Steven Jonas

On the evening that George McGovern was nominated for the presidency by the Democratic Party in 1972, I stayed up until about 1:30 a.m. EDT to see and hear his acceptance speech on television. (Why so late? Because a representative of every single identity group that had supported him for the nomination insisted on getting podium time before he would speak. That was only the first disaster of that ever so badly run campaign. But that's another story.) Sen. McGovern gave a brilliant speech on a) the necessity of getting the U.S. out of Vietnam with all deliberate speed and b) on the necessity of returning to traditional American values after four years of Nixon. (Sound familiar?)

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Why the Coverage of Wright was Wrong

Rachel Maddow is the number one (and number two and three) star of Air America Radio. She is now appearing regularly on the (in U.S. terms) left-leaning MSNBC, and even sat in as host for Keith Olbermann on May 16, 2008. To my ears, she is generally correct in her analyses. But she was wrong when asked what was wrong with the Rev. Wright "debate" that went on and on and on, on the mainstream media (with MSNBC's "Morning Joe" talking about little else over a two-week period). She said the problem was lack of balance on dealing with toxic Reverends. That was there surely, and it will likely continue throughout the campaign, as McCain's toxic Reverends never or perhaps barely make it to the radar. They did make a blip last week when McCain unceremoniously dumped two of them. But courtesy of Rove/McCain, you can be sure the Rev. Wright will be back full-time in October. After all, the Republicans have nothing else to run on.

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Bush Accuses Democrats of Appeasement -- and He's Right!

In that famous speech before the Israeli Knesset last week, Bush accused of the Democrats of appeasement. Apparently he did no know the definition of the term and that right-wing Republican radio screamer Kevin James, who was undressed by Chris Matthews on Hardball certainly didn't. Appeasement is not simply negotiating with an enemy. It is negotiating with an enemy or potential enemy and giving away something significant without getting anything of substance in return. So, when Bush hurled the charge at the Democrats, let's say just in Congress, boy was he right: on tax cuts for the rich, on the original authorization for the War on Iraq, on deregulation, on Supreme Court appointments, on energy policy, on continuing funding (by borrowing only) for the war, on the Patriot and Military Commissions Acts, on giving Congress the third-finger salute on so many occasions that even seasoned observers have lost count. Yes, you name it. The Democrats have been up to their necks in appeasement since the beginning of the BushCheney Regime, of the Regime.

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Ohmygosh. Bob Barr has announced his candidacy for the Libertarian Party's nomination for President. Where does that leave Ralph Nader as a spoiler for the Democrats? If Barr gets the nomination, they will just cancel each other out. Go Bob!

Ron Paul has announced that he is "going to take it all the way to the (Republican) Convention." Wonder what he has up his sleeve. He has taken the "Songbird John" statements from various co-Vietnam POWs of McCain's down from his Web site. Huckabee has taken down such statements too. (They both had them up in February.) Maybe he and Hillary will join as a third-party ticket, you know, both of them "reaching across the aisle." Boy, the aisle could get pretty crowded out there.

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The Clintons and their surrogates love to talk about "counting all the votes," "popular vote totals," "caucuses don't count," "Florida and Michigan should," and etc., all aimed at "influencing the superdelegates to do what is best for the party, giving it/us the best chance of winning in November." Of course those popular vote totals, as well as exit poll results, are possibly skewed by some totally indeterminate, undetermined, and undeterminable amount in those states, such as Indiana,

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The calendar is moving on to what was the first American labor day holiday, May 1, "May Day," founded in the 1880s in the hometown of BuzzFlash, Chicago, IL. As it does, time is winding down on the Clinton campaign to claim the Democratic nomination for President or at least prevent Barack Obama, in one way or another, from becoming president (Jonas, S., "Why Does Hillary Keep Running?" The Political Junkies.net, 4/9/08). In doing so, there are currently three magic numbers for Hillary: 178,000, 16 and 1.

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Everyone (well, lots of people) have been complaining about the 45 "Gotcha minutes" that Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos ran in the ABC "debate" April 16. Much too much, is the general opinion, with some folks holding out for none. As for me, I take a contrary view. Not enough, I say. Of those 45 minutes, a majority were devoted to bringing up "stuff" about Senator Obama. I guess Gibson and Stephanopoulos just were feeling the pressure to get on to "the issues" so they just didn't have the time to ask Sen. Clinton some similar-type questions that they surely had prepared. Now I don't have access to the ABC prep desks for that "debate," but surely such questions would have included the following, don't you think?

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It is not widely known that Senator Gentleman Johnny McCain, the maverick, the straight shooter, the straight-talker, has been outspoken on matters religious, concerning our country.

For example (courtesy of The National Jewish Democratic Council, January 8, 2008) he has said that: "a candidate's Christian faith is ‘an important characteristic for a President,' that he would prefer a Christian president, that the ‘Constitution established The United States of America as a Christian nation,' and that ‘America is a Christian nation, and it (sic) is hardly a controversial claim' (The New York Sun, October 1, 2007)." He has also declared that he did not regard non-Christians as qualified to govern in the United States (The Progress Report, "Blackout and Brownout," Oct. 1, 2007). If the party-less Sen. Joe Lieberman ever picks up on that one, one would suppose that it would come as a surprise to him, especially if he actually is angling for the Vice-Presidential nod on the McCain ticket. But hey, you never know.

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Last week, in supporting their campaign's decision to "stay in it until the end," former President Clinton said words to the effect of "real Democrats want every vote to count," and also, it could be implied, "want to count every vote." Thus, he said there would be no pulling back, pulling out of the remaining primary contests. Those voters who had not yet had a chance to vote in a Democratic primary had every right to have their votes counted, for their candidates of choice.

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Recently both BuzzFlash Editor/Publisher Mark Karlin and I have written only slightly tongue-in-cheek columns suggesting that Hillary Clinton would make a good vice presidential candidate -- on the McCain ticket. After all, McCain could well be looking for a Democrat and his good friend and alter ego Joe Lieberman just won't do: McCain said last fall that non-Christians are not qualified to govern (The Progress Report, "Blackout and Brownout," Oct. 1, 2007).

So how is Hillary sucking up to McCain? Quoting from Mark Karlin's article: "It is the one inviolable rule of party politics; don't promote the other party's candidate at the expense of your own. . . . In the past couple of weeks, Senator Hillary Clinton has violated that cardinal rule again and again as she personally vouched for the readiness of John McCain to assume the presidency, while belittling Barack Obama as nothing more than a speech. . . . ‘[Y]ou'll have to ask Sen. Obama with respect to his candidacy,' she said. . . . Calling McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee a good friend and a "distinguished man with a great history of service to our country,' Clinton said."

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