The tiresome McCain

Now John McCain wants to take Barack Obama on a trip to Iraq.

Maybe he wants to take Barack shopping.

Flashback: early April, 2007. McCain and fellow senator Lindsey Graham go shopping at Baghdad's Shorja market, because they want to show the world how nice things have become in Iraq. Let's see, who was the other guy with them? Oh yes, that was General David Petraeus. And things go so well for that lovely hour that Graham brags he got five rugs for five dollars.

What the photos did not show was the McCain-Graham protective entourage: 100 soldiers acting as bodyguards, with three Blackhawk helicopters and two Apache gunships hovering above. (At least one photo did show McCain in his bulletproof vest.)

Anyway. I don't think Barack wants to accept the invitation. But not to worry, John. You won't have to go alone. I keep seeing you with Lindsey Graham and/or Joe Lieberman at your side or close behind you. Take them both with you. Lieberman can whisper in your ear when you unload your next whopper on camera. And Graham could probably use a few more rugs.

P.S. McCain's disciples must be quite relieved that four lobbyists on his candidacy team have gone bye-bye. Hmmm. Four down, fourty-eight to go.

The tiresome McCain

Two questions I'm asking myself

Question number one:

With George W. Bush's unfavorable rating now at 72% (which breaks the record held by Richard Nixon), and in view of the unmitigated disasters he has wrought upon this nation and the world in the last seven years and four months, why is The Decider's unfavorable rating not at 99%?

Question number two:

How many primary votes have gone to Hillary just because Barack is black? I had thought that the mainline media would not bring up this question, but MSNBC did so tonight. Yet their report did not tell me very much. In any case, I do not believe this question could ever be fully answered.

Of course Hillary's biggest advantage may well be the number of women behind her. A BBC reporter in Kentucky, where Hilllary took 65% of the vote (while Barack got 58% in Oregon) writes: "A smartly-dressed elderly woman in last night's audience put it simply: 'Every woman knows what it's like to struggle against the odds.... That's what this is about.'"

Nevertheless, Barack got 49% of Kentucky women's votes. I continue to fear that race is a much bigger issue in this primary marathon than most people think.

Yesireee, that McCain is a real maverick

Maverick McCain says he's your genuine Down-With-The-Special-Interests guy. That's why his operators did not want the upcoming Republican convention to be managed by Paul Manafort, the business partner of McCain's campaign manager, lobbyist Rick Davis. Manafort's clients have included the dictator Ferdinand Marcos and the infamous Putin buddy Viktor Yanukovich of the Ukraine. So, great, they dumped Manafort.

And upon whom have they now bestowed that convention management job? Why, good old Doug Goodyear, the Arizonan who is CEO of DCI Group. Last year, DCI made $3 million lobbying for ExxonMobil and General Motors, among others. In 2002, it got $348,000 for supporting Burma's dictatorial military junta. (Yep, that same bunch of numbskulls that has blocked international aid so urgently needed by the victims of Cyclone Nargis, -- which according to the Red Cross may have already killed over 128,000.)

Maverick? Oh sure.

Straight talker? Oh yeah.

Now let's all go watch the pigs fly.


(Source: current Newsweek)

C'mon, Clintons, knock it off!

I've been gnashing my teeth for the last couple of days over Hillary's claim that she's the candidate of hard working white Americans. Planning to comment tonight, I found an article by Bob Herbert in today's NY Times forwarded by a friend. Herbert says it much better than I could. Here is an excerpt:
"So there was Hillary Clinton cold-bloodedly asserting to USA Today that she was the candidate favored by 'hard-working Americans, white Americans,' and that her opponent, Barack Obama, the black candidate, just can’t cut it with that crowd.
“'There’s a pattern emerging here,' said Mrs. Clinton.
"There is, indeed. There was a name for it when the Republicans were using that kind of lousy rhetoric to good effect: it was called the Southern strategy, although it was hardly limited to the South. Now the Clintons, in their desperation to find some way — any way — back to the White House, have leapt aboard that sorry train.
"He can’t win! Don’t you understand? He’s black! He’s black!
"The Clintons have been trying to embed that gruesomely destructive message in the brains of white voters and superdelegates for the longest time. It’s a grotesque insult to African-Americans, who have given so much support to both Bill and Hillary over the years...
"But it’s an insult to white voters as well, including white working-class voters. It’s true that there are some whites who will not vote for a black candidate under any circumstance. But the United States is in a much better place now than it was when people like Richard Nixon, George Wallace and many others could make political hay by appealing to the very worst in people, using the kind of poisonous rhetoric that Senator Clinton is using now."
The whole article can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/10/opinion/10herbert.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Yes indeed. He did it!

Tonight, when one manages to see through all that Byzantine fog that is the Democratic primary system, a single figure stands on the platform waiting for the train to the White House. It's Barack. Hillary decided to go back home and cancel tomorrow's appearances.

Barack won big in North Carolina. He finished only two percent behind Hillary in Indiana. He is ahead on all counts. So it's over. (The only commentator so far whom I've heard put it so distinctly is MSNBC's Tim Russert. But tomorrow should be different; the writing's on the wall for all to see and report.)

Hillary says she will move ahead as a candidate. Well, she may dutifully wend her way through the few remaining primaries, (though without attacking Barack.) She and Bill may engage in closed-door powwows about her running for Vice President. But it is now clear that it's Barack who will go the lists to joust with Lord McCain.

And too late for comfort. All this Reverend Wright and gas tax stuff has been hypnotizing the media, while John (a-hundred-years-in-Iraq) McCain has been making hay all over the country--albeit with ongoing flip-flops on sundry issues.

So, Hillary, please drop out of the presidential race ASAP. And Barack, keep pounding away about a new start for the country. Talk about it in detail. You just might pull us out of the pit that George dug.

Thank you, Bill Moyers

I was very happy that I caught Bill Moyer's PBS Journal last Friday when his guest was Jeremiah Wright. Of course that was just before the dynamic pastor imploded.

Tonight Moyers began his program with an update on the week-long Wright-Obama brouhaha. Among other things, he asked why the press took it so easy on white preachers--going back to Billy Graham (on Jews), Jerry Falwell (on America being punished by God on 9/11), and more recently Pat Robertson (on assassinating Hugo Chavez and praying for the removal of Supreme Court Justices) and John McCain's preacher friend John Hagee (on war-mongering, Catholic bashing and the claim that New Orleans got in Katrina what they deserved for their sins.)

The Moyers piece is excellent. It last only five minutes. You can watch it by copying and pasting this URL into your browser:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05022008/watch.html