Obama Will Be The Nominee Wednesday Morning

...so declares NBC pundit-in-chief Tim Russert on the "Today" show this morning. He expects a significant number of Democratic "Superdelegates" to declare for Obama after the results of the South Dakota and Montana primary elections are in. This will be enough to put Obama over the top and give him enough pledged delegates to secure the nomination. Hopefully, this will end the Clinton's campaign, and end their strangle hold on the Democratic Party. We'll see.

As for Obama, he did the politically necessary thing by resigning from his church, even though much truth is spoken in that church, truth that is especially relevant to African Americans. The church will go on, and Obama will go on - down their separate paths, as Rev. Wright said.

It's too bad that you have to sell your soul to be elected to office in this country. Idealism is too soon shattered by political realities. If Obama is elected, I hope he can maintain some of his idealism through the political battering that he will endure as soon as he steps into the oval office. Call me cynical, but I don't have high hopes. By the way, read Gary Hart's spot on article on idealism vs. pragmatism over at Huffington.

Jim

PHOTO: The stained glass in the Gothic Cathedral at Leon, Spain is some of the finest I've seen anywhere and rivals even Chartres, after which this magnificent cathedral was initially patterned.

More Shame On The Clintons!

Why can't Hillary and Bill exit gracefully instead of once again playing the race card against Obama by suggesting that white voters won't vote for Obama in the general election? The bad taste that the Clinton presidency left in the mouths of many of us is now refreshed with this latest shameful behavior. As Bob Herbert puts it in today's New York Times:

"...class is not a Clinton forte.
But it’s one thing to lack class and a
sense of grace, quite another to deliberately try and wreck the presidential
prospects of your party’s likely nominee — and to do it in a way that has the
potential to undermine the substantial racial progress that has been made in
this country over many years.
The Clintons should be ashamed of themselves.
But they long ago proved to the world that they have no shame. "

No shame indeed! They (the Clintons) are awful.

Jim

Carl Bernstein on Hillary As President

Carl Bernstien speculates on what A Hillary presidency would be like:

What will a Hillary Clinton presidency look like?
The answer by now
seems obvious: It will look like her presidential campaign, which in turn looks
increasingly like the first Clinton presidency.
Which is to say, high-minded
ideals, lowered execution, half truths, outright lies (and imaginary flights),
take-no prisoners politics, some very good policy ideas, a presidential spouse
given to wallowing in anger and self-pity, and a succession of aides and
surrogates pushed under the bus when things don’t go right. Which is to say,
often.

Just what we don't need: a re-do of the first Clinton presidency, with all of its unfulfilled promises, failures of leadership and of character, and bitter disappointments (ask most gay people how they feel about the Bill Clinton legacy for our community ("Don't Ask, Don't Tel, and DOMA.)

Jim

Why I Won't Vote For Hillary

It's simple, it's because her husband betrayed gays and lesbians when he was president, and she has not given me any reason to believe that she would treat us any different if she were elected. It's that simple. So, how could she convince gays and lesbians that they wouldn't be betrayed once again if she were elected? For starters, she could take a page out of Al Gore's notebook and unequivocally endorse full gay marriage rights. But she won't. She could put ending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" on her agenda for the first 60 days of her presidency, but she won't. Finally, she could forcefully state in her most important addresses, as Obama has done, that gays and lesbians deserve full equality. But she won't. So, I won' t vote for her. Period.

Jim

The Clintons And Civil Rights

Hillary is out there comparing herself to Lyndon Baines Johnson on civil rights. But what is the real Clinton record on civil rights? Andrew Sulivan nails it - their record is horrible:

"In the 1990s, we saw a burst of grass-roots activism, protest and rhetoric
in defense of gay and lesbian equality. Out of the ashes of the AIDS epidemic,
the gay rights movement rose like a phoenix. And the Clintons, seeing a
fund-raising opportunity, reached out to some in the movement to finance their
own campaign. Those donors trusted them. I wrote the TNR endorsement. But as
soon as the gays had performed their role - financing the Clintons in power and
supporting their campaign - the Clintons turned on us. They dropped their
promise to end the military's ban instantaneously and then presided over a
doubling of the discharges of gay servicemembers under the hideous "Don't Ask,
Don't Tell" policy. They then used the other emerging civil rights issue -
marriage equality - to triangulate against gay couples. They ran ads on
Christian radio stations bragging about the Defense of Marriage Act that
president Clinton eagerly signed. And the only gay people they embraced were
those willing to continue to trade money for access - and loyalty to the
Clintons. Who helped them devise this anti-gay strategy? Dick Morris. Who
recommended hiring him in the first place? Hillary Clinton.
Johnson risked
his entire coalition on the issue of civil rights - a heroic act that still
reverberates today. The Clintons wouldn't risk a smidgen of a percentage point
in a Mark Penn poll for the duration of a news cycle. That's the difference. "

Jim

Poor Hillary

Watching the political drama play out moment by moment as Hillary Clinton's campaign for the presidency seems to be imploding is nothing short of fascinating - like watching a movie where you just know that the outcome is going to be bad for her. I still think she can recover even from a double digit loss to Obama, but maybe not - maybe that will finish her off as so many pundits seem to be saying. Now she get teary-eyed on the campaign trail. That's not good. She says she's for change, but then she touts her experience while saying the Obama is not ready. No wonder she's in trouble. Meanwhile Obama has his act together. He's a great speaker, and he can and does easily turn the inexperience critique to his advantage by pointing out that real change means a rejection, not only of the Bush policies, but by extension., also the policies of the Clinton years. Poor Hillary, she is really in trouble. Boo Hoo.

PHOTO; Subterranean Penn Center - this was once an ice skating rink many years ago.

Jim

Will Al Gore Run?

Here's a photo of the nearly-completed Whyte Hall in the Fire Island Pines. Whyte Hall will be the community center and will host performances given by the Pines Arts Project.

Al Gore is in the news today with the publication of a new book. The buzz is that he still might run for president. Apparently, he's third in some polls even though he has said he is not a candidate. I have mixed feelings about Gore. I believe that he really blew it in 2000 in the debates with Junior. He should have wiped the floor with him, but instead he pandered and waffled and became a different Al Gore in each of the debates. I'm sure he has learned since then that you have to have a core set of beliefs and positions, and stick to them, He spent too much time around the waffler-in-chief Bill Clinton. I think he is tainted by his association with the Clintons. However, he could be a "new" Al Gore based upon his work on global warming, etc. It should be interesting. We'll just have to wait and see what he does.

The Democrats have finally caved on the issue of a deadline for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. We knew this was coming. Junior gets his way on the war, more troops will die, more money will be wasted, and our image worldwide will continue to suffer. The American public is powerless to stop it. So much for democracy.

Quotable: One of Andrew Sullivan's readers notes that Groucho Marx has a great one-liner that fits flip-flopper Mitt Romney perfectly: "I have my principles. If you don't like them, I have others."

Jim

Needed: The Fairness Doctrine

Smerconish is back on MSNBC again this morning. His guests, while I have been watching, have been Arlen Spector, Pat Buchannan, and John McCain. Now that's a nice, balanced lineup, eh? The Fairness Doctrine used to require real balance until it was done away with under, I think, the Reagan administration. Clinton could have reinstated it but didn't. That's just one more of his many failings. We need the Fairness doctine back. Remember, the explosion of right wing talk radio, the Limbaughs, Savages, etc, is due largely to the elimination of the Fairness Doctine.

Jim