We’re all related.
This could make for one odd family reunion: Barack Obama is a distant cousin of Brad Pitt, and Hillary Rodham Clinton is related to Pitt’s girlfriend, Angelina Jolie.
Researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Society found some remarkable family connections for the three presidential candidates — Democratic rivals Obama and Clinton, and Republican John McCain.
Clinton, who is of French-Canadian descent on her mother’s side, is also a distant cousin of singers Madonna, Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette. Obama, the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, can call six U.S. presidents, including George W. Bush, his cousins. McCain is a sixth cousin of first lady Laura Bush.
But, as Hillary will no doubt soon point out, only one of them looks like a negro.
Oh, do you think that’s an unfair cheap shot? Is it any cheaper than Clinton telling Obama where he can worship his God? Is it cheaper than quoting NewsMax and the American Spectator and WorldNetDaily?
And isn’t Paul Begala an employee of CNN that is not connected to the Clinton campaign in any way? Never forget…Begala thinks we are all just a**holes from Vermont whose opinion he doesn’t care to know.
“Look,” [Begala] said, “When we started there were only about 15 competitive races, but Rahm made the field over 35 by the end and that had nothing to do with the 50-state strategy.” I told him we never would have had so many competitive districts if not for the DNC investing staffers and resources into those states early on and expanding the playing field. “So you have people out there, what are they doing there though?” he questioned. “I told him they were building a long term infrastructure for the Democratic Party, and we had people all over America knocking on doors and spreading the Democratic message. “So what do they say when they knock on the doors then?” he asked me. I told him they had a succinct 6 point plan for a “new direction” that they were discussing, a cohesive message that we haven’t had in the past. “Anyway,” Begala continued… “I don’t need some a**hole from Vermont telling me what to do.”
I don’t think Barack Obama needs some a**holes from Arkansas New York telling him where to go to church. That’s what I think. I want to know when the party leaders are going to tell the Clintons that they’re out of bounds. I’m disgusted and everyone I know is disgusted. I’ve never seen anything so loathsome from a Democrat.
We’re all related, but the Clintons want you to remember…that Barack guy? He black.
Random thought:
African-Americans like myself should be as grateful to guys like Bush and Cheney and Pat Buchanan and Paul Begala for “liberating us” as the Iraqi people should be grateful to guys like Bush and Cheney and Pat Buchanan and Paul Begala for “liberating them.”
After all, nobody has done more for colored folks over the last 40 years than white guys. How could African-Americans like myself or Iraqis or ANYONE for that matter possibly be angry at them?
A few days before the SC primary, a guy knocked on my door. I guess that Begala would call him “an asshole from Washington, DC.” I found him to be a very pleasant Obama supporter. I had been an Edwards supporter since 2004 but was wavering as the primary neared.
We discussed the situation. He didn’t knock Edwards in any way. I told him that I was concerned with Obama’s lack of administrative/governance experience. He said that he knew many topnotch people with experience in the government in DC who were supporting Obama. He suggested that it was more important to get a President who could see the bigger picture and could select a staff to run the government.
After a brief conversation, he left and I added his comments to my consideration. Eventually, I chose to vote for Obama.
Not every campaign volunteer knocking on doors will be as effective. But, I can tell you, having someone who believes in a candidate enough to drive hundreds of miles and spend time away from home knocking on strangers’ door is a strong message by itself.
Begala is no more “unaffiliated” with the Clinton campaign than Chelsea. He just doesn’t draw a pay check.
As Bill Richardson said, these Clintonistas exhibit a very obnoxious sense of entitlement.
There is no doubt that the wingnut websites are re-orienting towards smearing Obama. They would be spouting lies and distortions no matter who was leading for the nomination.
The “Hillary-has-been-vetted” line is BS. The negative polls show that the VRWC 20 year, multi-million dollar smear campaign has been successful in terms of turning almost half the potential voters against Clinton. They have more salvos just waiting for a Clinton candidacy.
I’d just as soon have a candidate who forces them to start from scratch in defaming and smearing.
I’d just as soon have a candidate who forces them to start from scratch in defaming and smearing.
The depressing thing is I don’t think we don’t have that any more, and we have Hillary Clinton to thank for it.
Mom and I have been known to go round about her Catholic church and how it treats women. Her response is always that the church belongs to her and the people, not whoever happens to be at the top. She wants to change it from the inside.
Would Hillary tell her she doesn’t have that choice?
yeah, it’s an unfair cheap shot.
clinton is bringing up the wright thing because her only hope is if the obama campaign has a spectacular collapse. and she (accurately, i think) believes that wright’s comments are viewed as quite negative by a lot of democrats, even obama supporters.
it isn’t about any lofty principles, its about a campaign with little chance of winning, using what it can to take advantage of her opponent’s perceived weakness. in other words, clinton is running a political campaign. she’s not claiming that she has a right to decide what church he goes to, she’s just trying to use something embarrassing against her opponent. woop-de-doo.
while i disagree with the substance of clinton’s charge, i don’t think it’s out of bounds. indeed, if mccain went to a white supremacist church i think we’d all be all over him for that. and before anyone says it, i am not claiming that wright’s church is the equivalent to or somehow on par with a white supremacist church. i just want to note that if people were giving nazi salutes while mccain took communion, we would have no trouble blaming him for his association with the church. and our blame would not be because we all think that we have a right to tell everyone where to go to church.
the ‘everyone does it’ defense.
I’m not buying it for a moment.
i’m not making an “everybody does it” defense, i’m stating that so long as clinton is in the race she will play to win. one way to play to win is to attack your opponent on a point that they are considered to be vulnerable. in this case, the clinton people think obama is vulnerable on the wright issue, so they are attacking him on it.
clinton is not making any highfallutin claims about who can tell who where to go to church, she’s trying to play up a weakness of her opponent. in other words, she’s running for president. i don’t think it’s a great line of attack, but it certainly is in the realm of regular campaigning and is not out of bounds.
noz, that is total bullshit.
That is exactly the ‘everybody does it’ defense.
Everybody runs to win.
This is supposed to help her win.
What’s the problem?
As you know, the problems are legion. And she is saying that he’s unfit for office because of where he goes to church.
And she is saying that he’s unfit for office because of where he goes to church.
that’s not exactly as i see it. i think she’s saying that his decision to continue to associate with the church shows bad judgment.
why is attacking your opponent’s judgment out of bounds? it may not be a good attack on the merits (it really is problematic to judge someone based on what the pastor at his church says), but i don’t think it is somehow beyond the normal limits of where a campaign should go.
Can you hear yourself speaking, noz?
Where the fuck does she get the nerve? Don’t tell me it is just politics, because it’s not. It’s a total lack of principle and fairness and decency. That is what it is. And, to add to the problem, it is absolutely toxic to the health of the party.
I think Booman is right about this.
However, in this day and age, there doesn’t seem to be any sense of decency in political campaigns. So if that’s how the game is to be played, I’d like to see someone ask hillary clinton why she chose a philanderer for a husband and why she stuck with him. I’d like someone to ask her some questions about The Fellowship.
Today I found myself anxious for Obama to come back from his brief respit and I realized it was because I was looking forward to his leadership out of the sewer than HRC seems most comfortable running her campaign in. I look forward more than ever to his high road.
Actually, attacking your enemy’s weakness is bad strategy. They know that’s where you’re going to attack, so it’s where their defenses will be the strongest. Attack your enemy’s strength. That’s the essence of victory!
What I see more often is attacking your enemy on your own greatest weakness, implying that what you KNOW to be your area of weakness is actually your strong suit. (Think of Hillary attacking Barack for being “too inexperienced.”)
At this point, Hillary is just attacking on anything, hoping that something will stick. There’s no real strategy behind her attacks anymore.
yup
if people were giving nazi salutes while mccain took communion, we would have no trouble blaming him for his association with the church.
Assuming, of course, we could even take the time to notice what McCain is doing while all this is going on…</snark>
Didn’t they link Obama to Winston Churchill, too? Everybody keeps mentioning the Bush connection, but surely the Churchill one is the cooler one if the press is doing this kind of story.
BMT writes: “I want to know when the party leaders are going to tell the Clintons that they’re out of bounds. I’m disgusted and everyone I know is disgusted. I’ve never seen anything so loathsome from a Democrat.”
Dude, don’t just sit there: Call and complain.
Then grab Nancy’s ear. And Helpless Harry‘s ear too.
My entire neighborhood, the majority of who is low-income African Americans, is plastered with Obama posters.
Well, being related to Brad Pitt sure beats being related to the Cheneys.
He’s going to have to adjust his stump speech now because he’s found a very cool person to be related to.
Meanwhile, that ((POW)) sound you hear is the sound of small minds in hard heads exploding:
But, but…he’s Black! POW
Hillary has no problem sitting down these days with Richard Mellon Scaife.
In the 90’s he personally financed much of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy that attack the CLintons. He created the Arkansas Project and the American Spectator magazine to eviscerate the Clintons. I guess when you want to do the same you go to the best and sit down next to him for an interview with his right wing paper.
Take a good look at Hillary. Look at the friends SHE keeps. Look at the campaign tactics SHE now uses against a fellow Democrat. It is not a pretty picture.
the Hillary – Scaife embrace has been diaried
I think we’ve been missing the point of all this nastiness from Clinton. Sure it damages Obama somewhat and we can see she’s trying to take him out in the minds of the superdelegates. Her toxic-Obama strategy may well have a more insidious intent-
Notice the Gallup poll showing 30% of Clinton supporters would move to McCain vs only 18% of Obama’s? What if she’s poisoning her own against him and then using that in her superdelegate/ electability argument? “But I’m more electable because my people won’t vote for Obama while his will vote for me!”
I am absolutely there with you. For weeks, Billary has been fluffing Teflon John and for the past few days, they’ve been downright deferential to him.
They will ruin this party if they can’t have what they want. That’s the only true thing about this mendacious pair.
Billary’s lack of character is on display for everyone to see.
I’m afraid that you’re correct. There’s absolutely no reason for the Clintons to say one positive word about John McCain– unless they’re dogwhistling to their supporters that even McCain would be better than Obama.
It’s becoming more obvious by the day that the Clintons have two strategies: (a) remain in the race until the last minute in hopes that Obama implodes; or, (b) cripple Obama so that there’s another opportunity for Clinton in 2012.
I just listened to an interview with the pilot who flew Hillary Clinton into Tuzla on that legendary day. Funny stuff. He confirms the exaggerations are just that and noted that if there was any “sniper fire” there is no way that they would have even considered landing the plane. There was no crazy “corkscrew landing” or any of that. The reason they used a military cargo plane is because the runway was too short for Air Force One to land there and this particular plane can land on shorter runways.
This is on CNN headline page from C. Bernstein it is an OUCH
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/03/26/hillary-clinton-truth-or-consequences/#more-470
and the military is going after Hillary, I think she is really toast now
http://pennsylvaniaprogressive.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/03/bosnian-vet-acc.html
My Letter to the editor. Of course they won’t print it since I point out their lies, but here we go.
And just to add, I was once a fan of Taylor Marsh. YOu now blow her a way. Keep it up.
wish to thank our wonderful media for teachin us a valuable lesson.
They are afraid of the Religious Right. The Religious Right can say any nonsensical phrase, God punished us on 9/11 because of the gays in America.
But the media ignores that. But have a black preacher say somethink like it, and you rise up and put him in his place.
Bet lynching would be considred patriotic if we had a media like today in the old days.
Rev. Wright had the nerve to tell the truth. American Foreign policy brought about 9/11.
How dare he tell the truth. Preachers must lie, like the President, and the media. They just hate our little ol freedoms. Bet they love the fact you can’t speak out against the US anymore.
So when will the Iraqi People thank us. We have spent 4 tillion blowing them up. We have blown up their houses, Killed most of their family mamebers, made them flee the Country, poisoned their water, blew up their hospitals and reduced their electricity to an hour a week.
And what about the joy they must feel that knowing every time they walk down the street, one of our drunk contractors will put a bullet in their head.
But of course the media will not tell you this story. They must stop an uppity black precher. The media not finding any dirt on Barak Obama must make up their own negative news.
Keep scaring poor ol whitey, it is all you are good for.
Here’s a nice article by a white attendant of Trinity: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-oped0326trinitymar26,0,2414760.story. After watching more of Wright’s speeches on YouTube and getting the real context for them…. I absolutely agree with Obama that if Wright has erred, it’s in thinking the US is static. It is so deeply irritating that MSM has not bothered to put these speeches in context, and even more irritating that HC isn’t rising above it. Not that I would have expected her to.
sigh