Friday, February 29, 2008

Everything you need to tell your neighbors about Obama

Baratunde (funny African American comedian who appeared at YearlyKos) has put up a remarkable diary at dailykos that you must go read. His story is great. And then download all the goodies he's included and use them.

How To Canvass For Obama: Toolkit, Arguments & Anecdotes

and then check out the newest Obama youtube video from will.i.am



Yes. We. Can.

Teaching children to hate

This is too sad for words.



H/T to Sully and The Stranger

Real plagiarism by WH staffer Tim Goeglein

First, a shout out to Hillary's campaign people. This is plagiarism.

Nancy Nall, former reporter for the Fort Wayne, IN News-Sentinel, spotted something a little unusual in a column written for her former employer by Tim Goeglein, who has "worked in the Bush White House since 2001 as the Bush administration's liaison to religious organizations".

When I saw he had a piece in the paper Thursday, the day after Buckley died, I thought for a second the wait was over, then spotted the headline — Education: Ideas worth defending, honesty of reflective thought — and realized, no, this has been in the pipeline for a while.

Not that it was a total disappointment. I started to read, and a name jumped out at me — “Eugene Rosenstock-Hussey,” described as a “notable professor of philosophy at Dartmouth.” Now, I’m sure Tim’s spare brain space isn’t cluttered, as mine is, with “American Idol,” the internet and what’s-for-dinner concerns. Certainly string quartets waft through his paneled study, where he reads and thinks under the mounted ibex head, far from the vulgar buzz of pop culture. Surely he can acquaint himself with notable professors of philosophy at Dartmouth while I watch the Oscars. But this name was so goofy, just for the hell of it, I Googled it. And look what I found.

Go look at her examples and scroll down and look at the updates to the post in which other commenters and bloggers have now identified other examples of Mr. Goeglein's plagiarism.

The Ben Domenech school of writing indeed. H/T to Atrios

Hillary's already had her red phone moment

Via Ben Smith at Politico,

Obama responded to Clinton's ad in a speech to veterans in Houston today, according to prepared remarks. He accused her of playing on fear, and echoed his staff's retort that she's had, and blown, her red phone moment:

Now before we open this up for conversation, I just want to take a moment to respond to an ad that Sen. Clinton is apparently running today that asks, “Who do you want answering the phone in the White House when it’s 3 a.m. and something has happened in the world?”

We’ve seen these ads before. They’re the kind that play on peoples’ fears to scare up votes.

Well it won’t work this time. Because the question is not about picking up the phone. The question is — what kind of judgment will you make when you answer? We’ve had a red phone moment. It was the decision to invade Iraq. And Sen. Clinton gave the wrong answer. George Bush gave the wrong answer. John McCain gave the wrong answer.

And we need go no further than this bit of advice from Bill Clinton in 2004:

One of Clinton's laws of politics is this:  If one candidate's trying to scare you, and the other one's trying to get you to think; if one candidate's appealing to your fears, and the other one's appealing to your hopes; you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope," he said.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

UPDATE: kubla000 found the video clip of Bill's advice

Don't you just wish you could say that?

In following some links around the interweb today, I came across a piece at the UK Independent that made my eyes widen a little. Matthew Norman has such a way with words.

Under section 17 (b) iv, the socalled "Clinton Indestructibility Amendment to the Political Pundits (Smart Arses, Know-Alls, and Assorted Puffed-Up Ponces) Act 1991, it is a statutory offence to begin this obituary without the pre-emptive disclaimer: "Barring a miracle..."

The amendment briefly fell into disuse in January when, after her disastrous showing in the Iowa caucuses, Hillary was hubristically written off. Nemesis struck three days later with The Miracle of the Coffee Shop Lachrymals, and after New Hampshire no one has dared ignore 17 (b) iv again. So then...

Barring a miracle, it ends for Hillary early next Wednesday (our time) with the release of the exit polls from Texas. It could even end a few hours before that, should Barack Obama win Ohio. But that's an even money contest, whereas he is a red-hot 1-3 favourite in Texas. This is the state Bill himself said she must win to stay in the race, and God have mercy on him if she doesn't because Hillary will be needing a scapegoat, and there's only one winning candidate for that post. She might have to sew them back on first, but among the multiple personalities she's unveiled of late there must be room for a seamstress.

During the past 10 days, Hillary has been changing from role to role with bewildering speed. She concluded one TV debate, in what was mistaken for a valedictory, by saying she was deeply honoured to share the stage with Obama. While the audience rose to cheer her, the poll numbers rose to cheer him. So the next day she did a total volte face, and scolded him harshly for dirty campaigning ("she who smelt it, dealt it" coming to mind here).

You had to admire the chutzpah, but it didn't help, and nor did her next performance as victim of wicked media bias. Then the campaign took a stroll down Karl Rove Avenue, raising the Muslim sleeper issue by releasing that snap of Obama in Somali tribesman gear, and that bombed too. Currently she is veering between new but wildly unfocused attacks and repeating the trite bletherings (Ready On Day One, and so on) that haven't exactly enthused the electorate so far.

You'd need a heart of diamond-coated tungsten not to laugh, because even now that the obese soprano is audibly gargling her scales backstage, Hillary still doesn't comprehend how it's gone so wrong. The US media is less baffled, ascribing it primarily to electoral history's worst campaign since Noah ran for the Ararat House of Representatives on the "I'll keep the sun shining!" ticket, and you can hear the sharpening of scalpels from 3,000 miles away as the pathologists of the East Coast commentariat prepare to dissect her mistakes in the autopsy.

There's more where that came from.

Amazing what you can say when you're not worried about access journalism.

Matt Drudge - Wanker of the Week

Matt Drudge -- those words cannot be spoken with enough contempt -- screws up.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

ACLU estimates over 1,000,000 names on terrorist watch list soon

From the Baltimore Sun:

The American Civil Liberties Union is warning today that by July there could be as many as one million names in terrorist watch-list databases maintained by the federal government, with many of the names those of innocent people who get repeatedly hassled by additional security scrutiny when they attempt to fly.

[...]

"At the current rate of growth, the U.S. watch lists will contain a million records by July. If there were a million terrorists in this country, our cities would be in ruins," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Program. "The absurd bloating of the terrorist watch lists is yet another example of how incompetence by our security apparatus threatens our rights without offering any real security."


WIRED magazine's post had some follow-up action in the comments from someone associated with the list at DHS plus a more complete explanation of how the list is used. It's worth taking the time to read their complete post.

They promised a follow-up article in a few days.

West Wing Based on Obama

Check out this one from SlateV.com ...


USAF hates blogs

Yep, that's right. Blogs are evil. At least, according to some Air Force brass.

The Air Force is tightening restrictions on which blogs its troops can read, cutting off access to just about any independent site with the word "blog" in its web address. It's the latest move in a larger struggle within the military over the value -- and hazards -- of the sites. At least one senior Air Force official calls the squeeze so "utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream."

Until recently, each major command of the Air Force had some control over what sites their troops could visit, the Air Force Times reports. Then the Air Force Network Operations Center, under the service's new "Cyber Command," took over.

[...]

As a result, airmen posting online have cited instances of seemingly innocuous sites -- such as educational databases and some work-related sites -- getting wrapped up in broad proxy filters.

"A couple of years back, I fought this issue concerning the Counterterrorism Blog," one Air Force officer tells Danger Room. "An AF [Air Force] professional education course website recommended it as a great source for daily worldwide CT [counterterrorism] news. However it had been banned, because it called itself a blog. And as we all know, all blogs are bad!"

He's joking, of course. But blogs and social networking sites have faced all sorts of restrictions on military networks, for all sorts of reasons. MySpace and YouTube are officially banned, for eating up too much bandwidth. Stringent regulations, read literally, require Army officers to review each and every item one of his soldiers puts online, in case they leak secrets. And in televised commercials, screensavers and fliers, troops are told that blogging is a major security risk -- even though official sites have proven to leak many, many more secrets. Now there's the Air Force's argument, that blogs aren't legitimate media outlets -- and therefore, shouldn't be read at work.

But this view isn't universally held in the military. Many believe blogs to be a valuable source of information -- and a way for ordinary troops to shape opinions, at home and abroad. Gen. David Petraeus, who heads the U.S. effort in Iraq, has commended military bloggers. Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, who replaced Petraeus as the head of the Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth, recently wrote (in a blog post, no less) that soldiers should be encouraged to "get onto blogs and [s]end their YouTube videos to their friends and family."

Within the Air Force, there's also a strong contingent that wants to see open access to the sites -- and is mortified by the AFNOC's restrictions. "When I hear stuff this utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream.... Piles of torn out hair are accumulating around my desk as we speak," one senior Air Force official writes in an e-mail. "I'm certain that by blocking blogs for official use, our airmen will never, ever be able to read them on their own home computers, so we have indeed saved them from a contaminating influence. Sorry, didn't mean to drip sarcasm on your rug."

One of the blogs banned is In From the Cold, which examines military, intelligence and political affairs from a largely right-of-center perspective. It's written by "Nathan Hale," the pseudonym for a former journalist and Air Force intelligence officer, who spent more than two decades in the service. He tells Danger Room, "If knowledge and information are power -- and no one disputes that -- then why not trust your people and empower them to explore all sides of issues affecting the service, air power and national security?"

Trust people to use their minds? How anti-Bush-policy can you get?

Ben Smith on Who ID'ed Obama First

From Ben Smith of Politico:

I've been reading back to some of the coverage before it became clear, early last year, that Obama would enter the race, or that he would be as strong as he now is. And I thought it was worth giving some credit to writers and others who seem to have gotten it right -- about his strength, whether or not he closes the deal.


Anyway, give Ryan Lizza some credit. He wrote the December, 2005 New Republic piece titled, "Why Barack Obama Should Run for President in 2008."

The next November, Lynn Sweet wrote with confidence that he'd run, and mapped out his campaign.

That December, Markos Moulitsas wrote an item titled "2008: If Obama runs, he wins."

Jonathan Alter also flagged Obama's strength in a Newsweek cover story late that year.

I'd add the documentarian Amy Rice, who started working on what is now a quietly, eagerly anticipated campaign film not all that long after his 2004 convention speech.

My latest entry is in May, 2007, when Andrew Sullivan called him the "Reagan of the Left" in terms that are very familiar now.

This isn't by any means a comprehensive list, just a few that stuck in my head. Please send in other examples, and I'll add them.

UPDATE: How could I forget Eric Zorn? He predicted an Obama run on January 20, 2005; and outlined his great strength very early last year.

Also, Tomasky in November of 2006 looked at the potential for Obama's "new politics."

Items of Interest

-- There's a nice analysis job in this article: Who's the Better Closer?

-- George Will takes a hit at McCain:

-- Then there's this item from David Ignatius.

Politicians who talk about the terrorism threat -- and it's already clear that this will be a polarizing issue in the 2008 campaign -- should be required to read a new book by a former CIA officer named Marc Sageman. It stands what you think you know about terrorism on its head and helps you see the topic in a different light.

What distinguishes his new book, "Leaderless Jihad," is that it peels away the emotional, reflexive responses to terrorism that have grown up since Sept. 11, 2001, and looks instead at scientific data Sageman has collected on more than 500 Islamic terrorists -- to understand who they are, why they attack and how to stop them.

The heart of Sageman's message is that we have been scaring ourselves into exaggerating the terrorism threat -- and then by our unwise actions in Iraq making the problem worse. He attacks head-on the central thesis of the Bush administration, echoed increasingly by Republican presidential candidate John McCain, that, as McCain's Web site puts it, the United States is facing "a dangerous, relentless enemy in the War against Islamic Extremists" spawned by al-Qaeda.

I'm adding another book to my list to read.

-- Daniel Henninger of the WSJ has an interesting analysis piece on Hillary in "Hillary's Close-Up". He gives credit to Howard Dean and the netroots.

A year ago, Hillary Clinton assumed the effort would bring her the prize. Instead, it has brought her to the precipice. What happened? What was supposed to be triumph has turned to tragedy. Who rewrote the plot?

The first revision came at the hand of Howard Dean. The Vermont governor's quixotic 2004 presidential run did one big thing: It let the netroots out. It empowered the Democratic Left. Web-based "progressives" proved they could raise lots of political money and bring pressure, especially when allied with labor unions.

They didn't defeat centrist Joe Lieberman in 2006, but they drove him out of the party. They pushed the party's Iraq policy under Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi into total, rejectionist opposition. In this world, the Petraeus surge is a failure, period. Thus, Obama calmly gives the surge little or no credit. Also in this world, trade and Nafta are anathema, as seen in the House refusal to pass the trade agreement with Colombia, the U.S.'s strongest ally in South America.

What the netroots has done is bunch up the party ideologically. While the Republican Party slices conservative ideology as thinly as aged prosciutto, the Democrats, in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail, are all swinging a populist anvil -- with the left hand.

I don't believe he meant it as a positive compliment but I'll take it that way and I know a few friends who will do so as well.

McCain, Al Qaeda and Iraq

This pair of video clips is interesting. It shows the exchange between John McCain and Barack Obama yesterday on Al Qaeda in Iraq. Watch the first one which shows the CNN view of the exchange.



Now watch Barack's complete response to McCain.



I think that Barack got the better of McCain on yesterday's exchange on Al Qaeda in Iraq and he did a better job at it than CNN dared to show.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Items of Interest

-- Tim Russert did not distinguish himself by last night's performance in the last Democratic candidates' debate. I've reread this diary at dkos at least three times now and it keeps on getting better. It puts Russert's Farrakhan business in perspective.

-- Matt Yglesias had already sussed up Timmy in "The Unbearable Inanity of Tim Russert". Just add last night's 'gotcha' performance to the list of inanities.

-- Interesting post at TPMCafe on why Obama should reject public financing for the general election campaign.

-- MoDo (aka Maureen Dowd) takes a swipe or two at Hillary. One thing you have to say for Maureen's writing -- the images are always vivid.

-- US magazine slide show with captions by Barack.

-- One of the most temperate and reasoned rebuttals of the Obama smear emails I've seen.

Over 1,000,000 Voters Fund Obama's Campaign



I'd say that Obama's campaign is already publicly funded. This TPMCafe post adds a little more thought to Obama's options on public funding.

I did a little digging and found Michael Dobbs' WaPo Factchecker column on this topic which has links to all the original documents. My bottom line differs from Dobbs. There is nothing in any of the prior letters or statements in which Obama says he will unilaterally commit to public financing. Even the most recent specific statement in Sept. 2007 indicates that if he becomes the nominee, he would pursue a joint plan with the Republican nominee.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Political Prosecution of Gov. Siegelman?

60 Minutes aired a segment on Sunday evening about the prosecution of Gov. Siegelman by the Bush DOJ and asks if it was politically motivated. Somehow it failed to air in parts of Alabama. The corporate office says the feed was fine. Larisa Alexandrovna has the definitive post on Siegelman, the 60 Minutes feature and what happened in Alabama. If you don't know who Siegelman is, I'd advise checking out her post. And if you missed the 60 Minutes segment yourself, CBS has kindly posted it on the net. Check it out below.



Diarist homerun adds this note at dailykos:

It has been 20 months since Siegelman’s trial ended and no trial transcript has been produced by Fuller's court. This is in violation of the rules of criminal procedure which require a transcript within 30 days of sentencing. Siegelman can't appeal his conviction with out an official trial transcript.

Source: donsiegelman.org

What kind of justice system do we have? What is going on in Alabama and the DOJ?

Obama Endorsements

-- Senator Dodd is endorsing Senator Obama

-- A former Cleveland mayor switches his endorsement from Clinton to Obama.

As an African-American, I am proud to see Barack Obama make such an extraordinary effort to become the President of the United States. But being Black is not enough for me to vote against my friend. I am voting for Barack because he has rekindled my hope again through his experience, vision and leadership for change in a political system that has gone so awry.

[...]

Yes, Senator Obama gives me great hope, but hope is not enough when you're voting for a presidential candidate. I believe Barack Obama has the experience, ability, courage and vision to translate his call for change into a new direction for America just as other great Presidents have in the past. He is no less qualified or able than any other candidate, and the fact that he's poised to become the Democratic nominee for President is testimony to the good judgment and need for change desired by so many Americans.

I wonder how many other Clinton endorsers are rethinking their endorsement as Michael R. White has.

A Question for Sen. McCain

From an Iraq vet via Votevets.org



H/T to Marc Ambinder

Brandon Friedman identifies her as "U.S. Army Captain and VoteVets Senior Advisor Rose Forrest" in his dkos diary along with some more info about McCain's reponse to the ad.

Videos and Obama

The KV post today features two new videos. The first is an interesting compilation of pictures and video clips from Barack Obama's life. The second is a highly creative collaborative video effort based on the Yes. We. Can. video by Dipdive.

Tip for the collaborative video: Click on 'Explore Now' and then run your cursor over the images while the video is playing.

It's interesting how Sen. Obama's campaign has inspired so many creative efforts.

Mark Halperin wrote what?

I'd expect to see this type of speculation at RedState, not on the pages or website of a major mainstream media publication such as TIME. Recommending that one presidential candidate use bigoted, racist appeals in campaigning against another is not journalism. Perhaps it's Halperin's application for media strategist for John McCain's campaign.

Brad Delong and Mark Kleiman have more to say about it.

Obama's Edge in Foreign Affairs

Fareed Zakaria acknowledges what an edge Sen. Obama's upbringing gives him in foreign affairs. It's something that I know is true from my own upbringing overseas in Liberia.

I never thought I'd be in this position. There's a debate taking place about what matters most when making judgments about foreign policy—experience and expertise on the one hand, or personal identity on the other. And I find myself coming down on the side of identity.

Throughout the campaign, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have been squabbling over who has the better qualifications to lead the world's only superpower.

[...]

Obama's argument is about more than identity. He was intelligent and prescient about the costs of the Iraq War. But he says that his judgment was formed by his experience as a boy with a Kenyan father—and later an Indonesian stepfather—who spent four years growing up in Indonesia, and who lived in the multicultural swirl of Hawaii.

I never thought I'd agree with Obama. I've spent my life acquiring formal expertise on foreign policy. I've got fancy degrees, have run research projects, taught in colleges and graduate schools, edited a foreign-affairs journal, advised politicians and businessmen, written columns and cover stories, and traveled hundreds of thousands of miles all over the world. I've never thought of my identity as any kind of qualification. I've never written an article that contains the phrase "As an Indian-American ..." or "As a person of color ..."

But when I think about what is truly distinctive about the way I look at the world, about the advantage that I may have over others in understanding foreign affairs, it is that I know what it means not to be an American. I know intimately the attraction, the repulsion, the hopes, the disappointments that the other 95 percent of humanity feels when thinking about this country. I know it because for a good part of my life, I wasn't an American. I was the outsider, growing up 8,000 miles away from the centers of power, being shaped by forces over which my country had no control.

When I hear confident claims about liberty and democracy in the Third World, I always think about rural India, where I spent a great deal of time when I was young, and wonder what those peasants struggling to survive would make of the abstractions of the American Enterprise Institute. When I read commentators fulminating about women wearing the burqa—which I don't much like either—I think about one of my aunts, who has always worn one, and of the many complex reasons she keeps it on, none of which involves approval of misogyny or support for suicide bombers. When I talk to people in a foreign country, no matter how strange, they are always, at some level, familiar to me.

[...]

We're moving into a very new world, one in which countries from Brazil to South Africa to India and China are getting richer, stronger and prouder. For America to thrive, we will have to develop a much deeper, richer, more intuitive understanding of them and their peoples. There are many ways to attain this, but certainly being able to feel it in your bones is one powerful way. Trust me on this. As a Ph.D. in international relations, I know what I'm talking about.

H/T to Andrew Sullivan and Brad Delong

Saturday, February 23, 2008

For Obama: "Si Se Puede Cambiar" by Andres Useche

I just watched this Andreas Useche video directed by blogger Eric Byler. Wow.



I'd be interested to know if your reaction to the end of the video is the same as mine.

Netroots and the 2004 and 2008 campaigns

Just before the Super-Tuesday primary, National Journal's Blogometer had an interesting round-up of leading lefty bloggers and what they had to say about Obama. The whole section titled, 'OBAMA: Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not' is interesting but Chris Bowers' comments from OpenLeft particularly caught my eye.

Chris Bowers, who has harshly criticized Obama in the past, considers Obama a "people-powered" candidate in spite of the fact that his rhetoric differs from that of the netroots: "Let's see here: a campaign that uses extensive internet organizing, huge campaign rallies, heavy youth and creative class support, a record breaking number of small donors, a fulfilled promise of record turnout, and combination of [Howard] Dean and [Wesley] Clark voters to force the best possible candidate the Democratic establishment could offer down to the wire? Correct me if I am wrong, but in terms of structure, that seems to be exactly what the emergence of the progressive blogosphere suggested could happen in a Democratic Presidential primary in 2004. Just because the campaign in question was not, seemingly, single-handedly plucked from relative obscurity by a few prominent bloggers does not mean the Obama campaign is not using the exact same energy and exact same new, political trajectory that the blogosphere was riding back in 2003-2004."

Bowers concludes: "The political zeitgeist that the progressive blogosphere first seized upon five or six years ago was released into the population at large and came back, unexpectedly, as the Barack Obama campaign. That energy certainly didn't turn out with the same rhetorical approach it started with, but otherwise it is nearly structurally identical. In other words, the whole people-powered thing turned out exactly the way we planned it would, only that it sounds a little different."


The only part on which I will quibble with him is that he did not credit the Kerry-Edwards blog and what it did to energize people in the 2004 general election run-up. The Kerry supporter groups that formed during that period are still active today and have transferred much of their energy to the Obama campaign.

Friday, February 22, 2008

BalloonJuice supplies the proper perspective

John Cole does it again in his inimitable way. Commenting on the winger blogosphere and their predictable reaction to the anecdote of the Army captain in Afghanistan that Sen. Obama mentioned last night, John said:

As a wise man once said, “Ruh Roh.” We know what happens when the wingnut narrative is in danger.

You must click on the 'in danger' link. 101st Chairborne... I have to remember that.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

George Clooney, Mr. Handyman

Joel Stein of Time Magazine did a nice interview with George Clooney which highlights how unimpressed he is with his own celebrity and at the same time demonstrates that the man has some brains. (Of course we already knew that with 'Good Night and Good Luck'.) Somehow Joel managed to invite George to dinner at his house and they had a little excitement during dinner. An alarm went off and George, having been a contractor before he was a movie star, insisted on figuring out why the alarm went off.

Joel's wife grabbed a video camera.



It's good and so is the rest of the article.

American Diplomacy and the 2008 Presidential Race

There's an interesting article in salon.com about Barack's stature and impact in foreign affairs.

A crucial question about who should be the next president is whether Obama, Hillary Clinton or John McCain is most likely to be able to heal the rift between the U.S. and much of the rest of the world, a rift not created but dangerously widened by the administration of George W. Bush. What is abundantly clear now -- at least to many foreigners and particularly to Muslims in the Third World -- is that Barack Obama is the candidate by far the best suited to begin healing that rift and restoring America's global reputation, and perhaps even to begin reversing decades of anti-Americanism. Obama would begin a presidency with a huge advantage in terms of world perception.

Waste of my time and NYT's money

I found myself having to define once again why David Brooks is a waste of time after his screed on Obama. So I hunted up the review Sasha Issenberg did of Brooks' article, "One Nation, Slightly Divisible", which he later turned into a book, "On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now". The review itself, "Boo-Boos in Paradise", ran in Philly Magazine. It contains fact-checking that puts the lie to the underlying premise of Brooks' writing.

mcjoan on dailykos did a nice round-up of reviews of Brooks and his inaccuracies. Ezra's comment was particularly interesting. There's more that could be dug up but I think it sufficiently illustrates the point. He's a waste of my time and NYT's good money. Or as Sasha Issenberg put it:

Brooks satisfies the features desk's appetite for scholarly authority in much the same way that Jayson Blair fed the newsroom's compulsion for scoops.

One final link -- I'm in good company with Brad Delong and Matt Yglesias weighing in with much the same opinion.

I lied. Here's one more link and it is a delightful if lengthy takedown of Brooks by Michael Kinsley in the NYT Book Review.

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

20 Minutes from Lawrence Lessig

I think he sums 'Why Obama?' up pretty well.

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Monday, February 04, 2008

Yes. We. Can.

So amazing...



Some of the most telling evidence of the power of Obama's speech is in these comments which were excerpted from redstate.com by kaelamantis and glic over at dkos.

I don't care if you are the biggest Obama hater out there -- you WILL think this video is cool. Obama's "Yes we can" speech in New Hampshire was historically memorable. This video cements the inspiration found in his words. He may be full of hopeful air but if you take the speech in a more personal way, it can certainly rustle something good in your heart.

Masterful, political poetry.

Read some of the other comments here. I've never heard so many people (from across the political spectrum) respond to a speaker the way they do to Obama. Friends, relatives, and strangers mostly say "WOW!" That includes people who would never vote for him.

Give credit where due with Obama. I dont agree with him on much of anything, but I must admit I like the guy. I dont feel the gut-wrenching, sickness and dread at the words "President Obama" that the words "President Clinton" invoke.

You can disagree with almost every word Barack Obama says. I certainly do. But I think you have to have your head buried in the sand to deny that his speech(es) and this video are going to be powerful to some people.

I think their comments speak to the power of Obama's vision. If the self-identified right-wing bloggers are speaking like this about Obama, just imagine what the left wing bloggers are saying.

Items of Interest

-- I'm late to this story but I just read it. Just one more story to add to the many stories of how our soldiers and veterans are failed by the bureaucracy and attitudes of the Army and Veterans Administration. Good luck, Lt. Whiteside. Thanks for your service. And hang in there to Lt. Whiteside's parents. I'm so glad she has you on her side.

-- From the LA Times, there's a new 527 group being formed to provide some clarity / opposition to the ultra-conservative Freedom's Watch group. It's called Fund For America.

Saturday, February 02, 2008

Interview with Michelle Obama

Though I've seen snatches of Michelle Obama, it's mostly been a one-liner or just her standing by her husband, Barack Obama. This interview with Soledad Obrien is enlightening.



I like her. Smart woman.

Friday, February 01, 2008

Volcker endorses Obama

I could hardly believe my eyes. Paul Volcker, yes that Paul Volcker, is endorsing Barack Obama. Via the WSJ:

"After 30 years in government, serving under five Presidents of both parties and chairing two non-partisan commissions on the Public Service, I have been reluctant to engage in political campaigns. The time has come to overcome that reluctance,” Mr. Volcker said in a statement today. “However, it is not the current turmoil in markets or the economic uncertainties that have impelled my decision. Rather, it is the breadth and depth of challenges that face our nation at home and abroad. Those challenges demand a new leadership and a fresh approach."

He concluded: "It is only Barack Obama, in his person, in his ideas, in his ability to understand and to articulate both our needs and our hopes that provide the potential for strong and fresh leadership. That leadership must begin here in America but it can also restore needed confidence in our vision, our strength, and our purposes right around the world."

H/T to onanyes