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 people who grew up being called names, being told "you have to sit in the balcony when you go to the movie. You have to go to the back door to go into the restaurant. And you can't sit out there with everyone else. There's a separate waiting room in the doctor's office. Here's where you sit on the bus..." And you know what? Sometimes people do have a chip on their shoulder and resentment. And you have to just say, I probably would too. I probably would too. In fact, I may have had more of a chip on my shoulder had it been me.

MIKA: I agree with that. I really do.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: It's the Atticus Finch line about walking a mile in somebody else's shoes. I remember when Ronald Reagan got shot in 1981. There were some black students in my school that started applauding and said they hoped that he died. And you just sat there and of course you were angry at first, and then you walked out and started scratching your head going "boy, there is some deep resentment there."

I actually saw this interview on Morning Joe. Joe keeps bringing up Rev. Wright's comments as totally outlandish, unpatriotic and racist but, sheesh, he needs to understand that the Reverend was saying things that a lot of folks really do believe or at least find plausible.

• The United States the USKKK - It's not a term that I use but I see blacks refer to "AmeriKKKa" on a regular basis on blogs and on my discussion lists. It's not like the Klan doesn't still exist and it's not like racism - overt and/or covert - doesn't impact most of us in some way on a fairly regular basis. It's almost a term of "endearment."

• The 9/11 comments - While too many right wing evangelicals blamed feminists, homosexuals and any other number of folks who threaten the white male patriarchy, most blacks that I know weren't flying into the streets screaming "let's kill the A-rabs!" While undoubtedly dozens of black people died that day too, there were flashes of "chickens coming home to roost" running through a lot of minds. Who is to say that it is wrong for your thoughts to express your experience? The sentiment has been expressed before by my favorite black intellectual, Dr. Cornell West:

That’s what it meant to be a nigger. Unsafe, unprotected, subject to unjustified violence and hated. Now, after September 11, all Americans feel unsafe, unprotected, subject to random violence, and hated. You say, hmm, now that the whole nation has been ‘niggerized,’ let’s see what the response is going to be… interesting.

It wasn't glee for the hit and hate for America, it was the hope that maybe the experience would lend mainstream Americans a sense of empathy ... Unfortunately, the group response was hate, violence and destruction that continues in the form of our occupation of Iraq. We've demolished a country and won't leave but most still don't understand black anger?

Now, Joe's comment cracked me up!

"I remember when Ronald Reagan got shot in 1981. There were some black students in my school that started applauding and said they hoped that he died. And you just sat there and of course you were angry at first, and then you walked out and started scratching your head going "boy, there is some deep resentment there."

I was in college at the time as well and remember going into a packed student union and having to stand on a couch to see the television over the crowd. I'd heard on campus that Ronald Reagan had been shot and when they announced that he wasn't dead, I jumped down and said "Dang! They missed!" I was half kidding but I remember a white girl cutting her eyes at me and giving me a dirty look. I just smirked, smiled and walked out! Did I hate Ronald Reagan? Of course not! But I hadn't voted for him (in what was my very first presidential election) and, as I saw it, he didn't have my best interests at heart.

I know this horse is going to be beaten until it's dust in the road and I'll probably keep blogging about it. I may have voted for Hillary in the California primary but I still support Obama.

Black Folks Will Riot?

I know folks who claim that they are going to vote for McCain if Hillary wins or won't vote at all. Rioting? I don't know. They'll probably just go to church and listen to a fiery preacher rant about the racists who have blacks the shaft once again.

The Fact Beat:

On his Fox News radio show, Tom Sullivan predicted that African-Americans would be rioting in the streets similar to what happened after the O.J. trial in the 1990s.

Let me put it to you a different way. What if Barack Obama is not — does not win the Democratic nomination, or he does win it, and loses in the presidential race against John McCain? Is black America going to throw their hands up and say, ‘Man, you know, I thought we were getting somewhere in this country, but this is just a bunch of racial bigots in this country and they still hate blacks and, I mean, if Barack Obama can’t get elected, then we’re never gonna have anybody that’s a black that’s gonna be elected president.’ And will there be riots in the streets? I think the answer to that is yes and yes. Read on…

Well, Senator Obama wanted to open a dialog about race with the American people — here’s his answer from FOXNews. The unwashed, uncivilized black folk will riot if they don’t get their candidate. For an extra laugh, I lifted this quip from Sullivan’s page on the Fox website: (don’t click unless you want to give them hits)

Is He Really This Damned Dumb?

I cannot handle another 4-8 years of ignorance and stupidity. I wonder what they are offering Joe Lieberman to stick so closely to McCain. I may not agree with him these days but Lieberman is not an idiot and smart people usually have a hard time when they are subjected to a steady stream of stupidity!

For the second time during their taxpayer-funded overseas trip, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) was forced to correct Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) after he made an incorrect statement. Speaking in Israel yesterday, McCain referred to the Jewish holiday Purim as “their version of Halloween.” After McCain spoke, Lieberman stepped in and gingerly took blame for McCain’s mistake, saying that he had given McCain the false impression of the holiday’s meaning. NBC’s Mark Murray writes:

McCain’s mistake wasn’t a big deal. But what is interesting…is Lieberman’s role during this trip. In two days, Lieberman has intervened twice in front of the press — once helping McCain with a correction on Sunnis/Shiites and once putting the blame on himself regarding the description of Purim.

Purim actually “commemorates a time when the Jewish people living in Persia were saved from extermination.”

Bill Clinton and Rev. Wright BFFs?

So they found a picture of Bill and Rev. Wright when the White House hosted a gathering for religious leaders. Whomever vetted Jeremiah must not have known what a "hate filled, angry black man" he was. Or, perhaps, he was recommended and invited because someone knew of him exactly what Obama knows.

The recent coverage of Rev. Jeremiah Wright has often cast him as a marginal, almost fringe figure, but Trinity Church is a major Chicago institution, and Wright has long been a prominent pastor on the American scene.

And an anonymous blog set up to defend his church offers some compelling photographic evidence of this: A photograph of Wright and President Clinton, which it says was taken on September 11, 1998 -- the date of a White House gathering for religious leaders.

Hillary Clinton, according to her recently-released schedule for the day, was present at the gathering.

Unfortunately though, now Obama supporters are attacking the Clintons thinking they should have spoken up to say that they knew him. Bill Clinton has been to more black churches than most black people. I'm sure he's met hundreds of black preachers over the years. I don't know how "tight" he is with any of them today but this gathering was 10 years ago. Jeremiah was there with many other clerics. He was not a private party guest. Bill may or may not remember him but just because Hillary was in the room doesn't mean that she met or even remembers meeting any of them.

More On Trinity UCC

More from people who've been there ...

When you walk into Trinity United Church of Christ on the South Side of Chicago, the first thing you see on a Sunday morning are the people crowding the lobby, hugging and kissing, asking after each other's children. The congregation is older and formally dressed. Many of the women wear fur coats, stockings and heels; almost no one is dressed in jeans. As an usher leads a reporter upstairs to the pastor's office, he rebukes a young boy: "Take off your hat in church, son."

The service warms up with a few numbers by a 300-member gospel choir. Then there's a performance by a drill team: rows of women dressed in matching white shirts and red suspenders walk through military moves while chanting verses from scripture. There's the sermon, a time for quiet reflection, and an altar call. When asked about the controversial statements of their former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, statements that have been pasted all over the Internet and cable news for the past few days, congregants are almost universally dismayed. These messages are being taken out of context, they say; their church is the most benign place in the world. "Come on, media, it's just a gospel choir," says Dwight Hopkins, a member of Trinity and a theology professor at the University of Chicago. "It's about the least scary place on the planet," says Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a professor at Princeton University who attended Trinity for a time.

How is that Trinity Church—along with its message and its messenger of 36 years—can look so different to different people? More to the point, how is it that presidential hopeful Barack Obama, a member of that church for two decades, could fail to anticipate how terrifying Wright would look to the rest of the world? Trinity Church, like so many places of worship, is a place of contradictions. From the inside it's a place of comfort and solace, a place where the most heated conversations are about what kind of music the choir should sing on Sundays: hip-hop or gospel. From the outside it looks like a hotbed of radical, anti-establishment talk.

America may be the most religious nation in the Western world, but as so many scholars have pointed out recently, Americans are also among the least well educated on the subject of religion. They know little about the history and theology of their own religious traditions and even less about those of their neighbors. As we learned after September 11, Americans pay scant attention to the religious practices of the minorities among us. When the spotlight does shine on adherents of an unfamiliar religion or religious movement, we do a bad job trying to understand them, and they, in turn, do a bad job trying to explain themselves ...

This is yet another interesting article on Obama's church so I would encourage one to read the whole thing. Just be wary of the comments that follow the article. They display the sheer ignorance and nastiness of people who are the reason why Rev. Wright even has to bring up race in the first place.

Did You Hear That?

Shhhh? Did somebody say something? Does anyone listen to her or even care?

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday she was concerned about the situation in Tibet, urging China to exercise restraint toward protesters there and to reach out to the Dalai Lama.

Chinese police opened fire and wounded four protesters this week in unrest in a Tibetan community in the western province of Sichuan, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported in the country's first admission its security forces had caused injuries in their crackdown on anti-government demonstrations.

Tibet authorities also said they had arrested dozens of people involved in the wave of protests that have swept the mountain region and prompted Beijing to pour in troops to crush further unrest.

China's response to last week's violence -- which it says was orchestrated by the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader -- has sparked international criticism and has clouded preparations for the Beijing Olympics in August.

"We are certainly concerned about the situation in Tibet. I spoke last evening with my counterpart, Foreign Minister Yang (Jiechi). (I) urged restraint," Rice told reporters as she began a meeting with Thai Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama.

"We have urged for many years that China engage in a dialogue with the Dalai Lama, who represents an authoritative figure who stands against violence and who also stands for the cultural autonomy of the Tibetan people but has made very clear that he does not stand for independence," she added.

"I believe that this would be a basis on which China could reach out to ... an authoritative figure for peace and so we are encouraging that," she said. "I hope that China will exercise restraint, but it is also important that all parties refrain from violence."

The Prophets Of The Black Church

On his show this morning, Joe Scarborough continued his attack against Obama (and how he just didn't understand why he didn't walk out of Wright's church) and Rev. Wright. Chiming in was the newly show-less and perpetually irritating Tucker Carlson. They made me want to scream and Mika Brzezinski just sat by - exhausted from days of trying to talk sense to Joe and his contingent. Luckily, later in the show, John Ridley (who Joe constantly tries to portray has his good, long time friend ... he's black ... you know that routine) was able to provide coherent insight and comparisons of how white s have made similar statements and weren't as harshly scrutinized. Joe couldn't really rebut. He obviously doesn't get it and doesn't want to. I can't do anything about people like him. He's not an Obama or Clinton supporter anyway. What I can do is continue to spread information like this from those who know ...

...

While media critics, who have no idea how to exegete the gospel, might find his sermons objectionable, Wright's theology and sermonic delivery are deeply rooted in the sacred traditions of black church.

If you don't know black church or simply have not taken time to do the research, here is a minihistory lesson. For the first 150 years of slavery, no organized religious bodies ever attempted to convert those who were enslaved.

We established our own congregations and churches, based on our African-ancestored traditions mixed with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In the process, we became committed to the idea of freedom. There were more than 300 known slave rebellions in the United States, the vast majority of which were led by preachers of that day, such as Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner. Because of that, two white men had to always be present at any slave-led church service. Even while enslaved we had preachers and pastors who spoke to the needs of our condition.

There have always been accommodationist preachers, those who go along to get along. In biblical terms, they are false prophets. A prophet is one who speaks on behalf of God and God's people. A true prophet speaks truth to power and is not politically correct. The Old Testament prophets were not politically correct. The Apostle Paul was not politically correct.

And Jesus was not politically correct. Jesus upset the status quo and disrupted the comfortable. Jesus got angry and threw the moneychangers out of the temple. Jesus raised holy hell. So, why can't Wright? True prophets speak for God, use colorful language and non-traditional methods to further their message.

There is a historical and contextual relationship between the slave-preacher and the social activist preacher of today. And there is a place and role for God's angry prophets -- think Amos, Micah, Isaiah and Jeremiah. They spoke on God's behalf to kings and to the poor of their nation.

Then there are the modern-day prophets, such as Vernon Johns, Martin Luther King Jr., Samuel DeWitt Proctor and Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.

False prophets speak to what the masses and those in power want to hear. True prophets speak truth no matter how painful. And there is a price to be paid for being a prophet. Wright is now paying that price both publicly and privately.

Author Alex Haley underscored the role and relationship of the black pastor to their congregations. Black pastors, he said, are akin to African griots, leaders and shepherds and the one in whom the story of one's people has been embodied. For the greater African-American faith community, Wright is a formidable griot. At 81, I am an elder in this tribe of social justice preachers, but I, too, can say the legacy and reach of Wright's ministry has influenced my faith.

What has been lost in current rhetoric is that Wright, a scholar who speaks five languages, has created hundreds of ministries and seven separate corporations, led thousands to Christ, speaks out of a long and storied, proud and prophetic tradition of our faith. He speaks in the tradition of the slave preacher and social justice proclaimer who believed in setting captives free.

Wright represents the best in this tribe of prophetic preachers. His church is a place where one can express the centuries-old pain of being black in America, while finding strength for a brighter day. An attack on this man of the God is an attack on all those of the cloth who believe in the social gospel of liberation. And I will not stand for it. Not on my watch. Not today.

There are many, many black preachers with whom I take issue. There is a reason why I never joined a "black church" like so many of my friends who were raised Catholic, Lutheran or some other denomination that isn't typically associated with the black community. I won't even convert/join for the fellowship and church is a pretty integral part of most black social circles. Pretty consistently, on the rare occasions when I do attend church, I end up rolling my eyes about something the preacher says and am ready to go all too soon (even if the choir is good) . In fact, I attended a wedding a few weeks ago, and the first words out of the minister's mouth when the couple reached the altar was "given the rise of same sex marriages ..." and I growled under my breath hoping that he wouldn't go into a long diatribe about that or anything else that was unrelated to the ceremony at hand (the bride was his daughter no less).

The clips of sermons/pastors circulating on YouTube make me want to holler - not hallelujah either! If I started naming names (and Lord knows how my heathen behind knows so much about them), I probably wouldn't be able to stop. Jeremiah Wright is not in that number. He was an educated, insightful pastor with a cohesive flock and all of my "bougie" friends who've been members for years, remain strong in their support of him. I am glad that so many religious scholars are speaking up and trying to educate the masses - even if the people who need to hear it the most aren't listening.

A House On Fire

I'm not sure I'm crying a river over these "rich folks" losing their shirts but I can still feel that pain ...

If the past decade has proven nothing else, no company should be considered too big, old, strong or (insert favorite adjectives here) to fail.

One of the great lessons of Enron and WorldCom is that holding your employers' stock in your retirement account is a horrible idea. Having your job at risk if something "bad" happens is bad enough; having your job and your retirement account at risk is something to be avoided at all costs.

But what if your employer forces you to own its stock and/or restricts your ability to sell? That was the fate of many Bear Stearns employees, the biggest losers of the firm's demise.

Many Bear employees were subject to lockups preventing them from selling stock for three-to-five years, and the company's scheduled earnings report on Monday was another factor preventing many from bailing out before the bailout.

Bear employees owned about 30% of their firm's stock and the recent drama was "like watching your house burn with your hands tied," in the words of one.

Work It Girl!

Maybe I should suggest that my mom do this ...

Although her husband, Michael, is an avid weightlifter who, at 69 years old can bench press 225 pounds, her own family is plagued with health issues. “The rest of my family has high blood pressure, diabetes, is too fat, has knee problems,” she said.

After retiring in September 2003, Francis decided to get healthy. Her husband drew up a weight lifting plan and she joined a gym located near her south suburban Burnham home. For four hours everyday, she did arm curls with 60 pound bars, leg presses against 315 pound weights, chest presses with 50 pound weights, and an assortment of other exercises.

But results were slow in coming. “I kept coming home crying to my husband. He said, “It’s not going to happen overnight. You didn’t get that [gut] overnight, so it’s going to take time to come off,” she said.

Francis stuck with it, and by the time she entered the bodybuilding competition four years later she had dropped 35 pounds, seven dress sizes and gained muscle definition. “My shoulders are broader, my back is broader, and my calves are formed. I mean, I just think I look good,” she laughed.

Receiving compliments has become a regular part of her life, especially when she runs errands around town in her spandex exercise pants. “Once I went to the [supermarket], and a man said, ‘Miss, I know you’ve probably noticed me following you.

But I just want to let you know that you really look good,’” she laughed. “He was 20 years old.” But her success has not come without ridicule from family members–and even fellow gym goers.

“One of my family members said ‘While you’re out there working out at the health club, you should be at the nursing home feeding some of these people that can’t feed themselves,’” Francis recalled.

I was initially turning my nose up when I saw the headline. Then I read the article. I think her family's reaction stuck in my craw! The nerve of those fat, unhealthy slobs!

Watching March Madness At Work Are Ya?

I am cracking up because I just had this conversation on one of my discussion lists because lots of the guys are talking about the games, them being on in the company break room or watching them in their offices!

When the NCAA tournament tips off today, thousands of cubicle dwellers across Silicon Valley will watch the college basketball extravaganza right on their PCs while they "work."

Great for college basketball fans. Not so great for the folks who run their companies' computer networks.

Companies are already struggling to keep up with the explosion of video being watched online at work. Such multimedia applications are major bandwidth hogs that can dramatically slow the performance of corporate networks. The start of the tournament will only compound that problem when employees watch live streaming of the games from around the country.

The increase in video watching has already led a growing number of companies to restrict or block access to sites that offer things like video sharing, video streaming and other streaming technologies like Internet radio, according to industry observers.

"We think it has become a high-priority issue for our customers," said David Ulevitch, founder and chief executive of OpenDNS, a San Francisco company that makes network monitoring and management tools ...

Oh I Think He's Probably Feeling Pretty Victimized Now ...

But thanks for the vote of confidence ...

Perhaps Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, can file this under the "defenses I don't need" column...

Obama-backing Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said at a press conference (watch the video, courtesy of the Kansas City Star, HERE):

"What this man has done, Barack Obama, is, he, for the first time I think, as a black leader in America, has come to the American people not as a victim, but rather as a leader."

Isn't Bin Laden Dead?

Seriously! I think he is either dead or was "captured" a long time ago and is living "the good life" while we use his image and somebody else's voice to keep Americans scared.

Osama bin Laden warned in a new audiotape of a "severe" reaction for Europeans' publication of cartoons of Islam's Prophet Muhammad in what experts saw as a direct threat of a new attack in Europe.

The message, posted late Wednesday on a militant Web site that has carried al-Qaida statements in the past and bore the logo of the extremist group's media wing al-Sahab, showed a still image of bin Laden aiming with an assault rifle.

"The response will be what you see and not what you hear and let our mothers bereave us if we do not make victorious our messenger of God," said a voice believed to be bin Laden's, without specifying what action would be taken.

Enough already! I don't believe any of this!

ABC News You Can Really, Really, Really Use!

Don't thank me.

Obama Speaks!

Though I think it is absurd that it had to come to this, I am glad that Barack Obama stepped up to speak up. As is so often the case, he spoke brilliantly. Admittedly, I was a little put off by his initial response to the hype about Rev. Wright. I don't think that a man who is supposed to be one of your mentors, should be written off in the press as a "crazy uncle." I don't think that he should have had to denounce much of anything that he said. I'm sad that he had to go there but, for the most part, I co-sign his response to the American people.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.

But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories tha t we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild.”

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

Sadly, but maybe also thankfully, Obama probably is learning a lot about race himself. He didn't grow up in the same type of environment that many of his staunch supporters did - particularly the ones who may attend Trinity. Some blacks were rather iffy about him in the beginning - iffy about his blackness. Even those blacks who are fiercely defending him now are probably having little pangs of "Didn't we tell you how they are? You see how they do us? Do you see what being black in America means now?" and are slightly glad that he's going through what might be considered par for the course for blacks who try to succeed in America. This experience now may be one of the most important lessons of Barack's life. But for those who still harbor a lot of mistrust and cynicism about the American way, perhaps the way he is dealing with it is a lesson as well.

An Obama Supporter I Can Appreciate

A few weeks ago, a YouTube clip of this young man was being passed around. Here is his commentary on Obama's speech.

I watched in a state of minor shock, not so much at the deftness with which he defused the sophomoric conflation of his call for national unity with the inflammatory rhetoric of the retired head pastor of his church -- a conflation that would imply that we must each swallow whole the entirety of views expressed by our friends and associates.

It was not his repudiation of small thinking that struck me. It was the fact that here we had an American politician speaking with both candor and compassion about the proverbial elephant in our national living room.

Race is an issue that continues to confound this country. It is an undercurrent that paints our description, understanding and valuation of people in American society whether spoken or not. It is the subtext that places NBA star LeBron James and Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen on the cover of Vogue, in uncomfortable caricature of brute and ingénue.

It is in the minds of some the very reason a person of color would even be considered a serious candidate for the presidency of the nation -- never mind that three centuries into the American experiment there has been to date, only one such person.

I watched Obama's speech with a measure of disbelief that he had the gumption to come out and say what we all know -- that the problem of race remains one that we as a nation have yet to conquer. To be sure we have made strides towards reconciliation. But the hard conversations continue to be harder than most are willing to deal with.

Black America has yet to come to grips with its responsibility to tackle head on the problems that plague our communities. White America has yet to acknowledge the fact that here in the "home of the free," true liberty has evaded many for far too long.

Too often these conversations are ended before they've truly begun, due to the ignorance, intransigence or simple unwillingness of people to acknowledge the validity of what the other side has to say.

Who can honestly argue that black America is not today contributing mightily to its own social, cultural and economic decline?

Who can honestly argue that white America has not been willfully blind and too often complicit in the injustices that continue to be visited upon people born with darker hue or stranger accent? [...]

As a side note, I was watching "Morning Joe" on MSNBC and I see that the Pat Buchanan that I used to know and hate is back. Racial issues really get him heated and he was pretty miffed that Obama's speech, as he perceived it, put all of the blame back on white people and no crucification of Rev. Jeremiah Wright occurred. This is what he said yesterday:

And I think he, Joe -- I think he delivered an outstanding speech, and he did talk about the grievances of white America and the grievances of black America. There are parts of the speech, which, to me, and the community I think I come from, I found very grating, quite frankly. And the constant sense of putting the burden on the society for what's happened to the African-American community and not enough of the acceptance of responsibility of their own -- their own responsibility, frankly, for what's happened.

Did Pat really listen to the speech? Who blamed his tired, old behind? Like they say, if you throw a rock at a passel of puppies, the hit one is going to holler. This morning he was even rattling off black on white crime statistics as though they were related to the speech. Same old, same old from him. I'll watch him again when he's talking about the Dumbya and Iraq. We agree on that issue.

Talking What You Know

It's odd how the strangest memories from childhood pop up in your mind years later. I remember a neighborhood "character" who used to stand outside of the store where we used to buy candy (with a group of other neighborhood "characters"). I guess he was in some sort of trash talking battle with the other guys but I still hear him saying "you bet-ta talk what you know" ... in response to whatever the other person had said. That memory always pops up when I hear people talking, not having a clue what they are talking about, yet the jaws keep flapping.

Sunday at 11 am is often called the most segregated hour of the week. It's when church going Americans attend services. Yet, in 2008 most blacks and whites do not worship together. My sister used to attend a black church called Second Baptist. This church is in a northern suburb of Chicago but there are a number of them across the country. Why that moniker? Because the "First Baptist" church was all white and didn't initially allow blacks. Once their doors did open in my town, blacks had to sit in the balcony. It wasn't until 1992 or 1993 that the churches actually had a "unity" service together to try to mend the historic separation. Are members of either congregation jumping ship and changing where they go every Sunday? Probably not. One service cannot change generations of deliberate segregation. Even though they are the same denomination, there is no doubt that the services are as foreign to each other as Muslim and Christian services would be. So, when I heard all of these white pundits frothing at the mouth over the kind of service that Jeremiah Wright led, I knew they had no clue what they were talking about. Donna Brazile tried to explain, on ABC's This Week, that Rev. Wright was rather mild compared to some of the black pastors that are out there. I would agree. But, long before civil rights and as far back as slavery, the black church has served not only as a place of worship but a place to discuss any and everything that impacts the community. Historically, church was the only place blacks could gather and/or take refuge from the brazen racism that existed in the south. All of the mania over Obama's pastor just shows how far most Americans are from the "audacity" of which Obama speaks. For, if they don't understand the roots and purpose of the black church, they will never comprehend most anything about black people or about the history of America.

I understand why the Obama campaign felt they had to distance themselves from Wright's post 9-11 comments. But I am worried that Obama has missed a chance to talk about the rich and complex tapestry of black religious life. Not all black people are Christian. Not all belong to large, urban churches. Even fewer worship with such an outspoken, unapologetically political minister. But Trinity UCC does represent an important segment of black religious tradition. It is not scary, racist or un-American. Quite the opposite, Rev. Wright is integral to the broad prophetic tradition that informs many black churches.

Prophetic Christianity allowed African Americans to retain a sense of humanity in the face of our country's racism. Like many people of faith, black Americans have to grapple with how an all-loving and all-powerful God can coexist with evil.

For African Americans, evil takes the very specific and identifiable form of white supremacy, first through enslavement, then through Jim Crow and lynch mob rule, and into what many today experience as seemingly intractable racial inequality. Black Americans struggle to reconcile the sin of racism with the idea of a loving and powerful God. Different churches resolve this issue in various ways.

In churches like Trinity UCC, black folks read the Bible with an eye on what it has to say about experiences of bondage and oppression. In this way the Bible is both a moral guide and a political text. Even though slaveholders declared that God wanted slaves to obey their masters, black people believed that God wanted them to be free. They believed this because they read the story of Moses.

Though the confederate states claimed that God instituted segregation; black Americans believed differently because they read Amos. Today many black Americans worry when our country engages in self-righteous foreign policy because we have read Isaiah.

African American religious traditions are rich and complex. The hope-filled candidacy of Barack Obama is also part of our tradition. Obama's broad multi-racial coalition makes many African Americans feel like part of the Joshua generation finally laying claim to the American promised land. But we cannot enter that promised land together if white America refuses to acknowledge the prophetic truths of black religiosity.

We cannot learn from our prophets if we denounce them. Silencing Jeremiah Wright will not makes us forget hundreds of years of racial inequality. Now is the time to listen to each other carefully.

BTW, I am Catholic. I grew up in a black (due to de facto segregation that encompassed most northern cities in America) parish. I went to mass almost every Sunday as a child and my Girl Scout troop functioned out of that parish. However, many of the kids in my block/neighborhood, went to a traditional black church. Most of their parents couldn't afford the Catholic school education that my mother provided my sister and I with. So, I went to that church too. Let me tell you, the difference was night and day. I used to get "tickled" by some of the things that the preacher used to say but he was speaking to the issues of the people who lived in that community. I'm not even sure I ever heard the Gospel the way it was presented in Mass. But, they had a nursery school where many of the kids in the neighborhood started out in life and, before my family moved to the suburbs, were trying to build a nursing home for seniors. I know people went to the pastor in times of struggle and need. I know that people looked up to him and his family. It definitely was far different from the 45 minute/hour Mass I attended with a white priest at the altar. Somehow, even then, I knew that both had a place and a purpose in my life. Mass was Mass and I loved it but the other church was more about connecting with the kids who lived around me but that I didn't attend school with. I participated in most of the activities they provided throughout the year - especially during the summer. Since Mass was so early, I was still able to attend Sunday School and the 11am service at the other church every week pretty consistently.

I don't attend any church now (maybe the double duty as a child wore me out). I will attend on various occasions when asked by friends or when one of the organizations I belong to decides to go as a group. When I have ventured into a service on my own, it has been Mass - and I will say that attending Mass in a non-black parish does feel odd. The service is the same but it just doesn't have the same feel. I cannot say (won't say, in fact) that I will ever join a traditional "black church." I like being in and out in under an hour, like the quietness and don't actually want to be subjected to what sounds like the random rambling of some ministers. As a black woman I know (who converted to Judaism) has been known to say, "black church is too loud" and it cracks me up because that's how I feel too sometimes. So don't think I don't get where confused whites are coming from. The black church is definitely something out of this world and "outsiders" (many times I am out of my element when I attend) don't have a clue what they are witnessing.

If you look at the clips of Jeremiah Wright that they've been showing, you see the classic "call and response" back and forth between he and the congregation. You see folks standing, waving and clapping at his words. Whatever other people may think of what he is saying, he is speaking to what they experience in this place called America and I find it downright insulting for someone to try to negate the validity of someone's experience with their uninformed opinion of what they think they heard or saw. In the words of that dude on the corner they "betta talk what they know."

Addendum: Oh! How could I have forgotten to mention this. I've been to Trinity before and have seen Rev. Wright on other occasions at events in Chicago over the years. I only attended once and it was in the early 90s. I can't say what the sermon was about and I think I'd remember if he said something off the wall or something I didn't agree with. Heck, what I was sick of was black preachers talking about was women knowing their place or some other dumb mess about dealing with men. Perhaps it is because the political climate wasn't what it is now but I've never seen the person the media has plastered all over the nightly news. Even if he did say some of the things from the footage, I might have agreed with some of it or might have blocked it out (as I mentioned above, black church can be "too loud" and I don't respond to that). All of the hysterical right wingers and scared white folks who need to realize that Obama is indeed black, need to chill. Chill or don't vote for him. If sound bytes of Rev. Wright is all it takes to put a wrench in Obama's vision, I guess it proves that there is no audacity OR hope for this country just yet.

He's Worried?

This is part of the "what the hell did you think was going to happen?" diatribe that I go on when these fools act surprised that neighboring countries have a stake in what is going on in Iraq! Did they honestly think that any country in the region (even if they are an alleged ally) were not going to have their finger in that pie in some way? This is when I want to call it sheer arrogance and white supremacy because it must be something alon that order that would prompt them to think they could just invade and occupy another country of "brownish people" and that Iran and the others wouldn't blink an eye.

U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain came to Israel on Tuesday as part of a fact-finding tour of the Middle East which could also boost his popularity among American Jewish voters.

McCain, an Arizona senator who will be his party's nominee to face the Democrats' choice in the November election, began his two-day visit at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

McCain and Senate allies, Democrat-turned-Independent Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, then met Israeli President Shimon Peres for talks on Iran's nuclear projects and backing of Palestinian militants.

"Senator McCain expressed his concern over Iranian involvement in the region and noted that Iran finances and aids extremist groups. He added that his current trip to the Middle East has reinforced his concern," Peres's office said in a statement.

Who are we aiding? Last I heard we were funding both Shia and Sunni militias in various parts of Iraq. That's what's giving people the illusion that this so-called surge is working.

A Total Myth And A Mugging

I'm not sure I'd go as far as to call it a total myth and a mugging but I do think that people piled on Bill Clinton without good cause.

Former President Clinton on Monday called the notion that he unfairly criticized his wife's rival, Barack Obama, "a total myth and a mugging." Clinton had compared Obama's landslide victory in South Carolina's Jan. 26 primary to Jesse Jackson's wins in the state in 1984 and 1988.

Clinton was widely criticized for appearing to cast Obama as little more than a black candidate popular in a state with a heavily black electorate. He was widely accused of fanning racial tensions.

"They made up a race story out of that," Clinton said of the news media, calling the story "a bizarre spin."

In an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America" broadcast Monday, Clinton said he had gotten a "bum rap" from the news media.

He made similar comments on CNN's "American Morning," calling the notion that he had unfairly criticized Obama in South Carolina as "a total myth and a mugging."

What Part of Wright Is Wrong?

Lawd! I don't even know where to begin with this one. This psycho drama over Obama's former pastor Jeremiah Wright's supposed fiery rhetoric has taken on a life of its own. My question is, what part of what he said is inaccurate?

Wright has spoken out passionately and angrily about racism. He has done so blindly at times. But is Wright racist against white people?

The question itself contains the answer.

Nobody with any understanding of history would say that racism has not been a problem in America. Nobody with any understanding of the present would say racism is not still a problem in America. And nobody with any decency would think that problematic racism was directed at white people.

Conservatives and Clinton supporters have seized on Wright's anger to show that he "hates white people." I don't sense that, but let's say for argument's sake that he does. Jeremiah Wright came of age at a time when African-Americans were still struggling to get the vote in much of our nation, at a time when the American apartheid system was still fighting its bitter twilight struggle against integration. After serving in the Navy, he went to Chicago to get his divinity degree, a city that the first Mayor Daley worked assiduously to keep segregated throughout his long tenure. He stayed there to preach on the South Side, which has never been a bastion of tolerance and equality.

He has, in short, known an America where African-Americans were not just second-class citizens, but subhuman. He has watched that America change from one that kept black men from voting to one that incarcerated them over petty drug charges. He has eyes, and he can read, and he knows that African-American families were given a disproportionate number of sub-prime loans even when equally qualified as white borrowers. He knows that African-American families are still mired in poverty. He knows that when David Paterson takes the oath of office on Monday, he'll be only the third African-American governor since reconstruction -- and that the second, Deval Patrick, was sworn in just over a year ago. He knows that Barack Obama is only the third African-American to serve in the U.S. Senate since reconstruction, and that he's in the seat that was vacated when the second, Carol Moseley Braun, lost her reelection bid in 1998.

And when he talks, as Obama paraphrases him in Dreams of My Father, of "his world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks’ greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere," tell me, is that an inaccurate representation of the world twenty years ago? Ten years ago? Today?

Jeremiah Wright has every right to hate how America has treated African-Americans, and he has every right to lay that at the feet of white America. Moreover, he is right to do so. From slavery to the 3/5 compromise to the corrupt bargain to the bombardment of Tulsa to the imposition of Jim Crow to the epidemic of lynching to the the Tuskegee syphilis study to Strom Thurmond to Bull Connor to George Wallace to Birmingham and Boston and Chicago and Selma and Detroit and Watts, white America has failed the African-American community, over and over again. Anger is not irrational; indeed, it is righteous ...

Moreover ... the UN says virtually the same thing:

You think Jeremiah Wright is a lunatic? Let’s look for objective analysis, shall we?

The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination recently issued a scathing report about racism in America. In the report, the committee cited the following:

- The mass incarceration of black men in our prison systems. America has the largest prison population in history and half of those men are black. The problem is that black people are only 13% of the general population.

- Inadequate legal defense for these individuals, leading to a higher likelihood of incarceration.

- Longer prison sentences for the same crimes for black men and a disproportionate willingness of our government to kill these men when they are on trial for murder.

- Segregated school systems leading to far worse education for black children.

- The disenfranchisement of individuals with criminal records, denying them the right to vote, and significantly reducing their opportunities for employment for the length of their entire lives.

Obama has a tough row to hoe. That's probably why bloggers like Cobb question whether this is really an issue of Obama being a fraud.

New York Gov Has Jokes

New York has a new governor and he's a hoot!

New York's new Governor David Paterson drew applause and hoots of laughter as he delivered an inaugural speech laden with jokes about fellow Albany lawmakers. Paterson made fun of his disability - he is legally blind - by recounting how Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver prevented him from cracking his gavel down on a glass. According to Paterson, Silver said that event would have turned the legislature into a "Jewish wedding." Paterson also knocked the republican State Senator Joseph Bruno's tough-guy person by saying he'd go to his upstate New York ranch for dinner only if he brought his "taster" along.

On another note, you won't have to dig up infidelity dirt on him. He's already copped to his.

Feds Bail Out Bear, Commoners Grin And Bear It

Homeowners across America are losing everything they have in this mortgage crisis and there is no relief. But the big dogs get a bail out.

The Federal Reserve took dramatic action on multiple fronts last night to avert a crisis of the global financial system, backing the acquisition of wounded investment firm Bear Stearns and increasing the flow of money to other banks squeezed for credit.

After a weekend of marathon negotiations in New York and Washington, the central bank undertook a broad effort to prevent key financial players from going under, including the unprecedented offer of short-term loans to investment banks and an unexpected cut in a special bank interest rate.

As part of the deal, J.P. Morgan Chase, a major Wall Street bank, will buy Bear Stearns for a bargain-basement price, paying $2 a share for an institution that still plays a central role in executing financial transactions. Bear Stearns stock closed at $57 on Thursday and $30 on Friday. J.P. Morgan was unwilling to assume the risk of many of Bear Stearns's mortgage and other complicated assets, so the Federal Reserve agreed to take on the risk of about $30 billion worth of those investments.

NY's David Paterson Off To A Good Start

Well, if his sense of humor is any indication, New York Staters have a winner ...

David Paterson just gave his first public address since Eliot Spitzer's resignation yesterday. He made noises about "getting back to work" and the budget, talked about being black and blind, indicated he wasn't planning any major changes to his predecessors more controversial policies, and became the first human being in government to express sympathy for Spitzer himself. "My heart goes out to Eliot Spitzer, his wife Silda, his daughters," he said. "I know what he's gone through this week. In my heart, I think he's suffered enough."

Paterson also displayed a rather awesome sense of humor.

“Just so we don't have to go through this whole resignation thing again,” one ballsy reporter asked, “Have you ever patronized a prostitute?” Patterson thought for a minute.

“Only the lobbyists,” he said.

Now, if he "catches a case," don't say he lied!

Gas Prices Are Killing My Piggy Bank!

More Denunciation

Yawn!

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Friday denounced inflammatory remarks from his pastor, who has railed against the United States and accused its leaders of bringing on the Sept. 11 attacks by spreading terrorism.

As video of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has widely aired on television and the Internet, Obama responded by posting a blog about his relationship with Wright and his church, Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, on the Huffington Post.

Obama wrote that he's looked to Wright for spiritual advice, not political guidance, and he's been pained and angered to learn of some of his pastor's comments for which he had not been present. A campaign spokesman said later that Wright was no longer on Obama's African American Religious Leadership Committee, without elaborating.

"I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies," Obama said. "I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it's on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Reverend Wright that are at issue."

In a sermon on the Sunday after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Wright suggested the United States brought on the attacks.

P6 has some good video clips of Washington Journal from this morning where Rev. Wright was the topic of discussion.

Make That List And Shove It

Like Chavez cares ...

President Hugo Chavez dared the U.S. on Friday to put Venezuela on a list of countries accused of supporting terrorism, calling it one more attempt by Washington to undermine him for political reasons. Chavez said the "threat to include us on the terrorist list" is Washington's response to his own successes in the region.

U.S. lawmakers including Rep. Connie Mack and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, both Florida Republicans, have called for the State Department to add Venezuela to its list of terror sponsors, which currently includes North Korea, Iran, Syria, Sudan and Cuba. They have expressed concerns about what they call Chavez's close ties to Colombia's leftist rebels.

"Let them make that list and shove it in their pocket," Chavez said in a televised speech.

"We shouldn't forget for an instant that we're in a battle against North American imperialism and that they have classified us as enemies - at least in this continent they have us as enemy No. 1," Chavez said.

Keeping That Day Job

Not that it would make the misery any less great, but half of the pain has got to be looking at all you've given up to play the "perfect" wife to a man who wasn't as concerned with being a perfect husband.

Wife again standing mutely at his side, Eliot Spitzer resigned from his office as governor of the state of New York. When Spitzer's wife, Silda, called Hillary Clinton for advice on how to be a good first lady a few years ago, she probably didn't realize how horribly relevant the connection would be. Now, another blond deer caught in the headlights standing by her man rotates endlessly on our TV screens while pundits like Dr. Laura debate whether she was good enough in bed and saner voices implore the public not to blame the victim.

Everyone is asking what he could have been thinking: Gary Hart, Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, David Vitter, all caught, all paying a price—many a very high price. The guy had a perfect law-school test score. Don't they teach reasoning by analogy at Harvard Law School? But why not ask the same question about her? She went to Harvard, too. Eleanor Roosevelt, Jacqueline Kennedy, the first Mrs. Gingrich on her hospital bed. Silda Spitzer could not have been ignorant of the history of alpha-male politicians; she called Hillary herself. What could she have done? What can any woman do?

How about this: Don't quit your day job ...

Who Is David Paterson?

Soon to be the first black governor of New York, most people outside of the state have never heard of him. Here is a glimpse.

America is being introduced to David Paterson, who will be sworn in as Governor of New York on Monday in the wake of Eliot Spitzer's resignation, as the first African American to hold that office in New York and the first blind governor in the nation's history.

I know him as my childhood friend from Harlem who has a terrific sense of humor and passionate commitment to social justice. The pride that Harlem feels at his rise to the highest office in our state is boundless.

David did not just burst on the political scene last week. First of all, he comes from noble political stock. His father, Basil Paterson, is a former state senator, New York secretary of state, and New York City deputy mayor. David's mentors were his father's political allies: Mayor David Dinkins, Congressman Charles Rangel and Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton and my dad, Judge Bruce Wright.

As young men in Harlem, he and I marched successfully to change the name of Lenox Avenue to Malcolm X Boulevard. "We know who Malcolm X is but we sure as hell don't know who Lenox is," we would say.

I'm lucky enough to serve in our overwhelmingly Democratic Assembly, but he labored in the Democratic minority in our State Senate since he took his seat there in 1985. Republicans have controlled the State Senate for the last forty years. David took on the job of Senate Minority Leader and immediately started both building bridges with his Republican adversaries and working to elect a Democrat majority so that a more progressive agenda can be implemented.

In a changing New York State, most observers believe that it is almost inevitable that Democrats will pick up the two seats we need to win the majority in the State Senate this November. But in 2006, despite being on the verge of stepping up to the powerful post of Senate Majority Leader, David Paterson agreed to a step down so he could run for Lieutenant Governor with Eliot Spitzer, becoming the first African American to hold that post ...

He's Wrong But Something Still Ain't Right

Spitzer proved himself to be a cad who cheats on his wife with high dollar prostitutes. But it was called a "prostitution ring" for a reason. There are a lot of men who use them and don't get caught. Why were they investigating him? Something in the milk ain't clean about how and why he got caught. It must have been the due diligence of all of his enemies.

Spitzer is so loathed on Wall Street and in the business community that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has devoted entire conferences to figuring out how to bring him down. Tom Donohue, the president of the Chamber, once accused Spitzer of using the "most egregious and unacceptable form of intimidation that we have seen in this country in modern time" in his investigation of Wall Street firms back in 2005, when Spitzer was the state's attorney general.

Business leaders despise Spitzer for his holier-than-thou press conferences in which he denounced them as slimeballs. Among his enemies: former chief of the New York Stock Exchange, Dick Grasso; the entire mutual fund industry; dirty power-plant owners; trillion-dollar banks. Spitzer went after all of them, with an aggressive use of state and some federal law that was derisively known as "Spitzerism." His election as New York's governor showed that he had the ability to win over upstate Republicans, a sign that he might have a future in national politics. And imagine the business world's horror at the possibility of a Spitzer-led U.S. Department of Justice, or worse, the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Spitzer had to know that people were gunning for him. Put aside Wall Street, he'd made plenty of enemies prosecuting garden-variety criminals. As head of the state's organized crime task force, he prosecuted two major prostitution rings. He certainly must have realized that prostitution business often has deep ties to mobsters. So by associating with $5,500-an-hour "executive" call-girls who were in bed with wealthy individuals and possibly connected to organized crime, Spitzer put himself in a position where he could be blackmailed or ruined by the very types of people he had pursued.

American's are going to need to make some decisions. Either we are going to accept the notion that "men will be men" and that mistresses and/or whores are a divine right which should be brushed off as commonplace OR men are going to have to stop being hypocrites (demanding of others that which they cannot do themselves), stop expecting their humiliated families to stand before the world with them as they confess, and stop seeking high powered careers that they are willing to let crumble before their eyes (all for a piece of tail). It just makes no sense!

Oh Gees Gerry!

Baby girl, it ain't that deep.

Dear Hillary –

I am stepping down from your finance committee so I can speak for myself and you can continue to speak for yourself about what is at stake in this campaign.

The Obama campaign is attacking me to hurt you.

I won’t let that happen.

Thank you for everything you have done and continue to do to make this a better world for my children and grandchildren.

You have my deep admiration and respect.

Gerry

Now be quiet.

Black And Blind

This is such a bizarre twist of events. A man is out for whore mongering and is replaced by a man who will be the first Black governor of New York and is also blind.

Lt. Gov. David Paterson, set to replace disgraced Gov. Eliot Spitzer on Monday, is seen by important segments of the New York business community as a breath of fresh air.

“He’s an excellent man, a man of high moral character and family values. He’s a true conciliatory person, someone who can reach out to everyone in state government,” said Mark Jaffe, chief executive of the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce.

“I believe he can be one of the best governors the state and country has ever seen,” Jaffe enthused.

If this praise seems like so much thinly-veiled criticism of Spitzer, it is.

Jaffe said Spitzer’s temperament, often described as overbearing, hampered his ability to work with others, whether it be in the business community or other politicians in Albany.

On the other hand, “Paterson’s temperament is ideally suited for pushing and promoting programs that will help all businesses,” Jaffe said.

When Paterson becomes governor on Monday, the 53-year-old former state senator from Harlem will become the first black governor of New York. Despite being legally blind, Paterson plays basketball and ran a marathon.

I don't know anything about Paterson and don't care if he can leap tall buildings in a single bound. He is still a man - a human - and expectations that he will be a saint will only set people up for disappointment. Can we let him do his job without delving into his personal proclivities? We'll be kicking all of these cats out of office sooner or later if their sex lives are going to be constantly made public knowledge.

Ask The Madam

I guess Newsweek didn't want to miss a beat with the hottest story in town. They decided to get expert opinions from convicted madam Heidi Fleiss.

If anyone can offer any special insight into the Eliot Spitzer scandal, it's Heidi Fleiss. The former Hollywood madam—who once ran a call girl business that served clients like actor Charlie Sheen and who served 21 months in federal prison after being convicted of tax evasion—says she is not surprised by the New York governor's alleged link to a prostitution ring. "What's the mystery?" she asks. "If the guy wants to get laid, he wants to get laid."

Fleiss now lives in Pahrump, Nev., about 80 miles west of Las Vegas, where in 2005 she announced plans to open Nevada's first brothel for female customers. She's vague about why that hasn't happened, except to say that she's now in talks to go into business on that front with Dennis Hof, owner of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch near Reno, which was the focus of the HBO show "Cathouse." Meanwhile, Fleiss has opened a laundromat called Dirty Laundry in Pahrump. Last month she was charged with DUI and drug possession and is awaiting trial in that case. Fleiss spoke to NEWSWEEK about the Spitzer case. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: Does it surprise you that someone as high-profile as the governor of New York would get in trouble like this?
Heidi Fleiss: Of course not. Dude, these are men. They think about sex 98 percent of the time.

When you were running your own call girl business, did it ever surprise you what kind of risks these men were taking?
No. Why would it surprise me?

Well, I'm asking. You knew who they were and …
I wasn't going to tell anything.

I know you weren't, but still, it's quite a risk. Did you ever wonder what was motivating these men?
Well, come on, the guy wants to get laid. If the guy wants to get laid, he wants to get laid. What's the mystery? It's an adult activity.

So if these charges are true, should this be the end of Gov. Spitzer's career?
Absolutely. You can't vigorously pursue prosecuting these prostitution rings—I mean, this guy made a point of it—and then do this. Get that guy out of office. He's a liar. He has no business being the voice of the people.

You don't have any sympathy for him?
Well, you know, who wants a governor who doesn't have sex? That would be creepy. But you can't be a hypocrite and a zealot. He's made prostitution out to be a horrible crime. Obviously it's not if he was doing it. It's just a business that needs to be regulated so the women don't have to always suffer.
[...]

I'm not sure I care for the opinions of a madam. Yes, she knows the game and, apparently, she thinks she knows men inside and out. Thanks, Newsweek, for the "web exclusive." Be proud of the "scoop."

Reject And Denounce

Here we go. Last week it was an Obama adviser calling Hillary a monster. Now Geraldine Ferraro has put her foot in it. This ritual of candidates spending more time rejecting and denouncing people associated with their campaigns (vetted supporters or not) is getting old. I think I know what she is getting at but at this stage in the game, it would have been best for her to ferme la bouche .

Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday she disagrees with Geraldine Ferraro, one of her fundraisers and the 1984 vice presidential candidate, for suggesting that Barack Obama only achieved his status in the presidential race because he's black.

In a brief interview with The Associated Press, Clinton was questioned about Ferraro's remarks. The Obama campaign has called on the New York senator to denounce them.

Ferraro told the Daily Breeze of Torrance, Calif.: "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

The newspaper published the interview last Friday.

Clinton said, "I do not agree with that," and later added, "It's regrettable that any of our supporters — on both sides, because we both have this experience — say things that kind of veer off into the personal."

"We ought to keep this on the issues. there are differences between us" on approaches to health care, energy, experience.

I'll bite and pick apart what she said and what she, in all her whiteness, meant.

"a woman (of any color) ..."

On this, I might agree. A couple of months ago in Gloria Steinem's NY Times Op Ed, she said something similar:

THE woman in question became a lawyer after some years as a community organizer, married a corporate lawyer and is the mother of two little girls, ages 9 and 6. Herself the daughter of a white American mother and a black African father — in this race-conscious country, she is considered black — she served as a state legislator for eight years, and became an inspirational voice for national unity.

Be honest: Do you think this is the biography of someone who could be elected to the United States Senate? After less than one term there, do you believe she could be a viable candidate to head the most powerful nation on earth?

Honestly, I don't think a black/bi-racial woman with the same pedigree and credentials could have reached the same heights or be taken nearly as seriously.

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position ..."
This is a bit trickier which is why keeping that trap shut is so important. I saw Obama at the 2004 DNC and, like everyone else, was impressed. He gave a great speech at a convention that was trying to focus on the positive (unlike the RNC where my governor was on center stage calling people girlie men). With all of the swift boating and just plain nastiness, he was the balm in Gilead that everyone was looking for. That speech propelled him into the national spotlight and he's been shining ever since.

That being said, you have to admit he's a unique black man. As black conservative Cobb once posted, there have been many many other worthy black men who've deserved being considered viable for the presidency (okay, he didn't say it like that and isn't as impressed as most other colored folks seem to be). While I'd say that a black man like Harold Ford (former TN congressman who made a bid for the Senate) probably would have won his election had he been white (given his pedigree, presence and experience), saying that Obama is only where he is because he is black is a bit more complex. Or, is the question that no white man would be where he is because given the same background and experience?

No doubt, Barack's oratory skills are what really seem to draw people in. Many times he seems to be channeling Martin Luther King. While many white men have given great and inspiring speeches, oration (from a cultural standpoint) is something ingrained and almost expected from any black person who wants to be a leader in the black community. Though Barack didn't grow up in a black community, he seems to have immersed himself in it and has found "home" within it via his wife and family. So, if he were white, I don't believe he'd have the skills to move people the way he does and I don't think his message of unity would be met with the same optimism if it were coming from a white man. In fact, I think most white folks would be running the other way thinking that somehow blacks would gain an advantage over them by any kind of unity.

Barack's mixed heritage gives black folks something to rally around (even if taken to the extreme) and it gives white folks the feeling that they can vote for a black candidate who has that "I don't really see you as black" feel. So, I think that Geraldine Ferraro should have clarified her comments. Barack isn't doing this well be cause he is black. He's doing so well because he is black - and then not so black. "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position." But if he were any other black man, he wouldn't be either.

These Chicks Need To Learn About Hot Grits

Scandal aside with yesterday's bombshell about the Governor of New York's illicit activity with a prostitution ring, the victims are, once again, the family members who have to publicly endure the fallout and, for reasons that must give clues as to why I am not married, stand up there with the him while he publicly admits his wrong doin and infidelity.

Eliot Spitzer’s wife gave up a career as a corporate lawyer at a big law firm for her family.

Silda Wall Spitzer met her ambitious husband at Harvard Law School, and the couple married in 1987, the New York Post reports. The couple seemed like the perfect pair, Eliot Spitzer’s former roommate, Clifford Sloan, told the New York Times in 2006.

A friend of the couple, Carl Mayer, described the relationship this way: “He’s kind of rough edges and ambition, and she’s tremendous charm.”

She had formerly worked at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and then as in-house counsel for Chase Manhattan Bank. At Skadden she billed about 3,200 hours a year and made more money than her husband. But she gave up the work to concentrate on family and to start a philanthropic foundation called Children for Children, which helps kids participate in community service.

Silda Wall Spitzer stood by her husband’s side yesterday when he made a statement to the media following allegations that a government wiretap had caught him hiring a high-priced prostitute. Her eyes filled with tears and “she looked like a woman whose world had just come crashing down,” the Post says.

Perhaps these women ought to learn about the power of hot grits.

Technorati Tags: hot grits, Al Green, Spitzer

And They Call Us Paranoid ...

... that or I am just out of the loop. I had no idea that "okey doke" (while I know what it is), was not only a "black thing" but part of a secret code.

T-Marsh finds Senator Obama's use of the word 'okey-doke' just reprehensible:

Obama is using racial language to attack Clinton in Mississippi. Obviously, to get chummy with the voters in language he thinks will work.

"Racial language"? Oh my.

When William Buckley used polysyllabic words -- albescent, chiliastic, dysgenically and eschatological come to mind -- was it merely to "get chummy" with white people?

For fuck's sake.

Is Taylor Marsh racist, crazy, stupid, or dollop of all three?

Gees! I really need to get out and amongst my peoples more ... LOL!

Stupid People And The Stupid Things They Say

You have to have people like this around to remind you how far we still have to go. I just wish he weren't a congressman.

An Iowa Republican congressman on Monday defended his prediction that terrorists would celebrate if Democrat Barack Obama were elected president, despite a rebuke from aides to John McCain, the GOP's apparent presidential nominee.

"(Obama will) certainly be viewed as a savior for them," Rep. Steve King told The Associated Press. "That's why you will see them supporting him, encouraging him."

King said his offices have been bombarded with calls - positive and negative - since he said Friday that al-Qaida "would be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11 because they would declare victory in this war on terror."

King cited Obama's pledge to pull U.S. troops from Iraq, his father's Muslim roots in Kenya and his middle name, Hussein, which King said has a meaning to terrorists.

Asked about the remarks as he campaigned in Mississippi, Obama said, "I think that Mr. King has it backwards. The fact that the continuation of a presence in Iraq as Senator McCain has suggested is exactly what, I think, will fan the flames of anti-American sentiment and make it more difficult for us to create a long-term and sustainable peace in the world.

"But I have to say that Mr. King and individuals like him thrive on offensive or controversial statements as a way to get in the papers, so I don't take it too seriously. I would hope Senator McCain would want to distance himself from that kind of inflammatory and offensive remarks," Obama said.

BUT, as simple minded as this guy's sentiments are, I have NEVER (and I do mean EVER) seen foolywang like this:

What The Figgety Fuggety?

This is why a woman needs to be President ...

Gov. Eliot Spitzer, the crusading politician who built his career on rooting out corruption, apologized Monday after he was accused of involvement in a prostitution ring. He did not elaborate on the scandal, which drew calls for his resignation.

His stoic wife at his side, Spitzer told reporters at a hastily called news conference: "I have acted in a way that violates my obligations to my family."

"I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself," he said. "I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family."

Hillary may be a "bitch" (and I respect that in her) but, best believe, we wouldn't be having none of this isth going on! His ass needs to SIT DOWN!

Did She Read My Mind?

I have been formulating another rant on strident Obama supporters for days now but this almost sums up my sentiments exactly.

Lately the thing I've enjoyed the least about Barack Obama are his supporters. (emphasis mine, mine, mine)!

I'll be more specific since many of my close friends happen to be members of this group: it's not Obama supporters in general, it's the faction of them who have been wielding their support like a bludgeon. Often times in places like my Facebook newsfeed, or my email box or, say, in the comments section of a blog post.

Here's the thing. I like Barack Obama. If he gets the nomination - and this certainly seems likely - I will be happy to support him. As I've said before Hollywood could not have dreamed up a more magical, inspiring, and unlikely response to eight demoralizing years of George W. Bush. What I'm increasingly liking less, however, is the evangelical nature with which his supporters are trying to convert me to the cause. Lately it's begun to feel a tad abusive and on more than one occasion I've felt like some sort of atheist at a Pentecostal service, or a meat-eater at table of vegetarians.

Much of the time it feels like the vitriol has been less about whether I find Obama lacking than it is about my defense of Hillary as a viable candidate. Apparently, this will not do. Recently it's been my experience that it's not enough to say that I like Obama, the sense I get is that I must LOVE him. I must fully and completely believe that he is the biggest and greatest gift to American political life ever. There are no shades of grey where Obama is concerned. And not only is there no room for Hillary, but any mention of her is greeted with the sort of response that might lead one to believe I was in fact speaking of some evil Eastern European dictator.

Good Lord! I was arguing back and forth on one of my yahoo groups all morning on just this issue. That group is almost solely black and it's that kind of Kool-aid drinking that left so many black people dead in Jonestown so many years ago. You'd think folks would have learned a lesson by now.

Fight! Fight!

Let's get it on!

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama on Wednesday blamed his primary defeats in Ohio and Texas on rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's criticism and news converage that he argued benefited her at his expense.

Iraq Will Love Him Long Time

It seems like Ahmadinejad (or I'm a dinner jacket as The View's Whoopi Goldberg calls him so that she can remember the pronunciation of his name) is a big hit in Iraq. They've rolled out the carpet for him while Bush is still stealing into Baghdad in the middle of the night. We can talk about the "surge" curbing violence but it is the political element which will have the most impact in the end. If they are welcoming him ....

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad began the second day of his state visit to Iraq on Monday. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called Iran's stance toward Iraq "helpful," contradicting his American allies.

The entire love fest of Ahmadinejad's visit underscores how George W. Bush has inadvertently opened the Iranian sluice gates. Iran is the regional victor in the Iraq War.

On Sunday, Ahmadinejad had jousted with Bush long-distance, saying that there hadn't been any terrorism in that part of the Middle East before Bush invaded Iraq.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said he hoped Ahmadinejad would stay in Iraq "a long time."

If We Can't Bring The Peace

Wow! I just turned to CNN and see that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in Iraq. It looks as though he's making inroads all over the Middle East and trying to accomplish things that we can't seem to.

When Palestinians broke through the barrier dividing the Gaza Strip and Egypt in January and streamed across the border by the tens of thousands, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak faced a moment of crisis. His phone soon rang, but the world leader offering help on the other end was not President Bush -- it was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mubarak took the call, resulting in the first such contact between leaders of the two nations since relations were severed nearly three decades ago.

The conversation signaled a growing rapprochement between Egypt, which receives nearly $2 billion in annual aid from Washington, and Iran, a country that the Bush administration has tried to isolate as a possible threat to U.S. interests in the region.

As Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice heads back to the Middle East this week, three months after Bush hosted a peace conference bringing together Israelis and Arabs in Annapolis, prospects for peace have shifted dramatically. There has been little clear movement in peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, while the Iranian-backed militant group Hamas has shown increasingly that it can set the region's agenda.

We seem to make trouble wherever we go. Iran may not be our choice for peace broker but if leaders in the area are accepting his calls and visits, not only may we not have a say, they may no longer want our say.