Jack & Jill Politics

I love being a Conservative INDEPENDENT. I keep telling people that both Republicans and Democrats race bait, just in different ways. Pat B. like many Republicans fail to admit that the Affirmative Action that they abhor today was created...BY THEM. Liberals had nothing to do with the creation of these programs, it was a Republican introduced piece of legislation. Now, Republicans want to cut and run from a bad idea. What a surprise.

Damn. Rachel better watch her back.

She put that segment down.

and in American..we CLAIM all with AFRICAN roots as BLACK

which means the world and mankind.

Okey-doke. Fine with me. Then I guess we're sisters, eh.

I will be far more impressed with MSNBC when they get rid of Pat, or at the very least don't let him comment on ANYTHING that may have ANYTHING to do with RACE because the man is flat out ignorant. I was shocked when they kept him on after "A Brief for Whitey" during the campaign, at this point I'm starting to think he literally OWNS that station.

i can't figure out how people got Don Imus fired in like a WEEK (and I didn't even think he needed to be fired for his comments), but "uncle pat" is on that station almost every hour spewing his hate and hypocrisy.

But then, that's why I stopped watching 24 hour "news" stations and get my info from the Huffington Post and other blogs.

AFTERNOON OPEN THREAD IS UP!!

"Dobbs embraces Birthers"
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0709/Emb...

Lou Dobbs offers a vote of confidence in the Birther Movement.

"This isn't one of those things that goes away quite as easily as I'd thought," Dobbs says, saying that this isn't the "fringe" and that Obama hasn't produced a birth certificate. (He long ago released an official copy, the standard document. As often noted, it actually does go away quite easily.)

"I have no idea what the reality is here," says Dobbs, later wondering, "You suppose he's undoc -- no, I wouldn't use the word 'undocumented,' wouldn't be right."

Some of the posters on that link have IQs of a head of lettuce (pardon the length but the hysteria is really something to see):

"where is the long form, that indicates, hospital of birth and the doctor. he cant show it because, as his grandmother says. he was born in kenya and she was there."

"Politically he can't let us see the slot for religion says Muslim. I don't believe there was a place for his mother to fill in communist so it can't be that."

"no you all are crazy lou dobbs has a great standpoint, alot of my soldiers are very displeased by having a commander in chief who nobody really knows if he is a natural born citizen, and is everybody blind but right now we are fighting to turn iraq into a democratic nation while obama is trying to turn are's socialist, he wants to take over our heath care he already has our banks and our car companies this seems kinda like how cuba's goverment is set up, and we all know that is not a good running system, and to top off why does he want to change my constitution this great country has been for with it for years it doesnt need to be changed rewritten or anything leave it alone and another thing i'm tired of obama is always talking about what the american people want how does he know what i want has he asked me no, has he asked you no i didnt think so."

And my personal favorite:

"for the race baiters trying to diminsh this argument by screaming "racist", that card was played by the ObamThugs for so long, it's become a joke. It's not about race; it's about legitimacy. Barry Soetoro is illegitimate -- on SO MANY LEVELS, beginning with his birth. Although his Kenyan grandmother swore that he was born in Kenya and that she was present (kind of hard to forget that), his location of birth is only one concern. His father is NOT Barack Obama. His father is Frank Davis - the the certified card carrying member of the American communist party that Obama went on and on about with glowing reports in his book and to whom Barry's grandfather brought the boy when he came back from Indonesia at age 10. As noted above, Davis was a drug addict, and dealer, and convicted child molestor who wrote about the joy he got from raping his much younger girlfriend Anne. Anne Dunham?) ya think? Why else would Barry's grandpa force their friendship? THIS is the truth that Barry cannot bear to reveal!!! Imagine, his whole "African experience" a big joke! His real father is a Commie Perv? How illegitimate as an American could you GET? The most interesting part of the story - and the reason that it still has legs - is that Barry has spent millions of dollars fighting these requests for his papers. WHY??????????"

Has anyone seen Lou Dobbs' birth certificate while he's being all concerned with everyone's citizenship? Isn't his wife Hispanic? Have we seen HER birth certificate? (and how the hell does she put up with a husband like Dobbs?)

Again, this is why I don't watch 24 hour "news" stations, they are all propaganda all the time. If you want the news, learn how to navigate the internet, or watch C-SPAN.

Undocumented?

God bless the fool that calls PBO that.

Aren't you interested in politics? D I hope you got an ORIGINAL COPY of your birth certificate, not that fake azz STATE CERTIFIED COPY.

No wait, your a Repub, so you won't need to prove anything, but you better make sure you always carry your "I'm a Black Conservative, not Security" button at all times. LOL.

It's not really funny, but ya gotta laugh to keep from crying sometime right?

LOL!! Since you mention it, all I have is a scanned version of mine.

But hey, if it's good enough for the DMV here....

I halfway wonder if that's the job I'll get in the McDonnell administration: chief of security.

Racial Gap in Testing Sees Shift by Region

WASHINGTON — Historically, the achievement gap between America’s black and white students was widest in Southern states, where the legacies of slavery and segregation were reflected in extremely low math and reading scores among poor African-American children.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/education/15e...

Fox is like a clock right twice a day for the wrong reasons. They do not like Summers because they think of him as a socialist but here for some strange reason they made a cogent argument

http://emac.blogs.foxbusiness.com/2009/07/20/th...

So Pat is neva called out on his bull right?

Uh huh..

*struts out sipping some purple drank*

This is so cool. Go to http://www.whitehouse.gov click media center, then slide show. You will see Cabinet Secretaries and Senior Administration Officials Kick Off United We Serve with Service Projects Across the Country. I just love the Obama administration; He and his people operate outside of the norm.

Two Presidential Task Forces on the War on Terror Fail to Meet Deadlines

...and that should be a lesson on what happens to an executive order when it meets reality.

Obviously you are describing the entire 43rd Presidency.

No, just the opening moments of the 44th.

It won't (might not?) be an election issue...but I bet if PBO could do Jan. 22 all over again, he would've just signed the review order and left it at that.

Stop D, you did';t do that much Vicodin to impair your memory. 43 did everything he could by executive order and no one called him on it until it reached the courts. Most of it has been repealed or stopped by the courts.

Difference is Bush didn't make a campaign promise to change things within that a space of a year that-as the rest of the world is finding out-he can't do.

Stuff's done be executive order all the time. This particular one was a play to PBO's base, and by just being that and nothing more, it was a mistake...more so because now the end goal of the order is not happening.

I do not know who this female Congresswoman is but she just put Bernake on the hot seat . She is wearing a red suit and just asked the most intellignet questions all day. I'll look for her testimony on CNBC and post it.
it's 12:29 EST.

Her name is Spear(?) from California. she is on at the 9:41 mark and you can fast forward to there.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=119009017...

Jackie Speier

http://speier.house.gov/

Oh - and thank you.

It's Jackie Spier from San Mateo County, California. She succeeded Tom Lantos in the House.

And She's NO JOKE. She's one of the more progressive members and San Mateo County was lucky to get her.

Don't laugh.... can I just tell you, I finally figured out who 'cpl' was last week? I crack myself up, I tell ya.

Rob - What are you watching?

CNBC. They covered Bernake's testimony in front of the House committee lead by Barney Frank.

In discussing the healthcare issue everyone against it, especially the Republicans throws up the concern of the deficit rising 1 trillion dollars over TEN years. If you start at the takeover of Freddie and Fannie Mae in the summer of 2008 we have expanded the deficit by 23.7 trillion in ONE year just to keep the economy going. The WH really needs to point this out.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarch...

I bet the same people who are "concern" about healthcare costs are not as "concern" about defense spending. Why are the congress critters pushing for F-22 fighter jets when the DoD Sec say he do not want? If they want money, they can find out where is the $2.3 Trillion that DoD admits it lost.

That one's a jobs issue. The F-22 program, in some form, provides employment in 48 states.

Do we, from a military standpoint, need the Raptor? F-15/-16/-18s are more than capable, so maybe not. But it makes more sense to me to go ahead and finish the production run (which I think was 300 something), than to cut the line off and have to restart it during a contingency.

We bit the proverbial bullet with the auto industry knowing the fallout, it should be the same for the defense industry. If not now, when?

It's the argument over Cold War weapons systems vice "Cold war-era weapons systems." In short, if you're going to cancel a new system, be prepared to spend just as much-if not more-on the maintenance of the current system.

Defense is, by nature, expensive. Beats the hell out of the alternative.

Its not a matter of the good for the whole.

More than a quarter of senators and congressmen (151) have invested at least $196 million of their own money in companies doing business with the Department of Defense (DoD) that profit from death and destruction. There should be some conflict of interest there somewhere.

The Pentagon CAN NOT pass an audit, money going to it goes into a black hole. Def Sec. Rumsfeld admitted that the Pentagon LOST $2.3 Trillion.

The average American is asked to be responsible and tighten up their belts to support corporate welfare while these yahoos spent money with no accounting. It needs to stop.

"More than a quarter"...that's it? I'd bet that's wrong.

That's not a conflict. They probably had money tied up in automobile companies when they were booming. The Big Five have replaced the Big Three as cash cows. That's the nature of a free market.

Which makes more sense: spending an obscene amount of money now, or spending more to rush things to production (see the MRAP in OIF) when they're needed?

Numbers from FedSpending.org, a website of the watchdog group OMBWatch.

Nature of the beast that alleges to be a free market indeed, just like the gang of 6 and healthcare. And, there are the other threads where it can be shown where congress members are in the pockets of big pharma, investment banks, insurance industry, etc.

Getting back to DoD. Why ignore the Sec. of Def who is saying he don't need the F-22?

I wasn't doubting you...just surprised that it's not significantly higher. Everyone's got their hand in the military-industrial complex, either overtly or covertly.

Jobs. That's the argument over the F-22. A lot of congressmen will have to answer to their districts if the production line stops early, cause then they're all unemployed (not like you can just hop from jet to jet unless they're similar platforms, like the -15/-16 and the -14/-18 E and F variants).

And another thing that I think's up...they want to start full production on the F-35, which they can export (there's law banning foreign military sales of the F-22). It would be horribly ironic if sales of a DoD weapons system-which is always on everyone's first list of things to cut!-ends up funding, in part, something like health care.

I've never followed the money trail of DoD arms sales but do know that U.S. is #1 arms dealer. There were arguments some time back, about the military always going to Congress needing a new weapons program because of some security threat. A retort that I thought was appropriate, stop selling them in the world marketplace and we won't have to continue to upgrade/change the systems.

The military have hundreds who do nothing but force modernization planning into the out years. You would think that information would be used. Yet, it is obvious, that the distribution of money to certain districts and states defy military planning and is no more than economic bubbles. Maintaining economic bubbles create imbalances as we can see.

Personally, I would like to see the revolving door of retired military officers and congresspersons returning as lobbyist for DoD contractors closed.

That door will never be closed.

And that's one way the government makes money. DoD provides the goods, State works the deal, but the money goes into the Treasury.

So we just keep funding white elephant defense program simply because we need to keep the jobs?

Explain "state works the deal".

The Department of State handles most of the negotiations with the purchasing government.

Random recovery notes:

1. Percocet sucks. I'm a Vicodin fan. All I need is a cane and I could channel my favorite TV character.

2. Another Hell's Kitchen starts tonight...great show. If Gordon Ramsay were a woman....never mind.

3. Town, I responded to your question about the "BET=black votes!" endorsement.

You need to understand that Percocet/Vicodin/Advil...are ALL very bad for the liver. So, if you consume alcohol...you need to be wary of taking those meds.

The FDA has advised that Percocet/Vicodin be taken off the market.

www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/30/acetaminophen.fda...

Liver Damage is the reason for the ban.

http://www.oliverwillis.com/breakingnews/fda-pa...

Much as I still feel the urge to....gave up drinking in '05. Something to do with the acetaminophen, right?

Correct. Aspirin is a far better choice, except when bleeding is a concern.

acetaminophen is in Tylenol, Advil, Motrin..etc.

Be cautious and use sparingly. If, it is pain/fever...choose aspirin first.

Tylenol is useful but not in large doses or frequent use...it also can result in kidney failure...athletes take that stuff by the handfuls.

I believe it was a real culprit in Mourning's kidney loss.

The dangers of these drugs cannot be overstated when it comes to household use.

Aspirin too has dangers, but typically organ failure is not one of them.
You can bleed out, you can get a GI ulcer with overuse.

One thing even folks who take baby aspirin a day to prevent clots should know, is that it only takes 38mgs of aspirin (baby is 80mg/adult 325mg) to shut down ALL red blood cells clotting for 7 days...yep SEVEN days(.. as it takes 7 days to produce new RBC's.

So, if bruising is a problem and you take baby aspirin daily..there's why.

To make a long story short, don't think that just cause it is PRESCRIBED by a PHYSICIAN..that you are safe..

Not Vitamin M....I used to take Motrin like candy before I found out I had high blood pressure. I'm talking 3 prescription strength just to be functional daily.

There is PLENTY of data on the harmful effects of NSAIDs on the kidneys...motrin is more Cox-1 than Cox-2 inhibitor..ie less kidney impact than Celebrex. And Hypertension (HTN) is kidney disease.

We know that if an individual is normotensive and has a kidney transplant from a hypertensive individual they will have HTN...the reverse is also true.

Took you off the good stuff, eh? That sucks.

Didn't know Hell's Kitchen was back. I haven't watched an entire season since Julia (the kickass cook from Waffle House) was on. It seems like GR gets rid of all the decent cooks by the middle of the season and I lose interest.

I'm just going to have to degree with you on point 1. Percocet is da bomb, especially when taking Vicodin was like taking candy. I'll give up Percocet when they take it from my cold dead hands. *wink*

You recovering so I ain't mad at you. Take care of yourself.

LOL! @ "I'll give up Percocet when they take it from my cold dead hands. *wink*

I can work with Percocet, which is good. Might try and channel some Limbaugh while I'm on it and see what happens.

Warning: too much information follows:

Best thing, though....is having a pad to control the bleeding (yes, that pad). Doesn't stick like the gauze did.

You male or female?

LOL, male.

The incisions I have are between my thigh/groin.

blech! vomits on the floor at that visual.

LOL!! Yeah, TMI!! Whatever works!

...and like a charm, it does (though soap burns like hell, as I just found out).

Use Betadine to clean. You can buy Betadine solution at any pharmacy. It is good to have in your medicine chest. Any time you get a cut swap it with betadine before putting on the bandaid to prevent infection.

An 8oz bottle of betadine will last your family at least 5 years. So, don't be deterred by the price for 8oz, it only takes a few swaps with a Q-tip around the skin surface of the wound.

is having a pad to control the bleeding (yes, that pad). Doesn't stick like the gauze did.

Damn - D!!! ........ Ha! thought you had me! I'm getting better at not spitting out my coffee!

Never in my life did I expect to be yelled at for failure to roll and dispose, but apparently that's a big deal.

BFD!!

dispose dispose dispose FREQUENTLY

Oooh chile!! Welcome to our world!!

LOL.

I will not, however, be passing this knowledge on to my daughter. Some things are just better left to women to deal with.

ROTFLMBAO!!! Dang, D, you too funny today. Pass the Vicodin, will ya!

Too funny.
Be well, brotha

TPMCafe: The Art of Underestimating Obama (warning: really long)

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs...

When George W. Bush took office in January of 2001, Talking Points Memo did not exist.

Huffington Post did not exist.

Buzzflash.com did not exist. (Update: Buzzflash.com did exist, as of May of 2000, the first that I know of.)

Keith Olberman did not yet have a political program on MSNBC.

Rachel Maddow did not yet have a political program on MSNBC.

That Ed guy for sure didn't yet.

However, FOX news, Rush Limbaugh, and many of the other Lords of the Right-Wing Air dominated discourse, drove the political narrative, and basically provided a controversy-free platform for anything and everything the Republican president wanted to do with his Republican congress.

In fact, they made it their business--or I should say, busine$$--viciously attacking anyone who DARED oppose their god and savior, Bush, and his wondrous disciples, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al. To disagree even on minor points was to indulge in "Bush-Bashing."

Most people don't remember this, but Bush's first few months in office were so unremarkable that most pundits didn't think he'd last past a first term. Once he and his minions had rammed through massive tax cuts for all their buddies and benefactors, Bush drifted along, musing about Star Wars and privatizing Social Security, while his evil twin, Karl Rove, moved into the West Wing and set about politicizing the entire government.

Once 9/11 happened, the Lords of the Right-Wing Air freaked out along with their paranoid political bosses, sketching nightmare scenarios, shoving wars and rumors of wars down the country's collective throat with nary a voice, except for maybe Al Franken, to stop them.

(Rembember, Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them?)

When I first started prowling around, looking for sympathetic sites other than just the DNC, it was during the presidential campaign of 2004, and Talking Points Memo was just getting cranked up. HuffPo didn't exist yet. Buzzflash was already out there, along with a few others, like Media Matters. Keith Olberman had gotten underway.

And of course, Jon Stewart, God bless him.

(This is by no means meant to be a comprehensive list, believe me, and I'm not providing links and specific dates because this is just an opening, not the point of the post. I'm getting there. Bear with me.)

As their first term waned, Bush/Cheney and their wars and their spying on Americans had finally awakened a sleeping giant, and the pushback came very near to unseating him that November.

(Stealing Ohio helped. But I digress.)

By 2006 the outrages had spiraled damn near out of control. From New Orleans to Abu Ghraib, there was virtually no part of this planet that had not been royally screwed by that administration in one way or another, and the Internet became, for those of us to the left of the aisle, what talk-radio and television had been for the right in the 90's.

In 2007, when the presidential campaign got underway, opposition to All Things Right-Wing was in full-throated howl, and during the contentious contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, I noticed a trend among not just pundits and pollsters and pontificators, but also among politicians--of underestimating Obama.

In the beginning, they positively sneered.

While everyone acknowledged his public speaking gifts, they also mocked them, claiming that his inspirational speeches were "just words" and that he was basically a brash young upstart.

It wasn't racism so much as it was the classic, "Go away, kid. Ya bother me."

I saw it, from the beginning, as a generational showdown. In her final column for Newsweek, Anna Quindlan mentioned something her grown son had said regarding baby boomers in various careers: "You guys just don't quit."

What he meant was that baby boomers were clutching the levers of power in their cold, dead hands, so to speak, and were not letting go so that the next generation could step up and take their places. You see the truth of this in the Sunday morning news talk shows--most of the people sitting around a given table on-set are 50 and over.

Quinlan said she didn't want to be one of those people, so she was letting go so that some bright young voice could take her place. (Although I haven't noticed Newsweek's moving in that direction as of yet.)

Obama's methods of running a campaign were revolutionary, 21st century stuff--that is common knowledge now, and is being mimicked in elections all over the world.

But all through it, time and time again, he was not taken seriously. Even after he finally won the nomination, McCain and his people spoke of him in derisive, dismissive terms.

And when Obama won with a powerful mandate, there was this massive sort of clanking of the old gears of government, oiled by the grumblings of a whole set of congresspeople and senators and governors and lobbyists and--most especially--columnists and op-edders and pundits and pontificators...who just could not seem to believe it.

(So entrenched was this view that the lunatic fringe even invented a scenario where he didn't DESERVE to have the office he'd won in such a hard-fought way, because, after all, he's not REALLY one of us, is he? Not a REAL American, like Sarah Palin. It was all apparently some kind of gigantic conspiracy involving doctors, nurses, and state officials in Hawaii to cover up his fake birth certificate because they somehow knew that the little black baby with a white mama and a father who left town would somehow grow up to be president more than 40 years later.)

But what makes Obama's job so much more difficult, actually, is that Democrats, unlike Republicans, do not march in lock-step with a top-down directive on What to Believe Today.

Instead, they're as likely to shout at each other as they are to right-wingers.

I turned on the "Ed Show" the other day and he was practically spitting in his excitement over health care, saying that if it did not get passed with a public option, that we would need to "form a third party" because this one was too conservative for liberals like him.

I'm not arguing his point one way or the other. I'm simply using it as an example of the broad spectrum of points of view within the Democratic party. Some "Blue Dogs" are actually conservative enough to be Republicans; some moderates can swing either way, and some liberals are just as rabid in their all-or-nothing ideals as the right-wingers are of theirs.

What that means is that, on any given day, you can turn on Glenn Beck over at FOX news and see Obama raked over the coals for being weak on national security or being dictatorial on his domestic plans, and then switch over to Rachel Maddow and see him attacked for being "too much like Bush" in matters of national security or too weak in implementing his domestic program.

Opposite criticisms for the same policies!

In my memory, I've never seen a president under such an assault of constant criticism from all sides, on one thing or another, in all the years I've been following politics. (I have a journal I kept in high school where I was fretting over something LBJ had done, so that's been a while.)

The most amazing thing of all, to me, is that this 24-hour barrage of criticism, complaint, and counterargument has led to a sort of hyper-speed, where time seems to whip past so fast it's in a basic blur. We're all connected, all the time. Texts and Tweets and e-mails and constantly-changing news sites like Huffington Post are now just a touch away on the phones that fit in our pockets, and no matter whether it is a straight news site like the New York Times or a political site like Firedoglake, we are invited to express our opinions on a given matter.

And what that means is that, four months into a brand-new administration, one that inherited such a staggering plethora of constant crises both here and overseas, not seen since FDR took the oath, it seems that, on any given issue, if Obama has not YET fulfilled a campaign promise or brought about a historic and legendary piece of legislation or turned the economy completely around--well then, he's just a failure.

Josh Marshall poked fun of that mindset right after the election when, after 18 months of 24/7 campaign coverage, he took a week off with his family, and returned with a headline that said something like, "OBAMA IS A FAILURE," joking that, in a week's time, he'd already been pronounced DONE by the hyped-up pundits coming down from an adrenaline-rushed campaign-combat high.

So, really, it took the Republicans no time at all to be pronouncing his entire presidency a dismal failure--even before that first, arbitrary 100-day deadline had passed.

In that time, Obama signed a cascade of landmark legislation dealing with every kind of issue you can name, but they passed in a blur with little notice before the next big controversy.

Some say he has brought this on himself by insisting on time constraints for so many of the staggering problems facing this nation.

I mean, geez, it's so cruel and unusual, the punishment visited on congress--why, under Bush, they only had to work three-day weeks. NOW they've actually got to show up some weekends! The horror! The horror!

So he gets criticized for moving too slowly on some issues, too quickly on some, for doing too much and not doing enough, for being too weak and too strong on the same issues, and time and again, I read these snide op-eds or blogposts about how he's already blown it.

They're even claiming that the poor hapless voters who put their trust in this man are somehow already suffering from "buyer's remorse."

(Oh yeah. IF ONLY we'd put John McCain and Sarah Palin in office instead! I hear that all the time, don't you?)

It has been said that Obama plays chess while the rest of us play checkers; this is true, but inadequate to explain his methods completely. There are two articles I've seen today that provide a whole new perspective on Obama's method of governing.

One really strikes a nerve on how Obama represents a next-generation way of looking at things. (Not for nothing that whenever he gives a speech in a foreign country, he bypasses the rulers in the audience and speaks directly to the nation's young people.)

It's by Matt Bai, who has done several major pieces on Obama for the New York Times Magazine, and it's called "The Shuffle President."

In it, Bai examines what he calls the typical "dramatic narrative" of any incoming president, one in which the new guy comes in with a new agenda, and proceeds to tackle his biggest, signature issue first, which he (or someday, she) concentrates the majority of their "political capital" on one major legacy, for better or for worse. For Bush, it was tax cuts. For Clinton, it was health care. That kind of thing. Those issues define a president, and conventional wisdom is that if they fail in that first big thing, then the rest of their presidency will be a wash. (I could argue that Clinton's presidency accomplished a great deal, but that's another post.)

Obama has, of course, done no such thing. He's fought for climate change legislation, health care, finance regulations, public stimulus plans, ending one war and redesigning another, and so on. All of which has brought on a firestorm of criticism for doing too much, too fast.

Bai says such an outlook may be outdated:

Some of this itinerancy must be attributed to the sheer scope of the wreckage Obama inherited. When you've got failing banks and corporate giants, two ongoing wars, melting icecaps and mountainous health care costs, it's hard to see what gets pushed to the margins. It's also true, though, that Obama's style reflects, whether he means it to or not, a cultural shift on the importance of narrative. Americans acclimated to clicking around hundreds of cable channels or Web pages experience the world less chronologically than their parents did. The most popular books now -- business guides like "Good to Great" or social explorations like "The Tipping Point" -- allow the casual reader to absorb their insights in random order or while skimming whole chapters.

Once we listened to cohesive albums like, say, Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited," which kicked off with the snare hit of "Like a Rolling Stone," almost like a starter pistol, and worked its way toward the melancholy postscript of "Desolation Row." Now your iPod might jump mindlessly from "Desolation Row" to "Tombstone Blues," or from Dylan to Rihanna. The shrink-wrapped record has given way to the downloaded single. Wasn't this one reason for all the tributes to Michael Jackson? It's not that "Thriller" was really as singularly awesome as so many of us thought it was in high school. It's more that we know there may never be an album that epic again.

Obama is the nation's first shuffle president. He's telling lots of stories at once, and in no particular order. His agenda is fully downloadable. If what you care most about is health care, then you can jump right to that. If global warming gets you going, then click over there. It's not especially realistic to imagine that politics could cling to a linear way of rendering stories while the rest of American culture adapts to a more customized form of consumption. Obama's ethos may disconcert the older guard in Washington, but it's probably comforting to a lot of younger voters who could never be expected to listen to successive tracks, in the same order, over and over again.

Bai acknowledges the risks in this approach--and poll ups-and-downs reflect that. Some Americans, and their elected representatives, struggle to keep up--as does an exhausted White House staff. And some accomplishments, like the landmark Lilly Ledbetter Act, pretty much get quickly covered up with the next bill that gets signed or speech given.

But there may be more of a method to Obama's attention-deficit madness than most people grasp. E.J. Dionne cut through the clutter pretty decisively in this piece in the Washington Post, "Why Obama Likes His Odds."

Again, this is a generational thing--not in terms of years, but in terms of congress, literally:

It was not the soaring rhetoric that is Barack Obama's signature, but he recently offered the sound bite that may define his presidency: "Don't bet against us."

There are reasons to believe that his confident words -- they were about health-care reform but have broader application -- were not the bombast of a bluffer exaggerating the strength of his hand. They reflect the high cards that Obama holds and has only now started to play.

Of course, no one ever thought passing a health-care bill would be easy, and the effort hit some bumps last week over costs and how to cover them.

But Obama doesn't quite see things the way his more nervous Democratic allies do because he missed the years in Washington during which his party was beaten down. Many Democrats had their perceptions of political reality shaped by the failure of Bill Clinton's health proposal, the 1994 Republican revolution and the GOP's triumphalism during President Bush's first term.

That world, however, turned upside down in 2005 -- the year Obama arrived in Washington. Bush's power dissolved in the failure of his Social Security privatization proposal, the Hurricane Katrina backlash and rising disillusionment with the Iraq war. By the end of 2006, less than two years after Obama's arrival, Democrats had seized control of both houses of Congress.

The paradox is that Obama's limited experience under Republican sway makes him more comfortable than many of his allies are with wielding the power that comes from large Democratic majorities.

And it's real power.

Dionne makes an excellent point in his piece, that Democrats were pretty much battered and bruised under 12 years of Republican abuse. When you have a respected Democratic congressman who left two legs and an arm in the jungles of Vietnam and ran the Veteran's Administration under President Jimmy Carter--Max Cleland--get attacked in political ads for not being patriotic enough, and DEFEATED because of it, then you have only a HINT of the kind of battering Democrats in congress were accustomed to when they first tentatively took over in 2006.

Some of them have not held positions of power for many years, and some of them never have. Some are still intimidated by right-wingers who once pummeled them in the polls.

"The only things fellow Democrats...have to fear are the fears and insecurities bred into them when they were a battered minority," writes Dionne. "Obama is free of those doubts because he never knew them."

There are other ways Obama is often underestimated. The fact that he is willing to listen to all points of view--even encourages this--is often mistaken as a sign of some kind of weakness, as if he has no core values of his own and must try on others to see if they fit.

There is no weakness in considering all points of view, adopting those that are the most pragmatic and workable, and discarding those that are not. But in the end, it is one man who makes the decisions, and it's a mistake to think that he somehow lacks the strength of character to stand by those decisions.

Much has been made of how the Obama administration studied the Clinton health-care plan and analyzed what went wrong in implementing it, but Clinton's is not the only presidency Obama has looked at. In a piece in the Washington Post, Ceci Connolly examines how the Obama administration actually STUDIED LBJ's shepherding of Medicare through congress in 1965.

Most people wouldn't see much similarity between the Ivy League-educated, urbane, soft-spoken Obama and the crude, loudmouth, ornery Texan--but actually, there are similarities. Both came out of the U.S. Senate and both understood how congress worked, and how to "work" congress to get things done.

Since getting back from his overseas trip, Obama has put on a full-court press behind and in front of the scenes, inviting scores of congresspeople and senators to the White House for arm-twisting sessions, giving speeches and press conferences and YouTube addresses and, as he proved today, moving swiftly to capitalize on mistakes made by the opposition.

When South Carolina's dimwitted senator, Jim DeMint, made the mistake of chortling on-mic that if the Republicans could "shut down" Obama on health care, it would be his "Waterloo" and would "break him," Obama was quick to respond in a rapid-fire soundbite, that health care was not about HIM, not about politics, but that it was "breaking American families."

Look at headlines on blogposts or op-eds, and already they're talking about how Obama is "struggling," how this is make-or-break time, how the plan is "unraveling" and how this titanic battle could bring down the ship of state.

It makes good drama. Makes a good story. I used to tell good stories for a living. I understand the power of sustaining suspense, of keeping the reader breathlessly turning pages until the big climax.

We are a nation who loves our heroic narratives and our high drama, whether it be so-called "reality TV" or sports or the latest political contest. We like competition and suspense. We like to see the good guy win and the bad guy stomped.

And in recent years, we like to express our opinions, loudly and often. That's fine. It's democracy as it was meant to be.

But none of that, ultimately, has a whole helluva lot to do with President Obama and how he governs. Like most pragmatists, he understands that the perfect is the enemy of the good, and that in any compromise, everybody is going to be a little bit disappointed. The more set in your views, the more disappointed you will be.

But he didn't run for president so that he could spend the next four years running for president, as Bush did, and four years after that trying to lock in Republican power in all three branches of government.

He ran to govern.

Governing is tense and messy but good governing gets results. Those who underestimate Barack Obama do so because they are writing a dramatic narrative in their heads that he does not fit, and so they dismiss him.

But Barack Obama has thrown out that old construct and shuffled the entire medium, hurling it into a fresh, new, 21st century story, a story in which all the senses are engaged at all times, the action is fast, the results, unexpected.

In that story, history is respected, but not relived.

It's kind of like the difference between, say, an old Vaudeville variety show...and Cirque de Soleil.

Groundbreakers, trendsetters, and visionaries are always underestimated when they first burst onto the scene, whether it be in science, the arts, or politics. Throughout history, such men and women have even been imprisoned or put to death because they and their way of looking at the world are so different from most.

This is because people fear change, even when the old way made them miserable. Most of the rage we observe nowadays on blogs and talk shows and so on are simply a mask to cover fear.

There is a lot in the world today that we fear, and a great deal of expectation we've put on the shoulders of one skinny guy. It's easy to think it's just too tough for ANYONE to solve and that, ultimately, all is lost, that any time he makes a mistep, he's about to be hurled into the abyss, and along with him, our hopes and dreams.

We underestimate him and his team, though, at our own peril. He's proved that time and again. Those who do underestimate Obama often compare him to other presidents, in other times, at other points in history.

It might be smarter to compare him to HIMSELF. Where he's been. How far he's come. What he's accomplished so far. What he's working to accomplish in the future.

And how those same people sneered at him when he first ran for president.

Back when I was barely a teen and the Beatles burst onto the scene, I would spend every dime I could earn babysitting for 50 cents an hour on Beatles records and Beatle's memorabilia.

After about six months of this, my mother put her foot down and forbade me to buy anything else Beatles-related. Not records. Not magazines. Nothin'. Not even with my own money that I had earned babysitting in the neighborhood.

Her reasoning?

"They're just a fad," she declared. "A silly fad. Six months from now they'll be gone and somebody else will take their place. You are not wasting another dime of your money on those stupid Beatles."

Now, last week, my husband and daughter and I, on a company trip to Las Vegas, took in the unimaginably wonderful Cirque de Soleil show, LOVE, based on the Beatles, their history, their time, and their music. It was two hours of a fabulous phastasmagoria of color and light and sound and that glorious music. The specially-built ampitheater was sold out, on a weeknight, and it's been, what? Several years now, since the show opened.

I'm not very good at arithmetic, but I'd say it's been about 45 years since my mother pronounced the Beatles "a fad."

Nope, I wouldn't bet against Obama, either.

Great write up and analysis.

"I've never seen a president under such an assault of constant criticism from all sides, on one thing or another, in all the years I've been following politics"

Here lies the crux of the dynamic we are witnessing. When anyone tackles multi issues simultaneously then they step on toes of multiple factions. All with their own criticisms. Thus, Obama is being attacked from so many sides.

Yet, those who are astute recognize, that criticism coming from all sides, actually means what he is doing is working! The GOP could only call him a 'celebrity/good speaker" becasuse it was all they had!

I agree with you Obama is revolutionizing governing just as he did campaigning.

And that underestimating is at the peril of those with opinions that do not match the magnitude of the tasks.

There is a whole lot wrapped up in the sentiment Yes WE CAN...and Obama is demonstrating the true force of that sentiment. Stand in the way, and you will be acknowledged, but also pushed aside in the end, as the goal is greater than the sum of the multiple critical voices.

This administration is moving forward, stealthly, steadily and assuredly!!


BTW, re:
"it was during the presidential campaign of 2004, and Talking Points Memo was just getting cranked up."

Not quite, TPM had restructed it's site and reply format. It existed in 2002 and the format was far better for discourse. Alas, the trolls were relentlessly and disruptive to the old format, thus the new one which has far less discussion.

This is a must read. Thanks

This was an EXCELLENT piece.

HOF: it *was* long. But you made your point. And I am not mad atcha.

MEDIA ALERT
Charley Pride celebrates country music with Obamas
Tonight at 7:25 pm

Country Music Hall of Famer Charley Pride has been added to the list of performers for tonight's White House Music Series concert celebrating country music.

Charley will join Brad Paisley, Alison Krauss and Union Station, 40 W.O. Smith School students and a Lockeland Elementary Design Center student in having an audience with the Obamas in two events today.

As part of the White House's continuing music series that celebrates the arts and demonstrates the importance of arts education, Brad, Alison and her Union Station band members will be a part of an afternoon educational workshop. In a 2-3 p.m. session, 120 middle and high school students from across the country will learn about songwriting and about the history of country music and its cousins: bluegrass, honky-tonk and rockabilly. Michelle Obama will be in attendance.

Then at a 7:30 p.m. concert, Charley, Brad and Alison Krauss and Union Station will perform for an audience that will include President Barack Obama, who will make remarks.

Today's events are the latest in Michelle Obama's White House Music Series, which featured jazz last month and will spotlight classical music in the fall.

The Country Music Association and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum have helped arrange the celebration, which is being produced by the Grand Ole Opry and Great American Country Television.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090721/COLU...

I wish Johnny Cash could be there.

I'm glad about this, but aren't there modern Black country folk too?

Darius Rucker has made the jump to all country, all the time.

Cowboy Troy is still around! And Rissi Palmer has made an impression too!
http://www.rissipalmer.com/
Not that I'm much of a country fan-though I DO like the Dixie Chicks! :)

Obama betta get some Nation of Islam protection or SW1s, something:

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/07/21/new-boo...

All The NOI brothas need to do be able to get a Security Clearance.

They will happily catch bullets for the POTUS, and won't half-step, either. LOL

CPL has been saying this for forever. Better get some FOI.

I would have thought same, however, FOI didn't (couldn't?) save Michael.

Don't get me started on the hateful comments on that link, openly hoping for PBO's assassination. Those people are in need of serious prayer. SMH.

I thought if you publicly threatened the POTUS, that earned you at least a VISIT from the SS, and a trip to jail if it's verified.

What the hell's going on that the POTUS can be threatened with his life and no arrests are being made?

Remember what happened to that New Orleans Doctor who hollered "F- You, Cheney" when Dead-Eye Dick took his ass down to the Ninth Ward? The SS slapped the cuffs on that guy before he finishing yelling at Cheney.

And Jesse Helms actually said if Bill Clinton came to North Carolina, he'd catch a bullet. And the SS didn't even charge his ass with a felony, either.

Looks like the SS is becoming more "particular" about how they guard the POTUS, but if something happens to Obama, it WILL.BE.ON.

"Looks like the SS is becoming more "particular" about how they guard the POTUS, but if something happens to Obama, it WILL.BE.ON."

You know it, CPL. It's gonna be WWIII all up in this here U.S. of A!

No one in my law enforcement/security circles wants to "what if" that secnario very much.

I think no one does, because if the unthinkable happens the aftermath will make 1960s Watts, Detroit, Newark, and 1992 South Central look like a piddly clambake.

(not that this is any laughing matter)

....and ANYTHING that identifies me as a Republican would have to come down.
Strike the Colors, pull down the Gadsden, burn the campaign signs.

(not that this is any laughing matter)

....and ANYTHING that identifies me as a Republican would have to come down.
Strike the Colors, pull down the Gadsden, burn the campaign signs.

Assasination is "bipartisan, huh?

Agree, Town. Obama would do better to go ALL OUT "NOIR"

The Problem With Marriage Is Back People: The media is once again pointing out the failure of "Back marriage", without considering the sexism that Black women still have to deal with.

Miranda

check your email!

Chile I cant....massa dont be 'llowin no checkin of da hotmail, yahoo n aol mail ups in hur.

Miranda do we work in the same place? LMAO.

Dey tooks away mah access to online radio, youtube....its turrible, jus turrible. tawkin bout "security"...aint no dang security issue! I's done figured out how ta gits round lots a blocks...buts I's gots to be carefuh, im on sum watch lists fo sho.

LOL! Yes, sir, boss.

lol

Yes, I forgot that. Well, check it once you get off! :)

Rachel, I love you!

gotta see the Ross Douthat piece on race relations and affirmtive action in the NYT.

Can you post the link? Thanks.

Here's a reply - hat tip Prometheus 6:

An Answer To Ross Douthat’s White Washed Vision
This.

I actually agree with one of Douthat’s claims, that the formation of a new, post-racial power structure will eliminate the need and basis for affirmative action. Where I — middle aged, privileged white man/member of the academic elite as I acknowledge I am — dispute Douthat is in his belief demographic changes in themselves lead to an end to discrimination.

Case in point, Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s arrest in his own home, after providing identification for the crime of having lost his keys. Gates, for those of you who don’t know, is not merely a member of the academic elite, but as the holder of a chair at Harvard; as a major author and editor recovering African American literature from its apocryphal status; as probably the best known and most influential scholar of African American Studies in this country; as a serial host of PBS broadcasts and ubiquitous interviewee — he is fully paid up member of America’s academic aristocracy. If you are familiar with David Lodge’s Changing Places novels, he is, in certain ways, (and I mean this as a compliment) someone that Morris Zapp would have called brother.

And yet, it appears, he is guilty of the crime of AWB — Affluence While Black. Would a white professor — would I — have been arrested in the same circumstances. The counterfactual is untestable, but I’ll venture a guess and say no.

And my point? It is that Douthat matches in ignorance of the real world all of his uninformed arrogance in his judgements passed on it, and on much more accomplished people than he will ever be.

Yes, it is true that affirmative action for the victims of discrimination can morph into the same back-room privilege that puts 20 somethings with a gift for reasonable prose into a series of posts in which his lack of real world knowledge does not disqualify from opining on whatever. In that context, I was struck in Douthat’s latest column by this remark:

It was a characteristic O’Connor move: unmoored from any high constitutional principle but not without a certain political shrewdness. In a nation that aspires to colorblindness, her opinion acknowledged, affirmative action can only be justified if it comes with a statute of limitations. Allowing reverse discrimination in the wake of segregation is one thing. Discriminating in the name of diversity indefinitely is quite another.

Douthat, proud possessor of a BA from Harvard (but no law degree) manages to dismiss Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in an almost Buckley-ian sniff of disdain. The little lady is “not without a certain political shrewdness.” How generous.

The Latina, of course, fares even less well:

It’s doubtful, though, that Sonia Sotomayor shares this view.

“It is firmly my hope, as it was expressed by Justice O’Connor,” she told Senator Kohl, “that in 25 years, race in our society won’t be needed to be considered in any situation.”

But O’Connor didn’t hope; she expected. And Sotomayor’s record suggests that there’s a considerable difference between these postures — that for the nominee, as for most liberal jurists, as long as racial disparities persist, so too must racial preferences.

Such fine parsing of hope vs. expectation; for one as blessed as Mr. Douthat, expectations do not fail but to be met.

How else does someone who has never worked a non-media job, never met a payroll, never worked a political campaign, nor, heaven-forfend, organized his community — someone who, by all that’s holy, has had even less contact with the real world than his NY Times predecessor, that self-made son, William Kristol — come to his conclusion, which is that Judge Sotomayor is part of the emerging rainbow conspiracy to use the fact of past discrimination to preserve illegitimate non-white power indefinitely into the future.

I don’t know if Douthat knows his own bad faith, or actually believes that his position in society was achieved without the exercise of advantage systematically denied to most — and differentially so for those of color.

I do know that he could not imagine himself in the position Professor Gates found himself in within his own home — and for good reason. As Graham Greene had it in Our Man in Havana (that rare double: a must-read book and a must-see film) the policeman educates the English expatriate on the distinction between the torturable and non-torturable classes, remarking that his own father had been an example of the former group.

Douthat is as firmly placed in non-torturable America as it is possible to be. Gates, for all his greater accomplishment, institutional affiliation, and unmeasurably more significant wealth of experience is not.*

And that’s why affirmative action has not run its course; why O’Connor’s expectation and Sotomayor’s more modest hope that by 2028 we will inhabit the post-racial society of Martin Luther King’s dream may not in fact be realized by that deadline. For all of Douthat’s insouciant assertion that Senator Sessions and his ilk are yesterday’s men, right now, today, those men and their ilk — and their scions, like Douthat himself — retain their privileged status where it counts: both in power and on the street.

Mere numbers do not alter the fact of American life, racially charged. Demography does rule, eventually– but only an actual end to discrimination, only the creation of a society where a black man being arrested for breaking in to his own home would actually be a surprise, will mark the point at which we may say for ourselves that we’ve finally put race behind us.

Don’t believe me? Go Skip Gates’s bail.

http://inversesquare.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/a...

It's just the same ol' same ol'. Basically, he opines that by 2028, minorities (see, all the minority groups will act in lockstep because minorities don't have their own minds) will be the majority group and we won't need affirmative action anymore because by then white folks will be so enlightened and minorities will take over the power structures of the US.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/opinion/20dou...

Apparently, he doesn't have a problem with affirmative actions for kids of the muckety mucks.

The NYT comment section is not accepting any more. Here's the email I sent Douthat:

Sir, what in the world have you been smokin'? Affirmative Action is dead and has been dead for a long time! Affirmative Action -- particularly as it relates to blacks (its original target group) and other ethnic minorities -- only exist insofar as it is manifested in the institutions it is supposed to engage. Where's the beef? As far as I am concerned, Affirmative Action is the biggest scam to be perpetrated on black people since 40 acres and a mule!

As far as the U.S. becoming a country with a minority white population, we need look no further than the Republic of South Africa to see how that will play out in the U.S.

Oh by the way, Mr. Douthat, the best kept secret about AA is: the biggest beneficiaries of it have been white women -- and by extension, white men! While you may have intended to present a balanced assessment of the state of AA and its purported 'future,' your inherent white male bias is glaringly obvious within the premise and context of your argument.

At 57 years old, I've long given up on whites ever being able to see how much they are in denial about race and racial privilege in this country.

Good e-mail. I hope he reads it. NYT always shuts their comments down very quickly, especially it seems like when it is about some racist ish one of their op-ed folks wrote. The other thing that people like DOuthat don't realize is that in 2028 or whenever the tip over occurs, whites will still be the majority, there will continue to be more white folks than anyone else (especially if you count white-Hispanics) it is just that when you put all of the minoritiy groups together, as an aggregate blacks, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans and any one else who is a not part of the non-Hispanic white group will be a majority.

Industry Cash Flowed To Drafters of Reform
Key Senator Baucus Is a Leading Recipient

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 21, 2009

As liberal protesters marched outside, Sen. Max Baucus sat down inside a San Francisco mansion for a dinner of chicken cordon bleu and a discussion of landmark health-care legislation under consideration by his Senate Finance Committee.

At the table on May 26 were about 20 donors willing to fork over $10,000 or more to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, including executives of major insurance companies, hospitals and other health-care firms.

"Most people there had an agenda; they wanted the ear of a senator, and they got it," said Aaron Roland, a San Francisco health-care activist who paid half price to attend the gathering. "Money gets you in the door. The only thing the other side can do is march around and protest outside."

As his committee has taken center stage in the battle over health-care reform, Chairman Baucus (D-Mont.) has emerged as a leading recipient of Senate campaign contributions from the hospitals, insurers and other medical interest groups hoping to shape the legislation to their advantage. Health-related companies and their employees gave Baucus's political committees nearly $1.5 million in 2007 and 2008, when he began holding hearings and making preparations for this year's reform debate.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar...

Harvard Scholar Says Racial Bias Led To His Arrest

NPR- Morning Edition, July 21, 2009 · Police responding to a call about "two black males" breaking into a home near Harvard University on Thursday ended up arresting the man who lives there — Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the nation's pre-eminent African-American scholars. Gates and some colleagues call his arrest a case of racial profiling. But police in Cambridge, Mass., say they responded to a report of a woman seeing "two black males with backpacks on the porch," with one "wedging his shoulder into the door as if he was trying to force entry."

Steve Inskeep speaks with Tracy Jan, higher education reporter for The Boston Globe, for the latest details on the case.

Listen Now

http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer...

Good Day All:

Today's Conversation Is: Teaching Our Children Responsibility
http://bit.ly/o1CtZ

excerpt -

Watching the Cosby Show is a little slice of heaven. If certain African-Americans or whites thought families like the Huxtables didn't exist in the '80's when it originally aired I wonder what they'd think about it now. A show with an intact family of working professionals and happy well-adjusted kids seems foreign to many of us living in the age of Lil Wayne's BET performance and exposing his daughter to his depravity.

"A show with an intact family of working professionals and happy well-adjusted kids seems foreign..."

Actually, it was sort of foreign to Cosby himself, but I know...we're supposed to pretend it wasn't.

What did Lil Wayne do w/ or to his daughter?

Well first of all he let her attend. She's TEN. Second he let her on stage while he's performing the unbleeped version of "F(*$ Every Girl".

Rob, on the BET Awards this year, he had his pre-teen daughter and her friends dancing onstage while doing his song about wanting to f-ck every girl in the world. BET had to bleep out every other line!

Why is it I just can't stay ignorant sometimes?

LOL! You asked! Just be glad you didnt hear the explanation (or justification) the girl's mother gave as to why she and the other pre-teens were allowed on stage.

What did she say, Miranda?

You trying to get me sent to the bad chair aren't you?

Thank you, Ms. Maddow, for demonstrating the courage that none of the other journalists and commentators--yes, even the Black ones--at MSNBC could not and would not.

I'm sorry but I can't get caught up in that hype. She didn't do what she was supposed to do the night she had him on her show and that clip is "tepid" in it's response.

Exactly. I was unimpressed, too...too little tooo late, for an Oxford scholar.
She was all OVER Prop8! There was nothing tepid that night about her responses.

I'm sooo not impressed. Rachel characterizes her exchange with Bukkkanan as "heated" and "sharp". I watched it as it went down & again on YouTube. Had she been -in any way heated and/or sharp, I wouldn't have had an issue with her polite deer-in-headlights reaction.

If that old bigoted coot had those crazy eyebrows on her show spouting the same type of smack about gays, lesbians, Jews, or puppies she would NOT have been as calm or polite about the situation. So don't turn around 4 days later...

(Wait - WTF?!!?! it took her staff 4 WHOLE DAYS to debunk that crap with some old cotton pickin yesuh, massa file footage?! Where were all the minority contributions to math, science, law, philosophy and the arts that build this country? Hell, she mentioned building DC, Benjamin Banneker would've come to mind before "the White House was built by slaves" In 4 days they could've researched, contacted and interviewed the old black woman responsible for raising Bukkkanan's dumb arse- Hmmm. Maybe what we really need is some affirmative action in the dang MSNBC news room itself)

ok , like I was sayin, don't turn around 4 days later and act like this was just a regrettable moment. Boooo!

"she mentioned building DC, Benjamin Banneker would've come to mind before "the White House was built by slaves" In 4 days they could've researched, contacted and interviewed the old black woman responsible for raising Bukkkanan's dumb arse"

TELL IT!! No black of substance was included, only SLAVES and the enlisted.
There are far, far, far more notables who 'happen' to be black that could have been included. Instead we got another treatise on the history of slavery?

GMAFB!

just read your post after I made my comment. I agree 100%.

Yeah but will she have 'Uncle Pat' on her show again?

Of course she will.
Prediction: within the next two weeks.

Of course she will.

Folks were pretty riled up around here about that episode of the Rachel Maddow Show. Overall, I think she handled the situation well--this calm and researched response, delivered in a quiet studio, is the only counter to a rant by Buchanan. One can not reason with such a man, and I have a feeling he's treated like the doddering old uncle at MSNBC. He just says whatever comes to mind, and people basically pay little attention to him. There would have been no real reason to get into a tit-for-tat on-air argument with him. Better to wait until he's gone.

Well O'Donnell knows how to do it real time and so did Maddow, before she had her own show on MSNBC.

Riddle me this:

Why is Pat Buchanan treated like a doddering old uncle for what he says while Jeremiah Wright was Public Enemy 1, 2, 3 and 4?

Yes. Which is why I understand Wright's ire...he may not speak judiciously but neither does Buchannan.

I didn't say it was right...and I don't disagree with you. Jeremiah Wright (who, for the record, sounded like every other old prof I had at my beloved Alma Mater--Bison stand UP) is treated like a Public Enemy because they know there's truth in what he speaks. You can easily debunk what P Buchanan says, which is why I suspect he really isn't taken seriously and only kept around for 'teh crazy'.

And I do recall KO making Rev. Wright his "Worst Person In The World" after his last comment about Jews. Hmm....

Someone should remind KO of this....I'm sure the video is out there somewhere.

Exactly. Where's all the outrage and continuos looping for Pat KKK?

He's treated like a doddering old uncle simply because he's WHITE.

Didn't Barack Obama say in his race speech that Reverend Wright was like an uncle to him too?

Reverend Wright's treated like Public Enemy 1, 2, 3, 7 4, because he was associated with the scary, believed to be 'Muslim" Black presidential candidate, BARACK HUSSIEN OBAMA

"because he was associated with the scary, believed to be 'Muslim" Black presidential candidate, BARACK HUSSIEN OBAMA"

Yes. Big time politics. And we know it was the course of least resistance to dump Wright, in pursuit of a far bigger goal.

Don't mean it's right, but withOUt the POWER to change...we gained nothing.

The question is "why does MSNBC even employ Buchanan anymore?"

Because...they...can...

He is REDMEAT...just like the Gladiators vs. the Lions in Rome...food for entertainment.

for the comedy?

Good Morning.Your Tuesday Jam.Enjoy
Eddie Kendricks - Girl You Need a Change of Mind
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3MrNSfxbZA

DJ,

Love Eddie Kendricks. I was also listening to " Keep on Trucking"...

Woo Hoo....it takes me back, takes me back!

Love me some 'KeeponTrucking, too!

Justice, BTW, thanks for the text of the Buchanan exchange...I didn't hear him right, seemed he was sidestepping and shifting to his HS.

Either way, he was DEAD wrong.

Thanks again.

My favorite Kendricks song. Thankee.

Awe, Niceeeeeee!

Here here. Excellent choice. You really have awesome taste in music. Of course there was a time when people made great music that uplifts and gets us moving as well.

OH, Pat does know that already.
And 100% of those who say so (as Pat) DO know.

That is politics, you basically use every trick (under the belt do Apply!) to make yr point, er … to perpetuate yr position.

I never bother to call people racist, to me it is NOT an insult or reprimand, it is a weak word for an argument.
I mean European civilization (which is said to originated in greece), actually started in Africa, well if you accept Egypt as an african country, ah! …
We today all know of the influence of Egypt on ancient Greece, but it is a matter that still very much underrated on purpose.

Yeah, why make a blind eye about?

Not to mention the Greek people who were black like Homer, Aristotle, etc....

What? The Greeks were black? Really? When was this?

Every piece of humanity on the planet originated in Africa.

Gotta do better than that. That's not an explanation. Christ - at one time we all originated from water.... and?

It is an explanation for your questioning Greeks are indeed black. Are you questioning that all humanity came out of Africa, or what? If not..they black!

And, does any one DISPUTE we alloriginated from water, or do they ONLY dispute that they all came from AFRICA?

In other words, both are true, so why are AFRICAN roots an issue AND what makes you dispute Greeks WERE black?

No, I'm not questioning whether our 'origins' -all of humanity - came from Africa. It was the assertion that Homer & Aristotle were black, specifically. THAT is news to me.

And I've been to Greece several times and lived there for almost a year in Korinthos. The Greeks don't classify themselves as black. Shit, they barely classify themselves as humans. They're GREEKS! And we all know a lot of shit originated with the GREEKS!

When you reference Homer& Aristoltle..and I say they came from Africa too, what is your beef?

What I hear you saying is that you do not believe that coming out of Africa, makes you black. So I have to ask. When someone says the Greeks too are black..what do you think that means?

IOW's is your mind shackled by what you know of AA's today, vs. recognizing the HISTORIAL and anthropologic truth that all humanity is black and from Africa?

Who cares what the Greeks 'classify' themselves as?
As you well know, in America, Egyptians are classified as caucasians, are they? NO.

Greeks/romans/Egyptians...it is all the same

AFRICA!

and in American..we CLAIM all with AFRICAN roots as BLACK

which means the world and mankind.