Hillary’s Voice

OBAMA’S BERLIN SPEECH: People of the World, Look at Me (Der Spiegel, Germany)

The people of Berlin experienced the full range of Barack Obama’s charisma on Thursday evening. At times he was reserved, at others engaging. Sometimes combative, and also demanding… In the final minutes of his address, Obama called out to the audience: “We must come together to save this planet.” “This is the moment to give our children back their future. … This is the moment to stand as one.”…

While Obama shouted the last few lines of his speech into the crowd, his handlers were already escorting the members of the press that travel with him down from the guest stands. The journalists would be given a few moments to speak with Obama. They were all Americans, all 40 of them. CNN, the New York Times, Newsweek, the Chicago Sun-Times. Members of the foreign press were explicitly unwelcome. The target audience was America. Sorry, Berlin.
We all stand as one except for the foreign media.

Just Hours Later, Obama Campaign Uses Berlin Speech to Raise Campaign Cash (by Jake Tapper at Political Punch, ABC News)
Shortly after 6 pm Central time — just a few hours after Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, gave his speech in Berlin, which his campaign insisted was not political — his campaign manager, David Plouffe, sent out a fundraising solicitation using the speech to raise campaign cash.

McCain Responds to Obama’s Berlin Speech (by Jeralyn at TalkLeft )
John McCain takes a shot at Sen. Barack Obama and his Berlin speech today: “…Barack Obama offered eloquent praise for this country, but the contrast is clear. John McCain has dedicated his life to serving, improving and protecting America. Barack Obama spent an afternoon talking about it.” To say Barack Obama has done nothing to improve or protect this country except talk about it for one afternoon is absurd. Obama’s been talking about nothing else for 18 months.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, 18 months!  Good one, Jeralyn!  Tom Bevan reminded us this week that Obama told Netscape founder Marc Andreessen in early 2007 that he knew as much about foreign policy as most of his fellow members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee—members such as  Joe Biden, with 34 years on the Committee, Dick Lugar, with 28 years, Chris Dodd, with 26 years, and Chuck Hagel, with 10 years). At that time, Obama had barely two years of experience on the Committee.

What impresses me most about Obama… (by Joseph Cannon at Cannonfire)
I got this from here: “What impresses me most about Obama is how he and his crew survived for six days on coconuts after their PT boat was torpedoed in the Pacific Theater during WW2. And to this day Obama still has back problems that resulted from the daring rescue of his men while under Japanese fire.” Truth be told, even I had to doff my cap to Obama when he led a team of SHIELD agents as they raided the headquarters of the Yellow Claw, who turned out to be a robot controlled by Dr. Doom. That was cool. What’s your choice for Obama’s finest moment?

Obama in Berlin: Huge Crowds Left with Mixed Feelings (Der Spiegel, Germany)
Expectations were sky-high for the speech US presidential candidate Barack Obama delivered in Berlin Thursday evening. Enormous crowds welcomed what the senator had to say, but not everyone was convinced by his delivery.
Yet what does McClatchy tell Americans? “Obama tells enthralled Germans ‘this is our moment’“

Obama tries to dial down politics (Politico)
[S]enior [Obama] aides engaged in a bit of rhetorical gymnastics Tuesday as they faced reporters who questioned their resistance to acknowledging the political aspects of Obama’s week-long, high-profile tour against the backdrop of an intense American presidential campaign. At a morning background briefing, reporters parried with senior advisers on the characterization of Obama’s speech Thursday in Berlin as a campaign rally. The outdoor speech at the Victory Column could draw thousands of people, similar to the size of Obama events in the United States. “It is not going to be a political speech,” said a senior foreign policy adviser, who spoke to reporters on background. “When the president of the United States goes and gives a speech, it is not a political speech or a political rally. “But he is not president of the United States,” a reporter reminded the adviser. [Emphasis added.]
We have to KEEP reminding them.  In fact, Obama isn’t even the Democratic nominee.  He doesn’t have enough pledged delegates to be declared the nominee before the convention.

Quote of the Day (Political Wire )
“I’ve never had an experience like this, with this campaign or others. I thought they crossed the line. If you have a problem with a story I write, call me first. I’m a big boy. I can handle it. But they never called. They attacked me like I’m a political opponent.” — New York Times reporter Adam Nagourney, quoted by the New Republic, on how the Obama campaign handles negative stories.
What??!!  Not even George Bush treated you that way, AdNags?

More evidence of the campaign in Obama’s “non-campaign” trip (by Margaret Talev at Hot off the Trail, McClatchy)
This email went out last night from David Plouffe, Barack Obama’s campaign manager, to supporters, with a link to video of Obama’s Berlin speech: “In a city where a wall once divided the free from the oppressed, he talked about tearing down the walls that divide all peoples so we can address our common problems — the threats of terrorism and nuclear weapons, global warming and genocide, AIDS and poverty. Watch Barack’s historic speech and share it with your friends.” Gee, why does the news media keep insisting on writing that this foreign trip has been a campaign trip?

Obama cancels troop visit (Politico)
Obama has time to get in a workout and give a speech to a crowd mostly comprised of Europeans, but can’t be bothered to visit American troops wounded in action recovering at a military hospital… “The senator decided out of respect for these servicemen and women that it would be inappropriate to make a stop to visit troops at a U.S. military facility as part of a trip funded by the campaign,” explains spokesman Robert Gibbs. This is a sticky wicket for Obama. On the one hand, he’s been criticized for the (laughable) contention that the trip is not related to the campaign. .. Further, Obama met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on this, the campaign-funded, part of his trek. If that was deemed ok, than are we to assume that each of his get-togethers with European leaders is political in nature?

Obama Needs Europe to Restrain Its Enthusiasm (by Margaret Carlson)
July 24 (Bloomberg) — This is the first election in memory when a small crowd is better than a large one, a passionate crowd inferior to a bored one, where drawing a million people in Berlin is less likely to be compared with Ronald Reagan or John F. Kennedy but to Hitler Youth chanting ”Sieg heil!”

63% Say Trip Does Not Make Obama More Fit to be President (Rasmussen)
While Barack Obama has touted his travel to Afghanistan and Iraq as a “fact-finding” trip, 63% of Americans do not believe it makes the Democratic candidate any more qualified to be president. A new Rasmussen Reports national survey, taken Monday night, also finds that less than a third (32%) think Obama will learn from his trip to Iraq.

Voter Unease With Obama Lingers Despite His Lead (Wall Street Journal)
[I]n a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll … [f]ully half of all voters say they are focused on what kind of president Sen. Obama would be as they decide how they will vote, while only a quarter say they are focused on what kind of president Sen. McCain would be. The challenge that presents for Sen. Obama is illustrated by a second question. When voters were asked whether they could identify with the background and values of the two candidates, 58% said they could identify with Sen. McCain on that account, while 47% said the same of Sen. Obama. More than four in 10 said the Democratic contender doesn’t have values and a background they can identify with. Those findings suggest voters’ views of Sen. Obama are more fluid than his relatively steady lead indicates.

McCain Makes Significant Gains in Four Key Battleground States (Washington Post:)
Republican John McCain has quickly closed the gap between himself and Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama in several key battleground states even as the Arizona senator struggles to break through the wall-to-wall coverage of Obama’s trip to Europe and the Middle East this week. McCain and Obama are in a statistical dead heat in Colorado, Michigan and Minnesota while the Illinois senator has a more comfortable double-digit edge in Wisconsin.

More unity (by Joseph Cannon at Cannonfire)
Save this TPM page, which appeared just a few days ago. It explains why Obama has lost ground in Ohio, Florida, Colorado, Michigan and other states over the past week — a week which should have had the opposite effect. During that time, McCain has received mostly unflattering coverage while this nation’s “journalists” have performed non-stop verbal fellatio on the O-Man during his “presidential” tour. And yet Obama keeps shedding support in the purple states, and in the head-to-head national polls. (Ignore [the] outlier, which comes to us via — but of course! — MSNBC.)… The TPM commenters prove that Obots do NOT want unity. What they want is the emotional satisfaction that comes from projecting all of their personal frustrations and petty resentments onto anyone named Clinton. They prefer wallowing in CDS [Clinton Derangement Syndrome] to victory.
Click through for more examples of attempts to enforce party unity using hate and intimidation.

Broder teabags Obama (by lambert at Corrente)
Stick a fork in Dole. I mean McCain. He’s done. The Village, through its Dean, has spoken: “When, on the first day of the trip, Obama stepped onto a basketball court at the air base in Kuwait and sent his first three-point shot cleanly through the basket, you knew that the gods had decided to favor him.” Yes, indeed. “The gods….” Who could Broder be thinking of? Anyhow, since the press now picks our Presidents for us, has since at least 2000, the election is now officially in the bag. The better news? The better news for progressives is that we can dispense with all the soft-focus, Gotham-fonted adulation and nonsense, and start holding Obama’s feet to the fire on policy and personnel immediately. After all, if Obama can act like he’s already President, maybe we should act like he, is too. Eh?

Rainey: Reporters determined not to cut Obama any slack
Broadcast networks have devoted more than twice as much airtime in recent weeks to Barack Obama than to John McCain, but don’t assume that more coverage is always good coverage, says James Rainey. “Reports from the Mideast and back home in recent days have revealed that reporters were determined not to cut Obama any slack. That’s only right.”

Obama Looked Good This Week — Did the Press? (by Howard Kurtz, Washington Post)
An unspoken assumption is that Obama, who enjoys a slight lead in the polls, is the odds-on favorite to win. Some journalists defend the coverage as a matter of marketing: Obama is hot, McCain is not. By that standard, though, journalists can continue to lavish more coverage on Obama simply by declaring him a more fascinating guy.

The Donna Brazile - Karl Rove Connection (by Rosemary Regello at the City Edition)
In order to “save” the Democratic Party, Brazile resolved back in 2003 that she might have to destroy it first. And who better to help her in this lofty pursuit than her newfound best friend, the man conservatives refer to as “The Architect”.
Where did Obama get that first $100 million that made him a viable presidential candidate?  How did the candidate who won the popular vote and the most populous states, those most likely to vote Democratic in November, end up “losing” the nomination?  Click through for a VERY enlightening read.  Karl Rove wanted Obama to be the Democratic nominee, because he’ll be easier to beat than Hillary.

Fox’s Kilmeade confuses bin Laden and Obama twice in five seconds. (Think Progress)
On [Thursday’s] Brian and the Judge radio show, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade twice confused Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Osama bin Laden — within five seconds. Even after catching himself, Kilmeade immediately makes the mistake again: “KILMEADE: Michael, first off, is Bin Laden — excuse me, uh, is Osama — uh, is Barack Obama right when he says the central location of the war on terror is in Afghanistan?”
“Confuses.”  Uh huh.  Click through to listen to the audio.  Please believe me when I tell you that the Republicans haven’t even gotten started on Obama yet.  They’re lying in wait until after the convention, and then they’ll spring.  Hard.

GOPers Wait a Lifetime for a Moment Like This (by Nora McAlvanah at Marc Ambinder’s blog, The Atlantic)
GOPers may have a field day with at least one oft-used-line from Obama’s speech today, which he amended slightly for his Berlin audience:
“America, this is our moment. This is our time” – Obama, speaking in MN the night he officially won the Dem nomination (6/3).
“People of Berlin — people of the world — this is our moment. This is our time” – Obama, in his first formal speech of his foreign tour (7/24).
What ad guru won’t be tempted to play the clips back-to-back, only one to a widely ecstatic cheering crowd of Europeans? Insert announcer with an appropriately unnerving, deep voice, asking: “Which is it, Obama? Who’s moment? Who’s time?”
My message to Marc: Please tell Nora that Obama has not “officially won” the Democratic nomination.  He didn’t receive enough pledged delegates to be truly considered the nominee before the convention.  It’s only after the convention, if the superdelegates are insane, that he will have “officially won” the nomination.

Barack Obama Sells Out (New York Post)
THE controversial July 21 cover of The New Yorker portraying Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama as a Muslim has been a virtual sellout on newsstands. In fact, the demand has completely overwhelmed Condé Nast’s ability to fill requests for additional copies. The issue went off sale on Monday and preliminary estimates show single-copy sales surged 80 percent over average weekly newsstand sales, or around 75,000 copies, compared with average newsstand sales of around 43,000.

Flop Sweat - Obamazoids Get Nervous About Superdelegates (by campskunk at Alegre’s Corner)
I saw [a] funny post up at Taylor Marsh, and just had to laugh. It seems people are getting nervous. Entitled “Faithless Delegates- how PUMA wins the battle and loses the election”, it’s an interesting insight into the minds of nervous Obama supporters who know that what has been stolen before can be “re-stolen” right back… “Sen. Obama … is the de-facto nominee for the Democratic party, which means the party infrastructure is working to support him as is normal for a de-facto nominee. The only three ways this changes are:
1) The unthinkable happening, i.e. the assassination of Sen. Obama
2) Sen. Obama withdrawing from the race due to medical or personal reasons.
3) A “faithless delegate” situation in which the will of the voters is questioned or overthrown…

The “faithless delegate” description is just an attempt to cast aspersions on delegates who switch from Obama to Hillary… [T]he Taylor Marsh diarist is attempting to imply the delegates intending to vote for Obama, pledged or superdelegates, are somehow breaking some “rule” if they switch. They aren’t. How do I know this? Because how do you think Obama GOT these superdelegates? By stampeding them in the first week of June, as the primaries ended. Threats, inducements, whatever it took, he convinced people that supporting Hillary would be hazardous to their political health if he ended up with the nomination. Apparently, these delegates who switched from Hillary to him were just seeing the light and making a rational decision, but if they switch back, all of a sudden they’re “faithless”. Double standard, anyone?

PUMAs would be winning the election, not losing it, by persuading delegates to nominate Hillary. She’s beating McCain by eight points.

In Response to the Cafferty File: Why Do Some Clinton Supporters Want To Derail Obama? (by Ani at No Quarter)
Oh, Jack, you grumpy fossil, still up to your old tricks. Why should we bother to respond to this question knowing you’ll never bother to report the correct answer. The better question is, why does Jack Cafferty still act clueless when he surely has a college education? Is common sense optional at CNN? The drive by hit squad media can resist no opportunity to treat Hillary Clinton or her 18,000,000 voters dismissively and disrespectfully. Jack, your latest piece is no exception. But since you asked, we have a problem voting for Obama, the newbie Senator from Illinois, when Senator Clinton is ten times more qualified. We do not like, trust or believe in him. The country is in too much of a mess to hand it over to a disingenuous flip-flopper.

McAuliffe Backs Kaine for Veep (Political Wire )
Terry McAuliffe, who chaired Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, told Democratic activists in Virginia that Gov. Tim Kaine “would be his party’s best choice as Barack Obama’s vice presidential running mate,” according to the Falls Church News-Press.
“McAuliffe was adamant in his recommendation of Kaine… the fact that he proposed Kaine over his own candidate and long-time friend, Hillary Clinton, suggested that he knows the Clinton option is off the table.”
Good.  I don’t want Hillary marginalized as Obama’s vice president.  I want her to keep standing up for our issues, like energy costs and Medicare.  She can’t do that if she’s a muzzled part of the Obama administration.

Hillary Speaks Out Against Energy Speculators (by campskunk at Alegre’s Corner
From Hillary’s Senate webpage… WASHINGTON, DC - Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke today on the floor of the United States Senate in support of legislation to crack down on speculators who are contributing to the dramatic increases in energy prices. Senator Clinton urged her colleagues to support The Stop Excessive Energy Speculation Act to provide short term relief to Americans feeling the pain of rising fuel prices and also called for bold new steps to break the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels and achieve long term energy independence based on clean, renewable alternative energy.
Click through to watch the video.  Meanwhile, the presumptuous nominee is in France, busy being its president’s buddy.

Hillary Defends Medicare (by SusanUnPC at No Quarter)
Thanks to Hillary’s pressure — in her speech on July 18, 2008 — and the efforts of the Democratic leadership, the staggering cut of 10% to physicians and health care providers promoted by the Republican party was stopped.  I just happened across this video today… That’s our Hillary: Wonky, informed, resolute.
Click through to watch the video.

Health Plan From Obama Spurs Debate (New York Times)
In speech after speech, Senator Barack Obama has vowed that he will lower the country’s health care costs enough to ‘bring down premiums by $2,500 for the typical family.’… But the health policy advisers who formulated the figure say it actually represents the average family’s share of savings not only in premiums paid by individuals, but also in premiums paid by employers and in tax-supported health programs like Medicare and Medicaid… The Obama advisers said that while not all of the savings would translate into lower premiums, consumers would gain in other ways. The savings to employers would be passed along as higher wages, they predicted, and the savings to government would eventually mean either lower taxes or added benefits.
Thinking that employers would pass savings on to employees is the same kind of fallacy in thinking that if we did away with the income tax employers would continue to pay people their gross salaries.  Why would they?  They’d point out that employees have been living on their net pay, continue to pay that, and keep the rest for themselves and their stockholders.

All Eyes on India’s Nuclear Prize
The nation plans to quintuple its nuclear power capacity, but Russia and France may sew up most of the deals
Remember that Barack Obama supports the India nuclear deal.  Also remember that Exelon, the biggest nuclear power generating company in the U.S. is solidly beyond Obama.  Also remember that GE, which owns NBC, which owns MSNBC, which has hosts who are seriously in the tank for Senator Obama, builds nuclear power plants that cost billions of dollars.  And Obama has just purchased $5 million worth of ads from NBC Universal to run during the Olympics.  Cozy relationship, don’t you think?

Rick Warren, what a guy! (by John Amato at Crooks and Liars)
Rick Warren snagged Obama and McCain to attend a leadership and compassion forum in CA: “Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain in August will be on the same stage for the first time in the 2008 presidential campaign. The Rev. Rick Warren has invited them to appear at a leadership and compassion forum in his Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, on August 16…” That Rick Warren sure is a moderate thinking preacher who doesn’t identify with the reigious right, or does he? “Dr [Rick] Warren said that homosexuality is not a natural way of life and thus not a human right. ‘We shall not tolerate this aspect at all,’ Dr Warren said.”

Obama takes his disdain for free speech on the road. (by garychapelhill at The Confluence)
As many of you recall, Obama’s little henchmen tried to suppress our first amendment rights when we attended the so called “unity” rally in New Hampshire… He also doesn’t want any of us anywhere near the convention next month in Denver.  In fact, he’s gone out of his way to be more intolerant of free speech than the Republicans have.  Yes, you heard that right.  While the Democrats have conspired to cage protesters far from the sensitive eyes of superdelegates like Donna and Nancy, the Republicans have actually stepped back from the destruction of free speech in this country… [The Democrats] appear to have placed the free-speech zone at least 2 football fields away from the Pepsi Center, and at the back, opposite of where the delegates will be entering…

Commenter echinopsia kindly sent a link to this pic showing what a protester would look like to an SD entering the Pepsi Center:

Obama said in Berlin that the “greatest danger of all” would be to let new walls “divide us, says On Politics. No walls, but great distance?  Sure.  THAT can be allowed to divide us.

Lots more really good stuff at MakeThemAccountable.com.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com