John Edwards on John Edwards

Will the real John Edwards please stand up.
This is what he said today.

In 2006, I made a serious error in judgment and conducted myself in a way that was disloyal to my family and to my core beliefs. I recognized my mistake and I told my wife that I had a liaison with another woman, and I asked for her forgiveness. Although I was honest in every painful detail with my family, I did not tell the public. When a supermarket tabloid told a version of the story, I used the fact that the story contained many falsities to deny it. But being 99% honest is no longer enough. I was and am ashamed of my conduct and choices, and I had hoped that it would never become public. With my family, I took responsibility for my actions in 2006 and today I take full responsibility publicly. But that misconduct took place for a short period in 2006. It ended then. I am and have been willing to take any test necessary to establish the fact that I am not the father of any baby, and I am truly hopeful that a test will be done so this fact can be definitively established. I only know that the apparent father has said publicly that he is the father of the baby. I also have not been engaged in any activity of any description that requested, agreed to or supported payments of any kind to the woman or to the apparent father of the baby.
It is inadequate to say to the people who believed in me that I am sorry, as it is inadequate to say to the people who love me that I am sorry. In the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic. If you want to beat me up -- feel free. You cannot beat me up more than I have already beaten up myself. I have been stripped bare and will now work with everything I have to help my family and others who need my help.
I have given a complete interview on this matter and having done so, will have nothing more to say.

I don't care that he had an affair. I don't care if the baby is his. He put the party and the country at risk by running for president when this would have derailed us all.

John Kerry and John Edwards

from Bob Shrum via Andrew Sullivan today.

Kerry talked with several potential picks, including Gephardt and Edwards. He was comfortable after his conversations with Gephardt, but even queasier about Edwards after they met. Edwards had told Kerry he was going to share a story with him that he'd never told anyone else—that after his son Wade had been killed, he climbed onto the slab at the funeral home, laid there and hugged his body, and promised that he'd do all he could to make life better for people, to live up to Wade's ideals of service. Kerry was stunned, not moved, because, as he told me later, Edwards had recounted the same exact story to him, almost in the exact same words, a year or two before—and with the same preface, that he'd never shared the memory with anyone else. Kerry said he found it chilling, and he decided he couldn't pick Edwards unless he met with him again.

When they did, Kerry tried to get a better personal feel for his potential number two; as rivals for national office since 2000, shortly after Edwards had entered the Senate, the two men hadn't spent a lot of time together. Kerry also wanted a specific reassurance. He asked Edwards for a commitment that if he was chosen and the ticket lost, Edwards wouldn't run against him in 2008. Edwards agreed "absolutely," as Kerry recalled him saying. If Kerry had shared this at the time, I would have told him what I did later: it was naive to think he could rely on a promise like that.

No (Need For) Comment

"I think this President has shown a remarkable disrespect for his office, for the moral dimensions of leadership, for his friends, for his wife, for his precious daughter. It is breathtaking to me the level to which that disrespect has risen."
-- John Edwards, quoted by the Raleigh News & Observer in 1999, on Bill Clinton.
 

I Want My Donation To John Edwards Returned

Fuck him.

Support Good Journalism

McClatchy, which owns a bunch of newspapers around the country including about four in Washington State and has 49 percent of the Seattle Times, is hurting as much as everyone else in the industry during this transitional period.
And they don't deserve it. Their Washington, D.C., bureau has always stood out, often alone, questioning the official version of events from the run-up to the war to the 2008 presidential campaign.
As you know, it's all about eyeballs now.
So go here, register and sign up for their newsletters. It may help them stay in business and continue doing what they do.

Special Presecutor, Yummm

From investigative reporter Murray Waas at Huffpo:

The Justice Department investigation into the firings of nine U.S. attorneys has been extended to encompass allegations that senior White House officials played a role in providing false and misleading information to Congress, according to numerous sources involved in the inquiry.
The widened scope raises the possibility that investigators will pursue criminal charges against some administration officials, and recommend appointment of a special prosecutor if there is evidence of criminal misconduct.
The investigators have been specifically probing the role of White House officials in the drafting and approval of a Feb. 23, 2007 letter sent to Congress by the Justice Department denying that Karl Rove (President Bush's chief political adviser at the time) had anything to do with the firing of Bud Cummins, a U.S. Attorney from Arkansas. Cummins was fired in Dec. 2006 to make room for Tim Griffin, a protégé and former top aide of Rove's.

Seems to me that David Iglesias, the fired federal prosecutor in New Mexico said this was coming before the election.

So my question is, if prosecutors recommend a special prosecutor and Mukasay says no, then what? Stay tuned.

He Often Seems a Little Confused

(Yah, I know you don't want to know, but here's a link so you can secretly look at it.)
McCain is 71.

A group of 856 people age 71 years and older who were participating in the national Health and Retirement Study...

About 22% of the older people had cognitive impairment that did not reach the threshold for dementia. Applied to people age 71 years or older in the United States in 2002, 5.4 million older people had cognitive impairment without dementia. Annually, about 8% of those who had cognitive impairment without dementia died and about 12% progressed to dementia. 

Just sayin'.

Save Your Intertubes, They're the Only Ones You've Got

Last Friday the FCC voted to punish Comcast for restricting internet access to its customers, a huge victory for those fighting for net neutrality, free access to everything all the time.
That's it in a nutshell.
Time to reinforce your support (you do support it, don't you? I mean, you're here) by contacting Congress. And thanks to the internet, it's wicked easy, Dawg.

Stuff Educated Black People Like

like Stuff White People Like, satirical commentary on a state of mind. Or lifestyle. Or something.

Good Morning

Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films is relentless. You can see more here.

Dawg, I Could Go For Some Good Bud Right Now

Rick Steves of travelogue fame and the Washington State ACLU have teamed up to make the case for decriminalization or something, but local stations have refused their half-hour video to broadcast before 1 a.m. So go the link and watch it, I might do that later.
Dawg, I could go for some good bud right now.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan picked this up about a raid in California:

According to the Los Angeles Times, witnesses described the DEA agents as "removing computers, medicine and money, and using a steel cylinder battering ram to get into the upstairs bedrooms." When they left four hours later, all that remained was "trash, counters strewn with open and empty glass jars, piles of receipts thrown on the ground, upturned couch cushions, bits of marijuana on the edges of counters and an ATM with its doors torn open and emptied. ... An outdoor vegetable garden had plants uprooted, along with marijuana plants removed by the agents."

Psst, gssp, gssp, gssp. Pass It Along

Poor John Edwards. Poor Elizabeth. Could it get any worse? Yeah, it could be in the New York Times instead of the National Enquirer. 
Maybe tomorrow.

Are You a Girl or a Boy?

Your browser history is one not very good indicator, but it's kind of fun, so try it.
Me? Heh, they've got this 64-year-old female political junkie at 8% likely to be female. Guess that puts me in some rarified company. Any of you out there? Call me, wink.

Exxon McCain

New DNC campaign launches today. Effective? You tell me.

UPDATE: Hmm, gotcha!
Money quote:

McCain is stuck in a conundrum: express support for the Gang of Ten and incur the wrath of anti-tax crusaders or continue rolling the dice against public opinion and risk being painted as a stooge of the oil lobby. His $1.3 million in oil and gas donations in June only furthers the frame.

The Gang of Ten is the bipartisan compromise that allows restricted offshore drilling but raises oil company taxes. Obama took a little heat for approving it, but McCain's stuck in an untenable position.
Maybe he'll flip flop, er, refine his position.
STOOGE OF THE OIL LOBBY. STOOGE OF THE OIL LOBBY. STOOGE OF THE OIL LOBBY.

Hiroshima Anniversary Today

Here's True Majority's cheerful little reminder:

They're All Jealous

Isn't jealousy a female trait? Bill C., Jesse J., John Edwards and John McCain.

I said I'd never link to MoDo. Well, I've said a lot of things. Call me a flip flopper.
Andrew Sullivan cites her column today as the Irish Reagan Democrat at her best.
I'll just give her kudos for getting this quote (even though she's been known to make things up):
From a Republican colleague of McCain's:

“John’s eaten up with envy,” said one. “His image of himself was always the handsome, celebrity flyboy.

Good Morning, Have A Cup Of Coffee

In fact, have two. Or better yet, four. It's good for you.

Another review found that compared with noncoffee drinkers, people who drank four to six cups of coffee a day, with or without caffeine, had a 28 percent lower risk of Type 2 diabetes. This benefit probably comes from coffee’s antioxidants and chlorogenic acid.

Breaking! From Paris Hilton

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Ignorance

is something they're proud of.
Supporters want Obama to hit back harder. Sounds like he is.
"they know they're lying...it's like these guys take pride in being ignorant."

Seattle: City At The End Of Time

Author Greg Bear is apparently a multitasker, check it out.

The 'I' Word

— impeachment — is being thrown around again, this time because of Ron Suskind's new book revealing a  White House ordered forged letter attempting to show Saddam's connection to AQ and yellow cake, created by the CIA in late 2003.
Two former CIA officials (one now with Blackwater!) are on the record about this.
It's all over the news with the release of Suskind's book today, but here's a Kos diary with links if you want.

Quote O' Teh Day

Andrew Sullivan chose this, and I second.
"I don't know if you know this. John McCain is looking for someone for vice president who has more economic expertise than he does. So congratulations to all of you, you’re on the short list," - John Kerry.

Reelgeezers

two old pros review the movies you haven't gotten around to see yet. I love 'em.

Krugman Approves

of Obama's oil plan detailed in today's speech in Lansing, MI, and Sullivan cringes. So it must be the right thing to do.

Starry, Starry Night

Apparently Second Life is cooler than I thought.

I Love the BBC

because they do stuff like this
I wonder if I can watch online..

It's A Gay Thing

and I'm in 100%.

First Obama Attack Ad

The 'roots like it. Today's his 47th birthday. People are donating $47.08. Hint.

Anthrax: Pro-War Conspiracy?

Andrew Sullivan seems to think it likely and links to both the New York Times' and Glenn Greenwald's extensive analysis of the laughable investigation and other evidence. I'm not going to read any more about it, I figure it's a given now. Thing is, is there criminality here? Can we get them on this?
Go to Sullivan for the links if you want them.

Update at TPM says White House pressured FBI to conclude or suggest that it was from the Middle East even though by then they knew it was weapons grade from our own lab. Whole thing makes me sick.

On October 15, 2001, President Bush said, "There may be some possible link" to Bin Laden, adding, "I wouldn't put it past him." Vice President Cheney also said Bin Laden's henchmen were trained "how to deploy and use these kinds of substances, so you start to piece it all together."

But by then the FBI already knew anthrax spilling out of letters addressed to media outlets and to a U.S. senator was a military strain of the bioweapon. "Very quickly [Fort Detrick, Md., experts] told us this was not something some guy in a cave could come up with," the ex-FBI official said. "They couldn't go from box cutters one week to weapons-grade anthrax the next."

Dem Party Platform

Early draft includes calling Iraq invasion a blunder, universal health care to include public plan option but also option to retain current plan.

Glow-ri-a! Glow-ri-a!

Steinem with Ilene Chaiken, creator of "The L Word."

Picture The Ms. Foundation. 

Steinem interview in FT.

The Most Famous Poet

you never heard of. Ruben Dario.

Fatality

The tree is happy because it is scarcely sentient;
the hard rock is happier still, it feels nothing:
there is no pain as great as being alive,
no burden heavier than that of conscious life.

To be, and to know nothing, and to lack a way,
and the dread of having been, and future terrors...
And the sure terror of being dead tomorrow,
and to suffer all through life and through the darkness,

and through what we do not know and hardly suspect...
And the flesh that temps us with bunches of cool grapes,
and the tomb that awaits us with its funeral sprays,
and not to know where we go,
nor whence we came!...

...and He's Black!

Okay, so today Lieberputz called Obama  a "good young man." Is that anything like a good darkie?
And Stephanoffagus noted the racial dog whistle stuff may be McCain's only strategy.
Omigod, is the media starting to catch on?
Well, if Mr. Bipartisan David Gergen has his way, he'll be shoving it down their throats until they cry Uncle.

McCain's Negative Track May Work

Josh Marshall at TPM calls this a must-read today, and said much the same thing himself yesterday. Save to read if you're not in the mood for possible harsh truth.
Tidbit:

the motor behind his operation now is Steve Schmidt, the shaven-headed strategist who earned his bones running Karl Rove’s war room in 2004, Frenchifying and de-war-heroizing John Kerry. What Schmidt and his associates have apparently concluded is that McCain’s weaknesses—on the election’s most salient issues and as a candidate—are so pronounced and Obama’s vulnerabilities so glaring that the low road is their guy’s best, and maybe only, route to the White House. They’ve concluded, in other words, that even if McCain may not be able to win the election in any affirmative sense, he might still wind up behind the big desk if he and his people can strip the bark off Obama with sufficiently vicious force.

The Anthrax Caper

I took a Glenn Greenwald hiatus for awhile. There's only so much I can take of hypocrisy, deceit, corruption and generally fatalistic information before I'm on overload. But, of course, Boingboing had to point me there when I was fooling around looking for something light.
Better read this. It's important to remember.
Then go to Greenwald if you want it all. Personally, I can wait, so I'm not even going to link. Go google. Sigh.

Glenn Greewald's article in Salon about Bruce E. Ivins' suicide is fascinating. Ivins was a senior biodefense researcher at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. He committed suicide in July shortly before the FBI was going to indict him for his alleged role in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

Here are a few excerpts, but the entire article is worth reading:

If the now-deceased Ivins really was the culprit behind the attacks, then that means that the anthrax came from a U.S. Government lab, sent by a top U.S. Army scientist at Ft. Detrick. Without resort to any speculation or inferences at all, it is hard to overstate the significance of that fact. From the beginning, there was a clear intent on the part of the anthrax attacker to create a link between the anthrax attacks and both Islamic radicals and the 9/11 attacks.

During the last week of October, 2001, ABC News, led by Brian Ross, continuously trumpeted the claim as their top news story that government tests conducted on the anthrax -- tests conducted at Ft. Detrick -- revealed that the anthrax sent to Daschele contained the chemical additive known as bentonite. ABC News, including Peter Jennings, repeatedly claimed that the presence of bentonite in the anthrax was compelling evidence that Iraq was responsible for the attacks, since -- as ABC variously claimed -- bentonite "is a trademark of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program" and "only one country, Iraq, has used bentonite to produce biological weapons."

But bentonite was never found in the anthrax, and Greenwald says ABC News didn't acknowledged this until 2007, and only after Greenwald's "badgering them about this issue." That means, says Greenwald, the four "well-placed and separate sources" ABC claimed to have fed them "false information that created a very significant link in the public mind between the anthrax attacks and Saddam Hussein."

After all, three days later, McCain and Joe Lieberman went on Meet the Press (on October 21, 2001) and both strongly suggested that we would have to attack Iraq. Lieberman said that the anthrax was so complex and potent that "there's either a significant amount of money behind this, or this is state-sponsored, or this is stuff that was stolen from the former Soviet program." As I said, it is not possible to overstate the importance of anthrax in putting the country into the state of fear that led to the attack on Iraq and so many of the other abuses of the Bush era. There are few news stories more significant, if there are any, than unveiling who the culprits were behind this deliberate propaganda. The fact that the current GOP presidential nominee claimed back then on national television to have some "indication" linking Saddam to the anthrax attacks makes it a bigger story still.

The Onion!

Happy weekend.

Oy, Gonna Be All Attack, All the Time

McCain's new ad. How well does the Messiah theme work on ordinary Americans who aren't the Christian fundamentalist base? I am also thinking Magic Negro here. Feh (spits).

Mall-Wart, er, Wal-Mart Officially Goes Republican

From the Wall Street Journal. Now I know many readers think the WSJ is a Republican tool, but that is not the case except on the editorial page. I vouch for its reporting as first rate. And Murdoch doesn't care, really, whatever makes money, the reason he threw a fundraiser for Hillary. Inside baseball, I know.
Without further ado, then:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they'll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies -- including Wal-Mart.

In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if stores were to be unionized.

According to about a dozen Wal-Mart employees who attended such meetings in seven states, Wal-Mart executives claim that employees at unionized stores would have to pay hefty union dues while getting nothing in return, and may have to go on strike without compensation. Also, unionization could mean fewer jobs as labor costs rise.

The actions by Wal-Mart -- the nation's largest private employer -- reflect a growing concern among big business that a reinvigorated labor movement could reverse years of declining union membership. That could lead to higher payroll and health costs for companies already being hurt by rising fuel and commodities costs and the tough economic climate.

The Magic Negro

Lest we forget, there IS a dynamic at play here. Sometimes it's called white guilt.
Stumbled upon it in a comment thread over at TPM.

The McCain "Celebrity' Attack Ad

"Race Card" posts below are about this:



UPDATE: Obama in Iowa today:





Crikey, enough! I'm going for a walk and then, into the garden!

Eeew, the Race Card III

Over at Andrew Sullivan's Salon blog, (oops, I mean The Atlantic) a re-consideration. Of course, it should be noted that the named alternative celebrities don't stand out as empty and vacuous. On the other hand, they're not "sexually available white women" either.
Personally, I think this has the "Harold, call me" tactic written all over it. In case you forget, it's the blonde white floozy in the ad used to defeat black Harold Ford last fall in Tennessee. He's got a good gig now, though, head of the Democratic Leadership Council and vacuous black spokesperson for all things centrist and Republican Lite.

by Chris Bodenner
I'm the last person to buy into the so-called "racist" intentions of mainstream Republicans.  And I think Democrats usually cry wolf on the matter, to the detriment of race relations.  But reading John Riley's post gave me pause:

We just got off a conference call with Camp McCain, defending their new ad comparing Barack Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. They said they thought the ad was legitimate because Obama is a big celebrity..., and Britney and Paris were Number 2 and 3. The problem: Anyone with even a vague sense of pop culture knows that Britney and Paris are yesterday's news. Here's a link to Forbes' Celebrity 100. Paris and Britney don't even make the list any more. Instead, the top 10, in order: Oprah Winfrey, Tiger Woods, Angelina Jolie, Beyonce Knowles, David Beckham, Johnny Depp, Jay-Z, The Police, JK Rowling, Brad Pitt. So, they didn't pick other big celebrities, who were either men, or black, or married. What they picked was two sexually available white women.

Alert, Dem Leader Wants Weed Legal

Rep. Barney Frank (I love Barney Frank) introduced a bill to decriminalize marijuana, arguing that people's leisure time is not the business of government. He acknowledges there's little chance it will pass soon.
Of course, the cops HATE this idea.

Eeew, the Race Card III

and Comment O' Teh Day:

TV critic James Poniewozik:
You can make Obama into Britney Spears, or John Kerry, or Malcolm X. I'm not sure you can make him into all three at the same time. (Is there a template in American culture for an Ivy-league-snob, black-militant, out-of-control former Mouseketeer?)

Eeew, the Race Card II

They talk about the "dog whistle" in politics, the one only bigots can hear.
The best summary I've seen so far of the pro-Obama talking points and the "dog whistle" is in a comments secion of TPM today.

So are all of y'all from up North such that you don't recognize that this denunciation is the inevitable follow up of the candidate who's blown the the racial dogwhistle?

I blogged about this back during the meanest, most overheated, part of the the primaries. I'm not going to link to that post, becuase the last damn thing I want to do is stir up old fights with my fellow travellers.

But I will quote myself, (albeit while shamelessly taking the opportunity to correct a few typos in the original):

I've lived in the South, or the border South, my whole life and I'm old enough to remember the bad old days when white supremacy was mainstream political thought. I've lived through the days when racial politics transitioned from fire hoses and bullets and George Wallace screaming "Segregation Now, Segregation Forever" to Richard Nixon's "Southern Strategy," Ronald Reagan's speechifying about "states rights" in Philedelphia, Mississippi and Jesse Helms "white hands" ad. (God, I'll never forget how utterly appalled I was by that ad and that whole campaign. In the waning days of the Bush I Administration, I thought the country was past that sort of thing. Now that was naïve.)

I'm a white guy, but I know the politics of racial dog whistling when I see it.

The racial dog whistle isn't directed to the people who have swastika tattoos and Klan robes in their closet. It is directed to the angry blue collar white guy who starts all his pronouncements with "I'm no racist, but . . ." and then goes on and on and on about "them" and how "they" act. People who know they're getting a raw deal and need a scapegoat. People who genuinely think it would be profoundly foul and offensive to call a black person "nigger" to his or her face but see nothing wrong with using the word in private conversations with other white people.

I've seen that tune oh-so-skillfully played in a wistful minor key by Jesse Helms and the other Republicans in North Carolina for more than two decades. Mostly, its all about a wink and a nod, a codeword here and a subtle image there and all to convey a simple message: "those blacks are privileged and getting special treatment and stealing your tax money and it just ain't fair." And you quickly learn that when its time to get blunt and say something really foul, they always trot out a black man to say it for them.

The inevitable protestation of complete innocence is the most sickening part of the act. In every case, when someone calls bullshit, the candidate pulls his halo and his best wounded expression out of his desk and sorrowfully bemoans the way his opponent makes everything about race (but, you know, that's how those people are, idn't it? Everything's always a racial thing with them).

And yes, in that same post, I noted how the "empty suit" meme is, in itself, a racial dog whistle--

At another level, however, it is a far fouler, appeal to the prejudices of, say people in a state where the demographics trend white, blue collar and older than just about anywhere else in the nation, than anyone seems to have appreciated, one narrowly targeted to get them to apply their prejudices specifically to Obama.

Barack Obama is a staggeringly accomplished man. Merely to describe his accomplishments makes one sound like a drooling star-struck Kool Aid drinker with a Chris Matthews style man crush. Obama got his B.A. from Columbia, majoring in political science with an emphasis in international relations. He was a community organizer in his twenties who, among other things, was behind a remarkably successful voter registration drive in Chicago. He received his J.D. From Harvard Law, Magna Cum Laude. He was research assistant to Lawrence Tribe, who called him "the most all-around impressive student I had seen in decades." While working for Tribe “Obama analyzed and integrated Einstein's theory of relativity, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, as well as the concept of curved space as an alternative to gravity, for a Law Review article that Tribe wrote titled, 'The Curvature of Constitutional Space.'” In his third year, Obama was elected president of the Harvard Law Review. After law school, he eschewed the incredibly lucrative job offers that await presidents of the HLR, and, instead, went to work with a respected, but small and not very remunerative, civil rights firm in Chicago. He also taught Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago and, it is said, could have had been full professor any time he wanted, had he not chosen to also pursue a political career. He had a meteoric rise from state senator to U.S. Senator to Presidential candidate. He is the author, the actual author, not some pol claiming credit for the work of a ghost author, of of two best selling books. Both of his books are extremely well written, the first a remarkably insightful memoir, the latter a cogent synthesis of recent events and our political and economic history that lucidly explains where we are, how we got here and what we can do about it. Chock full of policy precriptions, wonky yet readable and remarkably self-reflective.

As a senator, he has sponsored some very serious signature pieces of legislation and gotten them passed while he was a member of the minority. And, oh yes, the guy happens to be the most outstanding political orator of his generation, and may be one of the four or five best in the history of the party. He has created and run a tight, well-run and remarkable harmonious campaign organization that has upended the carefully laid plans of the Mighty and Inevitable Hillary Clinton Machine and run up huge margins against her in, what, fifteen out of the last seventeen states now?

Was he fast tracked by the powers that be in the Illinois legislature and by the Democratic Senate leadership? You bet he was. That's what organizations do with prodigies. Businesses do it, universities do it, the military does it and, yes, they do it in politics.

And yet . . . over and over again, you see him dismissed as “an empty suit.” . . . Empty suit. Pretty speeches and no content. Just a vacuous, content-free pretty boy.

Do you really think anyone would buy that drivel if he were white? . . . “Accomplishments? C'mon, he's a moulie. Columbia? Affirmative action. Harvard? Quota baby. President of the Harvard Law Review? Just a bunch of northeastern liberals exorcising their white guilt. University of Chicago? Reverse racism. Illinois legislature? Blacks takin' care of their own. Senate? Affirmative action. You know how it is today. Those blacks get everything, and us whites get the short end, know what I'm sayin'?”

The MSM can, and will, pretend not to get it. And, indeed, given that most of them seem to have a form of brain damage that causes them to forget anything that happened more than two weeks ago, some of them actually might not get it. They're sheep who are endlessly startled by things they see every day of their banal lives.

Regardless of whether you believed it was happening then, it is unmistakably happening now, and that fact that its happening was almost pathetic in its predicability once the Rovelettes took over McCain's campaign.
Posted by The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve.

Eeew, the Race Card!

April 8, 2008, from McCain pro-war rally.
Today, the McCain camp accuses Obama of playing the race card when he said he doesn't look like the rest of the presidents on the dollar bill. All kinds of speculation in the 'spere about this, I reserve judgment. Hell, we already went through this in the primary, we knew it was coming again.

Best Dressed Adendum...or

Comment O' Teh Week:
From Wonkette (yes, I'm that desperate):

‘Vanity Fair’ Thinks Michelle Obama Is A Snappy Dresser

They even called her “our commander in sheath”! Michelle Obama officially joined Vanity Fair’s International Best Dressed List, while Cindy McCain sat at home and wept into her Chico’s catalog.

(We can't have a First Lady called Cindy, can we? What's next, Brianna? Or Madison?)

Obama the Law Professor

Twelve years at the University of Chicago and "he learned to lie low," says NYT.
He's a smart, ambitious guy and some of his former conservative colleagues apparently resented his non-committal nature. So they haven't much to criticize now that someone's elevating them to the quotable category. Heh.
Kept things to himself, broadly admired by the students.
Some random, insightful quotes:

The Chicago law faculty is full of intellectually fiery friendships that burn across ideological lines. Three times a week, professors do combat over lunch at a special round table in the university’s wood-paneled faculty club, and they share and defend their research in workshop discussions. Mr. Obama rarely attended, even when he was in town. “I’m not sure he was close to anyone,” Mr. Hutchinson said, except for a few liberal constitutional law professors, like Cass Sunstein, now an occasional adviser to his campaign. Mr. Obama was working two other jobs, after all, in the state senate and at a civil rights law firm.

But he was a politician in waiting from day one. How can we deny the basic nature of our elected officials and pretend they are otherwise?

But as a professor, students say, Mr. Obama was in the business of complication, showing that even the best-reasoned rules have unintended consequences, that competing legal interests cannot always be resolved, that a rule that promotes justice in one case can be unfair in the next.

So even some former students who are thrilled at Mr. Obama’s success wince when they hear him speaking like the politician he has so fully become.

“When you hear him talking about issues, it’s at a level so much simpler than the one he’s capable of,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “He was a lot more fun to listen to back then.”

Living Light

most of the contrariennes I know are in the midst of coming to terms with the over-inventory in their lives.
I, for instance, have had a large dining table covered with paperwork ready to sort and dispense with since January. That's seven months of contemplation and, maybe, about two days' worth of actual attack. I had hoped the assemblage would have guilt-tripped me into action.
Maybe tomorrow. Anyway, here are some clutter buster tips that might help.
What I liked best about the general theme is that you pretend to yourself that you're moving (maybe you are even if you don't yet know it) and survey it all with that in mind.
After being forced to use three different remotes last night to watch one DVD, I'm thinking "yeah, I actually need to re-program here."

Pill for Alzheimer's

seems to stop and even reverse progress, says the Brit doc who announced the positive trial results.

Vanity

Fair International Best Dressed list.
Fran Lebowitz is a Hall of Fame inductee. I kind of liked the German prince. And those Spanish brothers. Can't believe Sarah Jessica Parker made it though.

Fran Lebowitz from brinntanyelle at Photobucket

Art:Women As Heroes

Neat art/human rights project. More here.

Frogmarch Rove!

The House Judiciary Committee is about to recommend Karl Rove be declared in contempt of Congress.
Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films has a petition you can sign asking that Rove be arrested on the charge.
And this short rehash of Rove's record of deception and corruption.

'They Love Me'

Media Matters is fed up with the ongoing misreporting, non-reporting about John McCain and has spent $100,000 in NYC and D.C. to remind "The Village" that they're being watched.

You can sign a pledge to hold the media accountable here.

Sneak Peek

Oliver Stone's "W" opens three weeks before the general election. Hasn't Michael Moore promised something, too?

Episode 4 of 'Fun with War Crimes'

Catch them all here.

Taxes: D's Bad, R's Good. Or Maybe Not

Obama is meeting with a lot of heavy economic hitters today in preparation for turning the campaign towards domestic issues, the last thing McCain wants.

"I used to say that Barack Obama raises taxes and John McCain cuts them, and I was convinced... I stand corrected [about Obama's plans]." Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's chief economic policy adviser.

But nobody corrects McSame. Or is it McBush.

Time took a closer look and, while admitting it's hard to pin the campaigns down on a lot of specifics at this juncture — 100 days to the election — Obama seems to be closer to what we all want than McCain.

Do This Today

 Just follow the link at the bottom to sign the petition sponsored by Color of Change.

Dear (Contrarienne readers)


LaVena Johnson was a 19 year old private in the Army, serving in Iraq, when she was raped, murdered, and her body was burned--by someone from her own military base. Despite overwhelming physical evidence, the Army called her death a suicide and has closed the case.1

For three years, LaVena's parents have been fighting for answers. At almost every turn, they've been met with closed doors or lies. They've appealed to Congress, the one body that can hold the military accountable. But, as in other cases where female soldiers have been raped and murdered and the Army has called it suicide, Congress has failed to act.

Will you join Mr. and Mrs. Johnson in calling on Congressman Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee, to mount a real investigation into LaVena Johnson's death and the Army's cover-up2? Will you ask your friends and family to do the same?

http://www.colorofchange.org/lavena/?id=2551-239105

From the beginning, LaVena's death made no sense as a suicide. She was happy and had been talking with friends and family regularly3--nothing indicated she could be suicidal. And when the Johnsons received her body, they noticed signs that she had been beaten.4 That was when they started asking questions.

After two years of being denied answers and hearing explanations that made no sense, the Johnsons received a CD-ROM from someone on the inside. It contained pictures of the crime scene where LaVena died and an autopsy showing that she had suffered bruises, abrasions, a dislocated shoulder, broken teeth, and some type of sexual assault. Her body was partially burned; she had been doused in a flammable liquid, and someone had set her body on fire. A corrosive chemical had been poured in her genital area, perhaps to cover up evidence of rape.5

Still the Army sticks by their story. They refuse to explain the overwhelming physical evidence that LaVena was raped and murdered and continue to claim that she killed herself.

For many Black youth, and working class young people of every race, the military is seen as an option for securing a better future. LaVena came from a deeply supportive family, and while the military wasn't her only option, she was attracted by its promise to help her pay for a college education and the opportunity to travel around the world. She also thought that by joining she could continue her lifelong commitment to serving other people in need. She made a decision to serve in the military, with all its risks, and expected respect and dignity in return.

LaVena's death is part of a disturbing pattern of cases where female soldiers have been raped and killed, and where the military has hidden the truth and labeled the deaths suicides.6,7 In virtually all cases, Congress has been slow to investigate or hold the military accountable in any way. Unfortunately, most families simply don't have the resources, time, and psychological strength to push back.

We can help the Johnsons, and other families, by holding Congress accountable in the LaVena Johnson case and by demanding it investigate the pattern of cover-ups by the military.

Please take a moment to join those calling on Congressman Waxman to investigate the cover-up of LaVena Johnson's death: 








http://www.colorofchange.org/lavena/

Free!

Obama button here.

Lit 301

Oooh, I guess I had this coming. If I love Annie Proulx and Cormac McCarthy, somebody some day was going to tell me I shouldn't.
Nice hit piece.
Sample:

This may get Hass's darkly meated heart pumping, but it's really just bad poetry formatted to exploit the lenient standards of modern prose.

I believe I can make an argument for writing about the movement of a horse's bowels (wonder at creation alone seems worth it) but this is fun to think about if you're a reader, if maybe a bit long.
Okay, just one more. This must be some passage I skipped in All the Pretty Horses. Maybe authors know we tend to skip, sometimes a lot, so they just write to have fun. Or just like the way it sounds, knowing you aren't reading it.
Here we learn that out west even a hangover is something special.

[They] walked off in separate directions through the chaparral to stand spraddlelegged clutching their knees and vomiting. The browsing horses jerked their heads up. It was no sound they'd ever heard before. In the gray twilight those retchings seemed to echo like the calls of some rude provisional species loosed upon that waste. Something imperfect and malformed lodged in the heart of being. A thing smirking deep in the eyes of grace itself like a gorgon in an autumn pool. (All the Pretty Horses)

It is a rare passage that can make you look up, wherever you may be, and wonder if you are being subjected to a diabolically thorough Candid Camera prank. I can just go along with the idea that horses might mistake human retching for the call of wild animals. But "wild animals" isn't epic enough: McCarthy must blow smoke about some rude provisional species, as if your average quadruped had impeccable table manners and a pension plan. Then he switches from the horses' perspective to the narrator's, though just what something imperfect and malformed refers to is unclear. The last half sentence only deepens the confusion. Is the thing smirking deep in the eyes of grace the same thing that is lodged in the heart of being? And what is a gorgon doing in a pool? Or is it peering into it? And why an autumn pool? I doubt if McCarthy can explain any of this; he probably just likes the way it sounds.

Obama in Israel

David Horovitz of the Jerusalem Post (Dog, I loves me some Intertubes! Imagine me reading the Jerusalem Post five years ago)seems to think a lot of him. Possibly because he's smart and well-informed and thinks. Wow.

Two months ago in the Oval Office, President George W. Bush, coming to the end of a two-term presidency and presumably as expert on Israeli-Palestinian policy as he is ever going to be, was accompanied by a team of no fewer than five advisers and spokespeople during a 40-minute interview with this writer and three other Israeli journalists.

In March, on his whirlwind visit to Israel, Republican presidential nominee John McCain, one of whose primary strengths is said to be his intimate grasp of foreign affairs, chose to bring along Sen. Joe Lieberman to the interview our diplomatic correspondent Herb Keinon and I conducted with him, looked to Lieberman several times for reassurance on his answers and seemed a little flummoxed by a question relating to the nuances of settlement construction.

On Wednesday evening, toward the end of his packed one-day visit here, Barack Obama, the Democratic senator who is leading the race for the White House and who lacks long years of foreign policy involvement, spoke to The Jerusalem Post with only a single aide in his King David Hotel room, and that aide's sole contribution to the conversation was to suggest that the candidate and I switch seats so that our photographer would get better lighting for his pictures.

Several of Obama's Middle East advisers - including former Clinton special envoy Dennis Ross and ex-ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer - were hovering in the vicinity. But Obama, who was making only his second visit to Israel, knew precisely what he wanted to say about the most intricate issues confronting and concerning Israel, and expressed himself clearly, even stridently on key subjects.

Barack's Back: Media Still Surging

and so, our Comment O' Teh Day from Jason Linkins post at Huffpo.

Not many realize that the "surge" is the most important thing ever discovered by man.

It's more important than fire, the wheel, and the printing press all "rolled" together. In itself that combined threesome is pretty awesome - I'll admit.

And in some circles it is even considered a greater intellectual achievement than the thermos.

Oh, did we mention that despite McCain's and the media's obsession, Gallup's newest tracking poll has Obama with a first-ever 9-point lead? Heh. Landslide, I tells ya!

Medical Truths and Myths

Jane Brody at the NYT explains the truth about ear cleaning, poison ivy from mango skin and eight other things you think you know or didn't know but should.

Weekend Read

There's this surfer dude who lives in a van and also snowboards and mountain bikes and he's, like, also working on a unified theory. You know, that thing Einstein didn't finish.

"I've tried to make the rest of my life good enough that even if the physics theories don't work out," he says, "it wasn't a waste of time."

His name is Garrett Lisi and he's really interesting. I read all seven pages and didn't get bored. I even read the definitions. If he does this, I may have to resign from the Church of String Theory and sign up with E8.

Engineers and Cats

Happy Sunday!

' '

Cost/Benefit

You do the analysis.

In a new report, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) reveals that the real similarity between Iraq and Vietnam is in the price of staying. In constant FY2008 dollars, the Vietnam war cost the U.S. $686 billion. The Iraq war, at just over five years old, is priced at $648 billion

:

Wow!

A second 'Comment O' Teh Day'

Whenever you hear one of these Republican apologists use the term 'protect', remember the following:

“This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.”

PLATO

That 'Hillary Is Monster' Chick

was Samantha Power and as soon as I saw her in Charlie Rose I was in love with a smart, beautiful, compassionate woman. But she jilted me and got married.

'Nonsense On Stilts'

Cass Suntstein, the Obama advisor from the University of Chicago, recently married Samantha Power, she of the "Clinton is a Monster" fame, in Ireland and with her Irish family in attendance.
But that's just the gossipy stuff, and I LOVED Power before reading all this stuff about Sunstein.
Okay, reluctantly, against my will, I am now very, Very skeptical about Obama.
But what's the choice, exactly?

Comment O' Teh Day

In response to someone's worry that there's an Obama cult:

Steve, we've had The Universal Salvation Church of President Bush and his Manly Characteristic for the last eight years and now you're starting to notice that US politics is getting a bit cultish?

The Surge Is Irrelevant

McCain is trying to make the campaign about the surge. And most of the television and radio news I've heard has swallowed that framing of the bigger issue of Iraq.
But there's always print, especially blogs.
Eric Martin at Obsidian Wings cites a year-old Slate article by an Iraq veteran who is also a lawyer.
I liked the story he leads with so much that I'm copying it for you:

In 1975, Army Col. Harry Summers went to Hanoi as chief of the U.S. delegation's negotiation team for the four-party military talks that followed the collapse of the South Vietnamese government. While there, he spent some time chatting with his North Vietnamese counterpart, Col. Tu, an old soldier who had fought against the United States and lived to tell his tale. With a tinge of bitterness about the war's outcome, Summers told Tu, "You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield." Tu replied, in a phrase that perfectly captured the American misunderstanding of the Vietnam War, "That may be so, but it is also irrelevant."

Martin concentrates on what Iraq's former prime minister had to say to Congress last week about the surge. It boils down to one word. Irrelevant.

'Bridal Beauty Buffets'

So, you're not getting any younger and neither are your bridesmaids, Ms. 37 (or 39 or 41. No! Not you GHWB!)
So, maybe a little enhancement before W-Day would be in order. Botox, anyone? Breast enhancement?
Americans have too much money.
Wai-i-it, airbrush tanning? How come nobody told me about this?

Obama's Family

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Includes a bunch of people from Kenya who you probably haven't heard of. So, here's a sweet little story.

Okay, I give up on the html here. Double post, you get the code you've got.

College Humor

can actually be quite sophisticated.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Can't Beat 'Em? Then Bribe 'Em.

Zbiggy's answer for Afghanistan is soooo timely, given that the idea of paying people not to do us harm was a hotly debated topic at my local Obama platform committee meeting last night.
Everyone seemed to like the idea a lot, but no one seemed convinced it would actually be taken seriously by the powers.
But Zbiggy's a power and he says pay 'em off.
I like it.

His own program for improving the state of affairs in Afghanistan -- where U.S. casualties have surpassed those in Iraq for two months now -- revolves around pragmatism. He believes Europe should bribe Afghan farmers not to produce poppies used for heroin since "it all ends up in Europe." Moreover, he thinks the tribal warlords can be bought off with bribes, with the endgame being the isolation of Al-Qaeda from a Taliban that is "not a united force, not a world-oriented terrorist movement, but a real Afghan phenomenon."

World to McCain: Go Away!

via Michael Berube at TPM:

EARTH, July 25, 2008 -- The entire world drafted an open letter to Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) today, asking him to drop out of the U.S. presidential race and concede the presidency to Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois).
"Ordinarily we do not interfere in America's internal affairs," said a spokesman for the rest of the planet, "even when it has become clear, as in recent years, that American voters are about to elect ignorant, incoherent buffoons who will add immeasurably to our immiseration. But this time is different. We didn't think it was worth our while to step up for your Carter or Mondale or Dukakis or Gore or Kerry -- besides, we'd only be bombed or invaded for our trouble. But this time, I mean, come on -- you've got to be kidding me, right? Please tell me you're kidding."

Pointing to polls that show Obama leading McCain 94 percent to 6 percent everywhere on the inhabited globe except the United States, where most polls give Obama a narrow one- to three-point lead, the entire world suggested that Americans might not be sufficiently informed about the U.S. election. "Look, this isn't funny," said a world representative, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "You've got one candidate who has a reasonably sane and comprehensive foreign policy combined with detailed knowledge of American domestic affairs, and another candidate who isn't always sure which country he's talking about and whose domestic policy consists of telling people to stop whining. Why are you even throwing this open to a vote? Are you people out of your minds?"

'Thanks A Lot, Vietnam. You Had to Ruin the Fun for Everyone.'

WaPo has a pretty good story today about Lt. G's blog Kaboom, which the Army shut down about a month ago after the l.t. as they call them in Generation Kill tried to decline a promotion. He's now a captain.
Anyway, if you're interested, go here, and there are also links to Lt. G's blog archives and other tidbits.
 Sample from Lt. G's "Army translator":

General Order No. 1 - The base order for all deployed military personnel in Iraq that bans alcohol use, pornography, and a litany of other vices. Thanks a lot, Vietnam. You had to ruin the fun for everyone.

If you're wondering, Generation Kill is HBO's new mini-series based on a book by a Rolling Stone reporter embedded with a group of Marines when the Iraq invasion started. I've learned some colorful new curses ("hillbilly, buck-toothed, cross-eyed sister fucker") and the show is very, very well done, a project by David Simon and his partner Ed Burns, who did The Wire, the best television program ever.
Recommend you rent it when it's likely out on DVD next year.

Venn Heaven

A Venn diagram is...oh, I dunno, one of those intersecting circle thingies that give us a simple, visual picture of interrelated things, like the criminals and crimes of the Bush administration.
They usually confuse me, I'm not too good at spacial relationships, but Slate's is just super.
And there's an all-text version to save for future reference.

From Cakewrecks.com

Go, Paint!

http://www.artweaver.de/index.php?en_version

Obama: The Man, The Brain

from the New Republic (because the National Review would never tell.)

But other Chicago conservatives seem content with the fact that Obama tried to understand their point of view, even if he didn't wind up adopting it. "What I know from my dealings with him at the law school is that he does really attempt to understand the points of view of other people who look at the world or a particular issue differently than he does," says Fischel. "He's much more intellectual, much more thoughtful, much more interested in discussion, debate, and dialogue than the typical politician. And that gives me some confidence about him, even though from my perspective he's much too liberal. I've never voted for a Democrat in my entire life. He's the first one I might vote for."

Psst, Obama Is Jewish, Pass It On

 

 

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., lays a wreath in the Hall of Remembrance at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, Wednesday, July 23, 2008. Barack Obama, after vowing to immediately work for a breakthrough in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations if elected U.S. president, plunged into the intricacies of the region's conflict Wednesday with a packed schedule of meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner) 

His Holiness

New campaign poster. I'm wondering if those four planes are four of the five he crashed.

Using Brain Is Hard Work

and has its limits, psychologists say.

...you might choose the wrong job because you didn't eat a cookie...If we've just spent lots of time focusing on a particular task, exercising self-control or even if we've just made lots of seemingly minor choices, then we probably shouldn't try to make a major decision. These deleterious carryover effects from a tired brain may have a strong shaping effect on our lives.

Miss Kosovo

made it into the top 10 of the Miss Universe contest last weekend and it's considered a very big deal for the tiny, war-plagued little Balkan country. Usually, women from really big and rich countries are the ones who make it.

Erm, About That Glass Ceiling

From the Financial Times:

Women have a much better chance of breaking through the US corporate glass ceiling if they work for companies that have several female board directors, according to research to be published on Wednesday.
A study of Fortune 500 companies between 2001 and 2006 showed that companies with a high percentage of female board directors ended up with more women in senior managerial positions than rivals with male-dominated boards.

Top Ten Ghost Towns

of the world, via Andrew Sullivan's blog.

Quote O' Teh Weekend

Someone over at MetaFilter answering a silly comment from someone else accusing police of incompetence.

Yeah, if Albert Einstein had become a police officer, instead of a physicist, then there mightbe lower crime, and a lot less nuclear weapons. But, this isn't a perfect world, then, is it?

Guess Who Said This

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. These plain and cruel truths define the peril and point to the hope that comes with this spring of 1953.

(Answer: Dwight D. Eisenhower)

Jon Taplin, a man of wildly "eclectic" credentials, is also really really smart and writing on his blog about matters defense and economic and political this week. Worth a look. He writes short for those of us who have been made stupid by Teh Google.

Here's Who I Would Be If I Could Be Anybody

Jason Kottke. He's youngish, he has a beautiful wife and a new son, he lives in NYC and he blogs for a living. Oh, and he's funny. And finds more good stuff on the intertubes than I could ever dream of.
For today, anyway. Maybe tomorrow I could be Bird AND Fortune.

'George Bush Is A Genius'

I know we've got Colbert and Stewart but, really, the British are the best satirists.
6 1/2 minutes and you HAVE to watch to the end.
They are Bird and Fortune and you can find more on YouTube.

Toast With Butter Is Like Health Care

From the director of the Congressional Budget Office who, I guess the Democrats got to hire once they became the majority. There's a lot out there going on under the radar, and saving Medicare is one thing the CBO has at the top of the agenda. Apparently, it's doable, and you can read as much or as little as you like about it here.
I'll just take his word for it and hope the D's come through. In the meantime, here's a little nugget that makes me love the wonks among us.

...an analogy from Laura Adams of the Rhode Island Quality Institute , to the effect that wondering how we are going to achieve more efficiency in health care is like wondering why we don’t have buttered toast. Some people say the key is to plug the toaster in; others say we need to go to the store and buy the bread; others say the key is putting the bread into the toaster and pressing the lever down; and others say the most important step is the final one, applying the butter. (For those of you who like to eat healthy, imagine wheat toast and a high-protein spread instead.) Health IT is like plugging in the toaster — necessary but not sufficient by itself to produce the buttered toast. Obtaining some combination of higher quality and lower cost from health care will also require changing the way we use information and the incentives facing providers, among other steps. In other words, health care contains massive opportunities for efficiency improvements, and health IT can facilitate some of the steps that will be crucial to improving efficiency, but capturing those opportunities will generally require more than just expanded health IT. For more on health IT, see here and here .

Bottled Water

From a book review in The Economist cited on Andrew Sullivan today.

It should be easy enough to pillory bottled water. It costs between 250 and 10,000 times more than tap water and in blind tastings people cannot usually separate the fancy beverage from the ordinary stuff. Then there is the environmental cost: according to one estimate, the total energy required to make and deliver each bottle of water is equivalent to filling them a quarter of the way with oil. While New Yorkers enjoy the services of water sommeliers, millions of people in developing countries lack access to any clean water at all.

But although Ms Royte displays all the usual prejudices—private enterprise bad, collective provision good—her book concludes that even in rich countries tap water sometimes contains small quantities of harmful chemicals. She also points out that in water shortages, local authorities may supply people with water reclaimed from sewage without telling them. Bottled water, therefore, “has its place”: a confused message, if an honest one.

Planned Parenthood Gets McCain

We knew this was coming. Who really believes this guy can be president, much less get elected?

Nevada Republicans Not Interested

This is hilarious:

Nevada GOP Cancels Convention, Opts for Conference Call

Brad Haynes reports on the presidential race.

Citing a lack of interest, the Nevada Republican Party has called off its state convention and will instead pick its delegates to the national convention by private conference call.

The state party broke up its original convention in April when supporters of Ron Paul hijacked the proceedings and tried to elect delegates for their candidate to the national GOP convention in September. Party officials tried to reconvene on July 26, but they needed a quorum of 675 and received only 300 RSVPs, according to local reports.

About Obama Leaving For Iraq

In case you've ever wondered what a pool report reads like. (Pool report: Only two reporters are always with the candidate and every other reporter on the beat gets this to do with as they wish.)

HOW OBAMA SLIPPED OUT OF COUNTRY
Sat Jul 19 2008 17:02:39 ET

Pool Report

The motorcade left Sen. Obama’s home in Chicago’s Kenwood neighborhood at 11:11 a.m. There was one Chicago Police Department patrol car, followed by two SUVs, a sedan and a press van. Riding in the press van were agent Jill, Sam, John McCormick of the Chicago Tribune and Glen Johnson of The Associated Press.

The motorcade headed north on Lake Shore Drive to I-55 (Stevenson Expressway) and toward MDW. The CPD blocked traffic for our turn onto the western perimeter of the airfield, where we arrived at 11:31 a.m.

Waiting on the tarmac was a Gulfstream III (G3) executive jet (tail number N366JA). We exited our respective vehicles at 11:34 a.m.

The crew was waiting outside for the senator’s arrival and a few photos with him near a wing. He was wearing tan slacks and a short black jacket. After fishing around in the back of one of the SUVs for his luggage (he seemed especially to be checking his suits inside a garment bag), he was on the bird by 11:36 a.m.

Also getting on the plane were eight Secret Service agents and the two reporters. The senator briefly greeted us as we walked past his seat in the forward section. Seated near him was senior spokeswoman Linda Douglass, the only staff member on the flight.

After everyone found a seat on the crowded plane, the pilot announced that the flying time would be between 80 and 85 minutes. All seemed eager for him to start the engines, since the plane had been sitting under a hot sun and the cabin temperature was likely somewhere in the 90s. Sweat had begun to roll down the faces of some of the agents.

“We’re just easing you into it,” Obama told his bodyguards, referring to the heat and the desert weather they would all be traveling to in the coming days.

As the plane taxied, the senat or, wearing a short-sleeve black shirt, chatted with Douglass. The plane was wheels up at 11:55 a.m.

Your pool asked Douglass if we could chat with the senator about his upcoming trip. She said she would check, but later told us that we would only get a brief chance to ask him a couple questions once at Reagan National Airport.

Janis, our stewardess, first served the senator his lunch (chicken and rice and broccoli). Everyone else had sandwiches, wraps, chips and candy (yes, just like on the bus), although we were served on china and given green place settings and cloth napkins.

As the plane peaked around 41,000 feet and 500 knots, according to the computer screen tracking our location at the front of the cabin, the senator read a copy of the Wall20Street Journal. Johnson had claimed an aisle seat and reported that he first read a story about off-shore oil drilling and then one about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

By the time we were descending, at 17,000 feet, he had switched to the New York Times, spending most of his time in the Sports and Arts sections.

We were wheels down at 2:17 p.m. local and parked with the engines off by 2:24 p.m.

After getting off the plane, Douglass said there was time for “one question,” adding, “Then, we’re making him leave. He’s behind [schedule].”

Your pool, with the noise of the jet’s engines in the background, quickly asked what two or three things Obama was hoping to learn on this mission.

“Well, I’m looking forward to seeing what the situation on the ground is,” he said. “I want to, obviously, talk to the commanders and get a sense, both in Afghanistan and in Baghdad of, you know, what the most, ah, their biggest concerns are. And I want to thank our troops for the heroic work that they’ve been doing.”

Then, the senator was asked whether he plans to deliver some tough talk to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki about doing more to stand up the instruments of self-governance in their own nations.

“Well, you know, I’m more interested in listening than doing a lot of talking,” he said. “And I think it is very important to recognize that I’m going over there as a U.S. senator. We have one president at a time, so it’s the president’s job to deliver those messages.”

By 2:32 p.m., the motorcade was rolling. This one included two local police cars, three SUVs, a Honda Accord, a minivan equipped with lights and sirens and another local patrol car. We were off the DCA property by 2:36 p.m.

Your pool was in the Honda with Douglass. It was driven by Molly Buford, who works in Obama’s senator office and also for the campaign.

The mot orcade traveled I-395 to I-295 and then on to the Suitland Parkway, entering a northern entrance of Andrews Air Force Base at 2:57 p.m.

We passed several military helicopters and planes before arriving at 3:01 p.m. near an aircraft that had no markings, with the exception of an American flag on the tail. This was the plane that would transport the congressional delegation to their destination. A ground crew member told us it was a Boeing C-40C.

The senator greeted several military personnel waiting for him near the plane. He was carrying a laptop bag and had changed into some brown leather boots upon arrival in Washington.

The senator was also greeted by Mark Lippert, foreign policy advisor in his senate office. Douglass said he was the only member of Ob ama’s staff traveling with him on the congressional delegation trip. Douglass later told your pool that Lippert had returned in the late spring from a tour of duty in Iraq as a naval reservist.

By 3:03 p.m., the senator was on the aircraft, having been saluted by a member of the military on his way aboard. At 3:09 p.m., the plane’s door was closed. Four minutes later it was in motion and wheels up at 3:17 p.m., taking off to the south.

Later, Douglass confirmed that Sens. Jack Reed and Chuck Hagel were on the plane before our arrival. Your pool had not seen them at Andrews.

-- John McCormick, Chicago Tribune.