I don't think we have ever gotten the answers from Obama.

And, now, Obama appears to be echoing the narrative, spread by the right and their media friends, that the anti-war movement was against the troops.   We all know the stories -- that soldiers were spat upon as they returned from Vietnam.  In reality, there are few, if any, credible reports that this happened.  It was quite the opposite -- anti-war protesters wanted to end a meaningless war and bring the draftees home.

What gives?  Many of the battles of the 1990s had their genesis in the battles of the 1960s. And the protests against the Vietnam War, of course, had the civil rights movement as their model.  

Kovic was a speaker at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, seconding the nomination of draft resister Fritz Efaw for Vice President of the United States.

In Kovic's words.

Most of my fellow veterans were angry at the protesters, cursing them and calling them traitors ...

He did it with Wright. He used to preach about post racial new world integration blah blah while his past showed that he was actually close to a church whose belief was more founded on segregation than integration. Again here his defence was go by my speeches rather than my actions. He talks of new politics but his ascendancy to the Senate and now the front runner has been by doing politics the good old way. But then he happily tells everybody that because he says new politics we should believe what he says rather than what he does.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/clinton_campaign_brought_sexis.html

"That's basically what get-out-the-vote money is," he said. "Paying to get votes."

And this one isn't even under the cover of an op-ed or a new op-ed columnist.  I am thoroughly disgusted by the nytimes and how they selectively revisit recent issues with a heavy slant when it involves clinton.  

Today's article, as it is a news piece, is more subtle than the KKK-3 am ad reference (the day of the Mississippi primary).  Or their new AA columnist  right before the NC election that branded clinton a racist.  However, it's clear that it's one-sided and it's also race-baiting.  A narticle about hillary paying hispanic citizens to GOTV in texas.

Pathetic

It's jarring because: they usually don't review previous issues in the news (everything sinks down the memory hole or doesn't get reported); they already reported on street money; they call her out on old style politics and not obama; they ran a quote that clinton supporters aren't energetic; they don't effectively highlight class a reason to pay and instead highlight energetic obama workers as deserving of compensation; they discuss manipulating the elderly as the fear...scarcely a paragraph away from discussing those energetic college voters (who have been charged with bullying them).

And then there is this winner:

But even when entirely legal, the trading of campaign money for active political participation can raise awkward questions.

Gah. This article, that talks about the campaign compensating/paying blacks and hispanics near the border in texas comes out the day of the WV primary.  Talk about race baiting...the media stereotype of anti-black and anti-immigrant WV folks makes this a clear article for them on election day /eyeroll.  It's as insulting as the KKK op-ed on Mississippi election day.

Officials from four labor unions that endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, say they will continue to lobby for her candidacy regardless of the daunting delegate math. One union is even hoping Clinton takes her battle against Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, all the way to the floor of the Democratic National Convention in August.

Rick Sloan, communications director for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers says the union is rallying its members to support Clinton in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Oregon.

We continue to support Sen. Clinton," says AFSCME's Gregory King. "We're going to continue to campaign full-steam ahead."
ABC

American Federation of Teachers and the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades are running their GOTV programs in WV, KY and OR.

Just a very odd thing to mention, unless perhaps to elicit shame from Boomers in the audience (which of course there are few!!).

He went on to talk in his usual well-spoken way about improving the lot of Iraq vets, moving stuff like "vets living under cardboard in the richest country in the world", and so on. Very moving. So I kept waiting for his actual plan to help vets. Waiting for you know, substance? I got a mention of imprioving techhnollogy for the VA (I actually thought they were the most advanced system we have in terms of medical records and electronic data storage but whatever), and testign vets before and after they go (thought we did that too)....but as usual, absolutely no explanation of how it will work, how it will get paid for, no plan at all.

Now maybe my expectations were high because I'd just got done listening to Hillary's stump speech, and she ticks of details like a friggen' machine. I'm reminded of a technologist (I"m in systems) reading a project plan to a room full of engineers.

Less inspiring? Certainly.

Substantive? ABsolutely.

I immediately brought up MI and FL.  His response made it apparent that this was a familiar theme.  I told him to be sure to give me a call AFTER the DNC had straightened that out.

I know there are anecdotal incidences of returning soldiers being treated poorly. Yes, some "protesters" spit on them, or called them names. For the most part, these were fairly isolated incidences and not reflective of the majority of the anti-war protesters. From the stories I've heard, it was mostly that family and friends had no idea how to deal with the men coming home, leaving the guys to feel isolated, alone.

The real injustice was done by the government. Agent Orange, poor health care, limited VA resources, completely ignoring the needs of the men coming home. Sound familiar? We haven't learned much in 35 years, have we?

And it seems to me that the so-called protesters who did treat the soldiers poorly are very much like the Obama supporters who spew their hate toward anyone not joining the Obamacult. There's no real message, no substance behind their actions, just an excuse to vent their prejudices and bigotries. This is the unity that Obama exemplifies. This is the unity that Obama creates.

Obama is a disgrace, and the fact that he's gotten this far in his political career is proof to me that this country hasn't progressed one step forward - I don't care what color his skin is.

OK, what exactly IS Obama's church of 20 years?

According to the church website:

The vision statement of Trinity United Church of Christ is based upon the systematized liberation theology that started in 1969 with the publication of Dr. James Cone's book, Black Power and Black Theology.

What is is Dr. James Cone's book "Black Power and Black Theology"?  Overall, it is a positive movement, but does have seemingly racist rough edges, or at least sound bites that could easily be exploited in a campaign, including these mentioned in Salon:

Cone also said that Malcolm X was "not far wrong" when he called the white man "the devil," and "if God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him."

Perhaps, this in and of itself would not be additionally problematic for Obama, but when you add in the statements and philosophy of Wright, and the church's regular promotion and collaboration with Louis Farrakhan, it spells out a political problem that goes well beyond Wright and includes his church, in general.

Just looking at the math
5/13:   WV = 39 delegates;  5 electoral votes.  
5/20:    KY = 59 delegates;  8 electoral votes
"   "      OR = 62 delegates;  7 electoral votes
Hope I have the delegates right; it's confusing between district and at-large. Weird. What a screwy system.

So what the traditional news isn't telling you, and Terry McAuliffe isn't telling you, but I'm gonna tell you is that MI has, for all intents and purposes, been resolved.

lsnip]

There's one more tidbit I wanted to share, from a discussion of what the DNC rules committee memebrs--as distinct from the muckymucks in MI who support Clinton but support seating MI's delegation more--want to do:

But the punishment that the rules committee secretly favors is to take away all superdelegates (54) from both states, since it is elected officials like Michigan's Sen. Carl Levin and Gov. Jennifer Granholm, along with Sen. Bill Nelson from Florida, who encouraged these outlaw primaries.

But I study and study and study Obama, and I feel like a lot of people in that profile in Sunday's NYTimes article--can't pin him down on anything.  I know that he wants to be seen as "the conciliator" or "the moderator" or "the bridge", which tends to put him in that wishy-washy wherever-ground with a plausible reason for being there.  But I still have a lot of trouble figuring out who this guy is and what he will do for me.

I had heard that Obama considered Lieberman a mentor or something like that.

In fact, the first google hit for Lieberman Obama is Obama Endorses Lieberman for Senate a TalkLeft post....

I have been told that we can never forgive Clinton for her vote on Iraq.

Somewhere with higher taxes, more street crime, less economic opportunity, and less freedom of expression?

Somewhere like England/France/Germany/Italy/Canada? All of which recently put right-wing governments in power.

Thats just my perspective, but it is a perspective held by many of my generation. This contest has always been about generational differences from the start and has since been unfortunately conflagrated with race. Remove voters over 55 and Obama wins. 55 and over only, and Clinton wins by a mile.

I remember, I think it might a been a song or a saying. where a soldier chosen to go to Vietnam said

even the headline is to offensive to post here but you really need to see it:

Geeze nice rightwing revisionist history.

Then, Boomers and others actually put their scholarships (some departments/professors gave A's for protesting; others demanded even more work if classes were missed -- I had the latter) and even bodies on the line to protest the war.  

I can't prove this; it's a feeling I get from his various statements and how he talks about that period of time. To me it's a strange attitude for someone his age to have.

Disdain, disrespect drips from his comments.

But, then, I'm a leading edge Boomer, and marched in civil rights rallies and anti-war protests.

I actually did stick daisies in rifle barrels -- at a ROTC practice at my university.  I've always felt vaguely uncomfortable about that: One guy said, "F**k you, expletive" to which I said something, probably "Make love, not war," but I really don't remember.  I do remember the anger in his eyes. I didn't want to make him or the others angry; I wanted to keep them from going to that war. Not the best way to do so, probably.

Occasionally, they let me post once and then ban me, but usually they moderate the comments and nothing appears. You might try to get on in wording your posts in obscure language. These guys aren't geniuses.

Here is one thing to try to convince youngsters not to join. Worse than death, they risk coming back as vegetables or horribly deformed.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3886348.ece

My two deployments to Viet Nam were on an aircraft carrier. In both cases we steamed through the Virginia Capes early in the morning and manned the rail with the ship's band playing Anchors Aweigh as we approached pier 12. There were only friends and family waiting for us. We got a brass band reception.

Technically speaking I was a volunteer. In reality I enlisted in the navy four days before my draft notice arrived. After the institution of the draft lottery in 1969, there began a noticeable decline in the activity on college campuses. There was the time when the draft law expired and was not renewed until about a year later. I was at Oberlin College in 69-70 (the college shut down after Kent State) and at the University of Michigan until the mid seventies. When the draft became less of a personal issue, the level of protests clearly declined. I also noted that those of us in VVAW, along with many others made sure that all protests were directed toward the power structure not the individual soldiers.

Since many of us who served, particularly in the early years of the conflict, are now reaching our sixties, it explains some of our lack of excitement for Senator Obama. Those of us who disagreed with the war and especially those of us who are members of VVAW are not particularly inclined toward Senator McCain either. We are left with Senator Clinton. Senator Obama should study history a little more carefully before he makes comments such as he made.