White House

A nation built with African slaves inaugurates an African-American President.

A nation driven by culture wars born out of the Vietnam era moves into hope for more pragmatic, if still partisan, politics.

A nation fallen into the darkness of torture, of "collateral damage" of hundreds of thousands of lives, of ends justifying any means returns to an age of striving for the highest of American ideals.

A nation seduced by the fantasies popularized by Ronald Reagan, that markets are God, that government is evil, that global warming is a myth, that liberalism is out to destroy America, a nation almost paralyzed with the shock of the revealed lie of those fantasies -- a long nightmare, really -- returns to a reality-based vision of the world.

A nation coming off of one of the more ugly racist federal elections puts a black man into office.

Barack Obama is a pragmatic progressive whose intellect brings us hope that his leadership can guide the cumbersome bureaucracy and conflicting interests and influences into actions that make sense, based on reason.

It was truly audacious two years ago to believe this could happen. It took a lot of hope and the hard work of millions, and the faith of many more. But here it has happened.

Barack Obama is about to become President.

How unlikely.

How amazing.

The world is astonished. Today America returns to the light.

Maybe it's just how the NewsHour is selling the news, but here's what we see:

First we get John McCain, opponent of the King holiday, proponent of the Confederate flag over South Carolina, pretending to be a McCain admirer.

Then we get Hillary Clinton, talking about steps backwards and how it is just as hard for her as it was for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

And we want to just vomit. What dreck. (What's worse is that we know that somehow, in some way, Clinton really has a progressive racial conciousness, but she simply has a serious problem with expressing any sort of authenticity.)

And then we get a snippet of Barack Obama, who's talking not about how Dr. King was such a remarkable America (which he was), but about Dr. King's message -- and how we are or are not living up to it.

Two panderers eager to kiss a dead man's ass, and one leader who takes up the dead man's message and challenges us.

So which candidate is the most presidential here?

[No transcript or audio here, save for the discussion after.]

First he says that his religion doesn't matter. And then he argues for the establishment of religion by the state.

Oh, I'm sure he would deny that. Of course. He couldn't possibly admit what he's really saying. But when he's claiming that the amazing religious freedom that we enjoy in this country is not enough for him, that he wants more, what is he really saying? Government sponsorship of religion?

Which religion?

Who decides?

I ask you: Would you buy a used car from this guy?

Via Alas, a blog, we learn of the gender ratios of paid and volunteer staffs for the various presidential campaigns:

At The Huffington Post, Zephyr Teachout and Kelly Nuxoll provide a breakdown of presidential campaign staffs by gender. (They also provide links to an explanation of their methodology and a spreadsheet of their data)....

Just two of 15 senior Edwards staffers are women, with women filling 37 percent of the top-paid roles. Three of Obama’s 12 senior staffers are women, and women fill 45 percent of the highest-paying jobs. In fact, of all the leading candidates (the list also includes Huckabee, Richardson, Romney, and Thompson) the only candidate who did not favor male staffers was Clinton. On her campaign, eight of 14 senior staffers, 12 of the top-20 staffers, and 52 percent of the highest-paid staffers are women. Women are also much more likely to play important strategic roles in the Clinton campaign; in the other campaigns, women are more likely to work in finance and internal operations.

This may seem like petty stuff, but I think it foreshadows the gender breakdown of executive staff under a Clinton administration. As I’ve written before, gender matters. Women understand, and care about, women’s interests, which is one reason many women are supporting Clinton despite reservations about her politics.

Play of the Day: Romney's No Democrat

Well, duh! The guy is trying to be the scariest man since Himmler.

Edwards labels Clinton an Insider

Oooooh! I never saw that coming! Gotta admit, though: the MSM love a good fight (and will do what they can to spur it on).

Giuliani talks about his prostate cancer

And the issue is not whether he's healthy enough to take on this demanding office. No. It's the hook for his own health insurance plan. Thanks, AP. That's a great headline. Very informative.

Clinton, Giuliani top scary costume poll

Once again, Hillary Rodham Clinton leads in a poll. This time, she's the top choice when people are asked which major 2008 presidential candidate would make the scariest Halloween costume.

What does this mean? Is AP trying out for the writing staff of Saturday Night Live?

This one I just love:

Clinton dominates campaign news

This one we have to hand to Reuters. Nothing like the news media reporting their own behavior as news. I guess that's one way to try to boost circulation.

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton has dominated news coverage of the 2008 White House race, partly due to negative segments about her on conservative talk radio, according to a new study released on Monday.

At some point, someone new is going to be hired in journalism schools that is going to shake the orthodoxy up a bit. "Today a somebody said something about someone, according to something we heard somewhere, at some point." Now that's a way to hook a reader!

Giuliani blasts Clinton

Do you detect a theme here? I have yet to come across any other presidential candidate in my feed reader today. --Whoops! I'm back to yesterday!

Oh, wait. I did miss this:

Obama singer wins cheers despite protest

A Grammy-winning singer whose role in a Barack Obama campaign event riled gay activists served as master of ceremonies of a gospel concert promoting the Democratic presidential hopeful Sunday night.

I guess that is news. I'm not sure it's good news, though.

Oh, wait. I see the pattern now. Late night Sunday night is the time to post articles about Richardson, Dodd, McCain, Huckabee, Thompson, Putin -- oops.

Interesting how there are so many invisible candidates.

Ah, but at least the mainstream media are onto their own game.

When it comes to presidential politics, the news media loves front-runners. And seems to hate them, too.

Don't you feel reassured? Doesn't that just make you want to read more mainstream media manufacture?

Oh, and by the way, Ron Paul supporters, nada regarding your man in the past several days, though the "liberal" New York Times found you.

Smugness in mainstream obscurity, apparently. Morons indeed. Ha!

What's absent through all the coverage? Substance. What do the candidates actually say about healthcare? The deficit? National security? Social Security? Global warming? Energy policy? Education?

Not a whole lot. That crap is boring! Or so say the "news" editors of these mainstream outlets.

And of course we'll get a story about how we don't know much about the positions of any of the candidates.

That is what we call "news."

Good night, and good luck!