Author: Rock Hackshaw

I guess I just can’t win without losing. Anytime I write anything about Barack Obama, the e-mails and phone calls come in trickles. Whether I write something good or bad doesn’t matter.   The man has his sycophants and they are relentless.

In my last column I gave him credit for what I deemed a gutsy call on the Arab-Israeli impasse. Since then he has elaborated on his position(s) via three significant speeches, one intriguing press conference (with England’s PM) in London, and through a few communiqués to the press. 

Last week, President Barack Obama made an unexpected call, which seems to have surprised many in both Israel and the USA.  Relative to the Arab-Israeli impasse, he bluntly and sensibly stated the obvious: it is in Israel’s long-term interest to give back seized-lands, as an opening gesture or kick-off point to reinstalling peace talks with the Palestinians. Of course, those whose interests are way above and beyond peace jumped him like he was being blasphemous. Many of them deliberately ignored some of the specific caveats in his speech: like “agreeable land-swaps”.

Guys like Donald Trump are the kind of people who made 1789 a great year for regular folks like me. Here is a guy born with a gold spoon stuck in his mouth and with a silver spoon protruding from his ass. And yet, he swears he is “all that and a bag of chips”; but he is not. He was born on second base and swears “he hit a double”.

Last December I wrote a column suggesting that Brooklyn’s next borough president should be a woman. I even suggested one: Lori Cintron Knipel.  I feel that it is time to make history in Brooklyn.  It’s time for a woman: case closed.

After I published that column, some people asked:”why not a black, Hispanic or Asian?” I have no qualms with either of those options, since such an election will also be historic.  Anyway, that column brought a little attention, and it was requested that I revisit this topic as soon as I got a chance to. So here I am.

It was one of those defining moments predictable in near every US presidential debate. The moment when a speaker steps out of the crease so to speak, and hits for the boundary (cricket talk). Usually, these moments appear when caution is thrown to the wind; and they often give a deeper insight into a candidate’s true feelings and character. But sometimes these moments are scripted. Sometimes they are exquisitely calculated: especially when the candidate is as cunning and cerebral as Barack Obama. One of these moments came during the last presidential debate-cycle. I remember it well.

I should probably entitle this column “Dismay and I”, since blog fatigue is setting in and I am just about getting tired of all the bullshit here.

Last Thursday night, District Leader Lori Knipel (44AD) and the Brooklyn Independent Democrats (BID) held their 14th annual awards dinner.  It was to the place to be. Many of those in attendance were political heavyweights in NYC politics. Six potential mayoral candidates for 2013 came. So too did the state comptroller, some members of congress, state senators, assembly members, city council members, judges and district leaders.

I have been angry at Barack Obama for a while now. I have chosen to keep most of that anger to myself; up to this point I have written relatively little about it. This column is mainly about Barack. It is also about someone many of you probably don’t know: a man named Jamaal Wilkes.

Strap in folks.

File this column under the category “Where The Hell Does Rock Get His Information”? I know that such a category exists because an erected (yes!) official told me so years ago. Truth be told, it is really the category called “Deny-ability”.