I found this interesting and wanted to share.
February 28, 2008
Op-Ed Contributor
I’m Not Running for President, but ...
By MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG
WATCHING the 2008 presidential campaign, you sometimes get the feeling that the candidates — smart, all of them — must know better. They must know we can’t fix our economy and create jobs by isolating America from global trade. They must know that we can’t fix our immigration problems with border security alone. They must know that we can’t fix our schools without holding teachers, principals and parents accountable for results. They must know that fighting global warming is not a costless challenge. And they must know that we can’t keep illegal guns out of the hands of criminals unless we crack down on the black market for them.
The vast majority of Americans know that all of this is true, but — politics being what it is — the candidates seem afraid to level with them.
Over the past year, I have been working to raise issues that are important to New Yorkers and all Americans — and to speak plainly about common sense solutions. Some of these solutions have traditionally been seen as Republican, while others have been seen as Democratic. As a businessman, I never believed that either party had all the answers and, as mayor, I have seen just how true that is.
In every city I have visited — from Baltimore to New Orleans to Seattle — the message of an independent approach has resonated strongly, and so has the need for a new urban agenda. More than 65 percent of Americans now live in urban areas — our nation’s economic engines. But you would never know that listening to the presidential candidates. At a time when our national economy is sputtering, to say the least, what are we doing to fuel job growth in our cities, and to revive cities that have never fully recovered from the manufacturing losses of recent decades?
More of the same won’t do, on the economy or any other issue. We need innovative ideas, bold action and courageous leadership. That’s not just empty rhetoric, and the idea that we have the ability to solve our toughest problems isn’t some pie-in-the-sky dream. In New York, working with leaders from both parties and mayors and governors from across the country, we’ve demonstrated that an independent approach really can produce progress on the most critical issues, including the economy, education, the environment, energy, infrastructure and crime.
I believe that an independent approach to these issues is essential to governing our nation — and that an independent can win the presidency. I listened carefully to those who encouraged me to run, but I am not — and will not be — a candidate for president. I have watched this campaign unfold, and I am hopeful that the current campaigns can rise to the challenge by offering truly independent leadership. The most productive role that I can serve is to push them forward, by using the means at my disposal to promote a real and honest debate.
In the weeks and months ahead, I will continue to work to steer the national conversation away from partisanship and toward unity; away from ideology and toward common sense; away from sound bites and toward substance. And while I have always said I am not running for president, the race is too important to sit on the sidelines, and so I have changed my mind in one area. If a candidate takes an independent, nonpartisan approach — and embraces practical solutions that challenge party orthodoxy — I’ll join others in helping that candidate win the White House.
The changes needed in this country are straightforward enough, but there are always partisan reasons to take an easy way out. There are always special interests that will fight against any challenge to the status quo. And there are always those who will worry more about their next election than the health of our country.
These forces that prevent meaningful progress are powerful, and they exist in both parties. I believe that the candidate who recognizes that the party is over — and begins enlisting all of us to clean up the mess — will be the winner this November, and will lead our country to a great and boundless future.
Michael R. Bloomberg is the mayor of New York.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
One Day After the NY Times Endorses Clinton
then run this little gem...
January 26, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Questions for the Clintons
By BOB HERBERT
Charleston, S.C.
Joseph P. Riley Jr. has been mayor of this historic and often tense city since the mid-1970s. He’s a Democrat, highly respected and has worked diligently to heal racial wounds that have festered in some cases for hundreds of years.
He has endorsed Barack Obama in today’s Democratic primary. But what struck me during an interview in his quiet office in an exquisitely restored City Hall was not the fact of the endorsement, but the manner in which the mayor expressed it.
He went out of his way to praise the Democratic field, including some of the candidates who have dropped out, like Senators Joseph Biden and Chris Dodd. He talked about his fondness for Bill and Hillary Clinton and said: “It’s tough when you have to choose between friends.”
The mayor’s thoughtful, respectful, generous assessment of the field echoed the tone that had prevailed until recently in the Democratic primary campaign. That welcome tone has been lost, undermined by a deliberate injection of ugliness, and it would be very difficult to make the case that the Clintons have not been primarily to blame.
Bill Clinton, in his over-the-top advocacy of his wife’s candidacy, has at times sounded like a man who’s gone off his medication. And some of the Clinton surrogates have been flat-out reprehensible.
Andrew Young, for instance.
This week, while making the remarkable accusation that the Obama camp was responsible for raising the race issue, Mr. Clinton mentioned Andrew Young as someone who would bear that out. It was an extremely unfortunate reference.
Here’s what Mr. Young, who is black and a former ambassador to the United Nations, had to say last month in an interview posted online: “Bill is every bit as black as Barack. He’s probably gone with more black women than Barack.”
He then went on to make disgusting comments about the way that Bill and Hillary Clinton defended themselves years ago against the fallout from the former president’s womanizing. That’s coming from the Clinton camp!
And then there was Bob Kerrey, the former senator and another Clinton supporter, who slimed up the campaign with the following comments:
“It’s probably not something that appeals to him, but I like the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and that his father was a Muslim and that his paternal grandmother is a Muslim. There’s a billion people on the planet that are Muslims, and I think that experience is a big deal.”
Pressing the point, Mr. Kerrey told CNN’s John King: “I’ve watched the blogs try to say that you can’t trust him because he spent a little bit of time in a secular madrassa. I feel quite the opposite.”
Get it?
Let’s start with the fact that Mr. Obama never attended a madrassa, and that there is no such thing as a secular madrassa. A madrassa is a religious school. Beyond that, the idea is to not-so-slyly feed the current frenzy, on the Internet and elsewhere, that Senator Obama is a Muslim, and thus potentially (in the eyes of many voters) an enemy of the United States.
Mr. Obama is not a Muslim. He’s a Christian. And if he were a Muslim, it would not be a legitimate reason for attacking his candidacy.
The Clinton camp knows what it’s doing, and its slimy maneuvers have been working. Bob Kerrey apologized and Andrew Young said at the time of his comment that he was just fooling around. But the damage to Senator Obama has been real, and so have the benefits to Senator Clinton of these and other lowlife tactics.
Consider, for example, the following Web posting (misspellings and all) from a mainstream news blog on Jan. 13:
“omg people get a grip. Can you imagine calling our president barak hussien obama ... I cant, I pray no one would be disrespectful enough to put this man in our whitehouse.”
Mr. Obama’s campaign was always going to be difficult, and the climb is even steeper now. There is no reason to feel sorry for him. He’s a politician out of Chicago who must have known that campaigns often degenerate into demolition derbies.
Still, it’s legitimate to ask, given the destructive developments of the last few weeks, whether the Clintons are capable of being anything but divisive. The electorate seems more polarized now than it was just a few weeks ago, and the Clintons have seemed positively gleeful in that atmosphere.
It makes one wonder whether they have any understanding or regard for the corrosive long-term effects — on their party and the nation — of pitting people bitterly and unnecessarily against one another.
What kind of people are the Clintons? What role will Bill Clinton play in a new Clinton White House? Can they look beyond winning to a wounded nation’s need for healing and unifying?
These are questions that need to be answered. Stay tuned.
January 26, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Questions for the Clintons
By BOB HERBERT
Charleston, S.C.
Joseph P. Riley Jr. has been mayor of this historic and often tense city since the mid-1970s. He’s a Democrat, highly respected and has worked diligently to heal racial wounds that have festered in some cases for hundreds of years.
He has endorsed Barack Obama in today’s Democratic primary. But what struck me during an interview in his quiet office in an exquisitely restored City Hall was not the fact of the endorsement, but the manner in which the mayor expressed it.
He went out of his way to praise the Democratic field, including some of the candidates who have dropped out, like Senators Joseph Biden and Chris Dodd. He talked about his fondness for Bill and Hillary Clinton and said: “It’s tough when you have to choose between friends.”
The mayor’s thoughtful, respectful, generous assessment of the field echoed the tone that had prevailed until recently in the Democratic primary campaign. That welcome tone has been lost, undermined by a deliberate injection of ugliness, and it would be very difficult to make the case that the Clintons have not been primarily to blame.
Bill Clinton, in his over-the-top advocacy of his wife’s candidacy, has at times sounded like a man who’s gone off his medication. And some of the Clinton surrogates have been flat-out reprehensible.
Andrew Young, for instance.
This week, while making the remarkable accusation that the Obama camp was responsible for raising the race issue, Mr. Clinton mentioned Andrew Young as someone who would bear that out. It was an extremely unfortunate reference.
Here’s what Mr. Young, who is black and a former ambassador to the United Nations, had to say last month in an interview posted online: “Bill is every bit as black as Barack. He’s probably gone with more black women than Barack.”
He then went on to make disgusting comments about the way that Bill and Hillary Clinton defended themselves years ago against the fallout from the former president’s womanizing. That’s coming from the Clinton camp!
And then there was Bob Kerrey, the former senator and another Clinton supporter, who slimed up the campaign with the following comments:
“It’s probably not something that appeals to him, but I like the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and that his father was a Muslim and that his paternal grandmother is a Muslim. There’s a billion people on the planet that are Muslims, and I think that experience is a big deal.”
Pressing the point, Mr. Kerrey told CNN’s John King: “I’ve watched the blogs try to say that you can’t trust him because he spent a little bit of time in a secular madrassa. I feel quite the opposite.”
Get it?
Let’s start with the fact that Mr. Obama never attended a madrassa, and that there is no such thing as a secular madrassa. A madrassa is a religious school. Beyond that, the idea is to not-so-slyly feed the current frenzy, on the Internet and elsewhere, that Senator Obama is a Muslim, and thus potentially (in the eyes of many voters) an enemy of the United States.
Mr. Obama is not a Muslim. He’s a Christian. And if he were a Muslim, it would not be a legitimate reason for attacking his candidacy.
The Clinton camp knows what it’s doing, and its slimy maneuvers have been working. Bob Kerrey apologized and Andrew Young said at the time of his comment that he was just fooling around. But the damage to Senator Obama has been real, and so have the benefits to Senator Clinton of these and other lowlife tactics.
Consider, for example, the following Web posting (misspellings and all) from a mainstream news blog on Jan. 13:
“omg people get a grip. Can you imagine calling our president barak hussien obama ... I cant, I pray no one would be disrespectful enough to put this man in our whitehouse.”
Mr. Obama’s campaign was always going to be difficult, and the climb is even steeper now. There is no reason to feel sorry for him. He’s a politician out of Chicago who must have known that campaigns often degenerate into demolition derbies.
Still, it’s legitimate to ask, given the destructive developments of the last few weeks, whether the Clintons are capable of being anything but divisive. The electorate seems more polarized now than it was just a few weeks ago, and the Clintons have seemed positively gleeful in that atmosphere.
It makes one wonder whether they have any understanding or regard for the corrosive long-term effects — on their party and the nation — of pitting people bitterly and unnecessarily against one another.
What kind of people are the Clintons? What role will Bill Clinton play in a new Clinton White House? Can they look beyond winning to a wounded nation’s need for healing and unifying?
These are questions that need to be answered. Stay tuned.
Friday, January 25, 2008
if it's between Hillary and anyone else (i.e. Romney or Huckabee), I would vote for....ack....Hillary. But if it's between Hillary and McCain, in spite of some questionable and unsavory things he has done in the last year, I would THINK about voting for him. He's a good person. I would be miserable with another staunch conservative at the helm, but I don't get the same slimeball vibe from him that I do from Romney. That guy just creeps me out
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