The Fireside Post

*Hank’s Giving Day Turkey

This is a recipe out of my Hank Jr cookbook.  My wife cooked this at our first home cooked Thanksgiving and it turned out wonderful.  This cookbook is chock full of recipes for parties, everyday meals and wild game. 1   turkey, washed and drained 1 tsp pepper 1 tsp salt 1 tsp paprika 4 tsps […]

First Press Conference

Well, if the presidential campaign didn’t convince you that Barack Obama is one disciplined fellow, his first public appearance as President-elect certainly should have. The press conference was notable for several things: –he did not stray from or change a single position that he took during the course of the campaign. He emphasized his previous […]

First Dude

It turns out Todd Palin is a closet metrosexual: On top of the $150,000 first outlined in Federal Election Commission filings, Palin spent “tens of thousands of dollars” on additional clothing, makeup and jewelry for herself and her family, including $40,000 in luxury goods for her husband, Todd, our colleague Michael Shear reports. The campaign […]

Trust God, But Lock Your Car

The Federal Government of the past eight years reminded this writer of an old computer axiom – we can now make a million mistakes a minute. In 1972 I worked in the world of finance with an IBM 370, Model 145 – one of those mainframe computers with a front panel of flashing white, yellow, […]

CNN’s Hologram – Cool Techonology

Well, this about takes the cake.  Technology is advancing rapidy – but look at this – you still have to read these words.  That is about as old as Abraham.  The differencs is that we have people from Hobart, Australia, reading this commentary.  They might be rednecks but they are able to use the internet. […]

Palin didn’t know Africa’s a continent

President-Elect Obama is busy putting together a smooth transition.  John McCain reports he is ready to get back to work in the Senate.  And Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has gone home to Alaska – some say to prepare for 2012.  Like everyone else, this writer was shocked at Palin’s seeming lack of knowledge and lack […]

The Early Word: McCain-Palin Post-Mortem

By Michael Falcone As all eyes turn to President-elect Barack Obama, his transition to the White House and the changing political landscape in Washington and across the country, epilogues to the 2008 presidential race abound. Today The Times’s Elisabeth Bumiller goes inside the McCain campaign to find out what went wrong in the closing days […]

This Election Was Personal – And Angry

This election was exhausting.  The campaigns were passionate in a time when deep fears griped each of us.  Even George Bush supporters believe he was treated unfairly by world events beyond his control – but those events happened to all of us.  All of us, Americans and our fellow earthly citizens, have been deeply impacted […]

Catholics Turned to the Democrat

By Michael Luo Much was made in 2004 of the so-called “God gap” between Republicans and Democrats, becoming part of the conventional wisdom explaining President Bush’s victory over Senator John F. Kerry. As a result, the Democratic Party, including Senator Barack Obama, focused heavily on outreach to religious voters, including white evangelicals who voted overwhelmingly […]

2008 Election: Winners and Losers

By Chris Cillizza Barack Obama will be the 44th president of the United States. John McCain will not, likely capping a long and well-decorated political career with a loss. Democrats will expand their majorities in the House and the Senate. Republicans will be relegated to minority status in both chambers, forced to re-calculate what their […]

McCain’s Concession Speech

Here is John McCain’s concession speech.  He is and always will be one of the most influential people in America. MCCAIN: Thank you. Thank you, my friends. Thank you for coming here on this beautiful Arizona evening. My friends, we have — we have come to the end of a long journey. The American people […]

Finally, An Intellectual Moral President

Barack Obama is the President-elect. We should say that again: Barack Obama is the President-elect. It has been a long time.  We in America can be proud of ourselves.  Barack Obama is scholarly, educated in constitutional law, intellectually curious, a master communicator, and possesses the moral values of Ghandi, the wisdom of Solomon, and the […]

To The Mountaintop

By Joe Klein Word comes that Barack Obama’s grandmother has died. The timing is ridiculous. But think, for a moment, if you will of Madelyn Dunham, a white woman from Kansas, strolling the aisle of a supermarket, or having lunch in a coffee shop, with her grandson–way back at the turn of the 1970s, when […]

Redneck Gazette – Obama Uses Common Sense

Redneck Gazette Second Edition Punkin Center, Missouri, BR-777 Obama Uses Missouri Common Sense Fannie Mae is goin fishing We been listening to that fella Barack Obama. It sounds like he uses plain old Missouri Common Sense. Figure this out. Obama is talking about that over on Wall Street. We think that is in a big […]

Barack and Michelle – Happy Together

Washington Post Daily Tracking

Daily Tracking > If the 2008 presidential election were being held today, for whom would you vote? (Among likely voters) Highlights 56% of likely voters say they think Obama‘s views on most issues are about right. 42% of likely voters say they think McCain‘s views on most issues are about right. NOTE: Movable voters are […]

Cable Talking Head Conundrum

We find ourselves in a technological quandry.  This writer is an amateur politica junkie (is that an oxy moron), or just moronic?  Does Oxy imply a clean moron?  No matter – today we find ourselves struggling to find real news and intelligent commentary on the cable ‘news’ channels. Wolf Blitzer is just a bore, welcome […]

Obama Nation or Abomination

Well, what is it – ObamaNation or Abomination.  These seem to be the prevailing viewpoints of Americans, the prevailing choices for America.  We will either have an abomination – (nasty and disgusting, great hatred and disgust). Or an Obama Nation – (hope and optimism, charming and intelligent).  Which is it? If we look at the […]

The McCain hijacking: A commentary

by Dick Batchelor One of the two major candidates for president has been kidnapped. The victim went along willingly, without a murmur of protest. He’ll remain a hostage on Election Day. You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to find him, and it’s no mystery. The victim is in plain sight: It’s John McCain. The […]

Biden: Election Will Be ‘a Lot Closer’ Than People Think

By Perry Bacon Jr. LIMA, Ohio — The surest sign of confidence from the Barack Obama campaign? Maybe allowing Sen. Joe Biden to take a dozen questions from reporters at a diner stop that turned into an impromptu press conference in which the senator from Delaware laid out his thoughts on the state of the […]

Eagleburger Says Palin Isn’t Ready Yet

By Julie Bosman BREEZEWOOD, Pa. — Has the list of former secretaries of state supporting the Republican ticket been whittled down to four? In an interview on National Public Radio on Thursday, Lawrence Eagleburger, who served during the second term of President George H.W. Bush, was asked if Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska is prepared […]

You’re for Obama or You’re Racist

With the possibility of having our first black President, Democrats are doing everything they can to help Obama win. They have brought voters out in record numbers, have rallied all across America and have done so with the use of fear. It seems that the easiest way to snag voters is to paint the opposition […]

Partisan pollsters disagree on WH race

by Frank James There’s been a good back and forth this week between Democratic and Republican pollsters. Stan Greenberg of Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner, a Democratic pollster, sent out his own analysis of the presidential race this afternoon, to counter one distributed earlier in the week by Bill McInturff, official pollster for Sen. John McCain’s campaign. […]

Call Him John the Careless

Thursday, October 30, 2008; Page A23 From the invasion of Iraq to the selection of Sarah Palin, carelessness has characterized recent episodes of faux conservatism. Tuesday’s probable repudiation of the Republican Party will punish characteristics displayed in the campaign’s closing days. Some polls show that Palin has become an even heavier weight in John McCain’s […]

Parsing the (Tracking) Poll: October Surprise

Although there are only two days left in October, there are still many people in the political world waiting for an “October Surprise” — some sort of game-changing event in the final moment before the general election that could fundamentally alter the race between Barack Obama and John McCain. Four years ago, that “surprise” was […]