RIP George Carlin

But we will always have the 7 words.

Bremerton Barbie: Day Two (of Nine)

Mattel recently announced the release of limited-edition Barbie Dolls for the Greater Washington market:

(Nine of these are making the email rounds among a variety of Puget Sound area women. I received it in a forward from my daughter, who works in Bremerton.
There will be one a day until they run out.)


'Bremerton Barbie'


This Barbie now comes with a stroller and 2 infant dolls. Optional accessories include a GED and bus pass. White boy Gangsta Ken and his 1979 Caddy were available, but are now very difficult to
find since the addition of the infant.

There's Google and Then

there's Pipl. Just how much of you is out there on the intertubes, anyway?
If you guess way too much, you'd be right.

Snicker Sunday

Gail Collins of the NYT at her best today on choosing VPs.

I’m praying that McCain selects Mitt Romney so I can repeatedly revisit the time Mitt drove to Canada with the family dog on the station-wagon roof.

Or perhaps they could both pick Michael Bloomberg...

...Other than that, picking a running mate is — no disrespect intended — like picking a pet. How much time are you planning to spend with the little fellow? How much exercise will he be getting on an average day? On one extreme, you have the William Wheeler model (“There’s the living room. Go find a corner and sleep in it.”) On the other end, there’s the Cheney version in which the pet takes over the checkbook, diversifies the family investment portfolio and starts strafing at the neighbor’s cat.

Watch 6 Minutes on FISA

then Do This.


Thanks, Julimac

P.S. My letter to bburton@barackobama.com

Dear Mr. Burton,
I have been a supporter of and contributor to Barack Obama since the Iowa caucus.
I believed he would protect the Constitution. His reluctant support for the newly revised FISA bill, with its enlargement of the government's power to spy on Americans, is hugely disappointing.
I am asking that Obama show us the courage and hope we need to recover our rights, filibuster the telecom immunity provision as you promised, and demand Congress substitute an extension of the PAA for the fatally flawed bill.
If he does not take a leadership position on this vital issue, my dollars in the future will go toward defeating the Democrats who have sold us out.

Sincerely,

History Sunday

Description: Photograph of Letta Crapo-Smith taken by F. Friend. Annotated on reverse by Detroit painter Helen Keep, "Letta Crapo-Smith, daughter of Mr. & Mrs. H. H. H. Crapo-Smith. The first person from Detroit to have a picture in the Paris Salon, [signed] Helen L. Keep." Crapo-Smiths (1862-1921) was a painter from Detroit, Michigan.

The Smithsonian has a photostream on Flickr of all kinds of pictures from its collection available for your viewing and use. At last, your taxpayer dollars work for you.

What Is This FISA Thing

that I keep yammering about?
Okay, my writing skills and patience have dwindled. I just want you to read my mind.
So, here's the straight skinny from semiloon at Greenwald's site:

You see we already have a mechanism (enacted into law with the original FISA) where telecoms can be compelled to cooperate with the government.

It's called a "warrant."

When a warrant is presented to a telecom to enact a wiretap, that assures the telecom that the requested tap is legitimate and that a judge (a non-elected and presumably non-political entity) decided that there was compelling evidence to issue the warrant.

The problem with "warrant-less wiretapping" is that there is no judicial overview of the process. The government goes to the telecoms and says, "Hey we want to wiretap a whole bunch of communications, maybe millions of people, and by the way we don't have a warrant, but if you cooperate with us (i.e. look the other way) you'll get a bunch of big government contracts that will make you millions of dollars.

The telecoms knew this was illegal because the law clearly requires warrants, but said,"Sure, we'll do this, and we especially like the part of about the millions of dollars, but if the shit goes down, you government guys have got to get our backs so we don't get our asses sued off by all the people we illegally spied on. And oh yeah, we'll kick back some of those millions in the form of lobbyist contributions."

And the government said, "No worries, we'll get your back because if this shit goes south some of us here might go to prison, so we're on the same team."

Breaking: Obama Ahead 15 Points

in Washington state. Newsweek also has him up 15 points nationally, but Newsweek polls are notoriously volatile.
And...we're 4 months out. His to lose, in other words.

Barbie Joke Day One

Mattel recently announced the release of limited-edition Barbie Dolls for the Greater Washington market:

(Nine of these are making the email rounds among a variety of Puget Sound area women. I received it in a forward from my daughter, who works in Bremerton.
There will be one a day until they run out.)

' Issaquah Barbie'
This princess Barbie is sold only at Nordstrom's in Bellevue . She comes with an assortment of Kate Spade Handbags, a Lexus SUV, a long-haired foreign dog named Honey and a cookie-cutter house. Available with or without tummy tuck and face lift. Workaholic Ken sold only in conjunction with the augmented version.

FISA: Do This

Yesterday, someone in conversation reminded me that Jimmy Carter predicted that Americans in the future would have far less freedom than they had when he was president. It was eery, since I'd almost resigned myself to Obama's declaration of reluctant support for the new electronic spying bill.
It's a horror even without telecom immunity for past cooperation with Bush administration illegal surveillance.
Glenn Greenwald is fuming but I'd been on the fence. I didn't want to abandon my faith in Obama's promise. But I can't disagree with this.

No political leader merits uncritical devotion -- neither when they are running for office nor when they occupy it -- and there are few things more dangerous than announcing that you so deeply believe in the Core Goodness of a political leader, or that we face such extreme political crises that you trust and support whatever your Leader does, even when you don't understand it or think that it's wrong. That's precisely the warped authoritarian mindset that defined the Bush Movement and led to the insanity of the post-9/11 Era, and that uncritical reverence is no more attractive or healthy when it's shifted to a new Leader.

There's one particular promise he made that we should hold him to. Back when the bad Rockefeller bill was before the Senate, his spokesman Bill Burton promised Obama would support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.
Greenwald gives us Burton's email address and urges us to send him a message demanding that he abide by that promise.

bburton@barackobama.com

Yesterday, even after Obama's disheartening announcement about his position on the new FISA bill, I posted the link where you can donate to him. I was planning on doing that again.
Now, I've decided to send my money to the coalition that is raising money to oppose Democrats who are bad on this crucial constitutional issue. It includes the ACLU and Ron Paul "money bombers."
Greenwald explains what they're doing here.
You can donate here.
Oh, and I'm telling Burton what I'm doing and why.

UPDATE: I can't believe I spent hours reading all the comments on the Greenwald blog, but I learned a few things.

You can also go to my.barackobama.com and express dissatisfaction, although those who did said it was not satisfying.

And, you can call his campaign office, 866-675-2008, #6 during weekdays and talk to a real person.
Someone on the comments thread said s/he was assured that Obama can and will kill the immunity provision.
Next week, we'll see.

Vely Intelesting

Remember Arte Johnson as the Nazi in the bushes on Laugh In?
I felt a little like him this morning, lurking through a lot of vely intelesting comments responding to Steve Rosenbaum's assertion at Huffpo that McCain will decline the Republican nomination because he can't win and a fresh new team will emerge to put on a helluva show for the last two months of the campaign.
I'm neither convinced nor unconvinced, but I do believe that Donald Duck could beat McCain.

So -- before the Democrats go and game out how to beat McCain, it may be worth thinking about what happens when he says he won't accept the nomination. For the Republicans, a wide open convention would be both good theater and good politics.

Aw, Jeebus, He Is A Politician

Obama mostly caves on the FISA bill, although he says he'll work in the Senate to remove telecom immunity.
I'm not even going to look at Greenwald today. Going to the garden to eat worms.
Tune in next week.

UPDATE: Harry Reid says he's going to try to separate out the immunity portion of the bill so those opposed to it can express their opinion in a vote. But he doesn't know if that will work, either. That gives Obama cover.
What do I think. There are two theories about this. Pelosi and Reid were among the "gang of 8" the congressional leaders who the White House can claim were fully briefed about the surveillance when it was illegal.
Hoyer was, too, I suppose.
Plus the Dems believe they're vulnerable at election time on the national security issue if they continue to oppose the bill and it would be bad for their presidential aspirations as well as ability to take bigger majorities in Congress.
You can't make change if you don't get elected.
Is it better to fight like hell and lose? Or do they overestimate the effectiveness of such an argument?
I don't want to lose. I also don't want to give the telecoms immunity, but that's probably going to happen, the Senate signed off on it before. Feh (spits)!

Time to Pony Up

Barack Obama's campaign goal is 750,000 donors by July 4.
If you were holding off during primary season, kick him some love. It doesn't have to be much and it's easy and safe online.

FISA: Last Chance

So, too many Democratic cowards in the House, after raising our hopes by rejecting the Senate bill with telecom immunity, voted this morning in favor of the so-called "compromise" bill cooked up behind closed doors and only made available to members yesterday.
In my state of Washington, my Congressman Norm (Norm!) Dicks, who will never have serious opposition and is not considered a Blue Dog, voted for it.
Rick Larsen, Jay Inslee and Jim McDermott voted against it.
NOW WHAT?
It goes to the Senate next week. Is it worth a filibuster? If I were a vote counting Senator, I would save my energy for something more likely to succeed and issue a sternly worded statement of condemnation.
So, I'm not urging anybody to contact Patty and Maria to urge them to filibuster. They're solid votes against a winning bill.
However, if you want to chime in anyway, here's the info.
Murray
Ph-202-224-2621
F 202-224=0238

Cantwell
Ph-202-224-3441
F-202-228-0514

Free FAX

Fast Eddie Obama

I think David Brooks is a no-nothing schmuck and Republican mouthpiece who gets paid to mislead and lie.
He's decided that Obama is a politician after all and that people like me didn't know that.
But it's an entertaining column.

On the one hand, Obama did sell out the primary cause of his professional life, all for a tiny political advantage. If he’ll sell that out, what won’t he sell out? On the other hand, global affairs ain’t beanbag. If we’re going to have a president who is going to go toe to toe with the likes of Vladimir Putin, maybe it is better that he should have a ruthlessly opportunist Fast Eddie Obama lurking inside.

All I know for sure is that this guy is no liberal goo-goo. Republicans keep calling him naïve. But naïve is the last word I’d use to describe Barack Obama. He’s the most effectively political creature we’ve seen in decades. Even Bill Clinton wasn’t smart enough to succeed in politics by pretending to renounce politics.

UPDATE: Brooks' column basically blasts Obama for flip-flopping on campaign finance and previous perceived reversals (Rev. Wright) while at the same time seeming to appreciate his advanced political skills.

Wonder what he thinks of today's news that MoveOn will not activate its 527 out of respect for Obama's wishes that no independent groups raise and spend big money in support of him.

If you don't remember what a 527 is, think Swiftboating. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was the group that slimed Kerry in 04, but as it turns out, MoveOn was one of the top 527s that cycle.

There is no limit to the money they can raise, the amount donors can give and it's a big hole in campaign finance reform. The fact that he's actively discouraging them says a lot about his seriousness. Or, it could be a matter of message control, since campaigns are not allowed to coordinate with 527s.

Anyway, for what it's worth, seems like a good move and shows his confidence in ability to raise money.

Bushism No. 5,823

From Catholic journalist Rocco Palmo:

POTUS Demotes Pope

The protocol's never been any sort of state secret: the Pope is addressed as "Your Holiness" or, by his own, "Most Holy Father."

But as he began his farewell visit to B16 last Friday, President Bush -- whose administration has shown a bizarre, unchecked penchant for the, er, unique term "His Holy Father" over the years -- took the salutation to an even odder place:

"Your Eminence, you're looking good," Bush told the pope.

For the record, the greeting would've been perfectly delivered... were the President giving it to a cardinal.

Obama's First GE Ad

Starts tomorrow in 18 states.

War Crimes

There's not likely to be trials here, but they're getting ready for them in Europe, according to Scott Horton in The New Republic.

But Colin Powell's chief of staff, Colonel Larry Wilkerson, nails it: "Haynes, Feith, Yoo, Bybee, Gonzales and--at the apex--Addington, should never travel outside the U.S., except perhaps to Saudi Arabia and Israel. They broke the law; they violated their professional ethical code. In the future, some government may build the case necessary to prosecute them in a foreign court, or in an international court." Augusto Pinochet made a trip to London, and his life was never the same afterwards. The Bush administration officials who pushed torture will need to be careful about their travel plans.

Ad of the Year

Priceless new Heinz ad in Britain, via Andrew Sullivan.

FISA Action

You can tell Nancy Pelosi to pull the bad FISA bill from the floor, preventing the vote scheduled for Friday.
It's likely her phones are jammed, so I'm including FAX numbers and you can FAX for free here.
Pelosi, Phone 202-225-4965, FAX 202-225-4965.

Ask Obama to take a public stand again reiterating his opposition to telecom immunity.
Obama Senate office 202-225-4131, FAX 202-228-4260

How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic

Bookmark this, you may need it some day. Pass it along.

FISA: Awful, Awful News

A so-called compromise that is the same thinly veiled immunity for telecoms that broke the law and spied on Americans is about to be voted on in the House tomorrow. Democrats engineered it under apparently heavy pressure from the telecoms.
We have been betrayed.
There are two things to do.
Join the new coalition forming under the aegis of the ACLU to fight for all constitutional issues.
And call Obama and tell his campaign what's expected.
Read all about it in Glenn Greenwald's piece today, with links for action.
I feel sick.

Iraq War: By the Numbers

We all know it's about the oil, but I'd never seen the actual dollar figures. Andrew Sullivan dug it up today, the day news surfaced about the Iraqi government's no-bid contracts for its oil — at U.S. direction presumably — to a consortium of four western companies — Exxon, BP, a French and a Dutch firm.
The numbers? $30 trillion worth over time. And the war has cost us $1 trillion. Such a deal.
More here, and more links, if you want.

I'm Voting Republican

This video is going viral. I've received it from several friends in the last few days. Go to this link to pass it on via email. Spread the word.

ACTION ALERT: FISA

The ACLU has a site up where you can automatically write your congress critter about the new sham "compromise" on telecom immunity that basically lets all the companies off the hook for cooperating with the administration to illegally spy on our phone calls and emails.
Go there and sign up now. It was massive public response that killed action on an earlier bill and it needs to happen again.

More Women I Wouldn't Vote For

The Guardian

The whole "vote Hillary, elect a woman president" meme was annoying for any number of reasons, not least of which that we wouldn't be urging feminists to elect a Condi Rice or Margaret Thatcher.
There's a long list of women we shouldn't have in power, just as long as the list of men.
Here's my most recent favorite, retired Lt. Col. Diane Beaver (quit snickering), who was the top military lawyer at Gitmo.
AP reports that in a recently revealed memo:

Lt. Col. Diane Beaver, explains that the Defense Department had made a practice of hiding prisoners who were being treated harshly, even abusively, from the International Committee of the Red Cross, a non-governmental body empowered to monitor compliance with Geneva Convention rules for the treatment of military prisoners.

Beaver also confirmed that the military was secretly using previously forbidden techniques, such as sleep deprivation, but hiding them so as not to draw "negative attention," according to minutes of the meeting.

"Officially it is not happening," Beaver said, according to minutes from the meeting. "It is not being reported officially. The ICRC is a serious concern. They will be in and out, scrutinizing our operations, unless they are displeased and decide to protest and leave. This would draw a lot of negative attention."

Beaver said interrogators should "curb the harsher operations while ICRC is around."

Beaver was speaking at an Oct. 2, 2002 meeting between CIA and military lawyers and military intelligence officials on how to counter the resistance of Guantanamo detainees to military interrogation.

Beaver's comments suggest that the CIA's practice of hiding unregistered "ghost detainees" from the ICRC at military jails may have been as much in service to the Pentagon's interrogation program as it was to the CIA's.

A senior CIA lawyer at the meeting, John Fredman, explained that whether harsh interrogation amount to torture "is a matter of perception." The only sure test for torture is if the detainee died.

Michigan Sen. Carl Levin is holding hearings on all this today, and maybe we'll get to see Diane in person. Oh, goody.

I say, put her on trial. And all the rest of them.

U.S. Attorneys Scandal

Hmm, take a little vacation and news breaks out.
This is really exciting to me because Talking Points Memo was all over it last year at about this time and is the real reason I became addicted to the internet, there was something new every day.
Here's a brief folo to yesterday's news, which I will have to find. Updates later.

The Times has a bit more detail about the on-going Inspector General's and Office of Professional Responsibility probe's into the US Attorney firings. Seems, as we learned yesterday from the Wall Street Journal, that Bradley Schlozman has moved furthest along toward potential criminal charges. Meanwhile Alberto Gonzales' attorney, George J. Terwilliger III, assures the Times that Gonzales is not the target of any criminal investigation tied to the US Attorney firings but he was not willing to give any such assurance about whether his client is being looked at for perjury in the NSA wiretaps case.

Should You See It?

Reel Geezers do movie reviews.

On Vacation

From trail along Willamette River, Eugene, OR, 6-12-2008

Here's Nora

to entertain while I'm on vacation.

On Vacation

Meringue with lavender sauce and strawberries with black pepper ice cream at the King Estate Winery near Eugene, Or. 6-12-08

On Vacation

On Vacation

Kucinich Reads Articles of Impeachment

On the floor of the House on Monday.
Not sure of the parliamentary significance of actually reading them, unless it then forces some further action, like scheduled hearings.
Democrats.com is pushing this and you can sign the petition of support, etc., here.

Update: Nobody at Kos thinks anything will come of it, but you can thank him here reply@kucinichforcongress.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a former Democratic presidential contender, said Monday he wants the House to consider a resolution to impeach President Bush.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi consistently has said impeachment was "off the table."

Kucinich, D-Ohio, read his proposed impeachment language in a floor speech. He contended Bush deceived the nation and violated his oath of office in leading the country into the Iraq war.

Kucinich introduced a resolution last year to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. That resolution was killed, but only after Republicans initially voted in favor of taking up the measure to force a debate.

Kucinich won 50 percent of the vote in a five-way House Democratic primary in March, beating back critics who said he ignored business at home to travel the country in his quest to be president.

On Vacation

View from the front porch, Somewhere in the Woods, Jefferson County, WA.

Foodie Alert

Wanna be a locavore, getting most of your food locally to reduce the carbon footprint while supporting local farmers?
Sounds good, but as the saying goes, common sense has one big problem, it may be common but it may not make sense.
Consider a study cited in this New Republic article:
.

..it's striking to learn that, on average, replacing just 21 percent of the red meat in the "typical" diet with fish or chicken does as much, emissions-wise, as buying everything in that same diet locally. Another big surprise is that the far-flung globalization of the food chain that Pollan describes seems to have had a relatively small impact on global greenhouse-gas emissions, in part because ocean freight still accounts for 99 percent of all international transport, and that uses far less energy than trucking. That's unexpected, and it sounds like even the authors were surprised by the result.

Web 2.0 And Campaign 2008

Or Comment O' Teh Day
From Rabbitsmrgasbord at Talking Points Memo:

...if the hard-core Hillary supporters are discovering the intertubes could McCain supporters be far behind? Next thing you know they'll discover the googler, and the utube that lets them post videos from those newfangled cameras that don't use film, and then who knows where it will all lead? Next thing you know they'll all be on face spaces and such, and they'll be all blobbing about where the best early-bird specials are and twiddering about much prune juice they drank this morning. It's the beginning of the end, I tells ya.

Attention Bookies

Amazon hides its Listmania in apparent embarassment because it's so chaotic, according to Virginia Heffernan, who writes the The Medium blog for the New York Times.
I read Virginia so you don't have to.
So here's everything from Fun Books About Chickens to I dunno what, cuz I haven't read that far yet.
And then there's Unspun, which is Amazon's attempt to organize the chaos.
So jump in, you might find some whole new category for the summer.
CORRECTION: These are not just lists of books, they are lists of anything, although Amazon was hoping for PRODUCTS that it sells, I guess.

Quote O' Teh Week (Last Week)

In reality there is only one candidate. Barack Obama. In November he will win or he will lose. John McCain is relevant only in so far as he is not Barack Obama. The Senator from Arizona is incapable of energizing his party, brings no new people to the polls, and has a personality that is best kept under wraps.

Arch-conservative Bay Buchanan writing in Human Events June 4.

Republicans are worried, says Thomas Edsall of Huffpo.

Me, I think it'll be a landslide for Obama and way clear long before November.

Free Obama Bumper Stickers

from MoveOn here.

High Gas Prices: It's All Phil Gramm's Fault

The media in the last week has featured several revealing articles detailing former Texas (where else?) Sen. Phil Gramm's involvement with a large Swiss bank that is caught not only in the mortgage crisis but in illegal financial activity. He has been a lobbyist with USB — or is it UBS? — until very recently and continues to be a vice president.
Gramm is John McCain's "economic advisor."
What has not yet grabbed the media's attention is Gramm's leadership role in midnight amendment to 2000 legislation — the Enron loophole — that eliminated government oversight — that bad, bad government regulation — of futures markets.
Sen. Maria Cantwell chaired the Senate Commerce Committee hearing last week on the whole thing, which was shown on C-Span. You can watch and listen to the whole two hours here.
But if you don't want to, here's the bottom line:
You're paying about $1-$2 a gallon too much because of unregulated market manipulation and speculation.
Yeah, supply/demand is in there, and the falling dollar. So is hoarding. So is producer (e.g. the Saudi's) reluctance.
And yeah, we need to develop alternative energy.
But, $1-$2 a gallon is what this travesty of deregulation under the Republicans is costing you.
Oh, yeah, George Soros was there to testify. He's been all over the Hill lately. That must be killing the R's, to have to listen to their Great Satan.
But the hero of the day was Michael Greenberger, a law professor and former director of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission under Clinton.
He's enraged. He said the FTC needs to be told to buck up and do something now and federal law allows it under the Administrative Procedures Act. Futhermore, this deregulation not only allows the oil speculation, but is behind the food and mortgage derivatives speculation.
There. It's all the fault of Phil Gramm, busy whispering "more, more deregulation" in McCain's ear.

...the flowers burn

and I want
to live my life all over again, to begin again,

to be utterly
wild.

A Meeting, Mary Oliver

Big Pink Columbine

Don't Watch Sunday Talking Heads

because Jason Linkins at Huffpo does it for you and he's mean to everybody. If you don't get one inside joke, just go to the next one.

The Other War

Stunning photos from Afghanistan, take a look. Via Andrew Sullivan.

When I am President, we will wage the war that has to be won, with a comprehensive strategy with five elements: getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan; developing the capabilities and partnerships we need to take out the terrorists and the world's most deadly weapons; engaging the world to dry up support for terror and extremism; restoring our values; and securing a more resilient homeland.

The first step must be getting off the wrong battlefield in Iraq, and taking the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Barack Obama, Aug. 1, 2007

Hillary's Concession Speech

is 29 minutes, and pretty good, according to this TPM commenter.

After her much criticized speech earlier this week, I dug through my record collection to find my vinyl copy of Ted Kennedy's 'concession' speeech from the 1980 Democratic Convention. (Yep--they released one and I bought it 27+ yrs ago). It was, from beginning to end Ted Kennedy's acceptance speech. It contained one sentence, in the final paragraph, acknowledging Carter's nomination. (I congratulate President Carter on his victory). Other than that, he essentially claimed the nomination that the voters had given to Carter months before. Standing at the podium of the Convention itself, Kennedy let the nation know he believed he deserved the nomination.

That speech reminded me all over again of the legitimacy of the charge that Kennedy tore the party apart over his failed ambition.

Compared to that speech, and even in its own right, Hillary's speech was a model of grace and reconciliation. Once the speech is published, it will be easy to nibble away at the sentences where she held on to this or that difference with Sen Obama. But those who expected Hillary to give Obama a pinched and begrudging support need to admit that they were very wrong. Who gives a damn if it took her a couple of extra days to do it?

It's always nice to have a little historical perspective.

Must Watch TV

I can't recommend more highly this sweet little documentary, which looks like it was made in Seattle.
It's a series of very candid interviews with mostly gay people of all ages about their relationships and their life histories. They're largely charming and very human. I loved this movie.
KCTS Ch. 9 in Seattle is showing it Wednesday, June 11 at 8:30 p.m.
Check your other local PBS stations for other showings.
Oops, it's called Inlaws and Outlaws.

Kick back, It's Sunday

viburnum maresii

Obama Supporters Thank Hillary

and you can, too, here.

Sedaris on How to Quit Smoking

Move to Hiroshima. Why didn't I think of that?
Sorry, embed didn't work. Go here.

Hillary Post Mortem II

Ben Smith at Politico has a fairly short summary of what worked and what failed, although I suspect his sources aren't high enough to allow him to conclude they never had a plan.

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 16-month bid for the presidency transformed her public image from that of a remote, ever-calculating and hyper-ambitious candidate into a sort of female version of Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell — warm, earthy, tough and flying by the seat of her pantsuit into the occasional gaffe.

But at the heart of the campaign was a candidate who changed little, and whose managerial weaknesses — loyalty, distance and a damaging indecisiveness — became central features of her campaign, from the January day that she was forced into a premature announcement of her run to the hour that she was forced to withdraw. To a striking degree, the campaign was propelled by outside forces and its own mistakes, rather than by anything resembling a plan.

Hillary's Endorsement

got pretty good reviews in the 'sphere today, even from Andrew Sullivan, an obsessive Clinton hater.

I think history will show that she didn't quite have the talent to do it on her own steam, but that she made it much easier for another woman to become president one day. Her two biggest problems: She first married a man who was her political superior and was then defeated by one. She is a very talented politician but it was her fate to find her career hemmed in by two even more talented ones: Bill and Barack. She made up for it all with enormous hard work, diligence and ruthlessness. At any other moment, she would have won. But this is history and politics at the highest level. You cannot defeat such a moment if you are a Salieri. And she had to deal with two Mozarts.

Buh-bye.

Here's a bit of it.

More Hillary Postmortem

Time magazine's Amy Sullivan offers up Why Didn't More Women Vote for Hillary?
Good question.

One of the Democratic campaign's great misperceptions has been that Clinton held an overwhelming advantage among women voters. But that isn't the case. As expected, Clinton captured the over-65 vote, and Obama won over younger women. But women in the middle split almost evenly between the two. And while both Senators boasted historic candidacies, Obama's seemed to resonate more deeply, translating into 70%, 80% and even 90% of the black vote in primary contests. No one expected Clinton to sweep 90% of Democratic women voters, but 60% wouldn't have been an unreasonable accomplishment for the first woman to have a serious chance of winning the presidency. Instead, Clinton won just over a majority of women's votes.

McCain's YouTube Problem

Eleventh most popular today.

Hillary Crisis in Women's Movement?

It's a bit of a long read, contrariennes, but worth it. Some think Obama should give a speech about sexism, just as he did about race. I think so, too.

What might have been:

One of the central premises of the movement was that women had been artificially set against each other, and that, if they could unite behind their common interests, they could revolutionize their roles in the world. In the mid-'70s, elite young women were already pondering who could break the ultimate glass ceiling, and among their candidates was an impassioned young lawyer, Hillary Rodham, deemed an icon of her generation by Life magazine after her 1969 Wellesley commencement speech. In his biography of Hillary Clinton, Carl Bernstein describes Betsey Wright, later Bill Clinton's gubernatorial chief of staff, imploring Bill not to marry Hillary, take her off to Arkansas, and thus spoil her chance at becoming the first female president. "I really started in on how he couldn't do that. He shouldn't do that," Wright said. "That he could find anybody he wanted to be a political wife, but we'd . . . never find anyone like her" to run for office.

Good Lord, she might have run against Bill. And beaten him. Heh.

Jon Stewart on Hillary

Oh, and she says today that she's not after the veep spot, too.

The Pound

Get with it, white people.

Gone On Saturday. Toldja.

TPM had this early today:

Dear XXX,

I wanted you to be one of the first to know: on Saturday, I will hold an event in Washington D.C. to thank everyone who has supported my campaign. Over the course of the last 16 months, I have been privileged and touched to witness the incredible dedication and sacrifice of so many people working for our campaign. Every minute you put into helping us win, every dollar you gave to keep up the fight meant more to me than I can ever possibly tell you.

On Saturday, I will extend my congratulations to Senator Obama and my support for his candidacy. This has been a long and hard-fought campaign, but as I have always said, my differences with Senator Obama are small compared to the differences we have with Senator McCain and the Republicans.

I have said throughout the campaign that I would strongly support Senator Obama if he were the Democratic Party's nominee, and I intend to deliver on that promise.

When I decided to run for president, I knew exactly why I was getting into this race: to work hard every day for the millions of Americans who need a voice in the White House.

I made you -- and everyone who supported me -- a promise: to stand up for our shared values and to never back down. I'm going to keep that promise today, tomorrow, and for the rest of my life.

I will be speaking on Saturday about how together we can rally the party behind Senator Obama. The stakes are too high and the task before us too important to do otherwise.

I know as I continue my lifelong work for a stronger America and a better world, I will turn to you for the support, the strength, and the commitment that you have shown me in the past 16 months. And I will always keep faith with the issues and causes that are important to you.

In the past few days, you have shown that support once again with hundreds of thousands of messages to the campaign, and again, I am touched by your thoughtfulness and kindness.

I can never possibly express my gratitude, so let me say simply, thank you.

Sincerely,

Hillary Rodham Clinton

The End Is Near

according to TPM. Friday. What'd I tell ya?

Does She Really Want to Be V.P.?

I didn't watch any of the speeches last night. I tried to watch Obama's, but it quit loading early on and I gave up. I tuned in to a little of Hillary, but I really can't stand her voice anymore. It's not sexism, I can't stand Bush's voice either.
I read reviews of McCain's speech. Apparently even FOX News panned it.
Everyone's speculating on why Hillary was so ungracious and what she's holding out for. Does she want to be asked, intending to decline? Does she want to be asked, intending to accept?
What kind of deal is she looking for?
Maureen Dowd posits something I haven't seen elsewhere. There's a rumor that Hillary wants to be a option on the first floor vote at the convention.

She just urged her supporters to keep the dream alive, and talked privately about what she would settle for. She has told some Democrats recently that she wanted Obama to agree to allow a roll call vote, like days of yore, so that the delegates of states she won would cast the first ballot for her at the convention. She said she wanted that for her daughter.

Obama supporters are worried that it’s a trick and she’ll somehow snatch away the nomination.

I say we'll know by the end of the week.

Forward

Farewell, Primaries. Farewell, Hillary.

From the NYT:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton invited fund-raisers and other supporters to an election-night rally in New York City where, aides said, she was prepared to deliver what they described as a farewell speech that summed up the case for her candidacy. They said Mrs. Clinton was not likely to withdraw from the race on Tuesday night, probably waiting until later in the week, once Mr. Obama’s victory appeared clear.

Sensing an opportunity to shut down the nominating contest, Obama campaign advisers said that they were orchestrating an endorsement of Mr. Obama by at least eight Senate and House members who had pledged to remain uncommitted until the primaries ended, and that the endorsements would come the moment the South Dakota polls closed on Tuesday night.

UPDATE: From AP

WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton will concede Tuesday night that Barack Obama has the delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, campaign officials said, effectively ending her bid to be the nation's first female president.

Obama is 40 delegates shy of clinching the nomination, but he is widely expected to make up the difference Tuesday with superdelegate support and votes in South Dakota and Montana. Once he reaches the magic number of 2,118, Clinton will acknowledge that he has secured the necessary delegates to be the nominee.

The former first lady will stop short of formally suspending or ending her race in her speech in New York City.

She will pledge to continue to speak out on issues like health care. But for all intents and purposes, the two senior officials said, the campaign is over.

UPDATE II: Hillary camp doesn't like the word "concede."

R.I.P. Yves Saint Laurent

A Poet on Creationism

J. T. Barbarese weighs in. Heavily.
It's copyrighted so here's the link.

Us Aging Hippies

Apparently, we're expected to continue our illicit drug use into old age with all sorts of dire consequences for our health and health care, according to a short article in Scientific American.
I'm always suspicious of data based on self-reporting, but I kinda like this part:

Intriguingly, the so-called cannabinoid system, which mediates the effects of marijuana in the brain, reduces addictive behavior in aging mice that have been genetically altered to crave alcohol. As the mice age, the cannabinoid receptor binds less frequently to a specific protein, which seems to diminish the animals’ taste for alcohol. No one knows how aging may alter the cannabinoid system in people, but the system has wide-ranging effects on appetite, memory, addiction, and the perception of pain and pleasure.

What wide-ranging effects, exactly? Like less pain, more pleasure, better appetite, worse short-term memory (temporary). Addiction? Good or bad? If it reduces alcohol craving, does it reduce other drug cravings? The author doesn't say, expecting readers to find the original study or something.

Season's Best

(From a friend)

Ten thousand flowers in spring,
the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer,
snow in winter.
If your mind isn't clouded
by unnecessary things,
this is the best season
of your life.

-Wu Men

Our Bill w/Update

A snippet from an excellent — though long — Vanity Fair story by longtime Bill-watcher (and Dee Dee Myers' husband) Todd Purdum about the post-presidential Bill Clinton that told me many things I hadn't really known or thought about before. Like how his bypass surgery and a later complication may have affected his cognition, mood and behavior.
Like his unsavory personal and business associations.
Like how the once great campaigner may also be unskilled with and unappreciative of the immediacy of news in the internet age. (I suspect this is also true of many in Hillary's campaign, including her. And Mark Penn.)

“Look, the game has changed,” said Mike McCurry. “He ran his last national campaign in 1996, and remember, we kind of ran unopposed. It’s been a while since he did that, and the way you summon people up and get them to do things has changed. All of this stuff, the blogging and the YouTubing and the way in which everything is instantaneously available: I tell you, until you get out there and are actually dealing with the consequences—having what you just said as you were walking out the door [all over the Internet], that’s brand-new to him...”

...It is Clinton’s invariable insistence that his problems are someone else’s fault, and that questions or criticisms of him, his methods, motives, or means are invariably unfair, that is his unforgivable flaw.

He has told friends that he is not worried that his aggressive performance this year has done lasting damage to his reputation (some of them are not so sure). Whatever the future holds for Hillary Clinton, her husband is not fading away. He will remain a presence, a force to be reckoned with, as long as he draws breath.

But for a politician with so many admirers, allies, acquaintances, faithful retainers, and hangers-on, Clinton remains a profoundly solitary man, associates say, without any real peers, intellectual equals, or genuine friends with whom he can share the sweetest things in life. (The one who has always come closest, for better and worse, for richer and poorer, is simply too busy these days.)

The Bill Camp, of course, hates it.

The Clinton camp responded today to Vanity Fair's long article on Bill with its own 2,244-word memo, which includes attacks on the magazine's "penchant for libel," on editor Graydon Carter, and on writer Todd Purdum and his wife, former Clinton aide Dee Dee Myers.

The memo (after the jump) calls the piece "journalism of personal destruction at its worst" and singles out, among other things, Purdum's suggestion that Clinton's heart surgery changed his personality.

Why They Call Him McBush

Frank Rich is my favorite New York Times columnist. Here's why:

In the woe-is-us analyses by leading Republicans about their party’s travails — whether by the House G.O.P. leader John Boehner (in The Wall Street Journal) or the media strategist Alex Castellanos (in National Review) — Iraq is conspicuous by its utter absence. The Republican brand’s crisis is instead blamed exclusively on excessive spending, scandal and earmarks — it’s all the fault of Tom DeLay’s K Street Project, Jack Abramoff and that Alaskan “bridge to nowhere.”

This transcends denial; it’s group psychosis. Nowhere is this syndrome more apparent than in the profuse punditry of Karl Rove, who never cites Iraq as a problem for Mr. McCain (if he refers to it at all) and flatly assured George Stephanopoulos last Sunday that Mr. McCain has no need to make a “clean break” from Mr. Bush.

Dems Reach Fla., Mich. Compromise

No word yet on how Hillary's going to take it now. Many pro-Obama types out here in the 'sphere fear she really will go to the convention.
Anyway, here's the report from DHinMI at Daily Kos.

Michigan delegation to be seated at half strength, 19 votes for, 8 votes against by the Rules and By-Laws Committee in D.C. today.

Again, 69 pledged delegates to Clinton, 59 pledged delegates to Obama, each delegate gets a half vote.

About two dozen Clinton protesters causing a ruckus, and they're being asked to leave.

Update by georgia10: What this all means:

The resolution increased the number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination to 2,118, leaving Obama 66 delegates short but still within striking distance after the three final primaries are held in the next three days.

Obama picked up a total of 32 delegates in Michigan, including superdelegates who have already committed, and 36 in Florida. Clinton picked up 38 in Michigan, including superdelegates, and 56.5 in Florida.

Obama's total increased to 2,052, and Clinton had 1,877.5.

The Bush Gang

David Frum via Andrew Sullivan.

31 May 2008 12:03 pm

"George W. Bush brought most of his White House team with him from Texas. Except for Karl Rove, these Texans were a strikingly inadequate bunch. Harriet Miers, Alberto Gonzalez, Karen Hughes, Al Hawkins, Andy Card (the last not a Texan, but a lifelong Bush family retainer) — they were more like characters from The Office than the sort of people one would expect to find at the supreme height of government in the world’s most powerful nation.

McClellan, too, started in Bush’s governor’s office, and if he never belonged to the innermost circle of power, he nonetheless gained closer proximity than would be available to almost anyone who did not first serve in Texas. That early team was recruited with one paramount consideration in mind: loyalty. Theoretically, it should be possible to combine loyalty with talent. But that did not happen often with the Bush team."

Yo, Mama!

Send this to every superdelegate you know of. No, wait, they're mostly women over 45, aren't they?
Wait, so am I. So are most of you.

Why Obama Has More Delegates

The AP has a pretty good overview story up recalling the history of the Democratic Party's switch in the way it allocates convention delegates from the past practice of party insiders calling the shots to a more balanced, democratic process to permit ordinary voters more of a voice in candidate selection.
The Obama campaign's deep understanding of delegate selection and its tactical use of the rules is one key reason he was able to overcome Clinton's start-up advantage.

What made it especially hard for Clinton to catch up was that Obama understood and took advantage of a nominating system that emerged from the 1970s and '80s, when the party struggled to find a balance between party insiders and its rank-and-file voters.

Until the 1970s, the nominating process was controlled by party leaders, with ordinary citizens having little say. There were primaries and caucuses, but the delegates were often chosen behind closed doors, sometimes a full year before the national convention. That culminated in a 1968 national convention that didn't reflect the diversity of the party—racially or ideologically...

One big change was awarding delegates proportionally, meaning you can finish second or third in a primary and still win delegates to the party's national convention. As long candidates get at least 15 percent of the vote, they are eligible for delegates.

The system enables strong second-place candidates to stay competitive and extend the race—as long as they don't run out of campaign money...

Another big change was the introduction of superdelegates, the party and elected officials who automatically attend the convention and can vote for whomever they choose regardless of what happens in the primaries and caucuses.

Superdelegates were first seated at the 1984 convention. Much has been made of them this year because neither Obama nor Clinton can reach the number of delegates needed to secure the nomination without their support...

A more subtle change was the distribution of delegates within each state. As part of the proportional system, Democrats award delegates based on statewide vote totals as well as results in individual congressional districts. The delegates, however, are not distributed evenly within a state, like they are in the Republican system.

Under Democratic rules, congressional districts with a history of strong support for Democratic candidates are rewarded with more delegates than districts that are more Republican. Some districts packed with Democratic voters can have as many as eight or nine delegates up for grabs, while more Republican districts in the same state have three or four.

The system is designed to benefit candidates who do well among loyal Democratic constituencies, and none is more loyal than black voters. Obama, who would be the first black candidate nominated by a major political party, has been winning 80 percent to 90 percent of the black vote in most primaries, according to exit polls.

It wouldn't have worked without such a strong candidate, though, according to a former DNC chairman who supports Clinton.

Never Forget: We Were Lied To

Not just by the Bush administration, but by nearly all the media. Except the folks at McClatchy (at the time, Knight-Ridder).
The inside baseball folks on the progressive side of the media, print, broadcast and 'sphere, know who told the truth and who went along with the game plan in the build-up to the Iraq War, but unless you were paying close attention and looking for alternate versions of reality, or subscribed to one of their newspapers, you didn't know.
The McClatchy folks themselves decided to remind us again this week after taking about as much as they could stand of the media's uniformly defensive response to Scott McClellan's indictment of their reporting in his book.
It's worth a full read, but here's a snippet.

We confess that here at McClatchy, which purchased Knight Ridder two years ago, we do have a dog in this fight. Our team - Joe Galloway, Clark Hoyt, Jon Landay, Renee Schoof, Warren Strobel, John Walcott, Tish Wells and many others - was, with a few exceptions, the only major news media organization that before the war consistently and aggressively challenged the White House's case for war, and its lack of planning for post-war Iraq.

Something to Think About

Andrew Sullivan has a different quote up from a funny and on-point essay by Clay Shirky, someone I've never heard of before. But that's the beauty of the internet, it's full of people with something to say that I've never thought about before. File this under "what it all means."

I'm choosing a different quote, the lead-in, because you rarely see something this good at the beginning of an even better essay about the social transformation we're immersed in because of technology.

I was recently reminded of some reading I did in college, way back in the last century, by a British historian arguing that the critical technology, for the early phase of the industrial revolution, was gin.

The transformation from rural to urban life was so sudden, and so wrenching, that the only thing society could do to manage was to drink itself into a stupor for a generation. The stories from that era are amazing-- there were gin pushcarts working their way through the streets of London.
And it wasn't until society woke up from that collective bender that we actually started to get the institutional structures that we associate with the industrial revolution today.

Torture: Everything You Want to Know

Interesting result of the ACLU's ongoing FOIA request.

Balloon Twisting Fun

Pour yourself a little wine, relax, 2 minutes.

Is It Really Over Next Week?

Reid and Pelosi think so.

Traveling in California to promote his new memoir, Mr. Reid also told an audience in Los Angeles that the nominee would be known by Wednesday. He told others that a sufficient number of superdelegates are prepared to put Senator Barack Obama over the top quickly after Tuesday’s voting is finished. Both Mr. Reid and Ms. Pelosi have also said they agree that the delegates from Michigan and Florida should get some voice at the convention as well.

Obama said today that it will be.

As for Saturday (okay, you haven't been paying that close attention, but the DNC Credentials and Rules Committee meets to decide the fate of the Michigan and Florida delegates), the compromise being floated today gives each delegate a seat but only half a vote as payback for violating party rules by holding unsanctioned early primaries. Neither Clinton nor Obama benefit enough to win, but if the superdels come through for Obama, it's over. Sort of.

The question is, what will Hillary do? And, of course, will it matter? She can still take it to the convention if she wants. Stay tuned, news at 11. Next Tuesday.

(Oops, sorry, it's the Rules and By-Laws Committee.)

Future Female Prez Candidates

From somebody I never read via Andrew Sullivan:

According to interviews with Republicans in their home states, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano and Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill differ from Clinton by two important measures: They've managed to win elections without developing polarizing personas, and they've shied away from emphasizing gender in their campaigns.

Oh, and this:
And so we arrive at the real stumbling block for any future female candidate. One way or another, the naysayers all want to conclude (indeed, at times, Clinton herself is wont to conclude) that the Clinton campaign was ultimately derailed by the same pervasive sexism that will scuttle the next woman's chances. Never mind that this conclusion is belied by polls Zernike cites, which indicate that 86 percent of Americans say they would vote for a woman. Never mind that it's also belied by Clinton's own historic achievements.

But go read all of Dahlia Lithwick at Slate linked above, she's worth it and I'm adding her to my bookmarks.

Senate Race Update

Add Mississippi (Mississippi?!!) to the list of states where the Republican senatorial candidate is in trouble .
It's Trent Lott's vacated seat.

Who Got the Most Bad Press?

So Hillary says the media is too hard on her, and most of us thought the Bittergate and Wrightgate stuff went on way too long, but overall, it's John McCain who has failed "to control the media narrative," according to a new study released by the Pew Research Center for Excellence in Journalism.
Some key points:

Shortly after Clinton criticized the media for being soft on Obama during a debate, the narrative about him began to turn more skeptical—and indeed became more negative than the coverage of Clinton herself. What’s more, an additional analysis of more general campaign topics suggests the Obama narrative became even more negative later in March, April and May...

On the Republican side, John McCain, the candidate who quickly clinched his party’s nomination, has had a harder time controlling his message in the press. Fully 57% of the narratives studied about him were critical in nature, though a look back through 2007 reveals the storyline about the Republican nominee has steadily improved with time...

Public perceptions of McCain and Obama, a companion survey shows, largely tracked with the tenor of the press coverage’s major narrative themes. With Hillary Clinton, however, the public seemed to have developed opinions about her that ran counter to the media coverage, perhaps based on a pre-existing negative disposition to her that unfolded over the course of the campaign...

And as usual it's the horse race that has mattered most to the media, the easiest thing to report.

Fully 78% of the stories studied between January 1 and the first week of May have focused on political matters, such as who won the latest primary. By contrast, policy stories made up 7% of the stories, personal matters 7%, and the candidates’ public record, 2%. And few major storylines stand out.

Gas Up, Driving Down

about 4.3 percent in March.
David Kurtz at TPM finds a Time magazine observation from 1947 that seems to stand the test of the years.
I especially like the part about mobile shelter for seduction. I think I resemble that remark.

The average U.S. citizen completely ignores the regularity with which the automobile kills him, maims him, embroils him with the law and provides mobile shelter for rakes intent on seducing his daughters. He takes it into his garage as fondly as an Arab leading a prize mare into his tent. He woos it with Simoniz, Prestone, Ethyl and rich lubricants--and goes broke trading it in on something flashier an hour after he has made the last payment on the old one. ...

By last week, this peculiar state of mind had not only sucked thousands of American oil wells dry, stripped the rubber groves of Malaya, produced the world's most inhuman industry and its most recalcitrant labor union, but had filled U.S. streets with so many automobiles that it was almost impossible to drive one. In some big cities, vast traffic jams never really got untangled from dawn to midnight; the bray of horns, the stink of exhaust fumes, and the crunch of crumpling metal eddied up from them as insistently as the vaporous roar of Niagara.

Dems In the Senate

Some people are actually paying attention to elections other than the presidential contests right now, and the news is good about gaining seats.
Minnesota — Al Franken is within striking distance of Republican scumbag and rumored wife beater Norm Coleman.
New Hampshire — Cindy Shaheen has a 7 point lead over incumbent R John Sununu.
New Mexico — Udall way ahead of either Republican.
Colorado — another Udall 6 points up on the R.
Virginia — former Gov. Mark Warner 18 points up on the R.
Alaska — Dem. Begich 2 points up on corrupt R. Ted Stevens.
Kentucky — corrupt, DINO business man ahead of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell by 5 points. (More Democrats now, better Democrats next time, I guess. Blogs say NY Sen. Chuck Shumer, head of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee chose Lunsford because he can self-finance from money stolen from his nursing home company's stockholders.)
Other states where the Republican incumbent is down below 50 percent and seat is in jeopardy include North Carolina, Oregon, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi and Texas.
A blowout gives the Dems 61 seats in the Senate come January.

The Bush Twins

The new MoveOn ad is up and running in select markets and on cable.
Worth noting here that a high-end Bush fundraiser for McCain in his home state of Arizona was NOT cancelled BUT MOVED TO SMALLER VENUE when they realized ticket sales were in the toilet and they might have more protesters than attendees.

Positive Polarization

Josh Marshall today recommends a new George Packer article in The New Yorker that is basically a lengthy review of the book Nixonland as well as a sweeping overview of what the Republicans have been up to for the last 40 years from the perspective that the grand plan is finally bankrupt.
Or something along those lines. In other words, there's hope. I haven't read it yet, but here's a tempting tidbit:

Nixon was coldly mixing and pouring volatile passions. Although he was careful to renounce the extreme fringe of Birchites and racists, his means to power eventually became the end. Buchanan gave me a copy of a seven-page confidential memorandum—“A little raw for today,” he warned—that he had written for Nixon in 1971, under the heading “Dividing the Democrats.” Drawn up with an acute understanding of the fragilities and fault lines in “the Old Roosevelt Coalition,” it recommended that the White House “exacerbate the ideological division” between the Old and New Left by praising Democrats who supported any of Nixon’s policies; highlight “the elitism and quasi-anti-Americanism of the National Democratic Party”; nominate for the Supreme Court a Southern strict constructionist who would divide Democrats regionally; use abortion and parochial-school aid to deepen the split between Catholics and social liberals; elicit white working-class support with tax relief and denunciations of welfare. Finally, the memo recommended exploiting racial tensions among Democrats. “Bumper stickers calling for black Presidential and especially Vice-Presidential candidates should be spread out in the ghettoes of the country,” Buchanan wrote. “We should do what is within our power to have a black nominated for Number Two, at least at the Democratic National Convention.” Such gambits, he added, could “cut the Democratic Party and country in half; my view is that we would have far the larger half.”

The Nixon White House didn’t enact all of these recommendations, but it would be hard to find a more succinct and unapologetic blueprint for Republican success in the conservative era. “Positive polarization” helped the Republicans win one election after another—and insured that American politics would be an ugly, unredeemed business for decades to come.

Bookies, You've Only Got 55 Years Left

Or something like that, figures a New York Times critic, to read the rest of the 1001 books a British author says are musts before you die.
The story is wittier than I am today, so just read it, it's short.

Let’s have a look at some of these mandatory titles. Not only is it not necessary to read “Interview With the Vampire” by Anne Rice before you die, it is also probably not necessary to read it even if, like Lestat, you are never going to die. If I were mortally ill, and a well-meaning friend pressed Anaïs Nin’s “Delta of Venus” into my trembling hands, I would probably leave this world with a curse on my lips.

N.B. It's really novels only. I'm not sure, but I don't think I've even read that many novels so far, even if you count the multiple Bobbsey Twins and Nancy Drews.

FISA Funny Money

Or not so funny, really, just an enlightening exposition by the always reliable Glenn Greenwald on the money being spent by telecoms seeking immunity for cooperating with the Bush administration to illegally spy on Americans.
As Greenwald notes, nothing about the interaction between former Congress members, Congressional staffers, current members and the telecoms is new regarding the way money writes legislation in Washington, but the various analyses he cites shine a bright light on the way things actually work and how bankrupt the process is.
One note of hope: activism against the stalled legislation has so far worked and there is one TV ad campaign aimed at constituents of one of the most corrupt Blue Dogs hitting him where it hurts in an election year.

In one sense, it's just extraordinary how seamlessly and relentlessly the wheels of this dirty process churn. But in another sense, it's perhaps even more remarkable -- given the forces lined up behind telecom amnesty -- that those who have been working against it, with far fewer resources and relying largely on a series of disruptive tactics and ongoing efforts to mobilize citizen anger, have been able to stop it so far.

Newest Happiness Makers

Two women at Huffpo made a list of new things to make us happy.
America's new top model is super sized. (Yawn.)You can get Godiva chocolate-covered pretzels. (Big whoop.) Iron Man is worth seeing. (But not for $9, I say.)
My favorite:

#4 - Frito's Pinch of Salt

We love Frito's and Lay's potato chips because they are all natural and only have three ingredients, each of which we can pronounce. However, after eating a handful of these chips, the salt tends to make us look and feel like a thirstier version of the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters. But Frito Lay has just introduced their line of lower salt snacks, called "Pinch of Salt," which are the perfect compromise between bland low salt products and the standard salt lick varieties.

I feel much better about eating Frito's and Lay's potato chips now that I know they're all natural, salt or not.

I'm Tired

Speaking of Mel Brooks (see below), here's the late, great Madeline Kahn doing the showstopper number from Blazing Saddles. 5 minutes.

Best of NPR Saturday

Saturday mornings are the best. I have NPR on all the time except when I've got the TV on, which means I've got NPR on all day and much of the night.
My station is KPLU, the all-jazz award winner out of Tacoma.
But Saturday mornings are the best. That's when the national crew shows their talents. Scott Simon always asks good questions in in-depth interviews of fascinating people with compelling stories.
This morning it was a wonderful new singer musician named Danielia Cotton, whose music stopped me cold. Follow the link and you can read it, listen and hear her music.
And then there's the delightful, hilarious — of course — Mel Brooks interview (not available until 9 a.m. PST).
Then there's the story I missed until I checked out the NPR Web site, which is one of the best of the best, right up there with the New York Times, in my opinion.
Uh, got carried away there. The cool missed story? Netflix keeps track of customer movie preferences by city. I can hardly wait to read it — also not available until 9 — follow the link and get a glimpse of the regional trends. How does Seattle compare to New York, or Houston?

Hillary, Bobby Kennedy Part Deux

Drudge, the right-leaning news aggregator (headline service), which Hillary's campaign has often used to leak news, can't resist the temptation to pile on, and is leading with multiple headlines about the assassination gaffe.
The New York Times editorial board, which endorsed her, has decided her non-apology is worthless, especially since she said the very same thing in March.
Commenters at the Times blog addressing the subject are mostly semi-hysterically accusing her of revealing a secret desire to see Obama killed.
Some, many claiming to be Obama supporters, say it's making too much of nothing.
Some are blaming the Obama campaign for capitalizing on it.
Others recall it was the Clinton campaign that kept the Bittergate story alive.
My take?
I doubt the Obama campaign accusation. Some reporters caught a whiff of a new angle to the tedious endless primary, called the campaign and the campaign issued a statement. Standard operating procedure.
The reference to RFK's assassination has been part of her repertoire for two months, it's a memorized line that got repeated on a video that went viral within hours. And it's a deliberately composed emotional punch that also deliberately misapplies the facts.
In June 1968 when Bobby was killed, the primary had only been going on for three months.
This year, it's been going on for almost six months.
Misrepresenting facts, conjuring up fallacious comparisons, is also standard operating procedure in political campaigns. It seems the Clintons do this much more than Obama. It seems Obama is quick to correct when challenged, while Clinton persists in the face of all reason.
Think the Bosnia sniper fire, and much, much more.
Yeah, it's insensitive. It was insensitive in March, too, but that time the reference was in print. This time, it's all over YouTube.
The Sunday pundits will turn it into a continuous loop.
I think this time she's really over with, but I want to think that.
Not because of this incident. Just because it's time for her to quit.

Blogging: Now It's 'Expressive Writing'...

and good for me. (And you, too, if you care to comment. Hint, hint.)
This research find from Scientific American comes via Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic, who has interns. And an assistant. And a site monitor.

Also, blogging might trigger dopamine release, similar to stimulants like music, running and looking at art.

Mmmm, dopamine.
Expressive writing of the complaining type apparently satisfies the need for relief from pain and suffering, they say.
If you've spent any time surfing the 'spere, you know it's overloaded with complaint, accusation, libel, slander and even threat.
Which is why I read it. So you don't have to.

Viral Video of the Year

Update below

Okay, you just got out of a coma or off a plane from India and haven't heard it yet.
They're going to make mincemeat of Hillary over this inference that Obama could be assassinated by June.
Well, actually, they already are.

$3 Trillion Shopping Spree

Okay, I'll promote Robert Greenwald's newest cause again. It's viral. And besides, they sent me an email naming me a "celebrity shopper." Smart marketing.
Go pick your own favorite alternatives to endless war.

Today's Polls

As I mentioned below, Markos' predictions are always seat-of-the-pants, but not his analysis. I'm sticking with my 60-40 scenario. But look at the new numbers through his lens.

Going off the Pollster.com averages, Obama currently wins [electoral college] 283-255, losing the Kerry states of Michigan and New Hampshire, and winning the Bush states of Iowa, Indiana, New Mexico, Colorado, and Ohio. If you give him a tiny 3-point "primary boost", he picks up Virginia and Michigan, for a 313-225 lead.