CAROLINE IN D.City

The abject questioning by New York Democrats concerning Caroline Kennedy's credentials to serve as junior senator in their state lies in any number of areas ranging from laughable to pathetic. It is laughable because Caroline Kennedy probably garnered more experience about navigating through the politics of Washington, DC sitting around the dinner table at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport than most other DC politicians in their first terms - or perhaps their entire life. It is pathetic because many of her detractors were Hillary for President supporters who also supported the carpet-bagging Mrs. Clinton's 2000 Senate run, the totality of her political experience amounting to "talking with her husband about everything."

And somewhere between laughable and pathetic is the hypocrisy of the New York Democrats who, in the past, were encouraging Caroline's brother, the late John F. Kennedy Jr., to run for the Senate, sans previous political experience. Also, somewhere between laughable and pathetic is the audacity of those politically elected Democrats feeling slighted because they feel their service to New York does not deserve to be overlooked for consideration although they were willing to cede that very position to accomodate the aforementioned Mrs. Clinton who became a New Yorker via an opportunistic endeavor - whereas Caroline Kennedy became a New Yorker as the result of a national tragedy, and stayed. And while raising her daughters, Mrs. Kennedy has quietly and without fanfare spent considerable parts of her adult life aiding the State of New York and advancing American ideals.

Those elected officials who berate her possible ascension to the US Senate would be wise to reflect on how we often arrive at these dilemmas. The former Lt. Governor of New York will make the gubernatorial decision because his predecessor resigned under allegations of illegality. A New York Congressman/DC committee chairman is shrouded in billowing clouds of ethical misconduct, and the Illinois Lt. Governor may eventually choose the successor to the senate seat vacated by the 2008 President-elect after the arrest of the sitting Illinois Governor. And on the subject of Illinois, it would behoove us to remember that Caroline Kennedy would have merely been the unassuming daughter of a Massachusetts senator had not Chicago Mayor Richard Daley strategically placed voting booths throughout Illinois cemeteries in 1960.

It is no accident that many voters in America are screaming "term limits" a lot louder than they are crying for "elected experience." Voters are growing tired of having elected experience declare criminality, dishonesty and ethically challenged behavior paraded before them as merely 'inappropriate.'

Caroline Kennedy and her years long commitment to New York would provide a fresh, clean and honest perspective as the US Senator from New York. And we can be sure that it would be decades before she becomes as corrupt and unethical as Ted Stevens, Charles Rangel, William Jefferson, Spiro Agnew, Rod Blagojevich, (insert corrupt official's name here).....

KEEP ON PLUMBING

Unable to utter the words "middle class" throughout an entire presidential debate, GOP presidential hopeful, Sen. John McCain, managed to regurgitate the words 'Joe the Plumber' almost two dozen times in the final debate. In his long, harried and haphazard campaign without a theme, or coherent message, Joe the Plumber became John McCain's standard-bearer.

In an economy wherein retirement investments have withered away, high and low income jobs have gone kaput, foreclosure has become the latest four letter word, and usurious credit card companies are on the verge of driving a stake through the middle class heart, John McCain chose a man looking to purchase a $250,000 company to deliver his message. Having flushed that message down the toilet, it is doubtful that the American voters will be calling Joe the Plumber to unclog the drain. And having finally achieved the sought after title of GOP presidential nominee, the real John McCain finally showed up on the evening of Nov. 4th - to deliver a concession speech.

Media proclaimed "maverick," John McCain, became a weekly walking contradiction seemingly unsure of what constituency he needed to speak to. And being totally unsure of his Republican/Conservative base, his VP choice was made, not with the careful consideration, insight and unquestionable qualities of competence and readiness, but by throwing a wobbly, 80 yard Hail Mary pass to Wasilla, Alaska. The extremely likable and drop-dead charming Gov. Sarah Palin did indeed shore up McCain's base. However, the moderates and independents that were always a solid, unwavering contingent of the Arizona Senator's support abandoned him in droves after much maligned CBS News anchor, but reliably solid interviewer, Katie Couric, asked what periodicals the governor read and Mrs. Palin was loath to mention whatever newspaper most Wasilla residents read with their morning toast and coffee. Add to that, a simple question about Supreme Court cases, other than Roe v. Wade, and it is difficult to imagine a presidential ready conservative not mentioning the Miranda decision. But then, maybe the governor's cable service does not get three different versions of LAW & ORDER, CSI, or reruns of HILL STREET BLUES. Subsequently, Senator McCain's message, whatever it happened to be at the time, was repeatedly muddled by having to answer questions about his VP choice. Even with his VP's gaffe of the week firmly on display, Sen. Obama never had to answer questions concerning Joe Biden's competence and readiness. And by labelling her inability to answer the simplest questions as "gotcha journalism," Sarah Palin exposed a public distrust in her ability.

The irony of McCain's choices to appeal to the more conservative wings of the Republican Party is that they had soundly and repeatedly vilified him all throughout the primaries as though he was a moose in Sarah Palin's crosshairs.

Sadly, when asked about Osama bin Laden by a late night TV host, Sen. McCain displayed a false bravado in declaring, "I will get him, my friends." But if there is one example that proves Sen. Obama's campaign theme that Washington does not work to benefit what is important to the American people it is the very threat of Al Qaeda and it's waves of international terrorism. During the Clinton administration, the Senate Intelligence Committee, on which McCain sits, should have been intimately involved in White House meetings with the CIA regarding Al Qaeda. Also, the Armed Services Committee, on which Sen. McCain also sits, should have been heavily involved with the White House and the Defense Department on how best to exterminate the terrorist threat when the opportunity became available. Instead, we saw the irresponsible decimation of the military at a period when American interests were repeatedly under deadly attack, and we saw the endless stroking of Bill Clinton's ego after eulogizing the Americans returned in flag-draped coffins. If true to his word, President Obama, will gather these factions and compel a sensible and responsible strategy.

As the sun sets on Election Day 2008, and America prepares for a most historic transition, one can't help but imagine the ghost of the late Timothy J. Russert hovering over one specific domicile in Chappaqua, New York. After months of insisting to neutral and Democratic Party fence-sitters that "Obama can't win," presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was confronted by Russert on national TV on whether she really believed Obama could not win - she responded, "Yes, he can!"

TERRORISTS AND TAILHOOK

Since Sen. John McCain and his supporters have seen fit to inject the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers into the presidential campaign to engage in guilt by association, by all means, let's engage. Sen. McCain was a career US naval officer. Therefore, it stands to reason that Sen. McCain was privy to the degrading, abusive and humiliating treatment accorded women during the naval officer's annual Tailhook "Conventions."

Why didn't McCain ever report this behavior - or did he find it perfectly acceptable? Having indulged in an extramarital liaison, did McCain ever take part in those Tailhook activities? What relationship(s), if any, did McCain have with the officers involved in wrongdoing when the abuses of Tailhook came to light?

We need to know the full extent of John McCain's knowledge about the US Navy officer's annual Tailhook "Conventions," what he knows, when he knew it and why he never tried to stop it.

MOURNING JOE

It didn't take long, post IMUS IN THE MORNING on MSNBC, for former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough to become infected with the Democrat leaning bias that permeates that cable news network. In a post convention opine this past week, Morning Joe cited a Gloria Steinem column wherein he absurdly claims that Steinem "was right" in declaring that a woman with Barack Obama's resume could not have gotten the presidential nomination.

Exactly what is it about her resume that placed Hillary Rodham Clinton above Sen. Obama and all of the other Democrat's presidential candidates? While citing his brief tenure in the US Senate, Obama opponents and Clinton supporters, ignore the fact that he has been a public official longer than she has. Much of Mrs. Clinton's experience was spent during her husband's political career working in private industry, some with and some without much legitimate success. The very successful heir to Fortune Magazine, Steve Forbes, was not politically aided by his "experience" in the private sector. And while Clinton advocates are quick to acknowledge her years working with the Children's Defense Fund, they are also quick to be dismissive of Mr. Obama's years working as a community organizer. Apparently sexism is an unacknowledged two-way street.

In their zeal to promote Sen. Clinton as something that she is not, Mr. Steinborough and the widow Steinem are conveniently forgetting that a host of women with paper thin resumes, or none at all, launched themselves into political careers as a result of the Clarence Thomas hearings. New York Representative Carolyn McCarthy came to that congressional title after the brutal murder of her husband and maiming of her son on the Long Island Railroad. And, lest we forget, Gloria Steinem wrote an op-ed piece virtually excusing Bill Clinton for the forcible fondling and invasive tonguing alleged by the widowed Kathleen Willey because Clinton stopped when she told him to. That was not her position when the suspect was Sen. Bob Packwood. And cries of sexism were non-existent when Senate Democrats refused to allow victimized women to testify against Bill Clinton during his impeachment.

At some point Mr. Scarborough should realize that faux feminist, Gloria Steinem, is merely the wolfette who cries sexism based primarily on ideology.

HERE'S WHAT I THINK - Volume -#7

Senator Barack Obama's "problem" with white working class and white female voters is a media created phenomenon courtesy of guilt by association. By the time Obama ran off the last of his 11 consecutive primary victories, specifically the so-called Potomac primaries, he had bested Sen. Clinton in virtually every category of white voters where she was alleged to be stronger. Enter Rev. Wright! Suddenly the words of someone else are falsely attributed to Senator Obama's "true nature" even though none of the Senator's past rhetoric points to any such expressions made by Rev. Wright.


A brief scan through the crowds of the multi-thousand person rallies and post primary speeches of Sen. Obama reveals vast amounts of diverse white voters and supporters. They can't all be prominent, high earning, Ivy League "elitists."

HERE'S WHAT I THINK - Volume #6

The media are astounded at how the vaunted "Clinton political machine" failed to secure the Democratic nomination for the 2008 presidential election. As they attempt to try to comprehend the poor organization, the financial extravagance and the repeated bouts of foot-in-mouth disease, they fail to extrapolate that the "machine" they have heralded was vastly overrated.

The Clintons got to the White House in 1992 on only 43% of the vote of barely 1/2 of the eligible electorate. Apparently the media punditry thinks a lot more of the Clinton's political ability than the public does. That Mrs. Clinton failed to reduce her 47-50% negatives over the course of her 18 month campaign is evidence of that.

HERE'S WHAT I THINK - Volume #5

The question of what to do with Florida's and Michigan's votes and delegates is just another Democrat Party fiasco to change the rules and nullify the voice of the voters who played by the rules - much like the entire un-democratic process of super-delegates. While we tout democracy worldwide, and die for it, the Democrats use of super-delegates basterdizes the concept of "one man, one vote." This handful of delegates coined "super" get to vote on primary day in their home states for the candidate of their choice, and then go to Denver for the convention and vote again. What's democratic about that???

CHARTING A NEW LOW

If you thought that the news business could not sink any lower after seeing a veteran newsman like Dan Rather use unauthenticated documents to report a major news story, you thought wrong. In their frenzied glee, the media has used guilt by association to engage in the worst kind of character assassination. What is even more reprehensible is that they are only managing to use this practice on the black guy.

The teflon Clintons have a decades-long history of appointing "friends" to public office who have managed to engage in all sorts of criminal and questionable activity. Yet this well known fact is not put before the public as a campaign issue. And for decades the Clintons, their supporters, and their surrogates have repeatedly impugned the character of countless women to intimidate and embarrass them into silence for exposing Bill Clinton's affairs and unwanted advances - a practice the women's movement has denounced for the past 40 years. To their credit, Clarence Thomas and Bob Packwood did not engage in such degrading behavior at the time they were accused. But to the Clintons, it's an art form. And to the press, what should be a major issue is not.

Any American with a mother, sister or daughter who is sexually victimized by their boss should not have to turn on their TV and hear a James Carville insinuate that their loved one is trailer trash - or that Hillary Clinton told a surrogate that their daughter is a stalker. Linda Tripp's children did not deserve to hear their mother's appearance denigrated on national television simply for refusing to perjure herself to protect the Clintons. And the disparagements leveled at Gennifer Flowers only served to prove the Clinton's propensity for lying as soon as Ms. Flowers went to the audiotapes.

If the media chooses to sink so low as to use guilt by association to assassinate the character of Sen. Obama, they should at least make an effort to be race and gender neutral because there is a lot more guilt surrounding a lot more associations with the Clintons. In addition to leaving Little Rock with over a dozen Whitewater colleagues going to jail, not to mention Jim Guy Tucker and Jim and Susan McDougal, they entered Washington, DC with many of their cabinet appointments having one foot in the slammer and the other on the proverbial banana peel. And the media have yet to report, in any detail, about the senior Democrat who removed Hillary Clinton from her Watergate assignment for her dishonesty.

Contrary to popular belief, the news media have treated Sen. Clinton like a pageant contestant. She would probably get much tougher questions from the audience of the Jerry Springer Show than she has gotten from MEATLESS PRESS, THIS IS WEAK, and WIFFLEBALL - their hosts and pundits touting her toughness when, in fact, it is more likely their weakness.

Subsequently, after 5 minutes of watching Bill O'Reilly "spin" his interview with Mrs. Clinton into a smiling, grinning, ice skating pairs exhibition, I had to turn it off. When I watch pornography, I prefer to see the couple naked.

WHERE WOULD THEY BE WITHOUT JUDAS?

The Clintons owed Bill Richardson - he didn't owe them! Richardson not only paid any debt, in full, to Bill and Hillary Clinton, he amassed the kind of credit that the Clintons could not repay if they had exhausted all $107 million they have earned since 2000.

By supporting and defending Bill Clinton's criminal behavior in 1998, rather than supporting and defending the Constitution, former Clinton loyalist(s) overpaid any balance due to Bill and Hillary Clinton. Facing the kind of criminal liability that would have gotten Barack Obama employed wearing orange jumpsuits and pressing Illinois license plates, Bill Clinton left Washington, DC on a victory float headed for Harlem and Chappaqua in New York with a brief stop in Georgetown to drop off his wife. Were it not for the Bill Richardsons and Robert Reichs, Hillary Clinton could very well be in Hope, Arkansas throwing plates and ashtrays at her husband. Or worse yet, she could have been cellmates with Susan McDougal while hubby Bill languished in a 9 by 12 space marking off Webb Hubbell's leftover jail cell calendar.

There is a common misconception that the Clintons have been fortunate in their enemies when, in fact, it is their friends who they have to thank for their freedom, financial fortune and present political stature.

During his impeachment, it was the so-called Judases who stood by Bill Clinton. And that multitude of faux feminists, who have cried sexism at every criticism of Hillary Clinton and railed endlessly to give Anita Hill her say in the world's court of public opinion, became deaf and dumb when a plethora of women lined up to inform the American public of Bill Clinton's sexual predatory nature - one of whom reported, on NBC News, of being raped and violently bitten by Clinton. Her credibility unshaken, friends of the Clintons in the US Senate relegated this alleged rape victim to the silent closet that women's organizations have spent decades fighting to come out of. And Mrs. Clinton, faux feminist herself, felt so outraged by a comment made by reporter David Shuster regarding daughter Chelsea, that he was suspended by NBC News. Yet, for much of her husband's political career, she stood by and watched honest, hard-working women denigrated as sluts, tramps, stalkers, bimbos and trailer trash for daring to expose her husband's predatory and adulterous predilections.

Another common misconception is that the Clintons are where they are because they run hard fighting campaigns based on an innate political genius. Having gotten to Washington, DC on only 43% of the vote, most Americans seem to disagree with that assessment. With Mrs. Clinton's negatives at a constant and continuing 50%, the voters still disagree. It is the Judases who are finally waking up from their Rip van Winkle long slumber with the hope that better late than never will not be too late.

"Get me re-Wright!"

"Over 600,000 Iraqis dead. Who are the terrorists?" Such was the maniacal sounding rant of Rosie O'Donnell in one of her final co-hosting appearances on THE VIEW. After this clear, well publicized attack on America and its military, Ms. O'Donnell was said to be in negotiations to host her own news/talk show on MSNBC - just one of the cable news outlets now playing snippets of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons on a continuous loop. Should these "news" outlets, now promoting Rev. Wright as 'racist, hate monger' decide to do even a cursory investigation, they will find that Rev. Wright has a plethora of like-minded Americans among the post Sept. 11th Hollywood Democrats - supporters and donors of both candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Beginning Sept. 12, 2001 the public airwaves were met with a barrage of celebrities blaming America's thirst for oil, greed for energy, uneven support for Israel in the Middle East and general overall arrogance as the reasons that 19 brainwashed lunatics committed an unforgettable mass murder as sanctioned by their organization's head lunatic. Yet these Democratic celebrity's "words" are not being repeatedly showcased nor are their candidates of choice being hounded about their affiliations, some of whom supported the Clintons for almost 20 years.

Though hailed as brilliant in many circles, Senator Obama's speech on race has not totally extricated the blood from the water as the hunger of the sharks has yet to be satisfied. Unfortunately it is the senator's desire to take the high road that continues to enable the Rev. Wright feeding frenzy. And it is that desire to try to move forward in a spirit of unity and understanding that encompassed his speech.


But it is exactly the lack of understanding of the pastor's naysayers who basterdize the context of his sermons. That is why Senator Obama's speech was correct to identify the era(s) of being black in America that influenced Rev. Wright and many of his age. To the pastor, the chain-linked dragging death of James Byrd in Texas is Emmett Till over 40 years ago. Learning about the sudden AIDS virus is the Tuskegee Experiment just 10 years later. Twenty years after Brown v. Board of Education and 20 years after President Eisenhower sent troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, black parents and their children were being stoned and beaten in Boston, Massachusetts for trying to integrate the public schools. To Rev. Wright, seeing the senseless police assault on Rodney King by the Los Angeles Police Dept. is akin to the Alabama state police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday in 1967. And more than 30 years after Lee Elder broke the tinted-glass ceiling at the Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta, Georgia, there are less black Americans on the PGA tour now than in Mr. Elder's day.


What is being regarded as racist, hate-mongering is not just anger, as described by Sen. Obama, it is very much suspicion. Racial profiling and stop and frisk disparities are suspiciously like post Civil War laws that jailed blacks for being unemployed. The FBI, who repeatedly shadowed Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were suspiciously absent on the dates of their respective assassinations. And though a lack of and/or poor education are cited as factors of high black unemployment in urban centers, many of those unemployed are suspiciously able to find work as inmates earning slave wages in many of America's correctional institutions producing materials, for profit, for companies trading on Wall Street - all while we hypocritically denounce China for using prison labor on products sold in the USA.


The Rev. Wright controversy has obscured the fact that this campaign to be the Democrat's nominee for president has exposed a closeted bigotry that exists within that party. And it has compelled some black, former Clinton supporters to switch their allegiance to candidate Obama and others to hedge on their support of Mrs. Clinton. The Wright obsessed media confound themselves by focusing on Oprah Winfrey, Bill Cosby, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and a whole host of highly successful blacks on the American stage who are admired by all as antidotes to charges of racism. However, these stars existed, as well as endemic racism, during the time of Rev. Wright's youth also. He just called them Joe Louis, Lena Horne, Sammy Davis Jr., Duke Ellington and Ray Charles.


Marching bands of Klansmen and skinheads shouting expletive laced epithets denigrating persons of color because of their color is hate speech by hate mongers. Pointing out, in the press or in the pulpit, a deleterious history of violence that has spanned one's life is not. And having lived that lifetime witnessing the same barbarities and discrimination as existed 10, 20, and 40 years before, suspicion becomes an inherent Sixth Sense. Some degrees of those suspicions may properly be seen as character flaws, but they are not hate. And for many people of Rev. Wright's era, race, and background, those suspicions have been well-earned.


Barack Obama did not go from editor of the Harvard Law Review to presidential candidate, with impressive stops in between, locked in a vacuum. The Obama who is inspiring millions to believe in the possibility of a better America is neither the student nor the parishioner of a teacher of hate. This regrettable castigation of the 20 year relationship between Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright fails to realize that it has helped shape the candidate admired by millions.


As many suggest he should have, Mr. Obama could very well have walked away from Rev. Wright. And instead of being that voice who inspires more millions than any politician in two decades to believe in that better America, he could have been earning a huge salary as part of any large New York law firm, but unable to catch a cab.

THE EMPRESS HAS NO PANTSUIT

In virtually a single breath and literally the same paragraph, Bill Clinton showed himself, and thus his wife's presidential campaign, to be a study in inane contradictions. He recently stated how people must enjoy picking on a girl and then, barely taking a beat, said that people who can't take tough campaigning shouldn't be in politics. Apparently the ability to sound like Gloria Steinem and Ann Coulter in one fell swoop is what commands hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees.

Yet, they cannot figure it out. How could this be happening? The fool-proof candidate with the fool-proof message and the methodical organization is being soundly bested in the race to represent the future of the Democratic Party and the future of America. The poll driven Clinton political machine and the major news media are hard pressed to figure out how the smart, young, previously unassuming junior senator from Illinois has managed to turn the candidate, the message, the organization and the previous polls on their head. At every turn Senator Barack Obama has countered dubious claims of "experience" and sound bite assertions of "ready" with cool, precision-laden responses. He continues to exhibit an inherent and infectious quality of leadership which extends far beyond his amazing personal history.

He has successfully challenged the long held belief of voter entitlement because you are a red state or blue state, male or female, white or black, old or young, Christian, Mormon or Jew, Democrat, Republican or Independent. The young American with the international pedigree whose community activism took him through the streets of Chicago's South Side and whose political activism carried him to areas of southern Illinois where the ghosts of the Klan still emanate, dared to take on the invincible Clinton machine. With the support of reformed Clintonites and former Carterites plus a whole host of newly adult Americans eager to add their voices to their own future, Sen. Obama has seemingly done the impossible - melding seniors and baby boomers with Generations X and Y.

As Mrs. Clinton's fortunes weaken, she has been unable to reduce her 47% negatives after 15 months of campaigning. Also, 50% of polled voters say they would never vote for her. And after revealing how her faith carried her through her husbands scandals, she disdains that quality in voters by suggesting that "it would require a leap of faith" to vote for Sen. Obama over her. Faith was the foundation of the Declaration of Independence. It was faith that carried America through the Civil War and the Civil Rights revolution. Faith is not a bad thing. Eleanor Roosevelt should have told her that.

Mrs. Clinton's solution to a statement citing the troubling ease of the Clinton's mendacity by Hollywood mogul, and former Clinton supporter, David Geffen, was to attack Senator Obama. And her latest distortion concerning her escape from a salvo of phantom sniper fire on her trip to Bosnia not only vindicates Mr. Geffen, but may well turn Pennsylvania's large veteran population against her in that state's April 22nd primary.

Senator Obama has touched a chord of honesty among supporters and voters previously beholden to voting for the Clintons. In his book, THE AUDACITY OF HOPE, he refuses to shy away from the personal familial conflicts with the indomitable Michelle Obama, recognizing that her criticisms are constructive and beneficial to their family. He has basically put it all out there. His pluses and minuses - his hopes and dreams - and leaves it for the voters to decide.

And should he succeed in vanquishing the Clintons where they have failed, Barack Obama may even compel the VAST RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY to garner a new respect for liberals.

GERRY-MEANDERING

Perhaps the only thing more idiotic than Geraldine Ferraro's statement that Senator Barack Obama is only where he is in the Democratic presidential race is because he is black has been her repeatedly pathetic attempts to defend the moronic statement. She probably believes the absurdity that Hillary Clinton is best suited to be President of the United States based on merit and qualifications and not because she was the wife of Bill Clinton - when in fact Mrs. Clinton would not even be the US Senator from New York had she not been married to Bill.

Clinton's much publicized 2000 "listening tour" of New York counties can hardly be described as the needed cure for the state's ills that many caring, committed, hard working NY Democratic politicians have built their resumes trying to fix. And, finagling a seat on the Senate Armed Services Committee was a clear indication that her carpet-bagged backpacking trip through New York was merely a preamble to a campaign to become the nations Commander-in-Chief. However, her concern for our men and women in the military, the safety and security of the United States, and our friends and allies is morbidly false. The reaction of the Clinton White House to the rising threat of Islamist terrorism against the US at home and abroad was to cut the military budget and go after Bosnian strongman Milosevic instead - a move that was highly unlikely until the repercussions of the public revelation that Mr. Clinton was victimized by the sight of Monica Lewinsky's thong.

And now Hillary Rodham Clinton is imploring the country to believe that her White House "experience" makes her better suited to answer early morning crisis phone calls though all evidence points to the contrary. When Al Qaeda bombed the World Trade Center in 1993 the White House phone kept ringing. When Al Qaeda blew up American GI's in the Khobar Towers in 1996 the phone kept ringing. When Osama bin Laden's murderous ideologues willfully demolished two American embassies in Africa in 1998 the Clintons did not answer the crisis phone. And when the brazen Al Qaeda bombing of the USS Cole murdered 17 sailors in Yemen in September of 2000, the Clinton response was to meet the body bags at Andrews AFB, eulogize the dead, and get back out on his wife's Senate campaign trail - all while the aforementioned Al Qaeda continued to plot and rehearse the devasting Day of Infamy that would occur 12 months later. Answering the crisis phone has never been a Clinton priority.

Mrs. Ferraro's ongoing attempts to define and defend her inane statement begs the question - why did Al Gore and John Kerry get 90% of the black vote? They look nothing like Barack Obama. Bill Clinton, who has recently shown a cryptic disdain for black people, at least the ones who did not vote for his wife, received nearly 90% of the black vote. He also lacks Sen. Obama's pedigree.

By denigrating the success of Barack Obama's presidential campaign to his skin color, Geraldine Ferraro and the punditry who unsuccessfully try to justify her ignorance, subconciously denounce the successes, both public and private, of non-white Americans as undeserved aberrations rather than the well-earned outstanding accomplishments that they are.

MEATLESS PRESS

Because I am unable to take Bill or Hillary Clinton for an entire hour, even with commercial interruptions, I taped Mrs. Clinton's January interview on MEET THE PRESS. I wanted to see if host Tim Russert was going to be as easy on her as he was during his 20 or so minute interview last year during his meet the candidates segments. The overrated Mr. Russert did not disappoint. Twenty eight minutes into the "interview" I was compelled to stop. I'm not sure if it was Clinton's penchant for filibustering that caused me to gag or that Russert was letting her. Clinton's repeated diatribes generally strayed, long windedly, into areas having nothing to do with the question. And each time Russert tried to get her to a point, she went on with a refusal to be interrogated. It was at that point I had to stop and take a 48 hour break before viewing the second half.

After the grilling Tim Russert gave GOP candidate Rudy Giuliani on ethics, I was convinced that the occasionally reliable Mr. Russert would broach the subject as forcefully with Sen. Clinton. He did not! When asked about Marc Rich's pardon and the familial group association seeking pardons from her husband, the Senator replied, " I didn't know anything about that." Both times her facial expressions belied her answers.

She bases her claims of experience on the fact that her husband discussed important issues with her to get her input, yet she asserts being totally in the dark about the failures and scandals of the administration. Russert's attempt to get her to recant her charge of a "vast right wing conspiracy" in the Lewinsky perjury scandal merely brought forth Mrs. Clinton's now infamous cackle. Russert never bothered to proffer that her husband copped to the charges after leaving office, that Bill paid off Paula Jones, that her husbands attorney, Bill Bennett, had to inform a federal judge that President Clinton's sworn deposition would be recanted, and that the subsequent actions of her husband proves false her claim that he was impeached over a "private, personal matter" as she promoted in her book.

There were no questions from Russert about the Travel Office firings - who paid her losses in the year long cattle futures bonanza - why would Craig Livingstone's mother tell her friends that Mrs. Clinton got her son the job as head of White House security if it were not true - why would a career White House officer state that he saw Maggie Williams, Mrs. Clinton's chief of staff, exit the late Vince Foster's office with files if that were not true?

Sen. Clinton continues to claim that her vote on the Iraq War resolution was for inspectors, not the use of force. After beating around the bush (no pun intended) about her vote, it never occurred to Russert to remind her that Saddam Hussein controlled the weapons inspectors during both Clinton administrations and kicked them out of Iraq when he tired of them.

Her claims of having been fully vetted also ring hollow. That she has withstood the "Republican attack machine" and only she can defeat the GOP in November are the rantings of a candidate yet to answer the really tough questions from the media that she accuses of her opponent.

HERE'S WHAT I THINK - Volume 4

It is clear that the Clintons are going to use the "pimped out" comment as another Hillary Clinton New Hampshire teary moment. For her campaign to call the comment "beneath contempt" is laughable when you consider that the Clintons have denigrated women who were involved with Bill, or spoke out about his predatory nature, as sluts, tramps, stalkers, bimbos and trailer trash.

It is absurd that the Clintons, whose degradation of women is legendary, are offended by David Shuster's comment. Although Shuster's comment is also absurd, considering most adult children campaign for their candidate parents, the negativity of the comment was directed at the Clinton campaign, not Chelsea Clinton. Calling the remark "beneath contempt" is the height of chutzpah coming from the couple who claimed that using the federal treasury and its employees as an escort service was a "private, personal matter."

If MSNBC and correspondent David Shuster is guilty of anything, it is not confronting Bill and Hillary Clinton and the people who support them of this decades long practice of victimizing women which has become a mainstay of every Clinton campaign.

HERE'S WHAT I THINK - Volume 3

I'm reasonably certain that after her endorsement of Sen. Obama for president, Caroline Kennedy will not be getting the "traitor" backlash from women that Oprah allegedly received.

If her post South Carolina action does not show the absolute selfishness of Hillary Clinton to the rest of the country, nothing will. It was disgustingly disrespectful of her to leave So. Carolina after the polls closed and not stick around to thank all of the people who supported her. And does anyone believe that had the tally been closer at closing time that she would have forsaken her So. Carolinian supporters and given her victory speech from Nashville?????

DEAR REV. BUTTS:

(An open letter to the Reverend Calvin Butts of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem)


Dear Rev. Butts:

To say that I was shocked and disappointed when I opened my Monday newspaper to find that you endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton for president would be a severe understatement. That I felt compelled to bother to sit down and write to you about your decision for a man in your position is a testament to how disastrous a choice I believe you made.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a Republican and shall not be casting a ballot for a Democrat on Primary Day. However, I should also be forthcoming enough to tell you that I would not cast a ballot for Hillary Clinton in a general election under any circumstance - no matter who the Republican candidate is.

Apparently, and unfortunately, you have fallen victim to the hype. You believe that the Clintons are an experienced, qualified couple who learn from their mistakes and have the best interests of the country and the black community at heart, even though the evidence to the contrary is astounding. The "two for the price of one" Clintons left the state of Arkansas almost dead last, of all 50 states, in virtually every category used to determine quality of life. They also left a plethora of friends and colleagues in ventures that got many of them indicted and jailed - including their Lt. Gov. And what part of Mrs. Clinton's governing "experience" and qualifications were on tap when Arkansas' Madison Savings & Loan went belly up while she was one of the principal attorneys from the Rose Law Firm that worked on the account? Corruption then followed them to Washington, DC as members of their cabinet were forced to resign and plead guilty to a variety of criminal acts.

All the while more scandals were brewing as Mrs. Clinton was said to be the one responsible for the firing of the admired and well respected career employees who worked in the White House Travel Office. Years before anybody started screaming about the Patriot Act, both Clintons were loath to understand how an unqualified former bar bouncer, who worked on Bill Clinton's presidential campaign, became head of White House Security, and how, or why, he managed to obtain over 900 FBI files of innocent citizens. And after the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, President Bill Clinton did not even bother to visit New York City, the damage or the victims - until he could hold a fund raiser.

What is equally troubling to me is the message you are sending to women - the mothers, daughters, and sisters of your congregation and your community. In their infamous "I caused pain in my marriage" interview on 60 MINUTES, the Clintons led America to believe that they had learned, grown and survived together through those mistakes. However, some hard working women in Washington, DC who just wanted to do their jobs and provide for their families and perhaps advance their careers suffered the same fate as the women in Arkansas who spoke out about the boorish behavior of Bill Clinton. At the hands of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their surrogates, those women were demeaned and debased as stalkers, bimbos, tramps and trailer trash. It seems that present day candidate Clinton, who asserts her "35 years of experience" working on women's issues, has no problem publicly humiliating and victimizing other women who courageously come forth to report being violated. So Reverend, the question becomes how do you help a parishioner faced with a similar problem who seeks your council when you have endorsed, for the highest office in the land, a woman who has helped raise the degradation of women to an art form on behalf of her philandering husband?

While out promoting her book, Mrs. Clinton insisted that the impeachment of her husband was over a "private, personal matter." Putting aside the obvious counts of Perjury and Obstruction of Justice, how is it a "private, personal matter" for Betty Currie to procure women to satisfy Mr. Clinton's lust while getting paid by the public? And how private and personal was it for Miss Monica Lewinsky to provide sexual favors and show up at the front of various rope lines while being paid to be working at the Pentagon? The government should not be in the business of pimping and requiring the public to pay for services rendered. After leaving office, Bill Clinton has subsequently admitted to the offenses for which he was impeached when he accepted the suspension of his law license and agreed to the payment of fines.

Ironically, as a Christian man of the cloth, you don't seem the least bit offended that Hillary Clinton stated that voting for Sen. Obama "requires a leap of faith" - as though faith is a bad thing. Faith is one of the founding principles of the Declaration of Independence. A successful outcome to the Civil War, the end of slavery and Jim Crow laws and the entire civil rights revolution were fortified with faith. Their selfishness, mendacity and poor judgment constitute a terrible 35 year track record of the Clinton's "experience." And that you can examine the Clinton's past and still find them worthy of acceptability to the country and community is more troubling to me, than David Geffen found troubling, the ease with which they lie. By your endorsement, Rev. Butts, it appears that the Clintons made the right choice, for them, to use New York as the steppingstone to their higher ambitions.

God bless you. And in the words of your Abyssinian predecessor, KEEP THE FAITH, BABY!

Yours truly,
C. Hill

HERE'S WHAT I THINK - Volume 2

When Bill Clinton said "This whole thing is a fairy tale," there is a general consensus that believes his explanation that he was only talking about Sen. Obama's position on the Iraq War. I think that depends upon what the definition of "This whole thing is," is!

BLOODSPORT

Politics is a bloodsport. And Bill and Hillary Clinton are its leading vampires. They can be ruthless, relentless and clever - but vampiric nonetheless. They can go from teary to whiny to fang protruding in the blink of an eye. Their competition is never political opposition, merely enemies and potential victims. To paraphrase former Clinton supporter and present Barack Obama supporter, Hollywood mogul David Geffen, the ease of their mendacity is troubling. Yet the media has always been genuinely shocked and awed by each mendacious assertion they have uttered over the past 15 years. The Clinton response to Mr. Geffen's charge was to blame Senator Obama. Sadly, the press indulged the unfair, unwarranted and dishonest attack by making it between Obama and the Clintons instead of Geffen and the Clintons.

The Clintons feign anger and disappointment that Senator Obama has not received the media scrutiny that Mrs. Clinton has. If she has been truly scrutinized, that would be Bill Clinton's real fairy tale. She has repeatedly laid claim to her "35 years of experience." At what - being married to Mr. Clinton! She is never adequately challenged when her decades of "experience" becomes the mantle that makes her "ready" to be president. Let us examine some of her experiences. The state of Arkansas finished one of the worst four of the fifty states in virtually every quality of life category such as jobs, economy, education and crime under Bill Clinton's gubernatorial leadership. What role did Mrs. Clinton's "experience" as first lady of Arkansas contribute to those horrendous outcomes? While first lady of the state and partner in the Rose Law Firm her legal expertise and experience is open to question as Madison Savings & Loan went belly up with Mrs. Clinton as one of its legal principals who worked on the account. Her "experience" with the Whitewater real estate investment saw more than a dozen convictions for various and sundry felonies. Thus, her experience with judgment becomes likewise questionable.

And it was that experienced, questionable judgment that followed them to the White House. The firing of the career employees of the Travel Office in an exposed attempt at patronage, the forced resignations, investigations and indictments of cabinet officials and other federal appointees and the president's own involvement in a conspiracy to fix a federal case. He has subsequently admitted before a special prosecutor that he did indeed commit the offenses for which he was impeached when accepting the suspension of his law license. To this day, the "experienced" Clintons are loath to understand how a former bar bouncer who worked on the 1992 presidential campaign "qualified" to become head of White House security or who actually sanctioned his ascendance. Even more bizarre, or absurd - take your pick, their former bar bouncer was responsible for the attainment of over 900 FBI files of innocent citizens for an allegedly unknown purpose. At least unknown to the experienced Clintons. A career White House employee insisted that he saw Mrs. Clinton's White House Chief of Staff carry files out of the White House Council's office after the death of Vince Foster. Her staff member denied removing any files, however the missing, subpenaed files, last seen in Foster's office, somehow were discovered in Mrs. Clinton's White House residence. And otherwise respectable women who lodged complaints about Bill Clinton's behavior, past and present, were denounced as stalkers, bimbos and trailer trash.

In 1993, the Clintons first year in the White House, six people were murdered and hundreds were injured when a truck bomb exploded in the garage of the World Trade Center in New York. It was subsequent to that attack that our knowledge of the aims of Al Qaeda became known. The Clinton response to their declaration of war against America was to decimate the military. And after Al Qaeda repeatedly murdered Americans and the native citizens at overseas locations, the Clinton regime waged no aggressive response although he repeatedly promised to "hunt them down and make them pay" each time he eulogized the flag-draped coffins that came home.

Mrs. Clinton's 35 years of experience includes the ridiculous notion that it was "a private, personal matter" when a government employee, receiving a public paycheck, provided "personal favors" for the president during working hours. And her thirty five years of experience informs us that it would "require a leap of faith" to vote for Senator Obama - as though faith is a bad thing. The Declaration of Independence is based on faith. Faith successfully propelled us through the Civil War, slavery, Jim Crow laws and a civil rights revolution. Thirty five years of "experience" is not a positive sign of ready leadership when those years have been riddled with mendacity, poor judgment and the abandonment of faith. And it is the long experience with those particular character traits that should make it difficult to inspire confidence from the electorate.

HERE'S WHAT I THINK - Volume 1

Just as Bill Clinton publicly praises Mike Bloomberg and says how impressed he is with the New York mayor, the din of the possibility of a 3rd party candidate entering the 2008 presidential contest becomes louder and more emergent. Coincidence? I think not!

With Hillary Rodham Clinton's negatives at nearly 50% and the equivalent number of voters polled who vow they would never vote for her, winning a two person presidential race on the phony claim of being the most experienced and most qualified suddenly appears to be an attempt at skiing uphill. And after more than a year of planning, organizing and "listening," Mrs. Clinton has been hard pressed to change the numbers on those negative equations. Thus, what we may be witnessing is the "attack of the 43% solution." I think this is a Clinton/Bloomberg alliance designed to put Mrs. Clinton in the White House even with the majority of Americans voting against her - 1992 redux, if you will.

Here's the question - after more than a year of presidential campaigning, why did Mike Bloomberg wait until the eve of the presidential primaries and caucuses to express his dissatisfaction with the present crop of candidates??????