Is Obama "Mr.Right"?

Bruce Bartlett of The New Republic seems to think so:

The New Yorker is hardly the optimal vehicle for reaching the conservative intelligentsia. But, last year, Barack Obama cooperated with a profile for that magazine where he seemed to be speaking directly to the right. Because he paid obeisance to the virtues of stability and continuity, his interlocutor, Larissa MacFarquhar, came away with the impression that the Illinois senator was an adherent of Edmund Burke: "In his view of history, in his respect for tradition, in his skepticism that the world can be changed any way but very, very slowly, Obama is deeply conservative."

As The New Yorker's assessment shot across blogs, many conservatives listened eagerly. A broad swath of the movement has been in open revolt against George W. Bush--and the Republican Party establishment--for some time. They don't much care for the Iraq war or the federal government's vast expansion over the last seven-and-a-half years. And, in the eyes of these discontents, the nomination of John McCain only confirmed the continuation of the worst of the Bush-era deviations from first principles.

But it was hardly inevitable that this revolt would translate into enthusiasm for the Democratic standard-bearer. After all, you could see similar signs of unhappiness four years ago, and none of that translated into mass defections to the John Kerry camp. And, despite Ann Coulter's vow to campaign for Hillary Clinton over John McCain, the old bête noir of the right would have never attracted many conservatives. That's what makes the rise of the Obamacons such an interesting development. Conservatives of almost all ideological flavors (even, gasp, some supply-siders) have been drawn to Obama--out of a genuine affection and a belief that he may actually better embody movement ideals than McCain.

Conservatives, irate about the Iraq war debacle, see Obama as the clear choice in this election cycle. With John McCain declaring "full speed ahead", they have little choice other than to support Obama's voice of reason, diplomacy, and closure.

Goodnight, John Boy.

Barack Obama on Memorial Day

Obama gives a Memorial Day speech in Las Cruces, New Mexico:

Bill Clinton and Barack Obama: Great minds think alike?

Nico Pitney reports:

As the rumination continues over Barack Obama's comments about economically depressed small town voters, statements made by Bill Clinton on the same topic,uttered while he was running for president in 1991, have now surfaced.

"The reason (George H. W. Bush's tactic) works so well now is that you have all these economically insecure white people who are scared to death," Clinton was quoted saying by the Los Angeles Times in September 1991.

A couple months later, Joe Klein, writing for the Sunday Times, reported that Clinton made the following remarks:

"You know, he [Bush] wants to divide us over race. I'm from the South. I understand this. This quota deal they're gonna pull in the next election is the same old scam they've been pulling on us for decade after decade after decade. When their economic policies fail, when the country's coming apart rather than coming together, what do they do? They find the most economically insecure white men and scare the living daylights out of them. They know if they can keep us looking at each other across a racial divide, if I can look at Bobby Rush and think, Bobby wants my job, my promotion, then neither of us can look at George Bush and say, 'What happened to everybody's job? What happened to everybody's income? What ... have ... you ... done ... to ... our ... country?'"

Compare these remarks to Obama's statement, reported by Mayhill Fowler for Huffington Post's OffTheBus:

Here's how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by -- it's true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laugher), then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter). [...]

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

What Hillary's saying RIGHT NOW:

DAMN it, Bill!

Who's Zoomin' Who?

Hillary - Yes we WILL?

Hillary Clinton has claimed that reporters, not her people, brought forth the charges of plagiarism against Barack Obama, even though her campaign posted video clips on YouTube illustrating similarities in the speeches and suggesting that the shared lines amount to plagiarism.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said: "Senator Clinton knows full well that her campaign held a conference call with reporters to fan these flames and the fact that she suggested her campaign had nothing to do with it is exactly the kind of evasive tactic voters are rejecting."

Obama said on Monday that he wished he'd credited his friend, Deval Patrick, for the lines. He noted Clinton occasionally has used lines similar to his in her speeches. Like yesterday. In this pathetic effort from Ohio:

Obama's Snub Reversal

Do you suppose we can stop discussing the blown-out-of-all-reasonable-proportion State of the Union snub, now?

YouBama

No, I am not yanking your chain! Obama supporters have created a sort of mini version of YouTube, filled with videos from supporters all across the country! Click the logo above to go check it out for yourself. Here's a sample from George Clooney:



And look out for this brilliant little five-year-old! She's gonna be president herself someday!

Obama/Gore '08?

Is this a possible endorsement teaser, or is something else in the works behind the scenes:

Barack Obama, last night in Portsmouth, N.H., advised a guy wearing a Santa hat to go to his Web site to learn more about his plan to combat global warming. And then he said this:

"I talk to Al Gore about every three weeks, and we're going to make sure that your home at the North Pole is still available to you," Obama said, reports NBC/NJ's Erin McPike.

When Obama was asked, at the same event, what one measure he would most like to see enacted in his presidency, he replied:

"I would enact a bold energy policy because I think that we could save so much money, engineer such a resurgence in our economy and solve climate change all at one time. And it would improve our national security posture. So you get a three-fer. It helps our environment, our economy and our national security and it would free up resources over time to deal with what I think is the most important domestic issue which is health care, and I think it would help us strategically on the international stage."

While this doesn't necessarily mean that Gore has been offered the second spot on an Obama ticket, it certainly does sound as if he has Obama's ear. It's been reported that while Gore has spoken with several of this season's presidential candidates, only Edwards and Obama have visited him at his home; Obama has on numerous occasions.

The Great Underground Obama Smear Campaign

Apparently the Nigerian money laundering scheme has some new competition for your attention. While that old ploy attempts to speak to your greed, these newer ones want a dialogue with your inner racism and speak directly to your inner fears about those who are "different":

“Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background,” warns an e-mail titled “Who Is Barack Obama”. “The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the U.S. from the inside out; what better way to start than at the highest level?” “Please forward to everyone you know,” it ended.

Another widely forwarded e-mail is titled “Can a good Muslim become a good American” and answers that question negatively, before concluding: “And Barack Hussein Obama, a Muslim, wants to be our president!!!”

The misinformation is further expanded thanks to the likes of conservative pundits like Ed Rogers, who referred to the candidate as “Barack Hussein Obama”, radio hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, who regularly includes the senator's otherwise little-used middle name, and Michael Savage, who called him “Hussein Barack Obama.”

Not that it matters to any to these folks, but Obama, in fact, is not a Muslim. They dislike him not for his faith but for the pigmentation of his skin. It’s hard to measure how these chain e-mail "swift-boat attacks"can effect a campaign, but there are definite indications that they are being heard:

First, “barack obama muslim” is the third most popular Google search for the presidential candidate's name, behind “barack obama” and “barack obama biography,” according to Google Suggest, which tracks the frequency of word searches. I have included these in the tags for this post - we'll see what sort of traffic it pulls in.

Second, a CBS News poll in August found that, in response to an open-ended question about Obama’s faith, 7 percent of Americans identified him as a Muslim — more than any other response. The right answer, Protestant, was second at 6 percent. Which leaves a whopping 87% who didn't know or just didn't care about the issue.

The racists behind these annonymous e-mails are scoundrels of the worst kind with a need to feed their hatred for someone, anyone, in whatever manner they can. While it’s no longer “socially acceptable" to hate black people, it's still okay to hate Muslims. And that gives these bastards a way to attack a black man in a roundabout sorta way. But it still has the same smell. . .