Former Clinton bulldog and current Illinois representative Rahm Emanuel today said that Barack Obama is now the Democratic Party's nominee for the 2008 Presidential race. Emanuel has thus far not endorsed either candidate, the only superdelegate in the Illinois congressional delegation to not do so. We can discuss what, exactly, "presumptive" means. I've thought Barack was our "presumptive" nominee since the 12 contests in a row. Maybe not. This is an important step, however: Emanuel was seen as a strict Clinton loyalist.

Mark Penn, Clinton pollster, ignoramus, greedy hypocrite, union-breaker, and fat piece of lard, reportedly does not have the quality of "intelligence" to counterbalance these aforementioned traits, according to a report by Karen Tumulty. I was going on the assumption that he was just a greedy moron. I figured, this guy MUST be brilliant, he has awful people skills! But no. Apparently, not only did he drive Clinton's campaign into the ground, he did it with very little knowledge of the campaign: so little knowledge, in fact, that he THOUGHT DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES WERE WINNER TAKE ALL.

In an exclusive blog post by Lawrence O'Donnell at the Huffington Post, Lawrence tells us that a senior campaign official and Clinton "confidante" informed him that Hillary Clinton will drop out by June 15th.

For months, Joseph C. Wilson, former diplomat of the Clinton administration and husband of outed CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, has written negative articles about Barack Obama, without so much as a passing glance from the mainstream media. The attacks are so vitriolic, so ridiculous, and so outside of the realm of his expertise, that I have been responding to his attacks on The Huffington Post. My responses have yet to find their way through the censors.

Today, Howard Dean joined fellow Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton by appearing on Fox News, the oft right wing network that employs Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and other right-wing smear merchants. He used his appearance to try to justify the boycott of the network and its debates by calling their coverage "shockingly biased."

Here's the petition

Hillary Clinton recently fell in line with John McCain's Herbert Hoover-like plan to save our economy: a half a tank of gas for everyone! In a plan which I call the "Let them eat cake" plan, many project that we'd lose hundreds of thousands of jobs, 9 BILLION dollars, and, most of all, the gas companies would benefit the most. It's simple economics. The price of gas goes down. Demand goes up. Prices go up with it. Hillary Clinton wants to give gas companies the money that was going to go to hundreds of thousands of municipal workers, many of whom work in North Carolina and Indiana.

For weeks, the American people have been inundated with stories about Barack Obama, and how he's different than us (black) and doesn't share our values (dances too well, plays basketball). We saw stories about Obama's choice of orange juice over coffee. We saw stories about how he turned down chocolate, and this was effete, and because of this, he isn't one of us, because he wears clean underpants and he knows how to speak gooder 'n us. Because the media cannot create a firestorm over something substantive (policies, actual relations with trade deals and shady international figures, idiotic and hypocritical comments, and WHO IS ACTUALLY WINNING THIS RACE.)

Yeah. Me neither. Many of us were (I believe rightfully) upset with Barack Obama for agreeing to appear on Faux News. That "news station" doesn't need a watchdog, it needs to be summarily laughed off the air. And when our candidates give it credence....... it doesn't sit well with me. I know, I know, Barack needs to reach out... I understand that part. But Hillary agreeing to appear on The O'Reilly Factor... the bain of my existence... the most right-wing blowhard of all right-wing blowhards...

Elizabeth Edwards is one of the few people I respect enough to consider their opinion on who to vote for. I've already voted, so there's not going to be a lot of change here, I was just surprised when Elizabeth Edwards, a woman I respect greatly, is apparently trying to convince John Edwards to endorse Clinton: (h/t NYT)

On the other hand, Mrs. Edwards, her husband’s closest and most trusted adviser, has made it clear that she favors Mrs. Clinton; aides said she had recently tried to persuade Mr. Edwards to do the same.

If you wanted to know what this race looks like, last night's coverage of the Jeremiah Wright speech perfectly encapsulated anything you wanted to know. Where the media's priorities lay. Why that's so damaging. And what's getting left behind in the process. Now, I want to mention that this is going to be a short diary and I also want to mention that, unlike many here, I actually thought Wright's original comments were, while taken out of context, stupid. I don't really see there being a good context to say "God Damn America." That said, it was irresponsible for the media to play them over and over without giving ANY context, which, in turn, played the typical "angry black man" foil.

Elitist. A lot of us here resent that tag. But we also realize what damage it can do to a campaign. It ended John Kerry's 2004 run (remember the Botox stories that SOMEHOW got on Fox?). It ended John Edwards' 2008 run (400 dollar haircuts). And it's a menacing force that Obama has to deal with, and I think he's doing it well. Check out this video from the trail. Obama sarcastically answers all of the reporters' queries, but at the same time makes his point. The point that no, the kid who was raised by a single mom who was on food stamps for awhile is not an elitist.

Sorry. My brain is fried. I couldn't think of a better title for this. If you're looking for a candidate diary, or some deep yarns on the state of our  economy or the bee population of North America, go somewhere else. In fact, if you're looking for anything of substance, you should probably go elsewhere. Because this, my friends, is the first installment of a should-be zero part series: BLOGCRASTINATION!

John McCain said yesterday that he opposes the Equal Pay amendment, arguing that it will open up the United States to more lawsuits. Off-camera, I can only assume that his reasoning involves something to do with how it was "In my day."

What's truly ironic about this situation is, and maybe the real rationale is, that his wife is a multimillionaire. He doesn't have to worry about equal pay! In fact, equal pay should benefit HIM! You just know this old geezer hates the fact that "his woman" is the breadwinner. Because, back in Johnny Mac's day, women stayed at home and raised the children... like they's suppost to!

It's become increasingly clear that Hillary Clinton will not win more delegates than Barack Obama. That's why they've stopped talking about it. That nut-shit stuff like "automatic delegates" being different from "caucus delegates". No matter how asinine that argument was, at least it had something to do with delegates--their new argument doesn't even use the D-word.

Barack Obama's lead in the delegates will not be overtaken unless it is overturned by the superdelegates. If the will of the people is overturned by the superdelegates, the African American vote and the Democratic activists (us Kossacks, MoveOners, and college students) will, more or less, not be interested in a party that goes against the basic tenets of its title. That's Logic 101 (I'd know, I'm taking that class this semester. Finals coming soon.) and it shouldn't be broken.

Howard Wolfson, a man that reminds me of the guy you'd find at a truck stop, recently said some interesting things on MSNBC. I don't have a link, and I don't remember it exactly, but this is basically what he said a few minutes ago about Clinton's Iran comments:

The first job of our next President will be to make sure Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons.

In her efforts to completely morph into George W. Bush's 2000 Presidential campaign, Senator Hillary Clinton today made the most mind-baffling, head-spinningly hypocritical comments of this entire race.

Her "Be afraid!!" ads and her robo-calls and her smears and her racist innuendos were not enough for her. She decided that she had to completely ignore facts, much like the Bush campaign did in 2000. The story (below the fold) reminds me entirely of when Tucker Carlson wrote in 1999 that Bush swore like a truckdriver, and mocked Karla Faye Tucker's plead for life. Bush just denied that it happened. He just said nope, didn't happen.

H/t to HuffPo

60 Minutes showed a story earlier this evening about the incredible heroism of our American soldiers who were ambushed by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2006. This is a story that you'd be a fool to miss, and you'd be a stone if this story didn't literally bring you to tears. Here's a preview of the video, from CBS.

http://www.cbsnews.com/...

Remember when John McCain said he was going to have a "respectful campaign", and then his campaign sent around a letter tying Obama to Hamas? So I guess anything is fair game.

Which is why I'm glad Steve Rosenthal, a Democratic activist, launched another salvo at McCain. No, nothing as scurrilous and as FALSE as tying Obama to Hamas. It's called Younger Than McCain and it goes through a list of things that are younger than McCain.

SO... EVERYONE PITCH IN YOURS SUGGESTIONS? WHAT IS JOHN MCCAIN OLDER THAN?