It's not a bug, it's a feature

A reader at Talking Points Memo describes what I like about Hillary's campaign:

By being a 'fighter' and playing to the lowest kind of populism (and wow do we hate it), Hillary is showing that if she were somehow to get nominated, she'll run exactly the kind of stay-on-the-offensive campaign that will force mistakes from McCain and make it more likely that she'll win in November. She's also making it clear that Obama will never run that kind of campaign.. . . Obama, by contrast, will run a high-minded campaign and may well win on merit. And he'll always be on the defensive. As I said, I favor him Obama a wide margin. But I favor a Democrat over a Republican by an even wider margin.
The upshot: I'll happily support Hillary if she 'steals' the nomination. . . . It's not about fighting back. It's about taking the first shot. She won't let them get their Swift Boats in the water to start with. . . . yes, it'll be very very ugly, cue the 'Unity12' theme music and hand-wringing by the delicate. But I think we're in for ugly no matter what, because they're not going to stop. We may as well engage or get used to losing.

The longer Hillary stays in, the more chance she has to win the nomination. And the more I see about how poorly Obama is handling things -- could he do anything stupider than not coming out in support of lower gas prices? -- I am less confident that he could win a general election.
I don't care how many economists have opined against lower gas prices -- Hillary knows exactly how many economists have ever been elected President.
Obama doesn't seem to get it -- he's running for office, not chairing a graduate tax seminar.
I used to think that Americans hated Republicans so much the Dems could run a turnip and it would win.
But I'm not so confident now. The Republicans are absolutely desperate to win this election, because if they don't they're all going to jail. The Democratic margin is going to have to be overwhelming to withstand the Republican push-back. I'm not sure Obama can do it. But Hillary can.

Great line of the day

From Lance Mannion:

The Working Class includes the 56 year old master electrician making sixty grand a year who can rewire your house blindfolded and who served in Vietnam and whose first vote for President was for George McGovern.
The High Information Creative Class includes the 23 year old C-student junior high school math teacher making twenty-five thousand a year who's working one chapter ahead of his students in the text book and who met his current girlfriend at his mega-church and of course they're both saving it until marriage.
We live in an interesting country.

First of the season

Guess what I just saw?

And it snowed a week ago!
(h/t)
Oh, maybe it was just a mayfly, a really little mayfly...

Obama supporters are creeping me out

Read the comments on this post.
There's something sick about people who are chortling over the death of a horse just because she was Hillary Clinton's pick in the Kentucky Derby. Is Obama sure he actually wants 'supporters' like this?
And then there's pansygate and pastorgate. What is the matter with these people?

Sam I am

Meet Sam, our new dog.
He had to leave his original owners because they were moving to a place which did not allow pets. So we were lucky to get him a month ago. We've been working to help Sam lose weight, though he is a top-notch counter surfer and garbage guzzler, so the weight loss campaign is likely to take a little longer than we thought.
But he is a sweet and snuggly dog, too -we've never had a dog who loves to snuggle as much as Sam does.
He and Chillou, our other Lab, get along just fine -- now that Sam is running more, he and Chillou are playing together.
And now I have also learned about Black Dog Syndrome -- I guess animal shelters have great difficulty getting people to adopt black dogs, particularly larger black lab crosses like Sam. So if you can adopt a dog, make it a black one.

Arrogant and cruel

It is, in my opinion, both arrogant and cruel for Corrections Canada to ban smoking for prisoners. I can understand the indoor air quality issues, but outdoors too?
It's just mean.

I hadn't thought of it this way before

Howard Dean on Meet the Press describes how the Democratic Party will heal itself:

I’m not the most important person in terms of bringing the party together. The most important person is the person who doesn’t win the nomination. Because I can remember when I lost to John Kerry, I had to go out and convince my supporters, it took me about 3 months, that they needed to support Sen. Kerry. I endorsed him, I campaigned for him, I went to all the college campuses and that’s what the person who doesn’t win this with 49% of the delegate is going to have to do keep the party together.

I just hope Hillary, and Bill, are getting this message.

Greasing the skids

I'm speculating, with no evidence at all except patterns of past behaviour, that the recent sabre-rattling against Iran is just to grease the skids for the confirmation hearings for The Man Called Petraeus (copyright Digby) not to mention trying to support McSame's pathetic warmongering
But, of course, I could be wrong.
Did you know they found actual guns and other scary things in Iraq that were marked "Made in Iran and endorsed by the Iran Government for use exclusively in Iraq or Israel"? Really and for true!

I try to support unions, but really!

Surprise transit strike hits Toronto:

Thousands of people headed to work or planning other trips were forced to walk, call cabs or scramble to find other ways to get around after the 9,000 members of the Amalgamated Transit Union walked out at midnight, just hours after rejecting a tentative contract proposal Friday night.

And then the union leadership blames the public for this wildcat walkout:

Union leader Bob Kinnear said he had no choice but to set aside a promise to give 48 hours notice of a walkout out of concern for the safety of his members given some "irrational members of the public."

If he thinks the Toronto retail workers and shoppers who were stranded this morning hated the transit workers before, just wait until he sees what they'll be dealing with after they go back to work.

Major leagues

So the threats didn't work and lawsuits didn't work and spinning didn't work and now the Conservatives think whining for sympathy will get Elections Canada off their backs.

...flak-jacket-clad RCMP officers storming in and copying everything . . . most of his staff is very young, the majority under 30. The official said staffers were petrified . . . RCMP at first knocked on the door and then “pushed their way in.”

Oh, cry me a river. If you don't like politics, go work for a florist.
What the Conservatives don't seem to grasp is that they're no longer playing in the bush leagues. Elections Canada is immune to bullying because they have spent the last 20 years duking it out with the federal Liberal Party.
Both sides in that battle knew that concocting and ferreting out schemes to subvert election rules is the way the game is played. I would imagine that Elections Canada is somewhat amazed that the Conservatives continue to fight a losing battle instead of quietly 'fessing up and moving on'

UPDATE: Dave says its as though they never expanded their view beyond grade four.

Get used to it

Yes, its a pretty thought:

"It's the right of kids to play in the grass .. without compromising their health."

But the reality in Ontario will be yards full of dandelions and crabgrass and chickweed and thistles, not grass.

Just say no

Sounds like it was a badge of shame in the Ottawa press gallery to be invited to this little spin session about the Elections Canada raid:

On Sunday, high-ranking Conservative officials, including campaign director Doug Finley, chief media spokesman Ryan Sparrow and party lawyer Paul Lepsoe held briefings for hand-picked journalists in a downtown hotel room in an effort to shape the emerging story ahead of the warrant's release.
When other reporters learned of the briefing, the officials switched the encounter from the Lord Elgin hotel two blocks west to the Sheraton.
That effort proved fruitless. The uninvited reporters quickly learned of the new location and gathered in the hallway outside the meeting room. Sparrow opened and quickly closed the door on the prying newcomers.
"This is a private meeting," he repeatedly told the CBC's Keith Boag.
Those who managed to get inside the door were handed a sheaf of documents and a CD-ROM containing the warrant and affidavit material.
Sources say the accompanying spin session touched on most of the same points the party has been making since the raid.
But none of the officials would repeat their lines in public when they emerged from the room to be greeted by reporters who weren't on their guest list.
Instead they scurried for a nearby exit and beat a hasty retreat down the fire stairs . . . The Canadian Press, the CBC, Maclean's, the Globe and Mail and the Halifax Chronicle Herald were among those who were not invited to the party's briefing.

The most prominent ones not listed are CTV and the National Post.

Great post of the day

Lance Mannion hits the nail right on the head -- first, about why Hillary inspires such diffidence:

The Insiders think that McCain and Clinton and Obama are running for the job of National Best Drinking Buddy and they've already decided McCain's the right man for that job, emphasis on man because who wants to drink with a woman you can't go to bed with or tell your troubles to? Oh sure, Hillary will listen to you tell her your troubles, but then she'll have suggestions about what to do about those troubles. When the Insiders complain that Hillary reminds them of their first wives or of a schoolteacher or of whatever other gynophobic stereotype bubbles up out of the parts of their distressed psyches where their castration complexes lurk, they are putting their finger right on her problem as they see it. She doesn't want to hear how misunderstood you think you are, she wants you to take out the trash right now, thanks, she wants you to buckle down and do your homework.

Then about why Democrats can't get fair and balanced treatment from the so-called Librull press:

Obama is furious that it took Gibson and Stephanopoulos forty-five minutes to get around to asking their first substantive question about policy, about what Clinton and Obama would actually do if they get to the White House. But Gibson and Stephanopoulos probably resent the fact that they had to bring up policy at all.
The Insiders hate the Democrats because the Democrats actually plan to do things. And they want to talk about the things they want to do and how they plan to do them. So in order to cover a Democrat, journalists have to be able to keep up with discussions of policy and the intricacies of government, and most of our Journalistic Elite can't do this.
They are too lazy or too dumb or too drunk or too full of themselves to enjoy paying someone else the respect of listening to their ideas and taking them seriously.
And this is where Democrats keep making their bloomer.
They keep expecting the likes of Gibson and Stephanopoulos to take things like the future of the country seriously. They keep expecting them to pay attention. They keep expecting them to have done their homework. And when it turns out that the Insiders are content to be lazy and dumb and vain and foolish, they can't hide their disgust and their disdain.
The Insiders know that Al Gore and John Kerry and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama know they are clowns. It is very difficult to suffer fools gladly. Gore and Obama aren't good at that all. Kerry and Clinton are only marginally better.

Iron this, buddy! Part 2

Lambert highlights the increasing hysteria of Clinton Derangement Syndrome, which has reached the point that Obama supporters think their candidate's message of inclusiveness gives them such moral superiority that they can drum Hillary supporters out of the Democratic party -- Jerome Armstrong describes them as "tiny tent democrats".
It's off-putting, isn't it, to see them acting like 'unbelievers' are 'the enemy'. Especially when their candidate, Barak Obama, didn't exactly turn in an outstanding performance in the ABC debate -- a fact noted even by Jon Stewart, who did a mash of Obama's verbal stumbles and stutters.
The conventional wisdom about the ABC debate is that Obama was being pestered with picayune right-wing talking points because he is the frontrunner. But Hillary has been pestered by the right wing for 20 years, and she just laughs it off -- absolutely the only way to deal with it. And she doesn't apologize for laughing, either. I was amazed that Obama didn't seem to have quick, firm, dismissive answers to this crap.
Weather Underground? Get real. Even 40 years ago the Weather Underground was ridiculous.
Maybe if the Republicans work at it they can gin up an Obama 'connection' to those sneaky Harlem Globetrotters too!
But getting back to my point with this post -- at its heart, I wonder if a certain amount of good old-fashioned sexism is jump-starting this anti-Hillary atmosphere.
And then there are the attacks on Hillary Clinton by the white, middle-aged men who pretend to be journalists on American TV. Personally, I can't even stand to watch Keith Olbermann anymore. Seeing this stuff listed all in one place by Eric Boehlert is quite striking:

... Mike Barnicle on MSNBC said Clinton "look[ed] like everyone's first wife standing outside a probate court." ... Bill Kristol on Fox News said that among the only people supporting Hillary Clinton were white women, and "[w]hite women are a problem, that's, you know -- we all live with that." ... CNN's Jack Cafferty likened Clinton to "a scolding mother, talking down to a child." ... Fox News' Neil Cavuto suggested Clinton was "trying to run away from this tough, kind of bitchy image." ... MSNBC's Tucker Carlson announced that "when [Clinton] comes on television, I involuntarily cross my legs."... Christopher Hitchens on CNBC described Clinton as being "sort of alternately soppy and bitchy.'"

Then there is Chris Matthews, who is in a class by himself:

- featured a Photoshopped image of Clinton sporting "She Devil" horns while discussing Republican efforts to demonize her;
- repeatedly likened Clinton to "Nurse Ratched," the scheming, heartless character from the mental hospital drama One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest;
- described her laugh as a "cackle," suggested she was "anti-male," "witchy," and was on a "short ... leash";
- referred to Clinton as "Madame Defarge" and described male politicians who endorsed Clinton as "castratos in the eunuch chorus";
- compared Clinton to a "strip-teaser," wondered whether she was "a convincing mom," referred to Clinton's "cold eyes" and the "cold look" she supposedly gives people;
- claimed that "some men" say Clinton's voice sounds like "fingernails on a blackboard."

Let's not forget David Schuster's awful "pimped out" remark -- as though Hillary is turning Chelsea into a hooker by having her work for the campaign. Had it ever crossed anyone's mind to describe Mary Cheney or Jenna Bush that way?
Well, I think they've forgotten -- when women are pissed on, we get pissed off.
What turned the corner for Hillary in one of the early primaries was when a bunch of yahoos showed up at her campaign stops and yelled at her to shut up and iron their shirts. These loud-mouthed louts ensured that women came out to vote for Hillary.
And this could happen again.

UPDATE: Great minds think alike.

I love the internets

Here's a fascinating article about how human beings create language:

All human beings, Bickerton argues, are born with a sense of grammar, a universal language template. Words can vary from place to place and are bound only by the limits of human creativity and the larynx. But grammar is innate.

Well, maybe, but I wouldn't be so sure about adjectival nouns.
And did you ever wonder about the role of Mercutio in the play Romeo and Juliet? Me neither, but here's Lance Mannion's entertaining explanation:

Mercutio is the one character in the play who recognizes that they are all trapped within a play.

And aren't we all.