At this stage I am fed up with common nonsense that is taken as wisdom in our political discourse.

- Corporate whores: our political system has a problem of too much money from the powerful oiling the wheels. Powerfuls will always be powerful and demanding of individual politician to ignore this realty is ridicules and outrageous.

- The "old style" politician is not a negative. In a complex society it's impossible to implement ideal solution; getting close it quite good. Social Security, Medicare, EPA, clear water act, where all implemented by "old stylists."

- The problem is not that the Hillary side will be pissed off. First, we are already pissed off in the present. The issue is not of being pissed off. The issue is that we were rejected, our values disregarded, our past poopooed and our nemeses embraced. The Obamacans are history-less, they are not the continuation of Bill Clinton and even our "god" FDR, they are a new beginning. That, of course, is scary and reminisces of the worst regimes the world has seen. We have a history and tradition, we cannot turn the switch and fall in love with Obama. It's over.

- "Not being jerks about it" solves exactly nothing. It's not hurt feelings; it's a hurt credo.

Obama intentionally and explicitly discards the FDR coalition which is the foundation of the Democratic party. Namely, he is a 3rd party candidate that is in the midst of a hostile take over of the Democratic party.

I'll drop Obama and go with Google. (At least, they have a rosy future.)

Nothing, because all I'll do if he's the nominee is vote in November. I won't fund raise for him, I won't show up at a rally for him, I won't do squat for him because even now, I don't believe he's the better candidate. That's all I did after John Kerry won the nomination and I see no need to do any more for Barack Obama.

what is much more important is for the supporter networks and campaign operations to come together.

And that's something the Obama campaign has to do now, not in August when he's crowned the nominee. However, they see no need to reach out because as Obama said in New Hampshire

a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany ... and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Obama

No thanks. I don't want any part of that.

that most of us here and the majority of those who have fervently supported Hillary were actually Edwards supporters who saw that once Edwards left the race, that Hillary was the most progressive option.

I get the impression that in the general election, McCain will seem to be the most progressive candidate.

I just hope that Deval Patrick has some more speeches up his sleeve.

"Where are you going? Hey, don't leave! I WAS ONLY JOKING!"

Clueless

" . . . we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender . . ."- Winston Churchill

but sadly, no pictures of Unity Pony or lapel pins to induce me.

...because you need us. Before, you couldn't muster enough ethics to even show common courtesy or respect. No thanks. Besides, it ain't over. ;)

**For clarity's sake, the "you" is a general plural you.**

Openly exploiting bigotry and favoring disenfranchisement are unforgivable. When someone shows you who they truly are, believe them. And I do.

an olive branch?

I didn't see that as an olive branch, rather as an accusation that we were all blindly following Clinton...anyway, here is the response I posted at Sadly No

*************

But here’s what I don’t get and maybe Lambert et. al. can help me out. On the one hand, you guys notice every wart on Obama’s face, which, again, is perfectly fine. And yet you are stunningly blind to any on Hillary’s. And really, they’re not hard to miss.

wow, you really are clueless.

Do you relieve believe that Clinton supporters don’t know about her flaws? Do you think we’ve on the Clinton for President bandwagon for 8 years, just waiting for the chance to vote for her to become President?

The vast majority of those of us in the blogosphere who support Clinton were ABC (anyone but Clinton) a year ago, because we were well aware of all of her flaws. But when it finally came down to her and Obama, and we looked at Obama, we saw….an empty suit. Someone with no record to speak of, whose ideas and policies were not his own, and whose past provided an abundance of fodder for the right right smear machine. Obama had just as many “minuses” as Clinton, but where Clinton had plusses, Obama had zeroes and question marks.

The difference between Clinton and Obama supporters is this: we chose our candidate with full knowledge of her strengths and weaknesses — Obama’s didn’t. And as Obama’s weaknesses have been exposed, Obama’s supporters have ignored them.

I mean, if the two words meant the same thing, we'd have ended up with one word, right?

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Obama intentionally and explicitly discards the FDR coalition which is the foundation of the Democratic party. Namely, he is a 3rd party candidate that is in the midst of a hostile take over of the Democratic party.

Of course, discarding the FDR coalition is the explicit program of the DLC and one candidate is on their Leadership Council while the other insisted on being taken off their list.

Obama can call a news conference with President Clinton in which he gets down on one knee, holds President Clinton's hand, bows his head and begs for forgiveness for branding President Clinton a racist right before the South Carolina primary, in a cheap and successful bid to monopolize the AA vote.
All you need to do is see the standing ovation Dick Gregory got from the AA crowd for his Clinton bashing and the reaction Rev Wright got from his congregants for his Clinton bashing to see the enormous amount of damage Obama did to President Clinton.
I literally despise Obama in the most intense way possible due to how he used racial attacks in this primary. Instead of diffusing these baseless attacks on the Clintons, Obama corroborated and propagated them for his own gain.
My only hope is that Obama is foolish enough to use these same dirty attacks on John McCain, because they'll blow up in his face and he'll be relegated to the dustbin of history, where he belongs.

I need your vote is not the same as I want your vote

actually, they are pretty much the same concept, as least in their original sense.

"Want" means "lack of" or "absense of" a necessary element -- it only became "desire" because when you don't have a necessary element, the desire to have it is assumed.

"Want" was used to describe a static state of being, while "need" implies a potential state of being.

i.e. "He wants humility" says that he lacks humility and is a lesser person for it. "He needs humility" says that he lacks humility, and would be a better person for it.

Seen his healthcare plan? How about the War in Iraq? Ready for four more years of that? How about those tax cuts for the rich? If you think any of that is progressive please think again. I see a lot of silly stuff on the blogosphere but that takes the cake.

Evidently you didn't read the SN pages to know that we at the Mighty Corrente Building are NOT serious people and are easily swayed by bullshit populist proposals.

Did I get the impression that Obama will disown any of his pledges once it becomes obvious that continuing to hold on to them has a political cost just like he did with Reverend Wright? Silly me...

Did I get the impression that even though he professes to have a universal health care plan that clearly doesn't intend to cover everyone that he isn't capable of the lowest forms of demagoguery himself? Silly me...

Did I get the impression that his commitment to pulling the troops out of Iraq was less than sincere based upon the comments made by his surrogate? Silly me...

Did I get the impression that his stated intentions of 'fixing' Social Security made him look any different than any of the right wing Republicans? Silly me...

I am just a silly guy

My only hope is that Obama is foolish enough to use these same dirty attacks on John McCain, because they’ll blow up in his face and he’ll be relegated to the dustbin of history, where he belongs.

While I expect Obama to use the same "racist-baiting" tactics on McCain (why mess with success), they won't have the same impact.

We're democrats/progressives -- we get upset when someone points the finger and says "racist", and unless there is reason to believe that the person making the accusation is not credible, we won't be skeptical of the accusation.

The rest of the country reacts much more skeptically to accusations of racism, especially when its an accusation of "dog-whistle" racism. They don't see the racism in the Willie Horton ad -- and some of them still don't see it when its explained to them.

Beyond my personal abhorrence of Obama's tactics, his "racist-baiting" of the Clinton's has a very negative impact in terms of practical politics.

Its "the boy who cryied wolf" syndrome -- all the false accusations of racism directed at the Clinton make it that much more difficult to get people to acknowledge the real "dog whistles" that the GOP will be employing agaist Obama -- and in general.

The most damaging thing that Obama did in this primary campaign isn't what he did to the Clintons, it what he has done to the idea/process of racial reconciliation in general.

There is nothing as damaging to racial reconciliation as false accusations of racism, and that's why right-wingers hype Al Sharpton so much. The Southern Strategy works, and right-wingers know it, and Sharpton is the poster-boy for false and/or unsubstantiable accusations of racism.

Obama is smoother, but in terms of his campaign and race, he's just another Al Sharpton.

That's exactly what the GOP is going to say when Obama tries to call out their racism. I can hear them now, "Please, he accused Bill and Hillary Clinton as being racists..." Ironically, I can see that the first people who are likely to call bullshit on Obama's race baiting will be John McCain and the Republicans. Not because they love the Clintons but to push off complaints. Then, of course, we're going to get the Obama folks pushing back that the Clintons really are racists.

And while we're telling what we want, in addition to the race baiting and Clinton smearing, I'd like an apology for the misogyny. Because as a feminist, what I see is a choice between two sexist assholes. Not very appealing.

If what you ultimately care about is making government work for the poorest and neediest citizens, having a candidate leverage racism and misogyny doesn't give one a lot of hope for any kind of change you can believe in.

http://tinyurl.com/3goker

In a heated phone call with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi late last month, Hillary Clinton supporter Harvey Weinstein threatened to cut off campaign money to congressional Democrats unless Pelosi embraced a new plan by the movie mogul to finance a revote of the Democratic presidential primaries in Florida and Michigan, according to three officials who were briefed on the contents of the conversation.

How does cutting off money to Dem congressional candidates help push a progressive agenda? No Dem president elected this fall will be able to accomplish much of what we want unless we have the much bigger majority in both houses of congress that we're trying to build. Apparently for selfish corporate whores like Weinstein none of that matters as much as getting Hill elected. Sad.

I am not an Edwards supporter, nice guy, nice wife, but give me a break, we need help for the middle class right now. Both the right and the left are bleeding america dry.
I guess when the majority of the middle class are now considered poor, then we can start bleeding from the upper class.
Here's an idea, let's borrow a system from Europe, one that works.
There is NO middle class party, no moderate party, no one that is standing up for the rights of Americans to work and earn a decent living. NO ONE. Hillary is the closest, but it's still that welfare state, and the way the US does welfare is stupid. There is no incentive to escape and there is no protection for people who have worked who need it. It's a dysfunctional system.
Obama has not yet kept a promise period. So not sure why everyone is on his wagon, I find him insincere and his choice of life partner telling. You could not get a more self-absorbed "Marie Antoinette" than MO. Diamond Princess has no shine next to her whining "gimme, gimme".
Essentially the problem with race-baiting and misogyny is that they are generally directed towards whites. The need to relive the bible is not really my bag. I think it's time we let Christ be the martyr while we try to figure out ways to be a great nation again.
I don't need an olive branch from a cult. I'm not joining it period.
I do need a party that can coalesce into a workable system, that is for promotion of integration of all, not just integration by whites.
Otherwise there will be a civil war one day, and that is just a historical fact.

"The great divide in this country is not by race or even income, it's by those who think they are better than everyone else and think they should play by a different set of rules," --Bill Clinton

Hillary is to blame for everything, Obama cannot be blamed for anything. Markg8 how effectual do you really think that a President can be when he passes the blame off to everyone. Look at how much blame Hillary gets.
This Weistein dude is a supporter, I say good for him to try and get the votes counted. Anyone who doesn't think that those votes should be counted can fuck off.
*Gasp* oh yes, since Obama made sure a revote in Michigan would not happen by bringing in costly litigation, something no one wants to get involved in but him, then I say to Obama: FUCK OFF.
And to whoever the idiot was that gave that jesus christ timeline of Obama give me a break. He also set up a dummy office in a law firm to launder money, See Rezko. You'll get to hear about it once it goes into a blow out republican campaign.
This guy sucks from the rich to feed himself, then he sucks from the poor to feed himself. He doesn't need the middle class period.

"The great divide in this country is not by race or even income, it's by those who think they are better than everyone else and think they should play by a different set of rules," --Bill Clinton

One answer is pretty simple: don’t be jerks about it.

here's the problem: a lot of obama supporters view clinton supporters as the jerks. in reality there are plenty of jerks on both sides.

maybe it's just because of my own pro-obama biases, but it seems to me the jerkiness expressed by both sides has been a little different. if i can over-generalize, my impression is that when the pro-obama side is jerky they insult hillary clinton, but when the pro-clinton side is jerky they insult obama supporters.

want examples? the whole "cultist" thing, lamberts habit of respinning the position of anyone who believes that clinton has effectively lost as saying "why won't the bitch drop out" (thus insulting the obama supporter by calling them sexist, and minimizing the very real sexism that clinton gets thrown at her all the time), and here's an example in the comments of this very thread:

"The difference between Clinton and Obama supporters is this: we chose our candidate with full knowledge of her strengths and weaknesses — Obama’s didn’t. And as Obama’s weaknesses have been exposed, Obama’s supporters have ignored them."

which only tells me that the writer has never been to an obama event. i've been to three, one rally, two primary watching parties, all sponsored by the official obama campaign. and i've never been to any where the people around me weren't discussing in great detail the pluses and minuses of obama. once again, the writer is simply stereotyping obama supporters as a bunch of mindless followers.

as i said above, i am over-generalizing. there are certainly clinton-supporters who have directed their bile at obama himself just as there are obama-supporters who have insulted not just clinton the candidate, but the people who vote for her as well. but i do have the impression that there's a lot more barbs hurled at obama supporters from this side of the fence than the other way around.

another thing: it's really impossible for the obama side as a whole to "not be a jerk about it." both the clinton and obama camps have millions of people in them. in a group that large there's always gonna be a fair number of assholes. i'm an obama supporter who would love it if we could find common ground, but i simply can't stop some random person with an obama button acting like a dickhead.

I don't think I've ever cross-posted a comment before, but here goes:

Dr A:

Snark more or less off --

No, I'm not pissed. Why would I be? Suddenly, this obscure little C list blog -- this "dwindling band of paranoid holdouts" -- is getting hits! "As long as they spell my name right..."

I'm not pissed about S/N ramen post either, though I confess, truly, I didn't read past the first few paragraphs. (I was volcanically angry about the real subject of the post, which had nothing whatever to do with the policy implications of the now forgotten gas tax, or indeed any -gate at all.)

As far as "what would it take," I'm tempted to say, with Laura Petrie, "If you don't know why I'm mad at you, then I'm certainly not going to tell you."

Seriously, rather than putting the burden on me/us to invest the time in answering -- I feel I've been writing about that very subject over and over and over again for months -- why not do a little research, use your imagination, put yourself in our shoes, and post on what you think it would take? That would be a real olive branch. For all I know, you might come up with ideas we don't have. Self-insight is rare, after all.

Shystee has a fine post here -- though the comments are a little hot right now, they'll cool down in a bit, no doubt. Unfortunately, after trolls destroyed Digby's comments and called her a cunt, we pre-emptively ttightened up our approvals policy, but if you don't have an account, you will at least be able to read along.

Au revoir!

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

And yet you are stunningly blind to any on Hillary’s. And really, they’re not hard to miss.

HA HA HA!

LOLOLOLOL!

Followed with

What is it about Barack Obama that is such a deal-breaker for so many of you? I honestly want to know, because I just don’t get it.

LOLOLOLOL!!!

Something tells me D. Aristophanes hasn't bothered to read a DAMN THING about WHY people might have a problem with Obama...

explanations have been given up down and all the fuck around Obama's various actions?

I just don't get it.

I think I know why.

RTFM. (Read The Fuckin Manual)

Agree or disagree...but to not have a clue?

Who's fault is that?

Answer as always: The Clintons!!!!!

LOL

my impression is that when the pro-obama side is jerky they insult hillary clinton, but when the pro-clinton side is jerky they insult obama supporters.

I started out this campaign supporting Edwards and hoping Gore would run again.

I started defending Hillary from unfair attacks and pointing out Obama's warts and immediately became the target of personal insults. I've argued politics for over thirty years and never seen anything like what the Obots have said to me.

---------------------------------------------------

" . . . we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender . . ."- Winston Churchill

Shystee writes:

The power of social networks fails only when the networks are broken.

This is a proposition that can be proved, using metrics. Is it true? I'm not so sure. I'm not sure that a federated system of social networks would not be more powerful -- for some notion of power -- than a single one. It seems to me that there is more likely to be a variety of voices in a federated system. Or, to put this another way, and play the ol' reductio ad absurdum card, if that proposition is true, shouldn't everybody just join Kos? Why not?

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

You chose the candidate who threatened Iran with obliteration.

As much as you would like...

helps to reinforce the point.

I You just don’t get it.

I’ve argued politics for over thirty years and never seen anything like what the Obots have said to me.

Aside from the self-defeating silliness of this complaint, it's just hard to credit. In the upshot to the Iraq war, those of us who opposed it were called traitors, cowards, jihadis, appeasers, perverts, "faggots", and so on. We were threatened with arrest, murder, incarceration, public hanging, and so on. Where were you?

The candidate who spectacularly failed at health care reform once and who promises another head on charge into Big Pharma’s guns.

Oborg troll accidentally tell truth - Obama not going fight for health care reform!

-------------------------------------------------

" . . . we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender . . ."- Winston Churchill

And if you think I won't vote for a third party candidate or stay home just to spite you and other trolls like you, you are very wrong. Because as I see it, Obama could send a message to his troops to stop this nonsense. That he won't tells me that he approves of folks lying and insulting me and my intelligence. Not exactly a sign he's going to look after my interests in the White House.

And please tell me if Obama has this thing sown up, why you feel the need to continue to bash Hillary Clinton? Is it because beating her has always been more important to you than beating McCain. Because you aren't helping Obama beat McCain with this shit.

Obama needs me and if he doesn't ask me for my vote, he isn't getting it. He has almost six months, but I think we'll check today off the calendar as a lost day because between the continued Clinton trashing and the giant Bushian fuck you to voters his campaign sent out earlier today, I'm not in the mood to be unified.

Protesting. I don't recall seeing you there.

As for the term "Obot," I may be a liberal but I'm not a pacificist.

--------------------------------------------------
" . . . we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender . . ."- Winston Churchill

And if you think I won’t vote for a third party candidate or stay home just to spite you and other trolls like you, you are very wrong.

There you go.

The petty part was meant to be snark, aimed at trying to tell you and people like you are part of my problem with Obama. Because it goes directly to what kind of campaign he has run. As I noted, I believe Obama could knock this shit off. But he hasn't. This is the kind of campaign Obama has run and I hold him responsible for that. What kind of message does that send me about what kind of voice I'm going to have if Obama is president? And with Obama, I don't just get him, I get his supporters taking over the power structure of the democratic party. Forgive me if I don't want to spend the next six months (or four years if Obama pulls off some sort of miracle in November) being told to go fuck myself by my fellow democrats as a way of trying to convince me what a wonderful guy Barack Obama is. I will not be bullied into voting for him or anyone else. If he wants my vote, he has to ask for it.

Yeah, it's hard to believe that I don't feel the unity:

I just received an e-mail from a friend who is a Clinton delegate to the state convention. She was invited to attend a Democracy for Texas meeting to discuss the platform for the state convention and plans for the national convention.

Here are part of her comments:

"When I arrived there were about 60 Obama delegates. I was the only Hillary delegate. By the time the meeting started at almost 7:00....there were over 130 Obama people and 2 Hillary people. The Obama people were less than friendly and in fact when I spoke to one lady, she looked at my button and said, "oh, I can't talk to you......you're Hillary." Then this man standing next to her said, "yeah, but we'll talk to you in a couple of months." I responded, "wow, I thought we were all democrats."

"This was without a doubt the most degrading experience I have ever had in 25 years of political experience. I am totally astounded of this behavior, not to mention highly disappointed with the disrespectful treatment. I was totally ostracized because I was Hillary.This type behavior will not easily win them our votes in November or for that matter support at the national convention. They need to get the "big picture" here."

"I am a die hard democrat and have worked tirelessly for 25 years for democrats. I have never in my life seen anything like this behavior. I know if the situation were reversed the Hillary people would have welcomed everyone, not just the like minded. All I could think about was Ann Richards and how disappointed she would be in democrats acting so rude."

You chose the candidate who threatened Iran with obliteration

Who Obama agreed with.

The candidate who voted for the Authorization to Use Military Force Against Iraq

That Hans Blix agreed with.

The candidate who in a last desperate grab for the nomination endorsed another Republican tax giveaway that would drive up gasoline usage and thus prices, greenhouse gas emissions, and the national debt.

The gas tax holiday worked for Clinton, despite your screaming, undecideds broke for her again. Gasoline usage will not go up considerably b/c gas is 18 cents cheaper, and it is a short term proposal, and will not do anything you say it will do, no matter how loud you scream it.

The candidate who supported the flag burning amendment.

But didn't VOTE for it.

The candidate who lobbied House reps for NAFTA.

Because her husband asked her to, even though she didn't agree with it.

The candidate who spectacularly failed at health care reform once

Um, no she didn't

she’s lost the base of the party,

No candidate has ever won the White House without the working class, and that is the base of the Democratic party, going back to FDR.

as she competes with McSame for the NRA gun nut and the easily fearmongered, wide awake at 3am vote.

Every voter deserves a candidate who speaks to them, and unfortunately for Obama, that candidate will be McCain, but please continue insulting voters, that's what helped Obama almost get the nomination, I'm sure it will work in the general too.

Your candidate is the one who has never faced serious ballot opposition, and doesn't know how to win, unlike Clinton.

Your candidate is the one who voted to remove class actions lawsuits from federal courts, unlike Clinton.

Your candidate is the one who voted against capping credit card interest rates, unlike Clinton.

And that's just the beginning.

Bill Clinton for First Dude!!!

your analysis is spot fucking on. anyone who doesn't see this fails to appreciate the true nature of this fight as it has unfolded.

"Obama intentionally and explicitly discards the FDR coalition which is the foundation of the Democratic party. Namely, he is a 3rd party candidate that is in the midst of a hostile take over of the Democratic party."

that's it. It's simple and easy.

If he doesn't know or care what Democrats are and what we stand for--and against--all his supporters can start "a conversation" him, since he really really really really really needs it.

Here's 2 really basic and important points--we are proud partisans, and won't unify with those who intentionally hurt us and the country.

He could publicly acknowledge and sincerely apologize to Mrs. Clinton and her supporters for giving her the finger, flipping her the bird -- whatever cutsie-pie name given but in my neighborhood means "fuck you."

If whoever tries to tell me he didn't, well, then -- fuck them, too.

If whoever tries to tell me that's setting the bar too high, I can't really expect that -- well then -- fuck them, too.

If whoever tries to tell me "Fuck you" -- well then -- "That's politics -- win some, lose some. Later, dude."

This is abuse, to get the crap beat out of you then being asked to forgive the abuser, ooohbabybabybaby, let me make it up to you. You like olive branches, how about a gold olive branch....a diamond olive branch? How about the branch I just whipped you with....

Ask any 12-stepper, and they will tell you it's the other way around, as in steps 8 & 9. That's how people have to earn back trust and respect. If you watched the brilliant The Wire, that gave an accurate and profoundly poignant revelation of the only way back, in the character of Bubbles.

What do they not understood about campaigning with a torched-earth policy -- that the bridges aren't burned, too? Personally, it's not that I feel unwanted, I am unwanted, and that's okay. Just don't bullshit me about the bullshit. It's just the icing on Obama's, argh, crappy piece of cake he wants to treat me to.

If they're starting an enemy's list early, with his Pyrrhic victory in hand, I'd be proud to be at the top of it, because at this point, to support Obama I would have to betray my better self. He's not a man capable of having an equal relationship, he's like a child with no boundaries, just limitless self-regard.

I have to stop, this way lies insanity. Let them figure out what it takes. I'm tired of doing all the work.

The petty part was meant to be snark, aimed at trying to tell you and people like you are part of my problem with Obama. Because it goes directly to what kind of campaign he has run. As I noted, I believe Obama could knock this shit off.

Here's the sad reality: I don't work for Obama, he does not direct my words. I'm sure if he did, I would be told to be more politic and nice. But since he does not, I am free to tell you that you are behaving in an idiotic and childish manner and that if your concept of civic virtue depends on having everyone kiss your ass, you should grow up.

"maybe it’s just because of my own pro-obama biases, but it seems to me the jerkiness expressed by both sides has been a little different. if i can over-generalize, my impression is that when the pro-obama side is jerky they insult hillary clinton, but when the pro-clinton side is jerky they insult obama supporters."

Yes, I do believe you have your Obama-colored glasses on.

I have had to quit going to many top-tier blogs because I've personally been called an idiot, a post-menopausal old hag, a war-monger, a racist, a bitch, a cunt, a low-information voter, and on and on.

Don't you read blog comments? Why do you think the blogs have driven off women? Is it because we get our feelings hurt when you criticize Clinton?

He could publicly acknowledge and sincerely apologize to Mrs. Clinton and her supporters for giving her the finger, flipping her the bird — whatever cutsie-pie name given but in my neighborhood means “fuck you.”

Right, because nothing is more important than your hurt feelings. Just makes you want to lie on the ground and kick your feet, the way you've been disrespected.

You chose the candidate who threatened Iran with obliteration.

This is Obot logic. Leave out the key fact ("threatened Iran with obliteration if they attack another country with nuclear weapons") and then act if Clinton is some insane war-monger.

I don't have the slightest fucking problem with saying that there will be massive retaliation on any nation that uses a nuclear weapon to attack another nation.

None whatsover.

Just as I have no fucking problem telling Markg to go fuck himself, if he thinks he can get away with this kind of crap with me.

Don’t you read blog comments? Why do you think the blogs have driven off women? Is it because we get our feelings hurt when you criticize Clinton?

I also read blog posts. It's a big reason I haven't been here in months. The vitriol here at Corrente is as bad or worse than anywhere else on the net. The door swings both ways.

this link.

The one right, here?

Because if you did, and just didn't read it so you can continue to blame H. Clinton for the failure of healthcare, you want to remain ignorant.

And we call people who choose to remain ignorant, stupid.

The vitriol here at Corrente is as bad or worse than anywhere else on the net.

Only because your a guy. Trust me, if you were a women, you wouldn't say that, see here. And that's only from the MSM, and we blogs have taken pride in the fact that we aren't as "respectful" as the MSM, remember?

Bill Clinton for First Dude!!!

Forget about all this sweet talk coming from some Obama supporters. The "why can't we all get along? bullshit".
This is what they really think (I have to post this in it's entirety, because I know it will get deleted soon. Can't have Obama supporters revealing their true selves right now).
==================

1% Clinton Dead Enders Not Welcomed With Me
by bigdavefromqueens, Thu May 08, 2008 at 11:30:33 AM EST

Barack Obama would disagree with me on this point but I will speak for myself, although I am sure millions of others would concur with me.

The 1% Clinton Dead Enders, yes you Karen, Susan and Larry, are NOT WELCOME in the Democratic Party. Your constant lying, swiftboating, and disingenuousness has been thoroughly exposed for several months (and you helped your preferred candidate lose because of it) and you bitter Kool Aid Cultists can go hide in a basement with Taylor Marsh.

Had you Kool Aid cultists had any brains and any decency, you would have stopped your crap long ago. But now you continue with your Obama bashing even after the race effectively ended Tuesday night. (Yes Hillary has the right to stay in but math is math.)

We face serious problems in this country, from the makeup of the Supreme Court to the economy to gas prices to health care to foreign policy, etc... and John McBush is on the wrong side of the American people on each of these issues.

I and others have no problem with more than 90% of Hillary's supporters. I can probably go back online to comments and diaries I've written and found over 100 times that I have said something positive about Hillary Clinton. I recognize that most of her voters are good people who believe that both Obama and Clinton would make excellent Presidents but that they, in good faith, believed HIllary would be the better choice. I do not criticize these 90 percenters nor will I.

It's the Kool Aid Cultists and liars I am calling out. Get lost. We'll win by double digits without you as we attract tens of millions of new voters in the place of the few of you. For decades people have been turned off as the likes of Susan, Karen, and Larry have been too prominent in our party. (not you 3 specifically but the likes of you such as Bob Shrum, Mark Penn, Harold Ford, Joe Lieberman, etc...) It is your ilk that made the Democratic party a minority party for way too long. And by getting rid of your ilk, Democrats will become the majority party for decades to come.

UPDATE - Isn't it funny that I compliment a minimum of 90% of Hillary's voters, don't say a bad word about Hillary herself, and the 1%ers are livid? You 1 percenters are not representative of most Hillary supporters.

http://mydd.com/story/2008/5/8/113033/0950

the idiots over at Sadly, No attacked Lambert for telling them it wasn't his job to explain to them how to get his support for Obama.

So I explained that Lambert was right, and that calling him a "cop out" wasn't the way to get his support. And I offered a suggestion, which boiled down to this...

Get Obama to use his position as "presumptive nominee" to stop telecom immunity.

And I get attacked for it.

In some ways, I'm glad that Clinton isn't the presumptive nominee -- can you imagine trying to convince people this crazy to support Clinton?

You should write a book and call it...

The Life and Death of An Olive Branch: How to win the fight but lose the war, by turning your opponents into whimpering sycophants

[Subtext: Here, I'm offering you a gift. But I don't want it. Why you stupid bitch.]

I get it already! So stop with the abuse.

and Hillary voters=absolutely essential for any victory in November.

This is about destroying the Clinton branch of the democratic party. Always has been.

I have had to quit going to many top-tier blogs because I’ve personally been called an idiot, a post-menopausal old hag, a war-monger, a racist, a bitch, a cunt, a low-information voter, and on and on.

and as i said above, i was over-generalizing.

the point is that i have been called nasty names on pro-clinton sites (including this one) after i identified myself as an obama supporter.

i am truly sorry about what happened to you on those top-tier sites, but frankly, i don't think it's reasonable to attribute the asshole commentators on a web site to an entire campaign. i don't hold the fact that i have been called a "slum monkey", a "cultist", a "robot" and a "woman-hating misogynist" against the clinton campaign or its supporters in general because i recognize that to do so would be irrational.

that's what i'm saying. i just don't think corrente regulars realize just how nasty the comments that regularly appear here are, at least when seen from the outside.

No way to prove it, but given the corruption in the DOJ, an Obama indictment could be waiting in the wings, ready to rear its ugly head just before the election. I've asked for comment on the idea, especially to Glenn G., but it hasn't been addressed. Obama's vulnerability has me spooked, and has influenced my decision to back Hillary. That, and of course Obama being an empty suit.

i just don’t think corrente regulars realize just how nasty

I'm just not sure I qualify as a regular [medium cream, 1 spoon of sugar?], but I do just realize that's just what you're saying.

What I just don't realize is -- just what is it you are really just trying to say? [It's okay if you just stop thinking and sound just a little irrational, btw.]

Question to fellow regulars: Who let the puppies in to nibble us to death?

I'd hoped to tend to RL today, because posting 'til 4AM in the morning on primary day hits me harder than I used to. Good thing I can bill Hillary for it!

I'm also wondering about the binary opposition of Good and Bad, and thinking that a Good, Bad, and Ugly structure might be more appropriate.... Because online interaction is well known to produce its own kinds of ugliness, regardless of the subject matter at hand.

One positive outcome: There is -- I was about to write "we have" -- a campaign critique, much in the same way that there used to be a media critique. This post might be considered the first attempt at it. New analytical tools are always good.

And as far as Shystee's answer to D. Aristophane's question:

don’t be jerks about it. That and more progressive policy positions.

Yet plus ca change.

All that said, olive branches are always to be encouraged, so I'd like to respond to the "good" and "bad" sections in Shystee's original post (and maybe come back to the rest of the thread later).

The good
I note with relief that I can now grandfather the cult permathread back to this post. Our perception is reality-based. About time.

The bad
First, let me note two "bad" things that have nothing to do with the reasons that VastLeft and I have for being "bad" and posting as we have been doing -- the subject of this post -- but have everything to do with the state of the blogosphere, the social network that Shystee is rightly concerned to restore.

So, for bad contexts:

(a) The destruction of the media critique. Eric Boehlert commented at Eschacon, to by no means universal applause:

What’s happening online now is potentially dangerous: HRC has gotten dreadful press, not fair, “gotcha,” and so on — there’s a portion of the blogosphere that has ignored that and there’s a portion that has encouraged that.

It’s dangerous because the media criticism has to be consistent and relentless, and we can’t very well say, “You can’t go after our candidates … except this one.” I get nervous about pushback regarding disingenuous coverage - our response needs to be, “You can’t treat Democrats this way.” When people in the left blogosphere are quoting an anonymous Matt Drudge source, it makes me nervous.

So, it's very, very bad that what Boehlert refers to as "the left blogosphere" has managed to destroy a key weapon against McCain -- at the very time that they are pleading for Unity against McCain. I never, never thought that the time would come when a "doctored" video, that attacked Clinton associates as racist, would go up on pro-Obama A list blogs, with no transcript and no provenance, go viral right before the IN primary, and then, after being proved false, we get the very mildest of retractions, and no effort to inquire further. I remember when I got p0wned by the right wing on the Coptix matter, spending a day writing an extended critique to explain what happened to readers, and apologizing. Yet from the A list? Even our famously free press? *** crickets *** This isn't a blemish. It's a cancer.

(b) The purge at Kos. Daily Kos was purged of [not Obama] supporters. Kos welcomed the development; Kos sysadmins enabled it (note the screenshot at the link). As a result, the social network at Kos was ripped; some readers went to TalkLeft; others to RiverDaughter; others came here; that's why our numbers are up and we have a number of new contributors. (I'm sure that I'm sure that others dropped out entirely. And Kos was not a pleasant place for a Hillary supporter to be, before that, which qualifies as the understatement of the millenium.

Context set, we now proceed to the "bad" reasons that VastLeft and I have for posting as we do:

- once you become an advocate for one side in this debate, or any debate, you ignore evidence that makes your side look bad and exaggerate evidence that makes your side look good.

As far as advocacy: Polemic is polemic. (It's a well-recognized literary form, from the Greek word polemikos (?????????) which means "warlike", "hostile.") And there's a lot of it going around in the blogosphere; if people want a Neutral Point of View, they can read WikiPedia. Now, I've written plenty of well-received analytical (not polemic) posts. And I'm not sure why Doctor A extended the olive branch, but if it was a post that did the trick, as opposed to where we are in the state of the campaign -- [snark] "Hey, we may not want you guys, but we do need you" [/snark] -- then it wasn't an analytical post that did the job, but a seriously polemic one. Interesting result.

As far as Evidence: I have yet to see "my" "side" release a doctored video as evidence. That's a little bit beyond exaggeration, yes? Meaning that there's a larger context here.

As Boehlert says, when he points out the loss of the media critique, our famously free press and some of A list have either "ignored" or "encouraged" biased coverage of -- let me name the candidate, which Boehlert is too tactful to do -- Obama. I, and a few other blogs, have attempted to redress that balance; you might think of this as a missing media critique for the blogosphere; that's why many of these posts are filed under that department.

So, I find the argument that I, personally, in my own writing, should maintain a balance that virtually nobody around me is maintaining more than a little odd. Where is it written that I have an affirmative duty to make the case for a cause or a candidate I oppose? Personally, I think bringing a degree of a balance to the network deserves praise rather than censure. And there's one very easy way that anyone can get me to write what exactly what they want, in the style they prefer (though not here): Send me a check.

Finally, if "balance" is the goal, there are plenty of other places to go for balance: Daily Howler is always great, there are explicitly moderate blogs, like the Moderate Voice, and there are neutral, intact blogs like Sideshow. There's no shortage of voices at all.

The second level of "badness":

- using the weapons honed by fighting the Right Wing during the Bush Years: rhetoric, invective, ridicule, parody against other progressives/liberals or whatever you want to call them

First, words are, in many ways, tools. They get stuff done. I'm not clear why, when everyone uses them, these tools are "bad."

Second, as far as my "bad" use of "all the tricks" of rhetoric, invective, ridicule, parody, I plead guilty -- and say to those who would have me "down tools" "You first!" The $30/ramen noodles post that seems to have struck a nerve with so many people was itself a response to a post on Kos by a fully-paid-up, self-identified creative class member against Hillary, using the exact same tools. May I suggest that addressing this issue on the A list, and with writers far more powerful than I, might be a more effective way of cleaning up the discourse? Why should I not push back against someone with a far more powerful megaphone than I have, playing by exactly the same rules?

Third, there are two massive lacuna in this second point. I am not the person, nor is this blog the blog, nor are Hillary supporters the suporters, nor is the Hillary campaign the campaign, that leveraged the most vile forms of sexism and misogny for political gain -- all the way from repeating everything the wingers threw at the Clintons in the 90s up to the "dry pussy" demographic we were given the pleasure of discovering recently. (Shakespeare's Sister is keeping a list; I think it's up to 87.) And the same goes for baseless charges of racism. These are not tools honed by us to use against wingers; these are tools honed by Republicans to use against us -- well, "us," since in this primary, they were used by Democrats against Democrats. Now, if Hillary supporters had not been purged from Kos, it might have been possible to address these issues there -- assuming that we weren't shouted down -- but that wasn't possible. So pushback happened here.

And if I wanted to play the game in the same way, and really go tit for tat, and take the low road as low as it could go, I could have; anyone who knows my ouevre and thinks for two seconds about the ways Obama could be attacked can readily imagine the subject matter and the techniques I would use, how hard I would have worked to put them across, and, with my track record, how successfully they would have propagated. Taylor Marsh and Larry Johnson wouldn't have been the half of it. All things considered, I think I was, if anything, gentle. And certainly fair.

To Shystee's final point:

What is much more important is for the supporter networks and campaign operations to come together. ... GWB has proven there is a big difference between D and GOP, regardless of how fucked up both parties are.

As for the implied "should," here, sure: I'll work for the Ds by looking at downticket races and studying up on Universal Health Care, with the help of our excellent new, non-pie fight series from one of our new contributors, DCblogger's Single Payer Advocate.

Second, I don't know what's meant, operationally, by "supporter networks and campaign operations to come together." A single network?

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Quickly and partially:

the whole “cultist” thing, lamberts habit of respinning the position of anyone who believes that clinton has effectively lost as saying “why won’t the bitch drop out” (thus insulting the obama supporter by calling them sexist, and minimizing the very real sexism that clinton gets thrown at her all the time),

1. Cultist is grandfathered to Shystee's original post; it's "reality based." That doesn't that you need to agree with it, but it does mean that that you need to respect our perceptions and and experience of it (For myself, my preferred term is Obama Fan Base, not "cult.")

2. "Why won't that stupid bitch quit?" is irony; Hillary supporters understand and accept that, which is why they use it. They don't feel that it minimizes the sexism at all, which is why they use it. Yes, it's reframing the constant drumbeat of Obama supporters for Hillary to quit in a way that calls bullshit on the pervasive misogny in the Obama campaign, which is the real problem.

3. "i simply can’t stop some random person with an obama button acting like a dickhead." I understand. But. On Kos, for example, the Obama supporters could have cleaned up the misogyny, for example. They didn't. So that's an example of assholery happening en masse that couldn't "be stopped." For whatever reason.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

I'd sure as hell like to see an end to the attempts at terrorizing women to vote for Obama because OMG THE SUPREME COURT ROE V. WADE WHERE ELSE ARE YOU GONNA GO?

Last I checked, Democrats controlled the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"I have had to quit going to many top-tier blogs because I’ve personally been called an idiot, a post-menopausal old hag, a war-monger, a racist, a bitch, a cunt, a low-information voter, and on and on."
(wasabi post)
---------------------------------------
It may be my glasses, but I don't see this kind of hatred directed at Obama supporters. Being called naive or cultist just doesn't reach that same low standard.

It was an eye-opener for me to be on the receiving end of this stuff - from fellow "progressives."
Just because the Obama campaign has defined itself as "new politics" and "positive" doesn't make it so. Wouldn't that show up in the "movement"?
I'd really have been impressed if I found a different tone from the pro-Obama blogs. That would have been attractive to me.
My daughter told me she was for Obama and because of that I really wanted to take a look at him. I went to my favorite blogs to find some discussion on his policy points, etc. The policies seemed in many ways to be similar so I wanted to hear about why people were Pro-Obama. What I found was not in any way convincing evidence of "new politics".

I had the same experience as wasabi.

I will vote for the Democrat in November. If that happens to be Obama, oh, well. But my vote will be for "Democrat for President."

Stop the trollishness or I'll delete your account.

If we've got an olive branch and a good post from Shystee, lets use it.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Who knew?

If the US was to obliterate Iran with nuclear weapons we would not only murder 75 million likely innocent Iranians we would also kill untold hundreds of millions of other people in the ME who don't much like Iran either.

But that's just the namby pamby, liberal, kumbaya Obamafan part of me talking, my conscience. I've noticed you don't have one so I'll move on to a more pragmatic argument you may understand.

Iran sits on the third or fourth largest pot of oil in the world depending on who you believe. Right next door is Iraq with the second largest. Right across the Strait of Hormuz sits Saudi Arabia on the largest pot. All in all 40% of the world's known oil reserves are in the neighborhood.

If we were to nuke Iran, besides killing hundreds of millions of innocent people we would irradiate that 40% of the world's known oil reserves, the lifeblood of industrial civilization for years to come. That would plunge most of the world and specifically the USA into a new dark age. The US has 2% of the world's known oil reserves. We use 25% of the world's oil. We import over 60% of our oil now, mostly from countries that don't like us much and would consider us genocidal monsters after such an attack. But regardless of their feelings the oil supplying nations left would have to immediately cut us off for their own self preservation. It would be surprising if every other government in the world didn't help them enforce the embargo for their own preservation's sake too. Given the choice Europe, Asia Africa and South America would rather see us grind to a halt and freeze in the dark than suffer the same fate themselves.

We've had 8 years of that kind of irresponsible "obliteration" talk from the Doug Feith, Daniel Pipe and Dick Cheney wing of the Republican party.

The last thing we need is hearing it from a Dem candidate for president who apparently needed millions more in campaign contributions quickly from her AIPAC sponsors to stay afloat in PA when she said it.

Paul you may not have a problem with it but then I guess you fit the low info profile of her supporters. Those of us who give a damn about this planet, our country, and yes, even Israel are appalled by this kind of reckless talk.

Post that comment.

What I just don’t realize is — just what is it you are really just trying to say? [It’s okay if you just stop thinking and sound just a little irrational, btw.]

what do you mean? i am trying to say what i am saying: that there are nasty people on both sides of the clinton-obama divide, that it is not rational to take nasty comments by people on a web site and attribute it to the campaign supported by that web site, that many obama supporters are quite different from how they are regularly portrayed here, that if you're looking for obama supporters to be jerks there are enough of them out there to always find plenty of jerky obama people--and that non-jerk obama supporters can do nothing to control the assholes among us and should not be held responsible for them.

i think that's it.

Let's try to use "Obama supporters," just in this thread. I didn't use OFB, so let's try to leverage the olive branch. We'll have plenty of other opportunities for biting and bottles...

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

like to acknowledge that he's exaggerating Clinton's position?

Or not?

acknowledge that Obama smeared the Clinton's as racists?

acknowledge that Obama started this all off with 'D-Punjab'?

Let us see if we can find a starting point from which to begin this 'healing'.

Somebody's gonna have to give.

Upyernoze writes:

What it is not rational to take nasty comments by people on a web site and attribute it to the campaign supported by that web site

It is when the nastiness is pervasive enough and forms a pattern. We can't, on the one hand, praise the Obama campaign, as we do, for its grassroots, bottom up character, and its innovations online, and then ignore pervasive sexism and Hillary hatred, bottom up, online, by those same roots.

You can't run a campaign based on "We are the ones we have been waiting for" and then ignore how the "we" behave, right?

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Lambert, that sacbee article is no proof that the Obama campaign is a "cult". All the language you delicate, wilting flowers object to are the reporter's characterizations, not quotes from Obama campaign workers. But then, I expect no better from a lying hack.

“i simply can’t stop some random person with an obama button acting like a dickhead.” I understand. But. On Kos, for example, the Obama supporters could have cleaned up the misogyny, for example. They didn’t. So that’s an example of assholery happening en masse that couldn’t “be stopped.” For whatever reason.

maybe the asshole with a obama button that i was referring to was markos. it's not like this is the first time that the site has been on the wrong side of issues involving women.

but my point still remains. most obama supporters are not misogynist just like most clinton supporters aren't racist. for some reason whenever i try to note that the bad conduct of random partisans on the internet is an irrational way to choose a candidate, the response is: yeah but what about X!!! where X= misogynistic comments on some obama site and X= racist comments on some clinton site.

i submit that most clinton and obama supporters are neither sexist nor racists. we are, in the end, ultimately on the same side on virtually every substantive issue. and yet so many clinton supporters are convinced that misogyny is rampant in the obama campaign and so many obama supporters are convinced that racisim is rampant in the clinton campaign. sure, there are sexist and racists on each side. i just think it's time to stop judging each other by the most extreme nutbags you can find in each other's comments.

upyernoz: many obama supporters are quite different from how they are regularly portrayed here

Groan, I'm so tired.

Lambert, if I throw some coin atcha, do I have to re register from scratch to change my name to "olddog"? ;-)

Seriously, where can we support you -- er, when I'm feeling a little flush, that is -- all my allowance is tied up in Clinton, real change I can hope for.

because he agrees with Clinton's position on Iran.

But, feel free to try again.

Bill Clinton for First Dude!!!

I've already posted my "pie fight" swan song, so I'm not going to indulge in a spirited defense of my reputation in the pre-post-mortem.

I've written what I thought is the truth, and I've written what I thought matters. So it goes.

I will now bask in the olive-scented (and not at all Kool-Aid-smelling) feel-good vibes coming from the triumphant yet humble Obamaites:

In terms of the 'Iron Law of Institutions', the Obama campaign is masterful. From top to bottom, they have destroyed their opponents within the party, stolen out from under them their base, and persuaded a whole set of individuals from blog readers to people in the pews to ignore intermediaries and believe in Barack as a pure vessel of change.

Now, I think it’s a tragic irony that the Obama campaign trained its people in such a manner as to be indistinguishable from cultists, but that they did is not my problem. You would be well advised to look in the mirror on this one.

this bears little relationship to the obama campaign i have seen, worked for, attended events with, etc. i realize there's nothing i can say to convince you that your perception is inaccurate, but it is worth noting that you'll never convince anyone with this strategy.

i realize there’s nothing i can say to convince you that your perception is inaccurate, but it is worth noting that you’ll never convince anyone with this strategy.

Concern duly noted.

As they say, YMMV. I submit as exhibits A and B, Daily Kos and Democratic Underground. Exhibit C would include the comments sections of many otherwise fine blogs. The assholery of Obama-infalliblity/Hillary-inhumanity believers has simply blown out the half of the party that prefers Hillary.

So, they've become refugees at a smattering of C-list blogs like this one, where they are welcome to defend Hillary and criticize Obama. They are welcome to do the latter as well -- unfortunately, they only seem to be represented here by trollish sorts like the one's we've seen upstream.

I wish to heck that the pro-Obama folks among the Corrente regulars had been more active during these months -- debating us when they think we're wrong, and putting forth their own perspectives. It's a blessing whenever Leah weighs in, and I wish we'd heard more from her throughout.

My posts are, like the warning label says, boldly shrill. But I salute those who come to make a fair argument. We haven't seen enough of them here, and when I do venture out into spots like DU, all I see are posts about what a Rovian Racist Republican Hitlery is. Because I didn't want an argument. I wanted a good argument.

Have you not experienced any of this "thrill up my leg," "magic water," "Obama is the vessel of hope" stuff? The fratboy/Scientologist bullying on DailyKos that ended with Hillary officially losing her right to fair treatment?

Where ya been?

http://obamamessiah.blogspot.com/

Lambert, so after all of this time, the best you can come up with is 1) an appeal to authority (shystee, are you an authority on cults?) and 2) a paranoid and profoundly weird belief about Obama supporters? You didn't realize Obama supporters were proffering conversion narratives until some jagoff reporter from the Sacramento Bee called it that. Now that he has, you see a trained Obama monkey behind every rock (the daily kos is teeming with them!).

By the way, were you being ironic when, within the span of 30 minutes, you complained about the purge at Kos and then threatened to ban rootless?

i submit that most clinton and obama supporters are neither sexist nor racists. we are, in the end, ultimately on the same side on virtually every substantive issue. and yet so many clinton supporters are convinced that misogyny is rampant in the obama campaign and so many obama supporters are convinced that racisim is rampant in the clinton campaign. sure, there are sexist and racists on each side.

People here have repeatedly given you examples of misogyny by Obama supporters. I'll add my own:

I am a 48 year old grandfather. In comment threads I have had total strangers assume I am female because I support Hillary. These males (I won't say "men") begin replies with "listen honey," "sweetheart" or "babe" which never happened to me before. I could give numerous more examples, but the common element is condescension based on their mistaken belief in my gender. Others weren't condescending, they were insulting. I've seen the misogyny.

What I have yet to see is any valid evidence of racism on the part of the Clintons or their supporters. None.

It reminds me of the 2006 elections. Every time the GOP got busted in a scandal or committing dirty tricks, the media would proclaim "both sides are equally guilty." But they never gave any examples of the Democrats doing those things.

-----------------------------------------------
" . . . we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender . . ."- Winston Churchill

[deleted response, which was so obvious there's really no point making it.]

Back to the olive branches! I don't know why I even bothered to respond the first time.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

We haven’t seen enough of them here, and when I do venture out into spots like DU

then why go to sites like DU and daily kos? i don't anymore, and i'm an obama supporter! (though, admittedly, those two sites lost me pre-primary season. but the primary has definitely changed my reading habits). likewise, there are a handful of sites that are pro-clinton and which have gone absolutely nuts (IMHO, of course), so i stopped reading them too. it's not so much their position on the primary as the fact that they revealed that they are run by crazy people.

i mean, if there are crazy pro-obama sites and non-crazy pro-obama sites, why judge the entire campaign on the former? or maybe you doubt the existence of the latter? at least you're not dismissing leah...

Have you not experienced any of this “thrill up my leg,” “magic water,” “Obama is the vessel of hope” stuff?

no, i haven't. and, honestly, i don't know any actual obama supporters who are like that. i mean, one of my friends is co-chair of the local obama campaign and we recently had a serious discussion about the problems with obama's health plan. as i've said before, the way that the obama campaign and its supporters are regularly portrayed here bears no resemblance to my experience and the experience of a lot of other people.

which is why the obama-as-cultist thing is so weird. some of the people here don't seem to be able to distinguish a joke from reality. if you're going to decide that obama supporters are mostly brainwashed youngsters, i certainly can't stop you. but you're not addressing the actual reasons why real flesh and blood people might choose to support obama over clinton. and, in the end, that means that you're doing nothing but preach to an increasingly marginalized choir here.

maybe that's okay with you. maybe you're not trying to engage in a debate about the issues of the day, but would rather belittle people who disagree with you and, in the process, inadvertently minimize the sexist media but blurring the line between sarcasm ("why won't the bitch drop out") and very real misogyny. and, of course, i expect to be called a "concerned troll" or whatever. but the bottom line is that this is a real obama supporter who is trying to reach out to you and take you seriously. instead what i usually get is a bunch of rude and non-substantive responses, interspersed with stories about how badly clinton supporters were treated elsewhere.

upyernoz: some of the people here don’t seem to be able to distinguish a joke from reality.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, surely you jest. Now let go my leg.

"…what do Obama and his supporters need to do today to get you into this car?"

Or does that sound a little creepy?

" . . . we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender . . ."- Winston Churchill

http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/9403.htm...

DA, I saw the question in your update. I've made the case for my Obama skepticism in my (I expect) swan song from posting about Hillary vs. Obama.

Your claim that we think Hillary is perfect is nothin' but a straw man. In fact, when I endorsed Hillary, it was with a belief that Obama might be a little better than she is on policy, though recent weeks have convinced me otherwise, but only by a little. They're both centrists, and their voting records aren't all that different.

But their framing and their campaign tactics have been markedly different, and that says a lot to me about character and about how they'll move hearts and minds to reclaim this country. I like what Hillary's been putting out there a whole lot better. It's not perfection by a longshot, but I get from her respect for the reasons I've been a lifetime Democrat, and from Obama I get disregard, condescension, and a fundamental denial of today's political realities. I'm well aware that there are scads of people who are convinced that Hillary is the low-blow artist, yadda yadda yadda, but I'd rather trust my lyin' eyes, and those eyes are horrified at -- among other things -- the Obama camp's masterfully orchestrated racism smear that has, it seems, successfully taken the Clintons down.

If you genuinely seek to understand what the likes of me think, please read the linked posts and reflect on the fact that a lot of good progressives feel this way, and most of us (as best I can tell) did not start this race as Hillary partisans.

I have pledged my vote to Barack Obama. I profoundly hope he whips McCain in November and proves me wrong for being a skeptic. I've always thought this was a "change year," and that most any Democrat will win.

What I've heard from Obama about "change" and "hope" and "unity" seems like a bunch of empty feelgood malarkey that's making a new generation of voters (and some older ones, too) take their eye off the ball -- and become pretty hostile to those who aren't buying this fewfangled faithiness.

Maybe he'll be so awesome that all that will be a happily forgotten memory before too long. Let us, y'know, hope....

"some of the people here don’t seem to be able to distinguish a joke from reality."

That's the kind of thing bullies say when they're caught.

"I was just joking."

" . . . we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender . . ."- Winston Churchill

I like what you have to say, Dr S, with two caveats:

1. I've lost at least one friendship at the local level over this campaign. Like others, the Obama guy was doing the sceaming. So, what do I do in the foodbank? Not that I have any Hillary stickers, but if I had one, should I take it off?

2. I think that the Obama Fellows program means that we're looking at a new, permanent presence. Look at the attitudes expressed in this post, and imagine how they will play out at a local level...

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

I was a longtime regular contributor and financial donor to DU and was beginning to post on Kos when the purge happened.

I was also a regular commenter on several blogs I don't want to dis here, but which also have become unreadable in the comments threads due to belligerent pro-Obama / Hillary-hating groupthink.

Sure, if you ignore the massive waves of brutish behavior that have made essential parts of the pro-Dem community inhospitable to people with dissenting opinion -- and its analogs in real life with people who didn't want to talk to me anymore because I wasn't on the Obamawagon (others have told me similar stories) -- there is no problem with cultish behavior going on. So, definitely, you get the win!

This is a place where will discuss rational differences between the candidates to our heart's content. Why don't you engage us on that, instead of lecturing us on our crassness and shrillness. Being crass and shrill is what the blogs were all about, until Obama came along.

Bill Clinton for First Dude!!!

Your kool-aid is coming. Resistance is futile, you will worship and lie for him. Now if you either write glowing profiles in courage about Obama or just be quiet, you can have your password back , so says Lord Kos himself.

: Snark alert :

A little content or links with the snark would be appreciated.

The possibility I could ever support or even not oppose Obama disappeared when he participated in smearing the Clintons as racists.

In any case, the leopard does not change his spots, and both Obamas, BO and MO, are too selfish and unprincipled to belong in the White House. Disloyal as well, witness the badmouthing anger and disrespect toward Rev. Wright, who, whatever else he may be, is the guy who launched BO's political career.

Horselover Fat

Boy is there egg on your face.

You must be embarrassed to have left off the context:

"ABC News' Chris Cuomo asked Clinton what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons."

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Vote2008/story?...

You are embarrassed, right?

And if I wanted to play the game in the same way, and really go tit for tat, and take the low road as low as it could go, I could have; anyone who knows my ouevre and thinks for two seconds about the ways Obama could be attacked can readily imagine the subject matter and the techniques I would use, how hard I would have worked to put them across, and, with my track record, how successfully they would have propagated.

I've just been struck with the idea of signing onto Redstate or some other wingnut site, and really letting it rip -- saying all the crap about Obama that we know is going to show up there anyway.

It sure would be cathartic, if nothing else, given the number of times that I've been told "Wright will not be an issue", then "Wright is now behind Obama", and then, "Wright is REALLY behind Obama now."

You do realize that 99% of the world doesn’t give a shit about what is written on any blog don’t you? Out there on doorsteps canvassing nobody has these kind of conversations.

That means that, at most, 1% of the world has had enough of your obnoxious trolling.

It started with Howard Dean's appeal to the "democratic wing of the democratic party" and one critical point was when Dean defeated the DLC candidate for DNC chair.

As even Lambert used to know, the DLC is one of the key organizations that took the FDR coalition and turned into a tepid, corporate finance machine that produced NAFTA and rolled over. The open intent of the DLC, and co-founder Bill Clinton, was to reduce the influence of the McGovern and Jesse Jackson wings of the party.

What's sad is how your ego investment in hating Obama has driven you guys to a point where you are on the side of Burton-Marstetler, the DLC, the and the people who brought us NAFTA and Glass-Steagal repeal.

I’ve just been struck with the idea of signing onto Redstate...

Friends don't let friends do shit like that. I've seen the little lek you've been trying to soldier on through on S,N!, and I feel your pain. But please don't go there (literally and figuratively).

You are embarrassed, right?

VL, you forgot the "snark off" tag, and I just read my post below yours trying to find the smark.

That ship has sailed
Submitted by horseloverfat on Thu, 2008-05-08 17:37.

The possibility I could ever support or even not oppose Obama disappeared when he participated in smearing the Clintons as racists.

For those of us who remember Sister Souljah, that's a ridiculous attempt.

Seem to believe that the Clintons have indeed race-baited Obama.

They're DEMANDING evidence of Obama smearing the Clintons?

There is no olive branch to be had.

Gravel Baby!!!

Are you saying that you were cracking wise?

For those of us who remember Sister Souljah, that’s a ridiculous attempt.

WTF does Sister Souljah have to do with anything?

Oh...that's right...she doesn't.

*HIPHOP reference +1

You won't like the company....

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Are you saying that you were cracking wise?

no. I'm assuming that you were using snark when you asked markg8 if he was embarrassed, because the guy is obviously completely shameless.

and since you didn't close off the snark with the appropriate tag, when I read my comment I was still looking for snark...

oh, nevermind. ;-)

She was the hip-hop artist that said black people should take one week a year to just kill white people.

Bill Clinton called her out on it and said that was wrong.

So what was your point rootless?

------------------------------------------------
" . . . we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender . . ."- Winston Churchill

WTF does Sister Souljah have to do with anything?

are you kidding?

1) she's black
2) Bill Clinton criticized her.

What more proof do you need that the Clintons are, and always have been, the most vile racists around?

Amber, Obama wants to maintain the 2-party system.

he does, however, insist that the GOP rechristen itself the WLOP "We Love Obama Party" and the Democratic party to rename itself the "We Love Obama More, and We Loved Him First" Party.

Just to mix biblical metaphors...

- Yes, Stoller sounds completely insane, drooling about some Strongman leadership figure. But Stoller's rantings have fuck-all to do with Sadly,No! Please start another thread about the Stoller post.

- I agree with upyernoz on this one:

most obama supporters are not misogynist just like most clinton supporters aren’t racist. for some reason whenever i try to note that the bad conduct of random partisans on the internet is an irrational way to choose a candidate, the response is: yeah but what about X!!! where X= misogynistic comments on some obama site and X= racist comments on some clinton site.

That is exactly what is happening. It's the "broad brush" effect that I complained to VL about a while ago.

Behavior of one person is ascribed to everybody in the group that person is assumed to belong to.

People understandably take offense and the comment thread gets completely derailed to unrelated topics.

- The "cult" thing. I am not saying that all Obama supporters are cultists, I'm saying I recognize some cultish characteristics in the campaign and in many supporters.

- The "network" thing. Federated networks are fine, as long as they are talking to each other. When one network says they don't want to have anything to do with another network then the overall network strength is reduced.

Moderate (not-liberal) reach across the aisle, business friendly, growing the base of the party.

We already have most of the left (except the Naderites) so there are only two ways to "grow the base":

1. Convince people to move left

2. Move the party towards the middle.

Obama isn't doing the former, and the DLC is already doing the latter.

-------------------------------------------------
" . . . we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender . . ."- Winston Churchill

I hear about racist comments, but I've never seen them. I've seen lots of misogyny though.

-----------------------------------------------
" . . . we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender . . ."- Winston Churchill

The ridiculous attempt is that analogy 17:49. I can't imagine by what thought process you think you are making sense.

Horselover Fat

Submitted by myiq2xu on Thu, 2008-05-08 18:01.

She was the hip-hop artist that said black people should take one week a year to just kill white people.

Bill Clinton called her out on it and said that was wrong.

So what was your point rootless?

Why don't you look up what she actually said and get back to me?

get more women voting.

get Hispanics and other new minorities onboard.

ensure we retain the giant and growing older population.

From myiq2xu:
She was the hip-hop artist that said black people should take one week a year to just kill white people.

rootless demands:
Why don’t you look up what she actually said and get back to me?

Here you go:

If Black people kill Black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?

And your point was???

Shystee, I take it you mean this exchange:

http://www.correntewire.com/chillin_with...
http://www.correntewire.com/chillin_with...
http://www.correntewire.com/chillin_with...

I think a lot of the complaints that Lambert and I are getting aren't because we've overstepped any particular line, it's that some folks are tired of us tirelessly representing a pretty small and badly outnumbered front on the small matter of who becomes The Most Powerful Person on Earth. I think you cover that pretty well in your "good reasons" section.

I've never purposely suggested that all or most Obama supporters are cultists, so I'm feeling those big ol' bristles scratching my face again.

I find your agreeing with Upyernoz here a little odd, especially since you acknowledge the distinct ______ishness among some Obama supporters in your OP.

Here you go:

If Black people kill Black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?

And your point was???

She said that since the police tolerated black gangsters killing other black people, it was inevitable that the gangsters would think ....

so thanks for continuing Bill Clinton's "non-racist" little rhetorical flourish.

We can persuade others to join us, or we can move the party to where they are.

I would prefer the former, but Obama obviously doesn't. He and the DLC want to move the party to them.

Which completely invalidates the whole "DLC = evil" theme of the Obama supporters.

--------------------------------------------------
" . . . we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender . . ."- Winston Churchill

And you think Bill Clinton was a racist for saying she was wrong?

Wow!

----------------------------------------------
" . . . we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender . . ."- Winston Churchill

I would like recognized is that my perception that some Obama supporters exhibit cult-like behavior is reality-based. Apparently, for some, even that is too much.

have you every noticed how cult members always deny that they are members of a cult? That the best you can get out of a cult member is that some of their fellow believers are a tad over-zealous at times -- that not only are they personally not "cultists", but there is no "cult" at all?

Your aptitude for focusing on the topic at hand suggests that your mama knew what she was doing when she named you.

rootless, Obama wants to eliminate parties
Submitted by amberglow on Thu, 2008-05-08 18:09.

altogether, and partisanship, and fighting for things, and all opposition, etc… (which by the way would include checks and balances too—since they’re by definition fights and partisan ones at that, and part of that broken system he keeps talking about.)

IF his rhetoric is to be believed, both parties and all partisanship and all fights are why DC is broken.

Well, since he often specifically says that he does not have any illusions that it will not be a battle, I'm confused by what you mean. For example, if you compare Obama's speech to the PA state AFL-CIO (and it's instructive to compare to Hillary's much weaker speech the week before).
http://www.barackobama.com/2008/04/02/re...

Now, I know there's been some talk about Rocky Balboa over the last couple days. And we all love Rocky. But Rocky was fiction. And so is the idea that someone can fight for working people and at the same time, embrace the broken system Washington, where corporate lobbyists use their clout to shape laws to their liking.

We need to challenge the system on behalf of America's workers. And if we're not willing to take up that fight, then real change - change that will make a lasting difference in the lives of ordinary Americans - will keep getting blocked by the defenders of the status quo.

In two separate online discussions on different sites, the rebuttal to the suggestion that some Obama fans were ____-like was that "there is no such thing as cults."

Rootless: So you think what she said was right?
new
Submitted by myiq2xu on Thu, 2008-05-08 19:00.

And you think Bill Clinton was a racist for saying she was wrong?

Wow!

I never said he was racist, I said that he used a racist tactic. She said that it was inevitable that police tolerated gang terror in black neighborhoods would spill over and he turned that into a threat of bad niggers in order to buff his white credentials.

Have you ever noticed that when Obama supporters refer to Hillary supporters as cultists, the only response they get (which is rare)is amusement?

The Obama supporters get very angry at being called "kool-aid drinkers" or cultists. They also get angry at any criticim of Obama or his proposals.

I know very early in this campaign, I was getting flamed from Obama supporters for pointing out that he is a politician and isn't "different" or "special." I even got flamed for pointing out that he's a political insider.

--------------------------------------------------
" . . . we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender . . ."- Winston Churchill

I never said he was racist, I said that he used a racist tactic. She said that it was inevitable that police tolerated gang terror in black neighborhoods would spill over and he turned that into a threat of bad niggers in order to buff his white credentials.

Rootless, when did you stop beating your wife?

At what point did you realize that you had a wife beating problem?

the rest of the olive branch was pretty decent though.

actually, I thought that the rest of the so-called 'olive branch' was an insult -- the level of projection involved in accusing Clinton supporters of not recognizing her flaws was pretty intense. (I didn't even notice the creepiness of the strangers-with-candy 'get into the car' thing until it was pointed out... )

I mean, among the regulars here who support clinton, I don't think there is anyone who doesn't recognize her flaws --- what we missed when we decided that she was a better choice than Obama were her strengths.

The difference between Clinton and Obama supporters is that Clinton supporters knew exactly what they were getting -- and what they got was better than they expected. Supporting Obama was a leap of faith -- when the Obama cult was in its infancy, supporters recognized Obama's potential flaws, but supported him in the hope that the flaws would not be realized. And as aach flaw is realized, the amount of denial involved in continuing to support Obama intensifies -- until its impossible to have a rational discussion with them.

Via Taylor Marsh, an Obama supporter laments the recent political atmosphere and stops to reflect on the damage done:

I spoke to my mother briefly tonight, just small talk, and mentioned the political atmosphere of the last 24 hrs. She just said she loved me, and that she wanted to get off the phone, and gave it to my dad. She is a Hillary supporter, my dad and I are Obama folks. As my dad and I talked, I started to feel really bad about all the negative feelings that have emerged over the last few months. I particularly started to feel seriously guilty towards my mom.

Had I just denied my 65 year-old mom the chance to see a woman become president for perhaps the only time in her adult life? I don't think that a woman president is that far off at all, but I certainly wouldn't go around assuming that, if I had spent the last 65 years watching a parade of men take the chair in the Oval Office, and feel like there is nothing to be done to change that. And along comes Hillary, and the dream is alive, and then it is crushed in this brutal primary we've all gone through.

I guess for the first time in this election season, I walked for a moment in the other side's shoes, and I really didn't like how my side looked. And as much as my Obama activism has meant to me over the last several months, it suddenly didn't hold a candle to realizing I may have participated in stealing my mother's dreams away from her. All of a sudden, all I wanted to do was give my mom a female president, and do all it took to make that happen.

This is a damn tough time to be a Democrat.

Now that's truly classy. If I had more opportunities to see Obama supporters like this, it would be a whole lot easier to have good thoughts about the guy.

with all the press Charlie Manson and Scientology are getting these days, it's not a very popular thing to be called a cultist.

I'm quite certain that the Reverend Jim Jones didn't do much to enhance KoolAid sales but I do think that it's possible for General Foods to re-invigorate its brand with a tie-in.

far from its original, er, roots.

Oh, and I think one reason that Stoller's post is interesting and on topic (see the UPDATE) is that it explains why this year, unlike in past years, it's not the duty of the putative winner to unify, but the duty of those who did not win.

It's as if JFK didn't make LBJ VP, but tried to buy him out by offering to pay his campaign debts (humiliation), or sent thugs out to shout him down.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

"If you took the words “white” and “black” and you reversed them, you might think David Duke was giving that speech."

BTW - Bill was also responding to this line from one of her songs:

"If there are any good white people, I haven't met them"

But keep trying, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while.
----------------------------------------------

" . . . we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender . . ."- Winston Churchill

If God(des)(s)(es) forbid, Obama is elected, what happens when he starts doing all the things we are predicting he will do(mainly massive FAIL), what will they do? Will the cognitive dissonance remain, or will they (uselessly) attack him for it? Since their "power" will have been validated by the election, will they get over their love affair with Obama(since a demonstration of that power is what they really want, not any type of ideological champion), or will they be the 28%ers?

Bill Clinton for First Dude!!!

VL, Lambert et al.

The point of my post is NOT to get you guys to shut up, give up or whatever.

I do think you represent an under-represented viewpoint in left blogistan and that is a good thing.

Thank you, Shystee.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

The beauty of the blogs is that on the internets there is no physical violence. Vicious arguments, often among people who generally agree with each other, but no sticks and stones.

###

Unless my hypertension is a lot worse than I think. It's actually a famous Clintonian catchphrase, which I find used in a mock press conference staged for children with Clinton, Bob Novak, and Mr. Rogers. I think that's the most surreal true fact I've encountered in a long, long while.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

But I really do want to mend fences and I want to be clearer about this, so I’ll just ask: What is it about Barack Obama that is such a deal-breaker for so many of you? I honestly want to know, because I just don’t get it.

Obama is not a Democrat.
Not a Democrat like Jimmy Carter was a Democrat, not a Democrat like Jack and Bobby Kennedy were Democrats, not a Democrat like LBJ who actually SIGNED INTO LAW civil rights acts that the GOP has been beavering away for 40 years to undermine, hiding behind their "family values" and "pro-life" and "economic responsibility" propaganda while they fought tooth and nail to bring back economic, if not actual, slavery.
Obama is not the kind of Democrat who would, as Truman did, stand up to an overweening rival.
It's really that simple for me.
He speaks as though he worships the same god as the GOP.
May he enjoy the same rewards.

The Correnteians were the finest bloggers the world has ever known.

300 Correnteians stand against the entire Obama Empire...

"This is madness!"
"Madness? This. Is. Corrente!"

"Our troll comments will blot out the sun."
"Then we will blog in the shade."

"This is where we post! This is where they are hounded and ridiculed!"

It will be Hillary's fault.

Remember your Obama Roolz... he can't be blamed for anything!

It's so 80's

And our hearts beat as one:

OBAMA: Look, what we have done has been successful throughout. It’s not like I have been winning in states that only have either black voters or Chablis-drinking limousine liberals. We’ve been winning in places like Idaho. We’ve been winning in places like Colorado.

VASTLEFT: In other words, states with undemocratic caucuses.

And thanks for the framing “Chablis-drinking limousine liberals,” succinctly telling us lefties “get out of your limos and under the bus” (anyone remember that Billy Ocean song?).

I guess there's Ocean in the water or in the air or whatever.

But unless Hillary makes a fool of me by keeping this thing in play, I've hung up my Hillbama shoes.

Here's hoping she does!

That's where we win!