Americans United is going after Democrats who are skeptical of Mr. Obama’s plans to double the national debt in five years and nearly triple it in 10. The White House is taking aim at lawmakers in 12 states, including Democratic Sens. Kent Conrad, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor. MoveOn.Org is running ads aimed at 10 moderate Senate and House Democrats. And robocalls are urging voters in key districts to pressure their congressman to get in line.

I refer to Americans United, Karl Rove and MoveOn as idiots, as all of them are hopelessly misinformed.

Rove believes the coordinated effort of the White House to pressure moderate Democrats through various advocacy groups will backfire. He is partially correct, but his reasoning is flawed. I quote Rove:

Every White House is faced with finding ways to nudge Congress without antagonizing it. But this overt campaign could infuriate members who won’t appreciate being targeted by a president of their own party. They could react by becoming recalcitrant. Should that happen, team Obama will have to recalculate its efforts, especially as the public sours on big spending plans.

Members of Congress will not simply become “recalcitrant” as a result of their personal disdain for Obama’s tactics; they will become recalcitrant as a result of all the Republican support they will receive from their constituents. Hence why I believe MoveOn and Americans United are idiots: attempting to incite certain Democrats to pressure certain Democratic moderates, their efforts will simply alert Republicans who probably never supported these Democrats that their Senator or House Representative is indeed a moderate. And not only will this engender Republican support for the moderate Democrats in question; it will also compel the Republicans and Democrats who voted against Obama in certain states to oppose Obama’s budget in a more active and vigorous manner. Moderate Democrats in Congress will then have electoral justifications to oppose Obama, and Republicans, Independents and Democrats who oppose Obama will have a new political signifier around which they can mobilize.

Consider Mary Landrieu and Blanche Lincoln, two Senate Democrats who represent southern states. Mary Landrieu beat her Republican opponent John N. Kennedy by 6 points last cycle, warding off a Republican surge that delivered a 59-40 victory to John McCain. The reaction against Obama in Louisiana almost derailed her reelection efforts, but she managed to win by citing her centrism and independence. Not only has that centrism and independence been confirmed by the ads Democratic organizations are launching against her; the Republicans who opposed her will now support her out of sympathy. As a result, she will receive supportive telephone calls from Louisiana Republicans who will urge her to oppose Obama’s budget. Moreover, her approval ratings will increase, complicating liberal advocacy groups’ efforts to render her unelectable. And yes, many Democratic groups would be satisfied if Mary Landrieu lost a reelection. Some Democrats, in fact, believe she deserves no respect. But to the chagrin of these Democratic activists, their botched efforts to make her political life difficult will only garner her more support from the Republicans who would otherwise oppose her.

Blanche Lincoln will run for reelection in 2010, and the results of the 2008 Presidential election in Arkansas are certainly not in her favor. In fact, McCain clobbered Barack Obama by a margin of 20 points in Arkansas, a margin that would make any Democratic incumbent nervous. Republicans are targeting her for her potential support of Card Check, while some Democrats derisively characterize her as the Democrat of Wal-Mart. This is certainly a stressful position for a Democrat who hopes to cobble together the coalition required to win in 2010 in a state that rejects the current Democratic President to whom she will be tied. But now that liberal advocacy groups are airing advertisements and complaining about Lincoln on the telephone lines of Arkansans, Republicans will rally behind her, and they may even cast votes for her in 2010. Americans United and MoveOn think they are blackmailing Lincoln with the threat of political death, but they are in fact increasing her popularity in her state, thereby handing her justification to oppose Obama’s budget and agenda. Some actions have inadvertent consequences.

Rove is incorrect when he claims moderate Democrats will react personally to Obama’s efforts to manufacture grassroots opposition to their centrism, and MoveOn and Americans United are incorrect when they believe their Washington, DC, advocacy will yield results in Louisiana and Arkansas. All of them are idiots, as all of them are misinformed, and all their efforts are misguided. But at least Democrats who struggle to win south of the Mason-Dixon line will remain in office as a result of the idiocy of some groups’ version of advocacy. For similar to Bill and Hillary Clinton, these Democrats understand the predicaments and the paradoxes that sustain the Democratic Party in the South. Republicans and the operatives surrounding Obama, on the other hand, do not. Obama, after all, admires Reagan, and Reagan, to be sure, is anything but an expert on Democratic politics.

America’s First Gay President Concludes Historic Second Term

WASHINGTON—President George W. Bush was unusually reflective in the final weeks of his administration, taking time during speeches and press conferences to look back on key decisions, expound on his legacy, and tout his role in paving the way for the nation’s first African-American president by serving eight years as its first openly gay president.

“I’m inspired by our great country’s willingness to look past the color of a man’s skin—or, in my case, his overt homosexuality—and elect him based on his ability to lead,” Bush told reporters following his meeting with president-elect Barack Obama on Nov. 10. “I’ve always been proud of my homosexuality, and I am so proud of the United States.”

Bush added, “Thank you, America, for taking a chance on an openly gay man from Texas: tight jeans, cowboy hats, and all.”

Well, Bush DID have that “Brokeback Mountain” look when he was out on the range…

Recalling how he worried during his first campaign that voters were not ready to put a gay man in the White House, Bush said he was “shocked and overjoyed” to win in 2000, and could not have done it without homo-sexual adviser Karl Rove, his strong base of closeted gay ultra-conservative supporters on the Christian right, and his “best friend” Laura.

“While I tried to be commander in chief first and a homosexual man second, I knew that everything I did would be judged through the lens of ‘America’s first gay president,’” Bush said during an interview with ABC’s Charles Gibson broadcast Dec. 1. “Looking back, my personal need to prove my man-hood definitely influenced my actions. The arrogant swagger, invading Iraq, my ruthless support of the death penalty—heck, even setting back gay rights 25 years—all of it seems so silly now.”

Former press secretary Ari Fleischer agreed, saying that Bush carefully cultivated his image as a masculine, simple-minded, heterosexual male in order to combat his insecurities about appearing weak before the international community.

“Believe me, sister, he overcompensated with a capital ‘compensated,’” Fleischer said. “But when the cameras stopped rolling and the podium was put away, he was just fabulous. We had a fabulous, fabulous time.”

While many will argue for generations about Bush’s political impact, all seem to agree that his presidency at last proved to a once-disenfranchised group that anything is possible.

“I never thought I’d see this in my lifetime,” said David Nevin, a 58-year-old homosexual living in New York. “And I probably won’t again because he was a terrible f***ing president who ruined it for all of us.”

Added Nevin, “What a bitch.”

I reckon that pretty much sums it up! “What a bitch!”

Back to reality for just a minute, and Obama’s Invocation choice, alert NQ reader, Athena the Warrior provided a link to an Advocate article about Obama picking Rev. Rick Warren, out of all the THOUSANDS of qualified ministers in this country, Rev. Rick Warren, the pro-Prop 8 and anti-choice minister, to be a part of his big to-do in DC. Lemme tel you what, the vast majority of comments were from people who were HOT under the collar about Obama’s treatment. Now, you know I think it is their own damn fault for ever thinking for one MINUTE that Obama cared one whit for the GLBT community. And not all of the people there voted for Obama. But many did, and they are already seeing the errors of their ways. So check out some of their comments. Very interesting.

And, to those who jumped on the Obama Bandwagon, like Joe Salmonese of the HRC, I say, SHAME ON YOU! Shame on you for not supporting the one candidate who walks the walk when it comes to the GLBT community. The one whose praises you sang just last year. That’s right, it was Hillary Clinton. Even if they did support her initially, then throw their hands up once Obama was declared the victor by the DNC’s RBC, I say shame on you for not standing up for JUSTICE, for what was RIGHT, and against playing fast and loose with the rules when it suited them. Same to all of those women’s groups who jumped on that bandwagon, too, and for what, to be cool? To get money? Because you got “caught up” in the moment?? Please. Spare me already. There is no excuse for ignoring the reality that was right in front of your faces – Obama’s anti-gay associates. Obama’s nuanced language over gay marriage. Obama’s continuing flip-flopping on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” And the list goes on. You chose to ignore the reality. You chose to back the man who has NOT backed you up over the woman who did. So now you are upset. Huh. Imagine that.

Sheesh. Enough of you people – I am too through with you all who thought that Obama was on your side. Enjoy the laugh about Bush. Hey, if you think about all of his little outfits he put on throughout the course of his presidency – the cowboy outfits; his flight suit; his wizard outfit with Boy Toy, Putin; elf clothes – oh, no wait – that was a JibJab production…You get my point. So, in that spirit, and in recognition of George Bush being the “first homosexual president” (who just bailed out Detroit), I leave you with this:

In order to “save” the Democratic Party, Brazile resolved back in 2003 that she might have to destroy it first. And who better to help her in this lofty pursuit than her new best friend, the man neoconservatives call “The Architect”.

…………………………..

BY ROSEMARY REGELLO

It’s not every activist politico who gets to write a post in the Washington Times that begins like this: "As I sat by my window and staring out at the wonderful Washington, D.C., landscape, my office announced a phone call from Air Force One."

Evidently, Donna Brazile was reminding all the little people on Capitol Hill that she had friends in high places. In summer of 2007, Bush senior advisor Karl Rove wasn’t answering any subpoenas from Congress, but he didn’t mind talking to Brazile. From his perch at 20,000 feet, he informed her that this was probably a good time for him to get out of Dodge.

“Mr. Rove’s resignation is not a retirement,” Brazile reassured readers of the right of center newspaper. “It’s just another opportunity for him to create that lasting Republican majority he envisioned years ago and to spend his waking days doing what he so enjoys — beating Democrats in the alleys and gutters. Just ask Sen. Hillary Clinton, Mr. Rove’s target when he called in to speak to Rush Limbaugh. He couldn’t help it. Mr. Rove just had to take one last shot before riding out of town. More to come, Team Clinton.”

Brazile’s breezy account confirms what many have long since suspected. Rove’s claim to be sitting out the 2008 race is hogwash. The mastermind of today’s unraveling U.S. constitution is in no position to kick back, down gin fizzes and watch the country collapse under an Administration he put into office twice. The list of crimes that Bush’s top henchman could potentially be charged with – everything from fraud to war crimes – should be enough to keep him and his fellow Sopranos in hair-trigger mode until the next president gets sworn in. And the notion that he’d leave the choice of commander-in-chief in less capable dirty hands than his own requires more than the willing suspension of disbelief. It requires medication.

That’s why the Rove-Brazile tryst merits further exploration. They first hooked up some time in 2002, according to a New York Times article. The connection might have been a means for Brazile to expand her clientele, but she dismissed that angle in an interview, implying she had bigger fish to fry. It was the Democrats’ lackluster relations with African Americans and poor track record in elections, she said, that led her to start trailblazing new frontiers. To put it in a Brazile nutshell, the Republicans had a better machine.

”The idea is to re-energize the African-American electorate and revive the Democratic Party at the same time,” she told Times reporter Katharine Seelye, ”I want to revitalize the party from the grass roots up. We’re losing voters.”

With that noble cause in mind, she and Rove began to "chirpily exchange e-mail, chat on the phone and write letters, indulging in their shared zeal for the inner workings of politics," Seelye wrote.

Rove said he’d sometimes call Brazile before a press appearance to get feedback on various Bush policy angles he planned to discuss. In exchange, he furnished Brazile’s clients with access to White House social events.

"People think I’m crazy talking to Karl Rove," the strategist confessed to the Washington Post a month after the Times story appeared, "but there’s something about this guy."

Yes, there certainly is something about Karl Rove. In consultation with Vice-President Cheney’s office, it was Rove who outed Valerie Plame’s C.I.A. identity over a flap about uranium in Niger. Three years later, those subpoenas were overflowing his in-box because he’d told Alberto Gonzalez to fire nine U.S. Attorneys who refused to do his bidding. Rove is also under investigation for an entrapment scheme that put Alabama Democratic Governor Don Siegelman in prison for two years.

Those Republicans sure do know how to close the deal in politics. In addition to basking in The Architect’s dapper charm and irresistible company, Brazile opened diplomatic ties across town with archconservative Grover Norquist. Norquist heads one of Jack Abramoff’s favorite charities, Americans for Tax Reform, and is famous for his remark that he’d like to see federal government crippled to the point where he can take it home and drown it in his bathtub. For a brief window of opportunity, he set aside that morbid fantasy to help one of Brazile’s closest friends, D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes, push some legislation to increase revenues in her district.

According to the same Times article, “Mr. Norquist said he and Ms. Brazile, both Washington residents, were devising a plan to urge Congress to allow the city to raise the height limit on buildings as a way to broaden the tax base and improve schools.”

Brazile served as Holmes’ chief of staff and press secretary during the nineties. In that same action-packed year, her old boss teamed up with other D.C. officials to schedule an unauthorized, nonbinding earlybird presidential primary for 2004. DNC chair Terry McAuliffe sent sent out calls to the candidates to boycott the affair, but Howard Dean didn’t heed the directive. The former Vermont governor swept into D.C. and gobbled up almost as many endorsements as another candidate, Rev. Al Sharpton. Who needed those arcane DNC rules, anyway?

The Brazile Factor

At the time of these contentious political developments, Brazile chaired the DNC’s Voting Rights Institute, a program set up after the Florida recount debacle in 2000. During that earlier episode, she’d experienced firsthand Karl Rove’s unscrupulous knack for snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Now she was tasked with brainstorming new strategies to prevent any future gaming of the electoral system.

In 2004, Dean ended his presidential bid after the Wisconsin primary and Kerry lost the general election. This time, Rove generated thousands of extra Bush votes in key Ohio precincts where only a few hundred Republicans lived. Not surprisingly, Brazile remained unimpressed with her party. That winter, she submitted an essay for the left-leaning website Slate.com, which was running a series called “Why Americans Hate Democrats – A Dialog”.

Hard as it must have been to top that inspirational title, the political strategist managed with her piece “Tapping the Obama Factor”. The Chicago politician had just been elevated to the U.S. Senate, but instead of offering an introduction to him, she mostly dwelled on her own life story – rising up from poverty in Louisiana, listening to her grandmother read scripture, etc. etc. Eventually, the essay worked its way back to the stated topic.

"This is a new moment to identify and recruit better messengers," she wrote. "Perhaps it’s time to tap into the ‘Obama’ factor: Scour statehouses for young, energetic, inspiring, and emerging leaders with the ability to connect the head and heart. Too many of the old Democratic guard have stayed in Washington, D.C., too long to fully recognize how most Americans live their lives."

It was a novel way to spin the Illinois election. Obama did score a landslide victory that year, but it had little to do with his age, energy level or the obsolete nature of the Democratic Party establishment. His campaign manager David Axelrod ran the classic Rovian smear campaign, first accusing Obama’s top primary contender of sexual impropriety. After disgracing Blair Hull out of contention, Axelrod used the same device against the G.O.P. primary winner, Jack Ryan.

Of course, this is where things get interesting. House Speaker Dennis Hastert decided he must stick his oar into the battle, calling on Ryan to end his senate bid. The candidate dutifully bowed out, and in his stead, the Illinois Republican Party fielded an unknown, African American bible-thumper from Maryland named Alan Keyes. Clearly, the G.O.P. wanted Obama to win that election. No other explanation can account for the party sacrificing a senate seat to a (supposedly) liberal Democrat who’d (supposedly) spoken out against the Iraq War in 2002.

A Hollywood script writer couldn’t have come up with this storyline. Within a year of arriving in Washington, Brazile’s rising star – the product of a globe-trotting Kansas woman and a philandering tribal leader in Kenya – had launched his presidential exploratory committee. The Internet fundraising team of Howard Dean signed on for the ride. So, too, did some of Wall Street’s biggest investment banks, corporate law firms, and energy giants. By the end of 2007, Obama would post a record-breaking haul of $100 million in campaign contributions. And all while he was still "introducing himself", as Brazile and other analysts put it, to the American public.

Who exactly brought the banks and oil companies to the table still remains to be ferreted out, but it wasn’t Dean or Brazile, or even the man who placed Obama on the speaker’s list at the 2004 Democratic Convention, John Kerry. It’s more likely that Karl Rove huddled with top Bush fundraisers to set that gravy train in motion. Among the candidate’s money bundlers were George Kaiser and Robert Cavnar, both oil industry executives. Other Bush campaign pioneers joined the bandwagon soon afterward.

Now Brazile was impressed. Judging from another My Day installment penned in 2005, following Hurricane Katrina, she sounded like a woman who had been born again:

“While my family was hurting, when they were on the edge feeling left to fend for themselves, the last thing I wanted to do was whine. I got into the groove quickly and contacted Ken Melhman, Chairman of the Republican National Committee and an old friend, Karl Rove, Deputy Chief of Staff for the White House.”

Then she started tossing out the cupcakes: “President Bush, who promised to rebuild the Gulf coast in a speech at Jackson Square, invited some African American leaders over to the White House on December 7th to discuss a broad range of issues…To my great surprise, the meeting with President Bush was cordial and candid. The President listened intently and reassured us that his Administration would not drop the ball.”

Funny how such innocuous fluff takes on a new and sinister meaning when read in hindsight. Yet even from the perspective of a contemporary audience, those claims were a stetch. For people living in New Orleans, the Katrina ball had already been dropped. When the levees broke, Sec. of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff was attending a conference on bird flu, the President relaxing on his Crawford ranch. Back in Brazile’s home state, over a thousand people drowned during three days of waiting for rescuers to reach their homes. Several million homeless residents survived, homeless, only to a second disaster called FEMA.

But Brazile didn’t let facts on the ground spoil her picnic. Continuing her upbeat dispatch, “Since then, I have met once more with President Bush and other leaders who are committed to working together to restore the lives and the communities devastated by these two hurricanes…I can tell from the meetings that the rebuilding of Louisiana remains high on his list of priorities.”

Preparing for Battle

One can only speculate on Brazile’s motives in streaming out that hallucination. As she would mention in the Washington Times article two years later, her “old friend” Rove had hit the ground running with the start of the 2008 election cycle, appearing on talk shows to bash frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Behind the scenes, G.O.P. rank and file activists were organizing crossover voting drives to knock Clinton out of the race before November. In the red states, they could easily outnumber Democrats at the caucuses, enriching Obama’s delegate count and allowing him to boast later “I’ve won more states.”

To recruit additional foot troops for this effort, New Hampshire G.O.P. leader Stephen DaMaura started the Facebook website “Stop Hillary Clinton (One Million Strong AGAINST Hillary).”

On the Democratic side, it became Brazile’s job to smooth over Obama’s path to the nomination. That required manipulating the primary calendar. Picking up on the diversity argument of Eleanor Holmes and the D.C. coalition, she pressed for an earlybird South Carolina primary and a Nevada caucus to augment the Iowa and New Hampshire dates.

While the advantages of South Carolina were obvious, by necessity the second contest required a less obvious, more covert action plan to avoid any accusations of stacking the deck. Although the Clinton camp didn’t realize it at the time, a caucus in Nevada (like a caucus anywhere) would naturally benefit Obama, since her base of blue-collar, older and non-English-speaking supporters would not be driving across town to attend some meeting run by disorganized volunteers. On the other hand, motivated Republicans could be counted on to show up, especially if the G.O.P. candidates could be persuaded not to campaign in the state. (They didn’t.)

Nevertheless, the reason for adding more earlybird contests in the first place centered on ethic diversity, so selling the DNC (and the public) on Nevada required some tweaking of those caucus parameters. That’s why arrangements were made to allow the state’s casino workforce of some 60,000 predominantly Latino workers to attend specially set up caucus sites just for them.

But wouldn’t this huge Hispanic voting block put Clinton over the top in Nevada? Not necessarily. It turns out that the union representing casino employees, S.E.I.U., would be backing Obama, just as they had supported Dean in his presidential bid. So those voters could now be added to the Obama column.

Thus, with caucuses scheduled in Iowa and Nevada, a primary in South Carolina with its near majority African American demographic, and the New Hampshire Republican brass on the job in that state, the chance of Clinton heading into Super Tuesday at cruising altitude had spectacularly diminished.

“Including two more states will not only be good for our country, it will be good for our party and good for our nominee," Brazile told the Los Angeles Times in August 2006.

Sounding an early portent of doom, the South Carolina delegate on the rules committee said in the same article, “If you campaign in a state that is outside the rules, then you’re not entitled to delegates from that state."

A year later, that scenario unfolded like a bad dream for the DNC. Over the objections of Florida’s state Democratic Party, a Republican-controlled legislature moved its primary to January 29, 2008, one week before the official February 5^th cusp adopted by both the Republican National Committee and the DNC.

On August 25, 2007. the DNC rules and bylaws committee met to adjudicate this unspeakable crime. State party chair Karen Thurman testified at the meeting, walking the committee through the chronology of her long and fruitless battle to overturn the date switch. The Republicans had attached it as a rider to another bill, one authorizing the replacement of electronic paperless voting equipment with more traditional optical scanners. Unable to defeat the rider on a partyline vote, the Democrats begrudgingly approved the larger measure.

Anyone who has watched the re-broadcast of those DNC proceedings on CSPAN can’t help but be dumbfounded by the discussion that followed Thurman’s presentation. A slam-dunk case for a rule waiver turned into a shameless bout of piling on, as committee member Brazile and several others accused the state party of not trying hard enough to change the date. (One also noticed from the broadcast the unusually high number of African Americans on the 30-member committee, as opposed to near zero representation for other minorities.)

When asked by Brazile why she hadn’t made any plans to hold a caucus in place of the primary, Thurman balked. The logistics and $8 million price tag, she said, were beyond comprehension, given that Florida boasts 4 million eligible Democrats.

"I understand how states crave to be first,” Brazile blustered in a Washington Post interview the next day, as if none of what Thurman told her had registered. “I understand that they’re envious of the role that Iowa and New Hampshire have traditionally played, The truth is, we had a process . . . We’re going to back these rules."

Later, the head of the DNC Voting Rights Institute published an op-ed in the same newspaper, this time under the combative heading, “Why We Stood Up to Florida”. With the cockiness that was fast becoming her trademark, Brazile griped, “It was hardly an extraordinary act, although you wouldn’t know it from the furious reaction that ensued in some quarters…Why the uproar? It’s simple: state envy.”

She went on to list all the economic benefits coveted by states vying to hold early primaries, again diverting from the core issue of Republican meddling in Democratic affairs. Inexplicably, the press coverage of the showdown also overlooked the G.O.P.’s role in moving up the primary date.

The same week the rules committee stripped Florida of all its convention delegates, Michigan’s state legislature voted to move up its primary to January 15th. Both states could have easily been pegged as Clinton strongholds, making their exclusion from the election cycle suspect. Michigan is an industrial blue-collar enclave with few of the upper-middle-class voters and college students that represent Obama’s base. Florida’s Hispanic population is huge, and combined with an abundant supply of New York retirees, would likely also resist the Obama "surge".

Moreover, using Republican crossover voting to shave points off Clinton’s victories posed problems in both states. In Michigan, native son Mitt Romney had a significant campaign apparatus in place, while Rudi Giuliani was expecting to draw his line in the sand in Florida. Where these battleground territories were in play, neither gentleman would appreciate Rove siphoning away their voters. Better just to invalidate the primaries on the Democratic side. That way, Clinton’s delegate lead could be held in check on Super Tuesday.

"Seeds of Doubt"

With the votes of the country’s fourth and eighth largest states thus consigned to the junk heap, Brazile turned to other pursuits. Hired as a paid election analyst for CNN, she carried on a double life – one as an official DNC spokesperson, the other as a partisan campaigner for Barack Obama. In February, when best-guess estimates gave Clinton the support of two-thirds of the superdelegates, she declared, "If 795 of my colleagues decide this election, I will quit the Democratic Party."

If party leaders were as worried about negative fallout and damage control then as they claimed to be a month later, they might have reeled in their contract employee at this point for a heart-to-heart chat. That didn’t happen. Brazile just reloaded her pistol and repeated her empty threat to all who would listen. On another occasion, she accused former President Bill Clinton of being a racist. It was inexcusable, she said, that during a speech Clinton referred to Obama as a "kid" and suggested his presidential bid amounted to little more than a "fairy tale".

"And I will tell you," Brazile bristled with emotion, "as an African American I find his words and his tone to be very depressing."

To be sure, Clinton said Obama’s evolving position on the Iraq War was a fairy tale, not his candidacy. As for alluding to his youth, Brazile and other cheerleaders for the Illinois senator had been doing it themselves for the past four years. It was a classic example of the Mark Twain quip that a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth has put its shoes on. Only CNN’s presence in the equation gave the adage literal meaning. Surely, the DNC would intervene now that Brazile had insulted a former Democratic president on national television. But nothing.

Notwithstanding the character smears and 24/7 swiftboating by the American media, Sen. Clinton persevered, scoring big wins in the Texas, Rhode Island and Ohio on March 4^th. On March 5th, she was accused of engaging in a “negative” campaign designed to "destroy" her adversary.

“Despite Obama’s impressive victories in February, Clinton’s comeback is based on sowing political seeds of doubt,” Brazile informed the Associated Press that day, “If these attacks are contrasts based on policy differences, there is no need to stop the race or halt the debate. But, if this is more division, more diversion from the issues and more of the same politics of personal destruction, chairman Dean and other should be on standby."

(ABC’s Jake Tapper went Brazile one better, claiming Clinton was exercising the "Tanya Harding option".)

In response to the call to arms, Dean promptly petitioned Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to intervene in the protracted race, while Senators Dodd, Richardson and Leahy demanded that Clinton end her candidacy for the good of the party.

Now this sounded familiar. Jack Ryan must have been chuckling to himself from his perch inside a bar, drinking rot-gut whiskey. In Washington, meanwhile, Reid promised that “things will be done” to determine a nominee before the convention. Pelosi told George Stephanopolis on his Sunday talk show that the superdelegates should not overturn “the will of the people”, but denied rumors that she was telling members of Congress that Clinton, if nominated, would be a "drag" on their own campaigns. As the Democratic Party version of the Adams Family was thus occupied in their hand-wringing, chest-beating and sharing of apocalyptic visions, Clinton pressed ahead, picking up 9 out of the final 13 primaries. Three of them she won by more than 30 points.

But no sooner had the daylight begun to shine at the end of the tunnel when another Rove-Brazile shoe dropped. For some reason, her triumph in the popular vote was not matched proportionally by delegates earned, and it had something to do with Obama’s phenomenal gains in the caucus states of Idaho, Nebraska, Kansas, etc. One would not have expected an African American liberal to clobber his opponent by a two-to-one margin as he did in many cases. More importantly, her delegate gains in the primaries involving millions of voters seemed to pale in comparison. This made no sense.

In late May, a disability activist named P. Cronin appeared on scene to sort out the Twilight Zone phenomenon. Cronin, who like most disabled people is not a big fan of caucuses, spent some time in late May analyzing the tallies from the 2008 Democratic contest, comparing the impact of the two different voting methods on the race.

According to Cronin’s study, nearly all of Obama’s 138-delegate lead over Clinton could be traced to 12 red state caucuses. In most of these contests he routinely won by 2-1 margins, even though polls in those states showed the candidates much closer. In Idaho, for instance, with its scant African American population, few colleges and relatively few Starbucks outlets, he captured 15 of the state’s 18 delegates.

Something fishy was going on here. Did Dean’s so-called 50-state strategy include the recruitment of pro-Obama activists to organize on the candidate’s behalf in caucus states? Did the number of DaMaura’s G.O.P. crossover voters wildly exceed expectations? Or was there just downright lying in the computation of the vote tallies?

The case of Washington state underscores the mystery of this Bermuda Triangle for Clinton delegates. On February 9^th, Obama earned a whopping 52 of the Washington’s 78 delegates after a 36-point victory in the party-run caucus. Over 240,000 allegedly eligible voters cast ballots in that contest. But a week later, just ahead of a state-run certified primary, the polling data showed that Clinton might actually win the election. On February 19th, after 650,000 ballots were counted Obama eked out a 5-point victory, hardly the 2-1 margin responsible for his 26-delegate net gain in the state. Unfortunately, the primary was non-binding.

Cronin notes in the study that those states that furnished the newcomer’s vast delegate booty contribute a grand total of 69 electoral votes in the general election. Few of these territories have voted Democratic since 1964.

It also appears that the votes of those lucky caucus-goers counted for 5-10 times more than the traditional Democrats who attended primaries. Obama netted more delegates in his Idaho win, for instance, than Clinton in her entire Ohio-Texas-Rhode Island romp on March 4th. The following table illustrates the questionable validity of these dispersements. Notice that the last column shows the delegate gain for the winner:

2008 Democratic Presidential Preference Election © 2008 P. Cronin
—————————-

Even in the Navada caucus that Clinton won, Obama was awarded more delegates. The New York senator couldn’t seem to win for winning. There, the S.E.I.U. endorsement dissolved into wishful thinking when the casino workers broke for Clinton two to one, giving her a 6-point victory. A few months later, Obama left the state convention with 3 more delegates.

While there’s no evidence implicating Dean in Obama’s caucus routs, the DNC had maintained staff on the ground in all 50 states since 2005, when he first became the chair. In August 2007, a few weeks before his rules and bylaws committee stripped Florida of its delegates, he announced in a press release that his 50-State Strategy project, the Voting Rights Institute and another DNC division known as the National Lawyers Council were collaborating on a nationwide survey of voter databases, registration procedures and other "election mechanics". According to the release, DNC staff would work with local election boards in gathering information in advance of the 2008 presidential election. "Protecting the right of every eligible American to vote is a top priority for our party," Dean and Brazile said in a joint statement. "Every eligible American deserves the confidence that when they go to the polls to cast their ballot they can do so without fear of intimidation or harassment, and that their vote will be counted fairly and accurately."

Throwing Mama Under the Bus

On May 31, 2008, the rules committee reconvened to discuss those "eligible Americans" living in Florida and Michigan. A week before the meeting, the Democratic Party tried to attach an air of legitimacy to the proceedings by having legal counsel weigh in on the dispute. Although by Brazile’s own account, the Supreme Court gives political parties wide latitude for determining how they pick their nominees, the lawyers claimed it would be unlawful to fully honor the certified votes of January 15^th and 29^th . The committee could do no more than restore half the nearly 350 convention delegates up for grabs.

Always amenable to compromise, the Clinton campaign accepted that limitation but rejected a proposal for Obama to receive some of her Michigan delegates, plus those of all the other candidates in the Michigan primary. After all, the Illinois senator voluntarily withdrew his name from the ballot, then vetoed a re-do primary which Clinton donors raised $10 million to fund. In a sane world, one could argue that he forfeited the state and therefore deserved no delegates.

Former Governor of Michigan Jim Blanchard didn’t present that line of attack, however. The Clinton spokesman stuck to the modest request that the candidate receive delegates in proportion to the votes cast for her. A few minutes later, it was Brazile’s turn to speak, and the CNN analyst first took the opportunity to congratulate herself for displaying restraint in the meeting up until that point. Then she repudiated Blanchard as if he were a child.

"My mama taught me to play by the rules and respect the rules…When you decide to change the rules, especially, in the middle of the game, it’s called cheating."

Dispatching the governor to go stand and in a corner and contemplate the error of his ways, Brazile’s committee allocated the Michigan delegates according to a fruitcake-like recipe involving exit polls, alleged write-in votes for Obama, the palm-reading of a psychic (just kidding) and the actual tally. In the end, Clinton gained a mere 4.5 delegates from the contest.

Any masochist following the 2008 election knew by then that Brazile had disregarded her own mother’s counsel long ago. Neither she nor her co-horts have lost any sleep over the thousands of complaints filed about the conduct of the caucuses, including some 2,000 submitted in Texas alone. Voter intimidation, stacks of fabricated sign-in sheets slipped in with the legitimate records, phony declarations from Republicans about their intention to switch parties, votes delayed until deep into the night, inaccurate tallies called in by phone, and other dirty tricks have yet to warrant even a cursory investigation by those who preach that playing by the rules represents a core value of the Democratic Party.

Even in the aftermath of her power grab, Brazile continues to denigrate those who challenge the authority of the party’s new African American leadership. In a July 22nd post on Daryl Cagle’s website, she groaned, "How many ways do these Hillary delegates, voters and supporters need to hear it before they get it? Sen. Barack Obama is the party’s nominee. He won. He will get to choose his running mate. Obama sets the agenda for the convention, and, while I understand their passion in wanting Hillary to be on the ticket and to have a prominent role at the convention, it’s not her decision… As much as we all would have loved to see a woman in the Oval Office, it wasn’t Hillary’s time. Period."

It’s ironic when you think about it. The DNC’s Voting Rights Institute was created to stop exclusionary practices and increase participation at the polling booth. Now its chairwoman is presiding over one of the most hostile and fraudulent campaigns since those newspaper delivery trucks ran over the boy scouts in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

"Mr. Rove proved you can win elections with rumors, fear, division and manipulation." Brazile wrote back in 2007, after that friendly exchange with Air Force One. "But you can’t win hearts that way."

No, you can’t. But then, this influential political fixer no longer appears to have use for that particular organ. Which may be why she finds men like Karl Rove and Grover Norquist so appealing.

- Rosemary Regello editor@thecityedition.com

(For more on the G.O.P. manipulation of the Democratic Primaries, see our in-depth report Bamboozling the American Electorate Again)

Copyright 2008 TheCityEdition.com

“Last week, the New York Times outed a CIA agent — I’m not going to mention his name — who interrogated Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,” said O’Reilly. “The CIA asked the New York Times not to do that, it obviously puts the CIA agent in danger because al Qaeda knows who he is, and they say, ‘Well, we’ll out anybody unless they’re under cover.’”

The Times added an Editor’s Note to the story following its initial publication, explaining why they had revealed the interrogator’s name even though the CIA asked them not to do so. “After discussion with agency officials and a lawyer for Mr. Martinez, the newspaper declined the request, noting that Mr. Martinez had never worked under cover. … The newspaper seriously considered the requests from Mr. Martinez and the agency. But in view of the experience of other government employees who have been named publicly in books and published articles or who have themselves chosen to go public, the newspaper made the decision to print the name.”

“The New York Times has a double standard,” Rove replied to O’Reilly. “It was deeply concerned when Richard Armitage outed Valerie Plame. Of course, they were only concerned until the point that it became apparent it was Richard Armitage, not Karl Rove.”

Gee Karl. Early onset Alzheimer’s? Don’t you remember what you told Tim Russert and Chris Matthews?

Fair game. You said that a real undercover CIA officer was fair game for political attacks. And how about Matt Cooper and Robert Novak?

– Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper said, “Karl Rove told me about Valerie Plame’s identity on July 11, 2003. I called him because Ambassador Wilson [Plame’s husband] was in the news that week. I didn’t know Ambassador Wilson even had a wife until I talked to Karl Rove.”

– A week prior to publishing his column which outed Plame, Robert Novak spoke with Rove. Novak brought up Plame’s role at the CIA, and Rove confirmed that Plame worked at the CIA: “I heard that too,” said Rove.

You did not get it then and you do not get it now. The current CIA officer in question, Deuce Martinez, is not undercover. He is an analyst working in an overt (i.e., uncovered) job. His identity is not a secret. His future success in the CIA does not depend on going to work overseas.

And the notion that he is at danger from Al Qaeda is laughable. Why? Because, the CIA despite all of its flaws and shortcomings, has done a good job of killing and capturing key Al Qaeda operatives. They are a decimated organization. (See Marc Sageman for more on this.) It does not have the ability to send a hit team to track down Deuce Martinez. Of course, Bill O’Reilly and Karl Rove did not give a shit about a genuine risk to Valerie Plame back in 2003. At that time, Al Qaeda actually did threaten to kill her. And Valerie was left on her own to figure out how to protect herself and her family.

Now, even though Deuce was not undercover, the fact that the CIA requested the NY Times not print his name should have been taken seriously. The NY Times just proved that it has the scruples of Robert Novak, who also rejected several pleas from the CIA to not print Valerie’s name.

But there is a big difference between exposing an undercover CIA officer like Valerie, who had a network of spies overseas, and an overt analyst. The good news is that the recent revelations by Bush’s former press secretary, Scott McClellan, seals the deal for the Wilson’s law suit against Karl Rove and others. McClellan has stated flatly that Rove lied about his role in outing Valerie Plame. If that case goes to trial Mr. Rove will have a chance to explain why it is okay to out an undercover officer but not okay to write about an officer who is working in the open. I still want a frog march.

Washington DC, June 21 — Tonight political prisoner Larry Sinclair is spending his fourth night in the DC Jail, the victim of a Gestapo-style enemies’ list operation carried out just three blocks from the White House last Wednesday afternoon.

Sinclair had come to the National Press Club to detail his charges that the self-proclaimed Democratic presidential nominee Barack Hussein Obama had indulged in two homosexual encounters complete with crack cocaine in early November 1999, that Obama was complicit in the December 2007 assassination of Donald Young, the gay choirmaster of Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ, and that’s Obama’s resident perception monger, David Axelrod, had paid the pornographic website Whitehouse.com $750,000 to organize a campaign of character assassination against Sinclair, culminating in a faked polygraph test. At the close of the press conference, Sinclair was arrested inside the press club by US Marshals and DC police, apparently based on an old Delaware warrant.

GESTAPO TACTICS IN THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB, THE TEMPLE OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT?

Where are the civil libertarians? Where are the paladins of the ACLU? Where is the outcry and the indignation? Is no one concerned about threats to lynch a gay man for political reasons in the heart of the nation’s capital? Where are the left liberals who have been ostensibly so concerned about civil rights and civil liberties from Nixon to Bush-Cheney? Perhaps they are sleeping, or perhaps they have drunk the Obama Kool-Aid and have become morally insane.

Or perhaps they are so obsessed with the reform of the FISA law and the danger that Bush might be listening in to their telephone calls that they do not notice when a prominent critic of a presidential candidate who is infamously a darling of the establishment media is actually arrested, taken into custody and led away, the target of Gestapo tactics in the National Press Club, the sanctum sanctorum of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the First Amendment generally.

Surely the weak sisters who have joined Obama’s fifth column are morally insane when they joke about how Barky’s Myrmidons were able to arrest Sinclair. If the First Amendment does not apply to speech which is not popular with the establishment and the mob, then the First Amendment does not exist at all, for anybody. Any journalist or writer should be able to see that they themselves may be next, now that the US Marshals are serving as the “Fight the Smears” enforcement arm of the Obama campaign. Selective and vindictive prosecution, anyone?

The mere fact that Larry Sinclair had been able to hold such a successful press conference was already a serious defeat for the corrupt and brutal Obama machine.

Sinclair had appeared in the Holeman Lounge before more than a hundred journalists, with 10 cameras set up on tripods in the back of the room. The number of handheld cameras, camcorders, and tape recorders was beyond counting. The press conference was dignified, businesslike, factual. There was no screaming, no disruption, no threats or insults.

Every journalist who wanted to ask a question was given ample opportunity to do so, and about three dozen questions were asked. Reasonable follow-ups were allowed.

There were journalists from Britain, from Germany, from India, from China. Most of the questions represented honest attempts to pin down the facts of what was being alleged.

Sinclair’s honesty compared favorably to most politicians today. He started his presentation with a detailed admission of his criminal record, jail time served, his pending court motion to dismiss an old Colorado warrant, and a statement that his troubles with the law date back more than 20 years to 1980-1986.

In the question-and-answer segment, Sinclair gave a straight answer to every question he was asked. He did not dodge questions, he did not prevaricate, he did not refuse to answer questions, and he did not bungle his answers. Sinclair has made serious mistakes in life, as he readily concedes. But Sinclair is not a candidate, not a person who has to be evaluated by the public and then accepted or rejected.

Sinclair comes forward as a witness with a series of allegations to make and a story to tell. It is up to public opinion and most emphatically the news media to evaluate those allegations and those facts, including through the efforts of enterprising investigative journalists anxious to make a name for themselves by finding out the truth about what is potentially the biggest political scandal of the century. Obama, after all, is the candidate of whom we know little and who needs urgently to be evaluated.

The issue posed is not what you think about Larry Sinclair. The overriding issue is the presidency in a time of military defeat, institutional crisis, and economic breakdown.

HOMOPHOBIC DEATH THREATS AGAINST SINCLAIR

Obama’s lemming legions, and especially his notorious mercenary squadristi of the Internet, had done everything possible to sabotage and disrupt Sinclair’s press conference. One Obama backer had issued a categorical death threat against Sinclair in terms that made it abundantly clear that a homophobic hate murder might be in the offing. The FBI and the District of Columbia police had shown zero interest in offering Sinclair protection against a possible hit by one of Obama’s fanatics.

Once it is accepted that police agencies can intervene in political campaigns, it is possible to a rest or detain almost anyone if the interest is great enough. The old warrant used to incarcerate Sinclair most probably refers to events already covered by the statute of limitations.

If nothing can be found at this level, there are always old parking tickets and library fines that can be ginned up. Any political candidate who has had dealings with the Federal Elections Commission can be hauled in on some minor technical violation. The precedent established by last Wednesday’s events at the National Press Club is exceedingly ominous for the public life of this country.

The irony is that repression is now being carried out not to help the Republicans but under ultra-left cover, to help the radical subversive Obama.

Since the warrant used as the pretext to arrest Sinclair apparently came from Delaware, our attention naturally turns to Senator Joe Biden, the incorrigible blowhard and defeated presidential candidate who is now known to be angling for the post of vice president or Secretary of State in a future Obama regime.

We also note that Biden’s son, the nepotist Beau Biden, is the current Attorney General of Delaware. As the cops would say, the Biden machine, anxious to ingratiate themselves with Obama, had the means, motive, and opportunity to arrange this outrageous arrest. For those gullible enough to believe that civil liberties might improve under an Obama regime, this ought to provide a reality shock.

Do not assume that civil liberties will get better under Obama; the evidence is now that they will get worse. Obama’s National Press Club caper is as blatant as anything seen under Bush – and Barky is not even in the White House.

At the end of his detailed indictment of Obama, Sinclair demanded information on four points. The first involves Obama as phone records for November 3, 1999 through November 8, 1999 — the time frame of the two allegedly encounters between Obama and Sinclair, mediated by Paramjit Multani of Five Star Limo at O’Hare Airport. The second involves Obama’s phone records for September 2007 — December 23, 2007, when Sinclair was receiving probing phone calls from Donald Young about how much Sinclair had revealed concerning Obama — calls that ended when Young was found dead from multiple gunshot wounds just before Christmas 2007.

Sinclair’s third demand for clarification touches communications from Obama, Axelrod, and campaign manager David Plouffe to Whitehouse.com in January and February 2008. Sinclair’s fourth point regards possible payments by Obama, Obama’s campaign, Axelrod, Plouffe, and Axelrod’s AKP Message and Media to Whitehouse.com in that same time frame of January-February 2008.

OBAMA MUST ANSWER, NOT EVADE

It is now up to Obama to answer these charges. It is imperative that this be done now, without further delay. No responsible citizen wants a president who can be blackmailed and thus turned into a puppet because he is hiding secrets about bisexual activities, crack cocaine, political murder, and character assassination campaigns.

It is also up to the great news organizations, including ABC, CBS, NBC, The New York Times, and the Washington Post, to carry out their responsibility to the public. These news organizations should not play the role of kept courtesans of those in political power. As Sinclair pointed out, he has told his story and has thus done everything he can.

It is now up to the great media concerns to locate and interview the limo driver Paramjit Multani, to investigate the relevant telephone records, and above all to question Obama himself about this very serious matter. It is not up to the corporate media to sit back and sniff about whether a Sinclair has conclusively proven his own case to their satisfaction or not; the proving or disproving is the responsibility of the media, and let them make damn sure that they get it right.

By today’s journalistic standards, Sinclair’s allegations are extraordinarily substantive already, especially when compared with some other major scandal allegations heard during the primaries. Sinclair has filed a federal civil suit against Obama and Axelrod, complete with sworn affidavits and court papers.

This means that he is willingly risking Rule 11 penalties for filing a frivolous lawsuit.

He has also made statements to the Chicago police about his contacts with murder victim Donald Young. These steps represent a very high degree of public commitment by Sinclair to the truth of what he is saying.

Compare this to the shoddy standards of the New York Times which, on February 21, 2008 published and prominently displayed on its front page an innuendo about a supposed sex affair between Senator McCain and a certain Vicki Iseman, a Washington lobbyist. Not one single solitary named source was cited to support this innuendo. Or, take the case of Vanity Fair magazine, the house organ of decadent left liberalism, which included a slander piece entitled “The Comeback Id” by Todd Purdom in its July 2008 issue. Here again, there was not one single named source who was willing to have his or her name publicly associated with Purdom’s sleazy allegations.

It is painfully obvious that there is one set of journalistic standards for the Perfect Master Obama, and another and much laxer set for the competition. This is intolerable.

NO PRIVACY FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO ACCESS THE NUCLEAR BUTTON

It is fair to say that the idea of a private sphere for US presidential candidates about which the general public is not entitled to know anything became obsolete at the same time that intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads became available around 1960 to 1965. Since then, every presidential candidate has in effect appeared before the public asking to get his or her hands on the thermonuclear button that can start World War III.

At this point, the notion of a private sphere for presidential candidates becomes wholly untenable. In this day and age, we have the right to know everything but everything about presidential nominees who are asking for our votes.

We have a right to know their full personal histories, with no exceptions, no omissions, and no withheld documents.

We have a right to know if they are HIV-positive and whether they ever registered for the draft.

We want to know if they have received electroshock, psychopharmaca, and whether they have been treated by a psychiatrist.

We have a right to see their birth certificate, their college transcript, their senior thesis if they wrote one, their law school transcript, their passport, papers from earlier times in public office, and all other relevant documents.

We have a right to know about their mother, their father, their sister, their brother, their Aunt Tilly, their best friends at all stages of life, their boyfriends, their girlfriends, their pets, their backers, their sponsors, their gurus, their controllers, and their associates of every kind.

More than a right to know these things, we have an imperative duty to find them out.

For they are asking to get their hands on the thermonuclear button, the misuse of which can unleash a thermonuclear fireball that will not respect any aspect of the privacy of ourselves and our family.

Naturally, candidates are free to make their own choices in life just like everybody else: they can choose their religion, their personal associations, their forms of recreation, and all the rest in any way that they like.

But none of this — absolutely nothing — can be claimed as a secret off limits to the attention of the public. All of it must be thoroughly investigated, aired, and published when the presidency is at stake.

An Air Force crewman at a missile silo in the Dakotas goes through a background check which leaves scant room for privacy. We must demand nothing less from presidential candidates.

OBAMA’S COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT AND ALLEGED COCAINE USE

Larry Sinclair alleges that Obama has indulged in crack cocaine. Those familiar with the public literature about the current tenant of the White House know very well that there are many indications that his extraordinarily low level of performance may derive from cognitive impairment brought on by habitual cocaine use. How many more coke fiends in the White House are compatible with the further national survival of the United States?

Ronald Reagan notoriously suffered from cognitive impairment and constantly made his remarks off index cards which he kept hidden in his hands. Those index cards were a low-tech version of the glass plates of the Teleprompter upon which Obama relies.

As soon as he cannot read his words off those glass plates, Obama begins to stutter, to stammer and babble, to hem and to haw, repeatedly losing his syntax and constantly interjecting “um” and “you know.” What if Obama’s cocaine use really did extend beyond 1981, as he suggests in his memoir, and continued all the way to late 1999 at the very least, as Sinclair is alleging?

That might suggest that Obama suffers from greater cognitive impairment than Bush, as Obama’s incredible series of gaffes at the end of the primaries also indicates. Larry Sinclair stressed during his press conference that he has been a gay man all his life, and that he regarded the crack cocaine issue as the central one, at least until the time of the Donald Young murder.

During the press conference, Sinclair announced that he was willing to make his own personal medical records, including mental health records, available to responsible representatives of accredited news organizations, at their own expense.

That means that Sinclair is much more forthcoming about his medical history than Obama, who has withheld his medical records and offered a single meaningless page of advertising copy signed by his personal physician. And remember that Sinclair is not running for any office, while Obama wants to be president.

TWO MONTHS TO THE ROLL CALL OF THE STATES, AUGUST 27

The Democratic Party still has more than two months in which these very serious, substantive, and detailed allegations against its presumptive candidate can be thoroughly investigated.

It is unthinkable that any responsible political leader would be willing to see Obama receive the nomination while this sword of Damocles hangs over his head. Larry Sinclair’s videotape has been on the Internet since mid-January, and it has at various times been the object of discussion on something approaching a million websites.

The issues are Obama’s crack cocaine use, his bisexuality, his possible involvement in the Donald Young assassination, and the allegations of character assassination and harassment against Sinclair funded by the Obama campaign.

Karl Rove knows all about each one of these points, and there is no way to deter Karl Rove and his cohorts.

So, although it may seem incomprehensible to Obama’s drooling acolytes, the interest of the Democratic Party is best served by thorough airing of these allegations to before the roll call of the states is held on August 27, 2008 — and this is exactly what Sinclair has been trying to do since mid-January.

If Sinclair had been a GOP deployment, he would simply have waited for September or October to come forward.

There are of course those who lament and regret that it is necessary to dredge up the sordid details of a figure like Obama. They say that it is better to use political campaigns to talk about issues.

This document may sound plausible, but it is totally wrong, and the fault rests with Obama.

First, Obama does not campaign on issues in any systematic way. He presents himself as the Perfect Master, the Anointed One, the Savior, the Messiah, the Mahdi. His hysterical followers are obsessed, not with a political program or a set of issues, but with the personality cult of Obama. This means that any attempt to engage Obama on the issues is by definition an impotent and self-defeating tactic.

The only useful objections that can be made to Obama are ad hominem biographical revelations designed to show that he is not so anointed after all, and that his ability to walk on water has been overestimated.

Then there is also the matter of Obama’s notorious duplicity and flip-flops even where he does have specific positions on certain issues. First Obama wanted a fixed schedule for getting out of Iraq, but Samantha Power revealed that this was not the case at all. Barky said he wanted a different kind of foreign policy, and then he pandered to AIPAC, probably lying through his teeth in the process. First, Obama wanted to help the lower income brackets, but now he is talking about cutting the corporate income tax. Obama attacked free trade in Ohio and Pennsylvania, even as his top economic controller, Austan Goolsbee of the Friedmanite Chicago school reassured the Canadians that this was just election posturing; now Obama has told Fortune magazine that he likes free trade and is devoted to “free markets.”

First, Obama was going to be tough on FISA; now he is going along with the Democratic congressional leaders as they attempt to appease Bush.

Obama had built his career on ethics in government and reducing the role of political contributions; now he has turned his back on the only meager legislative achievements by becoming the first presidential candidate in modern times to repudiate matching funds in the general election.

On all these points, to attempt a substantive debate with Obama is a fool’s errand. The only way to pin Barky down is through pointed reference to crucial facts in his own background, biography, and associations which cannot be changed or swept under the rug. Any other approach is deliberate impotence and capitulation.

FREE LARRY SINCLAIR!

In the meantime, Larry Sinclair is still sitting in the DC jail. He could be extradited to Delaware at any time.

What kind of a presidential campaign are we going to have when critics of the most radical subversive to ever get this close to the presidency have to worry about a knock on the door in the middle of the night? It is time to put massive public pressure on the Obama campaign to drop their enemies’ list operation against Larry Sinclair, and to release him from jail at once.

Webster G. Tarpley is the author of Obama – The Postmodern Coup: Making of a Manchurian Candidate.

Well, some Obamoids learned the lessons verrrrrry well. At today’s Huffypot (do the google, I won’t link), Jeffrey Klein has started swiftboating John McCain’s navy career by implying McCain was both over privileged (he’s an elitist too!) and an incompetent flier. He starts the piece with a question about whether or not McCain was in line for a promotion to flag officer, but Klein quickly veers off into smearville. Of course, it wouldn’t be an anti-McCain talking point if he wasn’t tied to Bush:

Read the rest ->

McCain’s sense of entitlement to privileged treatment bears an eerie resemblance to George W. Bush’s.

But I think the part I loathe the most is this:

The genius of McCain’s mythmaking is his perceived humility amid perpetual defiance. Having been a rebel without cause, and often a rebel without consequences, McCain apparently was not surprised when his Vietnamese captors went relatively easy on him compared to his fellow POWs.

Wow. That’s pretty brutal. Wonder what standing this guy has to make such veiled accusations? Nice too is the title of this little hit piece: “McCain’s Secret, Questionable Record.” Of course, Klein says all he really wants is McCain to release all his navy records and that would answer ALL POSSIBLE questions. I call bs on that.

This campaign cycle resembles nothing so much as the Rove directed Republican efforts of 2000 and 2004, only with Democrats in the Republican role. Phew! Nasty! I’d like to see what Klein could do with the records of a Medal of Honor winner. Bet this crack investigator could get that award cut down to a “time served” ribbon.

But god(dess) forbid we point out BO’s short-comings or faults, or try to point out that the bridge is out and our party leaders are driving us straight toward the edge of a cliff in pushing Obama on us as our nominee.  If we dare question his ability to beat McCain – mention folks like his pastor of 20 years (Rev. Wright), his friend of 17 years (Tony Rezko), or that Ayers fella everyone’s been talking about, we’re tagged as divisive, undermining a guy who’s obviously going to be our nominee (according to his supporters anyway), disloyal to our Party, turncoats, GOP Operatives, Karl Rove mouth-pieces, or worse yet – racists.  

I mean I catch hell for pointing out something as simple as the differences between their healthcare reform plans.  Or if I ask that most uncomfortable of questions – how does he plan to bring about all that change he’s always talking about?

If we point out the fact that he’s having a hell of a time appealing to the working stiffs out there people jump down our throat.  The lunch bucket work-a-day crowd and families just getting by (like mine) are not voting for him.  We haven’t and we won’t and if anyone dares point out that inability to attract voters like us, we’re painted as… well you know.  You’ve seen the “discussions” in the comments in response to things we’ve posted.  

Take for example this latest report out of Kentucky, where Obama’s apparently not even bothering to campaign in the lead-up to tomorrow’s vote.  Even with Edwards’ recent endorsement, he’s given up and is blaming the coming shellacking on some emails and rumors.  I hate to point out the obvious but if BO claims he can’t win KY because of some emails and rumors, how in the HELL will he beat McCain when the RNC and the 527s really start in on him?

Obama blames Fox News, e-mail for likely loss in Kentucky

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, facing a likely defeat in next Tuesday’s primary election, won’t travel to Kentucky before the voting, but said he hopes to have much more time to win over Kentucky voters before the November general election.

He also blamed Fox News for disseminating “rumors” about him and said that that and e-mails filled with misinformation that have been “systematically” dispersed have hurt him in Kentucky.

When we point out that he’s made excuses like this in the past for losses like this, we’re called every name in the book.  When we point out that he and his team rarely take responsibility for these losses (ie no loss is ever his fault) rather than acknowledge that maybe he has a problem with those voters and come up with a plan to reach out to folks, we’re called divisive and accused of posting “hit diaries.”  When we ask whether it has ever occurred to the Democratic Party leadership, that if rumors and e-mails have hurt his ability to woo voters in Kentucky, what will the situation be when the Republicans REALLY start throwing the bs at him, we’re accused of being turncoats.

Watch the comments guys – the very fact that I’ve pointed out these weaknesses in his game-plan for the general election will elicit cries of foul and unfair.  But look around this site – there’ve been plenty of posts here about Hillary like this – only a lot worse.

Ok, I get it.  There’s a double standard here and I’ve finally figured out that we’re all playing by two very different sets of rules.  So do us all a favor – spell out for us just how we’re supposed to campaign for Hillary, and maybe point out how she’s a much stronger candidate than her opponent when it comes to going up against McCain in the GE without getting trashed or worse yet – stalked and insulted on a personal level.

And please (!!!!) do us the courtesy of respecting our intelligence and this process by refraining from telling us to be nice to BO because he’s obviously going to be our nominee, because that’s simply not the case here guys.  Nothing’s set for sure until the delegates vote on the convention floor in August.

We’ve still got a campaign here and we have just as much of a right to promote our candidate and question yours as you do.  So can we please dispense with the double standards, let the people vote and see where the dust settles come convention time?

Hillary’s not backing down and neither am I and dammit – I’ll make my case the same way you guys are making yours.  It’d be great if we could all do it on an even playing field for a change.

I got an email from a friend and have tried to confirm this from other sources – no luck as yet but I thought I’d mention this to raise an important point gang… Rumor has it that Camp Obama’s making a huge push to make nice with Hillary’s online fans and convince us to abandon our gal before even a single vote’s been cast at the convention this summer. Some are even saying he’s gone and hired 400 bloggers. Check it out…

Source – HillBuzz

the Obama campaign has hired 400 bloggers to influence the public discourse and sway Hillary voters to “remember we are all Democrats”, to give up Clinton's cause, and to become dutiful citizens of the Obama Nation.

I don’t know if that 400 blogger bit is true but I’ve noticed a LOT of new Obama followers here on MyDD over the past few days so maybe there’s something to it. Not sure if they’re paid or if they even exist and frankly, I really don’t care. But I do care that people are calling for Hillary’s supporters to “give it up” and telling us “it’s over” when not one single vote has been cast in our party’s convention. That’s a few months off yet so why don’t we just let the rest of the states have their say, make our case to the undeclared superdelegates out there and chill?

Sure, there is no perfect dog left standing in this fight.  But Hillary’s baggage and gaffes are mostly old and mostly uninteresting by now.  Boring. Obama is very fresh and knowledge about his life choices are still unfolding. Yummy!
 
To anyone who says my work might give the Republicans ideas, I offer the video (thanks to Truthtelling 007 and Susan for setting it up).  Karl Rove has already found my candy store.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tW1PqJB5LU[/youtube]

WOE IS ME!
WOE IS ME!
ABC IS MEAN!

Well, yeah.  ABC was mean to Obama.  They treated him like, dare I say it, the frontrunner.  They treated him like they are going to treat him every day from now until November.  You saw him, FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, get the same sort of treatment Clinton has been getting from day one, and your feelings are hurt.  Why?  Because it’s not fair?  Hell no.  Not a darned one of you cared a whit about “fair” when the shoe was on the other foot.  No.  You’re offended because you thought, for what reason I can not even imagine, that the media would continue to give Obama the same ride they always give McCain.  And under it all, in the backs of your heads, you are finally acknowledging the echoes of what Clinton supporters have told you all along – that the media would turn on Obama once Clinton was out of the way, and the free ride would be over.

What do I mean?  Why don’t you take the jump and find out.

Did you hate Stephanopolous and ABC last August, when they warmed Obama up and threw HIM, not Clinton the first question about her negative, and premised the whole thing with a Karl Rove quote:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me turn now to the second question I raised, the topic question about Senator Clinton. And outgoing White House counsel Karl Rove opined on that this week. He was on Rush Limbaugh. Here’s what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KARL ROVE: There is no front-runner who has entered the primary season with negatives as high as she has in the history of modern polling. She’s going into the general election with, depending on what poll you’re looking at, in the high forties on the negative side and just below that on the positive side.

And there’s nobody who’s ever won the presidency who started out in that kind of position.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Now, Senator Obama, I know you’re loathe to agree with Karl Rove on just about anything.

(LAUGHTER)

OBAMA: I am.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But the Associated Press this week wrote an article. They talked to 40 Democratic activists and officeholders across the country. It led to the series of headlines across the country: “Democrats worry Clinton may weigh down lesser candidates”; “Democrats worry Clinton may hurt the rest of the ticket.”

Are they right to be worried?

Did Clinton at least get the follow up?  Nope, the next question was also to Obama:

But when you say that, are you saying that Senator Clinton is part of the failed politics of Washington, or not?

after he answered it, Stephanopolous let Edwards chime in:

STEPHANOPOULOS: So the answer is yes?

OBAMA: The answer is: I would not be running if I did not believe that I was the best person to do this.

EDWARDS: Well, let me just say — I have a slightly different view. Here’s what I believe. I think we were out of power in the Congress for 13 years. In November of 2006, the Democrats took over the Congress again. I think there was a reason for that. Because the Democrats in November of 2006 stood for change.

America wants change in the most serious way. And if we become the party of status quo in 2008, that’s a loser.

followed by more follow-up, TO EDWARDS:

And you’re seeing that Senator Clinton is not?

Clinton was never asked to address the question.  Instead, the next question to her was a shift, based on something Edwards said, and clearly another shot at her:

EDWARDS: Senator Obama is not taking it in this campaign. I applaud him for that. And I’ve said: Why don’t we all make an absolutely clear statement that we are the Democratic Party; we’re the party of the people; we are not the party of Washington insiders?

And we can say it clearly and unequivocally, by saying we will never take another dime from a Washington lobbyist.

(APPLAUSE)

I’ve asked the other candidates to join me in that.

(APPLAUSE)

And at least, until now, Senator Clinton’s not done it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Clinton, will you do it?

and he stayed on the attack:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Clinton…

CLINTON: So I’m looking forward to going up against whoever the Republicans nominate.

(APPLAUSE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: How about this point, though, that Senator Edwards raises? He says the fact that you’re taking money from lobbyists symbolizes that you’re part of the status quo, part of the failed politics of Washington.

and the follow-up?  Senator Edwards, please keep attacking Senator Clinton:

Back to you, Senator. She says the distinction is artificial.

But wait, you might say, the real problem last night was trivial questions.  Newsflash, folks, that is nothing new:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me move on now. We’ve got a question — we’ve got an e-mail question from Seth Ford of South Jordan, Utah.

And he said, “My question is to understand each candidates’ view of a personal God. Do they believe that, through the power of prayer, disasters like Hurricane Katrina or the Minnesota bridge collapse could have been prevented or lessened?”

I’d like each of you to answer it. Let me start with you, Senator Clinton.

Now look at this exchange, then find a SINGLE DEBATE where any other candidate was asked this sort of follow-up question:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Clinton?

CLINTON: Well, I, too, regret giving George Bush the authority that he misused and abused. It was a very difficult decision, and I tried to weigh it as carefully as possible, talking to a lot of different people and being assured, both publicly and privately, by President Bush and the people close to him that they would use the authority to go in and get inspectors and try to find out if there were weapons of mass destruction and pursue diplomacy.

So, you know, looking back on it, I wouldn’t have voted that way again, certainly, because obviously President Bush had no intention of doing what he said he was going to do. And obviously for me that is a great regret.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But did you tell the whole truth when discussing it?

CLINTON: Well, as I saw it, yes, you know, similar to John. You know, when the president of the United States says, as he said publicly, and then as people around him said privately over and over again, “We’re going to use this authority to get inspectors back in, “We’re going to go to the United Nations,” you know, at some point, you do have to make that evaluation.

How many people here griped about ABC or Stephanopolous then? Did we start a boycott then?  

It wasn’t over, there, by the way.  All the debates until the last one have been huge pile-ons, and the candidates and moderators have been in it together.

In the October 30, 2007, debate, Tim Russert and Brian Williams went after Clinton, and invited the other candidates to do it too (and by the way, introduced the first use of the “Rocky” theme to the race by Obama, not Clinton, for those who piled on with the ridicule lately):

You gave an interview to the New York Times, over the weekend, pledging in it to be more aggressive, to be tougher in your campaign against your chief rival for the nomination, the leader among Democrats so far, Senator Clinton, who is here next to you tonight.

To that end, Senator, you said that Senator Clinton was trying to sound Republican, trying to vote Republican on national security issues.

WILLIAMS:  And that was, quote, “bad for the country and ultimately bad for the Democrats.”  That is a strong charge, as you’re aware.  Specifically, what are the issues where you, Senator Obama, and Senator Clinton have differed, where you think she has sounded or voted like a Republican?

OBAMA:  Well, first of all, I think some of this stuff gets over-hyped.  In fact, I think this has been the most hyped fight since Rocky fought Apollo Creed, although the amazing thing is, I’m Rocky in this situation.    

The next question invited Edwards to attack Clinton:

Senator Edwards, you issued a press release, your campaign, and the headline is “Edwards to Clinton: American people deserve the truth, not more double-talk on Iran.”What double-talk are you suggesting that Senator Clinton has been engaging in on Iran?

Here is a later question from Russert.  On its face it looks innocuous. Too bad the whole thing is a sham:

Senator Clinton, elsewhere in the region, let’s talk

about Iraq.  One of your military advisers, retired Lieutenant General

Claudia Kennedy, while campaigning for you in New Hampshire, was

recently quoted saying, quote, “I don’t oppose the war.  I have never

heard Senator Clinton say `I oppose the war.’”

Senator Clinton, do you oppose the war in Iraq?

Why do I say it’s a sham?  I’ll let Bob Sommersby tell you:

As it turns out, Russert was working extra hard to frame that insinuative question. Kennedy’s “recent” statement was made on October 6, and it was instantly disavowed, that same day, by Clinton and her campaign. (Spokesman Blake Zeff, in the October 7 New York Daily News: “Sen. Clinton has made it repeatedly clear that she opposes the war and that if George Bush doesn’t end it, she will, She has voted against funding for the war and has offered a clear plan for bringing our troops home.’”) But so what? Twenty-four days later, Russert could be found on stage, calling this a “recent” statement and pretending there was something troubling here–something slippery that needed to be resolved.

So what did Kennedy actually say that led to the question?  I’m glad you asked, because it was most definitely NOT what Russert insinuated:

KATZ (10/7/07): A top military supporter of Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid says she doesn’t “oppose” the Iraq war–and neither does Clinton.

Oh yes, she does, Team Clinton said yesterday, rushing to overrule its own backer.

“I have not ever heard [Clinton] say, ‘I oppose the war,’ ” retired Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy, the first woman promoted to three-star Army general, told the Manchester, N.H., Union-Leader newspaper as she visited the early-voting state to stump for the New York senator.

“I’ve heard her say that we need to begin withdrawal…I’ve heard her say we need to create a regional stabilizing group by allies, by leaders in the world and by all of the states that are bordering Iraq,” Kennedy continued.

“That’s a much more sophisticated thing than saying, ‘I oppose the war.’”

Kennedy’s statements could be seen as a marked break in the tightly scripted campaign helmed by Clinton, who voted to invade Iraq but later said the Bush administration had deceived Congress and the public about the conflict.

“Sen. Clinton has made it repeatedly clear that she opposes the war and that if George Bush doesn’t end it, she will,” spokesman Blake Zeff said. “She has voted against funding for the war and has offered a clear plan for bringing our troops home.’”

And how did Russert and Williams follow it up?  By inviting Obama and Edwards to pile on to his lie:

Senator Obama, was Senator Clinton’s answer to the opposition of the Iraq war question consistent, in your view?

Senator Edwards, same question.

After that debacle, a commercial break.  Where did they pick up after the break? Again, on attack against Clinton.  Here was the first post-commercial question:

And we’re going to start with another subject at the top of this segment.

Senator Clinton, it will go to you.  It speaks to electability.

Earlier this month, Republican presidential frontrunner, Rudolph Giuliani, said this about you, quote, “I don’t know Hillary’s experience.  She’s never run a city.  She’s never run a state.  She’s never run a business.  She’s never met a payroll.  She’s never been responsible for the safety and security of millions of people, much less, even hundreds of people.

“So I’m trying to figure out where the experience is here,”  end of quote.

Senator, how do you respond to the former mayor of New York?

Then Russert followed it up with another question to Clinton, one he knew was disingenuous, since he knew Clinton could not control release of National Archives documents:

Senator Clinton, I’d like to follow up, because in terms of your experience as first lady, in order to give the American people an opportunity to make a judgment about your experience, would you allow the National Archives to release the documents about your communications with the president, the advice you gave?

Because, as you well know, President Clinton has asked the National Archives not to do anything until 2012.

Was this a continuous attack on Clinton, and an invitation to all the other candidates to pile on?  Let’s look at some more questions to find out.  How about this one?

Senator Biden, you said recently, “While Mrs. Clinton was meeting socially with the prime minister of a country, I was sitting down and negotiating with them.  I know my experience is considerably deeper and more relevant.”

Do you stand by that quote, and is your inference that she is less qualified than you to be president?

But wait, it gets worse.  From here Russert switched the debate to Social Security, and premised the entire segment on a lie about Clinton:

Senator Clinton, I want to clear something up which goes to the issue of credibility.  You were asked at the AARP debate whether or not you would consider taxing, lifting the cap from $97,500, taxing that, raising more money for Social Security.  You said, quote, “It’s a no.”  I asked you the same question in New Hampshire, and you said “no.”

Then you went to Iowa and you went up to Tod Bowman, a teacher, and had a conversation with him saying, “I would consider lifting the cap perhaps above $200,000.”  You were overheard by an Associated Press reporter saying that.

Why do you have one public position and one private position?

Let’s follow Bob Sommersby back to the New Hampshire debate to see if Russert’s question had any basis in fact, shall we?

At that gruesome New Hampshire debate, Clinton didn’t “say no” to raising the Social Security cap; she said she wouldn’t endorse any option until a bipartisan commission was formed. Sorry, but Russert was being baldly disingenuous here (as always). Here’s the question His Greatness had asked at that earlier debate:

   RUSSERT (9/26/07): Senator Clinton, would you be in favor of saying to the American people? “I’m going to tax your income. I’m not going to cap at $97,500. Everyone, even if you’re a millionaire, is going to pay Social Security tax on every cent they make.”

According to Russert’s question this past Tuesday night, Clinton “said no” to this proposal. But here’s what actually had transpired, though Russert had seemed to forget:

   CLINTON (9/26/07, continuing directly): Well, Tim, let me tell you what I think about this because I know this is a particular concern of yours. But I want to make three points very briefly.

   First, I do think that it’s important to talk about fiscal responsibility. You know, when my husband left office after moving us toward a balanced budget and a surplus, we had a plan to make Social Security solvent until 2055. Now, because of the return to deficits, we’ve lost 14 years of solvency. It’s now projected to be solvent until 2041. Getting back on a path of fiscal responsibility is absolutely essential.

   Number two, I think we do need another bipartisan process. You described what happened in ‘83. It took presidential leadership, and it took the relationship between the White House and Capitol Hill to reach the kind of resolution that was discussed.

   And I think that has to be what happens again, but with a president who is dedicated to Social Security, unlike our current president, who has never liked Social Security. You can go back and see when he first ran for Congress he was dissing Social Security. So when I’m president, I will do everything to protect and preserve Social Security so we can have that kind of bipartisanship.

   And finally, then you can look in the context of fiscal responsibility and of a bipartisan compromise what else might be done. But I think if you don’t put fiscal responsibility first, you’re going to really make a big mistake, because we demonstrated in the ’90s it had a lot to do with moving us toward solvency.

   RUSSERT: But you would not take lifting the cap at 97-5 off the table?
    CLINTON: Well, I take everything off the table until we move toward fiscal responsibility and before we have a bipartisan process. I don’t think I should be negotiating about what I would do as president. You know, I want to see what other people come to the table with.

Did Clinton “say no” to raising the cap? What she said was: I’m going to move toward fiscal responsibility, then I’m going to form a commission. At that time, “you can look in the context of fiscal responsibility and of a bipartisan compromise what else might be done.” Maybe you like that answer and maybe you don’t; for our part, we’d prefer to see Democratic candidates explaining that it isn’t clear that anything needs to be done about this matter. (Though that may not be winning politics, given the insistence of people like Russert that we’re in a crisis.) But she didn’t “say no” to raising the cap–unless you want to embellish a bit, so you can imply she’s dishonest. And that’s what Russert did this night, as he’s done to Big Dems in the past.

Clinton said the same thing in response to Russert’s new question.  But he could not let the canard go.  He attacked again, and she responded again:

RUSSERT:  But you did raise it as a possibility with Tod Bowman?

CLINTON:  Well, but everybody knows what the possibilities are, Tim.  Everybody knows that.  But I do not advocate it.  I do not support it.  I have laid out what I do believe, and I am going to continue to emphasize that.

I think, for us to act like Social Security is in crisis is a Republican trap.  We’re playing on the Republican field.  And I don’t intend to do that.

Russert wasn’t done:

RUSSERT:  You call it a Republican talking point.  Georgetown University, February 9, 1998:  ”We are in a–heading to a looming fiscal crisis in Social Security.  If nothing is done, it will require a huge tax increase in the payroll tax or a 25 percent in Social Security benefits,” Bill Clinton, 1998.

RUSSERT:  That’s recent history.  Only two years to go in his term.  Is that a Republican talking point?

CLINTON:  No, but what he did was to move us toward a balanced budget and a surplus.  And, if you go back and you look at the numbers, they really took off starting in `98, `99, 2000, 2001.

If you look at the debate transcript you will see that Russert’s follow was ALWAYS about Clinton – either AT her, or TO other candidates inviting them to attack her.  After letting Obama also answer the SS question, here was his follow up:

But when asked by The New York Times whether Senator Clinton has been truthful, you said no.

We already saw how Clinton was asked a question based upon what Giuiliani said.  Was Obama asked a question premised by another Republican candidate?  Yup.  Let’s see if it was a fastball or a floater:

Senator Obama, we’re going to transfer into a new area here.  A question specifically for you because you’re in a rather unique position.  It’s about religion and misinformation.  Governor Romney misspoke twice on the same day, confusing your name with that of Osama bin Laden.

Then they went to the second break, and only after that did they start asking questions of Dodd, Kucinich, and others.  What a farce.

So here’s my question – should I dig into the Daily Kos archives to see if the people so preoccupied with moaning and wailing about ABC had any of the same gripes on October 30, 2007?  No?  I didn’t think so.

Let’s go to the

February 26 debate in Cleveland, shall we?  How did that one start?  With two questions aimed directly at Clinton:

MR. WILLIAMS: A lot has been said since we last gathered in this forum, certainly since — in the few days since you two last debated. Senator Clinton, in your comments especially, the difference has been striking. And let’s begin by taking a look.

SEN. CLINTON: (From videotape.) You know, no matter what happens in this contest — and I am honored, I am honored to be here with Barack Obama. I am absolutely honored. (Cheers, applause.)

(From videotape.) So shame on you, Barack Obama. It is time you ran a campaign consistent with your messages in public. That’s what I expect from you. Meet me in Ohio. Let’s have a debate about your tactics and your — (cheers, applause).

MR. WILLIAMS: Senator Clinton, we’re here in Ohio. Senator Obama is here. This is the debate. You would agree the difference in tone over just those 48 hours was striking.

and, quoting DRUDGE of all people:

MR. WILLIAMS: On the topic of accurate information, and to that end, one of the things that has happened over the past 36 hours — a photo went out the website The Drudge Report, showing Senator Obama in the native garb of a nation he was visiting, as you have done in a host country on a trip overseas.

Matt Drudge on his website said it came from a source inside the Clinton campaign. Can you say unequivocally here tonight it did not?

Later in the same debate Tim Russert went on the attack:

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, on the issue of jobs, I watched you the other day with your economic blueprint in Wisconsin saying, this is my plan; hold me accountable. And I’ve had a chance to read it very carefully. It does say that you pledge to create 5 million new jobs over 10 years.

And I was reminded of your campaign in 2000 in Buffalo, my hometown, just three hours down Route 90, where you pledged 200,000 new jobs for upstate New York. There’s been a net loss of 30,000 jobs. And when you were asked about your pledge, your commitment, you told The Buffalo News, “I might have been a little exuberant.” Tonight will you say that the pledge of 5 million jobs might be a little exuberant?

Do you remember this exchange, before the break?  They gave Obama a long opportunity to talk about invading Iraq, and cut Clinton’s response off because they needed to go to a commercial break.  They did it with a promise to return to her on the return:

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, on the issue of jobs, I watched you the other day with your economic blueprint in Wisconsin saying, this is my plan; hold me accountable. And I’ve had a chance to read it very carefully. It does say that you pledge to create 5 million new jobs over 10 years.

And I was reminded of your campaign in 2000 in Buffalo, my hometown, just three hours down Route 90, where you pledged 200,000 new jobs for upstate New York. There’s been a net loss of 30,000 jobs. And when you were asked about your pledge, your commitment, you told The Buffalo News, “I might have been a little exuberant.” Tonight will you say that the pledge of 5 million jobs might be a little exuberant?

So, what was the first question on the return, and who got it?

Senator Obama, we started tonight talking about what could be construed as a little hyperbole. Happens from time to time on the campaign trail. You have recently been called out on some yourself. I urge you to look at your monitor and we’ll take a look.

Something else funny happened there, too.  When they played Clinton videotape, they asked Obama about it.  When they played Obama videotape, they asked Obama about it.  Ain’t that grand?

Russert raised the FRAUDULENT National Archives argument again in this debate:

MR. RUSSERT: One other issue. You talked about releasing documents. On January 30th, the National Archives released 10,000 pages of your public schedule as first lady. It’s now in the custody of former President Clinton. Will you release that — again, during this primary season that you claim that eight years of experience, let the public know what you did, who you met with those eight years?

Look folks, the point is not that you’re all a bunch of hypocritical cry-babies.  You are.  The point is that this is how frontrunners get treated, and how Democratic nominees get treated.  If you had the absurd fantasy that it would be different for Obama you were foolish.  All that happened in the last year was that the media had Clinton in the cross-hairs, and Obama was their weapon of choice.  Once she’s gone, he’s next, and you have only seen the tip of the iceberg.  That, in a nutshell, is why the BELIEF that Obama is somehow transcendent, that he will lead us to a 50-state promised land, is nothing but a set-up for grotesque failure.

If you think what happened last night wasn’t fair, well, I agree with you.  But if you think it was any different from what has been happening for a year, well, you are kidding yourselves.