Well it looks like it has happened officially.  Hillary is being embraced by The Weekly Standard as one of their very own.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/...

The article praises her Margaret Thacher toughness, her new found voice, her channeling of her Republican father.  It even suggests that she may be more conservative than McCain.

The major Seattle papers suffer from "split personality" - or "Part A/Part B disorder".

The Seattle Times often has excellent Part A features covering the environment and Iraq. It was the Times where flag-draped US military coffins were first shown. On the other hand, its Part B sucks - particularly in election times, when its estate-tax-obsessed owners impose a pro-Republican endorsement line.

What about the Seattle P-I? According to its editorial pages, it is a model of progressivism - the perfect paper for a city that has recently become a major competitor for the title "progressive capital U.S.A.". But Part A? Too often, the front page serves as a hidden ad for business interest, most notably the real-estate lobby.

And sometimes, P-I's editors just go to sleep and let the night people paste in whatever tripe AP sends their way. As, for example, in today's page A4, featuring an "analysis piece" on Rev. Wright by... none other than our sweet Nedra Pickler.

I think the P-I should get an earful from its progressive base over this. Contact details below the fold.

Somewhere along the way the Clintons realized it was politically expedient to play the victim.It most likely stems from a dysfunctional family history, and We have become a part of their Family on a national level. But, that is another diary altogether.

Well, it's on now, and the Clinton strategy has just been revealed by Howard Wolfson in a morning conference call.  Anticipating the fact that Obama is going to go negative on Clinton and bring up all sorts of ethical issues, Wolfson said the following:

"When Senator Obama was confronted with questions over whether he was ready to be Commander-in-Chief and steward of the economy, he chose not to address those questions, but to attack Senator Clinton," Wolfson said. "I for one do not believe that imitating Ken Starr is the way to win a Democratic primary election for president."

Catch that?  Attacking Clinton now makes you Ken Starr.

I'd like everyone's feedback on what we can do to dispell those eggregious myths about Obama. There are really people out there who believe that he is unpatriotic, has personal ties to Louis Farrakhan, and is a Muslim. When I hear these stories, I don't think twice about them. I just dismiss them as right-wing attack points designed to pass Obama off as a foreigner. I'm still coming to terms with real people believing this nonsense.

I write blogs on another blogging community: Progressive U. It's mostly made up of students since there is competition for scholarships, but people from all walks of life are encouraged to join (even you!). Every political viewpoint is represented.

Case in point: There is a blogger on this site, who is spewing right-wing attacks of Senator Obama. I don't have a lot of experience in dealing with people who actually believe those infamous Obama e-mails. Normally, I would leave that person be, but I can't let this go, especially when there are people who are younger than me who will read that blog and think it's true.

A short diary, and it dovetails with the current (at 4:00p.m. Central, 7 Feb 08) Story on McCain's attempt to pander to CPAC.  

I write this because I think its worth us discussing what both (gad!) Brit Hume and Sean Hannity (and D Kosniacs) have observed:  when most Republican candidates have "the nomination" all locked up, they try and move to the Center (witness Creep-ass Lying Bush and that "Compassionate Conservative" bullshit).

It is worth noting, and worth us discussing, and worth banging a LOUD DRUM about that McCain is running to the rabid right.  McCain's pandering to the Pro-Hate, the Pro-No-Accountability-for-Crashing-the-Constitution, the Xenophobic, the Let's Do a Hundred Years War! (Part II) crazies.  These the ones who contend that every social ill in America is caused by the rich being too poor and the poor being too rich.

This is how McCain hopes to gain the White House.  Well, any takers?

BenGoshi
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OK, it's time for our candidates to toughen up a little bit.  The horrors they seem to think they are facing are little more than Max's island monsters compared to what they'll face if they get the nomination.  To totally switch metaphors, what Democrats think is hardball is little more than a backyard game of catch with a spaldeen.

Awwwwww, the boys were ganging up on you.  Must be rough when you are running for fucking President that you would have to stand up to a coordinated effort from people different than you to take you down.  

Waaaaaa, those outside groups that endorsed your opponent are spending money to buy ads for your opponent and against you!  How dare they engage in the political process in a way that might not help you win the nomination?

These imaginary "majorities" were manufactured by right wing propaganda mills to give fearful rubes a sense of belonging and to use as a distraction while advancing unpopular policies. Directed at people who instinctively resist challenges to cherished assumptions they were coded language to give a nod and a wink to those who want to continue in comfortable traditions like racism and bigotry that we grew up with here in America - while still claiming morality. They were meant to appeal to fearful people who want to cling to certain principles like respect for our government and our president and the idea of American righteousness - you know - Archie Bunker patriots - rather than face some unsavory facts that for true patriots would demand adjustments to thinking and some potentially risky actions in order to make things right. They provoke a defensive and fearful response from people who feel their hold on very basic beliefs they have about life and the way things work being tugged at and provide them comforting reassurance and validation. A better description for the demographic these instruments are intended to influence would be the Ignorant Majority.

In the nineties, ending when Dubya came in after the GOP and the Supreme Court Republicans stole the 2000 election, I used to produce political talk radio shows out of DC. Guest talk - two hours a day - monday thru friday.  We had a couple hundred small stations in our network across the country.  We were labor funded {UAW}and very mainstream {Jim Hightower, membersof Congress had weekly shows, even The Hill Newspaper even had its own daily hour) and as liberals trying to be "fair", we did both sides of what goes for "Issues" in Washington.

Hillary Clinton made a curious choice this week--release an ad decrying the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy (VRWC) while at the same time trying to combat her image as polarizing.

Chris Dodd pounced, and called her on her Politics of Polarization.

The details below the fold.

Anyone who listens to CSpan, Fox, or any number of talk shows that allow call-ins know by now what a hot button Sandy Berger is for those on the right. For years now the Right has used Berger as a propaganda issue against the Clintons and the Left.

The News that Hillary taken on Berger to do what he used to do for the Kerry campaign before he was fired over the scandal is going to do more to outrage the Rights base than any other thing she could of done.(The facts about if Sandy if has been hired or is working unpaid and informally are in question, fyi)

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Sandy Berger, who stole highly classified terrorism documents from the National Archives, destroyed them and lied to investigators, is now an adviser to presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. Berger, who was fired from John Kerry’s presidential campaign when the scandal broke in 2004, has assumed a similar role in Clinton’s campaign, even though his security clearance has been suspended until September 2008. This is raising eyebrows even among Clinton’s admirers

No, this diary does not refer to posters on Daily Kos, or partisans for other Democratic candidates.  It focuses, instead, on part of the right-wing echo chamber, as the Chicago Tribune has a profile of parts of the infrastructure bent on opposing Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton. The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy of 1994 continues onward today, and while we are familiar with much of its work, the Tribune introduces us to some individuals and activities we may not be aware of yet.  More on them after the jump.

In the U.S. attorneys scandal, all eyes are on Karl Rove as the presumed architect. But, long before Karl Rove began plying his trade, Fred Malek wrote the manual for politicizing the Justice Department. Malek, a little known but influential Republican operative and "hatchet man," devised the strategies used to remove Democrats and whistleblowers from the civil service and to turn the federal government into a Republican Party headquarters.  Malek's connections with President Bush may explain why the U.S. Attorney's office discontinued investigation of wrongdoing at Fannie Mae, where Malek was then a board member and was one of several individuals named in a civil suit. Rather than face criminal penalties, Fannie Mae settled with the SEC and OFHEO for a $400 million civil penalty.

Soooo.... we learn today via AP:

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates landed in Baghdad on Thursday to deliver a sharp message to Iraqi political leaders: <bold>The U.S. military's commitment to the war is not open-ended.</bold>

"The clock is ticking," Gates told reporters, saying he will warn Iraqi officials that they must move faster on political reconciliation. "I know it's difficult, and clearly the attack on the council of representatives has made people nervous, but I think that it's very important that they bend every effort to getting this legislation done as quickly as possible."

::Please jump!::

The bombs, bullets and barbed retorts continue to fly, yet amid all of it our WH maintains their steadfast impression of "Baghdad Bob" with nary a twitch. The pundits and supporters on the Right wail like banshees about an unfair media bias, but -- in spite of the near-total cowing of the traditional media for the majority of this Administration -- the only bias that the majority of America perceives is heavily slathered over the Right Wing's toast.

A constant, almost monotonous cry of "Why isn't the media showing the good stuff" keeps surging forth from the frothing masses, washing over any facts and getting sand in all the cracks that have formed along their beachheads.

It's time to deflect the surge back against them. To the claimants of many successful schools, power plant, hospitals and service reconstruction, I have but one thing to say: "Prove it. Put up or shut up. What good has been done, amid the chaos and the killing that has characterised this most uncivil war?"

Clay Risen of TNR wrote a very interesting investigative report that many or you may have missed.

On March 7, 2007, a "media and research" company called eSapience filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit against C.V. Starr & Co., the California investment firm helmed by Maurice "Hank" Greenberg.

What makes this suit so interesting is not C.V. Starr's alleged actions, but the services eSapience was hired to perform. That's because, far from being a typical p.r. firm, eSapience, run by a clique of conservative, free-market academics, is in the business of buying and manipulating influence at the very highest levels of academic and intellectual circles--a cynical strategy laid out in deep detail by the lawsuit. The suit, in fact, is a Rosetta Stone into the extremes to which a group of right-wingers have taken the phrase "marketplace of ideas"--and it has exposed the lengths to which some people will go to buy intellectual influence.

March 12, 2007 -- THE Rev. Al Sharpton has launched a "big-time" effort to tear down Illinois Sen. Barack Obama as a candidate for president, The Post has learned.

Don't leave your buckets of water at home quite as yet, but it looks as if Ann Coulter has finally taken that final, fateful step too far and is being abandoned by the right. This probably because the f-word scandal continues to dominate the blog and online discussion.

On Technorati, the two most-linked videos show the Coulter Edwards outburst. "Ann Coulter" is Technorati's second most popular search term, beating out perennial favorites Britney Spears (#6) and Paris Hilton (#12); she even beats Myspace (#4) and YouTube (#5).

The top Technorati news story is Adam Nagourney's piece on Coulter's CPAC meltdown, with 324 links.

On AOL TopSearch, Coulter/Edwards is #3, moving up, and beating out Jesus (#5).

On Yahoo!, searches for 'Coulter' are up 337%, John Edwards, 437%.

And now, reactions on the right. Read on.