A protest sign (re: Barack Obama and another historical figure)

Thanks to Jeff Clinton for this contribution [provenance unknown].  /eds.

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Painting by Jack Brummet - SoS Clinton & BHO discuss the Egyptian leadership "situation."

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President Obama's one term?

By Pablo Fanque
All This Is That National Affairs Editor

"If the president goes down the reelection road, we are guaranteed two years of political gridlock at a time when we can ill afford it," Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen wrote in yesterday's Washington Post. "But by explicitly saying he will be a one-term president, Obama can deliver on his central campaign promise of 2008, draining the poison from our culture of polarization and ending the resentment and division that have eroded our national identity and common purpose."

Really? I like the premise (and it is not unprecedented....just ask LBJ--the last voluntary one-term President), but what would really happen is that the GOP would see this as the ultimate capitulation and weakness and would then proceed to steamroll the President for the next two years, leaving us in worse shape than if he went ahead with what to some might seem to be a futile campaign and election.  Or, I guess, he could "pull a Palin," and just quit now and leave Hillary and Smilin' Joe to sort out the mess...

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The Vera Baker story rapidly fades away

By Pablo Fanque
National Affairs Editor


The "investigation about an alleged rumor," as Mark Ambinder of The Atlantic quoted Slate's John Dickerson, appears to have hit a dead end, and the story and rumors are rapidly running out of gas, despite the semi-respectable Enquirer's efforts to keep the story alive.  It appears that the birthers and teabagger/tea partiers are trying to keep the story alive, but the absence of even a shred of evidence makes that rather difficult.

The Drudge Report moved the story toward the middle of the page last night, and today, pushed it off their main page entirely.  A story too flimsy for Matt Drudge?  Doesn't that pretty much tell you all you need to know?   If it's too flimsy for Drudge, you can bet you can't even blow your nose with this one.

http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com/2010/05/did-bho-play-hide-salami-with-vera.html
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Did BHO play hide the salami with Vera Baker, or did The Enquirer pillage their medicine cabinet again?

By Pablo Fanque
All This Is That National Affairs Editor

The story of an alleged Barack Obama affair is based on unconfirmed allegations and the flimsiest possible whisperings.  As you know, however, The Enquirer has broken other unlikely/unbelievable stories in recent years; we're hoping they jumped the gun this time.   It's not a new story; let's face it, it's not even a news story. . .but it's breaking wider this time around. 

Earlier incarnations of the story were usually brushed aside as the ravings or deliberate disinformation of deranged bloggers.  However--and how times have changed!--the Enquirer picking up the story almost grants their (rather dubious)  imprimatur to the rest of the press.  Or at least the rest of the press willing to go way out on a limb.

The story alleged that BHO was caught in a Washington, D.C. Hotel with a former campaign aide, Vera Baker.  Baker was the Finance Director for Barack Obama's 2004 Illinois Senate campaign

The Enquirer writes:  "A confidential investigation has learned that Obama first became close to gorgeous 35 year-old VERA BAKER in 2004 when she worked tirelessly to get him elected to the US Senate, raising millions in campaign contributions."

Interestingly, the Wikipedia has an article on her under consideration for deletion.  There are numerous pictures floating around on websites and blogs that may or may not be Vera Baker.  By all reports, she is a good looking woman, for whatever that's worth.  You'd think it wouldn't be that hard to track down--she was an Obama campaign official in 2004. 

Investigators (not clear whose--Obamas?  The National Enquierers?) are searching for a hotel surveillance videotape.   According to The Enquirer, Baker has insisted in the past that "nothing happened" between them.  The magazine also reports that top anti-Obama operatives (could that be you Ex-Gov. Palin, tossing around your $12 million in royalties?) are offering more than $1 million to witnesses to reveal what they know about the alleged hush-hush affair.

Someone has apparently offered cash to a limo driver who says that he took Vera to a secret hotel rendezvous in a Washington hotel where Obama was staying in 2004.   "A reporter confirmed the limo driver's account of the secret 2004 rendezvous and has also learned that on-site hotel surveillance video camera footage could provide indisputable evidence to the investigation."

Sandrarose.com claims "the Hillary Clinton campaign dug up background information on Barack Obama’s mistress, Vera Baker, in 2008, but decided not to run with the scandal — probably because Hillary knew she would lose the campaign and might need a favor from Obama later on."

Another blogspot blogger writes that "the woman was purportedly sidelined from her duties after Senator Obama’s wife, Michelle, became convinced that he had developed a personal friendship with her."

Without any new, concrete evidence, it seems like this story is destined to fade away quickly, just as it has when it has appeared before in the fringe press, or, new media as they prefer to be called.

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The steaming pile in D.C. is almost up to Obama's Adam's Apple:::::BHO catches fire again

By Pablo Fanque
All This Is That National Affairs Correspondent

It has become abundantly clear that the Republicans and the Tea Party People think they have found the winning issue in their quest to return to power.  From chairman Michael Steele to windbag Mitch McConnell, the GOP have said that they will hold the Democrats feet to the fire for passing health care reform come November.

Essentially the Republicans intend to campaign on their twisted belief that there is nothing wrong with the way insurance companies do business.  In fact, the GOP seems to say, we probably need to cut them even more leeway.  [Ed's note:  how's that free-enterprisey stuff workin' for ya?] This is a fight that Obama is nowhere near ready to give up.  In fact, in the last few days he seems to have caught fire again--giving impassioned speeches (as opposed to those rather cooler, cerebral ones that dominated his first year as President.  He has held two large rallies outside Washington this week.  He's twisting arms, rallying the troops and making one more push to settle this insanity for once, and for all. 

Mr. Obama said this week, and rightfully so, that his health care plan incorporates the best ideas of Democrats and Republicans, and that it strikes a middle ground between government-run health care, and a system dominated by insurance companies.

"So I don't believe we should give either the government or the insurance companies more control over health care in America. I want to give you more control over health care in America."

 As an old friend once wrote in a poem "Go, you sumbitch!, go!"
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Taking Up A Collection For President Obama

On my way back to my hotel in Washington, D.C., I was caught in a hellish traffic jam. I asked a cop walking between cars "hey, what's going on?"

The officer said "the President is depressed. He stopped his motorcade and threatened to douse himself with gasoline and torch it. He says no one believes his stories about the war in Afghanistan, or that his stimulus money will help anyone except corporations. His health plan is a joke. Even the press is piling on now, he said. So, anyhow, we're taking up a collection for him."

"How much have you got so far?" I asked.

The officer replied, "About 14 gallons, but I think a lot of folks are still siphoning."

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Obama brings Teleprompters to VA elementary school & avoids being tripped up by the tricksy 6th graders

By Jack Brummet

[ed's note: by Jack, largely because Pablo Fanque refused to have anything to do with this story. Is he getting soft on POTUS?]

This just seems so, uh, lame? Last week, BHO visited an elementary school class in Falls Church, Virginia. The sixth graders must have been a tough crowd. . .The President brought along two TelePrompTers.

I am probably reading too much into all this. There has to be some reason other than wanting to deliver a perfectly nuanced and cadenced speech. When you think about it, I bet George W. Bush would have skipped the prompters and fumbled through as best as he could (the autocue machine never did make him sound like an orator). With President Bush, you could understand teleprompters, but with President Obama, you know he could get through whatever speech he was delivering at the elementary school. On the other hand, no speech a President gives is confined to that room, as the press photos show. Even the most casual speech has the potential to end up broadcast to millions on the airwaves and cable networks...
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digital art: The First Lady

Click Mrs. O to enlarge

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