For Heaven’s sake.
The country of origin trolls have woken up again, apparently.
Here’s my response. Just replace everything appropriately For Obama.
First John McCain, and now Barack Obama. Newsflash, people. Having a name not common to this country doesn’t mean you weren’t born here.
It seems that this day in age, simple commentary on a worldly issue is not the personal opinion of the person who wrote it. No! It must be a larger window into the mindset of where the comment was made. In this case, the places are website.
It’s irked me for some time that Bill O’Reilly has gone after the Huffington Post for vitriol posted by some commenters there. According to him, these comments show the larger picture of the Post’s owner, Ariana Huffington. He says these comments show the contempt that she has for this country.
News flash, O’Reilly: There’s this thing called the Internet, and a subset of that technology called commenting systems. You know that; by your own admission, you have some on your own website.
Yet, having a commenting system means responsible moderation of what is posted. O’Reilly has also claimed that many of the comments remain up there. I don’t doubt that, but he must understand that different websites have different commenting policies. Some allow pretty much anything, no matter who it’s from, or what it says. Others are quite draconian in the policies, and delete anything that’ll fan flames. I’ve had experience with both sets of policies.
I’ve been part of websites where I’ve had to keep track of commentary and posting, and make sure it didn’t break the rules. During my time doing that, my moderation style has been called both too lax and too trigger happy. I try to keep a balance in my moderation, as with all things in my life, but it’s difficult. Implement one policy, and you make one set of people mad. Implement another, and a different group is angry. It seems you can never please anybody! If you’re not restricting free speech, you’re letting people abuse it. It turns out to be a never ending cycle.
Chew on this, Michelle Malkin.
Equally vicious and despicable vitriol comes from both side, admit it.
More on it later.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, liberals have had it tough. Anyone who dares says a phrase including the words “universal”, “state-run”, “government-run”, or “social(ized)” have been demonized by some conservatives as communists. For these people, it seems that it gives them no greater joy than to label somebody in favor of, oh say, universal health care, as a “pinko commie.” In fact, these things have gone back further than 1992. Anybody who knows their history remembers Senator Joseph McCarthy.
Likewise, but perhaps to less of an extent, conservatives have had it tough in the last eight years. With an increasingly unpopular war – even with a successful surge strategy (though this isn’t the whole story) -, scandals up and down the party, the Valerie Wilson leak, among other things, conservatives have had to contend with liberals calling them fascists.
Now, I’m a proponent of using capitalism wherever it works. For instance, I’ve given my support to a more or less free market healthcare system, albeit with some reforms, but making sure to help those who really cannot afford it. I’m more or less a free market guy all around, except where a completely free market system hurts the public. So, it pains me to see liberals or conservatives calling the other side communists or fascists when that’s probably not the truth. Lets take the two major party nominees in this general election: John McCain and Barack Obama.
Hillary Clinton said today just about everything I wanted her to say. That works for me!
Now I have five months to decide who I want to be President. Today the general election season officially begins…
That is the question on everybody’s mind today. I’m hoping for these things:
1) A call to unite behind Obama.
2) A call for her delegates to vote for Obama.
3) That she will fight to have Obama elected.
My opinion of her will greatly improve if she does those three things. I think it’s important for her to do, because the Democrats need to get their act together quickly if they wish to win against McCain. If she doesn’t do these things, and Obama loses in November, she can probably kiss any chance at another chance for nomination good bye, because she’ll be remembered as the Democrat who destroyed the Democratic party.
But if she does these things and he still doesn’t win? She’ll have a better chance in ’12.
This is a pretty beautiful story of what one soldier and his family have done to give two children a better life:
One family that knows all about the blessing of adoption is Jed and Alice Moss. Jed has been in the Air Force for ten years and Alice is a homemaker and personal trainer. It seems appropriate to let Alice tell you about her family’s motivation for adopting, in her own words. Here is her story:
Jed and I decided to adopt a few years ago. Jed lost his mother to cancer before he turned 18, and felt he could really relate to a child who has experienced a traumatic loss of family, or a child with no family to call their own. He has also seen first hand the harsh and brutal lives of orphaned children in the streets in several countries he has visited during deployments while he has been in the Air Force.
I think this is absolutely excellent! The world needs more families to adopt orphaned children. Being a soldier in some part of the world can show the condition some children live in, especially in third-world countries. No matter if it’s a soldier or civilian, helping to adopt children in countries where it is needed is definitely one way of regaining or status in the world. If the world can see that the U.S. is generous and caring, we might begin to be liked more again.
Kudos to Jed Moss, who is a hero twice in my book.
Hat tip (and I’d never thought I’d say this): Michelle Malkin
A quick note first. If what the news orgs are saying is true, that Clinton will leave the race by the end of the week, then good! More on that in a bit.
Anyway, I’m happy I didn’t post an extended entry on the last day of the primaries last night. Waiting until now has given me the chance to sleep on things, and my tone now will be more moderated than it would have been if I posted last night.
As I said last night, congratulations to Senator Barack Obama on becoming the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party! As I’ve maintained for some time, I really do think he is the best choice for the Democrats. I really do believe he could help them take back the White House in November. So, congratulations to him.
Then there is Senator Hillary Clinton, who, despite a gallant effort to become the nominee for her party, did indeed lose the race. And unlike the Republican runners-up, made a very good showing. Yet, listening to her speech last night, I was extremely disheartened with her. I have always been what some might call a defender of her right to stay in until the magic number was reached. Whenever some in the blogosphere or media were saying she was finished, I rebuffed these kinds of statements. “Don’t count your cards before the game has finished” has become my slogan in reference to her, or any other candidate (Republican as well) who was said to be no longer viable. Yet, tonight has only locked in place a feeling about her that’s been growing for some time.
I don’t know if it’s been the effect of watching too much of the horserace coverage, or if it’s actually been of my own judgment, or some of both, but the fact that she would not concede last night made me feel really angry toward her. I’m sorry, but when somebody has won a contest, you congratulate them, take your losses, and learn from them. You don’t do what she did, which was pretty much smack him in the face and not recognize the fact that he’s won.
The part of that speech last night was one I’d expect from her if she had won, not when she had lost, and knew it. Clinton isn’t dumb. She’s known for weeks that the odds were not in her favor, and in the days running up to last night had plenty of time to properly prepare that part of the speech. And yet, what she said did not much what she should have said. Should she have used the speech to angle for the Veep position? Absolutely, and I said a couple days ago that she should do just that:
Speaking of that concession speech, what should she put in it? For starters, it could include an adamant call to the party to unite behind Obama. The party needs it. And Clinton can provide it. Second, a statement that she’s going to do her best takes to get him elected. And finally, if I were her, I’d include an impassioned plea to be selected as the running mate. I’m not saying the pairing is ideal, but she would be silly not to try for it. She has, in fact, already done it in previous speeches.
Well, she got at least one of those out of the way, the part about asking to be VP. While it’s an important thing for her to do, extremely more important for her party were the two tasks I outlined before it. The fact that she didn’t do those things, and made the speech entirely about her, is quite disappointing to me. A lot of bloggers have talked about the narcissistic tendencies of the Clintons, and while I was quite willing to look past this characteristic before last night, I don’t think I can do so any longer.
Wrapping things up, I definitely think she still has a shot for the Veep spot, and still think it could probably work out, but I’ve become pretty disillusioned by Clinton over the past couple weeks. This heartache of mine regarding her probably wouldn’t have come if only I’d listened more closely to what one of my good friends said a couple months ago (might have been February), about her tendency to feel she’s entitled to the Presidency.
The best thing I think she can do now, and it may be good damage control from the backfiring that’s resulted from her speech, is concede soon and start to work behind the scenes to help Obama win the Presidency.
Congratulations to Senator Barack Obama on a well deserved win!
I’ll post more about it, and what the future holds for both nominees, tomorrow.
I’ve been watching the delegate count for Barack Obama go up all day long. I don’t know how accurate their estimate is, but CNN has Obama at 2113 right now (up from my 2111 report a few minutes ago). Other networks are being more conservative with their count; everyone else has him under 2110. However, I don’t know how often they update. CNN seems to update the count every 15 minutes to half an hour, while the rest of less frequent.
If you take CNN’s count as true (I’ve already declared my support for MSNBC’s “Middle of the Road” count), could he possibly pass the mark before the delegates are even counted for South Dakota and Montana?
I don’t think so. I like how the Obama camp has played things out today. They waited until the last day to release a bunch of superdelegate supporters. However, I think they may wait until after the votes are counted to release the rest. So that at least the voters of SD and MO can feel like they pushed him past the mark. Democracy in action.
