On Bill Clinton and Barack Obama

This is my video blog on the need for Bill Clinton to be part of the Obama for America campaign effort. I feel that Obama can't win without President Clinton's support. But then the Clinton's have some image repair work to do and helping Barack's the best way to do it.

What would a hope monger do?

Imagine a hope-monger came across the following in a search log:

"michelle obama" promiscuous

So obviously somebody is looking for dirt. All a hope monger has to do is describe the tactic in a blog entry, and include a few keywords, and suddenly there is both more awareness -- good press -- and just "more to sort through" for those who seek to attack the Obamas.

And the word promiscuous can have little or nothing to do with sexuality, obviously.

Promiscuous, for instance, is a song recorded by Nelly Furtado and Timbaland for Furtado's third album, Loose, in 2006.

It can also mean consisting of diverse, unrelated parts or individuals, even confused, as in: "Throngs promiscuous strew the level green" (Alexander Pope)

Sometimes there's the looser meaning, "not selective" of a single class or person, as in: "Clinton was criticized for his promiscuous solicitation of campaign money." which was obviously intended to echo the crisis near the end of Bill Clinton's Presidency while discussing an unrelated topic.

Now... folks are obviously "panning the stream" to find evidence of deviance, or perversity, or anything of a sexual nature to use to cast aspersions on Michelle Obama.

This is your chance to be a hope monger, and add to the degree of difficulty for the smear mongers and those who seek to use divide and conquer political tactics a la Karl Rove. The more these words appear, the more the power of the search engines is diluted, and the more time the folks taking that approach spend reading what amazing people Senator Barack and Michelle Obama are.

BET"s Bob Johnson Asks Jim Clyburn To Push For Obama Clinton Ticket, But Bill Clinton Cursed Clyburm!

I've got Fox News -- yes, Fox News, and specifically "Studio B with Shepard Smith" -- on now, and Smith's reporting that BET's Bob Johnson, an outspoken supporter of Hillary Clinton, has asked via letter to the office of South Carolina's Congressman Jim Clyburn, for Clyburn to push for an Obama / Clinton ticket.

Here's the problem.

Just a over a month ago, former President Bill Clinton, Hil's hubby and that famously tempermental campaigner, lost it with Clyburn and according to the Wall Street Journal cursed at him, thus pushing Clyburn to be even more outspoken in his opposition to the campaign tactics of the Clintons, and to eventually endorse Senator Obama for President.

So why the hell would Clyburn want to walk down the road of essentially helping the Clintons? And Clinton supporters flooding Clyburn's office with racist hate-calls certainly doesn't help at all.

Both Bill and Hillary have to learn to be humble here. As I just wrote, their Populaometer's at an all time low. Time to appologize to Clyburn and fall behind Senator Obama.

Hillary Clinton Off Deep End: Blames Obama For Her RFK Assassination Gaffe

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton simply must either get out of the presidential race or be forced out. Just three days after her gaffe heard 'round the World, Clinton expressed the total nerve to blame Senator Barack Obama and his staff -- himself who was the unfortunate "target" of her not-too-hidden idea that the possibility of his assassination in June was a good reason to stay in the race -- is now blaming Obama for her sick comments.

This after Obama accepted her apology without fanfare.

No kidding. Clinton's charge is that Obama and staff -- rather than the NY Post or Keith Olbermann at NBC -- ran with this story and fanned its flames. Wow.

Instead of letting her appology stand, Clinton and her staff have decided to act like a wounded animal backed into a corner, and are now lashing out recklessly. The one best way to end this really is for uncommitted Superdelegates to come out and give Obama the 49 delegates he needs as of this writing to close this campaign.

Enough is enough.

Hillary Is 44 Website Blind To Clinton RFK Assassination GaffeGate Scandal

Yes, I'm calling it GaffeGate because you've got to wonder who walked into Senator Clinton's head and stole her brain! That's the only way she could have even let the now famous words escape her mouth:

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it."

But while the whole world is scratching its collective head over Senator Clinton's open connection of Bobby Kennedy's assassination to present day, and by reference Senator Obama and when she would get out of the presidential race, the pro-Clinton website "Hillary Is 44" acts like the matter never happened.

Wild.

Bill Clinton Argues With West Virginian Voter Over Health Care - Video

Well, here's Bill Clinton fighting again and this time with a West Virginia voter who turned out to be an Obama supporter and who dared take on the former President at a rally yesterday. Clinton always seems like he's itching for a fight in situations where his speech is interrupted by a heckler, and where Senator Obama just goes right on talking, Bill stops his entire speech to enter a confrontation.

I used to think this was part of some weird strategy but now I think it's just Bill being a meany. See, President Clinton's done a lot for a lot of people and so he has to -- to a degree -- run on his Presidency all over again and almost as if he's running for a third term. In his mind we should remember all that he has done and we should think of Senator Clinton as by extension to his administration. And more to the point, we all should be grateful.

But all are not. Well, it's not so much that as people do remember that Bill and Hillary didn't succeed in passing health care reform and then did kind of give up on it. But Bill's having none of that. Coupled with the face of losing to Senator Obama for the Presidential Race and a drying well of donors -- or more to the point, seeing his wife lose the race and money -- Bill had to lash out at someone. And so he did:



But it's not what they need at this time. Of course, as an Obama supporter myself I watch with glee, but also with some sadness because I thought Senator Clinton would make a great VP choice, but now I'm reconsidering. Not sold on Jim Webb - yet.

Barack Obama , Rev Wright and My Iron Man Suit

I thank the SF Chronicle's Editorial Page editor John Diaz for the chance to write the essay below that appears in the Sunday May 4th edition of "Sunday Insight" and is below this video:



I've been a supporter of Sen. Barack Obama for president for 17 months, and one large reason is that he's like me. We share the same Aug. 4 birthday, and have walked similar paths of racial discovery.
Both of us have carved out our niche as individuals able to walk in different circles and still be ourselves. That's not easy; it comes as those around you tell you what they think your "place" in life should be. It's no wonder that I felt violated by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's National Press Club speech, as much as Obama did.
Wright made me put on my Iron Man suit again.
My Iron Man suit is a carefully constructed armor I created when I was a 6-year-old boy on the predominantly black South Side of Chicago to protect me from the other kids in the neighborhood. See, to them, I was not "black" - I talked "white" and was "smart." I didn't fight or play basketball - and didn't want to - but those were the prerequisites for popularity at the time.
The suit was my knowledge of everything from politics to Chicago architecture to airplanes and cars and "Star Trek." My suit allowed me to tune out those who said "you need to act black to be black."
The Iron Man suit was also used to protect me from anyone white who thought I should fit a common black stereotype. My Iron Man suit has "Repulsor Rays" I use to shoot "protons" of knowledge to prove I was smarter than anyone else in the room. I used the suit to judge anyone as being less intelligent than me if they didn't have a diverse base of friends - if all they had were, for example, white friends.
But a funny thing happened as I grew up. American culture changed such that I needed my suit less and less. More people accepted me as an individual. American pop culture became more diverse. There were more interracial relationships, and no one seemed to care. The guy who runs American Express was black - still is.
But the best thing was that no one was telling me my place; I'd successfully defined it and society - through generational change - kind of "caught up" to me. Or so I thought.
One problem remains, and Barack's dealing with it. In being the first African American who's one step closer to the Most Powerful Job in The World than any black person before him, Obama is faced not just with doing something "blacks don't do" but with upsetting people who wish he would know "his place."
This "placeism" that Barack and I have had to battle with has come back in the face of Wright and yes, Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton, who worked to remind us that whatever we do, we're still just black.
Both represent the old generation. Hey, so does my mom, and I love her to death. She has struggled for years to get me to take off the suit, and finally gave up.
Mom totally understood Wright's anger, but knows why I have the suit, too.
I don't think Wright's outcry came from a desire to show up Barack, but to scream "Hey. I'm black and proud! You're not going to define me!"
What I didn't like - and got into an argument with my mom about - was that Wright didn't think about success for African Americans of the younger generation like Barack or myself; Wright was consumed with his anger.
And in expressing his anger - in his choice to show his "blackness" and insult Barack's integrity - he made me put my suit on. I think mom realized where I was coming from before I went into full suit mode. She's on my side now.
I resent anyone telling me what kind of black person I should be. I will turn away if one says that I'm the only black person in the room. I don't like it when someone works to wreck the success of a black person just because that person's not "stereotypically black." In my view, that's what Wright did and he owes Obama, and me, an apology.