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.

Sexist attacks on Sarah Palin help McCain

Just when I didn't think the SCLB could not sink any lower, up pops John Aravosis, king of tabloid trash-blogging, to vilify Gov. Sarah Palin's private life:

The 'progressive' men are actually counting the months of the woman's pregnancies! That's right folks. The formerly progressive netroots is trying to bring Sarah Palin down by proving that she is a slut! The menz over at Americablog (and followers) fervently hope to prove that one of Sarah Palin's children was conceived "out of wedlock!"

This story is not to be confused with the ongoing netroots effort to shame the Palin family by proving that Sarah Palin's teenage daughter is a slut.

A woman enters the presidential race and suddenly the progressive mission is to shame and mortify Sarah Palin, her children, her husband, and every woman who has ever found herself in a similar situation. And then no one will ever vote for Sarah Palin again because she's a slut!?!?

John Aravosis imagines that we are still living in the Victorian Era when women were so devastated by public shaming that they committed suicide. Way to go John Aravosis! And we thought you already held the record for alienating women voters with your vile misogynistic posts about Hillary Rodham Clinton. There's just something about ambitious women that brings out the inner misogynistic creep.

Employers would shun a potential employee like Aravosis because his unseemly conduct would put them at risk for a sexual harassment lawsuit... well, with exceptions like MSNBC and Faux News. Aspiring to work for Don Imus or the National Enquirer, eh? Why do I get the feeling that John and his buds have a Bro's before Ho's T-shirt in the closet?

Argue against Palin's policies, her record, and her ideology. But the despicable tactics of Aravosis and his reptilian-brained fellows prove fauxgressives don't have a lick of sense or decency.

The "she's a slut" line of attack will fuel the classic persecution complex of conservatives (Palin married, sweetie darthlings) plus mobilize Independents and Republicans lukewarm to McCain, giving them enough reason--the least of which, the hypocrisy of unity-schumunity, the double standard and sexism of the Left--to defend Sarah Palin... to ferociously GOTV.

Leave it to fauxgressives dumber than a box of lug nuts to "[do] Karl Rove's work for him." Go read Zuzu's entire post at Shakesville with updates for the scoop. The lesson (with emphasis in bold):

Let's look at how McCain's selection of Palin fits in to the Rovian playbook. Already, feminists on the left are asking whether McCain thinks that women vote with their vaginas -- but that only allows the GOP to turn that back on the Dems and ask why feminists think that Palin was chosen only because she's a woman. Same with all the "what kind of mother" talk -- aren't Democrats the ones who are supposed to be all for working mothers?

Then there's all the "Governor Barbie," bimbo, golddigger, VPILF, CUNTRY, etc. crap. Oh, the Republicans will undoubtedly say, look how much the Democrats value women. All that unity business was a steaming pile of bullshit; they don't value you when the chips are down.

And what the Republicans will do that the Democrats will not is call out the misogyny against their candidate. I've said it before -- the Republicans would never, in a million years, stand by and let the media and the party rank-and-file treat one of their female candidates the way that Clinton got treated during the primary.

Thus, they turn a Democratic strength into a weakness. Or, rather, expose it as a weakness.

Now, as to why I don't think that McCain actually thinks that disaffected Democratic women will flock to him just because he picked a wingnut gun-nut creationist woman with some ethical problems as a running mate: because he doesn't have to get them to vote for him. He has to get them to stay home in swing states.

And what better way to get them to stay home than pick a running mate who not only helps him with his own base, but whose very physical presence he knows will bring out the misogynist bully boys who made Hillary's life (and those of her supporters) such hell? The ones who never tire of making it perfectly clear that women who want attention paid to their issues in this election are not welcome in the Democratic Party?

Making it all the more perfect is the fact that Obama is boxed in -- if he fails to rein in the football hooligans who comprise his rabid fan base, he will be (rightly) accused of supporting the misogynistic attacks against Palin, but if he publicly reins them in, he will be (rightly) accused of failing to do the same when those attacks were directed against Clinton, which will allow the Republicans to question the legitimacy of the process that put him over the top on the delegate count.

That genie isn't going back into the bottle, not now.

And all those football hooligan fanboys who've turned their unleashed ids onto Palin now that Hillary's out of the race and in the fold? They're doing Karl Rove's work for him. And so are the astroturfers and concern trolls.

Somewhere Matt Drudge is smiling.

Comments captured below:

Media and misogyny

I happened upon this May 26 YouTube video of CNN's Howard Kurtz asking a panel of three women in media what they thought of Hillary Clinton's "sexist treatment by the press." They didn't hold back from citing the media, Internet sites, politicians, Obama supporters, and women who had attacked Hillary.

A transcribed quote from Marie Cocco, syndicated columnist for the WashPo:

But if you ever saw the language, the vulgarity, the vitriol that is hurled at Hillary Clinton by liberal Democrats, by the liberal blogs, largely by frankly Obama supporters, um, you'd be appalled. I mean you would punish your children for this.

What do you think about what the women said?

A campaign legacy of shame

I've been busy offline and finally caught up with a backlog of reading. The following piqued my interest.

Criticism of the deeply-entrenched sexism in America came from across the pond in Andrew Stephen's article, Hating Hillary, for the British New Statesman (via Judith Warner). Stephens opened with a candid assessment, one that I have pondered from a historical vantage. His essay of May 22 offers more to explore than the grafs I'm excerpting (with emphasis):

History, I suspect, will look back on the past six months as an example of America going through one of its collectively deranged episodes - rather like Prohibition from 1920-33, or McCarthyism some 30 years later. This time it is gloating, unshackled sexism of the ugliest kind. It has been shamelessly peddled by the US media, which - sooner rather than later, I fear - will have to account for their sins. The chief victim has been Senator Hillary Clinton, but the ramifications could be hugely harmful for America and the world.

I am no particular fan of Clinton. Nor, I think, would friends and colleagues accuse me of being racist. But it is quite inconceivable that any leading male presidential candidate would be treated with such hatred and scorn as Clinton has been...

...I will come to the reasons why I fear such unabashed misogyny in the US media could lead, ironically, to dreadful racial unrest. "All men are created equal," Thomas Jefferson famously proclaimed in 1776. That equality, though, was not extended to women, who did not even get the vote until 1920, two years after (some) British women. The US still has less gender equality in politics than Britain, too. Just 16 of America's 100 US senators are women and the ratio in the House (71 out of 435) is much the same. It is nonetheless pointless to argue whether sexism or racism is the greater evil: America has a peculiarly wicked record of racist subjugation, which has resulted in its racism being driven deep underground. It festers there, ready to explode again in some unpredictable way.

To compensate meantime, I suspect, sexism has been allowed to take its place as a form of discrimination that is now openly acceptable. "How do we beat the bitch?" a woman asked Senator John McCain, this year's Republican presidential nominee, at a Republican rally last November. To his shame, McCain did not rebuke the questioner but joined in the laughter. Had his supporter asked "How do we beat the nigger?" and McCain reacted in the same way, however, his presidential hopes would deservedly have gone up in smoke. "Iron my shirt," is considered amusing heckling of Clinton. "Shine my shoes," rightly, would be hideously unacceptable if yelled at Obama.

Evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, American men like to delude themselves that they are the most macho in the world. It is simply unthinkable, therefore, for most of them to face the prospect of having a woman as their leader.

I argued the last point in 2006 (Sophia aka Wisdom men take no offense as this is not directed at you):

What all the Hillary bashing boils down to is patriarchal resentment of powerful women. Primate brains just can't handle the presence of a modern woman treading upon the same sacred ground upon which the founding fathers once stood. The ingrained pattern to objectify the master's previously-held chattel manages to frog-leap DNA memory strands generation after generation despite women's liberation in the 20th century.

The exhibition of primate brain vs. modern woman closed with chest-thumping, triumphal grunts from the press corps and its allies in the 'sphere. Stephens:

The massed ranks of male pundits gleefully pronounced that Clinton had lost the battle with Obama immediately after the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, despite past precedents that strong second-place candidates (like Ronald Reagan in his first, ultimately unsuccessful campaign in 1976; like Ted Kennedy, Gary Hart, Jesse Jackson and Jerry Brown) continue their campaigns until the end of the primary season and, in most cases, all the way to the party convention.

None of these male candidates had a premature political obituary written in the way that Hillary Clinton's has been, or was subjected to such righteous outrage over refusing to quiesce and withdraw obediently from what, in this case, has always been a knife-edge race. Nor was any of them anything like as close to his rivals as Clinton now is to Obama.

The media, of course, are just reflecting America's would-be macho culture. I cannot think of any television network or major newspaper that is not guilty of blatant sexism - the British media, naturally, reflexively follow their American counterparts - but probably the worst offender is the NBC/MSNBC network, which has what one prominent Clinton activist describes as "its nightly horror shows". Tim Russert, the network's chief political sage, was dancing on Clinton's political grave before the votes in North Carolina and Indiana had even been fully counted - let alone those of the six contests to come, the undeclared super-delegates, or the disputed states of Florida and Michigan. . .The unashamed sexism of this giant network alone is stupendous...

...But never before have the US media taken it upon themselves to proclaim the victor before the primary contests [were] over or the choice of all the super-delegates [were] known, and the result was that the media's tidal wave of sexism became self-fulfilling: Americans like to back winners, and polls immediately showed dramatic surges of support for Obama.

The press corps persists in their stubborn, indignant denial of their sexist, misogynistic treatment of Hillary Clinton and women in general. See the WMC video for irrefutable evidence of the media's "sins." If media have been projecting American machismo attitudes toward women to which the Obamasphere marched in lockstep, then we have a lot of work to add more than 18 million cracks "to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling."

Stephens quoted studies of the bias against females in which "women are seen as ambitious and capable, or likeable - but rarely both."

Gender stereotypes trump race stereotypes in every social science test," says Alice Eagley, a psychology professor at Northwestern University. A distinguished academic undertaking a major study of coverage of the 2008 election, Professor Marion Just of Wellesley College - one of the "seven sisters" colleges founded because women were barred from the Ivy Leagues and which, coincidentally, Hillary Clinton herself attended - tells me that what is most striking to her is that the most repeated description of Senator Clinton is "cool and calculating".

This, she says, would never be said of a male candidate - because any politician making a serious bid for the White House has, by definition, to be cool and calculating.

Just as Stephens withheld no punches in identifying rampant sexism, he didn't hesitate to clarify the political instigator who introduced sexism and the race card:

Obama himself prepared the ground by making the first gratuitous personal attack of the campaign during the televised Congressional Black Caucus Institute debate in South Carolina on 21 January, although virtually every follower of the media coverage now assumes that it was Clinton who started the negative attacks. Following routine political sniping from her about supposedly admiring comments Obama had made about Ronald Reagan, Obama suddenly turned on Clinton and stared intimidatingly at her. "While I was working in the streets," he scolded her, ". . . you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board of Wal-Mart." Then, cleverly linking her inextricably in the public consciousness with her husband, he added: "I can't tell who I'm running against sometimes."

One of his female staff then distributed a confidential memo [contained in this post] to carefully selected journalists which alleged that a vaguely clumsy comment Hillary Clinton had made about Martin Luther King ("Dr King's dream began to be realised when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964") and a reference her husband had made in passing to Nelson Mandela ("I've been blessed in my life to know some of the greatest figures of the last hundred years . . . but if I had to pick one person whom I know would never blink, who would never turn back, who would make great decisions . . . I would pick Hillary") were deliberate racial taunts.

Another female staffer, Candice Tolliver - whose job it is to promote Obama to African Americans - then weighed in publicly, claiming that "a cross-section of voters are alarmed at the tenor of some of these statements" and saying: "Folks are beginning to wonder: Is this an isolated situation, or is there something bigger behind all of this?" That was game, set and match: the Clintons were racists, an impression sealed when Bill Clinton later compared Obama's victory in South Carolina to those of Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 1988 (even though Jackson himself, an Obama supporter, subsequently declared Clinton's remarks to be entirely inoffensive).

African-American congresswomen Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH) and Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) as Clinton supporters both disputed Tolliver's spin as did Obama supporter Jesse Jackson:

"I don't read anything negative into Clinton's observation," Mr. Jackson said in a phone conversation late Sunday night from India...

...In his conversation with Mr. Obama on Saturday, Mr. Jackson said, "He told me what Bill had said. And I said to Barack, as a tactical matter, resist any temptation to come down to that level. There may be temptations, especially when the media keeps saying 'Barack is black,' and they never said 'Dukakis is white' or 'Hillary is white,'' he said, referring to Michael Dukakis, who won the Democratic nomination in 1988.

But, Mr. Jackson said, "Bill has done so much for race relations and inclusion, I would tend not to read a negative scenario into his comments." He said his chief concern was that Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton not "bloody themselves" so much that they can't unite against the Republicans in November.

So much for Jackson's counsel. Obama--replying to ABC News This Week George Stephanopoulos' question about Bill's comment--spurred the anti-Clinton momentum ever so subtly by stating, "I think people want change. I think they want to get beyond some of the racial politics that has been so dominant in the past." He didn't address directly Jesse Jackson's assessment, leaving unanswered the inference that Bill Clinton had utilized the decades-old tactic of racial politics. "Well, you know, I think that that's his frame of reference was the Jesse Jackson races. That's when, you know, he was active and involved and watching what was going to take place in South Carolina. I think that a lot of South Carolinians looked at it through a different lens," he said.

The candidate true to a promise of change and unity would have countered that, with all due respect to Jackson's presidential runs, he, unlike Jesse, had won Iowa, a watershed moment, and that he, like Jesse, didn't perceive malicious intention behind Bill Clinton's remarks. That would have been the high road, proof that his unity slogan isn't mere hype. But he left the question dangling, open to doubt, fostering mistrust of the Clinton campaign when he summed up, "No, I don't think they were trying to demonize me, but I do think that there is a certain brand of politics that we've become accustomed to, and that the Republican Party had perfected and was often directed against the Clintons, but that all of us had become complicit in, where we basically think anything is fair game." [transcript here]. This from a candidate who played good guy on camera and on stage while his staff circulated memos of the Clinton campaign's alleged "deliberate racial taunts" and later hawked Rupert Murdoch's trashy tabloid, the NYPost, with its article and Olbermann's diatribe imbuing Hillary's RFK assassination remark with diabolical meaning. Obama demonstrated "anything is fair game."

Unreliable witnesses in the press corps and the Obamasphere whipped themselves into a frenzy to label the Clintons as racists, a blatant lie, and "no more real than Al Gore’s claim that he invented the Internet." They unleashed a barrage of false accusations against Hillary Clinton, her hemming and hawing about whether Obama was a Muslim to exacerbate resentment toward her, conjuring a Nixonian specter of "Clinton Dirty Tricks."

Stephens described the resulting fallout of a dirty trick smearing Hillary and a sexist ploy joining the Mrs. to her Mr. in the "amorphous creature called 'the Clintons', an aphorism that stands for amorality and sleaze." When I spy a reference to the Clintons, I earmark the writer, blogger, or speaker as potentially one who might as comfortably misname the Democrat Party, a political epithet. Shame on fauxgressives who carried water for the Republican talking point bureau against the Clintons by imitating Andrew Sullivan's dubious Clinton shtick.

Those of us who weren't willingly deluded and/or avid readers of The Daily Howler knew who sent the dogs out of which Stephens surmised were Obama-Axelrod objectives:

The pincer movement, in fact, could have come straight from a textbook on how to wreck a woman's presidential election campaign: smear her whole persona first, and then link her with her angry, red-faced husband. The public Obama, characteristically, pronounced himself "unhappy" with the vilification carried out so methodically by his staff, but it worked like magic: Hillary Clinton's approval ratings among African Americans plummeted from above 80 per cent to barely 7 per cent in a matter of days, and have hovered there since.

I suspect that, as a result, she will never be able entirely to shake off the "racist" tag. "African-American super-delegates [who were supporting Clinton were] being targeted, harassed and threatened," says one of them, Representative Emanuel Cleaver. "This is the politics of the 1950s." Obama and Axelrod have achieved their objectives: to belittle Hillary Clinton and to manoeuvre the ever-pliant media into depicting every political criticism she makes against Obama as racist in intent.

Have I mentioned that I consider Obama's campaign the most underhanded, lowdown political operation on the Democratic side that I have ever had the misfortune of witnessing? Yup. He is a Democratic presidential nominee? Wow! Why isn't the party ashamed of itself for blessing this conniving, macho-pandering, two-faced, sexist, calloused, race-baiting, snake-oil selling politician? I would add other adjectives but I'm attempting to keep it clean. And millions have fallen for Obama's manipulative BS. Well, I guess it was the Democrats' turn to swoon for their faux version of "a uniter, not a divider."

I wonder how much time will pass before the SCLB realizes its error. Did I just make a funny? They will compulsively preoccupy themselves with attacking John McCain and then defending Barack against the evil Republicans and the noise machine and they will proceed ignoring their failure to document the atrocities. Kevin Drum responded to my Hillary's unreliable witnesses post in comments for criticizing bloggers like him who jumped on the right-wing Drudge bandwagon to "wrongly [finger] the Clinton camp for the photo of Obama in a turban and Somali garb." To my thinking, Drum's excuses didn't absolve his "lapse in judgment." He should have known better from the start. Matt Drudge! GIGO.

I highly doubt the Blog Boyz will admit their mistake of backing the wrong candidate if Obama loses or when his presidency reveals that he's mostly an orator of spiel, not an executive. Stephens:

The danger is that, in their headlong rush to stop the first major female candidate (aka "Hildebeast" and "Hitlery") from becoming president, the punditocracy may have landed the Democrats with perhaps the least qualified presidential nominee ever. But that creeping realisation has probably come too late, and many of the Democratic super-delegates now fear there would be widespread outrage and increased racial tension if they thwart the first biracial presidential hopeful in US history.

But will Obama live up to the hype? That, I fear, may not happen: he is a deeply flawed candidate. Rampant sexism may have triumphed only to make way for racism to rear its gruesome head in America yet again. By election day on 4 November, I suspect, the US media and their would-be-macho commentators may have a lot of soul-searching to do.

I'm not as hopeful as Stephens about media's "soul-searching" examination. They savaged Bill and Hillary in the 1990s only to return unrepentantly to lambaste the Clinton's campaign by using misogyny, sexism, and the faux race card as political weapons.

I have the same sinking feeling in my gut as I did in the spring of 2000. Bad times ahead whether McCain or Obama wins in November, a tragedy of the missed opportunity of President Hillary Clinton lost by a campaign legacy of shameful sexism and race-baiting.


CREDITS: Time and New York Post covers from Mark Pasetsky's Cover Awards, The New Republic cover from Voices in their heads, and Chris Matthews Hardball graphic from The aria of Tweety.

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.

400 Obama bloggers roundup

From HillBuzz, Obama hires 400 new bloggers to sway Hillary supporters:

Also, it's been noted by several HillBuzz readers, that Obama volunteers are being told to ratchet down the anti-Hillary hate, because someone in the campaign realizes Hillary Clinton supporters are not very likely to support Obama if he becomes the nominee.

Katiebird at The Confluence, 400 bloggers fighting for Barack Obama's desperate delusion?

News is spreading that the Obama campaign has hired 400 faithful friends to “throw elbows” at Hillary supporting blogs. My original thought was that this was an Obama-inspired rumor (like the one last week that Obama’s already got a Paid Transition Team) designed to make us tremble and go home....

...But, pay attention — you’ll be learning it this summer.... 400 Bloggers for Obama? I spit on ALL of you.

To follow up, Riverdaughter posted, Full Scale Schmoozy Trolling Already in Progress:

Look at what I fished out of the spam filter:

Madrugada Jones | xxxxxxx@yyyy.com | spinachflame.wordpress.com | IP: foo.bar.foo

I respect Hillary a great deal and think she’d make a terrific president. But I’m for Obama and I think you have to ask yourself, if the roles were reversed and Hillary was out ahead in the delegate count (not to mention the superdelegate count) and Barack was trying to get the delegates from MI and FL seated, do you honestly think she’d let them be seated?? You’ve got to be kidding me. She’d do the same exact thing he’s doing, which is well within the rules the DNC established. To me, this proves Obama’s political savvy.

Joseph Cannon, "The 400 Blow-hards" -- and Operation Turn Down:

The rumor is spreading throughout "the internets" that the Obama campaign has hired 400 bloggers -- or blogland loiterers...

...Which means, of course, that Obama controlled the Hillary-hate in the first place. His was the hand on the spigot. He is the one we must blame for the ceaseless smears and calumnies....

...I've received a truly bizarre barrage of anonymous hate comments, and not from my usual opponents. This hate-mail has had no hint of the conciliatory.

These "drive by" comments appear every hour. They never make a detailed argument, and they never make much sense. Judging from the writing style, only two or three individuals are involved. Some of these messages make threats. I've learned to delete these comments (mostly) unread; a whiff is enough to know what the rest is like....

Joseph also noted Operation Turn Down, an effort of Steve Corbett PA Radio host to inform the DNC that Democrats will not vote for Obama. "State after state voters calling and pledging they would under no circumstance vote for Obama."

Ouch!

Alegre wrote:

I don’t know if that 400 blogger bit is true but I’ve noticed a LOT of new Obama followers here on MyDD over the past few days so maybe there’s something to it. Not sure if they’re paid or if they even exist and frankly, I really don’t care. But I do care that people are calling for Hillary’s supporters to “give it up” and telling us “it’s over” when not one single vote has been cast in our party’s convention. That’s a few months off yet so why don’t we just let the rest of the states have their say, make our case to the undeclared superdelegates out there and chill?

Just know this - I'm not gonna stop as long as she's out there fighting for us. As long as she's standing up for us - I'm standing up for her. Get it?

Reclusive Leftist's Welcome, Operation Code Blue!

I’m not really welcoming Axelrod’s latest cadre of paid “opinion shapers.” I’ll just be handing out these convenient laminated Pocket Guides (note the blue section) and gently shutting the door in their faces...

...What’s that? We’re all Democrats? Oh, that’s nice. Okay, you have a nice day, you hear? Bye-bye! Thanks so much! Bye! Mm, you too! Bye! Thanks again! Okay, bye now! Bye!

Donna Darko added details about women threatening an Obama boycott.

Video here.

Guide to Obamaniacs

Sapphocrat designed a useful tool (below) to navigate the mood swings and resultant behavior of the Obamabots. They discredit Hillary supporters as stupid, but, oh, wait! They need us to elect The One so be nice. If sweet-talking doesn't work, they resort to guilt trips or leave in a harumphity-dumpity huff, "We don't need you, traitor!"

A little background from Sapphocrat (emphasis in bold):

I’m glad to see I’m not the only one to notice this. Curious to learn the extent of this phenomenon, I went surfing through dozens of non-Obama blogs and message boards (I don’t call them all “pro-Hillary,” as those of us immune to the Twu-Bewiever Kool-Aid are not all necessarily Hillary supporters; many of us just see Obama for what he really is, and our blood runs cold at the thought of leaving our nation in his most incapable hands), and found: It’s everywhere.

…Which knocks on its ass the repeated claims of Obamaites who swear that their message boards and the like are somehow unique, and do not reflect the rest of the Intertubeosphere, let alone the real world. Of course, these are the same people who swore that nobody was paying attention to Donnie McClurkin, and that the Jeremiah Wright dust-up would never do a lick of damage to Saint Barry the Invincible.

…Which tells you that many Obamaniacs either don’t get out much, or simply prefer to spend all their time parroting one another’s talking points in their own little echo chambers — from which they’ve run off the vast majority of non-Obamaniacs, which in turn makes it appear as though the world is composed of nothing but Obamaniacs. Which is why they get so crazy when they’re exposed to even one of the tens of millions of non-believers, like me. But we’ll talk about cognitive dissonance again another day.

What’s so funny (or would be, if it weren’t so pathetic) is how predictable they’ve become. The pattern to their singleminded behavior is painfully obvious. In fact, I’ve created a handy little chart (which you’ll find below) that you can print out, put in your pocket, and refer to the next time Team Obamanation suddenly switches gears, and you find yourself sputtering: “B-b-b-but-but… But that’s not what they were saying yesterday!”

To keep up, the chart helps non-Obama believers identify the behavior.

Click to enlarge at LavendarLiberal.com and click the image again to enlarge further.

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.

Friday shortcuts

T.G.I.H.

I've got a health issue I need to deal with this afternoon. I'm uninsured, one of the 47 million, so if you would like to help out, hit the PayPal button and thank you kindly.

A few goodies from the bright side...

VastLeft at Corrente posted a linked article by Prof. Adolph Reed on Obama that's a real eye-opener. Must read.

Anglachel calculated the delegate math and Howard Dean--heck, the party--is in a pickle. But you knew that, right? She articulated some ideas that are new.

Indianapolis Star endorsed Hillary via Taylor Marsh.

Egalia at Tennessee Guerilla Women reported: Black Group Issues Outrageous Ultimatum to Super Delegates.

Oh, dear. Obama's O'Reilly Whines by BTD at TalkLeft. And the Obamasphere got Drudged again. The doctored Kantor video that smeared the Clinton campaign by... oh, go read TalkLeft for the links and a snippet via Atrios. BTD: "Moral of the story? The Left blogs have lost their way." Unsurprise! Can't wait to see what Bob Somerby has to say about it all.

Riverdaughter explained why it's been a very bad week for Obama. M'yeah.

Paul Krugman showed no mercy and tells it like it is: "To be clear, both Democratic candidates have been saying things they shouldn’t; Hillary Clinton shouldn’t have endorsed the bad idea of a gas tax holiday. . .But I think Mr. Obama is doing much more harm to the Democratic cause by echoing Republican attack lines on such issues as insurance mandates and Social Security. And now he’s demonstrating his post-partisanship by giving Republicans credit for good ideas they never had."

Larry Johnson discussed Hillary, Iraq and Iran from last night's O'Reilly interview and gets into the details of why Clinton "understands these realities."

That's all for now, folks! Back later.

Spinning a swan song

Pam Spaulding noted the latest Zogby poll, margin of error +/- 4.1%:

There are 8% "Not sure" with a 4-point margin of error but Pam uses this poll to question Clinton's potential success in PA: "You pair [the poll] with the fact that over 35,000 attended an Obama rally in Philly yesterday, and there has to be a certain level of panic in the Clinton camp. " Ahem. The Zogby poll was conducted in partnership with Newsmax. Newsmax!?

Also read John Zogby's footnote about the "Not sure" cohort, which he asserts are white/Catholic Democratic voters who prefer McCain in the general election. They don't like Hillary and "aren't breaking for Obama." But if they do vote, "then they will probably vote for Clinton and she can conceivably meet the 10-point victory threshold that meets pundits' expectations."

Let's review: Zogby was wrong about New Hampshire when its poll showed Obama ahead by 4 points and with 22% "Not sure." Who won NH by 3 points, a 7-point swing over Obama? Clinton.

Zogby was wrong about Ohio showing Clinton and Obama tied at 44% apiece and 8% "Not sure." Hillary won Ohio by 10 points: 54 to Obama's 44.

Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll showed Obama ahead in California with a narrow lead and "Obama and Clinton were deadlocked in New Jersey." Clinton won CA 52% to Obama's 43%, and Hillary won NJ 54% to Obama's 44%.

PA is a state where Obama is outspending Clinton 3-to-1 in advertising and with misleading health care attack ads and a deceitful lobbyist ad smearing Hillary when Mr. Obama himself is hooked up with Wall Street, Big Oil, and K Street. Jeebus! The denial in the Obamasphere about Barack is breathtakingly pathological, a symptom of Clinton Derangement Syndrome.

The difference between Hillary and Barry--they both accept corporate cash--is Hillary can beat McCain in November. Obama can't, IMO. Go look at what's available most recently from SurveyUSA in state-by-state match-ups between Clinton and Obama vs. McCain, a better measure than national polls unless you diss politics is local. If I get a chance, I'll post an update for folks daunted by going through each of the recent polls on NM, MO, NY, OH, OR, VA, MN, WI, KS, AL, CA, IA, KY, and WA. One swing state worth mentioning is OH: Clinton clobbers McCain, 53 to 42, and 4% of undecided voters can't make up the gap. However, Obama loses to McCain by 2 points with 8% undecided. Hillary is much stronger candidate to win OH with its 20 Electoral College electors.

In big blue Massachusetts, a primary state that Hillary won, Clinton beats John McCain easily, 56% to 41% with only 3% undecided. But Obama barely beats McCain by 2 points--in Massachusetts!--with 7% undecided voters predominantly women. Democrats solidly support Clinton, 86% of them, with a 21-point advantage over Obama at 65%. In an Obama vs. McCain match, 28% of Democrats switch to McCain. Hillary engenders more loyalty: only 12% of Democrats defect. Massachusetts is a gay and lesbian stronghold and maybe part of the Obama-McCain undecided group. What if they won't vote for the guy--McCain or Obama--with a sweet spot for homophobes? Twirl on that.

Regarding PA, take the Zogby poll--all the PA polls--with a great big shaker of salt. Pam asked in her wrap-up:

If Clinton only wins by single digits, how will that be spun?

If she wins the popular vote in PA, but the delegate split doesn't close the gap at all, how can that be declared a victory?

If she somehow manages to lose PA, how on earth will her camp explain that away?

Once upon a time, winning the popular vote was something Democrats valued as a "victory." What's changed? Seriously. WTF has changed? PA offers 21 electors via the Electoral College determined by... wait for it... the popular vote. Have a go at Fun with the Electoral College.

The question I have: how is the Obamasphere going to spin a single-digit Clinton PA win if that happens? Will they shriek their fauxgressive anthem, WWTSBQ?

Pam has applied the nicknames sHillary, "sHill," and "DOMA-wife" to Clinton for years. M'yeah. Guess we can speculate who Pam's voting for in NC, a southern state that hasn't voted for a Democratic president since 1976. I also live in a southern red-state but I cast my ballot for Hillary because I was, and still am, more confident in Clinton beating McCain in the general election especially on the economy. I considered the positive rub-off of "Clinton-era prosperity," to borrow a descriptor from Krugman--OH, PA, MI, WV, MO, AR, NM, IA, for example, voted for Bill Clinton twice, FL in 1996--and Hillary has done her own homework, differentiating herself from Bill, offering more details about her plans than Obama.

Why Democrats discount the clout of the states that can deliver an Electoral College victory and are leveraging their votes to pick Obama, a nominee who can't win the big swing states such as Florida, is as mystifying as why Hillary-hating lemmings blindly follow "The Precious" to step off the cliff. For a reality check, Anglachel offered her typically super-smart analysis on Saturday. Two brief insights: "[Obama] is as mainstream as anyone else within the party power elite, which itself is a fairly narrow slice of all possible political stances," and she described the "trial balloon sent up by the DNC" in seating the FL/MI delegation via TalkLeft. Go read both and ponder the behind-the-scenes manipulation.

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, 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.


POSTSCRIPT: Corrente offers a glossary of acronyms like WWTSBQ.

UPDATE: If only I had checked my RSS reader before posting. Jeralyn comes through with Why Hillary Is More Likely to Beat McCain with analysis by a veteran Democratic party activist, William Arnone.

Go read Lambert

Tax time. Too busy to give adequate attention to The RealSpiel.

So go read Lambert on the latest contrived attack on Hillary Clinton related to Obama's gaffe from the hack who kidnapped Josh Marshall.

And then from the ultimate CDS sufferer, the King of the Orange Sippy Cup, "too funny":

The Clintons have no compunction about ripping the Democratic party apart and destroying the career of Barack Obama if it means they might yet win.

Oh, the drama of angry pissypants. Someone order a giant-sized bottle of smelling salts for the Kid. Keep digging through the horse dung, Orange Boyz. Maybe there's a Unity Pony in there somewhere. But I doubt it. And that stink... won't wash off.