Barack Obama is way ahead of Hillary in many ways. It is not correct to say that the two are running tied or even to say that Barack is marginally ahead. It is not true. Actually he is so far ahead that there is really no comparison. However you view his campaign he is ahead of Hillary.

He leads the popular vote and the pledged delegates but more importantly he is miles ahead in all aspects of leadership qualities. From whatever angle you look, Obama should really be lagging behind Hillary. She is the one with the large corporate support, the endorsement of the party generally speaking. Hillary is the one whose rise to Presidency was expected and planned many years ago. She therefore had a head start. She also has lots of name recognition and is well accepted at home and abroad.

With so many credentials there is no reason why any new comer should be able to see her in the distant horizon. She should be way ahead throughout the entire campaign. Alas this is not the case.

Why is Barack miles ahead of Hillary at this time? It is really about leadership. He has an innate ability to lead. To date, his campaign has been running without a single blip. Even if there has been some blips, the general public does not know. He has been able to galvanise so many people from such diverse walks of life in the face of Hillary being well accepted across the USA.

Barack has been able to raise millions of dollars and even outspend Hillary in the light of her having so many big donors and support from the internal base. He is bringing thousands of penny donors to the piggy bank and they are dropping in their coins and it's making a big difference. Hillary is unable to do this.

It is because of his leadership that we now have thousands of young people lining up for blocks to get a chance to vote. The record is showing that they are waiting in line to vote for Obama.

He knows and shows that he knows what he is talking about.. to the extent that he now has the ex-president on the backfoot, defending his own presidency rather than promoting his wife. Obama fires back in the most diplomatic way but it hurts when he does. Obama is so strategic that he has left Hillary fighting to find an angle from which to throw her softy snowballs. They are not working.. there is no impact. She has become frustrated by Obama's strategic leadership. Bill is forced to defend himself.

Obama's leadership is causing super delegates to scratch their heads fighting to defend Hillary even though they are now realising that they are supporting the wrong team.

For those who do not realise it, the US is looking for a leader who will be called President and not just a President. In every facet of this campaign Obama is showing that he outstrips Hillary by way of leadership and performance of good leadership skills. This is what the voters are looking for.

Therefore to say that the race is tied or neck to neck or even that Obama is marginally ahead is grossly incorrect. It is a lie actually. By his leadership and management Obama has shown that there is no comparison between him and Hillary.

Obama is really way ahead in this race.

“Mom, Dad?  Please sit down.  Hee hee. I’ve met someone, I am in love and we’re going to get married.  He’s pretty frickin’ amazing.  He went to

I keep thinking about a hearing that I watched recently.  The substance of the hearing was valuable; legal assessments about the "Declaration of Principles" with Iraq, SOFAs, etc.  In part, it was interesting because there were only four representatives asking questions so the answers were thorough and informative. 

Beyond the substance however, was the remarkable opening statement by Dana Rohrbacher.  If you're as tired of partisan rhetoric as I am, you'll find it refreshing.  Chairman Delahunt called it eloquent.

I certainly don't agree with all of Rep. Rohrbacher's statements or conclusions, but many of his thoughts echoed those I've heard from speakers I admire.  I keep thinking that there must be some value to the country if other republicans hear one of their own stating those ideas.  I know that I'm guilty of closing my ears to those I don't trust.

Rep. Rohrbacher talks about the Constitution and the role of Congress.  He talks about participation in open discussions and how denial breeds mistrust on the part of Congress and the public.  He talks about the perception of deals being reached behind closed doors.  And amazingly, he states the line that I used as my title.

His words, his criticisms, have been used in any number of scenarios in recent years, but I for one, have felt like the right is deaf because they've mainly been said by the left.

If nothing else, watch the hearing to learn more about the danger that I  believe may be just around the corner.  I'm afraid that it's possible that speakers on the issue are clueless--if they don't know, they can't be accused of lying to Congress.  The "decider" may decide without their knowledge.

The hearing can be found on C-Span and the Foreign Affairs website.  It was held by the Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight on 2-8-08.

We've had some time to  work with the bugs (like the one that remains, where my log-on password is not accepted when I post), but those are irritants, which will eventually disappear --  hopefully.  There are some other features of the old TPM that I miss that don't seem to be a part of the new one.  Has anyone noticed how many fewer posts there are?  How few actual conversations there are?  Was that the goal?  Because TPM was unique in my experience, and those qualities seem to be gone.  I will make a list, but I reserve the right to add to it as I think of other issues:

1.  There is no indication of, and therefore  no way to pass over previously read posts; this can take a lot of time, although the general decrease in posting has made that less of a problem.

2.  There is no way to search your own comments for reactions.  The latest posts I have searched for myself  are from 3 years ago, and even then, they don't include responses.  TPM has always been a site where conversation was a part of the deal.  

Give and take  is now possible only if you have hours to devote to it.  And even THAT is only true because the number of postings is down considerably.

3.  I agree that the ratings were abused, but it would be nice to have at least an option to support a particular post.  Why change completely instead of making an improvement?

4.  If you make a comment in response to a post, you are thrown back to a place that you cannot figure out where you are.  You also get NO acknowledgment that your comment was accepted.   You may as well go somewhere else and, IF you remember where you were, you might just come back.  Otherwise, you might justas well  go to another site altogether, because your response is going to be delayed.

5.  We cannot edit when we make a duplicate post, or we want to make an improvement.  Why not?

6.  When I make a comment, sometimes I am asked for my name and password, and sometimes I am not.  I have no way of knowing when, and if my post is accepted or not.  That is why duplicate posts get in.

7.  The biggest thing for me is realizing that so many of the "regulars" have just given up.  If you can't have a conversation, you may just as well go to Huff-Po (where it is even worse than here -- SO FAR!--) and just read rather than participate.

So I ask the TPM management... what do you want?  Do you want participation?  If so, surely you have seen the drop-off.   If you want simply to compete with Huff-Po and Daily Kos,  then you are on the right track.   You attract great posters and authors.  Your everyday people, ( whom I happen to think add a huge and unique quality to this site) will drop off unless you make an effort to include and accommodate us. 

I hope you will.

Jan

turn on your tv set and hear him out for yourself.

            The conventional consensus in this primary seems to be that there isn’t a lot of difference between the two democratic candidates. Considering that the pundits and talking heads have gotten almost every prediction they’ve made about this race wrong, I don’t find it surprising that they believe there isn’t much of a difference between Obama and Clinton.

            I don’t think that “personality” or a candidate’s ability to show boat should be given much consideration. To my mind, there are much more important things to consider. The only thing that the talking heads seem to understand about the difference between Obama and Clinton, is that there policy proposals on what are considered to be the core issues of this election are not very different. Its true that “on the issues” that get a lot of media play, there are not large differences on the two candidates stances.

            I think the reason that every one keeps getting this election wrong, is that there standards, and criteria have been lowered. While its obvious that George Bush will most likely go down in history as our worst president ever, and that his incompetence is certainly a large reason for the current low standards, he is not the only one to blame.

            The truth is there haven’t been very many great American presidents. Before the current Bush, we had Bill Clinton. While Bill was a much better president than his two predecessors, and his unfortunate successor, I think there was a lot about his presidency that we over look, and other things we attribute to him that he had nothing to do with. As a foreign policy president, there were more things Bill Clinton did that I deeply disagreed with than I appreciated. NAFTA, CAFTA, and the utter abhorrent way he ignored the genocide in Rwanda are sufficient examples to make this point. Domestically he took credit for a booming economy whose spoils     more rightfully belonged to the pirates of silicone valley than Washington DC.

            Conventional wisdom states that the political genius of Bill Clinton was that he was a centrist democrat who was able to reach across the isle. The truth is that not many people on the other side of the isle were happy to work with him, to the detriment of our country. If there hadn’t been the attacks against him from the other side of the isle, he may have been able to deal with Al Qaeda and muster support for his admirable efforts the bring a Palestinian state, and the Israeli state together.

            What really defined Bill Clintons “centrist democrat” idea, was that it moved the democratic parties campaign funding base to the right. His logic was that instead of being a broke party that relied on support from small individual donors,  and labor unions, that the democrats could raise money from corporate business interest. His logic was that we couldn’t win with out the big money. To my mind, this was a complete and utter cop out. I think it would have been better for the democratic party at that moment to engage in some soul searching. Questions like “Why can’t we raise as much money honestly as the republicans can?”  I think the answer to this question was that Bill, and the two democratic nominees after him, played it to safe politically. In short they lost their way. Instead of standing for ideals, and genuinely inspiring their base to support them both financially and politically, they played the game politically safe, and seemed more reluctant to offend the republican base than there own. This has precipitated down through the years even in to our current democratic leadership in congress that cant seem to stand up to a lame duck president, but cave and play it safe.

            I haven’t said all this to bash Bill Clinton. He was the first president I voted for, and so far the best of my life time. I point this out as the main reason why I think the democrats have been losing, even when they’ve had small electoral victories.

            Hillary is not Bill, and I’ve heard allot of debate about how much of a part Bill would play in a potential second Clinton administration. I think it is fair to judge her independently on her record. It’s my opinion that she is a much more conservative democrat than Bill was. I say this based on her record. Aside from her health care proposals, and stance on women’s rights, when examining her record it is hard to see her liberal credentials. I’ve heard allot of speculation that her vote on Iraq, and Iran were politically calculated. It doesn’t matter me, rather she truly thought the war, and continued war mongering, are/were good ideas, or rather she supported the Bush administration for political reasons. Either explanation is unacceptable. There were few people that could have made a difference before Iraq, those that could have, should have. Hillary should have.

            I’ve also read her books, and find very little substance in them. Aside from generally safe topics, such as, “Children are Great”, she doesn’t say anything. Its tedious to read twelve hundred pages of fluff in hopes of finding something worth while.

            Hilary has also raised more money than any candidate in history from lobbyist and PACs. It is clear that she has aligned her self with the corporate interest that have also supported George Bush. The same oil companies, Insurance companies, and even Rupert Murdoch that supported the Bush administration, support Hillary Clinton.

            I remember watching the 2004 Democratic Convention when Obama first came to the national spot light. I had spent the previous weeks thinking about the fact that Kerry was not my first choice to take the nomination. I remember being sad, and thinking that it was a shame that we were supporting a uninspiring pro war candidate, because he was the alternative to Bush. There’s no doubt in my mind that Kerry would have been a better president than Bush, but it was obvious that the republican base was excited about there candidate, and we were excited to have an alternative to their candidate. Obama took the stage, and made every point I wish Kerry had, that I wished every body had. He said the war was wrong. That as Americans we should not be divided by political wedge issues, but come together for the better of our country. In short he stood there as a progressive genuine idealist, and his message resonated with me, and with every one who I spoke to that saw the speach. While watching that speech I believed he could be president, if he didn’t loose his way in the senate.

            So I did what I always do. I read. At that point there was only one book he had written, but it was incredible. I read the second one and it was brilliant. The first one he wrote as he was starting law school. At that time he hadn’t begun a political career. Judging by his mention of smoking pot, I don’t believe he had considered a career in politics at that point. While the book was mostly a reflection on himself, and his struggle for identity in absence of his father, when he talks abut the reasons he wanted to work as a community organizer, they are almost identical to the reasons he gives for running for president. Unfortunately his message of “change” has been turned into something of a cliché by all the other candidates, on both sides of the aisle, “Change” was the message in his book. It’s not just a politically savvy thing to say for him. It’s what he truly believes.

            The thing the pundits and the other candidates don’t seem to get, is how to bring about change. Hillary seems to believe it’s something she has pioneered over the past 35 years. Edwards seemed to think it was something he could fight for. Obama has not only prove he can lead, and fight, but has achieved the more elusive obstacle, motivating the people. He recognizes that government can only do so much, that the populous has as much responsibility for the state of our nation as the people we elect to represent us.

            After 911 Bush said that we should spend money, and leave the rest up to him. Part of Obamas message is that we as citizens will have to sacrifice. He emphasizes the electorate’s responsibility, and that message is resonating. So far the electorate has responded by turning out in record numbers, some times the electorate had doubled.

            Obama has raised record amounts of money, through small private donations. He hasn’t taken any federal lobbyist or PAC money.  Most of his donations have been by citizens donating $100 or less. How nice would it be to have a president who went into the white house not owing lobbyist favors, but owes his success to his constituency.

            The life experiences Obama has had are extremely valuable and unique. He has lived over seas. His grand mother lives in a hut in Nyrobi, and yes he went to Harvard law school. He’s a brilliant man with a wide world experience.

            I also think that the fact that he was against the Iraq war from the beginning is very important.  It is a testament to his judgment and courage to have been speaking up against the Bush war when he did.  He didn’t have to, but felt the responsibility to.

            He also didn’t have to go into politics, or be a community organizer. With his intellect, and charisma, there’s no doubt in my mind that he could have done anything he wanted, and made as much money as he wanted. He felt a responsibility to contribute to the betterment of the lives of all Americans. This is not a entitlement he feels, or a game for power, but a true desire to lead our nation forward, while fixing the problems of the previous administration.

                          I’ve read a lot of blogs from Clinton supporters, pushing Mark Penns taking point, that there is no substance to Obama. The insinuation that he is all talk, and little substance is dishonest, and intellectually lazy. If you don’t know what he stands for, or what his policy issues are it’s only because you haven’t cared enough to look. I will not go over them individually, I would just refer the people who claim not to understand what Obama is for, to look at his website, look at the 18 debates we’ve seen so far, read his book. I resent it when I hear the line of argument that Obama is empty. When I made my decision to support Obama, I did so after doing my home work. I’ve read Hillary’s book, and listened to her speeches.

                          On the defining issues, Hillary’s record in the senate has not impressed me. I don’t know rather her judgment has been flawed, or politically calculating. All I can say for certain is that I disagree with her decisions, and find her explanations for her vote on Iraq, Iran, and the manner in which she has obtained campaign funding inadequate. When she talks about the fights she has had to better our country, she never points to her record in the senate, she points to her time as first lady. With all do respect for efforts back then, where was she the last seven years?

                          I do agree that if either Hillary or Obama are elected in November, our country will be better off. They are both better choices to my mind than McCain. I understand there are not great differences in most policy, but think there are great differences between the candidates. Specifically their backgrounds, economic upbringings, world experiences, and authenticity to name a few.

 

“Mom, Dad?  Please sit down.  Hee hee. I’ve met someone, I am in love and we’re going to get married.  He’s pretty frickin’ amazing.  He went to

We are watching an American Tragedy unfold in the Democratic Primary race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.  The Clinton's have long held a cherished place in the hearts of minds of democratic voters and I along with many others began this primary season assuming that she would be the nominee and our first female President. 

The sad truth is that she has been out worked, out performed, and simply out classed by a younger, smarter, better politician who has captured the imagination of the Americn people and put us in our subjunctive mood, ie, made us aware of what is possible. 

The Scottish poet Robert Burns who wrote the poem to a mouse about a plowman who unwittingly destroys a mouses well prpeared home.  His poem initiated the phrase the best laid plans of mice and men and was the inspiration for John Steinbecks' classic work about two drifters who are constantly planning only to find their plans destoyed . 

The Clinton machine planned a smooth coronation for Queen Hillary that has been run off the track by a junior Senator from Illinois who has effectively done what the Republican Congress tried to do for eight years unsuccessfully ---- in the words of Quentin Tarantino, politically speaking ---Kill Bill.  

Could it be that Hillary had her chance to be President and allowed it to pass by?

It seems the me that she should have been the candidate to challenge George Bush at the last elections. She chose instead to sit out that one because she wanted a more clear path to the White House and therefore decided not to challenge GWB, leaving it instead to Kerry and Edwards.

Of course at the time of her decision she never could have envisaged such a campaign from anyone much less someone the likes of Barack Obama. It's obvious that she did not rate his potential very highly by the way she managed her campaign, deciding not to pay special attention to certain states and counting some states as not worth her while. She just messed up this campaign quite frankly.

Her decision not compete in those last elections is now her thorn in the flesh. Personally I think that she could have won a battle against GWB and his swiftboaters but she did not want to compete in such a fierce battle. I am sure she thought that coming after GWB left office would be much easier.

After all, she had the party establishment behind her, she had name recognition and general acceptance by the democratic populace. Alas Barack Obama entered stage right and now Hillary's entire apple cart seems to be toppling over.

I really do think she missed her boat and now her time has passed her by. It is too late now.

Below is Noble Prize Winner and Pulitzer Prize Winning Author Toni Morrison's letter to Barack Obama.

--------------------------------------
Dear Senator Obama,

This letter represents a first for me--a public endorsement of a Presidential candidate. I feel driven to let you know why I am writing it. One reason is it may help gather other supporters; another is that this is one of those singular moments that nations ignore at their peril. I will not rehearse the multiple crises facing us, but of one thing I am certain: this opportunity for a national evolution (even revolution) will not come again soon, and I am convinced you are the person to capture it.

May I describe to you my thoughts?

I have admired Senator Clinton for years. Her knowledge always seemed to me exhaustive; her negotiation of politics expert. However I am more compelled by the quality of mind (as far as I can measure it) of a candidate. I cared little for her gender as a source of my admiration, and the little I did care was based on the fact that no liberal woman has ever ruled in America. Only conservative or "new-centrist" ones are allowed into that realm. Nor do I care very much for your race[s]. I would not support you if that was all you had to offer or because it might make me "proud."

In thinking carefully about the strengths of the candidates, I stunned myself when I came to the following conclusion: that in addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare authenticity, you exhibit something that has nothing to do with age, experience, race or gender and something I don't see in other candidates. That something is a creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom. It is too bad if we associate it only with gray hair and old age. Or if we call searing vision naivete. Or if we believe cunning is insight. Or if we settle for finessing cures tailored for each ravaged tree in the forest while ignoring the poisonous landscape that feeds and surrounds it. Wisdom is a gift; you can't train for it, inherit it, learn it in a class, or earn it in the workplace--that access can foster the acquisition of knowledge, but not wisdom.

When, I wondered, was the last time this country was guided by such a leader? Someone whose moral center was un-embargoed? Someone with courage instead of mere ambition? Someone who truly thinks of his country's citizens as "we," not "they"? Someone who understands what it will take to help America realize the virtues it fancies about itself, what it desperately needs to become in the world?

Our future is ripe, outrageously rich in its possibilities. Yet unleashing the glory of that future will require a difficult labor, and some may be so frightened of its birth they will refuse to abandon their nostalgia for the womb.

There have been a few prescient leaders in our past, but you are the man for this time.

Good luck to you and to us.

Toni Morrison
http://www.observer.com/2008/toni-morrisons-letter-barack-obama

If the Florida and Michigan voters are allowed to revote it would be a gross injustice to other States that have already voted.  Perhaps they too would like to revote, now that they’ve seen how Obama or Hillary has handled their campaign?  Perhaps the absentee voters would also like a chance to revote?  Geez, maybe I want to vote again?

The Florida legislature decided to disobey the DNC rules and moved their primary date up.  Who votes for the Florida legislators -- Florida voters that’s who.  Why should the rest of the countries Democratic voters suffer because the Florida voters messed up by voting for the wrong legislators?  Think of it like this.  Let’s say I voted for Mr. Smith for my Senator in Florida.  Let’s also say that Mr. Smith decides to vote to raise my State taxes by 50%.  There’s not a darn thing I can do about it.  I’ll have to wait till the next election to remove Mr. Smith.  You get what you vote for Florida and Michigan.

Rules are rules.  If you break one or if you back away from one – you harm the rest of the nation.

As for the voters in Florida and Michigan that feel disenfranchised, your vote has ‘indeed’ counted.  When Hillary Clinton won both those states, it was broadly reported on every news station across America, even in foreign countries.  She even had a victory rally in Florida afterwards that was televised.  Hillary received, not only free advertising that week; she got a slight bump in the polls before Super Tuesday from winning in Michigan and another  bump before Nevada after winning in Florida.  Your votes counted folks, please quit denying it.

As for avoiding the possibility of a brokered convention; I have one recommendation.  Take the total count of delegates that Florida and Michigan ‘would have had’ and subtract them from the 2025 votes needed to get the Democratic nomination.  Require only 1712 to get nominated.  This gives both Hillary and Obama a fighting chance to actually meet the total needed without the need for Super Delegates making the final decision.

Note: If Florida and Michigan delegates have already been subtracted from the total needed – then I apologize.

Coonsey’s View

www.freewebs.com/coonsey/

As I sit here absorbing the various arguments back and forth supporting this "ceiling breaking" candidate over the other, versus the "maverick," I've come to a conclusion.  My child, our Veterans, our troops, our seniors, our middle class, our least advantaged, our collective dreams, deserve more.
I accepted and appreciated the Clintons for the most part during the 1990s.  The bitter taste of the closing Clinton years led me to support McCain in 2000.  The disappointments of the current administration and McCain's seeming embracing of its doctrines have opened me to the possibility of Obama.
Yet here I sit, a Blue State Republican, increasingly becoming disillusioned with the pettiness, the arrogance, and the advancing myopia of them all.
No one has fully addressed the violations of the Constitution.  Obama, being a Constitutional Law Professor, has been mum.  One would think he would Champion louder and with more credibility than anyone the sacredness of our founding document.  He hasn't.  He seems in love with the sound of his own voice.  (be it a voice that has inspired more Americans to participate on the process.  Always a good thing)
McCain knows more about the ideals of this great Nation, the values that have endured and enlightened.  Yet he panders on principles and waffles on torture.  He embraces policies and personalities he himself once found abhorrent.  And sadly has said very little, if anything, about unifying this country and condemning the 51% doctrine of the past. 
Hillary Clinton stresses that she is "tested" battle harden, knows how and is ready to "take on" the Republicans.  She's a "fighter" and knows how to "defeat" the Republican party.  
I'm a Republican who is tired of fighting.  And as an American I have more enemies and fewer constant allies than eight years ago.  I don't need another American to want to fight me.  I need someone who can respect me and persuade me on why theirs is the better idea.  
And please stop talking about the 1990s.  If your husband's presidency were a little more focused, fewer people would have had a reason to vote for Ralph Nader in Florida and elsewhere, and Al Gore would have been President.  (I doubt he would have made the same missteps of the past).  And I think more moderate Republicans would have been elected to congress.
I want my Country back.  I want it out of the hands of the lobbyists, out of the hands of the extremists on both sides, out of the hands of the power-drunk "politico-holics" who only want to preserve the status-quo, the antiquated paradigms, the dumbing down of this great Nation, of which I've served and I love.
There is no law that says we have to tear each other apart in order to carve out a better tomorrow.
We can stand together.  In fact we must.We deserve more.

Test

Two days later, after Obama’s eighth straight victory, Penn told reporters: “Winning Democratic primaries is not a qualification or a sign of who can win the general election. If it were, every nominee would win because every nominee wins Democratic primaries.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8551.html

Has anyone looked at the post-2004 configuration of congressional districts in Texas.  I know the delegates in Texas are skewed toward districts that voted heaviest for Kerry in 2004.  But DeLay and Rove trashed some districts right after the 2004 election to increase the number of safe Republican districts in Texas.  I was wondering if anyone knows how that redistricting might affect the distribution of Texas delegates.  I've heard a theory that Obama might have an advantage because Black districts voted more heavily for Kerry than Hispanic districts in 2004.  I wonder if those are the districts that got broken up.  Those guys had their fingers into everything.

“Mom, Dad?  Please sit down.  Hee hee. I’ve met someone, I am in love and we’re going to get married.  He’s pretty frickin’ amazing.  He went to

“Mom, Dad?  Please sit down.  Hee hee. I’ve met someone, I am in love and we’re going to get married.  He’s pretty frickin’ amazing.  He went to

“Mom, Dad?  Please sit down.  Hee hee. I’ve met someone, I am in love and we’re going to get married.  He’s pretty frickin’ amazing.  He went to

Milwaukee's largest newspaper is reporting a change in plans today for the Clinton campaign schedule in WI.  Clinton was originally scheduled to campaign in WI through Tuesday morning:

Today is Clinton's first day of campaigning in the state, with an event in Kenosha and a state party dinner in Milwaukee, where Obama also will appear. Clinton will campaign Sunday in De Pere, Wausau and Madison, and is expected to do one event in the state Monday morning before leaving.

Wisconsin's largest newspaper endorsed Barack Obama today.
"...The Illinois senator is best-equipped to deliver that change, and his relatively shorter time in Washington is more asset than handicap..."

Of course Clinton supporters will shun the endorsement as unsignificant, but recall that they used their New York Times endorsement in ads.  It does matter.  Read the whole thing here:
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=718696

Although I have followed the TPM home page and Election Central for some time now, the TPM Café is a somewhat new experience for me.  It was with some real interest and anticipation that I followed the recent discussion of politics and religion, but while I found the major posts to be thought-provoking, I was rather dismayed by many of the replies.  My biggest objection is that there was not a stitch of respect in many of the responses, and I think without respect from all who post, blogs are worse than useless.

Both E.J. Dionne and the individuals who posted careful responses to his new book have certainly heard all of the objections leveled against them before, and are likely tired of them or too busy to reply to many of them.  Since my kids are busy playing video games, I thought I would try out presenting some responses to some of the more frequent claims made by those who expressed the strongest concern about the role of religion in politics.

Claim One: Religion is a personal matter that should not enter into public discussions of policy and politics.

No religious person should ever accept this claim because almost all religious traditions involve beliefs that are comprehensive in character.  Consider the conviction affirmed by Jews and Christians that they are to love God with ALL of their heart, soul, mind, and strength.  This means that their love of God cannot be compartmentalized within their lives, reserved for private expressions of heart, soul, mind, and strength, but not public ones.  If I take public action and I also believe that I should love God with all that I have, then my public actions must be understood by me as an expression of my love for God.  Add to this another claim shared by Jews and Christians that one should love neighbors and strangers as oneself, then it is obvious that one who believes this could not be indifferent to the treatment of neighbors and strangers in public life.

Similar claims can be made from other religious traditions.  For the Muslim, all life should be an expression of perfect submission to God, and this means public as well as private life.  For a Buddhist, life may be about following a path toward individual enlightenment, but this path cannot be walked without a commitment to reducing the suffering of others, and to showing compassion to all.

Claim Two: Religious belief is not rational.

While there are certainly situations where religious people have acted irrationally, it is just not true that all religious belief is irrational.  For starters, a belief that is not obviously rational is usually also not obviously irrational.  Take the Trinity, a position picked on by multiple respondents (and a tradition that I as a sorta kinda Christian do not myself affirm).  Affirming the Trinity does obviously require affirming something like a square circle, something that would be clearly incoherent.  Rather, it affirms something of which we have daily experience; namely, that a single individual can have a complex identity.  I have my father side, my husband side, my professor side, my neighbor side, etc.  My point is not to defend the Trinity, but rather to indicate that it is not clearly irrational.  If a major religious tradition, one affirmed by countless very intelligent people for centuries, teaches this belief, one is clearly not acting irrationally by affirming it.

Second, I think there are many grounds for affirming that belief in God (or even the gods and ancestors), is more rational than the denial of God’s existence.  This is not the place to go over the defense of this claim, but such a defense would include claims such as

1) God places goodness and purposefulness at the heart of reality, and so enables us to make sense of our own daily experiences of goodness and purposefulness in a way that the mere matter in motion of science does not.

2) God’s ordering of the world explains why we perceive order over time in a world where quantum indeterminacy should otherwise suggest a world that ultimately goes in countless different directions, dissolving into chaotic disorder.  God orders quantum reality by keeping it within the statistical parameters that physicists observe, not by determining exactly what will happen in the world (which would mean reality is actually completely deterministic, a position that atheists strangely seem to prefer).

3) God’s existence better explains many religious experiences than does biological reductionism.  There is not doubt that having a religious experience is different than understanding that experience correctly, so the experience itself proves nothing.  However, the experiences do need explaining, and the existence of dimensions to reality beyond what we daily perceive is a better explanation than one that essentially reduces religious experience to delusion and hallucination.

Claim Three: Atheists are picked on by religious people

No doubt this has been true and remains true in too many places, but it simply is not the case that it must be true.  In fact, I believe that religious people often have a better reason to value every human life and to respect its dignity than do non-religious people.  Too often, in our discussions about human life and politics, we buy into a hierarchical understanding of the value of human life.  Some human lives are viewed as more valuable than others, and our political actions reflect this hierarchy.  We care about kids in our school district, but not others, we ignore what happens to people in jails and prisons, because they are just not worth caring about, we bomb people who are far away and who exist for us more as abstractions than real human beings.

From within a nonreligious worldview, I think it is very easy to think in this hierarchical way about human life because it is the way we tend to think about everything else.  Why should human life be different?  However, many religious traditions affirm a radical alternative to the hierarchical valuing of human life; namely, that all human life, simply because it is human, is of immense value.  Perhaps this is because we are created in the “image” of God, or because we each have Buddha nature.  Whatever the reason, the value of the human life comes from its humanity, not from its beliefs or actions.  Thus, the life of an atheist is to be valued as highly as the life of any other person.

I think a democracy that affirms government of, by and for all of the people, not just some of them, is better served by this radical religious understanding of life than by beliefs that offer no reason why all people should be valued in the first place.

It seems to me that TPMCafe is no longer the right name for this site. In the past, it really did resemble a cafe. You could come, chat, argue, and get to know the other patrons (as well as a few of the more sociable barristas). Now conversation is impossible and all you can do here is listen to Josh's pals pontificate. It's really quite dull, isn't it?

Guess I'm off to Starbucks.  At least I can get a real cup of coffee there.

Its all very interesting the way that the Hillary camp has come out and started the Tet offensive (me being Vietnamese, I find it interesting that Clinton started her attacks all around the Lunar New Year - I'm sure someone will post and say, "You're WRONG.  How IGNORANT.  Her attacks started (insert date here) an Tet is on Feb 7th!).  

Even more interesting is whether or not the Hillary camp is right about their negative ads or not.  I actually find that some of it is actually important - Obama should answer to some of the questions she's putting up.  There's nothing wrong with forcing him to justify himself - he needs to e able to handle the pressure. 

That said, if you have to throw down, throw down with correct information.  Recently Hillary claimed that Obama cut some deals behind closed doors with Exelon to protect them.  (ABC-Politico Form, 2/11/08). That's interesting, because if you read the facts as reported by Washington Post in link below, you'll realize that he didn't cut any back room deals.  In fact, he was trying hard to get them to pass his deal, but because the Republicans would not allow him to do so, he agreed to an amended compromise. 

 Furthermore, Clinton co-sponsored the amended compromise and applauded the Senate on doing its job.  So why is it now that she decides to go after Obama?  Its like your coworker publicly supporting your promotion, but then when something goes wrong, they immediately blame you.  Questionable, to say the least.  In fact, notice no one has come to Hillary's side to confirm her version of the events.

Here's the link to the Washington Post article:  http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/02/obamas_backroom_deal.html

Here's what Washington Post had to say about Barbara Boxer and Richard Durbin commenting on Obama's role in the Exelon situation (see below since I can't figure out how to write after the quote).   I'd love to hear what the Hillary camp has to say about this.  I know what the Obama camp will say, so I'd be interested to see what the other side has to say - to justify Hillary's comments.

Two other Democratic senators on the committee, Barbara Boxer (CA), and Richard Durbin (IL), said that Obama had little choice except to go along with Inhofe, in order to keep his legislation alive. Both scoffed at Clinton's claims of a "backroom deal" between Obama and Exelon.

"The choice came down to no bill or a weaker bill," said Boxer, who said she is "neutral" in the presidential campaign. "Barack tried desperately to get it through, but got the best thing he could."

It's official: Ron Paul has now passed Mike Huckabee in his chances of getting the Republican nomination—at least if you've been following the InTrade market.

How can you possibly argue with that?

Although I have followed the TPM home page and Election Central for some time now, the TPM Café is a somewhat new experience for me.  It was with some real interest and anticipation that I followed the recent discussion of politics and religion, but while I found the major posts to be thought-provoking, I was rather dismayed by many of the replies.  My biggest objection is that there was not a stitch of respect in many of the responses, and I think without respect from all who post, blogs are worse than useless.

We do not elect our president directly.
We do not elect federal judges.
We do not elect cabinet members.
We do have a constitution and a representative democracy.
We are a Constitutional Republic.

In Wisconsin, the Clinton campaign announced the names of 23 new endorsers including State Treasurer Dawn Marie Sass, State Senators Tim Carpenter, Jeff Plale and Jim Sullivan and the first woman mayor of Wausau, Linda Lawrence Friday..... The Clinton campaign has 5 ads running in Wisconsin and Hillary Clinton will be campaigning in the state Saturday,Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.... 4 polls show Obama will win, while 1 poll shows that Clinton will win... 5 polls show that 8 to 14% of people in wisconsin aren't sure who they will vote for yet.... Will Hillary pull off a Wisconsin win? ... well we shall see Tuesday.... If she wins Tuesday, it will help her as she heads into March 4th.... if she doesn't win, she will have to work twice as hard heading up to March 4th.

If anything is clear about the superdelegate system, it's that party leaders are not in unison about the system.  Watching reality move around on this subject is like being a juror for a trial in which the witnesses were under the influence at the time when the crime was committed: who the hell knows if the drunken vision has merit?

To hear Howard Dean tell it, for example, is not fundamentally the same as what you thought you might have heard when listening to the New York Times reporter's version of what he apparently thought he heard from John Lewis.  Then there's the ubiquitous twenty-one year old superdelegate, the activist for all time, the veritable sage.

Here's the point: people keep hearing different stories.  Some of these superdelegates jumped the gun when they heard that Senator Clinton was inevitable but they hadn't actually heard from voters yet. 

So now you have a witch's brew of renditions and agendas to choose from until you hear from more voters in more states.  Should the superdelegates go along with the will of the people? If you've heard that they should not, then it might be an idea to question the point of having an election in the first place: three hours and more of caucusing, of standing around in a damned gymnasium, to what end?

If Democrats care one iota about winning in November, then Pelosi easily has the best plan.  Why? It requires almost no explanation.  The candidate who has the lead gets the nod.  It has to do with having support from the voters, the pesky people the party will need against McCain. 

The other path is a drunken drive on a dark night with a busload of versions, a juror's nightmare. 

TPM's own Larry Johnson really, really does not like Barack Obama but his latest post at his No Quarter is so over the top, I couldn't help posting about it:

"As Democrats and Independents weigh who they want to run against John McCain in the fall, answer this question. Can you support a candidate who is friends with terrorists? Can you support a candidate who takes money from terrorists? Well, if Obama is your man you have some problems..."

Read the rest.

The Houston Chronicle today endorsed Obama.  Not only is the big paper in Texas's largest city a huge endorsement (especially for the underdog), but the piece makes an unusally ardent affirmative case for him.  It calls him the "epitome of the American dream," a phrase I would hope would make its way into candidate promotional materials.  (I believe it was the estimable flyonthewall who urged Obama's campaign to make more of his personal life history, as Michelle Obama does hers).  Excerpt follows, I've tried to link the Chron, and it can be found here http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/5546874.html

"For Obama" [Feb. 16]

The presidency of the United States is a powerful bully pulpit. The occupant of the White House must not only issue orders, but also inspire and advocate for all Americans.

Of the two finalists for the Democratic presidential nomination, the Chronicle believes Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois is best-qualified by life experience, skill and temperament to be the standard bearer for his party. In a conference call, Obama told the Chronicle editorial board that "more than any other candidate, I can bridge some of the partisan as well as racial and religious divides that have developed in this country that prevent us from getting things done."

Those who have viewed the numerous campaign debates know there's not much to separate Obama from his opponent, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York.

* * * *

However, there is a decisive difference. Obama vows to reach out to independents and Republicans with a message of inclusion and cooperation. He offers a historic opportunity to elevate national political dialogue to a higher ground. Those who insist on vitriol and obstructionism would be marginalized.

On several issues vital to Houstonians, Obama's positions need elaboration. He recognizes the need to maintain U.S. pre-eminence in space but said he wanted to study the costs and benefits of human space exploration — an exercise that should convince him of the space program's long history of indispensable contributions.

Obama said he did not expect the leaders of the energy sector to vote for him. He needs to realize that the energy sector must be a large part of a cooperative effort to develop alternative fuels and avoid an energy crunch.

The 46-year-old Obama has expanded his base of support, winning new legions of supporters. The more people see and hear him, the more they like him. As the Hawaiian-born son of a Muslim Kenyan father and an Anglo Midwesterner, the devoutly Christian Obama transcends race and religion. His life has been one of involvement with disadvantaged Chicago residents, excellence at Harvard Law School and eight years as an Illinois state senator. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004, only the third African-American to serve there since Reconstruction.

Obama is both the epitome of the American Dream and well-positioned to reach out to an international community alienated by recent U.S. go-it-alone policies.

The passion and excitement that Obama has brought to the race can only stimulate more citizens to participate in the electoral process. The Chronicle urges Texas Democrats to cast what could be decisive ballots for his presidential nomination.

Has an American national political contest ever been so utterly transfigured in so short a time as the race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama?

Just a few short weeks ago, we were falling inexorably, willingly into the waiting arms of the woman we knew would protect and provide for us. Sure, we flirted a little bit with the boys at the bar. We felt a thrill when our hand "accidentally" brushed John Edwards' knee under the table. We admired Bill Richardson's Latino éclat. But we were just having a little fun before settling down to eight years of blessed sanity and nutritious policy.

The prospect wasn't exciting, but we'd had enough excitement to last our lives. Our previous relationship left us broke, disillusioned, and inclined to flinch in response to any sudden movement. We had learned our lesson, and we were determined to exercise better judgment this time. Hillary cared for us, we knew. Might not respect and admiration blossom into a warmer devotion in the fullness of time?

And then... There he was.

He had been there all along of course. Why didn't we notice? Was he wearing a new tie? Had he shaved off his goatee?

Or was it the incandescent bolt of heaven's white light that set his chiseled profile aflame?

Our heart raced. Our blood rushed. Our minds went all higgledy piggledy. And we think we might throw up.

Oh my God, we're in love.

Political campaigns pass from phase to phase in ways that often seem predictable in hindsight, and this latest turn of events is no exception. We watched Barack and Hillary debate prior to Super Tuesday and vainly endeavored to detect meaningful policy distinctions. We were like a child trying to choose between two cupcakes in a bakery display. Does one have a more icing than the other? We closed one eye and bent over to get a fresh sight line.

Then there was a flash. And when our vision cleared, it was a new world. And we discovered that our two cupcakes could not be more different.

Obama's astounding Super Tuesday comeback, in which he erased a double-digit deficit to achieve near-parity in a mere two weeks, attests to the sea change that occurred. Much of the credit for the turnaround is due to the man himself and his magnetic appeal. But there was calculation as well. He and his staff envisioned this transmogrification and consciously positioned themselves to reap the windfall of the moment, lighting match after match under the Democratic electorate and praying feverishly that the flame would catch before it was too late.

But if the punditocracy was caught off guard, it was because they were so busy watching the spark that they ignored the tinder. In short, they underestimated the magnitude and intensity of latent emotion in American voters. It seemed that the race would be about a return to competence and stability, that political cynicism was so deeply ingrained in the American psyche that it could only be courted, not confronted.

But now it is clear that we were primed for an emotional outpouring. We were a super-saturated solution just waiting for the faintest touch of the catalyst that instantaneously alters everything. Obama is that catalyst, and what is precipitating now is a genuine political fervor.

This was supposed to be Hillary's moment. Didn't she check all the right boxes? She's smart, hardworking, right-thinking, and intimately associated with a past that most regard--with their usual selective and myopic recall--as days of wine and roses.

But in the context of this new narrative, the promise of competence and safety is underwhelming, and to wish for a return to the familiar ways and faces of the Clinton years seems an act of cowardice.

Yes, we enjoyed Bill's homespun wit, his studied good-old-boy affectation, and his bedroom eyes. He charmed and soothed us, and he was a perfect match for his time. Oil was at $10 a barrel and the stock market was juiced. Who wanted to make waves?

And he left us with fond memories. That's why when Hillary asked if it would be alright if he lived in our basement for a while after the wedding, we agreed.

But no cabinet post. And he buys his own groceries. And as soon as he gets a job, he has to find his own apartment.

We concede Hillary's impressive resume and talent. But let's not pretend the choice before us is purely one of head versus heart. Obama is not some smooth-talking Lothario looking to seduce an America on the rebound. There's a reason that the most educated segment of voters trend strongly his way, and it's more than his dreamy eyes. But at the same time, it's undeniable that the Obama juggernaut is driven by emotion.

Does that mean we are setting ourselves up for disappointment? Is the excitement imbuing us with a fleeting and fickle courage doomed to evaporate in the face of adversity?

No.

This outpouring of faith and feeling does not displace our hopes for administrative success, for legislative progress, for remade international relationships and a thriving economy. Rather it is an indispensable vessel to carry those hopes to fruition. Those who think this enthusiasm speeds us on a fool's errand, consider: For many decades we have repressed all traces of political idealism within ourselves, always seeking safety, predictability and stasis. Doing so has served, at best, only to ensure that as we marched drearily into poverty and disrepute, we did so to a steady beat.

Now, the problems we confront are more daunting than any in our history. Global warming requires an internationally coordinated response for which no prior model exists. Our economic woes are the product of suffocating debt and permanent resource scarcity; if there is a cure, it will not be pleasant. Our relationship with the international community is going through a change more profound than any since the end of the second World War. Policy alone, no matter how brilliant, simply will not bring us intact through the challenges to come. We'll need a leader who knows how to cultivate the qualities of optimism, restraint, and selflessness within us, and how to wring out every ounce when the going gets rough.

That is why this tide of emotion is more than relevant. It is the crucial prerequisite of whatever success can follow.

But the biggest change we will make is the one we've already begun.

You see, Obama doesn't talk about what he is going to do. He talks about what we are going to do. And in that phrasing, he expresses the most frightening truth that any politician can utter. A truth so terrifying that no President has whispered it in almost 50 years. He is telling us that the problem has never been our leaders.

The problem is us.

It's a mortifying realization. But if we broke it, doesn't that mean we can fix it too? So we're going to solve our problem, and we're going to start by saying "yes" to the notion that government can be better than it is. Whatever comes after, we will never regret it. Because saying "yes" isn't the precursor to a triumph. It is the triumph.

So that's it, baby. It's not you. It's us. We're sorry it had to end this way. We never meant to hurt you.

You can keep our CDs. But we want our superdelegates back.

this

(With plenty more to come.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/nyregion/16vote.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

I am confident that the point of introducing the so-called superdelegates into the conversation was to take the conversation off the "runaway train" discussion of the Obama candidacy.  Momentum is such a psychological aspect of any process, that I am sure that the Clinton campaign team recognized that they needed to get the press off that scent.  Unfortunately, they did such a bad job of turning the corner that they went up on the sidewalk and took out their own candidate in the process.

It is obvious to any rational person that the elected and party officials who are coming to the convention to help select a candidate are not going to do anything to damage the party or the selected candidate's prospects for election.  Come on, people!  Snap out of it.  These delegates are not going to "anoint" a candidate who can't win in November!  Doh!  I can hardly recall more conversation with less substance ... even George Bush is capable of injecting more common sense into a conversation than the people currently hyperventilating over the "superdelegate" "issue."

It's trivial to find cases in which the current system design would be genuinely useful.  One would be the case in which a candidate comes to the convention with the most delegates but during the course of the campaign has been substantially and irreparably damaged -- caught in flagrante, a drug bust, $100,000 of FBI sting money in the freezer, thinks aliens landed on his mansion lawn and kidnapped his daughter.  It also would be possible, in the current primary/caucus system, for a candidate to arrive at the convention with a plurality of delegates but who is himself/herself not a true representative of core Democratic values, is out of sync with the general population and is going to be unelectable in the general election.

The reason I am a Democrat is because I believe the party represents, broadly, my core views about the political life of the country.  I expect the party to advance those views -- and if the outcome of the Democratic primary/caucus process is to promote a segregationist into the national convention, I expect the party will have a process in place to counterbalance that obvious error.

A related item much in the news today is the seating of some delegates whose state party leadership violated Democratic Party rules.  The argument is made that these delegates should be seated because the primaries were held and party membership voted.  The party membership in those states should be outraged -- at their state leadership.  The state party leaders knew the rules and the penalty -- and adopted a "screw you, we don't care about the party" attitude.  Well, guess what, the rules were enforced.  

I am not sure what these individuals thought actually would happen -- that the national leadership would be too scared to enforce the rules. too weak ... I don't know.  But if you're doing 70 in a 50 and get a ticket, claims of special privilege don't wash much laundry.  No reason for them to get the washing done here, either.  If the membership and delegates in Florida and Michigan want a seat at the table, they should fire every member of their respective leadership teams involved in deliberately breaking party rules and then petition the national party, hat in hand.  They can point to the fact that the malefactors have been evicted as evidence of their sincere desire to be active members of the Democratic Party.

It is called a political party, it has rules, a platform and goals.  Chief among its goals is the election of officials who represent the electorate and implement the platform.  If the people in Florida and Michigan don't like the Democratic Party, they are free to try to change the rules and they are free to leave, and form their own party.  They are free to disobey those rules they find to their own inconvenience and be punished for the infraction.  

But, stop the whining.  The member of the Democratic Parties in Florida and Michigan were not disenfranchised by the national Democratic Party, they were disenfranchised by their own state leaders.  They should address the issue at its source.

From today's NYT...

<blockquote>At a private dinner that Mr. Edwards, a former senator, held at his home last Saturday for a dozen close friends, he said he had spoken recently with Mr. Gore about the benefits of neutrality, someone who was at the dinner said. Although a number of his supporters had been urging him to endorse Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton has actively sought his backing, Mr. Edwards said he intended to remain on the fence for the time being, the person said.</blockquote>

There's no point for him to do any endorsing until the week before March 4th anyway.

TPM Cafe is now in its third incarnation.  May it fare well.  We, your predecessors bid you welcome:  Be kind to one another.  Take care of the premises.  Those who come after you will appreciate a place where ideas are debated (not debased), where posters are respectful (not derogatory), where guests see a lively community open to new members.  If you are new, please bear with me.  We need your help.  (to get this message onto the recommend list)

The new Cafe lacks one thing former members relied on - a way to contact one another.  Thus this "Message in a Bottle" - cast onto the flood waters - when the "change-over" left many of us as "Cafe refugees" - bereft of our former blog posts or any way to track our "Back Bench" membership.  Back Benchers?  Those who came to the Cafe for conversation, not for conflict.  Those for whom "everything under the sun" was taken literally as a description of Reader Blogs.  Who over time imagined a little "space" we called the Cafe Saloon: "a place where you are always at home."  (and anyone was free to come)

If you are a TPM Cafe "Back Bencher,"  this Message in a Bottle is for you:

  The Saloon Lives on.  Perhaps you, like us, became a Cafe refugee.  Maybe you miss Chuck's poetry, Glenn's music, Howard's stories, cscs's questions and recipes.  (Or: PseudoCyAnts, Tom Wright, artappraiser, Eric Stepp, TheraP, nascardaughter, Emma Zahn, The Facilitatrix, Thinking... and more!)  Maybe you miss the humor.  The creativity.  The civility. And all the political, religious, philosophical, scientific topics and issues we managed to discuss as well.  Devon, our former sage, has gone missing.  As have others.  We miss you.

  We want you to know we survived the deluge.  The community lives on, is thriving, still has room for more.  We're keeping an eye on "developments" at the "Mother Ship."  Meanwhile we're looking out to find you at:  http://projectlucidity.com/forum/index.php

So if kind strangers recommend this post, perhaps our "Message in a Bottle" may reach you, dear Back Bencher of the old Cafe Saloon.  (Or anyone who always wanted to be a Back Bencher)

It will be primary time in Texas on March 4.  Former President Bill Clinton is campaigning for his wife in Texas. 

According to Examiner.com, Friday was East Texas day.  Texarkana folks heard about Senator Clinton's health care plan and those in Longview got his "solutions" speech.  He was running late to Stephen F. Austin U. in Nacadoches where he focused on contrasting his wife and her opponent there.  President Clinton wrapped up at 11:00 PM in Lufkin, emphasizing Hillary's experience and trying to blunt Obama's "Change" argument.  Today, Saturday he will travel to Amarillo, Lubbock and Austin.  With such distances,  he will undoubtedly run late today, too.

Memeorandum carried headlines with differing opinions about how hard Bill Clinton hit against Barack Obama yesterday:
 
1) Michael James --"Bill Clinton: Obama ‘Literally Not Part of Any of the Good Things’ From the 1990s —"

2) "Bill Clinton avoids attacks on Obama in East Texas  — " from Bruce Tomaso at the Dallas Morning News

Midweek Senator Hillary "Clinton stumps in South Texas," reported the Bryan/College Station Eagle.  Another story from the same source is an excellent analysis of why "Clinton focuses on wooing Texas' Hispanics."  To quote:

Clinton. . . and Obama are in a tight race for Texas's 228 delegates. Hispanic support will be critical; Latinos could make up about half of Democratic voters on primary day.Clinton plans to stick to heavily Hispanic venues on her first swing in Texas, campaigning Wednesday in McAllen, Robstown outside Corpus Christi and San Antonio.

And in typically Texan fashion, there is also a bit of controversy, "A Texas Tiff Over the Dems Debate," set for Austin, February 21.  It has been closed to the public, and the public is mightily upset . To quote:

The cry for tickets went up within minutes of the announcement on February 11, but organizers initially responded that there would be no general admission seats and tickets would be reserved for the University of Texas, the Texas Democratic Party, the Obama and Clinton campaigns, and debate broadcasters CNN and Spanish language network Univision.

The not-so-public debate prompted local media blogs to explode with angry and dismayed postings.

References: 
Examiner.com -- excellent AP resource for Texas political news.
Clinton Rally Press photos.
"Obama leads" poll; "Clinton has slight lead" poll.

Hopefully, when you get up on Saturday morning, you won't hear that a deal has been made and that you've been sold out.  The leadership stayed in town, but they might want to go home.  It seems to me that time is running short.  This may be your last opportunity to say that enough is enough; not just to yourself or in a blog that you hope someone will read. 

Your indignation and bitching won't help the really talented bloggers who are quoted occasionally on the floor of the house or senate or in the media.  Your legislators need to hear from you directly.  Anecdotal evidence about the anger of the masses just won't cut it.  Hello.

A post on Friday pointed you to Glenn Greenwald.  Thank you Carol. (salon.com/opinion/greenwald).  Greenwald has explained FISA, "amnesty", the recent fisa votes--names included, and he's provided a link to a firedoglake petition.  Read Greenwald's synopsis of the last few days if you're still confused about the urgency of the issue or if you want to sign the petition.  Email the synopsis to friends and family and ask them to sign the petition too.

I read a blog today that said something like "we need to develop a website where we can go to complain to congress."  What?!  I can't even imagine what it costs us to run the house and senate sites.  Use them.  They do everything but fill out the form for you.  How's this for the comment:  "I will not support you again if you accept telecom immunity.  Support the Restore Act."

With all of the bitching out there, you'd think that the mainstream media would be reporting that congress is having difficulty keeping up with the calls and emails.  Call, write; tell your friends and family to do the same.

I know, I'm naive.  If I'm wrong about this, may a satellite fall out of the sky into my backyard.

Oh, crap. 

John McCain and Hillary Clinton are both on the attack against Democratic Presidential Frontrunner Barack Obama.  McCain is trying to twist Obama's arm to make good on a supposed public financing pledge his campaign says they made.  Hillary Clinton is trying like a sideshow performer trying to pull a locomotive with her teeth to stop Obama's steamrolling momentum by getting him off the campaign trail and into a debate.
Obama is clearly not gullible enough to give into either McCain or Hillary's weaknesses to give them a chance to come up for air.  For McCain and the Republicans, there is an enormous money gap.  They take one look at the combination of voter excitement and turnout, their conjoined connection to an extremely unpopular president, and an unprecedented fundraising boom to boot and want to scrape out any advantage that they can.  
Hillary on the other hand faces much of the same negatives, an electrifying opponent who looks more and more unstoppable, connection to the old battled Clinton years, and a well-publicized lag in fundraising.  She's gone negative in her most recent attack ads, trying to prod Obama into a debate by essentially calling him chicken.
The best way for Senator Obama to act as a lion tamer with a whip and chair to fight back the McCain/Clinton attacks is to get louder about calling for their public tax disclosures now.  Only Obama has made full income tax returns public.  Clinton who faces serious legitimate questions after pumping $5 million of her own money into her sinking campaign, particularly with the skeletons of the Clinton past lurking.  McCain has his own problem too considering his connection to the Keating Five in the 80's.
Obama should put both McCain and Hillary's feet to the fire and ask them to put up or shut up.  The New York Times makes a great case today for calling on the two senators to do exactly that.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/opinion/15fri1.html?ref=opinion

I've been less than impressed with Obama's rapid-response operation this week, as McCain and Clinton rolled out the meme that he's merely an inspirational thinker and not a "grownup" policy thinker with "solutions."  So long to all that.  Why doesn't Obama just refer everyone to his information-packed Web site and point out that the other campaigns, in neglecting its existence, are being either intellectually lazy or dishonest -- take your pick.

It's abundantly clear, as McCain can't even lock up his own base, and Obama is raising cash hand over fist from hundreds of thousands of regular folk,  that McCain is afraid he'll come up short in dollars this fall.

OSHKOSH, Wis. — Hammering Senator Barack Obama for a fourth straight day, Senator John McCain said here on Friday that he expects Senator Obama to abide by his pledge use public financing for his general election if Mr. McCain does so as well.

There was no pledge, but Obama may yet agree to this.

The entire question of how 527s etc fit into this equation remains wide open.

Sen.Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Sen. Bob Bennett are creating a health care package that may rival Sen. Clinton's and Sen. Obama's health care proposals.<p>  (R-Utah) From The American Prospect:
<blockquote>Under the Wyden-Bennett system, health dollars would be controlled by the individual (a long-time conservative goal) and used within a restructured, heavily regulated, totally universal, insurance marketplace (a longtime liberal goal). Each state would create Health Help Agencies, who would provide easy access to insurance products, along with information, guidance, and advice on how to choose. Insurers would have to meet a minimum standard for comprehensiveness (equivalent to the standard Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan currently offered to members of Congress), and they could not discriminate based on pre-existing conditions, occupation, genetic information, gender or age. Nor could they deny insurance to those who ask for it. In return, every American would have to buy health insurance, and there would be hefty subsidies for those further down the income ladder.<p>The plan, to be sure, lacks some liberal priorities, notably a public insurance option. But it makes up for that by tightly integrating the system, going much further than Clinton or Obama do to bring the patchwork American health-care mess under one roof, where costs would prove more containable (the Lewin Group, a highly respected health-care consulting firm, estimates that the plan would save $1.4 trillion over 10 years) and future reforms and initiatives would be far easier. And they have done so along with 10 other senators. It's conceivable that, by the time the next president is elected, they will have created a legislative working group that can actually pass health reform—something we've never had before.<p>The question is whether that legislative working group will actually hang together when the eventual vote is called.</blockquote> Read the whole article here.

John McCain was once a hero of mine. In spite of his conservative votes he stood for honesty, bravery, love of country and "straight  talk". He seemed to care about fairness and voted against the Bush tax cuts, despised Rumsfeld and stood firmly against torture. He had endured torture for his country.  Even then he would not have been the best president  but I voted in the Republican primary (register Republican to vote) so that if Kerry lost we would not have to endure Bush. Now he has sold his soul to get the nomination. Actually it has been for sale since the day he embraced Bush in a public display that disgusted me more than any political pandering I had ever seen. He is old and sold.

The best thing he ever did was stand against torture. He has been weaselling out of it ever since and has finally taken it back, taken the tax cuts for the rich back as well. No longer for sale. Sold. Untrustworthy. Will he bomb Iran? Stay 100 years in Iraq? What else don't we know about this man even now? 

 Whether Clinton or Obama wins the Rove Attack machine is oiled and ready and we must galvanize ourselves against it. We must not allow this hypocrite to be our President. Our country has been ruined by these people and we must spare no trouble, no dime, to take it back. McCain is cut from the same cloth. Don't remember what he once was, or seemed. He has sold his soul.

Universal coverage (n) A proposed means of achieving partial coverage at the expense of voter support for health care reform.  
She says:  "Under my health plan everyone will have health coverage."  
She means: "You'll have coverage because if you don't pay for it we'll force you to pay for it and if you try to avoid paying for it we have government agencies that will garnish your wages and hound you until you cough up the money."

Participate (v)  To not participate.
She says: "I pledge not to participate in the Michigan primaries"
She means: "I'm not participating in the primaries, I'm just keeping my name on the ballot in order to try to get people to vote for me."

Working (adj): Whatever George Bush needs to define it to mean in order to claim that the Surge is "working."
She says: "The Surge is working!"
She means: "George Bush says the Surge is working!"

Diplomacy (n):  War.
She says: "My vote for Kyl-Lieberman was a 'vote for stepped-up diplomacy'.  (And similar remarks explaining her vote authorizing the Iraq war.)
She means: "If Bush wants another war, he should get another war."  

Barack Obama attacks Senator Clinton for taking money from lobbyists.  Here's what he does:

"While Obama has decried the influence of special interests in Washington, the reality is that many of the most talented and experienced political operatives in his party are lobbyists, and he needs their help.

Mike Williams, the director of government relations at Credit Suisse Securities, said of the network of lobbyists supporting Obama: "I would imagine that it's as large as the Clinton list," in reference to rival presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who is an entrenched favorite of the Washington Democratic establishment.

He said that while lobbyists cannot give money to Obama, they can give "policy" and "campaign support." Indeed, K Street denizens have rare policy and national campaign expertise.

Other K Street players working to build momentum for Obama are former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), a consultant for Alston & Bird; Broderick Johnson, president of Bryan Cave Strategies LLC; Mark Keam, the lead Democratic lobbyist at Verizon; Jimmy Williams, vice president of government affairs for the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America; Thomas Walls, vice president of federal public affairs at McGuireWoods Consulting; and Francis Grab, senior manager at Washington Council Ernst & Young.

One of the lobbyists, who supports Clinton, said that Shomik Dutta, a fundraiser for Obama's campaign, called to ask if the lobbyist's wife would be interested in making a political contribution.

"I was quite taken aback," he said. "He was very direct in saying that you're a lobbyist and we don't want contributions from lobbyists. But your wife can contribute and we like your network.""

Source:  http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/obamas-k-street-project-2007-03-28.html

A new style of politics of BUSINESS AS USUAL?

Obama attacks Senator Clinton for her "doublespeak".

In a debate, Hillary Clinton admitted she had made a mistake in voting for the Bankruptcy bill.  She said after realizing her mistake, she had hoped it wouldn't pass.  Rather than commending her for admitting to a mistake, he instead ridiculed her.

What does that mean?" Obama asked his audience, to laughter. "No, seriously, what does that mean? If you didn't want to see it passed, then you can vote against it! People don't say what they mean."

A new style of politics of BUSINESS AS USUAL?   Obama claims he is past the politics of old, including identity politics.    Yet, he sends his surrogate, Jesse Jackson Jr., out to intimidate black Congressional leaders into voting for Obama:   "In an interview, Cleaver offered a glimpse of private conversations.

He said Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois had recently asked him "if it comes down to the last day and you're the only superdelegate? ... Do you want to go down in history as the one to prevent a black from winning the White House?"

Source:  http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02/obama_supporter_jesse_jackson_1.php

Jackson Jr. also had this to say after Hillary showed emotion in NH:

"those tears also have to be analyzed. They have to be looked at very, very carefully in light of Katrina, in light of other things that Mrs. Clinton did not cry for, particularly as we head to South Carolina where 45% of African-Americans who participate in the Democratic contest, and they see real hope in Barack Obama."

A new style of politics of BUSINESS AS USUAL?

I wish Obama would stop running as some sort of "new" politican and just admit he stoops to political ploys like everyone else.

Well, it's all over for me - now that I've voted I can let the rest of the country decide where we're headed. So I have the luxury of looking ahead and wondering how things are going to turn out, asking questions like, if Obama wins, how will he handle the Republican attack machine?

The question has been posed on many blogs already, and Obama's supporters generally answer "brilliantly, expertly, harumph, harumph, harumph." It will be like Mozart writing a new symphony, or Gordon Ramsey devouring a recalcitrant sous chef in a third-rate Brighton eatery.

As with all things Obama-related, count me a bit skeptical of the assurances from the starry-eyed band. After all, many of them have made so much hay out of the Clintons' "hateful attacks" that I'm starting to wonder if any of these people have ever actually seen a negative ad. I realize Obama is running on a youth movement platform, so perhaps it might behoove his supporters to google "Lee Atwater" and find out a thing or two about Republican attack machines. 

Obama supporters point out that simply the juxtaposition of Obama and McCain will work in the Dems favor - and it's hard to argue with that. Obama looks and acts like a rock star, and will make McCain look like Otto the unfrozen caveman. But on the other hand, the Republicans aren't stupid - evil, but not stupid - and they'll know this is true. Which means they're likely to work extra hard at smearing Obama, hoping that will more than make up for the disadvantages of running with a two hundred year old candidate.

Don't get me wrong - surely no politician from Chicago can be without some deft political moves of his own, and lord knows Obama's smart enought to know this is coming. But if you think anything the Clintons have thrown his way constitute some sort of preparation for the fall - baby, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

Who would you end up talking to? 

Now, I must clarify.  This all depends on who you are and what bar you're sitting in.  That said, since I'm trying to make a point in this blog, I suppose that I'll frame the situation as well. 

You are a lower middle class citizen between the ages of 30-50.  You are sitting in a middle class town bar. 

Here's how I think it goes down:


John McCain.
It goes great initially.  He addresses you as "My friend," which makes you more comfortable.You immediately like his easy going style and friendliness.  You talk to him about American Idol and Lost, but he doesn't register.  You then realize, this guy is like 2 generations ago!  But then you start to wonder, this man is 72 years old!  What's he doing at a bar?  Shouldn't he be at the Bingo joint?  You almost buy him a drink, but then realize, can 72 year olds drink beer?  Ultimately, you still talk to him, although he's an old dude, but he's got great war stories to share.  As he leaves, you yell, "I love you BLUE!!!"


Hillary Clinton:
Initially, you feel intimated.  Powerful, and with Mark Penn by her side, you're a little nervous about that one night long ago in college you can't remember (involved smoke, some plants you picked, and multiple other people).  But she puts you at ease with a winning smile and she buys you a beer.  "How'd you afford that?" you ask.  She replies, "Its okay, I live in Chappaqua and I can afford to loan myself 5 million dollars."  You then wonder, "wait, why not just give that money to your own campaign like Romney, Perot, and others?"  But she buys you the Bud and you continue talking.. albeit all about her and her campaign.  After awhile, you realize the whole time, there's nothing that you can relate to.  She has a networth of millions, you - not much given the sad economy and the killer mortgage.  You have to toil day in and day out to get respect and money.  Well, her husband made millions going around and saying, "Hi, my name is Bill Clinton."  Nice lady, you think, but you'd rather talk to the barkeep or watch TV. 


Barack Obama:
Easy smile, big handshake - great entrance.  But then he starts talking.  "I hope you hope as much as me that I can inspire you to drink this glass of patrioticly American Bud Light.  You know I can inspire Americans to lose weight too!"  You don't mind so much, but its sounds better on TV.  This guy talks like that one dude on the Quad Mall in college!  But you talk more, and after the initial iambic pentameter, you realize he actually does have more in common than you think.  He's got a good family.  Goes to every parent teacher conference.  Father and Mother died relatively early in his life.  He does well, but him and his wife still has like 1/10th to 1/50th of what Hillary and Bill has.  And he was a community organizer, shunning the money he could have made as a lawyer.  He seems like he may have known some unsavory characters in the past, but who hasn't?  More importantly, he listens to you and he's the same generation - so he understands what its like to be tired at such a young age in this fast paced society.  Since you like him so much, you continue to talk... but he interrupts with his easy smile, "Hey man, lets shoot some pool or darts or something, I gotta loosen up - its a primary tomorrow."


I know, this is an unabashedly favorable piece over Barack Obama.  But it serves my point - that this whole under 50,000 income voters not voting for him is strange.  If anything, Barack and Michelle Obama's background and upbringing is what America is about.  Don't we want a President who is not far from the people socioeconomically?  Or do we want a multimillionaire who gets more from lobbyists than anyone else or the old and out of touch Blue? 

Not to be overly critical of Clinton supporters, but...what the hell are you thinking?

We'll get right back to whether or not she can win in the general, but how in the world can you claim that she is worthy of your vote as a progressive.

<ul>
<li>She has voted in favor of invasion of a non-threatening  Middle Eastern country TWICE. Different countries, too. One dominated by Sunnis, one dominated by Shiites.</li>
<li>She has voted repeatedly to continue funding the Iraq debacle to no positive effect.</li>
<li>She has (and I'm tired of putting it this way, but it's the truth) an attitude about the First Amendment that is to the right of Antonin F. Scalia. (Yeah, I know his middle name is Gregory. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out what the F. stands for.)</li>
<li>She has voted to prop up Big Money at the expense of the middle class.</li>
<li>You know I could just keep going with this list, don't you?</li>
</ul>

How can you expect people like me -- and I think that means people who have been faithful Dems all their lives but can't force themselves to be Yellow Dogs any longer -- to stop pointing out these deep flaws in the character of your candidate? For that matter, how can a person with Senator Clinton's positions BE your candidate?

As if her domestic and foreign policy postitions weren't abhorrent enough, she seems determined to win the nomination whether or not it shatters her party. She will twist superdelegate arms and fight to the death to seat her unearned FL and MI delegates regardless of the long-term effects.

When it comes to winning in Nov, I will now concede that she might, but only because the Republicans are engaged in a death struggle pitting the Extreme Right with the Completely Insane Right in a battle for power and the Glory of Jesus.

Not that it has any effect on the validity of my arguments here, but before you accuse me of cultishness -- as you folks are so eager to do to Obama supporters -- let me repeat, as I have done any number of times, that I NOT one of them. I find his Wear-My-Religion-On-My-Sleeve approach disturbing. I find his willingness to invade an ally without a Congressional declaration of war disturbing. And I find the imprecision of his positions disturbing, among other problems. I'm also pretty sure his health-care plan is unworkable. Suffice it to say I have hardly fallen under his -- or the media's -- spell.

But whereas Obama raises many doubts, I simply cannot understand why Sen. Clinton inspires any doubts whatsoever. She is simply and almost completely unsuitable from the perspective of a lefty.

So, Clintonistas, you want me to stop criticizing your candidate? You want to unite the Democratic Party? Sure. Just find yourselves another more progressive candidate and I'll be pleased to join you. Many of us will.

The border isn't secure, because it's underdeveloped. You can't walk through a hydroponic farm or a desalination plant. A fence along a border is barrier to be breached. A fence around a plant that provides hundreds of jobs to workers on both sides of the border is a community asset.

While the candidates tout investment in infrastructure to prop up the tanking economy, neither candidate has come up with the kind of shot in the arm for border states like Texas that a massive investment in "passive" barriers would give, while providing far more effective and lower profile barriers than sensors and fences -- solutions that go back over 20 years to the infamous Tortilla Curtain.

Maybe it's too late in the campaign for the candidates to show much imagination in their stump speeches and debates.

Barack Obama attacks Senator Clinton for taking money from lobbyists.  Here's what he does:

"While Obama has decried the influence of special interests in Washington, the reality is that many of the most talented and experienced political operatives in his party are lobbyists, and he needs their help.

Mike Williams, the director of government relations at Credit Suisse Securities, said of the network of lobbyists supporting Obama: "I would imagine that it's as large as the Clinton list," in reference to rival presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who is an entrenched favorite of the Washington Democratic establishment.

He said that while lobbyists cannot give money to Obama, they can give "policy" and "campaign support." Indeed, K Street denizens have rare policy and national campaign expertise.

Other K Street players working to build momentum for Obama are former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), a consultant for Alston & Bird; Broderick Johnson, president of Bryan Cave Strategies LLC; Mark Keam, the lead Democratic lobbyist at Verizon; Jimmy Williams, vice president of government affairs for the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America; Thomas Walls, vice president of federal public affairs at McGuireWoods Consulting; and Francis Grab, senior manager at Washington Council Ernst & Young.

One of the lobbyists, who supports Clinton, said that Shomik Dutta, a fundraiser for Obama's campaign, called to ask if the lobbyist's wife would be interested in making a political contribution.

"I was quite taken aback," he said. "He was very direct in saying that you're a lobbyist and we don't want contributions from lobbyists. But your wife can contribute and we like your network.""

Source:  http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/obamas-k-street-project-2007-03-28.html

A new style of politics of BUSINESS AS USUAL?

Obama attacks Senator Clinton for her "doublespeak".

In a debate, Hillary Clinton admitted she had made a mistake in voting for the Bankruptcy bill.  She said after realizing her mistake, she had hoped it wouldn't pass.  Rather than commending her for admitting to a mistake, he instead ridiculed her.

What does that mean?" Obama asked his audience, to laughter. "No, seriously, what does that mean? If you didn't want to see it passed, then you can vote against it! People don't say what they mean."

A new style of politics of BUSINESS AS USUAL?   Obama claims he is past the politics of old, including identity politics.    Yet, he sends his surrogate, Jesse Jackson Jr., out to intimidate black Congressional leaders into voting for Obama:   "In an interview, Cleaver offered a glimpse of private conversations.

He said Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois had recently asked him "if it comes down to the last day and you're the only superdelegate? ... Do you want to go down in history as the one to prevent a black from winning the White House?"

Source:  http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02/obama_supporter_jesse_jackson_1.php

Jackson Jr. also had this to say after Hillary showed emotion in NH:

"those tears also have to be analyzed. They have to be looked at very, very carefully in light of Katrina, in light of other things that Mrs. Clinton did not cry for, particularly as we head to South Carolina where 45% of African-Americans who participate in the Democratic contest, and they see real hope in Barack Obama."

A new style of politics of BUSINESS AS USUAL?

I wish Obama would stop running as some sort of "new" politican and just admit he stoops to political ploys like everyone else.

There's quite a bit of talk about how superdelegates should handle their role in the primary process.

MoveOn is currently circulating a petition that reads "The Democratic Party must be democratic. The superdelegates should let the voters decide between Clinton and Obama, then support the people's choice."
http://pol.moveon.org/superdelegates/

I'm sure this petition will be quite popular. No one, no matter which candidate they support, wants to see someone nominated who didn't get the most support from Democratic primary voters. And I suspect the vast majority of superdelegates do not want to be seen as the ones making the decision of who will be our nominee and possibily overturning the will of the American people.

The big question, however, is what the best measure of the "will of the American people" should be.

One suggestion is that superdelegates vote for whoever their state or district voted for. This won't work because these districts will probably be about evenly split meaning that the race will come down to which superdelegates decide to ignore all that and just vote for who they like. So you're left with just as much of a mess as before.

Another idea is to vote for whoever wins the popular vote. This sounds good in theory, but the problem is that we are unlikely to have an acutal count of the popular vote due to caucuses not reporting their raw numbers. So there will be no official popular vote total to look at.

This leaves us with the idea of voting for whoever wins the most pledged delegates. It's not perfect, but it's certainly the best approximation of the will of Democratic primary voters.

Therefore, I would like to see superdelegates promise to support whoever wins the most pledged delegates. This is a simple way for superdelegates to avoid creating the kind of divisive conclusion to this race that will make it difficult for us to unite and win the Presidency. In the end, that's what all of us care about.

For Sen. Clinton to make noise about disenfranchised voters in Michigan and Florida is ludicrous. She agreed to the ground rules way back in August and has no right to any delegates.

According to conventional wisdom, delegates from FL and MI will be seated if the votes of those delegates can't change the outcome of the race. But what will happen if Obama is narrowly ahead, such that, if FL and MI were counted, Clinton would win the nomination? How could the DNC preserve the outcome determined by its own rules without alienating voters from two huge swing states?

There is an excellent op-ed in today's NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/opinion/15mann.html), which argues that historically, superdelegates have acted as a unifying force, reinforcing rather than rejecting the winner of close popular votes.

In 1984, the superdelegates stepped in to provide a majority for Walter Mondale — who had a huge edge in pledged delegates over Gary Hart but not enough to win the nomination — avoiding a potentially bitter and divisive convention that would have fractured the party.

The piece goes on to suggest that superdelegates can solve the FL/MI dilemma:

In this case, the nomination could come down to a difficult and complex credentials battle over whether to seat delegates from Michigan and Florida. To have a nomination settled in this way is a bit like having an election settled by a 5-4 vote of the Supreme Court. Averting this kind of disaster is just what superdelegates are supposed to do.

So how would this work? Remember, the DNC needs to preserve the outcome of the race without MI and FL yet somehow include their delegates in the race. Howard Dean could find superdelegates who don't have strong preferences for either candidate but are very concerned about alienating FL & MI voters to pledge for Obama in order to balance out the FL & MI Clinton votes.

How many would he superdelegates would be needed? First, let's do a back-of-the-envelope count of FL & MI delegates. According to CNN, if all their delegates were counted, FL would have 210, including superdelegates. FL voters went 50% for Clinton and 33% Obama, about 3 to 2. For simplicity, let's assume that the Edwards votes and superdelegates are a wash and split the total delegates according to the 3-2 ratio: 126 to 84, a difference of 42. (If it were to actually happen, Obama would almost certainly do better than that among superdelegates and Edwards supporters, picking up a few more delegates).

It's a little unclear how to handle MI, since Obama wasn't on the ballot. But to be conservative, let's give Clinton delegates for her 55% vote and ignore the 40% uncommitted votes. If MI's delegates were counted there would be 156, so that's 86 more delegates for Clinton. (I know, it's a little absurd. Maybe the DNC would find a way to give Obama some MI delegates.)

In any case, even with such conservative estimates, Clinton would pick up a maximum of 128 votes. Let's suppose that Obama has a 50 delegate lead over Clinton without FL & MI. In that case Dean would need to come up with 78 delegates for Obama in order to preserve the outcome. Since roughly half of the uncommitted superdelegates would likely have voted for Obama anyway, you need to double the number to 156 or else find 78 Clinton-leaning superdelegates who are willing to vote for Obama in return for counting FL and MI. If Obama has a larger delegate lead or gets more delegates from FL & MI than my conservative estimate, then that number would be even smaller.

Crisis averted. FL and MI voters get their votes counted, but the outcome is the same as it would have been had they not been counted.

I know this may be a stretch and am sure to get crap for this in the future if my suspicions are true but I believe that what this adminsistration has stood for is a police state.  From 9/11 forward what I have seen is an administration that lacks intellectual honesty, integrity and an ability to do its job wihtout exceptions.  From the patriot act to the warrantles surveilance of American citizens this administration has shown a disdain for previous interpretations of the Bill of Rights and the US Constitution.  I was reading an interpretation of the defining characteristics of a police state by the Council for Secular humanism, and here is what they have to say.  This is by Laurence W. Britt

Free Inquiry readers may pause to read the “Affirmations of Humanism: A Statement of Principles” on the inside cover of the magazine. To a secular humanist, these principles seem so logical, so right, so crucial. Yet, there is one archetypal political philosophy that is anathema to almost all of these principles. It is fascism. And fascism’s principles are wafting in the air today, surreptitiously masquerading as something else, challenging everything we stand for. The cliché that people and nations learn from history is not only overused, but also overestimated; often we fail to learn from history, or draw the wrong conclusions. Sadly, historical amnesia is the norm.

We are two-and-a-half generations removed from the horrors of Nazi Germany, although constant reminders jog the consciousness. German and Italian fascism form the historical models that define this twisted political worldview. Although they no longer exist, this worldview and the characteristics of these models have been imitated by protofascist regimes at various times in the twentieth century. Both the original German and Italian models and the later protofascist regimes show remarkably similar characteristics. Although many scholars question any direct connection among these regimes, few can dispute their visual similarities.

Beyond the visual, even a cursory study of these fascist and protofascist regimes reveals the absolutely striking convergence of their modus operandi. This, of course, is not a revelation to the informed political observer, but it is sometimes useful in the interests of perspective to restate obvious facts and in so doing shed needed light on current circumstances.

For the purpose of this perspective, I will consider the following regimes: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal, Papadopoulos’s Greece, Pinochet’s Chile, and Suharto’s Indonesia. To be sure, they constitute a mixed bag of national identities, cultures, developmental levels, and history. But they all followed the fascist or protofascist model in obtaining, expanding, and maintaining power. Further, all these regimes have been overthrown, so a more or less complete picture of their basic characteristics and abuses is possible.

Analysis of these seven regimes reveals fourteen common threads that link them in recognizable patterns of national behavior and abuse of power. These basic characteristics are more prevalent and intense in some regimes than in others, but they all share at least some level of similarity.

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism. From the prominent displays of flags and bunting to the ubiquitous lapel pins, the fervor to show patriotic nationalism, both on the part of the regime itself and of citizens caught up in its frenzy, was always obvious. Catchy slogans, pride in the military, and demands for unity were common themes in expressing this nationalism. It was usually coupled with a suspicion of things foreign that often bordered on xenophobia.

2. Disdain for the importance of human rights. The regimes themselves viewed human rights as of little value and a hindrance to realizing the objectives of the ruling elite. Through clever use of propaganda, the population was brought to accept these human rights abuses by marginalizing, even demonizing, those being targeted. When abuse was egregious, the tactic was to use secrecy, denial, and disinformation.

3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause. The most significant common thread among these regimes was the use of scapegoating as a means to divert the people’s attention from other problems, to shift blame for failures, and to channel frustration in controlled directions. The methods of choice—relentless propaganda and disinformation—were usually effective. Often the regimes would incite “spontaneous” acts against the target scapegoats, usually communists, socialists, liberals, Jews, ethnic and racial minorities, traditional national enemies, members of other religions, secularists, homosexuals, and “terrorists.” Active opponents of these regimes were inevitably labeled as terrorists and dealt with accordingly.

4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism. Ruling elites always identified closely with the military and the industrial infrastructure that supported it. A disproportionate share of national resources was allocated to the military, even when domestic needs were acute. The military was seen as an expression of nationalism, and was used whenever possible to assert national goals, intimidate other nations, and increase the power and prestige of the ruling elite.

5. Rampant sexism. Beyond the simple fact that the political elite and the national culture were male-dominated, these regimes inevitably viewed women as second-class citizens. They were adamantly anti-abortion and also homophobic. These attitudes were usually codified in Draconian laws that enjoyed strong support by the orthodox religion of the country, thus lending the regime cover for its abuses.

6. A controlled mass media. Under some of the regimes, the mass media were under strict direct control and could be relied upon never to stray from the party line. Other regimes exercised more subtle power to ensure media orthodoxy. Methods included the control of licensing and access to resources, economic pressure, appeals to patriotism, and implied threats. The leaders of the mass media were often politically compatible with the power elite. The result was usually success in keeping the general public unaware of the regimes’ excesses.

7. Obsession with national security. Inevitably, a national security apparatus was under direct control of the ruling elite. It was usually an instrument of oppression, operating in secret and beyond any constraints. Its actions were justified under the rubric of protecting “national security,” and questioning its activities was portrayed as unpatriotic or even treasonous.

8. Religion and ruling elite tied together. Unlike communist regimes, the fascist and protofascist regimes were never proclaimed as godless by their opponents. In fact, most of the regimes attached themselves to the predominant religion of the country and chose to portray themselves as militant defenders of that religion. The fact that the ruling elite’s behavior was incompatible with the precepts of the religion was generally swept under the rug. Propaganda kept up the illusion that the ruling elites were defenders of the faith and opponents of the “godless.” A perception was manufactured that opposing the power elite was tantamount to an attack on religion.

9. Power of corporations protected. Although the personal life of ordinary citizens was under strict control, the ability of large corporations to operate in relative freedom was not compromised. The ruling elite saw the corporate structure as a way to not only ensure military production (in developed states), but also as an additional means of social control. Members of the economic elite were often pampered by the political elite to ensure a continued mutuality of interests, especially in the repression of “have-not” citizens.

10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated. Since organized labor was seen as the one power center that could challenge the political hegemony of the ruling elite and its corporate allies, it was inevitably crushed or made powerless. The poor formed an underclass, viewed with suspicion or outright contempt. Under some regimes, being poor was considered akin to a vice.

11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts. Intellectuals and the inherent freedom of ideas and expression associated with them were anathema to these regimes. Intellectual and academic freedom were considered subversive to national security and the patriotic ideal. Universities were tightly controlled; politically unreliable faculty harassed or eliminated. Unorthodox ideas or expressions of dissent were strongly attacked, silenced, or crushed. To these regimes, art and literature should serve the national interest or they had no right to exist.

12. Obsession with crime and punishment. Most of these regimes maintained Draconian systems of criminal justice with huge prison populations. The police were often glorified and had almost unchecked power, leading to rampant abuse. “Normal” and political crime were often merged into trumped-up criminal charges and sometimes used against political opponents of the regime. Fear, and hatred, of criminals or “traitors” was often promoted among the population as an excuse for more police power.

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption. Those in business circles and close to the power elite often used their position to enrich themselves. This corruption worked both ways; the power elite would receive financial gifts and property from the economic elite, who in turn would gain the benefit of government favoritism. Members of the power elite were in a position to obtain vast wealth from other sources as well: for example, by stealing national resources. With the national security apparatus under control and the media muzzled, this corruption was largely unconstrained and not well understood by the general population.

14. Fraudulent elections. Elections in the form of plebiscites or public opinion polls were usually bogus. When actual elections with candidates were held, they would usually be perverted by the power elite to get the desired result. Common methods included maintaining control of the election machinery, intimidating and disenfranchising opposition voters, destroying or disallowing legal votes, and, as a last resort, turning to a judiciary beholden to the power elite.

Does any of this ring alarm bells? Of course not. After all, this is America, officially a democracy with the rule of law, a constitution, a free press, honest elections, and a well-informed public constantly being put on guard against evils. Historical comparisons like these are just exercises in verbal gymnastics. Maybe, maybe not.

 

This is a repost of "An Open Letter To Hillary Clinton From A Wellesley College Alumna", by Linn Cohen-Cole
----------------------------------------------

Dear Hillary,

By polling logic, I should be your supporter - Democrat, older woman, white, liberal. I was even in a dorm with you in college. I have pulled for you for years. But something this past summer fundamentally changed my responsibility to my children and grandchildren. In the time I have left in my life to protect them and others, I need to speak out.

I saw a News Hour piece on Maharastra, India, about farmers committing suicide. Monsanto, a US agricultural giant, hired Bollywood actors for ads telling illiterate farmers they could get rich (by their standards) from big yields with Monsanto's Bt (genetically engineered) cotton seeds. The expensive seeds needed expensive fertilizer and pesticides (Monsanto, again) and irrigation. There is no irrigation there. Crops failed. Farmers had larger debt than they'd ever experienced

And farmers couldn't collect seeds from their own fields to try again (true since time immemorial). Monsanto "patents" their DNA-altered seeds as "intellectual property." They have a $10 million budget and a staff of 75 devoted solely to prosecuting farmers. www.grist.org/comments/food/2008/01/17./).

Since the late 1990s (as industrial agriculture took hold in India?), 166,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide and 8 million have left the land, and it has increased since 2002 to an average of 1 every 20 minutes (P.Sainath, The Hindu). The reasons for suicides are always complex and Monsanto is not the only giant agribusiness now in India, but it is one of the largest, and the main one in Maharastra where the suicides are especially high. Farmers in Europe, Asia, Africa, Indonesia, South America, Central America and here, have all protested Monsanto and genetic engineering.

What does this have to do with you?

You have connections to Monsanto through the Rose Law Firm where you worked and through Bill who hired Monsanto people for central food-related roles. Your Orwellian-named "Rural Americans for Hillary" was planned with Troutman Sanders, Monsanto's lobbyists.Genetic engineering and industrialized food and animal production all come together at the Rose Law Firm, which represents the world's largest GE corporation (Monsanto), GE's most controversial project (DP&L's - now Monsanto's - terminator genes), the world's largest meat producer (Tyson), the world's largest retailer and a dominant food retailer (Walmart).

The inbred-ness of Rose's legal representation of corporations which own controlling interests in other corporations there and of corporate boards sharing members who are also shareholders of each other's corporations there, is so thorough that it is hard to capture. Jon Jacoby, senior executive of the Stephens Group - one of the largest institutional shareholders of Tyson Foods, Walmart, DP&L -is also Chairman of the Board of DP&L and arranged the Wal-Mart deal. Jackson Stephens' Stephens Group staked Sam Walton and financed Tyson Foods. Monsanto bought DP&L. All represented at Rose.

You didn't just work there, you made friends. That shows in the flow of favors then and since. You were invited onto Walmart's board, you were helped by a Tyson executive to make commodity trades (3 days before Bill became governor), netting you $100,000, Jackson Stephens strongly backed Bill for Governor, and then for President (donating $100,000).

Food and friends, in Clinton terms:

Bill's appointed friend Mike Espy, Secretary of Agriculture, who immediately significantly weakened federal chicken waste and contamination standards, opening the door to major expansion of Tyson's chicken factory farms. Espy resigned, indicted for accepting bribes, illegal contributions, money laundering, illegal dispersal of USDA subsidies, .... Tyson Foods was the largest corporate offender.

But what Bill did for Monsanto "genetic engineering" goes beyond inadequate concepts of giving corporate friends influence: He unleashed genetic engineering into the world. And then he helped close off people's escape from it.

Genetic engineering is many orders of magnitude different from "normal" (even polluting) business in its potential biologic ramifications. The warning myth of Pandora'a Box - letting irretrievable things rush out into nature - has become real. The narrowing change to the world from nuclear fission and fusion is the closest parallel.

What did Bill do?

1. Bill's put Monsanto people in at the FDA, as US Agricultural Trade Representatives, on International Biotechnology Consultive Forums, and more ... (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/072600-03.htm or http://www.monitor.net/monitor/9904b/monsantofda.html or http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Revolving-Door.htm.

2. Bill's FDA gave Monsanto permission to market rBGH (a GE bovine growth hormone), the first genetically engineered product let loose on us (or did tomatoes with fish DNA get there first?).

3. Despite reports of bovine illness and death, Bill's FDA did not recall it or put warnings on it. Even "a very angry, very vocal nationwide consumer base" had no impact. "

4. Bill's FDA wouldn't even label rBGH as "present" in milk.

5. When dairy farmers tried to label their own milk rBGH-free so the public could choose, Bill's USDA threatened all dairies that their products could be confiscated from stores. Michael Taylor, USFDA Deputy Commissioner, was formerly Monsanto's counsel.

6. How were consumers to protect their family, given Bill's FDA enforced public blindness, except to buy only organic? But Bill's FDA tried to close off that last escape, proposing to include in "organic" standards, "the dirty three" a : genetic engineering of plants and animals, use of irradiation in food processing and use of municipal sewage sludge as a fertilizer. The FDA backed down. Had this gone through, Monsanto could have finally labeled rBGH milk ... as "organic." And animal waste from factory farms, a pollution nightmare for Tyson and others, could have been sold as fertilizer.

USDA head Dan Glickman: "This is probably the largest public response to an [Agriculture Department] rule in modern history." In fact the response was 20 times greater than anything ever before proposed by the USDA.

Personally, I resent years of effort to protect my children and now grandchildren, from that crap.

Politically, Bill sided against small farmers and against the public's right to know, and with Monsanto.

A snap shot of our food:
Oils: Sheep died in India after feeding on Bt cotton fields.

We feed our children Bt cotton, as cottonseed oil in peanut butter and cookies.

Grains: 49% of US corn acreage was planted in Bt corn in 2007. A French study proved Monsanto's GMO corn causes kidney and liver toxicity.

Soft drinks and candy have highly concentrated Bt corn, in the form of high fructose Bt corn syrup. The US food system depends most on two crops, soy (90% GMO, 90% of traits owned by Monsanto) and corn, the largest crop (60% GMO, nearly 100% Monsanto traits). "[E]ssentially our entire food supply is genetically modified, to the benefit of one company." The Grocery Manufacturers of America in 2000 estimated that 70 percent of US food contains GM traits.

Meat: Steroids bulk up atheletes. Monsanto steroids bulk up animals - more weight, more profit. We feed our children steroids in meats. Is this why our children are fattening, like Hansel and Gretel?

Poultry: Bill's USDA weakened chicken waste and contamination standards and attempted to allow sewage sludge as fertilize crops. I will say more about disease from industrialized poultry farms waste, at the end of this letter.

Milk: Over 30 scientific publications have shown increased levels of IGF-1 in milk with rBGH increases risks of breast cancer by up to seven-fold, also increasing colon and prostate cancers risks. Canada, 29 European nations, Norway, Switzerland, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa ban U.S. rBGH dairy products. Bill's USFDA put no restrictions, no warning labels (not allowing labels at all). American children eat that food and drink that milk, Hillary. Coincidentally, American children are increasingly fat and sick.

Here, Bill ignored pleas for labeling. Abroad, Bill ignored intense international objections over the same issue - unlabeled US food exports - badly straining trading relations. Monsanto's "good ole boy," he betrayed American families at the deepest levels conceivable - their family's health and their democratic right to know. He betrayed our rural life and American family farmers - backing corporation deceit and control, over honesty and clean farming.

But, Hillary, it is one thing to not label a regular ole food product to sell it, and quite another to sell a suspected-dangerous food product (rBGH), but Bill's administration didn't label (or stop) a well-known, terrifying threat - Mad Cow Disease.

Bill's FDA's August, 1997 regulation permitted "known TSE-positive [Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy] material to be used in pet food, pig, chicken and fish feed," only requiring the label to read "Do not feed to cattle and other ruminants" in the US.

Monsanto added to the problem. "There is evidence that rbST use [Monsanto's GE bovine growth hormone] reduces the useful lifespan of a dairy cow. ... Given that the incubation period for BSE is at least three to five years and perhaps longer, rbST-treated cows could harbor "hidden" BSE. That is, they might be infected but still asymptomatic when sent to slaughter." http://www.consumer.

Bill let TSE into our entire food chain. And who owned the feed and slaughter and genetic engineering corporations which benefitted?

Please, tell me, Hillary, what he could possibly have gotten in friendship or favors, that could ever justify his exposing millions of people to this?

With genetic engineering itself, Bill did something to the whole world, which tried to object. Words are inadequate to express how astoundingly immoral, beyond human bounds and conceit and power, that was.

"Even for the biggest "winners," it is like winning at poker on the Titanic." Jerry Mander: Facing the Rising Tide

He had no right.

Do you hear that?

Bill had sex from Monica Lewinsky. That's "dinky immoral." That's chicken feed immoral - excuse the Tyson pun, excuse the TSE-laced pun. Bill let genetic engineering lose on NATURE itself.

"Our way of life is likely to be more fundamentally transformed in the next several decades than in the previous one thousand years...Tens of thousands of novel transgenic bacteria, viruses, plants and animals could be released into the Earth's ecosystems...Some of those releases, however, could wreak havoc with the planet's biospheres." Jeremy Rifkin, Biotech Century

Bill did this to us, like it was some nothing and he, some big dumb ass Southern boy, just smiling and getting in good with the Big Boys, thinking about as much about the consequences of something this immense and about us human beings out here, as he thought about you, when he was unfaithful with Monica. Just one big fool getting off on the power and used to getting away with things.

Terminator genes, developed by DP&L, a Rose Firm client, prevent seeds from "working" after only one season. Farmers "must" repurchase (patents and suing not certain enough control, it seems). Those "killing" genes pose the apocalyptic risk of breaking out into nature. Natural seeds could fail, too. Nature could fail.

Far-fetched?

GMO fields are already contaminating normal species Berkeley Professor of Microbiology, Ignacio Chapela, wrote an open letter, warning the Mexican government about just this breaking out phenomenon happening in maize

And it has already happened with weeds - pesticide resistant GMO seeds break lose and weeds become pesticide-resistant Superweeds.

But Bill's USDA spokesman, Willard Phelps saidthe USDA wanted the technology to be `widely licensed and made expeditiously available to many seed companies.'

"Genetic Engineering is often justified as a human technology, one that feeds more people with better food. Nothing could be further from the truth. With very few exceptions, the whole point of genetic engineering is to increase sales of chemicals and bio-engineered products to dependent farmers." David Ehrenfield: Professor of Biology, Rutgers University

Hillary, one third of the world's bee colonies have collapsed. Gone. Farmers in India are killing themselves. Farmers and bees. Since organic farmers in India are fine and organic farmers report no colony collapse, what does these farming catastrophes say about "industrial agriculture"?

Mad Cow Disease is another direct result of industrial agriculture. And now ....... transnational poultry factories are implicated as the source of bird flu. ... Small scale poultry farms and wild birds seem not to be the problem [just as small farmers are not the issue in Mad Cow Disease], and yet "initiatives are multiplying to ban outdoor poultry, squeeze out small producers and restock farms with genetically modified chickens. ... http://www.ens-newswire.com/ "Of the few outbreaks that did occur in [Laos], more than 90% broke out in commercial poultry operations, not free-ranging flocks."

Monsanto (and others) is currently working with the USDAto force small farmers to tag every animal with a global tracking device (NAIS - National Animal Identification System). Allegedly related to food safety, Monsanto and others would be creating a vast corporate digital library on every move of small farmers's livestock.

But small farmers do not create the contaminated environments, do not supply the feed, do not grind up diseased animals into feed (how Mad Cow began) and then sell it. In fact, their farming methods, free range and small scale, are significantly healthier and safer for animals and food than the massive concentration of animals by corporate industrial agriculture.

Monsanto is also aggressively pushing for state laws to limit farmers' right to choose what to plant and the public's right exclude GE plants from their communities.

Cattle bloated by steroids, lapse and loss of 10,000 year old normal seeds, immense pollution from factory farms, deadly-disease-ridden feed, world-wide bee colony collapse, poisoned soil and depleted water supplies, Superweeds, lawsuits against farmers, loss of family farms, and ... India farmers killing themselves in what may be the largest mass suicide in recorded human history (on average ... one farmers' suicide every 30 minutes since 2002 - The Hindu 1.30.08) - that is industrial agriculture.

Monsanto and Tyson are two of the largest industrial agricultural corporations in the world. Industrial agriculture is represented by your Rose Law Firm.

Your claim to care about food safety is terrifying double-speak given what Bill did and who you take donations from. Your idea of a Department of Food Safety would centralize control of food - in whose corporate connected hands? You talk tough about labeling food - ah, but "foreign" food - a sleight of hand tricking a public desperate for safe US food. You talk about food safety but Bill degraded food in every imaginable way and prevented minimally sane labeling.

I am a person before I am a woman. Your gender means nothing. It is a media distraction. Your policies on health and food and women and children, are meaningless in the face of connections that have threatened those groups profoundly, connections you have never denounced.

Monsanto uses child labor in India, primarily very young girls, exposing them to a lethal pesticide 13-14 hours a day, for pennies in pay. But you take donations from their lobbyists. You say you care about black people but as the poorest people in this country, they are least able to buy organic and are forced to eat the contaminated foods Bill let into our food system. The National Black Farmers Association has a boycott out on all Monsanto products.

Do you eat organic?

So, who are you with, hapless black consumers and black farmers, or Monsanto? Mothers left to give their children rBGH milk, or Monsanto? Women exposed to 7 times greater risk of breast cancer, or Monsanto? Desperate farmers in India and young children forced into child labor in cottonseed factories there, or Monsanto? Animals suffering from lives in filthy cages and disgusting feedlots, shot up with steroids and hormones and antibiotics, or Monsanto? Our children who eat candy with high fructose Bt corn syrup associated with kidney and liver toxicity, or Monsanto?

Edwards was right about your corporate connections. I just didn't understand until I saw that PBS show and read about Monsanto, how personally affected my children and grandchildren, and all people around the world, have been.

I will not vote for you. I will vote for someone who will commit themselves to work on behalf of small farmers and real food and decent treatment of animals and to end this industrialized agricultural nightmare that is taking us off a cliff.

Linn Cohen-Cole
Atlanta

Disclaimer. I am not a scientist. I have read for months on this subject, and am including only a tiny portion of the horrifying things I have learned. I am expressing my opinion as person and may be wrong. Perhaps things are swell out there and rBGH is fabulous and TSE-laced feed is great, and genetic engineering is the best thing since manna. But I am scared for my family and I have not only a right to say so but an obligation to do so. I am angry that Monsanto was allowed the influence it had and has done the things it definitely seems to have. I am disgusted by industrialization of every tender and beautiful part of our world and hope, for all our children's sake, we are not too late to pull back. The letter is reposted from Speaking Truth to Power.

Putting a blank line between paragraphs when I edit doesn't always put a blank line between paragraphs in the final result.  Example:http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/02/on-not-being-a-democrat-but-su.php

Any ideas?  Does it work in the expected fashion in some browsers but not others?  This paragraph has one blank line after the one before it.

This one has two blank lines after the previous paragraph.<p>This one uses the "P" tag and has no blank line before it.
<p>One blank line, plus the "P" tag.
This ends today's experimentation with the blog entry interface.   

You sometimes read articles or comments here and on other left-leaning blogs to the effect that "of course in the end I'd be happy to support either candidate."  Or admonishments that everyone reading should "of course" be committed to making sure a Democrat is elected, whichever of the candidates you may support.
But I'm not a Democrat.  I'm not a Republican either.  I voted against George Bush twice, neither time very enthusiastic about the alternative but completely clear on the fact that they would have been far better than Bush.  
Hillary might get my vote that way, if she's nominated.  But McCain is unpredictable, and Hillary is unpredictable, especially in the area of foreign policy, and so this outcome isn't the only one possible.  Both scare me.  With Hillary it the vote for the AUMF but more importantly the explanations and rationalizations afterward.  It's the vote for Kyl-Lieberman but more importantly the explanations and rationalizations that eerily mirror her explanations for the AUMF. It's taking a pro-torture stance to the right of McCain (although I think they've both flip-flopped since then).  It's talking about how the Surge is "working," which requires adopting Bush's definition-du-jour of what it means for the surge to be "working."   I've heard Hillary supporters try to rationalize these things in various ways, but the obvious conclusion is the simple one:  deep down, she's a hawk.
She'd be better than McCain on domestic issues.  At least in words.  But just try to get a Hillary supporter to point out any evidence that she learned any lessons at all (tough to do with a candidate who won't admit even trivial mistakes) from the first time she destroyed the best hopes of health care reform.  Or try to get a straight answer about how it counts as "coverage" to simply declare that everyone will be forced to pay for insurance under threat of having their wages garnisheed if they don't.   
So.  Would I vote for Hillary?   Probably.  Probably at the last minute I'd look at McCain and hold my nose and vote for Hillary.  But on the other hand if McCain is likely to be a one-termer, I'm not sure that four years of McCain might do less damage than eight years of Hillary.  
At least with McCain the bad impulses would be partially in check with Congress dominated by the opposing party.  And McCain has enough bad blood with the wingnut branch of the Republican party that there's a good chance he'd poke a thumb in their eye often enough to keep things interesting.  
That's my reasoning at this point, speaking as someone who wouldn't just let the "D" in front of a name determine my vote.  Hillary might get my vote, but it would be a last minute decision, and anyone in the vicinity of the voting booth will hear a deep sigh of resignation when I do it.  If it comes to that.
On the other hand, I'd support Obama with enthusiasm, contribute to the campaign, etc.   It would be the first time in a long time that I'd go into the voting booth to vote FOR someone I'd genuinely like to see become president rather than AGAINST someone I think would be dreadful, with a clothespin on my nose to let me fill in the little oval with my number two pencil without retching.
And the thing is, I doubt I'm the only moderate/independent who feels this way.  In fact I know I'm not.  

Democrats TX Clinton 42% Obama 48% Someone else 3% Undecided 7%
http://americanresearchgroup.com/

Poll was taken AFTER last weekend's results.

Picked this up on Pitchfork...of little importance...

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/page/news/48722-john-mccains-daughter-music-blogger

This is worth linking to. I'm not a finance guy, and it took me several business articles to figure out what happened to the "big shitpile".
The same blog also noted that the government has shut off access to the economic indicators citing "budgetary constraints."  
Hold on to your hats, folks.

Below is my email to DNC. The issue of whether or not to seat the delegates of MI and FL may end up being crucial in the race for a Democratic nominee.

--------------------------------------------
My question is, how can the DNC even CONSIDER seating delegates from two UNCONTESTED states such as MI and FL? Do you understand how corrupt that sounds to the majority of DEMOCRATS? Not only should you remove this notion completely from the table. But you should go further by coming out publicly with the FACT that Hillary Clinton's camp AGREED to the terms that these Delegates would NOT count -- due to the fact that their primaries were illegally pushed up in defiance of DNC regulations. Those states themselves must shoulder the burden of disenfranchising their  populace. Not the DNC, or Barack Obama. They made a decision, for short term glory, that cost them their populace’s vote. It’s that simple.

If you make the wrong decision here, you will be recognized on par with the woefully corrupt Republicans, who manipulated the 2000 election in Florida . Please consider very carefully how MILLIONS of Democrats will perceive you if you cave in to this strong arm tactic from the Hillary Clinton Camp. You are here to serve the American people in fairness. All camps agreed that those Delegates from MI and FL would NOT count. Do not backtrack and play politics. Take a position and explain to the American people that Hillary Clinton agreed to these terms, and you have no intention of rewarding her for strong arm tactics.

Justice must be the standard. Justice must be the measure in the Democratic party.

Does the Democratic party stand for justice?

------------------------------

email them yourself: http://www.democrats.org/page/s/contactissues

A friend of mine, who can actually stand to watch the nightly MSNBC/CNN shows, emailed me something overnight which I hope will help settle people up on this Democratic race.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
It is also the day after Valentine's Day, and the day after Josh's 39th birthday. It is also the day after a new Declaration of Independence came from U.S. House Democrats.

Do you suppose this old ship of state can sail a new course? The key seems to be to call the bully's bluff. Do you remember how kids did that on the Junior High School playground? Our current president (OCP), has the level of development of an adolescent, so that must account for his decision to go ahead and go on his African trip. It clearly leaves us "unprotected from Those Who Want To Kill Us," as Glenn Greenwald puts it at his Salon.com blog post today. To quote:

When Democrats actually engage the debate and make their case unapologetically and with some passion, as they remarkably did yesterday, then journalists can and -- at least to some extent -- will convey the message. It's when they run away and hide and act defensively that their message does not get across. One can only hope, even while harboring substantial doubt, that having a taste of this success will drive them to crave more. Our country really can't afford to be bullied any longer by Ted Poe's fantasy jihadi parties and George W. Bush's "you're-all-going-to-die-unless- I-get-everything-I-want" threats.

The Age of Fear, as I characterize it, may be coming to an end. That does not mean that jihadi extremists are going away, or that we need not be appropriately on guard against attack. But we need not be afraid of the bullying tactics of Adolescent-OCP any more. He cannot back up his bluff as long as the Constitution prevails.

Carol Gee

Point to November

Here are some of the key articles I've found helpful in understanding the candidacy of Barack Obama, listed somewhat in order of importance (to me, at least). I'm still on the lookout for articles arguing for Clinton's candidacy, although at this point I doubt we'll see anything new.  But it would be quite revealing if, in fact, such arguments were never put forth.  The raison d'etre for the candidacy of Obama, as underdog, required explanation, but not so for the "inevitable" candidacy of Clinton based on her vast "experience." (This singular point is somewhat similar to Dick Morris's recent article on why Clinton will lose: http://thehill.com/dick-morris/why-hillary-will-lose-2008-02-12.html)

Anyway, these pieces are all good in different ways.  The Lakoff piece analyzes the political discourse of the candidates, and helps explain why Obama's discourse resonates while Hillary's does not. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/what-counts-as-an-issue_b_84177.html

Cass Sunstein's piece provides a "theory" of Obama-ism.
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=8200e5c2-a250-4532-b318-6182083b698e

Also this transcript of a talk by Lawrence Lessig, as to why he supports Obama:

http://blog.printf.net/articles/2008/02/05/transcript-of-lawrence-lessig-obama-video

In a similar vein, the article by Chris Hayes and the editorial supporting Obama's candidacy from the Nation make the argument for progressives:

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20080218&s=hayes

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20080225&s=editors

THere are a couple of good blog posts on Obama's wonkiness at Obsidian Wings by hilzoy (a philosophy professor somewhere) to be useful in understanding his legislative record:

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2006/10/barack_obama.html

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/02/obama-actually.html

And then there's this blog post that quotes from a couple of recent articles on the Solis Doyle shake-up in Hillary's campaign, with a quick look back at her role in health care reform:

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/02/ready-to-lead.html

I suppose the issues raised in this above post are important because running a campaign is probably the biggest thing Hillary's ever managed (same for Obama, which he mentioned in his local television interview on Monday as one of the things he's "run" besides his Senate office), unless you go back to the bungling of health care reform in the early 1990s (see Ezra Klein on that as well, although he doesn't mention her once! http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_lessons_of_94)

Which is why another excellent article by Ezra Klein, "The Democrat's Choice: Manager or Visionary," makes me also wonder whether Hillary could even be a good manager:

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_democrats_choice_manager_or_visionary

Re" But good spin is clever and forward-leaning pitches of actual realities, facts. The word in the sense we use it today actually came into being in the early 90s and to a great degree around the '92 Clinton campaign, which had such mastery in its practice."

Came into being in the early 90s? Come on Josh. Doesn't anyone remember Michael Deaver and Reagan's teflon presidency?

It's just a smile of approval on a reader's comment in today's Washington Post campaign diary by Anne E. Kornblut about John Lewis's bailing out on the Clintons.  
Left considering the familiar cliffhanger that the Democratic Party insiders, superdelegates, may end up deciding who the candidate is -meaning that it still may go to Hillary despite her getting less pledged delegates, WashPost reader "thebobbob" said, "...Let's Stop the Drama, Vote Obama!"  I thought it was rather catchy, because like a 70's elevator music, it's been running through my head since I read it.
"Patton said, "Americans will not tolerate a loser". Obama is a winner..8 in a row. Hilary, this isn't about you, this is about whats best for America and the Democratic Party. With Bill as an ex-prez, you as a powerful Senator and Obama as president, just think of the positive changes you could make. Let's Stop the Drama, Vote Obama!! Posted by: thebobbob | February 15, 2008 12:33 AM"

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/02/14/clinton_supporter_john_lewis_h.html?hpid=topnews

by Eric Baerren/North Star Writers Group

Asked on Fox News whether the economy is headed toward a recession, former George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove gave an answer stock in trade for the administration he once served – it’s someone else’s fault.

 

In this case, it’s the media’s fault for coloring people’s perceptions, he said.

 

Anyone wondering how Rove wound up with a prime writing gig covering the election with Newsweek?

 

The evidence that the national economy is headed for a recession, potentially for the long term, is mounting. Practically no one with an honest eye on things believes it will get better any time soon or that it won’t get worse.

Read more here: http://www.northstarwriters.com/eb035.htm

Bobo's lastest dispatch from the Department of Making Shit Up is what this post is about.

(For a measure of how the Times' Op-Ed quality varies, Krugman today is back at the top of his game.)

The opening flourish:

In the 19th century, industrialization swept the world. Many European nations expanded their welfare states but kept their education systems exclusive. The U.S. tried the opposite approach. American leaders expanded education and created the highest quality work force on the planet.

This is incorrect. Or it means that the US adopted parts of the Communist manifesto before Western Europe did.

Anyways, for the sake of argument let's define the welfare state as having three key components - unemployment benefits, universal healthcare, and retirement security.

European welfare states developed in the 20th century, only Germany began to introduce welfare state programmes in the late 19th century under Bismarck ( and curiously they did so to draw a contrast with a "warfare state"). Take Britain for example - Lloyd George's early 20th century government was the first to implement welfare state programmes there.

Universal healthcare is a 20th century phenomenon - in Britain, the Attlee government introduced this in 1946.

Anyways, the point is Bobo's opening flourish on the birth of the welfare state is complete shit.

He is wrong on education too. Britain's state education system evolved in the 19th century (1833 and 1870 were the watershed years in England). As I indicated, you can make a case that Marx was driver for these changes - given one of the 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto was free education for all children at the expense of the state - but the key point is Europe was beginning to invest in education right at the time Bobo tells you they weren't.

Anyways, based on his wildly inaccurate opening flourish, Bobo makes his next grand statement:

That quality work force was the single biggest reason the U.S. emerged as the economic superpower of the 20th century. Generation after generation, American workers were better educated, more industrious and more innovative than the ones that came before.

"Single biggest reason"... Er, right. How's about it's the single best explanation you can find to fit your bullshit argument?

"better educated, more industrious and more innovative"... Better educated - perhaps. More industrious - who knows (if he means more productive, he'd be correct but he should say so). More innovative - no. If the last point were correct, we would see the rate of change of productivity increasing over time. It has not and does not. In reality, it's the nearest thing to a random walk.

"That progress stopped about 30 years ago." What? St Ronald applied the brakes? Jokes aside, Bobo's trends are a figment of his imagination so deciding where they end are just as much of a game of make-believe.

"As well-educated boomers retire over the next decades, the quality of the American work force is likely to decline."

Why? Who said anything about regression in overall worker productivity? Progress in education (assuming that correlates with increasing productivity which it doesn't) according to Bobo has stagnated, but unless it has reversed, Bobo is arguing against his own diagnosis.

"Mitt Romney captured the consequences in his withdrawal statement: “I am convinced that unless America changes course, we will become the France of the 21st century".

Not much wrong with the French education system. There's plenty to criticize about the French economy, but the education system remains excellent. To recap then: Bobo has argued progress in American education has stagnated, therefore the quality in the workforce has declined, thus we could turn out like France (whose workforce is highly educated).

We're not yet half-way through.

But bless him, he is now providing free campaign advice for Republicans...

- Where economic and social policy advocacy seamlessly form quadruple mixed metaphors, such as "a poisonous spiral of economic stress and cultural decay."

- Where classic Republican patrio gobbledy-gook follows on from more phantom diagnostics - "college affordability [is the] least important explanation for why so many students don’t complete college. The real reasons are that students are academically unprepared and emotionally disengaged. National service should be a rite of passage for 20-somethings, and these volunteers could mentor students through high school and college years."

- Where new social programmes are great ideas except paying for them is a non-starter. And the Laffer curve still rules the world - "portable health insurance and retraining accounts would give adult workers security. Income taxes are not going to be coming down, but they need to stay where they are. As Edward Prescott has shown, higher taxes mean less work, and less work means less worker development."

And the reason for the all round awesomeness of Bobo's ideas - "Republicans do believe, or at least should, that positive government can help prepare people for the rigors of competition".

Well then, I guess when St Ronald said - " The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'" - he was obviously just full of shit. Perhaps this explains why Bobo honors him weekly in the way he does.

It's fairly clear to just about everyone that Barack Obama is now in the lead, if only by a slim margin. The thing is, with the allotment of delegates being proportional, that slim margin will be especially difficult for Hillary to overcome. This is also fairly clear to many of us.

So, in the coming days, weeks and maybe even months, Obama absolutely must be careful; he and his campaign must not fall into a habit of being the frontrunner. They cannot get lazy now, sure of their position and the likelihood that Hillary will be unable to retake the delegate lead before the convention (where there will be serious hell to pay if the superdelegates defy the will of the people and nominate Hillary... I hope, at least)

In short, Obama and (especially) his campaign cannot slip up. They cannot afford anything that would potentially cause them to lose votes due to sloppiness resulting from the excitement of being ahead. The campaign has all but solidified Obama's place as the nominee, provided they can continue doing what they have been doing: running a silky smooth campaign perhaps completely free of trip-ups and "gaffes". The campaign is already racking up big-time support, and I wager it will continue on in this fashion, again, provided they don't take their eye off the ball, already convinced they're going to hit a homerun (I love sports analogies, they just work in so many arenas of life).

They almost cannot afford a single solitary mistake, because Hillary, while she may be that out-dated politician who will win at all costs, is especially dangerous to Obama precisely because of that: she will exploit any and all openings in the seams of Obama's performance and rent him asunder at the first sign of a major error.

Obama has the media, he has the majority (albeit slim) of the nation (thus far) behind him, he has the polls behind him in the theoretical match-ups with McCain and he is beginning to receive exactly the support he needs to give him that extra push to the nomination. So the only thing he really needs to do at this point is not mess things up.

...but why not speculate.  How does an Obama-Richardson ticket sound to you?  Richardson brings international experience, governing experience, from the southwest, and he's hispanic.  What's not to like?

<a href="http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?bid=45&pid=285141">Jim Hightower Endorses Obama</a>

Regarding the John Lewis switch -- this is my big concern about Obama.  He is a new face and his ability to stir a crowd is riveting. But he reminds of how we all flocked to Jimmy Carter for a change -- a breath of fresh air. We all loved Jimmy Carter, but he couldn't lead the country.  I loved his sister, Ruth Carter Stapleton.  But he couldn't lead the country.  What if Obama is the star in a movie in which the golden candidate is elected; his team celebrates; and he says, "Now what?"
www.decisionmakingtips.com AKA  www.ritawatson.com

When this contest started Hillary Clinton could lay claim that she would be the toughest opponent for the Republicans in the fall. That is no longer the case. Barack Obama is now the Democrats toughest contender. The case for Hillary was always that she had the best team, the best organization and the best strategist.

It's hard to keep that claim credible when your opponent has beaten you at every turn. Obama has taken Hillary best shots and gotten stronger. One of Hillary's major arguments is that she has been vetted by tough campaigns. Well, the campaign that Hillary has run against Obama has served to vet him.

The headliner wrote this: Putin will be long-serving, powerful premier. Whether a Yahoo! headline editor/writer or one working for Reuters wrote the above headline I do not know.

What I do know is that the first sentence in the piece says that Vladimir Putin "said" that he "intended" to be a "powerful and long-serving premier."

The headline asserts what Putin predicts about himself. Who needs Reuters or Yahoo!? Just read RIA Novosti or Pravda about Russian affairs. You'll get a similar result to the above Jedi mind-tricked headline.

WCBS TV reported on Mayor Bloomberg's news conference regarding the sad state of the US Government's financials.  He actually praises Barack Obama's plan for a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank (Couldn't they come up with a better name?) but notes this is what he has been proposing all along.   I wonder, has he praised any other candidates plans? 
Either way, its interesting that one of the arguments against Barack Obama is that he has no specific plans and proposals to help our nation.  Yet here is Mayor Bloomberg supporting one of his specific solutions.  Also note, he is endorsed by Paul Volcker, former Fed Reserve Chairman. 
Does this mean Obama's plan is perfect?  No candidate has a perfect plan.  Is it the best out there?  Maybe.  Is it well recieved by some of the better financial minds out there?  Yes.
Click the link to read the full article:
http://wcbstv.com/campaign08/bloomberg.federal.government.2.654315.html

In his answer, he praised Democrat Barack Obama for the plan the Illinois senator outlined on Wednesday that would create a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to rebuild highways, bridges, airports and other public projects. Obama projects it could generate nearly 2 million jobs. 

"I don't know whether Senator Obama looked to see what I've been advocating, or not -- you'll have to ask him -- but he's doing the right thing," Bloomberg said. 

Summary:  Public discussion on torturing captives who are suspected "terrorists" has gone off the rails.  Torture is always illegal under (1) international law; (2) treaties to which the U.S. is a full party; (3) the U.S. Constitution; and U.S. statutes.

The Bush-Cheney argument that torture is legal as long as you don't admit you are using torture has created total confusion in public debates.  The argument that torture is ever legal is frivolous.  But the "ticking time bomb" hypothetical - extreme and virtually non-existent though it is - is not frivolous.

Most adults can think of situations where violating a criminal law (not a traffic law) may be justifiable because of some value that the adult places above the command of the criminal law.  Public debate would be more clear if we addressed the "ticking time bomb" hypothetical from this perspective. 

Laws against torture are fundamental to maintaining the human dignity both of the captive and the questioner.  But are there circumstances when some value higher than the command of the law against torture justifies breaking that law?  This is the framework that we should all start using in evaluating the "ticking time bomb"/Jack Bauer hypotheticals.

Apologists for Torture

Justice Antonin Scalia disgraced his office again this week by suggesting in an on-the-record interview that torturing a captive "for intelligence purposes" might be on a different legal footing from torturing a suspected criminal to obtain a confession.

At least Scalia clearly stated that it is unconstitutional even to rough up a person suspected of a crime; he said police are not allowed to slap a suspect around, much less use torture to coerce a statement from him. But Scalia also clearly stated that "more flexible" standards might apply to methods allowed in questioning a "terrorist" who knows critical facts about a location that the questioner needs to find out in order to save innocent lives.  Scalia used the nuclear bomb example, I think.  Alan Derschowitz has used the example of locating Israeli soldiers or other Israelis held hostage by a terrorist organization before the terrorists execute the hostages, or locating a suicide bomber to prevent the bomber from detonating his/her bomb.   "24" and TV crime programs have used over and over ad nauseum the plot device of the helpless captive who will be killed by the sexual deviate /kidnapper unless the investigators figure out where the victim is being held hostage. 

Some of these emergency circumstances occur fairly often (kidnapping victims, for example), but it virtually never happens that a crime victim or hostage is in jeopardy at the same time that a knowledgeable source is in custody and refusing to disclose the facts critical  to saving the victim.

Effective Investigators Reject Torture

Prior to the Bush-Cheney administration, all authoritative policies on interviewing prisoners rejected torture.   The Army Field Manual rejected it.  FBI interrogation policies rejected torture and "coercive interrogation" or "extreme interrogation" techniques; FBI agents who observed the questioning of captives at Guantanamo Bay wrote numerous memos objecting to the extreme techniques the agents saw being used.

The most effective interview techniques involve treating the prisoner humanely (the word "humanely" here is shorthand for a comprehensive set of methods and actions that respect the dignity of the prisoner and persuade the prisoner to trust his captors).  Humane treatment prompts the prisoner to access his own feelings of humanity and empathy - both for the questioner and for any potential victims that the questioner may be trying to save.

Do humane techniques always work?  I have no first hand experience, but I doubt it.  The point is not whether a technique always works, but what techniques have the best track record for obtaining reliable facts.  Historically, torture and "extreme interrogation techniques" (if these are distinguishable) have been used effectively to obtain political confessions in the Soviet Union and its satellite states; to obtain confessions of religious heresy in the Inquisition; to compel prisoners to implicate other persons (whether the persons are known to the prisoner or not) in treason, heresy, terrorism, or whatever anti-social behavior the questioner is investigating.  As many observers have noted, a physically abused terrorist can relieve the abuse by giving a false location for a bomb, thereby suspending the abuse while the authorities are looking in the wrong place and the bomb is detonating.

When Breaking the Law May be Condoned

The only coherent framework for evaluating when torture might be the lesser of evils is the one I proposed above at the beginning of this post.  Torture is always against the law.   If there is any ambiguity about whether torture is legal in some exceptional circumstances, the exception will always swallow the rule, and torture and/or "extreme interrogation" will become commonplace, as these did at Abu Ghaireb.

In 1999 the Israeli Supreme Court decided whether existing Israeli law authorized an investigator to obtain prior authorization to use "extreme interrogation" techniques on prisoners alleged to be terrorists.  This was an issue much discussed by Alan Derschowitz of Harvard Law School.  The Israeli Supreme Court's unequivocal judgment was No!  In other words, the Israeli Supreme Court rejected the approach that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and their (il)legal advisers set up for certain extreme interrogation techniques to be used, but only after approval of each case by Rumsfeld and/or President Bush.  (See link below.)

If all torture is illegal, does that mean that the men who waterboarded Khalil Sheik Mohammed should be convicted of war crimes and sentenced to long terms in prison?  In the framework I have proposed, the answer is, "not necessarily."  I personally believe that they should be investigated for war crimes, but I don't think they should necessarily be prosecuted, or if prosecuted, necessarily convicted. 

In the real world, prosecutors often decline to prosecute cases for a variety of good reasons, even where intent to break the law and the breaking of the law are evident.  Grand juries often return a "no-bill" in circumstances where the purported victim had brought retribution on himself, even though the undisputed facts provide no adequate factual basis for a legal defense.  (For example, the battered wife who kills her abusive husband in a situation that is plainly not "self-defense" under the law, or the homeowner who rigs a shotgun to fire automatically if a wire is tripped by a burglar, after he has had several break-ins, or the father who unplugs the ventilator on his son who has been in a vegetative state for months and whose hospital bills are about to deprive the other family members of food and shelter.) 

The common sense assessment in such cases is that even though a law was clearly broken, society should not insist that the penalty be enforced against the law-breaker.

To decide in an extreme case that a law-breaker should not be punished, decision-makers have to weigh many factors.  In a case where an interrogator used torture, factors might include the values that motivate the questioner to use torture (e.g., saving lives in an emergency situation), whether legal means of achieving the desired result have been exhausted, considering the situation, and the probability that torture will actually help achieve the valued result (i.e., whether a reasonable person would think torture would actually work).

Among the class of cases where the person who used the illegal technique might not be punished is a category of cases where the illegal conduct can be justified under a traditional defense to a crime - the defense of "necessity."  The Israeli Supreme Court in 1999 acknowledged that the  defense of necessity might exonerate an interrogator who was prosecuted criminally for torture. 
http://www.derechos.org/human-rights/mena/doc/torture.html

Conclusion

Laws against torture must use what judges call "a bright-line rule," that is, rules that are not subject to any ambiguity.  The Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld team set up procedures that explicitly authorized interrogators to use what appear to include illegal interrogation techniques.  The attempt on paper to confine these extreme measures to exceptional cases fell apart at Guantanamo and Abu Ghaireb.

Justice Scalia has taken the first step on that slippery slope that Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld built when they tried to encourage interrogators to use extreme interrogation techniques whenever the questioner thought legal techniques were not bringing out all that the prisoner knew.

If an interrogator truly and reasonably believes that s/he is facing an emergency situation that can be safely resolved by getting a person in custody to talk in spite of the prisoner's resistance, then any experienced interrogator is going to know that the chance of a criminal prosecution being brought is miniscule.  If there is a true "ticking time bomb" situation, perhaps illegal interrogation should be condoned.  But to avoid the inevitable spread of the use of torture, torture and "coercive interrogation" must be illegal, so that interrogators will not resort to these illegal means of interrogation unless the facts truly fit one of the hypothetical "emergency situations."

The Bush administration has already undermined the moral authority of the United States in international affairs by encouraging interrogators to consider using abusive interrogation.   Unless he is brought up short, it looks as though Justice Scalia is ready to go down the same road to undermine the moral authority of the United States Supreme Court. 

Feh. I'm really tired of all this mean-spirited intra-party jousting in the comments and reader blogs. It's totally senseless and unfounded, on both sides. And it's not reflective of how the party feels - exit polls have consistently shown that most Dems would be happy with either Obama or Clinton. Yet somehow the anti-candidate flaming has become the predominant form of communication on virtually all Dem blogsites, and it makes me wince.

If I had a dime for every comment I've seen from Hillary supporters about how Obama voters are "drinking the Kool-Aid" or from Obama supporters about how Hillary voters are "just old and dumb" I'd be starting the Harrison and Melinda Gates Foundation. Could you please all dial it back a notch and take a look at both candidates for who they are?

Both candidates are neophyte Senators who are short on track record and long on vision. While those visions are notably different they're both substantial arguments for the nomination and both are immensely superior to anything the Republicans have to offer.

Supporters on either side are taking a risk by supporting their candidate; either one could end up being considerably less as a President than they've billed themselves up to be. Obama could end up hogtied by Republicans, who will surely try to take advantage of his attempts to sway moderates to vote for his programs. Hillary might be forced to fight filibuster after filibuster, fueled by unending Republican animus towards her, and end up with no meaningful accomplishments to show for it. Either one is a really dicey proposition if you're looking for a sure thing.

But either would stand a real chance of being the most profoundly important President of our lifetimes. Both have substantial ideas (yes, Obama does too) and substantial visions (yes, Clinton does too) and both have track records of substantial accomplishment (yes, Clinton accomplished things as a First Lady and a Senator, and Obama in Illinois as well as in Washington) and devotion to liberal ideals (no, Obama's centrist campaign rhetoric isn't reflective of his lifelong liberal record, and neither is Hillary's support of the Iraq War resolution).

Whether either will get to fulfill their potential as President will depend much less on which nominee wins and much more on uncontrollable factors - the economy, what happens in Iraq, the state of the Republican party post-election, etc. Under some circumstances Hillary would be a better President; under others, Barack would be a better bet. All we have are hunches about which platform and communicative style will have the best chance of prevailing in an utterly unknowable climate.

Hunches. Guesses. That's it. So chill the f*** out, please. The vast majority of people on both sides of this debate have very good reasons to support their candidate. Not one of you has a single good reason to dehumanize the other side. So let's listen to each other, respond sensibly, watch out for the inherent tendency to blog without regard for other people's feelings, and make an effort to have an honest debate.

As a longtime admirer of Rep. John Lewis and more recently of Barack Obama, this makes me extremely happy:

Representative John Lewis, an elder statesman from the civil rights era and one of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s most prominent black supporters, said Thursday night that he planned to cast his vote as a superdelegate for Senator Barack Obama in hopes of preventing a fight at the Democratic convention.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/us/politics/15clinton.html?hp

While pissing and pokin' at the new site may still be done, right now is not the time.
Neither is it time to conjecture about what mischief might be  done with superdelegates or credentialing.  The guantlet has been thrown down.

I'm referring to Olbermann's special comment.

A mere two years or so after I called BushCo a bunch of corporatizing fascists, Mr. Olbermann voiced it in a better language (which is why he gets the big bucks and I...well), one that finally should make sense to John and Jane Voter.

After a day when the House got their long awaited testicle drop and finally told Mr. Bush to put up or shut up, the silence is deafening.

So now is the time, Senator Edwards, to exercise your better angel.  Call Dr. Dean.  Ask him to help you persuade Senator Obama and Senator Clinton to really make a change to the system.  Get them in a room and convince them to join forces.  No Democratic cream-your-jeans Dream Team.  But the vision of change working with the one that loves to work the levers of government.  Present the voters with unification and start the race now.  McCain has signed on to the evil side of Amerika, the lesser angels.  Give the people of that endangered other half the reason to believe that we can find our way out of the second Dark Age.

I don't think the Democratic electorate is so selfish, self-absorbed or sick as to require the next round of bloodletting that will go on with our candidates if conventional wisdom is allowed to prevail. 

So I appeal to your better angel for leadership.  I know deep down that Americans are too good for that fate and would not choose it for themselves.  The only way that it will happen is if the notions of change and hope are abandoned, and we give up the right choice for the "security" of the status quo.

<B>Alphonse (Al) Kada</B>
<I>The Iranians are fighting the Americans in Baghdad so they won't have to fight them on the streets of Tehran</I>

First it was the war. Hundreds of thousands of Americans were protesting -- They were joined by MILLIONS around the globe. Conscious Americans by the hundreds were jamming congressional phones lines, IMPLORING their representatives NOT to authorize George Bush's impending Oil War. Yet Hillary Clinton went ahead and did just that. Months later, realizing that a mistake had been made, Hillary composed a narrative of how she had been "duped" by George Bush's White House.

Well friends, now she's back at it again, using the same old tactics indeed. This time over her approval of NAFTA. Read the quote below from the biography, "For The Love Of Politics", by Bedell Smith, as spotlighted by the Clinton Camp, as they attempt to spin another huge error in Hillary Clinton's judgment.

--------------------

"The economic team and other key advisers, including Mack McLarty, Mickey Kantor, and David Gergen, were likewise urging Bill to use his momentum to push congressional ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)...Liberal Democrats, including Hillary, opposed it primarily because it could take jobs away from American workers. But as an advocate of global economic cooperation, Bill was drawn to its free-trade philosophy.

It fell to Mickey Kantor, the U.S. Trade Representative responsible for implementing NAFTA, to reason with Hillary. One day in August, he sat her down on a bench behind the White House and tried to strike a compromise. "I said, 'If you want to drop NAFTA, we can kill it, but we shouldn't,'" Kantor recalled. "I said, 'The way to do it is to introduce health care, spend a month on it, and then do NAFTA, then go back to health care.'" With misgivings, Hillary acquiesced to the proposed sequence."

--------------------

With all of this ACQUIESCING on MAJOR polices like NAFTA (which resulted in America losing upward of 3 MILLION jobs) and her WAR VOTE (which resulted in a deadly, TRILLION dollar bloodbath which continues to drain our economy to this very second), what does Hillary Clinton really stand for? Where is her backbone. Where is her integrity? What are her principles? When she's "tested" on  major issues, far from being a stalwart, she CAVES. Can we really expect her to FIGHT for us, the American people. Her so-called  "EXPERIENCE" says otherwise.

I mean really.

I guess we'll have to start waterboarding Michael Mukasey in order to get a straight answer out of him. According to all of the "conservatives" we need to retain "Enhanced Interogation Techniques" in order to have the option of gleaning information from a detainee in extreme circumstances ... or the ticking time bomb scenario. This would seem to imply a level of urgency in extracting the information. According to Mr. Mukasey, however, the procedure for using water boarding and other forms of torture would require that those needing these technique must first aquire a judgement from him and the DOJ on whether these techniques are in fact legal and then they would pass this judgement on to the president for a decision on whether to use them in a given case. But he cannot determine now whether in fact water boarding specifically would be legal, since this inquiry has not in fact come before the DOJ during his tenure. So I guess we are in fact going to capture some Islamo Fascist with knowledge of a brief case nuke in NYC and we'll wait for the water boarding request to work it's way through the DOJ ... sounds like a fast process. If in fact the DOJ really wanted to be able to use this technique, they would have a judgement prepared in advance such that this decision could be made quickly. To watch Mukasey dance around this issue continually and have the media allow him to dissemble like this is ludicrous, and if every torture technique will need to pass through the DOJ for approval before use for a legal determination, and approval by the president, then maybe we don't really need them since the ticking time bomb will have gone off already if there ever really was one.

The discussion of Super Delegates is very important for two main reasons:

1) The delegate count in 2008 may be very close and even a small percentage of SD's going against the grain of the electorate and pledged delegates could throw the convention. The time to raise issue awareness and prevent that from happening, is now.

2) The principle at stake and the party mechanics SDs represent need to be discussed openly by an informed public, not merely decided behind closed doors by party insiders. Remember this is The People's party, running on our contributions and taxes, only made real by our efforts. The overall question is whether the public is aware of the SD issue to begin with, and whether they be allowed to throw conventions, on what basis, if any.

***

Regarding the upcoming large states, Hillary needs to lead in them not just by narrow margins, but by big margins, to offset Obama's current 119 pledged delegate lead, likely to increase further on the 19th.

Wisconsin (Feb 19th) has 92 delegates, with Obama polling ahead by about 4 points, for a gain of about 11 points since December. If Obama wins there by 5 points that's about a 5 delegate gain, which would bring him to +124 in elected delegates. Hawaii I'm not sure about, but assume he takes it in a landslide putting him maybe +130 elected pledged delegates.

TX is the largest upcoming state with 228 delegates, and a hybrid primary/caucus on March 4th. Hillary was polling a 10 point lead prior to the Potomac primaries, though it's been declining as Obama gains. However, only 126 of TX delegates are pledged in the primary vote, the remaining 102 are decided by the caucus and later at the convention. Meaning that even if Hillary can hold a 10 point lead, that translates into perhaps a +12 gain in the primary part, with Obama's more politcal and motivated supporters typically doing better in the caucus part. Even if she gains a 10 point lead in delegates overall, primary and caucus, that's about +23 gain for her.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8UPL8G80.html

Ohio has 161 delegates, where Hillary is currently ahead by about 17 points. If that holds, it could translate into a +27 delegate gain for her, which is probably a best case scenario. However, the 17 point spread is down from a 25 point spread in Early January, and a 20 point lead in early February.

Pennsylvania has 188 delegates, and Hillary has about a ~16 point lead in her best case, which would translate into a 30 delegate gain. But again, her lead has been falling rapidly, 10 points since early January.

***

So, if you take Hillary's best case scenario within a range of probable outcomes, she picks up maybe +80 delegates. Then Obama would still lead in elected delegates by about +50.

Which would keep the Super Delegates rather relevant as her lead with them is ~75 currently, with hundreds still not "leaning" either way, and holding out for what, only they know.

Going onwards in May,  Obama probably does better with the remaining states, which could overcome the SD lead Hillary might retain.

But again, it's going to be close. And the Super Delegates do matter quite a bit, especially those who have yet to pledge, and whether they follow the lead of the electorate or play establishment gate keeper. If they go with the pledged delegates, then Obama is the clear winner. If they try to throw it to Hillary, it could be very close.

***

Josh speculates they would break for Obama and put him over the top if he is leading in all polls, beating McCain, winning the elected delegates, and the popular vote. However, as they say, power is corrupting, and I think he's under estimating the potential for patronage against democratic principles and rational choices.

Granted, it could go either way. Which is why this issue should be taken seriously. If the SDs throw the nomination it'll be an outrage. Better to prevent that now than divide the party and fix it later, the hard way, through a long and painful reform process during one or two terms of McCain.

Every single voter, every delegate, and every state matters going forward. This may not be decided till May.

I'm a grad student studying Philosophy of Religion, and I had to write about the "cult" meme which is bouncing around lately.

This meme, started largely by Paul Krugman suggests that Obama's movement is a cult.  There may be a grain of truth to this, but its a gross distortion.  What Obama's huge crowds represent is not a cult, but a group of people engaging in the practice of cultus.

"Cult" in our current parlance, is used to refer to groups like the Branch Davidians, the Heaven's Gate folks, and Scientology, in which members are manipulated, controlled, and intimidated by an individual or small group of individuals.  Cultus by contrast, is a term used in the study of religion to denote those ritual practices in which a community comes together to establish a collective picture of the world, themselves, and their place in it.

What ritual practice achieves is not, as some would have, a blind submission to authority or adherence to rigid and inflexible dogma.  Rather, it is a collaborative process in which the community re-affirms the cultural values and ideals that they hold and the foundational narratives which help them to understand who they are as people.  More importantly, ritual praxis involves creatively adapting those ideals to new circumstances and re-telling the narratives in such a way that they remain relevant.  And perhaps most crucially, it is a process in which even apparently passive observers are crucial participants.

Ritualization is something all of us do in large and small ways, every day, whether we are religious or not, because it is the mechanism by which human beings inherently make sense of the world - It is a form of reason which functions differently to abstract rationality, but is no less adaptive and constructive.

Certainly, there are geniuses who have a unique talent for re-telling the American story in such a way that it can captivate and enthrall the nation.  JFK was one.  Regan, unfortunately, was another - and each is still practically deified within their party. These individuals often do aquire an almost religious following - because what they are doing is functioning as the high-priests of American Civic religion.  But there is nothing irrational about that.  People respond to them not merely because of their personality; rather, people voluntarily participate in the ritual and theater of the political process because they make the rational (if sometimes unconscious) judgment that the narrative which these leaders construct is uniquely fitting to the needs of the historical moment, and because it helps people to answer the fundamental existential question of who we are as a people, and what that means for how we conduct ourselves as a nation.

Presidents like that achieve with the bully pulpit what would be impossible for managers whose influence derives solely from having a steady hand on the levers of power in the bureaucracy.  They re-frame the national dialog and re-shape the electorate.

"Hope will not win the Civil War.  We need to mobilize factories to make guns.  We need to make efficient our food supply chain.  We need to show courage by providing more whiskey for every amputation that occurs on the battlefield.  Without these measures and specifics, we cannot win this war!" -My take on Hillary Clinton's Gettysburg Address<br/>
Compare that to the most brilliant opening line to any speech I've ever heard:
<br/>"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
One of Billary's (I mention both because Hillary is ridiculously using her husband as a deputy candidate) biggest talking points is how Obama is all rhetoric and oratorial skills.  She fully admits that she doesn't have that.  She doesn't apologize for it.  She, in fact, uses it to make her seem better because she doesn't lose sight of the specifics - those details that she believes makes the company run better.<br/>
But since when were the best Presidents micromanagers and not speakers?  Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Reagan - all great Presidents, all great orators.  In fact, I can't really think of any great President who wasn't a great speaker.  Even Bill was a great speaker.  

<br/>What would have happened in the Civil War if we got Hillary and not Lincoln.  Would we have gotten a policy ridden speech?  Would we got a talk about how to spin the loss of life there?  Would we get an attack on Jefferson Davis and Robert E Lee? 
<br/>What we got instead was one of the best speeches in American History and World History.  In a short, quickly composed moment of universally accepted genius, President Lincoln affirmed the purpose of the United States of America, honored the lives of those lost, defined patriotism in a time of death, and laid down a syllabus for which the nation was to follow.   
<br/>Some will say, Obama talks above their head.  Really?  Is that how bad our nation has become?  We don't want to acknowledge greatness?  Oration is partly an art.  It is a way with words that touches the emotional heart of our patriotism.  Art is insanely important in our society.  It inspires us.  Imagine pledging the Star Spangled Banner before every football game instead of singing it.  And yet, the Clintons want us to believe that the Art of Oration means nothing.  She tells us to ignore the heartstrings and to listen to her talking points.  Maybe I'm naive, maybe I'm a sucker.  But I still care about someone caputuring my imagination and passion - talking points don't do it.

<br/>In the end, Hillary Clinton's argument that speaking ability doesn't mean jack smacks of desperation and, more sadly, a complete lack of the understanding of speech, leadership and its influence on our nation's history.  Obama understands this and how inspiration can lead to a major shift in the psyche of our nation.  I'm a lifelong Democrat, but if Hillary wins, I'll not vote for her.  I can't support someone who willingly discounts inspiration and hope.  Because that is what this nation is founded upon.  It is hope that should displace fear in our national policy of patriotism.

There's been much bloviating in the blogosphere concerning a profile of Michelle Obama that ran in this morning's New York Times. The fuss has centered on the tone of the piece, perhaps best encapsulated in this passage:

Outspoken, strong-willed, funny, gutsy and sometimes sarcastic, Michelle Obama is playing a pivotal role in her husband’s campaign...

I'll confess that I was unimpressed by the critics. This is a genre piece. The Times is in the habit of running treacley profiles of public figures new to the national stage, and they regularly verge on the hagiographic. That tendency is, in this piece, perhaps exaggerated by the fact that there's not much controversy in Michelle's public life, no two sides ready to offer contrasting opinions. That, alas, will resolve itself as the campaign progresses. So I read the piece, shrugged, and went on with my life.

Then, this afternoon, I received an e-mail from a friend who had read the piece. Let me quote it at some length:

[A middle-aged woman in New York who shall remain anonymous] claims that she voted for Obama because, a few days before the primary she was flipping through the channels looking for campaign coverage and happened on Michelle Obama speaking. What got her was that Mrs. Obama was talking about the difficulty of paying back student loans, rearing children when you have to have a full-time job, and her worry that her children will never be able to afford to buy a house in this market. These are the things [our unnamed woman] worries about all the time, and it occurred to her that these two are the only ones in the race who have had to deal with the real pressures of being middle-class in America.

Now my first reaction was a derisive snort. Only in Manhattan can you listen to a woman who holds a $212,000 job as a hospital executive talk about her life, and find in her a fellow, struggling member of the middle class. But then it struck me that she was absolutely right. Alone among the major candidates, the Obamas remember what it is to struggle financially. Their security is a recent thing, an artifact of Barack's sudden celebrity (and specifically, his book sales). They remember vividly what it's like when your costs exceed your income; when loan payments are due each month; when you lie awake at night, worried that your children may not share the same blessings you've enjoyed. That's the world the rest of us live in, too.

So I went back to the article, and decided that I'd identified the wrong quote as the nut graf:

Mrs. Obama’s nickname inside the campaign is “the closer” because she is skilled at persuading undecided voters to sign pledge cards. But as a smooth orator, she is also known as a connector, volunteering her own life lessons from working-class roots and discussing her confrontation with a culture of low expectations. She has been transparent about more mundane things, too, like leaning on her mother for child care while she is on the road.

My first time through the piece, I read that with skepticism. Michelle Obama is the campaign's Closer? I thought. Isn't it Barack who's won the nation to his side through powerful oratory? Just what is it she's supposed to have figured out that he hasn't?

My second time through, I noticed the answer. What are presented here as two contrasting facets of Michelle's personality - her ability to sway undecided voters, and her willingness to connect with audiences by sharing her personal struggles - are, in fact, cause and effect.

Compare that with her husband's rhetoric. Barack's narrative is, if anything, more compelling than Michelle's; indeed, it's been the foundation of his candidacy. Yet when Barack talks about his personal history, he presents it as a direct instantiation of the American Dream. Every obstacle he's faced is transformed into another example of the possibilities of this great land, that one so disadvantaged could have come so far. This is moving. Indeed, it is inspirational. Uplifting. But somehow, to working Americans, it has remained largely unconvincing.

Even when he discusses the problems of America, he frames them in terms of moral uplift, and illustrates them with other people's lives. Barack talks about "families struggling paycheck to paycheck despite working as hard as they can," the need to "make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life," and his concern "that so many are in debt." Michelle talks about trying to care for her family when she needs to work, worrying that her daughters won't enjoy the same opportunities she has had, and taking years to pay off her student loans. And the campaign calls her The Closer.

There's something fundamental at play here. When working Americans say that Obama is long on promises and short on specifics, they don't mean that he hasn't posted enough essay-length policy proposals on his website. Let's face it: only TPM Cafe readers peruse those things, anyway. What they're saying is some version of: I find your speeches inspirational. I want to believe in the America that you describe, a land of opportunity in which all things are possible. But that vision keeps colliding with the hard realities of my own life. With the bills I can't pay, with the debt that keeps mounting, with the opportunities being foreclosed for my children. So prove to me that you understand that not all American Dreams come true, that you're familiar with the specific obstacles I face, and then maybe I'll trust you to try to make things better.

Michelle has found a way to answer that need, by inflecting her husband's uplifting vision with a hard-bitten sense of reality. The campaign needs to take advantage of her ability to connect with working Americans, particularly with women. It could start by airing a 30-second spot, in which she describes her struggles and concerns, and why she trusts her husband to make things better. It might also go beyond the boilerplate biography offered on the campaign website, and post clips of Michelle on the stump, transcripts of her speeches, and perhaps even blog entries. If they really believe she can convince undecided voters, and the evidence is suggestive, then they've got to do more to ensure that undecided voters hear her voice.

But perhaps more importantly, Michelle offers an answer to the riddle that has puzzled the campaign over the past month - how to break through to the working-class voters who have been most skeptical of its message. It's not enough for Barack to sound more wonkish on the stump, to lard his speeches with specific proposals. He must show voters, in the immortal words of another candidate, that he feels their pain. Barack must demonstrate that he understands that opportunities are always counterpoised with dangers and that the difference between success and failure is sometimes marked not by effort but by happenstance. He must do more than acknowledge this academically. He must speak movingly of his own struggles, not as parables of possibility, but as vivid illustrations of just how hard it is out there. That he, too, worries about his daughters' future. That he's struggled with paying his debts and his bills. That he wants to make this country better because he knows, firsthand, how flawed it can be. The peculiar genius of America is not that we always succeed, it is that in the face of failure we continue to aspire to better things.

Michelle, it seems, is capable of framing her argument in such personal terms, in a manner that inspires the trust and empathy of her audience. Hillary's struggles have been legion (although they are not economic), and she has been strongest as a candidate when she has dared to disclose her own vulnerability. If Barack learns to do the same, if he becomes capable of linking his empathy for those who are struggling to his own trials and travails, then perhaps he, too, can earn the sobriquet of "Closer."

If you've enjoyed this, please share it with other readers by clicking the 'recommend this' link. You can find more analysis on my blog. As always, I welcome comments and corrections. And thanks to all who have contributed to the remarkably civil (and occasionally humorous) conversations that have ensued.

When Hillary decided to run for President, she was ready to attack on day one. And she has a deft ability to inspire that mentality in every person that works for her. I believe she can do the same thing for every single American. In fact, she already has. Just talk to your friends. Your family. Your co-workers. Just read all these elongated comment sections. When Hillary takes a turn for the worse, so too does the nation. It's inescapable. I can't turn on the television without seeing a carnival of bile. I can't stand listening to the radio. (Well, I can't stand listening to the radio in general.) I'm afraid to open up a newspaper for fear of being punched in the face by an editorial. I can't open my mailbox for fear of another mailer. The whole internet is knee-deep in smear. How much longer will we be subjected to such torture? No. Not torture. Enhanced propaganda techniques. What happened to my right to privacy? I miss the days when it was only the administration that was denying me of that. Times like these call for a nice relaxing 2 hour massage. I'm back. My massage therapist insists that Obama has no experience.

Once again, Josh cuts through the noise to make an incisive point: the superdelegates are unlikely to decide the Democratic nomination.

The majority of the superdelegates have not yet committed.  Why?  Because they are politicians (or, similarly, political operatives) who made a risk-averse political calculation: they are waiting to see who becomes the inevitable nominee and then jump on the winner's bandwagon as it passes by.  They are uncommitted because they want to make a safe choice.  These folks are not about to take the politically incendiary step of nominating a candidate who got fewer votes and fewer pledged delegates.

Look at it this way: If you were a superdelegate who wanted Hillary to get the nomination, and were willing to vote for her even though another candidate won more pledged delegates . . . then wouldn't you have already endorsed Hillary?  If you felt that strongly about Hillary being the nominee, wouldn't you have already put your money where your heart was?  An early endorsement would at least give you the cover of consistency -- "Well, Obama did win more pledged delegates, but I've always supported Hillary, I gave her my promise, and I can't back out now."

The superdelegates who might be willing to buck the will of the people have already committed.  But there just aren't enough of those.  The rest -- the majority -- are waiting to back the people's choice. 

I've been hearing a lot of people in the media commenting about if the nomination is decided by super delegates, that it means that the primaries and caucuses were for nothing.  That it will disenfranchise half of the democratic party.

What a bunch of BS!

Let me please remind everyone that if it weren't for the primaries and caucuses, we wouldn't be having this discussion.  Hilary was the presumed nominee!  Nobody else was even going to come close!  But 6 other people stood up to our "all but nominated" candidate and said to the democratic voters of this country "Hold On A Second!".  The process that these people are now saying would be considered pointless because the super delegates could decide the nominee is the exact process that allowed John Edwards to bring healthcare and poverty to the forefront of the conversation.  It's the same process that allowed millions of people to see Barack Obama win Iowa.  This process is what gives people time to get to no the candidates and hear their positions and make a decision about who to support. 

If it was just up to the party officials, Hilary would have been the nominee a long time ago and we wouldn't be having this discussion at all.

First it was the war: Although hundreds of thousands of Americans were protesting at the time; MILLIONS around the world. And even though hundreds of phone calls were deluging her congressional phone lines IMPLORING her NOT to authorize George Bush's OIL War, Hillary Clinton went ahead and did it anyway. Then, months later, she'd indicate she was duped by George Bush's White House.

Well friends, she's back at it again, using the same tactic. This time it's over her approval of NAFTA. Read the quote below, from the biography, "For The Love Of Politics", written by Bedell Smith, as spotlighted by the Clinton Camp --  as they attempt  to justify another huge error in Hillary Clinton's judgment. 

--------------------
 
"The economic team and other key advisors, including Mack McLarty, Mickey Kantor, and David Gergen, were likewise urging Bill to use his momentum to push congressional ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)...Liberal Democrats, including Hillary, opposed it primarily because it could take jobs away from American workers. But as an advocate of global economic cooperation, Bill was drawn to its free-trade philosophy.

It fell to Mickey Kantor, the U.S. Trade Representative responsible for implementing NAFTA, to reason with Hillary. One day in August, he sat her down on a bench behind the White House and tried to strike a compromise. "I said, 'If you want to drop NAFTA, we can kill it, but we shouldn't,'" Kantor recalled. "I said, 'The way to do it is to introduce health care, spend a month on it, and then do NAFTA, then go back to health care.'" With misgivings, Hillary acquiesced to the proposed sequence."

--------------------
With all of this acquiescing on MAJOR polices like NAFTA (which resulted in America losing upwards of 3 MILLION jobs) and her WAR VOTE (which resulted in deadly TRILLION dollar bloodbath that drains our economy to this day), what does Hillary Clinton really stand for? Where is her integrity? What are her principles?

I mean really.

Hope mongering has been working much better than experience mongering.  Now, the rest of the story….

      Certainly you’ve heard the threat: make someone, “Eat their own words?” Unfortunately that’s exactly what happened to too many early Christians who were attempting to pass on, by word of mouth, what was to eventually become the bible. I’m sure more than a few were eaten: words and all… believers who might have had something to add to the story of Jesus; and to the bible. My guess? The orthodox were probably privately; sometimes not so privately, grateful what they had to say didn’t become part of the bible. But, if we accept the thesis of Bart Ehrman’s book, Misquoting Jesus… if Jesus had actually said it, or did it, scribes and the orthodox might have made sure it didn’t get into the bible whether that believer was on the menu… or not.

       Guess there are other ways to devour words than by means of lion’s mouth. Scribes may have had a less messy: a more convenient, way to make sure the bible fit the intent of those who took over for Jesus long after he ascended. Let’s not forget that Crusades, the Council of Nicea and the Inquisition also helped to keep the heretical rabble in line: permanently.

      Ah, those were the merriest of times, weren’t they?

      Maybe not.

      Believers too often would like to forget all that and have us believe the bible is “the word of God.” Even if you forget the New Testament; one must wonder, who actually counted the screws in the Ark of the Covenant, and why should we care? If this is God’s word, why would he even he care if we knew there were five screws instead of six on one side? Did anyone check Moses for a well used chisel before he told us what God commanded? Or did God provide both the grammar and spell check while sternly staring over his shoulder, saying, “Moses it’s ’shall not’ not ’shall’ commit adultery. I don’t care what you think you heard me say.”

      Ah, there’s an Abbott and Costello routine in the making, since I’m sure they’re just waiting for some angel to raise them from the dead. Hopefully it’s not The Stupidest Angel: Raziel.

      From everything I have read: biblical or not, about Gnostics and outright contradictions in the bible… (Example: two separate genealogies of Jesus, each with different names in the middle when you compare one to the other… but both do include Joseph. What did Joseph have to do with it? ) …should probably give you more than just a clue that I have had my doubts about the bible being perfect, or “God’s word.” I’m sure God would be a better writer than that, and he certainly wouldn’t need some English teacher to take him to some correcting pen-based woodshed over contextual errors. Let’s not even get into scientific errors.

      My cynicism; my doubting Thomas nature, left me approaching: closer and closer to being agnostic as my rather vague theistic beliefs evaporated over time. Then I read Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus and I believed again… only not quite the way more traditional believers would insist I have to believe… usually accompanied by thinly veiled threats if I don’t agree with them.

“You had better hope your right or else…”

      Torment! Fire! Demons dancing with sharp cleats on my bare tush! A Waltz? The Rumba? Or do I have to listen to Disco? Please, no. I hate Disco. After Disco Duck, Disco Dog, Disco Moose, Disco Pig, Disco Squished Possum by that musical form of Disco road kill: Donna Summers and her back up band: The Bees Without the Gs, do I really have to listen to Disco Demon for the rest of eternity?

      Chuckle.

      Well, back to Mr. Ehrman…

      Bart doesn’t start with “the word of mouth” bible, like I started this edition of Inspection. I think I understand. There’s probably little one can say about that time except what I just typed. Hopefully we got it as right as possible: saving the most important parts of what became the bible from the grasp of multiple lion digestive tracts. Or, perhaps God did keep them all perfectly on track; the ones who finally did pass on some of what was to be the New Testament.

      Mr. Ehrman, instead, starts with an obvious fact: early copies of the bible, written by scribes, were done during a time when Guttenberg was merely a distant “glint, of a glint, of a glint” in his great, great ancestor’s genes. These scribes copied, by hand, from previous texts. Every copy of the bible was copied by hand by scribes with varying abilities. Using what text, or texts? Well, like believing that there’s some intriguing cat curling around and around your leg that you can’t prove is there because it’s invisible… there’s the rub. We don’t have them: the first; the source material. We don’t even have second copies. Intriguing they will always be: fascinating for almost two thousands years… but that is all they will ever be. We have to guess, we have to assess: it’s somewhat Sherlock Holmes-ian in nature.

      I wonder, does Mr. Ehrman smoke a pipe? Both his book and his passion certainly seem to have a logical, deductive nature.

“What we have are copies of these writings, made many years later- in most cases, many years later. Moreover, none of these copies is completely accurate, since the scribes who produced them inadvertently/or intentionally changed them in places. All scribes did this.”

Page 5, Misquoting Jesus, Bart Ehrman

      The problem: changing the bible, became so obnoxious that scribes would berate each other: even writing their own criticisms of the work of another scribe into the margins of the text they were copying from…

“Fool, knave, leave the old reading: don’t change it!”

-a note written in the margins of the fourth-century Codex Vaticanus, a copy of which hangs in Bart Ehrman’s office

      Who is this “uninformed” cretin who dares to challenge literalist dogma?

Chair of the Religious Department at University of North Carolina; Chapel Hill
Former “born again Christian” and graduate of Moody Bible Institute
Graduate of Wheaton College
Biblical Scholar who as a Ph.D and M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary

      Other than copying mistakes, and copying mistakes made by others that added even more textual inaccuracies to previous errors, there are several obvious changes that lead one to realize that the bible has been altered many times… intentionally. For instance, Paul gives specific instructions about what women should wear in church, and when they should speak. Elsewhere he supposedly says they should remain silent. The rules for when, and how, they should speak seem very much a part of the original text. Then we find another claiming that they should never speak right smack dab in the middle of a totally unrelated topic, and the phrasing is quite different, and very much unlike what is attributed to Paul… as if someone had simply, though sloppily, inserted it.

      Note: one of the big debates in the first few centuries had to do with the proper role of women in the church. Mr. Ehrman says that most biblical scholars believe that the “remain silent” verses were added much later, by a different scribe who believed women should be totally silent.

      Be aware that I am intentionally not giving specific verses because I have no desire to get in some bible quoting war with anyone who reads this column. You can read this book and make up your own mind… or not. You also need to understand that no one has to change their opinion about the nature of Jesus: not one iota, if you accept Mr. Ehrman’s claims about the bible. This book literally says nothing about the nature of Jesus, his divinity or any miracles he may have performed. Misquoting Jesus, however, says a lot about the nature of the bible and claims that have been made about it like: as in, “word of God.” That’s fine with me. I noticed a long time ago that neither Jesus nor any portion of what some refer to as “the Trinity” wrote one word of the bible. It’s not in the first person. At best the bible is what some one said Jesus, or God, or Pilate said. In fact much of the bible may be “what someone said that someone said, that someone said, that…” even if you just consider those rather hungry lions.

      Mr. Ehrman lists different factions in Christianity who had put out biblical tracts that eventually became part of the bible, or were rejected, or had to be hidden to prevent them from being burned… both the books and those burying them. Some tracts were lost entirely and we only know of their existence because more orthodox Christians wrote tracts to counter them.

      Here’s a short; incomplete, list: vastly over simplified from Mr. Ehrman’s book…

      Separationists: where they understood Jesus to be of two beings; one divine and one human. Hence: “why have you forsaken me” was eliminated from many past versions of the bible, then reintroduced. He includes Gnostics in this group.

      Doetists: Jesus wasn’t really human.

      Adoptionists: an evil God created this world. Jesus was the Son of the one true God who either brought the salvation of the world, or he didn’t really die. (Of course there’s always disagreement within sects, or groups considered heretical, as well as between them and the more orthodox.)

       Mr. Ehrman provides evidence that throughout the bible texts had been altered to combat what were considered heresies: most of whom had their own tracts that were competing with what eventually became the bible. There were also others that needed to be “put in their place.” Several past versions of the bible do not include “forgive them; they know not what they do.” Why? Well, for those who blamed the Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus, the possibility that Jesus might forgive them was probably quite unforgivable. One thing is sure: those who have power, whether it be political, social or religious, usually do all they can to keep power.

      The third variation I will mention are those made by scribes to keep the text flowing well and consistent with other parts of the bible. Some of this may seem benign, unless you are a literalist. The attempt was sometimes just to make it seem more poetic, or to have less of a startling end like Mark may have had: a common literacy device used in those days.

       So how did Mr. Erhman make me more of a believer? He’s confirmed many of my suspicions and certainly you might think that would make me more of an agnostic… more of a person who might eventually consider all of the bible a “croc,” right?

       Wrong.

       Towards the end of Misquoting Jesus Mr. Ehrman explains how the authors: whomever they may really be (That’s my add: not his), used Mark: the oldest of the books, and the one most like to have been written by Mark himself, as a source. But then they went off the theological party barge, and built their own myths. In one book Jesus is described as most frequently distraught, in another most often angry, in another firm, calm and resolute. Some of this can be described by the fact that observers often have difference of opinion when it comes to such assessments. How does anyone really know what’s going on inside another person, emotionally? The words, his actions and the mood the author attributes to Jesus in each of the different gospels confirms each author’s quite different perspective. But how can they be all right, if the bible is the perfect word of God? No, like all humans, they were imperfect witnesses: at best… or intentionally altered what happened to suit their needs. We most likely will never know the definitive truth in regard to either.

       Here is what Mr. Ehrman wrote…

“Each of these authors was human, each of them had a different message, each of them put the tradition he inherited into his own words. Each of them, in a sense, was changing the ‘texts’ he inherited.”

-from Misquoting Jesus, Page 215

       Most faiths, I assume, would agree that the following statements are part of the New Testament: the disciples slept when they should have stayed awake, sometimes didn’t understand what was being taught, and many shamed themselves as Jesus was led to the cross. Yet, after he died, they suddenly all became perfect oracles, writing down exactly what Jesus would have wanted them to? These writings have been passed on, unaltered and perfect, to us?

        Why do you think so many people find how the bible: not Jesus, is accepted is unbelievable and absurd?

        Santa Claus.

        The Tooth Fairy.

        Super Jesus.

        Super Disciples.

        Thousands of scribes and lion threatened Christians: all perfectly pushed unto perfection by a micromanaging deity.

       That’s less believable than some fairy tales. I find it absurd that some who go to great lengths to debunk evolution accept such assumptions on face value. Some fundamentalists often like to claim that secular humanism worships humans. Yet despite all of humanities failings, they somehow managed to catch these divinely tossed footballs: without fumbles. All this has been carried without any errors to perfect touch downs, over and over again, through many, many, many centuries by humans. For there is no doubt: neither God or Jesus wrote the bible. Divinely inspired or not, who wrote the bible? The cover would have to at least read…

“Written by human beings.”

       So believing the bible to be the inerrant word of “God” sounds more like humanity worshiping itself to me: bestowing the theologically correct with super powers.

        But to accept that there have been many errors and changes?

       To continue to attempt to ascertain what Jesus may have meant; what he may have actually said, and to understand how the story, and the words, may or may not have been changed?

       To consider and search for what may have been added, what has been ripped out and what may have been lost forever?

       To realize despite errors and intentional changes of scribes that their perspectives are still oh, so, important too?

       Then to also accept that these stories, these words: true or not, that surround Jesus are so powerful that we are still debating, studying and trying to understand them: and that this is only marvelous and wonderful as long as we respect each individual’s unique perspective?

       That’s makes this not only a human story; but a human story that reaches beyond just common human experience. Perhaps a human story where humanity continues to better itself instead of turning on those who dare to disagree to devour them.

      …and also, perhaps, the story of the divine trying to reach out to us, again and again, in hope we will continue to learn: to continue to grow. And Jesus: one person, somehow has managed to fascinate and intrigue believers and unbelievers for two thousand years. If he wasn’t “God,” then he was probably as close to the divine as one can get. And maybe all faiths have a little bit of insight into who this man was: some a lot; some a little. Could it be that if we learn, listen and respect each other more, instead of treating “the other” sometimes worse than lepers were in his day, we can actual get to know who Jesus was, and maybe who he is, even more? …using all the various books in the bible, banned from the bible and other theistic texts used by other faiths?

“Turn over a stone, and I am there.”

-a quote, supposedly from Jesus, often used by Gnostics to explain that God is everywhere, and in everything: we just need to look

     In that? I can believe: even more than I did before. Whatever Jesus may, or may not, have said… I can’t help but think this was more like what he envisioned: what he wanted.

      So…

Forgive us Lord; we know who you are. But please help even the hardest of hearts and minds to learn, grow and reach beyond their own limited understanding.

      That “prayer” goes for all of you out there.

      Me too.

                      -30-

      Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over thirty years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.

Florida and Michigan brought this on themselves and upon the rest of us!
 
Carl Levin especially bears responsibility in Michigan's case.  Levin decided that his need to make a point was more important than the our need to vote.

That said, it's time to remind everyone that primaries/caucases are matters of the political parties and there is no such thing as a "right" to vote in the nomination process.  There seems to be a lot of overlap in the conversation that confuses the nomination process with the election process and they are to completely seperate things.

So, for the NAACP and anyone else that thinks the punishment given to Florida and Michigan was too harsh, stop complaining to the DNC.  Get the Florida and Michigan party elders to play by the rules and hold elections that comply with the rules of these PRIVATE organizations and move on!

Please don't sit in silence and then wonder why you weren't heard.

Exclusivity:  House dems want it; Senate rejected it.
Immunity:    House didn't include it; Senate did.

The difference is that one could be fixed later (exclusivity), and the other can't be undone, ever (immunity).

What is the rush on the immunity issue?  This provision should be taken out of the final bill and debated later.  The suits don't threaten future cooperation by the telecoms; warrants compel cooperation.

Please demand that your representatives adopt this reasonable compromise.

Write at:  house.gov (there's even a link in the upper left-hand corner), and senate.gov.  Easy

By now most of America has seen the pretty amazing and inspiring "Yes We Can" video that famous supporters (such as will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas) have put together to show support for Obama.

The musically talented followers of Clinton have responded:

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5FvyGydc8no&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5FvyGydc8no&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>  

Wow.  What's the opposite of inspiring? I guess the message is: vote for Hillary because her supporters need dance lessons?

I'm right brained according to the spinning dancer at this website. For those who like personality tests I'm an INFJ. The majority of you reading this are probably Democrats. Some of you like big picture thinking and others relish nitty gritty policy debates. Through my gray-colored glasses I'm sometimes jealous and other times confused by those who see the world in black and white. I do not know how old I was when I realized how different people see things. But, I do know it was much later before I understood how much my views were enforced/created by my identity and justified my choices.

This becomes more clear when we meet someone with an opposing or different view. The more our identity is caught up in that view the more difficult it can be to accept what they see. It's amazing how much impact the other person's approach can have on this. I guess that's what prompts the question, "And how does that make you feel?"

I'm not sure what a rant by a Hillary supporter in response to a pro-Obama blog post means, but I'm betting somebody who just read this is feeling threatened by that statement. Take a deep breath, it could be a pro-Hillary blog post and angry Obama supporter.

You might identify with a specific health care policy. I was frustrated recently by criticism of my preferred solution.

We try to be objective, but if I'm honest it could be that I identify more with the candidate supporting that specific plan or more importantly the framing of the issue by the media and others.

What I hate to admit is that Krugman got me to thinking about all of this. It was a simplistic challenge he threw out there. It worked. I'm still tied up in my choices. As is he.

But, I am questioning why we spend so much time spinning each other. Hopefully it leads to my focusing on more meaningful and long term goals.  If not, I look forward to arguing with you on meaningless issues on which we basically agree.  I am after all a contrarian too.

A quick HTML Primer

OK, we'll make this short for those that already know a little bit about HTML tags.

A "tag" is any command that is interpreted by a browser and performs a display function.  It can also delineate a

condition that will display a variable (input) from a user in a particular way.

A tag is read by a browser when the "<" and ">" symbols (less than, greater than, or Tom Wright's avatar) surround

the command.  The tag is turned off when there is a forward-slash "/" inside the trailing tag.  The quotation marks

are only used here to keep the tags from being read.

For a paragraph, the starting code is "<P>" with user text input going in between, and the paragraph ends with

"</P>".
For a line break, the tag is "<BR>" by itself, no end tag needed.

For quotations, the tag is "<BLOCKQUOTE>" (copy and paste the citation in here) and end with </BLOCKQUOTE>.

For emphasis, italic text is headed by "<I>" and ended </I>.  For bolding text, "<B>" and "</B>.

With this little bit, you can create a template in Windows Notepad that can be copied and pasted into either the

blog or comment input boxes.  REMEMBER to save only as a .txt file!!!  Using MS Word will probably substitute too

many random character artifacts, but I will be testing some things later....

So, here's a full comment for you to play with- just copy and paste it off the page into Notepad, delete the quotation marks and experiment:

"<P>" (insert text here) "</P>"
"<P>" (insert text here) "</P>"
"<P>" (insert text here) "</P>"
"<BLOCKQUOTE>" (paste in here) "</BLOCKQUOTE>"
"<P>" (insert text here) "</P>"
"<P>" (insert text here) "</P>"

"<P>""<B>" Your Name Here "</B>""<BR>"
"<I>" Your Tag Phrase here in italics"</I>"</P>

The site will not take color, font face, size, (and probably many more) conventional HTML tags, but I have located
the javascripts from the unlocked directories (also the avatar (picture) files from the site filing structure), so
who knows what evil lurks....the shadow knows....!

<P><B>Alphonse (Al) Kada</B><BR><I>The Iranians are fighting the Americans in Baghdad so they won't have to fight them on the streets of Tehran</I></P>

This is my first blog post on TPM!  I am hoping for some help on understanding McCain's position on Democratic tax hikes.  It's my understanding of either Obama or Clintons proposed tax hikes that they are going to be on basically 10% of all American's those of us making more than enough money to live a good life.  Is it me or is McCain just distorting the Democrats plan to fairly tax the very rich.  Here is the quote from the McCain website that I found and wonder about. 

"John McCain will make the Bush income and investment tax cuts permanent, keeping income tax rates at their current level and fighting the Democrats' plans for a crippling tax increase in 2011. Left to their devices, Democrats will impose a massive $100 billion tax hike, almost $700 per taxpayer every year." from http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/0b8e4db8-5b0c-459f-97ea-d7b542a78235.htm

If the one of the Democratic campaign wants to do a real attack ad, against a primary opponent, in a perfect world, it should fulfill the following requirements:
<ul><li>It should be the truth.</li><li>It should address a real concern of Democratic voters.</li><li>It should <span style="font-weight: bold;">not</span> be something that the Republicans can use against the target if they win the general.</li></ul>So I was just kind of writing stream of consciousness, and came up with a  Hillary Clinton attack ads against Barack Obama

On to the Ad:
<blockquote>(<span style="font-style: italic;">Cue sinister music, go with spot of gray on the screen, which will slowly pull back as the ad progresses and reveal itself to be a scary black and white picture of John McCain</span>)
In 2002, John McCain said that the ads accusing Max Cleland, who lost one arm and both legs serving in the military, were "Worse than disgraceful".

Now John McCain has hired Bo Harmon, the man behind that ad campaign as his national political director.

We know that the Republicans will be throwing every lie and slander they can find against the Democratic Nominee, and we know that Barack Obama has never been in a seriously contested election against a Republican.

Over the past 16 years, the Republican swift boaters came after Hillary Clinton with accusations of everything except eating puppies, and she's still standing.

The stakes are too high this November to take an audacious chance with your primary vote.</blockquote>I'm thinking of trying to put this up on Youtube, after I improve the copy a bit.

You will notice that this is a devastating ad, but it gives the Republicans <span style="font-weight: bold;">nothing</span> to use in the general.

Cross posted from <a href="http://40yrs.blogspot.com/2008/02/my-idea-for-hillary-clinton-attack-ad.html">40 Years in the Desert</a>.

The Pentagon's plans for death-penalty prosecutions of six men accused of plotting the 2001 terrorist attacks were criticized by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who said capital punishment is appropriate for such crimes but that military tribunals are the wrong forum for the case.

The Defense Department announced murder, terrorism and conspiracy charges Monday against alleged attack mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and five other inmates of the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It gave the leading presidential candidates a chance to show how they would balance anti-terrorism zeal and civil liberties concerns in a heated political climate.

Obama said the desire to punish the perpetrators of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, shouldn't blind people to the flaws of the military tribunals that the Bush administration established to try Guantanamo inmates.

"These trials will need to be above reproach," the Illinois senator said in a statement Monday. "These trials are too important to be held in a flawed military commission system that has failed to convict anyone of a terrorist act since the 9/11 attacks and that has been embroiled in legal challenges."

Obama said the men should be tried either in a U.S. criminal court or by military court-martial, either of which would "demonstrate our commitment to the rule of law." Both those systems are more protective of defendants' rights than military tribunals, which allow evidence obtained through coercion and hearsay.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, expressed no such reservations.  "I'm sorry that it has taken so long," McCain said.

SF Chronicle, February 13, 2008

McCain, on the other hand, has almost no principles (even if I disagree with him).  He's running as the hero who was tortured, who used to be against torture, but now to kow-tow to the wackadoodle right votes to support torture. Hillary took a pass on voting.

It's a very clear choice voters will face this fall should Obama win the nomination.  If Hillary gets the party poo-bahs to appoint her, the choice will be less clear in November.  It'll be torture vs. torture light.

On a bill to limit the amount of interest that can be charged on any extension of credit to 30 percent, Obama voted nay, while Hillary voted yea.  Hillary stood up against predatory lending.   http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00020   On the Dick Cheney 2005 energy bill, Obama voted yea, while Hillary voted nay.  This bill was widely known to be written by lobbyists.  Hillary stood up against harmful and wasteful corporate tax giveaways and industry false euphemisms like "clean coal".   http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00213   "In June 2005, Obama and Rezko purchased adjoining parcels in Kenwood. The state's junior senator paid $1.65 million for a Georgian revival mansion, while Rezko paid $625,000 for the adjacent, undeveloped lot. Both closed on their properties on the same day.

Last January, aiming to increase the size of his sideyard, Obama paid Rezko $104,500 for a strip of his land.

The transaction occurred at a time when it was widely known Tony Rezko was under investigation by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and as other Illinois politicians befriended by Rezko distanced themselves from him."

From:  http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/124171,CST-NWS-obama05.article

Barack Obama was sworn in as a U.S. Senator on January 4, 2005.  So far, the only big sign of his judgment was his early opposition to the Iraq war.  He was not a Senator at the time.   How can a man with such a small track record who has made such glaringly bad decisions during that short period of time run on the idea that he has good judgment?

Why recommend posts? So they can be shared. But they still go away too fast. I don't feel much incentive to say something requiring much thought or research.

We went from recommended blogs staying up permanently, blocking progress, to having them drop away after 24 hrs., which I feel is way too short. Drive-by commenting achieves little. Why be just another blog?

Jim Sleeper had this to say: "Probably the greatest downside of posting, even on a blogsite like TPM, is that we lose the sense of an ongoing conversation that might actually build on its insights."

I can often remember the title of a post I liked, or at least an approximation of it, but am less likely to remember a random username like turtle1234. So search is out. One is reduced to wading through the archives.

Sleeper also said: "One can't expect anyone who comments on a current post to have checked the earlier ones, right here in TPM, on the same subject, in the past couple of weeks. But that's what makes blog comments a big cut below actual deliberation or even just conversation."

It used to be easy to know where a conversation stood. A small fix might be to have a list of users. A name would look familiar, and one could go to that user's blog. Another incentive would be the chance to end up on the front page of the Cafe. That would hold position, only being pushed down by new guest  contributor posts.

I've found some perceptive and stylish writing by readers here, in the old days, and several now. But the good writers are not being rewarded.

There's a rapidly-spreading meme from the Hillary camp that says that Obama is being inconsistent when he says the Michigan and Florida delegates should not be seated (not immediately, which is not to say that they wouldn't be seated at some point) and when he says that the super-delegates shouldn't take it upon themselves to override the clear wishes of primary and caucus voters as seen in the elected delegate counts.

That's not inconsistent or contradictory at all. The DNC rules say that the Michigan and Florida delegates should not be seated.  The argument in this case is that the rules shouldn't be changed in mid-game.

But nobody is arguing that the rules should be changed for the super-delegates. According to the rules they are free to choose anyone they want to choose. The argument in this case isn't that the rules should be changed, it's that the super-delegates would be making a strategic blunder to give the nomination to someone who lost the elected delegate count. But it's a blunder that, according to the rules, they are free to make.

I support Obama. I suspect that if the situation were reversed, the positions of the two candidates on both issues would be reversed. But I'm much happier being on the side of arguing that (a) the rules shouldn't be changed in mid-game, and (b) the super-delegates should take into account the likely backlash of giving the nomination to the candidate with the fewest elected delegates. 
Trying to change the rules in mid-game just seems sleazy. And without a doubt if my candidate has the most elected delegates and ends up not being the nominee, I'll accept that this was within the rules but won't be happy that the bigwigs took it upon themselves to override the will of the majority of voters in the primaries and caucuses. 

One of the arguments being put forth by the Clinton campaign is that the caucuses aren't truly representative of the popular will of the voters.  What logically follows is that even if she loses the pledged delegate race, the super delegates are fair game to swing the nomination because of the "illegitimacy" of the delegates awarded from caucuses.
For the sake of argument, let's say she's right.  Let's say caucuses are not legitimate determiners of popular vote.  Where does the pledged delegate race stand if you eliminate all the caucuses?  
A good question, I thought.  I used the CBS delegate totals, copied them to a spreadsheet and deleted all the caucus states.  The results?
Clinton:  534Obama:  593
Uh oh.  Clinton is still losing the delegate battle in primary only states.  Seems to undermine her super delegate argument a bit.
Not sure how to attach the spreadsheet, but here are the numbers:

Clinton Obama DC 15 Delegates 3 10 Maryland 70 Delegates 24 44 Virginia 83 Delegates 27 56 Louisiana 56 Delegates 22 34 Alabama 13 Delegates 4 9 Arizona 56 Delegates 31 25 Arkansas 35 Delegates 27 8 California 55 Delegates 13 32 Connecticut 48 Delegates 22 26 Delaware 15 Delegates 6 9 Georgia 18 Delegates 3 15 Illinois 32 Delegates 9 23 Mass. 72 Delegates 24 48 Missouri 72 Delegates 36 36 New Jersey 107 Delegates 59 48 New York 232 Delegates 139 93 Oklahoma 38 Delegates 24 14 Tennessee 68 Delegates 38 28 Utah 3 Delegates 2 1 Dems Abroad 7 Delegates - - Florida 0 Delegates - - South Carolina 45 Delegates 12 25 Michigan 0 Delegates - - New Hampshire 22 Delegates 9 9 Total Primary Dels 534 593

Hey, Clinton, Obama

Do the Following:

Adopt a New Focus & Strategy

For the Rest of the Campaign

You have it in your power to introduce a breath-taking change in your strategy and tactics for the remainder of this primary season.

You should campaign solely against the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, and not against each other.

We already have a pretty good idea of the differences between you, so to continue trying to pull each other down is not going to be constructive.

Competing against each other can only enhance the Republican candidacy, and could be destructive for each of you within the Democratic Party.

In contrasting what you offer with what John McCain has to offer, each of you would continue to push your own program, but in such a way as to combat the real opposition, not each other.

Such a strategy would provide voters with an impression of how each of you would run against McCain.

The primary elections will play themselves out in any event, with the electorate seeing the strengths of each of you, while the Republican programs will be seen for what they are.

The winning Democratic candidate would still be the person with the most delegates.

This may sound too utopian, but super-delegates should support the candidate who won in each of their own constituencies.

Min Yee, Bellevue, Washington, February 12, 2008

(With thanks to David Buchsbaum of Newton, Mass., for my introduction to this idea from his Letter to the Editor to The New York Times, published on Feb. 9, 2008.)