Something I read today has really drawn my ire.

In Jake Trapper’s “And Obama Wept,” he offers the viewpoint that “Obama supporters’ exuberance seems to be getting a little out of hand.” He points out others — like Felix Gillette, James Wolcott, Joe Klein and Kathleen Geier — who share the same POV. Some even go as far as to blast Obama supporters for worshiping him like he’s Jesus.

Excuse me, but fuck anyone who shares that opinion and the horses they rode in on. There’s a big difference between being part of a cult and being a part of a movement. It’s not our problem that you’re a bunch of jaded political hacks.

Why does this piss me off so bad? Because every election cycle I hear older people bitch and moan about how young people aren’t active enough in politics, and suddenly we are too active. WTF? I’m still pretty young, so that deeply offends me. Do a somewhat see their point? Sure, I guess, but there actually is something messianic about him to us. Especially after we’ve faced seven-going-on-eight years of George W. Bush.

Is he God? No, of course not. He’s not going to actually break bread or walk on water. So, no, we don’t believe he’s Jesus. What we do believe, however, is that he is our future. He isn’t the redelivery of God’s only begotten son — he’s the re-delivery of hope for my generation.

What’s my generation? I was born a week before Christmas, 1979. That makes me 29, and basically in between Generation X and Y. I guess I’m both the death rattle of Gen X and a Gen Y elder statesmen. It’s with both of those generations in mind that I respond to this “cult” bullshit.

No offense to the Baby Boomers and their parents, but their days of dominating the political landscape are over. They aren’t the ones who will have to face the next half century and the challenges it brings. The under-40 crowd will; That’s why I’m so irked at getting blasted for fervently rallying around the one candidate who can boldly lead us against the challenges like no other could. We might indeed be the ones we’ve been waiting for, but we’ve also been waiting to rally around someone like Barack Obama.

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Brilliant documentary filmmaker Michael Moore revealed last night that he cannot see himself voting for Hillary Clinton because of her 2002 vote authorizing the Iraq war. Here’s the footage from his Larry King appearance…

For starters, Barack Obama’s laid-back demeanor tonight was a great sign. Remember, the Obama camp has a bigger team of pollsters than any other campaign. He didn’t feel the need to be overly aggressive tonight, and there was likely a very good reason for that. In the past 11 days Hillary Clinton’s national lead shrunk from 20 points to four, and California is down to three (that was before Edwards unexpectedly bowed out). Obama and his advisers are obviously very comfortable with the current trajectory of the campaign as Super Tuesday approaches.

As for the debate itself — the headlines will mostly be about Iraq.

This upcoming fall, John McCain and the Republicans will attempt to turn the general election into yet another conversation about Iraq, and not the economy. He’s a war hero, and that’s what he’s all about. He talks more about The Surge than the rest of the candidates talk about the hot buzzword of “change” combined. Because of McCain’s strengths, we need a Democratic candidate that has consistently opposed the Iraq war.

Let’s revisit the fall of ‘04. The Democratic party ran John Kerry with John Edwards — two senators who voted for the authorization of the Iraq war in 2002 — against a GOP war candidate. In the end, the GOP war candidate won. I still believe to this very day that if we had of ran Howard Dean as an anti-war candidate, that he would have defeated George W. Bush. There would have been no swiftboating of Dean and his strong, consistent stance of opposing the war.

We are facing the exact same situation right now, Democrats. I’m worried that collectively we might make the wrong move. Because of his strong record of opposing the Iraq war, Barack Obama gives the Dems the absolute best chance to take back the White House in 2009. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, will hear those same “flip-flop” chants that Kerry heard four years ago. Additionally, it’s not like she has a lot of potential non-Democratic votes sitting out there waiting for her. Let’s face it, most non-Dems despise the Clintons. When it comes to the general election, Hillary has a high floor, but a low ceiling. That’s been said by quite a few before me, but it’s true. Obama has a much better chance at taking down the Republican nominee, especially the war-mongering McCain.

This debate wasn’t just about electability, though.

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Is the judgement Hillary Clinton and John Edwards displayed in 2002 what we want BACK in the White House? Sometimes it seems like it…

I’m glad Barack Obama brought this up again, because people are starting to forget how bad Hillary Clinton’s judgment was back in 2002. Man, she botched that vote. Meanwhile, our main man was busy giving this speech. Talk about night and day — wow. One has gobs of foresight, the other is hurting in the department. I’ll let you guys guess who’s who. Anyways, here’s what Obama said today about Hill (via The Trail):

“I have been open about my reasons for opposing the war, but one of my opponents in this race, Senator Clinton, has tried, I believe, to rewrite history,” Obama said at a roundtable discussion on veterans issues with several military officers here. “She voted for a resolution called and I quote, ‘a resolution to authorize the use of the United States Armed Forces again Iraq,’ and now she is saying that she wasn’t really voting for war. She cast her vote after failing to read the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, ..which raised enough doubts for the majority of Democratic senators who read it that they voted against the war. We need accountability in our leaders. You can’t undo a vote for war just because a war stops being popular.”

He added, “This is not just about the past, it’s about the future. Voters need to judge us on the judgments we’ve made and the lessons we’ve learned. Sen. Clinton has not said her vote was a mistake, she’s simply blamed the civilian and military leader that carried out the policies she authorized. If you don’t know why Iraq met the threshold for war, how can she know what that threshold will be in the future? When I’m president, the buck will stop with the Oval Office.

Ouch. Well played, sir. This already cost Dems one election; will it cost us another one?

I have a ton of stuff for everybody before I call it quits for the night, so I figured I’d just lump it all together in a link dump with my brief thoughts on each topic…

• The first link is one to FactCheck.org. This is a long piece that puts to rest a lot of the malicious and completely false rumors that are flying around about Barack Obama, mostly through e-mails. By the way, do people actually believe all the shit that gets e-mailed to them? Do these people also lose thousands of dollars to e-mail scams? Or are they just itching for an excuse to be bigots? C’mon, America, you’re better than this. Monday is Martin Luther King Day, and I’d like to at least think we’ve made some progress since his death.

• This link from C-Span is proof that Obama indeed recites the Pledge of Allegiance. Watch it for yourself if you must.

• Here’s yet another story which proves Obama is a Christian, not a Muslim. People just need to get online and do some research. Yeah, sometimes I forget that this is the same country where people see an explosion and a famous face in a movie trailer and are already halfway to the theater.

• I absolutely love this smart ass response to the question about these very rumors that was asked at the Nevada debate.

• And, yes, that indeed is a photo of Obama getting sworn in OVER THE BIBLE by the one and only Dick Cheney.

• Here’s a link to a Mason-Dixon poll courtesy of MSNBC. Obama leads Hillary Clinton 40 percent to 31, with John Edwards a very distant third. Yes, even in his birth state. I think it’s just about time for Johnny to gracefully bow out. The good news is that Obama looks very strong among black voters and women, the two voter types who are likely to decide the outcome. Obama also leads in the categories of “change,” the economy and health care, but surprisingly Hillary leads on Iraq. Do people not know that she VOTED FOR the Iraq war? It just boggles my ‘effin mind.

• A fantastic piece about Edith Childs, the 59-year-old South Carolina black woman who started the “Fired up! Ready to go!” Obama chant.

• There’s been a “judicial decision upholding Nevada caucus locations on the Las Vegas strip to aid casino workers” in voting. This is a huge win for the Obama camp, and could be enough to provide a Nevada victory. Yes, that was what all that bitching from Slick Willy was about.

• Obama “skewers” his presidential opponents over their lame responses to the “biggest weakness” question from the debate earlier this week. Hilarious. From The New York Times.
  

• After nabbing an endorsement from the state’s biggest newspaper, Obama now has an endorsement from the state’s second biggest paper as well — the Reno Gazzette-Journal. A glowing endorsement at that. I’ll leave you with this quote on Hillary, which nearly had me standing up and cheering:

Clinton, however, continues to struggle under the cloud of her husband, the former President Bill Clinton. She is challenged to escape the perception that she represents the status quo and that the advisers, the bureaucracy and the baggage from the former president’s administration would follow her into the White House — if she were to make it through the November election.

According to the Merriam-Webester online dictionary, the word “hypocrite is defined as:

1 : a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion

2 : a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings

Now, correct me if I am wrong here, but isn’t Hillary Clinton being a hypocrite when she blasts “pathetic” President Bush for employing “politics of fear” when she herself uses those same “politics of fear” in an attempt to win a political advantage over Barack Obama?

While watching the debate last night, it was obvious to me that was exactly what Hillary was doing. She kept on using the example of Great Britain Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and how Al-Qaeda tried to test him on “day one.” First off, how are you any more prepared to handle that on the day of your inauguration than Brown or Obama? She said that was not what she was implying, but it clearly was.

First off, we give Hillary way too much credit for her time served as first lady. When the terrorist attacks on Atlanta, OKC and NYC happened during Bill Clinton’s time in the White House, what kind of security clearance did she even have? Was Obama under a rock during these events?

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