The Dish

If you missed it, my response to his latest column is here.

"Hearing self-professed conservatives like Andrew Bacevich and Douglas Kmiec talk about the potential that Obama brings to the table helps to counter-balance an all too pervasive perception about Conservatism and the state of American politics that is promoted and reinforced by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Anne Coulter. The unconventional tone of Obama’s campaign finally allows some of the more level headed and intelligent proponents of the political right a chance to step around the outrageous and bitterly partisan discourse that has plagued American politics for so long and present a useful and, indeed, vital discussion about possible ways forward. There isn’t another campaign out there that has contributed to this measured dialectic of views and values, which is greatly to merit, whether he in fact becomes the nominee or not, of Barack Obama, and to the benefit of Americans as a whole. 

That this dialogue is starting to occur at all lends weight to what Obama may be capable of achieving in the White House, and serves to undercut many of the "empty change" allegations leveled at his campaign," – The Politics Of Scrabble.

"I think Governor Richardson was obviously free to endorse whoever he thought was the best candidate for president. I wish that he had followed the people of his state and endorsed Hillary Clinton, but it was certainly his right to endorse Barack Obama.," – Howard Wolfson, March 24, "Morning Joe."

"Superdelegates are supposed to vote their conscience and supposed to vote for person they think would make the best candidate and make the best president," – Howard Wolfson, February 13, 2008.
 

Poulos makes his case:

…we are going to get a Democratic president very soon now, and the longer we take getting one, the more brutal a change it’s going to be. And we’re all kidding ourselves if we think the GOP can stretch this reign out for another twelve-odd years. The numbers just don’t have it. […]

Obama is going to be the softest landing out of power that the Republicans are likely to get in the next 50 years. To blow this opportunity is to invite a world of hurt down the road. Yes, he’s a very liberal dude. But he’s not going to rub anyone’s face in the road-appled dirt…

Good enough to put him over the top for conservatives? Against John McCain? It’s hard for me to swallow despite the nice yard I’ve just spooled out for you. But it’s hard to deny that any other matchup headed down the pike will be any easier to choke down. And believe me: in the future, it’ll be force-fed.

Which means a bigger kitchen sink heading his way as Clintonites try to take advantage of the Wright stuff.

A toilet that does your laundry. Not as gross as it sounds.

That’s Clinton’s latest way of not being able to admit an error of memory or a lie. Was she also sleep-deprived in February when she made exactly the same claim? This this:

Occasionally, I am a human being like everybody else… For the first time in 12 or so years I misspoke.

Occasionally, I am a human being like everybody else. This is close to clinical delusions of grandeur. Does she really think that most of the time she is above being human? Do you know any human being who hasn’t misspoken in the last twelve years once? Or would ever claim such a thing? I sure couldn’t. And this from a candidate whose most famous campaign ad rests on her ability to make national security judgments at 3 am!

Bill Safire was right: she is and has for a long time been a congenital liar. I don’t mean by that that she deliberately and pre-meditatedly decides to deceive people. I mean she has long since forgotten the difference between truth and untruth (enabling addicts can do that to people). I mean that by seeking power and self-advancement for so many years, at the expense of any other human values, she has lost all sense of what the difference between truth and falsehood is, who she is, what really matters or any fundamental sense of perspective.

Once, I believe, she was motivated by good intentions and even now, I don’t think she believes she is advancing anything but the common good. But she can never believe that her interests and the common good could ever be in conflict, which is to say, she has lost a moral compass beyond narcissism. That is sad in a human being and we are all prey to it. But in a potential president, it is very dangerous. And she has so long excused all her moral transgressions by the fact that her foes must always be worse (yes, for Wolfson, who has long internalized the socipathy of the Clintons, even Obama is Ken Starr to her), she has long lost the ability to ask herself, deep down, who she really is any more. She is a lost and dangerous soul, as her husband still is. She is, in my view, unfit to be president. Truly, deeply unfit. And at some point, someone in the Democratic party has to take her aside and tell her the damage she is doing to herself, her party and her country is enough.

Look at this Primary Colors clip again. The very last few moments tell you everything.

Yesterday, Ella. Today: Bruce.

Count your blessings, however small: a slightly shorter primary season.

She has often said that candidates should be based entirely on their merits regardless of race and gender. But she also routinely deploys the gender card all the time, today in Pennsylvania. It is worth pointing out that Obama simply doesn’t make this kind of argument that black people should vote for him because he’s black. In this, in my view, he is simply more conservative or old-style than Clinton, as well as more principled.

The Clintons have used the race card, the patriotism card, the drugs card, the fear card, the gender card and the national security card against Obama. At least Obama is learning how to deal with Rove Republicans.