Bizarros still trashing Hillary

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Someone make the Bizarro World journalists and pundits stop! Bob Somerby:

For example, Sally Quinn’s current post about Hillary Clinton is almost dumb-founding in its inanity. A person would surely think that what follows was offered as some sort of parody. No. It’s comes to us straight from the soul of the Post—indeed, from the paper’s “On Faith” section:

QUINN (6/10/08): Now would be the perfect time for her to find herself, to decide what she really wants. Give up the roar of the crowds, the banners and the balloons, the marching bands, the begging for autographs. Give up the naked ambition, the lust for power. Is it possible that she wants those things because she thinks she should?

The only way for her to gather this kind of insight would be for her to go away for awhile. Be alone. Be silent. Be with yourself. There is a wonderful retreat called Bhavana Society in West Virginia that would be the perfect place. Its founder, Bhante Gunaratana, talks in his book “Mindfulness” about the power of concentration or tranquility when one’s mind is brought to rest and “a deep calm pervades the body”. “The meditator focuses his or her mind on a certain item, such as a prayer, a chant, a candle flame, or a religious image, and excludes all other thoughts and perceptions from his or her consciousness.” Self awareness is the goal. Hillary talks quite openly about her faith and how it comforts her. This would be a perfect time for her to explore her faith, to delve more deeply into it.

Self awareness is the goal! Having stated this lofty ambition, Quinn gives Clinton the advice her cohort has always given: Please “go away for awhile” [sic]!

We’ll only suggest that you read the whole post. Once again, we’ll state the obvious: If you didn’t know this post was real, you’d assume that it had to be parody—perhaps the script for Candy 2.

But then, the mental styles of the insider press corps are constantly put on unsettling display. Quinn has been at the soul of this clan for a very long time now. By was of contrast, Matt Yglesias is very young; he’s still on his way to their tables. But here he is, reacting to Todd Purdum’s piece in Vanity Fair. This isn’t parody either:

YGLESIAS (6/2/08): It's hard for me to tell how much of the sleazy behavior that Purdum hints at here is actually true. Based on the record, it wouldn't at all be unlike Clinton for some of it to be true.

Some of it could be true, the lad judged. Though it was hard for him to “tell how much” of what Purdum “hints at” is “actually true.” (Translation: None of it may be true. More on Purdum’s work next week.)

How much more do you need from Yglesias? A question sometimes comes to mind when we sift the work of lads like this: How do they get this way so early in life? Likely answer: They’ve worked very hard at the task. But there again, you see the mental styles of your “press elite” on display.

And yes, there’s always more. You already live on The Planet of Chimps, and chimps have always loved to put their skills on vivid display. During Campaign 2000, Michael Crowley was flummoxed by 2 plus 5 (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 5/9/00); at the start of Campaign 04, he ran to be the first to complain that John Kerry liked wind-surfing—and even played show tunes on his guitar! (See THE DAILY HOWLER, 9/10/02.) Sorry—no one ever gets that stupid without putting in a good deal of hard work. And sure enough! Yesterday, the baby-faced boy who put Bush where he is showcased his mental stylings again. His headline: “The Clintons’ Enemies List.” These were his thoughtful ruminations:

CROWLEY (6/11/08): The Clintons aren't exactly refuting charges of Nixonian tactics here [linked to Leibovich piece].

The threats of retribution against traitors is also the kind of thing you say when you've won and are amassing power. It's a bit odd to bluster this way when your influence is at a nadir.

The Clintons “weren't exactly refuting charges of Nixonian tactics there?” The Clintons weren’t quoted in the piece. In fact, here’s what Leibovich said about Hillary Clinton, based on things he says he was told by unnamed campaign officials: “Mrs. Clinton has a short list of people who disappointed her.” Wow! Her evil ways just never stop! But in the mind of a butt-kissing climber like Crowley, that sentence let him put “Enemies List” into a headline—a headline which said that Hillary Clinton had such a list—and it let him tut-tut-tut about what she “wasn’t exactly doing.” But then, many boot-licking boys like Crowley run to show that they will accept whatever narrative their clan may lay out for them. (Why on earth did Candidate Gore cite seven years as a journalist?) Yesterday, the term “Enemies List” had reached the top headline at The Huffington Post by noon. By the way: If you want to peruse the work of people who really can’t read a newspaper story, just scan the inaccurate, cosmically gullible statements by so many of Crowley’s commenters. Remember when we liberals used to claim that we were smarter than those dumb-*ss conservatives?

For our money, though, we may have been most struck by Nancy Giles, on last night’s Verdict with Dan Abrams. In fairness, Giles is barely a part of the pundit corps—and she clearly seemed to be sincere when she made the statement which follows. But should people of this type be on network TV? If your “press corps” weren’t so baldly dysfunctional, would this sort of thing seem acceptable? The exchange began with Abrams posing a hypothetical: Should Obama make Clinton his VP if it seems that she is needed to win the November election?

ABRAMS (6/11/08): Well, let me ask you this. Nancy, if the numbers show—if it’s close by the time he has to make the decision, and the numbers show in the polls that Hillary could make the difference, would that make the difference to you?

GILES: No.

ABRAMS: You’d still say it’s worth losing over?

GILES: No, it’s not worth losing over because I don’t think he’ll lose...I think it would be a real liability. But his whole campaign is new—change, not old politics. And Hillary—look, if he gets Hillary as his VP, he’s got to hire somebody to be the official presidential taster because you don’t know what`s going to be in your food. You don’t know what could happen. I literally feel that way.

Of course, many pundits have joked the Standard Joke about Obama needing a food-taster. But Giles showed no sign of joking when she recited the tired old script. She said she “literally” felt that way, and she clearly seemed to mean it. We were thus returned to the remarkable days when pundits sat on network TV and talked about Hillary Clinton, murderer....

Our morally-challenged press elites pull out the reruns: Hillary is a murderer, Bill is a philanderer, and The Clintons are making a Nixonian "Enemies List." Oh, they are soooo evil.

Where do news orgs--I use the term loosely--get these people? Rejects from soap operas or TV dramas? Failed screenplay writers? Comic books? Fact-checking has been outsourced to Bizarro World. When people want facts, they deliver fiction. To summarize the silly state of media and our darthling Blog Boyz like Matt...

The Bizarro code: "Us do opposite of all earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World."

CREDITS: Image from The Comic Treadmill.

Hillary's unreliable witnesses

Warped

I guess most folks already know that Hillary Clinton suspended her campaign. She sent out an email announcing a Washington, D.C. event on Saturday to say thanks to her supporters and declare her support for Obama. Putting her campaign on hold (as John Edwards did rather than dropping out) means she retains her delegates. I won't dive into speculation about what she will or won't do or say. And I am sure as jenny's crockpot not going to accept what the wagging tongues from the press corps or the Obamasphere divine.

It's Obama's show now. I've got my popcorn ready in anticipation of an interesting summer. On the implications for Obama, Anglachel gets it so, so right.

Kind commentary by Digby about Hill and Bill Clinton piqued my attention. Many of us in the Clinton camp would agree with her compliment about Hillary. "Senator Clinton, who in my view showed Democrats what a fighter looks like." Yes, indeed-y. One caveat to Digby's post. And it's significant:

Finally, whoever you supported in this race and however your feel about the candidates, there still remains the problem of our sick, sick political media and that's something that the blogosphere -- as alternative media --- need to sort through. I know that many of you have felt that this campaign's coverage wasn't as bad as I have painted it. But I think that when we look back on this we will see that it was yet another disgraceful performance on the part of our mainstream media (and, alas, our "liberal" media as well.) There is a lot to be written about that and I'm hopeful we can all look at this with clear eyes once we take a breather. [Emphasis added.]

Digby's media critique neglected to cite the ugly, sexist, misogynistic, and racist sneers that emanated from the "alternative media," the lefty blogosphere that pilloried Hillary and Bill Clinton. Maybe she didn't have the energy at the time to enumerate the excesses (or she's playing it kewl with her male blogger peers until she speaks out... I hope) but the Obamasphere has behaved exactly like the "sick, sick political media." And it is inexcusable. Very few dependable sources remain in the Left Blogosphere. Very. Few.

Via the esteemed Bob Somerby, whom I consider our most reliable witness, a few examples of the disinformation the Left Blogosphere has deployed:

• We are all Matt Drudge now--Moo-cows Josh Marshall and Kevin Drum wrongly fingered the Clinton camp for the photo of Obama in a turban and Somali garb and Josh pulled a fast one, "back-pedaled in a rambling, barely-coherent 'update' (same link)—a non-clarification clarification of a type he has come to master." IOW, TPM's accusation lived on without a proper retraction.
  

• How Obama manipulated the press to fuel the fire against Hillary's benign RFK remark. (Blog Boyz reactions posted below.)
  

• Josh Marshall's tinfoil hat over Obama's passport breach (Hint, hint: it's the evil Clintons).

• Rube running by whoever kidnapped Josh Marshall (WKJM) and stalking low-information liberals.

• David Sirota's "slapdash analysis" of racism in mostly caucus states, WKJM's mealy-mouthed assist, and stifling Greg Sargent. Ah, "ditto-heads now rule your world. . . If you want to call average people and party leaders racists, you can read Sirota’s piece and feel a thrill go up your leg."

• Matt Yglesias demonstrated that playing "kiss kiss kiss with the man who is sliming our leaders" isn't a new trend in the blogosphere.

• Plenty more that's searchable in Somerby's archives for those willing to dig without blinders.

In Obama Talking Points Memo, you can discover the irony of Josh Marshall criticizing "the notoriously fallacious Bill Kristol for citing Newsmax in his column" and then WKJM quoting "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?" The extent to which the A-Hole Listers have gone to "get Hillary" could have been copied from a right-wing playbook.

Remember the Kantor video? Another Drudge excretion that the Obamasphere lapped up like chocolates, indicating again, "The Left blogs have lost their way."

Krugman offered a few insights into Clinton rules:

I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. . .What’s particularly saddening is the way many Obama supporters seem happy with the application of “Clinton rules” — the term a number of observers use for the way pundits and some news organizations treat any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent....

....During the current campaign, Mrs. Clinton’s entirely reasonable remark that it took L.B.J.’s political courage and skills to bring Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream to fruition was cast as some kind of outrageous denigration of Dr. King.

Again from Krugman on alleged Clinton race-baiting:

It really makes me sad to see so many people get played by the media on this. If you prefer Obama, fine — but the evil, race-card-playing Clinton campaign is no more real than Al Gore’s claim that he invented the Internet.

And to Obama supporters, just remember: these people are not your friends. After they take down Hillary Clinton, if they can, your man will be next.

One last Krugman point from April in which he demolished Obama's "bitterness" about small-town stereotypes with facts and figures. He concluded:

And one more thing: let’s hope that once Mr. Obama is no longer running against someone named Clinton, he’ll stop denigrating the very good economic record of the only Democratic administration most Americans remember.

I responded at the time, "Trashing the Clintons isn't smart during these troubled economic times and I'm willing to bet that a ticket with Candidate Obama and without Candidate Clinton will have a chilling effect on GOTV in November."

Of course, the tone-deaf Obamasphere continued to malign both Hillary and Bill over Tuesday night's primary results in South Dakota and Montana. Shrill reactions from the Obamasphere on Hillary's speech whipped the baton up to signal a noisy crescendo. Note the insidious sexist references to this woman and clawing:

• The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias: "I probably shouldn't write any more about this woman and her staff. Suffice it to say that I've found her behavior over the past couple of months to be utterly unconscionable and this speech is no different. I think if I were to try to express how I really feel about the people who've been enabling her behavior, I'd say something deeply unwise. Suffice it to say, that for quite a while now all of John McCain's most effective allies have been on Hillary Clinton's payroll."

• The New Republic's Jonathan Chait: "Incredible. She justifies her continuing the campaign by saying that she finished the campaign. She doesn't concede that Obama has a majority of delegates, let alone that he's won. She repeats her bogus popular vote argument. She congratulates Obama's campaign on its 'achievements,' but barely musters a single good word about him. I don't know what the fallout will be, but at minimum, I'd say that anybody on her staff who cares about their party has a moral obligation to publicly quit and endorse Obama."

• Firedoglake's Cliff Schecter: "Hillary Clinton is 'making no decisions tonight.' The crowd erupts. Yes, drag this out longer. Smart. Elect McCain. Ensure that Roe v. Wade is overturned, the Iraq War continues, tax cuts continue to reign down on CEOs and torture becomes state policy. Those are some smart Democrats cheering for that line."

• AMERICAblog's John Aravosis: "Obama won tonight and she still can't concede. Take a flying leap. You lost. You nasty woman."

• Moulitsas: "She hasn't said one nice thing about Obama. It's all about her. Period. There is nothing else that matters."

Before jumping in the time machine to expose more recent sickness from the Obamasphere, pull out the fainting couches and get the smelling salts ready over vile Hillary's comments about nomination races lasting into June:

Liberal bloggers slammed Clinton after she invoked the June '68 assassination of RFK in defending her decision to stay in the race:

• Daily Kos' BarbinMD: "The willingness to say such a thing in a cheap effort to sway superdelegates is disgusting."

• The Huffington Post's Bob Cesca: "Senator Clinton is embarrassing herself and the Democratic Party. She has ceased to be a viable, respectable candidate and has, instead, become a ghoulish, desperate shell of her formerly strong and admirable self."

• AMERICAblog's John Aravosis: "She basically invoked her opponent's assassination. What else does she need to do to convince the superdelegates that she ain't exactly presidential material?"

• Oliver Willis: "She is fracking crazy. [...] Seriously, who says this sort of thing? Your average person doesn't say it, let alone somebody running for president. Hillary Clinton didn't lose this race because she was a victim of sexism. She lost this race because people are tired of her clawing for power and running over everything to do it."

• MyDD's Josh Orton: "This is unacceptable. The United States has a history of profound political violence -- and the use of violence to oppress and coerce. And while I'm not quite willing to accept that Clinton spoke maliciously -- it doesn't matter. There is no excuse for flippantly referencing assassination, especially given the historic nature of Obama's campaign and our nation's grim history of racial oppression through violence. When Hillary Clinton speaks of our history, she is not reflecting academically or only in a vacuum -- her words and influence are real. To act otherwise is negligent, at best. [...] Even with the most charitable interpretation, I think her negligence is disqualifying."

• Firedoglake's Eli: "I really, really want to take Hillary at face value and not believe that she was actually using the prospect of an opponent's assassination to score political points -- hell, maybe the possibility of Obama getting shot simply didn't occur to her (it's certainly not on my mind very often). But even if her intentions were pure, it was still an incredibly careless and stupid thing to say."

• Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas: "It looks like many of Hillary Clinton's apologists and several political pundits claim that her assassination remarks can be explained because of fatigue. Perhaps. In fact, it's likely. But won't she be fatigued at 3 a.m. in the morning?"

• TAPPED's Sam Boyd: "If she really is trying to convince us that she's staying in in case Obama is assassinated that's nuts -- if he were assassinated she'd be the nominee almost certainly, whether she'd dropped out or not. And if that's not what she meant, why mention Kennedy's assassination at all? But really, this is just another example of throwing as much nonsense at the wall as possible and seeing what sticks. In order to stay in the race, Clinton needs to do whatever she can to hide the basic fact that there's virtually no way for her to win now. So distractions, like reminding voters that unexpected things like assassinations happen, are key. In this case, she went way way too far."

These comments hail from the alleged intellectual leaders of the liberal blogosphere and what did they do? They ranted and bayed at the moon like drooling lunatics. The "cogent, rational" Avedon snuffed the preposterous much ado about nuthin' over the RFK dust-up but do the Blog Boyz listen to a woman? Don't make me laugh.

Blog Boyz need to 'fess up to their Hillary hatred and the misogyny that has been brewing in the Obamasphere for years. But don't hold your breath. I cannot tell you how many times I have read how "divisive" Hillary is or about "her baggage." Way to go, team! Parroting how the Village defines our leaders!

Or ad hominem attacks--sHillary, sHill, DOMA-wife--written by lefty bloggers or in their comment threads. I've seen it too many times.

Or the knee-jerk reactionaries who reflexively pummeled Hillary over the 2007 Kyl-Lieberman amendment without investigating further--what a concept!--to realize Clinton pushed to remove use of force language against Iran from the bill, essentially throttling Bush-Cheney presumptive designs for military misadventures. Also, please tell me what's wrong about identifying the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group when, according to a 2001 indictment, "the Iranian government inspired, supported, and supervised members of the Saudi Hizballah" and the Khobar Towers bombing and when former FBI director Louis Freeh testified in 2006 that the "training and the funding was done by the IRGC." Oh, wait. Obama was not present to vote for or against the amendment even though he was given sufficient notice. Funny that.

Just as hilarious, Bob Somerby remarked on the flag-burning bill that caused gnawing of pointy rat teeth on Hillary in the biased Left Blogosphere:

That’s right, dumb-ass! Clinton supported the flag-burning bill. And Obama supported it too!

But then, more than half the senate’s Democrats supported that bill, in June 2006. It was brought to the floor by Dick Durbin, Obama’s biggest senate supporter. Everyone understands the politics of these bills–everyone but [Richard] Cohen and [Gail] Collins, that is. Because they’re two of the world’s biggest androids, they keep singing the same tired songs.

And the Blog Boyz fell for this sop like our "biggest androids" and spread propaganda about that evil Lieberman look-alike, Hillary Clinton.

I've posted about the two faces of Kos, when he was fer Hillary before he was agin her (interesting his praise for Hillary), and the blogospheric outrage expressed over Obama's homophobic associations. The latter was a deal-breaker for me as a lesbian in addition to the reasons why I won't vote for Obama based on my feminist leanings. Oh, I will vote for a liberal--just not Obama.

If the SCLB thinks Hillary liberals and the working class will coalesce around Obama, the fauxgressive "alternative media" has grossly underestimated Barack's divisiveness, the impact of his campaign tactics, and his disadvantages aka thin résumé, and their silent complicity while watching, or worse, joining the aggressive savaging of the best candidate to defeat McCain in November.

To be fair to Digby, I don't recall her smearing Hillary. But taking her fellow bloggers to task? We'll have to rely on Somerby at The Daily Howler and ourselves to do the heavy-lifting, to shine a bright light on the A-hole Listers who divided the netroots with their inflammatory sexist and racial insinuations about Hill and Bill. Despite the warning from Media Matters Eric Boehlert during Eschacon08:

What’s happening online now is potentially dangerous: HRC has gotten dreadful press, not fair, “gotcha,” and so on — there’s a portion of the blogosphere that has ignored that and there’s a portion that has encouraged that.

It’s dangerous because the media criticism has to be consistent and relentless, and we can’t very well say, “You can’t go after our candidates … except this one.” I get nervous about pushback regarding disingenuous coverage - our response needs to be, “You can’t treat Democrats this way.” When people in the left blogosphere are quoting an anonymous Matt Drudge source, it makes me nervous.

His advice was summarily ignored or dismissed perhaps due to "mass psychosis" as was the case with high-flying Chris Bowers and his creative class mumbo jumbo.

I'll wrap up with a previous critique:

For bloggers who haven't noticed or have been preoccupied due to a terminal case of CDS or OFB cha-ching euphoria, the mainstream press corps is once again playing favorites as they did in 2000 and 2004. Our clueless so-called liberal blogosphere has ignored the carnage of influencing the Democratic nomination that began Oct. 30, 2007, through November and February (see subhead, Red Faced With Rage, and for background here, also here and the media racist storyline that the fauxgressive blogosphere swallowed like candy packaged with Bill's Jesse Jackson remark here).

Did the media give John Edwards a fair shake? No. And they have treated Hillary Clinton abysmally. Now that Obama has been getting his ax Gore-d... oh, how the Obamasphere has screeched its disapproval. The liberal blogosphere should have been howling all along, a disquieting non-reaction I will never forget. When the media smears Obama, one must call it out as the despicable crap that it is. Same goes for any Democrat including Hillary. Props to Media Matters on that score. What was the A-List Blog Boyz response to the sliming of Hillary and Bill Clinton by the press? They piled on or hung a Do Not Disturb sign on their blogs and took a nap. The SCLB has failed to understand that the media hates Democrats, all of them. Look at who owns the media? When media savage any Democrat, the long-term impact undermines the Obamasphere's "Precious."

When media darling McCain takes the oath of office because Democrats allowed a flawed caucus system to disenfranchise working-class Democrats, hyped the "Holy Grail" of pledged delegates like a McGovern mantra, and other silliness like punishing FL and MI to eventually crown Obama as the nominee--unforgivable if Hillary ends up with the popular vote edge--remember who's to blame. It won't be Hillary. Look in the mirror.

Kiss, kiss, sweeties. YOYO. I want little to do with a pack of ninnies, whose career trajectories, coveted status with Village poobahs, and Obama cha-ching matter more than integrity.

I have come to think of the Obamasphere as an extension of our sick, sick political media.

CREDITS: The Precious by Anglachel.

GOP waterboyz

I wonder if the A-hole Listers realize the kooky arguments and sliming of Hillary Clinton that they're making are in the "isn't it great that people are so stupid that they'll swallow this horsesh*t" category.

That's a deep thought.

Hillary, RFK, malignant absurdity

Via VastLeft, two commentaries on Hillary and her RFK assassination in June remark. First, the cogent, rational Avedon (with emphasis in bold):

I really look forward to the day when I don't get up in the morning and find my formerly favorite blogs littered with so many stupid posts attempting to twist statements by Hillary Clinton into Proof of Evil. When the Republicans say stupid things about Obama, everyone is perfectly capable of seeing through it and tearing it apart - in fact, y'all do it so well that I have little to add. Why can't we do that for Hillary? And why is it that when I try to do that, I get attacked as a "Hillary supporter", even though I've made it clear that I can't choose between her and Obama? What's wrong with you people? Do the Republicans spend half their time trying to destroy the reputation of the Reagans, or Gingrich, or any of their standard-bearers? Do you think they would spend five seconds doing this kind of self-immolation? Pull yourselves together - you're just joining in with a favorite Republican sport, and you are not helping clinch the nomination for Obama. The corporate media is always going to attack the Clintons, and they don't actually need your help. [And, for the record, HRC was talking about nominating races that ended in June, as she clearly emphasizes that word in the clip. And she picked the two June races that were most memorable for her. Now, if you can't figure out why the '68 and '92 races were particularly memorable for Hillary Clinton, you should consider the possibility that your prejudices are clouding your judgment.]

Duh! How biased, stupid, and/or ignorant of history can people get? Here's how: the MSNBC clown act from Rachel Maddow when the conversation turned to Clinton as Obama's veep.

MADDOW: I think that it makes you think that it would be very awkward for a vice president to be on a ticket—for a vice presidential candidate to be on a presidential candidate‘s ticket after she‘s made repeated references to his potential death. Yes, that would be weird.

But the other—but I think it‘s important also that you raised this prospect that she‘s talked about other assassinations in modern American history during this campaign.

GREGORY: Right.

MADDOW: I think for the superdelegates, I think John Harwood‘s point is well taken, which is that this shows a lack of discipline at best here. This shows—this is a gaffe and a big mistake from a remarkably disciplined candidate.

And if this was a mistake, it‘s a big an uncharacteristic mistake. If it wasn't a mistake, it‘s disgusting.

Project much, Rachel? Maddow video and transcript link at Corrente.

POSTSCRIPT: The Obama campaign stirred up the press corps by circulating lowlife Olbermann's wacky doodle commentary about Hillary's RFK assassination reference. Hey, it's a new kind of politics! When Obama plays lowdown, dirty tricks--and why would he if he's truly the inevitable nominee?--the words, change, hope, and unity, appear inside the O'Kool-Aid sippy cup.

Sullivan's Clinton shtick

Andrew Sullivan suffers. And oh, how he wants us all to suffer with him. His neurosis could make a brawny man weep a-boo-hoo for Sully's CDS-afflicted cerebal cortex. Obsession, sending a cascade of neuropeptides through his neural tissue, may cause him to gasp like a hooked fish but his hankie quick to remove any hint of lickspittle beguiles him into the quiet, insidious work of deposing his darkest, deepest fear: The Clintons.

Denigrating The Clintons feeds his raison d'être, a crutch against otherwise mediocre political meanderings. Woe is he, a fine writing talent wasting his craft on polemics that rival Jonah Goldberg's wacky farragoes. Yet, what is a conservative to do in an era when rightist ideology lies scattered like withered petals on the lawn of the Rose Garden? His former war hero, the talking codpiece, has been unmasked as a proven idiot. And worse.

BUSHIE INFATUATION
In the archives of Salon, one can find anti-leftist, antiwar Sullivan harangues. Two examples: in 2003, "Idiocy of the Week: Sheryl Crow, brain-dead peacenik in sequins," and his immortalizing column in 2000, "Why is this race even close? Because George W. Bush has campaigned better, proposed more forward-thinking programs and proved, in the end, that he's smarter than Al Gore." Cue up the laugh track.

Sully wailed a post-9/11 "shriek, hitting an ear-piercing decibel that, whether intended or not, [drove] out the possibility of rational discussion," by acting as a self-appointed inquisitor "to evaluate whether his fellow writers and commentators [were] sufficiently patriotic." David Talbot summarized in October 2001, "Sullivan has often fallen to his own knees before President Bush in Salon."

In May 2001, gay columnist Michelangelo Signorile derided Sullivan for his plagiarism and Bush-worship:

...attacking the gay left after first pilfering its ideas and claiming they are his own, the writer Andrew Sullivan wrote a critique of Hollywood's closet. Sent to me by several perceptive readers of this column and my other work, it appeared on his Web site, where Sullivan licks the boots of George W. Bush daily. . . Perhaps we shouldn't expect fairness, let alone admissions of intellectual growth and a change of heart, from someone so self-obsessed and seemingly insecure.

Fast forward. The New York Review of Books wrote last year:

For more than two years, Sullivan relentlessly shilled for Bush and for the war on terror, including its "central front" in Iraq. It wasn't until the early months of 2004 that he broke with the "shrewd," "quiet," "underestimated" figure of the President, first over Bush's endorsement of a constitutional ban on gay marriage, then in moral repugnance at the evidence of government-condoned torture at Abu Ghraib. In October 2004, he "endorsed"—as he rather grandly put it, as if he were an editorial board—John Kerry as "the lesser of two risks." Since then he has attacked the administration with all the vehemence he formerly lavished on its detractors. Nowadays, on Sullivan's blog, Rumsfeld is labeled a "war criminal," Bush a "boneless wonder."

What may sting the "odd duck" more than the loss of idealized Daddy Bush now transformed into modern history's most unpopular American president was Sully's exposure "by the gay press for advertising for 'bareback' sex (unprotected by condoms) in an AOL chat room... denounced as a hypocrite by his liberal gay critics for engaging in risky sexual practices after attacking President Clinton for his own incautious behavior."

Oh, my. Does Andrew hold questionable moral standards: one for he, and another for thee?

BASHING THE CLINTONS
Joining the Obama bandwagon under the guise of a post-partisan, post-boomer world, aka meet the new boss, same as the old boss, may distract Sullivan from reckoning with an existential strife as a gay conservative "small-government independent" without a political home save the media circus. Perhaps anxiety over having been so incredibly wrong about Bush has mobilized a return to a familiar diversion, his undying hatred for his pet scapegoats, The Clintons.

At his Daily Dish during last night's primary returns, his brain fogged at 11:27 pm by WWTSBQ resentment when he failed to calculate simple arithmetic. He prematurely announced that Oregon is "[a]lmost a mirror image of Kentucky tonight: currently a 60 - 40 Obama win." Ah, poor fact-challenged Sully. Almost? A 35-point victory for Hillary over Obama is more than twice as large as Obama's 16-point win over Clinton, n'est-ce pas? Of course, I don't expect a hit-and-run blogger posting fodder for sticky eyeballs to match the depth of analysis of the always-astute Anglachel.

Nineteen minutes earlier at 11:06 pm, Sully approvingly posted a reader's message under the headline, The Clintons And Race, which opened with wild-eyed wonder at "how horrible, how evil it is to vote against a black man -- because he's a black man?" Predictably, it was Hillary's fault because magically the reader through an inexplicable Vulcan mind-melding process knew that, like he, "Hillary saw the exact same exit polls and passed up a chance to speak out against them." Sullivan's response?

The Clintons have only one principle: their own power. Minorities are there to serve their purposes. If not, not. I saw this very vividly in the 1990s. They haven't changed. It's always only about them.

One should question how clearly Sullivan can see.

Peruse Sullivan's writings at the Times Online, a scornucopia of anti-Clinton vitriol:

Hillary’s suicidal gamble with race poison
Clinton's decision to stop chasing the black vote has become her undoing as shown in last Tuesday’s North Carolina primary

Obama-Clinton, a hate-filled dream ticket
The Democratic front-runner is no street-fighter, which is why Hillary would make a perfect running mate

Hillary and her old enemies cuddle up for a kill
Last week was officially the moment that the race for the Democratic nomination slipped through the looking glass into surrealism

Judgment Day looms for Hillary the wrecker
Pennsylvania could show that the paradigm that has reigned in US politics for at least two decades has been shattered

The Clintons, a horror film that never ends
The Clintons live off psychodrama. They love to push themselves to the brink of catastrophe and then accomplish the last-minute, nail-biting...

In the later March 9 article misogynistic hit job, Sully bared his adolescent fangs for Hillary, and because she is indelibly inked in Andrew's lexicon as the wife of Bill, he conjured a fright fest, The Clintons:

Put your own movie analogy in here. Glenn Close in the bathtub in Fatal Attraction – whoosh! she’s back at your throat! – has often occurred to me when covering the Clintons these many years. The Oscars host Jon Stewart compares them to a Terminator: the kind that is splattered into a million tiny droplets of vaporised metal . . . only to pool together spontaneously and charge back at you unfazed.

The Clintons have always had a touch of the zombies about them: unkillable, they move relentlessly forward, propelled by a bloodlust for Republicans or uppity Democrats who dare to question their supremacy. You can’t escape; you can’t hide; and you can’t win. And these days, in the kinetic pace of the YouTube campaign, they are like the new 28 Days Later zombies. They come at you really quickly, like bats out of hell. Or Ohio, anyway.

But that will never capture the emotional toll that the Clintons continue to take on some of us. I’m not kidding. I woke up in a cold sweat early last Wednesday. There have been moments this past week when I have felt physically ill at the thought of that pair returning to power.

Why? I have had to write several columns in this space over the years acknowledging that the substantive legacy of the Clinton administration (with a lot of assist from Newt Gingrich) was a perfectly respectable one: welfare reform, fiscal sanity, prudent foreign policy, leaner government. But remembering the day-to-day psychodramas of those years still floods my frontal cortex with waves of loathing and anxiety. The further away you are from them, the easier it is to think they’re fine. Up close they are an intolerable, endless, soul-sapping soap opera....

...And evil means that anything the Clintons do in self-defence is excusable – even playing the race card, and the Muslim card, and the gender card, and every sleazy gambit that the politics of fear can come up with. This is how they have arrested the Obama juggernaut. It’s the only game they know how to play.

Sully's self-delusions would never allow him to acknowledge the media inventions that viciously trashed Hill and Bill in the 1990s and freshly minted smears during the current 2008 campaign. Nor can he admit his willing and heavy-handed participation. The neurotic's prize is to be right more than anything and he will fight to prove that he's right even when he's wrong.

Lucid revelations would require an honest assessment, a self-introspection, but Sullivan, soaked in sweat from hidden abscesses stewing in his brain, hasn't nurtured the skillset or the awareness to give up shaking his waah-waah baby rattle at a politically powerful couple who have caused him no personal harm. Does he covet their clout? Or is he milking an established press corp melodrama to hasten his career trajectory?

What can one expect of a gay political pundit who, for years, ironed the wrinkles of the Emperor's new clothes and polished George's boots?

Someone has to pay for poor Sully's disappointments. So he dons his night vision goggles to hunt his perceived terror... The Clintons.

Imagined zombies have driven him mad but I suspect his shtick fetches a handsome fee.

UPDATE 5/22: Sullivan refers to people "who voted for the Clintons"--as he did 20 May 2008 09:48 pm at his Daily Dish (no, I won't link to his blog)--a sexist remark since Bill isn't running for office no matter how many ways the media darthling tries to spin his preposterous assertions. Sen. Hillary Clinton is the name Sullivan most often avoids. Why is that? You know why.

CREDITS: Illustration from the David Levine Gallery.

Blaming Hillary for feminist divide

I'm grateful that Suzie at Echidne of the Snakes undertook deconstructing the specious arguments unearthed in Betsy Reed's column at The Nation. I was exhausted with headache from banging my noggin on my keyboard after reading Reed. Also glad I let my Nation subscription lapse before the primary season launched. Spared me the hassle of a cancellation letter.

Dividing feminists (line breaks replace indentation):

In the We Hate Hillary issue of The Nation, executive editor Betsy Reed blames Clinton for dividing feminists. The article has gotten acclaim in the liberal blogosphere.

I have a few problems with the article, beginning with the idea of division. No. 1, division doesn’t seem to be Reed’s real point. She wouldn’t want feminists to unite behind Clinton; she wants them to support Obama. Wanting everyone to support your candidate is not the same as disliking discord.

Using her logic, couldn’t someone say Obama divided feminists because he appeals to some and not others?

No. 2, you can’t have a rift unless you had unity before. Anyone who thinks the feminist movement ever marched in lock step needs to read some history.

Inadvertently, Reed illustrates this point by naming the different kinds of bad feminists who support Clinton (mainstream, corporate, institutional, second wave) vs. the good feminists who support Obama (antiwar, antiracist and young). The latter are more sophisticated, she says, because they are not “confined” to feminism. (Take away message: If you work full-time on feminist issues, bad. If you work for an organization that focuses on feminism, bad.)

Who supports whom is not as simple as she suggests. The petition “Feminists for Clinton” includes women who have written on race and war.

Reed runs a magazine in which male writers dominate. Socialism and feminism have had a rocky relationship from the get-go, and in the United States, the sexism of the Left sparked much of second-wave feminism.

Her article begins by describing the “torrent of misogyny” in the campaign, but she says Clinton is the wrong woman to rally around. This reminds me of arguments over rape and abortion. Feminists cannot always find a violated virgin to support. Sometimes they build their case around the person they have.

Reed doesn’t blame Obama or his supporters for any of the campaign’s sexism. No, it’s the woman’s fault. Reed says the “militaristic” “hawk” Clinton has injected sexism into the campaign by acting more “macho” than the “feline Obama.” Although she knows their votes and policies are close, she suggests what really matters is their attitudes. Let me get this straight: If Bush had carried out the same war, but he had acted more catlike, whatever that means, and less bellicose, that would have been OK? As a supervisor, I was taught to judge people on performance, not attitude, and I still think that’s a good rule to follow.

Reed talks about white women voting for Clinton, but doesn’t mention Latinas or any other women of color who support Clinton. Once again, a world of color has been rendered black and white.

Prominent supporters of Clinton believe that gender is more oppressive than race, Reed claims. (Perhaps some do, but many have denied that, including Gloria Steinem, whom she names.) She makes the point, as have many others, that people should not say one form of oppression is worse than another. But I don’t see the people who say this trashing those who think racism is worse than sexism. Shouldn’t it work both ways?

Clinton supporters don’t just give gender a higher priority, Reed says. Their campaign has been racist, “enabled” by the media. Reed rehashes racist and sexist charges discussed at length by others. For a different point of view, see Clinton supporter Anglachel in her recent posts “The Whiteness of the Whale” and “Millstone.” I hope people will read different opinions and make up their own minds.

If Reed is wrong, then she and other Obama supporters are the ones creating harmful divisions in feminism and the Democratic Party. For the sake of argument, however, let’s say she’s right. If one oppression is no worse than another, why would racist attacks on Obama be worse than sexist attacks on Clinton? One answer is that racism is trickier, according to Reed.

Clinton has, to be sure, faced a raw misogyny that has been more out in the open than the racial attacks on Obama have been. But while sexism may be more casually accepted, racism, which is often coded, is more insidious and trickier to confront.

Is it not possible that coded, insidious, tricky sexism exists, too? Why should we assume all sexism is out in the open?

Reed quotes sociology professor Patricia Hill Collins, keynote speaker next month at the annual conference of the National Women’s Studies Association, on the risk of alienating young black women from feminism. Since feminists are split in this campaign, why should black women who dislike Clinton be alienated from the movement as a whole? Why shouldn’t they want to build coalitions with women like Collins and Reed? I wish all young women, no matter their ethnicity, would learn that no one has a lock on feminism. It is not a monolith. Different women have different ideas.

Unfortunately, Reed didn't realize the diverse opinions among women, that one can be antiwar, antiracist, and pro-Hillary. Through her prism of view--look at the damning cover--blaming Hillary for dividing feminists somehow seemed justified. But it's not. From my POV, Reed's dialogue is counter-productive and divisive. I also wonder why did she exempt Mr. New Kind of Politics from alienating women? Must be good for business to appeal to Obama readers, no?

Monday catch-up, Tuesday predictions

Since I've been somewhat unplugged for the past few days, checked in with various sources for a little catch-up. As we head toward Tuesday's primaries...

SurveyUSA tracking poll in Indiana:

24 hours untill [sic] votes are counted in the Indiana Democratic Primary, Hillary Clinton defeats Barack Obama in the symbolically important popular vote, and possibly by enough to pick up more than a trivial number of net Convention delegates, according to SurveyUSA’s final pre-primary tracking poll conducted for WCPO-TV Cincinnati and WHAS-TV Louisville. In 4 tracking polls over the past 5 weeks, Clinton has never polled lower than 52%, Obama has never polled higher than 43%. At the wire, they finish: Clinton 54%, Obama 42%.

SUSA's tracking poll for North Carolina:

On the eve of the North Carolina Democratic Primary, with 25% of votes already cast, Barack Obama has no breathing room in his hope to defeat Hillary Clinton in popular votes, according to SurveyUSA’s 8th and final tracking poll, conducted exclusively for WTVD-TV, the ABC-owned TV station in Raleigh. On the final day of the fiercely fought campaign, it’s Obama 50%, Clinton 45%. There is no foreseeable outcome in North Carolina, regardless of which candidate wins the popular vote, where one candidate collects significantly more Convention delegates than the other. Therefore, the exact final vote totals have much more symbolic importance than real importance.

VastLeft's list laid out an excellent Clinton vs. Obama summary of why Hillary over Barry... point by point.

Jerome Armstrong put up two ads: one "closer" from Clinton and one from Obama, "probably his most negative ad to date." Jeralyn at TalkLeft offered a transcript on the Obama ad. Irony alert! Mr. New Kind of Politics uses a negative attack ad to accuse, "And what does Hillary Clinton offer us? More of the same old negative politics."

Clinton and Obama talked with local gay media in North Carolina and Indiana. The Obama interview was his first with local gay press. What took him so long? QNotes, which covers both NC and SC, posted the Clinton interview here, Obama interview here. In Indiana, the LGBT magazine, Reality, "along with bloomingOUT, The Bloomington Beacon, The Letter, Indiana Equality and The Word," asked questions of the candidates and published their responses here. (Via)

Riverdaughter coined the new term--“Mitchellism”--and defined it as: "The tendency of the media to see American politics through its own eyes and to over value its impact on the voting public."

This tendency has been noted before by other bloggers who have referred to the Washington DC press corps and pundits as The Villagers, that self-selected authority of knowledge of what the voters will or will not tolerate. High-Brodersim is another variation and is the belief that the root of the problem in American politics is too much partisanship and if the Democrats would just sell out all of their beliefs and try to meet Republicans half way, there wouldn’t be any more fights and there would be unity and much rejoicing and we could all buy the world a Coke. Barack Obama is a disciple of High Broderism.

Funny un-ha-ha how the Obamasphere hasn't noticed the similarities between "post-partisan" rhetoric and High Broderism.

Riverdaughter went on to say, "But I have noticed a curious thing happening this primary season. I don’t think the voters trust the media much these days." I agree. Here's why: from a big picture perspective, an annual report on The State of News Media 2007 stated, "The press is no longer gatekeeper over what the public knows." In its "Public Attitudes" section, the report reiterated:

...the public’s confidence in 2006 according to some indices continued to slip.

And perceptions of bias, and the partisan divide of media, appear to be on the rise.

All that comes, of course, against a background of more than 20 years of growing skepticism about journalists, their companies and the news media as an institution. As we have noted in other reports,since the early 1980s, the public has come to view the news media as less professional, less accurate, less caring, less moral and more inclined to cover up rather than correct mistakes.

I suspect the disconnect between the public, which includes voters, and the media has widened this year.

Sometimes Bob Somerby's candor tickles me when he analyzes media bias:

COHEN (2/12/08): My Feb. 5 column was critical of Hillary Clinton for supporting a bill to make flag burning illegal. I have since learned from a reader that Barack Obama also supported that bill.

That’s right, dumb-ass! Clinton supported the flag-burning bill. And Obama supported it too!

But then, more than half the senate’s Democrats supported that bill, in June 2006. It was brought to the floor by Dick Durbin, Obama’s biggest senate supporter. Everyone understands the politics of these bills–everyone but [Richard] Cohen and [Gail] Collins, that is. Because they’re two of the world’s biggest androids, they keep singing the same tired songs.

Shhhhh! Don't tell the Hillary-haters at the Orange Sippy Cup™ who criticize Clinton over the flag-burning amendment. Their CDS-suffering heads might explode with reality.

Speaking of a lost grasp on reality, a Cannonfire update on the robocall controversy involving Women's Voices, Women's Votes demonstrates that "another Obamabot attempt to do the GOP's work" is still ticking as if it's "never been discussed before!"

Yesterday at the Left Coaster, eRiposte debunked the hoopla over the gas tax holiday:

Aside from the usual jokers rending their garments over it, I don't find the gas tax holiday back-and-forth to be particularly earth-shaking. I already linked to two Paul Krugman posts that touched on the gas tax issue in previous posts; one of Krugman's posts was a specific critique of Sen. Clinton and Sen. McCain's different proposals and another was an op-ed where he again mentions the gas tax issue in a broader context. I agree with Krugman's view that Sen. Clinton's proposal is "pointless not evil".

All politicians pander and I've never said Sen. Clinton is above pandering. That said, her proposal has been misrepresented or distorted by the Obama campaign (see here and here) and by some in the media (see here). Sen. Obama's own history of pandering and his repeated voting in favor of a gas tax holiday in 2000 (when gas prices were much lower) make his current pronouncements on this matter, um, amusing....

My new friend Declarations of Pride posted a rallying cry: On Tuesday, the game will change!

On Tuesday, Hillary will vastly pad her lead in the popular vote. On Tuesday voters will show momentum for Hillary by way of votes of confidence for her that were once not thought to swing her way. Voters will change the game on Tuesday because the luster of inspiration isn't enough to make change happen. The voters will change the game on Tuesday because the Senator from Illinois is becoming less consistent. The voters will change the direction of the wave of democracy on Tuesday because electability is more important that hope alone. Hope can only be fulfilled if the hopeful win. Otherwise that hope was just a dream, and it appears that democratic voters are waking from the Obama dream as it turns to a nightmare where McCain could be President.

Voters are changing the game. Voters are continuing the shift in opinion. Whereas Barack was once seen as the only option, buyers remorse has set in, and the voters are changing the game to who they see as the GE winner: Hillary! Hillary has demonstrated over and over again a winning strategy that includes more than hope for change, but details, plans and understanding of how to make change happen. The voters are changing the game because they know that hope of change alone isn't enough. For change you have to have a plan. For change you have to have an understanding of the problem. For change you need stamina, charisma, and the will to fight on in the face of your enemies. Otherwise, your only hope is to return to sleep and dream of a reality that never had a chance.

Couldn't have said it better!

CREDITS: Cropped photo originally shot by Barbara Kinney.

The faux kitchen sink

Media invented the "kitchen sink" with help from Obama's camp
to trash Hillary for trying to drown Barack's presidential bid.

Joseph of Cannonfire explained with facts the fictional kitchen sink chapter on Hillary's campaign:

Although Bob Somerby probably does not read Cannonfire, he has picked up on the absurdity of the "kitchen sink" line, which has been the subject of two previous posts here. The "sink" motif still sees frequent use throughout prog-land and the mainstream media. First, Somerby quotes Joe Klein's anti-Clinton hit piece in Time:

Even as he spoke, the former President was in the midst of a tiny, self-inflicted absurdity, having claimed in a radio interview that the Obama campaign had played the "race card" against him. And that was the least of the damage.

That is, in fact, precisely what happened. As we have seen in many previous columns, the Clintons never -- ever -- used the race card. They had no reason to do so: Such a strategy would have no appeal to any segment of the Democratic electorate, and would serve only to alienate black voters and others. Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe accidentally deep-sixed the O-bot propaganda line when he confessed that no Democrats would make a decision to vote for a presidential candidate based on anti-black antipathy, because the racists all went over to the Republican side long ago. (The exact quote appears in a recent post; scroll down.) An internal Obama campaign memo [emphasis added] revealed that the Clintons-are-racists meme was a deliberate ploy. At the time when the Obama campaign made the calculated decision to spread this unforgivable smear, most black voters favored Hillary....

...Back in February, Clinton gave a round of speeches in which she referred to five reasons not to vote for Obama -- as opposed to, say, two or three reasons. That, friends, is the "kitchen sink."

To which I say: Big deal. I refuse to accept the O-bot redefinition of the term "negative campaigning" to mean any statement which does not acknowledge Obama as the Messiah.

If you look at what Hillary was saying in those days, her commentary was entirely concerned with policy disagreements and Obama's lack of experience. Since when are those considerations out of bounds in a political campaign? [Emphasis added.]

Go read Joseph's entire post for further history and the "highly unreliable" originator of the "kitchen sink fusillade." For now, turn attention to another Cannonfire entry about the internal Obama memo, the dirty tricks played by Barry's team on those allegedly "racist" Clintons. Of course, the Hillary-hating media hyped the race card and the Obamasphere lit bonfires to incinerate Hillary's bid for the nomination. Seriously, I wonder: does the blog of WKJM and the Orange Sippy Cup™ King have dedicated email accounts to receive Obama talking points and distribute 'em?

From Cannonfire:

This memo proves that the Obama campaign has -- since January -- been behind the vile attempt to insinuate that the Clintons are racists. Before the Obamoids embarked on this propaganda strategy -- negative campaigning at its very worst -- Hillary Clinton had the majority of the African American vote. With cool and calculated deceit, the Obama team racialized statements such as Bill Clinton's "fairy tale" remark.

The Obama campaign always knew that this assault was deceptive, as this interview with campaign manager David Plouffe confirms:

I mean the vast, vast majority of voters who would not vote for Barack Obama in November based on race are probably firmly in John McCain's camp already.

Plouffe was caught between a rock and a hard place here. He gave this response after being asked if America's racism rendered Obama unelectable in the general. His answer directly contradicts the Bot Party Line that Clinton has sent out "dog whistles" to those imaginary hordes of Democratic bigots.

Thank you, Joseph. I've argued repeatedly that it is Malignant Absurdity™ to accept that the Clintons are "slobbering racists." Here:

Why liberals fall for this specious propaganda, one can only speculate, but none of the answers are good when allegedly intelligent people follow the plot lines our morally-bankrupt news media concoct. If the Clintons are such super-smart politicians, why the hell would they commit electoral suicide undermining Hillary's chances of winning? It defies logic...

And here:

See The Daily Howler on the racially-concocted dumb-assery of Patterson. Pro-Obama fans, surrogates, and Villagers have screamed race/race/race so often that the accumulated expulsions require a dumpster-sized pooper scooper. The Clintons have played the race card! Oh, puh-leeze, spare me. Think about it: "[I]ndulging in racial politics would be a sure-fire way for the Clinton campaign to shatter its own coalition," a tactic that defies logic, that would invite political suicide. For someone who allegedly "would do anything to win," the accusation makes zero sense.

I'm unsurprised that there is an Obama memo painting the Clintons as racists. Courtesy Joseph, Sam Stein in January 2008:

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign has prepared a detailed memo listing various instances in which it perceived Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign to have deliberately played the race card in the Democratic primary. [See the full memo here.]

The memo, which was obtained by the Huffington Post and has been made public elsewhere, is believed to have been given to an activist and contains mostly excerpts from different media reports. It lists the contact info and name of Obama's South Carolina press secretary, Amaya Smith, and is broken down into five incidents in which either Clinton, her husband Bill, or campaign surrogates made comments that could be interpreted as racially insensitive.

The document provides an indication that, in private, the Obama campaign is seeking to capitalize on the view - and push the narrative - that the Clintons are using race-related issues for political leverage. In public, the Obama campaign has denied that they are trying to propagate such a perception, noting that the document never was sent to the press.

If you click the link to read Sam Stein's column at HuffPost, the entire memo falls below the fold and outlines five talking points:

1. Clinton, Criticizing Obama For Promising "False Hope" Said That While MLK Jr. Spoke On Behalf Of Civil Rights, President Lyndon Johnson Was The One Who Got Legislation Passed: "It Took A President To Get It Done."

2. Bill Clinton Implied Hillary Clinton Is Stronger Than Nelson Mandela

3. Clinton's NH Campaign Chair Raised The Youthful Drug Use Of Obama And Said It Would "Open The Door To Further Queries On The Matter."

4. Mark Penn, In Trying To Defend His Campaign Over Bill Shaheen's Obama Drug Use Comments, Used The Word "Cocaine," Drawing A Rebuke From Edwards Adviser Joe Trippi.

5. Donna Brazile Lashed Into Bill Clinton For Comparing Obama To A "Fairy Tale" And Said "It's An Insult... As An African-American" And That His Tone And Words Are "Very Depressing."

Have you noticed the silence in the Obamasphere about Barry's memo? Well, except that they used it to smear Hillary relentlessly. Had it not been for Joseph Cannon, I wouldn't have known of its existence in my avoidance of HuffPost, which tilts most of its commentary against Hillary, a wasteland of pro-Obama propaganda with a patch of true blue here and there.

Between the false narratives about Clinton's so-called kitchen sink, the sexist dog whistles out of the mouths of Obama and his co-chairs, the character assassination of Hillary, and the campaign secretly promoting the Clintons as racists to the press, I whole-heartedly agree with Cannon's conclusion:

Barack Obama has run the filthiest campaign in the modern history of the Democratic party. We cannot reward such tactics with success, or they will be repeated.

Can I get an amen? I absolutely refuse to be guilt-tripped into voting for Obama if--gawd forbid--he wins the nomination and then loses to McCain in the fall because people like me will not vote for The Fraud. And I'm not voting for Bush III. I will write in my candidate's name or vote for the Green Party whose candidate will likely be an African-American woman. Just try and call me a racist.

POSTSCRIPT: Obama quoted in Klein's hit piece, "She's got the kitchen sink flying, the china flying — the buffet is coming at me." Waah! What an act.

CREDITS: WKJM via Corrente. See their glossaries for the definition.

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.

It's Clinton's fault

Incurable CDS sufferers see only one person to blame: Hillary.

Someone has been gulping too much Kool-Aid:

There was little doubt left in today's remarks by Obama, who recently said he could no more disown Wright than he could the black community. He pretty much disowned Wright today. Obama described himself as "outraged" and "saddened" by "the spectacle of what we saw yesterday."

But now, it turns out, we should have been paying a little less attention to Wright's speech and the histrionics of his ensuing news conference and taken a peek at....

who was sitting next to him at the head table for the National Press Club event.

It was the Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds, a former editorial board member of USA Today who teaches at the Howard University School of Divinity. An ordained minister, as New York Daily News writer Errol Louis points out in today's column, she was introduced at the press club event as the person "who organized" it.

But guess what? She's also an ardent longtime booster of Obama's sole remaining competitor for the Democratic nomination, none other than Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York. It won't take very much at all for Obama supporters to see in Wright's carefully arranged Washington event that was so damaging to Obama the strategic, nefarious manipulation of the Clintons.

Could someone book a few rooms the psych wing for delusional press members and Hillary-haters suffering from advanced CDS? On second thought, may need to build a hospital dedicated to 'em... a big one.

IMAGE: An alteration of M.C. Escher's Eye.

Olbermann's answer to WWTSBQ

Anglachel doesn't mince words. And neither do I in agreeing with her. Keith Olbermann's solution to WWTSBQ is to kill Hillary and it's unmitigated hate speech:

Other blog posters have stepped around the obvious intent behind Keith Olbermann's recent verbal assault on Hillary Clinton. I know why. It's a hell of a step to take. I've spoken extensively about the irrational and boundless fury at this woman who has done nothing to deserve the outrages inflicted upon her. I've blogged before on the level of violence in the reaction to Hillary Clinton. I've blogged on how the shame of the Left when confronted by her - shamed by how she has been trashed, shamed by how badly she beats their darlings - underlies the demands that she be eradicated from politics, a symbolic honor killing....

...What Keith Olbermann said yesterday is not symbolic. He flatly said a (male) Democratic super delegate should take Hillary Clinton into a room, and only the man should emerge.

Keith Olbermann is openly advocating the murder of Hillary Clinton.

We need to say this. It does not preclude talking about the other elements that may be subsumed under that final act, that she would also be battered and raped, but the clear message sent out by Keith Olbermann is he wants someone to murder this woman.

Over the months, I have read various bits of bullshit talking about how "people" are "worried" that Obama might be an assassination target. This is such an obvious line of sensationalistic crap from his campaign to try to create a false aura of danger (Quick! Flock to Barry's defense! Those terrible white racists are gunning for him!) when there has been nothing in the public realm to back it up. Let me be perfectly clear. I think it is probable that there is some nutcase out there who would like to try to assassinate Obama, and I think this because there is always some nutcase out there who thinks killing a public figure is a peachy idea. Or just some nutcase who wants attention - remember the would-be suicide bomber at Hillary's New Hampshire office? However, certainly within the liberal blogosphere and the MSM (I do not venture into the wingnut fever swamps), there is no drumbeat for violence against Obama.

This is not the case with Hillary. I have myself read comments advocating rape and murder. I have read main posts saying she was inciting violent acts against her, or saying they could "understand" the position of those who wished violent harm to befall her, her husband and her daughter. The descriptions of what Obama should do to Hillary verge on the pornographic. Not a day goes by that some prominent voice on the left or in the MSM does not demand her submission, subordination and public humiliation.

Anglachel is right to point out these attacks on Hillary for they speak to the evil--yes, it is evil--of the pervasive battering of females and the resentment of women's autonomy and authority. Violence against women in America borders on epidemic, part of the war on women worldwide. At least one in three women experience abuse by an intimate partner at some point in their lives.

For Keith Olbermann to trivialize this harsh reality with a veiled threat against Hillary isn't funny. It's dark, criminally-negligent speech implying that violence against women is OK. His words promote immoral behavior forged by old patriarchal attitudes: women who won't do what men want can be controlled through physical, emotional, and verbal abuse. In his attack on Hillary, Olbermann suggests if a female co-worker competes for a man's job, intimidate her, and if necessary, take her out. In Keith's dog-eat-dog world, the dog reserves the right to beat the b***h. Olbermann needs to go as well as the other NBC/MSNBC misogynists of Jack Welch's Lost Boys Club.

These unrepentant news men perpetrate immeasurable harm when they approvingly disseminate gender-based bashing. What kind of role models are they for anyone to see and hear and most especially for our youth to witness? I rarely watch NBC and I refuse to subscribe to programming that would bring MSNBC into my livingroom. I don't want to subject myself, my partner, or any young person to the sexist crap that flows off the chauvinistic tongues of Matthews, Scarborough, or Olbermann.

Anglachel also articulated a double standard in the SCLB: "Any blogger who fails to condemn Olberman for this blunt and unequivocal statement has no business writing a critical word about Bush and Cheney's torture policies, because you would be just cool with it being done to this individual simply to be rid of a political rival." Just as hypocritical is denouncing racism while enabling misogyny to flourish in their own commentary or discussion threads. I don't recognize the Obamasphere as being liberal anymore due to its sexist bent with the exception of a few bright spots, e.g., Digby (a woman).

The perverse idea that anything goes in politics--including an unforgivable jest that physical harm to one's opponent is an option--is never acceptable or justifiable, shouldn't be condoned or ignored. Keith demonstrated by his hate speech against Clinton that he's shameless and a sham as a "journalist."

We can collectively stop watching NBC, its local TV affiliate, and its cable TV extension MSNBC to send the message that we won't tolerate hate speech. Don't lift a finger to enrich their ratings unless it's to tune in long enough to make a list of advertisers to boycott.

If you want to change the sexist, misogynistic speech on the air waves, stop buying the advertised products or services on the offending media outlet. And tell the advertisers why you aren't purchasing. At the very least, complain to the advertiser about the media channel. The Religious Right and its minions have used this technique to attack LGBT-friendly activities such as Gay Day at Disney. Unlike them, our cause is just--not to inject discrimination--but to decry sexism and verbal violence in the news media, to ultimately foster a healthy, safe environment.

Before anyone gets up on the high horse of the First Amendment, criticizing a tactic to inform advertisers of dissatisfaction with their choice of media, a reminder: boycotting and dissent is also free speech. Shall we use the First Amendment to lift us all up or to oppress? Which would you reward? It's a choice we all have the right to exercise.

Pull the plug on Keith. We all can pull the plug on NBC/MSNBC. Let's do it.

UPDATE: A lame apology from Olbermann, "It is a metaphor. I apologize: the generic 'he' gender could imply something untoward." I'm not buying it. The generic would have been superdelegate or someone. Explaining he as the generic gender reinforces the old patriarchal attitudes that empowered Olbermann to suggest taking Hillary out in the first place. Go Cheney yourself, Keith. How's that for a metaphor?