Clintons Join Vast Rightwing Conspiracy

The Clntons are now enjoying friendly relationships with, among others:

• American Spectator
  
• Richard Mellon Scaife
  
• Rush Limbaugh
  
• Matt Drudge: They're giving "exclusives" to Drudge, the most recent of which (but not the only one), is the Olympic boycott she's floating. Why legitimize that Sludge-monger?
  

These make up a great chunk of the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy that tried to bring down the Clintons with allegations about Vince Foster's murder, Hillary's lesbianism, Clintons' thievery, murder, drug smuggling, and illegalities and malfeasance of all sorts.

Now Hillary is in bed with all these conspirators. Since she appears to think that they are credible sources, maybe all those things are worth revisiting now?

Or, more likely, are these just the smear merchants that Hillary needs on her side when she really wants to lie about another Democrat, while telling us how great John McCain is?

The Phenomenal Rockbox

I listen to MP3s a lot. Some music ripped from CDs collected over many years, but more and more I play speech. Most often it's from the BBC, especially their splendid radio comedy programs, about which I've written previously. Generally I download the Real Media files and convert them to the portable MP3 form with a free version of Switch (highly recommended for ease of use and for never choking on any of the many format-to-format conversions I've thrown at it yet).

Also, for a truly funny speech podcast that requires no conversion to put on your MP3 player, don't forget The Bugle with John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman.

For several years my player was a Mobiblu Cube, in part because it is so miniscule and cute. But I recently found a very cheap refurbished Sandisk Sansa c250 (MP3 and FM radio, with 2 gigs internal memory and a slot for SD expansion card. I've filled that with a 1 gig card, for 3 gigs total space). I've never been in cult of the Apple so I wasn't attracted to iPod, especially since I want something smaller--both the Cube and the Sansa are quite small--but with a screen, which the the small iPod shuffle didn't have.

I've owned 5-6 MP3 portables over the years, and they all have limitations that make me like one model more for some features, and another for other features. The Sandisk, while laid out well and with most of the basic features, also lacked a few things I would like. It didn't have adjustable play speed, to play files quicker--a good thing with some speech programs; didn't show enough track information; wouldn't just play in sequence through a directory on the disc (it required playlists to sequence files, and I prefer just putting files I want in a folder and playing them in sequence from that); it wouldn't allow bookmarking. And there were more annoyances. It just wasn't configurable enough.

It's a shame, because most the hardware of MP3 players should allow for a lot more features than their software ever accesses -- for instance this Sansa doesn't have a clock setting, even though it's perfectly capable of keeping time and date.

Finally last night I got frustrated and decided to try something I read about a while back: Rockbox, a free, open source software / firmware package for an array of MP3 players (including various models from iRiver, iPod, Archos, Gigabeat, iAudio, as well as Sansa).

Sansa c250 with RockBox playing an MP3 -- note that it
displays the next track to be played below info on the current track.

Rockbox is astoundingly great. It's nearly infinitely configurable: I can set playback speed, play directories, bookmark multiple files, show more track information (and can create formatting to show whatever info I want in the playback screen); it has a clock and calendar, and voice-activated recording if your player is equipped. I believe it's capable of doing everything I have liked from each of my prior players, and far more.

It even has games (up to and including a port of Doom!). It offers a few applications (like calculator, stopwatch, metronome, and text editor)--though the lack of a keyboard makes some of these "gee-whiz" gadgets though they may work in a pinch. There's a music store's worth of bells and whistles. Some of them make a functional difference: for instance, if I weren't satisfied with the quality of playback on my player, Rockbox offers some pretty sophisticated tools for tweaking the sonic characteristics of the output. Other settings are merely cool, such as the vast array of cosmetic display options.

It installed with only a couple glitches (I used the automatic installer, which is still a bit clunky but fixable). It's been a breeze to use. Some of the more abstruse configurations--which I will never actually need but may try sometime-- require editing text files and using some odd syntax, but overall it's very easy to use if one has just a little technical experience.

If there are some things you'd like your MP3 player to do, chances are good that the hardware that will handle it but the software is holding it back. With Rockbox, you're likely to get more than you ever expected out of your player. And it's totally free, so it's like getting a new fancier player for nothing!

Here is a quick summary of some of the capabilities on various players: What is Rockbox? Why should I use it?

Back to politics at some point.

Tina Fey Doesn't Quite Get It

Oliver Willis points to this back-and-forth with Tina Fey that shows she doesn't quite get it.

Like Oliver, I think Fey's 30 Rock is very funny, and Mean Girls was pretty good too. But she protests too much when elevating Saturday Night Live (SNL) and bashing The Daily Show (TDS).

I posted this comment at Oliver's site but wanted to memorialize it here by pasting it below.
------

Wow thanks for pointing that out, Oliver. Probably wouldn’t have seen it otherwise.

With SNL rising in public consciousness recently, I’ve thought a bit about the differences between SNL and TDS. (And merlallen, above, is right — SNL is rarely funny anymore and I’m not sure anyone really watches it out of anything other than habit.)

SNL, after a few lunatic first few seasons when it seemed they would try nearly anything, has retreated to standard lame sketches. Many are parodies of television shows, and many try to create a character and dessicate it into a catch phrase so that people are meant to assume it’s funny through sheer repetition.

In the Weekend Update segment on SNL, one gets the feeling that if they could make fat jokes, dick jokes, and jokes about the most superficial aspects of political figures, they would be fine with that.

TDS doesn’t deal so much with political figures as with a lampooning of the media. The absurdity usually springs from the disconnect between the issues being covered and the way our braindead media brings them to us. Also, a lot of TDS comedy relies on a fairly sophisticated understanding of what is going on with actual issues, whether in Congress, on the campaign trail, etc.

So, while SNL will have people impersonating actual media personalities (politicians like HRC and BHO, newspeople like Russert and Brian Williams), and generally doesn’t do delve much deeper than “See, he sounds like Russert! Funny, right?” TDL puts the media stereotypes (Generic Expert on Everything; reporter-who-is-parachuted-in, etc) to satirize the broader media culture. We swim in an entirely different media culture from the one that spawned SNL (3 broadcast channels PBS), but SNL seems to have the same take on comedy that settled in decades ago.

I’m sure TDL will wear thin someday, and sooner if they don’t adapt their take to new situations. But SNL already has worn thin and they’ve taken their comedy right back to the sad SNL years of the early eighties but refuse to die.

The main SNL political comedy writer, Jim Downey, is 55 years old. He’s been writing similar stuff for SNL, on-and-off, for 25-30 years. I doubt if he’s capable of developing a new approach to his material.

Also, Downey is conservative and a republican, but if he were funny that could be forgiven I guess.

One Feminist who Doesn't Like Hillary

Aussie feminist Greer brands Hillary 'cold, bossy'

"I don't like Hillary because she's so bossy and cold and manipulative and stuff, and I don't think having her in power is going to make any difference, basically, because she will have the same set of advisers," Greer said.

"I can't see that Hillary would appeal to feminists because, why is she there? She is there because she is Bill's wife, and it's a bit useless to pretend, 'Oh, it's because of her wonderful job as a senator,'" she told Australia's Nine Network late Monday.

"I just don't think it's true. When she had a big job in government, she blew it," said the British-based Greer, referring to Hillary Clinton's work on health issues during her husband's administration.

I really don't care that much what celebrities think of candidates, though I've enjoyed some of Germaine Greer's shenanigans over the years. Some of the above is merely her opinion and it's no more valid than anyone else's. But some of it is pretty indisputable ("...why is she there? She is there because she is Bill's wife...").

I'm pretty damned tired of Hillary explicitly saying that her years as First Lady are somehow indisputably foreign policy experience that makes her fit to be Commander-in-Chief, for instance.

But I did want to note that a prominent person who identifies as a feminist is having none of Hillary's bullshit.

Hillary: Dancing on the Embers

It's looking more and more like Hillary's wins in Texas and maybe Ohio, and much of her vote in Mississippi, was in part due to votes for her from Republicans who hate her and hate the Democrats. The hardcore Republicans want her to be the nominee in the belief she'll be the easier candidate for McCain to defeat.


In fact, considering that Bill Clinton Was On Rush Limbaugh’s Show The Day Before (or maybe the day of) the TX Primaries, such "vote for the hateful woman, Republicans" tactic may be an explicit plan of the HRC campaign.

It also appears that Bill and Rush colluded so they didn't have to be on The Rush Limbaugh Show together: Rush hinted he was getting ill the day before, then had a substitute on Bill Clinton day, then returned to crow about his success in helping Hillary win.

Lest we forget, some choice quotes from Rush Limbaugh.

.. there’s a Washington consulting firm that has scheduled the release of a report that will appear, it will be published, that claims that Vince Foster was murdered in an apartment owned by Hillary Clinton, and the body was then taken to Fort Marcy Park."

The feminist movement was created to allow ugly women access to the mainstream of society

I prefer to call the most obnoxious feminists what they really are: feminazis. The term describes any female who is intolerant of any point of view that challenges militant feminism. I often use it to describe women who are obsessed with perpetuating a modern-day holocaust: abortion.

Have you ever noticed how all newspaper composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?

The NAACP should have riot rehearsals

And, on his television show, he aired a picture of 13-year-old Chelsea--Bill's daughter, of course- and announced it was a photograph of “the White House dog.”

Bill Clinton colluding with Limbaugh, then appearing on his show, is repulsive: Limbaugh's main purpose is tearing down Democrats.

That, along with Hillary not even asking Geraldine Ferraro to stop spewing her racial ignorance, demonstrates to me that Hillary's campaign is fully willing to burn down the Democratic Party, provided she can have control over the rubble.

There's a huge difference between Obama seeking independent and Republicans to vote for him in the Primary and in the General election, versus Hillary seeking the votes of Republicans who explicitly want to vote against her or any Democrat in November. After all, in Mississippi "A full 15% of voters who said they will be unsatisfied if she gets the nomination voted for Hillary Clinton. In contrast, only 4% of Obama voters say the same about their candidate."

Remember, Pennsylvania is often called "Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, with Alabama (with fewer blacks) in between." So she's running the Southern Strategy -- in a Democratic Primary!--and combining it with a "If you hate me, Limbaugh listeners, vote for me in the primary" ploy.

Either one alone would be bad for Democrats. Together they are poison.

Superdelegates, please put an end to this.

Barack Seen From London

Obama topic introduced a few seconds in to this approx. 8 min clip.

From Dateline London, a BBC News 24 program featuring foreign correspondents discussing current affairs.

This is the full segment focusing on Obama from the 25 February 2008 program. It's about a 9-minute excerpt of a half hour program.

In general, I don't think the attitudes of others, even our allies, should have too much bearing on US elections. But since the US is at such a low ebb in worldwide opinion, it's a bit more important now. Here are four London-based journalists, from four different countries, discussing Barack Obama and his candidacy.

The host is Gavin Esler. The panelists are:

• Shahed Sadullah The Daily Jang (Pakistan)
  
• Rashmee Roshan Lall, The Times of India, etc.
  
• Yasmin Alibhai Brown, Ugandan-born, writes for The Independent
  
• Michael Goldfarb, American Writer and Broadcaster
  

It's amazing how much information these folks in the UK have about the US elections--far more than I do about any British election.

Electoral Super-Sophistry

Hillary Clinton is the Popular Vote Leader

Senator Clinton is apparently running for President of exit-polled Registered Democrats of a minority of the States of America.

O

Graphic design hotshot Michael Bierut interviewed by Andrew Romano of Newsweek about the nature of Obama's branding elements, and the mind-boggling consistency of presentation from the campaign.

Every time you look, all those signs are perfect. Graphic designers like me don't understand how it's happening. It's unprecedented and inconceivable to us. The people in the know are flabbergasted.

Also some analysis of the typography and other visual components of his campaign. Most interesting.

Experience

In his Time Magazine article Does Experience Matter in a President?, David von Drehle makes an excellent point:

Presidential experience means a familiarity with the levers and dials of government, knowing how to cajole the Congress, understanding when to rely on the Joint Chiefs of Staff and when to call on the National Security Council — that sort of thing. But bear down even slightly, and the notion of experience is liable to crack and run all over. If knowing the system is so useful, then second-term presidencies should be more successful than first-term. Instead, many Presidents lose effectiveness as they go along.

Great point in general, but particularly in an Obama v. McCain race. Why? Because the first reason one would give for declining effectiveness in second terms would be general fatigue. And would, say, a 50-year-old second termer likely be more fatigued than a 72 -year-old first termer?

John McCain Wants to Cut Spending!

John McCain wants to cut spending so he can take those savings and pour them into the sands of Iraq.

Dollars for deserts!

Company - Sondheim

Angel Desai as Marta

Watched the PBS Great Performances broadcast of Steven Sondheim's 1970 musical comedy Company. This 2007 revival featured Raul Esparza as Bobby, and a lot of other talented performers. It was on PBS last night, and I presume it will be played quite a bit in months to come.

I'm not much of a musical fan but there are several I enjoy, so I'm not turned off to the very idea of musical comedy--just most of them. I wasn't familiar with this musical as a whole but for decades I've been impressed by songs from this show (particularly "The Little Things You Do Together," "Another Hundred People," and the title song) -- they're clever and uncliched, sophisticated without being stuffy, and generally fun. The show has quite a contemporary feel for "light entertainment" written over 35 years ago (perhaps part of it was rewritten for this revival?). I'm glad to have the opportunity to see it staged. Performances -- especially the singing -- are good to excellent.

The staging, with the actors doubling on instruments they often carry, is engaging. I imagine it would be a blast to see in the theater. Unfortunately, as with many filmed stage productions, what seems to crackle with energy in the theater is a bit flat on video. Still, it's way better than not having it at all. If you're at all inclined to enjoy it, look for it on Great Peformances on PBS.

Raul Esparza as Bobby

Best Media-Crit Bit so far on the NYT/McCain Story

Jay Rosen: For the New York Times, as Well, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Risks

I'm getting pretty sick of the Times. The lobbyist and Paxon story was a solid one and they muddied it with sexual innuendo that they can't substantiate beyond "He said...."

They ran an eviscerated story, I'm sure, due to being lawyered and muscled by Bob Bennett.

Now conservatives will say "See, the NYT is publishing bullshit stories about McCain because it wants Obama to win." And the NY Times, using the same "let's make the conservatives feel better" that made them put William "Always Wrong" Kristol on the Op-Ed page, will feel they have to show their balance.

So, a prediction: The Times will run a truly bullshit "there's no there there" story a la Whitewater about Obama during this campaign so they can point and say "See! We're balanced! We run bullshit stories about both sides."

John McCain's Chelsea Clinton joke

When I saw John McCain stand by chuckling as his wife took a swipe at an impromptu misstatement by Michelle Obama, I was reminded what a creepy jerk John McCain is.

Let's recall John McCain's infamous joke about Chelsea Clinton, rendered before an audience when Chelsea was about 18 years old:

Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?
Because her father is Janet Reno
--John McCain, 1998

This was emitted by McCain in a speech before an Republican crowd--it was no slip. It was something McCain found funny and wanted to to share with his friends.

Even worse, consider the chain of conscious affirmation that led McCain to speak that joke publicly. Someone relayed this to McCain, thinking John would be the kind of person who was receptive to this joke. McCain was so receptive that he remembered that quip and repeated it in public. He was speaking to a Republican crowd, which he felt was the sort of crowd who would appreciate this kind of comedy.

No slip, no accident, no misstatement.

When caught, I believe he eventually apologized to the President. No telling how many times he told that joke and beamed at the laughter before he was caught.

Your Republican nominee, folks.

Cindy McCain's Pride

Cindy McCains is Proud ... of our nation's great pharmaceutical industry and wonderful criminal defense attorneys, divorce attorneys, trust and estate attorneys.

Cindy almost added: "I owe all my success, and much of John's political career, to some advice my father gave me. He said 'Cindy, here are millions of dollars. Live like a Republican: get hooked on drugs -- the hard stuff! -- and steal both narcotics and another woman's husband. And loan some of your fortune to John's Senate campaign to get him a Senate job where he won't be able to ruin the distributorship I built up.'"

Two Quotes, About a Year Apart

Quote 1: Washington Post, 21 Feb, 2008:

On her campaign plane, Clinton started coming back to the press section for off-the-record chats, usually harmless but sometimes including comments that contradicted what she was saying publicly, according to participants. Two weeks ago part of the media contingent revolted, saying the conversations did them no good if they couldn't use the information. Since then, although she walked the aisle with a tray of chocolates to hand out on Valentine's Day, the airborne sessions have dwindled.

Quote 2: Former Clinton Supporter David Geffen, 21 Feb. 2007:

"Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it's troubling."

Ouch

CBS News' Fernando Suarez reporting from Akron Ohio:

Hillary Clinton made a stop at the Lockheed Martin plant in Akron today, but about the only thing that was hot in the room were the reactors working in the plant. Clinton received an awkwardly chilly reception at the plant, so much so that upon taking the stage the music was cut short because the crowd was just standing there watching her and no longer clapping.

[...snip...]

Clinton then began laying out her standard stump speech and when she reached key applause lines like wanting to build up America’s manufacturing plants or offering universal health care or even building America’s national defense programs, there was nothing but silence.

In fact, Clinton’s first applause came 11 minutes into a 12 minute speech when she said she would bring troops home from Iraq. Clinton quickly wrapped up her speech following the applause.

[...snip...]

Having been to more Clinton events than I care to remember, this was by far the shortest speech and most silent reception I can recall.

It's not looking bad for her in Ohio polls yet, but it's gotta be rough to campaign in places like that. Obama was nowhere near, so she can't blame such a tepid response on him cornering all the oxygen in the room.

It's only one stop but still... take a hint.

Chris Matthews: Perenially an Idiot

Greg Sargent notes that Chris Matthews is the real issue for Clinton's campaign, not David Shuster. I've thought that myself.

Matthews shouldn't be on television. He's tremendously ill-informed; he considers himself a blue collar guy but he's a wealthy perfumed courtier masquerading; he's misogynist; he gets neither the big picture nor the details right, he slavers over Republican candidates (Fred Thompson's scent, Rudy's toughness, etc.), he is ignorant generally and reflexively stupid; and he displays his id more than his reason--and his id really is a sewer of sad psychosexual turmoil straight out of Eraserhead.

I'm an Obama supporter, but I'll admit the Hillary people have a real honest complaint about Matthews and his anti-Hillary jihad along with his general misogny. So does every other candidate who's not a male Republican presidential candidate--but for most candidates it's just not so direct and monotonal.

Now that he's trying to be nice to Hillary, he can't be fair to everyone else.

He should be off the air. He's a pox on politics. And I've been saying more or less the same thing for years now. Thankfully, BBC America has a news program on at 7 eastern so I can ditch Matthews fully.

Republicans Face "Pessimism and Gloom"

The Douchebag of Liberty (Robert Novak) writes:

'Adding to the dark mood among Republicans is the increasing prospect that they will not be able to bolster their morale by running against the detested Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.). Her unification of Republicans has been one of the few GOP assets going into the campaign. It will take time and effort to work up a passion against the likable Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) no matter how leftist he really is.'

Facts Come Before Spin -- Eventually

I was struck some weeks ago when Obama spoke about how Clinton's campaign was all tactical maneuvers (...wish I could find the quote now). It's become increasingly evident that he was right: for some time now the Clinton campaign has exerted energy doing tiny things: picking a fight with MSNBC, challenging Obama to debates, touting a fundraising boost after the $5 million loan was revealed, and telling us why the various contests that Obama was taking were somehow unimportant--all tactical maneuvers. Now it's nakedly apparent that the Clinton strategy, such as it is, is to decamp to March and let Obama win as much of February's contests as he can take. The month will be spent spinning and spinning and engaging in ever-smaller tactical scrimshaw.

Many blogs have made fun of the Clinton camp's continuing efforts to explain away every defeat as somehow unimportant for one reason or another -- "too many African-American voters," "it's a caucus," "it's a Red state," etc etc. Yglesias committed an early example. Kos contributes an exhaustive take. Kos Diarist Jeff Lieber shows how absurd the cumulative explanations have become.

For most of the past few days, these explanations have been carried by the mainstream press pretty much as they were made by the Clintonistas, allowing their tactics to hit the public as intended.

No more. Today, after the decisive victories in the Potomac primaries and an apparently nearly unassailable lead in pledged delegates, the dam seems to have burst with the press and they're basically calling bullshit on the spin.


Obama cuts into Clinton base Beth Fouhy of the AP writes:

By this logic, only certain states really matter, such as New Hampshire and New Jersey, states that Clinton has won. Or Texas and Ohio, states she must capture to stay in the race.

The list of excuses is long, but the justifications are wearing thin. One by one, all the contests Clinton has suggested don't count are proving in size and scope that they do.

Ok, so these states all do count, after all. What about that massive superdelegate lead? Ron Fournier (AP) spills on the people the Clintons may no longer be able to count on:

Clinton should find little comfort in the fact that she has secured 242 superdelegates to Obama's 160.

"I would make the assumption that the ... superdelegates she has now are the Clintons' loyal base. A superdelegate who is uncommitted today is clearly going to wait and see how this plays out. She's at her zenith now," Duffy said. "Whatever political capital or IOUs that exist, she's already collected."

Tactics are all they have, but they are well past rancid. It must be tiring to continually push these counterfactual themes (though I admit the Bushies have done that for years). In a way I feel sorry for the Clinton people and Hillary herself. But not too sorry--they haven't covered themselves in glory with their racist dogwhistle campaign and being downright petty, as James Fallows noted last night (doing what she's done after previous losses). So, screw 'em.

Clinton/Penn/Wolfson Strategery

In the NY Times, Woolfson reveals why they are cunningly planning on stringing together a whole month of loss after loss after abject loss* for Hillary:

“There is no evidence that voters are voting based on momentum — in fact the evidence is to the contrary,” said Howard Wolfson, Mrs. Clinton’s communications director.

If they lose massively and powerfully enough, they will have anti-momentum of such devastating force that it will slingshot Clinton to the nomination.

Now that's strategic thinking!

*Best not to count the votes before they come in -- Obama could lose some states in Feb.