HILLARY & BILL'S WORST NIGHTMARE

The gentleman in the picture is Hillary and Bill Clinton's worst nightmare.

But only if he chooses to run for President of the United States. Senator Barack Obama is the new rising star of the Democratic Party, and virtually the coming of the leader we civil rights and progressives have been waiting for since MLK caught that bullet in Memphis, Tennessee in April 1968.

From Taegan Goddard's Political Wire, via Insight Magazine:

“On paper, this man [Obama] should not be any threat,” a political strategist regarded as close to Ms. Clinton's team said. "He is too young and inexperienced. Yet, he exposes Hillary's weaknesses in a way that has people worried.”

The strategist said Mr. Obama could exploit several of Ms. Clinton’s weaknesses—Iraq and her profligate campaign spending. The strategist pointed to Mr. Obama's early opposition to the Iraq war while Ms. Clinton supported the U.S. invasion.

Political Wire also states that Obama's worrying Hillary because he can snatch a godly amount of votes from the Democrats' base (progressives, liberals and ethnic groups). Personally, I agree with the assessment that Obama's inexperienced. His age shouldn't matter; wasn't John F. Kennedy a "youth" at 43 years of age, when he got the Oval Office?

Obama hasn't been in the Senate long enough to establish himself or any meaningful legislation. And though he has rock star status, he needs to spend less time with Jay Leno, or going on book tours, and more time attending to his duties as a United States Senator. Yeah, he's charismatic and whatnot, but I'm like his wife, Michelle, who, when observing the public response to her husband, her comment is usually, "I'll be glad when he does something to really earn the accolades he's getting."

Smart woman. And, I think she will be the one who helps him to determine whether or not he actually runs for office, not some gasbags filling his head with delusions and yet, ready to sling him under the bus if he puts a foot wrong.

At the CBC Legislative Weekend back in 2005, I remember Hillary and Obama showing up together at the Town Hall meeting, and as usual, Hillary tried to pull her usual schtick about the importance of passing the renewal of provisions in the Voting Rights Act, and other nonsense that would appeal to people of color (Dennis Kucinich got a warmer reception than Hillary). But when Harry Belafonte got to the mike, he basically told Hillary to drink a can of STHU, as well as "Talk to the Hand". He also sent a subtle warning to Obama indicating "We're not going to support you on the basis of your skin color. Do some work in the office we elected you to before you even think of advancement to another political office, because they gravy train for Black politicians has left the station, and is not coming back."

I swear, Obama didn't want to speak after Belafonte clocked Hillary and by fiat, pimp-slapped him to let him know what is really at stake here. "No room for showboating" is basically what Belafonte was telling Obama.

One year ago, Hillary and Obama were virtually joined at the hip. Now that he's become a reason for concern about her own Presidential ambitions, look for Carville to crawl out from under that rock that he hides under with that hag of a wife of his, and spew the same crap about Obama that he did about getting rid of Howard Dean as DNC chair after Dean proved his 50-state strategy was largely responsible for the Democratic sweep of both houses of Congress.

Hillary should be worrying. She's demonstrating that she will say and do anything to accomplish her own ambitions and advance a non-existant agenda for the DLC.

And we all know what time it is for the DLC. They need to be eviscerated, and that's why this blog is so named.

BLACK REPUBLICANS IN RECOVERY

My friend, Steve Gilliard, nails it. 'Nuff Said.

Recover from being a black Republican`

Go from this....................




To this




I know, I know, all your sacrifice for the GOP came to naught. You thought this was your year, that you would finally get the respect you deserve.

The problem is that IS what you got.

Let's be frank. It isn't that being Democratic is being black, it isn't, but being a Republican means you're a grovling Uncle Ruckus, always seeking to diminish black people for the sake of whites.

Doubt it?

Who aired radio ads claiming that the Dems founded the Klan and the GOP was the party of Lincoln. When the NRO's house negro Deroy Murdock tried that, he looked every inch the fool he was. When you tried to convince black Marylanders of that, they were offended. You try to talk down to black people and it pisses them off.

Then you have the grovelling of Michael Steele, too stupid to conceed when it was clear black people would no more vote for him than Frank Rizzo. He had based his entire campaign on blaming black people and acting the fool.

He won't ever admit he slandered the students of HBCU Morgan State and created the flying oreo incident to gain sympathy from whites. He won't ever admit his cowardice in refusing to confront Bob Erlich about anything. He was a coward and a shame to the race from the minute he entered public life. Tomming and shucking for the white folks and a lot of them forgot to vote
for him anyway.

He thought black people were so stupid that he thought they would think he was a Democrat.

But he's not the worse. That's Ken "I ain't no negro" Blackwell. He did his master's bidding by denying blacks the right to vote in 2004, thinking his white masters would be so pleased. Sitting up in his big willie chair, with a cigar in one hand, talking like the white folks would let him run the show. They could trust him, he'd done what they'd asked, he'd kept them coloreds away from the polls, now he'd be on the way to the White House. First, a stop in Columbus, then in a few years, he'd be running to be the first black president.

Yeah, right. They used your silly, football playing ass to keep your people down and then let you think you could run for something. Sure, you were on the team. Until they had to do something for you.

You even got that mega church lunatic Rod Parsley to back your play. Too bad most of his parishoners would no more vote for your black ass than root for Michigan. They didn't care if you were a Godly man, you were a nigger, and that mean you wouldn't get their vote. No matter how much they smiled in your face.

What? You think black people would forget your junior grade Bull Connor antics? No, fuck no.
You lost in a landslide and took Mike Dewine with you. Now, Ohio has a Senator it can be proud of again. Thanks to you.

If you're a young black Republican, see these examples and be warned. Down the path of the GOP lies on contempt and scorn. You don't want to wind up defending a gambleholic like Bill Bennett, and have people laugh at you. You don't want to be accused of placing your career ahead of your people.

Just because they smile in your face and talk about Jesus, you will pay a fearsome price for going down that road, the scorn and contempt of your fellow men and women. Nothing is worth that.

So, you've been experimenting with being a Republican, and you find some of their ideas appealing.



Keep this picture in your mind. That really is former Sen. George Allen in a confederate uniform and he really, really hates black people. No, really. The rest is photoshopped, but that is him.

And they thought he would run for president. He always seemed like an idiot to me, but he was popular.

Until he called someone macaca, which translates to nigger. A word Allen likes.

And that's pretty much what they think about you.

Republicans like to use you, but they will not sacrifice one thing a white person needs to help you along. Not one.

So what to do?

You need to regain your pride.

First, you can stand on your own. You don't need white patrons to pay your way, then tell you how to think. A proud black man or woman can do on their own. When they offer you a lot, they expect a lot. And if you get in trouble, they won't know who you are,(see, Williams, Armstrong, Allen, Claude)

Second, don't let their appeal to religion fool you. They say God, but they mean votes. As long as you vote for them, they will tell you what you want to hear.

Third, don't let them use your bitterness against you. Just because you have an issue with this leader or that, don't let them encourage you to run them down. They are just using you to gain credibility

Fourth, don't be ashamed of being black. I know many of you secretly hold that in your heart, that life would be easier if you were white. That black people never do anything right. That isn't true. Throw away the Alice Walker and embrace reality. Every day, strong black men and women contribute to America. They work, they raise families, they love their country. And they don't have to grovel or embarass themselves to do so.

Never forget that black people built this country, as slaves and as free men. Even when we were treated as less than people, even when they hung us from trees. Take pride in your heritage. Do we have poor, ignorant people? Sure, but so does everyone else. Don't let those few make you renounce your birthright and history.

Once you have done that, you can place yourself on the road to recovery.

Listen to the music which made this country, Robert Johnson, Charlie Mingus, James Brown. Throw the junk you've been listening to away. See what we can create. Say it loud isn't a song, but a way to live.

Read about our heroes, flawed and imperfect, and the odds they overcame. From the heroes who fought at New Market to the freedom riders, the brave black men and women who challenged their degredation and disrespect.

Then finally, embrace you, and all around you. Don't think you have to be someone else to be a better you.

You don't have to wear a beret and sunglasses to be proud of your heritage. All you have to do is hold that pride in your heart.

AS A BLACK WOMAN, I DO KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT

My Rant with my "family" over at the Pesky Fly. Just in case it disappears from that site.

The following is my response to your expressed skepticism from the Booker Rising post. Read it, dissect it, and be ready for constructive discussion, please.

This is the one subject that few African-Americans will speak up on; interracial dating.

I have girlfriends whose sons married white women, and their worry was about how their sons would be treated by society (read lynching or beatings).

One of my best girlfriends, a staunch Christian, in the "Love Thy Neighbor" mold, actually confessed to me that she didn't like the idea of her son marrying a white woman. Only prayer got her to the point of acceptance, as well as unconditional love of her son to the point she would rather welcome the white woman, than risk alienating him.

The reality is, when Black women (especially mothers) see their sons grow up and marrying white women, they start questioning themselves, because it's considered a reflection as to whether or not Black women (and by succession, themselves as mothers) are good enough for their sons. But if their sons are happy, they soon progress to acceptance, because I've seen it in my own family. I have two first cousins married to white women, both of them for more than 30 years.

Their mothers disowned their ass. One actually died, never talking to her son, or seeing her beautiful grandchildren, ever.

My mother, the surrogate mom to both cousins, did something way ahead of her time.

She asked the question point blank: "Why couldn't you find a good Black woman to marry?"

My cousins response - one had tried marriage twice to Black women and they were nut cases (especially the second one. She was so jealous that he remarried; she managed to alienate him from their daughter - and told us horrible lies about him molesting their daughter. Only a court appearance where he sued for slander, was she forced to publicly apologize and said she was lying.) The other one had numerous relationships with Black women, one financially ripped him off, and with such heartache, he was looking to spend the rest of his life alone, when his wife's parents actually introduced him to their daughter, because they got tired of her bringing home loser white men who abused her.

After hearing their explanations, she embraced these women into the family, and set the example for my brothers and me to do likewise.

It is not about not wanting people to find love wherever and with whomever they find it. It's about the message a Black man sends to Black women when he achieves success, celebrity and material wealth, that a Black woman is not worthy enough to share that success with - and a white woman is.

Tiger Woods dated Tyra Banks when they both attended Stanford University. Tyra was not a stupid woman - she had to seriously hit the books to get in to that University. She's also proven herself to be a very savvy business woman and is very wealthy.

Tiger goes and marries the blond nanny to other golfers' kids. So was he is saying that an undereducated nanny is more worthy to share in his success than Tyra Banks was? Or any Black Woman?

This underscores part of the theory as to why Harold Ford lost the election for the U. S. Senate. It's not like he couldn't find a quality, educated sista; in fact, five years ago, he was engaged to one; a corporate attorney for AOL here in DC. My speculation is that he probably expected girlfriend to give up her $350,000 a year job and follow him around as a dutiful politician's wife.

Jennifer Baltimore said she'd take a pass on marrying with that type of expectation.

I may hate Harold's politics, but as a woman, I say he should be able to date who he wants, if he's going to become a private citizen. But since he's an ambitious politician, my advice to him, as was Shay's, was not to hand Bob Corker and the ReThugs ammunition to shoot him with.

Barney Frank got elected, and keeps getting re-elected, as an openly gay man. I'm not saying it couldn't work in Tennessee, it's just that more work has to be done in the area of tolerance and acceptance.

Barack Obama stated in his autobiography that he had his heart broken by white women as well as sistas. Yet, to do the mission he was to do, he knew that only a woman who knows what he faces and what he fears as a Black Man, was going to be the mate he needed. Michelle Robinson Obama is an accomplished sista; she is an attorney and a Director of a Community Development Center in Chicago. Obama didn't ask her to give all that up; in fact, he encourages it, so that Michelle is not just known as "Obama's wife." That takes complete acceptance of yourself as a man, and confidence in your woman to the point you don't need to control her.

When the theories shake out, maybe dating white women isn't what cost Harold Ford the election. But it sure had a hell of an influence on the outcome.

You gents advertise yourselves as being progressive in your thinking. So why are you so quick to dismiss this theory out of hand, saying you need poll numbers before you will accept that a sista knows what she's talking about? Right now, I'm thinking that because I'm speaking pretty bluntly on this issue, you'd rather dismiss it because it's in keeping with your concept of color-blindness, rather than engage in a discussion which actually takes into account the perspective of an African-American female. Tell the truth, and don't sugar-coat it, please, because I'm a big girl and I know how to disect an argument before I scream race.

I was born during the Civil Rights Movement at it's peak (so I just gave you a hint about my age, LOL)with parents who were more activist than Condoleeza Rice's parents never were. I have various family members who were dog-bit, water-hosed by Bull Connor's thugs, jailed and yes, lynched, just because they got called "Nigger" one too many times before they snapped under the weight of their dignity being trashed, and swung a right hook knocking out some teeth of the white guy who spewed it. So don't you dare try to tell me or any other Black woman that their theory is in left field, because you're not a Black woman.

I will accept your apologies or clarifications with gift certificates to Starbucks, thank you.

BOOKER RISING NAILS IT

I'm keeping this short and dirty today. Read an interesting and accurate analysis of why Harold Ford lost his Senate Race here:

http://bookerrising.blogspot.com/2006/11/how-harold-fords-impulsive-love-for.html

She and TBogg seem to be kindred souls.

THE MORNING AFTER...

There's always a morning after a main event, like yesterday's election. As we bask in the afterglow of the Democrats actually bringing a gun to a gunfight instead of the usual knife, the result of their willingness to stand their ground and bark back at the ReThug bullies, is a 27 seat majority in the House of Representatives.

DING DONG THE WICKED WITCH IS DEAD! AND IT'S NAMES WERE SANTORUM, CHAFFEE, KERRY HEALEY, MARK FOLEY, DON SHERWOOD, CONRAD BURNS, KATHERINE HARRIS, NANCY JOHNSON...SHOOT THEY'RE TOO NUMEROUS FOR ME TO NAME!

What sent them to their defeat was hitching their wagons to this guy:



I'm not banking on the Senate yet. While Fighting Jim Webb is ahead by 8000 votes, the provisionals haven't been counted yet, but it's looking good for him, since those votes are coming out of Fairfax, Loudon and Prince William Counties.

In other words, NORTHERN VIRGINIA, which is ecstatically BLUE.

As far as Tennessee goes, I thought Harold Ford Jr., had a good chance of pulling it off. But Corker got the nod, and the people of Tennessee have spoken.

They don't want a Bible-Thumping, Ten Commandments quotin' Playa representing them in the U. S. Senate. God don't like it when you try to pimp Him for personal gain. As the Christian Progressive Liberal, if anything cost Harold that Senate seat, it was shooting a campaign ad in a church, and on the same breath, defending partying at the Playboy SuperBowl Party in Jacksonville last year.

That "Fancy Ford" website was the first shot fired over the bow. Harold was put on notice, given his "You're still a Negro" memo which he didn't bother to read, and basically tried to out redneck Bob Corker. Those issues, not some white woman telling Harold to "Call me", cost him the election. Running away from his party and relevant issues is what cost him this Senate race. Ignoring the demographics of Tennessee on a racial, cultural and economic level, cost him this race. I'm not saying that the ad didn't do some damage, but it put Harold on the defensive, where he ran from that point on.

Crashing Bob Corker's press conference and towering over the older man like a bully didn't help him, either. It made him look as thug-life as his brother Jake, who also was shown the door last night.

I'm not going to rub Ford's face in it - he probably is looking for someone to take out his frustration in losing by breaking out a can of whip-ass on them at this moment. But, like my friend Derek said over on the Pesky Fly, I hope Harold uses the next two years to take inventory of himself, learn what life is for those like you and me so he can really emphatize with them and not pay lip-service, and not be so ready to blame his loss on the "Call Me, Harold" ad, or any other dirty trick pulled by the ReThugs. That "Fancy Ford" website that appeared shortly after he announced he was running should have been his clue that the race was going to get dirty. This was not a good year for ReThugs to be running for re-election, anyway,with Dear Leader's approval rating being in the toilet. Charlie Crist managed to win the chance to be Florida's next loony governor because he eschewed Bush campaigning for him.

When suffering major defeats in our lives, instead of assigning blame, it's time to take stock and learn from your defeat; in fact, it could be the best lesson you will ever learn about life, love, who your friends are, and most of all, facing yourself - the good parts and the bad parts. The good parts you keep; the bad parts you try to change for the better.

Ford says he'll be back in 2008 to take on Lamar Alexander. Well, I would have preferred to see if he would have become a true Democrat in the House, with membership in a Majority party for a change, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

Don't count out Harold Ford. He may be the next Phoenix to rise from the ashes, and maybe, he'll finally learn how to be his own man, truly independent of his father and his wanne-be thug brothers.

PAUL WALDMAN CONFIRMS WHY THE GOP GETS NO LOVE FROM BLACK PEOPLE

Over at Alternet, writer Paul Waldman confirms in articulate detail why the GOP gets no love from Blacks, Jews, or Gay People. Here's an excerpt:

We can look on the bright side and say that what's bad for Ford may in general be good for Democrats. Ford, currently locked in a dead heat, is depending on the willingness of the good people of Tennessee to rise above their past and elect the first African-American senator from the South since Reconstruction. Elsewhere, black Republicans are finding that they have a lot of trouble convincing African Americans that the GOP has mended its ways, and the attention the Ford race has gotten isn't helping. Kenneth Blackwell in Ohio, Lynn Swann in Pennsylvania and Michael Steele in Maryland have all been unable to bring significant numbers of African Americans to their side, and look headed for defeat.

In my opinion, as an African-American woman, this article confirms what Steve Gilliard and I have been saying for the past two years: Black People don't drink the "Candidate is Black" Kool-Aid as often as the racist elements of both the Democratic and Republican party leaders tend to think. We are very able to discern a Black candidate's motives for seeking higher office, espeically when the candidate has conducted himself/herself as a modern-day Stepin' Fetchit or Mammy. My parents' generation didn't need a political pundit to tell them how they should think or feel about political candidates - they had the gift of discernment to determine if a candidate was on the real, or faking his butt off. Black Pastors I sat under in church began saying to political candidates "Yes, you can come here to speak, but it means staying for the entire worship service."

In other words, gracing the church, town hall, school or waterfront with your mere Black/Jew/Gay presence no longer cuts it. Those very voters that Harold Ford, Michael Steele, Lynn Swann and Ken Blackwell are working so hard to court - well, gentlemen, they have already made up their minds about you. Yes, I know your ethnicity and skin color should not matter, but even in the 21st Century, it does. No matter how much evidence is placed out in the public to educate people about African-Americans, there are some that have that element of hate so deeply rooted, it is damned near hopeless to think that those individuals can change their mindset, short of having a personal epiphany, or near death experience where one's life is saved by teh Black person, or teh Gay, or teh Jewish person.

Harold Ford just got the memo reminding him he's still African-American, and he's considered an uppity Negro, to boot. The fact that Swannie and Blackwell are trailing their Democratic opponents by double-digits in the polls are basically communicating that they got that same memo, but refuse to read it, and therefore, are left wondering why after all the butt-kissing of white GOP voters they have done, why those same GOP voters are going to cross party lines and vote for the white guy.

Mike Steele has two things going for him: he loves puppies and the endorsement of a graft artist and his thug, rapist ex-brother-in-law:





Is Massachusetts the only Commonwealth that is progressive enough to see past a person's race, sexual orientation or religious belief to give the job to the best person for it? They are saying so by their willingness to vote for an African-American, Deval Patrick, over the white Female candidate, Kerry Healey, whose campaign tried to run similar ads to the ones the ReThugs ran on Ford.

She was already trailing double digits behind Patrick - after those "Willie Horton" type ads ran, her trailing behind Patrick increased, to where he's all but handed the state House in Boston.

As Cornel West says "Race Matters". So does ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and religious belief. How does a candidate over come such odds?

One person at a time. And the time is NOW.