He seems to be having a bad day, week, and month, depending upon how you look at it!
Panic: Obama and Hillary work to cut off roll call vote before things turn embarrassing
Nothing says unity and catharsis like a vote that has to be suspended halfway through lest the margin of victory not turn out the way The One has foreordained. Chicago politics fever ” catch it!
Biden’s Plagiarism Wasn’t Just Plagiarism — He Was Makin’ Up Fake Shit That Someone Else Made Up”Ace
Instapundit keeps saying Joe Biden got a bum rap on the plagiarism deal. I tend to trust him, so I figured, yeah, he got a bum deal.
Not so. It’s not just about the plagiarism of Neil Kinnock’s speech — it’s also about Biden’s claiming that Kinnock’s personal biographical details were his own. And it’s about his general pattern of lying and, yes, plagiarizing, a habit that got him an “F” in law school. (The same law school were he’d later have to fib about his class standing, as it turns out.)
Obama Must Change Message or Lose Swing Voter
[A]nother disturbing element for Mr Obama was how sceptical and even dismissive most of the group was about the word that has been central to his campaign – change. Some voters believed Mr Obama could not relate to them and did not share their everyday concerns.
“Stop giving me all these general things,” said Doug, 48, a fireman. “I want specifics, not pie in the sky. There were nods around the room. “He has to put some substance behind the charismatic talk,” interjected another man.
A woman in her 60s said: “I want less oratory; show me what you have done and what you are going to do.” Sondra, 43, a catering manager, said: “Change for change’s sake got us in this mess. We want change but we’re afraid of what it might bring.”
Asked to address Mr Obama directly, the voters said: “How are you going to get it done?”; “Prove you have experience.”; “How will you fix things?”; “Stop the dramatic talk, we want reality.”; “Focus on issues, not personality.”; “Don’t just give me an empty balloon.”
Most of the undecided voters said they wanted “accountability” rather than change. From a long list of election concerns, 17 highlighted a top theme of Mr McCain’s: “Ending wasteful Washington spending and balancing the federal budget.”
The next most important concern was “reducing inflation and keeping costs down”, with ten votes while “Ending American dependence on foreign oil” and “bringing accountability and honesty back to the government” got nine.
Some favourite concerns of Democrats were virtually ignored. “Holding President Bush accountable for all his mistakes and failures” got two votes and “Improving our global image and public support internationally” just one – another indication that Mr Obama’s recent foreign trip and speech in Berlin were mistakes.
Using electronic dials to register their second-by-second reactions, the voters were shown television advertisements from each candidate. Again, the results were encouraging for Mr McCain.
Although most of the 21 said they did not like the concept behind Mr McCain’s notorious “Celebrity” ad, which compared the Democrat with Paris Hilton and Britney Spears – one said “crap”, another “ridiculous” – a dozen conceded it made Mr Obama look bad.
The Obama ad that attacked Mr McCain for having seven houses and not being able to recall the number fell flat. But Mr McCain’s response ad that highlighted a land deal Mr Obama had struck with Tony Rezko, a real estate dealer subsequently convicted of corruption, prompted more than half the dials to shoot up.
A couple of the voters suggested that Americans did not resent wealth. “I really don’t care how many houses you have but it does matter how you got that house,” said Doug.
Obama Responds to McCain Ayers Hit: I was only eight years old… when I chose to befriend and ally myself with an unrepentant terrorist.
The response from McCain HQ:
“The fact that Barack Obama chose to launch his political career at the home of an unrepentant terrorist raises more questions about Senator Obama’s judgment than any TV ad ever could. And the fact that he’s launching his own Convention by defending his long association with a man who says he didn’t bomb enough U.S. targets tells us more about Barack Obama than any of tonight’s speeches will.” –McCain spokesman Brian Rogers
Black Hillary Supporter Accuses Barack Obama’s Mentor of Making Racist Remark
Cobb said the confrontation started when she and Jones, who is also African-American, were talking about an earlier conversation they had at the Bud Billiken Parade in Chicago. “One day, you’ll be on the right side,” Cobb said Jones told her. She told him she was on the right side. She said Jones pointed at his Obama hat and said, “No, this is the right side,” she said.
“Then he came up behind me. He said ‘Thirty-five thousand people went to Springfield [to support Obama on Saturday],’” she said. “I said, ‘Then 35,000 people drank the Kool-Aid.,’ He said, ‘Barack is a clean-cut guy. He never liked gutter politics, that’s why the Clintons did so-and-so. :’ I said, ‘I don’t want to get into this. So I went over to the elevator, and he said, ‘Uncle Tom!’ Then he grabbed me and hugged me and started laughing. I said, ‘What did you say?’ I turned to Freddrenna Lyle, and I said, ‘What did he say?’ She wouldn’t say anything, That’s when I said some bad things to him.”
Nor did Cobb leave it at that. When talking with the Sun-Times, the Hillary Clinton steering committee member had a word to say about sell-outs:
Taking a final shot at Jones, Cobb said, “Calling me an ‘Uncle Tom’ is beyond the pale, especially considering where he is [close] with Mayor Daley and with [Gov.] Blagojevich, I am hardly the Uncle Tom here.”
As a reminder, here is what you need to know about Jones
Jones appointed Obama sponsor of virtually every high-profile piece of legislation, angering many rank-and-file state legislators who had more seniority than Obama and had spent years championing the bills.
“I took all the beatings and insults and endured all the racist comments over the years from nasty Republican committee chairmen,” State Senator Rickey Hendon, the original sponsor of landmark racial profiling and videotaped confession legislation yanked away by Jones and given to Obama, complained to me at the time. “Barack didn’t have to endure any of it, yet, in the end, he got all the credit.
McCain Rolls Out Deadly Hill/Barack Ad
Debra Bartoshevich was a Hillary delegate until she announced she couldn’t support Obama and would be voting for McCain.
“It’s okay, really!”
Biden has described himself as a 30-year friend of a key figure in the Rezko trial who’s pleaded guilty to a federal extortion charge in Chicago and is awaiting sentencing.
When the Delaware senator began contemplating his own 2008 presidential run, he initially was helped by Chicago lawyer Joseph Cari Jr., who also served as Biden’s Midwest field director in his failed 1988 bid for president.
In 2005, Cari admitted to taking part in an $850,000 kickback scheme that prosecutors say was part of a larger political fund-raising operation for Gov. Blagojevich overseen by Rezko, who was convicted in June of wide-ranging corruption involving state deals.
On the day Cari’s name first surfaced in the federal probe of the state Teachers Retirement System, the former finance chairman for the Democratic National Committee and for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee was to have hosted a Biden fund-raiser in Chicago. Cari was a no-show at that July 25, 2005, event.
Offering Cari a vote of confidence at the time, Biden said, “All I know is Joe Cari is a friend, and he’s an honorable guy, but I don’t know anything beyond that.”
Biden’s son consulted for credit company Biden defended in Senate
During the years that Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. was helping the credit card industry win passage of a law making it harder for consumers to file for bankruptcy protection, his son had a consulting agreement that lasted five years with one of the largest companies pushing for the changes, aides to Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign acknowledged Sunday.
Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter, received consulting fees from the MBNA Corporation from 2001 to 2005 for work on online banking issues. Aides to Mr. Obama, who chose Mr. Biden as his vice-presidential running mate on Saturday, would not say how much the younger Mr. Biden, who works as both a lawyer and lobbyist in Washington, had received, though a company official had once described him as having a $100,000 a year retainer. But Obama aides said he had never lobbied for MBNA and that there was nothing improper about the payments. :
Mr. Biden’s support for the bankruptcy changes, which were signed into law in 2005, puts him at odds with Mr. Obama of Illinois, who opposed the bill and has criticized the presumptive Republican nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, for supporting it. Consumer advocates and other Democratic allies remain sharply critical of Mr. Biden’s actions, saying in recent days that they could hamper the campaign’s efforts to attack the Republicans over their handling of the nation’s credit crisis.
Others blogging:
- Swamp Hermit’s *QUICK* Bits « The Swamp Hermit’s Report
- THE BIDEN-REZKO CONNECTION « Texas Hold ‘Em Blogger
- Tony Rezko Knows Everyone « Beltway Snark
- Jeremiah Films
- Hot Air » Blog Archive » The Obama-Biden-Rezko ticket?
- Credit Card Joe (Updated) « The Real Joe Biden
- Three Sources
- The Roundup-August 25, 2008 « Mountain Shout
- Obama crony racially insults African-American Hillary delegates
- Confederate Yankee
- No Runny Eggs » Blog Archive » The Morning Scramble, Part 1 (O’Biden Special) – 8/25/2008
-  Vote Obama you CRACKERS! by Macsmind – Official Blog of the MacRanger Radio Show on Blog Talk Radio
- Hot Air » Blog Archive » New ad: Black Republican PAC hammers Obama on terrorism, abortion
- Webloggin » Senate President and Barack Obama Supporter Emil Jones Calls Clinton Delegate ‘Uncle Tom’
- Ed Driscoll.com
- The Everlasting Phelps » Blog Archive » Double Standards
- C-SPAN Convention Hub: The Republicans » Blog Archive » New McCain Ad Targets Hillary Voters: “Debra”
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