Barack in Kabul

Obama Family,

updated 47 minutes ago

KABUL, Afghanistan - Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama started a campaign-season tour of combat zones and foreign capitals, visiting with U.S. forces in Kuwait and then Afghanistan -- the scene of a war he says deserves more attention and more troops. The Illinois senator arrived Saturday in Kabul as part of an official congressional delegation and then flew to eastern Afghanistan. Staff. Sgt. David Hopkins said Obama and two other senators were making a brief stop in Jalalabad airfield, in Nangarhar province, to visit with soldiers stationed there. Obama's first visit to Afghanistan, coming less than four months before the general election, was rich with political implications. Republican presidential rival John McCain has criticized Obama for his lack of time in the region. Obama is also expected to stop later in Iraq.

Robert Gibbs, a campaign spokesman, said Obama arrived in Kabul around noon. En route from Washington, he made a stopover in Kuwait to meet with U.S. forces stationed there, Gibbs said. Sultan Ahmad Baheen, spokesman for Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry, confirmed the senator was in Afghanistan and that he would meet with President Hamid Karzai. "I look forward to seeing what the situation on the ground is," Obama told a pair of reporters who accompanied him to his departure from Andrews Air Force Base on Thursday. "I want to, obviously, talk to the commanders and get a sense both in Afghanistan and in Baghdad of, you know, what the most, their biggest concerns are, and I want to thank our troops for the heroic work that they've been doing." Underscoring the challenges in Afghanistan, authorities reported Saturday that a roadside bomb killed four policemen in the volatile south of the country where the Taliban-led insurgency is intensifying nearly seven years after a U.S.-led invasion ousted the militant movement from power.

Troop shift urged
Obama advocates ending the U.S. combat role in Iraq by withdrawing troops at the rate of one to two combat brigades a month. But he supports increasing the military commitment to Afghanistan, where the Taliban has been resurgent and Osama bin laden is believed to be hiding. Obama recently chided Karzai and his government, saying it had "not gotten out of the bunker" and helped to organize the country or its political and security institutions. Also on his itinerary later in the trip is a meeting with Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi leader. On the campaign trail, Obama has said one benefit of withdrawing U.S. troops is that it would pressure al-Maliki to shore up his government as well. Nonetheless, he said he did not plan to reiterate those messages in person. "I'm more interested in listening than doing a lot of talking, and I think it's very important to recognize that I'm going over there as a U.S. senator," he said. "We have one president at a time." The duration and details of Obama's stay in Afghanistan have not been formally disclosed, and media access was limited. Traveling with Obama were Sens. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican and Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island. The senators, both military veterans, have been mentioned as potential Obama vice presidential running mates, but Reed has said he's not interested in the job. In a speech this week, Obama said the war in Iraq was a distraction, unlike the fighting in Afghanistan. "This is a war that we have to win," he said. "I will send at least two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan, and use this commitment to seek greater contributions -- with fewer restrictions -- from NATO allies.

"I will focus on training Afghan security forces and supporting an Afghan judiciary, with more resources and incentives for American officers who perform these missions." By contrast, his opposition to the war in Iraq -- and call for an end to the U.S. combat role -- helped him overcome his rivals in the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination. Lately, his efforts to explain how he will use what he learns from U.S. commanders to refine his proposals have brought charges from Republicans and complaints from Democratic liberals that he seems to be shifting his Iraq policy toward the political center. But Obama maintains his basic goal of ending the U.S. combat role soon remains unchanged and that he's always said the U.S. withdrawal must be done carefully.

More stops in Mideast, Europe
Obama also arranged to visit Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and England, traveling aboard a jet chartered by his presidential campaign, before his return to the United States. The weeklong trip marks his only foreign excursion as a presidential candidate; McCain has visited Canada, Colombia and Mexico, in part to highlight Obama's opposition to trade deals with those allies. Few citizens in impoverished Afghanistan were aware of Obama's unannounced visit, and few have been following the U.S. presidential race, being too busy eking out an existence amid soaring violence and with limited access to news media. But some interviewed Saturday said they would welcome an Obama presidency if he could help their country end the fighting, corruption and poverty that have crippled it for so long. "Obama is a good person," said Abdul Basir, 40, a former army officer. "During his c ampaign I heard he was saying that if I become president I will withdraw the U.S. troops from Iraq and bring them to Afghanistan and I will attack on the terror center on other side of border (in Pakistan). It is very important and I appreciated that."

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

From Baraka to Barack: Amiri's Challenge to the Left

This was titled "Baraka to Barack" as a recognition of a session at the Harlem Book Fair in that name on Sunday, July 19. Unfortunately, C-Span did not show the fair on Sunday. Nonetheless, we can have a sense of what Amiri Baraka's conversation with Herb Boyd laid bare as a result of a position paper he presented to the Black Radical Congress in late June. Early on the blog, an audio speech by Baraka was posted. In that speech he was clear on the necessity of supporting the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama. At the time he also challenged leftist purists to understand the importance of a Barack presidency and what it would represent for change in America. Here he re-emphasizes the importance of the Barack candidacy in the face of continued leftist critiques. Barack's FISA vote enraged many of his most devoted supporters on the left. Some of these supporters, as well as angry Hillary supporters, are challenged by Amiri Baraka to understand what is at stake. Specifically, he is critical to ultra left Green Party's candidacy of Cynthia McKinney as a "luxury" we cannot afford. Amiri Baraka is without question among the leading black intellectuals in this period. The essay below was prepared for presentation to the Black Radical Congress. RGN

Amiri Baraka challenges Black radicals to "do something."

By Amiri Baraka

June 21, 2008

We certainly know the animals of the right, the US Reich, the Foxes and Klan in Civilian clothes, e.g., O'Reilly, Hannity, Limbaugh &c and certainly a coon or two Tavis & Andy, some people even came up with the slogan Strangle Rangel. Happily w/the departure of Bonnie & Clyde more of these Negro retainers will replace their " HillJig" buttons with the shit eating grin of exposed Toms as they try to ease painlessly into at least the margin of the masses who support Obama.

But I'm talking about another substantial pimple of soi disant, dare I say, intellectuals & self advertised radicals who are quite audible & wordy in opposition to Obama. You might say, 'but how is that, since now there is only the prisoner of war, McCain , whose proves every time he opens his mouth that he is still a prisoner of the Viet Nam war' that Obama faces. McCain's major campaign plank is that Americans need to keep dying in Iraq and our tax monies need to keep being fed to Halliburton and the other oilies and cronies. McCain also holds that we continue the Bush type savaging of the US constitution by denying habeas corpus and the legal rights of prisoners in Guantanamo. Keep it open as a Bush-Cheney concentration camp. McCain also wants to maintain the widespread hatred of the US by the world, as well as making Bush' giveaway Tax cuts for the super rich permanent.

Here's a charming character who on returning from Viet nam soon dumped his lst wife who had been severely crippled in an automobile accident, to run off with, among others, a beer brewery heiress who cd support his political barn storming. Here's a man, who for all the media clap about him being "an independent" is the spiritual follower of the man whose seat he sits in as Senator from Arizona, Barry Goldwater.

I mention all this because it is criminal for these people claiming to be radical or intellectual to oppose or refuse to support Obama. I hope we don't have to hear about "the lesser of two evils" from people whose foolish mirror worship wd have us elect the worst of two evils.

For those who claim radical by supporting McKinney or, brain forbid, the Nadir of fake liberalism, we should have little sympathy. As much as I have admired Cynthia McKinney, to pose her candidacy as an alternative to Obama is at best empty idealism, at worst nearly as dangerous as when the Nader used the same windy egotism to help elect Bush.

The people who are supporting McKinney must know that that is an empty gesture. But too often such people are so pocked with self congratulatory idealism, that they care little or understand little about politics (i.e. the gaining maintaining and use of power) but want only to pronounce , to themselves mostly, how progressive or radical or even revolutionary they are.

Faced with the obvious that McKinney cannot actually do anything by running but put out lines a solid left bloc shd put out anyway, their pre-joinder is that Obama will be running as a candidate of an imperialist party, or Imperialism will not let Obama do anything different or progressive…that he will do the same things any democrat would do and that the Democrats are using Obama to draw young people to the Democratic party. Also that there is a sector of the bourgeoisie supports Obama to put a new face on the US as alternative to the Devil face Bush has projected as the American image.

Some of these things I agree with, but before qualifying that let me say that no amount of solipsistic fist pounding about "radical principles" will change this society as much as the election of Barack Obama will as president of the US. Not to understand this is to have few clues about the history of this country, its people, or the history of the Black struggle in the US. It is also to be completely at odds with the masses of the Afro-American people, let us say with the masses of black and colored people internationally. How people who claim to lead the people but who time after time tail them so badly must be understood. It is because they confuse elitism with class consciousness.

And at this point, the US body politic has been taken too far in this present election campaign to easily dissolve this heavy challenge to its historic race & class exclusivity. The positive aspect of Hillary Clinton's candidacy and commitment to work in the Obama campaign has certainly shredded some of the gender exclusivity as well, so that there is in reality a prospect that some substantive change can be made. Obama is the democratic nominee. Only repeats of the outright election theft of Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 can put McCain in the white house. In 2 weeks, since the Democratic Party primaries ended, McCain's poll numbers have dropped from a dead heat w/ Obama to trailing by 18 points.

It is up to revolutionaries and progressives and radicals of all stripes to make it difficult for another larceny in November. We should agitate for serious disruption across this country and internationally if such a criminal attempt to steal the US presidency is mounted.

For the so called left and would be radicals (and some grinning idiots who say they don't even care about politics) the McKinney gambit is to label oneself "Quixote of the loyal opposition" to pipsqueak a hiss of disproval at the rulers while being an enabler of the same. Neither McCain nor McKinney will help us. Only Obama offers some actual help.

Even the dumbest things Obama has said re: Cuba and the soft shoe for Israel must be seen as the cost of realpolitik, that is he is not running for president of the NAACP and not to understand that those are the stances that must be taken in the present political context, even though we hold out to support what he said about initiating talks with the Cubans, the Palestinians . After years of Washington stupidity and slavish support for the Miami Gusanos and Israeli imperialism, there is in Obama's raising of talks with the US Bourgeois enemies something that must be understood as the potential path for new initiative. It is the duty of a left progressive radical bloc to be loud and regular in our demands for the changes Obama has alluded to in his campaign. We must take up these issues and push collectively, as a Bloc, or he will be pushed inexorably to the right.

Some people were grousing about the father's day address and the stance he took lecturing Black men to actually become fathers not just disappearing sexual partners. But can anyone who actually lives in the hood, and has raised children there really claim that what Obama said is somehow an "insult to half a race". We need to take up that idea of making Black men stand up and embrace fatherhood (a lifetime gig) as men and quit winking at the vanished baby makers that litter our community with fatherless children. This is where a great deal of the raw material comes from for the gangs that imperil our communities.

As I answered one irate e-mailer who was pissed off at Obama for leveling that challenge, a Negro man killed my only sister, a Negro man killed my youngest daughter. I can't give no mealy mouth slack about that, we need to Stand Up!

Obama has addressed the Israeli lobby and the Gusano (anti Cuba) lobby. But where is the Black left and general progressive, radical and revolutionary lobby? That is the real job we need to address. We must bring something to the table. It is time for the left to really make some kind of Left Bloc to support Obama. I was at the Black Left meeting in North Carolina and had to argue with a group of folks who want to be revolutionary as heck with a Reconstruction Party supporting Cynthia McKinney. Though there was some good discussion, nothing concrete has been offered especially around the Obama campaign.

There were even a few badly disguised nationalists, posing as part of the left who think such posturing somehow more revolutionary than getting Obama into the oval office and dealing with getting him there and the rocking and rolling that will go on in this country whether he makes it or not. We ought to be putting together a left bloc document that can be circulated as soon and as widely as possible and in Denver and depending on the circumstances, beyond. Using this as a means of drawing the excited masses to the left.

We always knew that the Obama campaign had the potential to do this. And the closer we get to the convention and then the election even more excitement will be generated. We shd not let our role be to stand on the sidelines and mumble how hip weare, we can't be so hip we let this cross roads of US history pass us by and possibly even let the lobotomized Robocop of right wing Republicanism serve us up more Bush' it.

I am sending this document right after I finish writing it to the Black Radical Congress who is meeting in St. Louis this weekend. I would hope it could be circulated.

The Obamacans and the Obamacons are Speaking up

Larry Hunt, the Reaganite who published his op-ed piece on why he is supporting Obama, is not alone. Andrew Sullivan and Armstrong Williams are among the group. The bankruptcy of the right wing is showing all over and leading to a rejection by its own. This election should be the start of something big. RGN

Why some conservatives are backing Obama

Carolyn Lochhead, Chronicle Washington Bureau

Monday, July 7, 2008

More...

(07-07) 04:00 PDT Washington -- The "Obamacans" that Sen. Barack Obama used to joke about - Republican apostates who whispered their support for his candidacy - have morphed into a new phenomenon, or syndrome, as detractors like to call it: the Obamacons.

These are conservatives who have publicly endorsed the presumptive Democratic nominee, dissidents from the brain trust of think tanks, ex-officials and policy magazines that have fueled the Republican Party since the 1960s. Scratch the surface of this elite, and one finds a profound dismay that is far more damaging to the GOP than the usual 10 percent of registered Republicans expected to switch sides during a presidential election.

"The untold story of the Bush administration is the deliberate annihilation of the Reaganite, small-government wing of the Republican Party," said Michael Greve, director of the Federalism Project at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. "A lot of people are very bitter about it."

Many conservatives and their brethren, the free-market, socially liberal libertarians, are deeply skeptical of Obama's rhetorical flirtations with free-market ideas and view his policies as orthodox liberalism. Yet one measure of their rupture with the GOP is their open disregard for Republican nominee John McCain and their now almost-wistful view of a president the Republicans impeached.

"When he leaves the room, everybody thinks he just agreed with them," Greve said of Obama. "We don't know if you're really buying a pig in a poke here. It could be the second coming of the Clinton administration. If people have any confidence in that, I think a whole lot of conservatives would vote for him."

Such sentiments reflect a collapse of the "big tent" conservative coalition that Republican President Ronald Reagan forged in 1980, uniting free-market, small-government types, Christian evangelicals, cultural traditionalists and anti-communists, now called neoconservatives. The neoconservatives, whose intellectual leaders include New York Times columnist David Brooks and Weekly Standard publisher Bill Kristol, remain firmly inside the GOP and strongly back McCain, who appeals to their model of "national greatness." So do mainstream conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation, which issues regular attacks against Obama's economic plans, and the traditionalist magazine National Review.

The left often lumps these factions together, but the Iraq war and President Bush's "compassionate conservatism" that led to an expansion of government have ruptured the coalition. Many conservatives are aghast at the rise in spending and debt under the Bush administration, its expansion of executive power, and what they see as a trampling of civil liberties and a taste for empire.

"I do know libertarians who think Obama is the Antichrist, that he's farther left than John Kerry, much farther left than Bill Clinton, and you'd clearly have to be insane to vote for this guy," said David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. "But there are libertarians who say, 'Oh yeah? Do you think Obama will increase spending by $1 trillion, because that's what Republicans did over the past two presidential terms. So really, how much worse can he be?' And there are certainly libertarians who think Obama will be better on the war and on foreign policy, on executive power and on surveillance than McCain."

Libertarians are tired of Christian evangelicals, who they believe captured the GOP under President Bush. Evangelicals, for their part, are skeptical of McCain, who in 2000 called Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson "agents of intolerance." McCain has tried to make amends, promising to stand firm on abortion and same-sex marriage, and appoint conservative Supreme Court justices, but mistrust runs deep.

Douglas Kmiec is former chief of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, and now a constitutional law professor at Pepperdine University and a devout Catholic. Kmiec endorsed Obama earlier this year, despite his conviction that Obama "believes in a pretty progressive agenda."

Kmiec said his support deepened after meeting with Obama and other faith leaders last month, during which the busy candidate spent 2 1/2 in a freewheeling discussion with people who differed with him.

"I think he's the right person at the right time to re-establish principles of constitutional governance that have been ill treated by the current administration, and to free us from the tar paper that we know is Iraq," Kmiec said, adding that many Republicans privately agree. "I think he's a man in the market for every good idea he can find, and he doesn't care what label it comes with."

David Friedman, the son of late conservative icon and Nobel economist Milton Friedman, has also endorsed Obama. Calling McCain a "nationalist," Friedman, an economist at Santa Clara University, thinks Obama could turn out like the liberals who deregulated New Zealand's economy.

"Of the two, Obama is less bad and at least has a chance in some ways of being good," said Friedman. Friedman likes Obama's University of Chicago advisers such as Austan Goolsbee and Cass Sunstein, who he believes are trying to forge a new leftism that incorporates free-market views. "I don't expect to agree in general with them," Friedman said, "but I certainly would be happy if the left became more libertarian, since the right seems to be less libertarian than it used to be."

Many see the Iraq war as hostile to conservative values and as a "friend of the state" - something that inherently expands the reach of the government, as Milton Friedman once described war.

"People don't understand that there has always been a small but very significant element of conservatives who have been against the war from day one and who, like me, also hate George Bush and think he's the most incompetent president in American history," said Bruce Bartlett, a supply-side economist who coined the term Obamacons. "The few people who are slavishly pro-Republican, live or die, slavishly pro-Bush like the Weekly Standard crowd, have gotten lot more publicity than they deserve."

Many conservatives are looking for a Clintonesque "Sister Soulja" or "end welfare as we know it" moment from Obama, a concrete demonstration of a willingness to abandon Democratic dogma.

"The Republicans have left the libertarian baby on the doorstep, but Democrats won't open the door," said Boaz. "There are people saying Obama's a University of Chicago Democrat, and you can't spend 10 years at the University of Chicago without having some appreciation for markets. I'd like to believe that. I just don't see the rubber meeting the road."

Matt Welch, editor in chief of the libertarian Reason Magazine and author of "McCain, the Myth of a Maverick," thinks Obama's conservative support "comes as much anything else from people being exhausted with the Republican coalition, who are mad at one wing or another, and they just think it's time for them to lose. It's just, 'Look, we're out of ideas, we're exhausted, it's not working, we don't know what our principles are anymore, let's take one for the team and have a black guy be the president for a while.' "

Obama is actively trying to switch one prominent Republican to an Obamacan: former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who met with both candidates last month.

CORRECTION: This story should have stated that President Bill Clinton was impeached.

Obama's conservative fan club

'Obamacans' - Sen. Barack Obama's term for Republicans who whisper their support for him.

'Obamacons'- leading conservatives of various stripes who have declared their support for the Democrat.

Here is a sampling of views of conservatives who have either endorsed Obama or are considering endorsing him.

Andrew Sullivan, conservative blogger for the Atlantic Monthly: "Obama's story confirms what conservatives have always believed about America. He is the black son of an immigrant, raised by a modest single mother and yet despite the obstacles inherent in his background he is approaching the pinnacle of American success. Isn't he the poster boy for what conservatives have always assured us is possible in America?"

Armstrong Williams, an African American conservative and talk radio host who is not an Obamacon but said he might become one: "I'm not going to just blindly go to the polls and vote for someone because they're a Republican anymore. I wouldn't have given two cents of thought to this in the past, but fortunately I'm maturing and fortunately for the first time in my life I could vote for a Democrat for president." Williams refuses to base his vote on race, "however the stain of America is race, human slavery and de jure segregation and no one can ignore the fact that since the founding of this country, only white men have occupied the White House."

Larry Hunter, supply-side economist who helped write Republicans' 1994 Contract With America: "How can I possibly support a candidate who proposes domestic policies (especially tax and economic policies) that are completely antithetical to everything I believe? ... It is indicative of how much I value individual freedom and how profoundly important I believe foreign policy to be at this juncture of American history that I am enthusiastically supporting Barack Obama for president. It doesn't hurt that McCain himself is only slightly less wrong on economic and tax policy. ... My sentiments on Obama are best captured in the note a conservative friend of mine, Wendell Gunn, wrote Obama when he sent him a campaign contribution: 'My contribution to your campaign is based on hope and change: My hope that you will change your mind on the tax and economic policies you are proposing.' "

Andrew J. Bacevich, professor of history and international relations at Boston University, writing in the American Conservative: "We should take (McCain) at his word: his commitment to continuing the most disastrous of President Bush's misadventures is irrevocable. ... He is the candidate of the War Party. The election of John McCain would provide a new lease on life to American militarism, while perpetuating the U.S. penchant for global interventionism marketed under the guise of liberation."

Douglas Kmiec, former head of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Reagan and first Bush administrations: "I'm disappointed that a legacy of great achievement that I think Ronald Reagan and the first President Bush brought to the Republican Party (has ended): in terms of fiscal responsibility and conveying as Reagan did that a free market and personal responsibility and defense of home and local community often redounds to the happiness of the human person. Somehow we've managed in the last eight years to forget all the basics, to violate all of the first principles. We've lost sight of the things that really mattered to us. If I had to give us a report card, I'd have to say, in the way the nuns used to express it, 'not promoted to the following grade.' "

Susan Eisenhower, granddaughter of Republican President Dwight Eisenhower: "Deep in America's heart, I believe, is the nagging fear that our best years as a nation are over. We are disliked overseas and feel insecure at home. We watch as our federal budget hemorrhages red ink and our civil liberties are eroded. Crises in energy, health care and education threaten our way of life and our ability to compete internationally. ... My grandfather was pursued by both political parties ... (and) went on to win the presidency with the indispensable help of a 'Democrats for Eisenhower' movement. These crossover voters were attracted by his pledge to bring change to Washington and by the prospect that he would unify the nation. It is in this great tradition that I support Barack Obama's candidacy for president."

David Friedman, economist at Santa Clara University and son of Nobel-winning economist Milton Friedman: "Bush was elected on a pro-market, small government platform and proceeded to greatly expand the size of government - and not only in the form of military spending. His view of the legitimate power of the executive branch, including the authority to deliberately violate federal law, I find frightening. Perhaps, if we are lucky, Obama will turn out to be the anti-Bush."

Source: Chronicle interviews and subjects' writings.

E-mail Carolyn Lochhead at clochhead@sfchronicle.com.

Reaganite Endorses Obama

More than simply a politics of transcendence, Barack will benefit from the damaged brand name of what it means to be a Republican. There has been a growing dissatisfaction with Bush, the war in Iraq, and the corruption. On C-Span's Washington Journal, people calling in as Republicans have shown a growing disaffection with the current administration. Now, a prominent Reagan appointee declares his support for Obama. More and more of this is consistent with the notion of 50-state win. RGN

Im a lifelong conservative activist and I'm backing Barack Obama

BY LARRY HUNTER

Wednesday, July 16th 2008, 7:39 PM

I'm a lifelong Republican - a supply-side conservative. I worked in the Reagan White House. I was the chief economist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for five years. In 1994, I helped write the Republican Contract with America. I served on Bob Dole's presidential campaign team and was chief economist for Jack Kemp's Empower America.

This November, I'm voting for Barack Obama.

When I first made this decision, many colleagues were shocked. How could I support a candidate with a domestic policy platform that's antithetical to almost everything I believe in?

The answer is simple: Unjustified war and unconstitutional abridgment of individual rights vs. ill-conceived tax and economic policies - this is the difference between venial and mortal sins.

Taxes, economic policy and health care reform matter, of course. But how we extract ourselves from the bloody boondoggle in Iraq, how we avoid getting into a war with Iran and how we preserve our individual rights while dealing with real foreign threats - these are of greater importance.

John McCain would continue the Bush administration's commitment to interventionism and constitutional overreach. Obama promises a humbler engagement with our allies, while promising retaliation against any enemy who dares attack us. That's what conservatism used to mean - and it's what George W. Bush promised as a candidate.

Plus, when it comes to domestic issues, I don't take Obama at his word. That may sound cynical. But the fact that he says just about all the wrong things on domestic issues doesn't bother me as much as it once would have. After all, the Republicans said all the right things - fiscal responsibility, spending restraint - and it didn't mean a thing. It is a sad commentary on American politics today, but it's taken as a given that politicians, all of them, must pander, obfuscate and prevaricate.

Besides, I suspect Obama is more free-market friendly than he lets on. He taught at the University of Chicago, a hotbed of right-of-center thought. His economic advisers, notably Austan Goolsbee, recognize that ordinary citizens stand to gain more from open markets than from government meddling. That's got to rub off.

When it comes to health care, I am hoping Obama quietly recognizes that a crusade against pharmaceutical companies would result in the opposite of any intended effect. And in any event, McCain's plans in this area are deeply problematic, too. Take drug reimportation. McCain (like Obama) says he's perfectly comfortable with this ill-conceived scheme, which would drive research and development dollars away from the next generation of miracle cures.

But overall, based on his embrace of centrist advisers and policies, it seems likely that Obama will turn out to be in the mold of John Kennedy - who was fond of noting that "a rising tide lifts all boats." Over the last few decades, economic growth has made Americans at every income level better off. For all his borderline pessimistic rhetoric, Obama knows this. And I believe he is savvy enough to realize that the real threat to middle-class families and the poor - an economic undertow that drags everyone down - cannot be counteracted by an activist government.

Or maybe not. But here's the thing: Even if my hopes on domestic policy are dashed and Obama reveals himself as an unreconstructed, dyed-in-the-wool, big-government liberal, I'm still voting for him.

These past eight years, we have spent over a trillion dollars on foreign soil - and lost countless lives - and done what I consider irreparable damage to our Constitution.

If economic damage from well-intentioned but misbegotten Obama economic schemes is the ransom we must pay him to clean up this foreign policy mess, then so be it. It's not nearly as costly as enduring four more years of what we suffered the last eight years.

Hunter is the former staff director of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee and president of the Social Security Institute.

www.JewsForObama.com

This is the place where American Jews gather to volunteer and support the Barack Obama candidacy. We have extensive one-click email replies to the “Schvitz Boat” smears which circulate through our community, we keep up-to-date Resources with news items, actions, petitions to sign, and media clips of Barack’s interaction with our community. Finally, we have a rich trove of endorsement transcripts and videos which you can send to your friends based on who they respect.

How to counter the myths and lies? Reply to the sender of hate mail with an email that includes authoritative counter-statements by individuals whose judgment would be respected by the sender. Below are the most recent items we have responded to on our REACT! pages.		Endorsements From the moment he declared his candidacy, Senator Obama has been endorsed by many people. We have collected videos and quotes from Rabbis, Celebrities, Feminists, Legislators and others on our Endorsements pages.
The irrationality of Obama’s critics (response to Jennifer Rubin, Morris Amitay) From The Jerusalem Post: In the past few weeks The Jerusalem Post has run two hysterically anti-Barack Obama op-eds - Morris J. Amitay’s “McCain for America - and Israel” and Jennifer Rubin’s “Why more Jews won’t be voting Democrat this year.” At first glance these two pieces appear to take two very different approaches to the [...] Obama at AIPAC, Abridged. Many Jewish Americans only watched one small “Oops!” bit from Barack Obama’s impressive speech at the AIPAC conference. We already posted the entire speech, with video or audio along with a careful transcript, but it was quite a committment to watch it! So here is a 15 minute “Readers Digest” version of Barack Obama’s speech [...] A Response to “A Pilot’s Perspective on Obama” There is a particularly ugly email circulating called “A Pilot’s Perspective on Obama” where the anonymous author questions Barack’s ties to the white community and his ability to attend private schools. The smear also includes some innuendos implying that Barack is Muslim and questioning his ties to Rezko. The following is one response to this [...] Bloomberg Blasts Rumor About Obama From New York Times Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, injecting himself directly into the presidential campaign, forcefully denounced on Friday what he called a “whisper campaign” linking Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, to Islam. Speaking before a crucial constituency in the coming election, Jewish voters, in the pivotal state of Florida, Mr. Bloomberg said that [...] Obama Is Not Linked To The PLO Through Prof. Rashid Kahlidi You may have had a chance to see a video in which Sean Hannity of Fox News tries to paint Senator Barack Obama as anti-Israel on the grounds that he knows Prof. Rashid Khalidi, currently the Director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University. Here are a few things that Hannity hides from us in [...]		Rabbi Bernard H. Mehlman Rabbi Mehlman, who is Emeritus Rabbi of Temple Israel of Brookline, and Professor of Midrash at New York’s Hebrew Union College, spoke at July 11th Jewish Community Leadership Committee of New England. He kindly allowed Jews4Obama to have a “scoop,” publishing his remarks here first: As a Jewish American, I am deeply disturbed by [...] NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg denounces anti-Obama whisper campaign Mayor Michael Bloomberg hasn’t endorsed Barack Obama, at least not yet. He has, however, forcefully denounced the smear campaign being waged against Obama in the Jewish community. From The New York Times: Bloomberg, in Florida, Blasts Rumor About Obama By MICHAEL BARBARO Published: June 21, 2008 BOCA RATON, Fla. — Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, injecting himself directly into the [...] Al Gore Congratulations, Detroit, on the Red Wings victory in the Stanley Cup finals. I speak to you this evening as a citizen of the United States. I speak to you also as citizen of the world, because the outcome of this election will affect the future of our planet. For America to lead the world through the [...] Bob Dylan (hopes the Times are A’Changin) According to the Times of London, Bob Dylan, who has never endorsed a candidate, said this about Obama: “Well, you know right now America is in a state of upheaval…. Poverty is demoralising. You can’t expect people to have the virtue of purity when they’re poor. But we’ve got this guy out there now who is [...] Rabbi Ethan Tucker (Senator Joseph Lieberman’s stepson) From the NYTimes “Younger Jews have grown up in diverse settings and are therefore less likely to be troubled by Mr. Obama’s associations than their elders, said Rabbi Ethan Tucker, 32, co-founder of a Jewish learning organization in Manhattan and the stepson of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut. Rabbi Tucker said he had given money [...]

The McLaughlin Smear: An Apology in Order

	June 10, 2008

Dear Friend, As the cable news channels began filling up valuable airtime Monday with discussions of the appropriateness of a New Yorker cover depicting Barack Obama burning an American flag in the Oval Office, under a portrait of Osama bin Laden, another important story was largely ignored by the mainstream media - that of a veteran media personality injecting racially divisive stereotypes into a discussion of Sen. Obama. This weekend on The McLaughlin Group, the program's host, John McLaughlin, asserted that Obama "fits the stereotype blacks once labeled as an Oreo -- a black on the outside, a white on the inside." McLaughlin: "Question: Does it frost Jackson, Jesse Jackson, that someone like Obama, who fits the stereotype blacks once labeled as an Oreo -- a black on the outside, a white on the inside -- that an Oreo should be the beneficiary of the long civil rights struggle which Jesse Jackson spent his lifetime fighting for?" Call John McLaughlin and demand he apologize on-air during next week's broadcast. McLaughlin's statement was so obviously out of touch and inappropriate that two members of the McLaughlin panel refuted the basic premise. Panelist and Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Peter Beinart said: "Who knows what Jesse Jackson is thinking? But that's a completely unfair depiction of Barack Obama." Later in the discussion, Michelle Bernard, president of the Independent Women's Forum, said: "I want to go back to the point you made about whether or not Obama is an Oreo, because if Barack Obama is an Oreo, then every member of this generation of African-Americans is an Oreo, because we stand on the shoulders of the people who fought for our rights." Call John McLaughlin and demand he apologize on-air during next week's broadcast. The all-important weekend political talk shows set the agenda for our nation's newsrooms and the acceptable terms of our public discourse -- McLaughlin's comments weren't just offensive, they were a relic of politics past. I hope you will take a moment and make your voice heard on this important issue. Sincerely, Erin Hofteig Director, New Media Media Matters for America PS -- This isn't the first time John McLaughlin has used stereotypes to define the Obamas. Earlier this year on his program McLaughlin asked syndicated columnist Clarence Page about Michelle Obama, "You don't think she's a black militant?"

Barack and Racial Divide

Surprise!!! Surprise!!!! Obama's candidacy has not eliminated the racial divide. America has changed but it hasn't changed that much. The hope in having Barack, as president, is that we can expect a government that is not hostile to notions of justice and equality. The coalition that elects him will expect a more tolerant America, which at the same time, dialectically, will make America more tolerant. Barack will not only be the face of America, he will be the face of Black America, as well. By the time his two terms are over America should be on its way towards a new America. RGN

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July 16, 2008

Poll Finds Obama’s Run Isn’t Closing Divide on Race

By ADAM NAGOURNEY and MEGAN THEE

Americans are sharply divided by race heading into the first election in which an African-American will be a major-party presidential nominee, with blacks and whites holding vastly different views of Senator Barack Obama, the state of race relations and how black Americans are treated by society, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

The results of the poll, conducted against the backdrop of a campaign in which race has been a constant if not always overt issue, suggested that Mr. Obama’s candidacy, while generating high levels of enthusiasm among black voters, is not seen by them as evidence of significant improvement in race relations.

After years of growing political polarization, much of the divide in American politics is partisan. But Americans’ perceptions of the fall presidential election between Mr. Obama, Democrat of Illinois, and Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, also underlined the racial discord that the poll found. More than 80 percent of black voters said they had a favorable opinion of Mr. Obama; about 30 percent of white voters said they had a favorable opinion of him.

Nearly 60 percent of black respondents said race relations were generally bad, compared with 34 percent of whites. Four in 10 blacks say that there has been no progress in recent years in eliminating racial discrimination; fewer than 2 in 10 whites say the same thing. And about one-quarter of white respondents said they thought that too much had been made of racial barriers facing black people, while one-half of black respondents said not enough had been made of racial impediments faced by blacks.

The survey suggests that even as the nation crosses a racial threshold when it comes to politics — Mr. Obama, a Democrat, is the son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas — many of the racial patterns in society remain unchanged in recent years.

Indeed, the poll showed markedly little change in the racial components of people’s daily lives since 2000, when The Times examined race relations in an extensive series of articles called “How Race Is Lived in America.”

As it was eight years ago, few Americans have regular contact with people of other races, and few say their own workplaces or their own neighborhoods are integrated. In this latest poll, over 40 percent of blacks said they believed they had been stopped by the police because of their race, the same figure as eight years ago; 7 percent of whites said the same thing.

Nearly 70 percent of blacks said they had encountered a specific instance of discrimination based on their race, compared with 62 percent in 2000; 26 percent of whites said they had been the victim of racial discrimination. (Over 50 percent of Hispanics said they had been the victim of racial discrimination.)

And when asked whether blacks or whites had a better chance of getting ahead in today’s society, 64 percent of black respondents said that whites did. That figure was slightly higher even than the 57 percent of blacks who said so in a 2000 poll by The Times. And the number of blacks who described racial conditions as generally bad in this survey was almost identical to poll responses in 2000 and 1990.

“Basically it’s the same old problem, the desire for power,” Macie Mitchell, a Pennsylvania Democrat from Erie County, who is black, said in a follow-up interview after participating in the poll. “People get so obsessed with power and don’t want to share it. There are people who are not used to blacks being on top.”

White perceptions, by contrast, improved markedly from 1990 to 2000, but have remained steady since. This month’s poll found that 55 percent of whites said race relations were good, almost double the figure for blacks.

The nationwide telephone poll was conducted July 7-14 with 1,796 adults, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. In an effort to measure views of different races, the survey included larger-than-usual minority samples — 297 blacks and 246 Hispanics — with a margin of sampling error of six percentage points for each subgroup.

Black and white Americans agree that America is ready to elect a black president, but disagree on almost every other question about race in the poll.

Black voters were far more likely than whites to say that Mr. Obama cares about the needs and problems of people like them, and more likely to describe him as patriotic. Whites were more likely than blacks to say that Mr. Obama says what he thinks people want to hear, rather than what he truly believes. And about half of black voters said race relations would improve in an Obama administration, compared with 29 percent of whites.

About 40 percent of blacks said that Mr. McCain, if elected president, would favor whites over blacks should he win the election.

There was even racial dissension over Mr. Obama’s wife, Michelle: She was viewed favorably by 58 percent of black voters, compared with 24 percent of white voters.

Among black voters, who are overwhelmingly Democrats, Mr. Obama draws support from 89 percent, compared with 2 percent for Mr. McCain. Among whites, Mr. Obama has 37 percent of the vote, compared with 46 percent for Mr. McCain.

After a Democratic primary season in which Mr. Obama had difficulty competing for Hispanic votes against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mr. Obama leads Mr. McCain among Hispanic voters in the likely general election matchup by 62 to 23 percent. Mr. Obama is viewed favorably by more than half of Hispanic Americans, compared with Mr. McCain, whose favorability rating is just under one-quarter. By significant margins, these voters believe that Mr. Obama will do a better job of dealing with immigration; Mr. McCain has been trying to distance himself from Republicans who have advocated a tough policy on permitting illegal immigrants to stay in the country.

Over all, Mr. Obama leads Mr. McCain among all registered voters by 45 percent to 39 percent.

White voters, much more so than black voters, are divided in their political loyalties. Mr. Obama draws significant support among white Democrats. Yet still, among just Democrats, blacks were more apt than whites in the poll to express positive views of Mr. Obama across a range of questions. For example, black Democrats were 24 points more likely than white Democrats to have a favorable opinion of Mr. Obama.

“I don’t like some of his policies, like on energy,” said Bob Beidelman, 69, a white Democrat from York, Pa., about Mr. Obama. “Also I don’t like statements his wife made. She seems like a spoiled brat to me.”

He added: “I’m one of those white people who clings to guns and the Bible, and those things that Barack said kind of turned me off,” he said. “This isn’t a black and white thing. If a conservative African-American like former Congressman J. C. Watts was running, I’d have bumper stickers plastered all over my car supporting him.”

The survey found extensive excitement among African-Americans about the prospect of Mr. Obama’s candidacy, a factor that could prove important in pushing voter turnout. The poll found that 72 percent of black voters said they expected Mr. Obama to win.

The high levels of enthusiasm for Mr. Obama among black Americans suggested that there was less of a divide among them about his candidacy than suggested by occasional tension among black leaders. Last week, Mr. Obama was criticized by the Rev. Jesse Jackson as “talking down to black people” by going before black audiences and urging parents to take more responsibility for their children.

“He’s got all these enthusiastic young people working for him,” said James Wilson, 75, a property manager from Philadelphia who is black. “I’m a person who would never give money and they called on the phone and got me to give.”

The poll found that Mr. McCain is yoked to the legacy of President Bush — majorities believe that Mr. McCain, as president, would continue Mr. Bush’s policies in Iraq and on the economy. Mr. Bush’s approval rating on the economy is as low as it has been in his presidency, 20 percent; and even while there has been an increase in the number of Americans who think the war is going well, there has been no change in the significantly large number of people who think it was a mistake to have invaded.

Kevin Sack, Dalia Sussman and Marina Stefan contributed reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/us/politics/16poll.html?

Check out PUMA!!

For a set of Hillary supporters, it's not over. They find it hard, if not impossible, to support Barack Obama. They are saying to hell with party unity. It is curious as to why this is the case. Much of the problem is the disappointment of being ever-so-close to having the first woman president. Hillary was subjected to sexism during the campaign but not by Barack or his campaign. A few members of the general public, some overzealous Barack supporters, and some in the media are guilty to at least some degree of sexism directed at Hillary. While this is true, sexism was not the reason she lost. Also, with exception of Iraq, the differences between Barack and Hillary on the issues were not great. So, we must conclude that the primary reasons for PUMA and similar sentiments are that they don't like Barack. Then the question becomes why do they not like Barack? If it is not the issues, comes down to two things: 1) their disappointment that if a woman, in this case Hillary, is not the nominee, they resent Barack because he came out ahead of Hillary for the nomination; or 2) they cannot bring themselves to vote for a black man. Given what this country has been through over the last almost 30 years under the conservative rule, to not vote, or to vote for McCain demonstrates misplaced political instincts, leanings that are Democratic or democratic must know that the American democracy, we expect it to be, will not survive four more years of Republican rule. RGN

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact:
Reuben Torres ; 646-591-3551 ; Reuben_anthony@yahoo.com

GOT PUMA?

"Let's Get Real With Reuben Torres" got PUMA founder, Will Bower as his special guest on tonights show. Bower will be discussing PUMA's opposition to the candidacy of Barack Obama.

Will Bower is spokesperson for P.U.M.A., which stands for "party unity my ass," an organization he founded and launched on Facebook and that is made up largely of Hillary Clinton supporters. P.U.M.A. is now part of the larger Just Say No Deal coalition of groups that coalesced after Clinton officially suspended her campaign and that are united in their opposition to the candidacy of Barack Obama.

Bower is a contributor to OffTheBus and was an administrator for the main Hillary Clinton Facebook group, "Hillary Clinton for President; One Million Strong." In February, Bower, who says he is "obsessive-compulsive" about how the "mathematics of election systems reflect democracy," wrote a brief opinion piece at Newsvine on the "seriously flaw ed [Democratic Party primary] system, which is just not proportional," arguing that the superdelegates should right the process by declaring for Clinton .

In the weeks since he founded PUMA and became one of the Just Say No Deal coalition spokespeople, Bower has become an intermittent guest on the major cable news networks, talking on the anger felt by the people he represents and on the coalition's motivations and plans. Together with a group of roughly 70 P.U.M.A. voters, Bower met last week with Senator John McCain, which he characterized on Fox News as very "reassuring." OffThe Bus spoke with Bower this past week.

"Lets Get Real With Reuben Torres " is an open forum where topics on politics, immigration, health, education, and other global issues, that affect our country and the world at large, are discussed and debated at local, national, and global levels. "Lets Get Real With Reuben Torres " airs every Tuesday evening from 9:00 pm to 10:00 pm.

To listen to the program go to www.blogtalkradio.com/LETSGETREALWITHREUBENTORRES

All are welcome to participate by calling (347) 327-9003