Greg Allen, a Florida-based, nationally syndicated talk host, joined us tonight to discuss the primary on Tuesday and the race in general.
Greg is a really interesting guy. He’s not just a thoughtful commentator on all things political, he has a number of other interests including food, travel and music.
Greg was present at the birth of alternative rock at CBGB’s in the 70’s, managed a band and even penned a couple of songs recorded by Ronnie Spector. For 20-years, he was the music critic for Atlantic City Press.
You can learn more about Greg and his eclectic show at The Right Balance.
All of our interviews are also available for download at iTunes and Podcast Alley via the Pundit Review Radio Podcast.
What is Pundit Review Radio?
Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week Kevin and Gregg give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called “groundbreaking†by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to your radio every Sunday evening from 7-10 pm EST on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station.
You know the Clinton’s have really stepped in it when even the Kennedy family, the ultimate establishment figures in the Democrat party, are bailing on them for the new guy, who also happens to be BLACK, if you haven’t heard.
WASHINGTON — Senator Edward M. Kennedy will endorse Barack Obama for president tomorrow, breaking his year-long neutrality to send a powerful signal of where the legendary Massachusetts Democrat sees the party going — and who he thinks is best to lead it.
A President Like My Father by Caroline Kennedy
Senator Obama is running a dignified and honest campaign. He has spoken eloquently about the role of faith in his life, and opened a window into his character in two compelling books. And when it comes to judgment, Barack Obama made the right call on the most important issue of our time by opposing the war in Iraq from the beginning.
I want a president who understands that his responsibility is to articulate a vision and encourage others to achieve it; who holds himself, and those around him, to the highest ethical standards; who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and make us believe again that our country needs every one of us to get involved.
Here is the official Pundit Review Translation,
Barack Obama is BLACK. BLACK people will vote for the BLACK guy. Let’s see how us WHITE folk do in a state where BLACK’S don’t make up such a significant percentage of the electorate. Hopefully, WHITE voters will resent this BLACK support for the BLACK candidate and vote for ME, er, Hillary, instead.
Here is Jonathan Chait, writing in the LA Times,
Is the right right on the Clintons?
Hillary’s campaign tactics are causing some liberals to turn against the couple.
Something strange happened the other day. All these different people — friends, co-workers, relatives, people on a liberal e-mail list I read — kept saying the same thing: They’ve suddenly developed a disdain for Bill and Hillary Clinton. Maybe this is just a coincidence, but I think we’ve reached an irrevocable turning point in liberal opinion of the Clintons.
I am officially instituting an amnesty program for liberals who have recently removed their heads from their behinds and are now waking up to the ugly realities of who the Clinton’s are. So, you are a dozen year’s late to the party. That’s ok, I welcome you with open arms.
How many times post-Katrina have we heard that Global Warming was the reason for an increase in both the frequency and ferocity of hurricanes? The “scientific consensus” that people like Al Gore point to to stifle honest debate was absolutely certain about this phenomenon.
National Geographic News
Hurricanes Have Doubled Due to Global Warming, Study Says
The increases coincide closely with rises in sea surface temperatures in the eastern Atlantic tropics. Previous studies have attributed these rises to human emissions of greenhouse gases. The study also shows that the proportion of major hurricanes to less intense hurricanes has sharply increased in recent years, which agrees with earlier studies showing an increase in stronger storms.
AP
Study: Global Warming Making Hurricanes Stronger
Is global warming making hurricanes more ferocious? New research suggests the answer is yes. Scientists call the findings both surprising and “alarming” because they suggest global warming is influencing storms now — rather than in the distant future.
But a new study in the journal Nature found that hurricanes and typhoons have become stronger and longer-lasting over the past 30 years. These upswings correlate with a rise in sea surface temperatures.
Boston Globe: Katrina’s real name
By Ross Gelbspan | August 30, 2005
THE HURRICANE that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service. Its real name is global warming.
Al Gore likes to say that the debate about Global Warming is over. But is it? Check out this new study that contradicts everything the “consensus” has been telling us about the role of Global Warming and hurricanes,
Global warming reducing hurricanes in U.S., report says
MIAMI — Intensifying one of the hottest debates in science, a new report concludes that global warming is diminishing the number of hurricanes that strike Florida and the rest of the United States.
The study found that the planet’s oceans have been warming for more than a century. No surprise there, but this may be: Those warmer oceans are producing stronger crosswinds that tend to suppress the development and growth of hurricanes, the scientists said.
The bottom line here is that we just don’t know. Scientific consensus is like fashion, it changes over time. Thirty years ago Newsweek was warning us about the “scientific consensus” around Global COOLING,
Newsweek
The Cooling World
April 28, 1975
To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world’s weather. The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth’s climate seems to be cooling down. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic.
Does this prove anything about Global Warming and its potential impact on hurricanes? Absolutely not. What it does prove is that the debate is far from over. As I have said before, the debate is just beginning.
It just shows, once again, how despicable people like Al Gore and Ellen Goodman are for trying to stifle debate through intimidation, insults and innuendo.
Let’s be honest here. The Clinton’s attacks on Barack Obama are designed to do one thing, make his skin color an issue. Barack Obama was able to win Iowa and place a strong second in NH without his race ever becoming an issue. The more race becomes an issue, the better it is for Hillary.
How did the Clinton’s make race an issue? Like all dishonest, sleezy politicians do, though their surrogates, of course. Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson had a terrific column on this back on the 17th,
If Hillary Clinton’s campaign had taken only one shot at Obama, it might have been blown off as a mistake. But four shots constitutes a pattern, with Clinton’s former New Hampshire chairman, Bill Shaheen, Representative Charles Rangel, Clinton pollster Mark Penn and Black Entertainment Television founder Bob Johnson all getting into the act.
Surrogates don’t take printed instructions, but neither do they want to upset the candidate they’ve traveled to the hinterlands to please. And Penn isn’t even a surrogate. He’s the campaign’s top strategist.
Carlson continues, making the essential point,
For Obama, he lost the essence of his candidacy as the first black man to run as himself. Once the race card is on the table, no matter who puts it there, it’s impossible to put it back up anyone’s sleeve. Obama may look back on the first two weeks of 2008 as the time when he lost the nomination to Clinton.
The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson absolutely nails the reason behind the Clinton’s attacks on Barack Obama,
Obama’s candidacy not only threatens to obliterate the dream of a Clinton Restoration. It also fundamentally calls into question Bill Clinton’s legacy by making it seem . . . not really such a big deal. That, I believe, is the unforgivable insult.
The most frustrating aspect of all of this is that Bill and Hillary Clinton should have been relegated to the ash heap of history a long time ago. Their behavior while in the White House was nothing short of disgraceful. Forget Monica for a minute. How about the White House coffee fundraisers, pimping out the Lincoln bedroom, savagely attacking women who credibly accused the president of harassment, all the while complaining about the politics of personal destruction. I voted for Bill Clinton in 1992. When nobody, and I mean nobody, in the Democratic Party stood up to these two, before, during and after his impeachment, I knew I could never again support a Democrat. Some things are bigger than holding on to power at all costs. The Democrat establishment chose to not just support, but hero worship the Clinton’s, especially Bill. How many “good government†types had to look the other way? How many alleged feminists turned their backs on everything they believed to support these two? The Clinton’s represent the complete intellectual and moral collapse of the Democratic Party. I will never understand why some party leaders didn’t tell him it was time to leave when they had the chance. Al Gore would have taken over, and been able to run in 2000 as the president, and not the VP who was too embarrassed to have the POTUS campaign for him. Could President Al Gore beat George W. Bush? We’ll never know.
What is it going to take for Democrats to learn that the Clinton’s and their win at all costs mentality have damaged the party immensely?
An editorial in today’s WSJ titled The Education of Barack Obama (subs req’d) gets to the heart of who the Clinton’s are, and it isn’t pretty,
The Illinois Senator is still a young man, but not so young as to have missed the 1990s. He nonetheless seems to be awakening slowly to what everyone else already knows about the Clintons, which is that they will say and do whatever they “gotta” say or do to win. Listen closely to Mr. Obama, and you can almost hear the echoes of Bob Dole at the end of the 1996 campaign asking, “Where’s the outrage?”
Barack Obama is still learning who the Clinton’s are and what they value most. It is not country, or even party, but power. If the Clinton’s are allowed to cynically use race to destroy the first legitimate black candidate for president, will the Democrat Party continue to say “thank you sir, may I have another”?
Earth to Democrats: the Clinton’s are poison. When are you going to wake up?
Fred Thompson quits presidential race
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NAPLES, Fla. – Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson quit the Republican presidential race on Tuesday, after a string of poor finishes in early primary and caucus states.
“Today, I have withdrawn my candidacy for president of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort,” Thompson said in a statement.
Thompson’s fate was sealed last Saturday in the South Carolina primary, when he finished third in a state that he had said he needed to win.
MSNBC’s Chuck Todd asks a related question that will certainly go unanswered,
Why is it that when Democratic candidates address black congregations — like Clinton and Obama did yesterday — it doesn’t generate the same kind of skeptical press it does when Republican candidates speak at evangelical churches? Seriously, we saw more Democratic candidates at the pulpit yesterday than we’ve seen Republicans all year and yet…