White House Admits ‘Mission Accomplished’ Banner Was A Mistake

Now, it’s not what you’re thinking. The White House didn’t admit that they lied and purposefully mislead the American people with the banner which was intended to convey the sentiment that the war was over. However, they did admit limited wrong doing. White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said:

“President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said `mission accomplished’ for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission, and we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner. And I recognize that the media is going to play this up again tomorrow, as they do every single year.”

Now, the White House has still not admitted to their wrong doing to what I would consider an acceptable amount given that they have yet to admit they lead the nation to war on false pretenses, but it’s good to see that at the very least the Bush administration is able to see the error in communications, though they also seem to be unable to see or at least accept that they also failed morally in terms of their handling of the war.

Obama denounces and rejects Rev. Wright

When the spliced together clips of Rev. Jeremiah Wright first debuted, Sen. Obama attempted to place them within a larger context and refused to throw his former pastor under the bus. Reverend Wright proceeded by making even more cartoonish statements and throwing Sen. Obama under the bus by marginalizing Sen. Obama’s landmark speech on race in Philidelphia:

“If Senator Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected, politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls.”

This statement implies that Wright believes Obama secretly agrees with the Reverend’s statements, though Wright himself admitted that he had never heard Sen. Obama second any of his controversial opinions while he was on Bill Moyer’s Journal. Senator Obama of course had to correct the record and make sure no one believed that Obama and Wright were one in the same:

“What became clear to me is that he was presenting a world view that contradicts who I am and what I stand for, and what I think particularly angered me was his suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks were somehow political posturing. Anybody who knows me and anybody who knows what I’m about knows that I am about trying to bridge gaps and I see the commonality in all people.”

The common consensus in the media tends to be that Obama will still be haunted by the Wright scandal despite his harsh denunciation, so one wonders what else Obama can do about it given that he’s already said that Wright’s statements were just “a bunch of rants that aren’t grounded in truth”, that “the insensitivity and the outrageousness of the statements shocked me and surprised me”, and that they “were not only divisive and destructive, I believe they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate.”

I’m back

I was sick with a procession of sicknesses over the past few weeks such as Strep Throat which is why I didn’t cover the political events of the past weeks including such critical events as the Pennsylvania primary.
Oh well, that’s one of the pitfalls of being a one-man operation.

Clinton and Obama Make Their Closing Arguments

Senators Clinton and Obama have spent the weekend making their closing arguments about why Pennsylvania voters should vote for them. Senator Clinton implied that everyone who backed Senator Obama is like the children who follow the Pied Piper:

“I don’t want to just show up and give one of those whoop-dee-do speeches and get everybody whipped up, I want everyone thinking.”

She also criticized a new ad released by Senator Obama which attacked her health care plan:

“Instead of attacking the problem, he chooses to attack my solution.”

Senator Obama criticized Senator Clinton for her political calculations, history of getting issues such as the Iraq War and NAFTA wrong, and her role in the old politics :

“I may not be perfect but I will always tell you what I think, and I will always tell you where I stand, She’s taken different positions at different times on issues as fundamental as trade, or even the war, to suit the politics of the moment. And when she gets caught at it, the notion is, well, you know what, that’s just politics. That’s how it works in Washington. You can say one thing here and say another thing there.”

He echoed the point a later stop in the campaign:

“Senator Clinton’s essential argument in this campaign is you can’t change how the game is played in Washington. Her basic argument is that the slash-and-burn, say-anything, do-anything special interest-driven politics is how it works…. Senator Clinton has internalized a lot of the strategies, the tactics, that have made Washington such a miserable place.”

Obama to appear on The Daily Show on Monday

Sen. Obama will be appearing on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart the day before the crucial Pennsylvania primary. Clinton appeared on The Daily Show the day before she won Ohio and won the Texas primary(and lost the caucus) and some have suggested that it helped her win in Ohio. I’m not so sure that I think that theory is credible given that while it gave her exposure, Jon had dedicated the rest of the episode to mocking Senator Clinton and pointing out some of her political calculations. If Jon does the same to Senator Obama(which I think he probably will) it may have no effect. There’s also the fact that anyone who still doesn’t know who they’re voting for after the candidates have been touring around the state for 3 weeks in all likelihood won’t vote anyway. Both candidates also appeared on The Colbert Report last Thursday, so the voters who will be swayed by late night appearances have probably already decided.

The Clinton-McCain Tie

The Daily Kos reported this back in February, but it’s still an interesting issue to bring up. Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s former campaign manager(at least officially, he’s still sticking around and taking part in the morning conference calls) owns a lobbying company which has a subsidiary which his headed up by Charlie Black, who is John McCain’s campaign manager. I’m not saying that Clinton and McCain are the same, because they really aren’t, but it seems interesting to me that both are being advised by people from the same company.

Admittedly, Senator Clinton’s willingness to use right-wing talking points as well as Clinton’s willingness to meet with “The Godfather of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy” do make a bit more sense now though.

Back to the Spider-Well

Treyarch announced yesterday that they’re developing Spider-Man: Web of Shadows. I really liked Spider-Man 2 but thought Ultimate Spider-Man and Spider-Man 3 were both steep drop offs in quality. All we know about the game is that it will be released for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, PlayStation 2, PSP, Nintendo DS, and PC and that it will feature customizable super powers, an open-world New York, and that you can either play as if “With Great Power Comes Great Responsibiliy” or “With Great Power Comes Even Greater Abuses of Power.” One can only hope that without the time contraints imposed on them with a movie tie-in that Treyarch will be able to recapture some of the magic from Spider-Man 2.

I’ve got to admit that I’m not expecting much.

Obama Overtakes Clinton In Electability and Ethics

Despite facing a deceptive whisper campaign(ie: the constant lie that he’s a Muslim, when Senator Obama is actually a Christian), ABC(which apparently is willing to take questions from extremists like Sean Hannity) and Sen. Clinton over the past weeks, Obama has surpassed Senator Clinton in terms of electability in the opinion of most Democrats. According to an AP-Yahoo poll 56 percent of Democrats believe that Senator Obama is the stronger candidate while only 43% are for Senator Clinton. This is a promising turn around for the Senator from Illinois as the poll was 56 percent for Clinton as recently as late January. Obama also has higher ratings in honesty, ethics, likability, and in terms of how refreshing a candidate they are.

However, there are also facts that the poll respondents were ignorant about. The majority of respondents didn’t know either candidates religious affiliation(which has to sting for CNN given that they devoted an entire evening to it.) Hillary of course is a methodist while Obama belongs to the United Church of Christ. However, most who didn’t know their faiths were Democrats who said it didn’t really bother them. 15 percent believe that Senator Obama is a Muslim(though one wonders how one could still be that ignorant given that the whole Rev. Wright controversy was all about Obama’s controversial Christian minister.)

We also saw signs of racial bigotry in the poll as 13 percent of Republicans and said they were uncomfortable voting for a Black candidate(which makes no sense to me.) However, most of them would never vote for him anyway. A positive racially is that in November 5 percent of Democrats said that they would be uncomfortable voting for a Black candidate but now the percentage is statistically insignificant and may very well be none(though of course, Democratic voters would also be less willing to admit it.)

Supreme Court Upholds Lethal Injections

Well, my disappointment with the Supreme Court grew yet again today when they decided that the use of lethal injection is acceptable. The primary reason people were opposed to it is that if the first drug doesn’t work properly the latter two cause incredible pain but leave the victim paralyzed and unable to express their pain in even as simple a way as screaming. I know that some people will respond “Well yeah, but it’s being used on murderers so who cares?” It seems to me that while the lethal injection is primarily used on people who have committed heinous acts, that doesn’t give the state justification to cause this much pain, especially without anyway for the victim to express their pain. Part of the burden of being a civilized society is that unlike those we’re punishing, we have to care about the well being of others and do everything, even punishment, in the most humane way possible.

Chief Justice Roberts and those who supported him in this decision clearly don’t understand that. For the record, Justices Souter and Ginsburg dissented in favor of civilization.

Barack Obama: The Next Teflon President?

Recently there has been a controversy surrounding Barack Obama’s statement that:

“It’s not surprising that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

I think the controversy is completely ludicrous given that Senators Clinton and McCain are significantly more elitist than Obama is. However, regardless of your opinion about it one can’t help but notice that it’s barely touched him. After the statements became saturated by the media Senator Obama gained a lead in Indiana and his lead either stayed the same or grew by one point in Pennsylvania depending on the poll you look at. Obama has faced odds that traditionally would have destroyed him politically and survived such as the Rev. Wright scandal(which seemed to have far more potential to be damaging.”
One reason Obama will survive this is because in the days since the statement he has treated mid-western voters with respect and simply explained that he phrased it wrong while Sen. Clinton treated them as simpletons and seems to think that taking shots in a bar will make them vote for her.