A Liberal’s Lament

How does it feel to be an ''ardent admirer'' of Obama NEWSWEAK?[which has its boy Jon Alter currently running a infighting Democrats vs.Teachers Unions forum in Denver at the moment].

The media's not going to report on substance (consistently). They're documenting the Obama movement, the attack ads, etc. and that's what's bringing in traffic. Reports on issues and platforms just doesn't have the same pull.

Faith is the Substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen! On Meet the Press,

Tom Brokaw asked Speaker Pelosi a question on the tighening of the race in which she responded:

"REP. PELOSI: I think that Senator Obama chose the vice presidential candidate that brought balance to his ticket. It's his choice. We're going into the future. That isn't even that???I mean, it's a close poll in either way. But I'm very confident about Senator Obama's success because these polls are about likely voters. They're people who vote in the last two elections. Senator Obama has a???and Senator Clinton, too, has attracted millions more people to the political process, some who have never voted, some who haven't voted for a long time. So I don't think that the???I think it's a OK poll, he's ahead and that's good, but I think that his support is much stronger than that. And as we leave this convention united, stronger than ever, organized, focused and disciplined, to have the grassroots organization, to have the clarity of message, of this great ticket, Obama-Biden, I'm very confident about the success that we'll have in November, and then the success for jobs and health care and education in???come January." From MTP, 8/24/08

We must not give into panic, those of us who support Barack Obama. We must remain hopeful as his slogan reminds us. There are going to be pitfalls in the road our strength is in our confidence that we will overcome. As Rep. Jessie Jackson, Jr. stated today in regards to the Democratic Party - this is not a week to talk about losing, this is a week to talk about winning!

Biden brings "politics as usual," including a 38 year old lobbyist son (Hunter Biden), who just so happened to have earned $380,000 in the first six months of this year, according to federal records.

When old man Kennedy and the clan hit Denver you first time voters can respond with the Obama mantra of "change" and "yes we can!" Too funny!

Barack says China looks really good, what an infrastructure. Well he is all about image and no substance so this is mutual respect for another Govt that takes everything provides little and uses nothing but propoganda. 700,000,000 malnurished in poverty with no Interstates criss crossing the country side, orders banning moving to the cities for lack of infrastructure and housing, need to keep them to one child, no polution controls, no guns, no dissidents, re-education training, takes all the money, spends it on eye candy in Beijing for a world party to give an IMAGE, falsify passports. Yup, OBAMAGE, all image and no substance.

Good article Mr. Wilentz. However, I believe Obama's main problem right now is that he says too much in answer to direct questions. Watching him with Fareed Zakaria this weekend, I wanted to shout "cut!" in the manner of a film director. Once he give a short, direct answer, it is fine for him to elaborate. But first, he must give that brief one or two-sentence response and then pause.

Newsweek says :

To win, Obama must convince the country that he is a man of substance, not just style. History suggests this won't be easy.

History - or at least recent history - suggests otherwise.
Did George Bush, probably the most illiterate and language -challenged President in history win because he possessed subtance over style???

Al Gore and John Kerry lost not because they lacked substance (Al Gore became a Nobel Peace Prize winner, as did Jimmy Carter) but because they lacked style. The "style" to pose as John Wayne, the "regular guy" or fratboy you could sit down and bullshit with over a beer.

No, the days when Americans looked for substance and not style are long gone.(who knows why?). Goodbye to the days of Lincoln,Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, even Carter (who paid the price of telling Americans the truth about themselves).

What Americans want is someone like just themselves (God knows why), not someone better and wiser than themselves; someone who will make them feel "comfortable" by reflecting their own prejudices and iimitations and telling them what they want to hear so that they can go out and keep right on spending even if he has to lie through his teeth to do so.

Why else do you think George Bush was elected twice in a row?

It is a great to read an article in Newsweek that is not an Obama commercial. Nice change, thanks.

Which candidate knows us best? is most like us? Which candidate can best protect us? Which candidate is more trustworthy? Which candidate trusts us more? Which candidate is more realistic? Which candidate will better guarantee our freedoms? Which candidate will put our interests first? Which candidate has done more for his country? Which candidate will allow us to do more for ourselves?

Obama has lambasted lobbyists and moneyed interests who "have turned our government into a game only they can afford to play."

"It's an entire culture in Washington -- some of it legal, some of it not," the Democratic hopeful told a New York crowd in June. But last year Obama introduced nine separate bills exempting foreign chemical company Nufarm from import fees on a range of chemical ingredients it uses in the manufacture of pesticides and herbicides.

Nufarm wasn't the only beneficiary of Obama's efforts to reduce customs fees and duties. In early May of 2006, two Washington lobbyists registered to work on behalf of Astellas Pharma, a Japanese-owned drug company which also has offices in Illinois.

Together, Obama's obscure measures -- known as tariff suspensions -- steered more than $12 million away from federal coffers, according to government estimates.

While legal, Obama's bills on behalf of Nufarm and other companies are part of the special treatment machine Washington rolls out for special interests, say good-government watchdogs. With a dozen tariff suspension bills to his name, Obama stands out as the most prolific of any presidential hopeful on the topic. Sen. John McCain introduced none.

"If you have a company...there's a whole factory set up to help you get these suspensions," said Steve Ellis, president of the Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. "It's a pay-to-play system you have to rev up and work." Hire the right lobbyist, pay the right fee, and you can save millions, he explained.

Some say the tariff suspension process isn't how Washington should operate.

In his speeches, Sen. Obama seems to agree: "We need a president who sees government not as a tool to enrich well-connected friends and high-priced lobbyists, but as the defender of fairness and opportunity for every American," the candidate said in his June speech. "That's the kind of president I intend to be."

But his actions speak louder than his words.

Junker defended tariff suspensions as good for American businesses. "It's nothing to be embarrassed, ashamed or suspicious of," he said.

justifying the breaks for Nufarm to import a chemical known as 2,4 D and other ingredients by claiming they would "eliminate these unnecessary and avoidable...costs to [Nufarm's] consumers."

But the company's financial reports, issued just two months after Obama introduced Nufarm's numerous tariff-lifting bills, indicate Nurarm was making more money than ever before in North America because it had increased its prices on its U.S. and Canadian customers, predominantly farmers, in particular on "phenoxy herbicides," a family which includes 2,4 D.

Economics aside, some medical researchers have purported to find a link between high exposure to the chemical and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a type of cancer.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/07/despit

Sean, apparently you have not been paying attention. Obama has more than proved himself a man of substance. It continues to be amazing to me that the only choices the conservatives/republicans have to battle Obama with are misrepresentations, twisted pseudo-facts, and outright lies. Don't they have anything of substance to offer? Your article should be entitled the Lack Of Substance of McCain and the Republican party. For the life of me I cannot believe that anyone of intelligence and true concern for their country could, after watching McCain's negative attacks, outright senior moments, total lack of self-control, and militant blustering even consider him for president.

Sean you need to venture to the various platforms of the two candidates and decide then who reflects the most substance, and who has the depth of substance to have a new vision for this great country. You need to really listen, without preconception, to each man speak. You have totally missed the most important aspect of the nature of substance in this race. That is, McCain is the one without substance! He has more than proved that numerous times.

The author needs to read this....
Those who know the laws of history appreciate that they coincide for the proposition that a historian who wishes to perform his office faithfully must rid himself of the spirit of flattery and libel and must, to the full extent possible, place himself in the state of a Stoic who is beholden to no passion. Indifferent to all else, he must be attentive only to the interests of the truth, to which he must sacrifice resentment provoked by an injustice as well as the remembrance of favors, and even the love of country. He must forget that he comes from a certain country, that he was raised in a certain faith, that he owes his success to this person or that, he must forget even his parents and friends. A historian is thus like Melchizedech, with neither father, nor mother, nor indeed a genealogy. If asked: Where do you come from? He must reply: I am neither Frenchman, nor German, neither Englishman nor Spaniard, etc.: I am a citizen of the world; I am not at the service of the emperor, nor of the king of France, but simply at the service of truth, who is my sole queen; I have taken no oath but of obedience to her; I am her devoted knight.

???Pierre Bayle

The author needs to go reread this...
Those who know the laws of history appreciate that they coincide for the proposition that a historian who wishes to perform his office faithfully must rid himself of the spirit of flattery and libel and must, to the full extent possible, place himself in the state of a Stoic who is beholden to no passion. Indifferent to all else, he must be attentive only to the interests of the truth, to which he must sacrifice resentment provoked by an injustice as well as the remembrance of favors, and even the love of country. He must forget that he comes from a certain country, that he was raised in a certain faith, that he owes his success to this person or that, he must forget even his parents and friends. A historian is thus like Melchizedech, with neither father, nor mother, nor indeed a genealogy. If asked: Where do you come from? He must reply: I am neither Frenchman, nor German, neither Englishman nor Spaniard, etc.: I am a citizen of the world; I am not at the service of the emperor, nor of the king of France, but simply at the service of truth, who is my sole queen; I have taken no oath but of obedience to her; I am her devoted knight.

???Pierre Bayle