Clintons top funraiser backs McCain

[427 S/O]

There's a srong message here for you dems, read it and ponder your position.

FOX News...

John McCain’s campaign says the Republican is picking up the support of a top Hillary Clinton fundraiser and member of the Democratic National Committee’s Platform Committee.

Lynn Forester de Rothschild has said she thinks Democratic nominee Barack Obama is arrogant and has a problem connecting with average Americans.

Rothschild is a member of the DNC’s Democrats Abroad chapter and splits her time living in London and New York. She was one of Clinton’s top fundraisers, bringing in more than $100,000 for her presidential campaign. She built a multimillion-dollar telecommunications company before marrying international banker Sir Evelyn de Rothschild.

Rothschild plans to announce her support for McCain on Wednesday in Washington.

[jhv48]

I hope she is better at raising funds for McCain than she was for Hillary.

Babs just raised about $8M for O'Bama from her little dinner soire last night!

[cobra bill]

There can be only one thing said about this article, FOX NOISE !

[427 S/O]

You guys must be on acid reflex medicine, I would, if parked at MSNBC every night!.

[cobra bill]

Originally Posted by 427 S/O

You guys must be on acid reflex medicine, I would, if parked at MSNBC every night!.

Ha! Good one Perry, nope, I don't park there either! if you really want unbiased news, you can't depend on any US news, we are ranked 37 in freedom of press, in fact there is only one thing we are number one in, incarceration! Ha! usa usa usa you know we really need to get our moral compass back, and I don't mean religion.

[427 S/O]

Well, FOX NEWS is number '1', so your smarter than the multi-millions that watch?. I think not.

[cobra bill]

Your right, it's the number one propaganda machine for the Bush administration.

[bomelia]

Originally Posted by cobra bill

Ha! Good one Perry, nope, I don't park there either! if you really want unbiased news, you can't depend on any US news, we are ranked 37 in freedom of press, in fact there is only one thing we are number one in, incarceration! Ha! usa usa usa you know we really need to get our moral compass back, and I don't mean religion.

And WHO pray tell does the ranking?

[cobra bill]

Worldwide Press Freedom Index 2007 and I was mistaken, we are 48th I'm so proud!
2008 is not out yet!



There were slightly fewer press freedom violations in the United States (48th) and blogger Josh Wolf was freed after 224 days in prison. But the detention of Al-Jazeera’s Sudanese cameraman, Sami Al-Haj, since 13 June 2002 at the military base of Guantanamo and the murder of Chauncey Bailey in Oakland in August mean the United States is still unable to join the lead group.

[cobra de capell]

BO is.....

[cobra bill]

I like the way they through around the term elitist, would that not be someone born with a silver spoon in their mouth, i.e. Bush and McCain.

[cobra de capell]

Originally Posted by cobra bill

I like the way they through around the term elitist, would that not be someone born with a silver spoon in their mouth, i.e. Bush and McCain.

Actually, no - Bush and McCain were born into families with a few bucks, but they don't act like elitist which is the case with BO. Why BO would act like an elitist is beyond me - but, that is the case.

And that is the problem with BO, McCain and Bush seem like regular folks to most voters - as does Palin - BO and Biden are so full of themselves they are painful to watch.

Look at it this way - when BO or Biden speak, they seem to be more interested in what they are saying versus responding to the a communication need of the listeners - sort of a 'look how smart I am' tone - talk, no action.

Bush and McCain - action heros.

[cobra bill]

I guess you might be on to something, they are regular un-educated redneck folks, both Bush and McCain were at the bottom of their classes, but wait didn't we already try stupid for the last 8 years? do we really want to try regular folks again, l want the person running our country to be the smartest we can find! not regular folks that you would like to drink a beer with, so if you want to call him an elitist, and by the way that's just right wing propaganda at its finest with no basis in reality.

[bulletbrown]

I want to try someone from Chicago's south side , and that Chicago machine had his apposition tossed of the ballot at the last minute . This is someone I think I would what to run the government. Just look at the dirt bags he hanged around with!!!!
Remember , I never heard Rev. Wright say anything like that ! Only they sell the video in the lobby?
Quote, I worked to help the workers at the steel mills that losted there jobs to get retraining and find new jobs ! Only know one that work there can remember him ?
Quote, I didn't know Toni Resko very well ! But he spent four holiday weekends at Toni ,s home in Wisconsin. And Toni,s wife fixed him up with a PREFERRED loan on a home !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Toni has done some great work for other political leader in all fairness like are X governor, oh he is serving time in a Wisconsin jail, and the past mayor of Cicero , oh she is serving time in Wisconsin, and yes Toni is going to the big house now himself, don't you just love South Chicago insiders.

[427 S/O]

Quote Bill: 'The smartest we can find'?. Others on CC share your view, and for some reason they cannot list 'O'NO!'s accomplishments, qualifications and experience?.
Please list, in detail, and without referring to what someone else has done or spinning, and don't meander off topic. Fire away........

[cobra bill]

David Freddoso's new book, The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate is a badly written hatchet job, full of errors and distortions and smears. The author, who works for the right-wing National Review and published his book with Regnery (which printed Unfit for Command, one of the Swiftboating attacks on John Kerry in 2004), simply fails to prove his key assertions, preferring to rely upon a bunch of false attacks, McCarthyist-style denunciations of Obama's associations, and extreme conservative attacks on abortion rights, all of it padded with lengthy digressions on topics unrelated to Obama and his record.

Freddoso's lies begin on the very first page of his book (repeated on the back cover) when he proclaims that Obama is "the least experienced politician in at least one hundred years to obtain a major party nomination for President...."(ix) Freddoso seems to be conveniently forgetting that George W. Bush in 2000 had served only six years as governor, far fewer years of experience as an elected public official than Obama's 12 years of experience (eight as state senator, four as US senator). Obama's experience in politics also exceeds that of Ronald Reagan (eight years as governor), Jimmy Carter (four years in state senate, four years as governor), Dwight Eisenhower (no political experience), Harry Truman (10 years as US senator, one year as vice president), Herbert Hoover (eight years as Secretary of Commerce), Woodrow Wilson (two years as governor), and William Howard Taft (four years as Secretary of War, two years as Solicitor General). Compared to 17 presidents in the past century, Obama has more political experience than eight of them, and less experience than eight of them (he's tied with Warren Harding).

Like any good conspiracy theorist, Freddoso is careful to condemn the conspiracy theories he doesn't believe in, hoping that doing so will make him seem reasonable by comparison. He writes, "Too many of those criticizing Obama have been content merely to slander him," listing some of the false rumors about Obama refusing to salute the American flag or being sworn into office on a Koran.(x) Yet throughout his book, Freddoso charges Obama with being a part of some secret liberal plot. A plot to help Daley by knocking Alice Palmer off the ballot. A plot to have "silently and at times vocally cooperated with Chicago's Democratic Machine."(x) A plot by Axelrod to let Blair Hull take the lead and then leak his damaging divorce data. A plot to help Rezko by passing legislation for affordable housing. A plot to spread socialism revealed by his associations with communists and Marxists, proven by the fact that he actually read award-winning books written by communists!

Freddoso uses a common trick of conspiracy theorists: deny that you're proposing a conspiracy theory, but add on "there is this set of facts" to support that exact conspiracy theory. And so Freddoso writes:

There's no evidence Obama's campaign was the force behind dragging down Blair Hull, but there is this set of facts:


*Axelrod knew about Hull's marital problems


*Axelrod's former employer, the Chicago Tribune, unearthed Hull's marital problems just weeks before the primary, and not until Hull had already sucked the wind out of Hynes's sails

*Obama benefited—immensely--from these revelations.(48)






All of this might lead a reasonable reader to conclude that Obama's campaign did secretly smear his opponent. Except that it's not true. Chicago Tribune reporter David Mendell recounts in his book Obama: From Promise to Power that he was the first to report on the court order sealing Hull's divorce file, and he also reports on how it happened: "I met with a Hynes operative for lunch....I was handed a folder of opposition research on Hull. Among the papers was a copy of the outside sheet of the filing of one of Hull's two divorces in Illinois....The order contained only one salient fact: Hull's second wife, Brenda Sexton, had once been granted an order of protection against him."(212-3) It was the Hynes campaign, not the Obama campaign, that brought down Hull. It's hard to imagine that Freddoso could have overlooked this lengthy passage in Mendell's book about Obama, since Mendell is cited 39 times in Freddoso's book.


Even the cover of the book is an attempt to spread Freddoso's attacks. Beneath a glowering, dark-faced photo of Obama are photos of Obama dancing with his wife (they're black), smiling with Ted Kennedy (according to Freddoso, he's a communist KGB agent), his arm around Jeremiah Wright (they're black and racist), and next to Mayor Daley (they're corrupt).

In one of the many red-baiting sections of his book, Freddoso denounces Obama's predecessor Alice Palmer for covering the 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1986 as a journalist, and expressing praise for some of the Soviet plans, along with criticism of Ronald Reagan. Because Obama was endorsed by Palmer as his successor (and attended a Palmer fundraiser at Bill Ayers' home), Obama is deemed guilty by association. But Freddoso also denounces Obama's campaign for successfully challenging Palmer's improper petitions when she made a late decision to enter the State Senate race after failing to gain traction in her run for Congress.

Freddoso offers a particularly hilarious claim that Chicago Mayor Richard "Daley considered Palmer a serious threat, a potential mayoral rival."(5) According to Freddoso, "By clearing the ballot, Obama had done more than just elbow his way into power without a real election--he had also erased any doubt of Daley's path to his next term."(5) This anecdote shows how little Freddoso understands about Chicago politics. It's laughable to imagine that Palmer, after she failed miserably in her race for Congress, could take on Daley. Indeed, the last thing Daley would have wanted is an appealing black politician like Obama winning an election in Chicago, since Obama was probably the only threat to Daley's permanent occupation of the mayoral position. Yet Freddoso compares Obama to Karl Rove and Machiavelli, imagining some kind of conspiracy where Obama was secretly doing Daley's bidding.(6)

Freddoso also promotes Obama's guilt by association with Chicago politics. Astonishingly, Freddoso devotes 14 pages of his book to the Stroger family's corruption in Cook County politics, and links it to Obama because Obama didn't endorse anybody in the primary and endorsed the Democrat over the Republican in the general election. Yet Freddoso admits, "He did not campaign for John Stroger or even endorse him...."(14)

One could make an analogy here: what if a Republican candidate for president had failed to speak out about the political corruption of a Republican office-holder? Indeed, that's exactly the case with John McCain. Except that McCain, unlike Obama, endorsed the incumbent George W. Bush in the 2004 primary and actively campaigned for him. And what McCain did was far worse: part of the job of a U.S. Senator is to monitor the activities of the executive branch, while no one imagines that the job of a U.S. Senator is to intervene in local county politics.

[cobra bill]

People who complain that Barack Obama lacks experience must be unaware of his legislative achievements. One reason these accomplishments are unfamiliar is that the media have not devoted enough attention to Obama's bills and the effort required to pass them, ignoring impressive, hard evidence of his character and ability.

Since most of Obama's legislation was enacted in Illinois, most of the evidence is found there -- and it has been largely ignored by the media in a kind of Washington snobbery that assumes state legislatures are not to be taken seriously. (Another factor is reporters' fascination with the horse race at the expense of substance that they assume is boring, a fascination that despite being ridiculed for years continues to dominate political journalism.)

I am a rarity among Washington journalists in that I have served in a state legislature. I know from my time in the West Virginia legislature that the challenges faced by reform-minded state representatives are no less, if indeed not more, formidable than those encountered in Congress. For me, at least, trying to deal with those challenges involved as much drama as any election. And the "heart and soul" bill, the one for which a legislator gives everything he or she has to get passed, has long told me more than anything else about a person's character and ability.

Consider a bill into which Obama clearly put his heart and soul. The problem he wanted to address was that too many confessions, rather than being voluntary, were coerced -- by beating the daylights out of the accused.

Obama proposed requiring that interrogations and confessions be videotaped.

This seemed likely to stop the beatings, but the bill itself aroused immediate opposition. There were Republicans who were automatically tough on crime and Democrats who feared being thought soft on crime. There were death penalty abolitionists, some of whom worried that Obama's bill, by preventing the execution of innocents, would deprive them of their best argument. Vigorous opposition came from the police, too many of whom had become accustomed to using muscle to "solve" crimes. And the incoming governor, Rod Blagojevich, announced that he was against it.


Obama had his work cut out for him.

He responded with an all-out campaign of cajolery. It had not been easy for a Harvard man to become a regular guy to his colleagues. Obama had managed to do so by playing basketball and poker with them and, most of all, by listening to their concerns. Even Republicans came to respect him. One Republican state senator, Kirk Dillard, has said that "Barack had a way both intellectually and in demeanor that defused skeptics."

The police proved to be Obama's toughest opponent. Legislators tend to quail when cops say things like, "This means we won't be able to protect your children." The police tried to limit the videotaping to confessions, but Obama, knowing that the beatings were most likely to occur during questioning, fought -- successfully -- to keep interrogations included in the required videotaping.

By showing officers that he shared many of their concerns, even going so far as to help pass other legislation they wanted, he was able to quiet the fears of many.

Obama proved persuasive enough that the bill passed both houses of the legislature, the Senate by an incredible 35 to 0. Then he talked Blagojevich into signing the bill, making Illinois the first state to require such videotaping.

Obama didn't stop there. He played a major role in passing many other bills, including the state's first earned-income tax credit to help the working poor and the first ethics and campaign finance law in 25 years (a law a Post story said made Illinois "one of the best in the nation on campaign finance disclosure"). Obama's commitment to ethics continued in the U.S. Senate, where he co-authored the new lobbying reform law that, among its hard-to-sell provisions, requires lawmakers to disclose the names of lobbyists who "bundle" contributions for them.

Taken together, these accomplishments demonstrate that Obama has what Dillard, the Republican state senator, calls a "unique" ability "to deal with extremely complex issues, to reach across the aisle and to deal with diverse people." In other words, Obama's campaign claim that he can persuade us to rise above what divides us is not just rhetoric.

I do not think that a candidate's legislative record is the only measure of presidential potential, simply that Obama's is revealing enough to merit far more attention than it has received. Indeed, the media have been equally delinquent in reporting the legislative achievements of Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, both of whom spent years in the U.S. Senate. The media should compare their legislative records to Obama's, devoting special attention to their heart-and-soul bills and how effective each was in actually making law.

[427 S/O]

I'm posting this again, just incase you missed it?.

Quote Bill: 'The smartest we can find'?. Others on CC share your view, and for some reason they cannot list 'O'NO!'s accomplishments, qualifications and experience?.
Please list, in detail, and without referring to what someone else has done or spinning, and don't meander off topic. Fire away........
__________________