Commentary (and rants) on national and local politics.
It’s 3 a.m., and your children are safe and asleep. But there’s a phone in the White House, and it’s ringing. The mother of one of the nearly 4,000 soldiers who have died fighting in Iraq is on the other end of the line. Who do you want to answer that call?
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou4JnWQsxKw] Because in the end, it's all about getting a Democrat Clinton back in the White House, right? I'm not terribly confident that this thing is going to end tomorrow night, but I'm more and more confident that the Democrats are going to find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory yet again. On a related note, I think Bloomberg may have taken his cards off of the table a week too soon and perhaps not by accident, considering Mr. Non-Partisan's recent $500k donation to the NY G.O.P. to help Republicans hold on to their tenuous control of the State Senate…
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZW0m2nWB_M]
Obama needs to work this into every one of his speeches between now and Tuesday!
A Keith Olbermann flashback offers some background:
In last night's debate, Obama put it this way: "The question is who's making the decision initially to drive the bus into the ditch. The fact is that Senator Clinton often says that she is ready on day one, but in fact she was ready to give in to George Bush on day one on this critical issue." And to John McCain today, he offered this: "John McCain may like to say he wants to follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of Hell, but so far all he’s done is follow George Bush into a misguided war in Iraq."…
[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=nJkU1e-_r3w]
The lowlight of tonight’s debate was, without question I think, when Tim Russert referenced Louis Farrakhan’s “endorsement” of Barack Obama this past weekend, asking if he accepted his support, and after Obama clearly and completely denounced Farrakhan’s past statements about Jews and Judaism as “unacceptable and reprehensible” and defended his own record on Jewish issues and U.S.-Israel relations, Hillary Clinton managed to sink beneath her husband’s worst “dogwhistle” moments in South Carolina and finally and effectively guarantee that I will never cast a vote for her ever again, in any election of any kind.
Referencing her first Senate run in 2000, she jumped into the discussion just as it seemed to be ending, noting with a straight face that she had “faced a similar situation” and, for a moment, I thought maybe she was going to do the honorable thing and defend Obama against a valid question that Russert was belaboring after 5 minutes, but instead she decides to attempt to score a cheap point by playing semantics:
“One of the parties at the time, the Independence Party, was under the control of people who were anti-semitic, anti-Israel, and I made it very clear I did not want their support, I rejected it. I thought it was more important to stand on principle…
You asked specifically if he would reject it and there’s a difference between denouncing and rejecting. I just think we’ve got to be even stronger.”
(Transcription via Ben Smith)
Mind you, the Independence Party carries very little weight in a statewide race here in New York and, once Rudy Giuliani was forced to drop out because of his battle with prostate cancer, Clinton coasted to a relatively easy victory, so claiming that her rejection of their support was some principled stand as opposed to little more than a grandstanding pander bear moment for the Jewish community is simply disingenuous. Further, equating the formal support of a political party, no matter how small, with that of a singular, though controversial, individual is extremely disingenuous.
I’m flying down to Virginia tomorrow morning for a long weekend and will be avoiding certain parts of the internet (guess which?) as much as possible while I’m there. Here’s some several-times-daily sites I’ll be missing out on that I highly recommend you bookmark and check regularly:
Andrew Sullivan: My favorite blog of them all, hands-down, Sullivan is on vacation but has a few guest bloggers filling in who are doing good work in his absence. Hilzoy’s “Dear Chris Matthews: Please Do Your Job” is a must-read for those sick and tired of the “Obama’s inexperienced” meme.
First Read: MSNBC is my cable news network of choice as I find them to offer, relatively speaking, the most balanced election coverage and least overtly biased commentators, particularly Keith Olbermann, Mika Brzezinski, Chuck Todd, Rachel Maddow, and, believe it or not, Joe Scarborough. Their political blog often has solid analysis and interesting nuggets from the campaign trail and doesn’t feel the need to post about every single non-story that comes up throughout the day.
[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=NGPwXYAmZzQ] "If you believe in the seamless mutuality of government and big business, come out and say it. There is a dictionary definition; one word that describes that toxic blend. You're a fascist! Get them to print you a t-shirt with 'Fascist' on it!" Keith Olbermann's latest Special Comment nails President Bush to the wall, taking him to task on playing the "fear card" (again) and the civil rights fiasco that is the FISA bill. For all of the over-the-top bluff and bluster of most political pundits, I like that Olbermann saves his righteous indignation for key moments like this,…