Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
by John Cole| 40 Comments
This post is in: Election 2008, Excellent Links
Via Sullivan, this shocking display of appeasement:
Obama is cleaning their clocks on this issue, and McCain would do himself a real service to stop taking advice from small men and internet tough guys who think AM radio show hosts are deep-thinkers.
PS- It would be wise to remember Baker’s nickname.
by John Cole| 50 Comments
Newsmax brings the news good warmongers everywhere want to hear:
As Barack Obama and John McCain thrash it out over how they would deal with Iran, voices from inside Iran are weighing in with an unusual message: If the United States strikes hard and fast, we will support you.
Emissaries from inside Iran have been meeting with Iranian exiles in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere in recent weeks to deliver this provocative message, which they claim comes from pro-U.S. dissidents at the upper-most levels of the regime.
Were any of them named Chalabi? And has anyone checked to see what Judy Miller has to say about this?
We’ll Be Greeted as Liberators, 2008 EditionPost + Comments (50)
This post is in: Open Threads
Wishing Ted Kennedy the very best in a very difficult situation – a malignant brain tumor (glioma) and possibly less than a year to live.
The diagnosis cast a pall over Capitol Hill, where the Massachusetts Democrat has served since 1962.
“All of the oxygen went out of the room,” when the news broke, said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who called Kennedy “a mentor.”
Some senators later wept as they publicly considered the potential mortality of a man who was at the center of nearly a half-century of some of the nation’s most important legislative issues.
Man, that sucks… big time.
by John Cole| 55 Comments
This post is in: Excellent Links, Humorous, General Stupidity
Via Gizmodo, this video of a remote control flying penis interrupting a Gary Kasparov speech:
I don’t even have anything clever to say.
The Weirdest Damned Thing You May Ever SeePost + Comments (55)
This post is in: Election 2008, I Can No Longer Rationally Discuss The Clinton Campaign, Assholes, Outrage
Lisa Caputo, one of the Clinton hacks on MSNBC tonight, just claimed (fraudulently) that Hillary had the popular vote but was behind in the delegate math, and that this felt like “Al Gore in 2000 when it had to go to the Supreme Court.”
Matthews, apparently still high from the hair dye he used last week to turn his hair tomato red, did not correct her, as Clinton is only ahead in the popular vote if you include the vote tallies from the non-elections in Michigan and Florida and do not count the vote in caucus states. These fucking hacks will say anything.
The pause in Clinton bashing is officially over. Have at it. If they feel free to peddle this divisive bullshit, to hell with being nice back. I have had enough of this Rovian crap.
*** Update ***
Via the comments:
Bingo. According to the RCP source most Clinton supporters use. The only metric she can be ahead in is with not counting IA, NV, ME, WA , and counting FL and MI while giving Obama 0 votes in MI. And even with that Aunt Annie style twist on the numbers Clinton is still only +26,967.
There is a word for this. It is called LYING.
*** Update #2 ***
Yep, called that. Obama released his April numbers today to rain on Hillary’s Kentucky Fried parade:
News has learned that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., hauled in $31.9 million in April (including $600,000 for the general election) to continue his battle for the Democratic nomination against Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. Two hundred thousand new donors joined Obama’s effort last month.
Obama has an mighty $37.3 million on hand with $9.2 million tucked away for the general election.
Camp Obama proves (again) that big money comes in small packages. It’s been a pattern since last year but the numbers are still impressive: 1.475 million total donors overall making 2.93 million contributions. The average contribution is $91.
The clicks come in small waves: 94% of the contributions to Obama’s effort were under $200, 93% of contributions were $100 or less, 77% were $50 or less, and 52% were $25 or less.
Hillary raised somewhere between ten and 20 million.
I thought they would release them today. Face it- Obama’s campaign is good.
*** Update #3 ***
Commenters rain on my self-congratulatory parade:
Obama’s campaign is good. But they had to release the numbers today. The 20th of the month is the FEC deadline.
The strategy was in not releasing them earlier, so that when Clinton released her weaker numbers today, it would be a sharper contrast.
Sometimes having a comments section sucks.
*** Update #4 ***
Howard Fineman gave the most amazing analysis just a moment ago, which literally was “Everyone knows Obama has won, and it is only a matter of finding a way to let Clinton wrap it up without blowing up the party.”
In other words, my hostage metaphor remains accurate. Knowing the Clintons, they will probably keep fighting on, spreading bullshit, and whipping their supporters in a froth because, let’s face it. This is all about them.
*** Update #5 ***
Line of the night to Ron Reagan- “If Appalachia was a country, Hillary Clinton could be President.”
The best thing about this After Hours is that everyone wants to just SCREAM when the Clinton surrogate brings up the nonsense about the popular vote. They are quite literally laughing at the Clinton campaign now, which is a shame, because when you look back at the nomination a lot of people HAVE in fact voted for Hillary. But to do this popular vote nonsense when it is delegates that matter and to include the Michigan and Florida popular vote and not from the caucus states is just maddening. Even the pundits can’t take it anymore.
AWESOME NEW CLINTONIAN BULLSHIT- BREAKING FASTPost + Comments (213)
This post is in: Election 2008, Previous Site Maintenance
I will be away for a few hours, so here is your primary open thread.
I am gonna go ahead and call Kentucky for Clinton.
by John Cole| 57 Comments
This post is in: Election 2008, Media, Outrage
Last night on Hardball, this outrage:
MATTHEWS: We’re back with the round table for more of the politics fix. I want to go to Tucker for, you know, what might be the Kentucky Derby tomorrow night. If tomorrow night, the Barack people announce that on their tote board, and Tim Russert and Chuck Todd and everybody else comes out, objectively, and points out that now we have reached an end of part of this process; the elected delegates, the pledged delegates, have now given a majority of their support to Barack Obama. Henceforth, nothing can happen, really, to stop him from winning the most elected delegates. The only thing that can give this now to Hillary Clinton or someone else is the decision of the unelected delegates, the super delegates.
***MATTHEWS: Spring those elected delegates, even, that they’ll switch even if something horrendous happens. So, she stays in it how long, based on that theory?
CARLSON: Why not till South Dakota, June 3? It doesn’t hurt her.
MATTHEWS: Jim, three months of opportunity for something to go hellaciously wrong for Barack Obama and she’s sitting there as the default.
CARROLL: I think it’s a bad strategy. Other campaigns have been built on pretty thin gruel like that.MATTHEWS: Take the vice presidential nomination and hope that some time between now and November something goes wrong.
CARROLL: I don’t want to go near that.
BERNARD: Hillary Clinton is going to become the Ron Paul of the Democratic party. There’s no way the super delegates can take this away from Barack Obama. There will be race riots in the streets if he wins enough super delegates —
And then they all laugh, except for Tucker, who was as shocked as I was when I saw it. It was kind of disgusting, but what I have grown used to this primary, which has turned into little more than identity politics at its worst.
Look- it is inconceivable to me that the super delegates would overturn the pledged delegates and the popular vote (as always, spare me the Michigan and Florida bullshit, Hillary supporters) at this point, but the implied threat of race riots is nauseating. Not only does it ignore the fact that African-Americans initially supported Hillary, but it suggests that the African-American community is not sophisticated enough to deal with political disappointment other than to riot in the streets. I have stated in the past I would not be surprised if a significant portion of the black electorate would be turned off so much by the supers handing this to Hillary that it would suppress the vote (and hurt Democrats for years in the future), but those are political choices and political consequences. Implying the threat of race riots is taking things to a whole new level of ugly. It was a shameful, unhelpful comment, and just as bad (I would argue worse) as the current threats by some women to not vote or to vote for McCain simply because the woman lost.
Screw the lawyers. First, kill all the pundits.