I Don't Like You Either.

The Faulty Reasoning Almanack: Shuster Is Polite To PUMAs....but....

Taylor Marsh, formerly one of Hillary's most stalwart  advocates, has the intelligent and tactful take on this:

Colmes Being Awesome

Posted by Blue Stockings |

I wrote this up last night.  Here's the You Tube.

Wonkette:

John Derbyshire is Alarmed! And Other Things Beginning with 'A'!

by Cockney Robin | You've got to hand it to him for always being able to come up with new ways of being a pillock.  Here is exhibit A (for 'arsehole'), from his comments about the cowardliness of the students who got slaughtered at Virginia Tech, with some reactions from across the spectrum.

First he quotes a discussion of a recent study concerning the disappearance of America's white majority.

"If we don't invest in educating and training African-American kids, immigrants and Latino kids, we won't have a middle class," said Mark Sawyer, the director of the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity and Politics at the University of California at Los Angeles. "We'll have a very, very poor disposable class that's largely black or brown."[link]

 

Colmes Fights Back Against Hannity's Double Standard for McCain

Posted by Teh Nutroots | Good for Colmes.  Didn't think he had it in him.  We generally type his name in the manner suggested by Al Franken:  Colmes.   But today he gets him some full-sized letters for talking back (reported by Crooks and Liars).

John Amato says: "The wingnut mentality is a wonder to behold, no?"  Yep.  For example, there's this.

And Maureen Dowd Knows Narcissism

By Blue Stockings |   We already know there isn't enough shut up in all the world for Maureen Dowd.  But John Edwards should probably be grateful to her.  If there's one writer who can probably bring everyone together on his side, it's her.  Certainly Dowd is one person everyone writing at this blog agrees on, even if we can't agree on anything else.

Every time I swear I'll never read her self-referential musings again, I find myself pulled in by curiosity to see whether she can outrage me further.  So far, the answer always turns out to be "yes."

You know, I'm annoyed with John Edwards.  I said so.  He stands accused of hypocrisy at the very least.  I draw the line at presuming to read his mind or to judge him based on this one act.  Maybe he was carried away with himself.  I easily believe that.  But is there really no understanding anywhere for the pathos of the situation and its aftermath?

But it has occurred to me since then that men whose wives are seriously ill sometimes do very shocking and unbecoming things....out of fear.  Men who fear losing their wives often seem to try to put some distance between themselves and the beloved.  Who's to say that isn't what was going on with Edwards?   It might be true and he might not even be consciously aware of it.  And if he were, it's not really something he could ever say.

But yes, yes, yes:  by all means.  Let's all go ahead and sit in judgment on John Edwards.  He's been a hypocrite---we would never do that.  He's been disloyal to a spouse---we are all paragons of faithfulness and loyalty.  He's betrayed his own standards---none of us have ever done that.

The Edwards "Controversy" & The Media Double Standard

by Teh Nutroots | Okay, we've dissed Edwards.  We've said what there is to say, i.e. [accompanied by the sound of a newspaper whapping him on the nose]:

BAD BAD BAD! [::whap::] How could you do it to Elizabeth? [::whap::] How could you do it to your supporters? [::WHAP WHAP::] How could you encourage us to vote for you, thereby encouraging us to vote for a candidate who could scuttle the whole election? (here)  [::whappity whap whap::]  How could you be such a hypocrite? (here)  [whappity whappity WHAP WHAP WHAP]

Since he didn't win the nomination, he didn't inflict the harm---though it wasn't for the want of trying.  So it's an issue, though not a major issue.

The New York Times raises the question of the media's "reticence" toward the no-longer-campaigning former Senator and his incurably ill wife.  As noted below, the no-longer-campaigning Edwards isn't the only beneficiary of such reticence. 

Joe Klein---working hard to redeem himself, but as usual failing to see the trees for the forest---says:

Obama Not Hopeful Enough for the Jolly, Upbeat, Glass-Half-Full Lads of the Right

by Teh Nutroots | The right wing megaphones are rushing to broadcast to their audience of gulls that Barack Obama isn't delivering the message of hope that America is longing for.  Voters, they holler, want someone who will give them a positive upbeat message, no matter how dire the situation Bush has willed on us. 

Funny how their previous scorn for Obama's message of Hope and Change goes out the window when he focuses for a few seconds on the current stark reality (or as I put it, The Judgment on the Bush Regime that is About to Come). 

"It's Like These Guys Take Pride in Being Ignorant"

by Blue Stockings | It's much more like they think the public is really ignorant---or rather the part constituting their base.

Obama was talking about the tire gauge kerfuffle, but he could be describing the entire far right wing of the GOP.  As skippy puts it,
"they not only take pride in being ignorant, they take pride in preaching ignorance."

As usual they're picking on one miniscule point and basing a whole attack on it.  They know their base better than I do, of course.  Maybe that sort of thing works with Republicans.  It worked with Michelle Malkin.  These are people who don't have any tools but blunt ones to work with.  Or rather, they don't need any tools but blunt ones to work with.   You don't have to be subtle when you're dispensing ignorance.

From The Stump:

Jon Stewart & Bob Herbert's "Phallic Symbols"

by Damozel | I'm not fond of Bob Herbert after what he helped do to Hillary and Bill Clinton.  But I thought we Obama supporters---I am one of those now---won a point or two on the "dog whistle" argument re: the celebrity ad till we got to Bob Herbert and his "phallic symbols." 

Plus he sort of proved Big Tent Democrat's point about not knowing when to stop or how something that sounds good at the moment can swerve back around to cut your arguments off at the knees.. 

Jon Stewart responds pretty much the way everyone I know did.  Then he tries to put the race genie back in the bottle. 

Has Maureen Dowd Got a Big Swoony Crush on Obama?

by Damozel | I think she has.  Yes, I think she has.

Look at this:  MoDo's account of Obama's meeting with Sarkozy, entitled Stalking, Sniffing, Swooning.  Read all the way through it if you can.   You may first wish to take an anti-emetic.  It's more than a moderate dose of Dowd.

Sarkozy---excuse me, 'Sarko'---has a crush on Obama?