Earl Ofari Hutchinson

The Democratic Presidential contender Barack Obama did a prescient thing last October.

He told an interviewer on a Colorado radio station that he thought the first 1000 days not the first 100 days would make the crucial difference for his Presidency.

The implication in his budget proposal this week is that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and his staff will share the city’s financial pain and also take the10 percent cut he demands of all city departments.

The only reason that Somalia is in the news these days is the spectacular desperation and criminality of the Somali pirates, an American sea captain held hostage by them, and Hollywood-image sharpshooting by American Navy Seal commandoes to free him.

The faint smile on Mrs. Gertrude Baines’ face midway through my tribute remarks to her was literally a smile for the ages.

I, and a small group of well wishers, admirers, hospital staff,and reporters that gathered to pay a birthday tribute to Mrs. Baines on Monday were witnesses to history, a living, breathing history filled with much pain and promise.

First an outfit called Save the Children UK butted in and denounced Madonna for adopting Malawi orphan David Banda in 2006.

Now another bunch has jumped into the adoption fray and branded her a “bully” for her plans to adopt another Malawi orphan.

A general consensus is that it was a deadly mix of panic, rage and frustration that caused Lovelle Mixon to snap. His shocking murderous rampage left 4 Oakland police officers dead, and a city and police agencies in deep soul search about what went so terribly wrong. Though Mixon’s killing spree is a horrible aberration, his plight as an unemployed ex-felon isn’t. There are tens of thousands like him on America’s streets.

AIG ignited the national firestorm of rage with its shell-out of $160 to $600 million in tainted bonuses to its tainted executives.

But what has gotten almost no attention is a big reason that AIG had to stiff the government and everyone else. That’s the role that the company played in the sub-prime loan racket; a racket that hurt, and still hurts, tens of thousands of would-be black and Latino homeowners.

First, President Barack Obama stroked talk show kingpin Rush Limbaugh’s ego by proclaiming him the pied piper of the GOP.

Next, Republican National Chair Michael Steele showed some moxie and publicly told Limbaugh that he was the shot caller in the GOP. That didn’t last.

The day last week the New York Post sleazed its op-ed section with the vile, vicious and veiled urge to violence cartoon against President Barack Obama this writer demanded that Post boss Rupert Murdoch issue this statement.

President Barack Obama had barely finished uttering the oath of office when the talk started that he would be a one-term President.

This political doomsday talk was chalked up to a few bored reporters looking for something contrarian to say about Obama, the deluded hopes of hardbitten, spoil-sport conservatives for a failed Obama Presidency, and a few naysayers among economists who repeatedly warned that economic collapse would do in a young, inexperienced President. The first two reasons to think Obama would get a quick boot can be easily shrugged off.