Why Everyone Has a Reason to Celebrate (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/obama-wins-iowa-why-ever_b_79663.html)

Even if your candidate didn't win tonight, you have reason to celebrate. We all do.

Barack Obama's stirring victory in Iowa -- down home, folksy, farm-fed, Midwestern, and 92 percent white Iowa -- says a lot about America, and also about the current mindset of the American voter.

Because tonight voters decided that they didn't want to look back. They wanted to look into the future -- as if a country exhausted by the last seven years wanted to recapture its youth.

Bush's re-election in 2004 was a monument to the power of fear and fear-mongering. Be Very Afraid was Bush/Cheney's Plans A through Z. The only card in the Rove-dealt deck. And it worked. America, its vision distorted by the mushroom clouds conjured by Bush and Cheney, made a collective sprint to the bomb shelters in our minds, our lizard brains responding to fear rather than hope.

And the Clintons -- their Hillary-as-incumbent-strategy sputtering -- followed the Bush blueprint in Iowa and played the fear card again and again and again.

Be afraid of Obama, they warned us. Be afraid of something new, something different. He might meet with our enemies. His middle name is Hussein. He went to a madrassa school. A vote for him would be like rolling the dice, the former president said on Charlie Rose.

And the people of Iowa heard him, and chose to roll the dice.

Obama's win might not have legs. Hope could give way to fear once again. But, for tonight at least, it holds a mirror up to the face of America, and we can look at ourselves with pride. This is the kind of country America was meant to be, even if you are for Clinton or Edwards -- or even Huckabee or Giuliani.

It's the kind of country we've always imagined ourselves being -- even if in the last seven years we fell horribly short: a young country, an optimistic country, a forward-looking country, a country not afraid to take risks or to dream big.

Bill Clinton has privately told friends that if Hillary didn't win, it would be because of the two weeks that followed her shaky performance in the Philadelphia debate.

But it wasn't those two weeks. Indeed, if we were to pinpoint one decisive moment, it would be Bill Clinton on Charlie Rose, arrogant and entitled, dismissive and fear-mongering. And then Bill Clinton giving us a refresher course in '90s-style truth-twisting and obfuscation -- making stuff up about always having been against the war, and about Hillary having always been for every good decision during his presidency and against every bad one, from Ireland to Sarajevo to Rwanda.

So voters in Iowa remembered the past and decided that they didn't want to go back. They wanted to move ahead. Even if that meant rolling the dice.

Again, this moment may not last. But, for tonight, I am going to savor it -- and cross my fingers that it may stand as the day that fear as a winning political tactic died. Killed by an "unlikely" candidate -- as Obama called himself again and again -- who seized the moment, and reminded America of its youth and the optimism it longs to recapture.

I'm lookin' at it this way....seeing-as-how electability has always been the big issue.....Who're Republicans gonna have an easier time campaigning-against?

Once Karl Rove gets his six-month contract (as campagn-advisor).....'cause Corporate-America always goes with a proven-formula.....I see three possibilities.

With Obama, it could easily be: "How can it still be considered The Whitehouse, when 75% of the Administration/Whitehouse-staff will be occupied by Obama's crew of gangstas??"

With Clinton, it'd (expectedly) be: "Does America really need a return to ever-lasting, on-going scandals, with another Clinton-Admin??"

Edwards? Hell.....he's a lawyer.....and, everyone knows he's a major-contributor to the lawsuit-abuse machine! :rolleyes:

*

You tell me.......who would Americans be made the most afraid-of???? ('Cause, there's no way Corporate America is goin'-down without a serious-fight!)

I'm lookin' at it this way....seeing-as-how electability has always been the big issue.....Who're Republicans gonna have an easier time campaigning-against?

Well, Clinton is the only one whom the majority of Americans said they would not vote for (http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/06/28/248165.aspx) and the right wing has been preparing to run against Hillary for the last 10 years, so I would give that one to Hilldawg.

With Obama, it could easily be: "How can it still be considered The Whitehouse, when 75% of the Administration/Whitehouse-staff will be occupied by Obama's crew of gangstas??"

I think that kind of blatant racism would backfire on them. If anything they would continue to try and scare monger with the vague accusations of association with Muslims.

Edwards? Hell.....he's a lawyer.....and, everyone knows he's a major-contributor to the lawsuit-abuse machine!

Having a President who knows and understands the law is only scary to Bush Republicans who have everything to fear from the law and see the law as an obstacle to achieving their ideological ends.

Well, Clinton is the only one whom the majority of Americans said they would not vote for......
Yeah.....and, we can always count on Americans' consistancy. :rolleyes:

I think that kind of blatant racism would backfire on them. If anything they would continue to try and scare monger with the vague accusations of association with Muslims.
Shit.....they're gonna do whatever-it-takes! (See: Terrorist-Warnings)

Having a President who knows and understands the law is only scary to Bush Republicans who have everything to fear from the law and see the law as an obstacle to achieving their ideological ends.
So....you're flippin' to Edwards, now, huh? :confused:

Yeah.....and, we can always count on Americans' consistancy.

Polls like that are usually pretty accurate. ;)


Shit.....they're gonna do whatever-it-takes! (See: Terrorist-Warnings)

They can try, but that doesn't mean they will be successful.


So....you're flippin' to Edwards, now, huh? :confused:

I have been an Edwards supporter for some time, just as I have said that Hillary is my last choice for the Democratic nomination.

:thumbs:

Polls like that are usually pretty accurate.
....Usually being the operative-word. :rolleyes:

They can try, but that doesn't mean they will be successful.
.....Only if you're willing to ignore their track-record, to-date.

"... Bill Clinton... arrogant and entitled, dismissive and fear-mongering. And then Bill Clinton giving us a refresher course in '90s-style truth-twisting and obfuscation -- making stuff up about always having been against the war, and about Hillary having always been for every good decision during his presidency and against every bad one, from Ireland to Sarajevo to Rwanda."

People of a certain political bent, and by that I mean Republicans, have been saying this for many years only to be scolded by those who were not politically like-minded, and by that I mean Democrats.

This article apparently shows that it took certain Dems fifteen years to see what the rest of us saw almost immediately, that the Clintons were disingenuous, lying, arrogant people. It could also mean, and I believe this is more likely it, that the left knew this about him all along but denied it for power's sake and for the sake of winning arguments and future elections.

I have full confidence that when tempers and passions have cooled, maybe in fifteen years, the media, the pundits, and the next generation of left-wing AllForites will give a more honest assessment of the past eight years.

"... Bill Clinton... arrogant and entitled, dismissive and fear-mongering. And then Bill Clinton giving us a refresher course in '90s-style truth-twisting and obfuscation -- making stuff up about always having been against the war, and about Hillary having always been for every good decision during his presidency and against every bad one, from Ireland to Sarajevo to Rwanda."

People of a certain political bent, and by that I mean Republicans, have been saying this for many years only to be scolded by those who were not politically like-minded, and by that I mean Democrats.

I hate to break it to you Brooks, but that is impossible. The invasion and occupation of Iraq only happened in 2003.


This article apparently shows that it took certain Dems fifteen years to see what the rest of us saw almost immediately, that the Clintons were disingenuous, lying, arrogant people.

Most politicians are "disingenuous, lying and arrogant" and Bill Clinton moreso than most Democrats, but as we now know, Bill Clinton could not hold a candle to GW Bush in any of those departments.


It could also mean, and I believe this is more likely it, that the left knew this about him all along but denied it for power's sake and for the sake of winning arguments and future elections.

Bill was better than the alternatives.


I have full confidence that when tempers and passions have cooled, maybe in fifteen years, the media, the pundits, and the next generation of left-wing AllForites will give a more honest assessment of the past eight years.

I think so too, but I don't think it will be as positive as you seem to believe.
I believe that in time the few Bush apoligists who are left will wake up to the damage he (and they, by extension) has done to this country.

Most politicians are "disingenuous, lying and arrogant" and Bill Clinton moreso than most Democrats, but as we now know, Bill Clinton could not hold a candle to GW Bush in any of those departments.


Yes, but GWB is a born again Christian so he can do no wrong..:confused:

I'm enjoying the struggle between the supporters of the various candidates.

Here's some more fodder for your debate.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0108/Bills_reason_to_go_negative_media_bias.html

Bill on going negative: media bias made her do it

Bill Clinton voiced his abiding anger at the media's coverage of him and his wife in Durham, N.H., today, and suggested that media bias will force Clinton to go negative on Barack Obama.

I hate to break it to you Brooks, but that is impossible. The invasion and occupation of Iraq only happened in 2003.
"... Bill Clinton... arrogant and entitled, dismissive and fear-mongering. And then Bill Clinton giving us a refresher course in '90s-style truth-twisting and obfuscation -- making stuff up about always having been against the war, and about Hillary having always been for every good decision during his presidency and against every bad one, from Ireland to Sarajevo to Rwanda."
Sixteen words in this were about the war. Arianna's larger point was obviously about Bill Clinton in general and his administration. Things that Dems are finally starting to admit.