[Ninong]

Barack Obama's Speech in Philadelphia Today

I'm posting the full text below, or you can watch the full 37-min video. You really need to watch it to appreciate just how marvelous his delivery was and just how nuanced his tone was. It was by far the best political speech in ages.

“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 if 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 who's 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.

[Ninong]

On January 20, 2009, we will put out the sign:

AMERICA - Under New Management

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Texas Democratic Party Reject's Hillary's Suggestion That They Verify All One Million Caucus-goers' Signatures

State chairman Boyd Richie said Texas Democrats will not "set up an unnecessary, ad hoc 'verification' process that could effectively disqualify delegates selected at their precinct conventions after the fact."

Sen. Clinton had asked that they postpone their March 29th convention because, well, er, because it might reveal that she actually, officially, LOST Texas on March 4th. The caucus delegates will be officially assigned at the convention. The Obama Campaign predicts that Sen. Obama will win 38 caucus delegates to Sen. Clinton's 29. That 9-delegate advantage in caucus delegates will more than wipe out Clinton's 4-delegate advantage in primary delegates.

Barack Obama won the Texas Primacaucus by 5 delegates. Hillary LOST Texas.

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1.3 Million Views

That's for the full 37-min video of Barack's speech. It's also posted in five separate shorter segments and those clips are getting hundreds of thousands of views.

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Barack Falling in Polls

More than one million people have viewed Barack's inspiring 37-minute speech on race in America, but at least 100 million have seen video excerpts of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons with inflammatory comments because those clips are being broadcast over and over again on teevee. It's taking a toll on Barack's poll numbers, especially among white males in certain states.

Just last week he was leading Hillary in virtually all of the national polls by at least a few points and both he and Hillary led McCain by at least a few points in national polls. Now, Hillary leads Barack by six or seven points in the most recent national polls and both she and Barack now trail McCain by a few points in the latest national polls.

Barack is being hit from all sides right now. Hillary is using the Wright problem to paint Barack as "the black candidate" who will never be accepted by enough white voters to be able to beat John McCain in November, the FOX News types are playing the Jeremiah Wright tapes over and over again on every program, day after day, and the McCain campaign is promoting a hate-filled YouTube video clip that combines Obama with Malcolm X, Jeremiah Wright, the black power salute, and a whole bunch of other crap. It ends with the "N" word, very, very loud and clear. This little gem was produced by Lee Habeeb, a former producer of "The Laura Ingraham Show."

Habeeb is the director of strategic content at Salem Radio Network, the conservative talk radio powerhouse that airs programs hosted by figures such as Bill Bennett and Hugh Hewitt. It was on Hugh Hewitt's show earlier this week that John McCain said that Al-Qaida operatives are being brought to Iran for "leadership training." McCain made that same idiotic comment four times this week over a three-day period, three times he said it and it was included in a written propaganda piece put out by his campaign. So it wasn't a slip of the tongue, it was just a complete lack of understanding of what's going on in Iraq by the candidate who is in favor of a Hundred Years War there.

That incendiary piece of racist trash video clip was being promoted by Soren Dayton, who works in McCain's political department. He has been suspended from the campaign -- not fired, just suspended.

McCain spokesperson Jill Hazelbaker:

"We have been very clear on the type of campaign we intend to run and this staffer acted in violation of our policy. He has been reprimanded by campaign leadership and suspended from the campaign."

This is the second incident in the past week in which McCain campaign aides have highlighted Obama's ties to Wright -- ties believed to be behind Obama's recent dip in polls. Last Friday, McCain press aides distributed an incidendiary Wall Street Journal op-ed by Newsmax reporter Ronald Kessler as part of a package of clips, before calling the move an "error."

The McCain campaign has repeatedly said it intends to run a campaign free of personal attacks but obviously that message hasn't sunk in yet with all of their staffers.

Getting back to Mrs. Clinton, she has been telling the superdelegates that the Wright affair has damaged Barack's ability to draw white voters to the extent that he cannot be elected in November and therefore they should give her the nomination even if Barack leads in pledged delegates at the convention. She says it's for the good of the Democratic Party. And for the good of the Democratic Party, she doesn't mind destroying the party's nominee-to-be and doesn't mind if he loses the general election in the fall because she will ride to the rescue four years from now, when we will all have come to our senses and hail her as the new Joan of Arc.

She's playing the race card big right now by pretending to not play it. She's telling the superdelegates that the right-wing attack machine is just getting started on Obama and that things will only get worse over the next few months. So they should abandon Obama and vote for her because there is nothing new that the right-wing can hit her with at this stage in the game. Of course, I can see video clips of Monica Lewinsky showing up over and over again on FOX but Hillary's right, that would be old news. That still won't stop FOX News from rebroadcasting 10-year-old clips explaining all about that blue dress with Bill Clinton's happy ending splashed all over it over and over again.

At this point, I'm not interested in having Hillary Clinton as the nominee. I would rather the Democrats nominate Obama and then let's have it out with the right-wing crackpots like Pat Buchanan, who has been spewing racist crap on MSNBC all week. This is the Nazi who has made admiring comments about David Duke, who supported apartheid in South Africa, who is incensed that so many brown people are moving into his white country, etc., etc. Why anybody would give this guy airtime is beyond my comprehension.

P.S. -- The Clintons have been playing the race card since South Carolina, where Bubba portrayed Barack Obama as this year's Jesse Jackson. And then the Clinton Campaign painted (literally) Barack as "the black candidate" by doctoring a broadcast video clip of Obama to darken his skin and broaden his face to make him look even "blacker" in their hit piece commercial.

Hillary is out to destroy Obama and she doesn't care if that means destroying the Democratic Party's chances in November. One thing is certain, Hillary CANNOT win the election in November, because if she is the Democratic nominee, the Democrats who backed Obama will feel cheated if he is shut out of the nomination in spite of being the candidate with the most pledged delegates.

The Democratic Party must nominate the candidate with the most pledged delegates, whoever he or she may be. And one thing is for sure, that won't be Hillary.

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Letter from President Bill Clinton to Rev. Jeremiah Wright thanking him for attending Bill's "I have sinned" Prayer Breakfast



Oops!



The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. and President Bill Clinton at a prayer breakfast at the White House in September 1998.

That was back when Bill was doing a lot of repenting for something or other and they were all praying that he wouldn't be impeached.





P.S. -- The Clinton Campaign is furious that the Obama Campaign released the above photograph showing President Clinton shaking hands with Rev. Wright.

"In providing the photograph to The New York Times, the Obama campaign appeared to be trying to divert some attention to the Clintons after a week in which Mr. Obama’s relationship with Mr. Wright has left him facing one of the biggest challenges of his campaign," Kate Phillips reported for The Times. "There is nothing in the picture or the note that addresses whether Mr. Clinton had met Mr. Wright prior to the White House meeting or whether he or Mrs. Clinton knew anything about Mr. Wright’s views.

"Less than 48 hours after giving a great speech calling for a high-minded conversation on race, the Obama campaign is peddling photos of an occasion when President Clinton shook hands with Rev. Wright, though President Clinton took tens of thousands of photos during his 8 years as president," said Clinton spokesman Jay Carson.

The Times article continued, "Asked for a response tonight through email, Howard Wolfson, a top aide to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, wrote, 'Urgent indeed — a picture — oooooooo!' Senator Clinton’s spokesman, Phil Singer, sent along this reply to a request for comment: "In the course of his two terms in office, Bill Clinton met with, corresponded with and took pictures with literally tens of thousands of people."

Guess which "spiritual leader" was carefully selected by the White House to sit next to the First Lady during that prayer breakfast at which Bill Clinton asked for forgiveness for lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky? Why, none other than Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. If the Clintons had never met Rev. Wright prior to this breakfast and if they had no idea what his views were, why would he be selected to sit next to the First Lady during such a sensitive public confession by her husband?




Does anyone really think that you get to sit next to the First Lady at a White House breakfast if you haven't been carefully vetted in advance? Does anyone really believe that the Clintons didn't even know the guy before he showed up at this prayer breakfast?

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Another Superdelegate for Barack Obama:

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson endorses Obama!

Richardson was Bill Clinton's Secretary of Energy and later U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Both the Clinton Campaign and the Obama Campaign have been actively seeking his support. Let's see if John Edwards finally gets off the fence and says something before Pennsylvania.

Edwards was on the Tonight Show last night but he refused to express any favoritism for either candidate. He told Jay Leno that he continues to stay in touch with both campaigns. Considering Edwards' consistent criticism during the campaign of Hillary's acceptance of contributions from the "big corporations," and his other populist rhetoric, I don't see how he could possibly endorse her over Obama without it looking like some sort of sellout. All through the campaign, Edwards was trying to position himself as being the most socially progressive of all the candidates. He was the most pro-labor and the most anti-big business.

The Richardson Campaign sent out the following email today:

Dear Friend,

During the last year, I have shared with you my vision and hopes for this nation as we look to repair the damage of the last seven years. And you have shared your support, your ideas and your encouragement with my campaign. We have been through a lot together and that is why I wanted to tell you that, after careful and thoughtful deliberation, I have made the decision to endorse Barack Obama for President.

We are blessed to have two great American leaders and great Democrats running for President. My affection and admiration for Hillary Clinton and President Bill Clinton will never waver. It is time, however, for Democrats to stop fighting amongst ourselves and to prepare for the tough fight we will face against John McCain in the fall. The 1990's were a decade of peace and prosperity because of the competent and enlightened leadership of the Clinton administration, but it is now time for a new generation of leadership to lead America forward. Barack Obama will be a historic and a great President, who can bring us the change we so desperately need by bringing us together as a nation here at home and with our allies abroad.

Earlier this week, Senator Barack Obama gave an historic speech that addressed the issue of race with the eloquence, sincerity, and optimism we have come to expect of him. He inspired us by reminding us of the awesome potential residing in our own responsibility. He asked us to rise above our racially divided past, and to seize the opportunity to carry forward the work of many patriots of all races, who struggled and died to bring us together.

As a Hispanic, I was particularly touched by his words. I have been troubled by the demonization of immigrants -- specifically Hispanics -- by too many in this country. Hate crimes against Hispanics are rising as a direct result and now, in tough economic times, people look for scapegoats and I fear that people will continue to exploit our racial differences -- and place blame on others not like them. We all know the real culprit -- the disastrous economic policies of the Bush Administration!

Senator Obama has started a discussion in this country long overdue and rejects the politics of pitting race against race. He understands clearly that only by bringing people together, only by bridging our differences can we all succeed together as Americans.

His words are those of a courageous, thoughtful and inspiring leader, who understands that a house divided against itself cannot stand. And, after nearly eight years of George W. Bush, we desperately need such a leader.
To reverse the disastrous policies of the last seven years, rebuild our economy, address the housing and mortgage crisis, bring our troops home from Iraq and restore America's international standing, we need a President who can bring us together as a nation so we can confront our urgent challenges at home and abroad.

During the past year, I got to know Senator Obama as we campaigned against each other for the Presidency, and I felt a kinship with him because we both grew up between worlds, in a sense, living both abroad and here in America. In part because of these experiences, Barack and I share a deep sense of our nation's special responsibilities in the world.

So, once again, thank you for all you have done for me and my campaign. I wanted to make sure you understood my reasons for my endorsement of Senator Obama. I know that you, no matter what your choice, will do so with the best interests of this nation, in your heart.

Sincerely,

Bill Richardson

[Ninong]

Clinton Campaign Knows A Lot About Obama's Past Travels

At 1:46 p.m. yesterday (March 12, 2008) the e-mail arrived in reporters' inboxes from Sen. Barack Obama's campaign: "Obama Receives Endorsement of Flag Officers from Army, Navy and Air Force."

It touted a news conference earlier in the day at which 10 high-ranking former military officers had announced their support of Mr. Obama, an attempt to show the senator's strength on national security issues.

Exactly 24 minutes later, Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign returned the salvo with a missive of its own -- a list of 31 high-ranking former military officers who have pledged their support for Mrs. Clinton in the past. Two minutes after that, the campaign issued a memo with pointed questions for Mr. Obama on national security, including:

"As voters evaluate you as a potential Commander-in-Chief, do you think it's legitimate for people to be concerned that you have traveled to only one NATO country, on a brief stopover trip in 2005, and have never traveled to Latin America?"

I wonder how they can be so sure of the details of Barack Obama's overseas travels? Only someone with access to his government passport file would be able to make such a specific statement, unless the Obama Campaign has released a detailed schedule outlining all of his previous travels that's available somewhere?

Just wondering.

P.S. -- The State Department revealed late yesterday afternoon that two contract employees have been fired and one disciplined for unauthorized access to Barack Obama's passport file on three separate occasions in January, February and March. They say they are investigating but they suspect it was just "imprudent curiosity." Every time an employee accesses a passport file (they're electronic now), the employee must acknowledge that unauthorized access is forbidden. In fact, unauthorized dissemination of such information is a felony.

Is it possible that one or more contract employees in that department happen to be Clinton supporters who were "just curious" about Obama's past travels? Is it possible that they recorded this information and passed it on to someone in the Clinton Campaign? Why were two of the employees fired and one merely disciplined? What was the difference in their transgressions?

You might remember that back in 1992, the Republican Party did the same thing to Bill Clinton. They dug into his passport file in an effort to discover if he had ever travelled to Moscow as a student. They also wanted to read any comments posted by consular officials in the U.K. when Bill was a student at Oxford to see if there was anything about his anti-war activities.

[Ninong]

Condoleezza Rice Calls Obama to Apologize

Condi called Barack this morning to apologize for the security breach in her department.

The very last sentence in that MSNBC article is revealing. Why was this story first leaked to the right-wing Washington Times? It was the Washington Times that first reported on it based on sources inside the administration. It was reported late in the afternoon on the last day of the week (today is Good Friday). Looks like a planned leak to me. In fact, there is absolutely no doubt that it was a calculated release to a friendly outlet in order to try to slip it in under the radar.

P.S. -- The State Department's Inspector General is investigating this breach. Guess what? They don't have an inspector general right now because Condi fired him back in December 2007 for lying under oath and other crap. His name was "Cookie" Krongard and his brother, "Buzzy" Krongard, was on the board of Blackwater and there were allegations that "Cookie" was impeding ongoing criminal investigations into Blackwater and the construction of the new $740 million $1 billion U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad. At first "Cookie" claimed that he didn't even know his brother was on Blackwater's board. Condi told him to leave.

[Ninong]

Oops!

WASHINGTON - State Department employees snooped through the passport files of three presidential candidates — Sens. Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain — and the department's inspector general is investigating.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the violations of McCain and Clinton's passport files were not discovered until Friday, after officials were made aware of the unauthorized access of Obama's records and a separate search was conducted.

[Ninong]

New 3 a.m. Phone Call Ad

Same beginning, same cast but different ending.

[johnmaloney]

What is his position on social security? He mentions in one of the speeches you mentioned about the inability for the poor to amass wealth and move up the ladder. Does he feel Social Security should be inheritable, since the 13% required savings is far more than the poor can afford to save at the moment? I have always struggled with understanding a politician's views on this issue, they usually like to dance around. But I have never hear Obama talk about it, so far at least, but I have not been keeping up. I have been focused on the local races here.

[Ninong]

John,

Sen. Obama's position on Social Security is that it should be protected. As you probably already know, it has always been the position of the Bush Administration that Social Security should be eliminated completely. Congressional candidate George W. Bush made that a key point in his losing campaign for Congress in 1978 and it was a key element in the Texas Republican Party's platform (that I copied and posted to this forum years ago) in 2000 when they were led by Gov. George W. Bush. Bush has always favored the complete phase out of Social Security in favor of "individual accounts" -- aka privatization.

Social Security is truly a third rail in politics but that didn't stop Bush from at least trying to get rid of it.


Obama's statement that you are probably referring to:

"We… have an obligation to protect Social Security and ensure that it's a safety net the American people can count on today, tomorrow and forever. Social Security is the cornerstone of the social compact in this country… Coming together to meet this challenge won't be easy… It will take restoring a sense of shared purpose in Washington and across this country. But if you put your trust in me — if you give me 'your hand and your heart' — then that's exactly what I intend to do as your next President."

— Barack Obama, Speech in Des Moines, IA, October 27, 2007

The main problem with Social Security is that when it was set up in the 1930's, the then recipients had not contributed anything to the benefits they were about to receive. It has always been the case that the workers, and their employers, were funding benefits that were being paid out to retirees. In the early years, the average life expectance was probably no more than 60 years. Today, it's pushing 80 years. Every year we have a larger pool of benefit recipients relative to the current work force contributing to the fund.

Accounting always gives me a headache but it has always amazed me how the federal government accounts for income and expenses. They take no account of the money that the government transfers from one pocket to another (i.e., billions of dollars paid annually on bonds held by its own agencies) and they count as income the excess of receipts over outlays for federal obligations such as Social Security.

If I remember correctly, back when I was a youngster, the first Eisenhower budget was much less than $100 billion but it didn't include Social Security back then. That was kept separate, as far as I can remember. I can't even find figures online for the federal budget from 56 years ago but I did find numbers from 1968 through 2007. Back in 1968, social security receipts represented a surplus of only $2.6 billion. In 1988 the annual social security receipts represented a surplus of $38.8 billion. In 2006 the annual surplus was $185.2 billion and in 2007 it was $186.5 billion. Incidentally, the postal service lost $5.1 billion in 2007. In the last year of the Clinton administration, the social security surplus receipts amounted to $151.8 billion. It has risen steadily over the past seven years. What many people don't understand is that this annual suplus offsets overspending in other areas of the budget, so that the announced deficit is much lower than what most of us think it should be, because most of us think this is voodoo economics; but that's the way it has been done for decades now.

It's all a matter of moving numbers around on paper. You can say that the social security funds are held in trust in government bonds but if we, the government, are the ones liable for paying the interest on those bonds, we are simply moving money from one pocket to another. In the meantime, we count ALL of the revenue we take in each year (including social security contributions) when we calculate the cash budget.

I don't have an opinion of what they should do about Social Security, except that they should preserve it. One extreme position would be that espoused by George W. Bush and the Texas Republican Party in 2000 and at the other end of the extreme would be a social security system similar to Sweden's.

[johnmaloney]

I think we probably disagree on this point. I would love to have a right to my own social security money, I don't like the idea that Congress can raid the social security "trust" fund whenever it needs some extra cash, and that I have no property interest in the Social Security Trust fund. At last estimate, they raided over 2 trillion from Social Security over the last couple of decades. And I tallied up that number 3 years ago. Additionally, the retirement agae keeps climbing.

So how does he plan to preserve it? By raising the retirement age, or by raising taxes? He seems to understand some of the major flaws, but doesn't have any answers. We already pay 13%, that is WAY more than the average person of moderate means saves, and their return is very small compared to their investment. For our nations poorest it barely delivers a 1% simple interest return over the course of a lifetime. What is worse, they are more likely to have shorter lifespans, and are unable to pass their savings onto their children, keeping the terrible cycle going, and making social mobilization even harder.

I don't agree with Bush a lot of times, but I think he got this one right. Compound interest on 13% of your wages over 50 years of working equals substantially greater pay offs than Social Security today. That is true even with the Bush plan, (no risky investments, only CDs and Revenue Bonds- what Social Security is currently invested in), although I would prefer a plan that allowed investments in diversified mutual bonds, or spiders that also carry a low risk. It appears the return rate will only get worse in the future. When the government takes money from you, (as they do when they take your social security money), they only have one way to get it back. By taking more from you.

Don't get me wrong, I like Obama, and I hope he can beat Hillary in getting the votes from the handful of rich and powerful people who will decide the democratic nominee this year. But he needs to start coming up with answers to the big problems. This problem seems to be infecting politics on all levels. I know I am not the only one who is tired of hearing, "If I am elected I will save this... or fix that...". I want answers on policy positions, no more waffling!

As a side note, you must be one of his best supporters. If he is elected you should get a free tour of the White House! Politics is a bad subject to discuss, and I hope we can agree to disagree on this point without anyone feeling offended.

[Ninong]