Can we afford another president who thinks it's smart to be dumb?

Links: YouTube | digg (already on front page) | jedreport.com

You know, some of us are really serious about the future of our country and we think our political leadership is going to have the biggest role in whether things continue to deteriorate or they will begin to get better.  We've felt this way for a long time.  And we actually get mad when the candidates for the presidency are reduced to caricatures and punch lines.  Dukakis in a tank?  Dan Quayle can't spell 'potato', Al Gore invented the internet, John Kerry windsurfing?  These are not disqualifying events.  Fodder for comedians?  Sure.  Funny is funny.  But it's not funny if it distorts the electorate's decision about who should be president.  Bill Carter has an article in the New York Times about how hard it is for comics to make jokes about Barack Obama:

When I was a teenager my father died of cancer. He was 51 and I remember my family saying "He was too young". At the time I thought they were crazy; that 51 was not young - it was old.
So much for being a teenager.
Today, at 57, 51 seems young - far too young to die.

This diary is a tribute to my dear friend Nancy, age 50, who died unexpectedly early Thursday morning.

Just a short diary because I meant to add this the other night when it was first on... but didn't Bill Maher just nail the argument against Clinton better than most?

He conceded something I think we, here, often unfairly play down.  That was simply, there is a fair point to be made that being there at the end of the day, as the spouse of the President really IS experience that counts for a lot.

The problem is that even with all of that experience she made the wrong decision and voted us into this war.  The most important action she has taken in her professional life, and that decision was wrong.  With unparalleled experience of how a White House works, she got it wrong.

Was this kept on the down low around here?

If you haven't watched Maher yet, tonight was it back on form and really one of the best I've seen in a while.  Intelligent discussion. Little grandstanding, that I think has got in the way too often recently.  And everyone just had great stuff to add the the conversation.

His new rules HAS to be seen by everyone here who can - if it YouTubes and you see it before I do, feel free to post a link in the comments.  Basically he nailed it with the whole bitter thing.  I diaried on this a few days back - about being a bitter elitist.  In his usual concise to-the-point style: "You know who's bitter in America?  I am.  Because shit kickers voted twice for a retarded guy they wanted to have a beer with and everyone else had to suffer the consequences".

Anyone else see this week's.  I think it's the best in a while.  You?

Sorry for the short diary but I didn't see this posted yet and our own Markos is scheduled to appear on Bill Maher's show this evening.

In addition to Markos, Maher's guests will be Cornel West and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

I've no experience at all at live bloggin so hop on in!                                                                                                    

There was an interesting, if brief, moment of zen on last night's Bill Maher HBO show, when  Maher raised the question of Condi Rice supposedly testing the waters to be picked as John McCain's running mate.  

Jason Alexander chortled but then Dana Priest of The Washington Post -- who won a second Pulitzer this week and is usually very careful in her public comments -- joined with Richard Clarke in thoroughly mocking the very idea of McCain getting a Condi fix.

"Maybe political reporters don't have anything better to write about," Priest observed. "She probably will go down in the history books as one of the worst secretaries of state ever."  And that is really saying something, given the long, checkered history of the position.

So we're going over the elitist argument again, are we?  Now, others have made some excellent points on the current situation with Obama and using the word "bitter".

Well, Bill Maher had what may be the definitive speech on the "elitist" argument almost exactly one year ago, on his April 13, 2007, show.

'Nuff said.

People live blog all sorts of things here and I can't be one of the only people around that looks forward all week to Bill Maher's Real Time.

Tonight we have actor Jason Alexander, national security expert Richard Clarke, and journalist Dana Priest on the panel. Plus, via satellite, biologist Richard Dawkins (this should be interesting) and Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA).

Follow me below the fold for some banter, review and comment, and I can only assume a little snark on tonight's show.

I suppose there are many litmus tests or discussions for what makes a progressive and how much one considers oneself a progressive. One could tote up a survey and presumably measure it as is done for members of Congress, but I imagine there would be immediate outcries should a favorite issue be neglected.

So perhaps one way to approach this is to start with self-identification. Do you consider yourself mainly progressive on all issues, progressive due to a favorite cause that meshes with the progressive agenda, or a progressive that feels you are in the main in sync but have reservations about an issue or two that the majority of other progressives would disagree.

It's time for another Real Time with Bill Maher video diary. Tonight's show was pretty good until they brought out former Bill Frist sychophant Amy Holmes who tried to talk over everyone with her wing nut talking points on abstinence only sex ed. Why Maher feels the need to trot this gal out as a "Real Time Real Reporter" is beyond me. I can think of a number of terms for what Amy does, but "reporter" doesn't come to mind. Ironically when the panel discussion got into the trouble with our corporate owned media, all I could think of is will someone please tell Amy Holmes that she is part of that problem. Here's tonight's opening:

More video below the fold.

Yes, that's right, Bill Maher called us that just half an hour ago, after quoting a poster who said he or she would "vote for Hillary and then leave the country."  This was in the context of Maher's continuing theme that no one has the right to tell Hillary to quit.

Aside from that, it was a pretty good show, with three liberals and cute, but air-headed Amy Holmes (Is Maher sleeping with her?).

Actually, by the end of the show, "conservative" Holmes had come out against all corporate welfare, and for financial regulation.  Not a bad transformation in 20 minutes.

Esai Morales, Robert Reich and Barbara Lee were excellent.  Morales (the Latino George Clooney?) kept bringing up the "transfer of wealth" upward through the "wars" on terror, drugs, etc. and Reich picked up on that.

If My Candidate isn't the Nominee, I'm Going to:
   a. shoot self in foot;
   b. cut off nose to spite face;
   c. vote for McBush!

According to the MSM, the Democratic Party is on the verge of tearing itself apart over who should be the nominee. One could even say that Democrats are suffering a strange form of bi-polar disorder where the primary symptom is the desire to have a third Bush term if a Democrat not of ones choosing wins the nomination. So prevalent is this dis-ease that I have given it the nom de guerre bi-MACK.

But how accurate is this diagnosis? Does bi-MACK represent a new virulent strain of DemocratusReaganassous - which first gripped the country during the 1980's, was sent into remission in the 1990's thanks to the DLC(linton) vaccine, reemerged eight years ago as the Bush-II variant and was (supposedly) wiped out with the IraqBacklash innoculant of 2006? Or is bi-MACK a virtual virus, created by the MSM and spread virally via virtual news? As virtually everyone either claims infection or knows someone who claims they are infected, bi-MACK is now a virtual pandemic. But does it really exist in the real world?

This diary was originally published with a title that immediately blinded people to the greater message. What's more, I believe the reaction illustrated the precisely the point that I trying to make.

If Dems actually had a reaction on an equivalent level to Bush's defecation on "everything-that-is-America" that was half as virulent as the reaction my original diary received because of a WORD then maybe, just maybe, America wouldn't be in the hellhole it finds itself....

Please note that I have written a separate diary with some commentary about how Obama's calls for empathy can help guide us into the future. Seeing how I cannot post two diaries in one day, I will post this sanitized diary first, and then post the commentary tomorrow.

(See below the fold for the "sanitized" version of the diary.)

Let me please add a short-but-sweet subtitle of "And, What Frederick Douglas Has to do with This Occasion."

The word "special" has lost its, well, "specialty" in our culture, so as a college professor who teaches writing, I try to choose my words carefully. And, I'm sticking with "special" to describe 5 wild roller-coaster years of Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

I don't know how many people watch Bill Maher. I do, being a full-time heathen and part-time misanthrope limits the number of media folk I can count among my own, and Bill is close enough.

Can't say his show is usually all that funny though. However last night, a potentially large viral video emerges. I won't spoil the ending.

I'm writing today in response to this Diary:

Rev Wright and the White Observation of History which is a good diary, and a fair summation of how (some/many) white people may view the issues of Race in America and it's History.  

The discussion was robust, but apparently now has some formatting problems in it's comments and can't be responded to.

I wanted to respond to this comment:

I see Wright engaging in the same bullshit, but from the opposite direction.  The answer now isn't to tear down Jim Crow - that structure is long gone.  What we have to do now is the profoundly unsexy, technocratic shit of improving education in inner cities, fostering development in urban areas, and making colleges affordable.  IMHO, Wright's "get whitey!" rhetoric certainly doesn't help, and arguably hurts that effort.

We have to do all that, but "getting whitey" isn't neccesary.