...or is Senator Obama sorry that he has Wright on his side?

Having blown the dust off the old keyboard...



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Senator Barak Obama is still living under the cloud of his pastor. It's no secret that isitjustme is in the tank for Obama but, on any level, this non-controversy baffles me.


Sen. Obama went to church every Sunday. That's a good thing. He attended services at the Trinity United Church of Christ where an entertaining, well regarded minister gave hundreds of sermons. Some of those sermons contained objectionable references.


What do we imagine the young state representative should have done during those sermons? Should he have jumped up and run for the door holding his ears? Should he have publicly chastised Rev. Wright? Should he have called a press conference and demonized the good pastor? Senator Obama did what you probably would have done; he put those offending remarks in the context of the time, place, audience and the point being made. In other words, he ignored them.


Do we imagine that George W. Bush, who claims to have attended church regularly in Texas, never heard a preacher step over the line regarding race? Anyway, who cares?


This is the stuff that gives Karl Rove an erection. You just drop a small pebble in the pond and watch the ripples. We have allowed inane issues to influence our political judgement to the point where an empty hat like George W. Bush can be elected by default. The issue of Reverend Wright needs to go away, soon.



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And speaking of empty hats...



George W. Bush (yes, he's still President) held a press conference Wednesday. He still refuses to use the word "recession". It's possible he can't pronounce it.

Our great leader blamed Congress for the current economic situation, including the skyrocketing cost of gasoline. Now isitjustme has always maintained that presidents get too much credit and too much blame for the state of the economy. After all, no one ever confused Bill Clinton with John Maynard Keynes and he presided over eight years of spectacular growth.

Nevertheless the current administration has stood around with their hands in their pockets while the dollar approaches the value of the peso, the debt (thanks to the war) increases exponentially and, the cost of groceries is producing sticker shock. I'm not sure what George could do about all of this but acknowledging the problem would be a start. Hell, he can't be worried about his approval rating; after all, you can't fall off the floor!

This President was so desperate for a scapegoat, he blamed Congress for not permitting oil drilling in the ANWR. Did anyone mention to our "Texas toughguy" that Alaska isn't a giant gas station? You have to find it, transport it, refine it, transport it again and then pump it. That would take more than a few weeks.Next I suspect the President will be blaming Henry Ford for mass producing the automobile or Osama Bin Laden just for being Osama Bin Laden.

Sorry America, you voted for the president "that you'd like to have a beer with". How's that beer tasting now?

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Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain...

The Rev. Adelir Antonio de Carli of Brazil received a standing ovation from his parishioners as he strapped himself into a chair attached to a huge cluster of helium filled balloons and ascended skyward. As to why Father de Carli would attempt this stunt will remain a mystery. Searches over the Atlantic have yet to recover any trace of the priest or his "craft". Maybe that should look in Kansas.

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Two issues remain to be discussed regarding the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

First, where are the men? Throughout the entire ordeal I have not seen a single (or married) adult male. In that most of the accusations involve old men forcing teenage girls into marriages, where are they? Don't they want to step up and tell the world how God wanted them to rape a harem of teenagers? Where's the religious zeal? Be proud of your perversions. God is with you.

Second, have you noticed how beautifully made those "Little House on the Prairie" dresses are? I'm considering writing to one of those women and ordering a few shirts. No hair shirts, please.

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and lastly...

The White House is celebrating May Day today. The reason for joy at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is that April is finally over. April saw the death toll in Iraq climb to 49; back to the level of Sept., 07.
Since May, '03, "Mission Accomplished", 3924 American soldiers have been sacrificed to George W. Bush's War. America's invasion of Iraq is a national disgrace for which no one is held to account. Is their any American who wouldn't like to see the masterminds of the Bush administration hauled before Congress to explain the rosy predictions, misinformation and outright lies that got us to where are?

...or have the buzzards begun to circle in earnest?

America's worst fear is being realized. Thanks to Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and, of course, our commander-in-chief George W. Bush, our country is showing itself to be the paper tiger that much of the world always suspected we might be. The administration can't even rattle its sword because cardboard swords don't make much of a noise. Face it. Wars happen when weakness is perceived. No one is afraid of us anymore.

We arrogantly and stupidly marched into Iraq with too little planning and too few troops. Both the generals on the ground and the experienced hands in Congress knew that a much larger force would be needed to maintain the peace in Iraq. Moreover, pacifying a country with two waring factions is almost impossible without the cooperation of the parties involved. Just ask the Brits in Northern Ireland.

Well here we are, stuck in a civil war of our own making. And, as if the situation couldn't get any worse, the jackals are beginning to gather. Initially it was only the cartoon types: Hugo Chevez, Kim Jong Il, Evo Morales. South American "populists" are discovering that you can get elected president of your country by kicking sand on Uncle Sam. What can America do? They're tied up in the Middle East.

Unfortunately, those voices are now being joined by leaders that, on some level, were supposed to be partners. In a speech to an international security conference, our "friend" Vladimir Putin accused America of everything but shooting the Czar. Not that anyone really thought of the Russians as allies or even friends. World War II and its aftermath weren't that long ago. We did, however, imagine that the interests of America and Russia ran along a similar path. Both countries understand that commerce is the name of the game. Nothing is gained by an expensive military build-up.

However, Mr. Putin also understands that nothing gets the attention of the Russian people like a warning of an American escalation of the arms race. Russians were fed a steady stream of propaganda (as were Americans) for 40 years about a possible East-West conflict. George Bush's attack on Iraq just reinforces Russian paranoia. Much in the same way that Americans allowed the Republicans to rewrite the Constitution after 9/11, Russians will permit further totalitarian inclinations from their "democratic" leaders if the plan comes wrapped in a threat from those war-mongering Americans.

Expect to hear more of this rhetoric from the Kremlin as well as South America and especially from our "friends" in the Middle East. After all, what are we going to do, withhold their iPod shipment?