Terry Cowgill

One For The Ages

I write from the Town Grove while listening to the estimable Hal Lefferts and his terrific afternoon show, The Wednesday Tune Fest (WTF), on WHDD-FM 91.9. It’s great to hear Hal’s voice on the air again (and his eclectic blend of electric and acoustic music). Now all we need is for Doug Harell to return and revive the outstanding Doug & Pony Show. Where is Doug these days anyway, Marshall?

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Well folks, we are witnessing the presidential campaign of your and my lifetime. We have a 71-year-old presumptive Republican nominee — a flip-flopper of Kerry-like proportions — allying himself with a dreadfully unpopular president. With an equally unpopular war, an economy in need of repair and gasoline prices at near $4 a gallon just about everywhere, it would appear to be a banner year for Democrats and, in particular, the Democratic nominee for president.

But wait! The Dems are on the verge on nominating an untested young pup with a thin resume about whom most people know little. He gives a great speech but has been exposed by his primary opponent as an empty vessel into which millions of Americans are pouring their dreams and aspirations (and money!). Worse yet, he has been a miserable failure at attracting the votes of blue-collar types who form the base of the party.

He speaks mostly in platitudes such as “Hope we can believe in” and “Yes we can!” When he does speak substance, he often reveals himself as an out-of-touch elitist with scant understanding of a huge sector of the electorate whose votes he asks for. And as the campaign progresses, he will be exposed as someone well to the left of the political center of this country.

And he will lose to the old man who thinks it would be fine to keep our troops in Iraq for 100 years. You heard it here. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory …

Why The Silence?

The more I learn about Barack Obama, the more I am convinced the Dems will be making a big mistake nominating him. By themselves, Bittergate, Tony Rezko and Rev. Wright don’t amount to a hill of beans. Considered together, however, they (and others like them) spell trouble for him in November.

Take his wife, for example. Regular readers will recall I did a post on Michelle Obama in February regarding a truly bizarre speech in which she suggested government needed to “save our souls.” Last week in North Carolina she gave an equally disturbing and little noticed talk on “Moving the Bar.”

Please, don’t take my word on how brooding and intensely pessimistic she is. Click here for the full transcript or here for the full audio (unfortunately it’s more than an hour long). Tell me if you don’t feel like slitting your wrists after only 10 minutes of listening to this stuff. It’s not only depressing but offensive.

Continue reading Why The Silence?…

All Gaffing Aside

When he appeared before a San Francisco audience earlier this month and characterized rural Pennsylvanians as xenophobic, gun loving bigots, Obama had what I would call a Kinsley moment. The Democratic frontrunner said that’s not what he meant. He had merely misspoken and “mangled” his words. A gaffe, in other words.

Last year, not long after Sen. Joe Biden called Obama “clean and articulate,” Michael Kinsley defined a gaffe brilliantly:

[It’s] when a politician tells the truth — or more precisely, when he or she accidentally reveals something truthful about what is going on in his or her head. A gaffe is what happens when the spin breaks down.

That’s precisely why I (as a journalist) love gaffes. Not because they make the candidate look foolish, as Obama appears now to millions of people, but because gaffes are awkward moments when all the carefully scripted comments and loyal spin completely evaporate in the face of spontaneous ruminations that offer us a window into the candidate’s mind. Sort of like a Shakespearean aside.

Continue reading All Gaffing Aside…

Will Obama Be ‘Punished’?

I’m still trying to sort out my reaction to Obama’s comments over the weekend about his daughters making a mistake and “being punished with a baby” or perhaps an STD.

The right-wing blogosphere and talkers like Hannity and Rush have jumped all over it (and, of course the lefties jumped on them). Click here to see the full video of Obama’s comments.

My initial reaction was one of horror. But then I decided to cut him some slack. After all, anytime you have to speak for 18 hours a day, you’re bound to say something stupid once in a awhile (Hillary would never make such a mistake, however).

I think I understand what he was trying to say: one bad choice should not result in a lifetime of consequences. Indeed, that’s probably what he should have said.

Still, it was an ugly assertion. As someone who has two kids whose babyhood I cherished every minute of, I think it’s safe to say I find his comments offensive, especially when uttered in the same paragraph as STDs.

How ironic that those words came on the heels of Obama’s endorsement last week by pro-life Sen. Bob Casey, whose late father was denied by the Clintons the opportunity to speak at the 1992 Democratic convention, ostensibly because of his position on abortion.

There are a lot of pro-life Dems in Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, Obama’s words will feed into the notion that too many pro-choicers are really pro-abortion and that they hate babies, motherhood and apple pie.

I think it’s a big mistake that perfectly illustrates the dilemma the Dems are facing. If the superdelegates give the nomination to the battle-tested white candidate and push aside the black man who received more votes and delegates, then there will be blood on the streets of Denver (literally).

If, on the other hand, they nominate a guy who is largely a blank palette in whom millions of Americans have vested their hopes and aspirations, then the Dems will be, as Bill Clinton famously said, “rolling the dice” in a year when they had seemed to have a lock on regaining the White House.

Wherever they are, I’m have a feeling John McCain (and Jake) are smiling right now.

Cajun Rage

There’s a wise maxim in politics (called it Cowgill’s Rule) that if you have to use 18 column inches in The Washington Post explaining a foolish comment, then you’ve only dug yourself a deeper hole. Sometimes discretion is the better part of stupidity.

Such is the case with poor James Carville, whose affinity for loyalty is almost legendary. In a turkey of an op-ed today, the otherwise brilliant Carville lapsed into a fit of idiocy by essentially saying he was justified in comparing Bill Richardson to Judas because Bill Clinton had made Richardson what he is today.

Leaving aside the deep insult to Richardson, Carville’s comments are a vivid illustration of what so many of us don’t like about the Clintons and the people around them. They have a sense of entitlement that takes your breath away.

Sure, Richardson might owe Bill a favor or two for giving him a job in the Clinton administration, but why does he owe Hillary anything? I thought Hillary has made it clear that she’s the candidate this time around, not her husband.

Besides, isn’t the left always criticizing GWB and his ilk for prizing loyalty over competence? I guess it’s a matter of whose turkey is being gored.

If A Tree Falls …

A few notes from the campaign trail (as viewed from Lakeville):

Could the Democratic nominating process get any closer? Rasmussen reports that 22% want Hillary to withdraw, while … 22% want Obama to get out.

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Hey, if a tree falls in the forest … What I don’t get is that, for all his whining about corporate America, his advocacy for a Canadian-style healthcare system and his endorsement of the Green Party’s presidential nominee, why on earth is Mike Gravel becoming a Libertarian? Above all, them libs believe in free markets.

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MoDo thinks Hillary is now angling to be veep:

One Hillary pal said she wouldn’t want to go back to a Senate full of lawmakers who’d abandoned her for Obama … Maybe The Terminator is thinking: if she could just get her pump in the door. Dick Cheney, after all, was able to run the White House and the world from the vice president’s residence …

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While MoDo speculates, the sleazy, make-my-skin-crawl Dick Morris actually goes to the trouble of cataloging all of Hillary’s lies and presumed lies. That’s quite a list of fibs, Dick. Now maybe you could show us yours.

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If Hillary faces McCain, I think we already have a pretty good idea of how they will attempt to define each other: Hillary is a flip-flopping lefty and a McCain presidency would simply be a third term for GWB. But this piece in today’s WaPo gives you a pretty good preview of the Republican line of attack against Obama in the fall. I’ve got one bit of advice for Obama: Don’t get in any tanks!

Update: And this is how Obama will hit back, But if he does, it will only strengthen the GOP line of attack in the fall.

Power Couple?

Remember this guy? He’s Akhil Reed Amar, the constitutional law professor at Yale who has visited Salisbury and spoken not once — but twice. He electrified crowds at the Salisbury Forum with his combination of high energy, eloquence and scholarship.

Since I am so good at predictions now, you should know that after seeing him speak in our fair town, I predicted Amar will be a SCOTUS appointee in a Hillary administration.

Now he’s written a piece in Slate proposing a solution to the Hillary-Obama rancor that will have some Democrats drooling: power sharing. Let them run as a team — a tag-team, if you will — with one serving as prez and the other as VP, then pulling a switcheroo after three years.

The constitution would permit the process to be repeated three times, thus allowing for 16 years of the dream team and putting an immediate end to the current rancor (if the agreement is approved by both parties soon).

It’s an intriguing idea — albeit an improbable one. But if Hillary and Obama took his advice, I’d say Amar has a lock on replacing the 87-year-old Justice Stevens.

Another Speech

The editorial pages of the major papers are falling all over themselves in praise of Obama’s speech about race. I’ve only viewed bits and pieces, but I, too, liked what I saw. Black rage of the kind shouted by Rev. Jeremiah Wright is something white men like me will never fully understand.

Obama is half white and half black — genetically in a perfect place to help heel the wounds of hundreds of years of oppression. But I have a feeling he’s not being honest when he says he’s never been present in Wright’s church during one of those celebrated tirades. If Wright has been Obama’s spiritual mentor for 20 years, then it stretches credulity to think he’s never seen this side of the reverend.

If indeed Obama sat impassively on a pew when Wright sermonized about the US KKK of A, then he will have a big problem going forward. I’m sure there are dozens of journalists looking into it even as I write this. Come to think of it, what Wright said is only a stone’s throw away from what Obama’s wife said a few weeks ago.

As one professor told The Wall Street Journal:

“The more he has to talk about race, the blacker he becomes in the public imagination.”

I’m afraid this could turn out to be less about race than about honesty.

Red Eye Blogging

Wow, Hillary made a big comeback and I got to hear all about it as it was happening.

That’s because I was up half the night emptying buckets that were filling with water. We are in the beginning stages of construction over our garage and for some reason water rolls back into the house during heavy rains.

So I had the dubious distinction of watching the coverage unfold at 2:30 this morning and also when I woke up about an hour later. I think Matthews and Olberman finally left 30 Rock at 3:15 while the “Best Political Team In Television” droned on until breakfast time.

Now for the Dems it will be seven weeks of hell with Hillary and Obama slugging it out until Pennsylvania. This could rip the Dems apart, especially if (as appears likely) neither candidate has the delegates needed to secure the nomination before the convention. Meanwhile, Hillary, who still trails in pledged delegates, has hinted she would consider Obama as a running mate. Now she’s trying to get him to drop out. This is like end-to-end action in the NBA finals.

Imagine this: It’s a brokered convention and the candidate with the fewest number of popular votes emerges with the nomination. Now imagine the specter of a party that decried the “stolen election of 2000″ deciding its nominee in a smoke-filled room in defiance of the will of the people. Then imagine that party trying to beat a GOP candidate — even one who is pro-war — who appeals to moderates outside the traditional base.

Hillary keeps saying Bill did not wrap up the ’92 nomination until June. But unless either she or Obama drops out, this will not even be settled by the convention. Every time I can remember the Dems had such turmoil at their conventions, they have gone down to defeat: Humprhey in ’68; McGovern in ’72 and Carter in ’80.

The Dems could just blow it. Notwithstanding her comeback, Hillary has high negatives, while Obama is untested and his bubble could burst under a withering attack from the GOP. This is fascinating stuff the likes of which I haven’t seen in many moons …

P.S. Pardon my faux pas. Since they frown on smoking, the Dems would never decide anything in “a smoke-filled room.” I’m sure there would be Starbucks lattes on the superdelegates’ table or, if there were union bosses present, a round of Michelobs.

P.P.S. Maybe they could apportion the delegates this way. It only seems fair, right?

Sock It To Hillary!

The reviews are in for Hillary’s appearance last night on Saturday Night Live and the skit that mocked the last debate.

Ann Althouse has posted both videos on her blog. She was less charitable than me in her assessment. I agree with Mike Murphy, who said on the Take Two Meet the Press webcast special that Hillary trying to be funny was a little like candidate Richard Nixon appearing in 1968 on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh In and famously repeating one of that show’s most popular refrains: “Sock it to meee?”

In the debate mock-up, I thought the guy mimicking Brian Williams rung most true. His voice was, at times, spot-on. The Russert imitator had some of Timmy’s mannerisms downs, such as the right-hand gesticulation and that look he gives his guests — you know, the one where he tilts his head down, arches his eyebrows and looks as it he’s the big bad wolf ready to eat his subject alive.

What I like about it the most was how the skit ridiculed they way the press treats Obama (like the Second Coming) and Hillary (like a crooked war horse whose time has passed). Notice that after playing the video of that clip on MTP, no one addressed the subject of media favoritism. Where’s Howie Kurtz when you need him?