Newscoma

Well, you’ve seen Sarah Silverman and Matt Damon, and then you saw Jimmy Kimmell respond with his bro Ben Affleck.

Guess what this video is about.

I have a feeling you never expected this (safe yet not depending on where you are):

[youtube=[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skIlZflDs9Y&rel=0&hl=en]

Mabel, who is seeking the highest office in the land, approves. I, on the other hand, am appalled. Appalled I’m telling you.

Not.

From Trendhunter

Something odd is happening. I thought it wouldn’t but then again, the presidential candidates did something yesterday so unusual and fascinating that I couldn’t help but have to sit back in my recliner and weep tears of joy.

They actually talked about things other than each other.

Praise the Lord and Pass the Cheetos! I had gotten so disillusioned in the past couple of weeks with all of the static that I thought seriously of going and getting a cat so I could cat blog. As you know, I’ve never really owned a cat. I hear they own you. I guess I’ll stick with Mabel.

From USA Today:

Obama was in New York City, where he was introduced by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Republican-turned-independent. Obama reiterated his proposals for helping homeowners faced with foreclosure, including a $10 billion fund to keep some mortgages afloat. Bloomberg rearranged his schedule to be at the speech, but Stu Loeser, a spokesman for the mayor, said his boss’s courtesy doesn’t constitute an endorsement.

Clinton campaigned in North Carolina on the start of a six-day, three-state tour focused on the economy. She proposed a five-year, $10 billion program to help displaced workers get job training.

Whaaa!?! Get OUT!

The Dems are finally talking about the sorry state of the economy in this country? Seriously, I thought it was all about faux sniper stories and Obama and the preacher but after this I think Clinton will knock it off.

By sniping at each other, both candidates put me off and I’m a political junkie. I have heard people, just common folks here in Hoots, that have been so disgusted with it that they are talking more about that then the actual race as they look at the gas signs screaming $3.39 a gallon at them.

Howard Dean has got to get this together and keep on task. From yesterday:

Democratic Party chief Howard Dean is expressing concern about the angry tone of his party’s presidential campaign.

Dean says Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and their supporters should beware of tearing each other down, demoralizing the base and damaging the party’s chances of winning the White House in November.

About time, Howard. With this said, damage has been done. But it can be fixed.

Talk about the issues and the party’s mission. Unity good, BS bad.

From Pat Oliphant

Every once in a while I get on this imaginary treadmill and start running in place. It’s not a great feeling and usually I start feeling it when I feel confined by the world around me.

I don’t know if it’s a thing about getting older or if it’s just me. I’m leaning with door number two.

As a political junkie, I’m not too compelled by the presidential race right now and have been watching some of the state elections.  So much information comes in during these dead times of a campaign and sometimes it’s daunting. During the primaries, there was too much going on but now, small details are coming out about the candidates. If you follow the news, you know what I’m talking about from “misspeaking” about Bosnia sniper fire to someone asking Chelsea Clinton about Monica Lewinsky (which I thought was pretty classless.)

Static.

The political spin of today with the introduction of cable/Internet news in the last 25 years has given news stories the shelf life of a mayfly. The passport incident from less than a week ago is old, tired fodder now. Today’s news du jour is that Clinton is still bringing up the Jeremiah Wright incident where even a pastor she used to go to church with ( there seems to be confusion) is telling her to stop it, Barack Obama is pressing her to come clean on her finances and John McCain is watching to see if the Democratic Duo will destroy each other.

**Whoops, there is a story on Britney Spears** and thus the news cycle begins again.

Are we talking healthcare, the war, secrecy in government, Osama Bin Laden or the cost of gas prices? Are we looking for solutions? We can bail out Wall Street but not Main Street?

No, we aren’t talking about those things.

We are nation that doesn’t believe our leaders, despite their party affiliation, because they are not giving us anything put static. People tune out static after awhile, because we are a world comfortable with white noise. It plays in the background and it becomes part of the environment steeped into our senses to where we don’t hear it after awhile.

Everyone wants their voices heard. They want to be treated as valid entities. Hope is important.  Day-to-day issues dominate our world. How will a person buy milk for their family or do they take that four bucks and put it in their gas tank to get to work? Do you go to the doctor and take on additional debt or hope their illness will get better on it’s own?

I’m extremely disappointed with it all but I’ll get over it.

As I told you earlier this week, I’ve been busy and I was taking a much-needed sabbatical from watching the democratic candidates try to tear each other up.

Of course, I saw something this morning that reminded me why I’m not too bothered about the whole Jeremiah Wright/Barack Obama thing this past week. If you want to know the truth, I could care less what Wright said.

I was listening to what Obama said.

Having a few days to process this because I wanted to sit down and actually listen to the 37 minutes of his speech from Tuesday, I didn’t want to be swayed by what other people are saying. I wanted to have my own opinion. On Twitter, I saw people going at it about the speech with folks taking very broad strokes articulating which camps they were in. Don’t get me wrong, it was intriguing.

I have two lines of thinking on this. I am an adult. I pay taxes. I work at a job I go to everyday. I am paying medical bills off from my Ednaectomy from a year and a half ago still. I have ups and downs like everyone I know. I have a car that needs work. I have a family that I love. And I have people in my life that are good influences, and some who aren’t so positive. I am flawed as everyone is.

And I go back to I am an adult.

And I agree with Jon Stewart to a large degree about the speech. After five minutes of his opening bit on The Daily Show, he said one sentence that made me think. He said:

“at 11:00 on a Tuesday, a prominent politician spoke to Americans about race, as though they were adults.”

I want to be spoken to like an adult about politics.

Race issues are real. Gender issues are real. If you are for Obama, it doesn’t mean you are anti-woman. If you are for Clinton, it doesn’t mean that you are anti-black. The party that has commended themselves of being diverse through my life has taken to playing some really jacked-up games recently. And I don’t like it.

Are American citizens the ones beating these issues with a hammer? Is it the media? Is it the strategy of political spin from the Rove handbook, as I’ve questioned before?

I needed to sit down and process the speech given by Obama without interruption. I didn’t want to be swayed by other people’s opinions of the speech. I thought it was a good one and I agree with Stewart, we were spoken to with bluntness that, and this is my opinion, treated me with the respect I deserve as a voting American.

And most of the folks talking about what he said probably weren’t going to vote for Obama anyway. But, in a thoughtful discussion at Ginger’s, people were talking about hesitations about the candidate. This kind of discussion is a good thing. It’s best to have “adult” conversations about politics instead of a bunch of name-calling and I commend Ginger for being upfront in her uncertainty.

I respect a person’s right to question the whole Wright thing. As Americans, if it bothered folks, they need to process it out. I pay him about as much mind as I did Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson (who at one time openly spoke of assassinating Hugo Chavez.) Preachers (as they are called around here) are human beings too with flaws, emotions and beliefs. I had grandparents on both sides of my family who went to church every time the doors opened. Homer is a regular church attendee. I don’t think Homer and the preacher are voting for the same guy.

As for me, I saw it and didn’t put too much thought in it. Others did.

There are no easy answers here. The one thing that I do want to stress is that quite frequently a group of us here in rural America get together for a couple of beers. Politics invariably comes up. Cravens voted for Edwards, Squirrel Queen voted for Hillary and I voted for Obama on Super Tuesday.

The issues of race and gender rarely come up although they do occasionally. We are all adults who had a preference. We voted for whom we thought would be the best person.

What we do talk about is the economy, the war, how we are having to stretch our dollars further than we have had to since our days in school and the personal realities we have faced with healthcare.

You know, because these are the issues impacting us personally in our adult life.

I can’t tell you what to do or how to think. I’m not going to do that because that wouldn’t be cool. I’m not going to tell you how to vote, because that would be disingenuous. I have my opinions, you have yours and we can all keep it friendly.

We can all agree to disagree or at least I hope we can.

I am going to say that my fellow progressives need to chill. We are not oppressing women if we support Barack Obama. We are not oppressing African-Americans if we support Hillary Clinton. We are on the same team and yet we are acting like we aren’t.

I can also say that Karl Rove is not the guy we need to be taking tips from. Yeah, I know he got folks elected and I am not naive enough to believe that the ultimate prize is to win but then again I think we’ve lost the mission of the left with all the static. Throw his playbook away, campers, immediately.

And that’s what it is: static. Let’s not get caught up in it.

In 2000, we saw some very suspicious things happen in our government (and I realize there are always suspicious things happening in our government from both sides of the aisle so let’s not get hung up on that. Bear with me, we are taking a journey in this post so hear me out.)

We saw the national media bow down after 9/11 and not asking the right questions to our leaders in this country. We saw the national media start to come out of the fog after Hurricane Katrina.

And we have had a campaign that started in 2005 give everyone such Primary Election Fatigue that I’m surprised I can still sit upright.

The thing that bothers me about the last few weeks is that we have forgotten some basic things. The whole Geraldine Ferraro thing is a perfect example. The controversy hit on the day of the Mississippi primary. There seems to be a lot of maneuvering here because it seems this keeps happening to sway what is said during that news cycle. Mack wrote about this last week and in so many ways, he’s right.

He wrote:

I am prepared to work hard for either candidate. When I talk to uncommitted people, especially bloggers, I am well positioned to make my case for Hillary Clinton, even though I have publicly stated I voted for Obama in the primary. The reason I can do this is because you will find nothing disparaging about either candidate on this blog. I had a choice to make, and I did so, and stated my reasons for it. I have a preference, thats it.

There is a great deal at stake in the General Election, so a win is extremely important to me as a citizen. As a person, how we win is of more importance. I truly believe our country is poised to rally behind not just change, but real leadership that includes keeping citizens informed of what is at stake, without exaggeration or misrepresentation. Even the media will come around.

That pretty much sums it up for me.

The whole “Obama is a Muslim” and “Clinton is a monster” is tiring and silly. I will give Clinton credit for saying this morning that both campaigns are sensitive to the race/sex edge that is playing out because nothing could be more true. To give credit to Obama, the most he said about Ferraro’s comments was that is was “ridiculous.”

And for whatever reason, I’m hoping that this and some of the other goofy-assed crap that has happened on the national stage will stop.

Can we please just calm down?

With that said, I want to know how I can get better health-care. I want to know about civil liberties. I want my president to read the constitution and not call “it a godd***ed piece of paper“.

When a president leads our country, he/she represents all of this country and that’s been my issue with the last eight years quite frankly. The world doesn’t look at race or sex as an issue when they are talking international politics and the United States’ role in a global community.

We are all in this together, my friends. And in Denver, we will all stand together no matter who the candidate is.

As no one reads political blogs or posts much anyway, here is a picture of a mongoose to keep it real.

UPDATE: A comment thread at Music City Bloggers disputed Bush saying the GD comment. In being fair, I wanted to note that.

I’ve been thinking a lot about respect.

I know in our personal lives, we hope that we have garnered  some semblance of respect from our families, our friends and the people we work with as that is in our posse. We have to recognize that some people are going to respect us and not like us necessarily.

We make the decision of how we display our respect for others. One thing that came to mind this past evening is do we judge people in broad strokes?

I started thinking about this last night as I was reading about Geraldine Ferraro’s comments about Barack Obama.

Her remarks where very sad if you ask me.

“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position.  And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position.  He happens to be very  lucky to be who he is.  And the country is caught up  in the concept.”

If someone had said in 1984 when she was on the presidential ticket that “Ferraro was lucky to be a woman” how would she have reacted? I’m seriously curious and then I kinda got my answer from Ferraro herself.

Ferraro isn’t backing down from her statement and it’s funny (not a ha ha kind of funny) because she is just another person who has reduced this campaign down to race and sex.

And she should have known better quite frankly because she has stood on the front line of in fighting stereotypes herself.

I believe that Barack Obama is well aware of the color of his skin just as Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton are well aware that they are women.

But didn’t she want to be judged in 1984 whether or not she would be a good leader? And she says this which diminishes her own role which I found to be so peculiar.

“I said in large measure, because he is black. I said, Let me also say in 1984 — and if I have said it once, I have said it 20, 60, 100 times — in 1984, if my name was Gerard Ferraro instead of Geraldine Ferraro, I would never have been the nominee for vice president,” she said.

I am in a younger generation than Ferraro. She has obviously had different experiences than I’ve had in my life and there are different waves of feminism in our world that are, in many ways, age-based. But I keep going back to that thing about the Golden Rule. She wasn’t very courteous about the very things she fought against herself when I was 19 years old and she ran for office.

I’ll be glad when we start talking about issues again nationwide instead of hammering the race/sex thing to death.

I’m randomly looking about at political news this morning afternoon (I slept until noon. An old broad has to get her sleep but I never do that so I’m somewhat surprised myself.)

A couple of things crossed my mind as I sipped my first cup of coffee for the day.  First of all, Dennis Hastert, of course, resigned and his seat is now held by a democrat. This is bigger news than you would think.  Bill Foster won the seat and will head to Washington.

But there is an underlying issue here that is impacted by national politics. Obama campaigned for Foster, John McCain campaigned for Foster’s GOP opponent, James Oberweis. It may appear like a small matter but it’s not. Hastert’s old seat was rooted deep in the middle of Republican country. And apparently Obama pulled more weight with voters than McCain. Oberweis was apparently well-known in this part of Illinois although he had lost in the past. But the thing is, in politics, there is this old thing sort of like the Academy Awards where people feel it’s that candidates “time.”

He, in all honesty, should have won. He had more money (1.2 million from the GOP and only $620,000 for the Dems) and more face recognition.

He didn’t.  And now it’s in the hands of the blue.

It goes without saying that every vote is necessary right right now. Obama won Wyoming yesterday which halted some of Hillary Clinton’s momentum, but it just created more of a speed bump. You guys know where I lean and I’m watching this.

It’s because every vote counts.

These elections are like driving on a back road covered in hidden ice this year. You don’t know which way your car is going to go as it could either way. But the most interesting thing from yesterday from a national perspective is what Bill Clinton said.

In Mississippi, Clinton brought up a Clinton/Obama ticket. I don’t think this is going to happen but the big question is why? Why is the former president bringing this up?

He said:

“You look at most of these places — he would win the urban areas and the upscale voters, and she wins the traditional rural areas that we lost when President Reagan was president,” he said. “If you put those two things together, you’d have an almost unstoppable force.”

Clinton moved then to take another question, before he returned to the subject, saying he didn’t blame either candidate for not wanting to put the matter on the table now. “Nobody wants to give up the top spot until the voters get done voting,” he said. “[But] if you got the assurances of ultimate unity, then it’s a great mistake for other people to try to shut this process down early. I mean, the last primary is June the 7th. I didn’t get the votes in ‘92 to be nominated until June the 2nd. We don’t need to be in any hurry, let everybody vote.”

I don’t see it. But then again, I thought Betamax machines would still be around in 2008. I find this interesting. I don’t think it’s going to happen because would Clinton be alright with an Obama/Clinton ticket? I’m thinking not.

But Bill knew this would get some national play. And a Clinton never says anything without there being some reason behind it.

Interesting.

I have no idea.

I’m waiting. Aren’t you?

While you are waiting, have a Goo Goo and wait for the polls. OR, you can put Busy Mom in jail. You know, this is awesome. (Homer’s favorite blogger. Yeah, put her in jail. Damn you, Homer.)

Help her out. It is, of course, of the good.

It could be another six weeks of primary ugly. Or not. And, you know, put Busy Mom in jail.

It is of the fun. She needs some do-re-mi for a good cause.

I want you to know, finally, I’m off the steroids. I haven’t killed anyone, no one has been maimed and I’m feeling much better albeit as weak as a Gallup Poll on primary day.

Ahh, bronchitis, how you thwarted me this past ten days. (Bronchitis is a bitch, my friends. Bronchitis is the new black for me at least.)

I’ve been thinking a lot about the negativity around the democratic primaries and watching everyone knock each other about as Obama and Clinton head toward the finish line. As a “good” democrat, I’m watching the race and how it impacts all of the party long-term. I’ll be honest, I have been very disappointed with the corporate hoo-haw of both candidates. And I’m done with the whole TNGOP thing because in the long run, Hobbs and Co. won to a degree. Tennessee’s name was mentioned a thousand times in relationship to that goofy press release and now we go ahead and pick up the pieces. But don’t doubt it, Tennessee was mentioned negatively globally and we’ve been discussed globally not for as much about our character as our politics. I’ve said it before on how this depicts our wonderful state nationwide. There’s no reason to hammer it again.

It’s the way I feel. And I agree with Silence. The Internet will move on. It already has.

And it was not only talked about on Keith Olbermann but in the local juke joints and coffee shops here.

You did know they vote in rural America, didn’t you?

But, it was not so negative because SQ, Badger Beth and I talked to about five people Friday night and told them that A.) Obama isn’t a Muslim (One Baptist person was shocked that he was Church of Christ and this became the conversation), B.) Hussien is a name. Hell, my middle name is Lynn and hers is … wait for it … Lucille (!) so we have what our mamas gave us (and I’m horribly jealous of the middle name of Lucille, quit frankly.) We talked to undecided voters and it made an impression (even two Republicans) and so this goofy situation had a positive impact in a local, intimate setting. C.) We also discussed locally with some people that did work in economic and industrial recruitment that this doesn’t help rural Tennesseans and as much as I hate that, at least there is a dialogue going on about it. Just one more thing. We realized one person at a time sitting down with a small group of people can discuss these things and try to think of solutions. It was actually quite invigorating.

And, for the record, SQ and I support different people in this race, but that’s her story to tell (and she gave me permission to say that.) What we both support collectively is the Democratic Party not only nation-wide, but in our state.

Five people isn’t 5000, but it isn’t bad. It, for us, was about talking about the facts that we investigated independently in comparison to what the spin is. And though we may or may not have garnered the party votes, we at least cleared up some of the myths that were designed by political spin.

With that said, I’m not hating on Hillary with these things. Listen, if you want the candidate line on Hillary, The Tennessee Guerilla Women love her and are fighting for her. Go there. If you want the Barack Obama line, then go see Braisted.  They are going to give you what you want if you are a die-hard in the wool fan. And I commend them for what they are doing.

Me, I gave my vote to Obama. I read the issues and I’m cool with my decision. I talk to people about why I did and why I’ll vote for Hillary if she gets the nomination.

And we head on to more. You guys know as well as I do that things are going to get incredibly ugly in the next couple of months

We wait for Denver.

Let’s just hope we get there soon.

Photo Credit

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Jack for Hillary. I wonder if it will help.

I know we aren’t supposed to humanize our presidential candidates. There is some sort of blogging rule that applies here. I can’t find it right now but I know it’s out there. I realize it’s impossible to humanize Dick Cheney but that’s about right because I’m not real sure he’s human.

Last night, while half the country was watching American Idol, much of Tennessee was following the Vanderbilt/Tennessee game and the rest of non-blogging folks like Homer were trying to convince her children that just because they saw a hint of snow on the ground would not necessarily constitute a day off from school today and Squirrel Queen abandoned all politics in favor of Big Brother, I watched the debates.

It’s the 2oth Democratic debate. I know if I’m feeling debate fatigue so are the candidates. And, damn me, I know, for humanizing them but they both looked tired. And on top of the that, McCain looked whupped yesterday as well especially when he was disputing Bob Cunningham, which regardless of what you may think (and I know it will be debated that he HAD to knock Cunningham, but let’s be frank, he didn’t have to. They are playing the “Barack Mohammed Hussein Obama” thing because it sets seeds of distrust as does that silly picture that the MSM made such a big deal about earlier this week.) Sharon Cobb has a breakdown on all of that.

(more…)

And now we, as democrats, are like fighting badgers on crack.

First out, Hillary, the whole Karl Rove thing and the speech today where you say the skies are going to open up was just not cool in my opinion. Bitch is the new black was funny, but it came from Tina Fey.  Hillary, don’t go negative man. If I have to vote for you in November I don’t want to do it while gritting my teeth.

Obama, start concentrating on the similarities instead of distancing on policy. The fact is that much of the issues that you both share are similar. the difference is the delivery of the message. Would you seriously ax Nafta? I know the question isn’t necessarily fair. But it’s not unfair either. Go here. As for being patriotic, there will always be something. You’re dealing with the Karl Rove Nuclear Fallout from the ghosts of elections/smears past.

Ralph Nader. Dude. Seriously. Dude. The ego has landed. Pat Paulsen is laughing from the grave because both campaigns have about the same weight.

I’ll say no more as my patience is very thin right now.

Going to take more steroids so I can yell at my loved ones.