The Red Tornado wrote:The blacks in Harlem must be so well spoken.

phdave wrote:I'm all for treating this as good news, but I can't help seeing an agenda in his comments. I don't think Bill was merely relaying his insight into cultural similarities. I think this was more along the lines of, see we're all the same so why would we need to have things like affirmative action? Why are there people who keep bringing up race when it does not belong? There really are no problems with race and racial tension is just fueled by certain leaders who are just trying to generate support for themselves by fanning flames of racism.

Here is the quote on which I am basing my interpretation of what he was getting at with the description of this meal:

O'Reilly also stated: "I think black Americans are starting to think more and more for themselves. They're getting away from the Sharptons and the [Rev. Jesse] Jacksons and the people trying to lead them into a race-based culture. They're just trying to figure it out. 'Look, I can make it. If I work hard and get educated, I can make it."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates will ask Congress on Wednesday to approve nearly $190 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2008

Warszawa wrote:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates will ask Congress on Wednesday to approve nearly $190 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2008

awesome

Her campaign has been brilliant. It is great at small stuff like bracket scheduling -- making sure she or a surrogate appears right before and after a major appearance by an opponent. It is equally good on big stuff. Eight months ago, Clinton, 59, was bedeviled by the party's antiwar base for her initial support of the Iraq conflict; today it's practically a non-issue.

The Clinton campaign is efficient, effective, disciplined and tough.

It also seems to be joyless, humorless and lacking in heart and soul.

A take-no-prisoners, us vs. them mindset has served her well.
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Her campaign is tailored to that approach. There are lots of titles and talk of a diverse set of decision-makers. The real impresario is Mark Penn, a brilliant, socially inept disciple of Dick Morris, the scandal-tainted former guru to Bill Clinton.
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He has an unsurpassed grasp of the many parts of the American electorate; not as clear is whether he understands the whole. And that's the way he's directing the campaign. It is unequaled for 14-point programs. Yet other than offering voters a Clinton restoration, there's little sense of mission.

The Penn political model isn't Bill Clinton's successful 1992 challenge for the presidency. It is more Karl Rove, who masterminded George W. Bush's victories. Devise a comprehensive game plan replete with exhaustive numbers and historical context, and execute it with iron discipline.
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Rove, for all his genius, wasn't good at adapting. That almost cost Bush the 2000 election and doomed the president's top second-term domestic priority, the overhaul of Social Security, a campaign Rove also orchestrated.

The hunch from other political experts is that Penn, a public relations man when he isn't directing the Clinton campaign, has the same weakness. He is the best at data and demographics, not so great at understanding people. That's fine as long as you control the agenda; political campaigns have a way, however, of spiraling out of control.

Campaigns, it is said, are a reflection of the candidate. Senator Clinton herself is often a control freak. That trait was honed during the Clinton administration controversies -- some really were attributable to what she called the ``vast right- wing conspiracy'' -- but she came to the White House with much of that state of mind.

I could never vote for her, but I (and others of my ideological ilk) could live with her -- precisely because she is so liberated from principle. Her liberalism, like her husband's -- flexible, disciplined, calculated, triangulated -- always leaves open the possibility that she would do the right thing for the blessedly wrong (i.e., self-interested, ambition-serving, politically expedient) reason.
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On Iraq, for example, she talks like someone who knows she may soon be commander in chief and will need room to maneuver in order to achieve whatever success might be possible. Clinton has emphatically refused to give assurances that she would get us out of Iraq during her first term.
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Even Clinton's response to a debate question on torture -- "As a matter of policy it cannot be American policy, period" -- is elegantly phrased to imply an implacable opposition to torture and yet leave open the possibility that in extreme circumstances a president would do what she had to do, i.e., authorize torture, regardless of the express policy.

BuddyGroom wrote:Hilary is at best my third choice, behind Obama and Edwards, but I have little doubt she'd be a (like safeco) improvement over Bush. For that matter, I think several of the Republicans - McCain and Huckabee, to be sure, and Giuliani, possibly - would be a big improvement over Bush.

dajafi wrote:Also, I'd vote for Disco Stu in a heartbeat. Guy's got the kind of common sense that's none too common in these sad times.

And though his song files might have disappeared into a web of government bureaucracy, Walla does still have the tapes containing all his songs, which he's now trying to master and mix on his own in order to have the record out — Lord willin' — in January.

"Luckily, the tapes are Plan B, so while I'm bummed about the whole thing, it could be a whole lot worse," he laughed. "I still get to play music. I mean, I'm not at Guantánamo or anything like that. I mean, my drive might be. They could be water-boarding my drive for all I know."

And though Walla's laughing when he mentions Guantánamo, he's not joking when he adds that his record — which he's calling Field Manual — is "very political," packed with songs about issues both foreign ("The Score" tackles the war in Iraq) and domestic ("Everyone Needs a Home" deals with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; "Sing Again" is about so-called "morning after" pills and whether they're a form of contraception or abortion). Easy listening, this is not.

Field Manual — is "very political," packed with songs about issues both foreign ("The Score" tackles the war in Iraq) and domestic ("Everyone Needs a Home" deals with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; "Sing Again" is about so-called "morning after" pills and whether they're a form of contraception or abortion). Easy listening, this is not.

Federal emergency declared
President Bush declared a federal emergency for seven counties, a move that will speed disaster-relief efforts. He also sent federal disaster officials to California.