The Big Boys on Hardball

by publius

I'm almost finished grading finals, so posting should be more regular soon. But in the meantime, political junkies might enjoy this Hardball debate among the three big-shot Democratic campaign managers -- Axelrod (Obama), Penn (Clinton), and Trippi (Edwards). (Via Politico).

A few notes here -- first, Mark Penn really shouldn't be on TV. I could almost smell him through my computer screen. To see what I mean, check out the exchange beginning at 3:50 (specifically, at 4:14). Penn, pretending to backtrack from the Obama drug allegations, goes out of his way to throw the word "cocaine" out there. Trippi rightly calls him out though. Penn's tactic here is hardly novel (see, e.g., Edwards praising Cheney's love for his lesbian daughter in the debate), but Penn is so transparently phony that it doesn't work.

Second, check out the exchange beginning at 5:30. The look that Trippi gives Penn at about 5:45 is priceless. It's quick - but it's just pure disgust. I thought it was hilarious.

Comments

[Tom]

I like how Axelrod, appearing to be in the middle of nowhere in his green parka, ate Penn's lunch with a smile.

I like how Penn looked like a fat, suit-wearing plutocrat who kept saying things that no one could take seriously -- much like his candidate does.

I didn't like how little airtime Trippi got, but appreciated the hilarious look of disgust that publius noticed.

[Ara]

Penn wrote an interesting little book.

But, frankly, he scares me a little. A lifelong pollster who's working for the most hated woman in America, running on issues like universal health, which I don't take to be very popular and which only reinforces the debacle of HC health care in 93-94 (his candidate's only *actual* experience before her Senate run, which ended in a meltdown -- I feel like they'd be running away from, not towards that one). I feel like there must be something I don't know.

Where does the Clinton camp get "35 years of experience" from? Everything she's done since 1972 qualifies her to be President??

[Jason Williams]

Eeewww, I agree about almost being able to smell Penn. What a smarmy, disgusting sneaky man he is, grinning while the other two were discussing their candidates at the end. I want to take a shower now.

[Bruce Baugh]

Publius, it would still be a help to various folks for reasons of bandwidth, work handling, and the like if videos would go behind cut tags. None of the reasons people gave the last time this came up have gone away. Thanks.

[Bruce Baugh]

That said, wow. I have seldom seen so obvious a case of a person's true nature shining out on video.

[dutchmarbel]

I agree about the 'almost smell Penn'. I think that since he was asked about the drug-usage several times accusing him of going out of his way to throw the word "cocaine" out there is not correct. The angry reactions about the press-release are beyond me, but that might be culture clash; no one would take a remark about what a 5 yo said serious and in the Netherlands it would actually work in favour of Obama.

Since I would perceive a democratic President as better than a republican president I don't understand the Hillary bashing that democrats like to do. Remarks along the lines of "if necessary I'll vote for her while I hold my nose" are only doing the Republicans work for them.

I was least impressed with Edward's guy, which is a shame because I still like him best as a candidate. Though non of the strategist made a really good impression; they all had trouble coming up with a defining slogan for their candidate.

And I agree that the 35 years of experience is a stupid argument too. I would not put a number on it, because people will attack the 35 years instead of focussing on the experience.

[OCSteve]

Novak (yeah yeah Republican hack) had an interesting article on the Clinton machine.

On the drug use thing: stones and glass houses…

The other thing you can bet the stash on about the Clintons in that summer of 1971 in Berkeley is that they were stoned, loaded, blasted, wasted, high as a kite, and just plain baked. At the very least.

I’m actually surprised at how badly her campaign has reacted to slipping a little in the polls. Obama is looking stronger by the day.

Marbel: because people will attack the 35 years instead of focussing on the experience

But that’s the point – she has little actual experience beyond a few years as a Senator, which is about the same for Obama. So she exaggerates, even with the little stuff that doesn’t matter at all…

Named after Sir Edmund Hillary, except she was five years old when he climbed Everest… Yesterday – Inspired as a fifth grader by the Apollo program, except she would have been in fifth grade around 57-58.

[cleek]

I don't understand the Hillary bashing that democrats like to do.

on some important issues, she's a little farther to the right than many would prefer.

plus, her personality is a little grating, for some.

[Brett Bellmore]

I would think the whole sociopath thing is a problem, too; As OCSteve noted, while most politicians have no problem with lying as an occasional tactic, she does it way too often, and on things which are easily checked. Even if you don't mind the guys on your side lying, (And that's a common attitude on both sides.) you don't want them to be clumsy about it.

[OCSteve]

Sheesh. They’re down to deploying sockpuppets on the intertubes. (h/t Patterico)

[Jesurgislac]

Brett: As OCSteve noted, while most politicians have no problem with lying as an occasional tactic, she does it way too often, and on things which are easily checked.

Like George W. Bush. Eh, I don't think anyone who had no problem supporting Bush despite his consistent lying about things that were easily checked and actually mattered has any room to complain about Hillary Clinton saying her mom told her she was named after Sir Edward Hillary the famous climber/explorer. (Which may or may not be true - as usual, Snopes has an interesting analysis - but which hardly matters - it's not like Bush lying about Social Security.)

[Jesurgislac]

And - sorry for the follow-up comment - that's the real problem. Who Hillary Clinton was named after, or whether she was inspired by the space program in 5th grade, is really not a big deal: it deserves the attention of Snopes.com, but not the attention of serious political commentary.

George W. Bush told lies consistently in his 1999 campaign and in the years he's been President. Yet the media focus on those lies has been minimal - Krugman says he was the only regular columnist to point out consistently that the figures Bush was quoting for his Social Security thing just didn't add up. No one challenged Bush seriously over his lying the US into the Iraq war. No one is challenging Bush seriously over his lies about Valerie Plame.

But these same political commentators have got time to point at where Obama went to school when he was a kid, or how Clinton got the unusual spelling of her given name, or how much Edwards pays for a haircut when he's on the campaign trail.

[OCSteve]

Jes: I don't think anyone who had no problem supporting Bush despite his consistent lying about things that were easily checked and actually mattered has any room to complain about Hillary…

Who’s complaining? I’m enjoying the heck out of this. ;)

Actually I’m somewhat astonished at how she so quickly went from President in waiting to what appears to be a somewhat desperate second place.

[Jesurgislac]

Who’s complaining? I’m enjoying the heck out of this. ;)

That was actually addressed to Brett, not to you: I got the impression you were experiencing schadenfreude... ;-)

My point is still: these things are completely unimportant. Bush lies about important things, easily checkable, and yet the mainstream media (and right-wing blogs) show less interest in this than in who Hillary Clinton was named after.

[Steve]

OCS seems to be giving Hillary the Al Gore treatment., assuming that every trivial slip or misremembrance must be the product of a uniquely devious pattern of intentional deception. I mean, there's plenty of things I vividly remember from my childhood that turned out, upon closer inspection, not to have happened like I remembered them. And I'm a lot younger than Hillary! It's silly to think she intentionally told a lie about what grade she was in during the Apollo program.

I don't have a problem with Hillary, but that Mark Penn, wow is he odious. Especially the part where he's like "I think YOU'RE saying cocaine!" A very bad man to have out there speaking for your campaign. I'm not sure Trippi comes across that great to regular voters either, to be honest; on the other hand, Axelrod, standing there in his Cheney-at-Auschwitz jacket, seems like a much more normal person.

As for 35 years, I don't know where they get that from, but I think 35 years ago she was working on the Watergate committee or something like that. Perhaps there are a few years in the middle somewhere that shouldn't really be counted as relevant, but I dunno, it's so hard to make a big deal out of it when you have Rudy saying he was at Ground Zero more than the rescue workers and such.

Hillary, for all her myriad of flaws, still takes way more crap than she deserves.

[Jammer]

I thought from the first time I saw him that Mark Penn was a terrible spokesman for HRC's campaign. He is REALLY bad. Frankly, there is really only one thing that has bothered me about the Clintons over the years, and I like them enormously, and that is the fact that they seem to surround themselves with some weird people at times. Not all of them are this way, but some of them, like Dick Morris, and that big guy with the big lips (whose name escapes me) that had connections to Bill early in his administration through the Rose Firm, leave a bad taste in your mouth. I like HRC but I an honestly trying to grapple with her continued reliance on Penn as an indication of the kind of people she chooses to be around her. She needs a Carville, Stephanopolous, Mandy Grunwald presence as her spokesperson, if its not too late. I dont know how she could have watched Penn as her TV presence and been satisfied, but he remains.

[cleek]

I would think the whole sociopath thing is a problem, too;

George "Please, Don't Kill Me" Bush proves voters are pretty tolerant of sociopaths.

[OCSteve]

OCS seems to be giving Hillary the Al Gore treatment., assuming that every trivial slip or misremembrance must be the product of a uniquely devious pattern of intentional deception.

Well yeah. Considering that I think she is a uniquely devious and intentionally deceptive person – of course. ;)

More seriously, I didn’t say “lie”. I said exaggerate. A person who tends to exaggerate even minor details strikes me as someone who is not all that confident in themselves.

[Jesurgislac]

OCSteve: A person who tends to exaggerate even minor details strikes me as someone who is not all that confident in themselves.

Really? Because Bush does that all the time, and yet he's always seemed to me to be full of an aggressive self-confidence. Of course that could be masking complete insecurity, but it's always struck me that he's actually smug about it - that he doesn't care that he's a complete failure at everything he's done, or even that he doesn't notice.

[farmgirl]

Jammer: "that big guy with the big lips"

Webb Hubbell?

[Katherine]

She's still in the lead, I think. I wish Obama were.

The "Edmund Hillary" thing is so harmless--I've heard differing stories of how me & my sisters got our names, & repeated them without fact checking. There was a similar story to the effect of "omg Obama is changing his story about what 'Barack' means". For God's sake, they are people. People seeking a lot of power over others' lives, so they deserve scrutiny on matters of substance, but when it's not a matter of substance & there's no possible benefit to them for screwing up the anecdote a little, cut them some damn slack.

[cleek]

check out this letter from the chairman of the Wyoming Dems.

(no, content filter, this is not spam. i promise!

ok. look. this is far from the shortest comment i've ever posted. so i recommend you remove whatever's crawled up your butt. cause it's making me angry. and you wouldn't like me when i'm angry)

[Free Lunch]

I don't understand is the hatred that the Republicans have for the Clintons. They probably would have been Republicans 40 years ago. They practically are today.

I wonder if the suburban Republican household HRC grew up in was more liberal than she shows herself to be today. Certainly Nixon and possibly Ford were more progressive than her husband's presidency was and there's nothing in her policy promises that would persuade me that she will turn out to be more liberal than he was.

[John Thullen]

Penn ought to write for Redstate. He and Erick Erickson could do a pretty good rendition of two pigs rolling around in the mud with beatific looks on their snouts.

Some thoughts:

The primaries are too long ..... for both parties. It used to be we were sick of our Presidents by the time the general election was over; now we can't stand the sight of them months before the primaries are held.

It causes me no end of amusement to hear the American electorate (I include me own self) whine about the lack of governing experience in our candidates when, for more than 30 years (not to mention the rest of our history), the electorate has demanded and simultaneously coughed up a bolus of outsiders (and bragged about it in campaign slogans) who, we tell ourselves, will go to Washington and straighten out everything that the previous bunch of inexperienced outsiders screwed up.

Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush the II. Bush the first managed to be the consummate insider with all of the drawbacks of the muddy-booted Andrew Jackson outsider.

The current Bush, himself and in all of the "citizens" he has hired for all jobs, including 22-year old sh@theads to ruin Iraq (still not as ruinous as Saddam, but it's amazing how a bunch of 22-year-old true believers can get the hang of ruination in their first real job), has catapaulted inexperience and outsiderhood to new heights and never-before seen depths.

Andrew Jackson's hicks ruined the slipcovers in the White House, and the American electorate people blamed elitism for not drycleaning the slipcovers well enough. Let's find some muddier boots to dirty up the furniture the next time around, and then find outsider drycleaners with no experience in drycleaning to fix the problem. Rinse, repeat. Martinize, if you wish, but don't trust anyone who knows how to martinize. They would be elitist busybodies and know-it-alls who have no business telling US how to martinize.

Washington D.C., it's every program, policy, and dollar spent, it's every competence and incompetence is the perfect reflection of the American electorate. What's not to like?

It's us and if there is anything the American people can't abide, it's themselves.

We want expertise and education, but we don't trust experts and the credentialed. And God knows, we sure don't want to pay the credentialed enough as public servants to stay around to see things through, leaving Tony Snow, for example (a lousy one), no choice but to hit the lecture circuit, where we are happy to pay him the big bucks to tell the insiders how to run things.

Most of these guys and girls use their experience making a hash of things as public servants as the first line on their resumes for jobs in the private sector, where incompetence and inexperience is much more highly rewarded, perked, and backslapped.

Dick Cheney gets rewarded for his gross incompetence by the private sector and the government simultaneously and we the inexperienced call it experience.

We, the blogging amateurs with no governing experience, whine about Hillary's (insert any name) inexperience.

We'll whine about her experience, too, when she gains it, calling it elitism, grossly overpaid by the taxpayer, but to be congratulated in the private sector and well-remunerated by our entrepreneurial class.

We hated the King, so we made ourselves kings. What was the objection again?

And now, I must resume whining, which I'm happy to do for free.

[John Thullen]

Who was Edmund Hillary named after?

I'll bet THAT would take the sheen off all of that mountain climbing experience.

I'll bet Edmund was carried the last 300 yards by a Sherpa.

Someone ought to look into it. That, and why Hillary isn't named Edmund Rodham Clinton.

Using a last name for a first name is highly disingenuous, not to mention sociopathic.

[OCSteve]

Cleek: Ouch!

Katherine : cut them some damn slack

Fine. She screwed up a couple of anecdotes. Noted.

Do you agree that it’s wrong for her to claim she has 35 years of relevant experience? I don’t actually mind her claiming her first lady time as relevant – I think in some ways it is. Is that an exaggeration? Obama is your guy – does she have more relevant experience than he does?

[John Thullen]

By the way, Shaheen, the idiot, is right that by the time Republicans get done with Obama, he'll be an al Qaeda crackhead.

I hope he wins the nomination and names Hillary his campaign director.

He'll need her experience (that again) and her tough hide to run interference.

[Doctor Science]

Back in the summer, I bewailing the fact that every time I took one of those "which candidate is closest to your opinions?" polls the answer was "Kucinich", and that The Big Three were always pretty much identical. My parents (who are very politically astute & experienced) said, "opinions don't matter, declared policy doesn't matter. What matters is what kind of people are around them. The President doesn't actually do much work, it's the *team* that does the work and that's who you're voting for."

By that yardstick, Edwards is currently ahead with me.

[jonst]

I would not want any of them near in any thing serious I was doing...unless it was how to raise money, or do background research. I thought all of them stunk.

[Katherine]

"Obama is your guy – does she have more relevant experience than he does?"

honestly, yeah, she does--though obviously counting her last 35 years & excluding everything but his Senate term grossly overstates the gap. That seems like pretty standard campaign talking-yourself-up though.

[John Thullen]

I have no experience with apostrophes:

its not it's.

[Slartibartfast]

by the time Republicans get done with Obama, he'll be an al Qaeda crackhead

By this post, some Democrats are making a pretty good run at the latter part of the description.

Good post, publius. I actually have a great deal of regard for Trippi as a result of that; not just for his nonverbal communication, so to speak, but because he exhibited this seldom-seen (in political circles, anyway) ability to keep his mouth shut and let the other guy hang himself, rather than try and shout him down.

In case anyone's interested, I'd probably choose Obama over the rest of the pack, if only because the others make me throw up in my mouth, a little. That's not a ding on Obama, mind. I might even wind up voting for him, because the Republicans are complete yawners, and I'm now genuinely curious to see whether the party of We Can Do It Better (well, maybe more accurately: the other POWCDIB) can, actually, if they have the White House.

[Anarch]

its not it's.

No, it's "its" not "it's". (:

[Anarch]

Slarti: At this point, it's more like the Party of We Can't Possibly Do It Worse, with all the verve and gusto that implies.

[gwangung]

I expect bad things from whoever is in the White House in 2009. I just think it'll be REALLY bad things from anyone from the Republican side (with the possible exception of McCain).

[Jen Clark]

I actually finding myself liking Obama because he doesn't have much beltway experience.

Hilary has been around for a long time, and after reading Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine (sorry, I don't how how to put that in italics on this form), I've come to realize that having Washington DC experience in the last 35 years is probably not something to brag about. It was the last 35 years that gave us wars, NAFTA, the WTO, tragic stalling on energy independence, and raging corporatism (to the detriment of anyone currently in their 20's who wants a paycheck but doesn't want sell their soul to become a corporate slave). The world has not become a better place during Hilary's "experience" - why the hell would we want more?

I would like to see someone in the White House who is just as disgusted with these lifetime politicians as I am. Every time Hilary boasts about her experience in a broken system, I remember why I'm afraid of her.

[gwangung]

I actually finding myself liking Obama because he doesn't have much beltway experience.

Heh. That just means a different slate of Bad Things coming from the White House....

[OCSteve]

Katherine: honestly, yeah, she does--though obviously counting her last 35 years & excluding everything but his Senate term grossly overstates the gap. That seems like pretty standard campaign talking-yourself-up though.

Thanks for the response. FWIW, I’ll take Obama over HRC…

[Steve]

I know we only have three years in the Senate to judge by, but Obama really hasn't done anything to demonstrate he's a different kind of politician in practice, as distinct from in campaign rhetoric.

[Jen Clark]

Steve,
What you say is true. However, we do know what kind of politician comes out of the Clinton family. We know enough about Hilary to know she's bad news. I'd rather take a chance on a different guy like Obama, whose answers sound good to me, who is part of a non-baby boomer generation, and who made his why up by organizing in Chicago neighborhoods than allow the Clintons (or any other group of corporatists) another round in the White House.

[STEW]

"...Joe Biden is now the third best bet for the nomination. I'm hearing a lot of buzz about him from people who pay attention."
- Chris Matthews, MSNBC (12/10/07)
The Biden for President Campaign would like YOU to go to IOWA. This once-in-a-lifetime opportunity would allow you to see a caucus and presidential campaign first-hand in the earliest voting state. We need your help, so please join us as we strive to get Senator Biden elected the next PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Dates: Anytime between December 14, 2007 - January 4th, 2008
Accommodations: Provided by the campaign. (Contact for more details)

Please join us for this INCREDIBLE opportunity. If you would like to find out more information, please e-mail our campaign: Becky McAndrews at [email protected] or Josh Kagan at [email protected] with the subject line: IOWA. You may also call the campaign at (302) 574-2008!

Thank you and we hope to see you out in IOWA!
- The Biden for President Team

[Bernard Yomtov]

Good idea, STEW. I'm sure you'll drum up lots of support for Biden with this approach.

[liberal japonicus]

Thank you and we hope to see you out in IOWA!

Ahh, Field of Dreams.

[Donna]

Steve, you say there's not much of a record by which to judge Obama. For you, from the obsidianwings archives:
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2006/10/barack_obama.html

[russell]

Ahh, Field of Dreams.

If you feed them, they will come?

[russell]

Also...

I guess I'm living a sheltered life, but I've never seen Matthews' show. Does he always badger his guests like a schnauzer on meth?

Does anyone ever get to answer a question before being barraged with the next ten?

[Bill]

Obama and Clinton are the shadows on the wall of the cave. It is entertaining to watch the shadows dance.

Everything today is interconnected. Big banks will not be allowed to fail, because of the things that create the shadows. Small banks can fail, big banks cannot. Grown ups are in charge and have always been in charge. Watch out dollar.

When grown ups fight, it can make for good TV. Some people are too smart, they outthink themselves. Discovery is a bitch.

Buy back these investment packages at cost if fraud is proved in court? We can’t afford that. Why is Goldman Sachs the only investment banker that hasn’t been burnt? What did Paulson know? Was his knowledge fraudulent? The big boys want to know.

Don’t get too caught up in the head-counting exercise. 280 million firearms in the hands of Citizens may influence things though. Madison was very, very smart. Top and bottom against the middle isn’t how Orwell figured it.

[Quiddity]

You can see a screenshot of the 5:45 moment here.

[John Thullen]

The last time I saw "citizens" capitalized,
there was a guillotine down the street with holiday shoppers lined up around the corner.

That was a head-counting exercise, too.

[Jesurgislac]

John, you're a knitpicker. Cash or Defarge?

[Gromit]

Credit where credit is due, though. That's the first comment from Bill that I've seen that didn't read like an anti-Islam tract.

[KCinDC]

Yes, perhaps he's finished his scholarly studies of the Qur'an and is now turning into a poor man's bob mcmanus.

[jonnybutter]

Penn's tactic here is hardly novel (see, e.g., Edwards praising Cheney's love for his lesbian daughter in the debate), but Penn is so transparently phony that it doesn't work.

Sorry, Pub, but I have to call you on this one. Penn's and Edwards' tactics are not the same. Who made gayness a political issue in 2004 and beyond? The GOP, not Edwards. If a big fat plank of your political platform concerns axniety and hatred of gay people, not to mention a constitutional amemendment targetting them, and the first or second most powerful person in the party has a gay daughter who, BTW, works for his campaign, I don't think it's dirty pool to bring her up. Perfectly legitimate to let some GOP voters who may not have known it that Cheney has and 'tolerates' a gay daughter, in that political context.

What the HRC campaign is doing here is trying to create an issue *themselves*. I mean, I see the superficial similarity between the two incidents, but ethically they really aren't the same at all. I mean, Obama's youthful drug use is not a big deal, especially since he's been so open about it - but I wouldn't call cocaine use 'laudable'; but being gay, on the other hand, is not any kind of crime or smirch or demerit at all. The GOP - not Edwards - created the Gayz issue (with some help from the MA Supremes). The HRC campaign is trying to create the Obama booger sugar issue.

There is an essential difference here.

[dkilmer]

Wittgenstein was right. What Penn can't say, Clinton can't whisper either. Obama's mouth is moving, but nothing's coming out. And the beat goes on.

Thirty thousand is a nice crowd, but things will get a little hinky when they've all got RFID implants. The whisper that roared.

The big winner in this election is K Street. Their left hand doesn't know who the right hand is paying the bills to. Moral relativism can't buy you love.

[OCSteve]

Bill’s making campaign ads for the Republicans.

Appearing on “The Charlie Rose Show” on PBS, Mr. Clinton repeatedly questioned Mr. Obama’s preparedness for the White House, noting that he took office in January 2005 and became a presidential candidate about two years later. (Mr. Obama was an Illinois state senator before that.)

“When is the last time we elected a president based on one year of service in the Senate before he started running?” Mr. Clinton said. At another point, he appeared to compare Mr. Obama to a “gifted television commentator” running for president. “They’d have only one year less experience in national politics” than Mr. Obama, he said.

What are the chances that’s going to see a lot of airplay if Obama takes the nomination?

“Even Bill Clinton believes that Senator Obama lacks the experience to be president…”

[Slartibartfast]

I don't see how that can possibly help Hillary. Having your husband run interference for you by working with The Enemy doesn't sound like a good strategy.

[ihatetypepad]

Damn typepad.

[again]

Now can I post?

[again]

And that was me, Gary Farber, on my 19th round of trying to clear Typepad's cookies so it would quit insisting the following, with no links, was spam, and that I was a spammer. "We're sorry, your comment has not been published because TypePad's antispam filter has flagged it as potential comment spam." Sigh.

I'll try splitting this comment.

Part 1:

On the drug use thing: stones and glass houses…

The other thing you can bet the stash on about the Clintons in that summer of 1971 in Berkeley is that they were stoned, loaded, blasted, wasted, high as a kite, and just plain baked. At the very least.

Steve, that cite is pure "I know they were stoned simply because all young people in Berkeley that year were stoned."

It has several problems. Might it be true that the Clintons smoked dope, or even smoked a lot of dope, that summer? Sure, could be. Maybe they got baked every day, and later had all witnesses killed and all photos destroyed. Or the Clintons were stoned, but never ever around cameras, and all their friends then wouldn't talk later: pure omerta. It is perfectly true that loads of young people in Berkely then got stoned.

But it's also perfectly true that even in the most stoned households and communes, you'd often find people who didn't partake. It's just not true that young people, even in the most pot-oriented house, were all smoking and getting stoned.

So that whole line of reasoning, as applied to any individuals, is pure fallacy.

And, lastly, the idea that the Clintons should, at this point in their career, be worrying about New Evidence Of Their Rampant Drug Use emerging is simply so silly that all one has to do is say it to start laughing.

Pt. II next.

[Gary Farber]

Part success finally!

Let's see if I can keep it up.

"Yesterday – Inspired as a fifth grader by the Apollo program, except she would have been in fifth grade around 57-58."

I was impressed as hell by the Apollo program when I put all those NASA posters about Apollo, and the Saturn V, and the planned moontrips, all over the walls, in 1963-4, myself.

I also frequently get dates wrong if I don't cross-check them, and the longer ago they are, the more apt I am to be off.

This is Al Gore on Love Canal, Love Story, what day he met the director of FEMA, and so on, all over again. There are always gullible people eager to listen to a bunch of trivia, and be convinced it all Means What We Tell You, which is that the relevant person isn't honest, can't be trusted, has bad character, and you just don't like that lying phony.

After all, they wouldn't let people say those things if they weren't true, would they?

And if it's a Democrat, the claims about them are always true!

"A person who tends to exaggerate even minor details strikes me as someone who is not all that confident in themselves."

Yes, yes, and all Democrats are always like that. It just works out that way.

"Certainly Nixon and possibly Ford were more progressive than her husband's presidency was"

That's just wrong. Confusing a Congress and a President isn't keen analysis. Ditto confusing what a Congress passed and a President was forced to sign unwillingly, with a President's policies.

[John Thullen]

Well, I guess if the Clintons meet the expectation that "there is more, and less, there than meets the eye", we can say of George W. Bush that what we see is what we get ............ and we got it good and hard.

That there are still so many who like what they got or didn't think they got enough of it over the past seven years is ... well, really something. ("got" is bad form, but there it is)

Ronald Reagan thought he was in a movie most of the time. But he had the dates of his imaginary life memorized and knew how to hit his marks.

That Bill Clinton was not more progressive is testimony to the dead weight of the Republican Party hung around the country's neck. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi aren't passing more substantive and "progressive" legislation because governance is the last thing the Republican Party can abide.

That might give people the idea that we have a government.

[John Thullen]

OCSteve: I wish Bill Clinton would shut up about Obama, too, or at least try to lever him into being more specific with his policy language, rather than critizing his alleged lack of experience.

On the other hand, every Republican debate is a ready-made advertisement for mental illness.

Whomever the Republican candidate is, excepting John McCain, they will be running as the ad nauseum outsider who is going to ride into town and shoot the place up. I don't think that will have much purchase against Obama, who is the freshest face on the scene, and thus the ultimate outsider.

A black man running for President against all of those smarmy angry palefaces, who will have their local attack dogs push-polling racist horsesh#t across the country? Heck, even Alan Keyes will be on T.V. brandishing axhandles and standing in doorways blocking the way for Obama.

Bring it on.

[Ara]

Lieberman endorses McCain. I think we need a top-level post.

[Gary Farber]

President McCain might offer Lieberman SecDef, but that's probably not what you meant.

[OCSteve]

Desperate enough to go on Fox. I’m thinking she’s not going to reach a lot of Democratic primary voters there. ;)

[John Thullen]

She and Rupert started romancing each other a couple of years ago, thinking each could help the other.

But who will help us?

[trilobite]

even Alan Keyes will be on T.V. brandishing axhandles and standing in doorways blocking the way for Obama.

If Obama gets the nomination, it will be very amusing to watch the average melanin index of Republican spokespersons shift about 5 tones darker. :)

Even more amusing if they make Alan Keyes their point man against him again, b/c Keyes is so noticeably batsh*t crazy. As in Illinois, he'll make Obama look even better by comparison.

[Frank]

anyone else watching the Dodd on C-span2?

[cleek]

anyone else watching the Dodd on C-span2?

nope. has Reid found a procedural way to shut him down? maybe the nuclear option?

[KCinDC]

He was talking a minute ago. He's stopped for the moment, and now Hatch is going through a long list of terrorist attacks that somehow explain why retroactive immunity is necessary. He's also ranting about "scare tactics" and about language being included in the bill to pander to believers in "imaginary government conspiracies" (specifically calling out bloggers). And how unthinkably offensive it is to suggest that government employees would spy on innocent Americans (somehow forgetting that the very reason FISA exists is that they did).

[John Thullen]

Election season is getting hotted up and all manner of sewage is backing up; maybe we need an open thread.

Kevin Drum reads this jacket blurb on Jonah Goldberg's new best-seller:

"The quintessential liberal fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade-school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore."

My reasonable personality objects to the idea that only females can be grade-school teachers and stormtroopers. What about sensitive male fascists with snappy looking boots and riding crops who give up a career in sub-prime financing to teach our children well. I wonder, too, how many graduates of Brown and Swarthmore of any persuasion end up teaching grade school, not to mention making the trains run on time in wartime Poland.

My other personality (not to be confused with my other personalities) wonders which of the Watergate conspirators and/or Spiro Agnew and/or Nixon's campaign contributors impregnated Lucianne Goldberg and bequeathed us this wretched spawn, especially when you consider Gordon Liddy's sterility and impotence and Charles Colson's penchant for prison sex and, natch, mother Lucianne's ice-bound nether regions, which the Bush Administration just cited in Bali as evidence that global warming is a hoax.

Discuss.

[Jon H]

"A black man running for President against all of those smarmy angry palefaces, who will have their local attack dogs push-polling racist horsesh#t across the country? "

Anyone else not remotely surprised that the "race and IQ"/"blacks is dum" meme has reared its ugly head again, now, when there's a black man making a credible run for the White House?

[John Thullen]

"and how unthinkably offensive it is to suggest that government employees would spy on innocent Americans ......"

That's the nicest remark about government employees I've ever heard from a Republican.

[Jon H]

"If Obama gets the nomination, it will be very amusing to watch the average melanin index of Republican spokespersons shift about 5 tones darker. :)"

It'll mostly be spray-on bronzer, I think, so it'll be Attack of the Carrot People.

[Gary Farber]

"He's stopped for the moment, and now Hatch is going through a long list of terrorist attacks that somehow explain why retroactive immunity is necessary."

In case anyone isn't clear what I think of that idea.

[russell]

The quintessential liberal fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade-school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.

Aha! I knew it!!

All those years of being forced to knuckle under to the steely will of Miss Cole, Mrs Roberts, and Miss Ribecki!

Silencing our discussions of baseball scores and Lisa Antonelli's pigtails.
Threatening to call our parents if we didn't complete all of our math problems.
Taking our cap guns from us by force.

By force!!

All those years with the threat of no recess hanging so heavy over our heads. All those anxious hours worrying about what might be inscribed in our permanent records.

They said it was "education", but now we can call it by it's true name.

Jonah, we are in your debt.

[KCinDC]

Dodd has succeeded for the moment, I think. Reid has decided to put the FISA revision off until January, after the holiday recess. So we've avoided another last-minute rush of passing some garbage so that senators can go on vacation. But let's hope that they get on it right away when they come back in January, or the looming expiration of the bad temporary fix will bring another opportunity for a last-minute horrible bill passed because "we have to pass something!"

[liberal japonicus]

The quintessential liberal fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade-school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.

methinks that this, coupled with the fact that Jonah went to an all women's uni immediately after it went coed suggests some issues he is working thru.

[Hartmut]

The Goldberg, in the sentence preceding the one quoted also called the New York Times the heir of the friendly (i.e. more liberal) fascist tradition.
It seems, we should not have been fooled by it not beineg named the Populist Observer* (Völkischer Beobachter).
No surprise that the spear-tip of the hidden fascist movement are female grade school teachers. Never heard of the Feminazis? [/retch]

I at first typed Polpulist Obeserver. Looks like fat Pol Pot ;-)

[Slartibartfast]

My college dorm went coed, and I was kicked out to make room for the women's wing. Undoubtedly I have issues to work out, as well.

[John Thullen]

Maybe Jonah (who could use a hungry whale, though I'm sure he'd be spat out like the original) attended his university WHILE it was all female and didn't find out until his senior year, when he tried out for the swim team.

(eyebrows, cigar, funny walk ..... and a honk from the quiet guy)

Slart: "and I was kicked out to make room for the women's wing."

How did they fit all of those women into your room? Or, did they decide they might as well let all of the women living in your room stay, and just move you to new digs to save on moving expenses?

I went to college in a more virtuous era when all-male dorms became coed by subterfuge. Back when hypocrisy was fun, and people had to be a little cunning and entrepreneurial to be up to no good, unlike today, apparently, when there are girls actually living across the hall and keeping you up at night for all of the wrong reasons, ie loud music, etc.

It's almost like being married these days.

It used to be you had to sneak into a dorm room to find a little privacy; now you have to sneak out to find the same.

[Jeff]

From liberal japonicuson the "Huck Mania" thread:
One very contrite couple came and explained that they were watching TV together and had both drowsed off and when they woke up, they had missed the curfew.

Methinks they "stole" their excuse:
We've both been sound alseep.
Wake up, a-little Suzy, and weep.
The movie's over. It's four o'clock
And we're in trouble, deep.

Of course, the boy's later comment undermines even possible plagerism! :-)