RSS Feed for This PostCurrent Article

More About the Hypocrisy & Misleading Claims from Obama’s Campaign

Barack Obama claimed he didn’t take oil-connected money, but he did (LA Times).  He claimed he didn’t take lobbyist-connected money, but he did (USA Today , LA Times, SourceWatch and The Hill).  He claimed he didn’t take corporate-connected cash, but he took more drug-company-connected cash than Hillary or McCain did (Newhouse News).

Both at No Quarter and Buck Naked Politics, I’ve repeatedly blogged about Obama’s hypocrisy and misleading claims.  Some weeks ago, I submitted one in a series of such blog posts to NQ, and Susan said, "Deb, you really are a nag." 

She was right.  I nag, because many media outlets have simply ignored Obama’s hypocrisy regarding special-interest ties.  Today, I found a Newsweek article ("Obama’s Lobbyist Connection") that covers a different example of the hypocrisy and misleading claims.  In part, it states:

"When Illinois utility Commonwealth Edison wanted state lawmakers to back a hefty rate hike two years ago, it took a creative lobbying approach, concocting a new outfit that seemed devoted to the public interest: Consumers Organized for Reliable Electricity, or CORE. CORE ran TV ads warning of a "California-style energy crisis" if the rate increase wasn’t approved—but without disclosing the commercials were funded by Commonwealth Edison. The ad campaign provoked a brief uproar when its ties to the utility, which is owned by Exelon Corp., became known.

"It’s corporate money trying to hoodwink the public," the state’s Democratic Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn said. What got scant notice then—but may soon get more scrutiny—is that CORE was the brainchild of ASK Public Strategies, a consulting firm whose senior partner is David Axelrod, now chief strategist for Barack Obama." (Newsweek)

Keep in mind that Obama’s campaign has repeatedly slammed Hillary Clinton and John McCain for having ties to special interests — causing visions of pots and kettles to dance in my mind.

Mr. Axelrod denied any hypocrisy, stating that he and his ASK partners didn’t actually register as lobbyists for Commonwealth Edison.  Axelrod also said that he has not lobbied government officials for corporate clients.  Newsweek casts doubt on Axelrod’s claims:

"But the activities of ASK (located in the same office as Axelrod’s political firm) illustrate the difficulties in defining exactly who a lobbyist is. In 2004, Cablevision hired ASK to set up a group similar to CORE to block a new stadium for the New York Jets in Manhattan.

Unlike Illinois, New York disclosure laws do cover such work, and ASK’s $1.1 million fee was listed as the ‘largest lobbying contract’ of the year in the annual report of the state’s lobbying commission.

"ASK last year proposed a similar ‘political campaign style approach’ to help Illinois hospitals block a state proposal that would have forced them to provide more medical care to the indigent. One part of its plan: create a ‘grassroots’ group of medical experts ‘capable of contacting policymakers to advocate for our position,’ according to a copy of the proposal. (ASK didn’t get the contract.) Public-interest watchdogs say these grassroots campaigns are state of the art in the lobbying world.

"‘There’s no way with a straight face to say that’s not lobbying,’ says Ellen Miller, director of the Sunlight Foundation, which promotes government transparency." (Newsweek)

Newsweek isn’t the only one noticing Obama’s hypocrisy and misleading claims.  Last week, the Republican National Committee put out a press release ("Obama’s Lobbyist Hypocrisy"), which makes detailed claims while listing names and sources.  Below is a sampling of those claims:

- “Obama Has Former Federal Lobbyists Working For And Raising Money For His Campaign”

- “Obama Also Uses Bundlers Who Were Previously Registered As Federal Lobbyists”

- “Obama Currently Accepts Contributions From Spouses Of Lobbyists And Holds Fundraisers In Offices That Engage In Lobbying”

- “Obama Has Accepted Contributions From Law Firms That Engage In Lobbying”

- “Obama’s Fundraising Team Includes 38 Members Of Law Firms That Engage In Federal Lobbying”

- “Obama Accepted Contributions From Lobbyists And PACs While Running For The Senate And State Senate”

- “In Obama’s Eight Years In The Illinois Senate, From 1996 To 2004, Almost Two-Thirds Of The Money He Raised For His Campaigns – $296,000 Of $461,000 – Came From PACs, Corporate Contributions, Or Unions”

- “Obama Also Has Multiple Super Delegate Endorsements From Current Federal Lobbyists”

I have no love for the RNC, but I don’t doubt the veracity of the RNC’s claims, because I’ve seen similar information from reputable sources (like those linked in the first paragraph of this blog post).

So far, Obama-infatuated MSM outlets have successfully managed to keep Obama’s hypocrisy and misleading claims from becoming major news stories. 

Something tells me that the RNC is not going to allow such stories to stay in the shadows for much longer.  It would have been so much better for the Democratic party if this information had been given due attention earlier in the primaries.  Oh well.

To be sure, most federal candidates have ties to special interests — and they will continue to until real campaign-finance reform is achieved.

So, why do Obama’s special-interest ties matter?  They don’t. 

What matter are his hypocrisy and misleading claims, because they completely undermine his campaign’s efforts to market him as new, clean, and eager to change Washington’s "politics as usual."

Memeorandum has commentary.

  • http://www.hillaryclinton.com **== President & Commander-in-Chief Hillary Clinton **==

    Deb please keep being a nag. ;)

    Great article.

    • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

      Thank you. I believe I will.

      • lute

        Today, the NYT reported that while Obama was graciously “overlooking” the faux RFK scandal, his camp was busy fanning the flames. George Stephanopoulos confronted Axelrod on it, saying that he had the e mail.

        A new Karl Rove is on the horizon. But even sleazier.

        • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

          Lute,

          Great find. Which email are you talking about? I’m off to Google to search for what you’re talking about.

          I need it, because one of my Obama supporting commenters (a VERY NICE one) challenged me when I suggested that Obama’s campaign had ignited the fuse.

          I had looked at the NYT blog (quoted in my post). Do you have something else?

          • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

            I just found it via Google and included it in another post I’ve put at my blog.

            thanks for the tip.

          • IndayHill

            Deb,please, keep on nagging the media/network till their eyes open to the truth BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!! We do not want another incompetent, puppet in the WH.Obama is definitely a “sold puppet” to the lobbyists. He is a PHONY!!
            I read yesterday the article of Ken Blackwell, NY Sun black columnist. His article is an eye opener & scary.We love our country & America deserves the BEST!!PRESIDENT HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON !!

            • IndayHill

              Pls. check Google: Ken Blackwell, NYSUN
              “Beyond Obama’s Beauty”
              Obama is a FAKE!!EGOISTIC!!!
              It is just sad that he is already thinking he is JFK!! WHAT A SHAME!!!

  • joe_w

    Keep up the good work. Axelrod and his Chicago thugs must be exposed.

    • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

      Let’s hope the exposure happens before a nominee is chosen.

  • OxyCon

    That David Axelrove is a real snake in the grass.
    Change…my ass!
    Audacity does however fit Obama and Axelrove.

    Axelrove has a special needs child, who Hillary Clinton just happened to go out of her way to help. What does David Axelrove do? He sticks a knife in Hillary’s back, then he goes out of HIS way to try and make sure that poor people DO NOT get the same kind of care his own daughter depends on.

    What a bastard!

    I have gotten to know too much about how the Repub party operates and who the lowlifes in that party are, and I have to tell you that I think David Axelrove is a bigger asshole than anyone in the Repub party.

    • joe_w

      Whatever misdeeds Karl Rove has done in his GOP political campaigns is child’s play compared to the traitorous creepy tricks by Axelrod. Axelrod is the master at using RACISM to empower Obama and cripple opponents. The IRS should investigate his lobbying practice and its shady deals.

      • Dakinikat

        I stack Axelrod against any of Nixon’s Cronies for the lowest of the low awards. I swear he must’ve got his training under CREEP.

      • BernieO

        Let’s not get carried away. We cannot forget that Rove used the Justice Department to launch CRIMINAL investigations of Dems, putting a governor in jail.
        For sure Axelrod is a nasty piece of work, but as far as I know he has not done anything quite like that. As for what he is capable of, I don’t want to find out. The last thing the party needs to do is adopt the corrupt methods of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove. Then the Republicans have really won.

    • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

      I’m acquainted with a Republican operative who asked me months ago, “Do you know who David Axelrod is”?

      I said, “Yeah, he’s Obama’s campaign manager.”

      The operative said, “Beyond that.” I shrugged.

      He said, “David Axelrod is the Karl Rove of Chicago politics, but he’s 10 times worse and half as smart.”

      For what it’s worth….

      • BobO

        hmmm, from my observations I think Alexrod makes Karl Rove look like a 2 year old in a sandbox.

        I also am very aware of Obama’s corporate ties and promises. He has promised to Google all sorts of things, including more H-1B guest worker Visas.

        Hillary has been the poster gal for this but Obama outdid her and even more surprising is trying to point this fact out to hundreds of thousands of tech workers, where this affects their ability to find work, they just cannot realize it.

        • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

          Very interesting. I didn’t know about this (tech workers and Google).

        • http://deleted AnninCa

          Lobby ties aren’t awful unless you have no power. Then they can truly skew votes.

          But I would assume he’s launching beyond their control.

          In the past? No.

          But I personally think people make much too much out of these ties. What matters is what is expected and what is delivered.

          If you have other funding sources? The lobbyists can take a number.

          • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

            Ann,

            I don’t think there’s a problem with his lobbyist ties.

            The problem is that he falsely claimed to the public that he wasn’t tied to lobbyists.

      • workingclass artist

        LOL….Funny That….Good Post and I’m glad your naggin a bit…I prefer to call it focused…chuckle…
        To my way of seeing it…The biggest diff between Rove and Axelgoebbles is that Rove is a REPUBLICAN…A DEMENTED REPUBLICAN to be sure but still a republican….
        imho…OBAMA AND AXELGOEBBLES ARE BOTH APOLITICAL…and they are working their fascist magic on the Democratic party because the GOP don’t go for that kind o shit….The GOP has their own agenda of which we are all familiar since fundamentally it has remained unchanged since Hoover/FDR…
        Axelgoebbles and Obama with his fascist army seek to dis-mantle Democracy in America….This is bigger than the parties and corrupt at the core….

        • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

          I think a-political is a good way to put it. I’d never thought about it before, but I do think that A and O are a-political at heart.

    • Horse with no Name

      You said:
      “have gotten to know too much about how the Repub party operates and who the lowlifes in that party are, and I have to tell you that I think David Axelrove is a bigger asshole than anyone in the Repub party.”

      If…for no other reason, than they are lying to their own instead of their opponent. That makes it a hundred times worse, IMHO.

  • swannyj

    I’m not sure what this means, Form Current fed lobbyists? Does this mean the lobbyist deliver the SDs?

    “Obama Also Has Multiple Super Delegate Endorsements From Current Federal Lobbyists”

    • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

      I just went back to the RNC press release. Here’s what it says about that:

      “Obama Also Has Multiple Super Delegate Endorsements From Current Federal Lobbyists:

      John Melcher Is A Democrat Super Delegate Supporting Barack Obama. (The Politico Website, http://www.politico.com/superdelegates/, Accessed 5/2/08)

      – Melcher Is A Registered Federal Lobbyist. (U.S. Senate Office
      Of Public Records Website,
      http://soprweb.senate.gov/index.cfm?event=submitSearchRequest,
      Accessed 5/2/08)

      Joyce Brayboy Is A Democrat Super Delegate Supporting Barack Obama. (The Politico Website, http://www.politico.com/superdelegates/, Accessed 5/2/08)

      – Brayboy Is A Registered Federal Lobbyist With The Glover Park Group, LLC. (U.S. Senate Office Of Public Records Website,
      http://soprweb.senate.gov/index.cfm?event=submitSearchRequest,
      Accessed 5/2/08)

      Moses Mercado Is A Democrat Super Delegate Supporting Barack Obama. (The Politico Website, http://www.politico.com/superdelegates/, Accessed 5/2/08)

      – Mercado Is A Registered Federal Lobbyist With Ogilvy Government Relations.(U.S. Senate Office Of Public Records Website,
      http://soprweb.senate.gov/index.cfm?event=submitSearchRequest,
      Accessed 5/2/08)

      • yttik

        Good work!

        That’s creepy, I didn’t realize you could be a lobbyist and a superdelegate.

        So I suppose we’re expected to believe that nobody would ever promise favorable legislation in exchange for an endorsement?

        • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

          Yttik,

          That’s right. You should Believe that super-dels are beyond corruption (esp. the ones who double as fee-earning lobbyists). :)

  • jwrjr

    Being called a “nag” about this is a compliment.

    • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

      I smiled when she said it. I’m sure her tone had affection in it.

  • SJ

    I cant believe what I am seeing by some of these Obamanuts, now the new thrust is for Hillary to lose her senate seat, or for her to have a difficult time on her return, look like these people will never stop tying to make her vanish off the face of this earth.

    • http://www.hillaryclinton.com **== President & Commander-in-Chief Hillary Clinton **==

      Its more smoke from them. The only way Hillary leaves the Senate is to take another job in the Oval Office. These trolls are in for many rude awakenings.

      • bigkitty

        These trolls are in for many rude awakenings.

        I would agree.

        And the comment “about half as smart” was on the money…

        • bwana

          half as smart as rove? not sure.

          light years ahead of penn, mcauliffe, wolfson, grunwold, solis, et al.? clearly.

          • http://www.hillaryclinton.com **== President & Commander-in-Chief Hillary Clinton **==

            mcauliffe and wolfson have kept Hillary in the game in spite of Obama’s huge corporate cash advantage and MSM advantage. Your guy can’t close the deal.

            • bwana

              but your gal said this would be over on super tuesday. how’d that work out for you?

    • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

      It speaks volumes about some of Obama’s supporters — and the horribly bellicose tone and spirit that the campaign has encouraged (or at least tolerated).

      It’s all very disconcerting.

      • jwrjr

        Obama didn’t tell his supporters to “cool it”. So he owns it.

        • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

          I agree. He had a responsibility to ask them to cool off — the same way he (and the DNC) think Hillary is responsible for her supporters’ feeling like not voting for Obama if he becomes the nominee.

          Different standards for different candidates.

    • BobO

      Good God. In terms of supposed Progressive platform legislation, I can name a good 20 Senator Democrats who are way more corporate than Hillary. These people are in love with hate, seriously.

    • http://deleted AnninCa

      That’s a hail Mary from his Clyburnesque crowd.

      She’s obviously making her clout felt.

      That’s why those little ole SD’s haven’t yet scurried over to save him.

      The ones left? Obviously, they aren’t the dummies.

  • Gary Ruppert

    It doesn’t end there.

    Obama’s LAUNDRY LIST OF LIES.

    1.) Selma Got Me Born
    LIAR, your parents felt safe enough to have you in 1961 – Selma had no effect on your birth, as Selma was in 1965.

    2.) Father Was A Goat Herder
    LIAR, he was a privileged, well educated youth, who went on to work with the Kenyan Government.

    3.) Father Was A Proud Freedom Fighter
    LIAR, he was part of one of the most corrupt and violent governments Kenya has ever had

    4.) My Family Has Strong Ties To African Freedom
    LIAR, your cousin Raila Odinga has created mass violence in attempting to overturn a legitimate election in 2007, in Kenya. It is the first widespread violence in decades.

    5.) My Grandmother Has Always Been A Christia
    LIAR, she does her daily Salat prayers at 5am according to her own interviews. Not to mention, Christianity wouldn’t allow her to have been one of 14 wives to 1 man.

    6.) My Name is African Swahili
    LIAR, your name is Arabic and ‘Baraka’ (from which Barack came) means ‘blessed’ in that language. Hussein is also Arabic and so is Obama.

    7.) I Never Practiced Islam
    LIAR, you practiced it daily at school, where you were registered as a Muslim and kept that faith for 31 years, until your wife made you change, so you could run for office.

    8.) My School In Indonesia Was Christian
    LIAR, you were registered as Muslim there and got in trouble in Koranic Studies for making faces (check your own book).

    9.) I Was Fluent In Indonesian
    LIAR, not one teacher says you could speak the language.

    10.) Because I Lived In Indonesia, I Have More Foreign Experience
    LIAR, you were there from the ages of 6 to 10, and couldn’t even speak the language. What did you learn, how to study the Koran and watch cartoons.

    11.) I Am Stronger On Foreign Affairs
    LIAR, except for Africa (surprise) and the Middle East (bigger surprise), you have never been anywhere else on the planet and thus have NO experience with our closest allies.

    12.) I Blame My Early Drug Use On Ethnic Confusion
    LIAR, you were quite content in high school to be Barry Obama, no mention of Kenya and no mention of struggle to identify – your classmates said you were just fine.

    13.)An Ebony Article Moved Me To Run For Office
    LIAR, Ebony has yet to find the article you mention in your book. It doesn’t, and never did, exist.

    14.) A Life Magazine Article Changed My Outlook On Life
    LIAR, Life has yet to find the article you mention in your book. It doesn’t, and never did, exist.

    15.) I Won’t Run On A National Ticket In ’08
    LIAR, here you are, despite saying, live on TV, that you would not have enough experience by then, and you are all about having experience first.

    16.) Present Votes Are Common In Illinois
    LIAR, they are common for YOU, but not many others have 130 NO VOTES.

    17.) Oops, I Misvoted
    LIAR, only when caught by church groups and democrats, did you beg to change your misvote.

    18.) I Was A Professor Of Law
    LIAR, you were a senior lecturer ON LEAVE.

    19.) I Was A Constitutional Lawyer
    LIAR, you were a senior lecturer ON LEAVE.

    20.) Without Me, There Would Be No Ethics Bill
    LIAR, you didn’t write it,introduce it, change it, or create it.

    21.) The Ethics Bill Was Hard To Pass
    LIAR, it took just 14 days from start to finish.

    22.) I Wrote A Tough Nuclear Bill
    LIAR, your bill was rejected by your own party for its pandering and lack of all regulation – mainly because of your Nuclear Donor, Exelon, from which David Axelrod came.

    23.) I Have Released My State Records
    LIAR, as of March, 2008, state bills you sponsored or voted for have yet to be released, exposing all the special interests pork hidden within.

    24.) I Took On The Asbestos Altgeld Gardens Mess
    LIAR, you were part of a large group of people who remedied Altgeld Gardens. You failed to mention anyone else but yourself, in your books.

    25.) My Economics Bill Will Help America
    LIAR, your 111 economic policies were just combined into a proposal which lost 99-0, and even YOU voted against your own bill.

    26.) I Have Been A Bold Leader In Illinois
    LIAR, even your own supporters claim to have not seen BOLD action on your part.

    27.) I Passed 26 Of My Own Bills In One Year
    LIAR, they were not YOUR bills, but rather handed to you, after their creation by a fellow Senator, to assist you in a future bid for higher office.

    28.) No One Contacted Canada About NAFTA
    LIAR, the Candian Government issued the names and a memo of the conversation your campaign had with them.

    29.) I Am Tough On Terrorism
    LIAR, you missed the Iran Resolution vote on terrorism and your good friend Ali Abunimah supports the destruction of Israel.

    30.) I Am Not Acting As President Yet
    LIAR, after the NAFTA Memo, a dead terrorist in the FARC, in Colombia, was found with a letter stating how you and he were working together on getting FARC recognized officially.

    31.) I Didn’t Run Ads In Florida
    LIAR, you allowed national ads to run 8-12 times per day for two weeks – and you still lost.

    32.) I Won Michigan
    LIAR, no you didn’t.

    33.) I won Nevada
    LIAR, no you did not.

    34.) I Want All Votes To Count
    LIAR, you said let the delegates decide.

    35.) I Want Americans To Decide
    LIAR, you prefer caucuses that limit the vote, confuse the voters, force a public vote, and only operate during small windows of time.

    36.) I passed 900 Bills in the State Senate
    LIAR, you passed 26, most of which you didn’t write yourself.

    37.) My Campaign Was Extorted By A Friend
    LIAR, that friend is threatening to sue if you do not stop saying this. Obama has stopped saying this.

    38.) I Believe In Fairness, Not Tactics
    LIAR, you used tactics to eliminate Alice Palmer from running against you.

    39.) I Don’t Take PAC Money
    LIAR, you take loads of it.

    40.) I don’t Have Lobbysists
    LIAR, you have over 47 lobbyists, and counting.

    41.) My Campaign Had Nothing To Do With The 1984 Ad
    LIAR, your own campaign worker made the ad on his Apple in one afternoon.

    42.) My Campaign Never Took Over MySpace
    LIAR, Tom, who started MySpace issued a warning about this advertising to MySpace clients.

    43.) I Inspire People With My Words
    LIAR, you inspire people with other people’s words.

    44.) I Have Passed Bills In The U.S. Senate
    LIAR, you have passed A BILL in the U.S. Senate – for Africa, which shows YOUR priorities.

    45.) I Have Always Been Against Iraq
    LIAR, you weren’t in office to vote against it AND you have voted to fund it every single time, unlike Kucinich, who seems to be out gutting you Obama. You also seem to be stepping back from your departure date – AGAIN.

    46.) I Have Always Supported Universal Health Care
    LIAR, your plan leaves us all to pay the 15,000,000 who don’t have to buy it.

    47.) I Only Found Out About My Investment Conflicts Via Mail
    LIAR, both companies you site as having sent you letters about this conflict have no record of any such letter ever being created or sent.

    48.) I Am As Patriotic As Anyone
    LIAR, you won’t wear a flag pin and you don’t put your hand over your heart during the Anthem.

    49.) My Wife Didn’t Mean What She Said About Pride In Country
    LIAR, your wife’s words follow lock-step in the vain of Wright and Farrahkan, in relation to their contempt and hatred of America.

    50.) Wal-Mart Is A Company I Wouldn’t Support
    LIAR, your wife has received nearly a quater of a million dollars through Treehouse, which is connected to Wal-Mart.

    51.) Treehouse Is A Small Company
    LIAR, the CEO of Treehouse last year, made more than the CEO of Wal-Mart, according to public records.

    52.) University Of Chicago Hospital Pay Is Fair
    LIAR, your wife’s pay raise was nearly 150% her already bloated rate and the hospital is a Non-Profit Hospital, which made $100,000,000 in the last 3 years. They overcharge blacks VS whites for services, and overcharge everyone in general by 538%!

    53.)I Barely Know Rezko – Only 5 Billed Hours
    LIAR, you have known him for 17 years, and decided to do a real estate deal with him during a time when he was proven to be under investigation. Despite this, you divided your property and had them take off $300K before the mortgage problems started. Then Rezko’s wife buys the lot beside it that you can’t afford, saving you $625,000.

    54.) My Donations Have Been Checked Thoroughly
    LIAR, you only gave back Hsu ($72K) and Rezko ($150K) their money when publically called on their involvement in your campaigns.

    55.) My Church Is Like Any Other Christian Church
    LIAR, your church is so extreme, the pastor who married you, Rev. Wright, just got done blaming the US for 9/11 and named Louis Farrahkan their person of the year.

    56.) I Disagree With My Church All The Time
    LIAR, you still have yet to repudiate Wright, who married you and your wife, and you still donate large sums of money to assist the church in furthering its message – hatred and revenge. You donated in 2006 alone, $22,500 to the church that you so terribly disagree with. That is nearly $500 PER WEEK – that sure is disagreement, Senator Obama.

    57.) I Have Clean Connections Despite Rezko
    LIAR, you are not only connected to Exelon and Rezko, you are also connected to Hillary PAC supporter Mr. Hsu, AND an Iraqi Billionaire of ill repute, Nadhmi Auchi, who ripped off people in the Food For Oil, Iraqi deal. Seems Mr. Auchi may have helped Obama buy his million dollar property long before Obama had millions of dollars. Wonder what favors Mr. Auchi expects, when Obama leaves Iraq free to be taken over by special interests such as him.

    58.) I never heard sermons like Rev. Wright’s, that have been in videos all day, You Tube
    LIAR! 3 days later during your Mea Culpa BS speech you said “Did I hear controversial statements while sitting in the pew yes!”

    If Obama steals the nod, then either Hillary must run as a “Real Democrat” or McCain must win.

    • lute

      that’s a handy, dandy little list worth saving. Thanks!

      • http://www.hillaryclinton.com **== President & Commander-in-Chief Hillary Clinton **==

        It needs to be updated and references are needed to really be a slam dunk.

        • Gary Ruppert

          We can trim one lie off the list so we can have a lie for “every state” in Obamaland.

      • Clara Barton

        This diary is illuminating as is the list Gary just compiled. But let me ask, how will this help expose him? How can it help Hillary? Do we know that someone out there with a large, public forum (Fox, Lou Dobbs) will read this blog and run with it, or is there something very proactive we can do?

        • http://www.writehillaryin.com jm

          Clara, the most important thing for each of us to do right now – other than breaking 1 of many scandals into the media – is to CONTACT SUPERDELEGATES in protest of biased obama support and to MOVE THE UNCOMMITTED SD’S toward Hilary.

          Even to THANK HILLARY SD’s to HOLD TO THEIR SUPPORT OF HER. Go to:

          http://www.lobbydelegates.com has a pretty well organized way of doing this (and appreciates small donations)

          Also, here, again is an EMAIL LIST for some SD’s DROP THEM A NOTE – tell them why – good use of time, this is getting traction – we just need MORE PEOPLE TO CONTACT SD’s:

          LemireDahlman@rangeweb.net
stephanie_schriock@tester.senate.gov
montanaflyfish@yahoo.com
joyce
          brayboy@gmail.com
          
judgebutterfield@aol.com
          
jcouncil@co.cumberland.nc.
          us
jmeek@ncdp.org

          geri_gaginis@conrad.senate.gov
elizabeth_gore@dorgan.senate.gov christy_beach@dorgan.senate.gov
dhannaher@hannahers.com

          maxsonlaw@minot.com
reneepf@btinet.net
strauss_david@msn.com

          mwake@medicine.nodak.edu
          
achelpohl@usa.net
katfahey@cox.net
franklamere@msn.com
melanie_rogge@bennelson.senate.gov
dostergard@neb.rr.com
          martha.fullerclark@leg.state.nh.us
dnorcross@snjaflcio.org

          danaredd999@yahoo.com
          crs@ntuaft.com
fharris@unm.edu
teresa_benitez@hotmail.com
steven@stevenhorsford.com

          kittyspraggins@aol.com
          
egoubeaux@woh.rr.com
          
m.mallory@att.net
          
lanamclin@aol.com

          nsonnyn@aol.com
          
tekicatt@aol.com
          
rwhitten@whittenburragelaw.com
mzlivability@yahoo.com
          
jen@defazioforcongress.org
          
info@jasonaltmire.com

          ccampbell215@msn.com
          james_brown@casey.senate.gov sara_mabry@casey.senate.gov
          chafinlawfirm@charter.net
          pmurphy@murphy06.com
          celita_a_de_r@hotmail.com
          gcobbhun@BellSouth.net
          waringsh@bellsouth.net
carol@fowlercommunications.com
jackbillion@sio.midco.net
drey_samuelson@johnson.senate.gov sonja_dean@johnson.senate.gov
mnemec@sullybuttes.net

          stroschein@nrctv.com
rep.loisdeberry@legislature.state.tn.us
BrooksViceChair@aol.com
          
ydavis2455@aol.com

          olga@pgog.net
al@aledwards.com
chris@chetedwards.com

          denise_johnson@ibew.org
bjenellhamlett@mail.house.gov

          senfronia.thompson@publicans.com
wholland@utdemocrats.org
crbenjamin1019@yahoo.com
jbevans@coatchworksfarm.com
icarleton@vtdemocrats.org
kevin_mcdonald@leahy.senate.gov

          chuckr@gmavt.net
          patnotter@gmail.com
          cewaliser@hotmail.com
          wisgov@gov.state.wi.us
mary_irvine@feingold.senate.gov will_sebern@feingold.senate.gov
steve@kagen4congress.com
          
ellisshir@sbcglobal.net
          
raejason@yahoo.com

          lissa7453@yahoo.com
          wineke10@charter.net
beth_provenzano@rockefeller.senate.gov kerry_ates@rockefeller.senate.gov
pjorgensen@jorgensenassociates.com
jmillin@cheyenneeyeclinic.com

          constance@cborde.com
          
liv.gibbons@gmail.com

          boleary1@bloomberg.net

          PLEASE FORWARD THIS ADDRESS LIST TO ALL PRO-HILL BLOGS and all Hillary supporters you know. Also let them know about http://www.lobbydelegates.com

          THIS IS THE WEEK to act on this. Huff post is all over their obamanites to do so. Surely we can write better letters – and how ours are from REAL PEOPLE. So sign our letter, if possible, because his paid hackers are always pretending to be voters- you know, Chicago style (dead bodies, false ID’s and all.)

          • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

            I’d like to make a suggestion — not that anyone needs to hear it, but just in case.

            Super-dels can be just as subject to emotion as the rest of us. Some of them are suffering raw nerves right now, because of the pressure.

            One super-del responded to my (very polite, factual, reasonable, and non-offensive) email noting that it was polite.

            Then, he launched into an attack against Hillary supporters, whom he thought sounded like “sore losers” based on their threats to vote for McCain or stay home.

            The text of my email gave him NO opening to vent that way, yet he did so. I think he was reacting to nastiness from another email writer. People misdirect emotions all the time.

            That said: people tend to be more willing to hear and consider an argument IF:

            - It’s presented pleasantly and civilly

            - It lacks destructive emotions (like anger)

            - There aren’t any insults (aimed at anyone)

            - It lacks sarcasm (which sounds like anger and reduces crediblity)

            - It’s presented based on facts and calmly articulated opinions.

            Lastly, I would avoid making direct or harshly phrased threats (i.e., if you support Obama, I’ll vote for McCain).

            One can get that message across in a softer way that might even evoke sympathy. For example, “When party leaders did X, I felt Y” (or wondered or questioned….)

            Anyway, that’s my two cents.

    • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

      Gary,

      What an impressive list. Thanks for sharing it with all of us.

    • jwrjr

      Does he ever tell the truth about anything?

  • http://www.hillaryclinton.com **== President & Commander-in-Chief Hillary Clinton **==

    I’d never thought I would think:

    Obama is worse than Bush.

    Axelrod is worse than Rove.

    But I do believe both are true.

    Keep fighting, we have to win! Failure is not an option!

    • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

      You’re right: I never thought I’d compare Obama to Bush. In December, I thought “Oh well, if he wins, he’ll be ok — not as good as Hill, but ok.”

      I’m still surprised that my sentiment had changed so much in less than 5 months.

      Obama robbed me of the comfort of feeling that any Dem would be good.

      • CU4HRC

        I felt the same back in Dec, too, and then an Obama-file in MY very own (extended) family went on a a verbal rampage about HRC with such hatred I was stunned. That was the innocent beginning of my transformation — wondering what kind of leader Obama must be if he inspires such venom & hatred between DEMOCRATS! His passive-agressiveness is breathtaking, and seems clever enough to trick the MSM, etc.

    • Skiron

      “Obama is worse than Bush.”

      Obama is not worse than Bush, are you f’n KIDDING ME?
      Is Obama going to try to keep us in Iraq? NO
      Is he going to take us to war in Iran? NO
      Is he going to run roughshod over the environment? NO
      Is he going to run up deficits that squeeeze the middle class and bankrupt our grandchildren? NO
      Is he going to appoint anti-choice, right-wing zealots to the Supreme Court who want to overturn Roe v. Wade? NO
      Wake the hell UP, your irrational and all out of proportion Obama hatred is blinding you to what’s truly important in this election.

      • Gary Ruppert

        So Obamabot, how did you find this blog?

        Your claims assume that Obama can win anyways. He won’t.

        Either McCain defeats him, or Clinton defeats him and Obama running as a True Democrat.

      • yttik

        “Is he going to run roughshod over the environment? NO”

        Has he ever heard of Hanford? No. It’s only one of the most polluted sites in the country, a superfund site involving billions of dollars every year.

        You Skiron, have obviously done absolutely no research. The answer to everyone of your questions should be “yes”. Put the hopium down and start looking into who and what you are endorsing.

      • jwrjr

        True. “Obama is worse than Bush” is not correct. It should read: “Obama is much worse than Bush.”

      • Mel

        Is Obama going to try to keep us in Iraq? NOYES
        Is he going to take us to war in Iran? NO YES
        Is he going to run roughshod over the environment? NOYEs is now with Exelon!
        Is he going to run up deficits that squeeeze the middle class and bankrupt our grandchildren? NO YES
        Is he going to appoint anti-choice, right-wing zealots to the Supreme Court who want to overturn Roe v. Wade? NOHis choice of Justice is a flakey Physics Lawyer, wacked out!
        Wake the hell UP, your irrational and all out of proportion Obama hatred is blinding opening eyes to see what’s truly important in this election, no communist in the White House, NOBAMA!

        • Mr X

          EXACTLY!!! His surrogates have already said that his stance in the primaries won’t reflect his actual strategy in Iraq. He lies about everything. Remember how he was only a lawyer for Resko for 2 months with some minor paperwork? Then we find out they’ve been friends for 17 years.

          We can’t trust anything he says. That’s why Obama is WAY worse than Bush.

      • IndayHill

        skiron,are you not upset that Obama LIES to you everytime he opens his mouth??? Are you so blind to the truth that he is just a good speaker with borrowed notes and shallow? Most of all,DO YOU KNOW HIM THAT WELL, TO TRUST OUR COUNTRY IN HIS HANDS & THAT OF HIS MASTERS???
        Honestly, skiron, I am scared of Barack Obama’s TRUE MOTIVE. Why suddenly, from nowhere, he appears with shady characters running his presidential campaign, Chicago style.He is really making a change! CHANGE TO WORST!(disrespect to the fullest) Hope?? Did he bring PROSPERITY, PEACE & HAPPINESS to Chicago, (just Chicago,ok?)when he was the state senator?? NO!! Then, how can he claim, he can BRING CHANGE! He can BRING HOPE!! HE IS FAKE!!

  • brandy

    Carter telling Hillary to give up after June 3rd.

    It’s a CNN headline.

    Carter–one of the least effective presidents in the history of the US.

    As if he has the right to tell someone infinitely more qualified than he…when to step aside.

    I respect him, but old age has rattled his brain.

    Oh, and add him to the list of loser men endorsing Obama.

    I think I see a theme!

    • Gary Ruppert

      No coincidence that when the most qualified candidate is a woman, all the boys flock to the man.

      Far-right Dems like Sam Nunn, Ben Nelson, Julie Bartling, Bob Casey, and Robert Byrd all went for the man, despite his lack of qualifications. All of the people I listed all are virtuently anti-choice too. Why does Obama accept endorsements from anti-choice woman hating politicians?

      • bigkitty

        No coincidence that when the most qualified candidate is a woman, all the boys flock to the man

        I”m not sure I agree with this, I think this has far more to do with corruption, and group think, than it does with sexism.

        But they are a certain type, the Obama supporter, aren’t they?

        Kinda like Pouffle, in appearance, and, um, tone.

        All marginal talent, all.

        It’s almost a new physical archetype, David Geffen, Pouffle, K&&, et al…

        Just like Rove resembles Rush, or even Dick Morris, they LOOK alike after awhile, too.

        • Gary Ruppert

          The far-left Kossacks had a strong Edwards support base, but when he dropped out, virtually all of them went to Obama. You’d think that those kinds of people would have went to Obama early if it wasn’t sexism.

          But when it got to be between man and a woman, the so-called progressives picked the man. Even when the Woman is far more liberal and electable.

          • bigkitty

            For the K** crew, maybe, but still, I think corruption has far more to do with it.

            The fix has been in since 2004, given Kerry’s choice of Obama to speak at the convention.

            But why did they choose such a corrupt candidate?

            Because Bill and Hillary wouldn’t play the game, the one that connects Washington, the IL combine and Iraq, via May 25′s Rezkowatch?

      • IndayHill

        It is just plain discrimation in job promotion. Just because Hillary is a female, a male opponent, with no intelligence & experience, might get the job.
        PEOPLE,WE WILL NOT MAKE THIS HAPPEN!
        Let us keep ourselves busy & start contacting the super delegates! Contact your local,state Democratic officials & just tell them, of course, sweetie nice way, that America deserves the best & Senator Hillary is the most qualified to take the job,as the next US President.
        GOD SAVE AMERICA!!GOD BLESS AMERICA!!

    • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

      I agree that Carter should have honored his original statement and stayed neutral until after June 3.

      I don’t understand why he failed to do that. I do like him in different contexts, incidentally.

      • Gary Ruppert

        Jimmeh was scared that the male candidate would be shown as a sure loser after his popular vote loss is confirmed on June 3rd.

        Carter never called on Kennedy to get out, but Kennedy is a man too, so obviously they get more leeway.

    • beebop

      His visiting Hamas — who by the way were laughing at him — was a death knoll for my respect for Carter. That and the fact that he is silent on the disenfranchisement of votes here in the US …. I guess he only worries about voters in third world nations ….

      • Horse with no Name

        I adore Jimmy Carter. To be fair, at a recent meeting in Georgia, the question was asked as to why they did not validate the elections here in the US.
        The short answer was that it is Constitutionally impossible. The states are responsible for holding their own elections. They aren’t federalized. The UN CANNOT under any circumstances interfere in States rights.
        To state that Carter has remained silent is disingenuous at best.

        http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/unitedstates/democracy/2994.html

        >>>snip
        In the wake of two bitterly contested presidential elections the responsibilities of this commission should be to represent the interests of all of the American people, particularly those who were disenfranchised by system flaws in 2000 and 2004. A commission that has no forum for ordinary citizens is not a good model of the democratic principles of participation and transparency essential to bettering our electoral processes. Consequently, the reforms that are recommended will exclude the most necessary voices and will be shaped by those who have access to the most privileges within that electoral system.

        The American electorate is in dire need of a confidence boost, not only in their voting systems but also in the institutions that are taking initiative to help reform them. The list of reforms we need are clear:

        •Shocking as it sounds, American citizens do not have a Constitutional Right to Vote. Congress should act immediately to pass a Constitutional Amendment affirming the right to vote for all citizens.

        •We must end the partisan administration of our elections. By doing so, we will join the majority of democracies worldwide, including the largest, India, to ensure that our elections are administered by independent, nonpartisan officials whose offices operate with a commitment to transparency and to eliminating voter suppression and intimidation.

        • More than four million Americans in seven states are denied the right to vote as a result of laws that prohibit voting by felons or ex-felons. This fundamental obstacle to participation in democratic life is exacerbated by racial disparities in the criminal justice system, resulting in an estimated 13% of black men being unable to vote. It is time to re-enfranchise felons and ex-felons.

        •For voters to have confidence their vote is being counted — correctly — we must guarantee all voters will see and confirm their vote from an auditable, voter-verified paper record that will be the ballot of record for all audits and recounts.

        •Parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which has been called the single most effective piece of civil rights legislation ever passed by Congress, need reauthorization in 2007. Reauthorization by Congress will extend scrutiny of cities and states with a history of segregation and legalized discrimination.

        •To end the “Buy an Election Game,” we should follow the lead of Maine and Arizona and adopt publicly funded elections for qualified candidates; moreover Congress should set standards for free, equal air time for candidates on the public airwaves.

        •We should also take note that the states with the highest voter turnout do not have arbitrary voter registration deadlines weeks before an election; rather, they allow Election Day registration to ensure all eligible voters have an opportunity to cast their ballot.

        •The fact that there is no single voting system in the United States has been, and will continue to be, one of the most critical problems we face at the national level. Uniform standards designed to allocate voting systems, poll workers and election resources per capita as well as universal ballot design and centralized, nondiscriminatory and computerized voter registration lists linked with other state agency databases will help usher-in a more equitable, secure and trusted democracy.

        This list of reforms is a clear starting point to help expedite other needed reforms, such as districting policies that are more competitive and representative of the electorate, and the adoption of instant runoff voting and proportional representation.

        We hope the Baker-Carter commission will open itself to greater public access, and that its final recommendations will courageously promote the practical implementation of thoroughgoing reforms that reflect the American ideals of participation by all.

        • beebop

          I sent an email to the Carter Foundation. It got sent to three different representatives and I got the DNC bullshit line. And. That they were not going to get involved.

          I used to think that Habitat was a great program. But they overlook real opportunities in existing neighborhoods to stem the tide of deterioration in favor of “NEW NEW NEW.” This may help one family, but it doesn’t help a neighborhood. Their programs should be greener. They have emeshed in old building systems. They don’t have enough of a a ” hands ” on requirement for the family ….

          I just think we have to be careful with our heroes.

        • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

          Horse,

          I like Carter, too. I’m mad at him for refusing to stay neutral until June and for publicly using the DNC’s misleading line (that Florida broke rules, when FL republicans actually did).

          That said, I’ll forgive him in time, because he has made valuable contribtutions to our nation.

    • workingclass artist

      St. Jimmy needs to stay on the Peanut farm and shut the f#*k up…He is becoming an embarrassment….SHEEEESH !

  • jes

    A little off topic but I was playing around today and compiled this Help Wanted advertisement. I thought it was kind of entertaining.

    HELP WANTED
    DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE

    JOB TITLE: PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

    JOB REQUIREMENTS:

    1. MILITARY:
    No experience required. Grandfather serving in military two generations previously is equivalent to actual experience.

    2. FOREIGN POLICY:
    No experience required. Two week visit to Pakistan twenty years previously while attending college is equivalent to actual experience.

    3. LEADERSHIP ABILITIES:
    No experience required. Either blinding them with your brilliance or baffling them with your bullshit is equivalent to actual experience.

    4. EDUCATION:
    Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz is required reading. Manchurian Candidate is optional.

    5. RELIGIOUS AFFILIATIONS:
    Attending black liberation church for twenty years (with prerequisite anti-American ranting by racist preacher) is required. Links to Black Panthers, Black Muslims and home grown terrorists is optional.

    6. PHILOSOPHY:
    GOD DAMN AMERICA is required.

    7. SPOUSE:
    Spousal unit must not be proud to be an American citizen. Spousal unit must support black liberation theology.

    8. CANDIDATE:
    Only African Americans (AA) males candidates need apply. Females of any race will be rejected. A female candidate for this position will be unofficially declared a witch, tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail by the male dominated mainstream media (MSM). The AA’s cult-like followers, in concert with the MSM, will surround the female candidate, chant vicious vile filthy names, accuse her of every sin imaginable and unimaginable, and throw stones at her until they bury her candidacy.

    JOB DESCRIPTION:

    You must be an unknown black politician with a thin resume and a gift for oratory. You will be presented as a rock star to the gullible public. You will be marketed by your campaign staff, the DNC, the Democratic leadership, and the mainstream media as the Chosen One, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, JFK and MLK all rolled into one package. You will enjoy a cult-like status with your kool-aid drinking followers. Cultists will chant “Yes we can” while being beamed up, via their iPods, to another planet following your princely coronation ceremony.

    • TeakWoodKite

      :) Thanks for that… chuckle

  • llilytoo

    Jimmy has been a great asset to Hill. He’s too old to bother sugar coating the Dem elite’s hatred and so let’s her know exactly what they are thinking…. He’s come out with these non-unity stink bombs several times. Thanks Jimmy…..What he and the others Dem elite don’t see is how they have ruined themselves. Who will respect this man after all this? And the list of such people is impressive

    • workingclass artist

      In his dotage…or doltage…St. Jimmy has lost credibility…Reversed himself…and revealed himself to be another typical old Cracker politician desperately seeking relevance becuase the Habitat and the Carter Cntr. don’t give him his satisfaction…I have a question for Champion of Democracy St. Jimmy….
      WHY ARE THE VOTING RIGHTS OF OTHER COUNTRIES MORE IMPORTNT THAN THOSE OF AMERICANS…
      HYPOCRITE ! THY NAME IS JIMMY CARTER !….SEATED ON THE SECOND ROW OF THE HYPOCRISY BUS CAREENING THROUGH AMERICA DRIVEN BY OBAMA

  • yttik

    I think this qualifies as a “misleading claim.” From the Obama speech May 23:

    “Since the Bush Administration launched a misguided war in Iraq, its policy in the Americas has been negligent toward our friends, ineffective with our adversaries, disinterested in the challenges that matter in peoples’ lives, and incapable of advancing our interests in the region.

    No wonder, then, that demagogues like Hugo Chavez have stepped into this vacuum….”

    http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/samgrahamfelsen/gGCMCY

    Okay, I can’t stand Bush. Blame him for whatever you like. But Chavez was elected a couple of years before Bush even took office. Chavez couldn’t possibly have risen up to fill a void created by the Bush administration.

  • brandy

    Gary–exactly.

    Obama does not care about women.

    He told a female reporter in PA that he would answer her question if she “behave(d) herself.”

    In all of his blank platitudes about unity, he has failed to ever mention (as far as I know) anything about gender equality.

    • Gary Ruppert

      Considering how a lot of African-American males behave around women, I’m pretty sure Obama has a case of sexual harassment, sexual assault or rape in his past.

      After all, Obama appears to have been wayward, which would explain things like how he began to reject his white relatives due to his bitterness.

      • Skiron

        I see that the moderator deleted my comment criticizing this person’s allegation that Obama probably raped or sexually harassed someone in the past. Nice job, moderator. Way to let a baseless and scurrilous charge like this go unanswered.

        • TeakWoodKite

          The Moderator tells you if they did.

        • BobO

          That is pathetic claim frankly. While I perceive Obama does have sexist attitudes in no way does that imply such criminal acts as you are suggesting and that’s just completely out of line!

          It also goes to some racist stereotype like “oh those black men want to rape our white women”.

          Give me a break, please delete this sort of crap. It’s one thing to call the Obama campaign out on their obvious media manipulation and the rest but this is just sad.

          It also discredits what people are saying about the sexism against Hillary to have some ass post racism on the same site.

        • bigkitty

          Wordpress does seem to have security issues, perhaps someone has hacked the site, and is deleting posts, scrubbing certain posts.

          It could happen, but it doesnt really matter, in the end, it’s not like it won’t come out anyway.

      • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

        Gary,

        We have plenty of evidence-based cause to distrust (and dislike) Obama as a candidate.

        I’m a bit iffy about speculating that anyone has sexual-related charges against them without seeing actual evidence.

      • beebop

        It is amazing how much more information is available in the British media about Barry …. this is from the London Times ….

        And among all his fellow alumni from Punahou, there was only one man who could say anything about the troubles Obama had experienced in those days. In the 1979 school yearbook, Obama had posted a photograph captioned Still Life, which showed a record deck, a bottle of beer and what appeared to be paraphernalia for rolling joints. Alongside it he had written: “Thanks to Tut, Gramps, Choom Gang and Ray for all the good times”. Choom Gang had been generally taken to refer to fellow marijuana smokers, even though Choom was most commonly a slang for vagina or “pussy”. Ray was the nickname – and a pseudonym in the book – for Keith Kakugawa, a fellow pupil, older than Obama, who had already left the school by 1979 but was still in his social circle.

      • workingclass artist

        Gee Gary…I cannot stand Obama but that is a pretty BIG generalization…

  • brandy

    I don’t think that African American men act any differently around women than any other race.

    But the writing on the chalkboard regarding Obama is clear enough.

    He, as an individual, does not respect women.

    • Gary Ruppert

      Well, I don’t intend for it to be that broadbased. But you can tell from their rap videos and high deadline dad rate that they don’t care for women a lot.

      • yttik

        That’s a mixed bag, Gary. True, the rap culture and some of the language we’re seeing is horrible. Rev Wright humping the podium and talking about black girls giving away “kibbles and bits” isn’t very respectful, either.

        On the otherhand, we suddenly got all these misogynistic white guys on TV spewing forth their own version of hatred. The language might be a little differant, but the message is the same.

      • Sam

        Please do not make generalization of this sort, it is race baiting and offensive. Senator Obama has made comments towards women that show he is dismissive of accomplishments when they belong to a woman in a way that he would not be if they belonged to a man. But your statement crosses the line, IMHO, and is wildly inappropriate. His dismissive tone towards women does not have to do with his race, it has to do with the fact that he is a man. Men of all races are dismissive of women, it is a problem all around the world. It is not about race.

      • workingclass artist

        Rap is influential in AA culture but not representative….Just high visibility because it sells….Kinda like Wright’s church is not representative of mainstream AA churches…est. 25% are like Wright’s TUCC and his is one of the biggest…Just trying to keep perspective…

  • Horse with no Name

    Excellent.
    You might be interested in this if you haven’t yet seen it.

    http://dallasobserver.com/2008-02-28/news/obama-and-me/1

    • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

      Actually, I have read the Dallas Observer piece, but I’m glad you shared the link.

      I first found it summarized at Wonkette. It was a hard piece to get through, because the writer included so many unnecessary details, but the salient stuff was worth reading.

      Did you have trouble getting through it too?

    • Who does she think she is, Annie Oakley?

      Another illuminating, first hand rebuttal to Obama’s cultivated image:

      In a follow-up report published a couple weeks later, I wrote about these disgruntled black legislators and the central role Senate President Emil Jones played in Obama’s revived political life.

      The morning after the story was posted online, I arrived early at my new offices. I hadn’t taken off my coat when the phone rang. It was Obama.

      He said the black legislators I cited in the story were off-base and that they couldn’t have gotten the bills passed without him.

      I started to speak, and he shouted me down.

  • JJ
    • Andy

      Done !

      NQ friends: please go sign to get the FL & MI votes counted !!!

  • kat in your hat

    This is a long youtube video (almost 10 minutes!) but Hill supporters and everyone MUST MUST MUST watch this video–especially toward the end!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvuMDmqwwbI

  • Andy

    Terrific post Deb ! Thank you. Please, keep being “a nag”.

    I believe what your Rep. friend said:

    “David Axelrod is the Karl Rove of Chicago politics, but he’s 10 times worse and half as smart.”

    There is one thing I am not 100% sure yet –it’s a vague feeling I got yesterday while casually looking at a TV on CNN while waiting. They were showing
    McCain campaigning but on the side they had a laundry list of his positions.
    (McCain was talking about Veterans). Then there was a clip of Obama but not such laundry list was on the side.

    I have no doubt what the RNC will do. But what will the media do with
    the “Obama brand” ?

    What do you think?

    • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

      Thanks, Andy.

      I’ve no idea what the media will do. In April (or March) 150 bloggers met in Philly (or Pittsburgh) to talk about their fears that after the primary the MSM would fall for McCain and ditch Obama.

      As an aside, I found it ironic that some of those bloggers hadn’t shown much concern about the MSM’s attempts to unduly influence the Dem primary (i.e, their anti-Hillary stance).

      I mean, the way to stop the media from hijacking elections is to react negatively whenever they do it, right? It’s about process and potential for abuse, not results.

      So, who knows what the MSM will do next. Obviously, they have gotten away with interfering in our elections, so why should they stop?

  • TeakWoodKite

    Mr. Axelrod, Obama, Martin Nesbit, Craig Nesbit Emil Jones and more…they have known each other for years.

    Martin Nesbit
    Chairman of the Board, Chicago Housing Authority, City of Chicago, Illinois . Marty’s wife also delivered both of the Obamas’ children (don’t worry, she’s a doctor), and Obama is the godfather to the Nesbitts’ youngest son.
    “http://nymag.com/news/politics/encyclopedia/bestfriend/”

    Rush attacked his Ivy League education, using the E word for the first time. “He went to Harvard and became an educated fool,” the Congressman told the Chicago Reader. “We’re not impressed with these folks with these Eastern-élite degrees.” Not growing up on the South Side raised other suspicions about Obama
    Rush, whose 29-year-old son had been gunned down on the South Side a couple of months earlier, said there was no excuse for missing “one of the most important votes in memory.”

    “http://finepolitics.blogspot.com/2008/05/obama-how-he-learned-to-win.html”

    The State of Illinois sued Exelon in 2006 and alleged such leakages. “This predates Exelon, but back in 1997 this plant spilled discharged water that contained tritium,” Exelon spokesman Craig Nesbit said. Exelon formed in 2000 – years after the spill – and unknowingly inherited a plant that had leaked, he said. Although a lengthy process, Nesbit said, Exelon is cleaning that spill. Crane said evolving technology decreases the likelihood of such leaks and that the operating record of current plants is excellent.

    Many of them did know Obama’s black inner circle, however. Nesbitt was close to Penny Pritzker of the Hyatt hotel clan, who had helped finance Nesbitt’s airport-parking company with Emil assiting on minority contract at the O’Hare airport along with Rezko and his Panda express biz.

    • TeakWoodKite

      Being a called A Nag by SusanUnPc is like getting your LT bars? :)

      Persistance is what dad always told me would pay off.

      Keep at it. These people are as crooked as an Alaska summer day is long.

      • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

        What are LT bars?

        • TeakWoodKite

          Lieutenant bars, sorry.. :)

          • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

            I’ve been on the web since the ’90s, but I’m still learning Internet jargon. Or is that military speak?

            • TeakWoodKite

              Kite speak.

  • Mel

    That CORE astroturf ad by Ask cost the people of Illinois and PA over $2.2 billion in electricity rate hikes, Con Ed was fined $10 million, not a bad profit after a fine is it!

    Those who couldn’t afford the 22% rate hike, could maintain their present level rates and pay 36% anually on the rate increase amount!

    And Obama wasn’t happy to vote for the 30% intrest rate, anyone one wonder why?

    Cost his friend the worst polluter in America 6% of $1.2 billion estimated increased rate hikes a year!

    Everyone say awwww for Obama!

    • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

      Great info. I didn’t know those details.

      • Mel

        remember the tough legislation Obama stumps about regulating the nuclear industry?

        He never introduced it, but says he passed it….lol

        He passed it in the garbage is the only passing of it!

        • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

          Exelon again. Hmmmm.

  • Charles Lemos

    RNC Ad on Obama:

    Obama RNC Ad

    They are going to paint him as out of touch. Surprise, Surprise. He’s unelectable. These ads should be sent to the DNC but they are blind.

    • Blue Sun

      Doesn’t bother at least SOME of you when you see the Clinton camp glomming onto RNC smears, Sean Hannity talking points, Richard Mellon Scaife endorsements, and Rush Limbaugh derision against Obama. After two decades of Democrats, both Clintons, Al Gore, and John Kerry, being slimed, swiftboated, mocked and derided by the venomous right-wing smear machine, it is beyond comprehension why Hillary and her Hillaroids would now embrace these very forces with their cesspool politics as allies. Please explain this to me.

      After Hillary has attacked Obama, her own fellow party member by means fair and particularly foul, she has earned praise from at least one former Rove aide, who said that she is running the closest thing to a Rovian strategy in either party.

      Now, after doing her best to turn Obama into an object of ridicule, while praising McCain’s qualifications to lead, some of her supporters believe she has earned the political capital to demand (coerce) the vice-presidenial nomination from Obama.

      In today’s NYT letters column, Clinton supporter Agatha Moorad perfectly captured the loathsome power of this kind of coersion:

      “Barack Obama’s reconciliation with the supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton must go beyond the wine and roses shrouded in an eloquent speech. That might have worked earlier, but now we know the raw power of a vote.”

      “Mr. Obama can earn our vote by recognizing our candidate with an offer of the vice presidency, or we can take our votes elsewhere. This election has taught us well.”

      Just where is elsewhere? John McCain? Would you really let McCain pick the next two (at least) Supreme Court justices in the mold of Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and John Roberts?

      Are you really prepared to push back democratic principles and the rights of individuals to the dark ages, not to mention giving up 50 years of womens’ gains in reproductive, economic, and political rights just to punish Obama for beating your goddess?

      Ms. Moorod said that Clinton supporters now know the raw power of a vote and its ability to be used as blackmail. “This election has taught us well.” She writes.

      It has taught too many Clinton supporters how to be just like the Republicans.

  • Arius

    THIS IS WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING AGAINST 24/7 -

    http://losangeles.craigslist.org/forums/?act=Q&ID=92101698

  • Dora Ratquila

    All Hillary supporters who are going to the May 31st March in DC, I have found us a song! First heard it on Ellen, who is neither cowardly shy (think: Donna Brazile) nor shamelessly disrespectful (think: Oprah) about her choice for president.

    Give It 2 Me
    (Madonna)

    What are you waiting for?
    Nobody’s gonna show you how
    Why work for someone else
    To do what you can do right now?

    Got no boundaries and no limits
    If there’s excitement, put me in it
    If it’s against the law, arrest me
    If you can handle it, undress me

    Don’t stop me now, don’t need to catch my breath
    I can go on and on and on
    When the lights go down and there’s no one left
    I can go on and on and on

    Give it to me, yeah
    No one’s gonna show me how
    Give it to me, yeah
    No one’s gonna stop me now

    They say that a good thing never lasts
    And then it has to fall
    Those are the the people that did not
    Amount to much at all

    Give me the bassline and I’ll shake it
    Give me a record and I’ll break it
    There’s no beginning and no ending
    Give me a chance to go and I’ll take it

    Don’t stop me now, don’t need to catch my breath
    I can go on and on and on
    When the lights go down and there’s no one left
    I can go on and on and on

    Give it to me, yeah
    No one’s gonna show me how
    Give it to me, yeah
    No one’s gonna stop me now

    (Pharrell:)
    Watch this

    Get stupid, get stupid, get stupid, don’t stop it (what?)
    Get stupid, get stupid, get stupid, don’t stop it (what?)
    Get stupid, get stupid, get stupid, don’t stop it (what?)
    Get stupid, get stupid, get stupid, don’t stop it

    Get stupid, get stupid, get stupid, don’t stop it
    (to the left, to the right, to the left, to the right)
    Get stupid, get stupid, get stupid, don’t stop it
    (to the left, to the right, to the left, to the right)
    Get stupid, get stupid, get stupid, don’t stop it
    (to the left, left, right, right, left, left, right, right)
    Get stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid…
    (left, left, right, right, left, left, right, right)

    Don’t stop me now, don’t need to catch my breath
    I can go on and on and on
    When the lights go down and there’s no one left
    I can go on and on and on

    Give it to me, yeah
    No one’s gonna show me how
    Give it to me, yeah
    No one’s gonna stop me now

    You’re only here to win
    Get what they say?
    You’re only here to win
    Get what they do?
    They’d do it too
    If they were you
    You done it all before
    It ain’t nothing new

    You’re only here to win
    Get what they say?
    You’re only here to win
    Get what they do?
    They’d do it too
    If they were you
    You done it all before
    It ain’t nothing new

    Give it to me, yeah
    No one’s gonna show me how
    Give it to me, yeah
    No one’s gonna stop me now
    Give it to me, yeah
    No one’s gonna show me how
    Give it to me, yeah
    No one’s gonna stop me now

    Give it to me

  • Mike

    Probably the greatest revelation of this election season is the fact that David Axelrod is more Machiavellian than Karl Rove.

    We and this country have known about Rove, detested him, and fougth him. His imprint has been out there nationally for all to see.

    However, Axelrod, while perhaps even slimier and more devious throughtout the same time frame, has operated under the national radar, until now.

    His venue has been the cess-pool of Chicago/Illinois politics. Every bit as pernicious and destructive as Rove’s methods, but hidden somewhat by the localized, business as usual nature of where he practiced his craft.

    He has taken Rove’s tactics to a higher level than I would have ever thought possible. In fact, I believed Rove’s Machiavellian skills to be the epitome, unsurpassable!

    I was wrong, and the main reason I deem Axelrod to now be the master of deceit and all things twisted and evil is his pre-conceived plan to lablel the Clintons and all who support them racists.

    Karl Rove never would have even thought about trying to brand Bill and Hillary Clinton as racists. He would have known and still knows that such is the most far-fetched notion that could ever be introduced.

    However, David Axelrod had no such qualms. He knew such was the only way, along with trying to negate WJC’s Presidency, that he could possibly create an atmosphere for Obama to come close to competing with HRC.

    He succeeded with certain elements of the electorate despite all evidence, history, and common-sense knowledge to the contrary.

    Axelrod goes Rove many times better in emulating Machiavelli by adding elements of Misogyny, Racism, Maxism, Anarchy, Black Seperatist Hate, Cultural Denigration, and Cultism.

    This country has never seen such a despicable, cancerous, political melange.

    At present he and his conspirators are the most treacherous, vile, and dangerous element in American politics. We have seen terrible, as with Karl Rove, et al. However, Axelrod and company move audacious evil beyond any parameters Rove could have imagined.

    To allow them, or their chosen candidate Obama, anywhere near the seat of power in this country would be like injecting our whole nation and system of government with a dose of poison, unlike any we have ever seen.

    WE are the only power that can stop them, and WE must!

    • Mike

      Sorry, bad typer.

      Should be fought, not fougth. Lame!

    • http://deleted AnninCa

      I personally think that the demonization of Rove is the issue.

      When will people understand this isn’t Civics class.

      This is politics.

      Ah well…..whatever.

      Axelrod has made more right decisions than wrong, but he had a candidat who followed the sript, too.

      Hillary is Hillary. Penn is/was off target. She has pulled it out in spite of him. I’m sure he isn’t the “stupid” man, either. He just missed the mark.

      But anyway, none of this matters to me. I’m a lot more interested in our country and what we need right now.

      I’m personally just afraid that Obama is just going to be so inexpienced and continue down the same worn path.

      I honestly don’t think Hllary has the “answer.”

      I am a huge believer in we create our solutions.

      She’s a solutions gal. We just need a great bluffer.

      Or…maybe we don’t.

      Those cars that are mini?

      They are cute as heck. What’s up with us and Tahoes anyway?

      Obama had a good point about that. The food deal? That was wierd. He’s a foodie.

      But his point about knocking off over-consumption was on the money.

      • Mike

        Respectfully, and with an apology if I am missing something.

        AnninCa, I find your response to my post rather incoherrant.

        • http://penelope Yolande

          Just a lurker so far, but Mike’s comment re, AnninCa is interesting. I pay attention to who says what and how. There are many companies which grade English essays by computer; they work much the same way filters do, except that they generate written comments. Pretty badly, because they are only humanoid, not human. A real teacher can figure it out. AnninCA often sounds like a computer generated response–inappropriate replies, gramatically correct sentences, but meaningless in context. Just my speculation and my opinion.

          • beebop

            It was late/early. I think she’d just been drinking and/or was tired …. ;)

        • Blue Sun

          Perhaps if you were to work a bit on your spelling and grammar, you would have less trouble understanding others’ posts.

          Your first sentence is not a sentence. In your second sentence, the word is properly spelled “incoherent.”

          Please don’t take my comments amiss. I’m just trying to help you work your way a bit further up the old intellectual food chain.

      • bigkitty

        When politics affect the integrity and the function, the sustainability of the US government, they can no longer be dismissed as part of play. Criminal politics are not acceptable.

        And that’s what’s happened here, Obama has terrorist ties with enemies of this country, some of whom have attacked Americans.

        So we have an issue.

      • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

        Ann,

        You’re right: there is a difference between civics class and real-world politics.

        I also agree with you re: problem solving.

        That said, I don’t quite agree about Axelrod. His handling of caucuses and the internet were good.

        On the other hand, some of his decisoins look good only in terms of some short term results.

        The Dem party is fiercely divided largely because of how Axelrod/Obama chose to play certain things (like the racism, the misleading statements, the passive-aggressive attacks on Hillary…).

        Their tactics fueled a good bit of the resentment that millions of Hillary supporters feel toward Obama.

        Even if Obama becomes the nominee, his tactics (i.e., Axelrod’s) have already made the path to the White House an enormously up-hill climb.

        In that respect, I think axelrod failed his candidate.

      • IndayHill

        AninCa,please, do not tell us that you are a confused Democrat.
        It seems, you are neither, Hillary nor Obama.May I guess: You are for either Nader or McCain or Barr?
        We have the BEST here. Our beloved America needs the BEST, after the 8 years of exhaustion & despair from GWB. She needs Hillary to lovingly take good care of her.Hillary, the next President!!
        GOD BLESS AMERICA!!

    • Blue Sun

      The irony in your post is that one of Karl Rove’s own aides, former White House communications director Nocolle Wallace (who ought to know) has said that, in this race, the Clinton camp is the one that has most closely adopted Karl Rove’s strategy.

      One of Hillary’s chief stategists and her former campaign manager, Patty Solis Doyle, has expressed admiration for Rove and vowed to run Hillary’s campaign based on Rove’s strategies.

      It is interesting that, while the Clinton supporters are accusing Obama of running a Rovian campaign, everybody else sees the Clinton campaign in that role.

      • http://deleted AnninCa

        That’s such a silly remark. Spell out the details, please, of the tactics.

        I see tactics galore in the Obama campaign, complete with 3 clear instances where he tried to pin stuff on Hillary that came from his campaign.

        So this is just generalized demonization post stuff.

        Be specfific.

        and don’t try to pretend you thought you were posting at a blog that has no clear leaning.

        Be specific…..or go back to Huffpo, and feel the love.

  • typical.white.person

    Krugman:

    It is, in a way, almost appropriate that the final days of the struggle for the Democratic nomination have been marked by yet another fake Clinton scandal — the latest in a long line that goes all the way back to Whitewater.

    Why does all this matter? Not for the nomination: Mr. Obama will be the Democratic nominee. But … many grass-roots Clinton supporters feel that she has received unfair, even grotesque treatment. And the lingering bitterness … could cost Mr. Obama the White House.

    To the extent that the general election is about the issues, Mr. Obama should have no trouble winning over former Clinton supporters… But elections always involve emotions as well as issues, and there are some ominous signs in the polling data.

    In Florida, in particular,… Pollster.com shows Mr. McCain running substantially ahead of Mr. Obama, even as he runs significantly behind Mrs. Clinton. Ohio also looks problematic, and Pennsylvania looks closer than it should. …

    So what should Mr. Obama and his supporters do?

    Most immediately, they should realize that the continuing demonization of Mrs. Clinton serves nobody except Mr. McCain. One more trumped-up scandal won’t persuade the millions of voters who stuck with Mrs. Clinton … that she really was evil all along. But it might incline a few more of them to stay home in November.

    Nor should Obama supporters dismiss Mrs. Clinton’s strength as a purely Appalachian phenomenon, with the implication that Clinton voters are just a bunch of hicks.

    Here’s the point: the nightmare Mr. Obama and his supporters should fear is that in an election year in which everything favors the Democrats, he will nonetheless manage to lose. He needs to do everything he can to make sure that doesn’t happen.

    I disagree with Krugman that Obama will be the nominee.

    I think Obama has too much baggage, and it is just beginning to unravel. Surely by the time the Convention rolls around, delegates will have had buyer’s remorse and Hillary will come away as the nominee.

    Here’s Krugman’s blog.

    • Northwest rain

      Obama won’t be the nominee — because more stuff is sure to come out before August. If the media had been doing their job they would have did some old fashioned investigative journalism.

      I like Krugman — but he needs to stop listening to the media.

      Right now Obama isn’t acting like the nominee — he’d be grinning ear to BIG ear if he really believed that he has the nomination in the bag. He is bored with campaigning already.

      Someone said that Hillary may take a break in June — which would allow the GOP political machine to start their attack on “presumptive” front runner — snObama. I think they’re really itching to take snObama out — politically.

      Oh who the hell knows — snObama might be indited along with the other Chicago political crooks.

    • http://www.hillaryclinton.com **== President & Commander-in-Chief Hillary Clinton **==

      Krugman has fallen for the inevitability crap. Hillary does not care about being counted out. It energizes her much to the dismay of Obama and the media.

      Keep fighting! Hillary is in this to win!

      • llilytoo

        He writes for the Times which has made itself a total servant of Obama& Co. Their endorsement of Hill, was nothing but their usual rouse. Krugman wasn’t allowed to use the words ” Bush lied ” together for years after 2000 either. It’s amazing what he can say.

        • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

          But Krugman does support Hillary (I’ve heard, anyway).

          He might just believe the stuff in the media — a lot of people do.

    • jwrjr

      If the DNC and SDs don’t want to lose, then Obama will not be the nominee. He has enough skeletons in his closet to start a Med school.

    • Andy

      I went to his blog and was about to post a comment when I scanned through the 66 + already there. They are the usual vitrolic and hateful ones from the Obama supporters. so I decided not to post anything so that Mr. Krugman gets
      a full concentrate dose of what these people are.

      I respect Krugman even though I disagree. He is a very smart man.
      One should not forget he was a John Edwards supporter (and I think an advisor as well).

  • karen for Clinton

    From one Nag to another, thank you so much for all you do to expose this important factor which gets lost in the deluge of reasons to never trust him.

    There is one thing certain and that is that we will all protest (in our “high information voter” way) all the way to Denver. We will simultaneously give our unwavering support 100% to Hillary and zero to her hideous opponent.

    Should that fail, (beyond all logical reason) we will continue to expose the truth all the way to the General and spread the truth effort to Stop Obama.

    We have top notch BS detectors on RED ALERT status.

  • Blue Sun

    Geez Louize! The Republicans don’t have to swiftboat the Democratic candidate this year. The Dems have produced their own wackaloon corps to do the dirty deed. Karl Rove must be laughing so hard he’s drooling into his Cream of Wheat when he reads websites like this. All during the past decade, I’ve followed the moronic lunacy on the rightwing wingnut sites like powerline, freerepublic, newsmax et al. with a kind of fascinated horror that there was actually an audience for this kind of venomous bullsh*t. However, for sheer raging conspiracy idiocy and vile sliming of a Democrat, they have nothing on you guys. I expect this sort of cesspool campaigning from Karl Rove and the ethically and morally (and intellectually) challenged neocons. But from fellow Democrats? Your poison-pen site is sickening enough to knock a buzzard off a guts wagon.

    Obama, like him or not, is going to be the next Democratic nominee. Our choice is going to be Obama or McCain. Clinton has so badly mismanaged her campaign finances, campaign strategy, and campaign staff that I doubt she could manage the bureaucracy of the local animal shelter, let alone the executive branch of the United States government. She has no discernable core beliefs, but merely picks her policies and positions according to which micro-demographic Marc Penn has defined that day. In addition, her inappropriate triangulations to the right have cost her the ability to attack John McCain on a number of core issues. To wit:

    1) Even as the DNC is preparing a national ad campaign with McCain’s “100-year-war” in Iraq as a centerpiece, an interview with Hillary in 2006 surfaced in which she praised McCain’s earlier statements about keeping a permanent military presence in Iraq and cited examples of American troops still in countries involved in World War II, 60 years ago. There goes that issue…

    2) Even as the entire economic community, from the right-wing libertarians to the left-wing communitarians, were laughing hysterically at McCain for his imbecilic “gas tax holiday” idea, Hillary jumped right in and sided with McCain. This would have been a devastatingly effective issue to show McCain for the pandering idiot he is, but Hillary couldn’t resist me-too’ing McCain.

    3) No sooner than McCain started joking about nuking Iran, there was Clinton making similar threats. Kind of hard to attack McCain as rash and dangerous after echoing him.

    4) Her peculiar refusal to explain, let alone either justify or clearly repudiate her 2002 vote authorizing Bush to invade Iraq (coupled with her recent vote in favor of the similar Kyl-Lieberman bill on Iran) leaves her in a position where she can not fully exploit Bush’s and McCain’s Iraq debacle. She has claimed that she was misled by the White House, but also admits she never bothered to read the NIE that was available to Congress. There were plenty of Democrats who saw through Bush’s bullpuckey. Anybody who can be so easily misled by the Bush team has voided any claim to intelligent leadership.

    5) Her attempts to kneecap Obama by painting herself and John McCain as capable leaders and equally qualified to be “commander-in-chief” give credibility to McCain’s qualifications instead of attacking and undermining them as any sane Democrat would have done.

    BTW, she lied in trying to excuse her comment about Robert Kennedy’s assassination being the result of her concern over Ted Kennedy’s tragic news. This is the third time she has referred to RFK’s assassination – the first being in March, two months before even Teddy knew he was ill. But, then that shouldn’t be surprising. She has the same unhealthy compulsion to “improve” her story by lying, even when there is nothing to be lost by telling the truth, that Bush has shown over the past 8 years. Witness her puffing her resume about Bosnia and Ireland.

    Spin as much as you want, what Clinton was saying was “I’m damn well going to stick around. Who knows? Somebody might just shoot the nigra.” And all those “hard-working white” Americans will finally have their knight in tarnished armor to defend them.

    No wonder the bull goose loony, Webster Griffin Tarpley, picks this site to advertise his latest book of LaRouchian fantasies. He’s got the perfect audience. Now, pardon me, but I’m going to be sick…

    • llilytoo

      Geez Louize! The Republicans don’t have to swiftboat the Democratic candidate this year. The Dems have produced their own wackaloon corps to do the dirty deed…..

      Oh! I thought you were talking about the DNC attacks on Hillary….guess not

      blah blah blah…whatever. He’s not winning the GE. If that doesn’t matter
      to you fine.

    • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

      Blue Sun,

      I have no problem with your preferring a different candidate than I do. I don’t see why we should insult or dislike each other just because we support different politicians (whom, I suspect neither of us is related to or good friends with)

      Still, I’m curious about where you’re getting some of your “facts.”

      1) Fact is that we likely will end up with a presence in Iraq — no matter who becomes president: the question that remains open is whether we can stop the war and make it a peaceful presence.

      I’m NOT saying I agree with this, it’s just the reality that was foisted upon us when Bush invaded.

      2) Yeah, people were laughing at McCain’s gas-tax holiday. Obama had supported a similar one in Illinois, and HE admitted that consumers saved a LITTLE money back then.

      You’re right: a tax holiday was laughable as a long-term solution, but that’s not how it was proposed — and Hillary’s proposal was different from McCain’s (as economist Paul Krugman pointed out).

      3) Clinton didn’t joke about Iran and wasn’t going on bravado. A TV interviewer pushed her into answering a hypothetical: what would the US do if Iran attacked Israel. That’s very different from McCain’s off-the-cuff singing “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran.”

      4a) Actually, Hillary did publicly express regret over the 2002 Iraq war vote — at a debate, when Tim Russet asked her about any regrets. It was an open question, and Hillary voluntarily focused on Iraq.

      4b) Remember the context: many members of Congress voted for the war in 2002 (including John Kerry — whom I forgave), partly because of the falsified intelligence and partly because of the McCarthyistic climate. In those 4 years between 9/11 and Hurricane Kartina, people who questioned the president were surrounded by attack dogs screaming “traitor.” Ask ex-Senator Tom Daschel about that.

      If Obama had been in the Senate in 2002 and voted for the war, I would forgive him — the same way I did Kerry, Clinton, and hundreds of others.

      Fact is that Obama wasn’t in the Senate in 2002 and didn’t face ANY fear of being ripped apart when telling anti-war Illinois folks that he was against the war.

      In 2004 and 2006 [when Obama was in the U.S. Senate AND working toward a presidential run], he made public statements that weren’t so anti-war. That and he voted the same way Hillary did on war-funding bills since 2005.

      5) Since the McCain comparison, Hillary has repeatedly and publicly told supporters that Obama is better than McCain. What more can she do?

      Incidentally, Hillary’s McCain remark came weeks AFTER Obama’s wife went on Good Morning America (Feb 12) and told millions of viewers that it was ok to NOT support the Dem nominee if her husband lost.

      You really think Obama’s campaign was trying to promote party unity by sending his wife in to say such things?

      6) Yes, it’s the 3rd time Hillary brought up RFK. And Nobody objected to the first 2 mentions, because they KNEW that she was simply referring to history.

      RFK’s own son publicly said that he knew what Hillary meant on Friday and that he wasn’t offended.

      The only people who were offended are the faction of Obama supporters who hate Hillary (I know many who don’t hate her, incidentally).

      That said, we can all agree that a better way to put it would have been “RFK was still campaigning in June of ’68.”

      • Blue Sun

        1. I don’t agree that we will (or should) end up with a permanent offensive military presence. Hillary has spoken in terms of at least 50 to 60 years in her 2006 interview. Obama has acknowledged only keeping troops to guard the civilian embassy complex in the Green Zone – quite a different proposal.

        2) Obama learned from the failed Illinois experiment that it was a bad idea. McCain and Clinton failed to learn the same lesson. As for Paul Krugman, whom I knew in passing when I lived in Princeton, he is a hard-core Hillary supporter and just about the only credible economist to try to justify Hillary’s proposal. There’s always one scientist you can quote to “prove” that global warming doesn’t exist, or that the Earth is really flat. Krugman has lost much of his credibility in his blind attempts to defend the undefensible.

        3) The President does not have the authority under our form of government to declare war. That is reserved for the Senate. The President can provisionally commit us to war in the case of an attack on our own country, as long as she goes to the Congress as soon as possible and gets it confirmed.

        Hillary said she would nuke Iran if it invaded Israel or any one of an unspecified number of other Middle East countries. The President has no such powers. She was demonstrating that she is assuming the same sort of “imperial powers” to make war that Bush claims (or that she doesn’t understand the constraints and powers of the Presidency, which is almost as bad).

        4) Obama WAS running for State Senator in Illinois and an anti-war stance was just as threatening to his political career (if not more so, since Hillary didn’t have to run again until 2006).

        As for being faked out by Bush, 21 Democrats, 1 Republican, and 1 Independent voted AGAINST the 2002 resolution. Apparently not everybody was fooled, coerced, or triangulating. One problem with Hillary’s “regrets” is that she was years late in offering them, and then only long after the majority of the party had turned against the war and she saw her vote as a campaign problem.

        5) That notwithstanding, she gave McCain plenty of sound bites. And, her comments on Obama don’t ring true – even to her own supporters who continue to demonize the evil strawman of Obama that the Clinton campaign so carefully erected after Obama became a real threat to topple her apple cart.

        6) Or because the “anti-Clinton” media let it ride without comment and didn’t make an issue of it. Certainly not like they did with Obama’s “bitter” comment. As for RFK’s son, he’s not potentially in the gunsights. Obama is. ANY comment that might trigger (no pun intended) some lunatic to think about killing Obama is the sort of rash, poorly-thought-out, shoot-from-the-hip comment that a president or presidential candidate simply can’t say.

        Besides, the fact that she said it twice before kind of makes her recent excuse that she only was thinking of the example because Teddy’s illness was on her mind a fabrication (to be polite).

        I appreciate her “regrets” (which is NOT an apology) to the Kennedys. What has she had to say to Obama?

        I am not an Obama fanatic. I started out as a Hillary supporter and have been gradually souring on her the more I see of her campaign style of divide by ridicule and derision (Karl Rove’s primary weapon) and her incompetence in managing her campaign finances, ever-changing strategies, and personnel shades of her debacle with the Clinton Health Care Proposal). On the other hand, I was very leery of Obama at the start, but the more I read of his position papers (which never seem to make the media), the more I hear him talk to people like he is talking to adults, the more I see how he has established an effective, well-organized, and well-managed campaign staff, the more I am coming to favor him.

        And, having lived through the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King (on my 20th birthday) and Robert F. Kennedy, I am personally more than offended by her off-hand remark – I am appalled. Though she didn’t say it in so many words, the clear implication was that she should stick around in case somebody offs the black boy.

        At any rate, her argument for June was a bogus one. Her husband didn’t clinch the nomination until California voted in June, but he was already the presumptive nominee and had been so for a while. At any rate, California and other high-stakes primaries are no longer in June, they occur months earlier these days. California was on February 5, for example. All that’s left for June are Puerto Rico, Montana, and South Dakota.

        So the Bill-in-June argument is meaningless. But, so is the RFK argument. If Hillary had dropped out a month ago, and something happened to Obama between now and the Convention in August, Hillary would get a call from the DNC and would be right back in the middle of it – as the presumptive nominee. She doesn’t have to stay in the campaign to assure that.

        And, given three tries at it, neither Hillary nor her advisors though it necessary, or even good sense, to rephrase her point about RFK’s assassination the way you suggest. Hmmmmm…

        Lastly, you can tell a lot about how a candidate views his or her responsibility, not as a leader, but as the primary representative of the People’s Sovereignty. Hillary, like Bush and McCain, is always phrasing her statements about what “I” will do when President. Obama talks about what “we” will do as a nation. Its a small difference, but a telling one.

  • Cooney

    Don’t you know Barack Obama has a Narcisistic Personality Disorder (Yes, it is an actual Psychiatric disorder). Everything that comes out of his mouth is truth, because he speaks it. His view of the world and more importantly of himself are views of grandiosity. These types of disorders allow the self no blame or guilt, no empathy for those less fortunate than himself, and in fact are sociopathic in nature. Sound familiar.

    • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

      Cooney,

      I have many problems with BO.

      I audaciously HOPE that you’re wrong about the lack of empathy for those who are less fortunate. I hope that as a person and father and Senator he has some feeling for ordinary Americans.

      • bigkitty

        He doesn’t.

        Look at how he has run his campaign.

        Like a beaten spouse, everyone wants to ignore the warning signs, but they’re plain as day.

        • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

          I’m hardly a beaten spouse. I’d say I ripped into Obama pretty well in this post.

          I’m just saying that I don’t think he’s Jeffrey Dalmer or Satan himself.

          I DO think he’s dishonest, manipulative, fake, and not qualified to be president.

      • Northwest rain

        I have detected no empathy in snObama. People in his own district were freezing because his buddy Rezko refused to repair the furnace in the building he owned. Obama showed zero concern.

        snObama was involved in the Kenyan elections — “Helping” his cousin — and when his cousin lost the followers went on a rampage killing hundreds. snObama was so involved with his cousin that their websites had a similar look and feel to them.

        And then snObama “white trash farm boys” remarks shows no empathy nor understanding of the Kansas pioneers — or of farmers in general

        snObama is so self involved that he has no empathy for others — he is ALL about himself. No other person is as important as he is.

        Hillary Clinton is making history — but to him this is not important. He has no empathy for women nor any comprehension of what it is like to be a woman in this culture. In fact he is adding to the discrimination women suffer in this culture.

        I feel that he was born devoid of empathy and he was never taught how to be empathetic to the feelings and sufferings of others. He lived a privileged life and he has made no effort to identify with others less fortunate than himself.

    • Blue Sun

      Isn’t that the same kind of armchair psychiatric bullpuckey that the GOP used about Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and John Kerry?

      Seems that the Hillary supporters are sounding more and more like the Republican slime eels.

      One of the more disturbing aspects of George Bush’s personality is the offhand way he can’t seem to stop “improving” his stories to present himself in a better light. One example is his story to CNN about having seen the first plane hit the North Tower live on TV before going into the classroom to read My Pet Goat. When it was pointed out to him that the only video of the first impact, part of a French documentary being made about a mid-town firehouse, and that the video wasn’t aired until many hours after the attack, Bush continued blithely to tell his lies. What’s scary is that he lies when there is no advantage to lying, and nothing to lose by telling the truth.

      Hillary has that same personality quirk. Whether it is little lies, like telling Sir Edmund Hillary that her mother named her after him even though she was born five years before he climbed Everest, or her “embellishment” of her arrival in Bosnia, or her story that Chelsea was in danger on 9/11 when she was jogging near the WTC (which was debunked by Chelsea herself, who asserted she was at the other end of the city), or her attempt to take credit for the SCHIP, even though the White House was fighting the SCHIP legislation because they though it would endanger a larger budget bill. She claimed she negotiated the release of the hostages in Macedonia, despite the fact that they were released the day before she got there. Now, she claims she opposed NAFTA from the beginning and was trying to talk her husband out of it “I have been a critic of NAFTA from the very beginning.”. Yet, 11,000 pages of Clinton White House documents released under the Freedom of Information Act in March show that she was an ardent supporter of NAFTA all along.

      In a debate in February, Hillary claimed that “We bombed them [Iraq] for days in 1998 because Saddam Hussein threw out inspectors.”

      In truth, the mission had been planned for months, and UNSCOM chariman Richard Butler has acknowledged that he unilaterally pulled out the inspectors without even consulting the UN, under pressure from President Clinton to remove them as an excuse for the bombing, and to protect them from the risk of being caught in the massive U.S. airstrikes that were imminent.

      So, either Hillary was lying about why Clinton attacked Iraq, or she was lying about whether she was intimately involved with foreign policy during her husband’s administration.

      Her husband has told at least as many direct lies during the campaign as she has.

      So, I wouldn’t be so quick to diagnose Obama with any sort of personality disorder while supporting two pathological liars who say anything at any time if they think it might advance their crusade to return to the ultimate power trip.

  • catherine

    I wonder if the DNC realizes that not only will Obama lose in the GE IF he’s the nom, but the Democrats will experience a mass defection the likes of which have not been seen.

    It won’t stop there either. Many of us will make a concerted effort to vote the likes of Pelosi, Reid, McCaskill, Kerry et all out of office.

    Does anyone here have any insider knowledge of the DNC to know if these bigwigs have any clue of the disaster they’re heading towards?

    • Blue Sun

      This mass defection will not be the fault of Obama and his supporters, but of those who have vowed that if Hillary is not the Democratic nominee, they will punish the party by defecting. All things considered, I say good riddance. The party has become corrupted with the DLC/Blue Dog republicrats with whom Bill and Hillary have long been associated. Progressive Democrats face more resistance from the neoliberals like the Clintons than they do from the Republicans.

      Its about time that the DLC neoliberals go the way of the Dixiecrats and the Scoop Jackson neocons and leave the party. We may not have power to win the next election, but, then, perhaps the Democratic party as currently constituted doesn’t deserve to win it. Maybe we need to hit bottom before we can cast off the neoliberal infection and return to progressive values.

  • bitter

    The vile hatred in the Messiah’s camp is the worst I’ve ever seen in my whole life. And what has Hillary done to them, really? Just because she had the nerve to run _ and because she’s not a quitter?

  • Who does she think she is, Annie Oakley?

    Thanks for being a nag. Here’s one small quibble I hope you might consider. You say the issue is hypocrisy. An abbreviated definition of a hypocrite is:

    “a person who pretends to be what he is not…to be virtuous etc. without really being so.”

    I think the more accurate charge is that he is a fraud, abbreviated definition:

    An act of fraud in law is “intentional deception to cause a person to give up property or some lawful right,” and a person who is a fraud is someone “who deceives or is not what he pretends to be…”

    You have added another piece to a pattern of deceit. When one steps back and looks at his limited record it is quite clear that his actions in no way match his current words. He is seeking by deception to not only deprive a more qualified candidate of the nomination, he is seeking by deception to deceive the voters as to what he will do with the office.

    A hypocrite is someone who cheats on his wife or taxes and still murmurs “amen” from the pew. This level of deceit is more accurately called fraud, IMO.

    Thanks for the article.

  • http://musingonobama.blogspot.com portia9

    Obama’s hypocrisy was demonstrated the minute he began his “positive” campaign, the central tenet of which was to portray Hillary as the old, corrupt, partisan politics of the past and himself as non-partisan and pure.

    • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

      I completely agree!

    • Blue Sun

      Au contraire. Obama didn’t have to portray Hillary as the old, corrupt, partisan politics of the past. She did a pretty good job of that all by herself. When Obama started his positive campaign, there were a goodly number of viable candidates in the race and, though the “anti-Hillary” press were touting Hillary as the front-runner and shoe-in, that was not at all clear, especially with Edwards, Biden, Dodd, Richardson, and other strong candidates. It wasn’t until Obama unexpectedly won Iowa that Hillary began to focus her energies in going negative against Obama. And, it was during the long string of Obama wins and the fact that Hillary didn’t wrap up the nomination on Super Tuesday, as her game plan called for, that she really went negative against Obama – much as Bush did after McCain won New Hampshire in 2000.

      Hillary did everything she could to mock and deride Obama’s positive message and forward-looking vision because she had no positive message or vision herself. It might be informative to note that Ted Sorenson, JFK’s closest advisor and speechwriter, has characterized Obama as having the same kind of idealism he saw in Kennedy. Something that Hillary fans would ridicule, the way an ignorant person ridicules intellect because he lacks it himself.

      • http://deleted AnninCa

        The comparison of this weak candidate to JFK still cracks me up.

        And it should make anyone laugh who has an ounce of real knowledge.

        Obama hasn’t made it through a single day in a week without either getting caught in a lie or screwing up so badly it’s making the news.

        JFK? Hardly.

        More like exactly who he is. An inexperienced politician out of his league.

  • Zee

    It’s a win-win situation for Obama because if you ever confront Obama supporters with this info in real life they just shrug and say “what else is new? all politicians do that.”

    They don’t give a damn about the posturing.

    • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

      Its very strange, isn’t it?

      Obama attracted many supporters by saying that he was different and new and didn’t play “politics as usual,” and yet his supporters are so willing to overlook when Obama plays “politics as usual” (whether it’s tactics or tainted money).

      It suggests that there’s more of an emotional than intellectual commitment to him.

  • Mary

    The Obama campaign is a cult. Barack Hussein is its infallible leader. That’s the only way I can describe it. To “non-believers,” it seems comically wrong. But the Obamabots refuse to see ANY fault in their leader and will fight tooth and nail against any coverage that is not 100% positive.

    Has anyone verified that Rev. Wright’s church isn’t an offshoot of the Scientology movement?

    • Blue Sun

      Methinks you are indulging in a bit of what a psychologist would call projection here. It is typical of fanatics and extremists to paint their opponents with the same negative characteristics that they, themselves, possess. See Professor Richard Hofstadter’s seminal essay, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” published in the mid-’60s.

      “The enemy is clearly delineated: he is a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman—sinister, ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, sensual, luxury-loving. Unlike the rest of us, the enemy is not caught in the toils of the vast mechanism of history, himself a victim of his past, his desires, his limitations. He wills, indeed he manufactures, the mechanism of history, or tries to deflect the normal course of history in an evil way. He makes crises, starts runs on banks, causes depressions, manufactures disasters, and then enjoys and profits from the misery he has produced. The paranoid’s interpretation of history is distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone’s will. Very often the enemy is held to possess some especially effective source of power: he controls the press; he has unlimited funds; he has a new secret for influencing the mind [scientology?]…

      “It is hard to resist the conclusion that this enemy is on many counts the projection of the self; both the ideal and the unacceptable aspects of the self are attributed to him.”

  • Pingback: Mr. Obama and his Lobbyist Friends « Colbert U R Dead 2 Me

  • Gary Ruppert

    You can just tell these things by how people act. Obama’s arrogance makes it likely that he would do things like that.

  • http://bucknakedpolitics.typepad.com/buck_naked_politics/2008/03/media-obama-goo.html D. Cupples

    Gary,

    I don’t know if you’re right or wrong.

    I do know this: we have valid cause (supported by evidence) to distrust (and maybe dislike) Obama as a candidate.

    Why bother speculating on stuff that we don’t have evidence of?

  • Skiron

    Yeah, um, no IT DOESN’T. I can’t believe someone would make such a baseless allegation.

  • Gary Ruppert

    Brandy’s comment was the one that really moved things towards this line of conversation.

    As far as we know, Obama doesn’t have anything like that on his record.

    But his record with women makes it likely that he’s the caveman type.