While its true not everyone was happy with the way the 2008 Democratic Convention shaped up, the organizers of the event and party leaders must be breathing a huge sigh of relief having seemingly achieved most of their aims in Denver.
Firstly the undeniable warmth of Michelle Obama's opening night address interwove fluently and convincingly her family's story and that of her husband in a speech that will go a long way towards dispelling voters' doubts about her. She has been the focus of unfair criticism concerning her patriotism and commitment, but largely overcame this in a confident display dispelling organisers' fears that choosing her as the opening speaker was a risk.
Next came the crucial uniting speech from Hillary Clinton. Her performance, which has been likened to being the ex-fiancee forced to toast the blushing bride at a wedding, was sublime and healed much of the bitter division between the Clinton and Obama camps, left over from the bruising nomination battle.
Though some reporters detected a certain hesitancy in outlining the quality of an Obama presidency, she called on her supporters to rally behind Obama, a uniting effort that every Democrat was hoping she'd make and vital to Obama's election chances.
An awkward-looking Bill Clinton completed the Clinton acquiesence by comparing the inexperienced Obama to another inexperienced contender in 1992 - himself. Though increasingly overshadowed by Hillary these days, and Denver was no exception, the former president still commands enormous clout amongst the faithful.
However Hillary Clinton's role was not confined to the unity speech when, in a dramatic moment from the floor representing the New York delegation, she stopped the state-by-state count and proposed Obama's name be read as the Democratic nominee - an electrifying and uniting moment for Democrats.
The theatre of the moment is expertly described by Justin Webb, the BBC's America blogger.
And then there was the historic Obama acceptance speech, the first time a black person has been nominated from a major party for president of the United States.
After accepting the nomination "with humility" Obama finally did two things which will please many of his supporters and potential voters. He took the gloves off against McCain and set out an agenda for his "change" programme.
Likening a McCain administration to four more years of a Bush administration, Obama obliquely referred to the Arizona senator's famous temper when he said he had the better temperament and judgement to be commander-in-chief than McCain. After weeks of being the subject of negative attacks from the McCain camp, is this a sign the Obama camp will flick the switch to attack mode?
In another "gloves off" line against the doughty Republican nominee, Obama said "John McCain says he'd follow Osama Bin Laden to the gates of hell, but he won't even follow him to the cave where he lives."
Setting out his agenda for an Obama administration - the first time he has fleshed out his somewhat nebulous "change" programme - the Democratic nominee placed affordable health care, tax cuts for ninety-five of the population, a commitment to renewable energy and the environment at the top of the agenda.
Forty-five years to the day since Dr Martin Luther King's famous speech, was it my imagination or did Obama deliberately adopt the speaking style of Dr King when he spoke of the promise that had brought people from all over America on that day in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.?
The speech though was not a Dr King-style speech of soaring rhetoric that Americans have become used to from Obama, but more a matter-of-fact nuts and bolts address, notice perhaps that the election is only nine weeks away.
With the Republican Convention due in the Twin Cities due next week, McCain knows he needs to hit back, and hit back hard. He has relied, with some success, on negative attack ads in recent times to bring him level pegging in the polls with Obama however he knows he much achieve a number of things himself at the Republican Convention.
Firstly his running mate (due to be announced this week) must make a good impression as Joe Biden has done for Obama. Then he must convince delegates that he is a "maverick" Republican and not beholden to the Bush administration.
And if that isn't enough, he must unify his own party of conservatives and the religious right with his moderate tendencies and set an agenda of his own that will be acceptable to middle America.
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'BARRY' OBAMA is able to read and give a speech so-o-o-o-o??? DOES THIS QUALIFY HIM TO BE PRESIDENT??? OBAMA is the JORDAN BAKER character, the female hard-bodied golf player from the GREAT GATZBY - "...INCURABLY DISHONEST"!!! Oh and now the DEMBHOLE FOOLS will trumpet 'racist' at the top of their lungs suffering from their own ‘WHITE’ guilt at how they have condemned most BLACKS they knew/came in contact with to servitude while blithely ignoring BARACK's propensity of lies such as "...his parents met at Selma" or other falsehoods such as his middle name derives from the Hebrew word ‘baruch’=meaning blessed. How many ‘Hebes’ do youse know named HUSSEIN??? AND NOW the outright lie that ‘BARRY’ never voted to ‘OFF’ botched baby survivors of abortions – unbelievable that the NATIONAL ASSHOLE MEDIA has not ‘called-him’ on this patentedly false denial!!! But this is because OBAMA is indeed only half BLACK!!! With 8 half-siblings living in various situations around the globe. MARXIST wannabe's as most of the NATIONAL ASSHOLE MEDIA most assuredly are will blithely ignore OBAMA's punishing windfall tax on BIG-OIL - because they make TOO MUCH MONEY. But heh why no windfall taxes on sports athletes, or movies, or actors, or singers, or anyone that this BARACK OBAMA made-up character deems to have too much largesse!!! ALLL HAIL OBAMA HE WAS SMART AND WENT TO HARVARD LAW. We will brook no criticism of our JORDAN BAKER even though he is "...INCURABLY DISHONEST" and totally without qualification or abilities. OBAMA says CHINA has “…better…superior systems of infrastructure then the UNITED STATES!!!’??? HOW??? HAS ‘BARRY’ EVER BEEN THERE??? OR IS THIS JUST WHAT HE READS/GLEANS/SEES ON TV FROM THE OLYMPIC MYTH??? Of course ‘BARRY’ THINKS THAT THE RUSSIAN invasion of GEORGIA is somehow analagous to AMERIKA ‘freeing’ IRAQ from military dictators and invading a country to free it!!! A good little MARXIST is ‘BARRY’ big-ears!!! OBAMA is BLACK and that is all that is necessary for DEMBHOLE MARXIST WANKERS. Ha - a bad made-up second rate character for a third-rate philosophy that failed with LENIN so many years ago!!! Share the wealth with us the undeserving because we are led by NANCY'sphincter-of-the-House-of-Fools'PELOSI and HARRY'bought-and-paid-for-the-Vegas-mob'REID and HILLARY"...asbestos pants-suits"CLINTON who needs to hide her 'UGLINESS/CORRUPTION/TREACHERY' - we are DEMBHOLES THE PARTY OF FOOLS!!! HOORAY FOR OUR PRESIDENT CUZ HE IS AN "INCURABLY DISHONEST" BLACK MAN. All shall feel our pain. Ha.
Hey Jaimot,
Your feble attempt to participate in any intelligent conversation only goes to exagerate you're already pathetic lack of mental ability.
to Jodi + other DEMBHOLE DOUCHESBAGS - Ah 'finished' higher in my grad class at HARVARD LAW than your bozo 'BARRY' O. DEMBHOLES always the silly wankers always trying to find retorts and making themselves even STOOPID than they are!!!
An Open Letter to Senator John McCain and the Republican National Committee:
September 2, 2008
Dear Senator McCain and Mike Duncan, Chairman, Republican National Committee:
"Dear" is all you will get from me. By now you all should be in Minneapolis for your shindig that you call a “convention.”
I am an African-American, and I cannot hold back my anger any longer. It is a documented fact that the Republican Party before and during the Civil War supported and benefited from slavery. As a matter of fact, the Republican Party was started for the express purpose of defending slavery and holding down black people.
It is also a matter of record that the Ku Klux Klan was started by Republicans after the Civil War to terrorize and murder black and white Democrats in the South. Republicans hated the fact that many ex-slaves were serving in state and federal government. They also hated the fact that everyone of the ex-slaves were all members of the Democratic Party. All the white Democrats, before and after the Civil War, were sympathetic to the cause of abolition of slavery and of civil rights for blacks, therefore racist Republicans had no use for them.
The Republicans historically have been bitter opponents of the following Democratic initiatives:
• The 13th Amendment that abolished slavery in 1865
• The 1866 Civil Rights Act
• The First Reconstruction Act of 1867
• The 14th Amendment in 1868 that made all persons born in the U.S., including former slaves, U.S. citizens.
• The 15th Amendment in 1870 that give every citizen the right to vote
• The Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 which was to stop Republican Klansmen to terrorized white and black Democrats
• The 1875 Civil Rights Act
• The 1957 Civil Rights Act
• The 1964 Civil Rights Act
• The 1965 Voters Rights Act
In every case, the white Republicans in the Senate, especially Senator Everett Dirksen, and in the House of Representatives fought passage of these laws in every turn as well as being compelled to give up their slaves after the Civil War. The Democratic leadership, especially Senator Robert Byrd who has always despised the Ku Klux Klan and who discouraged white Americans from joining that gang, fought very hard to have those laws passed. Democratic Senator Al Gore Sr., not only voted for the Civil Rights Act in 1964, but he, along side of Senator Byrd, fought a 74-day filibuster by Republicans to defeat the legislation. The Congressional Quarterly of June 26, 1964 recorded that, in the Senate, only 69% of Republicans (46 for, 21 against) voted for the Civil Rights Act as compared to 82% of Democrats (27 for, 6 against) the Civil Rights Act. In the House of Representatives, 61% of Republicans (152 for, 96 against) voted for the Civil Rights Act and. 80% of Democrats, (138 for, 34 against) voted for it.
The Republicans have also opposed every Democratic anti-lynching bill to their shame. The Democrats have always been opposed to lynchings for decades.
For these reason, we black people deserve an apology from the Republican Party for the following:
• support of slavery, on record in their platforms
• support of the Dred Scott decision
• support of segregation and Jim Crow prejudice
• opposition to anti-lynching laws
• attempts to destroy black schools and colleges, and the burning of black churches
• efforts to defeat the Reparation Bill of 1866
• efforts to defeat every piece of Civil Rights legislation from 1863 to 1964
• efforts to have the 1875 Civil Rights Act declared unconstitutional
• support of the Ku Klux Klan, composed of entirely Republicans, and its vile and violent racist agenda:
• Republican participation in the lynchings of thousands of blacks.
History will also show the following:
• Eugene “Bull” Conner (the poster boy of American racism) was a Republican.
• The poll tax was a Republican institution.
• Black codes and Jim Crow laws were instituted by Republicans.
Africans Americans are even due reparations from the Republican Party since it supported and benefited from slavery as well as supporting KKK terror, racism, etc. The Civil Rights movement started because of the majority white racist Republican power structure in the South.
My conclusion is that if this nation was left to the devices of the Republican Party, African Americans would not be anywhere near where we are today. As a matter of fact I would argue that we African Americans would not have any constitutional rights, be U.S. citizens or otherwise because we would still be slaves!
The Democratic Party, of course, has had its problems racially here and there, unfortunately, but it does not have the consistent racist legacy for decades and decades, stretching back to the early 1800’s as the Republican Party has had. The Democratic Party, in general, has always been supportive of and open and honest with African Americans throughout its history.
It is time for the Republican Party to come clean, tell the truth, and settle the debt.
Sincerely,
Brother X
to BROTHER X and other uppity 'Kneegoes' - YOUSE AN IDJIT BOY!!! It is high cotton time that 'youse peoples' youse 'darkies' said thanks to all those WHITEYS who fought the 'WAR OF THE SOUTHERN REBELLION' not for their own profit but to FREE youse people all dem BLACK SLAVES!!! Is youse all African-Americans or just stoopid detritus - leftovers from DEMBHOLE-DIMWITS who has held youse in perpetual bondage all dese years likes MASTUH SENATURD BYRD and now SENATURD HILLARY with her "...asbestos pants-suits" to hide her 'UGLINESS/CORRUPTION/RACISM' and MASTUH D^CKHEAD and his flock of good 'kneegroes' and E-Z BIMBETTES??? Yes it is high cotton-time to come into the 21st century BOY - and realize how this nation tore itself apart for all youse 'darkies' and youse freedom!!! BLAME THE REPUBLICANTS IF YOU WANTS - BLAME THE DEMBHOLES - AND LASTLY LOOK IN THE MIRROR AND BLAMES YOUSELF BOY - ALL YOUSE 'DARKIES' + AFRO-AMERICANS + BLACKS FOR THE CHAOS IN THIS NATION THAT YOUSE HAD A LARGE PART IN CAUSING!!!
Dear Zyskander A. Jaimot,
You are the typical online "troll". Awe full spelling, horrible grammar, incoherent thought processes, and a complete lack of ability to argue, debate, or express his opinion in the manner that is respectable are all assets of your repertoire.
His sole purpose here is to spark a debate that he will not actually follow, or, in the case that he does, will only be to further the debate.
It's quite a phenomenon, and, although it may just be the human nature in him that excels and/or thrives in anonymity, he is wrong for trying to force feed us with his jaded opinions. Anyway, nothing new to see here, move along.
Oh, and if you read this, please, please, utilize the enter/return button on your keyboard to make your rants semi-intelligent. Capitalizing words to indicate stress on the said word doesn't make you look any smarter, either.
Just my two-cents.
dear zyskander,my brothr we wa nt creatd wit diffrnt colours 2 show superiority o infiriority.u cn kip ur racist opinions 2 urself bt get 2 knw ths chuzin mc cain is chuzin bush.wat gud reputation has bush brot 2 ths world if nt USA?war isnt a solution 2 prblms.wil the kilings of innocent people just go 2 trush?neva.blood wil always b in d republican's hands.dnt fyl shy 2 join obama.he is a man hu has seen d diffrnt soats of lyf.as 4 mc cain does goin 2 war show he is ready 4 d top job?personality n intelegence drives economies 2 d clif nt war.may God bless OBAMA.amen
to Janos D.(for dummy IS IT???)Sleigh and bother ermer + the rest of the DUMB-DEMBHOLES the blessings of Allah upon youse and yours -
OBAMA is a MOODY MARXIST who was taught to read/recite others words. Sort of like a 'dog' learning to walk upright - it is cute but not very intelligent or 'ground-breaking'!!! As far as my being the 'typical online troll' - WOW DO ALL THE AHEM 'TROLLS' YOUSE KNOWS HAVE ADVANCED DEGREES/AWARDS/HONOURS/PUBLICATIONS IN EUROPE/THE AMERICAS/ASIA???
Looking smart to MORONS such as youse have proved youselves to be with youse lomoted Emglish skills is not all that hard. But perhaps youse is the part of AMERIKA that 'BARRY' wishes to 'spriegentse' another language when he spoke to all those DEUTSCHERS high on free rock, beer, sausage and of course that 'CITIZEN-OF-THE-WORLD-CRAPPOLA'???!!! OBAMA is a made-up creation of the NATIONAL-ASSHOLE-MEDIA who now claims he would habe enlisted in the US MILITARY - but his excuse was "...there wasn't a war at the time." BUT BARRY WANTS TO INVADE PAKHISTAN BECAUSE HE THINKS(oxymoron ain't it???) THAT IS WHAT IS NEEDED. What a DEMBHOLE yutz. Yes OBAMA is a 'phenom' - and he may still get to be our first MARXIST president. OBAMA is "incurably dishonest" from his associations with felons WILLIAM AYERS, GEIRGE SOROS and his frequent lies about his personal life [the one ise likes the most is that his name BARACK comes from the Hebrew 'baruch' - now how many Hebes does youse know named BARACK HUSSEIN??? HA-HA] Don't have to 'look' smart to MORONS such as youse. Next time ise in court representing a 'panty-waste' such as youse has proved youself to be with a pedantic/non-sentient comment - use just tell him to shut his cake-hole and let the 'grown-ups' be in charge. With OBAMA - his brand of MARXIST/SOCIALISM a just sort of stinks/smells (like youse and your ilk!!!)in the end!!! DEMBHOLES always the smelly wankers!!! Ha. Inshallah.
ican see j.mcain as comander in cheif,obama-thats laughable.
You are a complete and total asshole, Why dont you take a jump back over the boarder jerk...............
BROTHER X .. WHY ARE YOU PLAGERIZING SOMEONE ELSES LETTER AND REVERSING THE FACTS ? .. ONLY YOU ARE SO STUPID AS TO POST THAT AND THINK ANYONE IS IGNORANT ENOUGH TO BELIEVE YOU .. TRY BEING HONEST .. APOLOGIZE
An Open Letter to the Democratic Party
Lincoln Heritage Institute ^ | 03/13/2008 | Lt. Colonel Frances Rice
An Open Letter to the Democratic Party
By Lt. Colonel Frances Rice,U.S. Army Retired: Contributor to the LHI
“We, African American citizens of the United States, declare and assert:
Whereas in the early 1600’s 20 African men and women were landed in Virginia from a Dutch ship as slaves and from that tiny seed grew the poisoned fruit of plantation slavery which shaped the course of American development,
Whereas reconciliation and healing always begin with an apology and an effort to repay those who have been wronged,
Whereas the Democratic Party has never apologized for their horrific atrocities and racist practices committed against African Americans during the past two hundred years, nor for the residual impact that those atrocities and practices and current soft bigotry of low expectations are having on us today,
Whereas the Democratic Party fought to expand slavery and, after the Civil War, established Jim Crow Laws, Black Codes and other repressive legislation that were designed to disenfranchise African Americans,
Whereas the Ku Klux Klan was the terrorist arm of the Democratic Party, and their primary goal was to intimidate and terrorize African American voters, Republicans who moved South to protect African Americans and any other whites who supported them,
Whereas, according to leading historians (both black and white), the horrific atrocities committed against African Americans during slavery and Reconstruction were financed, sponsored, and promoted by the Democratic Party and their Ku Klux Klan supporters,
Whereas from 1870 to 1930, in an effort to deny African Americans their civil rights and to keep African Americans from voting Republican, thousands of African Americans were shot, beaten, lynched, mutilated, and burned to death by Ku Klux Klan terrorists from the Democratic Party,
Whereas Democratic Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman rejected anti-lynching laws and efforts to establish a permanent Civil Rights Commission,
Whereas the Democratic party has used racist demagoguery to deceive African Americans about the history of the Republican Party that: (a) started as the anti-slavery party in 1854, (b) fought to free African Americans from slavery, (c) designed Reconstruction, a ten-year period of unprecedented political power for African Americans, (d) passed the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution granting African Americans freedom, citizenship, and the right to vote, (e) passed the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875 granting African Americans protection from the Black Codes and prohibiting racial discrimination in public accommodations, (f) passed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 granting African Americans protection from the Jim Crow laws, (g) established Affirmative Action programs to help African Americans proper with Republican President Richard Nixon’s 1969 Philadelphia Plan that set the first goals and timetables and his 1972 Equal Employment Opportunity Act that made Affirmative Action Programs the law of our nation, and (h) never sponsored or launched a program, passed laws, or engaged in practices that resulted in the death of millions of African Americans,
Whereas Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka (a 1954 decision by Chief Justice Earl Warren who was appointed by Republican President Dwight Eisenhower) was a landmark civil rights case that was designed to overturn the racist practices that were established by the Democratic Party,
Whereas after Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt received the vote of African Americans, he banned African American newspapers from the military shortly after taking office because he was convinced the newspapers were communists,
Whereas Democratic President John F. Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Law, opposed the 1963 March on Washington by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and was later criticized by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. for ignoring civil rights issues.
Whereas Democratic President John F. Kennedy authorized the FBI (supervised by his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy) to investigate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on suspicion of being a communist,
Whereas Democratic Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, made a 14-hour filibuster speech in the Senate in June 1964 in an unsuccessful effort to block passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and was heralded in April 2004 by Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd as a senator who would have been a great leader during the Civil War,
Whereas when the 1964 Civil Rights Act came up for vote, Senator Al Gore, Sr. and the rest of the Southern Democrats voted against the bill,
Whereas in the House of Representatives only 61 percent of the Democrats voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act as compared to 80 percent of Republicans, and in the Senate only 69 percent of the Democrats voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, compared to 82 percent of the Republicans,
Whereas Democratic President Bill Clinton sent troops to Europe to protect the citizens of Bosnia and Kosovo while allowing an estimated 800,000 black Rwandans to be massacred in Africa, vetoed the welfare reform law twice before signing it, and refused to comply with a court order to have shipping companies develop an Affirmative Action Plan,
Whereas Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore created harmful racial division when he falsely claimed that the 2000 presidential election was “stolen” from him and that African Americans in Florida were disenfranchised, even though a second recount of Florida votes by the “Miami Herald” and a consortium of major news organizations confirmed that he lost the election, and a ruling by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission declared that African Americans were not denied the right to vote,
Whereas the Democratic Party’s soft bigotry of low expectations and social promotions have consigned African Americans to economic bondage and created a culture of dependency on government social programs,
Whereas the Democratic Party’s use of deception and fear to block welfare reform, the faith-based initiative and school choice that would help African Americans prosper is consistent with the Democratic Party’s heritage of racism that included sanctioning of slavery and kukluxery, a perversion of moral sentiment among leaders of the Democratic Party whose racist legacy bode ill until this generation of African Americans,
Now, therefore, for the above and other documented atrocities and accumulated wrongs inflicted upon African Americans, we demand a formal written apology and other appropriate remuneration from the leadership of the Democratic party.