Letters to the Editor
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Speaking of politicians and sporting events...
....Bush threw the first baseball at an exhibition game tonight, and the crowd booed him!
For the first time in my life, I'm proud of my country!
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@Xrandu
sorry dude. Nobama sat in the most hate-filled radical church with a hate-filled pastor that married him and his not-so-proud-to-be American wal-mart pocket-lining greedmonger of a wife. Heck he wouldn't have even been THERE if he hadn't been forced to convert by his wife who understood being a Muslim wasn't good for running for office in the USA>
He could have left Wright's church any time.
I couldn't give a rat's tail about Obama's speeches and neither can anyone else with intact intelligence. When you run for President the only thing that matters is your RECORD.
Luego.
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@ethics pro What would Jon Adams do?
In all seriousness, I often think what would the founders do. I don't think human nature has changed much in over two hundred years, though our society has been able to lose some evil habits and acquire some cool inventions. I think the genius of our government is to deal honestly with human nature and try to harness both the good and bad aspects, our aspirations, and our personal ambition. The current parties, depending on the issue, seem stuck on either the better or worse aspects of our nature. We seem to have lost an integrated view, and recite positions too often by rote.
Adams, once he got over the shock that the government he helped to create has endured so long to become a world superpower would immediate start planning another rebellion once he realized he had to pay income tax. After all, the Boston Tea Party got started on a lot less then what we pay today.
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@weeping
You say: "I truly believe that Obama wants to be pushed leftward, but wants to begin from a position of consensus, adopting the most "progressive" he can without courting controversy."
I'm reading a biography of Nixon by Anthony Summers ("The Arrogance of Power") in which a high ranking Democrat (can't find the quote at the moment) is quoted as saying (basically) that any candidate who defines him/herself vaguely enough so as to encourage voters to complete the sentence, is doing the electorate a tremendous disservice. This is, after all, how we got the "New Nixon" in 1969 - and we all know how that turned out. This is an aspect of Obama that is making many voters very nervous.
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Let it be written, Let it be so.
I told Salon that they would be held accountable for this horrible defeat the Dems will have now, including the loss of Congress, and everyone should do so.
Duly noted in the book of Oracles. Madam will be notified when she returns from vacation.
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@ lolcait
your sick rant is filled with lies and innuendo and hatred. you sound like a pathetic, obsessed freak. get ahold of yourself. you are disturbed.
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Nixon, Obama and any old politician
So what exactly did you (or that politician) find vague about the '68 Nixon campaign? And what do you find that makes Obama more vague than Hillary or McCain (We're not pulling out of Iraq until we succeed)? And even if a politician is quite specific ("No new taxes") or they have "plans", I'm not going to 100% "believe" them. They have to negotiate, cut deals, and handle unforseen events. Plus they may be flat out lying.
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Delusional
I don't know what's going to happen in the primary, but the idea that McCain could carry Pennsylvania, or any other "blue" state for that matter is simply absurd.
Kerry won PA by 2%. Obama would lose it to McCain by 10 or more.
Barack "God Damn America" Hussein Obama isn't going to fare better than a war hero.
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@ Kate Tex
Thank you, Kate.
Understandably.
You're free to feel nervous and I'm sure there's nothing I can say to allay that nervousness.
Again, I was suspicious of Obama for months, so I understand.
But he's managed to convince me, over those months, that, despite his vagueness (because of it, even?), his upside is limitless.
Simply put, I trust him.
Not blindly, to be sure, but I trust him as much as I can imagine "trusting" a politician. I believe in his vision, it's that simple.
His analysis always rings true to me and that's important to me. He has correctly (more or less) diagnosed this country's ills. One example, out of many, is his line about wanting to end not just the war, but the mentality that got us into the war.
He's talking about a society of fear and xenophobia and knee-jerk militarism, etc., etc., etc.
His "We the People" speech correctly noted the divide and conquer scheme that stifles a progressive agenda. Exploit race, cultural issues (homosexuality, abortion, religion, etc.) to drive people apart so they're more concerned with these things than schools and health care. It's really that simple, as I see it, and it works.
Obama is attempting to break that model of politics and (correctly, in my view) understands that until that is done, we'll just be dicking around about nonsense ad infinitum. And so it goes.
I don't view him as the Second Coming, by any means, but in short, it's clear to me that he gets it.
Clinton, on the other hand, believes the country's ills to be about Bush, which to me reveals a dangerous lack of perspective.
All that said, I understand that many people are uncomfortable with what they consider Obama's vagueness.
To them, I would invite them to think a bit more macro and then ask whether he still seems vague.
Because to me, his analysis is trenchant. Nothing vague about it.
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@Shawn - Facts
I thought I was pretty clear that I was writing about central-city poverty. Any census report from the 1990s through today confirm that the poor (overwhelmingly minority) residents of central cities have suffered an increase in the income gap during the last business cycle (some ups, but mostly downs). Poor people became poorer during the 1990s, and the trend has been continuing.
The stats you cite, "median income" and "African-American poverty rate", are blended across the entire constituent population, and they leave out the details of the most distressed. This is the real problem with poverty: people just keep getting left out. The last business cycle tended to be good for the economy at-large, but had either no effect or a worsening effect on the most distressed central-city communities in the country.
I actually do believe both Clintons care, and their track record is pretty good for children and middle-class minorities, but not good for central-cities, where significant impoverished minority populations live.
Sorry for being off-topic, and a little nuanced, but I just don't think these problems get solved with broad strokes. That is also why I particularly honor Barack's community organizing in Chicago.
(and sorry if I was a bit hyperbolic in parts of my previous post. I am guilty of painting with a broad brush at times too.)