The Alligator

Ambition and lack of intellect- it seems like we are ending eight years of a leader who combined those two problems. Can we afford another President that is loaded with ambition but lacks the intellectual acumen to lead the nation? Let’s call a spade a spade- John McCain is not the brightest knife in the drawer. McCain graduated 894th out of 899 in his Naval Academy class. This of course is made more disturbing since in essence he was a “legacy” student. His family has been in the military since the French and Indian War and both his father and grandfather were both four star admirals. So- it seems that getting into the Academy was a no brainer and he scraped through by the skin of his teeth.

I know the man is a military hero and was a brave prisoner of war, but in all due respect to Mr. McCain’s clear sacrifice for his country- he is not the first man to sacrifice for his country, he isn’t the last and many more have given the ultimate sacrifice – their lives. It seems disconcerting that Mr. McCain’s resume centers around his sacrifice to his nation.

Other than McCain’s horrible ordeal as a prisoner of war his military career was lack luster. John McCain relied on family connections for every job he has held. His career before marrying Cindy Hensley was solely through family ties. When he married Cindy McCain he went to work for his father in law. Cozy huh? He became Vice President for Public Relations for Hensley and Company. There he gained political support among the local business community, meeting powerful figures such as banker Charles Keating, Jr., real estate developer Fife Symington III, andopen seat in Arizona’s 1st congressional newspaper publisher Darrow “Duke” Tully. In 1982, McCain ran as a Republican for an district. As a newcomer to the state, McCain was hit with repeated charges of being a carpetbagger. McCain responded to a voter making the charge with what a Phoenix Gazette columnist would later label as “the most devastating response to a potentially troublesome political issue I’ve ever heard”:

“Listen, pal. I spent 22 years in the Navy. My father was in the Navy. My grandfather was in the Navy. We in the military service tend to move a lot. We have to live in all parts of the country, all parts of the world. I wish I could have had the luxury, like you, of growing up and living and spending my entire life in a nice place like the First District of Arizona, but I was doing other things. As a matter of fact, when I think about it now, the place I lived longest in my life was Hanoi.”

There has been some sort of myth that McCain would never capitalize on his time as a POW- that it somehow is demeaning. It is and it is in bad taste- but Mr. McCain has been playing that experience since his entry on to the political stage. Quite frankly it is insulting to every man and woman who has come home from war injured or in a body bag that Mr. McCain uses this experience as his trump card. Who would dare challenge his sacrifice so he uses it to its highest political advantage. McCain didn’t have a real resume to tout so he resorted, and continues to do so, to shamelessly using his POW expereince to shut up opposition.

And there was “Mr. Straight Talk’s” envolvement with the Keating Six. Between 1982 and 1987, McCain had received $112,000 in legal political contributions from Charles Keating Jr. and his associates at Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, along with trips on Keating’s jets that McCain failed to repay until two years later. In 1987, McCain was one of the five senators whom Keating contacted in order to prevent the government’s seizure of Lincoln, which was by then insolvent and being investigated for making questionable efforts to regain solvency. McCain met twice with federal regulators to discuss the government’s investigation of Lincoln. Poor judgement from a not so bright guy. McCain was rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee- so much for the straight shooting guy!

McCain developed the reuptation of a “maverick”, but only because it suited him in his 2000 presidential bid. He walked in lockstep with the Republicans for years. The Pew Research Center recently found, the word Americans now most frequently use to describe John McCain is not “maverick,” but “old.” But he has always been an opportunist and it is more blatant than ever.

I will grant that all politicians back pedal on issues, including Senator Obama whom I admire and ardently support. But Mr. McCain’s recent reversals give new meaning to the term “flip flop” (a term I use reluctantly because it is so over used by the punditry it makes me gag). The clearly opportunist approach of having absolutely no moral compass at all shows a man of limited intellect and wild ambition. But I’ll get to that record in a moment.

First let’s address the man’s horrible attempts at humor. There was his “rhymes with rich” item regarding Hillary Clinton and the wildly offensive joke about Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and Janet Reno should make any woman cringe and it is sheer stupidity that any politician would make such remarks. Then of course there is his “Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran” remark. Tacky and stupid again.

He can’t seem to keep straight the difference between Sunni and Sh’ia, he seems not to have a clue as to the number of troops in Iran, he seems to be clueless about the growing threat in Afghanistan and instead concentrates every fiber of his foreign policy on Iran.

But the most current changes in his stances on virtually everything is what is most disturbing. This isn’t just political expedience – it is pandering and it is the vestige of a man who just isn’t too bright.
In his eternal quest for the Republican presidential nomination John McCain has repeatedly reversed long-held positions and compromised purportedly core principles. From the Bush tax cuts, the religious right and immigration reform to overturning Roe v. Wade, proclaiming Samuel Alito a model Supreme Court Justice and bashing France (just to name a few), McCain changed sides as changing political conditions dictated.

McCain’s recent rapid fire, acrobatic flip-flops have produced whiplash, at least for voters. Ten times since the beginning of June, McCain has retreated from, upended or just forgotten positions he once claimed as his own. On Social Security, balancing the budget, defense spending, domestic surveillance and a host of other issues so far this month, McCain’s “Straight Talk Express” did a U-turn on the road to the White House.

1. Social Security Privatization. John McCain has apparently learned the lesson that the more President Bush spoke about his Social Security privatization scheme, the less popular it became. On Friday, Mr. Straight Talk proclaimed at a recentl New Hampshire event, “I’m not for, quote, privatizing Social Security. I never have been. I never will be.” Sadly, McCain and his advisers like ousted Hewlett Packer CEO Carly Fiorina are on record declaring fidelity to the idea of diverting Social Security dollars into private accounts. On November 18, 2004, for example, McCain announced, “Without privatization, I don’t see how you can possibly, over time, make sure that young Americans are able to receive Social Security benefits.” And in March 2003, McCain backed his President, declaring, “As part of Social Security reform, I believe that private savings accounts are a part of it - along the lines that President Bush proposed

2. Raising - and Slashing - Defense Spending. John McCain was also for boosting American defense spending before he was against it. In the November 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs, McCain argued “we can also afford to spend more on national defense, which currently consumes less than four cents of every dollar that our economy generates - far less than what we spent during the Cold War.” But facing the $2 trillion budgetary hole the McCain tax plan is forecast to produce (a sea of red ink even the Wall Street Journal noticed), Team McCain changed its tune. As Forbes scoffed in amazement:
“McCain’s top economic adviser, Doug Holtz-Eakin, blithely supposes that cuts in defense spending could make up for reducing the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25% and the subsequent shrinkage in federal revenues. Get that? The national security candidate wants to cut spending on our national security. Wait until the generals and the admirals hear that.”

3. First Term Balanced Budget Pledge. With its on-again/off-again/on-again promise to balance the budget by January 2013, the McCain campaign executed that rarest of political maneuvers, the 360. During a February 15th rally in La Crosse, Wisconsin, “McCain promised he’d offer a balanced budget by the end of his first term.” But just days later, McCain’s senior economic adviser Douglas Holtz_Eakin announced a deficit-ending target of 2017. In mid-April, Holtz-Eakin proclaimed, “I would like the next president not to talk about deficit reduction.” McCain, too, signaled the retreat from his first-term balance budget commitment, explaining to Chris Matthews on April 15th that “economic conditions are reversed.”

Apparently economic conditions have improved dramatically since then. On June 6, Holtz-Eakin squared the circle, announcing, “That plan, when appropriately phased in, as it has always been intended to be, will bring the budget to balance by the end of his first term.”

4. The Media’s Treatment of Hillary Clinton. No doubt, John McCain suffers from recurring bouts of selective amnesia. And some episodes take only days to manifest themselves. During his disastrous “green screen” speech on June 3, McCain reached out to Hillary Clinton’s supporters by proclaiming, “The media often overlooked how compassionately she spoke to the concerns and dreams of millions of Americans, and she deserves a lot more appreciation than she sometimes received.” But by June 7, McCain denied to Newsweek that his media critique never passed his lips, “I did not–that was in prepared remarks, and I did not–I’m not in the business of commenting on the press and their coverage or not coverage.”

5. The Estate Tax. Just days before his contortionist act on Social Security, John McCain reversed course on the estate tax as well. On June 8, 2006, McCain on the Senate floor expressed his agreement with Teddy Roosevelt that “most great civilized countries have an income tax and an inheritance tax” and “in my judgment both should be part of our system of federal taxation.” But after years of battling Republican colleagues dead-set on dismantling the so-called “death tax” and instead promoting a $5 million trigger, on Tuesday John McCain sounded the retreat. Now, he insists, “the estate tax is one of the most unfair tax laws on the books.”

6. FISA, Domestic Surveillance and Telecom Immunity. When it comes to the Bush administration’s program of domestic spying on Americans, McCain has performed similar logical gymnastics. On December 20, 2007, McCain suggested to the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Charles Savage that President Bush had clearly crossed the line. As Wired’s Ryan Singel noted:

“I think that presidents have the obligation to obey and enforce laws that are passed by Congress and signed into law by the president, no matter what the situation is,” McCain said. The Globe’s Charlie Savage pushed further, asking , “So is that a no, in other words, federal statute trumps inherent power in that case, warrantless surveillance?” To which McCain answered, “I don’t think the president has the right to disobey any law.”

But on June 2, McCain adviser Holtz-Eakin put that notion to rest, telling the National Review:
“[N]either the Administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions that most people, except for the ACLU and the trial lawyers, understand were Constitutional and appropriate in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001.”

Pressed to explain the glaring inconsistencies, John McCain on June 6 played dumb, deciding that cowardice is the better part of valor. As the New York Times reported, McCain now believes the legality of Bush’s regime of NSA domestic surveillance is unclear and, in any event, is old news:

“It’s ambiguous as to whether the president acted within his authority or not,” he said, saying courts had ruled different ways on the matter. “I’m not interested in going back. I’m interested in addressing the challenge we face to day of trying to do everything we can to counter organizations and individuals that want to destroy this country. So there’s ambiguity about it. Let’s move forward.”
As for immunity for the telecommunications firms cooperating with the White House in what before August 2007 was doubtless illegal surveillance, there too McCain’s position has evolved. On May 23, campaign surrogate Chuck Fish announced that McCain would not back retroactive immunity “unless there were revealing Congressional hearings and heartfelt repentance from those telephone and internet companies.” Subsequently, the McCain campaign swiftly backtracked, claiming its man supports immunity unconditionally.

7. Restoring the Everglades. On June 5, John McCain traveled to the Everglades to win over Floridians and environmentally-minded voters. There he proclaimed, “I am in favor of doing whatever’s necessary to save the Everglades.” Sadly, as ThinkProgress documented, McCain not only opposed $2 billion in funding for the restoration of the Everglades national park, he backed President Bush’s veto of the legislation in 2007. “I believe,” he said, “that we should be passing a bill that will authorize legitimate, needed projects without sacrificing fiscal responsibility.”

8. Divestment from South Africa. During his June 2 speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), John McCain called for the international community to target Iran for the kind of worldwide sanctions regime applied to apartheid-era South Africa. Unfortunately, McCain’s lobbyist-advisers Charlie Black and Rick Davis each represented firms doing business with Tehran. Even more unfortunate, John McCain was frequently not among those offering “moral clarity and conviction” in backing “a divestment campaign against South Africa, helping to rid that nation of the evil of apartheid.” As ThinkProgress detailed:

Despite voting to override President Reagan’s veto of a bill imposing economic sanctions against South Africa in 1986, McCain voted against sanctions on at least six other occasions.

9. Fighting Job Losses in Michigan. During the run-up to the Michigan primary, John McCain cautioned workers there in January that he didn’t want to raise “false hopes that somehow we can bring back lost jobs,” adding that it” wasn’t government’s job to protect buggy factories and haberdashers when cars replaced carriages and men stopped wearing hats.” But after getting trounced in Michigan by Mitt Romney and watching the economy deteriorate further, McCain has had a change of heart. As Bloomberg noted on June 5:

“Nowadays, the party’s presumptive nominee is singing a different tune, striking a populist pose and saying “new jobs are coming”… …Over the past few months, however, McCain has taken a lesson from Romney, acknowledging recently that “Americans are hurting.” Returning to Michigan last month, the Arizona senator told a local television station that he would fight for new jobs and the state wouldn’t “be left behind.”

Perhaps the good people of Michigan, as John McCain suggested to a Kentucky audience in April, can make a living on eBay.

10. Opposing Hurricane Katrina Investigations. During a June 4th town hall meeting in Baton Rouge, John McCain answered a reporter’s question regarding Hurricane Katrina and the failure of the New Orleans levees by announcing:

“I’ve supported every investigation and ways of finding out what caused the tragedy. I’ve been here to New Orleans. I’ve met with people on the ground.”

As it turns out, not so much. McCain’s revisionist history neglects to mention that in 2005 and 2006 he twice voted against a commission to study the government’s response to Katrina. He also opposed three separate emergency funding measures providing relief to Katrina victims, including the extension of five months of Medicaid benefits. And as Think Progress pointed out, “until traveling there one month ago, McCain had made just one public tour of New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina touched down in August 2005.”

And so it goes. As surely as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west each day, so too will John McCain change positions. (Like that other law of nature, McCain’s flip-flops are literally becoming a daily occurrence. Since this piece was originally drafted on Saturday, McCain added two new policy turnabouts - on phasing out rather than repealing the Alternative Minimum Tax and on requiring a litmus test for his judicial appointees - to his litany of reversals.)

Of course there is also the issue of torture on which McCain has so heinously showed himself as an opportunist of the lowest order. As Andrew Sullivan of “The Atlantic” wrote:

“McCain reveals himself as a positioner even on the subject on which he has gained a reputation for unimpeachable integrity. McCain has indeed been a leader in preventing the military from torturing terror suspects, and in banning waterboarding. But by leaving this lacuna in the law, he gives this president the space he wants. As president himself, of course, McCain would surely instruct the CIA to uphold the American way of interrogation, and not to adopt techniques once used by the Gestapo and prosecuted by the US as war crimes. But we now know that there will be one difference between Obama and McCain in November. One will never tolerate torture; the other just did.”

And last but not least is the issue of off shore oil drilling. McCain recently decided that along with a “gas tax” holiday he would again pander to the stupidest among us, because that is what he knows best, by reversing himself on the issue of off shore oil drilling as a remedy to the high price of gas. SAY WHAT?

Opening America’s coastal waters to oil drilling, as John McCain urged in an address Tuesday, is unlikely to provide Americans with more oil for at least seven to 10 years. That’s the estimate from the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry trade group. The Interior Department offered a wide range of estimates of how much oil might be within reach of U.S. offshore drilling in a 2006 report. It estimated that the Outer Continental Shelf could hold 115.4 billion barrels. However, it also estimated that recoverable reserves off U.S. coasts in areas now banned from production probably hold only about 19 billion barrels. One thousand million barrels equals 1 billion, so if there are 19 billion barrels in the areas McCain would open to drilling, that’s enough to provide about 920 days, or about 2.5 years, of current U.S. consumption.

Mr. McCain is an unabashed opportunist who has played his undeniably horrendous experience in Viet Nam with an unashamed gall that diminishes his own sacrifice and is insulting to every man and woman who has sacrificed for our nation, he has used every family connection he could use including connections that were morally corrupt (Keating), he doesn’t seem to hold an opinion very long if it is politically uncomfortable and he seems to take bad advice. He is not to bright but dangerously ambitious. Haven’t we had enough of that?

This has been a grueling primary season and historic in so many ways- not the least of these being the first viable woman and the first African American with an real opportunity to become the presidential nominee of a major political party and potentially President of the United States. It was also a primary season that left people feeling a range of emotions. Should it surprise any of us that two strong candidates who represent history and constituencies long ignored inspired their core base and engendered strong emotions?

Many of us did not think we would ever see the day where we had potentially the first female President or the first African American President. One can either claim that this has been an ironic twist of fate – after years of waiting for either of these historic moments that it was the year to see both of these historic campaigns occur in competition.  Or one can see it is an embarrassment of riches that is also an eloquent statement about the inclusiveness of the Democratic Party and the positive movement that our nation has made in dealing with gender and racial inequity.

Former President Bill Clinton waxed prosaic about the irony that he had been waiting his whole life to cast his vote for an African American running for President only to be in a position to find a woman running in the same election- a woman who was also his wife.

I tend to think of this choice we had as an embarrassment of riches, not a Solomon like quandary. Many supporters of Senator Clinton have said they would never vote for Senator Obama- they would vote for Senator McCain or stay home rather than vote for Senator Obama. I also acknowledge that some of Mr. Obama’s had the same level of passion and said similar things.

To those of you who are angry and leaning to voting for McCain or not voting, I plead with you to re-think this decision.

As fellow Democrats there is more than binds us than divides us. While this election is historic and it is easy to describe it in its starkest terms-black, female, age- it is more than that. This election should not be about being an African American’s turn, a woman’s turn or a septuagenarian’s turn for that matter.

Should women be proud of Senator Clinton’s campaign? Absolutely! Should women see Senator Clinton’s campaign as both historic and a real world lesson for their daughters’ hopes and of their mothers’ histories? Definitely! Was there a streak of misogyny apparent in the media’s coverage of the campaign? You bet there was!

Clearly African Americans have the same sense of pride about Mr. Obama and clearly there was overt and tacit racism present in the media’s coverage of this campaign as well.

While our nation has moved to a point where a woman and an African American have a real chance of leading our nation, there will still be those who will not vote for one or both of these candidates because they can’t pull that lever for either a woman or a black man. That is sad, but it is a fact. No matter what our arguments on behalf of Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama those people would never vote for one of these candidates- their prejudices (misogynistic and/or racist) are too ingrained and visceral to be swayed by intelligent discourse. I am not addressing my remarks to those who will not vote for Mr. Obama because he is black- those people will never vote for him. There is nothing I can say in a blog article that will erase their racism and frankly I won’t waste my time or their’s trying to do so.

This is open letter is to those of you who supported Mrs. Clinton and who are enlightened enough to see beyond gender and race.

While this election will always be historic and groundbreaking because of the demographics of the candidates- and that history should be acknowledged and celebrated; it should not be about their gender or race; it should not be about identity politics. It should be about the issues that we, as Democrats, care about and that bind us together.

The differences in policies between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama are nuanced and a pale shade of grey. The differences between Mr. Obama and Senator McCain are stark and black and white. We have a clear choice and an important one. In all due respect, if you supported Mrs. Clinton because of her stance on issues it would be insanity to vote for Mr. McCain or not to vote (effectively ceding your franchise and effectively helping Mr. McCain). I plead with you to think carefully.

First is the issue of the Supreme Court. The 44th President of the United States will likely appoint 2 new members to the Court and potentially 3.  Justice John Paul Stevens is 88 and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 75 and both are likely to retire during the next presidential term. It has been rumored that Justice David Souter, although only 68, would love to return to his home in New Hampshire and retire.

If Mr. McCain becomes President the court will definitely move far to the right. It is clear that Mr. McCain would nominate justices that are in the vein of Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito- three justices that the candidate is on record admiring. The current court is tilting to the right, a McCain presidency would take it far to the right and there is no doubt that Roe v. Wade would be overturned and a woman’s right to choose would be in jeopardy. Clearly, Mr. Obama does not have an agenda to overturn Roe v. Wade and supports a woman’s right to choose.

Mr. Obama has sound policies to address not only the issue of choice but many other issues of concern to women- http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/womenissues  

Mr. McCain’s policies on privatizing Social Security would put that program- a safety net for the nation’s elderly and disabled- at risk. The burden on elderly Americans is already significant and Mr. McCain’s policies would only exacerbate those burdens. Mr. Obama wants to shore up the Social Security Trust Fund. Would that mean higher taxes? It would raise taxes on 6% of Americans- the 6% that make over $97,000 a year. It has never made sense to me that there is a cap on Social security taxes that tax the poorest but do eliminate a tax liability for the richest. Let’s be honest about Social Security- it needs to be protected and in order to ensure that it functions and works for future generations raising or eliminating that cap makes sense. We should listen to Warren Buffet- the richest man in the country- he believes that folks like him should be paying a higher percentage of their income to taxes- including Social Security. In an interview he talked about how absurd it is that his administrative assistant pays a higher percentage of her income in taxes than he does. Mr. Obama’s removal of the cap for the Social Security tax will not be popular among the advocates for the wealthy but it is fair and will go a long way to keeping the program solvent. Mr. Obama is offering real solutions that do not burden middle and low income Americans to sustain Social Security to continue providing needed financial help for the elderly. Mr. Obama’s plans for social security can be found at http://www.barackobama.com/issues/seniors  

Mr. Obama has a plan that would essentially offer universal coverage. It is true that Mrs. Clinton’s program went further than Mr. Obama’s does, but Mr. Obama’s is a plan that is light years better than the restructuring of the health care market place that Mr. McCain proposes. Essentially Mr. McCain offers no sort of health care reform. Ironically, Mr. McCain’s plan would make it difficult for people like him- Americans with preëxisting conditions- to obtain affordable care. Mr. Obama’s health care plan can be found at http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/  

Mr. Obama actually has thoughts about education something on which Mr. McCain has not offered much of a position. Mr. Obama believes that we must equip poor and struggling districts, both rural and urban, with the support and resources they need to provide disadvantaged students with an opportunity to reach their full potential. Too often, our leaders present this issue as an either - or debate, divided between giving our schools more funding, or demanding more accountability. Mr. Obama believes that we have to do both and has offered a cogent plan available on his website http://www.barackobama.com/issues/education/ .

Mr. Obama’s position on the war in Iraq is well known and unlike Mr. McCain he acknowledges that this war is not worth more blood and treasure. Mr. Obama believes that this ill-conceived war that has done nothing to address the threat of terrorism has taken the lives of too many of our nation’s sons and daughters. This issue too is addressed on his website in depth http://www.barackobama.com/issues/iraq/ and a description of his sound foreign policy objectives can be found at http://www.barackobama.com/issues/foreignpolicy/ 

Today- we heard more disastrous economic news. Higher unemployment, more home foreclosures, skyrocketing oil prices, obscene gas prices. Mr. McCain acknowledges that economics is not his strong suit and he offers nothing more than more of the disastrous economic policies of Mr. Bush- policies that benefit the wealthiest among us and multinational corporations that ship jobs abroad and has no qualms about spending billions of dollars on a war while ignoring our domestic economic disaster and our crumbling infrastructure. Again there is more information at http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/  

The Democratic Party must be unified in this election. It is a pivotal time for our nation. With 81% of all Americans having the opinion that the nation is headed in the wrong direction, the last thing we need is Mr. McCain’s replay of Mr. Bush.

Mr. McCain has a reputation as a maverick which is appealing to many. However whatever maverick tendency the Senator may once have possessed has evaporated in recent years. It is clear that Mr. McCain has consistently moved to the right in recent years- in ways that are troubling. His commendable comments about Jerry Falwell as an agent of intolerance were bold for a Republican but he later caved and embraced Falwell at Liberty University- not unlike the embrace he had, and continues to have, with George W. Bush.

So, my fellow citizens, my friends who supported Mrs. Clinton- please think about the significance of your action in November. A vote for no one or a vote for Mr. McCain is simply not an option for any one who agrees with Mrs. Clinton on the issues. Please join me and ensure that Mr. McCain does not become the next President. I know that you may never be the supporter of and believer in Mr. Obama that I am, but our nation needs you to make the right choice and ensure that we do not have four more years of a Bush presidency in the name of McCain and morphed into McBush.

Your party and your nation need you to cast your vote for Mr. Obama.

With all of the election fever and the pace of 24 hour news, we often lose the ability to sit back and reflect. Amidst all of the speculation of Hillary Clinton’s next move, who will be the Vice President and the punditry examining electoral maps for the general election and the negative prognostications coming from the parsing of polls done in the heat and passion of the Democratic primary and its immediate (24-48 hour) aftermath history was made. Not just political history but cultural history and world history. I was fortunate enough to be in Washington DC the evening of the Potomac primaries- a significant evening for Mr. Obama and I was in Washington DC again when Mr. Obama clinched the nomination of his party. The energy in the nation’s capitol was palpable.

Senator Obama becoming the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party is a moment worthy of reflection- it is indeed a profound moment.

Barack Obama walked onto a stage in Minnesota on Tuesday night and stepped into the pages of American history and said “Tonight we mark the end of one historic journey with the beginning of another”, he said, “a journey that will bring a new and better day to America.

“Tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States.”

Now, put this moment into the context of the broad sweep of the American story, where race has always been one of the central factors.

Nearly 400 years ago, a human cargo of men and women from what is now the African nation of Angola were brought in chains from an English ship to the colony of Jamestown on the Virginia coast.
In the centuries that followed, the uncompensated labour of hundreds of thousands of slaves built up America’s wealth, as well as creating vast fortunes for English, French and Dutch slave traders.
The white stone US Capitol building, a national symbol, was built in part by slave labour.
Later, the US fought the most bitter, bloody and most destructive war in its history in order to preserve the Union and eradicate the evil of slavery.

But the decades that followed President Abraham Lincoln’s emancipation of the slaves were harsh and full of repression, racism and violence.

The civil rights movement that began in the 1950s wrote one of the greatest hapters in the American story.

And now this: A black man is the nominee of a major American party to lead its battle for the White House.

It will force a lot of people here and across the globe to reassess their idea of America.

But still it is larger than all of that. On Tuesday evening Senator Barack Obama became the first man of African descent in any Western nation to entertain the possibility of presiding over its government-including Australia, Canada, and any European nation- and the world is taking notice.

Across the globe, pundits and politicians of all stripes competed for hyperbole on Wednesday to applaud Senator Barack Obama’s claim of victory in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, almost as if he had already been elected to the White House.

His triumph in the primaries, many said, signaled the defeat of racism, and if Senator Obama became president, his election would presage a departure from what outsiders have broadly depicted as the go-it-alone belligerence of the Bush era.

That anticipatory exuberance cut across party lines. Just in France, Ségolène Royal, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Socialist rival in last year’s French presidential election, said in a telephone interview that Mr. Obama “embodies the America of today and tomorrow.”

Equally enthusiastically, Patrick Devedjian, the head of President Sarkozy’s center-right political party, called Mr. Obama’s candidacy ‘’a very beautiful image of America, the image of a candidate who transcends race and got to where he is because of merit alone.” And Bertrand Delanoë, the mayor of Paris, declared: “His candidacy carries an enormous hope for his country and for peace in the world.”

The banner headline across The Kenya Times on Wednesday seemed to say it all, “Obama makes history, beats odds.”

A day after Senator Barack Obama secured the Democratic presidential nomination, villagers in his father’s hometown shouted traditional songs and praised God for the outsized success of a “village son.”

Here in the capital, office workers turned their attentions to the radio and television stations that constantly replayed Mr. Obama’s victory speech. Unemployed men in the slums toasted the moment with a popular brand of beer, Senator Keg lager, that Kenyans have renamed “Obama.”

Beneath the sense of joy was cautious optimism. Despite the milestone reached by Mr. Obama, whose father was Kenyan, many Kenyans say that Republicans in the United States remain powerful, well financed and difficult to beat and that Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, has the inexorable advantage of being a white candidate in a largely white nation.

“It’s still too early to celebrate,” Joyce Nkuubi, 45, a florist, said. “He has some more work to do if he’s to defeat McCain.”
The day was certainly not as jubilant as it was when Mr. Obama visited Kenya in 2006 in an orchestrated four-country African tour to raise awareness of AIDS and connect with his roots. Thousands of people lined the streets of Nairobi to catch a glimpse of him, waiting hours in the sun.

But in the west, in Nyangoma-Kogelo, a collection of tin-roofed shacks and rutted dirt roads with little electricity or running water, a celebration occurred without him. Scores of villagers flocked to the home of Sarah Obama, his step-grandmother, to dance in the family compound and pray.

“Everybody there is full of excitement,” Barack Karama, a journalist in western Kenya, said. “There are many journalists, as well as people who are streaming in and out to offer congratulatory messages to the grandmother.”

Ms. Obama said she had predicted the victory, Mr. Karama said.
Many residents of Nyangoma-Kogelo are subsistence farmers, and Mr. Obama has come to represent pride and hope for them.

Because of his celebrity, the village has become something of a focal point, with journalists of many stripes putting up at a nearby port, Kisumu.
“I have spent the whole day here in Kisumu talking with journalists,” said Said Obama, an uncle of the senator.

Many Kenyans seemed to have few expectations that Mr. Obama, if elected president, would suddenly steer American policies to their advantage. But they saw significant, if sometimes indirect benefits.

“Since Obama has his roots in Kenya, it is obvious that Kenya and Africa will receive a lot of international attention,” Maurice Ogola, 31, computer technician, said. “That international limelight on Kenya and Africa is very good.

“We need much foreign aid, we need a lot of help to boost our economic growth, and that can come from a new America. Obama has a lot of potential to bring the much needed change.”

Kwabena Sam-Brew, a 38-year-old immigrant from Ghana, doubted that Nana, his 5-year-old American-born daughter, would remember the rally that effectively crowned Senator Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee Tuesday night.

But Mr. Sam-Brew said he would describe it to her: “I will tell her, ‘Tonight is the night that all Americans became one.’ ”

Mr. Sam-Brew, a bus driver living in Cottage Grove, Minn., said Mr. Obama’s achievement would change the nation’s image around the world, and change the mind-set of Americans, too.
“We as black people now have hope that we have never, ever had,” Mr. Sam-Brew said. “I have new goals for my little girl. She can’t give me any excuses because she’s black.”
In his remarks Tuesday, Mr. Obama did not mention becoming the first American of color with a real chance at being president of the United States, and, of course, most of the Democrats who had voted for him were white. But for that very reason, many African-Americans exulted Wednesday in a political triumph that they believed they would never live to see. Many expressed hope that their children would draw strength from the moment.

“Not that we’re so distraught, but our children need to be able to see a black adult as a leader for the country, so they can know we can reach for those same goals,” said Wilhelmina Brown, 54, an account representative for U.S. Bank in St. Paul. “We don’t need to give up at a certain level.”

Alison Kane, a white 34-year-old transportation analyst from Edina, Minn., said Mr. Obama’s success as a biracial politician would have a similar effect on her 21-month-old biracial daughter, Hawa.

“When she’s out in, God knows where, some small town in rural America, they’ll think, ‘Oh, I know someone like you. Our president is like you,’ ” Ms. Kane said. “That just opens minds for people, to have someone to relate to. And that makes me feel better, as a mom.”

But pride — in Mr. Obama and in white voters who had looked beyond race, in the view of many blacks — was tempered for many African-Americans by an unsettling concern. There remains a fear that race, which loomed large in some primaries and has previously been successfully employed as a political wedge by Republicans, might yet keep Mr. Obama from capturing the White House.

“People hate black people,” said Michella Minter, a black 21-year-old student in Huntington, W.Va., referring to persistent racism in the United States.

“I’m not trying to be racist or over the top but it is seriously apparent that black people aren’t valued in this country,” Ms. Minter said. “In the last 12 months, six kids were being tried for attempted murder for a school fight, an unarmed man got 51 bullets in his body by a New York police officer, died, and no one was charged, and endless other racist unknown acts have occurred this year.” (In fact, three New York City detectives were charged in the shooting of Sean Bell, killed in a hail of police bullets on his wedding day in 2006, and were acquitted.)

Mr. Obama’s moment seemed to unite blacks across the political spectrum, even those who had no intention of voting for a Democrat for president.

For example, Ward Connerly, a conservative anti-affirmative-action crusader and chairman of the American Civil Rights Institute, watched a replay of the announcement of Mr. Obama’s victory on Fox News early Wednesday “and I choked up,” he said. “He did it by his own achievement. Nobody gave it to him.” Mr. Connerly expressed hope that Mr. Obama’s rise would boost his own efforts to end affirmative action.
“The entire argument for race preferences is that society is institutionally racist and institutionally sexist, and you need affirmative action to level the playing field,” Mr. Connerly said. “The historic success of Senator Obama, as well as Senator Clinton, dismantles that argument.”

Mr. Obama has said that affirmative-action programs should become “a diminishing tool” in achieving racial equality, and has asked blacks to understand why such programs might engender resentment among whites, suggesting that poor white children also need a boost. Although he did not cast his victory in racial terms on Tuesday, he acknowledged on Wednesday that it might be having an effect on other African-Americans.

“Probably the most powerful story I heard was today at a conference, a woman came up to me,” he said in an interview on NBC News. “She said her son teaches in an inner-city school in San Francisco and said that he has seen a change in behavior among the young African-American boys there in terms of how they think about their studies. And, you know, so those are the kinds of things that I think make you appreciate that it’s not about you as an individual. But it’s about our country and the progress we’ve made.”
Thus far, Mr. Obama’s appeal has extended across racial lines, though to win in November he must do better in gaining the votes of white women and white working-class voters, whom he lost in Appalachia.

Yet on Tuesday, Ann Robb, a 61-year-old white school teacher from Terra Alta, W.Va. said he had won her support.

“I would’ve supported Hillary Clinton but something about Obama makes me believe again,” Ms. Robb said. That spirit, however long it lasts, already has left some African-Americans more optimistic than they have ever been about race relations in America.
“You can never change everybody’s minds, but it is going to help a lot,” said Mr. Sam-Brew, the bus driver, referring to Mr. Obama’s victory and the enduring resistance among some white voters to black leaders.

In Harlem on Wednesday, Hector Garcia, an African-American who manages Pee Dee Steak II, a restaurant on 125th Street, said the symbolism of Mr. Obama’s victory had not sunk in until he headed to work in the morning, when he saw the excitement it had produced.

The driver of an M102 bus chatted about it with a passenger. The owner of a hair salon and eyeglass store stopped Mr. Garcia on the sidewalk. And his customers were buzzing about it over their $6.99 steak.

“A lot of people think things will be different for the black community now,” said Mr. Garcia, 48, who supported Mrs. Clinton and has a photo of her on his wall. “It’s great.”
Ronald Jeffers, who gets a good beat on Harlem’s pulse handing out fliers under the marquee of the Apollo Theater, said he heard passers-by buzzing about Mr. Obama’s victory.

“I think it’s a monumental step,” said Mr. Jeffers, 55, who said he had been friends with Malcolm X and other leaders. The nomination is especially significant for Harlem’s children, he said, because “if they see this, they will think it’s something they can do.”
“Otherwise,” Mr. Jeffers said, “they look up to rappers.”

Jackie Almond, who cuts hair at the Pizazz Salon and Spa on Lenox Avenue in Harlem, said she was on the phone when she learned of the victory and broke into screams.
“I was like, ‘aaaahhhh,’ ” she said. “Never in a million years would I have thought this was possible.”

I agree with Mr. Almond. I never would have thought this possible in a million years. But here we are. We are indeed living at a pivotal moment in history. I hope we both reflect on its magnitude and seize its potential.

I guess the months between now and November will be rich with fodder for the blogosphere- the first slavo of the general election campaign has been lobbed by of all people the lame duck president- George W. Bush. (I’m sure Senator McCain is thankful for the President’s support!)

I am a little late to the party writing about the President’s inappropriate remarks at the Knesset because in many ways the remarks speak for themselves- they are wildly inappropriate – like most of the actions of his administration. I won’t even dignify the President’s discussion of domestic politics at the podium of a foreign parliament or the evocation of Hitler to the Israeli Knesset. But Senator McCain has grabbed onto the word Appeasement- a word they have so blatantly misused and he is like a dog with a bone. So I guess this is with us for a while.

After watching Chris Matthews eviscerate conservative radio host Kevin James trying to get James to define what appeasement really is and what the act of appeasement was in 1938 by Neville Chamberlain, I would have thought that the conservative right would think twice before using this word so recklessly.

The actual definition of appeasement, literally: calming, reconciling, acquiring peace by way of concessions or gifts (the verb ‘to pay’ also goes back to the Latin ‘pax’ = peace). Most commonly, appeasement is used for the policy of accepting the imposed conditions of an aggressor in lieu of armed resistance, usually at the sacrifice of principles. Usually it means giving in to demands of an aggressor in order to avoid war. Since World War II, the term has gained a negative connotation in the British government, in politics and in general, of weakness, cowardice and self-deception.

President Bush, who brandished about the ill-remembered prime minister’s name in the Israeli parliament, last week. Bush implicitly likened Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s statements about diplomacy to Chamberlain, and the idea that aggressive dictators should have their demands appeased. Dispelling any doubts about the target of Bush’s remarks, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has made the same accusation, while naming Obama. Both men have simultaneously, however, unfairly maligned one of the best tools that American leaders have at their disposal: presidential diplomacy.

Obama sparked controversy when he declared last summer that he would be willing, without preconditions, to meet with unfriendly foreign leaders, such as the presidents of Iran or Venezuela. Obama bases his stance on the history of U.S. diplomacy, citing presidents such as John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Anti- communist to his core, Reagan still thought that the risks of nuclear war made dialogue with Moscow a moral and political necessity. Nor did Reagan regard dialogue with Soviet leaders as any kind of appeasement. Reagan’s commitment to dialogue paved the way for a peaceful conclusion to the Cold War.

Another vigorous practitioner of presidential diplomacy was a Democrat whom Reagan particularly admired: Kennedy. Like Reagan, Kennedy came to office believing that the United States stood at a critical point in the Cold War, and that it desperately needed to regain its good standing in the world. During his first year in office, Kennedy met with the feisty Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, and numerous other foreign leaders. Many of these men were widely disliked in the United States - Kennedy did his political standing no favors by meeting with them. Nonetheless Kennedy, a decorated World War II veteran, and the author of a bestselling study of Chamberlain’s policies, never thought meeting with these leaders was akin to appeasing them. Indeed, Kennedy always argued his case vigorously, giving his counterparts reason to respect and take him seriously - as either a friend or a foe. The Kennedy years witnessed real improvement in the image of the United States throughout the world, as shown by a remarkable global outpouring of grief that followed his assassination.

This is the tradition of diplomacy to which Obama refers. It is a strange turn of events when our leaders cast off the bipartisan U.S. commitment to diplomacy in the belief that we give something away just by meeting with foreign leaders.

Speaking this week, McCain deemed this policy reckless; but it would have been far more reckless for either Kennedy or Reagan to shun the Soviet Union or make dialogue with it contingent on extensive preconditions. It would be ideal if, as McCain has said, such meetings could only occur when they promise to advance American prestige, but neither Reagan nor Kennedy thought the issues that they faced could wait for the diplomatic stars to move into perfect alignment - nor should we.

Confronting the problems of a fractured world, we can reassure ourselves by invoking Chamberlain’s errors one more time. Or, perhaps, we can remember his successor, Winston Churchill, who stood up bravely to Hitler, but who also remarked about dialogue: “To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.”

But Barack Obama is not the only one who should be taking offense at President Bush’s insistence that anyone having truck with terrorists is no better than Neville Chamberlain and, furthermore, ignores the lessons of the Holocaust.

According to an opinion poll last February, 64% of Israelis — many of them Holocaust survivors or their relatives and descendants — wanted their government to talk directly to Hamas.

Many Israeli analysts and senior military officers have long felt the same way. For example:

Hamas is not going to disappear,” says Shlomo Brom, a former Israeli military chief of strategic planning. “They’re not Al Qaeda; they’re a national political movement.” Brom, who favors indirect negotiations with Hamas, says he believes a dialogue could help moderate the Islamists.