John McCain may want to deride the power of celebrity, but, in the fight for marriage equality, nothing probably helps more than the example of celebrities we love getting hitched. In the forefront of this fight has been Ellen Degeneres, who announced her intention to marry her girlfriend Portia de Rossi the day after California's Supreme Court handed down their ruling:
We should expect Rick Davis to soon write a letter requesting a sit down with the editors of the NY Times, which now has an article with the following title:
The matter is of interest because Mr. McCain, who followed Mr. Obama’s hourlong appearance in the forum, was asked virtually the same questions as Mr. Obama. Mr. McCain’s performance was well received, raising speculation among some viewers, especially supporters of Mr. Obama, that he was not as isolated during the Obama interview as Mr. Warren implied.
Nicolle Wallace, a spokeswoman for Mr. McCain, said on Sunday night that Mr. McCain had not heard the broadcast of the event while in his motorcade and heard none of the questions.
"The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous," Ms. Wallace said.
(Note: I debated whether to refer to Lieberman as Lieberscum, considering the fact that I find ad hominim attacks in political blogs to be counterproductive, but I really find Lieberman's accusation against Obama beyond the pale. I really feel he's brought such labels upon himself.)
"In my opinion, the choice could not be more clear: between one candidate, John McCain, who’s had experience, been tested in war and tried in peace, another candidate who has not,’’ Mr. Lieberman said. "Between one candidate, John McCain, who has always put the country first, worked across party lines to get things done, and one candidate who has not. Between one candidate who’s a talker, and the other candidate who’s the leader America needs as our next candidate.’’
Surprise, surprise:according to an article called "The Front-Runner's Fall" by Josh Green based on some internal Clinton campaign e-mails in the upcoming addition of The Atlantic Hillary Clinton's top campaign strategist, Mark Penn, advised Hillary to paint foreign and disconnected from American values:
The magazine reports Penn suggested getting much rougher with Obama in a memo on March 30, after her crucial wins in Texas and Ohio: "Does anyone believe that it is possible to win the nomination without, over these next two months, raising all these issues on him? ... Won’t a single tape of [the Reverend Jeremiah] Wright going off on America with Obama sitting there be a game ender?"
Penn, the presidential campaign’s chief strategist, wrote in a memo to Clinton excerpted in the article: "I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values."
It seems clear from this article any lingering doubts could be put to rest that Hillary's campaign management was riff with Rove-Republican thinking .
It took me a few reads of Deborah Howell's examinationof Dana Milbank's column, which painted Obama as the "presumptuous" rather than the presumptive nominee, to figure out whether Howell concluded Milbank practiced shoddy journalism. By decrying the "pernicious use of unnamed sources" in the column's first paragraph, Howell gives the impression that she's taking Milbank to task for quoting Obama out of context. Yet when I examined Howell's piece more closely, I realized Howell ultimately believes that, because Milbank's column is an opinion piece - intended more as entertainment rather than pure journalism - and no tape exists of Obama's full utterance, the Washington Post is under no obligation to print a correction, despite the fact that Milbank did not make an effort to confirm the accuracy or context of Obama's quote with other's present at the closed House Democratic caucus meeting.
There's all this talk in the Traditional Media about how close this election currently is. Pundits bemoan the fact that Obama is underperforming. In fact, Anderson Cooper 360 opened with the question, "Why is Barack Obama not performing better?" and then Cooper showed the poll of polls currently stands at Obama 48%, McCain 43%. The segment proceeded to spew out one negative after another about Obama, cherry picking unfavorable poll questions, such as whether people identify with Obama. Of course, they call on a supposedly non-partisan shill like Mark Halperin to reinforce this meme, who has a vested interest in maintaining the illusion this race is pretty close. (Though I give Ed Rollins credit for bringing up Reagan in 1980 and reminding people that up until the last week of the election, Reagan was consistently behind and won in a landslide.)
While I don't want to count our chickens before they hatch (but will remind people that Obama's supporters were panicking last fall before he won Iowa), I do want to point to some interesting analysis over at Princeton Election Consortiumthat puts some perspective on where the state currently is terms of electoral votes.
I debated whether to post these videos, especially considering we as a community want to avoid a level of lewdness that would make this site inappropriate for office viewing. However, considering the lewd nature of the Starr Report and the fact that the Republicans believed this material was enough to base the impeachment of a President, I thought it appropriate to offer up for consideration what exactly John McCain was hoping his wife Cindy, a potential First Lady, could participate in. In addition, if Barack Obama had ever suggested that he wished his wife could participate in such contests, it would become the basis for the Republicans' entire campaign against Obama.
Therefore, as I warn in the diary title, some of these video are not just sexually suggestive, but one verges on sexually explicit. I link to the video that goes beyond sexually suggestive and you will have to sign up for YouTube access to these clips.
The media, with prompting from the McCain campaign, wants Obama to admit that the surge worked and for him to admit that he was wrong to have not supported it. I think Obama is right to point out that other factors have contributed to an obvious decrease in violence in Iraq, but the media has tried to compare Obama's unwillingness to say that, knowing what he knows now, he still wouldn't have supported the surge to Hillary Clinton's unwillingness to say that, knowing what she knows now, her decision to have voted for the Iraq War was the wrong decision.
Whether or not the surge has worked, Obama had one very good reason above all others for having not supported the surge and I'm wonder why he does not point it out: the Bush Administration not only made the wrong decision to go into Iraq and lied to justify that initial decision but, most importantly, the administration planned that war incompetently. They wasted money and did not do the footwork to insure that the mission they gave the troops was well executed and did not give the troops the equipment they needed. With the track record of incompetency Bush and Co. had displayed, why would Obama agree to throw more money and troops into a sinkhole?
If anyone doubted the Washington Post editorial page's neo-conservativism and devotion to the Bush-McCain foreign policy, its pathetic attemptto deny that the Maliki government had in fact come out in support of Obama's plan to withdraw troops should put any doubts to rest. And in their stunning attempt to deny reality, they not only call Obama's foreign policy "eccentric" but also concede that they believe America's main concern in devising foreign policy strategy for this region is not about protecting America from terrorism but rather to insure the safety of Iraq's oil fields.
In its desperation to deny Maliki's support for Obama's timeline, the Washington Post editorial ties itself into so many knots that it's almost impossible not to quote it in full to illustrate how patently dishonest the editorial is. So I would urge you to read it in full to realize the degree to which it could have been written by a Republican campaign hack.
There falls yet another myth about the problems Obama will supposedly have among a particular sector of the population: according to a poll by a pro-Israel group, Obama is not only popular among Jews, he's far more popular than Lieberman, McCain or George Bush:
Among the most high-profile Jews in Congress, Lieberman is viewed far more unfavorably than the presumptive Democratic nominee, according to a new poll. Only 37 percent of Jews view the Connecticut Independent in a favorable light compared to 48 percent who have a negative perception. As for Obama, 60 percent of Jews view him favorably while 34 percent view him unfavorably.
Many here at DailyKos may not like the idea that Obama is considered a "cool conservative" while McCain is considered "the exuberant idealist." But after eight years of Neo-Conservative imperialism cloaked in the idealist fervor to "spread democracy," such labeling of Obama's and McCain's world view and foreign policy by Fareed Zakaria is a welcomed claim:
The rap on Barack Obama, at least in the realm of foreign policy, has been that he is a softheaded idealist who thinks that he can charm America's enemies. John McCain and his campaign, conservative columnists and right-wing bloggers all paint a picture of a liberal dreamer who wishes away the world's dangers...
So I'm watching Hardball and Mike Barnicle is subbing for Chris Matthews. The last segment of the program, The Politics Fix, always has three political commentators. Tonight, the three pundits were three African-Americans with diverse backgrounds. The three panelists were the following:
Michelle Bernard from the conservative Independent Women's Forum
Jonathon Capehart, an openly gay reporter from the traditional media outlet, the Washington Post
Jeff Johnson, who is described in his Wiki profile as "a political motivator and a social commentator," from BET, Black Entertainment Television - an media outlet that is more narrowly focused on a African-American audience.
And perhaps the most promising part of the panel was the fact that the subjects Barnicle touched on were not the narrow subject matters usually relegated to African-Americans: no discussion of Jesse Jackson Sr. and his fixation on Obama's genitalia, no discussion of supposed white working class resistance to Obama, nothing at all about race.
I'm watching Schwarzenegger on This Week with George Snuffleupagus and he's talking quite passionately about energy policy. I don't have it YouTube, so I'll transcribe what he said:
Ahnold: I have no interest in off-shore drilling off California. People can do it wherever they want...[McCain] can give us the rights to drill offshore but we will say "No thanks, we will not drill because we want to protect our coasts.
Snuffleupagus: That's more important than bringing down the price of gas, bringing down the price of oil?
I have repeatedly said that I think it’s entirely appropriate for states to restrict or even prohibit late-term abortions as long as there is a strict, well-defined exception for the health of the mother. Now, I don’t think that "mental distress" qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term. Otherwise, as long as there is such a medical exception in place, I think we can prohibit late-term abortions.
There was an earlier diary that took Obama to task for a statement he made during an interview with Relevantmagazine, a Christian magazine, in which Obama says the following:
I have repeatedly said that I think it’s entirely appropriate for states to restrict or even prohibit late-term abortions as long as there is a strict, well-defined exception for the health of the mother. Now, I don’t think that "mental distress" qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term. Otherwise, as long as there is such a medical exception in place, I think we can prohibit late-term abortions.
Does anyone else notice the disconnect happening right now between the Mainstream Media's and the Netroots' reaction to Obama's positions on FISA and Iraq?
In the case of FISA, the Netroots are disturbed by a clear change in position by Obama and the MSM could careless about this shift. On the other hand, Obama has rearticulated his position concerning the need to be flexible about conditions on the ground when it comes to withdrawal from Iraq and the MSM is distorting his position and treating this as a major issue and the Netroots - who should be suspicious of Obama at this point because of his shift on FISA - understand there is no shift in Obama's position and are frustrated by the MSM's collective lemming response.
The keynote address at the Democratic Convention can be quite the platform for a politician. Remember the state Senator who delivered it in 2004? I wonder what happened to him.
Anyway, some of keynote speakers are quite memorable: Barbara Jordon in '76, Mario Cuomo in '84, Ann Richards in '88, Obama in '04. Others not so: Bill Clinton had a pretty bad track record with Zel Miller as one of three in '92 and Evan Bayh in '96.
A good keynote speaker, of course, needs to be able to deliver a good speech as well as craft a compelling message. Often, if the speaker has a compelling life story, that adds to the speech's power. Ultimately, a party can hope that a keynote slot will help catapult a speaker to higher office, as it did for Ann Richards, who took the Governor's office in 1990 and we hope will put Obama in office this year. (Cuomo had the promise of possibly taking the Presidency, by the Hamlet on the Hudson never pulled the trigger for a run.)
Wow, this is unbelievable: Media Matters has a piece up that shows how Fox News uglifies (is that a word? if not not, it should be) photos of two New York Times reporters who dared to write a piece that doesn't say nice things about Fox News.
Here are the before and after photos:
And here the petty revenge piece during which these photos ran:
