Father Apologizes For Having Normal Family

Illinois Senator Barack Obama allowed Access Hollywood to interview him and his family during an Independence Day family barbecue last week in Montana.

Access Hollywood is a hard driving, in your face news program that's known for its direct questioning and thorough research. When compared to Larry King Live, that is.

It was a light, fluffy and preciously cute give and take. The two Obama girls were sweet and respectfully precocious, just as we'd expect to see from two entirely normal girls.

It was a very real campaign moment that struck a pretty cool looking, "First Family" pose.

Then the wheels came off.

Obama faced backlash from the opposition that claims he was exploiting the very family that he had previously said should be left alone. So he ran in full damage control to the Today Show for a morning hug from Matt Lauer, to confess that the interview was a "mistake".

The Today Show interview with Lauer was the mistake. When Obama and his family were on Access Hollywood, it was the least calculated that Obama has been since he first pulled up his Iowa bootstraps to interview for the job of President.

I hope we see more of that. It's all beginning to seem too contrived.

The Profit Of Hate

Jesse Jackson dusted himself off long enough to open his big front door and show his true race baiting colors again.

Apparently Senator Barack Obama isn't black enough for Jesse Jackson.

Well, looky hare!

Good grief.

It's clearly evident to me that individuals like Jackson, Al Sharpton, James Dobson and Pat Robertson (and many in between) would be out of work and approaching financial destitute, if racial and religious discourse subsided and we all just - in the words of the great urban philosopher, Rodney King - all just got along.

Hate is a very profitable industry.

Check your integrity at the door.

Senator McTruant

Arizona Senator and presumptive Republican Presidential nominee, John McCain, has been skipping school during the 110th Congress at a rate that would get him expelled from most public schools in the United States.

Even with our woefully watered down school standards, that's tough to do.

McCain has missed 61% of Senate votes, dating back to January 2007. Illinois Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee, doesn't fare much better, missing 42% of Senate votes.

Rule number one when you're networking for a new job is that you don't skirt the responsibilities of your current gig.

McCain and Obama didn't even show up for work at, or better, than half the time.

Ridiculous.

The irony is that we hear so much noise from hate radio about Obama missing votes, while McCain appears to be getting a free pass.

In McCain's defense though, at his age he's probably in the buffet line for dinner at 3:45, just before his afternoon shuffleboard game. Bingo night is each Wednesday, so his schedule is even tighter on that day.

If the media is going to call out Obama for missing votes, than we have a reasonable expectation to expect the same treatment for John McCain.

Complete Dick

You know I really prefer the old school, more subservient role of the office of Vice President of the United States. The job description was pretty simple; get sworn in, assume office and wait for the President to die.

DICK Cheney would be so much more tolerable if that were the case.

Cheney's latest suppression of possible truth is to order an edited deletion of nearly six pages of professional testimony from the head of the CDC on climate change that was heard on the Senate Floor last October.

I'm not leaning to either side of this ever polarizing debate on the extent of human cause of climate change.

What I'm suggesting is that DICK Cheney should let the debate rage on with full testimonial disclosure, and not simply delete matters the administration doesn't agree with.

This whole DICK Cheney swimming upstream in the river denial is getting a bit tired, albeit entirely predictable.

Jesse Helms Is Dead

Former five term North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms died on Friday.

There certainly was no middle ground on Jesse Helms. He was a larger than life, "love him or hate him" politician that was revered by conservatives and openly despised by progressives and liberals.

Helms was given the nickname of Senator No, due to his refusal to support government funding on anything at all. He did make exceptions for tobacco companies though.

Helms' low point, while tough to pick just one, was when he refused to acknowledge the mother of Ryan White while the two of them were riding alone in a Senate building elevator together. White was the boy that died of AIDS after contracting the disease through a blood transfusion. She was in Washington that day to deliver testimony in support of an AIDS research funding bill that was named after her son.

The bill passed, however not without the vocal opposition of Jesse Helms.

Helms pontificated on the Senate Floor that he wasn't aware of one case of AIDS that hadn't been contracted by an act of sodomy.

That must have been an extremely awkward elevator ride.

Jesse Helms didn't appear to be a conservative to me. A conservative is a champion for individual liberty and freedom for our citizens.

Jesse Helms lived up to his Senator No moniker every time civil rights legislation entered Senate chambers.

Jesse Helms, by logical measure of his voting record and speech archives, was nothing more - or less - than a bigot.

God rest his soul, and good luck finding it.