Hillary Endorses

Almost tough to watch... but she gave him a full throated endorsement.



Any other sports fans out there feel like the Democratic primary was the equivalent of some recent ALCS or Western Conference Finals (before this year)? I mean it seems like the main event is a forgone conclusion. Like John McCain spent his season playing against some very inferior competition.

Huff-Po's Edsall: Clinton's Undoing

Forty years ago, the Democratic party was split between Hubert Humphrey and Bobby Kennedy, as they tried to find a presidential challenger to Richard Nixon. The parallels between 1968 and 2008 are well- documented and genuine. However, the '68 nominating contest was unlike 2008's in a most important respect. Back then, will of the Democratic masses mattered less in choosing a candidate than did the judgment and alliances of a few well-positioned elites within the party, who presided over smoke- filled rooms and convention floor fights before tabbing a winner.

One such man was Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, who was fiercly anti- Kennedy, and hosted the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Of course, Kennedy never made it to that convention, but many of his followers did, protesting the war, and the Kennedy and Martin Luther King assassinations outside until Daley used harsh, violent means to suppress them.

It was under that shadow that the McGovern Commission was born, charged to redo the nominating process, and put the power in the people's hands. That commission created the caucus process we know today. The organizers knew not as many people would participate in a caucus as pull a lever in a primary, but they wanted to return to a time of more active democracy. It was about the kind of participation.

One of the organizers of the '72 commission was a young man named Harold Ickes, who fought for the changes as a way to enfranchise blacks, Hispanics, women and regular folks in general. Ickes would go on to become a party bigwig and run Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign. The Huffington Post's Tom Edsall has a great article on how Obama would come to benefit immensely from these changes, and how Clinton would be undone by, as much as anything, a lack of appreciation for the system Ickes helped devise so long ago.

Edsall points out some crazy numbers that make one question the wisdom the current system, which is split between caucuses and primaries and always apportions votes according to percentage received:

"As of June 2, according to RealClearPolitics, Obama had a 157 delegate vote lead over Clinton, 2072 to 1915.

In the 14 states that picked some or all of their delegates through caucus systems this year, Obama won 400 delegates to Clinton's 193, a 207 delegate advantage that more than accounts for his overall delegate lead.

An analysis (pdf) published on TalkLeft found that total Democratic voter participation in the caucus states amounted to 1.1 million people, compared to the 32.4 million voters in Democratic primaries, a ratio of 30 to one. Caucus participants made up 3.2 percent of the total of 33.5 million primary voters and caucus goers combined.

In contrast to the relatively close results in most primary states, Obama won many of the caucus states by huge margins, often substantially exceeding 60 percent. As a consequence, he piled up large numbers of delegates in the relatively low turnout contests.

The TalkLeft analysis noted that Clinton won 11 more delegates than Obama in the New Jersey primary, which she won by 112,128 votes, while Obama won 12 more delegates than Clinton in the Idaho caucuses which he won by 13,225 votes. Similarly, Clinton netted 12 delegates by winning the Pennsylvania primary by 214,115 votes, while Obama came out ahead by 14 delegates by winning the Kansas caucuses by 17,710 votes."

Culmination & Coronation- Picture of the Day 6/4

With Barack Obama's victory in Montana and newfound support among dozens of superdelegates, he has clinched the Democratic Party's nomination for president in 2008.



His victory speech from last night:



CNN and MSNBC call the race, and officially acknowledge Sen. Obama as his party's presumptive nominee:



Check back in the near future for full analysis on the upcoming election between John McCain and Barack Obama.

Hillary Supporters

I had to post this. Many people have probably seen this but when i saw it i didn't know what to say. Keep your ears open for this little gem "an inadequate black man". What did this woman think would happen?

VF: The Heartbreak Campaign

The June issue of Vanity Fair has an excerpt from an upcoming book about Robert F. Kennedy's campaign for president, which ended with his assassination 40 years ago Thursday. It's a must-read (you can find it here) that details RFK's depression after his brother's death, trepidation about challenging a sitting president (he feared people would view it as a mere extension of the Kennedy/ Johnson feud), and ultimate peace in himself and his decision to run.

The sense of unabashed possibility brought by RFK's candidacy walked alongside looming tragedy during his 82- day campaign; it was a palpable unease that Bobby could meet the same fate as his brother. When Kennedy announced in March, the country was simmering. By year's end, after his assassination and that of Martin Luther King, the Tet Offensive and massive race riots, it was at full boil.

Ultimately, Bobby was enveloped and destroyed by the madness of the times. It was an outcome some saw coming:

"Before returning to the Kansas City airport, the Kennedy press corps stopped for a quick restaurant meal. Jimmy Breslin [of the NY Post] asked a table of reporters, 'Do you think this guy has the stuff to go all the way?'

'Yes, of course he has the stuff to go all the way,' John L. Lindsay replied. 'But he's not going to go all the way, and the reason is that someone is going to shoot him. I know it and you know it, just as sure as we're sitting here somebody is going to shoot him. He's out there now, waiting for him... And, please God, I don't know if we'll have a country after it.'

There was a stunned silence. Then, one by one, the other reporters agreed, but none asked the most heartbreaking question: Did Kennedy himself know it?"

Plea to Olbermann

Not long ago, I posted some criticism of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. I used to love Olbermann, but he jumped the shark when he got all self- important and self- promoting, and has been reduced to something of a hack with his outright campaigning for Barack Obama during his show Countdown and on campaign coverage.

Well, it seems I have an ally in Time's James Poniewozik. After Olbermann's latest over-the-top "special comment," in which he ripped Hillary Clinton's comments that alluded to the RFK assassination.

As the Huffington Post quoted:

"Even if we concede his argument--that Clinton was at best callously and at worst intentionally suggesting she should stay in the race because Obama might be killed--every time he turns up the volume to 11 like this lately, he sounds like just another of the cable gasbags he used to be a corrective to."

(Maybe Keith is down because, as Gawker reports, he's having some tax return problems.)

So this is a plea for Keith to come back to me, to all of us. Poniewozik writes that Olbermann can teach viewers like me a valuable lesson:

"... maybe the experience of being annoyed by someone you used to constantly agree with could teach political audiences something about how they have appeared all along to their adversaries... is it really they who've changed? Or are they simply less charming when they're not confirming your comfortable beliefs?"

I don't know or care. Keith needs to regain just a little credibility, maybe tone it down a little bit, even against the Bush administration. Obama's great-- we get it, Clinton's conniving-- I know. But it's gotten tired. And we sorely miss his astute, inspired and not-so obvious commentary.

Quote of the Day 5/ 30

"Scott McClellan says the president lied to get us into Iraq. That took balls, Scott... 5 years ago."

- Stephen Colbert

Picture of the Day 5/30

President Bush gave his final commencement address as Commander-in-Chief to the Air Force Academy. He gave a great speech (I'm sure) and then proceeded to chest bump and flex (not pictured) with some recent grads.

On McCain's Remarkable Buttocks

Check bellow and you'll see that Barack Obama released his medical records yesterday (Thursday afternoon). That was in response to John McCain doing the same with 8 years (1200 pages worth) of his records on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend (for 3 hours).

Here was Jon Stewart's (absolutely hilarious) take:

Scotty Shines a Light

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan has been roundly criticized recently by the Bush administration for his new book (Karl Rove even likened him to "a liberal blogger").

You remember McClellen, he was the pudgy, beta- male that briefed the press early in the Iraq war and who (unwittingly, it would seem) lied about Karl Rove and Scooter Libby's involvement in the Valerie Plame debacle. He was pretty much a source of White House disinformation for a couple of years.

A Bush guy from Texas, McClellan came to DC under-prepared and ill-equipped to deal with the tremendous pressure of entrenched Washington neo-cons with their own agenda-- not unlike the president himself.

In his memoir, What Happened, McClellan puts a startlingly fine point on what most of us already know: The administration manipulated the facts surrounding Iraq, terrorism and WMD to get Americans to back a war under false pretenses.

McClellan was such an ardent "Bushie" that his words are even more striking than former administration and military officials that have also spoken out.

Watch McClellan's amazing interview with Today's Meredith Viera, where he details the personal side and professional roles of the president, Vice President Cheney, Secretaries Condi Rice and Don Rumsfeld--

Obama's Health Records Released

Barack Obama's long-time physician released his medical records, and proclaimed the Illinois senator "in excellent health."

"Senator Barack Obama is in overall good physical and mental health needed to maintain the resiliency required in the Office of President," Dr. David Scheiner wrote.

Obama's biggest problems are a history of smoking (he's chewing Nicorette to try and quit again) and a family history of cancer.

HIllary's Montana Ad

Hillary Clinton is still running for president, here's her first TV ad for the June 3 Montana primary.

Mission to Mars

NASA's Phoenix has sent pictures back from its Mars mission. Below is a video compilation of some amazing footage of the red planet. The probe touched down near one of Mars' poles, and will help discover if Mars' icy plains could have supported life. They are the first ever images of their kind.

The Whole World is Watching

Here's a brief clip from the NY Times with an international take on the US presidential election.

Every man's fantasy-- Pic of the Day 5/26

A Texas court decided that the state overstepped its bounds in removing children from their parents' (fashion- forward) polygamist sect. The court said the state failed to prove the children were in "imminent danger."

They might not have seen this pic...


... I think the one in the purple is actually an ex girlfriend of mine. We dated for a while, but then she told me she wanted to see other people, lots of other people....

(it took me 12 hours to come up with that joke)

Ellen & McCain go at it

John McCain went on the Ellen Degeneres' show, and Ellen addressed the "elephant in the room" by bringing up gay marriage. They had a strained, but cordial debate.

McCain is being smart by trying to maintain his independent appeal. He knows that '08 is the Democrats' year. They're going to increase their majorities in the House and Senate no matter what, he wants to be a candidate voters can pull a lever for, even while voting Democratic down the rest of the ticket.

Quote of the Day 5/21

"It was in this great state where we took the first steps of an unlikely journey to change America. The skeptics predicted we wouldn't get very far. The cynics dismissed us as a lot of hype and a little too much hope. And by the fall, the pundits in Washington had all but counted us out. But the people of Iowa had a different idea..."

- Presumptive Democratic Nominee Barack Obama giving a speech in Iowa on the night he secured a majority of the elected- delegates for the primaries.

According to CNN, Obama's five delegates from his crushing defeat in Kentucky give him 1627 of the total 3253, a majority. He is unlikely to reach the clinching 2025 without help from superdelegates.

Obama' s campaign really took off in Iowa, where a very young and predominantly white electorate gave his candidacy a sense of possibility and legitimacy. Before that, he even trailed among African- Americans, among whom he now leads at about 9:1.

Back in the Hawkeye State, Obama looked toward his general election showdown with Sen. John McCain, and said the Republican primary was a bunch of guys trying to "Out- Bush" one another, and that McCain won.

Meanwhile, he commended Sen. Clinton, and his campaign manager, David Axelrod wouldn't admit that the race is over. Of the secured majority he said, "It's an important milestone," but not the end of the race.

There Can Only Be One

Saturday Night Live put a political spin on the NBA playoff ads that have been airing this spring...

Here's an example of the real thing:



And SNL's:

Olbermann to Bush: Shut the Hell Up!

Keith Olbermann absolutely flew off the handle the other night. He used his closing comments to eviscerate the president for his insensitivity, dishonesty and callousness.



I've been critical of Olbermann on this site before. Parts of this clip bother me, I still think he's quite full of himself. But I respect his passion and sincerity.

As for what he says, I believe that he is factually correct. Bush was led all too happily down a path to unnecessary war by dishonest men like Ahmed Chalabi, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and other neo- cons. That's what happened.

They cooked evidence, twisted arms, intimidated, fabricated and scared us into Iraq. What's even worse is they had zero discernible plan for the aftermath, and were incompetent at every step of the way in building one as war unfolded.

One more thing...

In the clip in the post below, Chris Matthews takes a Righ- Wing radio host to task for comparing Barack Obama to Neville Chamberlain, but having no clue about Chamberlain's role in history. Watch it below, and read the post (if you want).

Toward the end, a thoroughly frustrated Matthews, who, if you've read any of his books, is a genuine history buff, calls James "a blank slate." He says, "This is pathetic... he's as bad as the White House press secretary who didn't know what the Cuban Missile Crisis was."

That's a reference to Press Secretary Dana Perino who admitted on NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me that she had no idea about that moment in American history.