While Kos mocks the Clinton campaign, what I see happening is the consequence of listening to the old guard DC Beltway crowd, the same bunch that ran Al Gore's campaign and John Kerry's campaign.  The same bunch that worked overtime to knife Howard Dean in the back, the same bunch that mocked his 50 State strategy, the same strategy that Obama seems to be using to good affect.

[cross posted over at my blog, The Duck Stream]
I posted this comment on the recommended thread about the tip heard round the world.

How does her tip story relate to her stance on Global Warming?  Or Healthcare?  Or her stance on the Constitution?  Or anything else for that matter?

Stupid obsession with parsing every word somebody says, every body movement, every event or location they physically appear in, it's beyond meaningful.

IT SERVES NO PURPOSE, except to sell crap on teevee and does nothing for the political process.

Just like if John Edwards doesn't win Iowa he is done.  How many delegates does Iowa have?  And how many are needed to win the nomination?  

[ed-this is expanded from my comment hereon down] This is not a game, people, let's try treating it appropriately.  

Yet Iowa could destroy his campaign, ACCORDING TO THE NEWS MEDIA and parroted all over the blogs like this one.

How does that serve democracy?  How does that benefit me?  Or you?

[cross posted at The Duck Stream]

In response to a Left Coaster post, I posted the following comment.  It’s an improved version of that comment, edited for clarity, and with additional content.  We need the Democrats to do the savvy and politically brave thing.  

Okay, that may be a problem.  My comment follows:

Steve, I can't agree with that redeployment branding bit.  Except for the Media, incapable of doing news, branding is all they know, so anything "branding" related, well, that's got to be IT!

And it isn't a refocused effort to catch bin Laden either, they never tried in the first place.  I remember Tora Tora Bora.  

We used a handful of Special Forces troops and let the Northern Lights Alliance do the hard work, some story about respecting their sovereignty and strengthening our alliance and tales of how hard it would be to get a large force of Americans into the region quickly enough to catch OBL.  

And besides, how fast could the guy run hooked up to a dialysis machine?

[cross posted at my blog-The Duck Stream.  And all bolds are mine.]

That's really what Darrell Issa has done, and judging by Bush's comments, it's obvious even to him, well, maybe his handlers.  Funny, on the same day that Dick Cheney is trotting out that absurd canard about Hussein and al Qaeda being linked in unholy matrimony, Issa is in Damascus saying this:

He told reporters in the Middle East that Bush has failed to promote the dialogue necessary to resolve disagreements between the United States and Syria.

"That's an important message to realize: We have tensions, but we have two functioning embassies,"

As the reporter writes,

Whatever else Issa's trip may have accomplished, it seemed to take what little air was left out of the partisan rage over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's meeting with Assad just a day earlier.

[cross posted at The Duck Stream but with a really cool picture]

As I was reading this AP piece, I couldn't help but visualize Richard Nixon solemnly swearing that these stacks of transcripts

In these folders that you see over here on my left are more than 1,200 pages of transcripts of private conversations I participated in between Sept 15, 1972, and Apr 27 of 1973 with my principal aides and associates with regard to Watergate. They include all the relevant portions of all of the subpoenaed conversations that were recorded, that is, all portions that relate to the question of what I knew about Watergate or the coverup and what I did about it.

[...]

[Cross posted at The Duck Stream]

Just wanted to point out something in relation to the recent media driven frenzy over John Edwards' bloggers.  We all know the story, I just wanted to give an example that illustrates a possible source for any enmity the ladies may have for the Catholic Church, not to be confused in any way, shape, or form, with the Catholic Religion.  

Seems the San Diego Diocese is contemplating chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the face of hundreds of lawsuits regarding priestly molestations allegedly enabled and covered up by the Church itself through agents like Bishop Brom.

From an institution that wants to take ultimate responsibility for the very fundamental essence of one’s being, that seems to be what they practice, not preach.  And that could reasonably lead to some anger and disgust with open minded people like Amanda and Melissa.

"Just like (Brom is) hiding in the diocese today, that's what this threat of bankruptcy protection is all about – to protect him," Grant said [...]

Update:  This was meant to go up Friday, technical difficulties got in the way, but, I see that someone else has been axed, via TPM.

As per this San Diego UT article it would appear that US DA Carol Lam, no friend of mine thanks to her pointless and heartless prosecutions of Medical Marijauna growers and distributors, is getting shown the door, a somewhat unusual move given there are no suggestions or charges of corruption or incompetence involved.

cross posted at The Duck Stream

[DGR-I attempted to publish this yesterday but had some technical difficulties since resolved.  Thanks j!]

A politician by himself is limited in his impacts.  But few politicians operate alone.  They have followers, aides, disciples, protégé’s, sycophants, who operate in their sphere.  And oftimes those are the people who cause the most damage, "who will rid me of this meddlesome priest" comes to mind.

So when sillyparty says Yeah, ok, I'm sure Reagan broke laws in Iran Contra.  So what happened?  Some idiot took the fall, I felt bothered by that dismissal.  My comment follows, with added links for this diary.  This is also cross-posted over at my blog, The Duck Stream