A Political Bird

04:39 pm - Rich Trumka of the AFL-CIO, on racism and the vote.

Like Bitch, Ph.D. said: "This speech might make you tear up; it did me. It's certainly timely as hell."

Commentary at Washington Monthly and The G Spot.

10:44 pm - "That's not true."

Just finished watching the debate. Initial impressions: McCain performed above my expectations, but that pretty much adds up to "it was close". What it comes down to, though, is the facts.

Just to look up the first thing that comes to mind: according to transcripts, and ABC's blog agrees, McCain is simply wrong about Kissinger - he does support high-level talks without preconditions. Now, I don't care about errors like "Kennedy was out of the hospital before the debate started" or the Eisenhower letters thing, but if there are other significant points like Kissinger's stance on which McCain was simply and directly wrong, it matters.

08:05 pm - Biden kicks it up a notch.

Eight years ago, a man ran for President who claimed he was different, not a typical Republican. He called himself a reformer. He admitted that his Party, the Republican Party, had been wrong about things from time to time. He promised to work with Democrats and said he’d been doing that for a long time.

That candidate was George W. Bush. Remember that? Remember the promise to reach across the aisle? To change the tone? To restore honor and dignity to the White House?

We saw how that story ends. A record number of home foreclosures. Home values, tumbling. And the disturbing news that the crisis you’ve been facing on Main Street is now hitting Wall Street, taking down Lehman Brothers and threatening other financial institutions.

We’ve seen eight straight months of job losses. Nearly 46 million Americans without health insurance. Average incomes down, while the price of everything -- from gas to groceries -- has skyrocketed. A military stretched thin from two wars and multiple deployments.

A nation more polarized than I’ve ever seen in my career. And a culture in Washington where the very few wealthy and powerful have a seat at the table and everybody else is on the menu.

Eight years later, we have another Republican nominee who’s telling us the exact same thing:
This time it will be different, it really will. This time he’s going to put country before party, to change the tone, reach across the aisle, change the Republican Party, change the way Washington works.

We’ve seen this movie before, folks. But as everyone knows, the sequel is always worse than the original.

08:55 pm

Thanks to the Slacktivist commenter crowd: the transcript of Obama's speech.

If you haven't watched the speech, for whatever reason, and you don't want to watch it now, for whatever reason, please: just read it. I won't even ask you to keep an open mind - just to click the link and push the down arrow when you hit the bottom of the screen, and whatever you think of him afterwards is fair game. But read it.

03:27 pm - Obama: The Path of a More Perfect Union

Via Fred 'Slacktivist' Clark:



I remember - sometime last year - reading a blogger talking about Barack Obama who said that Obama was too kind, too positive, too unwilling to be harsh. I remember the fellow talked about Kennedy and others, said that they were certainly not the plaster saints that Obama seemed to be imitating, and that his refusal to use aggressive tactics would most likely sink his campaign.

In the months since, it's become clear that it's quite the opposite.

02:14 am - Obama's Jericho Speech

Would you believe I hadn't seen any of Obama's speeches until tonight? alchemi gave the heads-up, and I watched this one.

Today - yesterday, now - he gave a speech in memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. at Ebenezer Baptist Church. C-SPAN has the full speech on video - actually, with probably about ten minutes of extra material extending on either end.

It's a good speech, a really good speech. Omitting the thank-yous at the beginning, a transcript (not quite the same as the one that's been floating around the net - I think he slipped from the script a bit...):

( The Scripture tells us that when Joshua and the Israelites arrived at the gates of Jericho... )

It's two a.m., and I'm really stupid right now, so I'm not going to make any big announcements. I'm not even a member of the Democratic Party, and on top of that, I can see where the scoffing is coming from. But, you know, I heard you ought to be willing to let politics break your heart, and I can't help but think maybe I will.