The delusional based community

The Orange Sippy Cup™ King audaciously claimed he's part of the reality-based community because, yo! He criticized Obama for appearing on Faux News. Moulitsas pronounced:

"Yo people, Obama isn't beyond reproach or criticism. I want him to win the primary and the general, but I ain't gonna keep my mouth shut and carry his water when I disagree with him. If you have a problem with it, you might want to go elsewhere, because this is the reality based community, not the 'Obama can do no wrong' community...."

Reality based? Then explain why the Kiddie King got his facts all a-jumbled with Obama talking points advanced by Axelrod that are wrong, wrong, wrong. Sipping that BO Kool-Aid again, eh, Kos?

Several liberal bloggers are criticizing Clinton for supporting a gas tax holiday that she opposed during her 2000 Senate campaign:

Moulitsas slams "Clinton's shameless hypocrisy on the fuel tax": "Honestly, why take the 18 cents out of the federal budget? Why not take it out of the oil company profits? The $10 billion in revenue the federal government would lose, at a time when our roads are crumbling and bridges literally collapsing, is only a quarter of Exxon Mobil's annual profits. [...] And that's just Exxon Mobil, excluding every other Big Oil company. Add them all up, and $10 billion would be but a blip in their balance sheet. So why do McCain and Clinton want to penalize the federal government at a time of record oil profits?"

Oh, nice spiel associating Hillary with Republican McCain on the issue. Don't expect a CDS sufferer like Kos to be able to fact check himself. The 2000 propaganda advanced by--Surprise! War-profiteering General Electric's NBC!--is wrong (with emphasis):

NBC's First Read implies that Hillary's plan for a gas tax holiday contradicts her position in 2000. This is false.

Hillary's plan today is financed exclusively with a tax on windfall profits from oil companies. She opposed a plan in 2000 for a gas tax holiday because it was financed with transportation funds:

"Clinton, whose daughter, Chelsea, joined her on the campaign trail for the first time yesterday in Manhattan, contends that getting rid of the gas tax would eliminate the funding stream for important transportation projects in New York and elsewhere…" [Newsday, 6/27/00]

"While New York sends $300 million a year to Washington in gas taxes, Clinton said it gets back $477 million in highway funding annually. The first lady said Lazio's plan would have a 'damaging impact' on the state." [Associated Press, 6/27/00]

The OSCK must have a dedicated email account for Obama's chief political/media advisor and Chicago Daley's former PR strategist David Axelrod. The Kiddie King can disseminate BO's BS quicker than projectile diarrhea. The facts:

This afternoon [4/28] on Hardball, Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod, falsely claimed that Hillary's plan to suspend the gas tax this summer would be financed by diverting funds for federal transportation projects:

He'll invest in our infrastructure, which badly needs it. We know that. That's one of the reasons this diversion from the federal highway trust fund that Senator McCain and Clinton have proposed makes no sense.

This is false. Hillary's plan is financed by a tax on the windfall profits of oil companies. Details here.

To summarize Hillary's plan:

• Imposing a windfall profits tax on oil companies and using the money to suspend the gas tax for the peak summer months;

• Closing $7.5 billion in oil and gas loopholes and using the funds to provide assistance for lower-income families to pay their energy and grocery bills;

• Cracking down on speculation by energy traders and market manipulation in oil and gas markets that are driving up the price of oil by at least $20 a barrel;

• Pressuring OPEC to increase oil production, including by filing a WTO complaint against OPEC countries

• Stopping new additions to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and standing ready to release oil to counter market spikes and reduce volatility.

Details at the link with this opening line: "Hillary will impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies and use the money to temporarily suspend the 18.4 cent per gallon federal gas tax and the 24.4 cent per gallon diesel tax during the upcoming peak summer driving months."

The OSCK falsehoods are a disgrace to the reality-based community. Pro-Clinton bloggers deserted the the Orange Sippy Cup™ for a saner environment "sick and tired of being sick and tired over the hate, ignorance and hostility directed at Hillary and her supporters." Former diarist alegre called for writer's strike stating she would "refrain from posting [at DKos] as long as the administrators allow the more disruptive members of our community to trash Hillary Clinton and distort her record without any fear of consequence or retribution."

Distorting Hillary's record... wonder where the Kossacks got that idea? The Kiddie King sets the standard.

Still sexist after all these years

A larger image of the cartoon available at Cornell University Library.

Egalia of Tennessee Guerilla Women stopped by to comment on Olberman's misogynistic hate speech against Hillary. So I popped over to TGW and found this:

Who is Keith Olbermann? With the aid of the in-your-face caption: A Slut and Battery, Keith Olbermann reports in the video clip (2006) below that Paris Hilton was "punched in the face." To the laughter of the boys in the background, Olbermann opines that Paris Hilton has "had worse things happen to her face." Taking vicious shots at young celebrities is a routine feature on Olbermann's show. But there is one rule, Keith's shots are always fired at women. Cuz, just like in the 1950s, girls are sleazy sluts and boys are honorable studs.

Egalia has the KO video clip. She also quoted Sandi Burtseva from 2007. The grafs that jumped to my attention via Burtseva were her insights into KO's denigration of Paris Hilton:

Regardless of how astute his political criticism is, I am no longer willing to tolerate Keith Olbermann’s misogyny. Olbermann has a nasty habit of making sexist, derogatory statements about female celebrities. The things he’s said are shameful and should never have been uttered, let alone on television. While he is certainly not alone in his reprehensible treatment of women, Olbermann is widely admired by progressives; unlike other trashy gossip commentators, he must be held to progressive standards....

...Bloggers pointed out that he kept [“A Slut and Battery" regarding Paris Hilton] on the screen for 20 seconds of a 32-second clip, but I don’t see the relevance. Even if he’d only thrown it up long enough to read, this caption (coupled with the vitriol he spewed) tells us everything we need to know about Olbermann’s attitude toward women:

• He thinks it is acceptable to judge women for their sexual choices.
• He thinks women who make particular sexual choices are to be taken less seriously when they claim to have been assaulted.
• He thinks it’s amusing to, um “cleverly” invert a phrase often associated with domestic violence and use it to belittle women.

My former admiration notwithstanding, I dismissed Olbermann then and there, but it seems many others have been willing to give him a second chance. It is my unfortunate duty to note that Olbermann persists in his misogyny.

On Monday, Olbermann devoted some airtime to that most important of world events: Britney Spears’ hairstyle choice. (Story number two, for anyone keeping track, was a similarly distasteful, if slightly more reserved, bashing of the late Anna Nicole Smith. He began his coverage by calling Spears a “pop tart and went on to opine that “… the question now turns to what was she thinking, if not what was she on…”

In the eyes of Olbermann and his ilk, Spears made two mistakes: She dared to be overtly sexual and she dared to shed one of the defining markers of her femininity. I neither know nor care how much sex Spears has and with whom, or why she shaved her head, but I have this radical proposition: In spite of the fact that she’s made sexy music videos, Spears’ body is her own and should not be subjected to Olbermann’s disgusting views.

Both Burtseva and egalia alerted me to something I did not know, not being a KO or MSNBC viewer: Olbermann's pattern of misogyny.

More disturbing, the SCLB's A-List Blog Boyz have watched KO's sexist inclinations and either didn't notice or shrugged indifferent. Misogyny on display? Where? Last, year, Jessica Valenti at Feministing exhumed the Orange Sippy Cup™ King's brain-dead denial:

Markos on Kathy Sierra and female bloggers being harassed and getting death threats:

Look, if you blog, and blog about controversial shit, you'll get idiotic emails. Most of the time, said "death threats" don't even exist -- evidenced by the fact that the crying bloggers and journalists always fail to produce said "death threats".

So let me get this straight: blogging about the oh-so-controversial world of software development means you should expect to get death threats. After all, nothing brings out the crazies like tech-talk. And besides, she probably made it all up anyway.

...Email makes it easy for stupid people to send stupid emails to public figures. If they can't handle a little heat in their email inbox, then really, they should try another line of work.

I mean come on, if you can't handle your address and social security number being published along with threats of rape, hanging, suffocation and death--you're a fucking lightweight.

Seriously though, it's one thing to argue--as Markos does--that a blogger code of conduct would be ineffective. Fine. But dismissing online misogyny and Sierra's experience (without even bothering to do any research on the subject, to boot) is reprehensible. Though predictable given the source.

I unplug when I paint as I did last year for an art exhibition and I missed, as we headed into the primary season, a key understanding: misogyny has been festering amongst the fauxgressive patriarchs of the SCLB. Unleashing it like a volcanic eruption, they targeted Hillary Clinton with a vengeance.

Why is it mostly up to female bloggers to call out sexism? Is anti-feminism so entrenched that fauxgressive men can't shake the legacy of patriarchy to invade, subvert, colonize, and oppress? Is it what Jeff Fecke of Shakesville reiterated in the blindness of privilege?

It takes work to see evidence of oppression when one is not the one being oppressed. It is far easier to simply ignore it, even when one knows one shouldn't.

Also at Shakesville, Melissa McEwan blogged about "a very common misperception that sexism is subjective." Go read her essay. I couldn't do it justice with a fragment.

Some progressive men get it. A few male bloggers I read regularly--Tom Watson, Joseph Cannon, Bob Somerby of The Daily Howler, and Jeff Fecke--do (and certainly more than I follow). Why can Watson, Cannon, Somerby, and Fecke identify and criticize sexism but WKJM and the Orange Sippy Cup™ King don't? Keith Olbermann doesn't but he's an imperious cog in a media machine that rewards ratings, ad revenue, and corporate profits more than truth and justice. I expect better from the liberal blogosphere. The best explanation that I've read recently came from Anglachel:

...why are so many middle and upper-middle class men, typified by the A-List Blogger Boyz, who claim to be progressives such virulent anti-feminists? My answer is rational self-interest, also known as weeding out the competition.

Another way of putting it is why, if white racism is so persistent in this nation, why does this slender sliver of America appear immune to its siren call? Why does Hillary Clinton scare the crap out of the guy who kidnapped Josh Marshall, but he feels no anxiety (that he'll admit to) around The Precious? We can go into analysis of oedipal fantasies and the pervasive influence of patriarchy, yadda yadda, but my point is that this cohort of dudz is exactly the one that claims to be "post-" all those nasty -isms.

The answer is surprisingly simple. They face a lot of competition from white women for their social and economic successes, but not very much from black men. They get a lot more payoff from bashing, dominating, and fucking over women than they do from doing that to men of any color. They can get solidarity from the guyz against the hos. This cannot fully explain the anti-feminist behavior of self-identified liberal men, but it's one hell of a contributing factor.

In Maslow's hierarchy of needs, survival trumps self-actualization. Elbows starting flying when the watering hole gets crowded. All the talk about post-partisan unity gets lost in the mud because vision doesn't address the reality of the oppressed; one must design solutions with a commitment to execute them. When those solutions undermine the privileged class that's fighting to control the watering hole, commitment evaporates. Poof!

Until women and men who love women commit to solving "all those nasty -isms," sexism will to continue to thrive. So who's ready?

CREDITS: Fauxgressive, a term I picked up from Melissa McEwan of Shakesville, where one can also read Jeff Fecke.

The two faces of Kos

Before Kos descended into CDS madness (emphasis added in red sometimes in red boldface):

Who is playing to win?

Winning is important. The last thing we can afford as a country is another 4-8 years of continued Republican rule. If nothing else, Justice Stevens is not long on the bench, and losing his vote in the Supreme Court would inflict the nation with a solid conservative majority for generations. So who is doing everything possible to win?

Hillary Clinton, by far. She's not limiting her campaign's ability to raise money (nor her supporters' to give it) by accepting public financing. Obama has opted out for the primary, but has said he'd accept it for the general if the Republican did so as well. Why give Republicans veto power over what the Democrats do? Given our better ability to raise money this cycle, why would Obama willingly surrender that advantage to the Republicans? That's not playing to win. Edwards is the opposite, saying he could opt out of public financing for the general, but already opted in for the primary. That means that unless he's opposite a similarly limited Republican (i.e. McCain), he'll be at a gross disadvantage all summer as he has less than $20 million left to spend until September.

What's more, Clinton was the only top-tier candidate to refuse the ultimate Iowa and New Hampshire pander by removing her name from the Michigan ballot. That makes her essentially the de facto winner since Edwards and Obama, caving to the cry babies in Iowa and New Hampshire, took their name off Michigan's ballot. Sure, the DNC has stripped Michigan of its delegates, but that won't last through the convention. The last thing Democrats can afford is to alienate swing states like Michigan and Florida by refusing to seat their delegates.

So while Obama and Edwards kneecap their chances of winning, Clinton is single-mindedly focused on the goal.

Who is tested against the Right Wing smear machine?

Edwards earned valuable campaign experience in 2004. It makes me wonder why he'd go through it all again a second time, but still, it's something. Clinton, by far. No one has taken more shit from the VRWC, not by a long shot.Obama has never had a competitive race against a Republican. His best experiences comes from winning primaries. But he's never been in the crossfires of the GOP. Maybe that's why he can pretend that he can move beyond partisanship. Because he's never had to run a partisan race.

Who is the best defender of progressive ideals?

Edwards, by a landslide. Not the 2004 edition, but the new and improved 2008 model. From a rhetorical standpoint, no one has come close to articulating the nation's ills and why progressive solutions are the best salve. This is important -- Democrats have been poor at branding their ideology, thus ceding that ground to demonizing conservatives. Long term, our movement cannot survive another Bill Clinton -- someone more interested in making David Broder and Joe Klein happy with triangulating rhetoric that undermines rather than bolsters progressive values and policies.

Clinton isn't horrible on this front, but Obama has made a cottage industry out of attacking the dirty fucking hippies on the left, from labor unions, to Paul Krugman, to Gore and Kerry, to social security, and so on. People think I was being ticky tack with the Gore thing, and in isolation it would've been but a minor non-event. But it was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back for me, yet another in a pattern of attacks against Democrats and their constituencies. [Obama] is the return of Bill Clinton-style triangulating personified. Now I'm willing to consider that this is all a front, and that he'd govern as progressively as Bush governed conservatively after his 2000 bullshit about being a "uniter" and "compassionate". He can even pull a Bush, I suppose, and claim a "mandate" on policies he blurred or ignored on the campaign. But we've seen how a lack of true mandate has crushed Bush's presidency and made him the most unpopular and least effective president in history. I'd rather have our candidate elected promising progressive reform, especially in a year where the American people seem to crave such solutions.

Then again, I do like that Obama has frozen out Fox "News" (as has Edwards, I think). I wish Clinton would do so as well, but her weird flirtation with Rupert Murdoch apparently precludes that.

The "Story" and likability?

I actually like all the candidates, even Hillary. I don't like the people she surrounds herself with, like the union-busting Mark Penn, but I like her personally. And I like Obama and his story, and I like Edwards and his story. I like the fact that being a white male puts Edwards at a disadvantage. It shows we're progressing and that people are craving a more tangible symbol of that progress -- a woman or African American president. As a Latino, I was desperately hoping I could get behind Bill Richardson's campaign, but that one came up short in so many different areas that it wasn't to be. But I like Richardson as well. Politicians rarely get this high by being public assholes, at least on the Democratic side.

In other words, I'd have a beer with any of them. But I do love the idea of breaking a new barrier this year, whether it's by having a woman president or an African American one.

Bottom line?

Given the minor differences in policy, and the vast gap between them and the chamber of horrors the GOP has put forth, I'll be satisfied with any of these candidates as my nominee. None of them rock my world, there are no true people-powered candidates in our field (the only one is Ron Paul, on the other side). So what's the fault line? The desire to win (important) and the ability and willingness to unapologetically articulate progressive solutions to our nation's problems. Hillary wins the former, and Edwards the latter. I'd love to see a barrier broken, to provide a tangible sign of our progress as a society (even Pakistan has had a woman prime minister).

By jennies! What a reversal of fortunes. Kos has transformed into the head cheerleader of the Obamasphere overcome with Clinton Derangement Syndrome.

Today, Kos shows us how unhinged and shallow he's become in his rebuttal of a NYTimes article criticizing Howard Dean of the DNC:

Indeed, 24 hours after he made his remarks, Mrs. Clinton said she intended to keep fighting for the nomination through the summer, if necessary. It was an unmistakable rebuke to Mr. Dean, who has never had good relations with the Clintons.

Clinton's remarks may have been a rebuke to Dean, but who cares? . . .

Dean has been very clear about Michigan and Florida: the rules are the rules. That doesn't make the Clinton partisans happy, but that's not from a lack of leadership on it, but because of his leadership on fighting for the rules that the party agreed on. Let's not forget that Clinton pitbull Harold Ickes was on the committee that voted for the sanctions.

Oh, Ickes did indeed vote for sanctions but as "a DNC member and a Clinton adviser in charge of delegate counting," how would it have been perceived if he had voted against it? Not so impartial perhaps? Damned if he did, damned if he didn't. But, oh, Ickes is evil working for that Clinton woman!

Dean made the DNC's position very clear to [Hillary] before the primaries started. She ignored him while Florida Democrats openly mocked him. Now she wants him to get her out of her own mess? Hilarious. . .

No, a nitwit thinks a Democrat presidential nominee can win the general election with a 48-state strategy. Here's Dean 'splaining on CNN last night (with emphasis):

DEAN: I would very much like to have Florida and Michigan seated. Because of the circumstances under which they held their elections, essentially which were not valid elections, they aren't going to be seated the same way that everybody else is.

They can be seated in one of two ways. One, they can be seated by agreement between the two campaigns if there is no clear winner, or, two, they will be seated I suspect by whoever does win the nomination. Whoever wins the nomination will control the credentials committee, which will control the seating. And I strongly believe our nominee is going to want Florida and Michigan in the hall. Under which rules, that will depend. The nominee will set the rules.

Whoa! Stellar leadership! If one thinks that seating the FL and MI delegates after the nominee has been decided will endear those states' voters to the Democrat in November, just put down the wacky tobaccy and step away from the bong. But kookiness abounds:

You have to be a frakin' moron to pretend Dean has shown no leadership. So here it is, in bullet points for the addled and their journalist friends:

• Florida and Michigan violated DNC rules. Their contests don't matter. The DNC rules committee can re-evaluate at the appropriate time.

• Florida and Michigan are more than free to hold sanctioned contests if they want.

• Dean thinks the process should play out. And once the final contest is in the books, in June, the super delegates should declare their preferences.

I didn't have to do research to jot those three bullet points down. They are self-evident and have been repeated a billion times in every interview Dean does. They are studiously non-partisan at a time when the most zealous supporters parse every utterance for evidence of bias.

The emperor of the Kossacks wears no clothes and maybe should have done more research into the full story of the Dean's part in the DNC's cock-up and GOP machinations impacting the Florida and Michigan primaries. Since Kos is so big on the rules, riddle this:

The DNC and the MSM appear to have simultaneously concluded that even Clinton's 300,000-vote win in Florida, where both candidates competed on a level playing field, shouldn't be counted in the popular vote tally, a calculation that appears nowhere in DNC rules and turns 1.7 million Democratic voters into ghosts.

More inflammatory, the DNC exempted Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina for moving their primaries up before February but Dean meted out the worst punishment to Michigan and Florida. How dumb is that? Click the link for inquiring minds. I'll ask again as I did yesterday: Does anyone recall a presidential election in the past few decades that turned on the Electoral College counts of either New Hampshire, Iowa or South Carolina?

Kos, however, has made up his Obama-partisan mind and stamped his little foot. Da rules! Da rules! Waaaah! Harumphity-waaaah! Sweetie darling, have you read the DNC rules? Or are you using them selectively for your OFB?

Riverdaughter expounds further related to another Kos psychotic episode on how "Hillary [is] ripping the Democratic party asunder," a specious piece of propaganda:

Let that sink in a sec, Kos. The RULZ as presently dictated, not only disenfranchise FL and MI but every other big state and swing state that voted for her- decisively. I would hate to piss us off if I were Barry, because that would be very divisive, in a rather huge and unpleasant way. I’d much rather piss off Wyoming and Utah. . .

...If I were Kos, this is precisely the scenario I would want if I wanted to win in the fall. The strongest candidate at the time of the convention would be the nominee. That’s not divisive, Kos. That’s saving your bacon from being the dimwitted blogger you turned out to be.

As for divisions, this can be solved rather easily: 1.) seat the delegates from FL and MI as is. That will make the voters of these states hate the Democrats less. 2.) Stop being the anti-Clinton supporters. That will make the rest of US not want to put your nuts in a vice. And 3.) Get behind Hillary because she’s the best qualified candidate, unlike Barry who has nothing going for him right now except for the fair weather friends in the media. That should be the only criteria for nomination, who is the best presidential material.

And stop trying to rush things. Your strategy is obvious and irritating and it makes you look pathetic.

Yes, in-deed-y.

Obama blog bias unveiled

Josh Marshall took the plunge changing TPM to the official non-official Obama Talking Points Memo.

BTD at TalkLeft provided the details. The gist:

By doing an attack video on Hillary Clinton, TPM demonstrates that not only has it become an Obama site, it is one of the most virulent and unfair of such sites.

Did Josh feel a thrill go up his leg?

Obama Talking Points Memo

Bob Somerby of The Daily Howler has written at length about the misleading commentary authored or endorsed by Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo. If you search Somerby's archive, you can find examples of Josh's lackluster performances and blatant wankery over the years. Also, check this archive at TalkLeft, where Armando (Big Tent Democrat), an Obama supporter, demonstrates how to blog fairly about both Clinton and Obama.

Two recent examples via Somerby's passing observation yesterday, when taken together, document TPM's favoritism of Obama and bias toward Clinton deceitfully honed. A caveat: Josh can endorse whomever he wants. What is problematic is how he presents his "reporting" as factually correct, when actually he distorts information to fit his point of view. Such misleading tactics one would expect from the sleazy wingnutosphere. Evidently, the liberal blogosphere has its own share of propagandists.

Monday, Josh tasked the notoriously fallacious Bill Kristol for citing Newsmax in his column that stated Obama had attended Rev. Jeremiah Wright's controversial service:

Bill Kristol forgets that fact-checking is important, even in a hit piece.

Later on Monday, Greg Sargent posted an update to the story:

In his latest column, Bill Kristol falsely claimed -- based on reporting by Newsmax, of all things -- that Obama had attended Trinity Church last July 22nd, when Wright blamed blamed [sic] the “arrogance” of the “United States of White America” for much global suffering.

The Obama campaign responded with an aggressive fact-check last night, saying that, no, in fact Obama was not at the service.

Somerby recalled that last month on the morning of February 25, Marshall used an unsubstantiated allegation from right-wing Matt Drudge as a source to smear the Clinton campaign as if fact-checking isn't important for him, but it is for Bill Kristol. Interesting double standard, no?

He just couldn't help himself in citing the spurious Mr. Drudge. The story was too juicy to hold up, insinuating that the Clinton camp was out to get Obama, reinforcing errant gossip that Barack might be a Muslim. He didn't "want to take Drudge as a fact witness for anything." But, waah! Waah! He just had to do it. Who or what made him post a Matt Drudge allegation?

Why it was those darn Clintons running "a terribly inept" campaign and the pressure of inquiring readers who were to blame. Not Josh. Heaven forbid.

He "pushed and pushed"--Bless his heart!--to get what he needed, a Clinton campaign response before he posted the specious Drudge allegation. When the Clinton camp didn't meet his idea of what he "knows" campaigns should say to unequivocally deny an allegation, to disavow that they had anything to do with the Obama dressed in Muslim garb photo, Josh plunged ahead to spread a Matt Drudge "hit piece" as if he was a victim of circumstance.

Of course, none of TPM's readers have any idea how Josh phrased his inquiry to the Clinton campaign before he posted, That Drudge Headline, because he didn't tell them. He didn't publish his line of questioning for transparency's sake--we're to trust his unfailing integrity--because he knows his readers don't come to TPM "to get insights into our editorial process." Odd, that he mentioned that last point.

Without verifying sources for hard evidence, he linked to the Greg Sargent's 9:50 AM posting of the Obama campaign's "David Plouffe condemning the Hillary campaign and saying it's part of a 'disturbing pattern' from Camp Hillary." Yet, no high-level Obama staffers offered "any evidence or info as to what happened beyond what appeared on Drudge."

Later on February 25 at 2:36 PM, Greg Sargent posted:

On a conference call with reporters just now, Hillary spokesperson Howard Wolfson strongly denied any official campaign role in pushing the photo of Obama in a turban and Somali garb.

Drudge reported this morning that Clinton staffers had "circulated" the photo. He didn't say who circulated it, what level of Clinton staffer had circulated it, or to whom it had been circulated. Drudge is the sole source for this email's existence. Nonetheless, the media has been all over the story today.

Josh couldn't wait to post a Matt Drudge "hit piece" on Clinton but what did Josh say in his afternoon follow-up to his rancid "reporting"?

On a conference call, Howard Wolfson just made pretty much the kind of 'loosely categorical' statement about the Obama picture that I said in the post below that we were surprised not to have heard. Here's our report on the conference call.

Not a hint of how Wolfson "strongly denied any official campaign role"--the type of explanation Josh expected for a campaign to provide when he "pushed and pushed"--and he described the denial as "loosely categorical." He merely offered a link to "our report on the conference call" without correcting his original erroneous "report."

Bob Somerby of The Daily Howler is right:

Incredibly, Marshall eventually linked to Sargent’s story—while pretending that Wolfson’s statement didn’t go beyond what had already been said. Not being stable-boys ourselves, we won’t bother to scoop Josh’s piles; you can limn his posts for yourself. But go ahead: Read his original post, then his update, then read his link to Sargent’s report. There’s nothing new here, the moo-cow said, as he linked to a report which opened like this:

“On a conference call with reporters just now, Hillary spokesperson Howard Wolfson strongly denied any official campaign role in pushing the photo of Obama in a turban and Somali garb.”

If you didn’t click on Josh’s link, you wouldn’t know how absurd his characterization was. But certain types have long played this game. The assumption: You rubes won’t bother to click on that link! Therefore, you won’t see that what has been said is pure, Grade A, moo-cow nonsense.

Fact-checking is important for Bill Kristol, "even in a hit piece." The right-wing, fact-challenged Newsmax isn't a reliable news source as Media Matters have repeatedly documented. The same is true about Matt Drudge.

But it's OK if you're Josh Marshall to use Clinton-hating, right-wing Drudge as a source without checking facts. Josh called his post "reporting." That's a quaint term for sophistry.

When the dubious wingnut Bill Kristol doesn't get his facts straight, using a proven unreliable source, Josh and Greg pounced on the "hit piece." Why? Kristol had linked Obama with the Rev. Wright controversy. Damage control had flung into full throttle.

Does Josh commit to the same level of diligence when the Democratic candidate is Hillary? No. Not as "a generally subtle, practitioner of Clinton Derangement Syndrome." He's been silent on the sexist crap. And that leaves plenty of doubt about his objectivity when his misleading spin and the "slide-toward-propaganda" thoroughly undermines and discredits "Josh Marshall’s once-superlative work."

Tell me why I ought to ever consider TPM a credible blog on news stories in the future?

Shilling for Obama must pay well. Isn't it time for a name change? Obama Talking Points Memo sounds about right.

The morning after edition

Florida, the Wright stuff, boyz blaming Hillary, and more




No Florida revote! May be old news to some but what's next.

For those who would like to understand the DNC rules affecting Michigan and Florida, see Riverdaughter for in-depth details.

Peter Daou's email about the litany of Obama campaign's attacks on Hillary Clinton is online via eriposte (H/t Avedon). I had already decided that Sen. Obama's new kind of politics spiel didn't pass the smell test. In Iowa, he criticized John Edwards over a 527 ad "attacking no one." But Barack fell mute over a dubious 527 radio ad in Nevada that smeared Hillary and supported him. Furthermore, as eriposte said, "Some of the top "progressive" bloggers have either been wilfully [sic] blind to the campaign tactics of Sen. Obama or given him a pass while going after Sen. Clinton in a very ugly and mendacious manner."

Another hat tip to Avedon for pointing me to Bryan of Why Now? to peruse his Florida archive over the DNC's cock-up of the state's primary and its delegates. I've noted before the Florida Jan. 29 date was about "a property tax initiative [that Democrats] had hope[d] to defeat... on the ballot that day." Glad to read a Florida blogger's viewpoint, and learn about the FL lawsuit against the DNC.

Boyz blaming Hillary -- I've thought it but Anglachel penned it beautifully so props are in order. What's up with "the murderous misogyny of the A-List Blogger Boyz and their grad school mentality"? "It's all about Iraq and their own guilty consciences." They were for the war before they were against it, "all rah-rah war supporters when it first began." And they were wrong. Had they been U.S. senators, would they have voted, "Yea!" for the AUMF? I'm guessing in a snap. Watching the drama unfold, witnessing the pillory of Hillary as if the Blog Boyz had morphed into Beltway hacks or right-wing freaktards has been creepy. Talk about divisive! Go read Anglachel's entire post. I'm leaving out points for the sake of brevity. Caution: Don't lump Atrios into the boyz group.

Who wrote this of Hillary? "She is willing -- nay, eager to split the party apart in her mad pursuit of power." Answer: Someone who has lost his kewl and many who have fled in protest. Cap'n Ahab is willing to split his blog apart in his obsession to harpoon Clinton. I whole-heartedly agree with Lambert: GFY, Kos.

The Wright stuff -- Obama's favorable ratings have slipped five points in five days and "lost ground" to McCain. Taylor Marsh offered the good, the bad, and the ugly of Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright. At Shakesville, Melissa McEwan talked about Amanda Marcotte's post on "media's fixation on the beliefs" of Rev. Wright and their "indifference" to the religious extremists of the GOP, and then hits the core issue of religious litmus tests and separation of church and state. My two cents: There's too much religion enmeshed with politics.

Time's managing editor Rick Stengel used the Wright controversy to flip it against Ferraro and Clinton on Tweety's freak show. Shameless.

More immigration factoids from Orcinus and that "noxious" term, illegals.

Got an email about Elton John's concert for Hillary. One night only, Radio City Music Hall, April 9. Tickets and info on the Elton-Hillary Event Committee.