"It's Obama, stupid"

To be read aloud in your best Scottish brogue:

Democrat grandees Jimmy Carter and Al Gore are being lined-up to deliver the coup de grâce to Hillary Clinton and end her campaign to become president.

Falling poll numbers and a string of high-profile blunders have convinced party elders that she must now bow out of the primary race.

Former president Carter and former vice-president Gore have already held high-level discussions about delivering the message that she must stand down for the good of the Democrats.

"They're in discussions," a source close to Carter told Scotland on Sunday. "Carter has been talking to Gore. They will act, possibly together, or in sequence."

An appeal by both men for Democrats to unite behind Clinton's rival, Barack Obama, would have a powerful effect, and insiders say it is a question of when, rather than if, they act.

"grandees" and coup de grâce in the same sentence. You gotta love it. The money shot:

Obama's campaign has been a phenomenon in American politics, bringing in record numbers of new voters and record funding, and few think the superdelegates would dare deny him victory if he wins the popular vote.

It would also invite the unedifying spectacle of a mostly white elite denying an African American candidate a chance for the presidency. "It would cause a scandal to do that," says one party official. "To turn around to the black community and say, 'You got the most votes, but no'? Unlikely."

Anybody still seriously considering a Clinton nomination should be honest with themselves: she can't win the nomination in a way that would render her more electable than Obama. And since that is the sole remaining argument for her getting the nomination, it is delusional for anyone to contine to believe she should.

This must be about preserving viability for Clinton as a candidate for president in 2012, as far as I can determine; a vile strategy if accurate. At this point Clinton should be defending Obama against unfair attacks on his patriotism, his choice of church and pastor, his qualifications, and his merits. That she is doing the opposite is not a reason to support her, but a reason to be "bitter".

And that there is more mention of Obama as an 'elitist' -- a utterly ridiculous conflation -- than there is regarding the Bush administration's wholehearted application of torture as a foreign policy once more makes a mockery of what passes for a discussion of 'moral values' in the so-called liberal media.

Sunday Funnies

IVR polls Skelly-Culberson and Noriega-Cornyn

And finds there is some ground to make up:

In the CD7 race, I identified each candidate's party, which may explain the unexpectedly low undecided response. Only 4% said they were undecided, with Culberson receiving 57% to Skelly's 39%. ... For the Senate race, Cornyn leads Noriega 58 to 39 within CD7.

536 likely voters polled 4/8/08, Margin of error 4.2%.

Eerily similar figures for my neighborhood in the two important federal races on the ballot (besides the one at the top, of course). Neither race is considered ripe for the Democratic taking. Yet.

Enough voters are willing to consider a non-Republican, but a Democratic candidate would need flawless execution and a little luck.

With 88,000 Democratic primary voters out of the nearly 411,000 county-wide last month, we certainly have the numbers trending our way. The outcome will turn on a variety of factors within and without our control.

Micromanaging torture from the White House basement (and the Texas connection)

There's no blaring headline in the Washington Post online about this story. Nothing even very significant that I can find from the source, ABC News, on their website. There is a story there, however about how "absolutely appalling" Dick Cheney thinks Rev. Wright's comments were.

(In the comparison between waterboarding and a minister's sermon quoting US Ambassador -- to Iraq, no less -- Edward Peck as saying the United States had abandoned its moral authority, I would have to say that Cheney's judgment is again demonstrated to be as full of shit as his cold, dark heart.)

Top Bush aides, including Vice President Cheney, micromanaged the torture of terrorist suspects from the White House basement, according to an ABC News report aired last night.

Discussions were so detailed, ABC's sources said, that some interrogation sessions were virtually choreographed by a White House advisory group. In addition to Cheney, the group included then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, then-secretary of state Colin Powell, then-CIA director George Tenet and then-attorney general John Ashcroft.

At least one member of the club had some qualms. ABC reports that Ashcroft "was troubled by the discussions. He agreed with the general policy decision to allow aggressive tactics and had repeatedly advised that they were legal. But he argued that senior White House advisers should not be involved in the grim details of interrogations, sources said.

"According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: 'Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly.'"

Here's the video of last night's report by Jan Crawford Greenburg and a text version by Greenburg, Howard L. Rosenberg and Ariane de Vogue.

They write: "Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding...."

"As the national security adviser, Rice chaired the meetings, which took place in the White House Situation Room."

Ashcroft again, the only member of the Bush adminstration with half a conscience.

So let's review: waterboarding is torture, and torture is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions (once described as "quaint" by Alberto Gonzales). The reason the US and several other countries agreed to be bound by the terms of Geneva way back when was so that our own soldiers captured as prisoners of war would never be subjected to such treatment.

And the reason why phrases such as "enhanced interrogation techniques" and "enemy combatants" were devised by the corporate marketing wizards running the nation's foreign policy was for no better reason than to attempt to evade prosecution as war criminals.

And so that we never forget that the roots of Bush administration evil can almost always be traced back to our beloved Lone Star State, James Ho -- who together with John Yoo wrote the original DOJ memo outlining the legal justification of torture -- has recently been named the solicitor general of Texas by Attorney General Greg Abbott.

Electoral disaster for the GOP

Somewhere back there I mentioned something about this. Here's a map.

Let's be charitable and give John McBush several states he probably won't win, like Pennsylvania for example. It's still nothing but gloom. Take away Ohio and give to the GOP (not at all likely they can get PA and OH both, not even with a terrorist attack a week before Election Day). It's still gloomy.

Think the economy is going to be improving by November? How about Iraq? Will health care be on the minds of many voters? McSame is wrong on all three issues.

I don't think McLame can run with God as his vice-president and get elected, frankly.

<p><strong>><a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/electoral-college/'>Electoral College Prediction Map</a></strong> - Predict the winner of the general election. Use the map to experiment with winning combinations of states. Save your prediction and send it to friends.</p>