2008 Primaries Thread 3: The Rejecting and Denouncening

Rejecting and denouncing is over. Now it's passport secrets and schedule histories.

i love that the release of the scheds basically deflated all her foreign pol cred claims

Oh, there'll be more rejecting and denouncing before this is over.

I'm so over this whole process.

you dumb motherfuckers are all still at least two turns behind

hillary clinton lying about nafta.

it's shocking what she's been up to. why does she want to win so badly?

why is the gop letting you take his queen?

she goes on record re. michigan legislature not being able to agree on how to conduct a re-vote as saying "what is obama afraid of?" when his campaign hasn't even been the obstacle to a revote. but enough people will just get on board with the accusation to make it worthwhile.

multiply these sort of shenanigans by about 10 per day and you've got the clinton campaign late march 08.

are you fucking abysmally stupid idiots really still convinced mccain has any chance of winning the election?

never fucking mind

why is he ahead in all of the national polls then? huh? HUH? EXPLAIN THAT.

tom, you can never be sure -- your dismissive tone isn't warranted, even if you feel strongly about this.

Tom you really drink a lot on thursday nights, don't you

the only reason any of you still post to these threads is because you have some axe to grind with your own goddamned party

tho i'm only on my first tallboy, so i have a ways to catch up

POLLS DON'T LIE.

Honestly, I think that's pretty much a non-issue. Dee Dee Myers and a couple other press corps people who were close to the events have been saying she wasn't too keen on it behind the scenes, but towed the line to create a facade of solidarity. Who knows. xxxxxxxpost

i don't think anyone's responding to me, so i guess i shouldn't take offense at tom's insults, right?

BRAINWASHER OTM

Almost spent $3 on an Obama car air-freshener tonight, spent $2 on an old paperback of Clifford Simak's Hugo-Winning _Way Station_ instead.

Tombot I like yr hardman routine but you're sounding kind of dickish here

http://media.gallup.com/poll/graphs/032008DailyUpdateGraph1.gif

Slight uptick.

i'm always astonished by how few people are surveyed for these polls -- often it's 600, or 1,000. i suppose pollsters find that to be a sizable enough sample? seems small to me.

i didn't get a ticket for tomorrow's rally, but i did get to see the obama caravan roll into downtown tonight. 5-0 was everywhere, about 3 dozen motorbike cops. I was on my bike and stopped as they roared by me. I was the only guy on the street at the time, and I waved. I think I saw him on his phone.

-- kingfish, Thursday, March 20, 2008 11:37 PM (Thursday, March 20, 2008 11:37 PM)

just putting this here, too

i mean, the local transportation authority probably surveys that many people when they are considering rerouting a bus line.

it's prob been said already in the other thread, but mccain's international statesman 'look, i'm already doing president stuff, now all you have to do is elect me' jaunt seems like smart, if incredibly obvious, politics.

it is smart. he should try the same thing in iran.

Does anybody know the stats for national surveys? I've completely & deliberately forgotten/destroyed my probability knowledge "learned" from a single stupid undergrad class.

What's the sampling amount required for an accuracy of like a point or two plus/minus for 100M+ voters?

are you fucking abysmally stupid idiots really still convinced mccain has any chance of winning the election?

-- El Tomboto, Friday, March 21, 2008 6:55 AM

now i want mccain to win so that a) the gop will be driven into the ground for a generation or so and b) i can repost this

Who do we suppose will be the first to begin calling out the media for giving McCain an easy ride? Clinton? Obama? I mean, they're pushing him a little bit over this Al Qaeda/Shiite mix-up, but what about the Airbus kerfuffle?

Kerfuffle is a fun word. I wish more people would use it. I only associate with "Little Britain" sketches, of course, but still...

yes, really official response to the 'clinton and rev. wright once hung out' thing in the times: Asked for a response tonight through email, Howard Wolfson, a top aide to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, wrote, “Urgent indeed — a picture — oooooooo!”.

I genuinely believe that the democratic party is being set up to look like a ship of fools in this race. I'm sorry if that sounds dickish. I genuinely think both candidates would make excellent presidents. In 2012. I think the best thing we can do for the long game, for the country, is to let a Republican take the fall for Bush's mess. I think whoever we elect is going to have a good old Hoover/Carter time, and I have no interest whatsoever in allowing any Democrat to wear that stock. I think the Republican party is smarter than all of you put together, and I think McCain won the GOP nomination because they hate him and know he will lose. Again, I'm sorry if that makes me sound like a paranoid asshole.

i also visited the mccain site the other day (out of a mix of curiosity and work-avoidance), and I can frustratingly see how his tidy and impossibly slim personal iraq timeline (ie. 'calls for more troops on day one, continues calling for more troops every five minutes from then until the surge, gets the troop increase he's always wanted, america starts winning the war') might become more compelling to people as he starts hammering it in (any day now).

It does make you sound like a paranoid asshole. xp

karl rove, r.i.p.

The kerfuffle mentioned above:

McCain advisers lobbied in tanker deal that McCain tried to referee

By JIM KUHNHENN and MATTHEW DALY , Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Top current advisers to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign last year lobbied for a European plane maker that beat Boeing to a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract, taking sides in a bidding fight that McCain has tried to referee for more than five years.

Two of the advisers gave up their lobbying work when they joined McCain's campaign. A third, former Texas Rep. Tom Loeffler, lobbied for the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. while serving as McCain's national finance chairman.

EADS is the parent company of Airbus, which teamed up with U.S.-based Northrop Grumman Corp. to win the lucrative aerial refueling contract on Feb. 29. Boeing Co. Chairman and CEO Jim McNerney said in a statement Monday that the Chicago-based aerospace company "found serious flaws in the process that we believe warrant appeal."

McCain, the Republican presidential nominee in waiting, has been a key figure in the Pentagon's yearslong attempt to complete a deal on the tanker. McCain helped block an earlier tanker contract with Boeing and prodded the Pentagon in 2006 to develop bidding procedures that did not exclude Airbus.

EADS retained Ogilvy Government Relations and The Loeffler Group to lobby for the tanker deal last year, months after McCain sent two letters urging the Defense Department to make sure the bidding proposals guaranteed competition.

"They never lobbied him related to the issues, and the letters went out before they were contracted" by EADS, McCain campaign spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker said Monday.

According to lobbying records filed with the Senate, Loeffler Group lobbyists on the project included Loeffler and Susan Nelson, who left the firm and is now the campaign's finance director. Ogilvy lobbyist John Green, who was assigned the EADS work, recently took a leave of absence to volunteer for McCain as the campaign's congressional liaison.

"The aesthetics are not good, especially since he is an advocate of reform and transparency," said Richard Aboulafia, an analyst with the aerospace consulting firm Teal Group. "Boeing advocates are going to use this as ammunition."

McCain, a longtime critic of influence peddling and special interest politics, has come under increased scrutiny as a presidential candidate, particularly because he has surrounded himself with advisers who are veteran Washington lobbyists. He has defended his inner circle and has emphatically denied reports last month in The New York Times and The Washington Post that suggested he helped the client of a lobbyist friend nine years ago.

He has also cast himself as a neutral watchdog in the Air Force tanker contract, one of the largest in decades.

"All I asked for in this situation was a fair competition," he told reporters Monday at Lambert Field in St. Louis, home of a Boeing fighter jet plant.

On Friday, he defended his aggressive oversight: "I never weighed in for or against anybody that competed for the contract. All I asked for was a fair process. And the facts are that I never showed any bias in any way against anybody — except for the taxpayer."

Last week, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the EADS-Northrop Gruman plane was "clearly a better performer" than the one proposed by Boeing.

It is unclear what EADS hired the lobbyists to do. Loeffler and Airbus officials did not immediately respond to phone and e-mail messages left late Monday.

A Boeing spokesman declined to comment Monday on the links between McCain and lobbying efforts on behalf of EADS.

But Boeing supporters already have begun to accuse McCain of damaging Boeing's chances by inserting himself into the tanker deal.

One of them, Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., said the field was "tilted to Airbus" because the Pentagon did not weigh European subsidies for Airbus in its deliberations — a decision he blamed on McCain. Everett, Wash., is where Boeing would perform much of the tanker work, and Dicks is a senior member of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee.

In December 2006, just weeks before the Air Force was set to release its formal request for proposals, McCain wrote a letter to the incoming defense secretary, Robert Gates, warning that he was "troubled" by the Air Force's draft request for bids.

The United States had filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization alleging that Airbus unfairly benefits from European subsidies. Airbus in turn argued that Boeing also receives government support, mostly as tax breaks.

Under the Air Force proposal, bidders would have been required to explain how financial penalties or other sanctions stemming from the subsidy dispute might affect their ability to execute the contract. The request was widely viewed as hurting the EADS-Northrop Grumman bid.

The proposed bid request "may risk eliminating competition before bids are submitted," McCain wrote in a Dec. 1, 2006, letter to Gates. The Air Force changed the criteria four days later.

Dicks said the removal of the subsidy language was a "game-changer" that favored EADS over Boeing.

"The only reason that they could even bid a low price is because they received a subsidy," Dicks said last week. "And Senator McCain jumped into this and said that (the Air Force) could not look at the subsidy issue — which I think is a big mistake, especially when the U.S. trade representative is bringing a case in the (World Trade Organization) on this very issue."

EADS' interest in the tanker deal is evident in the political contributions of its employees. From 2004 to 2006, donations by its employees jumped from $42,500 to $141,931, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. So far this election cycle, company employees have donated $120,350. Of that, McCain's presidential campaign has received $14,000, the most of any other member of Congress this election cycle.

McCain prides himself in the role he played blocking an earlier version of the tanker deal that gave the contract to Boeing. As chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and of an Armed Services subcommittee, McCain led an investigation that eventually helped kill that contract in 2004. A former Air Force official and a top Boeing executive both served time in prison, and the scandal led to the departure of Boeing's chief executive and several top Air Force officials.

"I intervened in a process that was clearly corrupt," McCain said Friday. "That's why people went to jail."

While McCain has praised Boeing for fixing its practices, his campaign said the experience prompted him to demand "a full, fair and open competition." His letters — one to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England in September 2006 and the other to Gates — were sent with that spirit in mind, Hazelbaker said Monday.

Once the rules were in place, Hazelbaker said, bidders submitted proposals, the Air Force reviewed them and the contract was awarded.

"That is a process that McCain, appropriately, had absolutely no role in," she said.

re: tombot - i think i had enough of this 'let's let them clean up their own mess' hands-off rhetoric last time around. sure, the potential democrat-in-chief is going to have an almost guaranteed tough and miserable time for maybe most of the first term, maybe more, but how much more failure and fallout do people want before, erm, change?

plus, that argument implies that at some point, the mess will actually be cleaned, as opposed to made much messier (bloodier/more expensive).

if you believe in roosevelt, elect roosevelt. but remember reagan.

you think a democrat's gonna have an easier time cleaning up the aftermath of an iranian invasion?
xp

which army are we going to invade iran with?

the french foreign legion?

never mind

tom you're being really arch and condescending

If Cheney has the codes, the nuclear one.

also all this prognosticating crap is just that, crap. i think it's fallacious to assume that the future will follow, in fully predictable outline, one past event from 25+ years ago. the dangers of a mccain presidency would seem real enough not to wager on some smart-aleck cynical prediction.

I AM a paranoid-american, and it's to the point where i just want them out. I put very little faith in any feedback control mechanism that supposed to operate for more than a term or even a year. The system is too fucked at present for such control mechanisms to work, so i'll take a Democrat in office to at least begin shifting thru all the bullshit, to reroute the rivers and clean out the stables and civil service(if need be, literally, with a fire hose).

We're in for some dire fucking times, and I'd much prefer we get an FDR(or anything within light years of approaching him) in place than just keep another Hoover douche in power for four years just to drive the point home to an short-memoried and easily demagogued populace. Somebody who we won't feel horrible about telling, "Look, dude*, here's the keys and a wrench. Get to work on fixing this shit."

*"dude" used in gender-neutral sense here, but who are we fucking kidding

(windows xp)

tom you can't see enough black voters (and young voters let's pretend lol) going 'o go fuck yrself' to cost the dems if hill steals the nod or enough white/older/maybe catholic or jewish voters going 'o i'm not sure' if obama gets the nod (regardless of whether the wright flap had happened) to tilt a few states mccain's way? i mean (and maybe this is just being in a one party state) i can ALWAYS picture the gop winning. shit i could see them fuxxors taking the house back this fall under the right circumstances.

okay, that post more or less made sense.

oops. referring to mine own rantings

amateurist I'm just really tired of everybody following the media storyline word for fucking word and not a god damned one of you thinking for yourselves for even a fucking minute, much less actually considering a larger picture, forget history, just, you know, think for a fucking minute besides "I like obama! people who don't like obama are WRONG!" go outside, put on a pencil skirt and some pom-poms if that's how you feel. I've never seen so much insipid repetition and boring self-righteousness as on these threads.

Then again, I rarely bother to read ILM.

...

Maybe I should shut up with my high-mindedness and just blithely encourage you all to stay over there.

cynical and paranoid people otm

fuck it

don't you mean the wright circumstances?
many xposts

lol i almost did that but the first version of that post had some custos action in it so i was all 'do not trust yr impulses at this moment'.

I think folks will be sullen a la 2004 if Obama loses the general due to distortions and smears, but if he somehow has the nomination wrested...I can only imagine.

Back to the news. Some Latino help for Obama in the form of a Bill Richardson endorsement:

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gIWF-cWWTIzLwKoOVfi50PnqNM0wD8VHLSSO0

yeah, i don' think it'll be chicago 68 like wilder was saying if only cuz even now i can't picture ppl caring enough. shortsighted/smallminded but weirdly the thing i dread most is obama losing ge and the party going 'o well see this doesn't work and we need to go back to caution and calculation' and the whole 90s dlc/clinton model or mediocre boring careerists like the gephardt/daschle/kerry model being the default position regardless of its losing streak.

lol richardson must've decided 'no way obama loses the nod - time to buy my veepstakes ticket!'. a good sign i guess.

put on a pencil skirt and some pom-poms

i dont think you meant this. pencil skirts are usually pretty close-fitting and difficult to move around in.

I didn't know he was going to be in town.

Also, it's kinda disconcerting to see the contraction spellt like "Ore," correct tho that may be.

http://harpmagazine.com/articles/detail.cfm?article_id=6709

Except for the AIDS controversy he'll have to explain, I'm all for this!

i barely keep up with this thread anymore - did we talk yet about Bill Clinton's saying that Obama 'mugged' him?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/us/politics/18bill.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

http://www.davidstuff.com/opinion/los-clinton.jpg

I was mugged by that man... Mr. Obama

I think he's talking about the press.

he's using the word 'mugging' in the same sentence as 'Obama' and 'Jackson', dumbass

"Mr. Hussein Obama had a smoking gun, that took the form of a mushroom cloud."

I apologize for the mugging of my husband

don't you mean the wright circumstances?
many xposts

-- gershy, Friday, March 21, 2008 7:41 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Link

valiant

I guess it's a good sign tho - we know the Clintons aren't going to hold back in the general. I mean Barack Obama is just too nice to play up McCain's age and infidelity - the people for that job are Hillary and Bill.

also, they're obviously the people to go after him for having a vitriolic temper

which is why the clintons should take the back seat and attack mccain on obama's behalf during the GE, allowing obama to keep his hands clean and letting the clintons do what they do best

Symmetry required gabbneb to start this.

I be freakin people out with my sarcasm

You know what? You need to hear the whole Wright sermon instead of the bits that got cut out for anti-Obama purposes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOdlnzkeoyQ

http://bp3.blogger.com/_icmbtAgYu90/R-L19IDnwpI/AAAAAAAAAAk/Bwt1_87Tamg/s1600-h/File0441.jpg

^^ commendation of wright from LBJ('s physician)

man what blogger was bored enough to dig that up

on the fundraising front, Obama campaign has $30 mil cash on hand while Hill's campaign is saddled with $9 million in debt, leaving only $3 mil on hand

those are the numbers reported at the end of feb, btw

WaPo Fact Checker blog has this catch:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2008/03/20/PH2008032002697.jpg
Greeting ceremony, Tuzla military airport, Bosnia, March 25, 1996.

"I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

Link: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/03/hillarys_balkan_adventures_par.html

she's using the girl as a human shield!

i dont think you meant this. pencil skirts are usually pretty close-fitting and difficult to move around in.

-- max, Friday, March 21, 2008 3:05 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Link

someone missed a good zingpportunity here

haha "four pinnochios"

I don't really care whether Hillary went to Bosnia or Candyland (more Sinbad refs welcome though)

I love all the photos that USA Today chose for the passport story:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-03-21-rice-breach_N.htm

http://a.abcnews.com/images/US/passport_080321_ms.jpg

http://cache.wonkette.com/assets/resources/2008/03/mccainhotdog.jpg

so hey, richardson endorsed:

I would like to say that we are blessed to have two great American leaders and great Democrats running for President.

My great affection and admiration for Hillary Clinton and President Bill Clinton will never waver.

It is time, however, for Democrats to stop fighting amongst ourselves and to prepare for the tough fight we will face against John McCain in the Fall.

The 1990’s were a decade of peace and prosperity because of the competent and enlightened leadership of the Clinton administration, but it is now time for a new generation of leadership to lead America forward.

Barack Obama will be a historic and a great President, who can bring us the change we so desperately need by bringing us together as a nation here at home and with our allies abroad.

I know that all Democrats will work tirelessly to get him elected.

wtf hillary why lie abt this shit - i really dont understand

contempt for the voting public?

he's using the word 'mugging' in the same sentence as 'Obama' and 'Jackson', dumbass

-- gabbneb, Friday, 21 March 2008 12:40 (5 hours ago) Link

No he isn't? The nyt is I guess. The quote is presented as a response to "the widespread interpretation of his remarks"; if you got a personal attack on Obama out of that then ok, personally that's really not how i read it.

alt response: stfu fagit

yeah, seriously. you guys are really reaching.

if your interpretation of Bill's SC Jesse Jackson comment is that he was deliberately, if subtextually, provoking issues of race, it's not hard to see how that presumption supports the conclusion that Bill's still using racially coded language when talking about that very same comment.

On reflection, I'm somewhat reluctant to give that interpretation much sway, personally.

wtf hillary why lie abt this shit - i really dont understand

pathology

drudge puts this week in perspective:

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x18/gr8080/dftgyhujiko.jpg

drudge is really the best graphic designer in the world

http://media.gallup.com/poll/graphs/032108DailyUpdateGraph1.gif

obama drawing close to even again; analysts will probably use this to say that obama's speech successfully managed the damage from the wright controversy

Boo-yah.

Penn dismissing Richardson's endorsement is LOL

Do you guys really check the Gallup polls daily?

Betcha you like sports too.

wtf @ green tears

One important Clinton adviser estimated to Politico privately that she has no more than a 10 percent chance of winning her race against Barack Obama, an appraisal that was echoed by other operatives.

In other words: The notion of the Democratic contest being a dramatic cliffhanger is a game of make-believe.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9149.html

i like sports

yah me too

Fantasy sports and political blogs are teh opiate of the masses.

politics is my sports

i approve of richardson's new beardy look

although he still looks like horatio sanz

THAT'S SEXUAL POLITICS

is tomboto running for dickhead of the year?

^^^ the poll that had to be made

tombot's running for drunk cynic w/ access to the interweb on a thursday nite, cut him some slack ppl

I will never vote for Obama as long as I live.

If he gets the nomination, I will vote for McCain and seriously consider leaving the Democratic Party.

He's a con-man and a fraud.

I want no part of him.

He's not the kind of man I want as President.

I don't care what color he is.

Posted by: svreader | March 21, 2008 03:30 PM

Posted by: Sockpuppet | March 21, 2008 03:30 PM

Fixed!

this is the time to remind everyone that tomboto supported the invasion of Iraq so take everything he says with a grain of salt

lol too many martoonies
kingfish otm
still can't believe you kids needed a 4th one of these

tell us o wise one

thank you for your support

if you enjoy schadenfreude I was an hour late to work and my head still hurts

are you fucking abysmally stupid idiots really still convinced mccain has any chance of winning the election?

yes, pal, no credit to him

GOO GOO GAA JOOB

breaking...two contractors getting pranged for the passport snooping were employees of Stanley, Inc. It was a good week for this Virginia company otherwise:

Earlier this week, the 3,500-person company won a five-year, $570-million contract to support passport services at the State Department.

tombot late & hungover = AMERICA AT RISK

http://www.surveyusa.com/index.php/2008/03/19/in-ohio-a-wright-reversal-for-obama/
http://www.surveyusa.com/index.php/2008/03/19/missouri-clinton-up-2-obama-down-8-in-show-me-state/
http://www.surveyusa.com/index.php/2008/03/20/in-california-and-massachusetts-opposite-reactions-to-wright-clips/
http://www.surveyusa.com/index.php/2008/03/20/wright-flap-gives-mccain-a-leg-up-in-minnesota-eats-into-obama-support-in-wisconsin/

Go fuck yourself, Hillary

Go fuck yourself, Hillary whitey

-- gabbneb, Friday, March 21, 2008 3:54 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

who's making the greatest claim on O's time right now, deej?

i wont stop telling hillz to get over herself, but this was gonna happen at some point regardless. better now than later.

yeah, it would have been nice if she hadn't done all the preliminary legwork

http://thepage.time.com/2008/03/21/obama-i%e2%80%99ve-been-in-pews-for-some-wright-controversial-remarks/

wouldnt it be better if he just stfu'd about this shit and built back trust by talking on some other shit

B. Clinton Contemplates McCain-Clinton General Election Match Up

Says while in Charlotte, North Carolina that race between the two would be one between “two people who loved this country” without “all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics.”

eat a dick bill

"all this other stuff" wink nudge cough ungrateful negroes cough

zing zang zung
http://blogs.usatoday.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/03/21/gallup_line.jpg

It's all going a bit oroborous WRT who exactly put the clips out there: was it really Clintons or GOP? Clinton input seems only to have traction on Fox and however tenacious they might be, it's mighty convenient and panders to their base to float this idea without ever explicitly saying so.

and i see elmo posted that already. my bad

bill clinton obviously disappointed he's no longer an honorary black guy

xp i dont think it really matters who put it out. i dont think clinton did if only because why risk being linked to it? when the right wing will put it out regardless

it's interesting how it came out just before the release of the Clinton records

if you enjoy schadenfreude I was an hour late to work and my head still hurts

-- El Tomboto, Friday, March 21, 2008 10:46 AM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

:)

Clinton wanted h/c before NAFTA, but didn't oppose the latter

what really bothers me about this whole wright thing is that not ONE media talking head bothered to watch the entire sermon, or did any research of their own

i thought it was pretty well documented that hillary wasn't NAFTA's biggest fan from the beginning but she went with it anyway because her hsuband really believed in it

and really, it is a non-issue.

The Brainwasher has spoken, guys

i'm just trying to be fair to both sides

and speaking of th document dump... ABC talks to persons who were at those NAFTA meetings detailed in HRC's schedules, who all attest that she is totally full of shit about opposing NAFTA within the administration.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/03/from-the-fact-c.html

fair AND balanced

I beat you by 3 minutes, elmo. I am the winner.

it's interesting how it came out just before the release of the Clinton records

-- gabbneb, Friday, 21 March 2008 21:28 (4 minutes ago) Link

if it had come out on that day when there were no negative news stories about the Clintons, I wouldn't be so suspicious...

i thought it was pretty well documented that hillary wasn't NAFTA's biggest fan from the beginning but she went with it anyway because her hsuband really believed in it

this is total bullshit and contrary to the evidence. lolz Americans with no memory

The lede:

I have now talked to three former Clinton Administration officials whom I trust who tell me that then-First Lady Hillary Clinton opposed the idea of introducing NAFTA before health care, but expressed no reservations in public or private about the substance of NAFTA.

well I was like 5 years old when NAFTA passed so excuse me for not remembering.

if it had come out on that day when there were no negative news stories about the Clintons, I wouldn't be so suspicious...

O the land of cloudless day,
O the land of an unclouded day,
O they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise,
O they tell me of an uncloudy day.

Big picture, everyone now knows that Obama has belonged to a Christian church for 20 years.

Big picture, everyone now knows that Obama has belonged to a Christian church crazy racist jew-hating cult for 20 years.

And those clips came out at the start of a week without a primary, so it may turn out that the timing was almost ideal for Obama.

yeah ive been thinking that. he's got an insurmountable delagte lead, next rounds of primaries weeks away, etc.

hrc friend: this is exactly what hilary was talking about when she said he hadn't been vetted yet!

FOX news anchors walking off set in protest to the Obama-bashing on their network: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/21/mayhem-at-fox-news-ancho_n_92743.html

haha okay, when FoxNews is offending their own employees...!

im pretty sure that dude was walking off as a joke

not like thatll stop dailykos posters from going nutz over it

Chris Wallace is a bozo

he's my favorite of the FOX anchors, actually.

I think Chris Wallace is actually/arguably/supposed to be the closest thing they have to a real journalist there, and sorta gets beat up slightly on air by Brit Hume, his managing editor, in a milder version of the Hannity-Colmes relationship.

he's my favorite of the FOX anchors, actually.

this is like having a favorite venereal disease

maybe it's a show, but if it is it might reflect something real

this is like having a favorite venereal disease

Since I don't have cable, I know only the anchors I can watch in bits at friends' or my parents', but FOX's don't seem any more vapid than CNN's (ugh, Wolf Blitzer and Lou Dobbs).

don't get me started on Lou Dobbs

Blitzer just seems kind of incompetent and incapable of modulating the volume of his voice, Dobbs seems genuinely loathsome in his demogoguery

Meet the White Guy Who Inspired Rev. Wright's Chickens-Comin-Home Comments

tho of course it's a malcolm ref, just worth pointing out

Shepard Smith did a good job in the Katrina aftermath.

"Just yesterday, we heard Sen. McCain confuse Sunni and Shiite, Iran and Al Qaeda," said Obama. "Maybe that is why he voted to go to war with a country that had no Al Qaeda ties. Maybe that is why he completely fails to understand that the war in Iraq has done more to embolden America's enemies than any strategic choice that we have made in decades."

zing!

daaaaaaamn

Shepard Smith did a good job in the Katrina aftermath. so did geraldo(in his own breathless fashion), that's no reason to encourage him.

Blitzer just seems kind of incompetent and incapable of modulating the volume of his voice

otm. actually it seems like his voice just doesn't naturally project and he can't afford to not speak near the top of his voice most of the time.

well apparently 79% of lou dobb's viewers think hilary is hurting the party.

so there's that.

yeah everybody on cnn seems to be shouting lately

are you people just now figuring out that blitzer talks like a mongoloid? i can't get past it, dude is the most grating voice in all broadcasting

... mongoloid?

i think u need to clarify lololz.

urbandictionary.com

Mongoloid he was a mongoloid
Happier than you and me
Mongoloid he was a mongoloid
And it determined what he could see
Mongoloid he was a mongoloid
One chromosome too many
Mongoloid he was a mongoloid
And it determined what he could see
And he wore a hat
And he had a job
And he brought home the bacon
So that no one knew
Mongoloid he was a mongoloid
His friends were unaware
Mongoloid he was a mongoloid
Nobody even cared

3AM girl's Obama ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXmYVRIpu2w

To: Interested Parties
From: The Clinton Campaign
Date: March 21, 2008
RE: Obama Campaign: Just Words

At this point, it's no secret that the Obama campaign is in political hot water given the news stories of the last few weeks and is desperate to change the subject.

The ground is shifting away from them and their response?

First, disenfranchise voters - Prevent new votes in Florida and Michigan. Stop voting in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Oregon, West Virginia, Puerto Rico, Kentucky, South Dakota, Montana, West Virginia and Indiana.

Second, peddle photos of President Clinton shaking hands with Reverend Wright less than 48 hours after calling for a high-minded conversation on race. Well, President Clinton took tens of thousands of photos during his eight years as president. Stop the presses.

Third, accuse our campaign of having something to do with Senator Obama's passport file being breached, a reckless charge that has zero merit.

Fourth, continue attacks on Senator Clinton's character in an effort to implement what the Chicago Tribune called a full assault on her ethics.

Fifth, stonewall the press: no tax returns, no state records, no answers about the inconsistencies in the Rezko story.

So it's not a pretty sight - it's all part of a pattern of just words.

Senator Obama talks about voter participation while actively disenfranchising millions.

He calls for high minded debates while practicing lowdown politics.

He promises a different kind of campaign while attacking Hillary's character.

He promises transparency while hiding basic info and stonewalling the press.

It's no wonder that Americans are coming to see that for all of his lofty rhetoric, Senator Obama's candidacy is really just words.

It's no surprise that Americans are expressing serious doubts about his ability to answer the 3am call.

It's no wonder that top journalists are calling the Obama campaign desperate, saying that it's amateur hour in Chicago.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/President_Nixon_and_chief_advisers_1970.png

Third, accuse our campaign of having something to do with Senator Obama's passport file being breached, a reckless charge that has zero merit.

huh?

apparently matt drudge is part of the obama campaign now??

i dunno either

at this point their chutzpah impresses me much more than it provokes, so that's a huge step in the right direction.

google ads at that HuffPo bit:

-
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Obama's SNL Sketch
Watch the hilarious skit that even Hillary is talking about!
www.ExperienceProject.com

23/6
Breaking news without all those annoying "facts"
www.236.com

If you click through on the SNL link it's to a Hilz sockpuppet site.

Does the Hillary campaign have any policies of their own other than Don't Vote For Obama?

lolololz @ Fox & Friends anchor trying desperately to avoid saying "typical black person"

“Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic,” Mr. Carville said, referring to Holy Week.

^^^Cajun Style^^^

cold shit

So Hillary is Jesus now?

I love it when James Carville tries to do irony.

It's like him trying to grow hair.

now that the revotes are dead people are starting to say this thing is over. sorry if this was posted already.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9149.html

Unless Clinton is able to at least win the primary popular vote — which also would take nothing less than an electoral miracle — and use that achievement to pressure superdelegates, she has only one scenario for victory. An African-American opponent and his backers would be told that, even though he won the contest with voters, the prize is going to someone else.

People who think that scenario is even remotely likely are living on another planet.

As it happens, many people inside Clinton’s campaign live right here on Earth. One important Clinton adviser estimated to Politico privately that she has no more than a 10 percent chance of winning her race against Barack Obama, an appraisal that was echoed by other operatives.

In other words: The notion of the Democratic contest being a dramatic cliffhanger is a game of make-believe.

http://thepage.time.com/halperins-take-painful-things-hillary-clinton-knows-%E2%80%94-or-should-know/

“They’re looking ahead and saying: Is it possible this thing is just going to drip, drip, drip, drip — more video? Where does that leave us if he’s our presumptive nominee and he’s limping into the convention and the Republicans are just read to go on him, double-barreled?”

I've been thinking about this. I don't know who unearthed the original videos but presumably there's more out there.

Of course there are, but the LBJ and Clinton pics have balanced that out. People might just get bored of Wright as a whipping boy for Obama or anyone else. It is more than unfair.

It is more than unfair.

I get the sense that this won't stop them.

I didn't think the Corner could startle me anymore, but leave it to John Derbyshire:

I don't get the sensitivity and slack-cutting towards Obama that Charles Murray's post typified. Obama's the enemy — a far-left Democrat. We should be attacking him at every weak point. That's politics.

A pro-Obama emailer whines to me that the Pastor Wright business is "a Swift Boating of Obama." Well, duh!

realpolitik is so fucking refreshing

At least he's honest about it. I appreciate his candor.

It's more direct than Hanson's endless stream of essays all week over there.

dumb question, but if obama wins the primary (and he will, barring some strange unforseen event), will clinton hop on board and help out in the general? or do you think she'll pull a lieberman or even something a little less obvious and continue to try to dig up shit on obama, just cos.

i mean, i don't believe there's much chance of the latter happening, but given how craven she and her campaign have been of late, i start to wonder.

I assume she'd help Obama in the GE, to salvage the Clinton brand, if nothing else. I've seen some blogger speculate that HRC would rather McCain beat Obama in the GE, so the Clinton's maintain control of the Democratic party, but if she sat on the sidelines, I think she'd severely damage her standing in the party.

John Derbyshire is openly racist! I guess you can argue that it's worth paying attention to what the other side is saying, but ugggggggh i'd rather not, and there's definitely no reason to be surprised by anything he says.

Yeah, dig around over the last two weeks on Orcinus. Dave Neiwert's been tracking this shit for a while.

http://media.gallup.com/poll/graphs/032208DailyUpdateGraph1.gif

!

lol these gallup polls

wtf does that even mean at this point

i mean look at the rest of that graph

it's a waltz man

resilience!

I'd just like it to start looking less like DNA helix okthxbai

http://yeswecanhas.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/happycat2.jpg

heh.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/22/211412/654/668/482425

I wish those graphs had error bars

will clinton hop on board and help out in the general?

Would YOU want help from people like this if you were Obama?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/22/us/politics/22cnd-obama.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Mr. Clinton, in a speech to voters in North Carolina on Friday, said “it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country.”

What I don't understand is how the Dem. party leadership even allows this kind of crap anymore.

gosh they really smell blood the obama camp is jumping at everything, which is exactly what they should do.

This "loving your country" stuff is coming from a guy who got his d*ck sucked in the Oval Office, the ultimate symbol of American democracy, while he was the president - srsly, how can anyone swallow any of this, especially from him?

do people still srsly hold that agin him?? i've only recently 'wrapped my head' around how skeevy the whole thing was. i found it really boring back then for some reason.

i was well attuned to how full of shit the repub leadership by the time impeachment came around. now that was fascinating. Henry Hyde, the rest of those eberts, my own local congressman Jim Rogan who I'd theretofore thought of as generally earnest for a republican, as he'd come to my college to speak where I asked him some lefty question and he batted me down with logic. Jim was religious about taking Clinton down, weird stuff.

I just thought he'd be one of the last to be allowed to talk about loving his country or respecting the voters, considering what he did. But people forgive and forget (or, probably: don't give a shit)

(xpost)

and now the Clintons are (ok, indirectly) campaigning for the republican candidate, ain't that something?

re: Rogan so ironic he got taken out by Adam Schiff, Bill Clinton's brunette doppelgänger.

if i have my districts right

This "loving your country" stuff is coming from a guy who got his d*ck sucked in the Oval Office, the ultimate symbol of American democracy, while he was the president - srsly, how can anyone swallow any of this

Find the joke here.

and now the Clintons are (ok, indirectly) campaigning for the republican candidate, ain't that something?

you're the one playing Ken Starr here

I like Suzy's pussy-cat picture.

guys, Hillary took the initiative in inventing the internet. Barry is too nice to tell you that, but you can bet that your friend Mr. Straight Talk Express will let everyone know that she's a legend in her own mind, and that all you need for verification of her experience and judgment is to ask her extremely trustworthy husband

What I don't understand is how the Dem. party leadership even allows this kind of crap anymore.

no such thing

"So, what's the difference between you and Clinton then?" - Obama's reply: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qUoN-fjvLY

I guess it's just a funny coincidence that the Clinton hatchet men are the "white boys"

Obama's big fairy tale, the press myth re Bill's racial attacks, read about all this and more in Fables of Clinton

Oooh, this sounds like it's going to end with everyone living happily ever after - nice!

In the presidential primary campaign, HRC benefits not just from the demographics of Pennsylvania, but its unique amber-preserved culture.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9165.html

"The Congealed State"

"So, what's the difference between you and Clinton then?" - Obama's reply: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qUoN-fjvLY

-- StanM, Sunday, 23 March 2008 15:54

takes him a while to get on a roll there

But it's like he's dying to say the difference is character, or something blindingly obvious. Also Gabbneb OTM about Straight Talk Express, why else would McCain get chumsy w/HRC?

I think that clip of Obama is terribly impressive.

hey you wanna fucking puke? look at this picture!

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/15918/thumbs/r-MCCAIN-WANTED-IRAQ-WAR-large.jpg

OMG you mean McCain supports the war?!?

wait waht?

He's the only one not wearing camouflage gear - are those soldiers trying to get him killed?

lol

http://www.newshounds.us/2008/03/23/neo_naziwhite_supremacist_hal_turner_confirms_friendship_and_kinship_with_sean_hannity.php

I could never forgive Sean Hannity for the way he and Foxnews treated Ron Paul. I dont have cable TV anymore because of it.
Steve | 03.22.08 - 9:24 pm | #

Okay THAT made me LOL.

that obama clip is great...it does take him a while to get going but that's what's kind of good about it; he's able to slip in lots of passive aggressive stuff while complimenting her

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-rodriguez24mar24,0,5884639.column

In some ways, Barack Obama's speech on race last week was as brilliant as it was nuanced. But for all its rhetorical beauty, it was also an enormous step backward and, in the end, a rather self-serving call for more discussion about racial grievance in a country that has already done way too much talking.

ughhhhh

http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2008/03/those-darn-black-people.html

Pat Buchanan: We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?

goddammit guys this shit is trying my zen

and it's only just beginning

Anyone catch part of Richardson on the Today show?

plz explain the fucking relevance of daily Gallup poll to anything

http://www.watchingsitcoms.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/welcomebackkotter.jpg

daily gallup is essential to the 'sport' aspect for those heathens who didn't fill out their brackets.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/03/23/chuck-todd-admits-media-gave-mccain-a-pass-over-iranal-qaeda-gaffe-and-would-have-attacked-the-dems/

<3 Chuck Todd

Hitch:

To have accepted Obama's smooth apologetics is to have lowered one's own pre-existing standards for what might constitute a post-racial or a post-racist future. It is to have put that quite sober and realistic hope, meanwhile, into untrustworthy and unscrupulous hands. And it is to have done this, furthermore, in the service of blind faith. Mark my words: This disappointment is only the first of many that are still to come.

is that written in english?

wow

That same supposed message of his is also contradicted in a different way by trying to put Geraldine Ferraro on all fours with a thug like Obama's family "pastor." Ferraro may have sounded sour when she asserted that there can be political advantages to being black in the United States—and she said the selfsame thing about Jesse Jackson in 1984—but it's perfectly arguable that what she said is, in fact, true, and even if it isn't true, it's absurd to try and classify it as a racist remark.

trying to put Geraldine Ferraro on all fours

UH

Uh, welcome to the part of Obama's speech where he says that calling Ferraro a racist misses the point of her remarks, Hitchens.

why does Hitchens still have a job

yeah the all fours w/ a thug part was what I was wowing at

He hates religion so much that he sees red instead of black.

That Hitchens article is full of pernicious nonsense.

nothing like completely misinterpreting/misrepresenting a black man's remarks while simultaneously summoning the image of a thuggish black guy raping an old white lady, eh Hitchens

Onward and upward: The Obama Doctrine. (analysis of Obama's broader foreign-policy vision)

has hitchens always been weird about The Blacks?

Imagine if God wore blackface.

not that I'm gonna defend Hitch, but you guys get at least what he would claim is the meaning of 'all fours with', right?

lol these graphs are the best thing abt the internet right now

http://media.gallup.com/poll/graphs/032408DailyUpdateGraph1.gif

http://media.gallup.com/poll/graphs/032408DailyUpdateGraph4.gif

http://media.gallup.com/poll/graphs/032408DailyUpdateGraph5.gif

the Oval Office, the ultimate symbol of American democracy

still funny hours later

I had to look it up:

The legal expression on all fours is defined in Black’s Law Dictionary, Fifth Edition, as 'A phrase used to express the idea that a case at bar is in all points similar to another. The one is said to be on all fours with the other when the facts are similar and the same questions of law are involved'.

O RLY

and you guys thought that Hitch had cast Obama's grandma in a Fat Joe video.

Link:

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-ona1.htm

Geraldine Ferraro is Obama's grandmother???????

suddenly everything makes sense

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/03/24/801775.aspx

I am biased as a Hillary supporter but I have to say this has the ring of truth.

What, that superdelegates can be gamed?

lol coincidence

http://i27.tinypic.com/rhsxa0.jpg

that's fucking wrong

a HOOS disaproves

That's a shop of a famous Australian photo of a right-wing shockjock addressng a Country Part rally.

Yeah, it looked a little fake to me too, tbh

Apologies.

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d111/norseking/funny/Alan_Jones_cunt.jpg

Back to the Hitch - I think it's cheap and nasty of commentators like him to presume that Obama's 'ailing grandmother who lives on her own' had no idea her grandson would speak publicly now about situations which had already been described, with her blessing and assistance, in his first book. Also, insinuating the woman is neglected by her grandson today is beyond gross (and I've noticed GOPs and their bloggers trying to suggest this as well).

Hitchens knows exactly what he's doing, selectively interpreting the elements of Obama's speech that facilitate his perpetual rant against organised religion.

He's a crank. Albeit a very intelligent one.

I'm pretty dedicated to the idea of keeping America secular (and I'm an atheist) and I am perfectly capable of constructing an argument in opposition to 'organized religion' without throwing anyone's gran under any notional bus.

what is this 'keeping' what is there to 'keep'?

Separation of church and state as mentioned in Constitution. Conflation of patriotism and religion did not really get going until McCarthy v. godless Commies, history fans. Technically, religion of citizens really should not be an issue - and before you get started, I KNOW.

Just try electing a secularist or atheist to any high office in the US and see how far you get.

You get FDR, Truman, LBJ and anyone in MN who ever ran for President.

Hugh Hewitt is the gift that keeps on, etc:

I have written and broadcast on the subject of Senator Obama's first book, Dreams From My Father. It has to be the most unusual book ever by a presidential aspirant, and much of what he writes cannot be classified as mainstream, and some of what he wrote would shock the average American, including his causal use of profanity and his admission concerning past cocaine use. The book was first published in 1995, before Senator Obama could have imagined a presidential run and perhaps before he could imagine anything more than the Congressional seat he unsuccessfully sought in 2000.

I did not learn until today that Senator Obama actually recorded the audio book, and I suspect that it won't be long until the most controversial parts of that audio book are broadcast. I broadcast one excerpt from Chapter 4 today, from pp. 72-74, and asked the audience for their reactions. Some callers shrugged it off, but many were deeply offended. I pointed out that past profanity cases like Nixon's "expletive deleteds," Bush's description of a New York Times' reporter and Dick Cheney's response to Pat Leahy have generated enormous headlines, but never has a presidential candidate ever purposefully recorded himself swearing so profusely or with such variety. I think the audiobook tape will matter a great deal, even if only used in context, and that of course the YouTube generation will begin manipulating the tape as soon as it is known to be available.

and some of what he wrote would shock the average American, including his causal use of profanity

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/16120/thumbs/r-MACCAIN-IRAQ-large.jpg

did McCain do his audiobooks, and does he say 'gook' much in them?

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20080324/capt.60fb23c306e247399198fcb1102c7577.bush_whgh101.jpg

uuhhhh....

You get FDR, Truman, LBJ and anyone in MN who ever ran for President.

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/3/2008/03/thumb463x_hillaryclintonhead-thumb.jpg

http://i30.tinypic.com/155sygh.jpg

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20080324/capt.60fb23c306e247399198fcb1102c7577.bush_whgh101.jpg

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c30/explodingkinetoscope/shining35.jpg

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20080324/i/r3787523028.jpg

wtf best easter party ever and why was i not invited

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20080324/i/r2804731579.jpg

why did they have two different easter bunnies??

God made Adam and Eve Easter Bunny, Mr. Que, NOT ADAM AND STEVE EASTER BUNNY.

mr & mrs bunny duh

presnit wants two bunnies. make it happen.

how mr bunny scooped mrs bunny is a fucking mystery - talk abt out of his league

He raised his game, son.

Anyway what I want to know is, what are George and Laura doing? Singing a happy song?

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20080324/i/r873222940.jpg

yes just like that jenna perfect

looks like he's blowing a whistle?

'Where the wild things are', good choice.

yes bush blew a whistle while jenna got in touch with her inner Tarzan

abt to start the easter egg hunt or roll or whatever no doubt

how mr bunny scooped mrs bunny is a fucking mystery - talk abt out of his league

truth bomb^^

'Where the wild things are', good choice.

This I agree with.

She probably doesn't know 'Stanley Bagshaw and the 22 Tonne Whale' and probably couldn't do the accents even if she did.

David Brooks on Hillary's 5% chance.

Sully posts this Screaming Lobster interview in which he defends his sorry record on homosexual right. Ugh. He can't even lie well anymore!

Man, he loses his shit at the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaP9eiWuX3s

^^^ cringeworthy karaoke for mccain

wow, David Brooks writing something I really like for once

Apparently it's OK for HRC to 'mis-speak' on Bosnia sniper fire and her because 'milllions of words come out of her each day'. BWAHAHAHA.

wtf gay anthem for mccain lololol

that is just a masterful joke on many levels

David Brooks' mug shot makes him look like a failed veep candidate from the mid eighties.

When you step back and think about it, she is amazing. She possesses the audacity of hopelessness.

brookszing! wha wha wha

Alfred, that Bill interview is pretty unsavory; I liked it when Bill turned the table on that Fox News guy, but when he sets up that weak straw argument on the interviewer about how wants to expose more gays to harassment, I just felt bad for her and disgusted with him. Dude needs to take a break. Besides, the idea that the Defense of Marriage Act is a protective measure for gays is pretty contemptible and paternalistic.

*how she wants

Apparently it's OK for HRC to 'mis-speak' on Bosnia sniper fire and her because 'milllions of words come out of her each day'. BWAHAHAHA.

She says it's ok for her to "mis-speak" on supposedly harrowing foreign-policy experiences that should be seared into her memory, but I think this fib will cause her serious political damage. She didn't really have to run for cover in Bosnia, but she'll have to now.

She says it's ok for her to "mis-speak" on supposedly harrowing foreign-policy experiences that should be seared into her memory,

In the same way that the journalists getting dick sucked covering McCain said his Shiia/Sunni gaffe last week was ok because the "perception" is that he has so much foreign policy experience "in the bank."

yah were it an isolated incident it wouldnt matter - but in the context of her serial resume padding it looks really bad - not to mention its many sensational and hilarious qualities* what make for a great news meme

* sinbad! imaginary bullets!

the media really needs to start covering this race like its a 5% chance instead of a 50/50 TOO CLOSE TO CALL one.

Besides, the idea that the Defense of Marriage Act is a protective measure for gays is pretty contemptible and paternalistic.

This shit is Orwellian!

yah were it an isolated incident it wouldnt matter - but in the context of her serial resume padding it looks really bad - not to mention its many sensational and hilarious qualities* what make for a great news meme.

Right. That CBS video of the Bosnia trip gives real power -- visual power that will resonate wtih people -- to Obama's argument about HRC's supposed "experience."

the "perception" is that he has so much foreign policy experience "in the bank."

well see how actually crazy vulnerable on this he is once obama really starts going after him - this foreign policy retardation is not an isolated incident. not that itll really matter since it pales in comparison to his ignorance on what will be the real issue of the g.e. - the economy.

guys, Hillary at Tuzla airport is like the perfect political mirror of McCain at the Baghdad marketplace

the media really needs to start covering this race like its a 5% chance instead of a 50/50 TOO CLOSE TO CALL one.

That Politico article linked somewhere upthread explains why they won't.

guys, Hillary at Tuzla airport is like the perfect political mirror of McCain at the Baghdad marketplace

Would make a good Obama political commercial (and 2-attacks in 1 ad, to boot).

eh the its pretty much over for hillary message does seem to be gaining traction how ever slowly and belatedly

If the media starts covering this like a 5% race, will this thread sink into oblivion?

obama's released all his tax returns from '00 to '06

the 'primaries' thread probably will alfred, yes

and a beautiful general election thread will rise from its ashes xp

8000 posts within the first day.

really odd to watch that Clinton interview. a terribly effective politician, but yes, I agree - it seems wrong for him to be so aggressive to that nice, mild lassie interviewing him.

A terrible, effective politician, yes.

I'm waiting for Daniel to point out McCain will win the General ;-).

McCain will win t. . . oh, you know the rest.

Hillary spokesperson Phil Singer blasted out an email at 11:23 insisting that Obama release his tax returns for back years.

Exactly two minutes later, at 11:25, Obama spokesperson Tommy Vietor emailed out word that Obama had posted his tax returns for 2000-2006 on his campaign web site. Turns out the Obama camp has been planning this for some time.

LOL counterattack

Until these internet tubes are truly lit with gunpowder, I never want to hear the word "blast" in connotation with e-mail again.

NY Times wondering if "a liberal" like Obama can build a winning coalition, citing the assbackwards National Journal ranking! is this gabbneb's work?

Meanwhile, 4 all-star lefties have a different view:

...the fact that Barack Obama openly defines himself as a centrist invites the formation of this progressive force within his coalition. Anything less could allow his eventual drift towards the right as the general election approaches. It was the industrial strikes and radical organizers in the 1930s who pushed Roosevelt to support the New Deal. It was the civil rights and student movements that brought about voting rights legislation under Lyndon Johnson and propelled Eugene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy's antiwar campaigns. It was the original Earth Day that led Richard Nixon to sign environmental laws. And it will be the Obama movement that will make it necessary and possible to end the war in Iraq, renew our economy with a populist emphasis, and confront the challenge of global warming.

...Progressives should support Obama's sixteen-month combat troop withdrawal plan in comparison to Clinton's open-ended one, and demand that both candidates avoid a slide into four more years of low-visibility counterinsurgency.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080407/hayden_et_al

hey morbs i dunno if you're still mad at obama for accepting money from WALL STREET FAT CATS but i just got an EMAIL BLAST!!!! from him saying that 94% of his donations have been from individuals sending under $200

search that "damned lies" aphorism about statistics, and it still doesn't make The Saint a liberal.

From the progressives, BWAHAHA, again:

We believe that the Hillary Clinton of 1968 would be an Obama volunteer today, just as she once marched in the snows of New Hampshire for Eugene McCarthy against the Democratic establishment.

search that "damned lies" aphorism about statistics, and it still doesn't make The Saint a liberal.

-- Dr Morbius, Tuesday, March 25, 2008 11:37 AM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

what would he have to do to satisfy you. give specifics plz

http://media.gallup.com/poll/graphs/032508DailyUpdateGraph1.gif

deej:

advocate single-payer health insurance, or failing that, put the mandates in his current plan.

recant his goal of adding to add 100,000 combat troops to the military.

say his votes for the anti-class-action suit bill and against capping credit-card rates were mistakes.

stop the chickenshit AIPAC-style backtracking on the Palestinian issue.

Morbius, why do you put so much stake in presidential candidates coming off as sufficiently left? No real leftist I know puts much stake in the elections, especially the presidential one.

please, morbius is out on the streets grassroots organizing every day

it's the kind of can-do attitude that makes the left the power in the world that it is today.

xpost

I was just telling deej what would qualify Obama as a liberal, in my view (considering that we haven't had one as prez in 40 years). I still suspect I'll cast my meaningless NY vote for Obama unless he does something really stupid like pick Sam Nunn for VP.

Clinton: Wright “Would Not Have Been My Pastor”

In interview with Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter and editors Tuesday, Clinton says she would have left her church if her pastor made those kind of inflammatory remarks.

“You don’t choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend.”

isnt she in that creepy pro-life fundie group in dc

deej and nrq, which US political parties supported integration in the '20s? The Commies and Socialists, right? Whatever their other failings, would you have similarly sneered at them for their "irrelevance" on that issue then?

The commies and socialists deserve credit for the new deal too.

isnt she in that creepy pro-life fundie group in dc

http://www.therevealer.org/TheFamily.jpg

Holy shit this is disturbing

you just linked to a college humor video

what song is on the sdtrk it's pretty catchy

i fucking hate the "she's ugly"/misogynist attacks on HRC though.

Sullivan rips into his pal Hitch's Slate screed:

Now Hitch, of course, believes that all religious faith is contemptible and a fraud. I don't. And I think Hitch's healthy skepticism toward all forms of uplift, political and religious, has a very important place in our culture and in Western freedom. I would not expect Hitch to feel anything but visceral revulsion to an Obama sermon. And I don't like some of the messianic tinges to the Obama movement much either. But I think Obama's foreign policy proposals in the wake of the Iraq debacle, the resort to reason in his dialogue, and his recourse to to civility and to complexity in an age of ugliness and soundbites more than counter-balance this redemptive temptation.

Of course, I cannot see totally into a man's soul, Obama's or anyone else's, and I cannot know for sure that he is pure of motive. That he has confessed that he has not always been pure of motive is for me a good sign, not a bad omen. Perhaps Hitch is right that all of this is some gigantic fraud in which the most sincere matters of faith and family are being cynically used for pure politics. We can only look at a man's words and actions and self-explanation, and do our best to make a judgment.

deej I would be interested to hear whether you think Morbius's response to your "what would Obama have to do to qualify as liberal" response is just bullshit, or has some validity to it thx.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/images/2007/10/16/tcs2.jpg

Apparently it's OK for HRC to 'mis-speak' on Bosnia sniper fire and her because 'milllions of words come out of her each day'. BWAHAHAHA.

-- suzy, Tuesday, March 25, 2008 3:44 PM

loooooooool

I think Hitch's healthy skepticism toward all forms of uplift, political and religious, has a very important place in our culture and in Western freedom.

lol, it's called England

Morbs is otm about obama's failing but waiting for a dem who is fdr lefty rather than a liberal is somewhat foolhardy unless you go with the tombot analysis and assume the next prez is hoover and that preciptates a new fdr.

I'd add to morbz list a point about the danger of obama (or clinton) persuing a protectionist trade agenda. Sure free trade has hurt jobs in the devloped world but some of the blame lies at the feet of organised labour for not standing up for the rights and wages of the brothers and sisters in emerging economies, in effect globalising itself to deal with the globalisation of capital.

yah sure try and unionize china see what happens

TOm I feel you that the next president's going to have a lot on his (or her) hands, possibly more than we can even comprehend at this point in 2008. I know what you mean about the Democrats being set up, LBJ style, to pull out of Iraq leaving an inevitably messy situation, so that for the next 40 years we get to hear about how Democrats are defeatists, how they left before the job was done, they don't have the stomach for a fight etc etc et fucking cetera. And that could well happen.

But think about 1860 for a moment. The same logic would obtain. Why throw a once-in-a-lifetime politician like Lincoln into that fire? But thank fvck we did. We might need Obama, or Clinton, more than we think.

yah sure try and unionize china see what happens

you know, I have nothing better to do today, really, I think I'll do this and report back to you

sweet!

deej and nrq, which US political parties supported integration in the '20s? The Commies and Socialists, right? Whatever their other failings, would you have similarly sneered at them for their "irrelevance" on that issue then?

-- Dr Morbius, Tuesday, March 25, 2008 5:18 PM (50 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

The commies and socialists deserve credit for the new deal too.

-- Gavin, Tuesday, March 25, 2008 5:24 PM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

actually i think the communist and socialist parties opposed the new deal, but in both cases these were powerful forces in the unions. i don't think they were irrelevant or wanted to be.

jhøshea otm re chinese unions.

American union leaders cut a deal in the 1930s that we're still living with the consequences of today -- to forget everything except a bigger slice of pie for their own membership. And now that is biting them in the ass.

also: Taft-Hartley.

good luck j0hn!

pravda.ru headline, tomorrow: Mountain Goat Unionizes China

Morbs is otm about obama's failing but waiting for a dem who is fdr lefty rather than a liberal is somewhat foolhardy

No liberals are running for prez (Ted Kennedy '80 might've been the last who had a shot, Feingold opted not to this time). And I think the only lefty in FDR's family was Eleanor.

But I'm not waiting for Lefty, the corporatization of "democracy" has made that a fantasy as far as the presidency (and most everything else) goes. I just evaluate every 4 years if I can hold my nose while voting for the Dem, and I haven't managed it since '84. All I'm looking for is a prez who can be pressured into doing progressive things, which is what many libs expected they could do to Bill Clinton to be before he shat on them by triangulating into Abolish Welfare/Promote School Uniforms/Bomb Kosovo territory.

I am yanking your chain, slightly, on the Liberal thing, I dislike the US definition of Liberal as Progressive. For me liberalism is something that should have died with the rise of the labour party but keeps coming back to haunt us. It is a US/UK semantics thing.

the UK labour party has been "liberal" (as much as any party has been -- ie not much by C19 standards) for nigh on a century.

I would disagree, I think it started off social democratic but has trended liberal since at least the 60s. Now is the most liberal of three highly Liberal political parties.

anyway this is a derail

Obama announces road trip, gabbneb swoons

if you think that any presidential candidate can get elected on the palestinian thing you are psycho

does it suck, maybe, but thats the reality of the situation

there is always going to be a balance between idealism and electability and the sooner morbius realizes this the sooner his ranting doesnt sound so tired. i dont even mind (and would in fact PREFER) if he continue to bring up issues like the four he listed above that you might consider Obama's missteps or flaws but couching them in damnation of any candidate who positions himself as 'electable' is just futile

Hey Mary:

We don't need people like you in PA either. You are so full of hate. YOu must live in the Alabama portion of the state.

Posted by Andrew | March 24, 2008 8:16 PM

I'm sympathetic to Morbs' intransigence because Bill Clinton was enough to sour any liberal on the Democratic party for a generation.

Also both Obama and Clinton deserve a slap for supporting 'clean' coal although I understand you can't be anti-coal in PA if you want to remain 'electable'.

but a "progressive" will never get elected. In this country, whether you're Lincoln or LBJ, you need to be nudged towards expanding civil rights.

universal healthcare is expanding civil rights.

are you scoffing at the idea of 'electability'?

I am scoffing at the idea of anyone of intelligence (not funded by the coal industry or trying to win votes in mining areas) actually repping for the idea that clean coal is economically or technologically possible.

I have not "damned" Obama (aside from saying He's a Politician), would be comfortable doing so to Rodham and McBickle.

ed, what's your problem w. liberalism anyway:

Sure free trade has hurt jobs in the devloped world but some of the blame lies at the feet of organised labour for not standing up for the rights and wages of the brothers and sisters in emerging economies, in effect globalising itself to deal with the globalisation of capital.

-- Ed, Tuesday, March 25, 2008 6:11 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

plus obvious scoff @ "oh, it's easy, just globalize organized labour"

man you guys I've only been at this for an hour or so but it turns out China totally does NOT want me to unionize them, Beijing is totally not even talking to me any more

this sounds like a job for billy bragg, tbh

ha!

Oh well. Thanks for trying. You still coming to our Olympic Games Girl- and Boycott? (xxpost)

btw Ed OTM that "clean coal" is a steaming load of bullshit

the last thing dems need is to split the 'people's party' and 'environmental party' vote

Liberalism is light on compulsion and redistribution, it's kind of progressive but only at the whim of those who hold the resources.

A Peoples party and an enviromental party are one and the same.

poll has O up 20 pts in NC. if that holds and IN is close, or if he wins by 10 and wins IN, it's over.

but the peoples party and environmental party votes are not

theres a reason that developing countries have a harder time dealing w/ environmental issues than developed ones. coal miners are not about to throw out their livelihoods

peoples party votes and environmental party votes are not

Coal Miners are going to have to be transitioned into other jobs because no one has a future if we keep burning coal.

What's over, gabbneb? A Rasmussen poll from last Thursday had Clinton up 28 points in West Virginia, and I'd wager that she'll do well in Kentucky, too. Unless Obama manages to win these states, too, I don't think you can call it.

Coal Miners are going to have to be transitioned into other jobs because no one has a future if we keep burning coal.

-- Ed, Tuesday, March 25, 2008 2:51 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

yeah i agree but if you want to elect someone who gives a shit ...

I don't disagree with that at all, that is realpolitik, but Obama, at least, is meant to be a charismatic leader, not a panderer.

This belongs on the veep thread, but it's hilarious: Romney as McCain's #2:

Where the fuck do Republicans get the impression that Romney knows a good goddamn about the economy?

Well, it's unlikely that Mitt will flip Massachusetts to red, but in addition to having great fundraising network, and being ten years younger and a tireless campaigner, he brings one heck of a message. Romney's mastery of economic issues and rep as the business turnaround guy could prove highly valuable to McCain. (Not to mention the healing to party divisions it might prompt.)

While McCain hogs the campaign trail spotlight, Romney could quietly barnstorm the most depressed areas of the country laying out a plan to tackle economic woes. His expert knowledge here and relentlessly upbeat demeanor would probably go over well. Further, his expertise means he could go out on the attack against the other candidate(s) on the issue with confidence and ease as the McCain camp needs him to.

Once elected, Romney could continue to deal with the issue. Being weighed down with concerns over the domestic economy is probably not what McCain wants anyway. President McCain would then be able to focus in on the issues he cares about — the war, national security and congressional/fiscal corruption. Romney would have to be careful not to overshadow McCain, but if the economy improves he could take some measure of credit for it and end up with an elevated profile to set him up for his own run at the White House, which could prove crucial if McCain ends up going one term.

There's bad blood still left over from the primary, but Romney appears willing to bury the hatchet. If McCain's smart, he'll look past that and start objectively weighing the merits of Veep Romney now.

xpost

clean coal is a little more complicated than that -- I doubt anyone would disagree that ideally we'd have discontinued coal burning entirely. but there's the increasingly likely scenario that coal will soon be so much cheaper than oil that people are just going to _start burning it no matter what_

in which case, the best-case scenario is that clean-burning technologies have already been put in place. and the politicians who are really thinking ahead are already looking into ways to cheaply distribute the same technology to China & India

There are clean burning technologies in terms of desulpherisation but there is no economic way of dealing with the CO2. The two should not be conflated.

strike at the root of the problem. wipe out half the population and burn down the internet, presto, CO2 emissions from coal become "manageable"

and quite frankly, although we could put resources into clean coal technology, we could equally put that money into renewable energies that work now. (although there is a promising line in biofuels based on algae that grow in CO2 rich environments which could be a limited CO2 sink, but lets not kid ourselves that this is going to be cheap).

strike at the root of the problem. wipe out half the population and burn down the internet, presto, CO2 emissions from coal become "manageable"

World heading this direction anyway.

Obama pwning the shit free online gamer vote 2:1

http://i28.tinypic.com/2u7x105.gif

http://www.miniclip.com/games/street-fight/en/

http://mediamattersaction.org/freeride/?src=top

any ed posts about carbon footprints etc are hilarious.

Indeed, I am a colossal hypocrite

I think it's interesting how places like NRO, et al complain about McCain in large part for the same reasons as discussed in that link -- 'too chummy with the mass media, it's all image, etc.' -- though through their lens, and a lot of that seems to boil down to a 'if only he dealt with an HONEST mass media like Rush and Fox News.'

Hillary: "I would not have chosen Wright as my pastor."

Hillary's Pastor as First Lady: "Lay off Wright, he's a outstanding guy"

http://www.foundryumc.org/pdfs/Statement%20concerning%20Rev.%20Jeremiah%20Wright.pdf

hahaha

Clinton Chats With The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy?
Posted by Scott Conroy| Comments2

The news out of Pennsylvania today was that Hillary Clinton weighed in on the Reverend Jeremiah Wright controversy when she told a newspaper editorial board, "he would not have been my pastor … You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."

But somewhat lost in the hubbub over this latest jab at Obama was the very fact that Clinton was meeting with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorial board at all.

Published by billionaire conservative activist Richard Mellon Scaife, the Tribune-Review is known for its opinion page, which tilts heavily to the right. During the 1990s, the paper published a series of stories examining the case of Vince Foster, the former White House Deputy Counsel whose 1993 death was ruled a suicide after several investigations.

The Tribune-Review was at the forefront of conspiracy theorists who speculated that Hillary and President Clinton may have been involved in murdering Foster and covering up his death. As late as 2002, the Tribune-Review published a column suggesting Hillary Clinton's presidential aspirations would be tampered due to the Foster "cover-up."

Asked at a news conference this afternoon what it felt like to sit in the heart of the "vast right-wing conspiracy," Clinton laughed.

"It was actually very pleasant … " she said. "I said in the beginning when I arrived that it was obviously somewhat counterintuitive for me to be there, but it was a good discussion."

seduced by the dark side...if you can't beat 'em blah blah blah

Clniton's 'I was shot at by snipers' lie is getting front page mention by the BBC, which is presumably a sign that it's getting more tracion.

it could sink her in the all important britishes primary

bbc's had a pretty anti-clinton tilt for awhile judging by the headlines ive been reading on google news

dudes its been the lede on drudge for like 2 days

brit media is pretty uniformly probama, yeah.

Comment pages are mixed, news pages are largely neutral.

Well, I felt that the the BBC had ignored almost all but the results of the primaries, and the odd interesting story. They didn't cover the 'wright' scandal, nor Clinton's questionable tactics up until now in any meaningful detail.

Well, anyway, as a Britisher, I was surprised to see it being discussed in detail rather than broad trends, and I supposed it showed that an event as more than the minutia of the election.

Comment pages are mixed, news pages are largely neutral.

-- Ed, Tuesday, March 25, 2008 10:01 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

news pages ought to be!

the 'david cameron is the new obama' meme is what i mean by him hitting big over here.

Is HRC Trying (and Will She Try) to Sabotage Obama's Chances in the GE so that McCain will win and she'll make another run in 2012?

the Tuzla airport thing probably of more relevance to britishes since it involves, y'know, Europe.

tbh the british media goes big on the US election when there's less on here. wrightgate coincided with 'five years of handwringing' last week so we sort of missed out on that. but the initial primaries and march 4th were huge.

the Tuzla airport thing probably of more relevance to britishes since it involves, y'know, Europe.

But it also involves moving pictures/video, a laughably obvious fib, and an uncomfortable candidate making awkward excuses about it. And that's the sort of stuff Americans will love.

http://images.huffingtonpost.com/gen/16209/thumbs/s-REID-154x114.jpg

Q: Do you still think the Democratic race can be resolved before the convention?

Reid: Easy.

Q: How is that?

Reid: It will be done.

Q: It just will?

Reid: Yep.

Q: Magically?

Reid: No, it will be done. I had a conversation with Governor Dean (Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean) today. Things are being done.

thy will be done

http://cdn.channel.aol.com/amgmusic/album/pop/cov200/drh100/h122/h12245ig97o.jpg

how many years have you waited to post this picture?

I am marginally reassured that Dean and Reid and Pelosi seem to be of the "fuck this shit" temperament but... well their track record in congress is pretty pathetic, hopefully when it comes to their own party they actually can get something done. Seems obvious they're all biting their tongues re: Hillary.

im thinking theyre not gogin to do anything until the voting is over to avoid alienating hillary supporters

http://www.kxmc.com/News/Nation/222451.asp

What are your thoughts on this?

I mean I'm a very liberal person myself, I'm a guy and I consider myself a feminist, and I think that many of the structures of society are to a degree inherently racist in America...

But I think that someone of the far far left left, that consider violence a good idea, and talk about revolution in those terms, and come up with conspiracy theories that are dangerous a la Reverend Wright would be a terrible leader for America, one that would be far more destructive than say four years of John McCain.

I'm not saying Obama is definitely an extremist, but his friends and his record seem to point out that he might not be the centrist, mr. unity he presents himself as.

And if he is such a peacemaker, why has there been so much anger coming from everyone around him? (The namecalling from numerous aids, the Wright thing)

tell me more about the far far left left

who said Obama is a peacemaker?

man stfu seriously

having a black pastor who says god damn america for slavery makes obama "more dangerous than john mccain"? suck a dick and go back to auditioning to the white rapper show motherfucker

“Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk rock performance poets”

lol college

And if he is such a peacemaker, why has there been so much anger coming from everyone around him? (The namecalling from numerous aids, the Wright thing)

Dude, have you been watching the news? Do you know what liberalism is?

One of the biggest misinterpretations of Obama's message that I'm running into (aside from the "OMG MUSLIM" stuff) is the idea that his message is about centrist politics. Obviously his record is more liberal than moderate, so this misinterpretation makes him seem disingenuous.

But the important thing to note is that it's his approach, not his politics, that is the centerpiece of his style. He's not advocating a centrist political approach - he's advocating an approach that acknowledges significant differences without demonizing the other side. He doesn't have to abandon his liberal views to acknowledge that conservatives might have some good ideas and they're worth talking to. But when people mix up the views with the approach, it makes him seem like a man who speaks from the center and votes from the left.

good post

i understand the 'reaching across the aisle' shit to mean obama will look at shit like Political instances where conservatives were/are right...

didn't Obama post to that thread under the handle "Garu G"

I'm not saying Obama is definitely an extremist

what the fuck are you talking about?

north dakota's favorite blogging, chatting and discussion destination

t-shirt of the day

Amazing, but it's crucial to remember that as much as we deride people who can't write, spell, or otherwise communicate an ability to think, they *also have a vote*.

Latest is that someone at an Indiana college campus asked Chelsea something difficult:

Chelsea Clinton had a quick retort Tuesday when asked whether her mother's credibility had been hurt during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

"Wow, you're the first person actually that's ever asked me that question in the, I don't know maybe, 70 college campuses I've now been to, and I do not think that is any of your business," Clinton said during a campaign visit for her mother, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Uh, wow.

What a supremely douchey question.

lol genealogy

it's a nonsensical question and the answer is equally nonsensical xp

LOL geneaology indeed!

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/3/2008/03/medium_racialtranscend.gif

lo

l

how bout hillary sitting down with r.m. scaife? how generous and open-hearted of her, to do that.

one could say she's almost... human.

p.s. can we have a couple of our resident FOH's chime in on the Tuzla airport thing? how exactly does someone who is not a calculating machiavel with a puffed-up resume "misspeak" about being shot at, or not? just askin', like.

She can't admit to lying, so she has to have another explanation. That this one isn't true either isn't importSo why DID Obama go to that church when he knew that Wright was preaching there?

what a machievellian genius Hillary is, to lie about a high-profile, videotaped public event!

oh, right, she was sleep-deprived.

honestly, after all the BS this campaign has seen, that might be the most infuriating to me because it's the most insulting to the intelligence. did she think there wasn't video from 1995? and the defenses have been stunning. sinbad (a comedian) has no credibility because he's ... "a comedian." and making up a combat yarn is a function of... exhaustion.

xp hah i've never said she was a genius.

but Tracer, she'd still be "fine" as the party's standard bearer, amirite? This is about as much of a standard as the Dems are used to.

yes, but how crafty! how calculating! to totally misstate what happened at an event the entire world was watching and has a record of! truly, such cunning can scarcely be comprehended

no, to think that such 'cunning' would not be immediately comprehended, cannot be comprehended. dyougetme.

i mean i'm really actually stunned over here

do you think bush misspoke all those times he lied, just because it was so obvious he was lying?

he must have been exhausted

(incidentally, if machiavelli was correct about anything, you wouldn't have to be smart to be a successful ruler, you'd just have to follow the M playbook and it would work, right?)

3AM Phone Call: "Bomb them!"
7AM press conference: "Did I say bomb? I was sleep deprived, I misspoke."

plus, as a long-time fan of sinbad, i am quick to defend his legacy.

So it turns out that Hillary's claim -- that she was the first presidential spouse to visit a war zone since Eleanor -- is incorrect; Pat Nixon visited Vietnam.

Rolling Stone: HRC's a habitual teller of tall tales"

http://i26.tinypic.com/mli0py.jpg

"shock"

p.s. can we have a couple of our resident FOH's chime in on the Tuzla airport thing? how exactly does someone who is not a calculating machiavel with a puffed-up resume "misspeak" about being shot at, or not? just askin', like.

umm I'm pro-HRC but my answer is "she was lying because she didn't figure she would get caught - she's something of a scumbag, you know"

being an FOH doesn't mean thinking she rules or anything rite

ha fair enuf

Quote of the Month

JD, what will be a bigger asset in enabling her to universalize healthcare, get us out of Iraq and fix the economy, the habitual lying or the finger-to-the-wind "principles"?

lol at Mark Halperin on the cover of the NYT

didn't really read my post eh Morbs

it's cool, you ain't gotta

the last one? yes. what are her qualities that she's masking with the two that are easily noticed?

give me one reason why I'd bother to answer you

Question: Do you still think the Democratic race can be resolved before the convention?

Reid: Easy.

Q: How is that?

Reid: It will be done.

Q: It just will?

Reid: Yep.

Q: Magically?

Reid: No, it will be done. I had a conversation with Governor Dean (Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean) today. Things are being done.

O RLY? Hm.

Harry "Corleone" Reid

Harry Da Don

http://i31.tinypic.com/34gpv2e.jpg

SAVE OUR PLANET

When foreigners look at the three contenders, Sen. Barack Obama seems to have the lead among Europeans and Africans. Sen. Hillary Clinton is popular among Mexicans and Chinese. Sen. John McCain just returned from a campaign swing through the Middle East and Europe.

lol obamas popular some places, clintons doing well in others and mccain just got back from a trip!

and no one's gettin' fat except Barney Frank

You can almost see it with its arms folded, going "Hmmmmmmmmm...."

holy fucking lolz @ "earth divided"

two ron paul dudes behind me going "yeah the Right is totally gonna lose this one, but you know we're gonna take it back in 2012."

but do they know of the divided earth?

tell them

dude they love McCain in the United Arab Emirates!

(^^^^^totally made up)

so 22% dems say clinton should drop out, likewise 22% of dems say obama should drop out

47% of obama supporters think clinton should drop out, and 38% of clinton supporters say obama should drop out

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/22_of_democrats_want_clinton_to_drop_out_22_say_obama_should_withdraw

i've made my support for obama known, so sorry if i'm being dense, but i really don't understand in the slightest how anyone could argue that obama should drop out. let's see, he's the leader in
1)pledged delegates (and total delegates)
2)states won
3)total votes cast
4)caucuses won
5)primaries won (i could be wrong on this one, but i remember hearing it recently)

i'm actually curious, what are the arguments for saying obama, of the two candidates, should drop out now? (i understand no major voices are really arguing for this, but is it really just people who either a.)aren't paying attention to this thing at all and don't like obama; or b.)serious, serious hillary supporters who so firmly believe in her entitlement to the nomination?

http://i27.tinypic.com/25ev3ie.jpg

likewise 22% of dems say obama should drop out

b.)serious, serious hillary supporters who so firmly believe in her entitlement to the nomination

as i recall, wasn't it around 30% of clintonistas who said they wouldn't vote at all if o was the nominee? (and vice versa)

xp dude tears of joy

africa is so confused right now

is it really just people who either a.)aren't paying attention to this thing at all and don't like obama; or b.)serious, serious hillary supporters who so firmly believe in her entitlement to the nomination?

where is "old white ladies afraid of black men" option

anybody pulling the "I won't vote if my Dem nominee doesn't get the nod" card needs to fucking check themselves

how come every indian want to be the chief

I don't need to check shit John. If Hillary gets the nom I'm not voting for her. We've been over this

I know we have, and you're still wrong

born to lose

O RLY. my district will go Democratic NO MATTER WHO I VOTE FOR. That being the case, why should I sully my conscience with a vote I don't believe in.

x-post

This conversation comes up like clockwork every three weeks.

was gonna say

political elections aren't about "your conscience" they're about winning power, i.e. GET OVER YOURSELF, SHAKEY MO.

i'd surely pull the lever for clinton but i'd be holding my nose at the time

i'm actually curious, what are the arguments for saying obama, of the two candidates, should drop out now?

I'm thinking it'd be just subjective electability stuff, no numbers .... e.g. "obama can't win the big states," "this wright thing will sink us," etc.

I don't understand why anyone listens to anything John says after his bullshit in the WOTW/DTKIC thread

Why bother voting for a scumbag if they're going to win your state anyway; vote nader!

which thread is that exactly xp

i dont need to vote clinton bcuz my district will go totally dem and i wouldnt, she voted for the war and i decided before obama even declared his candidacy i wouldnt vote for her in nov. if she was the nominee blah blah blah

political elections aren't about "your conscience" they're about winning power, i.e. GET OVER YOURSELF, SHAKEY MO.

jesus christ how many times do I have to go over this - my vote will not contribute to the Dems "winning power" EITHER WAY, no matter who I vote for. ergo my vote becomes not about power at all, but rather strictly about what I feel like doing. The Dem nom will get our district's delegates no matter what. my vote will not be required or be significant in any way at all.

plus the old favorite "obama singlehandedly disenfranchised michigan and florida and no dem from those states will vote for him" (xposts)

i dont mind sending a message with low popular vote totals

vote for nader why cause he's intertsing

and considering the pro-hillary camp's only argument is 'she is more electable' its even more hysterical that they would seriously consider not voting for obama if he is nominated

another scumbag is possible!

McCain or Hil would be proud occasion of my first prez nonvote

yeah get over yrself Shakey, your meaningless vote would still somehow part of the POWER STRUGGLE between two murderous political gangsters who badly need sh**ting.

morbs, you have lowered the bar yet again

lol @ "the clinton camp" having "one argument"

"camp" = 12,637,963 people

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/images/2008/03/26/hil_obama_finalv2.jpg

lol @ "the clinton camp" having "one argument"

"camp" = 12,637,963 people

-- Tracer Hand, Wednesday, March 26, 2008 11:17 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

im talking about in this thread

lol @ tracer conflating standard campaign terminology w/belittling 12 million voters

AGH NO NOT THE HILBAMA HYBRID !!!!!!

SO TERRIFIED RIGHT NOW!!!!

MODS HELP!

Shakey, you are using the people who will actually vote here in SF for the Democratic candidate in November as means to your own end, namely keeping your cosncience clean while preferring not to have McCain president. (I assume. Please correct me if I'm incorrect.) As one of those future voters, I demand to be treated with greater dignity and respect. ;)

dudes hils not getting the nom dont sweat it

i mean, if she does win the nom then we're fucked because she'll be painted as ruthless nomination thief and gosh there's good old john-boy he looks honest

she's not winning the nom

which thread is that exactly xp

-- BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Wednesday, March 26, 2008 12:12 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Taking Sides: "Do They Know It's Christmas?" vs "We Are the World"

we need to put this conscience vote thing to bed:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/185040.php

In any case, I'm not saying they're interchangeable. Whichever you prefer, they're actually very different candidates. What I am saying is that no one can run away from the choice every American with the franchise will face in November. The next president will either be John McCain or the Democratic nominee. That's an immovable fact. Not voting or voting for some protest candidate doesn't allow anyone to wash their hands of that choice.

Now one reader, TPM Reader KK, wrote in and said that he supports Obama, isn't a Democrat, actually doesn't agree with a number of Obama's policy positions but believes he could change the tenor of politics in the country and through his election help shift the rest of the world's view of the US. For KK, if Obama doesn't win the nomination, I guess there really might not be any particular reason he'd vote for Clinton over McCain.

But I do not believe this is the case with the great, great majority of readers of TPM who are supporting either of these two candidates. I think most are Democrats or Democrat-leaning independents who ascribe to a series of policies now generally adhered to by members of the Democratic party. People for whom that applies have to decide whether the alleged transgressions of either candidate or their differences in tone, political style and so forth are so grave and substantial that they merit electing John McCain who stands on the other side of basically all of those issues.

--Josh Marshall

I'd have more respect for somebody who votes McCain than for anybody who thinks staying home is the "conscience" move

MW makes a good point.

Josh Marshall needs to learn what "ascribe" means.

you could email him

i would like to ascribe to his blog

I could write, but would he ever wristband?

I think he only engages with people who tow his line.

I'd have more respect for somebody who votes McCain than for anybody who thinks staying home is the "conscience" move

It's not a "conscience" move – how 'bout I just don't want HRC in the White House with Bill Clinton again?

We put up with it twice, and I don't want it again.

how bout suck it up and don't be a dick?

(it doesn't matter; she's not gonna win the nom anyway)

But I don't know, I mean, I don't want to disintegrate the guy.

xposts

no one said anything about staying home

"dickless" is voting for HRC for any other reason than installing another Democrat in the White House.

I would rather read TPM than the hinge-swinging screeds posted at Daily Howler, Tracer.

I'm suddenly curious to know what exactly you had to put up with during Clinton's presidency, Alfred?

"Hinge-swinging"! That's good! I have no idea what it means but it's evocative.

i mean i admire when people have principles, you know, but really????

How come we didn't hear about this a month ago?

http://www.scrappleface.com/?p=2493

tmp is awz - they do great original reporting - its like a little newspaper inside a blog

Maybe they could pass a law requiring everyone to vote for a major party candidate.

Q. Do you not have the option of spoiling your ballot in America, therby indicating your willingness to participate in the democratic process while rejecting the choice of candidates?

tracer: like a wonky door, maybe? i dunno, i was going to say "unhinged" but that would be unkind but there is some coherence to the howler, it's just melodramatic and written in a tabloidy fashion

Clinton: "(A)s you know so well, Mark, every delegate with very few exceptions is free to make up his or her mind however they choose. We talk a lot about so-called pledged delegates, but every delegate is expected to exercise independent judgment."

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1725514,00.html

im going to vote sinbad for that courageous time he survived bosnian sniper fire

one day i hope to see through my bias, to have a concrete objective understanding of why right wing sites always LOOK LIKE COMPLETE SHIT AND ARE NEVER FUNNY

he, too has already been in the white house:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51XT7E0JM7L._AA280_.jpg

and have dipshit names, too. 'scrappleface'??

xp

every delegate with very few exceptions is free to make up his or her mind however they choose. We talk a lot about so-called pledged delegates, but every delegate is expected to exercise independent judgment.

thats technically true except the campaigns pick the delegates - and they pick steadfast supporters

camp hillary just trying to blow smoke like its less over than it is

I'm suddenly curious to know what exactly you had to put up with during Clinton's presidency, Alfred?

lololol are you for real

jhøshea do they actually do much original reporting besides scandal stuff? A few years back, Josh Marshall supposedly had this gigantic exposé of the Italian intelligence documents that ended up in the State of the Union; he stretched out the drama for weeks, kept referring to things he "couldn't say at this time" etc. but it just sort of fizzled? Beyond that it seems pretty standard beltway scandal sheet stuff. Which is a real service if you're into that, I guess.

melodramatic and written in a tabloidy fashion

This is exactly why I love it!

Hoos I AM FOR REAL.

^^^this

if Hils get the nom (which isn't gonna happen anyway barring some unforeseen disaster) I believe I will go with my previously stated fallback choice: Sun Ra. Or maybe Jeremiah Wright haha. I will not be "staying home" (I'm sure there'll be other shit on the ballot for which my vote will actually matter)

errr many x-posts ("this" was ref'ing deej)

aside: based on recent conversations, i think my mom dislikes michelle obama even more than she dislikes hillary, which i didn't think was possible. "she seems angry" lol typical white mom

tracer, marshall & co. just won some awards for their coverage of the attorney firings

michelle obama is a milf

I'm placing a friendly bet with ILX right now that Clinton will get the nomination.

which i guess is 'beltway scandal', if that's how you want to judge it. daily howler is more media criticism innit?

xps

colin are you for real? pls outline a scenario where she gets the nom.

yah tracer tpms reporting is mostly scandal based - which i love - theyve had major impact on a number of big stories - particularly the us attorneys firing scandal (which was the final nail in alberto gonzales) and all that shit w/ted stevens up in alaska

easily one of my fav sites

(that yellow cake related story was a total dud tho)

I'm suddenly curious to know what exactly you had to put up with during Clinton's presidency

oh let's see DOMA/stab in the back with a serrated knife, crypto-racist campaign leading to welfare takedown, the use of bombs as convenient distraction, a decade's worth of pointless sanctions for the sake of sating the right how are we doing so far

or are we disqualifying outrageous policy out of hand

Sssh! Bill and Hils are two different people, donchasee?

don't forget Telecommunications Act of 1995.

http://media.gallup.com/poll/graphs/20080326democrats1.gif

dang.

http://www.breitbart.tv/html/68124.html

^^ hillary's pilot into bosnia denies evasive maneuvers during landing

i don't think those numbers will stay like that into the fall, but that is a bad bad sign

xp

28%??? thats insane, id expect the number to be maybe a quarter of that at most by nov xp

you gotta think those #s will come waaaaay down once emotions subside in the wake of the battle.

still kinda disturbing tho.

which is why i think the dem leadership is gonna have to handle closing the door on hillary v skillfully. it has to be obv that obama won fair not by some shady backroom shit.