Hagel’s ’memo’
Sen. Chuck Hagel, in a “Memo to the Candidates” on Thursday, urged the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates to bring the country together rather than tear it apart in the campaign ahead.
“One of these candidates is going to have to bring this country together, make the Congress a partner, form a broad consensus to govern and help lead the world,” Mr. Hagel, a Nebraska Republican who has yet to endorse presumed Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, said in a speech at the Brookings Institution.
“If they so polarize and divide our country during the campaign, they will find it difficult to govern. The complexities of an interconnected world will require leadership and decisions from the new president the day he takes office. These realities won’t wait until America might come back together.”
Feeling down
“Late last week, Gallup published its annual survey of public confidence in U.S. institutions,” Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger writes.
“At the top, with an impressive combined ’great’ or ’a lot’ approval of 71 percent sits the military, described since 2003 as presiding over a ’failure’ in Iraq,” Mr. Henninger said.
“At the bottom of the heap, displacing HMOs as our worst institution, one finds the second branch of government, our Congress, at 12 percent. The Gallup folks noted it is ’the worst rating Gallup has measured for any institution in the 35-year history of this question.’ Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, come on down! You’ve made history.
“For my currently dwindling money, this chart says more about the real source of Americans’ bad mood than the cycles of the economy. Markets come and go, but most people expect the nation’s major institutions to serve as reliable bedrock. No longer, and that is what really has people down.
“Voters this year may toss Republicans off the Capitol dome, but Democrats have next-to-no reason to think this is a vote ’for’ them. For what? The same dark tides could float Democrats back to sea in 2010’s off-year election.”
’McCaine’ love
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama joined together Thursday night for a meeting with her donors to bring the party together, but some Clinton supporters didn’t get the unity memo, reports Christina Bellantoni of The Washington Times.
A group of about 40 protesters anticipating the Democrats’ arrival shouted outside the Mayflower Hotel in Northwest, drawing stares. Clinton fan Bob Kunst of Miami Beach organized a protest and promised to vote for presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
Save your money, Hillary people are going with McCain, he shouted at donors as they entered. He held a sign that misspelled the Republican’s name, promising he would now be for McCaine.
He also shouted, Obama loves Hamas, Hamas loves Obama, a reference to the Palestinian terrorist group that said it would prefer an Obama presidency, an endorsement Mr. Obama rejected. A separate group of about 15 Clinton fans shouted, What do we want? Hillary’s freedom!
They waved Hillary signs to protest the point of the meeting, and asked donors to not give cash to the Chicago mob.
A handful of antiwar Code Pink protesters said they were there to push Mr. Obama to the left but were not opposed to his candidacy.
Some Democrats who want a Dream Ticket with Mr. Obama choosing Mrs. Clinton as his vice presidential running mate rallied across the street.
Nader’s remarks
“There are right ways to talk about Barack Obama’s relationship with his progressive base, and there are wrong ways, and Ralph Nader chose one of the worst ways in an interview with the Rocky Mountain News this week,” Joan Walsh writes at salon.com.
“Nader accused Obama of ’talking white’ by paying insufficient attention to the problems of urban poverty and the inner city. He went on: ’There’s only one thing different about Barack Obama when it comes to being a Democratic presidential candidate. He’s half African-American. Whether that will make any difference, I don’t know. I haven’t heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What’s keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white? He doesn’t want to appear like Jesse Jackson? We’ll see all that play out in the next few months and if he gets elected afterwards,’ Nader said. …
“There’s so much wrong with what Nader said, starting with the idea that Obama is ’talking white.’ I also, despite mixed feelings, ultimately reject the notion that an African-American has some special duty to deal with the poverty and alienation that is the legacy of slavery and racism. I know why Nader feels that way; I know many people do, some of them black; but I feel like it’s all of our responsibility, including John McCain, not the special burden of black people, including Barack Obama.”
Too many friends
“Arianna Huffington, why won’t you be friends with me?” asks reporter Christina Bellantoni in her “On the Democrats” blog at www.washingtontimes.com.
“I regularly read (and have my stories posted) on Huffington Post, which has become one of the most trafficked sites out there,” Ms. Bellantoni said.
“I briefly covered your run for governor during the California recall election working for a small Bay Area paper, and we’ve met once or twice, here and there, on the 2008 campaign trail. So when Facebook told me that you were one of the coveted ’People you may know,’ I pounced at the offer to click the ’Add as friend’ link under your smiling face. But even though we have a whopping 23 mutual friends, I was rejected.
“’Arianna already has too many friends,’ Facebook informed me.
“Barack Obama has more than 1 million of them! Arianna, you can make it up to me the next time I see you. Until then …”
A response quickly came from community manager Katie Saddlemire, assuring Ms. Bellantoni that “she does want to be your friend.”
“The trouble is, Arianna has 5,000 friends, and Facebook currently doesn’t allow personal profiles to have any more than that. There is talk they’ll lift the limit soon, and when we do, she’ll certainly add you as a friend,” Ms. Saddlemire wrote, going on to explain that Facebook has different rules for “pages” and “personal accounts.”
All in good fun — “I assured her I wasn’t too worried about it, and that, of course, this blog is meant to be funny,” Ms. Bellantoni wrote.
Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes.com.
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