Politics Is A Blood Sport

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday January 26, 2008 · 4:39 PM PST

2008/01/26 · 16:39

Barack Obama has enjoyed hands-off, near-reverential coverage by the media and pundits. Only a few gutsy journalists as well as a few bloggers, like me, are investigating the skeletons in Obama's closet and questioning Obama's preparedness to be president. If Sen. Obama is to be the nominee, he must not only be thoroughly vetted beforehand, but he must also show that he can take the vicious GOP attacks sure to come his way. I read two important pieces today that buttress my points above:

Digby, the extraordinary blogger at Hullabaloo, in "Pecksniffian Twit": "The punditocracy's 'protectiveness' toward Obama is patronizing and insulting. And this silly case of the vapors among the villagers over the 'nastiness' of the race and how it's going to tear the party apart is nearly guaranteed to make him look like a weak sister, which he isn't, and his elite supporters are falling right into the trap. ...

SusanHu

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday January 25, 2008 · 4:17 PM PST

2008/01/25 · 16:17

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

Brian Ross has done it again. This is a KEY line: News organizations have found "Rezko-linked contributions that are more than double what the campaign has publicly acknowledged..." Be sure to watch Nightline tonight:

SusanHu

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday January 19, 2008 · 11:07 AM PST

2008/01/19 · 11:07

[editor's note, by SusanHu] I've changed the title. Sen. Obama is not named in the indictment and is not facing charges, but he does have longtime ties to Tony Rezko. What bothers me most -- because it so harmed the poorest of Chicago's residents -- is that Obama and his law firm represented Rezko's lucrative public housing deals that used public funding. But, when Rezko was exposed as a "slumlord" who mistreated his poor tenants, Obama denied any knowledge of Rezko's slumlord practices.

Do you recall "Obama, His Lobbyists and His Cronies," my January 11th piece on ABC News's reports on Barack Obama's long associations with -- and innumerable financial, legal and real estate ties -- to Tony Rezko, "who goes on trial February 25th for 'extortion and fraud charges, which include shakedown allegations involving an Illinois pension fund'"?

ABC News's Brian Ross said, at the time, that Obama was not named in the 73-page indictment. Today, however, the Chicago Sun-Times -- "Sun-Times Exclusive: Obama surfaces in Rekzo's federal corruption case" -- reveals that:

SusanHu

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday January 18, 2008 · 12:05 PM PST

2008/01/18 · 12:05

Subtitle: It's Not the "Kumbayah" That Gets Things Done, Mr. Obama. It's Hard-Fought Legislation Enacted Over the Protests of "Movement Conservatives," Especially the Legislative Achievements of the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and the 1990s.

Mr. Obama, get over your iconic view of Ronald Reagan's message: Reagan was a racially divisive, and socially regressive president. From "Dismal Legacy on Civil Rights," the New York Times editorial page on March 21, 1988:

SusanHu

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday January 17, 2008 · 4:45 PM PST

2008/01/17 · 16:45

Update [2008-1-17 20:53:1 by SusanHu]: Just below the fold.

Obama said what? That the GOP has been the party of ideas for the last ten to fifteen years? Are you kidding me?

Two more videos, including the above, have emerged from Sen. Barack Obama's interview with the ~~rightwing~~ editorial board of the Reno Gazette-Journal which later endorsed him (small wonder). [editor's note, by SusanHu] (It is the Las Vegas Gazette-Journal that is conservative, according to MyDD. But it's a small point in that Obama's words stand, as do John Edwards' words.)

It's not just more evidence that Obama was willing to say whatever it took to get the editorial board to endorse him. It's worse. It's much worse.

SusanHu

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday January 14, 2008 · 9:44 AM PST

2008/01/14 · 09:44

Obama is trying to divert attention 1) from his stinging loss in New Hampshire, and 2) from his inadequacies as a presidential candidate, mostly his cluelessness about what he'd actually do if he were president -- most recently, about what he'd do to stimulate the economy.

"He speaks with so much passion, but I'm not sure what his views are on a lot of things," says [Maurice] Frye. [Frye] worries about a poor economy and sagging U.S. dollar. He wants more substance. "I think he speaks too generally. Not being specific hurts him because no one knows him that well yet."

Meekaaeel [DeBradley] agrees. "It's good that he keeps saying what the problems are over and over again, but I need to hear the solutions, too," he says. -- From the Reno Gazette-Journal, January 13, 2008

Much as I personally enjoy Sen. Obama's rhetoric, like Meekaaeel DeBradley, "I need to hear the solutions, too."

People can see that substantive plans are missing from Obama's rhetoric. People can see that how he'll make "change" happen isn't spelled out. Well, at least those people who haven't drunk the Kool-Aid.

SusanHu

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday January 03, 2008 · 10:07 AM PST

2008/01/03 · 10:07

I've become increasingly concerned about the embellishments, the falsely slanted re-writings of newspaper accounts, and the smears coming from Barack Obama and his campaign.

Here's Annenberg Political Fact Check.org on "Obama's Creative Clippings: Selective, embellished and out-of-context quotes from newspapers pump up Obama's health plan."

SusanHu

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday January 02, 2008 · 12:12 PM PST

2008/01/02 · 12:12

The 'net is exploding over Obama's "mushmelon bipartisanship," which in practice consists of attacks on his Democratic rivals "while recycling right-wing scare stories like the imaginary Social Security crisis, then offering himself as a healer." Gene Lyons: "It’s the old Adlai Stevenson / Jimmy Carter too-pure-for-politics pose." Ouch. Stunningly, the adjective "Broderite" is getting attached to Obama's name because David Broder, the WaPo columnist generally despised by Democrats, is "forever cautioning Democrats about the political perils of not giving President Bush whatever he wants." Ouch, that really hurts.

Scariest of all -- because Obama is abandoning bedrock Democratic values -- he's a motivator for Mayor Mike Bloomberg to enter the presidential race. (See "Polls: Mayor's Chances Better If Obama, Huckabee Chosen.")

SusanHu

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday December 21, 2007 · 12:46 PM PST

2007/12/21 · 12:46

PREFACE: FYI, former ambassador Joseph Wilson has posted his commentary, "The Real Hillary I Know -- and the Unreal Obama," at No Quarter. It's powerful testimony, and full of examples from the foreign policy expert.

::::::::::::::

I know some of you have been unhappy with my posts of late -- and one of our dearest regulars telephoned me about it last night. I care very much what you think. You deserve a short explanation: I'm scared to death the Democrats are going to nominate a smart young guy because he's a "symbol" -- who isn't vetted sufficiently, doesn't have enough experience (yet), and doesn't get nearly the press scrutiny that Sen. Clinton gets. Joe Conason writes vividly about the scrutiny. And ...

SusanHu

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday December 20, 2007 · 12:27 PM PST

2007/12/20 · 12:27

[UPDATED BELOW] Illinois' disabled veterans are at "rock bottom" -- "dead last" -- in benefits and claims processing of applications for disability. But Illinois' veterans take a back seat because their junior senator is running for president. And that senator, Barack Obama, has missed an astonishing number of hearings and meetings of the Senate Veterans committee.

Obama is nothing if not audacious in touting his veterans committee membership as contributing to his "foreign policy" experience for the presidency, while his own state's veterans suffer. The Chicago Sun-Times ran a devastating investigative series in 2004-2005 (see Truthout) that showed that Illinois' veterans rank last, or near-last (depends on the graph) in disability awards of the 50 states and Puerto Rico (Illinois average: $6,961; New Mexico average: $12,004).

SusanHu

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday December 18, 2007 · 4:52 PM PST

2007/12/18 · 16:52

[You can talk] to women -- from the Philippines to Latin America to the Middle East -- who can vote, own property, or go to school, because Hillary Clinton helped start a global women's movement for women's rights. [You can travel] to Africa and Asia, where Hillary Clinton visited countless remote villages to show how the poorest of the poor could become entrepreneurial and self-sufficient when given access to small loans. -- Lissa Muscatine and Melanne Verveer, "Hillary's Unprecedented Experience on the World Stage," Huffington Post, Dec. 14, 2007

In 1996, Hillary Clinton addressed the Council on Foreign Relations:

SusanHu

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday December 17, 2007 · 1:42 PM PST

2007/12/17 · 13:42

Like most Americans and the Democratic presidential candidates, I am pro-choice although I believe the first defense against unwanted pregnancy, and STDs, is prevention. (Today's Washington Post reveals that the "best-kept secret" for AIDS prevention in Africa is birth control, not giving antiretroviral drugs to pregnant women. And, notably, Africa is but one of the continents where First Lady Hillary Clinton worked hard for eight years for women's rights and economic empowerment.)

There is a compelling moral exception: A fetus born alive during an abortion becomes an infant, and shouldn't be left for hours or days to die without medical care, a practice in some U.S. hospitals.

Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama differ markedly in their voting records on the live birth of an aborted infant.

Newer
Older

RSS

Politics Is A Blood Sport

BREAKING: ABC News Reports $100,000 More In Rezko Donations to Obama

[ED] Obama "Unnamed Candidate" in Rezko Indictments

[UPDATED] Obama Alert: Reagan's Dismal Legacy on Civil Rights

Edwards Gets It, But Obama Panders to Right

Reality: Why Obama Is Exploiting Racism

From FactCheck.org: Obama's "creative" clippings

Obama vs. The Democratic Party

Why I've Been Writing about Sens. Clinton and Obama

While Illinois', and the Nation's, Veterans Suffer, Obama Campaigns [UPDATED]

The Rights of Women and Children, Worldwide: The Candidates Differ

On "Live Birth Abortion" The Candidates Differ