Addled Offal

Great News!

BBC 7 has begun airing Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show!, and you can hear it over the internet at the link above.

Currently it's Episode one of six, with successive episodes appearing every Thursday. I believe, from the description, that this is the first episode of series one (there have been 3 series so far, with another radio series due late this year or early next).

I really like Ed Reardon's Week, but I think I may like the good Count even more, making him perhaps the funniest comic creation on radio.

I also can't wait to see his show Count Arthur Strong: The Musical? Since I'm in the US, I'll probably have to wait for the DVD release, due sometime this summer I believe.

More Count Arthur Strong:

Wikipedia
Official site

Tragicomic Quote of the Day

Roy Edroso:

If Obama gets shot, I expect the Roberts Commission will rule that he was resisting arrest.

That wouldn't surprise me.

Clinton Republicans for McCain

Well, well....look who purchased and registered the domain ClintonsForMcCain.com. The Republican National Committee!

WHOIS domain registration information for clintonsformccain.com
==================

clintonsformccain.com

Services from Network Solutions:
 Registrant:
 Republican National Committee
 310 First Street SE
 Washington, DC 20003
 US

 Domain Name: CLINTONSFORMCCAIN.COM

 Administrative Contact , Technical Contact :
 Republican National Committee
 dns@rnchq.org
 310 First Street SE
 Washington, DC 20003
 US
 Phone: 202-863-8500
 Fax: 202-863-8851

 Record expires on 15-May-2010
 Record created on 15-May-2008
 Database last updated on 15-May-2008

 Domain servers in listed order:  Manage DNS

 NS1.CHA.SMARTECHCORP.NET    
 NS2.CHA.SMARTECHCORP.NET

 Current Registrar:  NETWORK SOLUTIONS, LLC.
 IP Address:  1.1.1.1 (ARIN & RIPE IP search)
 IP Location:  -(-)
 Lock Status:  clientTransferProhibited
 DMOZ  no listings
 Y! Directory:  see listings
 Data as of:  14-Jun-2005
==================

They registered it on 15 May, which is 2 days after the West Virginia Dem.
Primary.

The RNC may seem feeble now. Just remember: while Republicans can't govern or run a war, they sure can smear their political opponents. Get ready for a shitstorm from these creeps.

Not Old Age. Bad Experience.

It's not his age, it's that his experience is horrible.

Steven Suh has a great post up about what's wrong with McCain.

McCain would be just as clueless if he was 30 years younger. He'd be just as much of a jerk - he has been just as much of a jerk - no matter what age he's been. He was whoring himself out to lobbyists and corrupt businesses long before he reached the age at which it's ok to make fun of him. John McCain didn't live up to his own rhetoric decades ago. He has not only reversed himself on issues, he's done so on issues that supposedly define him as a human being, not just a politician: torture and detainee treatment, civil liberties, the power of the Executive Branch, proper American foreign policy, immigration - to call what he's done "flip-flopping" would be a grevious deception, because the truth of the matter is that he's a moral coward, a liar, a convictionless freak of America's dangerous right wing who, if anything, will actually make matters worse for this country than George W. Bush has.

That's John McCain, that's been John McCain, and it will always be John McCain. His age has nothing to do with it; therefore it should have nothing to do with us.

I, for one, won't be dumping on McCain's age. He'd be a terrible president at any age.

Good Matt

Matthew Yglesias has a string of posts tonight that seem spot-on (and often funny) to me. And even the comment threads are pretty good, if you ignore my contributions and a few others.

(Re the comment threads: I guess the Clinton trolls were in a sub-basement at Baruch College and the McCain trolls were in Kenner Louisiana.)

Brand Momentum

I keep hearing people, such as Pat Buchanan right now on MSNBC, wondering: why Obama can't run away from Clinton?

It's really easy now to overlook how much, for identified Democrats, "Clinton" is practically synonymous with "pretty successful and popular Democratic President." For instance, three Clintons (Hillary, Bill, and Chelsea) were petting every puppy and painting every porch in South Dakota and Puerto Rico. They could blanket those places with Clintonisma.

The Appalachia problem may be a real one, but let's not forget that Obama was running into the headwind of the biggest Democratic brand in decades. Brands don't usually evaporate in an instant.

Recall this time?

Among key findings: Clinton's lead among African-Americans has widened by 9 percentage points, to 62%-34%.

That was October 2007, just eight months ago. Obama leveraged a great ground game in Iowa. The Clintons pissed off black voters.

But, even yet, they haven't totally destroyed their brand. But they left just enough room for another brand to emerge. Soon, he'll have the Democratic landscape to himself and he'll move on to build his own brand into something bigger, I'm sure.

McCain's Sexist Gambit

I see that JedReport has picked up on McCain's Chelsea Clinton joke, told when Chelsea was 17:

Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?
Because her father is Janet Reno.

Sexist about a girl and about an older woman with Parkinson's: it's a twofer of sexism!

But don't forget about McCains sweet nothings to his wife, as reported in Cliff Schecter's book The Real McCain.

As reported in Raw Story:

Three reporters from Arizona, on the condition of anonymity, also let me in on another incident involving McCain's intemperateness. In his 1992 Senate bid, McCain was joined on the campaign trail by his wife, Cindy, as well as campaign aide Doug Cole and consultant Wes Gullett. At one point, Cindy playfully twirled McCain's hair and said, "You're getting a little thin up there." McCain's face reddened, and he responded, "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you cunt." McCain's excuse was that it had been a long day. If elected president of the United States, McCain would have many long days.

With those two stories, opposition to abortion (but being ok with extracting stem cells, which aren't in a female body), being a flyboy from the sixties and a "hail-fellow-well-met" of the old-boy network, he's certainly thoroughly sexist.

McCain Campaign: Ignore McCain

Two things McCain's campaign wants you to know.

1) Don't expect McCain to know whether an event is in the past, present or future. And it's a good thing that he isn't clear on time and tenses.

2) However, anyone Obama has ever met in his life speaks for Obama. Ignore what Obama actually says and pay attention to random person X who has some reputed connection with Obama.

Will this work? With our media, it just may.

Oaf-In-Chief

Bush met with Rolling Thunder this past Sunday. The greeting on the lawn of the White House lasted about 4 minutes. That was just enough time for Oaf-In-Chief Bush to demonstrate again how he loves to manhandle lesser humans (to him, nearly everyone else in the world). Even those with shrapnel wounds.

Bush thanked Muller with a hard-but-friendly slap to the shoulder.

Muller winced. Nerve damage from a shrapnel wound gives him a ton of pain whenever his shoulder is touched. He even wears metal spikes on his jacket to remind people not to grab him there.

“I do that every year, don’t I?” Bush said.

Muller nodded. “Yes.”

It's minor but telling: I'm sure Bush would be livid if people manhandled him the way he routinely does others.

Fortunately for him he managed not to collect any war wounds himself.

Video here

Someone Else's Civil War

John McCain: "I will never surrender in Iraq."

What would it mean to "surrender" in someone else's civil war?

He's showing the same great judgment as when he decided it was a great idea to tie up our military with a war in Iraq to fight people who weren't even there.

John McCain: Wrong early, wrong often, wrong for as long as you'll let him be wrong.

Phoenix Rises from the Asses

Phoenix Arizona shows its support for the McCain/Bush!

A Tuesday fundraiser headlined by President Bush for U.S. Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign is being moved out of the Phoenix Convention Center.

Sources familiar with the situation said the Bush-McCain event was not selling enough tickets to fill the Convention Center space, and that there were concerns about more anti-war protesters showing up outside the venue than attending the fundraiser inside.

Has McCain already drained every penny from every wealthy Arizona resident that he's not married to?

And it's moving from a convention center to private residences. Rumor has it they're having a hard time filling a studio apartment.

And McCain is so fiercely independent from Bush that he farms out his answers to Bush's in-house flacks:

The McCain campaign referred questions on the fundraiser change to the White House press office.

That's nice: campaign work for another candidate on the taxpayer dime. Classy.

Nice Sticker, guys. Excellent

Protective Coloration

The McCain campaign materializes. From Chris Bowers, McCain's protective coloration:

This all comes from a candidate who, back in November, had the word "conservative" appear on his website 291 times, while only using the word "bipartisan" 33 times. A few months earlier, McCain led all Republican candidates in the use of the word "conservative" on his website. Suddenly, he has shifted from being the great conservative champion to the cool, hip, progressive.

Bower's post is a few days old (read the whole, relatively short, thing, with the striking list of new McCain website entries) but I'm sure it's only the beginning.

But let's all remember: McCain isn't Bush--he's only 95% Bush. And of the remaining 5 percent, 3 percent is worse than Bush. It's scientifically proven!

Woody Words

Someone has transcribed the entire Woody Allen - Standup Comic 1964 - 1968. When I first purchased it, it was a 2 LP set, alas. Extremely funny stuff here. For instance:

Wanted to flash this watch, I flash it all the time. It's my antique pocket watch, and it makes me look British, and I need that for my analysis. It is a georgeous gold pocket watch, however, and I'm proud of it. My grandfather, on his deathbed, sold me this watch.

My grandfather was a very insignificant man. At his funeral, his hearse followed the other cars.

It's worth hearing it delivered--some of my favorite standup comedy ever. Buy or borrow a copy!

No, not "Off Message"

Sid Blumenthal is not Off Message with this hogwash.

He's on message for the "Obama must lose in November so Hillary can take her rightful throne" crowd.

Just like when he was pimping smears from the VRWC to slime Obama, he is on message now.

It's just that the Democratic message differs greatly from the Clintonista message, and Sid is only nominally a Democrat.

Sid is a company guy for Clinton, Inc. He's not freelancing when he's trying to destroy the Democratic nominee.

Old Joke Riddle Reenacted

Q: What's the newest Olympic event?

A: Javelin Catching

With the added bonus quote:

"One of the first things that came to my mind was, 'Good thing we brought a second javelin,'" Miles' coach, Richard Vance, said Monday.

Some Crowd

Click the above cropped snippet for a panoramic image from the crowd at the Portland Obama rally today (75,000 people!). There's even an Obama Armada of boats assembled listening from the river, and throngs seeming to enjoy the great weather and the next President of the United States.

[HT: Link to the original panoramic picture taken and posted by coolhandlucas in this DailyKos thread.]

Edit: The image link is changed because the image host wasn't working.

McCain - Gambling with the U.S.

McCain Gambling

Apparently John McCain repeatedly goes on gambling binges, playing craps for hours at a time. He's also very superstitious.

How much money has he lost gambling in Las Vegas and elsewhere?

I wonder if he'd be in the gambler's poorhouse if his wife weren't giving him a gambling allowance.




UPDATE: The Jed Report has more information on McCain's friend Wes Gullet, who would roll craps with him in Vegas for 14-hour stretches. And who is a lobbyist. And a lobbyist whose clients benefitted from land-swap legislation McCain initially opposed. But, after Gullet's lobbying, McCain changed his position on the land-swap.

Eschaton

Atrios says a couple things I've been thinking myself.

The ability of the Clinton camp to inject ridiculous ideas into the mediastream has been amazing. It's a measure of the "look! shiny!" nature of the media as much as the Clinton spin room, but they've had success at it.

Also, Clinton lost the race. She lost it mainly in February. She and her advisers are to blame for that. HRC supporters should be pissed off at Mark Penn and Harold Ickes far more than at Obama.

Ovearching point: spin is no substitute for a good campaign. I think that may indicate some of her weaknesses overall.

Of course, all candidates have weaknesses, Obama included. But he's won this thing.

And I saw someone in that Atrios comment thread complaining about how Obama supporters attack Clinton. Well, look at Taylor Marsh's site, including the (probably disastrous) attempt to swamp superdelegates with email. I mainly hang out with the less insane parts of the blogosphere, but some of those Taylor Marsh commenters make Freepers look rational.

Not Missing Her Yet

Kevin Drum reminds me of an old song by Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks:

How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away?

Lame and Dowd

Kevin Drum points to a post by Kathy G called My Maureen Dowd story

The whole post is excellent. I suppose the anecdote at the end is somewhat illuminating but it's hardly a surprise to anyone who reads Dowd.

But this is particularly rich:

But there's another problem with the opening sentence of the Dowd column. "I'm not bitter." Oh Maureen -- who the hell do you think you're kidding?

Hilarious! Yeah, sure, Maureen. Maureen Dowd without bitterness would be Andy Rooney.

The biggest sin of the mainstream media types like Dowd is self-importance without self-knowledge.

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.

YouTube - Hillary and the Band

Hillary's Shred Video. I just saw this again and realized that it was "Paid for Hillary Clinton for President."



Earlier I thought it was a misguided misfire by one of Hillary's fans. It's hard to fathom that any professional outfit would put this together. I'd fire any communication pros who believe it would reach "young people," as it is obviously intended to.

Since she pays for this kind of pap, I no longer have to wonder how Hillary blew through all her campaign cash.

Whatever you think of the will.i.am "Yes We Can" video, it was posted 3 days after this Hillary thing and the numbers tell the story:

Hillary's "shred" video:
Added: January 30, 2008
Views: 186,857

Barack's "Yes we can" video:
Added: February 02, 2008
Views: 2,636,540



That's just from the posting on that one YouTube page. I have seen "Yes We Can" active on torrent download sites and on other video sites. I'm pretty sure this Hillary video isn't getting widespread dispersion. Except for ridicule.

And Obama didn't pay a penny for "Yes We Can."

The Bugle

The Bugle -- a great new (to me) podcast from John Oliver (lately of The Daily Show in the US, but formerly of many funny things in the UK, including a tiny part in the TV version of People Like Us) and his cohort Andy Zaltzman, who worked with Oliver in the hilarious "The Department" and miscellaneous other funny matter, as well as doing his own clever standup and writing. It's put out by The Times (of London) Online UK.

I've listened to the first few as well as the current one (about Rudy Giuliani, the Sultan of 9/11: "He was leading in virtually all the polls before the race properly began. But then he began opening his mouth and saying words, and that quickly became a problem."). They're uniformly funny and often hilarious.

John Oliver speaks from New York and Zaltsman from London, so Oliver gives the Times' listeners a skewed sort of Alistair Cooke-ish Brit Abroad interpretation of events. In most episodes "An American" (otherwise unidentified, but in truth Daily Show writer Rory Albanese) appears, a New Yorker who gives his own full-throated and low-browed Yankee perspective and answers questions from the public.

Sample a few of episodes of The Bugle. It's the funny stuff.

This is hard to for me to write off

I was thinking "Gee the Clintons haven't been too racist and awful recently, maybe I should rethink my stated revulsion at their tactics."

That didn't last too long. Ok, Bill was going to make an apology tour. But a few things make me think that, if Hillary had won in South Carolina, and it were just blacks who were pissed at his antics, I doubt he'd be making this four-stop tour of Los Angeles area black churches.

If it were really important to him, I'm sure he wouldn't have (from the same story) "... canceled a fourth appearance [scheduled at churches] to fly to New Mexico to watch the Super Bowl with Gov. Bill Richardson..."

Cause nothing says "I'm sorry" like dumping out of your tour and flying to New Mexico to eat nachos with the Guv, possibly to try and parry an endorsement (or whatever Bill was doing).

And apparently some of his supporters, who invited them into their houses of worship, thought he was going to write a letter of apology. I thought it rose to that level. But I guess that was all a misunderstanding.

I'm so tired of the Clintons.

If you live where it matters, I ask you to really consider a vote for Obama in the primaries or caucuses. Who needs more of this lame-ass drama?

But they have a lot of people everywhere who will turn out to vote for them, for whatever meager reasons they can conjure. Obama needs a lot of votes to overcome the built-in Clinton draw. And don't forget that in California, as well as in other states, many votes have already been cast via mail-in ballots and there are sundry other issues. Obama will need a deluge to overcome that, if it's even possible, no matter what the polls say.

Woody Allen's Typography

I've always appreciated how distinctive and familiar are the opening credits of Woody Allen's movies. Kit-blog reveals how Allen got the font (Windsor-EF Elongated), how it has changed over the years, and more. Very interesting to me, a longtime Allen buff.

35 Years of Change

Hillary says she's been 35 years of experience making change? Hah!

Think of another woman who was a professional before marrying a political man, and who served as First Lady of a state governorship, and First Lady of the United States. Consider 45 years of change from Laura Lane Welch Bush--ten years more than Hillary Clinton.

If you don't investigate Hillary's history past the public-relations-speak, then don't investigate Laura's past either--it's all just "experience."

In 1963 -- 45 years ago --Laura was involved in a car accident when she ran a stop sign and crashed into another car, killing a friend and classmate, Michael Dutton Douglas. This began her lifelong pursuit of road safety. There is no accounting for the lives Laura has saved in her endeavor to make roads safer.

Laura decided to educate the nations' youth, and worked for four long years to amass the credits needed to help them. In 1968 Laura earned a BS in Education from Southern Methodist University. While Hillary was thinking about Politics (graduating in 1969 with a degree in Political Science), Laura was thinking about helping young people learn.

Laura went out to the trenches, helping kids learn as a school teacher in an elementary school in 1969. She served in the trenches, teaching children with humility and grace until 1972.

Seeking to enhance her ability to help children, Laura earned a Masters Degree in 1973, in Library Science (now called Information Science -- prescient indeed), working as a librarian and information specialist until 1977.

After 1977 she married and had children, for which she gave up her career to nurture, though continuing her service to information science and libraries.

As First Lady of Texas, Laura Bush served five years, focusing on women's and children's causes, as well as literacy and libraries. She was an agent for reading, for literacy, for the glories of experience that the written word can provide.

Since 2001, Laura Bush has continued her work to improve the state of children and women, and to battle for more books, libraries, and information in the public at large.

45 years of spectacular work from Laura Bush. It's ten more years than Hillary has admitted to.

There you go. Laura Bush is more qualified than Hillary Clinton to be President!

PS: I read somewhere today a vox pop commenter saying they were going to vote for Hillary because she was such a good Vice President. So don't think the Hillary people aren't going for this kind of thing with the low information voters.

One Down

I must join in the general left-blogosphere relief , enthusiasm , and respect that greets the disappearance of Rudy Giuliani from the race.

He would have been the most dangerous President to come out of the Republican field, probably even worse than Bush. Personally, he is a creep. Publicly, the atavistic aggression erupting from his rictus is hard to bear.

So we can all be very glad that the worst possible choice is eliminated.

As for McCain, I'm liberal and think the guy's stands on domestic issues (choice, likely judicial appointments, gay rights) really stink, but his "war is always the answer" foreign policy would be nearly the equal of Rudy's vague bellicose bullshit.

McCain is very old. He will look very old, especially on HD, and especially when compared to Obama.

His speaking style sucks, both in debates and in speeches. In debates, he tends to regurgitate vaguely related bits of his stump speech like a doddering idiot until he gets to set a firm jaw and bellow some truculent nonsense. In speeches, he reads as though he were not only new to a tele Prompter, but reading aloud for the first time.

The guy is pathetic. I bet even Hillary or Mike Bloomberg will beat him.

But this brings me to something this blog has to touch on: how Obama effects people. In watching C-Span coverage of rallies, the only Democrat I can recall where I've heard people spontaneously break out into chants of "USA! USA!" is Obama. It's happened when he's just talking about the greatness of the idea of America. It appears to be evoked by a real infusion of love of the concept of America, not by any specific image.

It's a real evocation of patriotism, of a good sort.

I watched C-Span when Romney was rallying the other day, and he did the typical trick to evoke patriotic feeling in his listeners: told a story about an old veteran and a flag. It was a patriotism that looked back. And the crowd cheered a little bit, but I heard the "we're supposed to cheer here about this old story" in the crowd's response.

McCain does more or less the same thing, as does Bush, and Huckabee. I've never heard Hillary try to evoke patriotism in any dedicated way, so I don't know about her. But the Republican rhetorical trick seems to be, implicitly "Remember when you previously had a patriotic feeling? Well, recall that previous feeling now." While Obama's incitement to patriotism is implicitly "Remember how great this country is? How strong and enduring are the concepts that underly the United States?" And hearts swell and eyes well up and people cheer out of feeling a new patriotism now.

12,000 (est.)

This post, from "someone who votes predominantly Republican," is part of the reason Obama is shaking things up a bit. Apart from the estimate that there were 12,000 people lined up for a rally in DC, he writes:

We're both right of center, but there's something about the guy that even if he spent our money in all the wrong ways, we could at least respect him for the choices he'd make.

And it goes a long way that we'd be looking for that sort of thing instead of voting with people who share opinions on major issues.

The whole thing captures something about Obama's appeal, and helps explain why there were so many thousands waiting in the cold for a political rally.

One Important Word

From Obama's South Carolina victory speech: "It's about whether we settle for the same divisions and distractions and drama that passes for politics today, or whether we reach for a politics of common sense, and innovation — a shared sacrifice and shared prosperity."

The word that jumped out at me was "drama." It really rang a bell. Anything that Bill Clinton is involved in isn't just All About Bill, it's also a drama--or, even more aptly a melodrama. It's even become that in the few weeks he's been sleazing up the campaign trail on Hillary's behalf. Hillary sniffling and crying before her impending (and ultimately avoided) loss in New Hampshire was melodrama. Her campaign relies on this melodrama and it's pretty pathetic.

I'm tired of Clintonian melodrama on the national stage. I don't want manufactured psychodramas. I don't want drama therapy in the Oval Office.

Please, Clintons, go have your dramas in private. Stop inflicting your twisted psyches on the United States of America.

Clinton Fatigue

I share some of the feeling of Sir Charles when he writes of My own Clinton Derangment Syndrome?:

I've been mulling this over for the last day or two, and I think it comes down to this -- the sense that with the Clintons, it's always about them, and with Bill, in particular, it's always about him. No cause, no loyalty, no party or position supersedes their personal political needs.

That's one thing that has revulsed me about them in the past few weeks. Shortly after Obama was projected the South Carolina winner last night, Bill Clinton began speaking and, to kick off his talk, spent what seemed like five minutes talking about not Hillary but himself: his Presidency, his governorship, his great deeds. All this was a prologue to saying that even if he wasn't married to Hillary he'd still support her.

For one thing, I don't believe him. For another, all his purported good deeds are irrelevant to him supporting his wife. But, even his wife's loss was a chance for him to talk himself up. It was revolting, especially when added to the stream of dog-whistle sleaze he'd been pumping into the mediastream for the past few weeks, throwing the African-Americans who used to support him off the back of the bus.

A similar conclusion, but from a different angle, from one of Andrew Sullivan's readers:

But something essential shifted inside of me and in my 43 years, I have never experienced anything like it. After 15 years of unflinching, Blumenthal-level Clintonista tendencies, I woke up one day and realized I hated them.

Hate may be too strong a word, but I do feel revulsion toward both Clintons. They think that all will come together in Kumbaya if Hillary wins the nomination, and for many it may.

But not for me. I can't vote for someone who, when I see or hear them, my gorge rises. A month ago, Hillary was just a benign presence on the airwaves--not inciting great passions pro or con. I felt mildly but distinctly positive about her. That positive but dispassionate view of her is gone, and it will not return.

As I've said before, if Hillary wins, I will sign the Draft Bloomberg petition, hope he drafts a Democratic VP partner, and proceeds to dump a billion dollars--literally a Billion US Dollars-- of The Stink of Truth on Hillary Clinton's head.

I voted for Bill twice, and I've been a registered Democrat my whole life. But if I can't even see the Clintons without registering a physical repugnance, I am not going to vote for them. The best they can hope is that I stay home.

I can only imagine how African-Americans feel about how these pathetic jerks have treated them recently.

Welcome to the 21st Century, Just Like The 1990s

Old nightmares and fresh new ones to come.

More Clinton Scummery

Rules were agreed to.

Now Hillary wants to break her agreement I guess she takes her promises and contracts as seriously as Bill takes his marriage vows.

Bill wants his third term.

If the Clintons can't control themselves (and they apparently can't), then I say "Run Bloomberg Run" and dump a billion dollars against the Clintons so everyone can see them for the moral abcesses they are. And I've been a Democrat my whole life and voted for him twice.

I'm sick of these repellent people and all their hangers-on.

Bill Clinton Screws Again!

Only this time he's screwing his party on behalf of his wife, who, tough independent woman that she is, is having her husband carry on her battles for her. Some women aren't too happy about it.

But he must have his third term and a chance for fun in the Oval Office.

Never voted for a Republican before, but if Bloomberg runs and Hillary is the Democrat, Bloomberg gets my vote.

And Obama can say "I ask my supporters to vote for someone trustworthy and honorable." What's wrong with that formulation?

Lanny The Jerk

Lanny Davis: Asks Obama What Exactly in the Clinton-Era Nineties Did You Not Like?

Ok, Lanny, I'll play: How about the fact that it spawned dolts like Lanny Davis?

Digby said of Lanny, after Lanny wrote an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal (!) in support of war-monger Joe Lieberman (!):

As for Lanny, well, nobody takes him seriously. He was the single most inept Clinton defender ever. When he would show up on Fox or MSNBC back in the Lewinsky days I would cringe knowing that whatever blond former prosecutor harpy they had on would rip him to shreds. (I swear, he must have uttered the words "deplorable" and "reprehensible" at least 15,000 times.) I knew they hired him for just that purpose and I have heard that there is no love lost between him and the Clintonistas, which doesn't surprise me. He's still at it. In the course of his usual ineffectual non-defense he's managed to make both his friends Joe and Dick look like hanky wringing losers which is fine by me.

And, make no mistake, Lanny Davis is a Bush fan, just like Joe. He's a frat brother who, just days after the recount was settled, wrote an opportunistic brown nosing op-ed in the NY Times attesting to Bush's good character. (Talk about rubbing salt in the wound. I'll never forgive him for that.)

Here's Lanny lobbying for the poisonous partisan Ted Olson as a good Attorney General nominee (!).

Here's Wolcott on the idiocy of Lanny Davis saying that Democrats shouldn't "politicize" the conviction of the Republican grand-thief Jack Abramoff.

It's just too bad that the New York Times has behind a firewall the column Davis wrote right after the 2000 election praising George W. Bush. That would show his prescience and ability to assess leaders.

So, Lanny, you're one thing about the Clinton years that is a continuing embarrassment to Democrats and the country at large.

One great boon from an Obama win would be to brush away the same old crowd of people that populated the Clinton circus. Not all of them, to be sure, but simpering idiots like Lanny Davis.

The Reality-Based Community: Bill Clinton defends the indefensible

I've been wondering why Bill Clinton has been so exasperated, angry, and fulminating (often falsely, at least recently). Mark Kleiman may have it figured out:

Sometimes, a man who gets caught cheating on his wife tries to make up for it by giving her jewelry. I think this is the first time a two-timing husband tried to give his wife the most powerful position in the world instead."

Probably more true than I would have thought.

Publius over Digby

Publius at Obsidian Wings is certainly right here:

Perhaps I’m being naïve, but I sense a lot of discontent among “thinking conservatives” these days – more so than usual. My hope is that they’re tired of watching these juvenile shows. This discontent, in turn, is what gives someone like Obama a window that few Democrats have had lately. There’s a realistic chance of seeing “Obama Republicans” in a general. “Hillary Republicans,” more doubtful.

So it makes it odd to me that Digby is so wrong here:

Look, I know this is weedy stuff and probably doesn't matter to the average voter under the age of 45. But to long time liberals who lived through this period as an adult, it's like waving a red flag in our faces. Reagan ran explicitly against the left(and in the process normalized the kind of indecent talk that made Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter millionaires.) Because he won big in 1984, leaders in both parties accepted this omnipotent Reagan myth and have run against liberalism ever since --- and have ended up, through both commission and omission, advancing the destructive conservative policies that brought us to a place where we are debating things like torture. It would be helpful if ending the era of Democrats running against the liberal base could be part of this new progressive "trajectory."

I have some sympathy there. But the thing is, there's no progressive "Trajectory." Democrat's strength is largely due to the utter malevolence and incompetence of the Bush administration.

Obama is trying to make Obama Republicans, without that trajectory. Cut him a break.

It's almost as if Digby is willfully misreading Obama (where he does not indicate support for Reagan's policies so much as the transformative nature of his presidency), when usually she is so savvy about reading the tea leaves.

Better Obama -- who is perceived as more moderate than he is, than Hillary Clinton, who is a DLC democrat but is perceived as a flaming liberal.

Obama could be a game-changer. It's almost impossible that Hillary will be that. Either one of them could screw things up, but Obama's foreign policy impulses are much more sane.

I guess you can tell who I support in the primary. Despite Digby's denials, such an uncharitable misreading indicates we can tell who she supports too.

Andrew Cuomo, Racist Dumbass

I'd like to say to Andrew Cuomo: Andrew, you went to Albany Law School and may not know it, but one doesn't "shuck and jive" their way to President of Harvard Law Review.

Racists since time immemorial, however, have been using the phrase "shuck and jive" to denigrate black people. You're willing to act like a racist for political benefit -- I'd say that's pretty racist in itself.

I guess we won't see Stages 3-5 for a while, if ever. But I can see why I was getting that feeling: I heard on MSNBC that the last internal polls in Obama's camp showed him up 14 and Hillary's last polls showed her down 11 percent. The must have been in such dire straits.

I really wonder what happened that last day. I don't think a 15 point (or so) swing is explainable by any one thing, but I hope some level headed person can plow through the data and figure it out.

If a large contributor to that was Hillary misting up about her plight, all I can say is: Oy!

Stages

I'm not saying it's over yet, not by a long shot.

But the Clinton Campaign is stepping through Kubler-Ross's five stages of grief.

1. Denial: The initial stage: Most of her campaign in 2007, and "It can't be happening."
2. Anger: "It is wrong...." or Let's squash the bastard!
3. Bargaining: examples to come?
4. Depression: examples to come?
5. Acceptance: examples to come?

If Clinton undertakes the 527 strategy that Thomas Edsall writes about, I figure the number of Democrats who will outright revile the Clintons will be close to the number of Republicans who do. I haven't even read about the Republicans pulling that stunt in their primary yet, and they're the scorched earth party. I figure some rich republicans may be putting something together to take Huckabee out if it looks like he's getting to close to winning.

But here would be an important difference: Republican plutocrats have a real reason to not want Huckabee in the race. After all, he seems to sincerely believe it's a good thing for government to help the poor, and the plutocrats hate that.

Democrats have no real policy reason to hate Obama--other than he's standing in the way of Clinton's ascension to the throne. If they do that, it'll be further evidence that Hillary's motive for running could be summed up in the phrase "It's my turn, dammit!"

And who knows, someone may whip up a 527 against Hillary in response. It would be a bad thing, but so would Clinton's anti-Obama 527, if it happens.

That Reminds Me

America has the best health care system in much the same way it has the best Yacht Delivery System.

If you can afford a yacht, it's the best!

also this.

Video/Audio: O'Reilly and Obama, Nashua, Sat.

You may have read about O'Reilly striking or shoving an Obama staffer today in Nashua, New Hampshire. Here are reports by John Dickerson at Slate, and Lynn Sweet at the Sun-Times.

As both reports note, Obama spoke with O'Reilly after the incident, apparently unaware of O'Reilly having shoved the staffer.

C-Span carried the rally and, as they often do, kept the camera and microphones rolling after the speech. I recorded the event and noticed that part of the Obama-O'Reilly exchange was caught by C-SPAN. Here is the video:



What follows below is a rough transcript. With distant miking, crowd noise, and crosstalk,it's hard to tell exactly what was said, but I'm pretty sure this is an accurate account of what I could hear--what I couldn't hear, of course, I couldn't transcribe.

Obama Nashua Rally. Sat, January 5, 2007
C-Span onscreen time at the beginning of this clip is 11:44 a.m. ET, and the exchange ends just before the minute rolls over to 11:45.

TRANSCRIPT;
Obama working the  crowd
(Audio is the C-Span voiceover, not transcribed.)

About 33 seconds into this clip the audio
switches to the audio in the room.  O'Reilly
and Obama have apparently just begun
speaking (though I can't tell exactly when).

Obama points to the audience spillover room and
says to O'Reilly: "I've got --
there's a whole bunch of people over
there and I need to talk to them ...."

O'Reilly: [Unintelligible]

Obama:  Sometime. 

[Crosstalk]

Obama: How about after the primary? Alright?

O'Reilly: Alright.  Thank you very much. You're
a good guy. We've liked you...

Obama: Thank you. After the primary we'll ...

O'Reilly: After New Hampshire?

Obama: After the primary [Transcribers NOTE: Perhaps that's
"after the primaries," plural?].  Alright? [Crosstalk]

O'Reilly:  Alright

Exchange ends about 54 seconds into this clip.

I may tweak the transcript if I (or my commenters) hear something that I missed in this initial transcript.

Sad Fact

I mentioned this over at Oliver Willis' place, but it is, sadly, worth repeating.

Who was the last Democratic presidential candidate to win over half (over 50 %) of the popular vote?

Jimmy Carter in 1976.

It's been over 30 years since a Democratic presidential candidate has won a majority of the popular vote.

Since then, Republicans have won 4 elections with more than 50 percent of the popular vote (Reagan twice, Bush Sr. in 1988, and Bush Jr. in 2004). Clinton's "landslide" in 1996 was the result of 49.2 % of the vote -- again, not a majority! In 1992, Clinton won with only 43 %, thanks to Perot. I'm glad Clinton won both elections, but he never won a majority of the votes cast.

I happen to think that, in a 2 party system, not getting a majority of the vote for over 30 years is a problem for Democrats. Others may not find it a problem, but I do.

How we address it is a matter upon which opinions can differ, but stating that it's an important issue is not bashing Democrats. It's a fact.

This was in response to the hyperventilation about Obama mentioning vote percentages. It's pretty hard to read what he said as an "attack" on any past candidate--though it is a good thing to point out in regards to Hillary Clinton. She has a large chunk of the electorate who now say they won't vote for her. I certainly agree with Oliver Willis that the reaction was more about what the writers thought about Obama than about what Obama said.

Regardless of how you feel about Obama, it's a sobering trivia fact that can really stuns many of my fellow Democrats when I riddle them: The last Dem to win over half the vote was Carter over thirty years ago. Republicans have done it 4 time since then.

Yeesh.

Gimme a Reason

There's a reason to even mention Jonass Goldberg's so-called book Liberal Fascism here.

More here and here

Please join in! It's way cheaper than buying the book and it makes a serious argument with even more care than Goldberg does, especially in his so-called book Liberal Fascism .*

* For those needing a variant spelling, the second word of the title is often misspelled, like this: Liberal Facism

The Lesson

Here's the lesson, Republican candidates:

You can say your favorite political philosopher is Jesus Christ, provided it's a lie and you really revere Ayn Rand or the part of Hayek that urges you to lie to what Peggy Noonan calls the "idiotic voters" whose religious votes you seek.

Instead, support the thrice-married, unrepetantly adulterous, gay-approving, abortion-supporting man who really represents your sole ideals: authoritarianism and supply-side bullshit. The money-men demand that.

How the Queen charmed the pants off me: Confessions of an old Leftie

Billy Bragg Meets the Queen.

Good on him.

The truly shocking thing is that he wrote it for The Daily Mail.

Rosenberg On Feith

How did people like Feith manage to sell this country on a disastrously foolish war that had no real positives for the United States? I have a feeling M.J. Rosenberg at TPM Cafe may be onto something here. It's pretty blistering:

I'm a Washingtonian and have known about Feith for some 25 years. Until this administration and this war came along, I had no idea that he had any interests in life other than promoting West Bank settlements. He was (and is) the most outspoken Likudnik in the Washington Jewish community, basically a very fringy character (viciously anti-Rabin, anti-Oslo, anti-peace). I would not have guessed that he could find the United States on a map, so utterly and completely involved is he with the Israeli far right.

All Neocons aren't Jewish. But almost all of them, Christian, Jewish and otherwise, seem to be dedicated to Likudnik view of the Middle East. I don't think such a hardline view is in the best interests of the U.S. I think the folly of the Iraq adventure supports that view.

Mickey Kaus: Separated at Birth?

One of the above is Mickey Kaus. One of the above is Mickey Kaus as Secretary of Education played by an actor in Idiocracy. *

See the scene that captures Kaus' intellect and intellectual integrity!

* That's Mike Judge's movie, Idiocracy.

Monumental News

Just learned that Count Arthur Strong will be presenting a third series of Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show! on BBC4 commencing in late December. Regular readers will know how important Count Arthur Strong is to any decent person's ethos.

Quoting from the invaluable promotional email:

On BBC Radio 4

First things first! In case you missed the first two episodes, the highly acclaimed second series of Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show! is being repeated on BBC Radio 4. You can hear Count Arthur Strong every Tuesday at 6.30pm. Tune in this evening!

This is the perfect opportunity to reacquaint yourself with the Count in preparation for the Third Series of Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show! This will air on BBC Radio 4 at 11.30am every Friday from December 28th.

So, over the festive period you'll have the chance to hear the grand finale of Series 2 at 6.30pmon Christmas Day, followed by the much anticipated first episode of Series 3 at 11.30amon December 28th. And that's not all! Count Arthur Strong will be making a special guest appearance on BBC Radio 4's You and Yours on Christmas Eve at 12pm.

This is the news the world has been waiting for. There are few things better than Count Arthur Strong.

Other news from the Count's email bulletin:

• the Series 2 box set of Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show! will be available to pre-order through the Count's website
  
• The 2007 tour of Count Arthur Strong - The Musical?has been extended into 2008
  
• The Komedia Brighton performance of Count Arthur Strong - The Musical?on January 27th is to be filmed for later DVD release. Tickets are now sold out, but keep an eye on the website for news of the DVD release!

Here's Count Arthur Strong's Infanet Web Site

No Shit, Sherlock

Isaac Chotiner quotes Bumiller's article on Condi Rice:

“I said, ‘What happened in the Palestinian elections?’” Ms. Rice recalled. “And they said, ‘Oh, Hamas won.’ And I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, Hamas won?’”

Our head foreign policy "thinker" found it surprising that Hamas won that election?

Vital Info

Surfacing briefly to report that there are three of the funniest things in history are on BBC radio nowadays.

• Count Athur Strong's Radio Show is playing at that link (currently the first episode of six that will appear there, one each week). Raconteur, author, logician, Egyptologist, and time-honored entertainer, the Count is back with a repeat of Series 2 of his inspired BBC Radio 4 series.
• Ed Reardon's Week has just begun its fourth series, and it's as funny as ever. Previous series are being repeated on BBC 7. An endlessly inspired depiction of a hapless misanthropic not-so-great writer and his cat, Elgar.
  
• Vic Reeves' House Arrest. New radio series from Vic, joined sometimes by his partner Bob Mortimer. Puns, surreal humor (the funny kind of surreal), and general idiocy that makes me laugh.
  

Two more very funny things: Flight of the Conchords in their seminal UK radio incarnation, and That Was Then, This Is Now, Richard Herring's history-focused show featuring the mawkish harridan TV's Emma Kennedy. Previous incarnations of TWTTIN were inspired idiocy, and I expect the same from this new series.

Hard to believe that the BBC can put out such incredibly funny radio--though admittedly this is a jam-packed time, with great repeats and hilarious new series. If you don't like those things, there iss still more comedy at their Comedy/quizzes "Listen Again" page.

If something from the above doesn't make you laugh, you are tired of life.