“Huckabee is a whacko”

Posted by: jcairo | Feb 6 2008 14:45 utc | 4

more on turnout
CA: Hil + Barack = 3.7 mil votes vs. McCain + Rom + Huck =1.97 mil votes
Bellwether MO: H + B = .8 mil vs. McC + Rom + Huck + Paul = .58 mil
And the bubbleheads keep asking what “change” means.
It means what it always has: Throw the bums out!
About 70% of Dems will back Hil or Barack. Meanwhile the rethugs are ripping each other’s candidates guts out. Who’s divided?

Posted by: Hamburger | Feb 6 2008 16:00 utc | 6

How about this:
Barack Obama is committed to open systems that machine-publish information about what the government is doing, thereby opening our basically unaccountable government to public audit. HRC is against it.

Posted by: citizen | Feb 6 2008 17:22 utc | 8

Thanks for that link citizen.

Posted by: beq | Feb 6 2008 18:08 utc | 10

There are about 1300 regular delegates remaining to be won — and for either of these centrist Democrat candidates to win the nomination outright means winning two-thirds of those remaining 1300 delegates.
Which is highly unlikely. They’ll more or less split them, leaving both short of a lock on the nomination.
This will be decided just before, or at the Convention, and it will be decided by Superdelegates in the back room.
Wealthy white men with fat cigars, stout members of the Upper East Side Liberation Army, devoted family men, centurions of Wall Street ever keen to continue the euthanasia of the middle class.

Posted by: UESLA | Feb 6 2008 18:37 utc | 12

“While McCain looks like he will in the end win that race, he will not have enough base support to win against Clinton or Obama.
“Another big ‘terrorist’ event could change that. ”
I have had this ‘inevitability’ in my mind, too . . . unless there has been some “maturation” in the body politic that eludes knee jerk responses.
I believe we have to start envisioning the reasons why another terrorist event (its almost a given, or McCain will gin up the specter) can be handled within a process more normal than the fearmongering and constitution-breaking we saw and [the dems] acquiesced to in the wake of 9/11. Envision a worse case scenario and a response other than crazed John McCain as the default position. Might as well fight the negative force of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Posted by: DonS | Feb 6 2008 18:58 utc | 14

One has to ask why on earth anyone would bother to crank up a terrorist attack, to ‘fix’ the election result, if such a thing were even possible, when whoever out of the ‘big three’ that does win will be perfectly fine for the ruling elite. Neither of the two charlatans running for the dems picked up their $200+ mill in election financing by grabbing 5 or 10 bucks off every worker, too many overheads in collecting it they would rationalise. No these scum went straight to the fountainhead of funds, the rich elites who have been starting wars and screwing everyone since amerika was young.
That mob didn’t get rich by being stupid and won’t have parted with their money without ironclad guarantees, and insurance by way of having maps of buried bodies.
I realise the immense cultural and social pressure on amerikans right now makes it hard not to get swept along in the river of toxic bullshit, but lets at least try and keep the pretence that one candidate is ethically superior to the others out of otherwise rational discussions.
The whole point of the non-impeachment, continuing funding for the murder and rape of innocent Iraqis, plus the legalisation of torture and imprisonment without trial that the dems have masterminded in the last two years has been to demonstrate to the elites “that we can play the game too. We’re not boring do-gooders, put one of us in charge and everything will continue as per usual.”

Posted by: Debs is dead | Feb 6 2008 19:22 utc | 16

I’m really trying to be less of a Pollyana here (I do acknowledge all the candidates and cohorts are up to their ears complicit), than an odds player. McCain is a virtual certainty for more war and gleeful stoking the apocalypse. That’s basically all I’m saying; and I should have said it more explicitly.

Posted by: DonS | Feb 6 2008 19:36 utc | 18

@DonS sorry bout that it’s still the wrong side of 8.00am here and I am somewhat underwhelmed by the alacrity with which the world has bought into the sham. I imagine Obama vs Clinton was at the top of Azerbaijani news bulletins too.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Feb 6 2008 19:53 utc | 20

Debs is Dead #16, as in many #’s, is dead right, except that the things elite bother with do include false elections and fake terrorist attacks.
Personally, suspect Gore will be put in after coasts go (great name, like Tony Snow and Chertoff (Devil’s own in Russian, predates revolution), or, if coasts wait past November, son of Cain.

Posted by: plushtown | Feb 6 2008 20:36 utc | 22

the proper study of pop culture is pop culture.

Posted by: plushtown | Feb 6 2008 20:51 utc | 24

Debs is Dead, you are a wonder!
You have us. You have described our mentality, paradigm, and perspective to the last detail.
Well done, indeed.
We would long since have offered you an officer’s commission in the Upper East Side Liberation Army, and all the right connections to make you a qualified overseer of the hoi polloi — if only you’d show a little more rah rah for the cause. . .
You see the game so clearly — can you not let go of those irritating scruples, join the winning side, and let God sort out the unwashed multitudes? After all, they all have their various Heavens to go to, after they die. They will tell you themselves that it is the only reward they seek for all the effort of living.
C’mon, hoist the black flag, throw the chum overboard, and let us introduce you to all the right people.

Posted by: UESLA | Feb 6 2008 21:04 utc | 26

hamburger
the other night – on cnn – with that gonnoreah ridden golem wolf blitzer – a cretin commentatrice – sd that – but accidentally – that the ratings were much much better when they were covering the democrats
fpr me, they are like a steamroller stalled on a sentence – repeated into rigor mortis

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 6 2008 21:26 utc | 28

“C’mon, hoist the black flag, throw the chum overboard, and let us introduce you to all the right people.”
These people? Asia Society

Posted by: pb | Feb 6 2008 21:55 utc | 30

From the progressive point of view, Hillary looks like the better side of a bad binary choice.
How so?

Posted by: Nell | Feb 6 2008 22:30 utc | 32

beq
yes – he’s really like all those character(in his case characterless) actors in 30′ & 40’s film noir – playing the rat. something unholy. there was this too in the unshaven face of senator mcarthy after a few bourbons & it was also there in the overfed face of j edgar hoover before he went down on his assistant clyde tolson & condemned another american communist to a living hell
it is perfectly illustrated in the face of that crimal par excellence, tom delay
one part creepy, the other part chilling

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 6 2008 23:43 utc | 34

How far from John McCain?
“I believe we are still the last, best hope of Earth.”

Posted by: anna missed | Feb 7 2008 1:05 utc | 36

@UESLA Thanks for the offer but I regret that I must respectfully decline. Our agents have already recovered a complete UESLA membership list, ready to be ‘processed’ when the time is right.
Lol I was thinking about the ubiquitous nature of this inane contest between Arthur and Martha already and planning to link it up with a comment about how I had a preferred team picked for the Superbowl even though I loath amerikan football (and no Rick; not because it is amerikan, but because it is already what god’s game Rugby, is currently striving to be, a TV scripted drama with more resemblance to a soap opera than a sporting contest). I had selected the NY Giants and not because they were the underdogs nearly as much as an almost visceral loathing for the eager to please pap pouring outta the mouth of the patriots quarterback, anytime the sports news was on whatever channel, anywhere in the world.
Some how we can all get sucked into these often predetermined dramas, no matter how pointless they are, or how lose:lose any result may be.
We just have to see how many posts MoA has received since a sort of spontaneous collective decision was made by MoA-ites that even though we may be repelled by the 08 election farce, that we wouldn’t completely ignore it. We humans can’t help ourselves but to push our sticky-beaks into even the most mundane drama, especially when subjected to so many facets of it that at least one tiny fragment must be a subject we have an interest in.
Whether expounding every bit of the candidates’ life in huge detail was a deliberate strategy to attract viewers or it is a by-product of having to fill every second between the commercials with blather, doesn’t matter much anymore. It works, everyone has become hooked.
Of course even that thought is not new. I stopped off in my in box on the way here and decided read what Tom Englebert has been saying lately. This piece by Tom sums up better fascination of the farce better than I could.

Let’s face it, for media and candidates alike Primary 2008 has been Survivor, The Amazing Race, American Gladiator, The Apprentice (“You’re fired!”), and American Idol rolled into one — and a ratings wonder as well in which nothing fails. Two testy opponents meet elbow to elbow in a debate in Hollywood — with the camera flicking to the star-studded audience as if it were the Oscars… Gasp! Is that really George from Seinfeld? — and no sparks fly; yet the story has wings anyway. Barack and Hillary were cordial! Were “a black man and a white woman” the “perfect future running mates”? Could they team up as “a Democratic dream ticket”? Or would they be back at each other’s throats, just the way John McCain and Mitt Romney have been?
It couldn’t matter less, not when everything in Campaign 2008 glues American eyeballs to screens without a writer in sight. Who needs on-strike vendors of fiction when a teeming crew of stand-up pundits is eternally on hand to produce political fictions at a moment’s notice? Can anyone deny that more of them have been predicting, projecting, suggesting, insinuating, bloviating, and offering authoritative conclusions than at any time in our history? If that isn’t “historic,” what is, even if so many of their predictions prove wrong in the morning light?
It’s been feeding-frenzy time in medialand — and it’s your enthusiasm off which the media’s been feeding.

Aaarrgh! The bastards have us coming and going! I have been unable to resist trying to deconstruct the articles to try and discover what the hell it is these media outlets have been saying.
For example the NZ fish-wrap I read The NZ Herald , appears to marginally favor Obama over Clinton, but the Oz rag I also absorb with my morning caffeine fix, The Sydney Morning Herald is devoutly pro-Clinton. Of course the issue isn’t with what they are saying nearly as much as why? Why the hell would any rational human being in amerika have a preference out of either those two, let alone a fish-wrap from the south of the planet, where we live in the certainty that no matter what else is going to happen; us getting fucked over by northern greed heads is as inevitable as death and taxes.
Yet there we go taking an interest in things we have no control over again. Not just us in the South, everyone.
What the hell do we think we are doing? No matter how deeply we clutch the knowledge that if our ‘personal favourite’ is elected, by 30th of March 2009 we will all be expectorating the new prez’s name as if it were a phlegm encrusted fish-bone, we still have a preference.
This is absolutely no different to my selection of the Giants for the superbowl. it doesn’t matter a damn how little I know about the game much less the teams, because I think I know one thing which I felt strongly about, I bought into the whole shabby enterprise of Superbowl 08.
We’re all fucking dingbats, so dingbatted its easy to see how it is the elites can treat us so contemptibly.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Feb 7 2008 2:05 utc | 38

Of course you’re right Monolycus – but as Debs is Dead points out when the shit hits the fan, we all go home stinky, whether we want to or not. Because the shit industry is in overtime production, as the fans are on warp speed. And this is just the beginning. All my alternative (political) haunts (digby, sadly no, group news, etc) have capitulated and have swan dived into the fray, the better of which, with a tacit acknowledgment of how utterly disappointing the democrats post 2007 have been – but are still yet, in high gear commissar mode. As if against all evidence (which they even admit to) the Democrats will actually make a difference. I frankly don’t get it. Unless its the prenenial aphrodisiac allure of the skunk cabbage bloom. Which doesn’t translate here at the moon.

Posted by: anna missed | Feb 7 2008 10:44 utc | 40

So none of you who can will vote?

Posted by: beq | Feb 7 2008 12:18 utc | 42

Mono @ 39 –
It sort of looks/sounds like you are yelling at me so I write again that the point I want to make about the primaries to date that is being ignored/repressed but is huge in my estimation is that, FOR EXAMPLE (this is an observation, not an endorsement), Hil got A MILLION more votes in CA than McCain, yet coverage of McCain is all about his resurrection, him being a maverick, Limpballs hates him. etc., not about real turnout numbers that predict at this stage a huge rejection of the ruling party come Nov. I want to see that story covered, i.e., the documentation and explication of the electorate’s rejection of the Bush-Cheney admin, documentation of and repeating to death what people expect of a Dem. admin. If they would cover the very real likelihood that the rethugs are doomed in Nov., universal health care would have a chance of being “baked into the cake” in the next Dem. admin. (just like the press already has done with the $800 “rebate” “taxpayers” now expect and will blame the senate dems if it doesn’t happen immediately). I see the continuing struggle between Hil and Bar as the opportunity to keep health care, the economy, ending the occupations, etc., before the public and, at the same time, tie McC to Bush, building the expectation that change means throwing the corrupt war-mongering bastids out.
OF COURSE (since you’re relying on caps to make your point) the chances of a Dem prez, even a Dem prez + Dem Congress to make real progressive change is diminished for all the reasons you and everyone else here, including me, believe, corps having everyone by the balls.
Nevertheless: My point is that there is a huge story that the rethug party could be crushed in Nov. This likelihood and all its implications need to be in the news and discussed. The numbers so far tell us that Americans want the bastids out, they want hope, they want an accountable government.

Posted by: Hamburger | Feb 7 2008 13:15 utc | 44

Sorry. “It can be ignored for so long.”

Posted by: beq | Feb 7 2008 13:29 utc | 46

Hamburger, yeah I was doing a little yelling. Wasn’t aimed at you. Sorry if you took it personally.

Posted by: Monolycus | Feb 7 2008 13:52 utc | 48

Lol Hamburger.
Look, fwiw, I’ve been voting since I turned 18 too, no matter what. Once when faced with a bunch of local candidates for dogcatcher and such, I didn’t have any idea who these people were or what they were for so I eliminated everyone who used a nickname or just initials (it seemed to be the thing to do then) and voted for those who simply used their names. Even that felt good if not exactly right.
These young people who are turning out need to keep involved.
Just sayin’.

Posted by: beq | Feb 7 2008 14:05 utc | 50

We passed that point a looooooong damned time ago.

I think I know how you feel, but somehow I can’t shake that feeling that we ought to give our kids more hope than that. To being defeatist on this matter, robbed of any optimism and aspirations, is in the elite’s script exactly what people who see through the farce are meant to feel. By us resigning we support their doing.
I do have a vision that one day a meaningful transformation of the US’s political landscape will come about. My guess is that it will be achieved by using the aristocracy’s own weapons against them. Money and the courts. If every tenth US American gives $100 to the cause, creating a pool of approx 2.5 billion dollars, a lot can be done. If the same day a law like the Patriot Act is introduced tens of millions of US citizens turn themselves in for petty crimes like having a burned Ray Charles CD at home, smoked some pot, having a Muslim friend, not filed their tax return on time, etc…the judicial and law enforcement system would be hopelessly overloaded. I know, If’s and more IF’s, but which ever way, I so hope that one day enough people will find the conviction needed to invoke the closure of this “two parties – one scheme” chapter in US history.
I suppose too many people in the US have still too much to loose. But change can happen gradually, pain free even. As the proverb goes, ‘where there is a will there is a way’. Maybe it will take a few charismatic people to grab the pacifist green left in the US by the horns and run with it, never have the times been better to state a case against the intellectual intimacy on Capitol Hill.
In my humble opinion what has to stop is this lame arse congress rubber stamping everything the President does, put the checks and balances back in place. This however won’t happen until other parties or groups of independents appear on the political scene to finally put a spanner into the their self-serving works. If the US is really a democracy worth its salt, and enough people shed their ideological blinkers, such alternatives are bound to emerge one day. Until then, I am with ran, no support for either of the two parties.

Posted by: Juan Moment | Feb 7 2008 14:59 utc | 52

Heh. Abominable, silly.

Posted by: beq | Feb 7 2008 15:12 utc | 54

and this quote seems apt here:

‘It honestly doesn’t occur to them,’ said Ford. ‘They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.’
‘You mean they actually vote for the lizards?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Ford with a shrug, ‘of course.’
‘But,’ said Arthur, going for the big one again, ‘why?’
‘Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,’ said Ford, ‘the wrong lizard might get in.

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Feb 7 2008 15:56 utc | 56

Yes thanks, catlady.
Though they don’t like to admit it around here, this isn’t really *The South*.

Posted by: beq | Feb 7 2008 16:32 utc | 58

The really sad thing to me is the prisoners’ dilemma aspect: yes the system is rigged, but not so rigged that if, say, 100 mio people voted for McKinney that event could be hidden. But 100 mio people will never do that because then “the wrong lizard might get in”. Aaaaaargh [bangs head on keyboard]…
And this is largely because of a failure of trust; no one prisoner trusts all the other prisoners to rebel at the same moment, everyone is afraid of being hung out to dry, being an idiot who voted with a small “lunatic” minority and “spoiled” the election for everyone.
Truly, the Survivor and Big Brother and Amurkan Idol shows codify the zeitgeist: mutual mistrust, rule by clique, ruthless conformity, and a trivialisation and flight from reality so severe that it can hardly be described. All of it symptomatic of any decaying aristocracy, but in this case the decaying aristocracy seems to be almost the entire culture… how long can fin de siècle drag out before some new paradigm takes hold?

Posted by: DeAnander | Feb 7 2008 17:37 utc | 60

Romney quits.
It took him $30+ million to learn that he’ll never be president. Stupid guy. It cost me ‘nothing to get that lesson.

Posted by: b | Feb 7 2008 18:16 utc | 62

b
romney is one dumb motherfucker waiting for a social distribution of his capital

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Feb 7 2008 20:09 utc | 64

me #3 the ptb on the gop side are definitely pushing for a clinton win. they are creaming to run against her.

Limbaugh wants to raise cash for Clinton
“The reason I’m raising money for Hillary is because, apparently, my party, the Republican party, is relying on fear and loathing of Hillary to unite the party,” Limbaugh said.
He worried that she was in danger of losing the nomination to Barack Obama, who doesn’t inspire the same fervent rage among GOP voters.
i wonder if republicans are going to try to vote in the dem primary to shove for a clinton win?

Posted by: annie | Feb 7 2008 20:44 utc | 66

Fuck it, I’ll be voting John McCain 2008, just as I voted Bush last time.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 7 2008 21:03 utc | 68

I realise that this query will establish my backwoods political naivety for once and for all, but unashamed as I am to be a naif I shall ask it.
manonfyre linked to a NYT article about HRC lending her campaign $5 mill of her own money.
My question is where and when did Clinton acquire $5 mill, probably more? The article goes on to say that she has a relatively few contributors in comparison to Obama who has substantially more (in number) donors who can still ‘donate’ more bribes before they reach their limit, Clinton’s ‘donors’ have already maxed out their bribes.
I’m pretty sure that Whitewater and Obergruppenfuhrer Ken Starr would have carried on fit to burst if the Clintons had anything like $5 mill sloshing around at the time of the Clinton I prez. I also seem to remember numerous articles telling us that the Clintons left Pennsylvania Ave with the proverbial ass hanging outta their britches, flat broke.
If there was any veracity to any of that or the Starr witch hunt we would have to assume that HRC has amassed $5 maybe $10 mill in liquid assets (ie cash and negotiable securities not long-term investments) during her two terms as senator for New York. Am I the only person to think that she would struggle to do that on her salary and expense account? So. Where did the money come from?
If the immediate answer is Cigar Bill and his worldwide lecture circuit, shouldn’t amerikans be asking if that is strictly kosher? Shouldn’t Clinton the First be considered a donor who is restricted in the amounts he can ‘donate’ just the same as any other?
I realise that most amerikans take the billionaire status of their national political figures for granted, but surely one of the first steps to take in ‘fixing the system’ would be to no longer concede that it is OK for these public servants to cream off vast sums of money for themselves. Much less be able to create dynastic family units whose assets don’t belong to a a particular individual unless they need to; at other times the slush fund has a few intended recipients but no immediate owner.
I find it amazing, as the poms would say I am gob-smacked. That the Clintons can let it out that they, who claim to have been acting in the public good for their entire working lives, have been able to quietly drop a lazy $5 million on themselves and push that as a positive.
Trip these pricks up on the cost of their never-ending gab fest. That’s my tip for starting the struggle to get human beings with acceptable human values into amerikan national politics.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Feb 7 2008 22:50 utc | 70

Here’s a treat I thought I’d share. Today my favorite local poet stopped by and enlightened me by dropping the following. It so moved me I had to ask his permission to spread it around. Follow along boys and girls… This simple but sing/song rhyme carries a very powerful punch.*

super duper Tuesday blues
winning, spinning, who will lose?
O let me, with a puff of air,
settle in this deep despair
where knowledge finds the old charade
is living well, and loves to play
with voters, pollsters, candidates
like banking on a fat rebate
to quickly spend, to stimulate
this glut we grip, our stupid fate
like faces spread across the screen
those little parts of a big machine
mean nothing save a brand of style
that though may shift will always smile
for a camera lens is not your friend
and exit poll cannot cement
the growing rift between the scale
of soaring Eagles and lowly Snails
like bailing water with holy pails
or riding trains toward broken rails
or trapping wind in shredded sails
or catching lizards with pop-off tails
the growing rift is wide and deep
and follows us from day to sleep
and greets us like the sun each day
to whom believers unwitting pray
but that’s a story for another time
the story now is who will rise
as winner of the cardboard fight
to fashion words to blur our sight
and laws to strip us of our rights
while they siphon faster than before
and gear us up for another war
because shadows cast from long ago
kill the high and fill the low
and from above confuse below
so those who seek will never know
what is real, and what is show
and that’s the way it’s gonna be
like a stupid pop song on repeat
until bridges fall and banks go broke
and rivers dry and skies all choke
and plastic wrappers hold no food
and giant tankers hold no crude
and maybe then we’ll finally see
America’s brand of hostility
and maybe then we’ll finally know
the future’s now, and can’t be sold

*Forgive the sports analogy…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 7 2008 23:23 utc | 72

WRT Limbaugh and the Pub trogs saying they are dying to run against Hillary.
Why are they being so candid? so helpful?
People rarely tell their adversaries what they really really want, do they?

Posted by: rjj | Feb 8 2008 0:24 utc | 74

For the most part, the Clinton’s cannot be effectively accused of anything. The prosecutorial bank of indictments is like a credit card that has been maxed out. Public credulity has gone through an ordeal similar to Pavlov’s dogs, and the brain will no longer process accusations. And I think this is what the Clinton machine counts on, once they obtain the final consolidation of power in the White House.
Obama is the true cipher of Hope. An article of faith. He has signaled his desire for an accommodation with the lizards, like someome who counts on outfoxing the devil. If you are an American, it depends very much on whether you have personally crossed the event horizon of paranoia, as to how you evaluate the occasional flashes of the sinister, that you may see in the man. The leap of faith is what is at stake when voting for him.
Alternatively, you have McCain, the sword of Our Lord. And when you vote for him you will affirm that a jamboree of death is at the top of the list of things you covet. McCain knows where the tree of American psychosis is, and he knows how to shake the thing and make it give up its apples. The democrats are about to surrender to the terrorists. Don’t you see?
How can an American rely on his or her judgment when faced with the dilemma? Am I a sexist? a racist? a real American? What counsel may I take before I divide and conquer my soul? After I read the accounts from Haditha, upon whom should I confer real power? Shall a Clinton grind out the meal for bread? Shall Obama present the check to the Bank of Justice? Shall McCain pull the trigger in a dream within a dream?

Posted by: Copeland | Feb 8 2008 2:43 utc | 76

Looking a bit further, Clinton had 13million left over from her senate run, which by law can be transferred to the presidential run. Tonight someone (who should know, a senators sister) told me campaign funds not used can be used personally) I guess that is wrong. I suppose however, that like business expenses the line between personal & business can get blurry, so it is possible Clinton has stashed her Senate war chest separate from the presidential one and may be borrowing from it for this run. Conceivably, she could even arrange a personal loan using the Senate money or her ability to raise money as collateral, to then be paid back by the presidential campaign. What she is calling a “personal” loan can mean lots of different things and she does’nt have to disclose anything to us.

Posted by: anna missed | Feb 8 2008 5:46 utc | 78

Uncle – now I’m living on blues power.
Hamburger – I think Romney did a quick calculation much as you did, and decided to live to run again in 4 years.
ran – Protest vote. If you want to be asked, you need to demonstrate, including what you think of the options. What better way? Write in. If that’s not possible, find another way. Don’t give up your rights. Even when presented them on a meaningless platter, with the hope that you will walk away.

Posted by: small coke | Feb 8 2008 7:19 utc | 80

Damn, Hannah, I mean no disrespect, at all, at all. But, the Open Democracy article lost me at, “The United States presidential race is the most exciting and energising in years.“…
I’m yet again, with Monolycus from above. What his comment along with my poet friends aphorisms reminded me of is R.D.Laing’s Knotts:

They are playing a game.
They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me.
I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.

(1974: p. 1)
I’m sorry I can no longer go along with the charade. And ‘I’m getting old’, as Neil Young Once sang, and I’m prolly younger than most MOA’s here. I have all but given up on seeing any ‘change’ in my lifetime. Except the slow decay of entropy. Yes, I ooze myopia but then again, I’d like to think that though I can’t change the madness I see around me, I can at least name it. Because when you name it, you own it, and what you name can’t own you.
At least that’s what the poem in the bibliotherapy book entitled, The Courage to Heal by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis gave me.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 8 2008 8:08 utc | 82

Bill Clinton has made 40 million in lecture fees since leaving office. List of fees collected by event.

Posted by: anna missed | Feb 8 2008 9:07 utc | 84

Yeah, especially in light of what could Bill Clinton say that would be worth $150,000.00 to anyone. Although I’ve heard through the grapevine that a similar fee is charged by Paris Hilton to make an appearance at selective Hollywood parties. Same idea I suppose.

Posted by: anna missed | Feb 8 2008 9:32 utc | 86

Quite the contrary Hannah, its how the race shapes up.

Posted by: anna missed | Feb 8 2008 9:46 utc | 88

HKOL, let me clear up the mystery of Slimeball Obamination for you. Ever hear of James Earl Carter. Yea, that guy, the one better known as Pres. Carter. How did he morph from unknown Ga. Gov. into the WH? Simple. Zbig selected him to groom & stuff into WH; the same way Zbig selected Obamination. And before Zbig selected him, Georgie Soros selected him to back for xUS Senate. He’s far better from their viewpoint than Carter, as Carter actually had substance so was harder to control. Obamination is in the Bill Clinton mold, another breast beating jelly-fish, a raging narcissist whose only pre-occupation is self-aggrandizement…another empty suit w/a “Will Do Absolutely Anyting for Self-Aggrandizement” sign around his brutal neck.
Now, look sonny boy – say you’ll consider Arnie Schwarznegger-Kennedy for a Cabinet Post. That’ll pressure Kennedy Clan, or impt. segments of it to back you. That’ll break Clinton’s hold. Since he controls the party, that’ll free up other party regulars to back you. The dike will have been breached. Since you’re a raging narcissist & the idiot masses are trained to feel uplifted in their presence on the Idiot Box, you should be off & running. Then throw in Sexism, & the fact that most people really don’t want to relive the pain of the Clinton Years…and you should be in the clear…

Posted by: jj | Feb 8 2008 10:23 utc | 90

in case anyone is interested, i just finished w/my caucus. for my precinct 7 delegates for obama, 1 for hillary. over 150 people showed up from my precinct alone, which is a lot for my neighborhood. the auditorium was packed w/about 10 precincts. they moved it to the school instead of the old church basement. the auditorium was so full our precinct had to convene in the lobby.

Posted by: annie | Feb 10 2008 0:26 utc | 92

A whole lot of people putting a whole lot of faith in these two.
in wa state? nah. i think people are coming out in droves because for once the nomination isn’t already a done deal by the time our caucus rolls around. they pushed it up this year, that and the tight race coming out of super tuesday means our caucus counts.
at my caucus everyone basically said there was no difference in the two, neither were calling for immediate troop withdrawl. the last caucus kucinich was still in the race and my precinct was almost 1/2 kucinich. but w/him and edwards out the choice is down to two.
the sentiment i heard for the most part..is that the gop hate clinton so much everyone knows its going to be a bloody fight all the way thru w/her as the candidate and it will mobilize the gop around anti clinton. McCain and the war are not that well loved to attract the gop voters. that is why i think you are seeing people rally around obama.
oh, one other thing! at the last caucus the kucinich gang brought all these resolutions we voted on that were then entered into the state caucus convention. there were tons of them. this time the caucus organizers avoided this but i got all upitty and requested we vote on a resolution to be entered into our party platform.
it passed unanimously! i don’t have the exact wording (my neighbor sara, a lawyer, she helped me word it) … basically, for the party to open dialog w/the democratically elected representatives of the palestinian people and the israeli people for the purposes of peace in the region…
some people came up and thanked me for calling for a vote.
of course, it won’t do any good. but last time i was one of the delegates that made it to the state convention. when the resolution was read and the whole place stands up it kinda brings tears to your eyes. that’s what happened last time. then it gets killed somewhere in committe. someday tho, someday, they can’t ignore us forever.

Posted by: annie | Feb 10 2008 1:58 utc | 94

I hope you’re right,
I hope you’re right.
On the last comment,
I really hope you’re right.
I’d much rather be wrong,
than remain cynical.

Posted by: anna missed | Feb 10 2008 2:07 utc | 96

You’re wonderful annie.

Posted by: beq | Feb 10 2008 14:29 utc | 98

It seems like the Republicans even cheat the voters in their own primaries.
A Little Weird

As you know, John McCain lost two of the three contests yesterday. He was losing narrowly in Washington state and then pulled ahead by a narrow margin (less than two points) toward the end. But then with 87% of the returns counted, the Washington state GOP, which runs the caucuses stopped releasing results. That left us and a lot of other news organizations in a bit of a quandary last night since it looked like McCain was going to pull it off. But as late as 1:30 AM on the east coast promised new results kept failing to materialize.
Then over night the Washington state GOP put out a press release announcing McCain the winner based on the 87% returns. Now, I think it would be borderline for a media organization to declare one candidate a winner when the margin separating first and second was 1.8% with 13% of the results still uncounted. But for the officials holding the election to declare the result on that basis is simply bizarre. But that’s what they did.
The release says final results are not expected to be available until Monday.

Sounds like Kibaki in Kenya …

Posted by: b | Feb 10 2008 18:09 utc | 100