Ridiculous. Clinton was championing diplomacy over force before we ever heard of Obama.

Not as it regarded invading Iraq. And you know that this is the point I'm making. I don't dislike Hillary, but her voice would have been too loud to ignore in the run-up if she'd had assessed the risks as Obama did and as he articulated in October 2002. Both Hillary and Bill joined in agreement with the neo-cons because this fit their own visions of US policy and in their belief of Saddam as an ongoing threat to this nation and Israel.

Its poor sport to rewrite history Corky. Obama was right for all the right reasons including disbelieving the rhetoric of immediacy being propagated by the Bushies in their rush to war. The funny thing is that far too many think this made him anti-war. As I've said since day one, Obama is a pragmatist and a realist. He doesn't wax idealic about the threats facing the US or shirk from confronting them with force if necessary. But in contrast, he doesn't use bluster and arrogance in setting forth the next direction of US foreign policy after the debacle of Bush's stewardship, if one can call it that.

Change will be defined as LISTENING to competing views and balancing them as best as intellectually possible, WITHOUT a preconcieved conclusion having already been reached by stifling all debate, into a coherent policy that minimizes risk and accenuates positive outcomes. Change NEVER meant only listening to specific voices from outside the usual channels. Those voices will be heard if they indeed produce the answers required by the problems seeking solutions, but the times still require the wisdom, both right and wrong, from experience. Those who've been wrong before sometimes articulate the best reasons for not repeating mistakes.

To grasp the logic of this strategy, start with the fact that Obama's likely national-security picks don't actually disagree very much with the foreign policy he laid out during the campaign. Jones is on record calling the Iraq war a "debacle" and urging that the detention center at Guantnamo Bay be closed "tomorrow." Gates has also reportedly pushed for closing Gitmo and for faster withdrawals from Iraq. He has called a military strike against Iran a "strategic calamity," urged diplomacy with Tehran's mullahs and denounced the "creeping militarization" of U.S. foreign policy. (You don't hear that from a Defense Secretary every day.) For her part, Hillary Clinton during the presidential campaign embraced an Iraq-withdrawal position virtually identical to Obama's. And although they fought a sound-bite war over sitting down with the leaders of countries like Iran, the two candidates' actual Iran policies were pretty much the same. Both wanted intensive diplomacy; both wanted to start it at lower levels and work up from there.

On key policy issues, Jones, Gates and Clinton aren't significantly more hawkish than Obama. What they are is more hawkish symbolically. Gates is a Republican; Jones is a Marine general who once worked for John McCain; Clinton, as Senator from New York, has gained credibility with hawkish pro-Israel groups. In other words, what distinguishes Gates, Jones and Clinton isn't their desire to shift Obama's policies to the right; it's their ability to persuade the right to give Obama's policies a chance.

The administration's blind eye to the impending crisis is emblematic of a philosophy that trusted market forces and discounted the need for government intervention in the economy. Its belief ironically has ushered in the most massive government intervention since the 1930s.

For years many people on this blog have spoken to the eerily similar governmental policies that foreshadowed the Crash of '29 and the Great Depression only to be chastized for being alarmist and anti-free markets. Now that the chickens have come home to roost, its of tanamount importance that those blinded by the perversions of greed be dragged kicking and screaming to the time-proven realization that free markets cannot police themselves anymore than a free society can exist without a strong arm of law enforcement as the guardian of personal liberty by taking said liberty from those seeking to abridge the rights of other law abiding citizens by committing criminal actions.

The Bush government was given ample warning that the policies it shouldered during this decade also contained potential toxic poisons seeking entrance into our previously regulated systems of checks and balances. Its all there in the article.

At this point its not about just assessing and targeting blame, its about making absolutely sure that these same type of policies never again rear their perverted heads as credible alternatives to what has fostered this nation's economic growth as the world's leading financial market even if that title is lost during the fallout of this crisis and sky-high US debt. Competent regulation must be the foundation of any market for which the taxpayer holds the ultimate responsibility should trouble arise. There should be no further argument against it ever unless the hand of regulation stifles healthy growth and opportunity.

I'm curious whether the many voices speaking in unison that bankruptcy should be the next step for GM, and possibly Ford and Chrysler as well, have actually bothered to account for the known blowback should such a reality come to pass. The latest numbers I've seen seem to indicate that over 30 million US jobs are related to domestic car industry support beyond those directly impacted by their current captive employees.

In my opinion, the loss of domestic auto production will be the tipping-point economic straw-break leading to a depression of historic proportions, not to mention leaving the nation completely dependant upon foreign-owned manufacturers for our national security needs as it regards vehicles the government continually needs to procure, along with its military-spec transportation needs unless specific arms of the former giants spin-off unaffected, which appears highly unlikely.

What is becoming increasingly clear is that the political lines are drawn when it comes to the federal government's responsibility to provide assistance to private business when crisis situations arise. Our economy needs more employment, it doesn't need to sacrifice our automotive production capacity on the altar of punishing mismanagement for their own hand in this debacle.

If Big Auto is allowed to perish, so will what's left of the US economy, likely taking much of the rest of the globe with it.

Good catch Doc. This issue is one of the greatest hurdles created by the right's demagougery of intellect as being effeminate as compared to the simplistic, nativistic blatherings of Joe the Plumber and the ilk of those who find Sarah Palin the perfect vessel for their anti-intellectual pronouncements and policies.

This isn't saying that the right is dumb or ignorant, its merely reflecting that intellectual debate seldom occurs and has been replaced by the proud belief that simplistic sloganeering uncorrupted by rationality and logic is more influential than spirited debate based on actual knowns and calculated possibilities arrived at by the use of measured thought and debate.

Our nation must re-embrace those who are exceptional in their capacity to intellectually tackle complicated problems through the use of logic and rationality along with a keen sense of history as a guiding force toward the search for comprehensive answers beneficial to all citizens. We've got to stop celebrating those who know little outside of recitation of the day's hypersensitive talking points and the controversial issues attached to our collective raw nerve endings due to fear and mistrust of the unknown. Our future needs to be guided by the best we have to offer, not the most popular based on superficial characteristics having nothing to do with an actual ability to cognitively confront and tackle the issues standing in our path toward real progress in creating a better reality for all citizens to flourish within.

Let's not pile our baggage on to of their tasks.

...on TOP of their tasks.

BB...

While I respect your opinion and concur slightly with your observations, overall I feel I must disagree.

Things have changed and I've seen them myself with my own eyes. Those whom you refer to are becoming a smaller and smaller percentage of the population although in certain forums their voices remain undoubtably loud. The people know that things have changed and that the arch of American history now tilts in a direction it never has before.

Are partisans going to be less partisan? I doubt it, but their numbers are subject to diminish as cooperation replaces recrimination. If the sense of "Americaness" overwhelms the pull for ideological polarization, we indeed have achieved a new and dynamic paradigm. It isn't the loudmouths we should be paying attention to, its the quiet, softer voices who's opinions are often shaped by the one's shouting at the highest decibels. Let me give you my personal example of what I've seen in less than 72 hours removed from a change in history.

Last evening, I found myself at the service counter of a local KMart here in middle America. There were three late-middle-aged women talking and I heard one say something about "I heard that 'they' want $1 million a piece...." and another lady gasped and said "we don't have that kind of money!" Of course I interjected and asked them if they were refering to "reparations" for slavery. They weren't quite sure so I explained it would be like black America suing the United States over slavery since fair wages weren't paid for all the work done by slaves. This seem to make more sense to them, and then I added, "Don't believe those types of rumors. No one serious is pushing for reparations because frankly its impossible to do. Then a most startling thing happened.

Each lady in turn stated loudly and quite indignantly, "It doesn't matter what color the President is, he's still the President as long as he works for the good of the country" as the others chimed in "it doesn't matter one bit what color he is," and of course the obligatory "He is half white too!" This caught me off guard and I shared with them how the events had changed my views of "belonging" in a way I hadn't felt before.

Of course one lady felt obligated to quote things that she'd heard from Bill O'Reilly that were factually wrong, such as the tax issue and I assured her that she would be receiving a tax cut, not a tax hike. But the larger point here is even though this lady was a walking, talking, reverberation of some of the most inane rightwing talking points she still held no animus to the change coming her way because Obama won the election.

The vast majority of Americans are not bigoted in the conventional sense, they're just fearful of the danger the perveyors of doom and gloom paint for them. When they see and experience the actual reality of the expectation of personal responsibility which is the cornerstone of Obama's ideals, they will be reassured that 'the best in people' is the catalyst of the movement, not the worst being shoveled by his detractors and their selfish interests.

The youth don't share such polarization Bob, and they are the future, not us aging relics called Boomers. Our peers have mucked it up and left a mess for those following to clean up. Let's not pile our baggage on to of their tasks. We've already caused enough damage. Take care.

And Republicans are shocked blacks didn't vote for the guy who initially fought against the MLK holiday.

The comedy just keeps getting funnier!

Its not funny Danforth, its sad.

Its very sad that hatred blinds many from seeing the opportunity to put division behind us and join together and SHARE IDEAS on how best to tackle the problems of tomorrow.

We're all Americans except for those too full of rage to see no one wants to fight anymore. The battles are over. We're on the same team, we're not enemies, we're fellow countrymen with different ideas all yearning to protect and cherish the freedoms we all enjoy.

I don't want to silence Johnson, I want to work beside him and share sweat in making America better than its ever been. I want to show him that respect and patriotism are multi-way streets not one way alleys reserved for only a few.

Let's put down the vitriole and lower the intensity and relish what we all love about America. If anything we now have lived the ideal that we truly are a land of opportunity for everyone. We are not threats to his liberty, but selfish, closed-mindedness surely is if it comes into power wanting to squelch dissent it doesn't like. There is room for everyone in this great land. May it ever be such as long as it exists.

On August 30, I posted the following quotes from serious leaders in Alaska who knew Palin:

"She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?" said Green, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla. "Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"

And this:

Anchorage Democratic state Sen. Hollis French said it's a huge mistake by McCain and "reflects very, very badly on his judgment." French said Palin's experience running the state for less than two years hasn't prepared her for this.

But actual reporters were soon finding this out for themselves - and not even conveying the gist of that to their viewers and readers. Why not?

They kept taking Palin seriously as a veep candidate when she didn't come close to even minimal standards for passing a citizenship test. I'm sorry but I think this is a terrible failing, and it is a reason the mainstream media are imploding. They let the rules of the game over-rule their duty to tell the American people the truth as they began to discover it. The truth is that Sarah Palin had no business whatever being on a national ticket. It was an insanely reckless choice. She could never adequately perform the job of president at a moment's notice, and the McCain campaign and their media enablers were putting this country and the world at serious risk by perpetuating this farce.

It was a farce. And it was a potential threat to national security if anything happened to McCain in office. But they couldn't admit a mistake because it would have killed their campaign, destroying our impression of McCain's judgment and management skills. So they kept this farce alive for two months, putting the country at potentially great risk to massage their own careers. Now they are doing all they can to dump on her. But the dumpage goes both ways. The McCain camp picked Palin and stuck with her far longer than any people who put country first would have. Every reason why she should not have been picked is a reason why McCain should never have been president.--Andrew Sullivan

I don't know when I've ever denied that Bristol is currently pregnant. There is again no verification of where she stands in said pregnancy in terms of the gestation period.

All Sarah has to do is release her records of the amnio tests that showed Trig to be retarded or any test taken during her pregnancy which showed conclusively that she is the mother.

Your belief is not a verified fact. You can believe whatever you want to and so can I absent of verifiable evidence to the contrary. Personally, I'm done with this issue until such verfication becomes available. Damn me for my belief, but move on. I have.

Its funny that in trying to be myself so actively offends others who aren't me.

I write to express myself in my own words.
I write so that others might understand how and why I feel as I do.
I write so that my words stand as testament to the fact that I indeed did live and cared about what happened all around me.

I do not write to imply that anyone is in anyway less than myself. We are all singular parts of a larger whole.

I do not write to try and impress anyone nor embarass anyone merely trying to express their own feelings in their own words.

I wrote above why the parentage of Trig is a controversial issue in my mind, and much of it is based on whether someone running for the office of VP is telling the truth to those who're trying to decide whether or not to hire her based upon the singular decision made by John McCain. Until Tuesday, no one outside of Alaska had ever cast a vote for or against Sarah Palin, but yet there she was hoping to land a heartbeat away from the most important office in the land.

When Sarah Palin requested that a previous opponent produce a marriage license because the women didn't take her husband's last name, Sarah herself placed any such inquiries right out in the open. There should be no outrage over holding her to the same standards she herself held her own opponent.

The fact that Sarah Palin refused to release any medical records which could easily put to rest any questions in this area when the other candidates did release information only places further questions as to the reasons why. I do not care whether Sarah is the mother or grandmother of Trig. I care whether she has lied to her constituents and whether she lied to the American people. As of this second, there has yet to be ONE SINGLE VERIFIABLE REPORT that Sarah is Trig's biological mother. As I stated earlier in this thread, IT WAS MY FAULT for even subjecting myself to a sabatical based on the word of a singular political operative and not documented facts.

The facts are there is no verification as to whether Trig is Sarah's or not. There is no record of his birth on the hospital's website. There are no documents attributed to those who assited the birth. There is only a non-notarized statement from Sarah's physician with no corroborating evidence.

Soheifox, if you want to claim I'm guilty, then it is up to you to provide evidence of my guilt. And until there are records released proving that I'm wrong, your contentions are merely that, your contentions. They are not verified facts nor will they ever be. Sarah Palin is the person claiming that Barack Obama "palled around with a terrorist." Said terrorist is now quoted in national publications that he scantly knows Obama, much less "palled around" with him, so Palin's veracity has already been shown lacking. Until I'm proven wrong, there is no need for any mea culpas on my part. If the time comes, I will be true to my word. Believe it or not, I do not live to post on this blog. I enjoy it it at times, but it does not define my life nor my pleasures.

Release the hate dude, I'm just one man with my own ideas. I'm no threat to anything you want or have. I have no idea why you put so much emotion into whether I keep my word or not on an anonymous blog when I removed myself before I had any real reason to.

I am sensing a little bit of a but you cant make fun of him because he is still black from your comments. is that off base and how??

No, one can make fun of ANYONE if said fun is obvious and not made-up solely to denigrate someone who isn't liked.

I think the best humor comes from FACTS and not created things that may not be true. I think that John Stewart asking Obama if his "white side" might take pause when he stepped into the election booth because of the Bradley Effect IS funny. Obama played along and said that he'd been working on that and still isn't sure what his white side might do. That was funny because it was based on true (or allegedly true) facts and events. It wouldn't be funny to make fun of him for not supporting estranged relatives he likely don't even know exist or claiming he's a terrorist sympathizer because there is no hard truth to those things.

Again BLT, the litmus test with me is whether a comedian is joking because they're truly innately racist or merely because they find humor in factual situations that could apply to anyone. And it doesn't matter what race one is for that test to be applied. Its fair game to make fun about Obama for what he is. It isn't funny to make light of him for what he demonstrably isn't. Same applies to all.

BLT...

Thanks for the anecdote. Unfortunately there have been reams of such letters throughout the years, but I believe for the most part those days have now past.

Humor is a difficult barometer from which to assess how a society has changed. Many white people may not even hear the plethora of black comedians making jokes about the stereotypes prevalent in black America. I remember the first time I ever saw Chris Tucker on the old Def Comedy Jam on HBO. He was talking about having snatched a purse and then finding pictures of his own family inside the woman's wallet. Then of course came the punchline, "Damn, Mom, I didn't know that was YOU..." as he feigned cowering as she pummeled him with blows.

The problem with humor against another ethnic group lies in whether the teller is perceived as racist or merely a comedian telling jokes. I never had a problem with "Dice" Clay because he was playing a role, he wasn't the man he portrayed. The character was funny, but I never thought Andrew was the same as Dice. I, among many others, still sight Blazing Saddles as one of the funniest "racial" movies ever made because it makes fun of ALL stereotypes, not just those of any one group.

In general, I think you'll see more humor as the "mainstream" becomes more diverse. Its just human nature to make fun of those who hold the seats of power. Its never quite as funny to make fun of those merely trying to keep up and to get a hold of equal opportunities of achievements. I think it would be the same way if the races were reversed. There has always been a hegemonic nature to this issue and there likely always will be.

Thanks everyone! I am truly humbled by all your kind words and sentiments. I hope people realize how significant the events of the past few days have been for so many Americans who haven't felt a part of the positive American story like they should have. Sometimes I'm ready to scream when pundits and commentators miss the obvious context these events fall into as they try to analyze why what happened did happen.

America has allowed blacks to entertain them with song and dance, they've allowed us to excel at athletic endeavors, wrapping themselves in American flags on foreign fields while exclaiming "U-S-A, U-S-A..." as we compare medal counts to Russians and Red Chinese. We've even allowed a black man to run our military, the ultimate role of protecting this nation from our enemies. But until yesterday, America had never found a superior individual of color, a child of the true melting pot, someone who had risen the very way the meritocracy has always deemed one should rise, though demonstrable achievements measured against all peers, placing oneself as the best of the very best.

The most important point of Obama's rise to the presidency isn't that he is a "first", its that his personal "exceptionalism" lies as the root cause of his election, not merely his heritage. Barack has achieved at a level few persons of ANY color have achieved success at. America looked at their choices and made their decisions not based upon their fears and preconceptions, they made their choice based on the calm, rational realization that one candidate seemed to combine the critical mix of intelligence, temperment, curiousity, articulation, and vision in measurements that far exceeded his opponents.

The beauty of Obama is that only 40 years to the moment America was torn asunder by the tragedy of assassination and cities were set aflame due to the blowback of the efforts of granting equality to all citizens, America looked beyond the past and recognized that indeed our future may be best served by someone steeled in the furnace of our most heated ovens which heretofore melted most who tried to withstand the withering fires. He took both the principled criticisms and the ones borne of fear and abject racism. He didn't flinch and he didn't call foul. He just played the game with the realization that when the fourth quarter came, and winning time rolled around, he was prepared in a way that had taken all his life to develop. He knew he could deliver when others would wilt and fall away. And deliver he did. But it wasn't he who delivered us.

It had always been "us" who delivered him. We have chosen a new destiny not because we were bent on breaking the old paradigms. We've chosen this destiny because we believe with all our faculties that "this man" at "this moment" is the very best we have to offer for changing the arc of our collective history to a path more beneficial to everyone, not just specific interest groups. We trust this son of our own history to change our future and shape it more positively than our recent past. We have chosen the very best this nation has to offer both ourselves and this strife-torn globe for the heady task of moving from where we are to where we want to be. We didn't take a leap of faith, we merely walked across a bridge that took 47 years to build and one that we hadn't used before, taking us to a place we've never been but always existed nonetheless. We've changed this nation forever by being smart enough to make the wisest choice we had at this moment. That is the import of our decision above all else. It was the best one we could have made.

First off, this would be my first post. Second, and its a second most people truly interested in finding out the truth would back, is that Sarah Palin has yet to produce ONE SINGLE medical record regarding her "birth" of Trig. The hospital records show no birth, and there are no records of her pregnancy including the amnio. These are her personal perogatives, but asking America to place one next to the President would seem to preclude releasing pertainent records that would put all curiousity to rest.

My original point was that her veracity was being questioned and that the McCain camp didn't properly vet her before chosing her as VP. The word of a campaign spokesperson is not gospel nor should it be taken as such. The fault was mine for taking a self-subscribed sabatical without verification that indeed I was wrong about the supposition. The fact that in her own quest for elected office Sarah Palin forced an opponent to produce a marriage license to prove she was married because said opponent kept her maiden name is all the more reason asking for evidence of a simple birth should not be considered beyond the realm of decorum or the expected when other conflicting information draws that conclusion into question.

But that is not why I'm here, so have at my carcass hypocritical vultures. If my flesh satiates your hunger, then it is my joy to provide you the feast. For everyone else, thanks, but I'm not returning to my former status. The moments events were far too important for me not to express my feelings to those who I know and respect. Take care.