Rhetoric

"And so, at 11am on Tuesday, Barack Obama spoke to America about race as if we were adults."

As usual, the Onionettes write a flawless piece of satire about pop culture, in this case the unchanged aspect of Obama's Change phenomenon:

"I saw him walk in and I knew he was headed straight for our table," said mother of three Gladys Davies. "He just stood there smiling at us for a while, and asked how our food tasted. Then he went and did the same thing at the next table over. The nerve of some people."

Those who encountered the black man Tuesday said he engaged in erratic behavior, including pointing at random people in the crowd and desperately saying he needs their help, going up to complete strangers and hugging them, and angrily claiming that he is not looking for just a little bit of change, but rather a great deal of change, and that he wants it "right now."

"I'll be honest, when that black guy said he would 'stop at nothing' to get change, it kind of scared me," local mechanic Phil Nighbert said. "Just leave me alone.

The whole thing, Black Guy Asks Nation For Change ... priceless.

Here's the awesome rant by Keith Olbermann on the matter of Clinton having yet another surrogate race-baiting for the upcoming elections in Pennsylvania :

I went over to Booman Tribune to see how they were dealing with the show and I'm there in several threads. Martin himself asked me why I believe that Ferraro's comments do enter David Duke territory because to him the words sounds stupid, not racist.

Well ...

I think the most salient aspect that ties Ferraro's words to Duke's is her claim that she was a victim of anti-white racism :

"Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let's address reality and the problems we're facing in this world, you're accused of being racist, so you have to shut up.

"Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white.

This is the kind of PR fiasco nobody wants.

Samantha Powers, Barack Obama's foreign policy advisor, was on a book tour in London. This is what happened in the middle of a press conference :

Earlier, clearly rattled by the Ohio defeat, Ms Power told The Scotsman Mrs Clinton was stopping at nothing to try to seize the lead from her candidate.

"We f***** up in Ohio," she admitted. "In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio's the only place they can win.

"She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything," Ms Power said, hastily trying to withdraw her remark.

Ms Power said of the Clinton campaign: "Here, it looks like desperation. I hope it looks like desperation there, too.

"You just look at her and think, 'Ergh'. But if you are poor and she is telling you some story about how Obama is going to take your job away, maybe it will be more effective. The amount of deceit she has put forward is really unattractive."

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Of course, Clinton's shills in the campaign and the blogosphere are screaming for the woman's head in a silver platter.

If I were Ms. Powers, I'd resign from the campaign. This is a terrible gaffe --she tried to throw the comment as "off the record" in the middle of a press conference. It's just not the thing you do, especially after your candidate has lost an important election and the media is smelling blood.

Oliver Willis is mad as hell will make a video about it. Here's "She Voted For The Damn War, proof positive the woman was eager to bomb Bhagdad.

Photo:AP

First of all, I came in half way into the debates, so I missed Jorge Ramos "espeekeng espanish". What did you all think? I'd so hit that 1000 days to Monday. Oh, and he's a fantastic anchorman and journalist.

I can see he dealt with the issue of immigration. When reading the transcript, I actually think both candidates were really great addressing the immigration issue.

Second, here's the link to the debate's transcript : The CNN Democratic presidential debate in Texas.

Third, moving along ...

Obama knocked it out of the park more times than Hillary, but she definitely had her moment at the end and, I have to give it to her, she closed the debate in a refreshingly classy note.

I think that the best Obama moment dealt with the issue of "silliness" in the recent rash of dirty politics :

OBAMA: Well, look, the -- first of all, it's not a lot of speeches. There are two lines in speeches that I've been giving over the last couple of weeks.

I've been campaigning now for the last two years. Deval is a national co-chairman of my campaign, and suggested an argument that I share, that words are important. Words matter. And the implication that they don't I think diminishes how important it is to speak to the American people directly about making America as good as its promise. Barbara Jordan understood this as well as anybody.

This comes via Media Matters:

During the February 19 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Bill O'Reilly took a call from a listener who said of Michelle Obama, "I just wanted to say that I think Michelle Obama is an angry woman -- is speaking, I think, with her real voice for the first time." O'Reilly and his callers were discussing Obama's recent comments, which included her assertion that "[f]or the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country." When O'Reilly asked the caller, whom he identified as "Maryanne," "You're basing that on what?" she replied: "Well your representative asked me not to talk about this, but I have a friend who had knowledge of her and said to me months ago, 'This is a very angry,' her word was 'militant woman.' " O'Reilly then responded, "What I want you to do then, Maryanne ... I want you to stay on the line. ... Because it's not fair to Michelle Obama for you ... because we don't know who you are, and we don't know who your friend is, but we want to know. We want to know, OK. But it's not fair at this point for you to say, 'My friend said X and Y,' because we just don't know. But if you would give us your information, we would like to talk to your friend. And then whatever your friend tells us, we'll track it down. We'll do it in a fair and balanced and methodical way." He later added, "If indeed Michelle Obama is angry about something, if she has a history, we would like to know that, and then we can put it into some kind of context so that we can be fair to everybody."

Oh yes, there is more ...

Kate Michelman, the former president of NARAL, just posted one heck of a classy endorsement to Barack Obama over at Huffington Post :

Senator Obama is not just prepared to lead as our beloved Teddy and Caroline Kennedy have said, he is prepared to lead in a way different than we have seen for decades. Not out in front with us behind him, but rather with us beside him.

And that difference is all the difference. That difference separates just any president from a great president; and right now, we need a great president.

Barack Obama will be that great president. He will bring us all together. And together, we will change our country.

During these past many years, we have lost the sense of what we could do together, who we could be, what was possible.

That's changing.

And Barack Obama is the one changing that.

With him, greatness is again within reach.

Now compare that to Glorian Steinem or even worse, to Marcia Pappas.

On a related note, Nez calls the energy and zeitgeist coming from the Obama camp 'sway'.

This is the concession speech that never was. You can find the full text of the speech after the jump.

We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no
matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can withstand the
power of millions of voices calling for change.

We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics who will
only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks to come. We've been
asked to pause for a reality check. We've been warned against
offering the people of this nation false hope.

But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been
anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible
odds; when we've been told that we're not ready, or that we shouldn't
try, or that we can't, generations of Americans have responded with a
simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people.

Yes we can.