We need a new war. No, not with Iran. We need a new war, right here, in America.

We hear a lot about the War on Terror. In the name of the War on Terror any citizen, such as Jose Padilla, can be declared an “enemy combatant,” tortured, and locked up indefinitely without any legal recourse and without the right to know the evidence used against him.

Using the War on Terror as a justification the administration slipped a little-noticed rider into a federal appropriations bill last fall. That rider voided the Posse Comitatus Act. This means the president, without congressional approval, can declare martial law at any time for any reason, even for a perceived possibility of a potential threat (the famous one percent doctrine).

Our phone calls, our e-mails, our snail mails are tapped. There is no privacy. RFIDs (radio frequency identification) have been embedded in products allowing others to trace our movements. Soon some states will have RFID drivers licenses so that every time someone goes through a tollbooth, cashes a check, or gets close enough to a scanner, the government will know just where you are.

Those are just some of the liberties Americans have given up in the name of the War on Terror.

But what about the War on Error? What have we done on that front? That’s the real war we have to fight, right here, at home. And, every single one of us is a soldier.

We need a War on Error that looks extremely closely at any reasoning calling for war with Iran. We need a War on Error that looks coolly and dispassionately on sending more troops to Iraq while not having enough troops in Afghanistan. We need a War on Error to find out where, exactly, the money promised to New Orleans and surrounding areas went, and for what, and to whom, and when was it sent and why has so little been accomplished?

We need a War on Error on all of the candidates from both parties. We didn’t elect them to run around the country, raise money and create sound bites. We elected them to stay in the House and the Senate and do their jobs: preventing further errors from happening and fixing the errors that exist.

I intend to be a one-person army. I have a few ideas. Here’s my first plan of attack.

The election is 20 months away. Every day a soldier dies. Every day six other soldiers are wounded, some severely. Every day millions of dollars go down the drain. Every day our national deficit goes up and up while we sell off our independence to places like China.

I don’t want to hear what candidates promise to do for me in 2008; I want to know what they did for me today. It’s that simple: did they do their jobs today?

1. If contacted by a candidate or a national party for donations, tell them that you are not giving one red cent to people who are away from their elected posts this far from an election.

2. If contacted by mail, write that sentiment out on the card that they’ve so helpfully included in their postage-paid return envelope.

3. Do not go to the rallies, the speeches, the candidate appearances. Stay home. Remember - “Don’t tell me what you’ll do for me in 2008, tell me what you did for me today.”

4. Contact your own representatives, (especially your House rep who is up for re-election in 2008), and tell them that you will be scrutinizing their job performance quite closely. Make a special point of telling them that you’ll be looking just as carefully at the times they did not cast a vote as those votes they did cast. Were they doing the job they were elected to do, or were they out stumping for a pal?

5. Tell all of them that the way to impress you is not to shake your hand or kiss your baby or make a speech; you intend to vote only for veterans of the War on Error.

Let them hear it loud and clear: if they want your money, your efforts as a volunteer, and especially if they want your vote, they’d better be marching in the Army of the War on Error. Double time.

Well keep giving a good laugh and ammunition to the GOP.  They are doing their work for the GOP.  Remember Hillary you are a canditate you are not the chosen one.  Just because your husband was president doesn’t automically believe you have the job.  Personally I’m tired of Bushes and Clintons in office.  I’m ready for some fresh blood.  Dodd, Biden, Edwards are pretty good for me.

To the insular media who shamelessly projects the race of a candidate front and center (only if it involves a minority,by the way!) I would like to say, “WHO THE HELL CARES?”! It is high time, the media start focusing on a candidate’s leadership qualities, sincerety, integrity and his or her stand on the issues, as criteria for electing our next president. In my opinion, there is nobody like Obama who has all the aforementioned qualities and he is the ‘REAL DEAL’.
About his “lack of experience” complaint by critics, I wish to remind everyone that, one hundred and fourty six years ago, another son from Illinois, after only TWO years in the STATE legislature, went on to become the greatest President this country has ever produced. Obama is “the Lincoln of our times” and this country and the world desperately need some one like him to lead us into a brighter future. (Obama is to politics, like Tiger Woods is to golf; the same enthusiasm,passion and ablility to fire up everyone’s imagination to expect greatness!)   
A true testament to his maturity, wisdom and grasp of issues is amazingly revealed in a TV intrerview he gave to a Chicago station in Nov ‘02, almost FOUR months BEFORE the Iraq war started (and aired by C-Span,this morning during the presidential anouncement coverage )  in which he expresses NOT ONLY opposition to the war but also his concern about the POTENTIAL problems associated with the aftermath and re-construction - - - - all of which has played out EXACTLY to the last word in the past four years; it makes him look and sound like a prophet!

To the insular media who shamelessly projects the race of a candidate front and center (only if it involves a minority,by the way!) I would like to say, “WHO THE HELL CARES?”! It is high time, the media start focusing on a candidate’s leadership qualities, sincerety, integrity and his or her stand on the issues, as criteria for electing our next president. In my opinion, there is nobody like Obama who has all the aforementioned qualities and he is the ‘REAL DEAL’.
About his “lack of experience” complaint by critics, I wish to remind everyone that, one hundred and fourty six years ago, another son from Illinois, after only TWO years in the STATE legislature, went on to become the greatest President this country has ever produced. Obama is “the Lincoln of our times” and this country and the world desperately need some one like him to lead us into a brighter future. (Obama is to politics, like Tiger Woods is to golf; the same enthusiasm,passion and ablility to fire up everyone’s imagination to expect greatness!)   
A true testament to his maturity, wisdom and grasp of issues is amazingly revealed in a TV intrerview he gave to a Chicago station in Nov ‘02, almost FOUR months BEFORE the Iraq war started (and aired by C-Span,this morning during the presidential anouncement coverage )  in which he expresses NOT ONLY opposition to the war but also his concern about the POTENTIAL problems associated with the aftermath and re-construction - - - - all of which has played out EXACTLY to the last word in the past four years; it makes him sound and look like a prophet!
Like many, I hope and pray that he will be swept into the White House on a huge populist wave, the like of which this country has not seen since Bobby Kennedy’s short and ill-fated run fourty years ago!!

Neither Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama have enough experience for the job; the lesser of two egos would be Mr. Obama & for the reason that Hillary continues to trip on her own tongue.
Can you say President Rudy? Nuff said.

Grow up, or get Gored. It’s just this kind of second rate shit that might actually make Al run. Run, Al. Run. All we have now are a couple of over-exposed petulant children and some other ne’er do wells.

It’s time for someone with real presidential credentials to step in.

Please E.J. - neither can win a general election so this is another non-news story. This country has more than enough “celebrity politicians” who for the most part have contributed little or nothing to the nation. Eventually even the Anna Nicole story will end - I can only hope these two will go away as well.

Who seriously wants Lady Macbeth for president?
Who seriously wants a guy still in short pants for president?

The nomination, hopefully, will go to Richardson, showing, finally,that the Democrats are through nominating lightweights and candidates with severe character flaws.

Those moronic horse race campaigns should be publicly funded and reduced to a month.  That’s the way it is in Ireland.

Please stop referring to Hillary as one of our own. She believes in working from the middle not to the middle and that will deliver us somewhere right of Reagan and Goldwater but not as far as Rove and Cheney. If she is one of ours she would still be one of Geffen’s.
We are still ten months away from the first primary and a primary system is one in which these candidates do have to campaign against one another first. They have different ideas of what being a demorat means. If we want a candidate that is representative of us we need to know they are one of us before we pit them against the republican vipers. Barrack needs to distance himself from the middle of the road democrats because we can still see their brown on his nose.
We are trying to decide who is going to be the most responsible with all of the power we’ve allowed to be cetralized in the executive branch over the past twenty years and I for one am not at all comfortable with that being Hillary. I don’t know yet if I’m comfortable with Barrack but at least he’s trying harder than Dennis (the one democrat I know I would be comfortable with) to get there from left of center.
The bottom line is that Hillary is who every other democrat is running against right now and she should be taken to task for whatever she did, said, does and says. Period.
Declaring that these debates are not important is rediculous because when we don’t have them the Kerrys beat the Deans because of funny noises in Iowa and then we all lose big time. None of us who come to this news site do so without being aware of what is going on in the world and at least we’re arguing about this rather than what the majority of America and the media is - what to do with dead and bald drug addicted celebrities.

Although I generally agree with this guy, I don’t with this piece of nonsense.  Senator Clinton had all kinds of responses available when a former supporter gives this sort of interview.  A joke.  Ignoring it.  Etc.  The first impulse of her campaign was to issue a press release containing misinformation and attack, not Geffen, but Obama? 

To add insult, Senator Clinton then treks off to Nevada and says that candidates AND THEIR SUPPORTERS should not go the route of “personal insult”.  No definition of that phrase so I assume her inept campaign employees get to determine that one.

My measly support for someone other than Clinton with a fiery Letter to the Editor will result in a smackdown from the Queen of Clean?  I doubt that.  That will be reserved for well-heeled supporters of another candidate who can get their words in a widely read column.

Since the Queen of Clean started the row, she’s the one mainly at fault.  The Obama Campaign responded quickly and just a bit too snarky information, however factual, thrown in.  Her majesty gets an F and Obama gets a C.

The evidence is mounting - the Democratic Party has yet to find a viable candidate. Perhaps by December 2008, with a nudge from the media, it will have figured it out - but then, perhaps I’m too optimistic.

Isn’t it time we sum up our conclusions on these two in all our communications, and then ‘click’ ignore on all newspots and correspondence from their ‘soap opera’ antics? The more attention they get, the more they get paid to play…and by the way, are Indian tribes Republican or Democratic? I assume those with gambling concerns support Republicans who support crime. I don’t know, I’m asking. Have a great day, Zena

Truly unfortunate, this is. Clinton and Obama look to be spending this year and the better part of ‘08 beating up on each other and, in the end, the despicable thugs who run the Republican Party will gladly install yet another member of their criminal ilk in the Oval Office. Sad.

Forget about the Queen, already. God save AMERICA….

“The childish feud between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama this week trampled over the real issues while giving Republicans a pass.”

In Democratic political terms that is called success. As long as everyone is talking about personalities they are not talking about policies. both Obama and Clinton are loath to discuss their policy positions because they both know that people will start wonder which party the two actually represent.

Hitlery Clinton’s stump speech is rife with positive references to the authoritarian successes of her husband and his world record prison population. A record she promises to surpass if given the opportunity.

Obama’s official senate web site brags about his part in passing the 2005 Meth Bill. A bill that, just two years later, even the Justice Department says has resulted in Mexican drug cartels taking over the american meth market and greater proliferation of meth on American streets. Barack Obama; Assassin of Youth

The Democrats can’t talk policy because they will drive too many Democrats out of the party the way the Clinton’s drove people like me and Ralph Nader out of the party.

Well wadayaknow?  Just when TROOPS OUT NOW is gaining momentum, along comes this presidential horse race nonsense & Iraq returns to the back pages.  Remember the word, focus, the one that football coaches use ad nauseum in trying to motivate their players?  It’s not a cliche any more, because if we don’t end this Iraq war STAT, we can forget about single payer health care, education and our pensions, along with freedom and democracy.  Damn this election and full speed ahead towards ending the Iraq war!

Jeanine,

Your program - as serious as it is - hasn’t got a chance as a Democratic bill of particulars. Much better odds for it outside the boundries of the two party mirage which has taken such firm hold. The central dilema for some time now has been one of the people vs. the extant political leadership, not one of whether our parties represent truly independent entities with actual substance. Do you seriously entertain the notion that a Clinton might dismantle the MCA?

The events in New York in 2001 provided the occasion for a nothing less than a coup and, if left to itself, the revisions made to the system in the last several years leave us minimally with something similar to the “emergency state” erected in Germany to deal with the street violence and the economic crisis just prior to Hitler’s ascension to power. Some, me included, would argue that the MCA brought an end to our republic altogether. And challenges to it seem impotent - to wit the recent Appeals Court defeat - that also the very picture of early 1930s Germany.

Take your platform somewhere where it will be appreciated Jeanine, not to the Democrats or the Repubicans.

John Lowell

more conventional wisdom from dionne. and just the other day he was writing that hillary was a lock on the nomination. if only dionne would grow up and get a conscience.

hillary and obama have a little spat and the sky is falling. dick cheney picks up where he left off before the election turning nancy pelosi into an al-qaeda/devil sympathizer and…yawn.

for that matter, the republican led congress and bush administration have lied the country into war, innocents have died, they rewarded big oil billions, mysteriously lost billions, gave themselves billions and took took took from the american people, but - god forbid - hillary and obama have 1 spat.

dionne is truly a disgrace and is unfit for this great website. at the wapo his inside the beltway skewed amoral thinking is par for the course, but when you stick him next to robert scheer, his dribble is an embarrassment.

////The Clinton side insisted that Obama—the let’s-end-negative-politics candidate—disown Geffen. The Obama forces trashed Clinton for accepting support from a South Carolina Democrat who suggested that Obama would doom the ticket because he’s black.

Wonder if that same South Carolina Democrat ever considered that Hilary Clinton, being a woman, would have her share of prejudices.

Both managed to overcome those potential challanges to become Senators of major states.

Remember John Kerry, even the Democrats found him wishy-washy. Recall prior to this supposed feud of candidates everyone was was wondering and in that wonderment giving impetus to a feud. Now here it is, in all its triviality and this happens to take precedence over issues themselves. I don’t mean just their stances, but this post as well and all others abound. It’s the same in consideration of Clinton being polarizing, to touch back on the John Kerry comment. Do even the people care about the issues, the strong candidates (as strong as the current may or may not be). Of all sites, I expect something of significance from this one, but that hope is diminished with such articles. Enough with the attacking. Let’s not all subject ourselves to politics. How about genuine analysis of that which is significant, something of substance beyond always appealing to ignorance. It’s just too easy to castigate.

We’re truly doomed.

How about Edwards for President and BO for Vice President—that’s a winning ticket.

You make a very good point.  It’s a shame such such childish bickering is going on when now more than ever the party needs to put up a united front.

Just another reason to end the two party monopoly the Democrats and Republicans have come to enjoy.  Together, they have succeeded in doing something the ‘evil empire’ (Soviet Union) of Reagan’s day couldn’t—namely run this country down to the ground.  What the country needs desperately now is a candidate who will not only inspire, but has every intention of delivering on those same promises.  We don’t need hollow candidates demonstrating great style and form with no substance.  The country is in dire straits.  We don’t have time for a lot of empty slogans—we need positive action.  These candidates have to take a stand and clearly tell the American people what they want to accomplish and how they expect to succeed.  We need good plans for universal single payer health care for all, fair trade not free trade with a repeal and rethinking of NAFTA, GATT, WTO, IMF, etc…  We need to end this quagmire known as the Iraq war.  We must REPEAL THE FOLLOWING UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND EVIL ACTS: Patriot I & II, Military Commissions Act of 2006, Warner Reauthorization, Animal Terrorism Act, and changes made to the Posse Comitatus provisions in law.  The infamous Presidential Signing Statements must be declared what they are—patently unconstitutional as they represent a callous power grab by the ‘Unitary Executive’ and are a de facto legislative act minus actual representation.  The Miami Plan pushed by law enforcement must go—real democracies do not silence dissent by imposing a police state on peaceful protesters.  The Fair Use doctrine must be reimposed on our nation’s broadcasters (the public airwaves BELONG TO THE PUBLIC).  Net neutrality must be the rule of the day as the internet was created on the tax dollar, and is another form of ‘public airwave.’  The Telecommunications Act of 1996 must be repealed in order to reverse much of the increased media consolidation.  The concept of the ‘unitary executive’ must be denounced as the tool of would be fascists—not real presidents.
This is a sample of what needs to be discussed and acted upon.  If the dems were smart—or if they were REAL DEMOCRATS—this could serve as the functional outline FOR THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM.  But, then again, we’re not in Kansas anymore.

Jeanine Molloff
10116 Thorpe Ave.
St. Louis, MO. 63114
(314)427-8361

It does not matter about those two as John Edwards will receive the nomination.

Say AMEN.
Play nice children least all the money of all the campaign’s will matter not - you will simply allow the neoCons an extended reign of terror.

“What the heck Dennis Kucinich”

Congressman kucinich won that debate hands down!

He is the real leader in the Democratic Party and many people are starting to wake up to that fact.  It is time the media wakes up as well.

Kucinich 2008 site for Volunteers
DK2008.us

“In truth, both campaigns showed they care a lot more about themselves than the causes (and the party) to which they claim to be devoted.”
do tell.
a society which suffers such behavior (not to mention government) deserves it.
i should not be surprised when cell phone videos appear on youtube showing hillary, barak or both alighting from a maclaren sans sous-vetements, drink in hand. both candidates should be buried in the bahamas post haste forget posthumously.

After the convention and Clinton is nominiated then she and Obama will become friends and who knows they may be on the same ticket.

Margaret from Vancouver, Washington

Mr. Dionne’s response is inadequate. The point made by Geffen, and it a good one, and which needs to be repeated is that the Clintons are much ado about nothing except personal power. Hillary Clinton has no compassion or passion and only follows an institutional success model ala Wellesley, Yale Law School. Her greatest adventure was marrying Bill Clinton instead of moving into Cravath. She is at heart a dutiful and ambitious student turned Yale Law School graduate, turned first lady, turned US Senator, turned presidential candidate. There is no there, there and there is no capacity for it in this individual.

To Clinton and Obama - Behave yourselves! You want to be our President? Stop acting like celebrities on the way to rehab on the talk shows. We just voted lots of people out of office. The American people are not in the mood for your childish fighting in public. Have some class. Get to Washington and do something about the War in Iraq. THAT’S YOUR JOB! And stop the race and gender crap. We don’t care about that either. Get to work people.

They are both irrelevant. The vacuous opportunistic candidates a corporate elite. If either of them is the front runner,there is nothing to “win”. We can do better.

I guess the Clinton bashing was supposed to wait until after the nomination.

This was nothing compared to what republicans can do.

Political maturity is required for a MEANINGFUL presidential run.  For far too long we have not had a contest aat the presidential level which rated the attention of serious people. 

Barack Obama is young and unseasoned so his campaign has an excuse. There is the possibility I would vote for him in 2016.

Hillary, on the other hand is a spoiled, petulant, pretended who has no real (read serious) place in politics. 

Barbara Boxer makes her look like a neophyte conservative.

On the other hand, Joe Biden is not what I would consider a serious contender either, but his problem is on the other side of the quandry. His time has passed, like that of Dick Gephart, John Kerry, Lizzy Dole, and Newet Gingrich.

John Edwards Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, Tom Vilsack, and Dennis Kucinich may have some real ideas beyond the important taks of getting our troops home….not just from Iraq.

If there are ideas out there, I (for one) sure would like to hear them… 

BUT

...they should be ideas for 2008, not 1988.

Neither of these two will become President.  They will lose in the south and the mid-west.  They have been picked by the power elite because they will lose.  I resent the fact that not one democrat has cast a vote yet but these two have been ordained the leaders of the pack by the press.  They pulled the same kind of stunt with Howard Dean before they pulled the rug out from under him.  We ended up with Kerry, the one person on planet earth that could lose to Bush.  If the Democratic party runs either of these two candidates the next President will be Jeb.

It’s all junior high (with apologies to the 12 to 14 year-olds who regularly exhibit more maturity than their wannabe “leading” elders), E.J.  And Dick Cheney is just the overgrown bully who got held back two grades in elementary school.

Anyone still looking vainly for “leadership” among the professional pols might do better to look instead to their friends, neighbors, and families for the support and guidance they’ll need to navigate the world-wide sea-changes already upon us.  Those whose biggest concern is where they get to sit at the captain’s table really can’t help you at all….even if they wanted to….which they don’t.  They’re too busy anyway, fixing the intelligence and cooking the national books.

This ol’ Indian’s grandmother used to say the wasicu preachers had it backwards when they claimed that god helps those who help themselves.  “Maybe theirs does,” she said.  “Ours helps those who help each other….and god-help those who help their self!”

If any of those who would be president are saying anything like that to theamericanpeople it would be a hopeful sign.  Real evidence that those pampered brats were listening would be another.  No one here on the Rez is holding their breath, though.

HokaHey!