globeandmail.com - The man who would be president

Obama's early years and where that charisma comes from...

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John McCain is Dr. Strangelove

Man, this is scary. The last line is the kicker. check it out.

John McCain is Dr. Strangelove

Man, this is scary. The last line is the kicker. check it out.

Obama Response To Bush's State Of The Union

Well I will first say the I did NOT watch the SOTU address by Bush. For me, it is a form of torture to watch him lie, mispronounce, employ the most empty rhetoric, smile like Alfred E. Neumann with his "What, me Worry?" expression. I told my husband that I had no interest in watching the Chimp and that I would simply tune in later on youTube or read HuffPo to see the Democratic response. I didn't want to raise my blood pressure right before bed. This morning I Googled youTube to find, as I knew I would, Obama's thoughtful and considered response. Here's the beginning and it's worth clicking to see for yourself."Tonight, for the seventh long year, the American people heard a State of the Union that didn't reflect the America we see, and didn't address the challenges we face."

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Transcript: Barack Obama’s Victory Speech in South Car

Got this from Fox News.com. Great that they printed the speech but even greater is the love fest from Fox News readers who commented on the speech! I'm stunned. Obama really DOES have crossover appeal! So far there are 56 comments. Naturally there are the die hard conservatives who wouldn't give anybody not Republican a shot, but many, many are from people who self identify as Republicans who've seen the light! Check it out:

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A GOP ace in the hole? - - The Washington Times, America'

There is a report, nine years in the making which details Clinton misdeeds and possible crimes which stretch from White House days and beyond. A whopping 200-odd page redaction was made in a deal cut by leading Democrats. What dirt does the the report contain which has the GOP chomping at the bit to have Hillary as their party's opponent?

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The Chaser on Fox News

Australian comedy satire showThe Chaser, exposes Fox News for what they really are. Aired 04/04/07

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Family Value: Proud that Working People Can't Make Ends Meet

Yep, fer sure. Knowing that yer kids can pray in school, makes it a whole lot easier to send them to bed hungry. Knowing that no man is gonna marry no other man, makes it easier to send yer sick kids to school cuz ya can't take time off work to care for 'em. But ya got no health care anyway even if you did have time off. Keep votin' Repub!

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Barack Obama Meets Chronicle Editorial Board - Brightcove

This video of a full one-hour interview, with Barack answering hard, direct questions from the editorial board and columnists of San Francisco's Chronicle, is absolutely awesome. If Obama isn't ready to be the next President of the United States, no one is. Get honest answers here, from domestic to foreign policy, energy, open government, name it!

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Martin Luther King, Jr., LBJ, Obama, and Clinton

Once again, I am reminded of why I like Bill Moyers so much. This time Moyers gives his eye-witness account of exactly HOW MLK and LBJ worked hand in hand for Civil Rights. Moyers was working as an assistant in the WH at the time. What Hillary Clinton said about it taking a president to get Civil rights passed is simply the fact.

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John Edwards Not Planning to Quietly Fade Away

John Edwards packing a hall with union members. Some of the SEIU members breaking with their leadership; set to caucus for John in Nevada. Edwards' campaign says he's in it till June, with a high number of delegates, Edwards could become a kingmaker at the Dem Convention, if not a the candidate or VP candidate.

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Rightwing Clinton bashing, Bill and Hill still affected

The Rude Pundit has something to say that makes sense. That for so long in the Clinton White House there was a pervasive rightwing conspiracy, (yes conspiracy) to vilify Bill and Hillary Clinton that now they are in reflexive mode when challenged. It explains the anger flashing out of Bill, as Hillary is attacked by Obama campaign. It's a reflex

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Kerry Blasts Clinton Camp's

Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, took aim at Hillary Clinton on Monday, saying her criticism of Barack Obama's stance on the Iraq war was "not founded on accuracy." He also ripped into comments made by Clinton surrogates hinting at Obama's past drug use, calling the remarks "negative in the worst, petty way,"


My comment: I watched the BET owner, Johnson bring up Obama's past drug use in a thinly veiled remark and there is no WAY in hell, that guy was possibly referring to his organizing work back in the 'hood. Puleeeeeeez. Having the Clinton supporters say that is beyond credulity and insults our intelligence. I am undecided between Obama and Clinton at this point, as Edwards was my first choice, but I like what Kerry has to say here. Check it out:

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Erica Jong: We Deserve What We Get

"I want to talk not about candidates but about our media turning every presidential election into a high school popularity contest. And we let them get away with it."My comment: I couldn't agree more with what Jong says here in her blog for HuffPo. She nails it!

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Newt crawls out from under his rock and praises Hillary

Yes, Newt Gingrich, author of "Contract on America" has come out of hiding and stated on Fox Noise that Hillary has shown "courage and integrity" in her campaign in New Hampshire. He says that she could have cried "wee, wee, wee, all the way home" after Iowa (Okay, so I'm paraphrasing) but instead she got more aggressive, more open, more blah blah blah....in New Hampshire.

Is it clear now children, that the Republicans are chomping at the bit to have Hillary as the Democratic nominee? Yes, Newt and KKKarl Rove have had kind words of late for our gal Hill, the game is to prop her up so they can knock her down. Nothing will galvanize the base as much as a chance to vote AGAINST the woman they love to hate.

And who gives a care what that paragon of vir...uh....poison has to say anyway? Isn't this the same Newt who got Ken Starr to investigate Bill Clinton's affair with a White House intern while he was divorcing his second wife to marry an intern he was having an affair with? THAT Newt??

The Republicans don't suddenly love Hillary, they fear Obama.

Water-boarding 'would be torture'

So says US national intelligence chief Mike McConnell. Well if it was good enough for the Spanish Inqusition, Khmer Rouge and the Nazis...Also, check this out: http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2006/10/05/PH2006100500898.jpg^ A photo of US soldiers waterboarding someone in Vietnam

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Should Obama Appear on Fox News?

I was asked this question by a website called "Fox Attacks", probably as part of their response to the incident yesterday where Bill O'Reilly manhandled one of Obama's staffers while trying to get Fox cameras and microphones near enough to Obama for a soundbyte. A soundbyte to use later in an unfair and unbalanced way to spin Obama once again until he is unrecognizable to the people who actually know him. This is the Fox M.O. and Obama knows it. So far he has avoided appearing on their network; after they ran a smear campaign against him back in January '07, shrieking that he "attended a Muslim madrassa!!" in order to stir up the faithful into yet another frenzy over some cooked up allegation about someone who's politics are not in lockstep with theirs.

I sent my response to Fox Attacks stating basically....well....this:

Anytime someone of Obama's stature appears on Fox News, it gives them credibility as a bonafide news and journalism outlet. When in actual fact, they are much more like a highly over-produced "The View". Does anyone tune into The View to get serious news reporting and/or analysis?

People who've uttered the words "fair and balanced" relative to Fox News has never watched PBS "News Hour with Jim Lehrer". Even News Hour has a way to go to present enough commentators and reporters from the Left, but compared to Fox News they are light years from Fox in comprehensive journalism. The word "journalism" shouldn't be applied to Fox News in any case. They are commentators, merely and they are not even to the level of a "National Enquirer".....at least the Enquirer gets it right a percentage of the time. No, Fox is basically "E!" on steroids, and O'Reilly is like the drunk C student who wanders into a neighboring college debate and imagines he can actually speak to the issues.

When Fox News approaches Obama should simply nod and smile from a distance, as one would do with an eccentric, nosy neighbor who has a few loose screws, and owns handguns.

Hillary Unhinged Ad for Iowa and New Hampshire

Hillary is going to go down in flames. Listen to her "listen" to constituents.....OY!

Great Quote of today (so far...)

Bob Cesca, columnist and blogger on Huffington Post:

"Now, hundreds of years later, the Bush Republicans have outspokenly rewritten Patrick Henry's maxim and they're proud to live under the motto: "Give me liberty... unless it interferes with keeping me alive. Wahhh! Help!" Acquiescence and submissiveness is now somehow patriotic. As long as we keep shopping, we won't notice what's being done to the Constitution."

Amen Bob! "As long as we keep shopping...", ain't it the truth! That is all the financial news is about these days; that and the price of oil reaching $100 a barrel.
As oil reaches $3.65 a gallon, rather than save or invest, we're urged to spend! This is a consumer economy, we take after our Uncle, borrow and spend, borrow and spend while the creditors get rich. It's the new feudal system. Credit card companies are the Lords and Barons and we're the serfs. That's on the micro scale. On the macro scale, our Uncle is a serf to foreign investors. Better bone up on those Mandarin and Cantonese language lessons....that is if you have any $$ left over after filling your gas tank.

Stonewalled by the C.I.A.

What we do know is that government officials decided not to inform the 9/11 commission to investigate one the greatest tragedies to confront America.

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Michael Moore ALMOST endorses Edwards

Michael Moore might just be the kiss of death to any candidate, in that he is so hated by so many for speaking out and also for using what many see as deceptive tactics in telling his stories. My personal jury is out on that, but I DO think he is wise to not come out publicly and endorse a candidate.

His letter of yesterday is interesting however and concludes with the reasons I have decided to support John Edwards, so natch, I had to post it here. Thanks Michael.

Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008
Who Do We Vote For This Time Around? A Letter from Michael Moore

Friends,

A new year has begun. And before we've had a chance to break our New Year's resolutions, we find ourselves with a little more than 24 hours before the good people of Iowa tell us whom they would like to replace the man who now occupies three countries and a white house.

Twice before, we have begun the process to stop this man, and twice we have failed. Eight years of our lives as Americans will have been lost, the world left in upheaval against us... and yet now, today, we hope against hope that our moment has finally arrived, that the amazingly powerful force of the Republican Party will somehow be halted. But we know that the Democrats are experts at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and if there's a way to blow this election, they will find it and do it with gusto.

Do you feel the same as me? That the Democratic front-runners are a less-than-stellar group of candidates, and that none of them are the "slam dunk" we wish they were? Of course, there are wonderful things about each of them. Any one of them would be infinitely better than what we have now. Personally, Congressman Kucinich, more than any other candidate, shares the same positions that I have on the issues (although the UFO that picked ME up would only take me as far as Kalamazoo). But let's not waste time talking about Dennis. Even he is resigned to losing, with statements like the one he made yesterday to his supporters in Iowa to throw their support to Senator Obama as their "second choice."

So, it's Hillary, Obama, Edwards -- now what do we do?

Two months ago, Rolling Stone magazine asked me to do a cover story where I would ask the hard questions that no one was asking in one-on-one interviews with Senators Clinton, Obama and Edwards. "The Top Democrats Face Off with Michael Moore." The deal was that all three candidates had to agree to let me interview them or there was no story. Obama and Edwards agreed. Mrs. Clinton said no, and the cover story was thus killed.

Why would the love of my life, Hillary Clinton, not sit down to talk with me? What was she afraid of?

Those of you who are longtime readers of mine may remember that 11 years ago I wrote a chapter (in my first book) entitled, "My Forbidden Love for Hillary." I was fed up with the treatment she was getting, most of it boringly sexist, and I thought somebody should stand up for her. I later met her and she thanked me for referring to her as "one hot s***kicking feminist babe." I supported and contributed to her run for the U.S. Senate. I think she is a decent and smart person who loves this country, cares deeply about kids, and has put up with more crap than anyone I know of (other than me) from the Crazy Right. Her inauguration would be a thrilling sight, ending 218 years of white male rule in a country where 51% of its citizens are female and 64% are either female or people of color.

And yet, I am sad to say, nothing has disappointed me more than the disastrous, premeditated vote by Senator Hillary Clinton to send us to war in Iraq. I'm not only talking about her first vote that gave Mr. Bush his "authorization" to invade -- I'm talking about every single OTHER vote she then cast for the next four years, backing and funding Bush's illegal war, and doing so with verve. She never met a request from the White House for war authorization that she didn't like. Unlike the Kerrys and the Bidens who initially voted for authorization but later came to realize the folly of their decision, Mrs. Clinton continued to cast numerous votes for the war until last March -- four long years of pro-war votes, even after 70% of the American public had turned against the war. She has steadfastly refused to say that she was wrong about any of this, and she will not apologize for her culpability in America's worst-ever foreign policy disaster. All she can bring herself to say is that she was "misled" by "faulty intelligence."

Let's assume that's true. Do you want a President who is so easily misled? I wasn't "misled," and millions of others who took to the streets in February of 2003 weren't "misled" either. It was simply amazing that we knew the war was wrong when none of us had been briefed by the CIA, none of us were national security experts, and none of us had gone on a weapons inspection tour of Iraq. And yet... we knew we were being lied to! Let me ask those of you reading this letter: Were YOU "misled" -- or did you figure it out sometime between October of 2002 and March of 2007 that George W. Bush was up to something rotten? Twenty-three other senators were smart enough to figure it out and vote against the war from the get-go. Why wasn't Senator Clinton?

I have a theory: Hillary knows the sexist country we still live in and that one of the reasons the public, in the past, would never consider a woman as president is because she would also be commander in chief. The majority of Americans were concerned that a woman would not be as likely to go to war as a man (horror of horrors!). So, in order to placate that mindset, perhaps she believed she had to be as "tough" as a man, she had to be willing to push The Button if necessary, and give the generals whatever they wanted. If this is, in fact, what has motivated her pro-war votes, then this would truly make her a scary first-term president. If the U.S. is faced with some unforeseen threat in her first years, she knows that in order to get re-elected she'd better be ready to go all Maggie Thatcher on whoever sneezes in our direction. Do we want to risk this, hoping the world makes it in one piece to her second term?

I have not even touched on her other numerous -- and horrendous -- votes in the Senate, especially those that have made the middle class suffer even more (she voted for Bush's first bankruptcy bill, and she is now the leading recipient of payoff money -- I mean campaign contributions -- from the health care industry). I know a lot of you want to see her elected, and there is a very good chance that will happen. There will be plenty of time to vote for her in the general election if all the pollsters are correct. But in the primaries and caucuses, isn't this the time to vote for the person who most reflects the values and politics you hold dear? Can you, in good conscience, vote for someone who so energetically voted over and over and over again for the war in Iraq? Please give this serious consideration.

Now, on to the two candidates who did agree to do the interview with me...

Barack Obama is a good and inspiring man. What a breath of fresh air! There's no doubting his sincerity or his commitment to trying to straighten things out in this country. But who is he? I mean, other than a guy who gives a great speech? How much do any of us really know about him? I know he was against the war. How do I know that? He gave a speech before the war started. But since he joined the senate, he has voted for the funds for the war, while at the same time saying we should get out. He says he's for the little guy, but then he votes for a corporate-backed bill to make it harder for the little guy to file a class action suit when his kid swallows lead paint from a Chinese-made toy. In fact, Obama doesn't think Wall Street is a bad place. He wants the insurance companies to help us develop a new health care plan -- the same companies who have created the mess in the first place. He's such a feel-good kinda guy, I get the sense that, if elected, the Republicans will eat him for breakfast. He won't even have time to make a good speech about it.

But this may be a bit harsh. Senator Obama has a big heart, and that heart is in the right place. Is he electable? Will more than 50% of America vote for him? We'd like to believe they would. We'd like to believe America has changed, wouldn't we? Obama lets us feel better about ourselves -- and as we look out the window at the guy snowplowing his driveway across the street, we want to believe he's changed, too. But are we dreaming?

And then there's John Edwards.

It's hard to get past the hair, isn't it? But once you do -- and recently I have chosen to try -- you find a man who is out to take on the wealthy and powerful who have made life so miserable for so many. A candidate who says things like this: "I absolutely believe to my soul that this corporate greed and corporate power has an ironclad hold on our democracy." Whoa. We haven't heard anyone talk like that in a while, at least not anyone who is near the top of the polls. I suspect this is why Edwards is doing so well in Iowa, even though he has nowhere near the stash of cash the other two have. He won't take the big checks from the corporate PACs, and he is alone among the top three candidates in agreeing to limit his spending and be publicly funded. He has said, point-blank, that he's going after the drug companies and the oil companies and anyone else who is messing with the American worker. The media clearly find him to be a threat, probably because he will go after their monopolistic power, too. This is Roosevelt/Truman kind of talk. That's why it's resonating with people in Iowa, even though he doesn't get the attention Obama and Hillary get -- and that lack of coverage may cost him the first place spot tomorrow night. After all, he is one of those white guys who's been running things for far too long.

And he voted for the war. But unlike Senator Clinton, he has stated quite forcefully that he was wrong. And he has remorse. Should he be forgiven? Did he learn his lesson? Like Hillary and Obama, he refused to promise in a September debate that there will be no U.S. troops in Iraq by the end of his first term in 2013. But this week in Iowa, he changed his mind. He went further than Clinton and Obama and said he'd have all the troops home in less than a year.

Edwards is the only one of the three front-runners who has a universal health care plan that will lead to the single-payer kind all other civilized countries have. His plan doesn't go as fast as I would like, but he is the only one who has correctly pointed out that the health insurance companies are the enemy and should not have a seat at the table.

I am not endorsing anyone at this point. This is simply how I feel in the first week of the process to replace George W. Bush. For months I've been wanting to ask the question, "Where are you, Al Gore?" You can only polish that Oscar for so long. And the Nobel was decided by Scandinavians! I don't blame you for not wanting to enter the viper pit again after you already won. But getting us to change out our incandescent light bulbs for some irritating fluorescent ones isn't going to save the world. All it's going to do is make us more agitated and jumpy and feeling like once we get home we haven't really left the office.

On second thought, would you even be willing to utter the words, "I absolutely believe to my soul that this corporate greed and corporate power has an ironclad hold on our democracy?" 'Cause the candidate who understands that, and who sees it as the root of all evil -- including the root of global warming -- is the President who may lead us to a place of sanity, justice and peace.

Yours,

Michael Moore (not an Iowa voter, but appreciative of any state that has a town named after a sofa)
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com