While all eyes have been on the Democratic primary, something downright bizarre has been going on over on the Republican side:

With 98% reporting:
McCain	     562,518  73%
Paul	     123,977  16%
Huckabee      88,577  11%

What's going on here? McCain locked up the nomination -- mathematically -- 6 weeks ago. He will be the nominee. But 27% of GOP voters in Pennsylvania won't vote for him?

Who are these Republican voters? A few possibilities come to mind (on the flip):

...and end the Iraq war.

Kos made the point earlier that Democrats have the ability to scuttle any bill they don't like.  But what's even more frustrating about this next waltz toward capitulation is that Democrats can do what they were elected to do -- ending the war -- by literally doing nothing.  This isn't news; as Kos said, if there's no money, there's no war.  But somehow some Democrats, including the leadership, don't want people to realize this, as pointed out by David Sirota (over the jump):

UPDATE: There's a more general Saddam Verdict diary from RandyMI here. My offer to delete was met with indifference, so I'll leave this one up, but perhaps the thread can be specific to the co-defendant's acquittal, to avoid diary pollution.

There's an article "Developing" on CNN.com here. The acquittal is surprising to me, since I thought a conviction, at least of Saddam, was pretty much a foregone conclusion. Perhaps acquitting one co-defendant would lend credibility to the rest of the verdict? On the other hand, defense attorney Ramsey Clark was kicked out of the courtroom because teh court said that "he had come here from America to mock the Iraqi people and this court." Maybe anti-American sentiment gives the trial just as much credibility in the eyes of the Iraqis, at this point. I'm not sure -- to be honest, I haven't really followed the Saddam trial much; it doesn't seem much more newsworthy to me than, say, the Michael Jackson trial. I certainly doubt it will matter much to our troops who are fighting for their lives (for what, again?) over there.

Out of morbid curiosity, I clicked over to Freeperville to see what their reactions are to the whole Foley scandal. As expected, I found comment threads that ranged from the ridiculous to the delusional.

Then I came across something truly evil. They outed the boy who was the recipient of Foley's suggestive emails, posting his name and other personal info.

More after the jump.

Could CNN be turning against the tide of blind conservative cheerleading that seems to have taken over the traditional media? I noticed this short article about a recent CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll about Iraq. The poll reports that 54% of poll respondents considered a U.S. victory in the war either certain or likely. But that's down from 94% in late March 2003, just after the war began, and the headline reads

Poll: Pessimism about Iraq war growing

That's surprising -- I would have expected a cheerleading CNN headline to read something like "Americans still confident of victory in Iraq." But no, the headline was negative about the war.

More on the flip.

In his diary recounting an interview with Henry Waxman, thereisnospoon points out a frustration many of us have had for a while: the lack of a coordinated Democratic agenda and message. I've been frustrated about this too, but something struck me on a recent trip to DC.

I was there for a few days to lobby Congress. (The issue I was there to discuss is not really relevant; it is fairly narrow, notpartisan one and has little to do with a national party agenda.) I had eight meetings over the course of a day and a half, each for about 15 minutes with a legislative assistant. It was an eye-opening experience that made me realize why my frustrations were misplaced.

The fault for the lack of an agenda, massage, or coordination doesn't lie with the Democrats -- at least not the ones in Congress. The fact is, Democratic members of congress aren't going to come up with a unified national message and agenda, and we shouldn't expect them to. They just don't have the resources.

There's often a lot of frustration around these parts. We fret over the effectiveness of demonstrations and single-issue groups, and even wonder whether it makes sense to spend time here "preaching to the choir." And of course, there's the great concern over when, if ever, Democrats will have a strong, coherent progressive message that resonates with the American people.

And yet there are some things we've (well, you've, since I'm mainly a lurker) done quite well, such as getting the Gannon/Guckert story and the Downing Street Minutes into the traditional media. But how can we repeat those successes more regularly, for a wide range of issues? How can we effectively contribute to a Democratic message? Well, it turns out that there's a model for what dKos does well, and political concepts such as "coherence" and "resonance" are closer to physical reality than you might think. In short:

Daily Kos is like a laser.

Huh??? Follow me below the fold, into the wild and woolly world of laser physics, to see how this all ties together...

The L-word, in this case, being "LIES." There's a new ad up on the DNC website which draws the stark contrast between words that have come out of Bush's mouth on one hand and reality on the other. The ad consists of clips of Bush speaking, each clip followed by facts in printed text that contradict what Bush just said. Now, the L-word never appears in that text. But after each clip the word "LIES" scrolls quickly across the screen. It's hard to make out at first, but if you look through it a few times or pause it, you can see it's there.

Well, give 'em an A for effort. I guess they just couldn't summon the courage to come out and say what everyone already knows -- that Bush and the Republicans lied us into a war, lied about wiretaps, lied about the economy...you name it. But at least this is a step in the right direction.

It now appears that Disney will try to buy Pixar for about $7 billion. So why should we care? First, Disney, through its ownership of ABC, is a major player in the traditional corporate media. Second, 51% of Pixar stock is owned by Apple CEO Steve Jobs, and the deal could make Jobs Disney's largest shareholder and give him a seat on Disney's board. And Jobs is well-known as a Democrat, having advised John Kerry, and he and his wife are major Dem contributors.

So will having Steve Jobs in the halls of power of the corporate media bring about any change? I don't know how biased ABC News is to begin with, and after all, Disney's chairman is former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-ME). But Jobs could certainly bring a more forceful personailty to the board, and shake things up in innovative ways.

We've probably all heard of the Bush service cuts putting the squeeze on local governments. Now these problems are being brought home to individual residents, thanks to an interesting experiment in participatory democracy.

The City of Menlo Park, CA faces a budget shortfall of $2.9 million, about 10% of the annual budget. This is despite fee increases, budget cuts and general belt-tightening by the city in recent years. The city council has run out of clear options, so they've asked the people: A month ago they sent out a pamphlet explaining the budget and describing city services, along with a survey asking residents which programs we would cut or what revenues we would raise. You can take a look at the information and survey online here. (But please don't submit the survey unless you're in Menlo Park -- I'm not asking anyone to "freep" anything.)

Learning about the local budget gave some interesting insights into how the Bush economy harms local communities, and what we can do about it:

There. I've said it. It wasn't that hard. Why can't our progressive and Democratic leaders just come out and say it? It's probably on most of our minds here -- we'd hope, that if the Dems take back Congress next year, one of the first things they'd do is pass tax increases. To be sure, we've heard all about "rolling back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy." But the unconscionable catastrophe in New Orleans and all along the Gulf Coast has just given us a stark reminder of What Government Is All About -- or what it should be about, at any rate. So could someone please, please just stand up and tell it like it is:

Taxes are good. We need more of them.

The statements by Biden and Edwards about Dean's comments were of course disgusting acts of backstabbing. But the award for the most downright idiotic comment by a Democrat has to go to Rep. Ellen Tauscher (CA-10). From TIME Magazine: DUHHH. Response after the jump.

Here's an idea for framing the Iraq debacle: Don't bother with an exit strategy. Instead, focus on our values:

Respect, justice, responsibility, and honesty. Details in the extended section.

We've all seen the excellent work SusanG and others have done to shed light on the Gannon/Guckert story and begin to unravel the web of the right-wing media machine. And we've seen bits and pieces of the story make it into the mainstream.

But we can't count on the mainstream media. We can't count on them to pick up on new info in a timely way, we can't count on them to see the big picture, and we certainly can't count on them to frame this issue for us. And obviously we can't count on the GOP congress for any serious investigation.

We need to do it ourselves. We need a media campaign that brings this story directly to the voters. See more below...