Barack Obama’s people are courting us to promote their man on NMT. Have they been reading us? “Come to an appearance!” Maybe they’re counting on us being converted by mesmerism. Their man’s a grass-roots Howard Dean phenome they say, of whole cloth I say.
What a singularly unqualified candidate! He may be Dale Carnegie behind the podium but what’s Obama done beside give a speech at the DNC and win a barely contested senate seat? The poster child was key to the Jerry Lewis Telethon, but we didn’t expect him to run it.
If Barack Obama wants to govern, he could start now! He was elected to the Senate, isn’t there anything he can do there? What’s Obama going to do as president, campaign for Secretary General?
It’s not like there’s a shortage of legislating to do in DC right now. Where is Obama on any of the issues? Are his handlers cautioning him to stay away from the action lest he get hurt? Are they forgetting why he was put into the game to begin with?
Obama could be holding tight to Congress’s purse strings, or countering Bush’s inanities, or bringing public light to Valerie Plame or Sibel Edmonds. His office could be issuing subpeona after subpeona, or calling for impeachment. Or not, apparently. If a junior senator can’t rise above his seniors, whatever does he think he can do in the Executive Branch? We’re supposed to expect what from a president in Obama’s clothing?
Here’s what Obama’s been saying and doing ….
CAMPAIGN 2004: US SENATE RACE
Obama would consider missile strikes on Iran
By David Mendell
Chicago Tribune staff reporter
Published September 25, 2004
U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama suggested Friday that the United States one day might have to launch surgical missile strikes into Iran and Pakistan to keep extremists from getting control of nuclear bombs.
Obama, a Democratic state senator from the Hyde Park neighborhood, made the remarks during a meeting Friday with the Tribune editorial board. Obama’s Republican opponent, Alan Keyes, was invited to attend the same session but declined………..
Yes, I agree somewhat with you Eric. Although, it’s fairly early to tell how well Obama could truly represent us and it’s all simply political manuevering at this point. But I’m sorry, even though I still have concerns about both of the front runners in the Democratic presidential race, I agree with Gloria Steinem’s comments about how devisive this line of questioning is. Our only hope is for a Democratic candidate to win. Albeit, seemingly time for a viable third party alternative and lacking the decision of whether Gore will run or not (I don’t consider Edwards a viable alternative), we are stuck in this moment. My answer would be the same as Gloria’s when asked who she would support, Hillary or Obama, to which she simply said…..”Yes”.
Ugh…
I don’t know a lot about Obama’s views on certain subjects. He seems to be a moderate Democrat from what I can tell. Maybe he doesn’t have all the answers, but do any of the others? Maybe it would be better to have someone who hasn’t had time to be utterly corrupted? I sure wish we had a third party here in the States or something more like they have in Germany where it depends on the percentage of votes a candidate or party gets. The Germans are quite progressive when it comes to things like environment, health care and education. (But their system is changing, too. They just raised the retirement age because people haven’t been having enough kids for about the last ten years or so.) All I know is if our schools don’t get their shit together ASAP, we’re all going to be in the poorhouse, no matter who’s the president, in about ten years.
(Great book to read: Tough Choices or Tough Times: The Report of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce”. It explains what all of us educators have been screaming from the rafters for years!)