Constituent input in government? Barack's novel concept

An excerpt from "The World is Waiting", an Obama campaign email:

A comprehensive agenda for America's foreign policy requires the input and participation of the millions of Americans who have a stake in the outcome.

We've provided a place where you can submit your ideas to add to the ones Barack laid out today. Your input will be a component of our policy development process and part of the ongoing expansion of our campaign's agenda. Share your ideas and priorities for America's foreign policy here:

http://my.barackobama.com/ideas

As Barack pointed out today, the position of "leader of the free world" has been vacant for some time.

For too long we've seen the consequences of a foreign policy based on a flawed ideology, and a belief that tough talk can replace real strength and vision.

Obama inhaled frequently; that was the point

Obama has not been shy about his history of drug use. In this clip shown on the Chris Matthews Show, he tells it like it is - once again showcasing his consistent refusal to equivocate. How do you think it will play with the average voter?



Thanks to James for the link.

Balancing Barack's Budget

Henry Blodget has an excellent article on Slate today titled "Why Obama's bad investements would make him a better president." The psycho-financial profile looks at a few poor money management decisions Obama has made, asserting that these mistakes may actually enhance his presidential acumen. The gist of the article: he's human; he's made mistakes; and he's learned from them. Several of his financial blunders recently have garnered the senator negative press, including his "accidental" investment in a company tied to flu medication even as he was calling for increased federal spending for avian flu research.

Below are some choice nuggets (get it? avian flu) from the article.

On he and his wife's net worth of between $500,000 and $2 million:

This modest (for a senator) net worth suggests that Obama is in a good position to appreciate the situation of many Americans. He has worked hard enough and saved enough to have a healthy nest egg, but unlike, say, fellow Democratic candidate John Edwards, he doesn't have enough to retire on. Because Obama earned his money himself, moreover—and recently—he can no doubt relate to both ends of the economic spectrum.

On the 19 parking tickets Obama racked up at Harvard, 17 of which he didn't pay until this year:

A financial analyst, meanwhile, might conclude that Obama was merely employing a tactic familiar to anyone who has ever run an undercapitalized business: stretching out his payables. If the United States ever gets into a financial bind, President Obama would presumably be able to figure out which creditors we have to pay and which we can stiff.

On the avian flu stock conflict:

At the end of 2005, he had gone back to investing in diversified stock, bond, and money-market funds, including several offered by the low-cost firm Vanguard. Obama says that he ditched stock-picking to avoid the appearance of conflicts (smart), but in doing so, he is also pursuing a smarter, far more diversified investment strategy.

Obama and McCain agree to public funds

(Photo from Cleveland rally by Joshua Gnizak)

Last month, I blogged about Obama's audacious (yeah, that's right) proposition to McCain that should the two receive their respective party's nominations, they would agree to accept public campaign funds.

This week, McCain agreed.

The agreement came on the heals of the FEC decision to allow Obama to raise private money in the primaries but return the money if nominated by his party.

The FEC unanimously approved Obama's plan, which may help save the public funding program that appeared likely to become obsolete. Many candidates, Clinton included, had previously indicated they would reject public funding, instead opting to raise unlimited private funds.

As I blogged last month:

It seems this is a challenge directed at McCain, who is well-known for his support of campaign finance reform. Obama is asking him to put his money where his mouth is. Literally...

McCain's reputation as a straight-shooting reformer is one of his selling points, providing appeal to moderates and even some democrats. But as Obama has shown with regards to religion, he's not content to let another candidate hold any high ground unchallenged.

Some, such as Chicago Tribune's Frank James, thought that Obama's proposition was unrealistic and unlikely. "To put it bluntly, no way this is going to happen," he wrote last month. "There's just too much money and too much power at stake for most major-party candidates to declare this kind of truce and partial monetary disarmament."

Kudos to McCain for challenging Barack's stake on the high ground. There's plenty of room for more, and apparently other candidates are now considering their options in the wake of the FEC decision.

Hilarity index: Obama jokes

Any politician in the public eye inevitably becomes the butt of jokes. Obama is no exception. Here are three recent attempts at Obama-based humor, indexed on a scale of funny to painfully unfunny.

1. Funny: "30 Rock"

Obama’s name verisimilitude (see: Osama) is an old joke, but it was given new life on last Thursday’s episode of “30 Rock.”

The setup: Tina Fey’s character, Liz Lemon, is the head writer on a SNL-like sketch comedy show. One of the show’s stars, air-head Jenna Maroney, is misquoted as saying she doesn’t support the troops. NBC director of microwave oven and television programming Jack Donaghy arranges for her to appear on “Hardball” with Chris Matthews and Carlson Tucker in order to publicly apologize for her comments. Liz Lemon convinces Jenna that this is a good opportunity to speak truth to power, but Jenna gets a bit mixed up.

Clip One: Lemon coaches Jenna in preparation for her Hardball appearance



Clip Two: Jenna blows it



While we’re on the subject of “30 Rock”: watch it. The show is good. Seriously.

2. Less funny, bordering on painfully unfunny: Ann Coulter on Obama's eloquence, or lack-there-of.

I know it'd be naive to expect sensitivity or grace from Coulter, but c'mon:

I've caught Obama fever! Obamamania, Obamarama, Obama, Obama, Obama. (I just pray to God this is clean, renewable electricity I'm feeling.)

Only white guilt could explain the insanely hyperbolic descriptions of Obama's "eloquence." His speeches are a run-on string of embarrassing, sophomoric Hallmark bromides.

I think there's actually a funny joke somewhere here:

He said that "we learned to disagree without being disagreeable." (There goes Howard Dean's endorsement.) This was an improvement on the first draft, which read, "It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice."

But it's just to hard to get past humor-sucking passages such as:

If Obama's biggest asset is his inexperience, then if by the slightest chance he were elected and were to run for a second term, he will have to claim he didn't learn anything the first four years.

3. Painfully unfunny: Fox's "Half Hour News Hour." Joel Surnow, creator of "24" created the show as a conservative answer to "The Daily Show." They must have been given the wrong question, because this is no answer. Nothing says topical humor like Marion Barry!

Barack on the Issues: America Overseas

In addition to the adoption of social networking technology, Barack Obama's new campaign Web site also added a more traditional feature: the candidate's stance on the issues.

While Obama's campaign is still young and, as a result, relatively undefined, the issues listed on the Web site provide a blurry glimpse at what appears to be simple, well-constructed platform.

So, what issues is the senator standing on? Tops on the list - "Strengthening America Overseas." Interesting choice by a candidate who is regularly criticized for having too little political and international experience.

Although his foreign policy plan is a bit lacking in scope, each stance he makes is backed up by concrete work he's done as a senator and many highlight his ability to produce results through bipartisanship. His main goals: taking weapons out of terrorist's hands, stopping nuclear terrorism, preventing an avian flu pandemic, ending the conflict in Congo, stopping the genocide in Darfur, and bringing former Liberian President Charles Taylor to justice.

On Darfur:

Senator Obama has been a leading voice in Washington urging the end of genocide in Sudan. He worked with Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) on the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act, a version of which was signed into law. Senator Obama has traveled to the United Nations to meet with Sudanese officials and visited refugee camps on the Chad-Sudan border to raise international awareness of the ongoing humanitarian disaster there. He also worked with Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) to secure $20 million for the African Union peacekeeping mission.

But what about the biggest foreign policy issue - the war in Iraq? That's number two on his list and it gets its own section. Once again, the site backs up Obama's call for a troop withdrawal by providing specific evidence of his initial opposition to the war and his subsequent work in the senate regarding the war. I liked this Obama quote from a 2002 anti-war rally in Chicago:

"I don't oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism. What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war."

For now, at least, Obama is building his platform around issues on which he has produced results. Smart move. While his speeches continue to inspire via unarguable generalities, the foundation of his platform has been constructed on solid ground. Hopefully Obama will build on that foundation with more specific details as the campaign moves forward.

More Barack coverage:
Obama gaining support Hollywood - formerly Clinton's ground
Some cases Obama worked on as an attorney
AP article on the Law firm Obama worked for
Did Obama pull a James Frey?

Obama backtracks on wasted lives

Senator Obama finds himself in hot water this week after making the following statement at an Iowa campaign stop:

"We ended up launching a war that should have never been authorized and should have never been waged and to which we have now spent $400 billion and has seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted."

It's that last word that has pundits up in arms.

From dictionary.com:

wasted: useless consumption or expenditure; use without adequate return; an act or instance of wasting: The project was a waste of material, money, time, and energy..

Were the lives of American troops wasted? What is an adequate return for a lost life?

Critics of Obama's statement argue that the connotative meaning of wasted indicates that Obama doesn't value the sacrifices the troops have made, that the sacrifices were pointless. But the opposite is true. Saying something is wasted necessarily implies that it had value and potential that was not fully realized. Obama's statement was not an attack on the troops, it was an attack on leaders who did not maximize the troops potential.

Semantics aside, Obama quickly recognized the political error of the statement and backtracked:

“What I would say — and meant to say — is that their service hasn’t been honored,” Mr. Obama told reporters in Nashua, N.H., “because our civilian strategy has not honored their courage and bravery, and we have put them in a situation in which it is hard for them to succeed.”

Huffington Post blogger Blake Fleetwood argues that Obama should not have backed down from his statements:

Hearing the roar of incoming Swift-boats, Obama backtracked and apologized, "Their sacrifices are never wasted.... The remark was a slip of the tongue. ....I had misspoken."

But Obama should not have given in.

If the war was a mistake, and if American troops incite more violence than they prevent -- which Iraqis and most of the world believe -- then of course American lives were wasted, stupidly and wantonly, as were the lives of 600,000 Iraq civilians.