Things I Like About Barack Obama, Part One
It’s not all bad for conservatives and Republicans if Barack Obama wins…there are some very positive things about the man. For example, he’s not Jesse Jackson:
Whatever the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. said in a live microphone on Fox News, it was really, really bad, and none other than his own son seems to know it.
“I’m deeply outraged and disappointed in Reverend Jackson’s reckless statements about Senator Barack Obama. His divisive and demeaning comments about the presumptive Democratic nominee — and I believe the next president of the United States — contradict his inspiring and courageous career,” wrote Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.), an Obama campaign co-chairman, in a statement sent out after word began spreading that his father had said something crude and deeply offensive.
The bold-faced text was his own. “Instead of tearing others down, Barack Obama wants to build the country up and bring people together so that we can move forward, together — as one nation. The remarks like those uttered on Fox by Reverend Jackson do not advance the campaign’s cause of building a more perfect Union.”
Well, let’s end the mystery:
In a vulgar tirade caught on tape by Fox News, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said he wanted to “cut his [Barack Obama's] nuts out” and he accused the fellow Chicagoan of “talking down to black folks” by giving moral lectures to African-Americans,
In a paraphrase of the great Lloyd Bentsen putdown of Dan Quayle: Senator, I know Jesse Jackson…I’ve seen him in action…and you, sir, are no Jesse Jackson – thank God!
What Jackson fails to realize is that Obama is not running the marginal campaigns that Jackson himself ran in his heyday. Obama is the acknowledged frontrunner to be President of the United States. Nobody is saying he needs to ’sell out’ his heritage…but he must run on issues that are important to ALL Americans, regardless of race. Jackson, of all people, should have seen the patronizing attempt by Bill Clinton to paint Obama as ‘the black candidate’ early on for what it was and realized that this was a different kind of campaign…but judging from these remarks today, I guess that didn’t happen…
When I say I am glad Barack Obama is not Jesse Jackson, I don’t say this in the demeaning sense that I ‘think all black people think alike’ or anything foolish like that. What I mean is that I am glad Obama is making a genuine effort to break out the stultifying worldview of so many black leaders (and a good number of white leaders, as well) of the past, who have insisted on seeing every issue through the prism of black and white.
As a nation we have to move past that adversarial positioning…no matter how justified the suspicion and resentment may be, it’s not productive and it’s certainly not conducive to positive change…when even Jackson’s own son has to make that message to his father, it’s perhaps time for Jackson to consider, along with Bill Clinton, a long vacation until this campaign is over…
This is all a well-orchestrated plan to create sympathy and broad support for Obama. You don’t really buy the “I thought the microphone was off” excuse, do you?
I thought Jackson’s remarks were nuts.
<p>Yes, because Jackson has been critical of Obama and had to backpedal on very similar remarks before, and as we’ve seen with George W. Bush, politicians are frequently careless around open mics…</p>
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-fanniemae-freddiemac.html
$5 TRILLION dollars??? That’s almost half of the nation’s GDP. Yikes.
To bail them out or not? That is the question. I saw screw that noise. Let the shareholders suffer. It’s a free market! D’oh.
saw = say
The shareholders have suffered plenty. Fannie Mae was a $60 stock not too long ago, and now it was under $7 a few hours ago. If the GSO’s get bailed out, it’s because of the role they play in securitizing mortgages. Without their ability to buy mortgages in bulk, the mortgage market will come to a screeching halt. This isn’t about the shareholders — it’s about keeping the economy working.
Also, if there is a government bail-out, the shareholders could get completely wiped out.
peter: I know it. Was being deliberately obtuse. What a tough business they are in. Betting on a losing horse is never fun.
If risky behavior no longer has consequences then it ceases to be risky and the constraint against it is gone. BUT, peter is right that the consequences of letting them fail would fall well beyond the shareholders. A tough call fo’ sho’. I honestly don’t care about the shareholders loss of value they should have thought about that when they decided to invest a company taking such high risk – we shouldn’t prop these institutions up to protect the shareholder investment, but the likely & huge negative impact on the economy, including unrelated third parties such as the rest of us, requires that something be done.
I guess the capitolists who chant “let the free market work” only mean it when it is a lowly voter about to go under. It’s save the Corporations while stepping on the necks of the little guy.
Actually, in this case, it’s fear of all the little guys that will get hurt that is motivating talk of a bailout…