

"The Obama administration is threatening to rescind billions of dollars in federal stimulus money if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers do not restore wage cuts to unionized home healthcare workers approved in February as part of the budget.The back story is how corrupt the SEIU is in general, and how pervasive corruption is in this specific program:
The wages at issue involve workers who care for some 440,000 low-income disabled and elderly Californians. The workers, who collectively contribute millions of dollars in dues each month to the influential Service Employees International Union and the United Domestic Workers, will see the state's contribution to their wages cut from a maximum of $12.10 per hour to a maximum of $10.10."
"Loose oversight and bureaucratic inertia have allowed fraud to fester in a rapidly expanding multibillion-dollar state program that provides personal caregivers to the impoverished elderly and disabled. Hundreds of reports of scams and swindles are going without investigation.With a tough road ahead, America is closely watching which battles President Obama chooses to fight. The ObamaFest Team is discouraged to see him taking care of political i.o.u.'s at the expense of a state teetering on bankruptcy.
Prosecutors and program administrators across the state say they are alarmed by the ease with which people are taking advantage of the program, In Home Supportive Services.
In one case, a social worker, her brother and her grandson in Los Angeles County are accused of bilking the In Home system out of $77,000 over three years, billing for care that was not provided. The social worker was simultaneously collecting pay for her full-time state employment. The case is awaiting trial.
In Fresno County, officials used $650,000 in county funds to create the state's only active In Home Supportive Services fraud investigations unit. Prosecutors say they routinely find cheating on time cards, prisoners reporting they are providing care while locked up and recipients of the service concocting disabilities to get relatives on the state payroll."

Yet last year, Murtech received $4 million in Pentagon work, all of it without competition, for a variety of warehousing and engineering services. With its long corridor of sparsely occupied offices and an unmanned reception area, Murtech's most striking feature is its owner -- Robert C. Murtha Jr., 49. He is the nephew of Rep. John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has significant sway over the Defense Department's spending as chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee.The ObamaFest Team knows that Republicans will exploit the Democrats' tolerance for crooks like Murtha in next year's elections. And they should. Mr. Murtha has been saying, "Fuck You" to the American taxpayer for thirty years. President Obama's agenda will rot from the inside unless Eric Holder and the Justice Department put Mr. Murtha where he belongs: in an orange jumpsuit.


"IndyMac’s aggressive growth strategy, use of Alt-A and other nontraditional loan products, insufficient underwriting, credit concentrations in residential real estate in the California and Florida markets, and heavy reliance on costly funds borrowed from the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLSchemes like IndyMac rely on political influence, and Caldera was a well compensated part of the equation.and from brokered deposits, led to its demise when the mortgage market declined in 2007."

Even more pointed is the criticism by Dr. Jana Kohl:Abbie Moore of Adopt-a-Pet.com isn’t forgiving. “This is truly a missed opportunity to set a pet-adoption trend among Americans. “If Obama had adopted a pet from a shelter, it could have been the turning point for the pet-overpopulation problem in this country. With pet relinquishment up 20 to 30 percent due to the poor economy, pets in shelters can use all the help they can get.”
While Dog magazine’s Ryan O’Meara says this is just more of the same. “When he was resoundingly elected to office we were promised change. But, it seems, true to type the new American president is a politician at heart so should we really have expected anything different?”
"The author of “A Rare Breed of Love,” Kohl wrote the story of her poodle named Baby who she rescued four years ago. Baby not only had her vocal chords removed with scissors but lost a leg due to the years of abuse at the hands of a breeder.So outraged was she at Baby’s story, she decided to write a book calling attention to puppy mills.
Her strategy was to get people with a microphone to appear in the book. So she set off to Capitol Hill and Hollywood where she found plenty of supporters. People like Paul Harvey, Steven Tyler, Bill Maher, Jim Cramer, and a host of politicians – Republican and Democrat.
One of those politicians that agreed to meet with her was then-Senator Obama. Touched by Baby’s story, he then agreed to a photoshoot and, according to a press release promoting her book, pledged to Kohl that when he brought a dog home for his family, it would be a rescue dog – not one from a breeder.
So, this weekend’s announcement that the president opted to accept a puppy as a gift from Senator Ted Kennedy (via a breeder) and not to go to a shelter or rescue center has left Kohl upset.
“I feel like he’s made a mockery out of the book and the things I wrote about him,” Kohl told the Vote Blog. “I read what I said about him and it makes me cringe.”
Kohl said that his decision is not only heartbreaking for her, but destructive because of what she sees as the domino effect.
“This will fuel the breeding industry which will fuel the puppy mill industry, which will increase homeless dogs at shelters, and increase the numbers of dogs euthanized every year,” she said.
“To add insult to injury, during these tough economic times it is incredibly insensitive and elitist of them to do this, ” she said. “People are tearfully turning in their pets to shelters because they can’t afford them anymore. We see it on news all the time.
“How can they be so out of touch?” she asked.
What about the fact that the president will donate to the DC Humane Society to make up for it?
“That’s baloney,” Kohl said. “It’s farcical. They’re donating money to urge people not to do what they did.”"


"Loose oversight and bureaucratic inertia have allowed fraud to fester in a rapidly expanding multibillion-dollar state program that provides personal caregivers to the impoverished elderly and disabled. Hundreds of reports of scams and swindles are going without investigation.So at this point any politician with an ounce of integrity would say something like, "With all of the taxes that we require our citizens to pay,it is incumbent upon us to make sure that that money is spent wisely and honestly."
Prosecutors and program administrators across the state say they are alarmed by the ease with which people are taking advantage of the program, In Home Supportive Services.
Government funds are flowing in so quickly, with such limited oversight, that prosecutors say it is common for the state to send paychecks to scam artists claiming to be caring for someone who is dead. Or claiming to be caring for a relative or friend faking a disability. Or claiming to be providing care during the same hours they are working elsewhere."
"Some critics of the program say politics has blocked efforts to combat fraud. The program has become a steady source of revenue for the Service Employees International Union, among the most powerful interest groups in the Capitol, as well as a second union, the United Domestic Workers of America.Senator Leno should just come out and admit that there's nothing better than a program that, under the guise of helping...
Under the program, people receiving care are entitled to hire whom they wish at government expense. Most hire their relatives, because family members are often the most appropriate to provide the needed round-the-clock feeding, changing, bathing and other care. Wages range from $8 to $14.68 an hour, depending on the county. Those workers are required to pay monthly union dues that total millions of dollars. The SEIU, for example, collects nearly $5 million a month from its 223,000 In Home system members.
The unions donate heavily to the campaigns of Democrats who control the Legislature and organize get-out-the-vote efforts on their behalf."




“This is a serious, serious game changer,” Cramer said."Cramer's analysis will go down," predicted the ObamaFest CFO, "with Neville Chamberlain's claim of 'Peace for our time' after the British Prime Minister went to Munich and gave Hitler the Sudetenland. Cramer learned absolutely nothing from his Daily Show beatdown!"
The government’s stress test had been created to see which banks would most likely rebound if given federal help. Now that some banks are showing signs of strength, there is probably little need for Washington to inject more cash into struggling institutions.Cramer predicted that Wells Fargo would earn between $2.30 and $2.35 a share in 2010, saying that the stock deserves an 11 or 12 price-to-earnings multiple. He thinks WFC will climb to $26.
We aint seen nothing yet."NOTE – actual March foreclosures reported next week by the popular foreclosure services like RealtyTrac will show a sizable drop vs. Feb because foreclosures lag notices. Foreclosures in March are a result of NTS’s when many banks/servicers were on hold in Jan/Feb. But in March NTS’s surged — I will have a preliminary report out this week on the total statewide and national counts. BE CAREFUL - the popular reports released next week will also show a large increase in total foreclosure notices so total foreclosure activity may be relatively flat. Market reaction will be dependent upon how this is reported in the press.
The bottom line is that there is a massive wave of actual foreclosures that will hit beginning in April that can’t be stopped without a national moratorium — this wave is so big I would not put it past them trying it."
March 19 (Bloomberg) -- A senior member of the U.S. House’s tax-writing Ways and Means Committee from California has been taking advantage of a tax break for a home in Maryland that he claims as his principal residence.
Representative Pete Stark, the second-ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means panel, in 2007 and 2008 saved a total of $3,853 in state and Anne Arundel County taxes on a Maryland waterfront home that he claims as his primary residence, according to Maryland tax disclosures.
As the ObamaFest Intern likes to point out, saving four grand must have warmed Mr. Stark's heart, making him nostalgic for the days when that kind of scratch could buy a public servant half a kilo of high society.

The ObamaFest intern once asked how Senator Dodd can sleep at night. Now we know: the man slumbers on a mattress stuffed with hundred dollar bills."While the Senate constructed the $787 billion stimulus last month, Dodd unexpectedly added an executive-compensation restriction to the bill. That amendment provides an “exception for contractually obligated bonuses agreed on before Feb. 11, 2009,” which exempts the very AIG bonuses Dodd and others are seeking to tax. The amendment is in the final version and is law.
Also, Sen. Dodd was AIG’s largest single recipient of campaign donations during the 2008 election cycle with $103,100, according to opensecrets.org."



-In 1994 Dodd buys a third interest in an Irish estate valued at $160k. William Kessinger bought the other two thirds. Kessinger's business partner is longtime Dodd buddy Edward Downe Jr. (In 1986 Dodd purchased a Washington condo with Mr. Downe).The Wall Street Journal sums up Cottage-gate thusly:
-In 1993, Downe pleads guilty to felony crimes of insider trading and securities fraud. In 1994 he pays the SEC $11 million in criminal penalties.
-In 2001, Senator Dodd successfully lobbies President Clinton to pardon Mr. Downe before leaving office.
-In 2002, Mr. Kessinger sells his two thirds of the estate to Mr. Dodd for $127k, even though the price of homes in Ireland quadrupled in the eight years since they bought in - meaning the estate's market value is over $640k!
"Mr. Dodd is busy these days blaming everyone else for the real-estate bubble and financial meltdown. But he owes his constituents and the Senate an honest accounting of his Galway property over the past 15 years. If its value grew with the rest of the area, he needs to explain why Mr. Kessinger handed it over for a song, why that isn't an unreported gift under Senate rules, and what role Mr. Downe might have played as a middleman.The ObamaFest Team loathes a system that allows the Bernie Madoffs and Chris Dodds of the world to walk among us. Cuff 'em.More broadly, Connecticut voters might want to know why their senior Senator has hung around for years with Mr. Downe, the kind of financial scoundrel Mr. Dodd spends so much time denouncing."
"We don't need government - governmental subsidies for manufacturing in this country. It's the French model, it's the wrong road. We will pay for it. The average American taxpayer is going to pay dearly for this, if I'm not wrong." However, foreign-owned auto manufacturers Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Toyota, and Hyundai received approximately $788 million in government subsidies in the cities of Vance, Lincoln, Huntsville, and Montgomery in Shelby's home state of Alabama, according to analysis by Good Jobs First. Good Jobs First executive Director Greg LeRoy pointed out that "while proposed federal aid to the Big 3 would take the form of a loan, the vast majority of subsidies to foreign auto plants were taxpayer gifts such as property and sales tax exemptions, income tax credits, infrastructure aid, land discounts, and training grants."This year Shelby abandoned common decency and supported the $410 billion spending bill once he was able to weasel 64 earmarks worth $114 million into the legislation. Included is $819k for a catfish genome study at Auburn University.




“I don’t think the White House has the ability to tell us what to do.” And the majority leader was quick to point out that before he hit the campaign trail, Obama was serving the people of Illinois in the Senate — and obtaining federally-funded projects himself. “The president, of course, had earmarks, as you’ll recall, not last year but the year before,” Hoyer said.
Hoyer said that members of Congress have a responsibility to provide funding for their districts.
“’Earmarks’ are a pejorative term,” he argued.


"This week, the United States Senate will vote on a spending package to fund the federal government for the remainder of this fiscal year. The Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009 is a sprawling, $410 billion compilation of nine spending measures that lacks the slightest hint of austerity from the federal government or the recipients of its largess.The ObamaFest Team welcomes any voice in Washington that advocates an end to business as usual, and we continue to hope that the loudest such voice will come from The White House.The Senate should reject this bill. If we do not, President Barack Obama should veto it."

From William McGurn in The Wall Street Journal:
"Dick Durbin has a nasty surprise for two of Sasha and Malia Obama's new schoolmates. And it puts the president in an awkward position.
The children are Sarah and James Parker. Like the Obama girls, Sarah and James attend the Sidwell Friends School in our nation's capital. Unlike the Obama girls, they could not afford the school without the $7,500 voucher they receive from the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program. Unfortunately, a spending bill the Senate takes up this week includes a poison pill that would kill this program -- and with it perhaps the Parker children's hopes for a Sidwell diploma.
Known as the "Durbin language" after the Illinois Democrat who came up with it last year, the provision mandates that the scholarship program ends after the next school year unless Congress reauthorizes it and the District of Columbia approves. The beauty of this language is that it allows opponents to kill the program simply by doing nothing. Just the sort of sneaky maneuver that's so handy when you don't want inner-city moms and dads to catch on that you are cutting one of their lifelines....
All of which leaves the First Parent with a decision to make: Will he stand up for those like his own children's schoolmates -- or stand in front of the Sidwell door with Mr. Durbin? It's hard to imagine white congressional Democrats going up against him if he called them out on an issue where they have put him in this embarrassing position. This, after all, is a man who has written of the "anger" he felt as a community organizer, when his attempts to improve things for Chicago school kids ran up against an "uncomfortable fact."
"The biggest source of resistance [to reform]," he (Obama) said, "was rarely talked about . . . namely, the uncomfortable fact that every one of our churches was filled with teachers, principals, and district superintendents. Few of these educators sent their own children to public schools; they knew too much for that. But they would defend the status quo with the same skill and vigor as their white counterparts of two decades before."
Let's just say that Sarah and James Parker -- and thousands just like them -- could use some of that same Obama anger right about now."
The ObamaFest Team is calling out Senator Durbin for being a union whore and for being on the wrong side of History, the wrong side of morality, and the wrong side of these kid's futures.




"Employees at the Regal Brandywine Cinemas say the vice president-elect and his wife, Jill, tried to attend the 7:45 showing of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" at the theater on Concord Pike but left after they were told the movie was sold out.It's endearing that Mr. Biden, loyal consumer of hair plugs, veneers, chemical tans and so many face lifts that he's getting Ho Chi Minh eyes, had his heart set on seeing a movie about a man who ages in reverse.Inshirah Muhamut, an associate manager, said she closed her box-office line when she saw what appeared to be a Secret Service agent coming her way.
The man asked her about tickets for the movie, which stars Brad Pitt, then left.
A few minutes later, she said, the Bidens came into the lobby.
Jill Biden walked up to speak with Muhamut while Joe stood nearby.
"She was asking me about other shows, but they really wanted to see 'Benjamin Button,' " Muhamut said. "He was maybe five feet away, looking at her. He was standing with his other Secret Service men."
Remarkably, none of the other moviegoers appeared to notice. Employees said nobody mobbed Biden or called his name or asked for an autograph."








Most voters are sheep. They'll vote for their party's pick no matter how inept or corrupt. We call these jerkies: "The Base. "
Presidential elections are determined by the 20% of sophisticated voters with an awareness of the world's many shades of gray. They're called "Swing Voters" and they are often ridiculed by The Bases. "How can you not know who you are going to vote for?" the Bases cry out with pseudo-intellectual disdain.
How? Because Swing Voters know that Democrats and Republicans in Washington are bought and sold by the same interest groups. Swing Voters examine both candidates for a sign, a glimmer of hope that one of them may have the balls to in some small way make in dent in the corrupt status quo. And in the absence of any sign the Swing Voter will stay home or make a "fuck you" vote. Fuck you, George H.W. Bush for breaking your promises and raising taxes, we're voting for Ross Perot - enjoy your retirement. Fuck you, Al Gore, for ignoring the environment and Social Security for eight years as V.P. and then claiming to be obsessed with both - we're voting for Ralph Nader and we hope it costs you the election (it did!).
In this election John McCain is chasing the Swing Voters by claiming to be a reformer. Great. Show us the goods. Name names. Expose your colleagues in Congress, especially Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, who enabled and benefited from the trillion dollar fiascoes at Fannie and Freddie. Call out your pal Alan Greenspan for his loose money policies that led to the now-popping housing bubble. Take a stand against working-class taxpayers bailing out millionaire CEOs. Hell, point out some of George W. Bush's mistakes - there are plenty to choose from.
Lots of meaty targets for a reformer. So who does McCain go after? SEC Chairman Christopher Cox - a lame duck bureaucrat in a lame-duck administration:
"The primary regulator of Wall Street, the Securities and Exchange Commission, kept in place trading rules that let speculators and hedge funds turn our markets into a casino," Mccain said. "They allowed naked short selling — which simply means that you can sell stock without ever owning it. They eliminated last year the uptick rule that has protected investors for 70 years. Speculators pounded the shares of even good companies into the ground."
This multi-trillion dollar international financial crisis was not caused by a few investors betting that certain stocks would go down. McCain's attempt to blame Cox suggests that the Senator is either a political fool or a political coward, and we vote for coward given his track record. McCain never called Bush out for the fuck-ups in Iraq, instead attacking the "failed strategies of Donald Rumsfeld." Of course, it was all President Rumsfeld's fault.
Abraham Lincoln fired six Generals during the Civil War. McCain's knack for blaming political soldiers and leaving the Generals alone makes him unworthy of taking up Mr. Lincoln's old residence.







"EMPORIA, Va - Barack Obama says he's decided on a running mate, but he won't say who. "I've made the selection, that's all you're gonna get," Obama told reporters while campaigning in Virginia Thursday. Obama didn't say whether he's informed his pick yet.How Junior High can we get?Obama is planning to announce his choice in a text message to supporters sometime before Saturday afternoon, when he's scheduled to appear with his pick in Illinois.
Asked by an Associated Press reporter when the text would be sent, Obama just grinned and said, "Wouldn't you like to know?""

Barring a big surprise or last-minute change of heart, the choice is likely to be Sen. Joe Biden of Deleware, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.Sigh. While Biden didn't make the ObamaFest VP shortlist, we get why Obama might pick the long-winded Delaweenie as a running mate. Senator Obama has been on the national scene for a short time. He doesn't have a ton of buddies. At least he's acquainted with his Senate colleagues. It's like your first quarter in the dorms when you eat every meal with the guys on your hall.



Word. Welcome to the world of ObamaFest, young Bob. If Obama goes down then the Democratic Party remains in the hands of same old scoundrels and idiots, including:"I think Obama is not tall on experience . . . but I believe he's a really good person. He's smart. And he does represent what the country needs most now, which is change.
"I hope he'll win. I think he will. If he doesn't, you can kiss the Democratic Party goodbye. I think we need new voices, new blood. We need to get a whole group out, get a new group in."
-The Chris Dodds and Barney Franks, both taking favors from the U.S. banks they should have been regulating, and both now crafting taxpayer bailouts of said banks.
-The Hillary Clintons and Joe Bidens, both with the blood of 4,000 U.S. soldiers on their hands, yet both refusing to apologize.
-The Harry Reids and Steny Hoyers, both possessing the most awful combination of hatefulness and incompetence.
- The Nancy Pelosi's and Rahm Emanuels, squandering the mandate of the 2006 election that gave them the power to clean up Congress. Thanks for the continued earmarks, kids, along with the continued war, deficits, housing crisis, and runaway government spending.
- And all the fucking do-nothings who simply take their fat paychecks and cushy pensions while watching the country go down the shitter. Were looking at you, John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Kent Conrad, Patrick Leahy, Dick Durbin and Charles Schumer.





Here are your Democratic Senators:
Senators Missing the Cut (reason in parentheses):
Sherrod Brown –
Barbara Mikulski –
Ron Wyden –
Mark Pryor –
Edward Kennedy –
John Kerry –
Robert Casey –
Barbara Boxer –
Dianne Feinstein –
Debbie Stabenow –
Carl Levin –
Jack Reed –
Sheldon Whitehouse – Rhode Island (“A Sheldon can do your income taxes, if you
need a root canal, Sheldon's your man... but humpin' and pumpin' is not
Sheldon's strong suit. It's the name. 'Do it to me Sheldon, you're an animal
Sheldon, be my VP big Shel-don.' Doesn't work.”)
Ken Salazar –
Amy Klobuchar –
Chris Dodd –
Joe Lieberman –
Tim Johnson –
Joe Biden –
Claire McCaskill –
Max Baucus –
John Tester –
Ben Nelsen –
Daniel Akaka –
Daniel Inouye –
Harry Reid –
Patrick Leahy –
Jim Webb –
Dick Durbin –
Bob Menendez –
Frank Lautenberg –
Maria Cantwell – Washington (too much coffee)
Evan Bayh –
Jeff Bingaman –
Robert Byrd – West
John Rockefeller IV- West Virginia (“you don’t have to be a
Rockefella’ to help a fella”)
Ton Harkin –
Hillary Clinton –
Charles Schumer –
Herbert Kohl –
Byron Dorgan –
Kent Conrad –
Senators Making the Cut:
Mary Landrieu –
Patty Murray –
Bill Nelson –
Blanch
Ben Cardin –
Others Making the Cut:
Sam Nunn –
This wasn't hard at all.
Here it is, your 2008 VP Short List:
Kathleen Sebelius –
Phil Bredesen –
Tim Kaine –
Ted Strickland –
Brad Henry –
Mary Landrieu –
Russ Feingold –
Patty Murray –
Bill Nelson –
Blanch
Ben Cardin –
Sam Nunn – Co-Chair of the NTI
Unfortunately for the ladies, Obama can't pick a woman. He would be perceived, among females, as the guy who broke up with one of their girlfriends because he didn't want to get married, then turned around and got engaged to the next woman he met. It sounds ridiculous, but it's true, and Obama needs to respect the way these broads think if he wants to be President.
So Here is the True Short List:
Phil Bredesen –
Tim Kaine –
Ted Strickland –
Brad Henry –
Russ Feingold –
Bill Nelson –
Ben Cardin –
Sam Nunn – Co-Chair of the NTI
At this point we offer two choices to Senator Obama, depending on what he wants from his Vice President.
If he wants a man who looks good in the role of a President-in-waiting, he goes with Russ Feingold.
If he wants a man who is a day-to-day working asset of his administration, he goes with Sam Nunn.



"Obama's victory must be opportunity for serious reflection. Seeing the grave irony of our House of Representatives rejecting the Freedom of Information Bill on the day a more open society saw Obama cross the tape of the Democratic Party nomination process should help us realize in Nigeria that "Urgency" of now" to use a Martin Luther King Jnr phraseology is a recognition, in kings own words that "when evil men plot, good men must plan". When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind. Where evil men should seek to perpetuate an unjust status quo, good men must seek to bring into being a real order of justice." Good men and women in Nigeria must arise, draw inspiration from this Obama moment and make our country rise from the ashes of corruption, poverty and mutual distrust into the glorious future that is its potential," he said.
On to November!


Associated Press COLUMBUS, Ohio - John McCain, looking through a crystal ball to 2013 and the end of a prospective first term, sees "spasmodic" but reduced violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden dead or captured and government spending curbed by his ready veto pen.Senator McCain's extended timetable is poignant news for these guys:


West Virginia's GDP was $55.6B in 2006, which was a 0.6% increase from 2005. This makes growth rate for the state the 2nd lowest in the nation, behind only Michigan.
Even the ObamaFest intern, who hails from West Virginia, puts little faith in the electorate. She points out the inherent dichotomy of West Virginia, "Despite their professed Christian faith, West Virginians could not find in their midst three wise men or a single virgin."Joe Miller: What do you love about the law, Andrew?Tom Hanks felt the thrill for real today when he announced his Obama endorsement:
Andrew Beckett: I... many things... uh... uh... What I love the most about the law?
Joe Miller: Yeah.
Andrew Beckett: It's that every now and again - not often, but occasionally - you get to be a part of justice being done. That really is quite a thrill when that happens.
INDIO, Calif. (AP) — Roger Waters brought Coachella to a close with an epic two-set performance that included playing all of "Dark Side of the Moon" and unleashing a giant inflated pig into the night sky.Rogers had already tipped his hand when, following the Texas primary, he politely referred to Senator Clinton as ghastly:
The pig, which was led above the crowd from lines held on the ground, displayed the words "Don't be led to the slaughter" and a cartoon of Uncle Sam wielding two bloody cleavers. The other side read "Fear builds walls."The underside of the pig simply read "Obama" with a checked ballot box alongside.
There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship, smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying.
When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown,
The dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.






Dear Friends and Fans:
LIke most of you, I've been following the campaign and I have now seen and heard enough to know where I stand. Senator Obama, in my view, is head and shoulders above the rest.
He has the depth, the reflectiveness, and the resilience to be our next President. He speaks to the America I've envisioned in my music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that's interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit. A place where "...nobody crowds you, and nobody goes it alone."
At the moment, critics have tried to diminish Senator Obama through the exaggeration of certain of his comments and relationships. While these matters are worthy of some discussion, they have been ripped out of the context and fabric of the man's life and vision, so well described in his excellent book, Dreams of My Father, often in order to distract us from discussing the real issues: war and peace, the fight for economic and racial justice, reaffirming our Constitution, and the protection and enhancement of our environment.
After the terrible damage done over the past eight years, a great American reclamation project needs to be undertaken. I believe that Senator Obama is the best candidate to lead that project and to lead us into the 21st Century with a renewed sense of moral purpose and of ourselves as Americans.
Over here on E Street, we're proud to support Obama for President.

Talk about a dream
Try to make it real
you wake up in the night
With a fear so real
Spend your life waiting
for a moment that just don't come
Well, don't waste your time waiting
Badlands, you gotta live it everyday
Let the broken hearts stand
As the price you've gotta pay
We'll keep pushin' till it's understood
and these badlands start treating us good.



“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”
Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.
Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.
This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.
And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.
On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way
But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:
“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild.”
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.
Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.
This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
There is one story in particularly that I’d like to leave you with today – a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.
Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.
Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”
“I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.




"As the Barack Obama Traveling Hope and Change Show pulls into Reunion Arena today, his campaign has to be looking for a change in the wind.So what made it a "really bad week?" (btw- since when did the shrill voices in Mark Davis's own head count as "professional observers?):Hillary Clinton's prospects for winning our state March 4 are alive and well, partly because Texas Democrat politics and demographics favor her, and partly because Mr. Obama is having what professional observers call "a really bad week.""
"First came the harmless but odd YouTube montages of peculiar fainting spells at his campaign events, with the candidate repeatedly offering water and presumptuous claims that the fainter "will be all right."Guess they take their YouTube montages very seriously down in Texas - in sharp contrast to their distaste for libraries and anything too "high-fallutin'".
" Then came the sheepish admission of his theft of inspiring rhetoric from Deval Patrick's 2006 campaign for Massachusetts governor. Again, not a big deal, but an embarrassment an heir apparent to his party's presidential nomination does not need."Senator Obama did not sheepishly admit to theft. Deval Patrick works for the Obama campaign and gave the Senator the lines. Obama admitted that he should have given credit (not that this would placate Davis, who couldn't tell his ibid from his op. cit., and who is known to parrot Rush Limbaugh - though without all the three syllable words that confuse Texans).
Fine. If this election is going to turn on spousal gaffes the Obama camp is in great shape as long as a certain former president keeps breaking his shackles to launch frothing tirades."The topper came as Mr. Obama's wife delivered the shocking insult that nothing in the last 25 years had made her proud of America."








While this election is not about the past but about the future, today we are making an exception and going back about twelve years, to the point in time when this elixir was concocted:"It is time now for Barack Obama," the Massachusetts senator and brother of the late President Kennedy added.
He stood with Obama, his son Rep. Patrick Kennedy and his niece, Caroline Kennedy before a screaming capacity crowd of students at American University in Washington, DC.
"Like you, we want a president who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American dream," he said.
"I've found that candidate. And it looks to me like you have too," he said.

Former Sen. John Edwards was third with 18 percent.









"The numbers tell us this was a
debate between change and experience, and change won," said CNN
political analyst Bill Schneider."
The ObamaFest Team is pleased that the absurd spectacle of would be world leaders crisscrossing Iowa--the oversubsidized, undereducated, soft-underbelly of the war on obesity--is finally over.


"The Clinton campaign intends to use these new Web sites to paint Obama as cowardly.
Clinton has attacked Obama for having occasionally voted "present" as an Illinois state legislator when it came to contentious legislation."
Given the mood of the American voter, the Clinton campaign is revealing itself as laughably out-of-touch and pathetically incompetent.
Struggling to rationalize, they sink further into the electoral quicksand with:
"The Clinton campaign disputed the notion that its pending attack websites will be the first, noting that after it was revealed that Clinton had taken questions from supporters at events, Sen. John Edwards, D-NC, in November launched the short-lived website PlantsForHillary.com, purporting to be from various forms of flora supporting the New York senator, though that website was taken down after a day."
PlantsForHillary was a funny little gag (surprising, we know, for Senator Edwards) that the Clintons are using it to justify unfettered mudslinging.
And there's more:
A Clinton campaign official argued that Obama's campaign has a website called HillaryAttacks.BarackObama.com, which catalogues criticisms Clinton has made about the Illinois senator.
HillaryAttacks.BarackObama is a well organized page that simply links to mainstream news reports of Senator Clinton's negative attacks. So the Clinton camp accuses Obama of going negative by keeping track of Senator Clinton's negative attacks. That type of illogical logic might work when you're berating your cadre of sycophants, but on the internet the words linger, like thought balloons in a comic strip, and contemplative Americans bear witness to just how cartoonish your campaign has become.




"Barack Obama has come from behind to turn the Democratic presidential race in New Hampshire into a toss-up, according to a new Monitor opinion poll. The results - which show Obama with a one-point edge over Hillary Clinton - mirror other polls released this week, indicating that Clinton's once-imposing lead has evaporated in the run-up to New Hampshire's Jan. 8 primary.
The poll suggests that the Democratic race could hinge on the turnout of undeclared voters, who aren't registered with either political party. Much of Obama's backing comes from undeclared voters, while registered Democrats make up the bulk of Clinton's support. In New Hampshire, undeclared voters can vote in either party primary, giving them sway in both contests."


DES MOINES – Presidential campaigns have unlimited appetites for information about their rivals. They track their whereabouts, they study their records and they obsessively follow nearly every movement. By this point in the race, though, it would seem a candidate’s work history would have already been sufficiently combed through.
Apparently not.
If there was any question whether Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign was concerned about the rise of Senator Barack Obama, here is a fresh example: A deputy campaign manager for Mrs. Clinton sent an e-mail yesterday, trying to find out about Mr. Obama’s background as a community organizer in Chicago.
The deputy campaign manager is Bob Nash, who served as White House personnel director in the Clinton administration. In March, Mr. Nash left his position as vice chairman of Chicago ShoreBank to join Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.
Here is the text of his e-mail, with the addresses redacted:
From: Bob Nash
To:
Sent: Sun Dec 09
Subject: BARACK
HOW ARE YOU ?? I AM FIGHTING HARD >
SECOND ARE YOU PEERSONALLYAWARE OF TH EWORK BARACK DID ON THE SOUTH
SIDE WITH COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION S , ETC ./. BOB
WHAT DI DHE DO AFORE HOW LONG AND WITH WHO ??
PLS TELL BOB HELLO BOB
Bob J Nash
Deputy Campaign Manager
Hillary Clinton for President Exploratory Committee
4420 N. Fairfax Drive
Arlington, VA 22203
—
Mr. Nash, 59, did not respond to an e-mail request seeking comment. A campaign official said he was unaware of the matter, but would look into it.
The Obamafest Team sends the following reply to Mr. Nash:
HLLO BOB,
RE: WHAT DI DHE DO AFORE HOW LONG AND WITH WHO ??
READ BARACK'S T WO BOOKS ABOUT WHAT HE D ID AFORE AND DEN U WONT BE SUCHA IGNUNT DIRT DGGING TOADY.
PLS ASK HILL 'SUP WIT ALL DAT?

In the end, Ms. Lloyd-Jones said she finally decided that Mr. Obama was the more progressive candidate, and her progressive instincts trumped her feminist instincts.
Monica Fischer, a consultant to nonprofit groups in Iowa, described overcoming similar conflicts before endorsing Mr. Obama. Ms. Fischer added that on the weekend of the Jefferson-Jackson dinner in Iowa, “We pulled together a group of 30 undecided women to have coffee with Michelle Obama, and you could just feel people going through the same struggle I did, and coming to the point of saying, ‘I feel O.K. about this.’”'


The ObamaFest Team scored one for Obama when, in 2002, he referred to the plan to invade Iraq as "dumb and rash." And we have deducted one point from the other candidates for every flag draped casket.Obama's right on Cuba
The candidate's call to end the U.S. ban on travel and remittances to Cuba should go even further.
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, determined to cast himself as the Democratic presidential candidate most open to new ideas on foreign policy, raised plenty of eyebrows recently when he proclaimed that he would be willing to meet personally with such rogue figures as Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. But that was nothing compared with the opinion article he published Tuesday in the Miami Herald saying Cuban Americans should have unrestricted rights to travel and send remittances to the island.
The other Democratic front-runner, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who portrays herself as the experienced foreign policy realist next to Obama's cowboy diplomat, wasted no time in rejecting Obama's proposal. Her campaign released a statement saying the U.S. stance toward Cuba shouldn't be altered until a post-Castro regime cleans up its act. Republican candidates Mitt Romney and Rudolph W. Giuliani, meanwhile, said Obama's plan would only strengthen Castro's oppressive government.
The astonishing thing here is that after the U.S. has tried for nearly 50 years to force a regime change in Cuba by way of economic embargo with no success whatsoever, Obama is one of the few presidential contenders who dares to suggest that it's time to try something different. Some might consider Obama's move courageous given the political power of Florida's Cuban American community, which helped put George W. Bush in the White House in 2000 and has cheered his efforts to tighten sanctions on Cuba. But the minority of Cuban immigrants who vote Democratic is deeply divided on the travel ban and would like to be able to send more money to relatives at home, so Obama may not be staking out such a bold position after all.
Regardless of the political implications, Obama is clearly right -- the only problem is, his proposal doesn't go far enough. The travel ban should be lifted for everybody, not just Cuban immigrants. It is the height of irony that Americans can freely travel to countries such as Venezuela and Iran, which represent genuine threats to our security and economic interests, but not to Cuba, whose government is a threat only to its own people.The ban has done nothing to weaken Castro, but it does keep U.S. tourist dollars out of the hands of Cubans, who might be less inclined to heed their regime's anti-U.S. propaganda if Americans were helping to raise their standard of living.
The U.S. shouldn't lift all economic sanctions on Cuba until the island's regime makes progress on democracy and human rights, but policies such as the travel ban and limits on remittances are simply counterproductive. Score one for Obama.
Brzezinski was born in Poland in 1928, but thanks to his diplomat father he lived in both Germany and the Soviet Union in the 1930's and bore witness to the rise of Naziism and the Stalinist purges. His family moved to Canada where he earned a B.A. and M.A. before going on to Harvard for his PhD.Aug. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of the most influential foreign-policy experts in the Democratic Party, threw his support behind Barack Obama's presidential candidacy, saying the Illinois senator has a better global grasp than his chief rival Hillary Clinton.
Obama "recognizes that the challenge is a new face, a new sense of direction, a new definition of America's role in the world,'' Brzezinski said in an interview on Bloomberg Television's "Political Capital with Al Hunt.''
"Obama is clearly more effective and has the upper hand,'' Brzezinski, who was President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, said. "He has a sense of what is historically relevant, and what is needed from the United States in relationship to the world.''
During the 1960 presidential elections, Brzezinski was an advisor to the John F. Kennedy campaign, urging a non-antagonistic policy toward Eastern Europe. Seeing the Soviet Union as having entered a period of stagnation, both economic and political, Brzezinski predicted the breakup of the Soviet Union along lines of nationality (expanding on his master's thesis)...And so on and so forth, advising presidents, formulating policy, and working with world leaders for the last 47 years. His intellectual credentials and experience should at least partially offset the endorsement Senator Clinton received from Magic Johnson.


Obama suggested that presidential candidates who have been governors have an advantage over those who have been in the Senate, which he described as "paralyzed" and "designed for you to take bad votes."
The ObamaFest Team wishes that the Senator had gone even further and pointed out that the majority of Senators are pontificating windbags in public, while behind closed doors they're focused on grabbing earmarks for friends and family back home. Of course, Mr. Obama's segment was very short - but there's always The Colbert Report."A governor is more likely to set the terms of the debate," he said. "They can give a speech, they can say, 'This is my initiative, this is my proposal. I won't sign it unless I agree with it.' Dealing with senators, you end up, you know, having to actually vote on stuff that has no relevance whatsoever but can be used later on to attack you."

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Vibe magazine has dubbed him "B-Rock." He's getting shout-outs in some of the most popular hip-hop singles of the summer. He's even had a high-profile meeting with Ludacris.Although there was no Ali until 1964, the ObamaFest Team digs Kweli's comparison of Cassius Clay in '63 to Barack Obama in '07 - two rising heavyweights set to topple the establishment's champion. Clay was a year away from crushing Sonny Liston, just as Obama is a year away from...
Barack Obama might not be leading the Democratic presidential field in national polls, but the freshman senator has managed to capture the imagination of the hip-hop community, comprised mostly of rap artists, music industry professionals, activists and young fans of all races.
...Then there's "Say Something," a new track from the popular Brooklyn-based lyricist Talib Kweli, who raps: "Speak to the people like Barack Obama.""More than anything his name is a nugget of lyrical gold," said Kweli. "It sounds like a gunshot going off ... Obama rhymes with a lot of things."
Kweli told CNN that Obama, 46, is a "refreshing face like [Muhammad] Ali in '63" and that among Kweli's friends, Obama would win a presidential poll overwhelmingly....


MIAMI - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is leaping into the long-running Cuba debate by calling for the United States to ease restrictions for Cuban-Americans who want to visit the island or send money home.Senator Obama's position was made easier by the fact that the Cuban-American community is coming around to the policy of realpolitik. Nonetheless, it is one more issue where the Senator is out in front of the other candidates, who must now check with their pollsters before deciding on an appropriate response.Obama’s campaign said Monday that, if elected, the Illinois senator would lift restrictions imposed by the Bush administration and allow Cuban-Americans to visit their relatives more frequently, as well as ease limits on the amount of money they can send to their families.
“Senator Obama feels that the Bush administration has made a humanitarian and a strategic blunder,” spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in an e-mail. “His concern is that this has had a profoundly negative impact on the Cuban people, making them more dependent on the Castro regime, thus isolating them from the transformative message carried by Cuban-Americans.”
THE ARTICLE'S SHORTCOMINGS:Hillary Clinton enjoys renewed Hollywood clout
An early infatuation with Obama's candidacy appears to be fading among the ex-first lady's Hollywood supporters. By Tina Daunt, Times Staff Writer
"Clinton's presidential bid has begun to regain momentum over Obama's in the entertainment industry. In fact, it's become so strong that Steven Spielberg, once considered a solid supporter of Illinois Democrat Obama, is now believed to be leaning in favor of Clinton, according to longtime industry politicos. (Spielberg's political spokesman, Andy Spahn...when asked about Spielberg's political thinking "We have nothing to announce")"But Spielberg never endorsed Obama, and from the start has been open about his support for a number of Democrats. When Spielberg participated in an early Obama fund raiser, Spahn made it clear:
"Spahn added that Spielberg "expects to be helpful to a few candidates during this exploratory phase," and may host fund raisers for Clinton and John Edwards as well. "Spielberg likes John Edwards and has a relationship with him -- those are the two who he also likes.""2. The article lets a Clinton flack peck away at Senator Obama without allowing the Obama camp to respond:
"Like Democrats across the country, Hollywood activists are still wondering whether Obama has the experience to tackle the country's problems in these dangerously troubled times. "Sen. Clinton continues to impress people, and the more times people see her and listen to her, the more they view her as presidential material, which she absolutely is," said consultant Noah Mamet, who represents Clinton loyalist Casey Wasserman. "She helps herself immensely every time she visits L.A."We're not sure what the "drop-off" is that Mamet refers to. It certainly has nothing to do with the latest polls.
Mamet thinks the industry's flirtation with Obama was just a passing fancy, a bit of what-if casting, as in, what if we could get Brad Pitt to play Albert Schweitzer?
"People were intrigued by [Obama], didn't know him, and came out to see and hear him for the first time earlier in the year," Mamet said. "He was like a big opening weekend for a film, which has a drop-off the next week.""
" The former first lady wowed crowds last week, said longtime Hollywood political consultant Donna Bojarsky. "There was a good turnout of Hollywood folks at Chernin's -- J.J. Abrams, Jodie Foster, Tobey Maguire, Brian Grazer -- and they all seemed pleased and receptive," said Bojarsky, who has not yet announced whom she is supporting in the race."So in Tina Daunt's eyes, if you seem "pleased and receptive" you are in fact "wowed." That being the case, I was "wowed" this morning by the banana my wife sliced into my Nut'n'Honey cereal, and I shall be "wowed" again later by the inevitable late-morning bowel movement.
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Shall we talk politics for a moment? I'm sure like most actors you're all watching the Republican field, just waiting for a candidate to get behind.It's good to have Damon on board. The ObamaFest team gravitated to Senator Obama thanks to his sound judgment in opposing the Iraq war from the start. Damon's monologue in Good Will Hunting sums up that fiasco better than we ever could:
CLOONEY: I'm just hoping Gingrich gets in. Come on, Newt! Actually there's a really good field out there. I like Barack Obama a lot. I've spent some time with him.
PITT: You just cost him votes.
CLOONEY: I've actually had that conversation with him, just saying "Look, I'll give you whatever support you need—including staying completely away from you." Actors have done a lot of damage to candidates lately. My father ran for Congress in 2004, and it was "Hollywood vs. the Heartland!" My father was Hollywood.
PITT: I'm just hungry for some honesty and leadership. And I'm following them all—on all sides.
DAMON: I'm an Obama guy too. I think a lot of the problems in the world would be mitigated if he were the face of our country. I haven't ever met him or talked to him, but he's the first person in a long time who I've been inspired by.
CLOONEY: When other politicians stop and listen, that's how you know what charisma is. You can't teach that. He walks into a room and you go, "That's a leader."
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"The way that we are going to show that we support the troops is by [starting to bring] some of them home," the Illinois Democrat told an international convention of more than 1,200 members of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. "That's our message to George Bush. That's our message to John McCain. That's our message to Mitt Romney. That's our message to the Republicans in Congress. It is time to bring this war to a close."

"I was very disappointed to see Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton embrace the policy of surrender by voting against funds to support our brave men and women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan," McCain said in a Friday statement. "This vote may win favor with MoveOn and liberal primary voters, but it's the equivalent of waving a white flag to Al Qaeda."In fairness to Senator McCain, it was more than just a photo op. He secured a very fair price on a rug for his Georgetown Mansion.
Obama, meanwhile, pointed to the high level of security McCain needed for his recent visit to Iraq. "Sen. McCain required a flak jacket, 10 armored Humvees, two Apache attack helicopters, 100 soldiers with rifles by his side, so he could stroll through the market in Baghdad just a few weeks ago for a photo op," Obama said. "That's the truth in Iraq. The truth is this war has cost us thousands of lives and made us less safe."
The hypocrisy of Hillary Clinton in voting against funding is stunning. In 2002, she voted for the war. When we found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, she reaffirmed her backing for the war. Dozens of times she has stated and restated that she would never agree to a timetable for withdrawal and that she would never vote to cut off funding while we had troops in harm’s way. Now she has gone back on all her nevers and cast precisely the vote she said she never would.Which is why the ObamaFest team, in response to Senator Clinton's call for a campaign song, respectfully suggest the Alan Parson's Project "I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You."As recently as January 17, Hillary said, “I’m not going to cut American troops’ funding right now — they’re in harm’s way.” She went on to say “I am not for imposing a date — certain withdrawal date.”
In the past 10 days she has not only voted for a withdrawal date, but also voted to cut off funding for the troops if no such date is included in the legislation.What has changed? The polls. Surveys show Democrats support a funding cutoff and a date certain for withdrawal three to one. With John Edwards running to Hillary’s left, using her timidity in opposing the war as the raison d’etre of his candidacy, Hillary dared not vote her conscience or conform to her previous positions on the war. She had to back the left to prove her bona fides for the primaries.
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The ObamaFest Team tends to give the Senator the benefit of the doubt, but making loans is what banks do in this country, and their operations have been streamlined by the competative nature of financial markets. We are skeptical about the chances of a government agency doing the job better, fairer or more accurately. Imagine a country where your home loans or your car loans had to go through a Federal Agency. Sounds troubling. Why should we expect them to do a good job with Student Loans?WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sen. Barack Obama, a U.S. presidential candidate, said on Tuesday he backs centralizing federal loans for college students under the government and ending federally guaranteed bank loans for them.
The bank loans program is a lucrative business for many financial institutions including Sallie Mae, or SLM Corp. as it is now known, Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp..


"A bipartisan group of lawmakers, including one presidential candidate, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), is pushing to provide federal loan guarantees, tax breaks and other subsidies to spur the production of fuel from coal.From his website, BarackObama.com, "Barack Obama believes the U.S. must act decisively and creatively to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change." I guess "decisively and creatively" means you call together your top thinkers and shout, "We don't have to reinvent the wheel, people. Let's learn from the Nazis."
But the process of turning coal into a liquid emits carbon dioxide, so much that each gallon of the fuel would create more greenhouse gases than gasoline -- unless the carbon dioxide released in production could be captured and stored.
Coal-to-liquids, or CTL, as the process is known, was developed in the 1920s by German scientists and used by the German military during World War II. It was later used by South Africa when its access to foreign oil was largely cut off in response to its apartheid policies.
Massive amounts of coal are heated at temperatures of 1,000 degrees, with water added to create steam. The coal becomes gasified, is run over a catalyst and transformed into a clear, yellowish-brown liquid that can be used as diesel or jet fuel."
"UC Berkeley scientists concluded that making and using CTL created about twice the amount of greenhouse gases as petroleum."

"DISILLUSIONED supporters of President George W Bush are defecting to Barack Obama, the Democratic senator for Illinois, as the White House candidate with the best chance of uniting a divided nation.The ObamaFest team echoes the sentiments of Mr. Dowd.Tom Bernstein went to Yale University with Bush and co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team with him. In 2004 he donated the maximum $2,000 to the president's reelection campaign and gave $50,000 to the Republican National Committee. This year he is switching his support to Obama. He is one of many former Bush admirers who find the Democrat newcomer appealing.
Matthew Dowd, Bush's chief campaign strategist in 2004, announced last month that he was disillusioned with the war in Iraq and the president's "my way or the highway" style of leadership - the first member of Bush's inner circle to denounce the leader's performance in office.
Although Dowd has yet to endorse a candidate, he said the only one he liked was Obama. "I think we should design campaigns that appeal, not to 51% of the people, but bring the country together as a whole," Dowd said."


"Hillary's advantage over Obama is rooted in the experience issue. But, as Nixon found out in his debate with John F. Kennedy in 1960, experience is a quickly vanishing asset in a presidential race. Having capitalized on his eight-year tenure as Eisenhower's vice president, Nixon's slogan was "experience counts." By the time his debate with Kennedy was over, it didn't. The young senator had shown himself to be just as adept, equally well informed and even more articulate than his more experienced rival.So it was with Thursday's debate.
Hillary was her usual well informed and well prepared (but perhaps too scripted), and Obama showed that he was her equal. In fact, debating with a distinguished field that included his vastly more experienced elders -- Senator Joe Biden, Senator Chris Dodd, former Energy Secretary and U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson and Hillary -- Obama proved that he could hold his own."
Of course, it's a long campaign - a marathon, not a sprint - but the ObamaFest team thinks that it's nice to get a little "O"mentum going into Spring.

And this report omits the endorsements Senator Obama has received from Norah Jones and Miss America."Jennifer Aniston loves Barack Obama. So do Ben Stiller, Tom Hanks and Eddie Murphy.
According to Washington, D.C. bible The Hill, Obama has a much bigger contingent of celebrity donors than Hillary Clinton. The list also includes Tobey Maguire and Ed Norton. (George Clooney told the Los Angeles Times he's on Team Obama, as well.)
Judging from The Hill's report, Obama's Hollywood faithful tend to be much younger than Clinton's crew, which includes Candice Bergen, Christine Lahti and Barbra Streisand.
The celebrities appear on the list because they've donated money."

"I understand MSNBC has suspended Mr. Imus," Obama told ABC News, "but I would also say that there's nobody on my staff who would still be working for me if they made a comment like that about anybody of any ethnic group. And I would hope that NBC ends up having that same attitude."The ObamaFest team agrees. We believe in Freedom of Speech but we also believe in a boss's freedom to fire knuckleheads.
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"David Cordero, 24, made the sculpture for his senior show after noticing all the attention Obama has received since he first hinted he may run for the presidency.
"All of this is a response to what I've been witnessing and hearing, this idea that Barack is sort of a potential savior that might come and absolve the country of all its sins," Cordero said. "In a lot of ways it's about caution in assigning all these inflated expectations on one individual, and expecting them to change something that many hands have shaped.""
The response from the Obama camp was appropriately low key:
"Obama's campaign worked Monday to distance the Illinois senator from the artwork."While we respect First Amendment rights and don't think the artist was trying to be offensive, Senator Obama, as a rule, isn't a fan of art that offends religious sensibilities," said Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
The ObamaFest team is waiting to hear from Mr. Pippen, a man who served alongside a modern Christ-figure and witnessed many a public ascension:

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"George Clooney can't decide what role he'd like to play."...a double-edged sword" Or in the case of Geffen, a hari-kari knife.
This has nothing to do with his flourishing movie career and everything to do with the 2008 presidential campaign, where the involvement of even a widely admired star can be the subject of a serious dilemma.
On the one hand, the actor said in an interview, he would love to throw himself into campaigning for his friend, Sen. Barack Obama, a politician he compares to President Kennedy.
But Clooney is too shrewd a political observer to discount the negative effect celebrity can have on a campaign, especially in a red state. (Look what happened last year when industry favorite Rep. Harold Ford Jr. ran for the Senate in 2006. The Tennessee Democrat's foes called him "Fancy Ford" and portrayed him as a habitué of Hollywood's decadent soirees. It might have been what cost him the election in a close race.)
At the moment Clooney is playing it close to the vest, waiting to see if he can play a part without become a distracting sideshow. His quandary is a measure of Hollywood's growing political sophistication; celebs are beginning to understand that their support can be a double-edged sword."
"Obama's early support is following a pattern familiar from the campaigns of other brainy liberals with cool, detached personas and messages of political reform, from Eugene McCarthy in 1968 to Gary Hart in 1984 to Bill Bradley in 2000. Like those predecessors, Obama is running strong with well-educated voters but demonstrating much less support among those without college degrees...In other words, Obama is headed to the wine-tasting room in downtown Loserville.
Democratic professionals often describe this sorting as a competition between upscale "wine track" candidates and blue-collar "beer track" contenders."
"Warrior candidates stress their ability to deliver on kitchen table concerns and revel in political combat. They tout their experience and flout their scars. Their greatest strength is usually persistence, not eloquence; they don't so much inspire as reassure. Think of Harry Truman in 1948, Hubert Humphrey in 1968 and, in a somewhat more diluted fashion, Walter Mondale in 1984 and John Kerry in 2004..."
The priests, whose lineage runs back through McCarthy to Adlai Stevenson, present a very different face. They write books and sometimes verse. They observe the campaign's hurly-burly through a filter of cool, witty detachment. Their campaigns become crusades, fueled as much by inchoate longing for a "new politics" as tangible demands for new policies. In the past quarter of a century, Hart, Bradley and the late neo-liberal Paul Tsongas in 1992 each embodied the priest in Democratic presidential politics.Assuming you do buy into Brownstein's distinctions, Bill Clinton clearly rode the priestly promise of transformation to victory. His "warrior's resiliency" was tested only after he was elected. But wanting to make the point that Obama is a priest and priests are losers, Brownstein fudges Bill Clinton's resume to fit his thesis.
Some candidates transcend these divisions. In 1968, Robert F. Kennedy was a warrior who quoted Aeschylus. Bill Clinton blended a warrior's resiliency with a priest's promise of transformative ("third way") politics. But most Democratic candidates fall clearly on one or the other side of this divide."
The Magic Negro is a figure of postmodern folk culture, coined by snarky 20th century sociologists, to explain a cultural figure who emerged in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education. "He has no past, he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist," reads the description on Wikipedia http://en.-wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Negro .The editorial is not only an attack on Senator Obama, but on the people who support him. Linking Obama supporters to people who think the sappy Driving Miss Daisy is a great movie is a particularly low blow. Nobody in the Obama camp is stooping to link Senator Clinton's supporters with the fan base for Charlie's Angels.
He's there to assuage white "guilt" (i.e., the minimal discomfort they feel) over the role of slavery and racial segregation in American history, while replacing stereotypes of a dangerous, highly sexualized black man with a benign figure for whom interracial sexual congress holds no interest.
As might be expected, this figure is chiefly cinematic -- embodied by such noted performers as Sidney Poitier, Morgan Freeman, Scatman Crothers, Michael Clarke Duncan, Will Smith and, most recently, Don Cheadle. And that's not to mention a certain basketball player whose very nickname is "Magic." ...
Obama's fame right now has little to do with his political record or what he's written in his two (count 'em) books, or even what he's actually said in those stem-winders. It's the way he's said it that counts the most. It's his manner, which, as presidential hopeful Sen. Joe Biden ham-fistedly reminded us, is "articulate." His tone is always genial, his voice warm and unthreatening, and he hasn't called his opponents names (despite being baited by the media).
Like a comic-book superhero, Obama is there to help, out of the sheer goodness of a heart we need not know or understand. For as with all Magic Negroes, the less real he seems, the more desirable he becomes.


No ownership. When you think about it, the internet is kind of like a rental car, and if you're Hillary right now, that Hertz a little.It also dramatizes that today, political activists with the Internet as their ammunition have gone from being "just donors to the cause," he said, "to being partners in the fight. And they don't have to wait for permission."
But while the medium is clearly more grassroots, political campaigns have not been averse to having an outside or independent voice -- witness the efforts of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in the 2004 presidential race against Democratic Sen. John Kerry -- delivering ads that are tougher and meaner than the candidates might launch on their own.
Eric Jaye, a San Francisco political consultant and key adviser to Mayor Gavin Newsom, said the sophisticated "Hillary 1984" effort is the "best example yet" of a crop of viral videos that have blossomed on the Internet over the past 18 months.
But Jaye predicted such efforts are bound to become attractive tools for political campaigns, which will "orchestrate these videos on the down low to communicate negative messages -- without having to own them in public."
Jaye noted that Obama's campaign -- even as it insists it has no connection to the production -- reaps a clear benefit from the mashup video: "They get to call Hillary Clinton a pabulum-spewing pseudo-fascist, without having to own it."

`I am proud of the fact that I opposed this war from the start, that I stood up in 2002 and said this is a bad idea and is going to cost us billions of dollars and thousands of lives,'' Obama told thousands who spilled out on Saturday across Oakland's City Hall Plaza.``We are in the midst of a war that should have never been authorized, and should have never been waged, and after spending half-a-trillion dollars and seeing almost 3,200 precious lives lost ... we are actually less safe,'' he said.
Without mentioning their names, he alluded to the fact that both former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton -- his main Democratic competitors, at this point -- voted in 2002 to authorize the Iraq invasion. He told the crowd that a recent visit with a Iraq war veteran maimed and blinded in a combat explosion had reminded him of why he was running for president.
He also referred to recent reports of dilapidated conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. ``We have an opportunity to get at least one thing and that is when they come home that we treat 'em right,'' he said. ``That when they come home they don't have mold on their walls and rats scurrying under their beds .... that when they come home they're not going through dumpsters looking for food because they've been forgotten.''
``Don't stand next to a flag and say you believe supporting the troops,'' he said, his voice rising into a shout, ``when you forget them when you come home. We can do better than that.''