Josh Marshall posted this over at Talking Points Memo a few minutes ago. It bears repeating until this blatant smear gets shut down.
"I think pretty much everyone knows now that that picture of Barack Obama with his hands at his sides that's been making the rounds of the right wing sites actually wasn't taking during a recitation of the pledge of allegiance. So why does Tim Russert repeat this canard on national TV?"
In the past few weeks, John McCain and his Republican sycophants have been trying to push his "100 years" comment into the memory hole. They know this is a devastating attack, that Americans don't want to stay in Iraq forever, and the Republicans are pissed that Barack Obama hits McCain over the head with this every time he makes a speech.
This video by Josh Marshall offers a pretty good analysis:
It is absolutely crucial for all of us in the progressive blogosphere to understand this issue, and know how to defend against it. The "100 years" comment is death for McCain's campaign, so we can't let them wash it away. More on the flip:
Overall, though, in most of the key measures that people are now watching, the internals pretty much all look good for Obama and he appears to have been damaged very little by March. But, again, take a look at the internals and let me know your thoughts.
....and Josh is no softy for Obama, so no grain of salt needed!
I recently heard an NPR Morning Edition report on Jack Bauer and 24. The thrust of the piece was that Jack Bauer's on-screen torture antics were viewed as nothing more than harmless entertainment by the show's producers...EVEN AFTER
The dean of the military academy at West Point was concerned that some cadets took him too seriously — concerned enough that he visited the producers of 24 in late 2006. He asked if they could tone it down a little, if they could make Jack Bauer's violent tactics not quite so effective.
Bob Cochran says the show's producers took the comments under advisement, but that little has really changed. It is, after all, just a TV show, he says.
"I think the army is responsible for training its own people," Cochran says. "We're not. And they should be able to explain the difference to their own people between fantasy and reality."
Guess what? Turns out that smug producer of All American torture fantasy is as full of _hit as Bush,Cheney and the Chickenhawks.... cuz it just so happens that the Boys in Guantanamo looked at good ol' Jack for inspiration....
Over at Talking Points Memo Josh Marshall gives his take on why Hillary will not go the Huckabee route and run a low-key campaign.
Hillary doesn't want to run for president in 2nd or 3rd gear. It's beneath her dignity. And I don't mean that sarcastically. It really is. She's a powerful United States senator, former First Lady, etc. She wants to win. And if she's still in it she wants to run full bore with the money you need to run a serious campaign, the crowds, poll numbers, etc. She's not some Huckabee figure who's going to hang around with little chance of winning
This diary is inspired by tonight's posting by Josh Marshall, titled "Ya Think?". It explores how on Tuesday, Hillary managed to stage an opportunity to bring up the Wright story again, acting as if the press brought it up, not her...
Hillary certainly seems willing, and still able, to manipulate the press and create staged events that are allowed to appear as if they occurred spontaneously through the normal process of reporting. This aspect of Hillary's campaign has barely been mentioned by the MSM (as far as I know), though after reading David Brock's The Seduction of Hillary Clinton I understood this to be a classic Hillary tactic--presenting her ideas as if they are coming from the American people or trusted American institutions, when they are merely coming directly from her or her surrogates.
If my memory serves me correctly (I'm a little sleep-deprived...heh), according to Brock, this is how Hillary tried reforming health care and education in Arkansas, and how she tried establishing national health care as First Lady.
The Clinton strategy is to keep the popular vote and delegate deficits as close as possible while trying to inflict sufficient damage on Obama that he becomes a non-viable national candidate. That, they hope, will lead to a broad consensus in the party that running with Obama simply isn't realistic and superdelegates flocking en masse to Clinton. The collateral damage of success on those terms would be vast. But there's some limited evidence that she's making progress on that front
Josh Marshall over at TPM noticed something startling. To understand why it's important, however, requires a little context.
For all practical purposes, Hillary's path to the nomination requires that an overwhelming majority of super delegates decide to override the wishes of the voters as expressed in the majority of the primaries, the majority of the caucuses, and in the popular vote. Last Friday, Nancy Pelosi went on record saying such a move would be bad for the Democratic Party.
"If the votes of the superdelegates overturn what's happened in the elections," said Pelosi, "it would be harmful to the Democratic Party."
So, if you're Sen. Clinton, how do you continue your campaign for the nomination without arousing suspicion that your strategy is ultimately bad for the party?
Whenever I think that the hotheads around here have gotten an unfortunate, if temporary upper-hand, and especially when I myself commit the sin of hotheadedness and emotional outrage, I always mosey on over to TPM to see what the ever-analytical, cool-as-a-cucumber Josh Marshall has to say.
Well tonight, the Gerry Ferraro flap got my Irish up to the point of being able to boil my own potatoes on the vitriol that was coming out of my mouth and fingers: Yet another political/feminist heroine from my youth was revealing her "mind of clay".
Josh Marshall (TalkingPointsMemo) recently wrote an outstanding diary called Road Map detailing how the RepubliCons will use/are using racism to try to win the presidential campaign.
Marshall’s diary is a must-read for anyone who wants to see McSame lose in November. We need to learn how this works and how to fight it. The RepubliCons have been using racism to win votes for more than 40 years, and they are pros. In short, the core of the McCain strategy is to
drill a handful of key adjectives into the public mind about Barack Obama: Muslim, anti-American, BLACK, terrorist, Arab. Maybe a little hustler and shifty thrown in, but we'll have to see. The details and specific arguments are sort of beside the point.
Josh Marshall, on Talking Points Memo, has published a very astute and insightful article on the media angle in the McCain/Lobbyist story tonight. In it he wonders if the story isn't toned down for some reason, citing the begging that McCain did in December 2007. He begged the Times not to publish information about a relationship with a lobbyist that represents telecoms.
Joshua M. Marshall, editor and publisher of Talking Points Memo, who wins The Polk Award for Legal Reporting.
"His site, www.talkingpointsmemo.com, led the news media coverage of the politically motivated dismissals of United States attorneys across the country. Noting a similarity between firings in Arkansas and California, Marshall (with staff reporter-bloggers Paul Kiel and Justin Rood) connected the dots and found a pattern of federal prosecutors being forced from office for failing to do the Bush Administration's bidding."
The George Polk Awards are kind of like the Golden Globes of American journalism . Not as well known as those Oscars of the news business, the Pulitzer Prize, the Polk Awards are nevertheless probably a close second in terms of prestige, and this year I am especially blown away by the quality of the work they honor.
--snip--
It would have seemed incredible a couple of years ago, but a George Polk Award was given this morning to a blogger.
Not just any blogger, of course. Josh Marshall (top, with his son Sam) of Talking Points Memo may have started back in 2000 as a kind of blogging stereotype, posting late at night from his small D.C. apartment and from the corner Starbucks and -- in just two years -- shining a light on the remarks that cost Sen. Trent Lott his GOP Senate leadership post, but he's turned his operation into much, much more.
On January 31, the New York Times published a front page story detailing Bill Clinton's role in setting up a $3.1 billion dollar uranium mining deal in Kazakhstan, and the subsequent $131.3 million dollar donation to Clinton's foundation by the Canadian businessman who benefited from the deal.
After I read the 2,000 word story, I posted comments on DailyKos to the effect that it was too bad John Edwards had dropped out, since, if he had simply waited 12 hours, he'd now be the only caucasian candidate left in the race. I assumed that the story would blow Hillary out, and that every media outlet from Drudge to Morning Joe would be talking about how Bill Clinton had taken a $130 million bribe to butter up the dictator of Kazakhstan.
I took it for granted that TPM Muckraker would run with the story big time. Talk about muck - what could be muckier than an ex-president using his prestige to play ball with one of the worst dictators in the world, just to help his friend get a $3 billion dollar uranium mine? And then receive a $130 million "donation" right afterwards?
It's been pointed out before, but Josh Marshall is incredibly deferential to Hillary Clinton. This is embarrassingly apparent in his summary of the Los Angeles debate.
For the first half and maybe a little more, I thought Clinton was the more commanding presence, though not overwhelmingly. Then in the second half things changed, the balance changed. The key seemed to be Iraq. No hard punches were thrown. And I thought Clinton did well. She just had a set of facts that weren't as good as his to deal with.
Notice the language. He starts off saying Clinton was more commanding in the first half of the debate. Then, rather than say Obama did better than Hillary, he says merely "the balance changed". He follows this by reiterating that Clinton did well. Of course, she had to address her Achille's heel, Iraq. We all know Iraq is a thorn in Hillary's side, but to Josh, this is just because Hillary has a set of facts that aren't as good as Obama's. It almost sounds as if it's not quite her fault!
Hats off to the Obama team for a very strong win in South Carolina. I credit their win to a strong GOTV effort and organization, especially of the African American community. In the run-up to the primary I missed the stories hinting at the strength of that machine. The first hint of that came from Jim Clyburn here. I'm not saying the Congressman overtly told people to support Obama. But in retrospect it seems that the Obama team must have benefitted from Clyburn's efforts whatever his intent was. And Matt Stoller has a great follow-up description of that organizational strength that goes a long way toward explaining how Obama blew away the competition by outhustling them.
