From Media Matters:

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

Note to Joe: Most Americans kinda suck at bowling, a 150 way out of reach for them. Most Americans do not equate bowling savvy to athletic ability as it is sometimes the bastion of beer bellies, heavy smokers, and unwatchable television. Your claim of lack of bowling ability equating to a lack of manliness is as absurd as putting him down because he can’t take six shots of Quervo and win a game of Euchre. Ridiculous.

Oh, he only knocked down 37 pins after 7 frames? Oooh…jeez…um. Still not a measure of manliness, but maybe someone should buy him a Wii for practice on the road?

They say all politics is local, which if it is true means the Republican Party may be digging itself a deep hole by engaging in some ugly purge tactics. (more…)

As a web guy myself, this is priceless, concerning the Bush Lie-berry’s difficulties on the internets. From Think Progress:

At one time, the Bush Library Foundation owned the easiest Web site to remember: www.GeorgeWBushLibrary.com.

But whether on purpose or because of an oversight — foundation spokesman Taylor Griffin wasn’t sure — it lost that domain name last year. Illuminati Karate, a Web company in Raleigh, N.C., picked it up for less than $10. […]

“We’re just holding onto it for the time being,” said lead Web developer George Huger. “To be honest, I couldn’t believe someone was letting it expire.”

Durr.

See my first Part here on why I don’t believe Hillary should be forced out.

If you were in a rush to get home to finish taxes, get to your second (or third) job on time, or brainstorming how to pay for groceries after buying gas on Friday, perhaps you missed the big speculation:

That Hillary Clinton will withdraw from the 2008 presidential race to prepare to launch her bid to replace the former Assistant Governor of New York who replaced the resigning Eliot Spitzer (wow) after the feds (who couldn’t catch Osama bin Laden but if it is a prossy with a Dem client, they are THERE) caught him in a sex scandal, leaving Barack Obama as the defacto Democrat to go head-to-head with GOPee’r Jon McCain.

I can’t help wondering if this is a) true actually or b) true because Hillary is already investigating it or c) not true now but will become true when everyone assumes Hillary will so she feels she must jump out of the prez race for the governorship of a major U.S. state or d) just not true.

I hope this isn’t some game. Meaning, I don’t want this to happen JUST to get Hillary Clinton out of the presidential race with a dangled carrot. Obama certainly is a strong contender to win the battle ultimately for Democratic candidate in November; I doubt he would need Hillary “bought” off to accomplish this. Nor am I suggesting he has - there’s a whole party and various factions within it that could make the play separate from Obama just because they say they want the race over so they can concentrate on McCain.

Silly me: I think we can have more than one Dem candidate still AND concentrate on felling McCain. Short of rigged electronic voting and such, I can’t imagine why Democrats can’t win in November.

Like it or not (some do, some don’t), Hillary has won the right to play. May the better person - and far more importantly, the American people - win.

Despite the Democratic primary already having happened in Vermont (eenie-meenie-minie-mo) and a notebook close to full of points for which I know where Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama stand and where I still have huge questions, and full too with pro/con, I have not decided which candidate I would like to see run for president for all of us, rather than just for my personal viewpoint. I think that, despite a hugely passionate upswell from supporters in both camps (and I love seeing them), a lot of people are - like me - torn. Unlike the Repugnants, we’ve actually had MORE than a few qualified candidates on the donkey side this time out (with the GOP choices, it was like “hold your nose for choice A” or “say a thousand prayers and vote choice F).

There are a lot of us, too, like myself, who supported other candidates (for disclosure, my choice was Edwards because he seemed to best embrace a progressive viewpoint since I believe we need to rebuild America from its lesser classes upward rather than the “trickle down” approach Repugs just love ‘cos it involves peeing down the legs of lots of “poor, dumb” folks). To me, neither of these candidates still in the race is a John Edwards. So, I have to deal with that. And it’s tough, because in some ways they balance each other out and, in others, they stop short of what many of us want to see.

With that said, McCain on the GOP side is making few friends - save for Joe Lieberman - on the campaign trail already. Look at this piece from Gail Collins in The New York Times (”McCain Forecloses Early”) if you have any question about THAT. What McCain said this past week, to me, verifies what I have been afraid is true - that a McCain win gives us a de factor Bush-Cheney 3rd term, with Cheney no doubt right there, still pulling strings.

So, I continue to say: why push Hillary out now? Are we really losing such precious time or is it that we can’t tell campaigns too busy slamming one another that the real devil here lies in the right? And if we don’t know that last part by now - if Barack and Hillary and all their supporters can’t realize it - than hey, God help us all.

All Dems - and the rest of the voting public still undecided between McCain and Dems (and it’s hard to believe there are undecideds, sheesh) - need is not to see the nastiness between people we NEED to work very hard to help us. Households and communities and whole sections of the economy here are dying right here at home with every minute of bickering.

This doesn’t mean Hillary has to drop out; it just means we need less in-fighting.

We get plenty of readers, and I’d love if every one of you commented on this open thread.

If John McCain were to announce a running mate in the next couple weeks, long before the Democratic convention and we decide on our candidate, how would that affect the running? Is he seen as premature or more organized?

(Update: Would a Condoleezza Rice veep change things?)

Mother Jones has McCain on the Housing Crisis: Quick, Do Nothing!

On Tuesday, he delivered what his campaign billed as a major address on the housing crisis. What made it notable was that it contained nothing notable.

When I heard about this address, I thought “Oh wow, I guess he’s boning up on the economic issues, taking point on the housing crisis to gain ground.” Then I saw some of it and read about the rest. Mother Jones has a great analysis at the above link, but my point is basic: if Mr. “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ economic progress” can’t even make an inspiring speech after announcing he was going to make a big speech about the most important issue in the USA today and consistantly solidifies his ignorance on the economy as a whole, then how can the Democrats lose?

Stuck with a non-functioning net connection these last few days, I’ve had to depend more (oh, pitiful truth) on TV and NPR for my news and… well, according to the mainstream media, “the Democrats were all but choosing curtains for the Oval Office last summer but are now prepared to fracture into so many pools that John McCain may have it easy.”

Yes, by God, the arguments out here have gotten extreme. And not all of them happen in cyberspace, such as when that group of leading Dem contributors sent a “bad Nancy” note to House Majority Nancy Pelosi regarding superdelegates. And yes, the whole real voter-superdelegate one, while just a single argument, is such a brouhaha all its own.

However, folks, we have to remember: the evil, such as it exists en masse, is John McCain and what some are calling a “de facto third term” for Bush and Company, because McCain may sign on to allowing many of the Bushies stay in power once he “assumes the throne” (as Republicans always view the Oval Office). Even if McCain had completely denounced the Bushies - and note, he hasn’t by any degree of description - he is still the exact wrong choice for us moving ahead.

And it’s PAST TIME to move ahead. We’ve been living in the hell the Bushies used and abused of our horror over the attacks on 9-11 to destroy us. They’ve done a finer job than Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and every other terror network combined could have accomplished against us.

Fight terrorism at home; get the Republicans OUT of the White House. It’s a start.

This is our common mission. We can’t let individual cat fights on specifc candidates obliterate the success of this mission.

“The National Republican Congressional Committee wants to hear from you. Your opinions matter and your ideas will help us regain the majority in 2008.”

Yes, I subscribe to everything. Yes, this is mildly malicious. Yes, you are allowed to enjoy it.

The NRCC is rockin’ out on their Congressional District Survey and I implore you to check it out for yourself. Answer the questions (if you can). And that’s where the root of this post lives: These questions are so steered towards Republican automatons that if you’re not one, if you’re not already infected with the dogma, the questions, at best, don’t have a simple answer and, at worst, make it sound like they’re trying to pull power away from the Taliban. Okay, that’s a narrow statement: I think all conservatives believe that.

Case in point: Question number

1. Do you support the House Democrats’ “slow-bleed” strategy to “choke-off” funding for our troops in Iraq, leading to their withdrawal and a perception of American defeat?

Um, what? Would that be opposed to the Republican “feed our young adults to the war machine and mental illness while raping our own population and future generations of any sense of financial security” plan? Because that wasn’t one of the answer choices.
(more…)

During this critical political season, separating fact from fiction has never been more important. When a story breaks, you want to know the facts right away and spread them to your networks before the conservatives spin it all wrong. So, our partners at Think Progress launched the Wonk Room, the first public policy rapid response blog, to do just that; to give you the facts and arguments you need to be the most effective activist in town on key issues facing our nation, including climate, the economy, health care, and national security.

Now you’ll never have to guess again, because of a relatively new yet completely brilliant blog I discovered the other day: How Insane is John McCain? After Kate’s last post touting his implosion, I thought it stunningly apropos.

Most recent post as of this post: McCain vs. Mr. Potato Head. Yes, sir, we most certainly need this.

This does for McCain what Princess Sparkle Pony does for Condi. And if you don’t know who that is, then git on the stick.

Even if I were a Republican (oops… hands started to shake at that thought, sorry), I would be asking two HUGE questions after watching the media the last few months:

- How is it John McCain can spew the most ridiculous, bombastic, often hateful and WRONG claptrap while the media spends all its time discussing blacks, women, and Hispanics like each is a single separate personality and mindset?
- How is it that the media can spend so little time on anything of real value re: Clinton and Barack Obama while hitting us endlessly with questions about race, religion, lies-turned-into-truth and other issues that aren’t paramount to voters who want help with ending the war, restarting the economy, keeping their homes, and finding a way to afford groceries, fuel, and medical care?

Oh wait, here’s a third question:

Why should we believe a mainstream media on any of this WHEN they told us for months that Hillary Clinton couldn’t lose and McCain couldn’t win when they now flip it to suggest Hillary can’t get nominated and McCain can’t lose?

While the Iraq war has never, since it’s been going so miserably bad, had anywhere near the attention it got in the first days of “Shock & Awe” when we invaded in March 2003, NEVER has it dominated so little of the news cycle.

Even with the conflicting reports of “great surge” vs. “it’s all gonna blow up anytime now”, etc., only about 3% of all media stories here in the U.S. discuss the war at all. Much of that is rah-rah-rah reporting, too, with no perspective.

This isn’t just sad. It’s damn right depraved.

In 2006 the Democrats executed a remarkable turn-around that promised to pave the way to the White House. Two years later the Party has wandered from that path, with potentially disastrous consequences. (more…)

If you listen to the right wing radio machine, you’d think that liberals take advantage - then for granted - the support of the African American community and conservatives could offer minorities a more realistic home.

Yes, I’ll pause while you finish spitting coffee out your nose.

If there was any doubt as to the reality of the often-reinforced idea that rich white men just don’t get it, Pat Buchanan speaks clearly:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.

Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.

…We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?

I act