David Corn

It put a lump in my throat.

Reminds me what is at stake.

I still miss RFK.

Thanks

The advance of Liberalism was dealt two halting blows with the assassination of Martin King and Bobby Kennedy. From these decisive events, I take away the lesson that there are some ideas so powerful and so frightening that conservative forces will stop at nothing to halt their advance.

The battle of ideas for our political future is not being fought on the merits; it is being fought with personal attacks such as casting aspersions about moral character. Conservatives have proven very good at this style of politics but they fail the test when it is applied to their own. In spite of electoral victories (well not so much since '04) they have sold out their essential values; personal responsibility, small government, restrained foreign intervention; biggest federal budget ever, biggest federal payroll, national debt increased $4 Trillion in eight years, a record of incompetence, Imperial president not accountable to the rule of law, nation building. But let's not look back, let's look forward.

“There aren't too many politicians in America who would dare admit they once frequented a strip club. Fewer still would cop to dating one of the dancers, especially if she had a nickname like the "Flame of Florida," or a habit of packing a switchblade in her purse. And among that select crowd, there are barely any who call themselves conservative Republicans, or would ever dare dream of running for President. But then, this nation has historically afforded certain privileges to its military personnel, and the old Navy flyer John McCain is confident he has earned a pass.”

**This is a shocker folks**

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Obama Advisor: 60,000 Troops Should Stay In Iraq Through 2010

From the Huffington Post

New York Sun | Eli Lake | April 4, 2008 09:19 AM

A key adviser to Senator Obama's campaign is recommending in a confidential paper that America keep between 60,000 and 80,000 troops in Iraq as of late 2010, a plan at odds with the public pledge of the Illinois senator to withdraw combat forces from Iraq within 16 months of taking office.

The paper, obtained by The New York Sun, was written by Colin Kahl for the center-left Center for a New American Security. In "Stay on Success: A Policy of Conditional Engagement," Mr. Kahl writes that through negotiations with the Iraqi government "the U.S. should aim to transition to a sustainable over-watch posture (of perhaps 60,000-80,000 forces) by the end of 2010 (although the specific timelines should be the byproduct of negotiations and conditions on the ground)."

Put the Democrats in control of the budget and this is what you get in less tah one year~ Now that's got to be some king of record!
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Reuters

Job losses mount, recession feared

Friday April 4, 2:11 pm ET
By Joanne Morrison

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Employers cut payrolls for a third consecutive month in March and the jobless rate jumped to a 2-1/2 year high, adding more evidence that a housing downturn and credit crisis may have pushed the economy into recession.

The Labor Department on Friday said non-farm employment fell by 80,000 jobs in March, the biggest decline in five years. Financial markets saw the drop as reinforcing the need for further Federal Reserve interest rate cuts.

Obama key foreign policy advisor says Obama will keep troop levels at 60,000 to 80,000 and build on the SUCESSES of the surge.

Hmmmm, wonder how Corn will spin this one after lying about the 100 year war comment by McCain?

Obamamania is turning into Obama fatigue~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Obama’s Support Softens in Poll, Suggesting a Peak Has Passed

New York Times ^ | April 4, 2008 | By ADAM NAGOURNEY and MEGAN THEE

WASHINGTON — Senator Barack Obama’s support among Democrats nationally has softened over the last month, particularly among men and upper-income voters, as voters have taken a slightly less positive view of him than they did after his burst of victories in February, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

The survey suggests that Mr. Obama, Democrat of Illinois, may have been at something of a peak in February, propelled by a string of primary and caucus victories over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, and that perceptions of him are settling down.

Mr. Obama’s favorability rating among Democratic primary voters has dropped seven percentage points, to 62 percent, since the last Times/CBS News survey, in late February. While that figure is by any measure high, the decline came in a month during which he endured withering attacks from Mrs. Clinton and responded to reports that his former pastor had made politically inflammatory statements from his church’s pulpit in Chicago.

40 Years Later, (The Late) Martin Luther King Still Silenced

[...]

Back then they denounced King’s critical comments; today they simply silence them.

While noting in passing that King spoke out against the Vietnam War, mainstream reports today rarely acknowledge that he went way beyond Vietnam to decry U.S. militarism in general: “I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos,” said King in 1967 speeches on foreign policy, “without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government.”

In response to these speeches, Newsweek said King was “over his head” and wanted a “race-conscious minority” to dictate U.S. foreign policy. Life magazine described the Nobel Peace Prize winner as a communist pawn who advocated “abject surrender in Vietnam.” The Washington Post couldn’t have been more patronizing: “King has diminished his usefulness to his cause, to his country, and to his people.”

When King’s moral voice moved beyond racial discrimination to international issues, the New York Times attacked his efforts to link the civil rights and antiwar movements.

King’s sermons on Vietnam could get as angry as those of Barack Obama’s ex-pastor: “God didn’t call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war . . .We’ve committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world.”

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/04/8090/

McCain didn't think MLK's assassination was "meaningful"

McCain claims he voted against an MLK holiday because of ignorance about "the issue", as if he needed position papers and highly paid lobbyists to explain to him what Dr. Martin Luther King meant to our nation.

Still, even his claimed ignorance on the topic strains credibility. Perhaps because it just isn't true. Check out what he said about his POW captors in a 1987 interview with USA Today:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/4/135713/3941/979/490226

King’s sermons on Vietnam could get as angry as those of Barack Obama’s ex-pastor: “God didn’t call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war . . .We’ve committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world.”

40 years later there's no contesting our superiority on this account.

40 years ago today I turned 18, buried my Grandfather and then heard the news on King's murder. Today I am dressed in black and I mourn what my country has become.

81% of Americans acknowledge we are going the wrong way. The other 19% are driving.

Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence

[...]

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm

McCain didn't think MLK's assassination was "meaningful"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shameless attempt to make McCain out to be a racist after Obama gets hammered for supporting a white racist, anti-semite.

Gutter politics which liberals are sooooo good at!

Hey Cornnuts,

What ya got to say about Obamas 60-80 troop levels after two years? Sounds like an occupation to me~~~

Wonder what your buddy Sadr will have to say about that, since he's holding out for Obama to win and the Americans to leave~~

Hey Cornnuts,

What ya got to say about Obamas 60-80,000 troop levels after two years? Sounds like an occupation to me~~~

Wonder what your buddy Sadr will have to say about that, since he's holding out for Obama to win and the Americans to leave~~

LBH --- Nothing better to do than double post?

"Listening to this speech--in the middle of another hotly contested Democratic presidential campaign--it's difficult not to ask, who today sounds more like the RFK of that moment: HRC or BHO? It's not close."

It is more difficult to understand why you would compare this media driven election with MLK? Or why you would ask that question? This election could not be farther from the real fear that MLK lived with daily. This election is about the fear of change. MLK's fear was about sister and brotherhood, and if change was unattainable.

I guess MLK would grin, if he could see us today. But if he peeled off the edges, he would be reminded.

uNcledad

What ya got to say about Obamas 60-80,000 troop levels after two years? Sounds like an occupation to me~~~

LBh, you tortured soul.

Have you not learned any lessons? What Obama does is in the future. Is in the future. You can't see it yet, mm,k.
Unless you have been hanging out with Nancy and her Dead Despot, you don't know what troop levels will be. But as of 4-4-08 (today) they are 140,000 plus. Is this an occupation now. Be careful with that word occupation, your neoconsuperfratboy's started it. And your old pissed off maverick may end it.

OFF TOPIC: SCAM ALERT!

Some sumbitch is sending around a scam e-mail saying your PayPal account will be suspended yadda yadda blah blah if you don't renew your information.

I suspected a scam and decided to send nothing, but I clicked the link to check out the site and Firefox immediately fingered it as a scam.

Question: should the scammer have his skin removed with a belt sander or a rusty cheese grater? ;)

I bank with BofA and have had some very authentic looking scam emails.

I am always on guard.

"should the scammer have his skin removed with a belt sander or a rusty cheese grater?"

I think wood chipper ala Fargo?

Weekend fix for poll junkies: Obama gains in Gallup, Rasmussen

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama made gains today in two national tracking polls of the Democratic nomination race.

Obama had a 6-percentage-point lead over New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Rasmussen Reports tracking poll. That's double his lead from yesterday. The poll is based on four nights of interviews, March 31-April 3. Click here for more analysis and details on methdology.

Obama had a 5-point lead in the Gallup tracking poll, up from 3 points yesterday. The Gallup track is based on three nights of polling, April 1-3. Click here for more details.

RealClearPolitics.com has a list of recent Pennsylvania polls here, and an aggregate that shows Clinton leading Obama by 6.6 percentage points. Pennsylvania votes April 22.

Click here for the latest from Indiana and here for latest from North Carolina. Those states vote May 6.

And always remember, all these polls are snapshots and don't reflect what will happen when voters actually vote.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2008/04/weekend-fix-for.html

*****

If HRC doesn't win PA by double digits - even she knows it is over.

John McCain apologizes 25 years after voting AGAINST instituting a federal holiday for Martin L King, Jr.

Do you think he's changed his mind about MLK's contributions to our great country is he pandering for votes?

Someone ought to ask McCain what contributions MLK made, specifically. I wonder if he'd come up with anything more than he helped black people.

capt wrote "even she knows it is over." I doubt that.

I should have said, I wish, I hope, how could she not know it's over.

I doubt she will admit it unless she is really beaten badly. It would be nice if a clear winner is resolved without some new flap.

If BHO continues with his current margin he can't lose.

NOW HILLARY CLAIMS SHE WAS AGAINST WAR BEFORE OBAMA WAS

By Gary Cohen - April 5, 2008, 10:18PM

At a campaign rally in Eugene Oregon, Hillary Clinton was asked why she voted for the Iraq war. Part of her response:

"I started criticizing the war in Iraq before (Obama) did. So, I’m well aware that his entire campaign is premised on a speech he gave in 2002 and I give him credit for making that speech. But that was not a decision.”

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/04/05/politics/fromtheroad/entry3996192.shtml

Can she bend the truth that much without the MSM calling her on it?

Clinton campaign lets supporters 'buy' a yard sign

The presidential campaigns are always looking for ways to make supporters feel involved. Today, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's team opened a "My Pennsylvania" webpage where contributors can direct their cash toward any of six different things the campaign needs to buy -- from TV ad time to yard signs. Interesting facts: The Clinton team wants to put up 110,000 signs and wants to put 60,000 "door hangers" on homes. No word on who's going to pick them all up after the April 22 Pennsylvania primary.

(USA Today)

Mark Penn and Senator Clinton: It's a Matter of Trust

Mark Karlin

Editor and Publisher, April 7, 2008

BuzzFlash has a homework assignment for our readers. Examine the following excerpts from articles this past week about what was clearly a Clinton campaign overture to Colombia to get involved in the U.S. primaries by denouncing Obama. But there’s more to it than that. Despite all the ongoing Mark Penn apologies, he’s the poster boy for the corporate lobbyist destructive infestation of our government – and he is Clinton’s lead strategist.

Clinton can’t ever distance herself from Penn, because she chose to put a guy so compromised that he represents some of the worst corporate violators in the world as head of Burson Marsteller as the chief strategist of her campaign. As Senator Clinton keeps telling us, actions speak louder than words. And the Senator fired Patti Solis Doyle and kept Mark Penn on in her campaign, to this day. (See update at bottom of commentary. Sunday evening, Penn formally got the heave-ho as official lead strategist, but he'll still be apparently doing polling and consulting. His crime: he got caught by the Wall Street Journal.)

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/editorblog/077