Obama Wins!

OK, here's a portent of things to come. Tiny Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, which is always the first town in America to vote, registered 21 votes at midnight eastern time. 15 went to Obama. 6 to McCain.

THIS IS THE FIRST TIME THIS LITTLE TOWN HAS VOTED DEMOCRATIC SINCE 1960!

A portent of things to come.



Prediction: Obama wins with 52% of the popular vote and 346 electoral college votes.

And I'll be downtown Chicago to celebrate.

Bets anyone???

Story from CNN:

Dixville Notch Has Spoken: It's Obama in a Landslide

Palin and Ayers: Clueless Again

Buried on the fifteenth page of today's Chicago Tribune is an article by Eric Zorn that needs wide exposure. Zorn, it turns out, did an extensive historical fact check on the person Sarah Palin calls a "terrorist" and found, much to the surprise of no one, that whatever Ayers may have done in the past, he can no longer by any stretch of the imagination be called a "terrorist" today.

What continues to be puzzling to many is why the press hasn't pushed the McCain camp to explain how Obama's associations with William Ayers in the 1990's has anything to do with anything except what it was always about - working with someone who is a noted expert on educational reforms. "Paling around with terrorists" (note how Palin always uses the plural - as though Ayers is representative of a whole group of shady characters Obama consorts with) suggests at the very least that Obama and Ayers were hatching plots against America. If that were the case, if Ayers was, indeed, a "terrorist" when Obama was meeting with him, well, then our law enforcement officials have fallen down on the job. He should be in jail. He isn't because he isn't.

Here's just a few of the things Zorn turned up in his research:

• The late celebrated Tribune journalist, Mike Royko, once wrote that Ayers was a jerk with a shady past. But now he ". . . is working for a good cause, improving public education. He's become a leader in the so-called school reform program."
• Other articles written in the 90's did refer to Ayer's radical past, but most didn't. In fact, only two articles out of 60 mentioned it. Most referred to the books he had published on education reform and his laudable work to get grant money for schools which landed him the honor of being recognized as Chicago's "Citizen of the Year" in 1997 (the time when Obama was "paling around" with him).
  

Noting this, Zorn says:

Today, some would say that this was an outrage. Ayers should have been shunned and marginalized, loudly criticized, not embraced, by the city's political and academic establishment.

But the record shows he just wasn't a very controversial figure. Aside from Royko's "I still think he's a jerk" column in 1990, I found only two objections to Ayer's civic rehabilitation in the decade's news archives: a 1993 letter to the Tribune and a 1999 guest editorial.

Zorn goes on to describe McCain and Palin's attempts to smear Obama with Ayers as "revisionist history" of the worst sort, particularly in their use of the "implicit present tense" as though Ayers is still a terrorist, a charge that has not been challenged as it should be by the mainstream press. He is not, says Zorn. Nor was he a terrorist when Obama met him to discuss educational reforms in the 90s, he as well as many other prominent Republicans and Democrats who care about the education of our children.

Zorn's most cutting comment cuts right to the heart of the matter when he says:

If Ayers is a terrorist, then McCain is an adulterer and I am a 6th grader.

Which brings to mind another article that is worth reading - the Rolling Stones Magazine expose on a past that John McCain is desperate to keep buried.

You can read that one by clicking on the picture below.

From the Rolling Stone Magazine:

Make-Believe Maverick

A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty

Countdown: Women Who Hate Sarah

More Days till the Palin-Biden Debate





While we wait for the debate it may be good to ponder a few interesting developments in the Palin saga. One is the almost visceral hatred certain women have for Governor Palin. And, according to columnist, Mary Schmich of the Chicago Tribune, it is only tangentially related to her conservative political bent. More to the point is what she symbolizes. Here's what Schmich says:

From: "Tracing Source of Women's Hate for Palin"

I relate to the betrayal, insult and worry the choice of Palin as John McCain's running mate stirs in many women. Do the guys who picked Palin in the hopes of nabbing Hillary Clinton supporters really think one size fits all? We've waited so long for a woman to make it to the White House and the closest we can come is one who can't volley with Katie Couric? And what if Palin's deficiencies make it easier to claim that women aren't fit for high public office? At its most logical, the hatred many women profess for Palin is rooted in the feeling that she has ascended to power she hasn't earned and that she could turn that power against the beliefs and best interests of most women. But the way some women talk about her risks making us look like the very thing she is sometimes accused of being: mean girls. Palin is an ambitious, smart, energetic woman, who through work, luck, pluck and, yes, a ruthless streak common to politicians, has invented an uncommonly full life, which includes being governor of Alaska. There's a lot to admire. If she'd also been wise and humble, she would have said, "Not yet," when she was asked to play in the big leagues. But what gutsy woman would have said no? By the end of last week, even a couple of Palin haters I know had softened, slightly. It hurt to watch her fumble through her interview with Katie Couric and pose nervously with Henry Kissinger. Her weak week was enough to make at least a few people recognize that the real bad guys were the folks who seduced her for their political gain into thinking she was ready.