Monroe Anderson

Obama's stab at out-McBushing McCain

    I’m no constitutional scholar. And unlike Barack Obama, I certainly haven’t taught a course on constitutional law at anybody’s college, particularly one as prestigious as the University of Chicago. Still, I couldn’t disagree more with the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for president when he says he disagrees with the Supreme Court’s decision outlawing executions of convicted child rapists.
    Like the right-wing political activist Supremes, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Samuel A. Alito, Jr. and Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., Obama fell in line with the murder-the-bastards side of the ruling.  Predictably, so did Obama’s presumptive political opponent, John McCain.
    "Today's Supreme Court ruling is an assault on law enforcement's efforts to punish these heinous felons for the most despicable crime," McCain said. "That there is a judge anywhere in America who does not believe that the rape of a child represents the most heinous of crimes, which is deserving of the most serious of punishments, is profoundly disturbing."
    "I have said repeatedly that I think that the death penalty should be applied in very narrow circumstances for the most egregious of crimes," Obama said in his made-to-order statement for the nation’s conservatives.  "I think that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime, and if a state makes a decision that under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances, the death penalty is at least potentially applicable, that does not violate our Constitution."
    Who’s going to argue about whether or not raping a small child is a heinous crime? Who would argue that those who committed this particular crime aren’t sick mfs? But do we really want state sanctioned murder of these sickos? What does that accomplish? Is anybody sick enough to rape a 6 or 8 year old is not going to be deterred by the prospect of pulling down the death penalty? So, how do you stop them before they rape again? Wouldn’t locking them up for life, keeping them away from any other children, in and of itself, make for a safer society?
    And one last question while I’m at it: In his methodical march from the left to the middle, is Obama trying to out-McBush John McCain?

Hillary for VEEP--or maybe not

    Hillary Clinton is done. How done she is was made evident yesterday when Patti Solis Doyle was hired as the chief of staff for Obama’s unnamed vice presidential running mate.
    In case you’ve forgotten, Doyle was fired as Hillary’s campaign manager earlier this year, blamed for strategic errors in the campaign during the early primaries. Some have attributed those blunders and loses to Mark Penn, Clinton's top political advisor.
    Whoever is to blame, Hillary was done long before earlier this month when she finally got around to publicly admitting as much. But even as the New York senator was finished, her Hillites kept trying to make her undone.
    The former First Lady’s speech backing Obama earlier this month was still in analysis when her supporters launched a draft Hillary for Veep campaign.
    "No one brings to a ticket what Hillary brings," California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein said on ABC's "This Week," the Sunday after Hillary’s concession.
    “For me and millions of other Democrats, I believe that the most important step that you can take now is to encourage the Congressional Black Caucus to urge Senator Obama to select Senator Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential running mate," Billionaire Bob Johnson said in a letter to House Majority Whip James Clyburn, who heads the CBC.
    Listening to what these two have had to say at the time—and other Hillites, like hubby Bill, and Terry McAuliffe, Clinton campaign chair and chief cheerleader, I was of two minds on whether the second place winner in the party’s presidential sweeps ought to be placed in the number two spot on the ticket.
    Part of me said, “Let it be,” while the other part of me asked, “are you losing your ever-loving mind?”
    Depending on whose argument I heard or read last, I went back and forth for a while. Finally, I sat down and had a long talk with myself.
    Self: You learned your ABC’s before you went to kindergarten. Have you forgotten them in your advancing years? Anybody But Clinton.
    Other Self: Since you want to play with acronyms, how about DT or SFW or DH? Barack and Hillary would be the Democrats’ dream team. They would be sure-fire winners. They would be double-history, the first African American president and the first woman vice-president.
    Self: Not dream team, nightmare. It would be an unmitigated disaster. Did you listen to Jimmy Carter when he said that if Barack picked Hillary it "would be the worst mistake that could be made”? It would highlight the negatives from both candidates while their positives would suffer in the joining.
Other Self: Did you forget how good the Clintons were to black people? Why do you think so many black politicians backed them over Obama?
    Self: Don’t dare go there.
    Other Self: Well, what about those 18 million Americans who voted for Hillary? That’s no small number. She can deliver them to Obama in November, assuring him victory.
    Self: Hillary does have a hard-core following of older white women but their numbers aren’t as great as her vote tally suggests. Some of those 18 million were Republicans that right-wing mouthpiece Rush Limbaugh encouraged to vote for Hillary just to create chaos on the Democratic ticket. Some of the blue-collar vote, when forced to choose between a white woman and a black man, stayed in their comfort zone, so when it comes to president, John McCain’s their guy.
    Other Self: Skip the Republicans and the racists, what about all the feminists who have waited all their lives and are sorely disappointed because there won’t be a woman in the White House? What if they stay home or vote GOP.
Self: Wicked right-wing wordsmith Ann Coulter was going to vote for Hillary if McCain became the presumptive Republican nominee. She quickly talked herself out of that notion. When Hillary’s women stop to think about McCain’s positions on civil rights and women’s rights, they’ll be giving themselves a good talking to as well.
    Other Self: OK, let’s talk turkey: We had good times in the 1990s under President Clinton. Americans had extra cash in their pockets and a debt-free, peace-loving nation. Besides, with Hillary, you get a two-fer. You get her tenacity and true grit and you get Bill with all his contacts and REAL presidential experience.
    Self: We may get a two-fer but President Obama would be getting too much. He’d have to worry about the husband and wife tag-team backstabbing and undermining him every chance they got.  As former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski pointed out, the vice president’s office is not that far from the Oval Office and with Bhillary as his Veep, Obama would have a government-in-exile and a government-in-waiting right down the hall. And, what kind of signal do you think Patti Solis Doyle was to the Clinton cult?
    Other Self: Hmmmm, never mind.

McCain Steele the presumptive winner in the November general

    Shelby Steele, like Clarence Thomas, is an accomplished black men, celebrated by the right, who got a leg up thanks to affirmative action, but who now opposes it for any African American who also might need a boost to the next phase.
    A self-described black conservative, Steele crossed over to the selfish side and, like Justice Thomas, has become a darling of the same white folks who believe prisons are more desirable destinations for young black men than colleges and that African Americans ought to be grateful that our ancestors were kidnapped from the mother continent to be enslaved here.
    Through the years, Steele has done well for himself. He is a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institute and in 1990 he received the National Book Critics Circle Award for his book, The Content of Our Character, which theorized that it’s not them, it’s us—it’s not racism but our self-doubt that keeps African Americans down and out in the land of plenty.
    Steele's latest theory was revealed Thursday in a washingtonpost.com story, "A Run for the Ages?,” which interviews black historians on Barack Obama’s landmark victory. The good fellow predicts that the Illinois senator won’t best Republican John McCain in the November general election. Apparently, McCain's campaign team is feeling Steele’s sentiments as well. They’re so cocky they’re challenging Obama to have 10 town hall debates with the Arizona senator.
    I half understand why.
    McCain has a tiny campaign war chest while Obama’s runneth over. A series of debates will get McCain exposure on the cheap. But does the GOP standard-bearer really want to be that exposed? Not if his performance is anything like it was Tuesday, the same night Obama became the presumptive Democratic Party nominee. McCain's speech was so embarrassingly bad that even Fox Cable News--the right-wing's unofficial propaganda arm--didn't have much good to say about it.

    And as for Shelby Steele and his prognosticative prowess, in his latest book, Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win, he predicted that Obama wouldn’t beat Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination.
    If Steele’s really lucky, come November, at least he’ll be half right.