With today's RBC deal on Fl and MI, the new "magic number" to become the Democratic nominee is 2,117 (there was a resignation by a guy called Al Wynn, so the 2,118 has been cut by one.) Barack now needs just 65 delegates to clinch the nomination. As Craig Crawford says, there's a new boss in town. All that's left are the deal and the exit.
That said, I don't think Hillary's camp will shrink from their stated goal of piling up primary votes so as to put forward a (phony) claim on the popular vote. (Phony, because you have to discount the caucus states and assume that nobody in Michigan -- not one soul -- intended to support Barack Obama, in order to make it so.) Hillary wants to go out like Al Gore, laying claim to the "moral victory" of getting more votes, and allowing her supporters, inexplicably, to carry away the bitterness of having the nomination "stolen" from them by the powers that be. That, combined with Harold Ickes' and Howard Wolfson's continued nastiness, stoking the rage of Clintons' white women supporters, is just baffling when you consider that these people are Democrats.
The Michigan, Florida compromise at the DNC rules committee is the big news today, but the other headline creeping onto the front pages is Barack Obama and his family's resignation from Trinity Church in Chicago:
Barack Obama has resigned his 20 year membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago in the aftermath of inflammatory remarks by his longtime pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and more recent fiery remarks at the church by another minister.
Obama campaign communications director Robert Gibbs said Obama had resigned from the church "over the last few days."
Campaign aides said they werehttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifn't immediately certain how the resignation took place, whether by letter or in some other fashion, and were trying to find out.
Roland Martin on CNN just read from a letter sent from Trinity's leadership expressing their sorrow for the loss of the Obamas, and asking their parishioners to keep the family in prayer. The resignation follows the latest dust-up, over a sermon mocking Hillary Clinton by a visiting priest, Father Pfleger. My initial reaction was that it was a shame that Obama had to cave to craven, idiotic media types who feel it's their place to vet a politician's pastor, but that it was probably necessary from a pragmatic point of view. The real shame here is that American politics has become so trite, so obsessed with sidebars, that a man standing for political office has to answer for every utterance by his pastor. Next, we'll be vetting the pre-school teachers, choir directors and high school basketball coaches for any views that don't conform to a manufactured, homogenized version of phony patriotism. The media's complicity in creating this ridiculous litmus test (flag pins, platitudes and other tripe) that substitutes for a true and interactive love of country, has been nothing short of shameful.
Enough with this crap. Now that Obama has appeased "middle America" (will he be forced to join a nice, majority white, Presbytarian church next, in order to further bow to this brand of idiotic, "God bless America, civics-free nonsense?) can we please move on to real issues?
UPDATE 8:07 p.m.: Obama is holding a news conference about the Trinity resignation, and the DNC decision, right now. He made the very valid two-fold point, that had he remained at Trinity, he would continue to have to answer for every utterance from the pulpit, even by guest pastors, and the church was being unfairly inundated and scrutinized by the press, which was subjecting every sermon to its own vetting, harassing members, calling shut-in and ill people associated with the church, and generally harassing its membership. So for his own sake, but also the church's, he felt it best to resign. That's a sound explanation, and I think he's absolutely right, as well as prudent, to do what he's doing. It won't appease the right, which will continue to hang his 20 years of membership at Trinity around his neck, but it should calm the rational portions of the mainstream press.
UPDATE 2 10:22 p.m.: Politico has the transcript of Obama's presser.... almost like the kind of thing you'd find on whitehouse.gov...
Following a unanimous vote to accept the full delegation/half vote compromise for Florida, Harold Ickes threw down the gauntlet on the Michigan compromise, which would accept the Michigan delegation at full seating with half votes apiece, and accepting the Michigan Democratic Party's preferred allocation of 69 delegates for Mrs. Clinton and 59 for Obama, each casting a half vote, rather than Clinton's preferred split of 73 for her and 55 for "uncomitted." Ickes "rose in opposition" while seated, and then scalded the committee, saying the compromise violates the fundamental principle of "fair reflection," meaning the proportion should reflect the will of the voters. (Ickes had sparred with Robert Wexler about the issue earlier today, just before he walked off the dais.) Said Ickes:
"I am stunned that we have the gall and the chutzpah to substitute our judgment for 600,000 voters, was the process flawed? you bet your ass it was flawed."
He then opined that in his view, "hijacking" four delegates from Hillary Clinton was no way to achieve party unity (the latter word used with derision by him throughout.)
After Ickes' rant, in which he characterized the delegates as the personal possession of Mrs. Clinton and closed by informing the room -- and the country -- that Mrs. Clinton had instructed him to "reserve her right to take the issue to the credentials committee," (that's tomorrow's headline, by the way) he was chastised harshly, by an African-American member of the committee, Everett Ward of North Carolina, who called the previous remarks "political propaganda." (full list of delegates by affiliation here.) That was almost as good as Donna Brazille telling Hillary's surrogate from Michigan that when she was growing up, her mama taught her that when you don't abide by the rules, it's called cheating..."
In the end, the motion passed 19-8, meaning Hillary failed to carry all 13 of her supporters on the committee. Hillary held onto Hartina Fluornoy and Elizabeth Smith, both of D.C., Ickes, of course, and lost Don Fowler.
Watching the DNC Rules Committee's blockbuster meeting, pretty much all morning and afternoon, a few pieces of news have come out of it. (CNN has a breakdown of who's who on the panel here.)
News item #1:
Harold Ickes and the other Hillary supporters on the committee -- about 13 of them -- intend to be very vigorous in pushing the committee to do what's best for HER. That's stunning, considhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifering the responsibility of that committee, ostensibly, to do what's best for the party, and for its voters. It's been rather startling to watch Ickes and other members of the panel, particularly Hartina Fluornoy, a Hillary superdelegate from D.C., advocate essentially as members of her campaign. Ickes, after a particularly contentious exchange with Obama Florida campaign chairman Robert Wexler, even appeared to walk out of the room, although MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell says he actually walked across the room, not all the way out.
News item #2:
Wexler made the most news today, announcing that the Obama campaign would be willing to support the position taken by Florida DNC member Jon Ausman, whose challenge created the core Democratic position of seating all of the state's superdelegates, whose selection depends on their election to Congress or appointment by the local DECs, not upon the date of the primary, and seating half of the pledged delegates. Wexler said the Obama campaign would be willing to allow Hillary to half the maximum number of delegates available to her: 19, as part of a deal, in the interests of party unity.
News item #3:
Michigan Senator Carl Levin made perhaps the most arresting presentation today, walking the panel through the process that he was a part of, going back to the 2004 party convention, to try and change the almost regal status of New Hampshire and Iowa, with their presumed "god-given right" to hold their votes first. Levin was part of a reform panel that included the Rules Committee members, which agreed that at least one caucus would be moved up in the calendar, such that that state -- Nevada -- would caucus after Iowa but before New Hampshire.
New Hampshire, whose secretary of state has the authority to move the state's primary at will, violated that agreement and moved its primary ahead of Nevada's anyway. New Hampshire appealed to the Rules Committee for a waiver, so that it could preserve its status in defiance of an agreed-upon rules change. So Michigan, which has fought, with Levin's leadership, for a more diverse opening to the campaign, decided to apply for a waiver, too, to send a message that if New Hampshire wouldn't comply, somebody had to face down the bully. the committee gave New Hampshire its waiver but denied one to Michigan. In the end, whereas Florida's primary was held at the mercy of the Republican legislature and governor, Michigan's was an act of principled defiance. Given that, Levin said, no further punishment should ensue. To my mind, that was the most compelling argument made today. It certainly moved committee member Donna Brazille.
News item #1:
Howard Wolfson was just on NBC continuing to take pot shots at Barack Obama, and essentially asserting, as did Hillary's advocates before the panel, that they would settle for nothing short of a full seating of both delegations to her advantage, and would concede nothing to the Obama camp in return. They want Obama to get zero delegates out of Michigan, even while they concede that most, if not all, of the 40 percent "uncommitted" vote would favor Obama. And they want the maximum vote in Florida, too (although Bill Clinton may have conceded privately that his wife would wind up with half). So, to quote Pat Buchanan, Hillary wants "the whole hog." Their position is so recalcitrant, and so basically ugly, it makes me wonder if they have any interest whatsoever, in unifying the party, except under Hillary Clinton as nominee (something that would be all-but impossible, since I don't see how she would attract Obama's core supporters, young voters and Black voters, even if she could snatch the nomination away.) Meanwhile, the Obama team seems more reasonable, more willing to compromise and make concessions, and more eager to unify the party. As one reporter put it, the Obama camp is acting "the way a winner acts." That will matter, I think, to uncommitted superdelegates who are observing today's proceedings.
...In many ways, Mr. Obama is wheezing across the finish line after making a strong start: He has won only 6 of the 13 Democratic contests held since March 4, drawing 6.1 million votes, compared with 6.6 million for Mrs. Clinton.
Still, Mrs. Clinton’s associates said she seemed to have come to terms over the last week with the near-certainty that she will not win the nomination, even as she continues to assert, with what one associate described as subdued resignation, that the Democrats are making a mistake in sending Mr. Obama up against Senator John McCain.
One of the last procedural fights took place Saturday in Washington where, with demonstrators supporting Mrs. Clinton marching outside, the Democratic Party’s Rules and Bylaws Committee struggled with the question of whether to seat at the convention members of the disputed delegations from Florida and Michigan. Those states have been sanctioned by the party for holding their contests in January in defiance of the primary calendar laid out by the Democratic National Committee.
Mrs. Clinton has kept her counsel about what she might do to draw her campaign to a close and when she might do it. Her associates said the most likely outcome is that she will end her bid with a speech, probably back home in New York, in which she would endorse Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton herself suggested on Friday that the contest will end sometime next week.
Still, she has signaled her ambivalence about the outcome, continuing to urge superdelegates to keep an open mind and consider, for example, the number of popular votes she has won. Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee, a superdelegate who has been at the forefront of calling for uncommitted Democrats to make a choice soon after the last vote, said in an interview that Mrs. Clinton called him last week and urged him to “keep an open mind until the convention.”
Assuming Mr. Obama reaches the total number of delegates and superdelegates he needs to secure the nomination in the coming week, Mrs. Clinton will be faced with three options, associates said: to suspend her campaign and endorse Mr. Obama; to suspend her campaign without making an endorsement; or to press the fight through the convention. Several of Mrs. Clinton’s associates said it was unlikely she would fight through the convention, given the potential damage it would do to her standing within the party, which is increasingly eager to unify and turn to the battle against Mr. McCain.
Mrs. Clinton would almost surely face the defection of some of her highest-profile supporters, as well as some members of her staff. She would no doubt also face anger from Democratic leaders as she contemplates a return to the Senate and, potentially, another run for the White House. ...
And as for superdelegates:
... “A number of people have reported that various members intend to endorse AFTER the last primary,” said one e-mail message to wavering delegates from Mr. Obama’s supporters, its warning barely couched. “Those members need to understand that they won’t get any visibility from that.”
Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who endorsed Mr. Obama nearly two months ago and campaigned with him last week, recently called Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. of Colorado, who has yet to endorse. “Hey Ritter!” Mr. Richardson said. “After June 3, it means nothing. Those who take a little bit of a risk, he’ll remember you.”
On the other end of the line, Mr. Ritter demurred, saying he had pledged to remain neutral until the primary seasons ends.
Since the 2000 election, John McCain has been the golden boy of the Washington press corps. They travel with hin. They laugh at his jokes. They insert the word "maverick" into every story about him. They eat him up with a spoon.
Well... this ain't the year 2000 John McCain.
The current version is forgetful, stammering, and really, scary angry ... a LOT. And there's evidence that the major media reporters who used to dote on him, are changing their tone, perhaps fearing a future Saturday Night Live parody about offering the old boy a pillow...? Case in point, the conference call on which McCain surrogates tried to cover for McCain's latest gaffe on Iraq, as reported by the HuffPo's Sam Stein:
...Reminded that troops in Iraq currently number 155,000, well above the pre-surge level of 130,000, McCain refused to acknowledge on Friday that he had misspoke.
"I said we had drawn down," the Senator declared during a press conference (watch video). "I said we have drawn down and we have drawn down three of the five brigades. We have drawn down three of the five brigades. We have drawn down the marines. The rest will be home the end of July. That's just facts, the facts as I stated them."
But that isn't what he stated. On Thursday, in fact, he made a very specific measurement as to the extent of troop reductions.
"I can tell you that it [the mission in Iraq] is succeeding," said McCain. "I can look you in the eye and tell you it's succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels."
And that was just the beginning. McCain's gaffe had already been exacerbated during a conference call earlier in the day, when aides to the Arizona Republican insisted that he had not misspoke, even while McCain surrogate Sen. Jon Kyl acknowledged on the same call that he had: "What he said was not entirely accurate. OK. So what?"
The campaign aides also ridiculed reporters for even caring about the topic. "It is the essence of semantics," foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann said. "We are having this call about a verb tense and if you choose to write a story about Sen. McCain's use of a verb tense you need to hold Senator Obama to that exact same standard."
All of which, of course, simply piqued the interest of reporters. Michael Dobbs of the Washington Post pointed out that, contrary to the McCain campaign's tone, word choice does, in fact, matter. "If Bush had said 'the mission will be accomplished' as opposed to 'mission accomplished' -- those are two completely different things with completely different meanings."
An increasingly irritated Scheunemann responded: "If you're going to start fact-checking verb tenses, we're going to make sure we start monitoring verb tenses a lot more closely than we have in this campaign."
Later in the call, a reporter questioned whether McCain's verbal error was a sign that the Senator's age was affecting his memory and understanding.
"In every campaign, when you want to change the subject you try to pick a little thing that you can pick on and try to change the subject," replied Senator Jon Kyl, a McCain supporter. "I don't think this has anything to do with age."...
Now, if only MSNBC would replay HIS pastor videos over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again... or at least ask his boy Joe Lieberman why he's still hanging out with John "Hitler was an agent of God" Hagee...
If the White House got an advanced look at the Scott McClellan manuscript, is "he's not the Scott we knew" the best coordinated response they could come up with, given a full month's lead time? Wow, these guys are really missing Karl Rove.
John McCain stepped in it again. Call it a senior moment if you want, but Mac apparently doesn't know what our troop levels are in Iraq, even though he has made a point of shoving it in our faces how many times he has traveled there. Here's a peek at the latest face-off:
The likely GOP presidential nominee told an audience Thursday: "We have drawn down to presurge levels. Basra, Mosul and now Sadar City are quiet."
In fact, U.S. troop levels are not yet down to levels before President Bush's troop increase last year, a move that McCain endorsed.
There were 15 combat brigades in Iraq before the increase began. Five were added, and the United States has been reducing numbers since December. As of Friday, there are 17 brigades in Iraq, another brigade will depart in June and the plan is to pull out another in July, returning the level to 15.
Prior to the increase, there were 130,000-135,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.
In a conference call with reporters, Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle, an Obama supporter, argued that McCain was misrepresenting the facts when he said that the U.S. military has drawn back to levels before last year's force increase in Iraq. "That just is just not true. And everybody knows it's not true. And I assume Senator McCain just doesn't know the facts here," Doyle said in a conference call with reporters.
Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, another Obama backer, echoed Doyle's criticism.
That prompted an angry response from the McCain campaign.
"Clearly John Kerry and Barack Obama have very little understanding of troop levels, but considering Barack Obama hasn't been to Iraq in 873 days and has never had a one-on-one meeting with General Petraeus, it isn't a surprise to anyone that he demonstrates weak leadership," the McCain campaign said.
In a dueling conference call, Sen. Jon Kyl, a McCain backer, accused the Obama campaign of deflecting from the real issue that Obama still calls for withdrawal even though the troop-influx strategy has worked to curb violence and he hasn't been to Iraq in two years. "It is absolutely the case that the decisions have been made to draw down to presurge levels," Kyl said.
The Arizona senator said, "It is correct that the levels of troops there are not the same as they were during the surge, and, in fact, all of them will be home by the beginning of July."
In response, the Obama campaign said the GOP campaign "still can't explain why John McCain could be so clearly and factually wrong in stating that our troops are at pre-surge levels. They are not, and anyone who wants to be commander in chief should know better before launching divisive political attacks. Once again, Senator McCain has shown that he is far more interested in stubbornly making the case for continuing a failed policy in Iraq than in getting the facts right."
"The only things we should be wearing on our sleeves are our military insignia," Mullen wrote.
Three days later, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, sent a fundraising solicitation using an image of him and Gen. David Petraeus.
... ABC News' Jonathan Karl notes that Petraeus's spokesman, Colonel Steven Boylan, says the McCain campaign did not ask for permission to use the photo.
"By no means does the use of his photo mean he has endorsed anybody. He has not. He won't. He remains apolitical,"
After the use drew fire, including from decorated Vietnam vet John Kerry and Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle, McCain says, um, it won't happen again.
It was bad enough watching Mike Brzezinksi twist herself in knots trying to turn the Father Pfleger slip into a real-life news story, as Chris Matthews dead-panned that he didn't get why it's important, and try mightily to move on to a discussion of Scott McClellan (he ultimately gave in with a perturbed "it's your show...") But by 5 p.m., Matthews had given up the ghost (or given in to his bosses at MSNBC) and was dutifully inflating the clip (which is actually funny as hell, by the way,) into highly important campaign news. David Shuster and David Gregory have joined in on the act, gleefully forcing the issue onto the airwaves for the better part of the afternoon and early evening (it will stop momentarily when Keith comes on at 8, but will likely return full force at 9 when Abrams comes on.) I didn't even bother to check Fox News Channel, since I'm sure they've been running the clip for 24 hours straight.
The most exasperating aspect of the story is that Pfleger is not only not Barack Obama's pastor, he's not even a part of his religion, let alone Trinity Church. Earth to Pat Buchanan and Tucker Carlson: Pfleger is part of YOUR church. He's a freaking Catholic! Hence, the "Father" part. (sigh)
Worse, what Pfleger said is so uncontroversial, you'd have to be made of papier mache to be offended by it. Here's the clip. While you're watching it, think of the last two Hillary skits on "SNL." Believe me, worse things have been said about Hillary by comedians. Watch, laugh, and then let's please move the hell on:
Geraldine Ferraro, America's bitterest woman, has shredded what was left of her reputation. Her vituperative brand of support for her candidate, Hillary Clinton, has made them both look bad. If I'm Hillary, I'm emailing Gerri with the following subject line: STFU.
Here we are at the end of the primary season, and the effects of racism and sexism on the campaign have resulted in a split within the Democratic Party that will not be easy to heal before election day. Perhaps it's because neither the Barack Obama campaign nor the media seem to understand what is at the heart of the anger on the part of women who feel that Hillary Clinton was treated unfairly because she is a woman or what is fueling the concern of Reagan Democrats for whom sexism isn't an issue, but reverse racism is. ...
... As for Reagan Democrats, how Clinton was treated is not their issue. They are more concerned with how they have been treated. Since March, when I was accused of being racist for a statement I made about the influence of blacks on Obama's historic campaign, people have been stopping me to express a common sentiment: If you're white you can't open your mouth without being accused of being racist. They see Obama's playing the race card throughout the campaign and no one calling him for it as frightening. They're not upset with Obama because he's black; they're upset because they don't expect to be treated fairly because they're white. It's not racism that is driving them, it's racial resentment. And that is enforced because they don't believe he understands them and their problems. That when he said in South Carolina after his victory "Our Time Has Come" they believe he is telling them that their time has passed.
By the way, Ferraro, who goes on to defend the downtrodden white voters who "don't identify with someone who has gone to Columbia and Harvard Law School and is married to a Princeton-Harvard Law graduate. His experience with an educated single mother and being raised by middle class grandparents is not something they can empathize with. They may lack a formal higher education, but they're not stupid. What they're waiting for is assurance that an Obama administration won't leave them behind," wants a study ... at Harvard ... how anti-elitist of you, Gerri.
To punctuate her point, Gerri went on her favorite news outlet, totally un-sexist Fox News Channel (where your bra size and hair have to be bigger than your I.Q. in order to get on the air as a woman, and where ... and this is the big one ... Loofah-waving pervert Bill O'Reilly STILL WORKS ...) to whinge about anti-white racism:
"All the surrogates that they had out there, from the black journalists — you know, have you read Bob Herbert recently in the past six months? There wasn't one column that had anything decent to say about Hillary."
Well ... inevitably, the black journalists, fired back with the following statement, followed by a comment:
"NABJ is outraged that a former vice presidential candidate would suggest that all black reporters are mouthpieces for the Obama campaign," NABJ President Barbara Ciara, an anchor for WTKR-TV in Norfolk, Va., said in a statement. "To suggest this shows not only a stunning lack of judgment but also her unapologetic bigotry. Ms. Ferraro used her appearance on Fox News to reinforce stereotypes that suggest that black reporters can't be trusted to cover another person of color without bias and favoritism."
NABJ's vice president for print, Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Ernie Suggs, called the remarks a "direct attack" not only on the integrity of black journalists, but "the integrity of all journalists who work every day to provide good, honest journalism."
Does that mean, by extension, that white female journalists are surrogates for Hillary?
I plan to read Scott McClellan's book, "What Happened" (it's at the top of my summer reading list, along with Vincent Bugliosi's "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.") And I think that he may be the unlikliest, but also among the most important, truth-tellers to emerge from the nightmare era known as the Bush administration. McClellan is important, not because he was a policy insider, but because he was a personal one. He and the president went back all the way to Texas, and he was the first of the Texas inner circle to break publicly with George W. Bush. Yes, he left disgruntled, but it's why he was disgruntled that is important: he was angry because Karl Rove (another of the Texans) and Scooter Libby, principally, but also Dick Cheney and Bush himself, repeatedly lied to him about important matters. They lied about the outing of Velerie Plame, and then sent him out to lie. They lied to him about the war he was selling. And he had a front row seat to the lies that they were telling us, about Iraq.
So while his former colleagues may not like it, none of their synchronized, personal attacks has touched the fundamental premises of his book. None have even tried to refute his facts. And so his story stands basically unrefuted, even if he is now an enemy.
And yes, it's unprecedented for a press secretary to spill his guts while the boss is still in place (I was a press secretary, so I have some sympathy for McClellan's position,) precedent was thrown out the window long ago by the Bush team. They threw out 200 years of precedent on America's non-aggression foreign policy, 200 years of precedent of America as the "good guy," not torturing our captives, for instance. And in setting up a truly Soviet domestic spying regime, they took the J. Edgar Hoover playbook and super-sized it.
So keep your head up, Scott. You've turned out to be a more articulate, more honest, and more substantial a figure than I certainly ever gave you credit for. And don't worry about the "snitching" rap. We have a lot of that same pathology in the black community when it comes to reporting crimes and turning in criminals. At the end of the day, "snitching" is ghetto-ese for "doing the right thing." I think it's a safe bet that history will judge you a hell of a lot more kindly than it will your former boss.
David Gregory has been spinning himself silly trying to deflate the accusation that the press was too soft on President Bush, and were played by the administration in the run-up to the Iraq. War. His indefensible defensiveness was exploded by none other than Christopher Matthews on "Hardball" yesterday:
Aussie journalist Russell Coker, whose site you can find here, alerted me to this very interesting article in the Washington Post, putting forward what could be the solution to the nettling question of "what to do withher..."
...It's likely that the next president will face at least one Supreme Court vacancy. Obama should promise Hillary Clinton, now, that if he wins in November, the vacancy will be hers, making her first on a list of one.
Obama and Clinton have wound up agreeing on nearly every major issue during the campaign; at the end of the day, they share many orthodoxies. Unless the Supreme Court were to get mired in minuscule details of what constitutes universal health care, Obama could assume that he'd be pleased with most Clinton votes, certainly on major issues such as abortion.
Obama could also appreciate Clinton's undeniably keen mind. Even Clinton detractors have noted her remarkable mental skills; she would be equal to any legal or intellectual challenge she would face as a justice. The fact that she hasn't served on a bench before would be inconsequential, considering her experience in law and in government.
If Obama were to promise Clinton the first court vacancy, her supporters would actually have a stronger incentive to support him for president than they would if she were going to be vice president. Given the Supreme Court's delicate liberal-conservative balance, she would play a major role in charting the country's future; there is no guarantee that a Clinton vice presidency would achieve such importance.
For nearly a year and a half, Clinton has been fighting a bruising battle. Many appointees and officials from her husband's administration have turned their backs on her; she has lost the support of friends she had every reason to believe would stand by her. She has campaigned tirelessly only to discover that, according to polls, more than half the populace mistrusts her. Yes, she can still hope for 2012 or 2016, but why trust that she will be viewed differently next time around? (A recent CNN "quick poll" found that nearly 70 percent of respondents believed someone other than Clinton would be the first female president.)
Instead of subjecting herself to a long wait and another possible defeat, she could don one of those roomy black robes, make a potentially ineradicable impact on the course of the republic -- and never again have to worry about being liked. ...
Now, I have heard theories about what it would cost to get Hillary Clinton out of the race, and the subject of putting her husband on the Court has come up. This is the first time I've been provoked to think about the Court, rather than the New York governership (too provincial), the Senate Majority Chair (too audacious -- she's down in the 40s in terms of seniority, moving her up would step on a lot of toes...) or the vice presidency (never ... going ... to ... happen. Get over it, Clintonettes.) And you know what? I LIKE IT!
Of course, Obama probably couldn't openly declare his support for handing Clinton 11.1% of the nation's highest court, both because it would energize the right -- particularly the religious right -- on one of their most fundamental issues: activist judges (read "abortion,") but also because it doesn't quite seem appropriate to declare your court nominee before (her) time. But the idea that Clinton could ascend to the SUPCO (hey, since her husband has relinquished the "first black president" title, we could call her the "real holder of the Thurgood Marshall seat...") while not as ground-breaking as becoming the first female president, would give her lasting power and influence, things it's clear she desperately craves. A seat on the Court would put Hillary in a position to extend her influence beyond the limited shelf life of the presidency, while freeing her from that bothersome ambition, which has brought her, and her husband, so low in the esteem of former supporters (myself included.)
So I'd at least back-channel it if I were Obama's team, to top Emily's Listers, to League of Women Voters heads, and through his new pals at NARAL (national -- the local NARAL's are probably still pissed off...) and see what happens. So long as they can find a way to filter the hope of an appointment down through the ranks without blasting it on their MySpace, it just might make a difference.
Scott McClellan wasn't as much of a douchebag as Ari Fleischer, or as slick as Tony Snow, but he was as stonewally a press secretary as they whip up in Texas. Do you remember the time?
"I've said that it's not true. And I have spoken with Karl Rove." McClellan on PlameGate, September 23, 2003.
"The President knows he [Rove] wasn't involved." McClellan on PlameGate, September 23, 2003.
"There are unsubstantiated accusations that are made. And that's exactly what happened in the case of these three individuals. They're good individuals, they're important members of our White House team, and that's why I spoke with them, so that I could come back to you and say that they were not involved. I had no doubt of that in the beginning, but I like to check my information to make sure it's accurate before I report back to you, and that's exactly what I did." McClellan on the roles of Libby, Rove and Abrams in revealing the identity of Valerie Plame, October 7, 2003
"As I've previously stated, while that investigation is ongoing, the White House is not going to comment on it." McClellan on new PlameGate revelations, July 11, 2005.
"That's accurate." Later changed in White House transcript to "That's not accurate" regarding a statement that Rove and Libby were involved in outing Valerie Plame, October 31, 2005.
"The last thing anyone should do is politicize this issue by rewriting history." McClellan on revelations regarding bogus uranium in Niger claims, July 17, 2003.
"[I]t is sad and irresponsible that The New York Times is rewriting history to fit an inaccurate storyline and conveniently ignoring key facts." McClellan on criticism of Bush's preparation for Hurricane Katrina, February 10, 2006.
"This is getting into trying to finger-point and play the blame game." McClellan on bungled Bush response to Katrina, September 6, 2005.
"This was a report based on a single anonymous source that could not substantiate the allegation that was made." McClellan describing Newsweek's Koran desecration story, not the role of Curveball in Iraq pre-war intelligence, May 16, 2005.
"Declassifying information and providing it to the public, when it is in the public interest, is one thing. But leaking classified information that could compromise our national security is something that is very serious. And there is a distinction." McClellan justifying President Bush's authorization to leak classified information from the October 2002 NIE to attach Joe Wilson and other White House critics, April 7, 2006.
"The Democrats have a credibility problem when they try to suggest that we were manipulating intelligence, or that this is about something other than what I just said. That's crass politics." McClellan on criticism of President Bush's leaking classified material, April 7, 2006.
There's more Greatest Hits for your amusement at PERRspectives.
Scott McClellan is no longer GWB's chubby little buddy. Now, the sweatiest press secretary ever will forever be known as the guy who wrote "the book."
ormer White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in a surprisingly scathing memoir to be published next week that President Bush “veered terribly off course,” was not “open and forthright on Iraq,” and took a “permanent campaign approach” to governing at the expense of candor and competence.
Among the most explosive revelations in the 341-page book, titled “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception” (Public Affairs, $27.95):
• McClellan charges that Bush relied on “propaganda” to sell the war.
• He says the White House press corps was too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war.
• He admits that some of his own assertions from the briefing room podium turned out to be “badly misguided.”
• The longtime Bush loyalist also suggests that two top aides held a secret West Wing meeting to get their story straight about the CIA leak case at a time when federal prosecutors were after them — and McClellan was continuing to defend them despite mounting evidence they had not given him all the facts.
• McClellan asserts that the aides — Karl Rove, the president’s senior adviser, and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff — “had at best misled” him about their role in the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.
It's safe to say the media is going ape-crap over the McClellan book bomb, as the White House says "we don't know this guy" and reporter David Gregory practically squeals on MSNBC, "the media did NOT let the country down! Waa." Because of course, if Scotty is right, and the media was weak and fed propaganda (by him and the White House) well then that would make Gregory a dupe ... (ahem)
Besides his war mongering tendencies, and close association with creepy Joe Lieberman, the thing that most scares me about John McCain is his apparent utter fealty to corporate interests, even as he swears that he's just the opposite kind of guy (impeccably moral, honest to a fault, and a damn site better than you!) And the biggest fear I have is that if, by some scorn of fate he is elected president, he will complete George W. Bush's task of bringing on a complete, late 19th century-style corporatocracy. Case in point: his economic guru is none other than scuzzy Texas congressman-turned-uber lobbyist Phil Gramm. As MSNBC reported tonight?
Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain’s national campaign general co-chair was being paid by a Swiss bank to lobby Congress about the U.S. mortgage crisis at the same time he was advising McCain about his economic policy, federal records show. [See sidebar.]
“Countdown with Keith Olbermann” reported Tuesday night that lobbying disclosure forms, filed by the giant Swiss bank UBS, list McCain’s campaign co-chair, former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, as a lobbyist dealing specifically with legislation regarding the mortgage crisis as recently as Dec. 31, 2007.
Gramm joined the bank in 2002 and had registered as a lobbyist by 2004. UBS filed paperwork deregistering Gramm on April 18 of this year. Gramm continues to serve as a UBS vice chairman.
... As early as October, 2006, RealClearPolitics.com reported that Gramm was advising McCain on economic issues. Politico.com quoted McCain advisors saying that Gramm had input on McCain’s March 26 policy speech about the mortgage crisis. McCain himself has often cited Gramm’s influence as a way to establish his bona fides with economic conservatives.
When Gramm chaired the Senate Banking Committee, he wrote and passed deregulatory legislation in more than one industry, establishing himself as a pre-eminent foe of government regulation. McCain’s March 26 speech recommended further deregulation of the banking industry as his response to the mortgage crisis.
McCain and Gramm have been friends for more than a decade. McCain chaired Gramm’s 1996 presidential run and Gramm says the two men speak every day. McCain reportedly has hinted Gramm might serve as his Treasury secretary.
Gramm has bankrolled much of McCain's campaign since his finances hit the skids last year. But his nastiness reaches levels you could drive a straight talk express through.
... even before lobbying emerged as an issue, some of his own advisors told the Washington Post last month that they questioned how Gramm’s legislative record might affect McCain’s campaign.
After Gramm passed a law easing regulation of energy-commodity trading, California experienced a sharp run-up in energy costs. The energy-trading company Enron was blamed and soon collapsed.
In 1999, Gramm successfully undid the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, removing the decades-old wall between commercial banking, which was heavily regulated, and investment banking, which was not. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act did not extend significant new regulation to investment banking.
Some economists fault Gramm’s deregulatory successes, as well as lax enforcement of remaining oversight powers, not just for the subprime mortgage crisis, but for its spread to other sectors of finance. Even Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has expressed interest in toughening regulations.
By the by, Graham also killed a bill that would have allowed bankruptcy judges to rewrite mortgage terms to help homeowners in trouble remain in their homes. Nice.
Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute told the Washington Post, “McCain is counting on people having very short memories and not connecting some pretty obvious dots here.”
Well, he's right about one thing: people do have short memories, especially people in the press. Let's see how long this story lasts.
Every couple of days I receive an email in my gmail account from a Carolyn Kay, of makethemaccountable.com. I must admit I don't open them, since it's obvious that the dispatch is an email newsletter from a Democratic-leaning blog or website. Well, tonight, I decided to have a look.
What I found was a lengthy screed, full of links to posts by other angry feminists, denigrating Barack Obama and interspersed with offensive cartoons depicting him as a simian dumbass. It's kind of like the lefty sites devoted to hyperventilating about George W. Bush, only this one is coming from a Democrat, and dedicated to attacking another Democrat. Oh, there's the odd anti-John McCain link, and plenty of Bush-bashing, but for the most part, it's all about Obama.
Ms. Kay, who makes it clear by her posts that she is a rather ... um... dedicated, Hillary Clinton supporter, is apparently a friend, on some level, of radio host Thom Hartmann, who also seems to lean Clinton (hell, he works for Air America. Mark Green doesn't do Obama love...) Given his intellect, I'm surprised that he would hang with such a person. If you don't believe how vituperative, ugly, and snide Ms. Kay can be, go on over to her site and read her for yourself. A sampling:
What Krugman said (by lambert) I’ll bet my first Early Girl tomato that none* of Krugman’s wise suggestions will be adopted. That is, the demonization of the Clintons will continue, Hillary’s supporters will continue to be written off as hicks, and Hillary will not be offered the VP slot.** Nor will Obama address the deficiencies in his health care plan. My views are based on Obama’s past performance in the campaign. If Obama has made no gestures of respect when he hasn’t won, why would he do so after he has? His base won’t demand it of him, nor will his handlers, nor will our famously free press, and so it won’t happen. If it were going to happen, it would already have happened; it’s not like there haven’t been opportunities.
What Hypocrite Obama Should Have Discussed in His Wesleyan Commencement Address (by Truthteller at No Quarter) MIDDLETOWN, Conn. (AP) – “Filling in for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and tying himself to the family’s legacy, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama urged college graduates Sunday to ‘make us believe again’ by dedicating themselves to public service….[and] urged students to focus on more than ‘the big house and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should buy.’” The rest of the 25-minute speech should have been dedicated to urging students to focus on “the big house and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should buy,” for this is the life Barack Obama actually pursued. Indeed, Obama should have offered Wesleyan students instructions on how to find and secure political and financial godfathers in the mold of Antoin “Tony” Rezko. After all, this is how Obama climbed the political, social and financial ladders of Chicago, Illinois.
Meanwhile, on her bio page, she reveals that she grew up in Louisiana, didn't object to segregation, but was just fine with Blacks eventually trying to get equality. Thanks, dear. Then, at the bottom of her bio, just after the revelation that she is a cancer survivor, there's this:
So here I am. And here I’ll stay. I’ll use every talent I possess and all my energy to try to bring back tolerance, decency, and generosity to the country I love.
Tolerance? Decency? Generosity??? Lady, have you read your own blog???
Fox News "analyst" Liz Trotta has it in for Barack Obama ... or at least, she did:
During an interview on Fox News between anchor Eric Shawn and contributor Liz Trotta about the "assassination" comment by Sen. Hillary Clinton, Trotta mistakenly refers to Obama as Osama. "The vast right wing conspiracy blame has been undermined by her evasions, by her outright lies if I may say, by her pandering, by her race baiting, and now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama," she said.
Shawn corrected Trotta just as she herself realized she said the wrong name, and they simultaneously said, "Obama." Then, Trotta appears to attempt to make a joke about the gaffe. "Well, both if we could," she says, and laughs while Shawn says, "Talk about how you really feel." He then changes the subject.
Well, now, Trotta has said sowwy, but only when asked (by Bill Hemmer), after a full segment of truly ironic Hillary explication.
If your man has introduced you to his friends, if you've been invited to Thanksgiving dinner at his parents' house, if he takes you out to places where he could reasonably be recognized, and if, when he answers your phonecalls, he uses your name, rather than just "hey" or your first initial, you ARE the girlfriend. If not, it's time to lower your expectations.
PHOENIX (AP) — John McCain's complex relationship with President Bush can be summed up with a simple saying: can't live with him, can't live without him.
The president's own popularity is bottom-of-the-barrel low. Even allies privately fret that he's an albatross for the Republican looking to succeed him. Voters are crying out for change amid a prolonged Iraq war and a weakened economy.
But Bush also is beloved among GOP loyalists. He's a proven campaigner who can raise serious money. Those are huge assets as Arizona Sen. McCain works to rally the Republican base and fill his coffers while facing the Democrats' unrivaled enthusiasm and record-breaking fundraising.
The president and his would-be successor were appearing together Tuesday for the first time in nearly three months at an event that epitomized both elements of their tricky alliance — they were holding a fundraiser with GOP faithful at a private home, without the media to document it.
By the McCain campaign's own planning, the only time Bush and McCain would be captured on camera would be after the event — and too late to make most evening newscasts — on the Phoenix airport tarmac in the shadow of Air Force One, just before the president departs. McCain's fundraisers typically are closed to the press; the White House deferred to the campaign. No statements were expected.
There was originally supposed to be an arena event, but ... well ... you know, ticket sales aren't what they used to be ... and then there are all those cell phone cameras ... (shudders thinking about Youtube pics of McCain and Bush embracing lustily...)
("Yes, George, give me more pioneers ... and MORE ... and MORE!!!)
"Today, John McCain is having a different kind of meeting. He's holding a fundraiser with George Bush behind closed doors in Arizona. No cameras. No reporters," Obama said before a town hall in Las Vegas, "And we all know why. Senator McCain doesn't want to be seen, hat-in-hand, with the President whose failed policies he promises to continue for another four years. But the question for the American people is: do we want to continue George Bush's policies?"
Oh, and if nobody at his job knows who you are...?
http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifThe New York Times, which it should be said, supported, promoted, and through its former reporter, Judith Miller, laid the groundwork for the war in Iraq, delivers a stinging rebuke of President Bush and his opposition to a new G.I. Bill:
President Bush opposes a new G.I. Bill of Rights. He worries that if the traditional path to college for service members since World War II is improved and expanded for the post-9/11 generation, too many people will take it.
He is wrong, but at least he is consistent. Having saddled the military with a botched, unwinnable war, having squandered soldiers’ lives and failed them in so many ways, the commander in chief now resists giving the troops a chance at better futures out of uniform. He does this on the ground that the bill is too generous and may discourage re-enlistment, further weakening the military he has done so much to break.
So lavish with other people’s sacrifices, so reckless in pouring the national treasure into the sandy pit of Iraq, Mr. Bush remains as cheap as ever when it comes to helping people at home.
Thankfully, the new G.I. Bill has strong bipartisan support in Congress. The House passed it by a veto-proof margin this month, and last week the Senate followed suit, approving it as part of a military financing bill for Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Senate version was drafted by two Vietnam veterans, Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, and Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska. They argue that benefits paid under the existing G.I. Bill have fallen far behind the rising costs of college.
Their bill would pay full tuition and other expenses at a four-year public university for veterans who served in the military for at least three years since 9/11.
At that level, the new G.I. Bill would be as generous as the one enacted for the veterans of World War II, which soon became known as one of the most successful benefits programs — one of the soundest investments in human potential — in the nation’s history.
Mr. Bush — and, to his great discredit, Senator John McCain — have argued against a better G.I. Bill, for the worst reasons. They would prefer that college benefits for service members remain just mediocre enough that people in uniform are more likely to stay put.
They have seized on a prediction by the Congressional Budget Office that new, better benefits would decrease re-enlistments by 16 percent, which sounds ominous if you are trying — as Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain are — to defend a never-ending war at a time when extended tours of duty have sapped morale and strained recruiting to the breaking point.
Their reasoning is flawed since the C.B.O. has also predicted that the bill would offset the re-enlistment decline by increasing new recruits — by 16 percent. The chance of a real shot at a college education turns out to be as strong a lure as ever. This is good news for our punishingly overburdened volunteer army, which needs all the smart, ambitious strivers it can get.
This page strongly supports a larger, sturdier military. It opposes throwing ever more money at the Pentagon for defense programs that are wasteful and poorly conceived. But as a long-term investment in human capital, in education and job training, there is no good argument against an expanded, generous G.I. Bill.
By threatening to veto it, Mr. Bush is showing great consistency of misjudgment. Congress should forcefully show how wrong he is by overriding his opposition and spending the money — an estimated $52 billion over 10 years, a tiniest fraction of the ongoing cost of Mr. Bush’s Iraq misadventure.
In today's editorial, "Mr. Bush and the GI Bill", the New York Times irresponsibly distorts President Bush's strong commitment to strengthening and expanding support for America's service members and their families.
This editorial could not be farther from the truth about the President's record of leadership on this issue. In his January 2008 State of the Union Address, while proposing a series of initiatives to support our military families, President Bush specifically called upon Congress to answer service members' request that they be able to transfer their GI Bill benefits to their spouses and children. In April, he sent a legislative package to the Hill that would expand access to childcare, create new authorities to appoint qualified spouses into civil service jobs, provide education opportunities and job training for military spouses, and allow our troops to transfer their unused education benefits to their spouses or children.
As Congress debates the best way to expand the existing GI Bill, Secretary Gates has laid out important guidelines to ensure that legislation meets our service members' needs and rewards military service. First, since our servicemen and women have regularly requested the ability to transfer their GI bill benefits to their family members, legislation should include transferability. Second, legislation should provide greater rewards for continued military service in the all volunteer force.
There are several GI bill proposals under consideration in both the House and Senate. The Department of Defense has specific concerns about legislation sponsored by Senator Webb because it lacks transferability and could negatively impact military retention.
The President specifically supports the GI Bill legislation expansion proposed by Senators Graham, Burr, and McCain because it allows for the transferability of education benefits and calibrates an increase in education benefits to time in the service. ...
To which Jim Webb, Chuck Hagel and the members of the U.S. armed forces should rightly say, "whatever."
Congrats again to Webb, Hagel, the IAVA and others on pushing the G.I. Bill through. And Happy Memorial Day.
Hillary Clinton and her camp have long complained about media bias against her. But I think the events of the past 24 hours demonstrate that if there is indeed bias, it is squarely in her favor.
Witness the speed with which the flap over her assassination comments of Friday have created an intramural media backlash. The Politico's John Harris and others (including the NY Daily News editorial board, which also published an op-ed by Hillary today) are already coming to her defense, and inveighing against the coverage by their fellow members of the media, calling it overblown. These are the same media types who spent a full month or more obsessing over the comments, not of candidate Barack Obama, but of his pastor. These are the same media types who STILL use Barack's "bitter" comments, which were arguably more misconstrued than Hillary's comments about RFK, in their analysis of why he supposedly does so poorly with white, working class voters. Just this morning, on Stephanopoulos' show, both Rev. Wright AND "bittergate" were floated during the roundtable as evidence of Obama's "elitism problem." The Politico's Mike Allen was among those way out front in explaining how "bittergate" could torch Obama's campaign. And Harris in April published a full-blown manifesto arguing Obama's utter lack of electability which came straight from the Clinton inner circle.
So when, not 24 hours after it broke, reporters are already pooh-poohing the RFK flap, I see biased people, but not in Obama's direction.
The "poor Hillary" media corps have been helped in some ways by Barack Obama, who unlike Hillary with Rev. Wright, or Barack's religious faith (Christian ... as far as Hillary knows ...) and "bittergate," has declined to add onto her misery by being opaque about whether she meant what it clearly appeared that she meant. And RFK Jr. has been helpful by excusing Hillary's remarks, something she was quick to include in her NYDN editorial defending herself today. But on the merits, the outrageousness of Hillary's comments is a bombshell of much greater alarm, it seems to me, at a time when Barack's life really is threatened because of his campaign, than his offhand remarks about bitterness or, for god's sake, the third party remarks of his pastor. And yet, members of the media are, once again, letting Hillary off the hook.
Hillary Clinton pens an op-ed piece in today's New York Daily News, explaining her assassination gaffe, and explaining why she's staying in the race:
This past Friday, during a meeting with a newspaper editorial board, I was asked about whether I was going to continue in the presidential race.
I made clear that I was - and that I thought the urgency to end the 2008 primary process was unprecedented. I pointed out, as I have before, that both my husband's primary campaign, and Sen. Robert Kennedy's, had continued into June.
Almost immediately, some took my comments entirely out of context and interpreted them to mean something completely different - and completely unthinkable.
I want to set the record straight: I was making the simple point that given our history, the length of this year's primary contest is nothing unusual. Both the executive editor of the newspaper where I made the remarks, and Sen. Kennedy's son, Bobby Kennedy Jr., put out statements confirming that this was the clear meaning of my remarks. Bobby stated, "I understand how highly charged the atmosphere is, but I think it is a mistake for people to take offense."
I realize that any reference to that traumatic moment for our nation can be deeply painful - particularly for members of the Kennedy family, who have been in my heart and prayers over this past week. And I expressed regret right away for any pain I caused.
But I was deeply dismayed and disturbed that my comment would be construed in a way that flies in the face of everything I stand for - and everything I am fighting for in this election.
No apologies there, and a wee bit of riteous indignation. As to why she's still all-in, once you get past her usual talking points (not everybody has voted, our economy is in crisis, I still think I can win it all, blah, blah, blah,) you get this:
I am running because I believe staying in this race will help unite the Democratic Party. I believe that if Sen. Obama and I both make our case - and all Democrats have the chance to make their voices heard - in the end, everyone will be more likely to rally around the nominee.
Hillary's last, best argument for staying in, is that if she doesn't, millions of elder white women who support her, and voters in the remaining few states, will feel cheated. Therefore, in order to unite the party in the end, she has to get to the end. That's as rational an argument as she has left to put forward, and because the Obama campaign is amenable to letting it play out, that's what is most likely to happen. However, after June 3rd, Hillary's rationale dissipates, and I think, the drumbeat for her to get out will become insurmountable, especially since she has torched any chance of being asked to be on the ticket (a possibility that was beyond remote to begin with.)
Hillary Clinton's "assassination option" comments are still reverberating through the political atmosphere, with many Obama supporters who were at his big rally yesterday in Florida, myself included, not getting word of the gaffe until last evening. This morning, Mrs. Clinton awoke to a raft of blistering op-ed pieces and general oprobrium, along with numerous calls for her to get out of the race now. Michael Goodwin of the New York Daily News speaks for many:
SICK. Disgusting. And yet revealing. Hillary Clinton is staying in the race in the event some nut kills Barack Obama.
It could happen, but what definitely has happened is that Clinton has killed her own chances of being vice president. She doesn't deserve to be elected dog catcher anywhere now.
Her shocking comment to a South Dakota newspaper might qualify as the dumbest thing ever said in American politics.
Her lame explanation that she brought up the 1968 assassination of Robert Kennedy because his brother Ted's illness was on her mind doesn't cut it. Not even close.
We have seen an X-ray of a very dark soul. One consumed by raw ambition to where the possible assassination of an opponent is something to ponder in a strategic way. Otherwise, why is murder on her mind?
Goodwin and others note that with this gaffe -- Hillary's "macaca moment" -- she has certainly ended all speculation about a joint ticket. She was very unlikely to be asked to be Obama's vice president anyway. Now, he can feel comfortable not even considering it.
It's a shame, though, that Clinton's rather bright political career could come down to this. We all know that in a sound byte culture, one mistake can literally end careers: just ask Jimmy the Greek, or George Allen. Sure, one can find a way back: Don Imus is, after all, still on the radio. But it's not the same. He's no longer a mainstream figure in talk radio. He's an outlier; a curiosity, and for Mrs. Clinton, his dual fate could be instructive.
I hate to believe that Hillary truly wants something bad to happen to Barack, so that she can be the nominee. But it's hard to mistake what she said for anything other than a dark reflection of her desperation, her raw ambition, and the cold calculus that she has made that could be summed up: hell, anything could happen -- this guy could be dead by next month. That's not only not becoming of a national leader, its unbecoming of a lady, of a human being, of a sitting Senator, or of anyone who aspires to be president.
We have forgiven you the photos of Osama Bin Laden in an anti-Obama ad...
We have forgiven you fawning over the fairness of Fox News while they were still calling you a murderer.
We have forgiven you accepting Richard Mellon Scaife's endorsement and then laughing as you described his "deathbed conversion."
We have forgiven you quoting the electoral predictions of Boss Karl Rove.
We have forgiven you the 3 a.m. Phone Call commercial.
We have forgiven you President Clinton's disparaging comparison of the Obama candidacy to Jesse Jackson's.
We have forgiven you Geraldine Ferraro's national radio interview suggesting Obama would not still be in the race had he been a white man.
We have forgiven you the dozen changing metrics and the endless self-contradictions of your insistence that your nomination is mathematically probable rather than a statistical impossibility.
We have forgiven you your declaration of some primary states as counting and some as not.
We have forgiven you exploiting Jeremiah Wright in front of the editorial board of the lunatic-fringe Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
We have forgiven you exploiting William Ayers in front of the debate on ABC.
We have forgiven you for boasting of your "support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans"...
We have even forgiven you repeatedly praising Senator McCain at Senator Obama's expense, and your own expense, and the Democratic ticket's expense.
But Senator, we cannot forgive you this.
"You know, my husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California."
We cannot forgive you this -- not because it is crass and low and unfeeling and brutal.
This is unforgivable, because this nation's deepest shame, its most enduring horror, its most terrifying legacy, is political assassination.
Lincoln.
Garfield.
McKinley.
Kennedy.
Martin Luther King.
Robert Kennedy.
And, but for the grace of the universe or the luck of the draw, Reagan, Ford, Truman, Nixon, Andrew Jackson, both Roosevelts, even George Wallace.
The politics of this nation is steeped enough in blood, Senator Clinton, you cannot and must not invoke that imagery! Anywhere! At any time!
And to not appreciate, immediately - to still not appreciate tonight - just what you have done... is to reveal an incomprehension of the America you seek to lead.
This, Senator, is too much.
Because a senator - a politician - a person - who can let hang in mid-air the prospect that she might just be sticking around in part, just in case the other guy gets shot - has no business being, and no capacity to be, the President of the United States.
It was not long ago that Robert Kennedy Jr. endorsed Hillary Clinton, even cutting a campaign commercial for her. And while his uncle, Teddy Kennedy, and his cousin Caroline backed Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton has expressed her respect and regard for the Kennedys as a whole.
There has been a constant drumbeat of comparisons between Barack Obama and both John and Robert Kennedy, from the family, and from observers who see Obama as a natural bearer of the torch of Camelot.
More darkly, there has been an undercurrent of fear running through the Black community, that Barack Obama, if elected, would not be safe as president. That his communion with the Kennedys might be too close. I know more than a few Black folk, oder mostly, who backed Hillary Clinton because of that fear -- even saying, "I'd rather have him alive than in the White House."
So why ... why in the name of God would Hillary Clinton make a reference to Bobby Kennedy that even subliminally suggested that one reason for her to stay in the race, is that like RFK, Barack Obama might not make it past June? Why would she say anything that could even have been interpreted as such -- whatever she meant -- given the grim news we learned this week about the last remaining brother of the almost royal Kennedy clan? Here, if you can even fathom it, is what Hillary said:
In an interview with the Argus (SD) Leader editorial board today, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, took the unusual step of invoking the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy, D-NY, when discussing reasons why she was staying in the presidential race.
Asked about calls for her to drop out, Clinton said, “This is part of an ongoing effort to end this before it’s over. I sure don’t think it’s over." She mentioned how non-frontrunners took their delegates to the convention in 1980, 1984, 1988, and 1992.
Suggesting that Obama's campaign has been the source of stories about a unity ticket with her as vice president, Clinton said, "people have been trying to push me out of this ever since Iowa."
Clinton was then asked if she doesn't think that those calling for the ticket are actually interested in uniting the party.
"I don’t because I’ve been around long enough," she said. "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know, I don't understand it. And there's lots of speculation about why it is."
Hillary Clinton certainly ended her campaign today. She cannot possibly attract a single new super delegate after what she said in South Dakota. She should pray tonight that she has not also ended her political career.
Hillary has tried to clarify her remarks, insisting she was just referencing her husband's late corralling of the nomination in 1992, and she made a dazed-looking, semi-apology to the Kennedy family, and to anyone "if" she offended them -- though not to Obama -- this afternoon.
That probably won't help.
Because whatever Hillary meant, there simply is no place in politics for associating a candidate with assassination. It simply passes a threshold that Hillary herself lowered when she became the first presidential candidate in modern history to tout white, "hard working white voters" who are voting for her, and not for a black candidate. Hillary has fallen through the floor with this latest comment, and if Rev. Wright is now persona non grata for statements that are arguable, but really not beyond the pale, given what we've subsequently heard from people like John Hagee, how can Hillary continue to campaign after this?
Worse, she has done it before, as the WaPo's Libby Copeland reminds:
In fact, she had used similar, more carefully phrased language back in March, in a Time magazine interview: "Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A. My husband didn't wrap up the nomination in 1992 until June. Having a primary contest go through June is nothing particularly unusual."
The fear of a president or a presidential candidate being shot or assassinated is horrifying precisely because recent history teaches us that it can happen. We don't need anybody to remind us, and we certainly don't need anybody to remind whatever suggestible wackos might be lurking in the shadows.
In the context of Obama, Clinton's words broke a double taboo, because since the beginning of his candidacy, some of Obama's supporters have feared that his race made him more of a target than other presidential hopefuls. Obama was placed under Secret Service protection early, a full year ago. To be unaware that one's words tap into a monumental fear that exists in a portion of the electorate -- a fear that Obama's race could get him killed -- is an unusual mistake for a serious and highly disciplined presidential candidate.
It's surprising, too, because something very similar just happened last week, when Mike Huckabee made a joke at an NRA convention about somebody aiming a gun at Obama. He later apologized and called his remarks "offensive." He also could have called them "instructive" for any politician paying attention.
To translate from Desperate Clinton into English: Senator Obama could be assassinated at any moment, and such an event would represent another -- goddamn, this is awful -- another path to the nomination for her. It's all about her path to the nomination. A possible assassination of Senator Obama. Yep. This is what it's come down to.
Coupled with the well-known, ridiculous and dangerous rumors about Senator Obama, invoking an assassination attempt against him represents a new and ghoulish low for already bottom-feeding campaign.
To date, the Clinton campaign has exploited every despicable tactic and mongered every fear. How much more embarrassment and desperation can she heap upon herself and her party?
Hopefully, not much more.
It's time to go, Hillary. You're losing your bearings, and clearly have begun to fixate on the myriad "bad things" that could theoretically happent to take Obama out of the race. It's becoming obsessive. It's becoming a sad circus act. And it's getting creepy. Stop before you completely destroy yourself.
John Conyers' House Judiciary Committee finally serves Karl Rove, only he says that his former bosses at the White House still won't let him testify. Who knew presidential prerogatives stretched that far? The bottom line:
Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the committee chairman, said the subpoena was necessary because Mr. Rove had explicitly declined an invitation to appear voluntarily. Mr. Conyers and fellow committee Democrats say they want to question Mr. Rove about the dismissals of several federal prosecutors and ask whether he knows anything about the decision to prosecute former Gov. Donald E. Siegelman of Alabama, a Democrat.
Mr. Siegelman, who was convicted on a bribery charge, was released from prison in March pending an appeal after an appeals court ruled that he had raised “substantial questions” about his case.
Mr. Rove’s lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, in a letter to Mr. Conyers this week, said the chairman was “provoking a gratuitous confrontation.” Mr. Luskin asserted that Mr. Rove would not appear because he had been directed not to do so by the White House. Although Mr. Rove has left the White House and is now a political commentator, Mr. Luskin said that Mr. Rove “in these matters is not a free agent” and must comply with instructions from the White House not to testify.
Mr. Conyers has argued that Mr. Rove may not himself invoke any privilege on behalf of the White House but that President Bush could do so.
Mr. Rove’s lawyer also noted that the House committee was engaged in a similar conflict with Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, who has also declined to provide voluntary testimony about the dismissals of the federal prosecutors and has defied a subpoena. That issue has landed in federal court, and Mr. Luskin said the Rove matter should await the resolution of that case.
Mr. Conyers, in a letter to Mr. Luskin on Thursday, said that the request to Mr. Rove was wider than the one to Ms. Miers because it also sought information about the Siegelman prosecution.
Several Democrats have asserted that Mr. Siegelman’s prosecution was encouraged for political reasons by Republicans in Washington. Mr. Siegelman served nine months of a seven-year sentence before being released pending an appeal.
Mr. Rove has denied any role in the Siegelman prosecution in comments to journalists, but Mr. Conyers is seeking to put him under oath. The subpoena demands that Mr. Rove appear before the committee on July 10.
John McCain makes it a two-fer, chucking both Pastors Hagee and Parsely -- his "spiritual adviser," no less -- over the side. So I guess now he's got to pick Huckabee, or risk having all the right wing nutters sit on their hands in November...
Hillary gets called out by one of her own superdelegates:
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - New York Gov. David Paterson, a superdelegate who supports Hillary Rodham Clinton, said she's showing "a little desperation" and should give up her effort to count votes from renegade primaries in Michigan and Florida.
Paterson said Thursday that Clinton shouldn't derail the process by which the national Democratic Party stripped Michigan and Florida of their national convention delegates because they moved their primaries up to January in violation of party rules. The rules were agreed to by all the candidates, including Clinton, before she won the two January contests. Because of the violations, no candidates campaigned in either state and her rival Barack Obama took his name off Michigan's ballot.
"I would say at this point we're starting to see a little desperation on the part of a woman I still support and will support until she makes a different determination," Paterson told WAMC-FM radio. "Candidates have to be cautious in their zeal to win that they don't trample on the process."
Well, he wasn't so bothered by the "God smote New Orleans because of the gays" comments (btw why are the media so surprised at this? It's not like offending gays is going to hurt a guy with Republican voters...) and he let ride the notion of the Catholic Church as "The Great Whore." But Pastor Hagee finally got served the divorce papers by John McCain with the latest nut-ball rant uncovered on the Internets. ABC blogs as follows:
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., this afternoon rejected the endorsement of Pastor John Hagee after a sermon was publicized in which Hagen suggested Adolph Hitler and the Holocaust were caused by God so as to bring about the creation of the state of Israel.
A source close to McCain told ABC News the Arizona senator thinks these sentiments are crazy, and that back in February when the campaign accepted Hagee's endorsement, no one on the campaign, and certainly not McCain, had any idea that Hagee believed these types of things.
“Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them," McCain said in a statement. "I did not know of them before Reverend Hagee's endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well."
Hagee had quoted the book of Jeremiah saying, "Behold I will bring them the Jewish people again unto their land that I gave unto their fathers. Behold I will send for many fishers and after will I send for many hunters. And they the hunters shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks."
Hagee suggested that Hitler as a hunter, and as a result of the Holocaust, Jews had been brought back to the land God gave unto their fathers.
Feel free to enjoy the Hagee nuttery by clicking here.
John McCain erupts over G.I. Billhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
John McCain is a hot head. Most people know that. His reaction today to Barack Obama's criticism of his failure to support the G.I. Bill which passed the Senate today can only be described in two words: ape shit. Observe:
"And I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did," the Arizona senator said in a harshly worded statement issued Thursday.
McCain lashed out at Obama's personal history despite Obama's repeated praise of McCain's military service. As Obama said Tuesday night in Des Moines, Iowa: "We face an opponent, John McCain, who arrived in Washington nearly three decades ago as a Vietnam War hero, and earned an admirable reputation for straight talk and occasional independence from his party."
In fact, that's just a snippet of what was actually an eight-paragraph screed, which is posted on McCain's web-site. A few snippets:
"It is typical, but no less offensive that Senator Obama uses the Senate floor to take cheap shots at an opponent and easy advantage of an issue he has less than zero understanding of. Let me say first in response to Senator Obama, running for President is different than serving as President. The office comes with responsibilities so serious that the occupant can't always take the politically easy route without hurting the country he is sworn to defend. Unlike Senator Obama, my admiration, respect and deep gratitude for America's veterans is something more than a convenient campaign pledge. I think I have earned the right to make that claim. ...
And later, after a curious segway reminding voters that he was very much alive during World War II ... there's this:
""Perhaps, if Senator Obama would take the time and trouble to understand this issue he would learn to debate an honest disagreement respectfully. But, as he always does, he prefers impugning the motives of his opponent, and exploiting a thoughtful difference of opinion to advance his own ambitions. If that is how he would behave as President, the country would regret his election."
It will be interesting to see how the old man's bitter demands for respect from the haughty young ... whippersnapper ... yeah, let's go with that ... will go over on Main Street.
Meanwhile, it's helpful to remember that this is the same John McCain who has stood with George W. Bush, who ducked his National Guard service by going AWOL during the Vietnam War, with Dick "Five Deferments" Cheney, with Joe "More Wars ... but I never served" Lieberman and other chickenhawks time and again as he helped them push the useless war in Iraq, and who stands with the GOP firestarters who slam congressional Democrats -- many more of whom HAVE served their country versus elected Republicans -- as unpatriotic for not me-tooing GWB on the war.
It's also the same John McCain who has, unconscionably, refused to support a G.I. Bill with the kinds of benefits afforded to people like him when he left military service, because in his view, it's too expensive, and might woo servicemen out of repeated tours in Iraq. Too expense? Shouldn't it be that nothing is too expensive for those who have sacrificed so much and received so little in return? Too expensive? When we're draining our treasury to help the Iraqis buy cheap oil and use our soldiers as their policemen? Too expensive? For who, John? You seem prepared to spend every penny of American treasure for Iraq, but not for your fellow soldiers...?
Worse, the response from McCain, whether from him or approved by him, is so over-the-top, so enraged, that it calls into question McCain's mental fitness to serve as commander in chief.
And now, some really important news: did he or didn't he (fart on live TV)
Courtesy of "Best Week Ever," we have the seminal question of this campaign season: did Tim Russert cut a giant fart on live TV? Watch ... and learn ....
Got to lay off the Boston baked beans, Tim. Seriously. The WaPo crowd comments here.
Barack Obama flew back to Washington this morning to cast his "aye" vote on the G.I. Bill, which passed today as part of a $165 billion war funding bill that was, against the president's wishes, married to a domestic spending package. (Score one for Jim Webb and IAVA...)
Says the WaPo:
... The 75-22 vote surprised even the measure's advocates and showed clearly the impact of the looming November election on Republican unity. Senate Republicans who face reelection broke first on the amendment, followed by other Republicans who quickly jumped on board.
It was a clear rebuke to Bush, who has promised to veto any measure that adds domestic spending to his $108 billion request to fund the war. The White House opposed the expanded G.I. Bill, concerned that the price tag was too high and the generous benefits could entice soldiers and Marines to leave the overburdened military rather than reenlist.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, who was in Ft. Bragg, N.C. with Bush, said of the vote: "There's a long way to go in this process, and fortunately it takes two houses of Congress to send a bill to the president. Our position hasn't changed: This is the wrong way to consider domestic spending, and Congress should not go down this path."
The Senate measure extends unemployment benefits for 13 weeks, funds levee construction around New Orleans and guarantees that veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will receive education benefits equal to the tuition of the most expensive state universities.
It provides additional funds for the Food and Drug Administration, the 2010 Census, federal prisons, local law enforcement agencies, heating assistance for the poor and many other domestic priorities. It also blocks the administration from implementing regulations that would limit access to the State Children's Health Insurance Program.
Although parts of the amendment have always enjoyed bipartisan support, the measure has taken on the weight of the presidential campaign in recent weeks. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the presumptive GOP nominee, opposed the domestic spending and advocated a slimmed-down version of the G.I. Bill, adopting the administration's argument that the original version -- authored by Sens. James Webb (D-Va.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) -- would deplete the military.
In so doing, McCain went against virtually every veterans organization, from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion to the more partisan VoteVets.org.
McCain did not interrupt his campaign schedule to vote today, but his Democratic rivals, Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), did.
"I respect Senator John McCain's service to our country," Obama said. "But I can't understand why he would line up behind the president in opposition to this G.I. Bill. I can't believe why he believes it is too generous to our veterans."
So who were the 22 Senators who voted against the bill? My money's on Traitor Joe and Miss Lindsey being in that number. Let's take a look-see:
Well I'll be damned! Lieberman surprised me this time, although his favorite little warmonger didn't even bother to show up and vote. Way to show that courage, McCain... And with the other AZ Republican Senator voting down veteran's benefits (the vote you'd have to assume McCain would have cast, had he had the cojones to show up), you've got to wonder what Arizona's veterans and active duty troops think of their present leadership. Could it be time to revive the question, Senator, "when and why did you sell your soul?"
Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, (a/k/a Mika's dad) is on "Morning Joe" scaring the bejeezus out of everyone. He has posited the notion of America as a "gated community," totally isolated from the world, if John McCain becomes president. Brzezinksi, who was Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor, reminded the panel that McCain's principle foreign policy adviser, Joe Lieberman, is "advocating World War IV against the world of Islam," that, as CNBC's Erin Burnett reported, much of the world is "organizing itself" separate from, and in many ways, against the U.S., and that President Bush recently went to the Saudis to "beg for oil in private, and insult them in public," by giving a speech in which he stated that the common practice in the Mideast is to have a dictator in power and the opposition in jail. And of course, he was politely rebuffed.
But here's why the meetings probably don't matter, unless they're actually a camouflage for just meeting with Mitt.
Jindal: too new, and too obvious a play for the minority visual vs. Obama. Can't you just see the 527 fliers from some right wing racist organization asking if Jindal is the REAL father of John McCain's adopted, brown daughter?
Crist: too liberal, in the eyes of many Republicans, McCain doesn't really need him to carry Florida, and let's keep it real, the gay rumors may have blown over in the sunshine state, but that dog won't hunt in other red states, where a handy flier touting the single guv's possibly alternative lifestyle will freak out the Christian right (especially the closeted ones.)
Romney, of course, is another matter. His father was god-like in Michigan, so the Romney name could help McCain poach that state. And Romney, because of his business and Olympic background, brings McCain the economic conversance that he himself clearly lacks. Downside: Romney comes across as a pompaded phony, and that's not exactly helpful to a campaign whose "straight talk express" is already running on the rails, pushed overboard by lobbyists, flip-flops and Mac's total incoherence on the Middle East.
So maybe the other two meetings are about solidifying those two semi-swing states (Louisiana and Florida) and a McCain pitch for Jindal and Crist to open up their fundraising files. Other than that, when it comes to running mates, don't hold your breath, at least not for those two.
Meanwhile, Hot Air asks, "what, no Huck?" and reports that of course, The Entourage (Traitor Joe and Miss Lindsey) will be there, too ... in case Mac needs a back rub. The missus is way to rich for that kind of thing.
I love the way the mainstream media (perhaps more correctly termed the "corporate media," gets an eyeful of the New York Times and suddenly, spins on a dime. Don't know if you caught Norah O'Donnell's act tonight on MSNBC, but she was spinning out of control, walking back from weeks of political race-baiting during her ever stranger primary night impersonation of Frank Luntz (this week in a black cocktail dress and way too formal necklace, no less...) Suddenly, after apparently reading this piece in the New York Times (as it seems everybody in punditland did today,) she discovers that wait! West Virginia white voters aren't RACIST ... they're REPUBLICANS!
So what did the Times say that has so many pundit heads exploding?
...Consider the media shorthand for both Kentucky and West Virginia, where Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama by huge margins. These are hard-working, real Americans, the Clinton camp says, and a Democrat can’t win without them.
In fact, both West Virginia and Kentucky have gone against the national tide of the last 8 years and have been trending Republican. Also – and this needs to be said – a significant percentage of the voters in both those states have now indicated that they may not vote for a fellow Democrat simply because he’s black.
Pollsters know that people lie about race; voters rarely come out and say they will not vote for someone because he’s black. Instead, they say things like we’re hearing from West Virginia and Kentucky – that “race is a factor.”
In Kentucky, over 25 percent of Clinton supporters said race was a factor in their vote – about five times the national average for such a question. Clinton, if she really wanted to do something lasting, could ask her supporters why the color of a fellow Democrat’s skin is so important to their vote.
Now, consider the argument that a Democrat needs these states. In 2000, George Bush won West Virginia 52 to 46 percent. Four years later, he’d increased his margin to 56-43.
In Kentucky, Bush won 57-41 in 2000, and padded that to 60-40 four years later.
Appalachia, we now know, is Clinton’s heartland – but it does not resemble the Democratic landscape. If these are Democratic states, there’s some strange serum in the local brew at party headquarters.
On to Oregon, where Obama won by double digits. A bunch of chai tea sipping elitists, with zero body fat, living in hip lofts while working at Nike, yes? No. Well, they do like running, and tea. Oregon is one of the nation’s whitest states – just under 2 percent of residents are black – but rich it is not. The state is below the national average in both per capita income and median household income.
This suggests that Obama doesn’t have a white working class problem so much as a regional problem, in a place where Democrats won’t win anyway. ...
Now think ... how many times this afternoon and tonight did you hear a cable talker use the phrase, "Obama doesn't have a white working class problem, he's got a regional problem...?" I'll count them for you: Norah O, David Gregory, Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann are just four of the analysts who came up with that ephiphany tonight.
Do tell. You mean the third of white voters who indicated THEMSELVES that they are in actuality, McCain voters just participating in the Democratic primary to vote down the black guy won't vote for Barack in the fall any more than they supported him in the spring? REALLY? And Hillary, after all her pandering and stroking "hard working white folk" may not be turning out white Democrats, but rather, McCain voters, in the primary?
Well I'll be a unicorn's horse shoe.
And white people who aren't self-described racists WILL vote for Obama, even though he isn't entirely white? But ... if the media can't keep obsessing over racial voting ... I suppose we'll just have to hear about CLASS and REGIONAL voting bias FOR THE REST OF THE CAMPAIGN...
So .... um .... John McCain's prized endorser, Pastor John Hagee, thinks Adolph Hitler was a hunter, sent by God ... you know what? Why don't you just read it yourself:
John Hagee, the controversial evangelical leader and endorser of Sen. John McCain, argued in a late 1990s sermon that the Nazis had operated on God's behalf to chase the Jews from Europe and shepherd them to Palestine. According to the Reverend, Adolph Hitler was a "hunter," sent by God, who was tasked with expediting God's will of having the Jews re-establish a state of Israel.
Going in and out of biblical verse, Hagee preached: "'And they the hunters should hunt them,' that will be the Jews. 'From every mountain and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks.' If that doesn't describe what Hitler did in the holocaust you can't see that."
He goes on: "Theodore Hertzel is the father of Zionism. He was a Jew who at the turn of the 19th century said, this land is our land, God wants us to live there. So he went to the Jews of Europe and said 'I want you to come and join me in the land of Israel.' So few went that Hertzel went into depression. Those who came founded Israel; those who did not went through the hell of the holocaust.
"Then god sent a hunter. A hunter is someone with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter. And the Bible says -- Jeremiah writing -- 'They shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and from the holes of the rocks,' meaning there's no place to hide. And that might be offensive to some people but don't let your heart be offended. I didn't write it, Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel."
Yeah. The HuffPo has the audio, too. Can't wait that long? Here you go.
So John, care to re-visit not repudiating the endorsement you worked so hard to get?
"In Florida, you learned the hard way what happens when your votes aren't counted and the candidate with fewer votes is declared the winner," she said. "The lesson of 2000 here in Florida is crystal clear: if any votes aren't count, the will of the people isn't realized and our democracy is diminished."
Clinton, at times sounding like a modern history professor, praised the abolitionists, suffragettes and civil rights pioneers and talked about her own efforts to fight legislative redistricting and voter identification initiatives that she said dilute minority voting power.
"This work to extend the franchise to all of our citizens is a core mission of the modern Democratic party," she said. "From signing the Voting Rights Act and fighting racial discrimination at the ballot box to lowering the voting age so those old enough to fight and die in war would have the right to choose their commander in chief, to fighting for multi-lingual ballots so you can make your voice heard no matter what language you speak."
Yes, yes, and the Democratic primary is just like World War I and World War II and the American Revolution and you're exactly like Lady MacBeth ...! ... okay you might not want to use that last part...
A tale of two campaigns: rumble in the sunshine state
A day after John McCain held his panderfest at the Versailles restaurant in Miami (for those not from South Florida, Versailles is where the old Cuban heads hang out and kvetch about Fidel Castro, and how they coulda, shoulda, and woulda deposed him if not for those darned Kennedys...) Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama barnstormed Florida today, and with very, very different vibes. First, Mrs. Clinton:
She spoke to about 800 "seasoned folk" at the Century Village retirement complex in Boca. An unfortunate paragraph from the Sun-Sentinel article:
Clinton added a new wrinkle to her argument: Not only should Florida's vote count - but all of the state's 210 delegates should be seated according to the results that gave her a 17-percentage point victory.
Did they have to mention wrinkles???
Meanwhile, Barack Obama spoke to the LARGEST CROWD EVER in the state, in of all places, Republican-leaning Tampa. The Miami Herald's Beth Reinhard does the honors:
How does a presidential candidate make up for snubbing, disparaging and being downright rude to the nation's largest battleground state for nine long months? If you're Barack Obama, you do it with the largest campaign event ever in the state of Florida -- a sold-out rally at a hockey arena with more than 15,000 people.
''It's good to be back in Florida,'' Obama told the rowdy crowd, which didn't want to sit down or shut up. ``I know you guys have been holding down the fort.''
Hey, Beth, what's with the snubbing and disparaging? I don't remember Barack doing any of that...
Anyhoo, the contrast, you might say, is striking.
And look for Barack to beat the Tampa crowd record when he comes to Broward on Friday. The BankAtlantic Center arena in Sunrise holds more than 20,000 people.
St. John the Self-Righteous catches hell from the lobbyists who bailed him out when he needed them most (and who have been running and financing his campaign) ... because now, he's bailing on them.
Obama, Clinton score a split, Clinton still out of contention (four months running)
Hillary wins Kentucky by 30 plus points, but Obama's win in Oregon will put him over the 50 percent plus one delegate threshold. News flash: Pat Buchanan says Oregon really doesn't count because the white people of Kentucky are the real Americans.
It's official. Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy is suffering from a malignant brain tumor. Kennedy is the last man standing in the generation of his family that brought us Camelot, and "Bobby." He was the baby of the family, having lost each of his older siblings one by one, in more and more terrifying fashion. Kennedy is father not just to his own children, but to his brothers' Jack and Robert's children as well. He is also, as has been said so many times, a lion of American politics. This is, then, no time for politics. (Right and left, for once, agree. though I wonder if the Wizbangers and others on the right who have been so cruel to Kennedy over the years, will observe the truce for long.)
In any event, God speed to the Senator, and God bless his family.
MSNBC is reporting that the senior Senator from Massachusetts, and the pater familias of the Kennedy family, has been diagnosed with a brain tumor, specifically a "glioma," which was the apparent cause of his seizure. The common treatment is radiation and chemotherapy, and apparently, it is a very serious, fast-spreading type of cancer.
All of our prayers should be with the Senator and his family today. |
With St. John in Miami today, it seems like as good a time as any for this Salon flashback. (The Iseman in the clip is Vicki Iseman, the blonde lobbyist McCain's aides once worried he was getting much to close to, as reported earlier this year in the New York Times...)
... Eight years ago, when McCain's connection with Iseman alarmed his staffers, the most lucrative lobbying contracts won by Alcalde & Fay were with the cruise ship industry. In 2001 alone, Iseman's firm received well over a million dollars from passenger ship companies and interest groups, which include local port authorities in Florida as well as companies such asCarnival Cruises. That year, the International Council of Cruise Lines paid Alcalde & Fay a fee of $990,600, by far the largest amount from a single interest that the firm has earned during the past decade. Iseman herself is a longtime registered lobbyist for Carnival.
It may be just a coincidence that around the same time, McCain became a dedicated sponsor of bills to deregulate the cruise and passenger ship industries, which have been hobbled for decades by protectionism and national security laws. Year after year, he promoted legislation that would have permitted greater freedom for foreign-flag cruise ships to operate in U.S. coastal waters, even while he occasionally scolded the cruise operators for persistent safety problems on their boats. During those years, he became known as the best friend of the port authorities, cruise lines and others seeking to rewrite laws dating back to 1886 that protect American ships from foreign competition.
Welcome back, John. And bon voyage!
And Johnny Mac's lobbyists friends have other Florida ties, including ties to Univision, which will no doubt give glowing coverage to his pandering speech on Cuba today.
UPDATE: Meet all of John McCain's lobbyist friends here.
John McCain is in Miami today, giving a speech right now that panders in the most blatant fashion to Cuban-Americans who remain obsessed with Fidel Castro. McCain went after Barack Obama for supposedly calling for unconditional meetings with Raul Castro, and he pledged to keep the embargo going if he becomes president. What's remarkable is how determined McCain appears to be to cleave to George W. Bush's hardline policies, and I suspect that his audience probably shares his age demographic. (Note to McCain, younger Cuban-Americans favor easing the embargo, particularly as regards remittances and family visitation.)
McCain did some chearleading for the failed free trade agreement with Colombia, which can't help him out with economically struggling middle class voters, who despise free trade. He did throw a bone to Hispanic voters who aren't Cuban, accusing the U.S. (and by implication, the Bush administration,) of "treating Latin America like a little brother, rather than an equal." As president, he would change that, I take it, while extending the kind of free trade that has driven America's industrial basin into a ditch.
And McCain has driven himself right into the middle of very complex Cuban-American politics in Miami, and in Florida, where the Cuban stranglehold on U.S. policy isn't exactly popular outside the Miami city limits. Meanwhile, where will South Florida's Democratic congresspeople be hiding today, since two of the most prominent, Kendrick Meek and Debbie Wasserman Shultz, have refused to campaign for the three Democrats who hope to replace the Cuba-fanatic trio of Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers, whose family grudge with the Castro brothers has helped to grind U.S. policy in the region to a halt. Do they ... the Dems, I mean ... endorse McCain on this one?
Is Geraldine Ferraro the angriest broad in America? Yes, yes yes yes yes. Appearing on "Today" this morning, Gerry reiterated just how terribly sexist Barack Obama and the media and everybody else who won't Hillary Clinton be the nominee without winning enough pledged delegates is.
If this is what menopause looks like, count me out.
Perhaps the most poignant endorsement so far comes from West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, a Klansman in his youth, and a supporter of a black candidate for president, today.
Ben Smith has the news, and a stirring passage from Barack Obama's autobiography about his first time meeting Byrd, whom right wingers caricature, but who renounced his ties to his racist past long ago, and whose rempentance should be no less accepted than any other sinner's. Byrd's endorsement has heavy symbolism, not for politics, but for this country.
Both the New York Times and Washington Post have stories today about the dejection and bitterness engulfing some Hillary Clinton supporters who saw her candidacy as a triumph of feminism, and now see its defeat as evidence of the scourge of sexism.
“Women felt this was their time, and this has been stolen from them,” said Marilu Sochor, 48, a real estate agent in Columbus, Ohio, and a Clinton supporter. “Sexism has played a really big role in the race.”
Not everyone agrees. “When people look at the arc of the campaign, it will be seen that being a woman, in the end, was not a detriment and if anything it was a help to her,” the presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin said in an interview. Mrs. Clinton’s campaign is faltering, she added, because of “strategic, tactical things that have nothing to do with her being a woman.”
As a former first lady whose political career evolved from her husband’s, Mrs. Clinton was always an imperfect test case for female achievement — “somebody’s wife,” as Elaine Kamarck, a professor of government at Harvard and a Clinton supporter, described her.
Still, many credit Mrs. Clinton with laying down a new marker for what a woman can accomplish in a campaign — raising over $170 million, frequently winning more favorable reviews on debate performances than her male rivals, rallying older women, and persuading white male voters who were never expected to support her.
“She’s raised this whole woman candidate thing to a whole different level than when I ran,” said Geraldine Ferraro, a Clinton supporter and the first woman to be the vice-presidential nominee of a major party, contrasting her own brief stint as a running mate in 1984 with Mrs. Clinton’s 17-month-and-counting slog.
Ms. Goodwin and others say Mrs. Clinton was able to convert the sexism she faced on the trail into votes and donations, extending the life of a candidacy that suffered a serious blow at the Iowa caucuses. Like so many women before, she was heckled (in New Hampshire, a few men told her to iron their shirts) and called nasty names (“How do we beat the bitch?” Senator John McCain was asked at one campaign event).
But the response may have been more powerful than the injury. In the days after Mrs. Clinton was criticized for misting up on the campaign trail, she won the New Hampshire primary and drew a wave of donations, many from women expressing indignation about how she had been treated.
And Mrs. Clinton seemed to channel the lives of regular women, who often saw her as an avenging angel. Take Judith Henry, 67, for whom Mrs. Clinton’s primary losses stirred decades-old memories of working at a phone company where women were not allowed to hold management positions. “They always gave us the clerical jobs and told us we didn’t have families to support,” she said. At a rally last month in Bloomington, Ind., she sat with her daughter Susan Henry, 45, a warehouse worker, who complained that her male colleagues did less work and made more money than the women did.
Decades after the dissolution of movement feminism, Mrs. Clinton’s events and donor lists filled with women who had experienced insult or isolation on the job. Moitri Chowdhury Savard, 36, a doctor in Queens, was once asked by a supervisor why she was not home cooking for her husband; Liz Kuoppala, 37, of Eveleth, Minn., worked as the only woman in her mining crew and is now the only woman on the City Council.
Ms. Kamarck, 57, the Harvard professor and a longtime adviser to Democratic candidates, said she was still incredulous about the time her colleagues on Walter F. Mondale’s presidential campaign, all men, left for lunch without inviting her — because, she later discovered, they were headed to a strip club.
In that piece, Geraldine Ferraro, perhaps the most bitter woman I've ever witnessed in public life, indicates that she might not vote for Barack in the fall:
Some even accuse Mr. Obama of chauvinism, pointing to the time he called Mrs. Clinton “likeable enough” as evidence of dismissiveness. Nancy Wait, 55, a social worker in Columbia City, Ind., said Mr. Obama was far less qualified than Mrs. Clinton and described as condescending his recent assurances that Mrs. Clinton should stay in the race as long as she liked. Ms. Wait said she would “absolutely, positively not” vote for him come fall.
Ms. Ferraro, who clashed with the Obama campaign about whether she made a racially offensive remark, said she might not either. “I think Obama was terribly sexist,” she said.
Cynthia Ruccia, 55, a sales director for Mary Kay cosmetics in Columbus, Ohio, is organizing a group, Clinton Supporters Count Too, of mostly women in swing states who plan to campaign against Mr. Obama in November. “We, the most loyal constituency, are being told to sit down, shut up and get to the back of the bus,” she said.
The "likable enough" comment comes up in the WaPo article too:
Lifelong Democrat Kathleen Cowley watches with disdain as huge crowds hang on Sen. Barack Obama's every word. She dismisses Obama's "intolerable logic." She turns the channel on pundits who chalk up Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's primary victories to little more than racism. And she doesn't much care for the notion that while Obama is fresh and inspiring, Clinton is, by implication, old and mean.
"There's just been an attitude that if you aren't voting for Barack Obama, then you're a racist," said Cowley, 49, a mother of four from Massachusetts who has vowed to never back the senator from Illinois. "I just find that intolerable. I feel like when the members of the media talk about how [Obama's supporters] would react, they say, 'Well, we can't take the vote away from African Americans.' Well, excuse me, there's a higher percentage of women."
A Democratic race that a couple of months ago was celebrated as a march toward history -- the chance to nominate the nation's first woman or African American as a major-party candidate -- threatens to leave lingering bitterness, especially among Clinton supporters, whose candidate is running out of ways to win.
Some women, like Cowley, complain that Clinton has been disrespected and mistreated by the media and the political establishment. Many see Obama as equally condescending, dismissing Clinton's foreign policy role as first lady, pulling out her chair for her at debates and suggesting offhand during one debate that she was "likable enough."
"The sexist crap that comes out of people's mouths is really scary to me," said Amilyn Lanning, 38, a Zionsville, Pa., voter who supported Clinton in last month's primary. "There's a lot of the b-word being thrown about, even in jest by comedians. There's a lot of comments made about her pantsuits, and the way she dresses. There's a viciousness."
The Washington Post piece points out that the bitterness over the campaign runs both ways, with African-Americans resenting HRC's camp as much as some of her older white women resent him.
Odds are, most of Hillary's millions will return to the Democrats come November. It's hard to imagine these same feminists, for whom gender was so central to the campaign, rolling up their sleeves and voting for an old, white man who opposes abortion, for president. Wouldn't that be affirming everything they claim to oppose?
Meanwhile, the Clinton Agonistes are causing one hell of a schizm at NARAL:
With the clock running down on a long-fought primary, NARAL Pro-Choice America leaders sent state affiliates reeling this week by endorsing Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois. It was seen as a gratuitous slap in the face to a longtime ally, and it sparked a fear even closer to home: that the move will alienate donors loyal to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.
Many on this week’s conference call were stunned on learning the news, making urgent pleas for the group to remain neutral until after the June 3 Democratic primaries.
“It’s created a firestorm,” said NARAL Pro-Choice New York President Kelli Conlin, who was on the conference call. “Everyone was mystified ... saying, ‘What is the upside for the organization? And, frankly, [there was] a lot of concern about the donor base. ... There was real concern there would be a backlash.” There was a backlash, and it was swift, starting with NARAL’s own website. At last count, there were more than 3,300 comments in an electronic chat about the endorsement, the overwhelming majority of them negative. “Shame shame shame!” read one, with many correspondents threatening never to support NARAL financially again. “No more donations from me!!!” wrote another.
In Washington, two dozen women members of Congress who support Clinton held a quickly organized press conference to tout her abortion-rights record Wednesday night. Ellen Malcolm, founder of the abortion-rights women’s fundraising group EMILY’s List, sharply rebuked NARAL for its endorsement. Two former members of Congress (and Clinton supporters) — Geraldine Ferraro and Pat Schroeder — jabbed at NARAL for endorsing before the general election. “Looks like some higher ups at NARAL are trying to get jobs in the new administration ... nothing else makes sense to us,” they wrote in a joint letter.
MSNBC has the latest on Senator Edward Kennedy's condition. Apparently, he suffered a seizure, but not a stroke. He's resting comfortably at MassGen in Boston.
Fox News scrapes the bottom of the barrel ... again
Yet another reason to dismiss Fox News from the ranks of serious journalism: this afternoon, I was scanning through the cable channels for updates on Sen. Ted Kennedy's hospitalization. I happened to pause on Fox News Channel, and caught a few minutes of their coverage. Only on Fox would the news be about politicial reactions the Senator's hospitalization (they were about to introduce Trent Lott), but the crawl be about ... you guessed it ... Chappaquiddick. The right is so dispicable, so callous, that's all they can think of when they think of Ted Kennedy, and they feel the need to remind their idiot minions about it at every opportunity, lest one of the flock break out of the pen and grow a mind of their own.
Fox News staff: you should be embarrased. Of course, if you were capable of embarassment, you wouldn't be working at Fox News...
Barack Obama took on an unpopular president, and won, and thanks to John McCain and George W. Bush's combined stupidity, he was able to lash the two men together in history, and elevate himself to the presidential pillar.
Confronting a major challenge to his world view, Mr. Obama tried to turn the tables on his critics, saying they were guilty of “bluster” and “dishonest, divisive” tactics. He cited a litany of what he called foreign policy blunders by the Bush administration and accused Mr. McCain, the presumed Republican nominee, of “doubling down” on them.
“George Bush and John McCain have a lot to answer for,” Mr. Obama said at a midday forum here, listing the Iraq war, the strengthening of Iran and groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, Osama bin Laden’s being still at large and stalled diplomacy in other parts of the Middle East among their chief failings.
“If George Bush and John McCain want to have a debate about protecting the United States of America,” Mr. Obama said, “that is a debate I am happy to have any time, any place.”
His defiance and disdain for Mr. Bush’s record appeared to be a signal that he will push back against efforts to define him or his record as weak on terror or accommodating to foreign foes, a strategy Republicans used successfully against Senator John Kerry in 2004.
The appearance also signaled that the campaigns are pivoting swiftly toward the general election, with the two sides already in full attack mode.
Consistently throughout his comments about foreign policy, Mr. Obama yoked Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain as one entity, mentioning their names in the same sentence 10 times in barely 10 minutes. He portrayed them as being not only inflexible, but also “naïve and irresponsible,” the characteristics they ascribe to him.
The remarks were made a day after Mr. Bush, addressing the Israeli Parliament, spoke of what he called a tendency toward “appeasement” in some quarters of the West, similar to that shown to the Nazis before the invasion of Poland.
Mr. Bush also said he rejected negotiations with “terrorists and radicals,” implying that Democrats favored such a position. Mr. Obama said he found the remarks offensive.
“After almost eight years, I did not think I could be surprised by anything that George Bush says,” Mr. Obama said, criticizing Mr. Bush for raising an internal issue on foreign soil. “But I was wrong.”
Mr. McCain endorsed Mr. Bush’s remarks, saying, “The president is exactly right,” and adding that Mr. Obama “needs to explain why he is willing to sit down and talk” with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran.
Mr. Obama at first joked that he wanted to respond to “a little foreign policy dustup yesterday.” But he quickly made it clear that he regarded the exchange as anything but funny, criticizing Mr. Bush and saying Mr. McCain “still hasn’t spelled out one substantial way in which he’d be different from George Bush’s foreign policy.”
“In the Bush-McCain world view, everyone who disagrees with their failed Iran policy is an appeaser,” Mr. Obama said.
Mr. McCain’s campaign answered quickly and sharply on Friday. A spokesman, Tucker Bounds, called the remarks a “hysterical diatribe in response to a speech in which his name wasn’t even mentioned.” ...
So the best they've got is "hey, he wasn't even talking about you!"
Just a few hours after the story broke, Mike Huckabee apologizes for his tasteless gun joke.
LOUISVILLE, Ky., May 16 (UPI) -- Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee Friday apologized for telling an audience of gun rights supporters an offstage noise was Barack Obama ducking a gunman. ...
... Huckabee late Friday issued a statement apologizing for the remark, The New York Times reported.
"I made an off hand remark that was in no way intended to offend or disparage Sen. Obama," the statement said. "I apologize that my comments were offensive. That was never my intention."
I really like Mike Huckabee, which is why stories like this one are so disconcerting:
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Republican Mike Huckabee responded to an offstage noise during his speech to the National Rifle Association by suggesting it was Barack Obama diving to the floor because someone had aimed a gun at him.
Hearing a loud noise and interrupting his speech, Huckabee said: "That was Barack Obama. He just tripped off a chair. He's getting ready to speak and somebody aimed a gun at him and he — he dove for the floor."
There were only a few murmurs in the crowd after the remark.
Here's the video:
And he just HAD to wrap by saying that "the future of our democracy depends on people who understand that policy cannot act in a moral vacuum."
I'm assuming Reverend Huckabee, who remains an ordained minister, I must remind folks, will clarify his remarks, and apologize. He seems like too good of a guy to really mean what this seems to mean. It's just way too RFK circa 1968, Huck. Not cute.
Talk about appeasement. George W. Bush gave Osama bin Laden what he was demanding when he pulled U.S. troops out of Saudi Arabia after 9/11. Now, he goes with hat in hand to the Saudis, who supposedly adore him, to plead for higher oil production in order to deflate gas prices before the summertime drive pushes his approval ratings into the teens. So what do the Saudis say?
(CBS/AP) President Bush's second stab this year at getting oil-rich Saudi Arabia to increase production and drive down the soaring gasoline prices hurting U.S. consumers appears to have again failed.
Saudi Arabian leaders made clear Friday they see no reason to increase oil production until their customers demand it, apparently rebuffing Mr. Bush, the White House said.
During Mr. Bush's second personal appeal this year to King Abdullah, Saudi officials stuck to their position that they are already meeting demand, the president's national security adviser told reporters.
"What they're saying to us is ... Saudi Arabia does not have customers that are making requests for oil that they are not able to satisfy," Stephen Hadley said on a day when oil prices topped $127 a barrel, a record high.
Maybe he could give them part of Czechoslovakia...?
Remember the Lying Guy on Saturday Night Live? The White House is channeling him with a pathetic denial on Bush's un-American remarks in Israel:
"We did not anticipate that it would be taken that way, because its kind of hard to take it that way when you look at the actual words. ... There was some anticipation that someone might say you know its an expression of rebuke to former President Carter for having met with Hamas. that was something that was anticipated but no one wrote about it or raised it."
Yeah, Ed Gillespie ... Jimmy Carter ... that's the ticket...
John McCain is going to be Hamas' worst nightmare if elected ... if by nightmare you mean boring them to death while negotiating with them...
...given his own position on Hamas, McCain is the last politician who should be attacking Obama. Two years ago, just after Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections, I interviewed McCain for the British network Sky News's "World News Tonight" program. Here is the crucial part of our exchange:
I asked: "Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?"
McCain answered: "They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it's a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that."
... Given that exchange, the new John McCain might say that Hamas should be rooting for the old John McCain to win the presidential election. The old John McCain, it appears, was ready to do business with a Hamas-led government, while both Clinton and Obama have said that Hamas must change its policies toward Israel and terrorism before it can have diplomatic relations with the United States.
Chris Matthews is really showing me something lately. On Tuesday, he schooled Pat Buchanan on the subject of white racial voting versus black racial voting (updated Youtube):
And today, he shellacked some pathetic right wing talk radio guy named Kevin Madden, who clearly doesn't understand the meaning of the word "appeasement." Watch:
The rather grand Peggy Noonan is out with another column. Here's an excerpt:
The Democrats aren't the ones falling apart, the Republicans are. The Democrats can see daylight ahead. For all their fractious fighting, they're finally resolving their central drama. Hillary Clinton will leave, and Barack Obama will deliver a stirring acceptance speech. Then hand-to-hand in the general, where they see their guy triumphing. You see it when you talk to them: They're busy being born.
The Republicans? Busy dying. The brightest of them see no immediate light. They're frozen, not like a deer in the headlights but a deer in the darkness, his ears stiff at the sound. Crunch. Twig. Hunting party.
The headline Wednesday on Drudge, from Politico, said, "Republicans Stunned by Loss in Mississippi." It was about the eight-point drubbing the Democrat gave the Republican in the special House election. My first thought was: You have to be stupid to be stunned by that. Second thought: Most party leaders in Washington are stupid – detached, played out, stuck in the wisdom they learned when they were coming up, in '78 or '82 or '94. Whatever they learned then, they think pertains now. In politics especially, the first lesson sticks. For Richard Nixon, everything came back to Alger Hiss.
They are also – Hill leaders, lobbyists, party speakers – successful, well-connected, busy and rich. They never guessed, back in '86, how government would pay off! They didn't know they'd stay! They came to make a difference and wound up with their butts in the butter. But affluence detaches, and in time skews thinking. It gives you the illusion you're safe, and that everyone else is. A party can lose its gut this way. ...
You really should read the whole thing. I don't agree with her ideologically, but the woman is brilliant.
One more telling clip from her column:
But this week a House Republican said publicly what many say privately, that there is another truth. "Members and pundits . . . fail to understand the deep seated antipathy toward the president, the war, gas prices, the economy, foreclosures," said Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia in a 20-page memo to House GOP leaders.
The party, Mr. Davis told me, is "an airplane flying right into a mountain." Analyses of its predicament reflect an "investment in the Bush presidency," but "the public has just moved so far past that." "Our leaders go up to the second floor of the White House and they get a case of White House-itis." Mr. Bush has left the party at a disadvantage in terms of communications: "He can't articulate. The only asset we have now is the big microphone, and he swallowed it."
Gulp. And yet they trod along behind him, exhibiting, in Noonan's words, "not leadership, but followership." That's the essential GOP problem. They have become so authoritarian in their mindset that, so long as he keeps fattening them up and enriching the corporate friends who feed them the lard, they will follow their leader, even off the cliff.
Analyses of John McCain's Ohio speech in which he painted a rosy, gauzy picture of the Nirvana that America would become after a single McCain term as president, are in. And the verdict is: dud. First, from the Asia Times' Jim Lobe:
In separate speeches delivered an ocean apart, the two standard bearers of the United States Republican Party on Thursday offered rosy visions of a future designed to gladden the hearts of Israel-centered neo-conservatives without offering any details about how their dreams will be achieved.
... Indeed, Thursday's speeches served to underline how powerful and durable the neo-conservative vision of the world, particularly for the Middle East, remains, at least for the Republican Party, and how likely it would be that a president McCain would "stay the course" set by Bush.
Of course Senator McCain should strive to reach his goals. But there is a surprising lack of realism to this speech — particularly given that if elected, McCain will likely confront a Congress that is more Democratic and more liberal than even the one now, and which will fight McCain on almost every front. ... and of course life is too complex, with too many variables and contingencies, to declare with any degree of confidence what America will look like in January 2013. Consider that if George W. Bush had given such a speech in May 2000, sketching out what the world would look like four years later, no mention would have been made of al-Qaeda, Afghanistan, or probably Iraq. Most of the focus would have been on domestic issues.
For all I know, the conceit of the speech might work. The approach is certainly intriguing, and even original. And it’ll probably get attention, which may be among its chief selling point. But my initial reaction is it doesn’t work, at least for me — perhaps because the speech seemed to cut against one of McCain’s more impressive qualities, which is that he is a grounded, clear-eyed, realistic man, not given to wishful thinking. [emphasis added]
And from longtime McCain aficionado Leslie Gelb, comes this less gentle critique:
"I think John McCain has been one of the most important voices on national security policy for many years now," said Leslie Gelb, a former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, who described the speech as "almost in la-la land."
"It is unsupported generalizations and predictions that he would have scoffed at as the old John McCain," Gelb said.
Some blog conservatives are wondering where the panders to their side were in the speech. Says Reverse Vampyr:
Personally, I’m still waiting for him to “reach across the aisle” to conservatives!
The man who tells many wingers precisely what to think, Rush Limbaugh, had this to say on his show yesterday about the motives behind McCain's Columbus dreaming:
I think Senator McCain's going to have trouble defining who he is because he's trying to become all things to most people. He doesn't really have a consistent worldview.
He doesn't have a reasoned approach to governance, which is why he can reject national health care but embrace global warming -- and while embracing global warming, talk about ending earmarks and having tax cuts and getting rid of Big Government. "Yep, we gotta get rid of Big Government," then we're going to do the global warming plan, which is one of the fastest, surest ways to government growth to come down the pike in a while. I don't think he expects to have any coattails, either. He's not seeking to have any coattails. He's out there running on his own. The New York Times today says that McCain's guy is going to run against Bush, is going to run against Congress. Running as a maverick, running as an independent, not running as the head of a team. His entire strategy is make sure the quarterback gets protected. The rest of you guys can blow out your ACLs, but you gotta protect the quarterback.
So who originally said the now infamous quote, "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided," used by George W. Bush to, in unprecedented fashion, to attack a political opponent and fellow American on foreign soil?
It was Senator William E. Borah, Conservative/isolationist Republican out of Ohio, and an opponent of U.S. entry into World War II, and he said it in 1939.
“John McCain supports the right of the people of California to recognize marriage as a unique institution sanctioning the union between a man and a woman, just as he did in his home state of Arizona. John McCain doesn’t believe judges should be making these decisions.”
Obama's campaign also noted, in a different way, their candidate's view that states should decide. What Obama didn't say is that he's opposed to gay marriage (note the phraseology of first sentence)
Barack Obama has always believed that same-sex couples should enjoy equal rights under the law, and he will continue to fight for civil unions as President. He respects the decision of the California Supreme Court, and continues to believe that states should make their own decisions when it comes to the issue of marriage.
Pelosi said she would "encourage California citizens to respect the court’s decision, and I continue to strongly oppose any ballot measure that would write discrimination into the state constitution. Today is a significant milestone for which all Californians can take pride."
House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) is the first Republican leader out with a statement, saying "this ruling effectively opens the door to allowing the opinion of this state’s court on same-sex marriage to stand as the law of the land for the entire country."
In his full statement, Blunt uses the phrase "unelected judges" twice, which is a message to the conservative base that more right-leaning judges should be nominated should John McCain be elected president.
Joe Biden makes it plain regarding President Bush's un-American conduct in Israel:
Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), piling on to Democratic complaints about President Bush’s speech in Israel today:
“This is bullshit, this is malarkey. This is outrageous, for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, to sit in the Knesset ... and make this kind of ridiculous statement.”
Speaking before the Knesset, Bush said that “some people” believe the United States “should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along."
"We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."
Democrats have interpreted the comments as an attack on Sen. Barack Obama, and Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the president was out of line.
“He is the guy who has weakened us,” he said. “He has increased the number of terrorists in the world. It is his policies that have produced this vulnerability that the U.S. has. It’s his [own] intelligence community [that] has pointed this out, not me.”
Biden noted that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have both suggested that the United States ought to find a way to talk more with its enemies.
"If he thinks this is appeasement, is he going to come back and fire his own cabinet?” Biden asked. “Is he going to fire Condi Rice?”
How about firing himself? After all, Bush is the man who turned to the Iranians after 9/11 for cooperation against our mutual enemy, al-Qaida, in neighboring Afghanistan. Bush then "appeased" al-Qaida itself, by pulling American troops out of the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia (whom he constantly appeases, even though they produced 15 of the 19 hijackers who flew planes into our buildings on 9/11, and their money funds global terrorism...) giving in to one of Osama bin Laden's chief complaints. Gates and Rice have indeed advocated talking to the Iranians, and worse, Bush's Iraq policy has done more to benefit Iran than a decade of its own war with Iraq ever could. Bush has made Iran the preeminent power in the Gulf region, and by driving up oil prices, his war has enriched the Mullahs to no end.
So congratulations Mr. Bush, you're our Appeaser in Chief.
Candidates never welcome outside groups. John Kerry's campaign probably couldn't stand America Coming Together (which I worked for in 2004), and George W. Bush probably didn't appreciate the Swift Boat Veterans for ... ok, scratch that last one. The problem: outside groups, or 527s, are free to craft their own message and spend lots of money promoting it, even if that message conflicts with the strategy of the campaign. Of course, 527s can be hellafied useful, especially in doing the nasty work of negative advertising that sometimes candidates are loathe to do.
That said, I would be surprised if Barack Obama didn't face a head-on assault from right wing 527s this fall, particularly since all the big money on the GOP side appears to be holding back, not pouring into John McCain's or the House and Senate campaign committee's coffers. And yet, Obama has succeeded, at least so far, in crushing outside group efforts, directly telling his top donors, and small potential ones, too, I can tell you from direct experience, not to fund anything outside the main campaign. So far, his effort appears to have choked off the David Brock-led nascent effort, and expect others to have a hard time raising money too. Besides, the main engines behind Democratic 527s are Clintonites -- people like Emily's List founder Ellen Malcolm (who also ran ACT), Harold Ickes (our then money man). They are highly unlikely to mount a serious effort on Obama's behalf, particularly if he is already discouraging it.
Meanwhile, women's groups are staging a mass tantrum over NARAL's decision to endorse Barack. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and others are calling the national organization's decision to endorse before the end of the primary season a "betrayal." And a new group has emerged that could become a thorn in Barack's side this summer:
An Ohio-based group of Democratic Hillary Clinton supporters say they’ll work actively against Sen. Barack Obama if he becomes the nominee, arguing that Clinton has been the subject of “intense sexism” by party leaders and the media.
Led by Boomer-aged women, the group, Clinton Supporters Count Too, is holding a press conference in Columbus at noon to release this statement.
Organizers Cynthia Ruccia, 55, and Jamie Dixey, 57, both from the Columbus area, say they’re coordinating women, men, minorities, union members and others in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan – all important swing states next November – to impress upon Democratic party leaders what they think has been outright discrimination – and not of the racial kind.
“We have been vigilant against expressions of racism, and we are thrilled that the society has advanced that way” in accepting Obama as a serious candidate,” Ruccia said. “But it’s been open season on women, and we feel we need to stand up and make a statement about that, because it’s wrong.”
With growing calls for Clinton to leave the race, she said, women feel like “we’re being told to sit down, shut up, and get with the program.”
They're doing O'Reiily's show tonight, according to Ben Smith at Politico.
And meanwhile again, at least one observer is betting that the only way to appease Hillary's angry hoarde of white women over 50, will be to put her on the ticket, whether Barack Obama likes it or not... the premise: at the end of the race, Hillary will need only 19% of superdelegates to go her way at the convention, to get her way at the convention...
Can you imagine how hard it was for most of these super delegates to turn down the former president of the United States? It was tough enough turning Hillary down, but their former boss, political godfather, and personal friend? I've talked to many of them; trust me it was for most the hardest thing they have ever had to do in their political lives.
Just consider for a moment the final phone call with Bill Clinton when the super delegate had to tell him he or she had decided to go with Obama. Clinton," It's time to make a decision. Hillary needs you and I need you. We've been through a lot together. When you needed me I was there, now we need you".
Super delegate, "Mr. President, this is the hardest thing I've ever had to do, but I'm going with Obama because (whatever). Ask me for anything else Mr. President, but I've got to do this". Clinton, "I'm very disappointed and personally hurt, but do what you think you have to do. So long."
Now imagine its June 4th and Clinton calls again. Clinton, "I know Obama has enough votes to win, but I wanted you to know Hillary has decided to run for vice president at the convention. You know there are two roll call votes at the convention: first president then for vice president. I know you are voting for Obama for president. Fine, but I want your commitment to vote for Hillary for vice president."
You imagine being on the floor in Denver. Hillary's delegates, NEARLY HALF THE DELEGATES, are demanding she be on the ticket. These are true believers who have stuck with Clinton through thick and thin. To them, putting Hillary on the ticket is a crusade.
Most Clinton delegates are women, most Democratic voters are women, and they're going to just accept some middle aged white governor that Obama is rumored to want? No way. They are in your face. Hillary supporters from back home are jamming your Blackberry. This and more horror scenes flash through your mind in a nano second.
Then it occurs to you; if the roles were reversed and Obama came close to winning and wanted to be the vice presidential candidate, could you imagine the convention saying no?
Clinton," If we get your commitment now (we've already got a bunch of Obama super delegates to support her) we don't have to take a vote or fight in Denver. With Hillary's pledged delegates and a hundred or so super delegates we'll be over 2026 before the end of June. Saves Barack the hassle of picking a running mate and we can be united against McCain on day one."
Are you going to tell the former president of the United States no again? Anyway you convince yourself it's a great ticket and will help Obama in those big swing states. "I'm with you Mr. President". Clinton," I knew I could count on you". You want to bet there aren't 20% of the super delegates who would buy this deal? We're talking super delegates here, not profiles in courage.
If Hillary Clinton wants the vice presidential nomination, and her loyal delegates demand it, and the Clinton machine puts its full weight behind it, she will be on the
This could all mean nothing if Obama is determined enough not to pick her, and cuts a deal before Denver that gives her something she wants, in exchange for her standing down on both the nomination and the vice presidency. And it assumes she wants the vice presidency (which I think she does at this point ... and badly.)
Still, odds are he picks "some middle aged white man," and white women are left steaming.
Then, it's on Barack and Barack alone -- no 527s, remember -- to win them back.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that Bush's remarks were "beneath the dignity of the office of the president and unworthy of our representation" at the celebration of Israel's 60th anniversary.
Referring to Sen. John McCain, Pelosi said: "I would hope that any serious person that aspires to lead the country, would disassociate themselves from those comments.”
As Pelosi was speaking, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel issued a statement in which he said: "The tradition has always been that when a U.S. president is overseas, partisan politics stops at the water's edge. President Bush has now taken that principle and turned it on its head: for this White House, partisan politics now begins at the water’s edge, no matter the seriousness and gravity of the occasion. Does the president have no shame?”
Speaking of the "promise of God" for a "homeland for the chosen people" in Israel, Bush told the Israeli parliament after a visit to the Roman-era Jewish fortress at Masada: "Masada shall never fall again, and America will always stand with you."
He predicted the defeat of Islamist enemies Hamas, Hezbollah and al Qaeda in a "battle of good and evil". ...
... Of the Palestinians, half of whom were pushed into exile to make way for the Jewish state, Bush said that, looking ahead another 60 years in the future, "the Palestinian people will have the homeland they have long dreamed of and deserved".
"SLAP IN THE FACE"
The president's language in Israel has dismayed Palestinians looking for the U.S. superpower to mediate in their negotiations with Israel. Islamist Hamas, which spurns such talks, said Bush sounded "like a priest or a rabbi" and had delivered a "slap in the face" to those Palestinians who placed their hopes in him.
... In a speech marking what Palestinians call the "Nakba", or catastrophe, when some 700,000 Arabs fled or were forced from their homes during Israel's foundation, President Mahmoud Abbas said: "Isn't it time for Israel to respond to the call of a just and comprehensive peace and achieve historic reconciliation between the two peoples on this sacred and tortured land?"
But Palestinian political analyst Ali Jarbawi said Bush's rhetoric showed Washington was not being an honest broker: "He is not talking about a two-state solution. He is talking about a state of leftovers for the Palestinians," Jarbawi said.
Declaring that "the era of the permanent campaign would be over and the era of problem solving would begin" if he were the president, John McCain gave a deadly boring ... sorry, meaty, substantive speech this morning, promising Americans everything from a chicken in every pot to a Democrat in every cabinet position.
McCain said that upon becoming president, he would indeed put Democrats into his administration, win the Iraq war in four years, channel Tony Blair or Gordon Brown in Prime Minister's Questions sessions with Congress, only he wouldn't be the prime minister ... restore the Constitutional presidency and end terrorism as we know it. (No word on poverty, want or sin...) Saint John would end America's practice of seeing the other political party as an enemy, rather than a compatriot, and inspire every young person to make volunteerism, not bling, their life's dream. Because He IS, upon ascension to the White House, he would cause Republicans and Democrats to lie down together like lambs (which would take much less of a toll on Senator Craig's stance,) and to dine and drink together after each long day on Capitol Hill. Thus would he render all human conflict and suffering obsolete, with a wave of his mighty arms ... okay, maybe not a wave, so much as a grimace...
And he would do all of that, as soon as he's finished convincing voters that Barack Obama is the candidate of Hamas ...
Summary: A New York Times article detailed the connection between numerous media military analysts and the Pentagon and defense industries, reporting that "the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform" media military analysts "into a kind of media Trojan horse -- an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks." A Media Matters review found that since January 1, 2002, the analysts named in the Times article -- many identified as having ties to the defense industry -- collectively appeared or were quoted as experts more than 4,500 times on ABC, ABC News Now, CBS, CBS Radio Network, NBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, and NPR.
George W. Bush thinks it appropriate to accuse a fellow American of appeasing Iran while on foreign soil. But he and his friends also thought it appropriate to put a foreign national on the U.S. payroll for years to supply them with false intelligence on Iraq, all the while apparently blissfully unaware that their payee was spying for Iran. (At least we hope they were unaware...) Now, the neocon darling Ahmad Chalabi has, at long last, been cut off:
Sources in Baghdad tell NBC News that as of this week American military and civilian officials have cut off all contact with controversial Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi, the former favorite of Washington's once powerful neoconservatives.
The reason, the sources say, is "unauthorized" contacts with Iran's government, an allegation Chalabi denies. Iran has been accused of arming and training rebel Shiite forces in Iraq.
Only this week? What the hell have you idiots been doing all this time???
Since the invasion, reports of Chalabi's ties to Iran and his contacts with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have at times been sore spots. The FBI once sought to interview him, sources say, about allegations that secret U.S. codes had been passed to Iran.
Since September 2007, however, American military officials and civilian officials working out of the U.S. Embassy had contacts with Chalabi. At that time he was installed as the head of a "services" committee for Baghdad that was to coordinate the restoration of services to the city's residents.
Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the Multi-National Forces-Iraq, even escorted Chalabi on a trip, on U.S. helicopters, to address reconstruction issues. And American officials attended meetings with him and supported his efforts.
Oh, that...
That contact and all support has ended as of this week, American officials tell NBC News. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly.
The U.S. Embassy had no comment, and a spokesman for the multinational force said any questions "related to Dr. Chalabi and his duties and status" should be addressed to the Iraqi government.
ThinkProgress has the update on the shameful attempts by Senate Republicans to block passage of the G.I. Bill, this time, by spiking a bill intended to aid America's first responders:
At noon, the Senate quickly “devolved into a procedural mess” when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) attempted to attach Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) watered-down GI Bill — which is strongly backed by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) — as an amendment. McConnell also immediately seconded his measure, but then filed cloture, “prohibiting Democrats from filing their own version of the proposal.”
This amendment is a poison pill. It not only kills the Public Safety bill, but also blocks Sen. Jim Webb’s (D-VA) more generous GI Bill from being considered. In one swift maneuver, conservatives trampled over first responders and veterans. In a fiery speech, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) responded on the floor:
We have seen this parliamentary gimmick that has taken place offered by the Republican leadership that is a slap in the face to every firefighter and police officer and first responder in the country. […]
We’re saying to the firefighters of this nation and to the police officers of this nation and the first responders of the nation: Your interest, the safety and security of our communities across the nation, should be put aside in favor of some political gimmick by the Republican leader here in the United States Senate.
Huffington Post reports that Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID) “quietly created presidential campaign ripples on Tuesday” when he “announced that he would offer an amendment to the forthcoming Iraq war supplemental that would strip the legislation of Sen. Jim Webb’s [D-VA] GI Bill.” v
Way to support the troops, boys. Of course, John McCain's little buddy, Miss Lindsey, has offered her own, watered down G.I. bill, and McCain's emissaries have begun scampering around Jim Webb's ankles looking for an embarrassment-avoiding compromise. Here's hoping Webb and the Dems (and their Republican supporters on the bi-partisan bill) stand strong. Don's we at least owe the men and women George sent to their doom in Iraq a decent G.I. bill?
George W. Bush and the politicization of absolutely everything
Never in American history have we seen a sitting U.S. president go onto foreign soil and knee-cap a fellow American ... a sitting U.S. Senator, who could follow him into the presidency, at that. Then again, we've never had a president quite like George W. Bush. Speaking before Israel's Knesset today, Bush, having arrived in Israel this week to the tune of rocket fire, took a nakedly political swipe at Senator Barack Obama, essentially comparing his fellow American to an appeaser of Hitler:
JERUSALEM (CNN) – In a particularly sharp blast from halfway around the world, President Bush suggested Thursday that Sen. Barack Obama and other Democrats are in favor of "appeasement" of terrorists in the same way U.S. leaders appeased Nazis in the run-up to World War II.
"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," said Bush, in what White House aides privately acknowledged was a reference to calls by Obama and other Democrats for the U.S. president to sit down for talks with leaders like Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said in remarks to the Israeli Knesset. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American Senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."
Full transcript here. Obama's communication team wasted no time firing back:
“Obviously this is an unprecedented political attack on foreign soil,” Obama Communications Director Robert Gibbs told CNN’s John Roberts on American Morning Thursday, adding that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had been quoted Wednesday making remarks about dialogue with Iran that were similar to the Illinois senator's.
“Let's not confuse precondition with preparation,” said Gibbs of any talks with Iran. “Obviously these meetings would be full of preparation. But we're not going to sit down and engage Iran, unless or until they give up their nuclear weapons program.
“It is unfortunate that an American president would fly halfway across the world and make a political attack instead of honoring the tremendous accomplishment and achievement of the 60th anniversary of the birth of Israel,” he added.
Obama's camp also released a statement, amplifying the point:
It is "sad" that Bush would use Israel's 60th anniversary "to launch a false political attack. George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists."
Meanwhile, the White House issues a rather flimsy denial that Bush's comments were directed at Obama:
"It is not," press secretary Dana Perino told reporters in Israel. "I would think that all of you who cover these issues and have for a long time have known that there are many who have suggested these types of negotiations with people that the president, President Bush, thinks that we should not talk to. I understand when you're running for office you sometimes think the world revolves around you. That is not always true. And it is not true in this case."
No thank you note yet from the McCain campaign for his buddy George's "help" with the Jewish vote. No reaction, either, from Reagan's ongoing dialogue with the Soviets or Nixon's visit to China.
Here's the long-awaited two-shot. Call it the "reverse Miami Vice" ticket, the "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" ticket (h/t to Chris Matthews) or the Abercrombie & Fitch ticket, but some campaign watchers, including my husband Jason, are calling it the future Democratic ticket. I still rank Edwards fourth, behind Chuck Hagel, Jim Webb and Tedd Strickland, but here's the MSNBC write-up on Edwards' equally long-awaited endorsement of Barack Obama. (P.S.: NARAL endorsed Barack today, too.)
Wow. If you TiVo'd "Hardball" tonight, skip the 5 p.m. and version and green dot the 7:00. I just watched the most stunning ten minutes of that program that I think I have ever seen. It was a conversation between Chris Matthews, Andrea Mitchell, who has been covering the Clinton campaign, and our old friend Patrick Buchanan, author of the excellent book, "Where the Right Went Wrong," and a man who, while very bright, can loosely be said to be an unofficial captain of the white power movement. Buchanan was in such a lather over what he called put-downs of West Virginia voters on the MSNBC set, "calling them dumb and uneducated, poor, and racist," I thought his head was going to explode. He then went into a jeremiad about why the pundits don't say that Blacks who give Barack Obama 92 percent of their votes are bad people. "Maybe they said, he's one of them, and maybe the people of West Virginia said she's (meaning Hillary Clinton,) one of US." The use of "us" was a telling slip.
Chris then impressed me, trying to gently explain to Pat that given this country's 400 years of history on race, where we've had only three Blacks elected to the Senate and just a handful of governors, "and that's it," while whites have been "running everything," it's quite a different thing for Blacks to vote for someone who looks like them who could be president, then for white voters in West Virginia to "volunteer to a total stranger that race played a part in their vote."
The clincher was Matthews describing the more colorblind world his kids live in, where they have teachers, friends, and even romantic interests who are Black, "and they don't even think about it," and he said he wanted to see America become that world. Then he pointedly asked Pat, "do YOU want to see that world?" When Pat failed to answer, he asked him AGAIN. Pat stumbled out something about Martin Luther King's dream, and went right back into his red-faced rant about how poor West Virginia white folk "haven't been running anything."
My revised list of Obama veep picks, in order of favorityness:
Chuck Hagel - still the one, as far as I'm concerned. He brings instant bipartisanship, and cross-over appeal. Could he also bring Nebraska? It depends on how pro- or anti-war that state is.
Jim Webb - I still put him at number two, because he has the national security street cred, military macho chips, and potential to deliver his state (VA) that Obama could really use.
Ted Strickland - As I said before: Ohio, Ohio, Ohio.
John Edwards - If the visuals on his Obama endorsement are compelling enough, there could be a drumbeat to draft the former veep candidate once again. He couldn't deliver his home state (South Carolina) or the state he represented in Congress (North Carolina), for John Kerry in 2004, but this isn't 2004, and Barack Obama isn't John Kerry. His big win in NC, and the incredible turnout, particularly among African-Americans, is making that state look a lot more "swing," and beyond that state, Edwards could give Barack overall strength with white men. No small thing: his endorsement today puts him back on the list, big time.
Bob Casey - Better than Ed Rendell in some ways, because he's younger, and he's actually been an Obama pal. His family is legendary in PA, so he could help keep the state in the D column, if the Obama team is worried about it.
Honorable mention:
Roy Romer - something of a longshot, but Colorado's former three-term governor has a lot to bring to the table. He's a Clinton loyalist, who recently declared her candidacy dead, nonetheless. He was born in Kansas, like Barack's mom, and he ran the school system in L.A., which will make him familiar to Cali fundraisers. If he could put Colorado in the Dem camp, he's of great value.
Off the list: Janet Napolitano. No sense gambling on trying to grab Arizona.
Possible also-ran: Claire McCaskill. She has been loyal to Barack, and is the potential female running mate candidate with the most oomph. That said, I think Barack needs a man. Preferably a melanin-challenged one, if you know what I mean.
Does it still matter that at long last, John Edwards is endorsing Barack Obama? Not as much as it would have before North Carolina (or hell, West Virginia, where Edwards got 7 percent of the vote, and where the possibility of campaigning together around the state might have enticed Barack to spend some time and money...) but it doesn't not matter either. In the wake of Obama's rejection by hard-working white Americans (the new, colorful term for racist Appalachian rusticators...) having a good ole' boy in his corner can't hurt.
The endorsement matters in three other ways as well.
- First, it puts the slap to Hillary's claim that her big win in West Virginia is a game changer that will make superdelegates sit up and take notice. They've taken notice, and one of the biggest remaining players has chosen her opponent. And it throws ice cold water all over her "big win."
- It also sends a strong signal to Edwards' natural demographics: union workers, lower middle class whites and southerners, that despite the results in West Virginia, Obama is a.o.k. That could be helpful in Kentucky, and if Obama's numbers improve there, it will put Edwards in a good position with the candidate (just in case he's interested in having a working relationship.)
- Third, Edwards' timing is actually pretty good (assuming it's his timing, and not joint timing with the campaign, which could very well be the case.) He jumps smack dab into the news cycle at the same time most news organizations are busy yanking Hillary's press details, downshifting from the horse race coverage and downplaying the WV effect on this now largely concluded campaign. That means Edwards will get ink for days. Also good for him, good for Obama.
And you've got to figure he took a beating from Elizabeth to get this one to happen, because you KNOW she's a Hillary girl. So you go, John, with your cute self. Way to keep the dream of that reverse Miami Vice ticket alive! Watch for those two-shots. They'll be all over the web tomorrow.
West Virginia has achieved a great feat: they have stolen Western Pennsylvania's identity as Alabama Plus Philly, by just being Alabama. They have slapped the label "racists R us" on their state flag, and gone out in a blaze of primary glory by frightening impresionable 20-something Obama volunteers with the individual displays of ignorance we've heard about from your mountaineers (Indiana has done their share, too.)
So West Virginia, I ask you:
What are the chances that when those 20-something college students grow up, graduate from college and go out into corporate America, they will be the least bit interested in returning to your state to start business, create jobs, or make a life for themselves that could lift your state economically, the way many rehabilitated southern states (think Tennessee, North Carolina, even South Carolina and Georgia) have done?
How much money do you think the Obama campaign will spend in your state during the general campaign, pumping much-needed advertising dollars into your television stations and newspapers? Note to you: Obama has probably written you off. Hence, the paltry time he spent in your state before, or after the primary. And the media have written you off too, as one of those old fashioned bastions of recalcitrant racism that really don't matter in the fall because they always vote Republican.
And how do you attract tourism to your arguably beautiful state, with its breathtaking mountain vistas, when you now are thought of by affluent, college educated blue staters as something akin to Birmingham or Memphis, circa 1960? I can tell you that placed like Birmingham and Memphis are tourist destinations I would put on my list today, and my former state of Colorado, which once was rampant with Klan activity, is a great destination for travelers of all races. Your state? Not so much.
So enjoy your brush with Hillary's non-existent destiny, West Virginia. I'm not saying you had to go Obama, but the way you went out? Not pretty. Indiana will escape your fate because it showed itself to have a pretty even balance of ideologies. Same with North Carolina, and even Pennsylvania, which apparently, if you believe Pat Buchanan, is the new headquarters of the white power movement. See, Pennsylvania has the Liberty Bell.
CBN reporter David Brody analyzes Barack Obama's religious pitch, and how it could broaden his appeal among "faith voters."
Kentucky, he is making a direct appeal to Evangelicals with flyers that mention his conversion experience and they highlight a big old cross. Remember Mike Huckabee’s supposed subliminal cross in his Christmas campaign ad? Well, the Obama campaign ditches the subliminal and goes for the in your face cross. Look at the flyer here.
The Obama campaign has consistently believed that their candidate can compete for the “religious vote”. A lot has been made about how Obama hasn’t done as well with Catholics compared to Clinton. But let’s remember one thing: Obama has a story to tell about how Jesus came into his life. You can bet we will be hearing more details about it on the stump in the fall. (if Obama is the nominee)
Meanwhile, John McCain won’t be partaking in the “Evangelical speak” or handing out these types of flyers in the south which makes you wonder if Huckabee could help McCain shore up the Evangelical base and at the same time play to the Independent middle with his populist streak.
I know the conservative policy purists will say that Obama is liberal and therefore Evangelicals won’t buy his “Evangelical speak”. Not so fast. Remember, many people vote based on an emotional connection to a candidate or if they can relate to that person. Obama may need to work on this perception that he is “elite” but when he talks about Jesus and the Bible and the fact that he’s a sinner, it makes him more real and in the process, more electable too.
Brody also has a pic of the Obama flyer.
This comes at a time when young evangelicals are abandoning the Republican Party in droves, over issues ranging from the war to poverty and AIDS. Younger Christians, and some older ones, too, are rediscovering the Book of Matthew, and Jesus' admonition to feed the poor, clothe the naked, and take care of one another (I guess they missed the part about get thou riches and Caesar shall cut thy taxes...) These are prime Obama voters, and he is bringing them into the fold.
The stories I've read and heard anecdotally about young, eager college students getting the cold water of racism thrown over their heads in West Virginia, Indiana and Pennsylvania as they campaigned for Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton's race baiting comments about "hard working white Americans," plus WV's 2 in 10 who "voted white" yesterday, can really get you feeling down about the state of race relations in this country. But sometimes, a story turns your frown around. Like the one about the white valedictorian of Morehouse College:
From his first day at Morehouse College — the country's only institution of higher learning dedicated to the education of black men — Joshua Packwood has been a standout.
His popularity got him elected dorm president as a freshman. His looks and physique made him a fashion-show favorite. His intellect made him a Rhodes Scholar finalist. His work ethic landed him a job at the prestigious investment banking firm Goldman Sachs in New York City.
But it's his skin that has made all of this an anomaly. This month, Packwood is set to take the stage and address his classmates as the first white valedictorian in Morehouse's 141-year history.
The 22-year-old from Kansas City, Mo., will graduate Sunday with a perfect 4.0 GPA and a degree in economics.
He could have gone elsewhere, to a school like Columbia, Stanford or Yale, but his four-year journey through Morehouse has taught him a few things that they could not, and he makes it clear that he has no regrets.
"I've been forced to see the world in a different perspective, that I don't think I could've gotten anywhere else," he said. "None of the Ivies, no matter how large their enrollment is, no matter how many Nobel laureates they have on their faculty ... none of them could've provided me with the perspective I have now."
Impressive credentials
When Packwood applied to Morehouse, he had frequent conversations with George Gray, an alumnus who was a recruiter at the school. Gray was impressed by Packwood's credentials and spent months trying to talk the sought-after senior into choosing Morehouse over other elite schools.
"He had outstanding numbers," said Gray, now director of admissions at historically black Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark. "He was the kind of kid we were looking for to be a presidential scholar."
After several conversations, Packwood began to suspect that Gray had no idea that he was white. His suspicions were confirmed when one of Gray's calls caught Packwood in the middle of track practice.
"Don't let the white kids walk you down," Gray quipped.
"The challenge was to get the best student that we could, and Josh definitely fit that," Gray said.
And for Packwood, knowing that he had been picked on his merits, and not as a token white recruit, made the difference. ...
Yes we can.
And he's cute, too!
Packwood was on the Tom Joyner Morning Show this morning and was very impressive. He'll do well at Goldman Sachs, and in life. Way to go, Brother Josh. And don't let the haters (check the comments in this story) walk you down.
Some holdout members of Congress won't spend one dime of your money for a new G.I. Bill, and President Bush won't play golf while the troops are in harms way.
Hagee to Catholics: you don't like the term "Great Whore," eh?
John McCain's friend, televangelist John Hagee, says sorry to Catholics for calling their religion "The Great Whore", at least, he's sorry they took it badly.
Not forcing you to watch Hillary Clinton's speech again (assuming you did the first time around), but you've got to check it out for just a few minutes. When you do, watch the guy in the yellow shirt on the bottom right corner of your screen. You can't miss him. He's about the only Black guy in West Virginia the room. Maybe it's me, but does he look ... kind of high? He keeps rocking back and forward, and at one point, starts yelling Barack Obama's campaign theme ("yes we can! Yes we can!) And sorry, but he just looks out of place among Hillary's demographic of hard working white Americans. I'm thinking somebody on the advance team spotted this guy in the building, and gave him $20 bucks to stand within camera shot of Mrs. Clinton. Watch for yourself:
Tic tac toe, three in a row. The Republicans have lost a once-solid House seat, no, not Denny Hastert's seat in Illinois ... nope, not the seat the GOP just gave up in Louisiana ... the special election in Mississippi's 1st District, between Republican incumbent Greg Davis and Democrat Travis Childers, which appears to have gone D as well.
JACKSON, Miss. - Democrat Travis Childers wins a U.S. House seat in Mississippi's deeply Republican 1st Congressional District.
Childers defeated Republican Greg Davis in a special election to fill the final few months of a two-year term in Congress. The seat was vacated when Roger Wicker was appointed to the U.S. Senate after Trent Lott resigned.
The win allows Democrats to add to their 235-199 majority in Congress — if only for a few months until November's general elections.
The Republicans, proving they have learned nothing from the 2 previous losses, have tried to paint Childers with the "liberal" tag, and emphasized his association with Barack Obama. This same tactic failed in Louisiana last month where another conservative, pro-life, pro-gun, Democrat won a seat that was thought to be one of the safest in the country for Republicans.
Those tried and true Republican methods which have worked so well in the past aren’t flying this year, in what some have called the year of the centrist. Even Newt Gingrich has warned Republicans that if they don’t change their tactics they face a catastrophic defeat in November. But old habits die hard.
Childers has taken a page from Tip O’Neill’s playbook that all politics is local, and has focused his efforts on issues that affect the mostly rural district of northern Mississippi. Childers won 49% of the vote in the first round of voting and missed an outright victory by a little over 400 votes, so his strategy is apparently working. Davis, on the other hand, turned off many voters with his harshly negative primary campaign against another Republican.
And remember, this run-off is happening because Childers won the race the first time, but not by enough votes.
It's not just the House. If the Dems pick up enough Senate seats in November, Republicans can wave bye-bye to the filibuster, and Traitor Joe Lieberman can say so long to his seniority.
Surprise! Hillary Clinton won big in West Virginia, a state where having a college degree is almost as rare as being Black. A state where exit polls show 2 in 10 voters said race was a factor in their vote (second only to Mississippi, and 8 out 10 of them went for Hillary.) And a state where, as in parts of Pennsylvania, racist white sentiments have stunned, and in some cases unnerved, poll workers. And while the Moderate Voice wants you to know that racism is not the only reason folks in WV vote against, Obama, the fact remains that as John Cole explained back in March, racism remains a vibrant feature of the Rust Belt, which includes not only West Virginia, but also parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio, (and Indiana, too,) all of which, not coincidentally, Hillary won:
While there is racism present to varying levels in every state, what makes WV different is that there is not a presence of a large AA community who will enthusiastically balance out that vote like there are in other states. Add to it that WV is a Hillary Clinton kind of state- lots of blue-collar union types who are comfortable working with and voting the party machine. As the Clinton’s are an established name, the Clinton’s are viewed as the party candidate.
Again, I am not claiming a refusal to vote for Obama makes one racist. I am claiming that, in WV, at least, there will be a number of people who refuse to vote for him because they are in fact racist. That isn’t a smear, that is just the truth. If you can not deal with it, well, that is on you. It is also why people like me have been frequently upset throughout this campaign when we have seen what we perceive to be dogwhistles coming from the Clinton camp. Whipping up this sort of sentiment is, in my book, inexcusable.
So there was Hillary tonight, giving a defiant speech and insisting that, with certain niceties toward Obama, she's going on and going forward (Terry McAuliffe nearly burst a blood vessel arguing with Chris Matthews on this point, with Matthews trying to get him to understand that the media doesn't want her to quit, the media wants a contested convention...)
BTW, apparently, Hillary didn't take Barack's concession phone call tonight. He left a message.
PODUNKAVILLE, WV. -- Conservative parents across the U.S. began demanding that their schools immediately stop teaching science, after it was revealed that Nobel prize winning scientist, the late Albert Einstein, didn't quite believe in God. A letter revealing Einstein's disdain for the Suprme Being, whom Einstein derisively called "nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses," and for the Bible, which Einstein called "a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish," was published in the Guardian newspaper this week, subjecting the newspaper's publishers to eternal damnation in the fiery pit of Hell. The letter is to be sold at auction in Great Britain on Tuesday. The buyer is widely expected to be struck dead by a bolt of lightning on the spot.
"This confirms that Einstein was a Democrat," said former Congressman Tom Delay, on his way to a court hearing.
"I liked it when he stuck his tongue out," added a heavy-breathing and still not-retired Senator Larry Craig, adding, "even though I'm not gay."
As for Einstein himself, "I'm sure he's enjoying his barbecue ... burnt up special for him by the Devil!" said hard-working, white American parent Wanda Kleghorn, on her way to vote in West Virginia. "That just goes to show why I keep my children away from all that sinful book learnin'. Besides, he ain't even a real American. Look at his fuzzy hair ... and his name sounds like Saddam Hussein." Reminded that the discussion was about Albert Einstein, Mrs. Kleghorn, who volunteered that she usually votes Republican but intended to vote for Hillary Clinton this time, added, "Einstein, Obama, what the hell's the difference. Neither one of 'em wears a flag pin."
Einstein's letter, in which he also denied that Jews are the "chosen people," drew a strong rebuke from Republican-leaning Independent Senator Joe Lieberman.
"I think this shows why John McCain needs to be our next president," Lieberman said. "We have to send a message to whatever country Einstein was a citizen of, that we will bomb them into the stone age if they continue to produce dead scientists who threaten Israel." Informed that Einstein became a U.S. citizen in 1940, that before that, he was a Swiss citizen, and that he was once offered the presidency of Israel and turned it down, Lieberman said he intended to introduce legislation declaring both the U.S. and Switzerland to be state sponsors of terror, and that he would strongly encourage McCain to begin bombing immediately upon taking office. Lieberman added that he hoped his legislation wouldn't jeopardize his seniority in the Senate, which majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada noted would require a literal act of God -- with lightning and everything -- to make Democrats take it away. Reid insisted the party would never stand up to Lieberman, even if he were to host the upcoming Republican convention at his own home.
Added Sen. Reid, "luckily for us, Albert Einstein said there is no God, so there's no danger of that."
Copyright 2008, The Reid Report
Update: Just in case, allow me to point out that the above is satire, and not a real news story. Cheers. |
Is West Virginia the dumbest state? Enquiring minds want to know...
My new homies at Constructive Anarchy answer the question of the week... (pictures included...) Meanwhile, as West Virginia's Mountaineers prepare to head to the polls to put down the rebellion by that skinny colored feller and his pointy-headed carpetbagger friends, and restore the South to her eternal glory, the world (sort of) watches and waits (okay, they're mostly watching and waiting on Barack Obama, since the primary is over for all intents and purposes and West Virginia doesn't matter...) but anyway, the state that was home to the first land battle of the Civil War (and the first Union death,) Harper's Ferry and King Coal, will soon show the world (those who actually give a crap, or who, like our dear pundit contrarian Rachel Maddow, insist that other people give a crap) what they're made of.
Need some West Virginia trivia to brighten your day? Here 'tis. And here's some political trivia, too. Would you believe Michael Dukakis won the state in 1988?
MSNBC has been running the clips of "Saturday Night Live's" skewering of Hillary Clinton this weekend, and once again, the show is being credited by the MSM with being on the cutting edge of political satire. Well, while I found this week's opener to be both funny and on point, I'm having a hard time giving SNL much credit for "edge." I mean, how much courage does it take to suck up to the Senator from your home state when she's still viable, and then to kick her when she's already clearly on the ground? It's like kicking an unconscious guy that somebody else knocked out. SNL was conveniently on hiatus for at least the last three weeks -- the crucial weeks during which the remaining air seeped out of Hillary's campaign balloon. So after sitting out everything from the NC, Indiana skids to the race-baiting USA Today comments, SNL snarks that ... surprise! ... Hillary is losing ugly? Well knock me out with a bowling ball...
BTW, in other SNL news, Jimmy Fallon is moving up to the big boy chair, taking over the desk at "Late Night," next year when Conan O'Brien gets the daddy seat: "The Tonight Show." I watch none of them, but don't go by me...
... that Haitians in the U.S. today shouldn't be granted "temporary protected status," particularly given what we're learning about the state of U.S. detention policy and healthcare for the immigrants who are stuck in it. If Haiti doesn't qualify for TPS, which is meant to stop people from being deported to countries utterly destabilized by politics or natural disaster, I'm not sure what country does. The Chicago Tribune editorial board weighs in today.
Picking up from the previous post, here's how I'd rank my top five picks for Obama v.p., in order:
Chuck Hagel - This is my very own "dream ticket." And Barack shouldn't ask him to switch parties. The better to show his bi-partisanship, and scoop up some disaffected Republicans voters.
Jim Webb - Strong military cred, great surrogate, and he's a former Reagan guy.
Joe Biden - Best one liners in politics, and he's got foreign policy experience that makes John McCain look like a preschooler. They'd have to assign a mouth minder, though...
Ted Strickland - Ohio, Ohio, Ohio...
Janet Napolitano - She could help with women, and she'd force McCain to spend big in his home state, during a race where he's almost sure to be at a cash disadvantage. AZ is also situated out West, so she could help in Colorado and New Mexico, too.
Honorable mention: Mark Warner - he was immensely popular in VA, and was often talked about as a possible presidential candidate in his own right. Squeaky clean, and conservative on things like guns and gay marriage. Could help with the Hilbots.
John McCain has spent today angering the GOP base by getting all hopped up about global warming (psst! You know why he likes the issue? Because it's scaaaary... John McCain loves scaaaary...) Never mind that he missed every relevant vote on environmental issues this year and his legislative record on the environment reads more like a job application to Texaco. But McCain's other triangulation could be the one yet to come, when he chooses his vice presidential running mate.
Lately, I've been seeing a lot of a certain fired computer executive acting as a McCain surrogate on the TV, and it makes me wonder, could McCain float Carly Fiorina, the 54-year-old former Hewlett Packard president, as his running mate? It would certainly be e clever gambit to snatch the Hillbots away, before they get the chance to get used to Barack Obama. And Fiorina, in addition to being a southerner (from Texas and North Carolina) who lets him play the white woman card, could shore up McCain's shoddy credentials on the economy, providing him with the requisite "person who has run a business," without forcing him to pretend he can stand Mitt Romney. Plus, Fiorina gives him a woman that could help his lack of love from Wall Street, while providing him, and his decrepit Old White Guy party with diversity that isn't tied to the Bush administration's legion of failures (sorry, Condi.)
On the downside, Fiorina was ultimately a flop at HP, presiding over the failed merger with Compaq and riding the share price down to the point where her board cried uncle ... er ... auntie. And she did say once, that "There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore. We have to compete for jobs as a nation," which won't look good in a campaign ad (she said it in 2004, about a year before she found out that there was no CEO job at HP that was her God-given right...) And she was an aggressive proponent of outsourcing American jobs, which she cleverly labeled "rightsourcing." She did live in Califnornia when she was running HP, but that doesn't mean the people there like her much. (See 7,000 jobs, above.)
It's a thought, and one Team Obama should take seriously.
Meanwhile, the HuffPo has a good laundry list of possible Obama picks. I'd bump Chuck Hagel up on the list. If I could wave a magic wand and pick someone for Barack, Hagel would be the man. And the Huff left two big names of the list, former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, and current Ohio guv Ted Strickland.
Left wing talk radio is buzzing about the Bill O'Reilly vintage rant from his "Inside Edition" days. Apparently a teleprompter really can bring you down... but on the Youtube, CBS Entertainment (probably with a little help from a new O'Reilly rant, followed by insane threats and stalking) has ordered the offending clip pulled down. Well, we found one enterprising webpreneur (Break the Matrix) who's still got it:
Watch, and enjoy, but also remember: this guy is free, unsupervised, and unmedicated...
Is Hillary Clinton staying in the race in part so she can raise enough dough to retire her $20 million campaign debt ($11 mil of which is owed to herself)? |
Like most people in Mingo County, West Virginia, Leonard Simpson is a lifelong Democrat. But given a choice between Barack Obama and John McCain in November, the 67-year-old retired coalminer would vote Republican.
“I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife’s an atheist,” said Mr Simpson, drawing on a cigarette outside the fire station in Williamson, a coalmining town of 3,400 people surrounded by lush wooded hillsides...
I swear, this isn't a parody...
...Occupying a swathe of the Appalachian Mountains on the threshold between the Bible Belt and the Rust Belt, West Virginia is a swing state that voted twice for George W. Bush but backed Democrats in six of the eight prior presidential elections.
No Democrat has been elected to the White House without carrying West Virginia since 1916, yet Mr Obama appears to have little chance of winning there in November. Recent opinion polls indicate that Mrs Clinton would narrowly beat Mr McCain in the state but Mr Obama would lose by nearly 20 percentage points.
West Virginia is hostile territory for Mr Obama because it has few of the African-Americans and affluent, college-educated whites who provide his strongest support. The state has the lowest college graduation rate in the US, the second lowest median household income, and one of the highest proportions of white residents, at 96 per cent.
A visit to Mingo County, a Democratic stronghold in the heart of the Appalachian coalfields, reveals the scale of Mr Obama’s challenge – not only in West Virginia but in white, working-class communities across the US. With a gun shop on its main street and churches dotted throughout the town, Williamson is the kind of community evoked by Mr Obama’s controversial comments last month about “bitter” small-town voters who “cling to guns or religion”.
“If he is the nominee, the Democrats have no chance of winning West Virginia,” said Missy Endicott, a 40- year-old school administrator. “He doesn’t understand ordinary Americans.”
Ms Endicott was among roughly 500 people who crammed into the Williamson Fire Department building on Friday to attend a rally by Bill Clinton, the former president. He told them his wife represented “people like you, in places like this”, and urged voters to turn out in record numbers on Tuesday to send a message to the “higher-type people” who were trying to force her out of the race.
Ok, just one more piece, and then I'll stop, I swear:
Most people questioned said they mistrusted Mr Obama because of doubts about his patriotism and “values”, stemming from his cosmopolitan background, his exotic name and the controversy surrounding “anti-American” sermons by Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor. Several people said they believed he was a Muslim – an unfounded rumour that has circulated on the internet for months – despite the contradiction with his 20-year membership of Mr Wright’s church in Chicago. Others mentioned his refusal to wear a Stars and Stripes badge and controversial remarks by his wife, Michelle, who described America as “mean” and implied that she had never been proud of the US until her husband ran for president.
Conservative commentators have questioned Mr Obama’s patriotism for months and the issue is expected to be one of the Republicans’ main lines of attack if he wins the nomination. “The American people want a president who loves their country as much as they do,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican strategist. Obama supporters believe patriotism is being used as code to harness racist sentiment.
Josh Fry, a 24-year-old ambulance driver from Williamson, insisted he was not racist but said he would feel more comfortable with Mr McCain, the 71-year-old Vietnam war hero, in the White House. “I want someone who is a full-blooded American as president,” he said.
Nobody tell Josh that McCain was born in Panama ... the mental disconnect could kill him...
The sad thing is, Hillary and Bill Clinton have spent the latter half of the campaign stoking the ignorance of people like these, Hillary's "hard working white people," because they know that racism works, especially in places where the educational system isn't putting up much of a fight. I feel sorry for the West Virginians who are being tainted by the ignoramuses among them, but we're about to find out if this country is made mostly of the ignorant, or mostly of the evolved. And if Barack Obama loses the general election because of people like the ones quoted in this article, then they will richly deserve the four more years of Bush-league government they get.
You may have read the accounts about the tendency of "Saturday Night Live" producers to be pro-Hillary, as evidenced by donations to her campaign, and several skits portraying Obama as either media pampered or freaked out and incompetent. The candidate herself seemed to enjoy a kinship with the SNL cast, even appearing on the show alongside Amy Poehler, the actress who portrays her. Any bias (which the show's staffers vigorously denied,) could stem from the fact that the show originates from New York City -- purportedly Hillary's home base (if you're not counting Scranton, Chappaqua, Arkansas, Illinois and Washington D.C.) Well for now, the debate is moot, because it appears that SNL has jumped way off the bandwagon (or the producers are trying to prove they're really not HilBots...) This week's opening skit, the first in a while since SNL has been conveniently in hiatus as the news cycle turned grim for Senator Clinton, was what you call and old fashioned skewering. Cliffs Notes version: "I'm Hillary Clinton; I'm a sore loser and my supporters are racists." Watch:
Let's see if this gets any traction in the McCain-loving media. A line item -- not a headline -- in today's Washington Post:
PRESCOTT, Ariz. -- Sen. John McCain championed legislation that will let an Arizona rancher trade remote grassland and ponderosa pine forest here for acres of valuable federally owned property that is ready for development, a land swap that now stands to directly benefit one of his top presidential campaign fundraisers].
Initially reluctant to support the swap, the Arizona Republican became a key figure in pushing the deal through Congress after the rancher and his partners hired lobbyists that included McCain's 1992 Senate campaign manager, two of his former Senate staff members (one of whom has returned as his chief of staff), and an Arizona insider who was a major McCain donor and is now bundling campaign checks.
When McCain's legislation passed in November 2005, the ranch owner gave the job of building as many as 12,000 homes to SunCor Development, a firm in Tempe, Ariz., run by Steven A. Betts, a longtime McCain supporter who has raised more than $100,000 for the presumptive Republican nominee. Betts said he and McCain never discussed the deal.
The Audubon Society described the exchange as the largest in Arizona history. The swap involved more than 55,000 acres of land in all, including rare expanses of desert woodland and pronghorn antelope habitat. The deal had support from many local officials and the Arizona Republic newspaper for its expansion of the Prescott National Forest. But it brought an outcry from some Arizona environmentalists when it was proposed in 2002, partly because it went through Congress rather than a process that allowed more citizen input.
Although the bill called for the two parcels to be of equal value, a federal forestry official told a congressional committee that he was concerned that "the public would not receive fair value" for its land. A formal appraisal has not yet begun. A town official opposed to the swap said other Yavapai Ranch land sold nine years ago for about $2,000 per acre, while some of the prime commercial land near a parcel that the developers will get has brought as much as $120,000 per acre. ...
Say it over and over again: John McCain is better than other politicians .. John McCain is better than other politicans ... John McCain is better than other politicans ...
The Daily Kos posts an excellent summary of the backlash building online against Hillary's comments, summed up brilliantly by Mike Barnacle in what could be Hil's new campaign slogan: "Vote White." But one question that's not being asked, at least so far, is where are Hillary's black supporters, particularly the elected officials, on this issue? So far, I haven't heard a peep.
That one's developing...
But I also wonder whether Hillary's comments will be put through the same media wringer that Rev. Wright's sermon snippets were fed into. Will the MSM react with the same obsessive-compulsive zeal, when this time, it isn't someone the candidate knows, but the candidate herself, who has uttered the unpleasant words? I remain prepared to be pleasantly surprised.
Who, exactly, are the Hillocrats, half of whom said in the exit polls from North Carolina and Indiana that, if she loses the nomination, they will stay home or vote for McCain?
They are white, working- and middle-class, Catholic, small-town, rural, unionized, middle-age and seniors, and surviving on less than $50,000 a year. They are the people most belittled by the condescending commentary of Barack behind closed doors out at Sodom on the Bay.
"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, (where) the jobs have been gone now for 25 years. ... And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
In 40 years, two Democrats have won the presidency, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, and both did so only after connecting with these folks.
People forget. In 1976, Carter ran as a Naval Academy grad and nuclear engineer, a born-again Baptist and peanut farmer from Plains, Ga., who, in Philadelphia, talked about preserving the "ethnic purity" of the neighborhoods. Clinton first ran as a death-penalty Democrat.
It was Ronald Reagan who cemented the GOP hold of these Nixon-Agnew New Majority Democrats, who are now headed back home. ...
And Pat has this advice for his former party:
Keep an eye on West Virginia. The votes Hillary gets, and the way she gets them, may provide a road map for how the GOP can hold the White House this fall, if they are not too squeamish to follow it.
