Hillary Clinton--The Sensitive Thug

Channeling Hova here. But my point continues from the earlier one I made. Here she talks to ABC News about the difficulties of being a candidate:

"And I think women just sort of shake their head," Clinton continued. "My friends do.  They say, 'Oh, my gosh, this is so hard.' Well, it's supposed to be hard.  I'm running for the hardest job in the world.  No one has ever done this.  No woman has ever won a presidential primary before I won New Hampshire.  This is hard. And I don't expect any sympathy, I don't expect any kind of, you know, allowances or special privileges, because I knew what I was getting myself into.

"Every so often I just wish that it were a little more of an even playing field," she said, "but, you know, I play on whatever field is out there."

Nothing that she says is untrue. But if I, as an Obama supporter, read that he was complaining about how difficult it is being a black candidate, it would really piss me. What I see in the statement, and in how Hillary has conducted her entire campaign, is a profound weakness, cowardice and passive-aggressiveness. She's not hard enough to directly come out and call the process skewed, so she calls it skewed and then claims that it doesn't really bother her. Whatever. Whereas a true competitor would relish getting the first question and think only of socking it out the park, Hillary complains about it, and then claims that she's still happy to have at it.

The level of deceit which drips off her answers is nauseating. Here is a candidate so hamfistedly arrogant that she once claimed in a debate that her biggest problem is that she cares too much. Give me a break. The fact of the matter is that there may not have been a worse candidate in the entire field, short of Mike Gravel. Hillary was armed with entire machinery of the Democratic Party, and yet she's going to loose. Everywhere she campaigns her poll numbers sink and her opponent's numbers rise. And her only answer to that is to simply declare that the state doesn't matter. It's OK. One way or the other this is ending, and she's going to loose. If not next Tuesday, if not in the primary, I'm convinced, in the general.

Race v. Gender again...

Katrina vanden Heuvel on Morning Joe. Got a little hot in there weighing race against sex. Pretty interesting.

I really think, at the end of the day, she's just a bad candidate. The question isn't "Will the country elect a woman for president?" as much as its "Which woman will the country elect for president?" There is an implicit sexism in that query, when you note the fact that George Bush got elected to two terms. No woman as incurious and inarticulate as George Bush could even be elected class president. The game is rigged, no doubt. But if you want to win, you've gotta find ways around.

As I said before, Branch Rickey couldn't just snatch any old baseball player out of the Negro Leagues--even if he was a great player. He had to get the perfect one. It was not enough for Martin Luther King to demand equal rights from white America, he had to use nonviolence to demonstrate a level of moral superiority to his oppressors. Obama would be well within his rights to say, "Why do I have to answer for bigots who have no affiliation to my campaign, but John McCain doesn't have to answer for the bigots who are featured on his campaign's website?" But if wants to win, that would be stupid.

At some point, you have to decide whether you're trying to win, or whether you're just trying to even the score. Sexism is a given in any campaign in which a woman is running for president. But are you running to highlight and point out that sexism? Or are you running to overcome it and win? Any candidate who would choose the former would get destroyed in the general election. Thank God this will be over soon. McCain would run over Hillary with a truck.

Especially the blacks and the Jews Cont.

Hopefully the Obama campaign will end the lie that if you somehow are critical of black people, you'll be criticized as an Uncle Tom. This was always a laughable theory proffered by jokers like Shelby Steele. Jesse, for all his foibles, was one of the loudest voices campaigning against blaxploitation in the 70s. The only people Malcolm X excoriated more than white people, were other black people.  I make this point in a piece I just finished for The Atlantic on Cosby. Will obviously link when it's up.

Back to Obama. Check out this piece in the Washington Post in which Obama's relationship with the Jewish community is addressed. One of the great things that Obama has discovered is that you can say the same thing and both white and black people will hear two different things. So when Obama went to Ebeneezer and used all of 10-15 seconds to speak on anti-semitism and homophobia in the black community, white pundits--who tend to believe that before Obama, blacks just sat around patting each other on the back and blaming white people--see a courageous stand. And quite frankly, Obama plays it as such. But black folks just hear a dude expressing his opinion, in much the same way that black folks in private settings tend to generally do. It doesn't sound alien to them. Thus Obama is able to secure white support by appearing to give some ground, when in fact he actually is giving very little ground. Witness the following from none other than the ADL:

To some Jewish leaders, even ones who have remained neutral in the presidential campaign, Obama's struggles are exasperating. Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said yesterday from Jerusalem that Obama has gone much further than other black leaders in his denunciation of Farrakhan and has recently expressed stalwartly pro-Israel views.

"As far as I'm concerned, this issue is behind us," said Foxman, who has not endorsed a candidate. "But with the Internet, as all Jews should know, these things have a half-life. They just keep going."

Remember that Obama has done this while running at near 90 percent in the black community, so this idea that only jokers like Sharpton and Farrakhan have a claim on black folks is stupid. It's amazing that it took a dude running for president to make this clear to media.

The Halfrican Takes An Axe to Sean Wilentz's New Republic Agitprop

Wow. Not for the faint of heart. Anyway Sean Wilentz gets taken to the woodshed for the backwards claptrap he spewed between the pages of The New Republic. 

John McCain--Do You Denounce AND Reject Your Supporter Who Blames Katrina On The Gays?

Folks I could do it all day--or just link to other people who can it all day. Witness John Hagee, supporter of John McCain. This is not semantic--McCain has is plugging this dude's support on his site. Hagee is the dude who told Terry Gross that Muslims "have a scriptural mandate to kill Christian's and Jews." Hagee is the dude who said of Hurricane Katrina, "All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that."

Black bigots just slide into irrelevancy all the while hanging like albatrosses from the necks of legitimate black public figures. But white bigots? They take meetings in the White House and get to endorse leaders of the free world. Like I say. Good work, if you can get it.

Tim Russert--Will You Reject AND Condemn Don Imus?

Haha. Courtesy of TPM. Only blacks are required to denounce the bigots among them. For white public figures, bigotry is apparently the default setting, so it's fine I guess. The funny thing is that where as Farrakhan is simply a friend of a friend of Barack's, Russert and Imus actually are boys.

Hillary Declines to Denounce OR Reject Racist Supporter

You know I don't much care about this. But I have no problem judging her by the very standard she set. The Essence:

A day after lecturing her presidential rival for not rejecting a controversial minister's support, Hillary Rodham Clinton declined Wednesday to reject one of her Texas backers who commented on Barack Obama's race.

During a series of satellite television interviews, Clinton was questioned by Dallas station KTVT about comments by Adelfa Callejo, a local activist who supports Clinton candidacy. The interviewer quoted Callejo as saying "Obama's problem is he happens to be black" and asked Clinton to respond.

And then:

The interviewer asked Clinton whether she rejected or denounced Callejo's comment.

"People have every reason to express their opinions, I just don't agree with that," she said, adding "You know, this is a free country. People get to express their opinions."

Uhm, pot...Calling pot...

Hillary v. Obama; Gender v. Race

OK, so I was groaning even as I wrote that blog title. Feels like its '94 and I just finished a Bell Hooks polemic. One thing I want to note is that, a few days ago, I wrote that Hillary's problem wasn't that she was a woman, it was that she wasn't funny. As my partner of ten years and baby-mamma Kenyatta, pointed out, that's only half true. It is a problem that she's funny, but it's also a problem that she's a woman--and those two issues are kind of related.

The fact is that frankly, for a woman, it's always going to be harder. And in cases where it may not be harder, you're haunted by the possibility of it being harder. I think it's difficult to miss the fact that Chris Matthews rants against Hillary are tainted by a sort of blockhead view of gender, and I suspect he isn't the only one out there like that. Hillary Clinton has to--or at least thinks she has to--worry about toughness in a way that a man never would. Hillary Clinton has to worry about being taken seriously--or at least she thinks she has to worry about it--and thus is not free to be joke in the way that Obama is.

I only hedge on this point, because I think a significant part of Clinton's view on what she can or can't say has to do with her age. She comes from a generation of women where these were legitimate concerns, and thus has been formed by that. Whether that's true today is beside the point. This is the crucible in which she was forged. It's worth noting that the same thing has taken place among blacks. Older African-Americans, of the civil rights generation, have always been obsessed with how they come across to whites (it's no mistake that the ceremony is called the NAACP Image Awards). But Barack Obama is younger and of an age where these issues were more complicated, and didn't require such a defensive crouch, as Andrew Sullivan put it.

That said, once you decide to run for President, all of this is unimportant. You play the game as it is. You know when you take the field your playing in an away stadium, and you've got to take that into account. Here is where the color and race thing differ. Barack Obama's campaign hails back to the old black mantra of "twice as good." You can't sit around complaining about racism if you want to win. You have to accept it, and win despite it. That's an attitude born of of constituting only 13 percent of the population--you simply can't change the rules from the outset with those sorts of numbers.

But Hillary's base--women--constituite a majority of the electorate, and to her mind, that allows her to question the rules. From her perspective, she should be able to function on the same level as a man because the numbers favor her. All of that works fine, until you face a dude like Barack who actually is "twice as good." The fact is that, in a perverse way, racism and sexism can you make you better, because it means you have to work harder to get ahead. Jackie Robinson wasn't just the first black ballplayer, he was a GREAT ballplayer. Jim Brown isn't just one of the great football players of all-time--he is also considered to be one greatest lacrosse players of all time. Martin Luther King wasn't just a civil rights leader, he was child prodigy.

Racism has made Barack a better, tougher candidate. It's taught him the futility, as an individual, of expecting--as Clinton expects--that the media is going to be fair to you. It's taught him that even when people are slighting him, he has to be gracious in a way that John McCain just doesn't have to. It's taught him that running as a black guy is suicide, while running as a white guy is just, well, it just is. Hillary is at a disadvantage because she's fighting a dude who has basically learned to kick ass (sorry Pops) while fighting with one hand tied behind his back. While she's off complaining about the rules, he's steady putting together combinations. Last night she whined about media coverage. But when Barack was asked about her shrill impression of him, he just laughed it off and kept moving. When she tried to press him on Farrakhan and score points, Barack not only dodged the haymaker, but exposed an opening and popped her with a quick jab. Hillary is in a street-fight. There are no rules here--at least none that will help her.

The biggest mistake she made in this campaign was expecting that she would have a fair fight. As Maureen Downd pointed out today, Obama could easily complain that he lost eleven straight elections he'd be written off. But why should he? Hillary seems to be running to expose the hypocrisy and sexism inherent in the process. She's hoping that on the way to becoming the first female president she can actually expose some of the biases. Fair enough and point taken. But Barack isn't running a campaign to call out the hypocrisy and racism of media. Dude is running to win. Who's being naive now?

How We On The Darker Side Will Remember Buckley

We live in era when Barack Obama must lead a lynch-mob to the home of Louis Farrakhan in order to allay the suspicions of certain white pundits. Meanwhile, these fools are tripping over each other to praise a dude who,if it were up to him, would have kept black folk in the grips of homeland terrorists. Witness the mindless bigotry of the now departed William F. Buckley:

The central question that emerges…is whether the white community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not predominate numerically. The sobering answer is YES — the white community is entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race.

That's from the National Review in 1957. I want to get really clear on something. For a lot of folks in the commentariat the Civil Rights movement, Jim Crow, segregation is essentially theory. It is an abstract notion to them, because for the most part they don't know any black people outside the ones working in their mailrooms (this is less true at newspapers, by the way). But for people like me Buckley's words are not hypothetical. We understand  what "such measures as are necessary" has always meant. I am never happy to see someone die. But when Farrakhan's time comes, I don't expect his death to be a waiver against all the hate he's spewed in his lifetime. I don't expect the Million March to indemnify him against denunciation. But Buckley, of course, is from the other side of the tracks. Man, I tell you, it's good to be the king.

Oh well, I need cheering up. Here's how you handle death. Talk to 'em Hitch:

The Value of 19 Debates

The fact is that Obama has just gotten better and better. It's either that or he just performs better in the one on ones. Two things: I want Obama to get that Jeremiah Wright defense down pat, and then I want him to do the right thing on public financing. If you're gonna be about it, be about it.

More on Obama v. Farrakhan

From Josh Marshall:

As a Jew and perhaps more importantly simply as a sentient being I found it disgusting. It was a nationwide, televised, MSM version of one of those noxious Obama smear emails.

Kevin Drum weighs in:

Just kidding. Seriously, though, can someone please put a sock in Tim Russert? I didn't even see the entire exchange, but his badgering of Obama on the Louis Farrakhan issue was pretty wretched. It was maybe legitimate to bring it up in the first place, but to keep at it well after Obama had made his position crystal clear was beyond the pale.

Andrew Sullivan dissents:

Does Obama understand that saying he has consistently denounced him is not the same as simply saying, "I denounce him"? A weak response - reminiscent of Dukakis. (By the way, why is it somehow only a question for Jewish Americans that Farrakhan is a fascist hate-monger? It's a question for all Americans.) Obama's Farrakhan response suggests to me he is reluctant to attack a black demagogue. Maybe he wants to avoid a racial melee. But he has one. He needs to get real on this. Weak, weak, weak.

And then hears about it from his readers:

Obama both rejected and denounced Farrakhan.  If you'd like, I guess they could have offered Farrkhan's head on a platter to him during the debate for a ritualistic slaying.  But other Jewish friends I know have been calling telling me they absolutely loved his response--and these are those who doubted him on the subject.

Obama vs. Farrakhan

If you want to know why I support Obama, check out his answer to the ever present Farrakhan test for black folks. It was no shock that Obama denounced Farrakhan, and while white people seem convinced that it takes great courage to do this, most black folks know that Louis Farrakhan hasn't been relevant for over ten years. Furthermore, us brothers are still wondering what the hell he did with all that money he collected at the Million Man March. Anyway, the beautiful thing about Barack's answer was how he counterpunched Hillary when she tried to press the issue against him, and get into a Will-You-Condemn-A-Thon with him.

His answer is standard black boilerplate when it comes to the Farrakhan test, but he really smacked it out the park with his "reject/denounce" answer. It put a spotlight on Hillary cheap hamfisted attempt to score points. If you detect any reluctance from Obama to go after Farrakhan, it has to do with black politicos understandable fatigue with having to answer for this bozo. It's pretty disgusting. On a side note, I am so tired of people having to talk about rebuilding a "black/Jewish coalition." Much like the alleged "black/Latino coalition" this crap is a myth. That's no disrecpect to my Jewish or Latino brothers, but the fact is that while there have been coalitions among the leadership, most black folks just aren't thinking about these issues. The leadership is not equal to the people

More Clusterbombing of Clinton

For whatever reason, I often assume that people who I hear a lot about are overrated. I can't tell you how often I've been wrong about that. Given that I mostly make this assumption about writers, frankly, I think it's just my own jealousy and neurosis. I don't usually read Frank Rich and this piece makes me feel stupid for that practice. This is just a superb example of great argument. Rich basically fillets the Clinton campaign, on the one thing that they've made their centerpiece--competency. Here's a taste:

But it’s the Clinton strategists, not the Obama voters, who drank the Kool-Aid. The Obama campaign is not a vaporous cult; it’s a lean and mean political machine that gets the job done. The Clinton camp has been the slacker in this race, more words than action, and its candidate’s message, for all its purported high-mindedness, was and is self-immolating.

The gap in hard work between the two campaigns was clear well before Feb. 5. Mrs. Clinton threw as much as $25 million at the Iowa caucuses without ever matching Mr. Obama’s organizational strength. In South Carolina, where last fall she was up 20 percentage points in the polls, she relied on top-down endorsements and the patina of inevitability, while the Obama campaign built a landslide-winning organization from scratch at the grass roots. In Kansas, three paid Obama organizers had the field to themselves for three months; ultimately Obama staff members outnumbered Clinton staff members there 18 to 3.

What people are missing in all of the coverage of the Obama phenomenon is that this dude has just run a hell of a campaign. Hillary thinks she's being funny and cute when she, and her surrogates, mock Obama's followers. But the joke is ultimately on them. If this dude is such an empty-suit, with zero accomplishments, than what it does it say about you that you can't beat him? If he's a nothing, but your loosing to him, what are you? In the words of Dre, when you dis Obama in that fashion, you dis yourself. A significant part of politics is convincing people to vote for you. Claim all you want that the voters are being hoodwinked, but that's all in the game. It's like if the Patriots claimed that they would have won the Super Bowl if not for the Giants blitz. Uhm yeah. That's football.

Clinton Supporters Start To Slowly Back Away

OK, so maybe not start. More like "continue." Anyway this report from my home state.

Especially the blacks and the Jews

My good buddy Eyal Press pushes the issue--in a positive direction.

Obama and Jewish voters

I have to say I love hearing this:

"If we cannot have an honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we're not going to make progress," he said.

He also criticized the notion that anyone who asks tough questions about advancing the peace process or tries to secure Israel by anyway other than "just crushing the opposition" is being "soft or anti-Israel."

Obama made the comments in a closed-door meeting with several members of Cleveland's Jewish community, who will be participating in the crucial Ohio primary to be held next Tuesday.

The thing about Obama, is that he is just young enough, just untainted enough to speak obvious truths. That he does this in the face of that turban nonsense as well as an endorsement from Farrakahan (are all the high priests of 80s ID politics rising from the dead or what?) impresses me even more. Anyway more on the possible gulf between Obama and Jewish voters here. I gotta say, an notions of "black anti-semitism" always strike me as laughable--as if Farrakhan and Crown Heights somehow rep for all of black America. It's not that I don't think it happens, it's just that, while I've heard my share of venom directed toward whites in general, and venom toward Asians (sad as that is), black anti-semitism just hasn't been as prevalent. And now I defer to James Baldwin. Oh who am I kidding. Come and talk to 'em Chris:

Clinton Campaign Flailing

Interesting piece from Mike Allen and John Harris over at Politico, detailing the last stages of the Clinton campaign. Complaining about the media to the media is the surest sign of a looser:

Communications chief Howard Wolfson — echoing a strong belief of the Clintons themselves — blamed the news media Monday for allegedly tossing bouquets to Obama whenever he criticizes Clinton but writing that she is throwing low blows whenever she draws contrasts with him.

Hmm, I guess. But dude, do your job. You were hired to handle the press, if Clinton is catching more negative coverage than Obama, than, by definition, it's your fault. It's not that I think Wolfson is wrong--I think Hillary does get harder than Obama. But for much of the campaign she's been the front-runner. The front-runner ALWAYS gets hit harder, as I suspect Obama is about to find out. Plus the Clinton attempts at spin were always lazy--I mean really, the only state's that matter are the ones you win? What a joke.

Furthermore, it isn't that the media is bias as much as they're lazy. They're looking for cheap narratives. Obama has, at almost every turn, altered whatever narrative box the pundits put him in. Before SC, they said he couldn't black voters. He did it. Then they said he couldn't get white votes. Check, he did it.
They said he couldn't get working class votes. He did that too. Now it's down to blue-collar white women who are over 60. The message is simple. WInning makes everything go away. These fools need to go out, stop crying and win something. Winning spins itself.

Hillary Clinton: Back to her old tricks

She's just shameless. I didn't link this before because it was on Drudge and hadnt been confirmed. But as TPM makes clear the "Obama is a Muslim" campaign is chugging along.

Why The New Republic Is Down With Us

Reverse that I guess, since I've never had the pleasure of working with those guys. TNR takes a lot of heat, and perhaps deservedly so, for its Mideast politics. But every once in a while you see something like this, something you know simply would not be published virtually anywhere else that matters. Here's TNR's frank assessment of Bush's over-lauded Africa policy:

Consumed by the war on terror, Bush has taken a far different approach. Rather than supporting democratic institutions and criticizing a new generation of African authoritarians, the Bush administration has backed whatever African leader claims to be battling militant Islam. For example, the White House has developed a close relationship with Ethiopia's thuggish leader Meles Zenawi, supposedly an ally in the war on terror and a partner in battling militancy in neighboring Somalia. The administration has provided military aid to Ethiopia with virtually no conditions on the assistance. It has also offered advisers to support Ethiopia's invasion of neighboring Somalia, an invasion which only led to more chaos in that benighted nation. Meanwhile, in recent years Zenawi's government has overseen a massive crackdown on opposition activists and a brutal offensive in the country's Ogaden region; in 2005, after disputed elections, the Ethiopian government arrested over 30,000 of its own people.

Hillary's Problem Isn't That She's A Woman, It's That She's Not Funny

Imagine a comedian coming out on stage and heckling the entire audience. I don't mean in the tradition of black comics who snap on particular people in the audience, but a comic who literally insults the ENTIRE audience. This is what Hillary did with her sarcasm bit in Rhode Island. Barack Obama frequently uses humor to defend himself against negative attacks, but he never uses his humor to make fun of Hillary or the people who vote for her. Know why? Because he wants her votes. It'd be suicide for him to mock the very people he's trying to bring to his side. The one time he did mock her ("You're likeable enough Hillary") it didn't turn out well.

There's another problem. Hillary isn't funny. It really is that simple. She can't hold a riff the way Obama can, and furthermore even when she attempts to do it, she shoots at the wrong target. Compare the following if you will:

Barack to Fake Conservative Patroits--I Am Coming For You

Man maybe I should speak for myself, but screw the speechfiying, the thing about Obama is that he just isn't afraid. Peep how he responds to Tapper's question on Republican questions on patriotism:

As far as the American flag pin, I mean when we start getting into those definitions of patriotism that’s a debate I’m happy to have, because I will come right after them. This is a party that presided over a war in which our troops did not get the body armor that they needed, or sending troops over who were untrained because of poor planning, or are not fulfilling the veterans benefits that these troops need when they come home, or undermining our constitution with warrantless wiretaps that are unnecessary

I WILL COME RIGHT AFTER THEM. Not I'm going to triangulate them, not I'm going to capitulate, not I'm going to try look tough in the general. I love that. The whackest thing about the Clintons was how they just would fold before the conservatives in an attempt to look tough. Everytime I see Hillary I think of that old great Churchill quote--"You accepted shame to avoid war, now you have both." Since these jokers came on the scene, their whole campaign has wreaked of political cowardice. I can't wait for the dagger.

Andrew Sullivan Clusterbombs Hillary

Oh come now Andrew, tell us how you really feel:

How did they come this close to losing this? They had all the money, all the contacts, all the machine levers, the entire establishment, the biggest Democratic name in decades, and they've been forced into a humiliating death-match by a first-term black liberal with a funny name. It seems obvious to me that the Clintons blew this because they never for a second imagined they could. So they never planned to fight it. Once put in a fair contest, they turned out to be terrible campaigners, terrible politicians, bad managers, useless executives, wooden public speakers. If you're a Democrat, that's good to know, isn't it? All that bullshit about Day One and experience? In retrospect: laughable.

It's a great post. And basically true. I'd like to add one thing--this is a monumental failure of the press. It was media that bought into Hillary as the Inevitable One. Much of what went wrong in her campaign--her reliance on big doners especially--was observable. They got none of it.

Obama: Rhetoric v. Substance

Nice analysis in the Chicago Tribune of whether Obama's speeches and this hogwash claim that Obama speeches don't contain any specifics:

For a speaker who is best known for his lofty and airy rhetoric, it's an ironic reality that Obama's public appearances very often turn into drawn-out dissertations.

In fact, read side-by-side with the other candidates' current stump speeches, the Obama script makes at least as many references to policy proposals as do theirs.

Sigh, the perils of McAnalysis

So, I just heard that, basically, these mailers that hillary got so pissed about have been out for weeks. She basically staged this angry--Shame on you--moment. I stand by what I said about Obama. But in this case, it looks like Hill was the more deceptive.

The Controversy Over Michelle Obama's Thesis

What a yawner. Why this was ever put under lock and key, I have no idea. Anyway Politico got it--from the Obama campaign, it's worth noting. Among the many racist bombshells to be found amongst 22-year old MIchelle Obama's anti-white, anti-American, anti-Apple Pie diatribe:

"My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'blackness' than ever before," the future Mrs. Obama wrote in her thesis introduction. "I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong. Regardless of the circumstances underwhich I interact with whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be black first and a student second."

I'm sure the GOP will find some way to twist this. I guess. Though I have no idea how. This sound like every black kid I ever knew who went to an Ivy. Shoulda picked The Mecca, hun.

The Lies Of Barack Obama

One of harder things to accept about democracy, and it's the reason why up until 2006 I had never voted, is lying. Politicians will lie, and there is basically nothing you can do about it. They will lie willfully about huge matters. It's important to note, while a lot of us get self-righteous about the lies of Bush, the same man that brought us the voting rights act, also brought us the Gulf of Tonkin.

I raise this because of Hillary's recent tirade against Barack Obama for a deceptive mailer which Obama sent out regarding Clinton's health care policy. Essentially, Obama's mailer raises the specter of working people being forced to pay for health care they can't afford. Clinton's plan does have some mandates, but Obama takes that grain of truth and turns it into a loaf of bread. Clinton's plan may indeed, in some cases force people to pony up, but in others it offers a batch of government subsidies to close the gap. I'm not taking Clinton's side, her "Shame on you Barack Obama" line is laughable. This from the camp that tried to turn Obama into Jesse Jackson, and from the family that brought us Sista Souljah.

My point is that they both would lie to you if they thought it would help them politically. This is not cynical, it's just true. I guess that's my problem with that mindless "Yes We Can" Will.I.Am. video. I don't buy most of the scribblings about Obama as cult-figure--except in the case of that video. It's good to be optimistic. It's good to be idealistic, even. But please stay clear on this one point: Barack Obama, as exciting as he is, as intelligent as he is, is a politician. Don't ever forget that.

Oh man, Michael Steele's about to speak...

Think he'll get booed? Like I said hopefully video soon.

Watching the State of the Black Union on C-Span and...

...I think people who are dissing this as a Tavis ego trip, or a talk-a-thon are wrong. Now, as you guys have likely read, I thought Tavis was wrong to air Barack out for not coming. But that said, it's good to hear folks from all walks of life speaking on black folks and where they think we should go. I just listened to Donna Brazile give a really impassioned speech, it almost sounded like she was about to run. We should be careful about dissing talking, obviously talk without action is bad news. But you still have to communicate before you can act. Hopefully I'll have some video for you guys soon...

Ohio and Texas breakdown

Nice write-up from AP. I think one of the most amazing things about Obama is his ability to draw from demographic groups that either seem to be, or actually are, in opposition. Consider this:

In the 22 contested Democratic primaries so far, independents made up 22 percent of the vote and they supported Obama by an overwhelming margin of 64 percent to 33 percent. Crossover Republicans, a far smaller percentage in the Democratic primaries, backed him 55-33.

Yet Obama has had the left flank covered, too: a 52-44 advantage over the New York senator among those who consider themselves very liberal.

That is what you call cornering the market. Essentially Obama is competitive or dominant in every single political demographic that's voting in the Democratic primaries. Obama's best quality is that he plays on his opponents side of the field. He is the fulfillment of Howard Dean, in that Dean had the left locked--though he really wasn't a leftie--and really wanted to grab the indies and some Republicans. This is what he meant by his over-critiqued confederate flags and pickup trucks line. This makes you reconsider the whole Blacks v Hispanics idea that some Dems and pundits have pushed. I doubt that Hispanics don't like Obama because he's black. More likely, Hispanics follow the pattern of other voters, in that, the more they see, the more they like. They are supporting Hillary, at the moment, because they know her best. Quiet as its kept, we saw the exact phenomenon with black folks only a year ago.

Also Texas doesn't matter

Continuing with the theme, straight from Hillary:

I’d love to carry Texas, but it’s usually not in the electoral calculation for the Democratic nominee.

So yeah, about that Hillary surrender...

Last night the word was that Hillary's moment of graciousness at the end indicated a chance that she might be winding her campaign down. Right. Anyway in the Texas Monthly--which I really need to subscribe to--Hillary shows that there is exactly zero chance that she's backing down. Instead, she claims she'll be pushing to have the Michigan and Florida delegates seated. The Essence:

There’s been a lot of talk about what your campaign would do should it get to the convention. Would you commit today to honoring the agreement made earlier not to seat the Michigan and Florida delegations?

Let’s talk about the agreement. The only agreement I entered into was not to campaign in Michigan and Florida. It had nothing to do with not seating the delegates. I think that’s an important distinction. I did not campaign--

The press seems to have missed the distinction if that’s the case. The talk is that you agreed not to seat the delegation.

That’s not the case at all. I signed an agreement not to campaign in Michigan and Florida. Now, the DNC made the determination that they would not seat the delegates, but I was not party to that. I think it’s important for the DNC to ask itself, Is this really in the best interest of our eventual nominee? We do not want to be disenfranchising Michigan and Florida. We have to try to carry both of those states. I’d love to carry Texas, but it’s usually not in the electoral calculation for the Democratic nominee. Florida and Michigan are. Therefore, the people of those two states disregarded adamantly the DNC’s decision that they would not seat the delegates. They came out and voted. If they had been influenced by the DNC, despite the fact that there was very little campaigning, if any, they would have stayed home. But they wanted their voices heard. More than 2 million people came out. I mean, it was record turnout for a primary. Florida, in particular, is sensitive to being disenfranchised because of what happened to them in the last elections. I have said that I would ask my delegates to vote to seat.

I just don't know what she thinks she has to gain here. Does she really believe the DNC can be strong-armed here? She must know that a straight-seating of the delegates would rip the Dems in half. Further, according to the math, Hillary still can't win, even with those delegates seated. There are those amongst us who believe that we need more of the other sides "Win at all costs" mentality. I think what we're seeing is where that mentality ultimately leads. This is disgusting, and it won't work.

Hook Up Culture: I call BS

I'm listening to Kathleen Bogle on WNYC this morning discussing her new book Hooking Up. I'll post audio later. To her credit, she's not as foolish as Tom Wolfe or some of the other idiots who've taken this issue on. But I have to say, this has the whiff of BS all over it. One thing that immediately catches my eye--no one seems to be able to quantify this alleged phenomenon. Maybe we're dealing in the limits of sociology here, but when I hear young men and women are more promiscuous today than in the past, alarm bells start to ring. Of course the first question is, are people just more likely to self-report now than they were in the past? Not that it matters, since I haven't seen much evidence to prove the first claim.

Another problem--maybe I'm just missing this. Allegedly, hook up culture (I can't believe I'm even using that term, it just wreaks of adult condescension) originated in the 80s. By the time I got to college in the 90s, it seemed like people would find their way into sex in all sorts of ways. Some would date. Some would study together. Some would spark an El. Others would just be drunk at the club. Usually there some combo of them all. But it's hard for me to sum all of that up into something resembling a culture. Call me daft, but I'd need to see hard evidence that what I saw in 19795 at Howard University, was not the case in 1975. But then I guess I wouldn't know--Bogle limited mostly all of her study to white people.

Debate Wrap

I think John Dickerson basically nails it over at Slate. Obama basically proved he could dance last night and held his own with Clinton over policy. I think the following point is particularly intersting:

In the end, the attack on Obama as a substance-free orator may backfire. It lowers the bar for him, so that when he offers detailed plans and speaks of his accomplishments, he sounds commanding. The attack also gives him an opening to take umbrage on behalf of his supporters, one of the easiest and effective political postures to take. Obama flamboyantly exploited this opportunity. Noting that Clinton lately had been urging voters to turn from him by saying, "Let's get real," Obama said, "The implication is that the people who've been voting for me or are involved in my campaign are somehow delusional."

I remember this happening to Al Gore in his run at Bush. Basically everyone said Gore was this incredible debater, thus all Bush had to do was look not-stupid and he wins. Obama is superior to Bush, but Dickerson is right. Her own campaign basically lowered the bar for Barack and he exploited the opening.

Tonight We Learn If Obama Can Dance

This is what I suspect. He's in an interesting position. Basically, it's the ninth round and he's up on points. But she's a ferocious brawler--think Ricardo Mayorga in his prime--who really could take him out. Thing is he doesn't know how she'll come out, and Obama, I believe, is basically an inferior debater. He doesn't speak in soundbites. He rarely throws the killer right hook. I don't think he can just dance away from her. He's gonna have to fight. He can't just defensive. Tonight we learn if the boy can throw down.

Bjork as a Child-Rearing Tool

So I'm sitting here writing with Bjork's live Vespertine album playing in the background. My seven year old son son, whose drawing super-heroes with colored pencils, looks up and asks "What's this song about?" That would be Pagan Poetry, one of my all-time favs. At any rate, I'm on some new, highly-educated isht, so we went to the dictionary and looked up "pagan." After pushing through words like polytheistic, and irreligious, I think he got it. So I played the song again and told him to tell me what it means at the end. I figured it'd be fun, because, hell, I don't even fully know what the song's about. Anyway at the end, I asked him and he says, "It's about someone whose irreligious." Heh, can't win em all, I guess. Or maybe I did. At any rate, in honor of the boy, here's Bjork live from Harlem/Morningside Heights.

Oh screw it let's make it a two-fer. Here's All Is Full Of Love

What the Dems can expect in Pennsylvania

Speaking of the New Republic, my old buddy Mike Schaffer (sorry Mike, you can't make me say "Michael" or "Currie," no matter how big time you are!)  weighs in on Pennsylvania politics and what Obama and Clinton can expect, should the primary stretch past March 4. The Essence:

While Iowans trumpet their nerdy earnestness by asking detailed policy questions of presidential wannabes every fourth winter, Keystone State politics are entirely un-self-conscious. This is an old example, but a relevant one. The last year the Pennsylvania primary mattered, in 1984, one of the more memorable moments came when Walter Mondale met with the ward leaders who ran Philadelphia's Democratic machine. When the former vice president took questions, one of them rose to ask ... how much street money he could look forward to on Election Day. Not the sort of thing you usually hear in Cedar Rapids.

The New Republic Weighs In On McCain and The Times

And so the plot thickens. The Times isn't looking good in this one. The Essence:

Beyond its revelations, however, what's most remarkable about the article is that it appeared in the paper at all: The new information it reveals focuses on the private matters of the candidate, and relies entirely on the anecdotal evidence of McCain's former staffers to justify the piece--both personal and anecdotal elements unusual in the Gray Lady. The story is filled with awkward journalistic moves--the piece contains a collection of decade-old stories about McCain and Iseman appearing at functions together and concerns voiced by McCain's aides that the Senator shouldn't be seen in public with Iseman--and departs from the Times' usual authoritative voice. At one point, the piece suggestively states: "In 1999 she began showing up so frequently in his offices and at campaign events that staff members took notice. One recalled asking, 'Why is she always around?'" In the absence of concrete, printable proof that McCain and Iseman were an item, the piece delicately steps around purported romance and instead reports on the debate within the McCain campaign about the alleged affair.

Mark Penn to Voters: No One In America Matters (Unless they voted for Clinton)

Heh, the old "this state doesn't matter" meme, picks up some steam. Good look to Andrew Sullivan for the link.

The McCain "Scandal": Weaksauce Defined

I'm not sure I buy McCain's categorical denial. Having said that, I really really don't get this. In a perfect world, this would dead all talk of liberal media bias. This story will do nothing but unify conservatives against the hated liberal New York Times. I consider the McCain scandal to be of the same species as the attempted weak hit piece Barack Obama piece on drugs.

But this McCain business is worse. What the piece basically concludes is that a bunch of former McCainites, too scared to be named, thought he was trading favors for success. THERE IS NO ON THE RECORD ATTRIBUTION FOR THIS SCURRILOUS CHARGE. Now, it may turn out that McCain was doing just that, but if you're going to say something like this, you can not mess around playing footsie. You need someone on the record, or some sort of paper documentation, something that would convincly show that your charge isn't just the mumblings of disaffected ex-friends. I mean seriously. Come correct, dog. Or don't come at all.

More on last night's Exit Polls

This, I think, spells trouble for Hillary. The Essence:

In a state where half the voters were white women, where only one in ten voters were minorities, and where more than half were from households that made less than $74,999 annually, Wisconsin should have comported with Clinton's strengths. But the exit polls, conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for television networks and the Associated Press, offered scarce news of encouragement for the New York senator.

He basically beat her on her home-field. What I want to know is by what logic do you decide to cede ten primaries to a guy? Worse, the Clinton folks had already seem this strategy bomb for Guiliani. Why try to repeat it? I think this really shows that what folks have been saying is true: There simply was no Clinton post-Super Tuesday strategy.

The Democratic Race Is Over

This is not some dreamy prediction. Obama won Wisconsin last night by 17 points. You guys are news-savvy so I'm not going to repeat what's been said repeatedly already. Suffice to say the base in Wisconsin was more Hillary than Obama. More to the point, we are starting to get to a point of mathematical impossibility. Basically for Hillary to win, she needs to carry every state in the fashion that Obama carried Wisconsin. Remember, no one predicted Obama would win by 17, so the idea that Hillary will rise from the dead and pull this off, well...don't just take my word for it...

Michelle Obama, ashamed of America?

You know, I see a lot of people flipping over Michelle OIbama's statement that for the first time in her adult she's proud of America. Meh, I know she will likely have to put out a statement of apology today, but I have to say I agree with her. It's wrong to infer from there, that I, or anyone else, is ashamed of being American. I'm not. I think this is the greatest country in the world. Michelle herself is fond of the "only in America" line. But pride comes from a country, or a person, mobilizing to do something. I can't think of a single thing which this country has done--in my lifetime--that's made me feel pride.

Now let's put that in context. I can only think of one thing that black folks have done that filled me with pride--the Million Man March. Besides that, I got nothing. Of course there are black people who I am proud of as individuals, but I don't walk around with my chest out because I'm black. Hell, I can only think of about two or three things that I've done as an individual that have made be proud. People really need to calm down, and chill with the psuedo-patriotism.

Is Obama black enough now?

OK, so let's just state from jump that I am against ANYONE questioning ANYONE else's blackness. I was against it when folks did it to Obama last year (how quickly we forget)and I'm against it now. That said, how can you not appreciate the irony here. Let's go:

Obama has swamped Clinton among black voters in each of the 20 contests that had exit polls and large enough samples of African Americans to be meaningful. Just to put that kind of shutout in perspective, black voters represent the only demographic group that the New York senator has not carried at least once during the Democratic primary campaign. Obama now has such a lock on the loyalties of African Americans -- 84 percent of the black vote in Alabama, 87 percent in Georgia, 84 percent in Maryland, and on and on -- that the black vote is no longer contestable.

Which brings us back to the dilemma facing some of Clinton's high-profile black supporters -- those with titles and constituencies of their own. They are feeling some kind of crazy pressure. Last Friday, about 25 of them held an hour-long conference call to discuss what one described as an effort to "pester, intimidate, question our blackness" for not supporting Obama.

I am sorry, but this is rich. Last year, you couldn't pick up a newspaper, read a blog, or watch a news show without someone questioning Obama's blackness. Now it's Clinton's endorsers whose blackness is now being called into question, Amazing, That said, I am always skeptical of anonymous claims like this. Who are these people who are questioning your blackness? Call them out please. Beyond that, contrary to popular belief, the black political class has always been subject to the same forces that any other political class was subject to. A lot of these guys forgot that they ruled with the consent of the people, and with the people going the other way now, well....

Even More on Tavis and Obama

Nice piece on this in the Post. As you guys know, I disagree with Tavis on this one, but I don't believe it was ego, as much as a misjudgment of the mood of black folks. That said, man its shocking how hard people are jumping on him. I also think that this has more to do with the excitement around Obama, than a beef with Tavis.

Chris Hitchens takes on Dinesh D'zouza

If you've got a second, check this out. Pretty entertaining. It clocks in at almost an hour, though. You know me though. I'm such a geek that I watched this while making home fries and eggs for me and my son this morning. Great quote from Hitchens--"I don't need two minutes to finish with this religion, but thanks." LOL. Classic Hitchens

Your daily ROFLer--Fainting at Obama Rallies

Courtesy of Gawker--some folks a little too fired-up and ready to go.

A Nice Analysis of Clinton's Campaign

I make no bones about my opinion, I think the decision to run some sort of neo-Southern strategy was foolish in a Democratic primary. I was kind of skeptical that that's what had happened until Clinton--amazingly--compared Obama to Jesse. The longer this thing goes on though, Bill is finding we all don't look alike. Anyway, here is a nice piece breaking down Clinton's campaign via HuffPo. 
The Essence:

A Clinton superdelegate who served in Bill Clinton's administration said the former president "has screwed this thing up for her big-time. They need to send him out of the country for a long, long time. I am angry at Bill Clinton and I think there are other Hillary people who are angry at Bill, who felt that she was running a very good, solid campaign - she wasn't the exciting one, but she was the solid one - and then he came in and made it nasty, and single-handedly pushed away black voters."

Obama's Church Wises Up

Yeah it's tokenism, but it does prove the point. I have a hard time believing that a church that said it was "unapologetically white" could find a black person to speak on its behalf--at gun-point doesn't count.

Anti-Hillary Press Bias

I watch a lot of MSNBC, and I've gotta say that Chris Matthews hates Hillary's guts. I'm not sure that's even debatable. I don't know about wider press bias in this campaign, but I can certainly see the case for it. Here is an interesting piece analyzing said bias. The thing that scares me the most about Obama is his church, which people charge is racist. Frankly, I don't buy it.

The church, on its site, claims to be "unashamedly black," and people have charged that no church in America could call itself "unashamedly white." But this only shows America's elementary understanding of black folks. Let's put the ignorance of history and culture aside. Blackness isn't just race, its ethnicity, on par with Irishness, Jewishness or Italiness. A better angle would be to ask could a church call itself "unapologetically Irish" and yeah it certainly could. It might sound bizarre, but it wouldn't be particularly racist. Anyway, I'm not confident that in a general election, people will be able to see the difference. I think at some point, Barack--who has been going to this church for decades now--is going to have to come out a defend that joint. As a matter of morals and politics, he can't run away from this one.

Barack Gets His Malcolm X On--Bamboozled, Hoodwinked...

I really don't how I missed this. This is Barack in South Carolina a few weeks back, channeling his inner Malcolm X. There is something so lovely about this.

LOL of the day

Hehe. Some fool over at The Conservative Voice argues that an Obama presidency would be bad for blacks. I'll tell you what would be bad for blacks---getting advice on what is "bad for blacks" from the conservative voice. Hehe. Read, should you need a good hearty chuckle.

Obama and the the Down Market

Nice piece by Robert Kuttner on the hope that Obama will begin to address himself more to economic issues. A nice optimistic obsevation:

A great leader gets the music right as well as the words. It took a little while, but Obama now does both. He has the campaign's poetry, leaving Clinton with the prose.

More on Tavis v. Obama

Nice piece here. Also some audio from Barack here. Barack sounds a little pissed in the audio. In defense of Tavis--whose been catching it from all quarters of black folks--I do think that we are going to STILL need black folks to hold Barack accountable, should he win. The job of black irritant is an important one, because power--even black power--concedes nothing without struggle.

That said, we're still in the campaign phase. One point he makes is "If the issue is I should only be talking to black people, then I'm not going to win the presidency." I think what gets some folks about Obama is that things like, say, criminal justice reform don't make his stump speech, even though it's an issue that's incredibly important to black folks. The thinking is that Obama isn't talking about it because he doesn't care about it. But the fact is he does talk about criminal justice refom--he also endorses representation for Washington D.C.--it's just never in his stump. I am sorry, call me Tomming, but I have to agree with that strategy. The fact is, many of the issues important to black folks just aren't vote-getters. At some point we've gotta ask--Do we want the brother to win? Or do we want him to represent STRICTLY us and ALWAYS us?

Uhhh Tavis...NOW IS NOT THE TIME

So Tavis has been going at it with Barack Obama, because Obama has declined to appear at Smiley's State of the Black Union Conference. For anyone whose missed it you can hear all of the audio here. You can also here Michelle Obama's classic response to Tavis here. Here's Melissa Harris Lacewell, she of Gloria Stienem critical beatdown fame, at it again:

All these black leaders who spent the year telling us that Obama is not old enough, not black enough and not angry enough to earn African American votes must have noticed that Obama can deliver the black vote to himself, by himself, with little help from these self-proclaimed racial power brokers.

And Jimi Izrael bringing it:

It isn't that I have a plan so much better than Tavis'. No ma'am. I take care of mines and do what I can for my brothers and others. I just reject the rhetoric of people being paid just to be black—they are Race Brokers: Grievance Merchants and Professional Negroes who give white America the word from Darktown, so no one actually has to engage race relations in a constructive way.  They put on nice suits, get in front of microphones and tell black people how to feel and when to feel it. They remind white folks that we are not a monolith, then reduce blacks with generalizations and best-guesses.

What people don't get is that we're witnessing the end of gate-keeping in the black community. With John Lewis and the like unable to deliver black voters to Hill, with talkers like Sharpton and Jesse basically sidelined during arguably the most important event in black America since '68, with Julian Bond on the wrong side of history, we are seeing the complete scrapping of the black America's shadow government--presidency, congress, cabinet and all. That's a good thing--it's like all the Popes of Blackness, as Jimi calls them, are coming out of their face, only to be exposed as utterly irrelevant. I told you guys earlier--anybody can get got. In the words of Cedric the Entertainer, Barack keeps trash bags on him. He's so sincere. This some sincere isht right here.

The NAACP's Curious Move To Back Hillary

This whole thing makes me think of that great KRS line, "phone calls are made profiles are kept low..." As you guys likely know, Julian Bond, head honcho of the NAACP, recently came out to say that the Michigan and Florida delegates should be seated. Roland Martin did some digging on this and found out that Bon collaborated with some other old-school civil rights hands to get this done. This just seems like a hamfisted, clumsy attempt at politicking. The Essence:

As someone who has opposed the leverage of Iowa and New Hampshire, I'm in agreement that they should not always be first. Yet that has nothing to do with today, and Bond knows it.

What is unclear is why he waited so long (he also didn't notify the NAACP's 64-member board of the letter) and why, according to my NAACP sources, he wrote the letter with help from Mary Frances Berry, former head of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, as well as Wade Henderson, CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.

The letter was hurriedly drafted on Friday, as evidence by the three misspelled words in it. It's not clear why there was such a sense of urgency to get it out, but the fact that it came to light on Tuesday night when Obama was steamrolling Clinton in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia has some conspiracy-minded bloggers making all kinds of assertions.

Amanda Ripley is Down With Us

Okay, completely off-topic, but here's my old friend Amanda Ripley talking about her new book The Unthinkable. The book comes from a memorable piece she did for TIME back in the day on how and why people react different ways to disaster. Check it out.

More on John Lewis

So it's not clear that he's switching, it seems someone whispered in his ear late last night. But he's clearing tilting. Here's Sullivan comparing Lewis's position when endorsing Clinton and now tilting toward Obama. I want to say one thing--this is a great victory for black folks, as much as such a thing still exists. I'm big on harping on th individuality of us all, but it's hard to do that when folks are breaking 85-90 percent in one direction. My point is this--Race-baiting is a tried and true tactic in American politics. In the modern era, this extends back to Nixon's Southern strategy, through Reagan's States Rights, up to Clinton's Sista Souljah.

I want to be clear--I don't believe any black person is obligated to support Obama because he's black. But it's weak to back someone who would use your own people/constituients as a tool to garner votes. Now we have the first time that black people have truly united to make someone pay for trying to scapegoat us. In the case of Lewis, we've actually pushed it even further and said, People who stand by and defend race-baiters, better protect their neck come election season. Here's Jesse Jr. on black pols who've stood with the Clintons:

"Many of these guys have offered their support to Mrs. Clinton, but Obama has won their districts. So you wake up without the carpet under your feet. You might find some young primary challenger placing you in a difficult position"

Word up. Anyone can be got.

Wow: John Lewis Switches

Incredible. More on this in the morning.

The Big Payback For Black Machine Pols

Nice piece in TNR about the hell to pay, for black officials who endorsed Hillary, despite the wishes of their constituents. I really can't remember a time in my life when the black vote mattered so much. I think one thing that black folks have shown is that, in the primary at least, there's a price to be paid for race-baiting. That goes double for playing it safe. The Essence:

In retrospect, the South Carolina results exposed a divide in the way the campaigns courted African American pols. The Clintons had largely operated from a top-down model--relying on personal relationships and the self-interest of black politicians and hoping their constituents would follow suit. In one now- famous episode, they went so far as to give State Senator Darrell Jackson, a prominent pastor, a consulting contract. By contrast, the Obama campaign generally observed a "no walking-around money" policy. It made the case to African American politicians by pointing to its grassroots strength (though it didn't hurt that Obama's PAC handed out nearly $200,000 to candidates and political groups in early primary states last year). "After we won Iowa, I went to a lot of leaders and said, 'You better get on the train before it comes rolling through here,'" recalls Anton Gunn, Obama's South Carolina political director. "Some laughed it off; others recognized this was for real."

This is just petty

Aretha Franklin pissed that Beyonce called Tina Turner the queen. Gimme a break. Celebrity is absolutely toxic for most people.

Heh, you don't count

Haha. Matthew Yglesias has this ongoing joke about Hill's efforts to spin Obama's victory. The idea is basically everytime Hillary loses, her boy Mark Penn spins the loss and claims it doesn't really matter. See here, here, and here. The Essence:

Back in October 2007, Clinton was beating Obama in Maine by a hilarious 47 to 10 margin, but it seems he's carried the state today, once again by a large margin. My understanding, though, is that this doesn't really count because it's a small state, much as Utah doesn't count because there aren't many Democrats there, DC doesn't count because there are too many black people, Washington doesn't count because it's a caucus, Illinois doesn't count because Obama represents it in the Senate even though Hillary was born there, Hawaii won't count because Obama was born there. I'm not sure why Delaware and Connecticut don't count, but they definitely don't.

More from the "scary" Michael Scheuer

Like I said, Mike Scheuer gives me the creeps. I thought about this a little longer and the thing I admire about him is he really is being straight. I think I really disagree with him on some basic issues--like his point on democracy in the wider world--but I really admire his honesty--as opposed to McCain's "straight-talk." Anyway here he is on Bill Maher.

Race vs. Gender among the Dems

I was watching MSNBC this morning and I heard a notion that's starting to be propogated as Hillary Clinton proceeds to slip into oblivion. The idea is that the media is harder on women than it is on black people. I've noticed that this statement is most often made by people who have no experience being black. But let's leave that and examine the argument. In this race, the Clinton campaign has repeatedly race-baited--the most obvious case being Clinton's comparison of Obama to Jesse Jackson after winning South Carolina. And yet no one has accused the Obama campaign of gender-baiting. This isn't about differing morals--women make up a larger share of the electorate than black people. Thus it would be suicidal for Obama to gender-bait.

The Clinton campaign made the calculated risk that they could win by race-baiting and then bring black folks back home--and, man I am happy to say, we have repeatedly made them pay for that. Either way, after running a campaign based on subliminal appeals to racism, how you turn around and cry sexism, and then furthermore, claim that Obama blackness has somehow protected him requires considerable gall. It's also disgusting, and the definition of why I would never vote for a Clinton.

Furthermore, to hear Clintonites holler sexism, strikes me the same way as hearing Al Sharpton crying racism. I am sorry but the Clintons lie--repeatedly. They would trade on anything to win, and have proven themselves bad judges of their enemies. Obama on the other-hand could never cry racism, and has avoiding doing so. Obama isn't even allowed to express pride in the possibility of being America's first black president. Imagine how heads would explode if Obama had made that "boy's club" remark Hillary Clinton made after the debate in November, instead directing it at black people, at, say, Howard or Morehouse. He'd have been run out of the contest on a rail. These fools need to a grip.

Nas at the Grammies...

Sorry I'm late. But file this under hmmm...

Okay I admit it: Michael Scheuer Scares Me

I've gotta say this dude gives me the creeps. Give him a listen. He's a weird dude. Scheuer is basically opposed to any and all intervention--before you clap, that includes Darfur. The thing I love about him though is that he always goes to the heart of the matter. From his perspective, it's really simple--either you go out and obliterate your enemy with ruthless effeciency, or you stay home. One or the other, no in- between. In this interview, he argues that we needed half a million or three quarters of a million troops in Afghanistan, if we want to win. The thing I like about him is he seems like an honest right-winger--he doesn't believe in war on the cheap. He argues that the curb in civil liberties at home, rest on our inability to win abroad.

The thing that scares me about Scheuer is he seems really anti-democratic, the sort of dude who in another country would make a great dictator. Still, to my mind, his is the most effective to challenge to the far-left--and maybe far-right--vision of foreign policy. I say that as an avowed lefty. Anyway, listen for yourself. And then read up some here. And hell, while your at it, cop Lawrence Wright's incredible Pulitizer-winning book, The Looming Tower.

Misremembered Again

LOL. Clemens trying to come off as credible

Weird, random post of the day.

An article cataloging all the folks who've died in the name of science. Amongst the hits:

ARCHIMEDES 287 B.C.-212 B.C.
 

The greatest mathematician of ancient Greece, and perhaps of all time, Archimedes perfected a method for calculating the areas and volumes of curved figures, deduced the approximate value of pi, devised the first general theory of levers ("Give me a firm place to stand on and I will move the Earth."), invented the water-screw and solved the dilemma of relative density while reportedly soaking in his bathtub.

In 212 B.C., Romans invaded the Greek city-state of Syracuse, home to Archimedes. Reports vary about what exactly happened, but the most common account describes a Roman soldier coming upon Archimedes drawing geometric symbols in the sand. The soldier demanded Archimedes cease and follow him. Intent upon his work, Archimedes refused. The soldier killed him.

"Do not disturb my circles," Archimedes reportedly cried with his last breath.

Al Sharpton: Slicker Than Your Average..

Whatever you think of him, the boy is sharp. I saw him last night on MSNBC being very deferrential to Obama. I'll try and dig up that clip. Then he pivoted and took on Julian Bond and the NAACP for arguing, foolishly, that the delegates from Florida and Michigan should be counted. Shartpon made the credible argument that changing the rules--as Clinton is arguing for--basically constitutes a civil rights issue. Anyway here is some follow-up from my old friend from back in Washington, Jake Tapper.
Holler at em Tapp:

Yesterday, Clinton's side of the argument got a boost when NAACP chairman Julian Bond wrote to DNC chair Howard Dean to express "great concern at the prospect that million of voters in Michigan and Florida could ultimately have their votes completely discounted." Not seating the Michigan and Florida delegations would remind Americans of the "sordid history of racially discriminatory primaries," Bond said.

This morning, Rev. Al Sharpton sided with Obama, writing to Dean to express the opposite sentiment.

"I firmly believe that changing the rules now, and seating delegates from Florida and Michigan at this point would not only violate the Democratic party's rules of fairness, but also would be a grave injustice," Sharpton wrote. "Changing the rules in the middle of a presidential contest is patently unfair both to the candidates (including Senator Edwards) and to Democratic voters everywhere."

Sharpton said that Bond's argument of disenfranchisement "should have been made many months ago before the decision was made to strip these states of their delegates, and, once the decision was made, it should have been vigorously objected to and contested by those who felt it disenfranchised voters. To raise that claim now smacks of politics in its form most raw and undercuts the moral authority behind such an argument."

Shock of all shocks, I think Sharpton is basically right. Bond should have made this argument months ago, not mid-contest. Furthermore, I think it's quite savvy of Sharpton as it puts him on the winning side. He's always been good about navigating the shifting political terrain,

Bring Me Everyone

One of the great things about Obama's campaign is how everytime folks say he can't crack certain groups of voters (Latinos, poor people, white people, black people Samoans, etc.) he cracks them. The only group that he hasn't cracked is white women. Somewhere down south, there's an old-school-"Would you want a nigra marryin yer daughter?"-segregationist who's laughing. For now, we've gotta settle for Dan Balz breakin it down.

Barry to Hil: All Your Base Are Belong To Us

In honor of Barack Obama's bashing of Billary last night, I present this ancient classic. So what if it exposes me as an old school gaming nerd. You know how I do. But don't worry, no talk about how Barack WTFPWNED Billary last night.

Seriously, if you don't get it, you don't get it. Okay, if you don't get it, Wikipedia it.

NAACP Breaks for Hill

Sorta. I mean really are we surprised? All the old institutionalists who long ago turned away from the ideals of the movement for naked power. The marriage between the old civil rights bosses to the Clintons always was more about power--a declawed power by the way--then about ideals. People should be really careful about acting like the NAACP has some sort of claim on the views of black folks. People really need to check on how much good civil rights boss John Lewis's support of Hill did for her in Georgia. Last I checked, Lewis and his crew delivered, as one pundit put it, "Barry Goldwater numbers" to the Clintons. These guys are, frankly, out of touch.

Jack White vs. Jelani Cobb (Round 3)

So you guys know I have a dog in this fight, Jelani being my homeboy, fellow Bison and all. At any rate, all that aside, I think I can say that, without prejudice, he is also the wrong cat to get into verbal fisticuffs with. Here he is taking it to Jack White, who took it to him over the weekend.

After reading your hypertensive response to my article, I could not help but wonder if the straw man would press assault charges. Having read your work on previous occasions, I will admit to being a bit surprised by that you took the tone of a feuding rapper at my suggestion that there should be electoral consequences for the recent campaign behavior of the Clintons.

The issue at hand being, if Hillary wins, should black folks defect to McCain. Jelani actually offers up some fairly interesting historical context:

You might do well to recall that African Americans faced a similar predicament in 1932 when we realized that the relationship with the Republican Party, to which we had been emotionally tethered since Emancipation, had reached a point of diminishing returns. In voting for Roosevelt in that election, African Americans were literally supporting the party of white slaveholders and their segregationist descendants, but did so with the strategic belief that the GOP could no longer be allowed to take black votes for granted. They ended up altering the entire trajectory of the Democratic Party.

And:

History has – or certainly should have – taught us the difference between social policy and social affinity. In the 1928 Democratic Convention, token black delegates were literally segregated from their white counterparts. (They did, however, allow a black preacher to pray for them.) Eight years later, the Democrat Franklin Roosevelt had appointed William Hastie as a federal judge, given Mary McLeod Bethune an executive position within the administration and made Robert F. Weaver an advisor for housing matters.

Think we'll get a Round 3?

Obama to the Times--Is that the best you got?

I guess. The Times with its second non-story in a week. First we had front-pager which concluded that Obama actually wasn't that big of a druggie, and that forbidden fruit only played a "bit" part in Obama's life. Really? Given that he gave drugs a little over a page in a 400-plus page memoir, would lead me to believe they were a huge issue. The second piece attempts to detail how Obama navigated the shoals of race in a pursuit of black, white, and increasingly, Latino voters. An interesting story on the face of it, no? Except that the reporter just phoned a bunch of Obama people, and came away with almost no new information. Amazing. Either hit him or don't, please.

McCain Answers Obama

Hehe. Sorta. Truthfully, this should have been funnier. But it'll do.

The Freakonomics of Obama

Fascinating analysis of Obama's supporters and detractors over at Kos. The Essence:

Percentage of naturalized citizens, e.g. immigrants.  Surprisingly, I did not find that Obama performed worse in states with large Latino populations.  Keep in mind that the difference in Obama's vote share with white voters and Latinos is no longer all that great; he's getting about 45% of the former, and 35% of the latter, and even these differences can be explained by the other variables in my model (for example, a relatively small percentage of Latino voters have college degrees).  However, I did find that Obama performed slightly worse in states with a higher percentage of foreign-born, but now naturalized citizens.  This distinction is important, because  neither the Latino population nor the Asian population are monolithic.  New Mexico, for example, has a huge number of Hispanics, but most of them have been here for generations.  This helps to explain how Obama could virtually tie Hillary in New Mexico, in spite of its population being more than 40% Hispanic.  New Jersey, on the other hand, has a rapidly-growing Latino population, and it consists mostly of recent immigrants.  So it is one's immigration experience, and not one's race, that appears to account for Hillary's stronger support with Hispanic and Asian voters. A zero-gen Hispanic voter is somewhat more likely to vote for Hillary -- and perhaps that is intuitive, because many of them either came to this country or became citizens when Bill Clinton was in power. However, I would guess that native-born Hispanics vote for Obama at nearly the same rates as white voters do, accounting for their other demographic characteristics.

A lot of the other conclusions are less surprising. Still, the detail with which they're rendered is a welcome respite from all McAnalysis on the cable news shows.

Obama's Cali Rally

This is a week and some change ago. It's out in Cali. I finally unearthed the video of this. I saw it live on CSPAN. Michelle's speech was awesome. And as much I try to not be starstruck, I gotta say, I found Maria Shriver's piece impressive. That may only speak to my prejudices though, who knows? Anyway, here's the video.

Heh

Matt Yglesias takes it to Mark Penn and his tortured argument for Clinton as the candidate who can motivate turnout.

The Trouble With Africa

Whenever I stumble across one of these "Africa is so terrible!" stories (and really there is no other kind) there's always a graff that suggests that the requisite African country had once bee a place of progress, until the latest disaster struck. The graff always leaves me thinking, "Uhm, why are you only telling me about the progress now that it's over?" Witness Jeffrey Gettleman's piece in today's times:

The well-established middle class here is thought to be one of the most important factors that separate Kenya from other African countries that have been consumed by ethnic conflict. Millions of Kenyans identify as much with what they do or where they went to college as who their ancestors are. They have overcome ethnic differences, dating between groups and sometimes intermarrying, living in mixed neighborhoods, and sending their children to the best schools they can afford, regardless of who else goes there.

The fighting that rages in the countryside, where men with mud-smeared faces and makeshift weapons are hunting down people of other ethnicities, seems as foreign to many of these white-collar Kenyans as it might to people living thousands of miles away.

Gettleman is a stud, no doubt. His Iraq coverage (see here, here and here) was colorful, and had a way of going beyond insurgent XX kills civilian YY. Indeed, even in his Kenya piece, he manages to render his subjects as, well, actual humans as opposed to just nameless victims of some amorphous tragedy. The trouble, though, is that the news media cares about Africa mainly as the subject of a disaster narrative. But if you never cover the progress, you never have a sense of something lost. I have to say, I've read very little of the Kenya coverage--and I should read more. But you get so dumbed-down by the sense Africa is, was, and will always be hell. You can't feel any sense of the arc. It's interesting that I basically have the same complaint about black people here--we're only interesting as a problem.

The Party Line Strikes Back

Jack White takes on Jelani Cobb over at theroot. The Essence:

The last thing black people need is to take your advice to emulate right-wing extremists like Anne Coulter, who claims she hates McCain so much she'd rather vote for Clinton. Even thinking about following that course is a self-destructive diversion. We've already wasted enough time this year on a Negrofied version of the medieval debate over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin: how many of us can buck-and-wing on the bi-racial chromosomes of Barack Obama? Now that we've finally got that settled and have thrown in behind the brother, there is absolutely no rationale for unearthing the age-old questions about our relationship with the Democratic Party.  Way too much is at stake.

You know, I I think Jack makes some good points, when he gets down to it. I mean this is the debate--how far are you willing to go to get that respect? Like I said, I can't vote for McCain. But I won't vote for Hillary either. There must be something that you're willing to stand for. That said, it's the sort of issue on which reasonable people can differ. I just think Jack got too personal, especially here:

Your column on The Root ranks as the most ridiculous political idea any Negro has put forth my since my brother-in-law decided to support Clarence Thomas on the grounds that, after all, he's a brother. So ridiculous, Dr. Cobb, that at first, I thought you were kidding… and I still hope that you were.  But on the odd chance that you were serious—or that some people let themselves be swayed by  your cockamamie idea—I thought I'd better inject some common sense back into the discussion.

See it's one thing to disagree, but to act like not voting for Billary is merit-less, is weak. Black folks are the most loyal voting bloc in the country. Jelani is arguing that if that loyalty is to continue, we need to be assured that we won't be Sista Souljahed. Like I said, the other side has a point--but Jack is being condescending and dismissive with his desire to "inject some common sense back into the discussion." Argue on the point, but don't act like your point is the only argument, and that anyone who disagrees must be a victim of brain trauma

Enough of the Jena Six Already

Over at Booker Rising, there's a discussion going on about the Jena 6 and the fact that these fools keep getting into trouble. This is what happens when you lead with emotion and not logic. Not saying that the DA down there was right, but there are many, many, many people more worthy of our sympathy. There are too many REAL victims railroaded by the system. Let's leave the sensationalism out of the struggle.

The Definition Of A Sell-Out

This is an interview on NPR with Randall Kennedy. Don't know what I think of the interview. Kennedy is obviously quite sharp, but something about this doesn't smell right. I mean who are the people--and I mean in large numbers--who make the argument that various black folks are sell-outs. It's funny because the segment starts off with a critique of black people of not displaying sufficient race loyalty. I guess. Meanwhile the negro is coming off two dominating performances among black voters. I'm not sure what else people would want. In the face of those numbers it's weak to keep trotting out the occasional quote from Sharpton or Jesse as evidence of the main feeling among black America.

Anyway the tone of the whole thing bothered me. Where are the books on how this country, post-9/11, has very liberally accused lefties of "not being patriotic?" Isn't that just Americanese for selling-out? Hell, John McCain is catching hell right now for allegedly selling out conservatives. Meanwhile Mitt Romney gave a speech today in which he basically argued that Dems would sell out the country to terrorists. I'm sorry, but in the face of those sort of charges--the "I'm not meeting you on the playground" politics of black folks seems minimal.

It's just more proof that when white people do something, it's just normal human behavior. When black folks do it, it's the end of the world, like, "How dare you be a flawed human being??!!" At the end of the conversation I felt like I was just listening to a bunch of people who were just socially awkward, and were using the "not black enough" canard as a sub. Anyway, listen for yourself.

Blame Chuck Schumer

Sorry, but there really is no other way around this. Schumer, if you will remember, was the Senator who really tipped the balance in favor of Mukasey, at a point when he made it clear that he had, at best, a very legalistic defintion of torture. I believe the phrase was something like, "If waterboarding is torture, then it's illegal." But he wouldn't accept that it was in fact torture. Anyway let's get to the essence:

Attorney General Michael Mukasey is back on the Hill today, testifying to the House Judiciary Committee. Paul Kiel is covering it at TPMmuckraker.

So far, he's dropped two big bombshells. DOJ will not be investigating:

(1) whether the waterboarding, now admitted to by the White House, was a crime; or

(2) whether the Administration's warrantless wiretapping was illegal.

His rationale? Both programs had been signed off on in advance as legal by the Justice Department.

Who--after nearly a decade of Bush/Cheney--can act surprised by any of this? Schumer's decision was motivated by the same-old compromise/triangulation/weak-on-security school of thought that put us in Iraq from jump. I am so tired of this. If Hillary wins, expect her to campaign on this same weak mess--and get promptly trounced by McCain, a dude who knows the difference between being a real thug, and playing the role of a fake, scared thug. Real gangsters don't triangulate. They liquidate.

The Devil In The Details

This is really cool to see. The interviewer took it to this dude, getting him past the vaguery of "Change" and "Yes we can." And he came with it. Not to often you see a darkheart like me get inspired by the intrepid youth. Enjoy.

Barack in Idaho

"I saw the joint slipping last night for them when Obama was trouncing their asses in Idaho. Ain't nothing up there but white supremacists, farmers, miltia groups, and Phil Jackson. And they lost to a brother with a part arab name."

LOL. My good friend, the indominatible Brian Gilmore sent me that last night. Hilarious.

Blacks for McCain

Stud essayist/historian and friend of the room Jelani Cobb makes the case. The essence:

Apparently none of the high-profile black leaders who are backing Hillary Clinton have been able to prohibit the kind of cynical race hustling that marked the South Carolina primary.  (This recalls the old saying that the problem is not that black leaders so often sell out, but that their asking price is so pitifully low.)        

But in the wake of the Sister Souljah episode (not to mention Bill Clinton's stiff-arming of his black nominee for the Justice Department (Lani Guinier) and his short-lived Surgeon General (Jocelyn Elders) it must appear that there is nothing the black community won't forgive you for provided you show up at one of our churches and hum a spiritual every so often. As a matter of principle, no candidate, no matter how deep their alleged ties to the black community, should be allowed to race-bait a black politician and still receive the majority of our vote.

I can't vote for McCain. I just can't. But I probably won't vote for Billary either. I don't know how, in conscious, you support a race-baiter. There is also another problem. Should Billary win, the Democratic congressional ticket in red and purple areas, where Dems made gains in '06, will be hurt. Remember this?

Across Missouri, I heard similar fears. At a breakfast fund-raiser for McCaskill in Kansas City, Katheryn J. Shields, a Democrat who is the chief executive of Jackson County, which encompasses Kansas City, said of Hillary Clinton, “She’s great.” But when asked if Clinton should be the Party’s nominee, Shields said, “That would be a hard one.” The outgoing executive director of the Greene County Democrats, Nora Walcott, was more direct. Though she said she was to the left in the Party, she feared that Clinton’s liberal credentials would alienate Missouri voters. “You’ve got to tell the people in Washington not to nominate Hillary,” she told me. “It would do so much damage to the Missouri Democratic Party.” Clinton’s obvious shifts to the center frustrate Walcott on two counts, she said: “I disagree with the way she’s going to the right, but my biggest problem with it is that it’s not working. People don’t believe she’s a moderate.”

This was written pre-06, when Dems were plotting on Congress. I think the whol "it isn't working" is the biggest problem with Clinton. People outside the party just don't buy what she's selling. But that quote--"You've got to tell the people in Washington not to nominate Hillary--is going to haunt us if she wins.

No Country For Played-Out Black Leaders

So what the fuck were John Lewis and Andy Young suppose to be doing for Hillary in Georgia? There was a lot of carping about how Ted Kennedy didn't deliver Mass. But at least Obama picked up percentage points after the endorsement. Hillary lined up the support of key black "leaders" and yet they've done nothing to stem the tide of black folks going for Obama. This is no longer even a generational divide. This is about black pols watching their ass. I guess that's an advancement--proves black politicians can be as short-sighted and regressive as white ones.

More on The Death of The Neo-Southern Strategy

Will Saletan, who in his time, was damn fine political writer (this was before the niggers are stupid debacle) weighs in. The essence:

Even if you don't count Obama's caucus victories in Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, and North Dakota, he shattered his previous white-vote ceiling in 11 other states. In eight states, he crossed the 40 percent threshold. In Connecticut, he tied Clinton among whites. In California, he beat her. In Utah and Illinois, he won commanding majorities.

Uhm, basically.

Can We Kill the Cynical "Neo-Southern Strategy" B.S.?

Please, put this myth to bed. The Essence:

Barack Obama recorded potentially significant gains among white voters in the Super Tuesday polls, despite being defeated in key primaries by Hillary Clinton, national exit polls showed today.

Obama and Clinton shared the support of white men approximately 50-50, marking a big improvement for the Illinois senator with a group whose support had mostly eluded him this year.

About four in 10 whites were supporting Obama overall although six in 10 white women - who comprised more than one-third of Democratic voters in yesterday's contests - were backing Clinton.

The gains came despite criticism from some quarters that Clinton's husband, ex-president Bill, had played the race card during the campaigning - claims vigorously denied by the Clinton camp.

It was always the product of people looking to do McAnalysis or just plain cynicism. The fact is that Obama and Clinton are basically tied--not counting super-delegates. But Obama won in all kinds of ways--in states with lots of black voters, in states with damn near no black voters. I mean come on, the dude won in Minnesota and Kansas.

It's true that blacks broke to Obama at about a 4-1 ratio, but the cynical, simpleminded theory that this would cause white folks to win in droves is just wrong. Obama not only increased his share among ALL ethnic groups, but he beat Clinton among voters who were always most receptive to racist appeals--white men. Note to all would-be public intellectuals/pundits/blabbering heads. It's a new day fuckers, let's hear some new thinking. In the immortal words of Hov--Get your weight up. Not your hate up.

Breaking News: Barack Obama Is A Liberal

This from professional Guiliani hagiographer Fred Siegel. The Essence:

Obama’s achievements in reaching out to moderate voters are largely proleptic: words aren’t deeds. And while he has few concrete achievements to his name, he does have a voting record that hardly suggests an ability to rise above Left and Right. In 2005, his first year in the Senate, the man who made a specialty of voting “present” in the Illinois State Senate refused—despite repeated entreaties—to join a bipartisan agreement among 14 senators not to filibuster President Bush’s judicial nominees. After his first two years in the Senate, National Journal’s analysis of roll call votes found that he was more liberal than 86 percent of his colleagues, and his voting record has only grown more liberal since then. The liberal Americans for Democratic Action now gives him a 97.5 percent rating, while National Journal ranks him the most liberal member of the Senate. By comparison, Hillary Clinton, who occasionally votes with the GOP, ranks 16th. Obama is such a down-the-line partisan that, according to Congressional Quarterly, he voted more often with the Democrats than did the party’s majority leader, Harry Reid.

This is the record that appeals to Ted and Caroline Kennedy and the aging MoveOn.org boomers who have long nursed hopes for a renewal of Camelot. But now as then, a charismatic political personality carries more dangers than benefits. The “politics of meaning,” which emerged from the Kennedy years and has now resurfaced with Obama as its empty vessel of hope, is doomed to disappoint because it asks more from politics than politics can deliver. In symbolic confirmation that Obama’s candidacy is as much about the liberal past as about the country’s future, the Grateful Dead, which disbanded years ago, has announced that it will reunite to perform a concert for him.

Implicit in that is the ass-backwards idea that the only important thing about a presidential candidate is their record. This style v. substance argument has been deployed repeatedly against Obama, and the idea that he's a liberal should shock no one. But one doesn't have to be a centrist to become an icon. What people hear in Obama is an optimistic vision for the future, and unwillingness to cede what's right for politics. This is why he gets credit for being right on the warThose qualities are extremely important to policy because they allow you to get things done, and indicate an ability to see something in ideas that may not be your own. This is exactly what we've been missing in the White House.

Furthermore Siegel conflates centrism and non-partisanship. The Clinton years, for all of their centrism, were incredibly partisan times. People don't like Obama because they think he's a centrist, they like him because he projects a respect for people who he doesn't agree with. Everyone wants to believe they live in that America. In that sense, Obama's success is really no more mystifying than Reagan's.

Hillary Corners the Ex-Crack Dealer Vote

50 being an idiot as usual. Or not. He's just one of these dudes who must be inserted into whatever drama is going on at the moment. He hasn't gotten the memo--It's Over. He made millions. He should be glad. Oh right. He is.

"Yes We Can" Is Corny

Yeah, I said it. It was always, to me, the only cringe-worthy portion of Obama's otherwise incredible oratory. But now that's its been made into a song featuring the likes of poser-in-chief Will.I.AM., well you can see it for yourself. Bullshit sentiment isn't what makes Obama a bad mo-fo. Furthermore, bullshit sentimentality isn't any better than the bullshit cynicism that the Clinton's have been shoveling. Okay enough. Rant off.

Times Election Wrap-up

Here's Adam Nagourney on Super Tuesday. Decent roubdup. But it amazes me how reporters buy bullshit if you just say it enough times:

And the final big question for Democrats: Will Mrs. Clinton maintain the edge among Latino voters that she showed in Florida and Nevada? New York and California should offer an interesting test, as well as of whether blacks and Latinos, uneasy political allies in many circumstances, break for different candidates.

First, no one competed in Florida. Clinton's name was the only one on the ballot--how did she "maintain the edge" in a state where whe was the only one running? Second, the blacks and Latinos as "uneasy political allies" is just bullshit. Where is this uneasiness? For that matter, where are the alliances?  Say it with me children: Motherfuckers vote their interest. Motherfuckers vote thier interests. ALL POLITICAL ALLIANCES ARE UNEASY. It's politics fools.

The Cali Surge

And like I've been saying for the past few days, well not saying more like posting, Barack is motivating out in Cali. Nationally it's looking like a dead heat. It's pretty amazing watching this dude. I say that win or loose. I mean he's really going punch for punch with the Clinton machine. It's looking like Ali v. Frazier I.

No Monopoly on the Feminist Vote

Katha Pollit, amongst others, goes for our boy Barack.

Obama Up By Four in Cali--This Isht Just Got Real

I always felt Obama would make a really good president, but I was not prepared to consider the fact that he's actually a great politician. I present for the court, Exhibit A. Obama is now up in delegate-rich California. Consider that only a week ago, fools were saying that Obama would get blown out because Latinos would resent a black president. We don't have an ethnic breakdown in the poll, but let's be clear--black folks make up only ten, or so, percent of Cali's population. If Obama wins there, it's a huge statement.

Uhm, Katrina anyone?

When last we saw Melissa Harris-Lacewell she was administering a critical beatdown to Gloria Steinem. I actually couldn't watch at one point. It was like watching Holmes v Ali or Marciano v Louis. Steinem was a warrior in her day, but damn, it just felt like Melissa was there to just remind her how time had passed her by. Frankly I prefer to remember Gloria Steinem, in the words of the immortal W. Paul Coates, thusly

Note how I turn any presumably substantive discussion into a Stephen Colbert reference. Seriously though, Harris-Lacewell makes a good point noting that mo-fos have basically just forgotten Katrina and N-O. The Essence:

Katrina captured everything the Democrats are supposed to be good at: environmental degradation, racial injustice, urban poverty and Southern exceptionalism. But Dems have done little more than exploit the political opening that Katrina provided.

Okay, I agree with this and the basic thrust of the post. I think though, as in so many cases with black folks, there are just limits to what we can achieve through electoral politics. Putting the incompotent Ray Nagin back in power doesn't help. That's not an excuse for federal inaction, I'm just sayin dog! Anyway, my larger point is that black folks are, and will be for the near future, a somewhat despised minority in this country. Throw in the basic American belief in self-reliance, and you start to see that the chances of the Feds--even the Barack led Feds--doing the right thing are simply not that good. This is the Bill Cosby in me, but I think it's true. We have to start thinking of other resources we can leverage to change shit.

What Happend to Bill Clinton?

I gotta say that I really ID with this post over at TNR. Richard Stern is basically trying to work through the 180 he's experiencing watching the former President turn hachetman. Stern explains how much of a fan he'd been of Clinton for years, and then talks about a shift. The Essence:

Now in the winter of 2008, Clinton’s speeches for his wife and against Barack Obama have infuriated me. They have the simplistic, insinuatingly suggestive stupidity he used to counter. They are devious in the way his accusers accused him of being. They are mean-spirited in an “I-don’t-give-a-damn-about-anything-else” mode, “anything else” standing for the Democratic Party and whoever becomes its candidate. He black-baits as if an older, meaner Arkansas voice was let loose in him; he distorts Obama’s remarks about Republicans and Reagan as if he were the liar the impeachment-mad Republicans claimed he was.

You know when the whole impeachment drama was going on, a lot of libs and lefties like me could be caught saying "WTF it's just sex??" That's not a comment on the immense sympathy I felt for Hillary, but more on the impeachment. But I think there is something to be said for the fact--and I know some said this at the time--that this dude was basically willing to put the whole progressive agenda in jeopardy so that he could get blown. My point is this "I don't give a damn about anything else" Bill isn't really new at all. The real question is why did we miss it before?

There were conservatives who held a special hatred for Clinton which, they claimed, went beyond politics. I know I was quick to dismiss most of that talk and think that they would hate any liberal president. I still don't know enough about that era to judge. But I think party-loyalty, coupled with Clinton's amazing political gifts made it really hard in that time to come down on him. Of course there were those who knew.

Coulter for Hillary

Good Stuff:

Hillary and the Blacks

Pretty thin article detailing the historical relationship between black folks and Clinton. The piece got off to good start, but then it just devolves into calls to a bunch of black people who've known Hillary over the years. The Essence:

She took a sociology course at Wellesley College that included a trip through Boston’s poor areas. On Tuesdays, she went to a housing project in Cambridge to mentor “underprivileged Negroes,” as she wrote to Don Jones, her minister back home, who had taken her to hear the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speak in Chicago four years earlier.

Haha. I love "underprivileged Negroes." It's a quote from the time, so I'm not beating her up for it. But that's funny. Come on, you know you were laughing

The Progressive Case For Obama

Chris Hayes goes at it full-bore. The Essence:

Whoever is elected in November, progressives will probably find themselves feeling frustrated. Ultimately though, the future judgments and actions of the candidates are unknowable, obscured behind time's cloak. Who knew that the Bill Clinton of 1992 who campaigned with Nelson Mandela would later threaten to sanction South Africa when it passed a law allowing the production of low-cost generic AIDS drugs for its suffering population--or that the George W. Bush of 2000, an amiable "centrist" whose thin foreign-policy views shaded toward isolationism, would go on to become a self-justifying, delusional and messianic instrument of global war? In this sense, Bill Clinton is right: voting for and electing Barack Obama is a "roll of a dice." All elections are. But the candidacy of Barack Obama represents by far the left's best chance to, in Buchanan's immortal phrasing, take back the bigger half of the country. It's a chance we can't pass up.

Another gem:

We know how progressives fared under Clintonism: they were the bloodied limbs left in the trap. Clintonism, in other words, is the devil we know

True that. The irony of the Clintons is that for all the partisan hostility they inspired, they have never been flaming leftists. It's really difficult for me to see myself backing someone who, as one person put it (can't remember who, Johnathan Chait maybe?), is basically playing between the two 49 yard lines, and yet inspires the full fury of the opposing team. It's pretty amazing when you think about it--for all the Clinton's moderation and overtures toward the other side, they are still absolutely reviled. I don't think Hillary could compete in a single state below the Mason-Dixon line. Obama can't win states in the deep south--but he could take Virginia, for instance. I could see him threatening in Kansas or Missouri. I just don't see the same with Hillary.

Last Night Debate Coverage

The consensus seems to be Obama took it. A lot of folks have been cynical about the "play nice" atmosphere. I kinda enjoyed it. Anyway hear we go. Sullivan thought Obama won. He's hates Hillary's guts, but in general he's always said that she's been the better debater. Dickerson over at Slate calls it tie, noting that both candidates got their rocks off. Ambinder gives a slight edge to Barack on account of his anti-war cred. And John Nichols makes the case that Hill and Bama should team up. Don't know how I feel about that one. But overall, I thought both candidates acquitted themselves well. I waould go with Dickerson and call it a draw.