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Obama - Biden ’08

Sunday, August 24th, 2008

Barack Obama has chosen Joe Biden as his running mate. It’s an interesting choice, given that Obama is running a change campaign and Biden has been a Washington fixture for decades. Also because the two ran against each other in the primary, during which Biden famously had to apologize for unfortunate comments about his rival.

The Obama campaign is likely to exploit Biden’s experience, particularly in the area of foreign affairs. The elder senator has already been an effective advocate for the Democratic nominee, and his plain-spoken (if gaffe-prone) style will surely be useful against John McCain.

Update: Obama’s campaign confirmed his pick early Saturday morning with an image of Biden and Obama on the campaign Web site’s splash page and a request for support and donations.

AP via Google:

Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware is Barack Obama’s pick as vice presidential running mate, The Associated Press has learned.

Biden, 65, is a veteran of more than three decades in the Senate, and one of his party’s leading experts on foreign policy, an area in which polls indicate Obama needs help in his race against Republican rival John McCain.

Read more

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Barack Obama doesn’t rule out Hillary Clinton for vice president

Monday, July 14th, 2008

By Peter Nicholas | Barack Obama told a potential donor to his campaign that Hillary Rodham Clinton is on his list of possible vice presidential running mates, but that her husband’s status as a former president makes matters “complicated.”

Jill Iscol, a faithful Democratic donor who was an ardent supporter of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, said Obama reached out to her because he heard she was unhappy about the way the New York senator had been treated by the Democratic Party and the media.

Iscol turned their phone conversation Thursday to the vice presidency — something the Obama campaign has refused to discuss publicly. She said she told him that Clinton would be his best running mate.

Obama replied that she is on his list, Iscol recounted, and that it would be a mistake not to have her on such a list. But he also explained that he was thinking through a potential “complication” — Bill Clinton.

“He said once you’re a president, even if you’re a former president, you’re always a president,” Iscol said.

That suggests Obama might be worried the White House could get crowded with Bill Clinton back on the scene.

Still, Iscol hung up believing Hillary Clinton had a shot.

Obama didn’t say that Bill Clinton would be a disqualifying factor, but he conveyed that he needed to grapple with what it would mean to have a former president as second spouse.

Obama also was willing to hear Iscol make the argument for Hillary Clinton as his No. 2.

“I said nobody has been vetted the way she has been vetted,” Iscol said. “We need to pick the most qualified, wisest, smartest, experienced person to serve our country alongside of Barack Obama. And I think it’s Hillary Clinton. We need her, and the party needs her, and it will be a ticket that will steamroll its way to the White House.”

Iscol, who lives in Westchester, N.Y., describes herself as a donor-activist.

She met Obama in 2004, at a dinner party on Martha’s Vineyard, she said. During the party, her son, a Marine Corps officer, phoned from Iraq. Obama “expressed concern about my son, and subsequent to that, whenever I saw Barack Obama he was kind and thoughtful.”

Along with many Clinton supporters, Iscol is closely watching the Obama campaign to see how it treats Clinton.

Asked if she might donate to Obama in the coming months, Iscol said she wanted to see if his campaign followed through on commitments to help Clinton pay down her debt.

Then there’s the matter of the vice presidency.

Iscol said she may wait to see whom Obama picks.

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Online Activists Keep the Pressure on Obama

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

By Ari Melber | If Obama is lucky, he will continue to benefit from these energized, sophisticated activists who support his candidacy while they press his hand.

He responded. While most Americans settled into a relaxed Independence Day weekend, Barack Obama tried to quiet mounting criticism from supporters over his decision to back a new White House spying bill. In an unprecedented letter released on the afternoon of July 3, Obama addressed the thousands of supporters who organized a large protest on his social networking portal.

Noting that he expected to take his “lumps” and “be held accountable,” Obama respectfully defended his surveillance reversal. While maintaining that immunizing companies accused of illegal spying undermines deterrence and “accountability for past abuses,” Obama said he now backs legislation granting the right to give immunity (and other executive powers) because it provides a “real mechanism for accountability” via future investigations. The explanation ran 852 words–more than double the length of his original statement announcing support for the spying bill on June 20–and then campaign policy aides continued the discussion for over an hour with visitors on Obama’s site (pictured at right). The unusual exchange sparked an intense debate over the weekend, as activists and bloggers questioned whether it heralded a more interactive political era, or a reminder that double talk can spread on any medium.

On Sunday night, the protest group released its official reply, collaboratively edited through a wiki and representing some of the 19,000 members. It pressed Obama to take his fight against immunity to the Senate floor this week. Since Obama’s letter said he still wanted to “strike” immunity from the bill, the group urged him to take charge:

We ask that you back up your words with action by addressing your constituents on the floor of the Senate with the same oratorical power you used in Philadelphia to lay out your vision of a ‘More Perfect Union.’ The American people have just as much right to know of the dangerous precedent this Congress would be setting by granting retroactive immunity to [companies that spied] on law-abiding citizens as we did to relearn of segregation and Jim Crow. The arm of government oppression reaches far and wide, Senator, and we must beat it back on whatever front we find it.

The Senate begins debating the spying bill again on Tuesday. Obama arrives in Washington that day to address a Hispanic convention.

The protest group has not only become a huge force on Obama’s site–it is now double the size of any other user-created group and its traffic slowed the campaign’s server last week–it has also swiftly asserted itself in the broader spying debate. Organizers have been covered and quoted repeatedly in the mainstream media, including a New York Times profile of founder Mike Stark, tapping the interest in online organizing to amplify a civil liberties message. The group’s wiki even includes a “proposed strategy” to “fan the flames of coverage by making the novel outreach approach a story in its own right,” levering media attention to recruit more members for lobbying Congress. Over the weekend, it began spinning off local networks to target individual senators through a “ fifty state strategy.” Now there are Facebook groups for constituents to pressure senators McCain, Feinstein, Klobachar, Coleman and Alexander–along with a page for “Wisconsinites” to “thank” Senator Feingold for defending civil liberties. The group decided to focus on other senators after discussing how to broaden the effort beyond Obama. Over 3,500 members converse through an e-mail listserve on the campaign’s social networking platform, with hundreds of messages a day. In fact, the group has begun moderating participation to limit topics and exclude certain tactics, such as attempts by activists to halt campaign fundraising in retribution for Obama’s position on spying.

By simultaneously growing its membership, mission and ambition, the spying group exhibits the characteristics of a successful net movement. MoveOn began with the single objective of fighting Clinton’s impeachment, but evolved to tackle other issues that resonated with its members. The protest against the spying bill began last month by urging Obama to change his vote. After quickly drawing him (and his senior staff) into a dialogue, however, it is nimbly shifting its focus to Obama’s role in the immunity floor fight–an easier request on common ground–while launching campaigns to target senators with constituents recruited through MyBarackObama.com. Even if the Democratic Congress completes its capitulation on surveillance policy, the anti-spying group will still be the largest organizing network on Obama’s site. With 6,000 more activists than the top-down “Action Wire” group, which the campaign created for official pushback, the group might even function as a supportive but aggressive counterweight to the campaign’s traditional message. If Obama is not confronting McCain on other constitutional issues, for example, members could organize media or social network efforts to do it for him. If the campaign is not correcting the media for distorting factual statements by Gen. Wesley Clark, the members could rally a truth squad overnight.

Obama excelled by appealing to the public appetite for movement politics, rather than typical campaigns. And unlike campaigns, movements are animated by ideas, policies and values–not blind allegiance to a single person. If Obama is lucky, he will continue to benefit from these energized, sophisticated activists who support his candidacy while they press his hand, and use his campaign platform to mobilize turnout while organizing causes beyond his election. The spy group’s open letter reminded Obama of this collective dynamic. “As you have said time and again Senator, ‘we are the ones we have been waiting for,’ and we are here, working to bring about real change in Washington.”

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Bill Clinton says Barack Obama must ‘kiss my ass’ for his support

Sunday, June 29th, 2008

By Tim Shipman in Washington and Philip Sherwell in New York | Mr Obama is expected to speak to Mr Clinton for the first time since he won the nomination in the next few days, but campaign insiders say that the former president’s future campaign role is a “sticking point” in peace talks with Mrs Clinton’s aides.

The Telegraph has learned that the former president’s rage is still so great that even loyal allies are shocked by his patronising attitude to Mr Obama, and believe that he risks damaging his own reputation by his intransigence.

A senior Democrat who worked for Mr Clinton has revealed that he recently told friends Mr Obama could “kiss my ass” in return for his support.

A second source said that the former president has kept his distance because he still does not believe Mr Obama can win the election.

Mr Clinton last week issued a tepid statement, through a spokesman, in which he said he “is obviously committed to doing whatever he can and is asked to do to ensure Senator Obama is the next president of the United States “.

Mr Obama was more effusive at his unity event with Mrs Clinton on Friday, speaking fondly of the absent former president, who attended Nelson Mandela’s birthday celebrations in London instead. The candidate told the crowd: “I know how much we need both Bill and Hillary Clinton as a party. They have done so much great work. We need them badly.”

But his aides said he has so far concentrated on cementing relations with Mrs Clinton first. They say they are content to let relations with Mr Clinton thaw gradually.

It has long been known that Mr Clinton is angry at the way his own reputation was tarnished during the primary battle when several of his comments were interpreted as racist.

But his lingering fury has shocked his friends. The Democrat told the Telegraph: “He’s been angry for a while. But everyone thought he would get over it. He hasn’t. I’ve spoken to a couple of people who he’s been in contact with and he is mad as hell.

“He’s saying he’s not going to reach out, that Obama has to come to him. One person told me that Bill said Obama would have to quote kiss my ass close quote, if he wants his support.

“You can’t talk like that about Obama - he’s the nominee of your party, not some house boy you can order around.

“Hillary’s just getting on with it and so should Bill.”

Another Democrat said that despite polls showing Mr Obama with a healthy lead over Republican John McCain, Mr Clinton doesn’t think he can win.

The party strategist, who was allied to one of the early rivals to Mr Obama and the former First Lady, said Mr Clinton was “very unhopeful” about the nominee’s prospects in November.

“Bill Clinton knows the party will unite behind Obama, but he is telling people he doesn’t believe Obama can win round voting groups, especially working-class whites, in the swing states,” the strategist said.

“He just doesn’t think Obama will be able to connect with the voters he needs.”

Joe Klein, the author of Primary Colours, a fictionalised account of Mr Clinton’s 1992 election, who has known the former president for 20 years, said he also heard that he was “very, very bitter”, from people who have spoken with him.

“It’s time for him to get over it or go off and do his charitable work. He knows the rules of the road. What’s going on now is kind of strange. I think his behaviour is really, really shocking.”

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Dems to OK Bush War Funds Without Conditions

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

By ANDREW TAYLOR | Democratic and GOP leaders in the House announced agreement Wednesday on a long-overdue war funding bill they said President Bush would be willing to sign. The agreement on the war funding bill, announced by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, also paves the way for a quick infusion of emergency flood relief for the Midwest, an extension of unemployment payments for the jobless and a big boost in GI Bill college for veterans.

It would also provide about $165 billion to the Pentagon to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for about a year. That’s enough time for Bush’s successor to set Iraq policy.

“This is an agreement that has been worked out in a bipartisan way that I think is acceptable to both most Democrats and most Republicans and to the White House,” Boehner said.

Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the agreement contains several priorities for Democrats in the Senate but stopped short of issuing a direct endorsement, saying Reid needed to consult with his colleagues.

The agreement would require that the Senate would agree to drop most of the more than $10 billion it added last month for programs such as heating subsidies for the poor, wildfire fighting, road and bridge repair and help for the Gulf Coast.

The House is slated to pass the measure Thursday, but the Senate won’t turn to it until next week, Manley said.

The agreement drops restrictions on Bush’s ability to conduct the war and gives him almost all of the funding he sought well over a year ago for Iraq and Afghanistan. But he also backed away from veto threats he issued earlier over Democrats’ insistence on using the Iraq funding bill to carry a generous boost in the GI Bill and a 13-week extension of unemployment payments for people whose benefits have run out.

Democrats dropped a provision to extend unemployment benefits for an additional 13 weeks in states with particularly high unemployment rates.

The war funding bill had bedeviled Democratic leaders for months. Its passage has become more urgent with looming furloughs next month of civilian employees and contract workers.

Conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats are upset that the new GI Bill benefits, with costs tentatively estimated at $62 billion over the next decade, will be added to the deficit instead of being “paid for” as called for under House rules.

But the White House and Republicans insisted that House Democrats’ offset — a one-half percentage point surcharge on wealthier taxpayers — was unacceptable.

Boehner and Hoyer would not immediately release details, saying the verbal agreement had yet to be written in congressional legalese.

The agreement came just a day after the Bush administration urged Congress to provide $1.8 billion in immediate disaster aid for the Midwest and elsewhere. Congress is likely to add a little more, though details had not been ironed out.

A dozen senators in both parties are pressing to add money for levee repair and help for displaced homeowners, among other pressing needs.

Democrats and governors across the country emerged the victors in a battle with the White House to block new Bush administration rules designed to cut spending on Medicaid health care for the poor and disabled.

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Democrats to back down on Iraq war conditions

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

By Richard Cowan | Democrats in the Congress, who came to power last year on a call to end the combat in Iraq, will soon give President George W. Bush the last war-funding bill of his presidency without any of the conditions they sought for withdrawing U.S. troops, congressional aides said on Monday.

Lawmakers are arranging to send Bush $165 billion in new money for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, enough to last for about a year and well beyond when Bush leaves office on January 20.

“It’ll be the lump sum of money, veterans (funding) and that’s it,” said one House aide familiar with the negotiations on the legislation.

The aide was referring to the funding for the unpopular Iraq war, now in its sixth year, and a measure being attached to expand education benefits for combat veterans.

A House of Representatives vote on the war-funding bill was expected this week. Anything the House passes would have to be approved by the Senate before the legislation is sent to Bush.

With the Pentagon running out of money to continue fighting the two wars, Congress is trying to approve new funds before its July 4 holiday recess.

With this bill, Congress will have written checks for more than $800 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with most of the money going to Iraq.

Since January, 2007, when Democrats took majority control of the House and Senate, they have tried to force Bush to change course in Iraq, mostly through troop withdrawal timetables and requirements that U.S. soldiers be more thoroughly trained, equipped and rested before returning to combat.

And while various versions have passed each chamber since then, there have not been enough votes in Congress to enact the war conditions over Bush’s objections.

DEMOCRATS LOOKING TO BUSH SUCCESSOR

The result is that the 110th Congress will wrap up most of its work this fall, before November’s congressional and presidential elections, without forcing any changes to Bush’s open-ended war policy, the defining issue of his presidency.

Anti-war Democrats instead are looking to Bush’s successor, hoping it is fellow-Democrat Barack Obama, to bring at least some of the 147,000 U.S. troops home from Iraq.

Speaking to reporters in Michigan where he was campaigning, Obama said he was “encouraged” by the reduction in violence in Iraq, but underlined the importance of beginning “the process of withdrawing U.S. troops.”

John McCain, the Republican candidate for president, has backed Bush’s opposition to Congress setting timetables.

Democrats enter this campaign season poised to expand their House and Senate majorities.

Instead of Iraq being the dominant issue this campaign season, it has been the U.S. economy, jolted by skyrocketing energy prices and mounting home foreclosures, that has gotten most of the attention.

The war-spending bill has been the staging ground for a Democratic initiative to expand domestic unemployment benefits, in addition to the added veterans benefits.

(Editing by Philip Barbara)

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Change, What Change?

Saturday, June 14th, 2008

CounterPunch | On Tuesday June 3 Barack Obama claimed the greatest prize the Democratic Party can offer, namely his nomination as its candidate for the presidency. The very next day the salesman of “change” raced from Minnesota back to Washington and publicly abased himself at the feet of an organization whose prime mission is to ensure that change unpalatable to the state of Israel will never be pressed by the United States government. The terms of Obama’s surrender exploded like rhetorical cluster bombs across the Middle East. To Israel and its Arab neighbors it surely signaled that whoever moves into the White House next January, there will be no swerve from Bush’s role as guarantor of Israeli intransigeance.The conferences of the American Israel Public Committee have become showcases for the political clout of this lobbying group. The clout is real . A politician angering the Lobby can see campaign funds dry up and surprise challenges by well financed opponents. Back in September, 1991 President George Bush Sr, took on the Lobby pointing out that the U.S. spends nearly $1,000 a year for every Israeli and suggested this was extortion at the hands of AIPAC. “I’m up against some powerful forces,” he said at his press conference. “They’ve got something like 1,000 lobbyists on the Hill working the other side of the question. We’ve got one lonely little guy here doing it.” He want that particular battle, but some count the resultant enmity of AIPAC as a serious factor in his defeat by Clinton the following year. If so, George Jr took the lesson to heart.As US reps and senators and their staffs crowded the back of the convention center, the audience of 7,000 from across the US cheered as politician after politician marched to the rostrum for the politically rewarding declarations of loyalty to Israel.

Before he began his drive to the nomination Obama took good care to get the support of influential American Jews in Chicago like the Crown family, associated with the aerospace firm, General Dynamics.

As I wrote here back in February, a notorious scandal of the Kennedy years was JFK’s defense secretary, Robert McNamara, overruling all expert review and procurement recommendations and insisting that General Dynamics rather than Boeing make the disastrous F-111, at that time one of the largest procurement contracts in the Pentagon’s history. The suspicion was that Henry Crown of Chicago was calling in some chits for his role in fixing the 1960 JFK vote in Cook County, Illinois, to the impotent fury of the teenage Hillary Clinton, who was a poll watcher for Nixon. Crown, of Chicago Sand and Gravel, had $300 million of the mob’s money in General Dynamics’ debentures, and after the disaster of the Convair, General Dynamics needed the F-111 to avoid going belly-up, taking the mob’s $300 million with it.

Henry Crown has passed on to the great pork barrel in the sky, but his descendants in the Crown clan are devoted contributors to Obama, giving him tens of thousands of dollars, as a glance at the website of the Center for Responsive Politics swiftly attests. The Crown family is still deeply involved in the affairs of General Dynamics. Lester and James Crown have both had seats on the company’s board in recent years. General Dynamics has ties to Israeli military contractors. A 2003 General Dynamics corporate handout cited by Chicago Indymedia proclaimed “a strategic alliance with Aeronautics Defense Systems, Ltd.,” an Israeli firm based in Yavne. Aeronautics Defense Systems Ltd. is the firm that developed the Unmanned Multi-Application System (UMASa) aerial surveillance tool which the Israeli military uses to “provide a real-time ‘bird’s eye view’ of the surveillance area to combatant commanders and airborne command posts.” The Indymedia story quoted then-Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert,as saying the agreement between General Dynamics and Aeronautics Defense Systems to bring together “both companies’ state-of-the art technologies in defense and homeland security” was “additional proof of the technological and commercial benefits that alliances between industries from the U.S. and Israel can produce.” An eye in the sky over Gaza ends up as a dollar in Obama’s war chest.

On January 11 of this year, hot on the heels of an editorial praising Obama as a Friend of Israel in the rabidly Zionist New York Sun, Lester Crown circulated a testimonial through the Jewish community, expressing his eagerness “to share with you my confidence that Senator Barack Obama’s stellar record on Israel gives me great comfort that, as President, he will be the friend to Israel that we all want to see in the White House-stalwart in his defense of Israel’s security, and committed to helping Israel achieve peace with its neighbors. Few public figures inspire as much hope and optimism as Barack Obama. Please pass on this message to all who are interested.”

Worried about rumors fanned by the Clinton campaign that he was still a secret Muslim, Obama insisted that before the April 22 primary in Pennsylvania, a state with a politically significant Jewish vote, his campaign start a Hebrew-language blog in Israel.

So Obama came to this year’s AIPAC conference determined to dispel all remaining doubts that he’s a Friend of Israel. “We will also use all elements of American power to pressure Iran,” he assured AIPAC.” I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything in my power. Everything and I mean everything.” He swore he wouldn’t talk to the elected representatives Palestinians, Hamas. To thunderous applause he declared, “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided,”

As Uri Avnery, the veteran Israeli writer and peace activist expostulated here furiously in the wake of this last sentence: “Along comes Obama and retrieves from the junkyard the outworn slogan ‘Undivided Jerusalem, the Capital of Israel for all Eternity’. Since Camp David, all Israeli governments have understood that this mantra constitutes an insurmountable obstacle to any peace process. It has disappeared - quietly, almost secretly - from the arsenal of official slogans. No Palestinian, no Arab, no Muslim will make peace with Israel if the Haram-al-Sharif compound (also called the Temple Mount), one of the three holiest places of Islam and the most outstanding symbol of Palestinian nationalism, is not transferred to Palestinian sovereignty. That is one of the core issues of the conflict. On that very issue, the Camp David conference of 2000 broke up.”

Obama’s foreign policy advisors were tearing their hair out and the next day his campaign issued a clarification. “Jerusalem is a final status issue, which means it has to be negotiated between the two parties” as part of “an agreement that they both can live with.” All the same, they insisted, Jerusalem in Obama’s eyes must be the capital of Israel.

Obama’s most egregious talent is the ability to adapt his rhetoric with ominous speed, to allay any suspicion among the powerful, that he really will rock the boat in a way they might not care for. Earlier in the campaign he was criticized for not wearing the American flag as a lapel pin. At the AIPAC event he wore a double lapel pin, with both the US and Israeli flags. Is there a “real Obama” waiting to emerge, once the messy business of pleasing the voters is over? Not really.The making of the “real” Obama is an ongoing project, ad the AIPAC an important marker in the evolution of “change”.

Although Obama’s groveling got wide coverage across the Middle East, the press here, from the New York Times to Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now” (see Muhammad Idrees Ahmad’s piece on this site last week) kept silent. It was evidently taken as a given, unworthy of editorial remark, that a man who might very well be the next president, was de-activating the policy of “change” precisely where it is most needed at the behest of the men Jon Stewart edgily derided on his show as “the elders of Zion”. Stewart fired off some pretty sharp comments about AIPAC, on the grovelfest, somewhat to my surprise, since I’m not a big Stewart fan, having found that it has become a cultic affair, devoted to the greater glory of Stewart, somewhat in the same manner as “Democracy Now” for Goodman’s devotees, who approach her broadcasts as yet one more variety of religious experience.

The sequestration of the American people from important world news is one of the prime tasks of the press here. A couple of weeks ago Patrick Cockburn had two very important scoops,
(www.counterpunch.org/patrick06052008.html &
www.counterpunch.org/patrick06062008.html) outlining the precise terms of the secret “agreement” the US is trying to ram down the throat of the Iraqis on permanent military bases. It was a huge political story in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq. It was covered in Europe. I found a detailed account of Patrick’s scoops, with intelligent comment, in Trinidad’s leading paper. But I found almost nothing here. Not in the New York Times, not in the Washington Post, not on the networks. On June 12 Goodman and Gonzalez did have Patrick on “Democracy Now” and did a useful interview with him. And on Friday June 13, CSPAN had Patrick on its Washington Journal program and CSPAN’s viewers learned what their government is up to.

Asian Fury at Laura Bush

First Ladies are expected to pick an issue and make it their own. Ladybird Johnson toiled to make America more beautiful. Nancy Reagan said No to drugs. Laura Bush has taken Myanmar, aka Burma, to her heart. But now she’s put her foot in it.

In the wake of the terrible cyclone the First Lady said the United States would consider sending relief assistance to Burma only if the Burmese military junta accepts a U.S. disaster assistance response team to assess the scope of the devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis. Many in the region think the prime role of such a team would be to prep international opinion for “humanitarian intervention”. “‘The U.S. first lady’s political demands were inappropriate,’ said Aung Naing Oo, an exiled Burmese political analyst. ‘This is a time when people are dying and suffering to a horrible degree, so if the U.S. really wants to help, it can help without making political demands,’ “

The cynical way the US has responded to the killer cyclone and the resentment this has caused in Asia is the subject of Peter Lee’s fascinating report in the new crackerjack edition of our newsletter.

Here also are terrific pieces by Kevin Alexander Gray and Jeffrey St Clair.

A taster from Kevin, on “Why Blacks Keep Quiet About Obama”:

“Black people always have to navigate race fear; the long Democratic primary season has just underlined that. Joking, comedian Jon Stewart asked Obama, if elected, “Will you pull a bait and switch and enslave the white race?” Kinda funny. Except that’s precisely the sentiment that underlies white race fear. I’ve heard the same thing said in seriousness by more than one white person. “If Obama gets the White House what will they want next?” Or, “if Obama wins, blacks will think they’re running things.”. . .Give a listen to the corporate media, and it’s pretty clear what tune black voices are supposed to be singing. Obama is constantly called on to swear allegiance to America – to prove he isn’t swearing allegiance to blacks. The other way to say that is he’s supposed to swear allegiance to white, not black, America. Meanwhile, the back end of that deal is that black Americans are required to substitute Obama for real structural racial progress. As in, “You got your nominee. See, we’re not so racist or bad after all. Now shut up!”

Jeffrey St Clair writes on Los Angeles’ weapon of mass destruction: air. By the time average L.A.-born kids reach eighteen, they will have breathed enough toxic air to place them 344 times over what the EPA considers an acceptable lifetime exposure to these contaminants.
All this in the new CounterPunch newsletter, for subscribers only.

Footnote: A shorter version of the first item in this Diary ran on The First Post last Friday. Alexander Cockburn can be reached at alexandercockburn@asis.com

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Democrats introduce bill to outlaw Pentagon propaganda

Tuesday, June 10th, 2008

By Muriel Kane | Last April, the New York Times revealed that retired officers serving as military analysts on television news shows had regularly been briefed by the Pentagon and supplied with pro-war and pro-administration talking points.The program was “temporarily suspended” by the Pentagon a week later. Now four senators have introduced legislation to prevent it from resuming.

Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), John Kerry (D-MA), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), and Byron Dorgan (D-ND) have introduced S. 3099, titled “A bill to prohibit the use of funds by the Department of Defense for propaganda purposes within the United States not otherwise specifically authorized by law.”

“This Administration has a history of pushing propaganda on the American public,” Sen. Lautenberg explained. “The American people expect our federal government to tell the nation the truth.”

“There is no need for paid cheerleaders to support an argument,” added Sen. Menendez.

The bill is a companion measure to an amendment to the military authorization bill which passed the House of Representatives on May 23. The television networks, which avoided reporting on the original New York Times story, have also paid little notice to the House ban.

Following the House passage of the amendment, the inspector general’s office at the Department of Defense announced that it would be looking into the program, while the Government Accountability Office said it was already doing so. The Senate bill mandates that both those offices report to Congress within 90 days.

“We’re going to make sure the public money isn’t used for propaganda campaigns that undermine the public trust,” Sen. Kerry stated. “The American people should not have to wonder whether the purportedly non-partisan, expert analysis they see on television might have been shaped by a government propaganda campaign.”

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House Democrats Want Bush Admin Investigated for War Crimes

Monday, June 9th, 2008

By Jason Leopold | House Democrats sent a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey Friday requesting that he appoint a special prosecutor to investigate whether White House officials, including President Bush, violated the War Crimes Act when they allowed interrogators to use brutal interrogation methods against detainees suspected of ties to terrorist organizations.

The letter, signed by 56 Congressional lawmakers, including House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, who is leading an investigation into the administration’s interrogation practices, says the International Committee of the Red Cross conducted an independent investigation of interrogation practices at Guantanamo Bay and “documented several instances of acts of torture against detainees, including soaking a prisoner’s hand in alcohol and lighting it on fire, subjecting a prisoner to sexual abuse and forcing a prisoner to eat a baseball.”

“We believe that these events alone warrant action, but within the last month additional information has surfaced that suggests the fact that not only did top administration officials meet in the White House and approve of the use of enhanced techniques including waterboarding against detainees, but that President Bush was aware of, and approved of the meetings taking place,” the letter, dated June 6, says. The Justice Department is reviewing the letter, a spokesman said.

However, Mukasey has defended the administration’s interrogation policies, and with seven month to go before a new president is sworn into office, it appears unlikely that Mukasey would be act on the Democrats request. Earlier this year, Mukasey has appointed a special counsel to investigate the destruction of videotapes showing CIA interrogators subjecting detainees to waterboarding.

In April, President Bush told an ABC News reporter during an interview that he approved of meetings of a National Security Council’s Principals Committee, whose advisers included Vice President Dick Cheney, former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, former CIA Director George Tenet and former Attorney General John Ashcroft, where these officials discussed specific interrogation techniques the CIA could use against detainees.

“This information indicates that the Bush administration may have systematically implemented, from the top down, detainee interrogation policies that constitute torture or otherwise violate the law,” the letter to Mukasey says. “We believe that these serious and significant revelations warrant an immediate investigation to determine whether actions taken by the President, his Cabinet, and other Administration officials are in violation of the War Crimes Act, the Anti-Torture Act, and other U.S. and international laws.”

In declaring that the United States does not engage in torture, Bush administration officials appear to be relying on a narrower U.S. definition of torture than that is accepted under international law, such as the 1984 Convention Against Torture that was signed by the Reagan administration in 1988 and ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1994.

“The threshold for torture is lower under international law: acts that do not amount to torture under U.S. law may do so under international law,” wrote Philippe Sands, law professor at University College London, in a column published in the Dec. 9, 2005, edition of The Financial Times.

“Waterboarding – strapping a detainee to a board and dunking him under water so he believes that he might drown – plainly constitutes torture under international law, even if it may not do so under U.S. law. …

“When the U.S. joined the 1984 convention it entered an ‘understanding’ on the definition of torture, to the effect that the international definition was to be read as being consistent with the U.S. definition The administration relies on the ‘understanding.’

“So, when Ms. Rice says the U.S. does not do torture or render people to countries that practice torture, she does not rely on the international definition. That is wrong: the convention does not allow each country to adopt its own definition, otherwise the convention’s obligations would become meaningless. That is why other governments believe the U.S. ‘understanding’ cannot affect U.S. obligations under the convention.”

Torture Memo Based on Health Benefits Law

The document that gave the White House the legal cover it needed to authorize the CIA to use waterboarding and other tortuous methods during detainee interrogations was based on a statute governing health benefits.

John Yoo, the former deputy attorney general in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) who drafted the legal opinion widely referred to as the ”torture memo,” concluded that unless the amount of pain administered to a detainee results in injury “such as death, organ failure, or serious impairment of body functions” than the interrogation technique could not be defined as torture.

Waterboarding, a brutal and painful technique in which a prisoner believes he is drowning, therefore was not considered to be torture.

“That statute defined an ‘emergency medical condition’ that warranted certain health benefits as a condition ‘manifesting itself by acute symptoms of sufficient severity (including severe pain)’ such that the absence of immediate medical care might reasonably be thought to result in death, organ failure, or impairment of bodily function,” Jack Goldsmith, the former head of OLC, wrote in his book, The Terror Presidency.

“The health benefits statute’s use of ‘severe pain’ had no relationship whatsoever to the torture statute. And even if it did, the health benefit statute did not define ‘severe pain.’ Rather it used the term ‘severe pain’ as a sign of an emergency medical condition that, if not treated, might cause organ failure and the like…. OLC’s clumsily definitional arbitrage didn’t seem even in the ballpark.”

Military Interrogators

Yoo, who now teaches at the University of California at Berkeley, also drafted a March 14, 2003 document, nearly identical to the August 2002 memo he authored, that essentially provided military interrogators with legal cover if they resorted to brutal and violent methods to extract information from prisoners.

“If a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate a criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al-Qaeda terrorist network,” Yoo wrote.

“In that case, we believe that he could argue that the Executive Branch’s constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack justified his actions.”

The legal opinion for military interrogators was virtually identical to an earlier memo that Yoo had written in August 2002 for CIA interrogators. Widely called the “Torture Memo,” it provided CIA interrogators with the legal authority to use long-outlawed tactics, such as waterboarding, when interrogating so-called high-level terrorist suspects.

Yoo, Others, Under Investigation

The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) launched a formal investigation to determine whether Yoo, and other attorneys in the Office of Legal Counsel, provided the White House with poor legal advice when it drafted memos authorizing the use of “enhanced interrogation” methods.

In a Feb. 18, letter sent to Sen. Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who requested the probe, H. Marshall Jarrett, the head of OPR, said his office intends to question Yoo, and his former boss, Jay Bybee, the former head of OLC, now a federal appeals court judge in San Francisco, who signed the “torture memo.”

“Among other issues, we are examining whether the legal advice contained in those memoranda was consistent with the professional standards that apply to Department of Justice attorneys,” Jarrett’s letter says, adding that his office may release the findings of the investigation publicly.

Bush Approved

Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the top commander in Iraq who retired last year, instituted a “dozen interrogation methods beyond” the Army’s standard practice under the convention, according to a 2004 report on the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prepared by a panel headed by James Schlesinger, as a result of an action memorandum, dated Feb. 7, 2002, that was signed by President Bush.

The memo Bush signed stated that the Geneva Convention did not apply to members of al-Qaeda or the Taliban.

Sanchez said he based his decision on “the President’s Memorandum,” which he said had justified “additional, tougher measures” against detainees at Abu Ghraib, the Schlesigner report said.

Two years later, an internal FBI email emerged that said Bush had signed an Executive Order Bush’s Executive Order that authorized interrogators to use military dogs, “stress positions,” sleep “management,” loud music and “sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc.” to extract information from detainees in Iraq.

The American Civil Liberties Union released FBI e-mail in December 2004 after obtaining it through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

Government Drops Charges Against Detainee

Last month, the Pentagon announced that it decided to drop war-crimes charges against Mohammed al-Qahtani, the alleged “20th hijacker” in the 9/11 attacks because the U.S. government would have been forced to reveal its own violations of the Geneva Convention, anti-torture statutes and the laws of war, according to lawyers representing al-Qahtani.

“All of the [incriminating] statements Mohammad al-Qahtani made or is alleged to have made were the result of torture or made under the threat of torture and that is in my view why the government decided to dismiss his case at this point,” said Vince Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York.

CCR has been representing Mohammed al-Qahtani since 2005 and has led the legal battle for the human rights of detainees incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for the last six years.

Al-Qahtani is believed to be one of the first detainees subjected to harsh questioning after the Justice Department issued a legal opinion in August 2002 permitting U.S. government interrogators to sidestep the Geneva Convention and use cruel and humiliating techniques, from forced nudity to stress positions to waterboarding, to extract information.

He was captured in December 2001. Much of the evidence against al-Qahtani was derived substantially from admissions that he made while under harsh interrogation. Last February, the Pentagon announced its intention to pursue the death penalty against al-Qahtani and five other men for their alleged involvement in the 9/11 attacks.

But on May 9, the Pentagon dismissed the case against al-Qahtani without explanation – and without prejudice, meaning that the charges could be reinstated at a later date. Though the charges were dropped, he will remain detained indefinitely at Guantanamo.

Torture Log

The harsh treatment of al-Qahtani was catalogued in an 84-page log of his interrogation that was leaked in 2006. The so-called “torture log” shows that beginning in November 2002 and continuing well into January 2003, al-Qahtani was subjected to sleep deprivation, interrogated in 20-hour stretches, poked with IV’s, and left to urinate on himself.

On Dec. 11, 2002, interrogators began to apply what they called the “pride and ego down approach,” subjecting him to religious and sexual humiliation, making him bark like a dog, and calling him “a pig” as he was made to pick up piles of trash with his hands cuffed.

Gitanjali S. Gutierrez, an attorney with CCR and the lead attorney defending al-Qahtani, said in a sworn declaration that his client, imprisoned at Guantanamo, was subjected to months of torture based on verbal and written authorizations from Rumsfeld.

“Mr. al-Qahtani was subjected to a regime of aggressive interrogation techniques, known as the ‘First Special Interrogation Plan,’” Gutierrez said. “Those techniques were implemented under the supervision and guidance of [former Defense] Secretary [Donald] Rumsfeld and the commander of Guantánamo, Major General Geoffrey Miller.

“These methods included, but were not limited to, 48 days of severe sleep deprivation and 20-hour interrogations, forced nudity, sexual humiliation, religious humiliation, physical force, prolonged stress positions and prolonged sensory over-stimulation, and threats with military dogs.”

Gutierrez’s claims about the type of interrogation al-Qahtani endured have since been borne out by the release of hundreds of pages of internal Pentagon documents, which described interrogation methods at Guantanamo, as well as by the findings of two independent reports on prisoner abuse.

Rumsfeld’s action memo was criticized by Alberto Mora, the former general counsel of the Navy.

“The interrogation techniques approved by the Secretary [of Defense] should not have been authorized because some (but not all) of them, whether applied singly or in combination, could produce effects reaching the level of torture, a degree of mistreatment not otherwise proscribed by the memo because it did not articulate any bright-line standard for prohibited detainee treatment, a necessary element in any such document,” Mora wrote in a 14-page letter to the Navy’s inspector general.

Additionally, a Dec. 20, 2005, Army Inspector General Report relating to the capture and interrogation of al-Qahtani included a sworn statement by Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt, who said Secretary Rumsfeld was “personally involved” in the interrogation of al-Qahtani and spoke “weekly” with Maj. Gen. Miller about the status of the interrogations between late 2002 and early 2003.

“Despite the seriousness of the evidence, the Justice Department has brought prosecution against only one civilian for an interrogation-related crime,” the letter sent to Mukasey by House Democrats states. “Given that record, we believe it is necessary to appoint a special counsel in order to ensure that a thorough and impartial investigation occurs.”

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The desperation of Hillary Clinton’s campaign

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

By Clarence Lusane | Sen. Hillary Clinton has disgracefully pursued a disturbing strategy of racial opportunism. Since early March, when Sen. Barack Obama racked up victory after victory in states that were, in some instances, overwhelmingly white and, in others, significantly black and Latino, the strategy of the Clinton campaign has whitened day by day.Despite support from some key black politicians and a black campaign manager, the Clinton operation determined that low-income, lower-educated, non-urban whites were worth pandering to and that black voters were worth ignoring.

There were clearly white supporters of Clinton in Kentucky and West Virginia who stated strong and unambiguous racism toward Obama. Rather than repudiate these voters, Clinton silently clung to them.

Clinton’s strategy is a disaster for the general election.

The reality is that Clinton cannot win independents and moderate Republicans, and her support is concentrated in a narrow region of white and perhaps Latino Democratic voters.

Whatever black support she and Bill Clinton once enjoyed and felt entitled to — she led by as much as 57-33 percent over Obama in December 2007 — has vanished, perhaps permanently.

And there is not a single party official with a brain who does not know that if Clinton somehow manages to wrestle the nomination away from Obama through a combination of rule manipulation, superdelegate chicanery and race-baiting, the party will suffer a black-and-white withdrawal and November beat-down of historic and long-lasting proportions.

The Democrats have to be very careful not to be suckered into the Clintons’ argument that the only winning strategy in the fall is the pursuit of white lower-income voters. Clinton supporter Paul Begala, for instance, belittled Obama’s based by saying that it consisted of “eggheads and African-Americans.”

In fact, the party can win by going to (and expanding) its natural base, pulling in significant independent voters and carving off enough dissatisfied Republican moderates.

With Obama, there are more states in play, thus forcing the Republicans to more widely disperse their resources. And he generates a black turnout that will perhaps be the largest the country has ever seen, a preview of which has already contributed decisively to Democratic victories in Louisiana and Mississippi in recent special elections.

Finally, the grim reference to the assassination of Robert Kennedy, whatever the motivation, and in the context of the very real death threats that Obama has faced, reveals in Clinton the triumph of calculation over sensitivity.

It is unfortunate that the Clinton campaign has succumbed to blind ambition and turned a history-making election into a history-repeating voyage of racial ugliness and accommodation.

They had a choice, and they took the low road.

Clarence Lusane is an associate professor at American University and author of many books, including, most recently, “Colin Powell-Condoleezza Rice: Foreign Policy, Race and the New American Century.” He can be reached at pmproj@progressive.org.

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Obama’s Break With Ex-Pastor Sets Sharp Shift in Tone

Wednesday, April 30th, 2008

NY Times | Senator Barack Obama broke forcefully on Tuesday with his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., in an effort to curtail a drama of race, values, patriotism and betrayal that has enveloped his presidential candidacy at a critical juncture.

At a news conference here, Mr. Obama denounced remarks Mr. Wright made in a series of televised appearances over the last several days. In the appearances, Mr. Wright has suggested that the United States was attacked because it engaged in terrorism on other people and that the government was capable of having used the AIDS virus to commit genocide against minorities. His remarks also cast Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, in a positive light.

In tones sharply different from those Mr. Obama used on Monday, when he blamed the news media and his rivals for focusing on Mr. Wright, and far harsher than those he used in his speech on race in Philadelphia last month, Mr. Obama tried to cut all his ties to — and to discredit — Mr. Wright, the man who presided at Mr. Obama’s wedding and baptized his two daughters.

“His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church,” Mr. Obama said, his voice welling with anger. “They certainly don’t portray accurately my values and beliefs.”

One week before Democratic primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, contests that party officials are watching as they try to gauge whether Mr. Obama or Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton would be the stronger nominee, the controversy surrounding Mr. Wright again erupted into a threat to Mr. Obama’s ability to show that he could unify the Democratic Party and bring the nominating contest to a quick and clean end. With Mrs. Clinton having shown particular strength among working-class white voters in recent big-state primaries, the racial overtones of Mr. Obama’s links with Mr. Wright have been especially troublesome for the Obama campaign.

Asked how the controversy would affect voters, Mr. Obama said: “We’ll find out.”

At a minimum, the spectacle of Mr. Wright’s multiday media tour and Mr. Obama’s rolling response grabbed the attention of the most important constituency in politics now: the uncommitted superdelegates — party officials and elected Democrats — who hold the balance of power in the nominating battle.

Eileen Macoll, a Democratic county chairman from Washington State who has not chosen a candidate, said she was stunned at the extent of national attention the episode has drawn, and she said she believed it would give superdelegates pause.

“I’m a little surprised at how much traction it is getting, and I do believe it is beginning to reflect negatively on Senator Obama’s campaign,” Ms. Macoll said. “I think he’s handling it very well, but I think it’s almost impossible to make people feel comfortable about this.”

It was the second straight day that Mr. Obama had responded to Mr. Wright, a former pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago whose derisive comments about the United States government have become a fixture of cable television. Saying that he had not seen or read Mr. Wright’s remarks when he responded to them on Monday, Mr. Obama said he was “shocked and surprised” when he later read the transcripts and watched the broadcasts, and he felt compelled to respond more forcefully.

“I’m outraged by the comments that were made and saddened over the spectacle that we saw yesterday,” Mr. Obama said. He added: “I find these comments appalling. It contradicts everything that I’m about and who I am.”

The press conference came in what may well be the toughest stretch of Mr. Obama’s campaign as he grapples with questions about Mr. Wright as well as the fallout from his defeat last week in Pennsylvania. He set out this week to reintroduce himself but instead found himself competing for airtime with Mr. Wright and trying to bat away suggestions that he shared or tolerated Mr. Wright’s views.

As he answered question after question here, Mr. Obama appeared downcast and subdued as he tried to explain why he had decided to categorically denounce his minister of 20 years. His decision to address reporters not only stretched the Wright story into another day but also marked at least the third time he has sought to deal with the issue, including his well-received speech on race last month in Philadelphia.

“The fact that Reverend Wright would think that somehow it was appropriate to command the stage for three or four consecutive days in the midst of this major debate is something that not only makes me angry, but also saddens me,” Mr. Obama said.

Even amid the wall-to-wall news coverage about Mr. Wright, Mr. Obama won the support of two more superdelegates, including Representative Ben Chandler of Kentucky. Meanwhile, Representative Ike Skelton of Missouri and Gov. Michael F. Easley of North Carolina announced their support for Mrs. Clinton.

The first real evidence of whether the controversy has extracted a political price could come on Tuesday. Superdelegates suggested that they would watch closely to see how voters respond in the Indiana and North Carolina primaries and beyond.

Bob Mulholland, a superdelegate from California, said the difficulties Mr. Obama had experienced put a premium on results in the remaining contests.

“We’ve got nine elections to go through June 9,” Mr. Mulholland said in an interview. “I’ve never been involved in a successful presidential race where the candidate had no trouble in the primary. It’s challenging to him. He is a young man, and this is the first time he’s run for president. I see this as a learning experience.”

Asked how he thought Mr. Obama was doing, Mr. Mulholland paused before responding. “Getting better,” he finally said.

The appearances by Mr. Wright, which began Friday and concluded Monday, were anticipated by the Obama campaign, but aides said they were taken aback by the tenor of the remarks. His first interview, with Bill Moyers on PBS, offered few hints of what he intended when he arrived at the National Press Club on Monday.

“At a certain point, if what somebody says contradicts what you believe so fundamentally, and then he questions whether or not you believe it in front of the National Press Club, then that’s enough,” Mr. Obama said. “That’s a show of disrespect to me. It’s also, I think, an insult to what we’ve been trying to do in this campaign.”

Mr. Obama became a Christian after hearing a 1988 sermon of Mr. Wright’s called “The Audacity to Hope.” Joining Mr. Wright’s church helped Mr. Obama, with his disparate racial and geographic background, embrace not only the African-American community but also Africa, his friends and family say.

Mr. Obama had barely known his Kenyan father; Mr. Wright made pilgrimages to Africa and incorporated its rituals into worship. Mr. Obama toted recordings of Mr. Wright’s sermons to law school. Mr. Obama titled his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention “The Audacity of Hope,” and gave his next book the same name.

As Mr. Wright’s more incendiary statements began circulating widely, Mr. Obama routinely condemned them but did not disassociate himself from Mr. Wright. In his speech in Philadelphia, Mr. Obama tried to explain his pastor through the bitter history of American race relations.

Five weeks later, the men seem finished with each other.

“Whatever relationship I had with Reverend Wright has changed as a consequence of this,” Mr. Obama said Tuesday. “I don’t think that he showed much concern for me. More importantly, I don’t think he showed much concern for what we’re trying to do in this campaign and what we’re trying to do for the American people.”

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Students Skip Class For Obama Event, Get Suspended

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

By Jason Linkins |

Joey Daniel and Colin Salter, two high school students in Dunmore, Pennsylvania, showed tremendous audacity yesterday when they skipped their gym class to attend an Obama event across the street from their school. But, upon their return, they did not KNOW HOPE because their principal suspended them for a day. The pair did manage to wrangle a pair of excuses, signed by the candidate, but school officials, being strict Constitutional constructionists, saw this as an unlawful federal encroachment upon the rights of local government. Will Senator Obama promise to forswear such unitary executive powers in the future, or does he remain in the pocket of Big Hall Pass? Ha, ha…levity! All right, everyone can go back to yelling at each other now!

REPORTER: You don’t do it. You don’t leave campus. But things have changed. These guys are getting suspended for a day, no big deal. I am joined by Joey Daniel and Colin Salter. You explain the story, they left campus, you guys left campus because you saw Barack Obama was going to be at the diner across the street and you got those signed notices, I would think the signed notices would get you back into class just fine. Show everybody at home. These are the little notices that he signed. Joey to class, excuse Joey, Barack Obama. Colin to class, excuse Colin, signed by Barack Obama. Didn’t work out that way. What happened when you got back on campus?
DANIEL: Well when we got back, the principal didn’t see Barack Obama, you know, as a valid excuse and we were suspended for today.

SALTER: Which is I guess justifiable because you are not supposed to leave grounds. So you break the rules, there are consequences, so, we got suspended and that’s what happens.

REPORTER: But would you do it again? Because I think a lot of people at home and hear this story and think you know what? Good for them.

SALTER: Absolutely. Maybe a little differently, though.

DANIEL: I would do it in a heartbeat, the same way.

REPORTER: You said you would ask your mom next time. I’m sure she is happy to hear that but, I mean, really, you have to make a snap decision, you are going to do it, right?

SALTER: Snap decision, I did it. As we can see, that’s the position we are in today but probably throw the call in maybe afterwards…make it legal as opposed to the way we did it yesterday.

DANIEL: I would probably do the same way. It added character to the day, and clearly it was a big hit.

REPORTER: What was it like to be in there and be right up and close and have a chance, I guess you got a chance to talk to him right?

SALTER: A little bit. He came in, greeted him. Hey, we are here, we are skipping gym class to be here.

DANIEL: Can you write us a pass? Yeah, sure!

REPORTER: Full disclosure, the guys did miss gym class but one of them actually also ended up missing an English test, I won’t tell you which one ended up missing the English test, but we are told that he will be able to make it up.

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Exit polls suggest Clinton win in Pennsylvania

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

By Ewen MacAskill and Suzanne Goldenberg |

Hillary Clinton is expected to keep her slim hopes of the White House alive after exit polls suggested she would beat Barack Obama in the key Pennsylvania primary. The Fox News Channel and ABC, on the basis of the exit polls, projected Clinton would emerge the winner.

This means the long, drawn-out battle for the Democratic nomination is set to continue for at least several more weeks and possibly even into June or August.

Even before a single vote had been counted, Clinton supporters in Philadelphia were celebrating and Clinton was scheduled to hold a lavish victory party in the city, though the campaign is in debt. But Obama, anticipating defeat, had left the state for Indiana, where the next contest will be held on May 6.

Her supporters are hoping that a win will help bring in new funding for her cash-strapped campaign.

Pennysylvania, the largest state left in the contest, was the first primary since Mississippi six weeks ago.

A win in Pennsylvania would help her case for remaining in the race, in spite of Obama having established an almost unassailable lead with only nine contests left.

In a record turnout, she was helped by a large turnout of older voters and women, both of whom tend to vote for her. Younger voters, who tend to support Obama, made up a smaller proportion than in previous contests.

There was a clear cultural divide, with a majority of churchgoers, gun-owners and those living in rural areas and small towns opting for Clinton.

He may have suffered from the controversy over the views of his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, but especially his apparently derogatory remarks about those living in small towns.

The balance in Pennsylvania was held by white male votes, a majority of whom backed Clinton by 55% to 45%. Reflecting the racial divide that has dogged the primary contests, African-Americans threw their weight overwhelmingly behind Obama, by 92% to Clinton’s 8.

Obama began the night with a substantial lead in delegates, who will choose the party’s nominee: 1,648 to 1,509. But the proportional system used by the party means the 158 delegates at stake in the Pennsylvania primary will be divided between them and that she will make no real impression on his lead.

Election officials reported record turnouts across the state - in Philadelphia and its environs, which Obama is expected to dominate as well as in the small towns of western and central Pennsylvania where Clinton is believed to have an advantage.

Joe Sestak, a former navy admiral now serving his first term in Congress, and a Clinton supporter, told reporters he believed that Clinton would win by at least 5% - a clear victory, but still short of the margin needed to alter the dynamics of the race.

But in central Philadelphia it appeared as if the day belonged to Obama. His supporters were out in force on street corners, handing out leaflets and holding up signs. One volunteer said the campaign had gone to the extent of leafleting lockers in local sports clubs.

The next contests are North Carolina and Indiana on May 6, with Obama expected to take the first and the second too close to call according to polls. She expects to take West Virginia and Kentucky while he hopes to take Oregon and South Dakota. Montana is too close to call.

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Clinton on Iran Attack: ‘Obliterate Them’

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

By Jake Tapper |

One day before Pennsylvania primary voters go to the polls, Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., spent the day trying to reach undecided voters, and rally their supporters to the polls.

For the last six weeks they have battled and bickered and both have unleashed a barrage of negativity in television ads that have aired thousands of times in the state.

Clinton Ad Features Osama bin Laden

In an ad that began airing in Pennsylvania Monday morning, Clinton implies she is tougher than Obama.

“Who do you think has what it takes?” the narrator asks in an ad depicting historical images of crises that presidents have had to deal with: Osama bin Laden, headlines about the stock market crash of 1929, long gas lines from the 1970s oil-shocks, images of the Cold War, Hurricane Katrina and soldiers. It features the first image of Osama bin Laden to be used in a TV ad this political season.

“It’s the toughest job in the world,” says the ad’s narrator. “You need to be ready for anything especially now, with two wars, oil prices skyrocketing and an economy in crisis.”

The ad quotes President Harry Truman’s famous line: “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” to cast Obama as complaining about last week’s ABC News presidential debate.

Responding to the ad, Obama spokesman Bill Burton accused the New York senator of engaging in scare tactics.

Clinton on an Iran Attack: ‘Obliterate Them’

Clinton further displayed tough talk in an interview airing on “Good Morning America” Tuesday. ABC News’ Chris Cuomo asked Clinton what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons.

“I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran,” Clinton said. “In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.”

Watch the full interview with Sen. Hillary Clinton on “GMA” Tuesday.

Obama, for his part, has to be worried about obliterating his repeated promise of a “new kind of politics.” But he told ABC News’ Robin Roberts on “Good Morning America” his attacks are necessary.

“You’ve always got to measure if somebody throws an elbow at you, and after three or four times of gettin’ elbows in the ribs, you know, at what point do you sort of say, ‘OK, you know, we, we, we’ve gotta put a stop to that’?” Obama said.

Washington a ‘Miserable Place’

In Obama’s latest ad airing Monday in Pennsylvania, the ad accuses, “Sen. Clinton has internalized a lot of the strategies, the tactics that have made Washington such a miserable place.”

Campaigning in Bethlehem, Pa., Monday, Clinton fired back, accusing Obama of running a campaign that is just as negative.

“He has consistently, and including in Pennsylvania, he has sent out mailers, he has run ads misrepresenting what I have proposed,” Clinton said.

The negativity continued this week with Pennsylvania voters receiving automated phone calls.

“Why would Barack Obama vote for a Bush-Cheney energy bill?” said a robotic call for the Clinton campaign.

“I don’t trust Sen. Clinton as much on issues that are important to sportsmen,” said a call for the Obama campaign.

Going Negative, Going to the Mat

Fittingly, both candidates recorded messages Monday night for WWE pro wrestling.

“This election is starting to feel a lot like ‘king of the ring.’” Clinton said in the message. “The only difference? The last man standing may just be a woman.”

“To all the forces of division and distraction that has stopped us from making progress for the American people, I’ve got one question: Do you smell what Barack is cooking?” Obama said in his message.

In a sign of how much party officials are worried about the damage this intense fight is doing to the Democrats, the North Carolina Democratic Party has canceled a proposed debate, and one of the reasons for the cancelation is a reluctance to further highlight the fighting between the two candidates.

ABC News’ Richard Coolidge, Eloise Harper, and Sunlen Miller contributed to this report.

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Clinton pledges: I’ll end war in Iraq

Wednesday, April 9th, 2008

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama yesterday, left Washington for the key state of Pennsylvania and promised to fix America’s stumbling economy, which both Democrats say has been badly undermined by the Iraq war.They were in the US capital on Tuesday along with Republican John McCain to question the US commander in Iraq.

Coming out of the session with General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, Clinton spoke at a high school near Pittsburgh, telling an audience that included retired US military officers that she would end the war. “One candidate is ready to be commander-in-chief, to end the war and rebuild our military while honouring our soldiers and veterans. And you’re looking at her,” Clinton said.

Obama reminded his Pennsylvania audience that he had opposed the Iraq war before it began and said it had “piled up a mountain of debt that has weakened our economy”.

Pennsylvania, holds the next primary contest on April 22, and offers the largest remaining prize of 158 delegates.-AP

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