I'm sitting here with my class on the next to last day of school watching Sen. Obama speak before AIPAC.  What a difference 11 hours make.  He's already taken on the mantle.  As he is speaking you see two immediate differences.  The senator is no longer in a regional campaign demeanor.  He is statesmanlike.  Concilitory, yet assertive.  The aura he has already donned is one of thoughtfulness instead of reactionary.

I thought my kids would be bored stiff with sleepy heads nodding waiting for the their early release bell the day before school officially ends.  But they are watching. Listening. They don't seem awed by the historical implicatons they are witnessing.  They almost see it as a natural occurance of someone winning out over rivals for a top spot.

On this day in 1917 our 35th President was born. Along with his two brothers, Robert Francis Kennedy & Edward Moore Kennedy, Harry S. Truman, Franklin Delano Rosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr., and finally my father, who was named for Woodrow Wilson, they define who I am politically. We here at Truman's Conscience felt today would be a great day to celebrate what they all stood for.

As this blog is dedicated to the legacy President Harry S. Truman, it is an ideal time to remember that it is the ideals they all represented and the principles that governed their actions that drive the progressive movement today. On January 20th, 1961 JFK helped us define those progressive ideals with a profoundness that still rings loud and clear to those of us who want to act on behalf of our country:

Yesterday I acted in an insensitive manner posting a diary contemplating my mixed emotions regarding Sen. Kennedy as lay and continues to recover in a hospital for a seizure(s).  After reviewing the comments and reassessing my timing I understand I offended many in the blogging community.  Some suggested it would have been better to have posted this at another time.  In retrospect, there is no better time.  This entry is not appropriate in any blogging community at any time.

As a long time reader, poster and diarist of the Dkos community I value the opinions and perspectives presented here on an hourly basis.  I see now my insensitivity violated the spirit of the community with these offensive remarks which were/are inexcusable.  So I offer my sincere apologies.

TrumanDem

Truman's Conscience
"The Buck Stopped Here"

Before I begin this diary I want to make it clear I only hope for the best for the Senior Senator from Massachusetts and a full and hearty recovery to continue his work for liberal and progressive causes.  Having said that I would also like to point out this diary is being pounded out on a keyboard that sits underneath two large and prominent framed photos of Robert F. Kennedy and John F. Kennedy.  I’ve always called myself a Truman-RFK Democrat who feels the ideals they represented helped define my political being.
With the news of Ted Kennedy’s hospitalization this morning I felt saddened there may be a possibility we would lose him.  Though my feelings for his well-being are genuine I also must say he is not a favorite of mine.  I consider him mercurial at best and someone who’s crassness and often times sneering arrogance comes at the expense of the liberal and progressive causes he claims to represent.  

When I saw the story breaking on yet another hypocritical, Clinton impeachment voting, GOP congressional member getting caught with his pants down I almost ignored the story because the shock value of it all has completely evaporated at this point.  The only important questions to me were what district was it in, how red it was, and the potential for a Dem pick up in 2008.  While I was looking for that info I got off on a tangent and ran across some data points that lead to telling conclusions about our culture surrounding sex and scandel, our POV on nudity and just how damn priggish and prudish we are.  The 13 year old attitudes we have about sex and nudity heavily promoted by the religious right at some point has to lead us to conclude that we are causing major problems in our culture that are unnessasary and dangerous.

I've had about all the agony I can stand in this primary season.  I'm more than past ready for it to be over.  Yes, I know how wonderful it is for GOTV and increased Democratic voter rolls as each primary/caucus passes.  But utlimitly at what price?

On a personal level I've already been here before, watching the person for whom I held great admiration, esteem, and just plain adoration for go into a self destruct mode as the nomination slips further and further away.  Yeah, I've been here before.

In the primary season during the 2000 election I had comfortabley settled down to watch the two candidates I absolutely loved and admired the most prepare for a wonkfest fill debate schedule.  I was expecting a high caliber discussion where issues would be taken apart and reassembled right before my eyes with perspective that would be fresh to me.

This weekend I was exposed to a variety of commentaries about the ABC "debate" criticisms regarding the lapel flag pin "issue."  I just can't seem to get past the fact that no where does anyone mention this all started with a FAUXNews meme during the 2000/2002/2004/2006 elections.  Just thought I'd mention this before I got to my main point.

I did have an epiphany of sorts Sunday when I was watching HBO's brilliant series "John Adams."  As the right hysteria over wearing your patiotism on you sleeve (or in this case lapel) reached new heights it took on a surreal quality as I watched Sunday's rerun of all the "John Adams" episodes on HBO leading up to their final episode Sunday evening. Having sporatically caught snippets here and there I was able to see it in it's entirely with this weekend reprise.

As a former Edwards supporter my choice between the remaining two campaigns, Obama and Clinton, was made for purely academic reasons. The three most important issues for me right now are the Iraq war, health care, and civil rights issues which are directly related to future choices for the Supreme Court. We are only one elderly court member away from falling into a hard right wing court that sees civil rights as something to be tolerated as a necessary evil and to be circumvented at any cost. Based on these three issues my choice fell to Obama because I felt his position on Iraq and civil rights were superior.

Now that I've qualified my support for Senator Obama, I still have problems with his health care plan. Though Hillary's is only slightly better whereas the subsidies she supports have a heavier emphasis than his, both still rely largely on the tired old remedy of private insurers to be the mainstay of their plans.

Yesterday while perusing Chris Bowers' and Matt Stoller's Open Left I ran across a video of Obama Stoller had posted where he was addressing the editorial board of the Reno Gazette.  Imagine my shock and anger as I watched in complete dismay Obama tell me, a liberal who had to sit and endure Ronald Reagan pointing at ME and telling the American people my liberal values were the problem [i.e. '60's and '70's excesses] and they should be afraid of it.  He did't offer any damn solutions but he took what would become the standard GOP ploy, telling the American people so and so [i.e. "dirty fucking hippies] is your problem and you should be afraid of them.  Fortunately, Matt Stoller recounted the vile misreading of American political history spilling out of Obama's mouth:

As usual the MSM talking heads refuse to address the issues that were discussed this evening while instead talking about personalities ad nausem like this was a hollywood gossip programmer.  Here is why Edwards shined this evening:  his answer on his wrong vote on the never passed 2002 Bankruptcy bill and his clarifing position on Iraq.

First, his vote on that 2002 Bankruptcy bill.  Let me get this out of way by saying Edwards did miss an opportunity to explain why this bill failed in committee.  He voted for the bill initially because of the raise in minimum wage provision which is also the reason it died.  The GOP just would not have anything to do with a raise in the minimum wage.  Hillary acted confused or forgetful on why it failed and tried to explain her mea culpa as well.  But Edwards did did tie the bankruptcies in this country with catastrophic medical illnesses.

I know there have been a couple of diaries about this but their is no doubt the anti-gay marriage amendment here in Florida is in trouble due to the lack of proper signatures to make the ballot.  But what hasn't been dicussed to date is just how short thay are.

According to the Miami Herald it has come down to the number of petition signatures that were "double counted."  The Miami Dade elections office having problems counting petitions shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone at this point.  In any event the exact number they are short is 22,000 in which they have one week to make it up.

There has been a lot of news today about Creationism rearing its ecumenical head again, especially here in Florida.  As already reported on by Darksyde several counties have already made their move to have creationism put into the curriculum. Blast Off!, a great Florida progressive blog, has more on this, in particular regarding Baker and Taylor Counties. As Baker county is adjacent to my home county, Duval, I can report to you there are noises being made here as well regarding the introduction of "intelligent design" into the curriculum.

There is a famous photo of a victorious Harry Truman grinning from ear to ear holding up a copy of the Chicago Tribune proclaiming "Dewey Defeats Truman" that could not be more relevant than this morning.  Last night in a moment of inspiraton I took that photo and doctored it by taking out the famous headline and replacing it with "Obama Defeats Hillary" in preparation to post it on my blog.  

I found myself as an Edwards supporter taking great joy in this little exercise even though Hillary was not even close to being my third choice.  Once I finished posting it I just sat back and looked at it enjoying my little moment of fun and wishing I could share it with others.  But then, like Markos, I turned just in time to see Terry Mac grinning with Andrea Mitchell on my TV and images of Mark Penn and the other people that are so counter to what I beieve in as a Democrat began popping into my head dissapting any residual euphoria I had in the MSM taking it up the wazoo.

What a contrast in narratives for this cycle's Iowas caucus as opposed to 2004's.  For 48 hours after the 2004 Iowa caucus the narrative was the "Dean Scream."  The continious loop of that moment on all the major news networks nearly drowned out Kerry's win and Edwards' second place finish.  From there to New Hampshire it was all we heard about as the MSM followed Dean's mortally wounded campaign into New Hamshire on a death watch.  Meanwhile, Kerry and Edwards' message was not being heard around the country, only locally.

What a difference an election cycle makes.  The narrative now is Obama's speech.  I counted the replay last night of that speech as follows:  MSNBC 2 times and several viewings of clips; CNN 2 times, again with several clips; C-Span twice (as well as all the candidates); FauxNews clips several times and one full speech viewing.

I'm really tired of heartbreaking examples of what Bush's excellent Mid-East adventure is costing our country in lives and money. The incompetence of the man notwithstanding there is the residual effect of our federal highway maintenance funds and where they've obviously wound up. Instead of fixing and maintaining our federal infrastructure we've sent the monies overseas so THAT infrastructure can be blown up:

"The Federal Highway Administration is rescinding a total of more than $871 million in federal aid highway funds from states. Texas is second only to California in the amount of funds being rescinded. California is losing about $79.2 million. The money is being diverted to other government priorities. In its notice, the Federal Highway Administration said the funds were being rescinded as required by the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, 2007."

Devilstower's http://devilstower.dailykos.com/ regarding David Halberstam's last missive to America regading the dauphine of the Bush family currently residing at 1600 Pennsylvania avenue is so dead on one almost feels there is nothing to add.  But there is.  Even Vanity Fair's http://www.vanityfair.com/... he sites doesn't answer the one question that seems to go unasked regarding the child prince's "legacy:"  what does the carrier strutting pretender REALLY want as far as his legacy goes?

After a couple of logistical problems my plan to live blog John Edwards' appearance on my blog here in Jacksonville, FL is on.  For those of you in the area it is tomorrow at 7:00pm, FCCJ South Campus in the Wilson Center.  This is the first time I've done anything like this but I'm game since it worked so well on a couple events I followed nationally (i.e. the Libby trial).  I'll follow up with photos and a wrap.  

I've just discovered that's it's very likely I'll be live blogging the Edwards event here in Jacksonville, FL on Wednesday, April 11th on my blog.  The campus has wireless internet and since I'm a member of the local Duval County Democratic Executive Committee I may be able to get press credentials as well for prime seating and photos.

I'll post a diary on Monday evening with more details as soon as I have them.  Just in case there are Daily Kos readers in the area that's this Wednesday night at FCCJ South Campus in the Wilson Room at 7:00pm.  I'll be looking foward to everyone joining in!