The First Black Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton is sometimes (not sure if it's so much anymore) referred to as the 'first Black President.' I never did quite understand this for reasons beyond the most obvious, but then again I could have lived for 8 years without Bill Clinton and been perfectly fine.

As I read this today I was struck that perhaps we've found in the man that could actually truly become the first Black President, a man that also could be the first Black Bill Clinton:

There’s nothing wrong with being a socialist. I called myself one for the better part of twenty years. Millions of people have and many still do. But there is something very wrong with hiding who you are or who you were from the electorate—especially if you want to be President of the United States. Yet that seems to be a habit of Mr. Obama’s, with the collusion of the press. To my knowledge, no one in the mainstream media has begun to inquire into the details of Obama’s curiously unreported years at Columbia and Harvard, although much could be relatively easily ascertained. Obama himself has not been remotely forthcoming about them.

The inescapable conclusion is that Barack Obama is a highly deceptive, often dishonest individual. Again, many would say this is standard operating procedure for politicians in our culture (and most others too). But Obama presents himself as something different, a new kind of post-modern politician above the conventional dirty dealings of backroom politics.

Sounds awfully familiar...

Differing Skill Sets

John McCain's economic adviser says Palin not ready to run a large corporation. She then goes on to say:

"But that's not what she's running for. Running a corporation is a different set of things."

Which, if you're going to display any bit of integrity on this point you must agree is true. And that is why businesspeople run large corporations and politicians...do what they do.

John McCain

I've changed my mind.

LOL

Spacedope...is that you?

At least somebody was able to come up with something that the Biden pick is good for...

Oh the Condescenscion we'll See

With apologies to Dr. Suess...

It was only 12 hours late, but we now know who the Democrat VP nominee is. Everybody's favorite blowhard, Joe Biden. On paper, in terms of experience, he's certainly helpful. But then after you start to really look you realize his mouth is a bigger liability than his experience is an asset.

Conservative/Republican reactions include the following:

From the "I wish I'd thought of that" category: One last thought before bed: Imagine McCain picking Gov. Bobby Jindal. First line at the debate, "Senator, before we begin our debate, let me clarify for you that I don't work at a 7-11."

Hugh Hewitt, never a Biden fan, shreds the pick: Rob Long asks "Isn't [Biden] sort of the stupid person's idea of the smart person's candidate?" Yes, he is. But that's not fair to stupid people. Even stupid people who watched Biden embarrass himself during the Alito hearings --remember the "I hate Princeton" moment followed by the donning of the Princeton cap?-- know that Slow Joe is all tenure and no talent.

I was worried that the Dems had pointed out to Obama that his serial gaffing had brought the campaign close to a break point and that he needed Hillary. I was worried he'd actually go find Anthony Zinni or Sam Nunn or someone of accomplishment and purposefulness in foreign affairs. Webb would have been hell on the stump. Kaine or Bayh would have put different states into play. Sebelius was a wild card.

Jim Geraghty again: Man, the attack ads on Obama featuring quotes from his own running mate are just going to be brutal:

ABC’s George Stephanopoulos: “You were asked is he ready. You said ‘I think he can be ready, but right now I don’t believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training.’”

Sen. Biden: “I think that I stand by the statement.”
(ABC’s “This Week,” 8/19/07)

Picture the voice over: "If his own running mate has doubts about whether he's ready for the job... shouldn't you?"

The ever-wimsical Tom Maguire says of it: By way of the Ace we see this image hosted at the Obama website (I am not the most computer-savvy guy going, but I am satisfied this is no spoof.)

Coupled as it is with the Biden announcement, I can only infer that the Obamaites think they laid an egg (no dissent here).

I'll be saving a screen shot, you can bet.

Bigger Media says:

"The candidate of change went with the status quo."


If my pick were Biden...I'd wait until late Friday night to leak it, too. It seems appropriate to wake up to that and Saturday morning cartoons.

RELATED: No Biden bump. In a new Washington Post-ABC News poll completed last night, three-quarters of voters said picking Biden would not sway their votes one way or the other.

Foreign policy experience? How difficult is it to follow the French?

This is gonna be fun...

Biden's mouth is going to do it's level best to talk McCain to a comfortable--landslide?--electoral vote victory. He's like most Democrats in that regard; he can't help himself.

It's 3 A.M., do you know where your President is?

We woke up to war yesterday, with pictures flooding CNN and Fox of Russian tanks rumbling through South Ossetia, a 'breakaway' province of the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. And today things are seen escalating with Russia attacking the provincial capital of Tskhinvali.



Hugh Hewitt rightly noted yesterday the inherent danger of the situation--as have others since--with the apt reference to Hillary Clinton's '3 A.M.' ad. To the best of my knowledge, we haven't heard much out of Senator Obama's campaign on this subject...

The Other -ism

I'm relieved to hear that the McCain campaign is not guilty of racism:

Republican candidate John McCain's presidential campaign is cynical, not racist, in its efforts to distract voters from real issues, Democratic rival Barack Obama said Saturday.

"In no way do I think that John McCain's campaign was being racist," Obama said in his first meeting with reporters since predicting that McCain and other Republicans would try to scare voters because Obama looks unlike "all those other presidents on the dollar bills" - most of them older white men.

"I think they're cynical," he said. "And I think they want to distract people from talking about the real issues."

Did he let Big Media in on the secret?

New meaning to the phrase

"You can't afford me."

It's all over Now!

Can the White House be far behind?

When is a Presidential Candidate an Idiot?

When an idiot is running for President. Or, when his name is John Edwards. Much like Hugo did earlier in the week, Edwards proves his lack-of economic sense with these comments from Thursday:

Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards says a wave of mergers in the oil industry should be investigated by the Justice Department to see what impact they have had on soaring gasoline prices.

During a planned campaign stop Thursday in Silicon Valley, Edwards planned to berate the oil industry for "anticompetitive actions" and outline an energy plan he says would reduce oil imports "and get us on a path to be virtually petroleum-free within a generation."

"Vertically integrated companies like Exxon Mobil own every step of the production process - from extraction to refining to sale at the pump, enabling them to foreclose competition," says an outline of Edward's energy plan provided to The Associated Press by his campaign.

Nincompoop...Oil companies margins haven't changed much at all over the years. If anything, they've shrunk some. Yet apparently oil companies are just setting prices arbitrarily with no regard for the market.

Yeah, right.

I didn't think much of Edwards in the '04 campaign--he came across as too much of a slick-talking empty suit and his but one uneventful term in the Senate did nothing to dispel the sense that he didn't know enough to handle the job. Stupid stunts like this one only underscore that same sense three years later.

Perhaps Bob Shrum is on to something...

Kos rips Fred

I just wonder if Markos knows much of anything about things that happened before 2002. First, check out the post here. Then check out Fred's bio here or here or hell, even here.

You'll notice that Fred has a number of fine accomplishments on his resume, most occurring long before Mr. Moulitsas' rise to fame.

Hold on to your wallet, again!

This is really Sim's job but I'll give you the first heads-up. Hillary's talking about money again and seems we all ought to start getting nervous:

Hillary's talking "fairness."

Among her proposals in today's speech:

-"requiring big oil companies to either invest in alternative energy or pay into the Strategic Energy Fund to spur clean energy research and development."

-Without any specific legislative proposals, Hillary declares, "There needs to be greater public scrutiny of CEO pay, and more independence of Boards of Directors."

-reducing our dependence on foreign creditors (e.g. China); returning high-income tax rates to the 1990s levels; reforming the AMT; and ensuring that corporations pay their fair share of taxes.

Senator, "returning high-income tax rates to the 1990s levels" is raising taxes. Come on. You can say it. "I want to raise taxes."

A lot of people were, presumably, surprised to learn in the late 1990's that the other Clinton had an ongoing issue with truth-telling. I never understood this; it wasn't well hidden in the '92 campaign. Anybody paying attention at the time could have seen what was coming.

So I wonder with regard to the other Other Clinton, are we sitting here in the same boat? I mean, through some horrible set of misfortunes should she become President and taxes start going up, will we have any right to claim surprise?

"We will be United with the President throughout this War on Terrorism"

--John Edwards, Weasel

Why Andrew Sullivan is irrelevant

Not only is he no longer conservative, he doesn't understand conservatives anymore:

The conservative pundits are now referring to Ron Paul as a "crackpot." Hannity predictably savaged him last night (see above). The Hewitt site has an image of a man in a tin-foil hat; Dean Barnett and Hugh Hewitt both call for removing Paul from the debates, when he has been the best thing about them so far. Bill Benett wants him out. I'm getting the usual ridicule for taking him seriously from the usual GOP apparatchiks. They're scared, aren't they? The Internet polls show real support for him.

No doubt, millions of conservatives went to bed terrified by the spectre of Ron Paul's truthiness.

Debating

Reviews and summaries of last night's Republican debate are everywhere. Highlights can be found here, here and here.

If nothing else, it appears that after last night there will be one-less candidate on the stage next time. Or at least there ought to be.

Debating

Republicans gather again tonight in South Carolina for debate number two. We're forced to watch all 10 announced candidates jostling each other on-stage all night but an obvious up-side is that questions will come from Brit Hume as opposed to the likes of Chris Matthews.

Chin's crew at Heading Right will have lots of stuff after the dust settles.

Surplus charisma

Glenn Reynolds pretty much hits a home-run with that observation about this world-stopping report:

There has been a lot of comment on Chuck Hagel's appearance yesterday on Face the Nation. Hagel said he is interested in making a third-party run for President, likely paired with Mayor Mike Bloomberg:

It's a great country to think about - a New York boy and a Nebraska boy to be teamed up leading this nation.

Hagel attributed his interest in a third-party run to the claim that the Republican Parth[sic] has been "hijacked."

Speaking of observations, John Hinderacker rightly points out the incoherence of the Hagel 'hijacked' claim: his characterization of the supposed "hijacking" was incoherent: It's been hijacked by a group of single-minded almost isolationists, insulationists, power-projectors.

"Isolationist power-projectors?" That's a previously unknown species; maybe it means something similar to "neocons."

And the Parade of Absurdity in DC continues...Run Chuck, Run!

Chuck Hagel: Step 2

First there was this. And now this:

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said he would consider entering the 2008 presidential campaign as an independent. An independent bid "is possible,'' Hagel, 60, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television's "Political Capital with Al Hunt,'' scheduled to air today. "I don't ever foreclose any options.''

He will decide in the next few months whether to run for a third Senate term, pursue the presidency or leave politics altogether, he said.

Dean Barnett presumes that should such a thing happen it likely has no effect on the GOP candidate in a general election. While likely correct in his analysis, I would offer another reason for the Hagel "no-effect" effect.

A Hagel run as an Independent would more likely resemble this as opposed to this:

In the 1992 election, he received 18.9% of the popular vote (but no electoral votes), making him the most successful Independent presidential candidate in terms of the popular vote since Theodore Roosevelt in the 1912 election.

To understand why, go back to the first link, read and learn.

This is news?

Go figure...a presidential candidate gets Secret Service protection.

It makes one wonder

Brian Williams' question to the Democratic candidates during Thursday night's debate about their response to the destruction of two American cities has caught the attention of at least one or two folks on the right. One would think the answer to Williams' question is fairly obvious and straight-forward.

Not for the left however...or at least it appears that way. Both Dean and Byron rightly note the hesitancy of presumed presidential heavy-weights like Obama and Edwards to "get military" in response to the proposed hypothetical.

I'm left wondering what--if as apparently this scenario wouldn't--exactly would wake the Left from it's anti-Bush, anti-war, everything-but-anti-terrorist stupor and force them to get serious.