Arkansas Blog

HUCKABEE! Well f**k me.
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McCain should consider Joe Lieberman or Mark Pryor for his running mate.

Will he defend the support of the National Black Panther Party too? If so, he better start working on the defense because the NBPP just posted a message of support on Obama's blog.

James make us a list of everything you choose to believe that's posted on a political blog.
Take all the time you need, say two or three days.
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Fox News, not a political blog.

I'll say it, I don't care: Huckabee was right in this instance. His empathy with the black struggle was actually very Christian-like too--I was surprised.

Although I must say, this piece fits well into the anti-Huckabee/pro-Hillary (and de facto anti-Obama) theme.

James, stop your shallow guilt-by-association argument.

What make you of the fact that the KKK supports the republicans to keep a white president? It goes both ways.

Arguments and mentalities like yours are the reason why Republicans will probably fabricate stories like "Islamofacists support Obama" sometime during the election cycle so that dipshits will vote en masse for McCain. Book it.(In fact, they're already doing something like that.)

People who lack the ability to assimilate information, draw relationships between events, observe nuance, etc. are the usual victims.

Did I not say yesterday that evangelicals are more comfortable with God Damn America fire and brimstone and condemnation than most anyone? Plenty of prophets in the OT were rougher than that. I think Obama picked up some of the Christian vote with this, believe it or not.

I agree with JD - Not all Republicans are in the Klan, but everyone in the Klan votes Republican. Should that mean McCain supports the Klan? Will you be sending him a sheet, James?

Who do you expect the Black Panthers to support? Hillary?

The argument of "guilty by association" is precisely what the Obama/Wright story is all about. I don't know how close Obama is associated with Wright or the NBPP and I don't care.
My point is that any association with a group considered by many as anti-Semitic is probably not good for his presidential run.
JD - you are right to say that the Republicans are most likely launching such public attacks on Obama. Their desire is to push voters away from him and toward HC. They believe that America is less likely to vote for a female than an African-American with strong leadership skills, making it easier on them in the general election.
elwood - I believe very little of anything political that I read, especially what I read here. This blog is simply a playground for wannabe politicos (to include myself) to vent their lopsided views on others who once logging off couldn't care less.

Meghan the Presidential Daughter might be as entertaining as Billy the Presidential Brother. But I'd rather hear such pronouncements from the candidate.

"Guilt by association" !!!

I'm waiting for the post on Obama's blog from the Voodoo chieftains.
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"elwood - I believe very little of anything political that I read, especially what I read here."

However you evidently believed this:

>>Will he defend the support of the National Black Panther Party too? If so, he better start working on the defense because the NBPP just posted a message of support on Obama's blog.<<

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Meanwhile back at the ranch...

It's the Iraq war's fifth anniversary, while I think its wise of Hillary to praise Petraeus (who has done a tremendous job after being given an extremely tough circumstance) ... I do have a problem with Hillary's camp trying to claim the mantle of her being "the war's biggest critic" while Obama "only gave one speech."

She has yet to admit an honest mistake in voting for that war and while she is supposedly the "war's biggest critic", she is still falling into the same political mindset that led to her voting for the war: the political idea that venturing too far away from the hardline repubs exposes her and makes a makes a candidate vulnerable to being labeled "weak on defense"

In my mind its the same faulty logic that Bill fell into (one of only a few mistakes of an otherwise brilliant Presidency):
And that is giving too much of the benefit of the doubt to the so called hawks or military experts when it comes to military decisions. The same well thought out decision making and clear leadership that worked so well for economic decisions should also be applied to military decisions. I believe that is why Clinton deferred to the nay sayers when there was a clear moral imperative for going into Rawanda or being so quick to pull away from Somalia.

The reverse is now true for Iraq...well these "experts" believe we cannot pull out now!? Why? The people who have made every wrong decision up to this point should not be in charge of prognosticating potential outcomes if we, as a country, deviate from the current and failing gameplan.

IN STARK CONTRAST:

Today, Obama released a detailed plan that represents a real shift in our foreign policy approach (LINK IN MY NAME)

Hillary should be so bold, she is bold about mandates why not about Iraq?

There's a reason why Clinton was mum about Obama's church controversy: she has bigger skeletons in her closet.

The Nation has a piece written up (link in my name).

Excerpt:

Clinton fell in with The Family in 1993, when she joined a Bible study group composed of wives of conservative leaders like Jack Kemp and James Baker. When she ascended to the Senate, she was promoted to what Sharlet calls the Family's "most elite cell," the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast, which included, until his downfall, Virginia's notoriously racist Senator George Allen. This has not been a casual connection for Clinton. She has written of Doug Coe, The Family's publicity-averse leader, that he is "a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God."

Furthermore, The Family takes credit for some of Clinton's rightward legislative tendencies, including her support for a law guaranteeing "religious freedom" in the workplace, such as for pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions and police officers who refuse to guard abortion clinics.

What drew Clinton into the sinister heart of the international right? Maybe it was just a phase in her tormented search for identity, marked by ever-changing hairstyles and names: Hillary Rodham, Mrs. Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton and now Hillary Clinton. She reached out to many potential spiritual mentors during her White House days, including New Age guru Marianne Williamson and the liberal rabbi Michael Lerner. But it was the Family association that stuck.

Sharlet generously attributes Clinton's involvement to the under-appreciated depth of her religiosity, but he himself struggles to define The Family's theological underpinnings. The Family avoids the word Christian but worships Jesus, though not the Jesus who promised the earth to the "meek." They believe that, in mass societies, it's only the elites who matter, the political leaders who can build God's "dominion" on earth. Insofar as The Family has a consistent philosophy, it's all about power--cultivating it, building it and networking it together into ever-stronger units, or "cells." "We work with power where we can," Doug Coe has said, and "build new power where we can't."

I'm a "wannabe politico"!
And everybody said I'd never amount to nothin'.

That's a big reach, JD.
As I have stated before, we need to stop this infighting.
No Insane McCain in November!!!

The Nation is arguably one of the most respected magazines out there. Many popular, cogent progressives have come out of it. I'm not sure if it's really a reach. Clearly, the opinion of the author is soaked throughout the article, but I think it's fair to say one could easily (especially if that one is a progressive) find ample to criticize Hillary's religious background. That weighed, balanced analysis certainly won't happen here.

I agree with your point about infighting, but pretty simply, Hillary's the one dragging her lost battle on. I've addressed the reasons why in other posts. It's now escalated to a power struggle between the DNC and DLC. Her continued belligerence is a testament to her ego.

Wait til I tell the ladies at my mom's beauty shop that changing hairstyles frequently means you're tormented. Okay, that *and* changing your name several times over the course of a 30-year political career during which a woman keeping her last name after marriage goes from rare to routine to not important enough to notice.

I think Huckabee is well on his way to a successful cable TV career. Even I like him much more now that he's not Governor. He just wasn't made to govern...he was made to comment.

Meanwhile, I found McCain's daughter to be a hoot! I don't think she and I will see eye-to-eye on the war, but I'd gladly have a few Bud Lights with her!

Cartoon...click on Cato

JD, I think the Nation article is just plain silly. Almost any prayer group could be considered a bad thing by a lot of progressives. This prayer group has been widely known about, isn't secret and doesn't appear to be sinister at all. I suspect her attendance stemmed more from trying to repair an image than any mystical, evil motives.

Nuts like those currently expounding the BuzzFlash, Huffington Post (my favorite), the Nation, etc., are going to insure that the befuddled McCain gets to play war with our kids out of the Oval Office for at least 4 years.

I also resent the fact that these ravings are making us all look a little smaller and nuttier - guilt by association I guess.........