Lou Dobbs

Good Lord. When will CNN dump Dobbs, Beck, Grace and their other idiots.

Talking Points Memo | Oops

Hillary in Tuzla: The Tale of Bosnian Sniper Fire (TRAILER)

I've read numerous reports chastising Hillary for this account over the last week, but one thing I've not heard discussed is the "Too small, too poor, or too dangerous" comment. Does anyone else have a problem with all three of those qualifiers? Particularly the last one. Personally, I don't know if I share the viewpoint that says, if it's too risky send my wife (and in the case of Tuzla, my daughter as well).

Obama's Foreign Policy

Read Spencer Ackerman's analysis of Obama's foreign policy team. It's a thoughtful and comprehensive reminder that no one comes to the White House with all the relevant experience:

When considering any presidential hopeful's foreign-policy promises,
it's important to remember that what candidates say is, at best, an
imperfect guide to their actions in office. What proves to be a more
reliable indicator of presidential behavior is a candidate's roster of
advisers. (If the press had paid better attention, the country would
have seen through Bush's pitch about a humble foreign policy and
realized that many of his advisers, including Paul Wolfowitz and
Richard Perle, were conspiracy-minded warmongers.) Obama's
foreign-policy advisers come from diverse backgrounds. They are former
aides to Democratic mandarins like Tom Daschle and Lee Hamilton (Denis
McDonough and Ben Rhodes, respectively); veterans of the Clinton
administration's left flank (Tony Lake and Susan Rice); a human-rights
advocate who helped write the Army's and Marine Corps' much-lauded
counterinsurgency field manual (Sarah Sewall); a retired general who
helped run the air war during the invasion of Iraq (Scott Gration); and
a former journalist who revolutionized the study of U.S. foreign policy
(Samantha Power). Yet they form a committed, intellectually coherent,
and surprisingly united foreign-affairs team. (Shortly before this
piece went to press, Power resigned from the campaign after making an
intemperate remark to a reporter.)

Faustian Bargain

There have been many discussions over the last few weeks about what it would take for Hillary to win the nomination. Perhaps some evidence of her end game?

Media Matters on MSM misstatements about Obama's race speech.

Nice detail around what is sure to be the new anti-Obama meme about this speech since the content itself is so hard to attack.

For, to quote Jon Stewart's take on the speech: "So at 11am on a Tuesday a Politician talked to Americans about race as if they were adults."

McCain "Gaffe." Screw-up or Refreshing Candor?

I'm not surprised to see coverage of this McCain verbal slip being aired today. What is interesting, to me, is not that he made the mistake of lumping together al-Qaeda and other extremists under one umbrella. That's been one of the more deceptive underpinnings of Bush Administration policy in the war on terror.

What impresses me, and why I think McCain may be a really difficult guy to paint as a Bushite, is not only did he apologize and correct his misstatement, but that he did it DURING the speech, and at the prompting of a (nominally) cross-party advisor. That's not the sort intellectual honesty we've come to expect from Republicans in the last few years.

A McCain Gaffe in Jordan | The Trail | washingtonpost.com

Speaking to reporters in Amman, the Jordanian capital, McCain said he and two Senate colleagues traveling with him continue to be concerned about Iranian operatives "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back."

Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was "common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate." A few moments later, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, standing just behind McCain, stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate's ear. McCain then said: "I'm sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda."

Obama on Race in America

I'm not sure yet if this speech is going to help or further draw divisions around race. I do know that it was a damn good speech.


Barack Obama : : Change We Can Believe In | Sam Graham-Felsen's Blog: "A More Perfect Union"

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

Tracy Morgan on Obama

For a full roundup, see: SNL Shows Blatant Anti-Spitzer Bias, Endorses Obama - Media on The Huffington Post

Cass Sunstein on Obama

Living in Chicago, I used to greatly engoy listening to Prof. Cass Sunstein on public radio. His take on Obama, seems to match what I see when I watch him in interviews like this.

Wow. His lead is far more substantial than I thought.

Good analysis of delegate situation if you look at FL/MI options.

2008 Democratic Convention Watch: Florida and Michigan: By the numbers

In all scenarios, FL is not enough by itself to help her. Bottom line is that the ONLY way for Hillary to take a delegate lead is to count as a "victory" an uncontested election. That'll go over well.

Clinton on NPR

 

Just listened to Hillary on NPR.  I think I just figured out what drives me so nuts about her comments about McCain vs. Obama on national security.  It’s not that she’s saying she and McCain have experience and Obama has none that bothers me the most.  It’s that she’s arguing this: because McCain is going to try to make the election about national security therefore the Democrats need to put up the best national security candidate.  I don’t think I got just how depressing this perspective is until today.  Given how successful the Clintons were in 1992 reframing the decision away from what the GOP wanted the election to be about, it’s just sad that she is cedeing the fundamental choice of this election to John McCain’s strong suit.  Make this election about economy in general or healthcare in particular, and what does McCain’s lifetime of experience yield?  Argh!

 

C-n-C Threshold

Wow. I think I could cross that threshold -- Clinton Camp

why they stay

Wow. Someone does something out of self interest. I feel like a great cloud of doubt has been lifted from my eyes. Wash . Post 's Quinn suggested "personal ambition" led Clinton and Silda Wall Spitzer to "stand by her man" because "there was something in it for her"

His Blackness

Delicious! His Blackness

Finally

It's about time someone pierced the absurdity of the big state claims: Pro-Obama Governors Challenge Hillary "Big State" Spin

Ferraro "Gaffe"

I actually think Ferraro may have inadvertently been on to something – but for the exact opposite reason she identified. Saying that Obama is in the situation he’s in because he’s black requires a restatement of what situation he’s finds himself. At this point in the race, he’s ahead in votes, states won, and delegates, and his white opponent has virtually no chance of overtaking him on any of those measures of success. Yet, she continues on. Consider Eugene Robinson's ruminations on what sorts of questions Barack would be having to answer if he were behind in states, delegates, and the popular vote. Surely, even the Clintons’ would have dropped out by now if John Edwards was in Obama’s position. Don’t you think waiting around for some sort of catastrophic blunder or arguing to superdelegates that you’re more “electable” than your opponent would be laughable were Obama a white guy with a “normal” name?

On the other hand, I suspect that it is highly unlikely for the party elders to swing the nomination to Clinton given what it would indicate if the first major party African-American candidate for president did NOT get the nomination because party elders deemed him “unelectable” in spite of winning more elections (by all meaningful metrics of vote count, delegates, and contests) than his Caucasian opponent.

General McPeak Speaks

Obama Meets With Retired Admirals, Generals - The Caucus - Politics - New York Times Blog

“Senator Obama was up in Iowa, maybe not so up in New Hampshire, but he was the same Barack Obama,” General McPeak said. “Steady, reliable, ‘No shock, Barack. No drama Obama.”

Subliminal Racism?

Given that the Clinton campaign's most notable racially suggestive comments were the rather ham-fisted marginalizing of Obama's win in South Carolina by comparing it to Jesse Jackson's victory in 88, I'd probably assume that this is more an oversight than incredibly subtle subliminal word play. That being said, bunnys or lambs would have been more associative of a child's vulnerability, so if any thought was put into the selection of pajamas, it was pretty stupid.

Clinton's Plagiarism

Well, I guess Walter Mondale is a Hillary supporter, so it must be ok to use his stuff.

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan