In my less than naive past, I remember smelling a plot in the relentless news coverage of Watergate.  I kept looking at the second and third pages of newspapers trying to discover what it was "they" wanted to avert my attention from.  And it's only this year that I finally found an answer in a book by a guy names Susbielle called Les Royaumes Combattants which can be loosely translated "the warring kingdoms".

Susbielle claims that Watergate enabled the NeoConservatives to get their hands on the controls.  They got rid of Nixon who had pulled us out of Vietnam, established diplomatic relations with China and signed arms reduction agreements with the Soviet Union.  Behind the placid figure of Gerald Ford they began ramping things back up toward conflict.  They continued with Bush senior and George W. Bush.

Obama has already stated in campaign speeches that he will not respect borders if he esteems that a sovereign country such as Pakistan does not do what he considers an adequate job of fighting terrorism.  He has obviously foregone any tenable moral stance the international arena might have expected him to take on Gaza which exemplifies another breach in the respect of borders.  For someone like Susbielle, this bodes ill for the world. 

What is clear is that American democracy has spoken.  We can no longer use Bush as a scapegoat, a president that Americans elected and re-elected.  The future conflicts and deaths of American soldiers will be the responsibility of Obama and those who voted for him, many and probably most of whom didn't vote for Bush.  It remains to be seen if these voters will "own up" when the time comes, if they will be able to admit their errors or simply rationalize the performance of their president as so many supporters of George W Bush are doing now .

The Colin Powell endorsement only underscores the fact that Obama is for preemptive war.  The same as before -- an under-experienced over-marketed candidate prepares to take helm.  Bush is not responsible for Iraq.  We are for voting him in.  And people are massively following the path where the marketing leads them, allowing yet again a man who never himself participated as a soldier in a war "play soldier" with our sons.  His French counterpart is already sending droves of young Frenchmen off to combat without having ever seen combat himself.  Little boys playing dangerous war games.

You read a headline that with the lead Obama has in the polls, his advisors are worried about complacency among voters likely to support him.  On the same page of TPM, you read that one candidate is outspending the other 4 to 1 !  And nobody says a thing!  That is complacency!

This summer France began to lose a few of its young men in Afghanistan.  The question could be raised -- as it was for George W. Bush -- as to the military service which was done by President Sarkozy in his youth or by his adult son who recently made his political début.

They are called "chicken hawks", these politicians who would send the sons of others while they themselves have never served. 

So I have a choice.  I can vote for a hawk like McCain who has been seasoned by his direct experience of war.  Or I can vote for a chicken hawk like Obama who expediently established a following on the basis of a bogus speech for peace.  Or I can vote for a  pacifist like McKinney who has no chance to win in this election but who can rescue the movement for change. 

Some people seem unhappy and incredulous that two U.S. citizens might consider that their vote is a private matter in spite of -- or maybe because of -- their celebrity.  Given the hugely vulnerable mindsets of many voters concerning ads and the opinions of famous people, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are showing an admirable restraint -- at least in the meanwhile -- and rolling up their respectives sleeves and DOING things to help people in need instead of trying to use their influence as HOLLYWOOD STARS to skew results in the political sphere.

The memos from Senator Clinton's presidential primary campaign have been auspiciously released to have a maximal impact on residual resentment among some registered Democrats about the enormous sexist bias during the campaign and the relative inertia of party elders to combat it.  Democrats can now blame Clinton's "failure" on the lack of coherence in the her campaign.

Although I personally feel that sexism WITHIN the ranks of the Democratic Party will have been a decisive factor in Clinton's upcoming -- practically certain -- loss of the nomination, I cannot ignore that Obama's campaign was run by one of the two current campaign geniuses, Axelrod and Rove. 

We are preparing to yield to Axelrod's advertising as we yielded to Rove's.  The over-marketed under-experienced candidate may well win out in the end and we will have four more years of the same.  We are getting some "ciming attractions"  --  flipflops on FISA, drilling, etc-- but from the moment that an electorate focuses on rhetoric rather than record, there is little hope for an election result that can turn the country around.

   

Getting the undivided attention of the Democratic Party seems to have caused wobbles for Obama in unlikely sectors of  his network (the recent comments someone "accidentally" allowed a mike to pick up).  As long as Hillary was OPPOSED to him, she was catching a lot of the criticism, acting almost like a lightning rod and drawing the worst of the storm away from him.   Now he's getting the full brunt of it and his ship is slowly sinking.

I watch the news, see how the focus is switching more and more to foreign affairs and with each story, Obama loses another point in his faltering lead over McCain.  "Change" is not a program.  Pulling out troops from Iraq according to a pre-ordained calendar without mention of  what must be developed in Iraq in order to stabilize the region sounds somewhat inadequate as a foreign policy.  Having his children be interviewed by reporters, then flipflopping on what was his own initiative glaringly points up his unreadiness to be president.  In addition, we as citizens were being  submitted to what were personal rather than political issues during a week when Iran was running missile tests.
Hillary Clinton may endorse him, but he can't acquire what he doesn't have in terms of experience.  And it's showing more and more.   

The kids I teach English to wanted to know who I would vote eventually vote for.  I mentioned that I was leaning toward Hillary.  That was months ago, but it must have made an impression because today, June 2nd, one of my students from two years ago came up to me in the hall and told me that Clinton wanted to assassinate Obama.

He's a kid.  He's not careful about what he says, but neither is French television or French newspapers.  The insinuations are ugly.  I took the time to set that 13-year-old straight, but it was like putting out a match in a forest fire.

I remember reading Ayn Rand ... along with Hermann Hesse and Wolfe... when I was in college in the states.  There was this truly evil, oily character in Fountainhead, a journalist who manipulated the masses.  That's been happening so much this year.  It's distressful.

So many people could not have resisted the Glitzkrieg only to have it end like this.  I think "change" may be coming faster than anyone thought.  And that change will be inside the Democratic Party.  

Hillary Clinton has been invited to leave the race for months.  She has not had super-delegates bailing her out every time she loses a primary like the junior senator from Illinois does.
 
 Despite this, when she wins two landslide victories in a row, she does not get the headlines. And it's not only in America.  On French tv today and in French newspapers, the HUGE score in Kentucky was not mentiond. 

The French were also quick to swallow the line that there were racist tendencies among white voters in Kentucky.  90% of African American voters in Kentucky supported the African American candidate and 30% of these African American voters are estimated by exit polls to have been influenced by race.  This is simply omitted in most of the coverage.  
 

After the surpisingly strong showing of Obama in North Carolina, I looked back over the various primaries and noted that there was a  side-issue from the very first contest in Iowa :  "We're not racist!" 

If you're an African American and you support Clinton, you may have been called an "Uncle Tom".

If  you're white and you support Clinton, you may have been accused of being racist.

There is a McCarthyist feel to this phenomenon and the vile tone of certain posts recalls the virulence of that period. 

The Wright issue has not only discouraged white blue collar voters.  A recent Rasmussen Poll (May 2nd) has Obama getting 70 % of  the African American vote in North Carolina with 20% undecided and 10% already committing to Clinton.  I think the final shift will be even more pronounced.

Figures weren't given on gender, but my guess is that it's African American women who are defecting from the Obama ranks.

A recent article reported that the average salary of Obama's female staffers is significantly lower than the average salary of the male staffers.  Clinton pays women and men an equal avaerage wage.  McCain's female staffers average higher salaries than their male counterparts.

This race is about gender!