Obama: The College Years

Found, of course, while reviewing the Time Magazine choice for Person of the Year:

In one of the craziest elections in American history, he overcame a lack of experience, a funny name, two candidates who are political institutions and the racial divide to become the 44th President of the United States.

…hey, ya gotta sell magazines somehow. Stay tuned for exclusive alternate magazine covers.

Update:

Entrys from years past, Agi’s and my own.

Hand Solo strikes again…

• PS Palin Apologizes
• RNC shells out $150K for Palin fashion
• AP INVESTIGATION: Alaska funded Palin kids’ travel

Rich Lowry of sparkles and starbursts infamy is aghast at “CNN taking something of his out of context.” Dude be glad they did considering your past. Share the wealth.

Defending Obama’s Foreign Policy
Comment
By Tom Hayden
September 29, 2008

It is as if frustration with Obama is greater than anything some people on the left feel towards McCain. I feel their pain, but let me offer this formula: no candidate will move further left than their base demands and public opinion allows.

…

I personally wish he hadn’t, but Obama has decided to close off any possible attacks from the right or the media on his national security policies and credentials. I believe that this stance will have serious consequences, like John Kennedy encountered at the Bay of Pigs. But I also know that his position is a political one, and can be (and should be) taken up by the left after election day.

-Shorter Messer Hayden: Hold your nose and pull the lever you stinking Hippies.

And in other news:

• End of Iraq’s Awakening?
• The Next Step on the Bailout.
• Suspected U.S. missile strike kills 6 in Pakistan

That’s a big meme taking off.

…in three posts:

• Media Matters:The media debunk McCain smears, then promote them
• Obama camp responds: ‘sad…juvenile antics’
• Running While Black

*Pic inspired by this article

Oh, it’s Shark Week alright.

• The Great White Hope
• Race issue moves to center of campaign
• McCain Camp Says Obama Is Playing ‘Race Card’

The right wing blogs are in a feeding frenzy this week and media just has to get a closer look, parroting every half baked notion in full “some people say” mode. Weeks ago John McCain proved his campaign is bankrupt when it comes to the vision required to lead this country forward on the toughest issues of the day. There isn’t a single issue he’d hesitate to flip-flop on in order to win an election, no limit to the amount of American blood he’d be willing to shed in order to win a campaign. But with his interjection of race into this election, John McCain can finally say that, as Hillary Clinton once remarked, “I found my voice.”

The longest 15 minutes ever.

Over at Atrios’s Eschaton they have the “Wanker of the Day.” If I had a vote it’d go to Michael Weiss. Runner up, Wolf Blitzer:

BLITZER: Because they also make the point, Suzanne, the McCain people, that you know what? The Obama campaign used this race card, they allege, against the Clintons, especially Bill Clinton. They made it sound during the primaries that Bill Clinton was a racist, using the racial issue to try to undermine Senator Obama.

And they say, you know what? We’re not going to fall into that trap. If they even imply in the most modest way that Senator McCain is using race as an issue, they’re going to pounce with all their power.

*Note: Edited after initial publication. I like this title better.

Presumptuous…hubris and contempt, my it doesn’t take the beltway boys (and girls) long to pick up on the whole “uppity negro” meme, eh?

…the Press has no gag reflex:

See also: McCain backs off his no-new-tax pledge.

Bush Praises Pakistan Just Hours After U.S. Strike
By STEVEN LEE MYERS

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Monday praised Pakistan’s commitment to fighting extremists along its deteriorating border with Afghanistan, only hours after an American missile strike destroyed what American and Pakistani officials described as a militant outpost in the region, killing at least six fighters.

Mr. Bush, meeting with Pakistan’s prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, at the White House, sought to minimize growing concerns that Pakistan’s willingness to fight extremists was waning, allowing the Taliban and Al Qaeda to regroup inside Pakistan and plan new attacks there and beyond.

Senior American officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice just three days ago, publicly scolded Pakistan for not doing more to root out safe havens like the one bombed on Monday in Azam Warsak, a village in South Waziristan near the Afghan border.

Among those believed to have been killed in the missile attack, evidently carried out by a remotely piloted aircraft operated by the Central Intelligence Agency, was an Egyptian identified as a senior Qaeda trainer and weapons expert, according to residents and officials in the area, as well as American officials. Neither the operative’s identity nor that of the others has been confirmed.

The officials spoke anonymously because of the political and diplomatic sensitivities of attacking targets in Pakistan.

Juxtapose that with the following:

Doubts Pakistan can assert control over spy agency
Mon Jul 28, 2008 7:29pm EDT
By Simon Cameron-Moore

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistanis doubt whether their new civilian leaders are capable of asserting control over a powerful military spy agency after what was widely seen as a botched attempt at the weekend.

The timing could not have been more embarrassing for Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, in the United States for a meeting with President George W. Bush on Monday that focused on Pakistan’s role in the U.S.-led war on terrorism.

Last week, Washington demanded Pakistan investigate Indian and Afghan accusations that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was involved in a Kabul suicide bombing that killed 58 people outside the Indian embassy, including two diplomats.

Gilani’s four-month-old government has issued denials of ISI complicity but can say only what the spies and army divulge.

The United States and its Western allies have trusted the ISI to help combat al Qaeda, but there have long been suspicions that it takes a permissive line over the Taliban, allowing the militants freedom to attack Afghanistan over the border.

There is mounting apprehension that Pakistan’s generals are becoming less cooperative because the country fears Washington has allowed rival India to extend influence in Afghanistan.

With Pakistan in a fragile transition to democracy after President Pervez Musharraf’s eight years of military rule, Washington has been talking to various parties in the nuclear-armed nation about closer coordination on security.

On Saturday night, while Gilani was still en route to Washington, his government dropped a bombshell with a decree that the Interior Ministry would oversee spy agency activities.

The government said the ISI and its civilian counterpart, the Intelligence Bureau (IB), would be brought under the “administrative, financial and operational control of the Interior Division with immediate effect”.

On Sunday, the government issued a clarification saying it had been “misinterpreted” and that the decree “only re-emphasizes more coordination” between the ministry and the ISI on internal security matters.

It said another detailed decree would be issued later.

“I think the ISI immediately got into the act and did what they thought was best to have the decision reversed,” said Najam Sethi, editor of the Daily Times newspaper.

“AMATEURISH”

Defence analyst Nasim Zehra said the government’s action had been “amateurish, thoughtless and hasty”, though there was a good case for streamlining the security apparatus and drawing more rigorous reporting lines.

Newspaper editorials saw the chain of events as farcical.

Why would the “Paper of Record” be brushing the Bush Administration dirt under the rug? Or the struggle for Democracy in Pakistan? It feels like there has been a media black out since the immediate aftermath of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. Why is no one asking about this? Thanks again, Corporate Media.

Update: Via Crooks & Liars the Los Angeles Times steps up…

• Sandbagged
• VIRAL SMEARS
• Visiting Landstuhl

John McCain is such a big piece of shit that all the previous years of his honorable public service, to include his time in the military, are washed away in the diarrhea spray that shoots forth every time he or someone involved in his campaign open their mouths.