senator obama

Obama Is Out To Get You Through Your Cell Phone!

The right wing media is in a frenzy today over the plan to send homeland security and disaster alerts to your cellphone. Listen to Limbaugh going off on the “regimes” plan today:

I really hope that Limbaugh is talking about the Bush regime. This plan was authored by Tea Party poster boy, Jim DeMint in 2006 and passed by Congress and also supported by an executive order signed by President Bush. In 2006 the GOP controlled all of Congress and the White House. This is a GOP plan, not a Democratic one.

Of course the apologists will start claiming that we are “blaming Bush” again, despite the fact that this plan was when President Obama was still Senator Obama – not even candidate Obama. Facts are a really hard thing for these people to stomach.

National Security

FLASHBACK: In 2008 John McCain Blasted Obama For Saying He Would Hunt Osama Into Pakistan

There is so much spin and rewriting of history this morning that my head is ready to explode. I think it’s time for a quick refresher on what lead us up to this victorious point today, including how the Republican presidential candidate in 2008 went after then candidate Obama when it came of Osama bin Laden.

The following is from the transcript of the October 7, 2008 debate between John McCain and Barack Obama in Nashville.

QUESTION: Should the United States respect Pakistani sovereignty and not pursue al Qaeda terrorists who maintain bases there, or should we ignore their borders and pursue our enemies like we did in Cambodia during the Vietnam War?

OBAMA: [snip]

But I do believe that we have to change our policies with Pakistan. We can't coddle, as we did, a dictator, give him billions of dollars and then he's making peace treaties with the Taliban and militants.

What I've said is we're going to encourage democracy in Pakistan, expand our nonmilitary aid to Pakistan so that they have more of a stake in working with us, but insisting that they go after these militants.

And if we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then I think that we have to act and we will take them out. We will kill bin Laden; we will crush Al Qaida. That has to be our biggest national security priority.

The response John McCain gave to this was:

MCCAIN: You know, my hero is a guy named Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt used to say walk softly -- talk softly, but carry a big stick. Senator Obama likes to talk loudly.

In fact, he said he wants to announce that he's going to attack Pakistan. Remarkable.

National Security

Memo: U.S. Has No Strategy To Deal With A Nuclear Iran

Last night the New York Times published a late night bombshell:

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has warned in a secret three-page memorandum to top White House officials that the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran’s steady progress toward nuclear capability, according to government officials familiar with the document.

Several officials said the highly classified analysis, written in January to President Obama’s national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, came in the midst of an intensifying effort inside the Pentagon, the White House and the intelligence agencies to develop new options for Mr. Obama. They include a set of military alternatives, still under development, to be considered should diplomacy and sanctions fail to force Iran to change course.

Officials familiar with the memo’s contents would describe only portions dealing with strategy and policy, and not sections that apparently dealt with secret operations against Iran, or how to deal with Persian Gulf allies.

I’m sure we will hear a lot of right wingers saying this is a failure of the Obama administration and his policies towards Iran, but let’s think a little further into history. Iran revved up their nuclear ambitions in 2003. A majority of President Bush’s tenure was having to figure out how to deal with a nuclear Iran, yet they never came up with a plan either. If so, then we would have a plan. So all this started before President Obama was even Senator Obama.

And 2003 is an important year to remember, since that’s the year that we invaded Iraq and changed the political landscape of that part of the Middle East. Any plans that existed at the time were pretty much nullified with the changes that were happening by the tip of our sword.

Politics

Unity Won’t Happen If Republicans Keep Lying

Yesterday on Meet the Press John Boehner continued the same old line that President Obama was the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate.

He also seems to be throwing out the idea of ever working together:

MR. GREGORY: Does he have a point?

Presidential Cyber Slam

I have been spending some time today checking out the new White House website. Buried under the agenda section, in a subsection entitled “Katrina”, I noticed this little tidbit:

President Obama will keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He and Vice President Biden will take steps to ensure that the federal government will never again allow such catastrophic failures in emergency planning and response to occur.

President Obama swiftly responded to Hurricane Katrina. Citing the Bush Administration's {[}]amp;quot;unconscionable ineptitude" in responding to Hurricane Katrina, then-Senator Obama introduced legislation requiring disaster planners to take into account the specific needs of low-income hurricane victims. Obama visited thousands of Hurricane survivors in the Houston Convention Center and later took three more trips to the region. He worked with members of the Congressional Black Caucus to introduce legislation to address the immediate income, employment, business, and housing needs of Gulf Coast communities.

President Barack Obama will partner with the people of the Gulf Coast to rebuild now, stronger than ever.

The nice guy is now taking a back seat to the truth.

And The Meme Starts

Bob caught Chuck Todd saying this today:

"You guys [Team Obama] own the economy at 12 o'clock eastern time today, correct? When Senator Obama announces his Treasury Secretary, announces the Larry Summers position. It is now Barack Obama's responsibility on the economy, is that not correct?"

So the Constitution says “the President shall take office when he announces his economic team”? That’s a new one on me.

Perhaps Chuck is working to help get the GOP going. This will be their line of attack in 2012. All this money going out the window will be because of Obama and his “big spending Democrats”. They will once again try to rewrite history. They did it with Clinton and they will do it with Obama. Just wait and see. The GOP doesn’t care about this country – they only care about their failed ideology.

McCain's New One Minute And Forty Seconds Of Reasons Not To Vote For Him

That's how long their new Ayers ad is and now we have video:

BarbinMD calls McCain out on this as being a "coward":

McCain didn't have the guts to mention Ayers name while face-to-face with Obama, instead waiting until he was safely back in his cocoon of race-baiting rallies and Fox News interviews before going with his latest lie and smear campaign. Pitiful.

I believe this would be a perfect question in the final debate. "Senator McCain - You have spent the last several weeks trying to connect Senator Obama and 60's radical Bill Ayers. Why didn't you bring this up during previous debates?" Let's see if McCain has the cahonies to say anything with Obama right there.

Right WIng Hackery At The Boston Globe

Right wing hack Jeff Jacoby apparently saw a different debate last night than the rest of the world:

JOHN MCCAIN'S opening words last night were: "Senator Obama, it's good to be with you at a town hall meeting!" Indeed it was. We now know why Barack Obama declined McCain's invitation earlier this year to appear together in a series of 10 town hall meetings around the country. This is the format in which McCain excels, and he excelled last night. He was substantive, sympathetic, strong - sure of himself, his facts, and his convictions. On issue after issue, McCain sounded clear and mature. In a word, presidential.

I have heard of those magical feel good pills, but Jacoby must have overdosed. These pills do have bad side effects, such as a sudden incursion of ones head into ones ass. Here's what Jacoby says:

Though most of the debate dealt with domestic issues, it was a foreign-policy question that sent me flying to my files. Moderator Tom Brokaw asked the candidates what their "doctrine" would be "in situations where there's a humanitarian crisis, but it does not affect our national security," such as "the Congo, where 4.5 million people have died since 1998," or Rwanda or Somalia.

In such cases, answered Obama, "we have moral issues at stake." Of course the United States must act to stop genocide, he said. "When genocide is happening, when ethnic cleansing is happening . . . and we stand idly by, that diminishes us."

Cussing At The Debate - A Maverick Moment?

Yup - that's what the wingnuts are saying. John McCain says "horseshit" not once, but twice, during a nationally televised debate and the crowd who screams and yells every time a word slips out on a liberal blog, calls this being a maverick. Unfuckingbelievable. Let me give you a glimpse of how the wingnut blogs would read if the tables were reversed and Obama had said this:

Michelle Malkin: The one shows his ghetto lifestyle by polluting the ears of my children, who were trying to get an education in presidential politics, by saying this word I can not repeat here. He said it not once, but twice.

Allahpundit: Obamessiah lets his potty mouth fly, showing he is clearly not ready to lead this nation.

Bill O'Reilly: This is totally unacceptable and I am calling on the FCC to investigate Senator Obama and leverage all fines against his campaign. Children around the country having their first experience in presidential debates should not have been subjected to such profanity and the Factor will hold Mr. Obama accountable for his horrible actions.

Do you got any fake reactions from the right if Obama said this? Please add them in the comments.

Harry Reid's Statement On McCain's Plan

Harry hits it out of the park on this one:

I understand that the candidates are putting together a joint statement at Senator Obama's suggestion. But it would not be helpful at this time to have them come back during these negotiations and risk injecting presidential politics into this process or distract important talks about the future of our nation's economy. If that changes, we will call upon them. We need leadership; not a campaign photo op.

Yes - McCain and Obama in Senate right now would become a media circus ontop of a big photo-op opportunity. It isn't needed right now. Does McCain really expect us to believe this is anything else?

BREAKING: McCain Suspends Campaign - Wants Debate Postponed

Just now breaking - John McCain is "suspending his campaign" and wants the debate postponed due to the economic crisis.

It should be interesting to see how this plays out. McCain says he wants both campaigns suspended until this "crisis is resolved". Of course we don't know when that will be. Could this be a lead up to trying to suspend the election?

It really seems rather "convenient" for McCain to do this on a day that a national poll finds him down by 9 points and more news comes out about his embattled campaign manager. It really sounds like a political game McCain is trying to play. To me it sounds like McCain is saying the Senate and Congress are too incompetent to handle this without him or Obama there. Listening to Rham Emanuel, it seems like there is a consensus on that view also.

UPDATE:

David Kurtz points out that the networks aired McCain addressing this and that it was pre-recorded. It sounds like he was playing a timing game on this, which makes it sound far more political.

Think Progress also points out that just yesterday, when McCain was asked about the bailout plan, he said he hadn't had time to read it. The plan is only 3 pages and McCain couldn't read it? Yeah - McCain don't care about the economy, he only cares about winning. I really hope the Obama campaign calls his bluff on this. Perhaps something along this line:

Good Job Johnny!

He got the bailout to pass!

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and his top aides took credit for building a winning bailout coalition – hours before the vote failed and stocks tanked.

The rush to claim he had engineered a victory now looks like a strategic blunder that will prolong the McCain’s campaign’s difficulty in finding a winning message on the economy.

Shortly before the vote, McCain had bragged about his involvement and mocked Sen. Barack Obama for staying on the sidelines.

“I've never been afraid of stepping in to solve problems for the American people, and I'm not going to stop now,” McCain told a rally in Columbus, Ohio. “Senator Obama took a very different approach to the crisis our country faced. At first he didn't want to get involved. Then he was monitoring the situation.”
McCain, grinning, flashed a sarcastic thumbs-up.

“That's not leadership. That's watching from the sidelines,” he added to cheers and applause

Yeah now pat yourself on the back John. Oh wait a minute....

Hillary Clinton's Statement On Biden

A very nice statement issued by Hillary:

“In naming my colleague and friend Joe Biden to be the vice presidential nominee, Barack Obama has continued in the best traditions for the vice presidency by selecting an exceptionally strong, experienced leader and devoted public servant. Senator Biden will be a purposeful and dynamic vice president who will help Senator Obama both win the presidency and govern this great country.”

Amen Bob

Cesca nails it:

Why am I seeing Reverend Wright on MSNBC right now? None of this is new and all of it has been debated over and over. The very serious cable people appear to be deliberately hitting Senator Obama on this just because they hit Senator Clinton on Ferraro. But this isn't news, goddamn it. It's not new and Wright isn't a member of Senator Obama's campaign. Hey -- very serious cable news people: this is not balance, it's irresponsible.

I guess the media is scared Hillary might say that they are picking on her again. They are making a much bigger deal about this then they are McCain supporter, and Catholic, Jew, every other religion hating, Hagee.

McCain's Farrakhan

There was so much talk the other night when Obama was asked about Farrakhan supporting him. I wonder if the media will now focus on McCain's endorsement problem:

Calling Pastor John Hagee a "bigot," the conservative Catholic League is calling for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to denounce/renounce/reject his endorsement Wednesday.

With a Youtube link to prove his point, Catholic League president Bill Donohue said Hagee "has waged an unrelenting war against the Catholic Church. For example, he likes calling it ‘The Great Whore,' an ‘apostate church,' the ‘anti-Christ,' and a ‘false cult system.' ..."Senator Obama has repudiated the endorsement of Louis Farrakhan, another bigot. McCain should follow suit and retract his embrace of Hagee."

Today Donohue noted that former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee expressed disappointment that he hadn't received Hagee's backing.

"If Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama were fighting over the support of Louis Farrakhan, we'd say they're nuts," Donohue said. "So what are we to conclude about McCain's embrace of Hagee, and Huckabee's lament for not getting the bigot's endorsement?"

Here is the YouTube referenced in the article:

McCain has refused to denounce (or reject) the endorsement of Hagee. So is the media saying being anti-semitic is worse than being anti-Catholic? Is that also what McCain is saying?