I know, she got convicted of lying. But I don’t think she would’ve even had the oppurtunity to lie if the feds didn’t come breathing down her neck over the insider “privledge” she recieved.

I just fail to realize how Durbin didn’t recieve insider privledge and how if that isn’t breaking the law, it’s at least highly unethical.

This is the kind of thing that leads to the apathy in the general population. These “privledged” classes do NOT even have the common decency to go through the motions. They do what they want without fear of even covering their tracks then dismiss the fact that they even have to explain themselves to the people that elect them.

And as for Paulson, he is the biggest theif in the history of mankind. That bailout was the biggest financial fraud perpetrated on the American taxpayer ever.

When it was all going down I think everybody could see the grave look of concern on Paulson’s face. YA, that was because he NEEDED money REAL quick to make sure his Wall Street cronies were going to pay themselves their usual bonus’.

Bernie Madoff’s got nothing on Paulson.

“I’ve never purported to *be* a totally together person.”

“We mostly are in agreement on him **him being Jimmy Carter** and I do think that the military option’s viability receded with time.

It is possible that after time President Obama will be fully proven to have misjudged the correct position on many issues and if that is the case I will be the first to decry it. To me the point for making those judgments of him is in the future. All leaders have to play Machiavelli and indeed Machiavelli was not the monstrous cynic he is made out to be. I am not happy with some of the seeming directions he has gone in and I’ve made that clear in my postings here and in my frequent calls to the White House Comment line, calling congress people, E mails to politicians and signing petitions. Yesterday, for instance I signed a Bernie Sanders petition re: health care and called the WH regarding the insiders who are helping him shape the economic controls that need to be put in place.

I’ve been thinking the same thing. Why aren’t Americans in the streets protesting? I don’t know. We are so screwed (as you said). The economic devestation I see around me is so horrible. The dollar store food shelves are bare. I see so many people paying for groceries with plastic and I don’t think it’s for the miles. The streets are rather empty of cars. A coworker of my husband’s pointed out how quiet the Post Office machines were lately. People here are very scared, even the health care industry is laying off. I don’t think we have that much to lose by going to the streets. As to foreign policy here’s what Jeremy Scahill has to say below. Of course, JT has done a fine job covering the civil liberties angle of “no change, you can believe in that!”.

“What I think the policies of the Obama administration over the past five months show is that we need independent political movements in this country that cannot and will not allow themselves to be co-opted by the Democratic Party–that don’t function as partisan movements for the promotion of one of the two corporate parties, but rather keep as their primary focus ending U.S. wars of aggression around the world, fighting for single-payer health care and fighting for the rights of working-class people and the poor in this nation.

I think we have a moment now where there are people coming forward and saying, “I feel like I’ve been tricked,” or “I’m really disappointed,” or “This isn’t what I voted for.” I think that the anger and frustration that many people are expressing now is increasing, and it can be funneled into movements that fight for true change.

I think we’re at a crossroads where if we seize the day, we really can look toward building independent political movements that are not so easily co-opted by the Democratic Party, as many, many antiwar and social justice groups were in the 2008 election campaign.” (from Jeremy Scahill at rebel reports)

“Regan’s people and the CIA with Iran to hold up the hostage release until after the election and that Iran got arms from Israel (or probably more to the point, through Israel) for doing so”

I had a TA in college in about 1982-84 who was from Iran and told me his brother, an Iranian naval officer, was in Norfolk taking shipments of weapons. He even told me the sailors loading the crates were writing death to America on the sides of the crates. I thought he was full of sh… until the spectacle of Oliver North testifying before congress a few years later.

So I think you are probably right, except the arms did not go through Israel if my former TA is to be believed.

You said, “I see the demonstrations in Iran and am heartsick that such public outrage isn’t playing out in the streets here.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Regarding the rest of your first posting way back toward the top of the queue. I agree totally that Obama shows no difference between his Administration and Bush’s on most of the heart and soul issues that make this a (usta’ be) Constitutional Democracy. We are so screwed. If you look at the laws in place now it’s pretty obvious that the mechanism of the kind of gloves-off authoritarianism we associate with cold war Russia or China are in place and rounding up people by the trainload is only as far away as the President (through delegation) making a list and giving the order.

I didn’t vote for this from Bush or Obama. I see the demonstrations in Iran and am heartsick that such public outrage isn’t playing out in the streets here.

“By responding so weakly Carter gave credence to the Fundamentalist crazies within the revolution and helped turn a heretofore secular state into a fundamentalist bastion.” The ‘victory’ of the hostage taking for the new regime can’t be minimized and I have wondered more than once if the legitimacy the hardliners in Iran received because of it ended up bringing even more grief over the long term to the people.

That the government was seized by fanatics didn’t surprise me particularly because I just chalked it up to a need for an equal and opposing force to depose the Shah’s long rule. I thinks it’s physics as much as politics and I’m not being flippant with that statement. That may have been part of Carter’s analysis; ‘they need to publicly punish us for the grief we caused by supporting the Shah and as long as the hostages aren’t brutalized or killed we can just suck it up and work diplomatically to free the hostages. Once we get past that hurdle things can begin to normalize for them and us.’ Factoring some level of public attrition and forbearance into the equation would not have been out of character for him. It was a miscalculation if that was part of Carter’s rationale.

On the other hand, he was a military man so maybe he deemed having to take a threatened military action, and inviting a deadly countermeasure, was just too high of a risk.

I think that after some smallish initial period of time had past there wasn’t much use in threats of force or/and military actions. The attempt so late in the game was a mistake, the time had passed for any effective show of force or military action.

That embassy grounds are accorded the status of foreign soil is something I’m aware of. We are in more agreement on the mechanics of this aspect of his presidency than disagreement I think.

Sure, I have no problem with that assessment. As far as his faith goes, yeah, he walks the walk. I was perhaps trying to avoid caching it in terms of his faith, instead relying upon the ethics of his actions.

I think you understand that I am not a militarist at all. However, I believe that the Iranians would have caved with a deadline and description of drastic consequences. BTW to me the Iranian Revolution was initially a very good thing. The Shah was corrupt and his secret police the Savak were as brutal, or mo so then the KGB. By responding so weakly Carter gave credence to the Fundamentalist crazies within the revolution and helped turn a heretofore secular state into a fundamentalist bastion.

I think he would have been happy to work quietly for years if necessary to retrieve the hostages and avoid violence. Unless he was prepared to field an army (which would have probably have gotten them all killed) the prospect of retrieving that many people by stealth would have taken a miracle. I thought then and now that fielding a small expeditionary force to retrieve them was insane. Also he knew that there were American diplomatic personnel being hidden in the British Embassy that might well be in danger (as well as the the British diplomats helping them) if he used force. The act that was out of character for the man and the situation was sending is the helicopters IMO.

I’m one of those people (along with a Congressional Committee as I recall) that believe a deal was made by Regan’s people and the CIA with Iran to hold up the hostage release until after the election and that Iran got arms from Israel (or probably more to the point, through Israel) for doing so.

I don’t think Carter is a coward, I think he has the kind of conviction good Christians, real followers of Christ are supposed to have. I do think he has the stomach for a fight and will probably be in one fairly soon:
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/06/16/carter-says-palestinians-being-treated-like-animals/

It seems to me he just deals with conflict in a manner that people are not used to seeing in a President and probably don’t want in a President.

Gyges,
Even with your caveats I think this is the only way. Its real problem is the patience of the human being. Building from the ground up takes a lot of work. However, Howard Dean proved the methodology, now if we could only get it done without the corporatist dollars, we might have a viable, though arduous path.

Buddha,
Napoleon is a good case in point. Stature isn’t the problem, outlook is.

To All:
What is the value of a protest Presidential vote? What does it change. BTW Eldridge Cleaver ran for President in 1968 how far did that go? Homework: google Farrell Dobbs.

BeulahMan,
I assume this comment was directed at me, I apologize if it wasn’t, since you averred that you preferred Carter and Clinton as Presidents which seemed to respond to my question.
Given that, I would ask you to go back and read my post again and show me where I am so loyal to President Obama. BTW I didn’t even vote for him in my states Presidential Primary. My current judgment on President Obama and yours is based on 5 months in office. That is too short a time to make a full assessment, give me a year and we can all see the picture with more clarity. The opening paragraph of my first post:

“Call me irresponsible, call me unreliable, but it’s undeniably true….I’m irresponsibly mad about Obama. I mean that as in happy with him, sorry everyone. So far and it is far too early to really see, he appears to me to be the best President of my conscious lifetime, being born near the end of of WWII.”

That was, to me at least, a tongue in cheek parody of some of the attacks made against the President’s supporters both right and left. The body of the remainder of that comment and the one following clearly detail that in my opinion no current president could live up to my political wants. We are faced with a systemic problem characterized by an imbalance of power between the Corporatist interests and the People’s interests. For the time being this precludes anyone becoming president who can really effect the changes we need. As far as Carter and Clinton’s being better presidents, let’s look briefly at the record.

Carter made a great nomination acceptance speech, I was there in MSG as a guest of the NYS delegation and was enthralled and happy. He then proceeded to alienate a more left wing Democratic congress than exists today. His staff was unable to properly liaise with them. The Camp David Accords were his only and best accomplishment, but he did not stop Begin from increasing the size and number of West Bank settlements. He lacked the ability to express a clear vision of progress domestically to the American people and his “malaise” speech was classically stupid, even for his avid, though becoming lukewarm, supporters like myself.

Finally, his admittance of the Shah of Iran into the US led to the Iranian hostage crisis, which he bungled. A long held diplomatic necessity is the sanctity of Embassy property, which is considered the territory of the country represented. The attack upon the embassy thus was an act of war and should have been responded to in that fashion. We should have attacked strongly, in force, retrieved the prisoners and gotten out. Instead we mounted a small helicopter attack that never got off of the ground. I am hardly a militarist but some acts of aggression require response. This lost him the election to Reagan and began this round of full Corporatist dominance doubling taxes on the middle class and rollbacks of the “Great Society” programs. It also turned Democrats in congress towards the center and right wings out of fear for their offices.

Clinton, was a disaster from early on. His “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was a complete capitulation to the military brass, which sent the signal that this president can be pushed around, which in turn was read loud and clear by the Corporatists. He and Hillary completely blew the Health Care
Initiative by letting it be written by the industry, who then didn’t support it. His “Welfare Reform” was a total sham
that he instituted to get himself reelected and really eroded the safety net without the promised Welfare to Work capability. I know this well since I was an executive in NYC welfare at the time. His reappointment of Alan Greenspan to the Fed was total cowardice and accommodation to the Corporatist interests. His aid in pushing NAFTA and destroying Smoot/Hawley led to the outflow of American jobs. His deregulation of banking and industry has led us into the current sorry economic state of affairs. I’d actually rank Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Dwight Eisenhower above him as 20th century presidents and they were no bargain.

President Obama is not where I am politically, but I do believe he has the potential (and I’ll tell you in a year if I’m wrong) to be the best president since FDR. This is of course limited by the oligarchic system now in place.

Incidentally, for those who might wonder why I always insist on using the “President Obama” or “The President” forms for this current administration it is far from obsequiousness. It is a recognition that many in their discussion of The President will try to diminish him by simply using his last name. Whatever you think of him, our first black President should receive the proper respect as befitting all of the white ones.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

“Should have gone with the short guys.”
__________________

Yes, we should go with the short guys with the statuesque brains and the big ears because they think and listen.

“Barack Obama – Mass Murderer”

By Dan Spielberg

“The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names” ~ Chinese Proverb

“The Chinese proverb that opens this piece is true in all times and places, so let’s call Mr. Obama by his real names: Wall Street Stooge, Zionist lickspittle, National Socialist, liar and above all, mass murderer.”

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22607.htm

I may have agreed with your Carter End Run analysis back in the day, but from what I’ve seen from the man since his time in office really makes me lean on the “no stomach” stance. It’s not that he’s not smart, hell no, I’m not going to challenge that, but I just think he’s so non-confrontational in his methodology in everything else that is seems likely his lack of aggression in tackling Congress, rationale or not, is more rooted in his basic personality. He’d have tried to find as smooth a road to resolution no matter what composition he’d have been faced with in Congress. He’s addicted to the “win-win”. I could be wrong, but that’s the kind of guy Carter strikes me as being.

The hurdle for a “short” President with big ears in the White House is probably greater than the glass ceiling hurdle. He could have increased his chances by letting his wife first run for president and himself for vice-president.

An earlier short candidate, Ross “The Boss” Perot, in my opinion made perhaps the most prescient statement ever about NAFTA: “the giant sucking sound” of American jobs heading south of the border.

Should have gone with the short guys.

Congressman’s wife snarled in bribe probe
Detroit councilwoman caught in scandal over sludge contract payoffs

link:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31395275/ns/politics-more_politics/

I have heard Paul speak and read his website during the campaign. He advocated the reduction of the federal government to the point that it was an abdication of the basic responsibilities of a central government. IMO. I characterize that as nuts even though he had a couple of positions I could agree with.

I thought Gravel was a better candidate than Paul in that he had more positions that I could find agreement with but I considered them both fringe.

This election was the first and only time I voted for the lesser of the two evils. I’m not one to vote based on fear, but McCain with the Football was one of my foremost considerations. I also will say that President Obama’s platform wasn’t that far off from my views.

My point wasn’t to hash and rehash the same leftover phrases from every discussion about what’s wrong with the American system, most of us know what that meal tastes like. I’m honestly at a loss as to how to change the system (short of armed rebellion, no-one would win that war). The best I’ve been able to come up with is start locally and work nationally (which I think is the mistake most “third parties” make, is they try the opposite). Even if that strategy were to work, you’re still facing Duverger’s law. Further more, how do we convince people that control the media, campaign rules, and most of the money that is spent on politics to change the rules to not favor themselves?

I agree the obstructionists in Congress would have tried to Carter him, but I think Kucinich has something Carter didn’t: a stomach for a fight.

——————

I think Carter was smart. He saw how it was going to go and looked for a way to do the job in areas that had less Congressional control than domestic policy. Presidents have a lot of latitude in foreign policy. I think Carter just saw the future 3 years for what they would be and decided an end run around Congress could be productive.

Barack Obama is as bad as most Republicans, Bush notwithstanding.

You are loyal and that is too bad. He has fooled you and you seem to refuse to acknowledge that.

Did you notice me calling you on the things you look for and suggesting that Obama has none of those things.

Can you tell me that he has met any of your qualifications? Some of them? All of them?

Jill, as I’ve said elsewhere: evil, you’re pure evil I love it, ROFLMFAO.

I’ve written in Kucinich and Carter for president on more than one ballot. I was going to write in Kucinich right up to the time I was sitting in my car thinking about it at my polling place in ‘08. McCain/Palin scared the s*** out of me, more specifically, that SP could end up as President. I’ve voted my conscience on a number of occasions and would vote for a third party- even the ELF party, if the candidate wasn’t nuts. I put Paul into the ‘nuts’ category.

IS,
This is hyperbole to say the least. The truth is that you know it is hyperbole, but are making the statement out of your anger with all that is not happening, that should. I’ll take America over for instance, Indonesia, India, China, England, France, Germany, Russia, etc. Perhaps Sweden is better, but I don’t think they’re into immigration, nor is a personal favorite of mine Denmark. I like Holland because of the sexual openness and legal marijuana, but they have been having a lot of immigrant problems of late. Face it, there are not many places where the needs of the people override the needs of the elite.

Chris,
I don’t really disagree with you. I don’t believe that there are any countries in this world that are truly democratic, free and not run by monied elites and corporations. No countries that I know of are run for the benefit of their people, rather than for a small percentage of the country’s “haves.” I love America and love being an American.

Nevertheless, with all that said, we are not a republic or a democracy. We are controlled by an oligarchy of mutual interests that use their wealth to control our citizens and our politicians. That we have it better in some things then the rest of the world, does not mean that this country has lived up to its Constitution or the hopes of its founders. It simply hasn’t been a government or country that has acted in the best interests of most of its’ people. This needs to be changed and it needs to be changed by people getting beyond the old left/right ways of thinking and learning to
see it’s not the politics. The solution is making the government responsive to the needs of all of the people, rather than just a few wealthy ones.

This is the most backward country in the world with the least amount of freedom.

We have low taxes, no national health care, an oppressive military, the right to bear arms, college education is not free to anyone, we have property rights, the constitution is a constant irritation, and many other things that limit our freedom from want.

And if that weren’t enough I cant go and bash my neighbor on the head and take his property by force. That would be competing with our government.

President Obama, faced with a corporate led financial crisis has done the best he can, given the control of congress by the corporatists of all stripes. He is trying to move health care into the mainstream of concern. He is working on winding down Iraq, but needs to do more on Afghanistan and Pakistan. These are foreign policy issues of long standing and despite any wish for a magic wand America in not easily or safely disentangled. He has pushed understanding that global warming is a major issue. He has shown a desire to deal with unemployment and entwined energy independence with economic opportunity. He has presented a clear cut policy on the Israel/Arab conundrum. That’s just a part of what he’s done in just five months.

The specifics and rapidity of pace on any of these issues may displease you, but who else really could have done more?
Kucinich, please. He’s a good man, but they would already be moving to impeach him and there would be billion$ invested in getting that job done. This is the reality of this country. You and I may not like it, but it exists. In my 64 years I’ve spent too much time in baying at the moon politically. I’m not quitting, but I think new tactics are in order. One of them is being satisfied in small victory’s as one presses for moving the line further. What I see presented here, by many I respect, is that they are expecting much more from any President than is humanly deliverable given our system and then decrying them when they don’t deliver. Many may call it honesty, but I call it self-fulfilling prophecy, that ignores recognition what most of you already know about this country and this world. It is
O as in Oligarchy and that is not easily dispatched with.

And in that one paragraph I can find not a single instance that Obama could possibly have made you feel like he was with you.

I doubt that he agrees with a single issue of yours (and I do, btw), yet he is the best POTUS you have seen?

Dear God.

My perspective on this country is that it is and always was an
oligarchy composed of shifting Corporatist interests, melded with an elite composed of the very wealthy. As much as I admire Jefferson, Franklin and Washington for instance, they were very wealthy men who were fully concerned in their lifetimes with the perquisites of their wealth and status. We are of course a Republic, with certain democratic features, but have never come close to being a democratic nation.

While I’ve personally known far too many Marxists to be interested in that type of political theory, I nonetheless have certain core beliefs that place me out of the American mainstream politically. I believe in governmental control of corporations; universal health care; the right to have decent shelter; the right to have wherewithal for food and clothing; the right to free education through and beyond college; a truly progressive tax system; the Bill of Rights and the imperative need for a legal system that is fair to everyone; the end of of the concept of American hegemony, prejudice (racial/ethnic and sexual) and a humane foreign policy. That was not in any particular order of importance and certain not all of what I believe in.

I offer the foregoing as examples of what I’m for. All of the above I believe are concepts worth struggling for, but none of them individually, or in toto are in the least mainstream with more than perhaps 25% of all Americans. I’m not naive and know that the reason for this low figure is the result of ongoing propaganda that blinds our citizens to what is really going on. Given that I believe this is the state of affair I never expected President Obama, or anyone else to come close to what I would call ideal and in fact I would expect anyone who is elected in the current political clime of America, to be a disappointment to people who share my beliefs. That’s the reality.

I don’t preach despair though. I believe in commitment to healing my country and the world. I know that for real change to occur it has to be incremental and only can come about when a majority of the people want it. The task for me and those of similar beliefs is to try to not educate people, because that pre-supposes our own infallibility, but to get people to try to think independently and iconoclastically. This is an age old struggle that will not be resolved in our lifetimes and yet it is a cause to believe in.

Given that, President Obama has checked some of the faux conservative excesses and is trying to move positively in some areas that are of most concern. People are out of work.
People lack adequate health care. People are losing their homes. Until you check the emergent nature of this for most people, you will not change their perspective. To paraphrase a quote I used earlier in another thread and with respects to the writer of “The Americanization of Emily.”

God save us from the ideologues of the world, because they are the ones who in their demand for political purity, kill the momentum of the movement.

I asked the people I trusted why they were voting for him and I listened. I took what they said seriously. On this blog I asked rafflaw this question because I had come to trust his judgement through reading his posts. Beyond that, the many other people who write here and who’s opinion I value, I read with an open heart and mind. JT was pro-Obama as were most others, except trolls of course. and I honestly considered what everyone wrote. The person I trust most in this world, my husband, voted for Obama. I kept asking questions, reading, looking things up and I just couldn’t shake my fears that Obama would be exactly the kind of president he is. The imperial and lawless president was in his voting record and his every action. The last straw for me was when the tide turned against Hillary and the defense/mercenary companies started pouring all their money into his campaign.

Like Gyges (and I’m guessing almost everyone else here), McCain/Palin were out of the question. But I could never get my questions about Obama answered in a way that made sense. I just could not ceed my conscience to him and vote for him.

I’m with BuehlahMan. We should stop thinking “we the people” can win in an election between evil and less evil. We are the problem and we have got to make a better choice in the future. Continuing to do the same thing and believing there will be a different outcome is really not thinking very clearly (a bad paraphrase). In the meantime we must figure out a way to make the current crew accountable to the law and the people. If we don’t, we won’t have to worry about any more elections.

faced with the choice of voting either for someone we hoped would do the right thing, someone we knew wouldn’t, and a whole group of people who stood no chance of getting elected.

As long as America believes that (and Gyges is correct in that assessment… which is heavily “taught” us by the very ones we know are screwing us).

I would say that if everyone that has told me those sentiments had actually voted their conscience and against the other reasons, then there would have been a landslide for the alternative candidate. At the very least, it may have been a 4 or 5 way race (which is absolutely fine by me).

But no, we let them mindfuck us into “voting for the lessor of two evils”.

When we allow the Corporate Party (which includes both DemoRATS and reTHUGlicans) to control the election process and don’t vote their sorry asses out, then we find ourselves in the same, tired old GroundHog Day over and over again.

We are the problem.

Look at how heavily the game is rigged for the two established parties: There’s the way the press covers the two “major” parties vs. “third party candidates;” There’s ability of the two parties to pump so much money into the race to make it impossible for any third group to compete; and the fact that there isn’t a voter around that can remember when the choices weren’t R or D. All this gives us the example of Buddha (and myself), who was realistically faced with the choice of voting either for someone we hoped would do the right thing, someone we knew wouldn’t, and a whole group of people who stood no chance of getting elected. The outcome only reinforced the two party entrenchment.

So how do we change that?

LOL

You crafty ol’ cyber-Hick, y’all got ‘nother hit offin’ yur website a’sendin’ me thar to decifer whut “FLILF” mint. Hit warn’t whut I thot hit wuz tho.

Dat’ yeller summer squash ya growed and cooked up a mess of shore looked like sum fine vittles. Fried yellow summer squash covered in corn pone batter is a southern favorite of mine.

My favorite FLILF

http://buelahman.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/flilf-not-flilf/

Mike,

I agree. Democrats have long ago left “the Left”. I speak often of the Singular Party with two schisms dependent upon the wedge issues to appease the weak Americans who believe it MUST be a two party system. They believe it because these two parties tell them to believe it, in lieu of all the obvious detriment to that purpose.

I didn’t choose Kucinich because he was a Democrat (as a matter of fact, that was an obstacle with me he had to overcome). So, in response to your issue 1: it is America who reaps the adversity and chaos of playing the Two party game. If more would snap out of it, those parties would be forced to actually merge or disband. The reTHUGlicans are a breath away, anyway.

2: it is difficult when even your own party is fighting against you with as much heart as they fight against the “opposite” party. My biggest complaint to Kucinich was that there was, in fact, disorganization. There were times I could not send money because the website had problems. That could be improved, however, with the backing of his party he could excel (which will never happen). So, I wrote the article in Nov 07 saying that he and Paul should run Independent. Would he have won? Dunno, but I bet it would have been a three way race, had they done it.

3: Sad. America is sad. From what I have seen of recent “stars” in politics, they virtually end up all as crooks and liars. But, they were certainly deemed “stars”.

America must wake up.

This is one reason why i bother. If I didn’t think I could work to convince more and educate those about the realities facing us, I wouldn’t waste my time. Hopefully the more people will be willing to see the third party guy (like Nader: whom I eventually worked to elect after Dennis left the race).

1) You know everything is in how you present it, counselor. From a campaigning standpoint, this is an addressable issue. I’m not saying it’s not an issue either, just that it’s addressable.

2) Lack of organization is an issue. Correctable, but the question is at what cost? Would he have to sell out to get the money to finance an adequate organization for the task of national politics? It was and is a concern.

3) This is, unfortunately, I have to agree is Kucinich’s Achilles Heel. Sad. Not for him but rather for our patently superficial society as a whole. Democracy at its best is a marketplace of ideas. He’s got those in abundance. As far as looks go, eh, yeah, his wife got all them all.

1. His views are too far left for most mainstream Democrats. That is one of the reasons he has not done well in primaries. The fact that he is well respected by many regulars on this site should tell you that.

2. He has never been able to develop a broadly based national organization to support his candidacy.

3. He doesn’t have any star power. I know that sounds cheap and trivial, and it is, but his stature and personality have hampered his ability grab the public’s imagination.

Those are the regrettable facts.

This is about as much “change” as I can stand.

“Obama blocks list of visitors to White House
Taking Bush’s position, administration denies msnbc.com request for logs”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31373407/ns/politics-white_house/