<COLUMBUS
OH <ONUMBA.COM>BEING THE NATION’S FIRST
BLACK FIRST LADY IS OBVIOUSLY A NEW PLACE AND
A NEW GIG FOR MICHELLE OBAMA.
But she is nicely getting used to it. As she
settles more and more into her new role though,
it still remains unclear just the kind of social
issue, aside from her declared passion for speaking
out for military families, she would want to champion
as has become customary for first ladies ever
since Eleanor Roosevelt the iconoclast revamped
the traditional role of first ladies, giving
it a more enhanced national visibility and even
a level of scrutiny.
So how would Obama inspire Black women across
the world, women who themselves
are also settling into the new mindset of having
one of them as first lady?
The matter being addressed in this commentary
though is first the question of how Obama could
inspire African women; the
good Lord knows a lot of them are in dire need
of it.
I honestly don’t know if I should be outraged
by the stunning insensitivity or the brazen idiocy
of all of this, not to mention the profoundly
insulting half-baked apology thrown at it by the
New York Post.
Either
way, this is racism at its purest form.
The
twisted depiction of President Obama as a chimp
gunned down in a cartoon involving the federal
economic stimulus bill is stoking an uproar among
many who say that the tasteless political satire
reflects the height of editorial bigotry.
The
cartoon said this: "They'll have to find
someone else to write the next stimulus bill."
A
shoal of people, and rightly so, are going ballistic
over this, heaping keelhaul on New York Post,
charging that the newspaper is beating the drumbeat
of racism and inviting violence on President Obama.
“This
was an invitation to assassinate the president
of the United States,” said NAACP Chairman
Julian Bond.
Bond
characterized the cartoon as "thoughtlessness
taken to the extreme. ... Anyone who is not offended
by it does not have any sensitivity."
President
of NAACP Benjamin Todd Jealous agreed, calling
it “an invitation to assassination.”
This
cartoon, Jealous said, "picks off the scabs
of all the racial wounds."
A
shrapnel of apophthegm is pouring out over this
very serious matter, and the officials of the
NAACP as well as other Black leaders, including
Rev. Al Sharpton, film director Spike Lee as well,
are calling on New York Post to immediately fire
the cartoonist Sean Delonas and the editor-in-chief
Col Allan.
And
refusal to do so, or at least impose a “serious
disciplinary action”, NAACP warns, would
invite the widening of the protest against the
tabloid to include other organizations across
the country.
This
is truly, truly disturbing and deeply opprobrious,
to the say the very least.
But
there’s a serious lesson sitting in this
shameful cartoon, and that is, the recent election
of the first Black president doesn’t mean
that Blacks should be lulled into complacency
over racism and matters of racial inequality.
True,
a gob of White folks voted for Obama last November,
but keep in mind that a shoal of them didn’t,
and who knows why they didn’t. Obviously,
when it comes to racial matters, much has been
accomplsihed, but there's still much work to do.
Rev. Sharpton speaking against
the New Post cartoon
Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. fighting for his
political life
Congressman
Jesse Jackson, Jr.
ONUMBA.COM
BLOG, BY IKE MGBATOGU 12/22/08
Congressman
Jackson wants to replace President-elect Obama
in the U.S. Senate. And he was doing remarkably
well in his pursuit until now.
Jackson
was allegedly implicated in the secretly recorded
conversations between Gov. Blagojevich and his
brother discussing a deal that would have Blagojevich
appoint Jackson to the senate seat in return for
$1 million in campaign cash for the governor.
Jackson
has denied any wrongdoing, and he is now fighting
for his political life.
Democratic
presidential nominee Barack Obama and his running
mate Sen. Joe Biden
ONUMBA.COM
BLOG, BY IKE MGBATOGU 10/22/08
A
CNN national poll gave it to Obama who rolled
up 58 percent with McCain gaining 31 percent.
A CBS poll of uncommitted voters also gave it
to Obama, 53 percent, McCain had 22 percent, with
25 percent judging it a tie.
And
ABC analyst George Stephanopoulos knows precisely
why Obama walloped McCain in these trifecta of
presidential parleys.
Stephanopoulos
expressed the view that Obama’s ability
to stay cool even under fire was his biggest asset.
McCain, on the other hand, despite a solid start
in the final debate, grew agitated and angry as
the debate progressed, and regrettably for him,
voters have spoken out loud and clear against
that kind of demeanor for their president.
No
wonder St Louis Dispatch wrote that “Obama
has been presidential” in the debates.
This
mural of Obama was part of a community event held
outside of Kelly's Carryout on the corner of 11th
Avenue and Fourth Street near The Ohio State University
in Columbus, Ohio.
A
bevy of Weinland Park community residents created
the mural as a reflection of the hope, opportunity
and transformation they believe Obama's vision
would bring to neglected communities across the
country.
Max
Kennedy, son of former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy,
who is ferociously backing Obama for president,
spoke at the event. In an interview, Kennedy told
Call & Post political reporter
Ike Mgbatogu that Obama is going to "improve
things at every level of society."
Kennedy
spoke about the importance of health care for
all. "There's no reason people in the U.S.
should have to worry about health care,"
he said.
Cordinators
of the project are: Loring Resler, Julius Jefferson,
Larry Berry, Sam Sanders and Sam Grays.
Krystle
Holland, a Weindland Park resident, is swooning
for Obama to become president. She said this of
the Illinois senator. "We can relate to him."
"He is for all the right things," she
said. "It's time for change."
But
to have Obama in the White House, his minions
and supporters must troop out in droves to vote
for him.
Here
is the bottom line, folks. It is not enough to
just say 'I support Obama.' No, you have to go
and vote for him, too. For the fact is, all of
the swooning, excitement and enthusiasm for Obama
essentially sums up to no more than a nickel if
it doesn't translate into actual vote for him.
That's
why the Senior Adviser to Obama on African-American
Relations Rick Wade told Call & Post
reporter Mgbatogu that the Obama campaign is working
hard to "move people
from the rolls to the polls."
African-Americans,
Wade said, "will have a significant impact
in this election if we get out and vote."
Wade and Rep. Butterfield from North Carolina
spoke to reporters during a conference call on
Tuesday.
According
to a recent Washington Post poll, 73 percent of
first time voters said that they will vote for
Obama. Only 26 percent said that they will vote
for McCain.
Journalist Ike Mgbatogu interviews Democratic
presidential nominee Barack Obama in Dayton, Ohio
Call
& Post political reporter and Onumba.com columnist
Ike Mgbatogu interviews Democratic presidential
nominee Barack Obama in Dayton, Ohio, with Myron
A. Stewart of The Toledo Journal and Dan Yount
of The Cincinnati Herald looking on. Mgbatogu,
Stewart and Yount were the only three journalists
invited to have a sit-down exclusive interview
with Sen. Obama September 9, about his education
agenda after his speech at Stebbins High School.
ONUMBA.COM
BLOG, BY IKE MGBATOGU 09/14/08
Below
are selected excerpts from Mgbatogu's column on
Sen. Obama's Dayton campaign rally on education.
Obama laid out his education
agenda, and while at it, unleashed a volley of
jabs at his rival John McCain for supporting President
Bush's failed education policy.
In
the speech, Obama urged both parties to move "beyond
party and ideology," to move beyond the kind
of carrousel of political squabbling and partisanship
that leaves the nation mired in a quagmire on
an issue as important as education.
In a wall-to-wall spiel focusing primarily on
education, Obama stressed the importance of molding
an educated workforce in a highly competitive
global economy.
"In this economy, companies can plant their
jobs wherever there's an internet connection and
someone willing to do the work, meaning that children
here in Dayton are growing up competing with children,
not only in Detroit, but in Delhi, as well,"
said Obama.
Obama's
plan would provide a $4,000 tax credit to help
middle class students pay for their college education.
It is a plan that will finally put a college degree
within reach for anyone, said Obama.
Read Mgbatogu's complete
column on Sen. Obama's Dayton rally on education
this Thursday in the Ohio Call & Post.
Will U.S. policy towards Africa change if Obama
becomes president?
Democratic
presidential candidate Barack Obama
ONUMBA.COM
BLOG, BY IKE MGBATOGU 07/07/08
Culled
from Ike’s contribution to Creatiview Writer’s
forum moderated by Cameroonian hard hitting London
based writer Samira Edimesumbe
This
whole piece is loaded with stuff to respond to,
but I don't have a whole lot of time.
But
let's not fool ourselves, folks. Let's be realistic
about all of this. These for sure are uncharted
waters, and so let's navigate its unfamiliar shoals
being realistic about what we as Africans can
gain from this.
To start with, let's not start salivating, placing
too much burden on Obama regarding his plans for
Africa when the man is not even president yet.
The
truth is, Obama's policy, if he is elected president,
may not be much different from the typical U.S.
policy for Africa. And if it truns out to be the
case, I won't be surprised. More importantly,
I won't hold that against him. Oh no. For the
fact is, the reason Africa is wallowing in mind-boggling
misery, its people suffocating in grinding poverty
and apocalyptic impoverishment, is not because
US is not helping Africa. Let us be truthful to
ourselves, it is only because African leaders
have decided to keep renewing their status as
certified idiots, criminals, wicked souls and
empty-headed oafs not doing the right thing.
In short, they have failed Africa woefully, and
so, please, please, please, don't expect Obama
to come in and magically clean up decades of mess
they have created, from Cape to Cairo.
It won't be fair, now would it?
I really, really, really, can't stand African
leaders, all of them. They, no one else, are the
only reason Africa is wallowing in a mess. I hold
no one else responsible.
In closing, I'm extremely proud of Obama. I completely
support him on his way to beating the crap out
of Noachian McCain. And by the way, he is, Yes,
African-American with strong African heritage.
Presumptive
Democrat nominee for the White House Barack Obama
brought his campaign juggernaut to Ohio last week
where he met with about 40 seniors and a stampede
of reporters at the Oakleaf Village of Columbus,
on the northeast side of the city.
Ike
Mgbatogu, representing the Ohio CALL & POST
and Onumba Communications, Inc., was one of the
reporters invited to the clambake to meet with
Obama in this invitation only event.
Read
Ike’s report on Obama’s visit to Columbus
in this week's CALL & POST Newspaper due out
Wednesday.
The
tough, bruising battle between Obama and Clinton
is now all over. Obama won a cliffhanger. It wasn't
easy doing so, but Hillary Clinton finally conceded
and enthusiastically endorsed Obama for president.
But
the question of who is going to run with Obama
as running mate is now subject of lingering speculation
as the battle against John McCain looms.
For
her part, the former first lady has indicated
interest in being Obama’s running mate.
And some of her minions, reportedly including
her husband Bill, are pushing for her to be on
the ticket.
Now.
let us know. Should Obama pick former rival Clinton
for his running mate?
Onumba
Communications, Inc. is
officially endorsing democratic presidential candidate
U.S. Senator Barack Obama for president of the
United States, believing that without a doubt,
the senator from Illinois is the best candidate
to bring the tectonic changes in domestic and
foreign affiars being called for in the country.
Even
a blind person could see this tragedy coming from
miles away.
Former
Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated
last Thursday shortly after a political rally
in Rawalpindi, Pakistani.
It
didn't take long for a flurry of statements from
world leaders condemning the assassination to
start pouring in, and rightly so. I suppose the
next thing now is to point the finger of blame
at al-Qaida for all this. That group obviously
is a leading possibility, but at the same time,
I must say that limiting the search for the culprit
to only al-Qaida may reflect visible lack of wisdom.
Naifs and laics who would want to truncate the
search for the killers seem to completely ignore
the phalangeal and ramulose nature of the terror
industry, which clearly involves a loosely connected
motley of squads littered all over the world often
motivated and linked only by sheer valence and
camaraderie of purpose.
So, blaming al-Qaida is at the very least easy
and convenient, popular as well. While al-Qaida
is no doubt quite capable of engaging in this
brazen murderous bouleversement, and may well
be the culprit, there is definitely a plethora
of other radical Islamic cabals equally capable
of unleashing this Lollapalooza of havoc.
After
serving twice as prime minister, Bhutto went into
an eight-year exile, returning to Pakistan in
October. But a welcome parade held in her honor
turned into a murderous orgy of butchery after
a suicide attack at her missed its mark, but killed
140 people.
Following
that frightening macabre incident, some wondered
why Bhutto sustained a level of highly risky political
activities in a country littered with groups vowing
to kill her. Others would say that refusing to
scale back her public appearances defied basic
ontological impulses. But in the end a masochist
driven Bhutto, equally vowing to fight on for
a democratic Pakistan, charged against a tide
of vitriolic threats against her and ignoring
a tinderbox of warnings that she was being shadowed
for death and destruction.
All
in all, she was very courageous, and died a Martyr.
At least 20 others also died in the Bhutto attack.
Nigeria’s
godawful speaker of the House Patricia Etteh was
finally and deservedly booted out.
Etteh,
to put it very leniently, is a knavery woman of
nauseating self-abnegation who had the Nigerian
House of Representatives, and indeed the entire
country, dangling aimlessly in cacophonous limbo,
mired in doldrums, and balkanized into bellicose
pockets of turmoil and morass as she surged against
a tide of calls for her resignation.
She
finally witnessed the volcanic collapse of her
much maligned speakership last week, but it was
after she had effectively fractured and turned
the House into a den of vitriolic members who
must now rally behind the new speaker Oladimeji
Bankole and begin addressing the labyrinth of
woes pummeling the Nigerian plebes.
Some
writer aptly characterized Etteh as an “intellectual
midget.” And I punctuate that with a similarly
fitting characterization of her as an obstreperous,
uncouth and vainglorious political bantamweight
who wallowed in her own heightened mediocrity
and annoying hauteur.
Now,
that she is effectively out of the legislative
business, she can go back to doing hair and peddling
toupees.
Embattled
Atlanta Falcon’s quarterback Michael Vick,
after pleading guilty a couple of weeks ago, is
definitely on his way to losing everything he
has worked for – wealth, fame, good life
and some dogs.
And
it is all because he was involved in the cagey
world of dogfighting.
Also,
Vick is losing his friends and business partners
faster than you can say "dogfighting."
But
there’s one dude who isn't so sure about
all of this. He is NBA’s Stephan Marbury.
More pointedly, Marbury wants to know exactly
why dogfighting is atrocious, but deer hunting
is OK.
Idaho
Sen. Larry Craig fought hard to hang on to his
job, with a flurry denials that he is gay. But
in the end, he succumbed to a tsunami of pressure,
coming mostly from his GOP buddies, resigning
his seat in the senate, after engaging in lewd
conduct in a Minneapolis airport.
Sen.
Craig was accused of engaging in a public restroom
“senatorial footsy” also known as
"cruising", with an undercover police
who said the 62 year old senator tried to signal
his intentions to engage in sexual conduct with
him.
Pull
up those pants. Or else. That ‘or else’
could mean a fine of $100 or hours of community
service.
No
matter where you stand on this, most people would
have to agree that this is an eyesore - a retarded
fashion, quite frankly. But having said that,
should it be a crime? Many towns and cities are
considering making it one.
"I'm
tired of looking at behinds," Shreveport
Council woman Joyce Bowman said, after her city
voted to ban 'droopy' pants.
That's good. But what about women and their boobs
hanging out? No doubt that there are as many of
those as there are droopy pants.
So
when you are done with these young men and their
“droopy baggy pants”, be sure to go
after these women and their “open hanging
boobs.”
Hank
Aaron’s 33-year reign as home run king ended
after Barry Bonds hit his 756th weeks ago to claim
the title. But the debate over whether he got
there with the help of performance enhancing drug
isn’t ebbing.
Hank
was not there to witness it. Instead, he was asleep
at his home in Georgia.
And
neither was Baseball commissioner Bud Selig, though
he sent representatives.
Excited?
You ask. I’m not. For starters, there’s
still a pall all over this, and apparently it
is not going away until a new king is crowned.
More
pointedly, one thing that is disturbing, at least
for me, is that Bonds himself admitted using performance-enhancing
drugs, even though he is denying knowingly using
them. Saying that he didn’t know that what
he was downing was forbidden is, to put it mildly,
quite a stretch, to say the very least. But even
if we shrug all of that off, at the end of the
day, it still boils down to one ugly thing, that
is, he used drugs, and they are indeed performance
enhancing. It clearly offers a credible reason
for believing that such was a glaring sinequanon
that aided in some way his achievements.
Even
a critic as sophisticated and astute as the loquacious
host of the TV sports show ‘Quite Frankly’
Stephen A. Smith last week ended up on the wrong
side of this dustup when he kind of threw in an
interesting insight into all of this, saying that
while he believes Bonds used the drugs, he at
the same time faults the league for not officially
charging him with anything. For this, Mr. Smith
is defending Bonds’ contention that his
crown is not tainted.
“This
record is not tainted at all, at all. Period,”
said Bonds. Oh, but it is. I’m with Smith
on the league’s refusal to pursue the possibility
of Bonds being in violation of the drug policy,
but definitely part ways with him on the tainted
part.
New Zealand’s law meant to prevent parents
from giving their children zany names like “Satan”
or “Adolf Hiller” or perhaps “Bokassa”
or “Idi Amin”, is apparently also
blocking Pat and Sheena Wheaton from naming their
new son ‘4real.’
Wanting
to give their son a meaningful name that reflects
their state of agog about having a baby, Pat and
Sheena said "For most of us, when we try
to figure out what our names mean, we have to
look it up in a babies book and ... there's no
direct link between the meaning and the name."
"With this name, everyone knows what it means,"
they explained.
Well,
everyone but New Zealand’s officials, who
argue instead that names do not start with numbers,
at least not in New Zealand. Officials are urging
the parents to come up with an alternative name,
and plan to name the boy ‘Real’ instead,
if the parents fail to come up with an acceptable
name.
I
have a simple proposal for resolving this little
mess harmoniously. How about ‘Four Real’?
It is a pretty good compromise and it conveys
the same meaning without the acrimonious ‘4’
digit that is apparently irking the hell out of
New Zealand’s officials.
Apparently,
Tim Duncan’s kingdom isn’t about to
collapse yet. So the coronation of King James
will wait just a bit longer.
The
Spurs swept the Cavaliers in the 2007 NBA finals,
fetching their fourth championship, and pretty
much settling the question over whether they have
attained a dynasty status.
It
also means that LeBron James did not gain a championship
ring he had hoped for. But he gained a baby.
James’
girlfriend, Savannah Brinson, gave birth to their
second son, Bryce Maximus James.
Gonzales’
splatter in the drip drip drip of equivocal statements,
plus a wave of “I don’t recall”
were, to be sure, bad enough. But there’s
no way to ignore the smorgasbord of incompetence
he equally displayed in all of this, being the
top lawyer for the nation.
Incompetence
has come home to roost faster than you can say
‘time to go.’
All
of this is to say this. Gonzales’ testimony
before the Senate Judiciary Committee last Thursday
was a bad bad performance, riven with a tactical
spew of endless “I don’t recall”,
“I have no recollection”, or “my
recollection maybe fuzzy.”
To
say the very least, the room was filled with people,
but they were all breathing in a pungent potpourri
of serious misgivings, all because Gonzo was unable
or unwilling to explain adequately the compurgation
of the eight attorneys.
It
was terrible, so much so, that Alabama Republican
Senator Jeff Sessions had to say this, “I
am concerned about your recollection.” All
through the testimony, Gonzales wallowed in bathetic
pleonasm saturated with answers that mislead and
confused rather than clarified.
But Sen. sessions was hardly alone.
Senator
after senator, irrespective of party, wrapped
up their limited time of questioning with gels
of dissatisfaction splotched all over their gloomy
faces. We saw a relay of “my time’s
up” from senator after senator expressing
humph with Gonzo’s fluky thin and evasive
responses to their beefy questions.
Even
worse, ranking member Arlen Specter, one of the
fair-minded republicans on the committee, called
the whole thing, “a panorama of responses.”
“We haven’t gotten the answers.”
For
the most part, all of the questions and responses
kept coming back to this: how seven attorneys
got on the firing roster, but neither Gonzales
nor anyone else could say who made the decision
to put them on it. Now that’s pretty bad.
No wonder Gonzales’ Chief of Staff Kyle
Sampson resigned and Monica Goodling, one of Gonzales’
aides, hurriedly invoked the Fifth Amendment soon
after bolting from the department as well.
But
in addition to being administratively tone deaf,
Gonzales was also seemingly clueless about what
was going on in the department under his leadership.
“You
are unfamiliar with much of the workings of your
department,” said New York liberal heavyweight
Senator Charles Schumer. “For the good of
the country, step down.”
All
told, Gonzo’s testimony was a big fat Joke.
The odds are now insurmountably stacked against
him. And I am going to predict now that he will
be out of his job sooner than later. It’s
just a matter of time.
MSNBC
to Imus: You’re fired. Aufwiedersehen, Imus.
Radio
talk show host Don Imus last week yapped himself
into a mess after he referred to members of the
Rutgers women’s basketball team as “nappy-headed
hos.”
It
is not at all surprising that only Imus is being
pilloried over this. After all, his was the head
that wore the crown. But it was actually a combo
of Imus and McGuirk, his show sidekick, that teamed
up to set off this firestorm.
“That’s
some rough girls from Rutgers,” Imus said.
“Man, they got tattoos... .”
McGuirk
helped out with this: “Some hardcore hos.”
Imus
then returned with the oomph to finish it off:
“That’s some nappy-headed hos there,
I’m going to tell you that.” All of
this, despite Rutger’s boffo basketball
season that took the team all the way to the finals..
Needless
to say, Imus elevated himself to the epitome of
opprobrium. Soon after the aphtha of the betise
remarks, Imus embarked on a tour of apology, acknowledging
that his remarks were “really stupid.”
Still, the dustup is yet to die down.
Part
of that Imus tour was a stop to see Rev. Al Sharpton,
who campaigned vigorously that Imus be fired.
For whatever reason, Rev. Sharpton was able to
lure Imus to his syndicated radio show for public
thumping and humiliation.
Imus, known for being ribald on his show, was
also catching hell from the other Reverend –
Jesse Jackson – who also called for Imus’
dismissal. About 50 people joined Jackson in protest
outside the NBC offices in Chicago.
Meanwhile, MSNBC, after a near mutiny by its philippic
staff, canceled its simulcast of Imus morning
show. But CBS is seemingly not going any further
than the two-week suspension it has already slapped
on the embattled radio personality. But that’s
for now, because pressure is piling on daily that
it fire Imus too. As
I prepared to post, this came in: Don Imus got
fired by CBS.
There's
this also. Major advertisers – including
Staples, American Express, General Motors and
Procter & Gamble – have dropped the
Imus show.
Rutgers
University officials finally broke their silence.
Rutgers
Head Coach C. Vivian Stringer called Imus’
remarks “deplorable, despicable and unconscionable.”
The school’s President Richard McCormick
called the remarks whoreson.
And
Imus agreed with all of that, saying he deserves
his two-week suspension, but still insists he
is ‘not a racist,’ but a “good
person” who erred badly with galimatias.
Again,
Imus deserves the onslaught of the pounding being
thrown at him.
But
while we are at it – maybe – just
maybe – this is not a bad time to segue
into rebuking those black rap artists who also
call black women and all women ‘hos’,
‘bitches’ and whatnot. Not to rain
on Sharpton's parade or anything, but if these
rappers profiting from their ordure lyrics are
let off the hook, then all of this truly amounts
to a smorgasbord of caterwauling bravura with
no more than a molt to show for it.
For the thruth is, this mess goes a lot deeper
than one White man - Imus.
A
boffo end to Blair, Ahmadinejad standoff regarding
the captured British sailors
Home bound
ONUMBA.COM
BLOG, BY IKE MGBATOGU 04/09/07
President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran is not a Christian.
Oh, far from it. But last Wednesday, he gave a
nice plum Easter gift to the British people, coming
by way of freeing the 15 detained sailors captured
for allegedly being in the Iranian territorial
waters.
Freeing
the sailors – 14 men and a woman –
ended two weeks of largely low key diplomatic
scrimmages, with British Prime Minister Tony Blair
tiptoeing through the delicate standoff, avoiding
using inflaming utterances.
“I’m
glad that our 15 service personnel have been released
and I know their release will come as a relief
not just to them but to their families,”
Blair said. “Throughout, we have taken a
measured approach, firm but calm, not negotiating
but not confronting either.”
Both
Blair and Ahmadinejad approached the matter civily
and wisely, and in the end, it paid off handsomely
with the release of the sailors unharmed.
Now,
we hope to see this as a template for future resolution
of crises of this ilk.
But
don’t count on it as long as Dubya remains
the leader of the West.
Even
last week, at the height of the crises, Bush nearly
ruined this peaceful outcome with his bellicose
characterization of the sailors as “hostages.”
Meaning that, even as Blair and Ahmadinejad were
engaged in responsible diplomatic orbs to end
the stalemate, Bush on the other hand was hoping
to exploit the matter for his disastrous and god-awful
Middle East policies.
Apparently,
for Bush, every foreign policy dustup is approached
from the standpoint of “we” and “them”,
with little or no room for diplomacy.
“These
are my shoes. They’re good shoes. They won’t
make you rich like me, they won’t make you
rebound like me, they definitely won’t make
you handsome like me. They’ll only make
you have shoes like me. That’s it.”
Real
estate mogul Donald Trump took a breather from
his nasty feud with Rosie O’Donnell to rip
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
“In
all fairness, I see Condoleezza Rice - she goes
on a plane, she gets off a plane, she waves, she
goes there to meet some dictator. … They
talk, she leaves, she waves, the plane takes off.
Nothing happens, it’s a joke, nothing ever
happens. I think she’s a very nice woman,
but I don’t want a nice woman. I want someone
that’s not necessarily nice.”
Wave
Condi wave
Americans
“want someone that knows how to negotiate,
that knows the art of the deal,” Trump said.
You
know what, Trump is kind of right. Condi is not
getting anything done.
We
sure took that 'go out and multiply' thing seriously,
didn't we?
Map of the world
ONUMBA.COM
BLOG, BY IKE MGBATOGU 02/16/07
We
were told in the Bible to go out there and multiply.
And voila, 6.5 billion people billowed.
All
people from all corners of the globe, all continents,
all races, all ethnic groups representing all
beliefs, heeded the divine call to multiply.
Nigeria
by far is the most populous country in Africa
with an estimated 131,859,731 people, followed
by Egypt with 78,887,007 and Ethiopia with 74,777,981.
China
is home to 1.3 billion people, the world’s
most populous country, with India’s over
1 billion trailing closely.
For
the next 30 months, former Ohio congressman Bob
Ney will not call Ohio home. Not Washington DC
either.
Rather,
a federal Bastille in Morgantown, West Virginia
will be his new abode.
Ney was hit with a 30-month prison time for his
role in a plexus of bribery scandal involving
a scrofulous lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Ney,
who at first dourly denied any wrongdoing, eventually
pleaded guilty for accepting golf trips, meals,
tickets, and campaign donations in return for
political favors, including trips to Scotland
linked to Fouad al-Zayat, a Syrian owner of an
aviation company in Cyprus.
After
his release, Ney will also serve two years probation,
and pay $6,000 fine.
As for Abramoff, the spiv at the center of a burgeoning
federal scandal that so far has nabbed two members
of the Bush administration, he is serving prison
time for an unrelated scandal in a Florida casino
deal.
What’s
in your bag? Why? You ask. Well, that might help
explain why you are having that niggling back
pain that is killing ya.
The
trend now is that women handbags are becoming
‘heavier and bigger.’ Physical therapists
say that it is not at all salubrious, warning
that it puts women at risk for all sorts of ailment,
particularly neck, shoulder and back pain.
Because
of it, manufacturers are being urged to slap warning
labels on their products to alert women of the
health hazard of hauling around bulky handbags.
Recall
that we had this problem with laptops years ago,
with a bunch of people beginning to walk slanted
and hunched up.
Then there was the smorgasbord of health problems
associated with school backpacks and children.
And now we have these women hauling around armada
of extra shoes, makeup accessories, and whatnot
in their handbags. No wonder manufacturers are
spinning out bigger and roomier handbags in response
to this trend.
In
Africa and other places, where the Noachian practice
of carrying heavy stuff on the head is still the
norm, the health risks of such practice are also
quite obvious, but those concerns are often eclipsed
by the sheer necessity of the practice. But right
here, experts are warning that women with a habit
of carrying bulky handbags might start looking
like Quasimodo and facing serious health risks.
The
Somali Islamic movement was ousted from Mogadishu
last December by Somali government forces backed
by Ethiopian troops. But Somali Prime Minister
Mohamed Gedi isn’t about to let his guard
down, because he knows quite well that these bellicose
warlords can reconstitute faster than you can
say 'peacekeeping force.'.
So
he wants African peacekeepers in Somalia by month's
end.
So
who is running for president on the democratic
side?
Well,
so far, you have liberal solon Connecticut Sen.
Chris Dodd; liberal jacobin Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich;
Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack and former North Carolina
Sen. John Edwards in the race.
But
still dancing around the question are New York
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton; Illinois Sen. Barack
Obama; New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Massachusetts
Senator and former Presidential Candidate John
Kerry.
Delaware
Sen. Joe Biden, who we all know hates 'kabuki
dance', is yet to formally announce his candidacy,
but he has said for sure that he plans to run.
His
name is being tossed around as a possible candidate,
but former Presidential Candidate Al Gore is so
far mute about the buzz and focusing on his new
found career in the cable industry while serving
on the board for Apple Computer and being an advisor
to Google, Inc.
For what my opinion is worth, I really think former
Vice President Gore has the best chance to become
the next president of the United States, if he
decides to run, despite the hype over frontrunner
Clinton and rising superstar Obama.
And
beside you and me, who else is not running? Indiana
Sen. Evan Bayh, despite months of speculation
that he would run, decided against it.
Ethiopia's
former dictator Mengistu sentenced to life
Former
Ethiopian dictator Mengistu
ONUMBA.COM
BLOG, BY IKE MGBATOGU 01/16/07
After
Mengistu Haile Mariam toppled and strangled Emperor
Haile Selassie in 1974, burying his body under
a latrine in his palace, his Derg ruling revolutionary
apparat unleashed a stunning level of brutality
that killed thousands of people in a wave of vicious
purges against his political opponents.
An
Ethiopian Court sentenced Mengistu to life in
prison in absentia. But because the former dictator
is chilling out in exile in Zimbabwe, he is likely
not to serve a day in prison.
Mengistu's
operation 'red terror' turned Ethiopia into a
land of horror, with malefic state absterges against
civilians and the military.
Mengistu
and his Derg bevy was toppled in May 1991 by a
coalition of armed groups led by current Ethiopian
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi.
He
fled to Zimbabwe where the government there is
refusing to hand him over to Ethiopia.
House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi receiving the gavel from
Ohio's Rep. John Boehner
ONUMBA.COM
BLOG, BY IKE MGBATOGU 01/16/07
Gaiety
Democrats took control of the Congress for the
first time in 12 years. And a woman, California
Democrat Nancy Pelosi, became the House speaker
for the first time
in the history of the United States.
And
now, President Bush would have to limp to the
end of his disastrous,
quite frankly, also laughable
presidency, with his party being the cog.
But
here is the sweetest lacuna of all of this. For
the first time in six years, badly needed common
sense will guide public policies.
First
though, President Bush and his republican achates,
looking all stunned and depressed, must now adjust
to these new realities and pledge to seek an aperture
for bipartisanship on a smorgasbord of big issues
facing the nation.
At the same time, Pelosi and her democratic ilks,
though visibly embracing bipartisanship, they
are supposed to, are also moving pretty fast to
overturn some of the godawful policies of the
past six years under a president who not only
nibbled at the powers of the Congress but also
often tiptoed out of limits of his own executive
bounds.
President
Bush
For
Bush, it has been quite a binge of arrogance and
reckless height of nimiety, a dilettante duce
reaching a dangerous epitome of incompetence.
But the 110th congress is in a hurry to put a
kibosh to all of that bilge, vowing to unleash
a wave of investigations and congressional oversight
over the administration’s culture of impunity
that typifies its way of conducting public business.
Asked
about congressional oversight, Senate's new Democratic
Majority Leader Harry Reid said: "that's
going to start big time."
The
challenges are many, however.
A
simmering stew of pressing issues that bubbled
unattended for over six years are now being considered
as legislative priorities for the new Congress
– a boost in the minimum wage, stem cell
research, lower rate for student loan, ban on
gifts from lobbyists, immigration reform, lower
prices for prescription drugs for Medicare patients,
etc.
There’s
all of that on the national plate, not counting
the king Kong of it all – the bourgeoning
mess in Iraq.
But
it seems as though the more things change the
more they stay the same.
Bush, obviously, is still the president and the
commander-in-chief that goes along with it. Iraq
is still a mess, and while he spews sponsion about
finding ‘common ground’, there’s
little reason to believe that he plans to yield
significant ground, a scary posture that could
mean more of the same ‘stay the course’
incubus that for the past four years delivered
nothing but woes.
An adumbrating catchphrase, ‘surge and accelerate’,
percolated into the debate and will debut in full
next week as part of Bush’s long awaited
plan to stabilize Iraq. It is being reported in
the media that Bush will announce a 20,000 or
so troop 'surge' to help curb the lethal insurgency
ripping Baghdad apart.
Needless to say, this goes
against the recommendations of the Iraqi Study
Group that calls for phased redeployment of US
troops.
If this is the way Bush
is headed with this, it pretty much puts his floundering
administration at odds with pumped up Dems who
wants US troops out of Iraq. In a letter fired
off to the president, Speaker Pelosi and Majority
Leader Reid warned: "Surging
troops is a strategy that you have tried and that
has failed." Both
Pelosi and Reid would like to see a sharp shift
in the US mission from "combat to training,
logistics, force protection and counter-terror",
adding that the way forward is "to
begin the phased redeployment of our forces in
the next four to six months."
"The
surge is a bad idea," Reid said again and
again , expressing the concerns and ululations
of frustrated democrats. "This
is enough."
And
if Bush is still wallowing in apophasis about
all of this, Pelosi was no doubt blunt about his
delusion. The
president's policy in Iraq is "over",
Pelosi told The San Francisco
Chronicle.
For
his part, the fiery new Chairman of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee and a possible presidential
condidate, Sen. Joe Biden, is vowing to thwart
any attempt to surge the troop level in Iraq,
even after the president told reporters yesterday
that his new strategy would be “clear,
specific and can be accomplished.”
But
Bush's problem is not just with recalcitrant democrats.
Some askant GOP solons are equally skeptical regarding
the planned surge in troops, worried about possible
aphtha of violence staking American troops as
insurgent plinks in an aceldama fast darkling
into a full blown civil war.
“We cannot impose
a military solution,” Sen. Sam Brownback
told The Washington Post.
Sen.
John McCain, a Republican and possible 2008 presidential
candidate blamed it all on his party, saying Thursday
that he was
"very sad." "We
forgot why we came to Washington. We lost our
way, we got engaged in earmarking and pork barrel
projects, and we valued power over principle and
we paid a heavy price for it."
Of course, there’s all of that as undeniable
factors. But sir, you left out the dancing gnu
in the room, which is, you guys screwed up big
time in Iraq, and the 'surge'
in troops now being considered by the Bush administration,
which you support, is mightily daffy.
Former
dems Chair McAuliffe lambastes Kerry for running
an 'incompetent' campaign in '04
Former
Democratic Party Chair Terry McAuliffe
ONUMBA.COM
BLOG, BY IKE MGBATOGU 01/16/07
Terry
McAuliffe, the former Chair of the democratic
party is taking a whack at John Kerry for running
an ‘incompetent’ campaign for president,
calling it “one of the biggest acts of political
malpractice in the history of American politics.''
In
his memoir, McAuliffe said that the GOP had a
superior campaign machine. He blamed Kerry for
not hitting hard at Bush’s military records
for fear of offending southern swing voters.
But
his main beef with Kerry’s was his decision
to sit on $15 million left in the campaign coffer
that could have been spent in the waning days
of the campaign. “To hoard that money when
the race was bound to be so close'” is incompetent,
said McAuliffe, who is a friend of the Clinton’s
and plans to associate himself with Sen. Clinton’s
campaign if she decides to run for president.
Forget
Saddam Hussein’s soidisant yap about being
a ‘true martyr’ in an open letter
released by his lawyers last Wednesday. Either
Saddam was a woeful dilettante at matters of martyrdom
or his talk was simply culch.
A
‘true martyr’, right from dakapo,
would not hang around to be yanked out of a ‘spider
hole’; thrown into calaboose; subjected
to a degrading public trial since October 2005;
convicted; sentenced to death by hanging; and
then when it appeared he had a date with the Iraqi
hangman, publicly proclaimed martyrdom.
Puhleeeease……..
for true martyrs, that's
a smorgasbord of lollygagging around.
But
having said all that, I really don’t think
Saddam should have been executed. And I particularly
oppugn the fulminant pace his execution was carried
out. I was for locking Saddam up for good. It
really, really serves not a dram of purpose killing
him.
That’s
that, there’s also the matter of possible
spike in violence in Iraq in the weeks and months
ahead because of his execution.
Meanwhile,
now that Saddam is dead, can we please get back
to the dire matter of what we can do to clean
up the mess Bush made in Iraq?
Kofi
Annan: Attack against Iran would be 'unwise' and
'disastrous'
Outgoing
UN Chief Kofi Annan
ONUMBA.COM
BLOG, BY IKE MGBATOGU 12/29/07
As
Kofi Annan prepares to step down as UN Chief,
he is keeping an eye on the wrangling in the Security
Council over how to address the Iranian nuclear
standoff. For Annan, who steps down Dec. 31, the
fractious deliberations over Iran are reminiscing
and frightening echoes of a rumbling rush to war
in Iraq that led to the violence now ravaging
the country.
Annan
later blasted the Iraqi war as “illegal.”
Annan’s
warning against military attack against Iraq,
obviously, fell on deaf ears. But it is not discouraging
him now, even as he nears the cusp of disengagement
from reign at the UN, from sternly warning against
any military attack against Iran.
Annan,
68, from Ghana, regards Bush’s war of choice
in Iraq as "the worst moment" of his
10 years as UN Chief.
Top
US military commanders now for more troops in
Iraq
President
Bush
ONUMBA.COM
BLOG, BY IKE MGBATOGU 01/01/07
Gen.
John Abizaid and Gen. George
Casey were against sending more troops
to Iraq before they were for it.
First,
Gen. John Abizaid and Gen. George Casey were opposed
to the idea of committing more troops to Iraq,
but apparently, they have been talked, perhaps
bullied, into going along with it.
“I think they are going
along with a program they really don’t believe,”
said MSNBC Analyst Pat Buchanan.
“This
is a case of mass confusion,” added Democratic
Strategist Peter Fenn.
Late
President Ford not a fan of Bush's war in Iraq
Late
President Ford
ONUMBA.COM
BLOG, BY IKE MGBATOGU 01/01/07
Even
from Orcus, President Bush is hearing it from
former President Gerald Ford. In an interview
with Washington Post Assistant
Editor Bob Woodward, Ford blasted President
Bush for invading Iraq.
Senator Barack
Obama told Chicago Sun-Times that he fears for
his life as result of all the buzz surrounding
his possible run for the presidency.
But Obama
is pressing ahead with his ‘water testing’
tour for a possible presidential run, saying that
he will announce if he will actually run after
his Hawaiian vacation early next year.
Of
course, Barack Obama is highly qualified to run
for president and serve as president. Heck
– look who we have now, Bush, the apogee
of incompetence, now floundering and tripping
all over the pile of mess he made in Iraq.
To
tell you the truth, I think that Bush’s
election as president significantly lowered the
bar for the job.
But
that is beside the point.
The
point is that Obama is black, and that cannot
be wished away. Quite often, a lot of us shrug
off that niggling reality in favor of indulging
in this thrilling utopian frenzy and quixotic
feel-goodism about Obama being next in line for
the presidency.
Please
understand me. Obama is by any credible barometer
qualified to be president. Really, he is the real
deal. Problem is, he is black with an alien name.
Often, Obama himself jokes
about being called ‘Yo – mama’,
obviously a gemutlich caricature of ‘Obama.’
But such playful apery could be painful gallows
humor, because in all seriousness, Obama's odd
sounding carangid could morph into a crippling
albatross thwarting his presidential ambition.
And
if you thought that the name Barack Obama is handicapping
enough for the charistmatic Illinois senator,
brace yourself for his middle name: Hussein.
All
of that really sums up to this unthinkable scenario:
Mr. Speaker: The president
of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama?
And
shadowing all of that skepticism is this multi-billion
dollar question: Is America ready for a black
president?
For
now, I think Obama is our best shot. But he is
a long shot because of his race, not because he
is not qualifed.
"My
ancestors told me I was going to win”, said
Roy Sesana, head of a Botswana Bushmen association.
And he won.
Won
what? You ask.
Recently, Sesana and his
fellow Bushmen were thrown into agog for wining
back the right to return to the diamond rich swaths
of land previously confiscated by the government.
The
brouhaha began in 2002 when Diamond mogul de Beers
and the government agglutinated in a capitalist
cahoots to expel the Bushmen from Central Kalahari
Game Reserve and set up a diamond mining operation.
But this move angered the Bushmen who claimed
to have lived in the area for more than 20,000
years.
Attorneys
on both sides duked it out. But in the end, Botswana's
High Court struck down what could be described
as Botswana’s eminent domain ukase, ruling
in favor of the Bushmen, backed by western activists,
agreeing with them that their way of life was
under assault after being settled in a region
not conducive to their traditions and hunting
skills.
So
they have their land back, and with it, their
life back as well.
The
squabble between Allen Iverson and the Sixers’
management is no longer over whether or not the
former Hoya’s star will be traded. That’s
settled. The question now is: Who will inherit
him and his hefty price tag?
Whether or not Iverson is
past his prime to lead a team to a championship,
I’m sure is all part of what’s being
considered by prospective bidder teams. But there’s
also the matter of Iverson’s hefty annual
salary of nearly $19 million a year that is also
in the mix.
Financially, the man is not
doing badly.
But his team is. How badly?
Very badly. The Sixers lost their 9th straight
game as the Boston Celtics, 101 – 81, Wednesday
night.
You
know you are in big trouble when you are booed
by your home crowd.
Did
Baker, Hamilton fix a bowl of 'fruit salad' for
Bush?
Co-chairs
of ISG, Hamilton and Baker
ONUMBA.COM
BLOG, BY IKE MGBATOGU 12/12/06
We
probably will never again hear Bush, Cheney, and
their ilks yap about that hackneyed ‘stay
the course” nightmarish talk. The Iraq Study
Group zinger killed and buried it.
And
no more bombardment of rosy assessment of the
mess in Iraq either, now that we know (that is
not to say that we didn’t before) that the
situation in Iraq is in fact “grave and
deteriorating.”
The
days of outright lies, truncated truths, and anacoluthic
rhetoric that misled rather than inform are over.
All
of that we now know. But here is the niggling
unknown in all of this. Will President Bush budge?
It
remains to be seen. A major speech is being planned
before Christmas to let us know.
For
now, it appears he is still wallowing deep in
apophasis urged on by a conatus that just won’t
quit. Even after the Iraq Study Group report unleashed
a stinging repudiation of his woebegone policy,
Bush, is seemingly at it again. He, of course,
is now being forced to change course in Iraq and
get the US out of this painful bind. But it appears
talking to Iran and Syria, as the report strongly
recommended, may not be part of his thinking.
And
we may also forget about drawing down the troop
level as the group suggested.
Apparently,
Bush is planning to treat the ISG Report as a
buffet, and Co-chairman Jim Baker, a Bush family
friend, isn’t too thrilled about it.
“I
hope we don’t treat this as a fruit salad”,
Baker warned. “I like this, I like that.”
“The
options in front of you are very good”,
Co-chairman Hamilton advised Bush.
But
will he take the advice and say thank you? Well,
that is the big question.
Of course, the Iraq
Study Group report was a direct clunk on Bush.
But there is no doubt that the rubbles of this
massive storm are pummeling British Prime Minister
Tony Blair as well.
Blair, a staunch, evidently, also a blind and
ductile Bush tovarish, must be asking himself,
‘what the ‘f---‘ did I get myself
into?
Obviously, a mess
– Tony.
Bush
and Blair coalesced to start a war of choice that
is now unleashing a catalogue of sectarian cataclysm
ravaging Iraq today.
But
it really has been Bush's policy, Blair simply
follows.
According to CNN, Blair’s
approval rating recently dipped into the dismal
twenties.
Democratic titans
and presidential wannabes, Senators Hillary Clinton
and Barack Obama, were among a bevy of progressives
at a dinner hosted by Massachusetts’s liberal
solon Sen. Ted Kennedy. There were other progressive
heavyweights at the gathering as well, including
Sen. Tom Harkins; Sen. Christopher Dodd; and Sen.
Ron Wyden. Ohio’s Sherrod Brown and fellow
Senator-elect Rep. Bernard Sanders from Vermont
were also guests.
Senator
Hillary Clinton
But all eyes beamed on Clinton
and Obama, two junior senators who may soon be
slugging it out in the 2008 democratic presidential
nomination contest. However, both are yet to officially
declare their candidacy.
Sensing the political
anxiety in the room, as Clinton and Obama navigated
their way through the crowd, hobnobbing with politicians,
and winking for support, Sen. Ron Wyden from Oregon
aptly summed up the atmosphere like this:
“Everybody’s
going to be fighting for oxygen at a very high
altitude.”
One
of Prince’s biggest hits was ‘let’s
go crazy.’ But organizers of the super bowl
halftime show are hoping that he won’t go
too crazy when he takes the stage to perform during
the halftime of the upcoming Super Bowl.
With
all the kvetch decrying Janet Jackson’s
‘wardrobe malfunction’ last year,
and Rolling Stone’s bleepy follow-up this
year, you would think that Prince, with his catalogue
of kinky tunes and a reputation built on exalting
lyrical nudity, would have no chance to get the
nod to perform during the halftime Super Bowl
show.
But the once nameless rock crooner was tapped
for just that, despite the apothegm from small
pocket of skeptics leery of a rerun of Jackson’s
fiasco.
Prince, 48, will
perform at Dolphin Stadium, near Miami, on February
5. The event will be televised on CBS.
The
last super bowl halftime show drew an audience
of 91 million viewers in the US alone. Organizers
are counting on Prince’s star duende to
help top that.
Meanwhile,
things are looking rather groovy for Prince, a
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee, who for a
while idled out in doldrums, but bounced back
recently with the release of new albums.
The
selection of Prince for the half time gig came
three days after he corralled five nominations
for Grammy Awards, music industry’s biggest
recognition.
As
for the worries that an unpredictable Prince might
unleash something a bit kinky on stage, organizers
are downplaying that possibility, counting on
their conclusion that the veteran rock star is
no longer into sexually explicit tunes since he
became a devoted Jehovah’s Witness.
And
speaking of witness, we are all here to witness
Prince’s incredible mansuetude, his apostasy
that prodded his transmogrify from wild to mellow.
And it’s all
about Rumsfeld’s stunning memo, a new kick
to the expression – ‘Rumsfeldian incompetence.’
Outgoing Defense
Secretary Rumsfeld resigned November 8, a day
after Republicans got’ thumped’ in
the midterm elections, and two days before he
wrote a memo spewing his thoughts on the war in
Iraq.
“Clearly,
what the US is currently doing in Iraq is not
working well or fast enough”, writes Rumsfeld.
“It is time for a major adjustment.”
The adjustment he talked about, we now know, includes
troop redeployment.
OK. A dram of candor
for a change.
Not him, but his mess will be.
But
of course, it was Rumsfeld, who as the solon of
a camarilla of ‘leaning forwarders’,
in the past, publicly said that the US was making
progress in Iraq, even as he led the attack against
a bumptious Pennsylvania congressman John Murtha’s
kvetch for troops to come home or summarily be
redeployed. Turns out Rumsfeld agreed with Murtha
all along, but wallowed in costly apophasis, misleading
the America public. All this, while he and his
ilks preached an unyielding apologia for a failed
war policy in the face of surging insurgent attacks
in Iraq.
This
underscores a profound apostasy that clearly highlights
the clunker of the Bush administration’s
policy in Iraq.
Government
to roll out a tougher, trickier citizenship test
for immigrants
ONUMBA.COM
BLOG, BY IKE MGBATOGU 12/04/06
"Not only will
would-be-citizens be asked to name the first president
of the United States, now they might also be expected
to cough up information about whether or not he
liked ‘pilgrim’s lentil soup’
for dinner."
Name the three branches
of government, and their roles in this presidential
system of government. Now why three branches?
The test, of course
is not for them, but how many born citizens can
answer these basic questions correctly?
"I don’t
think Iraq is in a civil war, I think Iraq is
in a war internally."
What?
That telling take
was from Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise
Institute, a conservative apparat.
And it sadly epitomizes
the kind of ‘kabuki’ dancing with
semantics that is deeply troubling, about a war
now longer than WWII, with nearly 3,000 US troops
killed and nearly 22,000 wounded.
Pletka’s slick
characterization is a sharp departure from former
secretary of state Colin Powel's take on it. “I
would call it a civil war.” Why? Because
he likes to face reality. And outgoing UN Chief
Kofi Annan agrees.
As Iraq spirals
into a civil war, maybe one is already raging,
efforts are now being pursued on several fronts
to avert what could turn into an orgy of killing.
VP Cheney, a top Iraqi war solon, flew to Saudi
Arabia last week for talks with the Royal family
about the Iraq turbulence and other crises in
the region. And yesterday, President Bush huddled
up with the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
in Jordan for more talks; hint that he could be
cracking from the onslaught of calls for a way
out of this painful, painful conundrum. Out of
the meeting emerged dulceting remarks from Maliki
assuring that his wonky forces will be ready to
assume responsibility for the security of Iraq
by June 2007. But observers are rather skeptical
about al-Maliki’s canorous talk, obviously
under pressure, urged on by President Bush's largely
more of the same rambling responses to reporter's
question. Some raise serious doubts regarding
al-Maliki's ability or willingness to disarm or
at the very least tame Moqtada al-Sadr's powerful
militia, something they say he must do to begin
to arrest the surge in sectarian violence. It
is not possible to do, they say, certainly not
in six, seven months as the prime minister confidently
prattled.
There's all of that.
But there's also the matter of the fact being
that there are forces within Iraq, maybe outside
of it too, gungho on stoking an all out civil
war. Exactly how to bring them into the fold of
those seeking a stable Iraq is not even being
adressed yet.
Then again, events
could improve on the ground. However, judging
by the events on the ground now, it looks rather
grim.
Iraq
Not surprisingly,
there’s now talk of reaching out to Iran
(of the ‘axis of evil’ fame) for help,
being the biggest power with far reaching sway
in the region. But are we then to expect that
the almighty Dubya is prepared to talk to the
‘devil’ so long as it offers a way
out of this deepening morass?
First
lesson: (Be good to the people on your way up
to invading Iraq because you might need them on
your way out).
All of that, of
course, is going on, amidst a lot of talk about
Bush and Dems being committed to spirit of bipartisanship
as a way out of the Iraqi quagmire. There’s
also the heightened expectation that the Baker
– Hamilton study group, a cabal of
seasoned solons picked from both parties, will
offer an agreeable conduit out of this mess, in
a report to be released December 6. All of that
are efforts now being pursued to achieve a stable
Iraq. But now Bush is relapsing back to his worn
out posture of ‘stay the course’,
saying recently that he will not withdraw US forces
from Iraq until victory is achieved. Bush frowns
at being accused of plotting a 'graceful exit.'
But that's precisely the idea, said Sen. Kerry
on CNN.
Obviously, Iraq
is a mess, and make no mistake about it, it is
Bush’s mess. It was his war of choice, and
now lives are being lost, at a huge financial
cost. Thanks a lot to Bush, Cheney and their war
minions, ‘leaning forwarders’ still
clinging on to a Noachian view of the world; and
panglossian imaginations of a universe molded
just to their liking. But equally important are
the many thanks that must go to the American public
for rewarding Bush’s first four years of
grinding incompetence with four more years of
what is now proving to be more of the same clunker.
Second
Lesson: There are indeed limits to good intentions.
Sure, it’s OK to want democracy for other
countries. No one is denying that. But at the
same time, it is downright hubristic, provocative,
even draconian, to ram it down their throat, while
they are ‘kicking and screaming.’
Other countries can embrace democracy, if they
so choose. But they must be left alone to do it
at their own pace. And here is the weirdest thing
in all of this: Women in Saudi Arabia are not
even allowed to drive, and the country is as far
away from being democratic as humans are from
Pluto. Yet it was OK for VP Cheney to visit and
hobnobb with the royal family, for talks about
ways to stabilize Iraq for its wonky democracy
to thrive.
Kigali
gives Paris the 'middle finger' pointing up, Ouch
ONUMBA.COM
BLOG, BY IKE MGBATOGU 11/27/06
Get
out, Rwanda tells France. Get out too, France
fired right back. And the squabble rages on.
Call
it paranoia. Call it a bad move. Call it whatever
you decide to call it, but the government in Kigali
is having none of it from mighty Paris. Rwandan
government ordered French diplomats to leave the
country for what it says is a plot by France to
bring down the government of President Paul Kagame.
In
truth though, the relation between France and
Rwanda was never chummy to begin with, but tensions
escalated recently when French Judge Jean-Louis
Bruguiere issued a warrant for the arrest of nine
aides to President Kagame, apparently, for their
role in the death of former Rwandan President
Juvenal Habyarimana. It was the death of Habyarimana
in a mysterious plane crash that unleashed hell
on earth in the 1994 slaughter of an estimated
800,000 Rwandans.
But
even though France is dourly arguing that Judge
Bruguiere is acting on his own authority, it has
not helped a bit in calming down the raging dank
between the two nations, stemming largely from
the accusation against aides close to President
Kagame for being behind the historic carnage.
But
Rwanda fired back, saying that France masterminded
the 1994 genocide.
Meanwhile,
the orgy of finger pointing now shifts to the
US being blamed for a sluggish response to the
crises, apparently because of an avalanche of
credible hints warning of a gathering carnage
in the East Central African nation.
There
is no shortage of efforts, cabals working to help
poor Africa, providing anything from soup to nuts
for people living in squalor. LIVE EIGHT and scores
of beaugeste rock concerts, largesse from wealthy
philantropists, UN assistance and aid from wealthier
nations, are some of the known efforts to lift
Africa up from the pit of despair. There's also
CGI, Clinton’s Global Initiative, now on
the ground in a number of African countries working
primarily to make AIDS drugs available at a reduced
cost.
So why aren’t we seeing
improvements on the ground?
It
sure was a smorgasbord of racial insult unleashed
on blacks.
Michael
Richards, 57, former co-star on the ‘Seinfeld’
show, spewed a ‘Lott’ of racial epithets
against blacks during his stand-up comedy routine:
He basically presided over an orgy of epithets.
‘N' word this, 'N' word that’, mother
effing this, mother effing that.
"Shut
up! Fifty years ago we'd have you upside down
with a f------ fork up your a—“, Richard
said. “"You can talk, you can talk,
you're brave now mother------. Throw his a-- out.
He's a n-----!"
Yet
Richards says he is “not racist.”
Apparently, that’s his story and he is going
to stick to it. But if you believe that for a
New York second, then I’m a ‘flying
nun' sent from heaven to forgive all your sins.
Richards
now says he is sorry for his tirade. But do you
remember Sen. Trent Lott and his own rant four
years ago? How sorry was he? Very.
Richard,
we all understand being angry for being booed.
Heck - I would too. What people are having problem
with, however, is why you took it out on black
people. Of course, apology is OK, but it still
doesn’t explain the deeper venom that fed
this onslaught of malefic diatribe, unleashing
a barrage of racial slurs against blacks.
But
then it all takes us right back to the central
question of who has the right to use the 'N' word
‘ And comedian Paul Rodriguez was right.
"Once
the word [nigger] comes out of your mouth and
you don't happen to be African-American, then
you have a whole lot of explaining," Rodriguez
told CNN.
Of
course, Dems political strategist James Carville
is happy that his party won the midterm elections,
sweeping into power with control of both the House
of Representatives and the Senate. But the bald-headed
political wizard is pissed off because he thinks
that democrats could have picked up 50 House seats,
compared to the nearly 30 they won. And for this,
this alone, he is pillorying the Chairman of the
Democratic Party Howard Dean for having reached
the Rumsfeldian level of incompetence, saying
that Dean did not spend enough money to win more
seats.
Asked
if Dean should be fired: Carville replied, ‘Yes.’
I
give Carville his props. And he certainly is a
true progressive politician. But he is dead wrong
on this.
There’s
Governor Taft, a man no politician wants to touch,
not even with a long pole. Then former congressman
Bob Ney and now Thomas Noe. Together, the three
wove a cobweb of lawbreakers that helped turn
Ohio into a bedaubed ground of ethical soillure.
To
be sure, it has been a monumental mess in Ohio,
with the economy tailspinning into a torrid toboggan.
And
now Noe finds himself in an even bigger mess.
Judge Thomas J. Osowik handed down a harsh sentence
for Noe, the Ohio coin dealer who stole from a
$50 million coin investment he managed for the
state of Ohio Bureau of Worker’s Compensation.
Noe gets 18 years in prison, $139,000 fine and
will pay nearly $3 million in court cost.
Nigerian’s
Information Minister Frank Nweke must be on something.
Or onto something. Either way, to suggest that
corruption is not a problem in Nigeria is, to
put it mildly, flat-out hogwash, even approaching
the epitome of absurdity. Of course, I understand
Nweke being dour about defending the Obasanjo
government; he is part of it for heavens sake.
Beside it is his job to defend the administration
even if it means spewing twaddle. But even so,
to go as far as downplaying the culture of corruption
ravaging Nigeria is profoundly insane and uncalled
for. And he knows it. I bet you his left eye twitched
quite a bit when he said that.
New
York Congressman Charlie Rangel, incoming chairman
of the powerful House Ways and Means committee,
is taking the words of Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr. a bit too serious.
Dr.
King taught us that, “The ultimate test
of a man is not where he stands in moments of
comfort and moments of convenience, but where
he stands in moments of challenge and moments
of controversy.”
And
when it comes to the touchy matter of military
draft, especially with the war in Iraq still raging,
there’s a smorgasbord of controversy, and
certainly these are challenging times.
But
despite being isolated on this, old Charlie is
still yapping for support for his ‘military
draft’ and ‘shared sacrifice’
agenda, even after a thumping clunker the first
time it came up for a vote in the House.
So
far, his yammering is falling on deaf ears, including
the ears of incoming speaker of the House Nancy
Pelosi.
Onumbafeatwuredstory
Democratic
presidential candidate Barack Obama
Democratic
presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Obama
Former rivals U.S. Senators
Obama and Clinton
Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Obama
Bhutto died last Thursday
Former Nigerian House Speaker Etteh
Michael Vick
Sen Larry Craig
Sen. Tim Johnson
Droopy
Booby 
Cavs star LeBron James
Embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
Home bound
Charles Barkley
Condi waves
Wave
Condi wave 
Map of the world
Former Ohio congressman Bob Ney
Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich
Former
Ethiopian dictator Mengistu
House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi receiving the gavel from
Ohio's Rep. John Boehner
President
Bush
Speaker Nancy Pelosi
Former
Democratic Party Chair Terry McAuliffe
Saddam
Hussein 
Saddam Hussein
Outgoing
UN Chief Kofi Annan
President
Bush 
Late
President Ford 
Looking
at blood won't tell you if it is tainted. Looking
at people won't either
Sen.
Barack Obama 
Botswana
Bushmen
Allen Iverson
Co-chairs
of ISG, Hamilton and Baker 
British Prime Minister Tony
Blair
Senator
Hillary Clinton
Prince 
Outgoing
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld
Not him, but his mess will be.
Brave US troops
Iraq 
