Speaker Pelosi Can't Say "Unity" Now, But....

Some Obama supporters in my party are hanging their proverbial hats against the idea of a party unity ticket based on what they read from Politico's Ben Smith, who, at the end of the day, is not participating in his professional endeavours in order to create arguments that will win for Democrats .. and is making a living in a business that showcases the most controversial issues of the day for an optimal amount of eyeballs looking at a money-making website. I think it's wrong to hang your hat on just one temporal quote from Speaker Pelosi bluntly dismissing a unity Democratic ticket [sparked by her current displeasure with a compliment Clinton paid to McCain at the expense of Obama].

At Real Clear Politics there's a brief analysis by Blake Dvorak that I found to be astute:

I'm going to call Pelosi on inconsistency here. She says the differences between Obama and Clinton are nothing compared to the chasm between Democrats and Republicans. But later on she dismisses a "dream ticket" as impossible because the Clinton campaign has said McCain would make a better commander in chief than Obama. Well, assuming the need to beat the Republicans in November outweighs the differences between Obama and Hillary, which is what I think Pelosi is getting at, then a dream ticket is not only possible, but preferable.

But we also know why Pelosi is being inconsistent. Endorsing in any way a joint ticket is a nod to Clinton right now, given the campaigns' difference of opinion on the idea. And Pelosi needs to appear "uncommitted."

Speaker Pelosi's playing the part she imagines she needs to play while remaining uncommitted to either candidate. Perhaps she knows what time can do, if both candidates' campaigns are listening, to erase the memory of bold albeit temporal statements like this one.

But everyone knows there's no such thing as "impossible". Using the word creates an easily-breakable frame. A worry for me, though, is created by such an unimaginative and hopeless-sounding statement from a party leader. Absent of vision at a difficult time for the party, it emits a sad signal to already-conflicted Democratic voters who, unlike some party extremists defending Obama or Clinton, genuinely like both Obama and Clinton. I can't blame Nancy Pelosi, though.I blame the lack of harmonious spirit betwen two extremely (and equally) popular party luminaries who are running for the highest office of the land.

It will soon be time for them both to grow up and start coming together for the sake of their party and for the change they both say they wish to bring to our country.

It's no wonder Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, Bill Richardson, and John Edwards have remained uncommitted.

What we've lost in the course of two generations

From a post where Open Left's Chris Bowers worries because he says that the Clinton camp has "twice, in the last week, inaccurately gauged public opinion on a topic as being further to the right than it actually is":

Perhaps I would feel differently if I was from a different generation, but my formative political experiences have largely been about the failure of Democratic and progressive elites in stopping the conservative movement from continuing to rise. We never seem to win, even when we are in elected office. As such, one of the things I am looking for in the Democratic primaries is not only a candidate who can win, but who can reverse that pattern of defeat in governance.

I am from a generation that saw the rise of prominent social figures and political luminaries such as JFK, Rev.MLK Jr., and Bobby Kennedy. And I saw what happened to them and how far their idealism carried them in a hateful, divided nation. Later, I watched my mother as she exuberantly supported Hubert H. Humphrey and how she cried when he lost to Nixon. Still too young to join them, I saw the intelligence, the heart, and the nerve of the flower children in their generation's cause to end another unjust war. I saw college students at Kent State gunned down by our own countrymen for their idealism. I remember the awful images of Vietnam in black and white on my parents' television screen. I remember watching the Watergate hearings with my grandfather during the summer I was about to become a senior in high school and how he, while disgusted yet too intrigued to turn his head away, took the time to explain what was happening to me. In 1976, at the age of 18, I voted for Jimmy Carter in my first election. I saw Ronald Reagan come to power with a new Conservative movement with misled neo-idealists and their leaders who kissed, corrupted, and co-opted Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority.

Where Bobby Kennedy and MLK Jr. were remembered for their risk-filled fight for equality and civil rights of all Men and Women, Ronald Reagan is remembered for smaller government... being at the helm at the end of crumbling communism (with JFK, Carter, and others who set up the whole fall getting little to no credit). Sitting in the Oval Office on a Sunday morning, October 23, 1983 when 241 Americans, most of them U.S. Marines, were killed by a terrorist truck bomb. Still President when Pan Am flight 103 went down because of a terrorist's bomb over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 35 Syracuse University students whose families never saw justice for the deaths of their children - and later were horrified to see George W. Bush make nice with devious Lybian leader Moammer Gahdafhi.


For all of this they wanted to put Reagan's likeness on the American dime.
Go figure.


You know the story from the post-Reagan years. Not too many brilliant profiles in courage-in-leadership, especially not from the Right. I think idealism and vision - the kind of vision that brings real, lasting, and necessary progress and not the kind lobbyists prefer to make - began to die off when they (whoever they may have been if you're a conspiracy theorist) began to literally kill off our most promising visionaries in this nation.


What passed for greatness after that was far from the vision of inspired men and women of the 60s Liberal era. What happened to the vision? Did it die with the murder-tainted innocence of a hopeful era? Do we teach our children to assimilate and not rock the boat because we're afraid for their well-being - - perhaps their very lives?

We think division in this country's something new, but it's not. I just think it's a lot more apparent today because of the expanded news media and the blogosphere.

What I think is particularly damaging is the people who complain about partisanship and label it as the disease that ails America. I believe the pattern of defeat in the Democratic party (pre 2006) was the tendency of Democrats to fall into the false framing of bipartisanship, traditional collegiality, and MSM-pleasing "centrism" (in parentheses because the media hasn't been shooting toward true American center on Iraq if you believe the polls). I use Senator Joe Lieberman's rise, thanks to being voted in by a majority of Connecticut Republicans and who now pushes the Iraq surge and gives lip service to a war in Iran that the majority of Americans say they do not want, as an example of how bipartisanship, by name alone, can be assigned a totally false value over common sense. I regret to see that our leaders (and the MSM who cover the horserace) seem to be regressing after winning a promising 2006 election. They have been far less than visionary and generally get a poor grade on action on ways they've chosen to try to end the Iraq war. "Going right", the direction that Glen Greenwald has caught Hillary Clinton's camp going (and they're not the only ones), is not going to help us bloggers, when MSM gets a hold of it, to convince anyone that our position is not heading toward the left fringe. This gives mouthpieces for the Right like Bill O'Reilly an opportunity to take so many undue potshots at us.

Hunter at Daily Kos can hardly wrap his mind around the audacity of O'Reilly and Fox News calling themselves a news network. I believe that the failure of our own Democrats to be strong in their vision these past five years have emboldened the owners of this new breed of media to think they can "destroy" real people out here on the blogs (like me):

Can you imagine any other news network mounting a multi-pundit jihad against a group of grassroots Americans, merely because they have the audacity to not support the Republicans? Can you imagine any other news network getting themselves into a bitter televised fight with a political community website?

Of course not. Because Fox News isn't "news" at all, and this is yet another example of why they should not be considered a legitimate news network, or even an "opinionated" news network. Actual news networks do not fabricate stories -- Fox News does. Actual news networks do not send pundits out in attempts to punish and/or sabotage grassroots political events of the opposing party -- it would be absurd. Only at Fox News, where a spectacular lack of ethics is after all the cornerstone of the efforts to manipulate the very news itself in order to prop up Republicans, would such things not get you immediately fired.

- Hunter

Nothing will change until our leaders change the tone and stop worrying about MSM's version of "partisanship" and "division".

In this country, it seems that we've always been divided on the things that matter. We're supposed to be a country that can withstand division and diversity of opinion and, out of it, create something that's actually healthy for our democracy. All we've seen these past twenty years are toxic results, a decided lack of vision, and unsatisfactory progress.

I came from a different generation, the one just before Chris Bowers' generation. After all I've seen, I have to ask many of our leaders: Why are we afraid of idealism and leading with bold vision these days? Why is our media money-jaded and controlled by private owners to the point where investigation is cut off in the editors' service of political bedfellows? Why are we made to see so often that they're working against us bloggers? Why do our leaders seem to be afraid? Who are they afraid of? What are they afraid of losing? An election? For all my eyes have seen, I'm afraid the country's losing its very soul.



The man in this video, John Edwards, has the kind of courage and vision I saw in JFK's time and the media is being complicit in framing him as a rich phony with only power in mind.

He says he won't let them shut him up.

I say good!

It's time for courage again.

Is this a returning breed?

Have we finally seen enough of the worthlessness from the empty promise of new conservatism from fat-faced hate-talk radio blatherers..and are we so sick of its vacuous political nature that we are returning to leaders who are looking well past the trees to see what could be possible beyond the forest?

This week at Daily Kos, my Idea Consultant colleague and fellow Spiritual Progressive David Beckwith said it well:

John Edwards is not promising you the world...he is delivering it. What needs being done...he is doing it. People in need cannot wait for him to be president, they need his help right now. And he is getting it to them.

I know of no one who is more deserving of the presidency, since we know he is not serving up empty promises. He is doing the heavy uplifting, and getting many other good and caring souls to help with this Herculean task.

We need an exemplar...especially after punishing the world with Bushworld Inc. Obama and Hillary are great and good people, but John is leading by example, and should be commended, not pejorated and smeared.

It has been said that when someone cares for another person, God cares for them too. Both of them. The caregiver and the recipient. I think most Americans realize that something of the sort is at play, and that caritas is indeed one of the sweetest and noblest acts a person can do.

There are people suffering today...this minute. We cannot wait for an election. Help us help John help people who need it.

Jimmy Carter Blasts Blair for Subservience

Former US President Jimmy Carter has criticised outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair for his "blind" support of the war in Iraq. BBC link "...Carter told the BBC Mr Blair's backing for US President George W Bush had been 'apparently subservient'. He said the UK's "almost undeviating" support for 'the ill-advised policies of President Bush in Iraq had been a major tragedy for the world'."

Headlines

Facts of War, editorial, Albany Times Union - Leading Senate Democrats, then the minority but now the majority, are ready to repeal that resolution of unrestricted support for the war. They would declare instead that the mission of the U.S. troops in Iraq does not include interceding in a civil war, which is precisely what now engulfs Iraq.

Juan Cole on Tony Blair, Basra - Blair is not leaving Basra because the British mission has been accomplished. He is leaving because he has concluded that it cannot be, and that if he tries any further it will completely sink the Labor Party, perhaps for decades to come.


Newsweek - The Petraeus plan will have U.S. forces deployed in Iraq for years to come. Does anybody running for president realize that? - The British are leaving, the Iraqis are failing and the Americans are staying—and we’re going to be there a lot longer than anyone in Washington is acknowledging right now. As Democrats and Republicans back home try to outdo each other with quick-fix plans for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and funds, what few people seem to have noticed is that Gen. David Petraeus’s new “surge” plan is committing U.S. troops, day by day, to a much deeper and longer-term role in policing Iraq than since the earliest days of the U.S. occupation.



James Fallows: The Prospect of War on Iran - "...there is a deeper strangeness that I worry about at 2 a.m. Am I guilty of projecting my own assumptions about rationality onto the Administration? [..] Am I the irrational one here, in assuming others’ rationality? I hope not — and I still think not. But just in case I’m wrong, the Congress should get moving and pass that “no funds for war with Iran” measure without delay."


Carter Says Majority in U.S. Support Views in Book / Reuters - Asked what he had learned from reaction to the book, [former President Jimmy Carter] said he was surprised at the ``intensity of feeling and genuine concern that some American Jewish citizens have when anyone questions the current policies of the ... Israeli government. [..] "I can understand the reasons ... that any shaking of almost unanimous support in America for Israel might weaken Israel's position ... as they struggle for their own safety and their own existence,'' he said. [..] The book's main points were that Israel should stop persecuting and abusing Palestinians, withdraw to internationally-recognized borders and conduct intense negotiations with its neighbors to bring peace, Carter said. [..] "Those premises, which are the major premises in my book, have a strong support of American citizens," including many Jews, he said. He added that he guessed the majority of Jews in Israel also agreed with the book's proposals.


The Reason For Reason
by Expatriated Texan -

"Freedom is worth nothing if such limitations are placed upon it as to render it soul-less."

As far as I can tell, there is one, and only one, far reaching difference between basing your belief upon an Enlightened faith and basing it upon the secular writings of an Enlightened academic - faith reaches, or puports to reach, beyond this world. David Hume, for example, or JS Mill, will tell us what is good for this world. But they go no further than what they can see. [..] Liberals in America have hobbled themselves because they have half-understood and half-embraced the meaning of the Enlightenment. [..] Go to link to read the entire piece.



True forgiveness can bring about inner peace, author says - “The only anger I feel is toward my country — lies we have been told, the incidents that are hidden until years later … only to find that we were manipulated.” She said she felt anger toward herself because she let things take place without objecting. She said she felt betrayed and bitter as a speech teacher who has helped many students deliver idealistic speeches about an American democracy. Yet her own deep reading revealed a nation of power through manipulation. “I got to the point that I thought, ‘Don’t tell me about this free country, don’t tell me it is the greatest land in the world,’ ” adding that the same patterns can be found in other countries and throughout history. Eileen Borris-Dunchunstang [author of “Finding Forgiveness” - McGraw Hill, $21.95] said such distrust and bitterness leads to a separation of people, yet sharing such stories of anger leads to common ground and understanding.


Lincoln's Antiwar Record - Political Theory Daily Review asks: Looking for a model lawmaker who called a President to account for launching a war on fabricated grounds? Consider The Nation, Eric Foner on Lincoln's antiwar record.

Jimmy Carter and The Music of Our Souls

In his book "An Hour Before Daylight", former President Jimmy Carter tells about himself as a young boy growing up in Depression-era Georgia. One day, his compassionate mother brings cool drink to prisoners and young Jimmy is at first fascinated by the thought of seeing real-life prisoners, only to discover their faces were no different than many of the faces of the the boys and men that attended Sunday services at his own church.

Step back, for just a moment, into young Jimmy's world. You'll begin to understand how rhythm and music brought joy and understanding into his world.

We boys were fascinated with criminals and their punishment, and would observe the chained men from a distance, imagining them to be mysterious gangsters and discussing Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, Al Capone, or John Dillinger, who were all very famous and whose exploits we followed closely. [..]

[...] One day, Mama stopped her car near one of the chain gangs. She spoke briefly to the guard, and after a few minutes called me and one of my playmates to the kitchen and had us take a bucketful of lemonade to the guard and then to the chained men. It was quite an adventure being this close to them, and we were somewhat disappointed to find that they resembled the older boys and young men who went to church with our families on Sundays. Most of them were guilty of crimes such as theft that resulted from abject poverty, and most of the folks in Archery felt some sympathy for them as they swung their axes, bush hooks, mattocks, or scythes, not singing a lyrical song, as in the movies, but keeping time to a fundamental rhythm that they hummed or chanted in unison.



[..] The best music came not from prisoners, but from the railroad section gang, a half dozen black men who worked under the supervision of Mr. Watson. He and the workers would leave their homes in the center of Archery and ride to their work site on a little car that they propelled down the track by pumping up and down on both ends of a wooden shaft. After setting their vehicles aside so the trains could go by, the workers would begin the task of methodically checking each wooden crosstie, replacing those that had deteriorated and driving spikes to hold the rail in place. Theirs were the most cherished jobs in the community, and they wore their work clothes with pride - all issued by and bearing the insignia of the Seaboard Airline Railroad. These fortunate men had worked together all their adult lives, and knew that their best sons could someday inherit their jobs. They all attended St. Mark AME Church, near their homes in Archery, and we would recognize them in the choir when we attended services there. It was a pleasure to be near them as they sang and worked in perfect harmony.

Singing and working in perfect harmony is something a rare few of us can say we do with regularity when we go to our job each day. How lucky we are, rich or poor, if we can sing and work in harmony with life.

Song, within the scope of its context to the dance of life, was obviously a very important part of young Jimmy Carter's spiritual development.

It was in the days of prevailing Jim Crow segregation practices, and the Carter family made a point of attending services at St. Mark AME, the African American church in Archery, at least once a year:

As a little boy, I was accustomed to the relatively sedate and time-constrained services of our own congregation at Plains Baptist Church, so our own family's visits to St. Mark were strange experiences. The small white clapboard building was always overflowing with worshipers and would rock with music and with religious spirit far exceeding anything we ever experienced. We knew the words to many of the hymns, but we had to struggle to keep the proper time with the strange, slow rhythms, with syllables often stretched into words, and words into entire verses. Soon, however, we would be rocking back and forth in harmony with the swaying bodies of the beautifully dressed choir behind the altar.

What about music we cannot hear through the ear, but instead in the soul? It can be a struggle to keep time to rhythms we do not understand, but once we allow them to enter and transform us, we can learn to fly.

In one very special and mystical place, I recall rocking back and forth to a rhythm that could not be heard, but could be felt not just by me, but by others around me. I was in the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona, Arizona with my mother, my father, and my son, who was then about five years old. Designed by Marguerite Brunswig Staude, a pupil of Frank Lloyd Wright, the Chapel appears to rise out of the surrounding red rocks of Sedona. An awesome panorama of buttes, valley and big blue sky are a source of inspiration inviting rest and reflection to all who come to pray.

A serene, quiet, and safe setting, I allowed my son to wander the chapel while my parents and I knelt to pray. [During which time my son blew out one of the devotional candles burning in the chapel, coming to me proudly afterwards to tell me he'd done it and said he'd thought it was 'one of Jesus' birthday candles'.]

The confluence of earth, rock, sky, and spirit cause a powerful vibration within the Chapel that eyes cannot see, ears cannot hear, and my mouth has had difficulty translating to our reality. It caused my soul to sing and my body to move to an alien rhythm. All that I can tell you is that I believe that I experienced just a brief glimpse of another world in those few precious and rare moments, and it was a beautiful knowing - shared with my parents.

I wish I could go back there to that time and place and to that experience. I believe that my own mother is experiencing that bliss now and that I can still reach to her when I pray. I feel that she's not far away for I am mysteriously with her when I hear the hymns and songs we shared and when I enter the deep quiet of either sanctuary or spirit, where the physical is given permission to fall away in return for a simple yet near-miraculous and soul-sustaining abundance.





What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard,and what has not entered the human heart, is what God has prepared for those who love him."

- 1 Corinthians 2:9

Iraq: What can be salvaged from U.S. engagement?

In a Washington Post piece by Lynne Duke, a comment is made that, despite obvious blunders in Iraq, most leaders hope that "the ship doesn't have to go down." Zbigniew Brzezinski had opposed Bush's doctrine of preemption and assessed that the war policy was one that "was propelled forward by mendacity." After having been asked this week if he felt vindicated by what we now know was a major mistake in Iraq, he replied,

"If vindication was accompanied by a sense that America is likely to undo the damage they have done and can dis-embarrass itself of the tragic involvement, then my answer would be yes."

Lynne Duke reminds us, in a way thatconcerns me deeply, that Mr. Brzezinski, who was former national security adviser under President Jimmy Carter, "scarcely believes such course corrections will happen."


For those who aren't sure where the McCain Doctine will lead America, Mr. Brzezinski makes it very clear. He's an extremely wise man. Listen to him:

Despite the broad sea change in opinion among the political and policy class, Brzezinski's sense of vindication has its limits, he says, because "I have the feeling that the president's team is hellbent on digging itself in more deeply and if it does not succeed in Iraq some of its wilder policymakers seem to be eager to enlarge the scope of the war to Iran."

"I'm saddened," he said, "because I think it's doing terrible harm to America. But more than being sad, which is an emotion, I'm worried."

Ms. Duke points out that the debate now centers on what can be salvaged from the U.S. engagement in Iraq. There are some people quoted in Ms. Duke's article who seem disgusted by the pseudo-moral audacity of politicians in D.C. who have never admitted how wrong they have been all along, yet now cozy up to some of those, like Mr. Brzezinski, whose intuition had been right from the beginning and say things like 'Oh, I was with you all along.' If you ask me, these are the kinds of leaders that we need to kick out of their elected positions because, given this critical time in our nation's history, they're as dishonest and as dangerous as the day is long.

Remember, our goal, at the end of the day, is peace and stability in the region with America seen as a good faith partner, because only then will our national security interests be well served.

Former President Gerald Ford Dies

The folllowing is a statement by former President William J. Clinton and NY Senator Hillary Clinton on the death of President Gerald Ford:

"Gerald Ford brought Americans together during a difficult chapter in our history with strength, integrity, and humility. All Americans should be grateful for his life of service; he served our nation well. To his great credit, he was the same hard-working, down-to-earth person the day he left the White House as he was when he first entered Congress almost 30 years earlier."

"We were honored to know President Ford. We are saddened by his death, and our prayers are with Betty and the entire Ford family."

Former President Jimmy Carter called President Ford "an outstanding statesman" who "wisely chose the path of healing during a deeply divisive time" in America's history.

Senator John Edwards and his wife Elizabeth had this to say:

Elizabeth and I are deeply saddened by the news of President Ford's death.

Our thoughts and prayers are with President Ford's family during this difficult time. He helped heal a wounded nation and allowed the American people to move past a difficult period in our history.

President Ford was a true leader; he made decisions based on what he believed was right, not what was politically expedient. He called on us to never lose faith that we can change America. President Ford once said, "At times it feels as if American politics consists largely of candidates without ideas, hiring consultants without convictions, to stage campaigns without content. It doesn't have to be this way."

He was right. Today we honor his memory by following his example of leadership and lifting ourselves above partisan politics and acting with the courage and conviction of our ideals.

Tom Delay Blogs With Hate for Democrats

This corrupt creature has started to blog with the promise to censor out "undesirables" [aka Democrats]. It's what he would have loved to have done as House majority leader - and I'm convinced he would have - if he thought that he could have gotten away with it. I'm so glad he's gone from a position where he had any power over any of our representatives. He's been the prototype for the kind of poison that has ruined the reputation of the once-popular and trusted Republican party - and likely will for many years yet to come. I pity whoever he decides to link to because the ones he "appreciates" says a lot, by the sheer connection, about the kinds of ideas with which this corrupt creature agrees.

I suppose none of us should be surprised that Delay connects himself with groupthink and divisive rightwing blogtalk. He's "lived it" for years as he destroyed civility and statesmanship in the House and actively sought to gerrymander Texas to the point that, on the map, the voting districts look like silly string on a psychedelic acid trip.



According to Raw Story, the corrupt creature Tom Delay is blogging about President Jimmy Carter, bashing Mr. Carter for pointing out and writing about the Palestinian plight, of which the inability to reach a peace agreement has nearly everyone in the world agreeing upon at least one thing - it is the root cause of all strife in the Middle Eastern region today. President Carter could hardly give a care to criticisms from puny little creatures like Delay. I can see that President Carter's become immune to such nonsense, and I am glad.

Delay isn't alone in that uneasy feeling when President Carter cuts through the bullshit and right to the chase on the crisis. I'm not sure what Delay finds so novel about the idea. It's like an alternative universe in the halls of the People's official business in Washington D.C. Crooks can go on doing whatever they want in the name of the American people while the slightest mention of Israel in a realistic light gets every House Rep and Senator's pair of shorts in an uproar.

I'm out here listening to the experienced, wise, compassionate, and just former President Jimmy Carter - and I'm reading his books on the Middle East with an open mind - all the while experiencing something between amazement and disgust whenever a political leader sprints faster than the winds of Hurricane Katrina to separate their political selves from President Carter's beliefs. I ask myself how many miles any of these House Reps and Senators have walked in the shoes of a Palestinian compared to the amount of time post-President Carter has spent in those same shoes? In short, there's no comparison and I put a very great value on the wisdom that comes from age, experience, and a set of values that very closely match my own. If there's any route to take us to greater American national security today, that route will need to traverse Jerusalem where peace, even with 2000 years of a painful history, must be found if any of us plan to live in peace.

As of 2007, the Palestinians will have wandered the desert without a home for forty years. Decent people deplore every death of each innocent person - regardless of national origin - if they are unbiased. Decent people want to see a resolution after years of meaningless death and destruction if they possess unbiased souls. Trouble is, our nation's leaders have a bias that no one dare mention - and that bias is making them appear soulless. The tighter they hold onto this bias, the less chance for the political will to see a real and peaceful resolution which now not only involves Isreal's security interests, but our own.

Someone needs to be honest, and soon. I've never seen our nation, in all of its history, in such an embarrassing and shameful spot.




He says he was "thinking of Jesus" when this photo was snapped.
God will forgive him, but we won't.
Like Lyle Lovett sang,
that's the difference between God and me.

I'm very glad that I'm not the kind of blogger that corrupt little citizen Tom Delay wants responding to his divisive tripe, even though, in a large sense, I have responded right here at my own blog. A large part of being American is respecting and welcoming all viewpoints. Little Tom can come here anytime he likes. That's the difference between me and him, and I think it says something about the writer's trust and confidence in the decency and moral consistency of his or her own beliefs when he or she welcomes all - respectfully - to join in the conversation.


__________

UPDATE
See this "snapshot" of Delay's first attempt to allow comments. The blogger who captured it calls it "A tribute to the 75-minute period where tom delay actually received feedback from America. The experiment has now ended, but, this blog has taken a snap-shot, just for you..."

Look at this Keith Olbermann video - Tom Delay had admitted he's not even the blogger on his own blog. He's also admitted that he's not quite literate enough to trust his own writing style. This kind of deception is typical of the corrupt kind of creature this man, Tom Delay, is. I wonder who his ghost writer is?

Nigerian Writer Hopes For Dem POTUS

Why is Nigerian writer Dele Sobowale praying for a Democrat to take the White House in 2008? He's looking to history to explain his case to us:

According to P.J Crowley, a military and national security aide under President Clinton: “Ironically, we went into Viet Nam to fight one war, the Cold War, and found ourselves in the middle of a struggle over nationalism…And we are seeing the same thing in Iraq. We may have well thought we were going into Iraq as part of the war on terror, but now we find ourselves in the middle of a civil war”.

More unfortunately for Bush and for Africa, history is again not on his side. ‘The average civil war since 1945 has lasted 10 years, and the median (or typical) one has lasted seven years” according to Sebastain Mallaby of the Washington Post. This civil war has just got underway, so in all probability it will outlast Bush who has only two years to go. The level of violence will also escalate pointing increasingly to the failure of America policy.

The end of the Korean War and the partial humiliation of the U.S, which still re-echoes in North Korea’s obstinacy on nuclear arms, led to the victory of the Republicans, led by General Eisenhower in 1952. It also coincided with isolationism and protectionism as U.S policies. Africa, which had always assumed peripheral importance in U.S foreign policy became even less of a focus of attention. Unless history does not repeat itself isolationism and protectionism will remain the first option of the U.S after this imminent humiliation.

The 1960 electoral victory of the Democrats, led by John Kennedy, brought Africa more into the focus of American policymakers. It was under Kennedy, that the Peace Corps was established as well as the African American Institute. The African American Institute in turn operated the ASPAU and AFGRAD scholarship programmes which enabled several hundred of the cream of English speaking students to study in America. [..] [There] were among hundreds of Nigerians, professors of professors, who were among those who benefited from the Democratic Party administration’s pro-African policies which started in 1960 and ended in 1968.

Because ASPAU/AFRGRAD scholarships were perhaps the greatest contribution of the Kennedy/Johnson, Democratic Administration to Nigeria and Africa, it has set the pattern for judging what to expect from any American government – Republican or Democratic.
President Kennedy was assassinated but his vision for Africa and Nigeria continued under the Lydon Johnson administration’s Great Society Programme. The reversal came when President Nixon, a Republican, was elected in 1968. Then concern for Africa again took the back seat. Nixon resigned when faced with imminent impeachment on account of the Watergate scandal and his successor, President Gerald Ford, lost to Jimmy Carter. Under Carter, another Democrat, African concerns again experienced a revival and till today, Carter still maintains his links to Africa.

Carter lost the next election to Reagan, another Republican, and Africa again receded among foreign policy interests of the Americans for twelve years because George Bush I, one more Republican, succeeded Reagan. Four years after the Democrats were back in the White House when Bill Clinton won the election.
And for eight years African again received favourable attention until 2000 when George Bush II, the current Republican in the White House, mounted the saddle. Since then Africa has again become a fringe issue for the American government. Bush still has two years to go. Despite the victory of the Democrats in the mid-term elections, the prospects for Africa are not very bright. In fact, more than at any other time, the U.S will focus on Iraq (especially how to retreat from the quagmire), the Middle East and Korea. The tough talk notwithstanding, the U.S will not immediately go to war, either against Iran or North Korea given the debacle in Iraq.

Retreat itself is a costly exercise both financially and in terms of national prestige. While the U.S is trying to figure out what to do next in and about the misadventure in Iraq, there will be no change of policy regarding Africa. Thus, even if Sudan disintegrates further and Somalia remains a failed state, the U.S will stand aloof.

Nigeria has a stake in this. If politicians fail to manage the 2007 elections and allow it to degenerate into civil war or widespread unrest, the last country to come to the rescue is the United States of America. Clearly, the mid-term, elections by themselves will not translate into a pro-Africa or pro-Nigeria policy change by the U.S government. Africa and Nigeria must hope that the presidential elections of 2008 will produce another Democratic Party victory. They have always been our friends

Full text at Vanguard Online