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Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 6555
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, February 01, 2008 - 06:04 pm: | 
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Clinton camp: Obama ad inaccurate, dirty politics
by Jason George and Christi Parsons
LOS ANGELES – Last night's presidential candidates debate between Sens. Clinton and Obama might have been as cordial as an ice cream social, but it didn't take long for the gloves to come off again.
Sen. Clinton's campaign held a conference call with reporters this morning, blasting a mailer that Obama has sent out, calling its claim that Clinton's healthcare plan forces people to sign up, and penalizes those who don't, disingenuous and a slur straight from the insurance industry playbook. One speaker on the call said it was as "outrageous as having Nazis march through Skokie, Illinois."
"Democrats are looking for Harry Truman and Senator Obama is giving them Harry and Louise," said Dr. Irwin Redlener, Professor of Public Health and Pediatrics at Columbia University and health advisor to the Clinton campaign.
Irwin was referring to an infamous 1993 television commercial, titled "Harry and Louise," which the Health Insurance Association of America ran against First Lady Clinton's universal healthcare proposal before it failed. In that ad, a couple sits at a kitchen table, trying to figure out how to pay for Clinton's plan, as a voiceover declares: "If we let the government chose we lose."
In the Obama mailer, a couple also is seen sitting at a kitchen table, with these words printed on the page: "Hillary's health care plan forces everyone to buy insurance, even if you can't afford it."
Another person on the call was Peter Harbage, a former health advisor to John Edwards. Harbage said he wasn't speaking for Edwards and that he hasn't joined up with a new campaign, but that he was so angered by the mail piece that he decided to speak out about it.
Any policy that would achieve universal coverage, he said, has to include some kind of mandate.
"It's about making sure everyone participates in the health care system," said Harbage, "and pays in what they can afford."
That ensures not only that everyone has access to health care but also that costs will be lower, he said. Other payers in the system bear the cost when uninsured people end up in the emergency room.
Obama himself conceded that when he called for mandatory coverage for children, Harbage said. He also argues that Obama is wrong when he suggests that affordability is the only barrier to health care.
If that were so, said Harbage, there wouldn't be millions of people currently eligible for public programs who do not take advantage of them nor "millions of people" who" make more than $100,000 without health insurance.
"The most disappointing thing for me about the mailer is that it's misleading about what Sen. Clinton has been talking about and what Sen. Obama has been talking about," he said.
Later in the call, Len Nichols of the New America Foundation threw this line out: "I am personally outraged at the picture used in this mailing," he said.
"It is as outrageous as having Nazis march through Skokie, Illinois," Nichols said. "I just find it disgusting that this kind of imagery is being used to attack the only way to get to universal coverage."
At the end of the call, Howard Wolfson, Clinton's communication's director, hopped on to say that the 'Nazi' line was not the campaign's position.
To see the mailer click here.
To read each of the candidates' health care proposals, click here for Clinton and here for Obama.
Later in the afternoon, Nichols sent an email to reporters apologizing for the Skokie reference.
"Today my passion overwhelmed me," Nichols said in the note. "I chose an analogy that was wholly inappropriate. I am deeply sorry for any offense that my unfortunate comments may have caused."
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2008/02/clinton_camp_obama_ad _inaccura.html |
Nels
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Nels
Post Number: 1028
Registered: 07-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 02, 2008 - 03:04 am: |
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Tonya --
Give it up, It won't work. ;-) |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 6224
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, February 02, 2008 - 11:37 am: |
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Toni Morrison's Obama Endorsement
OBAMA RPT: toni morrison's endorsement
============ ========= ========= ===
Dear Senator Obama,
This letter represents a first for me--a public endorsement of a Presidential
candidate. I feel driven to let you know why I am writing it. One reason is
it may help gather other supporters; another is that this is one of those
singular moments that nations ignore at their peril. I will not rehearse the
multiple crises facing us, but of one thing I am certain: this opportunity
for
a national evolution (even revolution) will not come again soon, and I am
convinced you are the person to capture it.
May I describe to you my thoughts?
I have admired Senator Clinton for years. Her knowledge always seemed to
me exhaustive; her negotiation of politics expert. However I am more
compelled by the quality of mind (as far as I can measure it) of a candidate.
I cared little for her gender as a source of my admiration, and the little I
did
care was based on the fact that no liberal woman has ever ruled in America.
Only conservative or "new-centrist" ones are allowed into that realm. Nor
do I care very much for your race[s]. I would not support you if that was all
you had to offer or because it might make me "proud."
In thinking carefully about the strengths of the candidates, I stunned
myself when I came to the following conclusion: that in addition to keen
intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that
has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I
don't see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination
which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom. It is too bad if we associate it
only with gray hair and old age. Or if we call searing vision naivete. Or if
we believe cunning is insight. Or if we settle for finessing cures tailored
for
each ravaged tree in the forest while ignoring the poisonous landscape that
feeds and surrounds it. Wisdom is a gift; you can't train for it, inherit it,
learn it in a class, or earn it in the workplace--that access can foster the
acquisition of knowledge, but not wisdom.
When, I wondered, was the last time this country was guided by such a
leader? Someone whose moral center was un-embargoed? Someone with
courage instead of mere ambition? Someone who truly thinks of his
country's citizens as "we," not "they"? Someone who understands what it
will take to help America realize the virtues it fancies about itself, what
it
desperately needs to become in the world?
Our future is ripe, outrageously rich in its possibilities. Yet unleashing
the
glory of that future will require a difficult labor, and some may be so
frightened of its birth they will refuse to abandon their nostalgia for the
womb.
There have been a few prescient leaders in our past, but you are the man for
this time.
Good luck to you and to us.
Toni Morrison
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