I was doing a little research on John McCain's woeful ignorance of the Middle East when I came across a stunning transcript from 2000 in the aftermath of the USS Cole bombing. John McCain - weeks before what would become Bush's "election", used the bombing of the USS Cole - performed by what we came to learn were Al Qaeda - to push what would become, word for word, the Iraq War causus belli later used by the Bush administration.
You mean Barack Obama just running for President hasn't been enough to heal the wounds of slavery, of segregation, of Jim Crow? Barack Obama is running for office not already running the country. And speak of running the country...
Indeed, the poll showed markedly little change in the racial components of people’s daily lives since 2000, when The Times examined race relations in an extensive series of articles called "How Race Is Lived in America."
As it was eight years ago, few Americans have regular contact with people of other races, and few say their own workplaces or their own neighborhoods are integrated. In this latest poll, over 40 percent of blacks said they believed they had been stopped by the police because of their race, the same figure as eight years ago; 7 percent of whites said the same thing.
Eight years ago. Hmm. Remind me again what happened in 2000?
Everyone on the morning shows was in a huff about the latest Washington Post "poll" that was supposed to show something about how people think McCain is better than Obama, OMG, and this is a really close election.
Except the poll, and the article describing the poll were so terribly written that you almost have to wonder about the motivations of the authors. Let's start with the lead:
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds the country split down the middle between those backing Sen. Barack Obama's 16-month timeline for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and those agreeing with Sen. John McCain's position that events, not timetables, should dictate when forces come home.
Here's a quick point for all you intellectual "snobs" who are defending the New Yorker against legitimate criticism. "Oh, you don't get that humor" they say.
I didn’t offer any...think it was necessary to offer any excuse...I didn’t think there was any need for me to put into any sort of context what happens on this program, because I widely assume that everyone knows, and obviously everyone doesn’t...
[My] program has been, for thirty or thirty-five years, a program that makes fun of everybody. It makes fun of me, and it makes fun of everybody on the planet...That is the context in which we operate here.
So, congratulations New Yorker. You've managed to run a Don Imus cover. And because your audience is primarily liberals, you won't even have to apologize for being racist.
The Chinese Government announced today that it has killed five Uighurs suspected of being terrorists, confirming that it had arrested at least 100 since the start of the year. Their crime, most likely, was a combination of being Muslim and unhappy with Chinese authoritarian rule. The crackdown comes as we stand less than a month from the start of the Olympics.
The games will go on.
Other religious dissidents are also suffering, with claims of 8,000 arrested Falun Gong practitioners since December 2007.
Overseas Tibetan advocacy groups said residents of Beijing were targets simply because of their ethnicity. "There's an unprecedented security sweep at the moment in Beijing due to the Olympics," said Kate Saunders, of the International Campaign for Tibet. "It seems as though almost every Tibetan in Beijing is potentially under suspicion."
It seems none of the competing advisers working on Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign can actually agree who is in charge.
This morning on Fox News, McCain denied that Steve Schmidt now runs his campaign -- despite his recent promotion -- saying "Rick Davis is still the guy in charge." He added that Schmidt has simply "taken on some more responsibilities."
Meanwhile, the New Republic reports the McCain campaign is "pushing back" on informed speculation that GOP consultant Mike Murphy would soon join the campaign -- even though McCain reportedly offered him the top strategist job last week.
Did you read my title and come jumping in here to tell me I'm wrong?
Don't bother. I know it was wrong. You don't get to be someone in Gen. Clark's position and not be an intelligent man. Wes Clark is not an idiot.
But he is not a good politician, either. And, while not being a good politician is generally a compliment for the rest of us, it's not so good when you're on a Sunday morning talk show advocating for a candidate.
Like it or not, Wes Clark was off the mark yesterday. Regardless of whether or not he was telling the truth (and I happen to agree with what he said), he shouldn't have said it.
For example: John McCain called his wife a c$&!. Does that mean Barack Obama, or Bill Richardson, or Kathleen Sebelius, or anyone else, should go on MTP and say that John McCain calls his wife the c-word?
John McSame has done his green-screened best to try and portray Barack Obama as some sort of foreign policy newbie. But with a crisis raging in Zimbabwe, an opposition leader in hiding, who is doing the leading?
"I have spoken with MDC Leader Morgan Tsvangirai to share my deep concern for the way his supporters are being targeted by the regime and to express my admiration for his efforts."
Mr Obama’s intervention represented his first remarks on the developing crisis in Zimbabwe since June 13.
John McCain, his Republican rival, has emphasised repeatedly what he claims are his superior foreign policy credentials. However, he last commented on Zimbabwe on April 7, describing Mr Mugabe as an autocrat and his government a pariah.
Is it any wonder that the peoples of the world are desperate for some intelligent and engaged leadership in the US?
I've been here for more than four years, I've probably written 300 diaries, and Buddha knows how many comments. But, as much as I love Daily Kos, I love the real world even more.
And I absolutely have loved participating in the real world the last two weekends. Last weekend, I took the family out to a festival, and we registered voters. This weekend, we went to a Democratic picnic to support the local party and sign up as volunteers for neighboring swing states Virginia and Pennsylvania.
After a 4th of July vacation, we'll be hitting both states frequently, taking our toddler and infant along on neighborhood walks, to fairs and festivals, getting out the vote for Barack Obama.
According to [Republican] Manassas Park Vice Mayor Bryan Polk, toeing the party line isn't necessary at the local level. This may partially explain why he and two other like-minded councilmen are running for re-election this fall as independents. Polk won as a Republican in 2004, yet he and former Republican Mayor Bill Treuting and fellow Councilman Keith Miller, a registered Republican, will be running as independents on Nov. 4.
The candidate who doesn't know the difference between Al Qaeda and Al Sadr has reached a new state of confusion - this time on his own plan to combat climate change.
So, with the troops, we can either bring them home or leave them there. Those are pretty much the choices, right? We can either not have troops permanently stationed in Iraq, or we can.
Probably why the McCain camp is offering a bait-and-switch defense on his "leave 'em there" quote from the Today show.
Sen. McCain has consistently opposed a timeline for withdrawing our troops from Iraq. And our friends on the opposite side of the aisle have a long history of attempting to twist Sen. McCain's words on Iraq. The fact that Sen. McCain opposes a timeline for withdrawal and is principally concerned about the safety of American troops and the security of Iraq is pretty much "dog bites man."
With all the hoo-hah, the breathless "Will her supporters back him?" and the other nonsense that passes for political coverage these days, CQ Politics has a new report out that should cause heads to turn. For all the "concern" about Hillary's voters coming out for Obama, the party with unity problems is actually the Republicans.
John McCain may be the presumed Republican presidential nominee, but he’s still not connecting with a critical group of donors the way President Bush did during his 2004 re-election campaign...According to a Congressional Quarterly analysis, only about 5,000 of the 62,800 donors who gave the maximum contribution of $2,000 to Bush — roughly 8 percent — had given to McCain as of April 30.
For those who didn't see it, or hear it, Barack Obama just hit one out of the park in North Carolina. Sen. Obama took it to John McSame's Bushonomics, and how. From the LA Times:
Obama launched his "Change That Works for You" tour in Raleigh, N.C, where he blamed much of the nation's economic troubles on the Bush administration and policies that he said are "little more than the worn dogma that says we should give more to those at the top and hope that their good fortune trickles down to the many who are hardworking."
...
"For all of George Bush's professed faith in free markets, the markets have hardly been free - not when the gates of Washington are thrown open to high-priced lobbyists who rig the rules of the road and riddle our tax code with special interest favors and corporate loopholes," Obama said.
The continuing mistreatment of US veterans and soldiers who served (and many of whom continue to serve) in Iraq never ceases to disturb me.
This morning, the Post has broken a new story that defies the imagination. The Army is housing wounded soldiers in a "warrior transition" barracks at Ft. Benning in Georgia. These barracks, designed to help soldiers recoup from the damages of war, are literally steps away from one of the Army's busiest firing ranges. The results are predictable:
Across the street from their assigned housing, about 200 yards away, are some of the Army infantry's main firing ranges, and day and night, several days each week, barrages from rifles and machine guns echo around Strickland's building. The noise makes the wounded cringe, startle in their formations, and stay awake and on edge, according to several soldiers interviewed at the barracks last month. The gunfire recently sent one soldier to the emergency room with an anxiety attack, they said.
