Dearest Fellow Kosacks with Integrity,

I may not be one of you.  I want to win in November, not claim some pretend higher moral ground, the only use of which is during chit-chat at parties.  Many Americans think McCain, and his record of voting along party lines 96% of the time, are too liberal for this country.  They want a leader who spews homophobic, xenophobic, rhetoric on his way to swearing the Presidential oath.

I say, "Let's give them their candidate."

If you asked Al Gore what he considers the most pressing world issue, he would respond global warming.  He would be right but misdirected.  If you asked John Edwards, he would say poverty.  He would be correct but unfocused.  McCain, probably terrorism and Iraq war.  Right, but not quite on the money.

I was thinking about writing a joke blog-post mocking potential Clinton spin.  I was thinking about talking about how it's over for Clinton, but there are a million people already doing that.  So, I think we should call a truce.  To show Clinton supporters our goodwill, no more bad things about her.  I know we have legitimate grievances, however it's time to move on.  Obama's moving on to the general.  It's time we.  So, who's with me?

I've been talking to a few deeply committed Hillary supporters over the last few days. The word that comes up time after time is "experience", and how experienced she is compared to Obama.

I think people have underestimated what a myopic and misguided meme this is.  The "Hillary Pivot" would destroy her in the general, even if she got the nomination.

The DNC research department gives us more on how out of touch Sen. McCain is on middle class issues.

Read what the Republicans Wish You Wouldn’t - In today's Daily Flipper:

McCain Says Poverty is Kinda Like a Presidential Campaign Without Room Service

John McCain, Stuck Between A Ballooning Deficit And A Hard Place

McCain’s Above the Influence Image Has Officially Cracked

McCain Will Pitch Free Trade In Town Hit Hard By. . .Free Trade

John ‘9th Richest Senator’ McCain Compares Campaign Money Struggles To Economic Woes In Ohio

McCain vs. The Teleprompter

Read The Daily Flipper on the flip.  Flip it good.

Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940), nicknamed "The Fighting Quaker" and "Old Gimlet Eye," was a Major General in the U.S. Marine Corps and, at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history.

During his 34 years of Marine Corps service, Butler was awarded numerous medals for heroism including the Marine Corps Brevet Medal (the highest Marine medal at its time for officers), and subsequently the Medal of Honor twice. Notably, he is one of only 19 people to be twice awarded the Medal of Honor, and one of only three to be awarded a Marine Corps Brevet Medal and a Medal of Honor, and the only person to be awarded a Marine Corps Brevet Medal and a Medal of Honor for two different actions.

Look, people need to stop asking, demanding, begging, rationalizing, insisting, pleading, negotiating, and using any and all other manners of persuasion to try and get Hillary to quit.  She is not going to quit.  She moved to New York 8 years ago with the express purpose of running for President in 2008.  And were she to win, she would immortalize herself.  As long as there was a United States, people would know the name Hillary Clinton.  Amelia Earhart wouldn't have anything on President Hillary Clinton (for that matter, Barack Obama is running for the same thing).  If you had an opportunity to immortalize yourself - to make sure that people are talking about you hundreds of years from now - how hard would you fight to make that happen?  Do you see why Hillary isn't going anywhere?

This puts Barack Obama in an awkward position.  The race is over, but his opponent isn't quitting.  He finds himself running two races now - running out the string against Clinton, and the general election against McCain.  And that is one race too many.  He needs to let one of these races go, and focus on the other one.  And I, for one, can see no benefit to continuing to fight a fight that has already been won.

The Clinton campaign has been relentlessly pressing the issue that Barack Obama has failed to win any of the big states that Democrats must win in the general election. Of course primary results on a state by state basis, especially within Democratic stronghold states, have little bearing on the actual performance in the general election, but let's for a moment assume that the Clinton campaign is correct in their assertion and the wins garnered in the primary translate to wins in the general.

Another argument the Clinton campaign has been making is that all the (30) states that Obama has one are relatively insignificant to the primary process because the vast majority of them will go red in the general. Of course this is largely true, but again it has little bearing on the primary process because the results of the primary do not directly translate to general election performance.

Taking these two arguments together--both of which have been made repeatedly and vociferously by the Clinton Campaign and its surrogates, a quick exercise using the electoral college map of 2004 and the current democratic primary map of 2008 results in a simple question: How does Clinton win the general without WI, MN, and IL?

For those of you out there who are making a case for Hillary Clinton to stay in the race, regardless of what the numbers show, I have an analogy that I believe will really simplify the situation enough to where you may realize that your candidate is simply wasting everyone's time. Including your own.

As someone who spent a decade and a half idolozing Hillary Rodham Clinton, and fiercely defending her from ridiculous and vicious right-wing smears, I've been reeling from a series of consecutive heartbreaks these past months. I've been devastated as she has crawled into bed with slime like Mark Penn, virtually campaigned for McCain, then assumed the very same empty, nasty, divisive right wing attack strategies so long and so unfairly leveled against herself and her husband.

Early in the campaign, Hillary's centrist and DLC tacking pushed me toward Edwards, but I was more than ready to stump for her in the general. But by now, I've been casting about for a way not to hate this woman with that special, thousand-white-hot-sun heat (as Melody Townsel would say) that only the faithful who've been jilted and betrayed can feel.

And I think I've found it.

By Candace Talmadge/North Star Writers Group

We’ve heard it all before.

Despite all the hot air it generated, testimony on Iraq this week before the Senate Armed Services Committee offered little in the way of real news or useful insight. Hiding behind Army Gen. David Petraeus’s medals and uniform, President Bush sent his proxy to Capitol Hill to repeat the administration’s threadbare mantras yet another time.

Just six days earlier, however, a different high-ranking U.S. military officer spoke to the senators – Lt. Gen. William E. Odom, now retired. "The surge is prolonging instability, not creating the conditions for unity as the president claims," his testimony began.

"The decline in violence reflects a dispersion of power to dozens of local strong men who distrust the government and occasionally fight among themselves," Odom explained. "Thus the basic military situation is far worse because of the proliferation of armed groups under local military chiefs who follow a proliferating number of political bosses.

During the recent mini-break (or, at the least, reduction in overt primary mania) from Clinton/Obama madness it's been refreshing to see the variety of news not necessarily primary-related that's out there for consumption.

Obviously, the state of the economy, gas prices, housing decline, food pricing increasing, the as-expected BS from Petraeus and Crocker are all extremely noteworthy topics that affect all Americans (and isn't without an international ripple effect, either).

Random "I wonders" come and go and I truly wish I'd write them all down for perusal by kossacks and other bloggers alike.  

Here's what I've been wondering about...

Mississippi is red.  The state has gone Republican in every presidential election since 1956, sans for favorite southern son Jimmy Carter in '76.  This run includes voting for George Wallace in '68 and a protest vote against Kennedy in '60.  Meteor Blades discussed the electoral history of Mississippi in a beautiful diary shortly after the primary last month.  

So what would it take for this redest of reds to go blue?  I'd love to hear some chatter by those more familiar with local politics, and possibilities, on the flip.

General David Petraeus (the man who originally said there was no military solution to Iraq, only to completely change his tune after Bushco made it clear who the boss was, and whispered sweet nothings about being President some day into his ambitious ear) will be testifying this coming week on Capitol Hill.  According to the British, Petraeus will be telling lies and "beating the drum" for strikes against Iran.  The British are worried.

British officials gave warning yesterday that America's commander in Iraq will declare that Iran is waging war against the US-backed Baghdad government.

I am the son of a Goldwater Republican, who was an 18-yr old landing craft pilot in WWII (Okinawa), whose ship delivered supplies and troops to post-war Japan, and atomic bomb test equipment to that infamous island. I am named after his older brother who died in the last weeks of WWII when his submarine disappeared.

I was a typical boomer - baseball, hot-dogs, boys club, boy scouts, altar boy, Disney.  As a Catholic I cheered JFK's election and was lucky enough to see him in person (not 20 yards away) as he spoke of a hopeful future to thousands of students gathered from throughout my hometown - 6 months before he was assassinated. I worked my way through a Jesuit run high school, tried to be a priest, discovered girls, and re-entered the civilian world just as MLK and RFK were assasinated, Vietnam escalated, and Chicago exploded.... I only learned of my father's political leanings after I was arrested during a hometown Vietnam War protest for spur-of-the-moment civil disobedience.  I believe in family, peace-making, doing what is right, standing up for my beliefs, and people before money.  

I am ready for a change.

With the request of Sen. Leahy asking Clinton to withdraw, I believe speculating Obama's Veep is now even more appropriate!  The first go-around, I included a list of fourteen potential choices for Barack Obama.  After reading several of you comments it seems I have left out a very popular selection.  As a result I will now be incorporating Gov. Janet Napolitano.

(If this topic has been posted, please tell me and I'll delete it. Since only pro-Obama / I-hate-Hillary diaries have been making the rec list for months, now, I haven't been reading this blog as much, lately. If it was posted, it probably slid quickly off the front page into oblivion, anyway, since it's something negative about McCain, the Republican, instead of one of the Democrats.)

I was watching the idiot box over the noon hour and I heard Monica (Novotny?) talking to something like the 18th person about Rev. Wright. When she asked, "What has Obama got to do to put this behind him?" what was left of my brains spattered against the wall as my head exploded.

After I gathered what gray matter I could scrape off the walls and scooped it back into my now-empty skull, I screamed at the teevee, "You could start by talking about that asshole John Haggee's endorsement that McSame is so F%#$#ing proud of for a change!!!"

They all are for different people and to differing degrees. An LA Times blog dissects the recent NBC/WSJ poll. Interesting results below the break.