Being A Better Husband

This tip struck home:

Take care of that late night snack or morning cereal bowl.  Setting them in the sink is one thing, but go that extra mile and actually put them in the dishwasher. After all, no one enjoys scraping bacon dip off a bowl that’s been sitting too long or smelling the chili from the night before. A beer bottle on the counter the next morning is even worse.

Sorry, hon. But some things gay husbands don’t have to worry about:

Remember, she’s your wife, not one of your buddies. Don’t burp during dinner, or squeeze one out during the movie as she’s reaching for the popcorn.

Yeah, we don’t much care. And we have Citrus Magic for the nasty ones.

Farrakhan Reax

Some further thoughts. Visceral hate of Tim Russert seems to have protected Obama from the weakness of his Farrakhan answer. Josh Marshall says it was Russert’s lowest moment:

As a Jew and perhaps more importantly simply as a sentient being I found it disgusting. It was a nationwide, televised, MSM version of one of those noxious Obama smear emails.

Matt makes a similar point:

The way Russert handled the Louis Farrakhan issue was, I thought, pretty egregious but about what I expect from him. Clinton’s classless handling of the aftermath was also about what I expect from her at this point.

Marc sees fault in Obama’s answer but blames the circumstances:

There are some things you just don’t do in American politics: calling Farrakhan “minister Farrakhan” is one of them. He’s been declared persona non grata by everyone in the mainstream of our politics. It seemed to take badgering by Clinton for Obama to reject it explicitly (although he did not embrace it and had distanced himself from it before). I don’t think Obama’s at fault here. I think the circumstances conspired against him, but it just didn’t sound right.

Joe Klein thinks Obama barely saved himself:

Bad moment by Obama, later redeemed. Russert asked if he rejected Farrakhan’s support. Obama said he denounced Farrakhan’s antisemitism–which was to say, I don’t like him but I won’t kick away his (or the Nation of Islam’s) support. Incredibly, Clinton saved him by mentioning that she had rejected the support of an anti-semitic fringe group in 2000. He responded brilliantly, "I would reject and denounce." There is a growing, despicable movement to denounce and defame Obama among right-wing Jews and this would have given them ammunition. He escaped, narrowly.

Who You Are

I just prised the results of a recent reader survey out of the live hands of the Atlantic‘s business staff. Thanks to those who filled out the pop-up form. Here’s some data about who you are, based on a survey sample of a couple of thousand. You’re 73 percent male; a third of you are under 40; the Dish’s biggest age bracket is 41 – 45. It’s a very well-educated crowd: 22 percent of you have a graduate degree; 17 percent have a professional degree; and 8 percent have PhDs. Taken together, well over half of you have some sort of post-grad education. 27 percent of you are single or never married; 50 percent of you are married; 13 percent of you are partenered or in a civil union; 7 percent are divorced. 72 percent of you have no children in your home. You’re also affluent. Only 22 percent of you earn $50K or less. Another fifth earn between $50K and $75K. Well over half have household income of over $100K a year.

The ideological mix: 2.5 percent of you describe yourselves as very conservative;

9.6 percent as conservative; 33.3 percent as moderate; 38.1 percent as liberal; and 16.5 percent as very liberal. I’m, not sure whether this is a function of my Obama love, or what. There was no category for libertarian, alas, which might mean something. Geographically, our biggest state is the biggest state by population: California, with 15.3 percent of the readership. Next up: New York, with 10 percent. But it’s striking how dispersed you all are after that. There are Dish readers in every state, except South Dakota. You’re 89 percent in America; with 3 percent in Britain and Canada each. 27 percent do not live in a major metropolitan area.

You like multi-tasking: 86 percent reported that they liked the morass of info coming at them in the new media age. Almost half of you check blogs several times a day. 69 percent of you have commented on websites. 56 percent have contributed to a political campaign.

No big surprise: one of the most educated, informed and affluent readerships on the web. And seven years ago? A handful of friends read this blog. You gotta love new media.

Googlebombing Obama

The far right does its stuff. Among the links they want to send soaring up Google’s charts:

* Guess whose mentor is a Communist? Obama, that’s who!

* Why isn’t Obama patriotic enough to hold his hand over his heart for the Star Spangled banner?

* What has Obama got against flag pins?

At some point it will dawn on them that their kind of politics is no longer very viable. I can’t wait for the moment that the right finally understands it needs positive arguments to defeat Obama, not smears. Ross is right:

Going down the race-card path wouldn’t be some brilliant machiavellian move on the part of the McCain camp, as Halperin suggests, but the purest sort of folly.

Clinton And The Seniors

Whence the love? I asked; you answered. Many of you shared this reader’s reaction:

For one thing, they tend to be more racist than younger Americans.

Other readers made this point:

I think as voters get older they favor the familiar, and are more open to messages that harken back to the past, to a day they may remember (rightly or wrongly) as better.

And yet others took this route:

Hillary’s base is skewed female.  And as we all know, men die off first.  There are a lot more women over 65 than men.

This anecdote seems closest to the truth:

Growing up near Pittsburgh, which has an elderly population among the highest per capita in the nation, I think that seniors support Clinton largely because they remember the struggles of the last 50 years insofar as civil and women’s rights are concerned.  They remember all the opposition along the way, and they feel that opposition still exists to an extent today. 

My father is 68, and has said vehemently that — although he might support Obama — he just doesn’t believe the nation is ready to vote for a black President.  Another long-time family friend, almost 70 and Jewish, told me that he thinks there are still too many racist people in America, and that Obama doesn’t have chance in the general electorate.  He told me this over dinner one night, and I said to him, "I hope you’re wrong."  He said, "So do I, but I doubt it." 

Today on the phone with my father — who has also been a broadcast journalist in Pittsburgh for almost 50 years — he told me that it looks like Obama will get the nomination but that McCain will "blow him out of the water."  To him, Obama is too young, too black, and too different to win. 

It’s a cautious cynicism.  It’s not anti-hope, but it is hope-weary. I think Barack simply still has some muscle left to show and some inspiring left to do.