Iddybud is an ancestor of American patriots, a current applicant for membership to DAR, a descendant of a family member who lost another dubious American Presidential election in 1876, so you might understand why she took Selection 2000 to heart. Iddybud
The Democratic Party seems headed for a train wreck this August. If neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama surges before the primary season ends on June 7, the party may well get a brokered convention in Denver, with unelected superdelegates holding the balance of power.
There's no doubt that 2008 has been an historic Democratic primary season, if not only for the reason that the two candidates remaining in the running are running neck-and-neck. In today's Syracuse Post-Standard, Glenn Altschuler, professor of American Studies at Cornell University and Robert J. Spitzer, professor of political science at SUNY Cortland have a suggestion: "How the Democratic candidates for president can avoid disaster." They ask DNC Chairman Howard Dean to press both candidates to publicly pledge to commit to support whichever of the two candidates who, after the primary/caucus voting is over and done with, receives the most pledged delegates from the most Democratic voters.
Moments after the Nobel Peace Prize committee turned its sights on the battle against global warming by bestowing the 2007 award upon former US vice president Al Gore, George W. Bush moved in to steal it.
I want to take an opportunity to show you the faces of soldiers who have served our nation in Iraq and who do not agree with the Bush administration's policy on Iraq. Nothing phony about these men and women. Nope. They're the real deal. Their courage was a virtual magnet that drew thousands to a September 29th march in Syracuse, N.Y. where soldiers and citizens denounced the Iraq War.
The people in our Upstate New York communities support these (very real) servicemen and women. I want to take an opportunity to show you some (very real) photos of (very real) citizens from diverse walks of (very real) community life in Syracuse and Upstate New York who took a Saturday afternoon on a halcyon September day to tell George W. Bush what they think of his administration's (all-too real and disastrous) Iraq policy.
I'm in Syracuse, N.Y. Something's happening here. Someone should let Rush Limbaugh know that real soldiers (as opposed to those phony soldiers from his liars' fable) will march, rally, and discuss pressing issues alongside real Gold Star families (whose real sons and daughters have died while serving our country) and hundreds of real citizens who support them but do not support the current U.S. policy in Iraq. It will all happen tomorrow afternoon here in Syracuse, N.Y.
YouTube has created new opportunities for political debate. As evidenced today on YouTube, the Gold Star mother of Travis L. Youngblood, a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq in 2005, seems to be quite angry that his memory has been used by certain prominent Republicans who've paid for the Freedom's Watch organization ad that I've posted below:
A group photo was taken Tuesday night to remind Congressman James Walsh of what he'd decided to miss.
About 100 people came together on the plaza at the James Hanley Federal Building in Syracuse, N.Y. on Tuesday evening for a town hall meeting on the Iraq war that was sponsored by a group based in Washington D.C. called Americans Against Escalation in Iraq in conjunction with MoveOn.org in their campaign called Iraq Summer.
In 2005 I asked about the ethics and implications of K Street lobbyists (BGR) Barbour Griffith & Rogers' involvement with a Kurdish political party (KDP) to lobby for their interests in the explosive Kirkuk while our nation is at war there. In an August 27th entry at Laura Rozen's War and Piece blog, she reveals that the same lobbyists are representing former Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi, whose political organization Iraqyia is challenging current Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. Allawi's secular political alliance withdrew from the Iraqi government last Friday. This topic has been discussed here at Daily Kos briefly in the recent past [see Bob Fertik] and I believe it deserves more attention. Since when is K Street in the the coup business?
The borrowed time on the Washington D.C. clock on the Iraq war will have run down by September 11th. When the much-hyped White House-written 'Petraeus report' is given to the public, it will be on the sixth anniversary of an attack on American targets perpetrated by those who had absolutely nothing to do with the 2001-government of Iraq. Like the cherry-picked intelligence reports of 2002, bits and pieces of General Petraeus' thoughts will be carefully selected to suit the White House's political needs to cover for their five-year mistake.
If you've listened to John Edwards, you know that he has a vision for what our nation will look like within 30 years and there's no mistake about what that vision encompasses. On the CNN Forum on Faith and Politics tonight at George Washington University, we learned how his political vision is informed by his personal faith. Edwards is the 2008 Presidential candidate whose political vision most closely conforms, in spirit, to the Sojourners' mission of fighting poverty.
John Edwards spoke to Diane Rehm on NPR by phone from Detroit, Michigan on Tuesday morning for the entire first hour of the Diane Rehm show. He answered many questions from Ms. Rehm and interested callers and from listeners who had sent emails. Over the course of the hour, many topic were discussed, but one thing that struck me as different from what I've heard from other leaders is that Edwards spoke in the frame of 'peace in Iraq' rather than war in Iraq. I thought about our words, how we use them, and how they set a vision for us - positive or negative depending upon the language used - as we move toward any form of human progress.
I'm sure some of you will recall a rather hysterical-sounding diary written a couple weeks ago here at Daily Kos in which the diarist claimed that the front-page Washington Post story, written by John Solomon, about the sale of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards's Georgetown house signaled "the end of Edwards' campaign." In tomorrow's Washington Post, there will be a printed statement from ombudsman Deborah Howell that, for all intents and purposes, will finally put an end to the undue speculation about the Edwards family's integrity.
In a column titled Balancing Priorities, Washington Post writer E.J. Dionne credits Senator John Edwards for his honesty in telling America that he has "higher priorities than a perfectly balanced budget." Mr. Dionne contrasts that principled stand with an easily detectible lack of honesty from President Bush, "who campaigned on a balanced-budget pledge, then dug the country hundreds of billions of dollars deeper into debt with huge tax cuts and an unpaid-for war, and now promises a balanced budget four years after he leaves office."
If there is one fact that has been evidenced by the need for the Baker/Hamilton-led Iraq Survey group, it is that for the first three years of the Iraq war, President Bush has failed to employ a strategy of diplomacy that would have included speaking with all nations to secure a level of international cooperation required to gain us an advantage in the overall war on terror. From the start of the Iraq war, Senator John McCain of Arizona has not been as strongly forthcoming on Bush's leadership shortcomings as we would expect a leader of honesty, strength and conviction should be.
As we approach 2008, I suspect that the trend in the mainstream media will be to lead the American people toward a gooey center where conviction gets lost in a political mixing bowl of soft, inert, and easily soluable ingredients. I got that impression after watching the line-up of guests on Meet the (Depressing) Press today. I saw 2004 RNC Convention Bush-cheerleader John McCain continue to beat up on the losing 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (long after Kerry rightfully apologized for his weird joke) and Joe Lieberman making inexcusable excuses for his attempt to muzzle critics of the miserably failed Iraq war. These two men, McCain and Lieberman, seem so full of ego and ambition to me - so 2008 starry-eyed - that they seem perfectly willing to toss principle aside for popularity. Is that what Americans want from their leaders?
