Memo to Myself: Get a Grip

Horserace! Horserace! Horserace!

This is what Richard Stengel declares is the news. But just what, exactly, would be the difference between an Obama or Clinton White House? The color of the drapes?

Day after day, our attention is directed to a "contest" that is of absolutely no consequence to the future of America. The fix is in. Should either Clinton or Obama be elected, the permanent plutocratic government of the United States will be preserved in power. Corporate profits will be defended, personal rights will be eroded, income inequality will worsen, perpetual war will continue, pollution will increase, energy resources will deplete, and the illusion of democracy will be maintained.

It is KT's job to be a lively barker at this carnival of delusions. This is what she calls professionalism.

Maybe HH is really Ralph Nader?

Remember Nader's 2000 election argument..Bush vs Gore was Tweedledee vs Tweedledum and it did not really matter which of them was elected?

Yeah, that really turned out well.

While it will be mildly interesting to hear what Nader has to say on MTP tomorrow, the ranks of people who care about what he has to say is, I think, at an all time low.

Maybe it's time we started spelling his name "Ralph Nadir?"

You detected "a valedictory note", but not that it was ripped directly from John Edwards?

And this after accusing Obama of plagiarism to his face?

Yes, Ralph Nader is the real villain. He's the one arguing that he is going to spend the most on "defense." He is the one committed to attacking terrorists unilaterally. He is the one who thinks Health Insurance corporations are the best ones to deliver national health care.

If only evil Nader could be stopped, we could protect the corporations better.

KT--

The interesting question at this point is whether Clinton will do what's right for the party or not. It's very hard to walk away; she is a very committed person. But she is also a fine senator, and there are worse things than being a fine senator.

So I am hoping that she will recognize, post OH and TX, that Obama is the guy who ran the best race, and wlll step aside. She may regret mistakes made by her staff, and by herself, but as Jim Jordan pointed out, those mistakes are identified retrospectively.

Karen -
I'm curious to have seen so little about Hillary saying how honored she was be sitting next to Barack, while before and after this debate she has said how unprepared he is to be president.

On the plagiarism set piece: By saying Barack had lifted "whole passages" from someone else she seemed to count on the voters she's appealing to not recognizing that both Barack and Deval Patrick were actually quoting other people. That's the only way the two quotes are a "passage."

Barack missed an opportunity when Hillary said "if your campaign is going to be based on words..." and he didn't challenge that assumption.

On a really upbeat note, don't miss this great Obama vid that I guess they are showing in Texas. Hey, where's the California version??!!!

If all campaign commmercials were that much fun, the world would be a much much better place.

Re: Clinton. I think she made a big mistake sticking with the DLC types. She never got much really grass roots or netroots support, and didn't want it, opting for the big money people instead: Carville, Peretz, those a-holes. And it's pretty apparent that they didn't have much of a plan past Super Tuesday. Hubris.

They would have done better to have gotten in the habit of reading the blogs. IMHO, of course.

Have just seen Hillary's "shame on you Barack Obama" speech on CNN, claiming that "democrats don't attack each other on health care." (??!!!)She sounds like she's off her rocker. She was comparing Barack Obama to Karl Rove (??!!!) Terribly indignant.

So no, I guess she doesn't want us to see that as a valedictory moment the other night.

She was comparing Barack Obama to Karl Rove (??!!!)

From Atrios --

"If you travel to the comments section of basically any local newspaper article about the primary campaign, you'll find people putting forth the notion that Obama is a Manchurian Muslim candidate who hates America.

Whether they believe this stuff or consider it their patriotic duty to lie, I do not know, but that's what we'll get if he's the candidate. A fundamental question will be how this stuff is mainstreamed by the "respectable" press."

Save your indignation over Hillary, you have a lot more serious battles ahead. One of Atrios' commenters has a link to a blog which discusses an attack e-mail going around detailing the Muslim stuff linking it to his church, etc. These are just little glimpses of what is out there.

Hillary's comments are nothing.

Is there something anti-democratic in media/talking heads urging people to drop out?
It was the same drill with Edwards.
Heaven forfend that the voters actually decide.

I backed the Clinton's to the hilt the past fifteen years. The campaign they've run this time makes me wonder if I was right to do so.

Maybe it's the increased scrutiny of the blogs, maybe it's the desperation of fighting a losing battle, I don't know. But I do know that I'm not a fan of their brand of politics and I would not have supported them as much as I did if I had known they practiced it.

KT here--

THEO, actually Edwards ripped (to use your word for it) that line from Bill Clinton in 1992. (I noted WJC's use of it in the story I linked to above.) And for all I know, it goes back even further than that. You hear so much of this when you listen to speeches all the time that I had trouble taking any of the plagiarism stuff seriously. Good politicians are like good jazz musicians, always stealing each other's riffs and trying to do them better. Remember Dean/Wellstone and the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party"?

And, ivb: I heard a really amusing twist on the Muslim stuff yesterday, from a very prominent Democratic political figure in Texas. This pol told me he was surprised when the two rednecks working construction on his house told him they were voting for Obama. When he expressed his surprise, one of the two guys (the pol told me he was dribbling snuff, but he may have been embellishing to make the story better) informed him: "Well, you know, he's half white..."

KathyR,

I don't think HIllary is off her Rocker, she just wants people to think she is off her rocker.

Remember her one-two punch before NH:

Step 1 was to show anger, like she did in the debate before NH, and thus purposely induce people to pile on her.

Step 2 is to later cry about all the people piling on her because of Step 1. Like she did right before NH.

If my theory is correct that she is doing this on purpose to elicit a piling on effect that she can later cry about to whip up a sympathy backlash vote. So, if I am right, she is going to let people diss her for being angry today for a few days and sometime between today and March 4th, she will publicly cry again.

I think the Clinton people realized after The Cry v2.0 (New Haven), and v3.0 (Maine, the day before the caucus, noticed by few in the media) that the crying ploy is only effective when it is preceded by a media piling on her for personality/gender reasons.

I think her anger today is an attempt to bait the Chris Mathhews's and other male pundits of the world into making criticsms that will be seen as piling on.

It is no coincidence that she is showing anger 3 days before a debate with Tim Russert and Brian Williams. The goal of that debate for the Hillary camp is going to be to manufacture a boys ganging up on the girl moment. I am not sure if she will cry at the debate, on March 3rd, and/or somewhere in between.

ivb: I see I wasn't clear. It was not I who was terribly indignant, but Hillary.

Once again, she has a hard time seeming genuine. I've no doubt she often is genuine, and probably no more rehearsed than any other candidate, including Barack Obama, but she has a harder time pulling it off.

And she who makes outrageous and spurious charges against her opponents just sounds ridiculous trying to make the claim that "we democrats don't attack one another."

RKA: you were posting while I was writing my last comment.

I think you could well be right about this ploy, and I certainly won't be surprised by it, but I think it's getting kind of old, don't you? She just looks like a scold. Who wants this in their living room for 4 years?

(Though it would certainly be a logical follow-up to being so nice to Barack at the debate - see my wondering why she was so "honored" to be sitting next to Barack in my first comment in this thread. "I was so nice to him, and look how he repays me!")

There has been a poll in Vermont that confirms the CW that Obama is ahead - 60-34. The poll is ARG, and it's the first poll since October.

I think it's 16 delegates at stake in the primary, plus 7 superdelegates, which I've heard are breaking 5-2 for Obama at the moment.

Here's a link to the BUrlington Free Press article about it.
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080223/NEWS01/802230307/1009

But if there's anything the primary season thus far should have taught all of us, it is to expect the unexpected. With a week and a half left to go before Ohio and Texas, anything could happen.

No, Karen, this is over. The numbers don't lie, and her finances are in no shape to compete anymore. Even if she did get a good influx of cash, that money go right back out to her consultants and to repay her loan (which has NOT been paid off yet, though she is charging the campaign interest).

I think a more interesting question is: would the media be this deferential to the odds of an "Obama comeback" if HE were the one that had lost 11 contests in a row by huge margins, had his campaign in the red, and was watching his leads in state polls go up in smoke?

The answer is obviously 'NO'. Don't tell me the media's not biased.

KathyR, you were clear. I knew you were complaining about Hillary. I couldn't have lived in this country for all these years without knowing that Hillary is a cold, inauthentic person. Haven't we all been shown that over and over?

Actually I heard her speak years ago when she was first lady and was quite close to her. She seemed very warm and genuine. I heard Obama speak to an equally large group in 2000. I wasn't so close, but understand how he can galvanize a room. I have heard other speakers who have that gift and it is amazing to hear.

I gather today she was responding to mailings sent out by the Obama campaign. I was reminded of something at the end of Bob Somerby's column from Thursday. He was discussing the way the meanings of many racial comments were twisted.

"At that same January 15 debate, Russert asked Obama about the recent conduct of his press secretary. You haven’t heard a word about this exchange because narrative whores stick to narrative:

RUSSERT (1/15/08): In terms of accountability, Senator Obama, Senator Clinton on Sunday told me that the Obama campaign had been pushing this story-line. And true enough, your press secretary in South Carolina—four pages of alleged comments made by the Clinton people about the issue of race. In hindsight, do you regret pushing this story?

OBAMA: Well, not only in hindsight, but going forward. I think that, as Hillary said, our supporters, our staff get overzealous. They start saying things that I would not say. And it is my responsibility to make sure that we're setting a clear tone in our campaign, and I take that responsibility very seriously, which is why I spoke yesterday and sent a message in case people were not clear that what we want to do is make sure that we focus on the issues.
...
But ask yourself this: How often have you heard about that four-page list which Obama regretted?"

I'm simply tired of all evil Hillary all the time and suggesting that we really need to save our energy for the attacks that are being made on Obama and defining him now.

I hope that the story Karen told is more typical than not. I have been surprised by some people who have told me that they will vote for Obama that I didn't think would, but I know of others (professionals) who in the privacy of the voting booth will never vote for him.

KathyR,

You make a really good point, so much so that I need to revise my take of the current Hillary strategy:

Step 1: Be nice and "honored" with Obama at the Texas debate

Step 2: Feign anger at a garden variety political mailer to paint Obama as somehow breaking an olive branch extended to him AND do so in a melodramatic manner designed to evoke the derision of the male punditocracy

Step Three: After she has been skewered long enough by the commentariat, cry to get a sympathy wave and bank on the short term memory of the masses of low information voters who will not really consider the context and just see a woman being ganged up on by a bunch of men.

In many ways, this seems to be channelling the SC strategy. After Iowa, the clintons knew that the black vote was going to leave them anyway and so they engaged in a little bit of (plausibly deniable) race baiting. I think now in TX and OH the movement in the polls away from them is primarily with men, especially white men, moving decisiively away from her...and so the clintons figure that since men are not going to vote for her anyway (like blacks), she might as well play the gender card like she did the race card in SC. Her only hope is to whip up an exceptionally high turnout of lower income white women in TX and OH, and I think these events are designed to manufacture a gender moment just to do so.

I would not be surprised if in the nest week, she runs against MSNBC and Obama in an attempt to conflate them in her base's mind. I am guessing their grievance with Shuster will magically make a resurgence right around the time of the MSNBC debate. They are looking at how John McCain successfully papered over his problems by turning a story about his corruption into a story about the New York Times, and they are thinking, lets use this debate to make MSNBC a foil for a Clinton backlash-spurred comeback.

I think this stuff is getting old and it will only work if the media play right into the clintons' hand, and even then it has a small chance of succeeding....I think this stuff doesn't play as well in the midwest and in the south as it does on the coasts...but we'll see....I honestly don't think that Obama can let his guard down for Hillary scheming until Inaugaration Day.

I'm an Obama supporter, but I didn't hear a concession in that last remark. If anything, I think that was HRC at her strongest, finding a little of that poetry that seems to come so easily to Obama.

This is an American election. Sad fact is, substance is at best a secondary issue. The Democrat is going up against a mean-spirited, corrupt opportunist and hard right-winger who has managed to convince half the country and most of the punditry that he's a gruffly genial moderate of irreproachable principle. To say nothing of his pathological love of war. Gonna be a long, hard, ugly fight.

No, Karen, this is over. The numbers don't lie, and her finances are in no shape to compete anymore. Even if she did get a good influx of cash, that money go right back out to her consultants and to repay her loan (which has NOT been paid off yet, though she is charging the campaign interest

cfcaller: I agree with you, it should be over, but my fear is that TX and OH are narrow wins by Clinton and she tries to muddy up the waters (i.e., the actual delegate count) by trying to claim FL and MI. I don't think she's going to go gently. I hope I'm wrong.

KT,

Although the last remark sounded more like the beginnings of a concessions speech, I was not buying it. C'mon, we are talking about BILLARY - when have you known them to concede ANYTHING?

From Whitewater, to Gennifer Flowers, to Paula Jones to Monica (do we need to even say the last name), the Clintons have fought tooth and nail just about every aspect of politics. And now I am expected to believe that BILLARY is going to roll over and play dead? Hardly.

I would not be shocked at all to see her fight for superdelegates (as well as Michigan and Florida's inclusion) at the DNC. I truly believe that she has had the ambition to be president at least since the Nixon administration - if it was not already her life's goal. This is far from over, and like Jim said, it will be a long, hard, ugly fight.

Chris Dodd would make a better Senate Majority Leader than Harry Reid or Hillary Clinton.

Chris Dodd has shown more interest in civil liberties.

I picture TX, maybe even OH, devolving into a Florida 2000-like fiasco that Hillary and Obama fight like rabid cats for. The resulting rancor, especially from Hillary's end (and especially if you believe the MSM), pushes the undecided and the superdelegates to coalesce around Obama, especially in the face of more snipes at Obama from McCrackhead.

Convention rolls around and Billary is pressed into giving up in exchange for a slew of insider favors and deals. Clintonland spins off her loss as boys' club malarky, keeping their head up in the process. Bill "Douchebag" Clinton remains forever a bitter frenemy of Obama.

Obama stomps a gaffe and scandal-ridden McC-word in the general, whom, as the votes start to come in, silently curses Bush Jr., Karl Rove, and a rabid netroots he couldn't simply put to sleep with "straight talk" a la MSM.

Here is the video of Hillary today: (warning Stuart, there's a commercial)

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/02/23/hillary.speech.cnn

I think there is another "plagiarism moment." Hillary accuses Obama of "giving aid and confort" to the special interests and the republicans.

I think she should have given credit to Paul Krugman who said something very similar (last paragraph):

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/30/opinion/30krugman.html

So, Hillary did not give credit to Krugman, who did not give credit to the right wing nuts he channels in the absolutist, hyperpartisan, black and white terms by which Hillary, Krugman, and the right wingers all like to demagogue policy disagreements.

But, actually I don't think this example of plagiarism is a big deal. After all, Paul Krugman is one of HIllary's national campaign co-chairs, isn't he? And honestly, I think this whole plagiarism business is silly.

The real issue in my mind is how any self-respecting democrat could accuse another democrat of "giving aid and comfort" to anybody.

It's not just hyperbole, it's revolting hyperbole.

RKA: what you lay out is a thoroughly plausible (and depressing) scenario.

I think MSNBC has been making a concerted effort, on the whole, to be less derisive of Hillary. They might avoid playing into her hands, Especially with Shuster back on air, which I was surprised to see.

I think she may still get Ohio, and it's interesting that it's in Ohio that she's done this. But I think Texas may be slipping away.

cfaller96:

re her finances. She probably does have to repay her campaign consultants, but I'll be interested to see if this story about her not paying caterers etc. will get traction.

Pretty hard to reconcile those campaign commercials about her standing with the working stiff when she's stiffing their bills.

Mark Halperin heads this article as "Mom and Pop stores feel Clinton Cash Crunch"

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/23/nyregion/23owe.html?ref=politics

Does anyone here have any notion of one material difference in US foreign or domestic policy that would result from the election of Hillary Clinton rather than Barak Obama.

How can an extended discussion of the primary contest between these two politicians go on and on without any consideration of what it means to our nation's future?

What is the difference between Clinton and Obama?

KathyR:

My sense is you're not the person to be writing "she has a hard time seeming genuine".

On another matter, I don't know exactly what you're referring to when you write:

*************************
Have just seen Hillary's "shame on you Barack Obama" speech on CNN, claiming that "democrats don't attack each other on health care." (??!!!)She sounds like she's off her rocker. She was comparing Barack Obama to Karl Rove (??!!!) Terribly indignant.
*************************

I suppose it has something to do with this.

But I come bearing gifts, you'll be happy to read this about your hero:

*************************
While no politician is perfect on every issue, Obama's support of the Byrne grant program to fight methamphetamine-- which is prominently highlighted on his website-- is deeply troubling. This program is opposed by both Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform and the American Conservative Union on the right-- and the ACLU and George Soros' Open Society Institute on the left...

The best-known Byrne disaster was a mass arrest in Tulia, Texas in 1999. In that tiny Texas town of 5,000 people, 16% of the black population was arrested for crack-dealing. Of those arrested, 40 of 46 were African American. No drugs or money were found during the raid and there were no audio or videotapes to corroborate the charges, just the word of one official-- but nonetheless, dozens were convicted and given jail terms of up to 90 years. Many innocent people served years in prison before finally being freed after the officer was discredited.

The problems weren't limited [pdf] to just one Texas town. At least three other Texas communities had similar, racially biased and equally flawed prosecutions resulting from these task forces...
*************************

But you already knew that didn't you? Sen. Obama is out to reach across the aisle.

I did not know Shuster is back on the air...darn, this is going to make it easier for HIllary to pull off this jujitsu.

It is going to be an interesting 10 days, there is no doubt about that.

Did the LaRouchies join up with the Obama movement this year? Seem like a lot of them are on threads like this one lately.

Okay...I am not part of this little group/club so I am sorry to barge in, but I have been reading all these posts and been biting my tongue.

I am a Latin American who has been following this race with, at first, fascination and then absolute disgust for the last three months.
By the way, I like Hillary Clinton. If I could vote, I'd vote for her. I live in the land of extraordinary rhetoric, idealism, struggle and continued failure. I live in a country where we have had men, women, brown men, white men, be president. So, been there done that. I have also been mesmerized by Fidel Castro's speeches (he kicks Obama's rear end, by the way) and Lula da Silva so, Obama doesn't impress me one bit. Maybe less so because these men, whether you agree or not with their politics and ideas, put their lives on the line for something they believed in.

It is all so hypocritical and almost anachronistic this representation of Obama as savior, as the one for whom the Americans should be willing to take a leap of faith. A leap where? Do you think there will be no corruption in Washington? Do you think that big interests will not hold influence in Washington? Do you think that this youth that is now screaming and chanting his name will sacrifice their comfort if it is asked of them? Do you think America will not be threatened to a point that you might have to risk war? Do you really understand CHANGE?

In my neighborhood, one is forced to take a leap of faith when people are being ripped apart physically, emotionally, intellectually,spiritually. All the great revolutions have happened under these circumstances even the Cuban revolution did under the Batista regime. When there is no freedom, no education, no civil protection, no universal health care when the chasm between the haves and have nots is so wide it threatens civil unrest, this calls for "change we can belive in".

The change Obama speaks of, in case you haven't figured it out, and why so many "intellectuals" identify with it is a change of perception. Don't kid yourselves saying that it is a change of spirit. It is a need to perceive yourselves in a different light than how you look to the world and also how you look to yourselves. You need him to make you proud of yourselves. Because if you put a black man instead of a white woman you will have shown the world what America is really made of. He is change, she isn't (this is absolutely ludicrous). In order to justify this choice you demonize this woman and tear her apart without a second thought because it is a vision sold by the mainstream media quite effectively. I have seen it all from her years in the White House to Whitewater, Travelgate, her senate race. Then I stopped watching until I began to pay attention to the race and again I saw it all: from the planted questions to the South Carolina debacle. I have read about her extensively as well and I have seen her splendor when she stands alone and shows why she puts herself through this...including these blogs and you don't know how lucky you are to have people like that running for office (including, Obama, Biden, Edwards, Kucinich, Dodd and Roberts). Yet Hillary Clinton gets my admiration because of all the others she has put herself out there. No amount of power is worth that, especially if you know that after you achieve your goal you are going to continue to be attacked. With her, I sense, it is not about power but about mission.

If Obama wins the nomination and if (big if) he becomes president, let's hope that the "feel good about myself feeling" lasts long enough to sustain the American populace that blindly stepped on to the abyss that landed them right in the place they were at the moment when they cast their hopeful, changing vote...almost like an episode of Twilight Zone.

Say what you like about Mark Penn (and I've said plenty here and elsewhere) he can do math.

I ran the current RCP averages (which still include polls from a week ago that are more optimistic for Hillary) through my very amateurish delegate calculator and even with those numbers we get Obama ahead on pledged delegates by 140 or so after Pennsylvania.

Hillary must know the math is tough but she also knows that a week and half is forever in politics. It's hard too know how much we can glean from her recent statements but I trust KT's instincts.

I wonder if she might be at least starting to think about after-losing-the-nomination scenarios. Without giving up at all, she might be deciding that she wants a career if she loses and (being smarter and more human than some of her advisors) may be mentally walking back some of the options that involve detonating the party.

Say what you like about Mark Penn (and I've said plenty here and elsewhere) he can do math.

I ran the current RCP averages (which still include polls from a week ago that are more optimistic for Hillary) through my very amateurish delegate calculator and even with those numbers we get Obama ahead on pledged delegates by 140 or so after Pennsylvania.

Hillary must know the math is tough but she also knows that a week and half is forever in politics. It's hard too know how much we can glean from her recent statements but I trust KT's instincts.

I wonder if she might be at least starting to think about after-losing-the-nomination scenarios. Without giving up at all, she might be deciding that she wants a career if she loses and (being smarter and more human than some of her advisors) may be mentally walking back some of the options that involve detonating the party.

And BTW..

I'm climbing on the improve the preview function bandwagon. I just had another crash with it posting that piece.

Kos have a great one if the sheriffs need an example to look at. Also this is kind my thing so if they want to outsource the gig my rates are very reasonable..

poh123,

Your comment here is one of those that make reading through thread after thread worthwhile.

And then this happened

http://thepage.time.com/2008/02/23/shame-on-you-barack-obama/

Umm? Conflicted much?

CMike:
thanks.

poh123,

Well said. You accurately describe the appeal of supporting Obama as a kind of conscience laundering for the American electorate. We can put on clean clothes, but if we are still dirty people, it won't make much difference.

Karen's right. Hillary's not quitting. Just watch she'll drag this thing all the way out to the convention, like everyone predicted, dragging the entire Democratic Party down with her. Just watch.

I just don't get it really. Whenever it comes to obama the presidency is tough, he doesn't have enough experience, don't feel sorry for him, he's just getting the support of African-Americans, the Republicans are going to eat him alive, young people don't want they're doing, he plagarized Deval Patrick, David Axelrod, David Plouffe or someone else is putting out mean questionares.

But why when it comes to Hillary are we always supposed to feel sorry for her? Isn't this the same presidency that Obama is always told is tough, and only the tough can inherit it. Yet these same people support Hillary Clinton, with some twisted logic, as she cries, plays on everyone's sympathy, complains about pamphlets, decries her opponent for using Karl Rove tactics (really Hillary? you've sunk this low?) and generally complain about the men piling up on her.

So my simple question is why the double standard? Why is the presidency supposed to be tough for Obama, but she's supposed to magically inherit it through some sympathy? And if she can't deal with Obama's really rather mild attacks how in the heck does she plan to deal with John McCain?

We're living in Alice in Wonderland territory here, we're way into the looking glass. If the Democratic Party can't see one candidate is clearly better than the other (here's a hint: it's the one who can actually speak) they're blind.

poh123 said:
It is all so hypocritical and almost anachronistic this representation of Obama as savior, as the one for whom the Americans should be willing to take a leap of faith.

poh, I think you either have a very poor understanding of the basis of support behind Barack Obama, or you get all your political news & analysis from the horribly incompetent Traditional Media (e.g. Time). Either way, your position is arrogantly stupid.

No one who supports Barack Obama has ever said he will be a savior, and no one who supports Barack Obama truly believes that. That is an ignorant meme that has been cooked up to try to diminish how much he has accomplished so far. It is a lame effort to explain away the groundswell of discontent inside the Dem Party and the American public in general. You're in Latin America, so perhaps you don't understand- people are not happy with our political process, and are looking for someone to make an effort to fundamentally alter it in order to help ease changes in the future. It's not a "cult" or a "religion" or a "fan club" or any other craptastic slur like that- it is simply a vehement expression of discontent.

If you've been paying attention to American politics for the last few years, you would have noticed that a lot of Republicans, Democrats, and media figures have been pooh-poohing a lot of investigations and prosecutions of government officials. Often they use the excuse that the American people need to express their discontent not through investigations or impeachment trials, but through "accountability moments," otherwise known as elections. IIRC, Joke Line himself has made that argument right here on Swampland.

That's a ridiculous assertion and a horrible way to run a railroad, but fine, whatever. If the Beltway crowd only wants us to express ourselves during "accountability moments," then Barack Obama is the guy we're going to get behind in order to have some accountability. But once again, surprise!surprise!, the Beltway crowd is upset by this, and chooses to slur us as "cultists" who have been "duped" by some empty vessel. Yeah yeah, we've heard it all before, and even if the Beltway crowd is right this time, how does that make Obama any different from the other candidates in the race? What, a Senator of a mere 8 years (as opposed to Obama's 4) is oh-so-much-more-experienced? Pffft, ridiculous.

Enough lecturing, poh123. I suggest you start looking into alternative news sources in order to get a better understanding of who supports Barack Obama, and why. It has nothing to do with viewing him as a "savior."

cfaller96,

Sen. Clinton has been getting terrible Main Stream Media coverage for months. Sen. Obama has been getting great Main Stream Media coverage for months. Cfaller96, why don't you book a flight to the reality based community for a brief visit?

Posted by cfaller96 | February 24, 2008 12:38 PM

No one who supports Barack Obama has ever said he will be a savior, and no one who supports Barack Obama truly believes that.

When you see this nonsense on video for yourself:

(from CNN's transcript)

WINFREY: I'm here to tell you, Iowa, he is the one.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

WINFREY: He is the one. Barack Obama!

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM OBAMA CAMPAIGN RALLY)

WINFREY: I didn't come here to tell you about no books.

OBAMA: She's got a bit church hat on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP FROM OBAMA CAMPAIGN RALLY)

WINFREY: It's Obama time.

Is he the one?

I believe he is the one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

...it's hard not to get the impression that many Obama supporters are (unlike yourself) caught up in something relatively irrational.

...a lot of Republicans, Democrats, and media figures have been pooh-poohing a lot of investigations and prosecutions of government officials. Often they use the excuse that the American people need to express their discontent not through investigations or impeachment trials, but through "accountability moments," otherwise known as elections.

Absolutely correct, and, as you yourself so rightly point out, this proposition is insane and/or dishonest.
Here's what I don't get, however. When you say
If the Beltway crowd only wants us to express ourselves during "accountability moments," then Barack Obama is the guy we're going to get behind in order to have some accountability., what "accountability moment" are you talking about?

If you mean "accountability moment" in terms of the Iraq war vote, (similar to Bush's second term election) then yes, one cannot vote for Hillary Clinton. But how does voting for Barack Obama get us accountability otherwise? We have a Republican Senate minority bloc voting to obstruct accountability at every turn (telecom amnesty comes to mind), and yet Barack Obama's platform explicitly embraces the Beltway establishment's "reaching out" mantra. Obama is the Democratic candidate who can more successfully "reach across the aisle" than Hillary Clinton (ostensibly because Republicans will be better able to justify voting with Obama than Hillary to their constituencies back home), and yet clearly "hyper-partisanship" on the part of Democrats is not the reason why Congress won't end the occupation, or pass unencumbered state health insurance assistance legislation for kids, or expand unemployment benefits as part of an economic stimulus package, or even prosecute open defiance of its subpoena powers. Despite Beltway CW, low-information voters' "pox on both houses" opinion, and Obama's "reaching out" rhetoric, solutions to the problems that Americans care about--the occupation, health care affordability, and management of the looming economic crises for the relief of ordinary households--aren't being obstructed equally by partisan Democrats and Republicans. That idea is the false equivalence meme of the "objective media". So it seems that the "accountability moment" you're talking about is only truly for Hillary Clinton (and maybe the persons in the DLC, if not the ideas), and not the people who really deserve accountability, i.e. Republicans and the Democrats who enable them.

How is a vote for Obama anything other than the full-throated acceptance of the Belway CW that "hyper-partisanship is what's wrong with Washington"?

How is a vote for Obama a vote for "investigations and prosecutions of government officials"?

The "groundswell of discontent inside the Dem Party and the American public in general" is a reflection of the results of one party's control of government, and the other party's impotence and failure to control government on behalf of their constituents. Obama trades on Democratic congressional leaders' failure to communicate effectively, voters' low information, an assumption of "fairness" in dealing out blame equally on the part of the public, and the faux-objectivity of the political press corps, by offering "solutions" consisting of "reaching out" and "coming together as Americans".

With these obvious and fundamental contradictions in mind, it strikes many observers that the one piece of "accountability"--the Iraq war resolution vote--upon which a vote for Obama rests is itself the prime example of the very same bipartisanship that Obama offers. The question that occurs to rational, non-partisan observers of Obama's candidacy is: how is voting for the kind of government that got us into the Iraq war--one in which Democrats vote with Republicans, and put partisan grudges and suspicions aside--a vote for accountability on the Iraq war?

cfaller96:
If you can understand that the rationale for these questions is based in logic and reasoning, then you might be able to see how Obama's supporters--especially when they cheer loaded, messianic rhetoric like "The One"--might be viewed with suspicion as fundamentally irrational members of a cult of personality. You can be irritated with this reaction all you want. You can rightly point out how this reaction is being used by the usual suspects in the media to unfairly discredit the real merits of Obama's platform. Plenty of credible, reasonable people (Matt Yglesias comes to mind) support Barack Obama for rational reasons like yourself. I just don't think that it does Obama supporters much good to jump up and down on the couch screaming "we're not a cult--we're not a cult, I tell you!". Maybe instead of assuming that this line of questioning is an insulting attack, folks like you can address it as a legitimate inquiry, and rebut it without resorting to the kind of strawman that Obama used in the Texas debate ("So you're saying that everybody who votes for me is nuts?").

In this regard it's excellent that you brought up the very real issue of accountability.
How then is a vote for Obama a vote for accountability, as you say?

Unity

CMike:

Why do I bother writing, when a slide show with a magic pony does the job of communicating my concerns so much better?

Here's how, Stuart.

If Hillary or McCain are the next presidents, who will they be acountable to? The fat cats and the lobbyists who bankrolled their campaigns.

If Obama is the next president, who will he be accountable to? The masses of small dollar donors who are going to have some pretty high expectations of him when he gets into office.

Acountability vs No Accountibility is a false choice.

We're all accountable...the question is to whom are we accountable?

Frank Rich's column this week does a great job of rebutting most of the Clinton/Zechman talking points:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/opinion/24rich.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

I do think hyperpartisanship is what is wrong with Washington, but sadly that is not the belway CW as you suggest. Sure, you can find a pundit here and there who may suggest as such, but the totality of the beltway's behavior throws gasoline on the flames of partisanship, not extinguishing it as Stuart would have us beleive. To believe Stuart, we have to accept the absurd notion that reporters and news organizations really don't like conflict and they'd just so rather be reporting on boring bipartisanship, which I am sure would be great for ratings.

Please. Partisanship = Profits. Period.

Hillary is a defeated candidate walking only because the media keep propping her up in a way they would no other candidate who had lost so many contests in a row.

Another way the media props up HIllary is to accuse itself of favoring Obama, an intellectually easy choice that ignores the fact that the media has graded on a curve this whole campaign, turning Obama's A's into B's, and HIllary's D's into B minuses and then claiming that the grading is unfair to HIllary because Obama got a slightly better grade.

Another one of the Clinton/McCain/Zechman/Klein/poh123 talking points, that Obama speaks fluff, and Hilary speaks substance. Oh, what a nice narrative that is!!! It is just sooooo easy to believe, after all you have a, (older, white) candidate like Hillary who exudes pedantry while never really saying anything at all and you have a (young, black) charismatic speaker whose oratory makes it easy to handwave away all the subtance he is in truth presenting, but the media rarely soundbites or covers in any degree of depth.

This article actually compares the speeches of Hillary and Obama and finds, despite the Beltway/Zechman CW, Obama is providing just as much substance as Hillary:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-obama-speeches-analyzed-feb24,1,3150697.story?page=1

Another Zechman/Beltway talking point, cast Obama as a straw savior and then proceed to knock ihim down. Oprah was speaking in metaphor...don't tell me you you take garden variety political speech like that in a strict constuctionist manner, do you?

And if people are a bit excited, who cares? Hillary and Stuart and would rather have these people stay home and be disillusioned with the partisan fights they get their jollies from rather than provide the electoral momentum to bring about progressive goals.

So, Stuart, since you want a rational discussion of your cult slander, let's have one:

How many cults are comprised of so many educated people?

How is gaining a majority of votes consistent with the definition of a cult when cults tend to be small bands of followers at best?

How can a political philosophy that expressly says that opponents may have some good points be at all cultish, when the very defintion of a cult is dogmatic adherence to a belief?

The reality is that Obama's movement is the anti-cult, and people in the Cult/Combine of Partisanship like Stuart, Krugman, Halperin, and much of the media are absolutely terrified that we may soon have a leader who is accountiable not to lobbyists, not to villagers, not even to any particular dem interest group...but is accountable to the will of a people who want him to act, for once, in our collective interest instead of an amalgamation of special intersts like themselves.

RKA:
"Zechman/Beltway talking point"?

"Clinton/Zechman talking points"?

"Clinton/McCain/Zechman/Klein/poh123 talking points"?

LOL

Before I get into a serious rebuttal of the non-comedic portions of your post:

I do think hyperpartisanship is what is wrong with Washington

Why do you think this, exactly?

Didn't my point about bi-partisanship being the way into the Iraq war temper your righteous pro-Obama fury in the slightest?

Can you respond to this question specifically before launching into further expositions on the Obama campaign's total exemplification of democratic principles (and perfection in general)?

Thx, bai

Iraq wasn't bipartisanship, Stuart.

It was democratic surrender to republican hyperpartisanship.

It was cowardly Democrats like your hero Hillary too scared to vote their consciences because of the electoral perils they perceived in doing so. As Bill Clinton couseled, "it is better to be strong and wrong than weak and right."

sigh...Hillary Clinton is not "my hero", and you know that. Come on, don't sling mud.

It's certainly hope-inspiring to witness you managing to concede that there is such a thing as "republican hyperpartisanship" with which there is no conceivable compromise excepting abject surrender, but can you please answer the question:

I do think hyperpartisanship is what is wrong with Washington

Why do you think this, exactly?

Stuart:

I have to disagree with you on many points about Obama.

This is obviously a "rock star" passion going on about this candidate, and there are probably some supporters, particularly youth voters, who appear to have jumped on his bandwagon.

BUT, there has to have been some reason why, and so far, Obama is the only candidate amongst ALL others that have attracted this demographic. Regardless of the "quality" of their collective knowledge, they are still capable of voting, and are thus coveted by any candidate who can muster them. Few have been able to do that. Neither McCain nor Hillary can do that. They are likely to sit at home, they are so politically "endemic".

Ok, on issues, since he has not held the highest office, we have to go by what he consistantly has said about issues rather than just dismiss him as carte blanch inexperienced. He's not THAT inexperienced, and maybe it might be a benefit, because the box most politicos think inside of now is defined by the past 30 years of unpleasant politics.

He has made clear his stand against outsourcing, which has cost America SEVERAL millions of jobs. This is something Hillary, now in a scramble, has changed her tune on. Another related negative is that she is more of a free-trader than Obama is.
Both of these indicate to me that Obama is more likely to protect American jobs than Hillary is, and less likely to accept globalization as "inevitable". Quite a real difference, if you ask me.

Obama is likely to be more protective of jobs with respect to illegal immegration, too. We don't need right wing demogagues, but McCain and Hillary are MUCH too soft on this issue.

McCain is absolutely behind the curve as he is firmly planted in Big Business's corner on these three issues.

On health care, there are similarities, but I don't think her mandate on individuals is really flyable. His plan reperesents probably a reasonable transition of the kind that is politically more likely to take place in a trend that will likely lead to socialized medicine, with supplental insurance for higher income Americans who can afford it.

On this one, forget McCain. He has NOTHING to offer.

On foreign policy, I think Obama's plan is much more realistic than either Hillarys' or, God forbid, McCains'. He is "outside the box" on just who we need to maintain an antagonistic relationship with and who we don't. He is a definate move AWAY from the "axis of evil" definition which Hillary still, to some extent, is vested in. Obama is NOT weak on foreign policy, but he has moved much closer to "talk softly and carry a big stick" and realpolitik than either Hillary or McCain are.

There ARE no downsides to leaving Iraq anyway. We will not be able to influence the events there as the numerous factions there hate each other and will never come to an agreement. Further more, force won't work there as we are outsiders and these factions have roots in the popularity of their respective indiginous populations.

I think overall, there is substance indeed to Obama's candidacy, and I believe that it might just be a change for the better. I DON'T think that his "inexperience" is that much of a negative.

And, as a last point, Obama, in Illinois, was able to get work done on a bipartison basis, and maybe that is what we need. Hillary has polarized the right, whether she deserves it or not, and Obama hasn't.

On the political side, Obama has a strong ability to draw moderate Republicans and might just be able to pretty much take command of the whole of the middle. McCain, until his MAJOR flipflop, would have been able to do this, but Hillary doesn't have that draw.

As long as we're chatting up the "Clinton/McCain/Zechman/Klein/poh123" axis of evil, here's an amusing piece for you Clinton-restoration wingnuts. Howard Zinn putting the Clinton years in perspective. The irony makes me wanna puke--Stuey, P-Luk and other blogosphere "revolutionaries," slamming the "establishment" MSM while passionately defending the ultimate estab-power-couple, the Clintons. And here are a few words the Bard once gave the Duke of Exeter that sum up my feelings for Clintons and their delusional supporters: "Scorn and defiance, slight regard, contempt...." God, how will you people face the day next Jan without the Bush-Clinton wars to sustain you?

"There Are Lies, and There Are Lies"
by Howard Zinn
The Progressive magazine, November 1998

http://thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/ThereAreLies.html

I diasgree with your premise...when republicans are hyperpartisan that that the only compromise is abject surrender.

Republicans are only able to make democrats abjectly surrender when they are in a position of electoral strength. And they abused it for temporary gain and have paid the price in 2006 and will pay an even bigger price this fall.

9/11 gave them tremendous political capital, which they squadered and are paying a big price.

And sadly, people like you want to repeat their mistake. Get the reigns of power and give away the congress in 2 years like the Clintons did in 1994 and then spend the next six years playing defense against gingrich and impeachment and then declare victory when in fact Bill Clinton admittedly governed no more progressive than an Eisenhower Repubublican and incidentally has a wife who was a Goldwater Girl.

I think you are trapped in a democratic inferiority complex that thinks that this is really the best we can do. So you look a gift horse like Obama in the mouth and fail to realize that he is a progressive trojan horse, getting behind enemy lines with his inclusinve rhetoric and positioning himself to have the electoral stregnth to move this country in a progressive direction that has not been present since LBJ or FDR.

Giving some lip service to bipartisanship, like Obama does, is a brilliant strategy that is designed to keep the republican party as divided as possible. And when they say he is a "librul" over and over again, he can just point to you, Krugman, Nadir (spelling intentional), and others to convince the independents that he is moderate.

What Obama is going to do is that what was previously considered liberal and move the whole political spectrum to place it right in the middle.

I am astounded by how stubborn you are in wanting to be on the wrong side of history, stuart.

KT here--

And here's where I propose, once again, giving SZ and RKA their own show on cable.

I do think hyperpartisanship is what is wrong with Washington

Why do you think this, exactly?

Not that it's my ? but as if my antagonistic arse gives a hoot. Hyperpartisanship is defined as two parties disinclined to solve any of the problems that face our society b/c by doing so they'd cut off the cash cow keeping their corrupt behinds in luxury. Two asinine polarized positions or answers to every problem we face, daring never to stray into middle ground. Likewise applies to international conflicts--two extreme positions and two camps unwilling again to tell their respective interest groups to piss off, espec when the MIC needs conflict to continue their cash cows. They don't go to Washington to solve problems--god, we're the naive ones? They go there to preserve the status quo and the gravy train.

Do you remember the first weeks of the Clinton adminstration? People were so excited to have Bill Clinton in office instead of George H W Bush. Bill Clinton was thought to be a consummate politician, he had a Democratic Congress and what happened? The thing that went on for weeks was "travelgate" and the press was really ticked that some of their perks were being taken away. Then the focus was on gays in the military. Although an issue in the 1992 campaign, it was immediately brought forward so that the first weeks of the administration were spent discussing this. And then there was the poorly done health care policy. I firmly believe that in all of these there were behind the scenes stabs in the back instead of any attempt to work in a bipartisanship manner.

My concern is that Obama will be so eager to prove that he is truly a uniter that he will get a figurative shiv in the side. I trust there will be a landslide in the congress as well, but the ones that are left will truly be the lizard brains.

Stuart expressed my concerns far better and I think they should be seriously considered. As I have said before, I want a democrat in the White House and we need to figure out how to make that happen.

I just heard a Republican governor say that he thought that whichever Democrat was nominated was so liberal and so left wing that people would easily see that John McCain represents the true direction of the country. It's all well and good to say here that is silly and not true, but that will be said over and over again.

It is FALSE partisanship, not hyperpartisanship that we are witnessing.

In a straight up or down referendum, the American public would probably approve a single-payer Canadian type universal health care system. This will never happen in the next decade because the US insurance companies have hot-wired BOTH PARTIES to keep the single-payer option unavailable.

Obama can take office with Jesus and the angels at his side, but with 40 Republicans in the senate, US health care will not be reformed. It will remain a free-fire zone for corporate profiteering.

The same thing goes for the permanent war. If Obama takes office, withdrawal from Iraq will proceed with glacial slowness, so slowly that there will still be a large force in Iraq at the end of his term. Increased bombing and utilization of mercenaries will take up the slack for token drawdowns of US ground forces. This war will never end as long at it is feeding billions to the military industrial complex.

Our democracy is dead. It has been killed by corporations and their well-trained propaganda mouthpieces, including our dear KT, Chutzpah Joe, Jay "Torture Question" Carney, and perky Ana Cox. The only "choice" we will have in November will be which defender of the American plutocracy will sit in the White House.

The displacement of real news by the Presidential horserace is just another propaganda tactic intended to give false hope to an anesthetized and impotent public. Our democracy has been betrayed by America's commercial news organizations, and Time-Warner Corporation plays a prominent continuing role in this betrayal.

Not a practical idea about SZ and RKA. Cable news shows are only an hour long.

Posted by Oregon JC | February 24, 2008 5:17 PM:

The irony makes me wanna puke--Stuey, P-Luk and other blogosphere "revolutionaries," slamming the "establishment" MSM while passionately defending the ultimate estab-power-couple, the Clintons.

Oregon JC:

So let me get this straight: to point out some similarities between the rhetoric of Barack Obama and that of the DLC wing of the party is actually identical to "passionately defending" the DLC wing of the party?

...and you were saying something about hyper-partisanship being a problem?

Will CIA assassinations stop under Obama?

Will no-bid Pentagon contracts stop under Obama?

Will secret prisons be closed under Obama?

Will student loans be Federally administered under Obama?

Will we get national universal health care under Obama?

Will the US occupation of Iraq end under Obama?

Will the defense budget decline under Obama?

Will the looting of Iraq's oil stop under Obama?

Will the US rail system be rebuilt under Obama?

Will agriculture subsidies be ended under Obama?

Will a responsible energy policy be enacted under Obama?

None of these things will happen under an Obama presidency. None of these things will happen under a Clinton presidency. None of these things will happen under a McCain presidency. America will remain firmly in the grip of its owners, the corporations and the super-rich.

So watch the exciting Presidential horserace; then watch nothing happen.

BIll Clinton was elected with a plurality, IVB, not a majority, of the electorate. He never had coattails and mostly had reverse coattails. It is different with Obama. The senate winds are already favoring dems and with Obama at the top of the ticket, you could see more than 60 dems in 2009, HH.

But here is the real issue...we will get stuff done, not because of tactical parlor games in washington, but because politicians are going to fear Obama's "Yes we Can" throngs of engaged voters who (like me) will eviscerate anyone who stands in our way. Republicans will fear Obama like Dems feared the post-9/11 Bush. And so you will see republicans not voting their consciences and supporting Obama.

Just like reagan's election forced the dem party to turn rightward. Obama's election will force the republican party to turn leftward.

There are republicans who think that poor John McCain is going to suffer the same electoral shellacking as another Arizona politician, Barry Goldwater.

I wish people would stop thinking that Obama is some sort of wimp. He plays hardball all the time. If you listen to what he says, he all-but-accuses Hillary of being a liar all the time, but he does it in a nice, humorous way that simultaneously devastates hillary and gets him very little blowback. He has perfect pitch when making attacks. Stuart may prefer the clinton carpet bomb strategy, but it is Obama's surgical smart bombs that do far more damage.

"we will get stuff done,"

Event the most optimistic predictions of Democratic Senate seat gains do not give the Democrats a supermajority of 60+ senate votes. Please list for me the significant reforms that you believe an Obama administration will accomplish.

Karen,

While the odds of Stuart and I having a cable show together are very small, if you felt really adventurous, you could bring the two of us to a White House Correspondents Dinner someday.

As long as you instruct the waitstaff not to put steak knives next to either of our plates, a good time would be had by all, I am sure.

Posted by RKA | February 24, 2008 5:19 PM:

So you look a gift horse like Obama in the mouth and fail to realize that he is a progressive trojan horse, getting behind enemy lines with his inclusinve rhetoric and positioning himself to have the electoral stregnth to move this country in a progressive direction that has not been present since LBJ or FDR.

Giving some lip service to bipartisanship, like Obama does, is a brilliant strategy that is designed to keep the republican party as divided as possible.

Oooooooohh!

I get it now!

He's just lying to the American public about what he's going to do once in office!

Great. He's a Trojan Horse--what we've always wanted in a Democratic candidate for President.
Now I understand that whole bit about being The One...he's The One Trojan Horse for liberalism! Super.

What Obama is going to do is that what was previously considered liberal and move the whole political spectrum to place it right in the middle.

Exactly! He's going to deny that he's a liberal, and then the entire political spectrum will just wrench itself away from all of the forces moving the Overton Window rightward, and even Question Hillary will stop calling Obama a socialist, and the entirety of the cultural divide between the antebellum South and agrarian plains states and the rest of the country will be a fading memory, and the war in Iraq will come to a close without anybody of either side screaming about Democrats and liberals betraying our troops, and staining the Nation's sacred honor in defeat by preemptively surrendering to the terrorists. What year of his presidency does that happen in again? 2011, maybe? Si, se puede!

I am astounded by how stubborn you are in wanting to be on the wrong side of history, stuart.

I am astounded that you can't answer a simple question:

I do think hyperpartisanship is what is wrong with Washington

Why do you think this, exactly?

...without giving away the ultimate-secret-extra-bonus-winning strategy of the Obama campaign--lying about being a liberal.

HH, the same people who say we won't get 60 senate seats are the same who said Hillary was inevitable. People don't understand what the Obama movement has tapped into and so they keep underestimating its impact.

We won't enact the Nadir agenda, so if its his way or the highway, I guess you might prefer driving another 4 years in John McCain's America so you can mainatain your purity and be able to complain about something.

But I think Obama will get health care done. If he wins in a big enough landslide, he may even go back to his roots and push single payor with some sort of opt out for people who want to keep their private insurance. HIllary thought about floating such a plan as well...I think most dems would support this is they had the electoral strength to do so.

I think the war will end and I think Obama as the face of this country will significantly decrease the anti-americanism that leads to terrorism which leads to republican exploitation of it in the first place.

i think he will be very effective because he will know how to get the country behind him.

Ok, if you want me to be more clearm, here you go:

Hyperpartisanship is bad because it leads to gridlock rather than progress.

Hyperpartisanship is bad because republicans are inherently better hyperpartisans than democrats because their messages are much simpler and appeal much more to the universal sentiment of fear.

Hyperpartisanship is bad because it disproportionately turns of voters who would vote democratic if they felt like their voice mattered. Republicans have a much better chnace of winning when the electorate is winnowed to the older, cynical, more conservative subsection.

Hyperpartisanship is bad because it enourages poeple to not solve problems because they'd rather have the unsolved problem to demagogue in the next election.

By running against business as usuall, Obama will be able to claim a mandate against it if he should win. You may think it is corny, but I really think he will change politics in a permanent way. The historical confluences of Bush's bungling, Obama's rise, and the rise of the internet which makes end-running the cynics, lobbyists, and villagers eminently possible means that things are going to be very different from here on out.

Your primary problem, Stuart, is that you are mired in the paradigms of the past and refuse to see the very different future unfolding right before your very eyes.

It's 2008, not 1998, not 2003.

"without giving away the ultimate-secret-extra-bonus-winning strategy of the Obama campaign--lying about being a liberal"

Well, speaking of liberals, here's Jim Hightower on Bill Clinton’s populist cred:

"Having experienced Clinton in Arkansas, I knew he wasn't going to make much progress for us. Arkansas has one of the largest poverty populations in the country. It's a minority state. It's a working-people state. It's a small-farmer state. If you can't be a populist in Arkansas, you ain't going to be a populist in Washington. “

And here's Molly Ivins on BC:

"If left to my own devices, I'd spend all my time pointing out that he's weaker than bus-station chili . . . no one but a fool or a Republican ever took him for a liberal."

And, finally, a revealing interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now. If this doesn't make you weep for our nation and our "liberal" party, what will. God knows, we can't possibly do better than this, Hillary will surely be an improvement on this. Talk about drinking the f'ing Jim Jones juice:

http://www.democracynow.org/2004/6/22/bill_clinton_loses_his_cool_in

Karen:

Actually, I think that the level of pie-fighting in which RKA and I engage is comparable to the that which goes on during the round-tables on Meet The Press.

RKA represents the hyper-partisan, Movement Conservative exemplified by Kate O'Beirne, whose sole purpose in speaking is to move the conversation into an attack on political opponents, whilst I represent the Doris Kearns-Goodwin-type panelist, who doesn't have a partisan axe to grind, is bound by credibility concerns from stating wild speculation as fact, and who cares about fundamentally different goals having to do with objective truth and history, instead of the point-scoring and frame-speak objectives manifested by a round-table "opponent" with whom MTP has her "matched up".

Again, that's RKA: Bob Novak, me: Bob Woodward.

So Karen, if you like the usual round-table line-up on MTP, and think that it's eminently fair to multiple sides of the political debate, then we would probably see similar results in a show featuring RKA and I...

"I think Obama will get health care done."

Is getting health care "done" using government subsidies to push more people into the benefit denial mills of the insurance companies? This will give us the worst features of public and private sector health care.

How will the war end? Will it end in Afghanistan, or Pakistan, or Africa? Will the CIA's secret campaigns of destabilization and assassination end too? Will we stop backing the crookedest and cruelest regimes in the world?

How will Obama get the country behind him when FOX news and Time-Warner start bashing him hourly for "weakness" and "inexperience?"

And HH--what exactly do you propose? Just curious (after all, my current read is about early attempts at anarchism in Japan). There are only two options in the end, so what do you propose--revolution? I get you about Nader but after 2000? Voting on principle smacks of lofty sentiment--but what will it change in the end? Surely, Obama is better than Mac, right and isn't it possible that the pendulum will begin to swing back to sanity, that "liberals" will no longer support wars? I mean, I get your screaming into the void feelings--I'm the bloke exiting stage left. Do tell?

stuart_zechman:

I represent the Doris Kearns-Goodwin-type panelist...

me: Bob Woodward...
*****************

Karen,

Double underscore, he's baaack.

I clicked on that Overton window link, Stuart. I had never heard of that before. It's such a shame that intelligence like yours is being wasted on Hillary Shillary.

Come over to the good side, Stuart. We need people like you!

In anycase, I think demographic factors and the disaster of the last few years is moving the overton window leftward, not rightward. That's why we can safely chuck away the triangulating clintons and stop regarding liberalism as a scarlett letter.

Posted by RKA | February 24, 2008 6:29 PM:

You may think it is corny, but I really think he will change politics in a permanent way. The historical confluences of Bush's bungling, Obama's rise, and the rise of the internet which makes end-running the cynics, lobbyists, and villagers eminently possible means that things are going to be very different from here on out.
...see the very different future unfolding right before your very eyes.

I'll tell you what: I'll concede the pie fight for now.

You've been right about more than a few things (I won't discuss your wrongness track record for the moment), so I'm going to think about your answer (especially that last part), instead of immediately tearing it apart sentence by sentence. It's possible that something is going on that's fundamentally different from what I'm perceiving it to be. I'm not particularly hopeful (as you know), but I'll take a look around this week with your statement in mind, RKA.

Well, I hope that this thread has been entertaining for everyone here, and that it hasn't been terribly tedious (on my part, of course)...

Not that RKA needs my defending, but at least he's not a sanctimonious blowhard with all the modesty of John King:

"RKA represents the hyper-partisan, Movement Conservative exemplified by Kate O'Beirne, whose sole purpose in speaking is to move the conversation into an attack on political opponents, whilst I represent the Doris Kearns-Goodwin-type panelist, who doesn't have a partisan axe to grind, is bound by credibility concerns from stating wild speculation as fact, and who cares about fundamentally different goals having to do with objective truth and history, instead of the point-scoring and frame-speak objectives manifested by a round-table "opponent" with whom MTP has her "matched up"."

And "objective truth and history"!? Whose objectivity? Whose "his"tory? The world according to SZ? Objectivity is an f'ing myth. Keep tilting at windmills Stu.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/23/7246/

Last one for today--back to my so called life.

9 days and say 3 hours

And go No Country for Old Men!

Cmike, are you serious?

I have to admit that stuart suddenly calling me hyperpartisan after his vigorous defense of hyperpartisanship is a bit odd.

And calling me Kate O'byrne or Bob Novak is a bit strange as well. I have no idea what pundit I am like, though I think Stuart does a good Paul Begala imitation.

But if that post is from double underscore, then why is the handle single underscore?

Maybe double underscore has broken into stuart's apartment and taken over single underscore's computer. Should we call the cops?!?!?!?

This blog, if anything, is priceless for the comic relief.

Ok, Stuart, I am happy to end hostilities for the evening.

Time should really be paying us royalty checks, don't you think?

...with all the modesty of John King...

Hey!

I'm not that bad!

Isn't there someone else to whom you could compare me other than John King? Kim Jong Il, perhaps?

"And HH--what exactly do you propose?"

I propose going right after the people behind the curtain - the Richard Stengels who take their orders from the CEO. That is why I keep telling people to stop watching the horserace, leave the racetrack, and try to take some control of their lives.

Stop watching TV.

Don't buy from big box stores.

Use open source software.

Use eBay.

Challenge commercial "news" media at every opportunity.

Educate yourself using the Internet to find writers and films that provide accurate information.

Circulate sources of accurate information at every opportunity. Here is a link to Kunstler's "Geography of Nowhere"

http://www.amazon.com/Geography-Nowhere-Americas-Man-Made-Landscape/dp/0671888250/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203897618&sr=8-1

Don't trust anyone speaking under an F1000 logo.

You can't fight City Hall. The corporations own City Hall. You have to fight the corporations. The Presidential "Race" is a huge distraction engineered to bleed the American people of energy and divert us from the defense of our welfare and dignity.

The intelligent response to the Presidential horserace is to ignore it completely and vote for the least pernicious candidate. Meanwhile, take practical measures to slow and reverse the plutocratic assault on American democracy.

RKA asks:

...why is the handle single underscore?
*****************

Elementary my dear RKA, for purposes of deception.

No self-respecting internet media critic sees himself as a Bob Woodward or Doris Kearns-Goodwin type.

Yeah, below the belt, I admit but it's all in good, or at least medieval, fun. I still say the whole S-land gang getting liquored up and watching "Election" would be a great evening. What's going to be even more surreal is when the internecine left finally gets on the same page (god I hope in 9 days) and turns our guns on that human Pyrrhic victory. And I'm a proud dem on dem combatant--god help us if we ever become the group-think GOP.

Here's Stephen King on "Why We Crave Horror Movies" but I'd say it could just as easily be why we crave politics, campaigns and most of all blogs--feeding our anti-civilization emotions.

http://iws.ccccd.edu/jdoleh/English%201301/Why%20We%20Crave%20Horror%20Movies.pdf

CMike:

Look, we're talking about the cast members of Meet The Press--there's nobody credible on those round-table panels from which to choose!

I did my best with a relatively inexact analogy...with the exception of the Bob Novak part, which is obviously spot-on.

Sorry, what world do I live in?

That should be "featuring RKA and myself", obviously.

Sorry about that.

I am not sure why you think I am like Bob Novak, Stuart....

Is it because I outed you as a covert HRC operative?

So let me get this str8:

Our next POTUS is going to be either:

1. An angry bitter polarizing white woman
2. A well spoken snake oil salesman black man
3. An old, bitter Vietnam