Well, I can't read minds, and none of me choice friends in high places are returning my phone calls, so I can't tell for sure Ryan Lizza was intentionally dropped from that flight or it was just overbooked (funny, he seemed to have been everywhere for the first 6 months of the year - with McCain, Clinton & Obama..). And whether it was retribution for that tacky cover? Don't know that either.

But what I do know is that buried beneath the hooplah surrounding the cover, the article Lizza wrote on Obama's time in Chicago is well worth reading whatever your persuasion. Please click the Rec button if you agree.

Just a year after after MSNBC managed to give us 23 minutes of prime time Hillary cleavage reporting (WaPo only put it on page 1 of its fashion section - 2 years in a row), they're here to tell us Hillary has a new hair-do. This is why the independence of the press is important, the 4th Estate plays a vital role in our public debate, one that we will discover hundreds of years from now when alien space gods divulge our ultimate purpose. In the meantime we'll have to just keep on guessing. Of course they might have spent a few more minutes on Bill's announcement about arranging discounts for malaria and HIV/AIDS drugs for the 3rd world, but that would detract from his good-prez-gone-bad media image. All the print that's news to fit.

Woke up this morning to a documentary on Mandela - what a man. 27 years in jail and simply no bitterness, all smiles and love. A true rock star - Bono continually looks tiny around him, not to belittle him for all the work he's done. So what was Mandela's triumph? Truth, Reconciliation and Dignity - finding out what happened for the sake of finding out, but bringing the enemies together, maintaining their dignity, finding a way forward. It would have been easy to take a different road - Africa for Africans, Europeans out. Mugabe did, as have others. But not Mandela. As bad as some of South Africa's problems are, the ones that get worldwide press, it could have been much much worse. Because Mandela kept the country together, kept whites talking to blacks, made the transition, knew how to keep Afrikaaners in the game while tackling the tough changes, maintaining a unity government with De Klerk and others still on-board.

27 years for one man, how many years for the nation. And we act like we have it tough.

Well, she didn't quite say it that way.

She said that even losing when for a good cause with a lot of good organizational energy is important for building up long term party strength, or specific issues strength. Every time a district goes uncontested, a fairy loses its wings. The 50-state plan is a recipe for failure - this time. It means accepting losses, but trying to make those losses close so that next time, there's more funding, better people on the campaign, more name recognition, and in general an improved local party structure.

More activism came out of Dean's failed campaign than Kerry's close run - thinking out of the box. Netroots fielded a lot of doomed candidates in 2006 and lost a few, won a few - and made the Republicans dig deep to fight them off. Some of those candidates are disappointing Blue Doggers, but that's part of the ecosystem - better to have a bigger disappointing tent than a smaller irrelevant minority. For now.

So from Dean's tiny group of activists, extrapolate to Hillary's 18 million and Obama's 18+ million and contemplate what all that ground action up into June meant. People. Money. Passion. Enthusiasm. But at a local level. The 2 remaining candidates are irritating us to death or boring us silly? Tell me who you got local that's exciting you - think about Battle of the Bands. This is TPM Election Central, not TPM Boring Fucking Presidential Campaign Central.

As Quinn sent me, get up out of your chairs and ROCK! As if your very life depends on it. Or someone's. If you don't, I swear I'll start pulling wings off Tink. That'll show you. So blog or the fairy gets it. That's what it's come to. Violence begets good netizens. Heinlein would be pleased.

Okay, poor comedians and pundits are having trouble cutting through the laff track - now considered the Mach Speed Barrier of Comedy Center (you'd think making a bazillion dollars a year would make everyone else seem funny, but you'd be wrong). For some reason people don't see Obama as humorous or laughable or have created a Humor Free Zone around him just like Scotty had in Star Trek. It's our job to make him more human before he's transported by a tractor beam back to some other planet and we end up with John Curmudgeonly Turtle McCain as our Constable-in-Chief for 8 unbearable years.

So here were my recycled offerings from an earlier post - see what you can do to pile on. If they can't laugh with us, they'll laugh at us, and that situation only brings on Republicans.
========================================

What does Obama do for fun? He gets his suits dry-cleaned. Originally his book was called "Dreams of My Tailor".

Why's Michelle so pissed? She wants to get past paying off Hillary's debt so they can focus on her student loans.

Want to see my impression of Barack dancing? (Sticks out finger, juts out jaw). Barack having sex? (Sticks out finger, juts out jaw).

How many Obamas does it take to change a lightbulb? "When I'm elected President, there won't be lightbulbs as usual..."

Obama returned to Iowa this week, impressing farmers with his call for aragula ethanol subsidies.

The other night Barack stepped out to relax, but couldn't find a stadium open anywhere.

Why doesn't Obama take his kids out on the campaign trail? They started answering "Yes we can" with "What'll you pay us?"

A well-known ad agency was disappointed this week to have Barack Obama turn down their "Audi of Hope" promotion.

Today McCain tried ridiculing Obama by recalling his time in the Hanoi Hilton. Obama cooly rebuffed him, recalling his time in the Jakarta Motel 6.

Having embraced him earlier, leading Irish Catholics have begun to doubt Obama's claims of being Christian, noting his lack of drinking and cursing and excessive time spent in church.

Actually only 110 days till the election, but the reason that Pasolini 120 number got in my head (aside from a natural penchant for fetish and S&M) was something I caught at Politico - that pesky delegate count. Only 120 delegates need to cross over to change the nominee.

Now why would I bring that up? Well, for one, you're boring me silly. I remember John Lennon giving back his B.O.E. because Cold Turkey was falling in the polls, so this isn't the first case of being excessively petty. And God has this place become soulless and without energy over the summer. Like what's-her-name sang, "Bloggers just wanna have fun". (Imagine we'd thrown our weight behind Cyndi Lauper instead of Madonna, we'd have been spared that awful version of American Pie and Guy Ritchie to boot). So wake up, get interesting, or I swear by Baal this is going to turn nasty.

Second, there's this, a graphic showing how far the judicial branch is slanted towards Republicans. This is repeatedly thrown out as a reason why Clinton supporters should lay down arms and kumbaya our way to victory. But that sword cuts both ways - if the kumbaya candidate abandons kumbaya positions, and worse, looks like he's on his way to defeat, reason says that kumbayaers should do what's reasonable, and save the union at whatever cost (that's what Lincoln did, after all, and I dare anyone to go mano-a-mano with him). So if the post-political candidate of a generation isn't up to the job, well by-Donovan by-Blixa let's get another one in there.

Third, there's this, Sean Oxendine via Matt Stoller/OpenLeft explaining when Obama's campaign releases fund-raising numbers based on good or bad. Let's look at those numbers in the good ol' pre-blame Hillary days:

Month  Amount      Announce
Jan      $32 mil        Feb 4
Feb     $54 mil        Mar 6
Mar     $40+ mil     Apr 3
Apr      $31 mil       May 20
May     $22 mil       Jun 20 (Friday, bury news day)
Jun      $???            late July

Back in February, Obama was raising almost $2 million a day, enough to pay off Hillary's non-loan debt in 5 days or so. But a month after Hillary started touring with him, that topic remains a thorn in everyone's sides and we've yet to see what kind of fundraising bump clinching the nomination gave him - not much if you buy Oxendine's reasoning, and with not much polling bump and a rather dismal month of campaign news, I can't imagine it being any other way. Stoller notes the tendency of Obama partisans to blame progressives, but it simply smacks of brand fatigue and mounting acceptance of reality to me. By the way, one of Netroots' "Better Democrats" just got blown out by over 50 points. 76.3% to 23.7%. Wow. That's huge. Of course her biggest mistake was not running a modern campaign, something Obama can't be accused of. But just because you think your candidate's the Best. Candidate. Evah. don't make it so. Every day there's some report about Obama's campaign not coordinating well with Congress or the DLC, making small PACs angry by pushing them to the side, or irritating his base with contrary positions on FISA, abortion, Iraq, faith based initiatives, etc. That's not the pre-convention momentum needed, and by now he's starting to look like Pandora with only hope left in his bag of tricks. Imagine he were running against a Republican people could rally around.

So don't just sit there, call your superdelegate, blast me as an asshole and raving lunatic, discuss Pasolini till you get a brain seizures, click Recommend a million times like a lab rat testing ephedrine, and most of all, WAKE UP!!!

(The only sound of crickets I want to hear is from our beloved Cricket - chirp chirp, chirp chirp)

First, a tribute to Dennis Hartley for his continually interesting film reviews over at Digbys Blog, as well as a tribute to a new film on Hunter S. Thompson, as well as a tribute to HST himself both for his life and times and his ability to save the career of whoever it is that wrote Doonesbury (and probably revive John Denver's career as well), and his ability to go out with a bang, and a tribute to the surprises that always await going over HST's work, such as Hartley's noting how he helped spring Jimmy Carter on us (I'd forgotten reading that Law Day speech, which really was impressive - of course I've never forgotten Thompson's diagnosis of the Edmund Muskie campaign breakdown, blaming it on a bad prescription - who knew? I saw the same phenomenon with other professionals later, but he was savvy to spot the trend so early, as well as his breakthrough interview with Nixon in the backseat of a limousine, seemingly condemned to talking only football, when "that Miami boy" was such a monumental insight/piece of additional information for the Nixon psyche and simply a sign of the times. Back then football was pure ether).

Anyway, my favorite HST book was The Great Shark Hunt, perhaps in my eyes deserving as one of the basic companion guides to modern journalism/politics, if that field hadn't been stunted into "how to whore yourself to a boss/public who only need 500-2000 words in a completely unsubstantial but memorably smooth glitzy self-debasing form to complement an ad-buy by 4pm"). The properly disrespectful version of "All the President's Men".

Oh yeah, and while not a huge fan of Bill Murray's take in "Where The Buffalo Roam", it certainly wasn't execrable like Johnny Depp's version (kinda like Johnny ruined Willy Wonka - what happened to Gilbert Grape, Ed Wood, Cry-Baby and Arizona Dreaming?).

So the Green Party nominates Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente to head its Pres/VP ticket. For some Progressives this must be awfully attractive - a heavily involved black/Hispanic/feminist/womanist duo solidly connected with activism and issues of race and gender and opposing the Iraq War and the military. On the other hand, thoroughly off the map of centrist acceptability (there will be very little Jewish support thanks to McKinney's past, and her hitting an officer on Capitol Hill being her main claim to fame doesn't bode well either), and at first glance it's hard to see what the two specifically bring as *Green* credentials.

So I'm curious what people think of as their effect in November, along with Bob Barr as Libertarian. Will disaffected Democrats be drawn to them? (Not that a former Republican now-ACLU acolyte is an obvious choice, but then Hagel is touring with Obama). Will they go down in the 0.001% category as relatively meaningless and a fringe attraction and side-show? You talk, Desi listens.

I wasn't too keen on Obama speaking at Brandenburg for several reasons (including that pesky Senate subcommittee), but Ann Arbor had a suggestion that made sense on a number of levels: Obama should speak at Berlin's Olympic Stadium.

Strengths? Jesse Owens (makes Germany feel proud, how far it's come, message of equality), timed with China Olympics (I'm not naïve enough to think he'll talk tough about human rights, but hey, the parallel's there, human spirit overriding the dictates of repressive governments), capacity 72,000 and Obama's comfortable in stadiums.

Comments? Complaints? Comforters? (That's our new wing of the Democratic Party, those simply seeking a Comfort Zone, similar to Slack for those disenfranchised Yahweh II'ans - possibly inspired by Hillary's "Can we get you a pillow?" we wholeheartedly respond, "Yes You Can!" We're not really into all-inclusion, but if we're comfortable with you being here, yes you can stay too!)

It wasn't very long ago that someone I suppose in consolation noted that Obama would be just as effective in representing women's issues as Hillary would have been. Some women might choose to disagree. I've yet to find anyone thrilled about the concept of a late-term abortion, but then most people aren't thrilled about root canals and chemotherapy either. Shall we ban them? Some people choose not to have potentially life-saving invasive surgery in their old-age. Irrational or simply a difficult but honest quality of life (and dying) issue? Recently a couple had the unpleasant decision of stopping their daughter's growth and basically sterilizing her in order to be able to care for her better as she got older - a decision reached with the assistance of ethics experts. Is this unusual situation something anyone's qualified to legislate in a sweeping manner?

But here's the kicker - men are more likely to put off medical care and decisions, less likely to see a doctor early or have checkups, while ignoring serious symptoms and living less healthily. Most people know little about the myriad types and high frequency of birth complications and defects unless directly affected. There just simply isn't a large group of women too lazy and irresponsible to get an abortion the first trimester just because. And to hear a group of grown men sitting around an office making infantile jokes about lactation would make you scared shitless to have the average man involved in any female decision related to sexual anatomy or function.

What do women want? Overwhelmingly, it seems, the trust and legal ability to figure it out for themselves. That should be a central Democratic tenet. How do we make it so?

Possibly the best of the Bond movies, and the worst of our Senators, it's ironic that his passing would delay the retro immunity vote, something I imagine he'd cherish. I'd guess it'd be the best memorial we could provide to head on over to Strange Bedfellows and help give them a hand to helping us defend our rights, even if this huge round may be lost (how exactly with a majority in both houses I can't quite figure out). If Bob Barr can see the light, everyone can. Just say Yes.

And as always I commend Marcie/EmptyWheel and Jane Hamsher and Glenn Greenwald for their dogged work in what's often unromantic tedious data compiling.

From a TPM-linked NYTimes piece:
"Obama campaign officials believe Mrs. Clinton’s fund-raisers could raise $50 to $75 million for him in the coming weeks."

Seems like helping pay off Hillary's $12 mill campaign debt shouldn't be such a bad investment, should it? Any thoughts from the "not one damn nickel" crowd?

Dear Pontiff,

Like wow, hi! Is it really you? I wasn't sure it'd work. Thanks for taking the time to read this. Cool shades, nice shoes, better than the last guy who had the job, the one who looked old even before he started. Must be strange taking a position with no exit clause - "the only way out of here's on a stretcher" - hardly reassuring.

So, wie geht's es ihnen und all that, figured you'd appreciate the language thing, et tu, Ponte? BTW, do you guys argue over whether to do litany in German or Italian like those guys dissing German opera in "Amadeus"? Or are the fly boys just happy to have someone not speaking Slavic after all those years? Anyway, I'm kind of nervous, and don't really have anything to say. I just kept seeing all these Open Letters to somebody important somewhere and thought I'd try it out too. But most of the people I'd want to write to are already dead ("Dear Albert, do you think String Theory is a crock? Thought so, Love Des" or "Dear Rev. Falwell, now that you've met Attila the Hun, can you tell us definitively whether you're to his left or right?") or the ones I'm under court order to stay away from. Okay, probably more info than you needed. So I thought about contacting the Dalai Lama, but he's a bit too new agey and besides, the Chinese might take offense and disqualify our synchronized swimmers or raise the price on my cheap sex toys (by the way, how many Hail Mary Full of Grace's for the sex toys? I should get started early, there's a lot of them - you should see some of the rosary beads they sell - talk about NSFW. Hey, what's up with those fake priests at confession? Does that happen often? Gives you the heebie jeebies, doesn't it?).

And then I thought about writing Dick Cheney - God knows I have a lot of questions for him, but by definition every letter's already open to him - must see himself as the Lord's emissary on earth, you know? Okay, that's probably in poor taste. Anyhoo, so then I was going to write the head of the UN about all those wars and bombings and stuff, but for the life of me couldn't remember how he's called - boy, ain't that the kicker, you'd think he'd be out making a name for himself trying to stop war and famine or something, but probably too busy counting his comp tickets to the Beijing Opening.

So I ended up writing you instead. Hope you don't mind. The nice thing about writing the Pope is you never have to remember his name or address. "Pope, Rome", that's it. Hell, I probably didn't even have to include a stamp. But now that I got your attention, I got this great idea for a sequel to "The Devil Wears Prada" -  "...But the Pope Wears Gucci". Okay, maybe you've heard that one already, kinda obvious. I have you pegged for more of a Simon Baker type than Meryl Streep, if you know what I mean - and I hear he's Catholic to boot. As long as you're down under, might as well look him up, maybe he's already in the stadium. (I never figured out those crowd masses - doesn't it take hours to do the wafer thing? And be careful with the Aussies and all that wine - they get a bit rowdy for large sporting events.) Well, that's it, hope I didn't bore you. TTFN, KOTPR (I made that up, pretty clever, eh?), see you at the Vatican.

Your obedient servant and faithful TPM reader,
Desidero

I'll have to takes me a break, but have to take time to admire the master. I chose a diary to elaborate the details about Hillary's 5%, but what I'm really doing is saying Drudge rocks my world, and probably yours too. I know, we hate to admit it - we're fans of Bob Somersby or Keith Olbermann or whoever the jammin' female reporter off in Iraq doing an admirable job of anti-press release reporting, sorry Google is failing me right now, or a host of indie bloggers. But Drudge is the master. Because we've all accepted his terms. Right now people are seriously upset that a campaign in debt has not paid some people. I mean, it'd be a pretty piss poor "greatest campaign debt ever" if they'd paid everybody, wouldn't it? I mean, if you think about - what does debt mean? "Didn't pay someone". But the Drudge effect is insidious - we take the most mundane things and get highly irritated by them. Admit it - it rules your world as much as mine. Here's another great headline: "Obama acts like politician, cites need to win". I keep waiting to write my upstart "Sun rises in east, spurning western states. North and south ambivalent". But I'm only halfway there - as much as I try, I can't match the spitefulness, such as the class warfare that Drudge can get with "Hillary campaign leaves small vendors out in cold; tosses wet puppy out for company". It's one thing to be Maureen Dowd writing banal acid socialite filler, but it's another to be Matt Drudge making a bereaved and offended policy wonk out of each and every one of us, however post-political we might think we are.

So your assignment, since I have to step out a bit, is to produce the most surprising stunningly amoral character in movies and somehow tie it to a horribly misunderstood and forgotten director. In this case, I'm obviously referring to Marlon Brando in Arthur Penn's classic "Missouri Breaks". But it doesn't have to be high brow - it could be Richard Gere (oh how I usually hate him) in Mike Figgis' "Internal Affairs". Or Robert Mitchum in Charles Laughton's "The Night of the Hunter". Maybe Yves Montand in Clouzot's "Wages of Fear" if you want to go international. Anyway, you have the idea - efficiently evil role combined with genius director no one can remember.

Oh, last bit - I've given you a break with Salo - instead of 120 days of Salome, you need only 8. But that's 8 days of heavy lifting, Sisyphus up the mountain with boulder type effort. THIS THREAD MAY NOT DIE!!! You have been warned. And if you think this is tough, imagine if I'd given you "Think in a post-FISA sellout world, what will Obama healthcare look like?" Yep, now that boulder doesn't look so tough, does it? Go for the easy movie question, we need some light summer fun around here. The heavy stuff can wait for September. Surf's up.

What would you say if I told you I made $240K last year but spent $260K, taking $10K out of savings and putting $10K on my credit card. Extravagant living? Or a little bit of excess? Trust me, I had a lot of fun with that $260K, so that's not the issue. And I figure I took on less than 5% debt from that.

Let's look at another aspect - I ordered a lot of wine last year. A lot. Perhaps $30K worth. But I only paid the shop $28K so far. Of course they know I'm good for it - I've been going to them for years, but had a small cash flow problem, so I told them I'd pay them the rest when I got my next paycheck. Now, let's look at it from their perspective - they already made about $14K off me if we assume that wine cost them 50%, so even if I never pay them (trust me, I will), they still have a clear profit of $12K.

So now let's think about the Clintons. How worried should we be about her debt? The lady generated a quarter billion dollars worth of business (actually much more - there are multipliers involved), raised almost a quarter billion in donations, came out only $20 million shy (and is taking care of half that herself) while running the closest primary race in memory (a 50-state race that will pay off in excitement come November). So that leaves her with about 5% of her campaign expenses to worry about. To put it in perspective it's just over double her and her husband's debts when he left office. And about 30-35 speeches from Bill with his typical fee. (She'll likely pull down something close once she leaves the Senate).

Of course some people think Hillary should pay off all the debt. Like every wealthy candidate should pay all their own expenses? That's a pretty hefty tax on the rich. She got 18 million people excited enough to vote for her and made it a contest, and is paying off half her debt herself. Seems pretty fair, 50% tax rate.

The last funny thing to point out is how little people have ever worried about campaign debts. What did John Edwards owe? Twice? Bill Bradley? John McCain was over $4 million in debt in February. Barack Obama put his failed House bid on his credit card. Chris Dodd still has over a million he has to pay somehow (anybody worried about his small vendor debts?) How is it that every little thing Hillary does creates a swirl of alarm and hysteria and good ol' concern? I guess some people have it and some people don't. But I have 3 words of advice from someone wise: "Get Over It".