I would have thought hell had frozen over before I’d hear these words from Pat Buchanan. That is the measure of the power of Senator Obama’s acceptance speech.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0Fru4dZLGA]
It’s about US
Today I got some emails about Senator Obama and about why I shouldn’t vote for him and it propelled me to write back and to assert that Senator McCain is not a bad person or a bad American either, but that Senator Obama has a vision for America that is decidedly different and a place where we as Americans need to be moving. This short excerpt of his acceptance speech is one the home runs he hit on Thursday night.
But what I will not do is suggest that the Senator takes his positions for political purposes. Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other’s character and patriotism.
The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America – they have served the United States of America.
So I’ve got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first.
America, our work will not be easy. The challenges we face require tough choices, and Democrats as well as Republicans will need to cast off the worn-out ideas and politics of the past. For part of what has been lost these past eight years can’t just be measured by lost wages or bigger trade deficits. What has also been lost is our sense of common purpose – our sense of higher purpose. And that’s what we have to restore.
We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country. The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang-violence in Cleveland, but don’t tell me we can’t uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals. I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination. Passions fly on immigration, but I don’t know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers. This too is part of America’s promise – the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.
I know there are those who dismiss such beliefs as happy talk. They claim that our insistence on something larger, something firmer and more honest in our public life is just a Trojan Horse for higher taxes and the abandonment of traditional values. And that’s to be expected. Because if you don’t have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.
You make a big election about small things.
And you know what – it’s worked before. Because it feeds into the cynicism we all have about government. When Washington doesn’t work, all its promises seem empty. If your hopes have been dashed again and again, then it’s best to stop hoping, and settle for what you already know.
I get it. I realize that I am not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don’t fit the typical pedigree, and I haven’t spent my career in the halls of Washington.
But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don’t understand is that this election has never been about me. It’s been about you.
Remember this election is about us. It’s not about us and them. We are us. We are the United States of America and by God let’s be united and lets start living united.
Thank God
Thank God we got a goat herder from Kenya to move to America. Yesterday, as I watched Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin, I was reminded of an earlier time and an earlier American leader. Though not officially our president, Mr. Obama did more to resurrect good will with his speech in Berlin than anything I’ve seen in recent memory. Mr. Obama is a truly gifted orator and I hope that he will be our next president.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAhb06Z8N1c]
Relief from weasels
We are in another election year. It’s a cycle that lasts longer than “road construction” it seems. Each year the hookah gets deeper and deeper. Politicians have always been full of it, but with 24×7 spin doctors on all the cable outlets it’s become near impossible to get a story without an interpretation. What passes for journalism is often spin. Then too we’re surrounded by a culture where the truth is often obfuscated by fancy words. Don’t you yearn for straight talk. Take a look at Weaselwords for some relief and maybe a laugh.
Presidential qualities
Wes Clark is an American hero and so is John McCain. Wes Clark served in Vietnam and so did John. George Bush did not serve in Vietnam and may not have fulfilled his commitment to the Alabama National Guard. Dick Cheney got five deferments in the middle of the Vietnam War. Ulysses Simpson Grant was the only United States general who could consistently kick Robert E. Lee’s butt during the American Civil War and he was also one of the worst presidents of the United States. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both owned African slaves. Washington is often considered the father of our country and Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence. Neither was a saint. They were average people. Our president today is an average guy who really didn’t qualify to be president based on his resume. He has been president for nearly eight years now and regardless of how you feel about the guy and the job he’s done you cannot diminish his place in the pantheon of presidents.
I’ve mentioned before that David Rees tickles my “funny bone” and his column in yesterday’s Huffington Post was very amusing to me. He’s put the whole presidential qualification scrap in a very humorous wrapper.
Riding on a rollercoaster and flying out of your seat but then landing on a waterslide and sliding down to into the water and almost drowning but then being rescued by an Elvis impersonator: QUALIFIES YOU TO BE SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR.–David Rees.
Freedom has its cost
Operation Iraqi Freedom was going to leave us with a democracy in the Middle East. It looks like the Iraqis are catching on and that things are going swimmingly well for them but not so well for us. Turns out they don’t want us occupying their country afterall. They don’t want a permanent US presence complete with contractors and 58 permanent bases. Looks like we’ll have to install a strong man like Saddam and prop him up. Read more here.
Grand Oil Party
True to form the GOP blocked a measure that would have supplied a measure of relief to American’s at the pump. They blocked an effort by Senate Democrats to tax windfall profits of oil companies. Windfall profits would be a way to punish the speculators, but you can’t do that to the Grand Oil Party. America is on the verge of an economic collapse and the robber barons are not about to let up. The Grand Oil Party plan is to drill in ANWR and along the coast. Ripping off your customers must be a family value.
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans blocked a proposal Tuesday to tax the windfall profits of the largest oil companies, despite pleas by Democratic leaders to use the measure to address America’s anger over $4 a gallon gasoline.
The Democratic energy package would have imposed a tax on any “unreasonable” profits of the five largest U.S. oil companies and given the federal government more power to address oil market speculation that the bill’s supporters argue has added to the crude oil price surge.–Read more at Huffington Post.
Absolute power
Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed. Their mistaken course stems from false notions of equality, ladies and gentlemen. Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.–Barry Goldwater
Barry was right on target. This sounds like a description of our current administration and their un-American policies. Ironically Barry was the icon of modern conservatives, back when conservatives stood for less government intrusion into private lives of its citizens. I wonder what Barry would have thought of our misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. He was a strong advocate for national defense but I don’t think Barry would have been for the invasion and occupation of both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Viva Casey Knowles
Casey Knowles is the little girl in Hillary Clinton’s scare tactic advertisement designed to foster the politics of divide and conquer. I think this is backfiring on Hillary. Casey Knowles it turns out is no longer a little girl and to make matters worse for Mrs. Clinton, Casey is a Barack Obama supporter. Listen here as Casey speaks truth to power and counters wedge politics.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT3gDut3_tc]
Dumb about war
Be sure to check out what Bill Maher has to say from Real Time with Bill Maher. It’s not only entertaining, it’s true.