Reaper represents a viewpoint that, unfortunately, many Americans have. They believe that crazy Islamic extremists are hell bent on taking over the U.S. and raping our daughters and wifes and cutting off our heads and bringing us back to the stone age.

I had a woman actually say those words to me while participating in an anti-war rally near the Air Force Base in Albuquerque in Jan. 03.

The fear mongering, racism, cultural confusion and level of indoctrination within American society make many of us susceptible to these views. Most likely Mr. Reaper is a viewer of FOX news but he could just as well have been watching CNN, ABC, NBC, or CBS to confirm ideas that have been placed in his little petrie dish since he first attended school, and was nourished by his religion, his community and the MSM.

Is it any wonder! The empire needs people like him to spread the divide between us and provide the support for military interventions that have nothing to do with defending our freedoms, our way of life or spreading what we in the U.S. like to call Democracy. Poor Mr. Reaper (if his post is legitimate and not satirical) is just another tooth on a cog in the machinery of empire.

Never mind that because of our governments involvement in almost countless episodes of military intervention, secret operations and exploitive polices in other countries we have become a target and rightfully so; never mind that by our own standards, buildings with no more or no less military significance than the world trade center and much less than the pentagon have been destroyed in other countries by our military with no concern for civilian casualties; "We own the World" and therefore we cannot be wrong.

Frankly, wouldn't it be great if what Reaper says is true!
maybe if our government were taken over by Islamic extremists, we could finally get our troops home to do what they supposedly were organized to do - Defend us against attacks against our constitutional government here at home. Or - maybe the extremists would turn out to be as corrupt and inept as the government we already have and rather than succeed in destroying the constitution as our current government has attempted to do, they would actually wind up supporting the constitution. Hell, I'm almost ready to give it a try.
G0 Barack (Hussein -wink, wink) Obama. America yearns for a change!

vote, maybe it'll be counted, who cares who is in the hot dog seat, f-ck all them f-cking f-cks...its a joke, this world has bigger problems than to be ruled by violence, but hey when jesus comes back on a cloud, the armed forces will be there to fight the ALIEN!!!

What a nice broad discussion we're all having...

Re Corn's article: Criticizing groups of other politicians publicly for things you yourself have done or will do is something that every politician does. Probably even Kucinich. Occasionally it can even be attributed to a good faith change of mind (an experience it can be difficult to imagine some previous commenters ever having had.) Accusing a specific politician, who happens to be your main opponent at the moment, of breaking a promise he never publicly made is something else.

So let's be grownups, admit complexity and nuance into our thought processes, recognize that dishonesty is relative, and thank the man for keeping tabs on this. It's better for everyone when the media doesn't allow candidates to accuse each other of saying things they never said. Asking candidates why they've changed their minds on this or that, or pointing out inconsistencies in their platforms and or behavior, that would of course be an added bonus.

So Corn is pushing for Obama instead of Clinton. Yawn....

Has anyone else noticed the trend lately of Hillary using Fox news as her mouthpiece?

How sad is it that she has no recourse other than to attack Obama for what she herself is guilty of. Doesn't leave much breathing room because it isn't like she really benefits.

The Clintons should've bowed out long ago if they really cared about the country more than their own lock on power via the Democratic party. They have become a major liability and it is pathetic that they can't exit without an iota of dignity intact.

fuk u ,david corn , obama is nothing more than a pawn of the neocons destined to deliver the uranium of africa at the feet of the corporate neocon.a pretty and eloquent face who is blissfully unaware where are largest weapons and our dirty secrets are kept...when the enemies are breathing down your neck , i will be happy to let obama watch your back ...personally i would rather have people 'in the know' like hillary and bill , watching mine and as a very distant,second choice , i would settle for a diplomatic harbinger for peace,who abides by our constitution , such as the underated,ron paul. barak obama is oh so attractive to the corporate war-mongering neocons, because like the president before him...he will deliver the goods (uranium)

Reaper--in terms of stark political realities and calculation, I am inclined to agree with you.
Clinton has obvious liabilities-aside from gender, but if we were to be completely honest, Obama has a certain amount stacked against him--and his pop star status as the anti-Clinton change agent may presently be obscuring that ugly truth.

DAVID CORN, I'm for Edwards personally, but you ask the question, did Obama say he would never vote to fund the war? In so many words, indeed he did. Obama said, there comes a time when we have to say NO to Bush, Obama was referring to funding the war in Iraq. He never said NO to Bush about funding the war, he voted YES to fund it. ___ Clinton is correct on that issue and you are incorrect on it.

David Corn- here are the words you used to show that you are just plain wrong.

"Obama challenged the Congress to 'stand up to the misplaced priorities of this Administration' by delaying the $87 billion for Iraq until the President provides a specific plan and timetable for ending the U.S. occupation, justifies each and every dollar to ensure it is not going to reward Bush political friends and contributors, and provides 'investment in our own schools, health care, economic development and job creation that is at least comparable' to what is going to Iraq. 'It's not just Iraq that needs rebuilding. It's America, too,' Obama said."

This never happened, so what if Clinton wasn't technically correct verbatim. He clearly says that he won't vote for funding without these provisions which were never met. He is a whore just like the rest of them...

Both Hillary and Obama have supported the war and have given succor to the terrorist war criminal Bush. I won't vote for either one of them. They are both now complicit in war crimes. Their actions have disqualified them as decent humans. I would never vote for either one of them. Kuncinich shines like a beacon of light. He's by far the best man for the job.

My assumption was that Reaper's post was satirical--tongue in check as well.

Apologies to those who literally perceived it.

Celebrity and others,

As a member of the Bill-Clintonian "Cruise missle Left" David Corn can hardly be said to carry any anti war credentials himself anyway!

I will never forget how Corn unrelentingly red-baited the ANSWER organized antiwar demonstrations with relish during the fall 2002 war runup, calling us dupes for Saddam and his WMD's.

As far as his magazine Mother Jones - it sold out to the bougeois liberaloids long ago. It is an insult to it's namesake and does not reflect Kucinich's values. And Celebrity, by "the NATION" you meant the US people,not the magazine? That magazine dabbled in Cruise Missile Leftism, and remains kind of sold out too.

Reaper, you didn't means oops Obama, you intended to link him with Osama - an old FOX news stunt. Why don't you take your xenophobia to a site that thinks with their brainstem instead of their cortex?

kathyodat

Justice, some truth, and the Hollywood way, yes and superman wears tights...must like his stool pushed,,,,now semi seriously, Obama might have an easier time making foreign policy with those crazy muslim f-cks, but also a world of fairly moderate people, of all religions, the fact remains with a Democrat house and Senate, and a Dem Prez, we can do some real change starting with stretching the necks of some of the traitorous war profiteers,in the White whore House, and finding where the US taxpayer money went in IRAQ???????, and for what??? also the NEO-con dream of breaking up OPEC. what happened, the commander in Thief is a Saudia sucker???? Jim Baker with an office in the White Whore House whose client is the Saudi's, is unheard of, and treasonous,,time to change,Obama is a complete change, from the Clinton Crew that will be brought right back in...not that econmically times were somewhat better, but 1 and 2 % interest had something to do with that, as well as the oil pumping at full blast, just went thru easter Montana and central Michigan, no pumps pumping, ???What Gives,,,Michigan has 2 refieries shut down ???strange, the State of Michigan should take them over, and then we shalll see if Michigan is in recession???!!!

Hillary isn't guilty of that VERN, she never said she wouldn't vote to fund the war, Obama did. Then Obama DID vote to fund it, that's is all Clinton is saying. Obama says what is appropriate at the time, he's another bullshitter and is damn good at it. He also does have a Lobbyist running his campaign. Edwards is fully against lobbying and that is the major reason I support him.

It is lobbying and our bought and paid for press and media, that are actually the primary reasons our country is going down the toilet. If our press would tell the truths, Bush and Cheney would have been impeached long ago. If lobbying was forbidden, our now Fascist government would not be run by the rich corporations.

If Kucinich had not endorsed Obama in Iowa, and he essentially did, which resulted in a 7% win for Obama there and a resulting GA-GA attitude for Obma by the press, then press and media coverage every minute for Obama and NONE for Edwards. Had Kucinich not done that, Edwards would have a good chance of being our next president and he would have ended the lobbying. Obama, or no one else running will. That is the KEY, to locking up the madness of DC. ___ End the lobbying.

vern , clinton's gender is not a liability it is a plus. the hard-tailed faction of this world are too deeply ingrained in warring, not enough love.

Hmmm,all the bull biscuits in politics, now how does a smart person turn bull biscuits into energy, so much of it about and it's a never ending supply, WOW no need for nuke power then all the BS and hot air from DC could be put to good use

Kem--lol, like claiming that she didn't say that she wouldn't fund the war is an impovement? lol. That was my only point.

Re: Reaper
Well, in that case---case in point.

But, doesn't it seem like Clinton is really picking nits to get something, ANYTHING to make her case.

Yeah Southern states are going to go ga-ga over a guy with the middle name Hussein. They just love non christian, non whites.

No no VERN, not my point. You had said, "Hillary was guilty of the same crime Obama was" __ and she wasn't. Obama said he would NEVER vote for funding the war, but then he DID vote for it. Clinton never said she would never vote for it. __ Big difference.

It's not the southern states that determine who sits in the White House and Florida is south, but it's full of north.

Will the twinkle bunny dust around Obama last? Maybe! And it may extend along his coatails. Imagine that, a twinkle bunny presidency and a twinkle bunny congress. It may be that we will all enjoy twinkle bunny lives. Yah, that would be a change.

No Kem--they are both pretty bad. I thought Obama gave a great speech at the Dem convention--and it has been downhill from there. I'll never forget his vote of confidence for Condoleeza.

Right now, it appears that the roll Obama is on, will continue, perhaps roll him right into the White House. (If we have an election in November.) Will that be better? Could what we have now be any worse?

The MOST important thing for all of us is, the lobbying. ___ Obama, Clinton, Huckabee, McCain or anyone, __ except John Edwards __ will not stop the lobbying in Washington and therefore, nothing of significance will change in our form of government. The giant corporatons will continue to control the government and as Theadore Rossevelt so well put it, when that happens, Democracy dies and you have fascism, ___ and we have it.

Our only hope was John Edwards and Kucinich has killed that hope, with a petty, get even act. That is a shame, I personally had respected him, __but reality is reality.

Dear Reaper --

You sound like an idiot with your right wing talking points. Go away we don't want you here.

He makes it a bit interesting JHX, trolls often do that.

While I love that Clinton is reduced to taking the position that "Obama is just as bad as I am," I'm deeply troubled by the notion that we as citizens are reduced to voting for leaders based on who we think will F*ck things up the least in the four years that we are subjected to their misrule.

Reaper is right. You just can't face that ugly truth--buying all that crap about how we are so much better than all that--the same claim of American exceptionalism when we have already been revealed in as a sexist, racist, Muslim torturing nation. Why the bristling? of couse it is a liability--that is just the way it is.

One thing to be very wary of. Obama's 'pop-star' status will disappear if he gets the nomination.

For now, the corporate media is happy to play up the corporate friendly candidates on the Dem side. With Dodd (represents Conn insurance industry) and Biden (represents Corp HQ Delaware) out of the race, that mainly leaves Obama and Hillary. The corporate media want one of the two, and will alternatively play up one or the other. I get the sense they've shifted from Hillary to Obama lately.

That will change as soon as Obama is the nominee. Then the corporate media will attack him as some near socialist who's opposed to the more corporate friendly Republican.

We saw this in 2004, when Kerry was getting so much nice coverage and we were told he couldn't be attack because he was a vet. That immediately changed when he became the nominee.

So, if the Dems are basing their wet-dreams of power so they can be better imperialists than Dubya on Obama's 'pop-star' status, they've got a rude shock coming to them. Happens every four years. The wheels fall off the Dem nominee when the corporate media turns from supporters to attackers.

Why do people even on this site keep repeating the lie that Obama is not Christian? He's not a Muslim. Never has been, never will be.

It's very disappointing that there is so much rumor and negativity going on here.

What does the truth have to do with it?

His middle name is Hussein and I am not even going to start on the last name if you can't see that.

I can never decide which I find more darkly humorous:

1) That Free Citizens in the U.S. approach voting for President as if they were Elector Princes in the Holy Roman Empire.

or,

2) That they Imagine they are Qualified to do so.

Have fun kids,

-matti.

Sorry, Kem, but Edwards fails the test, too. He not only took money from lobbyists while he was in Congress, he NEVER stood for the things he now says he stood for. If you want to know what he REALLY stands for, check out the Fortress hedge fund he worked for and invested heavily in. Subprime mortgages, foreclosing on people in New Orleans and elsewhere in Katrina ravaged areas. Yeah, he's a populist, all right. DK is the one candidate who has NOTHING to apologize for in any of these areas, and whose program is actually closest to what Americans say they want. Sadly, the MSM has assured that his voice won't be heard, and too few of us have had the courage to stand up and speak out against this abomination we call democracy in the US. At least I had the chance to vote for him, and did, here in NH.

You're a merry soul? Old maybe. LOL.

Edwards is the ONLY candidate who will stop the lobbying in DC. That is the key for us to have any chance for a democracy, and not have fascism. I don't care if Edwards played in the stock markets, it was not illegal and many of the things said about that about him are just as untrue as saying Obama is a Muslem. Edwards never accepted any money from the corporate lobbyists for his campaign.

Often, I tell friends I generally believe what the Dems say about the Rethugs, and what the Rethugs say about the Dems. My level of trust to either party is so low, I generally think that when one group complains about the other, they generally have a good reason.

I'm feeling the same about Hillary and Obama now. I don't like Hillary and will NEVER vote for her. But, what she says about Obama is pretty much on target to me. He is a talk and nice sounding words, with damn little to back it up.

To me, Obama has been slippery as all heck on the Iraq war. He wasn't in the Senate in 2002, so we don't have a vote for him. He was a State Senator in what I think was a minority and urban district in Chicago. I remember living down intown in Atlanta at that time, and that's sounds like the same sort of district as Obama might have represented. And the areas of Atlanta I lived in were strongly anti-war in 2002.

So, I don't take Obama's anti-war statements in 2002 as being anything particularly brave politically. He was pretty much just saying what his district wanted to hear at the time. And it doesn't tell me how he'd vote as a US Senator because he didn't have the money behind him to be a US Senator at the time. Like Charlie Wilson says in his movie, the consituents of congresscritters are not the voters, they are the contributors. So Obama didn't have the pressures to support the war upon him that he would have had as sitting US Senator.

Since then, Obama's just been strange to me. He constantly cites quotes from his state senate days as proof he's anti-war. But, I don't know of a record in the US Senate to back it up. He has not been voting against the funding of the war. He has not been leading filibusters against the war. In fact, from his time in the US Senate, its hard to think of any actions he's really taken to oppose the war. (I tend to discount the more recent votes as being too close to the campaign. Even a hawk like Hillary voted against the funding or abstained last time. A silly vote since Reid already had enough votes to ensure passage, so I'm sure he turned the POTUS-wannabees lose to vote No.)

So, do I think Obama is anti-war? No. I don't see it. So far he's pretty much adopted the Dem war-party-line that since we are already there, we have to stay there and keep fighting. The telling point to me was in the debates when he lined up with all the Dem war-party-hawks and promised to make sure there were still American troops in Iraq in 2013.

If you vote Obama thinking you are voting to end the war(s), my guess is that you'll be out in the streets protesting alongside of me a year into his administration. Because we'll still be there then.

The way to end lobbying is to have public financing of campaigns. As long as the corporate money flows into campaigns, there'll be lobbying. Trying to end or curtail lobbying without cleaning up our campaign finance system is silly and doomed to fail. Any who propose that are just trying to put a fig-leaf over the problem and pretend they are fixing it. Kinda like McCain-Feingold ended up being by the time it finally passed.

So, tell me, does any of the top three Dems have a strong committment to publicly financed campaigns? I think the answer is NO.

NO ONE would past the test you are all trying to put them too.

I've been a reader here a long, long time, and I've lost patience with every one of you.

You deserve what you're going to get. I'm out.

Hillary Clinton and the tennis shoe pirates of the Democratic party establishment will start doing to Obama what the Republicans did to Harold Ford in November '06.

"When are we going to stop expecting our President to be the damn savior of all our problems and just be grateful for what choices we DO have?"

The truth of the matter is the nation is so damned eager for a new administration you can see it on every media member's face. So in some ways you have to forgive the media for being so antagonistic about shaping the way the race is going. But you have to hope the nation can at least be a little patient, and let things unfold before getting "over eager."

Obama better be careful or he might wind up a flash in the pan like Dean. However if he does, truly believe to his core in what he wants to accomplish with a presidency, hey, it worked for George Bush Jr... why not for Barack Obama?

The key for Obama's campaign is to stay calm, focused and at the task at hand. We're seeing what decending into political mudslinging is doing for Clinton's campaign and it's all backfiring terribly.

If he can stay above the petty jibber jabber, avoid FOX at all costs, and stick to his own
guns, he's going to do well.

I would argue that many of the harshest cynics are probably the most disbelieving of any solution that the state of this country is in. So many people are eager to talk of the Bush failures in the handling of Katrina, the dishonesty in conducting the Iraq war, and yet when a young man steps up and tries to plant a seed of optomism into the spectrum, using our own country's history and what should be the most obvious examples of what has been accomplished, these people use words like "false hopes." So is there no place for speaking of the glorious and good deeds of our tradition? Or should we be limited to "getting real" as Hillary suggests, griping and haggling.

Now more than ever we need to stop arguing over the small stuff, and who said what to whom, when and to what degree and on and on and around we go...

What we need to do is look at where this person is coming from. What is their motive in saying what they are saying? For what purpose and to what end? In regard to political smear tactics this is simple. We're seeing candidates and members of an opposition trying to belittle an opponent out of fear of what he may truly accomplish.

And look at Obama's purpose. Has he gone out on a limb to take anyone down? No. He is living his words through his example.

And I'm ashamed of Nader, the cynnical grinning naysayer.

When are we going to stop expecting our President to be the damn savior of all our problems and just be grateful for what choices we DO have?

talk about the pot calling the kettle black. next she'll play the gender card.

Well I guess if people can play the race card with Osama, Hillary can play the gender card, right?

It's very interesting that the neocons are secretly backing Obama.

Apathetic, ignorant, jingoistic Americans deserve their rotten government. What kind of government can you expect in a country where voters are a mindless army of drones programmed by TV commercials? Americans never think to ask who pays for all that slick PR. That would require some thought, and Americans don't do thought.

Obama? He did what he had to do to get Americans to vote for him: he sold them out.

The rest of the world doesn't deserve our rotten government though. I'll support DK or maybe Edwards in the primaries, but let's face it, any Democrat would be better than the Fascist Party candidates, all of whom would blissfully torture and murder millions of innocents abroad and be proud of it. The Democratic Party candidates are, well, less fascist.

If the U.S. were a normal country that maintained an army for defense instead of world conquest, I'd say: let those morons elect McCain, they deserve him. Financially, I'm sitting pretty, let them shoot themselves in their collective feet. But for the sake of all those innocents around the world who deserve a fate better than death from above at a tender age, I'll vote Democrat instead of socialist or Green, whether the Democrats nominate Barack, Hilarious, or Mickey Mouse.

Quite frankly, what any of them have to say, doesn't mean much. You will not know until after they get in, what their true agenda is.
The most important thing in this election, and those that are to come, is having a paper trail from those damn voting machines. It is so obvious, it hurts.
Without an honest election, you have no democracy, and they become a sham. i.e., 2000, and 2004.

Hillary is Hillary-arious! She's running around New Hampshire shouting at anyone who will listen "Look at ME. I'm for Change, I've always been for Change. Change is what I'm all about, Change is. Look at ME,ME,ME." Pathetic.

Hopefully the Good People of New Hampshire will send this odious woman and her equally odious husband packing in today's primary.

There is one thing true, positive change will bring: No more Bushes and no more Clintons. Hallelujah!

The bigger issue is that Kucinich and Paul have been excluded from further debates. This is digusting, especially when Paul has been beating some of these other Nazi Republican candidates. I guess the media will finally "inform" us who they have chosen for our leader.

My greatest fantasy, of the moment, come true would be for Billary and Obummer to blow each other to smithereens, leaving the nomination to better candidates.

My greatest fantasy is be the CEO of the Laura Scudders peanut butter plant.