Democratic Convention: Day One

It was a good start to the Democratic Convention today in Denver. Ted Kennedy gave a great, heartfelt speech urging the country to keep hope alive and strive for greatness. I think Jimmy Carter gave a speech, which the media decided not to show, which is rather annoying. The media in particular was very annoying, because all day was nothing but hours of talking about the Clintons, and nonsense about her supporters not supporting Obama, blah blah blah ad nauseam. I felt like we were back in the middle of the primaries again, in short, hell. All this despite polling evidence that shows Obama is having no problem, and only a few fringe crazies are holding out. Rachel Maddow had a great discussion of these, where she pointed out that the "Hillary supporter" in McCain's new ad was at a press event today and didn't know McCain's policy on reproductive rights. The idiot thought he was pro-choice, how embarrassing for her. Maddow described these fringe anti-Obama holdouts as "post-rational". It was great. Hopefully a clip will surface.

Meanwhile McCain appeared on Leno and once again tried to use his time as a POW as a "get out of everything free card". Shameless. Rachel Maddow actually nailed McCain really hard on this during the Convention coverage, basically saying it cheapens his service and at some point people need to stop letting him get away with using this as a crutch, or bludgeon as it were. Kudos to Maddow for calling him on that, because unless people in the media start having the courage to call bullshit on it, it will never stop. I'm sick of this noun, verb, and POW crap. I'll also try to find the video of that. Here's the video:



In sobering news, there was an apparent foiled assassination plot against Obama by white supremacists. That kind of thing never ceases to scare me, and I can only imagine what that does to his family. People are horrible.

On a happier note, the highlight of the night was Michelle Obama's speech, which was wonderful. She will make the best First Lady, really just a great person. In fact I love their whole family, they are adorable, and as American as apple pie. They could be one of those model families that are in picture frames when you buy them. How anyone could hate Michelle Obama or not fall in love with that family is beyond me. When the video is up I'll post it. Here's the video:

Misogyny Vs Respect -- A Question Of Character

I already have one post about McCain's character today, in particular about his love of lying, but maybe it should be today's theme. Here's another, which actually references an event that happened a while ago, but I didn't write about it at the time. Here is what happened (from Jezebel):

John McCain went stumping at the famous Sturgis Biker Rally in South Dakota, putting his candidacy before the most discriminating of political consumers — bikers. When he failed to wow them with his "drill here and drill now" energy plan, or his tax plan or his plan to be out of Iraq for sure by 2013, he tried a different strategy. He suggested to Cindy and the audience that she should compete in the Miss Buffalo Chip contest. What's so bad about that? [TPIP: For one, a "Buffalo Chip" is a euphemism for buffalo shit, not a crispy salty treat.]

Miss Buffalo Chip isn't a beauty contest in the traditional sense — it's a relatively debauched topless (and sometimes bottomless) multiday contest where women dance, jiggle and reportedly even perform blow jobs on bananas for the titillation of the spectators. [TPIP: Actually pickles, not bananas, see video a bit later] And John McCain offered up his 54-year-old wife as a contestant.

Here's the video of McCain offering up his wife:



Now I think Megan from Jezebel has the best analysis of this I've seen yet:

And, let be frank, he didn't do it just because she's pretty or has an enviable body for a 54-year-old woman or because he's proud of his wife's brand of socialite beauty. He did it to pander to the crowd's idea of appropriate masculinity, and that apparently includes over-sexualizing your wife and the mother of your children for the amusement of a few people in a crowd. McCain offered up the thought of his wife objectifying herself for the sexual gratification of others (at his suggestion) in order to get a couple of chuckles, inspire some male fantasy and make a few "friends." Fun! [...]

But what does it say that he would suggest it of his wife? I think it's another piece of gravel in a growing mountain of evidence that John McCain doesn't think a lot about women, their place as equals in society or their rights in that society. But he does seem to think a lot about us as sexual beings — or, at least, sexual objects.

Other notable pieces of gravel include McCain cheating on, and eventually ditching, his first wife after she was injured in a car accident, in favor of a younger, richer, more attractive wife (Cindy); him later calling Cindy a trollop ("whore", for those unaccustomed to the vernacular of [much] older generations) and a cunt; and of course his views on women's rights, to name a few.

But hey, let's see just one of the activities he wanted Cindy to engage in (sorry, no video of the wet t-shirt contests and topless/bottomless objectification), the pickle fellatio contest:



Anyway, to the point of my blog, which is that recently a pastor (actually the pastor who married Jenna Bush on the Bush ranch a few months back, close friend of the Bushes) had some similar concerns, these from a religious perspective, on McCain's treatment of women:

Well, I don't know a lot about John McCain's family history, I do know, however, that as recently as last week I think it was, the Senator made a comment in South Dakota regarding his wife entering some Buffalo Chips contest which is this topless deal and if she were to enter she would probably win it and my personal opinion and based on my understanding of the Christian faith, that's not not, N-O-T, not the type of expression that a presidential candidate, or anyone for that matter who is a follower of the Christian faith, ought to make. I don't know if that is a perfect case in point, but it surely does help to juxtapose the DNA of Senator Obama, if you would, versus the DNA of Senator McCain. [TPIP: I'm not sure why he calls it "DNA" here, because sexism has absolutely nothing to do with genetics, it is all about character.]

His marital history has been duly recorded, and as recently as yesterday I think it is, our pastor from Saddleback, Rick Warren indicated that he would not feel comfortable voting for an adulterer and I don't know exactly to whom he was referring but I think the data speaks for itself, and again, at the end of the day, and I really appreciate you raising this because, at the end of the day again I think the American public deserves full revelation of the candidate's character and competency. Character and competency. So, whatever questions that should be asked that would give the voting public an indication as to who they are and what they've done should be fair game.

While I obviously don't come at this from a religious perspective, I absolutely agree that this does raise very important questions about McCain's character, and how he views women. I think all voters, but especially women voters, (and apparently religious voters as well) need to really consider this. Seriously, can you imagine Barack Obama ever saying anything so awful or sexist about Michelle? Obama was raised by a single mother, is the only political candidate we've seen in ages in a healthy, monogamous relationship, has two daughters who obviously mean the world to him, and he has been a staunch defender of women's rights his entire career. If your issue is family values or compassion, this election is a no-brainer.

Fox News' Quest To Demonize Michelle Obama

Brave New Films had a new video highlighting Fox News' attempts to demonize Michelle Obama, in order to take down Barack Obama, and not without a fair bit of subtle and not-so-subtle racism:



Also, please recall when McCain said he didn't love America for 31 years, and no one cared.

And as far as "Obama's Baby Mama" goes, refer to my previous blog.

Why Does McCain Hate America?

Hypocrisy is a funny thing, and the Republicans have always been well endowed with it. I've written before about the right-wing's attempts to smear Michelle Obama and paint her to be some America-hating black panther or terrorist. The accusations are ridiculous and predictable, but that doesn't stop a lot of right-wing viewers/listeners of idiots like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity from actually eating it all up like it is real.

The most prolific smear against her has been the Republicans taking her comments that, as a result of the outpouring of democratic activity, energy, and America's acceptance, for the first time in history, of a minority presidential candidate, she was for the first time in her adult life, proud of this country. And literally for months now the Republicans have been screaming about this on TV, radio and on the internet, saying that Michelle Obama is racist, and hates America, blah blah blah. It has been insanity. It is beyond ridiculous that they have grabbed on to what was really a very positive comment about her really being proud of this moment in American history (Laura Bush even came out and said this is what Michelle meant), and tried to twist it into something bad to use to demonize her (Cindy McCain even jumped on the bandwagon repeatedly proclaiming that she has always been proud of this country). But like I said, it is absolutely predictable, because we know the Republicans can't win on the issues, because they are defending policies that have been horrible failures and have screwed this country up for the last 8 years. So they have to resort to ridiculous personal attacks like this.

Last night, Dan Abrams exposed some past comments from John McCain, in which he repeatedly stated the following:

"I didn't really love America until I was deprived of her company."

Woah now, McCain actually admitted, on multiple occasions, that he didn't really love America until he was taken prisoner in Vietnam?? He was 31 years old when that happened. He didn't love America for 31 years...? OH. MY. GOD. And of course the right-wing talk show hosts and pundits are jumping all over this screaming "Why does John McCain hate America?!", right? After all, they've been doing this for months now against Michelle, for comments that we arguably less "offensive" (if you want to call this offensive). Let's stop for a second and compare the comments:

• John McCain said he didn't love his country for 31 years.
• Michelle Obama said for the first time in her adult life, she was proud of her country. Michelle has been an adult for 26 years, and she just said "proud", she never said she didn't love America. And also, you have to realize who has been controlling the country for her entire adult life, the Republicans (and Bill Clinton who was Reagan-lite when it came to economic issues), and they have been screwing up everything for that time. All of these problems we are seeing now, none of them started with Bush, Bush just sent them over the edge, but they were all started with Nixon and Reagan. (See my comments below on idiots pretending the US can do no wrong)

So I submit to the most jingoistic, ultra-patriotic, red-blooded, beef-eating, flag-waving Americans out there, which is worse, not loving your country, or not being proud of it? Something tells me if you didn't tell them who said which, they'd point to the person who didn't love their country for over three decades as the anti-American terrorist-hugger. Yet somehow when it turns out that a white Republican male said it, it is OK, and suddenly the black woman Democrat is the American hater, while the Republican is just a hero. Do you see the hypocrisy? Do you see the double-standards? That happens because it isn't really about love for country or patriotism or any of that, it is about politics, it is about exploiting patriotism, and it is probably mixed in with a fair amount of bigotry and racial double-standards.

Dan Abrams, to his credit, actually made a point of calling the Republicans on their double-standards, he challenged his Republican guests, the same people who have taken part in the smears against Michelle, and asked what if she had admitted to not loving America until some event (let's say this election)? Would they be making excuses for the comments like they are with McCain? Or would they be screaming bloody murder and calling her an America-hater and a racist? We all know the answer, it is obvious, they would be demonizing her and raising hell about it coast to coast. Yet with McCain, they don't care, and they just praise him as being an American hero. Shameless.

The first part of the video shows McCain repeatedly making the "I didn't really love America" comments, and then Abrams and the guests fight it out for the rest of the clip. If you watch the rest of it, you'll hear the Republican guests make some ridiculous comments. For instance one of the guests says:

• Michelle said America is "mean". I have never heard of Michelle Obama saying that America is mean, a meanie-face, or any variation on the "mean" theme.
• Michelle said that average people can't make it in America. Where the hell has this guy been? This is just like those idiots who tried to say that Obama was wrong and people aren't bitter about being ignored by Washington and left behind economically. The middle class in America is wilting away. Unemployment is going up, prices of everything from food to gas are soaring. The price of education is soaring out of reach. Foreclosures and bankruptcies are happening left and right. We have BIG issues in this country, and average people are being shut out of opportunity. To say they aren't just exposes either how disingenuous the lying Republican hack who is making the comment is, or how completely out of touch and truly elitist they are. Just like those idiots who try to say that people making over $200,000 that would possibly have their taxes raised by Obama are "average people", if you really think that the top 3.5% of Americans who make $200,000+ a year are "average" or "middle class", you have been sipping champaign and cruising on yachts for far too long.
• Michelle said the country does horrible things. Again, I never remember her saying that the country does horrible things, but if she did she would be absolutely correct. Take an easy example: Iraq. We have done horrible things there, our invasion has lead to the deaths of over a million people and over 4.5 million refugees, to say nothing of the terror, the wounded people, the psychological trauma, or the ethnic cleansing. Our government has tortured people, I'd put that in the "horrible things" category. We have fought efforts and curbing global warming even though the consequences of inaction are enormous. I'd call that negligent, and horrible. Our country has a long long history of doing horrible things, going all the way back to before we were even a country, when we came to this land and started an ethnic cleansing campaign against the indigenous population. If that happened today we'd call it genocide. Our country has done some good here and abroad, but we've also done a lot of very bad things, to ignore that, and to attack someone who simply acknowledges that we aren't (or haven't been) angels, is insane, and intellectually bankrupt. This Republican hack, and anyone who repeats these ridiculous attacks just expose themselves as complete idiots.
• Michelle is "friends with terrorists" (William Ayers). First, I'm unaware of Michelle even ever meeting William Ayers. Second, William Ayers was never charged with any terrorist acts, and was never imprisoned. Third, all of the questionable things he was involved with happened in the 60s, back when Michelle and Barack Obama were still riding bikes with training wheels. Today Ayers is a college professor and active in the community, he is not a radical, not a terrorist, and a simply knowing the guy doesn't make anyone else guilty of anything. Like I said, he is a teacher, does this mean that every student that takes a course from him is suddenly enrolled in a terrorist training camp and comes out a suicide bomber? Of course not. These attempts to connect Michelle and Barack Obama to terrorists is RIDICULOUS. Ayers is a prominent member of the community that Obama represented in the state legislature. Obama's predecessor introduced him to Ayers and they've spoken on a few occasions. Ayers also happened to be on a board that Obama was also on. Does that mean they had slumber parties and painted each other's toenails? No. Obama was cordial, as any normal person would be. Yet here we have it again, the right-wing's transparent attempts to demonize people and link them to their opponents through guilt-by-association tricks because they can't win on the issues, so they have to play voters for fools. And to think, they try to make Ayers out to be some psycho mass murderer, while they embrace Bush, who has the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent people on his hands. How's that for a double standard?

Later, another Republican guest (or maybe the same one) also makes the ridiculous comment that Michelle has it all, and doesn't see America as the land of opportunity, this despite her humble upbringing in the South Side of Chicago, and despite the fact she continually praises America as the land of opportunity where the American dream is possible by using her own life as an example. She has never forgotten the wonderful opportunities she has had, and she uses that experience to call for us to fix America and make it greater so that everyone will have the same opportunities that she had. She wasn't born with a silver spoon in her mouth, and you won't find a more down-to-earth first lady. She doesn't take anything for granted, and these idiots who try to demonize her know absolutely nothing about her, and as Dan Abrams and his more rational guests quite effectively pointed out, the Republicans cynically take her comments out of context to smear her, while they would never do the same to McCain or any of their own. And there you have it, like I said before, it has nothing to do with America or patriotism or her comments or his comments or anything of the sort, it is all about hypocritically and cynically distorting their opponents (or their family and anyone they ever met) for political gain, so they can once again distract voters from the real issues, playing them for fools, so they can be voted back into power so they can continue to whore themselves out for the wealthy while screwing over average, everyday Americans.



I should just note that I agree wholeheartedly with Dan Abrams, and I find nothing wrong with McCain's comments. I don't think anyone should be required to "love" their country, or even necessarily be proud of it, especially in light of all that is wrong with it. I expect people to be realistic about their country's history and what it stands for, and I expect that they want to make it better, which is the ultimate expression of love for country. I can't respect people who blindly profess love for something, essentially giving it a blanket endorsement, while completely overlooking reality. You can't love something or be proud of something you don't even know. It isn't love, it is lust, and not even for America, but for power and for yourself.

Cindy McCain, Just Like Rachel Ray, Only A Complete Phoney

You may recall back in April there was a bit of a plagiarism debacle surrounding Cindy McCain and her "family recipes".

You see, in an attempt to make Cindy McCain look less like the icy, corporate, super rich trophy wife of an angry pathological flip-flopper, and more like a warm and family-oriented potential First Lady, the McCain's included a section on John McCain's website with a couple "McCain Family Recipes" that just warmed the soul.

It turns out the McCain's weren't wealthy conservatives out to continue the failed right-wing policies of Bush after all, they were just a normal family as American as apple pie.

Oh, until this happened:

Lauren Handel, an eagle-eyed attorney from New York, was searching for a specific recipe from Giada DeLaurentis, a chef on the Food Network. Yet whenever she Googled the different ingredients in the recipe, the oddest thing happened: not only did the Food Network's site come up, as expected, but so did John McCain's campaign site.

On a section of McCain's site called "Cindy's Recipes," you can find seven recipes attributed to Cindy McCain, each with the heading "McCain Family Recipe." Ms. Handel quickly realized that some of the "McCain Family Recipes," were in fact, word-for-word copies of recipes on the Food Network site.

At least three of the "McCain Family Recipes" appear to be lifted directly from the Food Network, while at least one is a Rachael Ray recipe with minor changes.

Oops. Yeah, Cindy McCain never struck me as the kind of person who spent a lot of time in the kitchen. So it turns out that the McCain's tried to warm Cindy's image with a healthy serving of plagiarism. Kind of embarrassing, but pretty much lost in the midst of the intense Democratic primary battle. In the end they blamed in on a lowly intern, who apparently was tasked with coming up with "McCain Family Recipes" on his own, but instead of having to decency of creating his own recipes from scratch like a good intern, the lazy little worm went and copy and pasted recipes off the internet. Gosh, good help is hard to find, and $100 million Cindy would know.

Oh well, in the past, water under the bridge, lessons learned, you can't fake authentic.

Until yesterday, when the potential First Ladies, as customary, submitted their recipes to Family Circle magazine for a contest, which they brag has correctly identified the winner of the past four presidential elections (note: cookie recipes determine "winning" by the terms and conditions of Bush v. Gore 531 U.S. 98 (2000)). Michelle Obama's is a family recipe for shortbread cookies with zest of lemon and orange, and a hint of Amaretto, handed down to her by Mama Kaye, the godmother of both her daughters, Sasha and Malia. Cindy McCain's? Well:

Cindy McCain, who earlier this year had to apologize for plagiarizing a recipe for passion fruit mousse [among others] from Food Network, went for oatmeal butterscotch cookies.

They are "an absolute must whenever the whole family gets together," says the multi-millionaire heiress to a large beer distribution firm, married to Republican presidential hopeful John McCain.

Only those oatmeal butterscotch cookies, straight Hershey's. That's right, she did it again. I wonder if they can find another intern to scapegoat this time for her "family recipe" mixup.

I guess this is what happens when you try to construct an artificial persona to shove down Americans' throats. And meanwhile the right-wing is hard at work trying to tear down and demonize Michelle Obama, a genuine, hard-working mother and professional, who puts her family first and doesn't try to bullshit the American people with fakery. I guess if you can't beat 'em, go Tonya Harding on their asses.

Update: Go give Michelle's cookies some love here, vote them up!

Update #2: It turns out that "Bill Clinton's Oatmeal Cookies" aren't his either, they are Betty Crocker's. But are any of us really surprised? I think Michelle Obama wins this by default because hers were the only ones not copied directly from the Food Network or Betty Crocker.

Update #3: Despite nasty GOP attacks against Michelle, and generally unfavorable media coverage, a just-released ABC News/Washington Post poll shows that 48% of Americans view Michelle favorably, compared to only 39% who view Cindy favorably. My faith in Americans is starting to come back after 8 years of disappointment.

Desperate Republicans (And Fox News) Give Shameless A Whole New Meaning

We already know that John McCain and the Republicans can't win elections on the issues, at least not honestly. In order to win they have to scare people into voting for them, or they have to construct wedge issues like abortion and gay marriage to play on people's prejudices so they forget about the issues, or they resort to character assassination, swiftboating and smears. As I noted yesterday, Robert Borosage, like many, sees this as inevitable give the Republicans' untenable position on the issues:

In this exchange [the economy], McCain is in trouble. Here, as on Iraq, he is arguing for carrying the Bush agenda forward, while three-quarters of Americans think we're on the wrong course. As Obama puts it, "We have tried it their way for eight long years and it has failed. It is time to try something new. It is time for a change."

We haven't witnessed this clear an ideological division since the 1964 Johnson-Goldwater faceoff. For those who feared Obama couldn't throw a punch, he showed both a good jab and a decent left hook in pounding McCain on the economy. That's why the Republican posse is likely to scorn sparring about policy and turn this election into an alley fight, taking out the knives around patriotism, pastors and race.

There is, in fact, nothing more predictable and despicable than Republicans trying to win elections. Every election year we see the same formula, and this election is no different; if anything it is super-charged. We saw the Obama-is-a-secret-radical-Muslim-cleric-terrorist-islamofascist-Iraqi-Saddam-9/11-9/11-9/11! emails first, full of their ridiculous lies, yet forwarded to nearly every email address in the country, and people are dumb enough to believe that crap. The emails couldn't get any more asinine unless they ended with "Forward this to at least 20 friends in the next 5 minutes or you will suffer 14 years of bad luck and your genitalia will turn black and fall off!" And even then, these same idiots would probably believe it and forward it along, fearing for their genitalia, or perhaps just the prospect of part of them turning negro. Variations of the Obama-is-Muslim or Obama-isn't-American smears, both transparent code for Obama-is-a-nigger-but-that-isn't-okay-to-say-anymore, have flourished on the internet and on fake news channels like Fox, even though the vast majority of Americans know it is nothing but bigoted right-wing smears.

And yet Obama has overcome a year and a half of these smears and innuendo, and won the Democratic primary. But now it is on to the general, and the general population, especially on the conservative side, is much more susceptible to being played for fools than most Democrats, and the stakes are higher than ever. Yet having not been able to find any dirt on Obama, or successfully smear him in any meaningful way, despite a concerted effort by the MSM (orchestrated by Fox News) to conflate Obama with the words of his former pastor for a full two months, even though those comments had absolutely nothing to do with him, the Republicans are going to have to try out new angles.

And so yesterday the LA Times and Maureen Dowd warned of the GOP's next cynical target: Michelle Obama. And as Dowd points out, the smear machine is already pumping:

Now Republicans can turn their full attention to demonizing Michelle Obama. Mrs. Obama is the new, unwilling contestant in Round Two of the sulfurous national game of "Kill the witch."

There are some who think it will be harder for America to accept a black first lady — the national hostess who serenely presides over the White House Christmas festivities and the Easter egg roll — than a black president.

There are creepy Web sites, like TheObamaFile.com, dedicated to painting Michelle as a female version of Jeremiah Wright, an angry black woman, the disgruntled, lecturing "Mrs. Grievance" depicted on the cover of National Review.

On that site and others around the Internet, the seamy rumors still slither that there’s a tape of Michelle denouncing "whitey," a rumor that Barack Obama disdained last week as "scurrilous."

E.D. Hill, the Fox anchor who said that the celebrated fist pump between Michelle and her husband the night he snagged the nomination could be called a "terrorist fist jab," apologized Tuesday.

Back in May the GOP (yes, the official Republican Party) was trying to smear Michelle, and Obama wasn't having any of it:



And I have to agree, attacking Obama's family is definitely not something that will help the GOP, it will undoubtedly backfire completely.

In response to these continuing attacks against Michelle, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin had this to say about people who try to smear and demonize Michelle to score cheap political points on Obama:

Well, I know Michelle. She has been my friend and a friend of my wife for many, many years. She can take it. She can handle herself. She is a very accomplished person. But I will tell you this: the hottest ring in Hell is reserved for those in politics who attack their opponents' families. And if there are some Republican strategists that think that's the way to win the election, I think they are wrong.

I couldn't agree more. But, of course, that hot hot ring of hell is already pretty well stocked with Fox News reporters, as we saw the very same day:




Yeah, that's right, throughout the day they referred to Michelle Obama, the wife of a US Senator, and likely future first lady as Obama's "baby mama". Now, for a little slang lesson from Urban Dictionary (courtesy of Stroszek):

"the mother of a man's child when the parents are not married"

"The mother of one's child. The connotation is that mother and father do not and never did have any relationship beyond being sex partners. Contrast: ex-wife, ex-girlfriend."

"The mother of your child(ren), whom you did not marry and with whom you are not currently involved."

"A term used to define an unmarried young woman (but can be a woman of any age) who has had a child. As mentioned before in another definition, most of the time it is used for when it was simply a sexual relationship, compared to ex-wife or girlfriend. Usually this has a negative connotation, a lot of baby mamas are seen as desperate, gold digging, emotionally starved, shady women who had a baby out of spite or to keep a man. Sometimes they may act like this because of missed child support payments, unfulfilled promises by the father, or convenient sex by the father."

Alright, so Fox News thought it was appropriate to essentially call Michelle Obama (and Barack Obama) a whore. Apparently the people at Fox think Michelle is nothing but the woman Obama accidentally knocked up before moving on. Not only is that horribly sexist (I'd say a hell of a lot more sexist, disrespectful and offensive than anything the media threw at Hillary), but it is racist as hell. Fox News was willfully playing into racial stereotypes of promiscuous African American men and single mothers by disparaging the kind, hard working, good mother and wife of a respectable Senator down to nothing more than some knocked up tramp. Funny that Hillary Clinton was never Bill's "baby mama", or Cindy McCain was never John McCain's "baby mama", or ANY OTHER WIFE COUPLE WITH CHILDREN, yet we have the couple that will most likely be the first black president and first black first lady, and all the sudden she is Obama's baby mama. It is outrageous, shameful, despicable, completely fucked up, for lack of a more appropriate term.

But that's Fox News for you, nothing but sexist, bigoted pieces of shit (so glad Hillary's "feminist" supporters hail Fox News as the best network on TV).

So, in response to all of these smears, Obama's campaign has launched a new website, FightTheSmears.com, which will debunk all of the various smears out there attacking Obama, Michelle, and hell, probably eventually their two daughters, Malia and Sasha.



[And to be clear, as I think we always should be, there is nothing wrong with being Muslim. For better or worse, being a Muslim is no better or worse than being a Christian. You can bitch about them for not believing scientifically proven facts about evolution and the creation of the planet, or about any other attribute shared by all religions, but they shouldn't be demonized or discriminated against just because there are a few radicals out there, because I'm sure Christians or any other group wouldn't want to have to answer for every action taken by fanatics in their faiths. So no, Obama isn't a Muslim, never was, but that isn't to say that being Muslim ought to be seen as an insult.]

Michelle Obama On The Colbert Report

I have a feeling Michelle will be my favorite First Lady of all time too!

I'm almost sad she isn't planning to co-opt her husband's resume and run for president after he is done in 8 years.

Westside Love At UCLA

Michelle Obama knows how to Barack the Vote. She gives a damn good speech, so I'm guessing their children can give a really damn good speech. I don't have a link to a good copy of it, but here is a link to the whole event, with crappy sound. Check it out though, she rocks, we need a kick ass woman like her as First Lady.

Oprah was there too:


Here is Oprah speaking at the Obama rally at UCLA featuring Caroline Kennedy, Stevie Wonder and a surprise endorsement by Maria Shriver. I've never really paid much attention to Oprah, and I can certainly count all of the episodes of her show that I've seen on one hand, but I have to say I definitely like her now, mostly for this (and the whole being smart enough to support Obama thing):

You know, after Iowa, there were some women who had the nerve to say to me, 'How could you Oprah? How could you? You are a traitor to your gender!'

crowd boos loudly

Yes, that's how I felt. I was both surprised by that comment and insulted, because I've been a woman my whole life, and every part of me believes in the empowerment of women, but the truth is I'm a free woman. I'm a free woman, I'm a free woman, I'm a free woman, and being free means you get to think for yourself, and you get to decide for yourself what to do. So I say I am not a traitor, no I'm not a traitor, I'm just following my own truth and that truth has led me to Barack Obama.

And then later...

And then, then this election has just brought out the best in folks, because I heard from some narrow minded folks, who said I was just voting for him because he was black and I said, that too is insulting to me, don't play me small, I'm not that small, I'm not that small, don't play me small, I would never vote for anyone based on gender or race, I'm voting for Barack Obama not because he is black, I'm voting for Barack Obama because he is brilliant! He's brilliant. He's brilliant.

Oh ya, so, just like a lot of you in here, I've run into a lot of women who say, that they already made up their mind before this race started, they say, 'I'm a woman, I have to vote for a woman.' I say, that's one way to go, but as free women you have a right to change your mind, as free women you have a right to change your mind, that's in this election and in all things, you have a right to change your mind...You're not a traitor because you believe and see a better way.

You tell 'em sister.

The Next First Family

The next First Family, if there is to be any hope for us.

Full disclosure, I support Barack Obama, and as I add to this blog and as this campaign drags on, I'm sure that support will feature prominently here. Indeed, this historic opportunity for a new direction for America is a large part of why I created this blog. I've been accused of being a pessimist, and perhaps I am, but Senator Obama's candidacy represents perhaps the last ray of hope I have for this country, and I believe I am at a crossroads, just as this country is at a crossroads, for the outcome of this election will either send me down the road of disillusionment and cynicism, or restore my hope in the power of good versus evil--no, that is much too Manichean--this has the potential to restore my hope in the power of the better over the power of the worse, in the largest sense of those terms--the better in us over the worse in us, in our society, in our politics, in our thoughts--a fundamental change in the zeitgeist, a new page. Perhaps that is all too optimistic, which I have also been accused of, but for me right now, and I think for our society in general, we need this to be that important because it is all we have left to cling to. The signs are all around us, the moment is in the air, I just hope we can make that leap. That is my disclosure.