The iPINIONS Journal

You can be forgiven for thinking that the 2008 political season ended on 4 November with the historic election of Barack Obama as the first black president of the United States. Alas, this is not so.

For in addition to a number of hotly contested congressional races that remain unresolved, great drama and suspense is still simmering over the question of who will fill Obama’s seat in the US Senate.

Illinois state law provides that Gov. Rod Blogojevich will appoint a successor. And  the only criteria for the appointment is that he must appoint someone who is a resident of the state, is at least 30 years old and has been a United States citizen for at least nine years.

But, even though many worthy Illinoisans meet these qualifications, I am convinced that Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr (D-IL) is uniquely qualified to succeed Obama.

That said, I am mindful of God’s admonition that he will visit the “iniquity of the fathers upon the sons.” But I pray that HE will decree that Jackson Jr has done enough good deeds as a public servant to be exempted from this cursed fate.

And nothing demonstrates this fact quite like the way he dared to support Barack Obama’s candidacy early on when most opportunistic black politicians, including his father, were pledging support for Hillary Clinton. But what truly sealed Jesse Jr’s bona fides in this respect was the way he publicly condemned his father for threatening to “cut off Obama’s nuts” for refusing to play his race-baiting politics. 

Specifically, here’s what Jesse Jr said:

I’m deeply outraged and disappointed in Reverend Jackson’s reckless statements about Senator Barack Obama….He should know how hard I’ve worked for the last year and a half as a national co-chair of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.  So I thoroughly reject and repudiate his ugly rhetoric. He should keep hope alive, and any personal attacks and insults to himself.

[Jesse Sr is to Barack's campaign what Bill was to Hillary's: a saboteur, The iPINIONS Journal, July 11, 2008]

Therefore, I hereby call upon Gov. Blogojevich to appoint Jackson Jr to fill President-elect Obama’s seat in the US Senate. 

After all, Jackson is easily the most celebrated and accomplished candidate (having secured over $600 million in federal appropriations for infrastructure projects, schools and healthcare facilities in his Chicago constituency during his 13 years as a congressman).

Not to mention that he’s also the only one being considered who can save the Senate from the ironic spectacle of having all-white members serving with a black president.

And, ultimately, it behooves the governor to beware that the most respected member of his Serbian-American community, moja tasta Bisenija Todorovich, has declared that appointing Jackson is the only right thing to do….

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Jesse Sr is to Barack’s campaign what Bill was to Hillary’s

Given the reaction worldwide, one could be forgiven the impression that Barack Obama was elected president last week to save not only the United States but the entire world.  

For my part, I can’t help wondering why American news organizations are reporting this admittedly unprecedented reaction as, well, “news”.  After all, here’s how I telegraphed it in a commentary eight months ago:

I’ve been doing quite a lot of business travel lately… But I was surprised to find that the only thing anybody wanted to talk about was the US presidential campaign. And this, despite my best efforts to get Britons to talk about the Diana inquest or the political travails of PM Gordon Brown; and similar efforts to get Africans to talk about the tribal warfare still raging in Kenya or the criminal travails of ANC leader Jacob Zuma in South Africa.

[The Kennedys: dissing Hillary, endorsing Barack ... ignoring Bush, Caribbean Net News, February 1, 2008]

Therefore, I am not at all surprised by reports in recent days about Americans abroad “feeling proud to be Americans again” because people in so many foreign countries have suddenly fallen in love with America again.  And there seems no doubt that foreigners now love America for the same reason that Americans are now proud of America: Barack Obama and the great expectations for change he not only represents but also personifies.

What is most interesting and encouraging in this regard, however, is that foreign leaders are expressing this hopeful sentiment with as much giddiness and political idealism as their star-struck citizens.   Ironically, no country has shown more national love for America since Obama’s election than France - a country notorious for its visceral anti-Americanism.

In fact, the French wasted little time codifying their new-found affection for Obama’s America by publishing a manifesto entitled “Yes, we can!” - in which leaders from every facet of French society pledged “to stamp out racism and shake up a white political and social elite that smacks of colonial times.”  Here, in part, is what their manifesto states:

We shouldn’t be surprised that Obama’s popularity is so high here: It testifies to the aspirations of all the children of France who are experiencing by proxy a recognition that France does not give them.  It also betrays the bad faith of those who welcome the victory of modernity outside our borders, in order to tolerate the status quo here…

The election of Barack Obama highlights via a cruel contrast the shortcomings of the French Republic, and the distance that separates us from a country whose citizens knew how to go beyond the racial question and elect a man who happens to be black as president…

What a lesson! We French … should listen to it well.

(Note: France has 555 members in its “House of Representatives”; but only one is black.)

Meanwhile, the leading voice for this cause célèbre is not that of some left-wing intellectual. Instead, it belongs to the wife of the right-wing president of France, First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy who said that Obama’s election brought her “an immense joy.”

More to the point, she noted that “Our prejudices are insidious” and expressed hope that “the Obama effect would reshape French society.”

Clearly, if Obama can win over the French so easily, he should have the Russians, Iranians and perhaps even al-Qaeda eating out of the palm of his hand in no time. Well, that is the “audacity of hope,” isn’t it…?

Hail Obama!

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Sample of reaction worldwide

It did not get the media coverage that attended the most recent trial of O.J. Simpson (for burglary), but the trial of Sen. Ted Stevens was high political drama. 

After all, here was the longest-serving Republican in the US Senate being tried on seven counts of corruption (stemming from lies he told about free home renovations and other gifts he received from a wealthy oil contractor) while his party was desperately trying not only to seem trustworthy enough to hang on to the White House but also to avoid being rendered utterly powerless in the US Congress. 

In fact, Stevens’ conviction on all counts yesterday seems an omen for what I fully expect will be a political bloodbath at the polls for Republicans a week from today. 

Because, in addition to John McCain losing the presidency by historic margins to Barack Obama, Republicans in the Senate and House of Representatives seem destined to lose so many seats that Democrats could end up with filibuster-proof majorities in both chambers. And this of course would finally rid Washington of the perennial gridlock that has made it impossible in recent years to pass legislation on everything from healthcare and immigration reform to gay civil rights. 

(Incidentally, despite McCain spinning Joe-the-plumber nonsense about a socialist agenda, I’m sure the congenitally pragmatic Obama will have a moderating influence on Congressional Democrats, which will prevent them from pursuing a radical, vindictive agenda that could undermine his presidency….)

Nothing demonstrates their consternation over this prospect quite like the way Republicans are beginning to form the proverbial circle to fire blame at each other for their impending doom.   And most notable in this respect is the way McCain aides are finally admitting what has been patently obvious to the rest of us from the day McCain chose Sarah Palin as his VP running mate, namely:

Her lack of fundamental understanding of some key issues was dramatic… It was probably the hardest to get her up to speed than any candidate in history. 

[CNN quoting a "top McCain Adviser"]

But another McCain aide left no doubt about how personal the infighting has become when he reportedly accused Palin of “going rouge” (i.e., speaking her mind instead of scripted talking points at campaign rallies) then twisted the knife in her back by adding that:

She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone.  She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else. Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom.

At any rate, with the Republicans so busy going after each other, let’s hope the Democrats have the good sense to simply get out of their way….

Meanwhile, Stevens, 84, faces 35 years in prison.  Yet he made a post-conviction prediction that Alaskans will still re-elect him next week to continue his 40-year tenure. But Palin has already embarrassed them so much that I predict Alaskans will bid Stevens good riddance without any hint of sentimentality.

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On Saturday evening, I attended a dinner party at the home of a friend who is a proud Republican. And, as you can well imagine, it did not take long before our conservation turned into a spirited debate on presidential politics.

However, as I invariably opt for asking questions instead of making assertions during such debates, the following are just two of the questions I posed to our gracious host:

1. As more of a country-club than a religious-right Republican, don’t you think that the cynicism, contrivance and contradictions inherent in John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his VP nominee constitute an irredeemable indictment of his judgment?
2. Given McCain’s lurch towards the religious right, and his declaration that “Roe v. Wade is bad law,” aren’t you troubled by the prospect of a President McCain having the opportunity to appoint at least two more right-wing justices to the Supreme Court, which would certainly lead to overturning a woman’s right to an abortion?

Of course, my host was far too politically astute to have been floored by my questions. But he was intellectually honest enough to admit that they crystallized the reasons why he remains one of the few people still genuinely undecided (if not conflicted) about his presidential choice.

Nevertheless, I sensed that, like many Republicans, he was just searching for the “right” rationale to jump on the Obama bandwagon. Therefore, when he asked why I’m such a die-hard Obama supporter, instead of parroting hackneyed talking points on the economy, here, in part, is how I tried to disabuse him of his indecision:

Obama and McCain are engaged in a dogfight over who has the best plan to deal with this economic crisis. But I doubt either one of them can do much to alter our course towards a worldwide recession.

What distinguishes Obama, however, is his message of multilateralism. After all, this approach to governing will be necessary not only to fix the problems ailing the US economy (as Bush himself conceded last week by calling for a summit of world leaders to discuss the matter), but also to fight the global war on terrorism (and deal with rouge states like Iran) more effectively.

By contrast, McCain seems determined to continue Bush’s unilateral approach in both respects, indicating that he would be averse to meet even with the leader of Spain - a US ally. But this will only plunge America deeper into recession, expose it as even more of a paper tiger, and undermine what little remains of its goodwill in the international community.

But since I harbored no illusions that anything I said would compel my host to get off the fence, I ended my pitch by informing him that even the most revered statesman in his Republican Party (and in the country), General Colin Powell, was reportedly poised to jump on the Obama bandwagon.

What I did not anticipate, however, was that just hours later - on NBC’s Meet the Press - Powell would explain his reasons for crossing party lines by essentially echoing my assessment of the candidates as follows:

On McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his VP nominee:

Now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don’t believe she’s ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president. And so that raised some question in my mind as to the judgment that Sen. McCain made.

(Although, Powell might have conceded that - based on the ratings she generated - Palin has a far more credible future as a comedic prop on Saturday Night Live.)

On the need to change US approach to foreign policy:

This is the time … to show the world there is a new administration that is willing to reach out … conveying a new image of American leadership, a new image of America’s role in the world.

On McCain appointing Supreme Court justices:

I would have difficulty with two more conservative appointments to the Supreme Court, but that’s what we’d be looking at in a McCain administration.

On supporting Obama just because he’s black:

If I had only had that in mind, I could have done this six, eight, ten months ago … I can’t deny that it will be a historic event when an African-American becomes president. And should that happen, all Americans should be proud - not just African-American, but all Americans … It would also not only electrify the country, but electrify the world.

Summing up his reasons for endorsing Obama:

[B]ecause of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities - and you have to take that into account - as well as his substance - he has both style and substance, he has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president.

I think he is a transformational figure. He is a new generation coming … onto the world stage and on the American stage. And for that reason, I’ll be voting for Sen. Barack Obama.

For his part, McCain did a pretty good job of disguising his disappointment over the fact that Powell, a fellow soldier and personal friend of over 25 years, not only refused to endorse him but actually questioned his fitness to serve as president:

This doesn’t come as a surprise. But I’m also very pleased to have the endorsement of four former secretaries of state … and I’m proud to have the endorsement of well over 200 retired generals and admirals. I respect and continue to respect and admire Secretary Powell.

But, more to the point, the reason Powell’s endorsement was so coveted is that both McCain and Obama were acutely aware of his influence amongst the moderate Republicans and Independent voters whose support will determine the outcome of this election.

Specifically, Powell’s endorsement now provides the rationale for them to overlook their lingering concerns about Obama’s national security and foreign policy credentials - especially compared to McCain’s. He also reinforces Obama’s claim as the candidate most likely to end the partisan divisions between Republicans and Democrats that have made it so difficult to get anything done in Washington lately.

Not to mention that Powell’s dismissal of McCain’s attempts to tie Obama to 1960s radical Bill Ayers and to allegations of voter fraud against ACORN as petty nonsense has effectively silenced McCain’s last rallying call for his campaign.

This Powell endorsement is the nail in the coffin. Not just because of him, but the indictment he laid out of the McCain campaign.

[The Politico quoting a Republican official]

With that, I fully expect my undecided friend to follow Powell’s lead by pledging to vote for Obama to be the next president of the United States.

Moreover, I expect the groundswell of support for Obama to increase so significantly over the final two weeks of this campaign that he will end up with more Americans voting for him than for any other candidate in US history.

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McCain-Obama debate of ‘08: final round

Despite all the media hype, presidential debates have very little bearing on how people vote on Election Day. Instead, they tend to merely reinforce voters’ pre-existing feelings about the candidates. This means that who won the debate is invariably in the eye of the beholder.

[The McCain-Obama "debate" of 08: round I, The iPINIONS Journal, September 28, 2008]

As far as pre-debate hype goes, the talk going into last night’s final presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama could not have generated more suspense. Because on the one hand, reporters were harping on polls which indicate that McCain’s campaign is on life support; while on the other, pundits were proselytizing the notion that the only chance he has of resuscitating his campaign is to go postal on Obama.

Therefore, viewers can be forgiven the expectation that McCain would come out throwing political punches at Obama as if his life depended on it.  And, sure enough, he tried.

Most notably, McCain repeatedly jabbed with the politically expedient woes of “Joe the plumber,” the way Sarah Palin used those of “Joe Six-Pack,” in a patently contrived attempt to make Obama seem like an untrustworthy elitist who “pals around with terrorists” and is out of touch with ordinary folks.

But, ironically, McCain played into the Saturday-Night-Live caricature of him as a senile old fool by demanding that the American people need to know more about Obama’s relationship with 1960s radical Bill Ayers. After all, McCain and Palin have been doing nothing but telling the American people about this relationship (in undeniably exaggerated fashion) on the campaign trail and in negative TV ads for months.

At any rate, he did land at least one good zinger when he channeled Lloyd Bentsen dissing Dan Quayle as follows:  

Sen. Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago.

But, showing off his rope-a-dope style, Obama counter punched as follows:

If I’ve occasionally mistaken your policies for George Bush’s policies, it’s because on the core economic issues that matter to the American people — on tax policy, on energy policy, on spending priorities — you have been a vigorous supporter of President Bush.

Unfortunately for McCain, however, he could not disguise his contempt, consternation and frustration over the fact that Obama responded to most of his attacks with clear-headed eloquence and a disarming smile. Moreover, McCain’s facial expressions betrayed the fact that even he knew that he was losing, and in fact did lose, this final debate.

That’s the way things went, and that, alas, is the way McCain will end his bid to become the next president of the United States: fuming with contempt, consternation and frustration.  

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McCain channeling Bentsen

*Published originally last night at 11:17 pm

Despite all the media hype, presidential debates have very little bearing on how people vote on Election Day. Instead, they tend to merely reinforce voters’ pre-existing feelings about the candidates. This means that who won the debate is invariably in the eye of the beholder.

[The McCain-Obama "debate" of 08: round I, The iPINIONS Journal, September 28, 2008]

That said, I hope it is clear to you by now that what passes for political debate in America is little more than an occasion for candidates to parrot to a national audience the talking points they’ve been testing out on partisan crowds on the campaign trail. 

This of course was made manifestly clear when Sarah Palin declared that she had no intention of answering any of the moderator’s questions or engaging Joe Biden during their vice presidential debate last Thursday.

Therefore, it is a testament to media hype - for unabashedly crass commercial purposes - that these dog and pony shows continually draw so much public interest.  Never mind that the interest in watching is invariably more to see vaudevillian zingers or gaffes than to be informed about the pressing issues of the day, which was clearly the case when over 70 million viewers tuned in to watch Palin and Biden go at it.

But John McCain and Barack Obama demonstrated tonight that nothing is a greater farce in this respect than the Town Hall format of presidential debates.

Because the notion that candidates would ever be more inclined to answer questions posed by “Joe Six-Pack” than they are to answer those posed by a professional news anchor is patently absurd; especially since this format precludes the opportunity to ask follow up questions.

Moreover, it is an indication of how staged these Town Hall debates are that of the six million questions voters reportedly e-mailed in, the moderator, Tom Brokaw of NBC News, selected only six to ask; and of the 80 purportedly uncommitted voters invited into the Town Hall, the moderator screened all of their questions and decided which 12 of them would have the honor of reading their questions at the candidates. 

On the other hand, this format at least gives the candidates the opportunity to fake empathy with the pain and concerns of ordinary folks. Perhaps you recall that it was a Town Hall debate where that congenital narcissist Bill Clinton sealed his reputation as a leader who feels voters’ pain simply because he pursed his lips and affected emotional interest when one of them prefaced her question with a hard-luck story.

Well, tonight, neither John nor Barack proved as effective at faking empathy as Bill did; but not for lack of trying.  In fact, both candidates actually played against type by emoting as they never have before.

However, even though a die-hard Obama supporter, I am constrained to note that he lost a few debating points by showing the same emotion when he spoke about cutting taxes as he showed when he spoke about his mother dying of cancer while fighting her health insurance provider for benefits. That, alas, was a Michael Dukkakis gaffe (remember that … him?)

By the same token, McCain lost a few himself by  referring to Obama, patronizingly, as “that one.” That, alas, was a Ross Perot gaffe (i.e., “you people,” remember that?).

At any rate, since I’m obliged to declare a winner: it’s Obama!  Not only because his answers were a little more on point than McCain’s, but also because he articulated them far more coherently and persuasively.  But I thought McCain did a little better relating to the questioners - if only by occasionally thanking them for their questions and remembering their names.

NOTE:  I found it ironic that while promising to usher in a new era of peace and prosperity, McCain and Obama were demonstrating that they cannot even keep the promises they made to abide by the time limits and other rules they negotiated for the conduct of this debate.

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*Published originally last night at 11:14 pm

Truth be told, I really thought Palin showed enough style and self-confidence during her debate with Joe Biden on Thursday that Saturday Night Live would’ve been loath to continue making fun of her.

But there was Tina Fey on Saturday night doing her parody of Palin’s folksy style and manufactured self-confidence in a way that ridiculed her debate performance for the national joke it truly was. 

Never mind an Emmy, Fey deserves a Presidential Medal of Freedom for public service.  

Meanwhile, Palin did not enhance her political stature over the weekend when she sullied her perfect lipstick by feeding at the trough of dirty campaign tricks.

Because it only reinforced how clueless this hockey mom turn pit bull is (and how desperate the McCain campaign has become) when she spewed out the discredited and patently absurd accusation that Obama pals around with domestic terrorists.  Not to mention her vacuous attempt to play the race card when she punctuated this accusation by asserting that:

This is not a man who sees America as you see it and as I see America.

But this compels me to reiterate the conclusion I made in a recent commentary lambasting McCain for casting Obama in the sleaziest campaign ad in US history:

McCain is fond of proclaiming that he would rather lose a campaign than lose a war.  But it seems he would rather lose his soul than lose a campaign. And, since he chose born-again Christian Sarah Palin not only to curry favor with women but also to inspire the evangelical base of the Republican Party, perhaps she should remind him of what Jesus said in this respect:

‘What would it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul.’ [Mathew 16:26]

NOTE:  Click here to see Fey playing Palin more convincingly than Palin played herself during the debate.

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It really should surprise no one that Republican Sarah Palin surpassed expectations in her vice presidential debate with Democrat Joe Biden last night. 

After all, her poor performances in recent interviews had influential members of her own party calling on her to withdraw from the ticket - not only to spare herself further embarrassment but also for the sake of the country.

Therefore, just showing up on the stage with Biden was a profile in courage for Palin.

That said, given that sadistic pundits probably induced most of you to tune in to see more of a Saturday Night Live comedy sketch than a serious debate, I shall spare you any pedantic analysis of their exchanges.

Instead, I shall suffice to note that only a rabid Democratic partisan can deny that Palin acquitted herself well. Because, far from sounding like a ditsy moose-hunting Alaskan, she articulated her party’s talking points every bit as effectively as the senatorial Biden articulated those of his party, which compels me to say, quite frankly, I told you so:

She is a remarkably articulate and compelling politician who I suspect will prove a surprisingly worthy adversary in debates with Barack Obama’s purportedly more-qualified VP running mate, Joe Biden.  And this will be especially evident in exchanges on one of the most pressing issues in this year’s presidential campaign, namely, energy independence - on which she is extraordinarily well-versed.

[John McCain's VP running mate: Sarah Palin, The iPINIONS Journal, August 30, 2008]

As for who won, I believe Biden won on substance, whereas Palin won on style - notwithstanding her seemingly contrived folksiness.

But … it’s important to separate Palin’s ability to perform in a debate from her qualifications to serve as VP.  Because where Biden demonstrated a comprehensive and contextual understanding of every issue, Palin merely showed that she is capable of delivering her well-rehearsed lines without looking like a deer (or is that a moose?) caught in the headlights.  Never mind that her answers often bore no relation to the questions moderator Gwen Ifill asked.

Moreover, just as it did not take long for probing interviews to destroy Republican attempts to herald Palin as a latter-day Joan of Arc after her Obamaesque convention speech, I predict that it will not take long for similar interviews to render her performance in last night’s debate utterly meaningless.

Alas, I remain convinced that she does not have the education, grasp of issues beyond Alaska’s borders or the self-confidence to serve as vice president. More to the point, as a die-hard Barack Obama supporter, I am encouraged that Biden did exactly what he needed to do to help Obama become the next president of the United States.

Enough said.

Now let’s get back to the really important debate on whether the pending bailout legislation in the US Congress will save the US and world economies.

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It’s time that normal Joe Six-pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency (sic).

This was Gov. Sarah Palin’s folksy attempt to justify her inability to speak intelligently in recent interviews about anything except hunting moose and drilling oil pits. 

But this populist spin is patent nonsense.  Because any normal Joe Six-pack would readily admit that he (or she) has neither the education nor the experience to serve as vice president of the United States.

The irony of course is that, when he picked her as his running mate a few weeks ago, John McCain touted Palin as not only qualified to be vice president but even more qualified than Barack Obama to be president. This was an obvious stretch, but Palin is no dummy.

Therefore, her unwitting admission that she’s really no more qualified than a “normal Joe Six-pack American” indicates how truly out of her depth Palin must feel.  And her poor performance in interviews suggests that she’s slowly drowning under the pressure of this suffocating realization….

Then there’s the added pressure now being placed on her by a growing number of principled Republicans, including revered ABC commentator George Will, who have declared Palin hopelessly unfit to serve as VP. And by others like nationally syndicated conservative columnist Kathleen Parker who has called on her to resign, advising Palin to use her newborn Down-syndrome baby as an excuse and that she should “Do it for your country.”

That said, I believe it’s important to separate Palin’s ability to perform in a debate from her qualifications to serve as VP.  Because, despite the interviews, I remain convinced that she is quite capable of debating, if only her handlers would stop trying to turn her into a Manchurian Candidate.  After all, it seems they’ve stuffed her head with so many talking points that, when asked questions, she looks dazed and confused trying to recall their scripted answers.

She is [or at least was] a remarkably articulate and compelling politician who I suspect will prove a surprisingly worthy adversary in debates with Barack Obama’s purportedly  more-qualified VP running mate, Joe Biden.  And this will be especially evident in exchanges on one of the most pressing issues in this year’s presidential campaign, namely, energy independence - on which she is extraordinarily well-versed.

[John McCain's VP running mate: Sarah Palin, The iPINIONS Journal, August 30, 2008]

Nevertheless, I remain equally convinced that she does not have the education, grasp of issues beyond Alaska’s borders or the self-confidence to serve as VP.

Meanwhile, it is regrettable that Palin’s supporters are blaming her serial gaffes on a vast left-wing conspiracy to embarrass her.  Especially since this is every bit as absurd as Clinton’s Democratic supporters blaming his serial infidelities on a vast right-wing conspiracy to impeach him.

Frankly, it does the country a gross disservice for Palin’s supporters to turn her into a shrinking violet being preyed upon by phantom sexists and media elites.  If she became vice president (or, God forbid, president), what are they going to do when Iranian President Mahmood Ahmadinejad or Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez starts ridiculing her…?

Not to mention how insulting this strategy is to Hillary’s female supporters; i.e., the proud feminists McCain picked her to attract.

Yet Palin’s supporters are so determined to rationalize her poor performances that they are already accusing PBS journalist Gwen Ifill, the moderator of tonight’s debate, of bias against Palin.  This fatuous accusation stems from the fact that Ifill is currently writing a book entitled The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.

Unfortunately, it only fuels their contrived conspiracy that her book is scheduled to be published on January 20, 2009, which, no doubt for purely marketing reasons, just happens to be the day Obama supporters expect him to be inaugurated as the first black president of the United States.

But no matter how unfair, unfounded and even racist this accusation is, it behooves Ifill to do all she can to inoculate herself from becoming the scapegoat for what Palin’s supporters clearly fear will be her poor performance against Joe Biden tonight. And it does not matter that they are making this accusation in a brazen attempt to force Ifill to go easy on Palin.

Accordingly, I urge PBS and the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) to secure a written stipulation from McCain and Palin, acknowledging Ifill’s journalistic integrity and re-affirming their consent for her to serve as moderator. And I urge Ifill to begin tonight’s debate by informing the audience about it. 

However, if they  refuse to give this stipulation, PBS and the CPD should have Jim Lehrer, who moderated the McCain-Obama debate, do this one as well.

With that, let’s enjoy the show….

NOTE: If I’m wrong and Palin performs as poorly in tonight’s debate as she has in recent interviews, then I will publish a simple “I eat my words” post tomorrow. But if I’m right, I hope you’ll forgive me for publishing a simple “I told you so.”

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Barack Obama’s VP running mate: Joe Biden

Despite all the media hype, presidential debates have very little bearing on how people vote on Election Day. Instead, they tend to merely reinforce voters’ pre-existing feelings about the candidates. This means that who won the debate is invariably in the eye of the beholder.  

That said, there’s no denying the suspense inherent in watching for a Dan-Quayle gaffe (by the candidate you oppose of course), or a Ronald-Reagan zinger (by the candidate you support). 

Unfortunately, by this measure, tonight’s debate was a disappointment.  Because both candidates deftly regurgitated hackneyed talking points from their campaign-stump speeches in answering all questions. In fact, nothing demonstrated the canned and programmed nature of this debate quite like the way moderator Jim Lehrer tried in vain to goad McCain and Obama into spontaneous face-to-face exchanges on the issues.

All the same, it says a great deal about Obama’s intelligence and self-confidence that he responded to Lehrer’s prodding by looking McCain in the eye while making his points.

By contrast, McCain continually refused to return his political glare, which made his condescending refrain “Senator Obama doesn’t understand” seem like a senile tick….

That said, because Sarah Palin emerged at the Republican National Convention as such a blank slate, and because she seemed so stunningly clueless in the few interviews she’s given since then, her vice presidential debate with Joe Biden on Thursday will be for more suspenseful and promises many more memorable gaffes.

Frankly, if anyone is more in need of a dog-ate-my-homework excuse to get out of debating, it’s Palin….

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McCain and Obama debate over debating…

Senator John McCain made quite a show yesterday of announcing that he is suspending his campaign and withdrawing from the first presidential debate so that he can return to Washington to join the gaggle of those negotiating terms of the $700 billion financial bailout legislation now pending in Congress.  And, to demonstrate his much-vaunted leadership, he informed the American people that he has asked Barack Obama to join him.

Senator Barack Obama then countered by making quite a show of announcing that it was he who took the lead in asking McCain to join him in drafting a joint statement of principles to guide the bailout negotiators.  And to demonstrate his much-vaunted calm under pressure, he informed the American people that he saw no reason to suspend his campaign or withdraw from the debate. 

Specifically, Obama insisted that:

It’s my belief that this is exactly the time when the American people need to hear from the person who, in approximately 40 days, will be responsible for dealing with this mess.  It’s going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once.

I agree. 

Frankly, I don’t see how any reasonable person can disagree with Obama’s approach to this crisis.  After all, everyone familiar with the way legislation is drafted in Washington knows full well that senators normally just state their positions and leave it to congressional staffers and experts to work out the details. 

This is why Obama reiterated the four guiding principles he wants to see codified in this bailout legislation, namely:

1.  A ban on generous payouts for irresponsible CEOs on Wall Street.

2.  Replacing Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s absolute authority over the bailout’s execution with a bipartisan independent board.

3.  An investor stake for taxpayers.

4.  Assistance for people who are in danger of foreclosure.

Therefore, it is patently clear that McCain is grandstanding; especially given his admission that he doesn’t know anything about the economy, which, no doubt, is why he was insisting just days ago that the economy is “fundamentally sound.”

In fact, the notion of John McCain flying in to Washington to save the country from economic catastrophe is every bit as absurd as that of Sarah Palin flying over to Europe to broker a truce between the Georgians and Russians. 

Not to mention the fact that according to Senator Chuck Schumer (D. N.Y), Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee in charge of drafting it, there was already “consensus” on this legislation even before McCain decided to play the role of white knight. Incidentally, Schumer dismissed those still opposed as just ”a few real outliers on the far right or the far left in Congress.”

But, to be fair, the Associated Press accused both candidates of playing politics as follows:

Even as McCain said he was putting the good of the country ahead of politics, his surprise announcement was clearly political. It was an attempt to try to outmaneuver Obama on an issue in which he’s trailing, the economy, as the Democrat gains in polls….

Obama, too, made a political calculation by rejecting McCain’s challenge [to suspend campaigning and cancel Friday's debate] while trying to still appear on top of the problem.

In the end, however, President George W. Bush (remember him?) may have outmaneuvered both presidential wannabes.  Because he made quite a show of announcing - during an address to the nation on this crisis last night - that he summoned McCain and Obama to appear at the White House today for a photo op, which he hopes will make it clear to the American people the he’s the man with the “rescue plan” to save the nation.

To make his case, Bush warned that:

Our entire economy is in danger. Without immediate action by Congress, America could slip into a financial panic and a distressing scenario would unfold.

Of course, this is the same president who warned that, without a preemptive strike on Iraq, Americans could wake up to a mushroom nuclear cloud over Los Angeles or New York City.  But I hope the American people won’t hold that against him, because he really means it this time … and he’s right! 

Accordingly, I predict the debate will be held tomorrow night as scheduled and that Congress will pass this $700 billion bailout legislation by the time the financial markets open on Monday morning.  All of which will expose McCain’s decision to suspend his campaign and his attempt to cancel the debate as nothing more than a reactionary, hair-trigger political stunt.

UPDATE

September 26 at 12:03 pm:  Despite his purportedly principled reasons for suspending his campaign and canceling the debate, McCain will end up doing neither.  Because, even though he pulled a few commercials, reports are that he never suspended his campaign. And, even though he declared that he would not show up for the debate unless a bailout deal was done, he’s now on his way to that debate with a deal even less certain today than it was yesterday when he flew in on a reactionary, hair-trigger pledge to broker one.

So much for that political stunt….

But the moderator of tonight’s debate should make a point of asking McCain the following multi-part question:

Senator McCain, you have said that this election is all about leadership.  But what does it say about your leadership that you would unilaterally blow up the years of hard work, to say nothing of the millions of dollars, that the good people of Mississippi invested to prepare for tonight’s debate, to rush to a meeting in Washington because you felt your input there was necessary to avert a national economic catastrophe, but during which you sat virtually deaf, dumb and mute while others, including your opponent Senator Obama, discussed the issues at stake, only to have you then suddenly decide that you will come after all to the place where you detonated that political bomb just 24 hours ago, expecting it to be prepared to host this presidential debate, but leaving behind the national economic crisis in Washington in even greater disarray than it was when you parachuted in to solve it….

Can you appreciate, Senator, that your behaviour during this economic crisis gives the American people the impression that your method of decision making might be too impulsive, erratic and inconsiderate to have you serve as commander in chief; do you appreciate that if we had relied on your leadership, none of us would be here tonight for this very important first presidential debate; and finally, Senator, don’t you think you owe our host, the University of Mississippi, an apology?

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McCain casts Obama in sleazy campaign ad

Because of my efforts last week to help compatriots in the Turks and Caicos Islands recover from Hurricane Ike, I was unable to comment on the new ad John McCain launched in which he cast Barack Obama as a pervert who wants to “teach comprehensive sex education to kindergartners.”  

Specifically, to reinforce the deception, the ad ends with this pithy admonition:

Learning about sex before learning to read? Barack Obama. Wrong on education. Wrong for your family.

The only problem is that McCain knows full well that this ad is false and dangerously misleading. Frankly, the only thing worse would have been to accuse Obama of being a pedophile.

Meanwhile, everyone in Washington knows that objective media watchdogs panned conservative nut-job Alan Keyes for running a similar ad against Obama during their senate race in Illinois in 2004.

And I would not be at all surprised if McCain was amongst those criticizing Keyes from running such a sleazy and retarded ad.    After all, he won national (and bi-partisan) praise for hurling moral indignation at George W. Bush for launching an equally false and dangerously misleading attack against him in the 2000 presidential campaign, in which Bush cast him as the father of a “bastard black child.”

For the record, as a state senator in Illinois, Obama supported legislation that allowed local school boards to teach:

…age-appropriate” sex education, not comprehensive lessons to kindergartners, [to give] schools the ability to warn young children about inappropriate touching and sexual predators.

Now, if pressed, I have no doubt that McCain, like any reasonable person, would concede that he agrees with this legislation;  just as, when pressed, he conceded that he disagrees with the opinion of his VP nominee,  conservative nut-job Sarah Palin, that women should not be allowed abortions even in cases of incest and rape.

Therefore, the only reason to explain McCain’s willingness to do to Obama what he damned Bush for doing to him is that, like Bush, he is prepared to compromise all principles to get elected president of the United Sates. 

Indeed, McCain is fond of proclaiming that he would rather lose a campaign than lose a war.  But it seems he would rather lose his soul than lose a campaign. And, since he chose born-again Christian Sarah Palin not only to curry favor with women but also to inspire the evangelical base of the Republican Party, perhaps she should remind him of what Jesus said in this respect:

What would it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul.

[Mathew 16:26]

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Palin delivers Obamaesque speech…

NOTE: This cartoon assumes you saw Palin in her fist deer-caught-in-the-headlights moment on Friday when reporter Charlie Gibson of ABC News asked her opinion on the Bush Doctrine. 

She made Dan Quayle’s first interview seem like that of a seasoned statesman. However, unlike the congenital dunce Quayle turned out to be, I suspect Sarah is a very quick study and that she’ll do much better next time….

Granted, it’s her show and she can interview anybody she wants. 

But Oprah claims that the mission of her show is to help people (especially women) live their best lives.  And she purportedly does this by providing a forum for the discussion of important issues that affect them. 

Therefore, it behooves her to appreciate that refusing to invite Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin on her show to discuss how her political agenda could affect the lives of American women makes a mockery of that mission. 

After all, Palin is easily the most popular, and potentially the most powerful, woman in politics in US history.  And everyone, regardless of political affiliation, has an understandable interest in knowing more about her in order to make an informed decision about her candidacy. 

In fact, it would have been more consistent with that mission for Oprah to have invited Palin on her show to explain, amongst other things, why her anti-abortion views are even more extreme than those of Cindy McCain and Laura Bush,  why she does not think sex education should be taught in schools - especially since it might have prevented her 17-year-old daughter from getting pregnant, and why she thinks God (George W. Bush?) ordained the invasion of Iraq.

Instead, Oprah issued the following patently fatuous, if not hypocritical, statement:

At the beginning of this Presidential campaign when I decided that I was going to take my first public stance in support of a candidate, I made the decision not to use my show as a platform for any of the candidates. I agree that Sarah Palin would be a fantastic interview, and I would love to have her on after the campaign is over.

The problem of course is that she has already featured Barack Obama, whose candidacy she’s now actively supporting, twice on her show. And it is disingenuous for anybody to suggest that those appearances (in January 2005 and October 2006) don’t count because they came before he officially declared his candidacy. 

After all, even I was sufficiently aware that Obama was in fact running for president back then that I endorsed him in an  October 2006 article entitled It’s TIME: Run Obama Run!

(And does she really think Palin will want to be on “after the campaign is over”, win or lose…? Puhleeese!) 

Frankly, nothing explains Oprah’s diss except the short-sighted and narrow-minded view that having Palin on would be tantamount to promoting the candidacy of Obama’s opponent, John McCain.

Unfortunately, this view not only smacks of political (and, some might think, racial) bias, but also reflects a political tin ear that is bound to alienate many of her fans, unnecessarily.  And, by the way, those disaffected fans will likely include more than just Republican housewives….

NOTE:  For the record, I’m an even stronger supporter of Obama today than I was in October 2006.  And I remain confident that he will be elected the next president of the United States in November.

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It seems a curious thing that John McCain chose a VP running mate who is turning out to be a female version of the caricature he has made of Barack Obama; i.e., a candidate utterly lacking in the experience necessary to be president of the United States, and one who represents a triumph of political rhetoric over political action.

And nothing demonstrated just how much this caricature suits Sarah Palin quite like the way she read her convention speech off the teleprompter last night - complete with cadence, inflections and facial expressions that would make an experienced broadcast news anchor green with envy.

Except that instead of Obama’s unifying and hopeful prose, her speech was replete with divisive and partisan sarcasm - more of what one might expect from a stand-up comedienne than from a VP candidate.

But I thought all of the purported apprehension amongst Republicans about “the speech of her life” reflected more media hype than genuine concern about Palin’s ability to rise to the occasion. In fact, such is my confidence in her rhetorical skills that I predicted the following about her forthcoming performance in the far more critical VP presidential debate:

[S]he is a remarkably articulate and compelling politician who I suspect will prove a surprisingly worthy adversary in debates with Barack Obama’s purportedly  more-qualified VP running mate, Joe Biden.  And this will be especially evident in debates on one of the most pressing issues in this year’s presidential campaign, namely, energy independence - on which she is extraordinarily well-versed.

[John McCain's VP running mate: Sarah Palin, The iPINIONS Journal, August 30, 2008]

That said, I find all of the media focus on Palin’s family drama unfair and unseemly.  On the other hand, I find the Republican spin to make Palin’s inexperience seem presidential patently disingenuous. After all, the people who are now insisting that inexperience is not a problem for Palin are the very ones who were insisting last week that it was for Obama.

At any rate, this brings me to the only genuine political issue McCain’s selection of her as his VP running mate raises, which I noted in the above-referenced article as follows:

McCain has made foreign policy experience the defining principle of his candidacy, but has now made a mockery of that principle by choosing a VP candidate who would probably be hard pressed to find Afghanistan on a map. [The woman had never traveled out of the country until last year for Christ's sake....]

I criticized this selection as “a political Hail Mary” because it calls into question McCain’s judgment - given that he took less care in selecting this would-be president of the United States than most people take to select their housekeeper. (He had only two meeting with her, and chose her under duress because the Evangelicals in his party threatened mutiny at the convention if went with his first choice, Sen. Joseph Lieberman.)  Not to mention that it makes his criticisms of Obama’s lack of experience seem fatally hypocritical.

Moreover, I hope I’m not the only one who finds it ironic that Republicans who once ridiculed the significance of Obama’s ability to deliver a great speech are now the ones heralding Palin as the next coming of Joan of Arc based soley on one speech.…

For the record, however, I think all of the emphasis on “experience” in this presidential campaign is a canard. After all, if experience mattered, Bill Clinton would never have defeated (Daddy) George H. W. Bush in 1992, and the way the experienced (Baby) Bush Administration has governed the country is hardly anything to brag about….

Meanwhile, say it ain’t so Joe!

Many Democrats have hurled indignation at Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman for appearing at this Republican convention to endorse McCain for president.  But I think their indignation is every bit as disingenuous as Lieberman’s claim that he endorsed McCain based on political principle. 

After all, Lieberman is a Democrat scorned and his endorsement of McCain is vintage payback.  And here’s why:

Lieberman’s staunch support for the war in Iraq so enraged left-wing bloggers that they rallied behind a political dilettante named Ted Lamont to oppose his re-election to the Senate in 2006.  What made this “netroots” movement against him so formidable and unnerving, however, is that almost all of Lieberman’s Democratic colleagues in the US Senate heeded the bloggers’ clarion call to support Lamont. 

In the end, Lieberman defeated Lamont by running as an Independent.  But he seemed hell-bent on serving revenge against Democrats with a cold smile for what he perceived as a political betrayal. And this is why Lieberman - who was Al Gore’s Democratic VP running mate only eight years ago - is supporting McCain not on principle but out of spite.

I feel obliged to note, however, that I condemned Democrats for throwing Lieberman under the bus based solely on his good-faith support for the war in Iraq.  After all, he voted the party line on every other major political issue. And I found it unconscionable that erstwhile respectable Democrats were associating with bloggers who thought it fair game to caricature him in racist black face.

Therefore, imagine my dismay to see Lieberman now not only supporting McCain based solely on his support for the war in Iraq, but also demeaning Obama as “this young man” on Tuesday during his keynote speech at this Republican convention, which is only a degree away from calling him this uppity Negro.

Talk about politics making strange bedfellows….

NOTE: Sarah Palin is clearly making nice with Hillary Clinton, hoping to capture some of Hillary’s 18 million female voters for the Republican ticket.  But Palin is in for a rude awakening. Because the last thing Hillary wants on the national political scene is any woman who can compete with her for the historic mantle of becoming the first female president of the United States. 

Frankly, Obama should be thanking his lucky stars today because nothing will inspire Hillary’s aggressive support for his candidacy quite like the rise of Palin as a political folk hero.

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John McCain’s VP running mate: Sarah Palin

It is now more important than ever for the Republican nominee, John McCain of Arizona, to pick a minority running mate, like Condoleezza Rice, if he wants to have any chance of defeating Obama in November.

[Barack Obama clinches historic Democratic presidential nomination, The iPINIONS Journal, June 4, 2008]

Sarah Palin is a minority, but she is clearly not the one who I thought would be John McCain’s best choice to serve as his VP running mate. 

Instead, McCain threw a political Hail Mary yesterday by choosing this relatively unknown and inexperienced governor from Alaska to assume the challenge of serving a heartbeat away from the president of the United States. As long shots go, however, this was a very shrewd gamble.

After all, Palin, a 44-year-old mother of five, gives the 18 million (predominantly white) women in Hillary Clinton’s “sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits” a new candidate in whom they can vest their political aspirations.  And, the far-right conservative values she espouses will help McCain reconcile his differences with the religious zealots who have commandeered the base of the Republican Party.

Not to mention that she is a remarkably articulate and compelling politician who I suspect will prove a surprisingly worthy adversary in debates with Barack Obama’s purportedly  more-qualified VP running mate, Joe Biden.  And this will be especially evident in exchanges on one of the most pressing issues in this year’s presidential campaign, namely, energy independence - on which she is extraordinarily well-versed.

As shrewd a choice as she is, however, I do not think Palin will help McCain get elected president of the United States.  Not least because McCain has made foreign policy experience the defining principle of his candidacy, but has now made a mockery of that principle by choosing a VP candidate who would probably be hard pressed to find Afghanistan on a map.

Frankly,  I suspect most women are every bit as insulted by McCain’s assertion that Palin is the most qualified person he could find to serve as vice president as blacks were by President (Daddy) Bush’s assertion that Clarence Thomas was the most qualified person he could find to serve on the Supreme Court.

This is why I doubt all of those disgruntled females who participated in the Democratic Primaries will now blithely jump from Hillary’s feminist “caravan of the traveling pantsuits” onto Palin’s conservative skirt tails:

No matter the defiance and rage that has Hillary’s supporters (especially middle-aged white women) now vowing to vote for McCain instead of Obama, I have no doubt that they will come to their senses on election day and vote for Obama.  Moreover, I believe they will do so at the behest of their standard bearer, Hillary Clinton.

Besides, why would any of these abortion-rights feminists vote for anti-abortion candidates like Palin - who opposes abortions even in cases of rape and incest, and McCain - who has vowed to appoint Supreme Court justices with a mission to overturn Roe v Wade, which granted women abortion rights…?

[Hillary threatens to fight on for months, but I predict she'll cry uncle within days, The iPINIONS Journal, June 2, 2008 ]

Nevertheless, here’s to McCain for doing his part to make this the most interesting, dynamic and historic presidential election in American history.

Meanwhile, just as McCain’s announcement of Palin as his VP stole Obama’s thunder (by knocking coverage of his nomination speech off the air), Hurricane Gustav’s landfall on the Gulf Coast will likely steal McCain’s thunder (by knocking coverage of the entire Republican National Convention off the air).

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Obama’s VP running mate: Joe Biden

With profound gratitude and great humility, I accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States.

With those simple words, Barack Obama continued the historic march on Washington to fulfill the dream Martin Luther King, Jr. voiced 45 years ago. That dream of course was for an America where people “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

I say Obama is only continuing that march because, unlike others who see his nomination as the fulfillment of MLK’s dream, I see it as just another pioneering leap over one of the many barriers blacks have encountered on their path towards realizing their American dream.   And, in this sense, Obama has more in common with Jackie Robinson than he does with Moses (as some pundits have ordained). 

After all, even if Obama is elected president of the United States, his historic achievement alone will do little to eradicate racism in America.  Ironically, it might reinforce the status quo - with many whites thinking that if Obama can be elected president then blacks have nothing more to complain about….

As for his speech, it was vintage Obama.  In fact, watching an Obama speech during this presidential campaign has become rather like watching a Michael Phelps race during the Beijing Olympics: always a winner - thrilling and inspiring.

But I do not think his speech last night before 84,000 people in Denver will have any greater impact on the outcome of this election (or on the lives of black folks) than his speech last month before 200,000 in Berlin.  Indeed, I doubt we’ll be quoting anything Obama said last night, in Berlin or earlier this summer in his seminal speech on race 45 years from now - the way we’re still quoting passages from MLK’s “I have a dream” speech.  Can you even remember anything he said in Berlin?

Therefore, instead of ascribing historic significance to every speech Obama makes, let us keep our eyes on the prize, which MLK proclaimed is an America that:

…will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That said, no one appreciates the historic significance of Obama’s nomination more than I do.  But I’m convinced that if he fulfills the promises he delineated for his presidency, the benefits that will accrue to white Americans (and people all over the world) will far outweigh any symbolism his election will have for black Americans.

Before any dream can be realized or promise fulfilled, however, we must transform all of the hope he inspires into votes for Obama on Election Day!

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Washington has been abuzz this week with speculation about who presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, will choose as his vice presidential running mate.  And the consensus seems to be that Obama will choose Delaware senator, Joe Biden.  I agree. 

Frankly, thanks to Russia’s invasion of Georgia 10 days ago, Obama had little choice.

But instead of parroting all of the obvious reasons why Biden’s foreign policy credentials and pit-bull political style make him such an ideal running mate for Obama, I will suffice to note that he’s got some ’splainin to do to black voters.

After all, recall the charges of racism blacks hurled at Biden after he attempted to pay Obama a perfectly innocent compliment as follow:

I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy…. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.

Of course, since there was every expectation that blacks would forgive the Clintons their race-baiting tactics if Hillary became the nominee, I have no doubt that they’ll welcome Biden with open arms if he becomes Obama’s running mate.

NOTE:  As incomprehensible as the prospect is, there’s still speculation that Obama might choose Hillary. But I’m on record declaring that I would withdraw my support for him if he does. And if you’re a regular reader, you know why….

UPDATE

Saturday, August 23, 6:20 am

Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden as our VP nominee.

[Obama '08 presidential campaign]

Joe’s bio here….

Of course, there’ll be so much news coverage of him over the next 48 hours that you’ll know far more about him, and about why Obama chose him, than you care to.  But, trust me, this is a brilliant choiceI

Moreover, the only way John McCain can top it is by choosing Condoleezza Rice as his VP.

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I pity the fool who thinks being called articulate is an insult

It’s a sad commentary on the state of world affairs that the diplomatic initiatives of a rock star or Hollywood actress are taken more seriously than those of a seasoned statesman. But that is the perverse reality…. Alas, worshiping celebrities is not merely the avocation of giddy teenage girls; because world leaders seem equally enthralled by these latter-day performing saints….

Now if we can only get Paris Hilton to take-up the cause of nuclear non-proliferation.

[Celebrity-obsessed world has made actors and rock stars the statesmen of our time, The iPINIONS Journal, May 23, 2005]

I hope the above quote explains why I am not at all surprised that presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama have spent almost as much time this week debating the merits of Paris Hilton’s energy plan as they have explaining the shortcomings of their own.

I’m a celebrity too, only I’m not from the olden days or promising change like that other guy - I’m just hot. 

But then that wrinkly, white-haired guy used me in his campaign ad, which I guess means I’m running for president. So thanks for the endorsement white-haired dude, and I want America to know I’m, like, totally ready to lead.

Barack wants to focus on new technology to cut foreign oil dependency and McCain wants off-shore drilling. Well, why don’t we do a hybrid of both candidates’ ideas?

We can do limited offshore drilling with strict environmental oversight while creating tax incentives to get Detroit making hybrid and electric cars. Energy crisis solved, I’ll see you at the debates, bitches!

[Paris Hilton in her mock presidential campaign ad]

Not quite nuclear non-proliferation, but it comes pretty close to fulfilling my cynical prophecy, don’t you think?

Now, I hope the quote below explains why, despite its patent absurdity, more Americans seem interested in what Paris has to say in her mock presidential campaign ad than in anything McCain and Obama have to say in their ads.

Unfortunately, since most American voters think the way simpletons Britney and Paris behave, this “juvenile” strategy [of blaming Obama for high oil prices and comparing him to blonde bimbos] resulted in gains for McCain in national polls. It’s no wonder then that he decided to execute it in the most absurd fashion.

[The absurdity of McCain accusing "dollar-bill" Obama of playing the race card, The iPINIONS Journal, August 1, 2008]

Enough said…?  

Thank God the Olympics will provide at least two weeks of media diversion from this political madness….

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Watching the way world leaders greeted Barack Obama on his world tour last week, one could be forgiven the impression that he was already president of the United States. 

There’s no denying that the political atmospherics of his tour, which had leaders in the Middle East treating Obama like a president and people in Berlin greeting him like a savior, made McCain jealous.  And his jealousy must have only intensified when the courting of Obama reached a climax in France, where President Sarkozy was anxiously awaiting his arrival like a high-school nerd who scored a date with the homecoming queen.  Though, perishing the thought of being shunned, British PM Gordon Brown made quite a public show of waiting with bated breath for his quickie as a thoroughly exhausted Obama paid a courtesy call at No. 10 in London … on his way back to America.

In fact, such was the political rapture that accompanied his every visit that John McCain’s lament that Obama was acting like the “president of the world” had some resonance. 

To be fair, however, Obama cannot be blamed for the tag of inevitability others have stamped upon his candidacy.  Yet it behooves him to utterly shun their presumptions, which have him not only winning the election by a landslide but also saving the world like a black Messiah. 

After all, Hillary Clinton bought into similar hype about her inevitability as the Democratic nominee, and look how inevitable that turned out to be….

So beware Barack, don’t believe the hype!

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