P.U.M.A., West Virginia Branch

Two Clintonistas For McCain At The RBC

I half expected a group of her supporters to show up with their tongues cut out ala the Ellen Jamesians. In the case of the first lady, I sort of wish she had.

Hillary Claims Lead In Crowd Support

Barack Obama drew a record crowd of 75,000 enthusiastic supporters at a rally in Portland Oregon on Sunday. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton claims that if her supporters weren't busy working second and third jobs, she would be leading Obama in drawing large crowds.

Hillary Is Insane

Her supporters who encourage her to stay in the race are wildly partisan, hopelessly stubborn, vindictive, perhaps mildly or overtly racist, illogical, in denial, suffer from a sense victimization or gender oppression, don't understand the delegate math, or a combination of all the above. Or perhaps they are just as nuts as their candidate.

In a previous post I referenced a Blogginghead.tv session in which clinical psychologist Ellen Ladowsky dissects Clinton's Bosnia tale. At the Huffington Post, Ladowsky expands upon her observations and delves into the matter more deeply. She rejects the notion that it was less a lie as it was a psychotic break from reality. And her subsequent explanation was so unreflective and unapologetic as to border on sociopathy. It's such a bizarre episode, from the telling of the tale itself to her subsequent explanation, yet seems to have not captured the interest that it deserves. If Obama had confabulated his own tale and promoted such a fantastic yarn as a truth, my trust and confidence in him would be shaken to the core and I would be too frightened to cast my vote for him.

Does the Hillary contingent not care about her lapse from reality into psychosis? Or do they prefer to think of it as another harmless lie from a politician? Do they understand and perhaps identify with her living in her own little reality bubble? Does this help to explain their ongoing support for her doomed candidacy?

Ludowsky writes...

In the course of Hillary's campaign, a number of features have repeatedly emerged that are also elements of her Bosnia tale. 1) Hillary is both hero and victim; 2) facts are of no consequence; 3) And there are no witnesses or observers to the facts. This last point is always startling. For example, Hillary's explanation of her vote on the war made Nora Ephron wonder if Hillary thought we "weren't alive at the time."

I know mass empathy from the large American delusional victims community doesn't completely explain the phenomenon of her continuing support. Some of it can be simply explained by Clinton supporter Carole Simpson's shockingly candid, and true, remark on Larry King last night "This country is about race."

Superdelegates, Please Be Super

When I first learned about the existence of the superdelegates earlier this year, I was aghast at the notion that a group of party elders and party hacks should be able to determine the outcome of the race for the Democratic nomination. It seemed elitist and undemocratic. But now I see the wisdom behind it all.

The outcome of this race is almost certain. In fact, it as certain today as it has been for the last two months. The voters have spoken. (No, not all have voted, but when you have ten voters and you need a majority, you can stop after you get six votes in one direction. It's over.) It is only the spinning of reality by the Clinton campaign and the all too willing, craven and complicit media that has convinced a large portion of the electorate that this is still a contest.

By not putting an end to this process that goes on needlessly, the supers' lack of action only serves to damage Obama's chances in the general. The only thing it does is allow more time for Clinton to convince people that she is a populist and champion of the common man by drinking beer, hunting ducks, and promising fraudulent and irresponsible gas tax holidays - and that Barack is an elitist, unpatriotic, non flag lapel pin wearing angry black man who shares the views of radicals like Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers.

Of course, this is all crap. It is the old politics of fear and racism. It is Rovian, which is the worse thing that can be said of any politician. The only thing missing is the gay bashing and godless abortionists.

The idea of supers now seems like a very good one. They are more well-informed, more savvy and do know better than the average voter, especially the average white, elderly, rural, midwestern blue collar, Reagan Democrat voter. The problem is that they are not doing their job. They are inexplicably complacent, or timid or otherwise unmoved by the fierce urgency of now. We turn our eyes to them to deliver their party and this nation from the Clinton lies and from those remaining voters who are gullible, ill-informed, and bigoted enough to buy into what she is selling.

Bill Is Hillary's Jeremiah

Leave it to the Rude Pundit to rudely mention the obvious, what he calls The Lewinsky Nuke, that even liberal bloggers are too polite to mention.

Let us say, and why not, that surrogates for the Obama campaign, aided and abetted by the RNC and the media, decided to go after Hillary Clinton in relation to the Monica Lewinsky scandal (and, to be clear, no matter what you think about impeachment, the President of the United States getting blown by a White House intern qualifies as a scandal). Let us say, and, indeed, why not, that in order to gain some ground lost by the interminable focus on Jeremiah Wright, Obama's surrogates decided it was time for a little refresher course in the shit people put up with in their personal lives.

It would be so fuckin' easy to take down Hillary Clinton, and the RNC knows it and can't wait for the chance to do it. Obama hasn't, and probably won't. Here's the one-two-three of how, if the Obama campaign truly wanted to go negative, the Clinton campaign would be over. Follow the bouncing ball of a logical progression to the nuke:

Read the whole thing...

Christopher Duncan Is Obama - And Donald Duck

Hillary - Fantasist In Chief?

The First Lady's Foreign Policy Resume

The NYTimes vets Clinton's White House foreign policy experience.

But during those two terms in the White House, Mrs. Clinton did not hold a security clearance. She did not attend National Security Council meetings. She was not given a copy of the president’s daily intelligence briefing. She did not assert herself on the crises in Somalia, Haiti and Rwanda.

And during one of President Bill Clinton’s major tests on terrorism, whether to bomb Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998, Mrs. Clinton was barely speaking to her husband, let alone advising him, as the Lewinsky scandal sizzled.

Bradley Speaks His Mind

Former senator Bill Bradley, who is a leading supporter of Obama and ran for president in 2000, accused the Clintons of “lying” in pursuit of victory.

“The bigger the lie, the better the chance they think they’ve got. That’s been their whole approach,” he said. “She’s going to lose a whole generation of people who got involved in politics believing it could be something different.”

Bradley believes that Clinton will stop at nothing to tear down Obama even if it boosts John McCain, who was confirmed last week as the Republican nominee: “The Clintons do not do long-term planning. They’re total tacticians and right now their focus is on Obama, not McCain.”

It's good to hear credible, high profile Democratic leaders tell it like it is.

Chillingly True

The Nooner reports:

I end with a deadly, deadpan prediction from Christopher Hitchens. Hillary is the next president, he told radio's Hugh Hewitt, because, "there's something horrible and undefeatable about people who have no life except the worship of power . . . people who don't want the meeting to end, the people who just are unstoppable, who only have one focus, no humanity, no character, nothing but the worship of money and power. They win in the end."

We Start From The Same Place

Barack Obama with grandmother in Kenya, 2004

"We start from the same place. Nobody has an advantage no matter who you are or where you came from."

- Hillary Clinton, Los Angeles Democratic Debate, Jan 31, 2008

Hillary Rodham with family, Chicago, Illinois, 1953

How Quickly They Forget

Robert Scheer reminds us:

[Clinton's] supporters have accepted [her] refusal to repudiate her vote to authorize the war, an ignominious moment she shares with other Democrats, including presidential candidate John Edwards, who at least has made a point of regretting it. It was a vote that has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, 3,940 U.S. service members—five more on Monday—and a debt in the trillions of dollars that will prevent the funding of needed domestic programs that Clinton claims to support. And it doesn’t end with Iraq. Clinton has been equally hawkish toward Iran and, in a Margaret Thatcher-like moment, even attacked Obama for ruling out the use of nuclear weapons against Osama bin Laden.

Read the whole thing.

Bushites: Hillary Most Qualified To Carry On Legacy

Vote Hillary, Kill A Dog

What can I say? I'm desperate. I am a devout dog lover, but I figure it's better than killing myself.

Why Not Dodd?

Translation: Hillary, the most polarizing candidate, is the greatest threat to achieving affordable health care.

The Politics of Parsing

Take a Little Shine off the Golden Boy

Barrack's response to Larry King when asked about whether his campaign was responsible for the Vote Different video:

"Frankly, given what it looks like, we don't have the technical capacity to create something like this... "It's pretty extraordinary."

Of course, this is either total, mendacious bullshit, or even more alarmingly, lack of imagination and total detachment from 21st century digital technology. (The video was created in one afternoon on a personal computer) I suspect the former because the man is not a dunce. If the latter, then one must ask "Is this the man we want as leader of the most technically advanced country in the world, with all the inherent issues therein, global warming, etc. And do we want a technical illiterate as commander in chief of the most technologically advanced military in the history of the world?"

And while we're dealing in bad answers, let's go back a couple of weeks to Obama's first two responses to General Pace's statement that homosexuality is immoral:

1: "I think traditionally the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman has restricted his public comments to military matters. That's probably a good tradition to follow."
2: "I think the question here is whether somebody is willing to sacrifice for their country, should they be able to if they're doing all the things that should be done."

Of course, Hillary's immediate response was no better, which is not saying much:

"Well, I'm going to leave that to others to conclude."

This blog will be tracking these two leading presidential contenders for stupid, dishonest or unprincipled statements and deeds. I expect the Hill to provide plenty enough grist for this mill. But from the O man... I am a bit disappointed.

Big Sister

The official Obama campaign did not create, sponsor, or otherwise have anything to do with this video. But that's not really the salient fact. Obama does not control the message. Hillary does not control the message. None of the candidates control the message any longer.

Hillary has been thrust on the mesmerized, distracted, consumerist, American Idol-watching proletariat by the big monied interests that drive the DLC wing of the Democratic party, the Republican party, and big mainstream media. Call it The Establishment... The System... the Military/Industrial/Congressional Complex.

Or call it Big Brother.

Workers of the world, unite! Progressive Democrats, break through!

Hillary Is A Phony

This is appalling and idiotic. I am embarrassed for her. Granted, in the first part of the audio, she is quoting a traditional black hymn -- rather broadly and stereotypically I might add. And there is no more reason to do so than there is to use a flowery British accent when quoting Shakespeare. And as for the latter phrases, she is not quoting anybody or anything, but is simply affecting a southern accent for her black audience.

She is a phony, a panderer, a terrible public speaker, a bad Kingfish mimic, a clown and, ultimately, an example of the worst kind of politician.