This year, we have a black man, a white woman, a Mormon, a thrice-married Catholic, and an ordained Baptist minister all running for president.  What a country!  Yes, we have really come a long way, baby.

        Or have we?

        The day after Barack Obama trounced Hillary Clinton in the South Carolina Democrat primary, her husband (our first “black” president) dismissed the victory by pointing out that Jesse Jackson won the same primary in 1984 and 1988.  Following on the heels of previous attempts to inject racial politics into his wife’s fight for the Democrat presidential nomination, clearly, Bubba was doing his best to marginalize Obama’s candidacy by implying that Obama is the Jesse Jackson of 2008, a black candidate who has no chance of actually being elected.

        Bill Clinton’s mentor was U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright, an Arkansas Democrat and a supporter of racial segregation.  Fulbright signed the Southern Manifesto opposing the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision, which declared unconstitutional the “separate but equal” doctrine for public schools.  He joined with the Dixiecrats in filibustering the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1964.  And he voted against the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

        This was Clinton’s mentor, his hero, his teacher.  Fulbright’s party had been the party of racism, slavery, and the Ku Klux Klan.  Today’s Democrats like to believe this ugly side of their party is gone.  The truth is that it is simply hidden beneath a shroud of liberal language and lofty sounding rhetoric, and Bill Clinton is Exhibit A in the ”Dems-R-Bigots Party.”

        Former Klansman Robert Byrd, who served as the Democrat’s Senate majority leader in the 1970s, still sits in the U.S. Senate.

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This year, we have a black man, a white woman, a Mormon, a thrice-married Catholic, and an ordained Baptist minister all running for president.  What a country!  Yes, we have really come a long way, baby.

        Or have we?

        The day after Barack Obama trounced Hillary Clinton in the South Carolina Democrat primary, her husband (our first “black” president) dismissed the victory by pointing out that Jesse Jackson won the same primary in 1984 and 1988.  Following on the heels of previous attempts to inject racial politics into his wife’s fight for the Democrat presidential nomination, clearly, Bubba was doing his best to marginalize Obama’s candidacy by implying that Obama is the Jesse Jackson of 2008, a black candidate who has no chance of actually being elected.

        Bill Clinton’s mentor was U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright, an Arkansas Democrat and a supporter of racial segregation.  Fulbright signed the Southern Manifesto opposing the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision, which declared unconstitutional the “separate but equal” doctrine for public schools.  He joined with the Dixiecrats in filibustering the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1964.  And he voted against the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

        This was Clinton’s mentor, his hero, his teacher.  Fulbright’s party had been the party of racism, slavery, and the Ku Klux Klan.  Today’s Democrats like to believe this ugly side of their party is gone.  The truth is that it is simply hidden beneath a shroud of liberal language and lofty sounding rhetoric, and Bill Clinton is Exhibit A in the ”Dems-R-Bigots Party.”

        Former Klansman Robert Byrd, who served as the Democrat’s Senate majority leader in the 1970s, still sits in the U.S. Senate.

        When George H.W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court, the most outwardly liberal members of the Senate pulled every dirty trick imaginable to derail the nomination.  The racist tactics of the Democrat-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee, some members of which had trumped up false charges of sexual harassment against a good and decent man, were stunning.  More stunning, however, were Thomas’s inspired words during his testimony.

        “This is a circus,” Thomas told the committee.  “It’s a national disgrace.  And from my standpoint, as a black American, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you.  You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee rather than being hung from a tree.”

        Perhaps the only thing more dangerous than being a black man standing between a liberal Democrat senator and ideological control of the U.S. Supreme Court is being a black man standing between Bill and Hillary Clinton and their triumphant return to the White House.  The irony is that there is virtually no difference between the ideology of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, so anyone laboring under the delusion that the Clintons have ever been in politics for the sake of the cause should find another fantasy in which to believe.

        Race is more than an issue for Democrats.  It is a cottage industry.  While their scam artists like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton masquerade as civil rights leaders, getting rich perpetrating a myth of racism among Republicans, white liberals like Bill and Hillary Clinton actually practice racism by marginalizing a bright, qualified competitor on the basis of race.

        I am not a fan of Barack Obama and his socialist ideology, but it truly is revolting to think that these two trailer-trash liberals could again take up residence in the White House.  The only consolation for the country is that they might bring back some of the furniture.

Source: Chron Watch

Whatever one may think about Barack Obama as a candidate or as a potential president, his candidacy has brought something new to the American political scene.

His stunning victory in the Iowa caucuses, in a state where more than 90% of the population is white, was an unmistakable signal that racism is not the invincible thing that some seem to think it is.

Unlike Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton before him, Obama has not been running as a black candidate for symbolic purposes but as a serious contender who happens to be black.

Into this upbeat national scene Bill and Hillary Clinton have brought race back as one of their many sleazy tactics to try to win in any way possible, whether clean or dirty.

First, there were the surrogates bringing up youthful peccadillos that Obama had already admitted to in his autobiography. They milked this for all it was worth.

First there was the innuendo, which got media coverage. Then came the claim that the Clintons had nothing to do with the innuendo, which got more media time.

Then came the claim from the surrogate that his statement was misinterpreted, which got still more media time.

But these cheap shots have been by no means as poisonous as Bill Clinton’s obvious attempts to reduce Obama to just a black candidate.

Even after much of the media had gotten on him for this, Bill Clinton returned to that theme after Hillary lost the South Carolina primary big time, by saying that Jesse Jackson had won South Carolina before.

It is not that the Clintons are racists. It is just that they will use whatever they want in order to get whatever they want — and the effect on the country does not bother them.

That was the hallmark of the first Clinton administration. There is no reason to doubt that this will be the hallmark of the next Clinton administration, if there is one.

If Hillary wins the White House, that will mean 16 consecutive years — and perhaps 20 — in which presidents of the United States have come from just two families. Surely the country is not that lacking in political leadership.

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The Baptists are coming. The Baptists are coming. But these aren’t your real Baptists. These are the religious left masquerading as evangelicals.

Allegedly 20,000 of them are meeting in Atlanta this week. Don’t actually believe that though. I’ve got a number of sources within this group who tell me that internally the numbers have fallen well short of expectations, but if they send out a press release saying 20,000, the media will report it.

This is important because the Democrats are trying to get back into the faith game. They have decided to wage a fight against the Southern Baptist Convention and legitimate, principled organizations of faith.

In essence, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton are trying to build a base of religious voters for the Democratic nominee. And who is helping them?

Porker-in Chief Chuck Grassley, the openly closeted Senator from South Carolina Lindsey Graham, and green con-artist Al Gore. Gore’s attendence is obvious. Graham and Grassley helped organize the thing and are participating because they want to assist in marginalizing the Christian right — something they see as a pernicious influence in politics.

The issues discussed sum up where they are headed:

the Celebration will feature special-interest sessions focusing on topics such as racism, religious liberty, poverty, the AIDS pandemic, faith in public policy, stewardship of the earth, evangelism, financial stewardship, and prophetic preaching. . . . They specifically committed themselves to their obligation as Christians to promote peace with justice, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, care for the sick and the marginalized, welcome the strangers among us, and promote religious liberty and respect for religious diversity.

Let’s hope there is no talk of Darfur or Israel, lest Jimmy Carter be put in an awkward position. And let’s not actually be fooled. They’ll discuss evangelism to dodge some criticism, but they are actually there, with Bill Moyers too, to recast Baptists, not as Christians leading people to the Lord, but as social workers leading people to a bowl of food. In their mixed up priorities, they think the social justice work is more important than evangelizing.

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Starting with Obama’s big win in South Carolina, followed by the exit polling that suggested Bill Clinton had offended Democrats with his race-baiting, and enhanced by Sen. Ted and Caroline Kennedy’s seemingly poignantly symbolic endorsements — something close to an Obama fever is sweeping over media commentators. Maybe they are right, and Bill and Hillary are about to be discarded (figuratively, not literally) as dispositively as Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu were in Romania on Christmas Day 1989 — a fierce personal rejection of a ruling couple.

The metaphor that is being more bandied about is that this is "The Last Hurrah" for the Clintons. This refers to the eponymous classic Edwin O’Connor novel from 1956 in which a beloved and superb old-time big-city mayor (Frank Skeffington) loses his last race to a faceless cipher because times have changed. In that instance, what had changed was that big-city mayors were being undercut by New Deal national welfare programs in their ability to deliver money, housing, jobs and health care largesse to the voters.

What the Clintons are betting on is that the correct correlation is to Walter Mondale’s 1984 nomination fight with Gary Hart, who stylized himself as the fresh face who would appeal to the younger voters and criticized Mondale as old-fashioned and representing failed policies of the past. Mondale relied on his institutional power and the allegation that Hart’s "new ideas" were insubstantial. (He famously used the advertisement phrase of the time, "Where’s the beef?")

Certainly, Obama is vulnerable to the charge that his "change" theme is insubstantial. His and Hillary’s policies seem almost identical. And when he talks about working together with Republicans rather than perpetuating the old partisan divisiveness, Hillary could challenge Obama to explain where he would cave to Republicans to end the divisiveness.

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No direct accusations here as it’d look petty to make a stink about it, but Wallace sets her up to come to Obama’s defense and she pointedly refuses to do so. Message conveyed. If you believe that the tears helped her in New Hampshire then this new round of victimhood is useful, especially as a way of moving the narrative off of Billy Jeff’s race-baiting.

If “sources” are to be believed, it wasn’t the only time he snubbed her that night either. Although I’m skeptical that it was just “leading Democrats” who wanted them to cuddle up; Hillary needs to get back in his supporters’ good graces for the general election and a gauzy unity shot during the SOTU would have helped. No wonder Obama (allegedly) refused to give her cover.

Update: Hillary started it, says Dowd. Besides, who’s the real woman here? “But Obama is the more emotionally delicate candidate, and the one who has the more feminine consensus management style, and the not-blinded-by-testosterone ability to object to a phony war.”

Source: Hot Air

As the incessant march for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination continues, probably the most entertaining aspect is watching the mainstream media take sides. And although many of their liberal icons — most notably Ted Kennedy and Pat Leahy — are endorsing Barack Obama, Hillary is still the subject of loving puff-pieces like this one from ABC News: "Is Clinton Scrutinized About Her Looks Too Much?"

But some outlets are obsessed with the presence of Bill Clinton trampling the underbrush beneath his wife’s dainty feet out on the campaign trail. Many of the stories focus on whether he is an asset or a liability, but most all of them lapse into a rhapsodic paeans to the allures of the forty-second president; heaping honor, glory and praise on the brilliant, sexy, charismatic, and oh-so empathetic Teflon one.

Now far be it from me to give aid and comfort to the Obama campaign; truth be told, all conservatives should be praying for a Clinton nomination. But if certain members of the press who are friendly to the Big O really want to dig up some dirt on the odious operations of team Clinton, here’s a little clue: Bill Clinton was impeached.

Yes, he was. A majority of the U.S. House of Representatives voted to impeach Clinton on a count each of perjury and obstruction of justice. And although he was acquitted after a sham trial in the Senate, he settled a sexual harassment lawsuit out of court with Paula Jones for $850,000, was cited for contempt of court, was fined and disbarred for five years from practicing law in Arkansas, and resigned from the Supreme Court bar rather than suffer further humiliation as the first U.S. president to be permanently disbarred from practice there.

All of this was a consequence of his blatant lies under oath to a grand jury and to the American people, as well as his various attempts to cover up his and Hillary’s convoluted dealings in the infamous Whitewater scandal. This is the caliber of man whom voters are now supposed to trust when he sings the praises of his better half.
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Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign had not answered by press time an inquiry as to whether the New York Senator and candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination would support a plank in the 2008 Democratic platform apologizing for the party’s extensive past support for slavery and segregation as well as blocking the immigration of Asians.

Press reports have indicated Senator Edward Kennedy endorsed the New York senator’s opponent, Illinois Senator Barack Obama, in part because of his anger that former President Bill Clinton had injected race into the campaign.

The two racial issues, plus the mass immigration of Chinese and other Asians to America, played key roles in both the history of the nation and the Democratic Party.

Missed in all the startled furor over what Kennedy and many discomfited liberals are seeing as the Clinton tactic of racializing the fight against Obama, an African American, is the ease with which it happened. With his wife pressed by Obama, the first serious black presidential candidate in the party’s history, without missing a beat the former president simply slid into the rhythm of the old stand-by used by Democrats for generations — the politics of race. Unexpectedly, Bill Clinton’s conduct has now turned attention to what is in fact a very long, very deep and very intimate history between Democrats and the exploitation of racial questions — and not just relationships between whites and blacks, either. For first-time young voters considering voting for Clinton, the history may surprise.

If Senator Clinton were to introduce a plank at the Denver Convention apologizing for the party’s racial history, what specific things would she have the party apologize for?

The race question has most frequently been dealt with at conventions in party platforms, beginning with the very first Democrat Convention in 1840. A review of the platforms that the party has put forward as both settled policy for the party and prospective governing policy for the nation if elected reveals the following about the party’s official views on racial issues:

* 6 platforms, from 1840 -1860, supported the slavery of African-Americans.

* 1 platform, in 1864, called the then on-going Civil War a "failure" and demanded negotiations with the Confederacy that could have led to the retaining of slavery in certain states.

* 1 platform, in 1868, stated the party’s opposition to what it termed "negro supremacy."

* 1 platform, 1872, called for "universal amnesty" for those who fought against the Union, including slaveholders.

* 10 platforms, 1876-1900 and again in 1908, 1920 and 1924 opposed Chinese or "Asiatic" immigration, claiming Asian immigrants were "a race not sprung from the same great parent stock" and "being unaccustomed to the traditions of a progressive civilization" (1876). In 1880 the platform proclaimed Chinese immigrants as "servile races, unfitted by habits, training, religion, or kindred, for absorption into the great body of our people, or for the citizenship which our laws confer." In 1908 an entire section entitled "Asiatic Immigrants" was written, stating "we are opposed to the admission of Asiatic immigrants who cannot be amalgamated with our population, or whose presence among us would raise a race issue."

* 1 platform, 1900, ignored race completely even as segregation was tightening its grip under the guidance of Democratic Party officeholders throughout the South. By contrast, the 1900 GOP Convention stated: "It was the plain purpose of the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution, to prevent discrimination on account of race or color in regulating the elective franchise. Devices of State governments, whether by statutory or constitutional enactment, to avoid the purpose of this amendment are revolutionary, and should be condemned."

* 1 platform, 1904, devotes a section to "Sectional and Racial Agitation," claiming the GOP’s protests against segregation and the denial of voting rights to blacks sought to "revive the dead and hateful race and sectional animosities in any part of our common country," which in turn "means confusion, distraction of business, and the reopening of wounds now happily healed."

* 4 platforms, 1908-1920 are silent on blacks, segregation, lynching, and voting rights as racial problems in the country mount. By contrast the GOP platforms in each of those years specifically address "Rights of the Negro" (1908), opposes lynchings (in 1912, 1920, 1924, 1928) and, as the New Deal kicks in, speaks out about the dangers of making blacks "wards of the state."

* 1 platform, 1924, was the product of the Democrats’ convention known to history as the "Klanbake" in Clinton’s own New York. The 103-ballot convention was held in Madison Square Garden. Hundreds of delegates were members of the Ku Kux Klan, the Klan so powerful that a plank condemning Klan violence was defeated outright. To celebrate the Klan staged a rally with 10,000 hooded Klansmen in a field in New Jersey directly across the Hudson from the site of the Convention. Attended by hundreds of cheering Convention delegates, the rally featured burning crosses and calls for violence against African Americans and Catholics.

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Cheering supporters? Check. Election returns on the projection screen? Check. Andrea Mitchell and Candy Crowley doing stand-ups? Check and check. In fact, the only piece missing from Hillary Clinton’s Florida victory party here Tuesday night was a victory.

Yes, Clinton, as expected, beat Barack Obama by a wide margin in the Florida primary. But all the Democratic candidates had agreed months ago to boycott the contest after the Democratic National Committee stripped Florida of its delegates to punish the state for moving up its primary date. The result was a primary without purpose, a show about nothing.

But in a political stunt worthy of the late Evel Knievel, the Clinton campaign decided to put on an ersatz victory party that, it hoped, would erase memories of Obama’s actual victory Saturday night in South Carolina’s Democratic primary. "Thank you, Florida Democrats!" Clinton shouted to the cheering throng. "I am thrilled to have this vote of confidence."

It was a perfect reproduction of an actual victory speech, delivered at a perfectly ersatz celebration at a perfectly pretend location: a faux Italianate palace with lion sculptures, indoor fountains and a commanding view of Interstate 595. The Signature Grand ("Elegant Weddings and Grand Social Occasions") was also holding receptions Tuesday night for a pediatric practice and for a group of optometry students, but the Clinton campaign was the biggest draw: It filled the Silver Palm Room, the Golden Palm Room and the Emerald Palm Room.

But even some of the faithful in the hall doubted that the big margin for Clinton, flashed on a projection screen, was an accurate gauge of the race here. "Probably not," said Eleanor Forte, on the outer rim of the celebration. "If they had campaigned here, it probably would have come out differently."

That was a nuance the Clinton campaign was hoping to overlook as it sought retroactively to give weight to the Florida primary. "I am a gutter-ball bowler," Clinton said as she campaigned Sunday night in the state in which she had pledged not to campaign. The remark, overheard by a Miami Herald reporter, was no doubt meant literally; she was standing outside Lucky Strike Lanes in Miami Beach. But in politics, too, Clinton has recently been putting some questionable rotation on the ball.

First came the South Carolina primary, in which she and her husband tried unsuccessfully to morph Barack Obama into Jesse Jackson. Then came word Sunday that she would fly here to celebrate her "victory" in the Florida primary — even though she and the other Democratic candidates long ago declared it null and void. She said she wanted restoration of the stripped delegates from disobedient Florida and Michigan (where Clinton, the only major candidate on the ballot, beat "uncommitted," 55 percent to 40 percent).

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Barack Obama may have received his biggest pre-Super Tuesday boost, but it didn’t come from an endorsement. John Edwards has decided to quit the presidential race today, ending his second populist bid in as many cycles. The removal of Edwards from the February 5th contests gives Democrats a chance to coalesce any anti-Hillary Clinton sentiment behind a single candidate:

Democrat John Edwards is exiting the presidential race Wednesday, ending a scrappy underdog bid in which he steered his rivals toward progressive ideals while grappling with family hardship that roused voters’ sympathies, The Associated Press has learned.

The two-time White House candidate notified a close circle of senior advisers that he planned to make the announcement at a 1 p.m. EST event in New Orleans that had been billed as a speech on poverty, according to two aides. The decision came after Edwards lost the four states to hold nominating contests so far to rivals who stole the spotlight from the beginning — Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

The former North Carolina senator will not immediately endorse either candidate in what is now a two-person race for the Democratic nomination, said one adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the announcement.

Unlike other candidates who have dropped from contention, Edwards actually has a significant number of delegates. They can now vote for whomever they desire at the convention, although an Edwards endorsement will likely carry a lot of weight. However, the influence of Edwards goes well beyond delegate counts, and both of the remaining candidates know it.

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