BuzzFlash Mailbag for March 28, 2008

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Subject: So We're In One Of Those Movies Where From Out Of All The Turmoil & Chaos ...

"With the powers that be desperately trying to hold on."

"Faced with a serious economic downturn."

"Caused by a blood for oil war."

"And with said war now heating up barely two weeks before General David Petraeus is to give his latest report on the situation in Iraq."

"Which is why the puppet Iraqi government is rushing its puppet army to put down the uprising now taking place in Basra."

"Meanwhile, back in Baghdad, according to the LA Times, 'Militia keeps U.S., Iraqi forces out of Sadr City.'"

"Casting doubt on whether the war-pimping General Petraeus will be able to get away with feeding us another of his infamous 'Yes, the going's still tough but we're winning, and there's a light at the end of the tunnel' lullabies."

"Which means?"

"President George Bush's goose is cooked."

"And then what sort of world?"

"It'll be up to us."

A BuzzFlash Reader

Subject: So Bill Clinton Says If You Can't Take A Football Clip ...

Hi BuzzFlash,

How ironic that somebody from the Clinton campaign says Barack has to saddle up and be able to take a football type hit.

Hey, Bill, how about talking to your wife and her campaign staff about NOT Being Able to take the word "monster" from Samantha Power?

Remember how Hillary's campaign demanded that Obama fire Samantha Power right away?

I guess not being able to take it, back then, was ok.

And what about Hillary's NAFTA tirade when she yelled "Shame on you, Barack Obama!!"?

Didn't Hillary have her "helmet and shoulder pads" on that day either?

It's time for Barack to re-hire Samantha Power and send Bill a "thank-you" note for allowing Samantha to get her back on the Obama team.

Oh, and Hillary - cut the BS on your website about being so involved with getting the Family Medical Leave Act passed ... "As First Lady, she helped pass the Family and Medical Leave Act [...]

It was Senator Chris Dodd who started and worked hard on getting that bill through, since 1986. You were into your 16th Day as first lady.

As Kos wrote this morning:

Family Leave Act
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/...

Tom Wieliczka
Windsor Locks, CT

Subject: Bush' 22 Year-Old Arms Dealer

You gotta check this one out Buzz

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008...

22 year old awarded contract to supply afghanis with obsolete weapons. Good old private enterprise.

Tom Coomb

Kaslo BC Canada

Here's a tip ... let me warn everyone who is confused by what you read and hear. Do your homework, and don't let the media choose your candidate! Read and listen with suspicion! For instance, the blogs I used to support such as BuzzFlash; Daily Kos; Huffington Post; Salon; Josh Marshall; or writers such as, David Sirota; David Corn; Frank Rich; E. J. Dionne; or radio's Air America with Thom Hartmann; Randi Rhodes; or comedian Bill Maher; or MoveOn.org; or Keith Olbermann! They have stopped reporting and have started force feeding a biased agenda. I can no longer count on unfiltered information from these people, nor should you!!

G. Domenic
Peoria, AZ

[BuzzFlash Note: Okay. Just tell us you will stay away from Fox.]

I do have to wonder why the truth of her Bosnia experience was not good enough (as pointed out in another BuzzFlash article). She was the first First Lady since Ms. Roosevelt to go into a combat zone. There are real risks involved. I don't buy the sleep deprivation thing, she embellished way too much, she told the same story way too often with vivid detail.

I have heard that her sugar daddies have threatened the Democratic Party if the superdelegates can't be bought and instead follow the will of the people.

I do understand those that support her having a strong emmotional response to those of us on the other side ... but despite their whining and shrieks of come on now ... the truth is and the facts are that it is highly unlikely she will win and her continuance is weakening our party and our prospects to regain the White House.

Barack Obama has won fair and square. You can't decide you are going to redefine winning. You can't say that because Barack is only 125 or 150 delegates ahead and is up several hundred thousand in the popular vote that it is a tie because ... No It's Not. Stop acting like Republicans. It was a hellava fight.

I was an Edwards supporter. I could not believe that no one was listening to his message, but he got out, he did what was right. It took me some time but I got over it. I went back to the websites, I reread the positions of who was left and made my choice. Let's get on with it. We need to open up our can of whoop ass on Johnny McCan't.

Jim Ridout
Albuquerque, New Mexico

Why don't you link to Paul Krugman's columns any more? He convincingly demonstrates that Hillary's economic policies are more progressive than the "liberal" Obama's. Maybe I just answered my own question.

Loans and Leadership

A BuzzFlash Reader

[BuzzFlash Note: FYI: We've run three Krugman pieces this month: Partying Like It's 1929; Paul Krugman on Taxpayer Bailouts of the Banking Industry; and Paul Krugman: The Face-Slap Theory; 'Friday’s employment report — which was so weak that it had many economists declaring that we’re already in a recession — was bad news. But it was actually less disturbing than what’s going on in the financial markets.']

Thursday, March 27, 2008 Connecticut names Obama supporter as add-on

Wednesday was Connecticut's turn to name its add-on superdelegate:

The Connecticut Democratic superdelegate ranks are complete with the selection of State Senate President Pro Tem Donald E. Williams, D-Brooklyn ... he is a leader of the Obama campaign in Connecticut.

More specifically, Williams is co-chair of Barack Obama's Connecticut Leadership Council along with Ned Lamont, and we will be adding him to the Obama column.

http://demconwatch.blogspot.com/2008/01/super...

A BuzzFlash Reader

First let me tell you I am not a Hillary supporter. Secondly, I am a long time BuzzFlash reader and have bought items from your site to help you folks spread the liberal word. But your obsession with bashing and reprinting anything negative about the Clintons is approaching the ridiculous. You might as well go to work for the McCrazies for all the help you have been giving them. And for what? You have some soul searching to do my friends.

Dave Lessick
Milwaukie, OR

"What else could he say?"

"That because of his lies the body count to date is 4001 of our very own and who knows how many hundreds of thousands of Iraqis."

"And that for these crimes against humanity he knows that he'll be put on trial at the International Court of Criminal Justice.

"How's that going to come about?"

"We elect a president who ends the Iraq War, negotiates with Iran plus turning things around here at home."

"And then what sort of world?"

"It'll be up to us."

A BuzzFlash Reader

Much has been made of the polls showing Obama and Clinton supporters indicating their lack of support for the other candidate should he/she become the nominee. I began this political season as a mild Edwards supporter. I now support Obama, and feel that a candidate such as he comes along once in a generation.

I always assumed I would vote for the party's nominee, whoever it is. But now I can say for certain that Hillary has lost my vote -- not because of anything the other candidates have said, not because of media coverage -- because of HER.

She was the first to go negative. She is willing to destroy another Democrat to get what she wants. She is willing to forsake the party for her own purposes. She lacks the courage to answer questions which may be the least bit controversial -- she dodges and triangulates. She subtly plays the race card. She appeals to our fears and prejudices.

In short, she behaves like the worst of the Republicans. Not to mention that Hillary Clinton is not the experienced, well-qualified woman we've all been waiting for. The first woman governor of my state started out on the local school board and worked her way up through the legislature, state office, to the governorship. Hers was a story typical of other leaders like Feinstein, Boxer, Sibelius, etc. Hillary waltzes into a state she never lived in and becomes a U.S. Senator, solely because she was married to the President. The only reason she's seen as the best hope for women is that she has a chance to win.

Unlike her supporters, who have said they will vote for McCain if she is not the nominee, I'll simply not vote for President if she somehow steals the nomination. That's called an "undervote," and politicians understand what an undervote means. It means that this Democrat couldn't support the party's candidate, that mine is a vote lost to the party, that many of us are sick of the Republican-style politics of personal destruction and refuse to support it, that we are tired of having our intelligence insulted by negative, cynical demagogues. It says that, if you want my vote, treat me like an adult, appeal to the best in me rather than the worst, make intelligent, honest arguments and trust that I will fairly evaluate them. If you can't do that, then leave me out.

And, by the way, all the women who say they will vote for McCain if Hillary loses the nomination might want to think about what that means. McCain will appoint at least three Supreme Court justices, who will repeal Roe v. Wade and establish government hegemony over every uterus in the country. Elect him and you may just get what you deserve.

In short, it is Clinton's own campaign that has completely turned me off, and convinced me that she would be a disaster as President.

A BuzzFlash Reader

I have been a faithful reader of BuzzFlash and a supporter of moveon.org until recently. You have gone out of your way to show how Hillary Clinton is pushing to get the delegates counted in Florida and Michigan in a negative way. If the Bush administration was running the same stories that you support you would be responding loudly.

You do not choose to point out that the Republicans in Florida chose the date of the primary not Hillary Clinton. The citizens of Florida and Michigan have the right to have their voted counted in the way they were cast on the day that the primary was held. The voters and the candidates had no control over the date of the primary and we should not be punished by our own party because we showed up to vote when we were told to by the elected government of our states.

You also do not point out that both candidates honored the no campaigning rule and Hillary won by a large margin anyway. You do not point out that Obama was the one who went the extra step and had his name removed from the ballot instead of letting the voters of Michigan have their say in who they wanted to represent them as their president. You do not point out that neither Hillary or Obama had any particular advantage in the primary that was run and the people voted.*

I believe that Hillary should get the appropriate percentage of delegates in Florida based on how they would have been awarded if there was no problem, and I believe Hillary should get all the delegates in Michigan because Obama did not have the foresight to keep his name on the ballot (like Hillary did).

WE are in a very closely matched contest for our next president and I believe all the little choices and decisions that each candidate makes goes into the public's decision in choosing who will be the right person to lead our country next. I do believe that Obama made a HUGE mistake in removing his name from the ballot and this is one of the decisions that go against him when I evaluate who I want making the decisions that guide our country in the future.

I think BuzzFlash and moveon.org should remain neutral and not do the same cherry picking of information to print in the same manner that Cheney chose the intelligence to show congress in the lead up to the war in IRAQ.

Jerry

[BuzzFlash Note: We've written various assessments about the FL/MI delegate issue. It's complex, little understood, and still developing. We are sympathetic to the FL/MI voters. They appear to have been trapped by the maneuvers of career politicians in their states, at the national level, and, it's worth noting, by the state dem parties of Iowa, NH, S. Carolina and Nevada that extracted the candidates' "pledges" to keep their four states out front. All along, the DNC has said FL/MI will be accommodated. It seems to be just a matter of time and negotiations. *We do think Clinton had the edge in contests where campaigning was forbidden, since she had high name recognition, and close ties to Democrats who either were part of, or benefited from, Bill Clinton's administration.]

Subject: This And That

I had such high hopes for Hillary Clinton. I had imagined that my vote in 2008 would be for HRC. But I have vowed (to myself) that I would never vote for ANYBODY who ran on a campaign of dirty tricks ala Rove/Atwater instead of addressing the issues at hand. If Hillary wins the Democratic nomination I will need to vote for a third party candidate. Yes, I will undoubtedly be throwing my vote away. But I am not going to vote for someone who behaves like a Republican. Meanwhile, John McCain breaks the laws about campaign spending. His campaign is run by lobbyists. Therefore, the corporate media has chosen McCain as the next president. And remember: laws do not apply to wealthy Republicans.

Mick Fowler
Glendale AZ

[BuzzFlash Note: Like Hillary Clinton, we urge Democrats to vote for the Democrat.]

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