The move by Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo, King of the Thembu tribe, follows his conviction for multiple crimes including culpable homicide, kidnapping and arson, and a 15-year prison sentence. He was convicted of the offences last year but is appealing and has been granted bail in the meantime.
"We have officially cut ties with South Africa, and we are no longer South African," said Votani Majola, the king's lawyer, who filed the declaration with the parliament in Cape Town.
He told the Daily Dispatch newspaper that the independent nation of "Thembuland" includes most of the existing country, including its three major cities, Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, all of KwaZulu-Natal and the Western, Eastern and Northern Cape provinces, plus parts of the Free State and Gauteng.
He is also demanding around £7 billion in compensation for the "insult" that the trial of the king represented.
#4
I'm declaring my garage the sovereign state of Iblisland.
Clearly you lack ambition, Iblis. King Buyelekhaya has laid claim to South Africa, including the major cities and and KwaZulu-Natal. The key question is, how long will this keep him out of South African prison?
Posted by: no mo uro ||
01/25/2010 7:05 Comments ||
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#2
No doubt Liberals will admire his/her energetic support of the cause he/she espouses. After all, President Obama has begun demonstrating that he is the community organizer of the entire country, as he once was for the south side of Chicago.
#5
You are all missing the obvious explanation: Liberals are of ONE mind. Not figuratively but literaly the same brain cells. Not surprised at the duplication. ;-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/25/2010 12:12 Comments ||
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#7
The donks stuffed the ballot box and now they are trying to stuff the public opinion box. I don't think this is what they meant by transparency. Let them keep thinking it is Republican anger, the donks will continue to lose. These donks are radical idealouges and are stuck on stupid.
Posted by: Tom- Pa ||
01/25/2010 12:38 Comments ||
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#10
This is the beginning of the surge of SEIU, MoveOn.Org., Soros-funded actions designed to move public opinion onObama and healthcare issues. In simple English, this peopla re trying to create the impression of a public attitude that does NOT reflect the overwhelming opinion of the American people. Sadly, so many of our fellow citizens have become disconnected from current events and the duties of basic citizenship, and rely on what others think. So if you use the mainstream media, and the reporters who are either fellow travelers or echo chamber idiots, you get an appearance of opinion.
This is how they plan to move the country down the radical path Obambi plans for us.
This needs to be outed, and outed repeatedly, with Breitbart or others reporting on the mechanics of how they do this, and how the MSM/print media fall for it, or go along willingly.
* using aliases on the internet is legal.
* using aliases to promote ones point of view is and create the appearance of widespread support or outrage is deceptive, and is embarrassing and perhaps even counterproductive if exposed.
* defaming, harassing, and libeling others on the internet using aliases is potentially a civil crime remedied in civil court via civil law suit if it can be proved who is behind the aliases.
* impersonating others and forging their name in emails to confess to false accusations of plagiarism with the express purpose of harming ones credibility as a professional crosses the line into criminal behavior.
The the key is to track down, name and shame this person/these people. The same blogger addresses that, too, here.
In the news from Haiti over the past two weeks, images of a grieving Bill Clinton have been almost as constant as the pictures of the earthquake victims themselves. Everywhere you look, the former president seems to appear--expressing his sorrow and pledging to make his foundation the cornerstone of a vast rebuilding effort.
When Mr. Clinton toured the devastation last week, the Miami Herald described him as "teary eyed." But teary eyed is a more apt description of how Haitians could end up if Mr. Clinton takes charge of Haiti's recovery, as it now appears he would like to do.
According to sources familiar with the issue, word has already gone out that Mr. Clinton has been unofficially designated by the multilateral aid community as the conduit through which anyone who wants to participate in the country's reconstruction will have to go. "That means," one individual told me, "if you don't have Clinton connections, you won't be in the game."
A person entrusted with this much power should have an impeccable track record. Mr. Clinton's record doesn't come close. Indeed, the last time he offered to "help" the country, he propped up a corrupt despot who proceeded to go into business with key Democrats and left the country poorer, institutionally bereft and riddled with political violence.and Aristide when both were presidents.
In 1991, eight months after he took office, Jean Bertrand Aristide was removed from power in a military coup. The action was precipitated by Mr. Aristide's disregard for Haiti's fragile rule of law--including the use of mob violence to intimidate and kill his political opponents. And Aristide is already babbling about returning to Haiti Yep, you'd think Haiti couldn't possibly get worse, but letting Aristide back in would make it worse.
After his ouster, Mr. Aristide needed money. He got it when President George H.W. Bush released to him Haitian assets held in the U.S. on the grounds that he was the government in exile.
The main source of those funds were the payments that U.S. telecom companies were making to the state telephone monopoly, Teleco, to terminate calls to Haiti. From his exile perch in Georgetown, Mr. Aristide proceeded to draw on those government revenues--by some estimates $50 million--to lobby for his return to power. Among his most important contacts was Michael Barnes, a former Democratic congressman whose law firm at one point was raking in $55,000 a month from his Haitian client.
A couple of years of spreading Haitian money around Washington did the trick: In 1994 Mr. Clinton called up the U.S. military to restore Mr. Aristide to the presidency. When his term was up in 1996 and René Préval took over as president, Mr. Aristide remained the power behind the throne.
Haitians complained bitterly for years about his human rights abuses and corruption, and many of his educated supporters broke with him as his tactics became clearer. But the Clinton administration never did anything to bring him to heel.
In February 2001 Mr. Aristide claimed to have been re-elected in a process that international observers cited for pervasive fraud, and that the Organization of American States refused to certify. Haitians were angry, but it took three more years for that discontent to bubble over. Finally, in February 2004, he was run out of the country.
Hoping to retrieve stolen assets, the interim government that took over filed a 2005 civil action in a southern Florida federal court against Mr. Aristide. It alleged that he had rifled the treasury and set up schemes with "certain" U.S. telecommunications carriers, "granting them significantly reduced rates for services provided by Teleco in exchange for kickbacks, which further reduced those rates." It alleged that one of the companies that made payments "to certain off-shore companies" was Fusion Telecommunications.
Fusion's contract should have been public, but the company tried to block its release from the Federal Communications Commission when I asked for it. No wonder. It revealed that Fusion had a sweetheart deal with Teleco of 12 cents a minute when the official rate was 50 cents.
The Fusion deal is interesting because the company was run by Marvin Rosen, the former finance chair of the Democratic Party. Board members included Joseph P. Kennedy II and Mr. Clinton's former chief of staff, Mack McLarty.
The U.S.-Haiti telecom route is one of the busiest in the Western Hemisphere, and this contract that undercut the competition was remarkably lucrative. It also deprived the Haitian treasury of important resources. As the lawsuit states: "Teleco revenues were the principal source of urgently needed foreign currency for Haiti."
The upshot here is that clintonista activity in Haiti was not the work of foreigners deeply committed to the well-being of a long-suffering people. Instead, it capitalized on the chance to make money using government power.
Now is time to break that habit. As one Haitian told me, if the country is ever to develop it needs "to rely less on cronyism and more on transparency and the vast resources of the Haitian expat community." That would disqualify Bill Clinton.
#1
Hide your daughters. The UN Bill Clinton is here to help you.
Posted by: ed ||
01/25/2010 18:00 Comments ||
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#2
ION TOPIX/WORLD NEWS > MOB VIOLENCE HAMPERS HAITI RELIEF. US, Internat Relief-Humanitar Orgs may need to request more MILITARY SECURITY DUE TO PERVASIVE LOOTING, HAITIAN-ON-HAITIAN SECTARIANISM = BATTLE TO RECEIVE, CONTROL BULK OF FOREIGN RELIEF.
Rep. Marion Berry's parting shot, published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette [no link, subscription only] offers a warning to moderate Democrats and border state moderates -- warning of a midterm bloodbath comparable to the 54-seat D-to-R swing in 1994.
But the jaw-dropper is Berry's claim that President Obama personally dismissed any comparison between Democrats now and under Bill Clinton 16 years ago -- by saying his personal popularity would bail everybody out. Just like Coakley, Corzine and Deeds?
The retiring Berry, who doesn't say when the remarks were made, now scoffs at Obama's 50-or-below approval rating:
Writes ADG reporter Jane Fullerton:
Berry recounted meetings with White House officials, reminiscent of some during the Clinton days, where he and others urged them not to force Blue Dogs "off into that swamp" of supporting bills that would be unpopular with voters back home.
"I've been doing that with this White House, and they just don't seem to give it any credibility at all," Berry said. "They just kept telling us how good it was going to be. The president himself, when that was brought up in one group, said, 'Well, the big difference here and in '94 was you've got me.' We're going to see how much difference that makes now." [snip]
"I began to preach last January that we had already seen this movie and we didn't want to see it again because we know how it comes out," said Arkansas' 1st District congressman, who worked in the Clinton administration before being elected to the House in 1996... "I just began to have flashbacks to 1993 and '94. No one that was here in '94, or at the day after the election felt like. It certainly wasn't a good feeling."
the image has some minor artistic value - shows proportion, alignment, symmetry
Posted by: lord garth ||
01/25/2010 14:56 Comments ||
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#2
In the pantheon Narcissus was a handsome young man who fell in love with his own reflection he saw in a brook after rejecting many paramours that he tired of and then killed himself. Seeing Obama looking at his own reflection is as one commenter fittingly put it, beyond parody.
#5
It looks fake from an optics POV to me. To get that image in the mirror he should be standing further to the right. Or the mirror is rotated away from the wall. Anyone else see it that way?
#11
In the pantheon Narcissus was a handsome young man who fell in love with his own reflection he saw in a brook after rejecting many paramours that he tired of and then killed himself
A flower then grew on the spot where he died and that is the Narcissus.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/25/2010 18:49 Comments ||
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#12
What would happen if everybody greeted him at his photo ops with bouquets of daffodils (narcissi)?
Just when he was set to bask in the limelight as the Bay State's senior senator, Democrat John F. Kerry is being pushed back into the political shadows, forced to play the liberal foil to GOP superstar Scott Brown.
He's out of the shadow of Ted Kennedy and he's finally the senior senator, and he still is being upstaged by this new rising star within the Republican ranks,' said George Serra, a political professor at Bridgewater State College.
Decades spent eclipsed by Kennedy were not easy for Kerry.
John Kerry doesn't get anything done. John Kerry lives in the shadow of Ted Kennedy. John Kerry doesn't deliver. Blah, blah, blah,' ' Kerry told the Herald in an October 2008 interview. I'm sort of tired of that, actually. I'm going to fight back a little harder to make sure people understand that that's an insult to my staff when people say that.'
On Capitol Hill this week, Kerry's office was filled with reporters and cameras, but they were following the newly elected Brown.
Kerry's staff has already reached out to Brown's in an effort to help the new senator-elect with the abrupt transition following his upset win in the historic special election, and Kerry himself has pledged to work with him.
But Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said, I'm sure he had hoped he would be the senior Democrat. Not only is Brown more prominent publicly right now, but he'll be doing a two-step around Kerry on some of these issues. You can't be a leader when there's no one following you.'
As the Wrentham Republican prepares to be the 41st vote to topple key Democratic initiatives including President Obama's health-care plan, Kerry warned, Republicans on the other side of the aisle hear the message (of Brown's election upset) as well. (Voters) want us not to say, No' to things but to get the business of the people done.'
Kerry's colleagues also argued that Brown's celebrity status could fade quickly while the Democratic senior senator chairs prominent committees such as Foreign Relations and continues to command respect from both sides of the aisle.
I think it's recognized nationally that he's doing a great job and his role is only going to increase with time,' said U.S. Rep. Edward Markey (D-Malden.)
But one source close to Kerry noted: Obviously (U.S. Sen.-elect) Scott Brown is on the tip of everyone's tongue, and being the only Republican senator in Massachusetts makes him even more prominent. Now more than ever John Kerry needs to be the guy.'
First elected to the Senate in 1985, Kerry ran unsuccessfully for president in 2004.
#2
John Kerry doesnt get anything done. John Kerry lives in the shadow of Ted Kennedy. John Kerry doesnt deliver. Blah, blah, blah, Kerry told the Herald in an October 2008 interview. Im sort of tired of that, actually. Im going to fight back a little harder to make sure people understand that thats an insult to my staff when people say that.
Yeah, well, the only reason people say stuff like that Jawn is because it's true. Two calls in five year. Kennedy's staff had an answer for us within two days and the issues resolved within two weeks. Still waiting for Jaaaaaawn's people to get back to us.
When a douchebag like Markey's your biggest fan, you should know you got problems.
Promise #385 broken
Despite President Obama's long history of criticizing the Bush administration for "sweetheart deals" with favored contractors, the Obama administration this month awarded a $25 million federal contract for work in Afghanistan to a company owned by a Democratic campaign contributor without entertaining competitive bids, Fox News has learned.
The contract, awarded on Jan. 4 to Checchi & Company Consulting, Inc., a Washington-based firm owned by economist and Democratic donor Vincent V. Checchi, will pay the firm $24,673,427 to provide "rule of law stabilization services" in war-torn Afghanistan.
A synopsis of the contract published on the USAID Web site says Checchi & Company will "train the next generation of legal professionals" throughout the Afghan provinces and thereby "develop the capacity of Afghanistan's justice system to be accessible, reliable, and fair."
The legality of the arrangement as a "sole source," or no-bid, contract was made possible by virtue of a waiver signed by the USAID administrator. "They cancelled the open bid on this when they came to power earlier this year," a source familiar with the federal contracting process told Fox News.
"That's kind of weird," said another source, who has worked on "rule of law" issues in both Afghanistan and Iraq, about the no-bid contract to Checchi & Company. "There's lots of companies and non-governmental organizations that do this sort of work."
Contacted by Fox News, Checchi confirmed that his company had indeed received the nearly $25 million contract but declined to say why it had been awarded on a no-bid basis, referring a reporter to USAID.
Asked if he or his firm had been aware that the contract was awarded without competitive bids, Checchi replied: "After it was awarded to us, sure. Before, we had no idea."
He declined to answer further questions, however, and again referred Fox News to USAID, saying: "I don't want to speak for the U.S. government."
Asked about the contract, USAID Acting Press Director Harry Edwards at first suggested his office would be too "busy" to comment on it. "I'll tell it to the people in Haiti," Edwards snapped when a Fox News reporter indicated the story would soon be made public. The USAID press office did not respond further.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said Fox News' reporting on the no-bid contract in this case "disturbed" him.
Issa has written to USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah requesting that the agency "produce all documents related to the Checchi contract" on or before Feb. 5. Citing the waiver that enabled USAID to award the contract on a no-bid basis, Issa noted that the exemption was intended to speed up the provision of services in a crisis environment.
Yet "on its face," wrote Issa to Shah, "the consulting contract awarded to Checchi to support the Afghan justice system does not appear to be so urgent or attendant to an immediate need so as to justify such a waiver."
Corporate rivals of Checchi were reluctant to speak on the record about the no-bid contract awarded to his firm because they feared possible retribution by the Obama administration in the awarding of future contracts.
"We don't want to be blackballed," said the managing partner of a consulting firm that has won similar contracts. "You've got to be careful. We're dealing here with people and offices that we depend on for our business."
Still, the rival executive confirmed that open bidding on USAID's lucrative Afghanistan "rule of law" contract was abruptly revoked by the agency earlier this year.
"It's a mystery to us," the managing partner said. "We were going to bid on it. The solicitation (for bids) got pulled back, and we do not know why. We may never know why. These are things that we, as companies doing business with the government, have to put up with."
As a candidate for president in 2008, then-Sen. Obama frequently derided the Bush administration for the awarding of federal contracts without competitive bidding.
"I will finally end the abuse of no-bid contracts once and for all," the senator told a Grand Rapids audience on Oct. 2. "The days of sweetheart deals for Halliburton will be over when I'm in the White House."
Those remarks echoed an earlier occasion, during a candidates' debate in Austin, Texas on Feb. 21, when Mr. Obama vowed to upgrade the government's online databases listing federal contracts.
"If (the American people) see a bridge to nowhere being built, they know where it's going and who sponsored it," he said to audience laughter, "and if they see a no-bid contract going to Halliburton, they can check that out too."
Less than two months after he was sworn into office, President Obama signed a memorandum that he claimed would "dramatically reform the way we do business on contracts across the entire government."
Flanked by aides and lawmakers at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building on March 4, Obama vowed to "end unnecessary no-bid and cost-plus contracts," adding: "In some cases, contracts are awarded without competition....And that's completely unacceptable."
The March 4 memorandum directed the Office of Management and Budget to "maximize the use of full and open competition" in the awarding of federal contracts.
Federal campaign records show Checchi has been a frequent contributor to liberal and Democratic causes and candidates in recent years, including to Obama's presidential campaign.
The records show Checchi has given at least $4,400 to Obama dating back to March 2007, close to the maximum amount allowed. The contractor has also made donations to various arms of the Democratic National Committee, to liberal activist groups like MoveOn.org and ActBlue, and to other party politicians like Sen. John F. Kerry, former presidential candidate John Edwards and former Connecticut Senate candidate Ned Lamont.
Sources confirmed to Fox News that Checchi & Company is but one of a number of private firms capable of performing the work in Afghanistan for which USAID retained it.
For example, DPK Consulting, based in San Francisco and with offices in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere, states on its website that it has contracted with USAID and other federal agencies on more than 600 projects involving "governance and institutional development" across five continents.
Among DPK's most recent projects are the establishment of a new public prosecutor's office in Jenin, in the troubled West Bank area of the Palestinian Authority, and the improvement of court facilities in the Kyrgyz Republic in Central Asia. Similarly, BlueLaw International, based in Virginia, was awarded a $100 million contract by the State Department in April 2008 to strengthen the "rule of law" in Iraq.
Although Obama suggested in his remarks on March 4 that he hoped particularly to address problems associated with defense contracting, an Associated Press analysis last July found that the Defense Department frequently awards no-bid contracts under the aegis of the $787 billion stimulus program, and often at higher expense to U.S. taxpayers.
According to The AP, more than $242 million in federal contracts, or roughly a quarter of the Pentagon's contract stimulus spending, was awarded through no-bid contracts. And while procurement officers say competitive bidding can actually cost the taxpayers more -- because it involves delays and can thereby subject pricing for services and equipment to inflation -- the AP analysis found that defense-related stimulus contracts awarded after competitive bidding saved the Pentagon $34 million, compared with $4.4 million when no bidding was involved.
Figures kept by OMB Watch, a non-profit research and advocacy group that tracks federal spending, show that no-bid contracts have been common under administrations controlled by both parties.
During fiscal years 2000 and 2001, for example, when Bill Clinton was president, as much as $139.2 billion in federal contracts was awarded without competitive bidding. The OMB Watch figures show that the practice appears to have accelerated sharply during the Bush administration, but the figures are not adjusted for inflation.
Vice President Biden's son Beau announced Monday that he will not run for his father's old Senate seat, leaving the Republican in the race without a Democratic opponent.
In a written statement, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden said he had given "serious consideration" to running for Senate but ultimately decided to run for re-election as attorney general.
"My first responsibilities are here in Delaware," he said. "Therefore I cannot and will not run for the United States Senate in 2010."
His decision only adds to Democrats' problems in defending their Senate majority. Democrats on Tuesday lost the Massachusetts special election for the seat once held by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.
In Delaware, Biden's pass leaves GOP Rep. Mike Castle, a former governor, in the race without Democratic opposition.
The announcement puts to rest mounting speculation about Biden's position.
Harry F. Themal, who's written a column for the Wilmington, Del., News Journal for 20 years, wrote in his Sunday column that the vice president went so far as to urge him to convince his son to run for Senate.
Biden's office denied the report, turning over a transcript to Politico.com that showed Biden was actually trying to solicit Themal to urge placeholder Sen. Ted Kaufman to run should Beau decide not to. The conversation still reflected an expectation that Biden's son would opt out of the race.
#4
Beau served in the military in Iraq. I'd like to think he's a good guy and not a massive arrogant idiot tool like his Dad. I appreciate his not disproving that. Yet.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/25/2010 21:21 Comments ||
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Indiana Rep. Mike Pence (R) leads Sen. Evan Bayh (D) by 3 points, according to a new Rasmussen poll (Jan. 21&24, 800 LV, MoE +/- 3.5%). Pence, the third ranking Republican in the House, is considering a Senate bid but hasn't indicated publicly which way he is leaning.
Bayh leads two other Republicans, ex-congressman John Hostettler and State Sen. Marlin Stutzman, but still polled below 50% -- not a good sign for an incumbent.
Putting Kennedy cronies on the review board for the Cape Wind project Kennedy opposed, as it would ruin his view, seems to be a strange move for a black Green president allegedly committed to alternative energy, don't ya think? Just words - aka hot air, just not when it comes to wind turbines near the Kennedy compound. Change!
BOSTON -- The fate of a controversial wind farm off Cape Cod that's been reviewed for eight years now rests in the seemingly friendly hands of the Obama administration.
But Cape Wind's prospects remain uncertain.
Obama is pro-clean energy but he's never publicly mentioned the project, which would be the nation's first offshore wind farm.
Some Cape Wind advocates say Obama's silence is out of respect for one of his early backers, the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, a fierce Cape Wind opponent.
Obama's interior secretary, Ken Salazar, has called Cape Wind "a good project," but two high-level Obama appointees to agencies connected to the project's review have links to its chief opposition.
Salazar has said he would decide on Cape Wind by the end of April
Most people best remember Van Jones as the Obama administration Green Jobs Czar who resigned his position after being exposed as having helped to found a communist revolutionary organization.
It was confirmed on World Net Daily just hours ago that the White House is being advised by the University of Colorado-based Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP), an organization headed by a 20-person advisory board which includes none other than Van Jones.
You will remember that just days ago, we posted a story linking Van Jones to the upcoming Copenhagen summit.
William Becker, the executive director of PCAP, has now confirmed that a number of PCAP's recommendations to the President have been influential in helping to shape policy. For example:
The PCAP recommended that the U.S. reach a bilateral climate deal with China prior to the upcoming U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. The U.S. has since signed several agreements with China to share technology that reduces greenhouse-gas emissions.
The PCAP recommended an executive order that removed the gags from federal climate scientists. This became one of Obama's first actions on environmental policy.
The PCAP recommended an overhaul of federal energy management to beef up efficiency requirements for federal agencies and to restore absolute carbon reduction targets that had been rescinded by the Bush administration. The Obama administration issued a new federal energy management order in October, including a requirement that agencies develop absolute targets for greenhouse-gas reductions.
The PCAP recommended (as did many others) that the Environmental Protection Agency embrace California's vehicle emission standards and begin the process of regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The EPA is doing both.
The PCAP recommended major budget increases for states and communities to engage in energy and climate actions and to weatherize the homes of low-income families. This was part of Obama's stimulus package.
In addition, Becker has stated that PCAP is "about to propose a new and more assertive strategy for President Obama to raise the bar on the U.S. climate goal, with or without Congress."
Becker told WND, "We continue to work with some colleagues inside the (Obama) administration, as well as continuing to push for bold action from the outside."
#2
PCAP is "about to propose a new and more assertive strategy for President Obama to raise the bar on the U.S. climate goal, with or without Congress."
Faster please. If a year of Obama can elect a Republican to Ted Kennedy's Senate seat this just might be the straw that finally breaks the EPA's back and causes the agency tobe dismantled.
President Barack Obama is reassembling his 2008 campaign team to overhaul his "message" and ease Democratic fears that the party could suffer disastrous losses in November's mid-term elections.
David Plouffe, the 2008 campaign manager who opted not to take a White House job is being asked to oversee Senate, House of Representatives and gubernatorial elections in an attempt to rekindle some of the magic that swept Mr Obama to power.
Mr Plouffe, a tightly wound, taciturn operative who is credited with masterminding the grassroots organising network that allowed Mr Obama to overcome Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries, will work from the Democratic National Committee.
He was was reported at the weekend to have been summoned to the Oval Office last week to speak to President Obama hours before the polls closed in Massachusetts, where the Republican candidate Scott Brown inflicted a devastating blow on Democrats by seizing the Senate seat occupied by a Kennedy since 1952.
That defeat ended the filibuster-proof Democratic super-majority in the Senate, dashing Mr Obama's hopes of achieving an historic health care reform bill.
Mr Obama will deliver his first State of the Union address on Wednesday - an event that was originally postponed so that he could trumpet the signing of a health care bill that is now moribund.
David Axelrod, a senior White House adviser and Mr Obama's chief campaign strategist in 2008, insisted to Politico that there would be "no reinventing" of Mr Obama despite the fact that "Washington loves a shakeup or human sacrifice".
He reiterated Mr Obama's contention that the voter anger that gave Mr Brown his shock win was the same phenomenon that led to Mr Obama's triumph in 2008 - a claim that Republicans have derided.
"We're governing through difficult times," he said. "There's a sense of impatience and frustration about the state of the economy, but also about the nature of how Washington works. That was true in 2008, and it's true now. The president is as determined to deal with those things now as he was then."
He added: "The same forces that we saw at play in Massachusetts were the ones that propelled [Mr Obama] to office. There's no reinventing any message here. It's a reaffirmation of a message. And that is our goal to advocate fiercely for the middle class and for people all across this country who've been struggling in this economy and long before the recession."
He conceded that the White House had blundered in underestimating Mr Brown. "Everybody would acknowledge that we kind of took Massachusetts for granted and we shouldn't have," Axelrod said. "It just reminded us that we've got to be at the top of our game."
White House aides believe the State of the Union will give Mr Obama a chance to change the narrative after the most catastrophic week of his presidency. They believe he needs to tackle the issues of contempt for Washington and dismay at job losses.
In Ohio on Friday, Mr Obama, who had the day before assailed Wall Street with a slew of measures designed to cut down the power of big banks, tested a new populist message, stating 20 times that he would fight for ordinary Americans.
#3
Maybe you should reexamine your message and check for bugs in the coding.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/25/2010 10:51 Comments ||
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#4
Don't think the same message will work. People have had a chance to live under Obumble and company and see what they have planned - and most don't like it.
Fool me once - shame on you
Fool me twice - shame on me
#5
Yup, ain't gonna work this time Obama. The voters are onto you. You can't just slip into campaign mode and have everything be peachy keen. Had you not been so arrogant and listened to George Bush, you might have learned just how hard governing really is. Instead you demonize him at every turn and blame him for everything.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
