Aggre-epitaphs

The Day She Knew She Had Lost (but characteristically still refused to admit it):

Earlier this week, Hillary Clinton was back in Michigan, a full two months after its "primary," pleading with the state legislature to allow a revote in the state. As she stood in downtown Detroit, it was becoming increasingly clear that there would be no do-over and she looked for the first time as if she realized she had lost, in that typically defiant "I'll-drag-you-all-down-with-me" Clinton way. After all, she had staked whatever little she had left on a revote in a state in which fully 40% of the Democratic voters showed up on a cold January day to vote Uncommitted (ie, anyone but Clinton, the only name on the ballot), in which the most recent public polling shows her in a dead heat with Barack Obama, and where she had firmly backed the "disenfranchisement" she was now decrying. And even this slender straw of a revote was denied her: the extent of the despair is plain ...

Not being a politician, let alone a Clinton, it's hard to see what makes her stay in the race at this point. She appears somewhat less willing than her husband to alienate entire segments of the party, including many of the Congressional colleagues whose collegiality and support she will need soon enough. Perhaps like Bill, though, she has something to prove to her spouse: he needs to show he cares, and she needs to show that she can win. But shouldn't that be something for them to work out alone, without the future of the Democratic Party, of the U.S. government, and of the country itself at stake?

Who will tell her it's over?

Hillary's Walter Mitty moment.

The delegate count slipping away, the popular vote gambit gasping its last, her finances souring, and the corporate media finally tiring of talking about a horse-race-that-never-really-was ...

The facts of delegate math are finally dawning on the traditional media. Donors aren't filling her coffers with money at a rate that she can be competitive with Obama. As the media narrative catches up with the delegate math, the donors will be even less likely to give to her, further exacerbating her financial problems. With the delegate numbers nearly insurmountable, with the media declaring her candidacy nearing its end, with money running tight, and with more and more prominent Democratic leaders likely to join Richardson in calling for Democrats to unify and turn attention to defeating John McCain, the question becomes more urgent: when will Hillary Clinton admit that Barack Obama will be our Presidential nominee?

Booman has a few samples:

My theory on the campaign is that the Clintons cannot limp all the way to April 22nd when the logic/narrative puts them strictly in the role of party wreckers. The poison that will eventually erode Clinton's poll advantage is the cold hard truth that she cannot win a brokered convention. But, before that poison can work its way through the body electorate, the media must begin reporting the truth. This started yesterday when Ben Smith of The Politico reported that members of Clinton's staff privately acknowledge that she has no more than a 10% chance of winning the nomination. Mark Halperin continued the trend today when he listed Fourteen Painful Things Hillary Clinton Knows — Or Should Know. (Today) is Maureen Dowd's turn to push the narrative.

No need to excerpt MoDo again here this week. It's noxious and dead-on as usual. Speaking of nasty, here's the esteemed James Carville-Matalin with the last word, about the Richardson endorsement:

“An act of betrayal,” said James Carville, an adviser to Mrs. Clinton and a friend of Mr. Clinton.“Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic,” Mr. Carville said, referring to Holy Week.

Geez, and all this time I thought it was Obama who was the Messiah. OTOH if Carville thinks Richardson is Judas, then he must be the Snake in the Garden of Eden.

Easter Funnies

Outrage-o-meter redlining

Honestly, some of the things that have been happening this week -- from Dick Cheney's "So?" to Obama's passport breach to Mrs. Clinton's continued slow-motion self-destruction, and her attempts to take down the entire Democratic Party with her -- have just left me a little fatigued.

(Really: when John McCain and Mike Huckabee denounce the Rev. Wright smear in stronger terms than she, and Bill Richardson endorses him, there's just nearly no saving face. She's not only lost this contest but she's also made sure there's no chance of her ever winning one in the future. This scorched earth will remain fallow for the rest of her life.)

The weather's too nice, the basketball tournament is too exciting, and the anticipation of baseball too great for me to spend time indoors getting mad.

So fuck a bunch of that; I'll be back later. Have a relaxing Good Friday and a Happy Easter.

Happy 5th Birthday, One Hundred Year War

Today is March 19th. We celebrate five years of bloody war and torture based on lies. These lies came from Michael Ledeen and various neo-con insurgents like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearle, Douglas Feith and Dick Cheney, operating in the United States government at various agencies. ...

As time passed it became clear, to anyone who was interested enough to inquire, that the 9/11 attack was engineered by the same neo-cons who blamed the attack on Bin Laden. They have since used this non-existent threat from a small group of rag tag, Stone-Age Arabs to justify plunging the United States into fear and fascism while looting the countries coffers. As brief as this may be, it is the truth, just as nearly everything reported by the government and collaborating media is a lie. ...

...(A)las we celebrate not just deception and depravity beyond definition. We celebrate not just bloody war and torture. We celebrate the unimaginable blindness and intransigence of a collective public that willfully disregards evidence so compelling that one is mystified beyond endurance by the sheer scope of the ignorance in play. ...

The fear of speaking the truth because of the potential for ignominy and slander; because of the possibility of ostracism and loss of income tell us that cowardice and indifference have never been more rampant.

Today is March 19th. Today some portion of the people who are not asleep -or cringing in their beds- will step back from the dream machine and refuse to cooperate or contribute. Today, some smaller portion of humanity will put on the mask of V and they will celebrate their singularity in having seen behind the curtain. It will be no great victory because the mass of us will march forward under whips and inducements toward an increasing density and darkness of confinement and want.

There are no accidents here. The economic devastation; the bloody wars and torture, the calculated indifference following Katrina, the poisoned trailers, the vanishing bees, the tazer-bot police, the strip searches and jailhouse beatings, the secret prisons, the thought crimes, the fear, the rising fuel prices, the scarcity of grains, the spying and the suspension of constitutional rights are all intentional. There are no accidents here.

Let every person who is present on the planet today… let them every one look into their hearts and see what they have allowed. Let them see their sneering denial as it rises into their thoughts. Let them observe their fear which compels them to kneel before their oppressors in hope that they might be allowed to wield a club upon their fellows in exchange for the right to survive.

Across the globe, the indifferent rich sit in self-satisfied insulation from the horrors of the day. They sun and sail. They wine and dine. They cannot hear the cries of the victims of genocide and want. Millions of little fingers tap out inane text messages. They shake their booties to violent rhymes and talk about how “so and so is my niggah.” The world contracts and presses down. Fortunes change. Fortunes disappear. Hundreds of millions pushed beyond endurance no longer fear to die. Life is a far greater punishment. But there are a number of those who are fat and sleek and well ensconced and they… they do fear to die.

Let us see if we can shift the tide. It matters not if we do but that we tried. If today brings no great result then let us plan again. Sooner or later the conditions will demand an increase in our ranks and perhaps critical mass will be achieved. Evil is a constant and it always destroys itself. You cannot eradicate it but you can contain it. Balance must be restored.

The only way to hurt a psychopathic materialist is to deny him profit in his game. Today on March 19th we have a chance to do that. When enough of us stand back, he will be unmanned and unmasked. Everybody knows what they are up to. Change direction and move forward to a better world, or ... continue on to perdition. It really is up to you.

Boyd: "Losing, Hill? Sue me."

(It's hard to be snarky on a day when such a historical speech was made by the next President of the United States, but I feel up to the challenge ...)


Careful, Big Boy. You don't want to rush into Barack Obama's arms at least until after the memorial service for Bob Slagle (of whom the rumors of imminent demise have been greatly exaggerated).

Larry Weiman for 80th Civil District Court, Harris County

Also back on December 18th I wrote this about one of our finest potential judges locally:

Larry Weiman, 80th civil district court. Weiman is another of our returning judicial candidates, having garnered 48% in his 2006 run (just so you're clear on the size of Harris County's electorate, that 48% was 263,507 votes). Weiman's reputation as a potential jurist is so solid that Republicans recruited him to run in past elections, but with a long family history as a Yellow Dog Democrat, he declined to do so.

Weiman ran first ahead of three, with the third-place finisher having the heaviest voting record in Republican primaries. Weiman's challenger in the runoff similarly cast a ballot in a GOP primary in the recent past, though has admitted the error of his ways. Still Weiman's long history of Democratic service, not to mention his extensive experience, makes him the best choice in the April 8 primary runoff election.