George Bush came to office in 2001 promising a new era of integrity, civility and "compassionate conservatism," an era of humble American foreign policy, and a bi-partisan approach to government. What did we actually get? Once in office, this chameleon president almost immediately set out to embroil the country in a major war in the Middle East against the nation of Iraq. The game plan was laid out at the president's first National Security Council meeting... It's hard to escape the conclusion that the Bush/Cheney administration, at a minimum, wanted an attack on American soil, and a national disaster that would put the country on a war footing.

Surveying at the appalling wreckage left after eight years of the Bush administration, it is hard to recognize the country that he started out with in 2001. A once proud nation-one that only a few years ago was admired around the world and that now is viewed as a pariah and a rogue state-today trembles before a handful of turbaned fanatics holed up in caves in the Hindu Kush, its trillion-dollar high-tech military colossus fought to a standstill in Iraq and Afghanistan by a few thousand brave men and women armed with RPGs, antique AK-47s and home-made roadside bombs...

Forget all the nonsense about Barack Obama being a closet Muslim. We already have our Manchurian Candidate in the White House, and he has largely accomplished what he was programmed to do: destroy the country. [More] . . read more

Both are now in poor political shape, with contradictory strategies for rehabbing their fortunes. The president is saddled with an approval rating bumping along in the 20s. Each day he is served another platter of contemptuous stories about “the worst presidency of modern times”, the lack of any enduring “legacy”, the approaching Democratic landslide that will put the Republicans in the wilderness for at least two terms...

The White House made no serious attempt to upend Obama’s trip to Iraq or excessively ridicule the harmonies from the Democratic candidate and Iraqi prime minister Maliki on schedules for U.S. withdrawal. Indeed noises that could be construed as acceptance of an accelerated schedule emanated from the White House... As final testimony to the huge disaster for the McCain campaign of Obama’s trip to Iraq, the floundering Republican candidate managed to shoehorn himself into talk about a rate of withdrawal from Iraq a good deal brisker than the 100 years of occupation he was talking about, or even the 2013 deadline he subsequently settled on. [More] . . read more

Clinton’s tactics amount to trying to enhance her claims of owning a house by burning it down. Clinton’s increasingly mean-spirited assaults on Obama provide more fodder for Republican Party attacks than foundation for elevating the long-term credibility for her candidacy.

Dizzying duplicity reeks from Clinton’s campaign with the insulting carping on Obama’s alleged connection with Minister Louis Farrakhan and Obama’s association with the retiring pastor of his church, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Despite Farrakhan never explicitly endorsing Obama, Clinton baited and the corporate media bought contentions that Obama is despicable for receiving electoral support from the Muslim minister. Farrakhan did praise Obama during a major speech in February but in offering praise of Obama’s place in history, Farrakhan pointedly told his audience he was not telling anyone who to vote for. [More] . . read more

Now the primary campaign heads off to Indiana and North Carolina amid a steady downpour of news stories about the mathematical impossibility of Hillary Clinton outstripping Barack Obama in either the delegate count or the popular vote. But math isn’t the issue here. Mrs Clinton is set to stay in the race until the roll call at the Democratic convention in Denver on August 27 conclusively settles the issue.

Not since Isaac Newton sought to decode the Ancient Testament or since Ronald Reagan redefined the properties of a meal fit for children to eat, has anyone defied science as absurdly as Mrs Clinton in her efforts to show that if you count things her way she’s in the lead. She is in the direct lineage of Joseph Stalin who said it’s not a matter of who does the voting, but who does the counting. [More] . . read more

That is a question Muslims, many of whom are Obamaniacs, are asking. What if Obama was a Muslim? Would it make his message less hopeful? Will it make his personality less charming? Will it make his candidacy less viable?... Rumors often stick, which is why rumor mongering persists. Rumors are particularly lethal when they are easy to remember (Obama's middle name is Hussein thus it is easy to insinuate his alleged Muslim links) and they exploit emotive stereotypes (Muslims are out to destroy America). Simply dispelling the rumor without addressing the stereotype that makes such rumors stick is like treating the symptom without isolating the cause...

Obama needs to not only continue assuring people that he is not a Muslim but also challenge the collective conscience to not let their fears undo the progress we have been making towards racial and religious tolerance. His ultimate legacy will not only be judged by becoming the first person of color to be elected President but more importantly what he does after he is elected. Obama's vision of 'One America' needs to be more than mere rhetoric. [More] . . read more

Senator John McCain is a poster boy for the pathologies of the military brat. Born in the Panama Canal Zone, he attended twenty schools in his nomadic childhood. "The place I lived longest in my life was Hanoi," is how he shuts up critics of his carpetbagging, but he is making their point: Senator McCain's loyalty is not to any particular American place but rather to a bureaucratic institution (the military) and an abstraction (the American Empire)...

The Democrats are no more connected to particular places than is McCain. Hillary Clinton's rootlessness became a national joke in her 2000 U.S. Senate campaign to represent New York, a state in which she had never lived. Wearing a Yankees cap was about as far as she went to assert her ersatz New Yorkness. Barack Obama, lauded as the "world candidate," was born in Hawaii, a state that is only in the union because of its military significance. Raised also in Indonesia and at various times resident in Los Angeles, New York City, and finally Chicago, Obama is a "cosmopolitan"...

Why does this matter? What's wrong with electing competent but rootless people to public office? Because just as one cannot love the "human race" before one loves particular human beings, neither can one love "the world" unless he first achieves a deep understanding of his own little piece of that world. [More] . . read more

Said ambitious, wealthy white woman worked as an attorney right out of college and quickly became a partner in one of Arkansas' most prestigious (at the time) law firms. She has a net worth of over $109 million - all garnered in the last eight years. Before that she claimed to be some $7 million in debt due to legal bills. Her family net worth is over 100 times that of the "elitist" she scorns.

Sen. Barack Obama received his appellation from Sen. Hillary Clinton after he made the point that many of America's white, permanent poor, working underclass are bitter about their economic circumstances and have a culture heavy on guns and religion. Hell, yes, they're bitter. Good paying manufacturing jobs have all but disappeared from the American heartland -­ most lost due to one-sided, corporate-friendly trade deals instituted on Bill Clinton's watch. Most of the jobs have gone to the very countries where Bill Clinton has made many of those $109 millions pulling strings. Rarely a day goes by without another revelation of Bill Clinton taking big money from some of the worst anti-labor human rights offenders out there. [More] . . read more

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it," she said, dismissing calls to drop out. There is no other way to construe these sentences... but to interpret them as Mrs Clinton’s more or less explicit statement that she is spending a million a day just to keep her hat in the ring because Obama might well get killed. Then, just like the scenario at the end of the Manchurian candidate, Hillary will straddle Obama’s bleeding body, make the speech of her life and become the assured nominee...

Now Hillary Clinton is dutifully saying that she was misunderstood, that she had no intention, no thought, that she might be taking about SOMEONE KILLING OBAMA, SOMEONE SHOOTING THE BLACK MAN DEAD, JUST LIKE SOMEONE SHOT BOBBY KENNEDY DEAD IN CALIFORNIA, IN CALIFORNIA, DEAD, REALLY DEAD. Oh my heavens no, the thought never crossed my mind. [More] . . read more

Now I don't know what Obama has in mind to try and turn things around for these good people, but it's a start that he's at least talking to them, not down, but honestly. His talk in response to attacks on his statement about rural residents being "bitter and frustrated" is as good as anything Ralph Nader has said about the power and mendacity of the ruling political elite in America...

If Obama sticks to this rhetorical approach in the coming weeks, he will nail this nomination in spite of a concerted attack on him by the corporate media and by the combined forces of the Clintons and McCain. And if he does win the nomination, and resists the siren calls of the Democratic Party leadership to "move to the middle," and instead hones this populist message, he will go on to win the presidency. [More] . . read more

The latest Michigan poll gives Obama a 5% gap putting the state with Obama instead of being a Tossup. CNN now gives Obama a 9% gap in Pennsylvania (Joe Biden was born there & represents next door Delaware). These 2 states give the Obama camp 255 of the 270 electoral college votes they need. The New York Times still lists another 6 states as Tossups (Ohio, Virginia, New Hampshire, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada & Arizona) but Florida has also come into play with a 48%:48% CNN poll.

So, as long as the electoral votes in his camp stay steady, there are now 4 independent pathways to an Obama victory. If he wins either Ohio (ahead) or Florida (dead-even) he wins straightup. If he wins Virginia (ahead) and any other tossup state he wins. Or, the long shot, if he wins New Hampshire (ahead), Colorado (ahead) and New Mexico (behind), or any other ‘red’ state, he wins without needing Ohio, Virginia or Florida.

Of course standing against those pathways is the Supreme Court and a mass of extremist media outlets like Fox News. On the other hand there is a 5th way he might win – any combination, or all, of the above and they’ll start to call it a landslide. An Obama victory won’t solve the planet’s problems but it might give America a chance to avoid destroying itself and taking the rest of us with it. It’s a chance. The rest of the world hopes you take it.  . . read more