What's the point of delaying for a pardon? Even if they get pardoned the next Congress can subpoena them again and they either testify or become subject to contempt charges all over again.

Posted at August 7, 2008 3:48 PM in response to WH Seeks to Delay Answering Congressional Subpoenas

Right. It's not rude of you to presume that the initial remarks were aimed squarely at you AND constituted a "lecture". But it somehow is rude for me to point out that that's not what I saw, while still acknowledging via the quote about the eye of the beholder that perhaps your view might be valid.

You want rude? Ok, you got it.

You're rude. And vain.

Enjoy.

Posted at July 22, 2008 3:20 PM in response to New Poll Gives McCain Ten-Point Lead In Ohio

I didn't see a lecture there. Guess it was in the eyes of the beholder.

He's right though. So perhaps he SHOULD be lecturing.

Posted at July 22, 2008 2:00 PM in response to New Poll Gives McCain Ten-Point Lead In Ohio

Don't be so sure. They may not have been bothered by the actual *position* on FISA, but could well be responding to the weak, vacillating image he projected with that vote.

Or not. But the politics of the policy itself are often secondary to the politics of the narrative and image.

Posted at July 22, 2008 1:52 PM in response to New Poll Gives McCain Ten-Point Lead In Ohio

Well to be fair, Obama and a lot of his supporters DID dump all over Jesse first. Their deft playing of the race card after SC involved claiming that comparing someone to Jesse Jackson could only be a racist insult. That claim necessarily degrades and insults Jackson.

Posted at July 14, 2008 2:15 PM in response to The tragedy of Jesse Jackson

Ther can be no other serious VEEP candidate unless she withdraws her name. Anything else would be an unprecedented show of disrespect to 50% of his own party....not wise.

Posted at June 3, 2008 3:07 PM in response to Hillary Supporter Dianne Feinstein: The Race Is Over, Make Hillary Veep

But the same objection applies to adding up delegates. Unless they're all chosen on the same day you've got the exact same issue one level removed. I think it's a canard.

Posted at May 27, 2008 2:40 PM in response to A Sane Discussion Of Hillary And The Popular Vote

Um...

"why would a state disenfranchise itself by holding a caucus if the popular vote mattered at all?"

at the risk of stating the obvious....one could just as easily and anagously ask why a state would disenfranchise itself by choosing to vote before Feb 5th, knowing the stated consequences of no delegates.

You sure can't conclude that it wouldn't happen because it's not rational. I can easily imagine a state with a lot of tradition in the idea of caucuses (say, Iowa) thumbing its nose at any rule that said a caucus wouldn't count and doing it anyway. Just like Florida and Michigan thumbed their noses despite being told it wouldn't count.

I think any state that intentionally discards the essential information on how many people chose each candidate DESERVES to be stripped. You can hold caucuses and preserve that crucial information - many caucus states did. The ones that didn't have no grounds for arguing that its not fair to exclude them from vote counts because they chose not to count their votes. That's just crazy talk straight out of the rabbit hole!

Posted at May 27, 2008 2:28 PM in response to A Sane Discussion Of Hillary And The Popular Vote

"Even setting all the above aside, what is to be gained by pressing for an enforcement of Rule 20.c.1.a? Go ahead and reduce both Obama's and Hillary's delegates and superdelegates in IA, NH, and SC by 50%. Does that open a path to the nomination for your candidate?"

I'm not the one you're addressing but I'll make a couple of points here as an Obama supporter and voter who thinks he and his supporters have taken an indefensible position on Florida.

I think the point of asking for enforcement of that rule was to point out that most of the people arguing for "rules are rules" really don't believe their own argument. They really don't care that the rule is not being enforced in the cases of IA, NH and SC, so "rules are rules" is a smokescreen. A smokescreen - I might add - that sounds very much like the GOP 2000 chorus.

Secondly, NOBODY should be evaluating this situation in terms of what it does or does not for a particular candidate. The fact that both sides are doing so is really disheartening and goes to show that neither candidate is actually all that strong on progressive values. Values like the primacy of the voter. A fair election (one in which neither candidate had any particular systemic advantage) was held in Florida and the voices of the 2+ million voters who went to the polls there should be counted. Anything else is nothing less than disefranchisement.

Posted at May 17, 2008 2:07 PM in response to My note to the DNC about the FL and MI Delegates from an actual delegate

I'm not sure if touchscreens have been eliminated throughout the state (I don't think so) but this law did make verified paper trails mandatory:
http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2005/Bills/Senate/HTML/S223v7.html

Here in Wake County we pretty much all use optical scan, I think.

Posted at May 2, 2008 2:49 PM in response to Hillary: Tuesday's Voting Will Be A "Game Changer"