BUSH FAILED AT NATO CONFERENCE

Nato summit: George Bush abandoned over Ukraine and Georgia[t]
__________________________
GOOD MORNING FLINT! EARLY EDITION
BY Terry Bankert 4/03/08
You are invited to join me at Face Book http://www.facebook.com/people/Terry_Bankert/645845362 __________________________
Article at http://goodmorningflint.blogspot.com/
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NATO Allies Oppose Bush on Georgia and Ukraine

The Nato summit could have serious repercussions for relations between Europe and Russia. US President George W. Bush believes membership can be offered to any European democracy, so offers to Ukraine and Georgia to join are perfectly correct. Even Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer favours the two nations joining the organisation. Yet there are those who are against the idea. [g]

A REFLECTION

When in my post as a Municipal Ombudsman On occassion I would conference with an International Group concerned with Oversight of Police. At one I was dressed down , politely, by a Canadian Provincial Ombudsman . The topic was American arrogance and how little we really know of the world, our neighbors and the international community. He was of couse right but I did not alter the egotistical arrogance of my public career. ( I am much humbled in the private sector.) The following discussion on the NATO Conference is a case in point. To many this is a really big deal. I did not have a clue on first impression what was so important. These blogs are to inform me, share opinion and have a little fun. I learned a little more about the world, forgive me if it still does not show.[trb]

BUSH FORGOT LINES

President Bush threw theNATO summit meeting here off-script on Wednesday with his firm public disagreement with two key allies, Germany and France, over how close a relationship the organization should have with Ukraine and Georgia, who aspire to membership.[n]
President Bush was being abandoned by his closest allies last night as his appeal for Ukraine and Georgia to be earmarked for Nato membership met with opposition from Britain, France and Germany at the opening of the alliance summit in the Romanian capital. [t]

A LONE VOICE..NATO IS TO MAKE THE WORLD SAFER

Expanding NATO is meant to make the alliance's members safer. Allowing Skopje to become a NATO member while it claims that Northern Greece is occupied territory and Alexander the Great was a Skopje Slav won't really make the Alliance safer. Ukraine and Georgia's problems are different and their applications should be supported in the long-run, but in the short-run they should be given help to achieve internal stability (after all, half of the Ukraine doesn't want to join NATO, so what's the point of introducing that instability to the Alliance? Lionel Stokes, Westminster, England[t]

THE RUSKIES FORGED THE SPLIT

Earlier, senior British officials said that the Prime Minister was pressing for a compromise that would keep the alliance together, emphasising that the membership action plan was simply a process. They denied that Moscow had forged a split. [T]

THEY COULD TURN DOWN THE HEAT

...Russia has a couple of moves it can make to underline its dislike of the concept of the former Soviet satellite states joining Nato. Namely, as major supplies of energy to the Ukraine and Georgia, Russia could always turn off its oil and gas supplies to them, as it has done before when former Soviet states started to "think for themselves". It comes as a rude awakening to the populace when, in midwinter, there is no oil or gas to heat the home.[g]

NO MORE KROUGHTS AND FROGS FOR DINNER.

Mr. Bush’s position — that Ukraine and Georgia should be welcomed into a Membership Action Plan, or MAP, that prepares nations for NATO membership — directly contradicted German and French government positions stated earlier this week.[n]
A NATO spokesman says he does not expect the bloc to start the membership process for Georgia and Ukraine at this week's summit in Bucharest.[v]

IT MUST BE THE CHIPS

Other Nato leaders, including Gordon Brown, thought that it was premature to put Ukraine and Georgia into the official membership system, even though it can take ten years before a formal invitation is made. The British judgment was that although there was full support for both Ukraine and Georgia, the question of "when" they joined should remain in the balance. Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, and President Sarkozy of France were of the same mind. [T]

BIT OF MORE THAN HE COULD CHEW

American officials at the conference, run by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said that any failure to support the action plan process would be regarded as a concession to Moscow. President Putin has strongly opposed any move to draw Ukraine and Georgia into the alliance. President Saakashvili of Georgia has also said that failure by Nato to offer the prospect of membership would amount to appeasement of Russia. [T]

NOT MUCH FAITH TO HOLD ON TO

But Mr. Bush was described by one senior American official as wanting to "lay down a marker" for his legacy as his presidency winds down, and as not wanting to "lose faith" with the Ukrainian and Georgian peoples and the other former republics of the Soviet Union.[n]

SUSHI

Mr. Bush, speaking in advance of the meeting, said he was prepared to argue his case at a dinner of all NATO leaders on Wednesday night, before a decision is made on Ukraine and Georgia on Thursday. Germany and France have said they will block any invitation to Ukraine and Georgia.[n]

ARGUED TO NO AVAIL

Spokesman James Appathurai told reporters after Wednesday night's working dinner that the allies agreed that the two former Soviet states will eventually be offered a Membership Action Plan, but he believes it will not happen this week.[V]

A NICE JESTURE

"This is my final NATO summit," Mr. Bush said. Referring to both Ukraine and Georgia’s democratic revolutions, he said: "Welcoming them into the Membership Action Plan would send a signal to their citizens that if they continue on the path to democracy and reform they will be welcomed into the institutions of Europe. It would send a signal throughout the region" — read Russia — "that these two nations are, and will remain, sovereign and independent states."[n]

WHAT WAS SHE THINKING, THIS IS THE WMD GUY...

The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, was described as upset and even angry on Wednesday by some German officials. She and Mr. Bush have had numerous conversations over the last two months about the issue, and Ms. Merkel had thought that a compromise solution was in the works. That was that Washington would support a warm statement welcoming the interest of Ukraine and Georgia in NATO and encouraging them to work toward a MAP membership in time for NATO’s 60th anniversary summit next year in Berlin.[n]

ARE THESE COUNTRIES ESTABLISHED ENOUGH FOR ACCESS TO THE COOKIE JAR

Germany and France believe that since neither Ukraine nor Georgia is stable enough to enter the program now, a membership plan would be an unnecessary offense to Russia, which firmly opposes the move. In fact, senior diplomats here said, the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, has threatened to cancel his planned first-ever visit to the NATO meeting on Friday if the two former Soviet states enter the MAP program.[n]

TRADITION IS TO TALK FIRST TO OUR ALLIES BEFORE WE INSULT THEM

Ms. Merkel visited Moscow on March 8 and met both Mr. Putin and his elected successor, Dmitri A. Medvedev, who takes over in May. She told them that Russia would not be allowed a veto over NATO membership. But a senior German diplomat, Wolfgang Ischinger, said that a MAP offer to a divided Ukraine could destabilize the new government there, and that not enough diplomacy had taken place beforehand with Russia.[n]

LITTLE BUSINESS , LITTLE VODKA, ROPE A LITTLE BULL

Mr. Ischinger, Germany’s ambassador to London, noted that Mr. Bush and both Russian leaders would meet after the NATO summit meeting in Sochi, a Russian resort on the Black Sea, and said: "It’s the absence of this discussion that makes me wonder if NATO has done enough of its homework at this point on this front."[n]

THESE TWO COUNTRIES ADMISSIONS ARE LIKE GIVING A U.N. VOTE TO RHODE ISLAND AND CONNECTICUT

Germany, he said, supported an "open-door policy" for NATO, including the offer of full membership at this summit to the Western Balkan nations of Croatia, Albania and Macedonia, and later to Ukraine and Georgia. But Germany felt that Ukraine and Georgia were not now ready even for a MAP plan.[n]

SOUNDS LIKE THE CAST OF TAXI

The American position is supported by the newer members of NATO from the old Eastern Europe, with Romanian, Estonian and Latvian leaders emphasizing that MAP is a set of difficult requirements for NATO membership, including internal political and military reforms and guarantees of civil liberties, and can take a decade to fulfill.[n]

SMALL COUNTRIES GIVEN A LITTLE POWER ACT UP

"MAP is more of a big stick than a big carrot," said the Estonian president, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, at a conference here of the German Marshall Fund. "It forces nations to reform even when they don’t want to do it." The Latvian president, Valdis Zatlers, warned that delay to MAP delayed crucial internal debates. "No action plan, no action," he said. "If we delay, we postpone the inevitable. We have to give MAP."[n]

THEY THINK BUSH COULD HAVE A POSITIVE LEGACY.

Ronald Asmus, who was a key figure in the Clinton administration’s enlargement of NATO and now runs the German Marshall Fund’s Brussels office, said that "Bush’s speech set up a dramatic battle that will be fought out over the next two days and whose outcome will be important in shaping his legacy, and America’s diplomatic standing in the alliance."[n]
Mr. Asmus said that success was possible short of the Membership Action Plan, but said that the summit needed to "send a strong enough signal to the countries to deepen their reforms and to Moscow not to increase its pressure on them." Failure, he said, "would be a statement that produces no pressure to reform and that Moscow reads as a pale green light to ratchet up the pressure."[n] Do ya think.[trb]

A RENDEZVOUS

Mircea Geoana, a former Romanian foreign minister, pointed out that in 1997, Romania and Slovenia were urged to wait by Washington before entering MAP but were given a "rendezvous clause" in a NATO communiqué that led to MAP later on.[n]

THESE GUYS CAN‘T WALK IN THEIR SHOES....

A senior German official pointed out with some exasperation that Ms. Merkel was using the same argument now as Washington did then. But of course President Bush is not President Clinton, and President Putin is not President Boris Yeltsin, and Russia appears to be moving away from the West now, not toward it.[n]

CHENEY MUST NOT HAVE BEEN WITH BUSH

Derek Chollet, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, said that Mr. Bush’s speech was "a combination of valedictory and marker-laying." Mr. Bush would probably lose the argument on Ukraine and Georgia, Mr. Chollet said. "But he doesn’t care so much, and he believes he’s on the right side of the issue."[n]

MORE TROOPS

Getting NATO support for more troops in Afghanistan and for a limited European missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic is probably more important to Mr. Bush before the meeting with Mr. Putin, Mr. Asmus and Mr. Chollet both said.[n]
In his speech, Mr. Bush urged the alliance to "maintain its resolve and finish the fight" in Afghanistan and to deploy more troops there to combat the Taleban, Al Qaeda and other threats around the world.[n] I CANNOT TOTALLY DISAGREE.[TRB]

ROMANIA MUST COMMIT MORE TROOPS?

With the war in Afghanistan now in its seventh year, and 47,000 NATO troops already there, Mr. Bush used the speech and a later press conference to remind the alliance of the threat of terrorism to the entire West. "We expect our NATO allies to shoulder the burden necessary to succeed," he said, appearing with Romania’s president, Traian Basescu, at a Black Sea retreat.[n]

PAINTED INTO A CORNER THEY ARE...

France has said that it will send "several hundred" more troops, probably to Afghanistan’s east, Poland and Romania will also send more troops, and Washington is sending another 3,200 marines. But a full accounting of any additional troops will not be clear until Thursday; Canada had said it would consider pulling its troops out of the dangerous south unless other countries provided another 1,000 soldiers. [n]

FRIES ANYONE

The Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper, said on Wednesday he "is very confident" Canada will get the reinforcements it needs. "We’ll see what the French decide, they made no commitment to us or to NATO," Mr. Harper said, adding that: "Anything France does, it is a victory, a step forward."[n]

HEY BABY ...WHATS YOUR NAME...

The summit opened with no resolution to an alliance embarrassment. Greece continued to say that it would oppose Macedonia’s membership in NATO because of a failure to agree on a new formal name for the country. NATO works by consensus, so continued Greek opposition would mean Macedonia does not join now.[n]
Appathurai said the allies agreed to invite Albania and Croatia to join. But he said Greece is blocking membership at this time for Macedonia because of their dispute over the use of the name Macedonia.[v] It’s their name for gods sake.[trb]

JANE BY ANY OTHER NAME IS STILL PLAIN

In Athens, officials said work continued on the possibility that Macedonia could join NATO under a "provisional new name." Greece insists that Macedonia alone as a name would allow the tiny country a potential revanchism that could destabilize the Balkans.[n]

ANOTHER LONLEY VOICE

First of all Thanks to Nato for extending the invitation to Albania. While it is never right to strip someone off of their identity, Greece does have a valid point. I'm not sure if this should be used as a bargain tool for entry into a political and military alliance, however it is not right to claim the history of another and bear the name and glory of a different people. In addition Macedonia has not fully met the Ohrid agreement concerning the rights of its largest minority, the Albanians. Only two weeks ago the later, left their positions from the political alliance. These events make the country unstable to be considered a NATO ally. Perhaps by next NATO summit, these issues are resolved and FYROM will be a model state in the Balkans. Good luck! Darien, Tirana, Albania[T]

AND ANOTHER, MAYBE THERE ARE A LOTS OF THINKING PEOPLE OUT THERE

Well, as listening all of this comments I could say one thing, as a Croatian expat living in Skopje, Macedonia, I would ask you one question, who gives rights to any to say that Greeks have right to say who will be called who, the main Greek problem is that they Kicked out thousands of Macedonians during the 2 World war out of their homes and land from Macedonia in Greece, and they are afraid that Macedonians will claim their rights to give them back the land and the houses of 'Macedonia' seatled in Greece. It is also very true that wholle of this part of Macedonia belongs to Slavic Macedonians, Greeks knows that and are thretenning, According to the Bucurest treathy in 1912 Macedonia was divided in 3 parts, on 100 years Vardarian to Serbs, Ageian to Greeks and Pirinian to Bulgaria after 100 years it is ending in some years, and Greeks are afraid of this too. And on other side Greeks have problems with everybody, Albania, Turkey, Macedonia, all of their neighbours. No wonder they opose Johnny, Skopje, Macedonia[T]

OH, NO NOT A DESTABILIZED BALKINS. HERE COME THE BRITS

But when asked whether there was still a chance the formal summit session on Thursday could take such a decision, he added: "I do not expect it to be tomorrow."[r]

Posted here by Terry Bankert ...
http://attorneybankert.com/
Join my political party of preference,
http://www.michigandems.com/join.html

—where did this stuff come from
[V]
Voice of America
http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-04-02-voa60.cfm
[n]
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/03/world/europe/03nato.html?ref=world
[R]
Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL0249940720080402
[t]
Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article3670335.ece
[G]
Gulf News
http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/editorial_opinion/world/10202502.html

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TORTURE AND AMERICA..............

IS THIS, the American way!
__________________________
GOOD MORNING FLINT!
BY Terry Bankert 4/02/08
You are invited to join me at Face Book .

http://www.facebook.com/people/Terry_Bankert/645845362
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Article at http://goodmorningflint.blogspot.com/
And Flint Talk http://flinttalk.com/viewtopic.php?p=26895#26895 __________________________

In the name of national security and the war on terrorism should the presidents executive authority supercede our laws , international laws and human decency to allow George W. Bush to order eye gouging, genitalia cutting, slicing ,dicing and otherwise mediaeval torture of civilians that some bureaucrat has labeled at threat? Your thought? Mine is no, and he should be prosecuted.[trb]

LEAGAl JUSTIFICATION, EXCUSE, WHITE LIES, TO JUSTIFY TORTURE

The Justice Department late Tuesday released a declassified 2003 memorandum long sought by congressional Democrats and other administration critics that outlines the government's legal justification for harsh interrogation techniques used by the military against captured enemy combatants outside the United States. [b]

LEGAL IMPEDIMENTS OR CIVIL RIGHTS?

The memo, written by John Yoo, then a key architect of legal policy in the wake of 9/11, dismisses several legal impediments to the use of extreme techniques. [b]

AGGRESSIVE

Yoo was long a proponent of an aggressive approach in the war against terrorism and a believer in executive branch authority. But the memo was withdrawn as formal government policy less than a year after it was written.[b]

WHEN US GOVERNMENT SAYS YOU ARE AN ENEMY YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS

In the March 14, 2003 memo, Yoo says the Constitution was not in play with regard to the interrogations because the Fifth Amendment (which provides for due process of law) and the Eighth Amendment (which prevents the government from employing cruel and usual punishment) does "not extend to alien enemy combatants held abroad.":[b]

LIMITED OBLIGATION TO NOT HARM THE BODY: PULLING FINGER NAILS STICKING KNIVES IN EYES CUTTING OFF......GET THE POINT?

The memo goes on to explain that federal criminal statutes regarding assault and other crimes against the body don't apply to authorized military interrogations overseas and that statutes that do apply to the conduct of U.S. officials abroad pertaining to war crimes and torture establish a limited obligation on the part of interrogators to refrain from bodily harm.[b]

HOW CAN TORTURE NOT BE CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT?

It also defines the United States' obligations under the United Nations Convention Against Torture and other international treaties prohibiting torture to be confined to ensuring that interrogators do not apply "cruel and unusual punishment" as defined by American constitutional law, regardless of differing international standards.[b]

IT APPLIES TO OUR SOLDIERS BUT NOT THEIRS....

And it restates the oft-repeated view held by administration officials that the Geneva Conventions, which governs the treatment of prisoners of war, does not apply to members of al Qaeda and the Taliban.[b]

WE CAN SUBJECT CIVILIANS WHO ARE NOT OF OUR CULTURE TO PHYSICAL PAIN?

The memo also reflected Yoo's belief in that the executive branch had the inherent authority during wartime to obtain information by necessarily hazardous means: [b]

Call a stranger in another country alQaeda we can then pull his eyes out and its okay,some think.[trb]

"If a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate a criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network," Yoo wrote. "In that case, we believe that he could argue that the executive branch's constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack justified his actions."[b]

It was during 2003, while the memo was operative, that guards and other military personnel committed the abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Baghdad, Iraq. The memo was withdrawn shortly thereafter, but before those abuses came to light.[b]

The memo was prepared by Yoo for William Haynes, then the Pentagon's general counsel and another key player in the administration's legal strategy. It was declassified Monday by Haynes' acting successor, Daniel Dell' Orto. Yoo is now a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley.[b]

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has repeatedly asked the Justice Department to release the memo and others like it, had this to say Tuesday evening:[b]

It has been more than four months since I asked the White House – again – to declassify the secret Justice Department opinions on interrogation practices. Today’s declassification of one such memo is a small step forward, but in no way fulfills those requests. The administration continues to shield several memos even from members of Congress. [b]

The memo they have declassified today reflects the expansive view of executive power that has been the hallmark of this administration. It is no wonder that this memo, like the now-infamous “Bybee memo†, could not withstand scrutiny and had to be withdrawn. Like the “Bybee memo†, this memo seeks to find ways to avoid legal restrictions and accountability on torture and threatens our country’s status as a beacon of human rights around the world.[b] Memo: Laws Didn't Apply to Interrogators See[w]

Memorandum: Part 1 (PDF) Memorandum: Part 2 (PDF) Our Congress has a duty to investigate the use of torture by the United States Government, punish those who have violated our laws to include George W. Bush, and change laws when they inadeuqately protect human rights. How hypocritical to protest any other governments failure to protect human rights until this duty is fulfilled.[trb]

Posted here by Terry Bankert ... http://attorneybankert.com/

Join my political party of preference, http://www.michigandems.com/join.html

--
[b] Baltimore Sun http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2008/04/justice_dept_releases_interrog.html [w] Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/01/AR2008040102213.html?wpisrc=newsletter

[trb] CAP headlines and comments of Terry Bankert http://attorneybankert.com/

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OBAMA, NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

OBAMA THE NEXT PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!
__________________________
GOOD MORNING FLINT!
BY Terry Bankert 4/01/08
You are invited to join me at Face Book 1. http://www.facebook.com/people/Terry_Bankert/645845362 ___________________________
Article at http://goodmorningflint.blogspot.com/
And Flint Talk http://flinttalk.com/viewtopic.php?p=26847#26847 __________________________

Obama Is Moving to Down-to-Earth Oratory for Working People [n]

A POLITICAL ACT IS A RESOURCE ALLOCATION, POLITICS IS THE PROCESS TO ACHIEVE THE ABILITY TO CAUSE POLITICAL ACTS. OBAMA UNDERSTANDS THAT COMMUNICATION IS THE HEART OF POLITICS

Its time for Flint to jump on th Obama bandwagon. At last a politician who we can believe in. What a fresh breeze![trb]

Obama Event At Penn State Draws 20,000 The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that Sen. Barack Obama headlined a massive rally at Penn State yesterday, where he "offered praise for the public service" of Sens. John McCain and Hillary Clinton "but described both as mired in the partisanship of Washington. 'Her basic argument is we just need to change political parties,' Mr. Obama said" of Clinton, adding, "Just because we have a Democrat in the White House doesn't mean that things are going to change." The AP reports from this morning that the rally drew "20,000 to 22,000" people, who came out in the cold for the event.[U]

Reflect on the last time you recall a US political leader that could draw a crowd of 20,000![trb]

THE DEMOCRATIC LEADERS RECOGNIZE GOOD POLITICS

The latest Gallup poll is like manna from heaven for Barack Obama it so neatly backs up two key arguments he and his supporters are making -- that he is the stronger candidate for the fall, and that the marathon nomination fight is hurting the party.[B]

MDP AND DNC get your house in order or step aside and let someone else do it...right.[trb]

OBAMA COMMUNICATION EXCELLENCE [n]

The Speech is his finely polished sword, a transcendent weapon. Seen and heard on a thousand YouTube postings, Senator Barack Obama’s speeches have made a happening of that hoariest of campaign forms, the stump speech. [n]

TIMING AND KNOWING YOUR CROWD IS A HIGH SKILL

But Mr. Obama sheaths that sword more often now. He is grounding his lofty rhetoric in the more prosaic language of white-working-class discontent, adjusting it to the less welcoming terrain of Pennsylvania. His preferred communication now is the town-hall-style meeting.[n]

A PLACE LOWER ON THE SCALE THAN MY HOME FLINT, PITY THEM....

So in Johnstown, a small, economically depressed city tucked in a valley hard by the Little Conemaugh River, Mr. Obama on Saturday spoke to the gritty reality of a city that ranks dead last on the Census Bureau’s list of places likely to attract American workers. His traveling companion, Senator Bob Casey, Democrat of Pennsylvania, introduced the candidate as an “underdog fighter for an underdog state.”[n]

THE RISE OF THE UNDERDOG.....

Mr. Obama, a quicksilver political student, picked up that cue. He often mentions his background as a community organizer but in passing, a parenthetical. Not this time. “I got into public service as an organizer,” Mr. Obama told these 1,200 mostly white Pennsylvanians in a local high school gymnasium. “There were a group of churches, mostly Catholic parishes, and they hired me for $12,000 plus car fare.”[n]

WRESTLE MANIA

Throughout the Democratic primary race, Barack Obama has cast himself as an underdog trying to wrest the nomination from the grip of the party establishment, which he contends is partial to rival Hillary Rodham Clinton.[h]

ACCOUNTABILITY

That detail drew knowing chuckles in a town where the median income hovers at just over $20,000. “So I got myself believing that the most important thing is not to be an elected official but to hold them accountable.”[n]

TOASTED BREAD, BUTTER , A LITTLE JAM...

Then, echoing Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s focus on bread-and-butter concerns, Mr. Obama went on to talk about the price of gas and to offer the precise amount of his health care premium and to explain exactly what he would do about the foreclosure rate and Big Oil and Big Energy and how he would stop companies from moving to China. [n]

AND A DOLLOP OF PEANUT BUTTER! IT GETS NO BETTER....

On Monday, he added a dollop of denunciation of corporate salaries at Countrywide, a company at the center of the subprime loan implosion. “So they get a $19 million bonus while other folks are losing their homes,” he said in Lancaster. “What’s wrong with this picture?”[n]

CONVENTIONAL WISDOM GOT US HERE..NEW STUFF GETS US OUT!

But it is Obama, a first-term Illinois senator running against the conventions of Washington, who is increasingly benefiting from institutional support — bolstering his campaign during a rough month when he lost two key primaries and faced questions about his spiritual mentor.[h]

PLAIN... SPOKEN HERE...

Mr. Obama’s effort to master a plain-spoken and blunt language that extends back centuries in Pennsylvania is accompanied by no small stakes. Voters here, as in neighboring Ohio, where Mr. Obama lost the white and aging blue-collar vote, tend to elect politicians whose language rarely soars and whose policy prescriptions come studded with detail.[n]

THE SUPER DELEGATES SHOULD BE LISTENING

Of the nearly 800 superdelegates, roughly 330 remain undecided. Because neither Obama nor Clinton can reach the 2,024-delegate threshold to win the nomination without superdelegates, that group of 330 will almost certainly determine who will represent the party against McCain.[H]

A WORKING FAMILY CULTURE, WILL THE KIDS BE FED AND IS IT SAFE TO SIT ON THE PORCH...

“The problem with talking about hope all the time is that these are not hopeful lands; Obama is talking change to people who equate change with life getting worse,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic Party consultant who has studied the political culture of these working-class states with a Talmudic intensity.[n]

Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama’s Democratic rival, has studied this argot. Her style of declamation tends toward that of the school valedictorian, but she grounds her talks in detail after detail after detail — her plan for stanching foreclosures, for tuberculosis, for tax breaks and so on and on, every program coming with a precise dollar sign attached. [n]

IF I AM STARVING I WANT A BUTCHER OR A BAKER NOT AN ACADEMIC...

A thrill these talks are not, but G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College, noted that politics that attended to the precarious details of life could provide comfort to the hard-pressed.[n]

GREAT IDEAS OR JUST LIVING THE WEEK OUT

“If you’re an unemployed steelworker, a former coal miner, you want to know about job training, who pays your health care,” Dr. Madonna said. “Obama’s speeches are uplifting but without much specificity, and that’s a tough sell for working people who don’t live in a world of ideas.”[n]

BOOMERS RULE Mr. Obama grabbed a big chunk of the male working-class vote in Wisconsin, and another chunk in Virginia and in Maryland. But Pennsylvania is both blue-collar and aging — it has the third highest median age in the nation. And that has proved to be a troublesome demographic for him and a rich target for Mrs. Clinton.[n]

DO WE WANT I’ve done it or I’m gonna do it? [trb]

So, noted David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s chief political strategist, voters can expect to hear the candidate emphasizing his organizing roots. “What we want to do is acquaint people with that dimension of his history,” Mr. Axelrod said. “A lot of this can be pleasing, but empty patter unless you can establish your authenticity.”[n]

ONE MANS BLATHER IS ANOTHER’S DISCOURSE

His challenge comes laden with complication. Pennsylvania’s culture, as the historian David Hackett Fischer noted in his book “Albion’s Seed,” is rooted in the English midlands, where Scandinavian and English left a muscular and literal imprint. These are people distrustful of rank, and finery, and high-flown words. It should come as no surprise that the word “blather” originated here.[n]

GET AN EDUCATION

Mr. Obama does not shrink from arguing that the days when high school graduates could find good-paying union job in mills and factories are gone. In Johnstown, he spoke of retrofitting shuttered steel mills into high-tech factories to build wind-powered turbines.[n]

“I don’t want to make a promise that I can bring back every job that was in Johnstown,” he said. “That’s not true.”[n] Some in the audience applauded; others sat stolidly.[n]

YOU CAN NEVER GO BACK

“There is a romance in the Rust Belt about bringing back those old industrial jobs and the culture those jobs represented,” Mr. Sheinkopf said. “Their message to a politician is, Restore our jobs, restore our culture.”[n]

Party Leaders Migrating To Obama?[U]

While Sen. Hillary Clinton promised over the weekend to fight for the nomination all the way to the convention, the Wall Street Journal reports on its front page this morning that "slowly but steadily," a "string of Democratic Party figures is taking" Sen. Barack Obama's "side in the presidential nominating race and raising the pressure on Hillary Clinton to give up." North Carolina's seven Democratic House members "are poised to endorse...Obama as a group -- just one has so far -- before that state's May 6 primary, several Democrats say."[u]


PARTY OF THE RICH STUMBLES WHEN BLATHERING WITH WORKINGMEN AND WOMEN

(Senator John McCain, now the presumptive Republican nominee, took this same lesson in the Michigan primary, when he suggested that high-paying industrial jobs were a thing of the past. His opponent, Mitt Romney, insisted he could somehow summon that lost time, and he won handily).[n]

The candidate’s best weapon in this race just might be Senator Casey. Laconic to the core, a politician who dominates the working-class cities of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, he seems intent on refashioning his candidate — still very much a long shot in the primary. In his telling, Mr. Obama is nearly a shot-and-a-beer guy. [n]

Our battles are his battles! What are your battles?[trb] “We can’t just curse the darkness. We have to do our best to roll up our sleeves,” Mr. Casey said. “He’ll fight for your jobs, and your families’ jobs. Understand this: All of our battles are his battles.”[n] .

Obama stood and watched; he might as well have been taking notes.[n]

What has been striking over the past month is that Obama has racked up key endorsements during a relatively turbulent period in his candidacy. The endorsements — Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico and Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania are two of the most influential — have given him a strong underpinning after Clinton's big wins in the March 4 Ohio and Texas primaries, and amid bruising coverage of his relationship with his controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.[h]

"It's pretty clear that in the last couple weeks the Obama argument seems to have been more persuasive with those superdelegates than the Clinton argument, even in the face of the questions that were raised about Obama," said Mark Mellman, a Democratic strategist who worked on Sen. John F. Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign but is neutral this election. "Whether that's going to continue as we get new primary results from other states, that remains to be seen."[h] Obama Opens Up Wide Lead Over Clinton In Gallup Tracking[U]

According to new data out from Gallup, Sen. Barack Obama has opened a 10 point lead over Sen. Hillary Clinton in their national tracking poll. Obama leads Clinton 52%-42%; the race had been an effective tie as recently as last Monday, when Obama held just a 46%-45% lead. In general election trial heats, Sen. John McCain tops both Democrats. McCain leads Obama 47%-44% and Clinton 48%-44%. The Democratic primary data is based on 1,228 likely Democratic voters taken March 27-29 while the trial heats are based on interviews with 4,407 registered voters taken March 25-29.[U]

"Clearly at this point, the party rank-and-file thinks Obama would present a stronger challenge to McCain in the fall than Clinton would," the pollsters said in a release. "Those attitudes could certainly change over the remainder of the campaign, but it is notable that Obama maintains a wide lead in these perceptions shortly after the Jeremiah Wright controversy knocked his campaign off stride." [B]

GEORGE BUSH A CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN AND HIS CROWD HAVE DESTROYED OUR QUALITY OF LIFE. MCAIN IS A BUSH CLONE CLINTON IS OUR HISTORY.......... OBAMA IS OUR FUTURE!

Posted here by Terry Bankert ...
http://attorneybankert.com/
Join my political party of preference,
http://www.michigandems.com/join.html

—WHERE DID THIS STUFF COME FROM?---
[n] The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/us/politics/01obama.html?hp [trb] Comments of Terry Bankert to include CAP headlines http://attorneybankert.com/
[h] Houston Chronicle http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/5663775.html
[U] U.S. News and World Report http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/bulletin/bulletin_080331.htm
[B] The Boston Globe http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/03/poll_supports_o.html


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