The Dish

Some readers open their eyes:

Just a very short note from an ex-Clintonite  to say that I finally get what you’ve been trying to tell us about the Clintons.  I see what they’ve been doing to undermine the Obama campaign. It reeks of Rove and the worst kind of machine politics. I can’t face the prospect of another four (or eight) years of what Bill Clinton insists on referring to as "we". That "we" lets me know all I need to know.

Another:

I am a registered Latino Democrat and have been reading your blog for years.  I have never really understood your animosity towards the Clintons and dismissed it as part of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" that is out there…to some degree.  After watching what is taking place with our former president and reading some of the accounts of what occurred in Nevada, I understand.  It is unfortunate that in a drive for power and power ( there is no other word for it) these people whom I used to think were the leaders of the modern democratic movement, have been exposed for what they really are.  The anger that I felt yesterday is palpable and real.  I really want Barrack to win, as I believe that he can take this country where it needs to go.  However, I am finding myself not being able to vote for Hillary in the General if she wins the nomination this way.  I would actually vote for McCain (oh, my God) or Bloomberg.

There does not seem to be any shame in the Clinton camp.  At any level.

There is nothing that they would not say or do to get the nomination.  That to me reminds me of Willard "Mitt" Romney and his ability to try and be everything to everybody.  But  I am struck by how betrayed(?) I feel and how let down I feel by some of the people that I thought could do no wrong.  How could I not have seen it more clearly before?  As far as the former president, I am ashamed of his behavior and if I had a chance to tell him, I would do so.  He has turned himself from a respected elder statesman to a rabid attack dog no better than any of the Rove minions willing to do or say anything to have the ends justify the means.  It is a very dark day for me and I know that I am not the only democrat/progressive that is out there that feels this way.

Not totally fair comparison but here’s a video of Obama in the pulpit yesterday and Clinton last year.

Commenters on the Democratic race at TPM:

"I am coming to the grim realization that Billary will likely win the nomination (all the while laughing at myself for ever thinking that that was in doubt). I – (a lifelong liberal Democrat who luuurved Bill Clinton in the 1990s) am now relishing the thought of voting for McCain or, hopefully, Bloomberg in November. Like Larry David said, "Just for spite." (I do not vote for racebaiters as a matter of principle.)"

"I’m not sure if this a smart move. That kind of talk might hurt him with African-American voters in South Carolina. I can guarantee you Hillary will avoid using the word "gay" for the next week."

"Reagan loving Obama is such a hypocrite. Like as if he has any part of the Southern Black Experience."

"Obama featured anti-gay Donnie McClurkin in his gospel tour in South Carolina in the fall, but now he’s denouncing homophobia? Once again, Obama is all talk, no action."

This race is tearing the Democrats apart. But if that’s what it takes to put the Clintons back into the White House, they’ll manage.

Just who exactly is running for president again?

A fun blast from the past from P.J. O’Rourke. Money quote:

There could be a more concrete reason for Bill’s appeal to black voters. I felt as if I’d been at this gala before, forty or forty-five years ago. The women wore important hats and serious dresses. The men’s dinner jackets were shaped at the shoulders and nipped at the waists. Their dress shirts and bow ties were splendid in color and form. This was very different from going to, for instance, a political-wife-in-a-sack and bag-o-tuxedo event on Capitol Hill. But it was not very different from going to a party with a family full of harps. My uncle Mikey-Mike, my cousin Slats, my Aunt Bridget, and her husband, Louie, who once ran the local pinball rackets in Toledo, had more "flava," as they say today, than their egg-salad-sandwich-with-the-crusts-cut-off neighbors. Grandpa J.J. was one generation away from illiteracy and, I suspect, not as distant as that from running booze during Prohibition.

But by 1960 O’Rourkes had marched up the social stairs into the world of "some white Rotary Club." Like contemporary middle-class African-Americans, Irish-Americans had to find a palatable way to edge to the right. Casting ballots for Bill Clinton allowed blacks to vote Republican without throwing up.

An Atlantic archive classic from 1902 for MLK Day:

Slower of growth, and devoid altogether of the many brilliant qualities which his rival possessed, Lincoln nevertheless outreached him by the measure of two gifts which Douglas lacked,—the twin gifts of humor and of brooding melancholy. Bottomed by the one in homeliness, his character was by the other drawn upward to the height of human nobility and aspiration. His great capacity for pain, which but for his buffoonery would no doubt have made him mad, was the source of his rarest excellencies. Familiar with squalor and hospitable to vulgarity, his mind was yet tenanted by sorrow, a place of midnight wrestlings. In him, as never before in any other man, were high and low things mated, and awkwardness and ungainliness and uncouthness justified in their uses. At once coarser than his rival and infinitely more refined and gentle, he had mastered lessons which the other had never found the need of learning, or else had learned too readily and then dismissed. He had thoroughness for the other’s competence; insight into human nature and a vast sympathy for the others’ facile handling of men; a deep devotion to the right for the other’s loyalty to party platforms. The very core of his nature was truth, and he himself is reported to have said of Douglas that he cared less for the truth, than any other man he knew.

A helpful column from a year ago on Latino-black tension, especially in Los Angeles:

Although some commentators have attributed the Latino hostility to African Americans to the stress of competition in the job market, a 1996 sociological study of racial group competition suggests otherwise. In a study of 477 Latinos from the 1992 Los Angeles County Social Survey, professors Lawrence Bobo, then of Harvard, and Vincent Hutchings of the University of Michigan found that underlying prejudices and existing animosities contribute to the perception that African Americans pose an economic threat — not the other way around.

It is certainly true that the acrimony between African Americans and Latinos cannot be resolved until both sides address their own unconscious biases about one another. But it would be a mistake to ignore the Latino side of the equation as some observers have done — particularly now, when the recent violence in Los Angeles has involved Latinos targeting peaceful African American citizens.

Michael Gordon helpfully reminds us today that the views of most Americans and the views of most commanders in Iraq could scarcely be further apart. The reason is that the American public has essentially written off the war; but Washington has only just begun to buy into it. The Bush administration plans on committing over 100,000 troops there for the indefinite future – certainly an occupation that will endure for the rest of our lives. Ever since the Democrats lost their nerve last spring, commanders have assumed that they’re in it for the very long haul. Was that actually the whole point of the surge? Andy Bacevich thinks so:

In only one respect has the surge achieved undeniable success: It has ensured that U.S. troops won’t be coming home anytime soon. This was one of the main points of the exercise in the first place. As AEI military analyst Thomas Donnelly has acknowledged with admirable candor, "part of the purpose of the surge was to redefine the Washington narrative," thereby deflecting calls for a complete withdrawal of U.S. combat forces.

The key to this strategy is the Clinton Restoration. If the Bush family can get the other dynasty to buy into the occupation, the empire expands – as the republic hollows out from within. With $1 trillion gone, this Mesopotamian province will continue suck $3 billion a week from what’s left of the treasury. You can see why Greenwald is hyper-ventilating. If you think the Clintons will withdraw, you probably think they’ve had nothing to do with the slime covering Obama right now. Good times.

(Photo: Baquba by Gianluigi Guercia/AFP/Getty.)

A Democrat proposes.