Wait… Change? What Change?

WAPO

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) on Friday sent the center a letter saying he was “troubled” by recent news reports about the hospital’s efforts to steer patients with non-urgent complaints away from the center’ emergency room to local clinics. Michelle Obama was a key figure behind the initiative.

SNIP

The letter also asked the center for details on its payments to PR firms and documentation on how they were selected. In 2006, the center retained ASK Public Strategies to help build support for the Urban Health Initiative. ASK is co-owned by Obama’s chief campaign strategist, David Axelrod.

Without naming a specific company, Grassley also asked for documentation showing how the center selected a contractor to upgrade its internal computer network. A center annual report shows computer contracts went to Blackwell Consulting, a company run by Obama contributor Robert Blackwell Sr.

SNIP

In a prepared statement, Grassley referred to a letter he sent earlier to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and said, “I keep hearing that tax-exempt hospitals are changing their ways…It’s troubling then to hear about two world-renowned hospitals engaging in questionable practices…”

Ok, so….

1.  Michelle got a promotion at the hospital she worked and a 250% raise 2 months after Obama became a Senator, and was also named to the board of trustees at Treehouse foods with a big raise too. (here)

2.  Obama tried to get the hospital $1,000,000 in Federal Funds not long after that…. (here)

3.  Michelle starts a program that keeps low income people from coming to her hospital…

4.  She hires Axelrod to help her with the public relations side of such a move

5.  Gets Blackwell, who is a campaign contributor, a huge contract to re-do the computer systems at the hospital….

I am not saying there was any wrong doing…  at all.  This is all above board.  But the question is, is it right?  Is that change?  Is that different than “Washington politics as usual”?

Doesn’t sound like change to me?

And so, on the other hand, I have a guy named McCain and a woman named Palin that are well known for being anti-pork, anti-corruption, anti-fraud, and are even willing to stand strong against their own Party to do what is right….

Ok, wait…  so who is the one that represents change?

AnnieNYC: I Ran Into Keith Olberman Tonight

AnnieNYC is an extremely active PUMA from NYC.  She is out several times a week handing out fliers, setting up tables, talking to people, organizing events and attending meetings.

Well, tonight, she was running late to a meeting and bumped into Keith Olberman…  the following is a story of that encounter.

XPosted From AnnieNYC

I was going fliering tonight and walked past the NBC building, on his way walking to the building i ran into KO. I stopped him “are you keith olberman?” him in bold. there is some stuff missing, but most of it is here. He was nervous and nerdy, hands in his pockets the whole time, he really seemed like a hollow fool. i was actually very surprised, i thought he had more than this.

are you keith olberman?
Yes.
Ok, what is with the hillary hate.
I don’t hate her.
gimme a break. what is your problem with her, just tell me.
i don’t hate her, i hate her policies and tactics
her policies? Obama is to the right of her!
he’s moving to the middle because he’s trying to win!
the middle?! he agrees with alito and scalia on the death penalty, he actually wants *more* death penalties, what kind of policy is that? Now he’s against affirmative action…
well he’s trying to win
well not only did he vote yay on fisa, but now at&t is sponsoring the convention. that’s ok with you?
well, i was very mad about his vote on fisa.
well at least hillary sticks to her guns and she wanted to win.
(then we get into tactics)
her tactics? like what.
the 3am phone call…
well he failed that test didn’t he, russia goes to war with georgia and all he can say is he wants a shave ice. and what about the smearing of the clintons as racist? what about those tactics, donna brazile and saying fairy tale is racist, clyburn, etc.
that wasn’t him.
don’t you think it was his job to ratchet it down? do you know how many times i’ve been called racist for not supporting him? it was his job to ratchet that down, i campaigned for her in Philadelphia and we were treated like *shit* because of the smearing of her as a racist. Wasn’t it his job to deal with his supporters?
i think he is
oh really? what about late may axelrod faxing YOUR worst person in the world report on her RFK comments to all the media, really? hillary is the worst person in the world?!
that was only 10 minutes, and that’s axelrod, it’s not him…
that’s the head of his campaign, he already had the win in the bag, and even now he hasn’t said what he needs to to ratchet down the hate. He could have said at any time “she’s a great lady and she’s worked throughout her life for civil rights, and he hasn’t.
(super nervous) i think he is
Well think of the alternative
I am

 

The entire time, NO INTELLECTUAL RESPONSE WHAT-SO-EVER. NONE. NADA. ZILCH. Nothing new, just anything that some uninformed kid on the street would say. WOW. i was blown away by how lame his responses were. amazing. He even at one point mentioned that he was called a misogynist, as if he couldn’t understand why! wow.

 

I have one thing to say about that…  actually, just one word….

Awesome.

Why Did McCain Come Down Hard On Race Card? Simple, Axelrod Is Famous For It.

In political circles, David Axelrod has been on the circuit for a long time and is well known.  He has never headed up a national campaign until Obama, but has run a variety of other campaigns…  Senators, Mayors, Governors, etc.  Deval Patrick, Barack Obama and Harold Washinton are among his many clients.

He does advise White candidates, but is primarily known for managing African American’s campaigns. 

So, when everyone else was surprised that the McCain campaign “called out” Obama on his playing of the race card, I stood up and clapped.

Why, you might ask? 

Because he did what Hillary Clinton, as a faithful Democrat, could not…  Call “Bullshit” on the race card.

You also might wonder how McCain came up with such a quick, complete and perfectly balanced response to the playing of the race card? 

Simple…  they were expecting it.

Axelrod is famous for resorting to the race card when advising African American’s campaigns.  As Peter Wirs puts it,

His [Axelrod's] favorite, indeed primary campaign tactic, is to polarize the campaign with smear attacks, in other words, the race card. Indeed when all else fails, Axelrod resorts to the race card as his ace in the hole.

This is something that Hillary Clinton should have been better prepared for as it is obvious this is what happened to the Clintons.  My guess is that the Clinton camp probably weren’t expecting it or didn’t think it would fly…  I mean, would Axelrod smear personal friends and fellow Democrats as racists, especially after all Hillary had done for the Axelrod’s and their daughter?  And besides that…  who would believe that the Clintons were racists, right?

The history of Axelrod and his tactic of using the race card and smearing the opponent as a racist is well documented, but there is no more blatant example than the campaign of the Philly Mayor John Street…

Wirs continues…

Street won his first term in 1999 in a razor-thin victory over GOP Sam Katz, despite a 4 to 1 voter registration edge. 2003 was anticipated to be rerun despite Street’s incumbency.

However, in the middle of the re-election campaign, with polls showing Katz actually in the lead, Street discovered that the FBI placed listening devices in the mayor’s conference room as part of a sweeping investigation of municipal corruption. The FBI’s investigation uncovered a corruption scheme led by Street’s fund raiser Ron White, who died before going to trial and secured convictions of, among others, the city treasurer, Street’s personal attorney, a family cleric, and finally Street’s older brother, on hundreds of corruption-related charges. However, the G men were never able to pin anything on Street himself. So shameful was the Street tenure that the April 17, 2005, issue of Time Magazine listed Street as one of the three worst big-city mayors in the United States.

The discovery of the FBI bug at first seemed like a death knell to the Street campaign. But under Axelrod’s skillful media manipulation, Street and his supporters successfully polarized the campaign by leveling accusations of institutional racial prejudice and playing on historical skepticism of the GOP-controlled Federal government. The result? Street crushed Katz by winning re-election by a sixteen-point margin.

Obama is merely following a path that was well worn by Axelrod’s previous clients…  play the worst kind of politics possible, smear the opponent as a racist. 

Interestingly enough, McCain is not gonna walk into that trap and he is not gonna put up with it.  He has come up with a pretty good tactic…  call Obama out on playing the race card.  Letting everyone know that it’s Obama bringing up race and not him.  Painting Obama as the one with the race problem…  and it’s working.  McCain is now tied with Obama in some polls, ahead in others.

I mean, what is Obama gonna say?  Deny that he was talking about race?  That McCain is the one that brought it up? 

He couldn’t do anything but eat it.  Besides, you can’t really call McCain a racist…  kinda hard when he has a Bangladeshi daughter adopted from one of Mother Theresa’s schools.

 

 And so here we are…  Obama can’t play the race card again, the youth vote is dropping fast because of generational ADD, and people are getting tired of the same recycled “Hope and Change” speech.  Looks like Obama is going to actually have to talk about policy. 

I can’t wait to see what happens when Obama has to run on an actual policy platform.

 

 

And, incidentally, anyone who still argues that the Clintons are racists or made racists comments has moved from drinking the koolaid and on to snorting it right out of the packet.

 

 

UPDATE:  For more, see ChrstiAdkins