Robert Gibbs, Obama's Press Secretary

From the AP Newswire: Two of the top qualities Robert Gibbs brings to the job of White House press secretary aren't found on his resume: He won't flinch at telling it like it is to the next president or telling it like he thinks it ought to be to the media.

Gibbs has been at the side of President-elect Barack Obama since his Senate campaign in 2004. A Southerner and tough fighter, Gibbs has been a passionate defender of Obama who can virtually channel the Illinois senator's thoughts.

"I look forward to serving both the president-elect as he works to get our economy moving again and the press to get what they need to cover that and other important stories," Gibbs told The Associated Press on Saturday.

During the presidential campaign, Gibbs, 37, served as communications director and was among the few who could frankly tell Obama what needed to improve.

He didn't hesitate to tell the media when he thought they got it wrong, either. He fiercely guarded Obama's image.

One critic called Gibbs "the bland face of brazenness" when he said Obama's decision to resign from his church amid the controversy over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was "a deeply personal decision, not a political decision."

Others were surprised when he called Fox News' Bill O'Reilly a "bully" and asked Sean Hannity, "Are you anti-Semitic?" in response to the TV commentator's questions about Obama's relationship to William Ayers, a 1960s radical.

Continue reading the AP article on Robert Gibbs here.

Shelby Steele Wrong Again

Why do people keep paying Shelby Steele's crazy and outdated notions of race and caste.

Author and professional Republican sellout Shelby Steele wrote a book entitled, A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win.

The whitest man in America, conservative columnist George Will wrote a review on Steele's book in the Washington Post last Novemeber. Will says that Steele's "argument is ultimately unconvincing because he fundamentally misreads Barack Obama. Nevertheless, so fecund is Steele's mind, he illuminates the racial landscape that Obama might transform."

George Will continues by stating, "Obama has chosen to resolve his ambiguous racial identity by embracing the social determinism and identity politics of post-'60s black dogmas. Hence he is a "bound man." He is "bound against himself" because he has fit himself into the world by often taking his experience out of account.'"

"...Steele radically misreads Obama, missing his emancipation from those perversities. Obama seems to understand America's race fatigue, the unbearable boredom occasioned by today's stale politics generally and by the perfunctory theatrics of race especially."

Mr. Will concludes by asserting, that "So far, Obama is the Fred Astaire of politics -- graceful and elegant, with a surface so pleasing to the eye that it seems mistaken, even greedy, to demand depth."

Here's a clip of Steele making an historic fool out of himself:

Emptying Pandora's Box

Richard Cohen's article "Emptying Pandora's Box" in the New York Times states:

These are interesting times. Jobs are disappearing and General Motors is running out of cash. At the same time, America has assuaged some of its deepest wounds with the election of Barack Obama. We have less money in our pockets but more hope in our hearts.

Hope won’t feed an empty stomach. But it’s potent. In Greek myth, when Pandora opened her box, she let out all the evils except one: hope. The Greeks considered hope dangerous; its bedfellow can be delusion. Nietzsche later saw hope as the evil that prolongs human torment.

But in the end Pandora opened her box again and released hope because, without it, humanity was filled with despair.

At least that’s one version of the myth. What is certain is that there’s a lot of hope about these days. It would be an exaggeration to say people are happier now that we have less money, but accurate to say there’s a surfacing of shame about the extent of our spend-spend-spend excesses.

Continue reading the entire article, "Emptying Pandora's Box" by Richard Cohen

First Americans for Obama

Indian Country Today, "Obama: a leader and a partner," asserts that the “maverick” strategy is failing, mostly due to a disappointing campaign that baits the right-wing conservative base with negative ads and McCain’s selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Palin is both embraced and criticized by Native people. Much of the praise for Palin stems from her husband’s Yup’ik heritage and the inference that she will be sympathetic to Indian rights as vice president. Her detractors point to a record of opposing the subsistence rights of Alaska Natives. Palin’s involvement in a state ethics investigations and her willingness to exploit xenophobic conservative themes at campaign appearances add more reason for concern. If McCain’s selection of Palin was an attempt to attract Clinton supporters, it was an alarming miscalculation and an insult to that educated, open-minded voting bloc.

The political will exists in Congress to sustain the foundation of Indian sovereignty. We are encouraged by a progressive leader like Obama, who offers a principled blueprint for an Indian policy that addresses rights and cultural integrity. He believes that treaties are “paramount law,” which will inform his judicial appointments and help the case for U.S. recognition of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Read the complete article "Obama: a leader and a partner" here.