Did I Forget To Call Kwame Stupid?

By Jove, I did forget to post on this foolishness! Kwame Kilpatrick is STUPID!

Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was charged with perjury and other offenses Monday — and got a stern lecture about the importance of telling the truth — after a trove of raunchy text messages contradicted his sworn denials of an affair with his chief aide.

The 37-year-old "Hip-Hop Mayor" who brought youth and vitality to the job in this struggling city of 900,000 could get up to 15 years in prison for perjury alone and would be automatically expelled from office if convicted.

Ignoring mounting demands that he step down, Kilpatrick said: "I look forward to complete exoneration once all the facts have been brought forth. I will remain focused on moving this city forward."

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy brought charges of perjury, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and misconduct against the popular but polarizing mayor. In announcing the charges, she delivered something of a civics lesson on the importance of telling the truth under oath.

"Some have suggested that the issues in this case are personal or private," said Worthy, like the mayor a Democrat. "Our investigation has clearly shown that public dollars were used, people's lives were ruined, the justice system severely mocked and the public trust trampled on."

Condoleezza Coming Out Of Her Shell

Condi doesn't have much longer to serve the worst President on earth. Clearly, I vehemently disagree with her foreign policy views but I've never put her in the same category with the Clarence Thomases and Ward Connerlys of the world. Her comments on Obama's speech were refreshing.

Condoleezza Rice today entered the race debate that has been a simmering undercurrent of the presidential campaign when she said it had been "important" for Barack Obama to give his landmark speech on race and defended the patriotism of African Americans.

The US secretary of state also decried the "birth defect" of slavery that she said has left Americans struggling to confront racism.

"Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together - Europeans by choice and Africans in chains," Rice told the Washington Times. "That's not a very pretty reality of our founding."

Rice, the second African-American and second female in US history to lead the state department, grew up in Alabama at the height of the civil rights movement in America. One of her childhood playmates was killed in an infamous 1963 church bombing committed by white supremacists, whom Rice has called "terrorists".

[...]

"What I would like understood as a black American is that black Americans loved and had faith in this country even when this country didn't love and have faith in them - and that's our legacy," Rice said.

But now of course that means that she's offended the freeper types. Of course they "aren't racist" but look at the kind of venom they spit. How quickly they turn on blacks who admit to being black.

Ms. Rice.....your forefathers were betrayed by their brothers....and sold into slavery. The white man brought them here to help settle this country..... and God blessed you in that white men helped set them free......so you could be blessed even more......by being born to live in the greatest nation on earth....with freedom and prosperity.

She's got bad teeth, no boobs and loves the Palestinians and other enemies of Israel and the U.S.! How could ANY patriot want Sleeza for VP?

I didn't realize Rice was hoping to run with Obama, yet that's how bad these comments are. This is a sad commentary. I used to respect this woman. Just dang...

Racism of a couple a hundred years ago is a birth defect? Well honey, you just made the case for euthanasia. What a maroon.

Ms Rice, you're a typical RINO. Yes your people came here as Negro slaves, were freed by the courage of one true Republican but then again enslaved to a new Master - the Federal government which drugged your people back into submission with handouts that sent a message that "You're incapable of making life better for yourself; you need government in order to survive." So Ms Rice, direct your comments to the Democrat party and its co-leader Barak Hussein Obama and his socialism and what it means for your people. Oh, one last question, can you tell us why the Asian Americans and Latino Americans in the same span of time that the "Great Society" has been in place, have managed to integrate themselves into societal entrepreneurship so effectively - why is having dark skin more of a handicap than having slanted eyes or being unable to speak the language?

Is she getting ready to back the candidacy of B. Hussein Obama, or what????

America the beautiful, huh?

When Will They Learn?

Why don't these tokens realize that they can't play the same game and win?

HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson, his tenure tarnished by allegations of political favoritism and a criminal investigation, announced his resignation Monday amid the wreckage of the national housing crisis.

He leaves behind a trail of unanswered questions about whether he tilted the Department of Housing and Urban Development toward Republican contractors and cronies.

The move comes at a shaky time for the economy, with soaring mortgage foreclosures imperiling the nation's credit markets.

I Forgot That Pat Buchanan Is An Anti-Semite

The neo-cons have totally taken over the GOP but old time conservatives like Pat Buchanan's past views on Israel and Jews were downright appalling. Ishmel Reed works my nerves on occassion but this time I agree with him.

Nothing is more uplifting than watching MSNBC's "Morning Joe," where wealthy Anglicized Irish Americans like Joe Scarborough, Chris Matthews, Tim "Little Russ" Russert and Pat Buchanan hold forth on the topic of race. During the week beginning March, 17, 2008, the talk was all about whether Barack Obama should distance himself from Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Presumably in the same manner that they distanced themselves from Don Imus. Buchanan has been awarded more time to discuss race and the bigotry of Rev. Wright than the scores of Black intellectuals and scholars, who could provide some insight, combined.

According to U. S. News & World Report (1/16/92), Pat Buchanan said In 1977 that Hitler was "a political organizer of the first rank," a man of "extraordinary gifts," "great courage" and elements of "genius." Yet there was his sister, Bay, debating Roland Martin, one of a handful of token Black commentators with any kind of bite. This was on CNN, March 21. She was in a tizzy about the Rev. 's anti Americanism, yet Hitler, her brother's hero, was responsible for the deaths of 120,000 Americans.

Why doesn't Dan Abrams at MSNBC just go ahead and offer Minister Louis Farrakhan a commentary? Why isn't the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Congress, so quick to pounce upon Blacks who say silly anti Semitic things, all over MSNBC for Buchanan's position as Dan Abram's resident authority on race.

I have to laugh at his referring to MSNBC's key pundits as "Anglicized Irish Americans." I had just responded to an email where we were discussing Pat Buchanan's crazy comments last week regarding how blacks should be grateful for having been brought to America in chains. I basically said that he and his ilk had sold their souls to the devil in order to be accepted as WASPs. I'm glad someone else gets my line of thinking. But, I still cannot see why Pat Buchanan is still being given such a prominent voice in the media (not to mention his many runs for President).

Obama's After My Heart

I can't bowl either baby!

No, he can't! Bowl, that is.

Barack hit the lanes in Pennsylvania yesterday, where he bowled a 37. He did, however, don a size 13½ bowling shoe. You know what they say about candidates with big feet ...

Big tax breaks!

Matter Of Time

It's just a matter of time before the Green Zone turns into a ball of fire.

The fortified Green Zone in Iraq's capital came under mortar or rocket attack again Monday, despite the call a day before from a radical Shiite cleric for his fighters to stand down.

A key adviser to Iraq's prime minister, meanwhile, said military operations in an oil-rich southern city besieged by nearly a week of fighting will end within days.

Sami al-Askari also said most of Basra, where the government attempted to crack down on militia fighters, was "under control" a day after Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr took his Mahdi Army off the streets.

Fighting between al-Sadr's followers and Iraqi and coalition troops raged since Tuesday, when Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki began military operations against the group and vowed to remain in Basra until the mission was accomplished. The battles there sparked violence in other southern cities and in Baghdad.

"Before the end of this week, the operations will come to an end and al-Maliki will be back to Baghdad," said al-Askari, though he gave no exact date for the prime minister's return.

Despite the relative calm that prevailed in Basra, rockets or mortars again landed in the Green Zone, the area housing the U.S. and British embassies along with much of the Iraqi government.

Rev. Wright's White Member

The Chicago Tribune published this opinion piece last week. It is from a Trinity member who happens to be white. If he isn't offended by Rev. Wright's message, why are people who've never set foot in his church (and probably wouldn't even set foot in the south side neighborhood where it is located)? Perhaps people should slow their roll and listen to someone with a first hand view.

I have been a member of Trinity, a church with an almost entirely African-American congregation, for more than 25 years. I am, however, a white male. From a decidedly different perspective than most Trinitarians, I have heard Wright preach about racial inequality many times, in unvarnished and passionate terms.

In Obama's recent speech in Philadelphia on racial issues confronting our nation, the senator eloquently observed that Rev. Wright's sermons reflect the difficult experiences and frustrations of a generation.

It is important that we understand the dynamic Obama spoke about.

It also is important that we not let media coverage and political gamesmanship isolate selected remarks by Wright to the exclusion of anything else that might define him more accurately and completely.

I find it very troubling that we have distilled Wright's 35-year ministry to a few phrases; no context whatsoever has been offered or explored.

I do have a bit of personal context. About 26 years ago, I became engaged to my wife, an African-American. She was at that time and remains a member of Trinity. Somewhere between the ring and the altar, my wife had second thoughts and broke off the engagement. Her decision was grounded in race: So committed to black causes, the daughter of parents subjected to unthinkable prejudice over the years, an "up-and-coming" leader in the young black community, how could she marry a white man?

Rev. Wright, whom I had met only in passing at the time and who was equally if not more outspoken about "black" issues than he is today, somehow found out about my wife's decision. He called and asked her to "drop everything" and meet with him at Trinity. He spent four hours explaining his reaction to her decision. Racial divisions were unacceptable, he said, no matter how great or prolonged the pain that caused them. God would not want us to assess or make decisions about people based on race. The world could make progress on issues of race only if people were prepared to break down barriers that were much easier to let stand.

Rev. Wright was pretty persuasive; he presided over our wedding a few months later. In the years since, I have watched in utter awe as Wright has overseen and constructed a support system for thousands in need on the South Side that is far more impressive and effective than any governmental program possibly could approach. And never in my life have I been welcomed more warmly and sincerely than at Trinity. Never.

Black Liberation Theology

Whether you understand its roots or agree/disagree with it, Fresh Air had the founder of black liberation theology on today.
Very interesting ...

The Rev. James Cone is the founder of black liberation theology. In an interview with Terry Gross, Cone explains the movement, which has roots in 1960s civil-rights activism and draws inspiration from both the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, as "mainly a theology that sees God as concerned with the poor and the weak."

Cone also comments on controversial remarks made by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's former minister and a black liberation theology
proponent.

In a now-famous 2003 sermon,Wright charged that an ingrained, abiding racism in American society is at fault for many of the troubles African-Americans face, and he thundered, "No, no, no, not God bless America! God damn America — that's in the Bible — for killing innocent people."

Cone explains that at the core of black liberation theology is an effort — in a white-dominated society, in which black has been defined as evil — to make the gospel relevant to the life and struggles of American blacks, and to help black people learn to love themselves. It's an attempt, he says "to teach people how to be both unapologetically black and Christian at the same time."

Killed In The Green Zone?

How are things safer?

A U.S. government employee was killed and four others were wounded in Baghdad this week by rocket attacks on the Green Zone diplomatic and government compound, the U.S. State Department said on Thursday.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the casualties occurred during four days of rocket attacks on the compound in central Baghdad beginning on Sunday.

"During this period a total of five U.S. government employees have been injured seriously. One of those five has died from his injuries," McCormack told a news briefing.

He said the person killed was believed to be a U.S. Army contract employee.

Mortar bombs and rockets have exploded across the capital for days. A strike near the U.S. Embassy in the fortified Green Zone on Thursday sent a column of black smoke into the sky.

McCormack said Green Zone rocket attacks occurred on Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. He blamed the attacks on "extremist criminal elements."

The killing in the Green Zone took place during the same week that the number of U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion reached 4,000.

When Your Own Church Scolds You ...

Like I said, Hillary should not go the Rev. Wright route. She was mum about it for a long time and adding her two cents now is not going to help her. Pennsylvania voters are worried about their pocketbooks and wallets - not some retired black minister. If the minister of her old church can see beyond the hype, why can't she?

But the pastor at the church that Clinton did once attend has recently expressed public support for Wright. He's even proclaimed it a "grave injustice" to make a judgment on Wright based off of "two or three sound bites," and criticized those who would "use a few of [Wright's] quotes to polarize."

Last week, Dean Snyder, the senior minister at the Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington D.C. -- which the Clintons famously attended while in the White House -- released a little noticed statement offering a sympathetic defense of the totality of Wright's work.

"The Reverend Jeremiah Wright is an outstanding church leader whom I have heard speak a number of times," Snyder wrote. "He has served for decades as a profound voice for justice and inclusion in our society. To evaluate his dynamic ministry on the basis of two or three sound bites does a grave injustice to Dr. Wright, the members of his congregation, and the African-American church which has been the spiritual refuge of a people that has suffered from discrimination, disadvantage, and violence. Dr. Wright, a member of an integrated denomination, has been an agent of racial reconciliation while proclaiming perceptions and truths uncomfortable for some white people to hear. Those of us who are white Americans would do well to listen carefully to Dr. Wright rather than to use a few of his quotes to polarize."

Different and Double Standard For Black and White Preachers

The vitriol over selected sound bytes from 35 years of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's career as a pastor just has me in a state of confusion. Why no such outrage and constant harping over this:

Rudy Giuliani's priest has been accused in grand jury proceedings of molesting several children and covering up the molestation of others. Giuliani would not disavow him on the campaign trail and still works with him.

Mitt Romney was part of a church that did not view black Americans as equals and actively discriminated against them. He stayed with that church all the way into his early thirties, until they were finally forced to change their policies to come into compliance with civil rights legislation. Romney never disavowed his church back then or now. He said he was proud of the faith of his fathers.

Jerry Falwell said America had 9/11 coming because we tolerated gays, feminists and liberals. It was our fault. Our chickens had come home to roost, if you will. John McCain proudly received his support and even spoke at his university's commencement.

Reverend John Hagee has called the Catholic Church the "Great Whore." He has said that the Anti-Christ will rise out of the European Union (of course, the Anti-Christ will also be Jewish). He has said all Muslims are trained to kill and will be part of the devil's army when Armageddon comes (which he hopes is soon). John McCain continues to say he is proud of Reverend Hagee's endorsement.

Reverend Rod Parsley believes America was founded to destroy Islam. Since this is such an outlandish claim, I have to add for the record, that he is not kidding. Reverend Parsley says Islam is an "anti-Christ religion" brought down from a "demon spirit." Of course, we are in a war against all Muslims, including presumably Muslim-Americans. Buts since Parsley believes this is a Christian nation and that it should be run as a theocracy, he is not very concerned what Muslim-Americans think.

John McCain says Reverend Rod Parsley is his "spiritual guide."

What separates all of these outrageous preachers from Barack Obama's? You guessed it. They're white and Reverend Jeremiah Wright is not. If it's not racism that's causing the disparity in media treatment of these preachers, then what is it?

The UCC is a predominately white denomination with churches that may have congregations comprised of a predominance of one ethnic group or another. When Rev. Wright retired, a white Bishop attended his celebration. A friend/Trinity member recalls his comments:

When Rev. Wright had his celebration, the UCC Bishop was there. He said something that stayed with me ... He said no one ever challenges his Japanese UCC churches that have origami hanging from the ceiling and wear traditional garb and have parts of the service in Japanese or his hispanic churches that embrace their heritage ....

Why on earth, then, are people so threatened by a black preacher, leading a black congregation, in a defacto segregated black neighborhood reflecting the culture - and views - of his community? What Jeremiah Wright said may have scared some naive folks but no one has yet to say what part was untrue or even implausible?

• Is it that "outlandish" claim that the government was injecting black folks with AIDS? That may seem far fetched to your "typical white person," but black folks who know even a tidbit of American history, (the Tuskegee experiment along with the targeted sterilization of black women (and other colored women) in the 70s and long before ) understand that there HAVE been incidents of medical malpractice and devilment which leave an understandable lack of trust and the belief that the government is quite capable of and has done/will do anything it can to people of color. (Please don't get me started on my theories about that "Government cheese" program from the 80s ... and thank God my family had moved to the 'burbs and didn't attend a black church where that stuff was handed out by the ton).
  
  
• America isn't run by rich white men? Don't make me laugh.
  
  
• No one has ever called Hillary Clinton a "nigga?" Probably not ... but tell me that her husband hasn't been called, at the very least (and until this election cycle), a "nigger lover." People called my white college roommate (that the dorm chose) that simply because we ate meals and walked to class together.
  

Should it be discussed in church? Depends on the community and the church. I don't care to hear about death and destruction coming to America because two men (or women) like each other. But, if that topic resonates with you and your experience/beliefs, best believe you won't be walking out of church ... just as hearing what is the truth based on my life experience and knowledge wouldn't cause me to walk out of Trinity.

There is indeed a double standard and the age old message that Negroes must know their place ... that they must sit down, shut up, know their place, and as Pat Buchanan says "be grateful" for how well white folks have treated us for these past 400 years.

You Go Chelsea!

It was a stupid question and Chelsea gave the right answer!

Chelsea Clinton had a quick retort Tuesday when asked whether her mother's credibility had been hurt during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

"Wow, you're the first person actually that's ever asked me that question in the, I don't know maybe, 70 college campuses I've now been to, and I do not think that is any of your business," Clinton said during a campaign visit for her mother, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Don't Go There Hillary

I support Hillary Clinton's right to still be in the race and believe she would be a great United States President, however, she needs to leave this one alone.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a wide-ranging interview today with Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporters and editors, said she would have left her church if her pastor made the sort of inflammatory remarks Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor made.

"He would not have been my pastor," Clinton said. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."

Hillary knows better than this and she is familiar with the black church. She understands the "rhetoric" and the "passion." Wasn't she being criticized, early on in the race, for changing her speech patterns to pander to a black audience? She used the words from an old gospel song. Her husband invited Jeremiah Wright, along with many other "preachers," to the White House in the aftermath of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. If he was good enough to pray for her wayward husband ...

Cool, Except I Thought He Was Dead ...

Honestly, I agree with him ...

Former Sen. George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, said Tuesday it would be easier for a black man to be elected to the White House than a woman.

The former South Dakota senator has endorsed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom he has known for decades since she helped campaign for him. She is in a close race with Sen. Barack Obama for the party nod.

"I have a feeling that in this country where we're at today in our thinking, it's going to be harder to elect a woman than to elect a black man," he told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "I wish that weren't true ... I'd love to see Hillary as president."

McGovern says he occasionally chats with men who don't think a woman is ready for the responsibility.

"Some guy will say, 'Well, I think that's too big a job for a woman, I don't think she can handle those terrorists,'" he said, adding that he seldom hears the same thing said about a black man.

"I think we've never had a woman so well-qualified that's on the national scene," he said of Clinton.

Make The Crickets Stop!

Truly unbelievable!

Chicago Police say no one could make this story up…

A 18-year-old man entered a muffler shop in the 2600 block of North Laramie Avenue yesterday and declared a robbery. He allegedly waved a gun around and demanded money, according to police.

When he was told the money was in a safe and that the manager who knew how to open it was not there, the suspect had a brilliant idea; at least he thought it was brilliant.

He gave the shop employees his cell phone number and asked them to call him when the manager arrived so he could open the safe for him.

The man left and the employees opted to call 911. Authorities stationed plain clothes officers in the shop and called the would-be robber back.

The suspect showed up again, and waved his gun around again, but this time was shot in the leg by an officer.

I Cannot STAND These People

I am perpetually stunned that there is an actual cable news network that vomits this kind of mess 24/7!

GIORDANO: I think he looks better, I'll give you that. Yeah, he looks better with it. I don't know if it's playing into the ethnic card, or whatever. That he's doing that too --

[crosstalk]

MacCALLUM: Because he said, you know, he also is -- I think he's the son of an American-born man and a Mexican-born woman, which is, you know -- I guess he shares that in some ways with Barack Obama's background. So he said, you know, "It's hard for me," he said to me once, "people don't even know I'm Hispanic." So is that part of what he is --

GIORDANO: I think so.

MacCALLUM: --cultivating here?

GIORDANO: I didn't know that he was Hispan -- he doesn't appear to me -- I mean, I know that he is, over the years --

[crosstalk]

SHORENSTEIN: What are you talking about? He doesn't need a beard to look Hispanic.

JENKINS: He just likes the beard.

PIRRO: He looks more Hispanic.

JENKINS: So what do you think?

GIORDANO: Well, OK, he does look more Hispanic.

SHORENSTEIN: He's tan -- that's why he looks more Hispanic. I mean, it's not because of the beard.

He went on vacation and grew a beard! It happens. What is the big deal! He lives in New Mexico. He didn't have to go on vacation to get a friggin' tan! What is wrong with these folks?

Can we find some chickens to go to Fox and roost?

What Would Pat Buchanan Think Of Ireland Now?

Talk of blacks and Hispanics sends Pat Buchanan into a rabid frenzy. He cannot stand what they are doing to the fabric of America. They aren't "assimilating" and are changing what he feels the founding fathers meant America to be. I guess he'd better not trek to his native land for the Ireland his ancestors fled is almost no more ...

I n his 2007 book, Ireland Now: Tales of Change From the Global Island (Univ. of Notre Dame Press), William Flanagan described the disorientation experienced by an Irish-American tourist in western Ireland. Everywhere he stopped, Pakistanis or Indians were running the shops and hotels. There were people with Eastern European accents. Eventually, the befuddled tourist asks, “What’s become of Ireland?”

With The Deportees, his first collection of stories, Roddy Doyle sets out to answer this question in a raucous, if at times superficial, manner.

For two decades now, Doyle has been sending out fictional dispatches about the state of Ireland—or at least Dublin. He was thrust into prominence in 1986 with The Commitments, later made into a scruffy, well-received movie by the director Alan Parker.

One of the more memorable lines from the book had one character, “a working class Dublin musician performing in a soul band,” calling the Irish the “niggers of Europe.” In a short but useful foreword to The Deportees, Doyle says that given Ireland’s profound economic, ethnic and racial changes, he would not even think to use that line today. “The line,” Doyle admits, “would make no sense.”

So and Too Bad!

Most people are commemorating the milestone of 4,000 dead American soldiers and all Cheney can basically say is "So!?" again. Cry him a river because they volunteered?

Wrapping up a nine-day overseas trip to Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney was asked, in an exclusive interview with ABC News, about the effect on the nation of today's grim milestone of at least 4,000 U.S. deaths over the five-year Iraq war.

Noting the burden placed on military families, the Vice President said the biggest burden is carried by President Bush, and reminded ABC news that the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan volunteered for duty.

I think these guys are losing their minds. Dick Cheney is still off base regarding Middle Eastern policy and his recent comments are just plain out of line!

So?

Okay. I tried to block this one out of my mind.

It would have to happen on Easter Sunday, wouldn't it, that the 4,000th American soldier would die in Iraq. Play me that crazy preacher again, will you, about how maybe God, in all his infinite wisdom, may not exactly be blessing America these days. Is anyone surprised?

4,000 dead. Unofficial estimates are that there may be up to 100,000 wounded, injured, or mentally ruined by this war. And there could be up to a million Iraqi dead. We will pay the consequences of this for a long, long time. God will keep blessing America.

And where is Darth Vader in all this? A reporter from ABC News this week told Dick Cheney, in regards to Iraq, "two-thirds of Americans say it's not worth fighting." Cheney cut her off with a one word answer: "So?"

"So?" As in, "So what?" As in, "F*** you. I could care less."

Exactly ... as in kiss his fat ass! Did you hear that 2/3rds of America?

You'd Really Have To Be Dirt Stupid ...

... if you want to spend the next few decades waiting for the Muslim world to kiss our feet. However, Karl Rove is spewing the same dumb rhetoric that Rumsfeld and Cheney spewed before we
got into this hellacious mess.

On Fox News’s The O’Reilly Factor last night, former Bush adviser Karl Rove defended the invasion of Iraq five years ago, saying that “if we win,” it “will send a powerful message throughout the Islamic world.” Claiming that “the Muslim world is waiting to see who is going to win the conflict” between “al Qaeda” and “the West,” Rove argued that a continued U.S. presence could create “energy for reform throughout the Middle East.”

“By winning, we will send a powerful message that the momentum is on our side,” said Rove. “And it will rally the Muslim world to us.”

[...]

O’REILLY: Continuing now with Fox News analyst and former Bush advisor Karl Rove. Five years ago, American forces were achieving a stunning victory in Iraq, overwhelming Saddam’s forces in just 22 days. Since that time, things have gotten a lot tougher. Nearly 4,000 Americans have died in Iraq. More than $400 billion has been spent. The polls say about two thirds of Americans do not feel the war has been worth it, including 27 percent of Republicans. So Mr. Rove, can you persuade people that it has been worth it? Here is what people say to me all the time. We do not understand, for all the blood and treasure spend, how this is making us safer. How exactly our presence in Iraq is making us safer. They do not understand it, even five years after the action. So what say you?

ROVE: Remember, we removed, as you said, Saddam Hussein in 22 days. But then the enemy, the al Qaeda extremists decided to make the central battlefield in the global war on terror. This will be worth that if we win. If we win we will have dealt the enemy a huge blow in a battlefield they chose to confront us on.

And it will send a powerful message throughout the Islamic world. I think Bernard Lewis of Princeton is accurate. That the Muslim world is waiting to see who is going to win the conflict. Is it going to be the West or is it going to be al Qaeda? And by winning, we will send a powerful message that the momentum is on our side. And it will rally the Muslim world to us. It will also create a huge influence in the Middle East. Think about the creation of the democracy in the Middle East with the third-largest oil reserves in the world. If we have a functioning democracy in Iraq, that is an ally in the war on terror, a counterweight to mullahs Iran and to Assad in Syria, this will create a very hopeful center of reform and energy for reform throughout the Middle East.

I wish they'd stop this al Qaeda farce too! They are only a small percentage of the problem in Iraq - particularly now that we've finally negotiated with the Sunni tribal leaders and armed them to a) protect themselves from the Shiite extremists b) run al Qaeda out of their towns. (If we'd done this just after the invasion, al Qaeda wouldn't be there in the first place).

James Carville Gets Extra For Easter

I've always liked the colorful language of James Carville. He's obviously a strong Clinton supporter and friend. I can see where he felt that Bill Richardson betrayed the Clintons but I think calling him Judas is a bit over the top.

In the New York Times today, Clintonista James Carville calls Bill Richardson's endorsement of Obama "an act of betrayal."

“Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic,” Carville said.

So in Mr. Carville's view on this Easter weeend, Richardson is Judas Iscariot, Obama is Caiaphas, and Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, is .....?

What Jeremiah Really Said

Rev. Wright's "chickens coming home to roost" diatribe in the days just after Sept 11, when a closer look was taken, out of context and inspired by someone else ...

I actually listened to the sermon Rev. Wright gave after September 11 titled, "The Day of Jerusalem's Fall." It was delivered on Sept. 16, 2001.

One of the most controversial statements in this sermon was when he mentioned "chickens coming home to roost." He was actually quoting Edward Peck, former US Ambassador to Iraq and deputy director of President Reagan's terrorism task force, who was speaking on FOX NEWS. That's what he told the congregation. He was quoting Peck as saying that America's foreign policy has put the nation in peril.

"We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, araw, The Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism.

"We took Africans away from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism.

"We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-miliatry personnel.

"We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenage and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard working fathrs.

"We bombed Qadafi's home, and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children's head against the rock.

"We bombed Iraq. we killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hard working people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing that they'd never get back home.

"We bombed Hiroshima. we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than teh thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye.

"Kids playing in the playground. Mothers picking up children after school. Civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.

"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff that we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost.

"Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that y'all, not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people we have wounded don't have the military capability we have. but they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them. And we need to come to grips with that."

He went on to describe seeing the photos of the aftermath of 9/11 because he was in Newark, N.J. when the planes struck. After turning on the TV and seeing the second plane slam into one of the twin towers, he spoke passionately about what if you never got a chance to say hello to your family again.

"What is the state of your family?" he asked.

And then he told his congregation that he loved them and asked the church to tell each other they loved themselves.

His sermon thesis:

1. This is a time for self-examination of ourselves and our families.

2. This is a time for social transformation (then he went on to say they won't put me on PBS or national cable for what I'm
about to say. Talk about prophetic!)

"We have got to change the way we have been doing things as a society," he said.

Wright then said we can't stop messing over people and thinking they can't touch us. He then said we may need to declare war on racism, injustice and greed, instead of war on other countries.

CNN had a panel on Friday evening discussing this particular sermon and the supposed basis of his comments. The CNN host said that they'd tried to find reference to Edward Peck's words but could not. The way Fox News has been hammering Obama over Rev. Wright, I doubt they will release the footage. I did, however, find references to him being on Fox and saying something that implies that Rev. Wright was inspired by some of Peck's words. There are divergent opinions on whatever it ws he said:

This one:
Finally, the whole country needs to dedicate itself to understanding the world of Islam. We should not be like the repellant Fox News anchor David Asman, who treated former ambassador Edward Peck with contempt as Peck tried to help viewers understand the Islamic mind. If we're going to eradicate terrorism, we have to understand its causes in order to eliminate them.


... and this one:

It is difficult to believe that Mr. Peters and I heard the same Fox News interview with the former ambassador to Mauretania, Edward Peck ("Tilting at Windmills," October 2001). Instead of the mentioned contempt exhibited by David Asman, the interviewer, I felt that Mr. Peck was treated with admirable restraint, considering that his views could be considered highly inimical to the U.S., particularly in the aftermath of the atrocities at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Mr. Peck blamed the U.S. for perceived transgressions against Iraq. His claim that the U.S. constantly violates Iraqi territory by monitoring flights over that nation ignores the conditions of the agreement that ended the Persian Gulf conflict allowing such overflights.

What's In A Name?

Gee! Barack Obama grew up and decided he wanted to use his real name and not some watered down American style (white sounding) name and a whole article needs to be written about it?

Barry Obama decided that he didn't like his nickname. A few of his friends at Occidental College had already begun to call him Barack (his formal name), and he'd come to prefer that. The way his half sister, Maya, remembers it, Obama returned home at Christmas in 1980, and there he told his mother and grandparents: no more Barry. Obama recalls it slightly differently, but in the same basic time frame. He believes he told his mom he wanted to be called Barack when she visited him in New York the following summer. By both accounts, it seemed that the elder relatives were reluctannt to embrace the change. Maya recalls that Obama's maternal grandparents, who had played a big role in raising him, continued long after that to call him by an affectionate nickname, "Bar." "Not just them, but my mom, too," says Obama.

Why did Obama make the conscious decision to take on his formal African name? His father was also Barack, and also Barry: he chose the nickname when he came to America from Kenya on a scholarship in 1959. His was a typical immigrant transition. Just as a Dutch woman named Hanneke might become Johanna, or a German named Matthias becomes Matt, the elder Barack wanted to fit in. America was a melting pot, and it was expected then that you melt—or at least smooth some of your more foreign edges.

But Obama, after years of trying to fit in himself, decided to reverse that process. The choice is part of his almost lifelong quest for identity and belonging—to figure out who he is, and how he fits into the larger American tapestry. Part black, part white, raised in Hawaii and Indonesia, with family of different religious and spiritual backgrounds—seen by others in ways he didn't see himself—the young Barry was looking for solid ground. At Occidental, he was feeling as if he was at a "dead end," he tells NEWSWEEK, "that somehow I needed to connect with something bigger than myself." The name Barack tied him more firmly to his black African father, who had left him and his white mother at a young age and later returned home to Kenya. But that wasn't the primary motivation.

Obama wrote a whole book about his quest for identity, called "Dreams From My Father," and in it he never directly deals with the reasons he reverted to his birth name, or the impression it made on his relatives. The book is a deeply personal narrative that takes some liberties with the facts for the sake of a coherent tale. (Some of the characters, he points out in the introduction, are composites.) Old friends contacted by NEWSWEEK who were present during the time he changed his name recall or intuit a mix of reasons—both personal and social. By Obama's own account, he was, like most kids at that stage of life, a bit of a poseur—trying to be cool. So that could have played a part. He was also trying to reinvent himself. "It was when I made a conscious decision: I want to grow up," says Obama.

I have a very plain and simple name yet people are forever asking me what I want to be called. If I spell it Susan and introduce myself as Susan. I want to be called Susan - not Sue and definitely not Suzy (I think that is a name for little girls). I don't see what the big deal is about Barack wanting to be called Barack. Since when did using your birth name become some big decision? If a young white man grew up and decided he wanted to be called Peter instead of Peetie, would anyone ask why he decided to user his "formal" name? I'm confused.

Your Hot Pockets Or Your Life

Wow!

More Taser insanity. The mounting incidents of violence being
perpetrated by the inappropriate use of Tasers is unnerving. The
stories from readers keep flooding into my inbox.

Here’s one from my state
that will turn your stomach (h/t n8nyc and Virginia F.). Darryl Wayne
Turner was a cashier and bagged groceries at a local Food Lion. He
lifted a couple of Hot Pocket lunches and his mother told him to do the
right thing — go back to the store and fess up. Then something went
horribly wrong ...

Did He Say Wetbacks?

You really almost have to laugh at this stuff.

A Texas local Fox News affiliate reports that “Mustang Ridge City Council member Charles Laws referred to a proposed immigrant detention center as a ‘holding pen for wetbacks’ on the March 12 meeting agenda.” Asked about his comments, Laws explained: “I’m 74 years old, and that’s what we called them when I was growing up. I don’t care about political crap.” But Laws later back-tracked, saying “I wasn’t thinking.” A city councilman from nearby Austin is leading a campaign to have Laws removed.

I guess I see why Bill Richardson decided to endorse Obama. We really do have so far to go ...

"You are a once-in-a-lifetime leader," Richardson said. "Above all, you will be a president who brings this nation together."

The pair seemed very comfortable together, likely to increase speculation that Richardson would be a suitable vice presidential candidate. Amid their mutual praise, they joked with each other about a past debate appearance and bantered with the crowd.

Citing Obama's speech this week on race relations, Richardson praised Obama, who is seeking to become the first African American elected to the White House, for "rejecting the politics of race against race."

"As a Hispanic American, I was particularly touched" by Obama's comments, Richardson told the cheering crowd.

Fox And Friends Behaving Badly on Good Friday

I'm glad somebody watches Fox so I don't have to and today they actually have some worthwhile clips. The "friends" got taken to the wood shed by Chris Wallace.

Fox News' very own anchors are speaking out — and walking off — over what they perceive to be "Obama-bashing" on their network.

This morning on "Fox and Friends," Brian Kilmeade walked off the set after a dispute with his co-hosts Gretchen Carlson (she who celebrates deadly floods) and Steve Doocy over Obama's comment that his grandmother is a "typical white person." Kilmeade argued that the remark needed to be taken in context and eventually got so fed up with his co-hosts that he walked off set.

Later, "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace came on the show and railed against "Fox and Friends" for what he called "Obama-bashing."

While I'm sure their regular viewers and fans probably took their side, I think they looked totally juvenile and idiotic.

Take a peek ...

Will The Real Rev. Jeremiah Wright Please Stand Up?

It's not like there aren't years worth of services available online at Trinity so I don't know how much digging someone did to find the sound bytes that are being used to characterize Rev. Wright . However, members have created a YouTube channel to show the pastor they know and love.

... a large group of Trinity United Church members have banded together to fight back at the media and their exaggerations of Rev. Wright and this situation. They have set up a Youtube channel with videos showing the type of person Rev. Wright really is, something the media clearly left out. Visit it here.

Huckabee's Empathy

While I'm glad that I won't have to worry about seeing his face on any dollars in my next incarnation as an American, I think as a conservative who is a minister who is a product of the segregated south, he had a surprisingly "compassionate" response to this whole Obama/Rev. Wright drama ...

JOE SCARBOROUGH: But, but, you never came close to saying five days after September 11th, that America deserved what it got. Or that the American government invented AIDS...

HUCKABEE: Not defending his statements.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Oh, I know you're not. I know you're not. I'm just wondering though, for a lot of people...Would you not guess that there are a lot of Independent voters in Arkansas that vote for Democrats sometimes, and vote for Republicans sometimes, that are sitting here wondering how Barack Obama's spiritual mentor would call the United States the USKKK?

HUCKABEE: I mean, those were outrageous statements, and nobody can defend the content of them.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: But what's the impact on voters in Arkansas? Swing voters.

HUCKABEE: I don't think we know. If this were October, I think it would have a dramatic impact. But it's not October. It's March. And I don't believe that by the time we get to October, this is gonna be the defining issue of the campaign, and the reason that people vote.

And one other thing I think we've gotta remember. As easy as it is for those of us who are white, to look back and say "That's a terrible statement!"...I grew up in a very segregated south. And I think that you have to cut some slack -- and I'm gonna be probably the only Conservative in America who's gonna say something like this, but I'm just tellin' you -- we've gotta cut some slack to peopl