Hi Ron,

After nearly 2 years of politics, politics and more politics with every one looking to get in a few good punches, I and some of my friends were quite satisfied with the easy tone of the 60 Minutes interview last night. Can't hurt to have more people seeing Barack & Michelle interacting, talking about family, and otherwise obviously happy and secure with their lot in life. We all know that there is a mountain of work ahead of this guy. It was just plain cool to see and hear the man being smart, funny, and at ease. We'll get to see his hair graying as the years go by. Let's enjoy this moment. 'nuff said.
RoM

Consumption should be a choice,
not an obligation.

I say we boycott it.

And this Santa Clause, he is fat man, yes?

Sort of like....

Bourgousie Pig!

Happy Holidays, Komrads.

It probably has less to do with atheism and more to do with the corporate interests that have gotten tangled up in it. It wasn't the intellectuals that messed it up; it was market forces. If there is a war against Christmas, it started when big business hijacked it.

It just feels more like being violated to me.

I am and American and was at Obama's Berlin speech a few weeks back. I think he missed the mark a bit.
I thought the speech could have been so much better rather than just okay.

As I walked to the site with the other tens of thousands in the audience, there was really an optimistic sense of amiable anticipation. Standing on the boulevard between the Brandenburg Gate and the Victory Column, totally packed in like sardines, everyone was filled with this anticipation and you could feel it. Standing there you were not able to see much of anything other than lots of other people and, if you were lucky, one of the massive monitors. As Obama began to speak, everyone listened carefully, many on tippy-toes just wanting to catch a glimpse. They were all searching for something they could hook on to to get on his bandwagen. It was like 200,000 people standing at a bus stop seeing a bus coming, hoping and trying to discern if the bus would pick them up.

But they had to wait. First, came a WWII history lesson with little insight. Obama was like any average tourist coming to Germany for the first time with the mental image of Germany seemingly forged by old WWII war movies. This was a mistake. He spent way too much time looking way back instead of forward. The Germans don't really want to hear this. He was quite out of touch with the issues that would really have swept them off their feet. It would have been so easy. He should have tried to give more of an Al Gore content speech rather than trying to give a JFK speech. If he had launched more into the direction of praising the Germans for their progressive accomplishments in recent years – Environmental Sensitivity, Good Healthcare, Social Equality, Energy policies favoring alternative energies, etc. - emphasizing that they are exemplar of fighting the good fight in so many ways, that they are once again a shining, hopeful light for America in many areas where America also needs to go, and that America needs these kinds of good partners to help lead the way to address the pressing problems becoming more and more acute.

The audience was starved for this, looking for anything for which they could cheer and applaud. Obama, take us on a journey! He didn't really do this. He could have. That disappointed me. He only seemed to mention these issues so close to Germans' hearts in passing, whereas they should have been his focus. He coulda pulled it off. Too bad no one told him.

Not that I wanted to be too negative. It was a good speech, but could have been a great speech. I was also impressed with the number of Americans there - there were thousands. I drove 6 hours to get there (whoops, bad carbon balance) and 8 to get back and am glad I went. Most of the Germans I talked to thought it was a good speech - of course they were hoping for a good speech. They do not like Bush.

Obama was also a bit jumbled in places saying we needed free trade and fair trade in the same sentence - what was that? He also sounded really hawkish in many places. One of the funniest parts was when he thanked Merkel and no one clapped and kind of murmured. There were street vendors selling buttons and T-shirts. They pretty much sold out of t-shirts and could have sold twice as many.

There were a lot of people wearing these WWF climate change shirts that had a polar bear (symbol of Berlin) and had a slogan about climate change with a big "Yes you can" directed at Obama and the US.

I guess the whole gig was really for the American voters, but I would like to see him come back a whip things up. He might not get the turnout like before, though.
The weirdest thing was them playing "sympathy for the devil" just before his speech.

I must have been on another planet for the past 8 years since I though that political talk from the left was supposed to advocate for issues that LIBERAL candidates and govt officials have the opportunity to implement via legislation.
Not gratuitously play bonehead's proto-fascist propaganda and republicrats attack ads simply to bitch and moan about how petty and hypocritical they are.

I appreciate tearing down hatemongering chickenhawks that target progressives with venomous hyperbole or libelous slander, but I don't see the upside in aiding the party that without hesitation would privatize social security to loot it the way they have done the banks via their TRICKLE DOWN economic paradigm that has transferred the wealth of the nation up to the richest 4% on the planet since the ROBBER BARRON era, by playing the GOVERNATOR'S two faced bullshit about "REPUBLICANS" being the national infrastructure investment environmental protection party. That is unless you are going to run down the names of those who voted for FISA IMMUNITY & OFF SHORE DRILLING and against CAFE including the BlueDogs and their spineless brethren lead by Pelosi-Reid-Hoyer-Emanuel-Clyburn-Schumer-Feinstein who spit in the face of Kucinich-Feingold-Wexler-Hinchey-Waters etc.

Perhaps I'm alone, but the more you play Morning Joe Scumboro material without disemboweling the source BREAVEHEART style point by point, the more I relish the thought of having my skull impaled on a pike by Vlad Ţepe's heirs on the outskirts of Wallachia in southern Romania.

.

Hi Ron, why are you not at the air america cruise ?