An Insistence on Small Miracles

Constituent input in government? Barack's novel concept

2007-04-23T14:34:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-14T06:11:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-14T05:41:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-03T15:32:00.000-08:00

(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

2007-02-25T15:40:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-21T07:22:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-15T09:05:00.000-08:00

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.

Obama Bloggers

2007-02-13T08:10:00.000-08:00

So I've joined forces with a couple of other bloggers and will be cross-posting content over on obama bloggers. Switch or add to your bookmarks for even more Obama goodness!

Obama announces candidacy

2007-02-10T10:21:00.000-08:00

Obama officially announced his candidacy earlier today. Standing on the steps of the capital building in Springfield, Ill. Obama told the crowd:

...and that is why, in the shadow of the old state capital, where Lincoln once called upon a house divided to stand together, where common hopes and common dreams still live, I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for president of the united states of America.

Earlier today, I blogged about Obama using his Web site as a networking hub. There's a lot of debate in the communications field about the Internet's potential to promote participatory democracy. Obama seems to understand the power and the necessity for such a tool. He addressed the need today:

Our cherished rights of liberty and equality depend on the active participation of an awakened electorate.

Obama also provided some scathing commentary on the last six years:

For the past six years, we've been told that our mounting deaths don't matter. We've been told that the anxiety Americans feel about rising health care costs and stagnant wages are an illusion.

What's stopped us is the failure of leadership. The smallness of our politics...

We've been told that climate change is a hoax. We've been told that tough talk and an ill-conceived war can replace diplomacy and strategy and foresight.

And when all else fails, when Katrina happens, or the death toll in Iraq mounts, we've been told that our crises our somebody else's fault. We're distracted from our real failures and told to blame the other party, or gay people, or immigrants.

He also called for universal health care in America by the end of the next president's first term and argued that it is time to start bringing troops home from Iraq.

You can stream the full video on Obama's Web site.

Obama on Facebook and Flickr

2007-02-10T08:29:00.000-08:00

So, this just keeps getting better and better. Obama is also on facebook ,flickr, youtube, and partybuilder.

So what? First, Obama's hipness is appealing to the taste makers. Second, between his website and these other networking options, it seems inevitable Obama will go viral. Third, selfish bloggers like me are rejoicing because we will hopefully have access to tons of public photos (such as the one above) via Flickr!

My Barack Obama

2007-02-10T08:01:00.000-08:00

So, as promised yesterday, Obama's website has been updated to include a new networking area called mybarackobama.com. I signed up. Here's what it looks like:

Notice the networking nav buttons on the right. They include My Dashboard, My Friends, My Events, My Messages, My Groups, My Fundraising and My Blog.

I messed around with the My Blog option. For the casual blogger, it seems like it will be quite easy to use. However, it's not quite blogger.com easy. To edit html you have to switch to "html mode", where you see and edit the entire code for the post.

Grassroots campaigns and activists have flourished online in recent years. The concept and execution of the Obama-hosted networking hub is genius.

Obama announces announcement

2007-02-09T18:29:00.000-08:00

Obama announced that tomorrow he will be announcing his presidential campaign. I kind of wish he had announced he'd be announcing the announcement, but instead it just showed up on his Web site unannounced.

The video:

The coolest part of the video? Obama announces how his Web site will be transformed into a networking hub for grassroots supporters and financial contributers.

"But more importantly, after the announcement, I hope that you use this Web site as a tool to organize your friends, your neighbors and your networks. The Web site is going to be set up so that you can make your own profile, form your own groups, plan your own events, take campaign fundraising into your own hands so that we can collect small donations instead of having to rely on large campaign contributions. It's also going to give you a chance to chronicle your own campaign experience on your own blog... Ultimately this has to be a vehicle for your hopes, your dreams."

Last week, I blogged about how supporters had used facebook to organize behind Obama. This week, Obama creates his own facebook? Brilliant.

Obama to McCain: I won't spend if you won't spend

2007-02-08T07:26:00.000-08:00

While several leading presidential candidates have already decided to forgo public campaign money, Obama's made a modest proposal: the Democratic and Republican candidates should agree to a fund-raising cap in the general election and accept the public money.
(Photo credit: Kevin Lamarque - Reuters)

The NYT's David Kirkpatrick has got the goods again. His lede:

Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, issued an unusual challenge to his rivals on Wednesday. He proposed a voluntary agreement between the two major party nominees that would limit their fund-raising and spending for the general election.

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.

As Chicago Tribune blogger Frank James notes, there's no way this is going to happen. It is unlikely that McCain, or any other candidate, will accept the offer. "But it's an interesting stratagem which will allow Obama to take the high road as a campaign-finance reformer."

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.

McCain and Obama also argued over lobbying reform last year. From washingtonpost.com:

Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama appeared to make up yesterday after their unusual public poison-pen exchange (McCain accusing Obama of "partisan posturing" and "disingenuousness"; Obama expressing hurt that McCain "questioned my sincerity") over lobbying reform.

As Obama entered the crowded Senate Rules Committee hearing room, he playfully brandished a fist while putting an arm around the seated McCain. Awwwwww! Many pictures were snapped. "I value his input," McCain told the panel. Said Obama: "I'm particularly pleased to be sharing this panel with my pen pal John McCain."

Obama wall-to-wall

2007-02-03T16:08:00.000-08:00

Facebook, the popular social networking site, could play a role in the 2008 presidential election. This Friday, Obama spoke to a large, enthusiastic crowd at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. Several news outlets reported that a student group used Facebook to advertise the event and encourage the large turnout.

From NYT blogger Sarah Wheaton (link):

The event was sponsored by Students for Obama at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., and the junior senator from Illinois is clearly a favorite with young people. One group on Facebook, a social networking website especially popular with college students and recent graduates, called “One Million Strong for Barack” already had 100,000 members as of Thursday (it was started only a few weeks ago), and its creator expects to reach the million mark in April.

A search of groups on Facebook actually yields two "million strong" Barack groups. The one mentioned above, and the "Against Barack Obama (one million strong)" group. Unfortunately for the latter, it is only 95 members strong, while the pro-Obama group currently boasts 209,263 members.

While Facebook is far from the first networking site utilized to spur political action, it is perhaps the most mainstream... and articulate and clean. Oops. Sorry Myspace.

Biden Audio

2007-02-01T07:49:00.000-08:00

Decide for yourself what you think of Biden's comments about Obama. Listen.

The Obama Messiah Watch

2007-01-31T22:34:00.000-08:00

(Photo: The Brick Testament)

Slate's Timothy Noah has created a hilarious new recurring feature titled "The Obama Messiah Watch." In the feature, Noah will keep tabs on media representations of Obama that render him messianic through the inclusion of "gratuitously adoring biographical details." Check the first entry.

Obama capitalizes on Biden gaffe

2007-01-31T18:08:00.000-08:00

This week, fellow presidential hopeful Joe Biden got himself in trouble with this statement (from MSNBC):

"I mean, you've got the first sort of mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a story-book, man," Biden said.

Biden said he actually meant the statement as a compliment. I believe him. In fact, I agree with the sentiment underlying the statement: Obama is a unique political figure. However, as Obama notes, Biden was factually incorrect:

"I didn't take Sen. Biden's comments personally, but obviously they were historically inaccurate," Obama said. "African-American presidential candidates like Jesse Jackson, Shirley Chisholm, Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton gave a voice to many important issues through their campaigns, and no one would call them inarticulate."

While Biden's statement was, in my mind, fairly innocuous, Obama's response was shrewd. He indicated that he's level-headed by not firing back a personal attack, and he used the opportunity to align himself with several powerful black politicians and, more importantly, voters.

Performance Art

2007-01-29T14:35:00.000-08:00

David Kirkpatrick followed up his previous reporting on the Insight Madrassa story with a great article on Monday headlined "Feeding Frenzy for a Big Story, Even if It's False."

Kirkpatrick reports that:

* David Brock started his career at Insight magazine. Ugg.
* The magazine falsely reported that President Clinton was selling plots at Arlington National Cemetery to Democratic campaign donors
* Insight reported that "weapons of mass destruction" may have been found in Iraq
* MSNBC has also picked up several of Insight's other recent anonymous scoops, not just Fox.
* Insight stopped using bylines to encourage contributions from reporters for larger news organizations who didn't want their name associated with the article.

So what have we learned from this whole mess? First, what bad journalism looks like: anonymous sources, anonymous journalists and poor fact-checking at Insight. Second, what good journalism looks like: CNN's Jon Vause reporting from Obama's former school in Indonesia and Kirkpatrick following up with a closer look at Insight.

Kirkpatrick includes a great quote from Ralph Whitehead Jr., a journalism professor at UMass:

"With so much anonymity, How do we know that Insight magazine actually exists?" Professor Whitehead added. "It could be performance art."

Healing partisan wounds

2007-01-28T14:50:00.000-08:00

Obama bridged partisan divisions in the past; who's to say he can't do it again? The New York Times ran an excellent article Sunday about Obama's tenure as president of the Harvard law review. In the article, Jodi Kantor describes Obama's tough road to the presidency and his ability to win over competing partisan factions. Despite the obvious allusions to the 2008 presidential race, the article does end on a somber note with Obama's law review presidential predecessor pointing out that law review political divisions are different than those currently facing the country.

The article begins with a funny self-deprecating autobiography by Obama which he wrote for a parody of the law-review:

“I was born in Oslo, Norway, the son of a Volvo factory worker and part-time ice fisherman,” a mock self-tribute begins. “My mother was a backup singer for Abba. They were good folks.” In Chicago, “I discovered I was black, and I have remained so ever since.”

After his election, the Faux-bama says, he united warring students into “a happy, cohesive folk,” while “empowering all the folks out there in America who didn’t know about me by giving a series of articulate and startlingly mature interviews to all the folks in the media.”

Look for Fox News to run the story soon, missing the satire completely. I can see John Gibson now: "Obama's father was Muslim, AND he built FOREIGN CARS!!!"

Schumer disses Obama again: "I skimmed the parts that were interesting"

2007-01-28T14:16:00.000-08:00

The New York Times magazine ran an interview with Chuck Schumer Sunday in which Deborah Solomon asked him about similarities between his book and Audacity of Hope. Schumer did none of the usual political ass-kissing. Instead, he says he barely read Obama's book, that his is better and that he's backing Clinton.

What about your fellow senator Barack Obama? Did you read his book, “The Audacity of Hope,” which similarly insists that politicians need to reclaim the American dream for the middle class? I just read little pieces of it.

You couldn’t finish it? I skimmed the parts that were interesting.

He prescribes policy on the same issues you do, from education to health care to the war in Iraq. And he similarly wants to increase support for education. But his is not a platform. The two books, in terms of their outlook, are not dissimilar. In terms of specificity, I think I go a lot further. I hope the presidential candidates will rip off my ideas and use them.

Will you be supporting Obama for president? I’m supporting Hillary. I’ve worked closer with Hillary and, on experience, I would have to give her the edge. I think she’s terrific. When you see her work up close, she is really smart, she asks the right questions and has a good sense of how to balance things.

As previously noted here, Chuck Schumer delivered "an angry rebuke" to Obama on the Senate floor during discussion of the ethics package, according to a Jan. 19 New York Times article ($) by David Kirkpatrick.

A lack of Insight

2007-01-24T09:35:00.000-08:00

As if his name wasn't enough to warrant rumors of terrorist collusion, reports broke this week that Iraq Hussein Osama was educated at a radical Muslim school. Oh, and Hillary Clinton leaked the information. At least that is what some would have you believe. Below, you'll find an annotated time line of the media coverage of this rumor.

1. Insight Magazine posts an article to their website on Jan. 17 that Obama attended a radical Muslim school, a Madrassa, and that the information came from the Clinton camp.

An investigation of Mr. Obama by political opponents within the Democratic Party has discovered that Mr. Obama was raised as a Muslim by his stepfather in Indonesia. Sources close to the background check, which has not yet been released, said Mr. Obama, 45, spent at least four years in a so-called Madrassa, or Muslim seminary, in Indonesia...

Sources said the background check, conducted by researchers connected to Senator Clinton, disclosed details of Mr. Obama's Muslim past. The sources said the Clinton camp concluded the Illinois Democrat concealed his prior Muslim faith and education...

The sources said the background check concerned Mr. Obama's years in Jakarta. In Indonesia, the young Obama was enrolled in a Madrassa and was raised and educated as a Muslim. Although Indonesia is regarded as a moderate Muslim state, the U.S. intelligence community has determined that today most of these schools are financed by the Saudi Arabian government and they teach a Wahhabi doctrine that denies the rights of non-Muslims.

The Wikipedia entry on Insight notes that the magazine is owned by the Washington Times, was developed as a conservative alternative to magazines like Newsweek and "was noted for providing additional funding to Paula Jones for her sexual harassment lawsuit against Bill Clinton, allowing the suit to continue after her own funding ran out."

2. Fox News runs with the story, emphasizing Clinton's supposed involvement.

JOHN GIBSON, HOST: The gloves are off: Hillary Clinton is reported to be already digging up the dirt on Barack Obama.

The New York senator has reportedly outed Obama's madrassa past. That's right, the Clinton team is reported to have pulled out all the stops to reveal something Obama would rather you didn't know: that he was educated in a Muslim madrassa.

I was criticized on this show for outing Obama as a smoker, but look at what some anti-Obama Democrats are doing to her political rival now. They are playing the Muslim phobia card.

3. CNN does some actual reporting. They send reporter John Vause to Jakarta to actually check out the school.

From the print version of the story on CNN.com.

"I came here to Barack Obama's elementary school in Jakarta looking for what some are calling an Islamic madrassa ... like the ones that teach hate and violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan," Vause said on the "Situation Room" Monday. "I've been to those madrassas in Pakistan ... this school is nothing like that."

Vause also interviewed one of Obama's Basuki classmates, Bandug Winadijanto, who claims that not a lot has changed at the school since the two men were pupils. Insight reported that Obama's political opponents believed the school promoted Wahhabism, a fundamentalist form of Islam, "and are seeking to prove it."

"It's not (an) Islamic school. It's general," Winadijanto said. "There is a lot of Christians, Buddhists, also Confucian. ... So that's a mixed school."

CNN also contacts a Clinton spokesman who says the claim in the Insight article that Clinton's camp was responsible for the rumer is "an obvious right-wing hit job."

Also, an Obama aide described Fox News' broadcasting of the Insight story "appallingly irresponsible."

4. Other papers report on the controversy, primarily framing it as a CNN vs. FOX News story, rather than examining the charges.

The lead from a Jan. 24 New York Times article:

A disputed report on the Web site of a conservative magazine about Senator Barack Obama’s childhood schooling kicked off a pointed exchange this week between the rival cable news networks CNN and Fox News, when CNN seemed to make an overt effort both to debunk the report and to question the quality of Fox News’s journalism.

The NYT article does feature a great email quote from Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson:

“This is a textbook example of how the other side works. A right-wing rag makes up a scurrilous charge and prints it with no real attribution. The smear gets injected into the atmosphere and picked up by talk radio. In this case both Senator Obama and Senator Clinton were victimized.”

5. Keith Olbermann names John Gibson of "the Fox noise channel" the worst person in the world for running the Madrassa story with only one annonymous source (starts at :52).

Bundling isn't just for puritans

2007-01-19T21:41:00.000-08:00

Obama got in on the democrat's senate ethics reform package last week. The bill, introduced by Harry Reid, has the vague but hard-to-argue-against title "A bill to provide greater transparency in the legislative process." Obama has been heavily active in the crafting of the legislation, sponsoring or co-sponsoring several amendments to the bill. This Jan. 19 New York Times article by David Kirkpatrick ran with a great photograph that frames Obama as a leader of the ethics reform: looking stoic, principled and overwhelmingly leader-like, Obama faces the camera flanked by Charles Schumer and Russ Feingold.

In the accompanying article, Kirkpatrick discusses the easy passage Thursday of an amendment Obama co-sponsored along with Feingold that Kirkpatrick says "could alter one of the most time-honored campaign fund-raising practices in Washington." That practice: "bundling" by lobbyists. The amendment requires lobbyists to disclose "not only the limited money they can donate to candidates personally but also the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars they raise from clients and friends and deliver as sheaves of checks — a tradition known as bundling."

Messing with a politician's money is often dangerous, and apparently Obama isn't winning any friends in the Senate this week. Kirpatrick reports that Schumer delivered an "angry rebuke" to Obama during a run-in on the senate floor. Schumer apparently thinks Obama is taking the reform a little too far and may be handicapping legitimate fund-raising through red-tape. If you look at Schumer in the Times photo mentioned above, he doesn't exactly look pleased to be standing in Obama's shadow.

From a Jan. 19 Obama press release:

"This historic reform is an enormous step toward restoring the people's faith in government," Obama said. "It will ban the practice of lobbyists currying favor with politicians by giving them free meals and gifts, or by providing subsidized flights on corporate jets, and will require greater disclosure of the huge campaign contributions they collect from their friends and clients. I am very proud to have helped lead this fight with Senator Feingold, and am proud of what the Senate, under Senator Reid's leadership, has accomplished."

Barack Obama did something

2007-01-19T15:46:00.000-08:00

... Sometime yesterday around 9 a.m. east coast time you may have heard a noise, a choir of angels, which can only mean one thing: Barack Obama did something.

The Daily Show took a stab at the Obama hype machine Wednesday. Echoing the media coverage he satirizes, Stewart didn't actually provide much substantive information about the junior senator from Illinois, but simply satirized the media's infatuation with Obama and his sort-of announcement to run for president.

Oh, and Stewart sort of eats a sausage wrapped in a pancake. I'm not going to try and explicate the symbolism of that gesture...

Obama backlash

2007-01-18T09:23:00.001-08:00

An AP article by Ryan Keith is getting a lot of play today. The article talks about Obama's record of supporting abortion rights and gun control in the Illinois senate. It's is interesting to see the way different newspapers framed the story through their headline selection and editing.

For instance, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin ran the story under the headline "Obama's political past a minefield." A bit judgmental, no? Meanwhile, Illinois-based Courier News ran with the headline "Obama record offers critics possible ammunition." This headline is more fair. However, the Courier News edited the story by trimming off the response of Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs. The omission leaves the story a one-sided attack on Obama's record. Both papers took a charged story and sensationalized it further through headline and editing choices.

In the blogosphere, big ups to Obamarama, who seemed to play a role in the removal of a Dick Morris column in which he erroneously charged that Obama voted against a ban on legislators hiring family members on campaign or PAC payrolls. As Obamarama pointed out, Obama voted against tabling the proposed ban on nepotism, which amounts to a form of support for the ban. While the removal is consolation, a public retraction or apology seems more appropriate. Don't hold your breath.

Slate's take

2007-01-17T15:00:00.000-08:00

Slate's Damned Spot breaks down the Obama bio video, which was posted on his website Tuesday along with his presidential exploratory committee explanation video I posted earlier.

Slate also has an article by Juliet Eilperin which poses the question: If Obama stops smoking, will he lose his amazing voice? Obama's admitted to smoking a cigarette on occasion. While I know this may work against him, I've personally always kind of liked that fact because it seemed to humanize him. Now, Eilperin posits that his amazing voice may be the result of smoking, which thickens and dries out the vocal cords. Interesting hypothesis, but ultimately flawed. While the resonance of his voice is no doubt it's main selling point, his cadence and timing are equally estimable.

Coal is the new cocaine

2007-01-16T14:09:00.000-08:00

Cocaine hasn't smudged his perfect image, but coal might. Obama has stepped on the toes of more than a few environmentally-conscious citizens already this year with his introduction of the new Coal-to-Liquid Fuel Promotion Act of 2007. According to an Jan. 10 article by Elizabeth Williamson in the Washington Post, the bill would provide companies willing to pursue the conversion of coal into diesel gasoline with incentives for research and plant construction. Williamson posits two possible motives explaining the bills introduction: Obama's desire to reduce dependence on foreign oil, and his desire to placate Illinois coal producers.

While decreasing reliance on foreign oil is a popular sentiment, it is typically coupled with a belief in decreased reliance on carbon-producing fuels in general. While Obama's new bill addresses the first, it fails to address the larger problem of global warming. And the idea that the Act is intended to placate the powerful Illinois coal producers is even more troubling.

A Jan. 16 New York Times editorial titled "Energy Time" takes a quick stab at Obama:

Doing things right will take serious money. In recent days, for instance, Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana and Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Jim Bunning of Kentucky - any politician, that is, with coal to sell - have jumped aboard the coal-to-gasoline bandwagon as the answer to dependence on foreign oil.

The world has lots of coal, which can indeed be converted into gasoline. But the process releases enormous amounts of carbon, far more than refining oil into gasoline does. Unless we are willing to invest in technologies that can sequester carbon emissions and keep them out of the atmosphere, turning to coal could be a disaster for global warming.

Ouch.

The Washington Post article includes a response from the Obama camp:

What about Obama? "Senator Obama has introduced legislation to drastically increase the production of biofuels like ethanol, and has authored legislation to increase fuel economy standards that would eventually save us 4.3 million barrels of oil a day and would reduce global warming," Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement.

And, oh, yes: "Illinois basin coal has more untapped energy potential than the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait combined. Senator Obama believes it is crucial that we invest in technologies to use these resources to reduce our dependence on foreign oil."

Not good Obama, not good. Hopefully, the good senator will address the issue himself in his characteristically thoughtful manner. Until then, I worry.

**Update: A comment from John linked to a NRDC report titled "Climate Facts" (pdf) which explains some of the harmful affects of the coal-to-liquid fuels process. Thanks John.

He's in

2007-01-16T11:25:00.000-08:00

What's more cool, the fact that Barack Obama has formed a presidential exploratory committee, or the fact that his website provides the code to for individuals to easily embed the video from his website in which he announces the formation of the committee and thoughtfully explains his rationale? As if he hadn't already, Barack is going viral.

Illinois Machination

2007-01-15T11:28:00.000-08:00

The Chicago Democratic Party, notorious for its spotless moral record and inherent incorruptibility, has started spinning its political wheels for an Obama nomination. The Daily Southtown is reporting that Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan is trying to push up the date of the Illinois primary to give Barack a boost. Early primaries, like those in New Hampshire, are known to set the public and media agenda for political campaigns, providing a clear front-runner early on. Madigan apparently feels confident that Obama would easily win the Illinois primary, and moving it up would provide Obama with momentum heading into closer primaries.

Title Explained

2007-01-11T12:32:00.000-08:00

The title of this blog, An Insistence on Small Miracles, is a line from Barack Obama's Keynote Address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

From his speech:
"That is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can tuck in our children at night and know they are fed and clothed and safe from harm. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe or hiring somebody's son. That we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will he counted — or at least, most of the time."

Behold the orator: