DISQUS

Well good Anon I stand corrected. It's good to hear that the Marines were all that enlightened by 1945. But if the Montford Point Marines weren't part of the story they weren't part of the story. Clintwood was trying to tell an accurate story.


Did you see his Japanese side sequel? This is all about getting these stories right.



Maybe Spike should make a movie about every black unit in the US military if he that's interested. But if he's gonna do it about WW2 he's about out of time if he expects to get direct testimony.

Oh and that reporter, lil Miss Uppity whoever she is? She needs to find a new job. Maybe unloading ships for the Marines.

I don't even think there were any black marines in 1945. If there were and they were on Iwo Jima they were probably relegated to unloading ships on the beach. The Navy was the Boston Red Sox of the services back then and the Marines being a subservice of the Navy well...


Spike Lee is a great filmmaker. Clint Eastwood is a great filmmaker. But Spike needs to take a history class that goes back more than 50 years I guess.

One of our major goals for the rest of the year ought to be making Lieberman "Senator Irrelevant". With Kennedy, Byrd and Johnson of SD all laid up we need to pick off
a lot more Repub senators but yes we can do that too. Even McConnell in KY is in trouble.



If Barack makes Webb VP we have to keep that seat in the senate. We have a pretty deep bench in VA now so that's doable. I'm more concerned about Webb's perceived lack of experience. A lot of people question Webb's liberal bonafides too. He's done some real 180s over the years that he'll have to explain to a nat'l. audience.



Having said that I think Webb would be great. We'll just have to wait and see who Caroline and crew come up with. It's a nice problem to have.

If someone asks "What more do you want!?" say a beer would be nice. Thanks.

I gotta tell ya, it's gonna be so nice sleeping well at night with a real good man as president for a change next year.


Make no doubt about it we're gonna have very tough times in the years ahead which Republicans will try to blame on President Obama. Changing our healthcare system, how we travel and generate electricity are going to be expensive but necessary adjustments, massive adjustments that we must make if this country is to not only prosper but survive.



These changes are gonna take overwhelming majorities in congress. President Obama can only take us as far as the new congress will let him. We must elect many more and better Dems to help him. We do that and we can help him be a great president, maybe the greatest we've ever had.



We have to do it. You have an hour after work? Do some phonebanking. You got 5 dollars? Don't just send it to Barack. Help out Dem candidates like Rick Noriega in TX who is within spitting distance of that idiot John Cornyn. Scott Harper has a real shot at sending Judy Borg Biggert in the IL-13 home to Hinsdale along with her daughter the Big Pharma lobbyist. I kid you not that's her real middle name.



This drawn out primary has drained resources from our congressional candidates. Now is the time we suck the life out of the Repubs. Find candidates you believe in. Give til it hurts. Take time out every day, every week until November. it will pay dividends for decades to come.

I lived in NJ in 2004 and when I saw him give the keynote speech at the convention I wished he was the candidate then.


On that Saturday morning in February I was wishing I hadn't worn my steeltoed boots. I didn't know if we could pull this off but I was determined to work my butt off trying. As soon as my feet thawed out.



I am so happy for the brothers and sisters here. I wish I could see those black nurses who helped take care of my dad last November, who told me Hillary would win, "Barack is just a baby" they said. It's not their fault. They didn't know, they didn't believe, Hillary had a 57-37% lead in SC at the time. Why should they get their hearts broken cuz some white guy with a sick dad says so? But I bet by the time the primary rolled around they did.



But I'm not just happy for black folks. I'm happy for all the white people I talk to when I'm phonebanking. A lot of them Repubs who say they're voting for him in the fall. I spoke to one guy last night, a Repub in his 60s, while making calls separating the wheat from the chaff for our Dems in DuPage. When I asked him if he thought he'd vote for Scott Harper (IL-13) our Dem House candidate, he said with more wonder in his voice than anything else, "hey, I'm voting for Barack, so yeah sure" as if to say "I never thought I'd ever say something like that out loud but I've been thinking it for months and yeah there I said it, I am, and it feels good."

S and D,
You're right Iraq is not Vietnam, it's worse than Vietnam.



Bush's occupation of Iraq has wrecked our standing in the world, cost us trillions of dollars and seriously damaged the US military not to mention the country.



In the long run Iraq will be more allied with Iran than the USA no matter what we do. If we are lucky Maliki will give way to Sadr in Shiite Iraq. Sadr is the most nationalistic and least Iran friendly of the major Shiite politicians. Sadr's ascension wouldn't help US relations much but at least he wouldn't be the kind of Iranian toady Maliki is.



I don't expect either of you to know any of this. Your "news" comes from silly propaganda sources that have long been discredited.

S,


Pfc. Ross A. McGinnis had more honor than you'll ever have. Why don't you stop besmirching his memory and get your butt down to a recruiting station? If you won't learn from history and refuse to make this a better country in the future then you might as well have the honor of being the last man to die for Bush's mistake.

I guess McCain is going to take credit for the 3 car bombs that went off in Mosul the other day when he said it was peaceful. Give it up S. We're electing Obama this year. Then we're getting out of Iraq. Nobody buys your nonsense anymore.


And yeah you're gonna have to buy a car that runs on something other than gasoline one day. Nobody wants to fight over the last of the oil when we can and must develop alternatives.

Let's try this again with tinyurls as the bigger ones don't fit.


Jade7243's post at TPM:



"For the First Time In My Adult Life..."



http://tinyurl.com/3gm5yl



My August 14 diary at Kos:



"America is ready to elect a black man."



http://tinyurl.com/3wqljv

I'd like to recommend this post from TPM:


http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/06/for-the-first-time-in-my-adult.php



Below is a dairy I wrote at Kos last August from the other side of the divide that we hope is finally coming to an end:



http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/8/14/144654/918/838/371386

But it hasn't and it's not going to work is it? We are winning. Not just black folks but millions of white people like me. Like the hundreds from Chicagoland I saw in Lake County before Indiana to canvass for Barack.


Like the 30 who met at the McDonald's in Bolingbrook

at 6am on the Saturday morning before the IN primary, organized to caravan down to Lafayette to canvass for Barack by Scott Harper's campaign, all but a couple of us white, most of us older than my 52 years and at least half of our number women.



Just be patient. They're trying to goad all of us into being jerks like them. They want you to flip out, they want Barack to make an ass of himself. I get 'em on the phone or at front doors and they try to get to me. I never let them. I tell my cat what I wish I could have said if I was only representing myself when I get home. She's very patient as long as I keep the cat food coming. I know she'll never repeat it, she's on our side. Besides she doesn't speak a word of English.



For the next week or so we're gonna all have to dip into that Jackie Robinson well of self restraint Obama has an ocean of. Then it'll be over and we can pivot on McCain.

There but for the grace of God and Barack's superior candidate skills and campaign go all of us. Imagine how you'd feel if you'd waited for this all this your life, for one of your own, a person you really identified with to win what will be an almost certain shot at the presidency. Imagine you're Harriet Christian who knows she won't live to see many more, if any of these fights.


If we hadn't fought Hillary to a draw in Indiana and kicked her ass in NC we might very well be in Harriet's position.



How would you feel if we hadn't held her off? If superdels were falling her way? If the media bought her line that Barack couldn't seal the deal? That primary killed her and sent us on our way.



They are bitter as hell now. I would be too if the shoe was on the other foot. Bu these people are Democrats. They have 5 months to get over it. We have 5 months to prove them wrong by proving ourselves and showing just how strong Obama and his coattails are.

Most of them will join us long before then. Almost all of them will join us by election day.



As long as we don't rub it in. Take your lead from Barack. I do.

I respect Watts' accomplishments as a college football player. As a politician or a commentator? Nah.

S it doesn't matter what we do in Iraq. Iran has already won that war. Our president has to sneak into the country to visit highly secure bases while the Iranian president is greeted with kisses by the prime minister we're paying to prop up.


Victimhood? Your ilk has wrapped yourself in victimhood like you have the flag for decades. Get over it. We're going to get out of Iraq.

They'll either have the civil war Petraues has been priming them for by arming all sides or they won't. But either way Iran wins. Iraq being 60% Shiite is and will be much closer aligned with Iran than they ever will be the USA. They're neighbors. They share a religion. Before the invasion most of the Iraqis in leadership positions were exiled in Tehren. Besides oil their only other business is religious tourism when busloads of Iranians visit on their high holy days.



We invaded, occupied and destroyed their country. We arrested Iraqis without charges, imprisoned them without trial, and tortured them.



So we'll leave. We'll rebuild our military, treat our wounded, life will go on. Iraq will sell oil and rebuild their country. And if we're very lucky they'll forgive us someday.

I've always been of the opinion that all the people who want to blame America for the world's problems should go live under the regimes they try so desperately to protect.


D, I suggest if you want to live in a country where the government has the right to spy on you without a warrant, where there's no government regulation of business, where government subsidizes the wealthy, burdens the middle class and works to prevent the poor from rising out of poverty, starts needless wars and lies about it, tortures and lies about it, borrows

trillions of dollars putting it's children and grandchildren deeply in debt for generations to come, then go find somewhere else to live.



That's what Republicans have done to this country. We're going to take it back and get on with the business of forming a more perfect union instead of following the dead end path of a hollowed out, morally and economically bankrupt shell of the USA Republican rule has in store for us.

To Anonymous above with the idiotic screed about the lack of terrorist attacks on Americans:


4000 US soldiers have been killed and 30,000 have been wounded in Iraq, mostly by IEDs planted by terrorists of one stripe or another. Where does it say it's the US Army's mission to ride around waiting to get blown up providing on the job training to jihadis so you can "feel" but not actually be safe?



To the other moron who posted the stuff about the Chinese invading Taiwan or the Russians moving on Georgia if we elect Obama that very well may be true. The Russians have been lording their natural gas supply over Georgia and Ukraine for years and the Bush Administration can't do a damn thing about it. Given the opportunity the Russians will do the same to the rest of Europe. It's a big part of the reason the German government now pays farmers to plant windmills instead of crops all over their country.



And your argument, that we might be tested militarily in the future holds true for whoever we elect, not just Obama. It proves he's absolutely right about getting out of Iraq. That occupation is destroying the US Army. We're not much of a deterrent to the Chinese or anybody else with an exhausted, worn out Army while borrowing $300 billion a year from them to prop up our economy.

I'm new here and I don't know where you folks re located but you might try Jeff W. over at Prairie State Blue if you're in Illinois. I think they got credentials and might be able to help you with the process. If I had a vote I'd send you guys.

One of the most impressive things about Obama to me is the Jackie Robinson like self restraint and composure he possesses multiplied for the bigger political stage. When we lost NH and then when I was worried Rev. Wright might sabotage the whole campaign, when I felt like burying my head in my hands Barack came back brilliantly. His speech that night in NH had me cheering in front of my teevee. The Philly speech had Chris Matthews practically cheering on my teevee right along with me.


I have to admit though Obama had me from the day I got up at 4:30 in the morning to drive out to Bolingbrook to catch a bus to Springfield and stand in the bitter cold in February 2007 to hear him declare his candidacy. We will get back to the work of making a more perfect union.



I've worked hard trying to get a lot of Democratic candidates elected over the years. I've watched them flounder under swiftboat, brownsuit and Willie Horton attacks. I spent sleepless nights wondering if they'd pull it out, wishing they were better candidates. I'd tell myself I'm too old, too jaded, too much of a political junkie to be inspired by a politician and speeches.



Man was I ever wrong. And these days I sleep like a baby. This country desperately needs a great president. The more I see of Barack Obama the more convinced I am he can be that president.



-Another middle aged white guy

I'd rather see John as Obama's AG. Imagine him putting Republicans in jail for politicizing government and all their other transgressions. There'd be nobody left on their side to run against him in 2016.

That's a nice article Greg Jones except for one thing, "acclaimed" Washington columnist Robert Novak?


Novak might be acclaimed in hell and Republican circles but that's about it. He's right that there would be no point in being a Goldwater girl any other time than the 1964 election. She had to be one very confused girl to admire both King and Goldwater who were at opposite ends of the political divide.