Category: The Dish

The Democrats are now deploying the same kind of campaign ad as the Republicans. Depressing.

He’s on Bill Moyers tonight. The promo:

K-Lo would die and go to heaven.

Bernard Henri-Levy explains.

Fallows praises Gates and his speeches this week:

Gates starts out miles ahead simply by not being the man he replaced at the Pentagon, the odious Donald Rumsfeld. And even though Gates has implemented essentially the same Administration policy and administered the same gigantic budget that Rumsfeld left him, he has defended and explained his policies in ways suggesting that he has noticed, thought about, and attempted to address opposing views. This is in contrast to the haughty sneering-away of opposition so familiar from the Rumsfeld days.

"Who would I be a good vice presidential pick for? I don’t know if the Libertarian Party has had, since its foundation—and I say this most modestly—a bigger fish. They’d had Ron Paul and Bob Barr: Two congressmen. Two congressmen do not make a senator. Four congressman, maybe, make a senator, but not two congressmen." – Mike Gravel, in an interview with Dave Weigel.

Maybe I should be less forgiving:

All I can tell you, Jennifer, is that I think it’s very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States. So apparently has Danny Ortega and several others. I think that people should understand that I will be Hamas’s worst nightmare….If senator Obama is favored by Hamas I think people can make judgments accordingly.

Ugh. It’s not fair to tarnish Obama by associating him with a soundbite from Jeremiah Wright; but it is fine to associate him with Hamas.

He’s unveiling a major voter registration effort.

A fundraiser responsible for half a million and a former Clinton-appointed ambassador is switching to Obama.

Depressing:

In February I was a 55 year old white woman trying to choose a candidate, feeling drawn to Hillary. Then I listened to Obama speak and I was inspired. I felt as I had not felt since March 16, 1968 (my 16th birthday) when Bobby Kennedy announced he was running for president. So I chose Obama and volunteered to help his campaign.

I canvassed in my local area, Dresher. As I spoke to my neighbors, my heart sank. Several people told me the country wasn’t ready for a black president. One person right out said he would never vote for a black person for president. (Stunned, I stammered that he was only half black.) One person said "the blacks get everything already." Three of my Jewish neighbors (and friends) said that they believed Obama either was a Muslim or had Muslim ties.

More:

"I voted for Hillary," said the first person I ran into, Shelley Goodman, a 53-year-old psychologist walking her coonhound, Blue. "I don’t think this country is ready for a black president." This again.

Goodman has adopted or fostered a household of mixed-race children, and so she is speaking from a giant heart. "In this country, you are not half-black," she went on. "If you are any black, you are all black. We have a very skewed view in the East Coast. We think everyone thinks as open-mindedly as we do."

And so the "open-minded" reward the closed-minded. Go figure.