This was one of those issues that could have sunk a lesser candidate. Barack Obama supports John Lewis’ statement but he doesn’t go so far as to sink his candidacy. This is a hot topic. He does a very good job of confronting this issue. Gay Marriage is a deal breaker for some. Obama strongly supports civil unions because that’s the only responsible middle ground. Anything else and you’re in homophobic territory or you’re against Christian teachings.
I’m trying to get on the Hillary Clinton bandwagon. Every time that I start feeling pretty good about Hillary, she does something that makes me reach for the barf bag. A couple of weeks ago, she voted for that Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. Look, we have known this since the mid-1990’s. This is no secret. The problem is if you don’t want to start a war publicly denouncing Iran was a bad idea and it gives the president one more piece of ammunition. The latest item that has thrown me off of the Hillary bandwagon was the planted question. Why? If you are trying to change the culture of cloak and mirrors then what was this? Of course, Hillary’s camp said that this was an isolated incident. An eager staffer. But I’m not so sure.
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From NYT:
At two campaign events in Iowa this year, aides to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton encouraged audience members to ask her specific questions, a tactic that drew criticism from an opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination and led her yesterday to promise that it would not happen again.
Mrs. Clinton, speaking to reporters in Iowa, said she was unaware that her aides had ever planted questions.
“It was news to me,” said Mrs. Clinton, of New York, “and neither I nor my campaign approve of that, and it will certainly not be tolerated.” (more…)
First of all I object to Tim Russert being the “official” screener of political candidates. Who crowned him? He murdered Howard Dean with a ridiculous question on military size. He left his studio, which he rarely does, and threw a love fest with George W. He roughed up Bill Richardson who was remarkably unprepared for that ambush.
Barack Obama didn’t make the mistake of Bill Richardson. He was very prepared. This is a very good forum for Obama. It is one on one. He has a chance to answer questions in phrases and not sound bites.
I will be posting several clips of Sunday’s Meet the Press. Obama reveals to everyone that he is a serious candidate. He isn’t a rock star. He is one of the democrats best and brightest candidates for president.
2 short stories - I was doing a trauma site survey in Illinois back in December of 2006. I was at a hospital in a relatively small town. I over heard the elderly White lady who was the cashier talking to another lady who was buying something at the cash register. (I couldn’t be seen by either of the women - poor design of the store.) They were talking about politics and how they were both impressed by that Black man - Obama. Here, in North Carolina, I overheard a conversation where another White lady said that she really liked that Black man. She liked him ever since the Democratic convention. I bring up these conversations to make a point. Obama’s message is getting out. It may not be a surprise that they are talking about him in his home state of Illinois but it is a surprise that he is being talked about here in North Carolina. Sure I have heard talk about other candidates but Obama’s message of hope is spreading.
I don’t understand why Musharraf let Benazir Bhutto into the country. So, Pervez Musharraf places her under home arrest. Then he thinks that that was a mistake. Then he decides well may be she should be under house arrest. This isn’t going to end well. I see violence. I see bloodshed and increased instability in Middle East.
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From TPM:
Pakistani authorities placed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto under house arrest for the second time in four days to prevent her staging a grand procession on Tuesday to protest emergency rule, police said.
A seven-day detention order was issued by the government of Punjab province, where the former prime minister is staying at the house of a lawmaker from her party, Aftab Cheema, the chief of operations of Lahore city police, told The Associated Press.
“She has been detained and she won’t be allowed to come out,” Cheema said. (more…)
I have a longtime friendship that doesn’t work anymore. This relationship has been one of my most important friendships for many years.
I met this person when we were both in college. I’m 40 now. Over the years we’ve kept in close touch and visited each other in the different cities we have lived in since college.
At this point however, we are barely able to make a phone call work. There is not much to say and there’s an awareness that certain subjects may lead to disagreement.
We have much less in common than we did before. Increasingly, we see the world and react to the world in different ways. Nobody has done anything wrong. It’s simply that things change.
Our differences have emerged slowly and with a minimum of conflict.
I’m hesitant to give up on relationships. I’ve not given up on this relationship. Yet the breach is real.
Despite a number of important ballot issues and at least a few open City Council seats in my home town of Houston, voters in Houston and Harris County turned out at only around 10% of registered persons.
Here are some questions I have based on this terrible turnout. They are questions that would apply to any low turnout election—
1. Does a political entity such as a city or a county exist in the most meaningful regard of a shared sense of citizenship when so few people vote? No wonder conditions in Houston are so awful for so many people.
2. Are candidates elected by so few people legitimately elected? Why should office holders not vote the way large donors and more affluent voters wish them to vote, when little counter pressure is exerted by an involved public?
3. Don’t you imagine elected officials hold the public in contempt over such low turnout?
4. If you accept Aristotle’s premise that society existed before the individual, to people delegitimize their very existence by failing to take part in politics? Do “the people” truly exist in a political sense when turnout is so bad?
5. If county and city services would be temporarily suspended unless municipal elections generated at least 75% turnout, do you think people would then vote? I bet a 75% threshold would be met if folks were told police, fire and water service would be stopped until enough people decided they were really part of our society.
The above picture is of people voting in Haiti in 2006. Imagine that people can line up and possibly face violence to vote in a poor place like Haiti, but people in Houston and Harris County and elsewhere in America will not come out and vote.
Errington C. Thompson, MD, is a surgeon, scholar, fulltime sports fan and part-time political activist. He is active in a number of community projects and initiatives. Through medicine, he strives to improve the physical health of all he treats...
