Saturday, May 31, 2008

Loyalty.... Bush Style


Thanks to Mike Luckovich at the Washington Post.

Bush Spinning in Place....

The Bush administration, and their heir-abhorrent John McSame, are now saying that we are overcoming al Qaeda in Iraq.... of course they fail to mention that al Qaeda wasn't in Iraq until we invaded and set the stage for them.

McCain is loudly trumpeting that our troops are at pre-surge levels. Well, actually we have 155,000 troops on the ground in Iraq... the pre-surge level was 135,000.

What to believe.

As Scott McClellan, former Bush White House press secretary, makes clear in his just-published memoir, the Bush White House operates in constant campaign mode, spewing propaganda steadily in order to manipulate public opinion.

So..... let's step back. Instead of listening to the tornadic spin from those who have everything to lose if Iraq and the fight against terrorism isn't a rosy picture, and be informed by the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, Donald M. Kerr, and his national intelligence analysis delivered in a speech Thursday evening.

As reported in "Intelligence Official Sees Little Progress Before Bush Exits" (WaPo), Kerr "predicted that the Bush administration would make little progress before leaving office on top national security priorities including an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, political reconciliation in Iraq and keeping Iran from being able to produce a nuclear weapon.

"A regenerated al Qaeda will remain the leading terrorism threat... "

As the White House issues it lies and distortions, and McCain promises more of the same, Kerr soberly warns against making intelligence a partisan issue, "The Middle East threats and challenges I've laid out.... are nonpartisan in nature and will confront our nation regardless of who is in the Oval Office..." to receive intelligence briefings.

But, as The Decider made clear about his approach to governing as revealed in a statement as governor of Texas.... "I am not part of the problem. I am a Republican."

And, John McSame promises to slip into Bush's Decider boots and march off the cliff....

Thursday, May 29, 2008

McClellan Purges WH Kool-Aid

For three years, until April of 2006, a power-trusting White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, drank the Karl Rove-brewed Kool-aid.

McClellan bellied up to the bar as front man to the White House press corps for the selling of the Bush administration's outrages..... the Iraq war, the evasion of responsibility for outing covert CIA agent Valerie Plame, and even the inept administration response to the hurricane Katrina disaster.

It was the perfect political storm.... the leveraging of McClellan's idealism to further the White House's deceptive political agenda.... "Trot out Scottie, he'll say it.... he even believes it. Ha, ha, ha."

Now, given the distance to decompress and reflect on those years, McClellan has purged himself all over the administration's master puppeteers.... Rove, Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, and even his formerly idealized president Bush in his forthcoming book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception."

In McClellan's memoir.... part confession, part apology....he describes a White House driven by unrelenting campaign-mode political propaganda, led by an incurious, self-deceiving, and finally off-the-track Bush.

Of course, because of the immediate, and predictable campaign to discredit the book by minions of the Bush administration, an under-siege "McClellan Defends Memoir." (WaPo)

Rove compared McClellan to (gasp) a "left-wing blogger," and Dan Bartlett, former counsel to the president said on the Today show... "He talks about wanting to change the tone in Washington, and yet uses inflammatory terms like 'propaganda machine,' and 'shading the truth.' "

In his defense, McClellan said it took him some time after leaving the White House to come to terms with his experience there. When the Iraq war started, "my beliefs were different" he said in a Today show interview. "I trusted the president's foreign policy team, and I believed the president when he talked about the great and gathering danger from Iraq. I believe the president believed it too. He had convinced himself.... I struggled to come to grips with how things went so badly off course."

As a Bush loyalist, McClellan wanted to believe.... but when he started stonewalling reporters because even he was confused as to the facts of the Plame case, and then lied to by Rove and Libby about their involvement.... he found himself unceremoniously dumped on the front lawn with vague promises from The Decider about sitting in rockin' chairs on his porch in Texas in the years to come while reflecting on the good ol' days.

But, a funny thing happened on the way to the rockin' chair.... McClellan found his moral compass.

And wrote a book about his miraged-wanderings in the ethical-desert of the Bush White House.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Biden Rues "Beneath Us" Politics

It's clear from the tone of his remarks the last few days about Sen. Barack Obama.... John McCain is shifting into low and driving his Straight Talk Express down the muddy back-alleys of gratuitous political attack.

In "Roads, High and Low" (WaPo) Bob Herbert explores McCain's latest foray into the political lowlands.

When Obama criticized McCain over his unwillingness to support an increase in college tuition for returning vets, Herbert noted how "McCain responded angrily and gratuitously mentioned that Mr. Obama had not served in the military. (This is especially weird when you consider that Senator McCain is a fierce supporter of the war in Iraq, which was fanatically promoted by an entire barnyard of chicken hawks.)"

Defending Obama against the searing attacks by the Bush administration, McSame and Joe Lieberman.... Sen. Joe Biden said Friday on MSNBC, "I refuse to sit back like we did in 2000 and 2004. This administration is the worst administration in American foreign policy in modern history - maybe ever. The idea that they are competent to continue to conduct our foreign policy, to make us more secure and make Israel secure, is preposterous... Every single thing they've touched has been a near-disaster."

Becoming emotional, Senator Biden said it was tough for him because "John's been my friend for 35 years, and I'm disappointed. Because, as you all know, there is a difference between an ad hominem argument and a logical response....." and McCain's kind of behavior should be "beneath us."

Later that same day, Hillary Clinton made her reference to Robert Kennedy's assassination, as a rationale for staying in the race, swerving not only onto the political back roads, but down onerous byways that could involve harm to Obama.

"Comments that bring that fear to the forefront are incredibly cold-blooded and hurtful, more brutal even than Senator Clinton's comment about 'hard working, Americans, white Americans," Herbert lamented.

But, it seems nothing is beneath either McSame or Hillary. They have determined to take the low road.... decent Americans should refuse to follow.

Monday, May 26, 2008

McCain Wrong on G.I. Bill of Rights

This Memorial Day we especially remember and honor our fallen troops.

But, what about our veterans who have served honorably, and at great sacrifice, who are returning to resume their lives. How are we honoring them?

The Decider thinks we have honored them enough, threatening to veto the new G. I. Bill of Rights passed in both the House and Senate that would pay full tuition and other expenses at a four-year public university for veterans who served in the military for at least three years since 9/11.

Ungenerous George.... "so lavish with other people's sacrifices, so reckless in pouring the national treasure into the sandy pit of Iraq, Mr. Bush remains as cheap as ever when it comes to helping people at home." (NY Times)

Bush, and to his great discredit, Sen. John McCain, argue against the bill because they don't want to give our troops anything that might lure them out of service.... better to keep the existing mediocre college benefits so that people in uniform are more likely to stay put, they insist.

Strawman reasoning since the C.B.O. predicts that the bill would offset the re-enlistment decline by increasing new recruits... by 16 percent.

McCain attacked Sen. Barack Obama for criticizing his opposition to the bill, and in his over-the-top diatribe sneered that since Obama hadn't served he couldn't possibly know as much about how to handle the military as McSame.

John, John, John.... you're woefully out-of-touch. You need to find your maverick "Straight Talking" self who fought against the "agents of intolerance" and put conscience over politics. Following in the lame and misguided footsteps of The Decider isn't the way to the high road.

In the meantime, in the spirit of Memorial Day, stand aside so this new and improved G. I. Bill can be enacted as partial repayment for the sacrifice of our soldiers. They deserve no less.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Hillary Invokes the "A" Word

How low will Hillary go in pursuit of her lost campaign for the White House?

We found out yesterday.

In an interview with the editorial board of The Sioux Falls Argus Leader she opined... "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right?" Adding "We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California."

Hillary enablers were quick to point out that she was just talking about the timeline.... June.... as a month where things could happen.... as if that justified uttering the "A" word in this highly-charged contest.

Assassination. How could she? But, evidently this has been one of her long-standing rationales for staying in the race after there was no mathematical way she could succeed.

According to "Clinton Remark on Robert Kennedy's Killing Stirs Uproar" in the New York Times, criticism of this oft-made argument caught Hillary off guard, "campaign aides were taken aback by the quick reaction to her remarks, but then quickly realized that Mrs. Clinton had to backpedal."

And, what was Hillary's backpedal..."I was discussing the Democratic primary history.... campaigns that both my husband and Senator Kennedy waged in California in June, in 1992 and 1968 .... to make the point that we have had nomination primary contests that go into June. That's a historical fact."

Facts are funny things, Hillary.

Because you can check them. On page 407 of your husband's autobiography, "My Life" he said about the New York primary on April 7, 1992 and the other primaries that day.... "we also won in Kansas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. On April 9, Paul Tsongas announced that he would not reenter the race. The fight for the nomination was effectively over. I had more than half the 2,145 delegates I needed to be nominated....."

Funny, Bill thought the 1992 primary fight was over on April 7.... not June. And, his benchmark.... he had over half of the delegates, just as Barack Obama has over half of the pledged delegates.

The New York Times thought Bill had wrapped up the nomination even earlier, in March of 1992.... "he was viewed as having secured it in March, when his last serious opponent dropped out."

Can anyone really believe that Hillary was the only one who didn't know Bill's campaign was "wrapped up" months before June of 1992. Can anyone seriously think that mentioning the tragic Kennedy assassination wasn't one of the "catastrophes" she had in mind as being a reason to stay in the race.

Even Bobby Kennedy's son, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said yesterday.... "I've heard her make that argument before, it sounds like she was invoking a familiar historical circumstance in support of her argument for continuing her campaign."

No need to point out the great risks Barack Obama is facing as the first viable African-American presidential candidate. Even giving voice to thoughts of assassination could unleash the action.

Ignoring Hillary's divisive race and class baiting comments such as "hardworking whites," her linking of the continuation of her presidential campaign with the assassination of a rival candidate in June is.... really, there are no words for the disgrace of such low behavior.

If there is a silver lining to this dark incident, it would be that it should remove the unsavory possibility that Hillary would be Obama's vice president.... and just a heartbeat away from her fanatical ambition.

Friday, May 23, 2008

Billary: Here's Your Hat and Coat.....

Like the in-laws from hell... Hill and Bill have planted themselves in our national living rooms and show no sign of leaving. But.... maybe if we give them "What Hillary Wants"... (WaPo)

Will they leave if we to offer to pay Hillary's campaign-overspending bills.... or, show them the nice vice presidency house down the block?

Maybe we can drop big hints suggesting they move on... will they leave then? "Dream on," Eugene Robinson sighs, at this point, Hillary's "campaign is about getting to tomorrow, and then getting to the next day, and then getting to the day after that."

Hill and Bill aren't leaving because they want the house.... the White House. As Robinson sees it, "Clinton knows that even the disputed delegates she 'won' in Florida and Michigan won't get her to the magic number she needs to win the nomination.... Hillary Clinton is after the White House, and if that means using the Florida and Michigan 'issue' to tie the party in knots until the convention, so be it.

"If that's not what the party leaders want, they'd better do something," Robinson advises.

Otherwise, the Billaries will just keep hangin' around, riling up the neighbors, teaching the kids bad math and false logic, and driving off voters who would have welcomed a principled Democrat in the White House come November.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Hillary and OPEC... Energy Vampires

What do Hillary Clinton and oil sheiks have in common?

Energy.

Hillary is sucking the energy out of the Democratic nominating contest.

And, energy prices are sucking our economy dry.

Hillary, the monster energy-rabbit.... is evidently determined to beat her "popular vote" drum into Denver, drowning out Barack Obama's voice as John McCain's marches to the White House.

Jonathan Alter explains this in "Popular Vote Poison... How Hillary's latest math hurts the party." (Newsweek) "Clinton has continued with one claim that could have a pernicious effect on the Democats' chances in November. While she knows that the nomination is determined by delegates, Hillary insists on saying at every opportunity that she is winning the popular vote."

Alter says "popular-vote pandering is poison for Democrats..." after the experience of 2000, "this argument is sure to make it harder to unite and put bitter feelings aside.

"Oh, and it's not true."

Regardless of the destructive effect of her popular-vote drumbeat, the "shorthand many Clinton supporters are already taking into the summer is that she won the popular vote but had the nomination 'taken away' (as Joy Behar said on 'The View') by a man."

Voters wilting under Hillary's constant and distorting thrumming are also being thrashed at the gas pump as "Skyrocketing Oil Prices Stump Experts." (WaPo) Everyone blames someone else.... oil executives blame financial speculators, speculators blame supply and demand, Congress looks to OPEC but they blame everyone including wasteful U.S. consumers.

Really? Experts don't have a clue?

Could it be because oilmen Cheney and Bush DIDN'T PUT IN PLACE AN ENERGY POLICY... except to give their oil buddies tax breaks without insisting on the development of production capacity.

"Whatever the causes, one of the most dizzying runs in the history of oil prices picked up pace yesterday - again - as crude oil prices jumped to settle at more than $133 a barrel, up $4.19 in one day...."

Whatever the causes? How about when The Decider invaded Iraq the price for a barrel of oil was $25. And, the Bush administration policy of giving manufacturers tax incentives to ship manufacturing abroad.... leading to China gorging on our economy, fueling China's growing appetite for oil.

China is now binging on oil as the result of it's "need for extra fuel to run generators to compensate for disruptions in coal deliveries and hydropower resulting from the recent earthquake."

Energy.... it's in short supply.

Sit down Hillary.

And, no more useless begging trips to Saudi Arabia for The Decider. No more closed-door confabs with energy tycoons for Cheney. No more finger-pointing by profit-bloated OPEC.

Patience is also running on empty.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Hagel and Lieberman Turnabout

What a difference a day makes.... even more so, eight years.

In the 2000 presidential campaign Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) endorsed Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in his long-shot presidential bid.

In 2000, Sen. Joe Lieberman (was D, now I-CT) was the vice presidential running mate on the Democratic ticket with Al Gore.

Fast forward to the 2008 campaign.

Tuesday night Hagel said of McCain's criticism of Barack Obama's pledge to engage with Iran... "I'm very upset with John with some of the things he's been saying. And I can't get into the psychoanalysis of it. But I believe that John is smarter than some of the things he is saying."

Hagel said that unlike McCain, he believes engaging in high-level talks with Iran, unconditionally, is not appeasement and praised Obama's policy of engagement... "I am confident that if Obama is elected president that is the approach we will take.... It is essential."

When asked about a rumor that the Bush administration was ginning up the possibility of war with Iran, Hagel threw the "I" bomb.... "You've got the power of impeachment...." an attack on Iran without the consent of Congress "would bring with it.... outstanding political consequences, including for the Republican party." (Huffington Post)

The subject of Iran and foreign policy brings us to Lieberman's opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal today.... "Democrats and Our Enemies."

Decrying Obama's position of talking with our enemies, Lieberman takes aim at the Democratic party and especially it's presumptive nominee... "Sen. Obama stands in stark contrast to John McCain, who has shown the political courage throughout his career to do what he thinks is right.... John also understands something else that too many Democrats seem to have become confused about lately - the difference between America's friends and America's enemies."

Embracing The Decider's Iraq war and Middle East policies, Lieberman asserts.... "I felt strongly that Democrats should embrace the basic framework the president had advanced for the war on terror as our own..."

Not only has Lieberman embraced the administration's failed foreign policies, but he acts as tender to McCain on his travels, jumping in to clean up McCain's misstatements and filling in as poster boy for McCain's self-proclaimed bipartisan support.

Hagel praises Obama, and Lieberman endorses McSame.... and so the political world turns in the political do-si-do.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Unintelligent Designs

Hillary Clinton is doggedly, with "Fatal Attraction" scariness, pursuing the Democratic presidential nomination using her own math.... "Barack Obama will have over half of the pledged delegates, so I win!"

There is definitely a method here, ignore the facts.... just keep advocating.

So too are the "flat-earthers" equally fanatical in their determination to blur the lines between their agenda and science, now with red-herring arguments about "academic freedom" to undermine the teaching of evolution.

"Creationism's Latest Mutation" (WaPo) explains the current legislative push to award creationism equal classroom standing with evolution. Bills in five states that "would protect teachers critical of the findings of Charles Darwin" have appeared and other states are considering similar moves..... a "perverse" and "misguided effort" to advance creationism under the false guise of academic freedom.

This is akin to insisting that two plus two equals anything but four and legislating for "academic freedom" in order to give equal standing to such a notion.

Just as Hillary's destructive and selfish "fight" for the nomination depends on fuzzy math, the strategy being pursued to insert religion into the classroom depends on fuzzy science.... and the relentless fanaticism to keep lurking about academic halls and classrooms stalking Darwin.

Because deception is the mistress of false zealotry, fidelity to truth demands constant vigilance.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Obama and Iowa Celebrate!

There are primaries this Tuesday in Oregon and Kentucky. A big win in Oregon should give Obama more than half of the pledged delegates. So.... Obama has elected to celebrate with the ones who brung 'im, "Obama to Return to Iowa, Possibly to Claim Victory." (NY Times)

An overwhelming victory in Oregon for Obama is definitely in the air as "75,000 Attend Obama Rally in Portland." on Sunday. (MSNBC Firstread) Obama's biggest rally of the campaign to date.

It was Obama's Iowa caucus win over John Edwards and Hillary Clinton that breathed life and viability into his historic quest to become the Democratic candidate for president.

Against the odds of a scorched-earth Clinton political machine, the sniping of a terrified GOP preferring to run against a high-negatives Hillary, the lingering whiff of racial bias, the high-octane destructive rants of Obama's former pastor Rev. Wright.... even the conniving of Limbaugh dittoheads voting for Hillary Clinton in Operation Chaos...

Against all of these odds it seems an almost certainty that Obama will become not only the first African American candidate for the presidency, but has a better than 50-50 chance of becoming the first African American president of the United States.

On Tuesday Obama will revisit Iowa where his feet were firmly planted on the path to the White House.... 95 percent white Iowa, with politically-educated caucus-goers who listened and were energized by his politics of hope, inclusion and change.

Iowa, a swing state in November, won't forget Obama now. His second beginning starts Tuesday in Iowa.... the pledged-delegate benchmark heralding the beginning of Obama's national campaign. It's fitting that Obama.... Iowa's "favorite son".... touches home.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

McCain's Muddy Roadmap

Listen up!

Dick Morris, the spurned toe-sucking friend of and political-guru for Bill Clinton's 1996 reelection campaign... now a scores-to-settle political analyst for Fox News.... has weighed in on the current presidential campaign in "Obama Has the Upper Hand. But McCain Can Still Take Him." (WaPo)

He sums up his view of the race.... "A candidate who cannot get elected [Barack Obama] is being nominated by a party that cannot be defeated, while a candidate who is eminently electable [John McCain] is running as the nominee of a party doomed to defeat.

"In this environment, McCain can win by running to the center."

Which only highlights what is really wrong with politics in American today. Advisers who want the candidate to say anything regardless of their real convictions in order to win. Run here, run there, run anywhere there are votes. And, McCain seems to be sucking up the hackneyed Morris ideas like a sponge in a cesspool.

McCain was okay with unending war in Iraq, but now he says "most" troops will be out by 2013. He sponsored and fought hard for corporate-pleasing amnesty legislation for illegal aliens, but now says we have to go slow and secure the borders first. He dismissed global warming, but now he's greener than the Jolly Giant. In fact, he's swerving to the center so fast his Straight Talk bus is about to rollover like a bellyrub-begging pooch.

There definitely was a time when a candidate could abandon his previously held positions to pander and waffle to get the vote, and then revert when elected. Take The Decider, for example. When he ran for the presidency he said we should not involve ourselves in nation building, he was for smaller government and a balanced budget.

But, those weren't the real Bush policies, they were Morris-prescriptions for winning since Bush has involved us in nation building in Iraq, installed a bloated government of Homeland Security and No Child Left Behind bureaucracies, and presided.... along with a complicit GOP-controlled Congress.... over the wholesale selling of America while incurring monstrous debts.

Morris is advocating just such a disingenuous campaign. And, while McCain is courting the center, Morris crows that the right wing can do McCain's "swiftboat" mudslinging a' la Rev. Wright. Have no doubt, Obama's in for a bumpy ride as he navigates his "one America" course.

But Morris hasn't factored the public's savvy into the equation. In this YouTube world, every McCain policy detour will be billboarded, every flip-flop becomes a pothole on the road to the White House.

Someone needs to point out to Morris that Obama has the upper hand because he a leader with convictions running against a morally bankrupt GOP spin machine. Morris needs to take his forked-tongue and retire to the dustbin of political losers.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Bush's Golf Story....


Oh boohoo. The Decider's big sacrifice for the troops in Iraq.... he gave up golf. (Huffington)

But did he?

In an interview with Politico last week President Bush laid the heavy one on us.... "I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf." He said he made the decision in August 2003 after the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad.

Well.... he almost gave it up. He played a round on October 13 of that year. Maybe he forgot.

Or, maybe it's another nose-growing Bushism. You see, Boy George suffered a minor muscle tear in his right calf which had healed by August 2003, but he was still having problems and said he suspected he had a tear in September of that year.

It hurt him to run.... he gave that up.... his calf hurt, his knees ached. Gave up golf for the troops.... tell us another one.

If only The Decider had quit the presidency and taken up golf....

Friday, May 16, 2008

Einstein Addresses Religion

In our United States of America, religion or "having religion," has become a must-have political imperative.

Politicians must have it, wars must be fought over it, vast trillions must be spent to support it, special laws must be enacted to shield it. The wall of separation between church and state erected at great cost by our Founding Fathers is now in reality a flimsy beaded curtain, easily brushed aside in the rush for political power and favor.

So.... it is instructive to read what one of the greatest thinkers of our time, Albert Einstein, thought of religion, God, the Bible, Judaism and the walls erected by ego.

In a letter to philosopher Eric Gutkind written a year before Einstein died and sold at auction this week for $400,000, Einstein branded religious beliefs as "childish superstitions" and the "product of human weaknesses" and the "Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."

Einstein frankly told Gutkind that "In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew..... With such walls we can only attain a certain self-deception, but our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary."

The letter came after Einstein was sent a copy of Gutkind's book, "Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt." Einstein repudiated almost everything that Gutkind believed in with a difference.... he felt that a devout believer shared his "striving to make life beautiful and noble."

Einstein's "devout" weren't the evangelical pastors preaching hate of gays justified with fanciful interpretations of Biblical verse, or a Catholic church protecting child molesters and giving sanctuary to lawbreakers.

He wasn't referring to the plate-passing propagators and their props as the "devout." He would applaud driving the moneychangers from the temple, and government.... and the return to a solid wall of separation between church and state.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Hillary, the Pretend Contender

Hillary has her act down pat.

To make it appear she's a winner with adoring crowds.

But, the reality is a little different as Dana Milbank explains in "This Is an Ex-Candidate." (WaPo)

With her reduced press contingent dolefully in tow, Hillary jetted into Charleston, WV last night. This is how she deplaned.... "After an appropriate wait, she steps from the plane and pretends to wave to a crowd of supporters. In fact, she is waving to 10 photographers underneath the airplane's wing.

"She pretends to spot an old friend in the crowd, points and gives another wave, in fact she is waving at an aide she had been talking with on the plane minutes earlier."

Didn't you really know deep down inside that those point-and-wave moments at every campaign appearance were phony.... just like drinking shots, dodging sniper fire and her quick-stop gas-and-coffee routine were only theater.... the illusion of hometown caring and daring.

Hillary won the West Virginia primary yesterday by a wide margin and the nation yawned. She only proved once again that she can play to voter's fears and prejudices, not their hopes and aspirations

The curtain is coming down on her I-can-win-despite-the-numbers road show. Unsurprisingly, the exit line of this $104 million pretender is.... send money!

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Billary's Racist Underbelly

With all of the racial innuendos, and downright race-baiting "hard-working Americans, white Americans" utterances of the Billary campaign, the question becomes.... did Bill and Hillary ever really care about black America? Or was aligning themselves with African-Americans always just a cold and calculated vote-harvesting maneuver.

As Hillary elbows into West Virginia for today's primaries, will she once again crow that only she can attract white working-class voters, that Barack Obama just can't cut it with that crowd.... purposely fueling racism and undermining Obama as the presumptive nominee.

Bob Herbert asks, will Hillary blatantly keep sowing "Seeds of Destruction" (NY Times) for the Democratic party, and the nation, in November.

Herbert rips the scab off of the wounding Billary campaign in his hard-hitting weekend op-ed.... "Now the Clintons, in their desperation to find some way - any way - back to the White House" are drudging up the lousy GOP Southern strategy rhetoric....

"He can't win! Don't you understand? He's black! He's black!

"The Clintons have been trying to embed that gruesomely destructive message in the brains of white voters and superdelegates for the longest time. It's a grotesque insult to African-Americans, who have given so much support to both Bill and Hillary over the years."

As Hillary stands on the bones of racial progress tonight to belch her pride over her predicted divisive win in West Virginia, Americans can be grateful that the vote-garnering pretense of the counterfeit Billary feel-your-pain persona has been unmasked.

Bill and Hillary have now proven beyond doubt that they are not the nation's healers, but just the usual craven political heels.

Friday, May 09, 2008

Where's the Village?

Hillary won't acknowledge she's not the nominee. The voters have already spoken, but it'll take the superdelegates and Democratic party leaders to dislodge her from the field.

It'll take a village!

Hillary Hurls the "W" Word

For Billary, it's all about power.

Getting, keeping and wielding it.

There really isn't anywhere they won't go to be the Democratic party powerbrokers. Peggy Noonan takes aim at Billary's over-the-top tactics in "Damsel of Distress." (Wall Street Journal)

Noonan points out that Billary's hatchet man set their gutter parameters this week. On CNN Tuesday night Paul Begala uttered the "W" word. Accusing Barack Obama of not caring about white voters, he charged that if "there's a new Democratic Party that somehow doesn't need or want white working-class people and Latinos, well, count me out.... We cannot win with eggheads and African Americans."

Democratic party activist, African American Donna Brazile, wasn't having any of this, telling Begala to "stop trying to split us into these groups," and admonishing him... "It's our party, Paul. Don't say my party. It's our party...."

Putting the exclamation point on Begala's remarks, Thursday Hillary said in an interview with USA Today she has "a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," citing an AP report that she said "found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states [IN and NC] who had not completed college were supporting me."

Hard-working white Americans!.... and, if you have a college degree forget it, you're not hard-working enough. Ugly class and race-baiting from the spouse of the first black president.

As Noonan pointed out, "If John McCain said, 'I got the white vote, baby!' his candidacy would be over. And rising in highest indignation against him would be the old Democratic party."

But evidently this isn't the old Democratic party.... with superdelegates and party leaders cowering behind "more time" squeaks as dominatrix Hillary and her finger-pointing, has-been husband dispense their punishment. They are going to make everyone suffer until they are given their due.... their coronation, or the destruction of Obama and the Democratic party.

Noonan says it's obvious .... "The Democratic Party has a winner. It has a nominee. You know this because he has the most votes and the most elected delegates, and there's no way, mathematically, his opponent can get past him...."

But to diminish Obama, Hillary is playing the race card to "highlight and encourage a sense that we are crudely divided as a nation, to make your argument a brute and cynical 'the black guy can't win but the white girl can' is -- well, so vulgar, so cynical, so cold, that once again a Clinton is making us turn off the television in case the children walk by."

It's not easy to go against Billary. Just ask Gov. Bill Richardson who endured their long tirade when he told them of his support for Obama.... and felt the lash from Clintonite James Carville who accused Richardson of being a "Judas."

Or House Whip Rep. James Clyburn who said he was subjected to a 50 minute phone-reaming from Bill after their loss in South Carolina over his TV remarks about Bill playing the race card there.

It's 3 a.m. and Billary's phone should be ringing.... who'll make that overdue call?

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Limbaugh's Ditto-Duds

Conservative ditto-cult leader Rush Limbaugh likes to call himself a great American.

Who is he kidding?

In order to massage his massive ego, Limbaugh urged his GOP ditto-head listeners to once again cross-over vote for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. This time in the Indiana and North Carolina primaries Tuesday in order to "bloody up Obama politically" and prolong the Democratic fight.

The right to vote is the bedrock of our democracy, countless thousands have fought and died for this precious right.... and Limbaugh thinks perverting of this process through "Operation Chaos" is high excitement as he scrabbles for ratings.

Today Alex MacGillis and Peter Slevin of the Washington Post ask, "Did Rush Limbaugh Tilt Result in Indiana?"

Barack Obama lost to Hillary Clinton in Indiana by just 14,000 votes out of the hundreds of thousands cast. Exit polling identified ten percent of the voters as Republicans, with 8 in ten of them voting for Clinton although they said they would vote for GOP candidate John McCain in the general election.

Yesterday Limbaugh crowed all day about the success of "Operation Chaos" with on-air testimonials from his ditto-heads who recounted their glee in casting a Chaos vote for Clinton.

Most disturbing isn't Limbaugh's usual vapid squawking, most disturbing are the Americans willing to take their marching orders from such a shallow narcissistic vessel in order to undermine our democratic process.

Maybe Limbaugh and his ditto-duds should take a walk around a military cemetery, or visit a Revolutionary War memorial.... but then again maybe not.

They might find the gravestones the perfect place to scribble graffiti, or the memorial grounds a great place for pro-Clinton billboards.... ha, ha, ha. Ain't they got fun.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Hillary... Exit Now

The voters in North Carolina and much of Indiana didn't buy it. Hillary.... the $104-million-woman.... and her "gas tax holiday." She lost "big time" when she needed to win "big time" to even have a chance at the Democratic presidential nomination.

Her temporary 30-cents-a day tip was a pittance against skyrocketing gas prices. A tip that would eliminate the jobs of thousands of highway and bridge construction workers.... a tip that economists said would only make the deteriorating energy situation worse.

But, Hillary was counting on greedy voters, dim-witted voters who didn't quite get it, panting after their 30 cent tip.

Barack Obama's argument against the gas "holiday" spoke to the intelligence of the voters.... it was nuanced and depended on voters understanding it was such short-term feel-good political pandering that put us in this fix when what is needed is a real and sustainable energy policy.

What a contrast to the hard-bitten Hillary who strutted her primary macho stuff, dropping her "g"s in true Quickdraw Bush fashion.... doin' and workin'.... as she mingled among her little people.

Maureen Dowd describes how Hillary "crawled through glass" in an attempt to play the everywoman role in "Butterflies Aren't Free".... "Talking up guns, going to the Auto Racing Hall of Fame, speaking from the back of pickup trucks and doing shots of populism with a cynicism chaser, Hillary emerged from a lifetime of government limos to bask as queen of the blue-collar prom."

Just how far is Hillary willing to crawl over broken glass to sate her ambitions? As Dowd commiserates... "heaven help the Democrats as the try to shake off Hillary.

"On top of her inane vows to obliterate Iran, OPEC and the summer gas tax, she plans 'a nuclear option' during her Shermanesque march to Denver." (NYTimes)

Obama's patriotic victory speech in Raleigh.... "telling the truth forcefully, repeatedly, confidently".... answers the hunger in voters for the real deal after nearly eight years of a lyin' cowboy.

There is no way Hillary can win short of taking down both Obama and the Democratic party.

The curtain is coming down on Hillary's charade.... it's up to her whether she takes a bow and quickly exits with a pretense of dignity, or whether she insists on remaining stage-center in a frenzied performance that can only end in boos and the hook.

Thursday, May 01, 2008

Hillary's Hollow "Holiday"

The Democratic presidential race really comes down to this..... if you want an opportunistic politician then Hillary is for you. If you want a leader who responds to issues based on what's best for the country, then Obama's the one.

This difference is brought forcefully home in "Clinton Gas-Tax Proposal Criticized.... Economists Share Obama's View." (WaPo)

"A growing chorus - including a top congressional Democrat - labeled Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's proposal for suspending the federal gasoline tax ineffective and shortsighted yesterday, even as she continued to paint Sen. Barack Obama as insensitive to drivers' woes for not endorsing the plan."

Of course, Hillary doesn't point out that lost revenue from her frivolous "summer tax holiday" would take about $9 billion out of the highway fund.... sidelining 300,000 workers.

Or, that her proposed windfall-profits tax against the oil industry.... that won't be passed by Congress anyway.... would only result in fatter profit margins for oil companies as they pass it on to consumers.

As House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said of Clinton's proposal, the Democratic leadership of Congress has no intention of pursuing Clinton's summer tax suspension, the move "would not be positive.... the oil companies would just raise their prices."

Obama says of Hillary...and John McCain's... gas tax plan: "That's typical of how Washington works. There's a problem, everybody's upset about gas prices - let's find some short-term quick fix, so we can say we did something even though we're not really doing anything. We cannot deliver on a better energy policy unless we change how business is done in Washington.

Voters in Indiana and North Carolina can set the bar next week.... Hillary's vote-currying slick politics, or Obama's problem-solving smarter economics.

A choice between change based sound policies, or continuing the Bush-Cheney-McSame give-them-cake corrupting and bankrupting plunge.... an instant-gratification nation.