennedy and, from January on, there was a constant drumbeat that she must leave the race.

Running below the murky currents of this campaign, however, was a sexism so deep and so pervasive that it can be said that sexism defined this campaign. Indeed, I believe the subtext and central narrative of Obama’s campaign was sexism. Because two women were the biggest political threat to his campaign, Obama needed to unleash sexism.

Dr. Socks continues:

Narratives: think about narratives. Anthropologists of gender, like Peggy Reeves Sandy, talk about “scripts”: the stories that a society tells itself to explain the world. How men are. How women are. How they should be.

The Obama campaign, with the help of the media and “progressives” blogs, pushed a narrative against Hillary and later Sarah Palin, that invalidated them as public servants because on their gender. Misogyny, wrapped in the protective shell of race-baiting, was the central narrative of the Obama campaign.

I subscribe to the bumper sticker view that “feminism is the radical notion that women are people.” My wife and I are expecting a girl in January. I want this girl to live the full and free life our son enjoys, without gender being an obstacle in her path. I don’t want my daughter to be called a “bitch,” or for someone to wear a t-shirt calling her a “cunt.” Put in those terms, the Obama movement unleashed something very ugly into the culture. The Obama campaign, in its subterranean narrative, encouraged the hatred of women. It is little wonder then that the author of the Post Secret card blames feminism for her unhappiness; she’s witnessed that women who expect equal treatment will be beat down.

A lot has been written about this, I know, but after getting TWO crappy articles from my sister with blatantly FALSE attacks on Governor Palin, I feel compelled to say more about this. And no, I’m not referencing the assholic articles she sent, but at least one came from a source I turned her on to a while ago: Alternet.

When their articles started attacking Senator Clinton non-stop, I quit my subscription to them. Judging from the articles my sister insists upon sending me, they have gone WAY over to the Rabid Voldemort side, with lots and lots of women-bashing to make their point. I am sure you can find it easily enough, if you really want your blood pressure to rise that much.

I’m sick of it. And sick of the blind acceptance of all attacks on Palin (or Clinton, for that matter), especially of the misogynistic variety. Heck, that seems to be most of them.

The kicker on all of this is my sister attacking ME for not supporting Obama when I was a founding member of my city’s first NOW chapter. I am not kidding. Not that SHE ever marched for Equal Rights, like I did, or helped women through Operation Rescue lines, but since I would not give my allegiance to Voldemort, all of a sudden, I am no longer a feminist. Because feminists can only support LIBERAL women, which I did not know until just a few months ago. Gee, was I ever living in a fantasy world before!!

Anywho, I am sick of all of the blatant lies smearing Gov.Palin after the election. So is one of her oldest friends:

Governor Palin has been slimed by the Obamabots up one side and down the other, with tremendous assistance from the MSM and those “anonymous source” (read: COWARDS) who are are full of more manure than my horse. A good-hearted No Quarter reader, Geo, provided this LINK to send the governor a letter of support after the election. So, here’s mine:

Dear Governor Palin:

As a former “yellow dog” Democrat (5/31 when the DNC took lawfully cast votes from Clinton and gave them to Obama was the last straw), I want to thank you for your participation in this process. Your presence on the trail with John McCain was invigorating. Even though I disagree with some of your policies, I respect your right to have them, and your willingness to engage in discussion on them. As someone who fought for the ERA, who engaged in (lawful) protests for women’s rights, I was marching for ALL women, not just liberal women who think exactly like I do. I am proud of what you have accomplished in your life. You are a role model to our young women.

I have to say, though, to see the continuation of the misogynistic treatment Senator Clinton received turned on you was horrifying. It made it quite clear that it was not your POLICIES to which people objected, but your GENDER. This year was a real eye-opener to me, and what I saw was shocking. To have your MANY accomplishments demeaned and belittled, even though YOU are more qualified than the president-elect, says a lot about where this country is in terms of women. Even more shocking was the way women were all too happy to jump on that bandwagon, mocking what you have done with your life, or not, focusing on rumors the MSM was awfully quick to get out there without any investigation, and mighty slow to correct, if they ever did, rather than what you have done for your state. A sad state of affairs, I have to say…

And to now try and blame YOU for John McCain’s loss rather than the registered Republicans who did not turn out, or look more closely at the RAMPANT voter fraud in states across this land, is outrageous. You were a breath of fresh air after Senator Clinton was drummed out by the DNC elite, who cared not for the will of the people. You brought some hope to those of us who lost our party this year when they ceased to be democratic. You inspired us, and for that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

All the best to you, Governor Palin, as you continue serving your state, and wherever else your life takes you. Hopefully, we will see more of you on the National Stage! All the best to your lovely family as well.

Sincerely,
The Rev. Amy

If you are so inclined, and sick of the way Voldemort and crew treated this woman, as well as the MSM, send her a shout out. Like me, you don’t have to agree with her policies to respect the person and her accomplishments. Sadly, that kind of respect has been sorely lacking in this campaign of sexism and race-baiting, but it isn’t to late to let her know that you are better than that.

Can I just say how sad I am at the state of women in this country in the 21st century? When I was younger, and apparently, more naive, I thought we would be so much farther along at this point. I never dreamed we would have it worse than we did back then. Un-freakin-believable.

Thanks, Voldemort, for exposing the reality of sexism, misogyny, and internalized misogyny. We couldn’t have done it without you, or is it BECAUSE of you? Yeah, I think it’s the latter, too.

And how about those race relations? Bang up job on those, too. What a healer. What a Uniter. What a flim-flam artist. What gullible people we have in this country. What a long, long way we have to go…

Lines were long and tempers flared Wednesday not to vote but to get paid for canvassing for Barack Obama. Several hundred people are still waiting to get their pay for last-minute campaigning. Police were called to the Obama campaign office on North Meridian Street downtown (Indianapolis) to control the crowd.

The line was long and the crowd was angry at times.

“I want my money today! It’s my money. I want it right now!” yelled one former campaign worker.

A former spokesman for the Obama campaign said 375 people were hired as part of the Vote Corps program and said people signed up to work three-hour shifts at a time. Three hours of canvassing got workers a $30 pre-paid Visa card.

The workers showed up to get their cards Wednesday morning at 10:00 am.

“There was a note on the door saying 1:00 pm and then at 1:20 pm everybody was like why is nobody here. They just got here and they’re trying to get it organized,” said Heather Richards, a former campaign worker.

Well, golly gee willikers - what a surprise! People are having a hard time getting Obama to fulfill his obligations! You’d think with the gazillion dollars from illegal contributions he received, he would have plenty of green to spread among his people, maybe even some bonuses for jobs well done for the 375 workers who came to get paid. If you thought that, you’d be wrong!

Eventually people did start getting paid, but some said they were missing hours and told to fill in paperwork making their claim and that eventually they would get a check in the mail.

“Still that’s not right. I’m disappointed. I’m glad for the president, but I’m disappointed in this system,” said Diane Jefferson, temporary campaign worker.

“It should have been $480. It’s $230,” said Imani Sankofa.

“They gave us $10 an hour. So we added it. I added up all the hours so it was supposed to be at least $120. All I get is $90,” said Charles Martin.

“I worked nine hours a day for 4 days and got paid half of what I should have earned,” said Randall Waldon.

Some people weren’t satisfied with filling out a claim form for money they felt was still due to them.

“They say that they gonna call you or they going to mail it to you, but I don’t know. We’ll see what happens,” said Antron Grose.

“Talking about they’ll mail it to us. I ain’t worried about that, man. They’re not going to mail nothin’,” said Martin.

Seems Johnny Mac was right about the Redistributor in Chief - he wants to redistribute YOUR funds, not his! So, you just keep sitting by that mailbox and phone - I am SURE they will be rushing to get you the money for which you worked. Ahem. (And given this, I wonder how well the Obama camp is going to do issuing those 1099s in January?)

And if I was the woman in this video below (from No Quarter Election Thread), I sure wouldn’t be holding my breath:

If Obama is having, um, difficulties actually paying his employees wages earned, I’m not sure why this woman thinks Obama is going to do ANYTHING for her, much less pay her mortgage and her gas. Wow - it is just hard to fathom the gullibility of some people…

And in more news in the “Welcome To The Real World” round-up, the passing of Proposition 8 in CA and Amendment 2 in FL were a rude awakening to many. Here’s the thing - while all those Hollywood types (talking to YOU, Ellen) were singing Obama’s praises, they, like so many others, ignored that the bottom line of his pandering message was that HE IS AGAINST SAME SEX MARRIAGE. He has said that time and time again including in his wishy-washy message that he doesn’t think Prop 8 should pass in CA, but that he is against same sex marriage all the same. So, guess what? It passed, because a lot of his constituents, especially African Americans and the evangelicals he courted, are against same sex marriage. Had any of those mindless people BOTHERED to actually look at his “words, just words,” they would have known that.

But no, Cher, and Ben Affleck, and Matt Damon, and Wanda Sykes, and all of those people wanted to go with the cool guy, so they, along with the REST of Democrats, turned a deaf ear and blind eye to the shenanigans Obama was using in caucus states and that the DNC used to take votes away from Hillary, both in FL and MI, as well as the COnvention. I don’t think the constituents SHE courted would have voted FOR Proposition 8. Oh well - the GLBT community, and women, have all been thrown under the bus for the ascension of THE ONE. Hope you’re happy now because you helped to make it happen!

Oh, wait - those people in CA aren’t. But all those folks protesting there can just get over themselves - they have no one but themselves to blame for the passage of Proposition 8. Had any of the big wigs there stood up and cried foul over the RBC’s decision, or DEMANDED a fair, DEMOCRATIC Convention, I doubt Prop 8 would have passed. So, tough, all you Hollywood folks who oohed and ahed over The One in Denver and had no qualms with the DNP violating its own rules - you did it to yourselves. Hate it for ya, Ellen (and Portia),and the other 18,000 people affected by this, but hey - maybe you shouldn’t have been pushing Obama so much during your show. And maybe all you people should have actually done your freakin’ homework on what was happening in the election.

While I am at it, over 62% of Floridians voted FOR Amendment 2 voted FOR Amendment 2, to Constitutionalize discrimination in their state. In other words, a whole bunch of Democrats voted for that, too. Thanks so much, all you wonderful folks - in both states. What a healing uniter Obama is, isn’t he?? Hey, that’s what they keep claiming, so it HAS to be true - just not for women in general and GLBT people in particular. Whatever.

Anyway, who cares about social justice for GLBT and women now that we have the first biracial president-elect? Who cares about ACORN using TAXPAYING DOLLARS to commit massive amounts of voter fraud, and how they will surely get even more money from and ALL Democratic government (I mean, really - if they were already getting millions of dollars before, as well as new-mortgage kickbacks, and Chris Dodd wanting to give them BILLIONS of dollars from the bailout repayment, who the hell is going to stop them NOW?)? Who cares that their GOTV arms committed voter fraud for Obama and that his followers voted more than once? What’s the big deal, anyway?

Sadly, that is the real world we have now, where caucus fraud will be institutionalized, voter fraud will continue to be tolerated, even excused by people who should know better (that is, the people who, thanks to all of the “poor little ACORN” posts by the NY Times, think ACORN is being beset upon by Republicans and they aren’t doing anything wrong - even when Democrats admit they are. Bob Herbert is especially guilty of this tactic. Apparently, these readers have missed his *subtle* Obama bias…), and electronic voting machines will continue to flip ballots. That is our world today, because really - who is going to stand up against caucus fraud now? Not the Democrats, who KNEW it was occurring but said nothing, or the MSM, which ignored Clinton’s attempts to inform them about documented fraud. Who’s going to stand up against voter fraud? Not Democrats - that would cast aspersions on THE ONE. Who will stand up for us?

And who will stand up for women? Not the Democrats, that’s for sure. They made a sport of misogyny this election, and haven’t let up yet on Governor Palin, either. They not only stood by while Obama laid claim to Clinton’s ideas, but were in a wicked big hurry to shove her out of the race (once she created those policies, of course, because what would Obama have done if he had to create them on his own??). Oh, and they didn’t just shove her out, they treated her with contempt, as if she had no right to come to the party. They treated her in a way they have never treated ANY man, even one as inexperienced and unqualified as, well, Obama. No, they not only stood by, they engaged in, and encouraged, the misogyny we experienced this year (did anyone EVER hear Obama speak out against hanging Sarah Palin in effigy in West Hollywood? No. Ever hear him speak out against the misogyny directed at Clinton? No. No, he engaged in it, not fought against it.). I bet Obama wishes he had stolen Clinton’s economic proposal now that the Dow tanked the worst after his election of any time in history precisely because they DON’T know where he stands. That can’t be a good omen for things to come, and rubs a bit of the shine off of his “win.” I reckon he shouldn’t have been so dismissive when John McCain claimed her plan (and actually gave her credit, something Obama has NEVER done). Oh, well!

It’s going to be some four years here in the real world, with more rude awakenings, more expectations dashed, and more dreams broken. Heck, Obama’s workers are already experiencing that, as well as his anti-war supporters with the choice of Emmanuel as his Chief of Staff. Well, time to wake up, people, to what the rest of us have always known - Obama is a con man, and you fell for it. Don’t waste your time waiting by the phone or the mail-box for your wages, or hope of mortgages and gas paid (!!!). It ain’t gonna happen - but we could have told you that…Oh, wait - we did tell you that, and you didn’t believe us. How about now?? It hasn’t even been two days since the election, and look at the shine fade…

Throughout this campaign season, any attempts to discern the “content of (Obama’s) character” have been thwarted by the Propaganda Machine, formerly known as the Fourth Estate, his handlers, the DNC, and his followers who claim, irrationally, I might add, the “Obama will heal us!” as Cher did on The Ellen Degeneres Show Nov. 3rd, as if he truly IS the Obamessiah, ignoring the tremendous splitting of the country, of the Democratic Party itself.

For the first time in memory, a candidate was NOT “known by the company he keeps,” “the birds of a feather which flocked together.” Rather, any mention of Bill Ayers was met, even by university professors with the illogical justification that Obama was only 8 when Bill Ayers and his compatriot, Bernadine Dorhn, were bombing the US Capitol, Pentagon, and other US buildings.

That may be so, but the ideology which drove Ayers and Dorhn is the ideology to which they still adhere. Obama has chosen to have them in his life, to live near them, work with them, and seek them out, as we recently learned for sure (as many of us suspected, and confirmed in this article by Steve Diamond at No Quarter, “Ayers and Obama In Regular Contact Says Source Close to Obama Candidacy“).

The list of his close associates in addition to Ayers and Dorhn are troubling: Rezko, Wright, Khalidi, Kilpatrick, Farakkhan, Blogajevich, et al, a list that contains convicted felons and one under investigation. I have said before, and will say again, any ONE of these people would have sunk any other candidacy, yet in the case of Obama, they were brushed aside as irrelevant. As was the glaring reality that Obama took the majority of his policy positions, often lock, stock, and barrel, from Hillary Clinton. But the Propaganda arm flipped it around, and his minions, again, many university professors, brushed aside his plagiarism as inconsequential. What a great lesson they are teaching their students, and their children.

Along those lines, I am in disbelief that adults, people who would not hire Obama at their own universities or businesses with his refusal to provide ANY documentation of his academic life, or allow friends, families, or fellow students to discuss him to ANYONE trying to get information on this first term senator running for the highest office in the land, would gladly give this man their votes.

I despair that adults, and their children, believe that the means justify the ends, that hundreds of thousands of fraudulent voter registrations, over 200,000 in Ohio, and 212,000 discovered in Georgia, in which voters were registered in GA, as well as OH or FL, are dismissed because as one neighbor, a retired university professor said, “ACORN does great work.” The level of voter registration fraud was through the ceiling, as the 16 investigations into ACORN indicate, yet the Propagandists say NOTHING about this as Obama “wins” contests in states where voter registration fraud was rampant. Even duplicate voting is brushed aside, as this video demonstrates (and h/t to a listener of Truthteller’s Election Night Radio Show mentioned):

Um, no - it is NOT okay for anyone to vote more than once in an election. It is FRAUD, and it is ILLEGAL!! But we already know there were instances of this in OH and FL. Heck, in VA, felons were allowed, no, RECRUITED, to vote for Obama, but absentee ballots to our military serving abroad went out late, sparking a lawsuit to make sure THEIR votes were counted. And on and on it goes.

As I said, I despair that adults are teaching our young people that you cheat, lie, and steal to get what you want. While you are at it, make sure you are a sore loser, hammering away at the vanquished in a juvenile, mean-spirited manner, never having learned the concept of gracious winning (especially when the “winning” is suspect). These are the same people who said NOTHING, or were SUPPORTIVE, of the Democratic Party forever smearing its very name by stealing votes from one candidate to give to another. The ends justify the means, and if that means we tarnish, tear down, belittle, smear, and steal from a candidate to win, so be it. Oh - and blame them for it, too, while we are at it as the NY Times did in an incredibly offensive editorial it had up last night celebrating Obama’s defeat of Clinton (I won’t link to it - go find it yourself if you want to read that dribble). We have now taught our young people that you can register as many times as you want, and vote as often as you want - just like on “American Idol”! - to make sure YOUR candidate wins. Fair and square is old school. Now it is win at all and any costs, and belittle your opponent while you are at it.

Then there are the issues of misogyny and race-baiting that sustained this campaign, with the willing participation of the Propaganda Arm, Obama, and the DNC. The treatment of women during this campaign was a low I have not seen in DECADES, yet many women were willing participants to this abuse, claiming even as Obama contradicted them, that he was going to be great for women. Ask Hillary. Ask Sarah. Ask those folks wearing, “Sarah Palin Is a C–t” t-shirts, or the organization that used the “C-word” as its acronym regarding Hillary. Women were treated as not just objects, but as sexual anatomy period, in a most vulgar and derogatory way. Still, since it was the DNC, too many women accepted this treatment from the very party of which they are the majority. How they can celebrate the future presidency of a man who treats women in such a hostile manner is beyond me. That goes for the GLBT community, too. But hey - they got their “Bro Before Ho,” so I know they are happy.

The race baiting that was used to tear down our only two term Democratic president in decades was horrendous to watch, especially as members serving in Congress, people whom President Clinton had helped personally, went out of their way to paint him with the stigma of being racist. Hillary, too. Two people who have worked TIRELESSLY to end discrimination in this people were called racists, and it stuck. Then anyone who would not, could not, imagine voting for the most inexperienced, unqualified candidate who was taking Chicago-style politics national, with his thugs attacking people around the country, were labeled, no, BRANDED racists if they did not support Obama. As women’s rights have been set back decades after this election season, so have been race relations. All in the service of getting this man elected because of the color of his skin, not the content of his character, which is still largely ignored or unexplored by the electorate and the Propagandists.

I do not think this is what Dr. King had in mind. I do not think this is what our founders had in mind, either. This election, with its win at all costs, even if it means cheating, lying, and stealing, is not democracy. It surely isn’t decent. And it is not the American Way. At the moment, I can’t see how this will change - how we will regain any semblance of justice, of knowing right from wrong, of being ethical, moral, good. Yes, we made history last night, but I ask you, at what cost to us, to our country? I weep for us today, at what we have become. I have to hope, and pray, that we will regain what we have lost, but for today, grief overwhelms me.

I have watched in horror and amazement as deeds, gaffes, falsehoods and gross errors in judgment that would have taken down any other politician just slide from Obama like Teflon, much like George Bush. Bush’s problem is not that he’s a Republican. It is that he is a petty, arrogant bully who thinks he is anointed by God, much like Barack Obama.

I believe Obama’s supporters are voting for a carefully crafted narrative; a symbol rather than a man. Symbols don’t govern. Men do. Women do. A symbol is nothing if there is no substance behind it. Here is my closing argument that he is “words, just words” and the substance of Barack Obama is as thin as tissue paper.

Campaign manager David Axelrod had to find a way to propel an affable but rather wishy-washy, under-achieving legislator from Illinois with only a couple of years in the Senate under his belt past a host of far more accomplished candidates. Therefore ‘experience’ became a dirty word.

With Senator Obama’s silvery speeches, his slick, evasive way around all direct questions and no policy decisions one could pin on him, he was able to move close to the front of the field. But he could not get past his biggest obstacle: the brilliant Joan of Arc in a pantsuit, Hillary Clinton. All eight guys sharing the debate stage piled on, including Obama, but still, she came out on top with her preparedness and smarts. So the narrative had to be amended. Not only is experience a dirty word, “Clinton” had to become a dirty word as well.

We were reminded of Republicans hunting Bill Clinton endlessly in the 90’s and told that we didn’t want to support political dynasties, i.e., Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton. Well, Hillary is Bill’s wife, so technically, she’s a Rodham. No dynasty there, but no matter. So first “experience” became a dirty word and “Clinton” became a dirty word, too.

After seven years of George Bush, Democrats, starved to retake the presidency, were sick and tired of partisan bickering and infighting. Whether people loved the Clintons or not, some were afraid that perhaps the Clinton name meant that the “hunt” would start all over again so they were willing to buy Axelrod’s first narrative in order to escape the second.

And then the third narrative was born: Barack Obama is post-racial, post-partisan and stands apart from inside-the-beltway politics. He will cut through the gristle and build consensus because he has no enemies and is not set in his ways like some old pol.

Axelrod then had to create a fourth narrative: Barack as rock star. He needed to draw the eye in order to bypass the Clintons’ rock star status within the Democratic Party and to distract the American public from the most important reason not to vote for him: he didn’t know what he was doing and had a paper-thin resume.

Hence we got the super-sized rallies, the soaring speeches, the ‘fainting,’ people screaming “I love you, Barack” from the throngs in the audience. We now know that many of his enormous rallies had freebie giveaways – rock concerts and the like. But that was a well kept secret, like the rest of this well-crafted stage farce. So the mystique of Obama was born.

The Democrats’ antipathy toward the Iraq war also helped to birth the fifth Obama narrative – Obama as the anti-war candidate, because of a speech he allegedly gave in the ultra liberal Hyde Park district of Illinois in 2002, at no political cost to himself. He was the man of “good judgment” for his war opposition. Not that he had the power to vote on any such a thing at the time. If he did, surely he would have found a way to do as he had always done in the State Senate when challenged by a politically risky vote: vote “present” as he did there 130 times.

But then, an all too compliant media started to get the collective tingle up their leg. Whether this was out of fear of being called racist if they didn’t ‘treat the black guy nicely’, or just their obsession with taking Hillary down or both, I don’t know. But they willfully decided not to do their jobs. He received no vetting whatsoever.

Still, Hillary Clinton had a formidable lead in the polls and was winning the majority of primaries before Super Tuesday (including Michigan and Florida), so he needed a new narrative to blunt her momentum and I’m sure everyone remembers what that was. It was born after Hillary’s unexpected win in New Hampshire and solidified with the South Carolina primary in January – ‘Bill Clinton is a racist and Hillary is insensitive to the plight of the African American community.’

When the campaign started, Obama was ‘bi-racial.’ That wasn’t working for him so well, so he became ‘African American.’ Another new narrative – is that number six? I am beginning to lose count.

Axelrod knew that Obama’s exotic background and dispassionate, professorial demeanor was not connecting well with the black community. Therefore, he had to drive a wedge between the Clintons and the AA community who were so fond of them. Professor Sean Wilentz published a brilliant article in the New Republic called “Race Man” detailing exactly how this was done. Again, the media played an important role here because they gave carte blanche to any nonsense that came out of Obama’s mouth, or that of his surrogates. This narrative of Hillary and her supporters as racist, low-information “Archie Bunkers” grew legs, although it had no basis in fact.

Even the clueless Senators John Kerry and the bloviating Joe Biden told us we had to vote for Obama because he is black. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it is just as racist to vote for someone based on the color of their skin as it is not to. So I guess narrative three (post-racial, post-partisan) was discarded.

Then, against the will of most of the mainstream media in March and April, word of Obama’s malignant associations started to bleed out: the now convicted criminal Tony Rezko, Reverend Wright, unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers and more. Another new narrative was born: the “I didn’t know” or the “it was boneheaded” narrative: a convenient way for Obama to avoid taking personal responsibility for any of his past actions or associations. Good judgment, you say?

Sometimes I think Senator Obama gets up in the morning, walks to the mirror, smiles at it and challenges himself to see how many dissembling statements he can make to the press without getting called on them. I think it must be a game to him, otherwise, how could he dare to be so cavalier with the truth before the American people.

I’m not going to detail his lies about these close associations, or his involvement with ACORN, nor am I going to detail his reneging on his important policy promises like FISA, NAFTA, Iraq, Israel, don’t ask don’t tell, women’s rights, gun control, Bush’s faith based initiatives and so on. All of these are egregious breaks in faith and trust not only with his supporters but with the entire party. Worse still were the press and DNC elite riding shotgun for him at every turn helping him to steal the Democratic nomination through caucus fraud, blocking re-votes and illegitimately being awarded delegates he did not actually earn. Let’s leave that aside for the moment, too.

To me, the worst break in faith was his reneging on public financing, for one very simple reason: his entire candidacy was built on the notion that the American people needed a new way of doing business in Washington. That lobbyists, special interest groups or billionaires cannot buy the Presidency.

So far, he has spent nearly a billion dollars trying to buy the Presidency.

Much of this money has come to him from questionable – and untraceable – donations on the internet. He just spent millions blanketing five networks with a thirty minute infomercial; this after spending six million for his faux-Greek column event at Invesco Field bullying all into submission at the Convention; this after his Barack-apolooza celebrity European Tour, trying to overwhelm the multitudes, foreign and domestic, into believing he is the President without him actually having done anything to earn the title.

He has said that he rejects lobbyists but the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac scandal have revealed that aside from his ardent supporter, Senator Chris Dodd, head of the Senate Banking Committee, Senator Obama has received more lobbying money from them than anyone. A new way of doing business?

Pollsters are cooking the numbers shamelessly in Obama’s favor. Until this last week, where we finally had the likes of CNN’s John King admitting to the ridiculously biased media coverage, it was a veritable love fest for Barack and a sandstorm for Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Had Obama kept his word to accept public financing, as John McCain did, and just campaigned on the issues, as McCain has worked to do – do you think Obama would still be in this contest at all?

These are his fighting tools: Experience is a dirty word. Clinton is a dirty word. I take lobbying money but I pretend I don’t and no one calls me on it. I change my tune daily on different networks and no one bothers to compare my false statements. I am not bi-racial, I am black. I insult the white grandmother who raised me by labeling her a “typical white person.” I insult people who don’t vote for me by calling them “bitter voters who cling to God and guns.” The Clintons and their supporters are racists. Everyone who says anything bad about me must be racist. If the press does not write glowing reports about me, I kick them off my plane, although they have paid good money to be there. “I didn’t know” (about Wright, Rezko, Ayers, Pfleger, my aunt living illegally and in squalor in Boston). Everything you find wrong with me or my campaign I either didn’t know about or it was ‘boneheaded.’

This is a new, cleaner way of doing business in Washington? What is cleaner about trying to overwhelm everyone else out of the race before the American people notice that your policies won’t hold water, and that you won’t hold any position long enough to stand against the changing wind. Obama promised hope and change. He, like George Bush, proclaimed himself a great ‘uniter,’ yet he has rapidly emerged as the most divisive figure in politics. How ironic that he, and the media, tried to paint Hillary as ‘divisive and polarizing’ when he and his supporters are responsible for more hateful vitriol than I have yet seen. Friends and couples are actually breaking up over supporting or not supporting this man.

His careless ‘let’s throw money at the problem’ attitude is horrid, particularly in such difficult economic times.

Obama and Biden deriding the “Joe the Plumbers” of this world belies not only their rhetoric but basic Democratic principles. Further it shows Obama to be an elitist, out of touch with the needs and concerns of average Americans. He postulates on “spreading the wealth around” from the safety of his Chicago mansion, and says it is “selfish” not to do so, while he and his wife, millionaires, give relatively little to charity, and his ‘favorite aunt’ in allowed to contribute $260 to his campaign yet lives illegally and in squalor in Boston. Oh, he “didn’t know.”

More do as I say, not as I do. That is the most damning and devastating part of his candidacy. It was always built on a lie built upon yet another bunch of lies.

How can anyone run on their “good judgment,” yet say “I didn’t know” to breaking revelations at every turn and be given a pass? How can we trust such a man ‘to know’ enough to take care of us when he doesn’t know enough to take care of himself or his own? Or willfully turns a blind eye to crooked and divisive behavior?

A grossly inexperienced, under-qualified man is poised to take the most difficult job in the world at one of the most challenging times in our recent history. And the entire narrative the svengali Axelrod and the media have crafted for him is built on nothing but smoke and mirrors. Hope and change indeed.

Contrary to his image, he is nothing more than an old style politician, an opportunist borne of the Chicago Daley machine, a man who has worked to buy the presidency and changes his policy positions as one would change their socks. After the Joe the Plumber debacle, the myth of Mr. Hope and Change has been debunked. What was initially appealing about his candidacy no longer exists. What is left?

I can find no good reason to vote for him.

I certainly hope the American people will come to the same conclusion this Tuesday.

“When you’re watching this gauzy, feel-good commercial, just remember that it was paid for with broken promises. Senator Obama signed a piece of paper committing to public financing of his campaign.

Twice he looked the American people in the eye and said he would sit down with me before he abandoned public financing.

He didn’t mean a word of it.

When it was in his interest to break his promise, he tossed it aside like it didn’t mean a thing.

He is the first candidate since Watergate to abandon the public financing system, and his campaign is now being flooded with hundreds of millions of dollars in undisclosed and questionable donations.”

This smacks of a man trying to buy the Presidency. Obama’s campaign has spent one billion dollars.

Are his supporters really foolish enough to believe that this outrageous amount of money came from small donations over the internet? Apparently so.

Someone named ‘Marie’ on the Nielsen website wrote the following:

“Obama’s money comes from small contributions donated mainly through the internet by regular people who choose to donate. If he chooses to spend it on an infomercial then he’s spending it on behalf of his supporters. It has therefore nothing to do with a corrupt government or ‘buying the election’.”

I almost fell off my chair at the naïveté and ignorance of this statement.

Barack Obama has received more Wall Street money than any other candidate. He has received more Fannie/Freddie lobbying money than anyone in the Senate, save Senator Chris Dodd (D), Chair of the Senate Banking Committee. To use one of Senator Obama’s favorite phrases, ‘the notion that’ his base, without the help of a bunch of millionaires or billionaires, would have the kind of money required, and would be so inclined to donate a billion dollars on their own in this horrible economy, is preposterous.

Even Matthew Mosk of the Washington Post reported yesterday that Obama [Is] Accepting Untraceable Donations:

Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is allowing donors to use largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a contributor’s identity, campaign officials confirmed.

Faced with a huge influx of donations over the Internet, the campaign has also chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its accounts, aides acknowledged. Instead, the campaign is scrutinizing its books for improper donations after the money has been deposited.

But at the rate he is spending it, he could not afford to scrutinize these donations – surely he cannot afford to return any of that money. It is long gone.

The Obama organization said its extensive review has ensured that the campaign has refunded any improper contributions, and noted that Federal Election Commission rules do not require front-end screening of donations.

They have refunded the donations? How would we know? How would the FEC know? Perhaps he has returned a few, but read on and see that it is highly doubtful that this problem has been solved. Government agencies seem reluctant to question him about much of anything.

In recent weeks, questionable contributions have created headaches for Obama’s accounting team as it has tried to explain why campaign finance filings have included itemized donations from individuals using fake names, such as Es Esh or Doodad Pro. Those revelations prompted conservative bloggers to further test Obama’s finance vetting by giving money using the kind of prepaid cards that can be bought at a drugstore and cannot be traced to a donor.

The problem with such cards, campaign finance lawyers said, is that they make it impossible to tell whether foreign nationals, donors who have exceeded the limits, government contractors or others who are barred from giving to a federal campaign are making contributions.
…
The Obama campaign has shattered presidential fundraising records, in part by capitalizing on the ease of online giving. Of the $150 million the senator from Illinois raised in September, nearly $100 million came in over the Internet.

Consider:

…[T]he case of Mary T. Biskup, a retired insurance manager from Manchester, Mo., who turned up on Obama’s FEC reports as having donated $174,800 to the campaign. Contributors are limited to giving $2,300 for the general election.

Biskup, who had scores of Obama contributions attributed to her, said in an interview that she never donated to the candidate. “That’s an error,” she said. Moreover, she added, her credit card was never billed for the donations, meaning someone appropriated her name and made the contributions with another card.

There is nothing in this story stating whether that $174,800 was refunded to the phony donors and rejected. This is horrifying. And here is the Obama campaign’s cavalier response:

When asked whether the campaign takes steps to verify whether a donor’s name matches the name on the credit card used to make a payment, Obama’s campaign replied in an e-mail: “Name-matching is not a standard check conducted or made available in the credit card processing industry. We believe Visa and MasterCard do not even have the ability to do this.

Surely, you must be joking. Uppity Woman posted an excellent story, My Contributions to the Obama Campaign Under Fictitious Names Sunday night, complete with screenshots of Obama’s donation page.

It was possible for her to make donations under the names Bill Ayers, Osama bin Laden, John Galt and Saddam Hussein under the same credit card – and the charges went through. Attempts to do the same on both Hillary Clinton’s and John McCain’s donation pages were rejected.

R. Rebecca Donatelli, who handles online contributions for the McCain operation and the RNC, said security measures have been standard in the GOP nominee’s fundraising efforts throughout the campaign. She said she was “flabbergasted” to learn that the Obama campaign accepts prepaid cards.
…
“They have opened the floodgates to all this money coming in,” said Sean Cairncross, chief counsel to the Republican National Committee. “I think they’ve made the determination that whatever money they have to refund on the back end doesn’t outweigh the benefit of taking all this money upfront.”

How can anyone determine the source of these donations – and since he has all but spent it all, with outrageous ad buys like the one last night, how is he ever going to give it back if these donations were found to be fraudulent?

Answer – he’s not.

No one would begrudge anyone their fundraising prowess, but something does not pass the smell test. He has outspent John McCain six to one and yet this is very much a tied horse race, no matter how much the cooked polls pretend otherwise.

Does anyone really think that if Obama had kept his word and accepted public financing, subjecting his campaign to a level playing field, he would still be in this race? Makes one wonder. Obviously, Senator Obama and his campaign manager, David Axelrod, must not have had much confidence in his chances either – otherwise he would not have gone back on his word in order to super-size his way into the Presidency.

Let us hope the voters are not fooled.

Since I started writing speeches more than ten years ago, I have always believed in the Democratic Party. Not anymore. Not after the election of 2008. This transformation has been swift and complete and since I’m a woman writing in the election of 2008, “very emotional.”

Not only has this party belittled working people in this campaign, it has also been part of tearing down two female candidates.

Wendy goes on to explain how she was first inspired by Edwards but not getting a job with his campaign, came to work for Obama:

I helped with his announcement speech and others. I worked in the Senate when he was in D.C. One day after a hearing on Darfur, we were walking back to the office. I was still hobbling from a very bad ankle injury and in a very kind and gentle way he offered his arm when we approached the stairs. But later in debate preps and phone conversations and meetings, I realized that I had made a mistake. I didn’t belong. No matter how hard I tried, my heart wasn’t in it anymore.
…
This drift started on a personal level with the fall of former Senator John Edwards. It got stronger during the Democratic National Convention when I counted the substantive mentions of poverty on one hand and a whole bunch of bad canned partisan lines against Senator John McCain. Some faith was lifted after Senator Hillary Clinton’s grace during a difficult hour. But that faith was dashed when I saw that someone had raided the Caligula set and planted the old columns at Invesco Field.

The final straw came the other week when Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (a.k.a Joe the Plumber) asked a question about higher taxes for small businesses. Instead of celebrating his aspirations, they were mocked. He wasn’t “a real plumber,” and “They’re fighting for Joe the Hedge-Fund manager,” and the patronizing, “I’ve got nothing but love for Joe the Plumber.”

Having worked in politics, I know that absolutely none of this is on the level. This back and forth is posturing, a charade, and a political game. These lines are what I refer to as “hooker lines”—a sure thing to get applause and the press to scribble as if they’re reporting meaningful news.

As the nation slouches toward disaster, the level of political discourse is unworthy of this moment in history. We have Republicans raising Ayers and Democrats fostering ageism with “erratic” and jokes about Depends. Sexism. Racism. Ageism and maybe some Socialism have all made their ugly cameos in election 2008. It’s not inspiring. Perhaps this is why I found the initial mocking of Joe so offensive and I realized an old line applied: “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party; the Democratic Party left me.”

Wendy then delivers the most blistering indictment of the current Democratic Party and certainly I agree with her reasons for holding them in such low esteem now:

The party I believed in wouldn’t look down on working people under any circumstance. And Joe the Plumber is right. This is the absolutely worst time to raise taxes on anyone: the rich, the middle class, the poor, small businesses and corporations.

Our economy is in the tank for many complicated reasons, especially because people don’t have enough money. So let them keep it. Let businesses keep it so they can create jobs and stay here and weather this storm. And yet, the Democratic ideology remains the same. Our approach to problems—big government solutions paid for by taxing the rich and big and smaller companies—is just as tired and out of date as trickle down economics. How about a novel approach that simply finds a sane way to stop the bleeding?

She correctly addresses the DNC’s outdated talking points and ideology in the midst of the economic storm we face. If Obama had any real clue as to policy, post–partisan genius that he is purported to be, he would think outside the box and propose something new. Clearly he is not capable of doing so, only stealing others ideas for his own; riding in late to take credit after doing none of the hard work required to get there. Remember “Congress will call me if they need me.”

…Not only has this party belittled working people in this campaign from Joe the Plumber to the bitter comments, it has also been part of tearing down two female candidates. At first, certain Democrats and the press called Senator Clinton “dishonest.” They went after her cleavage. They said her experience as First Lady consisted of having tea parties. There was no outrage over “Bros before Hoes” or “Iron My Shirt.”

Ms. Button remembers this outrage as well as the rest of us. All of Senator Clinton’s accomplishments and great policy ideas were tossed under the bus in favor of every negative speck of dust the press and Obama’s campaign could find to magnify.

But here we are about a week out and it’s déjà vu all over again. Really, front-page news is how the Republican National Committee paid for Governor Sarah Palin’s wardrobe? Where’s the op-ed about how Obama tucks in his shirt when he plays basketball or how Senator Biden buttons the top button on his golf shirt?
…
Here we are discussing Governor Palin’s clothes—oh wait, now we’re on to the make-up—not what either man is going to do to save our economy. This isn’t an accident. It is part of a manufactured narrative that she is stupid.

Most interesting to me was Wendy’s take on Sarah Palin. It was encouraging to me that a die hard Democrat would take the time to put aside any preconceived notions and actually looks at Palin’s record:

Governor Palin and I don’t agree on a lot of things, mostly social issues. But I have grown to appreciate the Governor. I was one of those initial skeptics and would laugh at the pictures. Not anymore. When someone takes on a corrupt political machine and a sitting governor, that is not done by someone with a low I.Q. or a moral core made of tissue paper.

Obama, who wouldn’t know strong moral code if it bit him, and can’t seem to find a policy he likes well enough to hold on to against the changing winds, might want to take a page out of Sarah Palin’s book — instead of belittling her.

When someone fights her way to get scholarships and work her way through college even in a jagged line, that shows determination and humility you can’t learn from reading Reinhold Niebuhr. When a mother brings her son with special needs onto the national stage with love, honesty, and pride, that gives hope to families like mine as my older brother lives with a mental disability. And when someone can sit on a stage during the Sarah Palin rap on Saturday Night Live, put her hands in the air and watch someone in a moose costume get shot—that’s a sign of both humor and humanity.

Has she made mistakes? Of course, she’s human too. But the attention paid to her mistakes has been unprecedented compared to Senator Obama’s “57 states” remarks or Senator Biden using a version of the Samuel Johnson quote, “There’s nothing like a hanging in the morning to focus a man’s thoughts.”

Her statements about Iraq were also surprising; certainly unusual coming from a Democrat:

But thank God for election 2008. We can talk about the wardrobe and make-up even though most people don’t understand the details about Senator Obama’s plan with Iraq. When he says, “all combat troops,” he’s not talking about all troops—it leaves a residual force of as large as 55,000 indefinitely. That’s not ending the war; that’s half a war.

I was dead wrong about the surge and thought it would be a disaster. Senator John McCain led when many of us were ready to quit. Yet we march on as if nothing has changed, wedded to an old plan, and that too is a long way from the Democratic Party.

In closing, I think Wendy echoes the sentiments of a great many Hillary supporters who, alternately, sit in wonderment and horror that the Democratic Party they fought for, donated to, campaigned for and believe in all these years would exhibit the behavior Ms. Button discusses here:

I can no longer justify what this party has done and can’t dismiss the treatment of women and working people as just part of the new kind of politics. It’s wrong and someone has to say that. And also say that the Democratic Party’s talking points—that Senator John McCain is just four more years of the same and that he’s President Bush—are now just hooker lines that fit a very effective and perhaps wave-winning political argument…doesn’t mean they’re true. After all, [McCain] is the only one who’s worked in a bipartisan way on big challenges.

Before I cast my vote, I will correct my party affiliation and change it to No Party or Independent. Then, in the spirit of election 2008, I’ll get a manicure, pedicure, and my hair done. Might as well look pretty when I am unemployed in a city swimming with “D’s.”

Whatever inspiration I had in Chapel Hill two years ago is gone. When people say how excited they are about this election, I can now say, “Maybe for you. But I lost my home.”

Just yesterday, Senator Biden made another mind bending statement when he said “this is a new Democratic Party not the party of the 70s and 80s. This is a party that has adjusted to the realities of a new world order.”

I am not sure what ‘new world order’ he is talking about, but if it includes demeaning women, belittling working class voters and ignoring the issues that weigh heavily on our country at the moment in favor of pretty, vacuous sound bites and “word salad.” obviously I am not a part of it.

Thanks Wendy, for having the courage to speak up and tell the Democratic Party off.

George Bush was a catastrophic disaster. It will take years to undo the damage to our international reputation, domestic problems, and tightening of our Constitutional rights, even if we had a reliable and highly experienced Democratic candidate who could win.

Instead the Democratic Party left many of us, first by failing on so many lofty promises after taking over the House and Senate 2 years ago, and now by various inside and outside manipulations resulting in appointing an inexperienced candidate with a background that does not correlate with his rosy rhetoric.

Can democracy itself survive whatever happens? Because living in a democracy is all any of us have ever known, we tend to assume that a democratic society is how things will always be here instead of recognizing it for what it really is: a delicate, relatively new (historically-speaking) experiment. And, it’s being messed with!

At the end of the Democratic Primary season, this was the situation:

Popular Vote
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton: 17,857,446, (48.04%)
Senator Barack Obama: 17,584,649 (47.31%)

Pledged delegates

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton: 1,730.5 (39.17%)
Senator Barack Obama: 1,747.5 (39.55%)

(source)

Then, for no apparent good reason, in June Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosis decided THEY, not the delegates chosen by the electorate and not the superdelegates appointed via proper party procedure, were going to decide who would represent the top of the ticket for the general election. Now that same leadership wants YOU to legitimize their undemocratic and unprincipled methods by putting their selected candidate into the White House on November 4.

But WE can say no to the subversion of democratic principles within the Democratic Party. We can say no with our votes and by urging our fellow Democrats to pay attention to the particulars of the candidate Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi selected to represent the Democratic Party.

Put this ad on the air and let America know that our voices count.

Over the next 24 hours and across the internet, we as a community will urgently be raising money to run edgy and persuasive ads made by Democrats in key battleground states. Generous contributors have pledged $500 in matching funds. Your voice counts. Please contribute now

CLICK ON ROSIE TO DONATE:

Or go to Democrats For Principle Before Party - The Denver Group’s general election website, where you can view other ads the group is running: