BOTH OBAMA AND MCCAIN ARE LEFTIES

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[Disclaimer: your editor, Sam Smith of The Progressive Review, is left-handed.
Not only that, but he had a far
better elementary school teacher than Obama who, like most lefties, was
required to keep his page centered in right-hand manner and scrunch his
hand to write. My teacher let me turn the page sideways - Sam]

ABC - Sinister. Gauche. Satanic. Throughout history the word "left" has
been synonymous with awkwardness, even evil. Writing with a left hand
can be a curse, but it might just get you elected to the presidency.
Four of the last five presidents were left-handed. Commanders in chief
Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton were
southpaws, a term derived from baseball. George W. Bush is not.

Given that overwhelming modern trend, campaign front-runners Barack
Obama and John McCain might have the political upper hand. Or not.

H. Ross Perot, the Frank Perdue look-alike who ran as an independent in
1972 and 1976, was also left-handed. And Michael Bloomberg, the
erstwhile presidential candidate and current mayor of New York City,
also pens with his left.

Other failed candidacies were those of New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, who
ran in 2000, and magazine scion Steve Forbes in 1996 and 2000.

But scientists and historians agree that being left-handed, which is
often associated with outside-the-box thinking, can be a political
strength.

"They have a wider scope of thinking," said Amar Klar, a biologist who
has done breaking research on handedness. "I know among scientists their
numbers are really high. There are more Noble Prize winners, writers and
painters. We need more people like that." . . .

According to a BBC report, the Boston Strangler, Jack the Ripper and
Billy the Kid were lefties. So is Osama Bin Laden. But so, too, were
many noble figures, such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Picasso,
Queen Victoria, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie and Prince William.

An estimated 9 percent to 10 percent of Americans boast left-handedness,
or its close relative, ambidexterity, according to Klar. . .

"I can tell from the front of John McCain's hair that he is
left-handed," said Klar, who rode a Maryland escalator for a day to
determine how many riders with left swirling scalps were actually
lefties. "I know John Edwards is a lefty, too," he said. . .

The incidence of neurological disorders like schizophrenia, bipolarity
or autism can be three times greater in non-righties, he said. But at
the same time, with two sides of the brain handling language, the
left-handed and ambidextrous can have more complex reasoning. . .

Being left-handed has other advantages. Combat, for instance, according
to the University of Montpelier in Britain. Southpaws reportedly have
more endurance and an edge in fencing, baseball and tennis.

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=4326568

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OBAMA TAKING BACK DOOR FUNDING FROM LOBBYISTS

WASH TIMES - Sen. Barack Obama, who has refused donations from federal
lobbyists and paints his Democratic presidential rival as a Washington
insider for accepting their contributions, took hundreds of thousands of
dollars from partners at dozens of firms that lobbied Congress in 2007.
The partners - who often share in a law firm's overall profits - gave at
least $214,000 to the Obama campaign from October through December,
according to a review of Federal Election Commission records and
lobbying-disclosure reports with the Senate. Partners at the
Chicago-based law firm of Kirkland Ellis LLP, which has a lobbying arm
in Washington, gave Mr. Obama more than $70,000 in contributions last
year.

The firm represented a pharmaceuticals company and the Futures Industry
Association. Mr. Obama also has accepted tens of thousands from partners
Covington & Burling, which was paid nearly a half-million dollars last
year to lobby for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers
Association, or PhRMA. None of the donations came from three partners at
the firm who worked as PhRMA lobbyists.

As a rule, the Obama campaign says it won't accept donations from PhRMA,
current federally registered lobbyists, or political action committees.
It does accept contributions from state lobbyists, past federal
lobbyists and employees of firms that lobby Congress.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/
20080222/NATION/853452725/-1/RSS_NATION_POLITICS


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HOLDING OBAMA TO ACCOUNT

BRUCE DIXON, BLACK AGENDA REPORT - The presidential campaign of Barack
Obama has become a media parade on its way to a coronation. Journalists
and leading Democrats have done shockingly little to pin Obama down, to
hold him specifically responsible for anything beyond his slogans of
"yes we can" and "change we can believe in".  Prominent black Democrats,
many ministers and the traditional black leadership class are doing less
than anybody to hold Obama accountable, peddling instead a supposed
racial obligation among African Americans to support this second coming
of Joshua and his campaign as "the movement" itself. What would holding
Barack Obama accountable on war and peace, on social security, health
care and other issues look like, and is it possible to hold a political
"rock star" accountable at all? . . .

While researching a story on the Democratic Leadership Council for the
internet magazine Black Commentator in April and May of 2003, I ran
across the DLC's '100 to Watch' list for 2003, in which Barack Obama was
prominently featured as one of the DLC's favorite 'rising stars'. This
was ominous news because the DLC was and still is the right wing's
Trojan Horse inside the Democratic party. . .

I revisited Obama's primary election campaign web site, something I had
not done for a month or two. To my dismay I found the 2002 antiwar
speech, the same one which Barack Obama touts to this day as evidence of
his antiwar backbone and prescience, which had been prominently featured
before, had vanished from his web site, along with all other evidence
that Obama had ever taken a plain spoken stand against the invasion and
occupation of Iraq. With the president riding high in the polls, and
Illinois' Black and antiwar vote safely in his pocket, Obama appeared to
be running away from his opposition to the war, and from the Democratic
party's base. Free, at last.

After calls to Obama's campaign office yielded no satisfactory answers,
we published an article in the June 5, 2003 issue of Black Commentator
effectively calling Barack Obama out. We drew attention to the
disappearance of any indication that U.S. Senate candidate Obama opposed
the Iraq war at all from his web site and public statements. . .

Facing the possible erosion of his base among progressive Democrats in
Illinois, Obama contacted us. We printed his response . . . It was our
June 2003 exchange with candidate Obama that prompted him to restore the
antiwar speech on his web site, though not as prominently as before, the
same antiwar speech which is now touted as evidence of his early and
consistent opposition to the war. . .

The 2008 Obama presidential run may be the most slickly orchestrated
marketing machine in memory. That's not a good thing. Marketing is not
even distantly related to democracy or civic empowerment. Marketing is
about creating emotional, even irrational bonds between your product and
your target audience. . .

To cite the most obvious example, the Obama campaign cynically bills
itself as 'the movement', the continuation and fulfillment of Dr. King's
legacy. But the speeches of its candidate carefully limit the
application of all his troop withdrawal statements to 'combat troops'
and 'combat brigades', omitting the six figure number of armed mercenary
contractors in Iraq, along with 'training', 'counterinsurgency' and
other kinds of troops. Obama also presses for an expansion of the US
Army and Marines by more than 100,000 troops and a larger military
budget even than the Bush regime. The fact that both these stands fly in
the face of the legacy of Martin Luther King, and flatly contradict the
wishes of most Democratic voters is utterly invisible in the
establishment media, and in the discourse of established Black leaders
on the Obama campaign. . .

It's time for a little less respect for the high and mighty of either
party, and a little more action.  It's high time for activists inside
and outside the Democratic party to look for creative, innovative,
sometimes impolite and civilly disobedient ways to reach larger
audiences as they speak truth to the powerful. Even and especially when
those in power are nominal Democrats.

http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=
view&id=529&Itemid=34


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