“I’M LOYAL…I’M LOYAL MASTER! I’M LOYAL!!!” Californians who showed up at a meeting to help with an oil spill were asked by government officials to sign a loyalty oath. And those who decided to show up and clean up anyway were threatened with arrest and the original link in the post.
If the government is not doing its job efficiently and is turning away volunteers who want to help is there another word to use here except “incompetence?” How about two? “GROSS incompetence.” It’s said to be the era of smaller government but it really isn’t and the proof is that citizens are turned away…to leave it to the…slow-as-molasses-moving government.
WHEN I WANT YOUR OPINION I’LL GIVE YOU ONE DEPT: Hillary Clinton’s camp is getting in big media and imagery trouble for TWO occasions now when her side has planted questions. Read conservative blogger.
One defense that is creeping up on talk radio and the blogosphere is people saying “Well. Bush has staged events for years!” This is essentially the same that Republicans have used since 2001 when their “team” gets criticized or runs into trouble. And it is JUST as irrelevant a response here as it is there. The issue isn’t who of the opposite party also did something dumb incompetent or reprehensible (or a combination of all of the above). The issue is the issue at hand. And Ms. Clinton’s people — whether these are screw-ups or just plain bone-headed political decisions — are not helping their candidate or her image…or her ability to get her message on issues out. “But under Clinton” is as meaningless as “But under Bush.”
The widely reported gaffe was especially alarming given my personal and political conviction that she is the most qualified candidate of the whole bunch. Her handlers in their quest to manage the message handed her salivating antagonists including Sen. Edwards the talking point they crave: Mrs. Clinton is inauthentic and calculating.
This is not the first time this blogger has raised a red flag about her campaign’s public obsession with control and how its prominence is certain to have a deleterious effect on the electorate.
My advice to the campaign PR staff: let Hillary be Hillary. Sure you can keep your control but do not let it interfere with her authenticity. Trust me. It’s possible. I met her briefly and she was exceedingly warm and engaging. Help her surface that aspect of her being.
I’ve heard the same and also heard from New Yawkers that she has been quite diligent in answering their calls. She knows “all politics is local.” This is a textbook case of a campaign that had seemed to be seamless but when the seams showed up they looked unseemly indeed. And the air of inevitability and the image of a candidate backed by super slick campaign apparatus have both taken
THE HOLLYWOOD WRITERS’ STRIKE: So why should anyone be pulling for the writer? Here are THE NEW O. J. SIMPSON TRIAL PRELIMINARIES GOT UNDER WAY THIS WEEK and if you missed it you can catch up on it in that gives a good cross section of You Tubes.
It was the kind of piece that could actually be helpful to the Democrats if they read it and either used it to evaluate their performance or prepare for similar but more fiery criticism in 2008. And just
Despite the bloviation against “big government” from the Right. Republicans have placed the entire responsibility for national security in the hands of the federal government and the GOP candidates are making promises to keep us safe the major part of their platform.
Why have Democrats not responded with plans that would help to mitigate public reliance on the federal government (along with the terrible enervating passivity of doing so) by preparing communities to deal with an attack? Isn’t part of the politics of fear the sense that if something were to happen we wouldn’t know ourselves how to respond? Wouldn’t everyone be better off by facing up to the probability of an eventual attack (even if unsuccessful)? Shouldn’t we insist on being educated about the worst case scenarios and about the best way for a community to deal with such a situation? Or—with 911 and the feelings of community it aroused so far behind us—-is it already too late?
…Instead of using these failures to taunt the opposition perhaps we in the center and on the left should be urging our fellow citizens to demand solutions that would give us a sense that—if worst comes to worst—we can actually do something. Think of London during the Blitz and the way in which the British public rose to meet them. Think of Americans at home during WWII preparing themselves for the worst. Wouldn’t it be more productive for us to build up communities of citizens prepared to step in and assist in police and rescue operations if a credible threat develops or even if worst comes to worst? Wouldn’t we all feel more secure if we faced up to the threat and considered in advance how to respond? Isn’t democracy about empowering the people rather than the federal government?
The terrorism issue was bungled and slipped into the realm of politics amid a tug of war over it becoming a wedge issue. What was needed was a cool well thought out response that included a general mobilization of Americans to do what had to be done as a NATION (not as Republicans and Democrats) and how to get the pieces in place to be able to respond ASAP to a new threat or attack. Rolls of duct tape and waiting for quaint and colorful government terrorism threat levels don’t cut it.
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