Words From a Wicked Woman

Maggie Williams

There’s trouble in Hillaryland. Two top officials have left Democratic hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in the last week amid a shake-up on the heels of eight straight primary season losses to challenger Sen. Barack Obama since Super Tuesday. On Sunday, campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle stepped down and was replaced by longtime Clinton loyalist and fixer Maggie Williams, and; Tuesday, NBC reported that deputy campaign manager Mike Henry was “stepping down to allow campaign manager Maggie Williams to build her own team.” But with Obama accumulating ever-more substantial victories, is this change in staff too little too late?

According to “Inside the Clinton Shake-up” on Atlantic.com, Solis Doyle was fired in favor of Williams, even though the latter has never run a campaign. During the Clinton White House, for some, Williams was the quiet, earnest aide to the president and chief of staff to Hillary; to others, she was the one donors called if they wanted access to the First Couple. However, to the Clintons, Williams was the faithful partisan who got her hands dirty so they didn’t have to. It was that last part of her job description that earned her a subpoena from the House Government Oversight Committee in 1997 to explain what access might have been purchased by suspect Clinton and Democratic Party fundraiser Jimmy Chung’s $366,000-plus contribution.

Although Williams was never indicted, Chung was. He pleaded guilty to election law violations in 1998, whereupon his attorney, Brian Sun, said, “Mr. Chung has reached an agreement with the government. Mr. Chung wants to put this matter behind him as quickly as possible. He and his family are looking forward to getting on with their lives.”

Chung was known to have physically handed over a large portion of his contribution–at least $50,000 according to CNN–to Williams in the White House, a site he visited on almost 50 occasions. One of these occasions had him watching as President Clinton taped his weekend address along with an interesting group of friends that included the head of the Chinese government’s oil monopoly.

Williams, described by one ally as the “queen of Hillaryland,” according to the Washington Post, “is said to have improved the mood and inspired confidence within the campaign and its donor base. “Hillaryland,” a term ironically coined by Solis Doyle while serving as Clinton’s scheduler when she was first lady, is the group of close female allies and confidants with which the candidate surrounds herself.

“They needed some kind of jolt at this point of time,” Nadadur Vardhan, a Los Angeles-based financial consultant and Clinton fundraiser, told the Washington Post. “At least in terms of perception, this makes people like me feel that they’re conscious of the fact that something drastic has to be done.”

In another drastic move, Clinton revealed last week that she’d loaned her campaign $5 million of her own money to keep it going. She further reports she’s raised double that much and more since making the announcement.

Obama’s victories must have been distressing enough for the Clinton campaign, but perhaps even more alarming was that Obama won voter groups in the Chesapeake Primary held February 12 previously considered Clinton strengths. For example, women voters were considered her inviolate constituency. However, according to CNN’s Virginia exit polls, Obama won 60% of the female vote overall while Clinton only won among white women, the single largest voting bloc. Even there, Clinton’s six-point margin among that group was less than usual.

Moreover, although voters over 45-years-old have tended to vote for Clinton in previous contests, according to the New York Times’ Virginia exit polls, Obama carried every age group in the state. The same is true for voters with incomes below $50,000 per year and those without college degrees–two groups that Clinton has consistently captured but that now appear to be in play.

Those trends continued in Maryland and Washington, D.C.

In an apparent move to stem the hemorrhage, it appears that Clinton’s message may be changing from “Ready on Day One” to “Solutions,” in reference to Obama’s clear talent for giving uplifting and inspiring speeches but a tendency seen by some to be less than specific in his plans for execution of policy. If so, the change may or may not come from Williams. According to the Atlantic.com article, the campaign’s resident Karl Rove-like figure remains Mark Penn, a pollster who has served as chief strategist and been responsible for her overall message.

It is too soon to determine whether either the staff shake-up or the new message are having any impact. What is known is that Obama is ahead by an average of only 4.3% in the latest Wisconsin primary polls according to RealClearPolitics.com. Oddly enough, even though she is competitive in that state, the Clinton campaign has all but abandoned it in favor of primaries in Texas and Ohio where her campaign feels (and numbers agree) she must win big on March 4 if she is to catch up to Obama’s delegate count.

Meanwhile, in Texas, Clinton has a 10.3% average lead in the latest polls according to RealClearPolitics.com. However, a poll conducted by the American Research Group (ARG) on February 13 and 14, and not included in the RealClearPolitics.com average, has Obama ahead of Clinton 48% to 42%. The numbers within the numbers are interesting, to say the least. USAElectionPolls.com quotes ARG:

Hillary Clinton leads Barack Obama among self-described Democrats 47% to 42%. Obama leads Clinton among self-described independents and Republicans 24% to 71%. Obama leads among men 55% to 29% (47% of likely Democratic primary voters) and Clinton leads among women 54% to 42%. Clinton leads Obama among white voters 51% to 40% (53% of likely Democratic primary voters), Obama leads Clinton among African American voters 76% to 17% (22% of likely Democratic primary voters), and Clinton leads Obama among Latino voters 44% to 42%.

22% of likely Democratic primary voters say they would never vote for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary and 20% of likely Democratic primary voters say they would never vote for Barack Obama in the primary. 30% of men say they would never vote for Clinton in the primary.

Clinton and Obama are virtually tied among Latino voters–said to be about 18% to 20% of all voters in 2002 and 2004 according to the William C. Velasquez Institute. This is in marked contrast to the belief that Latinos will not vote for a black candidate. It may be that Obama is continuing to attract Latino voters as he did in the Chesapeake Primary where he won that group in all three contests.

The statistic for independents and Republicans could prove very beneficial in the general election if Obama secures the Democratic nomination.

Ohio looks better for Clinton. In the RealClearPolitics.com average of polls, she leads Obama by 17.3%. That is an improvement for Obama, who was behind 42% to 19% in a poll conducted by the Columbus Dispatch between January 23 and 31 and reported by USAElectionPolls.com.

Perhaps the smaller margin between the two candidates is why, given the choice between Texas and Ohio, Clinton has chosen to focus most of her attention on the former, campaigning largely in the Rio Grande Valley. She’s sent daughter Chelsea to Ohio on a tour of universities around the state Wednesday and Thursday. The candidate herself dropped in Thursday and Friday.

Obama is in the midst of fighting to win the Wisconsin primary next Tuesday with appearances throughout that state. His home state, Hawaii, also holds its primary that day. He is, one imagines, expected to win.

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Technorati Tags: african-american, barack obama, blacks, campaign ‘08, democratic, election results, hillary clinton, politics, presidential campaign

Recording artist will.i.am and director Jesse Dylan, son of singer/icon Bob Dylan, got together with a group of musicians, actors and personalities over the course of two days to mold music written by the Black Eyed Peas founder to words from Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s New Hampshire “Yes We Can” speech into a song of hope, unity and inspiration. It is a video that sends chills down the spine of the jaded and brings tears to the eyes of cynics. Best of all, will.i.am, Dylan and friends did all of this unbidden. This video, and its making, is indicative of the inspiration Obama engenders.

Today is known throughout the country as “Super Tuesday.” Democrats, Republicans and Independents across 24 states will go to the polls to vote for the candidate they want to see as their party’s presidential nominee. The reasons any one person will cast their vote for a particular candidate are myriad, however, I would like to discuss a few of the reasons Barack Obama has inspired so many people and deserves your support.

Barack Obama can change the status quo

Washington is a mess. There’s no getting around it. Legislators are often unresponsive to their constituents’ desires, instead, preferring to grant the wishes of lobbyists and other big campaign donors; very little gets accomplished in Congress because of inter- and intra-party spats and rivalries; there is no unifying vision of where this country needs to go, and; even when there is unity of purpose and vision, there is someone in the White House determined to stand in the way. Today, when many people think of Washington, D.C., they think of a quagmire of lost hope.

Those who support Obama are tired of politics as usual and believe he brings a singular freshness. He is an African-American elected by a largely white, moderate to conservative majority in Illinois because he has a vision of what this country can be. He hasn’t been in and around Washington for decades adding to the morass on Capitol Hill, making it what it is. Nobel Prize laureate Toni Morrison captured the essence of Obama’s value to this country when she wrote in a letter to the senator, “[I]n addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don’t see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom.”

That wisdom was born, in part, because he is America–multiracial, multicultural and multiethnic–the beautiful quilt of this country’s lost amibition. As such, he brings a view that is more expansive and inclusive than we’ve seen before. It is a view that says we can be gracious and talk to those we don’t like (and who don’t like us) instead of pointing a gun at them first and that we must engage countries and people to bring about progress. According to Obama, “On challenges ranging from terrorism to disease, nuclear weapons to climate change, we cannot make progress unless we can draw on strong international support.” Yes we can.

Barack Obama can bring people together

Obama truly believes all people really are created equal and that blacks, browns, yellows and reds can work together to enable this country to reach its potential. In an election cycle that has been marred by racial code intended to inflame, it is time to see beyond the divisiveness of racial politics. That does not mean we should forget our heritage. Indeed, we must acknowledge and celebrate our different cultures, but not allow them to trap us into a mental, spiritual, intellectual OR gender ghetto that separates us from our common goals.

Much has been made of the notion that Latinos will not support Obama in California and the rest of the Southwest because there is a rivalry between blacks and browns. However, the people who have posited this theory forget the reality that Obama has been endorsed by the nation’s largest Spanish-language newspaper, La Opinion, saying:

Senator Barack Obama represents fundamental change in a campaign in which ‘change’ has become a central theme. Obama’s approach to immigration and his inspiring vision are what the country need to break through the current feeling of political malaise.

. . .

It is this commitment to the immigration issue which drove Obama to condemn the malicious lies made during the immigration debate, to understand the need for driver’s licenses, and to defend the rights of undocumented students by co-authoring the DREAM Act. The senator has demonstrated character by maintaining his position despite the hostile political climate.

. . .

We need a leader today that can inspire and unite America again around its greatest possibilities. Barack Obama is the right leader for the time.

The senator’s hometown Spanish-language newspaper, La Hoy, also endorsed him. This is the first time the Chicago newspaper has endorsed any presidential candidate. “The son of an immigrant father and an American mother, Obama knows the challenges facing those deprived of privileges, when facing the uphill climb to success. . . . The Senator is capable of compromising with those who think differently, and has the strength to renew the hopes of those who have come to this country in search of a better life. . . . We, the Latinos, are a mostly young population, with great dreams and hunger for success. For that reason we consider that Barack Obama is the Democratic Party’s best option, to give back to the country a national unity that includes Hispanic talent.”

As La Hoy mentioned, Obama not only brings people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds together, but also those of different ideologies. It is, perhaps, one of his most defining qualities. As he noted in his South Carolina victory speech, “[Obama supporters] are Democrats from Des Moines and independents from Concord and, yes, some Republicans from rural Nevada.” In the very speech from which the above video was made, he emphasizes the diversity of his coalition but says the thing they all have in common is they are people who, “are tired of the division and distraction that has clouded Washington, who know that we can disagree without being disagreeable, who understand that, if we mobilize our voices to challenge the money and influence that stood in our way and challenge ourselves to reach for something better, there is no problem we cannot solve, there is no destiny that we cannot fulfill.” We can be–we must be–a UNITED States of America. Yes we can.

Barack Obama can end the Iraq War

According to Antiwar.com, there have been 3945 U.S. casualties since the Iraq War began March 19, 2003; 3806 of those have come since President George W. Bush arrogantly and foolishly stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier and declared “Mission accomplished!” on May 1, 2003. In stark contrast to anyone else running for either party’s presidential nomination, Barack Obama has never supported the war.

At an anti-war rally held in Chicago on October 2, 2002, then-State Senator Barack Obama made the following remarks:

After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration’s pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again. I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism.

What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income - to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics. Now let me be clear - I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the middle east (sic), and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

I encourage reading entire speech here.

In the wee hours of October 11, 2002, Sen. Hillary Clinton, the other candidate for the Democratic party presidential nomination, in bold relief to Obama’s position, voted to send American troops into Iraq, thus beginning the Iraq War. Literally minutes prior to her vote authorizing the war, she voted against the Levin amendment to the authorization. The Levin amendment would have reigned the administration in and encouraged it to work with other nations before then coming back to Congress to ask for authorization. For a full discussion of the Levin amendment see my previous post “Obama Cordially Hangs Clinton on Iraq in Pre-Super Tuesday Debate.”

Obama has offered a plan to bring one or two brigades a month home from Iraq with full withdrawal completed within 16 months. Clinton will not commit to a timetable even though she says that she now favors ending the war.

Although Obama wants to end the Iraq War, he stated in the February 2, 2008 Los Angeles debate with Clinton, “I think it is important for us to be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in. . . . but I do think it is important for us to set a date. And the reason I think it is important is because if we are going to send a signal to the Iraqis that we are serious, and prompt the Shia, the Sunni and the Kurds to actually come together and negotiate, they have to have clarity about how serious we are.” We must get out of Iraq as carefully as possible and as soon as possible. Yes We Can.

In Conclusion

For some candidates, this presidential campaign season began years ago. And, for some, it has ended too soon. I think we can all agree that parts of it have been extremely ugly, but there have also been times that have inspired hope where once there was none. Those latter times have, most often, been inspired by Barack Obama–a uniquely transformative agent of aspiration and change. He looks at this country and its people and sees what is possible with faith, belief in ourselves and a generous spirit. He rejects the politics of fear which turns into the politics of “mean.” As a result, people are valuable not because they are of a particular race, ethnicity, gender, income status or sexual orientation. They are valuable because they are human beings who deserve to be heard and counted.

Today is almost at an end. If you live in a Super Tuesday state and you have not voted yet, please do so. But, before you pull that lever or press a touchscreen or fill in a bubble, realize that today is a new day. It is a day when we have a chance to propose a man with the courage to dream, the belief that we can be better than we are and the audacity of hope. He did not sit in the Senate in Washington wringing his hands, wondering what he should do while we languished in malaise. Instead, on February 10, 2007, on the steps of the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois, where Abraham Lincoln once called on a divided nation to stand together, Sen. Barack Obama entered the race for president of the United States and asked us to stand together with him to change this country and the world. Some say that he should wait his turn, that he hasn’t paid his dues and that he doesn’t have the experience. They expect him to defer to others who, frankly, don’t have the vision or skills to be a unifying force to correct the mistakes made by the current administration. Instead, he saw that waiting would only allow the country to sink deeper into the abyss, making recovery that much harder. He understood what Martin Luther King, Jr. called in his “I Have A Dream” speech the “urgency of now.”

The reality is that the differences between Clinton and Obama are few. Nevertheless, they are significant. In my mind, perhaps the most astounding difference overall is that the latter can unite while the former has a disturbing tendency to divide and to do so in a profoundly ugly way. In this new day that is today, we need to put aside our racial, cultural, ethnic and gender politics in favor of moving this country forward in a healthy way that will restore our prestige throughout the world. It will take boldness, courage, imagination and brilliance. Barack Obama has those characteristics in abundance. He believes: Yes we can! ¡Sí se puede! I believe, with your vote today: Yes, we can win!

Technorati Tags: activism, african-american, barack obama, blacks, campaign ‘08, candidates, celebrities, democratic, entertainment, hillary clinton, iraq war, politics, presidential campaign

The headline from last Thursday’s Democratic presidential debate is that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the only two candidates remaining after John Edwards ended his campaign earlier this week, are something just shy of BFFs who got together at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood with a few thousand of their closest friends to discuss select topics of the day. Really. At least, that’s what they wanted to convey.

Obama stated in his opening remarks, “I . . . want to note that I was friends with Hillary Clinton before we started this campaign; I will be friends with Hillary Clinton after this campaign is over.”

If I were a cynic I’d say the level of “nice” was saccharin, to say the least. That is, it was synthetically sweet in a joint move to appease the viewing public and promote party unity. Does anyone actually buy that they aren’t trying to kill each other–at least at the polls? The debate took place a mere five days before the cluster of 24 primaries and caucuses known as Super Tuesday and new polls showed that Obama had narrowed the gap behind Clinton to three points in California, the state with the most delegates. If ever there was a time to get testy, this was it. I have two words in case anyone has a short memory: South Carolina.

Although there were no fireworks, Obama did not fail to remind the audience what this primary contest is about. “I don’t think the choice is between black and white or it’s about gender or religion. I don’t think it’s about young or old. I think what is at stake right now is whether we are looking backwards or we are looking forwards. I think it is the past versus the future.”

The debate, sponsored by CNN and Politico.com, was moderated by the cable channel’s Wolf Blitzer with questions coming from Blitzer, the Los Angeles Times’ Doyle McManus and Politico’s Jeanne Cummings. For the debate’s first question, McManus asked Clinton, “What do you consider the most important policy distinction between the two of you?”

Clinton responded, “Well, I want to start by saying that whatever differences there are among us, between us now . . . the differences between Barack and I pale in comparison to the differences that we have with Republicans, and I want to say that first and foremost, because it’s really a stark difference.” This was a recurring theme throughout the night.

However, she said there are differences, including their approach to foreign affairs. “I believe that we’ve got to be realistic and optimistic, but we start with realism in the sense that we do have serious threats, we do have those who are, unfortunately and tragically, plotting against us, posing dangers to us and our friends and our allies.”

In answer to Obama’s repeated assertion that we should talk to people and countries who don’t necessarily like us as opposed to simply shooting at them, Clinton countered, “I think that we’ve got to have a full diplomatic effort, but I don’t think the president should put the prestige of the presidency on the line in the first year to have meetings without preconditions with five of the worst dictators in the world.”

Obama agreed with Clinton’s view that one of their differences was foreign policy; particularly, Iraq.

“I was opposed to Iraq from the start,” he reminded. “And . . . I say that not just to look backwards, but also to look forwards, because I think what the next president has to show is the kind of judgment that will ensure that we are using our military power wisely.

He continued, “It is true that I want to elevate diplomacy so that it is part of our arsenal to serve the American people’s interests and to keep us safe. And I have disagreed with Senator Clinton on, for example, meeting with Iran. . . . [T]he national intelligence estimate, the last report suggested that if we are meeting with them, talking to them, and offering them both carrots and sticks, they are more likely to change their behavior. And we can do so in a way that does not ultimately cost billions of dollars, thousands of lives, and hurt our reputation around the world.”

The Politico’s members later voted to ask Clinton a question they felt went to her judgement in voting for the Iraq War. Specifically, they asked about her vote against the Levin amendment–an amendment to the bill authorizing U.S. military action in Iraq introduced by Michigan Democratic Senator Carl Levin.

To understand the question, it is important that one understand the proposed amendment. In a speech delivered October 4, 2002 on the floor of the Senate, Levin explained what it said:

• It urges the U.N. Security Council to adopt promptly a resolution that:
  • Demands unconditional access for U.N. inspectors so that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and prohibited ballistic missiles may be destroyed; and
  • Within the same U.N. resolution, authorizes the use of necessary and appropriate force by U.N. member states to enforce such resolution in the event Iraq refuses to comply.
• It also specifically authorizes the use of United States Armed Forces pursuant to that U.N. Security Council resolution if Iraq fails to comply with its terms, provided the President informs the Congress of his determination that the United States has used appropriate diplomatic and other peaceful means to obtain compliance by Iraq with such U.N. resolution.
• My resolution affirms that, under international law and the U.N. Charter, the United States has at all times the inherent right to use military force in self-defense, affirming the fact that there is no U.N. veto over U.S. military action.
• My resolution affirms that Congress will not adjourn sine die so that Congress can return to session to consider promptly proposals relative to Iraq if, in the judgment of the President, the U.N. Security Council does not adopt the resolution mentioned earlier.
• Finally, my resolution provides that the President report to Congress every 60 days on the status of efforts to have the U.N. Security Council adopt such a resolution and, if such a resolution is adopted, to obtain compliance by Iraq with the resolution.

The point of the amendment was to unite world opinion into one voice against Saddam Hussein and avoid the appearance of the U.S. “going it alone” without giving diplomacy a chance. However, had the Security Council failed to act, Congress could “consider promptly proposals relative to Iraq.” Ultimately, the amendment was defeated 24-75.

In justifying her vote, Clinton made the most controversial statement of the night. “The way that amendment was drafted suggested that the United States would subordinate whatever our judgment might be going forward to the United Nations Security Council. I don’t think that was a good precedent. Therefore, I voted against it.

“You know, I’ve said many times if I had known then what I know now, I never would have given President Bush the authority,” Clinton added, almost wistfully. “It was a sincere vote based on my assessment at the time and what I believed he would do with the authority he was given. He abused that authority; he misused that authority. I warned at the time it was not authority for a preemptive war. Nevertheless, he went ahead and waged one, which has led to the position we find ourselves in today.”

Her assertion that the Levin amendment would have subordinated presidential and congressional judgement in favor of that from the U.N. Security Council has been widely disputed in the aftermath of the debate.

“This was not just a vote about Saddam Hussein. It was about the United Nations and international support,” former Congressman Tom Andrews told The Huffington Post. Andrews, who now heads the group Win Without War, explained, “It did not, in any way, impede or impose on the sovereignty of the United States.”

John Isaacs of the Council for a Livable World further clarified, “It basically said we should go to the United Nations and get approval as the first George Bush did… Levin was correct and Hillary Clinton is incorrect in what she said last night. It would not have hamstrung the United States. “

Analysis in the Checkpoint column of the February 2, 2008 edition of the New York Times gives the most concise explanation I’ve found so far:

The amendment was designed to rein in the president, who many believed was embarked on an inexorable march to war. The measure required two steps. First, the United Nations would have to pass a resolution explicitly authorizing the use of force against Iraq if it did not permit thorough inspections of its weapons programs. Second, the amendment required the president to return to Congress if his United Nations efforts failed and to secure passage of what Mr. Levin called a “going-it-alone unilateral resolution.”

Former Senator Lincoln D. Chafee, Republican of Rhode Island, who was in the Senate at the time and supported the Levin amendment, wrote last year that the measure was “unambiguous and compatible with international law.”

“Ceding no rights or sovereignty to an international body, the amendment explicitly avowed America’s right to defend itself if threatened,” Mr. Chafee wrote in The New York Times. He said the demand for thorough inspections in Iraq would succeed only if pushed by a broad coalition, including Arab states.

Chaffee recalled that the vote took place only four weeks before midterm elections and that the vote to authorize military action, which took place the same night as the vote on the Levin amendment, was practically a mirror image of the latter–approved 77-23.

Later, Clinton described the atmosphere that permeated her reasoning. “I think that if you look at what was going on at the time — and certainly, I did an enormous amount of investigation and due diligence to try to determine what if any threat could flow from the history of Saddam Hussein being both an owner of and a seeker of weapons of mass destruction.

“The idea of putting inspectors back in — that was a credible idea. I believe in coercive diplomacy. I think that you try to figure out how to move bad actors in a direction that you prefer in order to avoid more dire consequences.

“I think what no one could have fully appreciated is how obsessed this president was with this particular mission. And unfortunately, I and others who warned at the time, who said, let the inspectors finish their work, you know, do not wage a preemptive war, use diplomacy, were just talking to a brick wall.”

That last statement–that no one could have appreciated how obsessed Bush was with going to war–led CNN’s Blitzer to ask if she was saying that she was naive in trusting the president, leading to a non-answer that attempted to shift the focus to subsequent Senate votes once troops were on the ground.

“The point is that I certainly respect Senator Obama making his speech in 2002 against the war. And then when it came to the Senate, we’ve had the same policy because we were both confronting the same reality of trying to deal with the consequences of George Bush’s action.

“Some people now think that this was a very clear open and shut case. We bombed them for days in 1998 because Saddam Hussein threw out inspectors. We had evidence that they had a lot of bad stuff for a very long time which we discovered after the first Gulf War,” she obfuscated.

Then, in the night’s surest WTF moment, she went on to rationalize, “Knowing that he was a megalomaniac, knowing he would not want to compete for attention with Osama bin Laden, there were legitimate concerns about what he might do. So, I think I made a reasoned judgment. Unfortunately, the person who actually got to execute the policy did not.”

No one asked a follow-up question, however, if one takes Clinton’s words at face value, she was afraid that Hussein would get jealous of bin Laden and pull something horrendous simply to get attention. That logic boggles the mind.

When Obama finally had the opportunity to address Clinton’s rather obtuse reasons for voting to authorize the Iraq War, he reminded the audience, “[T]he authorization had the title, an authorization to use U.S. military force, U.S. military force, in Iraq. I think everybody, the day after that vote was taken, understood this was a vote potentially to go to war.” In actuality, the title was “Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq,” but he was close enough.

Clinton will never be able to explain her vote to anyone’s satisfaction. Her only hope in getting out from under this is admitting her mistake, especially since she’s now against the war. As long as she keeps trying to explain her actions with increasingly bizarre rationalizations, she will always be open to criticism from any opponent, regardless of what side that opponent is on. That she voted for the war in the first place and then refused to admit her mistake speaks directly to her judgment as well as to her style of leadership. We currently have a president who steadfastly refuses to admit his errors, simply continuing down the same path whether that path is right or wrong. Some view this inflexibility as strength, however, I submit that an enlightened and mature leader admits mistakes and moves on. Clinton cannot move on because she has yet to admit her mistake even while she says she’s now against the very action she authorized. If that doesn’t speak to her judgment, I don’t know what will.

Perhaps an oft-used line from the Obama campaign is instructive in its insight as he offers, “Senator Clinton, I think, fairly, has claimed that she’s got the experience on day one. And part of the argument that I’m making in this campaign is that, it is important to be right on day one.” (Emphasis mine.)

Truer words were never spoken–BFFs be damned.

Technorati Tags: barack obama, campaign ‘08, candidates, debate, democratic, hillary clinton, legislation, iraq war

I suppose it had to happen at some point, but I kept telling myself that he could make it to the Democratic convention and then barter for a position in the Obama White House. Alas, it was not to be. John Edwards, that stalwart advocate for the rights of the poor and disenfranchised, dropped out of the race Wednesday after winning only 62 of the 452 convention delegates awarded through January 29 and no primaries or caucuses. The party requires 2,025 to secure the nomination.

In the end, the numbers just weren’t there to win the nomination even if, by some miracle, Edwards had won all the delegates in all 24 February 5th primary states. For that matter, neither could his opponents, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. They, however, had more of a headstart and momentum in their favor.

“He wanted to have a shot at being president,” said Joe Trippi, a senior adviser, in a New York Times article. “He wanted to have a chance to change people’s lives, not be a spoiler or a kingmaker and not play political games.”

That’s just the kind of guy Edwards is. He has a great deal of integrity. If he was in the race, he was in it to win and no one need worry about any ulterior motives. Edwards could be counted on to tell the straightforward truth. As he famously stated during the South Carolina Democratic debate, he represented the “grown-up” wing of the Democratic Party.

Although I subsequently decided to support Obama, it took me over a year to make up my mind. Until a few days ago, I leaned heavily toward Edwards because he most closely shared my values. I moved away from that support because, as much as I liked him (and I liked him a lot) Edwards did not inspire others the way Obama did. Obama shared the vast majority of Edwards’ values and managed to move people to action.

Be that as it may, I am very sorry to see John Edwards’ dream come to an end and wish him and his family well. It is my hope that the next Democratic administration realizes how lucky it would be to have him in its Cabinet. Now, it’s time to figure out how his 62 delegates and other supporters will re-align their allegiances. Let the bidding begin!

Those Wacky New Yorkers

John Edwards wasn’t the only potential presidential nominee to hang up his track shoes. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who led Republican polls even before he announced his candidacy for the party’s nomination in February 2006, finally figured out that he had to actually work to get people to vote for him. For some inexplicable reason, Giuliani honestly believed that all he had to do was sit in Florida as primaries and caucuses went on in other parts of the country and wait. “Wait for what?” you ask. Wait for the media and voters to rediscover that he’s there and, in the latter case, cast their votes for him–something they didn’t do in droves last Tuesday when he garnered a third-place finish behind challengers John McCain and Mitt Romney. In the seven Republican pre-convention contests thus far, Giuliani has secured exactly one delegate out of the 208 awarded. The GOP requires 1,191 to secure the nomination. Perhaps he was really sitting in Florida and waiting for more of whatever illicit drug he’s so clearly imbibing and that’s why he couldn’t get off his butt to campaign. Giuliani has endorsed Sen. John McCain.

Apparently, Rudy was in the mood to share his drugs because Marcia Pappas, head of the New York State chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW), has got it into her head that Senator Ted Kennedy has “betrayed” women by endorsing Obama instead of Clinton for the Democratic nomination. Any partial quote of the chapter’s January 28 press release would not do her diatribe justice, so I will quote it in total:

Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard. Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him, hushed the fact that he was late in his support of Title IX, the ERA, and the Family and Medical Leave Act to name a few. Women have buried their anger that his support for the compromises in No Child Left Behind and the Medicare bogus drug benefit brought us the passage of these flawed bills. We have thanked him for his ardent support of many civil rights bills, BUT women are always waiting in the wings.

And now the greatest betrayal! We are repaid with his abandonment! He’s picked the new guy over us. He’s joined the list of progressive white men who can’t or won’t handle the prospect of a woman president who is Hillary Clinton (they will of course say they support a woman president, just not “this” one). “They” are Howard Dean and Jim Dean (Yup! That’s Howard’s brother) who run DFA (that’s the group and list from the Dean campaign that we women helped start and grow). “They” are Alternet, Progressive Democrats of America, democrats.com, Kucinich lovers and all the other groups that take women’s money, say they’ll do feminist and women’s rights issues one of these days, and conveniently forget to mention women and children when they talk about poverty or human needs or America’s future.

This latest move by Kennedy, is so telling about the status of and respect for women’s rights, women’s voices, women’s equality, women’s authority and our ability – indeed, our obligation- to promote and earn and deserve and elect, unabashedly, a President that is the first woman after centuries of men who “know what’s best for us.

There are plenty of very valid reasons not to support Clinton that have nothing to do with her being a woman. There are plenty of people of both sexes who don’t want to see a female president, but Ted Kennedy isn’t among them. There are at least an equal number of people who don’t want to see a black president. Let’s not fall into the trap of comparing -isms. To do so is often counter-productive and diminishes the hardships that all of us who are not straight, white, heterosexual, able-bodied, Judeo-Christian males face.

I am very pleased to say that cooler heads have prevailed at the national office of NOW. In a contrasting press release also released January 28, the group’s president, Kim Gandy stated:

The National Organization for Women has enormous respect and admiration for Sen. Edward Kennedy (D- Mass.). For decades Sen. Kennedy has been a friend of NOW, and a leader and fighter for women’s civil and reproductive rights, and his record shows that.

Though the National Organization for Women Political Action Committee has proudly endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton for president, we respect Sen. Kennedy’s endorsement. We continue to encourage women everywhere to express their opinions and exercise their right to vote.

The Huffington Post has an interview with Pappas here.

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Anyone who knows me personally knows that the word “hope” is, for me, something to be talked about on Sunday mornings in church by someone either far too animated or far too monotonous to garner anything other than my detachment so early in the day. It is a word pregnant with desire based on inchoate facts and often placed beside that similarly-founded concept, “faith.” Neither are words that enter my speech very often. That is not to say that I don’t have beliefs and a belief system because I do. However, my beliefs are based on cold, hard, existential fact or a reasonable gut feeling based on some unconscious intangible only apparent in hindsight. This is who I am and I make no apologies.

Be that as it may, lately, the words “hope” and “faith” have begun to appear at the edges of my awareness as though dredged up from some repressed memory. More importantly, the words have brought with them their attendant concepts, bidden as they were by my growing attention to the campaign of U.S. Senator Barack Obama and the palpable hope for fruitful change his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination brings. Those concepts were never more present than today as I watched the Democratic Party’s most revered presence, Senator Edward “Teddy” Kennedy, and his niece, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, daughter of slain president John F. Kennedy, pass the torch of history to this younger man from a background completely and totally different than their own. In endorsing Obama’s candidacy, they consecrated the hopes, dreams and beliefs of someone who knows in his soul that we, as people and as Americans, can be better than we’ve been in far too long. These are the same hopes, dreams and beliefs shared by another man familiar to them, felled by an assassin’s bullet in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.

A Los Angeles Times article said of today’s endorsement event, “With Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, President Kennedy’s daughter, and his son, Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), at his side and with other members of the Kennedy family in the audience, Ted Kennedy rhetorically placed the mantle of his brother’s legacy on Obama’s shoulders.” According to the article, Kennedy went on to coax, “‘Have the courage to choose change . . . . It is time now for a new generation of leadership. It is time for Barack Obama.’”

For those of us over 40, the symbolism of all those Kennedys on stage and in the audience today doing what they’d never done before–endorse an “outside” candidate almost en masse–was unmistakably powerful. They are the closest this country comes to political royalty. Depending on where one falls in the 40+ age bracket, we are either old enough to remember JFK ourselves or his death was fresh enough to have required study of him as an agent of change. He was the hope of his generation. I remember learning about him as a child beginning in elementary school in the late 60s and early 70s. By the time I’d reached high school, there was enough distance to have a greater appreciation for his legacy, especially as it flowed from the early civil rights work of Martin Luther King, Jr. and included the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed just months after his assassination.

JFK was not the only Kennedy to attain legendary status. Not far away in our consciousness today was his younger brother, Robert F. Kennedy, attorney general under both John and Lyndon B. Johnson, the man who succeeded him. In time, history may consider Bobby even more instrumental in this country’s civil rights movement than his brother. It was Bobby who, as a candidate for the 1968 Democratic Party presidential nomination, aroused even more hope, faith and aspiration than his older brother–perhaps because, then, they were more needed. Sadly, like his brother, he was never able to reach his full potential as a leader. He was taken from the world by Sirhan Sirhan on June 4, 1968 in Los Angeles while leaving a campaign event. Teddy, the only surviving brother, inherited the mantle and, as such, it is his to give. At 76-years-old, still a master politician and tireless force, he chose to bestow his brothers’ legacy on a half-Kenyan, half-white junior senator from the Midwest who may just be the transcendent embodiment of the greatness that can be our future.

Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg was first introduced to the country as the oldest child of then-Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy and his beautiful, socialite wife Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. Those of a certain age remember a famous photograph of Caroline astride a pony not so many years after her father’s death–a father who was taken from her only five days before her sixth birthday. Now, she is a mother herself. Indeed, it was her teenaged children who first alerted her to Obama’s potential to turn politics as we know it on its head, thereby leading this country out of the morass in which we currently find ourselves.

In the January 27, 2008 New York Times op-ed piece “A President Like My Father,” Kennedy Schlossberg writes:

I have spent the past five years working in the New York City public schools and have three teenage children of my own. There is a generation coming of age that is hopeful, hard-working, innovative and imaginative. But too many of them are also hopeless, defeated and disengaged. As parents, we have a responsibility to help our children to believe in themselves and in their power to shape their future. Senator Obama is inspiring my children, my parents’ grandchildren, with that sense of possibility.

. . .

I want a president who understands that his responsibility is to articulate a vision and encourage others to achieve it; who holds himself, and those around him, to the highest ethical standards; who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and make us believe again that our country needs every one of us to get involved.

I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.

There is no doubt that Teddy knew his brother better, but Caroline knew the person he was in her heart. Having a parent die while a child is still very young tends to forever crystalize that parent in the best possible light. There was no time for the child to experience the parent as a flawed human being. The only thing the child knows is that the person who died was someone he or she loved, regardless of whether that parent deserved the child’s love. By all accounts, no matter what one chooses to say about later revelations concerning JFK’s habitual adultery or ties to organized crime, he was a very good father. That is the person Caroline knows and that is the person whose legacy she’s spent her life protecting. Consequently, that she would join (and perhaps lead) her uncle in bestowing most of the family’s blessing on Obama is profound.

Obama is nothing if not inspiring. Most of us first heard of him when he delivered an eloquent keynote address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention introducing the party’s presidential candidate, U.S. Senator John Kerry from Massachusetts. At the time, Obama was merely the Democratic candidate for the senate seat he now holds, but his ability to move an audience was easily as keen as someone who’d been before a national audience for decades. In a speech punctuated by applause on countless occasions, he said in part, “Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy; our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . . that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ That is the true genius of America, a faith.”

He did not refer to religious faith, although I’m sure that was tangential to his meaning as well, but to faith that we are better than we believe ourselves to be and that we are better than we’ve shown ourselves to be. It is a faith that we, as a nation, can uphold the ideals on which this country was founded. It doesn’t matter that the Founding Fathers were only referring to white males when they wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution because time has shown that their tenets must apply to us all if any of us are to achieve.

In that same 2004 speech, Obama enumerated the things that bring us together as opposed to tear us apart the way so many have done toward their own ends:

Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes.

Well, I say to them tonight, there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America; there’s the United States of America.

There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.

The pundits, the pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue States: red states for Republicans, blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states.

We coach little league in the blue states and, yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the red states.

There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq, and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq.

We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism, or do we participate in a politics of hope?

As I watched that speech so many years ago, I knew that we would be hearing from this young, kind of funny-looking guy from Illinois again. Neither I nor anyone else had an inkling we’d be hearing from him a scant three years later on the steps of the Illinois statehouse announcing that he planned to run for president of the United States.

In a February 10, 2007 address announcing his candidacy, Obama said:

It was here, in Springfield, where North, South, East and West come together that I was reminded of the essential decency of the
American people — where I came to believe that through this decency, we can build a more hopeful America.

And that is why, in the shadow of the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln once called on a house divided to stand together, where
common hopes and common dreams still live, I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for President of the United
States of America.

Now listen, I recognize there is a certain presumptuousness — a certain audacity — to this announcement. I know I haven’t spent a
lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I’ve been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change.

The genius of our founders is that they designed a system of government that can be changed. And we should take heart, because
we’ve changed this country before. In the face of tyranny, a band of patriots brought an Empire to its knees. In the face of
secession, we unified a nation and set the captives free. In the face of Depression, we put people back to work and lifted millions
out of poverty. We welcomed immigrants to our shores, we opened railroads to the west, we landed a man on the moon, and we
heard a King’s call to let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Each and every time, a new generation has risen up and done what’s needed to be done. Today we are called once more — and it
is time for our generation to answer that call.

For that is our unyielding faith — that in the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it.

The Obama campaign has two ubiquitous themes: the impossible is possible, and; change. Some, including a former president, dismiss him as some kind of modern day Don Quixote, naïve and fanciful. To do so is to ignore his experience as a community organizer, the brilliance of his mind, his imagination, the power of his convictions and his ability to persuade others to follow his lead. Barack Obama is the real deal that comes along, perhaps, once in a generation, if that often. We have had the often necessary battles with those who disagree. We have worn ourselves out trying to avoid fatal wounds for politics these days is a blood sport. Right now, this country is barely solvent in spirit and resources. We are at a crossroads where we can choose to continue with the same ideologies and policies that got us into this quagmire or we can reach out for something new. In my opinion, those who dismiss Obama and his candidacy as naïve and fanciful are content to have us remain on the same mentally, intellectually and spiritually exhausting path to nowhere in the arrogant belief that no one but those who have been around Washington for decades contributing to the mess have the right or ability to govern. They fail to understand that something is deeply broken and they are the ones who broke it. As a result of the damage they have wrought, our country is dispirited and disengaged. Those attitudes must change.

This country has been battered from within and without. We are in a war that seems as though it will never end and criticism of that war will often be labeled as “unpatriotic.” We live in a country where people disappear because they might have something to do with supposed terrorists. “Renditioned” is the term, meaning that they are taken to another country and tortured. If they are lucky, they may come back to their homes and families. If not, they end up at Guantanamo Bay for years on end, never charged with any crime. Those practices must change.

We have allowed those in charge to prey on our fears, manipulating us into acquiescing as they ignore our rights and invent extra-judicial and extra-constitutional rights for themselves. As I write this post, the current president is about to commit this country to military bases in a foreign land in something close to perpetuity without the consent of Congress. In his mind, this is his right to do even though the Constitution states that the Senate has to ratify all treaties. This is the same president who has repeatedly by-passed courts of competent jurisdiction to tap the phones of so-called “terrorists” and spied on the web browsing habits of millions of American citizens. He and his minions know no shame. Change must be foisted upon them.

It is time for those of us who are tired to stand up and say, “Enough!” It is time for those of us who are embarrassed by the narrow-minded folly of this administration’s actions throughout the world to believe that there must be a different, better way of doing things and to say, “No more!” It is time for those of us who cringe at the thought of one more State of the Union address delivered by a mental midget who thrives on lifting the rich up even as he stands on the backs of the poor and middle-class to use our collective leverage to stand up and throw the oppressors off, vowing to never allow these sorry circumstances to happen again. It is time to change our feelings of helplessness and despair to empowerment because we do have the ability to shape who we want to be.

It is time for us to learn how to hope. I do not advocate hoping based on nothing but a groundless desire that someone do what we want them to do or that circumstances become more favorable to our wishes. Instead, I advocate that others do as I have done. I have dispassionately looked at my choice of candidates and what each can offer in light of the world in which we find ourselves. I gathered as much information as possible in order to make a cogent decision based on facts. As reasoned as I would like to be, there are variables that cannot be solved because the future cannot accurately be foretold. Hence, we are left to our individual instincts and best judgment. In my reasoning, for example, the fact that Obama wants to bring Americans together is secondary to my desire that someone encourage and persuade the rest of the country to move to the Left because I believe that is where we, as a country, will be better off. To successfully do that, yes, it is in our interest that there is widespread agreement on this direction. Furthermore, I share the belief that we, as a individuals, must give back to others be they locally, regionally, nationally or in other parts of the world. We have been shifted back to the selfishness that was so prevalent in the 80s by a government based on the greed of a few and I believe that attitude has lead to a great many of the problems we face domestically and in our foreign policy. In this equation, the “hope” is that Barack Obama has the skills necessary to lead us into a new age of benevolence toward ourselves and toward the rest of the planet. Given his proven ability to make us want to be better than we are so far, I do not believe my hope is misplaced.

In the end, I have reverted to my belief that to fall short of one’s potential is to waste resources. That is not to in any way diminish those things we have accomplished, but to acknowledge those things we haven’t. We, as a country, have not attained the greatness of our potential because we have wasted our time and energy on the wrong things. It is time for us to wake up and understand that each of us is not only responsible for ourselves but for what happens in our country, for this is our country. It doesn’t belong to only the super-rich, the merely rich or even just the middle class. It doesn’t belong to whites or blacks or browns or reds or yellows alone. Neither does it belong to the young, the middle-aged or the old. The country in which we live belongs to all of us no matter our age, race, gender or relative wealth and if we do not succeed together, we will all fail. In order to succeed, surely, we must be better and do better than we are now. After eight years, it is time to change. It is time have the audacity of hope.

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