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Remember the 2 recent South Carolina politicians who basically said it would be doom and gloom to have a black nominee for President on the ticket? Well check out this video at about 28:40 into it where the rebuttal starts.
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Recap? My speakers aren't working right now and I can't figure out why (yes, I checked the volume controls in Windows, the power source and connections....).
He is such a major rock star. I wish he felt different about taxes, and instead wanted to create revenue by closing loopholes and cutting out pork and earmarks. I can reconcile differences in thought on abortion between he and I, but the tax issue bugs me and would play a part in whether I'd vote for him.
But he handled that issue (the South Carolina Dems comments) very well, and created himself another little chant for the crowds. Rock freaking star.
Recap? My speakers aren't working right now and I can't figure out why (yes, I checked the volume controls in Windows, the power source and connections....).
He basically started going through a littany that we will probably see more of it in the future. He went through a list of items in our history about people being told they couldn't do something and how they responded with a "yes we can" attitude. He referred to black people being told they couldn't sit at the lunch counter, women being told they couldn't vote, etc. I love his positive attitude.
ORANGEBURG, S.C. Feb 17, 2007 (AP)— White House hopeful Barack Obama, taking a fellow black lawmaker to task, said Saturday voters are ready to elect a black president.
"At every turn in our history, there's been somebody who said we can't," the Democratic senator from Illinois told a nearly all-black audience of about 2,000 at Claflin University.
"Some people said we can't do this, we can't do that, so we shouldn't even try. If I have your support, if I have your energy and involvement and commitment and ideas, then I'm here to tell you, 'Yes we can.'"
The comments drew the loudest ovation during a question-and-answer session in his first campaign swing through South Carolina, an early voting state.
The first-in-the-South contest here is seen as a test of candidates' abilities to reach black voters. Half of the state's Democratic primary voters are black.
Obama responded to comments this past week by Democratic state Sen. Robert Ford of Charleston, who helped mobilize black voters for former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards in 2004, but has switched to Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2008 presidential race.
Ford said Tuesday that Obama, a first-term senator, has much to prove. "The media made this guy bigger than life," Ford said. "This guy isn't tested and they made him a rock star."
Ford said one reason he was supporting Clinton, the New York senator, is that he is skeptical Obama can win the presidency and worries his nomination could hurt other Democratic candidates.
"Every Democrat running on that ticket next year would lose because he's black and he's top of the ticket. We'd lose the House and the Senate and the governors and everything," Ford said.
Ford drew widespread criticism for his comment and later apologized.
U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., introduced Obama, saying "Run, Barack, run."
"Obama is able to run today because Rosa Parks sat down," Clyburn said. "He is able to run today because Septima Clark stood up."
Parks, in 1955, refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Ala., sparking a mass boycott by thousands, mainly black women domestic workers who had long filled the buses' back seats.
I liked his rebuttal when the Prime Minister of Australia said that Obama having a proposed deadline for drawing US troops from Iraq was tantamount to giving Iraq over to terrorism. It was basically, 'Thank you for taking me seriously enough as a candidate that you attack my positions -- and what, Australia has about 2000 troops in Iraq? If winning in Iraq and securing Iraq are that important to Australia, I invite you to send about 20,000 troops right now, so we don't have to send any more of our young men and women.
__________________ Hoping for Audacity
Well, in truth I'm actually not a total hawk, but I'm not a dove either -- I'm more like an angry pigeon flying over the political arena after a really big meal. -Abba Gav
I liked his rebuttal when the Prime Minister of Australia said that Obama having a proposed deadline for drawing US troops from Iraq was tantamount to giving Iraq over to terrorism. It was basically, 'Thank you for taking me seriously enough as a candidate that you attack my positions -- and what, Australia has about 2000 troops in Iraq? If winning in Iraq and securing Iraq are that important to Australia, I invite you to send about 20,000 troops right now, so we don't have to send any more of our young men and women.
I liked his rebuttal when the Prime Minister of Australia said that Obama having a proposed deadline for drawing US troops from Iraq was tantamount to giving Iraq over to terrorism. It was basically, 'Thank you for taking me seriously enough as a candidate that you attack my positions -- and what, Australia has about 2000 troops in Iraq? If winning in Iraq and securing Iraq are that important to Australia, I invite you to send about 20,000 troops right now, so we don't have to send any more of our young men and women.
Clarence Page: Obama's, Biden's serious ideas
By Clarence Page
Tribune Media Services
Article Last Updated: 02/13/2007 06:27:47 PM MST
WASHINGTON - I hope Sen. Barack Obama remembered to send Australia's Prime Minister John Howard a Valentine's Day card. The PM has done the Democratic presidential hopeful from Illinois a tremendous favor: He has treated Obama's Iraq ideas seriously.
Perhaps you missed this story amidst cable TV's obsessive search for the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby.
During an Australian television interview, Howard stuck his nose into American politics with a cheap charge that Obama's Iraq war proposal was a gift to terrorists. "If I was running al Qaeda in Iraq, I would put a circle around March 2008, and pray, as many times as possible, for a victory not only for Obama, but also for the Democrats," he said.
Has Howard, as they might say Down Under, gone "dotty"? Not quite, his apologists note, although he is under pressure. Recent polls show him lagging in his reelection bid this year. He also is a close ally of President Bush, which can be frustrating these days. So he's playing the anti-terror card, even at the risk of recklessly injecting himself into an allied country's domestic party politics.
Obama called the prime minister's bluff, sounding like a guy from a windy city where politics ain't beanbag. He pointed out that Australia has deployed 1,400 troops to Iraq compared to almost 140,000 who are there from the U.S. and gave Howard a challenge: "If he's ginned up to fight the good fight in Iraq. I would suggest he call up another 20,000 Australians and send them up to Iraq." Take that, Mr. PM.
Yet, for all of his public outrage, Obama should be privately delighted. After weeks of public fascination with his biography, his grade schools, his Hawaiian vacation photos and his nicotine withdrawal, it's about time somebody cared about his ideas.
I don't know if Howard's view will help him in Australia, but Americans know a losing cause when they see one. A new Gallup poll here says 63 percent of Americans want a timetable set to bring our troops home by the end of 2008. Even among those who back Bush's troop increase in the poll, almost a third said they want a timetable for pulling out.
Obama calls for a "phased redeployment" of all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008 to pressure the Iraqis toward a political settlement and reduction in violence.
That's in accord with the bipartisan Iraq Study Group Report co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker, a Republican, and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, an Indiana Democrat.
Their report concluded that, "By the first quarter of 2008, subject to unexpected developments in the security situation on the ground, all combat brigades not necessary for force protection could be out of Iraq."
Howard might prefer the cautious two-step that frontrunner New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has been dancing on the war issue, but it frustrates many in her party's base. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina has been coming up fast on the outside in the Democratic horserace, especially in Iowa polls, with his call for an immediate withdrawal.
Obama, by contrast, positions himself as a voice for reason and "hope," his big theme these days, laying out rewards and penalties for Iraqis to strengthen their own security. His plan allows for a limited number of U.S. troops to remain for counter-terrorism and for training Iraqi security forces. The withdrawal also could be suspended temporarily as Iraqis meet goals already set by the Bush administration.
Ironically, the best hope and most widely praised suggestion for Iraq comes from Sen. Joseph Biden, the Delaware Democrat who recently embarrassed himself with his unintentionally condescending descriptions of Obama as "articulate" and "clean."
Had Biden, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, not stepped on his own announcement of presidential candidacy in that way, he might have launched a useful debate. He calls for a "soft partitioning" of Iraq between three largely autonomous regions for Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds under "a viable central government" in Baghdad.
If Bush's long-shot surge and counterinsurgency effort fails, Biden's plan, drawn up with the help of Leslie Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, offers the sort of compromise that has proved so elusive. It's not a perfect plan but it's the best of many imperfect proposals.
Just imagine: A serious debate could end up with a marriage of the Obama and Biden proposals. Unfortunately, we in the media tend to be drawn to conflict more than to compromise. Too often, it just doesn't seem like news when people find themselves in serious agreement. Newsmakers seem more interesting when they sound dotty. ---
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