Arianna Huffington via Political Wire:

“Should Barack Obama end up winning his party’s nomination, he will
give his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in
Denver on August 28 — 45 years to the day Martin Luther King delivered
his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.”

No, that’s not a headline from The Onion, but it is John McCain’s fault.

Boeing has lost a $40 billion refueling tanker contract to France’s Airbus.

The Boeing loss means that the 767 assembly line in Everett will wind to a close around 2012 when the current commercial orders run out.

No layoffs are likely as workers will transfer to other programs. But Washington State has lost out on the chance to add as many as 9,000 jobs.

Until now, Boeing has had a monopoly on the supply of large air tankers to the U.S. military. But Northrop Grumman, in partnership with Airbus parent EADS, will build the next generation tankers using a modified Airbus A330 instead of the Everett-built 767 Boeing had put forward.

The deal, worth about $40 billion over two decades, is for the supply and maintenance of 179 tankers replacing old Boeing-built KC-135 airplanes.

Now if that didn’t suck enough, Goldy at Horse’s Ass tells us not just to blame George Bush for this Freedom Fries moment, but the presumptive GOP Presidential Nominee as well.

In its quest for new tankers, the Air Force in 2002 negotiated a $23 billion deal with Boeing for a hundred 767 tankers, but it quickly came under fire in Congress as a financial handout for Boeing. The critics were led by Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who was on the Senate Armed Services Committee at the time and is now the likely Republican presidential nominee.

So let’s add that up, shall we.  Six years ago John McCain put the brakes on a deal that now cost almost twice as much, and the money isn’t going to 9,000 US workers but to another country.  Not just any other country, but the one the wingnuts insisted we boycott — France.  That’s a double whammy. 

I guess it’s okay to buy their wine and cheese again.

There’s every reason to believe that John Sydney McCain III will win zero States come November.  The left has no reason to like him, the right justifiably hates him, and the middle will be hearing from both sides just what a loser the Reverse Ace is.  It’s almost like the GOP wants to throw the race.

USA Today’s story about problems the experts see coming due to unbelievable turnout for this cycle’s election is only a backdrop for the nightmare expected election night this Tuesday in Ohio and Texas, and possibly nationwide come November.

“The biggest problem during the primary season has been too many voters,” says Doug Chapin, director of electionline.org, which tracks voting issues. “Time and time again, the problem has been turnout being up higher than even the most optimistic projection.”

Right on cue, Ohio Daily Blog reports that turnout will be huge.

Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner had a conference call with reporters today (reported on Openers , The Daily Briefing, and Politics Extra) in which she forecast a 52% voter turnout. That is vastly greater to turnout in the 30% to 35% range for the last three presidential primaries (when Ohio’s vote was not nearly so important). It is about the same as the 53.2% turnout in the 2006 general election and about 19% less than the record-breaking 2004 general election turnout.

The USA Today article tells us where the trouble spots should be, including:

In Ohio, which has faced myriad ballot-box problems in recent years, the Cleveland area will test new optical-scan paper ballots in next Tuesday’s primary; officials may not finish counting until midday Wednesday.

So, how’s that going?  If you guessed badly, you win.

Cleveland: Test Of New Ballot Scanners Fails

(HT: DU)

Bob Geldof finds Bush a nice guy with some good programs to help people in Africa:

It was, for example, Bush who initiated the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) with cross-party support led by Senators John Kerry and Bill Frist. In 2003, only 50,000 Africans were on HIV antiretroviral drugs — and they had to pay for their own medicine. Today, 1.3 million are receiving medicines free of charge. The U.S. also contributes one-third of the money for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria — which treats another 1.5 million. It contributes 50% of all food aid (though some critics find the mechanism of contribution controversial). On a seven-day trip through Africa, Bush announced a fantastic new $350 million fund for other neglected tropical diseases that can be easily eradicated; a program to distribute 5.2 million mosquito nets to Tanzanian kids; and contracts worth around $1.2 billion in Tanzania and Ghana from the Millennium Challenge Account, another initiative of the Bush Administration.

But Geldof cannot agree with him about Iraq:

I don’t know how, but eventually we arrive at the great unspoken. “See, I believe we’re in an ideological struggle with extremism,” says the President. “These people prey on the hopeless. Hopelessness breeds terrorism. That’s why this trip is a mission undertaken with the deepest sense of humanity, because those other folks will just use vulnerable people for evil. Like in Iraq.”

I don’t want to go there. I have my views and they’re at odds with his, and I don’t want to spoil the interview or be rude in the face of his hospitality. “Ah, look Mr. President. I don’t want to do this really. We’ll get distracted and I’m here to do Africa with you.” “OK, but we got rid of tyranny.” It sounded like the television Bush. It sounded too justificatory, and he doesn’t ever have to justify his Africa policy. This is the person who has quadrupled aid to the poorest people on the planet. I was more comfortable with that. But his expression asked for agreement and sympathy, and I couldn’t provide either.

“Mr. President, please. There are things you’ve done I could never possibly agree with and there are things I’ve done in my life that you would disapprove of, too. And that would make your hospitality awkward. The cost has been too much. History will play itself out.” “I think history will prove me right,” he shoots back. “Who knows,” I say.

It wasn’t awkward. It wasn’t uncomfortable. He is convinced, like Tony Blair, that he made the right decision. “I’m comfortable with that decision,” he says. But he can’t be. The laws of unintended consequences would determine that. At one point I suggest that he will never be given credit for good policies, like those here in Africa, because many people view him “as a walking crime against humanity.” He looks very hurt by that. And I’m sorry I said it, because he’s a very likable fellow.

Kinda like a guy you’d like to have a beer with?

He is also, I feel, an emotional man. But sometimes he’s a sentimentalist, and that’s different. He is in love with America. Not the idea of America, but rather an inchoate notion of a space — a glorious metaphysical entity. But it is clear that since its mendacious beginnings, this war has thrown up a series of abuses that disgrace the U.S.’s central proposition. In the need to find morally neutralizing euphemisms to describe torture and abuse, the language itself became tortured and abused. Rendition, waterboarding, Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib — all are codes for what America is not. America has mortally compromised its own essential values of civil liberty while imposing its own idea of freedom on others who may not want it. The Bush regime has been divisive — but not in Africa. I read it has been incompetent — but not in Africa. It has created bitterness — but not here in Africa. Here, his administration has saved millions of lives.

“Guys like me always like to cut ribbons,” Bush says mockingly at a ceremonial opening. But it’s a dangerous modesty. Congress must still agree to fund the massive spending he’s laid out for Africa, and most of it will come after he leaves the White House. It is vital that the new President continues with this policy. “Whoever is President,” Bush says, “will understand Africa is in our nation’s interest. They are wonderful people.”

Notice the statement: most of it will come after he leaves the White House.

He sets up a program that will burnish his legacy, but makes another administration pay for it. Nicely done!

Remember too, in his first term, Bush cut funds to aid in Africa. Now he caters to the religious right by dictating aid monies go to inept abstinence programs, not for sex education nor condoms:

Even on aid to Africa, Bush’s claims do not stand up to scrutiny. The president has made foreign aid a priority of his administration, nearly tripling the overall budget for foreign assistance from where it stood in 2000. And many in his administration, like former speechwriter Michael Gerson, as well as aid advocates in Congress, like Kansas Senator Sam Brownback, have increased conservatives’ interest in Africa. But the administration has spent much of the aid money on unilaterally created programs that neither learn from existing efforts nor respond effectively to Africans’ real needs.

And it shows. One of the White House’s major aid initiatives, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), has wasted much of its funds on scientifically questionable programs designed to please American religious conservatives. Though studies show that only a comprehensive approach, including condom distribution, sexual education, and antiretrovirals, could reduce HIV, the White House insisted that PEPFAR spend one-third of its behavioral prevention budget on programs that promote abstinence until marriage. It also refused to let PEPFAR money go for programs like needle exchanges and aggressive condom promotion. Recipient nations had to sign an American pledge vowing to oppose prostitution, even though prostitutes are major carriers of HIV in Africa, and signing the pledge could scare PEPFAR recipients out of helping sex workers. Virtually no other major multinational donor agreed with PEPFAR’s strategy. Even the administration’s own inspector general responsible for overseeing aid couldn’t prove that its methods had worked.

Geldof:

Bush says, “I want to dispel the notion that all of a sudden America is bringing all kinds of military to Africa. It’s simply not true … That’s baloney, or as we say in Texas — that’s bull!” Trouble is, it sounds to me a lot like what the U.S. did in the early Vietnam years with the advisers who became something else. Mission creep, I think it’s called.

“No, that won’t happen,” Bush insists. “We’re still working on what exactly it’ll be, but it will be a humanitarian mission, training in peace and security, conflict resolution … It’s a new concept and we want to get it right.” He muses for a while on the U.S. and China, and their policies on Africa — Africans are increasingly resentful that the Chinese bring their own labor force and supplies with them. Then, in what I took to be a reference to the supposed Chinese influence over the cynical Khartoum regime, Bush adds, “One thing I will say: Human suffering should preempt commercial interest.”

“One thing I will say: Human suffering should preempt commercial interest.” Right. Want to explain again exactly why we’re in Iraq?

I understand the urge to scoop the world, and the frustration of not getting a story out there before someone else beats you to the punch. If you look at the front page of American Street today, there are at least two stories I thought about covering that I won’t now. This is of course a testament to the quality of work the stable of fine contributors Kevin Hayden has brought together — a group I feel privileged to be with.

But Drudge outing Prince Harry’s deployment to Afghanistan is no mere scandal he exposed or some kind of nefarious cover-up of wrong-doing.  There’s no salacious information that anyone, anywhere needed to know — and no doubt lives were put at risk due to Matt Drudge.

As a direct result of Drudge’s irresponsible actions, something described with typical understatement as “regrettable” by the British Government, ongoing operations against the very organizations that perpetrated 9/11 were disrupted.

I won’t hold my breath for Drudge to be accused of Treason by the usual suspects (or some other obscure “illiterature[sic]” wingnut).

Catholic bigot releases statement about pResidential candidate embracing non-Catholic bigot. Isn’t it interesting to see a christian hatemonger pulling a hissy fit because a different christian hatemonger got the ear of someone that the first christian hatemonger feels that he alone is entitled to whisper in?

I’ll spare you the gory details of the ignorant screed from everyone’s favorite (cough) religiously insane catholic league spokesweasel. But I would like you to note the gratuitous insult to buddhists around the world:

For example, he likes calling it ‘The Great Whore,’ an ‘apostate church,’ the ‘anti-Christ,’ and a ‘false cult system.’ To hear the bigot in his own words, click here. Note: he isn’t talking about the Buddhists.

that this catholic bigot can’t help but use while he deplores the mean and nasty names that others use to refer to his brand of pagan superstition.

I would hope that anyone who receives any sort of endorsement from this individual would repudiate it as quickly as possible. And that, on some day in the future, the enormity of the blasphemous abominations that Bill Donohue has performed by making statements like this on behalf of his cult will have some sort of an impact on the few brain cells rattling round inside his melon, and cause whatever shred of conscience left within his psyche to allow him to understand how badly he has served that which he worships.

Gabor Steingart for Speigel Online has decided Obama is an airhead:

The rise of democratic frontrunner Barack Obama signifies an alarming victory of style over substance. Not unlike the dot-com hype, his campaign promises more than he can deliver. The one thing his voters can count on is that they will ultimately be disappointed.
Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama reminds many people of former President John F. Kennedy or civil rights leader Martin Luther King. But when I hear him speak, I have to think of the crazy days of the New Economy.

It was a magical time, even for the most levelheaded of business executives. For several years, wild promises seemed to be the most valuable currency in circulation. Profits? No big deal! Experience? Unnecessary! Realism? More of an obstacle than anything else. While some entrepreneurs undoubtedly had realistic business models and administrative talent, most of them were simply peddling ideas.

(Although some find Steingart an airhead himself).

Spengler for Asia Times has decided Obama has been surrounded by hateful women:

“Cherchez la femme,” advised Alexander Dumas in: “When you want to uncover an unspecified secret, look for the woman.” In the case of Barack Obama, we have two: his late mother, the went-native anthropologist Ann Dunham, and his rancorous wife Michelle. Obama’s women reveal his secret: he hates America.

We know less about Senator Obama than about any prospective president in American history. His uplifting rhetoric is empty, as Hillary Clinton helplessly protests. His career bears no trace of his own character, not an article for the Harvard Law Review he edited, or a single piece of legislation. He appears to be an empty vessel filled with the wishful thinking of those around him. But there is a real Barack Obama. No man - least of all one abandoned in infancy by his father - can conceal the imprint of an impassioned mother, or the influence of a brilliant wife.

America is not the embodiment of hope, but the abandonment of one kind of hope in return for another. America is the spirit of creative destruction, selecting immigrants willing to turn their back on the tragedy of their own failing culture in return for a new start. Its creative success is so enormous that its global influence hastens the decline of other cultures. For those on the destruction side of the trade, America is a monster. Between half and nine-tenths of the world’s 6,700 spoken languages will become extinct in the next century, and the anguish of dying peoples rises up in a global cry of despair. Some of those who listen to this cry become anthropologists, the curators of soon-to-be extinct cultures; anthropologists who really identify with their subjects marry them. Obama’s mother, the University of Hawaii anthropologist Ann Dunham, did so twice.

Obama profiles Americans the way anthropologists interact with primitive peoples. He holds his own view in reserve and emphatically draws out the feelings of others; that is how friends and colleagues describe his modus operandi since his days at the Harvard Law Review, through his years as a community activist in Chicago, and in national politics. Anthropologists, though, proceed from resentment against the devouring culture of America and sympathy with the endangered cultures of the primitive world. Obama inverts the anthropological model: he applies the tools of cultural manipulation out of resentment against America. The probable next president of the United States is a mother’s revenge against the America she despised.

But Rob Crilly of Time and CNN has found a positive note from Obama’s stepgrandmother:

Several thousand miles and a world away, Barack Obama is campaigning to change American politics. But in the tiny farmstead where his father used to herd goats, his Kenyan relatives are praying for anything but more political upheaval. “We are spending sleepless nights praying that peace will prevail,” says the 86-year-old woman whom the presidential contender calls Granny Sarah.

[snip]

Every street corner in Kogelo hosts a political debate. It usually starts with a discussion of Kenya’s crisis before moving on quickly to the chances of a Luo son moving into the White House. Maurice Kogode is the chairman of the grandly named Central Square Consultation Forum, which meets beneath a vast jacaranda tree. He says Obama’s message of hope and change designed for voters in America also offers inspiration to young Kenyans. “Too many politicians here have an egocentric mind and they just won’t give in,” says Kogode. “They protect their own interests, not the majority.”

In a country where politics has become a byword for corruption and tribal loyalty, Obama offers a different model, he explains. Instead of a leader who would use power to ensure his supporters get their turn at the trough, showering jobs, grants and contracts on family, he is seen by many as a president who would govern in the interests of all.

Airhead or filled with hate? Obama? I think I’ll go with a man who as president would govern in the interests of all.

Quite possibly because it is badly plagiarized science fiction?

No wonder it’s managed to become such a popular flavor of religious insanity in such a short time…

Big props to Drew Curtis for bringing lots of farking goodness like this into focus on a regular basis.

From Rasmussen:

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in Pennsylvania shows Hillary Clinton with a very narrow advantage over Barack Obama in the Democratic Presidential Primary. Clinton earns 46% of the vote while Obama earns 42%.

For those who wonder if Clinton will soldier on to Pennsylvania if she wins Ohio and loses Texas, this suggests she’d have little incentive to do so. If she comes away from Little Tuesday with little or no delegate gain on Obama, with WY and MS as certain losses, a 4% lead in PA can’t be very reassuring.

Rasmussen has Obama up in Texas by 4 pts today, and Clinton’s Latino advantage down to 7%. Based on past projections versus primary day outcomes, I’m comfortable with my previous prediction that Obama will win Texas by at least 8%.

Chris Bowers puts forth some delegate math that better describes the pickle Clinton is in.

The 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment (3/4) based at Twentynine Palms, California, reportedly became the first Marine Corps unit to be deployed to Iraq a record five times.

There’s been much ado about how, even though these repeated deployments are taking their toll on units and families, there is a bright side. Repeated deployments are also helping to develop the most combat-experienced force in decades. But, interestingly, the 3/4’s deployment suggests that, while that may be true within the higher echelons of the officer corps, it does not necessarily hold true at the grunt level. In an interview featured on the front page of Wednesday’s San Francisco Chronicle, Col. William Vistead, the 3/4’s commanding officer, estimates that 60 percent of his men will be going to Iraq for the first time. In other words, grunts are serving their four years and getting out. The same is happening within the junior and mid-level officer ranks. And there’s no bright side to that.

And:

But it is something of a milestone that the Marines are now sending a unit for a fifth time, as the war nears its five-year anniversary, on March 19. Marines typically send units over for seven-month tours, while Army units go for 12 or 15 months.

The endless cycle of deployments has taken a toll on the troops and their families. When units are not in Iraq, they are training to go there. And the experience level of the Marines does not necessarily grow. An average amount of time for an enlisted man on active duty is four years, and then they get out.

Vistead estimated that 60 percent of his men will be going to Iraq for the first time.

And who knows what they will experience, whether they will survive, and what condition they will been in when they come home.

Here is the personal story of this woman trying to get the system to help her husband whom she is losing to PTSD:

This man has given 15 years to the army, three tours overseas in war zones and not once has ever been in trouble, not even ever threatened with a article 15…and for all of that and the fact that he laid his mind and body down for this country, literally, he was medically retired as a air traffic controller for the army because after coming back from Iraq he has PTSD so bad that he couldnt do his job, his devastating injury to his back and knees, oh, thanks for going over there and giving it your all, now we are going to as unceromoniously as possible evict you from the army, take away more than 2000.00 of your pay,wait three months before we even ackowledge you were in the army and then all we are going to give you is a army accomodation medal, which is kind of like getting the yearly, ” hey we appreciate you and your work” you’d get for being at any job come Christmas…no bonus just …hey thanks…Oh but the good news is you now qualify for food stamps!
So far we have gotten three appointments for his VA intake and three cancelations. Social Security sends us a letter that says, we got your information but we have a huge influx of requests for benefits, we will get to you eventually!

The Bush administration demands much of the military but cuts benefits and services at every turn. Supporting the troops means forcing them to wait for equipment made by warmongering defense contractors, making them wear inferior body armor, ignoring their actual needs if someone is not making money off of it. There are many Walter Reed stories reflected all over the country when and if our soldiers do come home. Then they try to drown them in a maze of paperwork, denials, and misplaced files.

This is Bush’s glorious war on a noun: full of idiocy, incompetence and greed.

crossposted at Rants from the Rookery.

I’m pleased to introduce you to Ellroon of Rants From the Rookery who has joined our AS team and will be posting beginning today. Other than skippy, who bops in from time to time, it’s been awhile since we’ve had the perspective of an erudite California native to offer our readers and Ellroon’s a welcome addition, as you’ll soon see.

The first report says he did, telling them his NAFTA stand was merely campaign rhetoric. Obama’s campaign team has denied it, as have the Canadians.

So who should we believe?

First, tell me what motive exists for him to have done that. November is a long ways off, so if he really felt a need to reassure Canadian government officials, there’d be plenty of time to do so. Doing so before the Ohio and Pennsylvania primaries - where NAFTA’s a sensitive issue - makes no sense at all.

Second, the Canadian officials who allege he did this are members of the Conservative Party. Do they have a motive to lie? Sure, game the primary process, keep the Dems divided instead of going after McCain.

Third, everyone supposedly involved denies it.

The timing of this is just way too suspicious. We’ve seen Obama make no clumsy amateurish gaffe like this and there’s no understandable motive for him to do so now. Jeopardize the Ohio vote for no rationale?

Sorry, this claim doesn’t pass the smell test.

I’m thinking that this guy would be a good candidate. Especially after this treat:

There once was a man named McCain
Who had the whole White House to gain,
But he was quite a hobbyist
Of boning his lobbyists -
So much for his ’08 campaign.

A big tip of the hat to Crooks and Liars for getting a link to this out on the intertubes. And extreme thanks to the writers of the Colbert Report for getting back to writing stuff like this for viewing consumption.

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Josh Marshall sums it up pretty well. The proxies do the dirty work. McCain says “Tut-tut”. And the MSM never chalenges him because, you know, he’s a guy you could enjoy a beer with.

Where have we heard that before?

His Op-ed in the NY Times:

independent…. blahblahblah…. independent ….blahblahblah…. independent ….blahblahblah…. independent ….blahblahblah…. independent ….blahblahblah…. independent ….blahblahblah…. independent ….blahblahblah…. independent ….blahblahblah…. independent ….blahblahblah…. independent …. I listened carefully to those who encouraged me to run, but I am not — and will not be — a candidate for president. I have watched this campaign unfold, and I am hopeful that the current campaigns can rise to the challenge by offering truly independent leadership. The most productive role that I can serve is to push them forward, by using the means at my disposal to promote a real and honest debate.

In the weeks and months ahead, I will continue to work to steer the national conversation away from partisanship and toward unity; away from ideology and toward common sense; away from sound bites and toward substance. And while I have always said I am not running for president, the race is too important to sit on the sidelines, and so I have changed my mind in one area. If a candidate takes an independent, nonpartisan approach — and embraces practical solutions that challenge party orthodoxy — I’ll join others in helping that candidate win the White House.

But only if it’s John McCain.

It occurs to me that the Right Wing blowhards have really proved themselves as a bunch of petulant, petty whiners since McCain more or less wrapped up the Republican nomination for President.

Angry that the hater of their choice didn’t win the nomination, several of them have stamped their feet, grabbed their ball and stomped home.

“Fine, then! Have it your way!” they squeak. “I’m going to endorse Hillary!”

Bill Cunningham had a on air hissy fit yesterday, after John McCain apologized for Cunningham’s disparaging statements about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. “He threw me under the bus to the national press!” Cunningham pissed and moaned to his mouth breathing audience.

This boo hooing was quickly followed by Cunningham’s “endorsement” of Clinton. Yeah, right.

Limbaugh has done it. Coulter has done it. Many of the Righties have, in their devastation, announced that they will give the giant fuck you to the Republicans and come out in support of Hillary.

We’d be crazy to believe it. The fact that they seized quickly on the NY Times story about McCain and the Lobbyist as an inroad to supporting McCain should tell us all we need to know. They are not serious. The only thing they really want is to have Hillary run in the general election because they can’t wait for the thrill of taking her apart every day between now and November. Besides hate for the poor and minorities, hate for Hillary Clinton may be the only thing that cures their raging flacidity. I just made that word up. Yes, I did.

More importantly, though, is the idea that these boobs (not the good kind!) are willing to ditch their convictions if someone who doesn’t hate in the way they can get behind becomes the candidate for their party. They make it clear that they believe in true authoritarianism. There is no middle. There is no compromise.

Per Quinnipiac, Clinton had a 16 pt lead 13 days ago in Pennsylvania. Now it’s down to 6 pts and that primary is 8 weeks away.

In several polls this week, in Texas, the lowest shows Obama in a perfect tie, and the highest shows him with a 6 pt lead.

And in Ohio, the polls show Clinton hanging on to a 4 to 6 pt lead.

Overall, were the primaries held today, the delegate count likely would produce no net gain for Clinton. And I still expect John Edwards to weigh in with an endorsement in the next two days. If he goes for Obama and asks his 26 delegates to support him too, it’s likely most of them would.

I’m not convinced Richardson will weigh in or for who. But overall, it looks like Clinton has under 6 days to try and turn things around. If she doesn’t, WY, MS and PA await and suddenly, all three look too bleak to try for.

I’d expect Clinton to have one more card up her sleeve, which she has to play by Friday in a last effort to regain a bigger advantage in OH and regain the lead in TX.

Well, not just McCain. But all politicians who use proxies like Bill Cunningham to get a nasty message about their opponents out into the media.

Sure, McCain apologized for Cunningham’s remarks yesterday, but so what? The cat is already out of the bag. (Thanks, MathMan) The media picked up that story and played the clip over and over where Cunningham, in his introduction of McCain at a rally in Cincinnati, said cutting things about the Democratic candidates, particularly focusing on Barack Obama’s middle name Hussien.

We all know exactly why Cunningham would go after Obama’s Islamic middle name. It scares the hell out of Americans who equate Muslim with terrorist. In case you didn’t know, there are still many places in this country of ours where it’s okay to say and think nasty, untrue things about people because of their religion. Right here where I live, people are downright casual about their disdain for Muslims.

In this particular case, for the McCain campaign and, possibly, the Clinton campaign with the release of the Obama in Somalian dress picture, the best or worst part about that tying Obama to Islam is that it appeals to both the Republican base and to the xenophobic American. And there are plenty of those xeno- Americans who aren’t registered Republicans.

So in a sick game of telephone, candidates let proxies put out the scurrilous messages, an apology is issued, the media picks up the story and runs it into the ground. People repeat the story to each other in their homes and workplaces. The candidates can act surprised and feign shock and “disgust,” but, as Rachel Maddow pointed out last night on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, shock is something you feel and react to immediately. Shock is not a calculated, spun, calm statement made to the media forty-five minutes later. Shock would have been mounting the stage right after Cunningham let go of the microphone and calling him out right then, right there.

I’m not so naive as to think that candidates can have unscripted moments anymore, but the fact remains…once the words are said and the media picks them up, the message is out there. And that is the aim.

Hey kids! I was reading over at PoliTits, home of my co-conspirator breast friend blog buddy, DCup, that there’s a dust-up over some outfit that one of the Democratic candidates wore. Well, I, for one, am so angry that the press always picks on the Dems and treats John McCain with kid gloves. Therefore, I did some digging, and boy, am I glad I did! I unearthed some pictures that I bet the mainstream media will never print!
Here’s the first picture I found.

I always thought the Republicans wanted to go back to the 1950’s, not the 1970’s! Do we really want a president who will order that Hail to the Chief will be replaced by Stayin’ Alive? Stayin’ Alive is simply not appropriate for……oh, wait. John McCain is 71-years-old! And just ask Chuck Norris what that means:

“If John takes over the presidency at 72 and he ages 3-to-1, how old will he be in four years? Eighty-four years old — and can he handle that kind of pressure in that job?”

Read the rest of this entry »

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It isn’t only black militants like Deval Patrick and FDR that Barack Hussein Obama plagiarizes in his deeply unpatriotic diatribes, he’s also been discovered to have stolen his fiery invective from a bunch of dirty reds. It turns out that Obama’s plans for implementing World Communism are getting a significant assist from the commie Republic of Tatarstan. I extend my deepest thanks to Prayer Warriors WorldNetDaily for tipping me off to this shocking exposé:

They seem like an unlikely couple. One is a rising star of the U.S. Democratic Party, and the other is a former Soviet official who has ruled his republic of Russia since 1991.

But U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama and Tatarstan President Mintimer Shaimiyev have something in common.

In an apparent coincidence that has Tatar media outlets abuzz, the Obama slogan “Yes, We Can!” has the same meaning as Shaimiyev’s favorite catchphrase, which in Tatar is “Bez Buldyrabyz!”

The two slogans are “identical,” Karim Kamal, a journalist for the Tatar-language service of Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, said by telephone. …

The Internet portal E-Kazan.ru alleged that Obama had borrowed Shaimiyev’s slogan and boasted about the prowess of Tatar political campaigning.

“Obama’s borrowing of our slogan proves once again that we are fully in step with the times, and on some issues we are even ahead of the Americans,” the web site wrote. “Our PR tactics are up-to-date, competitive and are even ‘rented’ by leading politicians.”

The slogan “Bez Buldyrabyz!” is ubiquitous in Tatarstan. Among other things, it has been the name of the official party newspaper of the Tatar branch of United Russia and the title of a 2006 essay contest for 11th-graders.

While I’m appalled at the thought of anyone other than a Republican benefitting from plagiarism, this incident does lend some credence to the theory that Obama is secretly a Jewish communist from East Orange, New Jersey. I’d rather cut off my fingers than type out these words, but when I read stories like this, I can’t help but think that maybe Hillary Clinton was right: Maybe Osama hasn’t been fully vetted. Until MSM is willing to confront the unsavory details of Mr. Obama’s past, I am more than happy to rely on ace reportage like this. Praise Him!

Hillary, please don’t quit your day job and go out on the stand-up comedy circuit.

Other than that, now you know why John Edwards is still polling at 9% here in the Buckeye State. 

He’s still on the ballot here, hmm……

Did anyone else get the feeling that these two were just going through the motions, that they (especially Obama) know it’s over.

I usually like debates.  What, you think I do this for my health?  The fame and fortune?  I need none of these trifles.  I watch debates and blog about it for the love of .. for the, uh … for the love of God why do I torture myself so?  This one was down right boring and I kept zoning out.

It wasn’t as bad as some of the GOP debates, but even they were more exciting since they kept me more involved shouting obscenities at the television.  I think I only managed one F-bomb tonight.

My best moment was when at long last Obama finally showed ever so subtly that he’d had just about enough of her when she said he would bomb Pakistan.

His eyes did a quick roll-over and he softly went, “Pfft!” and let her continue, waiting his turn to set the record straight.

After a week of called a liar and being compared to Bush and Karl Rove, Obama did an outstanding job keeping his cool when she did to him exactly what she bitched about him doing to her — right in his face.  (Yeah yeah, bitch is a misogynist descriptor.  Quit yer bitchin’.)

If anyone’s minds were changed/made-up as a result of this debate I’d be shocked, especially after 18 minutes of the opening focusing on the minutiae of two health care plans that are as about as different as night and later that same night.  I think their greatest contribution to health care is now we have recordings of this debate to use as a cure for insomnia.

Last November in the Portland to Eugene area, Comcast dropped MSNBC from the extended basic package. Last Wednesday, here in Eugene, Air America and Jones Radio (Schultz and Miller) went dark as the AM station they were on got sold to NPR. We now have 3 NPR stations.

As a result, I can’t watch the Ohio Dem debate tonight and never get to watch Keith O. I can get better movies cheaper renting DVDs so the only thing I’m getting for the extra $35/mo over simple basic, is the Comedy Channel. And as much as I’ll miss Stewart & Colbert, I just can’t tolerate the way major corporate entities keep blocking progressive programming even here, in a liberal university city.

I can’t wait to find a good alternative to Comcast internet so I don’t subsidize their censorship ever again.

No debate? I guess I’ll try to find it live on the internets. Anyone know where it might be?

Really, if Obama can raise $50 million in a month, there oughta be words, prayers, blood or donations available to help out a Mom.

Forgeries and felonies abound even within the Republican National Congressional Committee, where funds are doled out to their congressional candidates. Think of it like Enron and you, the citizens, are the shareholders left with worthless paper after investing into a mutual fund.

And let’s not forget there’s still at least $9,000,000,000.00 of our taxpayer dollars that have never been accounted for in Iraq. Put in other terms, that $9 billion works out to $30 for each member of your family, at least

It’s time to take the crooks out of their dirty game.

Look, I’m sure things will get more heated, stupid and vicious in the general election campaign, but I believe in giving credit where it’s due. John McCain had no reason to apologize for what some unassociated talk show host said, but he did, and showed some class in doing so.

Can you, in your wildest imagination, conceive of Team Dubya doing that? Not a chance. Whether it lasts is a dubious proposition, but for today, McCain has demonstrated both a welcome side to recent GOP politicking and why he’ll be a tough opponent next Fall.

Update: As Evan of LeftWord notes in comments: Your wrong about this. When you say “John McCain had no reason to apologize for what some unassociated talk show host” The Talk show host in question was speaking at a McCain rally just before McCain himself took the stage. Thus McCain had to apologize and was affiliated.

So noted. Still, McCain said: “I will not tolerate anything in this campaign that denigrates either Sen. Obama or Sen. (Hillary) Clinton.'’ Which remains a nice change in standards.

Noam Scheiber of TNR peers into the heart of Team Obama to display how their economics and foreign policy approaches are filtered, analyzed and used in policy development.

At the least, it demonstrates well that Obama has a lot more than good oratory working for him. He has a number of sharp thinkers willing to stray from conventional wisdom. They’re not a bunch of wild-eyed radicals, nor are they concrete-booted conservatives chained to defense of the status quo.

They are pragmatists, willing to tinker and adjust to make things work, not ride some over-riding ideology into the ground. I have to admit, I like what I see so far, mostly.

I’m not as convinced, for example, that Lee Hamilton’s approaches mirror my own. He’s a bit too centrist and imperialist for me. But Anthony Lake has impressed me before. He’s one of the reasons I prefer Obama on foreign policy over anyone else who got in the race, Democratic or Republican (with one exception: Bill Richardson).

In the past two weeks, when I visit Memeorandum, I’ve found the blogosphere deeply engrossed in discussions of a lot of peripheral stuff, some of it absolutely silly. But this article is a standout. At the least, it demonstrates that Obama has a discerning eye for talent, for people ready to institute changes in macro and micro ways that will compel the DC establishment to adjust their thinking, without making them flee in fright from any perceived radicalism.

It’s pragmatic to pursue incremental but critical change to repair the institutional weaknesses in our government. The only potential drawback some will see is that JFK relied on an abundance of academic thought that led him astray on a few occasions. He learned that sometimes, he had to refute his own advisers afterward, particularly in the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs and some Vietnam policy. It was his own pragmatism that helped him negotate a successful settlement of the Cuban Missile Crisis. We have to hope Obama is capable of similar leadership on close calls like that.

In his opposition to the War with Iraq, his pursuit of an end to nuclear weaponry and the way he’s run his campaign so far, I see a lot of his pragmatism in play and find it reassuring.

His political opponents try to cast him as an airheaded idealist with dangerous ideas, though they’ve yet to provide any convincing evidence of that. Yet I understand why it seems so unsettling. After all, pragmatism has been in terribly short supply for the past 7 years, so sanity seems radical against that backdrop.

Scheiber’s substantive review of the thinking behind the oratory provides me pretty clear evidence that such pragmatism is like a very welcome greeting to a long-missing friend.

So the narrative running up to the debate at my alma mater tonight is, “How will Hillary turn things around?”  Will she go negative/aggressive.  Will nice-Hillary or nasty-Hillary show up.  Even if she hits a “home run” will it be enough? 

Do I have that right?

[Dear media tools: that’s “Convocation Center,” not “Convention” Center.]

Note that the story isn’t about what Obama will do, that the nomination is his to lose with all the momentum he’s gained over the last month.

I’m not complaining, just making the observation.  Obama is just chugging along — saturating the airways, overloading auditoriums — which is boring to write or talk about.  Hillary may or may not hit on a winning strategy, but it certainly seems like her campaign is trying anything and everything hoping something sticks.  It certainly is interesting if nothing else.

Tonight very well may be the last time we see these two in a debate.  That alone makes it significant.  I believe that as long as Obama keeps his cool, he wins.  Senator Clinton needs to win “Tiny Tuesday” by such a significant margin even Texas and Ohio “wins” won’t be enough unless she scores a true blow-out.  A good debate performance is just one step, and probably not enough. 

What she really needs is something she can’t control, which is the unstated truth that this nomination is now Obama’s to lose, and he can if he finally “loses it.”  She needs him to try some kind of, “There you go again” moment that lacks any sense of graciousness. 

Hillary needs to goad Barack into saying, “Shut up, Bitch.”

Ain’t ever going to happen, but wow, would that be good TV.

Jonathan Singer provides the details from the SUSA poll which has it at 49-45 for Obama. The internals are consistent with what we’ve seen elsewhere: erosion in all but 3 or 4 of her core constituencies.

Through Super Tuesday, SUSA was within 4.5 pts of actual results, so technically, that margin is a statistical tie, barely. And while I anticipate more fresh tactics, I can guess Obama will have one or two as well. Look for Thur/Fri endorsements from some big names.

The other polls from yesterday are listed here.

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He’ll start campaigning with him in Ohio today and my guess is, they want him to do a little in Rhode Island, too. Next to Kucinich and Gravel, Dodd was the only other clear liberal in the presidential campaign, so despite his limited appeal in his presidential run, he may help influence that demographic.