Obama dines with Sir Bon of Jovi

Barack Obama dines with donors at Bon Jovi's house - NJ.com

Jon Bon Jovi, an original if there ever was one (I can't say of what, however, as I don't understand his insistent popularity), held a little fund-raiser for Barack Obama at his New Jersey home. I had a lot of fun reading the comments under this article. As for the prospects of wealthy mic jockeys swapping side dishes with Obama, it makes me fear for the country's safety and sanity.

Like John McCain last month, Barack Obama visited New Jersey tonight not to seek votes but to reap cash.

After a public campaign event in Pennsylvania, the Democratic presidential nominee slipped into Monmouth County for two private fund-raisers -- including dinner at the home of rock star Jon Bon Jovi.

More than 100 people joined Bon Jovi and his wife, Dorothea, on the lawn of their mansion by the Navesink River in Middletown.

"We're not going to be bullied, we're not going to be smeared, we're not going to be lied about," Obama said. "I don't believe in coming in second."

Obama's visit to New Jersey did not include any public appearances and media coverage of the fund-raisers was limited to a small pool of traveling reporters.

I suppose Obama went swimming in the small pool of reporters in the back yard? Giggling and smiling? Rubbing all over each other and singing newly written hymns about Obama?

The important thing is, the celebrities were all together: Bon Jovi and Obama. I think their names are word jumbles of each other. Jon Bon Jovi, Bajov Oboni, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Wait! It's Barack Obama and Obi-Wan Kenobi! There's the word jumbles! No, no, that's not it either, but it is darn close!

Sorry -- for a moment there I was trying to distract myself with something less frightening. It is creepy that Obama announced, again, that he refuses to come in second. I hope this doesn't mean he's going to call in some owed favors from the meaner kids on the south side of Chicago, against a certain stiff-shouldered war hero. Or, maybe he's hinting that he'll come in third, and the Green Party's Cynthia McKinney will get second place. Or perhaps McKinney will put some whoop-ass on McCain.

I don't know -- politics are just so difficult to understand unless you listen to the words they say and not just follow the slogans.

I am numb: a rock star with no interesting views -- and imitation as his greatest talent -- hosting a Democratic candidate. Sheesh, what I wouldn't give for the return of Sinatra and Kennedy. There was a real singer and a real speaker!

Bartender! Get me another one! Keep them coming until at least November! I think I am going to need to drink until January, just to dull the pain until it is over and done with.

- The Popper

Person Cynthia McKinney

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When the going gets tough, attack WTC... figuratively

New Orleans Mayor Takes Swipe At NYC, Nagin Cites Failure To Rebuild Ground Zero While Defending Katrina Clean-Up - CBS News

Ahh it was only two years ago that Ray Nagin confirned what many suspected in 2005: he's a jerk. It is hard to believe that one mayor could make such an spectable of his callousness, especially in a national TV interview, but then, Ray Nagin is no ordinary mayor. He's mayor of Chocolate City, as he put it.

In late August 2006, the first anniversary of the destruction of Katrina, Nagin found a reason to deflect questions of logistics and leadership away from himself and onto the Big Apple. Apparently the nearly instant death of almost 4,000 people is not even sacred to this man of the people. The chocolate people. Does that mean he thinks everone is an Oompa Loompa in Nola? For that matter, isn't Hershey, Pennsylvania, the Chocolate City? New Orleans is more like the Bare Breasts for Fake Pearls City, or the Bourbon City. How about the Southern Comfort City? That's where Southern Comfort was created, after all! (OK. I'll stop.)

(CBS) Confronted by accusations that he’s taking too long to clean up his city after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin defended himself by remarking on New York City’s failure to rebuild Ground Zero.

Nagin made the remarks in an interview conducted by CBS News National Correspondent Byron Pitts. (Click here)

Remember, New Orleans reelected him. He has had a chance to do it better, as everyone has, with Gustav, which luckily didn't create the misery that reached Katrina-sizes levels. So far, so good. Fortunately, not just the leaders learned a lesson from Katrina: folks respect nature a bit more after that one.

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Fight the Smears: The truth about Barack's plane ... is that the paint is not smeared at all

Fight the Smears | The truth about Barack's plane

The truth, also, is that he placed his logo on the tail, not that the plane did not have an American flag anywhere. But this is the nifty message he wants everyone to share, because it is so darned important to correct the kooks claiming his plane has no Stars and Stripes on it. Go figure.

Lie:
Barack Obama has been attacked for not having an American Flag on his campaign airplane.

Truth:
Barack Obama does indeed have an American flag displayed on the outside of this campaign airplane.

He selected Joe Biden, so now I can't be too ticked off if things don't go McCain's way. But I just don't see Obama being our youngest elected president. He's just coming off as too young in substantial ways: like bluster.

------

UPDATE, post-conventions (Sept 06 2008):

Well, now Joe Biden, who once claimed he would run on a ticket with McCain, basically defecated on McCain during his speech, so I am just waiting for the election. Obama is obsessed with himself, and theoretically, the masses, and Biden blew it for me. So the whole thing comes down to whether I am miserable for four years, or I will pray that McCain is elected and can manage to be a real leader. I am soooo disappointed in the whining coming from Obama's camp about every little, tiny thing -- like this airplane thing here. Give me a break!

Person Joe Biden

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Jean Kirkpatrick contributed to the ire of liberals - remembrance of 1984 in 2006

Washington Times - Kirkpatrick hit liberals for blaming America first

We live in interesting times. Getting to know the 1970s and 1980s, and the troubled thoughts of Jeanne Kirkpatrick about her Democratic Party, might help clarify why and when one party (heavily) wandered to the left, while another followed a path set by Ronald Reagan, and folks like Newt Gringrich in later years.

"When Marxist dictators shoot their way into power in Central America, the San Francisco Democrats don't blame the guerrillas and their Soviet allies," Mrs. Kirkpatrick said of her party, which had just had its national convention in San Francisco. "They blame United States policies of 100 years ago. But then they always blame America first."

She accused Democrats of abandoning the anti-communism of liberals like Harry S. Truman, Hubert H. Humphrey and Henry "Scoop" Jackson for the accommodative tack of George McGovern, Jimmy Carter and the "new liberals" she tagged as the "San Francisco Democrats."

Mr. Reagan liked the "blame America first" refrain so much he used it against Democrats in his speeches in the fall 1984 campaign, winning a landslide victory.

Kirkpatrick and her husband were dismayed by the post-1972 drift of the Democratic Party to the extreme left. But "the GOP didn't seem an acceptable alternative because it retained a brand image associated with country-club snobbery and an indifference to problems of race and poverty."

Kirkpatrick, who was in fact a longtime Democrat, was right to do so, especially in the time of Reagan's focus against Communism. That of course proved to be a windfall against autocratic, or simply undemocratic, leadership.

Late the same year the quoted retrospective article appeared, Kirkpatrick, a former ambassador to the U.N. passed away, on Dec. 7, 2006.

- JRO

Was it the lack of a devil's advocate that cost the nation the Katrina tragedy?

How Bush Blew It
After-Action Report: Bureaucratic Timidity. Bad Phone Lines. And A Failure Of Imagination. Why The Government Was So Slow To Respond To Catastrophe.

Newsweek, from Sept. 19, 2005:

It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the President of the United States

When Hurricane Katrina struck, it appears there was no one to tell President Bush the plain truth: that the state and local governments had been overwhelmed, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was not up to the job and that the military, the only institution with the resources to cope, couldn't act without a declaration from the president overriding all other authority.

Tragic situation, even more tragic, it would seem, due to the management approach of GW Bush.

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