Ironic, isn't it? I keep waiting for SOMEBODY, ANYBODY, to bring it up.

The fact that ted cruz is INELIGIBLE to run for President, because he truly and legitimately is foreign-born. Canada isn't the U.S. Whether or not some people think "American exceptionalism" means we can just have it our way, up to and including owning anything or anybody we want, with no comment or question. They can't have it both ways. ted cruz simply isn't eligible. Barack Obama was and is.

I've been waiting for SOME pundit somewhere to start questioning - "um... why is this guy posturing like he's presidential-candidate material? Why is he schmoozing up Iowa and acting coy when the question comes up - when the question shouldn't even come up in his case? He's simply not eligible to run. He wasn't born here." I've been waiting for somebody high-profile in the media - some journalist, pundit, interviewer, host, reporter, anchor, columnist - to bring it up and finally start making an issue of it. And - of all people - who actually finally does so but Donald Trump?!??

Unbelievable.

Yeah, I love those labels. "Anti-colonialist."

"Traditionalist." "Originalist." They're usually espoused by people who must be able to offer self-classification regarding the way they read (or in this case mis-read) the Constitution. It allows them to avoid having to say what their true feelings usually are, ie: racist. Or sexist. Or misogynist. Or anti-Semitic. Or homophobic. Anything that isn't Anglo ruling class.

Sheesh - still WAY too high.

I thought he turned down the job of Surgeon General when it was offered to him.

In the first few days of the first Obama term.

I remember being a bit pissed off about it - "you TURNED YOUR NOSE UP at Your new President when he asked you to serve? Who the fuck do you think you are, pal? Oh yeah - I forgot. It was far more important for you you to keep your mug on TV all the time than to serve your country, and the exposure the Surgeon General's job would offer doesn't match your ego stroking on CNN..."

Ol' Sanjay went way down in my estimation when that happened. When your president calls and asks for your help, by God you should stand up and answer. Or something like that. I used to like him. But that kinda killed it for me.

OMG!!! I LOVED that joke!

This old dude in one of the newsrooms where I worked - told me that one morning at the crack of dawn when he was going off duty and I was coming on duty and we always had some chit-chat time together. I had to stifle laughter for the whole damn day!!!!



And on the other subject - YES!!! I'm glad somebody's bringing this up. Hey birthers - chew and gnash your teeth on THIS one, then! Your precious darling ted cruz can't run for president!!!! He's ineligible! By YOUR own standards of not being born in this country. Because if you buy ted cruz's assertion that it doesn't count because, if your mother is an American citizen, you could be born anywhere in the world and that citizenship somehow magically still transfers. Because by THAT very same assertion, you birthers HAVE TO S.T.F.U. about Obama!!!!

Welcome to DU, Oakenshield!

Glad you're here. I agree. President Obama for the most part makes me VERY proud. YEEEEEEESSSSSSS I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW...

He isn't perfect. Lots of stuff I would have done differently, but I would have been a white female president and different dynamics would be at play both for me and against me. I read somewhere - probably here - that what may be governing his mindset at least from the start was the painfully keen awareness and sensitivity toward who and what he was as he stepped into the Presidency: the First Black President. Or, let's go farther - the First Mixed-Race President. The First Non-Anglo President. I'm wondering if some of his longtime advisors recommended he not go too strong or push too hard or too far - because of what would be said and printed and blathered about him. Oooooh - another scaaaaaaaaaary black man - ooooooohhh - gnash teeth-gnash teeth, ring hands-ring-hands, clutch pearls-clutch pearls!!!!!! Or the moldy, moth-eaten stereotype of the angry black man that would just be laminated to him. Perhaps he felt the need to go a little easier to help disabuse (at least) some people of that mentality.

Granted, some people in America simply can't be helped in this regard. Some people in America, mostly from the angry, resentful, bitter, aging, white male demographic, just are beyond help, and beyond reach. They're going to have to carry that bitterness and anger with them to their graves. They're the ones who Pox Noise and limbaugh & clones try to appeal to, and to stir up. Some of them are beyond redemption. They're the ones with the stupid-ass three-cornered hats and the "don't tread on me" flags and the teabags, who vote for anti-New Dealers in the GOP who will try to erode all their benefits, while clinging desperately to their "Don't Touch My Medicare" protest signs. They're angry, fearful, and perfect targets for the psy-ops of the CONs. Thank goodness there are fewer of them than there are of us.

And I support him because, overall, I think he's better than anybody else who had a realistic chance of being elected. And on his worst day he's LIGHTYEARS better than anything the other party tries to force upon us. And I don't want to damage the brand. I want a DEMOCRAT in the position of picking the next SEVERAL Supreme Court Justices. I want a DEMOCRAT in charge of the nominations and appointments. I want a DEMOCRAT in the White House - to hold off the assholes who'd send him all kinds of revisionist and regressive legislation that he (or she) can stop it in its tracks with a veto rather than a rubber-stamper as the GOP hoped they'd have in mitt romney ("don't even bother your pretty little self reading the bills we'll send you. Just be able to hold a pen so you can sign what we put in front of you" - a quote from grover norquist last year, I believe).

What I think I'm most concerned about is how this ongoing debate here and elsewhere might be contributing to tearing us apart here on OUR side, and dividing us and our interests, thus clearing the way for one of the bad guys to get in.

I GUARANTEE YOU, if you don't like what's going on with one of our guys in the Oval Office - please just think back to when bush/cheney stole their way in there and the havoc and devastation and utter piracy and mass death which that led to. Imagine where we'd be now, with ANY of the issues people care about here, if romney had gotten in. Or rick perry. Or newt gingrich. Or looking ahead - ted cruz or rand paul or steve king or rick santorum. At his worst, President Obama is INFINITELY preferable to ANYTHING the bad guys run, in the past, in the now, AND in the future. And if people want to start being Medea Benjamins and send valentines to rand paul or somebody else because on one part of one issue they're fooled into thinking he "might" be on their side or "might" present a viable alternative, then just continue dancing on down Delusion Drive. But don't expect me to come with you.

Well, that'd cancel out the "Taker States" - which are mainly red states...

Just sayin'...

rand paul knows nothing about - ANYTHING.

If you look into the eyes of the Kentucky Pipsqueak, you see that there's nothing but deadness in there.

Just makes me wonder what the writer of this note would do if he/she suddenly needed

public assistance.

This is utterly despicable!

Damn. I loved Steve and Eydie! Grew up with stuff like that.

Their stuff was fun, just as their personalities were. The kind of stuff that was on Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show" frequently - which I never missed. I just saw an amazing photo - Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme with Johnny Carson and his then-wife Joanne. They don't make 'em like that anymore. Nor many marriages like that, either - in OR out of show biz. They brought people a lot of friendly pleasantness and good entertainment. God just gained a great soloist.