Joe Scarborough is a sexist, homophobic moron

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Via Media Matters:

During the March 31 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Willie Geist repeatedly mocked Sen. Barack Obama's bowling performance -- which Scarborough called "dainty" -- at a March 29 campaign stop at Pleasant Valley Lanes in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Deriding Obama's score, he said: "You know Willie, the thing is, Americans want their president, if it's a man, to be a real man." Scarborough added, "You get 150, you're a man, or a good woman," to which Geist replied, "Out of my president, I want a 150, at least."

Later in the show, after NBC political analyst Harold Ford Jr. said that Obama's bowling showed a "humble" and "human" side to him, Scarborough replied, "A very human side? A prissy side."

Right, because bowling is the true test not just of a president but of a man.

(And because all-American guys like Scarborough (Chris Matthews is another one) want a president on whom they can have a full-out man-crush.)

Note the language here. Obama was "dainty" and "prissy," and certainly not "a man." In other words, he was feminine. More to the point, he was gay. This is the language of the right, the "denigration of the female" (as our new contributor LindaBeth put it in a brilliant post a couple of months ago on the use of the word "pussy"). The right uses it to denigrate its political opponents, and they are using it, and will continue to use it, against Obama. The race card will be played, too -- and, make no mistake about it, appeals to racism still work -- but race as a political weapon is problematic and can only be used covertly, directed at specific audiences under the radar of the mainstream media. Sexism is another matter, especially sexism tinged with homophobia, which is what Scarborough's comments were all about. (Note that scoring a 150 makes you either a man or a good woman. This is how sexists like Scarborough view women, with utter condescension: a good woman is just an average man.)

So expect more of this -- much more. It will be a persistent line of attack on Obama.

The right, after all, likes leaders like Bush, jockish and "manly," good at bowling and throwing out ceremonial first pitches and swilling beer. Despite his age, McCain fits in there nicely. As for Obama, well, he may be in a great shape, and he may be good at, you know, real sports (i.e., not bowling), but he's a bit too brainy and well-spoken for the right's liking. So why not use any and every occasion to question his manhood, liken him to a woman, and essentially call him a faggot?

It's what plays with the Republican base. Hey, it's what plays with Republicans generally.

And it's what provides ample cover for the man-crushing Joe Scarboroughs of the world.

Clinton surrogate Ed Rendell (hearts) Fox News

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Here's the latest Clintonian trend: suck up to the right-wing media. As if it wasn't enough that Hillary herself cozied up to Dick Scaife (and was cozied back), top Clinton surrogate Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania -- he who thinks whites may not be ready for a black president -- thinks the world of Fox News, claiming it is truly the fairest and most balanced of them all:

I think during this entire primary coverage, starting in Iowa and up to the present -- FOX has done the fairest job, and remained the most objective of all the cable networks. You hate both of our candidates. No, I'm only kidding. But you actually have done a very balanced job of reporting the news, and some of the other stations are just caught up with Senator Obama, who is a great guy, but Senator Obama can do no wrong, and Senator Clinton can do no right.

So he said yesterday on Fox & Friends (via The Politico).

I'll let Steve Benen translate: "Rendell's argument seemed to be that Fox News is more negative towards Obama than the credible cable news networks, which therefore makes Fox News "fair," "objective," and "balanced."

Now, Hillary herself may not believe this -- Steve thinks not, and he's probably right. But the fact is, one of her key surrogates -- an all-important Pennsylvania surrogate with national standing -- said it (and may think it, who knows?). And, of course, what he said was both biased and stupid. Biased because he equates objectivity with attacking Obama and stupid because everyone knows Fox News isn't at all fair or balanced.

Now, in praising Fox News, Rendell makes Hillary look bad and gives the Republicans ammunition and immunity against Obama (as Will Bunch suggests). Of course, the Clinton campaign has given a great deal of anti-Obama ammunition to the Republicans in recent weeks -- notably by questioning Obama's experience and preparedness, but also by hurling the "kitchen sink" at him -- but, in this case, should Hillary be held responsible for the biases and stupidities of her surrogate? Hard to say, but I would say yes, to a point. A campaign is more than the candidate, after all, and these surrogates are sent out to speak out on behalf of the candidate.

Obama took responsibility for Samantha Power, dismissing her shortly after her "monster" remark, whereas Hillary hardly took any responsibility at all, and only belatedly, for Geraldine Ferraro. Ferraro may or may not have been speaking only for herself, but she may very well have been voicing an opinion held by much of the Clinton campaign, namely, that Obama has only been successful because of his race. Similarly, Rendell may very well have been voicing a popular opinion in the Clinton campaign, namely, that the media establishment is propping up Obama and knocking down Hillary.

I suspect that Ferraro was speaking for herself more than Rendell was and that Rendell was voicing an opinion that is not just popular but widely shared in the Clinton campaign. Think back to Hillary's critique of Saturday Night Live. Indeed, the view of the media as supporting Obama over Hillary is a popular one among Hillary supporters -- see Taylor Marsh and TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat, for example, both of whom, believe it or not, argue that Rendell is right.

Yes, this is what it has come to, the Clinton campaign -- Hillary herself, her surrogates, her supporters -- cozying up to the vast right-wing conspiracy, as Hillary once called it, and praising Fox News.

Think this is an April Fool's joke? Think again.

Sada nude showing her nipples and ass

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Some slaps for his taps

By J. Thomas Duffy

Boy, it's been Smackdown City lately.

The Garlic pointed out last week the much-deserved putdowns of Vice President Dick Cheney and the Other Senator from Connecticut, Joe Lieberman.

Now, a most delicious upbraiding comes along, courtesy of Patricia Ward Kelly, the widow of the great Gene Kelly, via Nicole Belle over at Crooks and Liars.

The Backstory

You remember, a few weeks ago, when Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain was anointed the nominee of the Republican Party, and was to be officially dubbed it with the sword-tap-to-the-shoulder by The Commander Guy at the Bush Grindhouse.

However, Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny Boy was running late (which may be the reason the cuisine for this grand occasion was hot dogs), leaving The Commander Guy, dangerously so, with free time on his hands.

So, Flightsuit Man starts jabbing with the assembled media and, suddenly, begins an awkward attempt at a soft-shoe tap routine.

Ha, Ha, Ha ... The President thinks he's a tap dancer ...

It was one of those things that the MSM finds so charming, catnip to the managing editors, meaning, it got heavy play on the evening news, cable news, et al.

Subsequently, Maureen Dowd writes a column, and serves up this:

The dollar’s crumpling, the recession’s thundering, the Dow’s bungee-jumping and the world’s disapproving, yet George Bush has turned into Gene Kelly, tap dancing and singing in a one-man review called “The Most Happy Fella.”

Well, Mrs. Kelly didn't find much humor in it

None, in fact:

Surely it must have been a slip for Maureen Dowd to align the artistry of my late husband, Gene Kelly, with the president's clumsy performances. To suggest that "George Bush has turned into Gene Kelly" represents not only an implausible transformation but a considerable slight. If Gene were in a grave, he would have turned over in it.

When Gene was compared to the grace and agility of Jack Dempsey, Wayne Gretzky and Willie Mays, he was delighted. But to be linked with a clunker — particularly one he would consider inept and demoralizing — would have sent him reeling.

Graduated with a degree in economics from Pitt, Gene was not only a gifted dancer, director and choreographer, he was also a most civilized man. He spoke multiple languages; wrote poetry; studied history; understood the projections of Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes. He did the Sunday Times crossword in ink. Exceedingly articulate, Gene often conveyed more through movement than others manage with words.

Sadly, President Bush fails to communicate meaningfully with either. For George Bush to become Gene Kelly would require impossible leaps in creativity, erudition and humility.

Patricia Ward Kelly
Los Angeles, March 16, 2008

Ouch!

That one has to leave some palm prints on the ol' kisser.

Maybe the Bush Grindhouse, to help him pay for the new digs, will put out a call to Karl Rove, have him work up some kind of smear campaign to get back at Mrs. Kelly.

Bonus Taps

There was a great documentary back in the late 1970s (1979), titled No Maps on My Taps. Direct Cinema Limited states: "This spirited film offers unique insight into jazz tap dancing as an indigenous art form. The spirit of tap in its heyday, shown in rare photographs and Hollywood film clips of the 1930s provides a backdrop for intimate portraits of three surviving 'hoofers.' Sandman Sims, Chuck Green and Bunny Briggs tell the story of tap as an expression of black heritage and culture. For all dance aficionados, NO MAPS ON MY TAPS is an indispensable historical record of this distinctly American art form."

Chuck Green "Caravan" -- Chuck Green in a film called "No Maps On My Taps" doing a song called Caravan

Sandman Sims

PORTRAIT OF THE SANDMAN























(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

Proving a point

By Carl

There's a curious dynamic involved in this story, one I haven't fully contemplated yet:

Iraqis returned to the streets of Baghdad after a curfew was lifted and the southern port city of Basra appeared quiet on Monday, a day after the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr called for his followers to stop fighting and in turn demanded concessions from Iraq’s government.

Mr. Sadr’s statement, released Sunday afternoon, came at the end of six days in which his Mahdi Army militia had held off an American-supported Iraqi assault on Basra.

OK, the most obvious bit of information we can glean from this story is that al-Sadr is establishing that he is firmly in control of the Shi'ite faction in Iraq. Is this a prelude to his taking over the parliament? Or worse? Is this a signal that Sayyid al-Sistani is preparing to rule over Iraq the way Ayatollahs in Iran have for decades, as "Expwert Jurist"?

After all, he's basically turned on, and then turned off, the faucet of violence, keeping American and British troops dancing in the background while he held off allied-armed Iraqi forces to a standstill.

Clearly, he wanted to demonstrate that the nation will dance to his tune.

He also demonstrated the abject impotence of the American-chosen president, Nuri Maliki, who apparently couldn't crush an uprising any more effectively than the American-led Coalition of the Bribed!

There is an allegory about the lion and the fly, which applies to Iraq: In a fight between a lion and a fly, the fly cannot land a killing blow, while the lion cannot fly.

So it goes with Iraq and the insurgency: we are fighting a fight that we cannot win, despite our overwhelming force, and the Shi'ites know this lion cannot fly.

The ironic thing about this is, this was a fight, and still is a fight, that we didn't have to fight. The sponsors behind this fight, the Iranians, are perhaps the most sophisticated democratic government in the area, just behind India. Yes, the Ayatollah in Iran has supreme power, but if you look at society, even Khameni hasn't been able to stifle all dissent, or make women wear the burqa, or...well, you choose the field, and Iran has advanced fairly far in it, comparatively speaking.

That's not to say we should be holding them up as a model of the Middle East we'd like to see, but we could try working with them to bring them into the fold, so to speak.

Ahmadinejad may come off as a fucking loon, but if you carefully look at the ripples that he sends out, there's a very deep logic to his insanity and it is very profitable to Iran and to its peer nations. And I have no doubt that he speaks for the Ayatollah.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Homeland securing

By Carol Gee

National Security news -- Every day my Congressional Quarterly "Homeland Security" newsletter arrives in my g-mail box. It comes packed full of everything you could want to know, and lots of things I would almost rather not know about homeland securing. Borrowing from the generosity of their links, you will surely want to know this about:

• The Homeland Security Council -- "The HSC’s purpose is to ensure coordination of all homeland security-related activities among executive departments and agencies, and to promote the effective development and implementation of all homeland security policies," according to its website. The secret Council has a staff of 35 and is overseen by the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. Steven Aftergood has more at Secrecy News.
  
  Recently named to replace Francis Townsend as the President's Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, is Kenneth Wainstein. He has served previously as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Assistant Attorney General for National Security (see Reyes Intel hearing posts, here, here, and here; and FISA posts here and here), as well as General Counsel and Chief of Staff at the FBI. If you remember, Wainstein recently declared that the government was not "dark" in its ability to gather intelligence, as had been claimed by the DNI during all the controversy surrounding amending the House FISA bill.
  
  In a related matter, it was recently reported, on C-SPAN by the Homeland Security's offices of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (Daniel Sutherland)/Privacy (Hugo Teufel III), that one or both of them have "observer" status and can attend the Homeland Security Council meetings.



• The Onion Truth -- To quote the final paragraph from CQ's newsletter:
  
  

  Back from Irack: “Presumptive GOP nominee John McCain wrapped up his fact-hiding mission to Iraq, declaring the trip an unqualified success,” The Borowitz Report reports. “My friends, I came to Iraq to hide the facts about the way the war is going, and in that I have succeeded,’ McCain told reporters. ‘Omission accomplished.’ McCain praised his campaign staff for steering clear of visual evidence of recent violence in Baghdad: ‘Thanks to the hard work of my advance team, the surge has the appearance of working.’ The Arizona senator said that his trip to Iraq was successful in part because he was able to obscure the actual facts with new facts of his own creation,” Andy Borowitz writes. “‘It’s a well known fact that Iran is training al Qaeda,” he said. “And if it wasn’t a well-known fact before, it is now.’”

Travel and security -- On the other hand you would probably just as soon have remained ignorant about:

• Outsourcing passports -- Bill Gertz at the Washington Times on 3/36 headlined, "Outsourced passports netting govt. profits, risking national security." First, the Government Printing Office makes a huge "profit" by charging the State Department more than the secure passports cost from the foreign supplier. Second, the Thailand supplier is vulnerable to lack of quality control, plus lack of security control, the company having been victimized by Chinese espionage.



• Skip London, go straight to Paris -- A U.K. company has unveiled a screening camera capable of peering through clothing to detect weapons or explosives from 80 feet away, CBS News spotlights.

As citizens concerned about remaining both free and secure, takes a great deal of work to stay informed on what our government is doing in secret to preserve both. My newsletter helps tremendously. To sign up for CQ's free newsletters, click here.

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)

Throw da bum out!

By Capt. Fogg

Yes sir, baseball fans are a loony, irrational Bush-hating, liberal fringe element buncha lefty, commie, pinko America haters who choose to ignore the wonderful things Bush has brought to our wonderful world. It warms my heart to see it confirmed. You may have seen the clip already, but see it again. It may bring some cheer to your Monday morning.



(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

TOP 5 FHM 2008 CALENDER GIRLS !

BUSH HEARS THE FIRST AMENDMENT EXERCISED !

KIND OF MIXED - A FEW LOUD BOOS SOME CHEERS, BUT HE IS BY FAR THE THE BEST BASEBALL THROWING PRESIDENT EVER !

KEITH RICHARDS LIKES TO GET HIGH ???

CIGARETTE perched out of the corner of his mouth, he has wowed stadiums with his guitar playing for years.

But Rolling Stone Keith Richards reckons most of his life has been lost in a haze of smoke.

And the rock ’n’ roll survivor admits he still likes to get stoned out of his mind on cannabis.

“Keef”, whose career has been awash with drugs, confesses: “I smoke my head off. I smoke weed all the damn time. There, you’ve got it.

“But that’s my benign weed. That’s all I take, that’s all I do.

“But I do smoke and I’ve got some really good hash.”

Keith and Stones singer Mick Jagger were famously arrested in 1967 when police raided Richards’ country home in Sussex.

‘ The drugs? They were great. Drugs now? I'm on medication. Drugs . . . wonderful things, I don't see anything . . . it's a very dodgy subject ’

The former heroin addict was criticised when he breached the newly imposed smoking ban by lighting up a cigarette on stage during a gig at London’s O2 Arena last August.

He responded by EATING a fag on stage at a Stones show a few days later.

Hitting out at the controversial ban, he said: “It’s a drag because you’ve got to freeze your balls off to light a cigarette, you’ve got to go outside.

“It’s draconian – socially, politically-correct bulls***. That’s what it is. They’ll get over it.

“It’s like prohibition, they tried to stop booze once. Ha, look what happened. It ruined America.”

Keith goes on to reveal he SPITS at Stones drummer Charlie Watts on stage if he can’t keep up his interest on the show. And Charlie has confirmed: “He does – so it’s good for him not to get bored!”


Keith is writing his life story – but unsurprisingly finds racking his brain difficult.

And maybe it’s not just the drugs. He underwent brain surgery in 2006 after he suffered head injuries falling out of a tree on the island of Fiji.

Mick Jagger is said to have had memory problems too. He once handed back a seven-figure advance for his autobiography, claiming he couldn’t remember much of significance.

Keith admits: “I can’t even remember yesterday. I’m trying to put together an autobiography and it’s coming along.

“You have to drag things out of your memory. Some of it you don’t even want to remember and others you’ve totally forgotten, so you end up trying to put your life together again.

“And since I didn’t keep a diary it’s a bit difficult.

“It’s a little bit like life, really. Some of it’s a little bit painful and some of it you go, ‘Yeah, I forgot about that, or that was great’.

“But it’s reviewing yourself and that’s not my habit.”

So do the Stones talk when they’re not on the road?

Hellraiser Keith says: “Not a lot really, probably once a year.

“A few faxes, notes here and there. If you’re stuck on the road for two and a half years together you’ve said just about everything you’ve got to say to each other.

“Faxes are as far as I get, then you can do drawings – you can express yourself. It’s like getting a letter.

“I never need to be in touch with people that immediately. I really despise gossip.

‘ I hate phones. I have nothing to do with them. I don't even have a mobile phone. ’

When the band are not on tour or recording Keith admits he does very little.

He says: “I tell you what I do when I’m not working with The Stones, I kick back, baby.

“Go get a tan, lie on the beach. Wait for the tour to wear off. I’ve read every book ever written. I’m running out. Somebody please write one!”


Keith was speaking just days before Wednesday’s London premiere of the new Stones movie.

Shine A Light is directed by Oscar-winning film legend Martin Scorsese, who recorded the band over a two-day period at the Beacon Theatre in New York in 2006.

Footage from the shows is intercut with backstage shots, archive material and new interviews.

Keith says of the old footage: “It’s kind of strange when you go back – you know, Mick with that cute little smile.

“It’s a strange thing in a way because it’s like your history and the strange thing is that we’ve grown up with everything being recorded. I mean, our whole life is basically either on film or on tape and you kind of get used to it.”

Of the movie with Goodfellas and Raging Bull director Scorsese, he said: “When they first said they wanted to shoot another movie of the Stones on stage I said forget about it.

“How many have we done? But then they said ‘by Martin Scorsese’ and of course the whole thing changed because this man makes movies.

“Once Martin was involved with it I just wanted him to do whatever it is he does.

“I wanted to stay out of the way and give him what he wanted, which was a Stones show.”

Asked if he was comfortable watching himself on screen, Keith adds: “By now, yeah. I got used to it. I liked me when I was younger.

“When you’re on stage we’re basically, as we say, in our office.

“We started off playing clubs. In fact, it took us a while to get out of them but small rooms have a different ambience to outdoors, and especially when there’s two million people you can’t quite see the end of.”

As he looks forward to his 65th birthday in December, the rocker insists the band have no thoughts of retiring.

“Give us a gig and we’ll play it,” he says.

“It’s what we do – it’s as natural as that.

“If I was a plumber I’d come around and fix your toilet. Sometimes if I can’t sleep I take the guitar to bed. We’re stuck. We’re melded.”

KEVIN SPACEY DOES IMPRESSIONS ! ! !

WORLDS OLDEST RECORDING - APRIL 10TH 1860 !

For more than a century, since he captured the spoken words “Mary had a little lamb” on a sheet of tinfoil, Thomas Edison has been considered the father of recorded sound. But researchers say they have unearthed a recording of the human voice, made by a little-known Frenchman, that predates Edison’s invention of the phonograph by nearly two decades.

The audio historian David Giovannoni with a recently discovered phonautogram that is among the earliest sound recordings.
Audio: 1860 recording:
The Phonautograph Recording from 1860 of 'Au Clair de la Lune' (mp3)
1931:
An Audio Excerpt from a 1931 Recording of the Same Song (mp3)


The 19th-century phonautograph, which captured sounds visually but did not play them back, has yielded a discovery with help from modern technology.

The 10-second recording of a singer crooning the folk song “Au Clair de la Lune” was discovered earlier this month in an archive in Paris by a group of American audio historians. It was made, the researchers say, on April 9, 1860, on a phonautograph, a machine designed to record sounds visually, not to play them back. But the phonautograph recording, or phonautogram, was made playable — converted from squiggles on paper to sound — by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif.

“This is a historic find, the earliest known recording of sound,” said Samuel Brylawski, the former head of the recorded-sound division of the Library of Congress, who is not affiliated with the research group but who was familiar with its findings. The audio excavation could give a new primacy to the phonautograph, once considered a curio, and its inventor, Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, a Parisian typesetter and tinkerer who went to his grave convinced that credit for his breakthroughs had been improperly bestowed on Edison.

Scott’s device had a barrel-shaped horn attached to a stylus, which etched sound waves onto sheets of paper blackened by smoke from an oil lamp. The recordings were not intended for listening; the idea of audio playback had not been conceived. Rather, Scott sought to create a paper record of human speech that could later be deciphered.

But the Lawrence Berkeley scientists used optical imaging and a “virtual stylus” on high-resolution scans of the phonautogram, deploying modern technology to extract sound from patterns inscribed on the soot-blackened paper almost a century and a half ago. The scientists belong to an informal collaborative called First Sounds that also includes audio historians and sound engineers.

David Giovannoni, an American audio historian who led the research effort, will present the findings and play the recording in public on Friday at the annual conference of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.

Scott’s 1860 phonautogram was made 17 years before Edison received a patent for the phonograph and 28 years before an Edison associate captured a snippet of a Handel oratorio on a wax cylinder, a recording that until now was widely regarded by experts as the oldest that could be played back.

Mr. Giovannoni’s presentation on Friday will showcase additional Scott phonautograms discovered in Paris, including recordings made in 1853 and 1854. Those first experiments included attempts to capture the sounds of a human voice and a guitar, but Scott’s machine was at that time imperfectly calibrated.

“We got the early phonautograms to squawk, that’s about it,” Mr. Giovannoni said.

But the April 1860 phonautogram is more than a squawk. On a digital copy of the recording provided to The New York Times, the anonymous vocalist, probably female, can be heard against a hissing, crackling background din. The voice, muffled but audible, sings, “Au clair de la lune, Pierrot répondit” in a lilting 11-note melody — a ghostly tune, drifting out of the sonic murk.

The hunt for this audio holy grail was begun in the fall by Mr. Giovannoni and three associates: Patrick Feaster, an expert in the history of the phonograph who teaches at Indiana University, and Richard Martin and Meagan Hennessey, owners of Archeophone Records, a label specializing in early sound recordings. They had collaborated on the Archeophone album “Actionable Offenses,” a collection of obscene 19th-century records that received two Grammy nominations. When Mr. Giovannoni raised the possibility of compiling an anthology of the world’s oldest recorded sounds, Mr. Feaster suggested they go digging for Scott’s phonautograms.

Historians have long been aware of Scott’s work. But the American researchers believe they are the first to make a concerted search for Scott’s phonautograms or attempt to play them back.

In December Mr. Giovannoni and a research assistant traveled to a patent office in Paris, the Institut National de la Propriété Industrielle. There he found recordings from 1857 and 1859 that were included by Scott in his phonautograph patent application. Mr. Giovannoni said that he worked with the archive staff there to make high-resolution, preservation-grade digital scans of these recordings.

Should Hillary withdraw?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

At HuffPo, Steve Clemons notes that the world is watching and that the "race should go all the way" to the end:

[Obama and Clinton] struggling against each other for every superdelegate, every pending state primary, every vote is the best thing America has had going for it in some time on the "global public diplomacy" front... The world is watching, learning. And American popularity in the eyes of global citizens watching us is surging because of the excitement and uncertainty of this fascinating election.

Well, yes. (Some) Democrats are worried about the toll the prolonged battle is taking on their party, worried that it is weakening the party in terms of its prospects for November, Republicans are salivating, ever hopeful that the Democratic Party will collapse in upon itself, which may be their only hope for November, and the chattering classes of the 24/7 news cycle, which feed off the "horse race" and focus on the sensationalism that they themselves manufacture, both want the race to continue and talk up the alleged negatives of the race continuing.

As an Obama supporter, I would certainly like the race to end -- with Obama the winner. And yet I recognize, with Steve, that the race is good for American democracy and good for America's image abroad. Especially after the 2000 fiasco, but also after seven-plus years of the Bush presidency, and all that it has done to undermine democracy at home and America's credibility in much of the rest of the world, the Obama-Clinton race showcases many of the strengths of America's political system. It shows the world, just as it shows Americans themselves, that democracy is alive and well in the United States, that democracy can withstand uncertainty, that America has a vigorous party system (albeit a mostly two-party system), that opposition and dissent, even within parties, are not just permitted but encouraged, that the people -- and make no mistake, this is supposed to be about the people, democracy's rulers -- can be healthily engaged in the political process.

Steve's post is a response to recent calls for Clinton to drop out of the race. Given that she has little to no chance of winning, it seems, the sooner Obama can be declared the nominee, the better. Clinton herself is saying that she intends to stay in the race all the way to the convention in August in Denver (and that she'll take the Florida/Michigan issue to the credentials committee, where things probably wouldn't be resolved in her favour). Obama himself has said that Clinton ought to stay in the race for "as long as she wants," but some top Democrats -- admittedly, Obama supporters like Sens. Leahy and Dodd -- are pushing for her to drop out, not push on for another five months. Here's Steve Benen at The Carpetbagger Report:

[I]f Democrats want to end this nomination fight and get ready for the general election, party leaders are going to have to intervene. About 800 superdelegates [woke] up [yesterday] morning and [learned] that Hillary Clinton wants this fight to go on for another five months, no matter what happens in any contest between now and June. If they're with that prospect, they can sit on the sidelines, watch the fighting play out, and hope for the party will figure out a way to win an eight-week general election campaign in the fall.

Or they can decide they're not satisfied with five more months of intra-party warfare, endorse Obama publicly, and take control of the process. It's really up to them.

In an editorial yesterday, The Washington Post made the case for the race to continue -- not because it's good for America but because "their extended contest informs the electorate and serves to battle-test them both," "millions of votes are yet to be cast," "two qualified candidates believe themselves to be the best potential Democratic nominee," there is "excitement in the Democratic Party" (with turnout and registrations way up), and "this contest is far from over." In response, Steve Benen lists some of "the arguments against keeping the race going, all of which concern the not-insignificant matter of how well prepared the Democrats will be for the general election campaign against McCain.

Make what you will of all this. Despite my many posts directed against Clinton and her campaign, I am somewhere between the two Steves on this. The race may very well be good for America's image abroad, evidence of democratic strength at home, but I am deeply concerned about November. The race could and perhaps should continue through Pennsylvania (April 22), or North Carolina and Indiana (May 6), but all the way to the convention? For what? Ultimately, this is about winning in November, and it seems to me that what would truly be good for America's image abroad, as well as for America's foreign policy, as well as for democracy at home, is a Democratic victory in November. And that means, it seems, an Obama victory in November. Ultimately, the Democratic Party needs to do what is best for Obama.

Does that mean Clinton should withdraw? Perhaps not yet, but, if nothing changes -- and even a win in Pennsylvania wouldn't change much -- sooner rather than later. And there may yet be a third option for her. As The Plank's Issac Chotiner points out, there is "the Huckabee route," suggested yesterday by David Brooks on Meet the Press:

I think she should slow down the campaign, run what Mike Huckabee ran, a dignified campaign, not attacking her opponents, go through North Carolina and then get out. She really has very little opportunity to win. The Jeremiah Wright thing was big, the big scandal, the biggest thing Barack Obama's faced really in months. It didn't hurt him. We now have the polling results from poll after poll. It's clear it didn't hurt him. The voters were not shaken off him. The -- Michigan and Florida are not going to revote, the superdelegates are never going to overrule the pledge delegates, so her chances are really small.

I rarely direct praise in Brooks's direction, but his suggestion makes sense. It would be good for Obama, good for the party, and good for Clinton herself (given her present position and lingering ambitions).

So why not? Obama is in the lead according to the metrics that matter (although the Clinton campaign and her surrogates are desperately trying to advance metrics that show her ahead), including the latest poll numbers, and her withdrawal sooner rather than later would allow the party to unify and heal itself (and to avoid yet more weeks and months of division and bitterness, not to mention a divided and bitter convention) and Obama to begin his general election campaign against McCain well in advance of the convention.

It may not be time yet, but it soon will be.

The immaculate endorsement

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I am:

a) an Obama supporter;

b) a life-long Pittsburgh Steelers fan; and

c) concerned about the April 22 Pennsylvania primary.

So, needless to say, this photo makes me rather happy. (Yes, that's Obama with Steelers greats Jerome Bettis and Franco Harris. Although, as The Plank's Issac Chotiner notes, while Harris is "a loyal Democrat," Bettis gave money to Bush-Cheney in '04. Say it ain't so, Bus!)

Dith Pran (1942-2008)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Dith Pran, the NYT photojournalist portrayed in The Killing Fields, died today at the age of 65.

-- NYT obituary
-- Wikipedia entry
-- The Killing Fields
-- Holocaust Awareness Project

He was a truly remarkable man.

OOOOHHHH, YYYYEAHHH ! ! !

The vast right-wing conspiracy hugs Hillary Clinton

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Last week, it was the reverse: "Hillary Clinton hugs the vast right-wing conspiracy" -- Hillary conducted an interview with the editorial board of right-wing media baron Richard Mellon Scaife's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, with Dick Scaife himself sitting right next to her, and she used the occasion to bring up the Obama-Wright controversy and otherwise to cozy up to a man, as I put it last week, who took it upon himself to spend much of the '90s trying to destroy the Clintons and who has spent the past several decades trying to destroy liberalism and the Democratic Party.

("Anything to win." -- The motto of the 2008 Clinton presidential campaign.)

Well, it looks like the feelings are mutual, or, rather, that Clinton and Scaife have established a mutual admiration society ahead of the April 22 Pennsylvania primary. In a column published in today's PTR -- headlined "Hillary, reassessed," suggesting that positive views are forthcoming -- Scaife praises Hillary for taking the time to meet with his newspaper ("it said something about the New York senator and former first lady who hopes to be America's next president") and, well, says some really nice things about her. Such as:

-- "The very morning that she came to the Trib, our editorial page raised questions about her campaign and criticized her on several other scores. Reading that, a lesser politician -- one less self-assured, less informed on domestic and foreign issues, less confident of her positions -- might well have canceled the interview right then and there."

-- "Her meeting and her remarks during it changed my mind about her."

-- "Sen. Clinton also exhibited an impressive command of many of today's most pressing domestic and international issues. Her answers were thoughtful, well-stated, and often dead-on."

And so on and so on. To be fair, Scaife isn't your mainstream conservative on, say, Iraq, and so he agrees with the Democratic position (shared by Obama and Clinton) that the troops should be withdrawn. The only domestic issue he brought up to show his agreement with Clinton was "the utter failure of federal efforts to rebuild New Orleans since the Katrina disaster," an issue that finds agreement across the spectrum, hardly a divisive social wedge issue. And though he praised Hillary for "[identifying]what we consider to be the most important challenges and dangers that the next president must confront and resolve in order to guarantee our nation's security," he only specifics he offered were "an increasingly hostile Russia, an increasingly powerful China and increasing instability in Pakistan and South America" -- Yes, but what to do about them? Is it enough to just to identify these threats?

In the end, Scaife does not endorse Hillary -- "not yet, anyway," and he wants to hear from Obama -- but notes that he left the meeting with "a very favorable" (and "counterintuitive") impression of her.

Which is pretty much an endorsement. It seems unlikely to me that Obama will prove to be more to Scaife's liking than Hillary, the new Hillary, the desperate Hillary who needs to win the Pennsylvania primary and who will do anything to win it, including selling her soul to a devil who has long tormented her.

Hillary will likely win Pennsylvania -- with or without a PTR endorsement. She has the party establishment behind her, for the most part, she has a big lead over Obama among socially conservative white working-class voters, and, of course, the Clintons have a long history in the state. A PTR endorsement -- a Scaife endorsement -- would help but would not be decisive.

And yet a Scaife endorsement would be telling -- which is to say, it would say a lot about Hillary, about what she has become. Based on this column, after all, an endorsement would be a genuinely positive call, not a hesitant, reluctant pick of the lesser of two evils. Put another way, it would be pro-Clinton, which is what Scaife now seems to be. Should not Democrats be concerned that a leading right-wing media baron is firmly in Hillary's camp?

Now, a cynic might suggest that Scaife, ever the partisan, wants Hillary to win because she is the weaker candidate and that he is saying such nice things about her only to undermine the Democratic Party. In this sense, the cynic might suggests that he is just doing what, say, Rush Limbaugh, has been doing. To which I say: yes, it's possible. Come November, after all, it Scaife will no doubt support McCain, Iraq notwithstanding.

Either way, though, Hillary is cozying up to the vast right-wing conspiracy of which she herself has been a target. Indeed, either way, are we not right to question Hillary's judgment? Either she now appeals to Scaife, in which case there is cause for concern, or she is allowing herself to be played by Scaife, in which case there is cause for concern of a different kind.

Either way, she has lost perspective. Either way, it is all about herself. Either way, there is no way she should be the Democratic nominee for president.

Congress' Spring Break Is Over

By Carol Gee

Congress comes back into session on Monday, March 31. Pending is the 2008 authorization to fund the nation's intelligence efforts, H.R. 2082. It was vetoed by President Bush on 3/8/08. A subsequent vote to override the veto failed. The Senate is scheduled to come back into session for morning business at 2:30 PM. They then plan to take up the energy bill, H.R. 3221. The Senate Intelligence Committee will meet in closed session on Tuesday afternoon to talk about "pending calendar business."

What has been going on with amending FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (S.B. 2248 and H.R. 3773) since the Senators and Representatives left Washington? Leaders would like to say that successful negotiations have produced a bipartisan solution to the impasse, but that is not what happened. And it may be a while before the issue is again brought up before the lawmakers for a vote. FYI: side by side comparison of the Senate and House bills (3 p. pdf).

The administration mouthpieces, in the meantime, are out and about in the hinterlands. Department heads are claiming how mortally endangered the nation has become because the House wants to legislate to protect both civil liberties and national security. The Congressional Quarterly provides an excellent summary of the GOP strategy on FISA (ht to FDL). To quote:

During the break, the GOP has not issued the daily barrage of news releases . . . Instead, Republicans have focused on reaching out to publications beyond the Beltway.

“Republicans have dedicated significant time and resources in engaging regional and local media, editorial boards, and talk radio over the break,” said Kevin Smith, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John A. Boehner , R-Ohio. “We’re going to hold every Democrat accountable for their irresponsible actions on this bill, and we will ramp up the pressure until they do the right thing and pass the bipartisan Senate bill. In the end, we believe they will cave.”

Senate Democrats, though, don’t plan to return immediately to the debate, and may not act for several weeks on a lasting overhaul of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (PL 95-511).

. . . A Senate Democratic aide said that Democrats continue to talk among themselves, but the Senate is probably weeks away from taking any action. Before the break, Senate Democratic leaders said the Senate would bring the House bill to the floor at some unspecified time, although it is expected to be altered.

AG, DNI -- Attorney General Michael Mukasey spoke tearfully in San Francisco and Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell spoke Friday in South Carolina ("C-SPAN coverage -- Director of Nat'l Intelligence Michael McConnell on Global Intelligence and National Security (03/28/2008)." McConnell spoke to students at Furman University, his alma mater, giving his standard canned speech (link to my previous "McConnell Primer" post), down to the story about his relationship with Colin Powell. The students were probably impressed to learn in his introduction that McConnell is "in the top ten most powerful people in the U.S., and also that he coordinates 100,000 employees in the 16 agencies over which he was placed, complete with a $49 billion budget."

For the Department of Homeland Security -- The Homeland Security's offices of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (Daniel Sutherland) and Privacy (Hugo Teufel III), spoke at the American Bar Association. Sutherland has been nominated to be the Chairman of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board, an independent agency that was formed to be a resource for both the administration and for Congress. Their presentations were not impressive. I see both men as well-meaning "booster-ish" attorneys who do a good job of coordinating their offices, have admiration for their staffs, but could very easily be marginalized by the bureaucracy of Homeland Security. The Privacy Office distributed its Annual Report to Congress for 2006-2007 at the meeting, as did the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties officer (2 large pdfs). Also available is another large pdf publication titled, "Privacy Impact Statement Guidance," to help agencies not required to produce these impact statements. In a related matter, they recently reported on C-SPAN (3/29/08) that one or both of them have "observer" status and can attend the National Security Council's secret meetings (see yesterday's post).

So it is activist time again. The House FISA bill is preferable. Let your Senators and Representatives know that retroactive immunity for telecoms is not necessary to keep the United States safe from terrorist attack.Firedoglake has the contact numbers you need.

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)

Counting out the money

By Libby Spencer

Remember when money counted as a barometer of viability in a campaign? I suppose McCain laid that metric to rest with his comeback but nonetheless, this can't be a good sign for Hillary. I would preface these figures with the caveat that they come from the Politico, so I'm not vouching for their reliability but if they're true...

The rest can only be spent in the general election, if she makes it that far, and must be returned if she doesn’t. If she had paid off the $8.7 million in unpaid bills she reported as debt and had not loaned her campaign $5 million, the cash she would have had available at the end of last month to spend on television ads and other up-front expenses would have been less than $2 million.

By contrast, if you subtract Obama’s $625,000 in debts and his general election-only money from his total cash on hand at the end of last month, he’d still be left with $31 million.

What has been reported widely enough to believe is that the Clinton campaign has stiffed small vendors all the way back to Iowa, while Politico reports she allegedly has paid off one big company that has the ability to stage events nationally. In terms of keeping her candidacy alive, this makes sense. In terms of demonstrating fiscal responsibility, not so much. And no matter how you slice it, I'd say the figures argue for Obama's greater support among the voters who are engaged enough in the process to contribute to the campaigns. Surely they will turn out to vote in November.

Meanwhile, the GOP's faithful are more than happy to see this go on forever. The WaPo asks "what's the hurry" in an editorial. The Bush administration's biggest media cheerleader thinks it would be just great for the Democrats to keep this up right through August, assuming the candidates will discuss the issues instead of tearing each other apart. I do too, if they would run against McCain instead of each other, but the commenters to my other post on this aren't buying into the idea that there's a unity pony under all the shit that has been slung so far in this contest. Can't say I blame them.

Even more telling, prime neo-nut and former chief Clinton basher Richard M. Scaife reassessed his opinion of Hillary and now finds it's a very favorable one indeed. I think we can guess who the GOP really want to run against in November. I suppose you can't blame them. They have 15 years worth of oppo already in the can against Hillary. They would have to work a lot harder to trash Obama and I don't think anyone believes that no matter who the nominee is, that we'll continue to see this great equanimity coming from these quarters once we have one.

(Cross-posted at The Impolitic.)

SARAH LARSON - WILD & CRAZY DAYS ???

A goal post planted firmly in Denver

By Creature

The end game for the Clinton campaign is clear: regardless of what happens with the next ten contests, regardless of the delegate count, regardless of the popular vote, regardless of who the superdelegates ultimately put their weight behind, Hillary Clinton will only end her run for the presidency at the Democratic convention in Denver with a credential committee fight over Michigan and Florida.

Michigan and Florida, Michigan and Florida, Michigan and Florida, Michigan and Florida, Michigan and Florida, this is the mantra coming from the Clinton camp today.

Get used to it.

(Cross-posted at State of the Day.)

Lights out

By Capt Fogg

There's nothing wrong with the urge to do good, but most often the urge is expressed with romantic, meaningless and even counter-productive gesture. Perhaps "Earth Hour" is one of them. Switching off the electricity for an hour would indeed have some kind of a psychological attraction to those who think technology has done us a mean trick by allowing us to have a more pleasant evening environment than possible whilst squatting around a fire, swatting mosquitoes and worrying about malaria, but I'm sure an hour after Earth Hour, the twin Sub-Zero refrigerators will be back on, along with the pool heater and the air conditioning and the climate control in the wine cellar every house in Beverly Hills is possessed of. I'm sure more kilowatt hours are involved in spreading the word than will be saved by switching to candles made from petroleum based paraffin wax.

Sure, I could have switched off last night; lit some kerosene mantle lamps and indulged in some battery powered music, but to what purpose? Living in a hurricane zone and being an emergency communications specialist, I'm well equipped for temporary self sufficiency. A home lit by fire however, is far less efficient and far more polluting than one blessed by Edison's genius and the pollution and energy consumption involved with producing and disposing of batteries is far worse than what comes off the grid. It's all a bit like wearing ribbons and going on walks for AIDS or breast cancer. It gets people talking and socializing and feeling like philanthropists, but doesn't really involve them in doing anything constructive. Worst of all it allows those who really are vested in raping the planet to dismiss us as hippies, tree huggers, wearers of sandals and with other meaningless categories. Isn't it a bit like getting stoned and painting your face like a color blind Apache and thinking that's going to bring on a new age of peace and harmony?

Is it really that the benefit of having good light after the sun has gone down has made our atmosphere unstable or is it that there are far too many of us? Is it a grand gesture to do without an hour's light while so much of the world lives in abject poverty and filth and darkness, or is it hypocrisy? It's really only the relatively affluent who do these things for an hour before running the jacuzzi, turning on the 52" TV and cranking the AC down to 70 anyway. Isn't it a sad fact that if two thirds of the world had a third of our comforts, the planet's ecology might collapse?

And who knows what people will really do when the lights are out? We had a mini baby boom here after the storms of 2004-2005 and that gets to the root of the problem - there are so many of us that we may have to keep the larger part in poverty so that the smaller part doesn't have to go to sleep when the sun goes down, gets to eat strawberries in February, can travel at will and is never out of sight of a Starbucks. It isn't technology with it's hand around our throat, it's your kids, their kids and their kids' kids. It isn't technology that makes us give in to the urge to breed like rabbits and it isn't sanity that makes us interfere in other peoples efforts to keep the population under control. It's religion, it's greed and sometimes it's even fear of a socialism free future where society won't take care of us making us think we need to have 18 children.

If there's anything I have faith in though, it's that circumstances will continue to rule us rather than the other way around. It's partly because we aren't quite smart enough or rational enough, but it's partly because we indulge in fatuous displays rather than making hard decisions.

Cross posted from Human Voices

DAKOTA JOHNSON - CELEBRITY OFFSPRING

Dakota Johnson, 18, is the daughter of celebrity parents Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson. The senior in high school has recently signed with IMG Models and has already landed her first job. She has been photographed personally by Andre Leon Talley for Vogue. Not bad for your first gig.

The young model is 5′9″ and made her first teen splash two years ago when she was chosen to be Miss Golden Globe. The blonde teen handed out the 2006 awards on national television. As a child, she had a small part in one of her mother’s films, Crazy in 1999.

For now, she’s back in Los Angeles, finishing up her last few months of school at New Roads, an alternative high school. She spent 30 days at Vision’s Teen Treatment Center at the end of 2007, reportedly for alcohol and drug issues. We’re not sure what part heredity plays in such things, but both of her parents have spent stints in other treatment facilities.

Fresh Obama ad

By Libby Spencer

I think it's really good.



As the old saw goes, this one will play well in Peoria.

(Cross-posted at The Impolitic.)

How to end the occupation of Iraq

By Libby Spencer

This story didn't get enough attention yesterday and it was truly an awesome development in the narrative on the failure of the occupation in Iraq.

More than 40 Democratic House and Senate candidates have endorsed a document stating that "there is no military solution in Iraq" and calling for an end to the war and the removal of all U.S. troops from the country, though not according to any specific timeline.

The strategy document, titled "A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq," calls for using "diplomatic, political and economic means" to hasten an end to the conflict. As of this writing, it has been endorsed by four Democratic Senate candidates and 38 House hopefuls, a handful of whom touted the plan on a conference call with reporters today.

I'd note this effort is being led in part by a blogger. It's a good plan and I think it's rather incredible that this many candidates have signed on so early in the game. I have to think more will sign on as it becomes apparent it's a winning strategy in an election year where the electorate is undeniably tired of pouring blood and treasure into a quixotic quest with an end goal that has yet to be clearly stated. We've come a long way since the 06 elections.

We're going to end this by electing enough politicians in 08 who are willing to stand up and vote for the people rather than cower in the face of the conventional wisdom inside the Beltway.

(Cross-posted at The Impolitic.)

HILARY CLINTON - CALL OF DUTY ???

MO ROCCA - THE SPRING BREAK VOTERS !

PARIS HILTON - BELLY DANCES ON TURKISH TV

SHE WAS A CELEBRITY JUDGE FOR MISS TURKEY 2008

SIMONA FUSCO - BIKINI ISSUES ???

WHAT IS THE TITS BUILDING ???

John Griggs Thompson, Graduate Research Professor, University of Florida, and Jacques Tits, Professor Emeritus, Collège de France, have been awarded the 2008 Abel Prize "for their profound achievements in algebra and in particular for shaping modern group theory." In the prize citation, the Abel Committee writes that "Thompson revolutionized the theory of finite groups by proving extraordinarily deep theorems that laid the foundation for the complete classification of finite simple groups, one of the greatest achievements of twentieth century mathematics." In 1963, Thompson and Walter Feit proved that all nonabelian finite simple groups were of even order, work for which they both won the Frank Nelson Cole Prize in Algebra from the AMS in 1965. Thompson also won a Fields Medal in 1970. In the Abel citation for Tits, the committee writes that "Tits created a new and highly influential vision of groups as geometric objects. He introduced what is now known as a Tits building, which encodes in geometric terms the algebraic structure of linear groups." The committee noted the link between the two winners' work: "Tits’s geometric approach was essential in the study and realization of the sporadic groups, including the Monster." Tits received the Grand Prix of the French Academy of Sciences in 1976, and the Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 1993. The Abel Prize is awarded by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters for outstanding scientific work in the field of mathematics. The prize amount is 6,000,000 Norwegian kroner (over US$1,000,000). Thompson and Tits will receive their prize in a ceremony in Oslo on May 20, 2008. See the Abel Prize website for more information about the laureates, their work, and the prize.