As Atrios is fond of saying, "convene a blogger ethics panel!"

n/a

. . . trying to wiggle around or out of the new Democratic plan for Iraq?

Expect a White House veto, but real votes, from Democrats on the issue would be nice. It's time to put up or shut up, especially for moderate Republicans.

More on this story in yesterday's podcast, around minute 31:00.

. . . put a smile on your face. It's not every day we get to punk Fox News and the conservative elements in the Democratic Party at one time, but that's what we got. Big smiles all around.

Mind you, my posting this is not an endorsement.

~ Ford, a Texas-based writer, contributes essays on music, Texas life and cultural issues regularly to The Agonist

Sometimes I go back through my diary to make sure there are no new comments. Out of curiosity, I looked up a poll Sean-Paul conducted here at the Agonist. To my surprise, votes have continued to come in. Ron Paul seems to have taken a commanding lead over Dennis Kucinich.

Which brings up another matter. It may be wise to consider candidates other than Democrats to fix this mess in Iraq/Iran. If Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich can stand together on issues, coming from opposite political territories, then why can't we?

All the stuff the cacophony of candidates want you to see is now available for one-stop shopping at YouTube's latest: YouChoose '08, according to a story in today's WaPo.

This is the real deal, boys and girls, the best each candidate's handlers, ad agencies, supportive special interests can produce. No smarmy editing, no arch commentary from the loyal opposition, no snide music beds (John Edwards' primping his hair to the tune of "I Feel Pretty").

My question is: WHO is going to want to watch this Can of Crap more than once?

. . . gored, only two nights after he won his Oscar. You know, these people just never stop. So who the f**k cares what his utility bill was? He also flies a lot and when he does he buys carbon offsets, just like I do. But Gore's spokesperson makes the best point:

"Considering that he spends an overwhelming majority of his time advocating on behalf of and trying to affect change on this issue, it's not surprising that people who have a vested interest in protecting the status quo would go after him," said the former Gore aide.

The Republicans are scared of Gore, even more than that, so are all those who have a vested interest in the status quo.

For the past several months we have been getting our new Southern netroots site http://bluesunbelt.com up and running. We are in need of front pagers who can contribute diaries on politics and issues of the Southern and Sunbelt states that are our demographic focus area.

We need front pagers who can submit diaries on:

-Coverage of local, state, and federal races.
-Coverage of the presidential race.
-Coverage of progressive policy and issues.
-Diaries supporting candidates are welcome
-Diaries to organize local grassroots for candidates and causes.

. . . of polls and front runners, how Hillary's got a lock, Obama's a rock star and Rudy's running circles around McCain is extremely annoying. It's not even 2008 yet. There hasn't even been a primary. It's depressing. We're not going to have a real debate in 2008 about the future of the country. It's just not going to happen.

. . . living in the closet?

. . . and VoteVets have a new site: StopIranWar.com. Check it out.

. . . a California governor, why not recall an Arizona senator? If you live and/or vote in Arizona check this one out.

Just an FYI, Republic Party Dead-Enders blocked debate in the Senate:

Republicans stopped the Senate on Saturday from considering a resolution denouncing President George W. Bush's Iraq troop buildup that the U.S. House of Representatives passed the day before.

Second time in as many weeks; you think they're afraid of something?

Looks like the fat lady won't even have to stretch her pipes.

This from Xinjingbao, in China (reprinted in full):

After Democrats Pick Obama or Hillary, U.S. Election May Be Over

Will U.S. Democrats tear themselves to shreds deciding who to nominate for President? Will the Republican nominee attack Bush and cause internal Republican Party dissention? Who better to ask that one of the most powerful political parties in the world – the Chinese Communists? According to this op-ed article from China's state-controlled Xinjingbao [Beijing News], the Democrats are in such good shape, there may be little need for Americans to vote.

By Mr. Liu, a Scholar in Beijing
Translated By How Xian Neng
February 12, 2007
China – Xinjingbao – Original Article (Chinese)

After Black Senator Barack Obama officially announced his intention to run for the Presidential nomination, the Democratic Party's electoral road map became clear. Even though there are other candidates participating in the battle, a common opinion holds that the Democratic nomination will be a clash between a woman and an African American. Will this unprecedented phenomenon signal an early end to the electoral battle?

After many years of lies, delusions and neo-conservative rule, the American Public can endure no more. [The Chinese characters for neo-conservatives (火神派) stand for Fire-God Faction] Americans no longer wish to live in Bush's shadow, and are looking forward to building a new America. At this moment, two new stars have emerged in the opposition camp. Two have two such fresh faces at once is extremely rare in American history. Whether it's Hilary or Obama, both are full of personal charm – which is in stark contrast to the rigidly conservative Bush Administration. And both candidates have toyed with the same message: “It's time to rebuild America's Image.” Under the banner of doing the People’s will, the Democratic Party's new black and woman stars have become the most popular figures in American politics.

At the same time, last year’s midterm Congressional elections were a sign of things to come. In Congressional races two years ago, Republicans preserved their majority even though the weaknesses of Bush's domestic and foreign policies had already been exposed. But today, the American public has lost its patience with the incorrigibly obstinate neo-conservative Republican faction. The Democrats are far more in tune than the Republicans with the mainstream ideological trends of American society. They look nothing like they did two years ago, when the Kerry campaign stubbornly defended his strongly liberal views. Many of the new Democratic congressmen are more temperate and moderate, which shows that the party has complied with popular sentiment and should find it easier to win elections.

In contrast, not only is the enthusiasm of Republicans at a very low ebb, but they are suffering from a lack of internal coordination [in Chinese, an imbalance of Yin and Yang, 不受欢迎的人] The Republican advantage of depending on a strong executive [the President] has become a distinct disadvantage. Bush has already become persona non grata and makes an easy target, which will put the Republican Party candidate in an awkward position: Only by differentiating themselves from Bush can they hope to win support; but excessive criticism of Bush will cause internal party dissention.

Stricken with the long-term illness of the Bush regime, Republicans are unable to inoculate themselves with a dose of strong criticism like their Democrats counterparts. Instead, they have to quietly swallow the bitter fruit planted by Bush. Even though Democrats have their share of internal disagreement, the disputes of Republicans over key issues like withdrawal from Iraq are much harder to reconcile. Bush's hard-line supporters will give a heap of trouble colleagues who want to abandon him.

The Democrats have much better prospects.

Hilary is a seasoned veteran with tremendous capital, and Obama is young, vibrant and passionate.

Although they will clash before facing a common adversary, the advantages of whoever wins will be sufficient to cause panic in any opponent. If they should decide to team up, the two should perfectly compliment one another.

Polls show that 62 percent of American voters are ready for a Black president, and the Washington Post has stated that Hillary’s candidacy deserves "bipartisan applause." As long as Democrats maintain their advantage over Republicans by putting the interests of the Party first during the primaries, the Democratic National Convention next summer could be the real end of the America election. The only choice Americans may get to make could be between a female President or a Black President.

There began to be evidence a couple of months ago that the '08 election would be different than anything we've ever seen. The ruling elite and their monolithic international financial funders have been working tirelessly, if not so stealthily anymore, to completely dictate (I use that word purposefully) both the candidates and the outcome of US national elections. Roll up the tents, my friends. The game's almost over. My prediction, which I've hinted at for weeks, is that it'll be a Clinton/Obama ticket. The primaries will be so many blue rubber stamp events that the states won't even be able to find a red stamp pad.

Interestingly enough, the left wing in the black community, voiced by the Black Agenda Report and, to a more moderate degree, the Black Commentator, have been raising serious concerns about Obama. Thankfully, they've unerringly looked past his pretty face and JFK charisma, and listened carefully to his words, looked at his voting record, and examined his lack of commitment to not only the black nation, but to the plight of poor and otherwise marginalized, disenfranchised, and poor folks of all flavors and colors.

Very irreverent questions: Did Rahm Emmanuel (the DLC version of Karl Rove) build this guy's legend? Anyone on the hard Left got the cojones to walk back the cat? Except for Kucinich (I hope), are the Illumnati throwing a few Euroes around to the other "candidates" to provide cover or are these cats just running for cabinet positions? Yeah, yeah. I know. I'm just a rabid radical crack head.

Enough has already been said about Hillary Rodham. The fact that she's pro-war, pro-empire, and pro-globalization just doesn't matter. With the kind of money these folks will have, they won't have to just buy the election, they can buy the whole damned country.

One of the then-amusing characteristics of the Soviet system was that, yes, they had democratic elections and even high turnout (in some "member" states, folks were forced to vote). The thing was, y'see, there was only one candidate. Now that we "won the cold war", we're free to implement the same structure. Nothing to see here. Go back to your homes.

All your votes are belong to us.

Categories: elections, Obama, democracy

As you may have heard, Amanda Marcotte resigned from the Edwards campaign on Monday.

There isn't a lot to say, whether or not Amanda did offer to resign of her own volition (and I believe her when she says she did), the simple fact of the matter is that if Donohue hadn't come after her hard, she'd still be employed. Donohue won. The funny thing is that, as of this morning, before she made the decision, the story had largely fallen out of the corporate press. The liberal blogosphere was winning the battle, and I belive that Donohue was being badly damaged himself (indeed, the airing of his dirty laundry will probably leave him with a bad odor for some time.)

Edwards looks weak as a result of this. He was forced to back down.

The simple rule that a lot of people still don't seem to get is this: strength is as strength does. If you do what an enemy demands you do, you caved. The Edwards campaign will be seen to have buckled under to pressure in this case and therefore Edwards looks weak. Period. This will also make it much harder for bloggers moving to campaigns or other high profile positions in the future, since a precedent has been set.

I can't find the links to help me specify and give credence to my speculation, so without any reason to believe me, I'll just state something that I think is interesting and has happened.
Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich have made an arrangement to have the other as their running mate if one of them wins the Republican nomination. If Giuliani were to win the nomination, it'll be a Giuliani/Gingrich ticket. If Newt Gingrich wins the nomination (which I still believe is the greatest likelihood) then the Republicans will get a Gingrich/Giuliani ticket.
I can at least provide a few points as to why I'm convinced of this:

Is a prominent winger-website disappearing webpages? Sadly No! has been engaged in a serious fight with the Malkinites and are winning. Visit the site, learn about the story and cheer them on. Anything that helps to discredit these people is good.

click on the photo

Mind you, I'm a Catholic and I find Donohue offensive.

Ok folks, I know The Agonist isn't much of an activist community, but here's an action item I'd like for everyone to consider. As the folks at BlogPac write:

Over the past week, right-wing media sources have made two progressive bloggers who were recently hired by the John Edwards campaign, Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon and Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare’s Sister, targets for character assassination. Establishment media outlets, including ABC News, CNN, the Associated Press, and the New York Times, have uncritically "reported" these attacks. The media coverage of this story been riddled with blatant double standards that favors conservatives over progressives. It is bitterly ironic that established news outlets are failing to provide context, do proper research, and uphold basic standards of journalism on a story about bloggers.

Please visit the site, click on the auto-emailer and pushback against the media for their blatant double standards.

You never know who's going to come under fire next.

My favourite political saying comes from a politician I didn't much like when he was in power. Brian Mulroney - the last real Conservatie party Prime Minister of Canada (let's not talk about Kim Campbell, and the current Conservative party is Reform in drag.)

You dances with the one that brought you

With respect to Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan that's where we're at. The blogosphere and a lot of bloggers have been very favourable towards Edwards. He's well thought of. Part of that is his domestic policies - he's very populist, and a lot of bloggers like that. Part of it is outreach. Part of it is Elizabeth Edwards. Part of it is that when Kerry conceded, Edwards disagreed - he wanted to hold off on the concession and investigate Ohio. Bloggers like fighters, and Edwards had wanted to fight.

. . . to tell y'all this, but the Edwards campaign is finished. Unless he comes out tomorrow swinging against the Malkins and Coulters of the world, he's simply unfit to lead. His campaign has known for several days that this was coming. A smart politician would have seen this as an opportunity, not a problem, or in Edwards' case, a chance to go into 'Bunker Mode,' as Greg Sargent at TPMCafe calls it. If you can't defend two loyal staffers and instead chose to appease your critics, allowing something like this to snowball badly then you don't deserve to be president.

TPM reader DF boils it down perfectly:

Edwards has staked out some pretty strong positions on healthcare, the war in Iraq, and although I can't remember him saying so, I'm pretty sure he's in favor of decisive action vis a vis climate change. Great. These are all issues that have reached a crisis point of one kind or another. So today the righties put a little heat on his bloggers (over the kind of nontroversy that they are so adept at exploiting)- and he cuts them loose. Can we expect him to stay strong on those important issues that are not yet crises?

It's far past time Democrats played defense and started playing offense. Starting with this guy.

Is John Edwards going to bow to winger pressure and fire one of his campaign staffers? Is Edwards going to fire his campaign staffer simply because the a documented bigot objects to her political views? If so, then Edwards is in for a very rude surprise from the netroots.

Politicians represent us, the netroots and our interests. If they are not penalized for failing to do so then we have no reason to complain when they cave. This isn't about the media, per se, it's about getting our politicians to stand up to the media and get our message out. Contact the Edwards Campaign here and please be polite.

His Iran comments were a pretty good indicator he was going to play it safe in more ways than one.

Update: Salon is reporting, in a heavily conditioned way, that Edwards has fired the bloggers in question. What a coward. If a guy can't take a little heat for a couple of bloggers then just think about how craven he'll be in the White House?

Update 2: Crooks and Liars has a nice little flashback for old Mr. Donohue.

Update 3: More here. Lotsa good videos of teh old bigot Donohue. This, as Lesley notes in her comment, is what this whole brou-ha-ha is about: "If they’re fired, I will take that as an indication that Edwards is more interested in pandering to his opponents than his supporters and look around for another candidate to support."

Update 4: Last point: this is a huge opportunity for Edwards. He could use this to hold a press conference and expose Marcotte's and McEwan's attackers for the bigots they are. Have his staff do a little research, read out some of the LGF and Malkin, posts during the press conference. Point out the link between the two Morans--the one at ABC who is a reporter for the Liberal Media and his brother whose post echoes his ABC blog post. Call Donohue out. Call the right wing attack machine out on this.

IT'S A HUGE MISSED OPPORTUNITY TO NOT ONLY SCORE WITH THE NETROOTS but to smash the right wing attack machine.

. . . if Obama is a smoker or not? No one is perfect. Just look at George W. Bush: he's an avid runner and in great health. Bang up job he's done, yeah?

Dear ABC: please pay attention to what's really important, not this crap.

Just some random thoughts that ran through my mind as I watched the candidates over the weekend on C-SPAN...

I haven't caught Dodd yet, but apparently he thinks voters should give him a chance that they've already decided not to give him.

I also didn't catch Kucinich, but I hear the Rainbow Family is still short in numbers to become the new majority of Democratic voters.

I almost forgot Wes Clark, who I didn't see as well - the "Am I or am I not an unannounced candidate?" I hear his "You remember me, military guy!" speech didn't go over so well. Get in line behind Clinton if you jump in ... and behind Gore. Ouch!