June 2008 Archives

I’ve always thought that one of the main reasons the Village Press hated the Clintons and Al Gore was because it was so obvious that Bill, Hillary and Al were much smarter people than them all. With egos at least as ginormous as any politician, that cleverness gap had to stick in their craws in a way that it never would, for obvious reasons, concerning any Republican. But, smart as they may have been, the Clintons and Vice President Gore never understood the new rules that were being invented just for them. They were playing a fool’s game – and the Clintons still managed to beat the Village at it – because they were playing as though there were still liberals in the corporate press and that reason and truth would prevail.

Which brings us to today’s campaign. Am I the only one who thinks that the Obama campaign is winning big here and that the media is being played badly? The conversation has begun – “it’s out there” as they say – does McCain’s record as a (not-very-good) fighter jock and POW more than thirty years ago in some way qualify him to be Commander-in-Chief? At the same time, Obama “rejects the statement” and “honors and respects Senator McCain’s service.” How is Obama hurt by this? How is McCain?

And now we can let the bloviators compare this honest question to what was done to John Kerry. Remember how Kerry’s record was fair game because he brought it up and Bush and Rove pretended like they had nothing to do with the SBVT? Democrats didn’t make them up but Obama seems to have learned the new rules. As Ara likes to say, if I were having any more fun, I’d have to be twins.

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

“I don’t think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president.”
-- Gen. Wesley Clark

"Clark is just plain wrong when he says that "getting shot down" doesn't qualify as foreign policy experience."
-- Joe Klein

I’m not sure what to comment on here, that Joe Klein thinks that getting shot out of the sky and imprisoned in another country counts as “foreign policy experience,” or that he thinks that “experience” is the same thing as the qualification to be president.

Same result, I guess.

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

• McCain playing defense: I saw the headline, McCain campaign launches new 'Truth Squad', and thought to myself he could go one of two ways: he'd be on offense if he was supplying "truth" about Obama; or he'd be on defense if he was offering "truth" about his own record. Too bad for the hapless McCain campaign: they're offering the latter which means he's been dragged off message.
• Speaking of McCain and the "truth": What's the harm in Gen. Clark giving his opinion on McCain's readiness to be president? Just because you were a hero 40 years ago doesn't guarantee your good judgment today...or tomorrow. If you agree with Gen. Clark, sign this petition and thank him for speaking up.
• God's way of telling you you're too rich: you forgot to pay the taxes on one of your seven homes. Hey, didn't Republicans spank Al Franken for exactly the same thing?
• Vote Obama & die: Lieberman predicts terrorist attack in 2009.
• Speaking of Lieberman: Kos goes to the DLC annual meeting, calls Lieberman an "asshole" ... and is cheered! Go figure.

OK, I admit it: this one could be really bad. But then again it could be really good too. Anyway, it's about politics so I sat up and paid attention. Watch the trailer and tell me what you think:

The on-screen talent is pretty good, but I think it's a first-time director so there's that. And then there's all the cameos from people playing themselves: Bill Maher, Larry King, Willie Nelson, Campbell Brown, Chris Matthews, Mary Hart Arianna Huffington, Richard Petty, Lawrence O'Donnell, Tucker Carlson, Aaron Brown, Tony Blankley, and god-knows-who-else.

Like I said, it could be really good ... or really bad.

THIS is why they call them "movies."

It's terrific stuff: funny, smart, LOTS of action, great to look at, great music, charismatic star, and a political point of view to boot. It's been out for a while but I only just caught it last week -- but I intend to go again.

When I caught the trailer way back when, I was shocked to discover that Robert Downey Jr. was the star -- not exactly your average action hero. But he is absolutely fantastic in the role. It wouldn't have worked without him, I think.

If you haven't seen it already and still intend to go, stick around through the end credits -- there's an additional scene with a surprise cameo.

P.S. In a brilliant cross-promotional move, Marvel sticks a Robert Downey cameo into The Incredible Hulk. Now THERE'S a movie I'd go see: The Incredible Hulk AND Iron Man.

Is there anything better than a Coen Brothers movie? I think not. Coming on the heels of their huge success with No Country for Old Men is the kind of screwball comedy that they do so well: Burn After Reading, starring George Clooney (O Brother, Where Art Thou), Francis McDormand (Fargo), John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton, and Brad Pitt. I caught the trailer for it the other night and I cannot wait for it to hit the theaters. See what you think:

Favorite Coen Brothers movie? The Big Lebowski of course. But Miller's Crossing is up there, as is The Hudsucker Proxy and Raising Arizona ("Son, you got a panty on your head.")

How about you?

Despite having a postponement for the Independence Day recess giving hope to freedom loving bloggers, when the Congress gets back in session the Senate will be proceeding on the FISA revisions that gives President Bush exactly what he wants, no doubt capitulating to his demand that we won't be safe and can't fight terrorists unless the Telecommunication Giants are given immunity for spying on Americans illegally.

This move was in no small part deemed a procedural requirement by the Democratic Leadership, Mr. Ried and now you Mr. Obama (yes you ... ), due to the necessity of getting other business done without more GOP obstructionism:

• like Senator Dodd's housing bill (which will be vetoed) and,
• the new GI bill (which will be vetoed) and,
• attaching Gulf Coast and Midwest flood recovery funds to the usual off-budget War Supplemental (which will be vetoed) and,
• attaching an extension of unemployment benefits to the War Supplemental (which will still be vetoed) and,
• fixing Medicare so doctors don't get a pay cut (which might just become law)

We give up on FISA's repudiation of the Fourth Amendment, and in exchange the Republicans will still call us weak on terror and the GOP Congress Critters can blame President 23% for no GI Bill, no relief for flood victims, no more unemployment benefits and maybe see doctors throughout the land re-bill their Medicare patients for lost fees and up their rates to everyone else to make up the difference -- giving what's left of the Republicans in Congress (the few, the proud, the very afraid) a legitimate means of distancing themselves from Still POTUS Bush.

Feh! The Potomac Village is a place where only lies have any currency whatsoever. The powerful and their entourage trading in what can be foisted on rubes who have no clue and zero interest in their world.

You know, for all my frothing at the infuriating way Washington has been so completely ass-backwards about so much for so long, with what's coming down the pike economically it really doesn't matter what those pompous pontificators do, and it's sadly clear that Cheney's oil gambit in Iraq, the one Rupert Murdoch ventured would bring $20/barrel crude has failed, miserably.

Image courtesy SiFu Tweety Fish and some other folks
who weren't exactly thrilled with Hillary or Barack from the get go.

Didn't ya kinda hope he wouldn't break your heart until next year?

There was something inevitable about Barack Obama pissing off the netroots way before he he let anyone else down. We pay attention, so we're the first to know when his liberal credentials fail our tests.

The primaries are over. We have now entered the battle for the low-information voter. The people who don't or won't even start paying attention until the conventions or later, seeking out the center, the easily swayed. Now to me, this is a tried-and-true strategy that is antiquated and misguided. More people than ever are engaged, paying attention and energized by eventuality that George Bush will no longer be entitled to the honorific, "Still" President.

Centrism and triangulation are strategies, but not ideologies. They do not provide a core set of beliefs, a structure upon which to develop a decision tree. A Centrist stands for . . . nothing. And save for the Villagers on the Potomac, they do not exist in real life.

First he lagged behind all the other candidates on proposing truly universal health care, waited to see what everyone else did on funding the war then followed Hillary's lead after pressure from Edwards and Dodd and shouts from us rabble, took a stupid stand on dirty liquid coal, equivocated on public campaign funding, and I said nothing.

He told the ladies still stinging from Clinton's narrow loss to get over it, and I said nothing.

I took the advice of friends and allies not to bash a fellow Democrat, and when it looked like he had it won about five months before Hillary would admit it, I criticized her for not going along with the program. I never thought he was our best candidate, but to me he was better than Senator Clinton and all her baggage. But he wasn't the liberal champion I want and believe we all need.

He's a parade chaser, judging (very well, I might add) which way the public is leaning and running out in front, but always leaving a safety line so he can walk it back. Smart politics, but hardly inspired leadership. In fact, it's not leadership at all.

Yes, yes. He was against the war and wants us to believe that if he had been in the Senate, on the most highly charged vote in decades with historical significance we can still only guess at five years later, Barack Obama says, "Yes, you can believe" that he would have stood with the brave, principled minority and actually voted NO on the Iraq War.

Balderdash. Not after we saw him leave Chris Dodd out to dry in his fight against immunity for the telecommunication giants.

Folks, he ain't all that special, JUST WAY BETTER THAN THE ALTERNATIVE! If he was more than the projected hopes and fantasies of whatever we want him to be, he wouldn't be so many things to so many people. (John McCain so, so very much worse. He's nothing, so very little to so many.)

I saw a lot that made me wince, but it never seems as blatantly (I hesitate to use the word) calculated -- but close -- as Hillary Clinton. Knowing how important it is to rid this world of Republican Party rule, I said nothing.

Now the guy, my guy, the authentic liberal guy who pushed and pushed and pushed him to do the right things, say the right words and vote the right way (rather, the "left" way actually) wants me to send him money.

I got a fundraising letter from John Edwards on behalf of Barack Obama today -- and I'm sending nothing.

Just a ton of people have a whole heck of a lot to say about the Supreme Court's ruling overturning the D.C. handgun ban.

Frankly, I don't have a dog in this hunt, or drive-by shooting.

Anybody else give a flying fig? Enough I mean, you know, to change your vote or something?

I'll be away from any computers for the next few days. In the meantime, I thought I'd entertain you with a few of my favorite video clips -- short, sweet and mostly funny.

This first one is the opening title sequence from the original Get Smart series back in the mid-60s. They've copped it for the Steve Carrell version (caught it last night while movie shopping, waiting to see The Incredible Hulk which was only so-so).

Mel Brooks and Buck Henry -- does it get any better than that?

By the way, I found a Japanese streaming video site that has dozens of full-length Get Smart episodes, including the pilot (which was so long ago it was in black & white).

I got a chance to catch the late night rerun of the House Subcommittee hearing with John Yoo and David Addington

Blue Texan dubbed Addington a "Major Dick." Some correction is in order since we all know Addington works for a dick. Ergo, the proper honorific would of course be, "Lieutenant Dick."

From now on, the Vice President, at least this one, will be forever know as a barnacle.

I came away from the hearing with one glimmer of hope for our society. Kieth Ellison (D-MN-05 is an impressive young man. Especially in light of the crap he had to put up with from these two professional dissemblers.

I hadn't had the chance to see the freshman congressman in action yet, and in a hall full of old men used to debating the finer points of archaic legal precedents, he stood out as a bright firebrand. Sharp as a tack.

Ellison's place in history was secure at the first Muslim to be seated in the House of Representatives, and the coup he pulled off by being sworn in on Thomas Jefferson's copy of the Koran made him the stuff of legend. But to watch him try and cut to the chase against Teh Stupid was a pleasure.

We who don't live in Minnesota or obsessively watch CSPAN (who you lookin' at?) only know him from the slurs by Reich-Wing Blogistan that he and his IslamoNazi army are in cahoots with B. Hussein O-Bambi to blow up the Rose Bowl or something. Happily I can now report that we should be disabused of this paranoia.

Not only the people of Minnesota's 5th District, but all Americans should be proud to have someone with more than half a brain there in the halls of Congress, and Keith Ellison definitely fits that bill and then some. Folks, he sure seems to me like one of the good guys.

Since there's been nothing on the news save for some of us libs praising Senator Dodd's fantastic speech I linked to earlier, I never would have realized that the FISA bill has not been put on the back burner until January as I was led to believe based on what Dodd said on the floor. Fortunately, DDay at Digby's blog disabused my of my irrational exuberance and pointed me to Ian Welsh's rundown at FDL of the vote tally in favor of closing debate on the issue, defeating Feingold and Dodd's threatened filibuster and opening the way for amnesty for both the Telecoms and Bush administration to get away with their illegal surveillance of Americans since before 9/11.

Disgusting. The GOP successfully orchestrated more filibusters of any and all Democratic initiatives in one year than any previous two-year session of Congress dating back to Philadelphia in 1776 -- keeping wholly intact the poisonous neoconservative strangle-hold on our nation. The Democrats can't even mount one when they have the majority and are simply fighting to respect the constitution and the basic privacy of the citizens they supposedly represent.

Privacy, the basic liberty to be left the F#$%k alone, is officially a joke. There is none in AmeriKa and probably never will be again. With this and the provisions in Dodd's own Housing Bill requiring everything you purchase be reported to Big Brother, the police state will have all the tools it needs to control everything you do. Not just suspicious transactions will be monitored, but every damn thing.

Information is power, and they will now have it all. Or at least the ideologically pure automatons they hire to keep the rest of us in line. If they know everything you're doing, they know everything they need to know to pull your strings -- and make you a part of the machine too.

Last week on NBC or MSNBC (or possibly even CNN – they’re practically indistinguishable at this point) someone marked the moment where – one week prior, “we learned of the death of Tim Russert”.

It struck me odd. Who receives that sort of recognition in our culture? In the past, I could remember only people of immense importance and accomplishment and often only if they had died in some tragic circumstances such as a plane crash or assassination. An FDR, a JFK, a Buddy Holly or an Elvis (though we don’t know for sure he’s actually dead).

Apparently, Gene Lyons had a similar reaction [H/T Bob Somerby]:

Few events so reveal society’s unacknowledged values as a royal funeral. So it was following the untimely death of NBC newsman and “Meet the Press” moderator Tim Russert. We have no formal aristocracy in the United States, but Washington has a selfappointed media peerage. Russert was a political celebrity / courtier of exalted rank. [snip] On “Hardball,” they held an Irish wake for several days. All that was missing was a bottle of Jameson’s, and that may have been under the table.

Of course, Russert was of very modest importance or accomplishment:

To his grieving colleagues and many viewers, Russert embodied the best of TV journalism. Others think very differently about his legacy.

Lyons explains why Russert’s colleagues liked him, because of his apparently genuine warmness. My son met Russert by chance one day and confirmed that widely shared impression of him. But being a nice guy is a dubious asset when your job is to reveal the truth about the politics and the powerful that surround you.

Back to Russert and Washington journalism: In the sport of beagling, two bad faults can get a hound disqualified. One is “cold-trailing.” I had a beagle named Leon who’d hoot down scent trails so old the rabbits that left them were probably being digested by coyotes. Leon made so much noise about nothing that my pals dubbed him “The Journalist.” Then there’s “ghost-trailing.” Unable to keep up, a hound will sometimes invent a fictitious rabbit and make a great show of running it. Other dogs learn to ignore him. Washington courtier-journalists have done plenty of both recently. Russert was among the worst. Like most, he obsessed over Bill Clinton’s sexual sins, but handled the Bush administration’s Iraq war propaganda like the Baltimore Catechism: Memorize, regurgitate. Linda Hirshman nails it in The Nation: “The political leaders who did the best answering Tim Russert’s questions in the last seven years—Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Colin Powell—are the authors of the most disastrous American foreign policy since the Vietnam War, and maybe since 1776. The Russert Test was a disaster because it rewarded people willing to lie unabashedly on TV.”

Russert’s colleagues are of course free to mourn the death of their friend - I’d bet Russert is about as good as it gets in their world – let’s just not get carried away about his “journalism”. Tim Russert was no Elvis.

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate liberal]

Slow time new you say? Waiting to see if the majority party can pull off what the GOP has successfully done in the Senate a record number of times this session and get their act together long enough that Senators Feigold and Dodd's filibuster of the despicable telecom immunity granting FISA bill will work?

Waiting to see if watching your grass grow is more interesting?

Waiting to see if history will repeat itself?

Jackson Brown wrote Lives in the Balance as a protest of Ronald Reagan's complacency while Ollie North and Elliot Abrams ran an illegal war in Central America right under his nose. WaPo's Dan Froomkin does a decent job of documenting the current lawlessness of Bush administration today, which makes the Reagan shenanigans seem like amateur hour.

Froomkin's must read piece points us to a must watch video (and text) of Senator Chris Dodd's "jeremiad" against warrentless surveillance and retroactive immunity "the likes of which I'm not sure we've ever heard there before."

While it may lack the lyrical nuance of a Jackson Browne song, Dodd's speech is music to my ears.

The good (no, absolutely Great!) news is that FISA along with Telecom Immunity is dead until January -- when a new sheriff will be in town.

Okay, sure. You can't dance to Dodd. You can dance to more Jackson Browne, Drums of War.

Ever more appropriate as the war hawks in Washington and Tel Aviv outbid each other on who will start the next war, leaving the next Commander Guy a nightmare of unspeakable proportions.

With George Bush able to still say he's in charge, it's all a roll of the dice until next January. Who'da thunk that (yes!) Jackson Browne has just the right song when your in a WWIV mood. Casino Nation.

"Even if you never met him, you know this guy. He's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by."

--- Karl Rove, describing Barack Obama

When I first read about this comment, my immediate reaction was that I couldn't think of a single country club that would admit a black man named Barack Hussein Obama. Then I thought Rove was doing his usual shtick, i.e., take his greatest weakness and ascribe it to his opponent. In other words, I felt that he was describing George W. Bush at the club, not Obama. Makes much more sense that way, given Bush's history with alcohol -- and his smart mouth. It was much the same technique Rove used to destroy John Kerry's Vietnam war record in 2004, all but accusing the nominee of being a liar and a coward. All this while Bush was hiding his "war record" in plain sight.

But a commenter at Talking Points Memo unpacked Rove's comments differently than me and I think he nails it:

The key to the statement is that (in the image) he is with "a beautiful date." Not Michelle Obama or, in the abstract, his wife, i.e. a wife like Michelle Obama. When you think of a "beautiful date" specifically at a country club, do you picture an African-American woman? Would Rove's target audience?

Or do you picture him there, a black man, smoking a cigarette indoors at a country club, with a white woman on his arm?

When I thought of this, I got a chill. When you think of Obama's vulnerability, I think the primaries showed that race remains a real and very serious obstacle, particularly with white Americans over 50. When you think of where we are with racism in this country, I think its a pretty safe bet that the final freak-out factor to overcome may be black men dating white women, in particular, one's daughter.

If I were a completely amoral Republican operative, I'd try to find some white women that Obama dated before Michelle and get them into the public's stream of consciousness anyway I could. Its a tactic so vile I don't even like speculating about it, but if you want to be ready for the worst, I think Rove just tipped his hand at where they plan to go.

In all fairness, I have to ask if there is (or isn't) the analogous scenario that an "amoral Democratic operative" could spring on McCain? Remember, in order for it to work, it has to resonate at the emotional level and be absolutely radioactive in the extreme. It has to address a fundamental fear that the electorate has about McCain.

It takes a wingnut to take someone else’s words, say they mean something completely different from what they are saying and then castigate the person for that twisted, unstated meaning. John McCain, having nothing to offer in public policy (he's a Republican) – other than perpetual war in the Middle East (and who knows where else) and short term, ineffective gimmicks – has been running his campaign on just those sort of distortions about what Barack Obama “is saying” when he is saying nothing of the kind.

But it takes a special kind of evangelical whackjob of a wingnut to attack someone by saying essentially the same thing they are.

Evangelical whackjob James Dobson says that, “[Barack] Obama should not be referencing antiquated dietary codes and passages from the Old Testament that are no longer relevant to the teachings of the New Testament,” in response to Obama saying exactly that:

"Which passages of scripture should guide our public policy?" Obama asked in the speech. "Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is an abomination? Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount?"

Dobson’s Focus on the Family spokesman, Tom Minnery, gets it exactly backward when he claims, "Many people have called [Sharpton] a black racist, and [Obama] is somehow equating [Dobson] with that and racial bigotry." Actually, Obama had contrasted not equated Sharpton and Dobson:

"Even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's or Al Sharpton's?"

Dobson himself claimed that it is "lowest common denominator of morality," and that it is a "fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution," for Obama to say:

"Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal rather than religion-specific values. It requires their proposals be subject to argument and amenable to reason."

Dobson can claim that reason, argument and universal values are immoral and pretend that the Establishment Clause of the Constitution doesn’t exist but that makes it pretty hard to argue that the other guy is the one who is nuts.

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

Pro life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no Headstart, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're pre-born -- you're fine. If you're pre-school, you're fucked. Conservatives don't give a shit about you until ... you reach military age...Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. Pro-life. These people are killing doctors. What kind of pro-life is that? They'll do anything to save a fetus, but if it grows up to be a doctor they must just have to kill it? They're not pro-life. You know what they are? They're anti-woman.

Bonus material:
"I'm a Modern Man"

George Carlin, November 5th, 2005
Beacon Theater, NYC
Watch the video

Transcript on the flip side...

(HT to Kevin)

I'm on the same side as well known GOP douchebag Dick Armey and opposing Chris Dodd on an issue.

Hidden deep in Senator Christopher Dodd's 630-page Senate housing legislation is a sweeping provision that affects the privacy and operation of nearly all of America’s small businesses.The provision, which was added by the bill's managers without debate this week, would require the nation's payment systems to track, aggregate, and report information on nearly every electronic transaction to the federal government.

They want to know every damn thing according to the former House GOP Leader's new toy, FreedomWorks. Every Credit Card transaction, every online checkout system like eBay, PayPal, Amazon and Google Checkout are included. Everything and anything you buy or sell online or though any electronic means is now official government business. (HT: BBB and Shakes)

John Berlau at The Wall Street Journal wants to know where the outrage is since he and Tom Hartman have been talking about this since May when Berlau alerted us to the requirement that all loan originators submit their fingerprints to a national database, including the FBI and any other government agency they deem appropriate. Mortgage lenders, brokers, even clerical or part-time employees of real estate firms are included in this.

Pal, we've just got started on the outrage front. There's enough angst out here in Blogtopia (y!sctp!) over the FISA Telecom Immunity capitulation that this is just the thing that could serve as a new cause de jure as we await what our champions of liberty in the Senate do with FISA as well as this.

Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are co-sponsors of original version of this bill which also included (but also buried) the fingerprint provision. This should be an interesting week as Obama makes clear just what he means by "fighting" the Telecom Amnesty provisions of FISA and if he or Dodd or Hillary get the memo that we're all quite disillusioned, rather pissed in fact, and this latest abomination just might seal the deal.

Jesus, I'm beginning to think that John Edwards got out of the way of "History" just in time for it to steamroll over us all.

The WSJ also reports that the SEC and the FED are going to do what they can to tighten up some of the regulation that lead to the crisis in the financial markets, a clear signal that there is tacit acknowledgment in Washington and Wall Street that the unfettered deregulation schemes that have been the hallmark of conservative dogma these last 30 years are directly responsible for our current economic meltdowns.

Quick on the heels of the scramble to close the barn door, Barack Obama is making positive noises about fixing the Enron Loophole in a wholly rational, non-gimmicky step towards an immediate solution to the rising cost of fuel by taking the speculators and other pirates out of the market.

Infuriatingly enough, John McCain called Obama a copycat for his initiative and blamed Clinton for the loophole without so much at a blink, knowing that his "econ brain," Phil Graham wrote the Enron Loophole, tagging it's 262 pages to an essential, eleventh hour, eleven thousand page government reauthorization bill signed by Bill Clinton a few weeks before "W" was sworn in.

In the early evening of Friday, December 15, 2000, with Christmas break only hours away, the U.S. Senate rushed to pass an essential, 11,000-page government reauthorization bill. In what one legal textbook would later call "a stunning departure from normal legislative practice," the Senate tacked on a complex, 262-page amendment at the urging of Texas Sen. Phil Gramm.

There was little debate on the floor. According to the Congressional Record, Gramm promised that the amendment--also known as the Commodity Futures Modernization Act--along with other landmark legislation he had authored, would usher in a new era for the U.S. financial services industry.

"The work of this Congress will be seen as a watershed where we turned away from an outmoded Depression-era approach to financial regulation and adopted a framework that will position our financial services industry to be world leaders into the new century," Gramm said.

As Senator Blutarsky's wife's gynecologist said, we fucked up, we trusted him.

I'm not sure I agree with Neil the "Werewolf" on this one, but it's nice that he's trying to console us. I do feel a bit better, but I'm not buying into this statement:

This bill is basically the same kind of garden-variety corruption one expects from Congress -- protecting wealthy interests at the expense of ordinary folk. That's why it's a bad piece of legislation. But Congress passes junk like that all the time (the farm bill, lots of defense appropriations, not bargaining hard with Big Pharma, etc) and it's not the end of the world. And that's why I'm writing this post -- I don't want people to lose perspective and think that this is too much more than just another garden-variety bit of corporate corruption. It's a lot closer to the tax breaks for ceiling fan importers that it is to torture.

It's a bit more troubling than all that Neil, a few more basic principles and American freedoms are at stake here, don't you think?

And the problem is broader than Neil paints with his singular focus on the imperative that we must replace George Bush and his entire criminal enterprise from the executive branch -- and of course than requires that anyone with an "R" after their name is no longer welcome at any White House Bar-B-Q's. (No, seriously. Forget about the post-partisan crap about retaining someone like Gates at DoD or any similar "enlightened" nonsense. They ALL have to go.)

Neil begins with the simple premis that , "This is a legislative precedent that emerged because Steny Hoyer decided that it would be good business to sell the telcos the immunity they wanted in exchange for campaign contributions." But that doesn't reveal the whole picture. Hoyer would never have been placed in such an untenable position, knowing he would be labeled as a bought and paid for hack by even well-meaning analysts like Neil if the Democrats in the House weren't hamstrung by the turncoat Blue-Dogs who vote with the GOP on damn near everything that matters, and thus as loyal to Bush as John McCain.

Now I don't know if these DINO's will have an epiphany when Barack Obama takes the oath of office, or will have some enlightenment shoved down their throats. But I do know that haveing the equivalent of 40 or so Joe Liebermans filling space in the Democratic Caucus and marching in lock-step with the remnants of Tom DeLay's outfit is THE principle reason Congress as an institution is despised more than anything, ever.

So thanks Neil, I do feel a bit better, but I'm looking for more than merely an inauguration ushering a new era. I'm looking for a purge.

Sadly, I'll probably be disappointed on both counts. But in the true spirit of a Cleveland sports fan and apostle of St. Wiley E. Coyote and the Church of Never Say Die, that certainly doesn't mean I'll accept the notion that the Perfect is the enemy of the Good.

No. Just no.

You won't find a bigger Obama booster than me, but this is ... silly. Call me old-school, but whoever OK'd this should be forced to personally endure all the ridicule that is rightfully rocketing around blogville this morning.

I believe I'm on record being pissed enough with the Ass Press for the documented bias (especially Liz Sidoti) on behalf of John McSame, or at least their slip-shod reporting transcription of Republican Party talking points (a feat they no doubt learned in the run-up to the Iraq War), well before the latest flap over blogger's fair use of their copyrighted materials.

The drum-beat goes on.

Parroting the conventional wisdom, AP's Liz Sidoti wrote an "analysis" today slamming Obama's decision to forsake public campaign financing. It's quite sanctimonious. But guess what Ms. Sidoti failed to include? John McCain's campaign finance criminality. You'd think that an AP reporter writing an analysis about campaign finance might mention the fact that John McCain's illegal attempt to remove himself from the campaign finance system, after financially benefiting from it, is punishable by five years in jail. But you'd be wrong. Now, there was an AP article about McCain's campaign finance scandal just two days ago. Someone at AP knew about it. But, the facts might interfere with Sidoti's analysis.

And he's at it again. This is the baffling part. McCain was campaigning in Canada today.

It's one thing to spend most of the week in Texas fundraising, where he at least can try and sore up his edge in winning the Longhorn State's electoral votes and putting the squeeze on the rest of the Gulf Coast with some offshore drilling bamboozlement.

On a side note, why is Mean Jean Schmidt so damn wrong about this, and hows-a-come the AmericaBlog braintrust has all the good linkage tonight?

Florida CFO on drilling: "shortsighted approach to put our economy at risk"

Meanwhile, back in the Great White North, following the lead of the Procrastinator In Chief, Johnny "Ace" to a swing at Barack Obama on trade, ignoring the old saw that politics stops at the water's edge, even if that water is the Great Lakes.

Not content to engage in the unseemly airing of America's dirty laundry in front of the neighbors (and this is the good part), he probably was in violation of the Hatch Act on top of his thwarting of campaign finance laws since the affair was hosted by the U.S. Ambassador to Canada, something he's forbidden to do under Federal Law.

Note that all this reporting we lowly bloggers pass on was freely obtainable via the Edmonton Sun and the Globe and Mail exposing of McSame skating some of the basic ethical and legal behavior required of public servants, yet no mention whatsoever in the self-important Associated Press.

Who needs 'em.

And yes, I mean you and you, and anyone else who tries the Chicago Mobster, MuslamoNazi, Terrorist-Jab, linking Obama to someone who knew-a-guy who knows-a-guy whose aunt's babysitter's cousin once dated a lesbian abortion doctor that donated $50 bucks to a charity run by someone who was mentioned in someone else's grand jury testimony -- or so they say -- who didn't wear a lapel pin . . .

There's only one presidential candidate who has broken the campaign finance laws and continues to run his campaign in violation of the law -- and that "crook" bears the same name as the law he's breaking. (In fact, if convicted, the Straight Talker could go straight to jail for five years.)

John Cole lays it out...

I want to return to this subject though because this is not hyperbole or some throw away line. He’s really doing it. McCain opting into public financing, accepted the spending limits and then profited from that opt-in by securing a campaign saving loan. And then he used some clever, but not clever enough lawyering, to opt back out. And the person charged with saying what flies and what doesn’t—the Republican head of the FEC —said he’s not allowed to do that. He can’t opt out unilaterally unless the FEC says he can.

Oh, and as for all those so-called "fiscal conservatives" who deplore unnecessary government spending calling Barack some kind of hypocrite (that's rich) for reneging on a promise he never made (since he only promised to try and reach an agreement with McCain over rules McCain won't honor to this day -- but there was no actual agreement to break contrary to what McCain or the bastards at AP, ABC News and USA Today say) -- bite me.

In other news, Chris Matthews, still a wanker, but no more so than Jake Tapper at ABC who's ridiculous headline that Obama broke a promise he never made started this whole thing. What really is fun is to take a Reichwinger's own words, and interpret them in, you know ... plain English as a means of proving they're wrong. Take Newsbuster's own graphic here.



Even a third grader recognizes a conditional sentence when they see one, even if they don't know what it's called. McCain has clearly not lived up to the conditions Obama laid out in this statement. McCain is NOT abiding by the public financing laws. McCain is in clear violation of McCain Feingold as I write this, and has been for months. Obama is under no obligation to play a fools game, and for not calling McCain a crook who took illegal loans in violation of the law to fund his floundering excuse for a national campaign, Obama also shows what a gentleman he can be ... and keeps his powder dry for the next round of bullcrap.

And one more piece of friendly advice to our friends in Wingnuttistan. If you write for Redstate, and you start out a piece by saying, "If I were a supporter of Barack Obama . . ." just stop. You're not, never will be. You just don't get it, and are mentally incapable of empathy of that sort due to the inundation of authoritarian psychopathology you've been brainwashed with all these years.

Unless you were in the Friday Funnies competition today, in that case, well done. You certainly had me fooled.

That's the number of times George "Dead or Alive" Bush granted one of the over 5,000 clemency requests that passed his desk prior to giving his co-conspirator Scooter Libby a pass.

Marcy Wheeler, still recovering from the FISA debacle, lives up to her reputation as one of Blogtopia's (ysctp!) most valuable players by summarizing ScottBot McClellerator's appearance before the House Judiciary Committee today -- so we can find out what the hell they're doing instead of impeaching Bush and Cheney, and that miscreant Scalio too.

What will pass as news in all this today is that McClellen said, under oath, that Karl Rove is a liar.

NO. DUH.

While certainly not the most important, nor most newsworthy information to come out of the hearing, this question by Jerrold Nadler was one of my favorites:

NADLER: Do you know when the president gave instruction to cover Libby's rear end, did he know about Libby's involvement? Scott didn't know that.

Okay, maybe that's not a direct quote or anything, but it sure does bring to mind some interesting mental pictures, No?


Kinda says it all for a Congress that not only refuses to go after corruption and lawlessness in the current regime in any meaningful way, but actually enables the perpetrators to cover their tracks by letting the Telecoms, along with White House, get off the hook.

At least the 105 128 of you (thanks Larry), including my representative Marcy Kaptur, who stood firm against the lawless imperialism of the Bush administration and voted no on giving the Telecoms immunity in the FISA bill. (The yeas and nays are here, HT Hilzoy.)

Thanks as well to the sole republican brave enough to buck his party and vote against this travesty as well, Timothy V. Johnson (R-Illinios-15).

This vote effectively split the Democrats in half, 105 128 patriots who stood up for the rule of law against 128 105 capitulators, including the leadership, Pelosi, Hoyer, Emannuel. Those 105 128 are going to need all the help they can get. I'm not sure the Act Blue idea of punishing those who followed the leadership's cue is as important as supporting those who did the right thing -- cuz they're going to need it.

Or maybe they're just in safe enough seats they can afford to hold the liberal line. I know that the core Northern Ohio progressives, (Kaptur, Kucinich, Tubbs-Jones) are in no real danger of losing their seats, and Blue Dogs like Zack Space, a Democrat in a very conservative district, was never going to go along with anything that even hinted he was "soft" on terrists. None of this should be a surprise.

The reason is simple. other than the bumper-sticker mentality that has been mastered by the fear-mongering GOP, this issue simply doesn't resonate with the public at large. They don't know, like you should, why FISA matters so much.

Since all signs still point towards another wave election, and possibly a '32 type realignment, funding the liberal wing of the party may not be all that productive right now, but it's advance thinking (as the blogosphere always seems to do), putting in place a new framework to push for new leadership, or at least a new direction for 2010, and remaking the very sole of this nation by 2012.

Maybe that's even too short-sighted. The GOP spent 40 years institutionalizing the politics of fear and loathing.

I probably am conditioned by the loathing to loath sending up challengers against every Democrat who won't toe our progressive line as Glenzilla and the Kossacks advocate. My reflexes are even more attuned against dis'ing the party's nominee for his silence -- since just six months ago my rallying cry was Silence Is Betrayal.

John Edwards, recalling MLK's message of resistance to war:

As he put it then, there comes a time when silence is a betrayal -- not only of one's personal convictions, or even of one's country alone, but also of our deeper obligations to one another and to the brotherhood of man.

That's the thing I find the most important about the sermon Dr. King delivered here that day. He did not direct his demands to the government of the United States, which was escalating the war. He issued a direct appeal to the people of the United States, calling on us to break our own silence, and to take responsibility for bringing about what he called a revolution of values.

A revolution whose starting point is personal responsibility, of course, but whose animating force is the belief that we cannot stand idly by and wait for others to right the wrongs of the world.

And this, in my view, is at the heart of what we should remember and celebrate on this day. This is the dream we must commit ourselves to realizing.

To quote words even more familiar, while the Democrats struggle to gain a true majority, one both filibuster and veto proof, before they can solidify their gains, while they are still vulnerable enough not to take the progressives for granted . . .

If not us, who? If not now, when? ~RFK

Support the 105 128, and fight the capitulators. You want to send a message? This is how.

Get your lobbying resume tweaked, Steny. After we've purged the body politic of the miscreants with "R"s next to their names, we're coming after you.

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

Could there be a more heinous villain in the popular mind than Osama bin Laden? No.

And/But the debate rages: if he should be captured alive, would he, should he, be accorded habeas corpus rights or not?

History (and the American tradition) would teach us an important lesson and provide us with a useful guide -- if we would only listen.

On March 5, 1770, a tense situation due to a heavy British military presence in Boston boiled over to incite brawls between soldiers and civilians, and eventually led to troops discharging their muskets after being attacked by a rioting crowd. Three civilians were killed at the scene of the shooting, and two died after the incident.

Samuel Adams, a patriot and founding member of the Sons of Liberty, called the incident a "plot to massacre the inhabitants of Boston" and used it to rouse fellow colonists to rebellion. It worked: the shots fired that day are widely considered to be the initial battle of the American Revolution.

Who, then or now, could defend what the British soldiers did that day?

...[N]o lawyers in the Boston area wanted to defend the soldiers, as they believed it would be a huge career mistake. A desperate request was sent to John Adams from Preston, pleading for his work on the case.

Adams, who had everything to lose and nothing to gain (his political career was just beginning), nevertheless took the case because he believed that even the most hated criminal is entitled to a legal defense.

He was a masterful lawyer and mounted a successful defense of the accused. As a result of his skill, all but two of the soldiers were acquitted. The others were convicted of a reduced charge of manslaughter.

In his closing argument to the jury, Adams (a masterful orator) said something that, if he is ever honored with a memorial in Washington DC, should be engraved in stone for future generations of Americans -- and all people -- to remember forever:

Facts are stubborn things...Whatever our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence...The law is, on one hand, inexorable to the cries and lamentations of the prisoners. But on the other hand, it is deaf, deaf as an adder to the clamors of the populace.

John Adams, founding father, patriot and president, is speaking to us now, you and me, and our children, and our childrens' children -- if we would only listen.

For those who refuse to grok what Publius put so well at Obsidian Wings, without Habeas Corpus, you could dress anyone up in a false nose and throw them on the fire, even if you're lying about being turned into a newt.

It's bad enough that we've got a bunch of Texas Torquemadas and other assorted war criminals shoving bamboo under the fingernails of terrorists, but some of these guys weren't terrorists, yet they got the fifth degree anyway. They had no way to show that someone strapped a carrot to their face and a funny hat, let alone the chance to prove they weighed less than a duck. 

And that ain't right.

When the War Crimes Trials commence, you know these bastards now calling us pansies and having a September 10th mindset (wa'ev) will file for a Habeas Corpus writ.

Every single one of them . . . at least the one's Bush doesn't pardon.

Yesterday the PPP Poll looked at Ohio and put Obama up significantly. Today, McClatchy reports Quinnipiac University has OH! Bama up in Ohio too, but not by as much, but he's also leading in Florida which all the punditry says he'll have trouble winning, and up by 12 points in Pennsylvania, where they're "clinging" to the hope that Yes! They! Can! believe in change.

You can't stop the Obamafication of the nation (or all the dumb things we're going to do to his name over the better part of the next decade). My advice to all you conservative dead-enders out there -- just pretend it's consensual sex and relax, enjoy it.

[Take that media narrative.]

"I don't like obscene profits being made anywhere. I'd be glad to look not just at the windfall profits tax -- that's not what bothers me -- but we should look at any incentives that we are giving to people, or industries or corporations, that are distorting the markets."

---- McCain speaking on May 5 in North Carolina.

"[Obama] wants a windfall profits tax on oil, to go along with the new taxes he also plans for coal and natural gas. If the plan sounds familiar, it's because that was President Jimmy Carter's big idea, too. And a lot of good it did us."

---- McCain, speaking on June 17 in (oil-rich) Texas.

Even CNN is beginning to notice McCain's flip-flops.

How much longer before McCain's reputation as a straight-talker is shot to hell?

On September 10th, 2001, John McCain was a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, (his buddy Joe Leiberman was on, get this, the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats [emphasis mine] and Capabilities) where he failed to understand who our enemies were, how they threatened us and how and where to fight them. What's new?

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

From Taegan Goddard's Political Wire

A new Public Policy Polling survey(pdf) finds Sen. Barack Obama begins the general election in Ohio with a double digit lead over John McCain, 50% to 39%.

Fully half -- not a mere plurality -- and double digits!

This is a huge change from more recent polls that showed the narrowest of margins in Obama's favor.

Yesterday much was made over the offhand comments the despicable Ape Pee highlighted (and of course are available elsewhere from more responsible and less rapacious news outlets) that Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe told doners, "the Illinois senator can still become America’s first black president even if he loses the two key battleground states of Florida and Ohio."

While the Lizard Brains take this to mean Obama is conceding the states Bush stole in the last two elections, if reported fairly and read correctly, the campaign is saying that these big swing states "will not be considered must wins by themselves, but only part of a conprehensive plan to compete in more states."

It's called the 50 State Strategy -- you might have heard of it.

Meanwhile, from the watch what they do, not what they say Department: "Obama Beefing up Florida Efforts, Padding Out Staff." They're also doing some serious community organizer training here in Ohio, where unlike Florida where he didn't campaign, he has an organization in place.

Roper, meet dopes.

[Caveat on the PPP Poll. Inside the numbers, the poll skews heavily towards Democratic Party identification, 55%, 30% GOP. Even then however, Obama gets 10% of self-described Republicans. Worrisome is McCain capturing 17% of self-described Democrats. The good news is that Obama wins those who don't consider themselves part of either major party 45% to 32%. Any way you cut it, this is a major improvement from the last time PPP polled Ohio in March which indicated McCain winning Ohio by 8 points.]

Mark:

I was worried that he wasn't the warrior I thought we needed, the warrior that I knew John Edwards to be and that Hillary could be if and when she thought it was politically expedient and wasn't hamstrung by her dedicated enemies, her husband and her team.

Well, if there was a "fighter" in this campaign cycle, it was Hillary. No question about it: kicking, scratching, gouging, sucker-punching, fighting Hillary.

Make no mistake: I mean this in the best sense. At the most fundamental level it's what you want in your candidate: the overwhelming desire to win. Had she prevailed I would have been thrilled to have her represent the Democrats. There would have been blood in the scuppers -- Republican blood.

But there's fighting and then there's fighting.

Aikido (合気道, aikidō?) is a Japanese martial art developed by Morihei Ueshiba as a synthesis of his martial studies, philosophy, and religious beliefs. Aikido is often translated as "the Way of unifying (with) life energy" or as "the Way of harmonious spirit."

...or as Obama likes to say, there's no blue states, no red states. Just the United States.

Ueshiba's goal was to create an art that practitioners could use to defend themselves while also protecting their attacker from injury.

You heard right: win without destroying your enemy.

Listen, I am hardly the first person to make this analogy. Google "aikido Obama" and you get at least 80 thousand citations. And/But more to the point -- just because you make the analogy doesn't mean's it's true. Can Obama pull it off? Is he an Aikido sensei? Time will tell. But I like that he's showing a different way.

Like I said, grasshopper: there's fighting and then there's fighting.

Perfect.

I don't think the "New Politics" is "being civil at all costs." It means "discrediting the parasites and swine who have been poisoning our discourse."

My one overwhelming hesitation to truly get behind Barack Obama, especially early on in the primaries had absolutely nothing to do with his ideology, whether he was really progressive enough, did his proposals go far enough. No.

I was worried that he wasn't the warrior I thought we needed, the warrior that I knew John Edwards to be and that Hillary could be if and when she thought it was politically expedient and wasn't hamstrung by her dedicated enemies, her husband and her team.

Now I feel better about our choice.

"If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun," Obama said at a fundraiser in Philadelphia Friday, according to pool reports.

(cross posted at Daily Kos)

First of all, speaking as a 55 year old man...WTF, Tim? I saw Andrea Mitchell's interview with your doctor and he said you had your blood pressure under control, your "cholesterol fractions were optimal" and you worked out on the treadmill on a regular basis. Brokaw said he and your other friends were alarmed about your recent weight gain and tried to encourage you lose some of it by making it into a competition. And/But in the end it was a chunk of cholesterol plaque that busted loose in one of your arteries, clogging the pipe to your heart -- and that was all she wrote. I'm really sorry it ended so early for you. And if it makes you feel any better, I now view your life -- career aside -- as a cautionary tale.

Speaking of your career, allow me to begin by saying that I always liked your geniality. Your enthusiasm for politics was legendary. I knew you started out as a political aide in DC but what I didn't "get" was that you were Sen. Dan Moynihan's chief of staff (for crying out loud) in the late 70's/early 80's. That would have put you on Capitol Hill around the same time that Chris Matthews was on Jimmy Carter's White House staff and later when Matthews was Tip O'Neill's chief of staff. Did you know him then? If so, what must a couple of guys in their late 20's have talked about back then -- could you have ever imagined the roles you'd play in politics 30 years later?

[Note: speaking of Chris Matthews, his remembrance of you was a thing to behold last night. As always, his heart was on his sleeve. As always, you could read his face like a book. And, as he spoke from Paris in the middle of the night, his words revealed as much about him -- as always -- as they did about you. It was vintage Chris Matthews. He was in equal measure distraught, self-pitying, bitter about how he (Chris) was never one of the cool kids and you were, and, in the end, how much he admired you and would miss you. It seemed heartfelt, shocking and genuine all at the same.]

But, here's the hard part of this piece: Tim, I didn't much care for you as a journalist. As is usually the case with people, your greatest strength -- your genuine affability and ability to establish rapport with your subjects -- was also your greatest weakness. Your standards were compromised by your seeming desire to remain one of the in-crowd in Washington, one of the powdered, pampered poodles of the press. You were too "high school" Tim. You settled for being a big man on campus; you seemed a bit too pleased with yourself for being a member of the Don Imus He-Man Girl-Haters Club. You sucked up too often to those in power and it wasn't pretty.

[Scooter] Libby's conviction on perjury and obstruction of justice charges was, in some large part, based on Russert's testimony. Like former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, Russert was one of the high-level Washington journalists who came out of the Libby trial looking worse than shabby.

Libby testified before the grand jury investigating the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity that he first learned she worked for the intelligence agency from Russert during a phone call on another matter. Russert took the stand to contradict Libby only because he'd been subpoenaed -- a summons he and NBC had strenuously resisted on grounds of journalistic privilege.

As it emerged under examination, however, Russert already had sung like a choirboy to the FBI concerning his conversation with Libby -- and had so voluntarily from the first moment the Feds contacted him. All the litigation was for the sake of image and because the journalistic conventions required it.

But you're gone now and, all that aside, there is no denying it: you'll be missed. You were, like another one of your heroes, the straw that mixed the drink. Every election night we looked forward to your analysis (despite the fact that you had a face made for radio, your ginormous jack-o-lantern of a head reminding me of Chucky). You brought with it equal parts of depth and sheer enthusiasm for the game. I liked that a lot -- and respected it. Your coverage of the 2000 election-night from Hell is legendary; your whiteboard ("Florida Florida Florida") is in the Smithsonian; and your description of "Red America Blue America" has, for good or bad, survived the test of time.

So, rest in peace, Tim. I hope your wife and son -- and father -- will also find some measure of peace after your passing.

And say hi to Samuel Tilden for me.

Sean-Paul Kelly notes the "National Discussion" on sexism that has permeated both the media and blogosphere that Hillary Clinton's capitulation has triggered.

If Hillary were the nominee we'd be talking about how awful and racist we Americans are. Instead, we're all misogynists now!

But where oh where does all that hate and vitriol go when it no longer has a contest to stink up? Who could it possibly target? It's really a no brainer when you think about it. With Michelle Obama, the wingnuts get a twofer.

Michelle Obama becomes GOP target

With Michelle bashing, they can combine both the He-Man Women Haters and red-necks who just wish "them darkies" knew their place, along with some "elite" bashing towards those Harvard-educated, big-city eggheads that are the cause of all their troubles.

There are two places to keep track of and combat this insidious trash that have sprung up this week. A central rumor control hub initiated by the Obama campaign to track down and destroy the general lies the right is and will continue to spread against Obama can be found at FightTheSmears.com where you can track, debunk and fight myths like the "Obama is a Muslim" crap and sign up for their newsletter; and a site dedicated to defend Michell Obama specifically is just starting called MichelleObamaWatch.com.

Do what you can, stomp the lies where you see them and report them two those two web sites if you see something new. Because you must know by now that the new swiftboat strategy is to remind everyone that the Obamas Are As Black As Satan's Festering, Baby-Eating Soul.

KO's Special Comments are not, often, easy to watch. He dials it up to 11 every time and then, after that, there's nowhere else left for him to go.

But you know what? In the end, he's the only guy who says what needs to be said. In the context of cable and network news, only one person -- Keith Olbermann -- delivers the unvarnished truth.

And speaking of context, KO thrashes McCain for complaining that his "not that important" comment was taken out of context:

You have attested to: a fairly easy success; an overwhelming victory in a very short period of time; in which we would be welcomed as liberators; which you assured us would not require our troops stay for decades but merely for years; from which we could bring them all home, since you noted many Iraqis resent American military presence; in which all those troops coming home will also stay there, not being injured, for a hundred years; but most will be back by 2013; and the timing of their return, is "not that important."

That, Sen. McCain, is context.

And that, Sen. McCain, is madness.

The Government Accountability Office just released a study Tuesday that concludes that one out of every ten soldiers sent to Iraq, takes with them medical problems "severe enough to significantly limit their ability to fight."

In five years, we have now sent 43-thousand of them to war even though, they were already wounded.

And when they come home, is "not that important."

Jalal al Din al Sagir, a member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, and Ali al Adeeb, of the rival Dawa Political Party, gave a series of interviews last week about the particulars of this country’s demand for a "Status of Forces," agreement with Iraq, a treaty which Mr. Bush does not intend to show Congress before he signs it.

The Iraqi politicians say the treaty demands Iraq’s consent to the establishment of nearly double the number of U.S. military bases in Iraq, from about 30, to 58, and from temporary, to permanent.

Those will be American men and women who must, of necessity, staff these bases - staff them, in Mr. McCain’s M.C. Escher dream-world in which our people can all come home while they stay there for a hundred years but they’ll be back by 2013.

And when they come home, is "not that important."

Make you a deal: if watching Keith Olbermann is too exhausting for you, read the transcript. But if you want the full multi-media experience -- something at which KO and MSNBC excel -- let's go to the tape:

It's not what you hoped for.

MSNBC reported that a power outage in Washington DC has left the center of the city dark. Although the White House has adequate backup generators, Vice President Cheney has opted to leave the White House and return to his home at the Naval Observatory "to work."

While this news is unremarkable in itself, it brings a few questions to mind.

• Just what is Dick working on while (still) Prez-Nit-Wit Shrub is is running around Europe, looking for another world leader to grope and insult?
• Why would he need more power than the White House backup generators could supply?
• Why did AT&T refuse to let me log in and pay my bill while Dick was off-line?
• What the heck does that scary man DO all day, really?

Does it get any better than this? Shmuley and his shadow chill out.

I read (and enjoy) Camille Paglia in the same way I do Christopher Hitchens: I don't always agree, but they are so damned articulate and entertaining that I stop what I'm doing just to get what they have to say.

I've come to feel that Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius is Obama's best bet. She is a polished public presence who epitomizes that cordial, smoothly reassuring, and blandly generic WASPiness that has persistently defined the American power structure in business and government and that has weirdly resisted wave after wave of immigration since the mid-19th century. An Obama-Sebelius pairing would be visually vibrant and radiant, like a new day dawning.

Hillary for veep? Are you mad? What party nominee worth his salt would chain himself to a traveling circus like the Bill and Hillary Show? If the sulky bearded lady wasn't biting the new president’s leg, the oafish carnival barker would be sending in the clowns to lure all the young ladies into back-of-the-tent sword-swallowing.

By the way, if you haven't already done so (or even if you have), please pick your VP candidates. I'll compile a shorter list after that and we'll do it again...until we get it right.

(Cross posted on Daily Kos)

Plenty of articles today, and earlier, about Obama's pushback on the Internet whispering campaign targeting him and Michelle.

So, today, when I received an email from a friend that contained some of the most vile, bizarre and heinous stuff I've ever read about John McCain...well, you tell me what you think:

John McCain's infamous temper has been wildly underreported in the media. For instance: The beautiful young woman who is presented to the media as his daughter is really an actress - McCain beat his real daughter to death when she was two and crying with hunger (the McCains do not believe in pampering the young by feeding them).

...and so forth and so on. Like I said, crazy stuff, totally unbelievable and bordering on the hilariously insane.

Now, this friend (who thinks we can defeat islamofascism by nuking Mecca) wasn't the sort of guy to spread this sort of stuff around.

Or was he?

I emailed him back and asked him where he found this. While I was waiting for his response (which never came, natch) I googled the email and found ... well, here's what I found:

Unhinged Obamaton: McCain Receives Payments from Ayatollahs and the Mob, Beat His Daughter to Death and Killed Vince Foster

Yes. Well. Obamatons. Of course!

Let's cut to the chase: this guy claims that the personal pages at BarackObama.com are overrun with whackjobs spreading vicious crap about St. John, proving that Obama followers are insane. This blogger links to additional crap (now gone from the Obama site) to prove his point ... and then links to (wait for it) Little Green Snotballs which is apparently in a pearl-clutching frenzy and looking for their fainting couch over this affair.

Now, after thinking about it for about 12 nanoseconds, it occured to me that whoever posted this crap about McCain is most likely carrying water for the Republicans.

For example, remember this story?

[In the] 1986 Texas gubernatorial race...[Karl] Rove's candidate Bill Clements was taking on Democratic Governor Mark White. Just before a debate between the two candidates, Rove spun the story that his office had been bugged. No proof. But the insinuation that White's people had carried out the bugging was reported by the media. In the election, Clements defeated White.

So get ready for a slew of stories about vicious Internet rumors sliming St. John McCain -- coming from the Obama campaign, no less -- and be ready to push back hard against it.

Brilliant:

R.W. Thorne II, general counsel: I'm voting Republican because corporations should not have to pay to clean up environmental damage. The EPA is an outmoded idea. If people want clean water, buy it in a bottle.

Veronica Oakes, student: I'm voting Republican because I don't want to know if the food I'm eating has been gentically modified or exposed to radiation. I don't want to have to live with that fear, you know? So, if the label says it's food, that's good enough for me.

I'm so pissed at this one it's difficult to type while I sit here and shaking my head, mouth wide open.

Oliver Willis sends along this screen capture of the vile Michelle Malkin on Fox News along with a suitable suggestion or two for Fox in their future endeavors.

I really thought the media couldn't do worse than the disrespect they showed towards Hillary Clinton over the years. But true to form, Fox shows there is no bar too low, no hole too deep that they won't dive in head first, hoping to find a single drop of GOP water they can carry.

Turkana at The Left Coast notes that it's going to be a long, lean 8 years with all the bigots and misogyny that'll be exposed there, requiring replacement on a regular basis.

Let the purges begin.

KO's Countdown put together a pretty funny look back at the Republican and Democratic primaries (10 min):

It's surprising to me that many people assume that John McCain is pro-choice. He is not. And the sooner people "get" that, the better. This video helps. Pass it along.

Suffice to say, BUSTED!

The Pajamahadeen has been insufferable ever since Ra^thergate, and have been desperately trying to recapture their past "glory" ever since. I think they want us to somehow believe that there is a noble purpose for their putrid existence and that the first time wasn't just a fluke.

This time they've taken their usual practice of rummaging around the comment sections of blogs to find some "proof" of moonbattery (nutpicking) and try to stick some disgruntled goofball's opinion to a candidate one better. They've "discovered" an anti-Semite piece that was lifted from a right-wing hate-site and ported the whole thing, complete with months old comments, into Barack Obama's blog -- a community site where anyone can register and post a diary.

Nice try assholes.

I mean, it's especially rich when a site like Little Green Footballs, notorious for it's deranged and intolerant Freepers lurking in the commentariate would try and imply that there's something very, very wrong with Obama if he attracts the same kind of bile that is the normal fare in Wingnuttia.

It certainly does take all kinds, but these kind of jerkwads I could do without.

Interestingly enough, it seems that open forum candidate blogs on the right can attract anti-Semitism as well. Shocking, no? John Aravosis has the goods on the pervasive hate speech at John McCain's blog where the big debate is whether Obama is or is not the anti-Christ since the anti-Christ must be a Jew according to these God-fearing freepers who inform us that Obama is a "Muslim fag," the "Devil," trying to represent the "United States of Africa," and of course we learn from the Jed Report that to McCainiacs at his YouTube Channel, Obama is just another nigger.

There is no better champion for universal health care than John Edwards. Of all the candidates he came out first with the most comprehensive plan. Nobody can hold a candle to him on this issue -- except his wife.

Obama Says He's Partnering With Elizabeth Edwards On Health Care

Meanwhile, Gramppy McSame, in an effort to prove his learning curve is a flat line, is trotting out his gas tax holiday gimmick again, which was so roundly rejected by the public just a couple of weeks ago. McCain also added to his list of "senior moments" by referring to Putin as the President of Germany, not Russia. Chuck Todd nailed it when he said age doesn't matter for politicians -- unless it shows.

On McCain, it shows. He got busted busted on denying he said what he said about the news coverage of Hillary too. This guy's pathetic, but so are the press who are giving him a pass on this lie.

On the legal front, ScottBot McClerrator is being summoned to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, which should just add fuel to the fire to bolster Dennis Kucinich's 35 Articles of Impeachment he filed against our C+ Augustus.

On the campaign trail, Obama is up by six points over McCain, hot on the heels of what looks like a Hillary bump. McCain is facing real problems in Ohio too, and I for one am glad to add to his troubles.

No wonder Republicans are so grumpy and having no fun right now.

[Big Hat Tip to Memeorandum, without which we wouldn't have gotten all this good news.]

Now that Hillary Clinton has “suspended” her campaign for the Democratic nomination for president, millions of angry, white women are turning their disappointment-led ire toward Barack Obama and assuming that it is his responsibility to heal the party:

Obama is the victor, now let's see what he does. The burden is on him as it should be.

Now let's see if Obama can deliver. He has much to do and undo. Yes, his unfortunate comments "Hillary, you are likeable enough" spoke volumes. He was some work to do.

First, let’s get one thing straight: Barack Obama did nothing to Hillary Clinton or her supporters that he should or could undo.

• One Democratic candidate said that the Republican presidential candidate was obviously qualified to be president and suggested that the other Democratic candidate was not.


• One Democratic candidate repeatedly claimed that the other Democratic candidate might not be able to beat the Republican.


• One Democratic candidate derided the other Democratic candidate’s capabilities (and, by extension, that candidate’s supporters) as nothing more than empty rhetoric.


• One Democratic candidate’s campaign was dismissive of the other Democratic candidate’s numerous state primary/caucus wins.


• One Democratic candidate’s campaign implied that racial bias was behind their successes and failures.


• One Democratic candidate tried to change the party’s rules mid-race to boost their campaign.


• The other Democratic candidate said that candidate one was, “likable enough”.

In fact, Obama only brought up his opponent in response to the most unfair and divisive rhetoric (see above), rhetoric that is dangerous to the party and the country come November.

This TPM reader and Hillary supporter at least gets it half right:

She did so much "just right" and could have won it had she not had the rough treatment from the media.

This person at least understands who was unfair to Hillary. But it is a wild stretch of the imagination to say that she “could have won it” if not for the misogyny and Clinton-animus displayed by a number of prominent media gasbags. In fact, backlash against this unfair treatment may have been a driving force behind Clinton supporters and is widely credited for her late, come-from-behind victory in the New Hampshire primary. Her campaign might have been over many months ago had she not won that contest.

Finally, this Clinton supporter lobs one additional insult at Obama supporters:

If there are those Democrats who still feel it is necessary to denigrate Senator Clinton and her run for the Presidency, I would ask them to think about the change they advocate and the no more politics as usual. The only way to say no to the Washington politics of the past 20 years is to stop hating and start moving forward.

Every man that has lived with a woman knows about resentment built on perceived slights. And it isn’t surprising that this Clinton supporter should project her resentment on Obama supporters. But the truth of the matter is that most Obama supporters seem heartsick (perhaps I’m projecting somewhat here), not hateful, about what the Clinton campaign did to the Clintons and yearn for the party to unite against our common enemies.

And, incredibly, this last Clinton supporter seems to think that saying “no to the Washington politics of the past 20 years” requires Democrats to “stop hating” when it should be obvious, particularly to a Clinton supporter, that the politics of the past 20 years has been all about Republican hatred of liberals and Democrats and the abject failure of the corporate media. It will take everything liberal Democrats can do to overcome this deep ignorance and mass media turpitude and teach even many Democrats who our real enemies are.

[Cross-posted at Dispassionate Liberal]

"Summer's here and the time is right..."

In the comments on another post, EricM wanted to discuss his pick for Obama's VP. So instead of discussing it there, I've posted a poll here.

Note that you can pick more than one name if you like. I did this so I could create a "short list" and poll again later. You can also "write in" a name not shown here.

So make your choice(s) and tell me why you like that pick.

P.S. I randomized the choices...

What else would you call a perpetual occupation of Iraq, the "hundred years" presence John McCain envisions? Right now, contrary to the desires of the vast majority of Iraqi citizens, and quite different from the way both Senators McCain and Obama frame their positions on the "war," we are negotiating an agreement with our clients obstensibly governing Iraq that would require the US military to stay indefinitely in those permanent bases we've been building.

As observant folks have been warning from the get-go, that Billion Dollar "Fortress America" Embassy in the Green Zone as well as the 14 permanent bases are being built to last. [Oh, excuse me. The politically correct term is "temporary bases" which our aptly name Iraq Ambassador, Crocker says we intend to occupy "indefinitely."]

I think this is a framing issue. McCain and Obama will argue for the next five months about judgment and experience, rehashing who was right when about the start of the war and the "surge" and what to do, (if anything) about Iran/Afghanistan/Pakistan, until we're just sick to death of it. However, disturbing as it may sound, their respective ideas for every Middle Eastern nation other than Iraq aren't all that different, never were.

But when Obama states, eloquently I might add, that "We must be as careful getting out as Bush was careless getting into Iraq," and speaks of the best case scenario for doing so, the idea that he represents the anti-imperial sentiment both here and abroad is somehow not emphasized enough. John McSame offers the failed dystopian dream of Pax Americana, a world where we enforce our dominance, just for the sake of continuing our world-wide domination, through aggression and war and cluster bombs and tanks and laser guided munitions, and a lot of our blood and treasure as we take and destroy a lot more of other people's blood and treasure.

On this issue more than any other, a nonchalant attitude about the length of our stay in Iraq, peacefully or otherwise, is the continuation of the Bush/Cheney brand of imperialism.

The choice between the two can be summed up in one question. Do you believe America should make Iraq a permanent colony?

There are honest arguments on both sides of that question, but in the end (as usual) the Republicans know that they can never win that debate if honestly presented -- which is of course why we were lied into this catastro-phuque in the first place.

Would you like Freedom Fries with that pound of flesh?

Now that it's official, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence finally releasing the last two reports of "Phase II" of its inquiry about the Administration lying about the pre-war threat from Iraq and the Fixing of Intelligence by Doug Feith's office at the Pentagon (PDF's here and here), and in light of the confessions of Scott McClellen confirming everything and more said by Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke, Thomas E. Ricks, and so many other men and women of conscious who raised the alarm that the Bush administration was committing grave crimes against the world and shredding the Constitution, what do we do about it.

From the moment Nancy Pelosi stated that impeachment was "off the table," we knew that the Democrats, even if they gain all the levers of power, are not interested in getting even, in justice, so much as they are interested in getting power for themselves, wresting it from the criminals now in charge (a good thing in and of itself) and fixing what is broken -- but have no stomach for making anyone pay for what they did.

Except for Dennis Kucinich and hints from John Edwards, I don't recall much along the lines of a desire to prosecute anyone from the presidential candidates either. And no doubt George W. Bush will issue blanket pardons for anyone remotely involved in his breathtaking racket before he leaves office, leaving only him as a possible defendant in American Courts. I seriously doubt President Obama will consider initiating such a politically charged prosecution in keeping with his mission to heal the nation and move forward, undoing the madness of the last eight years. It probably wouldn't seem something that would help his reelection prospects of help maintain and expand the Democratic majorities in Congress either.

I disagree, but then again they don't pay me millions of dollars as a political consultant giving bad advice to candidates. But that's another story.

Rachel Maddow speaks for many, myself included, insisting that there is a difference between relying on flawed intelligence and "deliberately telling the American People something you know is not accurate" (ie. lying us into war) is "worthy of a prosecution or two." However her boss at Air America, Mark Green has another idea. Four actually:

1. "Vote Big" giving the Democrats a large mandate and sending the GOP a clear message. Of course herding cats is and easier task, and probably more fun.


2. "Shame 'em" challenging the the media to do it's job. Good luck with that.


3. "Sue" "Hit them in the pocketbook." You can kinda tell Mr. Green isn't a lawyer. While going after Halliburton may be worthwhile, government officials have qualified immunity from prosecution when excercizing and acting within their legally defined areas of discresion. The Iraq war, for all the fraud involved in gaining permission to use force from Congress, that permission was granted by folks like John Kerry, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton voting with the GOP majority for the AUMF back in 2002.


4. "Create a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)" In essence, this would be a national confessional, a catharsis for those of us who at least desire truth above consequences. Not quite the Nuremberg trials, but public acknowledgment that atrocities were committed even if no one is punished.

Richard Clarke expressed similar desires to see a Truth Commission modeled on post-Aparteid South Africa on Countdown last night. And some true optimists out there in blogtopia (y!sctp) believe that much like the example of post WWII Germany, the people of the United States would not be completely consumed by such a circus as parading all the perpetrators that have been involved in the litany of high crimes before cameras to confess their sins.

Somehow I doubt it. Our uniquly tabloid culture , where a minor celebrity's double-murder trial can take over the national consciousness and expose the tenuous seams that divide us more than unite us, would gorge itself on the spectacle. I know I wouldn't miss a minute of this show.

However, it would be cathartic. The alternative is to wait for history's verdict, which might then not even be the resolution we need. My Armenia friend Ara could enlighten you much further on why sometimes just waiting on history to decide who was wrong and who was right can fester instead of heal.

The government of Turkey continues to call for Truth and Reconciliation of the horrific events they still refuse to official call the Armenian Genocide of 1915-23, yet critics argue that an Historian's Commission telling "both sides" (no better that the first drafters of history we have today on ever talking head program) would amount to a whitewash, or worse -- elevating the lies and coverups to be valid viewpoints.

I don't think we can await history's verdict. I know I don't want to. But what I want is to see every son of a neocon creep locked up while they wait upon history.

• Oil up to $139
• Jobless rates leaps to 5.5%; biggest increase since '86
• Dow down 388

Lots of "look-backs" today at the failed candidacy of Hillary Clinton. I don't want to dwell on the past so I'll just say a few things and move on...

IMHO, the biggest reason Hillary lost (bigger than her vote on the AUMF) was that she forgot that campaigns are about the future, not the past. Obama knew that; it's what "Change" means. The irony, of course, is that Hillary should have known better, too. Bill always did. When he ran on "Change" in 92 his campaign song -- "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow" -- was a careful reflection of that.

But Hillary? She might as well have sung from the Prince songbook -- "Party like it's 1999." Bad idea, no matter how good the go-go 90's looked, especially compared to the Bush/Cheney regime.

Of course, she was hobbled by other things as well -- a disastrous campaign plan (no Plan B after Super Tuesday) and her stubborn insistence that the presumptive Republican nominee was a better choice for President than her Democratic opponent. That's the kind of talk that, if she were a Republican, would have gotten her serious consideration for the position of Vice President on McCain's ticket. Instead, it just poisoned the well -- for her and perhaps even Obama and the entire Democratic party. She made a lot of enemies with that one. A lot of enemies.

That said, I'm sure that she'll be accepted back into the loving embrace of the Democratic party before too long. I look forward to her campaigning for Obama in the fall. She is just the kind of fighter the Democrats need to slash away at McCain the Republicans. And it's what Obama needs to maintain his dignity and role as the good cop in the campaign.

And who knows -- maybe there's a reward for her, after she has proven her loyalty. I just hope she doesn't settle for a cabinet position because (unless you're AG, SecState or SecDef) that's usually a career ender. Associate Justice of the SCOTUS has always been my fondest wish for her.

Good luck Hillary and remember: second-best in this field ain't too shabby.

KSM sounds like he'd fit right in with the other religious fanatics at the Family Research Council board of governors:

"I consider all the U.S. Constitution and laws evil. They are allowing for same-sexual marriages and many things that are very bad … Do you understand what I said?"

Loud and clear, pal, loud and clear.

Thanks to Mark for recommending Mustang Bobby's moving piece on Bobby Kennedy. If you haven't already read it, do so now. I did and was inspired to recall how I felt that morning after Kennedy was shot.

I, too, was 15 that year. And for me, the election of 1968 was the first presidential campaign that I had an emotional attachment to. Back then, I backed McCarthy because I felt Kennedy was too opportunistic -- you know, he was the "ruthless" Kennedy. Bobby even joked about it in his speeches.

I remember watching the last Kennedy-McCarthy debate which happened on the weekend before the California primary. I watched that debate with my dad. During that telecast, one of the moderators asked each candidate about their support for Israel. Kennedy stated that it would be his policy to continue the sale of arms to the Jewish state. I remember my father saying, that night, that it was a position that would not be popular with Arabs. That all came back to me when I heard Bobby had been shot by Sirhan Sirhan

I went to bed on the night of the California primary without knowing what the final tally was. So when I woke up in the night at 3am (something I still often do) I remember switching on the radio and hearing a report -- in mid-sentence -- that doctors were attending to Sen. Kennedy who had been shot and was in critical condition. Even today, I can't find the words to express how bleak I felt on hearing that news.

Later that morning, as I rode the city bus to school, I remember standing next to a woman, seated quietly, her head hung down, hands folded in her lap. I watched her tears falling, drop by drop, from behind her sunglasses.

I also remember, several days later, watching Ted Kennedy's moving eulogy of his brother, his voice quavering, on the verge of breaking down, then gathering strength and continuing on despite his heartbreak:

My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be rememberd simply as a good decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.

Many years later, on a trip to DC, I visited Arlington Cemetery. I visited the familiar and dramatic set-piece that is the JFK family grave site. If you have only seen pictures of it, you are missing the grandest part of all -- the view out over the Potomac River and across the mall. You can literally see for miles. It is a breathtaking view of Washington.

But around the corner, a short walk away, is the grave site of Bobby Kennedy. It is a totally different experience. Robert Kennedy's grave sits by itself, marked with a single white cross and a small, gravestone lying flat on the ground. It is surrounded by green grass. On the other side of the walk is a low fountain, more of a basin than anything else.

Carved into the walls surrounding the fountain are words from a speech that Kennedy gave in Indianopolis on the evening that Martin Luther King was shot and he had to tell the crowd that Rev. King was dead. Among those words were these from his favorite poet, Aeschylus:

In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.

Only in the decades since Kennedy's passing have I come to realize how unique and special he really was.

Fellow Toledoan, Mustang Bobby at Shakespeare's Sister shares his memories of "That Morning." The morning 40 years ago before the world changed, that hope died, that's taken us four decades to even come close to setting right.

It was the last morning the world could still look forward to Robert F. Kennedy becoming president.

If you're old enough to remember 1968, and even as a grade-schooler the events of that year were so transformational they made a profound impact on me, complete with very vivid, "technicolor" memories, go read Bobby's piece just to refresh your recollection.

If you're too young, it's even more important that you take a look just at this incredibly well written post to get a feel for where we've been, what we've gone through, and what could have/should have been.

No, McCain isn't considering that Palin. He's considering this one:

At 44, Sarah Louise Heath Palin is both the youngest and the first female governor in Alaska's relatively brief history as a state. She's also the most popular governor in America, with an approval rating that has bounced around 90 percent.

This is due partly to her personal qualities. When she was leading her underdog Wasilla high school basketball team to the state championship in 1982, her teammates called her "Sarah Barracuda" because of her fierce competitiveness.

Two years later, when she won the "Miss Wasilla" beauty pageant, she was also voted "Miss Congeniality" by the other contestants.

Interesting snapshot of Gov. Palin. A former beauty queen and a 90% approval rating to boot! Quite impressive. That means nine people in Alaska approve of her perfomance as governor, yes?

Bottom line on McCain's VP pick, whoever it might be: the pick will be judged in the context of their (un)readiness to be Commander in Chief on Day One simply because of McCain's age.

Who do you want sitting in the Oval Office after President McCain is gone -- Romney? Jindal? Huckabee? Pawlenty? Palin? The extent to which Americans see any of these people as presidential material will have to color McCain's judgement -- or else.

As for this, I snort in derision:

Kimberley Strassel of the Wall Street Journal said Sen. McCain should run against a corrupt, do-nothing Congress, a la Harry Truman.

Oh that'll work just fine because Barack Obama is soooooo much like Tom Dewey.

And while he's at it, McCain might as well go all the way and promise to restore honor and dignity to the office of the Presidency, too.

Seriously, McCain has one homework assignment in this campaign: figure out how to untie the dead weight of George (Mr. 25%) Bush from around his neck before his candidacy sinks to the bottom of the pond.

Saturday you say? Saturday?!?

Okay, I know they switched it from Friday cuz of that whole Dead Kennedy anniversary thing she stuck her big fat foot into.

But remember the last time she "conceded" on a Saturday Night?

So, at this point, I think it would be in the best interests of the party if I stepped aside for the Obama campaign. PSYCH, that's never going to happen. It's not happening. (LOUD AUDIENCE CHEERS) I am not jumping out of this until after the Inauguration. Even then I won't be gracious.

What ever possessed McCain's handlers to squeeze him into the lineup last night? In effect, the Senator became the warmup act for Hillary Clinton, who was, in turn, Obama's warmup act.

And McCain's speech made even Fox News cringe. It was only exceeded in its ineptitude by the stagecraft of it. It's been said that politics is 70% how you look, 20% how you sound and 10% what you say. Translation: Last night, McCain laid an egg.

James Wolcott:

McCain appeared to have been inadequately defrosted before following the dotted line to the lectern. Not only did McCain's performance lack the deep majesterial chords we associate with a veteran starfleet commander, but the color coordination seems to have been done by the former set designer for Three's Company, the Jell-o-green backdrop making McCain's head look like a cottage-cheese football...

Christy Hardin Smith:

Sen. McCain's makeup was dreadful -- it was the sort of caked on look you expect at Aunt Gertrude's wake, not on camera for a major address. He looked pasty at the sides, flushed at the front, and as though they had spackled White-Out under his eyes to cover the bags and dark circles...The lighting was abysmal -- it's top down, which makes McCain's neck look even more craggy than it already did in contrast to the smoothed and polished skin on his shiny forehead. (Botox, anyone?)

The Republicans are in big trouble. The RNC is going to have to shovel all its considerable financial resources into the McCain campaign to keep him viable. As a result, the House and Senate candidates are going to get nothing -- nothing! -- from the party. It's going to be ugly.

I've been out of town for the last several days visiting family. I've followed the DNC meetings somewhat and the Puerto Rican primary even less. I've been reading a few online blogs. And it seems to me that the sweet milk of Democratic optimism has curdled somewhat.

Here's my take on it:

Obama's doing the right thing by moving on to begin his general election campaign. Perception is reality and the superdelegates know by now who does -- and doesn't -- have the money, the direction, the agenda, the skill and the drive to get elected in November.

That said, I don't see anything to be gained by continuing to fight with Hillary Clinton for the nomination. That goes for Obama's supporters (and any other wise Democrats) who might want to destroy her campaign and sow her village's farmland with salt. Enough already. Cartago Delenda Est does not a campaign slogan make. Besides, a scorched-earth strategy doesn't suit Obama's style -- or his campaign's larger themes. Nor does it suit the Democratic party. A good portion of the country will never vote Democratic and if you add in half the Democrats themselves scorning the party, well, that's not good, is it?

So it behooves Obama to be more than magnanimous. The tough question is how to minimize the damage Hillary can do to his campaign when it moves on to the next phase. How to coax Hillary off the ledge? How to defuse the hostage crisis that lies at the heart of Hillaryland?

Now some of you might feel that Hillary really wants Obama to lose so she can run in 2012. I've felt that myself for quite some time. But after some further reflection, here's what I found: if there is anything that Bill Clinton wants in life, it is to be loved and accepted. And becoming the next Ralph Nader will not do it for him. If Hillary fights Obama all the way to November, the Clintons can kiss their reputations goodbye -- now and in 2012.

So what does Obama do?

Characteristically, Obama has shown some leadership on this. He's been (and continues to be) respectful of her. And lord knows he has plenty of incentive to help her get whatever it is she wants (shy of the nomination). In so doing he'll get what he wants: the nomination and the victory in November.

So I still think offering her the VP slot is the smart move for both of them. I don't think many Obama supporters will jump ship (even if she shocks the world and accepts the slot). Furthermore, it allows Obama to show her the requisite respect that a large number of Democrats think she deserves. And (most importantly) from a tactical standpoint it calls her bluff. Because in the end, I think Bill will turn it down. Why? Because it will come with too many strings attached, e.g., full financial disclosure of the Clinton Library donors' list, a radical reshaping of Bill's extremely lucrative speaking (and travel) schedule for at least the next 4 years and so forth.

Of course, whatever she does, it remains to be seen if her supporters will follow her lead and vote Obama in November. What are their alternatives? I guess they could vote for McCain. But I think their passion for him might cool somewhat by October. Or they could stay home (especially if Obama pulls ahead in the polls and it looks like a blowout). I think the former is more likely than the latter. Or, even some combination of the two -- in other words, it may not make a difference one way or the other what Hillary's disgruntled supporters do in November.

So where does that leave us as Democrats? With two incredibly strong candidates each of whom has tens of millions of supporters who -- if they wise up -- can win a victory in November of truly immense proportions.

Bottom line: the stakes are very high. Just consider the kind of SCOTUS justices that McCain would appoint. That alone should scare y'all -- all y'all -- straight.

by Mark Adams

The weak Puerto Rico turn-out disappointed Hillary shills, (despite the shrieking) and completely undermined her specious argument that as long as you don't count caucuses and all the people in Michigan who showed up to vote against her she just squeaked out a popular vote "win." Now if she could get 90% of the outstanding superdelegates ... Feh! These people are nutz.

When's the last time you recall a presidential candidate, and her whole family, campaigning in Puerto Rico? Ever? And not just a pit stop but sticking it out with the beach-combers and sun worshipers for over a week. A territory that is the definition of voting for something that doesn't count since they have zero say in the general election.

I seem to remember something Hillary said about Michigan not counting and now her folks are upset that she didn't get all the delegates there. But they are trumpeting a win in Puerto Rico when only about a third of the voters they expected gave a damn. And after all that, Puerto Rico didn't show up.

When Hillary Clinton’s argument to the superdelegates comes down to bragging about a victor in Puerto Rico, you know her campaign is really over.

I know I'm supposed to be a grown-up about all this and make it easy for the Clinton supporters to save face and bring everybody together. But see, I was never really an Obama supporter per se. But long ago I resisted the urge to continue to undermine the probable, and now presumptive Democratic nominee, even when it looked like Hillary had as good a shot as Barack. There are bigger fish to fry, namely: the eradication of conservative domination of -- nay, even participation in American politics.

I really don't give a rats ass about alleged Democrats who would even suggest they would vote for John McCain or would sit out or vote independent come November because they feel slighted or robbed due to Hillary Clinton's failed run for President. If you're that shallow, that much of an ingrate narcissist, I really don't have much to say to you.

If you're still fighting against Obama, you're fighting the wrong guy, you're on the wrong side. If you're still following Hillary, you're not following a leader, but a loser. John Aravosis lays out the reality, and if you can't handle the reality you need medicated.

We started with half the country hating Hillary, and now she's managed to add half the Democratic party to the "hate Hillary club" as well. So, while Hillary definitely knows a thing or two about unpopularity, maybe she should clean up her own house before attacking others and doing John McCain's dirty work.

I feel no need to be magnanimous to the "other side." As far as I'm concerned I'm the other side too. I got over it. My guy didn't have what it took to get the nomination either. Neither Barack Obama nor his supporters made any grand overtures to me. Nobody needed to kiss my ass.

But I know where my loyalties lie, and more importantly where they don't. I never felt the evident sense of entitlement I'm seeing from some in Camp Clinton. Why on earth must special dispensation be made to Hillary's constituency. You're either supporting the nominee, and that means you're for Barack Obama, or you're worse than any Republican. You're a two-faced, traitorous, small-minded, selfish cry-baby with no rationality.

See, I don't think I need to "get" anything. It the Clinton supporters weren't bitching (yeah, I said it) about four meaningless delegates being "hijacked" from a meaningless beauty contest, they'd be whining about something else just as stupid. While it might be worth it to make them shut up, it probably wouldn't be enough to do the trick. It's more a commentary on how ridiculous the Clintonistas act and how pathetic they sound than any desire that justice be done on my part. There was never any way to fairly fix an unfair contest, and that's what Michigan was.

This thing is over. Get in line or get out of the way. From what I've seen in the way the Clinton campaign has comported themselves it's a very good thing she lost, and we may have dodged a bullet by not letting Bill near the White House again.