Monster trucks and funny cars!
Whoops!
Ok, I am watching This Week With George S., and Wolfson is hammering Axlerod on Obama’s committee assignments in the Foreign Relations committee. Obama hasn’t held a single hearing on NATO and Afghanistan and Axlerod is tap-dancing all around the issue with, “But Hillary voted for the IWR! SHE voted for it! It’s her judgment.”
Jeez, David, is that all you’ve got? I mean, let’s think about this for a moment. Almost the entire appeal of Obama to the left blogosphere on DailyKos and OpenLeft and TalkingPointsMemo is this one vote. This one vote out of the entire 35 year history. Everything else about Hillary they’re pretty cool with but THIS vote and that meaningless Lieberman-Kyl resolution, gets their knickers in a twist. And let’s be absolutely clear about this, they were willing and able to overlook this in Senator Kerry in 2004. Yep, it was all ticketyboo for Kerry to have voted for it AND say that he would have voted for it again if he’d had a chance. Hillary at least regrets it and wishes she had a do-over. But Kerry had no coherent message about Iraq and was all over the place about his vote. And to our merry band of Kossacks, that was O. K.
The hypocrisy is really quite astonishing when you think about it. For Hillary Clinton, her entire body of accomplishments in public service is reduced to nothing because she did this one stupid vote. Maybe that’s how it should always be. If you are an accomplice to getting us into a war we have to spend years getting out of at a cost of thousands of young lives, you *should* be held accountable. But at least be consistent. And when it comes to Kerry vs Clinton, at least you can say that her constituents would have demanded it. They would have preferred to be safer than sorry. One other thing we didn’t consider is that Bill Clinton was a very responsible president when it came to foreign affairs. Maybe it was unthinkable to either Clinton that Bush would be so reckless with the military. I don’t know. I am not making excuses. I don’t know what was going on in her head. All I know is that she was in a tougher spot than Obama has EVER been in and her options, as a senator from the state of New York, were very limited.
Do I trust her to do the right thing in the White House as Commander in Chief? Absolutely. She knows that a broken military leaves us vulnerable in terms of national security. One of the first orders of business for her will be to stabilize what is left of our forces. We are overcommitted and depleted. We can’t stay in Iraq. We must address Afghanistan. Along with Generals Wesley Clark and Hugh Shelton, Madeline Albright and the Big Dawg himself, I feel confident that she will move quickly to halt the further disintegration of our foreign policy around the world. Obama, on the other hand, will spend his first couple of years just getting up to speed.
Maybe he can fit a meeting on NATO and Afghanistan into his schedule. That is, if he has time from the Recession. Good luck with that, Barry.
On other thing: Howard, with respect to the Rezko issue, don’t go there. Really. After Whitewater, we just really don’t need to encourage the media to dredge up that stuff and distract us. If we end up with Obama as our nominee, the media will just use it against him in order to promote McCain.
Nevermind. Pound the bastard.
Filed under: Barack Obama, Blogosphere, Hillary Clinton, Presidential Election 2008 | Tagged: David Axlerod, Howard Wolfson, This Week With George Stephanopolous |
The Confluence 
riverdaughter, I’ve got split feelings about the Rezko thing. On one hand, I agree with what you said: “Don’t go there.” But on the other, I think — if it can be twisted against him, do it now while we’ve got Hillary to pick up the pieces.
So ultimately, I’m on the “Nevermind. Pound the bastard.” side of the issue. Now’s the time to pound him.
As an issue, I couldn’t care less about it. But, it is a part of the whole “vetting” thing. Hillary’s had all the dirt in the world thrown at her — Obama still has that ahead of him. And for all we know, Rezko could turn into a THING.
Personally, I’m hoping the Subcommittee issue takes off. And it might if he’s going to keep calling for increased troops in Afghanistan.
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.
Jason Whitmen
riverdaughter,
I love your writing and your sense of humor. Thanks for starting this blog. I’m another Kos refugee. Have you noticed a lot of the best writers have left there now? And I wonder why Hillary’s supporters have better senses of humor? Those BO supporters are so angry! I really think if Hillary wins, they will riot in Denver. Anyway, I’m going off on a tangent. It’s such a relief to be around friendly people.
Have you heard that BO has hinted he might appoint Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense? I wonder if he’ll have any Democrats in his cabinet?
OK, have you chipped in a few bucks to Hillary today? I just did and I’m a poor grad student!
The Rezko thing is more than it seems and is not being covered very well. I do not know if there is a legal problem or not but claiming a conflict of interest was “boneheaded” seems lame to me. I mean Sen and Mrs. Obama are both Harvard educated attorneys, he is a constitutional law scholar and lecturer, and they did not see a clear ethical problem? Either they are brilliant highly educated attorneys or not. This is ethics 101 and no one is calling them on it. Other public officials, as well as regular attorneys get in hot water for far less and it can ruin their careers.
Yeah, Rezko’s wife who makes $35,000 a year and has virtually no assets of her own “bought” land as an “investment” for $625,000 and sold a piece of it to the Obamas for a little over $100,000. All this while Mr. Rezko was on the verge of bankruptcy. The Obamas using their political status to help piece together their dream house/property looks like a clear ethical violation to me.
The bank which issued the mortgage is also very interesting. It does low income housing loans and is tangentially involved with Rezko and Auchi. I would love to look at the loan documents and appraisals on the lot as well as the building covenant. I wonder if Fitz has been digging around in it. It just gets better and better.
Great post! I say pound the bastard too. For the first time in my life I’m actually considering voting either for a republican or green party candidate if Hillary doesn’t make it onto the ticket.
Riverdaughter (and others),
Here is my response to someone at mydd shilling for Obama:
1. How did Rezko get involved in the deal in the first place (e.g., BO only did about 5 hours of legal work for him….yet he does a walk-through of the house Obama wants to buy).
2. The sellers insist on selling both pieces at the same time.
3. There are reports that the sellers got another offer on the vacant lot for the same price Rezko offers. What happened to that deal?
4. Who gave a $500,000 mortgage to someone (a “woman”!!!) who only earns $35,000/year?
5. What connnection did Rezko have with the mortgage company?
6. Wat that mortgage company the same one who funded Obama?
7. Once you partition a piece of propety – in some states – you destroy future partitioning. Anyone from the Illinoise legal community know if that’s true in Illinois?
8. Changing the status of a piece of property via a variance/change in legal status takes time – and usually political connections. When did the property get split off form the house? Was it near/about the time the Obamas started their bidding process?
A curious mind wants to know!
Zogby poll has Obama up again – margin of error etc. (I don’t think Zogby knows what he’s doing).
Now, the big poll out today is the Mason Dixon poll which has Obama up 1 (46-45) which by all intents and purposes is a statistical dead heat.
Here’s the internals:
Click to access 0302txdems.pdf
Gender Breakdown:
Women: 58%
Men: 42%
Race Breakdown:
White: 48%
Black: 22%
Hispanic: 27%
Asian or Other – 2%
In the 2004 Texas CNN primary exit poll, the race breakdown was white – 52%, black – 21%, Hispanic – 24%.
I think the Hispanic vote will be over 30% this time around in Texas and that should help Hillary. In California, the Hispanic vote was 16% in 2004 and went up to 30% in 2008. The Black vote in California went down from 8% in 2004 to 7% in 2008. Because of increased numbers from Hispanics, that will push other groups down in percentage terms.
Like what gqmartinez said, this race is all about turnout.
I am also of the opinion that Rezko needs to be covered exhaustively by the press – right now, not later! Unlike the delusional Obamabots, I am well aware that it will come out to sink him in the General Election if it is passed on now. Please remember that Kerry didn’t do anything wrong – he was a war hero, for God’s sakes – and they still used that to Swiftboat him. Who in the world can possibly believe that Obama won’t be Swiftboated into absolute oblivion over Rezko? That’s why it needs to come out now, and he needs to be able to build a strong response to it, if he has one. It is no service to Obama to wait. And it is definitely no service to Democrats. If it comes out now, Hillary is still in the running and can still win and give us a strong candidate in the General.
But even if he did nothing illegal, there is something about this that everyone is missing. His sole claim to fame is that he supposedly has better judgment, since he was against the War (when he didn’t have to stand up and be counted, of course). However, this whole Rezko affair paints a very different picture of judgment. Associating with this sleaze, even after he was under investigation for corruption, is bad judgment in the extreme. There are also some other problems with his claim to judgment. I would also cite his comments about bombing Pakistan that actually caused riots there. How can anyone praise Obama for supposedly being anti-war when he has stated that he would go in and bomb Pakistan, an ally, and one with nuclear weapons that could be used against us? Is this the great judgement Obama has? Not very pretty. But this is Obama’s whole claim to fame – his supposedly superior judgment.
I shut off the morning shows this morning after a few minutes of “we aren’t unfair to Hillary, she was a frontrunner and lost her lead, that’s not our problem!”
Right, because even though more than 50% of Americans (including Obama supporters) think the press has been unfair to her, they have exculpated themselves. Kind of Bushian, isn’t it?
Funny debate going on at the Great Orange Obama. Obama has apparently said he would consider putting McCain, Lugar and/or Hagel in his cabinet. A similar statement by Clinton would have them screaming “BUSH LITE” “HILLARY IS SATAN” etc.
But now all the Obamans are trying to explain why this is a great idea.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/3/2/181519/3962/321/467493
If I want more fabulous Republicans to run the federal government further into the ground I will vote for a Republican for president. Does Sen Obama understand that Dems want the WH and executive run by Dems and not some old warmed over toadies for Bush. Has anyone asked these guys if they would even work for him. My guess is they would tell him to take a hike and do everything they could to screw him over in the Congress.
CD,
You wrote: I am also of the opinion that Rezko needs to be covered exhaustively by the press – right now, not later!
It will be happening, because the Rezko trial starts this week. I think they are picking jurors tomorrow.
PREDICTION:
Expect Obama surrogates to have a huge media media distraction tomorrow. Maybe even starting from TODAY. They will go ALL OUT.
They will feed the beast to dim the lights on Rezko. I hope Hillary camp is ready.
Have the Obamas given any statements for this?