Obama's racial slur against Edwards in the SC debate was a sure sign I'd never support Obama!

Plus - ObamaBots have been the most arrogant and meanspirited toward Edwards supporters - and posted a zillion videos smearing a good man.

I'm looking for someone to stop the current wars and avoid them in the future. Obama beats Hillary on that score.

She'll get my vote when she's the last Democrat standing.

...to declare myself for either, yet. (especially since I already voted absentee for Edwards in the primary.)

to the Remaining Two, as Television* used to say, "Prove it." I'll make up my mind sometime before November.

*damn, I loved that first Television record...

I'm chagrined that I too am voting for Hillary now that Edwards is out, and she was my last choice when this all started.

Vastleft has nailed my reasons and I'll add just a couple more: Her Healthcare plan is better than Obamam's and more similar to Edwards and healthcare is my number one issue. It also didn't help Obama to play the Harry and Louise card against her or to so often use right wing memes against her.

Second, it's time for a woman. I had to think personally about my life and realize that the best bosses and the best doctor's I;ve ha din my 48 years have been women. Somehow, a women is more sensitive to human needs. It's time for a woman's compassion in the White House.

Finally, Hillary is not Bill and will be her own person. I was comforted to hear Carl Bernstein say that she was privately against NAFTA and urged Bill to reject it. I also think the one thing she will make sure of is she gets Universal health care passed. It's the one thing she lost badly on, and I'm certain it's her passion to get it done.

Obama has gone all Harry & Louise on Clinton's healthcare plan.

Ezra Klein - http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezrak...

Krugman - http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02...

I started by seeing Obama as a new force that will come after Bush and start to rebuild the ruins. I sent him money as well. I don't and didn't believe that experience is a necessary condition for a successful president. Obama seemed to be a perfect choice.

Then Obama started with the Republican talk. Attack Pakistan, reexamine social security, use vouchers and he added hope and change. My vote is not sentimental. Hope and change are empty slogan; I didn't like it. Then came a hesitating health care plan.

From the beginning I was an Edwards voter. When he started fading, my choice became between a Republican and Hillary. This is rather a simple choice.

"Hillary ensued."

I'll definitely have to use that sometime....

"If we were concerned about Iranian influence, we should not have had this government installed in the first place, [and] we shouldn't have invaded [Iraq] in the first place. It was part of the reason that I think it was such a profound strategic error for us to go into this war in the first place.

And that's one of the reasons why I think I will be ... the Democrat who will be most effective in going up against a John McCain, or any other Republican -- because they all want basically a continuation of George Bush's policies -- because I will offer a clear contrast as somebody who never supported this war, thought it was a bad idea. I don't want to just end the war, but I want to end the mindset that got us into war in the first place."

Which will be unfortunate for Obama in the general, if he is nominated. Times, of his thought process in 2002, in a 2004 interview:

He opposed the war in Iraq, and spoke against it during a rally in Chicago in the fall of 2002. He said then that he saw no evidence that Iraq had unconventional weapons that posed a threat, or of any link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.

In a recent interview, he declined to criticize Senators Kerry and Edwards for voting to authorize the war, although he said he would not have done the same based on the information he had at the time.

''But, I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports,'' Mr. Obama said. ''What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made.''

But Mr. Obama said he did fault Democratic leaders for failing to ask enough tough questions of the Bush administration to force it to prove its case for war. ''What I don't think was appropriate was the degree to which Congress gave the president a pass on this,'' he said.

Oops, cancel that. You get a free pass if you are America's favorite baritone, The Man God.

Anyhow, Obama's is really what we've been saying here on this blog for some time: "Judgment" is situational. It's a form of "cheap grace" to give a speech as a State Senator against Iraq, because there are very slight institutional consequences for doing so.

That's why Obama says, justly, that "What would I have done? I don't know"--which also covers his immediately following attempt to have it both ways, "What I don't think was appropriate...."; since he wasn't in that position, his thoughts are hardly dispositive for what he would do when under pressure.

Of course, the OFB endlesslyl repeat that there is some special Magical Essence of Obama called "good judgment," but we know why that is.

Oh, and Obama's Harry & Louise style health care plan sucks. As it would. (Love the visuals, though! So Republican!)

Unity means you can't fight for what the American people need and deserve.

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

that's really all i have to say on this score...

___________________________
.delusions of un mundo mejor.

And all I can say is that, like VastLeft, I am horrified to have come down on the side that Obama will be no better no better than Hillary, and could turn out to be a whole lot worse. As I say elsewhere:

If Kennedy and Volcker are both endorsing the same guy, that’s not a sign that a new age of post-partisanship and an era of good feelings is being ushered in; it’s a sign that Our Betters are shitting their pants.

Go read Shock Doctrine, if you haven't already. I would say that the Village has concluded Obama's the one to ride things out with. That just can't be good news for us.

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

Why would anyone support either of these pre-selected corporatist candidates? Honestly, do you really care about this beauty contest or are you just looking for something to root for, or a personality cult to join?

What if those of us whose candidate has been eliminated by the corporate media focused on something other than this joke of a presidential race? Here's an idea: if you're somebody, like me, who is pissed about the corporate power structure stuffing these two corporatist frauds down our throats, why not refocus that energy on something else, something you can actually feel good about? Like supporting Cindy Sheehan, for instance. Taking Nancy Pelosi "off the table" would be sweet revenge indeed. I sent Cindy Sheehan $100.00. Imagine if every other Edwards, Kucinich, Dodds, etc. supporter did the same . . .

http://www.cindyforcongress.org/

Dick Gregory was my write in candidate in '68. The spoiler in that campaign was George Wallace, plus Nixon going after all the racist southern demos who were pissed over the civil rights legislation.

And yeah, Nixon was the worst...but I'd rather be dealing with him than Bush. At least Nixon finally came to understand that he had indeed f**ked up and resigned. I dug out my old "Nixon Now" campaign button and started wearing it back in 2003. Started lots of interesting questions...especially with the Kucinich bumper sticker on my truck.

At least yer senators say they're repukes. Mine both have "D" after their names but they both consistently vote with the "Rs."

So, here we are 40 years down the road and I'm being asked to chose between corporate candidate #1 and corporate candidate #2. Thank the gods and goddesses that Dick Gregory is still alive. Maybe I'll just write him in again.

That Times article is from July 2004 (not 2002) about a day before Obama was scheduled to give the keynote speech at the Dem convention.

What did you expect him to do? Denounce the party's standard bearers Kerry and Edwards?

He said "But, I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports," Mr. Obama said. "What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made." And also
"What I don't think was appropriate was the degree to which Congress gave the president a pass on this," he said.

All US senators were privy to the classified NIE. Dick Durbin read it and voted against the AUMF.
Neither Hillary or Edwards read it and both voted for the AUMF. I was reading articles in the Philly Inquirer at the time quoting those scientists in TN who said the aluminum tubes were for missiles not centrifuges and CIA analysts whose conclusions in the footnotes of the NIE were at odds with Cheney's and Bush's.

Edwards at least apologized for his vote. Hillary still fumbles around the question and stubbornly refuses to admit her vote was a mistake. Until the summer of 2006 she was still refusing to even call for an end to the occupation.

Tell me again who gets a free pass?

What it comes down to now is our choice is between Obama who wants to end the mindset that got us into the damn Iraq war in the first place and Hillary who jumped up at the SOTU and applauded when Bush said the surge was working, believes in coercive diplomacy, and voted for Kyl-Lieberman.

Dishonesty prophylactic: Yes Obama didn't vote at all on the K-L bill because Harry Reid - whose son Rory ran Hillary's campaign in NV - told him the bill wouldn't be coming up for a vote that day. He was campaigning in Georgia I believe.

markg8:

You're right. The interview is in 2004, and Obama is describing his thought process in 2002. I corrected the comment accordingly -- since it doesn't affect the point.

Mark burbles:

What did you expect him to do? Denounce the party’s standard bearers Kerry and Edwards?

No. Why do you ask? (Although I note that this is exactly what the OFB would have liked Edwards to do.)

As for the free pass... I could run the reading comprehension riff on you, but you guys have worn that one out.

Maybe. If. I. Try. Different. Words. Again.

OK, I'll let you burnish Obama's halo as much as you like for a single cost-free speech five years ago against the war which, last I checked Obama has continued to fund and has not (say) filibustered against, in common most of the rest of 'em.

And Jeebus, isn't Obama a committee chair or something? Maybe in his busy hearing schedule he could deign to work something in on Iraq?

Neither candidate is going to get us into Iraq again. Both are going to try to get us out as fast as possible, and it's not going to be easy, since the Republicans have seeded the ground with landmines.

So Iraq is a wash. Everyone else I care about, especially Social Security and universal health care, Obama's sliding right as fast as he can. I notice in your welter of irrelevant unlinked material you don't mention the latest outrage, Obama's dishonest recycling of the Harry and Louise ad. You guys seem a little slow in explaining What Obama Really Meant on that one, for some reason. Maybe it's even harder than usual.

It's not a free pass. I'm just horrified to find that on my issues, I prefer Hillary. Not an expected result at all.

And what on earth could "ending the mindset that got us into Iraq" possibly mean, except more vacuity? Unless we're talking about the Unity Pony?

Re Hillary's applause at the SOTU, I'm with Kevin:

To me, it all comes down to this: Yes, Obama opposed the war, and he opposed it for good reasons. He deserves a lot of credit for that. At the same time, taking a position when you're watching from the sidelines is a lot different from taking a position when you're in office and have to pay attention to the political winds more closely. So how has Obama done on that score? Let's be honest: since he entered the Senate, Obama has hardly been a leader of the antiwar caucus. In fact, his opposition to the war has been pretty muted and his voting record has been nearly identical to Hillary Clinton's. This strikes me as a more telling indication of what Obama would do as president than a speech he gave five years ago when he was in the Illinois legislature.

I don't mean this as a huge criticism of Obama. Electoral realities are electoral realities. But it does lead me to be generally unimpressed with cost-free symbolism like declining to clap for the surge. The real question is, what will he do once he's in office and he has to make good on his symbolism? Based on his track record over the past couple of years, my guess is that his real-world policy on Iraq would be about the same as Hillary's. Maybe a little bit better if he surrounds himself with better advisors, but that's about it.

As I said, it's a wash. Of course, empty gestures go over big with the OFB, along with the vacuous rhetoric.

NOTE Cute recycling of the "prophylactic." Generally, though, I use that when I'm dealing pre-emptively with an argument I know will be made again because it's already been made many times. I'm not aware that I, personally, have been dishonest about K-L. Perhaps Axelrod has you working too many, and you've gotten us confused with somebody else?

UPDATE Of course, if the Hillary campaign played as dirty as the whiners in Obama's camp keep saying they do, they'd have kept asking "Judgment? Oh, doing coke shows good judgment?" But no, they played civil and axed the guy who brought it up.

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

"Obamism is becoming a religion, and I think it’s insulating him from legitimate criticism from the left, whereas Hillary feels the need to improve her bona fides with the progressive base."

I endorsed HRC a couple of weeks ago. It took a lot of thought and was a tough call but I feel good about it now. I'm fed up with the "you can't say that" BS when it comes to Obama and he continually swipes away at HRC.

It's quite hypocritical of him to fault her for voting with McCain on issues and then in the next breath call for the "broad coalation."

lambert you really don't like to be corrected do you? Try to get over it. Obama was not only trying to describe his thought process in 2002, he was describing what he thought that day in 2004. Note the "don't" in "What I don’t think was appropriate was the degree to which Congress gave the president a pass on this” oh czar of reading comprehension.

I never asked Edwards to denounce anything, though he did a pretty thorough job of flailing himself and everybody else who ever cast a vote Bush's way. I like John. As I've written before I hope Obama makes him AG. But I never thought the way to win indies and Repubs over was to make them feel like they were personally responsible for everything Bush has done. I did point out Feingold's criticism that Edward's was running on his record instead of his own though because...well, it was true.

I'm not impressed by links to Drum who has been a Hillary supporter from the beginning. He (and you) seem to have forgotten that Obama introduced a bill in early 2007 calling for getting our troops out by March 31, 2008. It essentially became the bill that was vetoed by Bush that Edwards wanted congress to submit again and again.

What exactly would you like to see Obama do as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe about Iraq? Last I checked Iraq isn't in Europe.

I'm not so sanguine about the candidate who believes in coercive diplomacy and wants to continue the Bush doctrine of refusing to talk to our supposed enemies. I don't know what gives you or her the impression that our military and economy is in any shape to coerce anybody but you just go ahead and convince yourself foreign policy won't matter in November or for the next 4 years. You've painted yourself into that horrifying corner you don't want to be in. With any luck at all that's a decision you won't have to live with for very long.

I rely on you, markg8, to keep me au courant with the latest W.O.R.M. on such things. Maybe the talking point on that hasn't been issued yet? Axelrod must be sending out for pizza!

As far as Obama's absentee chairmanship of his Senate subcommitee, Joe Conason in Salon:

Doubts about Barack Obama's presidential credentials have crystallized during the past two weeks over his stewardship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Subcommittee on European Affairs, which has convened no policy hearings since he took over as its chairman last January.

But why should those questions matter to Americans who consider Senate hearings so much useless verbiage?

The simple answer to the first question is that Senate hearings do not merely provide occasions for grandstanding as many voters may suspect, but fulfill a critical purpose in providing information and perspective to lawmakers.

"I wouldn't call it a neglect of duty but a missed opportunity to explore issues that will be of fundamental importance to the next administration," says ambassador John Ritch, who served for two decades as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's senior staffer on European affairs and East-West relations, before going on to represent the Clinton administration at the United Nations organizations in Vienna.

Ritch points out that as subcommittee chair, Obama could have examined a wide variety of urgent matters, from the role of NATO in Afghanistan and Iraq to European energy policy and European responses to climate change -- and of course, the undermining of the foundations of the Atlantic alliance by the Bush administration. There is, indeed, almost no issue of current global interest that would have fallen outside the subcommittee's purview.

So, consider your question:

What exactly would you like to see Obama do as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe about Iraq? Last I checked Iraq isn’t in Europe.

Definitively answered. Of course, halo-burnishing does take a lot of time, as does oratory-polishing, so I can see what Obama wouldn't been able to fit actually doing something about Iraq into his very busy schedule. (Same deal with FISA; sternly worded statements, but a Constitutional scholar put himself on the line for the Constution? Forget about it.)

As far as Drum goes, yes, I am aware that the words "Kevin Drum" are a hate trigger for the OFB, just like the words "Paul Krugman", and that anything anyone they say will be discounted. Gosh, it's almost like the Unity Pony people are keeping an enemies list, isn't it? Whatever. I put the quote in for other readers, not for you.

Finally, as to the Times quote, here it is yet again:

He opposed the war in Iraq, and spoke against it during a rally in Chicago in the fall of 2002. He said then that he saw no evidence that Iraq had unconventional weapons that posed a threat, or of any link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.

In a recent interview, he declined to criticize Senators Kerry and Edwards for voting to authorize the war, although he said he would not have done the same based on the information he had at the time.

''But, I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports,'' Mr. Obama said. ''What would [thought process in 2002] I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was [thought process in 2002] not made.''

But Mr. Obama [having it both ways in 2004] said he did fault Democratic leaders for failing to ask enough tough questions of the Bush administration to force it to prove its case for war. ''What I don't think was appropriate [having it both ways in 2004] was the degree to which Congress gave the president a pass on this,'' he said.

What I said:

Anyhow, Obama’s is really what we’ve been saying here on this blog for some time: “Judgment” is situational. It’s a form of “cheap grace” to give a speech as a State Senator against Iraq, because there are very slight institutional consequences for doing so.

That’s why Obama says, justly, that “What would I have done? I don’t know“—which also covers his immediately following attempt to have it both ways, “What I don’t think was appropriate….”; since he wasn’t in that position, his thoughts are hardly dispositive for what he would do when under pressure.

Thanks for correcting the dates.

That disposes, I believe, of the substantive material in your comment. I'm aware of all your talking points, and they're already "in the price." Hillary is very imperfect. I just think Obama would be worse, that's all, for reasons stated. Nobody who's constantly sliding right on every issue that matters deserves my vote (and see above comments on Iraq).

Now don't come back until you can tell us What Obama Really Means on the Harry and Louise ad, hear? (links above) We're all anxious to know!

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

Here's what I think of that ad. It was a stupid move to make it because it gives Hillbots something to be angry about. The fact remains that a family of 4 making $50,000 a year is going to be hard pressed to pay $12,000 a year in health insurance premiums even with $2500 help and there will be lots of resistance to Hillary's plan that forces them to.

Now how about you tell me what you think about this.

Newsweek via Laura Rozen:

Last June, Bill Clinton took a break from helping his wife run for president to take care of some business of his own. He jetted off to the Black Sea resort of Yalta for an international conference sponsored by one of his good friends: Victor Pinchuk, a billionaire steel magnate and one of the richest men in Ukraine. In recent years, Pinchuk has become a fixture in Clinton's world, in part because Pinchuk has contributed millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation, the former president's charity that fights AIDS and poverty. Pinchuk's generosity paid dividends. He was a guest at the inauguration of Clinton's presidential library in Little Rock, and he attended Clinton's exclusive 60th birthday bash in New York.

Pinchuk won an even bigger favor when Clinton agreed to speak at the Yalta conference. Clinton dazzled the audience with a powerful address about the global challenges facing Ukraine. But he also inadvertently caused a stir when he was embraced by Pinchuk's father-in-law, Ukraine's former president Leonid Kuchma, whose authoritarian rule had been condemned by the State Department. Three years ago, a Ukrainian government investigation linked Kuchma's regime to the decapitation in 2000 of dissident journalist Georgy Gongadze. When Gongadze's widow, Myroslava, saw a newspaper photo of Clinton and Kuchma at the conference, "I wanted to throw up," she told NEWSWEEK. Clinton, she says, was being used by Pinchuk "to clean up and legitimize Kuchma's legacy." (A Clinton spokesman declined to comment on the ex-president's encounter with Kuchma.)

How about this?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/20/us/pol...

Or this?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/us/pol...

The Clinton's have raised hundreds of millions for his library and charity. They've been dumping investments and bailing out of partnerships for the past few years that make them look as amoral as GHW Bush and his Carlyle Group. But then what do you expect from a woman who sat on Walmart's board? That stuff isn't going to go away. We'll be hearing about Bill and Hillary's sucking up to murderous dictators forever if she gets the nomination and I for one can't defend it. Talk about your "establishment candidates".

markg8 pastes some more material into the comments section. Yawn.

Your faux outrage on Wal-Mart ties is easily disposed of; after all Michelle Obama served on the board of a major WalMart supplier until she decided, I imagine, that it was an embarassment.

File under the Department of So Fucking What.

Ditto Pinchuk. Even assuming the worst, which with the terrible record the Times has on the Clintons -- Jeff Gerth! Hi! -- is a pretty foolish thing to do, Obama's right wing Chicago economic advisors worry me a hell of a lot more, since their policies are going to affect the country a hell of a lot more than Pinchuk will.

As far as the What Obama Really Means on the Harry and Louise ad, no, Mark, you still don't get it.

It's not a matter of "stupidity." Obama's a Harvard grad, I would have thought you knew; the last thing he is, is stupid.

It's Obama sending a dog whistle to the insurance companies that he's going to roll over for them when they sit down "at the table."

Not only is this yet another slide to the right -- which Hillary is not doing -- it's intellectually dishonest.

Here's Ezra Klein (Ezra's not on the OFB enemies list yet, unlike Krugman and Drum, right? So I can use him without causing any hate triggers to fire?)

In the end, [Obama's] plan is not universal, does not attempt to be, and is probably less generous in its affordability provisions than Clinton's. And even so, I wouldn't really care, as it's still a pretty good plan, except that he's decided to respond to the inadequacies of his own policy by fear-mongering against not only better policy, but the type of policy he's probably going to have to eventually adopt.* It's very, very short-sighted.

Since you attempt to divert the thread with the WalMart and Bill Clinton stuff, I can happily assume that we've achieved Unity of opinion on the following:

1. That the significance of Obama's 2002 Iraq speech has been greatly overblown, and that it's a form of "cheap grace";

2. That Obama could very well have held hearings on Iraq as the chair of his subcommittee, but, as with FISA, chose to do nothing;

3. The irrelevance of the "good judgment" theme.

So, it looks like we're making progress here! Well done. I'm proud of you.

Hey, and Hillary has a better grasp of health policy issues, too. That's good news if we want to get something done, instead of listening to oratory from America's Favorite Baritone.

NOTE * But why even assume that? The Unity Strategery is bound to fail, and take at least a year to fail, leaving us even worse off than before.

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

Apparently not. I post information and you post other's opinions like you can win the argument by showing up on the playground with with your big brothers to do your fighting for you.

Then you comically dredge up Michelle Obama's affiliation with a pickle company as if that compares with Bill doing favors for murderous goons in return for tens of millions of dollars. Like I said awhile back lambert I wondered why I'd never heard of this blog before. I don't wonder anymore. Your situational ethics really suck out loud.

Being on the board of a company that probably offsources to murderous goons is way better than dealing with murderous goons outright? Since when is Wal*Mart better than a backwater oligarch?

And honey, sweetie, it's best you grow deaf and blind again, and forget us nasty, shrill people at Corrente. All political opinions come from somewhere, so your opinions aren't original either. We just think they're organized and boilerplate, from talking points, perhaps.

Consider this your Blackboard Jungle, Mister; we won't be schooled by you when you defend duplicity, smoke and mirrors.

[cgeye]

Ya sure, Bill stole millions. Rethuglicans steal billions, or in the case of Cheneyburton, trillions.

Size does matter.

When the Prime Unit of the Oborg decides to climb in in bed with Billary summer, I hope nobody's heads explode.

On our side, that is.

Remember who the Enemy is kids, and if anybody ever gets a chance to toss the Ring of Power back into Mount Doom, don't stop and think about it.

No Hell below us
Above us, only sky

coke or pepsi. they both rot your teeth. does one taste better? how much does taste matter?

we'll all vote based on the red of the can or the blue of the can or the curl of the logo or the way it reminds us of our first summer romance. and because there is no juice to be seen in all the store.

but its still coke and pepsi. and neither one wants to really look into the back of the cooler and see what stinks so bad.

sigh.

___________________________
.delusions of un mundo mejor.

Man, do I wish that weren't the case, but I can't argue with you. So, I'm just looking past the labels and anticipating the aftertaste -- which actually does differ some -- and trying to come up with the best choice.

The "can't you think for yourself" riff is an old, old friend, markg8! Gives me a warm, nostalgic feeling for DK, where the OFB used it constantly, before it wore out (like "reading comprehension"). Translation: "To 'think for yourself' is to be as one with Obama."

Still no substantive response on health care; admission by silence that Obama's absentee chairmanship in the Senate was completely ineffectual. Big issues, I'd say. The one goes to policy and intellectual honesty; the other to work ethic and whether there's more to Obama than the oratory.

And so, after the diversionary tactics fail, the death spiral into purely* personal invective and abuse, a typical OFB trajectory.

NOTE And Hillary was on the Wal-Mart board, Michelle was on the board of a major Wal-Mart supplied (only for $50,000, though). What does that have to do with goons? Answer: Nothing. Try to stay on point, mark, do.

NOTE * I try to mix invective in with analysis. It's more fun for everybody!

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

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

... they switched to corn syrup long ago.

I think that says it all about this blog. Enjoy yourselves. I have a precinct to GOTV.

Maybe you'll do better with Republicans and low information voters than you did here.

Don't forget to tell them about Obama's Harry & Louise brochure, and his absentee chairmanship!

And don't let the door hit you on the way out, markg8...

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

... of Obama's "Called to Serve" / "Committed Christian" brochure, too? Holy Moses, it's good stuff!

You'll never be a first tier blogger and opinion leader unless you learn to write with an interesting perspective instead of constantly citing others and sucking up to them with links. Good writers with cogent thoughts draw traffic. I see some of that in CD but the rest of ya? Not so much.

The "we're doomed" and "I hate everybody who doesn't agree with me" memes aren't very attractive.

Lambert is all about the h8.

And do let Paul Krugman know that he should stop linking to him.

As someone who just wandered in a while ago and has managed to piss off everyone here more than once, I want to say that what Corrente provides is a diversity of viewpoints that are all very interesting. Even those I disagree with most often, even those who I think are batshit crazy, are disagreeable and crazy in interesting ways.

Lambert is Vishnu here, dancing as fast as he can to keep it all in the air and smoothly circulating while one foot remains firmly planted on the forces of ignorance and evil; that alone makes him interesting, never mind his many insightful opinions.

You, markg8, are not interesting. You offer nothing unique, nothing insightful, and you run from every single critique in silence or try to avoid it by changing the topic or plastering one copy-and-paste on top of another. You are not worth reading. You are a bore.

kali yuga: Yes. More please.

Doesn't anyone in these United States of Amnesia remember Bill Clinton's Presidency -- the one featuring NAFTA, the Telcom Act of 1996, the Omnibus Crime Bill, the 'Anti-Terrorism & Death Penalty' legislation, the attempt to censor the internet, Welfare 'Reform', 500,000 Iraqis dead, bombing of Sudan, threatened veto of S-Chip, Waco, etc., ad nauseum?

Although by no means a complete cataloging of the failures of Clinton's Presidency, see the chapter about Clinton in Howard Zinn's "People's History of the United States."

"whereas Hillary feels the need to improve her bona fides with the progressive base"

Please. "Improve her bona fides" as in "let Mark Penn and Burson Marsteller come up with the best PR that sounds nice to the progressive base."

She and her husband are liars. They will TALK about improving their progressive bona fides; they will do the opposite once in office.

They are corporatists who will lie and call themselves progressives, then turn around and vote for every frigging thing the Corps desire.

Jeebus. Hyperreality, not Hilarity, ensues.

Edwards would have got my vote; now, what's the difference? If anything is, Iraq should be "the decider" -- not that it's enough.

It's your blog folks. You'll never draw traffic by ridiculing those who disagree with you by writing they "burble" etc. Oh sure, you can drive off anybody in your comments who poke holes in your arguments but that's not gonna make you better.

As for Krugman linking to lambert, big deal, even Wolcott linked to Dennis the Peasant because Dennis, a now reformed neocon who exposed his former partner Roger Simon of PJM as the fraud and incompetent boob he is. Dennis has valid points about Simon because as a CPA he has experience at helping get fledgling businesses off the ground. He didn't need the links. His blog is a hobby, he doesn't even accept advertising. Krugman OTH needs all the allies he can get. He may be a great economist but as a political columnist? He's brought to us by the same people who give us Friedman, Brooks, Kristal, and Dowd. Not exactly great company is it? I might as well stay up and watch Bill Maher and his collection of actors and singers tell me about it. Makes as much sense as Roger Ebert and the Joint Chiefs of staff reviewing movies.

bringiton the next time you want to tell me I'm a bore why not just say it instead of getting yourself so wound up you're calling lambert vishnu? Makes him sound like a octopus trying to set up a lawn chair. I know you didn't make want to make me laugh that hard but you did.

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

In the context of your deification of Obama, it seemed appropriate to reciprocate. The difference is that Lambert has identifiable positions and redeeming virtues. Your guy is still figuring out which side of up is down, and then equivocating about it.

Boring.

Personally, I have similar concerns about the mandated plan, and I don't knock someone for preferring Obama on the merits of policy differences, which are few and far between.

But I think you have it all backwards on the vitriol.

The post I just wrote on Hillary hate is grounded in the relentless bashing of Hillary I've witnessed daily by starry-eyed Obama zealots who are only too happy to rehash GOP trash, if it helps their "transformative" cause.

This site has frequently been critical of Obama's seemingly limitless embrace of GOP frames. We document and express frustration and outrage. But vitriol and hate? I don't think so.

I don't hate Obama in the least. But he does profoundly disappoint me with his penchant for using his oratory gifts -- and this historic opportunity to pull the country from the abyss that Ronald Reagan hurtled us toward -- to fuel a cult of personality founded on happy talk and religious showboating, and diverting from engagement on the real issues like the one you keenly comment on.

All the fake outrage over Billary's "racism," and the delusions of transforming the country by pretending that our problem is even-steven partisanship, that keeps the differentiation from being on substance, and we are the poorer for it.

As a Dem to my core, thank you so much, vastleft. Hallelujah for smart Dems!!!!

That sounded worse than I intended, but please read:

http://www.correntewire.com/the_best_art...

Yes, precisely so (thank you): Senator Obama has indeed been very kind in putting Senator Clinton's in as best a positive light as possible (which is not an easy thing to do), and to his credit, he might even have done, I believe, a better job of trying to excuse Hilalry clinton's vote than she did herself (perhaps because, she is still trying to have it "both ways" on this - unlike, say, John Edwards who did the right thing.)

But my comment was not about what other people feel about the way Senator Clinton voted on resolution 114, but how I feel about it and how I have personally been affected by it. The site, I was referencing is just asking a question. Just that, a simple - yet, very relevant - question: H.J.Res. 114 - Why did they do it?

To me, it struck home with CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer’s question to Hillary Clinton in which he asked her if she was willing to admit she made a mistake with her vote:

"You were naive in trusting President Bush?" Blitzer asked.

This is where it all stops making sense to me. (A Lieutenant Columbo moment, if you will.)

Because, you see, a lot of things can be - and have been - said about Hillary Clinton (both true and false), BUT "politically naive" has never been one of them.

What gave then?

All the things developed in the article i was referencing (H.J.Res. 114 - Why did they do it?), Hillary already knew at the time --- and more (if she is worth her salt, as a Senator.)

Why did she vote the way she did?

She has never been able to present a clear and convincing explanation of why she voted the way she did in spite of everything she knew.

Where was she when Senator Byrd argued on the floor of the Senate that the resolution amounted to a "blank check" for the White House. Didn’t she hear him? What part of "blank check" exactly didn't she understand.

Hillary Clinton's argument that she was misled by the Bush administration is unconvincing. Or else, Wolf Blitzer was right and Hillary Clinton is politically naive.

BUT I do not believe that she is. In fact, everything we know about Hillary Clinton (including the speech she gave on the floor of the senate that day), all seem to point out that in fact she did know better!

So, I didn't mean to press your button here, vastleft, and I am not trying to put Hillary Clinton down here, I am just trying to understand. I think a lot of people want to understand. And, I think that it is a good thing that such questions be asked, especially during an election in which the Senator is running for the Presidency.

How so?

I don't demonize Hillary and others for the vote (which based on everything I've seen about Obama, I suspect he would have done the same on, and even he suggests as much). I wouldn't have done it myself, because I looked into Bush's soul like he did Putin's, and I knew he was a lying sack of shit. But few people who look at the world as I do have the temperament for politics, or at least to be successful in it. I always call elephants in the room, often at great personal cost.

HRC had been told a pile of alarming lies by people one ordinarily has to rely on, and she didn't understand that Bush is batshit crazy and evil enough to begin bombing after the inspections that the AUMF ushered in were extraordinarily successful. That she didn't throw herself in front of that train is not something I'm thrilled about, but it was par for the course for many Senators, and I've seen nothing in Obama that says he has the fortitude to harsh any mellows, either. How much of the dreadful legislation on his watch as he filibustered?

They are both highly compromised centrists, both far from my ideal. But you go to war, and hopefully peace, with the compromised centrists you have instead of the ideal progressives you wish you had.

In my estimation, Hillary Clinton is enough more trustworthy, battlehardened, and emboldened to arc leftward that she's my choice over Obama.

My strong objections to Obama surround his rightward arc, his snatch-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory give-away-the-store framing, and the don't-think joinerism of his campaign. His campaign is like what MySpace was a couple of years ago. An absolute fucking horrorshow that somehow hits a nerve and becomes an runaway hit. I don't care how many endorsements he has or any other measure of his popularity. I stand by my objections to his campaign, because it's ultimately bad for the party and bad for the country. He may well win, in which case the best case is he's Bill Clinton II -- a charismatic, post-partisan triangulator who has tiny coattails because he squandered an opportunity (in fact a massively bigger opportunity than Clinton had) to reshape the political dialogue and landscape of America, and instead ran on his own likability. If Obama wins, it will come as little surprise to me if the GOP substantially regroups by 2010 or 2012, because he's so aggressively whitewashing their sins, something that the woman who coined "Vast Rightwing Conspiracy" is, seems to me, disinclined to do.

I'm not pleased that Hillary hasn't done a great job shedding light on her thinking about the AUMF.

It's one of the many reasons I preferred Edwards, who cut to the chase and fell on his sword about it.

But that doesn't, for me, change the equation I described above.

My strong objections to Obama surround his rightward arc, his snatch-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory give-away-the-store framing, and the don’t-think joinerism of his campaign.

I very much dislike the weak approach to the war of both the remaining candidates. But you are way wrong about framing and Lakoff is right.

Obama frames Republican themes as "yesterdays news"
You want to frame them as powerful and dangerous.
Obama frames democratic themes as basic American principles.
You want to frame them as liberal scripture.

You want to persuade people "we were fucking right and you dumbass crackers were fucking wrong."
Obama wants to persuade people "all of us know what is right".

Obama frames for a huge democratic majority
You frame for a 49% heartbreaker.