Barack Obama Won Nevada

That's right, contrary to every major news story, he won Nevada. I just happened to notice it over the weekend, in a Hawaiian newspaper story posted on the Drudge Report--Hillary Clinton will take 12 Nevada delegates to the Democratic Convention, while Barack Obama gets 13. I don't pretend to know how, nor am I inclined to research the Rube Goldberg state electoral procedures, during which the Clintons unsuccessfully sued to invalidate the votes of the largest union there, the Culinary Workers, which endorsed Obama. Bottom line, he won 13-12 in a state which Hillary Clinton led by 25 polling points 4 months ago.

Kind of interesting that the national press didn't focus on that fact, instead only reporting that he was defeated in the popular vote. If Corporate Media consistently dumps on a candidate, that's probably a good reason to take a closer look at them. The Howard Deaning of Obama continues, along with others who find even less favor. What coverage John Edwards has gotten makes people think he's either a) unctious or b) is the most right-wing Democratic candidate, Ron Paul is ejected by bouncers, Dennis Kucinich is crossed off the guest list. Pundits shake their compensatory shotguns in anger about liberal media bias, the lovely status quo is protected, and the elites keep on singing their anthem: "They Can't Overcome."

(Update: Open Left put it way better:

I've learned two things today. First, the Democratic presidential nomination system is not particularly democratic, since the system of delegate selection is different than the concept of one person one vote. Second, I have learned that the national media is not actually covering the Democratic presidential nomination campaign. If the media was covering the Democratic presidential nomination campaign, then they would have projected Barack Obama as the winner of the Nevada caucuses, projected New Hampshire as a tie between Clinton and Obama, and declared that Clinton finished second in Iowa. That is, after all, what actually happened in the Democratic presidential nomination campaign, which is based on delegates, not popular votes from states. Instead of covering the Democratic presidential nomination campaign, the media is instead covering who wins the popular vote of individual states. While what the media is covering is interesting and closer to the concept of one person, one vote, it isn't the Democratic presidential nomination campaign.

Until the national media declares that Al Gore won the 2000 presidential election because he won the popular vote, I will continue to assert that Barack Obama won the Democratic caucuses in Nevada. To agree with one statement without agreeing to both statements is to be caught in a logical contradiction. If delegates to the national convention don't determine who won a state in a nomination campaign, then the Electoral College doesn't determine who wins the Presidency in a general election. We all know, of course, that both of those propositions are false.)

New Hampshire Recount

Dennis Kucinich is paying for a democratic primary vote hand-recount in New Hampshire, scheduled to start Wednesday, January 16th. The optical scan counts were performed by Diebold, and a comparison of the scanned Clinton/Obama votes vs. their hand-counted votes is rather remarkable:

Head to head comparison - corrected numbers
Clinton: statewide optical scan tally
95,843 52.73%

Obama: statewide optical scan tally
85,910 47.27%

Clinton: statewide hand-count tally
16,767 46.75%

Obama: hand count
19,097 53.25%

1/5 - 1/7 Real Clear Politics seven poll average (head-to-head pairing)
Clinton 43.9%
Obama 56.1%

The closeness of the match of the two candidates hand-count with the Real Clear Politics seven-poll average (1/5 - 1/7/08) - compared with the divergence of the optical scan tally - remains under investigation.

(via The River Blog, originally posted at News From Undergound, data from Election Defense Alliance.)

The Beginning Of The World As We Know It (Part One)

Having gotten all the nice spiritual Rumi-stuff out of my system in the previous post, on to practical things; to the world's problems, and their solving. My ersatz leaders keep telling me how anything wrong is all my fault, so I thought, why not? Let's have a go and make it good. Our problems are only as big as the wind and the waves, as the sun and the rain.

At first, my working title was 'Why Democrats Are A Bunch Of Drooling Catamites.' You see, my case of Two-Party Immune Deficiency Syndrome (TPIDS) is late-stage, and the Democrats surely play their part as Complicit Mommy Government to perfection, as a companion and helpmeet to our Abusive Daddy Government. Whom it's our enviable task to either kill, beat sense into, or run away from. So, yes, let's start off with the Party of the Damned, or what I choose to call "the Dims." I changed the title above to something more active, with an eye to an ongoing series; by way of power law and microcosm, Dims are great projectors for our Big Problems. As the old military recruiting jingle goes, "what a great play-ace, it's a great waay...to start!"

Isabelita, the thoughtful cookie at Learning to Sequence, noted in the comments section of Shorter Clinton, Shorter Obama that Hillary:

'seems like a "kinder gentler" form of the GOP, and Obama seems insubstantial. There's not a single Democratic candidate I'd vote for; wonder if we can outsource the leadership of this country to, oh, say, New Zealand?'

Iz sums up my sentiments well. If Hillary gets elected, we will be renting and watching "Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS" as en-masse comfort food. Paradoxically, though, the inmates of Casa Lord have given money to Obama and were invited to lunch with his wife. We have an Obama sign hanging in our window. Yet, something inside me still wants to crisply slap each side of the guy's face with a pair of wet leather gloves and bellow like George S. Patton, "Be a man, fer chrissakes!! There are brave candidates out there fighting and dying, and you're hiding in the make-up room like a coward!" Sigh.

But what else is left? I've considered supporting Dennis Kucinich, and even Ron Paul, because at least they take an unequivocal stand against The War. The obvious political lesson they, or any well-choreographed goose-steppers provide, is this: Take a stand, you existentially challenged boobs, take a stand! (Note: See goose-steppers.) So at least Kucinich and Paul "get" the basic prerequisite. Fortunately or not, however, neither can get "elected."

It all starts with The War. In the beginning was The War. The War is run by the War Machine, which now makes up most of the country's remaining manufacturing base...you know, just like it did for The Soviet Freaking Union back in 1984. That being the case, if the Democrats truly didn't want us to invade/occupy/eternally exploit Iraq, would we still be there, or ever have gone? Would Cheney still be President? Would Hillary Clinton have been the one who first used the phrase after 9/11, "You're either with us or against us? (Yep, she was first, and beat Dumya to it.)

The truth is, the Dims support The War Machine, and that's why they support The War. They're bending over, busy slurping at the Money River, looking up to carp threats occasionally and then backing down to slurp again at the life blood of this nation, this precious gift of governmental innovation, as it runs in rivulets and rills down into the scuppers of FACISM. The same ugly thing this country pulled out all the stops to defeat 60-odd years ago, bombing every major city full of evil German and Japanese people to smithereens, not to mention the Italians and French who got in the way. People keep wondering and marveling how craven, how caved-in and sold-out Congress can be, but it's really simple. It's as simple as buying and selling hogs. Fascists love hogs. [Sotto voce: And fascism's better, because run! Cower! Twitter like fluffy yellow chicks, and be afraid! (Looking left and right for spies.) The only alternative is so-cial-ism. Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!]

To paraphrase the idiot son of an asshole, "Being an Empire is hard work." Yes...yes, Fearless Leader, you masturbatory imbecile, it is hard work. So here it is, the answer, the solution to our problems: smarter work. The only way to save what's left of imperial standing melting away like run-off from a denuded hill, and our domestic freedoms at the same time, two-birds-one-stone style, is to wise up. And make a big, hard, brave yet obvious choice. A choice which is ultimately necessary anyway. Amongst smaller hard choices, the Democrats have to not only renounce The War, they must renounce The War Machine. Nothing much other than a tack into the wind, merely risking political and physical assassination domestically and a heapin' helpin' of Humble Pie internationally. So how, other than fitting our alleged representatives with electro-shock collars and pumping them full of 100 mikes of LSD, do we work them up to the gargantuan tasks common to vertebrates?

Somehow I can't picture my Senators (Patty Murray, Maria Cantwell) driving that bus in Selma. Actually, I'm picturing it right now as they're dragged off the bus by police and savagely beaten with batons. Ha-ha! To be realistic, look, we're dealing with a government that told us with a straight frigging face to go out and buy duct tape in case of a nerve gas attack, and that kerosene can melt steel. (Mental Note: I suppose duct tape could be used as a way to cover your mouth and nostrils so as to induce a less painful death. Kerosene and jet fuel don't melt steel, not in my back yard.) A direct frontal assault on The War Machine won't work. It would simply send Terminators after us like Skynet and shoot us with plasmatic death-rays.

But what we can do is start small. An insurgency they don't see coming, an infiltration, a Rat Attack. It's already got plenty of foot soldiers, even investors. We can do things that my darling Senators, the Bobbsey Twins, will enthusiastically support. They just won't know the full implications, and when they finally glom, it'll be ok by them. Because they care about money. Every Constitution, every Estate, is based on money, on a currency. A currency is a metaphorical basis for storing power and wealth. We need to switch the fundamental basis of our power and wealth. The US has switched its currency basis at least four times in its history, and it will do so again.

Power and wealth. And beer! Mmmm. The focus of our big ol' technologized Teddy Bear, our throwing-candy-to-the-children-while-it-kills-them War Machine, is oil. Our currency isn't The Dollar. Our currency is oil. This is a VERY BIG problem. First, its worldwide production has begun to go into decline--9.5 million Saudi barrels a day wen down to 8.5 over the past year, but they "could pump more if we wanted to!," sure, and Iran, well, they're desperate for nuclear power because the mullahs know how wildly overstated their reserves are, and the rate at which their wells are declining--plus, we're losing control of the damned stuff anyway. That's why we're building military bases on top of wherever we can find new, relatively helpless sources of it. Even if that quixotic effort starts getting a lot cheaper or miraculously succeeds, well...we're still, for all practical purposes...Going To Run Out of Oil.

We need to switch our currency. This implies a future Manhattan Project, a huge national investment and roll of the dice, on sustainable energy. And that will, at some point, happen. But the Rat Attack doesn't have to wait for a Manhattan Project. It can germinate and advance incremental change. Its weapons are not just wind farms and solar panels, not bipolar Priuses and biodiesel Passats, but all manner of gardening, all sorts of ruminants (including ponies), tree-planting, urban bee-keeping, de-centralized heating, and simply giving a damn. Raising chickens on your patio, damn the Bird Flu, full speed ahead. This is how the Amish and most of the world survive on two bucks a day. We should probably do A-OK on forty thou per capita. And if a schlumpf like me can do organic gardening,anyone can.

This might be a good place to note that Exxon's corporate profits were bigger than the Gross Domestic Product of all but about a dozen countries last year. Exxon and other distended, artificial, inhuman structures like it are The Enemy. These are the enemies who are stealing your money. By the way, they also want to kill you, slowly, so they can wring every last bit of useful output and consumption out of your body. They've calculated the calories, and want to turn the world into one big "Arbeit Macht Frei" concentration camp, their kapos as commandants, and they're succeeding. Every drop of oil you don't use and every ray of sunshine you do sends these monstrous mutants, and many of their large shareholders, into fits of depression and murderous rage. Because they know, deep down in their black insatiable selves, that no one owns the wind, the sun, or the rain. Although they've hired lobbyists to address that disadvantage.

We need to start an anti-oil insurgency, and it's going to be surprisingly easy. I belly laugh at the prospect because, you see, we're not going to have much choice. Soon enough, driving 40 miles to save five bucks on t-shirts made by slave labor fed by slop troughs in some distant Work Zone is going to look exactly like what it is: stupid. We're going to live in a world where you can walk, float, or teleport to bars and stores. I'm not speaking from high moral terrain here. It's simply going to be cheaper than going through violent machinations and invasions to coax flammable goo from under far-off ground.

Shorter Clinton, Shorter Obama

The Drudge Report has an "Obama Break-out in Iowa" ABC News Story up as its featured Big Red Link. Bottom line, Iowa's still up for grabs because it's difficult to trust Hillary (so much to not talk about). Barack Obama continues to have occasional lapses into sincerity, his staffers dreading the next I'm Not Nuking Iran Moment. So I thought of glossing over all pertinent detail to boil Clinton and Obama down into one bipolar statement each. Slogans encapsulating their pros and cons. You know. To try my hand at thinking...like a voter. Here we go:

Clinton: Health Care...For Corporations

Obama: A New Breed...Of Exercise Regimen

People sense these things intuitively. Hillary would get universal health care through, but she'll do so by freeing corporations from the burdens of providing it. People will, on average, pay even more for it. Obama represents a new way of doing things, which unfortunately involves eschewing the financial cocaine tray, getting into the gym, and sweating like pigs.

Obama Speaks English Again

There's a lot of pressure on candidates to avoid risk, to talk tough, to elide and not say what they mean. Barack Obama was roundly press-crucified for saying that he wouldn't nuke Iran, naive as that notion may be. He retreated into cautious inanities for a couple of months, and his poll numbers dropped. Meanwhile Hillary Clinton, in effect, voted for legislation that gives the current Occupiers the go-ahead to attack Iran in connection to prestidigitations into Iraq. This gave Obama an opening to definitively call BS on Her Clintonessa. His passion and intellect pulse for real, and he's still one of us. Hillary has passed far beyond us, on into the frozen lands of fairy maidens.

While there would be a foreign policy pragmatism gain if Hillary gets elected, there won't be any substantive change in the Empire's stance with regards to the Mid-East, or war footing, or energy policy. Better to give money to Obama, Chris Dodd, or Ron Paul. They want to change the equation in a fundamental way and stop the Dracula Strategy. Hillary's on board the Status Quo like a jump-suited Pro-Ho in a purple pimp-mobile. An improvement on sheer idiocy, sure, but she's been anointed with unholy oils and is up for a crude awakening. Obama's lighting her up again, which is Real Good. Read his statements in bold below and please tell me if they don't make sense:

DES MOINES, Iowa - Democrat Barack Obama has stepped up criticism of front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton, sending Iowans a mailing noting that he opposed a measure that critics warn could lead to war with Iran and was supported by Clinton.

"Barack Obama opposed another Bush foreign policy fiasco," said the mailing, being sent to thousands of homes on Tuesday.

At issue is a measure in the Senate which declared Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, which Obama called "conventional" while campaigning in New Hampshire.

"What I've insisted is, we have to completely rethink foreign policy and diplomacy. ... We have to talk not just to our friends but also to our enemies. That includes Iran. That includes Syria," Obama said at a house party in Merrimack, N.H.

Clinton voted in favor of the Senate measure. She defended her vote over the weekend, saying she did so only after language which could be interpreted as an authorization of the use of force was removed.

Clinton sent a mailing to Iowa activists explaining her vote. It included comments from retired Gen. Wesley Clark and Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin siding with Clinton's vote.

Obama countered with his own mailing on Tuesday.

"Why is this amendment so dangerous?" Obama's mailing said. "Because George Bush and Dick Cheney could use this language to justify keeping our troops in Iraq as long as they can point to a threat from Iran, and because they could use this language to justify an attack on Iran as part of the ongoing war in Iraq."

Responding to the mailing, Clinton spokesman Mark Daley said: "If Senator Obama really thinks this is an issue of war and peace, it's odd that he didn't speak out against the measure before it passed or show up to vote against it. That's not the kind of strength and leadership Iowans are looking for."

The dispute goes to a fundamental disagreement between Obama and Clinton.

Obama routinely criticizes Clinton for voting in favor of authorizing the use of force in Iraq, a move he opposed even though he had yet to be elected to the Senate. He says that shows he has "judgment we can trust," while Clinton's judgment is flawed despite her experience in Washington.

Clinton has said only she would not have voted to authorize the use of force if she knew at the time what she now knows. She blames flawed intelligence.

In New Hampshire, Obama said the debate is representative of the campaign's larger differences.

"We have very good candidates on the Democratic side," he said. "The question, though, is whether you are going to nominate a candidate who is not just tinkering around the edges or can bring about real change."

The "Obama-Clinton Flap"

An article filed by Steve Holland came out today saying, "Clinton-Obama Flap Shifts Race to Negative Tone." The flap referred to was at the YouTube debates, in which Hillary Clinton called Barak Obama "naive" to talk to foreign leaders without preconditions; Obama replied that not talking to them is simply a continuation of the Bush Doctrine. (Which it is.) Holland closes the article out by quoting notorious oppo-researcher Chris Lehane, who unsurprisingly states that Clinton came out ahead by having her foreign policy ideas called "Bush Lite." (Which they are.)

Why is this unsurprising? Oh, I dunno. Maybe because the Clinton campaign is paying its long-time operatives Chris Lehane and his partner Mark Fabiani to dig up dirt on its opponents, most specifically on Barak Obama. If they didn't have a hand in writing the less-than-renowned Steve Holland's article, they weren't doing their jobs. Here's what they dished:

The Obama camp, looking for an opening to use the feud to cut into Clinton's lead in the polls, put up an advertisement on news sites in the early U.S. voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

The ad criticizes the New York senator and former first lady for her initial vote in support of the Iraq war and asks the question, "Ready for a New Direction?"

"It's time to abandon the short-sighted, naive idea that we punish our enemies by not talking to them. It's time to let go of the thinking that got us into Iraq without a plan in the first place," the ad said.

Gee. Isn't that the most outrageous political attack ad you've ever seen? He really rolling Hillary in the hog pen there. Obama must apologize forthwith, or a duel will be demanded to protect Ms. Clinton's honor. Yeah. And here's what pros from both parties have to say about Chris Lehane:

"Chris is the best in the business. If you have damage that needs to be controlled, he's the guy to bring in," said veteran Republican campaign and public affairs consultant Dan Schnur.

Democratic consultant Roger Salazar worked with Lehane in Gore's office and on the 2000 presidential campaign. He called Lehane and his partner, Mark Fabiani, also formerly of the White House, "the masters of crisis communications — they know how to manage an issue and look at it from every conceivable angle, find all of the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities."

I've worked with PR professionals doing damage control on some hot potatoes for one of the world's most recognized companies. They knew their art well, were intelligent and devious in the extreme, but they were Queens of the May compared to Mssrs. Lehane et Fabiani. These political assassins' fingerprints are on some of the nastiest leaks and crisis creation schemes of the past 15 years. If a gussied-up difference of opinion over a needed change of direction is all "the best in the business" are coming up with, it's a great sign for Obama.

I despised the Clintons from the first day they took office. I despised Bill. And I still despise Hillary. Now Bill almost reduces me to teary-eyed nostalgia for small-scale corruption and merely routine incompetence. I despised them not because they were from Arkansas, or for having what one could sense was a political marriage, along with some fairly obvious but normal human foibles. I despised them because they quickly proved themselves to be naive and corrupt. On their very first day in office, Good Leaders do not pick "Gays In The Military" as their opening issue to fix, as the Clintons did. And they do not try to change a completely broken health care system, one which pays for the vacation homes of Congress, by waving a magic 800-page document. As the Clintons did. They squandered the political capital entrusted to them, and if Hillary becomes President, they will do it again.

Drudge Poll: Who Won The Dem YouTube Debate?

40% Obama (6,464)

14% Clinton (2,236)

11% Biden (1,729)

10% Kucinich (1,629)

8% Richardson (1,274)

8% Gravel (1,227)

5% Dodd ( 732 )

5% Edwards ( 722 )

Matt Drudge is not an idiot. He's a homosexual who wants to stay chained, leashed, or otherwise restrained in the closet, a determination which may have something to do with why he still carries Pug Press slop buckets on a daily basis. For anyone unaware of the Drudge Report, which used to be the #1 private site on the internet, it is a sensationalist news aggregator, and was the first conduit chosen by the "Department of Justice"to leak the salacious details of the Monica Lewinsky scandal which Newsweek initially declined to publish. That the Drudge Report conducted an apparently straight poll on the historic YouTube debates was something of a surprise, as were its results. The significance of holding the poll rather than the customary hit-piece would tend to mean Drudge is leaning Dem, and wants to signal Matt's servility to future masters.

The poll, for its part, confirms the impression that Obama did much better than the other candidates. He's really the only one who can hold up to questions from real people in a live forum and come off as capable of transforming a political dynamic. Most of the candidates at this gathering are politicians who can set clear directions and engineer deft compromises. But Barak Obama brings something special. He can do it on the fly, while gaining insights into complex problems as he hears them while he draws a bead on a productive approach. It's what used to be called generalship.

In that department, Hillary Clinton paints strictly by the numbers. She is a policy and procedures maven whose hard-charging approach is to be breathtakingly prepared on the issues she has targeted. Dennis Kucinich has great analytical leadership ability and insight (kudos to his response, which opens the clip above), and Bill Richardson makes the most of a bonhomie-based, Old-School, let's meet-in-the middle boardroom technique.

Obama, by comparison, is quite distinct. He is that rarest of birds, a politician who is first and foremost an effective, inclusive change agent without baggage. Sometimes they don't come along on a national or international stage more than once or twice per century, they tend to come from the political and geographic margins and hold an exceptionally burning passion which, albeit misunderstood, meshes well with a tectonic Zeitgeist. When such actors appear, all hell appears to break loose. Alexander was from Macedonia, Napoleon was from Corsica, Stalin was from Georgia, and Hitler was from Austria. These leaders correctly perceived that hell, rather than coming out of nowhere, had been breaking loose already, and they believed from a young age that destiny had put them on earth to channel and contain it.

Obama is on that level of thinking, only the Hell he sees is the abrogation and suppression of the United States Constitution. He sees the Constitution as the level required for a fair, thriving, and productive playing field. His view is higher than Hillary Clinton's, which while attentive to beneficent interests in the classic Democratic mold are laser-focused on status quo power calculus. Obama is a constitutional scholar who has taught wildly popular courses on that subject as a professor of law at the University of Chicago (don't let that get around), and if he somehow gains power, he will restore what has been burgled and turn the full lights of our rage upon the thieves. No one else on the stage can or will pull that off.

He is at his best in forums like the YouTube debates. No script. No net. Real people. The more time he gets to interact with Res Publica, the more converts he's going to win. He is going to have a 55% approval rating amongst Klan members before this campaign, or the Republic for which it stands, is over.

Obama In Detroit: Fuel Efficiency, Health, & Industrial Competitiveness

Barack Obama made his most detailed economic proposal to date on May 7, during a speech in Detroit. He proposed a sensible remedy for helping automakers while also curbing America's energy consumption. Under his plan, the federal government would help the industry pay for some retiree health benefits if automakers invest in more fuel-efficient vehicles. The partnership idea, which hack economists like Mankiw criticized as an unjustified bailout, would cost an estimated $7 billion over 10 years. Umm...that's cheap.

Auto-makers in Detroit say they're failing because of huge pension and health liabilities. It's not the only cause of their failures, but the problem is systemic across US industry. The auto-makers have a key, legitimate gripe. They're competing against foreign companies whose workers already benefit from universal health care systems, so their balance sheets aren't encumbered by the same obligations. GM and Ford are offering all their manufacturing employees money, sometimes as much as $120k, to walk away. It's cheaper to do that and outsource production. The employees of airlines, airplane manufacturers, and lumber companies are losing their jobs because pensions are going the way of telegraph poles, even though the major portion of those pensions were worker-funded through their unions. The costs have risen, the money wasn't invested well, what was paid in is now outweighed by liabilities, so it's hard to compete.

The automobile manufacturers in Detroit turned on a dime to become the arsenal which won WWII, it was called the "American Miracle" at the time, and that's what Obama kicked off his speech with. He then pointed out that American dependence on foreign oil makes us vulnerable, and that burning oil accelerates global warming. So he offered Detroit a deal: If you make fuel-efficient cars, and I know you can, I will pay for your health care and pensions:

"A clean, secure energy future will take another American Miracle. It will require a historic effort, on the scale of what we saw in those factories during World War Two. It will require tough choices by our government, it will require sacrifice from our businesses, it will require innovation from our brightest minds, it will require a sustained commitment from the American people. It's also going to take leadership on the "Can't do, won't do, won't even try" style of politics of the past. Leadership willing to take on the doubters and the cynics and simply say, "Believe me, we can do it if we really try." I will be that kind of President. A President who believes that America can, a President who believes that when it comes to energy, the challenge may be great, and the road may be long, but the time to act is now. Who knows that we have the technology and we have the resources, and that we are at a rare moment of growing consensus among Democrats and Republicans, unions and CEOs, evangelical Christians and military experts who understand that this must be our generation's next Great Task."

None of the quote above was read off a tele-prompter, nor was any of his speech. It was all off the top of his head, and he was in command; he just came out and said it, what our challenge is as a country: invading other countries to lock up their oil won't work; we have to reduce oil consumption and build another engine. He was greeted with sustained, thunderous applause and whoops of joy by the attending elite. Detroit thinks he "gets it."

Obama has also recognized the crease in which to drive the splitter of a universal health care wedge, and how to generate support for it: Big Business is demanding it. This far outclasses the 3,000-page Clintonian Cryptonomicon plan for health care. We don't need 3,000 pages. The return on investment of health is simple. In World War Two, the Nazis took millions of prisoners and people in concentration camps and worked them in factories for war production. Worked them to death. They had work output per person until average death figured down to the calorie. Whereas the US sent Rosie the Riveters into factories, paid them unheard-of wages and double-overtime on top of that. Guess who won?

Workers need good wages and good health care, and while individuals might not count for much in this cock-eyed world, the corporations they make things for count for a lot. The ability to compete is crucial, and a good, equitable system of health care which makes people healthy is competitive bedrock. Finally, someone understands those fundamentals again, and had the courage to say it in public.

Obama Takes Up Leadership On Iraq

By pressing to put "benchmarks" down into legislation and by scrapping the "timetable for withdrawal" demand. The Bushies do not negotiate, as Obama realizes, and as long as breath is left in the blow-hard lungs of a few crucial bodies, they will never admit to withdrawal. They may start to withdraw, but they won't admit to it because it'd tattoo them with the "loser" label. Meantime, what they will do is agree to benchmarks, because if you're a Bushite, benchmarks are a way to buy some time, have no immediate cost, and may get Congress off your sore butt for a couple of weeks. (As the Bush Administration knows so well, "Denial" is too a river in Egypt! And they'll smash all you unpatriotic al-Qaeda-supportin' girle-men in the mouth if'n ya say sumpin' else.)

With the benchmark issue, Obama grabbed the mantle of leadership away from Hillary, which is coming right after beating her in individual donations by a 2:1 margin (100,000 contributors vs. 50,000), and probably taking the lead in current donations by a 25% or better margin. In taking this stand, he also seems to recognize the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is of multiple minds about Iraq, and about the ability to maintain a dollar-based "Sole Superpower" front. Benchmarks are an excellent wedge with which to separate the policy elites who still want to grip the Mid-east tightly from those who have come to the conclusion it's time to leave and invest our money into more productive activities. For the foreign policy dead-enders, separation means isolation. And those lightly granted benchmarks will come back to haunt BushCo like a nest of tarantulas, because we all know Iraq...ain't...coming...back.

While some of his erstwhile supporters are disturbed by Obama speaking to the Israel Lobby and making reassuring noises, and by his talk of making a larger, more "boots" oriented Army, these are the necessary and responsible steps to taking power, not to mention securing the lives of his family. I wish we didn't live in this kind of country, but we do, and Obama is being very smart. It doesn't mean he's going to revoke the things he's worked his adult life for, those being greater income equality, job creation, community activism, youth training, strong churches, and Constitutional law. It just means he knows what it takes to get there. As far as not leaving Israel to the wolves and about a larger Army devoted less to expensive gadgetry, these are solid positions. Strangely, I agree with them.

Back during his campaign, his staff called Clinton "Secretariat" for his thoroughbred abilities and winning ways. They knew if they just put him into the right settings, he'd run away from the competition. I'm not sure what nicknames Obama's staff may have for him, but "Muhammad Ali," after the greatest prize fighter of all time, may be one of them. He's awful hard to hit, and he hits awful hard. His stint on ABC News with George Twerpanopolous this morning was a showcase for a uniquely gifted leader. "Politics" is often fake, but its contests are real, and its masters are real. I would suggest a listen to what Obama had to say, and video of the interview in full is available at this link. Here's just one excerpt:

"What I don't do when I'm campaigning is to try to press a lot of hot buttons and use a lot of cheap applause buttons, because I want people to get a sense of how I think about this process," said Obama. "I think that one of the problems with political speeches is that we all know what folks want to hear. We know who the conventional, stereotypical enemies are on any given issue, and we have a tendency, I think, to play up to that. And I actually think that we're in this moment in history right now where honesty, admitting complexity is a good thing."

Sound to you like somebody who can lead this or any other country effectively? Sound like a man with a plan whom the times demand? This man just might be able to save our ass. Give him some money, because this old country is running out of time.

Media Protection Factor 50: Obama On Friday "Today Show"

Notice the picture at right. Study the layout and the people in it carefully. What is it saying? People magazine got a shot of Barack Obama on a beach in Hawaii, and put him next to pics of actors Hugh Jackman and Penelope Cruz. It means he has already won the swimsuit round of the Presidential Beauty Pageant. If you recall, the last Presidential candidates to be in picture-mags in their swimsuits in water were Reagan (People), John F. Kennedy (Life), and FDR (Life). One could look at this picture on a more symbolic level, as a baptism.

Barack Obama's Mainstream Media Kung Fu is better than previously thought; I'd give him an MPF 50 grade for his performance in an interview with the aggressively vapid Norah (blogsphere nickname: "Noron") O'Donnell, who tried to bait him into saying something catty. Using only one invisible hand, Barack managed to block every one of her moves, managing to sound completely honest, happy, and realistic. As he should be: he's already gaining nicely on Hillary, but is still behind among a composite of all voters.

BHO'S endurance and patience for media idiocy over the long haul will be absolutely crucial, since everybody from Camp Hillary to Fox Noise will be looking to bless Barack Obama with his very own Howard Dean Moment. He'll need a Teflon-level MPF grade of at least 80 and the right brand of classy deftness to deal with what they'll lay on him come November. But so far, so good. Here's the Today Show transcript:

MATT LAUER: We are back at 7:43, now to the run for the White House. On the Democratic side, Senator Barack Obama caused some political excitement when he got into the race. And this weekend he'll be back in the spotlight when he and Senator Hillary Clinton go head to head for the African-American vote at a civil rights commemoration in Alabama. NBC's Norah O'Donnell caught up with Senator Obama. Norah, good morning to you. MS. O'DONNELL: Hey, good morning, Matt, and a surprise to report to you. Bill Clinton will now join his wife, Senator Hillary Clinton, this weekend. It's going to be his first major public appearance with her since she launched her campaign, and he's bringing some star power, just as Senator Barack Obama is gaining on Hillary Clinton in the polls. (Begin videotaped segment.) MS. O'DONNELL: Senator Obama, who could very well be the first African-American president, on Sunday will journey to Selma, Alabama. SEN. OBAMA: Personally, this is important, because I trace my involvement in public life to the inspiration of the civil rights movement. MS. O'DONNELL: With Senator Clinton also commemorating the march from Selma, it will be the latest showdown between the two front- runners, this time to win over black voters. SEN. OBAMA: I don't take it for granted. I don't think Senator Clinton or any of the other candidates should take the African- American community for granted. MS. O'DONNELL: A month ago, African-American voters heavily supported Clinton, but now favor Obama. Since his announcement, Obama has barnstormed 19 cities, raised millions and sliced in half Clinton's once sizable lead. SEN. OBAMA: You know, I always am cautious about polls this early. I think they're volatile. You never know. MS. O'DONNELL: His rise in the polls comes after Hollywood mogul David Geffen suggested Obama's strength is that he's not from the Bush royal family or the Clinton royal family, who have held the White House for the past 20 years. (To Senator Obama.) Do you believe that there is a fatigue out there among the American people? SEN. OBAMA: I wouldn't personalize it in that way. I do think that we're in a moment where the country is looking for something different. MS. O'DONNELL: Geffen's remarks caused the first big fight between the Democrats. And now, for the first time, Obama admits his campaign may have gone too far. (To Senator Obama.) So what did you learn from that? SEN. OBAMA: What I told my staff is that I want all our statements to sound like me. And, you know, I tend -- I can mix it up. MS. O'DONNELL: You seem to indicate that you're ready to hit back hard, but now you're saying maybe your campaign shouldn't have done that. I mean, how are you going to defend yourself? SEN. OBAMA: You know, the best way to respond is with the truth, firmly and persistently.

A Convenient Oscar

Al Gore is going to take a triumphant walk down a red carpet tomorrow to the thunderous cheers and applause of the most famous people in the world. Where? At the Academy Awards, of course. 'An Inconvenient Truth' is going to win at least one Oscar, for best documentary film. It only brought in $24 million in theater release, making it the third-highest grossing documentary of all time, but the waves it has made all over the world keep getting stronger. A man who has spent his time in the wilderness will return as a hero, and entertainment will finally, literally be united with politics. It will be one of the great Oscars moments, and I hope to watch it.

Other films nominated for best documentary feature include Deliver Us From Evil, about the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church; Iraq in Fragments, about the Sunni-Shiite conflict in that country; Jesus Camp, about a summer camp for evangelical Christians, and My Country, My Country, about the months leading up to the January 2005 elections in Iraq. Fine films, I'm sure. It's possible Gore will get edged out by one of them, demand a recount, and be overruled by a 5-to-4 Supreme Court vote. But I suspect this is Al Gore's year for Oscar; he'll take the adulation well, charming the crowd and the world. I'll go out on a rather sturdy limb and predict he'll win the Nobel Peace Prize this year, too.

There has been some speculation, as CNN reports, that Gore will use his Oscar speech to announce his candidacy for the Presidency. That would surprise me, but it would be a very pleasant one. I've previously speculated that Gore won't be able to avoid making a White House run, simply because people will be all over him to do so from now until the February primaries next year, and they won't give up even then. We desperately need his help, his vision is clear, and his solutions are acceptable to everyone but Big Oil. (Poor, poor Big Oil. "C'mon! Let's have one more war over it, and make it a big one! You've got one left in ya!) My un-famous voice is hereby added to the chorus: for god's sake, Al, RUN!

By the way, if you meet anyone (and you will) who is still on the fence about Global Climate Change, or openly poo-poos it, there are a couple simple ways to either open their minds or shut their yaps, both generally desireable outcomes. It's true: the science Gore presented in his movie and book has possible flaws in it, he is a politician, scientists are motivated to stir up fears for grant money, and climate change is scientifically unproveable anyway. But those points are pointedly irrelevant. Two realities make them so.

First, if the cause and effect relationships associated between emissions and climate change are unknown and Global Warming is unproven, then the dictates of common sense greatly favor conservatism in policy-setting, not radical optimism. Not having any policy at all is radical optimism, and that could get us killed because we're playing dice with the fate of our species while in a state of ignorance. Conservatism would be all for keeping the atmosphere the way it is, even for trying to set the clock back a bit. Second, when you burn a carbon-based material, you create waste products like CO2. Carbon dioxide goes up into the atmosphere. Too much carbon dioxide is the signature of a dead planet. Mars, for example, has plenty of it. As Elton John notes in his song Rocket Man, "Mars ain't the place to raise your kids...in fact, it's cold as hell."

If Gore announces his candidacy, his only viable competitor will be Barack Obama, whom he would gladly name as running mate. Yes, this is wishful thinking, but it would be both a brilliant way of bringing in the man with the magic and domestic policy passion and gain a bullet-proof vest at the same time. If some redneck hopped up on Rush Limbaugh were to shoot Gore, they would then have to endure the humiliation of seeing America's first black President. And we wouldn't want that, would we? Heavens, no.

Wishful thinking. I can already hear what the pundits would call a Gore-Obama ticket: Go-Bama. I checked the web sites for registration. They're already taken. And I'm hardly the only one wishing: there are a whole passel of people discussing the same thing over at algore.org right now.

The Leader With A Thousand Faces: Ancient Archetypes And The 2008 Presidential Elections

A prince wounded by the treachery of usurpers was banished to the wildernerness, where he became a hairy man. People said they could hear his voice sometimes out in the wilderness, prophesying nonsense. Only a curious little orphan who was hungry one day started going into his leaky old rowboat to fish and listen to his stories. Then one day the hairy man's prophecies started coming true, so the villagers hurried back to find him, and said, "Come, speak to us, tell us the secrets so that we may be saved. All else we ask of you is that you bathe." The prince thought about the villagers offer very hard, and finally said, "Ok. I'll bathe. But the beard stays," and he came back to claim his true throne.

The archetypes above are straight out of Joseph Campbell's "The Hero With A Thousand Faces," harking back to the tales little children have heard since stories were only remembered, and not written. It's a powerful archetype, a fable of leadership and wisdom watered down into our popular culture as the storybook comeback. Al Gore fits it.

He's going to have a hard time not running for President, because people are begging him to. Not just little people, either. Big people. Hillary Clinton is great at raising money from special interest groups, hundreds of millions, but each check has a ball and chain attached. Al Gore could raise $2 billion from just two individuals, with no strings attached other than "go get our democracy back." I don't mean to say an election is all about money, only to indicate how much it matters where the money comes from, and how much more energy and passion would be behind Gore. If he entered the Presidential race, money would not be an issue.

Back in late 2000, when only an election was in the balance, and not the earth, over lunch I told my entire development team that if the election was decided for Bush, they should seriously consider making plans to leave the country or obtain a second passport. It was something along the lines of, "I don't know exactly how bad it'll be, but Dubya's going to be worse than I can imagine." Never having voted in an election, and having little knowledge of GWB or Al Gore, and no qualifications as a political prognosticator, they were still kind enough to not laugh. But that's how portentous the 2000 election seemed to my intuition. It's impossible to say what would've happened if things had gone differently, and as another Gore (Vidal) says, there's only one political party in the United States, and it's called the Property Party. That may be. But good leadership matters. You can't have good governance with bad leadership.

The alternate reality game above is pretty powerful stuff, and if Gore steps up to run, I'm not the only one who will think, "No. Really. What would have happened if Gore had been sworn in back in 2001?" Here's what I wouldn't be alone in thinking: 9/11 wouldn't have happened. The Global War On Terror wouldn't have happened. We wouldn't be in Iraq. The United States would have an energy policy. We wouldn't be torturing US citizens. We wouldn't be playing the next rounds of "Double That Deficit" and "Flush The Country Down The Toilet." I'd probably be able to find a good set of solar panels, put them on the roof of my house, put a windmill in my back yard, and get a tax break for it. The floundering US car companies might even have developed some good hybrid vehicles by now.

Maybe that's all dreaming. The important thing is, it's natural conjecture which will occur if, and more likely when, Al Gore decides sometime in 2007 to run. Love him or hate him, believe you or not in inconvenient truths, Gore learned much in the wilderness, and he likes it there. He can take or leave the Presidency, and will only run on his terms, which means he'll be genuine. If he runs and is not shot, he will be elected President. And I don't think he would be: Gore offers what might be called "Better Energy," which is a solution corporate elites, public companies, private citizens, utilities, and politicians can all line up behind. It's a New Deal for what we'll use to power the country.

But back to our archetypes. What of the curious orphan? Barack Obama was born for the part, and would make an excellent Vice President. Indulge me for a moment. Ralph Nader as Energy Secretary. Dennis Kucinich as Secretary of Defense. Ha. I really am dreaming. There are a lot of hurdles here, and even more trenches. But what be dreamt, may be done.

Oh, and Hillary Clinton? I'm not sure what Joseph Campbell called her archetype. But there is a more recent perfect fit for her: she was was born to play Evita Peron. Or, if she would accept the role, a Secretary of State who could out-do Kissinger on his best day.

Barack Obama: Muslim Suicide Bomber

And so, it begins...I predicted the Barack Hussein Obama attacks that would come from the Reich Wing, but the speed and stridency surprised me a little. Seems Fox News is pretty convinced Obama went to a madrassah in Indonesia, became glassy-eyed during his religious brainwashing, and is the muslim Manchurian Candidate. Later in the day, Fox News changed its tune slightly to attempt a two-fer, identifying the Hillary Clinton campaign as the source of their madrassah rumor. CNN's Wolf Blitzer does a fine job of clarifying Fox's motives at the Crooks and Liars link here, but I put up the original Fox story from this morning instead. Because it's more bizarre. And chilling. Observe the casual, matter-of-fact way in which these air-heads discuss the muslim infiltration of the US political system. Of course, they might also be aware that their boss (Rupert Murdoch) is Jewish.

He Brings The Spunk, They Bring The Junk: Obama Announces

Technically, he only announced the formation of an Exploratory Committee. Practically, he's running. Here are the high-profile Senator candidates for the next purported Presidency: Hillary Clinton. John Edwards. Barack Obama. And Joseph Biden, too! Don't dare forget him.

Hillary Clinton is already tabbed as the candidate the elite can work with, as in, "No problem." She's Machiavellian enough, has patents pending on the co-developed Clintonian Triangulation Calculator, has blood of the Iraq War on her hands from her enthusiastic vote for it, and is a woman. (Thanks to the Patriarchal Puke-Fest we've been treated to for the past 6 years, being a woman has become a marketable political quality.) Edwards is tagged as a lightweight, a white economic populist who might be dangerous if he weren't so fiberglass, un-folksy, and un-electable.

And what would an election year be without the Pagliacci of Presidential politics, Joe Biden? It just wouldn't feel right without him, one of the most reliable sideshow geeks in the circus, always ready to get kinky, thoughtfully masticating chicken heads on Press the Meat. He's from the demi-state of Delaware. Oh, yeah, and I forgot John Kerry. And that. Was on. Purpose.

Obama is seen as unelectable because he's black and new. Yeah. Except when he opens his mouth, he says things he actually believes in, and you can tell. His book, The Audacity of Hope, has been on the New York Times best-seller list since it came out. Its current overall Amazon sales rank is #6. And he's too "new?" Sometimes I wonder why Senators bother to run for the Presidency in the first place, because they have records to attack. Like, the last Democratic Senator to be elected was, let's see, also a first-termer. That would be John Fitzgerald Kennedy, upon whom Oliver Stone supposedly based the motion picture "JFK."

Obama is unelectable only in the sense that he's been tabbed as big trouble for the elite--which he most certainly is. Rich people see him, and their lips start to tremble, their mouths start to work trying to make sounds of panic, and their sphincters start opening and closing like butterfly valves. Then they hear him talk, and the insulation shielding their minds starts to tear away as they scream, "Oh my gaaad! It's Hugo Fuck-ing Chavez!! Right here on our sacred shoorrrres!!!" Of course, that's partly why I like him. At best, the powers that be might see him as an acceptable running mate for Hillary. He's assassination protection, too, kind of like a Clintonian Dan Quayle or a BushCo Cheney. Off a woman president, and you get a black one. Ha! How you like them apples, Homelanders?

Obama is the thoroughbred in this election. The more he's on TV in front of live crowds, the better he'll get. When he speaks his mind, he doesn't need to guard what comes out. Because of this factor alone, if he got Hillary into a debate, he'd beat her so bad she'd morph into John Kerry, right onstage. Here's another little sound bite:

"I cannot in good conscience support this plan. As I first said two months ago, we should not be sending more U.S. troops to Iraq, we should begin redeploying them to let the Iraqis know that we will not be there forever and to pressure the Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds to finally reach a political settlement," the popular Democratic Senator said.

He believed that "It now falls on Congress to find a way to support our troops in the field while still preventing the President from multiplying his previous mistakes." For this reason, he expressed his support for capping the number U.S. troops in Iraq, and added that "it’s imperative that we begin the phased redeployment I called for two months ago, and [I] intend to introduce legislation that does just that.”

Nothing much. Direct, spare rhetoric, not parsing words. Effortless, and he means it. They'll probably find a way to smear Obama, even if they have to manufacture a scream using Cool-Edit Pro to take out the background noise. Like they did with Howard Dean. But even then, I'd not be quick to write Obama off. He has far more resilience and natural political ability than Dean ever did. You check him out, and it keeps coming up. He was the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review. He was the most popular law professor at the University of Chicago. He was drafted to run by regular people. And what did he teach at Chicago? Oh...only Constitutional Law (I'm guessing that's something we kinda need?).

Presidential politics are tough to predict, and are subject to the fickle whims of prejudice, opinion, back-room deals and tune-able voting machines and judges. And the prototypical smart, folksy Democratic govervnor has yet to emerge from the South...such as Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico. But just watch Obama run, because it'll be a thing of beauty. He has a soaring quality of greatness, a unique ability which simply cannot be faked and which inspires. When watching Dubya or Hillary speak, how many people in their right minds think, "Geez, I wish I could be like that?" When Obama speaks, it's like watching Muhammad Ali fight. It's like watching Seabiscuit attack the back stretch. It's like watching Michael Jordan take over a game. Trust me. You'll see. He brings the Spunk; they bring the Junk.

Commanda Obama

One rainy night I drove to the store, and heard someone giving a speech on the radio. His voice was straight from America's heartland, and he was holding a live crowd spellbound, making them laugh, sigh, and cry. I thought, "Man, this guy is great. He's making policy sense like I've never heard. Must be a writer or a professor, gotta find out who. Too bad politicians can't talk like this."

Arriving at the store, I stayed in the car, turned up the volume knob, and waited to learn the speaker's name. His name was Barak Hussein Obama; amongst other gifts, as a politician he holds the qualities of control, elegance, and command which comes along but once in a century , and never comes the same way twice. Obama sticks out from the field of Presidential aspirants because he's not electro-plated tin like the rest, but made of solid precious metal; it's like seeing an actual human being navigating through a field of flesh-eating zombies. He talks his own talk, writes his own books, and he thinks so well on his feet that he could talk the panties right off...panties off...what the heck, the panties right off of Hillary Clinton. His father was from Kenya, his mother was from Kansas. Wichita, Kansas. He is a faithful member of the United Church of Christ, and early in his career worked with churches to organize job programs on Chicago's South Side. He then went to Harvard Law School on smarts, where he was elected President of the Harvard Law Review. He returned to the South Side to work at a civil rights law firm and teach constitutional law at the University of Chicago until he was elected an Illinois Senator in 2004, winning 70% of the vote in a year of heavy Republican gains.

There's not a better candidate for President in these United States. He kicks ass, is squeaky clean, is more spiritually and constitutionally fluent than anyone else on or close to the trail, and no one can beat him straight-up. He poses major problems for both the Republican and Democrat wings of the Property Party (establishment elites) Here's a snippet from one of his speeches in June, 2006:

"We can talk to the press, and we can discuss the religious call to address poverty and environmental stewardship all we want, but it won't have an impact unless we tackle head-on the mutual suspicion that sometimes exists between religious America and secular America.

I want to give you an example that I think illustrates this fact. As some of you know, during the 2004 U.S. Senate General Election I ran against a gentleman named Alan Keyes. Mr. Keyes is well-versed in the Jerry Falwell-Pat Robertson style of rhetoric that often labels progressives as both immoral and godless.

Indeed, Mr. Keyes announced towards the end of the campaign that, "Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama. Christ would not vote for Barack Obama because Barack Obama has behaved in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved."

Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama.

Now, I was urged by some of my liberal supporters not to take this statement seriously, to essentially ignore it. To them, Mr. Keyes was an extremist, and his arguments not worth entertaining. And since at the time, I was up 40 points in the polls, it probably wasn't a bad piece of strategic advice.

But what they didn't understand, however, was that I had to take Mr. Keyes seriously, for he claimed to speak for my religion, and my God. He claimed knowledge of certain truths.

'Mr. Obama says he's a Christian, he was saying, and yet he supports a lifestyle that the Bible calls an abomination.

Mr. Obama says he's a Christian, but supports the destruction of innocent and sacred life.'

And so what would my supporters have me say? How should I respond? Should I say that a literalist reading of the Bible was folly? Should I say that Mr. Keyes, who is a Roman Catholic, should ignore the teachings of the Pope?

Unwilling to go there, I answered with what has come to be the typically liberal response in such debates - namely, I said that we live in a pluralistic society, that I can't impose my own religious views on another, that I was running to be the U.S. Senator of Illinois and not the Minister of Illinois.

But Mr. Keyes's implicit accusation that I was not a true Christian nagged at me, and I was also aware that my answer did not adequately address the role my faith has in guiding my own values and my own beliefs.

Now, my dilemma was by no means unique. In a way, it reflected the broader debate we've been having in this country for the last thirty years over the role of religion in politics.

For some time now, there has been plenty of talk among pundits and pollsters that the political divide in this country has fallen sharply along religious lines. Indeed, the single biggest "gap" in party affiliation among white Americans today is not between men and women, or those who reside in so-called Red States and those who reside in Blue, but between those who attend church regularly and those who don't.

Conservative leaders have been all too happy to exploit this gap, consistently reminding evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their Church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage; school prayer and intelligent design.

Democrats, for the most part, have taken the bait. At best, we may try to avoid the conversation about religious values altogether, fearful of offending anyone and claiming that - regardless of our personal beliefs - constitutional principles tie our hands. At worst, there are some liberals who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant, insisting on a caricature of religious Americans that paints them as fanatical, or thinking that the very word "Christian" describes one's political opponents, not people of faith.

Now, such strategies of avoidance may work for progressives when our opponent is Alan Keyes. But over the long haul, I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in people's lives -- in the lives of the American people -- and I think it's time that we join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy.

And if we're going to do that then we first need to understand that Americans are a religious people. 90 percent of us believe in God, 70 percent affiliate themselves with an organized religion, 38 percent call themselves committed Christians, and substantially more people in America believe in angels than they do in evolution.

This religious tendency is not simply the result of successful marketing by skilled preachers or the draw of popular mega-churches. In fact, it speaks to a hunger that's deeper than that - a hunger that goes beyond any particular issue or cause."

If you can find another politician currently holding national office who is capable of uttering those sentences above, off the cuff and in front of a crowd, please tell me who it is, and I will work in my small way to get them to run for President. Obama understands the times and the tides, can eloquently speak for us and to us, has come out and called Iraq a dumb war, can craft wise policies and can run rings around every other candidate. However, he suffers from not one, but three crippling problems for a prospective late-Empire President:

1) he's color blind;
2) he's a Commonist;
3) no one owns him.

The current Dimocrat plan is to get him to run as Veep to Hillary. In the unlikely event she should she win, this would neatly alleviate the threat to Hill's presidential life, as a third of the country oils up its ought-sixes and dials in its scopes; the succession picture would then pose bleak prospects, and Obama would be a Bizarro-World Veep: a progressive-populist, highly competent mirror image of Dan Quayle. Triangulation without tribulation.

While he may not be immune to the Clintonista play, I think Obama is really holding out for the People and abhors the whoring Hillary's engaged in. (Get the Pepto Bismol and the Immodium AD ready for her quotes of John 3:13 and her long-observed Christian faith. Cuz you know it's coming, and you'll need them both. A-a-aagghh. Blerrrgghh. Rinse. Whoosh.) It's going to take a lot of conniving for the Clintons or BushCo to plant a metaphorical knife deeply enough into his back on the campaign trail to betray him, and he may well be too quick and hard to fix for them this election cycle.

The normal chinks in the politician's armor are noticeably lacking in Obama's, simply because his motivation is different. He is a child of Martin Luther King and the Chicago Democratic political machine, and he really could take the Democratic nomination; he will talk so much sense to the country, most people may look past the inconvenient fact that he's black. I'm not kidding. In which case, his life would truly be in peril while a candidate because of the hate-based prejudices and protectionism of 10-20% of US citizens, and because his threat to the corporate power structure which controls the country cannot be disguised. Corporations wouldn't try to co-opt him for long; as they already recognize, his whole life is on a low-intensity trajectory against them. Maybe he can hoodwink them into thinking he'll do their bidding, but I'd almost rather see B.H.O. drop out and come back stronger in 2010, when the country and its corporations are broken and ready to face their better selves. We may be at that point as early as next year, of course, but I'm hoping the party can get strung out a little longer before the landlords call the cops.

The full transcript of the speech quoted above is here, and the link to the recording is there as well. Download the .mp3 and listen to what may be the greatest speech by an American politician in over two generations.