Obama's Historic Presidency - Harvard Must Clean Up the Yale Mess

On the abs and shoulders of newly elected Barack Obama comes the most daunting task of his historic presidency which is cleaning up the legacy (mess) that 20 straight years of Yale grads as president has bestowed on us. The last Harvard grad to undertake such a challenge was John F. Kennedy 48 years ago.

In 1636 Harvard was founded and in 1701 Yale was founded and ever since these two Ivy League competitors have been at each other's throats whether it was in founding a nation, creating the game of football, distinguishing themselves as the educational elite of America, charging the highest tuition in the nation to attend, or just capturing the presidency.

Almost a year ago I wrote an article called "Presidential Election 2008 - Harvard versus Yale" . The stunning recent success of Yale in capturing the presidency the past 20 years and nearly for an additional 8 with Hillary capped a long and dominant run by the Bulldogs. In every election since 1972 either a Democrat or Republican presidential candidate or both were from Yale and the 20 year domination beat out the old record held by Harvard and Franklin Roosevelt.

Roosevelt was elected four times himself, meaning Harvard had the muscle to change the Constitution and have a president elected more than twice to keep a favorite son in office. He served into his 13th year before dying and had been elected to serve 16 years. Yale controlled the White House the last 20 years with three different presidents, Bush, Clinton and Bush 2.

Now before we all become overly enamored with the power and success of the Ivy elite remember that Harvard, the venerable 372 year oldest university in the nation still has the dumbest mascot ever adopted by a school in America while the Yale Bulldogs must explain away the legacy of the past 20 years. Oh yes, and only once in history has someone been president who graduated from both schools, our very own George W. Bush, leaving both with much to explain.

As for the Harvard mascot, for those of you who don't know and the Harvard Crimson has worked very hard to conceal the fact, the university mascot is a real person, John Harvard, a puritan clergyman from England in the 1600's. A statue of John Harvard, sculpted by Daniel Chester French, sits in Harvard Yard at Harvard University. Despite its name, the statue does not depict the true likeness of John Harvard, as the sculptor had no accurate image to work from.

The statue, known by Harvard tour guides as the statue of three lies, claims that it depicts John Harvard, Founder, 1638, but in reality Harvard was a contributor, not the founder; the institution was founded in 1636; and the statue is actually a likeness of someone else as French used a student as a model. What Harvard did do was leave the first major endowment to Harvard along with his library thus immortalizing the value of endowments over academics. The current mascot is a hideous distortion of the original John Harvard who wasn't John Harvard to begin with but some student.

Obama is the 8th Harvard grad to serve as president from colonial days after John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Rutherford Hayes, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and George Bush. John Adams was vice president under George Washington for two terms before being elected the 2nd president of the USA in 1797.

Yale has given us 5 presidents with the first being William Howard Taft who was not elected until 1908, 111 years after the first Harvard president. Following Taft were Gerald Ford, George Bush, Sr., Bill Clinton and George Bush, Jr. all in the past 35 years.

The current Yale legacy, Iraq, Afghanistan, the credit crisis, Wall Street collapse, auto company collapse, insurance industry collapse, in fact the whole economic collapse, the extreme negative attitudes toward our elected officials, financial leaders and media, the negative attitude of the world toward America, corruption, oil crisis, terrorism and all the other stuff is certain to be the biggest challenge to Harvard since the great depression and World War II inherited by Franklin Roosevelt.

We can only hope and pray that Barack Obama can clean up the Yale mess and maybe even get the Harvard mascot finally changed during his historic presidency, something even the Adams, Roosevelt's and Kennedy failed to accomplish.

A Day For The Ages - Obama & Lincoln

THE DREAM FULFILLED

Abraham Lincoln - 16th President

Barack Obama - 44th President

Just 23 days after he takes office as the 44th President,

on February 12, 2009, Barack Obama will celebrate the

200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, a fellow

president from Illinois whose dream that all people are free

was fulfilled with the historic election of Obama. Lincoln sacrificed

his life so that Obama could serve. Here they are both sitting before

the Illinois Statehouse where both began historic political careers.

Image created by The Coltons Point Times.

Barack Obama - Abraham Lincoln - The Dream Fulfilled

On February 15, 2008 while analyzing the results of the Super Tuesday primaries, the Coltons Point Times became the first newspaper on the internet or in print to officially declare Barack Obama the next president of the United States, nine months before the vote that would confirm him on November 4. Click on the following link to see the full story.

Friday, February 15, 2008
IT'S OVER - OBAMA 44TH PRESIDENT OF THE USA

One month later, long before the end of the primary season and before Obama had won the Democratic nomination from Hillary Clinton a second story detailed how Obama would win the general election.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008
WHY BARACK OBAMA WILL BE THE 44TH PRESIDENT OF THE USA!

Tonight history was made and tomorrow Barack Obama begins a difficult quest as the 44th President of the United States fulfilling the dream of the 16th President also from Illinois who dreamed all people would be free and all Americans would have equal opportunity.

Now Obama carries the hopes of a nation and the hopes of a world on his shoulders. May the hand of God guide him and may the wind be at his back as he becomes president of all the people and leader of the greatest nation on Earth.

Campaign 2008 - May the Last Person Standing Win

As the campaign winds down and America is finally close to being free of political advertising I hope you have enjoyed the efforts of the Coltons Point Times to keep you up to date with the many aspects of the campaign that are not in the papers. After being involved in 32 campaigns over the years at various local, state and national levels I can say this one stands alone.

For those addicted to poll watching just remember that the media is famous for blowing it with the polls from the 2000 Gore win to the 2004 Kerry win along with disastrous exit polls both years, so don't take them too seriously. If Obama wins there will be support for the notion that major campaigns can be bought regardless of the merits of the campaign and I hope Congress will adopt campaign reform finally that eliminates once and for all the chance that America is for sale.

I was saddened to see that fear and hatred became much more dominant than previous campaigns and that is unfortunate for our future. Both sides were generous in their efforts to smear, unfairly characterize and trash their opponent and both took great liberties with the truth. Some can be blamed on over-zealous staff and some on idiotic supporters and a lot can be blamed on a media that seemed to have lost its sense of purpose and decided reporting the truth is no longer required of such an honorable profession.

If you followed my articles throughout the campaign you will note I was hard on both candidates at varying times and tried to remain somewhat balanced. I never took sides nor endorsed anyone but I did take exception when I felt the media did not give the candidates the respect they deserved for having the guts and commitment to sacrifice in running for office. Like them or not we all should appreciate what they did and give credit where credit is due.

As for the results, I said way back on March 5 that Obama would win and I spelled out the reasons. That was when he still trailed Hillary Clinton in the primaries. That was also before the oil price crisis, the home mortgage disaster, the economic collapse, and the fact Obama would raise three times as much money as McCain. By all rights Obama should be 15-20% ahead in the polls by now but he failed to break through the 50% barrier like he should have done. I expect his final result to be closer to 54-46% which represents a heroic effort by McCain and Palin.

I could be wrong, the McCain Palin ticket may do better in spite of the avalanche of Obama money that was thrown into the campaign. Still the sitting president and his lackadaisical approach to the economy, war and foreign relations made it almost impossible for any Republican to win. You might say McCain was bushwhacked along the way.

Of course the winner may very well be the loser in the end as I have written many articles detailing how I believe we are only in the beginning of the recession and there are forces at work to destroy our economy. It is entirely possible the new president will be like Jimmy Carter and be totally unable to steer the ship of state through the perilous times ahead.

Compounding the problem for Obama will be the demands from his various constituencies who will all claim credit for getting him elected and demand his time and attention to their needs first. His loyalties will be stretched thin between the unions and Goldman Sachs on Wall Street, between the Buffets and the uninsured Americans, between the Hollywood celebrities and the silent majority that will elect him.

Beyond that there is the far greater threat to his success which is the very result he worked to achieve, a solid Democratic control of the House and Senate, meaning a super majority that will deny the minority party any chance of influencing power. People will read an Obama victory as an overwhelming rejection of McCain when in truth it will mean a very slight win in terms of the American people.

Change we want, but returning the vast majority of Congressional incumbents to office will make it impossible for Obama to bring about much change when the very people who got us into this mess are still here. Bush may be gone, but he never had a veto proof majority in Congress which means the democrats, when they were a minority and majority power, still share the blame for everything that happened. By 2010 Obama will have to run against his own Congress to have any chance of bringing about all the changes he wants.

Regardless of who wins, all Americans owe their support to the new president and the efforts he will have to make to restore our world image, manage our battered economy and heal our many wounds from a government that lost sight of the very people it was meant to serve. That is the American way. We can disagree amongst ourselves but we must stand united in order to face the challenges that will try and prevent us from being the most powerful yet generous and compassionate people on earth.

For those of you who don't think Coltons Point gets much notice in the world you should know that we have about 370 residents of the Point but the readership of the Coltons Point Times has now passed 18,500. If only the new president would read the CPT he would have a much easier time solving our nation's problems.

Liberal Media's Code of Omertà Fails to Silence Sarah Palin

The seemingly secret pact between the liberal media and the Obama campaign to block all news coverage and reference to Sarah Palin is failing if we can believe our eyes. It is failing because MSNBC, ABC, The New York Times and the host of other left-leaning media just don't get it, the people of America are not going to let the media tell them who to support.

This past weekend Sarah Palin held a rally in Florida, one of the critical swing states, and there was a virtual media wall of silence about the event. MSNBC had the audacity to only report Palin said "Goodbye to thanks but no thanks," a direct reference to the Alaska bridge to nowhere. Of course MSNBC would have been a little more honest if they said in the end Palin refused to approve the project. They might have been more honest yet if they told you Obama and Biden both voted for the bridge to nowhere but that is the truth and we know the American people aren't ready for the truth.

Not a word was mentioned in the MSNBC report about the rally in Florida, a rally in which the largest crowd to ever witness a vice presidential candidate gathered to see Palin. According to the local Fire Chief Mike Tucker over 60,000 people attended. Only Obama's convention speech drew more and the Obama campaign spent over $8 million to stage that event. Sarah Palin didn't have top spend millions of dollars to draw a crowd. The media did nothing to help make people aware of the event or let the rest of the world know what did happen.

Did I mention that Obama is running for president? The 60,000 screaming, chanting fans of Sarah Palin know all about the liberal media's policy of Omertà and how it is intended to help the liberal Democratic ticket. The people responded by turning out in record numbers. Now that is hard news. The idiotic efforts of the media to dictate the results of the election and protect the leftist movement in America so they can bring about a more socialist government will backfire and their coveted policy of Omertà is going to be drowned in a chorus of chants, "Sarah, Sarah."

OBAMA BEGINS MAGICAL QUEST

Barack Obama has secured the Democratic nomination and now begins his magical quest to become the first Black president in the history of the United States. On March 6 The Coltons Point Times declared Obama would be the Democratic candidate and would become the 44th President of the United States. As we said in the earlier story:

WHY BARACK OBAMA WILL BE THE 44TH PRESIDENT OF THE USA!

The Lincoln Connection

In his Second Inaugural Address March 4, 1865 President Abraham Lincoln said the following:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Such words of Abraham Lincoln seem as valid today as they did 143 years ago so perhaps the hand of destiny may play a part in this election. Whoever wins will become president in time to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth on February 12, 1809. The fact Lincoln lived in Illinois throughout his career is another interesting parallel with Barack Obama.

The artwork preceding this article depict Lincoln and Obama in Springfield, Illinois and in time may depict them in our nation's capitol. His success in the general election and as president will be dependent on whether he grows into the role of leader of the strongest nation in the world. Many such as Lincoln and John Kennedy have done so and there is no reason to expect otherwise.

Obama has already done what no Bush has ever accomplished, defeated the powerful Clinton machine and he started as an unknown while the senior Bush was the incumbent president. So do not underestimate the maturity of our young presidential candidate. He understands the need to break from the past and the need to embrace the future.

His first test will be selecting a vice president and Hillary supporters aside, as she more than anyone represents the link to the past, he needs to make a mature, reasoned selection that will complement his portfolio and strengthen his administration. We believe the best choice for Obama will be former Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia.

Not only was Sam Nunn one of the most respected members of the US Senate but he has fought his entire political career for the elimination of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons throughout the world and is responsible for eliminating over 5,600 nuclear warheads from the American war machine. His age, 70, and experience make him most complimentary to the Obama ticket and his early retirement from the Senate because he felt he was not accomplishing anything demonstrated his commitment to his beliefs.

Stay tuned as history is made in America.