Wisconsin Primary

[BallHawk]

This whole thing will be over after May 6th. Hillary may gain some ground, but Obama will be able to keep his delegate lead so that he will be able to say to Hillary "You want Michigan and Florida? Take 'em."

And thus will be the end of Hillary. Her stump speech will die.

[Harlan Huckleby]

well, he won't be turning generous till he has it locked up, that can't happen until the SuperDelegates are all commited.

But assuming you are correct, don't you find Obama's behavior just a tad sleazy?

Shouldn't we want elections to be done in a democratic way? Or is it to hell with principles, it's all about the winning?

i hear Obama supporters complain that Hillary is win-at-any-cost. The Monster. But what about your own standards of fairness?

I was disgusted when Clinton tried to claim the results of the deeply flawed primaries. And now I'm disgusted at Obama's part in blocking legitimate votes.

[BallHawk]

They're both politicians. Anybody that buys into the fact that Obama is just a normal dude has been duped. He' just as dirty as any other politician. Now, his personality is different from most politicians, but his tricks are not. He just comes across as nicer because the media portrays Hillary as the bitch.

[Harlan Huckleby]

Its a very dirty game. Obama's public postion was he would accept "any fair resolution sanctioned by the DNC" in MI & FL, all the while making sure nothing happened. And now Clinton is returning the favor by fighting the MI/FI situation right up to the convention. She has no incentive to accept any compromise.

The DNC will be pressured to have that SuperDelegate caucus in June, that's about all that can stop The Monster. Hell hath no fury like a Clinton scorned. But of course that surprise caucus is fraudulent, a drastic rewrite of the rules. Even Not-so-keen Howard Dean has said it is a no-go.

I wonder if Obama may yet conclude that MI - FL revotes in June are the lesser evil than dragging this on till August, and then getting a disputed victory. Gee, maybe Clinton thought of this too!

She did the mash - she did the monster mash
(the monster mash) - it was a graveyard smash!

[texaspackerbacker]

I think the whole mess will turn out to be moot, though, as once we get closer to the election and people are better able to draw the contrast between the rotten for America positions of the Dems and McCain's views--which are MUCH closer to the views and core values of America, things will swing to the Republicans--just as happened in 2000 and 2004.

The issues are in favor of the Dems, by a huge margin. And "change" amounts to an issue this year. Most people are not going to follow McCain on the war, for instance.

Presidents tend to get elected by personality. I think the fall is unpredictable. A large number of Dems are pissed off at the party or Obama. The Republicans will have to smear Obama further to win the contest. Jermiah Wright is resonating mostly with Republicans.

ONLY because the leftist mainstream media is skewing things in favor of the Dems--just as was the case this far out with Gore and Kerry. Then when the head to head debates came along, and Republican campaign ads started up, so the people could see exactly what the two sides stood for, things turned around.

This time, in part due to the harsh campaign for the Dems, McCain is comparably MUCH better off than Bush was this far away from the last two elections.

Liberals in general have to mask there true positions, while conservatives have to display theirs. You, yourself, said in the other thread, who knows what Obama's position is on Iraq. You really could say the same for all of the issues. The media has enabled him to skate by on charisma without substance so far. They won't be able to protect him that way in the general election, though.

[Joemailman]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03312008/news/worldnews/from_bad_to_verse_for_hill_104288.htm

FROM BAD TO VERSE FOR HILL
AIRPORT'S GIRL POET STUNNED BY SNIPER TALE AS INSULTED FELLOW BOSNIANS RIP 'LOW BLOW' LIE
By SELIM ALGAR, Post Correspondent

March 31, 2008 -- SARAJEVO, Bosnia - The Bosnian girl who famously read a poem to Hillary Rodham Clinton during her 1996 visit to the war-torn country is shocked - and her countrymen infuriated - that the former first lady claimed to have dodged sniper fire that day.

Emina Bicakcic, now 20 and studying to become a doctor, told The Post she stood on the tarmac at the air base in Tuzla, greeted Clinton and even had time to share the lines of verse she'd written - all without fear of attack from an unseen enemy.

"I was surprised when I heard this," Bicakcic said, referring to Clinton's assertion that she braved snipers upon landing, ducking and sprinting to military vehicles.

Other Bosnians said they had one of two reactions to Clinton's debunked action-hero account of her visit: laughter or anger.

"It's an exaggeration," said former acting President Ejup Ganic, who was present during Clinton's visit. "No one was firing. There were no shots fired."

Sema Markovic, 22, a student, said she has long respected Hillary as a strong leader but was angered by her remarks.

"It is an ugly thing for a politician to tell lies,' she said. "We had problems for years, and I don't like when someone lies about them. It makes us look bad."

Clinton has since admitted she "misspoke."

Bicakcic, asked if she feared any threat of violence that day, said she felt just the opposite.

"No," she said, speaking at her home in Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital. "I was just excited. I wanted to look [Clinton] in the eye and say, 'Thank you.' "

And Clinton, she said, seemed far more interested in her poem than in dashing for shelter.

"She was really listening," Bicakcic recalled. "She was drinking in every word of my poem."

Her poem begins with the words, "Peace has come."

Bicakcic said she was reluctant to criticize Clinton's account of that day because of a deep appreciation for the US role in ending Bosnia's bloody nightmare.

A picture of the girl's meeting with the then-first lady - signed and inscribed by Clinton - has become a treasured family heirloom.

Still, Bicakcic admitted that she is not supporting Clinton in her contest against Barack Obama.

"I'm staying neutral," she said, declining to discuss the issue further. "I have very mixed emotions about it. It's a difficult situation for me."

Former acting President Ganic said that while the war with Serbia had largely ended by the time Clinton visited, he was still nervous about hosting such an important foreign figure, which meant more security and, ultimately, less risk for the former first lady that day.

"We were nervous, so we cut down the ceremony," he recalled. "You don't mess around with your key friends. There was a little bit of risk, but it was not like that. She didn't run."

A worker at the airstrip where Clinton landed said the surrounding hills that could have harbored snipers were far too distant to pose any real threat to the first lady.

He said that he found her false account hard to stomach and that it unnecessarily revived difficult memories.

Many Bosnians - still confronted with bullet-scarred and burned-out buildings from Sarajevo to Tuzla - said their very real experiences with violence should not serve as cheap fodder for Clinton's political ambitions.

"It was a horrible lie," said 29-year-old Midhat Efendira.

Like most Bosnians, he expressed a deep appreciation of Bill Clinton for his role in ending the war. But he found Hillary Clinton's remarks intolerable.

"It was a low blow," he said. "She did it to gain sensational publicity."

Efendira said that Bosnians are closely following the US presidential race and that Hillary's remarks have damaged the formerly untouchable Clinton name in the country.

Sead Numanovic, the deputy editor-in-chief of Bosnia's largest newspaper, Dnevni Avaz, laughed at Sen. Clinton's account of the alleged sniper fire and her claim that she "misspoke."

"My first thought was, she must be kidding," he said. "When someone threatens your life, you don't make a mistake."

Numanovic said his paper has not even bothered to cover the story.

"We don't have space for someone's lies," he said. "Why is she so stupid? It doesn't portray her as a real leader."

Some Bosnians contrasted Clinton's jaunt to the truly dangerous visits paid by now-deceased former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and former Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller in 1994.

In an effort to call attention to Sarajevo's plight, the two female heads of state donned flak jackets and were driven throughout the heart of the bullet-riddled city at the height of the conflict.

Two days after their visit, 69 people were killed in a mortar attack on a central market.

Editor Numanovic summed up his opinion of the Clinton "sniper fire" controversy with a little dig at US culture.

"I guess there has to be a little bit of Hollywood in everything," he said with a laugh.

selim.algar@nypost.com


Interesting how closely people in foreign countries follow our elections. If only Americans knew as much about foreign countries.

[Harlan Huckleby]

The NY Post is practically a gossip tabloid.

"The Bosnia flap has provided more grist for the anti-Hillary mill of the New York Post, which has been giving it prominent play for a week now, including getting retired generals to slam her and nicknaming Clinton "Bunko Hill" in a headline.

The New York Post, part of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, endorsed Obama just before the Super Tuesday primary in New York, saying the junior senator from New York represented "a return to the opportunistic, scandal-scarred, morally muddled years of the almost infinitely self-indulgent Clinton co-presidency." That was a marked turnaround from 2006, when the New York Post endorsed Clinton's Senate reelection bid."

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/03/31/the_tuzla_tarmac_girl_has_her.html

[Harlan Huckleby]

Obama's biggest whopper was his claim that he was unaware of his pastor's extreme views. He claims he would have left his church if he had known. This seems impossible, and contradicts many who claim Reverand Wright's views were common in black churches.

From http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/3/25/224531/594 here's 12 more cases where he evidently wasn't completely honest:

Just Embellished Words: Senator Obama's Record of Exaggerations & Misstatements
Once again, the Obama campaign is getting caught saying one thing while doing another. They are personally attacking Hillary even though Sen. Obama has been found mispeaking and embellishing facts about himself more than ten times in recent months. Senator Obama's campaign is based on words -not a record of deeds - and if those words aren't backed up by facts, there's not much else left.

"Senator Obama has called himself a constitutional professor, claimed credit for passing legislation that never left committee, and apparently inflated his role as a community organizer among other issues. When it comes to his record, just words won't do. Senator Obama will have to use facts as well," Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said.

Sen. Obama consistently and falsely claims that he was a law professor. The Sun-Times reported that, "Several direct-mail pieces issued for Obama's primary [Senate] campaign said he was a law professor at the University of Chicago. He is not. He is a senior lecturer (now on leave) at the school. In academia, there is a vast difference between the two titles. Details matter." In academia, there's a significant difference: professors have tenure while lecturers do not. [Hotline Blog, 4/9/07; Chicago Sun-Times, 8/8/04]

Obama claimed credit for nuclear leak legislation that never passed. "Obama scolded Exelon and federal regulators for inaction and introduced a bill to require all plant owners to notify state and local authorities immediately of even small leaks. He has boasted of it on the campaign trail, telling a crowd in Iowa in December that it was 'the only nuclear legislation that I've passed.' 'I just did that last year,' he said, to murmurs of approval. A close look at the path his legislation took tells a very different story. While he initially fought to advance his bill, even holding up a presidential nomination to try to force a hearing on it, Mr. Obama eventually rewrote it to reflect changes sought by Senate Republicans, Exelon and nuclear regulators. The new bill removed language mandating prompt reporting and simply offered guidance to regulators, whom it charged with addressing the issue of unreported leaks. Those revisions propelled the bill through a crucial committee. But, contrary to Mr. Obama's comments in Iowa, it ultimately died amid parliamentary wrangling in the full Senate." [New York Times, 2/2/08]

Obama misspoke about his being conceived because of Selma. "Mr. Obama relayed a story of how his Kenyan father and his Kansan mother fell in love because of the tumult of Selma, but he was born in 1961, four years before the confrontation at Selma took place. When asked later, Mr. Obama clarified himself, saying: 'I meant the whole civil rights movement.'" [New York Times, 3/5/07]

LA Times: Fellow organizers say Sen. Obama took too much credit for his community organizing efforts. "As the 24-year-old mentor to public housing residents, Obama says he initiated and led efforts that thrust Altgeld's asbestos problem into the headlines, pushing city officials to call hearings and a reluctant housing authority to start a cleanup. But others tell the story much differently. They say Obama did not play the singular role in the asbestos episode that he portrays in the best-selling memoir 'Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.' Credit for pushing officials to deal with the cancer-causing substance, according to interviews and news accounts from that period, also goes to a well-known preexisting group at Altgeld Gardens and to a local newspaper called the Chicago Reporter. Obama does not mention either one in his book." [Los Angeles Times, 2/19/07]

Chicago Tribune: Obama's assertion that nobody had indications Rezko was engaging in wrongdoing 'strains credulity.' "...Obama has been too self-exculpatory. His assertion in network TV interviews last week that nobody had indications Rezko was engaging in wrongdoing strains credulity: Tribune stories linked Rezko to questionable fundraising for Gov. Rod Blagojevich in 2004 -- more than a year before the adjacent home and property purchases by the Obamas and the Rezkos." [Chicago Tribune editorial, 1/27/08]

Obama was forced to revise his assertion that lobbyists 'won't work in my White House.' "White House hopeful Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) was forced to revise a critical stump line of his on Saturday -- a flat declaration that lobbyists 'won't work in my White House' after it turned out his own written plan says they could, with some restrictions... After being challenged on the accuracy of what he has been saying -- in contrast to his written pledge -- at a news conference Saturday in Waterloo, Obama immediately softened what had been his hard line in his next stump speech." [Chicago Sun-Times, 12/16/07]

FactCheck.org: 'Selective, embellished and out-of-context quotes from newspapers pump up Obama's health plan.' "Obama's ad touting his health care plan quotes phrases from newspaper articles and an editorial, but makes them sound more laudatory and authoritative than they actually are. It attributes to The Washington Post a line saying Obama's plan would save families about $2,500. But the Post was citing the estimate of the Obama campaign and didn't analyze the purported savings independently. It claims that "experts" say Obama's plan is "the best." "Experts" turn out to be editorial writers at the Iowa City Press-Citizen - who, for all their talents, aren't actual experts in the field. It quotes yet another newspaper saying Obama's plan "guarantees coverage for all Americans," neglecting to mention that, as the article makes clear, it's only Clinton's and Edwards' plans that would require coverage for everyone, while Obama's would allow individuals to buy in if they wanted to." [FactCheck.org, 1/3/08]

Sen. Obama said 'I passed a law that put Illinois on a path to universal coverage,' but Obama health care legislation merely set up a task force. "As a state senator, I brought Republicans and Democrats together to pass legislation insuring 20,000 more children. And 65,000 more adults received health care...And I passed a law that put Illinois on a path to universal coverage." The State Journal-Register reported in 2004 that "The [Illinois State] Senate squeaked out a controversial bill along party lines Wednesday to create a task force to study health-care reform in Illinois. [...] In its original form, the bill required the state to offer universal health care by 2007. That put a 'cloud' over the legislation, said Sen. Dale Righter, R-Mattoon. Under the latest version, the 29-member task force would hold at least five public hearings next year." [Obama Health Care speech, 5/29/07; State Journal-Register, 5/20/04]

ABC News: 'Obama...seemed to exaggerate the legislative progress he made' on ethics reform. "ABC News' Teddy Davis Reports: During Monday's Democratic presidential debate, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., seemed to exaggerate the legislative progress he has made on disclosure of "bundlers," those individuals who aggregate their influence with the candidate they support by collecting $2,300 checks from a wide network of wealthy friends and associates. When former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel alleged that Obama had 134 bundlers, Obama responded by telling Gravel that the reason he knows how many bundlers he has raising money for him is "because I helped push through a law this past session to disclose that." Earlier this year, Obama sponsored an amendment [sic] in the Senate requiring lobbyists to disclose the candidates for whom they bundle. Obama's amendment would not, however, require candidates to release the names of their bundlers. What's more, although Obama's amendment was agreed to in the Senate by unanimous consent, the measure never became law as Obama seemed to suggest. Gravel and the rest of the public know how many bundlers Obama has not because of a 'law' that the Illinois Democrat has 'pushed through' but because Obama voluntarily discloses that information." [ABC News, 7/23/07]

Obama drastically overstated Kansas tornado deaths during campaign appearance. "When Sen. Barack Obama exaggerated the death toll of the tornado in Greensburg, Kan, during his visit to Richmond yesterday, The Associated Press headline rapidly evolved from 'Obama visits former Confederate capital for fundraiser' to `Obama rips Bush on Iraq war at Richmond fundraiser' to 'Weary Obama criticizes Bush on Iraq, drastically overstates Kansas tornado death toll' to 'Obama drastically overstates Kansas tornado deaths during campaign appearance.' Drudge made it a banner, ensuring no reporter would miss it." [politico.com, 5/9/07]

*****************************************

I don't think Obama will be called to task for any of these misstatements - except his honesty about his pastor's views will come back.

[SkinBasket]

Ah. The smell of desperation.

[The Leaper]

Clinton and Obama are one-in-the-same...two typical liberal politicians who will do anything to win their way to power.

The notion that Obama is somehow different and a candidate of "hope" and "change" is one of the biggest pieces of wool pulled over the eyes of Americans in some time.

Face it, people. We will never again elect anyone to the White House who has any regard for the actual citizens of this nation.

[SkinBasket]

Study: Octopuses Lie, Cheat and Kill for Sex

Wednesday, April 02, 2008
AP

SAN FRANCISCO — Marine biologists studying wild octopuses have found a kinky and violent society of jealous murders, gender subterfuge and once-in-a-lifetime sex.

The new study by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, who journeyed off the coast of Indonesia found that wild octopuses are far from the shy, unromantic loners their captive brethren appear to be.

The scientists watched the Abdopus aculeatus octopus, which are the size of an orange, for several weeks and published their findings recently in the journal Marine Biology.

They witnessed picky, macho males carefully select a mate, then guard their newly domesticated digs so jealously that they would occasionally use their 8-to-10-inch tentacles to strangle a romantic rival to death.

The researchers also observed smaller "sneaker" male octopuses put on feminine airs, such as swimming girlishly near the bottom and keeping their male brown stripes hidden in order to win unsuspecting conquests.

And size does matter — but not how you'd think.

"If you're going to spend time guarding a female, you want to go for the biggest female you can find because she's going to produce more eggs," said UC Berkeley biologist Roy Caldwell, who co-wrote the study. "It's basically an investment strategy."

Shortly after the female gives birth, about a month after conception, both the mother and father die, researchers said.

"It's not the sex that leads to death," said Christine Huffard, the study's lead author. "It's just that octopuses produce offspring once during a very short lifespan of a year."

[packinpatland]

Sounds 'racist' to me


Clinton backer Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) took a couple of swipes at Obama’s speaking ability, but conceded that he’ll likely be the nominee. “In the black tradition, he would probably be mediocre,” Cleaver, who is black, told a Canadian radio program. "For White Americans, it's like, this guy can speak," Cleaver said in the radio interview. "If you put him on a level with a lot of other African-American public speakers, he may not even measure up."

[Scott Campbell]

Numanovic said his paper has not even bothered to cover the story.

"We don't have space for someone's lies," he said. "Why is she so stupid? It doesn't portray her as a real leader."

I like their attitude.

[Deputy Nutz]

I think for the betterment of the Democratic party in the 2008 election Clinton needs to drop out, and only say Clinton because she is trailing at this point. They are making McCain's job quite easy, he doesn't have to pay his staff to do any digging at this point. They are doing it for him.

[BallHawk]

Study: Octopuses Lie, Cheat and Kill for Sex

Where to you find these things?