Hillary’s Voice

Obama and McCain coverage: “Nuts” or a “disgrace”? (by Eric Boehlert at Media Matters)
Last week, after being hyped by Matt Drudge and Fox News, the Beltway press unanimously decided that Rev. Jesse Jackson’s whispered comments, picked up on a live television set mic, in which he expressed anger with Sen. Barack Obama and used some crude language to convey his sentiments (i.e. he wanted to cut off Obama’s “nuts”), represented a hugely important event. It was the most-covered campaign story of the week. By contrast, McCain said at a campaign appearance in Denver on July 7 that the Social Security system as structured in America, in which younger people pay taxes to support the benefits of retirees, is an “absolute disgrace” — but his proclamation was mostly passed over as being irrelevant. The disconnect between the coverage was astounding.

As of Sunday morning, only 17 major metropolitan newspapers in America had reported on McCain’s “disgraceful” remark, in a total of 20 articles and columns, according to search of Nexis. By contrast, more than 50 major U.S. dailies published a total of 126 articles and columns about the Jackson story.

Nadler: In a ‘just system,’ Bush ‘would be impeached.’ (Think Progress)
[Tuesday], on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who has held several hearings on the Bush administration’s torture program, said…: “…If we had a just system and it weren’t overly political, the president would be impeached. I think he has committed impeachable offenses.”
Click through to watch the video.

Kucinich wins hearings but not on impeaching Bush
WASHINGTON - Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s single impeachment article will get a committee hearing — but not on removing President Bush from office. The House on Tuesday voted 238-180 to send his article of impeachment — for Bush’s reasoning for taking the country to war in Iraq — to the Judiciary Committee, which buried Kucinich’s previous effort.
At least Speaker Pelosi allowed House members to vote on Kucinich’s article to impeach George Bush.  Was she influenced by the rumor posted at MakeThemAccountable about Rahm Emanuel wanting her job?  And does Politico read MakeThemAccountable?  See below.

What does Rahm want? (Politico)
Before he was mentioned as a possible Senate successor to Barack Obama, before he helped lead the Democrats back to power in the House, before he was even elected to his first term as the congressman from the North Side of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel was telling friends that he had one goal in life: to become the first Jewish speaker of the House.

Billboard displaying burning twin towers reads ‘please don’t vote for a Democrat.’ (Think Progress)
A billboard on display in Orange County, Florida shows the World Trade Center towers burning while telling passers-by: “Please Don’t Vote for a Democrat.” The local ABC News affiliate reports that the person responsible is a local musician “trying to help Republicans” but that “officials with both political parties are calling the billboard inappropriate.”

I post this billboard in case you were under the misapprehension that the Republicans wouldn’t try to play the terror card again.  But the Republicans aren’t the only ones willing to play the terror card.  See below.

New Obama ad focuses on threat of terrorists obtaining nuclear weapons (On Politics, USA Today)
Barack Obama’s presidential campaign continues to try to build up interest in what it says will be the “major policy address” he’s giving in Washington this hour. The latest attention-getter: A new TV ad called America’s Leadership, in which the Democratic contender says “the single most important national security threat that we face is nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists.” Obama goes on to tout legislative work he says he did with Republican Sen. Richard Lugar to “help lock down loose nuclear weapons.”

So much for the ‘respectful campaign’ (by Steve Benen at Crooks and Liars)
In recent weeks, as the McCain campaign has become more reckless in its attacks, the presumptive Republican nominee and his allies have begun going after Barack Obama’s integrity. McCain’s campaign has said Obama should not be “taken at his word,” and his “word cannot be trusted.” McCain was asked directly whether he questioned Obama’s patriotism, and McCain wouldn’t give a straight answer. [Monday], the McCain campaign kicked things up a notch, arguing that Obama and Democrats want to see the U.S. fail in Iraq in order to benefit politically.

Analysis: GOP, Dems using wars to define Obama (AP)
CHICAGO - Democrat Barack Obama wants to prove he’s ready to be a wartime commander in chief. Republican John McCain hopes to sell the idea that his rival is not.

What’s new: Public split on Iraq, favors McCain as commander (On Politics)
Some of the campaign and political news making headlines this morning: • The Washington Post — Poll shows even split between approaches of McCain and Obama on Iraq War: “A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds the country split down…

Military surge in Iraq ends; 150,000 troops remain
WASHINGTON - The military surge into Iraq that began more than 18 months ago has ended. But 150,000 U.S. troops remain, as many as 15,000 more than before the buildup began.

More Americans Positive About Iraq (Political Wire )
A new CBS News poll “shows that while Americans have been pessimistic about the direction of the country in general and the state of the economy in particular, they are increasingly positive about the way things are going in Iraq… Just seven percent say the war in Iraq is going very well but 45 percent now say it is going at least somewhat well. This marks the most positive assessment of the war since January, 2006, and a 10 point upswing since just last month. But 51 percent say the war is going at least somewhat badly. In June, just 35 percent said the war was going somewhat well while 62 percent said it was going badly.”

Barack Obama purges Web site critique of surge in Iraq (New York Daily News)
WASHINGTON - Barack Obama’s campaign scrubbed his presidential Web site over the weekend to remove criticism of the U.S. troop “surge” in Iraq, the Daily News has learned. The presumed Democratic nominee replaced his Iraq issue Web page, which had described the surge as a “problem” that had barely reduced violence. “The surge is not working,” Obama’s old plan stated, citing a lack of Iraqi political cooperation but crediting Sunni sheiks - not U.S. military muscle - for quelling violence in Anbar Province.
Remember, he took his so-called anti-war 2002 speech off his website in 2003, when the war was popular.

Words Matter Senator Obama (by garychapelhill at The Confluence)
Let’s take a look at a line from [Tuesday’s war] speech by Senator Obama, as reported by Politico under the headline Obama says Iraq war must end” : “I will focus this strategy on five goals essential to making America safer: ending the war in Iraq responsibly…” He says he will end the war responsibly. That single word gives him his out… We thought in 2006 that the newly elected Democratic congress would force a timetable on the Bush Administration. Didn’t happen.  What makes anyone think they’ll force one on an Obama administration?  Until the troops start coming home, his words are meaningless.

Barack Does Not Understand Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran (by Larry Johnson, a security expert, at No Quarter)
Absolutely pathetic. Rhetoric instead of understanding. His major address on Iraq today was a flop. It is bad enough that George Bush (and John McCain) has played politics with Iraq, touting the surge as the fix instead of admitting that a change in U.S. tactics on the ground achieved the progress we are witnessing in Iraq… [Obama] insists that we must get out of Iraq because our Army is sapped and our troops worn out. And it is true that our military has been tremendously weakened by the war in Iraq. But then what does he propose? Moving more troops and personnel to Afghanistan. Excuse me? If we must withdraw from Iraq in order to rest and refit our troops then how does it make sense to expand military operations in Afghanistan. In fact, how do you rebuild an Army while sending it out on a new mission that holds the real risk of a new war with Pakistan? War with Pakistan? That’s right.
Click through for more of Larry’s analysis.

GOP senator asks Obama to hold hearing on Afghanistan (On Politics, USA Today)
Republicans — and at least one high-profile Democrat — have been noting for months that Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama has not convened a meeting of the Senate Subcommittee on European Affairs, which he chairs, to discuss the war in Afghanistan and the role that NATO forces are playing there. [Tuesday], the ranking Republican on the panel sent Obama a letter requesting just such a hearing.

McCain Tops Obama in Commander-in-Chief Test; Stays Competitive on Iraq (ABC News)
Americans divide evenly between Barack Obama and John McCain’s approaches to the war in Iraq, and rate McCain much more highly on his abilities as commander-in-chief — key reasons the unpopular war isn’t working more to Obama’s advantage.

BREAKING: Hillary fares better against McCain; Obama’s star fades (by owl06 at Alegre’s Corner)
Months before the Presidential election, America is already rejecting Barack Obama. A new Rasmussen survey finds that Hillary Clinton fares much better in a match up against McCain than the precocious freshman Senator. That’s right folks, it’s Obama 47% and McCain 45% - a real squeaker. So much for the Democratic advantage.  What happens when Obama is replaced by another Democrat you may ask…They win solidly. According to the report: “…McCain fares better against Obama than he does against two other prominent Democrats. New York Senator Hillary Clinton leads McCain by eight points, 50% to 42%. Former Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2000, leads McCain 50% to 43%.” However, there is a bright side of the Senator: He would rout George Bush Bush 54% to 34, according to the report.

Lunch Break! 30 Rock and Denver group link (by John: south of Melrose at Liberal Rapture)
The Denver Group is doing important work to ensure that Hillary Clinton’s name be put into nomination. Some one PLEASE tell me:
A. Why are we even discussing this?
B. How can anyone not consider this a blatant, sexist attack by Obama and Brazile - and those others who enable Obama’s narcissism?
and
C. If the New Yorker cover is “racist” as the Pods are claiming - then the attempt to nullify Clinton delegates is certainly an expression of hatred, contempt and fear of strong women.

Tuesday: A Call to Action (by riverdaughter at The Confluence)
Conflucians and PUMAs, maybe you’ve already booked your flight and made your hotel/campsite reservation for Denver but what will you be doing once you get there? And what is PUMA all about anyway? What is our purpose? Are we a movement? A new party? Those are questions we are attempting to answer and for this purpose, the instigators of the PUMA movement propose an organizing meeting in Washington DC. The Pre-Convention PUMA Conference (PCPC) will be held on August 8-10 at the Marriott Wardham Hotel, the scene of the crime.
Click through for more information.

From the HillBlazers08 message group, via email:
If you are going to Denver, either to protest, or as a delegate or super delegate - I want to remind you of our red bandana campaign. Please take at least one for yourself and extras for others in your [group]. EVERYONE who is a Hillary supporter will want one to participate in our demonstration. We are keeping it secret, but keep it in your purse or pocket.  At the appropriate time, we will let everyone know what we are doing with them. I promise you, you will be glad you are ready to be one of us. They say a picture is worth a thousand words?  Ours will be worth 18 million votes.  Spread the word. Thanks.

John Lewis Stands Tall - Obama-Inspired Primary Challenger Fades (by campskunk at Alegre’s Corner)
John Lewis needs no introduction. He is one of the Big Six of the civil rights movement. He led the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, and got a fractured skull for his pains. And he was back in the next march. In the front. John doesn’t scare easily. John Lewis endorsed Hillary for president back in February, saying he did so because she was the best candidate, and stood up to enormous pressure. When he announced that he would vote for Obama in deference to his constituency’s wishes, he never said he was doing it because Obama was the better candidate. But that wasn’t good enough for the Obama crowd. A challenger came forward, saying John Lewis was “out of touch”. Time to move over, old man.
Last night, Lewis won his primary by a huge margin.  So much for the Obama thug tactics.

Some people aren’t too proud to beg SDs. But I am. (by John: south of Melrose at Liberal Rapture)
[A]fter May 31st their is no sanity in that political party. The very last scrap of the party of FDR, Truman, JFK, LBJ, and Clinton was thrown to the wind on May 31st. By force, the Hart, McGovern, Dean - and now Obama wing of the party seized control… Don’t mean to be a downer - but I am in the EX-Democrat camp now. These people are not my people anymore. Thanks be to God. The only way to salvage the Democratic Party is to defeat Obama in the fall, put Dean and Brazile in a stockade on the Washington mall and let us pummel them with tomatoes for a week - then move on - re-seize the party and remake it as the pro-Labor, moderate-left alternative.

Where Obamaism Seems to be Going (by Adolph Reed, Jr. at the Black Agenda Report)
Prof. Reed takes us on a tour de force of transformations and other illusions associated with the Barack Obama phenomenon, as interpreted, conjured or hallucinated by the “left” - whoever that is. These certainly may be the End Days - but for what political tendencies? Will “progressivism” be transcended out of existence, along with race (with the exception of whites, of course)? We can all either patiently stay tuned, or we can seek answers from precocious youth, who are blessedly unburdened by experience. Could it be that nothing out of the ordinary is going on at all - just Power maintaining its grip?

Obama strategy: Equal pay, not abortion
Obama uses Ledbetter and fair pay to appeal to women, while saying little about abortion on the campaign trail.

McCain Backtracks From His Radical Opposition To Gay Adoption (Think Progress)
In a statement sent to Andrew Sullivan, the McCain campaign is backing away from the radical stance on gay adoption that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) endorsed in a weekend interview with the New York Times. “McCain could have been clearer in the interview in stating that his position on gay adoption is that it is a state issue,” said spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker.

McCain to pledge support for school choice in address to NAACP (On Politics, USA Today)
[Published Tuesday:] Republican presidential contender John McCain plans to talk a lot about education later today when he addresses the NAACP’s annual convention in Cincinnati. “If I am elected president, school choice for all who want it, an expansion of Opportunity Scholarships, and alternative certification for teachers will all be part of a serious agenda of education reform,” McCain will say, according to excerpts of his prepared remarks that have been released by his campaign. McCain also plans to express his admiration for the NAACP.
Obama has said he’s willing to consider school vouchers. And as far as HIS appearance at the NAACP convention, he continued to scold African American fathers.  See below.

Obama to NAACP: Blacks must seize responsibility (USA Today)
CINCINNATI — Barack Obama pressed his call Monday for African Americans to take more personal responsibility for their children and within their communities in a speech to the NAACP that directly confronted the complaints of Jesse Jackson about Obama’s approach to problems affecting blacks.

Breaking: Tory Leader David Cameron “Hearts” Obama, Talks about “Progessive Goals” Achieved by “Conservative Means” (by GRL at InsightAnalytical)
Today’s Guardian (Wednesday, July 16) is running a story on an interview the paper conducted with David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party.  Cameron is echoing Obama’s comments in is Father’s Day speech about absent black fathers and the breakdown of the black family… BIll Cosby set off a firestom of controversy when he revisited the subject back in May 2004. At that time, Cosby was roundly criticized for his comments…  But will Obama get the same treatment?  The same professor who was critical of Cosby…, Michael Eric Dyson, was out again last month, writing a piece for Time magazine, in which he opines that Obama’s speech was “calculated to win over socially conservative whites who were turned off by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s tirades against persistent racism.”

He goes on to say that: “But in his desire to appeal to such voters, Obama may have missed the balance that King maintained. Personal responsibility is a crucial, but only partial, answer to what ails black families. Huge unemployment, racist mortgage practices, weakened child-care support, stunted training programs for blue-collar workers who’ve been made obsolete by technology, and the gutting of early-childhood learning programs are all forces that must be combated. If we rightly expect more black fathers to stick around to raise their children, we’ve got to give them a greater opportunity to stay home.”

Why Does Barack Obama Hate My Family? (by Kevin Alexander Gray at the Black Agenda Report)
People have a right to take personally Barack Obama’s harangues against Black people’s supposedly sub-par behavior. Every time Obama badmouths some aspect of African American mores or culture, fleets of media outlets megaphone the accusations, barbs so generalized they could apply to countless Black families. “Playin’ black men on Father’s Day is repulsive” and, for that matter, “why should any aspect of black male-female relations be grist for the campaign mill?” Obama has a talent for hitting Blacks below the belt.

What Obama Might Say to White Fathers (by Shannon Joyce Prince at the Black Agenda Report)
What if statistics showed that “white young people are over twice as likely than black young people to drive drunk, a third more likely to carry a weapon, three times more likely to binge drink, and twice to four times more likely (depending on the drug) to use cocaine, coke, inhalants, steroids, hallucinogens, and methamphetamines?” That’s precisely what the statistics say - which should be a signal for Barack Obama to begin paying visits to white churches to low-rate the fathers of the congregations. We can hear it now: “Clearly you, white parents, need to stop being shiftless and take care of your responsibilities. You are failing your children.” But don’t bet on it. Things like that only happen in works of satire.

Black Republicans’ Obama Baiting Antics Are Laughable (by Earl Ofari Hutchinson, writing at New America Media)
I still don’t know whether to howl with laughter or shake my head in disgust at the crude and silly race-baiting antics of the National Black Republican Association. It recently announced that it’s launching a series of radio ads about presumptive Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama. The ads recite these tired and worked-over slanders: a rap at Obama’s alleged ties with former Weather Underground bomber Bill Ayers, his relationship with his former pastor Jeremiah Wright, and convicted financier Tony Rezko.
Except for the inconvenient fact that Obama DID have long-term relationships with Ayers, Wright, and Rezko.

Harold Ford: Barack Obama is running for the President of the US, not the President of MoveOn.org, the President of any liberal group. (by John Amato at Crooks and Liars)
While addressing Obama’s recent horrible poll numbers from Newsweek on the TODAY Show Monday morning, Harold Ford was asked if Obama’s flip flopping on some issues had impacted those numbers and Ford–without provocation–attacked MoveOn and the entire liberal blogosphere for not being happy with his FISA vote. There was no need to criticize us, because we weren’t part of the question she asked.   So I can only conclude that Ford was referring to FISA and he took an opportunity to throw us all under the bus. I think there were a few other issues that we didn’t even complain about. Why would Ford pull those attacks out of thin air? It’s all to please the Villagers. That’s why you’re a loser, Harold.

Obama backers on the left are doing the wincing now (by John Kass, Chicago Tribune)
The true believers who evangelized that Obama would transcend politics as we knew it are suffering a Barackian hangover. Greedily, they drained the kegs once full of sweet Obama Kool-Aid, drained them to the dregs and mopped up the remains with stale crusts. The inevitable happened—the pain that comes as everything finally becomes clear, in the rosy-fingered light of a terrible dawn. Obama used them to crush the Clintons, but now the left is finally realizing it’s been betrayed…

The American media elite chose to portray Obama as some kind of knight in armor. They’re analysts. Yet they were desperate to believe in a political fairy tale from Chicago… Obama is not their fool. And he’s not weak. He got down on one knee to the Chicago Democratic Machine and didn’t make any waves and asked that it make him a U.S. senator. He lectured the Africans about political corruption and kept his mouth shut about corruption in Chicago, and the national press ignored the inconsistency and pampered and protected him. He waited and he’s ready and now they’re worried? Too late, boys and girls.

McKinney & Clemente: Black, Brown, Green and True (by Glen Ford at the Black Agenda Report)
The Green Party’s brand new Cynthia McKinney-Rosa Clemente ticket is off and running, having captured an overwhelming proportion of delegates at the national convention, in Chicago. Two Black women, one a Latina, are challenged to garner five percent of the national vote while transforming the Greens “into a vehicle for 24-7 movement politics.” Former Georgia congresswoman McKinney vowed, “A vote for the Green Party is a vote for the movement that will turn this country right-side-up again.” Said Clemente, a Hip Hop political organizer: “I don’t see the Green Party as an alternative. I see it as an imperative.”

Lots more really good stuff at MakeThemAccountable.com.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com