The Legitimacy of the Obama Presidency...

It is funny in that perverse kind of a way to watch Republicans dodge, but not really, questions of Obama's citizenship and subsequent legitimacy with respect to being president. The latest Republican to play the double talk game is none other than House Speaker John Boehner. It is equally funny in that perverse kind of a way that Republicans still imagine that this is an issue that is going to be a major vote getter for them in the 2012 presidential elections.

Nah, Boehner hedged his bets as he is often seen doing on tobacco. Boehner's argument is in essence that he believes Obama is a citizen and a Christian. Now, according to Boehner, if the good ol' state of Hawaii says that Obama was born there then that is good enough for him. On the is Obama a Christian or a Muslim front Boehner is much more non-committal and merely says that he takes the president on his word. After all, in Boehner's mind President Obama has stated he is Christian so that will have to do for now.

The real funny here is that rather than being unequivocal in stating that the question of Obama's citizenship and religion is a non-issue, a dead issue, Boehner goes on to say that the American public is entitled to believe whatever they want. This is indeed true, Mr. Speaker. If Americans want to believe that no US man ever landed on the moon and that it was all a big hoax constructed in a studio in Hollywood somewhere as an elaborate ruse to fool the Russians that they had lost the space race, then they are entitled to believe that too. Similarly, if Americans want to believe that there are a couple of aliens on ice at Roswell or in Area 51, then they can do that too.

The fact that democrats lost so much ground at the mid-terms was not because they did, or continue to do, a woeful job in government. Rather it is a reflection of the inability of democrats to remobilise the 2008 base that swept Democrats into power and Obama into the White House. There is no guarantee that the Democrats will make the same mistake twice. The balancing factor here is that the current state of the economy and Obama's difficulties in following through on some of his election campaign rhetoric means that it must be easier for Republicans to mobilise their base, including the fringe represented by the Tea Party.

But, as the Speaker of the House, the responsible move would have been to be unequivocal that Obama is a citizen, this is no longer an issue and Republicans will not be using it to question the legitimacy of the President. One would have thought that Republicans would have believed that Obama's domestic and international track record since 2008 provides more than enough problems for the Democrats that there is no need to resort to fear-mongering about citizenship and Obama's supposed Muslim faith.

All that said, I remain an interested observer.

More on Julian Assange and Wikileaks: The Sarah Palin View...

Julian Assange has certainly found more fame than he may have craved in developing Wikileaks into a whistleblower of world renown. The recent release of some 250,000 US diplomatic cables has intensified the hunt for Assange and the "need" to bring him to justice. Assange has some serious legal problems aside from the alleged rape and sexual molestation of which he stands accused of committing in Sweden. There are quite a number of states looking to prosecute him for his part in the publication of the "illegally" obtained diplomatic cables.

Australia is clearly looking to build a case against Assange. However, it would seem that the US is also exploring what options it has in making the case and prosecuting Assange in the US. This has obviously brought the ranting and railing conservative right out. Among them is the former Vice-Presidential candidate from the Grand Old Party (GOP), Sarah Palin. The fact that some might consider her a legitimate contender for the GOP presidential nomination in 2012 is scary enough, but the latest outburst is indicative as to what lengths this woman will go to try and capitalise on conservative popular opinion. It is also indicative of the fact that she really does not understand the difference between Osama bin Laden and Julian Assange. It is pretty clear that she obviously missed the advocacy class on why not to use exaggeration.

Sarah Palin in her infinite wisdom has taken to Facebook to condemn Assange for his role in releasing to the world some 250,000 confidential and secret diplomatic cables. Fair enough! There are good arguments to be made that it was irresponsible for Assange to publish via Wikileaks. However, Palin was not satisfied stopping there. In order to really ratchet-up the rhetoric she decided to add that Assnage should be hunted down like Osama bin Laden.

Well, after ten years of searching the US has not found or been able to confirm that it has killed bin Laden. So, it would seem that Assange really need not fear the US if it was to mount a similar "search and destroy" campaign that has been mounted for bin Laden. Although, on a more serious note, it would appear that all those who need to know where Assange is, in fact know where he is. It would also appear that an arrest is not that far away once the arrest warrant(s) are in order, assuming Assange decides to surrender to authorities and not seek political asylum in a country favourable to that proposition, Switzerland perhaps.

To further reinforce her point she suggested that Assange is not a journalist in any shape or form and compared this lack of journalistic skill to the current editor of al-Qaeda's English-language magazine, Inspire. Further intensifying the rhetoric saw Assange labeled as anti-American and with blood on his hands.

In any event, this was a political point scoring opportunity that was more about Palin slamming the White House and President Obama by implying that they were complicit in Assange's Wikileaks work because they have not been serious in hunting him down or arresting him.

Yet, this generally fits into the overall rhetoric of US politics with recent claims seeking to force the US government to declare Wikileaks a terrorist organisation. A whistleblower as a terrorist organisation, what an interesting development. However, it is symptomatic of the way the world is post 9/11. Anything that annoys us or possible effects many as opposed to a few is almost immediately labeled a terrorist organisation. I wonder what the Tea Party might need to do to be labeled a terrorist organisation? What about the Republicans or the Democrats?

However, the US is looking to invoke the Espionage Act with a view to criminal prosecution. And, it is imperative in the US view that they do this one by the numbers, and make the case bullet-proof.

The case to shut down sites that release confidential documents needs to be assessed on a merits basis. The reality is that releasing secret or confidential information can always be criminalised, but at what cost?

The question that must be answered here was whether there was any value in the releasing of these particular diplomatic cables? Simply, does the public need to know outweigh the need to maintain confidentiality?

Ho hum...

Willow & Bristol Palin: Ranting and Railing on Facebook...

Family is important, and when your family is attacked your first reaction is to protect it. However, sometimes common sense and a measured response might better serve your family in the long run. Yet, if that "attack" is merely criticism of your parent's talk show, then it really is sticks and stones stuff. It probably does not need a response at all, particularly if your mum happens to be Sarah Palin, former Governor of Alaska, 2008 GOP Vice Presidential candidate, and possible 2012 Republican Party Presidential candidate.

Nevertheless, Willow took to Facebook without a second thought and proceeded to use some choice swear words and a homophobic slur. I was always taught that a faggot was a bundle of sticks (or as my grancher once told me, a meatball). However, when you read the Facebook exchange, Willow leads little doubt that she is casting aspersions about the sexuality of the target of her vitriol.

Not to be left out, Bristol gets in a few lines about "shit talkers". So, in comparison Bristol was a little tamer than her younger sister. It seems that Bristol might be having a few regrets about her brain explosion.

I wonder how mummy is going to deal with this little media circus? Maybe the Palin kids learn this sort of language at home?

If you want to read a screen capture of the whole series of rants and rails, then head to TMZ.

Obama Wins!

Pennsylvania!

This is one of the "battleground states" and one that most pundits have been saying from day one that John McCain had to win in order to win the White House!

Mathematically, the contest is far from over and by most accounts McCain is doing better in the early counting than many expected. Dropping Pennsylvania though is a pretty big body blow and one that he and the Republicans are unlikely to recover from unless McCain is able to pull Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Virginia.

Maybe an update later in the day.

The photo is of Obama and his wife casting their votes.

The Moment of Truth for a Post-Racial Candidate

Is there such a thing as a "post-racial" candidate (photo)? Well, the moment of truth is upon our US brothers and sisters in this most crucial of elections.

I know some of my readers do not giver the proverbial rat's about what happens and who wins. As a student of politics and law, I am interested. To think that the US might finally elect a black man, an African-American if you prefer, is a momentous step, at least in my mind.

Maybe by this time tomorrow we will know who the next president of the US will be. Then again some polls are reporting a tightening race that seems like it might be heading down to the wire.

I like elections!

US Presidential Elections

Are things shaping up for a landslide?

I have been reading some interesting articles today that are suggesting that Obama seems to have been getting it right on a number of things, like Afghanistan for example.

My politics are left of centre, liberal, and I am a supporter of the idea of a social democracy.

I am sure that there are many of you out there who are the same and maybe just as many who are not.

I am watching with interest in order to see who assumes the mantle of "leader of the free world".

Barack Osama

No, this is not a typo but rather how Barack Obama's name appears on absentee ballots being sent to voters in Rensselaer County in upstate New York. In that funny in a perverse kind of a way, the Osama that most people would know would be one Osama bin Laden.

It seems that this is just that, a typo. It does not appear that this was someone's idea of a practical joke.

According to the people who should know about these things, the elections office commissioners, Edward McDonagh and Larry Bugbee, a Democrat and a Republican, respectively, had the following to say:

"It's human error, it's very unfortunate, it's an embarrassment to our office, obviously," McDonough said in a later phone interview. "We wish we could turn back the clock, but we can't."

The remaining ballots have been shredded. However, those that have already filled in the ballots will have them counted even though there is no Barack Osama running for President. I guess this means that everyone has agreed that Barack Osama is in fact Barack Obama.

It is indeed an interesting presidential election in the good ol' US of A.

Gov. Sarah Palin

oI have been tossing up on whether to write anything on Sarah Palin and had been inclined not to.

However, I was listening to / watching Fox News Channel (definite right wing biases and pro-GOP, generally speaking) and there was a fella named Howard Gutman making some comments.

Now, Mr. Gutman is a member of the Obama Team, aka the Team professing to be all about change. Obama himself has been on the record saying Sarah Palin's parenting skills and family are off limits. Someone obviously forgot to tell Gutman.

The gist of the Gutman arguments were that with a 17-year-old daughter who is unmarried and pregnant and an infant son who is a special needs child (or in non-politically correct terms a youngster with Down Syndrome) should be spending more time at home caring for her family than seeking fame as the Vice-President on the Republican ticket. I am not a woman and I am old enough to know better than to try and speak for them. So the following comments are my take on this as a man.

The Gutman comments are offensive, they are sexist, and they highlight how out of touch the Obama campaign is on this issue. Gutman's ideas that the woman's place is in the home is just too 19th Century. I figured the barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen thing was done. The fact that women have for a long time held down two or more jobs, the one in the home and also another one in an office, a factory, a supermarket, or a bar, should perhaps be seen as the strength of women to do more and achieve more than men while women are never getting full recognition for their efforts.

If Obama is as good as his word then Gutman should get a stinging rebuke and if he is on the payroll then he should see the pink slip. The insanity is that no one is asking whether Obama is fit to lead in light of him having two you children. Does this mean that the assumption is that the wife will be sitting at home in the White House taking care of the child raising duties like all good moms should be?

I do not agree with many of the policies of the GOP and would probably be a Democrat if I was an American citizen and had the right to vote. But sexism of this kind might give me pause to reevaluate. Perhaps this is because I grew up in a family where my mother was both carer and worker and the carer responsibilities were shared with the old man because the old man was a worker too.

The interest for me in the 17-year-old pregnant daughter who is currently unmarried but planning to marry the father of the baby is that the Palin family are having experiences that many ordinary families experience. This probably makes her more qualified to comment from an experience point of view than it does many other pundits throwing in their two pennies worth.

So, that's my two pennies worth!

Obama and Clinton - Who Wins?

It is always fun to watch democracy in action and the pundits dissect and deconstruct every little piece of the puzzle. It is also fun to watch when there are a number of possible firsts at stake, including a former President with a shot at becoming First Gentleman.

The race for the White House and who can win is a pollster's dream. Right now in the head-to-head polls it seems that Clinton has the edge on McCain in the General Election and McCain has the edge on Obama. This assumes two things: First, the election is held today and, Second that Obama's number won't improve once the seemingly inevitable happens and Obama gets the Democratic Party nod.

The fun and games will continue for a little while yet as there are still a few more primary contests to be held and a Democratic Rules Committee meeting to determine what is to happen with those currently disenfranchised voters of Florida and Michigan. However, the never shy of the spotlight former President, William Jefferson Clinton, in support of his preferred candidate, who just happens to be his wife, has warned the Democratic party to get with the program and see that Obama just cannot take McCain in the General Election and Hillary can!

So, the slogan is "Hillary Can and Obama Can't!"

The dream ticket that some propose of Obama and Clinton cannot happen, it would never work! This is in spite of my tendencies to never say never! If the Clinton's truly believe Obama cannot take this thing this year then why bother getting onto the ticket? The idea that 2012 is but four years away seems to make better sense. You have the "I told you so" argument about 2008 that you would never have to mention. Maybe any jostling for the VP slot is tacit recognition that maybe, just maybe, Obama can and will pull this thing off and become the first African-American President of the United States of America.

I do not know about anyone else but I will keep watching the drama unfold. It is more exciting than an Indonesian sinetron anyway (personal choice and preference)!

Should Clinton be Playing Nice?

What has struck me about the Democratic campaign for the nomination of the party for President is how nice it has been played. The politics have been downright nice. Whatever happened to politics being a game for the brave who were prepared to play dirty?

Obama said this just recently:


"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not."


"And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."


He has since tried to explain this away in a number of different ways but never really retracted it! The closest he came was to suggest that he could have said it better...I don't know perhaps he could have said something along the lines of, I am not surprised that these gun-toting, God-loving, racist, isolationists small towners are bitter about their lives! Is Obama an elitist or are we reading too much into this?


I wonder how you spin this one. If Obama has learned anything from Clinton's super large embellishment of her so-called under live fire Bosnia moment is that perhaps it is better to say; Yep, stretched the truth on that one and get back to the business of campaigning. Clinton's mistake was to try and keep making the incident something it clearly wasn't once the video emerged.


People might still be sold on the "change" and the "hope" for new politics in Washington but it really is a hope against hope in the sense that there really needs to be desire for change from those in Washington. The only other way to get this change is to have a majority of new faces committed to being that change.


In any event Obama has been in the Senate long enough now for an evaluation of his record on policy...why is this so difficult to find in the mainstream media. Perhaps the charges laid by the Clinton campaign that Obama has generally had a free ride in the mainstream media is true!


In a general election it looks like it could get ugly, particularly so when the Republicans are likely to be playing for keeps. What looked like a certain Democratic victory is a whole lot less certain now if Obama does fall across the line for the victory. The Obama baggage is only just about to start getting rifled through and the vetting process may prove much more harmful to him than it would to Clinton. I lot of people must be wondering, super delegates included, how much more there is hiding in the Obama closet because the Clinton closet (including that of the former President) has been picked over for a long while like a vulture picking over a carcass.


American politics, always fun to watch!

Clinton vs. Obama

Is the race for the Democratic nomination for the White House really that important? Sure, the race will be one of firsts all round; the first African-American, the first Woman, and maybe even the first POW...an interesting race for sure but is it important?

From the perspective and the belief that the President of the United States of America occupies the seat of the most powerful person in the world, then it is a clear cut answer that the race for the White House is important. Nevertheless, the dynamics of world superpowerdom is changing and it might not be so far into the distant future that the US shares its superpower status with others again. Then the hot seat that is the Presidency of the US might not be the most powerful any longer.

Yet, the reality is that it is still a powerful post. So, with Obama in the ascendancy and the Clinton campaign in seeming free-fall, what are we likely to see when we look into that little crystal ball?

There are stark differences and equally stark similarities between the two Democrats. Both talk change and Obama at least in the sense of his rhetoric talks a better fight. But he is green in the sense of being new to national or federal politics as it is in the US and the real question voters must ask themselves is whether they believe he can now walk the talk! Clinton on the other hand is a polarizing figure at the best of times and it is this love hate relationship that is most likely to be her undoing (assuming she gets undone). She is a political insider and as such is likely to be able to effect more immediate and last change if she was committed to doing so. She knows the rules of the game and is the better day one player. Yet, having only been exposed to the Washington establishment for a short time as a Senator, then maybe not knowing these rules are to Obama's advantage.

Obama is being touted as the new Jack Kennedy which is an interesting comparison because Jack Kennedy's success depended not solely on his apparent charisma, charms, and relatively good looks compared to a somewhat dour opponent and obvious political insider. Yet, Kennedy's victory is testament as much to a savvy PR machine and considerable financial resources and some might argue special interests. Jack Kennedy was a realist he left much of the idealism to his brother, RFK. The question on this front is in his assassination shortened tenure as President of the US did he really make the changes that is inauguration speech is so often remembered for highlighting?

Being labeled as the next Jack Kennedy would seem to be a label and burden I would want to do without. Sort of takes away from you being your own man. Sort of like Megawati always failing to live up to the expectations of those who want her to be the political reincarnation of her father, the charismatic, charming, ladies-man that was Indonesia's first President, Soekarno! Now moving to the Indonesian connection.

The Indonesian connection. Obama's mother was married to an Indonesian and Obama spent some of his childhood in the Menteng area of Central Jakarta. But Indonesia should not expect any special favours from Obama if he manages to pull off his quest to become the first African-American President. Indonesia has not come up in any of his stump speeches and only has been referenced in passing in more wide-ranging foreign policy speeches. At best Indonesia should only expect to garner about as much attention as it does now. Sure, the candidates have set out some general foreign policies and what is striking is that even with Obama's obvious connections to Indonesia there does not seem to be any significant importance placed on Indonesia in comparison to what Clinton has said...

Obama might be hailed as an honorary Indonesian and given the keys to the country in honour of being the first African American Step-Son of an Indonesian to become President but this might not be enough to gain Indonesia any special access or favours.

A fascinating race to be sure...Those Indonesian's interested in the outcome I am sure will remain glued to their news sources and following the race closely and for the rest of us, whatever!