Letters to the Editor
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Some eejit wrote:
Easy there, E-man. Arne is yanking your chain. He knows full well via his cite that the contemporary reference for "magic negro" was the LA Times article by David Ehrenstein. Who happens to be a black, jewish, irish, gay, guy.
Which (if true) has what to do with whether Rush playing "Barack the Magic Negro" over and over and over is insulting?!?!?
As for Arne, he's a dick.
And Sh**ter's an eedjit. I still maintain I got the better deal.
Cheers,
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Charlie Peters? (D-WVa)?
You mean the same Charlie Peters who was a Kennedy Democrat and who is now supporting Obama?
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bloomsbury
No candidate can win without the south and the Republicans are betting their last throw of the dice on the fact that Obama won't win the south.
I recommend you find a copy of Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South by Thomas F. Schaller. Please also note, the evangelicals are not automatically a dependable demographic for the Republicans in this election.
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@FilthyHarry
“…based on Obama's fundraising so far, Obama could easily point to the public who've donated and say the people are his 'public interest'. Could be a great commercial. Show off a few friendly stats of how many reg'lar folk have contributed to Obama and end with the tag line: My 'special interest' is the American People.”
Excellent comments today and a great idea for an ad. I hope you use Obama’s web site and let them know about it. FYI, I received the following from his campaign today.
We learned something extraordinary since I wrote to you last night.
We've crunched all the numbers and discovered that we are within striking distance of something historic: one million people donating to this campaign.
Think about that ... nearly one million people taking ownership of this movement, five dollars or twenty-five dollars at a time.
We're already more than 900,000 strong, including over half-a-million donating so far this year. This unprecedented foundation of support has built a campaign that has shaken the status quo and proven that ordinary people can compete in a political process too often dominated by special interests.
Unlike Senator Clinton or Senator McCain, we haven't taken a dime from Washington lobbyists or special interest PACs. Our campaign is responsible to no one but the people.
One million donors would be a remarkable feat -- something that's never been done before in a presidential primary and something no one ever thought would be possible for us. And you still have the opportunity to be a part of it.
If you make a donation right now, one of those 900,000 donors has promised to give again in order to match your first gift. You can double the impact of your first donation -- and you can even choose to exchange a note about why you are part of this movement.
Be one of the million who will own a piece of this campaign before the potentially decisive March 4th contests:
https://donate.barackobama.com/match
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W.E.S.
Forget about Hillary. If Obama has any class he'll offer the VP slot to Bill. Republican hatred not withstanding, the Big Dog still draws a crowd. The only problem — how much charisma can you stand on one ticket?
Which brings me to another point. After all the years of drought when there was no such thing as a viable Democratic candidate for President, suddenly the Democrats are faced with having to choose between two highly qualified and viable candidates. It hardly seems fair. The campaign for the Democratic nomination this year is something like the NFL playoffs. The best game of the season is usually one of the conference championships and the Super Bowl itself ends up as a disappointing anticlimax.
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Elphant
Charlie Peters? (D-WVa)?
-- Elephantman Is there some point you think you've made with that comment?
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You mean the same Charlie Peters
...who wrote an editorial supporting Obama now supports Obama?
WTF is your point, man?
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To: mchebert-page 1
Was it Obama's speech or someone else's?
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Shooter - hetero as hell, and proud of it!
My own philosophy about dealing with someone acting out as a dick is to ignore them. They may not go away, but as they say the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference.
What's the opposite of obsessive-compulsive attack mode (spurred on methinks by the 'dickless' nature of the opponent)?
Profound indifference (one can hope)? I'll take a little helping of that.
Arne, re: deals - indeed, you did. ;->
PDA - you crack me up! You and Kitt are the anti-troll tag team from hell. :-D
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Nice try, Glenn
But Wisconsin has open primaries and McCain already had the GOP locked up so the Repubs had little to do but make trouble and mischeif for the Dems.
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I know it is dinner time....
People are sitting around the dining table enjoying fine conversation, soup that is pureed, and wonderful fellowship, gregarious communion/conversation but....
Who is it out there who has poop butt?
I'm real way behind. O, stooped again?
But.... what is a neocon-mule... a butt!
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Bipartisanship
http://washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0609.larson.html
September 2006
Hoosier Daddy
By Christina LarsonThe most dynamic duo in Washington today crosses party lines.
Old-school realist Richard Lugar, the five-term Republican senator from Indiana, has embraced new-school realist and rising star Barack Obama, the junior Democratic senator from Illinois. The relationship is admiring. "I very much feel like the novice and pupil," Obama has said of Lugar. And it's warm. Lugar praises Obama's "strong voice and creativity" and calls him "my good friend." In short, the two agree on much and seem to genuinely like each other. Rather unusual in hyper-partisan Washington, these days.
Like most friendships inside the Beltway, this one involves some mix of affection and career advancement. But it is also built, rather charmingly, on shared wonkish interests. By most accounts, Obama and Lugar's working relationship began with nukes. On the campaign trail in 2004, Obama spoke passionately about the dangers of loose nukes and the legacy of the Nunn-Lugar nonproliferation program, a framework created by a 1991 law to provide the former Soviet republics assistance in securing and deactivating nuclear weapons. Lugar took note, as "nonproliferation" is about as common a campaign sound-bite for aspiring senators as "exchange-rate policy" or "export-import bank oversight." Soon after Obama won the election, the two men exchanged phone calls. Lugar, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, suggested that the younger senator aim for a seat on the committee; Obama did, successfully.
The two men grew closer in August of 2005, when Obama joined Lugar on a tour of Russia and Eastern Europe to inspect weapons facilities, a trip that Lugar makes annually. For the younger senator, it was a chance to see first-hand the situation that had long unsettled the older statesman. In Kiev, they visited a pathogen laboratory, an unsecured nondescript downtown building, where the senators were shown a storage unit resembling a mini-refrigerator that contained vast rows of test tubes. Some tubes held anthrax; others, the plague. As Obama has recounted the story, "At this point I turned around and said 'Hey, where's Lugar? Doesn't he want to see this?'" But the older senator was standing in the back of the room, nonchalantly. "Been there, done that," Lugar said.
[...] In Russia, where Lugar has been a regular visitor for the past 15 years, the senior senator from Indiana received generous media coverage and attention from political leaders, while the junior senator from Illinois sometimes went unrecognized. "If anybody has ever accompanied Senator Lugar on a trip," Obama would later joke to an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations, "you know that he is a rock star wherever he goes."
After returning to Washington, Lugar and Obama co-sponsored legislation to update the Nunn-Lugar program.
The resulting law, which expands the nonproliferation program for nuclear arms to conventional weapons and WMDs, is called the Lugar-Obama Act [...]
[...] Lugar might be expected to take a young Republican whippersnapper under his wing, both in the name of party loyalty and of molding Republicans of the future.
Still, if Obama wants to see any legislation with his name on it pass, then having a Republican teammate makes more sense. Unlike many Democrats in Congress, Lugar has the ability to get a few things done. And, if Lugar is looking to secure his legacy by passing on his moderate, substantive foreign-policy vision to someone who's open-minded, sensible, respectful, and destined for leadership, Obama's not a bad choice. To put it differently, what current Republican freshman would fit the bill?
Indeed, in a political atmosphere where conservatism increasingly appears to be leaving the realm of reason altogether, moderate Republican holdouts like Lugar begin to have more in common with characters across the aisle. While the GOP, led by the White House, has spent most of the decade trying to dismiss global warming as a liberal hoax, Lugar has since the late 1990s been calling for action on the problem and refers to the impasse over the issue as one that "sometimes leaves the science and becomes almost theological."
One reason Lugar can afford to speak his mind is that, at 74 years old, any ambitions for higher office are now behind him. In 1996, Lugar made a bid for the GOP presidential nomination that didn't go far, and he hasn't run since. Still, the past comes up once in a while. Recently, a Russian newspaper announcing Lugar's visit ran a picture from the 1996 campaign. According to The Chicago Tribune, the campaign photo prompted someone to ask Lugar if he would consider running for president again. The old lion shook his head and passed the torch. "That's for Barack," he said.
- - Christina Larson