As a student of politics and a passionate believer in globalization, I have become increasingly frustrated by the sense that we, the next generation of world leaders, have been completely marginalized by selfish and unimaginative lawmakers in capitols around the world. It is my hope that this blog can serve as a forum for young, ambitious and articulate men and women who get it. What kind of world do you want to inherit?
The video below is a a brief tribute from Slate for Tony Schwartz, the political ad genius who made over 2000 ads during his brilliant career. Such a shame to loss two great men at such a historic political time. It seems as if everyone is passing recently, both in news and in the lives of some of my dearest friends. I guess bad things do happen in bunches.
Tim Russert passed away Friday while taping the introduction to his weekly broadcast of Meet The Press, unquestionably the most watched and respected hour in all of political television every Sunday morning. He was a tremendous personality and a great lover of all things political, a passion I certainly understand as well as anyone.
One of my high school English professors at Loyola Academy, Father Robert Ytsen S.J., was a college roommate of Tim's at John Carroll in Cleveland, OH. The stories he shared with us were among the greatest college stories I have ever heard. According to Father Bob, he and Tim invented the drive thru one evening when they drove through the front window of a local White Castle to place their order, which is a story I doubt many people have heard.
Sadly, but perhaps appropriately, this Sunday is Father's Day and nobody has done more to remind America of the importance of fathers than Tim. It has been a few years since I have seen Father Bob, but the last time we had lunch together he recommended that I read Big Russ and Me, Tim's renowned and touching book about his father. I went straight from lunch to Barnes and Noble to buy myself a copy of the book, but it ended up getting lost among my piles of political biographies, weekly magazines and daily sections of the Financial Times. I went back and found the book last night and moved it straight to the top of my reading list.
Below I have included three videos from Hulu, the first is an excerpt from Friday evening's Late Show with Conan O'Brien during which he gives his own tribute to the lighter side of Tim Russert. The others are full episodes of Meet The Press featuring Tim Russert at his best with the 42nd and 43rd Presidents of the United States.
Senator Barack Obama has finally clinched the Democratic nomination for President of the United States, defeating the once unbeatable Senator Hillary Clinton on the night of the 50th (not including US territories) and final primary contest. Interestingly, the party decided that despite the fact that Senator Clinton won nearly every state that will matter in November and received the most total votes in the history of American political primaries with over 18 million.
For the life of me I cannot figure out why the Democratic Party would choose a first-term Senator from Illinois whose legislative record is basically non-existent in an election against perhaps the most qualified, popular and well-known Republican politician in America, Senator John McCain. Nothing in his background, with the exception of his Ivy League education, suggests Sen. Obama has the skills and experience that would typically prepare a politician for the pressures of the most powerful job in the world. Essentially, the only reason Obama managed to eek out his primary victory against a surging Clinton campaign, which clearly won the last three months of this six month battle, was the fact that they were able to convince enough super-delegates that he "deserved" to win and the media seemed all too willing to go along with that overriding assumption.
If the Clinton campaign was truly honest, or could afford the consequences of telling it like it really is, there is not a chance in hell Barack Obama would have made it passed the trouncing he was dealt in Ohio (where he lost 55/57 counties). The real Barack Obama has yet to be seen in public during this campaign because Democrats couldn't afford to be honest about their presumptive nominee and set the table for the "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" to eat away at his many glaring weaknesses.
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