Obama: Republicans Counting On Voter Amnesia

Image via Wikipedia

President Barack Obama says Republicans are trying to ride Americans' frustration with the economy to success in the midterm elections, counting on voters "forgetting who caused the mess in the first place."

Are Michael Steele, the GOP Really Patriots?

By: Zack Burgess

"The two parties have combined against us to nullify our power by a ‘gentleman's agreement' of non-recognition, no matter how we vote ... May God write us down as asses if ever again we are found putting our trust in either the Republican or the Democratic Parties." - W.E.B. DuBois, 1922

If ever there was a home for fighting, the United States Congress is it. Once known as a bastion of freedom, it has now become a governing body so full of vitriolic behavior that it makes one wonder why we continue to watch and a support such immature antics in our politics - and political discourse.

Congressman Joe Wilson had the audacity to yell at the president, calling him a liar. Conservative radio blowhard Rush Limbaugh has called for his failure. And the chairman the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, is cool one minute – if you get what I mean – and divisive the next. Yes, it’s that ugly. Which makes one wonder: What’s happened to patriotism in the age of Obama?

Unfortunately, the cognitive dissonance is a serious reality. Instead of them being happy that our perception around the world is improving, the GOP seems satisfied with the status quo. Do Republicans live in an intellectual void? Or is it a tiny box of irrational, reflexive nationalism, girded by a vicious partisan savagery whose shame knows no boundaries? The concern, frankly, is that it appears that Republican opponents of President Barack Obama either do not understand or simply do not care about what’s at stake for our country. 

Are Michael Steele, the GOP Really Patriots?....

Obama's Right Mistake

 

If everybody is mad at the president he must be doing all the right wrong things.

By: Lawrence Bobo

President Barack Obama is being pilloried from all sides. The far left doesn’t understand why corporate America and Wall Street bankers have not yet been rendered penniless by the government. What remains of the so-called Clinton left can’t understand why anyone would have a civil conversation with a Republican. The independents and a dwindling number of thinking Republicans hear the continuous roar of criticism and are beginning to assume that, heck, there sure is a lot of smoke; therefore, there must be a fire. And the far right, of course, is locked in a blood-chilling howl of undying outrage at the fact that the president of the United States is not just a Democrat, but he’s an African American, too.

Obama's Right Mistake....

For Obama Foes, It's Not the Plan - It's the Man

By: Tonyaa Weathersbee

The script that Obama-hating, town hall disruptors are reading from is an old one.

They’re just upgrading it with some fresh hate.

Their forebears, in fact, wrote that script in the late 1950s – the last time that a black man, Martin Luther King Jr., was making headway in changing an oppressive system that wasn’t working for millions of Americans.

That system was segregation. Those Americans were black folks. And once the Supreme Court ruled that segregation was unconstitutional, they did what racists do.

They stoked fears by making stuff up.

For Obama Foes, It's Not the Plan - It's the Man....

Quit Playing Nice, Obama - Just Get Things Done

By: Deborah Mathis

I am loathe to give President Obama my two cents’ worth on practically any topic because he and his key advisors are conspicuously savvy - Exhibit A being the very fact that he is President Obama and not “former presidential contender” Obama. That took some strategic chops that I don’t have.

So, I will present my advice as a “wish,” as in, “I wish President Obama would get off this bipartisanship kick and use his political advantages to do what he know he needs to do.”

Quit Playing Nice, Obama - Just Get Things Done....

Michael Steele Holding Onto GOP Chair – But For How Long?

By: Michael H. Cottman

Michael Steele, the embattled chairman of the Republican National Committee, is pushing back against his critics by focusing on fundraising, filling key positions within the GOP leadership – and keeping a lower profile.

Under fire from Republicans for his recent controversial remarks about abortion and his criticism of Rush Limbaugh, Steele announced last week that the RNC has $24 million cash-on-hand, raised $5.1 million in February and is currently debt free.

“The Republican National Committee is in a strong financial position thanks to our motivated base of supporters and contributors,” Steele said in a statement. “We are building the organization we need to be successful in 2009 and beyond.”

For weeks, Steele’s Republican critics have been urging him to refrain from conducting media interviews and spend more time working on behalf of the RNC. Some have called for his ouster, and others have practically written Steele’s political obituary.

It appears Steele is getting the message: He recently hired a communications director, a political director and has declined all recent requests for interviews with the media. One GOP advisor said Steele is "pulling back" from media interviews to focus on the nuts and bolts of the party's business. The RNC also released a new Web video Friday, titled “Mystery Solved.” The video blames Democrats for the AIG controversy involving executive bonuses.

One senior GOP strategist told BlackAmericaWeb.com that Steele is staying on the job.

“There is no way he can be elected out at this point,” the strategist said. “Can't and won't happen. The true test of his effectiveness will be in the fundraising numbers, and so far, they're not bad in comparison to this time last year. Folks need to give Steele that same opportunity. Leave him alone, and let him do his job.”

But Steele’s critics have accused Steele of running off at the mouth and talking before he’s clearly thought through the issues.

Michael Steele Holding Onto GOP Chair – But For How Long?....

Commentary: Great, There’s a Woman on the GOP Ticket – Too Bad She’s the Wrong Woman for the Job

By: Deborah Mathis

For all their controversy, identity politics may be the most natural, the most instinctive politics of all. And, oddly, the most complicated, misread and mismanaged, as John McCain has proven anew.

There is no real intrigue behind it. The reason you want a person of your gender, your race, your religion or your economic standing in a position of power or esteem is because you assume that person shares your sensibilities, your experience and your interests and will act accordingly.

You assume it because the country’s social structure has a history of divisions along race, class and religious lines, and those segregated enclaves produced collections of experiences and perceptions that are in many ways peculiar to each subdivision. Only someone who’s lived it -- whichever “it” it is -- can really get it, goes the thinking. Then, you expect them to represent.

But, when a person entrusted with that presumption proves that he or she, in fact, does not share your interests, he or she bears no more attraction for you than anyone else and, perhaps, less. The allure -- the advantage -- of identity vaporizes.

COMMENTARY....

Commentary: Trust Me, Republicans, Going After Obama for His ‘Terrorist Ties’ is a Very Bad Idea

By: Gregory Kane

A word of advice to my fellow Republicans: You don't want to make an issue of Sen. Barack Obama’s friendship with William Ayers. You’d darn well better trust me on this one.

Last week, the airwaves of conservative talk radio -- a.k.a. “angry white guy radio” -- were filled with people on a rant about how the Obama camp was trying to suppress an ad put out by a group called American Issues Project. The ad all but called Obama a terrorist because he’s buddies with Ayers, who, in the 1970s, was a member of the Weather Underground, an offshoot of the radical, predominantly white group Students for a Democratic Society.

Folks at AIP called Ayers “an unrepentant terrorist.” Now, I’m not going to dispute AIP’s characterization of Weather Underground as a terrorist group. It’s probably more accurate than what I called Weather Underground back in the ‘70s, which was something along the lines of “Crazy White Boys.”

But do AIP members -- who, according to their Web site, “champion the conservative values that have made the United States of America a blessed nation” -- really want to start throwing words like “terrorist” around and talking about who associates with whom?

COMMENTARY....

Pregnancy of Sarah Palin's daughter shakes up McCain campaign

By Mark Z. Barabak, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

ST. PAUL, MINN. -- Republicans swung into damage control Monday as their scaled-back convention was overtaken by news that the unmarried teenage daughter of vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin was five months pregnant.

The revelation introduced a highly personal and unpredictable element into a presidential campaign already steeped in gender politics.

In a statement released hours before the convention opened, Palin and her husband, Todd, did not say when their daughter Bristol, 17, told them of her pregnancy. Bristol intends to marry the father, the statement said -- a move that drew widespread praise from religious leaders and convention delegates.

Pregnancy of Sarah Palin's daughter shakes up McCain campaign....

Obama and the Values Question Mark

By DOUGLAS E. SCHOEN

With the Democratic nomination all but decided, it's time for Barack Obama to start defining himself in the context of the general election -- before the Republicans define him. Most importantly, he must answer this question once and for all: What are his values?

Mr. Obama began to do so last Tuesday night, by speaking more generally about who he is and how he defines himself. But this is just a first step.

Exit polls in Indiana and North Carolina show clearly that fewer than 60% of white voters believe Mr. Obama shares their values. In a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, only 45% of the American electorate said they can identify with Mr. Obama's values, compared to 54% who say they can identify with John McCain's values.
[Obama and the Values Question Mark]

Make no mistake, the ongoing controversy over his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright leaves Mr. Obama vulnerable. So does the flap over his comments at a San Francisco fund-raiser over working-class voters' alleged bitterness leading them to cling to religion and guns. He needs to speak directly and forthrightly to the concerns and fears of these voters if he is to succeed in November.

How does he do that?

ENTIRE ARTICLE....