[Hillary's speech: Since bringiton has framed the issues so nicely, let's use this post as an open thread for Hillary's speech, which TalkLeft and RiverDaughter are liveblogging. CSPAN here.]
It would be a grave error for anyone to underestimate Hillary Clinton.
Obama, to his credit, certainly has not. He leapt at the first opportunity to talk to her, in private at AIPAC, in private by phone, and then in a private, on-on-one meeting at Feinstein’s house. Hillary Clinton has power, Barak Obama both wants and needs some of it, and he will do what he must to get it.
Tomorrow Hillary will formally and publicly do what she must, by acknowledging that Obama has won the right to be called the “presumptive” nominee and pledging her support to his candidacy. If one assumes, as one now must, that the decision of the Party elders to make Obama the Democratic nominee at the Convention is sustained, then the only reasonable alternative to avoid a November disaster is to do these two things.
That is, however, quite different from capitulation and subservience, as the media will try and portray it. Being careful to not use metaphors that can be twisted, I will say nothing about giving someone enough rope; instead let me offer that Clinton will praise the majesty of Obama’s petard, giving him the opportunity to either use it to secure his position or to hoist himself upon it. Shakespeare; should be safe enough.
When I listen to Clinton tomorrow, I won’t be focused so much on what she does say as I will be on what she doesn’t. I don’t expect to hear “quit” or “abandon” or “stop” or anything close to that sort of sentiment. I don’t expect to hear “defeated” or “vanquished” or “finished” either. This race is not over, she knows it and Obama knows it, but for the short term it must appear to all and sundry as though they have completely agreed that it is over.
Were Obama in a commanding position, he and his camp would not care what Clinton says or does. If he had a lock on the delegate count, he could simply ignore her and move on, make McCain his focus and press ahead. But his delegate lead is tenuous, and what the superdelegates have given they can as easily take away. Nothing is even close to final until the gavel comes down at the end of the Convention, and then it depends on Obama not stumbling as badly as Thomas Eagleton did in 1972. Even after the Convention, the Party controls the nominee, not the other way around.
Obama needs to show he can win the general election, and so far he has not done so. The Party leadership believes that if the Party can be drawn together he will be able to do so; for that to happen, in their reasoning, Clinton must step aside and let Obama be seen as the sole remaining option in contrast to McCain.
What Obama and the Party also want is Clinton’s database. Harold Ickes, being Harold Ickes, did not trust Howard Dean or the DNC when Clinton began seriously thinking about the Presidency in early 2005. He put together a wholly independent voter/donor database that overlaps to some degree the lists of the DNC and the Obama camp, but I far more organizationally efficient and mere liberally focused. By liberal I mean not “leftist” but more broadly based, with key indicators like economic status and job category and opinion leanings on core progressive issues. That database is, in many ways the key to the kingdom; it could be built from scratch but probably not as completely, and it would draw resources needed elsewhere. Obama and the DNC want it handed over, and Clinton will want something back in return.
What she wants isn’t entirely clear, but it may not be much. Any promises Obama makes now are not worth the air used to voice them, so policy support cannot matter nor can promises of special treatment for future legislation. She does not want the VP job; it is of no value to her and a danger to him. Would you want Bill lurking about inside the house? Obama wants the Big Dog, but he wants him outside, and preferably on a chain. Let Bill inside and he will, in the theatrical phrase, chew the draperies at every opportunity.
Neither should the Party leaders allow her the VP slot; from a tactical standpoint, in accruing Electoral College votes, she cannot overcome his deficits in the “swing” states. If the roles were reversed, it may be that he would not hurt her too badly; as it is, she cannot provide the pull he needs where he is weakest, amongst white men. He needs a strong, reliable, respectable white male to provide balance; Wes Clark is certainly a possibility, Howard Dean would be a stunning choice for multiple reasons, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would perhaps be the strongest breakthrough running mate of all. Time enough later to mull that over; for now, the point is that it will not be HRC.
What she wants, I believe, is no more than to not have to appear submissive. She can sell that to Obama on the basis of how offended, and thus unapproachable, her constituency would be at the prospect. If he wants her public fealty he must, as he has carefully done for the last couple of weeks, treat her with unfailing public respect. He cannot demand that she simply abandon her supporters; having them angry at both him and her does no one any good. Thus, she will “suspend” rather than quit.
Obama, and the Democratic leadership, will get what they are asking for; the clear chance for Obama to show what he can do. Whatever that turns out to be, from Clinton’s standpoint it cannot be seen as her fault he should falter. She has to be able to say, without blushing, that she was every bit as supportive as a person could be. If he succeeds in making it through to the nomination, she will be the loyal Party stalwart. Whatever happens after that, Obama will be entirely on his own and she will be well positioned for 2016 or, if need be, 2012.
But all is not rosy for Obama, even in the short term and with Clinton’s data and support. The claim, for some time, has been that once Clinton was out of the way Obama would blow past McCain and sweep to a majestic new Democratic majority. She’s been de facto gone for a while now, more than a month according to the talking heads and they must know the truth, and so the American people should have been able to start sorting out their feelings. So, how’s that going?
The most recent tracking polls have McCain and Obama still statistically even, as they have been for more than a month. Obama has gotten no bounce from “clinching”. Worse, his head-to-head comparators with McCain continue to lag on the key campaign issues. According to Rasmussen yesterday, McCain is ahead on every measure. (Yes, Republican pollsters but the way they ask the questions is the way the Republicans will frame the issues and how the MSM will report them; These are numbers that should give Obama and the Democrats considerable pause:
The overall Favorable/Unfavorable is even, and McCain has a small but insignificant lead on questions of Who most closely shares my values (43 to 42) and a small but significant advantage on Who is the better leader? (43 to 38). Pressing the leadership question, which is a key Republican talking point, McCain crushes Obama on the question of who will most responsibly manage the war in Iraq – a topic on which the Democrats must dominate to win. On national security in general, still the number two national issue, McCain leads comfortably by 51 to 37. Even on the economy, sinking fast and the biggest national worry, McCain holds a slight lead 44 to 40 even thoughhe freely admits he knows nothing about economic policy and has no program to make anything better.
On the Electoral College front, the picture for Obama has not improved since we last looked at it here at Corrente. I put Hillary at 294 Electoral votes and had Obama stalled at 235 with no more than 252 – 255 likely, but what do I, a rank amateur know? Darryl Holman, statistician extraordinaire, had Obama at 262 and Clinton at an IMHO optimistic 313.
How about the Seriously Important MSM experts? What is the current best opinion there? On the KO/MSNBC show last night, highly paid analysts and fancy computer display master Chuck Todd was asked to provide an analysis “now that Obama is the nominee” and mumbled for five full minutes without spitting up anything definitive. Best he could do was venture that if the election turns into a Democratic rout then Obama will win. “Thanks for that, Chuck, and now in other news….”
In today’s New York Times, however, there is an interesting article describing a newish statistical method that retroactively looked at pre-election polls and state voting histories to project the Electoral vote outcome for the 2004 election. The two astrophysicists reporting their study, J. Richard Gott III and Wes Colley, got the eventual outcome for 49 states right, missing only Hawaii (they failed to adjust for the Maui-Wowie factor, I assume).
When the article’s author, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, applied their methods using current polls to project the November outcome, this is what he sees:
When you complete this exercise for each state, Mr. Obama picks up Colorado, Iowa and New Mexico, three states that went Republican in 2004, but he also loses Michigan and New Hampshire, two states that Mr. Kerry had won. Mrs. Clinton loses the previously Democratic states of New Hampshire and Wisconsin, but she would nab 57 electoral votes from the Republicans by winning Florida, New Mexico, Nevada and Ohio.
If the general election were held today, Mr. Obama would win 252 electoral votes as the Democratic nominee, while Mrs. Clinton would win 295. In other words, Barack Obama is losing to John McCain, and Hillary Clinton is beating him.
Pretty reliable sounding, and reasonably in agreement with my numbers so they must be right. (They are astrophysicists, so credit where credit is due; they’ve done well in spite of their training.)
So with Clinton now out of the way and a clear run at McCain, Obama is still in trouble. McCain is seen as more capable, more reliable, and more likely to do the right thing in terms of the mission in Iraq. (What exactly is the mission? Silly question; whatever the mission is, you goose. What are you, unpatriotic?) McCain still leads in the Electoral College, whether your view is from my comfy chair or Holman’s number-cruncher cavern or from deep space, and not even the OFB
crowd at MNBC can conjure up a plausible scenario for him winning. Pretty grim.
Hillary Clinton will do what she must now, and watch with the rest of us to see how Boy Wonder does against Mad Maverick in the MMA Summer Showdown. If by the end of August Obama is still struggling, it will be very difficult to keep Clinton sitting on the curb. Maybe that Million Woman March on Denver is not such a bad idea after all.
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Comments
“I thought Barack might come!...he’s ... golfing today.”
"... “I thought Barack might come!” Ms. Marshall confided, speaking softly surrounded by a group of Clinton supporters. “But my friends in Chicago told me that he’s there golfing today.” ..." -- Waiting for Clinton
so Dubya--more and more every day.
all i wanted to hear
was
"i'm suspending my campaign".
i heard it.
thank god. there's still two and 1/2 months to hope for a miracle.
and that reference to the only two-term democratic president since franklin roosevelt died in 1945?
i hear that loud and clear,
as a two-edged comment.
now, let's see
2009 minus 1945 is?
64 years.
that's a long, long, long, time.
what's four more years of repub rule?
I don't see a transcript....
... here, so could somebody post one? Thanks....
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
here's transcript from NYT--
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/07/us/pol...
Ohio will go to McCain
There has been only one pundit of late who has stated the obvious: It all comes down to swing states. Florida is already in McCain's corner. From me, here on the ground, in Dem Central Ohio, I can tell you that this state will go to McCain come November. Man, is this election ever gonna stink!
totally--
and i wouldn't be surprised if NJ and PA (and of course FL) went to him too.
"who sent obama"
is the title of an article by prof steve diamond relating his research on senator obama's political "godparents" - those influential chicagoans responsible for his advanced education and his subsequent rise to the u.s. senate.
this is good reporting and an interesting story, all the more so for its description of how things get done in chicago.
diamond's language is not at all offensive or sensational.
diamonds work is not new; i have seen it cited before, but i had never read this article.
i you are interested, as i am, in knowing more about senator obama's intellectual and political center, this article will satisfy.
i first ran across a mention of this at rezkowatch
Obama says, "in the interest of full disclosure",
in 2016, he will be "wrapping up" his 2nd term as President.
Wow.
"Let the games begin." Indeed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P4OgzOf3lA
CNN Changes Story from "Obama Seen with Golf Clubs" to...
So, She Didn’t Release Her Delegates and Obama Played Golf…and CNN has SCRUBBED the Report that Left His Home Carrying Golf Clubs LINE and Were so Hurried in Posting a Substitute Line that They Posted it TWICE!
http://tinyurl.com/3jzdpm
So Obama didn’t watch Hillary’s speech, but was off playing golf…the FINAL INSULT??? What a TOTAL ASSHOLE this guy is! Without handlers, he has a political tin ear…oh, but he has the media hiding that fact for him…
I searched for the story and found this on the Scroogle results and I’ve saved the substitute story:
2. CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Barack Obama …
“June 7, 2008. Obama reacts to Clinton speech. Posted: 02:43 PM ET … He was seen shortly before the speech leaving his home in Chicago with golf clubs. …”
politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/category/presidential-candidates/barack-obama/
MORE!!
i wonder if the NYT will change heds too?
And i know Obama's camp is trying to show how little Hillary matters to them--it's absolutely the wrong signal to be sending.
They're so damned if they do, damned if they don't now--and it's all their own doing.
Um, maybe it's scrubbed because it's unconfirmed rumor?
Um, maybe the "golf" line was scrubbed because it wasn't confirmed and CNN goofed? I wouldn't be surprised if this latest little tempest in a teapot started with that NYT article, which irresponsibly quoted some woman repeating unconfirmed hearsay.
Don't start jumping to conclusions until you have the facts. Otherwise, you come off sounding like the discredited racist Larry Johnson on the topic of the mythical "whitey" tape (which, as we all know now, is yet another "friend of a friend of a friend" rumor).
Cello @ http://pumacentral.blogspot.com/
How was Larry "discredited?"
He never claimed to have the video, and said it would be produced in the fall. He never even said he saw the video, so he won't be discredited, his sources will, but only if the video is never produced.
I don't believe the video exists, but I don't disbelieve either. I'm keeping an open mind and waiting to see what happens.
Why is anyone who opposes Obama automatically a racist?
------------------------------------------------
“Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.”
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
x
------------------------------------------------
“I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat.” - Will Rogers
oh, i do love you, BIO
you're so wrong, on so many levels, and i haven't even read this whole post. but your intro...i'm still giggling. you know, discover mag has this whole section on alternative universes this month. i bet in one of them, you and i are advisors in the wildly successful clinton admin. or beggers eating trash out of the bin in the alley, i'm not sure. ;-)
well, crap. "war, economy and terrorism" if mcstain
beats Mr. Hope on all those fronts for real (and i'm not saying i believe that poll)- BHO is fucked. seriously. forget all the blabber, those are pretty (as in, "most") important in the minds of the vast majority of amukin voters. if obama has that kind of def to make up in those three categories...fuck, he's doomed.
/continues reading post and comments/
Hey, CD; back at ya
Funny you should mention it; all those people who thought they'd be running a wildly successful Hillary Clinton administration are now actually going to be beggars eating trash out of the bin in the alley. How alt-u is that?
feminist Grrrrrrrrrrrrr
for this:
white man, white man, white xtian man. gosh, what diversity! i'm sure all us cunt-lickers will just rush to support such a diverse range of choices! bitches, get behind your Man, stat!
....sorry, not disagreeing with the cruel logic of what is said, just being annoyed. it "can't be" HRC as veep, so let's choose...another white guy! yes, that's what we need right now. more people just like the people who can't seem to do anything other than spend our grandkids money and tell us why "it's always been this way" is the only way.
/end rant/
i'm not even an HRC supporter, but gawddayum it's tiresome. the SB has Quit! long live the white phallus! let it be united with the (almost) white phallus that is about to take the white house. whatever.
Well, if Obama wants to send a message...
... that women are interchangeable, then he can pick, say, Sibelius as opposed to Hillary Clinton.
Again, damned if he does, damned if he doesn't, and entirely of his own making.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Don't shoot the messenger
If you can get yourself on the ticket, I'm you're biggest supporter - not literally, but you know what I mean.
I am so all up on equality, I think a strap-on phallus should be respected just as much as the genetic variety. See; who says I'm not enlightened?
What was that woman’s name again?
Hillary Clinton gave a very nice speech. If you couldn’t hear it, the transcript is here. As expected, it is “suspend” and not “quit.” Asks everyone to support Obama and then lists all the policy objectives she expects him to accomplish. Well done, Hil; well done.
Cleaning up the thread:
Cenobite: “ while the party might lose the election in the short term (the presidential election, that is), the long term would be good, as the party would have lots of new voters and money. preceded by “Could be completely BS”. That is complete BS. What, exactly, is the purpose of more voters and more money if it doesn’t win the election? The Dem leadership may be wrong about whether or not Obama will win, but it isn’t that they think it will be unimportant if he loses. The “tactical loss” BS is exactly that, BS that losers put out to try and put some kind of gloss on losing. Nobody, repeat nobody, in the Democratic Party hierarchy is thinking anything but win.
Howard Dean. If it weren’t for Howard Dean, there would have been no gains for the Democrats in 2006. Complain all you want about how the Democrats haven’t done everything you may have wanted over the last 18 months, but it would all have been much worse now if were not for Dean’s foresight and persistence. I’ll be back when the body’s cooled off for a post mortem but for now I’ll say that why Obama won, or Clinton lost take your pick, was not because of Howard Dean.
Clinton will turn over her database; there is no advantage to her in undermining the chances of the Party in November. Ickes will do as he’s told; he’s got nowhere else to go. Giving the database to the DNC doesn’t mean she loses it, just that they also have a copy. Ickes gets a job to manage and maintain it. If things turn around, Ickes will have made certain it is up-to-date.
Paul L, understood, but all we can do is work with what we have. A paucity of data doesn’t preclude the use of the methodology of Gott and Colley, just removes whatever power can derive from the Law of Large Numbers. The polls for 2004 were very stable over the last month or so; their work will be repeated for this November, and then we’ll se what it’s worth. The main reason I referenced it here is the stature of the author. Tyson is a relatively apolitical scientist, well-respected in his field, highly respected in NYC, and a media darling. For him to speak out and ask the question is IMHO very meaningful; he will be tough to ignore, and gives the media an independent voice with a “scientific basis” to let them keep asking about the polls.
Something I’m absolutely not going to do, and won’t have much patience for those who do, is bashing Obama with made-up garbage. Some 27YO air-head thinks Obama should crash Hillary’s function and that gets reported? What a joke. He’s on his own time, he can golf or do whatever he wants, what business is it of mine? The truth is that “Obama watched the speech over the Internet, a campaign aide said.” If you’re going to spread falsehoods based on wild speculations by somebody you never heard of and know nothing about, the least you can do is come back later and correct the record.
And this is nothing but some idiot fantasizing; “ I can only speculate…it is possible that…That might have happened if…Or it might have been….” No wonder Michelle say things like “bloggers lie”. Repeating baseless speculation about Obama is something that can be left to the Republicans. I won’t stand for it, and that includes fuckall anything out of the mouth of Larry Johnson. Listen up. I’ve been told by very reliable sources that there is a video out there of Larry Johnson fucking goats. It’s real damaging, but it won’t get released until sometime this fall. Meanwhile, everybody write about it, please, and speculate on what it means. Larry Johnson fucks goats – pass it on.
This, on the other hand, is interesting:
Obama still doesn’t quite get it, does he? This is her time, her option what she does with it, and while she’s taking care of her supporters he decides to place a call? Good for her for not answering; why should she drop her supporters just because he calls? Screw him; let it roll to voicemail. Maybe next time he’ll have his people call her people to find out when it would be convenient for her and wait until then.
I’m done with this for now. Both Clinton and Obama are taking a couple of days off from campaigning, and so am I. There are other topics to explore. For those of you bent on presidential politics 24/7, time now to wipe your tears and pull up your big-girl pants; there is Evil to be destroyed, and his name is John McCain.
BIO-that the NYT and CNN both chose that
focus, and both made sure that him golfing was made clear as the message either they or his campaign wanted to send today, etc, is not nonsense--it's very important and speaks volumes.
All the coverage is still about her and what she will do and how she acts and how she'll help him--the coverage of him remains wholly passive and uninvolved in the entire process--and entire election.
Thank you, Lambert
for the kind comments and the space. All deeply appreciated.
You are a teddy bear, but don't worry; I'll never tell a soul. :-)
The Question Is Would Wes Clark or Howard Dean Would Obey?
Oh, wait, I forgot, they're white guys so that won't be the question at all.
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
Aw, Bringiton, I thought you knew ...
What, exactly, is the purpose of more voters and more money if it doesn’t win the election?
More rubes to fleece. Same as it's ever been.
It's a shell game. It's a rigged shell game.
More importantly, it's known to be a rigged shell game, and some of us bet our hearts anyway.
We can admit that we're killers ... but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
Sarah; voters are chump change
Voter contributions? Millions.
Control of the congress? Billions.
Control of the Congress and the White House? Trillions.
What volumes? Volumes of what?
He said he was taking the weekend off. BFD.
Congress is off. He's worked his butt off. He took the weekend off. He went golfing. BFD.
CNN? NYT? Don't care if a fiery finger came down out of the sky and wrote "FUCKER WENT GOLFING" in giant red letters. Still BFD.
Volumes of nothing, nothing a'tall.
ruling out information on moral grounds
is not at all appealing to me.
i prefer
myq's view of the world much better. it is more open-minded, more "scientific" in the best sense of that word
myiq2xu sez:
"How was Larry "discredited?..."
He never claimed to have the video...."
in general i really love the spirit and the courage that the odd-ball weblog folks like larry johnson and joseph cannon bring to the weblog world.
johnson has been fighting a lot of unconventional fights for a long time.
read him on iran
and iraq
and valeri plame.
his great strength in providing me with information i can use is that
he learned a long time ago not to be thralled by social convention.
joseph cannon also.
both employ a useful approach to journalism, now much neglected - report what you hear and see.
aside:
a word to journalists from one who has had it with most journalists:
socially approved and socially convenient reporting is not worth
----
-----
(reader, fill in the blanks).
if there is any moral and informational justification for having a weblog media
it is simply this:
the weblog media will publish what others will not.
Yes, Virginia, he's a racist
I see, myiq2xu. Suppose I wrote the following:
If my sources turn out to have been wrong, then by your logic I'm not to be discredited. Only my sources should be. Nevermind that I was smearing you based on lies, rumor and hearsay. What a morally relativistic universe you live in.
And criticizing Obama doesn't make Larry Johnson a racist. His racism makes him a racist. He never passes up an opportunity to play the race card. The whole made-up "whitey" tape is a case in point. The tape doesn't exist, Larry knows it, and yet he's using the racial aspect of the rumor to attack Obama. If that's not racist, then I don't know what is.
Cello @ http://pumacentral.blogspot.com/
That wasn't a dog, it was a pig with lipstick
If you said that, either you or your sources would be lying. If it was your sources, you wouldn't be discredited, they would be.
If the "whitey" video exists, is Larry still a racist?
Will you be wrong or a liar?
------------------------------------------------
“Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.”
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
x
------------------------------------------------
“I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat.” - Will Rogers
Unfortunately, since so many Obama supporters...
... have completely discredited themselves, and their candidate, by hurling bullshit charges of racism -- the Obama campaign itself after NH and before SC, the "creative class" [cough] as it wrote off "Appalachia," and too many trolls on the threads to count -- I'd give Cello's charge of racism, since he's an Obama supporter, about as much credence as Cello telling me it's raining: That is, I'd look out the window first. So, I'll keep reading LJ occasionally, when it suits me, and when evidence and reasoning supports what he says, well and good!
NOTE To any Obama, er, supporters, reading this, who feel painted by the broad brush: The Obama campaign, the "creative class," and countless trolls spread the bullshit. Unfortunately, that has consequences. I'm just calling the bullshit, so don't blame me. The time to deal with the problem was when it was happening, but unfortunately, that was not done....
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
I've been following
the whole "whitey" tape thing on Johnson's blog and around the Web pretty closely from the beginning. I'm convinced that Larry is convinced there is such a tape. It's entirely possible he's the victim of a hoax, but I don't think he's lying.
I'm hardly a Johnson fan, but I'd really like someone to explain to me why his references to the rumor make him a racist. I've seen him slap down commenters who make racist remarks pretty hard. Other commenters do as well; it's just not something that's tolerated on his blog (nor sexism, for that matter). He just recently made a post to that effect, in fact.
I have the sense that "playing the race card" has taken on some very convoluted meanings lately, such that any reference to race whatsoever can be made to fall under this rubric.
I'm going to have to golf that
0. "rubric"
1. Rubrics are printed in red.
2. Red is the symbol of Communism.
3. You're calling Obama a Communist!
Three strokes. Rules here.
Presumably, it's possible to accept a candidate without accepting all the bullshit that candidate's supporters throw. By now, that includes all the charges of racism by the Obama, er, folks, because there's been so much toxicity spewed under that heading it's not worth anyone's time sorting it out. Personally, I think that in the interests of party unity, they'd be well advised to give it a rest. Like that would ever happen.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
A village somewhere is missing its idiot
OrionATL, when you write that "the weblog media will publish what others will not," you sure as hell got that right. It'll publish all sorts of lying, smearing, mysogynistic, racist drivel. Larry Johnson, that lying spook fuckstain, is exhibit A. Anyone who buys into that right-wing racist's disinformation campaign is being played for a chump. Are you a chump?
Cello @ http://pumacentral.blogspot.com/
Every time I read a comment like this...
... it proves to me that there really is no place for me in the Democratic Party as the Obama Movement plans to remake it. Thanks for the clarification, Cello. It is appreciated.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Cello
why don't you fuck off and go and yell at Larry Johnson if that is who you are pissed at.
You are the one who brought him up first in this thread.
My quote is weak
It's a random commenter on a web log who says she's quoting an email from a friend, and that's why I'm not pushing it.
However, that is no excuse to be disingenuous, BIO. The story explains the conundrum "why would the party leadership go in the tank for someone who is likely to lose the election" and it's about a long-term vs. short-term tradeoff, not a quixotic need to lose. But you already know that.
A village somewhere is missing its idiot
cello,
i see you can read. that's a good sign.
i infer that you can both read and copy bumper stickers. that's not such a good sign - of intelligence, that is.
but that's o.k.
each of has our limitations.
we now know yours.
as for myself,
i personally,
like being the village idiot.
it's a trick (well, to tell the truth, with me it is not a trick) i learned from an old boss of mine decades ago.
play dumb. ask LOTS of simple, obvious, dumb-like questions.
result: you will learn more than you ever thought you could. and you will learn it from VERY SMART PEOPLE, folks like yourself, cello.
on another matter,
"criticizing Obama doesn’t make Larry Johnson a racist. His racism makes him a racist. He never passes up an opportunity to play the race card. The whole made-up “whitey” tape is a case in point. The tape doesn’t exist, Larry knows it, and yet he’s using the racial aspect of the rumor to attack Obama. If that’s not racist, then I don’t know what is."
cello, you've hit the nail on the head: "If that’s not racist, then I don’t know what is."
indeed, cello, you do not know what is.
you are the best witness,
that you are a witless
doesn't-know-shit-from-shinola
partisan.
"An" explanation, cenobite
one that makes no sense and is not supported by even a shred of logic, much less evidence. But other than that...
I'm so overdone with "somebody told me" BS I just can't stand it any more. What did this one start out with? Something like: "somebody I know who is supposed to know what was said..." FSM on a crutch, it's like hanging around the horse track listening to touts. "Gandy Dancer in the Fifth, shhh, somebody heard from somebody who's supposed to know something..."
Why would people who spend most of their lives scrambling to get power and keep power and exploit power decide that hey, for a little cash and a list of names let's risk not getting more power? Need a rationale for the thesis; some basis for the speculation; there isn't one. They may be wrong in their projections, but they aren't stupid and they aren’t suddenly going to do a 180 on their behaviors. They care about winning, and they've decided they can win with Obama.
It is a roll of the dice; can't fault them for playing it safe.
Oh, and there was a comment upthread that mentioned a videotape showing Larry Johnson fucking goats. That's two mentions now. Must be true. Has there been a denial from him? Thought not. How much more proof is needed than that? Lousy goat fucker.
playing it safe would have been Biden or
another Senator like that--certainly it wouldn't have been Obama.
Like I said, the quote is weak
I think the best explanation for their behavior is probably that the backlash from choosing Sen Clinton would have lost them their phony-baloney jobs, but just losing in November? Heck, that's a Democratic tradition. Pass the turkey.
Bringiton Does Just That
My congratulations and my thanks also for this terrific post, and for his comments through-out this thread.
Cenobite, one way to know that an argument, your own, is getting the best of you, is when the antecedents of your pronouns are no longer clear. Who are the "they" whose behavior is best explained by "their fear" of losing their phony-baloney jobs from the backlash of choosing Clinton? And what backlash?
Your explanation has become so broad that it makes no internal sense.
As for the Steve Diamond material, it is nothing more than garbage. For God's sake, with a headline like "Obama isn't a communist, but..." you expect anyone who calls themselves a libral to pay attention to this tripe. Even so, I did, and I read four of his posts and they struck me as unhinged. I happen to know a lot about the school reform movement and his handling of that material is beyond weird.
What it reminds me of are the endless analysis I've read that attempt to show that this or that negative improbability about the Clintons is/was true.
What Diamond is doing is not analysis, it is propaganda, and it is not an addition to the media critique, it is a mirror of what it was that convinced most of us on the left blogisphere that we desperately needed a media critique.
W-e-e-e-e-l-l....
Here's Diamond's bio:
If he's not entirely hinged, then he's persuaded a lot of people otherwise.
Not sure how you distinguish making previously unmade connections from CT.
I will note, however, that Diamond doesn't betray the classic stylistic signs of CT. He's careful to label speculation as just that, for example.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
I sure ended up replying a lot for not wanting to play
"they" is the Democratic party leadership, who else could it possibly be?
leah
i haven't read much of your stuff here.
but i take it you are held in high regard.
well, leah,
you are going to have to work awful hard to rise in my esteem after posting blather like this:
" As for the Steve Diamond material, it is nothing more than garbage. For God’s sake, with a headline like “Obama isn’t a communist, but…” you expect anyone who calls themselves a libral to pay attention to this tripe. Even so, I did, and I read four of his posts and they struck me as unhinged..."
the steve diamond material is not "garbage", but what you wrote about it for the purpose of dismissing it out of hand IS garbage - thoughtless, angry intellectual trash.
the diamond material is a fine way to gather info about obama's intellectual and political background.
to condemn it outright is the act of a partisan, and, i would say of you, leah, of an incurious partisan.
the appropriate response, which you would certainly know, is to point out other info that bears on diamond's perspective. that would be very useful.
or to simply dissect sections of the "who sent you" article, by far the most informative of the group. that would be very useful.
if diamond's work is "propaganda", it should not be hard to point out specifics. if it is inaccurate, ditto.
as for that precious-sounding self-appointed task "adding to the the media critique" which you reference,
i would never have guessed diamond's article was a "media critique", it is clearly an exposition of some of obama's political and intellectual antecedents.
like some other who post here, leah,
i suspect you are a disguised partisan. you'd do better to state your preferences outright than to skulk around implying you've only an interest in "adding to the media critique".
postscript:
in the weblog world, rhetoric often overtakes reality with distressing speed. "through a glass, darkly" does not even begin to describe the opacity that comments likes leah's, which i cited above, can bring to a discussion.
for those so inclined, here is the link, again, to the article by steve diamond who sent obama?. i found it a a fine story about chicago politics and one that offered interesting insight into obama's political background.
read it for yourself and decide if "garbage" or "propaganda" are words that can reasonably be ascribed to this article.
Leah, can you rejoin this conversation, please? ...
The more I read about Obama the harder I find him to defend.
The harder I find the Obamas to defend (Michelle has, for lack of a more elegant term, a classic tendency to put her foot in her mouth), the harder I find voting for him for President.
I know you support Obama.
I know you're smart.
I know you're well-informed.
Will you share some of that information with us?
We can admit that we're killers ... but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes! Knowing that we're not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
lambert
no comprendo. what is CT?
except for those who faint when they read the word "communism", this might be informative:
Of Guns and Bitterness: Obama and the Authoritarian Left
and the "nut graph":
steve diamond wrote -
"...First, I wrote my most recent blog, “Believe me, Barack is no Communist, But...,” in response to the article by Dana Milbank in the Washington Post that surfaced the allegations of a far right anti-communist group about Obama’s links to Communism. Those allegations, I think, blur the line between who is and who is not playing a significant role in the Obama campaign...."
now keep this in mind,
lately, poster and commenters have taken to noticing some "authoritarian" trends in the obama/neo-DNC political machine.
maybe prof diamond's articles are a not-so-bad place to begin learning more about this possibility.
anybody got any better starting place?
CT
Conspiracy Theory.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
and the dana milbank article
from wapoop:
obama as you have never known him
does anyone recognize the practice of journalistic/pr inoculation going on here?
1. find the most ludicrous example,
2. ridicule it, debunk it
and thereby
3. inoculate the public figure against any further criticism of that sort.
This thread must die
What was offered as a simplified cue card for consideration during a single multilayered speech has, through the magic of the intertubes, accumulated some very interesting but highly tangential issues.
Some of them deserve a post and a thread of their own. I would highly recommend that, rather than stumbling around over each other's feet here, any one of the interested parties could pull a couple of paragraphs together and restart the conversation up at the top of the front page.
Sarah wants to know what Obama is all about, and suspects that Leah has the answers. Great question, and I HOPE somebody can explain it. Sooner or later he will get defined, and unless he does it himself it will be done by the Republicans - and that will not be good. If nobody with an Obamaphilic viewpoint responds soon, I'm going to have a go at it myself; but not here. This is my working title - "Why I Think Obama Is Wonderful". Anyone who wants to take it from there is welcome to it.
The comments on Steve Diamond and OMG The Niggah Went Golfing! are another area that deserves a cleaner and more prominent discussion. I'll respond to both of them again here briefly and then I'd like to see some one of the interested parties put the larger issues up for play, those being: What constitutes ethical reportage and discussion in the blogosphere? Are there standards? Should there be standards? What would those standards look like? Do they apply equitably, or can we employ baseless trashing of our perceived enemies while whimpering like little babies when it happens to those we support? Stuff like that. Whole new thread would be the place.
Also, I see Lambert has started a dissection of what Hillary said. The speech was, IMHO, spectacular, tone-perfect, and deserving of sound analysis. Again, restarting the conversation was exactly the right thing to do.
Those are my humble requests; this post has been swell fun, but now that it has deservedly been unstickied it needs to sink below the fold and into one of history's dark corners with the other dust bunnies. Thank you and goodnight.