Monday Morning Must-Reads
Ohio Town's Democrats See "Hope" Differently [WaPo] "Obama, doesn't he sound a little naive?" asked Huenke, 52. "He stands up there, so optimistic, preaching about hope and change. It sounds great and everything, but come on. He doesn't quite get it." Voters like Huenke present a difficult challenge to Sen. Barack Obama as he looks ahead to March 4, when primary battles with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in Ohio and Texas threaten to halt his campaign's momentum. In Lima and other fading manufacturing towns, he must confront difficult questions that go to the heart of his candidacy and its appeal to a broad section of Americans: Can grandiose visions of hope and change resonate in places where change -- in this case economic change -- has brought housing foreclosures and economic ruin, where hope means avoiding another round of layoffs? Can a candidate whose support has been based on African Americans and upper-middle-class whites transcend class and race in places where racial tension still colors everything?
The Charisma Mandate [NYT] Taking office in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt confronted a country in crisis. Four in 10 working-age Americans were jobless. Banks were collapsing. There were long lines outside tellers’ windows as people rushed to withdraw their savings. On March 4, Roosevelt gave his now famous inaugural address, promising that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Within days he had secured legislation guaranteeing the banks, and on March 12, he took to the radio for the first of his fireside chats. “When the people find out that they can get their money — that they can get it when they want it — the phantom of fear will soon be laid,” he soothed an anxious nation. “I can assure you, it is safer to keep your money in a re-opened bank than under your mattress.”
Conspiracy Theories Unite! JFK Docs Unearthed [Reuters] A batch of old documents linked to the slaying of President John F. Kennedy has reportedly been unearthed, including a highly suspect transcript of a conversation between assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and Oswald's killer Jack Ruby, the Dallas Morning News said on Sunday. The newspaper said the Dallas County district attorney's office, which uncovered the documents, would display its discovery at a news conference on Monday morning.
What Changed Since VATech Massacre? [ABCNews] It's been almost 10 months since the nation's worst school shooting rampage, when a crazed gunman killed 33 people at Virginia Tech. That massacre prompted anguished debates about campus security, gun laws, and the privacy rights of the mentally ill, with lawmakers pushing various proposals, and campuses vowing to institute new policies. Since last August, there have been several other school shootings, including Thursday's rampage by Steven Kazmierczak, who shot and killed five people before turning the gun on himself at Northern Illinois University.
Bush Getting in the Way of Science? [IPS] Leading U.S. scientists called on Congress Thursday to make sure the next president does not do what they say the George W. Bush Administration has done: censor, suppress and falsify important environmental and health research. "The next president and Congress must cultivate an environment where reliable scientific advice flows freely," said Susan Wood, a former director of women's research at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Wood resigned her post in 2005 in protest over the FDA’s delay in getting emergency, over-the-counter birth control onto the market. "Serious consequences can result when drug safety decisions are not based on the best available scientific advice from staff scientists and experts," she said. Wood joined a panel of prominent scientists in Boston -- convened by the Union of Concerned Scientists, an activist group -- to announce a joint statement asking Congress to protect scientific integrity. Among the more than 15,000 government scientists signing onto the statement are Harold Varmus, president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre and former director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH); and Anthony Robbins, professor of medicine at Tufts University and former director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. "Although surely the worst, the Bush Administration is not the first, nor will it be the last administration to mistreat and misuse science and scientists," Robbins said. The White House itself has been directly involved in the suppression and falsification of science, Robbins stressed.
Obama-Edwards Tryst? [Reuters] U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama slipped away for a private meeting with former rival John Edwards on Sunday to seek his endorsement as the Illinois senator and Hillary Clinton battle for Wisconsin. With eight straight wins under his belt, Obama hoped to make it two more on Tuesday in nominating contests in Wisconsin and Hawaii, where he was born. Recent opinion polls put him ahead in Wisconsin, but not by much. Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, made a detour from the campaign trail on Sunday morning, flying from Chicago to North Carolina to meet Edwards at his home and left behind the retinue of media who normally travel with him.
White House Claims Congress is Caving to Left Wing Bloggers! (Success?) [AlterNet] The White House has experienced difficulties moving its ill-conceived national security priorities through Congress. Yesterday, the Senate passed legislation banning waterboarding, defying a Bush veto threat. Also, House leaders have said they will not approve the Protect America Act with immunity for telecom companies. After the Senate banned waterboarding yesterday, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino claimed the "left wing" was trying to overtake the intelligence community: They'll have to ask themselves, 'Do you trust the intelligence community more than you trust Democrats who are beholden to their left-wing?' And that's the debate that this country is going to have. Perino also attacked Congress for holding a contempt of Congress vote on White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers instead of expanding Bush's surveillance powers.
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