Stepped In It

So, Michelle Obama – with her Princeton and Harvard education, $1 million+ house and $300k+ job – is “for the first time in (her) adult lifetime, … really proud of (her) country.”
Given that the nation’s economy is teetering on the brink, one could hardly have scripted a more witless, cruel, insensitive, sophomoric remark for the privileged wife of a Presidential candidate to utter.
Michelle Obama makes Teresa Heinz Kerry look like Mother Jones.
In comparison, Bill Clinton’s controversial remark about Jesse Jackson is about as minor a blunder as a clearing of the throat.
Maybe master media manipulator David Axelrod isn’t such a genius after all.

Smells Just as Bad

I’ve been wondering what media manipulator is behind the Obama campaign, and it turns out to be the same one that orchestrated another campaign pitting a youngish African-American man against a wonkish white female candidate: Chicago consultant David Axelrod.
That’s right, Axelrod was Deval Patrick’s media consultant.
Axelrod shares what is becoming one of the distinguishing characteristics of the senator from Illinois’ campaign: memory lapses on the part of high-visibility supporters concerning kindnesses and favors which the Clintons have done for them in the past.
As recalled last year in the New York Times, Hillary Clinton spoke at a fundraiser for the Axelrod family’s favorite charity, the CURE foundation, in January 1999. The date is significant because it was the start of Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial.
Not only did Hillary Clinton speak on behalf of the foundation, she was instrumental in persuading the NIH to convene a conference on finding a cure for epilepsy. In the words of David Axelrod’s wife, Susan, it was “one of the most important things anyone has done for epilepsy.”
And now, as succinctly noted in the Times article, “David Axelrod is … dedicated to derailing this woman’s career.”
That kind of back-stabbing disloyalty may be the foundation of Obama’s hope, change and unity message, but it sure smells like old-time politics to me.

Sound Familiar?

This famous political wife was a corporate lawyer.
She served on the Board of Directors of a company that paid its CEO over $26 million in the same year it laid off 150 workers from a processing plan.
An executive at a $100 million hospital consortium criticized for price-gouging, she received a raise that boosted her salary to over $316,000 after her husband was elected to public office.
The woman is Michelle Obama, former associate at the Chicago law firm Sidley & Austin; board member of TreeHouse Foods; and vice president of the University of Chicago Hospitals.
This is not to criticize either the Senator or Mrs. Obama for the fact that they have been both hard-working and very, VERY fortunate. Rather, it’s to criticize the msm because a) Hillary Clinton has been pilloried for having a resume almost identical to Mrs. Obama’s and b) Mrs. Obama’s lack of progressive credentials has essentially been buried by the usual cast of left-wing characters.
To its credit, the Washington Post did run an article last December on the media bias in favor of Obama. Joe Kline of Time magazine commented on the Obama campaign’s “creepy…mass messianism” and David Brooks, one of the token conservatives at the New York Times, commented wittily that “Obama’s people are so taken with their messiah that soon they’ll be selling flowers at airports”*.
Robin Morgan’s reprise of her famous 1970 essay “Goodbye To All That” is a passionate reaction to the anti-Clinton bias that the mass media has been pushing at us for so long. It’s worth a read.
And I was glad to note that someone else (although I’ve lost the link) agrees with me about this election season’s great irony: of all the networks, cable or otherwise, Fox News has done the best job of covering the Clinton and Obama campaigns in accordance with its much-criticized motto, “fair and balanced”.
*Mr. Brooks does a masterful job of explaining Obama’s appeal to higher-income folks versus Clinton’s support among blue collar families as the difference between what he calls the dialects of self-fulfillment and struggle.

Smoking Cessation

It’s the start of day four.
I decided to quit after the first smoke on election day. An adrenaline rush helps us to wake up, but since nicotine increases adrenaline, the result can feel like a heart attack, or maybe it really is a heart attack. I didn’t bother to find out.
I’ve quit at least three times before: when I was pregnant, when I lived in Orange County, California and after I came back to Mass. I remember exactly when I started smoking again the last time: in the middle of my first commercial .NET project, about four years ago.

Continue reading Smoking Cessation

Letter to Hillary

Dear Senator Clinton:
Living in a Cape Cod town that has a long history of racial diversity, I evaluate people based on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.
Thus, I’ve been taken aback by the power of guilt in propelling Barack Obama to national prominence. As many have said, if someone with the same credentials as Obama, but named Mary or O’Shea, had attempted a run for the Presidency, they would have been ridiculed at best.
Maybe everyone should have the opportunity to fine-tune their judgment skills by living in a town like Mashpee, MA.
Meanwhile, I was proud to note that your support on Cape Cod came from the middle class towns, like mine. I’ve had enough political domination by the wealthy, including the Kennedys and the Kerrys, not to mention the Oprahs, thank you very much.
It is said that Obama’s support comes from the intellectual as well as the social elite. I’m a college graduate and a software developer and as such, have been trained to be objective, disciplined and analytical.
After listening to the debates and reading the background material on the websites, I’ve made two contributions to your campaign, based on your intellect and knowledge of course, but mostly on the content of your character and your past performance as a public figure.
I may not agree with all of your positions on the issues, but I trust you not to fold when times get tough, as they do for every President. I don’t have the same confidence either in McCain or in Obama: one is fragile and the other seems shallow and manipulative.
I’ve heard it said that having a brown President would enhance the stature of the United States in the world. I think that’s nonsense: does anyone really believe that the UN has been more effective and enjoyed greater prestige under Kofi Annan than Dag Hammarskj

No Contest

Not much of a Super Tuesday for the children’s crusade.
Of the 13 states that Obama won yesterday, 8 out of 13 are solidly Republican and likely won’t be in play for the Democrats anyway this November: Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, North Dakota, Kansas, Alabama and Georgia.
On the other hand, Hillary Clinton thumped Obama pretty good in Massachusetts (56 to 41%), which tells you something about our skepticism if not outright cynicism about the judgment of our mainstream mass media, governor and senators.
Meanwhile, reeling from the Clinton victory, the media seem desperate to spin her success into something negative. That Clinton won California and New York, not to mention the biggest surprise of all, Massachusetts, is ignored by their trumpeting that she took “only” 8 states as opposed to Obama’s 13 – but 8 of the states in Obama’s column won’t go Democrat anyway in the generals.
Yesterday, Clinton won 584 delegates to Obama’s 563. The jury is still out on the remaining 534. The split would have broken more decisively for Clinton if the Democrats had a “winner take all” rule, since she carried most of the states with the largest populations.
Clinton has 845 delegates; 2,025 are needed for the nomination.

Super Bowl, Super Tuesday, Super February

January went by like a shot, and considering that we were in the middle of a snowstorm a week ago today, it was nice to be able to do outside activities this afternoon, including the transfer station run we’d postponed and a visit to the Falmouth playground with James after his impromptu overnight.
The sales, marketing and consulting people at the office, including the CEO, dressed in Patriots shirts on Friday. My football pals have a lavish Super Bowl party planned, with shrimp, steak tips and fixings.
The spill-over of communal activity has made this a festive weekend.
Go, Pats. RCP for poll junkies; go, anyone but The Pretender.