Dear Senator Clinton

Here's Keith Olbermann's Special Comment from last night, as he talks directly to Hillary Clinton. If you missed it, it's a doozie.



(And this from Arthur: As part of her "John McCain and I have experience, that other guy has a speech and an empty suit" offensive, Hillary Clinton made some bold claims, an entire string of which seem to be unraveling. Including this one: Click HERE)

Midweek Update

(Sorry about the delay, but the blog server was down for a bit this weekend, and I got involved in other projects. Looks like we're back in business though, so here we go. By the way, I'm going in for surgery tomorrow, so look for another entry on Thursday under the influence of good pain medication. Should be fun. Goddamn, getting old is a bitch...)

• Looks like Obama has easily won Mississippi today. Hopefully it's only a matter of time before Clinton comes to her senses.
• Geraldine Ferraro attempts to back pedal on her ridiculous remarks concerning Obama. (Video)
• Shocking News! Exhaustive study finds absolutely NO LINK between Saddam and al Qaida. Holy crap, who woulda thought...?
• Have Comcast? Hopefully you haven't written any E-mails that might be considered as subversive to our beloved government. You might be in trouble.....
• Gov. Eliot Spitzer(D) of New York should, and will, resign in disgrace after waving the wobbly warhead in the wrong direction. ($4000 for a piece of ass? What an idiot.) But the Republicans want to IMPEACH him for it. These people have no problem with an elected official lying us into an endless war, ruining the economy, and taking away our basic civil liberties, but hire a prostitute?! Impeach the bastard!
• Swiftboating Barack Obama: A Look Inside Bogus Rightwing Claim He Has Terror Ties.

Dammit

Honestly.

I really wanted to mark the passing of this tremendous milestone with some sort of fanfare. But short of digging out that last reservation-bought mortar and lighting it off in the backyard, there's nothing really worthy of it all. So I just had another drink.

Whoopee.

The "cost of the war in Iraq" counter (see in the column to the left) just passed half-a-trillion dollars. And that's just for the actual war in Iraq. I understand it's actually going to cost us somewhere in the neighborhood of three trillion dollars before it's all over. $3,000,000,000,000. Now that's a chunk of change. Most of the real problems facing Americans today could have been solved using that money. Social Security. Health Care. Education.

This entire country has been mugged.

JP

Harper, The Northern Bush

That a memo mysteriously leaked from the Canadian government, at just the right time to mess with the US primary election, may be just a remarkable, amazing, Gosh who'duh thunk it sort of coincidence. Or it could be a nicely coordinated dirty trick, intended to mess with Obama?

Nice thing for a close ally to do, isn't it? That they leaked such a memo tends to call into question the veracity of the text, as released. As Obama said, this is the "Silly Season".

And speaking of the Silly Season.....

Arthur

The View From Australia

I always like to read the foreign press about American campaigns. This article has no great shocking news, except for one small note near the end. Obama tells his supporters to text to a certain number. Then on election day they get flooded with reminders to get out and vote. Nobody has ever dreamed of that wrinkle before, nor would it work for most candidates. Can you imagine McCain trying to explain it to one of his small audiences of confused older voters? Which I would modestly suggest is a very different demographic from us exceptionally savvy older voters.

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(Note on McCain: "I made a very unfortunate and insensitive remark. It was the wrong thing to do, and I have no excuse for it.'' -- Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, June 11, 1998.
McCain was apologizing for telling a Republican fund-raiser that Chelsea Clinton was "so ugly'' because "she's the child of Janet Reno and Hillary Clinton.'' According to "My Bad," he later sent a note to the Clintons.)

Arthur

Counting On The Young

Every parent will agree that counting on the young to do something can be a mistake. But this year may surprise us. I hope so, since that is the hope that our country will continue to survive. I am rather fond of it, so I hope that it will. We should know by Wednesday how many younger voters came out in the TX, OH, RI and VT primaries. That should tell us something important about how motivated younger voters really are this year. The weather in Texas is supposed to be okay, Ohio is supposed to have really nasty weather. Rhode Island an Vermont are normally crappy at this time of year. I would expect a strong younger voter turnout in those three states. If we see a similarly high turnout in all four states, then it is a believable trend.

Referring to an earlier story, I mistakenly believed that the students who marched seven miles along a highway to vote were from Texas A&M. They were from a smaller traditionally black A&M college in Texas which has had decades of problems in being able to register, vote, or to have their votes count. It seems that all sorts of accidents keep happening in that rural Republican district, the latest being the only polling place being located 7.3 miles from the campus. With all the publicity I think it will be hard to suppress that vote, but it is important to remember that with all the progress that has been made, pockets of racism remain very much alive in this country. I am amused by reports that some Republicans in Texas claim to be voting for Obama as a "spoiler vote" intended to knock out Clinton and set up an unelectable candidate for the General Election. It certainly would be ironic if their support helped him clinch the nomination and win the election, wouldn't it? I can't think of a nicer group of folks to have that delightful surprise. My, how they will laugh and laugh and laugh if that happens! Tears may even be rolling down their cheeks, they will be laughing so heartily...

(More on the Texas youth vote here.)

Arthur

Agreeing With Rich

I find myself agreeing with Frank Rich's meta-analysis of the political race this year. I'm going out on a limb and calling Texas for Obama by between 3 and 10 points and Iowa a toss up, either candidate winning by 3 points, VT for Obama by 10 to 15 and RI for Clinton by 5 points. Statistically that would not support Clinton staying in the campaign, and she knows it, as it would raise the bar from all the additional races to something like her needing to do 70% in all of them. If she wins only one state of the four on Tuesday I think it will be easier for her to step down. In fairness, a lot of people have put millions of dollars into her campaign and want her to hang in there. It is a tough position for her to be in. Rich is looking ahead to November, making some intelligent observations about McCain. I do love his comments about Rush Limbaugh. Ya gotta love a candidate who attacks a potential supporter with such venom. What a unifying figure he would be for our country, given his habit of running off at the mouth like that!

P.S. Click here for another Limbaugh story.

Arthur