{"id":14602,"date":"2008-02-16T09:00:40","date_gmt":"2008-02-16T14:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/14602.html"},"modified":"2008-02-16T09:00:40","modified_gmt":"2008-02-16T14:00:40","slug":"come-on-people-now-smile-on-your-brother-everybody-get-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/come-on-people-now-smile-on-your-brother-everybody-get-together\/","title":{"rendered":"Come on people now, smile on your brother; everybody get together"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guest Post by Morbo<\/a><\/p>\n

Special note from Morbo: On Tuesday, I fell on a patch of ice and broke my left wrist. Thankfully, I live in a place where people value good government services. My 13-year-old daughter remained cool and calm and called 911. She tended to me until some EMTs came, and an ambulance whisked me off to a local hospital. (At least this happened after I voted in the Maryland primary.)<\/p>\n

I was working on this post before the accident — a call for unity among liberals. I finished it using one hand, but I don’t plan to make a habit of that. I’m going on hiatus while I recover. To all those who have read my posts here at TCR, I can only say a huge thank you. It has been an honor to share my thoughts with you in this forum, which due to Steve’s vision and amazing amount of work, is one hell of a kick-ass progressive blog<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The Carpetbagger recently wrote about tensions between pro-Clinton and pro-Obama Democrats. We’ve seen them manifested on this blog.<\/p>\n

I’ve written about this topic before. Today I want to stress again the need for unity in our party.<\/p>\n

I don’t pretend to be neutral in this race. I am for Obama. But I’ll be clear: If Hillary Clinton has a reversal of fortune and wins the nomination, I’ll be behind her 100 percent. I’ll display signs and stickers. I’ll send her money. I’ll vote for her. I’ll urge others to vote for her. Furthermore, I pledge to work on a couple of pro-Obama friends of mine who keep saying they won’t vote for Clinton. I may drive all of us nuts, but I will bring them around by Election Day.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, I won’t “hold my nose” and vote for Clinton. I’ll do it proudly and with joy. Why? Because Clinton is not the enemy; John McCain is.<\/p>\n

In case anyone needs to be reminded, here are just a few reasons why, despite our differences now, we all need to be on the same page come Nov. 4:
\n
\n* The Supreme Court:<\/b> I’m just going to keep saying this until my lips fall off: John Paul Stevens, our most progressive justice, is 87 years old. It’s almost guaranteed that he will step down during the next four years. If McCain replaces him with another John G. Roberts or Samuel A. Alito (“Scalia-lite”), the high court is lost to us for a generation.<\/p>\n

* The war in Iraq:<\/b> McCain says we should prepare to be there for a long time. Clinton or Obama will work to bring the troops home.<\/p>\n

* The war in Iran:<\/b> McCain wants to start one. Clinton and Obama do not.<\/p>\n

* Global Warming:<\/b> We simply do not have the luxury of ignoring this issue for four more years. I have two children. I’m hoping they’ll have a planet to live on. McCain may occasionally pretend like he cares, but we know there’s no way a Republican administration is going to offer anything serious on this issue.<\/p>\n

* Fiscal Responsibility:<\/b> McCain will continue the Bush trend of spending like a drunken sailor without considering serious ways to pay for it. (“Tax cuts pay for themselves!”) It’s not right to stick this on our kids.<\/p>\n

Of course there are other issues — like health care, to name just one example. Although McCain occasionally breaks ranks with the GOP leadership, he’s not nearly the maverick the media loves to portray him as. The bottom line is that our country simply cannot afford four more years of Republican rule.<\/p>\n

Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that a Democratic Congress will rein in McCain. McCain is likely to continue Bush’s trend of an imperial presidency, and his lackeys on the Supreme Court (see item one) won’t object.<\/p>\n

By all means, advocate with (polite) passion for your candidate today. But understand that soon we’ll have a nominee. At that point, our job is to close ranks and work for McCain’s defeat.<\/p>\n

I’d like it to be a resounding one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guest Post by Morbo Special note from Morbo: On Tuesday, I fell on a patch of ice and broke my left wrist. Thankfully, I live in a place where people value good government services. My 13-year-old daughter remained cool and calm and called 911. She tended to me until some EMTs came, and an ambulance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14602\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}