Surrounded by an enormous, adoring crowd, Barack Obama promised a clean break from the “broken politics in Washington and the failed policies of George W. Bush” Thursday night as he embarked on the final lap of his audacious bid to become the nation’s first black president.
“America, now is not the time for small plans,” the 47-year-old Democratic Illinois senator told an estimated 84,000 people packed into Invesco Field, a huge football stadium at the base of the Rocky Mountains.
He vowed to cut taxes for nearly all working-class families, end the war in Iraq and break America’s dependence on Mideast oil within a decade. By contrast, he said, “John McCain has voted with President Bush 90 percent of the time,” a scathing indictment of his Republican rival — on health care, education, the economy and more.
Polls indicate a close race between Obama and McCain, the Arizona senator who stands between him and a place in history. On a night 45 years after Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I have a Dream Speech,” Obama made no overt mention of his own race.
“I realize that I am not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don’t fit the typical pedigree” of a presidential candidate was as close as he came to the long-smoldering issue that may well determine the outcome of the election.
Fireworks lit the night sky as Obama, his speech concluded, accepted the cheers of supporters. His wife, Michelle, and their daughters Malia and Sasha joined him as the country music anthem “Only in America” filled the stadium. Vice presidential running mate Joseph Biden and his wife, Jill, joined them onstage.
Depicted by McCain as too young and inexperienced to sit in the Oval Office, Obama responded with an oblique reference to his rival’s temper.
“If John McCain wants to have a debate about who has the temperament, and judgment, to serve as the next commander in chief, that’s a debate I’m ready to have,” he said.
John McCain has utilized almost every television commercial in his campaign as a means of slamming Obama Barack — even calling him a “celebrity“. Meanwhile, Barack has mostly focused on his own merits.
Well, Barack is finally on attack. This election is going to be extremely fun to watch. Can you imagine how dirty things will get by November?
Some people take their music seriously. So seriously, they’re willing to take the potential next President of the United States to court!
The singer-songwriter sued McCain and the Ohio and national Republican committees in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Thursday, accusing them of using his song “Running on Empty” without his permission.
The lawsuit claims the song’s use was an infringement of his copyright and will lead people to conclude he endorses McCain. The suit says Browne is a lifelong liberal who is as well-known for his music as for being “an advocate for social and environmental justice.”
The advertisement mocks Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s contention that if U.S. drivers got regular tuneups and drove on properly inflated tires, they could save the same amount of oil that would be gained by offshore drilling. According to the suit, “Running on Empty” plays in the background of the ad criticizing the remarks.
Robert Bennett, chairman of the Ohio party, said the ad was pulled when Browne objected. He called the lawsuit a “big to-do about nothing.”
McCain spokesman Brian Rogers disavowed the ad, saying it wasn’t a product of the Republican presidential candidate’s campaign.
Browne’s lawsuit contends the Ohio Republican party released the ad on behalf of McCain and the RNC. The RNC did not return a phone call seeking comment.
The suit notes that other musicians, including ABBA and John Cougar Mellencamp, have asked McCain to stop using their work.
Browne’s attorney, Lawrence Iser, called the ad’s use of the song “reprehensible.”
The 59-year-old singer claims his reputation has already been damaged and is seeking more than $75,000 in damages.
Browne released “Running on Empty” — the song and an album by the same name — in 1977. According to the lawsuit, the album has sold more than 7 million copies.
Browne’s financial success has aided Democratic candidates over the years. Campaign finance records show he contributed $2,300 to Obama’s presidential campaign last year and $2,000 to the Illinois senator’s campaign coffers in 2004.
John McCain is losing my respect rapidly. First all of his ads are geared towards “bashing the competition”, instead of pushing his own goals and merits — now he’s blatantly using copyrighted songs without the artists permission. Shame on you!
source: Jackson Browne sues McCain, RNC over song in ad [yahoo news]
It may seem as if most entertainment industry figures are aligning with Barack Obama and just a few with John McCain, but there are still a handful of famous names who are still on the fence. And both campaigns are well aware of one star who stands out among the undecideds: Angelina Jolie.
Both campaigns have reached out to her, apparently to court her support. But in a statement to Variety provided by political adviser Trevor Neilson, Jolie says that she is waiting to make up her mind.
“I have not decided on a candidate,” Jolie says, “I am waiting to see the commitments they will make on issues like international justice, refugees and how to address the needs of children in crisis around the world.”
Unlike many other celebrity endorsements, Jolie’s carries the weight and influence of her extensive humanitarian work around the world, as the goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Her statement was an indication that she would be open to choosing a candidate.
That was in evidence earlier this year after her trip to Iraq, when she wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post, “Staying to Help in Iraq,” in which she argued that the U.S. should step up financial and material assistance to Iraq — not withdraw from its commitment in the region.
She wrote, “My visit left me even more deeply convinced that we not only have a moral obligation to help displaced Iraqi families, but also a serious, long-term, national security interest in ending this crisis.
“Today’s humanitarian crisis in Iraq — and the potential consequences for our national security — are great. Can the United States afford to gamble that 4 million or more poor and displaced people, in the heart of Middle East, won’t explode in violent desperation, sending the whole region into further disorder?”
“What we cannot afford, in my view, is to squander the progress that has been made.”
She did, however, “call on each of the presidential candidates and congressional leaders to announce a comprehensive refugee plan with a specific timeline and budget as part of their Iraq strategy.”
Her call for a continued U.S. presence left some conservative blogs buzzing that Jolie may in fact endorse McCain — after some had just assumed that she would back Obama.
Jolie has said very little about the presidential race since.
As you all know, John McCain has already started hitting below the belt, calling Barack Obama “the world’s biggest celebrity”.
McCain even went as far as comparing Barack to Paris Hilton.
Well… she’s pissed.
UPDATE (James):
For those unable to watch the video, ABC News’ Tahman Bradley has the rundown:
Sitting on a lawn chair in a bathing suit, Ms. Hilton says to camera, “Hey America, I’m Paris Hilton and I’m a celebrity too. Only I’m not from the olden days and I’m not promising change like that other guy. I’m just hot.”
She continues, “But then that wrinkly white-haired guy used me in his campaign ad, which I guess means that I’m running for president.”
And so, since Hilton has interpreted the comparison to Sen. Obama, D-Ill., as meaning that she too is qualified to be leader of the free world, Hilton, jokingly, lays out her campaign platform.
The video has some more tough words for the “wrinkly white-haired” Arizona Senator: “He’s the oldest celebrity it the world, like super old. Old enough to remember when dancing was a sin and beer was served in a bucket,” a narrator says, with a picture of Larry King and then Yoda to drive home the age point.
In the unkindest cut of all, McCain’s spokesperson Tucker Bounds tells TMZ that on the subject of energy, Paris is deeper than Barack. He says, “Sounds like Paris is taking the ‘All of the Above’ energy approach that John McCain has advocated — both alternatives and drilling. Perhaps the reality is that Paris has a more substantive energy plan than Barack Obama.”
Naturally, all of this has resulted in some enlightening discussion on the issues that matter most to Americans.
According to the Federal Election Commission website, the Hilton’s contributed the dough last March. Initially, Rick put up all the $$$ but in April it was split between him and his wife.
Now it’s being reported that McCain is taking a shots at Obama, using Paris as his ditzy weapon.
Personally, I don’t see the big deal…We ALL take shots at Paris, she’s an easy target.
source: Paris’ Parents to McCain: How Dare You [tmz]
As I was sorting through my Sunday Washington Post so that I could throw everything but the Parade and Washington Post Magazine my wife reads into the recycle bin, my attention was grabbed by this photo montage on the front of the Style section:
For a second, I thought they had juxtaposed Barack Obama with Malcolm X (the newsprint version is grainier than the digital one). But the Obama as Will Smith and John McCain and John Wayne comparison is more apt.
Wonderful moment in John Ford’s “The Searchers,” from way back in 1956: John Wayne, as the surly, violent Ethan Edwards, signals to his young compadre that it’s time to move on in their pursuit of Scar, the Comanche chief who’s murdered their family and kidnapped the youngest daughter, Debbie.
“Let’s go, blankethead,” he scowls to the young Martin Pawley.
I love the Duke’s pronunciation of the word “blankethead”; it radiates contempt for the young and the untested. Ethan is using the blast of scorn to tell the young man not only to get going to his horse but to get going in growing up, to acquire sand, grit, salt and all the other granular metaphors for old-guy toughness and savvy. Blankethead: It’s a three-syllable telegram on the theme of the fecklessness of youth, and nobody but Wayne could turn it into poetry.
But in the same instant, I remember Will Smith in the original “Men in Black.” The hotshot young cop has been recruited to an alien-hunting team secretly HQ’d in a New York bridge, and now he’s working for Tommy Lee Jones and Rip Torn. Torn and Jones are babbling about something and not paying attention to Smith. There’s a moment of frustration on the young face, and he interrupts with his own blast of scorn: “Hey, old guys!”
It’s a voice full of impatience, annoyance, even contempt, suggesting they haven’t the energy, the quickness or the attention span to take care of business. It’s on him, now, the new guy, the kid: He’s got to keep them from wandering off, losing track, drifting as the old are wont to do.
This could make for one odd family reunion: Barack Obama is a distant cousin of actor Brad Pitt, and…
Hillary Rodham Clinton is related to Pitt’s girlfriend, Angelina Jolie.
Researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Society found some remarkable family connections for the three presidential candidates — Democratic rivals Obama and Clinton, and Republican John McCain.
Clinton, who is of French-Canadian descent on her mother’s side, is also a distant cousin of singers Madonna, Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette. Obama, the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, can call six U.S. presidents, including George W. Bush, his cousins. McCain is a sixth cousin of first lady Laura Bush.
Genealogist Christopher Child said that while the candidates often focus on pointing out differences between them, their ancestry shows they are more alike than they think.
“It shows that lots of different people can be related, people you wouldn’t necessarily expect,” Child said.
Obama has a prolific presidential lineage that features Democrats and Republicans. His distant cousins include President George W. Bush and his father, George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Harry S. Truman and James Madison. Other Obama cousins include Vice President Dick Cheney, British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill and Civil War General Robert E. Lee.
“His kinships are across the political spectrum,” Child said.
Child has spent the last three years tracing the candidates’ genealogy, along with senior research scholar Gary Boyd Roberts, author of the 1989 book, “Ancestors of American Presidents.”
Pitt and Obama are ninth cousins, linked by Edwin Hickman, who died in Virginia in 1769.
Clinton and Jolie are ninth cousins, twice removed, both related to Jean Cusson who died in St. Sulpice, Quebec, in 1718.
I’m fairly certain that I am a distant cousin of Brad Pitt’s. Give me a call when you have a chance, Brad — Let’s get caught up!
What others said:
Dlisted says, “I think I’ll spend my weekend trying to figure out how the hell I’m related to Bill Gates. This way I’ll have a good reason to knock on his door and hit him up for some real cash.”
source: Obama related to Pitt, Clinton to Jolie [yahoo news]
The lawsuit claims the song’s use was an infringement of his copyright and will lead people to conclude he endorses McCain. The suit says Browne is a lifelong liberal who is as well-known for his music as for being “an advocate for social and environmental justice.”
Researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Society found some remarkable family connections for the three presidential candidates — Democratic rivals Obama and Clinton, and Republican John McCain.
