and slapped its ass, got it to take off at full gallop, and head for a Democratic victory on November 4!
What a speech! Hillary Clinton is indeed an American and Democrat first. She not only asked her supporters to support and vote for Barack Obama, she loaded them up and gave them marching orders to do so. She and Bill will be actively campaigning for Barack between the convention and election day. No matter what, she demanded her camp join with the Obama camp because another 4 years of Bush/Cheney isn’t an America she wants to live in. Neither do I.
Last night, Ted Kennedy passed Camelot’s torch to Barack Obama. Tonight, Hillary passed her torch and Bill Clinton’s torch to Barack Obama. That speech united the Democratic party once and for all. If any Hillary supporter goes out from that convention and either doesn’t vote at all or votes for John McCain, Hillary made it clear that they were not for her if they would do that.
Don’t forget, Hillary won’t be too old at the end of an 8 year Obama administration to run for president again.
No way! No how! No McCain!
It’s about time somebody in the Democratic party sunk a few teeth into their opponent. I can hardly wait for Joe Biden and Bill Clinton to work McCain over tomorrow night. That should be fun to watch.
For the record, I will watch the entire Republican National Convention next week, assuming we aren’t hit by Hurricane Gustav and don’t have any power. My son is thirteen and at just the right age to witness such a historic election year. We are watching both conventions together in their entirety and discussing each speech and procedure as they unfold as part of his homeschooling. If we have to catch up after our power comes back on, I hope somebody in McCain’s camp will put the main speeches on YouTube so we can watch them later.
And I thought the Harriet Tubman metaphor was the best one Hillary could have picked out of all the people in the history of the United States. It spoke to the hopes and dreams of African Americans and women, two groups that will be very well represented by the Obama/Biden ticket. Today, the 88th anniversary of the adoption of the 19th Constitutional Amendment granting women the right to vote, it is fitting to remember that black men were granted the right to vote decades before women.
It is another repetition of history that a black man will become the President of the United States before a white woman, or any woman. We must put the fate of that final change in the hands of Barack Obama, who married a brilliant and equal partner in his wife, Michelle. Barack was raised by a single mother and his grandparents. He knows the plight of women. He has two daughters and I’m sure he dreams for them to have more and better opportunities than he and their mother have now. It’s what we all dream of for our children. Equal rights for women are part of who Barack is.
Senator Biden is a huge asset to the Obama campaign because he’s been in the Senate as long as John McCain. He knows John McCain. Joe Biden has been a very strong advocate for women and families all his years in Congress. He helped draft the law to protect women from domestic violence and John McCain voted against it. Joe was key to the family and medical leave act. Joe Biden was around when John McCain used to be somebody I would consider a liberal. Over the last few years John has turned into some guy that looks like a George Bush clone. Hillary’s Twin Cities metaphor was perfect.
Eight years ago, I might have voted for John McCain had he been the Republican nominee. But not now. I don’t even know who he is anymore. I respect his sacrifice to our country in an extremely unpopular war in which he was imprisoned as a P.O.W. He experienced the horror of war up close and personal, and is probably haunted by nightmares to this day. For that, he deserves our gratitude and respect as a war hero.
But that doesn’t give him license to continue to put U.S. soldiers in harm’s way unnecessarily. President Bush listened to his generals (finally) and allowed the military to fight the Iraq war as it should be fought. Now it will come to a successful end a lot sooner than if he had allowed Congress to dictate strategy and tactics. I won’t even go into why we should never have gone into Iraq. We’re there and we must win.
If anything, Vietnam showed us that politics cannot win a war. But John McCain remarking off-handedly that we would have troops in Iraq for 100 years was either poorly thought out or he’s been in the Senate so long he doesn’t remember that generals strategize and soldiers fight. Give them what they need and get out of their way. Had World War II been fought with the same political interference as Vietnam, Hitler would have won his thousand year Reich. Had politicians micromanaged the Manhattan Project, we might be a Japanese province right now.
John McCain lived the damned history and can’t seem to remember the lesson! He questions Obama’s ability to be commander-in-chief. I question his judgment to be commander-in-chief. If he can change his spots so far so fast, how are we, the American people, supposed to have faith in him? I don’t.
Everyone was nervous about how the Democratic Party would be united, and Hillary Rodham Clinton rose to the occasion and the challenge to unite the party behind Obama, and she did it with grit and grace. Hillary Clinton showed tonight that she is a team player and even more formidable a leader than anyone could have imagined before. Only great strength brings that kind of grace. I am extremely proud to be one of her supporters, and I am extremely proud to throw my full support behind the Obama/Biden ticket.
2008 election, Biden, Democratic National Convention, DNC, Hillary Clinton, Hitler, Manhattan Project, Obama, political war
August 27th, 2008 at 9:45 am
It would have been nice had she told the PUMA people to get a life and quit stomping their feet/holding their breath till they turn blue.
The rest was pretty good, though.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:56 am
If we are going to harp on McCain saying “we’ll be in Iraq for 100 years”, then quit your complaining about people always taking Obama’s words and spinning them out of context. Clinton sent troops into Bosnia, and guess what…we’re still there…Anyone ever heard of South Korea? We still have troops there. The fact of the matter is, we are never going to be completely out of Iraq…we will always maintain a presence there.
So now that we have an exit strategy…What is Obama’s big “change” factor/promise going to be? Going back to “free” healthcare? Because that seems to have fallen off. Energy? Sorry people…until we drill for our own oil, we’re going to be paying $3/barrel. Oil is the cheapest form of energy…You tree hugging liberals need to realize these things…nothing is free.
Your comment about Bush “finally” listening to his generals is true, however do some homework instead of listening to just CNN, and The Daily Show…McCain was the one who, in the very beginning of this Iraq saga was crying for Bush to send in 100,000 troops. The man knows how to lead…Obama’s biggest, and closest advisor is his wife who only cares about black Americans. Face facts people…she and he are both upper class Americans…they don’t know the troubles we normal Joes are facing everyday…(neither does McCain, being the son, and grandson of an Admiral, and married to an heiress) so please stop buying into their crap.
I hope Obama does win the election…because it will be so, so sweet in four years when his ass is voted out. Let’s all enjoy our upcoming four years of raised taxes, broken promises (healthcare, cheaper gas prices) and our downward spiral into “Obamanation”.
August 27th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Good one, Jason. Obamanation. Be sure to send that to the RNC so they can make signs for next week.
I’m not a tree-hugging liberal. I’m a Navy brat and a pragmatist. I’m an independent. I vote my own mind every time I vote, Republican, Democrat, Independent, Libertarian, whatever. I pay attention to what they stand for, not what label they’ve given themselves. I’ve read the platforms of both candidates. McCain has no new ideas in his platform. I believe Obama is headed more in the right direction than McCain because he is going to do one thing McCain won’t, mobilize the American people to action toward common goals.
McCain has changed his stripes. He used to be at least a centrist. Now all of a sudden he’s a right-wing conservative? Give me a break.
Gas costs $3.50/gallon. Oil is somewhere around $130/barrel, not $3/barrel. If it were we would have very cheap gas. Because of the high price, more are conserving and gas prices have dropped about 40 cents a gallon where I live. We need to stop with the oil not for environmental reasons, but for economic reasons. More on that further down my comment.
After 9/11, the Bush administration failed to tap a resource that could have us years ahead of where we are. He never called the people of the United States to action. He failed to build national pride and a sense of “we’re all in this together”. President Roosevelt called the people to action during World War II, and every American put everything into whatever they had to do to win that war decisively. From rationing and victory gardens to volunteering for military service, everyone who was old enough to hold a shovel participated in our victory.
My grandfather went to join the army, but his job at home was too critical to the success of the war and they told him they would be glad to put him in a uniform, reduce his pay and put him right back in his current job at Nicholson File. He was the quality control supervisor over the files that were used to manufacture guns and planes for the war. The army turned him away, but gave him marching orders nonetheless. He worked 6-7 days a week from 1941-1945. My mother talks about the blackouts, the big victory garden they had, fuel and food rationing, and lots of other things people gladly sacrificed because it was their duty. My grandfather walked to work each morning on the railroad tracks and walked home each afternoon to save their rationing coupons. After the war he kept doing for the enjoyment of the quiet time.
My dad served in the Navy for 30 years and was a young sailor during the Vietnam war. I believe the facts are clear that George W. Bush maneuvered his way out of fighting in the Vietnam war purposefully. I have no respect whatsoever for him for that. He’s a coward. His father wasn’t. I voted for George H.W. Bush btw.
I know we still have a military presence in Europe, Japan, Korea, Bosnia, Cuba, and a lot of other places. I’m not against that. We are world leaders and that means we must have a presence around the world. We will continue to have a presence in Iraq for quite some time, likely European style. But we need to stop farting around and win the war.
And where the hell is Osama bin Laden? We’re supposed to be hunting him down like an animal and all I hear and see is Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. No place, ally or not, should be off limits to find him. Our true allies would have us come in and help them hunt him down. Pakistan is harboring him and we need to go in there and get him and they need to let us. If they don’t, we need to invade them. I think Obama will do that if necessary. I don’t think McCain will. Bush certainly hasn’t.
If you recall, we don’t have a presence in Vietnam. We lost there and mostly under a Republican President (Nixon) who wouldn’t stop the politics and allow our troops to win. America is still humiliated and demoralized by that war.
I know Barack Obama and his wife are wealthy. Anyone who gets elected today has to be or they just can’t compete. But there’s a big difference between those who understand what’s going on outside Washington and those who don’t. McCain has no clue about the economy and just how bad a lot of people are hurting. That’s what got Bill Clinton elected over George H.W. Bush. It’s what got George W. Bush elected over Al Gore. Outside the beltway. That’s the ticket. It will likely keep Hillary Clinton from ever being elected because she is now a Washington insider. Obama hasn’t been a Senator long enough to be a Washington insider.
McCain also doesn’t have a clue about the carbon feed stock we should be using. And we do need to start moving away from fossil fuels completely. If we had started in 1974 during the first oil crisis we would be 30 years farther along than we are now.
Today’s gas prices are the result of a failure to make energy independence a national priority during the Ford and Reagan and Bush and Clinton and Bush II administrations. Carter tried very hard, and damn if he wasn’t right after all.
We need to stop drilling for oil and switch to coal. We don’t have enough oil under our ground to sustain us. We have more than enough coal to meet our oil needs for more than 200 years into the future. Coal can be liquified and gasified to make everything we need that we made from oil, methane to plastics. We can build coal liquifaction and gasification plants quickly. We already have some that are operational. So Republican or Democrat, get off the oil wagon and get on the coal wagon. We need energy independence and building oil drilling platforms that won’t go online for 10 years just doesn’t cut it. Coal is cheap and will buy us the time we need to develop completely new energy technologies that don’t rely on fossil or crop-based fuels.
Jason, wake up and smell the money. It’s not about the environment. It’s about owning our own primary energy feedstock. We own all the coal we’ll ever need. I’m also a chemist. In case you didn’t know, green technologies end up being money-saving technologies, too.
Stay tuned for my series on energy.
August 27th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Bill, I say we just watch the PUMA people pass out and fall down while stomping their feet and holding their breathe.
That would work for me.
August 27th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Jason, one more thing. I’m leaving your comment for now. Don’t ever come back here and throw down the race card again or your comments will be deleted.
If you think Obama only cares about black Americans, then you might as well say McCain only cares about white Americans. What are you going to scream next, “segregation now, segregation forever”?
You can call Obama a tree-hugging liberal environmental elitist all you want. But you crossed the line by calling him and his wife racists. This is 2008. I will not tolerate racism of any sort.
August 27th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
And Jason, if Obama only cares about black Americans, the last time I checked they were, as a demographic, economically worse off then the white demographic. How does that make him out of touch with the people?
August 27th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Amazing how words, right in front of someone’s face, get turned into something they are not.
It is amazing how my words “Michelle Obama only cares about black people” gets spun into me calling her a racist. I don’t know how that got turned around into me calling her a racist. I don’t view her as a racist, although I do believe she is of the people who claim that black people, or african americans are still not being offered the same opportunities as white americans. I believe that her goals are improving the black community, not the overall community. If you take that as racist, which you seem to have already done, then you are out of line. You seem very quick to jump to that conclusion, and threaten to delete my comments, even though the word “racist” or anything of that sort was never once mentioned…it wasn’t even about Obama, it was about his wife. If we are going to argue on a public forum, let us get our facts straight…deal?
August 27th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Jason, if you don’t get why that statement is racist, you’re an ignorant racist.
This is my blog and I can delete anything I want. You want to be a racist bigot, go someplace else.
August 27th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
I don’t know where you’re getting your “facts”. You must be listening to Rush or Sean Hannity. I strongly disagree that blacks are all Michelle Obama cares about and I don’t think you know enough about any of this to accuse me of not having my facts straight.
You still haven’t explained how you saying all Michelle Obama cares about is blacks is any different than saying John McCain only cares about whites. Those statements impart the same thing and both are racist. It’s that kind of bull that allows racism to continue in this country.
Skin color is a racial and ethnic issue.
How is it different because it was about Obama’s wife and not him? There is no difference.
August 30th, 2008 at 2:51 am
Jason, I don’t know where you’re getting your Vietnam facts, but Eisenhower, a Republican, took us into Vietnam in 1959 and Nixon proliferated it just like the presidents before him until he decided it was a lost cause. Nixon was first elected in 1968. The draft continued until 1973 and the war didn’t end until 1975. Ford was president then.
You’re just an angry racist S.O.B. who is getting his rocks off ranting and raving. You’re not even making sense. How is it wrong to go after Osama bin Laden? He is responsible for the attack of civilians within U.S. boarders.
If you want free speech, pay for your own URL, hosting and write your own blog. That’s called private enterprise.
Race had a lot to do with the disaster in New Orleans. I happen to call South Louisiana my home and have since 1979 so don’t tell me what could or should have happened. What did happen was unconscionable.
I don’t like that we have to fight wars. But we do. And I would much rather our armed and well trained soldiers take their chances against an enemy than having thousands of civilians wiped out in one day on domestic soil. Rule number 1, in war soldiers die. But they have a better chance then a bunch of unarmed civilians taken in a surprise attack. Don’t go into Afghanistan or Pakistan? Don’t go after bin Laden? You’re the idiot.
And if you served in the military, maybe you should go sign up at the VA and get on the waiting list for the psychiatrist because you seem extremely angry about something. Iraq didn’t attack us. bin Laden’s al quaida attacked us. We should go after bin Laden. Not doing so is like not declaring war on Japan after they bombed Pearl Harbor. I’m sorry if you lost some buddies to this war, but it’s an all volunteer military and if you went in with a cowboy attitude that war would be some fun ass-kicking, you learned your lesson the hard way. War is never fun and it is never easy, but sometimes we have to fight. If you were in the military it seems like you got out, so I guess you won’t be devoting your life to serving your country like my family has done.
I did my time in the military. I spent my entire childhood from birth to 18 in the Navy as a dependent, moved all over the place, and had my life saved by military doctors when I was born weighing 3 pounds 5 oz in a military hospital when babies that size didn’t survive in civilian hospitals. I also experienced the other end when military doctors were idiots and misdiagnosed me multiple times before I was able to get clearance to go to a civilian doctor. A lot changed from the time I was born to the time I was a teenager.
I would go back in and go after bin Laden in Afghanistan but I’m too old to serve now. My eye site is too bad and I have asthma so I can’t pass the physical. They don’t take you at my age anyway. I did my time and I continue to serve through civilian organizations that support the military.
I saw the “evidence” of WMDs in Iraq and it was true in 1991, but a lie in 2002. Collen Powell resigned as Bush’s Sec State after that debacle. Collen Powell should have been listened to and his advice heeded. It was not. If he ran for president I would vote for him no questions asked. He won the first Gulf war quickly and decisively. He is a true leader.
We went to Iraq because Bush and Cheney wanted to, probably for the oil and a stable military base in the middle east. Inside sources talk about Bush and Cheney looking at oil reserve maps of Iraq before we invaded. If you think Iraq was about WMDs this time your head is up your ass. It’s about their oil reserves. We use 25% of the world’s oil, but we only possess 3% of the world’s oil reserves.
We have to get off oil if we want energy independence. I don’t expect cheaper gas prices. I do expect the U.S. to be independent of foreign oil in 10 years. I do expect that the 47 million people who don’t currently have health insurance to be able to buy it for a reasonable price over the next few years. We’re the richest country in the world. If we can’t make our markets work to cover 47 million people, we need to fix it.
McCain’s pick for V.P. is the definition of grossly under qualified, so don’t talk about under qualified. Obama is much more qualified than Palin is, and Obama chose a very experienced running mate. Cumulatively, Obama/Biden has about 38 years of experience. The McCain/Palin ticket on has 26 years, and 24 of those belong to McCain. Palin is not at all ready to assume the position of commander-in-chief should something happen to McCain. Biden is extremely well qualified to assume the position if something happens to Obama. Although older than Kennedy, Clinton was younger than Obama when he became president and was reelected easily.
Don’t compare the Soviet Army to the U.S. Army. They are two entirely different entities. The Soviets lost because of their command structure. No one could act without orders from the Kremlin. They were also fighting a guerrilla war conventionally. That would never have worked. We now train our solders to fight guerrilla wars. Our chain of command is far different and individual soldiers and units have a lot of autonomy to act in given situations. Our soldiers have general rules of engagement. They don’t have to wait for orders for everything from high command. The U.S. will win where the Soviets didn’t have a prayer.
The Roosevelt administration won WWII in case you forgot your history. He was a staunch democrat and a true leader. He was elected to 4 terms in a row and died during his 4th term in office. Harry Truman was a democrat as well and did a damn good job of reconstructing Europe and Japan after WWII. Truman had the balls to decide to use the bomb against Japan. Kennedy was a true leader. We don’t know what he might have done for this country and the world because he was assassinated. Don’t tell me democrats can’t handle national security and embrace change at the same time.
History has shown Carter to be one of the best presidents we’ve had in modern times. Reagan did a lot of good but also did a lot of things that are hurting average people today. He had the wrong mindset. He believed in trickle down and deregulation instead of bottom up change. His economic policies got Bill Clinton elected in 1992 after G.H.W. Bush continued Reaganomics. As far as Republicans go, Reagan was one of the best. G.W. Bush has been no Ronald Reagan by any stretch of the imagination.
Clinton did a much better job on national security than G.W. Bush. He was tough on the Iraqis whenever they violated the no fly zones. He had our sites on bin Laden but we didn’t have evidence to assassinate him ourselves or bring him to trial internationally at that time. Americans don’t go out and hunt down somebody because we don’t like them or think they may be dangerous to us or they committed terrorist acts overseas. At least not until Bush/Cheney.
Until he attacked us directly, we had no right to go after him unless one of our allies requested our assistance and they didn’t. Bush wasn’t paying attention to terrorist organizations in general and bin Laden in particular like the Clinton administration did, and that’s why 9/11 happened in the first place and why it didn’t happen during the Clinton years.
Change, Jason, is inevitable. You’d better get used to it because it’s the only constant you can depend on. You will either change with the world or it will pass you by. Change may not always be a good thing, but it will always happen no matter what.
August 30th, 2008 at 2:53 am
Jason, I deleted your last comment. You’ve gone too far with your bull. I answered your comment, but it won’t be published.
March 21st, 2009 at 1:35 pm
This is the way things should be, get off what we are on now
September 21st, 2010 at 7:54 am
What a great journal. I spend hours on the cyberspace reading blogs, about tons of various subjects. I have to first of all give kudos to whoever created your theme and second of all to you for writing what i can only describe as an astounding article. I honestly think there is a ability to writing articles that only very few posses and honestly you have it. The combination of enlightening and upper-class content is definitely extremely uncommon with the massive amount of blogs on the cyberspace.