BJean

KyBC: You make a very good point about the absurdity of basing ones vote on a candidate's ethnic background. On the other hand, there is this claim by some of the people posting on this and other threads that Senator Obama is an Arab. I am challenging that claim because I have seen no proof of it and no one with any credibility proving in any way that it is true. Even John McCain when he had to address the claim up close and personal in front of the cameras said that Senator Obama is not an Arab. Senator Obama claims that he is an American - and that he is an American with both white and black parents, which if it ever counted for anything and it doesn't in my books, would point to some people correctly referring to him as African-American. Which is part of this silly discussion. You are absolute correct when you say that this is a desperate ploy to plant fear in the hearts of Americans.

Still waiting for proof of your statement that Senator Obama is Arab.

Excellent point Ghost! Thanks for the wake up call. You're absolutely right. What I asked, gadget, is where you got that Arab information. Senator Obama's father is from South Africa. Whether or not he was a slave decendant has nothing to do with whether Obama should be considered an African American. People who do not have South African roots, but who are black Americans are often called African Americans. It has to do with the color of their skin and the fact that they are American citizens. No one knows where someone, like Oprah or Tiger Woods for example, have genetic roots unless they reveal it or an outsider does some kind of in-depth geneology research on them. So I'm very interested in your source of the Arab information. It has nothing to do with whether I want to believe it or not. I honestly don't think that African American is a good term to use for Americans who have been born in the USA or even those who are naturalized American citizens. I don't like the terms like Latinos or Ricans or any of the other things that tend to keep us separate when what we are is American. I have some pretty deep American Indian roots which I am very proud of, but I certainly don't believe that people should call me something that sets me apart from you or any other American citizen.

You're very good at what you do. Instead of truly answering anything with real responses, you just blah, blah, blah the same gibberish that just doesn't make a bit of sense. Your tossing around the term socialism and accusing America as being a socialist country is a load of you-know-what. Furthermore if there are no checks and balances, the capitalist system will run amok, just as it has here in the past 8 years. The fear of this happening was always there - and now it has been proven - we now know exactly what happens when greed takes over. How can you not pay attention to what has come about and how can you keep ranting about any controls over huge corporations as being socialistic, or that having them pay a reasonable amount of taxes is socialism? You think you defined socialism, but you did not define this country or what it takes for this country to be the strongest nation in the world. Do you or Joe feel any responsibility for helping to pay for streets, schools, military, police, or any other of the services that make this country great? Obviously not. You think this is a socialist country because we have to pay taxes. You think that because we have governmentally controlled programs to provide the basic things that people need to live in a country like ours, it is a socialist country. You do not have a clue what socialism or capitalism is. You have a loose definition of those terms that you've applied in inappropriate ways. Move to Alaska. They want to be their own country and they do not want to pay taxes and they want to force the oil companies to pay individual citizens part of their profits. I'm not sure what you'd call that kind of life, probably some kind of rogue communism, but you can seat your first dictator, Ms. Sarah Palin, right away. She's perfect for that job.

Did you make up that phrase "intolerant and hate-filled as Islamofascist terrorists"? Sounds like something you heard from your Republican heros. Those are just the kind of angry words that we're going to have to put aside after this election. Beth, we have to live together on this planet, in this country, in our states, in our towns and in our neighborhoods. I understand that politics can bring out the worst in people. I understand that people are passionate about their political beliefs and biases. We're all a product of our upbringing. And we're also in this election process a product of those spin masters and rehtoric spewing people that we hear every night and every day on our radios and TVs. But we're all Americans and we all want a strong country. We've got to get past this crap. People can't continue to call good and patriotic Americans, socialists or terrorists without it eventually causing some kind of eruption. The Republicans have not been honest in that name-calling B.S. and this attitude that prevails, this attitude of bigotry and resentment, is just plain wrong. In fact, I've read some things on these couple of political threads that are as backward and ignorant as anything I've read in years. Honest to God Beth, you write well, you spell well but the venom that you spout off is totally unexpected from someone who otherwise seems intelligent. I understand that you believe all the terrible lies that your party has put forth. And evidentally you believe that little old bushy haired lady who called Senator Obama an Arab. Or was that gadget? I get you two mixed up because you sound so much alike. Senator Obama is not an Arab. He is an American. He is proud to be an American. He loves this country with all his heart and he has said how lucky he is to be an American. He wants this country to heal the wounds of racial bias in this country. Don't you? If not, why not? Senator Obama has no plans for bigger government. (I feel like I'm speaking to Joe the Plumber.) He has no plans to increase your taxes. Unless you make mighty good chunk of change. And even then, he only wants you to pay a fair share of the tax burden - no more or less than during the Reagan years. Why are you so opposed to a roll back of the tax breaks that the wealthy have enjoyed for so long? McCain wants you to think that the way it works is this: give the wealthy tax breaks, allow corporations to make obscene sums of money while we pay at the gas pumps, and allow the wall street hoods all the leeway in the world to do whatever they want. And if you do that, it will create jobs and those huge sums of money the people at the top make will eventually trickle down to the middle class. Then we'll all be rich. That's what he's been selling. What part of Bush's policies are different from that? No part. And after 8 years of the exact things that McCain is proposing, our country is on the brink of financial disaster. The unemployment rate is creeping further and further up every day. Middle Americans are not benefitting from Exxon Mobile or other huge corporations making unbelievable profits in this past quarter. We just are not. That kind of financial plan for America does not work for anyone but the wealthy. It is unfair. It breaks the back of people like Joe the Plumber, but Joe is too damn dumb to get it. All he hears is Bush and McCain saying that Democrats want to "spread the wealth" and they interpret that for Joe by saying they want to take your hard-earned money and give it to welfare cheats. It is pathetically absurd. And incredibly stupid. Who the hell are you to promote the kind of fringe (to use one of your words) lunacy we've seen in this campaign?

Oh for heaven's sakes. Read your history books. (In reference to my comments about the deaths of the people who promoted peace and who tried to make America's government represent all the people, not just the wealthiest or most right wing.) As for hate... please enlighten me. Tell me exactly what Senator Obama has said that in any way compares to the insinuations and crack pot questions that mostly Palin has spewed from the podium. Not that McCain hasn't done it, he has too, although not quite as ugly and not quite as often. Now you're not allowed to use misstatements or misquotes or things that stretch the imagination because they're taken out of context that you've heard Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter or anyone on Fox News say. It's gotta be the verifiabe. Tell me one thing that Senator Obama has said that incites the kind of hatred that your candidates have provoked. In fact, the kind of hatred that you obviously feel toward Senator Obama. I don't know about California. I don't live there although my kids do and have not said one word about the kind of unhealthy scenes you're talking about. Bless your hearts, in Texas most people wouldn't dare admit that they are for Senator Obama. Because here, we're the ones who are in the minority. When I do happen upon someone who lets it slip that they're voting for Senator Obama, we do the terrorist fist knock. :rolleyes2:

Aw, take your time. I know it's hard to get those Majik 8 Balls to come up with the answers you're looking for. Why am I not surprised that is your source of information? Hmmmmm.:rolleyes2:

No gadget, you and Beth are defining his background - and quite far afield from the truth. Please tell us all exactly where his parents are from and what race they were, where they grew up, where Senator Obama grew up, and all that if you two know so much about his ethic background. Tap, tap, tap, hands on hips, smiling, I'm waiting.......

Very funny gadget!! You crack me up. :rolleyes2:

Beth you've really gone off the deep end. Do you really think that Senator Obama doesn't say the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America? Where do you get this stuff? I will admit that Palin is an open book all right. She's about as deep as a single flapjack swimming in a pool of real maple syrup. And, you are correct, that is exactly one of the reasons we don't like her. Actually it isn't that we don't like her. It's that we have no respect for her as a Vice Presidential candidate, second in line to the presidency possibly, after a man who's 72 years old, had cancer and other health problems. The only reason you don't understand Senator Obama is because you don't care to. You've either not done your homework or you've bought the right wing media rehtoric hook, line and sinker. Those of us who support him know exactly where he stands on issues. He's the only person in this race who has been completely open and up front about his planned policies. That's one of the main reasons he's ahead in the polls. We're sick and tired of the bull$%@! that McCain and Palin are slinging, and we know that if they had a really good leg to stand on with the issues, they'd be talking about them instead of trying to get people to hate Obama. Cause you know, that's their only chance. There's no way that they can get enough votes to win on the issues - not with the informed majority of the American people. And it looks like we've come full circle. There's really no sense in going over all this again. It's not like anything has changed in anybody's mind here. Except maybe for gadget, who fancies herself an expert on African-American people. It does make us scratch our heads when you say stuff like that gadget. First of all, I don't believe that Senator Obama is the person who has put that label on him. And two, he knows who he is - and in much more depth than you. I can't imagine why you think you have the right to define his ethnic background for him. Anyone who's been paying attention knows hes an Arab with terrorist proclivities, right? :rolleyes2:

Ahhh I had a feeling someone would bring that up. Shoulda known it would be you, oh logical one. Of course he doesn't read them all line by line. That's why the taxpayers agree to paying salaries for aides for Congressmen. The aides do a list of the points of each bill and bring them to the attention of Senator Obama. If there is a piece of legislation wherein part of it goes against his philosophy in some way, he reads it and decides what he needs to do. And we know that he is aware of what's in those bills because he discusses his reasons for voting the way he voted both when he is interviewed and on his website. I don't know why all the Congressional staffers aren't able to inform their bosses on all of the bills. And of course quite a few do. Another factor is that it is politics, pure and simple, influenced by lobbyists from all angles. But there are a whole lot of lazy people who "serve" in Congress and there's really no excuse for it. I do not consider Senator Obama to be a lazy or uninformed person. I do not consider Senator McCain an uninformed person either. His philosophy as it relates to legislation is often defined by his hawk-like stance on war and his big tax break theory on greedy corporations. Makes it easy for a person like me to get where he's coming from. I don't just listen to what he has said during this campaign. I know what he's done for real. With Senator Obama, I needed to dig deeper to get the whole picture. Something that obviously many people are not interested in bothering with. If they had, they wouldn't take the McCain/Palin speeches for the gospel truth.

What it tells us is that he has actually read the proposed legislation and that he has mixed feelings about it. He doesn't want to endorse the entire bill by absolutely voting for it because he disagrees with certain aspects of it and he won't stand in the way of it because of the good parts that he agrees with. Furthermore, he knows that it is necessary to participate in this way instead of voting no, if they are to ever get anything accomplished in such a bipartisan Congress. I prefer his approach as opposed to those of so many of those fools that are just plain absent because they don't want to go on the record and have to answer questions or defend their vote, either yes or no, for a piece of legislation that they often haven't even read. True dat, yo.

You're right about hate and politics. But the if a good man points us in the right direction, and things begin to improve, it can go a long way in diffusing political hate. And I gotta tell you that I for one, do not hate McCain. I abhor this campaign he's run but I understand it and hope it doesn't work in his favor. But I don't hate McCain. Regarding Palin, I can't say that I hate her either. But I do not respect her political philosophy and her extremist views. And I gotta tell you that if she does run for national office again, I will actively oppose her. More actively than I have supported Senator Obama. And if McCain and Palin lose, I will totally shut up about her -- unless and until she runs for national office.

I still think it is a good thought! I guess you know what you're talking about when it comes to rural v. urban voters. I have heard twice today that at least 2 nationwide polls only have McCain at about 35%. But I know that polls are not reliable. And you make a good point that these polls don't take into account who all these new voters are going to support. That should be a very important factor and probably will make this race far closer than anyone predicts. I do think it is going to take some time for this country to heal from all the negative emotions this election has stirred up. I sure hope that whoever is elected will be able to take the kind of action and say the kinds of things that will help everyone get united to create a better, stronger America. That is what really counts in this thing.

You consider Erica Jong a credible source of information? Have you read her books? Not that I disagree. I just don't consider Erica Jong the smartest bulb on the porch. If a backlash happens because Senator Obama loses, and if there is blood in the streets, it will be shed by the pro-Obama people, caused by their oppositions brutality, if history tells us anything.

Diane that's the darned truth! I think everyone is frustrated by the length and ugliness of this campaign. It has made a lot of people want to vent. I cannot wait until it is over. Once Tuesday comes, we should have a lot of answers to many of our questions. Different questions could arise after the election day, but I think we all hope that there is no question about who the real winner is.

A "present" vote is different from no vote. You proabably don't know the reasoning behind some Senators voting "present." Ha, ha, ha. Since when have you cared one whit about what France thinks? Anybody want to discuss the fact that John McCain actually has "ties" to Bill Ayers and the "PLO" operative Palin, Karl Rove and Rudy Guliani have insinuated that Senator Obama consorted with? Interesting disclosure today. And no, McCain wasn't disclosing a thing. It was discovered by others and revealed on MSNBC. Also reported by CNN although not as in depth. Even Fox News has found recent assusations against Senator Obama to be utterly ridiculous. Wow. Never thought I'd see that day. Did you?

I find your comments interesting. Sometimes I wonder if we're all residing on the same planet though. Someone asked me about Joe the Plumber today and wondered if I thought that his entrance into the campaign was planned and orchestrated by the Republicans. I can't say that for certain, but I can say that I am very surprised that McCain has brought him onto his platform at rallies. Like he's trotting out a VIP. On the one hand, Senator Obama has some people helping him campaign who have serious credentials and credibility. On the other hand, you have Joe the Plumber. Whew. That sucks.

This is not for the faint of heart. A friend of mine sent me this today and since it is on the topic of this thread, I decided to share it with you. I thought twice about posting it. I hope no one is offended. "The thought of an assasination can make my stomach churn. I hope that you all never have to go through what we went through when Jack Kennedy was assasinated and then Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were gunned down. "The riots were real. We flew into a small airport in Tennessee the weekend after Martin Luther King was assasinated and a very well-armed National Guard lined the streets through town. They weren't there for set decoration. "I think that those assasinations scarred our hearts. We were left feeling impotent and powerless. After crying for what felt like an eternity we ducked our heads and focused on our own little lives knowing that there was no hope for most of us. "Now Barack Obama has given us hope again. The hope that things can actually get better. "Maybe we can become the super power that we once were. It would be nice if we could be proud of our public school systems again. Maybe people will want to volunteer to make America better. What a concept. "We would like to stop being embarrassed everytime our president speaks. What if we could once again be a role model for other countries. Maybe other people could actually be able to respect us and learn from us. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if our children could be inspired to invent exciting technology that would save the environment. Maybe we could learn that money isn't the most important thing in our lives. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could actually have pride in being an American again. "I would like to think that we could experience true peace and happiness even in my lifetime. "I'm telling you that if they assasinate Barack Obama I hope we hang those bastards up by their toes and watching them bake in the sun until the radical terrorist assasins crawl back into the holes they crawled out of."

P.S. The idea that Senator Obama is too inexperienced to be president is no less discriminatory than saying that Senator McCain is too darned old to be running for president. Neither is absolutely true - but that doesn't stop people from saying those things.

I understand your point. And you said it well. But you can't deny that McCain is still associating with known felons - like G. Gordon Liddy. And unsavory characters like Karl Rove. I'm not sure exactly what he did learn from the Keating Five scandal.

Good Lord, you'd think so wouldn't you! But have you taken a good look at John McCain's entire campaign? It has been a matter of him making accusations against the Democrats and then having it discovered a while later that he has done exactly what he made the accusation about. Why has his campaign been such an embarrassing mess? It reminds me of the Democrats campaigns in the past. Karl- you've got some 'splainin' to do.

No, that list is not a comprehensive look at Senator Obama's accomplishments. It was a quick study of an isolated period of time. It's not a brand new study, nor the whole picture. It was just the first thing I came up with on google that proved my point. I doubt seriously if anyone here would be thrilled if I came up with some of the outrageous laws McCain has proposed, or even some of the nutty things he actually voted for in his career. We aren't wanting to discuss the merits of the "Keating Five" debacle are we?

Aw, come on. Jump on the bandwagon! It's going to be great being a part of getting this country back on its' feet and strong again!!! I just gotta say one last (we all hope) thing. About Joe the Plumber... do you realize that Joe the Plumber was a regular conservative talk show call in person? Was it a surprise to you that on the night and following morning after the debate, when McCain used Mr. Plumber ad naseum to make his points, Joe was out on his lawn holding court with his right wing rehtoric all neatly mapped out and ready to let loose on the public? Does it make any sense to you at all that McCain's policies will not financially help Joe, but Senator Obamas would? That is, IF poor Joe ever decided to actually be a grateful man for being an American and pay his taxes to help make this country work. Of course if his book deal comes through or he becomes a rock star, movie star or radio commentator, thereby joining the ranks of the wealthy, then the ideology he espouses would make sense. I make light of it, but I am really stumped as to why McCain would continue to use a tactic that is so painfully transparent.

washingtonpost.com > Columns Judge Him by His Laws » Links to this article By Charles Peters Friday, January 4, 2008; Page A21 People who complain that Barack Obama lacks experience must be unaware of his legislative achievements. One reason these accomplishments are unfamiliar is that the media have not devoted enough attention to Obama's bills and the effort required to pass them, ignoring impressive, hard evidence of his character and ability. Since most of Obama's legislation was enacted in Illinois, most of the evidence is found there -- and it has been largely ignored by the media in a kind of Washington snobbery that assumes state legislatures are not to be taken seriously. (Another factor is reporters' fascination with the horse race at the expense of substance that they assume is boring, a fascination that despite being ridiculed for years continues to dominate political journalism.) I am a rarity among Washington journalists in that I have served in a state legislature. I know from my time in the West Virginia legislature that the challenges faced by reform-minded state representatives are no less, if indeed not more, formidable than those encountered in Congress. For me, at least, trying to deal with those challenges involved as much drama as any election. And the "heart and soul" bill, the one for which a legislator gives everything he or she has to get passed, has long told me more than anything else about a person's character and ability. Consider a bill into which Obama clearly put his heart and soul. The problem he wanted to address was that too many confessions, rather than being voluntary, were coerced -- by beating the daylights out of the accused. Obama proposed requiring that interrogations and confessions be videotaped. This seemed likely to stop the beatings, but the bill itself aroused immediate opposition. There were Republicans who were automatically tough on crime and Democrats who feared being thought soft on crime. There were death penalty abolitionists, some of whom worried that Obama's bill, by preventing the execution of innocents, would deprive them of their best argument. Vigorous opposition came from the police, too many of whom had become accustomed to using muscle to "solve" crimes. And the incoming governor, Rod Blagojevich, announced that he was against it. Obama had his work cut out for him. He responded with an all-out campaign of cajolery. It had not been easy for a Harvard man to become a regular guy to his colleagues. Obama had managed to do so by playing basketball and poker with them and, most of all, by listening to their concerns. Even Republicans came to respect him. One Republican state senator, Kirk Dillard, has said that "Barack had a way both intellectually and in demeanor that defused skeptics." The police proved to be Obama's toughest opponent. Legislators tend to quail when cops say things like, "This means we won't be able to protect your children." The police tried to limit the videotaping to confessions, but Obama, knowing that the beatings were most likely to occur during questioning, fought -- successfully -- to keep interrogations included in the required videotaping. By showing officers that he shared many of their concerns, even going so far as to help pass other legislation they wanted, he was able to quiet the fears of many. Obama proved persuasive enough that the bill passed both houses of the legislature, the Senate by an incredible 35 to 0. Then he talked Blagojevich into signing the bill, making Illinois the first state to require such videotaping. Obama didn't stop there. He played a major role in passing many other bills, including the state's first earned-income tax credit to help the working poor and the first ethics and campaign finance law in 25 years (a law a Post story said made Illinois "one of the best in the nation on campaign finance disclosure"). Obama's commitment to ethics continued in the U.S. Senate, where he co-authored the new lobbying reform law that, among its hard-to-sell provisions, requires lawmakers to disclose the names of lobbyists who "bundle" contributions for them. Taken together, these accomplishments demonstrate that Obama has what Dillard, the Republican state senator, calls a "unique" ability "to deal with extremely complex issues, to reach across the aisle and to deal with diverse people." In other words, Obama's campaign claim that he can persuade us to rise above what divides us is not just rhetoric. I do not think that a candidate's legislative record is the only measure of presidential potential, simply that Obama's is revealing enough to merit far more attention than it has received. Indeed, the media have been equally delinquent in reporting the legislative achievements of Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, both of whom spent years in the U.S. Senate. The media should compare their legislative records to Obama's, devoting special attention to their heart-and-soul bills and how effective each was in actually making law. Charles Peters, the founding editor of the Washington Monthly, is president of Understanding Government, a foundation devoted to better government through better reporting. © 2008 The Washington Post Company Ads by Google News | Politics | Opinions | Local | Sports | Arts & Living | Going Out Guide Jobs | Cars | Real Estate | Rentals | Shopping SEARCH: washingtonpost.com Web Search Archives washingtonpost.com: About Us | Work for Us | Advertisers | Site Map | Search Terms | Topics Index | Make us your homepage | mywashingtonpost.com | Mobile | RSS | Widgets The Washington Post: Subscribe | Subscriber Services | Advertisers | PostPoints | Electronic Edition | Online Photo Store | The Washington Post Store | About The Post | National Weekly The Washington Post Company: Information and Other Post Co. 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