Joe Biden: Not Ready to Govern

Crazy Uncle Joe Biden is at it again. Over the weekend, our favorite politician again showed why the Democrats still aren’t quite ready to govern.

“We misread how bad the economy was, but we are now only about 120 days into the recovery package,” he said. “The truth of the matter was, no one anticipated, no one expected that that recovery package would in fact be in a position at this point of having to distribute the bulk of money.”

Didn’t the opposition ticket suggest a different package to cure the economy? Didn’t the Republican leadership warn that the stimulus package would not solve the problem – would even make it worse?

How many times will Hillary be proven right?  Who is competent to govern when the phone rings?  One diplomatic faux pas after another, renegging on “open government” and accountability.

If our leaders are making it up as they go along, do they have to play with so much of my money?

source:  ABC News

What Community Organizing Isn’t

If you want to make changes in your community, instead of just writing about it, you have to read Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.

I regret I didn’t get my copy until December, after Obama took the election.  I was quoting it from other people’s writings, but didn’t fully understand the import of the book.  No wonder ACORN was using it, and how Obama successfully came out of nowhere politically to beat all the insiders for the office.

Today, I found an old post by beeveedee on Community Activism, what it is and what it isn’t.  He/she quotes from Alinsky on why Palin didn’t understand the importance of being an organizer.

Advocacy / Activism – Simply being in favor of something does not make you an organizer. In fact, community organizers are, at least in their professional lives, distinguished by not really being in favor of anything except building the power of organized people. Once you’ve built power, then you don’t have to stop at being in favor of things. You can actually get them. Advocacy and activism are about being right. Organizing is about being effective.

This is why we couldn’t understand Mr Obama.  Whatever we claimed he was, he wasn’t.  He acted however he needed to act to build power.  He promised what he thought his listeners wanted, only he did it with more finesse than Ms Clinton, his primary opponent.

Question now is whether he’s got the skills to use that power.  He advocated for a portion of the electorate, most of whom lose interest between elections.  But he didn’t organize Congress.  He wasn’t there long enough.  Alinsky told us:  If you’re not there organizing, you’re just increasing the census.

Let me leave you with beeveedee’s concluding thought:

Let me say at plainly as I know how: If you are building the power of organized people to hold political and economic systems accountable, you are organizing. If you aren’t doing that, you’re not organizing.

How “The West Wing” predicted the future

There’s a post from the social networking site digg.com from user “DaviDTC” that contrasted how the 2008 presidential elections seemed to mirror the 2006 The West Wing elections that closed out the final season of the show.

London’s Daily Telegraph reported the connection on Oct 29, but I wasn’t watching closely enough.  (Maybe I didn’t want to see.)

Slate Magazine also noticed the connection.  According to their video, The West Wing writers modeled their candidate on Obama’s Senate bid.  It’s a case of life imitating fiction imitating life.

West Wing => Matt Santos, a young, minority (Latino) democrat becomes the new president
Real Life => Obama, a young minority (black) democrat becomes the new president

West Wing => Santos rises from an underdog position and beats a more experienced candidate (current VP) in a long primary campaign
Real Life => Obama rises from an underdog position and beats Hillary, a more experienced candidate in a long primary campaign

West Wing => Santos runs against an aging maverick Republican (Vinick)
Real Life => Obama runs against an aging maverick Republican (McCain)

West Wing => Santos picks an old Washington insider as his running mate (McGerry)
Real Life => Obama picks an old Washington insider (Biden) as his running mate

West Wing => Vinick picks a conservative running mate to please the Republican base
Real life => McCain picks a conservative running mate (Palin)to please the Republican base

West Wing => Santos picks a major campaign opponent (Vinick) to be the new secretary of state<
Real Life => Obama picks a major campaign opponent (Hillary) to be the new secretary of state

West Wing => Santos picks a jewish, democratic hardliner to be his Chief of Staff (Josh Lyman)
Real Life => Obama picks a jewish, democratic hardliner to be his Chief of Staff (Rahm Emanuel)

Pretty freaky!

Inaugural Racism

I am astounded at the quantity of race-related comments surrounding this election.

“I never considered attending an inauguration before.”

“I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

“One of ours has made it to the highest office.”

I know I never envisioned anyone looking like Barack Hussein Obama ever residing in the White House in my lifetime and I am so glad I lived to see it.

Barack Obama has accomplished what was thought to be the impossible and become the 44th and first African American President. This historic triumph transcended race. (even though that person made a point to mention race)

A lot of people had predicted that America could never accept his election. Stealthy forces would buy votes, steal them or otherwise overturn democracy.  Instead, Obama’s opponents have congratulated him graciously, and pledged their cooperation. So far, they even seem charmed. (Does he really think that poorly of White people, to think we think about race instead of character?)

The most telling came from an NPR commentator.

“I looked behind me and the demons of my pasts were only ghosts.”

And that’s the problem.  Most non-blacks got over their racism 20 years ago.  Most Americans under 21 never learned prejudice.  Most of the blacks on the news for the past month are still fighting the demons of their childhood and the battles told them by their parents.

It’s part of the black news experience.  Especially in the Black press.  Black Voice News says “More than a quarter of the 2.6 million jobs lost in 2008 were among African-American, even though Black workers are only 11 percent of the civilian work force….That means that nearly half of all African-American men were out of work or have permanently dropped out of the labor force. What would happen if half of all White men did not have jobs?  … why doesn’t it happen in response to shameful levels of Black joblessness?”

Could it be that, even though there are significantly more  whites than blacks in America, more blacks are in prison than whites, and blacks are less likely (proportionally) to finish high school?  Or is it the white man’s fault the blacks are being held back?

I  believe Mr Obama can indeed rise above race; I hope his supporters can as well.

Oprah Moving Close

The NY Post is reporting that Oprah Winfrey is looking to buy a house in DC.  They say she wants to be as close to Barack Obama as possible.

This is just too odd.

I don’t want this column to turn into a gossip rag, but back in Sept I did wonder publicly about their relationship.  I quoted Oprah’s former boyfriend Steadman as saying: “Michelle hated Oprah being do involved, was jealous of [Oprah's] power and resented [Oprah's] blatant flirting with Barack. Michelle even warned her husband if he didn’t start backing away from Oprah, it would put a serious crack in their marriage.”

Barack needs to be careful.  The press would have a field day if this were anything more than a good friendship.

Huckabee Writes What We Already Knew

During the primaries last year, I was among the many who wondered about Romney, whether he was able to be a leader, or only a corporate raider.

Now, opponent Mike Huckabee has given us a behind-the-scenes look that confirms our suspicions.  Do the Right Thing (subtitled “Inside the Movement That’s Bringing Common Sense Back to America”) started as a manifesto for a “smarter, fairer type of politics.”  He says it’s not right versus left, but instead it’s what he calls “vertical politics” – connecting the people with the leaders.

He also talks about how the other candidates, those that acted like leaders and those who were merely candidates.  For example, he says Romney was less than gracious in defeat during the Iowa caucus.

“We were backstage waiting for the concession from him to go on stage and do the victory speech. The networks were all pushing us, the newspapers were pushing us – everybody had deadlines,” Huckabee said. “I thought it a bit impolite to go out and claim victory without a concession. That’s an unwritten rule. It was one of those things. I was somewhat surprised. Generally, when you’re in a tight contest, there’s a tradition of calling and conceding. It’s a way to congratulate that person. In a way it characterized his campaign.

“I don’t think he ever really regarded me with much respect and ever really took me seriously.”

Huckabee also thought Romney was out of touch with voters.  In one debate, on the issue of helping the economy, Romney didn’t seem keen on helping the average American.

“I stood there in stunned silence when he went into his well-prepared, programmed answer about how we needed to invest more in high-yield stocks,” he writes. “That moment was perhaps the single most revealing of what was wrong with our party. We had people leading us who knew the country club, but not Sam’s Club.”

Huckabee is now on a sold-out booksigning tour.  A friend of mine said the lines in Oklahoma City were long and early, and the store sold out.  Huckabee brought an extra thousand books, and sold them as well.

Even so, Huckabee took time to speak to each supporter.  Brian Summers, a former campaign staffer, was noticed in the crowd, and commented on how Huckabee waited to greet everyone who wanted an autographed copy of the book.

“He stayed here until everybody was done. [It] was the same way on the campaign trail. We never left anybody in line who did not get a chance to meet him.”

Sources:  Boston Herald, Wall Street Journal Market Watch, MSNBC,

HuffPo not news

As if there was any doubt!  The Times Newspapers Ltd. reported today that “She is a close friend of Barack Obama”  She even jokes that  “I only text three people – my two teenage children and Barack Obama.”

That explains a lot.  During the bulk of the election – and especially in the final couple of months – it seemed that every other “news” article on the social media sites were from Huffington Post or Daily Kos, or one citing the other.

The Times article says HuffPo just finishing getting $15M to expand into local “news” and “investigative journalism.”

Given the extreme liberal slant of the site so far, it’s unlikely the expanded site will do any real journalism.  Just more in-your-face propoganda in a daily blog disguised as news.

GOP Abandoned their brand, says DeMint

It’s official.  The Republican Party has declared open season on scapegoats.  John McCain is next in line (they’ve already skewered Sarah Palin).

South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint says the Party lost because they abandoned their “brand” of governing:  “freedom, religious-based values and limited government.”  He places the blame on Bush, Ted Stevens and John McCain.

Bush we understand.  He was led into an unwinnable war by Rumsfeld and Cheney, and isn’t quite smart enough to figure out how to pay for no-bid war support contracts, relief for natural disasters, the Clinton mortgage meltdown, and still have enough to give enough rebates to jump-start the economy.

And Ted Stevens, the icon of old-guard corruption.  Caught taking bribes, convicted in federal court, he still denies he did anything wrong, and wants to go back to work siphoning federal funds to the only state in the Union that gives tax payments instead of collecting income tax, because there’s so much oil revenue.

But John McCain?  After winning the nomination away from 2 very religious contenders (Huckabee and Romney), he courted the religious right by picking Sarah Palin.  He did everything right except ignore the Washington Party elite.  It wasn’t his fault he lost.  The party bosses just weren’t ready for a woman who wouldn’t keep her mouth shut and stay in the background.

Unfortunately, it looks like DeMint just has a grudge agains McCain:

“McCain, who is proponent of campaign finance reform that weakened party organizations and basically put George Soros in the driver’s seat,” DeMint said. “His proposal for amnesty for illegals. His support of global warming, cap-and-trade programs that will put another burden on our economy. And of course, his embrace of the bailout right before the election was probably the nail in our coffin this last election. And he has been an opponent of drilling in ANWR, at a time when energy is so important. It really didn’t fit the label, but he was our package.”

McCain wasn’t the problem, just the package.  I’m sure that package is going to be attacked again before it’s over.  Fortunately, John McCain can take it.

Sources include:  CNN

Palin was Sabotaged

Right before the election, I wondered about what the Republican party was doing to itself.

I said that the party didn’t really want to be reformed.  It was as if they’d rather lose to a radical than win with a maverick.  Not McCain.  He knew how to take orders.  No the other Maverick.  Palin.

The party bosses made sure Palin failed.

According to a posting today from Women On the Web, Palin was shocked when she found out the price the handlers were paying to neuter her message.  She told Fox News’s Greta van Susteren that she had nothing to do with selecting the clothes and the hiring the hairdressers.

Former CBS News political analyst and McCain senior strategist, Nicolle Wallace, thought Palin’s style was too “outsider” and needed help.  (”Coming from Alaska, she needed a new look. She was a small-town girl who needed to look like a big-city girl.” )  A member of the media elite herself, she was out of touch with what made Palin special.  It was the message, not the packaging, that mattered to voters.

As for the clothes, they were provided by the stylists, who normally work for CBS  News.  They told her they were staging, and never told her the cost.  According to Palin, “they picked out some really nice clothes to borrow for a while there. But that was not anything that the Palin family would have chosen for ourselves. .. [I] did not order the clothes. Did not ask for the clothes. I would have been happy to wear my own clothes from day one.”

So you see, the Party lost on purpose.

Obama Changing Already

Barely a week into the transition period, President-elect Obama is already covering his tracks.  First step was to remove campaign promises from public view, lest someone try to hold him to them.

“Gone from Change.gov are the promises on how an Obama administration would handle 25 agenda items — from Iraq and immigration to taxes and urban policy”

This from the Washington Times, which says the Obama camp “didn’t want the new administration tied to the campaign’s list” and “realized after the fact that they didn’t want to limit their agenda/priorities to what they put on the Web site before they had a clear picture of America’s needs in a postelection environment,”

The specific promises have been replaced with a generic paragraph:

“to revive the economy, to fix our health care, education, and social security systems, to define a clear path to energy independence, to end the war in Iraq responsibly and finish our mission in Afghanistan, and to work with our allies to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, among many other domestic and foreign policy objectives.”

The site is being while the site “retools.” In other words, the message is being changed to fit the candidate’s real intentions, not what he had to say to get elected.  If you think he was going to give you everything and cost you nothing, prepare for reality.  If you thought moderation was the new watchword, hang on!

If you want to keep your own checklist, what Obama/Biden promised us is still at http://www.barackobama.com/issues/