Temptation in the Garden of Barack Obama

(This is long. You may want to bring a book.)

I don't know what to think about Barack Obama. I want to like him. I do kind of like him in a respectful sort of way, except for his too-serious nature. I prefer my leaders to be spontaneous and given to fun: he is somber and dour. He has rather an economical sense of humor for my taste. I don't need zany, mind you, but a little Churchill would be nice or JFK or Reagan? Teddy and FDR are out of the question, I suppose.

Last night he seemed less bored, less bothered that he had to actually appear at the debate rather than phone it in.

He looks typical though of today's coming of age ruling class, 30 to 50 year olds, a blend of middle aged baby boomer power seekers and very, very rich gen x technocrats. All of them of course are auditioning for jobs in one power arena or another. They all think they're in charge. The me-first kids.

The more serious ones carry a hallmark: they are almost all short on manners--something I see when their mothers and wives are not around, mostly their mothers--and facts; when asked to support an outrageous statement, they typically change the subject and say something like, "but what's more important is..."

God bless them, they're like brand new religious converts, very zealous in their self-conscious, kiss-my-behind way, as-if-they-invented-it opinions and empty Armani styles. Some are shallow and intolerant of people they do not like. Actually, none of this is new, at least in politics. What is new is there's a woman in the room.

But to be fair, I'd like to look farther into this, to see where these whippersnapper Obama people might take us. Could they be right? They're the ones I'm talking about--those who have figured out the values issues (money, status issues, gone beyond the shallow stuff and Armani, ). Where are they in all this? Are they guilt ridden whites, angry, black reactionaries, what? And what is Barack Obama really about? I'm still not sure because all I'm hearing is something very repetitive and meaningless in the long term.

Boomer Box Barack
It is not necessary for Senator Obama to use his outdoor James Earl Jones voice in the preacher tone to get through to my little white pea brain. In fact, it insults the crap out of me, especially coming from a politician. After all, Barack (Barry) Obama is half white, a fact that no one has mentioned anywhere but--ahem--here. Well, he might get some white votes that way. By preaching, I mean.

Okay. We're family. I have to admit. I have fantasies. I've actually thought about voting for Obama.

Maybe, I thought, just maybe he could put the brakes on this black versus white undercurrent we have going on in this country, and the sky would open up, and a celestial choir would sing, and then I wondered...

Who is this Obama guy, anyway?
Senator Obama didn't exactly come up from the hood. He grew up in Hawaii, the only black kid in his class in an expensive Hawaiian prep school and was raised by liberal white grandparents. He did his undergraduate work at University of Hawaii and Occidental College, an expensive church school, got his JDs at the Ivies, then hit the streets as an activist, i.e., organizer, (will someone tell me what that is and who pays for it?). Then he ran for office, lost; ran again and he won; ran for the U.S. Senate and won.

Senator Obama, Michelle and the kids live in a monstrosity in Chicago some obviously grateful Chicaaaagoan gave him between hambiggers and da Bears games. *

Senator Obama says his dad is from Kenya and was the son of a poor goat herder. Actually, his dad was from a family of goat herders; they have thousands of acres of land and thousand of goats and homes worth many, many goat hides. Goat herding has been very good to them. His dad, an economist who worked for the Kenyan government, abandoned him and his mother when Senator Obama was 2. Unfortunately, Obama, Sr. committed suicide later in Senator Obama's childhood. The senator bonded with his Kenyan kin in 2000.

There's not much out there about the white side of Senator Obama's family except his mother came from Kansas and met his father while at the University of Hawaii. It's interesting her background is so muted. As a politico, I have to assume there are problems with the black vote and it's being done to keep attention from his mulattoness. Too bad. As someone who is very liberal in the civil rights area, it's almost as disappointing to me as Michelle's revealing statements--kind of like a slap, a pitcher of cold water in my face as if none of America's white activists sacrificed enough or were good enough for her or him or had done enough to help the civil rights movement.

Such ambivalence, frankly, causes me to wonder if Senator Obama knows himself as much as he claims to. I don't want Obama as president if he can't give credit where credit is due.

Senator Obama's policy stands
Of course, in the debate last night, no one corrected the candidate as he cavalierly cited some phantom, made up stats and notions on the war or on anything for else that matter (NAFTA) so I was left screaming, "Will someone please challenge him?!"

I disagree completely with Senator Obama's stance on Iraq and for that reason alone I could not and would not vote for him. Besides, he's grinding the truth so much even my teeth hurt.

Mrs. Clinton, of course, is also lying through her own teeth and will stay in Iraq for as long as we need. I trust her take the Iraq War to its conclusion. She knows the stakes. I'm telling you, this woman is tough. Too bad she's not a Republican. She'd be a good moderate.

As far as the Senator's hindsight, it is laughable. He has actually minimized the middle east situation into a game of R isk (Tom Hayden is one of his advisers? I heard Dick Gregory's looking for a gig--he'll provide his own case of Ensure.) He speaks in terms of whether the world "likes" us, using it in the same sentence with the strategy word. I don't feel he has a sense of understanding threats to the country, from Muslim terrorist states and terrorists themselves.

Here's the thing. Can Senator Obama, who believes in Israel's right to exist, as he declared last evening with such ferocity, as well as plainly shunning Louis Farrakhan's endorsement, be so naive as to place Israel at risk as we abandon Iraq? Worse, is he that horribly stupid or is he actually lying?

In which case, what? We elect a face? A leader? An orator? A shill? A henpecked man? Take a chance?

Maybe the only differences among all three candidates are the domestic ones, in which case, what are the real differences? There is a national election in which there will be two distinct choices.

The temptation has passed.


Thanks for the read.

*Personally I am very proud that race relations in this country have reached the point where a black woman, Michelle Robinson Obama, was literally given funds and scholarships for entrance into Ivy League schools, while my kids schlepped through state schools, a fabulous house in Chicago and a bitchin' career in a big city--all during my adult lifetime. On top of it all, she may even get to be first lady, all by accident of birth, almost like an white European princess. Wow. What a country!

Hillary. Fly to Reno and divorce Bill. Tonight.

You could still win the primary next week!

Seriously.

Feminists are reaping what they sowed. They turned the other way while their gal got under a powerful man to get to the top--not a particularly feminist way of, well, making it.

Sure 'nuf. Here she is, almost at the busting-through place, and now she can't! Why? She has to play nicey-nice because all the little 30 and 40 year-old spoiled media boys and girls don't like older women who yell; and then call her names and comment on her looks. (Yeah, I did too. I was wrong.) Besides, they have much more fun with people their own age--like that nice Obama boy down the street. Too bad most of them can't read. Hillary should have come out mean and got meaner. She had nothing to lose.

The problem is she's not authentic and everyone knows it. That's why women run from her when the real thing came along. Too bad. They'd have stayed probably, but with Bill, that selfish SOB, who sidelined Hillary, and couldn't even let her have this, no way, especially when he embarrassed her so badly in the campaign. Bill has literally ruined her life. What a particularly bitter experience for this woman.

Jeez. What a crock. They're each other's trophies. Sad.

Regardless, I don't like how the press has treated Senator Clinton, even if she has deserved some of it. Some. After so much toughness this far in the campaign, she deserves much, much more respect. After all, she is an individual running for president, not a woman running for president and that's what's pissing me off.

Yeah, Hillary. If you divorce Bill, I'll vote for ya. And get every woman I know to do it too. This is the only way to avoid humiliation and come out on top by yourself.

More on Prince Barack tomorrow.

Thanks for the read.

Polishing my opinion of Barack Obama...

This will be ongoing with discoveries and my reactions as the campaign rolls along. I've a few already. I suspect there will be many, many more. Let's look at the candidate together for a change.


A Che Guevera poster hangs in his campaign offices.

He refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance early in his campaign for president.

He says he was not raised in a Muslim madrassa; there are indications that he was. Would this make the president of the US more Jihadist target?

This could or could not be a problem, depending upon your point of view. After all, as president he's a target anyway and might well be safer! That may be moot.

Those are three issues which need verification and debate. Frankly, until they hit the major news outlets, I'm not going to think about them yet. They do bother me a lot though if they are true.

America has been very good to you, Michelle
How disappointing to hear Michelle Obama, Barack's accomplished wife, confess this is the first time in her adult life she is really proud of her country.

Really, Michelle? That same country that sent you to an Ivy League school? The same one who just freed 78 million people in Iraq, 28 million in Afghanistan, millions more in the twentieth century? Really, Michelle?

You mean the country that admits the horrors of what it has done to some of your ancestors and has actually ameliorated itself to the point of finding ways for you, the great granddaughter of wronged people, to become a first lady of that country that you're just now proud of? Wow.

Just wow.

Thanks for the read.

Time for much needed R & R

But I'll be back in a few weeks or so, rough and ready with reasons why no one should vote for the Democrat come November.

Thanks for the read.

Limbaugh: "I don't wanna feel it" or "There ain't no Oxycontin at the Hanoi Hilton."

I've always held regular, good Dems to the task of taking on their own extremists. The most respectable Dem of all, Senator Joseph Lieberman, and others took their crazy left on. Not many others had the cajones; as I recall, their presidential candidates jumped through hoops at the Moveon.Org’s “convention.” Isn’t it interesting how the extremes on either side end up looking like one another?

I wanna be the leader! No, I wanna be the leader!
The embittered, power-hungry, wannabe neo-establishment of the Republican Party came out of their clubhouse this week, e.g., Dobson, who finally gets his excuse to vote for a fellow preacher, which what he's wanted all the time...not that's there's anything wrong with that. I wish he could be less abrasive about announcing his choice. Dobson's still a Republican, isn't he

And Limbaugh? Well, it's clear what little Rushie does when he gets mad. He lashes out. Then when one of the greater generation, Bob Dole, asks him respectfully to knock it off, he disses the Senator as if he has nothing more to say.

It’s show time!
This is about power, mostly. These small-souled boys and girls (Ingraham, Coulter) from Hodunk, Wherever, have hit the mother lode and if they make more noise, they achieve more of a sense of power and control. It probably feels good to have millions of people think you're the smartest person in the room, if you're totally out of touch with reality and you haven't landed emotionally. None of these people seemed to have done so, except for Dobson, perhaps. Maybe. Otherwise, why the meaness?

I feel that at the bottom of this unfortunate internicine war being waged against Senator McCain, our presumptive candidate, their fellow Republican, POW, and war hero is human jealousy. Why else would you put the country, the party and the McCains through this if not for your respective inconoclastic, selfish, prurient reasons, Mr. Limbaugh, Dr. Dobson. Mss. Coulter, Ingraham? Has he not won fair and square so far? Has he run a corrupt campaign? Why this outrage?

It's my party, too
Moreover, for the right's information, Senator McCain has taken on many of the questionable items on the right's agenda in order to represent me, some the rest of us, another Republican, who hardly ever is allowed so much as a "Uh, gee, maybe we need to rethink some of this." McCain knew Rumsfeld was a problem; he said so. McCain knew our troop levels were inadequate; he said so. The examples go on.

What the right wing doesn't want to accept is that they have not won the Republican Party's heart and soul. They're sore losers and bad sports, which is interesting considering they loved their greatest generation mythology (the greatness of their own people, their ancestors) so much they're standing in sand trying not to be real. They're on another planet now.

Yeah, we liked Reagan too. He wasn't, however, St. Ronald. As you recall, he had some differences within the party that looked suspiciously like betrayal to the right. He also had two families, like John McCain.

Yeah, we moderates understand what the principles of conservatism are and mostly agree. My favorite insult, by the way, from Rush Limbaugh is I have no values if I'm a moderate. Do you love it? It is precisely my values of compromise, fair play and common ground shared by most Republicans, which save us from the inflexibility, the intolerance of other's ideas, the egos, the hubris, the reationary mistakes made that comes with too much power on either side. I hired myself for the job as a moderate Republican to keep my eye on people like Limbaugh to make sure he's not speaking for me.

I bought this microphone, Mr. Limbaugh
These silly, ridiculous talking heads couldn't even endure one day of the torture and abuse from primary elections, let alone what John McCain took for years; after all, Oxycontin wasn't usually approved for pain at the Hanoi Hilton.

Thanks for the read

Call to Mr. Blackwell: Talk to Hillary about those awful suits, please!

Someone at Menopause Central needs to slip a call to Mr. Blackwell. Maybe then Hillary would get the hint. Good grief. You're a woman; dress like one. She has lovely hair, skin, jewelry and her coloring is beautiful so there's no reason for her to look like her staff, the Huns, just hijacked a Salvation Army truck.

Gold is definitely not her color
She must associate gold with royalty. I noticed she's worn it three times in one week: one was a wide lapelled, ugly, ugly pantsuit (does this woman have legs or do we have to wait for her own memorial to find out?). She wore that one twice. Then the second one, a more understated number, plain as Jane, but gold. The only difference in most of her get-ups is the color, usually dark.

Then there was another attempt--the gray and black Nehru suit top--which she's thrown on three or four times. Of course, that power jacket got its share of laughs.

She has worn her wardrobe out, I'd say. If she's going to president of the United States, I would appreciate her trying to become more fashionable. She ought to look at Andrea Mitchell, for instance. She has fabulous taste and knows what looks good on camera. You'll have to forgive my insensitivity to the old gal, but really, she's trying to tell young women they gotta look ugly too to become president? No wonder older white men do not like her. The fact that she refuses to act the part bothers me.

Just find something more refined, Mrs. Clinton. Clothes don't only make the man, they also make the woman regardless of size.

Thanks for the read.

Californians to Mitt Romney: Yeah, but can you type?

I'm of the generation who actually remembers his late dad, George Romney's, try for the White House. He was a good man as I recall, but then America would never have elected an LDS member as president. He gave the party establishment a run for their money, but it was always a long shot for George Romney. So it is for his son, Mitt.

In this all-war-is-bad atmosphere, even if the war is in self-defense, the idea of another businessman, like George Bush, taking over the country scares the beakers out of me. How many Mulligans do we get with this Pentagon/CIA/FBI thing, especially if the Dems get the White House?

During my corporate career I worked for high-level executives (two CEOs of international corporations, a major ad agency owner, and some other very interesting people up and down the line) as a secretary/legal assistant to corporate counsel/technical and copywriter. Almost every one of my successful bosses had this is common: they knew how to choose the right person to get the job done. Sometimes, they failed, but not often. Ninety-five percent of them probably got where they were because they broke the code early in their careers, knew how to beat out problems, found the secret to success: find and pay the right people, get existing deadwood out of the system, present and explain the project with passion, get buy in, then delegate. How simple is that? Why, it is pure MBA syllabus material.

Speaking of MBAs, George Bush, the manager, stayed with Donald Rumsfeld because, frankly, Dubya, a businessman, didn't have the experience to run this or any other war. That's another managerial trait I observed: if don't know what you're doing, fake it, then find someone to do it for you...just buy your way out of trouble. The second one is delaying the inevitable action because your fellow managers are also your dad's personal friends.

As a Republican, I hate that precious political capital was wasted by this president because of this hands-off attitude. This tendency to misplace loyalty, by the way, has been a wall over which mavericks, independents and outsiders to the party know they'll never scale. Republicans tend to give the nomination to those who "deserve" it. Like George Bush, because, aw shucks, his dad was such a good guy and good Republican. It's just how it is. Republicans have done this forever and I hate it. Every time I bring it up, inevitably, a young, buttoned-down kid tries to placate me in the most condescending, patronizing languge one would ever hear if he were below the age of 40. It's is what it is. Nothing is new under the sun, thank God.

Meanwhile, Romney got his money from his pop and is a businessman who performed well when he ran the Olympics. He became governor of Massachusetts. As far as I know, he may be just another zillionaire running for president who hasn't been any closer to "knowing" about war--in the biblical sense--or what war really is. He thinks he does.

Am I saying a president should have a nodding acquaintance with things military? Right now, at this time in our history?

Probably. Maybe just a little bit?

Romney's empty suitedness bothers me more than anything. Besides, Governor Romney has broken my cardinal rule: never trust a man whose fingernails and hair look better than your your own (if you're a girl).

Nice manicure, Mitt.

Thanks for the read.