The Light: Hillary

/ Bumped Up /

UPDATE: Two of them, actually. Since I am in my hometown after having seen my orthopaedist, and have to get something from my mom’s house (now my brother’s house), I have this on the jobs front. This came in on Friday, to add to the high Unemployment filings for the last week of July. There was a decline of jobs by 131,000 to add to this already disappointing (to put it mildly) news. I don’t quite understand how this keeps Unemployment steady at 9.5% since the numbers keep hovering close to half a million, but that’s just me.

And then, there is this headline regarding Michelle’s European vacation: Spanish Police Close Public Beach For Michelle Obama’s (Almost $400,000) Spanish Holiday (sorry – couldn’t find the pound sign while my 6 yr old grandnephew is jumping around). Oh, this is some story, with LOTS of photos and details, except how many aides Michelle actually has. Why can no one get that number? There’s a ton of security with her, too, as you might imagine, which costs each and everyone of us our taxpaying dollars. Gee – and you wonder why Andrea Tantaros refers to her as a “modern day Marie Antoinette…”

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Original of “Must Be Nice To Jet Around On Someone Else’s Dime”: That would be Michelle Obama, of course. She and her daughter, Sasha, are currently in Spain. With plenty of their closest friends, enough to fill 60+ rooms at a swanky resort on the Mediterranean Coast.

If only this was her first vacation of the summer, and we weren’t footing the damn airfare for Michelle, her daughter, staff, and security. But that is exactly what we are doing as Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun Times wrote in her recent article, “Michelle Obama Could Face ‘Appearance’ Issue Over Luxury Vacation.” Uh, yeah, you could say that:

First lady Michelle Obama may catch some flak for vacationing at an expensive luxury hotel on Spain’s Mediterranean coast. By the end of the summer, Mrs. Obama will have taken eight vacation trips — including her visit to Marbella, staying at the five-star Hotel Villa Padierna with daughter Sasha and some pals. {snip}

Mrs. Obama’s U.S. Air Force jet landed at Malaga on Wednesday; she skipped celebrating her husband’s 49th birthday with him. (Daughter Malia, 12, is at overnight camp.) Mrs. Obama pays for personal expenses — as do her friends who arrived on their own — but that only covers a small part of the expense. Taxpayers pick up the tab for staff and security at the exclusive hotel and most of the expenses for the plane.
(more...)

Especially if you consider yourself a Tea Party member. Yep, the day after Michelle Obama went and hung out with the NAACP leadership, the NAACP declared the Tea Party one big bunch of racists. All right, they said maybe it wasn’t ALL Tea Party members, just the ones who want to return to “the pre-civil rights era.” Oh, you know I am not making this up.

Michelle Obama did a little more than hang out with the NAACP, though. She gave the keynote address at their convention. Oh, and she knew the resolution charging the Tea Party with racism was being planned. Raise your hand if you are surprised she went ahead with the keynote speech anyway. * Crickets * Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Back to the NAACP. Apparently, they think people are racist if they dare to not acquiesce to everything Obama says, wants, does, and that he, unlike every other president we have ever had, must be free of any kind of disagreement or discord. If anyone dare oppose a massively expensive healthcare law, or oppose the rapid expansion of government under Obama, then, of course, they are racists.

Okay, okay, the NAACP did walk it back just a tiny bit when they acknowledged maybe ALL Tea Partiers are not racists, but not by much:

The NAACP passed a resolution Tuesday night condemning Tea Party activists, or at least some Tea Party activists, as racists who want “to push our country back to the pre-civil rights era.”

Tea Party groups across the country have vehemently denied that charge, calling Tuesday’s resolution a hypocritical act on the part of the NAACP — which has traditionally fought against stereotypes.

In a session that was closed to the media, the resolution that ultimately passed was toned down, according to the NAACP, to just “ask the Tea Party itself to repudiate the racist elements and activities of the Tea Party.” An original draft appeared to suggest — and many Tea Party leaders inferred — that the resolution accused the entire movement of being motivated by racial concerns.

“We take no issue with the Tea Party movement,” NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous said in a statement released late Tuesday night, after the vote. “We believe in freedom of assembly and people raising their voices in a democracy. What we take issue with is the Tea Party’s continued tolerance for bigotry and bigoted statements.”

Nonetheless, the St. Louis Tea Party is calling for the civil rights group to lose its tax-exempt status. “The NAACP is closely aligning with a partisan political campaign strategy,” said Bill Hennessy, a leader of the St. Louis Tea Party. [snip]

Interestingly, though, it isn’t just Tea Party members who are making this claim about the NAACP’s being a political tool for a partisan ideology. Some black activists are also making that claim as this press release highlights:

[snip] “As a frequent speaker at tea party rallies around the country, I can assure the NAACP that the tea party movement’s concerns are about President Obama’s policies and not his race,” said Project 21 fellow Deneen Borelli. “I’m deeply concerned that the NAACP is being used as a political tool to do the dirty work of the progressive movement. Instead of criticizing tea parties, the NAACP would be better served denouncing the racist comments made by a member of the New Black Panther Party and their voter intimidation outside a Philadelphia polling place in the last presidential election.” (Emphasis mine.)

According to a report in the Kansas City Star, the NAACP, which is conducting its 101st annual convention in that city, will take up a resolution as early as Tuesday to urge “all people of good will to repudiate the racism of Tea Parties, and to stand in opposition to its drive to push our country back to the pre-civil rights era.”

[snip]

Project 21’s Borelli added: “I urge the delegates to read the Contract from America – a list of policy objectives for Congress that was developed by tea party members nationwide. These objectives are clearly about limited government and liberty. In fact, the NAACP should be very concerned Obama’s cap-and-trade energy policy will lead to higher energy prices and higher unemployment – particularly among poor and minority households.” [snip]

Evidently, the NAACP failed to investigate these “racist” signs. Had they, they would have known that these were infiltrators into the party to discredit them. A simple Google search brings up a host of articles. It isn’t like the infiltrators were exactly clandestine in their actions, either.

I am just weary of the charge that everyone who does not buy what Obama is selling lock, stock, and barrel, who does not give him their utmost devotion, and sworn allegiance, is a racist. And now the NAACP is painting an entire group with a broad brush while ignoring the racist behavior of groups like the New Black Panther Party. Telling. Very telling indeed.

I guess we’re getting our “Change” after all, don’t you think?

UPDATE: NQ regular, Teakwood Kite, asked me about a video from a previous post that showed a number of African Americans present at a Tea Party. I don’t know if this is the one he meant, but the people speaking out here are pretty freakin’ awesome:

The First Lady is getting her share of grief for mentioning her daughters while discussing obesity. ABC News reports in their article, Did Michelle Obama Send the Wrong Message With Obesity Comments?:

The first lady made the issue of healthy eating personal last week at an event in Alexandria, Va., where she kicked off a campaign addressing the issue of childhood obesity.

“We went to our pediatrician all the time,” Obama said. “I thought my kids were perfect — they are and always will be — but he [the doctor] warned that he was concerned that something was getting off balance.”

“I didn’t see the changes. And that’s also part of the problem, or part of the challenge. It’s often hard to see changes in your own kids when you’re living with them day in and day out,” she added. “But we often simply don’t realize that those kids are our kids, and our kids could be in danger of becoming obese. We always think that only happens to someone else’s kid — and I was in that position.”

It is my sense that the first lady should not have mentioned her own children in this debate. I don’t think she was trying to shame her kids publically. But by using them as an example to show other families she is in the same position they are, she is being insensitive to the fact that Sasha and Malia live in the worst kind of goldfish bowl — growing up with attention paid to their every move. Young girls are sensitive enough about their appearance without their schoolmates reading on the net that their Mom is worried about the size of their behinds.

I have personal experience with this, being on a diet since age 11. I always felt criticized at home for my baby fat and sensed I was being closely monitored. The result was a bad relationship with food that lasted for years. I have at one time been borderline anorexic and at other times, subject to binge eating. While I have been relatively slim my entire life, it took me until I was nearly 40 to forget about dieting (p.s., diets don’t work).

Oddly, when I no longer obsessed over what I ate, I started exercising regularly and ate what I felt like. I threw my scale in the trash. Checking the fit of my pants is good enough to see if I need to lay off the bread for a few days. It took 30 years to figure this out. At 51, I’m probably in the best shape of my life. And for the record, a mother clothes shopping for her daughter, making comments to the saleslady while her child is within earshot such as “Give her the next size, she needs it is the hips” is a killer.

Worry and fear creates the obsession. Making a child hyper aware of his or her weight and appearance can make food a drug of choice and grow any potential eating disorder into a worse problem than it might have been. A better answer is modeling good behavior. By setting an example for her girls without preaching about it, I wonder if a better result is possible. Girls are always worried about being compared unfavorably to their mothers. To feel like Mommy does not approve of them in some way is a recipe for disaster. I’m no shrink, but common sense tells me that when children feel loved and approved of for who they are, it is possible they will not require “a drug of choice” to hide in.

Laura Collins Lyster-Mensh, an eating disorder activist and executive director of Families Empowered and Supporting Treatment of Disorder (F.E.A.S.T.) pointed out the First Lady should discuss “behavioral change, not weight loss”:

“We’ve confused health and weight in a way that’s very confusing for children and very confusing for parents,” Lyster-Mensh said. “When we speak publicly about putting our children on a diet, we start to get into weight stigma and confusing the message to families.”

The focus on obesity, Lyster-Mensh said, turns this into an issue of appearances, which does not bode well for children, especially girls.

“There is simply no reason to be pushing children into weight reduction diets and that’s the message parents out there get,” Lyster-Mensh said. “Dieting is a gateway drug to eating disorders for those with a biological predisposition to eating disorders.”

I do not pretend there is an easy solution. Obesity is a huge problem in our country brought on partially by obsession with too many electronic toys that keep one sitting on one’s backside, too much junk food, and no P.E. Not to mention kids internalizing the family stress around them.

What do you think the First Lady should have done? What is a better solution here.

Remembering my own time as a “tweener” I never appreciated being discussed in front of other people by my parents as though I were an inanimate object or their possession. I think it would have been prudent for the First Lady to remember that in her quest to help a national problem, her children do not need to be a casualty of that discussion.

At least according to my representative, Jim Clyburn. Let me just say that this is not at ALL what I had planned to write about this morning. I was going to write about the Senate Finance Committee voting on a bill that hasn’t even been written out yet, more a theoretical bill, if you will (thus, IMHO, dereliction of duty - how can you vote on a bill that is not written down???). And I was going to add in a video of Doug Elmendorf of the CBO testifying before the Senate that the CBO doesn’t KNOW how much money the Health Care Reform Bill wil cost in terms of taxes, debt, etc.

But then, my fellow NQ writer/friend, LisaB, alerted me to a story I missed in my own home town paper while I was out of town, which she found at Michell Malkin’s site. Now, you may recall that I have no love lost for this man who repeatedly stabbed the Clintons in the back before our primary last year, painting them as racists for stating actual facts (like that it takes a president to sign a bill into law - one would THINK a US Representative would be aware of that, but apparently, Rep. Clyburn does not know that). So, I was not at all surprised that he claimed in a recent Post and Courier article that Michelle Obama won’t come to SC because we’re all a bunch of racists and too hostile. Oh, how I wish I was making this up:

U.S. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn said Friday that a conversation with White House staff left him with the sense that a hostile environment in South Carolina is keeping the first lady from visiting.

The high-ranking South Carolina Democrat said he has received more than 100 invitations for Michelle Obama. But this summer when he brought one of those requests to her staff on behalf of his alma mater, South Carolina State University, Clyburn said her security was an issue.

The conversation came after former Richland County GOP activist Rusty DePass suggested on Facebook in June that an escaped zoo gorilla was not harmful because it was probably one of Mrs. Obama’s ancestors. DePass’ comment was coupled with a remark in July from U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, a Republican. DeMint said that beating the president’s health care plan would be a ‘Waterloo’ moment for Obama.

Congressman Joe Wilson’s ‘You lie!’ outburst during Obama’s joint address on health care reform last month didn’t help either, Clyburn said.

‘A lot of it has to do with the fact that the climate in South Carolina just is not good, and that’s a shame,’ Clyburn said at a roundtable discussion at his Columbia office.

‘I do believe it is keeping her away from this state,’ he said.

The congressman said the first lady’s family connections in South Carolina and her fond childhood memories from Georgetown County left many excited at the possibility that the Obamas would vacation on the coast here. Her security must be guaranteed before that could happen, Clyburn said.

DePass said Clyburn’s comments were off base.

‘The idea that people in South Carolina are hostile to the Obamas is poppycock,’ he said. ‘That’s utterly ridiculous.’

I concur. Just more race baiting from Rep. Clyburn. Oh, I am so proud that he speaks for me - NOT. But there’s more:

DePass apologized before the South Carolina Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for his Facebook comment, and reiterated that apology

Friday. He also said that his history with the Republican Party included reaching out to minority voters and trying to remove the Confederate battle flag from the Statehouse dome.

Wilson’s office also said Clyburn was wrong.

‘Congressman Wilson respectfully disagrees with Congressman Clyburn’s assumption,’ Wilson spokesman Ryan Murphy said in a statement. ‘He believes the people of South Carolina would welcome the president and the first lady should they decide to visit our great state.’

Neither the first lady’s press office nor the Secret Service provided comment for this story. DeMint’s office also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Pat Caddell of Hanahan, an expert on public opinion polls and a Democratic strategist, said South Carolina surely has racists among its residents, but racism isn’t the prevailing sentiment. ‘The Democratic Party will blow itself up if it keeps assigning things as racist,’ Caddell said. (Reach Yvonne Wenger at 803-926-7855 or ywenger@postandcourier.com.)

Sigh. I have to tell you, I am pretty damn sick and tired of being called a racist because I live in South Carolina for starters, but for any, ANY, questioning of President Obama’s policies (or lack thereof). For Rep. Clyburn to claim that the First Lady isn’t coming here, even though she has FAMILY here, because it’s “hostile” just makes me, well, “hostile!”

I had to read some of the comments at the end of the article to see what some of my fellow Palmetto State residents had to say. Three in particular caught my attention. The first is obviously in response to another comment:

treasured wrote:

regulardude…Please give us a break!

Was Obama’s negative remarks about the US to other countries patriotic?You get respect when respect is earned.

Just because he is the President does not mean that we have to agree with him and like you, we can voice our opinions and our concerns.

There have been many concerns about this President and they have not just been from SC.You are just reading articles from a SC paper.What is the difference in your remarks accusing us of not respecting the President and you obviously not respecting your own state that you insist on living in?Must be something you like about it.

I have grown children and I have a young child. As it stands right now, they and their children will have to pay back for many years all the money that Obama has dished out in his so called stimulus plans.

Now, if you want to sing his praises, well and good, but don’t call the rest of us unpatriotic if we don’t agree with what he is doing.That is our right as Americans.

And this one:

caberchucker wrote:
Yeah, that makes sense that she’s “scared” of the hostility in SC. Oh wait, didn’t the Obamas and Oprah have to move their rally to USC’s stadium while campaigning, so they could accomidate all the people? Nevermind, I guess that never actually happened.

Uh yeah, evidently not.

And finally, this one, which I think really hits at the core of this charge by Rep. Clyburn:

wonderdog wrote:
Clyburn is embarrassed because he got snubbed by the Obamas, so he made up this nonsense to make it appear that it’s somebody’s fault. If he can get enough people to buy into that BS, maybe he can convince himself, too.

Now that the Obamas have no more use to them after he played his role as patsy during the campaign, why should they deign to do anything that might help him in some way? But yes, so much easier - for Rep. Clyburn, that is - to blame it on the very people who sent him to D.C. Nice, really nice. Can’t wait to see what he calls us next!

I would like an answer to my question. How can someone be so determined to knock everyone else off the stage that he would spend nearly a billion dollars to do it, and when his waffling and doubling dealing in office don’t yield the desired result, blame President Bush and everyone else under the sun for his predictable lack of leadership skills. The Democrats have controlled Congress since 2006. With overwhelming Democratic majorities in Congress now, what’s the problem? Could it be our Democratic Commander in Chief was not as ready or right on day one as he promised? I next want to know how he dare take this job at such a difficult time if that was the case.

The American Idol president is running his own reality show and we are picking up the tab. Mr. Obama seems to think that he and his wife are the most fascinating part of the American narrative. Last Friday, the IOC clarified the butter for the Obamas. In the past months, we have published many articles reporting on Kool Aid drinkers who have lifted their heads from the pink trough, dazed and confused, wondering where the “Change” is. The list is long: Peggy Noonan, Frank Rich, Susan Estrich, Andrew Sullivan, Camille Paglia, Robert Reich. Feel free to add your own. Today I add three more to that growing list.

First WaPo’s Richard Cohen complains Obama Doesn’t Seem Ready to Lead:

Barack Obama’s trip to Copenhagen to pitch Chicago for the Olympics would have been a dumb move whatever the outcome. But as it turned out (an airy dismissal would not be an unfair description), it poses some questions about his presidency that are way more important than the proper venue for synchronized swimming. The first, and to my mind most important, is whether Obama knows who he is.

This business of self-knowledge is no minor issue. It bears greatly on the single most crucial issue facing this young and untested president: Afghanistan. Already, we have his choice for Afghanistan commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, taking the measure of his commander in chief and publicly telling him what to do. This MacArthuresque star turn called for a Trumanesque response, but Obama offered nothing of the kind. Instead, he used McChrystal as a prop, adding a bit of four-star gravitas to that silly trip to Copenhagen by having the general meet with him there.

Mr. Cohen is blaming Gen. McChrystal for someone else leaking his report to the President. The more important point is, as Gen. Wes Clark or anyone else who’s actually been in this position will tell you (and as he did say in an interview this weekend), you’d better listen to your commanders on the ground. Cohen is right that the 25 minute meeting with McChrystal on Friday was merely a photo op. He’s still deliberating. How many more months of ‘deliberating” are required while our soldiers are dying in Afghanistan?

This is the president we now have: He inspires lots of affection but not a lot of awe. It is the latter, though, that matters most in international affairs, where the greatest and most gut-wrenching tests await Obama. If he remains consistent to his own rhetoric of just last August, he will send more troops to Afghanistan and more of them will die. “This is not a war of choice,” he said. “This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans.”

President Obama has the disastrous example of Iraq where Bush’s Generals told him from the outset that an overwhelming force was needed. They did not get it. You saw the result. Obama himself admitted that the belated 2007 surge was wildly successful. How much more evidence does he need? Define the mission, and either send the forces in to get the job done or pull all our men and women out of there. Choose. Lead. That’s the job description. Date night I don’t care about. Dog walking I don’t care about.

Cohen concludes:

But the ultimate in realism is for the president to gauge himself and who he is: Does he have the stomach and commitment for what is likely to be an unpopular war? Will he send additional troops, but hedge by not sending enough — so that the dying will be in vain? What does he believe, and will he ask Americans to die for it? Only he knows the answers to these questions. But based on his zigzagging so far and the suggestion from the Copenhagen trip that the somber seriousness of the presidency has yet to sink in, we have reason to wonder.

Has the seriousness of the presidency sunk in? Now there’s a question.

You may be surprised to note that NY Times columnist Bob Herbert is wondering the same thing. A huge cheerleader for Obama, Herbert cried racism and even saw phallic symbols in the leaning tower of Pisa in a misguided attempt to defend his chosen hero last year. Now he wonders Does Obama Get It? Well, Mr. Herbert, don’t feel bad. This question has been keeping me up nights, too. He states:

The big question on the domestic front right now is whether President Obama understands the gravity of the employment crisis facing the country. Does he get it? The signals coming out of the White House have not been encouraging.

Clearly Mr. Herbert, if you have to ask, then Obama does not understand the gravity of the situation. Where is his good judgment? How can one not understand 9.8 unemployment – in reality a much higher number filled with Americans out of work for so long they have fallen off the rolls.

The Beltway crowd and the Einsteins of high finance who never saw this economic collapse coming are now telling us with their usual breezy arrogance that the Great Recession is probably over. Their focus, of course, is on data, abstractions like the gross domestic product, not the continued suffering of living, breathing human beings struggling with the nightmare of joblessness.

Even Mr. Obama, in an interview with The Times, gave short shrift to the idea of an additional economic stimulus package, telling John Harwood a few weeks ago that the economy had likely turned a corner. “As you know,” the president said, “jobs tend to be a lagging indicator; they come last.”

The view of most American families is somewhat less blasé. …

Nearly one in four American families has suffered a job loss over the past year, according to a survey released by the Economic Policy Institute. Nearly 1 in 10 Americans is officially unemployed, and the real-world jobless rate is worse.

It is a nightmare. No one is blasé when they are worried how they are going to feed their families. What about the porkulus package? Is this administration waiting to release most of the funds in 2010 to help them at the polls? If that is the case, shame on them.

Why should Obama understand when he isn’t spending his own money? Half million dollar pizza parties, an obscene amount spent on the inauguration and several million on this reckless Copenhagen junket show a frightening disconnect between Obama’s priorities and his fiduciary responsibility to the American people. Herbert continues:

The Obama administration seems hamstrung by the unemployment crisis. No big ideas have emerged. No dramatically creative initiatives. While devoting enormous amounts of energy to health care, and trying now to decide what to do about Afghanistan, the president has not even conveyed the sense of urgency that the crisis in employment warrants.

If that does not change, these staggering levels of joblessness have the potential to cripple not just the well-being of millions of American families, but any real prospects for sustained economic recovery and the political prospects of the president as well. An unemployed electorate is an unhappy electorate.

Mr. Herbert, they are already crippled, but instead of addressing the urgency of the economy and Afghanistan head on, we get what George Will calls The Obamas’ Narcissism on Display. Speaking of Mr. and Mrs. Obama’s speeches before the IOC last week,

…Their separate speeches to the International Olympic Committee were so dreadful, and in such a characteristic way, that they might be symptomatic of something that has serious implications for American governance.

Both Obamas gave heartfelt speeches about … themselves. Although the working of the committee’s mind is murky, it could reasonably have rejected Chicago’s bid for the 2016 games on aesthetic grounds — unless narcissism has suddenly become an Olympic sport.

George Will suggested that since the Obamas used so many “I” and “me” references in their speeches, Obama’s genius speechwriters (Favreau et al) should have substituted the words I and me with “sauerkraut” to underscore the ‘antic nature of their excessive appearances.’ Someone needs to tell the Obamas that what is compelling about America is all Americans – all colors of the rainbow, all states, all social strata – together. All of us. Not just the two of them. And all of us are hurting out here. Our soldiers are hurting, too.

Will also points to Obama’s excessive use of cliché:

“At this defining moment,” a moment “when the fate of each nation is inextricably linked to the fate of all nations” in “this ever-shrinking world,” he aspires to “forge new partnerships with the nations and the peoples of the world.”
…
Does our Cicero even glance at his speeches before reading them in public?

All this is indicative of a man not connected to his words or not caring enough about either his audience or the subject at hand to come up with anything better than patented brand phrases that some focus group told him “resonate” with the public.

Our soldiers and our economy need a coherent plan. Now. He has had ample time to figure this out, as has Congress. Too much energy is focused on infighting for a health care plan that is such an incoherent monstrosity that they should trash it and start over. This is not even supposed to take effect until 2013, after the next election. Hmmm I wonder why. Clearly, that leaves health care the lease urgent issue of the three now.

On Afghanistan and the economy, pressing matters where lives, jobs and homes are on the line – where is the president? Will concludes:

Unhappy will be a president whose defining adjective is “vain.”

In keeping with the vanity of this man’s administration, we also see that nothing this man does is his own fault. This is the job he wanted. And a majority of the electorate voted him in to do it. What is he waiting for? There is no one else to blame if he hems and haws so long that Afghanistan is lost. There is no one else to blame if he insists on focusing on parts of an agenda that are not helping put the American people back to work. This is his presidency now. So I’ll ask again.

Mr. President, why did you want this job?

Photos like this every single day, especially as The One Who Thinks He Is King and his wife, thought their awesomeness would win Chicago the 2016 Olympics:

Or this:

And finally (!), this:

I sure as hell know I am. Oh, and all photos came from this Huffington Post site - where else, unless it was MSNBC? Ahem. There are plenty more, if you wish to go see them. I know you’re surprised by that.

I tell you who I would rather see. While the Obamas and their pal, Oprah, you know, the one who anointed Obama as The One, were wasting our tax dollars on a trip no other president has made EVER, there was someone who was hard at work for the country. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, of course, as the photos* below make clear. She was meeting with Dr. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, who is the Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, to discuss issues related to Muslim relations around the world. Here she is greeting him:

Here is Secretary Clinton in rapt attention as he speaks:

And here, Secretary Clinton indicates it is time to move on:

Look at how he looks at her. We have seen this look of respect from leaders all around the world. They know what so many of us know - this woman is no political lightweight. She is brilliant, she is knowledgeable, and she is capable. She will get the job done, no hemming and hawing around, no sirree.

Sophie B. Hawkins says it all in the video below:

Damn - I wish she was president, too…

* All photos by Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images North America

A classic case of “She said, he said,” is what we have here, that’s for sure. This next video (courtesy of longtime reader, SFIndie) illustrates the conundrum:

Um, it seems to me that if you happen to be the President of the United States, maybe you could appoint a Fact Checking Czar to go with the other Thirty-One - make a nice even number of it. I’m just saying - when you are giving a speech before Congress, televised all over the nation, it seems the very least he could do is MAKE SURE HIS FACTS ARE CORRECT.

Hey - maybe THAT’S when Rep. Wilson called him a liar! He KNEW Obama was lying about the cancer-stricken patient he was using for political gain. Just a thought.

Not for nothing, but they are using their own daughter to further this debate? Interesting. Funny how they don’t seem to make the connection that they are MILLIONAIRES, most people in this country are NOT, and the illness wasn’t serious (according to Michelle, anyway). Or that they both had jobs at the time - really, really, good jobs. Or that those jobs provided excellent health coverage, the very kind that 87% of employers would work to reduce if this Health Care Reform goes in as defined now. I know, picky, picky, picky…

Anyway, you know, there are plenty of REAL examples from which Obama could choose, I am sure, but honestly - why lie? ABOUT HIS OWN DAUGHTER? Is it just that he hasn’t met a truth he couldn’t corrupt? What’s the deal?

Oh, well. I am sure there will be plenty more examples to examine as his time in office goes on. But for now, I will leave you with this peppy little tune. I’m sure it will stick with you for the next 3 yrs and 4 months:

Two months ago I decided to try and plant some tomatoes on my terrace. I have been craving a garden for years, but lacking a yard, I didn’t think I could grow fresh veggies. Well, I decied to give it a go, and boy - did it work!

This is my terrace on May 4. I planted six tomato plants that we picked up at the store - not knowing anything about tomatoes, I didn’t realize the plants come in different varieties, some better for terraces. We just bought what they had available. These happen to be the vining kind, not the best for terraces, they do have shorter bushier types for that. But these worked well, anyway, for our terrace.

Below is a picture of the newly plants tomatoes. Also, in the corner you can see my avocado plant, started from a seed from an avocado we ate. We now have three plants - all starters. I don’t know if they will actually bare fruit, but I am hoping. And they are pretty plants, anyway.

I also planted one tomato plant upside down, inspired by the Topsy Turvy planter thing (also available through Amazon). I really should have used a larger planter, but we couldn’t figure out a way to attach it anywhere (that yellow wall is not strong enough) and so we just threw it in a planter we had, and said *what the hey*. You can see the little plant coming out the bottom. I planted a little flower in the top, but have now replaced it with a water bottle cut in half, and a tiny hole poked in it, to provide a slow drip of water to the tomato.

Three springs ago I picked up this little strawberry planter, and six plants, and for the last three years we have had luscious strawberries! (although, my neighbor tends to eat most of them because they grow when we are on vacation…) The fruit is bare right now, but the leaves look really good.

I also have two lemon trees - one I purchased, and the same week Zia Giuili (Franco’s Aunt) got me one for my birthday. This spring they didn’t look so hot after the cold winter, but after feeding them a few times, and giving them lots of sun and water, they are taking off. They are loaded with flower buds and teeny tiny lemons. I love fresh lemonade, and having lots of delicious lemons on hand for fresh fish, or on salads. My husband even eats them like oranges, sprinkled with sugar. They are also wonderful squeezed over our fresh strawberries, and sugar.

Here are my plants now. They are about five or six feet tall, and LOADED with tomatoes and flowers. Loaded.

The upside down tomato has one great tomato growing and lots of new flowers. He is a little slower I think because the lack of dirt and water. But, he is doing pretty good, considering.

My avocado trees are growing like weeds. The tall one is about six feet tall, too. And loaded with new growth. It might take a few years to get actual fruit off the tree, but it would save a fortune! Avocados are so spendy.

Today we picked the first two tomatoes. They are a little funny shaped, I think because when I was in Seattle they suffered a little for water. The newer ones on the vines are all perfect and round.

Next year I plan to do this again, but will definitely invest in a bigger pot, and maybe plant only two or three tomato plants. I think soon we are going to have them coming out of our ears. They need watered about twice a day now because the weather has been so hot, and their planters are too small. They are thirsty little suckers. I also want to plant a zucchini. I love fresh zucchini! I did buy one of those Topsy Turvys when I was visiting my mom, and will try the zucchini in it next year (I just need to figure out how to hang it…)

I also picked up some Sangue di bue at the store when I was searching for some tomato fertilizer. It had a picture of tomatoes in the label, and I knew sangue was blood. I had heard that some kind of blood stuff was good for tomatoes, so I bought two bottles. It is GROSS. It is literally ox blood. I have used it three times, once a week, and the plants seem to love it. I used it for all of my plants, and seriously, they are all thriving. It is a great food, if you can get over the smell and the bubbles it makes when you add water. EWE!

If you have wanted to plant a garden, but don’t have the yard for it, go for a terrace garden! It is just a little investment, a little bit of work, and lots of reward!!

And a big plus to terrace gardening is safe lead levels! Purchase safe, rich soil, and you won’t run into the same problem Michelle Obama did with her White House garden.

Lead Found in White House Garden

So we all know that the White House garden has lettuce, beans, chard, broccoli and collards, among other things. But lead?

Yes, the soil in the White House garden has tested positive for lead, but not in levels that are dangerous, a White House official said on Thursday.

For Urban Gardeners, Lead Is a Concern

The Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Housing and Urban Development advise remediation if lead levels in soil exceed 400 parts per million in children’s play areas and 1,200 p.p.m. elsewhere. But some states and cities have set much lower limits. For example, 100 p.p.m. is considered hazardous in Minneapolis. In the Netherlands, 40 p.p.m. is unacceptable. Unpolluted soil averages 10 p.p.m.

Excessive lead in soil is the legacy not only of lead paint but also of leaded gasoline, lead plumbing and lead arsenate pesticides. Although these products were outlawed decades ago, their remnants linger in the environment. Lead batteries and automotive parts, particularly wheel balancing weights, are still widely used and are sources of soil contamination.

Fetuses and small children, because of their rapidly developing nervous systems, are more sensitive to and suffer the most harm from lead exposure. Adverse effects include damage to the brain and nervous system, lower I.Q., behavior problems and slow growth. Adults may suffer cognitive decline, hypertension, nerve disorders, muscle pain and reproductive problems.

If soil is found to have high levels of lead, experts advise covering it with sod. Those who want to grow flowers or edible crops can either replace the contaminated soil or alkalinize it by adding lime or organic matter such as compost. Soil with a pH level above 7 binds with lead, making it less likely to be absorbed by plants and the human body if the dirt is inadvertently inhaled or ingested.

The White House is mixing lime and compost into the soil for its kitchen garden, which according to a National Parks Service analysis has 93 p.p.m. of lead — an amount above background levels but not considered hazardous to children or adults by the E.P.A.’s standards.

Dr. Filippelli recommends planting kitchen gardens with fruiting crops like tomatoes, squash, eggplant, corn and beans because they don’t readily accumulate lead. Lead-leaching crops, he said, include herbs, leafy greens and root vegetables such as potatoes, radishes and carrots. Dirt also clings to these crops, making it hard to wash off and thereby increasing the risk of ingesting lead

Don’t be afraid to give it a go! I don’t do anything special, and don’t consider myself a green thumb. Like I said, with just a little work, you too can have inexpensive fresh produce, even if you live in an apartment or condo!

Tonight we will be having Insalata Caprese - my fresh tomatoes, sliced, with olive oil and basil (from my herb garden) with fresh mozzarella di bufala. Buon appetito!

Since an attention-starved “journalist” named David Wiegel has written an article today that memorializes my post a year ago on the so-called “whitey tape” — purported to show Michelle Obama using the term “whitey” — I’ve decided to re-post the two articles I wrote last year to refute any and all rumors. (See more articles posted today, via Memeorandum.com.) Why was the tape never revealed and used? One theory is that the hardline conservatives in possession of the tape did not want John McCain to win, a plausible theory given the hard right’s reluctance in general to aid McCain’s campaign. So, without further ado, here are my articles written last year, in full, and with links to the original posts and comments:

(1) “Barack, Get Your Facts Right,” published on June 12, 2008

(2) “An Update on the Michelle Obama Rant, on June 7, 2008

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(1) “Barack, Get Your Facts Right,” published on June 12, 2008

If Barack’s first foray into setting the record straight is a sign of how he would handle the weightier matters of the presidential office, boy are we screwed. Here’s what Obama considers a “lie”:

Lie:
Blogger Larry Johnson wrote on May 31st that he would add „New and dramatic developments. This is a heads up. I‚ll post the news Monday morning by 0900 hours. Now I know why people who have seen the videotape say it is stunning. Barack‚s headaches are only starting.‰

Read the post

Truth:
Johnson posted no such update.

Barack? DUDE. Open your eyes brother. Here’s what I posted on Monday morning (17 minutes earlier than promised) on 2 June:

Michelle Obama and Louis Farrakhan Take On Whitey
By Larry Johnson on June 2, 2008 at 8:43 edt AM in Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Minister Louis Farrakhan, Nation of Islam, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., Whitey Tape | Edit
I learned over the weekend why the Republicans who have seen the tape of Michelle Obama ranting about “whitey” describe it as “STUNNING.” I have not seen it but I have heard from five separate sources who have spoken directly with people who have seen the tape. It features Michelle Obama and Louis Farrakhan. They are sitting on a panel at Jeremiah Wright’s Church when Michelle makes her intemperate remarks. Whoops!! When that image comes out it will enter the politcal ads hall of fame. It will be right up there with the little girl plucking daisy petals in the famous 1964 ad LBJ used against Barry Goldwater.

That ain’t a “lie” Barky. It is a fact. Of course, most Barack supporters have trouble grasping this concept. Maybe that’s why they support Barack–does not require much intellectual effort. Simply close eyes and hold your nose.

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(2) “An Update on the Michelle Obama Rant, on June 7, 2008

The recording that shows Michelle Obama saying disparaging things about white folks is for real. It is not part of some elaborate dirty trick. The people who have seen her comments describe it as “stunning” or “devastating.” I have not spoken directly with the people who have seen the tape, but I have spoken to two of my friends who are friends with those who watched the tape/dvd.

Are they playing me? No, but it is a valid question to ask. Two of my sources, who have recounted the reactions of their friends who have seen the Michelle “performance,” live on opposite sides of the United States geographically and politically. They do not know each other and had no way of knowing that each of them was talking to me. This is one reason I believe the report of the “tape” is true.

I also have learned that Obama campaign knew about this “tape” at least two weeks prior to my first blog item on the matter. And they are not laughing it off as a joke. (Note to Barack: There are leaks in your campaign.) Ben Smith’s report on the matter only tells part of the story. (more...)

Which is to say irresponsibly.

Some people think that the personal lives of politicians do not matter - that if they can discharge their duties satisfactorily while in office, then “trifling” matters in their private lives are of little account.

Wrong.

Insights into the hidden lives of politicians give the electorate a far more accurate impression of the person than anything else. The public image of politicians is so heavily stage-managed and contrived that it carries little real worth.

Indeed, if we are only to rely on their projected personas, then politicians all come from an assembly line of people who extol public virtue and private restraint, attend places of worship regularly, are married with children and have worked hard to achieve their position in life.

Politicians need to get with the now - this old cover has been well and truly blown.

Personal character defects can be manifested in moral failings, such as John Edwards cheating on his terminally ill wife. If he could treat the person closest to him like that, then how would he govern the rest of us from afar?

And they can also be seen in a dearth of financial probity, as with the Obamas.

As this article in the Daily News states:

“In 1999, the Obamas purchased a Chicago condo and obtained a mortgage for $159,250. In May 1999, they took out a line of credit for $20,750. Then, in 2002, they refinanced the condo with a $210,000 mortgage, which means they took out about $50,000 in equity. Finally, in 2004, they took out another line of credit for $100,000 on top of the mortgage.

“If we assume an effective interest rate of 6%, then they owed about $240,000 on a home they purchased for about $159,250.”

All that saved the Obamas from financial oblivion was blind luck.

Michelle Obama’s salary mysteriously nearly tripled just before hubby was elected to the Senate in 2005. That, combined with the start of the media infatuation with then Senator Obama, resulted in soaring book sales and a concomitant avalanche of royalties.

Their extreme financial good fortune continues to this day. Less than a week before entering the Oval Office, the president agreed a new $500,000 book deal to adapt “Dreams From My Father” for middle-school-aged children. Michelle has not missed out, either: she collected $63,000 in 2007 for her no-show sinecure.

And this is without even mentioning the (millions of) pennies that the Obamas saved through purchasing their house in Chicago with the involvement of convicted fraudster Tony Rezko.

The moral of the story is clear - when faced with financial difficulties, the Obamas’ personal solution was to simply borrow more money (or luck out). Every time. That same sophisticated belief is now federal policy. The Obamas did not exercise any self-restraint in their spending as private citizens and they are certainly not adhering to any limitations today.

This will be all too familiar to many of us who are currently besmirched by debt, the accumulation of which is sometimes sadly necessary. We all need to start living more within our means. But can we not expect better from the president?