RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Barack Hussein Obama in '08?

In a letter sent by them to the Obama campaign, Gary Dwyer, Secretary-Treasurer, Ohio State Building and Construction Trades Council Barry Pickett, Business Representative, Sheet Metal Workers International Association, Local 24, write: “We were surprised and disappointed to learn that your top economic adviser reportedly had a secret meeting with a representative of the Canadian government where he dismissed your anti-NAFTA rhetoric.”

An adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama apologized Friday for telling a Scottish newspaper that rival Hillary Rodham Clinton is "a monster."

Samantha Power, a foreign policy adviser to Obama's presidential campaign and Pulitzer Prize winner, was quoted in remarks she later attempted to retract as saying in The Scotsman newspaper that Clinton was stooping to low tactics to recover ground in the race to win the party's presidential nomination.

The Harvard professor is quoted as telling the newspaper Obama's team had been disappointed with Clinton's campaign win in Ohio on Tuesday.

"In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio's the only place they can win," Power is quoted as saying. "She is a monster, too — that is off the record — she is stooping to anything."

Power issued a statement Friday in which she acknowledged the comments but said she "deeply regretted them."

"It is wrong for anyone to pursue this campaign in such negative and personal terms," she said in the statement. "I apologize to Senator Clinton and to Senator Obama, who has made very clear that these kinds of expressions should have no place in American politics."

Obama's spokesman Bill Burton said in an e-mail: "Senator Obama decries such characterizations which have no place in this campaign."

Though Power immediately attempted to withdraw the remark, the newspaper insisted she had agreed in advance that her interview — part of a book tour — would be conducted on the record.

"You just look at her and think, 'Ergh'," Power is quoted as telling the newspaper. "But if you are poor and she is telling you some story about how Obama is going to take your job away, maybe it will be more effective. The amount of deceit she has put forward is really unattractive."

In a separate interview for Britain's left-leaning New Statesman magazine, published Thursday, Power warned Clinton's campaign against reveling in the trial of an Obama donor Antonin "Tony" Rezko on corruption charges.

"I don't think it's a good idea for the Clintons to get into a competition over who's got the most unsavory donations, you know what I mean?" Power was quoted as telling the magazine.

This is politics, G-man. There's no room for truth here.

I gotta give Obama this: he has possibly the most honest advisor who ever worked in politics.

Obama's Grandmother Changes Islam Story.

Last year, she told the press she was a devout Muslim. Now she's claiming to be Christian. Did she convert or is someone hiding something?

Praise Allah?

October 2, 2002

Good afternoon. Let me begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union, and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil. I don't oppose all wars.

My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain. I don't oppose all wars.

After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration's pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again. I don't oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism.

What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income - to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics. Now let me be clear - I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He's a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.

So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the President today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings. You want a fight, President Bush?

Let's fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe. You want a fight, President Bush?

Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil. Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair.

The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable. We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not -- we will not -- travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain.

Obama's black support shows its limits

Barack Obama would not be leading the Democratic presidential race without the enthusiasm and high turnout of black voters.

They spearheaded his comeback win in South Carolina, where Obama trounced Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards with the backing of four out of every five black voters. They provided his margin of victory in many other states, and will play a key role in Tuesday's primary in Mississippi, where Clinton is the underdog.

But Obama's campaign saw the limits of black support in last week's losses in Ohio and Texas, which kept Clinton's campaign alive. And the role black voters will play in the next big contest, Pennsylvania's April 22 primary, is unclear.

Moreover, some analysts think it's possible Obama's heavy black support is nudging some working-class white Democrats into Clinton's camp. If true, it could be an important factor in a contest that remains remarkably tight after a year of campaigning.

Obama, the son of a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya, won slightly more white votes than Clinton in Wisconsin, Virginia and a few other states last month, helping him to a string of wins and the overall lead in delegates to the party's national convention.

But Clinton won nearly two out of every three white votes in Ohio, and 56 percent of those in Texas, where she also ran well among Latinos. Strategists are pondering the results, wondering if Pennsylvania's demographic similarities to Ohio will deliver another important win to Clinton in six weeks.

Ronald Walters, a University of Maryland political scientist who tracks racial trends and is writing a book on Obama, thinks Obama's strong support from blacks made it easier for some whites in Ohio and Texas to vote for Clinton.

"There's some of that," Walters said in an interview. He pointed to exit polls from Ohio, where 62 percent of all whites lack college degrees and many are anxious about their jobs in a weak economy.

"This is a racially sensitive group," he said, referring specifically to whites who earn less than $50,000 a year and did not attend college.

"They are the quintessential Reagan Democrats," he said. "They feel they've been left" and their resentment can have social and racial overtones.

Ohio exit polls support Walters' view. Eighteen percent of white Ohio voters said race was an important factor in their decision, and of that group, three in four voted for Clinton.

In general elections, which pit Democrats against Republicans, the racial sensitivity of white voters has been pronounced and well-documented for decades. It's a chief cause of the realignment of the South, where blacks remained intensely loyal to the Democratic Party as whites moved to the GOP by the millions.

In the intraparty world of Democratic primaries, however, racial divisions are much less prevalent, and hard to measure. Many white Democrats, especially in the South, tend to be liberal, racially tolerant and usually happy to join blacks in opposing Republicans.

The Obama-Clinton rivalry may be straining that comity. Some blacks resented remarks Clinton made in New Hampshire, which they viewed as minimizing Martin Luther King Jr.'s role in achieving landmark civil rights laws. And after Obama's South Carolina victory on Jan. 26, former President Clinton seemed to equate the Illinois senator with Jesse Jackson as a candidate who could not draw widespread white support.

Many blacks felt the Clintons "were trying to use race to their political advantage, to cede the black vote to Obama and take the rest," said David Bositis, senior political analyst for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which tracks issues important to black Americans.

The Clintons said they intended no slights, and many blacks still hold great affection for the former president and his eight-year term. But Hillary Clinton's sharp-elbowed campaign is alienating others, Bositis said, and it could hurt the New York senator in November if she becomes the nominee.

Bositis said it was unclear whether Obama's black support is driving some working-class whites into Clinton's corner, but he noted the steep drop in Obama's share of the white vote in Ohio compared to Wisconsin. One possible factor other than race, Bositis said, was Clinton's strong support within the Ohio Democratic establishment, starting with the governor.

One thing is not in doubt: Obama's candidacy and the closeness of the contest are triggering record turnout among black voters. "In many states, the black vote has doubled," Bositis said.

Similar turnout in Philadelphia's black neighborhoods could help Obama next month. But he would have to make deeper inroads into Pennsylvania's white electorate than he did in Ohio if he is to avoid another solid defeat.

Meanwhile, Clinton continues to draw about 10 percent to 20 percent of black voters, who sometimes have to defend their choice.

"She has the most experience," said Elexis Griffin, a black worker at a law office who attended a Clinton fundraiser in Canton, Ohio. "Obama has only been in the Senate three years. I'm not anti-Barack. I'm just pro-Hillary."

Griffin, who is 25 and considering law school, said, "I sit here almost every single day and hear debating: Hillary or Obama? My closest friends, I have very much influenced their vote for Hillary. They accuse me of being against the social movement. And I accuse them of voting with their emotions and not looking at the facts."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080309/ap_on_el_pr/democrats_blacks;_ylt=AvjYwLlZ0zD8Bfhng5b8vVWs0NUE





I hope Perkins can overcome his emotions.

Well, let's see:

That means I won't vote Republican out of fear of some foreign threat.

And I won't vote Hillary because her last name = better times.

So I'll just vote sense.