Your defence to the MSM line about Obama "altering" his views on Iraq is that he really has not altered anything and he has always said A, B and C? Great, perfectly true.

But you already lost.

You  have accepted the MSM premise that Obama in fact meant he would change his plans, and at that point that becomes the argument.

Obama said he would refine his plans. "Refine" has a simple, meaning and it is not "alter." It is "improve" or "to make more specific" or "to remove unknowns/uncertainties/ambiguities." A mathematician could refer to it as "reducing."

I plan a visit to Marxland, a solidarity themepark with egalitarian rollercoasters. As the visit approaches, I refine my plan to consist of 7 days. I can further refine it by deciding that I will take People's Airways there instead of hitchhiking. If I should like to extend my visit to two weeks, I can revise my plans.

Really. The "low-information voters" the media likes to disparage understand what "refine" means. Why does the media not?

Is it time to change?

Next year? Friendly president, majority Congress.

Laws are made to be changed.

Thanks for everything, Mr. Carlin.

1. Stay in Iraq While Troops Are Dying 2. ???
3. Stay in Iraq With No More Casualties for 100 Years!

This means gotalife, fogu2 and all of the other Republican trolls pretending to be Clinton supporters but actually roll with Hagee.

Fuck them. Let them explain why they are not holocaust deniers if they like.

The topic is provocative, perchance, but this is the worst-case interpretation. Why, why could she not just say she was sorry that the remark she made was a terrible accident  and that she was truly sorry about offending the Obamas, the Kennedys and everyone else on the planet? It would have blown over quick.

Instead, she uses her chance to do so to further the fabrication that everyone is out to get her.. this is exactly the type of thing that sets off of further reinforces the crazies who can only think of one thing to Save the Cheer--Save the Candidate and Save the World before it is too late.

We already had the apologists making this exact argument minutes after the threads started and it has been getting stronger. (Mind you, there is certainly a group of rational Hillary supporters here, too.)

I could not make my mind up on the original remarks but was leaning on, ah, inartfulness. But the "apology" and now this are bad stuff.

Bad, bad stuff.

1. Have a previous posting history of at least one previous comment.

2. Do not degenerate to praising FOX News in your fifth post in the thread.

3. Avoid using turns of phrase that can be easily associated with your other usernames.

4. ???

5. PROFIT!!!*


* Payable in McCain Bucks, void where prohibited.

I could not have said it better!

"The great divide in this country is not by race or even income, it's
by those who think they are better than everyone else and think they
should play by a different set of rules," he said. "In West Virginia
and Arkansas, we know that when we see it."

In honour of Genghis' admonition of just posting links to videos, I will do just that:

McCain Fucks Up Big Time.

It seems that we are (once again) too busy bickering about whether lying to the electorate is good politics or not to tear this bastard to shreds.

So, how do we exploit his inadvertent honest.. I mean misstatement?

Take a look what Dobbs is up to.. it is seriously hilarious.. ON LAW DAY!!

Hint, it has nothing to do with illegal wiretapping. ON LAW DAY!!!

In response to thisniss' excellent post.

Many here have seemed worried recently. Anxious, even. It seems Obama is getting hit from all sides and not fighting back effectively. Tempers flare, even neutral exchanges are sharper. The "pro-Obama" posts have an undertone of almost pleading. People are defensive, jumping on minor points or feeling that every laughable crackpot theory is a valid imminent threat that must be taken pains to somehow rectify, in the process giving validation.

This turns people off. It turns you off, it turns us off and it turns everyone else off.

And I submit it is deliberate.

Obama is about positive energy. About "getting it done" instead of "fighting." About a positive, empathic, assertive and inclusive approach to solving problems. He is stirring the "better angels" from a long slumber and providing a rallying point, and being that proverbial first one to speak. The positive energy, "hope" if you will, is also what is attracting many of the family members, friends and co-workers of the early supporters. Naturally everyone in the race has fervent fans, but there has been something in this particular enthusiasm that has stopped many cynics in their tracks to take another, serious look. Something many have not done in years if decades.

Opposing candidates, whose names I will not mention, have nowhere to go but down. They play yesterday's game; one year one side is up by three points, the next year the other squeaks a victory by two. The trenches go deeper and deeper, and 50 + 1 becomes 49 + 1 if you break one of theirs.

Obama is getting people to snap out of it, getting people to go past their conditioning, the brainwashing and really take a look around themselves. Then they--we--go to others and point out this guy who seems to get it. And we think we might just have it too.

For the dynamic duo, the only way to victory is to kill the enthusiasm. Snuff out the positivity. Gossip, lies and bullshit divert our time away from the positive, from talking to people. They anger us so that when we do talk, it is not about how we all can take the right way, it is about how the others, the enemies are taking the wrong way. And those we speak to just hear the same thing they have been hearing all these years, shrug and continue living in their castles wrought of despondency.

So it is our turn, again, to snap out of it and really take a look around. That guy gets it. Maybe I do too.

Anyway, see if you can find that place again.

For a few days, write every single comment or blog post twice. Write it once to say what you want to say, then write it again to say what you need to say. Do not read hastily, do not write hastily.

Turning the other cheek does not work. It never did. You will need to rebut some posts but there are two ways to go about it: there is the positive, empathic, assertive and inclusive way and there is the wrong way. If you notice that your rebuttal does not address the exact points of the accusation by simple facts, it is not worth the electricity. Scrap it. If you are not able to, and not one of us is an expert in every area, do not post just to say something, anything to create balance of bad. Let it be and someone will come along to do the right thing. Forcefully and truthfully.

Do not join in or stay silent on an untruth aimed at the others just because it happens to benefit us at this time. It is not OK. It is never OK.

If you or  someone else in the kool-aid team, someone in the campaign or even the big guy himself makes a mistake, say it out loud. The politicians of yesterday lie because they know their 25 will support them no matter what. When I stop accepting it when my guy or gal does something wrong is when they will stop doing it.

Do not generalize. All X do not do Y. With notable exceptions (whom you should just ignore), everybody here is basically a decent human being. Hell, maybe they will not even appreciate your gesture but never let that stop you. Give credit where it is due.

And make sure everyone else does too. You are your brother's keeper and you are your sister's keeper.

I think my habit of having Hardball on in the background has come to an end.  I liked to hear what the Enemy, the Conventional Wisdom crowd is talking about.

But they just reached a new low today. Chris Matthews was flogging the "Wright issue" the entire show, his "case" basically consisting of an entirely new twist on the "all you n--s look the same to me" bit when he kept basically insisting that Obama and Wright are the somehow the same person "to some voters." This is probably worth a post in and of itself but what really struck me is that when Ryan Lizza (one of the better journalists out there today) attempted at least three times to discuss the responsibility of the media to ensure than any such misconceptions are not generated and/or corrected but each time he was dismissed by Matthews, Jill Zuckman and even  Johnathan Capeheart--ultimately with them laughing at the adorable naivete of the youngster. Apparently, according to Zuckman, ensuring that truth and facts receive more (or any) prominence than the various lies and misrepresentations "is a bit high-minded" since "this is politics, after all."

Chris Matthews thinks it is not his responsibility to address the truth. He thinks supposedly abstractly discussing how effectively lies and misinformation work on their victims is a  valuable contribution to the society. With the exception, of course, of the times that he gets personally offended by something and then attributing his feelings to "the American public" assaults any passer-by about it.

I wrote a little letter to each of the four and to their employers.

This is very dangerous and needs to be put to rest right now. Several people are now making the claim that Clinton leads if you count the votes from MI and FL.

This is false.

First of all, the numbers are not there. More about that in a moment. The votes are not going to be counted. MI and FL broke the rules they themselves had voted for in order to disenfranchise the other 48 states and to benefit themselves. MI and FL will, ultimately, only get a 50/50 split in the Convention.

Anyway. In FL, Clinton got 105 delegates, Obama got 67.

In MI (where people could not even vote for Obama because he was not on the ballot), Clinton got 73 votes. Uncommitted got 55, so I will just use that as shorthand for Obama (I think it is fair: if there was a new primary, Obama would WIN Michigan according to polling data. Hell, even if we assume they tie MI, it is still better for Obama than the number I am using.)

Clinton is currently behind by 150 delegates including superdelegates (actually a bit more but no need to be stingy here.)

So using an extremely generous calculation, Clinton gains 105 + 73 = 182 delegates and Obama gains 67 + 55 = 122 delegates.

Net gain for Clinton is 182 - 122 = 60 delegates.

150 - 60 = 90.

Hillary Clinton loses.

Ha, I "misspoke" a little there. She said that when quoting Karl Rove in 2006, rebuking the Republicans for their use of the "fear card," specifically referencing advertising. Interesting how things turn around in a few short months.

We are all familiar with Bill Clinton's statement about hope versus fear, but I wanted to see if I could get it from the horse's mouth.

Anyone feel like digging up more?

10/23/2004:

Sen. Hillary Clinton raised the specter of the Florida 2000 race and
blasted President Bush for running a campaign of "fear" as she tried to
boost turnout among female and black voters in South Florida yesterday.

Ignoring GOP criticism that she's too angry for prime time, Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday walloped Karl Rove and President
George W. Bush for "playing the fear card" on terrorism and for failing
to kill "the tallest man in Afghanistan," Osama bin Laden.

"Two weeks ago, [White House political director] Karl Rove ... was
telling the National Republican Committee 'Here's your game plan,
folks, here's how you're gonna win - we're gonna win by getting
everybody scared again,'" Clinton said. "This crowd [says] 'All we've
got is fear and we are going to keep playing the fear card.'"