Dumbing down

Good grief. Channeling a snark-booted inner fashionista, Ezra Klein linked to a Politico story about the high price tag of Sarah Palin's new wardrobe and expressed outrage over "$150,000 of other people's money" donated to the RNC that was spent on her clothes and make-up.

And this is important political discourse because of why?

Doesn't this tit-for-tat open the door to a gotcha rehash on the set designed by Britney Spears' concert team for Obama's "temple" at Invesco Field? Or the full-scale replica of Air Force One's fuselage that arrived at the stadium before Barack's appearance? And who, pray tell, paid for all that stagecraft? I've lost count of the voluminous direct mail and emails, emails, emails! soliciting donations for the DNC, Obama, Robert Wexler, Chris Dodd, Barbara Boxer's PAC, and on and on. So I'm unmoved by Ezra's ire except to get a bit peeved at what my contributions to Democrats may have funded.

What's next from the whirl of crap? Wasted energy sizing up Michelle Obama's wardrobe? Or Barack's? Or Cindy and John McCain's?

Last year, Glenn Greenwald (thank goodness, still sane) wrote about the Politico sewer into which Ezra jumped:

The Politico today is prominently touting on its front page another vapid, petty, and inane "news story" -- the type of story which has, in just a few short months, become its hallmark:

Romney spent $300 on makeup 'consulting'

Fast forward to (with emphasis):

One of the reasons why vapid petty-personality "journalism" of this sort has so disadvantaged liberals and so advantaged right-wing fanatics is because the latter are not only willing, but droolingly eager, to exploit these sorts of themes, while liberals in general are highly reluctant, almost embarrassed, to do so....

Not anymore.

When the right-wing attack machine joined by wacky doodle pundits mocked John Edwards $400 haircuts, didn't we (well, "some" of us) liberals realize the derision was a ridiculous diversion from important discussions about Edwards' policies married with the old GOP smear strategy: paint liberals as elitists and feminize Democratic men?

So now bloggers fight gasbags with gasbags? Lovely. I don't recognize the liberal wing of the blogosphere anymore.
Does a post-partisan landscape mean you can't tell liberals from conservatives? Because the piffle-whacked sludge one has to wade through to get to meaningful analysis has blurred the lines.

A few of my biggest disappointments this campaign season include:

• the dumbing down of political discourse on liberal blogs
• the destructive sexist, misogynistic attacks on Hillary Clinton and her supporters (and recently Sarah Palin)
• the Democratic caucus system that disenfranchises most voters
• the pledged delegate sham
• plus the Malignant Absurdity™ howled to the four corners that the Clintons and Hillary voters are racists.

Biggest losers of 2008: liberal bloggers. Well, not all of them, but a heckuva lot particularly the Blog Boyz.

See super-duper smart Anglachel for more details and our most reliable witness, Bob Somerby, who recommended that Josh Marshall "pack his satchel and go."

I second Somerby's motion. All those in favor say, aye!
UPDATE: More on "dopey" Politico from Eric Boehlert at County Fair.


POSTSCRIPT: M'yeah, I haven't blogged much. Busy, busy. But I'll try to do better. Begging your patience.

Comments captured below:

 

Facts evasion

Succinctly, by laying out the facts, Bob Somerby explained how the so-called liberal blogosphere aka SCLB has transformed into Village idiots:

SEEING AN SS PROPOSAL HALF EMPTY: If you round 28 percent off to “half,” you may be misleading the voters. And you may be squandering a large advantage you enjoyed with the mainstream press. That seems to be what Obama did with the recent ad which is “ad-watched” in today’s New York Times. We highlight two key words from the text of the ad—two words which seem to be hard to defend, two words which were wholly unnecessary:

OBAMA AD: I’m Barack Obama and I approve this message. A broken economy. Failing banks. Unstable markets. Families struggling. To protect us in retirement, Social Security has never been more important. But John McCain has voted three times in favor of privatizing Social Security. McCain says, “I campaigned in support of President Bush’s proposal.” Cutting benefits in half. Risking Social Security on the stock market. The Bush-McCain privatization plan. Can you really afford more of the same?

Aarrgh. The Obama campaign can’t seem to defend two key words: “in half.” And Obama has been criticized for making a similar claim on the stump. (For two posts from FactCheck.org, click here and then click here.) Because they stuck those two words in that ad, the Obama campaign has been widely assailed. For one example, see this column by the Post’s Ruth Marcus.

Last week, Marcus—like many mainstream journalists—was hammering McCain, quite hard, for his long string of “whoppers.” In this column, Marcus says Obama has started to even things up.

A bit of background on the issue discussed in Obama’s ad:

Marcus is part of the DC establishment’s center-left contingent. If she votes, she will almost surely vote for Obama, not for the saintly McCain. But by the time of Campaign 2000, virtually everyone in the Village was affirming the virtue of private accounts; Gore was hammered, remarkably widely and remarkably stupidly, for challenging Bush’s proposal. (Link below.)

To this day, Marcus tends to buy her cohort’s sky-is-falling approach to SS; when she writes about the issue, she tends to be ardent—and murky. Her column included some outright nonsense, such as her passing complaint about Obama’s use of “incendiary language” (that is, the word “privatization”). And the column ended up in the weeds; Marcus isn’t very good at clarifying this issue. But her basic complaint was basically accurate, a point you may not have understood from work churned by some on your side.

This childish post by Josh Marshall is a case in point. Much of the short post is incoherent; much of it is loud and childish. (“It’s apparently a big lie,” Josh childishly snarks, as he offers a reinvented account of what Obama has actually said.) But his whole post ignores a central point—Obama and the Obama campaign seem to have misstated a key, central fact. On our side, we tend to get extremely upset when McCain does this sort of thing.

Is this what we all signed up for when the liberal web was born? Were we secretly seeking the chance to bleat and cry and ignore central points? Did we want to be like Sean Hannity? If so, enjoy Josh’s post.

Hey! Look over there! Pay no attention to the title of Marcus' column, "Closing the Whopper Gap," which examines Obama's false ad claim. The SCLB via CDS-sufferer Josh Marshall overlooks Obama's "rank misrepresentation" and his "stooping to the kind of scare tactics he once derided" so that WKJM can meander about the Social Security privatization quadrangle obscuring those two points among others.

And that is Josh's point--change the subject and disregard the substance of a criticism--a Village-like maneuver as if a child obedient to the defense of The One denies the fact that Da-Da is misleading.

Just as right-wing media have defended King George and the conservative movement for decades with blatant lies, juvenile rants, and sleight of hand, the SCLB rush to the aid of their Precious with misdirection, an evasion of the facts, and on other occasions, to spread faux racial smears and misogyny. That's not what I "signed up for when the liberal web was born."

The problem for the latter "progressive" cohort is that their appeals to a critical voting bloc--Democratic women--comes delivered with a slap in the face and dismissive snarls. Still! Anglachel handily addressed the latest sexist insult (read her entire post for details) and articulated what the Blog Boyz seem to be incapable of grasping. With emphasis added:

When Democratic women say "The Obama camp has run a sexist, mysogynistic campaign," we are told we're wrong, no such thing, there was not any sexism there, except maybe some from Tweety. When Democratic women say, "No, it's not his race, it's his lack of commitment to the programs that matter to us," we are told that, no, we're all just racist bitches, and that it's our fault if he doesn't win.

What does it mean to electoral outcomes if what we Democratic women are saying is simply true? That there is too much encouragement of and reliance upon misogyny as a campaign tactic? That our objections to this candidate really are based on rational economic self-interest, and are not due to his race?

Using shame (shame of being female, shame of being racist) rather than offering benefit is a tactic that may intimidate some, and perhaps win some over who would rather be part of the pack that attacks than one who is attacked, but mostly it engenders resentment. It is nothing on which political solidarity can be founded. Hasn't the Democratic Party learned that it is not enough to run on "I'm not [insert opponent here]"? That was a losing argument against Nixon, Reagan, Bush I and Bush II. Shouting "The other party is worse!" does nothing to address the weaknesses and failings of our own. Put on top of that a very public contempt for the concerns of a large and (until now) unswervingly loyal constituency and this is a recipie [sic] for long term, nearly permanent loss of electoral power.

I'll never vote Republican, but for the first time in my life, I feel no desire to vote Democrat, either.

I've written reams of analysis of why the current election is shaping up the way it has and I may be wrong about my judgments on those things, but I know my own thoughts. When I say I won't vote for Obama after the revolting campaign he has run and because he doesn't have anything substantive to back him up, I mean exactly those two things, nothing more, nothing less.

It's just the truth.

I couldn't agree more. As a lesbian, I include another unpleasant contradiction over Obama's campaign affiliation with homophobes. Again! How dumb does he think LGBTQ folks are?

Does Obama think we're too ignorant to notice how the underside of the bus looks?

Good thing you rarely see the SCLB touting that they are members of the "reality-based community." With Obama's campaign, reality must have become too mind-boggling to handle.

POSTSCRIPT: The "Precious" was coined by Anglachel and "WKJM" (Whoever Kidnapped Josh Marshall) was originally minted by Bob Somerby and recognized by the senior fellows of the mighty Corrente building.

Speaking of Corrente, in response to Anglachel's spot-on post, Lambert asks again:

How can a “movement” built on misogyny and false charges of racism be considered “progressive”?

Riddle me that, Batman.

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.

Get your game face on for Hillary

Hillary is still in this race despite the 24/7 media spiel anointing Obama the winner and the chortling over the perceived fait accompli in the Obamasphere. So get your game face on and let's roll.

In cramming a lot into one post, I've abbreviated some of the cites so click the links to understand the whole picture.

Who has our worthless media establishment cut out of the political discourse?

Older voters. For Obama, it's teh suck:

The Clinton campaign consistently includes Hillary Clinton’s appeal to seniors when it discusses why she is the better choice to face off against John McCain – but the media seldom mentions older voters, choosing instead to concentrate on Clinton’s appeal to “white working class” voters to hype the race angle in the campaign.

The Obama campaign’s use of talking points involving “new voters” and a “new coalition” is sending a message to older voters – that “old” is worth a lot less to them than “new”, that young voters are more important than older voters, and that the “new coalition” means that the concerns of the “old coalition” members are no longer critical to the Party.

And all this is going on when the Republican Party will have a 71 year old as its nominee.

Paul Lukasiak provides in-depth analysis, numbers, charts, a whole megillah.

Who joined Republicans against progressive Democrats to undermine the middle class by voting for legislation with the Orwellian name, Class Action Fairness Act?

You know who:

In 2005, Barack Obama voted for CAFA, the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005. Who voted against it? Hillary Clinton, Dick Durbin, Ted Kennedy, Pat Leahy, Joe Biden, Barbara Boxer and other progressive Democrats. Even Harry Reid. Who voted with Obama? Republicans, from Trent Lott to Lindsay Graham to Jeff Sessions and Democrats Joe Lieberman and Diane Feinstein (big surprise.)

Jeralyn of TalkLeft discusses why it was a very bad bill and commenter andrys adds more flesh to some of *cough* Barry's benefactors:

Obama gives Hope to corporations - Truthdig, Apr 28, 2008

Barack Obama Inc.: The birth of a Washington machine - (Harpers, Oct 26, 2006 issue)

Obama Campaign press release - response to Harper's article - Oct. 23, 2006

A Bit More on Barack - Harper's added detail for Obama campaign - Oct. 26, 2006. This includes Obama's explanation that We can do better than burdening businesses with cases of class-action abuse.

All his talk about not knuckling under to special interests is talk. M'yeah. Smell the hypocrisy. Here's a whiff of Barry's stealthy lobbyist network from The Hill.

Polls from West Virginia and Kentucky indicate an upcoming Hillary landslide.

Do you wonder why the media have gone ga-ga for Obama as if he's got the nomination? C'mon. The media are corporate subsidiaries comprised of influence peddlers dedicated to the plutocracy. Via tngen at Corrente:

There’s a good reason for the recent Obamabot psyops, pundit declarations, general wailing and at times cajoling Clinton supporters have been subjected to since her recent Indiana victory was spun into a loss: Clinton still has a very good chance of securing the nomination.

What’s more, the next few days are absolutely critical for her and her supporters. The end is only here if we allow the latest round to depress morale and turnout for the upcoming WV and KY primaries.

Jay Cost at RCP lays out why Clinton’s down but not out. First some numbers and demographics:

Two things are holding me back: West Virginia and Kentucky.

—SNIP—

However, it is possible that she could counter Tuesday’s blowout with two big blowouts of her own in the next two weeks. This could undo most of the damage done by her big loss in North Carolina, and put her back on track....

...What happens to “It’s Over” if Clinton pulls a 40-point victory in West Virginia on Tuesday, then follows it up a week later with a 30-point victory in Kentucky? If these states turn out in the same margins that states since March 4th have averaged, that would imply a net of about 290,000 votes for Clinton. That puts her within striking distance of a reasonable popular vote victory. “Over” will be over as we turn our attention to Puerto Rico.

Lambert weighed in:

I keep thinking that, if they really had it in the bag, they wouldn’t be screaming so loud that they’ve got it in the bag — and then attributing Hillary’s persistence to, er, psychological factors (“You know how women are…”)... Eh? ...I mean, why doesn’t Obama just release the 50 SDs he’s got in the bag and have done with it?

NOTE And I love that “elite opinion” has congealed around Obama triumphalism. This is the Village [aka media pundit class]. They’re always wrong about everything.

To quote a Daily Howler bromide I'll repeat often in the next few days: "You really can’t run a middle-class democracy with a multimillionaire press corps." Big media is out of touch, disconnected in their ivory towers. They want to pitch information, not listen to info consumers. You think we have a free press in America with the public's best interest at heart? Don't make me open a can of bwahahahahaha.

What's happening to the Democratic Party? And are the Blog Boyz still members of the reality-based community?

Super-smart Anglachel analyzes the "mass psychosis that has overtaken half of [our] party" and the "dissolution of what should have been a solidly unified party." She delves into the break-up, the differences between Obama's and Hillary's approach, and a "revolution" of Barry's new "saints" demanding old sinners--Hillary supporters--to simply give up and bow to The One.

What I see rising from the other side is clearly of two kinds. Half of Obama's support is simply racial identity voting. The other half is from the faction of the party that is significantly insulated from the stark world of need and want. There is a love of the other-worldly where the beauty of the idea and the ideal matters more than the base. The political "base" is seen as base - low, uncouth, adulterated, impure, unworthy. They are not among the saved and the saints. I honestly cannot remember a previous time when so many people in the party were reviled for doing nothing except vote for a conventional candidate....

...Cultural liberals really do tend to think that people who fit the profile of Clinton voters don't have deeply held principles and are not capable of forming complex opinions of the world, little more than dupes of puppet masters like Karl Rove. They act from false consciousness, not from the rich inner life that the properly educated and worldly claim as their own. The dedication and commitment of Clinton voters is denied because those hicks can't really believe anything, and thus the saints need not take into consideration the desires of the fallen as real, let alone legitimate.

Are Clinton voters to STFU and sit down until our ballots are required at the sacrificial altar of The One? Ha! Think again. Anglachel cites Obama supporter Chris Bowers to prove her point. He wrote:

Cultural Shift: Out with Bubbas, up with Creatives: There should be a major cultural shift in the party, where the southern Dems and Liebercrat elite will be largely replaced by rising creative class types. Obama has all the markers of a creative class background, from his community organizing, to his Unitarianism, to being an academic, to living in Hyde Park to shopping at Whole Foods and drinking PBR. These will be the type of people running the Democratic Party now, and it will be a big cultural shift from the white working class focus of earlier decades. Given the demographics of the blogosphere, in all likelihood, this is a socioeconomic and cultural demographic into which you fit. Culturally, the Democratic Party will feel pretty normal to netroots types. It will consistently send out cultural signals designed to appeal primarily to the creative class instead of rich donors and the white working class.

The New Democratic coalition is kicking the working class (and whole lot of other folks who aren't Bubbas) to the curb.

Note the Bowers echo in the words of the DNC's Donna Brazile here and whoa! A hostile response from her here. (Thank you, Joseph!)

After reading Bowers's crazy talk, I wish someone would spike the Blog Boyz Kool-Aid with lithium. Maybe their manic phase would subside and snap the boyz back to reality. Grandiosity and hubris has run amok. McCain and the GOP will make lemonade out of a chunk of Hillary supporters pegged as lemons cast aside as old.

I'm fighting for Hillary because she's fighting for us all. Let's do it.