Taylor Marsh – TaylorMarsh.com – News, Opinion and Weblog on Progressive Politics

Meet “hope.”

“Every Democratic candidate in Wyoming will be painted with that same liberal, big-government brush. We will also be the target of the locker room jokes that rightfully belong to Bill Clinton,” John Millin wrote in a letter to The Denver Post. “While I don’t agree with this view of Mrs. Clinton, I have to accept that this is the truth. It has become the dirty little secret in the Democratic Party,” he wrote. “Westerners have an independent, libertarian spirit and Democrats can make Republicans pay a heavy price for years of pandering to the social conservatives. None of this will happen if Hillary wins the nomination.” The Clinton campaign dismissed Millin’s comments as the work of a surrogate for a rival candidate, Sen. Barack Obama. The Democratic National Committee and the state Democratic spokesman in Wyoming hastened to point out that the party is neutral in the primary campaign and that Millin’s opinions are his own. Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal, a Democrat, declined to comment. Millin is a superdelegate who has thrown his support to Obama. … ..

So much for not fighting the wars of the last two decades.

In the process we’ve gone from Who would you rather have a beer with? to Who would you rather snort a line with.

The Obama campaign will apologize immediately, right? They’ll meet Clinton
on the tarmac of Dulles International and Obama will say personally he’s sorry
for raising Lewinski, however delicately, right? That’s when Clinton will say
that leadership comes from the top.

When pigs fly.

Now that Obama’s drug use is out and being talked about, which the campaign has obviously
been waiting to happen for months, Axelrod hits back. Never mind that everyone is acting like it’s Clinton’s fault Obama experimented with drugs, let alone cocaine. Let’s make her the issue. But Bill Clinton’s sexual
misdeeds have made Hillary Clinton a liability. Oh, but not just because of
the Lewinski scandal. Tut-tut, never. Because Clinton’s “liberal”
policies won’t fly in Wyoming. “Westerners” have an “independent
libertarian” streak. Yeah, so they’re just going to love the one about
Obama signing on to banning handguns. Oh, but Obama doesn’t believe that today.
Great. He was for banning handguns before he was against it.

I can’t wait to hear Wyoming’s reaction to Obama’s drug confessional to high school students, with the added chapter from his book that he was once on his way to “junkie.” Never mind that this was never about helping the kids and teaching them a lesson, but instead meant to inoculate Mr. Obama on his past so he could run for president.

The political
challenges of selling some of Mr. Obama’s policy ideas are tough enough.
You know, like campaigning on giving illegal immigrants driver’s licenses. Yeah, that’s a winner.

So at the very same time Mr. Axelrod is pontificating about Clinton going negative what taste treat does the campaign deliver?
Long after she apologized and ditched the guy who went way off the reservation,
the Obama camp delivers where the press wouldn’t go. A superdelegate of Mr.
Obama brings up the Lewinski greatest hits and how Clinton, by standing by her
marriage vows, will incense Wyoming. By all means,
let us all prop up the sexist pigs that still believe what’s good for the goose
means that it’s the gander’s fault.

I hope it won’t hurt everyone’s sensibilities but even out here in liberal land one thing is certain. Most everyone
has sex. Not everyone does blow, let alone stands in front of junior high school students to
tell the confessional tale while running for president. Admitting mistakes were made in your past is a lot easier when you weren’t caught, but also when you happen to be an exceptional individual with more than the normal issue of talents.

Everyone is hopped up on “hope” right now, but the political blood sugar crash
that will accompany this high is likely to be wicked when Mr. and Mrs. America
take a look at the Democratic party’s nominee only to find the 1960s revisited
because the person Democrats are pushing experimented with drugs, but not just marijuana. I thought
Mr. Obama didn’t want to revisit the those generational wars? Well, when you’re
pushing a candidate that admits he used a variety of drugs I’d say that argument is pretty much off the table. So brush off your tie-dye, people.
Let’s all love one another right now. There’s a reason college kids are flocking
to Barack Obama. I’m not so sure we’ll have the same luck with parents across
America.

It should be a clue that whenever Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter are saying nice
things about a Democrat, Barack Obama in this case, you can bet they’re
kicking each other under the Fox “News” anchor table, gnashing their teeth at the red
meat to come.

A friend sent me a
post from Carl Cameron’s blog dated November 20th, which has a video of
Rudy defending Barack Obama. Does anyone wonder why? It’s obvious. Rudy and
his prosecutor image is likely salivating at going up against Mr. Obama, former
drug user.

Giuliani said he believes Obama’s topic of conversation was completely appropriate. “I respect his honesty in doing that. I think that one of the things we need from our people who are running for office is not this pretense of perfection,” Giuliani said. “The reality is all of us that run for public office, whether its governor, legislator, mayor, president–we are all human beings. If we haven’t made mistakes don’t vote for us cause we got some big ones that are gonna happen in the future and we wont know how to handle them.” The former NYC mayor has been forthright about admitting his own mistakes during the campaign–most recently dogged by his connection to indicted former NYC Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik–even noting in two recent television ads that he is not perfect. But fellow Republican contender Mitt Romney feels differently, saying Obama committed a “huge error.” “It’s just not a good idea for people running for President of the United States who potentially could be the role model for a lot of people to talk about their personal failings while they were kids because it opens the doorway to other kids thinking, ‘well I can do that too and become President of the United States,’” Romney told an Iowa audience today. “I think that was a huge error by Barack Obama…it is just the wrong way for people who want to be the leader of the free world.”

I know I’m asking a lot, but what I’m attempting to discuss has nothing to
do with Shaneen’s comments at all.

Mr. Obama wrote about his drug experimentation with openness and honesty in
his book. I commend him for his transparency. But seriously, what else could
he do? He’s a man of ambition looking to take his career into The Show, the
big game of presidential politics. This is his past. He had to roll it out.
But talking about it in public in front of young people might not have
been the smartest thing to do. However, it was the easiest audience he could
get. Here’s the set up, complete
with video. Look at the age of the audience to whom Mr. Obama is speaking.
The principal sets up the conversation.

Most everyone makes mistakes and veers off course. These same people go on
to lead exemplary lives, including Mr. Obama. Most, however, do not become president.
In fact, they shouldn’t. I’ve tried to convince myself that the next generation
of leaders coming out of the experimental drug era would likely have experimentation
in his or her past. But the more I considered that statement the more cynical it
sounded. Drugs are illegal. It doesn’t matter if I disagree on the marijuana
end of the equation, especially on medical marijuana. The fact remains that
it is so. Cocaine is yet another level of experimentation.

Dare I suggest that with Barack Obama we’re lowering our presidential standards a little?

The audacity of hope could also well turn into political hari kari.

Maybe liberals should send a different message and set higher standards for young people. That doing drugs means some life path possibilities are immediately cut off. There will be a price to pay for doing illegal drugs. The consequences will hijack your dreams.

Take a look below at some of the comments on Cameron’s blog associated with the post showing Rudy getting Obama’s back. Look at Romney’s response, which is a completely different opinion altogether. Now, I think Slick Mitt is the last person in the world who should be president. However, Rudy and Obama commiserating over their imperfect lives leaves me queasy.

Will the next generation of leaders have drug pasts that the public will have to swallow before electing them to higher office? Maybe. But are we really willing to say it doesn’t matter today? Are there no standards for president anymore? Since when is illegal drug use not an issue when considering someone for president? I assure you for millions of Americans it is. That it isn’t for some Democratic primary voters is exhibit A for why we lose elections.

It was cool in high school and college to hang out with the –ahem– “party people”, too, but it wouldn’t have gotten me to Broadway.

So to counter the drug story, Obama’s team brought out what the press wouldn’t cover: And at a campaign event in Iowa, one of Obama’s aides plopped down next to me and spoke even more bluntly. He wanted to know when reporters would begin to look into Bill Clinton’s postpresidential sex life. Of course they’ll get a pass for the Wyoming superdelegate bringing it up. No, Obama’s team won’t apologize. Only Hillary Clinton is held to those standards.

Sex vs. drugs. It’s not even close. Of course, for me the issue has always been Mr. Obama’s convenient ideology. Now the issue is even more grave. It has become a matter of character.

Rich
Lowry wrote today about “Huckacide: A shiny Christmas present for the
Democrats.” We’ve got our
own version in the wind.

If you sent Mr. Obama’s conversation with the high school students to a prospective employer today, via YouTube, getting the job would be difficult. But for the job of president, no problem? Don’t bet on it.

Comment by Ron Richey November 21st, 2007 at 2:34 am Look, I don’t necessarily have a problem with Barak Obama having done stupid things as a kid. But I do have a major problem with him telling a bunch of teenagers about it. I agree with several of the previous commentators that either 1) this is a “polling driven” comment to demonstrate that he is more honest than Hillary, or 2) this is the essence of the supposed “dirt” that the Clinton campaign had on him, and he is just preempting it. In either case, it was a coldly-calculated, purely political stunt. But it certainly did not do those teenagers any good. If Obama were a public school teacher, and shared this little tidbit with a group of school kids, the local school board, not to mention the parents, would have had his head. I know that if my kid were in that audience, I would be outraged. But from a candidate for the presidency of the United States, this is an absolute outrage at every level. But being a darling of the left, all that many of the liberals will say is, oh, how nice that Obama is so honest. What happened to shame? What happened to embarrassment about inappropriate things? While we have a major drug epidemic in this country, it is unconscionable for someone in the position of Obama to air his dirty laundry to a bunch of impressionable teenagers. Thankfully, we have a candidate in Mitt Romney who has the moral clarity to call a spade a spade. He has my vote. _______________ Comment by Diane (with one “N”)from California November 21st, 2007 at 3:37 am Of course Guiliani defended Obama. He has multiple skeletons in his own closet, adultery being the least of his character flaws. But why is the country giving him a pass? Washington politics these days is all about the scandal of the week. How come no one is scandalized by this? I don’t want a candidate to be “honest” about his felonious past. I want someone who has lived in such a way that he doesn’t have anything to lie about! At the very least Obama should be repentant, not proud. I think he thinks his drug use/slacker youth makes him cool. I think it makes him pathetic. The point is, the person responsible for protecting and defending our Constitution should not be a person who breaks the law. How did this moron make it into national politics? _________________ Comment by Christopher November 20th, 2007 at 11:03 pm As an educator I am disappointed in Senator Obama. Substance abuse counselors and programs encourage schools and educators to adopt policies and behaviors such that they do not personally share stories of drug and alcohol abuse be it present or in the past. Doing so can actually have the impact of encouraging adolescent use. Instead, substance abuse should be left to trained professionals, which Senator Obama is not. This is only furthered by the media coverage and the perceptions that will take root and grow throughout the nation. Most adolescents will hear of Obama’s use and have no context to which to understand. This is quite tragic. Further alarming is how quick Mr. Guiliani has been to jump in in support of Senator Obama’s comments. ________________ Comment by Mitch November 21st, 2007 at 2:28 am Obama has written about his drug use in his memoir, “Dreams from My Father.” “Junkie. Pothead. That’s where I’d been headed: the final fatal role of the young would be black man,” Obama wrote. Mostly he smoked marijuana and drank alcohol, Obama wrote, but occasionally he would snort cocaine when he could afford it. Drugs, Obama wrote, were a way he “could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory.” Yes this is something to be proud and inspirational to the youth. I thought marijuana was still illegal in America. And by the way, Mitt Romney didn’t say to lie about it, he just said it was not a good idea to talk about it to a group of students, and I agree with Mitt 100%. This was the wrong place and the wrong time to talk about it. ________________ Comment by Timotheus November 20th, 2007 at 11:30 pm I think Obama’s comments were totally unacceptable. Snorting cocaine is not a matter of just wasting time. Does Obama realize the methamphetamine epidemic that is plaguing people’s lives across this country? Does he realize that he is creating a false impression in these youngsters lives that even if you experiment with serious drugs you’ll be fine and can be very successful? Because if that is what he thinks, he is flat wrong. Many people who experiement like him will not be fine. They will ruin their lives and end up on the street or in prison. Billions of dollars will be spent by the taxpayers to try and help them kick their habits and mostly, the programs will fail. If Rudy knows anything about fighting crime, he ought to have condemned the casual attitude Obama has shown to these students. I sincerely think Obama is not fit to be President. Not if that is the way he thinks about amphetamines. ________________ Comment by JLF November 20th, 2007 at 10:21 pm I am not sure Obama handled it right. Neither does Romney’s claim that Obama should not discuss youthful failings in public. The one point that I agree with Romney on is bringing the subject up himself sans a question from someone else. One should not deny their human failings. In fact I think they should confess them when appropriate. But Obama should not have used his substance abuse as a means of getting political advantage. It REALLY sends the wrong message. ________________ Comment by Mitch November 21st, 2007 at 2:28 am Obama has written about his drug use in his memoir, “Dreams from My Father.” “Junkie. Pothead. That’s where I’d been headed: the final fatal role of the young would be black man,” Obama wrote. Mostly he smoked marijuana and drank alcohol, Obama wrote, but occasionally he would snort cocaine when he could afford it. Drugs, Obama wrote, were a way he “could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory.” Yes this is something to be proud and inspirational to the youth. I thought marijuana was still illegal in America. And by the way, Mitt Romney didn’t say to lie about it, he just said it was not a good idea to talk about it to a group of students, and I agree with Mitt 100%. This was the wrong place and the wrong time to talk about it. ___________________ Comment by Ron Richey November 21st, 2007 at 2:34 am Look, I don’t necessarily have a problem with Barak Obama having done stupid things as a kid. But I do have a major problem with him telling a bunch of teenagers about it. I agree with several of the previous commentators that either 1) this is a “polling driven” comment to demonstrate that he is more honest than Hillary, or 2) this is the essence of the supposed “dirt” that the Clinton campaign had on him, and he is just preempting it. In either case, it was a coldly-calculated, purely political stunt. But it certainly did not do those teenagers any good. If Obama were a public school teacher, and shared this little tidbit with a group of school kids, the local school board, not to mention the parents, would have had his head. I know that if my kid were in that audience, I would be outraged. But from a candidate for the presidency of the United States, this is an absolute outrage at every level. But being a darling of the left, all that many of the liberals will say is, oh, how nice that Obama is so honest. What happened to shame? What happened to embarrassment about inappropriate things? While we have a major drug epidemic in this country, it is unconscionable for someone in the position of Obama to air his dirty laundry to a bunch of impressionable teenagers. Thankfully, we have a candidate in Mitt Romney who has the moral clarity to call a spade a spade. He has my vote. __________________ Comment by Diane (with one “N”)from California November 21st, 2007 at 3:37 am Of course Guiliani defended Obama. He has multiple skeletons in his own closet, adultery being the least of his character flaws. But why is the country giving him a pass? Washington politics these days is all about the scandal of the week. How come no one is scandalized by this? I don’t want a candidate to be “honest” about his felonious past. I want someone who has lived in such a way that he doesn’t have anything to lie about! At the very least Obama should be repentant, not proud. I think he thinks his drug use/slacker youth makes him cool. I think it makes him pathetic. The point is, the person responsible for protecting and defending our Constitution should not be a person who breaks the law. … _________________ Comment by Laurie November 21st, 2007 at 7:32 am Adults need to be responsible for their actions and influence on youngsters, in any situation. Mr. Obama could have gotten the same message across without using his own personal experiences and it would not have been lying, but would have been a better choice to help uplift and inspire young and old alike. He admitted his drug use was a waste, so why suggest that those children too may go down that same path, help them to see they don’t have to. Help them see there are better choices, the world has so much to offer. Suggest the wiser, better, higher road. Now that would be a change for a presidential hopeful. I am not perfect, nor do I expect any of the hopefuls are. I would just hope that good moral character and high values still mean something in this country. Why does it seem that the vass majority of people want a president that has had a life that is like a soap opera than a man/woman that has lived a good wholesome life. Very sad state of affairs…. ___________________ Comment by Rob in MD November 21st, 2007 at 8:12 am I’d like to know what Bill Cosby thought about Oboma’s comments. The youth today, especially black youth, don’t have any morally solid role models to look up to. Their influences are overpaid/overdrugged sports figures, hip-hop thugs, and MTV soft-porn’ers. Oboma panders by saying the he’s experimented, therefore he’s allowed to enter their dishonorable fraternity and win their vote. Nothing here is very surprising or shocking. __________________ Comment by Gary November 21st, 2007 at 8:22 am Ok first off Im 25 married and have a kid. I used drugs and smoked but, I sure don’t tell my daughter or little brothers my war stories. I don’t tell my kid “babe, you know your dad smoked pot and snorted coke, but, I don’t think you should do it. I made a mistake.” I will never vote for a democrat in the first place, but democrat or republican I think it is wrong to do something like that. His speech could have better been used at a AA meeting or something. I think it is wrong and Romney was not talking on Gods behalf like some say, I think he is taking the side of moral decency. Something that alot of Americans have lost. Liberialism is the downfall of America. ____________________

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