No matter what your politics or candidate preference, it was pretty cool in Las Vegas Thursday to see a bunch of African-American pre-teens jumping up and down and clapping their hands and yelling and cheering as 1,200 or so other people screamed and yelled and cheered the arrival of the first African-American man to have a legitimate shot at getting slimed mercilessly and relentlessly by the Republican sleaze machine in a presidential general election.
Having said that, they were school kids on a field trip, after all, and about 90 seconds after Barack Obama started filling the air with words, the youngsters started gabbing amongst themselves, counting tiles and whatever, and generally looking bored. But still...
As for the words filling the air, Obama is clearly trying to put a little sharper edge on them. He called the Iraq fiasco "a war that needs to come to an end right now," which isn't quite the same grown-up tone he aspired to convey with "we need to be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in," his stump line of choice on Iraq earlier this summer. As Patraeus-Packed Supercalifragilistic September rolls along, it'll be fun to see how his admonition to bring the war "to an end right now" manifests itself if and when Senator, as opposed to candidate, Obama starts musing about how he'll vote on legislation to keep funding Bush's fiasco.
And there was also this...
"It's going to take more than just a change in political party in the White House to truly turn this country around."
Hey, what's he getting at?
"George Bush and Dick Cheney turned divisive special interest politics into an art form. But they didn't invent it."
What's he talking about?
"It was there before they got to Washington..."
Whoa, where's he going with this...
"...and if we don't stand up and insist on something different, it's going to be there after they're gone."
Something different from what, or from who?
"There are those who are bragging about their experience working the system in Washington."
Who's doing that?
"But the problem is the system in Washington hasn't been working for us ... think about it, we've been talking about the health care crisis for decades, yes, through Democratic and Republican administrations."
Hey, that's right! Who is it that's been dawdling in Washington while all this was going on?
"Too many people in Washington see politics as a game."
Hmm, that sounds familiar.
"It should not be about who can play the game better. It has to be about who can put an end to the game plan."
Enough, we're convinced. The only answer is to make sure that the Democratic nomination does not fall into the hands of that long-time experienced Washington establishmentarian insider and power player, Dennis Kucinich.
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