I Don't Like You Either.

In Support of the Kos Boycott

Diarists  at Kos---which I admit I rarely look at---who support Hillary Clinton have decided that enough's enough.  Good for them.  It's about time Clinton supporters start speaking up against the abuse and insults of the Hillary-hating  O-bot contingent of the Obama supporting wing of the Democratic party. 

Here's an excerpt from Allegre's last post, taken from where it's cross-posted at No Quarter----I refuse to link to Kos.

DailyKos is not the site it once was thanks to the abusive nature of certain members of our community. 

I’ve decided to go on "strike" and will refrain from posting here as long as the administrators allow the more disruptive members of our community to trash Hillary Clinton and distort her record without any fear of consequence or retribution.  I will not be posting at DailyKos effective immediately.  I will not help drive up traffic or page-hits as long as my candidate – a good and fine DEMOCRAT - is attacked in such a horrid and sexist manner not only by other diarists, but by several of those posting to the front page.

Obama's Angry Minister? Clinton's Fault (According to TPM)

Remember back when everything was Bill Clinton's fault?  Apparently it's Hillary's  fault that ABC news published a story about Obama's very angry minister and TPM has decided to "tell it like it is."

The simple fact is that we wouldn't be seeing this stuff now if it weren't for the fact that this is the kind of campaign Hillary Clinton's campaign has decided to wage -- often directly and at other times indirectly by not reining it in in her supporters when it crops up on its own. Wright is news today because Ferraro's been news yesterday. Are her comments racist? That's a loaded, too copious, word. And there've been cases where the Clinton team has gotten a bum rap on these matters. What I do know, however, is that Clinton's campaign and her surrogates have injected the subject of Obama's race into this campaign too many times now for it to be credible to believe that it is anything but a conscious strategy.

Lincoln's quote of Matthew 18:7 is instructive here: "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh."

It is insufficient to say that Republicans will do this in the fall so there's nothing to be lost in hearing it now from Democrats.

Oh, Josh Marshall. 

Yes,  Hillary has magic powers over/powerful connections with the media.  We've all seen how well the media treats her in comparison to Obama. "Tell it like it is," indeed.

I dreamed initially of a Clinton/Obama ticket that would run for eight years, followed by an Obama/Edwards one that would last for the next eight.   It seemed like the perfect beginning to a new era of Democratic government.

This is BREAKING MY HEART.  I love TPM; I like Hillary; and I'd like Obama if he'd make his 'surrogates'---hate that word---play nice and play fair.

Keith Olbermann's Comments on the Clinton Campaign

The title of Larry Johnson's review pretty much sums it up:  Olbermann’s Cheese Slides Off the Plate,.  he recommends that we just boycott MSNBC  Done and done!

We used to be BIG Olbermann fans at Buck Naked Politics, and now we've all pretty much unanimously decided to pull the plug.  It's saddest for D Cupples, for whom Olbermann topped the list of famous people she'd like to have lunch with. 

I just remain amazed that these journalists---or at least, their corporate masters--- don't see the long-term consequences of their blatant lack of objectivity or even-handedness.

Bye, MSNBC.  I won't miss you.   Okay, maybe I'll miss Tweety a little bit---I expected him to bash Hillary, and was kind of used to it, and I love his big blonde bobblehead, his thatchlike hair, and squeaky voice, even when he's saying things that make me want to snatch him bald-headed.  But I suspect him of secretly really fancying Hillary, like the kid in my mother's Depression-era storybooks who dipped the pigtails of the girl he LIKED-liked into the inkwell. 

But Olbermann?  No, there's just no excuse for it.  No excuse, I mean for this (transcript at Crooks and Liars).

I guess MSNBC thinks they have no Hillary supporters in their target audience.  And by now, they're probably right. 

And obviously, Obama's campaign by now has decided he can get elected without the nearly half the party that prefers Hillary. 

Sean Wilentz at TNR: "The Obama campaign has cleverly played...the "race-baiter card"and yet blamed Hillary Clinton."

This piece is a response to the shameful New York Times op-ed 'The Red Phone in Black and White,' which I didn't bother to cover because, like Sean Wilentz, I found it depressing, and because, unlike Sean Wilentz, I don't get paid for my opinons. 

The thirst of 'the Obama camp,' so-called,  to see Hillary Clinton destroyed morally as well as politically is beginning to trouble a lot of Dems who aren't necessarily supporting Hillary.  Is it possible to persuade them to dial it back or is it already too late?

Sean Wilentz goes a lot further than most critics, accusing the Obama campaign of 'race-baiting.'  With respect to Orlando Patterson's op-ed, he says that his reading "required a singularly tortured and biased "close reading.""  And he says a lot more besides: 

Ferraro Steps Down; Dems Continue Eating Their Own; Kevin Drum Steps Up

Yep, Ferraro's gone.  Across the blogosphere, the Hillary-haters are rubbing their little hands together in unseemly glee.  Well, good for them.  Ferraro really put her foot in it and then---when she had the chance to scrape the muck off her shoe---blamed Obama and his minions for putting it there for her to step in.  Nonsense, nonsense. 

When you say something inexcusable, just shut up and fall on your sword---inexcusable by definition means 'no excuse will be acceptable.' 

All Ferarro ended up doing by making the whole situation was worse was:  make things worse.  Yep, an ugly and unseemly spectacle.   And the pointed fingers and sneers of the Hillary haters aren't making things any prettier.

Camille Paglia's Hillary Hate: Still Going & Going & Going...

Camille Paglia still hates Hillary, though for different (although similar) reasons.  Hillary is still the wrong archetype; always was, always will be, forever and ever world without in amen.

I saw the first Hillary signs going up this week: a thin, white-haired, but very determined elderly lady was trying to wrestle one into the ground near zipping traffic on a county highway. I thought, "Hmm ... Hillary's demographic?" Obama is certainly a darling of youth, the wave of the future. (Salon)

Obama, on the other hand, is a 'dewy and somewhat reserved newcomer,' beloved of the intelligentsia, with 'the patrician elegance of John F. Kennedy.'  Gaaaah.  Also: heh.  According to La Paglia, Hillary's demographic consists of white-haired little old ladies.  All the cool kids---and La Paglia---want Obama.   

Oh, who cares what Camille Paglia says or does about Hillary or Obama? Her area of expertise is the androgyne in art history, art, and literature literature, with a side of Madonna and Keith Richards and their "hieratic assertions of charismatic personality."  Yes, yes, I read her Sexual Personae Book back in the Nineties.  I liked her Sexual Personae book.  I wish she and Salon didn't believe that her literary/artistic take on pop culture qualifies her for political punditry.  She's always trying to blind her readers with jargon. 

Which is why, oh Brad of Sadly, No! ("How Does this Woman Get Paid to Write Again?") I so revere thee:

No Quarter Compiles a Little List of Obama's NAFTA-gate Statements

I couldn't love No Quarter any more than I do----first, for providing expert information on intelligence and national security issues without requiring me to believe that torture and acts outside the limit of the executive branch's authority are essential to the job; second, for its work on behalf of Hillary Clinton.

Here's the list, courtesy of the indispensable SusanUnPC:

1. 2/27/08 – ‘No conversations have taken place’ with the Canadian government on NAFTA. “Earlier Thursday, the Obama campaign insisted that no conversations have taken place with any of its senior ranks and representatives of the Canadian government on the NAFTA issue.” [CTV, 2/29/08]

2. 2/27/08 – Obama advisor just said ‘hello.’ “Goolsbee: Canada’s consul general in Chicago contacted him ‘at one point to say ‘hello’ because their office is around the corner.” [ABC, 2/29/08]

Another Thought on Obama and his Advisers

D Cupples, my colleague at BN-Politics, said "All I had to know was Chicago School of Economics."  I probably should have been more on the alert after the article in the WSJ, but those were the days when I was a centrist.

And I found this snippet at No Quarter that is highly relevant to Samantha Power:

The New York Times reported, “Obama has implored voters to consider his judgment in foreign policy…that judgment, he said, would be carried over to selecting people to fill his administration. He said his views were shaped by his foreign policy advisers.” [New York Times, 11/2/07]  (No Quarter)

So was Power misrepresenting his view or did he just not understand hers?  Weird.