Henk van de Goor's Bloggers@large

Kudos to Barack Hussein Osama. He is living proof that anything is - still - possible in the Land of opportunities. The big question however, is, "now what?". His predecessor George W. Bush has made it almost impossible for him to do anything that costs money. It's like trying to rebuild a village that has been pillaged by Vikings and burned to the ground. Where do you start? The National Debt Clock at New York's Times Square had to be adjusted this October at the hight of the financial crisis to make place for the digit "1" at the same place where the $ sign is. The government’s debts have ballooned so badly the New York landmark has run out of digits to record the spiraling figure. Whatever his plans are: where will he get the funding from? It seems to me that this is an almost impossible task? Although Obama won't be president until next year he already started to find the right people for his government who will help him with the changes he wants to make.

Like most Europeans I hope that Obama will start by closing down Guantanamo Bay. After that he has the daunting task to try to get all the military safely out of Iraq and into Afghanistan. He also said he would go after Osama Bin Laden. But first and foremost he will need to - somehow - boost the American economy.

Given the state of the Union the big question is: how to pay for change? I guess we will find out in the next few months when news will trickle down the grapevine.

With less than 36hrs to go, polls show it's not going to be that exiting: Obama still has a firm lead on McCain according to CNN. According to many people it's not the question if Obama will win, but how big the win will be. So is this going to be the landslide that polls predict? Or is it going to be closer than we all think? Untill last week the figures were a bit sketchy to say the least. A reported 14% of the voters was still undecided. If you look at the CNN election tracker, its still a close call with about 5-6% undecided and 51% for Obama against 44% for McCain. However, that would result in a 291 against 157 electoral votes. If you would have asked me in September I would have said that I would not be surprised if McCain would win the elections due to the fact that I firmly believe that Americans in general would have a hard time accepting Obama's race and background. But given the fact that McCain thourougly dropped the ball in October during the highpoint of the financial crisis, I have to admit it would be very surprising if he wins. I'm sure people are so fed up with the Republican disaster called Bush, they would vote for any Democrat.

To be honest I did still bet this weekend (against my girlfriend) that McCain is going to win. When I loose I will have to treat her to a nice dinner in Amsterdam next time she visits. I guess I better go pick a restaurant already :-)

Unless in some way or form this election is rigged, Obama is going to win for sure. My prediction? People are so fed up with Bush it will be a landslide victory, sending a clear message to Washington: "Change is coming. Oh yes, we can."

I have been very busy lately with work, coming home tired, so I haven't had much time to follow up on current American politics or how the presidential election and campaigns are going. But this incident wasn't easy to miss as the American press (in particular Fox News - off course) had a field day with it.

So what is the fuss about?

This Sunday, retired general Clark, a supporter of Barack Obama, made some dumb remarks - to put it mildly - about republican candidate John Mccain's military experience.

When asked on CBS "Face the Nation" if he really thought McCain was "untested and untried," Clark more or less answered yes, but he also stated that McCain lacked executive military experience because he only commanded a non-wartime squadron, "didn't make real decisions", or order "bombs to fall.''

So when his opponent in this discussion added that Barack Obama didn't exactly have military experience himself, let alone experienced what it is "being shot down" in a fighter plane, Clark made things worse by adding another dumb remark: "I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.''

Oops.

Not the smartest thing to say about a certified war hero that - as a result of being shot down - spend several years in a hole in the ground as a POW.

As to be expected the right-wing press with Fox News in the front lines smelled blood and where able to blow things up in a way that only they can. It's funny how I learned a new expression from all this as well: "swiftboating":

In 2004, a political organization called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, initially composed of Vietnam veterans who served on swift boats, formed with the intent of opposing the presidential candidacy of John Kerry, who himself served as a swift boat commander in Vietnam (for which he was decorated with three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star, and a Bronze Star. The group, using statements of swift boat veterans and Kerry's own 1971 anti-war statements (Kerry had become a spokesman for the anti-war group Vietnam Veterans Against the War), produced a series of television ads and a bestselling book that sought to discredit Kerry's military record and patriotism and characterize him as unfit for the presidency. Since then, the term 'swiftboating' has been widely used to describe political tactics that are essentially synonymous with a 'smear campaign'.

Anyway: I don't think that the Democratic campaign benefits from these kind of remarks and as to be expected things just blowup in your face. I really loved how one of the political commentators put it when talking about this problem:

"This (Democratic) campaign is going down faster than a four year old on a water slide in summer."

So, even though I am more of a democrat than a republican I think it's bad tactics to attack McCain in this way.

Let's face it: bottom line in this discussion is that ANY military experience trumps NO military experience. Even a kid can do that kind of math.
Even weekend warrior George W. Bush's spotty National Guard service trumps Obama's ZERO service.

And experience is an argument Obama should avoid altogether anyway, since next to McCain's three decades in public office, Obama's four years in the Senate look pretty lousy. The only time Obama should utter the word "experience" is to point out that experience didn't stop McCain from helping get us into a disastrous war.

And by the way: McCain's heroism came not from being shot down over North Vietnam but refusing an offer to leave his jail cell because he wouldn't abandon his fellow prisoners.

Nuff said, just watch the video of the press smelling blood:

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As I wrote in my blog about my vacation in California, I was more or less surprised at the relatively huge amount of homeless people int that city. I have been in New York and other big cities in the US and Europe (Amsterdam, Paris, Rome, Barcelona, London etc..) but it seemed I saw more of them there than anywhere else. I assume that the climate probably is a factor as well. After all; you don't see many homeless people in Alaska. As far as I can tell from my own experience in Holland, most homeless people in Holland have serious issues. They are not homeless because they lost their jobs as we have ample social laws to help out with that. No they either have psychological problems or are addicted. In the US you see a lot of people that tell media they are homeless because of losing their job or they lucked out. A lot of them carry signs around saying "will work for food" but people (including me from time to time) just hand them money.

The question is: does that help them or not? Well, ABC's 20/20 had an interesting item about this subject. They asked themselves the question: "Should we help the homeless or are we creating a culture of dependency that makes it difficult for people to improve their lives?"

They even put it to the test: how many homeless people actually "work for food"? Check out the video below and feel free to comment...

ABC 20/20: Freeloaders