These times are a’ changing…. Barack Obama has made “Change” the central theme of his campaign and for months we have all chanted the word over and over again, feeling a slight rush of adrenaline as we repeated the word in unison and held our “Change” signs above our heads. But, in the past week we have seen what happens when we, the people, start to believe we can make a change. We stopped chanting the word and took action.
This has been a busy week on many fronts. There have been ups and downs for the candidates. The pundits have tried to sway our opinions with spun analyses of every word spoken by each candidate and even the President. The Republicans have tried to tie relatively unknown Democratic candidates in Mississippi and Louisiana to Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi, anticipating that Southern voters in ruby red states would stay within the confines of the Republican party. Yet, as the voters watched the Republican Party click the heels of the ruby slippers, they voted for “Change.” This isn’t the Mississippi or Louisiana of four years ago. These times, they are a’ changing.
Within the past several weeks we have seen the Republican whip be denied what has been taken for granted for years. In the deep, deep South where the states are so red that blue isn’t in the Crayola Box, the voters went to the polls and voted to put the blue crayon back in the box and on the map. Additionally, the seat vacated by Dennis Hastert was taken by a Democrat.
Okay, so we are talking about three seats in the House… just three. But, considering where they are and who filled them in the past, the vote has to be considered a major statement from the people. And, the Republicans may not have seen it coming but once it was here, they have been flocking to support Democratic supported House bills. The momentum is growing and the Republicans are scared. This week a veto-proof Farm Bill was passed. Well, that’s a first in a long time.
On the Democratic campaign trail Barack Obama got a shellacking in West Virginia. Hillary stomped his butt into the ground, winning the primary by some 40 points. But, not to be outdone, the day after Obama pulled the rabbit out of his hat bringing John Edwards’ endorsement to his campaign and in all probability enough pledged delegates to neutralize the Clinton win in West Virginia.
In the meantime, John McCain was vying for face time. Remember him? John McCain? The Republican nominee for President of the United States of America? Well, Senator McCain spent the early part of the week trying to distance himself from President Bush. McCain even gave a “fantasy speech” outlining what the fourth year of a McCain presidency would look like. To my surprise it looked like a victory in Iraq (I said this was a fantasy speech) and troops coming home by 2013. We dare not call that a “timeline” because we don’t want to tip our hand to al-Qaeda. But, it sounds remarkably like a timeline to me, fantasy or not.
And, just when it began to look as if the Arizona senator had taken a step away from the President, Bush showed up in Israel and spoke before the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset.
Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.
Now, Bush may have been on the other side of the world, but no utterance goes unheard. Dana Perino, Bush’s press secretary tried to say that the statement was not in reference to Barack Obama… another instance that shows the Bush administration thinks Americans have no brains. But, that has been the basis of all his actions, hasn’t it? He thinks (and I use that term loosely) that “we, the people” are no more than sheep grazing on the tumbleweeds of the Crawford ranch. Oh, well…. these times, they are a’ changing.
Barack Obama welcomed the comment. He fired back at the President.
“It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 6Oth anniversary of Israel’s independence to launch a false political attack. It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel. Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power — including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy - to pressure countries like Iran and Syria. George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the President’s extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel.”
Then the wagons began to circle around the Democratic candidate.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Cali., did not take kindly to the remarks calling Bush’s statement “beneath the dignity of the office of the president” in her weekly press conference on Capitol Hill.
Hillary Clinton even pulled her wagon into the circle around Obama, an act of Democratic unity we have not seen lately.
“On the face of it and especially in light of his failures in foreign policy, this is the kind of statement that has no place in any presidential address and certainly to use an important moment like the 60th anniversary celebration of Israel to make a political point seems terribly misplaced,” said the New York Senator during an impromptu gaggle with reporters. “Unfortunately this is what we’ve come to expect from President Bush who has refused to change course in Iraq, neglected Afghanistan and failed to provide leadership on the range of important issues that face our country and the world.”
Perhaps, Senator Joe Biden said it best.
“This is bullshit, this is malarkey. This is outrageous, for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, to sit in the Knesset … and make this kind of ridiculous statement.”
And, even poor old John McCain was drawn off point and into the fray. McCain had requested the opportunity to speak before the NRA. He was not invited. He requested the opportunity, although it seemed a bit of a skew from where he was heading earlier in the week. Yet, during his NRA talk McCain showed once again that he and Bush are conjoined twins… hooked at the hip.
Sen. John McCainsaid Thursday Sen. Barack Obama’s willingness to sit down with the president of Iran shows “naiveté and inexperience and lack of judgment” — and indicated he will make the issue front-and-center in the general election if Obama becomes the nominee.
In his speech, McCain went on to say:
“What does he want to talk about with, with [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad who said that Israel’s a stinking corpse, who said that he wants to wipe Israel off the map, who’s sending the most explosive devices into Iraq, killing Americans?” he said. “The point is that peace through strength is the way we achieve peace in the world. That’s the point. I will debate this issue with Senator Obama throughout this campaign.”
Going farther, McCain continued to connect Obama with Ahmadinejad and highlight the Iranian leader’s incendiary comments about Israel.
“I think Barack Obama needs to explain why he wants to sit down and talk with a man who is the head of a government that is a state sponsor of terror that is responsible for the killing of brave young Americans and wants to wipe Israel off the map and denies the Holocaust,” McCain said.
“It is a serious error on the part of Senator Obama that shows naiveté and inexperience and lack of judgment to say that he wants to sit down across the table from an individual who leads a country that says and says that Israel is a stinking corpse, that is dedicated to the extinction of the state of Israel.”
Obama responded by saying that a couple of years ago McCain had said that perhaps talking to Hamas was the only way to go and added:
“I want to be perfectly clear with George and John McCain,” Obama said, “If George Bush and John McCain want to have a debate about protecting the United States of America, that is a debate I’m willing to have anytime, anywhere because that is a debate that I will win because George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for.”
Well, these times… they are a’ changing.
And, let us not overlook the tasteless comments of Mike Huckabee this week. For a so-called preacher, he perhaps needs to learn to speak without putting both feet in his mouth at once. But… we all know this is the same man who once said AIDS victims should be quarantined and that time began 6000 years ago, the man who once equated “gay” with “pedophile”… and who would probably like to be second on the Republican ticket. This week, his jokes hit a sour note and no one was laughing.
At the time of the writing of this post, breaking news indicates that Senator Edward Kennedy has been rushed to a Cape Cod hospital with stroke like symptoms. We hope the best for him as we await any updates.
