PUT THAT RACE CARD DOWN AND STEP AWAY FROM THE DECK!

~~Posted by kenosha Marge, July 31, 2008

Doesn’t take much to get the blogosphere in an uproar. One hint, one suggestion, one soupcon of an indication that something might be presumed to have a hint of racism and they’re off!

The number of words declared verboten by Obama fans, fanatics and supporters grows daily. Articulate, Fairy Tale and now presumptuous are words that must not be spoken when describing the “One” sayeth these racist-speech monitors. Presumably they know a racial slur when they hear one even if no one else does.

This being a free country, sorta, people are usually allowed to support whomever they want to without being called a racist. Playing the race card any time anyone dares to say anything negative about your darling is not good for the candidate, the party or the country.

Let’s take a trip in the way-back machine to when this primary season was young and almost fun.

Let’s Face It, PUMAs—Uninformed, Conforming Voters are Our Worst Enemy….No Matter How Smart They Are (Updated 1X)

Sigh.  I had gone through this months before with a woman I’d see while walking the dogs. This was before the Obama machine had really swung into full gear with its divisive and strong-arm tactics. It was before even I had decided he was NOT the one.

I had raised a few questions about Obama and why I had some doubts and was met with an “I don’t care, I LIKE him.”  My parting words were “I hope you’re not disappointed.”

This woman was my age, so hearing this sort of thing was a bit unnerving at the time  I would have thought that someone older and wiser would have had more substanative reasons for “liking” a candidate.

Last night I had a conversation with another woman, this time a 26-year-old PhD candidate studying “counseling psychology.”  Now, months later, as the talk turned to politics, the conversation was even more frustrating.

I couched my end of the discussion with phrases like “I know you’re so busy,”  “I know being a grad student can be rather isolating,” “I know you probably have less time to really read a lot about what’s going on than I do,”  etc., etc. I was trying to make it easy for her…

Enabling Bad Behavior…

INSIGHTANALYTICAL WELCOMES kenosha MARGE!

A big WELCOME to kenoshaMarge, who is honoring this blog with her first contribution!  KM has “known” me since the old Buzzflash days and managed to find her way here after my hasty departure from that site during the primary season. I’m so glad we’re “together again” and I hope visitors will enjoy reading her thoughts.  (She’s from the “North Country” and I’m in the Southwest, so it will be interesting to perhaps see different perspectives.) She’ll be posting when she gets the inspiration to get something out there…

AGAIN, WELCOME kenoshaMarge!!

GRL

*********

ENABLING BAD BEHAVIOR

Many voters are like parents who will not accept that their offspring might do bad things. Such parents will go to any lengths to convince themselves and others that little Johnny/Janie would never do drugs, have sex, lie, steal, or cheat.

Voters that believe that “their”party would never do bad things while demonizing the “other”party are like those close-minded parents. Denying a problem ensures that the behavior will not change. Not with kids and not with political parties.

I believed for most of my life that the Democratic Party was “better”than the Republican Party. I believed that because I thought Democrats stood for the things that I believed in, the things that were important to me. I thought they would fight for those things. That was back before I saw that Democrats would fight for nothing except re-election and their COLA.

The Republican Party wasn’t a comfortable fit for me except about fiscal responsibility. That was before Republicans decided to agree with the Democrats about fiscal responsibility. Such bi-partisanship goes to show that whenever two parties agree about something it doesn’t necessarily work out well in the long run. In fact, usually bi-partisanship means that both parties screw the public instead of one or the other.

For the last 6 months I have watched the party I always supported in dismay. Why are they undermining all they supposedly ever stood for? Any remarks they now make about Republican corruption will be like Madonna accusing another female of sluttish behavior.

The Democratic Party in their arrogance has let this get so far out of hand that nothing they do now will satisfy everyone in their party. Thus nothing will unify it. They broke it, now they own it. Millions of average Americans will pay the price as they always do.

British Commentators: The Chosen One Looked “Shattered” After Meeting Brown….and Did Cameron/Obama Discuss “Conservative Means” to Achieve “Progressive Goals”?

I decided to look behind the headlines to see what British commentators from some of the print media have been saying about the Obama visit.

Perhaps the most revealing column is by Cole Morton, writing in the Independent (perhaps my favorite of all the British publications).   In a piece entitled “Obama on Tour: Three Special Relationships in One Day,” Morton writes this interesting passage:

When Barack Obama arrived at No 10 yesterday, he looked happy, relaxed and pleased to be there. He smiled and waved to photographers on the other side of Downing Street, calling a cheery, “Hello!” Camera flashes caught Gordon Brown waiting for him in the shadows of the hallway.

But when the US presidential candidate came out again two hours later, after a long chat with the beleaguered Prime Minister, he looked shattered. The smile had faded. Now he spoke so softly that only the closest microphones could hear him. As usual, the cut of his sharp, dark suit echoed the Kennedy era, but the charisma had drained away.

He had no advice for Mr Brown. But he did have an observation. “You’re always more popular before you’re actually in charge of things,” he said. “Once you’re responsible, you’re going to make some people unhappy.”

In case you haven’t heard, Gordon Brown is in a very precarious position at this moment. There are rumors of moves by his own party to have him removed. (Echoes of the forces that worked against Hillary Clinton?)

Morton goes on to say:

Afterwards Barack said their chat had been “wonderful”. But after the euphoria of Berlin and the glory of Paris, his Washington entourage was shocked to be made to sit outside on the tarmac. One said the White House would never be allowed to look as tatty as the grimy No 10. In one window the nets had been pushed aside for a cardboard packing case. The symbolism was unfortunate.

The senator talked about Afghanistan and Iraq, climate change and the credit crunch, saying some problems were best solved together. Was there still a special relationship? “Absolutely.” He paid tribute to British troops. Then he seemed to lose interest.

If he lost interest on this visit, what’s he going to do if he has a hard morning in the Oval Office? And isn’t his staff just “precious” about their horror of waiting out in the street and being put off by the less-than-grand 10 Downing Street?

Meanwhile, the Telegraph has the results of a new poll on the public’s attitude to David Cameron, the Conservative leader.

The first detailed analysis of the public’s perception of the Conservative leader reveals that his popularity is increasing rapidly but there is still concern over his substance and ability to connect with ordinary people.

(snip)

Today’s poll found that half of the British public regarded the Conservative leader as a “lightweight” with 44 per cent of those questioned saying he is “not in touch with ordinary people”. Only 27 per cent of people describe Mr Cameron as “deeply serious” with 39 per cent saying he is “somewhat shallow”.

Mr Brown and Labour have repeatedly accused Mr Cameron, a former public relations executive, of being a “shallow salesman”.

However, the poll also finds that the Conservative leader is increasingly popular with the public and his strategy of moving the party away from its nasty image is beginning to work.

“Lighweight” but “increasingly popular”….  Sound familiar? And a forrmer PR guy as Prime Minister?  WOW!

In the Sunday Times, Richard Wood details the Obama-Cameron encounter in his piece, “Barack Obama: He Came. He Saw. He, er, Left.”

The two met outside in New Palace Yard. The senator placed a hand on Cameron’s shoulder, and Cameron gestured up at Big Ben, an image of old and new, power and changing times that probably had Brown gnashing teeth and biting nails all at once.

Cameron rammed home the point that he’s the same sort of new kid on the block by giving Obama a selection of CDs by the Smiths, Radiohead and Gorillaz.

For more than an hour Obama talked with Cameron, overrunning his allotted time as they discussed world affairs, the Middle East (again) and balancing politics with family life. Tory insiders later claimed that the senator had said to Cameron: “I want to congratulate you on all you’ve achieved.”

Onlookers chanted: “Oba-ma! Oba-ma! Oba-ma!” But in truth, the prophet underwhelmed. As he implied, he is neither genius nor idiot, just an everyday global saviour.

I’d like to ask Obama exactly what he thinks Cameron has achieved…is he referring to his admiration of the Cameron’s PR skills??

Wood also provides more detail about the “time to think” exchange.

Cameron:“These guys just chalk your diary up.”
Obama:“Right. In 15-minute increments . . .”
Cameron:“We call it the dentist’s waiting room. You have to scrap that because you’ve got to have time.”
Obama:“And, well, and you start making mistakes, or you lose the big picture. Or you lose a sense of, I think you lose a feel . . .” Cameron:“Your feeling. And that is exactly what politics is all about. The judgment you bring to make decisions.”
Obama:“That’s exactly right. And the truth is that we’ve got a bunch of smart people, I think, who know 10 times more than we do about the specifics of the topics.
“And so if what you’re trying to do is micromanage and solve everything then you end up being a dilettante but you have to have enough knowledge to make good judgments about the choices that are presented to you.”

Yup, Obama is ready to rely on all those advisors he has because they know “10 times” more than he does. Well, considering that he knows zip, how much more can these advisors know?  Not encouraging.  He sounds EXACTLY like George Bush when he was running in 2000.

But what’s missing from the accounts of the “new kids” confab is the the subject which Cameron brought up a couple of weeks ago, before the arrival of The Chosen One.

A little over a month ago I wrote about an interview in which Cameron praised Obama’s Father’s Day speech (Breaking: Tory Leader David Cameron “Hearts” Obama Talks About “Progressive Goals” Achieved by “Conservative Means)

Even more interesting is a comment Cameron made about how he views the modern Conservative Party in the UK.

Cameron “appeals to the centre and left ‘to recognise that the modern Conservative party is on the brink of a very big and exciting argument that if you want to pursue progressive goals in Britain, whether it is greening the environment, tackling poverty, unlocking social mobility, there is a really good case to say that you can best achieve those by Conservative means.'”

MMMMM. Are Cameron and the Tories following Obama’s lead, or is it the other way around?

I’m still wondering about that statement. And I still think it describes the way Obama thinks to a “T.” He talks a good game, but in the end, many of his ideas sound like they could fit in with Republican approaches. We’ve seen his flip-flopping vote on FISA. Social Security is one area I wouldn’t trust him on…all that money from Wall Street is coming in for a reason. And, how “progressive” was his bill on nuclear safety after he caved to the “conservatives”/GOP and re-wrote the bill to help out Exelon?

If there’s one thing that should be kept in mind as this miserable election season progresses, it is Cameron- the-PR-man’s clever phrase “progressive goals…best achieved… by conservative means.”  It sound great as a slogan, but what would actually happen if Cameron–or Obama–wound up in charge?

My guess is that with Obama we’d get “watered down progressive goals” to achieve the satisfaction of “conservatives.”  And that’s reality, not PR…

This Racist Celebrates Mick Jagger’s 65th Birthday by Recalling When She Was NOT a Racist…(Updated 1X)

Once upon a time, long ago, I was NOT a racist.  Hard to believe, these days, isn’t it?  But times change, and now with Obama being The Chosen One and his new breed of campaign managers and followers, it is clear that I am now out of step and have descended into the cesspool of racism.

Mick Jagger’s 65th birthday yesterday (July 26) took me on a trip down memory lane to those days when I was a proud non-racist.

My days as a non-racist actually go back quite awhile  I was already enjoying the “black music” that was on Top 40 radio before and just after the “British Invasion.”   Garnet Mimms and the Enchanters, remember “Cry Baby?” in ’63? And Fontella Bass with “Rescue Me” in ’65? The Chiffons, the Crystals, the Shirelles were part of me. And Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, and Otis Redding–who can forget?