So it's my turn for a VP rant.  If you've read any of my posts you know I'm still gunning for Wesley Clark even though I've been told over and over about his son saying he's not the one and will be out of the country during the convention.  Blah, blah, blah.

Ok, here's the rules.  There are no sure things until Obama sends that first text message (although I wouldn't blame him if he sent out a premature joke one to screw with all the people sitting on the edge of their seats).

To the Russian government (Updated: it has been suggested "people"):

We the undersigned, wish to convey our deepest regret for the actions of the Bush administration in helping to create the crisis in Georgia.  A huge portion of our country despise their foreign policy methods and are working hard to try to push these idiots out of power.

They are doing everything in their power right now to resist that effort including their very successful past method of instilling fear into the voting public hoping they will act against reason and put a very old and unstable warmonger into the White House to protect them.

I'm 54 years old and have sat glued to the TV throughout my life watching the spectacle of political conventions both Republican and Democrat.  I've seen the long roll calls, some of which were actually in doubt.  It's an exhilarating time for Americans huddled around their TV sets especially if they really sunk their hearts into one or more of the candidates.  

There's indications that the Democratic Convention in Denver is moving towards one of these nights when history repeats itself and we get to sit and watch it all play out again.  This is not the time....`

Last night I had the opportunity to try to convince a very dear friend of our family, a very bright and dynamic woman, that she should vote for Barack Obama in November.  Normally this would be an easy sell with this very liberal college professor but she seems to be a victim of some very bizarre distortions of just who Barack Obama is.

With the enormous strain that occurs on any candidate running for President of the United States, it seems apparent to me that their duties as a Congressman, Vice-President, Governor, dog catcher, whatever must take a major hit.  

A very gray area also presents itself as we're seeing with Barack Obama's trips to places like Iraq and Germany and the controversy over injecting politics into military and foreign policy matters.  Is he a Senator or a candidate?  Is there public funding involved in certain parts or is it campaign funds?  

It was right after the election of 2004 when we were all in shock that the Republicans had prevailed again and George Bush would once again hold the most powerful political position in the world.  

A website titled "Sorry Everybody" sprang up where individuals could send a picture to the rest of the world stating that we'd done our best to prevent his election.

What made it great therapy is that rapidly a counter site emerged from people in the rest of the world sending their own pictures back basically saying "We accept your apology".

My wife sent this on to me.  She's an elementary art teacher working in a low-income, primarily Hispanic school district. In spite of the wonderful experience she has of helping children she also gets to experience the full scourge of the move to discredit and emasculate our public school systems that is occurring today in the name of greater accountability and standardized testing.  

Ok, I'm absolutely bored and frustrated at work, completely burned out reading and contributing to the diaries about supporting Obama or chastising him for FISA, and nearly falling asleep in my chair so I guess it's time for a short and sweet diary.

After reading some of the posts over the past few days regarding the FISA bill and the huge outrage over Obama's "lack of leadership" on the issue, a thought occurred to me.

Do we have posters and diarists on here that are "sleeper cells", Republican plants lying in wait pretending to be on the liberal and progressive side of issues but merely a hair trigger away from creating hate and disconnect when the ideal issue comes along that could fracture the party?

Excuse me but I'm just aghast at all the vitriolic rage aimed at the entire Democratic Party today and particularly Obama because they "caved" on the FISA bill or didn't come out strongly enough against it.

Maybe I'm just not tuned in but wasn't our primary concern with being against immunity for the telecoms not because we cared about punishing those companies but to ensure instead that we'd be able to use the cases to establish evidence of the administration's guilt in breaking the law?

I screamed at my television set.  There was Keith Olbermann, the one beacon of truth in this whole mess, talking on the top of the screen as the vote and delegate totals appeared on the bottom.  It was so reassuring seeing the total number of delegate, the committed ones, the super delegate counts, and then.......

People seem a bit testy here.  Can't imagine why.  So here's the challenge for today.  

I hope I don't have to tell the intellectuals and chess players on this site what's coming prior to November but I think it's absolutely obvious.  We even saw the primer to it in the 2006 elections.  I'm curious just how accurate my "Spidey-sense" is here.

Regular and super alike.  It is now time to state publicly and loudly that if one shred of harm is done to Barack Obama between now and the convention that you will unequivocally not nominate Hillary Clinton and find some other candidate to become the nominee.

teacherken is one of my favorite diarists on DK for a number of reasons.  First of all, he (like my wife) is actively involved in the education of our youth, a task which is the mainstay of our democracy and secondly, he seems to have his finger on the pulse of American society.  He shows a good balance of indignation when necessary and an ability to brainstorm to solve problems.

His diary today I am a liberal because is a wonderful look into the basic tenets that define liberalism.  However, I think he left out a few things that always come up in me when I try to define my own personal political slant.  I began to respond in his diary but found myself long-winded enough to rate a diary of its own.

As much as I'd like to believe that a President Obama will move our country onto a new path, there's this lingering fear in me that our next leader will be challenged unlike any other in our recent history and some of those challenges might be more formidable than any mere mortal can handle.

We need to resolve right now that, assuming Barack Obama becomes our Commander In Chief and he doesn't morph into the Anti-Christ as the wackos predict, that we will not succumb to fear should things go terribly wrong.

I'm old enough to remember the civil rights era, the riots, the murders, the marches of the KKK, the images in the magazines of signs over drinking fountains that shouted out "Whites Only".  At the time, you could have walked through the streets of most Southern towns and pretty much known that nearly every white person you passed had bigotry embedded firmly in their psyche.  Most felt no guilt about the trait.  After all, their mothers, their grandmothers, their slave owning ancestors all accepted it as a way of life.

I apologize in advance for this very short diary rant but I only have a few minutes before I have to hit the road.  I just read about Hillary's gas tax cut bill before the Senate and her "with us or against us" bullying.