politics

TPM.

How about some "straight talk" about this? I'd like to know what John McCain is about here.

She keeps going and going and going.... But at this point, does she's sounding like Bush does when he talks about Iraq.

She's lost her grasp. Either that, or she's actually fighting a bloody fight for control of the Democratic Party, election be damned. I can't see her continuous attacks on Barack Obama any other way.

I don't like Hillary Clinton for many reasons, mainly: her slippery non-positions on some issues, her demagoguery on other issues (even when I might agree), her "taking responsibility" for her support of the war on Iraq while not taking any responsibility, and the smarmy tone of her campaign more worthy of a Rove than a progressive.

Yet this kind of misogynistic crap:

“Nixon in a pant suit” is an anti-Hillary meme that Andrew Sullivan, longtime stalwart of Tricky Dick’s party, has successfully propagated. And James Wolcott, with presumably better intentions, has followed, um, suit.

Google this:

hillary pantsuit OR “pant suit” OR “pantsuits” OR “pant suits”

By last count, there are over 300,000 web pages referencing this candidate and garment choice.

What does this fixation with “pant suits” mean?

Indeed. A loaded phrase. Because women aren't supposed to wear pants. Or, maybe, do other things men do?

Hillary Clinton was grinning from ear to ear while North Carolina Governor Mike Easley endorsed her by saying she's no "pansy."

It's the kind of veiled homophobic slur wingnuts use. We remind you that both Easley and Clinton are Democrats.

Never mind the innuendo directed at Barack Obama. What about voters who happen to be homosexual, or happen to think homosexuality is in fact not a mortal sin?

Ryan J. Davis on HuffPo:

Now, I know from spending many recesses in middle school being called a pansy that it's just a subtle way of saying "faggot." Clinton stood by while Easley made that comment, smiling away. Speaking to a prominent gay journalist friend of mine this morning, he expressed his frustration with her campaign. "Hillary doesn't care about the gays. It's that simple. We're a political tool, like everything else in that family's orbit."

Clinton owes the gay community, which she has shamefully used as an ATM during her campaign, an apology for gay-baiting. We're waiting, Hillary.

Joe Aravosis on Americablog:

Oh, so Hillary has launched a "culture war" against Obama. And what are the three elements of the culture wars? God, guns, and gays. Hillary already pulled the God and gun card on Obama in Pennsylvania, where she couldn't even say when she last went to church, and then claimed she was a hunter after a lifetime as one of America's top gun control advocates. And now she's gay-bashing.

So will she denounce Governor Easley? Will the media press her on it, after hounding Obama about Reverend Wright?

Oh, but let's not pick on Hillary. She's had such a hard life.

Joe Sudbay on Americablog:

Think about your daily existence and compare it to Hillary's "tough" life.

When was the last time Hillary Clinton:

Went to the grocery store?

Pumped gas?

Had to argue with her health insurance company about a bill?

Had to wait for the cable guy?

Had a spontaneous, unscripted moment?

The woman has lived in a protective bubble for over 16 years. She and her husband have hauled in over $100 million over the past seven years. Everyone around her is either paid to be around her -- or pays to be around her. And, she has paid Mark Penn a lot of money to tell her about the lives of real people, gleaned from focus groups and polls. That's her reality and she's not exactly roughing it.

"Theft"? When it will require a Superdelegate coup to win -- mathematically it's her only chance -- that amounts to a theft, in my book.

I wouldn't be so antagonistic towards Hillary, but she has been the chameleon this entire campaign. In fact, at least since 2004. The only thing clear about Hillary is her ambition.

The Democratic destruction continues. Congratulations to the DLC.

What seems apparent to me -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- is that the Hillary Clinton campaign is waging a battle to retain (or restore) the DLC control of the Democratic Party. Why else this suicide run ostensibly aimed at the White House. She has no mathematical chance of winning, save for a Superdelegate trump play. And her scorched-Earth campaign tactics seem designed to prevent Barack Obama from ever succeeding.

It's like the #1 priority is to prevent Obama's campaign from waging a successful insurgency against the old-politics power center of the Democratic Party. The DLC.

What is the election tomorrow about? Why is the mainstream media even playing along? What's going on here?

After spending nearly 25 minutes talking mostly issues with John McCain, George Stephanopoulos, Cokie Roberts, George Will and Sam Donaldson proclaimed themselves above criticism in pretty much ignoring issues when it comes to Democrats.

Watch them congratulate themselves on feeling generally superior to the Democratic presidential candidates. They're just "the messenger," don't you know?

Cokie was especially strange today, saying that Barack Obama was unappealing when he started challenging the inanity of the questions fired at him by Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson. In my mind, that's when Obama started to find his footing.

George Will was predictable, offering grade-school-level economic analysis in grand proclamations about how a capital gains tax affects the economy. (We'll just pretend that nothing else affects the economy. We'll just pretend that everything happens as a result of capital gains taxes. There's a bridge in New York you might be interested in buying, too, by the way.)

ABC obviously made a power-play investment in moving the show right off the Washington Mall. The best part of the show was at the end, when the camera pans off of George's relieved (or smug) smirk and shows glimpses of the old Smithsonian and the Capitol. But there's no denying that the Beltway news as we know it is in for a comeuppance.

That is, unless the corporate media kill net neutrality and make the Internet more like TV.

On This Week, Republican candidate John McCain defends his flip-flop on the Bush tax cuts: He opposed them because they weren't combined with spending cuts.

But he would push through his own tax cuts, even without spending cuts.

Straight talk? Ha!

And you have to hear him defend his embracing of his own controversial pastor's endorsement. More straight talk there, too. Yep.

Yes I mock, though I think the nervous liar's giggle was probably genuine.

Video.

[Memo to George: I note that McCain isn't wearing a flag pin, either. So why didn't you ask that, too, if it's such an important issue?]

Watching the news online, it was clear what the debate story was today:

Washington Post television critic Tom Shales, in an April 17 article headlined "In Pa. Debate, The Clear Loser Is ABC," described the debate as "another step downward for network news -- in particular ABC News, which hosted the debate from Philadelphia and whose usually dependable anchors, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, turned in shoddy, despicable performances." Shales added that the debate "dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia" and "seemed slanted against Obama."

Time magazine's Michael Grunwald, in an April 17 article headlined "The Democrats Play Trivial Pursuit," wrote, "Obama's memoir dripped with contempt for modern gotcha politics, for a campaign culture obsessed with substantively irrelevant but supposedly symbolic gaffes," and added, "Last night at the National Constitution Center, at a Democratic debate that was hyped by ABC as a discussion of serious constitutional issues, America got to see exactly what Obama was complaining about."

In an April 16 article on Editor & Publisher's website, Greg Mitchell wrote, "In perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years, ABC News hosts Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos focused mainly on trivial issues as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama faced off in Philadelphia. They, and their network, should hang their collective heads in shame."

You don't need to go to Daily Kos to find cries of assent to these assessments.

Greg Mitchell writes on HuffPo:

In perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years, ABC News hosts Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos focused mainly on trivial issues as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama faced off in Philadelphia. They, and their network, should hang their collective heads in shame.

Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the health care and mortgage crises, the overall state of the economy and dozens of other pressing issues had to wait for their few moments in the sun as Obama was pressed to explain his recent "bitter" gaffe and relationship with Rev. Wright (seemingly a dead issue) and not wearing a flag pin -- while Clinton had to answer again for her Bosnia trip exaggerations.

Then it was back to Obama to defend his slim association with a former '60s radical -- a question that came out of right-wing talk radio and Sean Hannity on TV, but was delivered by former Bill Clinton aide Stephanopoulos. This approach led to a claim that Clinton's husband pardoned two other '60s radicals. And so on. The travesty continued.

More time was spent on all of this than segments on getting out of Iraq and keeping people from losing their homes and -- you name it. Gibson only got excited complaining that someone might raise his capital gains tax.

The Philly Enquirer's poll has, at the time of this writing, about half of all views rating the questions as "terrible, a waste of time."

Even ABC admitted that the heat was on. As MSNBC noted:

By midafternoon Thursday, more than 15,600 comments were posted on ABC News' Web site, the tone overwhelmingly negative....

..."Why not have Paris Hilton moderate next time?" one poster wrote. One man repeated the word "bad" 48 times. A sampling found opinion was running against the network about 8-to-1.

Did the message sink into the skulls of Gibson and Stephanopoulos?

"The questions were tough and fair and appropriate and relevant," Stephanopoulos told The Associated Press. "We wanted to focus at first on the issues that were not focused on during the last debates."

The criticism comes with the territory, he said. "It's one more sign of how engaged people are over this election," he said.

Engaged on a higher level than ABC was willing to present, apparently.

It didn't help to learn that presumably George Stephanopoulos was throwing questions seeded by right-wing commentators.

But watch the NewsHour, and the story is all about the petty issues.

LINDA DOUGLASS: Well, certainly they expected the questions on Reverend Wright. Certainly they expected the questions on the statements that he made about small-town America being economically depressed and turning to guns and religion. They expected all of that.

But it was the relentlessness of it, the fact that they didn't get into health care, or gas prices, or college tuition, or whatever in the beginning that I think took them aback. They were prepared for many other kinds of questions.

And you could see that Obama himself was becoming irritated. But the one thing you can't do in a situation like this, if you are the candidate who feels aggrieved by how the moderators handled you, the one thing you cannot do is blame the press for the questions they ask. That never works as a tactic.

Enough about armchair quarterbacking. What about the facts?

MARGARET WARNER: So, Brooks, in defending himself, based on your analysis, did Obama stretch the truth in any way?

BROOKS JACKSON, FactCheck.org: Well, yes. One of the things for which we're criticizing him is that he said that, in regard to that lapel pin, the American flag lapel pin, he said, "I never said that I had refused to wear it."

Well, in fact, less than a year ago in Iowa, he told a TV interviewer that after 9/11 he had decided not to wear the pin because it had become, in his view, a substitute for true patriotism, which is upsetting a lot of people and being talked about.

So he's engaging in a little bit of rewriting his own history.

You really have to see the video where Brooks Jackson and Linda Douglass smirk with self-satisfied pride over their easy proclaimations as "the facts."

And then:

MARGARET WARNER: And, Dan, do the Obama people feel that some of these issues that were brought up last night, these personal issues or things he said or associations he's had, do they think they're really invalid or do they actually think these are potential vulnerabilities?

DAN BALZ: Well, I think they certainly recognize that the controversy over Reverend Wright is likely to be a problem in the general election. I think at this point they think they have weathered most of these in the nomination battle.

All of the polling that came out over the last few days shows no particular damage from the comments he made at the San Francisco fundraiser about how small-town Americans are bitter about their situation and cling to guns and religion and things like that.

I think they believe that -- I mean, I know they were quite worried when that erupted. I think they think that that has not been a serious problem.

Again, the Old Media are stuck in their Old Story. Even when they are the story. Even in the face of criticism, they insist upon focusing on trivia rather than on things that matter.

Lapel pins? Who "loves America more"? Puhleez! I'd have expected more from the NewsHour, but they were as lazy as ABC. Something to remember during the next pledge break.

Here's a strange notion from Megan McArdle:

Fundamentally, what the netroots want is a Fighting Progressive. They want an unabashed liberal who will go toe to toe with the Republicans and punch them in the nose.

But what they have is a choice between a Fighting Pragmatist (Hillary Clinton) and a Kumbaya Progressive (Barack Obama).

That's not quite right, is it?

What we have is more like an abrasive politico willing and eager to parrot activist views (Hillary Clinton) and someone more interested in achieving true progressive reform than scoring rhetorical points (Barack Obama).

Megan, it's how you define "Fighting", really.

No, the it's not unanimous. There are a lot of angry people out there who just want to hear the angry rhetoric, damn the torpedoes. But let's face it, the matter is pretty much settled. Count the states, count the votes, count the delegates, count the money, count the number of donors, Obama is the leader. Obama is the candidate.

And anything that ends up changing that fact, at this late date (and yes, it is late for this particular election season), will be perceived as the stealing of the Presidency.

Do we need that again?