video courtesy of Kevin Cho Tipton, South Florida Vice President, Florida College Democrats and Communications Director, FAU College Democrats
I just spent that last two hours outside Joe Biden's house. He will be selected as our next Vice President. The Secret Service was en route when I left. A State Police helicopter hovered over head. This is a first in our tiny, yet first and most important, state.
Well, I spent the morning stalking Joe Biden outside his house. That got boring, and if you ever wanted to get a real picture of American media, spend a few hours with them. It is frightening. So I came home on my personal day off from the toil of work, and came home to blog at Delaware Liberal and here.
Personally, I think it is a 50% chance that Joe Biden will be the running mate.
Still others disliked Biden as the choice for Vice President.
All three were the subject of significant trial balloons over the last three weeks, with the most significant being the possibility of Biden over the past 36 hours.
But with the developments today, I am now convinced Barack Obama has decided to pick....
Words have meaning. And when we use them in a sentence, we intend to convey a meaning. Otherwise, all we do when we speak is just make a loud, annoying noise.
In order for one person to speak, and another to understand what is spoken, it is essential that words have a common meaning. Indeed, words cannot be allowed to have their meaning changed, for when words are intentionally manipulated to have a new meaning, it is an attempt to create a new reality.
Yet, during the Bush years, and even prior to that, we have seen many attempts by Republicans and conservatives to take words and redefine them for their own purposes. In fact, not only do Republicans redefine them, they give the words their opposite meaning most times.
So I was purusing the comments this morning, when I stumbled upon this comment by a fellow Kossack:
In honor of the next Batman movie, The Dark Knight, I hereby am sending out the bat signal to call upon either Kid Oakland, Delaware Dem, DHinMI, or some other griseled vet to post a wise, group-hug/take-action type unifying diary that will calm this place down a bit so we get a look at the larger perspective.... perhaps maybe a JeffLieber for the humor factor.... or somebody who is good with words and umm stuff (LOL) to get us thinkin' again..
Delaware is known as the First State mostly because it was the first state to ratify the United States Constitution. But soon it will be known as the First State for another reason: it will be the first state in the United States to build offshore wind power.
And the juxtaposition of this news against last week's news that President Bush and his protege, John McCain, want to build offshore oil platforms could not be starker.
If there is one thing I know about myself, it is that I do not have the mind of a passionate single issue activist, to whom the accomplishment of one goal is the end all be all of political existence and activity.
I do not take a setback on one of my cherished goals as the end of the fight.
I do not wrap all of my hopes and dreams and idealism up in one issue or one politician.
I do not take my disappointment in the actions of one of my political heros as the end of all hope in the future.
All of us here are human beings. All of us here have mothers and fathers. Some of us have brothers or sisters. Or both. All of us have or had grandparents. All of us have close friends who seem like family in our lives.
And all of us here deal with death in our lives. Everyone that we grew up with and love one day is going to die. Just as we one day are going to die.
We will all, if we have not already, suffer tragedies in our lives. Sometimes these tragedies will come on suddenly. Sometimes these tragedies develop slowly over time.
This is what I wrote in the last Roll Call diary on February 29, 2008:
Alright, the greatest primary contest in all history is nearly over (in my opinion)....
Wow. Was I off, or what? It reminds me of a Simpsons episode where the evil Mr. Burns, while speaking to his ancient 125 year old mother, says: "I'm sorry I pulled the plug on you mother. Who knew you would pull through ...and live.... for another five decades."
Yes, now I can say that our long historic primary season is over.
Finally.
As we ramp down from that battle and ramp up to Netroots Nation in July and the Democratic convention in August, now is the perfect time to everyone to get to know everyone again.
We sit here behind our pseudonyms and computer screens, and yet we have managed to become a community. And that is hard to do in this day and age of the Internets. We have all seen various messageboards and other blogs that devolve into vicious namecalling and exchanges of ad hominem attacks. Hell, it even happens here from time to time.
But I have found that if you truly get to know the person behind the pseudonym, whether in person or not, it not only fosters community, but it lessens the toxic atmosphere that normally infects other messageboards and blogs. For it is hard to attack and insult someone if you know them.
This is why I post those "Roll Call" diaries every three months, so that we can all get to know each other better, even if we can't yet meet in person.
Diaries about Hillary. Front Page stories about Hillary. They don't stop. They keep coming. Detailing why she lost. How she lost. How she could have won. Why she should be Vice President. And why she should not be on the ticket. Why the lunatics at Hillaryis44 should be paid attention to. And why they should not.
I am not saying these are not legitimate topics for discussion. And the front pagers are all writing excellent stuff. And I suppose it is better to get this over with in one day rather than drag out the postmortem all week. But it just seems today that events have conspired to make today like the movie Groundhog Day, where instead of hearing "I Got You Babe" by Sonny and Cher everytime I wake up, I see yet another Hillary campaign autopsy.
Are you all kidding? I mean, really, is this what Daily Kos flame wars have come to?
John McCain's tan teeth? His apparent lack of dental hygiene?
I offer no opinion on the merit of Kos' original front page story that started this latest brew ha ha. But I do offer an opinion on the quality of the subject of our latest flame war.
I wrote before that you cannot ransom the Vice Presidency. You cannot disrespect our Nominee and expect to be his closest adviser. You cannot hold him figuratively hostage at gunpoint and expect him to embrace you.
If you want the Vice Presidency, if you want Barack Obama to be our next President, then you must first concede your race for the Presidency. If you truly want to reclaim your and your husband's legacy, you simply have to acknowledge reality. You simply have to embrace and endorse the next President of the United States, Barack Obama.
And it is. At some point this week, after Senator Obama wins both South Dakota and Montana, and after enough super delegates endorse him, he will pass the 2,118 threshold and he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party.
And at that moment, the division between Clinton supporters and Obama supporters literally ceases to exist. At that moment, with Barack Obama as the nominee and thus the de facto leader of the Democratic Party, if you oppose him you oppose the Democratic Party. Thus, the division that will be created will be between Democrats and defiant Hillary Clinton supporters.
