The Political Tracker

This is Part Two of an ongoing series about Russian Prime, and former President, Minister Vladimir Putin.  Click here to read Part One.

The political cartoon at left, which makes reference to President George W. Bush’s acceptance of Vladimir Putin (then President of Russia) early in his (Bush’s) first term of office, reminds us of how wrong our initial judgement of Putin really was.  Putin, who served as a KGB officer during the Cold War between the US and USSR, entered office with grand promises of a democratic Russia.  He founded the political party, United Russia, which quickly took hold of many of Russia’s political positions.  More liberal politicians, particularly those opposed to Putin, were quickly and quietly ousted and replaced by supporters or members of United Russia.

As discussed in Part One of this series, it didn’t take long for Putin to reveal his true self: a wolf (thanks to his training as a KGB officer) whose primary goal was to make sure that his political party was running the fledgling democracy with little to no resistance.  Mass-media take-overs and political outings ensured Putin’s overbearing political machine remained well-oiled.  The most recent result of Putin’s secretive leadership has been the war between Russia and Georgia.  What was originally a conflict over the control of break-away region South Ossetia, which is sandwiched in between Russia and Georgia, quickly became an all-out war.  Russian ground forces stormed through South Ossetia, digging in and taking strongholds before advancing into Georgia.  The invasions, as well as Russia’s bombings of civilian and military sites throughout Georgia and South Ossetia, immediately garnered international consternation.  South Ossetia is technically a part of Georgia in spite of South Ossetia’s insistence that it be recognized as a separate and independent state.  Russia seemed not to care that they had blatantly violated the borders of Georgia, which even Russia has recognized and respect (up until now) as a sovereign nation.

Other than the war with Georgia, which has put Russia at odds with the Bush administration, a major cause of concern for the world’s two greatest superpowers has been the debate over the Bush administration’s proposed missile defense system.  The Bush administration has insisted that Iran’s nuclear ambitions, as well as North Korea’s, necessitates that the US install a wall of missiles in Poland (which shares a border with western Russia) and the Czech Republic in the event of a nuclear Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) attack against the US.  The proposal for the missile defense system was made years ago, and since then Bush and Putin have argued the prudence of such a missile system.  Putin insists that the installation of such a system would be a direct threat at Russia by the US.  Putin put it in perspective by threatening to place a similar Russian missile system (though more offensive than defensive) in Cuba.  The Bush administration immediately said that such an act, which serves to remind us of the Cuban Missile Crisis during the Cold War, would be met by US military action.  Bush has argued that the US missile system would be used strictly defensively in the event of an Iranian or North Korean ICBM launched at the US.  Putin has countered by proposing a similar defense system jointly operated (though with most of the control unfairly in the hands of the Russians) in the country of Azerbaijan.  Understandably, the US has refused the offer, uncomfortable with so much of the control in the hands of the Russians.  This is proof that Bush and Putin really do not trust one another, despite their dire attempts at maintaining a façade of trust and kinship.  Military experts have argued that a military defense system in Azerbaijan (whose southern border is also Iran’s northern border) would be too close in proximity to Iran and would therefore not afford enough time to respond to an Iranian missile launch.

All of this leads to today, Wednesday, August 20, when United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will be flying into Warsaw, Poland, to sign a pact that will partly initiate the construction of the missile defense system originally proposed by the Bush administration.  This, in spite of the strong warnings coming from Moscow that such a system would serve to further heighten the palpable tension between the US and Russia.  Most recently, Russia’s Kremlin has said that “co-hosting the missile base would make Poland a Russian military target with ‘100 per cent certainty’,” as reported by the Irish Times.  An opinion poll conducted throughout Poland shows that one in two Poles believes that a Russian attack on, or invasion of, Poland is imminent.  Partly responsible for such fears may be because of historic and long-running fears Poles already have of their more powerful eastern neighbor.  As the Irish Time reports, “Nevertheless, Poles have watched developments in Georgia with unease, particularly reports that Russia has fired SS-21 rockets during the conflict.  These are the kind of rockets Moscow has vowed to train on Poland from its base in Kaliningrad if Warsaw goes ahead with the missile shield.”  Further fueling Poles’ fears, as well as the fears of the international community, was the recent moratorium Putin placed on the 1992 agreement that set lower ceilings for armaments and troop numbers.  Poland is understandably uneasy following such developments.  Despite nearly a decade of NATO membership (NATO’s promise is that an attack on one member nation shall be regarded and treated as an attack on all member nations) Poland is not convinced of their safety.  Such proximity to Russia means that an invasion, or quick Russian missile attacks, would be nearly impossible to stop in time.  Lingering in the backs of many Poles’ minds is a similar situation in 1939, when they were invaded by another aggressor despite assurances of protection similar to those being made today by NATO.

With the Bush administration quickly expiring and thus becoming increasingly powerless, and with little to no opposition inside Russia to Putin and his government, what is to stop Putin from taking drastic military matters against Poland.  It is foolish of anyone to believe that Putin had nothing to do with the war with Georgia, as it was a blatant test of Putin’s powers and limits (or lack of) in his new position as prime minister.  Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is known around the world as nothing more than Putin’s puppet (some even call him Putin’s poodle) and will serve only to support Putin’s illegal broadening of power.  (Critics of Putin like to point out that Putin has exerted more control over Russia than some dictators did during the Soviet era, even though Russia is supposed to be a balanced democracy.)  It is clear that Putin has grown comfortable in his new position as prime minister and is flexing his military and political muscles, testing the international waters to see what he can get away with.  Will an attack on Poland be next?

Russian Prime Minister, and former President, Vladimir Putin

This is Part One of an ongoing series about Russian Prime Minister, and former President, Vladimir Putin.  Click here to read Part Two.

With the war seemingly losing steam, the world should take a moment to inspect Russia’s leadership with renewed scrutiny.  When elections were held, former Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would accept the position of Prime Minister only if his protégé, Dmitry Medvedev, won the presidential election.  Not surprisingly, things worked out for Medvedev, who was practically a nobody in Russian politics until he was supported by the increasingly powerful Putin.  With Medvedev (who many have said is Putin’s puppet) currently as the president of Russia and Putin The Powerful himself as prime minister, it seems as though Russia’s government and citizenry have surrendered themselves to Putin and his twisted and secretive plots of government control.

Now, with a new war waged by the Russian government, it is apparent that Putin has involved himself in military matters even though, legally speaking, his role as prime minister forbids such involvement.  Who’s to stop him, though?  His puppet and protégé, President Dmitry Medvedev?  Of course not.  What Russian media outlet is powerful enough, or even willing, to call him out on it?  None, because as it will be discussed later, Putin took control of the media years ago.  It would appear that what started out as a conflict with Georgia quickly became a war, provoked by the elusive leaders of the Russian government.  One must wonder if this new war is another of their tactics and schemes.  Now is the time to look at Russia’s government, and especially Prime Minister Putin, with great care.  What Putin’s done in the past as president may very will be an indication of what is to come in the near future, for it has been made clear by Putin’s recent actions that he exerts control over Russia, unchallenged, no matter what political title he may occupy at the moment.  The following is a brief look at what Putin has done to Russia in the past several years.

Putin's puppet look-alike from the NTV show "Kukly"

In 2001, there was a sudden realization amongst the Russian populace that Putin was by no means headed in the direction of a stronger democracy.  One main reason for such realization was the sudden and conspicuous take-over of NTV, Russia’s foremost national television station.  The station gained its prominence by reporting the first Russian-Chechnyan conflict and then the country’s financial crisis in the 1990s.  NTV quickly became the nation’s preeminent independent television station and was famous for their uncompromising journalistic integrity, as well as their strong stance they often took against the Russian government (the president of which was of course, at the time, Putin).  There was even a weekly program entitled “Kukly” which made fun of Russia’s government.  It consisted of puppets, all of whom were made to look just like key political figures such as President Putin.

This quickly changed, however, when Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned gas company, suddenly came forward and asserted they were the majority shareholder of NTV.  Security guards employed by Gazprom stormed into NTV’s studios and said that anyone who was against the new state ownership should leave.  The majority of anchors, reporters, and behind-the-scenes personnel left, and the next morning Russian viewers woke up to a new NTV with the same logo but different anchors and reporters.  Most of NTV’s independent journalists moved to smaller networks, most of which were available to small numbers of cable viewers (nothing like the national reach that NTV offered) and tried to report on the government’s hostile takeover of Russia’s last major independent television station.  Gazprom, and the Russian government for that matter, insisted that the new leadership and personnel did not reflect a government take-over, but rather an honest business acquisition.

A Russian weekly magazine shared the same fate as NTV, as reported by South Africa’s IOL News:

“When the staff of the Russian weekly Itogi turned up for work at their offices in Moscow … security guards stopped them [from] entering the building or even parking their cars outside.  Soon afterwards Sergei Parkhomenko, the editor-in-chief of the highly-rated magazine, told the bewildered journalists, that all of them, including himself, had just been fired by the publishers.  Over the last week the Kremlin has been closing in for the kill against its media critics. On Monday the staff of the daily Segodnya, an independent broadsheet, were abruptly told that their publisher had decided to discontinue publication. … All three of Russia’s national television networks are now under state control. The Kremlin has once again acquired a near monopoly of information. It has also shown that it is not prepared to tolerate any media not fully supporting the interests of the state.  Alexei Venediktov, [the editor-in-chief of] Ekho Moskvy radio station, one of the few independent outlets to survive, said that he did not expect to be able to hold out against the state for long. … He dismissed the idea that Gazprom, the state-controlled natural gas monopoly, which has been leading the charge against Media-Most, the media empire set up by Vladimir Gusinsky, was acting for commercial reasons. He claimed that Itogi, owned by Media-Most, had been making a profit.  Ever since he was elected president, Putin has said that the battle for the control of Media-Most, the company which controlled NTV, Itogi, Segodnya and Ekho Moskvy was nothing to do with him.  It has never been a very convincing claim.  Over the last twelve months there have been no less than 28 raids by armed police on different parts of Media-Most.  Last July, Mikhail Lesin, the press minister, actually put his name to a document under which the government undertook to drop criminal charges against Gusinsky if he sold his controlling share in his media empire to Gazprom. … Putin’s acute sensitivity to media criticism may spring from his KGB background.  Alexei Pankin, the editor of the weekly media magazine Sreda, points out that ‘the Russian political elite is acutely conscious of the crucial role of a few independent publications, free to publish what they wanted during the period of glasnost (openness) in the late 1980s, in destabilising the old Soviet Union. They do not intend to let the same thing happen to them.’ ”

[This has been Part One.  Click here for Part Two.]

A map of Georgia and its neighboring area, courtesy of The New York Times' website.

As the conflict over South Ossetia continues to escalate, I think it’s fair, as an American, to pause for a moment and look at the conflict differently for a moment.  Other than the play-by-play commentary of the war thus far, very little else has been said.  Particularly, I think it’s important to understand the way the conflict impacts the United States and its people.  With so many people unaware of the conflict, not to mention unaware of where the conflict is going on, it is hard for Americans to actually think that the war could somehow impact our lives.  But the fact is that it does impact the lives of pretty much every American.  Following are some reasons why.

An oil pipeline running for over 1000 miles through the war zone from the Caspian Sea, which has world’s third largest reserve, provides the U.S. with enough oil to lessen our dependence on the Middle East’s exports.  That single pipeline pumps 1% of the world’s oil supply every day.

Georgia wants to join NATO (of which the U.S. is a leading component), which Russia opposes because Russia doesn’t want Georgia, which is so close to Russia, becoming a part of a Western-world organization like NATO.  Russia, which has felt threatened by President George W. Bush’s proposal to place a line of missile defense systems in nearby Poland, doesn’t want Western-world influence so close to home.

The U.S. can’t side against Georgia because Georgia has 2000 troops in Iraq - the most except for the U.S. and the U.K. - and the U.S. doesn’t want to upset one of their strongest Iraq War supporters, understandably.  (On Saturday, however, Georgian officials contacted the Pentagon and asked for help withdrawing the troops and returning them to Georgia to fight the war against Russia.)  The U.S. has approximately 130 civilians and military personnel in Georgia who are working to train Georgian troops for combat in Iraq.  The U.S. also can’t side against Russia, though, because we rely on them so heavily for negotiations with Iran and North Korea.

This conflict has also served to show the U.S. what kind of leader newly-elected President Dmitry Medvedev really is.  Critics of Russia say that Medvedev is nothing more than a Putin puppet.  Critics say Putin, who went from being president to prime minister, is still very much in control because he is Prime Minister and his protege is the president.  Putin and Medvedev have both put out statements concerning Russia’s military action, suggesting that Putin is somehow keeping himself involved in the affairs even though Russian law forbids anyone other than the president from becoming involved with the military.

The conflict in South Ossetia has quickly spilled into Georgia, and experts fear that neighboring independent states may soon become collateral damage.  Damage that has, to this point, included the bombing of Georgian bases and civilian apartments near the bases.  Russia has complete air supremacy, which has been the source of much of the attacking.  It is estimated that as many as 2000 people have already been killed in the conflict after just two days. 

The conflict is not only a test of Russia’s newly-elected president Dmitry Medvedev, but also a good indication of how America’s own presidential candidates are reacting to their first international crisis.  John McCain was quick to chastise the Russians, saying that Russia had crossed “an internationally recognized border into the sovereign territory of Georgia” and should “unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces.”  Barack Obama first offered a very general warning to both the Georgians and Russia, but as the conflict escalated throughout Friday and into Saturday, Obama’s words became more stern.  Ben Rhodes, a foreign policy aide for Obama (Obama is currently vacationing in Hawaii) said that “[c]learly over the course of the last 24 hours this crisis has escalated.  Clearly Russia bears the responsibility for that escalation.”  The Obama camp also took the opportunity to point out that, on the issue of the conflict concerning Georgia, their rival Senator John McCain is not reliable due to his close friendship with Randy Scheunemann, whose firm has lobbied for Georgia over the past four years.  The McCain campaign was quick to respond, rebuking Obama’s aides for turning a serious conflict into a political ploy.

On Friday, former North Carolina Senator John Edwards released a statement, in which he admitted to carrying out a short-term extra-marital affair with a campaign staffer.  Edwards, who ran for president and vice president in 2004, and again for president in 2008, admitted the affair after months of denying reports that had been printed in the National Enquirer.  No credible news outlet had pursued the story like the National Enquirer had until recently, when ABC News investigated and uncovered numerous issues.

The Edwards campaign has, in part, been paying the women with whom he had the affair, millions of dollars over the past couple of years.  More astonishing is the fact that Edwards supporters have paid tens of millions of dollars to keep her quiet.  She was even given a multi-million dollar home in Santa Barbara.  Investigators linked several more million dollars that was given to the woman’s New Jersey company.  While Edwards has denied any personal “hush money” given to the woman, he said on Friday that it is very possible supporters of his were sending her money without his knowing.  Some people say Edwards is, indeed, involved.  To make matters worse for Edwards, after the affair the woman had a baby and now claims it’s Edwards’.  Edwards, obviously, has denied this and said he is willing to take any kind of test necessary to prove he is not the father.

Edwards contends that the affair occurred in 2006 when both he and his wife, Elizabeth, were unaware of the recurrence of her breast cancer.  Blaming the affair on his ego and “narcissism,” Edwards said he never loved the women and continues to love his wife, who has remained by his side to this day.  He also said that he came clean with Elizabeth months ago, long before any serious investigating had begun.  Upon receiving word of the affair, former members of Edwards’ staff were outraged and felt betrayed, saying they were disappointed with Edwards and thought that they had worked for a man with morals.

Edwards’ political future, which already seemed grim before word of the affair surfaced, is not most certainly over.  Have disgraced both his family and his political party, he has left himself with very few options.  He was supposed to speak at the Democratic National Convention, but the Obama campaign has already released a statement expressing their disappointment, and political analysts say that Obama would have to be an idiot to let Edwards speak at the convention.  Critics of Senator Obama are hoping that some of the religious voters who had been planning on voting Democratic may now be disgusted and will turn to John McCain. 

I guess Democrats aren’t as perfect as they always make themselves out to be.

On the opening day of the Olympics, the events and ideals of which are supposed to bring humanity together harmoniously and set aside the strife and daily politics, news reports began filtering out that Russian and Georgian forces were in conflict with each other and with the rebels of neighboring de facto region South Ossetia, over which Georgia and Russia have been fighting for years.  Georgia, once a satellite of the USSR, for years now has been trying to take control of the separatist state.  Russia, however, in accordance with the wishes of the democratic Western world, has maintained a presence of peacekeeping troops in South Ossetia to prevent Georgian forces from taking over the separatist state and igniting a massive conflict with local rebels.  With the only reports being provided by those involved in the conflict, it has been hard for Western nations to know what is really going on.  U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice urged Russia to withdraw all forces, and Belgium, which currently is presiding over the United Nations Security Council, criticized Russia for hasty accusations against Georgia.  There has been some criticism of Russia’s Kremlin, which has become emboldened in light of the newly elected President Medvedev (who is nothing more than a puppet of Vladimir Putin, the former president and current prime minister) and the waning presidency of George W. Bush, who at this point in his presidency would be unable to take drastic measures to keep the Kremlin in check.  There are concerns over the authority in Russia: both President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin issued statements following the initial military measures, but only Medvedev is supposed to have control of the military forces.  Some are curious as to whether or not Prime Minister Putin might be illegally involving himself in affairs (namely the military) that do not concern him.

Georgia has alleged being attacked by Russia on several fronts: key Georgian government websites have mysteriously and abruptly crashed; Georgia also claims Russia has bombed oil ports, airports and air bases.  Both Georgia and Russia are seemingly using the battleover South Ossetia as an opportunity to try and take control of the region.  Georgia has accused Russian of killing civilians during bombing runs.  Russia, in defense, said that Georgians shot down Russian planes.  While no one is sure what is really going on in South Ossetia, one thing that has been confirmed is that the Russian peacekeeping troops stationed in South Ossetia have suffered major losses.

China, for what it’s worth, has deemed the conflict untimely and rude and has asked that the violence cease in respect to the Olympic games.  According to NBC’s Matt Lauer, who was a part of the commentating crew for the opening ceremonies, said that the Georgian athletes participating in the ceremonies had not yet been informed of the situation in their home country.  The conflict zone, whose recent eruption of violence could destabilize the region and make conditions worse, will likely overshadow the grandeur of the twenty-ninth Olympic Games.

Salim Ahmed Hamdan

A quick update to a developing news story that has become of interest to the entire world: The first U.S. military commission trial conviction since the end World War II has found Osama bin Laden’s former driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, guilty of supporting terrorism.  Hamdan, who had been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, was found not guilty of a conspiracy charge, which was more serious and damning than the support of terrorism charge.  The verdict was drafted by a split panel, showing that the U.S. may have a tough time prosecuting Guantanamo’s prisoners of war in the future.  The government had been hoping for a unanimous verdict, not split, and this latest development has dealt a big blow to the Bush administration. 

Nevertheless, the trial is not over.  Sentencing has yet to be decided, for which the U.S. prosecutors are pushing the death penalty.  Watch carefully to see how these first few commission trials go, because they will either serve as a final boost to the Bush administration or the last nail in the administration’s coffin, so to speak.

There is something that has been bugging me for quite some time, and a post I recently read on another blog was my tipping point.  Barack Obama is not Muslim!!  He never was!!  Ever since that unauthorized email was sent by a Hillary Clinton aide months ago, asserting that Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim (and should be regarded as such when voters enter the polls in November), the rumor has spread across the country (and world, for that matter) like wildfire.  Unfortunately people believe it, despite the controversy it stirred, despite the media reports that said otherwise, and despite the well-known history of Senator Obama himself, which does not say that he was ever the AK-47-toting Muslim people tried to make him out to be.  It didn’t help that a photo subsequently surfaced of him in Africa in traditional tribal garb while attending a ceremony.  Obama had to move quickly to surpress the rumor, and even Clinton, who at the time was Obama’s rival for becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee, quickly distanced herself and condemned the rumor that her staffer emailed.

Nevertheless, the rumor reached the eyes and ears of the entire nation, and to the day people are still convinced that Obama is Muslim.  In fact, a recent poll shows that nearly one in four Americans believes Obama is Muslim, was Muslim, or attended a Muslim school, when in fact none of those are true.  He was born in America’s heartland, raised by a Christian mother, and while it is true that he lived in Indonesia, which has more Muslim citizens than any other country in the world (more so than any country in the Middle East, even), he isn’t Muslim, never was Muslim, and never attended a Muslim school.  Unfortunately, the sad fact of the matter is that a large portion of our nation’s conservatives blend politics and religion too much and don’t keep up on the news.  A recent email sent throughout Tennessee actually persuaded people that Obama is the Antichrist.  Now, Obama may be a senator and therefore has some legislative power, but I don’t think he has enough power to be the Antichrist.  How foolish do you have to be to actually believe that?  Conservative friends of mine in Indiana (an extremely conservative state where there’s more corn than common sense) still argue with me about how Obama is a Muslim.

The post to which I referred earlier (the one that ignorantly asserts that Obama’s Muslim, and does so as if it’s frightening, breaking news) is absolutely laughable.  Not only is the author of the post stupid enough to quote an Israeli newspaper, which for all we know could be some anti-Muslim paper that only reports gossip and rumors, but he urges his readers to “[d]isregard Mr. Obama’s race and … ask the hard questions.”  So, according to the author, race isn’t an issue, but somehow Senator Obama’s Muslim background (which really doesn’t even exist) is an issue.  Because, according to the author, since a small handful of Muslims brought down our World Trade Center towers, we must fear all Muslims and it is our duty as Americans to make sure a Muslim doesn’t take the White House and blow our country to pieces.  The author also says: “[Obama] is … the first Muslim to become a presumed [presidential] candidate for the Democratic party.”  Really?  Haven’t we established (for months, now) that Obama isn’t Muslim.  In the very first paragraph, the author already makes himself into a blatant hypocrit.  I could go on and on about what the blog post says.  I feel like there’s too much quote here, so here’s the link to the ridiculous blog.  Be sure to read the comments at the bottom, one of which says in part: “Thank God for this clearly defined and scripted blog.”  The readers of this blog are apparently as stupid as the author.  I hope that, if you’re making the effort to read my own blog, you are an intelligent person.  I encourage you to take the time to leave a comment on the blog and let the author and his readers know how stupid they really are, assuming the author doesn’t fear the truth and delete comments that go against his insane rhetoric.

If only the author of the blog realized how stupid he is, he wouldn’t have to fret over the “scary” possibility of a Muslim leading our country …. there’s no candidate who is Muslim!  Problem solved.

The issue of Obama’s faith has raised a lot of concerns about how far American people have really come.  It’s shown us for who we really are: a bunch of backwards racists who are afraid of all Muslims just because 19 of the millions who follow the faith attacked us.  Are we really that intolerant after all?  And personally, I find it shameful that the majority of people who sustain and spread the rumor are conservatives.  I long for the day when our nation’s conservatives can look beyond their religious convictions (which, like it or not, have nothing to do with politics) so that our country may become a better place. 

This is such a huge issue!  Please chime in if you’ve got something to say.

While most of my posts are objective news stories that discuss the nation’s economy and politics, I felt this short commentary of my day’s events should be shared.

This morning I received yet another call from my local McCain office, this time warning me of the impending fundraising deadline.  (I’ll take this moment to share with you what they said to me: the deadline for donating money to a presidential campaign is less than a month away.  If you plan on supporting your candidate of choice, now’s the time to do so.  Here are the donation links for McCain’s website and Obama’s website.)  The call, of which I have received many similar recently, was not a welcome one since I donated not too long ago and am not quite ready to give more money.  After putting up with the man’s scripted diatribe about why I should send $50, I became perturbed by his persistence, leaving me little choice but to hang up on him.  I realize he was just doing his job, and I’m glad to see that Senator McCain has a strong network in Ohio, which is such a crucial swing state.  Nevertheless, I was tiring of the campaign’s constant calling and I began aiming that frustration at Senator McCain (unfairly, no doubt).

This evening, though, as I was coming home from an afternoon of boating, I came to an intersection and was about to turn left when a pair of state troopers on motorcycles with flashing lights stopped and froze all traffic.  They sat in the intersection and surveyed the surroundings, constantly talking into mikes.  I thought that a funeral may be passing by, but then another trooper on a motorcycle when flying through the intersection, which blue and red LED lights flashing and his siren blaring.  Five seconds later another trooper on a motorcycle buzzed by.  All in all, five or six went by before I saw the Straight Talk Express.  Two troopers on motorcycles drove no more than ten feet in front of it at all times and two more trailed the bus at no more than ten feet.  Six motorcycles bracketed the bus - three on each side - and two Highway Patrol cruisers immediately followed the two motorcycles that trailed the Straight Talk Express.  They all had their LEDs flashing and their sirens screaming.  After the cruisers were two more motorcycles and then six nondescript, gray vans (the ones like airport shuttle services use).  These were no doubt filled with McCain’s key staffers, Secret Service agents, as well as the press pool that constantly follows Senator McCain around.  A few motorcycles hovered around the vans, but it was nothing like the protection around the Straight Talk Express (for obvious reasons), and bringing up the rear of it all was another group of three or four troopers on motorcycles.  Once the entire procession was through the intersection, the two troopers on motorcycles who’d originally held up traffic nodded to one another and sped away to catch up with the rest of the cavalcade.  It seemed like something out of “24,” ”The West Wing,” or any number of political shows.

The first thought that came to mind was how orchestrating the Straight Talk Express’s safe passage must be a tactical nightmare.  Then I realized my heart rate was higher than normal, and an overwhelming sense of excitement surged through my body.  Assuming the nation comes to its senses in November, I thought, I just saw (even though for just a fleeting moment) our nation’s next president; the man who will take hold of our nation’s helm and lead us away from the stormy seas into which the Bush presidency has unfortunately taken us.  I just saw the man who will control the world’s most powerful army; the man who will control the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear weapons; but more importantly, the man who may very well reshape the history of the world. 

I didn’t even get to see him, personally.  I didn’t get to hear him talk.  I didn’t get to shake his arthritic hand.  And yet I got so excited just from seeing his bus.  I guess that I proved to myself that I really do believe in him as a leader.  I recognized the sheer power that his campaign bus alone emanates.  I can’t imagine what I’d do if I had the privilege of seeing him speak.  I’d probably be like the crazed girls in the 1960s who cried and fainted at the mere sight of the Beatles.  When I saw the Straight Talk Express, I felt patriotism, pride, and excitement that our country may one day be led by a man as deserving as Senator McCain.  My faith in him had been diminishing of late, but seeing him drive by rejuvenated and reenergized feelings too hard to describe.

Senator John McCain (R-AZ), the Republican Party’s presidential contender in the 2008 general election, has recently aired attack ads against Democratic rival Senator Barack Obama (D-IL).  Even though both candidates vowed earlier in the race to not air such negative ads, both candidates have now broken that promise.  McCain supporters argue Obama was the first to air a negative ad, while Obamasupporters assert that McCain’s camp was the first to do so.  Either way, McCain’s negative ads, which had greatly outnumbered Obama’s, seem to be paying dividends.  According to WBOC 16, the McCain campaign began airing the attack ads while Senator Obama was overseas on his fact-finding mission to the Middle East and Europe, taking advantage of Obama’s absence from the United States and inability to respond to McCain’s ads in a timely manner.  Two of the television ads the McCain campaign has run include one that claims Obama didn’t visit wounded troops during the fact-finding mission because he wasn’t allowed to bring cameras, and one that calls him the world’s top celebrity and compares him to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears by flashing photos of their faces during the ad.  A more recent ad that the McCain camp emailed to campaign supporters called Obama “The One.”  In it they quote Obama several times, who in each of the clips speaks of himself in a strongly religious way.  A part of the ad includes footage of actor Charlton Heston as Moses, parting the Red Sea, and it is clear in the ad that they are implying that Obama thinks he’s divine.

Other ads have attacked Obama on energy policy and the Iraq War, and while unbiased fact-checking organizations have argued that a number of the facts included in the McCain attack ads are not accurate, the ads have undoubtedly hurt Obama.  Because of the ads, McCain has been featured in the news more than Obama for the first time in weeks, and Obama has been forced to break off from his originally-scripted speeches to address the issues raised in the attack ads.  It will be interesting to see how long the McCain campaign continues to air negative ads, though.  Some analysts say that if he makes too many, he will lose the good graces of some of his independent and more liberal supporters.