Go McCain (Clap, Clap) Fight . . .

. . . we’ve got spirit, but we’re not too bright!

Turns out John McCain has himself quite a cheerleader in Bob Schieffer. After his incredulous response to Wesley Clark’s poorly timed but absolutely factual comments about McCain’s qualifications to be commander-in-chief, Schieffer responded to guest John Kerry’s remarks about McCain flip-flops by sharply asking, “Are you attacking John McCain’s integrity?”

Wow! To this, I can only ask, “Isn’t it about time for Bob Schieffer to trade in his interview notes for some bingo cards?”

Did Wesley Clark Plant a Seed That Will Grow For Obama Despite Media Criticism?

After considering the flap about Wesley Clark’s comments, the media’s harsh condemnation of him, and Barack Obama’s “rejection” of the remarks, I am left wondering if the whole thing might actually work to Obama’s benefit, as the controversy subsides and memories crystallize into subconscious baggage that shapes public opinion one person at a time.

Just as the Reverend Wright controversy faded away, perhaps leaving a lasting impression for many voters that Obama is indeed a Christian and not a Muslim, we can only hope that when the dust settles on the Clark controversy, what will stick in the back of peoples’ minds is that John McCain's primary claim to national security authority "is that he got shot down!"

It’s kind of like me claiming I'm the superior choice to coach a football team because I once broke my arm playing football!

Sure, McCain’s a “military man” and I can hardly be considered a “football man,” but if the mental connection for some voters gets rewired from “McCain-Military-War Hero” to “McCain-Military-Shot Down,” that will be a significant advantage for Obama!

The audacity of hope? I’d like to think so! But then again, perhaps it’s just me calling an empty glass half full!

[Update] OK, It’s not just me. Rachel Maddow just said essentially the same thing!

Just Answer the F**king Question!

You’ve got to hand it to Christopher Hitchins; He may be a bloated, arrogant, windbag, but he’s willing to put his lungs where his mouth is!

In his article, “Believe Me, It’s Torture,” Hitchins recounts the experience of being waterboarded, as he volunteered to undergo for Vanity Fair. You can actually watch the video at this link. It’s quite disturbing (aside from the fact that it’s the insufferable Hitchins on the table!)

It’s even more disturbing when you consider that the technique was developed by the Chinese not to reveal critical true information but to elicit confessions, whether true or false.

Knowing the history of waterboarding, I can only wonder what Hitchins would have blurted out if, instead of being able to stop the exercise whenever he decided he could take no more (which happened after 17 seconds, and what looks like only a few tablespoons of water), he knew the only way to get it to stop was to respond to a forceful request to “name three great things about God!”

Can a "Good Democrat" Still Criticize Obama?

Let me state right at the outset that I didn't choose to write this post because I have the answer to this question.

In fact, I'm really struggling with it, particularly after considering the whole Keith Olbermann vs Glenn Greenwald debate (in which the two staked out opposite positions on Obama's willingness to support a compromise FISA bill that would immunize the telecoms from civil lawsuits, but not criminal prosecution).

I won't get into the specific details, beyond pointing out the critical points that I find most compelling about each side of the argument.

For Olbermann's part, I think Obama has demonstrated time and time again that he has superb political instincts, and should be (largely) trusted to know what he needs to do to defeat John McCain and put himself in the position to start changing the direction of the country.

On the other hand, Greenwald makes an excellent point that civil liability is the one thing Bush can't pardon as he leaves office, so it’s not an insignificant "throw away" to be traded for a better opportunity to restore accountability.

I will vote for Obama over McCain, even if I disagree with some of Obama’s positions! So should I bite my tongue (and swallow my pen) out of concern that dissention on the left will embolden the Republicans? Or, as one of the million and a half people who have donated to Obama’s campaign (seven times, counting merchandise purchases), should I make clear the positions on critical issues that will keep me inspired enough to donate again?

Like I said, I’m torn. However, Arianna Huffington isn’t, as she comments on Obama’s seeming lurch to the political center:

The Obama brand has always been about inspiration, a new kind of politics, the audacity of hope, and "change we can believe in." I like that brand. More importantly, voters -- especially unlikely voters -- like that brand.

Pulling it off the shelf and replacing it with a political product geared to pleasing America's vacillating swing voters -- the ones who will be most susceptible to the fear-mongering avalanche that has already begun -- would be a fatal blunder

The whole article is worth reading, although I personally could not have written it (and not just because Arianna “runs rings around me, logically!”) I’m more inclined right now to “keep it in-house,” which is why I’ve signed up for the Obama supporters’ group formed through Obama’s own website to express to him our position against the compromise FISA bill.

Unity Schmunity!

A while back I wrote a post that included the following conclusion:

If Hillary really wants a Democrat to return to the White House in 2008, she will show her leadership by defending Obama against her own most vitriolic anti-Obama supporters!

A few days ago, Hillary Clinton held a formal unity rally with Barack Obama, and gave a rousing speech in support of his campaign. Purportedly at the request of both candidates, Bill Clinton was not present at the event.

Now, it appears that Bill is quite a bit more reluctant to embrace the Obama campaign, reportedly telling friends that Obama will have to “kiss his ass” to gain Bill’s support.

I’ll admit that Hillary has a limited ability to stop nutjobs like Larry Johnson from trashing Obama in an effort to undermine his campaign against John McCain. However, if there is one person she can be expected to influence if she really wants Obama to win in the general election, it’s her husband!

As I’ve said before, Hillary knows she has to be seen as being 100 percent behind Barack Obama to remain a contender for the democratic nomination in 2012 if Obama were to lose to McCain.

If she doesn’t get Bill to support him 100 percent as well, it will be a sign to me that she isn’t really “kissing” Obama, but is kissing the air next to Obama as a photo op to prove she wasn’t the reason he lost, but that she and Bill are really still counting on him to lose to John McCain so she can resume her presidential aspirations!

Now Croatia Is Like a Normal Raiders' Parking Lot!

This post is a follow-up to my account of the pre-game hype for the Croatia vs Turkey quarterfinal, since the game is now in the books and you might wonder what happened, at least from our vantage point among the throng of tourists from all over the world in the Old Town Square of Prague, during a 5 day stop-over on the way home.

It was a pretty wild scene, with a huge screen set up for several thousand people, who were either eating in the cafes on the perimeter, or picnicking in the middle of the square.

There was a large contingent of Turkish fans waving flags and singing, and a smaller group of obvious Croatian fans. We ended up sharing a table at one of the cafes with a couple of Canadians of Croatian heritage who were hardcore about the game, having attended the Croatia-Poland game in person.

Despite the high energy levels of fans from both sides, and in contrast with what I've always heard about soccer crowds, there was a noticeable lack of security. In fact, this guy, who appeared to be about 80 hard years old, was the only person within view who appeared to have any sort of security role:


The game itself turned out to be a classic! Croatia just missed a bunch of shots on goal and dominated possession throughout the game, but finished 0-0 at the end of regulation.

The teams had played another two scoreless 15 minute periods of overtime, and were 3 seconds into the single minute of stoppage time, when Croatia scored a dramatic “game-winning” goal with approximately 57 seconds to go!

Here's the shot I took of the screen to memorialize the winning score:


The Croatian fans were delirious! The Turkish fans were dejected! The ball flied back and forth across the field aimlessly as the clock ran toward the end of the final minute. As our small group of Croatia loyalists began to count down the final seconds, the ball was kicked high the entire length of the field toward the Croatia goal.

"Six!"

"Five!"

"Four!"

"Three!"

"Two!"

"Holy shit!"

As we yelled out the word "One," a Turkish player kicked a rebounded ball into the Croatian goal to tie the game and send it to penalty kicks!

You can probably guess the rest. With a sure win snatched from their grasp, Croatia was rattled and missed a couple of kicks, while Turkey, given new life, made every opportunity and moved on to the semifinals.

With such an emotional turnaround, you might expect some animosity between the rival fans. You might expect security forces to swarm the square in order to maintain order and prevent chaos. Well, here was the only security guard, sound asleep, at the moment the game ended (and being mocked by a drunken German who was quite a hit with fans of both teams, I might add!)


From what I could see, no security was needed anywhere. Everyone appeared to simply say "good evening" or "I'm sorry," depending on whether theirs was the losing or winning team, and then went about their business.

If only every other international conflict could be resolved so politely!

[Update] Apparently, my experience in Prague was not indicative of the behavior of some fans attending the actual game!

Rock, Paper, Scissors?

I finally had the chance to hear John Woo and David Addington speak today, during questioning by the House Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee. If I thought they were contemptible on paper, I now realize that I had no idea how contemptible until actually hearing the words coming out of their mouths!

I was only able to watch a short segment of the questioning, but fortunately I got to see this exchange, as John Conyers desperately tries to find a “yes or no” question that Yoo will answer with a “yes” or “no.”



I guess it’s reassuring to know that Yoo has never advised the president that he “can bury somebody alive!” I suppose that’s something to be proud of!

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see the questioning by one of my favorite House members, Steve Cohen of Tennessee, which included one of the quotes of the day in this exchange:



However, this time I think Cohen missed the mark by referring to the vice president as a “barnacle” attached to the legislative branch. A barnacle is way too neutral and harmless; I would have gone with “tick” instead!

The Whole Country Was a Raiders' Parking Lot After a Win Over the Broncos!

In an earlier post, I briefly mentioned watching one of Croatia's games in the European Football Championships (that's soccer to our American readers).

It was a huge win against the favored Germans, but unfortunately the weather short circuited our plans to watch the game at one of every bar, restaurant or ice cream shop in town that had the game blaring on TVs set up on packed outdoor terraces!

Luckily, I got one more chance to see Croatia's last pool game against Poland at a restaurant in Rijeka, on the night before I left the country.

Although Croatia had already clinched a spot in the quarterfinals with two straight wins, they had the chance to become the first team to be undefeated in a pool (after Portugal was upset by the host Swiss the prior evening.)

The crowd - in a restaurant hundreds of miles from the game, mind you - looked like a red and white version of the "Black Hole" at an Oakland Raiders' game (for readers unfamiliar with the NFL Raiders, you can just imagine an Obama rally taking place during the bar scene from Star Wars!)

The game didn't really matter, but Croatia won 1-0 on a second half goal, and the restaurant crowd went wild. As we started our walk home, I realized that the entire city was going wild, with flags waving, cars honking, air horns tooting, and from every bar, the sound of delirious singing (of what I later learned was the theme of an apparently very successful advertising campaign by the brewers of Osjusko Pivo!)

I have no doubt that every other municipality in the entire country - from our tiny island town of Veli Losinj to the capital of Zagreb - were joined in a shared moment of uncontrollable mass joy that I can only compare to those increasingly rare occasions when I've walked through the parking lot after a big Raiders' win!

Of course, my comparison fell apart the next day when I picked up a newspaper and saw a preview of Croatia's upcoming quarter-final game against Turkey. I snapped the above image of the story, which my rudimentary Croatian skills told me showed equivalent enthusiasm and passion from both sides of the coming battle, not unlike what I would expect in a similar story about, say, Raider and Bronco fans.

But then I noticed this box associated with the story and realized a key flaw in my point of reference:



There were approximately 20,000 Croatian fans expected to travel to Austria for the game. Presumably there would be similar numbers of Turkish fans in attendance. As a part of their preview, the paper included a Croatian to Turkish translation of some common phrases that these fans may have reason to share with each other - phrases that make the cut even into my miniscule Croatian vocabulary:

"Good day!"

"How are you?"

"Thank you!"

"I'm sorry!"

Not exactly the phrases I would expect to hear offered to a Broncos fan who ventured into the Black Hole!

Those phrases could have been reduced to pictures of body gestures, and perhaps the phrase "your mother!"

(to be continued)

Back To Reality

I'm sitting in the Atlanta airport during a 2-hour layover on my way home, "enjoying" web access for the first time since leaving Croatia for a week in Prague (pictured above), compiments of a roundabout FF ticket. I'll post more when my head clears.

John McCain is . . .

As John McCain travels the country, furiously trying to define himself on his own terms, it must be pointed out that you are defined not just by what you say, but by what you do. Or, to be more accurate, by how you seem to those looking at what you do and say.

So, in that spirit, I thought I'd offer up a few potential definitions based on how John McCain seems to me:

John McCain is the guy who says he's your friend, while he steals your stuff and gives it to his real friends to get them to like him.

John McCain is plain Cream of Wheat every morning for breakfast.

John McCain is the old guy who still teaches traffic school at the American Legion Hall.

John McCain is George Bush's intellect but with more time to have forgotten what he once knew.

John McCain is all the Batman villains rolled into one.

John McCain is the high school gym coach who laughs when you get hit in the nuts while playing dodgeball.

John McCain is the sound (and feel) of your own fingernails on a blackboard that is just out of arms reach.

John McCain is the guy who takes up adjacent handicapped spaces to pick up his dry cleaning so his wife won't yell at him for getting door dings on her Lexus.

John McCain is the recurring dream where you are being chased while running in quicksand.

John McCain is Bob Dole on steroids HDH (Human Dwarf Hormone.)

And if slightly less than a thousand words don't say it, here's a small modification of the above unedited pic from Reuters that does:

A Two Hundred Year Old Stone House With a Satellite Dish

Well, we recently took the ulimate step toward pulling our island vacation life into the 21st century, by getting a TV and installing a satellite dish.

And God looked down on us and said "So you want a reason not to leave the house, I'll give you a reason not to leave the house!"

In the four days since the dish went up, it has rained all but one afternoon (during which we were fortunate enough to squeeze in a dive.) Before that, we had been able to go to the beach just about every day.

On the positive side, we were able to watch Croatia stun Germany in the European Football Championships, while waiting out a torrential downpour.

And it's not quite as frivolous as it looks, since there are no monthly fees to pay when we aren't here, and the cost was pretty reasonable (even with the crappy exchange rate.) For about $800, we got a TV, dish, and decoder box, including a 3-hour installation, which gives us access to about 750 channels (with only about a dozen or so in English) for as long as it takes the dish to rust away from the salt air!

I've already learned a few things from the unfiltered satellite programming. Based on the huge number of channels broadcasting in Arabic, I can surmise that citizens of western cultures aren't the only ones prone to becoming couch potatos who want to sit around scanning for the opportunity to call up "Hot Girls, who are waiting to talk to you." In fact, there are about 100 channels offering some variation of "Hot Girls waiting to talk to you" in just about every language known to man, including titles like "Hot Arab Girls" and "Persian Sex World."

I'm quite sure the right wingers would be quick to accuse the Arabic language channels of disseminating terrorist propaganda. Of course, mixed in among the Arabic and other channels are "The Pentagon Channel" and "Voice of America," offering an image of the large American military footprint that conveniently leaves out shows like "This Week in Blackwater Target Practice!"

As for the English programming, unless your primary interests are the weather or Wall Street, there isn't a whole lot to choose from.

Right now, however, I'm content with being able to satisfy my newly acquired obsession with the weather!

Some bonus dive pics:

McCain Doesn't Use Computers but Obama Does!

John McCain is illiterate - or should I say computer illiterate! When asked if he prefers a Mac or PC - he indicated that he doesn't use computers - that his wife takes care of that for him.




On the other hand Barack Obama uses computers and definitely understands the influence of computers and the Internet on modern society. His campaign has used the "Internets" masterfully to get out his message, connect to his supporters and raise huge amounts of money. Obama's latest web site is one that debunks the right wing smears.

I wonder what plans Cindy has for McCain's web presence?

New NBC/WSJ Poll: Up Up and Away!

Today's NBC/WSJ poll shows a great start for Obama's "general" run. My sense has been that once the primary was over the clear distinctions between Obama and McCain would be painfully (for the Republicans) obvious. The state of the economy, gas prices and frustration with the war - all fall squarely on McCain's "slumping" shoulders as he tries to convince the electorate that we need more of the same. This poll shows that he's got one ginormous hill to climb:

Obama leads McCain among African Americans (83-7 percent), Hispanics (62-28), women (52-33), Catholics (47-40), independents (41-36) and even blue-collar workers (47-42). Obama is also ahead among those who said they voted for Clinton in the Democratic primaries (61-19).

The True Test of Hillary's Leadership

While I didn't hear Hillary give her concession speech, I read the transcript and can't quibble with the widespread media reaction that called it her most compelling, perhaps even brilliant, speech of the campaign.

However, after such a speech, what will be most interesting to me in the coming months is not what her political surrogates - the Wesley Clarks, the Tom Vilsacks and the Ed Rendells - will say after her endorsement of Obama. I think they understand the importance to Hillary's political rehabilitation of appearing to be completely behind Obama in the general election.

The important test of Hillary's leadership will be what her non-political advocates - the Paul Krugmans, the Joe Wilsons, and the Taylor Marshes - will say.

If Krugman writes more columns ripping Obama, will Hillary play dumb or come to his defense? If the former, then we'll know she's being disingenuous when she says she wants Obama to beat McCain.

If Hillary quietly tolerates an undercurrent of continued criticism of Obama from those to whom she can claim no direct political connection, then we will know that her outward support for Obama is tactical, that she knows she can't be seen as the reason for his loss, but that she is still hoping he will lose and make her the frontrunner again in 2112.

If Hillary really wants a Democrat to return to the White House in 2008, she will show her leadership by defending Obama against her own most vitriolic anti-Obama supporters!

If she doesn't defend him from such attacks, and the commercial media continues to report, ad nauseum, about her conciliatory brilliance, then they (and anyone who believes them) will be guilty of being duped, yet again, by the Clintons!

Another Great Obama Speech!

This one to his campaign staff at his Chicago headquarters after clinching the nomination. All I can say is what a great inspiring leader! I have no doubt that his staff will work night and day to get him elected.

Hillary: One Day at a Time!

So Hillary has decided to concede the nomination and endorse Barack Obama.

That's great, but given the arc of her campaign, is this a greater commitment than was her pledge "not to participate" in the Michigan and Florida primaries?

OK, I doubt she could go back to claiming she deserves the nomination, but think about what happened here!

On the night Obama clinched the nomination by getting an insurmountable number of delegates, Hillary gave a speech touting her own support after allowing herself to be introduced by Terry McAulliffe as "the next president of the United States!"

It was only after what can best be described an "intervention" by her own high profile supporters on Capitol Hill that she agreed to try to kick the "campaigning to be president" habit!

Of course, normally such an intervention is followed by extensive treatment and group therapy, with support from fellow recovering addicts. There is no such peer group for Hillary, however, and one has to wonder how soon it will be before she falls back on her old ways of boosting her own qualifications as a future commander-in-chief over Barack Obama's if doing so will give her the rush she's looking for!

And while I'm trying to stay optimistic, I'm not ready to concede to those who want to say that "all is forgiven" now that Hillary has promised to help Obama get elected. For me, all will be forgiven on the day of Barack Obama's inauguration.

Until and unless that day occurs, Hillary will be just another unfortunate loser, whose compulsions ultimately destroyed the lives of those she claimed to love!

Today, Even My Croatian Neighbor is a Democrat!

Turns out that I'm not as cut off from the U.S political scene as I thought I would be, since we've realized that we can download podcasts of Countdown and listen to Keith Olbermann give us the full rundown every couple of days for just a few kuna.

It sure beats trying to get bits and pieces of news from Croatian radio or newspaper, although it does appear that many Croatians are quite tuned in to the Barack Obama phenomenon (Obamenon?) A friend on rhe mainland sent us a text message to see if we were celebrating shortly after Obama's presumptive nomination was announced.

So I know that Obama has declared victory, and that Hillary is still trying to get Appalachian hillbilly kids to sell their bikes and donate at W! W! W! Hillary Clinton! Dot! Com!

I was also pleased to hear, directly from a local resident of Zagreb, that during George W. Bush's recent visit, Croatians were respectful out of general appreciation for the official visit from the U.S., but that they despise the man as much as the growing majority of Americans do.

I had also hoped to monitor the reaction I got to wearing an "Obama 2008" sweatshirt during my travels, feeling perhaps for the first time in years, that I wouldn't mind being tagged as an American. Fortunately, I suppose, it does not appear that I'll have much of an opportunity, as the weather seems destined to preclude things like sweatshirts.

Before I put it away, however, I did get a "Hooray for your guy!" from the security screener at Charles DeGaulle Airport in Paris.

Now if we could just boost the dollar back to something surpassing the value of toilet paper over here, traveling as an American could be downright enjoyable again!

Please Pass the Jello!

From Atrios:

"Oh, Go with the Green Background"

"It'll make you look like the cottage cheese in a lime jello salad" Always a good look for an older gentlemen.The aesthetics of McCain's speech, just mercifully completed before a slightly energized crowd of literally dozens, was awesome in how dreadful it was.

Update: Here's a great mash up of McCain's speech and the pundits reaction via TPM:

An Historic Night!

(REUTERS/Eric Miller)
There were a bunch of great moments tonight - but I think my favorite was this fist bump between Michelle and Barack - just before Obama gave his speech. It was a little gesture but it said so much.

Here are a couple more:
(AP Photo/Morry Gash)

(AFP/Getty Images/Scott Olson)

AP: Obama Has Clinched the Nomination

The Associated Press has just posted a story proclaiming Obama the Democratic Nominee. I believe that this is the first official news organization to write this.

Woohoo! On to November.

Hillary – It Just Won’t Be You!

Dear Hillary,

On the eve of what appears to be the end of your “historic”, “ground breaking” bid to become the first woman to earn the nomination of her party to be President of the United States – I just have to say…….. nice try!

You proved a formidable candidate and a viable choice for the Democratic party. You won a lot of support nation wide. You showed that the country may just be ready for a female president. Your candidacy was ground breaking in many ways and America will ultimately be better for your run.

But in the end, much to your chagrin, but still for our countries gain – Barack Obama proved a better candidate, a better politician and overall a better leader! His nomination also speaks volumes about the progress of the country and his election in June will be a signal to the world that America will not defined by the Bush Administration. We are better than that……………much better!

So as you reflect upon your failure to earn the nomination – know that because of you - the United States will have a woman President someday………………………It just won’t be you!

Kick His Ass! Kick His Ass!

Remember when a fight would break out in elementary school, and all the other kids were so glad not to be involved that they would gather and cheer for the loser to fight back, just so they could watch a longer, and hopefully bloodier, fight from the safety of the sidelines?

OK, so maybe you didn't grow up in a rural, white, working class, town like I did; but trust me, it happened all the time, and the kids most eager to cheer on the fight were often the ones least likely to be in one.

I'm willing to guess that the kids who were most eager to egg on the apparent loser of one of these schoolyard fights, just to see a good bloodbath from a safe distance, are the same Hillary supporters now urging her to "take it to the convention!"

Of course, they will be long gone by the time Hillary gets expelled from the Democratic Party, and has to nurse her political wounds in the solitary isolation that comes with being yesterday's loser!

Obama Has Always Been Prepared to be a Groundbreaker!

One of the main assumptions underlying Rachel Maddow's recent warning about Hillary's intentions is that the Democrats can't win after a contested convention.

As this race has progressed, and it has become more apparent that Hillary has every intention of risking political suicide to keep her campaign alive to the bitter end, I have to think that Obama has been planning for this eventuality.

Clearly, a man running to be the Nation's first black president isn't going to accept conventional wisdom that says he can't win after a contested convention just because no one has ever done it before!

In keeping with everything else about the Obama campaign, I suspect that he is prepared to use the time between the last primary on June 3 and the convention in late August to position himself against John McCain't and begin uniting the party, even if Hillary is still yapping like a startled dog about her electibility!

I suspect Obama now knows he can essentially ignore her without fear of superdelegate defections, and thus begin the general election campaign, because he understands that she has at least three strikes against her that she'll never be able overcome with the superdelegates:

1. She signed a pledge regarding Michigan and Florida and then reneged when it suited her!

2. She used racial fears to solidify her base, but alienated both the African-American community and all the other Democrats who value them!

3. Her RFK comment was either a) intentionally devious and unpresidential, or b) carelessly insensitive and unpresidential!

Without the ability to gain superdelegate support, Hillary's campaign (and now probably her political career) is dead in the water. Her "base" will slowly shrink to Bushian proportions, and have just about as much influence on the general election.

In other words, if Hillary contests the convention, and there's no one there who hears her, does she make a sound?

Here’s One Thing Hillary has Achieved.

No, not a buzz!

By extending her campaign well beyond the point of reverse inevitability^TM (or would that be “evitability?”), Hillary Clinton has perhaps accomplished the following:

It is now highly probable that I will not get to experience the enjoyment of seeing her concession speech!

If she concedes the nomination to Barack Obama some time during the next 3 ½ weeks, while I’m on a small Croatian island in the Adriatic without television or regular Internet access, she will be able remain blissfully unaware of the rare absence of my scathing commentary (Truth be told, over the course of this campaign, I’ve come to realize that one of the few things Hillary actually has in common with average Americans is being blissfully unaware of my scathing commentary, but I digress!)

It is possible that I might find the time to write and the access to post an occasional piece during my travels, such as these highlights from previous trips abroad, but I certainly won’t know what’s going on in the political world as it happens.

I’m just hoping to return in 3 ½ weeks to find that Obama is the officially acknowledged Democratic nominee, and that the party is busy working together to build its campaign against John McCain’t^TM.

Unfortunately, I’m afraid I’ll find Hillary still looking for another bunch of binge drinking Neanderthals who can be convinced, over shots and camera flashes, to fear an Obama presidency more than another hundred years in Iraq, or a misspoken command to obliterate Iran during a 3 AM phone call after a hard night of drinking!

She'll Bite Your Legs Off!

Out of Context???!!!!!

When I was much younger, I remember seeing an ad on TV that was part of the early “war on drugs” campaign. It featured a father lecturing his teen after discovering drugs in his room. The father, exasperated, asks the son forcefully, “Where did you learn about stuff like this? And the son yells back, “From you, Dad. I learned it from watching you!!!!”

That’s what I think about when I read Hillary’s op-ed in which she accuses critics of taking her “Assassin-gate” comment out of context:

This past Friday, during a meeting with a newspaper editorial board, I was asked about whether I was going to continue in the presidential race.

I made clear that I was - and that I thought the urgency to end the 2008 primary process was unprecedented. I pointed out, as I have before, that both my husband's primary campaign, and Sen. Robert Kennedy's, had continued into June.

Almost immediately, some took my comments entirely out of context and interpreted them to mean something completely different - and completely unthinkable.

Hillary, if there is one thing you can’t accuse others of doing in this campaign, it’s taking things out of context:

Remember "Obama loves Ronald Reagan?"

Remember “Bittergate?”

Remember David Shuster?

Remember Obama’s experience consists of “a single speech?”

Remember “I take him at his word that he’s not a Muslim?”

Remember “Jesse Jackson won South Carolina too?”

Remember any of probably hundreds of times during the 26 debates that you twisted a word or a phrase uttered by another candidate to your own political advantage?

In fact, it is your great skill, touted often by your supporters as making you “a brilliant debater,” that you always, always, ALWAYS take everything in whatever context is needed to advance your ambitions and your goals!

But this time, blaming others for taking your statement out of context won’t work, because everyone knows that it is exactly the context in which you made your unfortunate remarks that makes them so egregious!

And the fact that you deliberately, to this day, refuse to recognize the true context in which your statement was made - by apologizing to the Obama family - shows that you are still trying to use this incident to advance your ambitions and your goals.

So don’t lecture us about taking things out of context.

We learned (to reject) it from watching you!

Also at Daily Kos

If Hillary’s Campaign is a Dead Parrot . . .

A few days ago, I highlighted Dana Milbank’s column comparing Hillary’s campaign to Monty Python’s dead parrot sketch.

I guess this would have to qualify as the Obama campaign’s very lively counterpart:



And in the wake of Hillary’s latest travesty, here’s a link to my post from yesterday on Daily Kos, which posed the following question:

What if Hillary is so afraid of the political symbolism of
the Cardoza 40 defecting from her to Obama that she suddenly felt she needed to create a plausible justification that she can use to keep other superdelegates, and more importantly her working class supporters whose children still have bikes to sell, from giving up on her campaign?

You can read the whole thing over there, as it includes a bit more discussion than I can hope to generate over here.

Assessing Rachel Maddow’s Dire Warning

During her radio show yesterday, Rachel Maddow expressed some concerns that seemed consistent with some of my worst fears about the end-game for the Clinton campaign. Rachel’s own detailed description of her thesis is contained here, but the real meat of it can be summarized in three parts:

1. Hillary is trying to use Michigan and Florida to create a procedural dispute over the Democratic Party electoral process that she can appeal all the way to the convention.

2. Once at the convention, anything can happen and she retains a chance of getting stealing the nomination.

3. If the nominee is still in dispute at the convention, there is no chance of either Democrat beating John McCain in November.

Her conclusion is that the only possible way to head off this scenario is to avoid a dispute during the May 31 meeting of the DNC Rules Committee, by conceding everything to Hillary regarding Florida and Michigan so there won’t be anything left for her to appeal.

This begs the question: What is “everything” regarding Michigan and Florida? Rachel doesn’t say, although she does point out that Hillary used the phrase “to her satisfaction,” suggesting that if she really wants a dispute, she’s going to be pretty damned hard to satisfy!

I would say that the issue is pretty clear in Florida, where Obama got votes and the intentions of those who voted can easily be divided between Clinton and Obama (with some Edwards delegates remaining unassigned until they commit on their own).

Regarding Michigan, I think it’s reasonable for Obama to expect to get the delegates assigned to “Uncommitted,” because from a political perspective, all of Hillary’s own arguments could be turned around as a call not to disenfranchise those who wanted to vote for Obama though his name wasn’t on the ballot (at the urging of the DNC). [Update: Technically, he already has 31 of them!] Again, the Edwards delegates in Michigan would remain unassigned).

So the ultimate question is: Can Obama concede these things without risking the nomination?

According to Maddow, he would need some things to happen very soon – either a big enough wave of superdelegates to secure his lead before he concedes, or the confidence to know he will still win the nomination by June 3 or shortly thereafter, even after he concedes.

Rather than walk through all the permutations, let me just defer to a couple of heavyweights on the key question.

Poblano goes through all the number crunching, with excellent tables detailing multiple scenarios, and reaches this conclusion:

The Florida/Michigan brouhaha is much ado about nothing. Even if Clinton gets her way with the two states, she'd still need about 80 percent of superdelegate commitments to secure the nomination. Clinton's arguments about electability and the popular vote might persuade a dozen delegates, or a couple dozen, or perhaps even the majority. It won't persuade 80 percent. (Or more realistically, the 90 percent she'd need if there is some sort of compromise on Florida and Michigan).

And Al Giordano gives a similar run-down on the leanings of the remaining undeclared superdelegates, before revealing the likely winning poker hand by Obama:

I suspect, that after giving Senator Clinton enough rope to continue to behave ridiculously as she did today in Florida for the next ten days, the Obama campaign may - a day or two before the May 31 Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting - pull the chair out from under her and call for seating the whole shebang, looking gracious and magnanimous in victory, and leaving her presidential campaign hanging by the rope of its own making.

And, just for posterity, I’ll tack on my earlier assessment from May 8th describing why Michigan and Florida didn’t matter even before Hillary started the current gambit described by Maddow.

Al Gore Should Stop Hillary’s Assault on Reason

In the conclusion of his 2007 book, Al Gore wrote the following:

The rule of reason is the true sovereign in the American system. Our self-government is based on the ability of individual citizens to use reason in holding their elected representatives, senators, and presidents accountable for their actions. When reason itself comes under assault, American democracy is put at risk.

Only a year later, Hillary Clinton has run a campaign for the presidency that seems to embody Gore’s critique of public discourse. Here’s just a partial list of the many times the Clinton campaign have careened off the tracks of reason:

• Suggesting that Obama isn’t accomplished enough to be president, but that he would make a great vice president!

• Categorizing delegates such that small state delegates are not as good as large state delegates, caucus delegates are not as good as primary delegates, “latte” delegates are not as good as “Budweiser” delegates, etc., etc.

• Suggesting that nearly every waking moment adds to her “lifetime of experience,” while claiming that Obama’s life consists of nothing more than a “single speech.”

• Arguing that the rules regarding superdelegates’ ability to overturn elections must be respected, while simultaneously arguing that the rules regarding Michigan and Florida must be considered undemocratic.

• Suggesting that party activists who participate in caucuses, and devote their time and energy to learning the issues and working for their beliefs, are somehow subverting the democratic process from those whose sit at home and vote absentee for whatever name they recognize on the ballot.

• Using fear to scare voters into thinking their voting decision will affect the immediate safety of their sleeping children.

• Suggesting that she is working hard for Democratic principles while aligning herself with the Republican nominee in order to crush the probable Democratic nominee.

• Presenting herself, as the “commander in chief” of a campaign that went from inevitability to the verge of elimination, as being about “solutions,” while claiming the “commander in chief” of a campaign that rose from obscurity to become the most energized and efficient campaign in the history of American politics is “just words.”

• Suggested that white votes are more important to the Democratic Party than African-American votes.

• Add your dozen or two examples here.

The culmination of Hillary’s rejection of reason is coming now in her repeated efforts to de-legitimize the process she has lost, by casting herself in the role of Al Gore (hat tip to this Dkos diarist for the inspiration) as someone who is “winning the popular vote,” but is going to be denied the nomination by the Supreme Court DNC Rule Committee! She’s already got supporters holding up “Count Every Vote” signs and planning protests of Obama in Florida. She’s making a point of reminding voters of “hanging chads.”

I think she actually believes that this approach will cause the party to eventually coalesce around her as some sort of redemption for what happened to Gore!

So I certainly hope the former VP will step forward and make it clear that any comparison between Obama’s victory over Clinton and Bush’s “victory” over Gore should be rejected as the kind of assault on reason that he wrote about in his book, lest American democracy continue to be placed further at risk by Clintons tactics!

Actually discussed at Daily Kos

Nostradamus, Meet Samantha Power!

Hillary Clinton’s Kentucky “victory” speech certainly seems to confirm earlier statements that she expects to continue for quite some time in her delusional quest for a nomination that Barack Obama has already won!

If I had to rely on the prognostication ability of a single person to chart out the remaining course of the current Democratic primary drama, I think I’d have to consider Samantha Power, who seemed to know the plot of this movie before we had even gotten through the opening credits!

Woolsey’s “Magic” Number!

Some of you may be aware of my ongoing efforts to sway my congressional representative, Lynn Woolsey, from her original endorsement of Hillary Clinton.

At this point, she has said that she continues to support Clinton, but will not cast her superdelegate vote to overturn “the will of the American public.”

I initially took this to mean she would vote with the pledged delegate winner, since that is the official scoring method for assessing the State primaries and caucuses. However, the latest statement I found from her office sounds a bit more slippery:

Representative Lynn Woolsey's press secretary says Woolsey still supports Clinton, but will vote for whoever wins the popular vote, not counting Michigan where Obama wasn't on the ballot.

My sense is that Woolsey is desperately trying to extend the clock so she doesn’t have to publicly cross Clinton and risk being added to the dreaded enemies list!

She’s now seems to be accepting Clinton’s argument that the popular vote means more than the delegates (which is like trying to claim a football victory based on total yards after losing by a touchdown!)

Woolsey also seems to be trying to thread the needle by counting Florida votes, but avoiding the blatantly silly Clinton position of counting all of her Michigan votes, while disenfranchising those who would have preferred to vote for Obama!

What also remains unclear is whether Woolsey is willing to ignore the caucus results in States without popular vote totals as an additional way to keep the jury out even longer on the popular vote results!

At this point, going into tomorrow’s primaries in Kentucky and Oregon, I’m willing to give Woolsey the benefit of the doubt and assume she’s still accepting the pledged delegate race (albeit with Florida results, but not Michigan) as a valid expression of the public’s will. Of course, considering John Edwards endorsement and giving his Florida delegates to Obama (2 of 13 have already officially moved), the magic number now looks like this:



Obama will clinch the pledged delegate race tomorrow - with or without Florida - so Woolsey will have to twist her logic even more if she wants to justify continuing to keep her options open (and her bed horse-head free!)

Not Just Parroting the Campaign Spin!

I’ve never been a big Dana Milbank fan. He always seems to be trying too hard to prove how clever he is. But I’m a huge Monty Python fan, and Milbank just impressed me with this column, in which he invokes the comparison of Hillary’s campaign to a dead parrot, with Terry McAuliffe presumably playing the part of Michael Palin!

And I suppose this could be her new campaign song:



While there are some who might say the time has come to lay off the criticism of Hillary’s campaign in light of the need for her supporters to rally around Obama, I believe that as long as Hillary is putting forth a line of argument that seeks to delegitimize Obama’s nomination, her “hardcore” supporters aren’t going to embrace Obama anyway. So my little-noticed mocking will continue until she concedes both the nomination and her claims of victimhood!

As an aside, I might add that the song’s author, Neil Innes, is a favorite of mine, whom I was fortunate enough to meet two years ago when this picture (with some doctoring to maintain "anonymity") was taken:

Time for a Change in Strategy!

First, the “treasonous” trio of Bush (in the speech shown above), followed by McCain and Lieberman, all decided to suggest a comparison of Barack Obama and his supporters to Nazi appeasers.

Not surprisingly, Obama and all of the Democratic leaders responded in appropriately harsh fashion.

But I don’t think this is enough!

I have reached the point where I believe that Barack Obama should make his willingness to investigate and prosecute the crimes of the Bush administration into a campaign issue!

I used to accept the idea that such a position would undercut Obama’s message of bipartisanship and unity, and would become a distraction from fixing the problems faced by the country.

Now, I have come to think that the despicable actions of the Bush administration, and the fact that they have happened without consequence, is one of the major problems faced by the country!

If Obama can frame this issue as a way of “reclaiming the soul of the country” for both Democrats and Republicans, he could probably merge the themes of hope and redemption to gain widespread support from all but the most loyal Bush dead-enders (who would vote for McCain anyway!)

He would also make it impossible for McCain to run away from the current president, because he would force McCain to debate in public the issue of whether Bush’s legacy should be protected by turning a blind eye on the evidence.

As an added bonus, Obama can probably count on the clueless Bush to make an endless string of despicable comments, such as his recent ones, with each helping to cement the disdain a majority of Americans have for him. And each time, McCain will be forced to embrace or reject these statements in the context of deciding how much he wants to avoid being seen as a “Bush appeaser!”

[Update] Apparently, Americans aren’t the only ones disgusted with Bush, as depicted in this image offered with the verbatim caption from Reuters:


Members of the Knesset listen as U.S. President Bush speaks to the Knesset in Jerusalem Reuters via Yahoo! News - May 15 8:18 AM

Today's - Republican Mouthpiece Smackdown!

Some Things Never Change

Just like the ridiculous demented wide-stance elephant chosen for the official logo of the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul, the Republican Party has recently decided on their official slogan for the 2008 campaign, and it’s equally ridiculous:

Tah Dah! The winner is: The Change You Deserve.

Kinda sounds like what the country got the last two times it elected a Republican president! And it’s too bad they ended up stealing the slogan from the maker of an anti-depression medication.

If that was the winner of slogan contest, I was determined to find out which suggestions just missed making the final cut, so I tracked them down and here they are:


We Got Your Change, Right Here!

Change! Don’t! Change!

Change You Can Spare? (and it’s corollary, Why Lie: We Need a War!)

Change – So You Can Be Ready When the Moment is Right!

Whips and Change: You Know You Want It!

I Can’t Believe it’s Not Change!

McCain/Change ‘08. Yeah, That’s the Ticket!

The Change You’re Afraid Of

The Experience to Know that Change Depends.

Hey Change, Get off My Lawn!

This Will Unify the Democratic Party!

Many people have expressed concern over potential repercussions in the general election of the often negative, divisive campaign run by Hillary Clinton. Some have speculated that Clinton’s seeming strategy is to ensure that, if she can’t win the 2008 nomination, her bloodied opponent will lose to the Republican and free her path for an easier run in 2012.

Polls have shown that a large number of Clinton supporters say that they won’t vote for Obama, but would rather vote for John McCain or just sit out the general election altogether. A smaller, but still significant number, of Obama supporters have said that they won’t vote for Clinton.

To all this, I call “bullshit!” My reason is simple. There is one thing capable of getting everyone, on either side of the current democratic divide, to set aside their bitterness over the primary campaign and vote against John McCain, and it has very little to do with John McCain.

The reason is this: It does not matter how much you think Barack Obama is a “shallow pretty boy,” or you think Hillary Clinton is a “divisive, manipulative liar.” It does not matter if John McCain reminds you of the grumpy grandfather to whom you never got to express your affection before he passed away. If John McCain wins the presidency in the general election, George W. Bush is going to act like he’s retiring as an undefeated champion!

Despite his record low approval ratings, and widespread disdain for his war policies, George Bush will be able to leave the White House claiming that he got a “vote of confidence” in his leadership. Any future deterioration in Iraq, or anywhere else in the Middle East, will be on McCain’s head. Any further decline in the American economy, will be on McCain’s head. George Bush will claim, rightly or not, that he left with a mandate from the American people to continue his policies.

And it doesn't matter that this is complete crap. This is the man who claimed a “mandate” after beating John Kerry by an infinitesimal fraction of a percentage point. Regardless of what anyone says about him after Bush leaves office, if McCain wins, he’ll be like members of the 1972 Miami Dolphins, drinking champagne every time another president of either party is turned away in a change of party leadership.

Think about it! The Democratic Party has not had a president elected to two terms, and then replaced by another Democrat, since Franklin Roosevelt was followed by Harry Truman in 1945. And before that, you have to go all the way back to Andrew Jackson followed by Martin Van Buren in 1837. If Bush does it, on the other hand, he will forever be able to brag of his ability to follow in the footsteps of the "great" Ronald Reagan!

No matter how much you might want a McCain victory to represent vindication for the defeat of your primary candidate, it will not be. Historically, and more importantly in George Bush’s feeble, bicycle ridin’, brush cuttin’, arrogant, chuckling, mind, it will be a personal victory!

That will be the choice in November of 2008. Use your vote in a hopelessly forgettable attempt to vindicate your losing candidate, or take advantage of your last chance to repudiate George W. Bush’s presidency, and deny him a lifetime of claiming that McCain’s victory proves he was right!

Also ignored at Daily Kos

What Did He Say, Really?

This is pretty funny!

NEW YORK (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Thursday that Republican John McCain was "losing his bearings" for repeatedly suggesting the Islamic terrorist group Hamas preferred Obama for president.

That brought an angry response from McCain's campaign, which accused Obama of trying to make an issue of McCain's age.

Age is a touchy subject for McCain, who turns 72 in August and would be the oldest person to be sworn in as president if elected.

Obama’s response was primarily related to McCain’s statements that he “doesn’t believe in negative smear campaigning.” In that context, he was purportedly talking about the shifting direction of McCain’s moral compass.

But the McCain campaign, perhaps mirroring the candidates noted reputation both as a hothead and a bit of a simpleton, thought Obama was saying that McCain lost his marbles!

All I can say is that if Obama’s comment was straightforward, then McCain is going to be quite entertaining with his constant defensiveness about his age.

And if Obama deliberately chose his words to imply the double meaning in order to goad McCain, then I really can’t wait to see him take on McCain in the debates!

And Joe Lieberman is doing his part to keep McCain from looking like the most oblivious person on the campaign trail:

Why Michigan and Florida Don’t Matter.

After disappointing performances in North Carolina and Indiana, the Clinton campaign immediately bucked conventional wisdom (and most laws of rational thinking) by trying to claim that the magic number for clinching the nomination is not 2025, but is actually 2209 because of Michigan and Florida.

Somehow, Hillary thinks this means there won’t be a nominee when the primaries end on June 3, and that the race will have to continue to the convention in August.

To which I say the magic number is actually one, representing the number of fingers I’m holding up with one hand, while I type this with the other! And not because I'm suggesting that “Hillary is number one!"

In the world of reality, Michigan and Florida don’t matter at all, because the real magic number has to do with winning the pledged delegate race. Adding Michigan and Florida to the mix only delays the probable day of clinching by one primary. Either way, the pledged delegate race is likely to be over before the last two primaries on June 3.

The following table shows approximately how Michigan and Florida would be split under the most favorable scenario that the Clinton camp could hope for: accepting the Florida vote in its entirety; and giving Hillary her full percentage of the vote in Michigan, while giving Obama the delegates for those who voted “undecided,” since he wasn’t on the ballot.



After adding these figures to the current totals without Michigan and Florida, the following table shows the change in the pledged delegate magic number, and the delegates needed for Obama to clinch, which changes from 33 to 84.



Now here are the remaining primaries, with a projected share of delegates for Obama. The projected share was adapted from the early spreadsheet released by the Obama campaign, but adjusted to slightly more conservative figures in the Clinton states.



If you follow the cumulative totals in the right column, you can see that Obama clinches the pledged delegate race on May 20 without Michigan and Florida, and clinches during the very next primary on June 1 in Puerto Rico (even with a projected loss) with Michigan and Florida!

And technically, as pocketnines explains in this Daily Kos diary, Obama essentially has 37 more pledged delegates already, because viability rules in each of the remaining 37 individual electoral districts require that he get one delegate just for meeting the 15% threshold. This means he has already clinched without Michigan and Florida, and could clinch, even with Michigan and Florida, on May 20. (note: this isn't a direct subtraction from the number needed to clinch because these "viability delegates" are included among the projections in each state. It just means he can already count on them even before the primaries are held.)

As I’ve suggested before, once Obama clinches the pledged delegate race in the eyes of the superdelegates, there will be a flood of support for Obama from those unwilling to consider overturning the will of the voters (particularly after Obama ran probably the most effective campaign in electoral history!) We’ve already seen the start of this movement from those superdelegates with rudimentary math skills, but eventually it will be obvious even to the (um, how should I say it?) “low information” superdelegates!

This Should Replace All of the Talking Heads

***There really is no reason to listen to any of the pundits blabbering on and on about all of the different scenarios affecting Hillary’s or Obama’s chances of getting the nomination when you can just go here and simply toggle the arrow back and forth.

***Now that I’ve cancelled my newspaper, where will I turn to get the real truth about what’s going on? Here is one of those sources explaining a classic example of why the commercial media is so utterly useless.

***In case you haven’t read the letter that will eventually (perhaps very soon) be viewed as the tipping point that showed the way for timid superdelegates to save the Democratic Party from being obliterated by the Clintons, here are Joe Andrew’s words.

Three Reasons We Know It’s Over!

As Obama cruises to a blowout win in North Carolina, and surges to a photo finish in Indiana, here are three reasons why we officially know the race is over:

1. Tim Russert just talked for five minutes without mentioning Rev. Wright, bowling, bitterness, or flag pins!




2. Harold Ford is on MSNBC suggesting that the way Obama needs to strengthen his appeal among rural, working class voters is to consider making Hillary his VP choice. Frankly, I’m guessing that more serious consideration will be given to this guy:




3. Hillary’s financial troubles have apparently re-appeared. As this picture demonstrates, the Clinton campaign can no longer afford to pay their heating bills!

Olbermann: Hillary's Ever Changing Metrics

Hillary’s Problem: Superdelegates are the “Elite!”

In her recent ABC town hall, Hillary Clinton apparently had a moment that I think defines why her quixotic attempt to maneuver her way to the Democratic nomination has been doomed for a long time.

I’ll get back to the specifics a bit later, but first I’d like to expand on a theme I first heard in a brief comment by Keith Olbermann. After Super Tuesday, Hillary’s strategy basically took two parallel tracks. The first was to align herself with stupid low-information voters who might be susceptible to racist fears and distrust of what she calls “elitism.” The second was to appeal to superdelegates to choose her over Obama based on her superior electability.

The problem with these two tracks is that in order to campaign to stupid low-information voters, she has to make stupid low-information arguments, often about people who are too smart elitist to understand the concerns that simple-minded ordinary people have about their lives. The basic logical structure of many of Hillary’s arguments can be summarized as variations of the inflammatory rallying cry:

They think they’re smarter than you . . . just because they’re smarter than you!

This may work with those who are fiercely proud of their status as stupid low-information citizens, but requires a willing denial of reality to be accepted by those capable of recognizing faulty logic when they see it. That would be the informed populace that Hillary demonizes as the “elite,” and which happens to include, most likely, all of the superdelegates!

This is why, even though some of the racist/elitist fear mongering seems to have helped Clinton in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, the flow of superdelegates to Obama has continued steadily, and has even increased!

Now, back to the town hall, where Hillary had the audacity (of dope?) to claim she was siding with the common people against the nearly unanimous opinion of “elitist” economists who say that her support for a "gas tax holiday" is a ridiculous and harmful pander that will hurt more than help the American people.

Fortunately, there was at least one voter present who was willing to state the obvious – that perhaps people who study economics know something about economics!

What Hillary doesn’t seem willing to admit is that even most low information voters aren’t stupid when it comes to seeking advice from experts when they have the need and opportunity. I doubt she would get very far making a comparable argument that her supporters shouldn’t listen to their “elitist” doctors about their health, or ignore their “elitist” pastors about religious matters.

With her recent statement at the town hall, she might as well have been telling her supporters that they should resist the suggestion of “elitist” electricians to not take their electric radios in the bathtub - because those “elitists” don’t appreciate the desires of working class Americans to “rock out” while scrubbing the day’s accumulation of shit from their tired working class bodies!

The Creativity Gap

Here’s yet another example of the kind of creativity inspired by Barack Obama’s candidacy.

Hilary Clinton? Well, let’s just say that the decision to copy John McCain’s call for a “gas tax holiday” registers high on the creativity scale for the Clinton campaign.