BAR: Cynthia McKinney Deserves Your Support, Obama Does Not

[Jennifer O'Dell]

Well that certainly seemed to get the ball rolling...

Anyways, I wasn't a Hillary supporter, I didn't think she could win the swing voters because her image had already been poisoned in the press and there was no way a Republican who was considering voting democratic this time, was going to vote for her.

Just to be clear, I thought that John Edwards was the best candidate and had the best chance in the general election, being a southern democrat.  His message about keeping jobs in america is one that is really needed and goes to the heart of the economic trouble we are experiencing now. In contrast, Obama went to Canada and told them not to worry, his comments about NAFTA was just campaign talk.

What made JFK great was not that he was charismatic or a great speech writer, what made JFK great was that he was a man of integrity, a man with convictions, someone who fought for what he believed in.

In the short time he was President he did more than most two term presidents. He faced down the Russians in Cuba, in what could have been the start of a nuclear war.

He started NASA, which led to a myriad of scientific breakthoughs and inspired so many young people to go into the science and engineering feilds. 

At great political risk to himself and his party he battled it out with racist southern governors (George Wallace),  even sending in federal troops to force them to allow black children to attend white schools. 

Him and his brother Bobby went after the mafia, indited Jimmy Hoffa of the Teamsters.

He started the Peace corp which is still changing peoples lives for the better around the world and giving young americans a chance to better themselves.

Promise... he fulfilled his, and did more for this country than most people will ever know.

As for voting for third parties, the balance in the Supreme Court is far too important to cast away a vote on someone who has no chance of winning.

Change... jeeez

Several Species of Small Furry Animals Groving with a Pict in a Cave

That's a good list, Unknown, and I agree that John Edwards was probably the most electable, if you want to look at it like that.  If you want to start with someone who has the best chance of winning, you start with a white male from the south.

But you know, it's really not all about that.  There is a reason that Obama is so popular, he appeals to people on a gut level.  For me, you just look at the guy and you know that he's honest. I trust him, and I can't say that about any other politician - well, maybe Dennis Kucinich or Russ Feingold. People bring up the speeches Obama gives, but it isn't just about that, I see a guy who is really sick of the system and wants to change it.

I never got that from Hillary, only that she would be better at manipulating the system than other people would be. You have to want to change things to make them better and America has LOTS of problems right now.

Unless we get all this crummy money out of politics, the system will never work for average people, just keep working for the rich, and the change will have to happen soon.

You never know what someone's going to be like as a President until they are actually elected, but I'll tell you this - I trust someone who has been poor before in their life (and Obama has) over someone who never had to struggle to relate to the struggles of ordinary people.

[Jennifer O'Dell]

QUOTE


 "And if the media was pushing him, why does he get such bad press all the time, like the Reverend Wright thing?"


Jennifer,

Those tapes  had been on sale at the Church's website for a long time.  They were an 'open
secret'.

It took about a year before the MSM finally brought the up.

Of course, that is not favoritism......

Yeah, but once they figured out what was on them, they played them nonstop.  I never seen a campaign where they did the guilt by association thing so much.  Used to be you just had to keep your own dirty laundry clean, now you have to vett everyone that comes in a 100 yard of you.  And no way does the media ever go after McCain in the same way...

[Tom Hebert]

Bianca, I have read that New Yorker article twice and I have yet to see anything in it that I would call damaging.  What is it supposed to prove, that Obama has a big ego?   Guess what, all politicians have big egos!  That goes for Hillary, John Edwards, Bill Clinton, JFK and anyone else you want to name, too.

It takes a lot of guts to think that you, above all the people in the world are qualified to lead it.

I had the same impression, Byron.  I read the article and thought, "So what's the big deal?"  Much of the underlying ideas expressed by the author are also included in Obama's autobiography "The Audacity of Hope,"  in which he--refreshingly--admits a lot of his goofs in Chigago and Illinois.  Why is it surprising that someone running for political office is a politician?

I also agree with you that every great leader has a big ego, or they wouldn't have gotten where they are and would not have been able to accomplish what they did.

[unknown]

Well Jennifer I hope you are right about him, and I am wrong. I don't get that impression from him and appearances can be deceiving. He dropped Reverend Wright like a hot potatoe after going to his church for twenty odd years, and after he said he wouldn't.  His voting record shows a consumate politician always seeming to avoid the controversial votes and his platform is one of catch phrases with very little substance. 

I hate to say this... because it a wonderful thing that young people are excited about a politician and getting involved, but I think he is going to dissapoint a lot of people and inevitabably turn another generation away from politics. Like I said, I hope I am wrong.  But when the Right Wing Propaganda machine gets a hold of him... think about it.

[Monique Faulkner]

Unknown,

The only way he will disappoint people is if he doesn't bring the war in Iraq to a close, or even makes no move to.  Most of the passion behind Obama started because of his stand on the war.  Both Hillary and Edwards voted in favor of the war, and, though Hillary tries to equivocate quite a bit, she hasn't apologized for it. If Hillary couldn't make a moral stand agains the right wing back in 2002, when most Dems knew Bush was simply picking a fight, what kind of Commander in Chief would she have made?  The same for Edwards, give me someone who was right from the start, that, at least, shows judgment.

I have to take a bit of exception with the word "politician" being a dirty name.  They are all politicians - Edwards, McCain, Hillary, Bill.  To single one out and not the others is a bit disingenuous.  Maybe people mean he's too good a politician?  If he was a bad one, like Dukakis, do you know how vulnerable to attack he would be?

And the right wing propaganda machine has got a hold of him, none of the typical narratives ("flip-flopper," which actually applies more to McCain, "unpatriotic," "radical," and, of course, "he's too liberal and will raise your taxes") have worked yet, though, so they are grasping for straws.

They were far more prepared to take on Hillary, who they assumed would be the nominee this year.  Their problem is Obama is pretty much squeaky-clean, which is why the keep doing the guilt by association crap.

[unknown]

Hi Monique

The Bill that both Edwards and Hillary signed wasn't a declaration of war, in fact no formal declaration of war was ever made... The bill was designed to give the President the authority to use force, as leverage against Saddam should he refuse to allow UN inspections access to their facilities. That condtion of the authorization and others were never met.

Kerry tried to make this point in the campaign, but since it couldn't be expressed in a convenient soundbite people tuned it out and the press let it go at that, and even encouraged the misconception.  Making Kerry sound like he was for the war then against it, the democrats didn't want this war the were bambozzled.

Seriously, I don't think the Republicans have even got started on Obama yet, Rovenian tactics will get under way when the political adds start hitting the airwaves and Christian Right start sending out the voter guides and other mass mailings. Oh and lets not forget Talk Radio...

[Jeremy Dokken]

The Bill that both Edwards and Hillary signed wasn't a declaration of war, in fact no formal declaration of war was ever made... The bill was designed to give the President the authority to use force, as leverage against Saddam should he refuse to allow UN inspections access to their facilities. That condtion of the authorization and others were never met.

Not buying that one, Unknown.  At the time of the vote, everyone knew it was a vote for war and that Bush would use it, too (why else even ask for it?).  This revisionist history that it was supposed to be this, or that simply doesn't jive with the facts.

Congress hasn't made a formal declaration of war since 1941, we fought Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, the Gulf War and Bosnia, all without declarations.

[Jennifer O'Dell]

Well Jennifer I hope you are right about him, and I am wrong. I don't get that impression from him and appearances can be deceiving. He dropped Reverend Wright like a hot potatoe after going to his church for twenty odd years, and after he said he wouldn't.  His voting record shows a consumate politician always seeming to avoid the controversial votes and his platform is one of catch phrases with very little substance. 

I hate to say this... because it a wonderful thing that young people are excited about a politician and getting involved, but I think he is going to dissapoint a lot of people and inevitabably turn another generation away from politics. Like I said, I hope I am wrong.  But when the Right Wing Propaganda machine gets a hold of him... think about it.

Unknown,

The right wing propaganda machine can say what it wants about him, but unless there is a decent economy, people don't listen to it.  I read a poll that said that 85% of the people think the U.S. is going in the wrong direction.  You think people are going to vote for the status quo (McCain) with numbers like that? 

As for dropping Reverend Wright, if he was really just doing it to do what's in his best political interest, he would have dropped him immediately, back when those tapes first showed up.  I'm surprised he held onto him as long as he did.

[unknown]

Buy it or not... I could care less Jeremy

I watched the whole thing on C-Span, It was supposed to give teeth to diplomatic efforts, not authorization to invade and occupy a foreign country. That is just what I mean about the press coloring perception you repeat enough times and people start to believe it without questioning.

Well jennifer McCain is only four points behind him in the polls right now

[Jennifer O'Dell]

Yeah, but Obama is ahead in more states, he is even ahead in Arizona, McCain's home state. 

You can't look at those daily tracking polls, cause they try and sample an equal amount of Dems and Republicans.  The trouble is lots more people are Dems these days than Repuglicans.

Also, they don't sample cell phone callers, so the lead is actually misleading....

[An Ecstasy of Profit]

Unknown, I remember the 2002 authorization for the use of force, too, and there was no way that that vote could have been construed as anything more than a means by Bush to go to war.  Bush picked a fight with Saddam, bombed the hell out of them and left the Iraqis murdered, homeless and occupied.

And anyone who voted for that damned resolution was complicit in the resulting murder and plunder afterwards.

If Hillary and the others actually voted for it, imagining that Bush, of all people was not going to use it than they were naive, and also weren't worthy of the positions given them.

[Carole]

Each time I see Barack Obama, I'm proud - proud for him and proud for this country.  We have had such racism, poverty and neglect under this country under Bush.  Look what a horrible example he set with Hurricane Katrina, didn't help, just because they were the wrong color.

Look at our history - slavery, lynchings, Jim Crow laws, thousands of black men were sent to prison in  the south and killed who had nothing to do with the crimes, just because they were black.  During World War II, in  Tuskegee, the government infected black people with syphlis and just watched them die.

All the great Civil Rights leaders of the 1960s were shot down - Medger Evans, Malcom X, Martin Luther King, and even people who advocated for Civil Rights, like the Kennedys. 

The Democratic Party passed Civil Rights legislation in 1964m and they have voted Republican ever since. 

So much bad history, so much blood, what better way to show that we have evolved into better country than to elect Barack Obama president?  Think of the message it would send to the rest of the world - about us, and about them.  It would be the start of atonement, for all the evil that has been done in our name.

[Jeremy Dokken]

Buy it or not... I could care less Jeremy

I watched the whole thing on C-Span, It was supposed to give teeth to diplomatic efforts, not authorization to invade and occupy a foreign country. That is just what I mean about the press coloring perception you repeat enough times and people start to believe it without questioning.

Well jennifer McCain is only four points behind him in the polls right now

You sound a little peeved, Unknown. 

Well, like it or not, you don't give a trigger happy warlord like Generalismo Bush a loaded gun and expect him not to use it.  Anyone who thought that he wouldn't should have been drummed out of Congress.

Everyone knew he wanted war at that time (2002) and was simply trying to make Congress complicit in the murder and looting. 

A lot of people got killed, tortured and homeless during that invasion, and I hold everyone who helped make that decision responsible.  If some of us out here knew better, they should have known better, too.

[unknown]

Well Jeremy

Talk about revisionist history... This was just after nine-eleven the country was in shock, Bush's popularity was around eighty-percent. He was on the cover of time magazine and everybody was applauding his "Ground Zero" comments.

He gave a State of the Union speech declaring Iraq was building nuclear bombs and the CIA confirmed it.  General Colon Powel one of the counties most trusted figures went before the UN and stated they new were these facilities were. Was the congress supposed to ignore the Intelligence Community and the State Department? The bill said nothing about invading Iraq.

Bush had only been in office for a short time and nobody knew then that there would be an Abu Grab or Guantonomo, or that he would use the nations vulnerability to invade and ocuppy Iraq. Watch out... here comes another Red Alert!

Also in the debates Bush stated that he was against nation building. The US military was flying missions over Iraq every day and selected strikes on specific targets would have been relatively easy.

Saddam himself would not deny that he had nuclear weapons, probably because he felt it was his best insurance against invasion.

Under these conditions a bill authorizing the President to use force as leverage to force Irag to allow UN inspections was reasonable.

It was the big lie... as someone once said, the bigger the lie the more willing people are to believe it.

Obama never had to make this choice he wasn't even in the Congress then, so saying that you pick him because he didn't vote for the war is a little assinine.  He wasn't making speeches against the war or organizing marches against it. If he so noble and right about the war why wasn't he, at the very least, speaking out against.

The bill passed overwhelmingly, now if you had voted for Dennis Kuchinch that would be a different story he was there in congress at the time and did vote against. 

[Monique Faulkner]

Hey Unknown,
There is no question Bush tried to link 9/11 with Iraq, but, by the time of 2002, a lot of people also got the idea that the linkage was forced and that Bush was simply trying to pick a fight with Saddam. Not everyone was fooled, there were massive war protests, millions strong, not only in America but all over the world. 
As for the resolution not specifically authorizing an invasion, it didn't have to. Most military authorizations that get passed are never very specfic, they are designed to give the President the authority to conduct the war at his own disgression.

Obama never had to make this choice he wasn't even in the Congress then, so saying that you pick him because he didn't vote for the war is a little assinine. He wasn't making speeches against the war or organizing marches against it. If he so noble and right about the war why wasn't he, at the very least, speaking out against.

Sure, he did, here is a speech he gave back in 2002 AGAINST the war in Iraq:

Remarks of Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama Against Going to War with Iraq
| October 02, 2002
October 2, 2002

Good afternoon. Let me begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union, and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil. I don't oppose all wars.

My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain. I don't oppose all wars.

After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration's pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again. I don't oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism.

What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income - to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics. Now let me be clear - I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He's a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.

So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the President today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings. You want a fight, President Bush?

Let's fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe. You want a fight, President Bush?

Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil. Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair.

The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable. We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not -- we will not -- travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain.http://www.barackobama.com/2002/10/02/remarks_of_illinois_state_sen.php

If that is what you base the fact that supporting him on is assinine, maybe you need to revisit that.  While it was the SAFE thing to do to support the war politcally (like Hillary, Edwards & Kerry did), it DID take political courage to stand against the drumbeat of war.

Saddam did comply with the WMD inspectors, by the way, the problem was, everytime he did, the Bush Administration kept moving the goal posts so they would have a greater case for war.

And as for all the people who possibly believed he had WMDs, how in the heck was he supposed to have gotten them?  He was supposed to be able to be on the verge of building a nuclear bomb when Iraq had sanctions the last eleven years prior and the UN was on the ground there, destroying his SCUDs?  The only people who believe that are the ones that didn't take the time to investigate it.