[Road Warrior Shark]

Fun little article about who Hillary, Barak and McCain are related too. OBama and Gen Robert E Lee struck me as the most ironic...


news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080326/ap_en_mo/candidates_genealogy;_ylt=Au_LtwN9B_HJnyzDvzT0y1ms0NUE

By DENISE LAVOIE, Associated Press Writer
Wed Mar 26, 7:53 AM ET



BOSTON - This could make for one odd family reunion: Barack Obama is a distant cousin of Brad Pitt, and Hillary Rodham Clinton is related to Pitt's girlfriend, Angelina Jolie.

Researchers at the New England Historic Genealogical Society found some remarkable family connections for the three presidential candidates — Democratic rivals Obama and Clinton, and Republican John McCain.

Clinton, who is of French-Canadian descent on her mother's side, is also a distant cousin of singers Madonna, Celine Dion and Alanis Morissette. Obama, the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya, can call six U.S. presidents, including George W. Bush, his cousins. McCain is a sixth cousin of first lady Laura Bush.

"You'd think with all that singing talent in the family she'd be able to carry a tune," Clinton's senior adviser Philippe Reines said. "But now it makes much more sense how she snagged a Grammy."

Clinton won for best spoken word Grammy in 1997 for "It Takes a Village." Obama also won a Grammy in that category this year for the audio version of his book, "The Audacity Of Hope: Thoughts On Reclaiming The American Dream."

Genealogist Christopher Child said that while the candidates often focus on pointing out differences between them, their ancestry shows they are more alike than they think.

"It shows that lots of different people can be related, people you wouldn't necessarily expect," Child said.

Obama has a prolific presidential lineage that features Democrats and Republicans. His distant cousins include President George W. Bush and his father, George H.W. Bush, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Harry S. Truman and James Madison. Other Obama cousins include Vice President Dick Cheney, British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill and Civil War General Robert E. Lee.
Obama often jokes about his cousin Cheney at campaign appearances.

"His kinships are across the political spectrum," Child said.

Child has spent the last three years tracing the candidates' genealogy, along with senior research scholar Gary Boyd Roberts, author of the 1989 book, "Ancestors of American Presidents."

Clinton's distant cousins include beatnik author Jack Kerouac and Camilla Parker-Bowles, wife of Prince Charles of England.

McCain's ancestry was more difficult to trace because records on his relatives were not as complete as records for the families of Obama and Clinton, Child said.

Obama and President Bush are 10th cousins, once removed, linked by Samuel Hinkley of Cape Cod, who died in 1662.

Pitt and Obama are ninth cousins, linked by Edwin Hickman, who died in Virginia in 1769. Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, declined to comment on the senator's ancestry.

Clinton and Jolie are ninth cousins, twice removed, both related to Jean Cusson who died in St. Sulpice, Quebec, in 1718.

The New England Historic Genealogical Society, founded in 1845, is the oldest and largest nonprofit genealogical organization in the country.

[bdbdbd]

The south will rise again!

[Loki]

So Obama is related to the Bushes AND Ford AND Cheney AND a Confederate General.


Tex, Solly: Are you ready to jump on the Obama bandwagon now? He's a closet Republican!

[The Jewish Cunthead]

I'd have a lot more respect for Ba-Rock if he simply condemned his pastor instead of his slick backpedaling... so loki to answer your question, no.

[Batman]

You'd respect him more if he had said, "this man who has been my pastor and friend for years, now that some things that I certainly knew that he had said, even though I disagreed with them, now that they've become a scandal, now I disown and condemn him"?

Yeah . . . I don't think so.

[The Jewish Cunthead]

I would if Obama didn't play the "well everyone has said things they regret before" card. Just own up to it without spinning. That's all I ask.

If McCain's preacher said the same things, I'd be on him too.

[Fire-Babe]

fsolomon75 said:

I would if Obama didn't play the "well everyone has said things they regret before" card. Just own up to it without spinning. That's all I ask.

If McCain's preacher said the same things, I'd be on him too.

Dude, McCain's 'spiritual advisors' have said things just as distasteful. I live down the road from Rev. Parsley.

[Outback Frito Pendejo]

firewoman said:

fsolomon75 said:

I would if Obama didn't play the "well everyone has said things they regret before" card. Just own up to it without spinning. That's all I ask.

If McCain's preacher said the same things, I'd be on him too.

Dude, McCain's 'spiritual advisors' have said things just as distasteful. I live down the road from Rev. Parsley.

Yeah, but McCain is just pretending to listen to those guys for political advantage!




Oh, wait...

[BTR]

Solly, so you're against the guy who's pastor wants God to damn America because of the injustices his race has received, but for the guy whose party consistently fans the flames of those injustices?

[The Jewish Cunthead]

I'm just saying I wish Obama took a different approach with his response, that's all.

[Demko]

Never before, and never again, will my signature be more appropriate than now.

Especially since I'm an Obama supporter. :-)

[Lucky]

He didn't dismiss his pastor's words as merely guffaws that we all make. He condemned them and said they were born of anger and hate that he does not support and that sickens him. But its a man who is basically family to him and he can understand where that hate and anger comes from. And he has other family members who he loves who have said just as sickening things that came from similar places and that he understood in a similar fashion.

The idea that he didn't condemn his pastor's comments is ridiculous. He did not make the best political decision because the best political decision would have been for him to disown the man who is family to him because some will confuse his message, intentionally corrupt it ("HE THREW HIS GRANDMA UNDER THE BUS!"), or "tl;dr" his speech. And the truth is that if any of us believed that he truly did disown a man he had so many times spoke so highly of based on video clips on youtube that showed a side of him he almost certainly knew existed then we are probably naive fools. So he would have just been pandering shamelessly for the political game.

He chose to speak the truth about his relationship with the man and engage the American people on a topic that NOONE talks about. To not only acknowledge the real anger in the black community but the righteous resentment that exists in much of the white community and to suggest that ignoring it and pushing it aside only lets it linger and that opening the lines of communication would be healthier for our country. It was dumb as shit because it was doomed to fail. When any celebrity chooses to open those doors (Cosby?) it never goes well and for a black presidential candidate to do it in response to hateful language from a black spiritual leader of his is an insane political strategy.

[Batman]

Apr 3, 2008 9:32:03 GMT -5 Lucky said:

And the truth is that if any of us believed that he truly did disown a man he had so many times spoke so highly of based on video clips on youtube that showed a side of him he almost certainly knew existed then we are probably naive fools. So he would have just been pandering shamelessly for the political game.

That's what I was trying to get at. Thanks for saying it more clearly than I did.


Wait . . . I mean:

tl;dr.

[Demko]

Fantastically put, Lucky. I believe that Obama is making decisions about his campaign based on true human emotion and reaction, rather than the typical robotic reaction of previous politicians. I think that Obama is living up to his message, specifically regarding his breaking out of the cynical mold that we've cast upon politicians.

Newbie question time: what's "tl;dr"?

[Batman]

too long;didn't read.

Wait, I mean: jfgi.

[Lucky]

Sorry for using that, Demko. I hate the stupid internet abbreviations and I hate that one in particular. I only know it because Serg and Tommy use it on me so damn much. But I figured it was the most appropriate way to describe my reaction the first time I sat down with that interview.

"Four fucking separate YouTube clips? How long is this shit? 40 fucking minutes? I ain't got the time for this. Where's a CNN highlight reel?"

CNN, FoxNews, and Daily Show didn't give me the full message. It was only when I sat down and watched that I got it and its perfectly reasonable to believe that plenty of people searching their news didn't have the time or patience to do that and never went back like I did.

[Demko]

Sadly, most people don't have the time or patience to do ANY research on the candidates. I would say about 80% of the time, when I tell someone that I'm supporting Obama for the presidency (unless, of course, they're Obama supporters themselves), they say something patently ignorant, like 'Ain't he the guy who wouldn't salute the flag?' or 'He's that Muslim guy, right?'

My favorite Obama mudsling is when people toss around his middle name. Just because the man's middle name is Hussein, doesn't mean that a) he kills puppies in his spare time, b) he's openly related to Saddam Hussein, or c) he's the head of a terrorist cell waiting to take down America from the inside.

[Loki]

Perhaps this is my own biases showing through, but this is the first election I can think of where I'd be comfortable with either one of the front runners as president (I'm assuming that Hillary won't be the Dem nominee).

McCain, probably because of his stance as a rebel in his own party, doesn't come with the assorted baggage of the scarlet "R" that swept the country during the 2006 elections. And Obama still has that fresh-face-anything-can-happen vibe going for him.

Serious question out there for our knuckle dragging conservative brethren (kidding! kidding!): At this stage in the game, would a GOP shellacking be a good thing? Here's my logic. The National Republican Party, as it stands now, is not a conservative party. Specifically, the core group that compromises the leadership of the party has done things as of late that even Ted Kennedy considers to extreme. To name a few - the ginormous deficit, trading freedom for security, making government bigger instead of smaller, direct government/big brother intervention in the investment banking financial problems - and those are all within the past two weeks. Go back further and it seems like the traditional conservative values have been pushed to the wayside. And it's sad, but the main focus of conservative public radio for the past few weeks? Not the deficit. Or social security. Or Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or the economy. Nope. It's been this childish "Operation Chaos", or whatever Chubbs is calling it.

[That's it? THAT'S the big thing your fellow conservatives are focused on? Isn't that....well, a bit depressing? Hey, Rush! Just wait until next week! A bunch of us are going to give one of the Democrat pages on Capital Hill a SWIRLEE! I bet you can't wait to cover that!]

Considering that the party leadership is completely disconnected from the rank and file while the remainder of the GOP is wandering aimlessly, wouldn't it be a good time to blow it up and start all over again? Or rather, get killed in the upcoming elections so that the current group in power can be swept out and competent conservatives be selected to actually lead the party and stick with conservative values?

Keep in mind, this is my view on it as an outsider. I'd like to hear what you insiders think.