Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

Let there be snark.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Second rate reporter says what?

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

We will not go back.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

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Archives for 2008

More Idiocy From the Clinton Campaign

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Via TPM, Hillary:

We were both asked some pretty tough questions. That’s part of what happens in a debate and a campaign. And I know he spent all day yesterday complaining about the hard questions he was asked.

But you know, being asked tough questions in a debate is nothing like the pressures you face inside the White House. And in fact when the going gets tough you can’t just walk away…

I think we need a president who can take whatever comes your way.

I willingly concede that should we have a national crisis in which the President is faced with the threat of hundreds of reporters questioning his/her use of lapel pins, then Hillary is who I want to confront that problem.

For every other crisis, I choose Obama. Hillary is turning into a Saturday Night Live routine.

By the way, does some enterprising reader with video editing skills want to go through all of the Clinton campaign whining about the media and splice it all together in one montage. I would recommend starting with the kvetch about being asked questions first in the debate and go from there. Have fun.

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Get Involved

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Ben Smith of the Politico (via):

The ABC debate, according to the network, got 10.7 viewers.

It also triggered the most furious outrage I’ve seen from the huge, and growing, Obama activist base, which in this case merged with the liberal Netroots — which aren’t always on the same page — to generate a volume of complaints about the first 45-minutes of questioning that are pretty impossible to miss.

It’s just a small glimpse, I think, of the level of heat the media is going to take in the general election, and John McCain doesn’t seem to have any equivalent.

Did you forget to call ABC today? I bet the lines won’t be as busy.

(212)-456-7777

Polite but pissed always works better than profanity. It can’t hurt to remind ABC News about their Path to 9/11 probation.

***Update***

From the comments it sounds as though ABC has made it substantially harder to get through on their main feedback line. If that’s how they want to play it, here are some alternative contacts provided by a helpful commenter.

BC NEW YORK NEWSROOM: (212) 456-5100 [email protected] Newsroom Fax Machine 212.456.5150

Peter Salinger (THE MAN IN CHARGE OF ELECTION COVERAGE) Director, Special Events & Sports 212.456.5105 [email protected]

Cristi LandesManager, Programming 212.456.5107 [email protected]

Wayne Fisk Director, Programming 212.456.5327 [email protected]

Jeff Fitzgerald Executive Director, Operations 212.456.5554 [email protected]

Heidi Oringer Executive Director, Entertainment 212.456.5541 [email protected]

Jon Newman News Coverage 212.456.5100 [email protected]

Joyce Alcantara Assignment Manager 212.456.5106 [email protected]

Jim Kane Deputy D.C. Bureau Chief 212.222. 6604 [email protected]

Andrew Kalb Executive Director, Programming 05.567.2269 [email protected]

Robert Garcia Executive Director, News & Sports 212.456.5103 [email protected]

Have fun.

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Breaking News: The Pentagon Hates America

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A harsh assessment from the National Defense University:

The war in Iraq has become “a major debacle” and the outcome “is in doubt” despite improvements in security from the buildup in U.S. forces, according to a highly critical study published Thursday by the Pentagon’s premier military educational institute.

The report released by the National Defense University raises fresh doubts about President Bush’s projections of a U.S. victory in Iraq just a week after Bush announced that he was suspending U.S. troop reductions.

The report carries considerable weight because it was written by Joseph Collins, a former senior Pentagon official, and was based in part on interviews with other former senior defense and intelligence officials who played roles in prewar preparations.

It was published by the university’s National Institute for Strategic Studies, a Defense Department research center.

“Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle,” says the report’s opening line.

Enough about the Iraq thing. Does Joseph Collins wear flag lapel pins? And while we are at it, place your bets on who will be the first to call the National Defense University a rogue leftist outfit that just has BDS.

In all seriousness, I know what the response will be, and it will probably come from the Weekly Standard or another arm of the neo-con wing of the GOP- this is all pushback from the bloated fiefdoms within the Pentagon who wish to discredit Rumsfeld’s leaner military approach. Or something like that. And, in fairness, there is some element of that in the report (PDF). That doesn’t take away from the overall assessment, though, and that is that Iraq is and will most likely remain a disaster (pay special attention to the Errors in decisionmaking and execution starting on page 16).

*** Update ***

Joe Collins says the report is being mis-characterized. Again, I suggest you read it for yourself (.pdf), as it is not very long.

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I Don’t Buy It

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I just don’t buy these polls:

New York Democrat Hillary Clinton had a good day in the Newsmax/Zogby daily tracking poll ahead of Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary, following a strong debate performance in Philadelphia Wednesday night, and now holds a 47% to 43% advantage over Barack Obama of Illinois.

The two-day tracking survey, which was conducted April 16-17, 2008, showed that 10% were either undecided or supported someone else.

The telephone survey, conducted using live operators working out of Zogby’s on-site call center in Upstate New York, included 602 likely Democratic primary voters in Pennsylvania. It carries a margin of error of +/- 4.1 percentage points.

The race appears stable, as Clinton retained a sizable lead in western Pennsylvania, including Pittsburgh, while Obama continues to lead by a large percentage in eastern Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia. In the central part of the state, including the state capital of Harrisburg, Clinton leads by eight points.

I have no analysis or anything really other than my gut (and this being a blog, what else do I need!), but I just do not think the race can be that close. It would really, really surprise me if it is that close, and I fully expect a Clinton win by anywhere from 6-12 points. I will be glad to be wrong, but I just think a four point race is unrealistic.

Not that any of it matters anyway, because even if Clinton loses PA, let alone win by close to double-digits, the race will go on, even if the delegate math does not get any better for her.

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Another Judas

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This time, Robert Reich:

So what’s changed? I asked Reich.

“I saw the ads” — the negative man-on-street commercials that the Clinton campaign put up in Pennsylvania in the wake of Obama’s bitter/cling comments a week ago — “and I was appalled, frankly. I thought it represented the nadir of mean-spirited, negative politics. And also of the politics of distraction, of gotcha politics. It’s the worst of all worlds. We have three terrible traditions that we’ve developed in American campaigns. One is outright meanness and negativity. The second is taking out of context something your opponent said, maybe inartfully, and blowing it up into something your opponent doesn’t possibly believe and doesn’t possibly represent. And third is a kind of tradition of distraction, of getting off the big subject with sideshows that have nothing to do with what matters. And these three aspects of the old politics I’ve seen growing in Hillary’s campaign. And I’ve come to the point, after seeing those ads, where I can’t in good conscience not say out loud what I believe about who should be president. Those ads are nothing but Republicanism. They’re lending legitimacy to a Republican message that’s wrong to begin with, and they harken back to the past 20 years of demagoguery on guns and religion. It’s old politics at its worst — and old Republican politics, not even old Democratic politics. It’s just so deeply cynical.”

The Clinton campaign will, no doubt, shrug off the Reich endorsement of Obama.

Traitor.

*** Update ***

The endorsement is up.

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Give Her Another Friedman Unit

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I have noted before the similarities between the Clinton campaign and our excellent adventure in Iraq, and as predicted, Hillary’s slash and burn campaign to try and and woo the supers is turning out to be epic fail:

Yet despite giving it her best shot in what might have been their final debate, interviews on Thursday with a cross-section of these superdelegates — members of Congress, elected officials and party leaders — showed that none had been persuaded much by her attacks on Mr. Obama’s strength as a potential Democratic nominee, his recent gaffes and his relationships with his former pastor and with a onetime member of the Weather Underground.

In fact, the Obama campaign announced endorsements from two more superdelegates on Thursday, after rolling out three on Wednesday and two others since late last week in what appeared to be a carefully orchestrated show of strength before Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary. Obama advisers said that one of the pickups on Thursday, Councilman Harry Thomas Jr. of the District of Columbia, had initially favored Mrs. Clinton, but Clinton advisers denied that, and a Thomas aide said he had been neutral before Thursday.

This will all soon be over and we can group hug.

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