Category: Politics, Religion & Money

Best of luck to Senator Ted Kennedy, who has been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor.

Hillary Clinton couldn’t have picked a worse analogy last week, when she referred to the upcoming Kentucky Derby by exhorting voters to “bet on the filly.” Eight Belles was expected to place second, which she did, so at best it was an unwise comparison. Even the winning horse’s name, Big Brown, could be construed as a reference to Obama. But to have the filly break both of her front legs, and then be euthanized on the track, made Hillary’s analogy seem as though she had tempted fate. Yet she refuses to take the hint, and she’s now demanding the votes from Michigan and Florida be validated.

The obvious inference for Hillary to take from the horse race is she should drop out before the finish, or face potentially fatal political consequences. Hillary could kill her political future by hurting the Democrats’ odds for winning the White House. If Obama loses in November, Hillary will get her share of the blame, along with the destructive, to himself and others, Jeremiah Wright.

I’m amused by this article in Time. “Five Mistakes Clinton Made” makes it sound as though if Hillary had done more of this, and less of that, she’d be OK now. Perhaps, but I don’t think so. Despite all of the various tactics and maneuvering, and the Republicans who voted for Hillary in the Democratic primaries where that’s allowed, isn’t it possible that Obama is simply the candidate that more Democrats want?

Oh boy! We caught ‘im! Some guy. They say he’s the leader of al-Qaida of Iraq. Well, that’s that, I guess, for the Sunni problem. After the Shiia have settled down, everything will be all right and we’ll see an end to hostilities in Iraq. And once things are quiet and nice over there, why not stay a while longer?

In this June 15 2006 file photo, a U.S. soldier at a press conference in Baghdad, Iraq stands by a photograph that purports to show Abu Ayyub al-Masri who is the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. The Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman said Thursday, May 8, 2008 that the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq Abu Ayyub al-Masri has been arrested in the northern city of Mosul. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim, File)

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Not so fast. This morning, American military officials are denying that’s the guy. Iraqi security forces caught somebody else. Not the al-Qaida leader. Never mind. Back to the conflict, that’s already in progress!

I feel strongly that McCain should not be President. For starters, he’s too old. Reagan is held up as a refutation of age as being a qualification, but history has revealed that Reagan really wasn’t up to the job for most of his second term.

Second, I think McCain isn’t intellectually engaged on a broad range of issues, and at his age he’s not about to change. And on the issues that do interest him he’s far from being a master of detail. The one thing he jumped all over, and is his sole claim to being a “maverick” who stands up to Bush, was the issue of torture. And that’s only because it happened to him and he can personally relate to it.

McCain strikes me as being ready to kick back and retire, and completely unprepared to tackle the most difficult set of problems any President in recent history has faced. I can’t understand why, except for reasons of ego, he wants to be President, because his energy level just isn’t there.

Lastly, McCain is on record as wanting to continue the occupation of Iraq. He wants to relive Vietnam through Iraq and come up with a different ending. McCain believes Vietnam could have been “won,” if only we hadn’t lost our will. Which is a total fantasy. And that’s the crux of my complaint about McCain. Combined with the fact that I will never vote for a Republican candidate for any office, ever again, because of the actions of the delusional, self-interested, lying and hypocritical Neocons.

So as a registered Democrat, that leaves me with Hillary Clinton and Obama, and Hillary has already won Massachusetts. Ya know how Hillary is claiming her time as First Lady provided applicable experience to govern the country? If she’s going to say that as the President’s spouse she was involved with running the country, then I think she should assure us that Bill, as the President’s spouse, will be involved with running the country.

I was more for Hillary some months back, but like many people the more I saw of her and Obama, the more I preferred Obama. If Hillary had voted with Ted Kennedy in October 2002, against using force in Iraq, I would vote for her. If she assured us that Bill would be active in setting policy, I would vote for her. But she can’t take her vote back, nor can she even hint that she can’t do it alone, without her husband’s input.

I realize Obama wasn’t in the U.S. Senate during the vote to authorize force, so his stated opposition to the invasion in Iraq counts for not very much, but I nevertheless feel he’s our best chance to get out of there sooner, rather than later. I don’t want to vote again for a candidate, as I did with Kerry, who was either tricked by George Bush, or knew the truth and was afraid of opposing Bush. I want a fresh start, and Obama is it.

Barbara Walters has always seemed to be one of those people who is famous because she has a desperate need to be famous. Walters is close to eighty years old, and in one last sad effort to reclaim the spotlight for herself, she has pulled out what she must think is her ace card. With Oprah’s help Walters has gone public about an affair she had thirty years ago with Edward Brooke, when he was a senator from Massachusetts. Who cares?

Geraldo is another one who bugs me. Everything these people do is so obviously really about their insecure little selves, and not what they claim to be informing us about in their roles as pseudo-journalists. Why do they keep showing up, year after year?

Now that I’m on a roll, I met Ed Brooke once, when I was a reporter and he was running for re-election in 1978, only to lose to Paul Tsongas. I wasn’t particularly wowed by him. Brooke came across as having a solid politician’s false front. I also met John Kerry at the same time, when he was an assistant DA investigating claims Ed Brooke had made about his divorce. I forget the details. Hey, maybe Kerry was looking into rumors about the Walters affair! But my point is that Kerry was aloof, just as he’s been described all these years.

Somebody who I interviewed, who impressed me very much indeed, was Ted Kennedy. He would have been about 45 at the time. Kennedy sat me down, a nobody kid radio reporter, and for nearly half an hour he talked my ear off, about every issue that concerned him and every bill he was working on. He had every fact and argument and viewpoint about everything right at his fingertips. When it was time to go he got going, but when I had his attention I really had his undivided attention, and I can’t recall any other politician taking the time and making the effort to do that for me.