Oh sure, at first it'll seem all cute and useful...
May 29, 2008 Monkeys Control a Robot Arm With Their Thoughts By BENEDICT CAREY
Two monkeys with tiny sensors in their brains have learned to control a mechanical arm with just their thoughts, using it to reach for and grab food and even to adjust for the size and stickiness of morsels when necessary, scientists reported on Wednesday.
The report, released online by the journal Nature, is the most striking demonstration to date of brain-machine interface technology. Scientists expect that technology will eventually allow people with spinal cord injuries and other paralyzing conditions to gain more control over their lives.
The findings suggest that brain-controlled prosthetics, while not practical, are at least technically within reach.
In previous studies, researchers showed that humans who had been paralyzed for years could learn to control a cursor on a computer screen with their brain waves and that nonhuman primates could use their thoughts to move a mechanical arm, a robotic hand or a robot on a treadmill.
The new experiment goes a step further. In it, the monkeys’ brains seem to have adopted the mechanical appendage as their own, refining its movement as it interacted with real objects in real time. The monkeys had their own arms gently restrained while they learned to use the added one.
Experts not involved with the study said the findings were likely to accelerate interest in human testing, especially given the need to treat head and spinal injuries in veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
...
The researchers, from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, used monkeys partly because of their anatomical similarities to humans and partly because they are quick learners.
In the experiment, two macaques first used a joystick to gain a feel for the arm, which had shoulder joints, an elbow and a grasping claw with two mechanical fingers.
Then, just beneath the monkeys’ skulls, the scientists implanted a grid about the size of a large freckle. It sat on the motor cortex, over a patch of cells known to signal arm and hand movements. The grid held 100 tiny electrodes, each connecting to a single neuron, its wires running out of the brain and to a computer.
The computer was programmed to analyze the collective firing of these 100 motor neurons, translate that sum into an electronic command and send it instantaneously to the arm, which was mounted flush with the left shoulder.
The scientists used the computer to help the monkeys move the arm at first, essentially teaching them with biofeedback.
After several days, the monkeys needed no help. They sat stationary in a chair, repeatedly manipulating the arm with their brain to reach out and grab grapes, marshmallows and other nuggets dangled in front of them. The snacks reached the mouths about two-thirds of the time — an impressive rate, compared with earlier work.
...
And then, before you know it, they're using their Robot Powers to fling poo like a shotgun speed shooter,
By JENNIFER LOVEN Wednesday, May 28, 2008 8:45 PM CDT
WASHINGTON - In a shocking turnabout, the press secretary most known for defending President Bush on Iraq, Katrina and a host of other controversial issues produced a memoir damning of his old boss on nearly every level _ from too much secrecy to a less-than-honest selling of the war to a lack of personal candor and an unwillingness to admit mistakes.
In the first major insider account of the Bush White House, one-time spokesman Scott McClellan calls the operation "insular, secretive and combative" and says it veered irretrievably off course as a result.
The White House responded angrily Wednesday to McClellan's confessional memoir, calling it self-serving sour grapes.
"Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House," said current White House press secretary Dana Perino, a former deputy to McClellan. "We are puzzled. It is sad. This is not the Scott we knew." …
So one hagged-out trollop ran away and wrote a tell-all, and now the remaining slatterns up at Diamond George’s Abattoir of the American Dream are all wet-hen cranky about it.
Well that's part of the Liar's Kabuki, isn’t it?
From former employees who rat out corrupt bosses, to the battered spouse who makes it out alive and at long last feels safe enough to talk about their abuser, to molested parishioners, to the child who finally can’t take another minute and spills the beans about drunken daddy, it's always the same.
First, the guilty go through great shows of public outrage.
Then comes the questioning of motives of their accusers.
Finally, broad hints and saccharine concerns about the unbalanced mental state of the whistle-blower.
Oh isn’t it all very sad? Aren’t they just so pathetic, making up these crazy stories for the money and the attention?
Tragic, really.
Of course, Scott McClellan wasn’t a tragedy. Or a comedy. Or a surprise.
He was an inevitability.
Once 50 million pinheads and five Supreme Court Justices saw fit to stuff the business end of an electoral shotgun in Lady Liberty’s mouth, blow the back of her skull off, and hand the United State of America over to the dimwit dauphin and his reptilian regent, if a baby-faced lying stooge like McClellan hadn’t been available, the Bush Administration would have invented one.
So what do we now know about Scott McClellan?
That he sold out his country.
He lied about it.
And now he’s cashing in on the misery he helped create.
Well stop the fucking presses if that isn’t Chapter One of Dick Cheney’s “Big Book Of Neocon Career Advancement”.
Of course, in Chapter Two, Cheney reminds his minions that scale makes all the difference, because in Republican circles, if you smash whole countries and loot their bleeding corpses for billions its called “foreign policy”
If you were merely a hireling who eagerly wiped the nation-smasher’s lying ass and then wrote about it two years later for $24.95 a copy, its called “disgruntled”.
Joseph Lieberman To Headline Upcoming Pastor Hagee Summit
Senator Joseph Lieberman is scheduled to headline Pastor John Hagee's 2008 Christians United For Israel Washington-Israel Summit this July 22. In accepting Hagee's invitation, Lieberman became the most senior elected representative confirmed to appear at the annual gala. Last year, when Lieberman spoke at Hagee's summit, he compared the Texas televangelist to the biblical prophet Moses, dubbing him "an Ish Elochim," or "a man of God." Unless he rescinds his pledge to appear at this year's summit, Lieberman can be expected to deliver another soul-stirring tribute.
Hagee's vitriolic condemnation of Catholicism, his jeremiad declaring Hurricane Katrina divine punishment for New Orleans' hosting of a "homosexual rally," and his generally disturbing apocalyptic theology became national news last February when John McCain accepted his endorsement in a widely publicized ceremony.
While initially resisting pressure to reject Hagee's endorsement, McCain finally ended his relationship with Hagee when a sermon by the preacher describing the Holocaust as the will of God registered on the mainstream media's radar.
…
You’d think that the sort of shithouse-rat-crazy freak who preaches that Israel exists to be used as Rapture kindling so that one day monsters like Hagee can dance into Heaven across a bridge made from the God-smote corpses of Jewish children would be the sort of man that Joe Lieberman would maybe want to take one giant step away from.
But I guess Joe is just one of those hardcore loyal-friend types who’ll help you move, bury your dead hookers, look the other way as you praise Hitler and the Holocaust, and otherwise stand by you no matter what.
Which is so weird, because I remember this other Joe Lieberman from waaaay back in 1998.
This other Joe Lieberman was the sort of oily, back-stabbing, sanctimonious prick who had absolutely no problem, say, throwing fellow Democrat Bill Clinton under the bus
for getting his knob polished and then lying about it.
I wonder what ever happened to that Joe Lieberman?
Oh, and before I forget: Thanks Again Connecticut!
This week, with every actual issue – economy, war, health care, natural disaster -- being kicked to the curb in favor of the quick sugar-high of an Assassination Tango based on Senator Ready-At-Three A.M. saying some remarkably stupid and tactless things (Sorry, already had that for breakfast every day for seven fucking years, thanks), and a steady diet of empty carbs from campaign strategists and barking pundits, it feels like time to abuse a little Hamlet:
… How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable, Seem to me all the Mouses of the Circus! Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden, That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely. …
And tell a little story.
Once upon a time, when I was going through a break-up, there came a day when I noticed that nothing hurt anymore. Which was unnerving, because until then everything seemed to hurt all the time. Hurting had gotten to seem normal.
This tipping point crept up slowly, through months freighted with Technicolor nightmares that, on any given day, made reality feel wan and ridiculous. But there came a time when the booming from below decks could no longer be denied. She had sunk the ship.
The end was ordained.
And when I finally got it through my head that there was no "us" left to save came the moment when I stopped fighting to save us.
Or, rather, I stopped letting myself being baited into fights that were now meaningless. Like arguing over some trivial debt at a funeral, or shrieking on and on about the feng shui of the chairs in a burning house, the ridiculousness of it suddenly lifted me up and out of myself. And after that, regardless of the size and throw-weight of the ragebombs being fired in my direction, they no longer affected me. The words being shrieked at me with such calculated venom and the constantly furious person out of whom they flew began to feel surreal, preposterous and very far away.
It felt a little
like this.
Because those slings and arrows stop connecting when what you care about is no longer hostage to someone who is drunk on their own fury.
Of course, before that blessedly numb fatalism comes a lot of crazy…
The saying of ugly, stupid things:
On “Fox News Sunday” McAulliffe and Wallace went back and forth.
McAulliffe: The Obama people jumped on these innocent comments.
Wallace: No they didn’t.
Wallace: Does Senator Clinton understand how tasteless and ghoulish her comments were.
McAulliffe: They were about the timeline.
Wallace: Yeah but does Senator Clinton understand how tasteless and ghoulish her comments were.
McAuliffe: She said if anyone was offended, then, well, sorry.
Wallace: Actually she said “regretted”. She didn’t apologize. …
The terrible moment when you are looked straight in the eye and lied to, and you realize that what makes the moment terrible isn't the lie, but that she damn well knows its a lie, damn well knows that you know, and just doesn't give a shit anymore.
From the FoxNews transcript:
WALLACE: But wait a minute. The Democratic Party — the Democratic Party — voted last year to strip Florida and Michigan of all of their delegates if they moved up.
MCAULIFFE: Right.
WALLACE: And Hillary Clinton agreed to that. Let's take a look at what she said to New Hampshire public radio last October. "I signed the DNC pledge not to campaign, not to spend money in any of the states that did not comply with the rules established by the DNC. It's clear this election they're having is not going to count for anything." Mr. McAuliffe, why was it clear last October that Florida and Michigan were not going to count, and now she wants to count them?
MCAULIFFE: Well, she wanted to support the DNC, who was trying to hold back all these states who wanted to move in front of February 5th, move up in the calendar. And I will tell you today it worked. We didn't have other states move up.
But we're past that. …
Inventing absurd and/or wildly improbably scenarios in which indefensible behavior is somehow vindicated.
Even noble.
Not from the FoxNews transcript:
McAuliffe: Now that we have access to the “Guardian of Forever”, this thing is not over. In fact, it hasn’t even started yet!
Wallace: Meaning what…?
McAuliffe: Meaning that we’re Inevitable again! We’re gonna travel back in time to before Iowa, and dump 20 million dollars into that fucking state. If that doesn’t work, we’ll go back further and rewrite the party rules about caucuses and proportional representation.
Wallace: But that’s insane.
McAuliffe: You mean insanely…brilliant. We’ll stop ourselves from ever signing that stupid pledge about Florida and Michigan. If we have to, we’ll ring the god damned Bosnia airport with snipers ourselves! We’ll go back and suffocate that floozy Lewinski in her cradle!
Wallace: But that will destroy everything.
McAuliffe: Says who?
Wallace: Every physicist ever. Real and fictional. What you’re proposing would create an unsupportable temporal paradox that would collapse the time/space continuum and obliterate the Universe.
McAuliffe: Well, we feel that it would be worth it to insure that Every Vote Counts.
Wallace: Did you even hear what I just said?
McAuliffe: Well what do you expect from a bunch of elitist, woman-hating “scientists” who live only to thwart Our Gal's rightful destiny as the apotheosis of feminism!
Because nobody is a villain in their own movie.
In their own movie they’re the hero, or a soldier in a heroic cause. So if things are falling apart – in a campaign or in a marriage – to preserve one’s status as hero, a villain must be found.
And where there is no villain, one must be created, and imbued with motives sinister enough and powers wicked enough to explain why the hero is losing.
To be Beowulf, your opponent – who has run a very good campaign and with whom you have what amounts to minor policy differences – must be ginned up into a Grendel.
A few shady acquaintances must be inflated into the tale of a man who “out Herods Herod!”, with dark hints at more and viler scandals to come.
“Rosemary’s Baby” (Nice, white lady – presumably hard working -- who is impregnated by Satan)
becomes a documentary…about Barack Obama!
A man who, one hears, dines on baby’s feet.
Drinks liberal lattes made with Cuban Commie Coffee, the steamed tears of True Patriots, the sweat of honest, hard working white people, and a bump of Sambuca.
Lines his shoes with pages from the Bible just so he can defile Sweet Baby Jebus with every step.
Intentionally bowled a 37 in seven frames in order to send Sekrit Mulim Code to his followers that, as it says in the 37th verse of the seventh book of the Qur’an,
“Who is then more unjust than he who forges a lie against Allah or rejects His communications? (As for) those, their portion of the Book shall reach them, until when Our messengers come to them causing them to die, they shall say: Where is that which you used to call upon besides Allah? They would say: They are gone away from us; and they shall bear witness against themselves that they were unbelievers.”
In other words, he plans to kill us all!
Was voted “Mostly Likely to be the Destroyer of Worlds” in his Secret Illuminati Class of 1988 Yearbook for his part in the Vast International somethingsomething Conspiracy somethingsomething overthrowAmerica and enslave us to somethingsomething by duping us into somethingsomething.
Because before the denouement comes the Climactic Shouting of The Crazy Shit, and the only thing you can do about it is decide if you are going to rise to the bait or not.
As for myself, while I may continue to swat at it from time to time, I can hear the bulkheads shattering beneath the Clinton campaign and see the water fountaining up the stairwells.
She is dramaturging her way through the longest death scene since David Caruso and Joan Collins ate 7,000 square miles of chipboard scenery in “Romeo and Juliet” (OK, that never actually happened, but it damn well should have), and I say let her.
Because there are millions of Americans who have voted for and supported Senator Clinton, who are now sustaining themselves on a very thin soup of impossible scenarios spun out of irrational numbers. They will be as disappointed as any Edwards supporter, Kucinichite, Dodddoddist, Graveloid or Deaniac when she finally bows out -- that goes with the territory -- but some number of them will likely become permanently unhinged if there is any suggestion that she was pushed.
So if Senator Clinton wants to stay in until June...or July...or September, fine.
If she wants to continue to toss the sofa cushions of the Democratic Party in search of loose electoral change, fine.
If she wants to continue to say divisive things and then play victim when she is called out for being divisive, fine.
If she wants to continue to wildly oscillate her message between "I'm a Fighter" and "I'm a Martyr" depending on the venue, fine.
If her more strident followers want to daily climb ever higher up Mount Crazy and scream their lungs to pudding, fine.
The numbers -- in any configuration -- say that Senator Obama is going to be the Democratic candidate for President in 2008, and there is nothing on Earth Senator Clinton can do about it.
Nothing.
It's all over but the shouting, and knowing that makes it easier to shrug and smile and choose the soft answer which turneth away wrath.
LOS ANGELES - Dick Martin, the zany half of the comedy team whose "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" took television by storm in the 1960s, making stars of Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin and creating such national catch-phrases as "Sock it to me!" has died. He was 86.
Martin, who went on to become one of television's busiest directors after splitting with Dan Rowan in the late 1970s, died Saturday night of respiratory complications at a hospital in Santa Monica, family spokesman Barry Greenberg said ...
RIP Dick Martin: part of the team whose firmly left-of-center show -- "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" -- helped change American culture by revolutionizing what kind of speed, pacing, topics and guests you could get away with on a teevee comedy.
(shown here with First Officer McAuliffe) in another episode of "Damn it feels good to be a gangsta".
“Fizzbin”, for those of you that don’t know, was the name of a fictional card game created out of thin air by Captain James Kirk in Star Trek’s "A Piece of the Action".
While being held hostage on Sigma Iotia II with Spock and McCoy, he spontaneously invented a confusing card game to distract the henchmen guarding them.
The rules were intentionally very complex. Each player gets six cards, except for the player on the dealer's right, who gets seven. The second card is turned up, except on Tuesdays. Kirk dealt the henchman two jacks, which are a "half-fizzbin." When the henchman said he needs another jack, Kirk warned that a third jack is a "shralk" and is grounds for disqualification. With two jacks, one wants a king and a deuce, except at night, when one wants a queen and a four.
At this point, Kirk dealt a third jack, but to keep the ruse going, he ignored the disqualification rule he had just made up. He explained that, had a king been dealt instead of a jack, the player would get another card, except when it's dark, in which case he'd have to give it back.
The top hand is a "royal fizzbin," but the odds of getting one are "astronomical": when Kirk asked Spock what the odds are, Spock truthfully replied that he had never computed them.
Kirk called the last card a "kronk" and then purposely dealt a card such that it fell on the floor. As the henchman being taught reached down, Kirk punched him in the face after hitting him in the stomach, and Spock nerve-pinched the other guard, allowing the three to escape.
Which has what to do with Team Clinton?
Well, listen to this from Terry McAuliffe from May 11th.
Not May 11th, 1970 or May 11th, 1992, but less-than-two-fucking-weeks-ago May 11th.
Agree or disagree with his premises -- and I disagree -- what he is proposing is very clear: That seating half the delegates would be agreeable to Team Clinton, and that this palliative would all-but settle the issue of Florida and Michigan as far as they are concerned.
...
MR. RUSSERT: So now, Chairman Dean is saying the rules are the rules.
MR. McAULIFFE: Yeah.
MR. RUSSERT: Michigan broke them, they're not going to be seated. Maybe they'll get half. Would you accept that?
MR. McAULIFFE: Well, first of all, that's now out in paperback, I want you to know. But second, I would say the rule is 50 percent. That's the point I'd like to make. I had the right, the party, to take away 50 percent. The party took away 100 percent of the delegates. The rule is 50 percent. Had they only taken away 50 percent like the Republican Party did, Tim, you and I would not be having this conversation today.
MR. RUSSERT: So you would accept that as a compromise, half the Michigan and half the Florida delegates?
MR. McAULIFFE: We certainly might, you bet. But in fairness, the Rules and Bylaws Committee will meet on, on the 31st to make that decision. The issue is 50 percent. They took away 100 percent. He can't deny that a million-75 people showed up in Florida and 600,000 showed up in Michigan. They voted, they were certified by the county and the state. These people voted. We have to win these two states in, in the general election. It's important, Michigan and Florida.
MR. RUSSERT: But you'd take half.
MR. McAULIFFE: Well, I'll--we'll let the Rules and Bylaws, it's up to them to make that decision. But the rule is 50 percent.
...
Got it?
Now listen to what Team Clinton is saying eleven days later...
By TODD SPANGLER • FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF • May 22, 2008
WASHINGTON – In case there was any confusion, Hillary Clinton’s campaign staff this morning made very clear her path to the Democratic nomination.
Have Michigan and Florida’s lost delegations seated in full, stretch the number needed for the nomination to 2,210 (from the 2,026 it is now without those states) and fight for the remaining pledged delegates and uncommitted super delegates.
…
There are a whole lot of hurdles to cross before then, however – beginning with the Michigan-Florida question.
A week from Saturday in Washington, the Democrats’ national Rules and Bylaws Committee – which includes plenty of Clinton and Obama supporters already – will meet to decide if and how to seat the states’ delegations, which were lost when they scheduled earlier-than-allowed primaries.
Of late, talk has been that both should see their voting power cut by half, to make sure some penalty attends their violation of national party rules. But Wolfson and Clinton strategist Harold Ickes – who sits on the Rules and Bylaws Committee and voted to strip Michigan and Florida of their delegates last year – say the entire votes should be counted and the delegates apportioned as they would have been if the primaries counted.
As in, to Clinton’s benefit – since she won both states.
Ickes went further saying that the uncommited votes in Michigan – where Obama’s name did not appear on the ballot – should not automatically accrue to him, even though the Clinton campaign readily acknowledges there were major efforts by Obama’s supporters to get people to vote uncommitted to show their support for him.
Obama took his name off the ballot in protest of the primary. Clinton was the only top Democrat on the ballot in Michigan – though even she said at the time that the election didn’t count for anything.
Since it started appearing, however, that Obama would capture the nomination, her campaign has changed its tune.
…
“Both delegations should be seated, all delegates should be seated and all delegates should have a full vote each,” said Ickes.
What this is, is bullshit, and as pure and jaw-droppingly brazen as any I ever saw slung by Bush.
What this is not, is a sexism thing. No, this is a Clinton thing.
This is absolutely infuriating fuck-you-because-the-rules-don’t-apply-to-us thing that made so many of us discretely upchuck into our napkins even as we defended Clinton v1.0 time after time after time during the 90s.
This is (as Randi Rhodes said in the stand-up bit that cost her her job) the infuriating “Because her deal is always, 'Read the fine print, asshole!'"-thing.
After retroactively re-rigging the metrics for “winning” more times that I can count, it can no longer be said that Team Clinton moves the goalposts.
Now
they tear the goalposts down.
Make a bonfire out of them.
Have a weenie roast with ‘em.
Then whip their dicks out.
Then fuck the bun.
Then point a finger at us and solemnly swear that, “Ah did not have sex with that bun!”
Then yank a puck out of their pocket.
Fling it down field.
Announce that we were actually playing field hockey the whole time.
So none of Senator Obama’s “touchdowns” ever really counted.
And that the score is actually tied.
Wheeeeeeee!
For myself, in the last seven years I’ve had quite enough of a President who pulled magic, heretofore-invisible “signing statements” and secret Gonzalez-concocted legal opinions out of his ass whenever he fucking well felt like it would be really inconvenient if the law he just signed actually applied to him.
And then snickered about it while his minions applauded him.
To mend the terrible damage that the Bush Regime has done to this country, we so very desperately need that mentality -- for good and all -- to be over.
Done.
Shunned.
Buried.
And yet, over in Team Clinton’s Gangsta’s Paradise
Above, Dirty Fucking Appeaser Franklin Roosevelt, plays footsie with mass murdering sociopath and WMD proliferator, Joey Joe Joe Junior Stalin.
Here, Dirty Fucking Appeaser Gerald Ford sells America out to the mortal remains of Commie Strongman and thermonuclear weapons waver-arounder, Leonid Brezhnev.
Here, Dirty Fucking Appeaser Richard Milhous Nixon argues with the most prolific mass murder in history – Mao Tse-tung – over who is going to take whom downtown to China Town.
And of course it was the talk of the town when Dirty Fucking Appeaser Ronald Reagan decided to pillowtalk with Collectivist Gangster Overboss Mikey “Big Pushkin” Gorbachev.
… From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.
'Oh, Man. look here. Look, look, down here.' exclaimed the Ghost.
They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling,wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shriveled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.
Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.
'Spirit. are they yours.' Scrooge could say no more.
'They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon them. 'And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it.' cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. 'Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse.
Proving once again that LowerManhattanite is a better person than I am, and that we could use about a million more like him.
For myself, when I read something like this for the umpteenth time (from the Chicago Tribune) --
To many white voters, race still matters Rural Kentucky points up a difficult reality for Barack Obama
By Rex W. Huppke
MUNFORDVILLE, Ky. — Mike Rife is white, a semiretired factory worker with a high school education and a 2-foot-square sign on his lawn that makes friends and neighbors flip him the finger as they drive by.
The sign reads: "Obama for President."
"I think I almost know what it feels like to be a black guy," said Rife, his voice gravelly and defiant. "I take heat every day. I got an Obama sticker on my car, and I catch hell for it."
…
"They won't vote for a black man," Rife said of the people he has lived around all his 57 years. "That's all there is to it. They just can't bring themselves to do it."
…
Terry Jordan, 47, who runs a year-round garage sale in front of an old filling station on Main Street, put it simply: "It's his color."
A weighty reality
The Munfordvilles of America — and there are many—present a troubling reality for Obama's campaign, as his lopsided loss in neighboring West Virginia showed. These are the places where lofty talk of transcending race is dragged to earth by a weighty reality that has nothing to do with Obama's position on the federal gas tax, Clinton's tenacity on the campaign trail or even the off-putting rants of Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.
"Right now it's not that Hillary attracts the white vote," said Jack Bunnell, 79. "It's that Obama's black."
…
Rife knows of no more than 10 other people who, like him, will vote for Obama. Still, he doesn't view people in his community as mean-spirited. Few will express any particular dislike of black people, he said, but asking them to vote for a black man for president is simply too much of a leap: "They just aren't ready for it."
Kentucky was a border state in the Civil War. It eventually sided with the Union, but much of the populace either joined or supported the Confederacy. Munfordville was the site of a major victory for the South, one that marked a high point of the Confederacy's westward push.
'Lots of factors' …
Tim Carter lives on a narrow, crescent-shaped road called National Turnpike, a block or so off Main Street, an area known as "the black part of town." He's an Obama supporter, though he knows his man stands no chance in Kentucky.
"He shouldn't even bother to fly over," said Carter, who was born and raised in Munfordville and has spent 35 of his 56 years working in a nearby factory.
…
Rebel flags on walls Webster Rogers, 23 and also black, said that in high school he felt welcome visiting the homes of white friends. But often he would spot Confederate flags hanging on the walls, reminders of differences that still linger. That divide has provided fertile ground for Obama conspiracy theories. Residents opposed to Obama seem inclined to latch onto false rumors about the candidate or negative exaggerations about his views.
"I believe that he's a Muslim," said Susan Horton, 56 and white. She leaves her living room whenever Obama comes on the television. "I think that if he gets into office, there's going to be another bombing."
"He's not patriotic," said Brandy Trulock, a 21-year-old mother of two. "If you can't salute the American flag, I don't think you should be allowed to run for president."
At his never-ending garage sale, Terry Jordan sells secondhand bluejeans, ceramic tchotchkes and anything else he can get his hands on, displaying his wares on a flatbed trailer and a few rickety folding tables. He makes about $100 a week to supplement his $720 monthly disability check.
He's all Democrat, all Clinton and, if Obama wins the nomination, all for Republican John McCain. He doesn't trust Obama, has serious questions about the Muslim rumors and truly believes a black man will not survive long as president of the United States.
…
-- I realize I am done conceding one more fucking millimeter to the great- great-grandbastards of an ideology that should have been universally denounced two generations ago and then unceremoniously sealed like Chernobyl under a million tons of concrete.
Instead, far from repudiating ignorance and racism -- burying them at the crossroads with a stake through their rotting hearts -- for as long as I have been alive they have been the Republican’s cash crops; their carefully cultivated political opium poppies.
So rather than denouncing the mutant offspring of our nation's Original Sin, they hire professional race-baiting gunslingers like Lee Atwater and Karl Rove to dog-whistle its shambling electoral corpse back up from unquiet graves in unholy ground every two years with magic conjure words like “Southern Pride”, "Confederate flag” and “state’s rights”.
Because it works. It fucking well works.
For far, far too long, tossing this toxic red meat to Red State chuckleheads has been the tent pole that kept the GOP viable.
Now if the denizens of Trailertrashylvania wanted to live out their lives gamboling safely around inside of some razor-wire enclosed theme park -- some Antebellum Confederacy-land where they can harmlessly get their bigoted ya-yas out smacking around robot hippies and showing uppity audio-animatronic Negroes who’s boss -- I'd say fine.
I'd say great.
I'd say, hoo-fucking-ray and God be with you.
But outside of the studios of the Jerry Springer Show, on any given day we have no such Federal Mulletarium where they can be assembled and harmless contained.
If it were only their own fates and futures they consistently and suicidally vote to sabotage, then they would have my pity and my patience. But like the young man who decides to relieve me of my wallet on some dark and dodgy street, the minute he flashes a weapon is the minute I lose any interest in the socioeconomic circumstances that put him in my path.
Instead, in that moment, he moves from fellow citizen perhaps in need of help to a threat to be neutralized.
Only when he stops pointing a weapon at me does he regain the right to be treated as anything other than an enemy.
And now that they have been stripped of their Confederacy, their Jim Crow laws, their dogs, their fire hoses and the noose, the ballot box is one of the few weapons the sons and daughters of Jefferson Davis have left.
And in 2008 there is no reason in the world to think they're going to go Democratic in the Big Show, so I really don't give a good god damn what the results of their primary might be.
I will be more than happy to welcome these people as equals into the Big Tent for a seat at the Round Table…once they spit Jesse Helms’ dick out of their mouths and stop voting against their own interests, against our national interests and for whatever smells most like Caucasian Jebus and their beloved Confederate States of Murrica.
But so long as the hunger for their votes means they're pandered to instead of punished...so long as they are allowed to rage unchecked and unchallenged like a disease through our body politic -- decade after exhausting decade -- warping our national debates, demanding that their atavistic values be accommodated...I say fuck ‘em.
Without the guns of the Union Army, the Confederacy would never have fallen. And without the massed might of the federal government, the courts, and hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens putting their necks on the line, Jim Crow would never have been smashed.
And so unlike Lewis Carroll’s “boojum” in “The Hunting of the Snark”, I have absolutely no reason to believe that, having endured proudly intact century after century, our surviving enclaves of American bigotry will ever “softly and suddenly vanish away” without the aid of a fleet of cultural and political bulldozers.
In which Sunday's Mouse Circus can actually be reduced to one picture --
President Stupid to Senator McSame: "My Beautiful Mind to your mind." "My reckless, dimwitted thoughts to your thoughts."
And the deep drought afflicting the whole schtick behind the Mouse Circus continues, parching the Sunday Morning Barking Heads Savannah into a few, dingy mudholes where the enervated survivors wallow in their own poo and pine for the Good Old days.
Because the headwaters of the Mouse Circus has always been putting a bunch of Conservatives and a few token Centrists in a jar, shaking ‘em up and watching them fight over who is less of an evil Liberal than whom.
Then having a bunch of Conservative and a few, token Centrist pundits on to talk about it.
Problem is the public, in record numbers, are sick of the GOP.
Sick of their message.
Sick of their leadership.
Sick to death of their fucking war.
So the Barking Heads are left to try to drum up business with:
A. The Commander Guy reintroducing himself to the limelight with his Nazi-gate “appeasement” catastrophe in much the same way a piano defenestrated from the Burj Dubai would be “reintroduced” to the earth below.
B. Senator McSame, still gamely trying to prove to The Base that he is Dubya’s complete bitch, scurrying to catch said piano full in the face.
C. John Boehner – perspiring like Nixon in a sweat lodge – desperately struggling to hang onto his job by explaining that (I am not kidding) Republicans are the REAL change agent guys. Because more tax cuts will fix everything, and Nancy Pelosi is to blame for making gas prices go up.
D. Pundits reduced to acting shocked that Commander Guy says breathtakingly reckless, stupid and hypocritical things…despite the fact that Dubya’s entire Presidency – his entire adult life – has been an almost unbroken string of consistent recklessness, stupidity and hypocrisy.
So what changed?
America changed.
In the space of the last few years, millions of Americans have changed their minds on the subject of Iraq. The verdict is that Iraq was a huge fucking mistake and that we're leaving, sooner rather than later.
(Or, to paraphrase the old joke about the gold-digger, we have already determined what sort of nation we are. Now we’re just negotiating the price.)
And effects of this massive shift in the American mind have slowly but inexorably begun to show up at the Mouse Circus.
Because for the last five years, their despicable Iraqi Debacle has been the rocket fuel of the GOP; it powered all things, forgave all fascist excesses, and put the barbarous glint in the eye and the berserk rhetoric into the mouths of every wingnut apologist from the barstool at the corner tavern to the anchor desk at the Fox News whorehouse.
So quite aside from moral, fiscal and security considerations, America turning on Bush’s War means that the chickenhawks and thieves who occupy the White House are being deprived of their ability to use American troops as human shields behind which they they can cower while they snipe at their critics.
Increasingly, Republican politicians can no longer walk up to a microphone, say plain crazy shit or make ridiculous promises, then invoke the troops and Saddam Hussein, and walk away without getting slammed.
Increasingly, Republicans are trying to find ways to run like hell away from Dubya. He went virtually unmentioned during the GOP Presidential Debates, and in state after state the Bicycle Chief is disappearing from the Conservative lexicon.
Problem is, there is this great, drooling beast squatting right at the heart of the GOP called “The Base” who were promised by their President ouchless wars with easy victories, low gas prices, and mountains of gloriously dead scary brown people.
They were promised a permanent Christopath majority where they could loudly hate Dirty Fucking Hippies, uppity women, Negroes and queers in peace.
They were promised the kingdoms of the Earth -- an empire of plenty all gift-wrapped up in the American flag.
But most importantly, they were solemnly promised that they would never again have their sodden delusions troubled by the harsh glare of Reality’s early light. And they will tear the fucking Temple down before they let the Party they now completely dominate renege on that promise.
Dubya and the Pig People are the drunken Daddy and delusional Mommy of the GOP, and waaay back in the days when the cotton was high and it was open season on Liberals, the rest of the Party was cool with that arrangement.
Back then, the GOP went all-in with George Bush, and they have spent the last seven years smirkingly celebrating his treasons and war crimes, laughing and applauding every time he wiped his ass with the Constitution, and loudly screaming “Traitor!” at anyone who whispered anything remotely critical of their beloved Commander Guy.
They cheered as he lost whole cities and ruined whole countries.
They hooted as he looted the treasury and crippled the military.
When Dubya’s Foxtard Fascism bestrode the Earth, Republicans giddily sided with him on all things, following him eagerly below decks and laughing as he welded the door shut behind them.
But now events are slowly sandblasting the Rovian Scales from their eyes, and now the True Dubya – the Dubya we Dirty Fucking Hippies have always seen clearly and have always loudly opposed – is finally coming into focus.
Dubya the idiot.
Dubya the sadist.
The peevish, spoiled, irresponsible, dimwit Dubya.
Dubya to sociopath.
Dubya the narcissist who has always been interested only in himself: his goals, his personal legacy and comfort.
Dubya the spoiled dauphin, whose life has been a saga of wreckage and failure, where other people clean up his messes while he uses his family name and family fortune to glide blissfully away from the consequences of his crimes and catastrophes.
The Dubya so deep in his fuehrer-in-the-bunker political cups that – according to Peggy Noonan – his White House actually thought that the spectacle of the President of the United States…invoking Hitler, holocaust and appeasement on the floor of the Knesset...during ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the creation of the state of Israel…in order to score the filthiest kind of Rovian political points against Senator Obama…was “clever”.
That “phenomenon” is that of The Neighborhood Kook.
It's a guy—almost always a guy—who regularly and sometimes entertainingly acts out in embarassingly nutty ways. Our neighborhood kook was a gentleman I shall refer to as “Mr. R”. …
Which is why the only emergent theme this Sunday was this: “Will McSame be the Third Bush Term or not?”
Because by the end of this year the results of eight years of Bush will have been the demolition of the GOP and ever-increasing numbers of voters driving Conservatism to the dump and abandoned it like a pillowcase full of leaky car batteries.
.... "The moment when the party could have broken, on principle, with the administration – over the thinking behind and the carrying out of the war, over immigration, spending and the size of government – has passed. What two years ago would have been honorable and wise will now look craven. They're stuck.
"Mr. Bush has squandered the hard-built paternity of 40 years. But so has the party, and so have its leaders. If they had pushed away for serious reasons, they could have separated the party's fortunes from the president's. This would have left a painfully broken party, but they wouldn't be left with a ruined "brand," as they all say, speaking the language of marketing. And they speak that language because they are marketers, not thinkers. Not serious about policy. Not serious about ideas. And not serious about leadership, only followership."
It was only yesterday that blind, simpering fealty to the ravings of the Dear Leader and pandering like mad to the degenerate fantasies of the Pig People
-- that being of absolutely one mind with the scum of the Earth --
was the litmus test of Republican patriotism and godliness.
Now it is an anchor tied around their throats.
Now...
...it's too late to lose the weight you used to need to throw around.
Mr. Superdelegate: 'Ello, I wish to register a complaint.
Mr. Superdelegate: 'Ello, Miss?
Terry McAuliffe: What do you mean "miss"?
Mr. Superdelegate: I'm sorry, I have a cold. I wish to make a complaint!
McAuliffe: We're closin' for lunch.
Mr. Superdelegate: Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this candidate what I committed to not half a month ago on this very campaign.
McAuliffe: Oh yes, the, uh, the Clintonian Blue...What's,uh...What's wrong with ‘er?
Mr. Superdelegate: I'll tell you what's wrong with ‘er, my lad. She's dead, that's what's wrong with ‘er!
McAuliffe: No, no, she's uh,...she's rallyin’.
Mr. Superdelegate: Look, matey, I know a dead candidate when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.
McAuliffe: No no she's not dead, he's, she's rallyin’! Remarkable gal, the Clintonian Blue, idn't she? Beautiful suffrage!
Mr. Superdelegate: Suffrage don't enter into it. She's stone dead.
McAuliffe: Nononono, no, no! She's rallyin’! Getting’ ready for Puerto Rico!
Mr. Superdelegate: All right then, if she's rallyin’, let’s get her attention! (shouting at the teevee) 'Ello, Miss Hillary Sniper Dodger! I’ll seat the Florida delegation for you if you show...
(McAuliffe wins West Virginia)
McAuliffe: There, she surged!
Mr. Superdelegate: No, she didn't. That was a county full of hillbillies from a state we’re never gonna win in the general anyway!
McAuliffe: I never!!
Mr. Superdelegate: Yes, you did!
McAuliffe: I never, never did anything...
Mr. Superdelegate: (yelling and hitting the cage repeatedly) 'ELLO HILLARY!!!!! Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your three A.M. phone call!
(Takes candidate out of the cage and thumps her head on Indiana. Throws her up in the air and watches her plummet to the floor. While John Edwards endorses Barack Obama)
Mr. Superdelegate: Now that's what I call a dead candidate.
McAuliffe: No, no.....No, she's stunned!
Mr. Superdelegate: Stunned?!?
McAuliffe: Yeah! You stunned her, just as she was rampin' up! Clintonian Blues stun easily, major.
Mr. Superdelegate: Um...now look...now look, mate, I've definitely 'ad enough of this. That candidacy is deceased, and when I committed to ‘er not 'alf a year ago, you assured me that her total lack of momentum was due to ‘er bein' tired and shagged out following a prolonged drinking bout with a bar-full of Indiana refinery workers.
McAuliffe: Well, he's...she's, ah...probably pining for the duck huntin’.
Mr. Superdelegate: PININ' for the DUCK HUNTIN’?!?!?!? What kind of talk is that?, Look, why did she fall flat in polls the moment she lost Iowa?
McAuliffe: The Clintonian Blue prefers comin’ from behind! Remarkable candidate, id'nt she, squire? Lovely suffrage!
Mr. Superdelegate: Look, I took the liberty of examining her fundamentals when I got , and I discovered the only reason that she had been in the running at all is that the fucknozzle media told us for two years that she was inevitable.
(pause)
McAuliffe: Well, o'course they said that, because she is inevitable. She can't lose. Why if the media hadn’t flipped around and conspired against her, and if people would just go ahead and count Florida and Michigan, she would have turned this motherfuck out months, ripped that sissy Obama apart with her bare hands and VOOM!
Mr. Superdelegate: "VOOM"?!? Mate, this candidacy wouldn't "voom" if you put forty million dollars into it! She's bleedin' demised!
McAuliffe: No no! She’s pinin’!
Mr. Superdelegate: She's not pinin'! She’s passed on! This candidacy is no more! It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone back to Empire State! She's a stiff! Bereft of votes, she rests in peace! If you hadn't gone Low Road Rove she'd be back in Chappaqua writing ‘er tell-all! The mathematical processes have made ‘er 'istory! She’s gone Guiliani! She’s won’t be up in the Big Clown Car in Denver. She’s run out of states, hocked her furs and become the bleedin' Buchanan Brigade !! This is an ex-candidate!
(pause)
McAuliffe: Well, I'd better replace it, then. (he takes a quick peek behind the counter) Sorry squire, I've had a look 'round the back of the shop, and uh, we're right out of DLCers.
Mr. Superdelegate: I see. I see, I get the picture.
McAuliffe: I got a McSame.
(pause)
Mr. Superdelegate: Pray, does it talk?
McAuliffe: Nah. Not really.
Mr. Superdelegate: Well it's hardly a bloody replacement is it?
“In Russia we only had two TV channels. Channel One was propaganda. Channel Two consisted of a KGB officer telling you: Turn back at once to Channel One.”
Matthews offers walk-and-chew-gum explanation for why media don't adequately cover McCain
During MSNBC's coverage of the May 6 Democratic primaries, Chris Matthews, Tim Russert, Dan Abrams, and Rachel Maddow discussed how the media, in Matthews' words, "completely ignore [Sen.] John McCain's problems."
But in purporting to explain "the way the media works," Matthews, who anchored the primary coverage and hosts MSNBC's Hardball, offered the dubious suggestion that it is not possible for the media to cover both the Democratic primary and McCain adequately, asserting: "[A]s long as we focus on the fight between [Sens.] Hillary [Clinton] and Barack [Obama], and perhaps more recently just on Barack's problems, it blocks the sun -- the media, the public's attention -- from the problems that are obviously incipient and coming to be at some point with McCain." Liz Cox Barrett, who noted MSNBC's coverage in a May 7 post at the Columbia Journalism Review's daily blog, described Matthews' explanation of "how the media works" as "Can't Walk and Chew Gum." ...
Russert noted media's lack of scrutiny of McCain over Hagee, other issues, but not Russert's own McCain "grace period" on Hagee
As Columbia Journalism Review staff writer Liz Cox Barrett noted, NBC Washington bureau chief and Meet the Press host Tim Russert responded to Imus by saying: "You know, if there was video of Hagee, it makes all the difference in the world. It's interesting." But, in fact, there is audio of televangelist and McCain supporter John Hagee asserting in 2006 that "New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God" and that "Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans."
Hagee -- whose endorsement McCain sought and recently said he's "glad to have" -- defended those comments on April 22. Russert also said: "I don't think -- the Hagee thing, McCain has not been questioned in great scrutiny by that -- scrutinized about that, or a lot of things. I mean, he's been -- really been given this grace period to go around the country, unify his party, raise some money, put a campaign together, and he's benefited from enormously. There's no doubt about it."
However, Russert failed to note his own role in the disparate scrutiny given McCain over the specific issue under discussion -- Hagee -- compared with that given Obama over Wright. ...
Very early this morning, after many voters had already gone to sleep, the conventional wisdom of the elite political pundit class that resides on television shifted hard, and possibly irretrievably, against Senator Hillary Clinton’s continued viability as a presidential candidate.
The moment came shortly after midnight Eastern time, captured in a devastatingly declarative statement from Tim Russert of NBC News: “We now know who the Democratic nominee’s going to be, and no one’s going to dispute it,” he said on MSNBC. “Those closest to her will give her a hard-headed analysis, and if they lay it all out, they’ll say: ‘What is the rationale? What do we say to the undeclared super delegates tomorrow? Why do we tell them you’re staying in the race?’ And tonight, there’s no good answer for that.”
It was not exactly Walter Cronkite declaring that the Vietnam War would end in stalemate. But the impact was apparent almost immediately, starting with The Drudge Report, the online news billboard that is the home page to many political reporters in Washington and news producers in New York. It had as its lead story a link to a YouTube clip of Mr. Russert’s comments, accompanied by a photograph of a beaming Mr. Obama with his wife, Michelle, and the headline, “The Nominee.”
...
There are, of course, a thousandy-thousand other example that one could cite, but now see if you notice any, oh, let's say similarities between the roles that our modern Villagers arrogated to themselves -- selective and wildly biased coverage, power-whoring, and a penchant for making sweeping, declarative statements regarding matters about which they have no business pretending certainty -- and this from Wikipedia:
The Praetorian Guard (Latin: PRÆTORIANI) was a special force of guards used by Roman Emperors. Before being appropriated for the use of the Emperors' personal guards, the title was used for the guards of Roman generals,
Following the death of Sejanus, who was sacrificed for the Donativum (imperial gift) promised by Tiberius, the [Praetorian] Guards began to play an increasingly ambitious and bloody game in the Empire. ...
With the right amount of cocktail weenies and "access"money, or at will, they assassinated emperors, bullied their own prefects, or turned on the people of Rome. In 41 Caligula was killed by conspirators from the senatorial class and from the Guard.
The Praetorians placed Dubya Claudius on the throne, daring the Senate to oppose their decision.
During 69, the Year of the Four Emperors, after the emperor Galba failed to provide a donative for the Praetorians, they transferred their allegiance to Otho and destroyed Howard Dean assassinated the emperor. Otho acquiesced in the Praetorians' demands and granted them the right to appoint their own prefects, ensuring their loyalty. After defeating Otho, Vitellius disbanded the guard and established a new one sixteen cohorts strong. Vespasian relied in the war against Vitellius upon the disgruntled cohorts the emperor had dismissed, and reduced the number of cohorts back to nine upon becoming emperor himself.
As a further safeguard, he appointed Roger Fucking Ailes his son, Titus as the Big Giant Head of Fox News Praetorian Prefect. …
As long as the Villagers remain a-squat over our media, operating the enormously powerful megaphones we lend them like small town cops in hillbilly country running a fucking speed trap, we will never get the politics or the leaders our times demand.
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina who bowed out of the presidential race in January, endorsed Senator Barack Obama at a rally here tonight.
“The reason I am here tonight is because the Democratic voters of America have made their choice and so have I,” Mr Edwards said.
Officials announced the news of Mr. Edwards’s endorsement shortly after Mr. Obama landed here late this afternoon. The campaign timed it to coincide with the start of the major evening newscasts, which would have otherwise focused on Senator Hillary Clinton’s landslide victory in West Virginia, which raised new questions about Mr. Obama’s strength with white working class voters.
Mr. Obama’s campaign is hoping the endorsement will be a big step toward the party’s coalescing around Mr. Obama as the Democratic nominee.
Mr. Edwards began by paying tribute to Mrs. Clinton. “It is very, very hard to get up every day and do what she’s done,” Mr. Edwards Mrs. Clinton. “It is hard to go out there and fight and speak up when the odds turn against you. What she has shown is strength and character.”
The endorsement ended months of speculation over Mr. Edwards’s preference in the Democratic nominating contest, during which he mostly stayed silent and close to home in Chapel Hill with his wife, Elizabeth. ...
And thus it was, on the Thirteenth of May in that Year, did Our First Lady did appear to the masses of West Virginia supporters and Clinton Atavists Activists and confided to them the Three Secrets of the Hillary.
1. White people wont vote for the black guy. We'll make sure of it. 2. Math doesn't count, but Florida and Michigan do. Because, 3. Rules are for little, non-Clinton-type people.
“But then why does she keep saying stupid, divisive things?” edition.
They only had time to run off one script this week before the Great MSM Mimeograph broke down, so everyone had to share.
Like watching a thousand bad high school drama clubs simultaneously stage "A Streetcar Named Desire".
Badly.
On “Face the Nation” Bob Schieffer asks Terry McAuliffe. Schieffer: So, is Hillary is now running as the candidate of white people?
McAuliffe: She didn’t mean it that way. That’s not what she thinks.
And so forth.
On “Fox News Sunday” David Axelrod (Obama campaign manager) handled Wallace like a veterinarian handling a diarrhetic hamster.
Wallace: I know you’re going to say that Hillary Clinton has the right to stay in and run as long as she wants, but I don’t want that answer!
And we’re off… Wallace (regarding Hillary’s “I’m the candidate of hard-workin’ Whitey!” comments): Why aren’t the words well chosen whether they’re offensive or not.
Axelrod: I’m sure Senator Clinton didn’t mean to conflate “hard working” and “white”.
Wallace: Oh didn’t she? Isn’t she really a nasty, race-baiting troll?
Axelrod: No.
Wallace: C’mon! Fight with her! Throw mud! Fight!Fight!Fight! You gonna throw your filthy, elitist money at her? Maybe buy her off with a job offer?
Axelrod: She hasn’t asked and we haven’t offered. I don’t think Senator Clinton is looking for a deal. I don’t think she’s looking for a cue or signal from us, and I think it would be demeaning to suggest otherwise.
Wallace: As regards her campaign debt, isn’t it true your people would be outraged if you paid her off!
Axelrod: No one is suggesting that. Shit, we need that money to bury you fuckers.
Wallace: Please fight her! Puhhleeeze! Say she’s a broke loser and needs to be bailed out. Say she’s stupid and racist! Gimme something here!
Axelrod: Fuck off, tiny clown. Wallace: Isn’t it true that Michelle Obama hates Hillary Clinton and wants nothing to do with her being Vice President? Axelrod: False. There has been no discussion. We have made no offers. They have made no offers.
Then, Howard Wolfson (Clinton campaign advisor)
Wallace: Why does Hillary keep saying mean things about Barack Obama?
Wolfson: West Virginia is a Key State. Everything starts on Tuesday in West Virginia.
Wheee!
Wallace: But aren’t you weakening the Party? Wolfson: No. We’re bringing in new people. A million new voters. Well, Obama brought in 999,990 of them and we brought in 10, but still…
Wolfson: West Virginia is a Key State. Key. Key State. If Senator Obama wants to win, he needs to beat her in West Virginia. Because West Virginia is a Key State. Did I mention that? It’s the Keyingest! Wallace: So you’re 20 million dollars in debt. What about having your Rich Uncle Barack help her retire her debt.
Wolfson: Fuck you. That’s way premature, and there have been no conversations. This is not about debt, or who the veep will be. Its about winning primaries and beating John McCain in the Fall.
On “Meet the Press” Punkin Haid Russert dutifully repeats the same interview -- almost syllable for syllable -- that everyone else is doing.
Punkin Haid: But Senator Clinton can’t overtake Senator Obama in the delegate count.
McAuliffe: It’s highly unlikely.
Punkin Haid: No, it’s impossible you doodiehead, (Takes out NBC’s abacus and rapidly flicks the beads around.)
McAuliffe: Meh.
Punkin Haid: Can you count?
McAuliffe: …"Highly unlikely."
McAuliffe: Anything can happen in politics, Timmy. Anything. In fact, wherever Big Russ is right now, I’m sure he’s looking down from Heaven, drinking a scotch, reminding us that, in politics, anything can happen. Punkin Haid:Big Russ is alive and well and sitting in a Barca-Lounger right now wondering if you’re drunk.
McAuliffe: Meh.
driftglass: Is it true that to appease your hard-core base you have sunk all your nickels into one, last attempt to destroy Senator Obama regardless of the cost to the Party, and about which this random video clip
is not meant to imply anything at all?
McAuliffe: Look, driftglass, I’ll tell you what. These fine people will concede just as soon as...
...as...
...just as soon as...
...leprechaun puppies start being born.
Yeah. That's it. Leprechaun. Puppies.
In New Orleans!
Sure. Absolutely.
When leprechaun puppies start being littered in New Orleans, we'll totally drop right out, throw our support to Barack Obama, and you'll not hear another peep out of us until 2009.
Bwahahahahahahah...
What?
Oh fuck me.
On “This Week” . Same back-and-forth as everywhere else.
George Stephanopoulos: Is Hillary a racist bint?
Reid: No. She didn’t mean what she said.
driftglass: You know, she and her husband have been doing that kind of a lot lately, this blurting out really stupid, inflammatory shit and then shrugging it off when they get called on it.
It has me a little worried.
Do think maybe it’s some kind of disorder? An freak outbreak of “Reagan Democrat” Coprolalia up in Chappaqua perhaps?
Anyway…
Reid: Obama’s going to do just fine in rural America.
Then, Carly Fiorina: failed Hewlett-Packard CEO and New McCain Surrogate.
Fiorina: John McCain hated Don Rumsfeld before it was cool!
Stephanopoulos: What about this stupid idea of a gas tax holiday?
Fiorina: It’s a great idea!
Stephanopoulos: But we can’t find a single economist who thinks it’s a good idea.
Fiorina: Fuck economists. Economists argue about theory. They’re idiots.
driftglass: And in that short exchange, perhaps the reason Ms. Fiorina failed so dramatically at HP has come loping into view.
And perhaps this question – “Do you think consulting professionals who labor mightily and after years of education to understand the consequences of economic actions is Teh Stoopid?” – will start being asked during HP CEO interview.
Then, onto the Round Table
Cokie: Everyone is so sexist and so disrespectful of poor Hillary.
Donaldson: No, people are god damn fucking tired of the fucking Clintons. They’re saying “We alibied for you all during the 90s.” We carried water for you people until our arms fell off. You don’t OWN the White House, and now that we have an alternative we’re gonna jump on it.
Then they all got giggly and braided each other’s hairpieces and played Vice Presidential Mystery Date
For several days Cokie: Obama needs a Bible-thumping, gun-toting, white guy from a swing state.
Donaldson: So…someone who disagrees with him on everything? Cokie: No, but someone who represents the people she’s carrying.
And so it went yawningly on and on.
Unremarkable really...until one notices that none of them are even bothering to speculate about what sort of veep Hillary Clinton should choose.
Ruh roh.
So here lies the mortal remains of the Clinton 2008 campaign.
