Bent Corner

The Obama campaign’s first reaction to the news that John McCain had chosen Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running-mate was to attack Palin for not being experienced enough. Seriously, the Obama campaign was actually criticizing someone for not being experienced enough. From Bill Burton, an Obama spokesman:

Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency.

Evidently when they all calmed down and took a deep breath, they realized how ridiculous it sounded for anyone in the Obama campaign to be call anyone else out for not having enough experience. It would be like someone from the McCain campaign criticized someone else for being too old, especially if the other person was actually younger then McCain.

Also, the comment about a “town of 9,000″ sounds like another dig against bitter small-town people that cling to religion and guns.

They later issued a much nicer statement:

We send our congratulations to Gov. Sarah Palin and her family on her designation as the Republican nominee for vice president. It is yet another encouraging sign that old barriers are falling in our politics. While we obviously have differences over how best to lead this country forward, Gov. Palin is an admirable person and will add a compelling new voice to this campaign

Now that’s more like it.

Have you heard? Future President of the United States Barack Hussein Obama has made his decision as to who he will allow to join him on the Democratic ticket. He ignored the candidate with over 18 votes in the primaries (Hillary Clinton) and instead chose Senator Joe Biden.

He announced his decision by first text messaging supporters that signed up on his website. According to Wonkette, he sent the text message out at 3:14 a.m. Eastern Time.

Ouch.

Yesterday he appeared in front of a massive crowd in Springfield, Illinois with Biden and Bary being Bary, first introduced him as the next President of the United States. He said, “So let me introduce to you the next president - the next vice president of the US of America, Joe Biden.”

If he’s not misspeaking about his father’s flag draped coffin, he’s saying that the country has 57 states.  Anytime Obama is not reading from a script, it’s a crap shoot as to what he’s going to say.  He’s a lot like George W. Bush in that regard.  You never quite know what he’s going to say.

I’m somewhat surprised that Obama would pick Biden.  Only a few months ago, Biden was claiming that Obama didn’t have enough experience to be President.  In fact, the McCain campaign wasted no time jumping all over that and have now featured the comment it in an ad.  I wonder what’s changed that would make Biden think Obama was now ready to be President?

Biden has also had nice things to say about Obama.  He once said that Obama was the first mainstream African-American canidate that was clean.

If only Hillary Clinton had complemented Obama on his cleanliness.  We Democrats might have had a true unity ticket.  The two Democrats with the most votes and the most supporters would join to make a very powerful ticket.  Instead, the candidate that is all about Change™ chose a running mate that has been a Senator in Washington since 1973.

This is George Hussein Onyango Obama. He is Barack Obama’s 26-year old half-brother. A brother from a different mother. He lives in a tiny shack in the slum town of Huruma on the outskirts of Nairobi.

To be fair, Barack Obama has quite a few half-brothers and half-sisters.  His father liked to get around if you know what I mean.  He’s only met brother George twice. They didn’t grow up together and there is a pretty big age difference between to the two.

It just seems a real shame that something can’t be done for brother George’s predicament.  I know that if I had a half-brother living in a shack in Africa, I would do something about it.  Maybe Barack is waiting till he becomes President of the United States to do something for his brother.

We can only hope.

Link

It looks like presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama is taking a page from Republican Presidential nominee John McCain’s playbook and might now be willing to go along with offshore drilling.  He is willing to “refine” his position on offshore drilling.  From the AP:

Shifting from his previous opposition to expanded offshore drilling, the Illinois senator told a Florida newspaper he could get behind a compromise with Republicans and oil companies to prevent gridlock over energy.

The problem I have with drilling for more oil whether it be up in no-mans land up in Alaska or off our shores is that we don’t control the world oil market.  The oil market is global.  OPEC controls most of the global market.  The members of OPEC decide just how much oil will be made available on the world market.  If we were able to increase the available oil on the oil market by drilling off our coasts or up in ANWR, who’s to say that OPEC wont just decrease their oil production to keep prices where they are?

The other problem I have with drilling off our shores is that I remember when it was done off the coast of California and they were never really good at it.  As a kid I can remember swimming in the Pacific Ocean near Santa Barbara and getting coated with a gummy tar like substance that came from the derricks right off the coast.  My father would have to remove the gunk from my brother and me with gasoline and a rag.

We aren’t going to drill ourselves out of this problem. We need to concentrate on ways to use less oil, not try to come up with new ways of increasing the amount of available oil.  Some of us just use way too much gasoline.

Evidently the McCain campaign is running an ad that compares Barack Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. I think this is below the belt. The McCain campaign  is way out of line comparing Obama to these two celebrities.

Neither Britney Spears or Paris Hilton voted with Republicans giving retro immunity to the telecoms for their part in illegal warrantless eavesdropping.  Neither Britney Spears or Paris Hilton stated that a woman’s mental health shouldn’t be a factor when considering exceptions to the ban on late-term abortions.  I also don’t think neither Britney Spears or Paris Hilton chose a hateful racist to be their spiritual adviser.

Not that I even know whether or not these two ladies have spiritual advisers.  I’m guessing they don’t.

Hopefully the McCain campaign comes to their senses and pulls the ad before it does any lasting damage to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

Say what you will about Germans, but they love Barack Obama. German officials estimate that the presumptuous Democratic presidential nominee attracted at least 200,000 Germans to an Obama campaign rally held in Berlin yesterday.

That’s a whole lot of Germans!

According to my research, this is the largest political rally held in the city of Berlin since 1937.  And much like the 1937 political rally,  Germans attending the 2008 political rally were prohibited from bringing signs or posters.

Obama canceled a scheduled trip to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center near the city of Kaiserslauternto.  It is the largest American hospital outside the United States and it provides treatment to American soldiers injured in Afghanistan.  When Obama was told by an Army official he could visit Landstuhl with his Senate staff, but not with his campaign staff, Obama canceled the visit.

It would seem that if he couldn’t use the visit for campaingn puposes, he was not interested in it.

While campaigning in Sderot, Israel, presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama claimed to be on a committee is is not on.

From CNN:

“Just this past week, we passed out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee - which is my committee - a bill to call for divestment from Iran as way of ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don’t obtain a nuclear weapon,”

He’s not a member of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee. You would think he would know what committees he was a member of. Did he forget or was he simply confused? Like when he referred to his father’s flag draped coffin or how his uncle helped liberate Auschwitz.

Maybe David Axelrod should write down which committees Obama is a member of.  That way Obama could carry it around in his pocket and study it before speaking.

Germans evidently love three things: hot potato salad, David Hasselhoff, and Michelle Obama’s baby daddy. I knew of the first two things, but I never realized the German people loved Barack Obama. They must love him. Otherwise the Obama campaign wouldn’t be holding a political rally in Berlin, right?

Why even would a U.S. presidential candidate campaign in a foreign country like Germany? This is something presidential candidates don’t normally do. In fact, this has got to be some kind of a first. Could this be what Barack Obama is referring to when he talks about Change™?  What other foreign countries will Barack Obama grace with a campaign rally?

These are exciting times!

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has put the kabosh to the idea Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama giving a political speech in front of the historic Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. This would put an end to the long held tradition of American presidential candidates speaking in front of the gate made famous during the cold war for dividing East and West Berlin.

It’s unknown why Merkel would deny the German people the chance to attend a political rally for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. For years the German people have enjoyed attending political rallies for American presidential candidates held at the historic Brandenburg Gate.  Being that the Germans came up short in the recent Euro 2008 soccer tournament, basking in the glow of Barack Obama would most certainly bring much needed cheer to the German people.

German Chancellor Angela Merkelis is wrong to deny her people the pleasure of being in the presence of Barack Obama.

I heard this morning on MSNBC that the cast of 300 is advising Barack Obama on foreign policy.  I think this is very good news for the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.  They certainly know a thing or two about fighting Persians.  That could come in handy when it comes to dealing with Iran.