"A black sheriff?!": The Official Topic of Obama and New Era American Politics

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-et-onthemedia8-2010jan08,0,672760.column?page=1

I don't think he is that relevant of a person but it isn't too surprising about the fallout.

[Ichirou]

It was one of the bigger rightie blogs, but I always knew this was coming.  The guy is basically an atheist, he made tons of posts ridiculing intelligent design, and he thought the religious right was ridiculous....once they started taking over the GOP, I knew he'd defect.

[Mandark]

Cough, cough.

[ToxicAdam]

No surprise that the guy that went crazy over the fictional, invisible bad guys after 9/11 would go crazy over the fictional, invisible bad guys of global warming.

[Ichirou]

http://nymag.com/news/politics/63045/

A candidate whose aides were prepared to block him from becoming president. A wife whose virtuous image was a mirage. A mistress with a video camera. In an excerpt from the new book Game Change—their sweeping account of the 2008 campaign—the authors reveal that, inside the Edwards triangle, nothing was too crazy to be true.

Read more: An Excerpt From John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's 'Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime' -- New York Magazine

This is a great, great read.  Shows exactly how delusional Edwards was (even after the affair was revealed, he thought that if he didn't admit paternity, he still had a shot at becoming Obama's attorney general), how completely different Elizabeth's private and public personas are (publicly saintlike, privately excoriating staffers and even threatening to cut off their health care on a whim), and how horribly Edwards' campaign went off the rails even before '08.

[Fresh Prince]

Illustrations were awesome. Also the business card

[Phoenix Dark]

I told people Edwards was a fucktard long ago. Mandark annihilated

[Mandark]

What's he meant to do, not sleep around?

Have you seen how handsome he is?  C'mon!

[Ichirou]

I was an Edwards supporter.

[HyperZoneWasAwesome]

I was an Edwards supporter.

The guy had a good platform, and he sounded like a real, genuine progressive.  I don't doubt that if elected, he wouldn't have been anything slightly above a Palin level disaster, but I couldn't begrudge anybody for supporting him back then.

I had a friend who worked in the Edwards campaign.  He's one of the smartest guys I know.  He never got high enough in the campaign to witness any of the horror stories I just read about (I think), but he was practically sweating blood with his workload and that was before the Iowa debacle.  I spoke to him only once before the run up to South Carolina and I don't think I've ever spoken to a more fatigued person in my entire life, he wasn't just tired, he was weary.  At that point the writing was on the wall, many people had jumped ship, money was running out.

I just wanted to express my frustration at that prick Edwards.  His narcissism put a lot of good people through shit just to prop up his absurd power fantasy.  Its a shame that so many people spent their time and money on a John Edwards that didn't exist, and maybe never did.

[Van Cruncheon]

I was an Edwards supporter.

you an' me both, pal :'(

[Gruco]

Pfft, people have known Edwards was a little crazy ever since this story came out.

Edwards had told Kerry he was going to share a story with him that he'd never told anyone else—that after his son Wade had been killed, he climbed onto the slab at the funeral home, laid there and hugged his body, and promised that he'd do all he could to make life better for people, to live up to Wade's ideals of service. Kerry was stunned, not moved, because, as he told me later, Edwards had recounted the same exact story to him, almost in the exact same words, a year or two before—and with the same preface, that he'd never shared the memory with anyone else. Kerry said he found it chilling, and he decided he couldn't pick Edwards unless he met with him again.

[Fresh Prince]

I was an Edwards supporter.

you an' me both, pal :'(

Me too smh

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

I was an Obama supporter at the Iowa caucus but I was a big fan of Edwards since he was the only candidate (other than Kucinich) who seemed to be a true progressive.  You know, with his whole "Two Americas" thing.

[AdmiralViscen]

lol, gg Harry Reid

[Brehvolution]

Teh US is doomed.

In soviet Alaska, Putin can see Palin from his window.

[Phoenix Dark]

Annihilation of the GOP's pathetic attacks on Reid

Sure, it's depressing that Democrats have a Senate majority leader who thinks it's acceptable to use the term "Negro dialect," even in private, off-the-record conversation. It's not just that the term "Negro" was retired about 40 years ago; it's also the notion that there is any one "dialect" spoken by Americans of African descent.

But 70-year-old Harry Reid's gaffe -- he immediately apologized once it was revealed in John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's gossipy "Game Change," and Obama warmly accepted the apology -- has attained near-scandal proportion, pumped up by the right, the shallow MSM as well as a little bit too much debate among Democrats. I dug myself into a hole on this question on Twitter; it can't be debated in 140 characters, so let me try to dig out -- or dig deeper -- with a little more room here.

First of all, I'll share what Reid is quoted as saying. Tangent: I think Heileman and Halperin have probably written an absorbing book (the John Edwards chapter is amazing, and stomach-turning), but if they get dinged for anything, it will be for using a lot of unnamed sources, as well as quoting controversial statements, sometimes firsthand, sometimes with less direct knowledge, in odd sentence fragments. Here's the Reid section:

    "[Reid's] encouragement of Obama was unequivocal. He was wowed by Obama's oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama -- a "light-skinned" African American "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one," as he said privately. Reid was convinced, in fact, that Obama's race would help him more than hurt him in a bid for the Democratic nomination."

It does feel a little silly to be debating objectionable sentence fragments, although a fuller quote of Reid's remarks might get him in deeper, but there we are.

For Republicans to jump on Reid is both predictable and disgusting. The foolish Michael "Honest Injun" Steele is suggesting that Reid must resign. I think Steele funneled his own book fee to Harper to get them to release "Game Change" this weekend, so the Sunday shows wouldn't be obsessing over whether and when Steele will resign or be pushed out of his post as RNC chair, for gaffing and overspending his way to shame.

I'm glad to know Steele doesn't believe there is any kind of black dialect. I guess that's why he titled his blog "What up?," told the "Today" show in no uncertain terms "brotha's still here" and said the Republican Party had to use hip-hop to reach black voters. No stereotyping there!

Meanwhile, Steele and Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl are shrieking "double standard," comparing Reid's comments to the stunning 2002 musings of former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, who had to resign after he said the country would have been better off if it had elected Dixiecrat segregationist Strom Thurmond president in 1948. Oh sure: One guy is talking, perhaps inelegantly, about why he's wholeheartedly supporting our first black president; the other is wishing the country had elected a racist. That's exactly the same thing!

But I was a little bit bothered to jump on Twitter today, where my world is very liberal and colorful, and hear some Democrats still trashing Reid for his misstatement. You can read the whole thread here. One person suggested that Reid had no business discussing the issue of whether being light-skinned is an advantage for African-Americans, when that issue is in fact regularly debated in the black community. If we're ever going to have our long-delayed conversation about race, white people are going to have to be able to participate even on issues that black people have considered their own. I can't count the number of conversations I had in 2008, with savvy political observers of every race, talking about the advantages of Obama being light-skinned and biracial.

Seriously, does anyone really think it's coincidence that our first black president is a biracial man who came from Hawaii by way of Harvard  (with a little political rough and tumble in Chicago)? If my thinking that means I can't be Senate majority leader ... well, that's OK. I didn't want that job anyway.

Others took issue with the notion of a "Negro dialect," and while the term "Negro" is passé and the idea that there's one dialect spoken by all African-Americans is ridiculous, it's also silly to suggest that there are no words, idioms, sayings or speech patterns common to some or even many African-Americans. During the 1980s, I covered the efforts of some black educators in Oakland, Calif., to get Ebonics designated a language so low-income African-American kids could get English as a second language funding. During the 2008 campaign people noted that not only Obama but Hillary Clinton (with, um, maybe less justification) sounded quite different speaking before black audiences and white ones. Obama is culturally bilingual, and again, if we're supposed to deny that was an advantage for him, we're being willfully blind to the realities of politics.

Having a black president means that issues that some black people think can only be discussed in their community are going to come out in the open. For better, or worse, and in this case, I think better. Harry Reid expressed his thoughts inelegantly, he understands that now, and perhaps we'll retire the term, and the idea of, "Negro dialect." But if progressive racial-justice Democrats don't think politicians of every race size up the field in terms of competitive advantage -- and sadly, even today, accord advantage to African-Americans who put white folks at ease, speak "white" or "standard" English, and even, yes, look "less non-white" -- we're kidding ourselves.

Besides: We have much bigger problems, as a party and as a nation, than the reasons a powerful 70-year-old white politician endorsed Barack Obama for president. Let's get serious here.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joan_walsh/politics/2010/01/10/reid_gaffe/

[Mandark]

If there's one part of politics that wears on me (which doesn't rhyme with "Schmoe Feeberman"), it's the constant phony outrage.

When Michael Steele was my lieutenant governor, his response to Bob Ehrlich holding a fundraiser at a whites-only country club was that "I don't play golf."  It's a little late for him to decide he's Malcolm X.

[Phoenix Dark]

why u hatin on Steele dawg?

I'm trying really hard to understand why Harry Reid's comments about Barack Obama's electability were offensive. Do people seriously dispute that light-skinned African Americans have traditionally been more palatable to white Americans? We literally have studies on this subject. Is there a real argument over whether African American politicians use different cadences in front of primarily black audiences? Ask a political reporter about this sometime. Or go read any of the coverage from any speech Barack Obama has ever given at a black church, which inevitably will mention his "classical preacher's cadence," a description you will not find in any of the write-ups of, say, his health-care speech to the Congress.

It's weird, of course, that Reid used the word "negro" as opposed to "black" or "African American." But that seems to have a lot more to do with age than with racial attitudes. After all, Reid is the same guy who, In 2007, told Obama, "If you want to be president, you can be president now." Reid has also spent the past year working to push Obama's agenda through Congress and make sure the nation's first African American president has a successful first term and a good shot at reelection. If that's what counts for racism these days, then America has come a long way.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/01/reid_and_obama.html

[Human Snorenado]

In news that should surprise no one, unemployed blogger Sarah Palin signs on to contribute to Fox News.  You betcha!  Also.

[Gruco]

I hope they also hired her facebook ghostwriter.

[Stoney Mason]

http://nymag.com/news/politics/63045/

A candidate whose aides were prepared to block him from becoming president. A wife whose virtuous image was a mirage. A mistress with a video camera. In an excerpt from the new book Game Change—their sweeping account of the 2008 campaign—the authors reveal that, inside the Edwards triangle, nothing was too crazy to be true.

Read more: An Excerpt From John Heilemann and Mark Halperin's 'Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime' -- New York Magazine

This is a great, great read.  Shows exactly how delusional Edwards was (even after the affair was revealed, he thought that if he didn't admit paternity, he still had a shot at becoming Obama's attorney general), how completely different Elizabeth's private and public personas are (publicly saintlike, privately excoriating staffers and even threatening to cut off their health care on a whim), and how horribly Edwards' campaign went off the rails even before '08.

Not a fan of Halperin. He's the example of how "Politico" style faux reporting has come to dominate internet news. That piece reads like a not exactly balanced piece of writing but instead a juicy salacious gossip piece which is probably the point.

That being said I don't doubt most/all of it is true.

I won't pretend to have psychic insight into the true morals of others like some people do but Edwards did come off a bit like a phony in much the same way the Mitt Romney does or any of the more "charismatic" types often do where you get the sense even the unscripted moments have been scripted. That was the main reason I didn't support him in the primaries even though his platform was appealing to any Democrat. I thought he would have a hard time convincing people he was earnest unlike Obama or Hillary would.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

Edwards was a phony.  However there wasn't much evidence to lead me to believe he would renege on his "Two Americas" solutions.

[bork]

In news that should surprise no one, unemployed blogger Sarah Palin signs on to contribute to Fox News.  You betcha!  Also.

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

Does she have a lazy eye?

[Phoenix Dark]

speaking of douchebags

[youtube=560,345]Hms1dtIq7xA[/youtube]

Appearing on Hardball tonight, former Rep. Harold Ford (D-TN) made a clear declaration for Chris Matthews, as Ford gears up to challenge appointed Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in the New York Democratic primary.

Ford, who lost a Senate campaign in his native Tennessee in 2006, said that he lives in New York, he and his wife plan to start a family there, and he's paid taxes there. "And once you pay taxes there, you feel like a New Yorker," Ford quipped.

Matthews asked Ford to declare that he is a New Yorker. Ford replied: "I am a New Yorker. I am a New Yorker. I am a New Yorker. I am a New Yorker." It was certainly entertaining -- and if this New York thing doesn't work out, he'll have no chance of ever running for office in Tennessee again.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/harold-ford-i-am-a-new-yorker-i-am-a-new-yorker-i-am-video.php?ref=fpa

[brawndolicious]

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2010/01/09/irish-mrs-robinson-bangs-teenager-may-bring-down-government

She breaks her vows after 40 years to bang a 19 year old while at the same time making comments about how destructive homosexuality is, despite the fact that she's the MP's wife and such an affair would cause huge political backlash and turmoil in a region not really known for being too peaceful.

The best thing is how gay mags are trying to make pin-ups of the kid though.

[Fresh Prince]

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2010/01/09/irish-mrs-robinson-bangs-teenager-may-bring-down-government

She breaks her vows after 40 years to bang a 19 year old while at the same time making comments about how destructive homosexuality is, despite the fact that she's the MP's wife and such an affair would cause huge political backlash and turmoil in a region not really known for being too peaceful.

The best thing is how gay mags are trying to make pin-ups of the kid though.

A bit over dramatic

[brawndolicious]

When you have poor vocabulary,  you have to exaggerate.

[Phoenix Dark]

lol silly europeons obsessed with sex scandals!

[Fresh Prince]

That guy was highly paid. I find it more amusing that Mrs. Robinson song sales went up 1200%

[Phoenix Dark]

Liz Cheney embarrassing herself at the grown ups table
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/10/george-will-takes-on-liz_n_417733.html

[Stoney Mason]

It's kinda weird that in recent years she has become the face of Neo-conservatism.

I say that mainly because she is not a very good advocate for it. You would think they would go with somebody else, especially somebody without all the Cheney baggage.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

It's kinda weird that in recent years she has become the face of Neo-conservatism.

I say that mainly because she is not a very good advocate for it. You would think they would go with somebody else, especially somebody without all the Cheney baggage.

That is because there is no structured Republican leadership at the moment.  It's basically a free for all currently.

[Dickie Dee]

In news that should surprise no one, unemployed blogger Sarah Palin signs on to contribute to Fox News.  You betcha!  Also.

[youtube=560,345][/youtube]

Even her reading from a teleprompter is nails on a chalkboard

Liz Cheney embarrassing herself at the grown ups table
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/10/george-will-takes-on-liz_n_417733.html

"All of us hope that this Nation is one where we're judged by the content of our character"

So says the bitch whose daddy voted for apartheid.

[Phoenix Dark]

EJ Dionne sketches out the likely outcome of the House-Senate negotiations:

    Over the past week, I've talked with key figures in the House, Senate and White House, and the outlines of a deal are becoming reasonably clear. The public option is, alas, dead. But the idea of setting up a national insurance exchange -- alongside state exchanges -- where the uninsured can buy coverage is very much alive. The House is demanding this as the price for giving up on the public plan, and a national exchange would provide for much more consumer-friendly regulation of health insurance policies.

    Almost everyone in both houses wants to find ways of making insurance more affordable. Steps in this direction would include more generous subsidies for the purchase of insurance than those in the Senate bill and expanding its Medicaid provisions. The bill's price tag will grow from the Senate's $871 billion over a decade, probably to somewhere between $930 billion and $950 billion.

    The tax on "Cadillac" insurance plans, opposed by both organized labor and the insurance industry, is likely to be scaled back but not eliminated. Currently, the Senate bill includes a 40 percent excise tax on high-end health insurance plans -- those at or above $23,000 for families and $8,500 for individuals.

    Many opponents would settle for raising that ceiling to $28,000 for families, with a comparable increase for individuals. That would reduce the number of policyholders covered by the levy. But because of fierce resistance to the tax from a large group of House Democrats, this could prove to be one of the most vexing issues in the negotiations.

    In the meantime, negotiators are looking to extend to all states a version of the special deal that saved Sen. Ben Nelson's home state of Nebraska from the bill's increased Medicaid costs. Nelson himself is pushing for this change, which would cost $25 billion to $30 billion over 10 years. One solution: somewhat more modest across-the-board Medicaid relief to all states.

This basically tracks with what I'm hearing. The Medicare Commission remains unsettled, and the way the excise tax is valued might change. In particular, it may be tied to actuarial value rather than total cost, or it may account more directly for age. The precise mix of insurance regulations might shift as well, as the House has a stronger set than the Senate does. But broadly speaking, people aren't expecting much in the way of surprises.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/01/previewing_the_final_health-ca.html

[Phoenix Dark]

Harold Ford is a fucktard

Q. Guns. Let's talk about this issue.

A: I never got an A rating, like my opponent -- would-be opponent -- has enjoyed. I don't own them. I do shoot them, and I shoot them at things that can't shoot back. And will continue to do that. And by that, I want to be clear, I don't mean children. I have done a little bird hunting in my day.

Q. ... Have you traveled all five boroughs?

A. I will tell you what I did. I was able to do it. Kelly had a -- Chief Kelly, [NYPD] Commissioner Kelly -- invited, I guess, business people in the city, including Sir. Harold Evans, in my group. We spent the afternoon with the special operations force, and so I had the chance to helicopter to various areas in the boroughs. The only place I have not spent considerable time is Staten Island.

Q. Have you been to Staten Island?

A. I landed there in the helicopter, so I can say yes.

smh
http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/ford-in-the-nyt-i-dont-shoot-children.php?ref=fpb

[Eric P]

he's got my vote

[Phoenix Dark]

Q. Jets or Giants?

A. I had breakfast about every morning when I am in town, or I should say, several mornings, at the Regency. I see my friends the Tisches. [Giants owner] Steve Tisch is my close personal friend. I have been to more Giants games. I spent the holidays, I had lunch over the holidays with [Jets owner] Woody Johnson. We met for the first time. I am happy for his team.

wow

[Phoenix Dark]

[youtube=560,345]TgBmQMSmCrY[/youtube]
annihilated

Who told him this was a good idea. Once he loses, it's not like he can go back to Tennessee after saying "I'm a New Yorker" and flip flopping on abortion and gay marriage.

[Mandark]

Remember when James Carville wrote a hit piece on Howard Dean for the Democrats' weak performance in 2006 (!!!) and said Ford should be the party chair?

Heady days.

[Phoenix Dark]

Carville likened the Democratic takeover of Congress to the civil war battle at Gettysburg, which the Union army won but failed to pursue the Confederate army when it retreated.

“We should have chased them down,” Carville said. There was no immediate response from Dean or the DNC.

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/washington/washington/entries/2006/11/15/carville_says_d.html

Heh. Also, didn't he want Zell Miller as Gore's vp

[Oblivion]

Alan Grayson is beyond awesome.

[M3wThr33]

[youtube=560,345]VA_yVbrMEPo[/youtube]

Oh god. This is going to be a gold mine of footage in the years to come.

[The Fake Shemp]

Hooooooooooolleeeeeee shit

[The Fake Shemp]

I am stunned that you can visibly see her stalling to come up with George Washington. That was painful to watch. I think she may have gotten dumber since the election.

[TEEEPO]

NO WONDER WRONG THREAD DUMDUMDUM

[Barry Egan]

[youtube=560,345]

Oh god. This is going to be a gold mine of footage in the years to come.

bahahahahahaha

She might as well have said colonel sanders.

[Gruco]

Why can't the media leave poor Sarah alone?

Stupid Glenn Beck and his gotcha journalism.

[M3wThr33]

And obviously the answer is Franklin. Dude's rollin in... Benjamins...

[Phoenix Dark]

[youtube=560,345]twosydbZIjI[/youtube]

[Oblivion]

I am stunned that you can visibly see her stalling to come up with George Washington. That was painful to watch. I think she may have gotten dumber since the election.

I forget who said it, but they were right when stating that some republicans are actually intelligent, but make an attempt to seem dumber to appeal to their base. Whereas with Sarah, she makes a genuine attempt to remain as ignorant as humanly possible.

[Mandark]

What a lot of us realized during the Reagan administration, i.e., as it was happening--and what would be made manifest in 1996, when Falwell, Reed, Dobson, and their ilk blessed the candidacy of Bob Dole (R-ADM)--is that the Snake Handling and Ammo Hoarding constituencies of the Republican party would never, ever, understand they were being played. (Though, in fairness, the Second Amendment crowd pretty much gets what it wants legislatively, due both to an historically less penurious approach to divvying up the weekly offering, and the fact that most government officials live far enough away from the automatic weapons fire that they don't give a fuck. Playing that gang involves the same process, though: 1. Read bumper-sticker slogan. 2. Collect donations.) Palin merely (and I emphasize merely) represents the full flowering of the movement: the Played are now the Players, and the fifteen IQ points that might've saved 'em are now gone like a meth-addict's teeth.

That's a pretty ungenerous way to put it, but it's too fun not to share.

[Phoenix Dark]

shots injected fired

[Oblivion]

lol

billmaher: Did u see Palin on O Reilly yesterday? She's still got it And by it I mean brain damage

[Brehvolution]

 

[Mandark]

[youtube=560,345]zY31n_P5aFM[/youtube]

    KUDLOW: If you were elected Senator, what would you do about the 10% unemployment rate, which may or may not be 10% if and when you get in? But, what are your general solutions to the high unemployment and worries about the economic recession?

    RUBIO: Well the problem is the people in Washington don’t understand what’s causing it. They think that Presidents and Senators are job creators and they’re not. The job creators are people who have access to money, whether it’s their own or borrowed, who use that money to open up a new business or expand an existing one. And they’re not doing that right now because of the tax chaos and all the regulatory chaos and all of this uncertainty created in Washington DC. Perhaps the most stimulative thing they can do right now is take a two year recess or something.

[Stoney Mason]

WWRD

spoiler (click to show/hide)

What would Reagan do

[close]

[Phoenix Dark]

Good to see Gingrich isn't the only ideas man on the right

[Mandark]

I swear, if Obama's agenda gets kneecapped by the Democrats blowing a special Senate election in Massachusetts, I'm going to give this country such a glaring-at.