Open Thread

27 Comments

1. 

   refinish69 on April 18, 2008 at 1:19 am

   The Edword

   • 

     RandyH on April 18, 2008 at 3:27 am

     My Values: Universal HairCare + Jet Skis:  Kawasaki 800SXR!

     Why can’t we end poverty in 30 years? Bush ended the Middle Class in 8.

   • 

     Alice on April 18, 2008 at 6:52 am

     Pretty darn good rf – thanks for posting.

     • 

       refinish69 on April 18, 2008 at 6:55 am

       my pleasure.

   • 

     fudgelady on April 18, 2008 at 8:59 am

     I saw Edwards on Colbert and my first thought was:

     This man is not just in Philly to be on the Colbert Report.  

     I’m thinking an endorsement is in the offing.  Any scoops on this?

     • 

       refinish69 on April 18, 2008 at 10:00 am

       Not that I have heard.

2. 

   refinish69 on April 18, 2008 at 1:23 am

   Obama on Colbert Report

   • 

     RandyH on April 18, 2008 at 3:05 am

     Manufactured Political Distractions: You are Officially ON NOTICE!

3. 

   Real History Lisa on April 18, 2008 at 1:27 am

   I think this debate will prove to be the thing that sends Obama over the top in PA. Everyone can recognize when someone is being ganged up on. Most people are good people who come to the aid of such person.

   Flag pins? Seriously? I loved Obama’s response – I show my patriotism by taking care of veterans, not by wearing a pin.

   Reminds me of Christians who wear a cross rather than loving thy neighbor.

   Speaking of Christians, does the Pope really deserve the coverage he got on MSNBC this morning? I mean, I used to be Catholic. I used to enjoy spectacle. But seriously. I wanted to hear about news that was going to affect me, and instead, I got people singing and playing harp (albeit beautifully). But MSNBC? I’d expect that from Good Morning America. MSNBC????

   I was happy to see Obama nearly tied in PA in some poll today. I so want to see him win in this state which she long ago claimed as “hers.” Oh please, hit the phones, people, and help us put him over the top there this weekend. I’ll be calling for about 4 hours each on Saturday and Sunday, and I HATE being on the phone. But I love the thought that with a little sacrifice, we can help this amazing man become president. It’s worth it!

   • 

     Omir the Storyteller on April 18, 2008 at 2:31 am

     I had to wonder about that too. Last I looked Roman Catholics were the largest religious denomination in the country, numbering about a quarter of us. (I don’t know how they count those statistics — presumably anyone on the Church’s rolls. Maybe even still you.) So someone should be covering the Pope’s visit. But MSNBC? C’mon, Catholics have their own cable channel, for heaven’s sake. Show it there.

     As near as I can figure out, MSNBC is actively trying to avoid reporting on substantive issues on their morning show. I get in to the cafeteria at work every morning at about 8:30 and stop for breakfast. MSNBC is on most days. Their coverage is all over the place. They’ll have stories about the weather, nursing home fires, school bus crashes, rape/murder suspects being caught in Mexico. All of it is news to someone, but none of it is news to everyone worthy of being carried on a national channel. It just seems with all the important news out there, especially with their line about “the place for politics” they would carry news that affects the whole country, not breaking stories about a car jumping a barrier and ending up on the steps of a New York courthouse.

     • 

       Quentin on April 18, 2008 at 5:18 am

       U.S. persons are still suckers for European folklore. No where in Europe would the pope have got the attention he’s now getting in the U.S. The man knows on which side his bread is buttered, be sure of that. The subject of BBC World Service ‘Have your say’ is today: should the pope have been given a presidential-style welcome in the U.S. Try to get such a discussion going in the MSM. He now passes for a ‘social critic’ among talking and writing heads. Imagine that! They probably mean that he moralizes. Which presidential candidate is a social critic? Did the family Bush traipse out to the airport to welcome the Dalai Lama?

4. 

   Killjoy on April 18, 2008 at 1:37 am

   Someone please make the stupid stop.

   • 

     fabooj on April 18, 2008 at 1:50 am

     MediaFreeze must have brain freeze to actually have posted that diary.  This is me:  “Oh wow…so that’s what the “imbecile” looks like.  My IQ bottomed out reading that diary.  It was like a YouTube commenter learned some new words beyond bitch, fuck and gay.

   • 

     ask on April 18, 2008 at 8:10 am

     There are those that will insist staying in the alternate universe whatever the evidence says. Delusions and living in denial will do that to you.

5. 

   michaelmt on April 18, 2008 at 7:05 am

   …how difficult it will be to totally overturn our big money-driven election system in the fall. I actually believe Obama has only a sliver of a chance. Clinton is still in the race because big money, realizing how bad McCain’s position actually is, felt she was the most practical compromise. She has big money backers who won’t let her quit.

   But “yes we can” T shirts won’t do it. It will take a lot of that shoe-rubber (no one wearing leather any more!), starting in Pennsylvania. Skipping a class to go to a rally won’t do it.

   Witness how the corporates at ABC tried to trash Obama’s lead in Pennsylvania this week.

   • 

     CabinGirl on April 18, 2008 at 7:19 am

     It’s not just the young voters pounding the pavement for Obama here in PA.  When I go to the local HQ, there are people in their 40s and upward who are volunteering for Obama’s campaign, and saying that this is the first time they’ve ever done something like this.  And that they’re having fun doing it.

      

     • 

       refinish69 on April 18, 2008 at 7:25 am

       Has been the same all over the country.  The medium age of volunteers in the office in Texas was about 35.  We had volunteers as young as 12 and as old as 80 working before the primary and up till the county conventions.

     • 

       idredit on April 18, 2008 at 7:42 am

       The Fall Out;

       My take away was that Clinton’s beat up of Obama was aimed at super-delegates..”see, see he can’t in”

       Did.not work.  She lost. They’re tired and have been to decide NOW one way or the other.

       IHT

       Superdelegates unswayed by Clinton’s attacks

       Throughout their contentious debate on Wednesday, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton tried again and again to put Senator Barack Obama on the defensive in a pointed effort, her advisers say, to raise doubts about his electability among a small but powerful audience: the uncommitted superdelegates who will most likely determine the nomination.

       But although Clinton gave it her best shot in what might have been their final debate, interviews on Thursday with a cross-section of these superdelegates — members of Congress, elected officials and party leaders — showed that none had been persuaded much by her attacks on Obama’s strength as a potential Democratic nominee, his recent gaffes and his relationships with his former pastor and with a onetime member of the Weather Underground.

       In fact, the Obama campaign announced endorsements from two more superdelegates on Thursday, after rolling out three on Wednesday and two others since late last week in what appeared to be an orchestrated show of strength before Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary. Obama advisers said that one of the pickups on Thursday, Councilman Harry Thomas Jr. of the District of Columbia, had initially favored Clinton, but Clinton advisers denied that, and a Thomas aide said he had been neutral before Thursday.

       In interviews, 15 uncommitted superdelegates said they did not believe that recent gaffes by both candidates would carry any particular influence over their final decision. They said they had particularly tired of all the attention, by the Clinton campaign and the news media, on Obama’s recent comment that some Americans were “bitter” over the economy and chose to “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” as a result.

       and here’s the reaction of small town PA…readers- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

       my pick

       That was no debate–it was a rerun of Access Hollywood. If we Pennsylvanians should be bitter about anything, it’s that our state debate was turned into a sort of media carnival, rather than dealing with the real issues facing our region, and the American people.

       Still, if I had to find a silver lining? I admired the restraint Obama showed in NOT diving headlong into the fray. Though it did seem to frustrate him that over half the debate had nothing to do with substance, he held his tongue in check, defended his opponent on one occasion, and even said “she could win” without so much as batting an eye.

       Hillary seemed to enjoy wallowing in ABC’s mud just a little too much for my tastes. Especially since she still hasn’t given a straight answer on her Bosnia lie, or how she can reconcile taking 800 thousand dollars from the Columbian government while campaigning AGAINST the Columbian Free Trade Agreement. All in all, I saw in Barack Obama a frustrated (yet honest) commitment to trying to stay away from the political pie-slicing that has paralyzed our country and silenced OUR voices for far too long, now.[.]

       clueless, abc freak show

       clueless Clinton

     • 

       michaelmt on April 18, 2008 at 9:37 am

       that the only thing a vote for Clinton can accomplish now is prolonging the agony? I think that’s the main argument to make this weekend.

6. 

   aarrgghh on April 18, 2008 at 7:24 am

   nixon never slept more soundly than he does now.

7. 

   idredit on April 18, 2008 at 7:58 am

   covering politics is hard work so we do this instead

8. 

   CabinGirl on April 18, 2008 at 8:07 am

   pair of articles from Philly’s Citypaper done by ‘undercover’ reporters:

   I was a Clinton volunteer

   I was an Obama volunteer

   • 

     idredit on April 18, 2008 at 8:34 am

     those were a stark comparison. Thanks for the links.

     Clinton lost another and this is a biggie:

     former Clinton first Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich to officially endorse Obama

     Note: Reich and Bill Clinton go way back to school days – 40 years. Guess Craville adds to the column

     The aces in this (possibly strained) metaphor are endorsements, and it often seems as if the Obama operation has an inexhaustible supply at its disposal. In the past week alone, it has announced the support of congressmen from North Carolina and Indiana; the Utah state party chair; the Oklahoma state party’s chief fundraiser; 25 South Dakota state legislators; the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers; and, not least, The Boss. Some of these endorsers are super-delegates, and thus of no small consequence to the outcome of the race. Others are simply window-dressing, deployed to create a sense of ineluctable momentum in Obama’s direction. But none have the particular resonance of the endorsement that’s coming — unbeknownst to the campaign — a little later today.

     The endorsement in question is that of Robert Reich, Bill Clinton’s first Secretary of Labor and a friend of both the former president and his wife for four decades. Around 1:00pm EST, Reich informs me, he intends formally to declare his support for Obama on his blog.

     the flood: HRC will need to be pushed.

     AP Ongoing nomination fight hurting Clinton more than Obama

     Who has the best chance of becoming president?

     In late January, before Obama scored 11 straight primary and caucus victories, 56 percent of Democrats saw Clinton as the stronger nominee, compared to 33 percent for Obama. Now, Obama leads on that question, 56 to 43 percent.

     as we view stock charts, the chart graph with that AP piece shows Clinton in a downtrend -since November, 2007. WOW.

9. 

   Cee on April 18, 2008 at 8:18 am

   From the politics/strange bedfellows file: Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama has won an endorsement from Republican and former Nixon Watergate figure William D. Ruckelshaus.

   Ruckelshaus was serving as deputy attorney general in 1973 when he made history as part of the infamous Saturday Night Massacre. He and his boss, Attorney General Elliot Richardson, were fired after they refused Nixon’s order to dismiss the independent counsel investigating the Watergate break-ins.

   The former Nixon FBI director and secretary of the Environmental Protection Agency hopes to help Obama defeat Democratic rival Sen. Hillary Clinton in the May 6 primary in Ruckelshaus’ homestate of Indiana. The state has been a longtime Republican stronghold in presidential politics.

10. 

    Brendan Skwire on April 18, 2008 at 8:43 am

    after bopping around the blogs this AM, I can safely say the Clinton camp has gotta be having a tough day.
    The negative ads haven’t swayed the superdelegates toward Clinton, Obama’s up in a big way, and Robert Reich is endorsing Obama instead of Clinton.

    Ouch.  Just ouch.

11. 

    refinish69 on April 18, 2008 at 10:19 am

    Bill Maher talking about Flag Pins

    And a diary about Mad Libs

12. 

    mainsailset on April 18, 2008 at 10:21 am

    On the original question here, I’d been thinking back and mumbling something along the lines of Nixon wasn’t all that bad…hah!, that’s good news for Nixon’s legacy that he’s finally gotten up off the floor thanks to another Rep.