The Dish

A reader writes:

I can’t help but notice the effect Obama”s race speech had on the Daily Dish. Before the speech, your blog was mostly filled with anti-Clinton posts. They were so many that even I, a pro-Obama anti-Clinton reader, was getting annoyed at the negativity and vitriol that filled the dish.

Since the speech, you have returned to posting mostly about
a)  the positive aspects of Obama’s candidacy
b)  a substantive debate and reflection about the issue of race

If this doesn’t sum up the difference between the two candidates, I don’t know what does.

He brings out the best in a lot of us, doesn’t he? In the end, that’s my definition of leadership – not what he does, "the decider" – but what he inspires others to do, "the catalyst." I think this difference would be the defining distinction between a Clinton and an Obama presidency and it was what I was trying to express in Goodbye To All That. How great it would be to have a president with whom we could intelligently engage and from whom we could learn civility again. I think it’s already happening.

The South Park team have been at work on this for a while now, and if you’re a South Park groupie (as a lot of you are), you won’t be disappointed. It’s still in Beta but almost every episode is now available, and a ton of clips. People forget that South Park began online, and it’s great to see it now have a site that really pioneers the fusion of the web and television. Bonus Super Adventure Club clip:

Matt and Trey are interviewed here. Money quote from Matt:

I love the fact that Trey and I have gotten awards for being topical and satirical, but at the end of the day, we are just making jokes. If you ask me how to really solve the health-care crisis, I have fuckin’ no idea, and I don’t want to be a part of it. But I can make a little fat kid yell some emotional truth about it. That’s what we’ve figured out over the years. If you’re gonna make it a TV show, you would never do the actual politics of something, but you would do the emotions behind the politics. Who cares if it’s a right-or-wrong policy—here’s how it makes me feel. You’re not gonna get into a policy discussion with Cartman and Mr. Hankey and Jesus and shit.

Somehow easier and harder than blogging.

Andrew Patner helps unpack and explain what Obama’s neighborhood means to the candidate, and what it could mean for the rest of us. Well worth a read.

" They think they have a sense of entitlement to the presidency," – Bill Richardson on the Clintons. I still think an Obama-Richardson ticket is an intriguing idea.

You really have to read this Derbyshire post to believe it. I wonder what Michelle Malkin thinks.

The "conservative" curia goes after another heretic. Ask Bruce Bartlett how it feels. Three words: vive la resistance.

The solution for every struggling politician (including, alas, Obama):

Michael Totten reports on the pacification of the Iraqi town of Karmah, once a nest of al Qaeda and IED Central. Now, according to Michael, the non-Jihadist Sunnis are back in control:

“Last time I was out here,” Sergeant Perusich said, “everything was real kinetic. It has calmed down a lot. We don’t go around kicking in doors and throwing in flashbangs anymore. We used to to that a lot, go and bust doors in and run everything over.”

“Now we’re more like FBI agents,” Lieutenant Macak said.

“It helps if you ask the neighbors,” Sergeant Perusich said. “Everybody is really close. So if you ask somebody next door about someone and they say something different, it helps us in our tactical questioning.”

The vicious evil of al Qaeda essentially and eventually backfired. It should also be remembered that before the US invasion, al Qaeda was not terrorizing Karmah. We let them in; now we have gotten them out. If we leave? Who knows. This war is slowly creating the conditions for its total permanence.

She really is unvetted. This is an hilarious Youtube. Has anyone in the press actually asked Clinton about the discrepancy between her statements about her arrival in Tuzla and the actual video footage that refutes it? Or was there some other landing she is confusing it with? I’m trying to give her the benefit of the doubt here – because otherwise the size of the lie is so big it’s hard to believe she could believe she could get away with it.

Some troubling news from Iraq. It appears our bribes aren’t being paid on time.