[US2008] Primaries #19 - To the streets of Philadelphia

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While McCain’s conservative credentials have been questioned during the campaign, there is no doubt his health plan reflects a strong conservative ideology.

Senator McCain's health plan clearly reflects a belief that we need to put as our first priority getting at the things that make health care so expensive and frustrating for consumers rather than, as he would put it, promising everyone a painless access to a system that isn't working.

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"For all the grandiose promises made in this campaign, has any candidate spoken honestly to the American people about the government's role and failings about individual responsibilities? Has any candidate told the truth about the future of Medicare? Its costs are growing astronomically faster than its financing, and leaving its structural flaws unaddressed will hasten its bankruptcy. Has any candidate warned that we have a personal responsibility to take better care of our children and ourselves? Yet that is the only way to prevent many chronic diseases. Has any candidate insisted that genuine and effective health care reform requires accountability from everyone: drug companies, insurance companies, doctors, hospitals, the government, and patients? Yet that is the truth upon which any so-called solution must be based.

“Democratic presidential candidates are not telling you these truths. They offer their usual default position: If the government would only pay for insurance everything would be fine. They promise universal coverage, whatever its cost, and the massive tax increases, mandates, and government regulation that it imposes. I offer a genuinely conservative vision for health care reform, which preserves the most essential value of American lives—freedom.”

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Op dinsdag 25 maart 2008 11:08 schreef NLweltmeister het volgende:
CBS News Video Contradicts Clinton's Story
CBS' Sharyl Attkisson Was On Hillary's Bosnia Trip - And Got A Warm, Sniper-Free Welcome

http://www.cbsnews.com/st(...)ws/main3964921.shtml

Die kan je afschijven, tijd om de handdoek te gooien voor Hillary

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Op dinsdag 25 maart 2008 11:08 schreef NLweltmeister het volgende:
CBS News Video Contradicts Clinton's Story
CBS' Sharyl Attkisson Was On Hillary's Bosnia Trip - And Got A Warm, Sniper-Free Welcome

http://www.cbsnews.com/st(...)ws/main3964921.shtml

Die kan je afschijven, tijd om de handdoek te gooien voor Hillary

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Why we should fear a McCain presidency

It may seem incredible to say this, given past experience, but a few years from now Europe and the world could be looking back at the Bush administration with nostalgia. This possibility will arise if the US elects Senator John McCain as president in November.

Over the years the US has inserted itself into potential flashpoints in different parts of the world. The Republican party is now about to put forward a natural incendiary as the man to deal with those flashpoints.

The problem that Mr McCain poses stems from his ideology, his policies and above all his personality. His ideology, like that of his chief advisers, is neo-conservative. In the past, Mr McCain was considered to be an old-style conservative realist. Today, the role of the realists on his team is merely decorative.

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It sometimes seems that you can't read a story about John McCain without seeing him referred to as a "maverick." But is it true?

Perhaps no word has been used to describe John McCain more often than "maverick." In January and February of 2008 alone, McCain was called a "maverick" more than 1,300 times in newspapers and on television. And those who use the label to describe McCain rarely explain just what he has done to earn it. But a closer examination of his record shows that McCain isn't quite the maverick that he is made out to be. The truth is that McCain's breaks from the Republican Party line are few and far between. According to Congressional Quarterly's "party unity" ratings, since he came to the Senate in 1989, there have been only three years in which McCain voted with his party less than 80 percent of the time. When he has gone against the party line -- such as on campaign finance reform, global warming, or tobacco regulations -- McCain has taken a position that was overwhelmingly popular with the public, meaning that when he takes a "maverick" stance, he's gaining support with the public -- and hardly taking a political risk.

Just as important, McCain's acts of independence aren't so much on high-profile issues as they are on issues that the press makes high-profile, precisely because of McCain's involvement. In all these cases, something important happens in the media when McCain opposes his party. When an ordinary senator crosses party lines, he or she will join members of the other party and perhaps have occasional opportunities to be quoted or interviewed on the issue in question. When McCain crosses party lines, on the other hand, the story the news media write undergoes a shift: It then becomes a story not about a conflict between Democrats and Republicans, but a story about John McCain and his rebellion. This is why McCain is perceived to be much more of a maverick than Republicans such as Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins, who actually break with the GOP far more often. Yet journalists continue over and over to call McCain a "maverick," seldom questioning whether there might be more to the story.

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Op dinsdag 25 maart 2008 17:30 schreef Shreyas het volgende:
Mondique, heb je misschien ook nog zelf een mening of enig commentaar op de dingen die je quote?

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Op maandag 24 maart 2008 23:40 schreef popolon het volgende:
Clinton under sniperfire.

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Op dinsdag 25 maart 2008 18:51 schreef Montov het volgende:
http://www.washingtonmont(...)l/2008_03/013394.php

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Op maandag 24 maart 2008 18:06 schreef Sloggi het volgende:
Deze verkiezingen zijn goed voor mijn topografische kennis .

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Clinton: verhaal Bosnië klopte niet

Hillary Clinton zegt dat zij een fout heeft gemaakt toen ze vertelde dat zij in 1996 in Bosnië moest vluchten voor scherpschutters. Uit filmbeelden blijkt dat ze helemaal geen gevaar liep.

Clinton zei dat ze op het vliegveld van Tuzla onder vuur lag en moest rennen voor haar leven. Op de video is te zien hoe ze hartelijk wordt onvangen en met allerlei mensen een praatje maakt.

Het campagneteam van Clintons rivaal Barack Obama probeert munt te slaan uit de blunder. Volgens dat team blijkt uit dit incident dat Clinton overdrijft als ze zegt dat ze veel ervaring heeft met buitenlandse politiek.

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Obama releases tax returns, challenges Clinton to follow suit

(CNN) -- Barack Obama and his wife released their tax returns from 2000 to 2006 on his campaign Web site Wednesday, and the Illinois senator challenged Sen. Hillary Clinton to release hers.

Later, Clinton said she expected to release her tax returns "shortly, I hope within the next week."

Sen. Barack Obama is challenging Sen. Hillary Clinton to release her 2006 tax returns.

The Obama campaign said Clinton should immediately release her 2006 return, pointing to her decision to lend her campaign $5 million earlier this year.

The Obama camp also cited former President Bill Clinton's $20 million payout from supermarket holding company Yucaipa as a reason why the couple should release the documents.

The Obama campaign said that company invests in tax shelters in the Cayman Islands.

Clinton has promised to release 2007 returns sometime after this year's April 15 income tax deadline, just a few days before Pennsylvania's April 22 primary.

"Senator Clinton recently claimed that she's 'the most transparent figure in public life,' yet she's dragging her feet in releasing something as basic as her annual tax returns," Obama's communications director, Robert Gibbs, said in a statement. "Senator Clinton can't claim to be vetted until she allows the public the opportunity to see her finances -- particularly with respect to any investment in tax shelters."

But Clinton made her own challenge to Obama during a press conference in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

"I am pleased that Senator Obama has released his tax returns. I think that's a good first step," she said. "Now he should release his records from being in the state Senate and any other information that the public and the press need to know from his prior experience."

According to the 2006 return, Obama and his wife, Michelle, earned over $991,000 in 2006 and paid $277,431 on the income.

More than half of the couple's income in 2006 -- nearly $507,000 -- came from royalties from his two books, "The Audacity of Hope" and "Dreams From My Father." In 2005, Obama earned over $1,210,000 from royalties, according to the couple's returns that year.

The Obamas earned nearly $431,000 in wages in 2006, according to the returns. The documents do not show what Obama or his wife individually earned, but the senator's salary was $165,000 that year.

They also earned more than $51,000 from Treehouse Foods, an Illinois-based food manufacturer. Michelle Obama served on Treehouse's board from June 2005 to May 2007.

Before 2005, the couple had more modest incomes. Between 2000 and 2004, they earned between $207,647 and $275,123 a year.

The returns were posted just minutes after the Clinton campaign attacked Obama for not releasing them.

"In the public record, there are 20 years of Hillary's tax returns, hundreds of thousands of pages of records from her time in the White House and countless other documents detailing her time in public life.

"Sen. Obama's record is far more opaque. Sen. Obama has not released his tax returns, except for 2006," Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said in a statement sent to reporters just as the Obama camp posted the Illinois senator's returns online.

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Op dinsdag 25 maart 2008 18:27 schreef matthijst het volgende:

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Geniaal, net in het journaal die twee clipjes achter elkaar....
Sniperfire --> Schoolkinderen

Haar bijdrage aan de vrede in Noord-Ierland had ze ook al verzonnen

Hillary

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Op dinsdag 25 maart 2008 22:48 schreef Lyrebird het volgende:
Het is toch iedere keer genieten als ik Hillary zo op haar bek zie gaan. Sorry, leedvermaak, maar ik kan het niet laten.

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Op dinsdag 25 maart 2008 22:48 schreef Lyrebird het volgende:
Het is toch iedere keer genieten als ik Hillary zo op haar bek zie gaan. Sorry, leedvermaak, maar ik kan het niet laten.

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Op dinsdag 25 maart 2008 23:13 schreef du_ke het volgende:

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Ach de Democraten denken vast net zo over Bush

(tvp)

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Op dinsdag 25 maart 2008 22:43 schreef Lyrebird het volgende:

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Doet me toch een beetje denken aan Al - ManBearPig - Gore, die dacht dat hij de uitvinder van het internet was.

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Op dinsdag 25 maart 2008 23:47 schreef Monidique het volgende:
Alleen heeft Al Gore nooit beweerd de uitvinder van het internet te zijn, en ga jij toch meer op je bek.

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Op dinsdag 25 maart 2008 18:27 schreef matthijst het volgende:

Haar bijdrage aan de vrede in Noord-Ierland had ze ook al verzonnen

Hillary

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With Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton accused of exaggerating her role in the Northern Ireland peace process, Ireland Prime Minister Bertie Ahern offered his two cents.

Mr. Ahern called Mrs. Clinton “hugely helpful” in the process both as first lady and as a U.S. senator, and suggested some of the criticism of her are unfair.

Mr. Ahern said the Clintons were a force in the process, even if they were not directly involved.

“She was the first lady of the United States, not a party leader in Northern Ireland,” Mr. Ahern said. “No one would expect her to get into the nitty-gritty of the process.”

He said the Clintons made three visits to the nation and that Mrs. Clinton continued to be engaged ever since.
“Any fair observation would find that both Hillary and Bill Clinton made peace in Ireland a priority while they were in the White House and after,” he said.

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"When Sen. Barack Obama exaggerated the death toll of the tornado in Greensburg, Kan, during his visit to Richmond yesterday, The Associated Press headline rapidly evolved from

'Obama visits former Confederate capital for fundraiser' to

'Obama rips Bush on Iraq war at Richmond fundraiser' to

'Weary Obama criticizes Bush on Iraq, drastically overstates Kansas tornado death toll' to

'Obama drastically overstates Kansas tornado deaths during campaign appearance.'

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Op dinsdag 25 maart 2008 23:47 schreef Monidique het volgende:

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Alleen heeft Al Gore nooit beweerd de uitvinder van het internet te zijn, en ga jij toch meer op je bek.

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Op woensdag 26 maart 2008 00:30 schreef Perico het volgende:
Dat is pertinent onjuist, iedereen die er aan mee heeft onderhandeld heeft haar rol hierin bevestigd.

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Op woensdag 26 maart 2008 00:30 schreef Perico het volgende:

Dat is pertinent onjuist, iedereen die er aan mee heeft onderhandeld heeft haar rol hierin bevestigd.

Mr. Ahern called Mrs. Clinton “hugely helpful” in the process both as first lady and as a U.S. senator, and suggested some of the criticism of her are unfair.
Mr. Ahern said the Clintons were a force in the process, even if they were not directly involved.

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Obama drastically overstated Kansas tornado deaths during campaign appearance.

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Op woensdag 26 maart 2008 02:59 schreef Lyrebird het volgende:

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Ik ben niet overtuigd.

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Obama's family tree expanded to include the Bushes and the Pitts

Barack Obama often jokes in his campaign speeches about a genealogical survey last year that found he is a distant cousin of Dick Cheney.

Now there is more bad news for Obama: a study published yesterday found he is related to George Bush as well.

Researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Society, founded in 1845, said Obama, the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, can call six US presidents his cousins: both Bushes, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman and James Madison. The society, a non-profit organisation, found he is also related to Churchill.

It said it investigated the blood lines of the three presidential hopefuls. One of the oddest connections is that Obama is related to Brad Pitt and Hillary Clinton to Pitt's partner, Angelina Jolie.

Clinton, who is of French-Canadian descent on her mother's side, is a distant cousin of Madonna, Céline Dion and Alanis Morissette. Other distant cousins include writer Jack Kerouac and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall.

Obama and Bush are 10th cousins, once removed, linked by Samuel Hinkley of Cape Cod, who died in 1662. Pitt and Obama are ninth cousins, linked by Edwin Hickman, who died in Virginia in 1769. Clinton and Jolie are ninth cousins, twice removed, both related to Jean Cusson who died in Quebec in 1718.

While family trees such as these throw up interesting links, genetically they are meaningless. While children carry half the genes of their father, cousins as far removed as Obama and Bush would have no more genetic link than someone they bumped into at random in the street.

The Republican candidate, John McCain, had claimed to be related to the Scottish king Robert the Bruce but, as the Guardian disclosed last week, British genealogists debunked that. The New England genealogists found no royal strain either but established yet another Bush connection: McCain is a sixth cousin of the first lady, Laura Bush.

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Op woensdag 26 maart 2008 12:21 schreef Klopkoek het volgende:

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In de VS heeft de ELITE het voor het zeggen.

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Op woensdag 26 maart 2008 12:21 schreef Klopkoek het volgende:

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In de VS heeft de ELITE het voor het zeggen.

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THROW GRANDMA UNDER THE BUS
March 19, 2008


Obama gave a nice speech, except for everything he said about race. He apparently believes we're not talking enough about race. This is like hearing Britney Spears say we're not talking enough about pop-tarts with substance-abuse problems.

By now, the country has spent more time talking about race than John Kerry has talked about Vietnam, John McCain has talked about being a POW, John Edwards has talked about his dead son, and Al Franken has talked about his USO tours.

But the "post-racial candidate" thinks we need to talk yet more about race. How much more? I had had my fill by around 1974. How long must we all marinate in the angry resentment of black people?

As an authentic post-racial American, I will not patronize blacks by pretending Obama's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is anything other than a raving racist loon. If a white pastor had said what Rev. Wright said -- not about black people, but literally, the exact same things -- I think we'd notice that he's crazier than Ward Churchill and David Duke's love child. (Indeed, both Churchill and the Rev. Wright referred to the attacks of 9/11 as the chickens coming "home to roost.")

Imagine a white pastor saying: "Racism is the American way. Racism is how this country was founded, and how this country is still run. ... We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority. And believe it more than we believe in God."

Imagine a white pastor calling Condoleezza Rice, "Condoskeezza Rice."

Imagine a white pastor saying: "No, no, no, God damn America -- that's in the Bible for killing innocent people! God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human! God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme!"

We treat blacks like children, constantly talking about their temper tantrums right in front of them with airy phrases about black anger. I will not pat blacks on the head and say, "Isn't that cute?" As a post-racial American, I do not believe "the legacy of slavery" gives black people the right to be permanently ill-mannered.

Obama tried to justify Wright's deranged rants by explaining that "legalized discrimination" is the "reality in which Rev. Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up." He said that a "lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families."

That may accurately describe the libretto of "Porgy and Bess," but it has no connection to reality. By Rev. Wright's own account, he was 12 years old and was attending an integrated school in Philadelphia when Brown v. Board of Education was announced, ending "separate but equal" schooling.

Meanwhile, at least since the Supreme Court's decision in University of California v. Bakke in 1978 -- and obviously long before that, or there wouldn't have been a case or controversy for the court to consider -- it has been legal for the government to discriminate against whites on the basis of their race.

Consequently, any white person 30 years old or younger has lived, since the day he was born, in an America where it is legal to discriminate against white people. In many cases it's not just legal, but mandatory, for example, in education, in hiring and in Academy Award nominations.

So for half of Rev. Wright's 66 years, discrimination against blacks was legal -- though he never experienced it personally because it existed in a part of the country where he did not live. For the second half of Wright's life, discrimination against whites was legal throughout the land.

Discrimination has become so openly accepted that -- in a speech meant to tamp down his association with a black racist -- Obama felt perfectly comfortable throwing his white grandmother under the bus. He used her as the white racist counterpart to his black racist "old uncle," Rev. Wright.

First of all, Wright is not Obama's uncle. The only reason we indulge crazy uncles is that everyone understands that people don't choose their relatives the way they choose, for example, their pastors and mentors. No one quarrels with the idea that you can't be expected to publicly denounce your blood relatives.

But Wright is not a relative of Obama's at all. Yet Obama cravenly compared Wright's racist invective to his actual grandmother, who "once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."

Rev. Wright accuses white people of inventing AIDS to kill black men, but Obama's grandmother -- who raised him, cooked his food, tucked him in at night, and paid for his clothes and books and private school -- has expressed the same feelings about passing black men on the street that Jesse Jackson has.

Unlike his "old uncle" -- who is not his uncle -- Obama had no excuses for his grandmother. Obama's grandmother never felt the lash of discrimination! Crazy grandma doesn't get the same pass as the crazy uncle; she's white. Denounce the racist!

Fine. Can we move on now?

No, of course, not. It never ends. To be fair, Obama hinted that we might have one way out: If we elect him president, then maybe, just maybe, we can stop talking about race.

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Op woensdag 26 maart 2008 22:53 schreef Lyrebird het volgende:
Van wie is dat (prima) stuk, PJO?

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Op woensdag 26 maart 2008 22:56 schreef PJORourke het volgende:

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Ann Coulter. Serieus.

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Op woensdag 26 maart 2008 23:19 schreef popolon het volgende:
Ann 'crazy ass bitch' Coulter.

"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to christianity". Die Ann Coulter.

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(CNSNews.com) - Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., pastor emeritus of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago where Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has been a member for two decades, slurred Italians in a piece published in the most recent issue of Trumpet Newsmagazine.

"(Jesus') enemies had their opinion about Him," Wright wrote in a eulogy of the late scholar Asa Hilliard in the November/December 2007 issue. "The Italians for the most part looked down their garlic noses at the Galileans."

Wright continued, "From the circumstances surrounding Jesus' birth (in a barn in a township that was under the Apartheid Roman government that said his daddy had to be in), up to and including the circumstances surrounding Jesus' death on a cross, a Roman cross, public lynching Italian style. ...

"He refused to be defined by others and Dr. Asa Hilliard also refused to be defined by others. The government runs everything from the White House to the schoolhouse, from the Capitol to the Klan, white supremacy is clearly in charge, but Asa, like Jesus, refused to be defined by an oppressive government because Asa got his identity from an Omnipotent God."

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Op donderdag 27 maart 2008 03:35 schreef Charles.Darwin het volgende:
Elke mening is te koop, en een dreigement werkt ook altijd:
Clinton Donors Ask Pelosi to Back Off

Waar is de democratie?

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Op donderdag 27 maart 2008 13:13 schreef Evil_Jur het volgende:

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Wat is het probleem dan?

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Op woensdag 26 maart 2008 23:45 schreef Lyrebird het volgende:

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Ik zeg niet dat ik het altijd met haar eens ben, maar dit is gewoon een goed stuk.

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Op donderdag 27 maart 2008 13:36 schreef Monidique het volgende:
Ann Coulter is een van de vele Jeremiah Wrights van rechts-conservatief Amerika, alleen hoef je bij haar niet in een archief van dertig jaar te zoeken om vijf minuten extremistisch gebazel op Youtube te kunnen zetten...

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Op donderdag 27 maart 2008 13:36 schreef Monidique het volgende:
Ann Coulter is een van de vele Jeremiah Wrights van rechts-conservatief Amerika, alleen hoef je bij haar niet in een archief van dertig jaar te zoeken om vijf minuten extremistisch gebazel op Youtube te kunnen zetten...

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Op donderdag 27 maart 2008 14:08 schreef PJORourke het volgende:

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Maar ze steunt Billary...

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Op donderdag 27 maart 2008 13:29 schreef Charles.Darwin het volgende:

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Geldschieters van Hillary die dreigen hun donatie aan de democratische partij te stoppen als Pelosi haar standpunt betreffende delegates en superdelagates niet aanpast. Hillary maakt alleen nog maar een kans als delegates (mogen) switchen tijdens de democratische conventie in augustus.

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It's been more than a month since I began warning Sen. Barack Obama that he would become answerable for his revolting choice of a family priest. But never mind that; the astonishing thing is that it's at least 11 months since he himself has known precisely the same thing. "If Barack gets past the primary," said the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to the New York Times in April of last year, "he might have to publicly distance himself from me. I said it to Barack personally, and he said yeah, that might have to happen." Pause just for a moment, if only to admire the sheer calculating self-confidence of this. Sen. Obama has long known perfectly well, in other words, that he'd one day have to put some daylight between himself and a bigmouth Farrakhan fan. But he felt he needed his South Side Chicago "base" in the meantime. So he coldly decided to double-cross that bridge when he came to it. And now we are all supposed to marvel at the silky success of the maneuver.

You often hear it said, of some political or other opportunist, that he would sell his own grandmother if it would suit his interests. But you seldom, if ever, see this notorious transaction actually being performed, which is why I am slightly surprised that Obama got away with it so easily. (Yet why do I say I am surprised? He still gets away with absolutely everything.)

Looking for a moral equivalent to a professional demagogue who thinks that AIDS and drugs are the result of a conspiracy by the white man, Obama settled on an 85-year-old lady named Madelyn Dunham, who spent a good deal of her youth helping to raise him and who now lives alone and unwell in a condo in Honolulu. It would be interesting to know whether her charismatic grandson made her aware that he was about to touch her with his grace and make her famous in this way. By sheer good fortune, she, too, could be a part of it all and serve her turn in the great enhancement.

This flabbergasting process, made up of glibness and ruthlessness in equal proportions, rolls on unstoppably with a phalanx of reporters and men of the cloth as its accomplices. Look at the accepted choice of words for the ravings of Jeremiah Wright: controversial, incendiary, inflammatory. These are adjectives that might have been—and were—applied to many eloquent speakers of the early civil rights movement. (In the Washington Post, for Good Friday last, the liberal Catholic apologist E.J. Dionne lamely attempted to stretch this very comparison.) But is it "inflammatory" to say that AIDS and drugs are wrecking the black community because the white power structure wishes it? No. Nor is it "controversial." It is wicked and stupid and false to say such a thing. And it not unimportantly negates everything that Obama says he stands for by way of advocating dignity and responsibility over the sick cults of paranoia and victimhood.

That same supposed message of his is also contradicted in a different way by trying to put Geraldine Ferraro on all fours with a thug like Obama's family "pastor." Ferraro may have sounded sour when she asserted that there can be political advantages to being black in the United States—and she said the selfsame thing about Jesse Jackson in 1984—but it's perfectly arguable that what she said is, in fact, true, and even if it isn't true, it's absurd to try and classify it as a racist remark. No doubt Obama's slick people were looking for a revenge for Samantha Power (who, incidentally, ought never to have been let go for the useful and indeed audacious truths that she uttered in Britain), but their news-cycle solution was to cover their own queasy cowardice in that case by feigning outrage in the Ferraro matter. The consequence, which you can already feel, is an inchoate resentment among many white voters who are damned if they will be called bigots by a man who associates with Jeremiah Wright. So here we go with all that again. And this is the fresh, clean, new post-racial politics?

Now, by way of which vent or orifice is this venom creeping back into our national bloodstream? Where is hatred and tribalism and ignorance most commonly incubated, and from which platform is it most commonly yelled? If you answered "the churches" and "the pulpits," you got both answers right. The Ku Klux Klan (originally a Protestant identity movement, as many people prefer to forget) and the Nation of Islam (a black sectarian mutation of Quranic teaching) may be weak these days, but bigotry of all sorts is freely available, and openly inculcated into children, by any otherwise unemployable dirtbag who can perform the easy feat of putting Reverend in front of his name. And this clerical vileness has now reached the point of disfiguring the campaigns of both leading candidates for our presidency. If you think Jeremiah Wright is gruesome, wait until you get a load of the next Chicago "Reverend," one James Meeks, another South Side horror show with a special sideline in the baiting of homosexuals. He, too, has been an Obama supporter, and his church has been an occasional recipient of Obama's patronage. And perhaps he, too, can hope to be called "controversial" for his use of the term house nigger to describe those he doesn't like and for his view that it was "the Hollywood Jews" who brought us Brokeback Mountain. Meanwhile, the Republican nominee adorns himself with two further reverends: one named John Hagee, who thinks that the pope is the Antichrist, and another named Rod Parsley, who has declared that the United States has a mission to obliterate Islam. Is it conceivable that such repellent dolts would be allowed into public life if they were not in tax-free clerical garb? How true it is that religion poisons everything.

And what a shame. I assume you all have your copies of The Audacity of Hope in paperback breviary form. If you turn to the chapter entitled "Faith," beginning on Page 195, and read as far as Page 208, I think that even if you don't concur with my reading, you may suspect that I am onto something. In these pages, Sen. Obama is telling us that he doesn't really have any profound religious belief, but that in his early Chicago days he felt he needed to acquire some spiritual "street cred." The most excruciatingly embarrassing endorsement of this same viewpoint came last week from Abigail Thernstrom at National Review Online. Overcome by "the speech" that the divine one had given in Philadelphia, she urged us to be understanding. "Obama's description of the parishioners in his church gave white listeners a glimpse of a world of faith (with 'raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor … dancing, clapping, screaming, and shouting') that has been the primary means of black survival and uplift." A glimpse, huh? What the hell next? A tribute to the African-American sense of rhythm?

To have accepted Obama's smooth apologetics is to have lowered one's own pre-existing standards for what might constitute a post-racial or a post-racist future. It is to have put that quite sober and realistic hope, meanwhile, into untrustworthy and unscrupulous hands. And it is to have done this, furthermore, in the service of blind faith. Mark my words: This disappointment is only the first of many that are still to come.

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Op donderdag 27 maart 2008 15:02 schreef Perico het volgende:

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De superdelegates zijn in 1984 ingesteld als stok achter de deur om nog een keer een McGovern of Mondale te voorkomen, die nauwelijks 1 staat wonnen.

Het zou van de gekke zijn als die als klapvee met zijn 800-en alleen voor de degene met de meeste pledged delegates zouden moeten stemmen, als in de statuten staat dat ze vrij zijn te kiezen wie ze willen (zeker nu de race zo close is).

Pelosi moet in deze dus neutraal blijven, want haar huidige standpunt is een verkapte endorsement van Obama.

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Op donderdag 27 maart 2008 15:24 schreef Charles.Darwin het volgende:

De superdelegates zijn in alle gevallen vrij om te doen wat ze zelf willen, en zelfs met de superdelegates gaat Hillary het verliezen. Vandaar dat ze nu zo krampachtig probeert het democratische proces te ondermijnen.

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Why Hillary Supporters Might Abandon Obama
Jennifer Rubin - 03.27.2008 - 08:27

Many commentators are buzzing over a Gallup poll (and a similar NBC/Wall Street Journal one) showing that 28% of Hillary Clinton supporters would support John McCain if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee and that 19% of Obama supporters would do the same if she is the nominee. Gallup explains:

It is unknown how many Democrats would actually carry through and vote for a Republican next fall if their preferred candidate does not become the Democratic nominee. The Democratic campaign is in the heat of battle at the moment, but by November, there will have been several months of attempts to build party unity around the eventual nominee — and a focus on reasons why the Republican nominee needs to be defeated. . . Still, when almost 3 out of 10 Clinton supporters say they would vote for McCain over Obama, it suggests that divisions are running deep within the Democratic Party. If the fight for the party’s nomination were to continue until the Denver convention in late August, the Democratic Party could suffer some damage as it tries to regroup for the November general election.

If you consider who a typical Clinton voter is the poll makes quite a bit of sense: older, white, and working-class voters who place a premium on experience and may have bought her “3 a.m.” argument. Sound like potential “gets” for McCain, right? (Then, of course, there are the voters offended and scared off by the Reverend Wright affiliation, but liberal bloggers say that’s all behind us so we won’t worry about them. For now.)

In most elections you see “Republicans for [fill in the name of the Democratic nominee]” groups spring up. They usually are not terribly Republican to begin with and profess that “never before” has the Republican party offered someone so extreme, so conservative, etc. This election there may be groups, real groups, of “Democrats for McCain,” who simply conclude that Obama is too liberal or too inexperienced to be president. Even if the final number isn’t 28%, a fifth or a tenth of that figure may spell trouble for the Democrats, if he’s the eventual nominee.

How long before Clinton’s team starts making this very argument to superdelegates?

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Op donderdag 27 maart 2008 17:23 schreef Monidique het volgende:
Bekijk deze YouTube-video

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Op donderdag 27 maart 2008 15:33 schreef Perico het volgende:
na alle primaries staat ze misschien minder dan 100 pledged delegates achter en dan weet je nu al dat ze het daarop zou verliezen?

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Op donderdag 27 maart 2008 17:56 schreef matthijst het volgende:
Heeft Lee Harvey Oswald niet ergens een kleinkind rondlopen

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Factory-Sized Deception
Obama, freely trading in dishonesty.

By Stephen Spruiell

In the days leading up to the March 4 Ohio primary, Barack Obama’s presidential campaign aired a TV ad that featured a man named Steven Schuyler standing in front of a Delphi Packard Electric plant in Warren, Ohio. In the ad, Schuyler says he worked for Delphi, an automotive supplier, for 13 years until NAFTA enabled the company to ship his job to Mexico. “Barack Obama was against NAFTA,” Schuyler says, adding, “We need a president that will bring work into this country.”

The Delphi ad might qualify as the most deceptive of the 2008 race. First, Delphi did not exist as an independent company when Congress passed NAFTA in 1993. It was part of General Motors until it was spun off as an independent supplier in 1999. Second, foreign competition did not drive the company to eliminate American jobs. It declared bankruptcy in 2005 because the legacy labor costs it inherited from GM made it impossible to compete against other U.S.-based suppliers. Third, workers at the Warren, Ohio plant were offered generous buyouts and early-retirement packages. Its employees were not just kicked to the street.

When Delphi became an independent company in 1999, it inherited GM’s high-wage, high-benefit autoworkers’ union contracts. Addressing reporters after Delphi declared bankruptcy in 2005, then-CEO Robert S. “Steve” Miller explained, “other U.S.-based suppliers, many of which were organized by the same unions . . . were paying less than half the automaker wages and benefits [that Delphi was paying].” Contrary to Obama’s ad, domestic competition played a bigger role in Delphi’s downfall than did competition from Mexico.

Even with its legacy costs, Delphi might have managed. But its relationship with GM harmed it in other ways. When Delphi declared bankruptcy, GM was still its biggest customer, responsible for about 50 percent of its sales. When GM’s market share tanked in 2003, so did Delphi’s profits. Delphi’s fate and the fates of its U.S. employees are tied to the fate of GM, which for multiple reasons has struggled, along with Ford and Chrysler, to stay afloat in recent years.

In his 2005 remarks to reporters, Miller argued that the U.S. auto industry’s problems have little to do with import competition. “Toyota, Nissan, and Honda are competing from assembly plants in our back yard,” he said, “but without the crippling work rules and social costs embedded in [GM, Ford, and Chrysler’s] labor contracts.”

The example of Honda is particularly relevant to any examination of Ohio’s economy. The Japanese automaker opened its first plant in Ohio in 1979, and since then it has opened three more and become one of the state’s top employers. Workers in Honda’s Ohio plants don’t belong to a union, but the company pays competitive wages and benefits and has never laid off any of its Ohio employees.

As for Delphi Packard Electric in Warren, Ohio, it was downsized as part of the corporate restructuring that followed the bankruptcy, but — unlike other Delphi plants in the U.S. — it wasn’t shuttered or sold. All but 700 of the plant’s 3,800 employees took buyout offers or early-retirement packages. Those who stayed on accepted a new labor contract that brought wages and benefits closer to the prevailing rates in the supply business.

In April 2007, the Youngstown Vindicator ran a story about a former Delphi employee named Karole Kowalski who took a $140,000 buyout and invested it in an associate’s degree at Youngstown State University. “She’s excited about her plan,” according to the report, “and is hopeful the cutbacks at Packard were the best thing that could have happened to her. She couldn’t work as a laborer any more because of her back, and the buyout has given her the chance to retrain.”

If all ex–Delphi Packard workers were offered buyouts or early-retirement packages, it stands to reason that Steven Schuyler, the man in the Obama TV ad, took a similar deal. The Obama campaign ignored National Review Online’s repeated requests for more information about Schuyler, but a Delphi retiree told the Vindicator, “Schuyler took the buyout and got a good cash sum to quit his job.” When I spoke to Vindicator editor Todd Franko, he said he still hadn’t been able to contact Schuyler to confirm this.

Kowalski and Schuyler offer dramatic contrasts for participants in the debate over free trade in this country. Kowalski’s approach speaks of a willingness to embrace the changes that are occurring in the U.S. economy and view them as opportunities. Schuyler’s approach — the one Obama has apparently embraced — is characterized by bitterness that things had to change, and rank dishonesty about why they did.

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HILLARY: SWIFTBOATED!
March 26, 2008


Hillary is being "swiftboated"!

She claimed that she came under sniper fire when she visited in Bosnia in 1996, but was contradicted by videotape showing her sauntering off the plane and stopping on the tarmac to listen to a little girl read her a poem.

Similarly, John Kerry's claim to heroism in Vietnam was contradicted by 264 Swift Boat Veterans who served with him. His claim to having been on a secret mission to Cambodia for President Nixon on Christmas 1968 was contradicted not only by all of his commanders -- who said he would have been court-martialed if he had gone anywhere near Cambodia -- but also the simple fact that Nixon wasn't president on Christmas 1968.

In Hillary's defense, she probably deserves a Purple Heart about as much as Kerry did for his service in Vietnam.

Also, unlike Kerry, Hillary acknowledged her error, telling the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "I was sleep-deprived, and I misspoke." (What if she's sleep-deprived when she gets that call on the red phone at 3 a.m., imagines a Russian nuclear attack and responds with mutual assured destruction? Oops. "It proves I'm human.")

The reason no one claims Hillary is being "swiftboated" is that the definition of "swiftboating" is: "producing irrefutable evidence that a Democrat is lying." And for purposes of her race against matinee idol B. Hussein Obama, Hillary has become the media's honorary Republican.

In liberal-speak, only a Democrat can be swiftboated. Democrats are "swiftboated"; Republicans are "guilty." So as an honorary Republican, Hillary isn't being swiftboated; she's just lying.

Indeed, instead of attacking the people who produced a video of Hillary's uneventful landing in Bosnia, the mainstream media are the people who discovered that video.

I've always wondered how a Democrat would fare being treated like a Republican by the media. Now we know.

It's such fun watching liberals turn on the Clintons! The bitter infighting among Democrats is especially enjoyable after having to listen to Democrats hyperventilate for months about how delighted they were to have so many wonderful choices for president.

Now liberals just want to be rid of the Clintons -- which is as close to actual mainstream thinking as they've been in years. So the media suddenly notice when Hillary "misspeaks," while rushing to make absurd excuses for much greater outrages by her opponent.

Liberals are even using the Slick Willy defense when Obama is caught fraternizing with a racist loon. When Bill Clinton was exposed as a philandering, adulterous, pathological liar, his defenders said that everybody is a philandering, adulterous, pathological liar.

And now, when B. Hussein Obama is caught in a 20-year relationship with a raving racist, his defenders scream that everybody is a racist wack-job.

In the Obama speech on race that Chris Matthews deemed "worthy of Abraham Lincoln," B. Hussein Obama defended Wright's anti-American statements, saying:

"For the men and women of Rev. Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table."

So in the speech the media are telling us is on a par with the Gettysburg Address, B. Hussein Obama casually informed us that even blacks who seem to like white people actually hate our guts.

First of all: Watch out the next time you get your hair cut by a black barber over the age of 50.

Second, Rev. Wright's world wasn't segregated.

And third, what about Wright's wanton anti-Semitism? All the liberals (including essence-besplattered Chris Matthews) have accepted Obama's defense of Wright and want us to understand Wright's "legitimate" rage over his painful youth in segregated America.

But the anti-Semitic tone of Wright's sermons is as clear as his rage against the United States. Rev. Wright calls Israel a "dirty word" and a "racist country." He denounces Zionism and calls for divestment from Israel.

In addition to videos of Rev. Wright's sermons, Obama's church also offers for sale sermons by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, whom Rev. Wright joined on a visit to Moammar Gadhafi in Libya in 1984. Just last year, Obama's church awarded Farrakhan the Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Trumpeter Award, saying Farrakhan "truly epitomized greatness."

What, pray tell, is the legitimate source of Wright's anti-Semitism? I believe Brother Obama passed over that issue entirely in his "conversation," even as he made the obligatory bow to Israel's status as one of our "stalwart allies." Why does crazy "uncle" Wright dislike Jews?

Will liberals contend that these remarks were "taken out of context"? Maybe Wright's church was trying to say that Farrakhan isn't great when it said he "epitomized greatness." Who knows? We weren't there.

Can liberals please educate us on the "legitimate" impulses behind Rev. Wright's Jew-baiting?

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Will liberals contend that these remarks were "taken out of context"? Maybe Wright's church was trying to say that Farrakhan isn't great when it said he "epitomized greatness." Who knows? We weren't there.
Can liberals please educate us on the "legitimate" impulses behind Rev. Wright's Jew-baiting?:
[..]

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Op vrijdag 28 maart 2008 01:41 schreef Diebold het volgende:
De Democraten weten altijd heel goed hun kansen te verspelen. De Clintons zijn allang niet meer bezig met 2008, maar met het voorkomen dat Obama hun in 2012 in de weg staat, met de hulp van CNN, MSNBC, FOX, ABC ea.

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De aanvallen van het Clinton kamp op Richardson en nu Clinton's Wright-aanval op Obama in een interview aan de Tribune-Review

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Op vrijdag 28 maart 2008 02:49 schreef Perico het volgende:

[..]Kijk jij wel eens CNN en MSNBC? Die zijn echt zwaar op de hand van Obama...
[..]

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[b]Beetje gezeur, Bill Clinton zei het gisteren nog op campagne: hij vond dat er NIEMAND ontslagen hoefde te worden van de campagne, niet Samantha Powers die Hillary een monster noemde, niet Geraldine Ferraro (wat wel meteen gebeurd was)..

Je moet kunnen uitdelen en incasseren, dat hoort er bij en iedereen is het erover eens dat het qua advertenties een hele milde campagne is. Obama pakt niet uit met video's over Tuzla en het vermeende sniper fire, Clinton heeft geen enkel Wright commercial gemaakt.

Feit is, dat Obama vrij slecht is in het terugslaan. Waar denk je dat de Republikeinen mee gaan komen?
Die compileren gewoon een video met de vraag, of iemand die niet opstaat tegen zijn dominee die God Damn America zegt, wel kan opstaan in de wereld tegen vijanden van Amerika.

En da's dan nog een beschaafde. Ze kunnen ook op de proppen komen met de frauderende Tony Rezko, de terrorist Ayers bij wie Obama in de jaren 90 op bezoek was, Michelle Obama met vrij kortzichtige uitspraken... Echt, als Obama hier al niet tegen kan, dan houdt het op...

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What do - Code Pink, Move On, The Nation, The Progressive, In These Times, and the liberal intelligentsia have in common?

They all see clearly that the Democrats will not get us out of Iraq. They all see clearly that the Democrats will not crack down on corporate crime. They all see clearly that the Democrats will not support a single payer national health insurance system. They all see clearly that the Democrats will not cut the bloated, wasteful military budget. And yet, they refuse to stand up to the Democrats and say - out!

Get out! Get out now! We are going to start new.

You are a corrupt party. And your time has passed.

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Op vrijdag 28 maart 2008 03:46 schreef Qomolangma het volgende:
Om ook Nader aandacht te geven:
[..]

Hele artikel: http://www.votenader.org/blog/2008/03/24/corrupt-democrats-blog/

Een Democratische opvolger van George W. Bush is lang niet meer zo vanzelfsprekend als een jaar geleden door vrijwel iedereen werd gedacht. Beide partijen hebben geen ijzersterke kandidaten, en de voortslepende strijd tussen Obama en Clinton helpt de Democraten ook niet. Hoewel het waar is dat nare incidenten uit iemands verleden niet meer als verassing komen in oktober hebben ze nu wel een half jaar de tijd om uit te groeien tot een onomkeerbare beeldvorming. Bovendien raakt de achterban van de Democraten steeds dieper verdeeld.

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Op vrijdag 28 maart 2008 10:10 schreef Monidique het volgende:
Clinton doet in ieder goed haar best het te verpesten voor Obama in november, ja.

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Op vrijdag 28 maart 2008 10:10 schreef Monidique het volgende:
Clinton doet in ieder goed haar best het te verpesten voor Obama in november, ja.

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Op vrijdag 28 maart 2008 14:58 schreef Monolith het volgende:
Daar had o.a. Max Westerman het laatst nog over in P&W. Hij opperde volgens mij dat Hillary liever zag dat McCain won, want dan had ze bij de volgende verkiezingen tenminste weer kans.

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Op vrijdag 28 maart 2008 15:01 schreef PJORourke het volgende:

[..]

Vraag ik me af. Dan moeten een heleboel mensen vergeven en vergeten. Dit wordt haar nog lang nagedragen.

Ik denk eerder dat ze denkt: als ik het niet krijg, dan hij ook niet.

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Op vrijdag 28 maart 2008 15:10 schreef Monolith het volgende:
Ach ja, vier jaar is een lange tijd. In Nederland zijn er ook genoeg kabinetten die aan het begin van hun regeerperiode dramatisch stonden in de peilingen en uiteindelijk gewoon weer de verkiezingen wonnen.
Ik ben in ieder geval allang blij dat Huckabee of Romney niet de Republiekeinse kandidaat is geworden.

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Op vrijdag 28 maart 2008 15:02 schreef popolon het volgende:
Wat mij nog het meest weet te verbazen is dat de DNC er als een stelletje hulpeloze slachtkippen dom voor zich uit zit te staren en er niet opgetreden wordt.

Typisch voorbeeld van politieke zelfmoord.