Haunting the Web Since 1999
If you live in North Carolina or Indiana, please consider voting for Barack Obama today. (And to the Tar Heels: my home state of South Carolina went for Obama by 28: If you can’t represent at least somewhat similarly — and right now the polls are saying single-digits — I consider the contest between us closed.)
“Elizabeth Edwards likes Hillary Clinton’s plan for universal health insurance. Husband John Edwards doesn’t much care for Clinton’s ‘old politics.’ So goes the his-and-her debate in the Edwards household.” In a new interview with People magazine, John and Elizabeth Edwards announce they’re staying neutral. “Bottom line: the couple said they will not endorse either remaining candidate, saving their political capital for their own causes – his, fighting poverty; hers, fighting for universal health care.“
To which I feel compelled to ask: What political capital? Let me get this straight. On the one hand, we have Barack Obama, the “change” candidate who has had the nomination in the bag, mathematically speaking, for several months now. On the other, we have Hillary Clinton, the candidate whose campaign Edwards himself memorably deemed “the forces of status quo,” and who has left no GOP tactic untried to hack and slash a path to the nomination. And the Edwardses are neutral? That’s not statesmanship. That is political cowardice, pure and simple.
I mean, this isn’t a huge surprise: It’s been an open secret for awhile that the Edwardses would likely stay neutral, partly (if not mainly) on account of Elizabeth’s personal issues with the Obama candidacy. Still, I thought they’d eventually rise above their pique and get on board with the “change” they’d espoused for months and months on end. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve personally defended Edwards (usually from the children of doctors, who’ve been indoctrinated with the idea that malpractice lawsuits rank just below genocide on the list of Crimes Against Humanity, and thus that Edwards is merely some kind of rank profiteer living off their dear parents’ hard work.) I applauded his candidacy in 2008, and even voted for the guy in 2004. But, really, this is the kiss-off: If they still can’t manage to bring themselves off the fence at this late hour, I just can’t take either of them seriously anymore as leaders or progressives. “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
Thank you, Hagatna: Sen. Obama wins the Guam presidential caucuses by seven votes, 50.1%-49.9%. (This means a 2-2 delegate split, but also puts Obama two closer to the magic number of 2025.)
On the super side, Obama picks up Brian Colon of NM, Inez Tenenbaum of SC, and Parris Glendening of MD (the latter two are UADs.) Clinton, meanwhile, gets Jaime Gonzalez of TX and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend of MD (also a UAD). So the day’s super tally: Obama +3, Clinton +2. Adding ’em to the post-PA super count, that puts us at Obama 17, Clinton 11 (or Clinton down 23 from her needed 2-1 split.)
You know all the media hype we’ve been hearing of late about Obama’s presumed troubles with white voters? According to a study by NYT columnist Charles Blow, the numbers don’t bear it out. In fact, quite the converse: “The question is this: Have white Democrats soured on Obama? Apparently not. Although his unfavorable rating from the group is up five percentage points since last summer in polls conducted by The New York Times and CBS News, his favorable rating is up just as much. On the other hand, black Democrats’ opinion of Hillary Clinton has deteriorated substantially (her favorable rating among them is down 36 percentage points over the same period). While a favorable opinion doesn’t necessarily translate into a vote, this should still give the Clintons (and the superdelegates) pause. Electability cuts both ways.” That it does. (See also Rural Votes.)
You’ve probably already seen this making the rounds today. But since it’s definitely in GitM’s wheelhouse, The Empire Strikes Barack. A few inspired moments therein: the cantina, Admirals Ozzel (Penn) and Motti (Dean), Emperor Bubba, the media barrage, etc.
Do you remember the Iraq War of 2003? Remember those heady days of euphoria when it ended two months later, with only 139 American lives lost? Journey back with me — TIME-LIFE style, if you will — to the scene of our triumph: “Chris Matthews on MSNBC called Bush a ‘hero’ and boomed, ‘He won the war. He was an effective commander. Everybody recognizes that, I believe, except a few critics.’ PBS’ Gwen Ifill said Bush was ‘part Tom Cruise, part Ronald Reagan.’ On NBC, Brian Williams gushed, ‘The pictures were beautiful. It was quite something to see the first-ever American president on a — on a carrier landing. This must be very meaningful to the United States military.’“
Well, today marks the five-year anniversary of our glorious victory, the day that “splendid little war” came to a close. Among those honoring the day, and the remarkable achievement of our Commander-in-Chief:
“‘He has shown such mettle under fire,’ Andrew said in the interview. ‘The Jeremiah Wright controversy just reconfirmed for me, just as the gas tax controversy confirmed for me, that he is the right candidate for our party.‘” A Clinton endorser since Day 1 of her candidacy, former DNC Chair Joe Andrew switches to Sen. Obama, and is ready for the fallout.”If the campaign’s surrogates called Governor Bill Richardson, a respected former member of President Clinton’s cabinet, a ‘Judas’ for endorsing Senator Obama, we can all imagine how they will treat somebody like me. They are the best practitioners of the old politics, so they will no doubt call me a traitor, an opportunist and a hypocrite. I will be branded as disloyal, power-hungry, but most importantly, they will use the exact words that Republicans used to attack me when I was defending President Clinton.” Heh.
Throw in DNC member John Patrick of Texas for Obama and AFL-CIO head John Olson of CT for Clinton and that puts our post-PA super count at Obama 11-5. Once you add the automatic add-ons from NY (Clinton +4) and IL (Obama +3), Clinton is down nineteen from her needed 2-1 split. Clinton -5, -10, -13, -19…anyone else noticing a pattern?
Her 41 supermarket moment? As if I needed another reason not to vote Clinton: Though she may knock back boilermakers like us regular joes, the Senator has in fact never heard of Red Bull, the fantabulously addictive breakfast beverage which more often than not constitutes the best moment of my day. (This also means Clinton has lost another excuse for voicing her obliteration-happy nuclear ambitions last week…It wasn’t the taurine talking.)
In other key findings: “Her fantasy date would be with President Abraham Lincoln [to which Sybil says back off!] She refused to choose between comedians Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, said she likes both wine and beer, and wouldn’t select either ‘American Idol’ or ‘Dancing With the Stars’; she said her mother — who lives with the Clintons — keeps her up to speed on both programs.” (The answers, as everyone not running for office knows, is Fey, beer, and neither — both are garbage, not that I’d expect someone who prefers Grey’s Anatomy to The Wire (as per Obama) and spends her free time trying to ban Grand Theft Auto to pick up on that.)
“The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago. His comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church. They certainly don’t portray accurately my values and beliefs. And if Reverend Wright thinks that that’s political posturing, as he put it, then he doesn’t know me very well. And based on his remarks yesterday, well, I might not know him as well as I thought, either.” After an unrepentant Jeremiah Wright ratcheted up the heat again at the National Press Club yesterday, thus bringing the punditariat to a full boil, an “outraged” and “saddened” Sen. Obama definitively cuts Wright loose.
A bit depressing that this had to go down, but, at this point, Obama really didn’t have much choice. (Wright was practically begging for it, what with promoting the AIDS and Farrakhan stuff anew yesterday.) So, hopefully this helps bring an end to the sad diversion that was the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Now, perhaps we can move on to other matters, such as the Rev. John Hagee and the “Strangelovian” obliteration of Iran…
Update: While we all mull the fallout from Wrightgate II, consider this: Sen. Obama picked up two more superdelegates today, Rep. Ben Chandler of Kentucky and DNC member Richard Machachek of Iowa. I believe that puts the post-PA total at 6 for Obama, 2 for Clinton, meaning Sen. Clinton is now a full 10 behind where she needs to be to stay “alive.”
Update 2: Count three more supers for Clinton, and now three more for Sen. Obama. The new post-PA tally: 9 for Obama, 5 for Clinton, meaning Clinton is down 13 from her needed mark.
“I feel that those citizens who say that have never heard my sermons, nor do they know me. They are unfair accusations taken from sound bites…I served six years in the military. Does that make me patriotic? How many years did Cheney serve?” I haven’t watched the Sunday shows yet, but, if today’s press is any indication, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright is the big story in the news, after he delivered remarks in several venues aimed at defending himself against the recent media throng, as well as horrifying attempts by the like of George Stephanopoulos to McCarthify him on national television. (As I said here, we seem to have entirely skipped the rails when kindly ole Mike Huckabee is the biggest voice for tolerance and historical understanding in the conversation.)
At any rate, the return of Obama’s Angry Black Preacher-Man prompted tut-tuts of electoral worry from Clinton-leaning concern trolls like like Salon‘s Joan Walsh, and the usual waiting for the other-shoe-to-drop from breathless political blogs like War Room and Ben Smith. What I haven’t seen yet today, amid all the puttering from the press on the subject of Wright, is any attempt to put the Reverend’s remarks in context of this weekend’s highly dubious acquittal in the Sean Bell case. To wit, New York City cops shoot an unarmed black man and his friends 50 times and end up getting off for it, and, outside of Harlem, there’s barely a shrug, including in the news media. Meanwhile, when it comes to anything and everything involving the fates of Natalee Holloway, Laci Peterson, and any other white damsel in distress, the press drone on about it endlessly, funnelling info to us months or even years after the cases have gone cold. But, as they say, this ain’t Aruba, b**ch.
Is Rev. Wright angry? At this point, and as this weekend’s fiasco makes clear, he has every right to be. Perhaps the press and the punditocracy could investigate more thoroughly why black America may be less inclined to think well of our nation at times, rather than working themselves into yet another holier-than-thou froth about occasional intemperate remarks, and/or endlessly fretting about their potential impact on the electoral whims of the white working class. God forbid these media asshats break out of their echo chamber bubble once in awhile and do some honest-to-goodness reporting. Heck, I’d be happy just to see a few of ’em think for themselves.
