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.