Blatantlybiased FOX News has really redefined crap journalism, in a week that saw their talentless, inflammatory correspondents labeling Obamaa terrorist and his wife a “baby mama.” It’s no wonder “Countdown” with Keith Olbermann climbed over the carcass of Bill O’Reilly’s “Factor” in ratings last week for the first time since 2001.

Ever since FOX News threw the 2000 election for their guy, the media seems to be clearly split between “us” and “them.” “Us” being the people who get Colbert’s satire and “them” being the ones who thinks he’s actually a Republican. “Us” listening to NPR in our cars and “them” listening to Rush Limbaugh. “Us” who revere Obama as a revolutionary new leader, and “them” unable to get beyond his “strange” name and skin color.

I look at “us” vs. “them,” and I see future vs. past, open vs. closed, sympathetic vs. self-centered. There is a permanent line dividing us and them, and FOX News is patroling it the way they would have our military patroling the Mexican border. As long as FOX News is allowed to cross the line of political correctness with their racist comments and ignorant reporting, “us” and “them” will stay firmly in our respective camps. Putting someone like E.D. Hill on T.V. to call Michelle and Barack Obama’s fist bump a “terrorist tap” feeds and fuels the religious, racial, and cultural intolerance that our country has been trying to shake for decades. She’s since lost her crap show, but the damage is done. You take a hateful, evil thought, put it on television, and I predict at least 50 of the 5 million people watching are going to repeat it.

Who on earth benefits from these atrocious, malicious statements? John McCain? Bill O’Reilly? George Bush?

Hillary Clinton’s speech today drew her candidacy to a conclusion and began restoring, word by word, Democrats hopes for unity with her resounding and genuine endorsement of Barack Obama.

Gone were the undercutting jabs and condescending disdain, the fear-mongering and subtle suggestions that McCain is better qualified for the job. Her speech invoked classic Democratic values, the values that her candidacy was initially founded on. Her words were sincere, her passion evident, and her grace and dignity undeniable.

This is the Hillary Clinton that I might’ve voted for. She has long been absent in recent months, as her campaign took on mudslinging as its primary tactic. Despite the chorus of boo’s from numerous crowd members whenever Clinton spoke Obama’s name, the reaction from the crowd was favorable.

I have been opposed to a so-called “unity” ticket from the day it was floated as an idea by some pundit or another. But after her moving speech today, the charisma and passion exhibited, the absence of sarcarsm or sour grapes, I–and I hope Senator Obama–will be reconsidering that opinion.

If anyone is more deluded than Hillary Clinton herself, it’s the screaming fans at her speech in NYC last night, screaming “Denver! Denver!” in the hopes that their candidate would continue to selfishly muddle our party’s chances to win in the fall.

Look. I understand. Your fighter lost, and it stings. Since I was old enough to vote, my election and primary choices have fallen in order like dominos: Gore, Dean, Kerry. Yes, she was a woman. I don’t think she was the “right” woman, and neither did more than half of our party, or the handfuls of Independents and moderate Republicans who may end up making a difference in November.

The “right” woman would certainly have had the dignity not to hold some strange, last resort rally on the night of her opponent’s triumph. Her stubborn refusal to hear the fat lady sing is an insult to the millions of people who have donated money and time to the campaign that, before February, was the underdog, the people who endured insults and jeers and rumors that their candidate was a Muslim, black racist, elitist, and foreign policy numbskull.

This bitter battle is over, and not on the Clinton family’s terms, and that upsets them. She wanted a win, or a loss on her terms. She received neither, and if Obama and his advisors are as smart as I believe they are, she won’t receive a VP nod.

Wake up, have your Starbucks, and concede, Senator Clinton. You’re blowing your best last chance to be remembered as anything but self-absorbed and self-obsessed. She reminds me of the child who throws a tantrum at her sibling’s birthday party and must get a gift, too.

There is no “I” in Democrat. Or, for that matter, Change, Hope, or Obama.

Photo courtesy of the New York Times

This is the story of a movement that swept a nation, overthrew a political regime, and has already delivered so much of the “change” he has promised. The young voters, once viewed as complacent and apathetic with regards to government, got into the driver’s seat and wrested control of the steering wheel from the generations before them in whose hands our country took a turn for the worse. Barack Obama, the liberal senator from Illinois, campaigned in Atlanta and Boise, New Orleans and New Hampshire, crossing borders that other Democrats would’ve avoided, labeling those states as red, places where we had no chance.

Pundits and politicos will claim this is an historic moment because Barack Obama is black. But readers, you must realize that this should not be tonight’s headline. Barack Obama’s campaign, a steam engine accelerating to the rhythm of the chants “Yes We Can” roared across the country in the face of opponent’s crying “No You Can’t.” Race is always an issue in America, but race is not “the” issue tonight. The story tonight is that change has trumped experience, that we value ethics above ethnicity, that we believe we have a chance to, as he stated tonight, “bring a new and better day to America.”

On December 23, 2007, Op-Edna officially endorsed Barack Obama for the presidency, but the decision was made in our hearts the moment Barack Obama climbed on-stage in Boston in the summer of 2004 and gave us a politician that we could relate to, a man who has spent as much time in the community as in legislative chambers. That summer, as a Kerry campaign worker, I met Barack Obama at a reception for the Illinois delegates. He and his beautiful, charismatic and elegant wife Michelle and their daughters Malia and Sasha greeted me with smiles and handshakes, despite the late hour and exhausting events of the day. People have expressed that shaking Bill Clinton’s hand gives you the sensation of being close to tremendous power. Shaking Barack Obama’s hand makes you aware of your own power; as though this man looks you in the eye and believes in you as much as he believes in himself.

From day one of this campaign, he has done what no candidate has done, in that he has acknowledged that getting his campaign off the ground would take a collective, collaborative effort extending beyond the K Street addresses that have so long governed our country. “Yes We Can,” a resounding slogan that with the word “we” became a chant for unity.

We realized the potential that this man brings to our country and the world, and we nominated him. Yes We Did. And now, fueled by our victory and hope-filled hearts, we will carry him into the White House. Yes We Will.

Update… CBS is reporting that I could be wrong, but I hope I’m not: “‘She is in this race until we have a nominee, she still believes there is a path for her to become that nominee,’ said spokesman Mo Elleithee. ‘I think it’s pretty clear that she is not conceding.’ When asked ‘Will you deny that she is dropping out tomorrow night?’ Elleithee responded, ‘Yes.’”
(http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/06/02/politics/fromtheroad/entry4147110.shtml)

—

Huffington Post, CNN.com, and various other news outlets are speculating that Hillary Clinton will finally wrap things up tomorrow night at a campaign event before her biggest donors in NYC.

Apparently, the two campaigns met on Sunday night and “agreed that their staffs should begin negotiations over post-primary activities, according to reliable sources,” says Thomas B. Edsall of the Huffington Post (you gotta read this piece if you haven’t yet).  

Signs that indicate she may be tossing in the towel include request that staff turn in all outstanding expense reports, a speech scheduled for tomorrow night after the final two primaries in South Dakota and Montana conclude (Obama will likely win both), and Bill Clinton admitting, “I want to say also that this may be the last day I’m ever involved in a campaign of this kind.”

I predict that she will speak first tomorrow night, so that Obama can make his first address as the presumptive nominee a speech that will resonate as we enter the general election. I predict that she will be tearful, and that she will hammer home the party line, unity, etc.

I look forward to the day when Democrats can once again unite behind a candidate who has their best interests at heart, because the feuding this campaign has caused has been damaging. If you didn’t watch the hearing this weekend to determine whether or not the Florida and Michigan delegates would be seated, go to C-SPAN’s website and catch the video of the votes. The shouting, in the audience and in the hallways and outside the building, and the cheering and jeering and people telling one another to “shut up” was disgusting.

For those of you who call yourselves Democrats who would pick John McCain over Obama, think long and hard before you cast that vote. For if you, in your heart of hearts, truly are a true-blue Democrat, you would never vote for a pro-war hawk who would stock our Supreme Court with “clones of Alito and Roberts” (his actual words). You would vote for the anti-war, pro-diplomacy, pro-choice civil and social rights activist. You wouldn’t vote for a man who thinks Bush is a-okay and things don’t need to change, and believes a free Iraq is governed from abroad by our president’s loyalty to the oil industry and obsessive compulsive need to control the entire Middle East.

I know some of you will grieve Hillary’s resignation. If it were my guy, I’d feel the very same way. But we could each do a lot worse than each other’s candidates.

If you think America is in great shape now, vote for McCain, because things won’t change. If you want a stronger, healthier economy, less dependence on foreign oil, a strong record on civil liberties, Supreme Court justices who won’t overturn Roe V. Wade, an end to the war, better schools, a greener America, then you’re going to make the right decision. And we long-time Obama supporters welcome you with open arms.

Hey Op-Edheads. Sincerest apologies for the long, long delay in updates. I had some health issues, had to do some major freelance work in addition to my full-time job to pay off the medical bills (despite having health insurance which, in this country, doesn’t ever seem to be enough), had some weddings to attend (not mine–yet), and other miscellaneous things that kept me from coming back here to discuss the sad state of our union with you all.

And you know what, I’m a little ashamed to admit, but I wasn’t exactly full of constructive criticism after the past two months of this election. The fact of the matter is, even sitting down to write about the Clinton campaign is enough to make me feel ill. The damage this woman is doing to our party is severe, but the damage she may do to this country is far worse. If, due to her dragging her five minutes of fame out another second, Obama loses the time and money neccessary to defeat the GOP in November, the consequences of her selfish actions will haunt our nation forever. And I have been dealing with the shame I feel at ever having supported her candidacy for the Senate years ago, when I gave $100 to attend a benefit where she showed up late and addressed us for about 2 minutes before sweeping off into a room filled with people who’d paid much more to actually shake her hand. And she calls Obama an elitist? Puke. I met his entire family during the 2004 convention, and his daughters, then both very young, had more to say to me than Hillary did. And I hadn’t given Obama a dime yet. (That has, of course, since changed.)

Tomorrow, if Kentucky can pull off a miracle, we may wrap this nomination up. Obama’s victory in Oregon will be sound. Unfortunately, some states seem to swing Clinton and never look back. But, I have hope. After all, Indiana was supposed to propel Hillary back into this race. And her victory in West Virginia was dwarfed in the media by John Edwards well-timed endorsement.

The important announcement is that we may soon be switching from WordPress hosting to my own format. This has gotten too big for WordPress, which while sad for WordPress is great for us because it means people are reading, commenting, and most important, sharing. To keep up with the growth, I’d like to create an e-mail newsletter, message boards, and some other interactive features. The url will remain www.OpEdna.com, and I will carry my blogroll over with me so that all of our good friends here at WP continue to be a part of our dialogue. I’m interested to hear what, if anything else, you feel the new site needs. Your suggestions only make this better.

I promise I’ll be back tomorrow, but I’m signing off for now. Thanks for your insights. They give me a lot of hope.

The Yale Daily News reported today that a senior intentionally impregnated herself using donations from unpaid men and took herbal drugs to induce miscarriages for an art project.

“Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself “as often as possible” while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process…

“‘I believe strongly that art should be a medium for politics and ideologies, not just a commodity,’ Shvarts said. ’I think that I’m creating a project that lives up to the standard of what art is supposed to be.’”

Dictionary.com defines art as “the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.”

Shvarts project “will feature a large cube suspended from the ceiling of a room in the gallery of Green Hall. Schvarts will wrap hundreds of feet of plastic sheeting around this cube; lined between layers of the sheeting will be the blood from Schvarts’ self-induced miscarriages mixed with Vaseline in order to prevent the blood from drying and to extend the blood throughout the plastic sheeting,” reported the Yale Daily News.

For once, the National Right to Life Committee and NARAL Pro-Choice America were in agreement: they found the exhibit offensive and sick. And as a pro-choice woman, I agree. Shvart’s art is universally horrific, traumatizing for women who have endured the heartbreak of a miscarriage, mocking of women who have made the difficult choice to have an abortion, and damaging to the pro-choice lobby, which has fought long and hard to dispute charges that women recklessly use abortions as birth control.

What woman would choose to endure a miscarriage? What woman who has had a miscarriage wants to watch video footage of a woman who impregnated herself for the sole purpose of aborting the fetus have a miscarriage in her bath tub? And furthermore, how could a professor sanction such an exercise that could’ve had long term effects on Schvart’s health?

My belief is that it is an elaborate stunt, and that at the end of the day, it will be revealed that the project was done using tomato paste. But stunt or not, it is in appallingly poor taste. My heart breaks for the women who are haunted by the memories of their own tragic miscarriages who will turn on the TV tonight and find this story leading the news.

One of the top academic schools in the nation weighed in on the Clinton campaign’s accusations that Barack Obama misspoke when he referred to himself as a professor. The University of Chicago, where Barack Obama taught law school from 1992-2004, issued the following statement today:

“The Law School has received many media requests about Barack Obama, especially about his status as ‘Senior Lecturer.’

From 1992 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Barack Obama served as a professor in the Law School. He was a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996. He was a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004, during which time he taught three courses per year. Senior Lecturers are considered to be members of the Law School faculty and are regarded as professors, although not full-time or tenure-track. The title of Senior Lecturer is distinct from the title of Lecturer, which signifies adjunct status. Like Obama, each of the Law School’s Senior Lecturers have high-demand careers in politics or public service, which prevent full-time teaching. Several times during his 12 years as a professor in the Law School, Obama was invited to join the faculty in a full-time tenure-track position, but he declined.”

Oh snap!

Camp Hillary hasn’t spun the statement—yet—but Op-Edna has a few ideas:

Hillary Spin: Call attention to the fact that the University of Chicago did not make the NCAA Tournament.
Obama Reply: They made the Division III NCAA Tournament.

Hillary Spin: Say with conviction, “The University of Chicago’s definition of ‘professor’ differs from the definition in the dictionary I have here in my hands.”
Obama Reply: Groan, shake head.

Hillary Spin: Universities shouldn’t be endorsing a candidate.
Obama Reply: This from a woman who touts an endorsement from a middleweight boxing champion. (PS - Not that the University of Chicago endorsed anything other than the fact that Barack Obama was a professor)
Hillary Redirect: You got endorsed by Hulk Hogan!
Obama Response: Indeed I did. Interestingly enough, I was also endorsed by Sinbad. So remind me, did they hand out bulletproof vests before your welcome ceremony at the Bosnia airport?

-Fin-

Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame (Woodward’s other half) is penning a book on Hillary Clinton titled “A Woman in Charge,” but couldn’t wait for its release to share his thoughts on the presidential candidate’s shaky relationship with the truth.

In light of evidence that her descriptions of landing in Bosnia under “sniper fire” were fabricated, Hillary and her campaign staff have chalked the incident up to a simple “misstatement” among millions of words. But as Hillary’s entire candidacy is based on the premise of having superior foreign policy experience to her opponents, and that claim has been revealed as a farce. When Barack Obama uttered words once spoken by Governor Deval Patrick, Hillary made a tremendous stink, claiming that if Obama’s campaign was based on words, the words should at least be his own. Then by your own judgement, Senator Clinton, your claimed foreign policy experiences should be your own.

An excerpt from Carl Bernstein’s forthcoming book indicates that this may not be only one misstatement, but the latest in a pattern of lies in Hillary Clinton’s public life.

“Since her Arkansas years, Hillary Rodham Clinton has always had a difficult relationship with the truth… [J]udged against the facts, she has often chosen to obfuscate, omit, and avoid.  It is an understatement by now that she has been known to apprehend truths about herself and the events of her life that others do not exactly share…

“Almost always, something holds her back from telling the whole story, as if she doesn’t trust the reader, listener, friend, interviewer, constituent—or perhaps herself—to understand the true significance of events…” (Bernstein, “A Woman in Charge”)

Today, on the Anderson Cooper 360 blog at CNN.com, Bernstein offered further analysis regarding Hillary’s Bosnia lies:

“When the facts surrounding such characteristic episodes finally get sorted out — usually long after they have been challenged — the  mysteries and contradictions are often dealt with by Hillary Clinton and her apparat in a blizzard of footnotes, addenda, revision, and disingenuous re-explanation: as occurred in regard to the draconian secrecy she imposed on her health-care task force (and its failed efforts in 1993-94); explanations of what could have been dutifully acknowledged, and deserved to be dismissed as a minor conflict of interest — once and for all — in Whitewater; or her recent Michigan-Florida migration from acceptance of the DNC’s refusal to recognize those states’ convention delegations (when it looked like she had the nomination sewn up) to her re-evaluation of  the matter as a grave denial of basic human rights, after she fell impossibly behind in the delegate count.”

Personally, I think the reaction by her campaign is almost more tasteless than lying about something that could so easily be refuted by numerous witnesses. Their response was to send an email citing specific “misstatements” Senator Obama had made. These charges, reports the New York Times, included Obama “saying that he was a law professor — he was a senior lecturer.”

When Obama said he was a law professor (and for the record, numerous lecturers refer to themselves–and are referred to by their students and colleagues–as “professor”), it wasn’t as though it turned out that he had actually been a janitor at a law school or the career counselor. He taught law. People commonly refer to those who teach at universities as “professor.” That was not a misstatement; it was word choice. Hillary’s misstatement was an outright lie.

“I made a mistake and, you know, I had a different memory,” she after the backlash in the media. Basically, prettier language than “I lied.” Remembering something differently and broadcasting your false memory as a means of furthering your candidacy are two very different “mistakes.”

“I have written about [the Bosnia experience] in my book and talked about it on many other occasions, and last week, you know, for the first time in 12 or so years misspoke,” she said on the air at a Pittsburgh radio station.

In a later press conference, the media jumped all over that 12-year claim. “I was joking — I mean, you know, gosh, lighten up guys,” she responded. “Obviously I say millions of words every week. There is a lot more room for error when you are talking as much as I am talking.”

“Lighten up guys?” “More room for error?” Look, your highness, whether you say five million words a day or fifty, a lie is a lie is a lie. We have had eight years of an administration that lacks any semblance of respect for the truth. We can’t afford eight more.

Hillary has excused herself, saying that the misstatement just “proves I’m human.”

Actually, Senator Clinton, it just proves that you’re a liar.

 First and foremost, I need to thank Andrew Romano at Newsweek. In today’s “Stumper” (Newsweek’s hot political blog), Romano provides a link to my post from last week, Clinton Campaign: Obama Wins “Boutique, Latte-Sipping States.”

Romano writes: “As the opening gun sounded yesterday on the uninterrupted six-week Pennsylvania marathon, Clinton’s strategy was clear: appeal to the state’s whiter, older, more blue-collar and more conservative Democratic electorate by reminding them, both explicitly and implicitly, that she–unlike, presumably, her opponent and his “boutique, latte-sipping” supporters–is one of them.”

I don’t know if Andrew is a regular reader of this blog, but I am so honored by his referral… particularly because I thoroughly enjoyed his piece before realizing it linked to my site! As a Newsweek subscriber (it came free with my public radio membership, and I’ve kept it ever since), I have tremendous respect for that publication. So this is a big honor for me.

Now, back to the actual content of Romano’s piece.

He reports on a Hillary Clinton rally in Philadelphia last night: “‘I saw a sign up there: ‘Help Wanted. Experience Required, Day One,’ Clinton said near the start of her remarks. ‘And I think that says it all. I want you to think about this campaign as a loooong job interview. Because each of us is going to come and talk about what we’ve done and what we want to do, and you have to decide: who would you hire for the toughest job in the world?’”

Well, Op-Edna reader Babar77 recently asked the same question. So I’d like to turn this space over to him momentarily, while I sit back with my pad thai and bask in my new fame.

—

Hillary would crash and burn my job interview (by Babar)

Lately, Hillary Clinton loves to tout her resume on the campaign stump, inferring that she would be a better pick if you were hiring for a job.  Well, I do have experience interviewing professionals for jobs.  In my career, I’ve interviewed about 100 people and hired seven.  So I decided to see if I could put together how she might fare if I were interviewing her.

Let me start with the basic qualities I look for in a candidate.  The first and foremost are candidness, integrity, ability to work a problem under pressure, ability to work in a team, and ability to accept constructive criticism.  For a leadership position, I also look for judgment, reflection, and ability to mentor.  Then I test for technical knowledge, and make sure it jives with the resume.  The reason I rank technical knowledge below the others is that it’s more easily gained on-the-job or through training if the candidate has the first qualities covered.  However, there is a minimum threshold of technical knowledge required based on level of position.  Based on those I’ve hired, I would say my theory definitely holds water.  Finally, if I get one whiff of someone trying to take over the interview (I let candidates know they will have their own time at the end) or if I detect an air of entitlement, they will be shown the door.

Next I have to ask myself how would Clinton’s resume look?  I assume a cover letter would emphasize her 35 years of experience and ability to drive change by working within the system.  It would include her previous positions (including First Lady), her education, her goals, and finally rewards and accomplishments (including her husband’s).

Now let’s assume I have a lot of resumes to look through (as it completely the case in this year’s election).  I would need some way of quickly filtering candidates.  As I have done in real-life, I scan the resume and cover letter over looking for deal breakers and making sure it all jives.  I would notice that her claimed 35 years of experience includes her years at school.  The very next suspect item on her resume is including her spouse’s experience as her own – something I have yet to see in the thousands of resumes I’ve scanned.  Stretching the truth is an obvious violation on integrity, and would draw into suspect every other claim on the resume.  I would immediately eliminate her and she wouldn’t even get an interview because if she can’t even get some basics correct, I have little hope of her doing her job well.

Would she still fare better in an interview?  I could go into a lengthy discussion here, but I would summarize it:  I think she would show she possessed technical knowledge and the ability to think under pressure.  However I think she would fail miserably at candidness, ability to work in a team, judgment, reflection, ability to mentor, and integrity.  Her results with health care and Iraq, coupled with her reasoning for both would speak to her lack of judgment, reflection, ability to accept criticism, and ability to work in a team.  Her dismissals of states that don’t vote for her and (most importantly) lack of acknowledgment to her supporters and volunteers in those states speaks to her ability to mentor and ability to work in a team.    

I can only imagine how the part of the interview would go when I asked her about her accomplishments in the senate or as First Lady.  Of course, she would have a significant disadvantage to any real life candidate I’ve interviewed in that her record is easily researched on the internet.  However, I would ask her questions without first revealing what I know to test her integrity.  I listen carefully to pronouns when I ask candidates about their team experiences.  Overuse of “I” or absence of “We” (as Clinton does so frequently) is another sure way to fail one of my interviews.

Another failure in the interview would be her response when asked in a debate, “What is your greatest weakness?”  That type of sugar-coated answer is a sure way to get booted, especially when compared to the candid responses given by other candidates.

Finally, her biggest failure – which might even cause me to show her the door before the interview is scheduled to end would be her high sense of entitlement.  In my experience, you can directly correlate a sense of entitlement with job performance and they are inversely related (The greater the entitlement, the worse the job performance).  There are psychological studies to back this assumption up – google “Emotional Quotient.”

In Summary, based on her campaign performance, I believe Clinton would fail miserably at getting hired if I happened to view her resume or interview her.