Hero. What does it mean to be one? Here is the definition of a hero:

1. a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.  

2. a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal: He was a local hero when he saved the drowning child.  

It's time take to take a good look at John McCain's time in the Navy. My case is that McCain is not a hero at all, but an accidental bumbler with bad luck.

Let's assume you have a job. You are offered a better job with better pay. You get the offer letter and accept the job. Then, just after being hired, your employer decides to cut your pay because your employers put something in the fine print you didn't see. Would you stick around?

That is EXACTLY what is happening to you Senator Obama RIGHT NOW. You are getting the shaft. As a brother, this should come as no shock in America. People like Markos have promised not to donate to your campaign and are leading many others to do so.

I consider myself a netroots member and I am outraged, OUTRAGED over the Democrats caving to Bush on the FISA bill. Yes, I am UP IN ARMS. But unlike many cohorts, I'm not insane. I know that this really is not a big deal except to people who are probably as comfortably well off and well educated as I am. This is a luxury issue for people who dont have more basic survival as a priority. In an era where people are being thrown out of their homes, thrown out of hospitals, thrown INTO wars, and cant afford to feed, much less educate their children, it is perfectly understandable to me why the people dont really give a shit about a FISA bill.

So, let me make a suggestion:

One of the things I hear circulating all over the punditocracy and on this blog is that Barack Obama needs to select someone with military experience, national security experience, or some other sort of experience of this sort to "help" him "balance" the ticket.

I disagree, and ultimately, I think Obama will as well.

The way Obama will defeat John McCain is to aim a triple-barreled shotgun right at the cornerstone of the Republican party, White Evangelical Christians.

Thats right. He will go right to heart of the Republican party and divide it.

And they know its coming.

Some of the recent talk about Hillary Clinton having more balls than Barack Obama got me to thinking about how we teach manhood in young men America. I'm a longtime volunteer in my neighborhood, dealing with young men via the PAL (please support us!)

I love this quote:

Hillary is the tougher of the two, the candidate you want on your side in a knife fight, a gender reversal that prompts Carville to indulge in some ribald humor: "If she gave him one of her cojones, they'd both have two."link  

Funny! I thought I may lay out my own personal rules on manhood, which are pretty easy to follow.

You've seen the comment. It goes something like this:

I absolutely detest (Clinton or Obmama). Under no circumstances will I vote for (him/her/it). If (he/she) is the nominee, I am voting for McCain.

Then what follows is just as rote:

"Thats crazy."

"Are you stupid?"

"What about the Supreme Court?"

Blah blah blah.

It's 3:00 AM. Your children are sleeping (or playing Guitar Hero). A crisis happens somewhere in the world. The phone in the White House is ringing.

How would I, as the military's your Commander in Chief handle different sorts of emergency?

I offer to you that my experience has best prepared me to handle anything, especially pressing global emergencies.

You know what, the Obama Campaign is a cult. You found us out. I don't know how the secret was revealed, but now is the time to come clean.

So, to those of you who are not members of this cult, namely low income white women over 50 and Latinos, I want to give you a basic description of the tenets of our faith, its liturgy and rituals, sacred texts, and the mysitical experience you can expect should you decide to join.

This isn't a joke.

We have no idea how years of torture have affected this man. We certainly need to find out before we put him in charge of nuclear weapons.

In determining his fitness for command, we need to find out if

1- he's crazy
2- there were changes in his personality that are negative
3- his moral judgement has been affected

Why am I up at this hour? I have a cold.

Anyway, I'll take this opportunity to bloviate while few are looking.

The media is bombarding us all with this message:

Barack Obama MUST make inroads.

I'll keep it short and sweet:

Obama will carry my district handily. There is no Clinton presence around here.

Yes, I too am filled with hope. Yes, I too am filled with joy seeing him run. But lets keep in mind what we are up against here:

So here I am spending a lazy Saturday afternoon tooling around the FEC Presidential Campaign Finance website. I'm all prepped for the Super Bowl, so I've got nothing better to do.

Taking a look at Texas, just for kicks, I see that all the campaigns have raised money in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, etc. as expected.

I had no idea, however, what a financial powerhouse McAllen, TX was!

America dodged a bullet this January. Lets thank our lucky stars that Rudy Giuliani is not the Republican nominee and therefore will have no chance to be President of the United States. He endorsed John McCain today. During his speech, America's Hizzoner said this:

"It's disappointing to lose a race for president because you believe you're the best candidate, but I had made it clear before I had to make this decision who I thought the other best candidate was," said Giuliani.  "I think I made it clear during a debate that if I had not been running, I would be supporting John McCain. So I'm not running, and I'm supporting John McCain and he is far away the best person to be the commander in chief of the United States."

Well it looks like were in for another Three Stooges-like pie fight in this election. McCain the warmonger against the protester and the draft dodger. Fucking great. Another election about shit I could care less about.

My rant below:

I just came from dinner and drinks with friends. We had a really good conversation at Dylan Prime in Tribeca. Should you ever find yourself in Manhattan, please delight yourself with fantastic food, an amazing bar, and plenty of pleasurable eye candy.

There were six of us, three couples. Two of the men support Obama, and one McCain. One of the ladies supports McCain, one Huckabee, and my fiancee is still die-hard Edwards. We are all professionals of some sort in our thirties and work in Manhattan. We were two Black,  two WASP, one Jewish, and one Korean.