Isn't it great to be in Denver for this fab-o party? Just look at all that food! Drinks are on us! Hell, you don't even have to roll out of bed early! You just have to be conscious by evening, when the prime time coverage starts!  

It's been a great year, hasn't it? You've rubbed elbows with your Senator, Governor, Hell--they've been to your house, or at least a house near yours.  You've been associating with a lot of well-heeled folks, and they're all anxious to talk to You You You! Why? 'Cause you're a Delegate, that's why!  You get all the cool invites, your inbox is overflowing, you get calls from the candidate!   You're on a first-name basis with his/her chief of staff?  Why? 'Cause you're a Delegate, you cutie! That's why you got that hotel room!  That's why you got room service!   That's why you got that weekend away from the wife and kids!

And the champagne is flowing tonight, ain't it?  Mountains of peel and eat shrimp, caviar, every drink imaginable, and just look at those ladies! Whoa Baby!  Where do these women come from?  What? She'll meet you where?  When? At which party?  Did you write that down?  Damn, where's a cocktail napkin?  Bartender, you got a pen?

RKA wrote a Diary about the Media's decision to tell us what this election was really about on July 7, 2008.

http://www.dailykos.com/...

At that time, I thought that if I heard this mindless platitude from the corporate media again, I was going to scream.

But they're still at it:

This is not going to be pretty, but the election is going to be a referendum on Barack Obama, like it or not.

http://www.townhall.com/...

It seems to be consensus that this election has become a referendum on Barack Obama.

http://blogs.tnr.com/...

more

     I trust I'm not the only one who sees the ridiculous incongruity of McCain's accusation that Obama is playing the "race card" by referring to himself as someone who "doesn't look like" the average candidate, or the Presidents who adorn our legal tender.  As anyone with an ounce of intelligence knows, "playing the race card" means attempting to use one's race to his/her advantage. Obama has many times spoken of himself as an oddity given our country's history of nominating and electing white men without an "international" heritage.  This observation is hardly geared towards garnering him more votes--it's a self-deprecating reference acknowledging the hurdles that not only he, but the voters, must overcome in order to place their trust in him. More than anything it's a frank acknowledgement of a potential weakness.  That's hardly "playing the race card."  If he was "playing the race card" he'd be urging people to vote for him because of the color of his skin, or the fact of his unique heritage.  He's not doing that.

more

   
   

This guy just doesn't know when to stop:

http://news.yahoo.com/...

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. - Republican John McCain on Wednesday credited the recent $10-a-barrel drop in the price of oil to President Bush's lifting of a presidential ban on offshore drilling, an action he has been advocating in his presidential campaign.

According to McCain, this non-event has altered the "psychology" of the oil markets. (You see, the problem was all psychological).

"The price of oil dropped $10 a barrel," said McCain, who argued that the psychology of lifting the ban has affected world markets.

more

For those who haven't seen it, here is a cartoon appearing in the August 4th issue of The Nation.  It's not clear that this will be the cover image. As the cartoon may (and probably is) subject to Copyright (and really because I don't know how to embed photos), I'll just provide the link.

http://www.thenation.com/...

I think it's pretty damn funny.  And as someone who was seriously contemplating ways of reinstituting the Gulag for The New Yorker's Editorial staff, and as an avid Nation reader I admit I find it's discomfiting for me to disagree with Katrina Vanden Heuvel on such a topic:

While I understand why many object to this cartoon--and to images which they believe reinforce stereotypes (and there are many at The Nation who found the New Yorker cartoon offensive), I believe satire--even if it flops or offends --has a place in our culture and politics. But why not listen to the cartoonists? We asked a few of our regulars to help us think through the controversy--from their perspective.

If there's one thing my mother has repeated to me more times than I can remember, it is her love of "taking the train."  My mom is among that increasingly scarce breed of woman who stayed at home raising children in the late 1950's and early 60's, and never really learned to drive. She  relied on my dad for that. Yes, she has a license, and in emergency she could probably navigate a car reasonably well over some distance, but the fact is that as she enters her mid-70's it's highly unlikely she'll ever really regard car travel the way most of us do--as a given necessity.  My grandmother, who's pushing 90, has never driven a car either.   But boy, do they love the train--and in particular, Amtrak.

Now, with five-six dollar gasoline prices looming, it appears that most of America is catching up--or kicking back--with my mother's outlook.  John McCain, however, has another view:

more

I walk along the city streets you used to walk along with me,
and every step I take reminds me of just how we used to be.
Well, how can I forget you, girl?
When there is always something there to remind me.
always something there to remind me.

Burt Bacharach and Hal David. (There's) Always Something There to Remind Me)

 Nyceve wrote a great Diary today, asking our absent friends to return. If you haven't read it, here's the link: http://www.dailykos.com/...

But how would you feel coming back, having a nice, spirited chat session with one of your old compatriots, when lingering in the back of your mind is that nagging question: "What did he/she say about me?"  So the temptation is to click onto that person's Diary and Comment History--and--lo and behold! There's that nasty old Diary sitting right up there on his/her list, beckoning you to read what a heinous person you were for doing what you believed was right.   Sort of spoils the whole mood, doesn't it?

more

One more reason for the GOP not to be overly enthusiastic about their prospects in PA. this November:

Same-sex marriage ban likely dead in Pa. Senate
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
By Tom Barnes, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau
HARRISBURG -- A bill that would amend the state constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage is in a deep coma and is probably dead, at least for the rest of this session.

Faced with staunch opposition to the measure in the Democrat-controlled House, the main sponsor, Sen. Michael Brubaker, R-Lancaster, asked the Senate last evening to table the bill indefinitely, and it agreed.

That almost certainly means it won't be acted on in the 2007-08 session, which ends Nov. 30. Mr. Brubaker said he's not giving up on the bill, though he didn't say when he might push for it again.

http://www.post-gazette.com/...

more

Well folks, you've witnessed it. I can't describe it any better than what you've already seen. I'm not sure what their motivation is. I really don't care. I've never seen anything quite like it in my life and I hope I never have to see it again.

My opinions on this are largely irrelevant. What matters to this network is money, and that is where we need to go.  Starting tomorrow, my spare time, meager as it is, will be dedicated to revealing the advertisers of this network, for the purpose of organized boycotts.

No substantive change since their last poll April 8.

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/...

The survey was done Saturday and Sunday.

Doesn't look too bitter to me.  If Obama keeps it under ten, that's a win.  Of course, that's not the way the pollsters spin it:

"Sen. Hillary Clinton is fighting off Sen. Barack Obama’s drive to make it a close race in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, holding the six-point edge she had a week ago. She seems to have halted the erosion of whites and white women in particular from her campaign," said Clay F. Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

"She even gained back some ground in the Philadelphia suburbs – the area where elections are won and lost in the Keystone State,'' Richards said in a release this morning. "She now trails Obama by just two points in this critical area, while she was 11 points behind a week ago."

Yet most of the Democrats surveyed in Pennsylvania tell pollsters they still believe that Obama will win the party’s presidential nomination – including 32 percent of the Clinton supporters surveyed.

It's hard to take Hillary's indignation seriously when she made virtually identical comments.

From today's New York Sun:

The New York Sun reports that as Clinton attacked Obama, "reports surfaced of similar comments made by both Clintons to explain voter concerns about issues like religion, guns, and immigration. In an article on Time.com in November, for example, Mrs. Clinton was quoted as saying: 'During the 1990s, I cannot remember being asked about immigration. Why? Because the economy was working. And average Americans didn't have to go around looking for others to blame.'"

http://www.newyorksun.com/...

So "average Americans" (read--Middle Class Americans who can't point to tax returns totalling nine figures over a five year stretch) are channelling their frustrations on immigrants? Sounds awful "elitist" to me.  In fact, it seems rather incendiary, as the implication is that the poor ought really to be blaming "themselves."  This coming from Ms. NAFTA herself.

    It strikes me that Keith Olbermann has built up some extreme Mojo over the past year or so. I must admit it is with a degree of profound glee that I get to watch Keith in the role of Master of Ceremony during the political debates on MSNBC, as well as during the Election coverage.  The fact that Keith has channelled the Netroots more than any other mainstream journalist is gratifying to all of us. I suspect, however, that it has to be with some profound frustration that conventional mainstream blowtards who naturally would have coveted this role are now shunted off to the status of commentators.

    Along these lines, it seems that two categories of mainstream detritus in the wake of the Olbermann storm have emerged. Those who appear to seethe with pique, and those who joyfully embrace their newfound, even highlighted status as regular contributers to the new Zeitgeist.
More:

On a day marked by the commemoration of other tragedy, the world of Jazz music has lost a master.  Josef Zawinul, founder of the iconic jazz-rock fusion band, Weather Report, has died at 75.

http://news.yahoo.com/...

Zawinul's influence over the course of jazz history is not limited to that fine ensemble, however. As the author of "In a Silent Way," Miles Davis first real foray into the world of electronic jazz, Zawinul's reputation would have been established. After Miles' groundbreaking follow-up, "Bitches Brew," the talented pianist  and progenitor of the synthesizer moved to form what would arguably become the most influential (and most durable) group to combine the elements of jazz and rock.  Weather Report will forever hold its place in history in a genre that too many discount today.

more

Looks Like Fred Thompson's campaign just took another hit:

http://news.yahoo.com/...

    While the article suggests Ms. Rozett's departure is due to her limited "campaign experience," perhaps there are other reasons:

In July, Thompson sidelined his campaign-manager-in-waiting, Tom Collamore, and watched a few other aides follow him out the door amid consternation inside the operation about the active role of Thompson's wife, Jeri.

more

  Michael Ignatieff is the latest to "come clean" about his conflicted emotions regarding the fiasco he supported in Iraq.  Writing in this Sunday's NYT Magazine, http://www.nytimes.com/... Ignatieff presents yet another of what have become tiresome, soul-searching masturbatory rites of passage for the war's enablers.

  "Getting Iraq Wrong" begins paragraphs with such tripe as "As a former denizen of Harvard..." and describes what Ignatieff envisions as the difference between judgment as exercised by politicians and as exercised by academics. The article meanders around aimlessly for nearly one-third its length, then somehow manages to include the obligatory potshot against the left:

"...Many of those who correctly anticipated catastrophe did not do so by exercising judgment but by indulging in ideology. They opposed the President because they believed the president was only after the oil or because they believed America is always and in every situation wrong."

(more over the fold)