Day: March 16, 2012

Osama Bin Laden’s Delusions About Joe Biden

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The Washington Post reports that Osama Bin Laden had conspired to kill President Barack Obama and General David Petraeus before having the plot cut short by his being killed by Navy Seals last May.

The concept that this was being plotted is certainly conceivable, but it is astounding that Osama Bin Laden had such delusions that he could accomplish this in real time, and also his statement that Joe Biden was “totally unprepared” to be President, so that it would set back the American government if Obama was assassinated.

It is obvious that Osama Bin Laden had no clue as to the depth of experience and knowledge that Vice President Joe Biden represents.

It is a fact that Joe Biden has had more years of experience and leadership in Congress than any Vice President who served before him!

Joe BIden was one of the longest serving US Senators with his six terms and 36 years in office, and he was Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee at different points of his tenure in the Senate.

Joe Biden was involved in every major issue and controversy of his three and a half decades in the national spotlight.

What other Vice President can claim this breadth and depth of experience? Again, the answer is NONE!

Most Vice Presidents historically have been nonentities in their significance in the office and in their experiences before the Vice Presidency. Very few stand out historically before their term or terms as Vice President.

The Vice Presidency was an office of insignificance until Richard Nixon made it an important office under President Dwight D. Eisenhower in the 1950s, due to Nixon’s own ambition and intelligence, and Eisenhower’s willingness to allow Nixon a major role in government affairs.

Since Nixon, we had Lyndon B. Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Gerald Ford, Nelson Rockefeller, Walter Mondale, George H. W. Bush, Al Gore, and Dick Cheney as major figures in the Vice Presidency, although only Rockefeller, Mondale, Bush, Gore and Cheney really added to the office and its influence. And Spiro Agnew and Dan Quayle actually subtracted from the office with their mediocre performance in the Vice Presidency.

Earlier Vice Presidents who were influential included John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John C. Calhoun, Martin Van Buren, and Henry A. Wallace, with Calhoun and Wallace the only ones who never made the Presidency.

But NONE of these Vice Presidents listed above had the total combination of years of influence and significance of Biden, although certainly one would not argue the importance of Adams, Jefferson and Calhoun.

The point that is being made is that Joe Biden is perfectly qualified and prepared to take over the Presidency in an emergency, is a real asset to the nation and President Barack Obama, and should not be dismissed as a possible candidate for President in 2016, even though he would be 74 in that year.

Unlikely that Biden would run for or become President, but he has often been taken too lightly, and that is a mistake on the part of his skeptics, as well as the LATE Osama Bin Laden!

Illinois: “The Land Of Lincoln” Matters In Primary Race For Republicans For First Time In Years!

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Illinois is one of the major electoral vote states, but rarely in recent primary contests has the state mattered, because of its late date for the primary for President.

But this time, it matters as Mitt Romney SHOULD win this state, and has spent a ton of money to defeat Rick Santorum, and yet Santorum just might win this primary next Tuesday, even without any large amount of money spent on the campaign.

It is obvious that money does not alone win elections, and if one does not believe that is true, ask Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, who spent many millions, and yet were not elected Governor and Senator from California in 2010!

But as this race between Romney and Santorum heats up, one has to reflect on what Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican President, would be thinking if he were here today and seeing what has become of his party, one that once had principles, fought against slavery and slavery expansion, promoted black equality, cared about labor and farmers, and promoted progressive reforms under such leaders as Theodore Roosevelt and Robert La Follette, Sr and George Norris in the first decades of the 20th century.

Lincoln would wring his hands, hold his head with a pained look on his face, and if he were here today, he would vote for Barack Obama, proud of how far we had come in the 150 years since the Civil War!

In other words, Abraham Lincoln would be a DEMOCRAT, as would Theodore Roosevelt, Robert La Follette, Sr. and George Norris!

Sarah Palin Challenges Barack Obama To A Debate, Claiming Obama Was Not Vetted In 2008!

Ronald 1 Comment

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who quit the Governorship in midterm in mid 2009, and was NEVER vetted before being chosen as Vice Presidential running mate by John McCain in the Presidential Election of 2008, is obviously feeling that she is not getting enough attention lately.

So she is now claiming that Barack Obama was not properly vetted when he ran for President in 2008, even though he most CERTAINLY was, while she was not investigated before being made the VP nominee, well depicted in the HBO movie GAME CHANGE, which debuted this past weekend.

Palin has made it clear that she is “not closing any door” in the future, and it is clear that she is hoping that the Republican National Convention in Tampa in late August will be deadlocked, and that some miracle will occur, and that she will be drafted to be the Republican Presidential nominee, without having had to work at all, as the nine GOP candidates had to do, including 20 debates for those who stayed in the race.

This is the perfect scenario for a lazy, ignorant, totally dumb person such as Sarah Palin, who should be ashamed of herself for her lack of basic knowledge, but is too stupid and arrogant to recognize her own limitations!

The nerve of this woman to even consider that she is qualified to lead the strongest nation on earth!

So her proposal to debate Barack Obama is laughable, in that, under no circumstances, will the President dignify this moron by giving her the time of day!

But just imagine IF she were the GOP Presidential nominee!

She would make a total fool of herself, embarrass every Republican, and would lose the election by such a one sided vote, that it might be worse than Barry Goldwater’s 38.9 percent of the vote in a two person race against Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, and to put her in the same sentence as Barry Goldwater would be a slight to his memory!

Barry Goldwater may have been radical and reckiess in many ways, but he was not a stupid, ignorant man with the gall to think, as she does, that a “quitter” governor who was a disaster for the Republican ticket in 2008, would even THINK of challenging the President of the United States, and claim she is qualified to be on the same stage as him!

This author and blogger has said many times in the past, and will repeat now: SARAH, BE GONE. GOOD RIDDANCE!

Rick Santorum And Barry Goldwater Would NOT Be Friends!

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Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater was the MOST right wing nominee for President we have ever had, and lost in a massive landslide to Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.

Barry Goldwater was an economic conservative, who was against the New Deal, wishing Robert Taft, the earlier conservative Republican leader, had become President, because he wished to repeal the New Deal, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower institutionalized the New Deal as the first Republican President since Herbert Hoover. Goldwater wished to make Social Security voluntary, rather than required as part of the tax collection, which it had been for a quarter century.

Barry Goldwater was also a foreign policy conservative, who believed in ultimate confrontation with the Soviet Union and any foreign enemy, including potential use of nuclear weapons.

Barry Goldwater appealed to states rights advocates, and although supportive of the broad concept of civil rights for African Americans, he criticized the civil rights movement and its leaders, and accepted the backing of Southern segregationists.

BUT with all of his faults, one thing Barry Goldwater was NOT–a social conservative a la former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum.

Barry Goldwater was NOT a believer in the role of religion in government, and was a major critic in later years of the Christian Coalition, and the Moral Majority, led by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and other evangelical Christian ministers.

Barry Goldwater never believed it was the business of government to interfere in private life of individuals and their families, so did not support the Pro Life Movement against abortion rights for women.

Barry Goldwater never believed it was anyone’s business to condemn or vilify people because of their sexual orientation, and so supported the rights of gay men and women.

Barry Goldwater believed that all Americans should be allowed to serve in the military, so was against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” interfering with the right of gay men and women to serve our nation, asserting that he did not care what one’s sexual orientation was, as long as he or she could “shoot straight!”

Barry Goldwater would have been mortified to see a candidate who condemned sexual relations except for procreation purposes, and to observe a candidate speak out against the use of contraception by couples for their family planning and the health and welfare of women.

It is clear that were Barry Goldwater alive and active today, he would repudiate Rick Santorum as a social totalitarian, an extremist, a dangerous man to give power to, as there is nothing worse than a “Puritan” trying to promote morality by force!

Conclusion: Barry Goldwater and Rick Santorum would NOT be friends!

Barry Goldwater came across as whacky, extreme, untrustworthy to be our President, and he often “shot from the lip”, getting himself into major troubles that could be exploited by Democrats and President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. IF Rick Santorum ends up as the GOP nominee in 2012, the same weaknesses will get him in major troubles that could be exploited by the Democrats and President Barack Obama!

The Robert Kennedy Presidential Race Began 44 Years Ago Today: What His Death Meant

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On this day 44 years ago, when my generation was young and idealistic, Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York, who had moved to the left politically, and come out against the war in Vietnam, announced his candidacy for President, and his challenge to the establishment of the Democratic party represented by President Lyndon B. Johnson, and when he dropped out of the race two weeks later, that of Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

Being a personal loyalist to Hubert Humphrey, I was not supportive of RFK at the time, but came to realize after his tragic death by assassination on June 6, 1968, that we had lost a politician who was unique, in the sense that he could bridge the gap between rich and poor, unite people of diverse backgrounds, and that he had an idealism and vision rarely found in American history.

As much as Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have worked at accomplishing much of what RFK represented, none have been able to accomplish his goals and vision in a full sense, with Obama the closest, but even him often causing disillusionment among liberals and progressives, although not this author and blogger.

Of course, people tend to idealize RFK, because he died, and one has to wonder when and how he would have caused disillusionment among his supporters, when the inevitable inability to keep all his campaign pledges would have become obvious.

One thing seems certain; that RFK would have defeated Richard Nixon in 1968 with Hubert Humphrey coming ever so close, that RFK would have weakened the third party candidacy of George Wallace, and that we could have avoided Watergate, an extended Vietnam War, and the disillusionment which led to the rise of Republican conservatism under Ronald Reagan.

In that sense, RFK’s death was a true turning point in American history, which many people in their older years can look back on as a truly regrettable moment. The question is whether a second term of Barack Obama can see the fulfillment of more of the RFK vision than has been possible in a difficult first term of the 44th President!