Yep.

When Edwards dropped out on Jan. 30, he had endorsements from 28 superdelegates, including Reps. Bob Etheridge (NC), Mike McIntyre (NC), Brad Miller (NC), Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD), Charlie Gonzalez (TX), Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX), Jim Oberstar (MN), David Obey (WI), David Price (NC), Heath Shuler (NC), Bart Stupak (MI), Mel Watt (NC), Michael Michaud (ME), and Bruce Braley (IA). The other 14 were Democratic National Committee members who had pledged as superdelegates to Edwards.

As of this afternoon, nine of the House members backing Edwards had switched allegiance to Obama: Reps. Miller, Herseth Sandlin, Gonzalez, Johnson, Oberstar, Obey, Price, Watt and Braley. Four of the pro-Edwards lawmakers -- Reps. Ethridge, McIntyre, Stupak and Michaud -- remain uncommitted. Shuler has not officially endorsed Clinton, but said he would vote for her as a superdelegate at the convention, because she had won his western North Carolina district.

Seven of Edwards' DNC superdelegates have shifted to Obama; two have switched to Clinton. Five remain uncommitted. So that leaves a total of 18 Edwards convention votes for both campaigns to phonebank until they break.

More on this and the Clinton "popular vote" strategy in an upcoming post.

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Tags: Barack Obama, John Edwards

There's this:

Notice the big jump since January? The primary process seems to be weighing heavily on voter dissatisfaction with the current administration and their Republican apologists. The more people read about the issues and see what their choices are and what the future might be, the more they are dissatisfied with the present direction.

NPR:

Americans are feeling pessimistic about the direction the country is heading, a new bipartisan NPR poll suggests. They're increasingly leaning toward alignment with the Democratic Party and divided over their choices for president in the fall.

An unprecedented 80 percent of likely voters surveyed said the United States is on the wrong track -- a huge jump from the 68 percent who felt that way in the previous NPR poll in January.

The latest dissatisfaction level is reflected in other polls conducted recently by the Gallup Organization and several newspapers and TV networks.

When asked about the job President Bush is doing, 65 percent of respondents overall said they disapproved and a bare majority, 51 percent, said they disapproved strongly.

"Disapproved strongly" - a majority of Americans strongly disapprove of the current Republican administration.

Meanwhile, this is what is passing for conservative thought on the subject of the demise of the GOP power in Congress - here's PBunyan commenting on my earlier post "Removing GOP from Power in Congress::

Thanks to the biased press (which the leftists can only recognize and acknowledge when its aimed at one of their own), a lot of poorly informed people believe that. Still the only way the Marxists were able to take back congress was by running on the traditional Republican platform. Of course once they got to congress their voting record was 180 degree from their campaign promises.

George Bush and all the ignorance the left has fostered in the public due to their hate of him, is the only reason the Marxists are doing so well right now. Bush is actually protecting American from the Marxists with his veto power. If one of the Marxists, either Obama or Clinton, wins in November-- God forbid-- or perhaps even McCain, at least on some issues, then the reality of Democrat Marxism will again slap the ignorant electorate in the face and 2010 will be 1994 all over again.

It's not George Bush's fault - it's the eeevil media who are driving public perception against the Republicans.

Let's not ask where the eeevil media was in 2002 when GWB's approval ratings were spiking - guess they weren't as eeevil back then?

If McCain was only smart enough to say "The Bush administration made a total mess of the last 8 years I intend to fix it!" the Republicans might have a chance this November.

Fortunately for us Democrats McCain isn't that smart. He's too beholden to the 'Bush Base' - that remaining 25% or so of the nation that thinks George Bush did the right thing. If McCain alienates them, he might as well drop out and cede the election now -- so he will plod on - carrying the water and following the lead of GWB - riding that same rocket to hell...

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Democrats took an important step towards removing the GOP from power in Congress with Tuesday's win in Mississippi. No doubt this development has a lot of GOP big-wigs scratching their... wigs.

For the past 18 months, ever since the 2006 elections, congressional Republicans have been like a hospital patient trying to convince visitors that he is not really all that sick: a bit under the weather; actually feel better than I sound; should be up and about any day; thanks for asking.

Suddenly -- belatedly -- all pretense is gone.

The Republican defeat in Tuesday's special election in Mississippi, in a deeply conservative district where, in an average year, Democrats cannot even compete, was a clear sign that the GOP has the political equivalent of cancer that has spread throughout the body. Many House GOP operatives are privately predicting that the party could easily lose up to 20 seats this fall.

Proverbial chickens coming home to roost. Republicans have run roughshod over the American public throughout their reign of terror term in control of Congress.

Combined with the 30 seats that the GOP lost in 2006, that would leave the party facing a 70-vote deficit against Democrats in the House -- a state of powerlessness reminiscent of Republicans' long wilderness years in the 1960s and '70s.

Things are not particularly more hopeful on the Senate side, where most analysts say Democrats have a strong chance of adding five or more seats to their current majority.

Panic and blame-casting for the dire condition were flowing in equal measures Wednesday inside the House Republican Conference and among party elders and operatives outside.

In the crossfire, there was a bracing new spirit of candor that has largely been missing since 2006, when many Republicans tried to convince the public -- and perhaps themselves -- that the defeat was the result of temporary setbacks, such as the House page scandal or bad headlines for Tom DeLay, rather than something more fundamental.

Republicans have made fundamentally wrong choices for America, and instead embarked on a self-serving, morally righteous crusade that has touched and tainted everything from the Justice Department's US Attorney scandal, to the Iraq march to war and subsequent attempts to involve Iran as a part of a religious imperative to rid the world of Islam.

Now it's time to pay the piper... and poor old John McCain is wheezing his way to November's election dragging this boat anchor behind him.

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I hit on this a few days ago in a post titled "McCain's Dirty Little Money Secrets", and now a defiant and arrogant Cindy McCain is back in the news this morning, and once again it's news of her own making. She's the kind of trouble John McCain just doesn't need -- but as far as I can see McCain has no chance of keeping a lid on the problems she will create for his candidacy.

The media blitz that Cindy McCain recently conducted -- co-hosting "The View," appearing on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," sitting down for a "Today" show interview -- did nothing to lessen the lambasting she took Wednesday from a source that might surprise some: an editorial in the Cindy McCain the wife of presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain has come under attack for refusing to release her tax returns Washington Times.

The missive in the conservative-oriented newspaper sternly took her to task for steadfastly refusing, in the face of increasing requests, to release her income tax returns (she files separately from her husband, John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee).

The editorial notes that "Mrs. McCain is an heiress whose income and assets will directly benefit from the tax policies espoused by her husband. ... Taxpayers and voters are entitled to know how much these benefits will be."

Also criticized is her spouse. Noting that McCain "rightly fancies himself the king of transparency on Capitol Hill," the piece terms it "unimaginable" that he and his staff "can permit this open sore to fester."

Odd that a leader like McCain can't convince his wife that its important to his campaign that she not hide her dirty little money secrets -- I wonder how often he begs her for other favors only to be turned down there as well.

And we're starting to uncover the reasons why Cindy McCain wants to keep her dirty little money secrets -- uhm, secret.

Cindy McCain, the wife of the Republican presumptive nominee for president, has sold off at least $2 million she held in funds with investments in Sudan businesses.

The mutual funds -- American Funds Europacific Growth and American Funds Capital World Growth and Income -- have investments in companies with business in Sudan, according to the Sudan Divestment Task Force, an advocacy organization that has been working to persuade states, universities and other organizations to divest.

"As soon as she was made aware, she sold it," said Brian Rogers, a spokesman for the McCain campaign. "Senator and Mrs. McCain are committed to doing everything possible to end the genocide in Darfur."

Counting down to the headline that screams "Cindy McCain Hired Illegal Immigrants for Housework and Gardening!!!" in 5... 4... 3...

Update: I intended to include this but forgot -- check out the cartoon which accompanies the Washington Times' editorial referenced above:

It highlights the Republicans' and McCain's arrogance nicely. To hell with the American public...

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It's about time Edwards made this call:

Former Sen. John Edwards is endorsing Sen. Barack Obama's presidential candidacy Wednesday evening, in a dramatic attempt by the Obama campaign to answer concerns regarding Obama's appeal to working-class voters, several senior Democratic sources tell ABC News.

It's good timing - Obama needs this boost at this juncture - he's very close to closing on the nomination.

If I recall correctly, Edwards has already indicated that he doesn't want the VP slot - and those kind of statements aren't worth squat in politics. If offered, I suspect he'd accept - and this endorsement should get the rumor mill going.

Reaction from the Clinton camp (same link as above):

Edwards and his wife had publicly praised Clinton's healthcare plan, but Edwards' anti-corporate message seemed a better fit for Obama's outsider campaign.

Campaign Chairman Terry McAuliffe responded to the endorsement this evening both during a quick press availability outside of the Senator's residence, and in a paper statement.

"We respect John Edwards," McAuliffe said, "but as the voters of West Virginia showed last night, this thing is far from over."

A source close to the Clinton campaign said the Edwards camp gave the Clinton folks a heads up.

"Clearly it's upsetting," the source tells ABC. "He brings the workers" to Obama.

"Well I don't think it's good news, but there's a lot of news in this business and we move forward and move past it. It's not great news," a Clinton senior advisor said.

Asked what effect the Edwards endorsement might have, he said: "We don't know. We'll see. We'll see how much of it is transferable," referring to Edwards' popularity with white working class voters.

"We would've preferred it," to be our endorsement the advisor said. That's not a secret.

Clinton met today with six uncommitted superdelegates at the DCCC offices on Capitol Hill.

This advisor said the Clinton campaign believes superdelegates are concerned about Obama's loss in West Virginia last night and other swing states.

"No question -- that started with Ohio and increased with Pennsylvania, Indiana and West Virginia," he said. "All I can say is, I don't want to overdramatize it, but starting with Ohio the remaining superdelegates started really focusing on the 270 electoral vote issue and how do we best assemble that and it's made a marked impression."

But then in a moment of candor the advisor conceded, "I'm not sure it's gonna be enough."

Update: Obama and Edwards are trying their best to kill the buzz for Clinton as she comes off Tuesday's 41 point romp over Obama in West Virginia - meanwhile the following bit of conjecture may explain why Edwards didn't go the distance in his bid for the nomination:

David "Mudcat" Saunders, a chief adviser for Edwards on rural affairs during the presidential campaign, said the endorsement should take some sting out of Obama's resounding loss in West Virginia.

"For Barack Obama, I think he ought to kiss Johnny Edwards on the lips to kill this 41-point loss," Saunders said.

I'm not so sure that's the best way to shore up Obama's sagging approval ratings in rural America.

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Obama is still the fundraising king, but Clinton has done quite well also. This is another sign that the nomination process is winding down.

I'm not sure how Clinton will benefit from this, and whether it will help her retire her debt, but I wouldn't be surprised if some money flows back for that purpose.

Democratic presidential rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton can agree on one thing - they want their party to have more money, no matter who is the nominee.

The Democratic National Committee announced Wednesday that it had signed agreements with both campaigns to begin raising money together.

As part of the agreement, donors can contribute up to $33,100 to the newly created Democratic White House Victory Fund. Most of the money will benefit whichever candidate becomes the nominee.

Officials at the DNC said Chairman Howard Dean has been working with both campaigns on the idea since February.

At the end of March, the DNC had $5.3 million in the bank, compared to $31 million for the Republican National Committee.

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Wealthy Republican businessman Mike Erickson has had great success as a college football player, holding the record for field goals at 32 for Portland State University, and in business has also proven very successful. But a new bombshell may once again dash Erickson's hopes for winning any elective office.

Oregon's tossup 5th Congressional District seat to replace longtime Democratic Congresswoman Darlene Hooley, who is retiring, is one of the best hopes of the GOP to pickup a seat in Congress this year. Republicans slightly outnumber Democrats in this district. Erickson hoped a massive carpetbombing of the airwaves with paid TV ad after ad to unfairly destroy his Republican opponent, former state legislator, Kevin Mannix, over a number of 83 tax issues he supported while in legislature would be enough to help him capture the nomination over Mannix.

Erickson never expected Mannix to also fight dirty and drop the abortion bomb on him. Mannix produced a woman who claims that Erickson got her pregnant and gave her money for an abortion and dropped her off at an abortion clinic and left her there. Not the type of conduct you would normally expect from someone like Erickson who is running on a pro-life, pro-family campaign platform.

This latest bombshell should be yet another wakeup call to voters in this battleground Congressional district that candidate Mike Erickson seems more than willing to tell conservative GOP primary voters absolutely anything to get elected, even if the reality is sometimes far different. Erickson would no doubt be highly likely to vote for many tax issues while in Congress. He is strongly pro-military, and has shown no willingness to want to save $500 billion tax dollars by supporting de-funding the Iraq War for example.

Erickson is far more likely to support smaller million dollar cuts in human services programs for food stamps like most Republican tax and spenders in Congress do. Yesterday, in West Virginia where Hillary Clinton won the votes among poorer White voters, 1/6 of the residents of this poorer state collect food stamps due to extreme poverty. And Erickson is running on a strong anti-illegal immigrant platform as well, that offends many Hispanics as being highly racially motivated in nature.

The Erickson abortion bombshell story is yet another example of GOP candidates for office attempting to paint themselves as "pro-family" to conservative voters, even if the truth may be far from the reality. During the 2000 election campaign, HUSTLER Magazine publisher Larry Flynt hit candidate George Bush with allegations that he got a 15 year old girl pregnant in 1971 while serving in the National Guard in Texas, and that his father's Congressional office might even have been used to help arrange an abortion which was illegal under Texas law back in 1971, prior to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

The Bush family may even have acted to quiet down any family scandal that might hurt the father's standing among voters in his Texas Congressional district according to the story. However, in the case of the Bush abortion story, while the woman denies the story in the Erickson case the woman involved now confirms the story to two major Oregon newspapers, THE PORTLAND TRIBUNE and THE OREGONIAN.

If anything, Erickson now finds himself typecast as the latest example of a Larry Craig Republican "family values" morality hypocrisy, where conservative GOP candidates for office and politicians paint themselves as moral pillars of society, but then are brought back down to Earth like a Senator David Vitter (R-LA) when a different reality is found out. Running for office as a "Ronald Reagan" type Republican is certainly far better than having to run as a "Larry Craig" type Republican.

Erickson has spent a great deal of money to paint one image of himself to conservative GOP voters in his district. In his fairytale image of himself to the voters, no one pays taxes, or at least any tax increases, illegal immigrants aren't pouring over the borders, and Erickson isn't driving pregnant girlfriends to abortion clinics. Such are the things of some GOP fairy tales.

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Tags: Congress, Election 2008, Politics

West Virginia Democratic Primary - 100% of the precincts reporting

• Hillary Clinton - 239,062 - 67% - winner
• Barack Obama - 91,652 - 26%

Clinton vows to press on:

Sen. Hillary Clinton used her big win in West Virginia on Tuesday to make her case that she has a better chance of beating the Republicans in the general election.

Sen. Hillary Clinton told supporters Tuesday that she believes she's the stronger candidate.

"I am more determined than ever to carry on this campaign," she told supporters in Charleston, West Virginia.

"I am in this race because I believe I am the strongest candidate. ... I can lead this party to victory in the general election if you lead me to victory now."

• CNN Exit Poll Data - link

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Ignore what the right wing blogosphere is telling you about the dire consequences of the Democratic proposals to raise the capital gains tax -- as usual they are just trying to scare you into voting for their candidate.

This just out:

Affluent investors say a small increase in the capital gains tax, as suggested by Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, wouldn't affect their investment decisions.

According to the annual Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times investor poll, 69 percent of upper-income investors say a raise in the capital gains tax to 20 percent from 15 percent wouldn't cause them to sell assets they would otherwise hold.

During the presidential campaign, both Democratic candidates said they would increase the tax on investment income.

The nation can't continue to rack up debt forever, despite the Bush administrations attempts to the contrary. And Republicans love to counter Democratic proposals with the bleating plea "Yes, but how would they pay for it?"

Henry Lennon, a surgeon and poll participant in Boca Raton, Florida, who gets significant income from investments, says a 5 percentage-point increase isn't enough to make him alter his portfolio.

``I wouldn't sell anything I now hold because all my investments are long-term,'' the 61-year-old Republican voter says.

Clinton has said she's open to increasing the rate on capital gains and dividends modestly, though not higher than 20 percent and only on Americans with income above $250,000. Obama wants the rate to rise from the current 15 percent level, but not to the 28 percent rate that existed under former President Ronald Reagan.

Both candidates claim their proposed changes wouldn't stifle economic growth, while Republican presidential nominee John McCain has said boosting the rate would ``decrease the income of 100 million of Americans'' and ``doesn't make any sense.''

Upper-income investors in the poll tend to side with the Democratic view.

100 million Americans? I think what McCain is doing is citing a figure of 100 million because that many Americans own stock in one form or another, and he's trying to claim that a capital gains tax would adversely effect 100 million Americans.

I don't buy that - and I don't know where he's getting that number. Yes, many Americans own stock, but lots of Americans only own stocks through retirement plans; 401Ks, IRAs, etc - none of which are subject to capital gains tax. And yes, you can end up paying the tax when you sell your home - but 100 million people - sounds like an exaggeration to me.

Regardless, affluent investors are where the bulk of investments reside, and these investors are saying the increases of 5 percent won't impact their decision-making. Would it prevent you from selling your house? Of course not.

Update: I did more digging, and apparently McCain's statement regarding 100 million Americans paying capital gains tax is indeed bullshit. It's already been fact-checked and proven wrong:

McCain's comments imply that 100-million people would see higher tax bills due to capital gains increases. This significantly inflates the number of people who pay capital gains taxes, even at the lower rate. Eric Toder, a tax policy expert with the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., pointed us to IRS data that show about 16.2-million taxpayers were subject to capital gains taxes in 2005, the most recent year for which data are available. Additionally, most of the gains reported in 2005 -- about 81 percent -- were claimed by taxpayers making $200,000 a year or more, the top 2.7 percent of tax returns. We don't think of them as "policemen, firemen, nurses."

Republicans are lying, as usual...

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The conservative "media monitoring" site Newsbusters is busily swiftboating John Weiler, a lifelong Republican who appears in the MoveOn.org sponsored Obama TV ad competition winner. It looks to me like they may have gotten this one wrong - dead wrong, and deserve the proverbial pie in the face because of it.

Here's the ad, which I posted last night:

Less than 12 hours later readers are responding in the comment section of the post. First we hear from Ron:

As a Air Force 30 year old enlisted retiree I think he is a fake. He said he was in the Air Force for 6 years, 1983-1989 and made MSgt in 6 years. It just doesn't happen. Newsbusters.com said the same thing.

And then JLawson adds his concern:

Ditto on the time in rank/time in grade thing. MSgt in 6 years? He'd be doing good to have been selected for WAPS testing and done well enough to make Staff Sergeant - E-5, and there's no way he could have been bumped to E-7. (Actually, there's one way. But he wouldn't have wanted to do it, and it's pretty unlikely.)

Minimum MSgt eligibility requirements are 8 years Time in Service, 24 months Time in Grade, and finishing Supervisory Level (7-level) training. Minimum Tech Sergeant (E-6) Time in Service is 5 years, Time in Grade is 23 months. Virtually nobody makes the minimums, no matter how much of a star you are. You've got promotion cycles to consider (which are usually annual) and you DON'T get to test before you're eligible.

So overall? Smells bogus to me on the rank...

So I fact checked the fact checkers, and found that there is a bit of a spin going on by Newsbusters - they write:

"He served in the Air Force from 1983 to 1989, leaving the service as a master sergeant," according to the AP. Is that not amazing? The Air Force Enlisted Promotions Fact Sheet shows promotion to Master Sergeant (E-7) requires eight years in the service. According to Military.com, "The average service wide active duty time for advancement to the rank of Master Sergeant is 17.06 years."

"Master Sergeant" isn't what the AP story says at all:

He served in the Air Force from 1983 to 1989, leaving the service as a staff sergeant. He said he has two nephews in the Air Force and one nephew attending Army tanker school and has grown to oppose the war in Iraq.

It appears that Newsbusters misquoted - flat out misquoted -- the AP story, then proceeded to swiftboat this veteran across the blogosphere. Why? Because he's a Republican veteran who plans to vote for Obama. They appear to be desperate in their attempt to discredit Weiler - and look at the speed with which their lie spreads....

Here's what the Air Force chart linked to in the Newsbusters post says about the time required to reach the grades in question:

It appears from this that Staff Sergeant (SSgt) only requires three years, and Weiler served for six.

Why would Newsbusters spin this -- blatantly misquoting an AP story?

Update: Commenter Eric points out that the AP story lists a correction at the bottom of this version stating that they had previously listed Weiler as Master Sergeant, and correcting the story to indicate that Weiler was a Staff Sergeant.

And I found a comment by JeffWeimer in the Newsbusters thread timestamped 10pm ET last night - 14 hours ago - citing this correction.

Here we are 14 hours later, and Newsbusters has not posted a correction. They've allowed their lie to continue without correction, and if you read the Newsbusters comment thread readers there are still treating the story as factual, and this lie is spreading across the blogosphere.

Check out this freeze frame of the video to see just how far and just how desperate Newsbusters was to swiftboat this Republican vet who dared say he intended to vote for Obama.

Not only did Weiler not "say he'd made Master Sergeant" - the video identifies him as a Staff Sergeant - plain as day.

I'm glad we have watchdog sites like Newsbusters around to keep that liberal media from spreading its lies.... aren't you?

Update II: John Weiler's wife Michelle contributes in the comment thread of the original post post - link.

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Tags: Ad, Barack Obama, Contest, John Weiler, MoveOn, MoveOn.org, Newsbusters, Obama, Obamacan, Sergeant, Television, Weiler, Winner

This premiered May 13, 2008.

related: "Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros"

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Tags: Flight of the Conchords, Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros, Ladies of the World

This is the ad that won the MoveOn.org competition.

A straightforward advertisement featuring a lifelong Republican and military veteran who is supporting Barack Obama has won MoveOn.org's "Obama in 30 Seconds" ad contest and will begin airing on cable and network stations in key battleground states Ohio, Wisconsin, and Colorado.

The ad, called "Obamacan" and created by Californians David Gaw and Lance Mungia, was chosen from 1,100 entries by a "celebrity panel" that included director Oliver Stone as well as 5.5 million people who voted at the MoveOn website.

In the 30-second spot, U.S. Air Force vet John Weiler says he's a lifelong Republican who served under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush but will vote for Obama because he can unite the "left, right, Democrats, and Republicans."

MoveOn, which announced the winner this morning, has pledged to spend $200,000 to air the ad, and is using the ad as a fundraising tool--asking supporters to give so it can run in other markets.

Mungia, an Obama supporter, said he was inspired by an Obama meeting in California attended by an "independent, a Democrat, and a Republican sitting side by side" and "passionate about the same issues."

Update: John Weiler's wife Michelle contributes in the comment thread - link.

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Just another example of Republicans protecting their lousy decisions -- with more lousy decisions, trying to keep the lies going until after the election:

The Bush administration repeatedly ignored corruption at the highest levels within the Iraqi government and kept secret potentially embarrassing information so as not to undermine its relationship with Baghdad, according to two former State Department employees.

Arthur Brennan, who briefly served in Baghdad as head of the department's Office of Accountability and Transparency last year, and James Mattil, who worked as the chief of staff, told Senate Democrats on Monday that their office was understaffed and its warnings and recommendations ignored.

Brennan also alleges the State Department prevented a congressional staffer visiting Baghdad from talking with staffers by insisting they were too busy. In reality, Brennan said, the staffers were watching movies at the embassy and on their computers. The staffers' workload had been cut dramatically because of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's "evisceration" of Iraq's top anti-corruption office, he said.

The State Department's policies "not only contradicted the anti-corruption mission but indirectly contributed to and has allowed corruption to fester at the highest levels of the Iraqi government," Brennan told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee.

The U.S. embassy "effort against corruption - including its new centerpiece, the now-defunct Office of Accountability and Transparency - was little more than 'window dressing,'" he added.

The Office of Accountability and Transparency, or "OAT" team, was intended to provide assistance and training to Iraq's anti-corruption agencies. It was dismantled last December, after it alleged in a draft report leaked to the media that al-Maliki's office had derailed or prevented investigations into Shiite-controlled agencies.

The draft report sparked hearings in Congress and prompted a showdown between Democrats and senior State Department officials on whether the public has a right to know the extent to which al-Maliki was involved in corruption cases.

Brennan charges the State Department never responded to his team's report, which was retroactively classified because agency officials said it could hurt bilateral relations with Iraq. Other recommendations by the group also were kept secret, including a negative assessment of Iraq's Joint Anti-Corruption Committee, Brennan said.

Its way past time to vote these clowns out of Washington.

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There's no sign that the continued and lengthy Democratic nomination race is having a detrimental effect on the Dems' chances for a White House win in November, contrary to the bloviations of Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy.

With Clinton continuing to campaign hard, concerns about what the protracted Clinton-Obama battle could do to the party's chances of beating probable Republican presidential nominee, John McCain, in the fall, continue to be raised. However, according to Gallup Poll Daily tracking from May 7-11, both Democratic candidates are now beating McCain among national registered voters in Gallup Poll Daily trial heats for the fall election.

Obama leads McCain by four points, 47% to 43%. Clinton leads McCain by five points, 49% to 44%. Both leads represent the candidates' highest margins over McCain, to date, since Gallup began tracking the general election ballots in early March.

Maybe this will shut up the Obamatrons who keep yammering on that Clinton is harming Obama's chances in November. It's total crap.

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News outlets like Fox will do their best to fan the flames longer, as we see in both of these clips.

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Tags: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton

There is no question that Barack Obama is a stronger leader now than he was six months ago. I made that point a few days ago here:

Politics is dirty business, and much of the teeth gnashing over in-fighting between Clinton and Obama camps is just inexperience talking on the part of the large number of Obama supporters who are now engaged in a process that is new to them. They've never experienced this kind of rallying push before, and they've never believed in a candidate as much as they believe in Barack Obama, and they are understandably distressed at the ugliness of the battle it takes to win on the road to the White House.

To those people I say welcome to politics. I'm a firm believer in the axiom -- and this is especially true in politics -- that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Both Clinton and Obama stand taller than ever before. They stand as the best candidates from a very impressive field of Democratic hopefuls, and they both stand proud of their success with huge legions of supporters behind them who are equally proud. They've fought the good fight, and emerged on top.

Now, in an column titled "The Upside of Being Knocked Around," NY Times writer Mark Leibovich present evidence to support this thesis.

So, now that it might finally be over (or maybe close to it, possibly, perhaps), does Senator Barack Obama come out a bloody mess, or a battle-tested warrior?

In recent weeks, a wiseguy consensus seems to have settled on the former: the idea that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has so weakened Mr. Obama in the race for the Democratic nomination -- so diminished him, distracted him, exhausted him -- that he could be a grievously damaged nominee.

The wiseguys invoke the Republican race of 1976 and Democratic contest of 1980 as examples of what happens when candidates -- Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, respectively -- get battered in primaries, emerging damaged in the summer and losers in the fall. They mention surveys showing almost 50 percent of Clinton supporters in Indiana telling exit pollsters that they would sooner vote for Senator John McCain or stay home than vote for Mr. Obama. They suggest that by staying in the race, Mrs. Clinton is playing a spoiler's role.

But there is a competing view that says that Mrs. Clinton, rather than being a spoiler, has in fact been an unwitting mentor to Mr. Obama, a teaching adversary who made him better. Could competing against Mrs. Clinton have improved Mr. Obama as a candidate in the same way that competing against Larry Bird and Magic Johnson in the 1980s made Isiah Thomas and Michael Jordan champions in the 1990s?

One of the side effects of a rigorous nomination process, and this one is a classic, stellar example of this, is that people who don't normally get involved in politics find their voice, and become more aware and more involved. The long, drawn out nomination process that is still being played out in West Virginia, Guam, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, South Dakota and Kentucky has invigorated and electrified the citizenry of the 43 states that have held Democratic primaries and caucuses.

For the first time in a very long time their votes have counted. It even woke up conservative Wizbang blogger Lorie Byrd, who lives in North Carolina:

What an amazing election season this has turned out to be. [...]

For the first time in my adult life, North Carolina matters in a presidential primary. We've gotten visits from the candidates and their spouses and their kids, we got an incredible amount of media attention last week over the NC GOP ad featuring Jeremiah Wright, and now it looks like we might even get to see a pretty decent contest here to boot. Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina next Tuesday.

The Times' Leibovich outlines 5 reasons why Obama is a stronger, better candidate now as a result of this rigorous campaign {see the article for detailed arguments, space prohibits including the full text of each of his points):

1. She Made Him A Giant Killer.

No matter what happens in the fall, if Mr. Obama goes on to win the nomination, he will be remembered as the candidate who beat the Clintons.

"He is stronger for having beaten the champion," says Ed Rogers, a Republican lobbyist and former aide to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. "Period, case closed." Clinton-slaying brings with it a level of stature and prestige that, say, John Edwards-slaying or Joe Biden-slaying never could.

Continue reading "What Didn't Kill Barack Made Him Stronger" »

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Filed under: WB-Blue: Commentary
Tags: Barack Obama, General Election, Hillary Clinton, John McCain

Conspiracy of the week:

fliesinthekitchen: It's undetectable at normal speed, but I was editing this footage in Final Cut Pro and going through it frame-by-frame when I saw this.

Fox News guilty of subliminally supporting McCain?

Continue reading "The Sunday Conspiracies: Fox News" »

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Filed under: WB-Blue: Entertainment
Tags: cigar

Democrats are going to change the world this November, and it will be a beautiful thing as the two factions of the Democratic party start to come together and coalesce forces, joining hands and joining purposes, moving forward together... united -- a singular mission at last.

It won't be easy, but it won't be all that difficult either. We're all Americans, and most of all -- we're all Democrats. We may have disagreed on the path we should take to get to the White House, but both sides of the Democratic party are committed to winning the keys to the White House this November.

We'll need to start in places like Maryland's Allegany County:

In Western Maryland's Allegany County, where Barack Obama got less than one-third of the vote in the state's Feb. 12 Democratic primary, Bill DuVall knows his neighbors harbor misgivings about the man who appears likely to be the party's presidential nominee. "A lot of the talk I have heard hasn't been positive," said DuVall, business agent for a carpenters' union and chairman of the county Democratic Central Committee. [...]

As Obama moves within reach of the Democratic nomination, the Illinois senator faces the challenge of a general election that will hinge in part on his ability to suture intra-party rifts exposed by the primaries.

I don't believe that it's solely up to Obama. No question he needs to reach out and welcome former Clinton supporters into the camp - but the job isn't his alone. Hillary Clinton should, and I'm confident will, reach out as well and help pull together Democrats, helping to unite the party.

But it will take more than Hillary and Barack's efforts. It will take all of us Democrats reaching out to heal the divide that'll really drive this process forward, and help it to reach its fullest potential.

And the lesson we learn as we Democrats reaching across our own internal divide will inform and guide us as we continue to reach out to independents and Republicans as well. Let's not coalesce Democrats for the purpose of waging war on Republicans -- let's learn from the process of gathering and healing our own internal rifts and turn those lessons towards reaching out and healing the greater divides that still separate all of us Americans, red and blue, old and young, rich and poor, black and white and yellow and brown.

The process we follow and the results we achieve in the near term healing of the Democratic party can and should be extended as far as possible, reaching out to all Americans.

We Democrats, sharply divided for quite some time, will find the common ground and eventually stand united. The lessons we learn along the way should be applied towards healing the divides across party lines as well.

The tasks before us our daunting, but the potential is monumental. We, the people, have a golden opportunity to rebuild this nation and help our leaders set a new course for democracy worldwide. That work begins today, and it starts with you and me.

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Filed under: WB-Blue: Commentary
Tags: Allegany County, Barack Obama, democrats, Hillary Clinton, independents, Maryland, republicans

The Republican National Comittee (RNC) is leveling their sights on Obama. This is a web-only video - at 1 minute 23 seconds its clearly not intended for broadcast television.

They've launched a companion website called "Can We Ask?"

If this is the best the GOP can come up with it'll be smooth sailing all the way to White House for the Obamas. It' s particularly pathetic up against yesterday's statements by Cindy McCain that she will not, under any circumstances, answer questions about the McCain family finances with the release of her past tax returns.

When it comes to the American people asking about McCain's money the answer is "No, You can't ask that..."

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Filed under: WB-Blue: News
Tags: Attack Ad, Cindy McCain, John McCain, McBush, RNC

What are these people hiding?

Cindy McCain says she will never make her tax returns public even if her husband wins the White House and she becomes the first lady.

"You know, my husband and I have been married 28 years and we have filed separate tax returns for 28 years. This is a privacy issue. My husband is the candidate," Cindy McCain, wife of Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting John McCain, said in an interview aired on NBC's "Today" on Thursday.

Asked if she would release her tax returns if she was first lady, Cindy McCain said: "No."

Ten bucks says John McCain doesn't know anything about her assets, how much taxes she pays or doesn't pay, etc.

This stinks - and has the potential to cost John McBush the election.

UPDATE: Just a few hours after Cindy McCain made that statement the Democratic National Committee announced their intention to pursue the matter:

In her interview with TODAY's Ann Curry, Cindy McCain stated that she would not release her tax returns -- even if she becomes first lady.