Special note: Larry Johnson now says that the long-rumored Michelle-and-Farrakhan video was made in June of 2004 at a conference, not a Trinity religious service. (You may want to check out this page.) This photo, taken at a luncheon in 2004, shows Michelle Obama with Louis Farrakhan's wife. Could the Obots be more self-destructive? At a time when they should be trying to win over the Hillary voters, they still -- even now -- are continuing to spread lies and spew vitriol.
Hillary did not concede tonight, just as Ted Kennedy did not concede in 1980 until the convention. I was a Kennedy supporter then, and I would have been furious at him if he had faltered, even though he had no real chance. The Carter forces in 1980 did not spray venom at Teddy or his supporters, because they hoped to try to bring guys like me back into the fold.
That was then. This is now -- and "now" is a much less sane place to be. First, the Cheeto:
Here's the bottom line -- if Obama takes Clinton, it would be a sign of weakness as Clinton -- holding few cards -- is apparently set on sabotaging him if she can't get what she want.Moulitsas pulled this nonsense out of his ass, just as he did with that "darkened video" smear. Responses:
HRC is invoking every negative stereotype there is about womenHillary did that?
I want to see some serious...movement on the part of her superdelegates tomorrow. This is disgusting and there should be consequences.
I am ashamed of the First Woman Candidate who HAD a chance at winning - embarrassed and ashamed.This is 2000 all over again. The falsehoods told about Gore took hold then; the falsehoods told about Hillary take hold now.
She has done nothing deserving of shame. Obama is a corrupt pol from the Blagojevich/Daley/Rezko machine who has run the filthiest, sleaziest campaign in the history of the Democratic party -- aided and abetted by Libertarians (Moulitsas, Stassinopoulis, Sullivan, Aravosis) in the new media. They did not just play the race card: They concocted a deck filled with race cards.
What a disgusting speech that was.
she's disgusting
I would like Hillary and Bill to leave the stage permanently. Not on the ticket, not campaigning for Obama, nothing - just go home.
I will not vote for Obama if Clinton is on the ticket. Some whacky crazy Clinton supporter would take that as an invitation to kill him.Riiiiiight. As though the Clinton supporters are the ones with the rep for wackiness.
You should see the Obot commentary -- some of it threatening, all of it insane -- that I receive but do not publish. Taylor Marsh has announced that she will contact the police about the violent comments she routinely receives from Obama's odious fanatics. Do these fools actually think that threats and insults will seduce and sell?
screw 'em this is a battle for the party's soul, and we need to win without them.There's truth here. It is indeed a battle for the party's soul. Basically, the Obama forces have destroyed the Democratic party and replaced it with a Rovian hate machine.
But...can they win without half the party? Try it.
And the hate fest continues over on TPM:
Unfuckingbelieveable. She's such a disgrace.
She's just made women look great with this bullshit. What a bitch.
I dont think Barack should negotiate with terrorists.
I hope she moves forward right into hell...
Jeez, this was astonishing. Her dig at Obama about only caring about Universal Healthcare for the past 16 months pretty much made me drop my jaw.Obamabots call anyone a liar who tells them a truth that does not flatter their hallucinations.
She is freaking odious.
These Clinton clowns fucked the dog tonight.Can you believe the rancor from Democrats directed against the most successful post-WWII president?
Rhandi Rhodes, where are you when we need you?
Hillary just handed McCain the White House.No, you did. You formed a cult of personality around a corrupt manipulator who now has insurmountable negatives. He won only by using his fanatical supporters to game the caucuses. If all states ran primaries, he would have had to concede weeks ago.
No Democrat other than Obama could lose this race. At this stage in 1988, Dukakis was 17 points ahead of Poppy. Obama's ratings may go up somewhat after tonight -- but they'll never reach the Dukakis level, and they'll plummet into Ti-D-Bowl territory soon enough.
Never forget. Never forgive.
For me, this fight was never about Hillary Clinton. Although she would make a good president, I'm not overwhelmingly enamored with her, and I still wish she had not run. I support her only because the followers of Barack Obama repulsed me. I loathe them for turning what was once my party into the mirror image of the Republicans at their most bestial.
What now? Each reader must make a personal game plan. Here's mine:
First, I have to decide between reconciling myself to McCain or making the case for Cynthia McKinney. The latter seems far more likely -- unless McCain changes his stance on the war. If scandal brings down Obama before the convention (very possible), then of course I will support Hillary.
I have to work to keep myself alive. Aside from that...
I am devoting my life to insuring the defeat of Barack Obama. If by some miracle he should win in November, I will devote my life to exposing his corruption.
More than that -- much more: I will do whatever I can to rid the Democratic party of the lying, smearing "progressive" FILTH that has infested it.
Heretofore, my political life has simply been a sideline, an avocation. From this moment forward, I'm playing seriously.
I'm a clever and talented fellow. And I have plans. You might even call them schemes.
Of course, I have no illusions that one little-known, quasi-homeless writer can change history. But let us keep matters in perspective: In 2004, when this site began, Bush was the enemy, and he seemed invulnerable. His supporters were far more numerous and powerful than Obama's forces are today.
One image kept haunting me during the first few months of this site's existence -- the battle for Gondor in Return of the King. When the Mumakils (the oversized elephants) first arrived on the field, all seemed lost. How could one warrior do combat with something so massive?One warrior could not. Many warriors could.
First, one horseman turned toward the creatures -- toward what appeared to be certain doom. Then others joined him.
Eventually, one by one, the beasts fell.
What the Republicans once were, the progressives now are: A stampeding herd of unthinking monsters. We cannot reason with these brutes. We can only bring them down by firing our arrows, volley after volley after volley.
We have fought on these fields before, and we have faced opponents who were far more fearsome.
I'm riding out to meet the foe. Join me.
11 comments:
I'm with you. This is not over, not by a long shot. I guess the only question is whether the inevitable shake-up of the Democratic Party will be the result of Obama's loss in November, or Obama's inept one-term presidency.
Count me in.
Obama is the most politically inept candidate i've ever seen, and i think he and his supporters are incapable of not acting like assholes. watching them try to "woo" voters should be hilarious.
A comment from your old mate 'b' in the UK here...
You say:
"What the Republicans once were, the progressives now are: A stampeding herd of unthinking monsters."
What else about the Republicans would you now put in the past tense?
Of course Obama is corrupt; so is McCain and so is Clinton.
I am not being absolutist. A candidate who called for Bush, Cheney, etc. to be tried for war crimes in an international court might deserve at least a little respect.
Two recent things that have stuck in my mind. The first is Evelyn Pringle's observation (thanks for the link) that:
[Rezko] supported President George Bush and attended a Christmas party at the White House in December 2003, at the same time that he was a top fundraiser for Obama's US Senate campaign.
What does that suggest? Does it sound as though "the progressives" were behind all this?
The second is Gore Vidal's prediction that it doesn't matter whether Obama or Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, because whatever the polls show, the Republicans will steal the election.
I am not saying 'support Obama' - that would be absolutely ridiculous. But I am saying, concentrate 'cannonfire' on the ruling group in America, and don't get distracted by this election except as someone who is critical of said ruling group.
Sorry mate but your one-time assertion that if Obama won the Democratic nomination you would support the Republicans surely indicates a little tendency towards confusion on these matters, despite all the great and inspiring stuff you write here.
b
The Clintons are not corrupt. People like you say things like that because they want to sit at the cool kids' table. They want to prove that they cannot be fooled, that they can be cynical about everyone and everything.
One name: Ken Starr.
The Clintons are the most vetted people on earth.
I like to think of myself as a captious sort, but a mindless, knee-jerk cyncism paints reality with an overly-broad brush.
Don't lecture me about election theft. I was the first to say that Kerry was robbed in 2004. That said, I have nothing but contempt for those who use "election theft" as their catch-all excuse. The elction system is much improved in Florida, but Obama will still lose that state.
The real election fraud was perpetrated by the Obama forces int he caucus states. But you can't get "Thor" Friedman to pay attention to that, even though his own Green party suffered.
Gore Vidal, you say? I've a fair amount of contempt for Gore Vidal. You may have read my piece about the time I hung out with Vidal and the gang on election night, 1982. Those people spoke about Jerry Brown the same way Kossacks now speak about the Clintons -- "He's to the RIGHT of Ronald Reagan!"
Those clowns were classic left-wing poseurs -- what dear old John Edgar used to call "Suede-o intellectuals." We're talking about the kind of poseurs who like to dress in black and smoke biddy cigarettes while listening to bad poetry being shouted in downtown art galleries, okay? I amused myself by hanging out with that crowd in my early 20s. But I grew up.
And nobody (with the exception of long-time contributor Jen) tells me what to do with this site. As the poet said: "When they give you lined paper, write the other way." Lefties don't like to admit to themselves that they hand out tighly-ruled sheets of paper ALL the damn time, which is the main reason why so the left is traditionally unpopular in this country.
You're right about left-wing poseurs. You're wrong to think I want to sit at anyone else's table.
I'm not promoting Gore Vidal here. I don't care about him or any other media personality or politician. That's all a show, always based on the submissiveness and isolation of the audience members, like any show. Re. Clinton, nobody gets ahead in American politics unless they're corrupt. As often as not, I don't care much for the details. Maybe you are waiting for a knight in cleaner-than-clean shining armour to come and save everyone?
But what Gore Vidal said in this instance was correct.
b
"Re. Clinton, nobody gets ahead in American politics unless they're corrupt. As often as not, I don't care much for the details."
This attitude defines the problem. Joe Conason and Gene Lyons' book "The Hunting of the President" talks about this phenomenon -- a truly blinkered pseudo-cynicism that was itself a form of laziness. A willingness to believe the worst, not because the evidence so dictated or even because of a personal world-weary weltanschauung, but simply because an affected captiousness allows one to sit at the cool kids' table. It's the very mark of the poseur, and it allowed the lowest forms of rumor to dominate the political dialog of the 1990s.
Thus, when Ron Brown's plane went down, the poseurs said "Oh, well you just KNOW Bill Clinton had the CIA bring that plane down." And a lot of people ON THE LEFT nodded their heads and muttered their thoughtless assent. "Of course, of course, Clinton wanted his friend killed, and the CIA is utterly loyal to Clinton. Of course. That makes perfect sense to me. Only NAIVE people would ever think otherwise..."
Was there a whiff of evidence for any of this? No. But who needs evidence? The important point is to seem cool.
So light up that clove ciggie, B. Put on your $100 Affliction t-shirt, head to that loft, listen to that crap poetry, and pretend that you actually know something about how the world operates.
I do not believe Hillary (or Bill) Clinton is corrupt, but Barack Obama is a different story. I could
never bring myself to vote for him and have been trying to figure out what I should do with the
anger and disgust our “candidate” and his followers have inspired in me. I’m three weeks away
from my 70th and have been a democrat all my adult life, but am seriously considering leaving the
party, which I really do not want to do. Fighting to take it back sounds like a winner to me, and
although I am not the “clever and talented fellow” you are, I am more that but am happy to join
your disgruntled throng I sincerely hope this turns out to be. And thank you for providing a
positive direction.
I can’t seem to sign onto my new Google account and do not wish to leave an anonymous
message, so... I am non-anonymous Jerome.
At the rope line, after Senator Clinton's speech today:
After the initial cheers subsided a bit, {Clinton and her daughter] started shaking hands and posing for photos. That’s when the Obamabots who [had put on Hillary pins and crowded their way to the front] were standing directly in front of Hillary started chanting “Obama! Obama!” Hillary looked momentarily taken aback, but then kept going. The rest of us started chanting “Hillary! Hillary!” to try to down them out but I think most of us were taken aback as well. It’s also kind of difficult to sustain shouting at the top of your lungs when there’s a person standing three feet in front of you — especially when that person is Hillary Clinton and you’re shouting her name. So that died down, which is about when the group of them shouted “Concede, you liar! Concede!”
Wow. Just wow.
Young, mostly male. Though there was one woman who was probably in her forties who was not the most active member of the mob, but who seemed to be steering the younger members toward the front and encouraging them.
http://www.correntewire.com/scenes_from_hillarys_rally_this_evening
"First, I have to decide between reconciling myself to McCain or making the case for Cynthia McKinney. The latter seems far more likely..."
Joseph, what do we know about Cynthia McKinney? Has she been vetted? If she's indeed a viable candidate, it would seem the time is right to get behind her. I could do that a lot easier than getting behind McCain. And the choice seems to be that there is no choice. McCain will beat Obama. So why not support McKinney even if it means McCain will win?
I have nothing but contempt for those who use "election theft" as their catch-all excuse.
No-one's advocating being cynical about everything.
What you're doing is helping promote the assumptions always sold by anyone involved in parliamentary democracy. It's la-la land.
What I'm doing is saying get a grip on what parliamentary democracy and all this la-la election stuff is really about, and has been really about for the last century. It's a mind-befuddling soporific energy-wasting tar-bucket. It can't be anything but. Saying that doesn't make me a follower of Lord Vidal or of anyone else.
I think maybe you are so fed up with leftist wallies, manipulative pseudo-cynical merchants (and I mean literally merchants) of 'conspiracy theories' that you have jumped back in with the soft left democrats, without noticing that the idea of cleaning up the Democratic party is the purest garbage.
You even openly support realpolitik, saying how this or that candidate should tailor their message to this or that part of the electorate or party. Surely you do not wish to be a sort of Karl Rove stood on his head and pointing in the opposite direction.
Of course the Clintons didn't get where they are without graft. Tell me why they support Israel for starters; or the legitimacy of war crimes.
I was listening to the radio yesterday and caught a report on how Clinton and Obama are falling over themselves to say how much they support the apartheid regime called Israel. Clinton was praising Obama for it. Obama himself was saying he supported Jerusalem being the eternal and indivisible capital of Israel. Even Bush hasn't read that line out.
Showbiz personalities don't ever say that showbiz personalities, even those selling a very different 'product' from their own, are full of cr*p, only doing it for the money, have contempt for their audiences, and so on.
Similarly, politicians don't attack each other in that way. Clinton's reference to Rezko - soon forgotten when she started praising Obama at AIPAC - was about the furthese they can go.
If you think Ken Starr would have revealed WHATEVER dirt about the Clintons he could find, you are mistaken.
For Clinton, Bush, etc. to be attacked in the terms they deserve to be attacked, requires a complete condemnation of this entity called 'America'.
You are grouping everything to the left of yourself into some sort of monstrous 'straw man' monolithic culture called 'progressive', and in doing so, you are not grasping where I'm coming from, either on a personal level or purely on the level of overall theoretical-critical approach.
I have no idea what an 'Affliction' T-shirt is, and would not spend $100 on any kind of T-shirt. Poetry readings? No, your shots aren't hitting home, I'm afraid.
Appearing cool, as against being a detail-head marshaller of the 'probative'? That's your false choice, that is, not mine.
You also seem to be drunk on language a bit, to judge by your repeated use of the term 'cool kids'. Maybe it's something to do with adopting the role of 'writer'? I've never wanted to be in with any in-crowd. You, it appears, did want to be in the past, to judge by what you said about hanging out with Goreites. OK, so you're not like that now, but that doesn't mean that everyone to the left of you IS like that!
As for preparing to devote your life to undermining an Obama presidency, or cleaning out the Democratic party...
* the first begs the question of what attitude you might take towards a McCain (or Bloomberg?) presidency
* the second really is a completely losing battle; you might as well try to clean up the Republican party or AIPAC.
A little bit of input from someone not enmired in American political culture might help you get beyond this superficial choice between being a 'Clinton hater' or an 'Obama hater'.
The sad thing is that you are putting so much hope into the idea that a clean Democratic presidency will make conditions better in America. In fact, there is no such thing. Conditions have deteriorated for years. They will deteriorate further. The rulers are practically kicking against an open door. There is no 'left' in the way that there was before WW1 (in the US), after WW1 (in Europe), or for a few years around 1968 (in both).
Keynesianism is dead. It will not be revived. In some sectors in the UK, wages have fallen by two-thirds in the past 10 years - no joke. The number of people living in their cars in the US is increasing. In much of society there is already a depression that will soon rival that of the 1930s. Debt is at sky-high levels. There isn't going to be a social 'deal' where per-week wages rise in exchange for increasing productivity. It's down, down, down. Encouraging people to focus on the showbiz nonsense called electoral politics is getting them to waste their time... There would be no great difference between a Clinton presidency and a Bush presidency - the only rider being that it might be interesting to see certain business interests around the Bush family take a PR knock, and be seen more widely for the filth that they are, which might hopefully weaken the ruling group as a whole, if only in a tiny, tiny way.
Anyway, I look forward (not) to watching your missile shots regarding my being a Pattie Smith groupie fall completely wide of the mark...
:-)
b
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