Yesterday, there were stories on this website and others about Hillary
 Clinton's and Barack Obama's positions on allowing driver's licenses to
 illegal aliens.  I am not writing to argue about who said what when,
 how, or why.  These are the postions, as they stand now:  Obama, yes.
  Hillary, no.

I have to say here that I agree with Obama, and I will tell you why.
  First of all, let me do my best to offer and then refute the main point
 I've heard from several people on this website, and others,
 particularly, on Huffington Post.  

*Allowing illegal immigrants to have driver's licenses excuses the fact
 that they broke the law to get into America.  
I do not believe that is true.  First of all, there are plenty of
 criminals who have driver's licenses.  And secondly, giving an illegal
 immigrant a license is not a reward.  What it does do is make sure that, 1.)
 They have passed a test that makes sure they at least understand the
 rules of the road, and 2.)  They may be able to get insurance, so that,
 if they do hit you, you will be covered by their liability insurance.
  I think it is also helpful to be able to know who is here illegally,
 and we need to do whatever we can to get as many as we can to come out of
 the shadows.   Above all, let's recognize two realities:  This is not
 in anyway a "good" solution, but it can be helpful.  And also, whether
 we give them licenses or not, the illegal immigrants will drive.  We
 can't find every illegal immigrant and banish them back from whence they
 came.  It is financially and logistically impossible.

If you take issue with my arguments, please do us both the favor and
 come back with intelligent arguments, not rude, snide, unconstructive
 comments that do nothing to add to anything.

To be honest here, the license issue is a tiny, and fairly
 insignificant part of this debate.  The larger questions are:  How big a problem is
 illegal immigration?  And who's fault is it, really?

To answer the former, illegal immigration is a problem in this country,
 but it is not an existential threat to America or American democracy,
 or even the American economy.  Again, illegal immigration is A FACTOR
 in the US economy, but let's not pretend that it's not a factor which
 is, at times, both beneficial and detrimental to the country at large.
  Because, the truth of the matter is, if you really want to stop illegal
 immigration, that can be done, but you have to take on those who are
 ACTUALLY responsible for it.

So many people on this website and on HuffPo, especially, attacked
 immigrants on a personal and visceral level.  Its a classic case of
 attacking the symptom and not the disease.  The truth is that illegal
 immigrants are a symptom, of the disease.  Too many, in the comments that were
 posted, blamed illegal immigrants for the low-paying jobs that they
 (illegal immigrants) work, saying that those jobs pay what they do simply
 because the illegal immigrants come here.  To me, that's kind of like
 saying the sun appeared in the sky because the earth showed up in the
 solar system with life already on it, and it needed something to sustain
 it.  

Illegal immigrants haven't stolen anyone's jobs.  Corporations GAVE
 those jobs away to the lowest bidder.  I beg all reasonable people, do not
 blame the poor, desperate soul whose misfortune it was to bid the
 lowest price.   Illegal immigrants come here to work because companies, big
 and small, are more than willing to hire them, so that they can save
 money by paying them a tiny pittance.  

What we do when we fault the illegal immigrant, instead of the company
 paying him, is to cast blame on the weak, when we should cast it on the
 strong.  Let's consider that millions of manufacturing jobs have
 disappeared in this country, not because illegal immigrants came and took
 them, but because Big Business shipped them overseas to maximize profit.
  The jobs that they could not ship away, they cut the wages for, and
 of course, there was no way American workers could survive on that sorry
 pay.  So, someone whose fortunes were even lower---non-native
 Latinos---whose home countries are among the poorest in the world, began to
 pour into this country, legally and illegally, to do work that Americans
 cannot afford to do.  And since we've always had a government beholden
 to money as opposed to people, very little was done to stop the influx.

It's fine if you think illegal immigration is a problem, I think it is
 an issue too.  I also think that the debate presently taking place
 represents is the next wedge issue in a long pathetic line of wedge issues.
  If good people allow this issue to become clouded, if we allow the
 immigrant to become the enemy, while the Corporations represent the real
 threat, we will pay the price for our petty blindness.  

What's happened in this country, time and again, is that so-called
 "leaders," when they've run out of places to hide, find someone to blame
 for the woes of the people's whose votes they need most.  In recent
 elections, we've been told:  "Flag burners, they're the one's who are
 responsible for your lot in life....Those Hollywood liberals, they're the
 reason your kids aren't learning....Those gay people, they're the reason
 you're losing you're footing, and the Great Middle Class is
 disappearing."  And now it's "Those Mexicans, it's their fault that you lost your
 job, your house, your stability---blame them!"

Are we really going to fall for this again?  We've allowed people to
 pit group against group, race against race, hope against hope.
  When---when, I ask you, are we going to cast aside our lower demons, and give in
 to our better angels?  It was President Clinton who told us in 1993
 that our commitment to each other as Americans was codified in the
 realization that "but for fate, we the fortunate and the unfortunate, might
 have been one another."  He spoke of that commitment we have to one
 another as Americans, I speak of that same commitment we have to one
 another as human beings.  The human race has wasted too many years, too many
 centuries, on acrimony, division, hate, and evil.  How many centuries
 do you really think we have left?   These questions we face are not new,
 but we can CHOOSE to meet them with a new commitment---a commitment to
 approach these problems from a rational, humane stance, to find
 solutions that can last, and to seek a rising tide that will lift all boats.

I just wanted to ask this of people on this site, just to get a sense of what's the thinking on this.  I'm not going to use this particular instance to express my view.  But I do want to ask, do you believe this section of the 14th Amendment should be overturned, the one which says (paraphrasing):  That those people BORN in the United States are citizens thereof, and are entitled to the rights and priviledges of every citizen of the United States?  Considering the current illegal immigration problems in our country, should this be overturned to mean only those born to CURRENT citizens?

We live now in the age of the Pretenders.  There are Pretenders in
 government, Pretenders in religion, but the biggest Pretenders of all are
 in the press.  I am so tired, night after night, day after day, of
 watching or reading the dimwitted fools in the press make their conventional
 assumptions; too blind, too stupid, or just too invested to see that
 the conventions they've lived by are at the very heart of the problem.
  When one can only come to conclusions backed by
 irrelevant precedent, one ceases to use the mind for what it is best able
 to do--- to form original thought.  At this point of intellectual
 laziness, one ceases to bring new information, or especially, new insight.
  And if one fails to bring new insight, then what purpose does one serve,
 save that of a pathetic, inconsequential scribe?

The talking heads on television have become so enamored of themselves,
 so impressed by their imagined brilliance, that they no longer serve
 any legitimate purpose.  Why would I need 1000 channels that all run the
 same thing?  

Not only is their a lack of gravitas and original thought, there's also
 a lack of testicular fortitude.  The fact that no one is able to say
 that we were lied, yes lied, into the war in Iraq is ludicrous.  If this
 pussified press corps was worth anything, they could've shamed, even a
 Republican Congress, into impeaching Bush and Cheney.

So how have we come to this point?  We've come to this point because
 the two biggest groups of yellow-bellied weaklings in this country are
 the Democratic Party (and I am a Democrat), and the so-called Fourth
 Estate.  During the 1970s, the press showed that they, in fact were, a
 crucial part of our democracy; they dug up the information and then used it,
 on a criminal named Richard Milhous Nixon.  After that, and combined with the fact
 that press coverage played a crucial role in ending the death orgy known
 as Vietnam, the GOP was fed up  "These people" had to be stopped.

So every chance they had, the whiny Republicans complained about the
 "liberal press," or the "liberal media," the "Hollywood Left," the
 "Academic elites;" and instead of saying, "f--- you, you anti-intellectual,
 Gooberific, lying, hate-spewing little prigs," the groups attacked just
 went away into the corner to cry.  

The contemporary reaction of the press was to begin covering both sides
 of every story, and by both sides they meant the Right side and the
 Left side, not the correct side.  The belief that by covering both sides
 one somehow enlightens is childish in its ignorance.  As my mother has always
 told me, there may indeed be two sides to every story, but their is
 but one truth.   By covering two opposing sides for every story and asking
 the gentle viewer or reader to decide for themselves, the press has
 done nothing more than contribute to mass confusion.  So what's been done
 then is to lend weight and credibility to that which is weightless and
 incredible.  

So now we are trapped---trapped in an age where the lie is no longer
 the crime.  Calling the liar a liar has become the crime.  We are so
 preoccupied with false-civility that these journalists no longer
 investigate, they no longer prod or probe, they just write, or speak.  In that
 sense they've become precisely what the term that describes their
 profession says---journal/ists---just some fools keeping a diary.  

The one thing that journalists do pretend to do---analysis---is usually
 either inept or recycled.  It's always funny to see one journalist say
 something, we'll call him Journalist A; another one says something
 totally opposite on the same day, about the same subject, we'll call him
 B; and then hundreds of other journalists jump on B's bandwagon, and
 before we know it, A is the lead bandwagoneer!  The lack of independent
 thought among these people who claim to be such experts is laughable.  

ON IDIOT DEBATES

As of late, I have been of the mind that the vast majority of people,
 not just in America, but everywhere, are rather dim---not particularly
 intelligent.  As proof of that, we needn't look any further than the
 current immigration debate in our own country.   No one denies that
 illegal immigration is a problem in search of a solution, but illegal
 immigration is not going to topple this country.  And the use of the
 immigration issue for fear is as old as time, and as low as low gets.  

I am loathe to compare anyone to Adolf Hitler, but I'll have to make an
 exception just this once.  Hitler spent years demonizing the Jews,
 why?  Because the real problems facing Germany would've required
 level-headed nuance and years of hard work, but Hitler told the Germans that the
 Jews were to blame for all of their problems.  They were stealing
 German jobs, he said, wrecking the German economy, taking over the German
 society.  Sound familiar?  The scapegoat has been the mascot of all
 minorities at one point in time or another.

Now, what the Fuhrer's ploy was far worse and far more evil in its scope.
  I don't even believe that those who use the issue of illegal
 immigration actually hate illegal immigrants (not that that makes it any
 better).  But the two ploys are far from mutually exclusive.  

Our problem in this country has been, and remains, that we do not ask
 enough questions.  Some of us remain non-inquisitive because we have
 played into the hands of those who thrive on society's cynicism, and others
 of us simply because we are too dense to realize the time for
 questioning has come.   Whatever the causes, our collective silence has cost us
 collective power and collective progress.  

The reporting class---very class that should be inquisitive---has relinquished that role,
 especially when it comes to illegal immigration.  Instead of reporting
 the truth of the issue, that half of the illegal immigration problem is
 caused by illegal hiring; they ask divisive questions.  Questions like,
 should English be the official national language.  

Instead of saying that most of the problems with the economy in this
 country have to do with greed run amok; they report on some possibly
 well-intentioned fools who guard the border themselves, armed only with
 shotguns and ignorance.  Instead of saying that immigration is only the
 latest in a long line of distracting wedge-issues, proceeded by flag
 burning, gay marriage, and the resolution condemning Decepticons for
 infuriating the delicate sensibilities of Autobots; they spend time reporting
 on Brittney Spears' child-rearing habits, and Paris Hilton's substance
 abuse problems.  

ON THE COSUMER SOCIETY

In this era of materialism, it is appropriate, I think, to consider
 ourselves consumers---consumers of goods, of news, of government, of lies and
 truths, of empty slogans and half-hearted promises---consumers of the ideas
 that society offers.  

People often ask me why I get so passionate, and even angry, when
 expressing my thoughts on the current state of affairs.  The question I
 usually throw back is "why the hell aren't you angry?"  The time may well
 be approaching when we cease to be a functioning society, and as a
 member of this society, I refuse to go down quietly while it happens.  What
 we may need now is a revolution.  A peaceful revolution, but a
 revolution nonetheless.  But the time for such a revolution is now, the danger
 of unraveling, I believe, is real; and at that point, history has shown
 that violent upheaval is usually inevitable.  I pray that the people
 will awaken, that the government will be reborn, that the peaceful
 revolution is fully at hand.  But until such time, the age-old admonition
 applies to all consumers---let the buyer beware!

The whole Jena Six situation is finally making some real national news.  This whole situation, in what must obviously be a backward little Louisiana town, has pointed to a larger issue in American life.  Racism is alive and well.

We must come to realize the real significance of this situation:  For most of American history racism was en vogue.  Since the 1980s racism has been out of style.  Does that mean it doesn't exist?  Hell no!  Put simply, up through the 1970s most racism in this country was overt, today it is mostly covert.  But it still lives--not just survives--but lives.

Are all white people racist?  Most certainly not.  Do some black people play the race card whenever it suits them?  Most certainly yes.  But what's really frightened me here is not the fact that this happened.  No, what frightens me most is the willingness of some people on the LEFT to write this off as black whining.  You see the real race problem in America isn't that racism exists, for it exists in a much less potent and much less wide-spread form than it once did.  The real problem is white America's tendency to dismiss all racism as an invention of black people or the media.

Some instances of racism are invented.  The whole Don Imus thing was ridiculous.  Imus was stupid for saying what he said, but let's be honest here people, the Rutgers University women's basketball team had no idea who Don Imus was before that whole thing exploded.  But amazingly they were all distraught over his comments.  I know who Don Imus is and couldn't give a flying leap about anything the man says; I don't respect him enough for his words to cause me emotional injury.  As I hope is clear, I thought that whole thing was a manufactured controversy.

In this case, however, the racism was not invented.  Let us explore my assumption further, and perhaps come to a clearer understanding of what has happened in Jena, and what continues to happen in these United States.

Firstly, why in the name of Jesus Christ, Allah, Jehovah, Yaweh, Bhudda, or whoever you may pray to, would the teachers, administrators, parents, and just any damn body, let a so-called "white" tree of knowledge exist in the first place?  That tree is a crime in and of itself.  Anyone of the administrators or staff members who knew about this and did nothing should be fired immediately.   The tree was a race-riot waiting to happen.  

Secondly, the young white boy who was supposedly beaten to "within an inch of his life," was back at school that same night at an event.  I find his recovery miraculous.  Surely Christ Himself must have laid his healing hands upon the boy.  

Thirdly, why didn't the D.A. charge any of the white people involved in the fight or for that matter with the hanging of the noose in the school yard?  "There wasn't any specific crime to charge them with," you say?  How about inciting violence?  How about making a terrorist threat?  "Hanging the noose was a prank," you say?  Hitting someone in the head with a water balloon is a prank.  Hanging a noose in a goddamn schoolyard is an act of emotional and intellectual violence.  Hanging that noose was a terrorist threat just as me running through the airport scream, "I've been sent by Al Qaeda and I'm going to bomb you," would be a terrorist threat.  

Moreover, this was a fight.  It's not as if the six African American boys who have been charged with crimes, broke into the other students' houses to beat the piss out of them.  The two groups confronted each other; a confrontation that would not have happened if not for the noose.   All of these children were guilty of public brawling, but only the black children were charged with crimes, attempted murder (originally) greatest among the charges.

I know what else you will say, gentle reader, Michael Bell has priors.  Okay.  That doesn't change the fact that this situation was allowed to foment, until it festered to the bubbling hatred that erupted in the aforementioned brawl.  That, lest I'm mistaken, is an extenuating factor.  In addition, in a town where the race situation was and is obviously horrible, the trial should've have been ordered to change venues, at very least to Baton Rouge, a more diverse city.

Above, I have laid out the facts.  Here now, I will lay out the underlying problems.

To begin with, there are not enough white people who are outraged at this.  On many a "liberal," or "progressive," or whatever it is you'd like to be called, website, I've seen attention paid today to an idiot vote in the United States Senate to condemn Moveon.org for an ad attacking General Patraeus.  No one, and I'm mean NO ONE, should be talking about this vote at all except to point to the stupidity of the vote itself.  Not to say who voted yea or nay, not to complain about the GOP's never-ending ability to turn bullshit into a legislative matter.  But while I've seen people pay attention to this, scarce is the reference to what happened in Jena, except maybe to attack Barack Obama for not going down there.  He isn't the only one who should've been more concerned--every American should have been.

It angers me that some Caucasians tend to equate every cry of racism as feigned.  What angers me more is the lack of empathy from far too many.  I don't expect white people to understand what it is to be black in America, but it'd be nice if more attempted a little empathy.  I expect them to understand that not every problem in Black America is self-imposed, and simultaneously, not every problem is white-imposed.  And to the latter, some blacks must become adjusted as well.  

Writing off all calls of racism is not only dangerous but also telling.  Those who do make that write-off, dismiss the issue of race in general and particularly the long history of race in America.     To say that racism does not exist where it does is to disrespect those who fought, year in and year out, both black and white, to let justice roll down like a mighty stream.  At the same time, those who cry racism at every turn and for every personal folly, and every interpersonal slight, commit the same sin.

So, what does all this mean?  If only I were smart enough to know.  What I do know is that while we have come far on the issue of race, we have not come nearly far enough.  What I can only humbly offer is that we--and to borrow a phrase from James Baldwin--I mean we, the relatively conscious blacks, and the relatively conscious whites, don't find some kind of way to forge ahead, we will certainly destroy all the progress that we've made.

If you've ever read Baldwin's the Fire Next Time, you know that: "If we do not now dare everything, the fulfillment of that prophecy, re-created from the Bible in song by a slave is upon us: God gave Noah the rainbow sign.  No more water, the fire next time."

The Obama campaign is apparently run by a group pusing for him to be elected President of the Student Council.  

I just finished yelling at David Axelrod's dumb-ass on Hardball.  Everytime Matthews opened his mouth, Axelrod should've said Hillary Clinton is the irresponsible and naive one for authorizing this fucking war.  But no.  Wolfsohn, says that it didn't take courage for Obama to stand up and speak against the war, because Illinois is liberal.  WTF?  What parralell universe does this ignorant fuck live in?

So, I'm done. At least for this cycle.  I have been following Barack Obama since I first saw him on the stage at the Democratic National Convention in 04, and I had hope that he would be the first black man in the White House.  Now, I am so dissappointed in his fucking campaign that I am done with with this election.  I'm done.  I'm not using this website anymore.  I'm not supporting any of the other Dem candidates for the Nomination.  Hillary Clinton is a centrist, Republican-lite clown who went into this nomination process feeling like she was entitled to be president because her philandering husband did a ho-hum job for 8 years.  The rest of them have no chance to beat her, so why waste any more of my money on this bullshit.

Obama started in February brilliantly, then came the first debate.  Whoever on that campaign who didn't know that he needed to knock that out of the park was a fucking idiot.  He did fair in the first debate and of course the media sells that as weak, and the polls plummeted from there.  I've been quite disappointed in this campaign.  I'm pissed, and I'm done.  I could've run Obama's campaign better, and I'm not at all "qualified" in the sense that I've never worked for a campaign.

PREDICTION
Hillary Clinton is going to win the Democratic nomination for the presidency.  She will pick either Evan Bayh or Mark Warner as her running mate, and it will be a very close election.  She will face either Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson in the general.  And she could very well lose.  We will still be in Iraq in November of 08 because the Dem Congress is too pussy to cut off the funds.  So, she may win, but quite frankly, I'd be surprised if she did.  Whether you think it's fair or not, the GOP is gonna have magnificent turnout with Hillary Clinton to demonize.  (Quite frankly, I don't care if you think that argument is fair, it's the truth.)

THIS IS WHAT OBAMA NEEDS TO FOCUS ON
He's not going to get the Dem nomination.  (All you Obama lovers: I really do hope I'm dead wrong, but I'm not.)  If Hillary loses, and I think it's at least 50:50, if not 60:40, that she will; Obama needs to go back to the Senate, be as bold as possible with his time there, and let his term expire in 2010.  And in 2010 run for Governor of Illinois, assuming Blagojevich doesn't run again.  Even if Blagojevich does run, Obama may be able to take him in the primary.  He'll easily win Illinois and he'll have two years to get as much accomplished as possible.  This will allow him to run as an outsider again in 2012 or 2016.

Hopefully when he does this, he'll hire a better campaign staff because these people who are currently running his campaign are like amateur hour at the Apollo.

I'm disappointed Senator, and I'm done.

*DISCLOSURE:  I. AM. BLACK.

It's been an issue from the very beginning.  From the second Senator Barack Obama stepped on the national scene, and I'm sure since well before, the questions of Obama's race have come.  Today, they abound and thrive.

I am bringing up this much ballyhooed subject now for several reasons.  First, the "is he black enough" question is foolish as well as small.  Second, Robert Novak, the pontificating prick of the right wing, on Sunday's white-boy-a-thon, also known as Meet the Press, commented that the GOP has little to be giddy over, that is, except for the possibility that the Democratic Party might nominate a Black man or a White woman for the highest office in the land.   The implication is obvious; America is too narrow-minded and bigoted to make a woman, or an African American its leader.  I do not believe that is true today.  Of course, it has been true for most of American history.

In the paragraphs to follow, I will attempt to lay out my understanding of Obama's race, as well as race in general, and particularly race in America, from an historic and contemporary prospective.

WHY IS BARACK OBAMA BLACK?
Some have insisted; my black brothers and sisters, included, that Mr. Obama is not actually black because he is the son of a black Kenyan and a white Kansan.   I say to those people: Oh please!  Let us not engage in the last vestige of the ignorant child - naivety.  Mr. Obama is black precisely because society's conventions have told us that he is black.  Were he not, "Barack Obama, International Man of Mystery," what would the beat cop on the south side of Chicago see in him, strolling down the boulevard?  Forgive my bluntness, but that beat cop, if he a racist, would see a nigger!  If he an enlightened law enforcement officer, would see a BLACK man promenading, and so would I or anyone else of some reason.  We would see that because society has taught us that blackness is not a genetic condition so much as it is a SOCIAL and PSYCHOLOGICAL condition.

BLACK ENOUGH?
I will dispatch with this pathetic argument as quickly as is feasible.  As I have LIVED it (and LOVED it, by the way), blackness is a binary state: you either are, or you are not, Mr. Obama, as established above, is.  There will always be questions posed like this, even until the end of the Earth.  Many black people that I know have posed it.  And I have told them of their wrongness within it.  By "black," they mean, has he not sold out?  And from my extensive research on this man, I know that he has not sold out his ideals, the same ideals that I have come to cherish myself, nor has he sold out his race.  His has been a life of championship for all those who are downtrodden, regardless of their race, there is no wrong in that, and it does not betray the race to which he has been socially assigned.  Anytime some ignorant black people see another black person who has done well for themselves, they will always ask about the person's commitment to blackness; as if being successful were somehow unblack.

RACE IN AMERICA
DuBois said famously that the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line; I pray nightly that that will not be the problem of the twenty-first.   So I return now to Robert "The Prince of Darkness" Novak, and his assumption that America's bigotry will win the Republicans another four years to destroy this land that I love.  History might well prove The Prince correct; I personally, do not believe that it will.  It is testament to the Republican Party's use of hatred, not necessarily their own hatred, but certainly their use of it, that Novak would make such a statement.  

But the whole reason I have brought up the topic is because of a post by John Ridley, on Huffingtonpost, concerning His Evilness' statement on MTP.  In the comments to the post, some have suggested that to point out this hate-speak is somehow racist in and of itself.  How little they understand.   Some have gone as far as to say that there is no black or white, just "human," and again, I can see that naivety has become a favorite past time in the blogosphere.  To suggest that Mr. Obama, or anyone else, has chosen their race is to belittle the history of race in these United States and throughout the world.  We can all choose to live in Stephen Colbert's fantasyland of unseen color lines, or we can acknowledge reality and learn from it and then move forward to a better place.  The choice is ours, but I also wish that we could all understand that centuries upon centuries of human interaction have created the issue of race, and it cannot be wiped away by wishful-thinking or the belief that just because we say it isn't so makes that fantasy a reality.   The work of race relations is hard work that requires the facing of hard truths.

So, will Mr. Obama, should he become the Democratic Nominee, or Mrs. Clinton, should she, for that matter, lose simply because people aren't comfortable with the precedent that either of them would create?  I do not believe that to be so.  I think either of their nominations would actually cause an excitement that we have not seen in presidential politics in some time.  Obama would cause a skyrocket of black turnout, and it looks increasingly likely he would do the same for youth turnout.  Mrs. Clinton would most likely unite and energize Democrats in the end, as well as energize women.  Could either of them lose?  Of course!  They are Democrats after all.  But will they lose due to bigotry?  I don't think so.  For the most part, bigots belong to the Republican Party, and even if they don't have membership cards, they vote that way and are going to vote that way unless the Democrat is George Wallace, back from the dead.

I just wanted to comment on the constant stream of "Obama can't debate," and "Hillary Clinton is EXCELLENT" comments that have been perpetuated since the first debate.  

Let's clear up one thing first.  Hillary Clinton is good at soundbites, not debating points.  Barack Obama is good at thoughtful analysis, and we're not used to that because the media has turned debates in to soundbite sessions.

I'll give you an example.  In the first debate Brian "The Sky is Falling" Williams asked about a terrorist attack and what would the candidates do to change the military posture overseas, by the way, none of them answered THAT question.  

What Obama said was essentially the first thing he would do is ensure that the response to said disaster was appropriate so that we might prevent a higher casualty rate than absolutely necessary.  It was the response to Katrina that killed more people, not the actual event itself.  

Senator Clinton told the audience exactly what they wanted to hear, basically, "I will bomb the HELL out of somebody." That's all fine indeed, if you are a visceral, reactionary child.  But what Senator Obama said was, "I will tend to my flock first, and then we will punish those who did it."

The MSM and every Hillary supporter went absolutely crazy.  Was her response good, yes, if you're listening to hear what you want to hear and not what you NEED to hear.  It was an excellent soundbite.  I also remember her saying she would "retaliate."  As if this were Russia sinking one of our battleships and we could just go and sink one of theirs.  I think all the candidates missed part of that point, including Obama.  You cannot play tit-for-tat with a terrorist organization, we must irradicate them, so "retaliate" was not the right word.  That doesn't just include militarily.  You have to strike at the root of the cause of terrorism.  That is something that the Bushies have obviously missed out on.

At the second debate, the MSM seemed to believe Hillary Clinton had stolen the show because she told Blitzer that the candidates would not engage in hypotheticals.  She also made it clear that there was no real difference between the Democrats on Iraq.

Two problems:  Senator Clinton took control of that question about a half hour after Senator Obama told Blitzer that the immigration debate was specifically aimed at dividing us, and he did not accept the premise of the question.  Nobody talked about that much because of the amazing snapiness of Saint Clinton.  Secondly, Senator Clinton was correct.  She and the other Democrats did not differ greatly on Iraq.  That includes her and Biden, Edwards, Richardson, and several of the others. It also includes Obama, if you leave out the most important fact that she voted for the authorization for the IWR, and Senator Obama very pubicly opposed it.  At a time when judgement counted the most, hers was lacking.  

In the Presidential Forum at Howard last night, Senator Clinton made a remark about HIV/AIDS and how if white women were the ones who were being infected in record numbers, somehow, this would've been dealt with by now.

This was great soundbite-style debating.  Clinton felt where her audience was and she pulled at the pander string.  As a black man, I was not very impressed.  This was a sound bite, and nothing more.  The problem is that some in the black community will use it as an excuse to write off Obama for not saying it, and build up the Gentle Lady from New York for pulling such a pander.  And to those of you who say the audience loved it:  DUH!  THAT'S WHAT A PANDER IS FOR!  Nothing she said was substantive, but it hit the race chord just right.  Senator Obama, on the other hand, insisted that we in the community take responsibility for ourselves, that we up the education, which means, lets get rid of "abstinence now, abstinence tomorra, abstinence forevuh."  He said what needed to be heard, not what we wanted to hear.

In conclusion, I tell you that the reason we have an idiot in the White House today is because the average person is not particularly intelligent, and this includes the so-called intelligencia who sits on TV mouthing-off about who won what debate.  We have become so accustomed to the soundbite candidacy to the point where style has so trumped substance that we can no longer tell the difference.

Many pretend that Obama is all style and no substance, but the reason his debate answers sound boring to you is because they are well thought-out, offer actual solutions, and are more about getting something done than getting some applause.

Obama is, to me, a man of towering intellect and I have no problem following his answers in debates and understanding that what he's trying to do is actually acheive something, not just talk about it for 60 seconds.

And I'm not saying that Mrs. Clinton is ALL style in the debates, but perhaps if she was a little more substance, she might actually be saying something.

Dear Senator Obama,

If you emerge this quarter as the top fundraiser, not just among Democrats, but among all the candidates on both sides, as you did last quarter, you need to come out in July swinging, and you won't be able to stop until March of 2008.

I've got to be honest with you Senator, I've not been terribly impressed with the campaign lately, and I am probably your biggest supporter.  That stupid Hillary Clinton (D) Punjab memo was a stroke of sheer idiocy.  When you have a million things to attack this woman on, your staffers (because I'm convinced they did this without your permission, or at least I hope they did) choose to go after this B.S. financial crap, and then they use this Punjab thing, and yes I know that's a province in India, but still, have you people heard of George Allen?

Why not attack Senator Clinton on her centrist, DLC, Republican-lite voting record?  How about: "Hillary Clinton (R-NY);" that would've been a better attack.  Or how about, Hillary Clinton: "She'll make sure that no hoodlums come over and burn the flag on your front porch?"  How about, Hillary Clinton: "If being President is about judgment, then she'd make a perfect President of the Home Owner's Association, but not so much the United States, after all she voted for Iraq?"  Any of those attacks would've been appropriate.

So here's what you need to do if you emerge as the money race frontrunner in Q2:  On the first day you release your numbers, release the following statement:

"Americans are putting their money where their HOPE is."

Being leader of the most powerful country in the world is not about having experience living in the White House, it's about JUDGEMENT.  For instance, Richard Nixon was one of the most experienced politicians in the history of presidential politics, he had been in Congress, he'd been in the Senate, he had two terms as a fairly powerful Vice President, and still, Mr. Nixon is universally considered to be the worst president in American history.  

Senator Clinton's judgment must be called into question.  When the NIE was available to all Senators concerned enough to read it in the fall of 2002, Senator Clinton made a judgment not to read it.  That was the WRONG judgment.  When the Senate voted on the Authorization for Use of Military Force, Senator Clinton voted to give President Bush that authority even though he had not presented a cogent argument for the need for the invasion of Iraq.  Those were other people's children we were sending into the jaws of death, through the gates of hell, and Senator Clinton voted to send them on flimsy evidence.  That was the WRONG judgment to make.

Senator Clinton, we know that the mainstream press loves to anoint you the next President of the United States, and Holy Roman Emperor and whatever other title they can think of, but we believe you lack the judgment to lead the free world.  We believe that when the chips are down, we need a leader who will not just speak in sound bites and appease people who hate you to your very core.  Dr. King said that there were two types of people, Thermometers and Thermostats.  Thermometers can read the temperature, Thermostats can CHANGE the temperature.  We believe Senator Clinton is an excellent Thermometer, but that she'd make a lousy Thermostat.   We believe that leaders who stand up and boldly go left, when all others are going right, and get people to follow them in that better direction, will move the country closer to that "distant horizon, and a better day."

THAT, SENATOR is what you need to say on the day that you release your statement of contributions for the second quarter.

And then you need to call for a bold new initiative.  

I have a suggestion.  As much as I don't like most of what he says, Joe Klein made a very good suggestion this past week in Time magazine.  You should call for universal service to the country at the age of suffrage.  Klein makes the point that this service doesn't necessarily have to be military service, but could include service as TSA Screeners, or AmeriCorps type volunteers, or service as a teacher in a troubled community after college.  The point is, service is missing in this country, and we are too easily able to turn our backs on the problems and the promise of so many people who are less fortunate than ourselves.  Should there be some reciprocation for said service?  Perhaps college tuition assistance would be feasible?  But I will leave incentives in your capable hands.

There are other bold proposals you could make.  The Governor of North Carolina is instituting a program where all his high school graduates will leave with, not just a diploma, but an Associate's degree, for example.  That would be a bold proposal and help move our education system in a new direction.

Senator Obama, I have contributed to your campaign, and followed you since the day you stood on that stage in Boston and said that "there is no such thing as a Black America or White America, there's the United States of America."  Senator, I have been waiting for you, please, PLEASE don't fail me now.