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Showing posts from April, 2008

Jake Tapper and ABC News: "bloggers"

Jake Tapper has a blog at ABC News, Political Punch, and the comment policy there is bizarre. They delete almost any comment I've ever made but leave up the most bone-headed, right-wing trollish posts ever. Now, I'm not known for making comments worthy of deleting (I'm not offensive, insulting, or rude...and try to make substantive, thought-provoking points), but Mr. Tapper's staff seem to have a fondness of deleting almost everything I post! It's reached a point where readers respond to my comments, but the comment itself has been removed. How many other comments is Political Punch deleting, and, if the policy is to delete comments of some users why do they leave up so much offensive dreck? The comment deleting policy at Political Punch is something to keep in mind next time you read the cesspool that is the comment section there. ABC isn't just okay with that state of the comments on Political Punch, but has worked to make it that way.

Hillary Clinton: politics as usual

From MSNBC today Clinton claims victories in Michigan and Florida, states where Obama did not campaign (he wasn't even on the ballot in MI), in violation of her own Pledge and previous commitments . Further, Clinton plays politics with her negative campaigning. 68% of Pennsylvanians said she ran a negative campaign. The New York Times editorial board roundly denounced her negative campaigning and assigned responsibility for the negative tone of the 2008 race to her. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election. If nothing else, self interest should push her in that direction. Mrs. Clinton did not get the big win in Pennsylvania that she needed to challenge the calculus of the Democratic race. This is the kind of politician her campaign is claiming should be our next president? Clinton = politics as usual. 68% of Pennsylvanians

Bill Clinton: "They played the race card on me"

This WHYY interview is revealing of Bill Clinton's bitterness about the reaction to his Jackson comment after the South Carolina primary: “I think that they played the race card on me. We now know, from memos from the campaign that they planned to do it along.” - President Bill Clinton. And that’s how President Clinton begins his answer to WHYY’s Susan Phillips who, during a phone interview earlier this evening, asked the President how he feels about one Philadelphia official who says she switched her support after interpreting Clinton’s remarks in South Carolina as an attempt to marginalize Obama as “the black candidate.” Clinton goes on to say that “you have to really go some to play the race card on me.” He lists a number of his accomplishments on behalf of people of color, inexplicably putting the fact that he has “an office in Harlem” at the top of the list. Am I feeding resentment by playing this radio clip? I don't think so. I think it should be heard and discussed. Bil

Ed Rendell failing to win the youth vote

In general, insulting the people you are trying to persuade is a bad idea. Rendell : But what I find amazing, particularly because our students are brighter than ever and it doesn't matter whether it's Penn or Lasalle or whatever, the students go and drink the Kool-Aid of a wonderful speech... For what it's worth, "drinking the Kool Aid" is either a reference to the mass suicide of Jonestown or the drug-taking of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. Either way, it has nothing to do with where millenial voters (voters born after 1975) are at today. As someone who has met, literally, thousands of Obama supporters, I can also say that "drinking the Kool Aid" is an epithet so far off the mark that it's not even an insult. Anyone who would use the phrase has already proven that they have no idea what they are talking about. Obama's supporters are dedicated, sincere, informed and for the most part, pretty damn pragmatic. Major misstep for Clinton and R

McWhorter and Loury

John McWhorter and Glenn Loury have been, far and away, the most worthwhile duo to watch on Bloggingheads.tv, period. Their most recent episode , "Michelle Obama Ain't a bargainer" is golden. I'd go further and make a point that dovetails with a key unspoken aspect of the McWhorter and Loury discussion: if the 2008 campaign were, at this point, as many people expected, simply a contest between Hillary Clinton and John McCain, we wouldn't be watching John McWhorter and Glenn Loury have this kind of excellent, insight-filled discussion on Bloggingheads.tv. I said previously that Barack Obama was the driving force of the 2008 campaign, that without him this campaign would not have the substance and drive it does. In response to Loury's ongoing support of Clinton, I'd like to expand on that. There's a point in the discussion when Loury responds to what had been a series of celebrations of Barack Obama by McWhorter with a summary of how he views the core ra

970 agents of change

I was sitting taking a break from phonebanking for Barack Obama today and had a great conversation with Fred Feller , a recently elected national delegate for Obama from CA-09. Fred won election to go to Denver here in CA-09 last Sunday at a caucus held at Beebe Memorial Church on Telegraph Avenue about a mile from my house in Oakland. 970 of us showed up to vote in that caucus last Sunday. I was a volunteer working the line...giving out information and making sure things ran smoothly...and so I had the chance to speak with almost every last one of those voters. Fred won enough votes to be an Obama delegate to Denver. Like the other delegates chosen, he will do Obama proud, and I was really pleased to see him taking his Saturday afternoon to call Pennsylvania with about thirty other volunteers at the campaign offices of Congresswoman Barbara Lee... :: The line down Telegraph Avenue was long last Sunday. The activists assembled to participate in the caucus included so many people I kn

David Brooks on the ABC/Disney debate debacle

David Brooks, " No Whining About the Media ," thinks that criticizing ABC's conduct in last night's debate debacle on ABC is "whining." I disagree and cast my lot with this comment maker: Anyone who was paying attention when Stephanopoulos asked Obama “Does Rev. Wright love America as much as you?” would not be praising ABC for its journalistic integrity. The country has gone through almost 8 years of that sort of jingoist rhetoric and it is the very jingoism that many in the press have fought against. Asking questions crafted so as to make it impossible for a candidate to give an satisfactory response (”Oh you don’t love America more than Rev. Wright?!” vs. “So you’re saying that Rev. Wright doesn’t love America?…”) is not good journalism. It is repugnant to the idea of having a reasoned debate over the vital issues facing our country and it is thoroughly republican (and I use “republican” pejoratively). — Posted by Alex Ultimately, that debate was a disgra

little lost pundits

Reading this utterly idiotic non-story from Chris Cillizza which echoes this tripe from Ben Smith which is somewhat reflected in this bank shot post from the Plank ...a pattern forms. You realize that the pundit class doesn't have a grasp of the dynamics of this campaign. Not in the least. The challenge that Barack Obama poses to Clinton and the GOP is precisely that he has run his campaign as its lone focus and spokesperson. Clinton is not the lone focus of her campaign. McCain is not the lone focus of his campaign. Their campaigns are the weaker for it. If 2008 were to devolve into a battle between Clinton and McCain....well, as a nation, we would lose the thread what with Bill and Penn and Wolfson and Rove and W and Ickes getting their digs in. Barack Obama is out there day in and day out answering all the questions and setting the tone of his campaign and this election cycle, for better and for worse. It is a deliberate campaign strategy. He is the driving force of this campa