Obama Administration and the Media

Is it just me or is it that all of the media is going nuts over every appointment that President elect Obama makes. He isn’t even President yet and those that fought hard for him to be elected are slamming him for his choices. Why in hell did you fight for him to be elected then? I’m thinking that the next great chapter in this nation was based in Yes We Can and then followed up by No You Can’t! It is not even funny how the bloggers have turned sideways to now look for dirt on the man that has not even taken the oath of President and it disgusts me.

Why did we back him if we did not believe in Barack Obama. If he needs Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State then he needs Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State. Tell me one other person more qualified for the position? Any other person in your thoughts for the position does not have the ear of a former President of this nation. Together Obama and Clinton can heal the damage done over the last decade and maybe America can finally concentrate on our problems at home. Hillary Clinton should be the next Secretary of State, the Senate will not begrudge her this position and she will serve for the higher purpose that she is more than capable of fulfilling.

Yes we can make this nation better but we need to know that all obstacles will be put in front of the Obama Administration before he even takes office. All of the media is already in attack mode against the hope that the 44th President will begin working on as soon as his hand is removed from the holy bible. Everyone President Obama selects for any position will be under the media scope and up for all kinds of specualtion and bad mouthed even though they have not even served the next President. We can’t heal this nation if this is just another one party system and full of a one party only looking out for its own interests. We as a people need to look past the false hope that the media speculates on and believe that there is never anything wrong with hope.

I have a personal problem with attacking a politician that has not even taken an oath of office, served in the office, or even made one decision as President. Maybe the rest of the media and bloggers can get away with it but I don’t dare to travel there. As President elect Obama can pick his cabinet, pro or con, his staff, his counsel, and even his damn own pajamas. I’m sure the First Lady Elect has some opinion on that matter but get the hell out on all the other over speculation on what he is going to do! He gave you over twenty months on what he wants to tackle and the Bush administration has given him two months on the screw ups that he will have to deal with. I can picture the last day of the Bush Presidency…

President Bush, President Obama, President Obama, President Bush Crap. Would you like a doggie bag for that till you take full control of the West Wing and the White House President Obama? President Bush will not be taking this buffet home with him so feel free to toss it in the White House fridge on January 20th. The Vice President has the reheating instructions but we can’t tell you where he is do to states secrets and super duper security measures that KBR will not allow us to reveal.

Don’t blame Obama for Bush and Company lax homeland issue attention deficit disorder. Bush and Cheney screwed over America and apparently they are not done. According to my co-writer Michael Boh the $700 Billion bailout for Wall Street was the last rape of America and her taxpayers. Apparently, that blank check authored by the Bush Administration was just that, a blank check.

So do you think Obama is going to allow this go unchecked? Is President Obama not going to go after this drain on all of our nations treasury without somebody doing jail time? Ummm, he can’t! The Congress agreed to it and passed it with the stipulation that the Treasury Secretary could distribute the funds as he deemed necessary.

Maybe we should focus the attention of the media and our blog’s on what kind of garbage and last minute deals the Bush administration is going to try and pull off. Trust me, Bush will surpass by thousands the number of pardons anyone before him has signed. Do a favor, owe a favor. It is almost as if the Presidency of the last eight years was actually the Soprano’s and organized crime. Watch the pardons and you will see who actually served George W. Bush best. Even Karl Rove will be given and unconditional pardon just to cover President Bush ass.

Sometimes you have to look back to make sure that you can look forward.

Papamoka

Spiegel and al-Maliki Endorsement of Obama

What is a guy like John McCain, the defender of freedom in Iraq, the will of the people of Iraq foremost to be independent in his mind supposed to do when the Prime Minister of Iraq endorses Obama? I told you here once before that Iraq wanted the U.S. out of Iraq and that that would be the time that they would step up to the plate.

I kid you not, al-Maliki of Iraq supports the Obama plan and that is a nail in the coffin for Senator John McCain’s campaign as a foreign policy expert on Iraq! Mind you, there is still some controversy over this endorsement but it is the biggest news on the region in months. Over at Spiegel they have this on the subject and I have one hell of a follow up opinion…

MALIKI'S PRAISE FOR OBAMA
Iraqi Leader Stirs up US Campaign

Obama is pleased, but McCain certainly is not. In an interview with SPIEGEL, Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki expressed support for Obama's troop withdrawal plans. Despite a half-hearted retraction, the comments have stirred up the US presidential campaign. SPIEGEL stands by its version of the conversation.

In the interview, Maliki expressed support of Obama's plan to withdraw US troops from Iraq within 16 months. "That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of changes."

Maliki was quick to back away from an outright endorsement of Obama, saying "who they choose as their president is the Americans' business." But he then went on to say: "But it's the business of Iraqis to say what they want. And that's where the people and the government are in general agreement: The tenure of the coalition troops in Iraq should be limited."

A Baghdad government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said in a statement that SPIEGEL had "misunderstood and mistranslated" the Iraqi prime minister, but didn't point to where the misunderstanding or mistranslation might have occurred. Al-Dabbagh said Maliki's comments "should not be understood as support to any US presidential candidates." The statement was sent out by the press desk of the US-led Multinational Force in Iraq.

A number of media outlets likewise professed to being confused by the statement from Maliki's office. The New York Times pointed out that al-Dabbagh's statement "did not address a specific error." CBS likewise expressed disbelief pointing out that Maliki mentions a timeframe for withdrawal three times in the interview and then asks, "how likely is it that SPIEGEL mistranslated three separate comments? Matthew Yglesias, a blogger for the Atlantic Monthly, was astonished by "how little effort was made" to make the Baghdad denial convincing. And the influential blog IraqSlogger also pointed out the lack of specifics in the government statement. - Spiegel

We live in a world of immediate information and reporting of facts and I'm just guessing that a not so popular guy in our nations capitol has instant access to any information involving Iraq. Maybe we should re-word how the retraction came. Maybe we should say that somebody in a sort of oval office with tons of interest in all events happening in Iraq placed a very angry phone call to the Prime Minister of Iraq? Maybe in that phone call some strong words were exchanged on a one sided basis and the guy in the oval like office told the supposed Prime Minister of Iraq to spin the statement backwards and twist it out of context?

Make no mistake about it, al-Maliki was intimidated into retraction of his endorsement of Obama and his plan for Iraq and we all know what kind of power and influence that was needed to do just that. There is far to much money to be made in Iraq and the pit that the money has gone into to date has been bottomless up to this point in time. How fast would you as Prime Minister of Iraq take a second look at your statements if you were threatened with the loss of hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars coming into your nation that are not accountable for or asked to be accounted for? I’d recant my statements pretty damn quick if I were him and then I would personally put a John McCain for President bumper sticker on my bullet proof limo‘s bumper. I would never ride in that limo again but the damn bumper sticker would be on it!

Make no mistake about it, this next election for President is for sale and the people making the endless amount of dollars off of this war have a friendly ear in a house somewhere in Washingtion, D.C. that just happens to be painted white. Check back soon on the mega dollars being donated to build a Library in Crawford, Texas… That would be another topic on something completely different I swear. Ummm, okay, I'm lying. Sorry.

My thanks to Memeorandum for this post...

Papamoka

Other folks talking about this issue:
The Atlantic
Taylor Marsh
The Impolitic
The Political Carnival
The Swamp… (Loved the Comments)

*****Our good friend Gun Toting Liberal has linked to this post... Thank you GTL!

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Iraq to America, Go Away!

While all the folks on the political right side of the isle are selling one hundred years in Iraq the Prime Minister in cahoots with the Bush Administration is asking us to leave. Which raises the question if they can stand on their own, ride that bicycle without the training wheels and be self sufficient? Forget all the hyperbole of everything we need to fear by all the right wing pundits and think about what the message of the Bush administration is. Iraq should be free. Doesn’t freedom mean not having foreign troops on your soil too?

Over at the Washington Post they have this to say on Maliki’s plea for freedom…

Iraq's Maliki Suggests Setting Timetable for U.S. Withdrawal

U.S. Has Consistently Opposed Establishing Timeline for Troop Drawdown

By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, July 7, 2008; 1:22 PM

BAGHDAD, July 7 -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has for the first time suggested establishing a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, a step that the Bush administration has long opposed.

Maliki floated the idea on Monday during a visit to the United Arab Emirates, where he spoke with Arab ambassadors about a security pact being negotiated to determine the future role of U.S. troops in Iraq. The agreement would replace a U.N. mandate authorizing the presence of the troops, which is set to expire Dec. 31.

Maliki said that Iraq has proposed a short-term memorandum of understanding with the United States instead of trying to forge a longer term pact on an issue that has spawned opposition across Iraq's political divides.

"The current trend is to reach an agreement on a memorandum of understanding either for the departure of the forces or a memorandum of understanding to put a timetable on their withdrawal," Maliki said, according to a statement released Monday by his office that did not specify how long a period a memorandum would cover. "In all cases, the basis for any agreement will be respect for the full sovereignty of Iraq." - Washington Post

This does not play well into the McCain for President spin where we need to be in Iraq for another hundred years. It certainly does not play well in the Bush nation building play book either. How the hell is he going to attack Iran if our troops are not already in the neighborhood? Damn it! This messes up the whole Middle East crisis.

Forget the Middle East, what about all the layoffs from all the special interest groups feeding at the trough of the Bush/Cheney mega war O profit machine? Where in hell are they supposed to find jobs paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for serving hot dogs to our troops on Independence Day? This is a crisis of biblical terms when it comes to the GOP!

President Bush is probably trying to find a bottle of hundred proof booze as Dick Cheney is loading his shot gun and booking a trip to Baghdad for a hunting trip, wink, wink. This was not part of the nation building plan. This is not a good thing when Johnny wannabe McCain is supposed to fill Junior Bush's shoes.

Papamoka

Bush Consistent Deafness to Unemployed

One has to give President Bush credit for being unrealistically consistent. He’s threatening his mighty veto pen if Congress passes an extension of benefits for our nations growing unemployed. Bush is true to form even when it comes to telling the unemployed to get a paper route you lazy good for nothing leaches. Especially, those folks in states with robust economies, there is no excuse for these unemployed people to not work according to President Bush. There is just one problem with his thinking. The jobs he sold out to God knows who overseas were once good paying American made jobs no longer exist. The economy in America with good jobs at great wages has morphed under his watch into an environment where no amount of higher education will guarantee you a well paying job.

President Bush I swear is an economic idiot in thinking that a job is a job, and a paycheck is a paycheck. An engineering job is not the same pay grade as the person manning the French fry baskets at the local McDonald’s. McDonald’s might be a great place to work but it doesn’t afford the paycheck needed to pay down college loans for any college degree, pay for health insurance for your family, or even pay for a mortgage once obtained by a person with a higher education position.

Over at the New York Times they have this to say on Bush threatening a Veto if unemployment benefits are extended by the Congress…

House Passes Unemployment Benefits Extension

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 12, 2008
Filed at 2:51 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House on Thursday approved an extra three months of jobless benefits for all unemployed Americans, knowing the plan's chances are slight in the Senate and almost nonexistent at the White House.

After failing to get a veto-proof two-thirds margin Wednesday, Democrats said they pushed the legislation through to the Senate anyway, on a 274-137 vote, to help Americans survive a slumping economy.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that the number of people filing new claims for unemployment benefits last week increased by 25,000 from the week before. The unemployment rate in May jumped to 5.5 percent, up from 5 percent in April. It was the biggest one-month gain in 22 years.

"The American people are waiting to see if Congress is going to help them," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said.

But the White House already has threatened to veto the bill, and Senate Democrats have said they won't try and force their Republican colleagues to consider the House legislation.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he will try to bring up the House bill, but he won't force the issue if Senate Republicans object. "We're not wasting weeks" on it, he said. Instead, Reid said, Democrats might attach the jobless benefits extension to the Iraq war spending bill, a move also opposed by the White House.

The White House and Republicans said a bill targeting unemployment benefits only to states that have high unemployment would be more palatable to them. The Democrats' plan "is dead on arrival," House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio said. "The Senate's not going to take it up." - New York Times

Or you could read what they have to say at the Washington Post...

"The Congressional Budget Office estimated that about 3.2 million Americans would collect $11.7 billion in extended unemployment benefits over the life of the extension."

I have to get this straight in my head… Our government has no problem with $15 Billion Dollars unaccountable for in Iraq but if Americans in America need help then Republican’s have a problem with it? That $15 Billion dollars, who was overseeing how that cash was distributed in the middle of the desert of Iraq? Was there a division of unemployment to make sure the cash was distributed properly? Power Line News has this to say about our tax dollars being spent, or misplaced in Iraq…

Friday, May 23, 2008 10:44 PM

WASHINGTON—The Pentagon cannot account for nearly 15 billion dollars in payments for goods and services in Iraq, according to an internal audit which members of Congress blasted Friday as a “shocking” accountability failure.

Of 8.2 billion dollars in US taxpayer-funded defense contracts reviewed by the defense department’s inspector general, the Pentagon could not properly account for more than 7.7 billion dollars.

The lack of accountability of the funds, intended for purchases of weapons, vehicles, construction equipment and security services, amounted to a 95 percent failure rate in basic accounting standards, according to the report. - Power Line News

I’m thinking that the Bush administration and his political crony Republican’s in the Congress have no problem flushing cash down the drain without care as to where it ends up in the war in Iraq but all of them lazy Americans that are unemployed should just screw. Unemployed people are not paying taxes, thus not contributing to the endless money grab of the Iraq War and thus are terrorist and anti American.

I’m still fuzzy on the Republican math but if they say it’s for the protection of our nation against terrorism then it must be true. There has to be a mistake with the 95% accounting failure rate? Maybe an auditor forgot to carry the one somewhere or missed a large receipt for French fries from KBR. Or should I be politically correct and call them “Freedom Fries”?

Papamoka

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