Race-baiting, Iraq and a Link to Troubled Blagojevich

1) Paul Krugman, in Monday’s NYT, opines that the Bush tax cuts are a “poison pill” that any subsequent administration will have to overcome. While Krugman sees John McCain as continuing to support bad policy, he also chides Barack Obama for not being more forthcoming about how his tax plan would affect the budget.

Seems like the give aways of the last few years are about to bite our collective tushies.

2) The race-baiting of Obama supporters continues. Because a particular McCain organizer trying to work with Hillary supporters is also involved in protesting Sally Hemmings’ descendants being recognized as Thomas Jefferson’s descendants, those Hillary supporters she is talking with must be

wait –

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it:

Read the rest ->

RACISTS!

This [people supposedly talking with the McCain organizer], of course, is the faction of Clinton supporters — people who don’t like black people — where McCain has a very good shot at picking up new voters. The people who backed Clinton on feminist grounds or because they thought she had the savvy to deliver big time progressive legislation probably won’t be following in Abeles’ footsteps.

So, Hillary supporters, make sure to VET anyone trying to talk with you about your potential vote. Talking with the wrong person might get you labeled a racist. . .

3) Looks like Obama is getting ready to use his passport. He announced today that he would visit Iraq and Afghanistan before the election. During a phone conversation with Iraqi foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, Obama assured the foreign minister the US would have no interest in permanent bases in Iraq should he become the president. Obama also said he would support the withdrawal of troops, with most being gone by 16 months.

Also covered in more detail here, Obama finished the conversation by saying he looked forward to a face to face meeting in Baghdad. Mr Zebari may have been more impressed by McCain, however, who spoke face to face with the foreign minister on Sunday.

4) A small thing, but potentially very interesting is a throw-away line from Rahm Emanuel in a piece by Nico Pitney at the HuffyPot, (google it – I don’t link to them). Emanuel is discussing how he had a terrible time waiting to see which friend (Hillary or Obama) would win the nomination.

On the other hand, Barack and Michelle are friends, he says. “I’ve known him a long time. We used to sit around helping our governor get elected, help those strategy meetings, stuff like that.”

Another blogger noted this statement in particular and said Emanuel thus linked Obama directly to embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

* I don’t recall ever hearing about this, but the Republicans now have an avenue to directly connect presidential candidate Barack Obama to our embattled, investigated, unpopular and all but humiliated Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Congresscritter Rahm Emanuel says Obama helped get Blagojevich elected…

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I’m assuming that since Emanuel said “elected,” he meant 2002, before it was widely known that Blagojevich had some seriously shady pals. Even so, Obama can now be tied to the Blagojevich shipwreck. Not good.

Rezkowatch picked up on this as well and added a couple of tidbits:

2. RW pointed out in the March 30, 2008, post DOJ Exhibit: Rezko’s Dirty Money—which discussed Prosecution exhibit: FBI analysis of Rezko fundraising for Blagojevich 2001-2004—that many of the same contributors who gave so generously to Blagojevich’s campaign via Tony Rezko also contributed to Obama’s political campaign coffers.


3. Evelyn Pringle pointed out in her series of articles that when a board deal went down in Illinois, and pay-to-play money exchanged hands, Blagojevich got his cut, and Obama got his.

This could be interesting. I haven’t seen anything tying Obama to Blagojevich either. Let’s see if this gets picked up anywhere.

5) In a rather petty but expected dig, Obama mentioned Google three times in a speech today. According to Ben Smith at Politico, this is code for “I know how to use a computer.” Probably Obama was oh-so-subtly trying to remind listeners that McCain, said “. . . it’s a Google” when responding to a question about locating information.

That Obama, he’s such a with it guy, up on all the tech lingo. I’ll be he’s been friended by everybody. BTW, any bets on how long it will be before we’re subjected to Obama podcasts??????

6) The Reaction covers the inception of a new NBC/MSNBC channel – the Eulogy Channel. If the link doesn’t work, it’s a google.