Yah, I know WV doesn't matter in the delegate count all that much, but it really causes a rash to know that we're going to have to listen to more puffed up crowing by HRC and her surrogates. I think if I have to see Terry McCaullife one more time dancing around the truth and acting like he just won something, I'm gonna barf.

Can this be over soon? Please? Dear God, let it END!!!

Posted at May 13, 2008 12:36 PM in response to Obama Gets Four More Super-Delegates

The worst that can happen is that Lieberman formally changes parties. Since he's voting Republican and backing McCain anyway, it won't make much practical difference if Dems pick up some other seats.

Joe must go sit on the other side of the aisle with his soul mates, and let the voters of Connecticut decide next time if they want to keep him there at all.

Posted at May 12, 2008 1:41 PM in response to Harry Reid: We're Watching Lieberman's Conduct In Prez Race "Very Closely"

Well, that's been the view of Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush II, for sure.

Unitary Presidency is their view... Is that your preference, too? Or do you believe in separation of powers and three equal branches of government, to protect us from the tyranny of excess power wielded by any one branch?

Posted at May 11, 2008 8:43 PM in response to Carl Bernstein: Hillary to fight to get on Obama ticket

OK. We get it; you don't like Carl and you like Hillary.

My main criticism of this thesis of his is that I think he's fallen for the conventional wisdom instead of seeing what's really going on. The same conventional wisdom that led Hillary to vote FOR the war, and the same one that Penn peddled and she and her campaign bought that has led to her defeat at the hands of a virtual unknown.

It's not Carl's fault that she's a conventional thinker and screwed up big-time, though.

Posted at May 11, 2008 8:28 PM in response to Carl Bernstein: Hillary to fight to get on Obama ticket

It is also possible to say that "Hate" is too loaded a term to cast around so casually. I don't hate Hillary, but I do feel that I'm fairly dispassionate in my strong opinion that she is unfit for the office on the merits. Mainly on character issues, as she's undoubtedly a first-rate intellect. But she does not pass the character test for me. For lots of reasons that have been beaten to death here and elsewhere.

If she's unfit for the office, according to my argument, then she's unfit to be VP. The main qualification to be VP is to be qualified to be President, should the worst happen. And by this logic, she's unfit for either.

Politically speaking, moreover, the symbolic baggage of bringing onto Obama's ticket someone who's been so strongly associated with a style and substance of dysfunctional political fighting from Vietnam on, would impose a handicap on the new administration that would be hard to overcome.

You can't be for change, and then annoint someone who's the antithesis of change.

I can't see the political or moral argument for making Hillary the VP. Plus, it's not wise to adopt the Clintonian perspective, and say that Obama can't win over some or most of her voting block. I think he can. He'll have to prove it, but I think he'll be successful.

So, aside from the first two arguments, he really doesn't need her if he can appeal successfully to her voters. Which he will.

Posted at May 11, 2008 8:12 PM in response to Carl Bernstein: Hillary to fight to get on Obama ticket

I like your comments here, and agree that it's sad to see someone with talent do these things. Looked at from some distance, that's the foundation of great tragedies, however. I imagine there will be lots of books, movies and plays written about this period.

But there's something more, and I can't quite get it to come into focus. Maybe someone else can take a shot at it.

It's seemed to me for several years that our political elites have been litigating and relitigating and recycling the same issues for decades, ever since the Vietnam era-- and dragging the country along as surrogates or as cannon fodder. As someone said -- Obama, maybe, some time ago -- that a lot of arguments and hardened positions we're still talking about, and the Right v. Left cliches, are all to reminicent of the same arguments, by some of the same people, all the way back in dorm room arguments in the 60s. It sure feels that way to me, because I am really that old, and the same stuff keeps happening over and over. It's like a Vietnam/Flower power version of "Ground Hog Day."

I'm sick of the whole thing, and am ready to move on.

Hillary and McCain both represent to me a continuation of the patterns of conflict and a the same frozen conflict resolution (meaning, no resolution) models that have been cemeted in place for decades.

But then, I think that it wasn't just one thing, even the war in Vietnam, that is the real cause. Maybe that was just another symptom of a bigger set of causes and effects tied in with the economy and military spending and global power relationships. And that's where I get lost in the tall grass. I'm sure I'm not the first person to wonder about the bigger picture, though. Is there any info out there one could turn to?

But is is my bone-weary disgust with the endless repetition of the same old world-views that leads me to prefer Obama's new approach. It's the movement aspect, the mobilization of millions that really convinces me that he's on the right path. Given the vast power of the forces that have learned how to prosper in the current circumstance, the only force that can match that is the power of an aroused and mobilized public.

Posted at May 11, 2008 4:05 PM in response to How Hillary lost this liberal

NorMa, I meant.

Posted at May 11, 2008 1:42 PM in response to Carl Bernstein: Hillary to fight to get on Obama ticket

She's Nora Desmond, I tell you:

I'm ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille

I wouldn't be shocked at anything she does, but I can think of many reasons why having her (and Bill) lurking around the White House seething with resentments and plotting the Restoration, is a horrible idea.

I don't buy the argument that Obama cannot reach the same people she has, by the way. They're not stupid puppets, and he has a rare ability to connect with them. And I think he would spare no effort to talk to and with women, and the famous Regan Democrats, not to mention older voters. It's not a foregone conclusion that he'd fail: that's just more Clintonian spin, and you're all buying it by repeating it without challenging the underlying assumptions.

No way.

Posted at May 11, 2008 1:37 PM in response to Carl Bernstein: Hillary to fight to get on Obama ticket

Let it go, man. You'll feel a lot better. ....

Posted at May 11, 2008 1:23 PM in response to How Hillary lost this liberal

good post. I think you probably sum up the feelings of a lot of people.

Posted at May 10, 2008 9:52 PM in response to How Hillary lost this liberal