The Dish

A reader writes:

I just read your blog posting on Limbaugh’s view that he is responsible for Hillary’s win in PA. I am one of the individuals that changed his/her party registration from Republican to Democrat.  I did this because the Republican ideals of rational government, fiscal responsibility, and states’ rights over federal rights have been thrown out for religious fanaticism, federal control over every action, and spending out of control.  I changed my registration to vote for change…to vote for Obama.

It is cute that Limbaugh saw that the electorate is upset with the Republicans and made up this Operation Chaos as a means of attempting to jump on the band wagon, but the underlying effect is clear. People are not changing from Republican to Democrat to assist the Republican Party in the fall.  They are changing their party registrations because they lost faith in the Republicans to lead.  If Limbaugh and others do not wake up to this fact, they will be given another great election result such as 2006.

 

Operation Chaos should be called Operation Smoke Screen.

That’s what the Hannitys and Buchanans and Kristols don’t get: the next generation just isn’t trapped in the 1970s:

"Harold and Kumar’s attitude toward racism is more frustration at having to deal with idiocy than moral outrage. We try to create a world where racism is stupid."

Not evil, stupid.

The graphic on the costs of Obama’s and Clinton’s proposals from the WaPo editorial page is a useful and sobering one. The bottom line:

While both Democratic candidates would spend far more on new programs than Mr. McCain would, the Republican’s proposals for new tax cuts dwarf the Democrats’ plans. The Democrats are clearer than Mr. McCain — though that’s a relative term — about how they would foot the bill. Still, no one’s winning any awards this campaign season for fiscal responsibility.

The lack of courage on both sides is pretty dispiriting. Meanwhile, the debt mounts …

A reader writes:

Now that I am recovering from the Pennsylvania Hangover, I thought I would share how I have resolved myself to this continued drama, as one of your typical readers.
 
Since it is painfully obvious that She Who Must Not Be Named is going to take this battle into Denver (if not into November, as Jon Stewart "joked"), I that it is not the cowardice of the superdelegates to put an end to this, but the nearly unspoken necessity of sitting back and allowing the Clinton Campaign to play it out to its tragic conclusion. To allow that campaign to hang itself. Otherwise, Clinton will be a "victim". Again. This time it would not be the Great Right Wing Conspiracy, but their own party that has denied them. By allowing her to undeniably LOSE this nomination, with as little manipulative involvement possible, she will be forced to accept the truth of the matter, without relying on conspiracy excuses. She and her supporters can not be allowed to lose this with the slightest possibility of feeling robbed.

There is the possibility that she will irreversibly bloody Obama up before the end, and that would be part of the Greek tragedy of the Clinton legacy. However, as much of a shame it might be to sacrifice a "new voice" in politics, at least a destructive voice in present day politics might finally be silenced.

The key truth about the Clintons is that they are strongest when being attacked. It was Gingrich that gave Clinton purpose and direction in the mid-1990s; and it was Ken Starr who gave them a life-line in thr late 1990s. They are geniuses at pivoting off those who attack them. So the real answer to the Clintons is to let them collapse on their own terms, to watch them fail to get the necessary votes and delegates to win and desperately try to leverage the constructive forces of their opponent to gain back the White House.

Every push against them only strengthens them more. Obama needs to restate his core positive message, reach out to independents, Republicans, Hispanics, blacks and the young, and get out of the Clintons’ sociopathic path. You only get bloodied if you fight them. And watching them self-destruct, slowly and by their own efforts, is the only way they will not turn defeat into some kind of Pyrrhic victory.

And when they finally go down under the weight of their own cynicism, what a joyous day that will be. That day is coming. And a new hope lies beyond it.

A shrewd observation about Senate Dems from a Kaus reader.

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.