black…MYstory

Well, I tried to give Hillary Clinton credit for getting rid of a problem advisor but, it appears that the resignation/firing was more for show.

It appears that Penn’s actually been “demoted.”

Mr. Penn took part on the campaign’s morning message call this morning, as usual.

This afternoon, he is also scheduled to be on a call with Clinton and other aides to begin to prepare for Saturday’s presidential debate in Philadelphia.

Mr. Penn “is still going to be very much involved,” a senior campaign official said.

Well, let’s see how this plays out.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Why is Terry McAuliffe, chair of Hillary Clinton’s national campaign, holding up Obama signs. These pictures were taken at a recent grass-roots rally in Washington state. Perhaps McAuliffe just sees the bigger picture.

Popularity: 9% [?]

From the “what-took-you-so-long?” dept:

Hillary Clinton’s top campaign strategist has resigned. We’ll actually, it appears that he was shown the door. Now, if I were Barack Obama, specifically, I would have a field day with this one. In a moment, I think you’ll understand why.

Often, Obama rails against the influence of lobbyists in Washington. Well, lo and behold, his opponent’s chief strategist, as it turns out, is also the chief executive of the Burson-Marstellar lobbying firm. In this capacity, he met with the Colombia ambassador to the U.S. on Monday. The Colombian government has been using the services of his firm for several months in efforts to get a trade deal pushed through Congress.

The problem? Hillary Clinton is opposed to this trade deal.

So, follow me here — Clinton is against the agreement but, the chief strategist of her campaign is a lobbyist whose firm is on the other side of the issue and Penn didn’t even have the good sense to, at least, not be personally involved in the deal.

For his part, Penn called his involvement in this meeting, “an error in judgement.”

Who knows why the campaign dragged its feet for a few days before letting him go but, make no mistake, this is a very bad thing to happen as the Pennsylvania and North Carolina vote looms. I still don’t expect this affect Clinton much in the polls in Pennsylvania but, in later contests this is going to be a problem. You can’t set yourself up as a champion of the little guy when you have a fat-cat lobbyist running your campaign and, for all you know, using his association with you, either explicitly or implied, to show these clients that he has an inside track into what could be the next Presidential administration.

Finally, in a bit irony, not only is Penn on the outs with the Clinton campaign but, also, his lobbying firm was fired by the Colombian government. It appears that the Colombians were offended that Penn would refer to his dealings with them as an “error in judgement.”

Well, I’ll be interested to see just how all this plays out.

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It looks like this is going to be a running narrative for Clinton. First, there is the infamous story about the sniper fire. Then, there’s the big dispute about whether or not she, as first lady, helped broker peace in Ireland. Next, after claiming how she was so greatly against NAFTA, the Clinton White House documents were released showing how she was heavily involved in getting it pushed through, even strategizing on how to battle labor and human rights groups who would object to this agreement.

Now, another story is coming out and, though some may not consider this as big but, when put together with the others, might raise some more questions.

First of all, let me be clear — I am all for universal healthcare. I think it’s necessary and long overdue in this country. However, there are plenty of horror stories about people dying from lack of appropriate care. So, if Clinton has been spreading an untrue tale along these lines, she should be ashamed.

What am I talking about, you ask?

On the campaign trail, Sen. Clinton has been telling a story about an Ohio woman who lost her baby and, ultimately, her own life after being denied health care and not being able to come up with the $100 fee.

Now, the hospital in question is disputing her story. If what they say is true, the Clinton camp really got the story twisted. According to the hospital, this is the real deal:

The woman, Trina Bachtel, did die last August, two weeks after her baby boy was stillborn at O’Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio. But hospital administrators said Friday that Ms. Bachtel was under the care of an obstetrics practice affiliated with the hospital, that she was never refused treatment and that she was, in fact, insured.

“We implore the Clinton campaign to immediately desist from repeating this story,” said Rick Castrop, chief executive officer of the O’Bleness Health System.

Linda M. Weiss, a spokeswoman for the not-for-profit hospital, said the Clinton campaign had never contacted the hospital to check the accuracy of the story, which Mrs. Clinton had first heard from a Meigs County, Ohio, sheriff’s deputy in late February.

A Clinton spokesman, Mo Elleithee, said candidates would frequently retell stories relayed to them, vetting them when possible. “In this case, we did try but were not able to fully vet it,” Mr. Elleithee said. “If the hospital claims it did not happen that way, we respect that.”

The sheriff’s deputy, Bryan Holman, had played host to Mrs. Clinton in his home before the Ohio primary. Deputy Holman said in a telephone interview that a conversation about health care led him to relate the story of Ms. Bachtel. He never mentioned the name of the hospital that supposedly turned her away because he did not know it, he said.

Deputy Holman knew Ms. Bachtel’s story only secondhand, having learned it from close relatives of the woman. Ms. Bachtel’s relatives did not return phone calls Friday.

Now, you would think that with all the highly-paid people on her staff and the fact that Sen. Clinton is no dummy herself, somebody would have actually verified this story before continuing to spread it.

Hell, if you want a real story that highlights this need, I’ll gladly offer you the story of Deamonte Driver, a boy who ultimately died of a brain infection that started from an abcessed tooth. His mother couldn’t afford the $80 to get it fixed and couldn’t find an oral surgeon who would accept Medicaid.

Or, she could have talked about the story of 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan, who died just six hours after her insurance company, Cigna, was shamed into agreeing to pay for her liver transplant. This company had denied her claim 9 days earlier, even though her physicians said that she was clearly a candidate for this transplant. Oh, now I remember why Clinton wouldn’t talk about her — her campaign blasted John Edwards for talking about Nataline’s case back in January.

What did they say? Campaign spokesperson Jay Carson stated, “the references in Senator Clinton’s speeches are about people she has actually helped and changes she has actually made, not stories she’s pulled from the newspaper and included in her stump.”

Oh, wait a minute…Clinton only talks about people she’s helped, not from stories she’s gotten secondhand?

I wonder if these words will come back to haunt them? Oh, wait, they just did.

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In this picture, you see Hillary Clinton,in 1996, along with her daughter Chelsea, hugging a child in Bosnia. Now, as you can see, it seems like a pretty ordinary trip for the then-First Lady.

However, according to Clinton, this was the trip that Ms. Clinton referred in these terms:

“I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

Okay, I won’t be snippy and ask how everyone would be hanging around on a tarmack, out in the open, with children about if there all this sniper fire going on. I also won’t ask about why news accounts from that day make no mention of the First Lady being under fire in Bosnia. I won’t even ask how she was outed on this by none other than the comedian Sinbad, who accompanied her on this trip.

You see, this is part of the so-called “experience” that Clinton has over Obama. However, these “embellishments” (let’s be real and say that she’s just not telling the truth) are raising some questions about just what real experience she holds over Obama, at least in regards to foreign policy experience.

Now, one can’t diminish the role of a First Lady but, we also have to be real. Being First Lady meant that Hillary Clinton had no security clearance so, she wasn’t privy to the information that goes into shaping our foreign policy. She was there to be a ceremonial leader. Now, this is not to say that she did not travel extensively and that she did not meet with foreign dignitaries. She did. However, to say that somehow makes her a shaper of foreign policy is ridiculous. This is like saying that Laura Bush and Barbara Bush, before her, where key shapers of our foreign policy. Again, this role is important but, not in which policy decisions get made.

So, what experience does this leave her? Well, this does give her some life experience that is greater than Obama’s, she has a two-year lead on Obama in terms of U.S. Senate experience and, obviously, she is very politically-savvy. However, by no means, does this mean that the experience gap is as wide as she would like us to believe.

Now, that this had come to the surface, Clinton is hoping to nonchalantly dismiss this as a her having merely “misspoken”. Her spokesperson pointed to the following passage in her book to indicate that this was merely a misstatement:

“Due to reports of snipers in the hills around the airstrip, we were forced to cut short an event on the tarmac with local children, though we did have time to meet them and their teachers and to learn how hard they had worked during the war to continue classes in any safe spot they could find,”

However, the problem is not that she was being honest then but, that she is being dishonest now. Had her recent telling of this story been allowed to stand, you might have been left with certain notions like:

1. Hillary Clinton was bravely risking her life on a diplomatic mission to Bosnia and
2. Bill Clinton must have not minded sending his wife and daughter into certain danger.

Okay, that last statement was my being facetious but, this kind of goes to the point of this story not really holding up.

By itself, this is not a deal-breaker but, it does lead me, and others, to ponder just what experience Hillary Clinton is really touting.

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Well, Geraldine Ferraro has stepped down from the Clinton campaign.

Of course, rather than apologize like the party elder she was expected to be, she accused the Obama campaign of twisting her words.

Well, I read her words without being told by anyone how to interpret them and their meaning was clear: she demeaned his candidacy by trying to paint it as affirmative action on steroids — a play to the racial fears of some in the Democratic party.

At any rate, she’s out but, not before adding her name to the long list of race-baiters in the Clinton campaign.

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Well, it looks like Geraldine Ferraro’s race-baiting ways go back a while.

The D.C. newspaper, The Politico, had dug up an old statement of hers from 1988. What it shows is that she not only has she pulled this garbage before but, also, that she needs some new material. If you remember her recent statement on Barack Obama, she stated that “(i)f Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”

In 1988, she had this to say about Jesse Jackson when he ran for president:

“if Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn’t be in the race.”

Notice any similarities?

As you noticed, no doubt, I am greatly soured on Hillary Clinton. One big reason is that she continues to surround herself with people who are willing to play games with race for political advantage. Well, for some of us, it’s not a game — race actually impacts our lives in a very real way.

Popularity: 16% [?]

Okay, when you’re caught saying something racist do you:

a) Deny it.
b) Apologize.
c) Say something even more absurd.

If you chose ‘c’, your name might be Geraldine Ferraro. As I posted previous, Ferraro made what could only be described as a stupid, racist statement.

Now, after being questioned about what she said, she came back with this witty retort:

“Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let’s address reality and the problems we’re facing in this world, you’re accused of being racist, so you have to shut up. Racism works in two different directions. I really think they’re attacking me because I’m white. How’s that?”

So, calling you on racism make others racist?

With her still being on the campaign, I guess Clinton, despite her weak public “disagreement” with Ferraro’s statement, actually approves of her actions.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Well, guess what — another Clinton backer is playing the race game. This time, it’s former vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro.

In an interview with the Associated Press on Tuesday, Ferarro had the following to say:

“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”

You know, some things are so stupid that, they you don’t need anyone to make them apparent.

Now, correct me if I’m wrong but, America’s not exactly handing out positions of power to black men, willy-nilly. If so, why was it that Obama is the last of only 5 black people to ever serve in the U.S. Senate (there have been 4 black male senators and one black female senator, Carol Mosely Braun). Why is it that black men don’t make up a majority of the House of Representatives. How many black governors are there? (the answer would be 1.)

In other words, being black doesn’t make one lucky in politics. In fact, it exposes one to greater scrutiny because, by being black, a certain lack of competence in always implied — even from other black people.

How did Hillary Clinton respond? Well, she offered the following:

“I do not agree with that…It’s regrettable that any of our supporters — on both sides, because we both have this experience — say things that kind of veer off into the personal.”

Yes, some of Obama’s people have veered off and, because of that, they are not part of his campaign any longer.

Now, I know what you’ll tell me — Ferraro is not part of the Clinton campaign. Well, Louis Farrakhan is not part of the Obama campaign but, Obama was called on to “reject and denounce” him just the same.

My question is, “when will Clinton ‘reject and denounce’ the statements of Geraldine Ferraro?”

Correction: Ferraro does, indeed, serve on the Clinton campaign in an official capacity.  She serves on the Clinton finance committee.

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Well, it’s VOTR Tuesday (Vermont, Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island) and the time for talking is over, at least for now.

If you live in these states and you are interested in any of the candidates running, I urge you to get out and vote.

If you are on the Democratic side, you will see some hotly-contested races that could decide the nominee.

If you are a Republican, you could see John McCain seal the deal today and reach the 1191 delegates needed to secure the nomination.

Regardless of where you fall, someone may have given life or limb for you to be able to vote so, get out and exercise you hard-earned right.

Popularity: 15% [?]