Mr. Obama’s slimers seem to think such name-calling and Muslim-baiting can score points with the American people. On the contrary, Mr. Obama’s multicultural background (his father was Kenyan, and he spent several years living in Indonesia with his mother and stepfather) ought to be viewed as a plus. A president with an understanding of Islam and the developing world would be welcomed by those who too often feel misunderstood and slighted by the United States.
Mr. Obama has never tried to hide his past or his family name: He has written about being educated at a predominantly Muslim school. His father, a non-practicing Muslim, was Barack Hussein Obama Sr. His grandmother is Sara Hussein Obama.
The senator, however, does not use his middle name. Those who take pains to insert it when referring to him are trying, none too subtly, to stir up scary images of menacing terrorists and evil dictators. They embarrass only themselves.
The likes of Lush Limbaugh are shameless frat boys stuffing their pockets with the small change their corporate masters toss their way. mjh
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki did not reveal the details of the plan, which he has dubbed “Operation Imposing Law,” or say when it would begin. …
The crackdown “aims to disarm all groups and only leave weapons in the hands of the government,” al-Maliki said, repeating a phrase he has used consistently. “This plan will not be the last. The battle between us and terrorists is open and continuous.”
Where is the NRA on the issue of forced disarmament of Iraqis? As the NRA sees it, our freedoms are guaranteed by your right to have as many guns as you like and any effort to restrict that is unconstitutional and un-American. So now American soldiers are involved in taking guns from Iraqis. And the NRA remains silent? This is their worst nightmare. mjh
Early last month, Gore addressed more than three dozen labor leaders in Washington, a wide-ranging talk about the Democratic congressional gains and the media, said one attendee, who demanded anonymity. Asked about 2008, Gore said that he has taken a number of calls from people encouraging him to consider running but he “didn’t know whether he was going to or not,” the source said. “Everybody felt he left a small door open.”
After years of close association with the Republican Party and hard-nosed opposition to federal land-use regulation, the National Rifle Association is being pressured by its membership to distance itself from President Bush’s energy policies that have opened more public land for oil and gas drilling and limited access to hunters and anglers.
“The Bush administration has placed more emphasis on oil and gas than access rights for hunters,” said Ronald L. Schmeits, second vice president of the NRA, a member of its board of directors and a bank president in Raton, N.M. …
But, during the past six years, an increasing number of the country’s 46 million hunters and anglers, including Republican-leaning shooting organizations such as the Boone and Crockett Club, have been grumbling about the Bush’s administration fast-tracking of oil and gas drilling leases on public lands.
PRESIDENT BUSH wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Wednesday that “it is also a fact that our tax cuts have fueled robust economic growth and record revenues.” The claim about fueling record revenue is flat wrong, and it is shocking that the president should persist in making such errors. After all, tax cuts are the central plank of his domestic policy. How can he fail to understand the basic facts about them?
This is not just our opinion. Harvard’s N. Gregory Mankiw, an economic conservative who served as chairman of Mr. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, has tested the hypothesis on which Mr. Bush’s claim is based ….
If Mr. Bush does not believe Mr. Mankiw, perhaps he may believe the Congressional Budget Office. …
If Mr. Bush believes neither Mr. Mankiw nor the Congressional Budget Office, he should at least respect his own Treasury. …
Mr. Bush’s op-ed included nice statements about bipartisan cooperation. But the Democrats would be more likely to cooperate with the president if he stopped making things up.
[Duhbya:] “It’s time Congress give the president a line-item veto. And today I will announce my own proposal to end this dead-of-the-night process and substantially cut the earmarks passed each year.”
Let me get this straight. After six years of a Republican Congress earmarking truckloads of pork for home districts, much of it for Bridge-to-Nowhere projects, Bush has suddenly decided–the day before the Democrats take control–that earmarking is an outrage?
How convenient.
It’s still a good idea to make it harder for lawmakers to slip costly goodies into bills. But when has Bush exhibited much concern for the inner workings of Congress? Whenever he’s been asked about the Foley scandal or Tom DeLay’s problems, the White House line has always been, that’s a congressional matter.
In what has become an annual tradition of prognostications, religious broadcaster Pat Robertson said Tuesday God has told him that a terrorist attack on the United States would result in “mass killing” late in 2007.
“I’m not necessarily saying it’s going to be nuclear,” he said during his news-and-talk television show “The 700 Club” on the Christian Broadcasting Network. “The Lord didn’t say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that.”
Robertson said God told him during a recent prayer retreat that major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place sometime after September.
"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." — Sam Adams