Tag: hillary_clinton

The history of the USA is littered with victims; people who have been victimized for one reason or another, from some time period to another. Amongst these groups you could find Native Indians; indentured servants, negroes and other slaves; some ethnic minorities; African Americans in the post-civil war era (especially males); members of a few nationalistic groups – which in the short term suffered discrimination, scorn and the like; and American women in general-women of all races, ethnicities, nationalities and religions.

The one group that will find it difficult to make a comprehensive case for victimization here, is Caucasian males; and despite there being a few individuals from this group, who may be successful in making such a case; for the most part: white males have overwhelmingly run the show since the pilgrims first landed at Plymouth Rock. They have always held power in their hands; power that dominated the social, economic, political, religious, military and other institutions of the country; power that has dominated the every fabric of what is called: “Americana”.

Let me posit this: so far in this presidential cycle, Barack Obama may have gotten the four most significant endorsements of any presidential primary candidate ever; and definitely in my lifetime. These are namely (in order of importance): (1) Oprah Winfrey, (2) Caroline Kennedy, (3) John Kerrey and (4) Ted Kennedy. And with these endorsements in the bag Barack Obama needs to tighten the screws on the Billary Clintons. There are many ways to go about this in the short term.

To do this Barack needs to take a picture of himself and Caroline Kennedy, and use in a mailer, where he lifts the op-ed from the New York Times, in which she favorably compares him to her deceased father President John F. Kennedy. Then he needs to mail this to every democrat on the prime list (who is over 45 years old). You see Barack has already locked up the under -45 vote; this will be a coup de grace. After he does this he can stick a fork in Hillary Clinton: she will be cooked; done; finished. This will be one of the most extravagant mailing consignments ever, if he were to run it through all the Super Tuesday states (Feb.5th).

There is this trick in politics that seems to work well: tell a lie; tell it over and over and over again; and eventually people accept it as truth. We the people could only hope that when a presidential race comes around, that mainstream media helps us sort out truth from fiction; helps us in fact-finding. If they don’t, then we the people become prey to many lies and exaggerations of over-ambitious candidates (like the Clintons). So here is a note from me to the gatekeepers of the fourth estate: do your job; please.

Mainstream media folks (and all of us) should not forget that in 1992 when Bill was running for president, a story broke whereby some audio tapes belonging to a woman named Gennifer Flowers had surfaced. This woman claimed to have had a lengthy affair with Bill Clinton. On the tapes were recordings of Bill making disparaging statements about a potential rival for the presidency (Mario Cuomo). Bill eventually apologized to Cuomo (Italian descent) for suggesting on said tapes, that he Cuomo (or his relatives) was in some way connected to the underworld (Mafia). Then Bill and Hillary Clinton went on the “Sixty Minutes” television program (CBS) and denied the affair between Bill and Ms. Flowers; in essence they called her a liar. This woman suffered greatly because of this; like many others before and after.

I hate to say: “I told you so”; but I did. And whenever I remind people on the blogs of things I predict coming to pass, there is this constant resentment that predictably emerges from certain perpetual corners. That resentment usually manifests itself by snide remarks or nasty comments in the threads of my columns. But that’s okay; I will plug on.

I told you all that racism will eventually rear its ugly head in this presidential primary and sure as day it did. Go back and see when I did my first part of this series, and ask yourself why I said there will be three parts to this column. It’s called clairvoyance. I am very clear about my voyage/lol.

Here we go again; here we go again; is there an end in sight? Maybe the fact that I support Barack Obama is the reason why some of you out there in blogland refuse to admit my truths; so I will plod through this one, and maybe then you tell me where I am wrong.

In this presidential campaign cycle, we have now seen on many occasions supporters of Hillary Clinton making disparaging statements about Barack Obama. It happened again last night. On cable television station New York One. Congressman Charlie Rangel-a rabid Hilary Clinton supporter- displayed signs of his rapidly encroaching senility, when he called Barack Obama a fool. The program was “Inside City Hall”, and the host was Dominic Carter. He further said that some of Barack’s statements (supposed) on the MLK, JFK and LBJ issue were stupid and dumb. And I am now told that he even went on CNN to say that Obama was an “absolute idiot”; is this true?

I don’t know where Rangel heard these things, thus I could only assume that he is losing it-his mind,that is. Barack Obama has never uttered a negative word against Hillary’s remarks, beyond saying that they were “ill-advised”. That’s it. Period. He never called her names or even suggested racism from her remarks; in fact he went public to say she works in the area of civil rights.

Tim Russert is an exceptionally good broadcast journalist. I say this with no ambiguity. However, like every one of us, sometimes you just have a bad day. Tim Russert had a bad day at the office yesterday. Regularly on a Sunday morning, political junkies all over the world, tune in to NBC to watch his “Meet the Press” program. He generally brings in elected officials and prominent political people, to answer tough questions about contemporary issues. He is quite good at what he does. Yesterday he brought in Hillary Rodham Clinton.

If someone was to ask me to use one word in summing up yesterday’s performance by Tim Russert, it would be: pusillanimous. From jump-street, he seemed ruffled by Hillary Clinton’s brashness and recalcitrance. He dropped the ball many times. In this column I will give you six areas of questioning that Russert should have asked-or followed up on- to answers HRC gave. These questions relate to just on one issue alone: the controversy swirling around her Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Barack Obama remarks. When you are through reading them, then imagine what would have happened if I had delved into other issues. Enjoy.

In January of 1980, I started attending Columbia University in New York; it was a presidential election year. Ted Kennedy was reluctantly challenging President Jimmy Carter for the Democrat’s nomination. With freshman excitement I followed the on-campus involvement in the race between these two. Then one day Ted Kennedy came to our uptown campus, bringing media, cameras and controversy. You see, some imaginative white kid (and believe me when I say that at Obama’s alma-mater Columbia U, kids of all races and ethnicities were very very imaginative in my day there) stole the show.

This youngster stole the headlines in the newspapers- and the highlights on television- when he placed a large colorful cardboard placard behind Ted Kennedy’s head. It said: “Will You Test Drive a Used Car With This Man?”

This is what I have never mentioned before: that when I made my historic call of Obama’s Iowa primary win exactly six weeks before the caucus (first published 11/23/07); I had gotten some high powered info from impeccably credible sources. The info was in essence that Obama’s campaign had put together a ground organization that was superior to every other candidate (Republican or Democrat); far superior than even Mitt Romney’s. Exactly two months before primary day, Obama had already opened up vibrant campaign offices in near every county and was going to be competitive in near every precinct; my info also showed that the organization would be even further tightened up, tweaked and expanded. Plus, Obama was turning out record crowds to his events; had loads of energized volunteers (mainly white youngsters who were fired up like the mini-rockets); and was identifying new voters and first time caucus goers- supportive of his candidacy- like nobody’s business.