A few days back, a Corrente Senior Fellow popped in to suggest that many of the posts here in recent months haven’t been, as advertised, “objective media critique or part of a campaign to defeat sexism,” rather they’re “a symptom of tribal warfare within the internet-enabled progressive social network that is being fueled by the Corporate Media and exploited by the Republicans.”

In other words, we’re pissing in the Democratic pool to vent our petty online grudges… because we’ve been tricked by the GOP into doing so.

I don’t know the life expectancy of the hamsters that make the Mighty Corrente Building’s server disks go round and round, but I do wonder how all this will look a couple of years from now.

If it’s President Obama, we’ll get to see whose “I told you sos” are in order. (And they called me petty!)

If it’s President McCain, we’ll get to start even sooner, playing out whether it was an ill-chosen candidate (i.e., they should have listened to us about a different candidate, vote fraud, and disreputable media and blogging) running on an ill-chosen platform (shoulda listened to us about partisanship) or the Judean People’s Front disunity of Hillary holdouts or some other sin of the notorious party-destroyer. Odds are, the genius solution in 2012 will be for a Democrat to run as similarly to a Republican as possible. Fourth time’s a charm.

Well, with the campaign kicking into its ultimate phase, I wanted to front-page (from comments in shystee’s thread) my reasons for doing what I do, when I’m stealing time from real life:  Read more 

Congrats to the kitchen-sink Obamacrats for the low-blow attacks on Sarah Palin and her family. You didn’t insist on truth and fairness in the intramural scrimmages, and now that we’re headed to the big game, you’re giving the other team locker-room material to die for.  Read more 

Mailing from moveon.org. I got it because my ice floe hasn’t yet drifted out of wi-fi range.

This week, we’re spinning up a massive program to register half a million young voters in swing states. This is the year of the young voter, and we all need to do everything we can to make sure every last young person votes on Election Day….  Read more 

A. Slut.

The great feminist Stephanie Miller just heard that Sarah Palin plays the flute.

“So,” she wittily rejoined, “she’s good with her mouth.” Her male cohost returned to the riff after speculating about her speaking in tongues.

I guess in the postpartisan world, it would be wrong to spend too much time criticizing Repub policies, so misogyny is the new high road, when you think about it.

I’ve been badly neglecting real-life responsibilities and have to hang up my blogging quill for the time-being.

Odds are, something will catch my eye, get my goat, or shiver me timbers to the point where I just have to post something on occasion. But I’m going to try to stay off the stuff for a little while, anyway, as best I can.

I will be reading y’all, though, so I’ll know if you stop shouting, pouting, and crying — things that any sane person ought to be doing right now.

I leave you with these thoughts:  Read more 

According to the Volokh Conspiracy, Sarah Palin is “a huge hit at the Hillary Clinton Forum.”

If you’re like me, you’re wondering “what the fuck is the Hillary Clinton Forum?”

If I’m like me, I’m also asking “why the fuck am I reading the Volokh Conspiracy?”

Now, regardless of my disgust for McCain and for the many hard-right views of Palin, this is simply true….

With this pick, the GOP showed it was listening to disgruntled Democrats, whereas the Democrats have been quite resolute about not doing that, sometimes audaciously so.

Putting a little anti-Republican content in Obama’s convention speech is the only thing vaguely like a bone that’s been thrown to us this entire campaign.  Read more 

What are you expecting?

My picks, with 10 being the most certain:

Shout-out to McCain’s service - 10
Shout-out to the Clintons — 10
Shout-out to the Kennedys — 10
Shout-out to the ladies — 9
MLK-speech anniversary — 9
Change/gridlock/aisle reacharounds — 9
Something said with obviously false humility (such as his wife being his better half) — 9
McCain = more Bush — 9
Wow, someone with my background got nominated — 9
Faith/religion — 8
Biden as foreign-policy expert — 8
Shout-out to young voters — 7
It’s about you, not me — 7
Katrina — 4
Universal Healthcare (in any other context than it being Hillary’s mission) — 3
GLBT rights — 3
Getting out of Iraq without at least once qualifying it as “responsibly” — 2  Read more 

Am I the only one who’s a little frustrated by posts and comments that complain about some other unspecified posts or comments somewhere?

You know, like this post?

For the last several months, I’ve had the craziest idea in the world: that Barack Obama might benefit from energizing (and perhaps even expanding) the Democratic base, rather than expecting skeptical progressives to force themselves to decide that his candidacy is likable enough, or expecting Hillary and Bill Clinton to make up their minds for them.

Has anyone considered this option, of Obama making like Ronald Reagan and exuding boundless enthusiasm and pride for his party’s agenda and blistering criticism of the opposing party and an unwillingness to dignify its ideas?

I know the Republicans are staggeringly popular right now, and Obama is famously untalented as a speaker, but maybe, maybe, maybe?

Last night, Hillary Clinton gave a pitch for the ages.

How good was it? A tribute to her is now far and away the highest-rated post on Democratic Underground, a site full of dedicated lefties who until yesterday were keenly aware that she was an entitled, Rovian, racist, assassin-witch who was bent on destroying her party. On msnbc, the speech sent tingles almost visibly up the Obama-lovin’ / Hillary-hatin’ legs of Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, and Rachel Maddow.  Read more 

I was glad to find out that democrats.com isn’t an official organ of the party, because whoever wrote this sounds like a total, um, organ:

McCain Owes America An Alzheimer’s Test

While Ted Kennedy and Michelle Obama were rocking the Democratic convention in Denver, John McCain made his 13th appearance with Jay Leno to joke about his age. McCain joked, “You forgot to mention that I warned the people about the British coming,” and added, “my Social Security number is eight.”

McCain has repeatedly tried to dismiss concerns about his age with late-night jokes. On Saturday Night Live, he quipped: “What should we be looking for in our next president? Certainly someone who is very, very, very old.”  Read more 

NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd:

Beginning Tuesday night and extending at least midway through Wednesday, you’ll have to forgive those of us in the media if you hear us humming the song “You’re So Vain.” The Clintons will probably think this convention’s about them.

The fuck I will forgive you.

Stupid politics, now available in blue-blogger bottles!

To view the Obama campaign’s use of the “McCain’s Mansions” story as a triumph of strategy speaks only to the void that exists where a concern for actual political issues should be. That the piddleroots should congratulate themselves for their role in promoting this story reveals how pathetically small and stupendously dumb their approach and their aspirations are. The piddleroots will undoubtedly defend their views and their actions by insisting that this is “the way things are,” that this is “how the game is played.” That may be, but here’s a thought that would occur to any honest ten-year-old.  Read more 

Msnbc’s report is here.

Has anyone seen any video or reliable accounts about whether this was excessive force?

“If this party has a message, it’s done a hell of a job of hiding it tonight.”

Sirota’s latest on HuffPo must be seen to be disbelieved. A shoe-in first-ballot selection for the Clinton Derangement Syndrome Hall of Fame (visit it next time you’re in Misogyny, NH).

Also, while at HuffPo, you can Obama Golf this article:

0. “What Obama Needs to Do in Denver”
1. “Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead. Drew Westen wants to kill Obama! Get Keith Olbermann on the Batshit-crazy Phone!  Read more 

Just not feeling the Obamagasm.

It seems that every time we turn around, someone who’s on the winning side of media conventional wisdom and/or vote fraud is telling us to “get over” some really shitty thing.

And even when we do, they’re watching us like Stepford hawks to make sure our rehabilitation is complete.

If they suddenly lost their hammers, and you could tell them what to get over… over what would you tell them to get?

PUMA me no PUMAs if this is the kind of talk we’re going to get:

The paint is fresh at PUMA HQ. We’re located right next to the Police Department so we shouldbe relatively safe. There are cops EVERYWHERE. It’slike a lice infestation. On the way from the airport, we passed three bike medics. That’s right, they have their equipment in paneers(sp) on the back ot their bikes. Rill says she’s seen police on bikes too but she can’t quite take them seriously.

I get ill seeing Hillary Clinton dehumanized throughout the campaign, and I get ill seeing cops compared to lice, merely for their plentiful presence at an event that demands high security.  Read more 

But Bob Somerby is a god.

Truth, nuance, media critique.

Can you believe an actual human is capable of understanding — and criticizing — when lies are made about people we don’t necessarily like, and of seeing that such lies are symptomatic of a dangerously sick media culture? No, I can’t believe it, either.

But there he goes, doing it year after year. Well, that’s ’cause he’s an immortal.

I used to get a kick out of Joe Biden. He’s smart, funny, and even if he looks like a guy they’d cast to be president, there’s nothing generic about him.

And no doubt, his vote in favor of the AUMF was much better than Hillary’s.

But here, from the archives of my old site, is a posting about where he lost me, because he told me he disrespects people like me: secular Democrats.

The good news is that my position apparently makes me an “elite”!

* * *

Are you chafing in today’s politically correct world, where you can’t thoughtlessly hate whole groups of people?  Read more 

Thou shalt not break Obamawin’s Law:

No lessons shall be learned (or even considered) from the mistreatment Hillary Clinton received and/or the uncritical treatment Barack Obama received during the 2008 primaries.

The only acceptable reason to revisit this year’s Democratic primaries is for something constructive, like shaming Hillary for not taking evil advice that wasn’t offered to her by her campaign director.  Read more 

Glenn.

My take here and here and here.  Read more 

Look out, JC Christian!

David Petraeus is gunning for the job of Jesus’ General:

Gen. David Petraeus is used to controversy surrounding the war in Iraq, but his publicized thoughts on an Army chaplain’s book for Soldiers put him squarely in the middle of the ongoing conflict over religious proselytizing in the U.S. military.

The book is “Under Orders: A Spiritual Handbook for Military Personnel,” by Army Chaplain (Lt. Col.) William McCoy, and according to Petraeus’ published endorsement of the work, “it should be in every rucksack for those times when soldiers need spiritual energy.”  Read more