Looking, Sounding, Acting Presidential

The NYT has a story about Obama 's response to Gustav. The news has been covering the fact that McCain and Palin are traveling down to the area because Palin's "executive experience could be useful." And not for political reasons?

When asked about it, Obama did not rise to the political bait and responded that he will use his donor and volunteer list to help:

“We can activate an e-mail list of a couple million people who want to give back,” Mr. Obama told reporters after leaving services at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church in Lima. “I think we can get tons of volunteers to travel down there if it becomes necessary.”

He will not be traveling to the coast out of concern that he might interfere with the emergency efforts:

“The thing that I always am concerned about in the middle of a storm,” Mr. Obama said, “is whether we’re drawing resources away from folks on the ground because the Secret Service and various security requirements sometimes it pulls police, fire and other departments away from concentrating on the job.”

He added, “I’m assuming that where he (John McCain) went that wasn’t an issue. We’re going to try to stay clear of the area until things have settled down and then we’ll probably try to figure out how we can be as helpful as possible.”

Thanks for keeping your promise to keep the campaign focused on the big issues and not the little stuff1

Trouble in the Twin Cities

Glenn Greenwald is reporting that the police are doing raids on homes where suspected peace protestors are living/staying. The NYT is reporting that they are searching homes and arresting some folks involved in groups such as the "RNC Welcoming Committee" and "Food Not Bombs," perfectly legal organizations organizing protests of the convention:

In the house that had just been raided, those inside described how a team of roughly 25 officers had barged into their homes with masks and black swat gear, holding large semi-automatic rifles, and ordered them to lie on the floor, where they were handcuffed and ordered not to move. The officers refused to state why they were there and, until the very end, refused to show whether they had a search warrant. They were forced to remain on the floor for 45 minutes while the officers took away the laptops, computers, individual journals, and political materials kept in the house. One of the individuals renting the house, an 18-year-old woman, was extremely shaken as she and others described how the officers were deliberately making intimidating statements such as "Do you have Terminator ready?" as they lay on the floor in handcuffs.

Please circulate this story. While several nasty incidents did happen in Denver to keep protesters away from the DNC, here we have SWAT teams pre-emptively acting against protesters. This is not acceptable.

Palin Hates Polar Bears, Rove Hates You.

Thanks to my main squeeze Sam who sent me this link that details some of Palin's greatest hits on the environment (she's not a fan of it, apparently). She is perhaps best known for suing the federal government to have the polar bear to be removed from the Endangered Species list so they could be hunted. Fortunately, that bid failed.

The link also includes lovely photos of Palin posing with and wearing animal pelts like this:

Interestingly, this photo used to be on her Wikipedia page. Eagle eyes might have realized Palin was the pick Thursday night because NPR reported that someone was furiously editing her page, removing things that might be considered un-Vice Presidential. Like photos of her wearing dead animals?

Also thanks to my granNE who sent me this link with quotes from Karl Rove. Ironic, eh?

"I think he's going to make an intensely political choice, not a governing choice," Rove said. "He's going to view this through the prism of a candidate, not through the prism of president; that is to say, he's going to pick somebody that he thinks will on the margin help him in a state like Indiana or Missouri or Virginia. He's not going to be thinking big and broad about the responsibilities of president." Rove singled out Virginia governor Tim Kaine, also a Face The Nation guest, as an example of such a pick. "With all due respect again to Governor Kaine, he's been a governor for three years, he's been able but undistinguished," Rove said. "I don't think people could really name a big, important thing that he's done. He was mayor of the 105th largest city in America."

Under Water Again?

I am thinking about the people in New Orleans as Gustav bears down on them and I have my paws crossed that it will weaken and change course. I fear that the problems revealed by Katrina both in terms of infrastructure and emergency response mechanisms have not been fixed.

And so we never forget, let's keep in mind where Bush/McCain were when Katrina hit New Orleans:

We can do better. So much better.


I hope we do better this time. We're thinking of you, New Orleans.

Is Our Children Learning?

Ahahahahahaha! Thanks to GranNE who sent me this bit of humor from TPM.

This was for sale on the McCain website. For reals. It nicely brings together two of my ma ape's least favorite things--misused apostrophes and Young Republicans!

For Moms.

Lest we get distracted...

Here's Obama's platform on women. Here's McCain's platform on women.

And I just wanted to mention the DNC's tribute video for Barack Obama:




The media keeps saying that ordinary Americans can't relate to Barack Obama's story but I happen to know that my ma ape was also raised by a Midwestern mom who values education and service to others and disliked injustice.

More of the (Mc)Same!

Gus asked my opinions on the nomination of Sarah Palin as McSame's VP nominee. Gus knows that I am a feminist scholar and spend much of my time sleeping on my ma ape's library of feminist theory. So I wanted to weigh in.

Cynical move, my friend.

Obama gave a spectacular speech and reminded us that we are a new America--we have changed and we will continue to do so, including exploding the myth that the GOP represents mainstream values. McSame needed to steal the media cycle and needed to stoke the faux flames of the supposed divisions in the Democratic party. So? Nominate a woman!

It was a smart move, tactically, because now McSame pwns this news cycle. And it reinforces his mavericklicious! image. He nominates a woman who is the same as Bush/Cheney on social issues. She is opposed to gay marriage and most gay rights (though she says she has gay friends--yipee!). BUT--no one knows anything about her. So he's able to continue to look "independent" by doing the surprising thing of nominating a woman! An outsider! So even though policy-wise she is identical to the Bush/Cheney insanity--the media is too distracted to notice.

So it was smart, tactically, and now Republicans will try to win over Hillary voters by saying that any attack on her is sexist. But women are not a monolithic hive mind and they did not vote for Hillary because she has a uterus and to suggest so is an insult. Women, like every other group, vote on issues. I would be very happy to put Biden's record on women's issues against Sarah Palin's any day. Her nomination was met with cheers by Mike Huckabee, Ralph Reed, and James Dobson. That tells us what we need to know.

But most of all--shame on you, McSame--for making a choice that reinforces the opinion that women and minorities only get positions by virtue of their "novelty." It was a cynical choice that utilizes women for your political ends. Not cool, dude.

Here's a good discussion of it, and here's the best bit:

So in a campaign where the candidate on the top of the ticket has contended that he is immune to criticism on the basis that he was a POW, the we can expect Republicans to argue that the Veep pick should be immune to criticism because she is a woman.

The pick of Palin is dripping with transparent condescension, the notion that the enthusiasm behind Hillary was simply the result of her being a woman, that it had nothing to do with what she actually stood for, and in that sense it's equally sexist. Palin is essentially a hard-right ideologue, and therefore nothing like Hillary as far as substance is concerned. It's not very different from running Alan Keyes against Barack Obama in 2004. The conservative media reaction has already engaged in paternalistic language, with FOX News reporting on television that "McCain broke the glass ceiling," implying in fact, that the pick had nothing to do with Palin or her qualifications, but merely her gender. It's fitting that the party positing affirmative action as a program that picks people exclusively based on race or gender rather than qualification should do something similar given an opportunity for political advancement. While Obama is promising change through policy, not simply through the circumstances of his birth, the McCain campaign thinks his appeal is simply visual and demographic, and therefore something they can exploit.

One of the things that stuck with me from Obama's speech was that the GOP has been successful in making campaigns that should be about big issues about little things--like John Kerry windsurfing, Al Gore's sighs or Swiftboating. Now it is time to talk about those big things because they matter to us much more than how many hours Barack Obama spends at the gym or how many children Sarah Palin has. This is a distraction, an attempt to substitute personality for policy.

No way, no how.

My Review.

Here is my review of Obama's speech:


Delicious! Here's video of the speech and you can read a transcript here:

Gore in the House!

Hi Al!

I can't help but think how much better this speech would be if it were being given by outgoing President Al Gore.

I wonder if there has ever been a time in history when the counterfactual in an election is so dramatically different?

Anticipation!

To gear us up for tonight--Baby Barack (when he was still Barry) with his mom!

I can totes relate as the baby of a single mom.

And some day maybe I will grow up to be president.