Howard Dean is first.  Can I get an Amen?

Amen

"We've had a lot of days where the fawn shed her spots, Phil. Love that expression; it's much better than the other one. And yes, the loss of the ice in Antarctica should be a sobering reminder that global warming is real."  LOL, I thought the blind following of religion was looked down upon on this blog??

We don't worship the Doc, we just look on him as a prophet :o)

Sen. Gravel announced today he is leaving the Democratic Party and running for President as a Libertarian. I'm hoping he can take votes away from McCain by getting Ron Paul supporters to vote for him.

No doubt Mike Gravel - the proponent of the perfect and the detractor of the very good - will not be getting George McGovern's vote - lol.

Hi Rich - three cheers for the fifty-state strategy and one Senator Barack Obama - who will have very broad coat tails in those fifty states.

7.

rich^kolker
Wed, 03/26/08

Reply to this
We don't worship the Doc, we just look on him as a prophet :o)
----------

That's the good one, Rich!

We have to remember though that there where quite a "few" of them..., lol.

Here's one of the responses to Chelsea's outburst when a male student asked her if her mother's credibility had been hurt during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and she quickly responded,  "I don't think that's any of your business"...  


"Well....we thought it was none of our business until Hillary brought up the business of being able to choose a pastor and not being able to choose family.

She had a choice to stay or leave Bill in the face of unspeakable humiliation. I think now we know why she stayed....and it certainly wasn't to benefit her daughter. Can you imagine the dinner conversation between Bill and Hillary when she concedes?

What is she trying to prove? Can anyone imagine a freshman senator in her position remaining in the race. There is a reason she was so alarmed @ Bill Richardson endorsement....it's the beginning of her end.

She just wasn't the right person, not woman or race....person."

10:23 AM EDT

as a veteran myself, Hillary's repeated misstatement (err, lie) bothers me:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03262008/news/nationalnews/now_bunko_hill_is_under_fire_103582.htm

March 26, 2008 --

WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton's lies about risking her life under sniper fire during a visit to Bosnia as first lady have infuriated the US military brass and troops.

"She has no sense of what a statement like that does to soldiers," fumed retired Maj. Gen. Walter Stewart, the former head of the Pennsylvania National Guard.

"She is insulting the command in its entirety," he said yesterday.

VOTE: Has Hillary's credibility been "shot to pieces?"

Clinton came under fire after saying she "misspoke" about what happened during the trip and claimed it was the first time she erred in describing her visit - an assertion Barack Obama's campaign quickly disproved by finding at least three prior occasions over the last few months where she's claimed there was sniper fire.

Stewart, who was assigned to the Army's European headquarters at the time of Clinton's visit in 1996, called her statements "really astonishing."

"Believe me, heads would have rolled all over" if the military put the then-first lady at "unacceptable risk," added Stewart, who is supporting Barack Obama.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Buster Glosson, a John McCain supporter who ran the air attack in the first Gulf War, said, "It bothers me any time anyone running for the highest office in the land fabricates a story.

"That should bother any American, whether you're military or nonmilitary."

Another source, a former Army analyst who was stationed abroad when dignitaries visited, said, "You know, we have soldiers overseas now who are getting shot at by real bullets from real enemies who really want to kill them.

"Getting shot at by snipers is not something you forget - or make light of," he added.

...

Tho i differ with Ron Paul and Mike Gravel on several of their stances both are much more in line with my position on foreign policy than the major parties' candidates.

Maybe, just maybe, their voices could push the two big parties apart into camps of 'homeland' versus 'empire'. At this point the choice in the Dem party is between slow and slower withdrawl from Iraq - and McSame will tear that into bits.

... call me crazy, call them crazy, but there has been no 'investment' for our security in Iraq. Voting for the continued funding of an insane war against a non-aggressor nation is a short-sighted political stand taht Barack should apologize for. Hillary is way tooo infected with power and lies for a change of heart to matter.

10:27 AM EDT

http://www.nypost.com/news/news.htm#poll

...

I would love to see an IRV ballot where the Greens would get their 8% and the Libertarians their 7%, and the lieberman/dominionist apocalytos their 2% so they could get a say and yet let their second choice count for the governance rather than have the two parties jerked around

the other test between the 22% DLC centrists and the 26% progressives need to be fought out in the remaining primary states

Democratic / Republican split might come closer to the natural 55/45

she should lose PA because of her Kyl-Lieberman War Party vote, not because she "mispoke"

let's not trivialize our chance for the grassroots to determine future direction by votes of substance where they differ

excuse me but Mike Gravel is crazy.

I am glad to see Ashville NC so enthused and doing so well in a not so progressive state.

Ashville is so wonderful to visit and the small towns around there are a great place to visit.

Now if we could just get DFA to maybe work on my part of the state.

I have just been put in a position to get all the delegates from our city committee for the 3rd district and state conventions.

Would have been nice to have had some training down here. But I am getting used to being ignored.

10:50 AM EDT

she should lose PA because of her Kyl-Lieberman War Party vote, not because she "mispoke"

let's not trivialize our chance

...

+++

Phil -

In all due respect, are you saying that my bringing up the subject about Hillary lying about Bosnia is a "trivalize" matter ?

Tell that to the vets.  Please don't speak for me.

Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged...diary by wmtriallawyer

I agree with what he says. I hope the Obama campaign doesnt *go there* with respect to Bill's philandering ways. It's fair game for us but we're not surrogates for Barack.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3...

Hey Phil!

... i've come a long way on the Obama candidacy, helped out a lot by the shear danger to our nation of either the Hillary or the McInsane presidencies.

But if there is a chance of a Dem win, after all the damage Hillary has done, it's if Barack comes out and says we're out of Iraq - sooner than later, and he should do that now.

Why? Because Iraq is about to get much worse, quickly. The 'truce' of the Shia may still be 'officially' on but the combination of an offensive against them and McSame's prospective presidence has forced their hand.

And if you think that the Sunni will take the brunt of Shia ire this time, guess again. The Sunni now have 'official' roadblocks and weapons that improve their security on a local basis, the Shia won't have the freedom to kill thru the nights anymore.

Soooo, who will be the targets of increased angst?? That's right, the Americans now deep in the neighborhoods. Obama needs to realize that his words do matter, that telling Iraq we're leaving will keep them from making the point against the Bush/McSame policy by killing more of our soldiers.

There should be no hesitation on the part of non-moron(non-rethug dead-enders) to vote for Obama... if they do not vote for him it will be his own fault.

... WTF does some hick know though

rdorgan - Did you see the piece that puddle linked last night? Hillary claiming her mom named her after Sir Edmund Hillary. That is a whopper as well. The whoppers are coming drip by drip now. She had enough to run on without the whoppers.

13.

linda b
Wed, 03/26/08

excuse me but Mike Gravel is crazy.
---------
Sure..., and Ron Paul and some others...but never “progressive" Democrats..., lol.

let me see, we are using the ny post for a poll against hillary? NO. That is a little too much.

A rupert murdoch paper. Come on guys.

10:57 AM EDT

mary vb -

Well, all I know is that I really question Hillary's ability to be Commander-in-Chief, after lying the way she did.

U.S. soldiers honorably put their lives on the line to defend this country and it's president.  We all know "Bush Lied, Soldiers Died".

Well, I don't want another president who is into fantasizing about reality.

... WTF does some hick know though

I remember meeting you in DC at the Washington Monument and you didn't seem like a "hick". and believe me , linving in Va I have seen some hicks.

you got it right Deaniac, why can't that penetrate the beltway

nobody in Iowa is buying the need to stay 100 years for target practice

My Dad and Dr. Wright.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3...

This is such a lovely and moving diary. Please read this. You'll be inspired - I promise.

I find it difficult to express my gratitude for having been given permission to express an opinion.

To be honest, I have little use for aircraft of any sort and don't utilize them myself.  The human race had managed to populate the entire globe before the advent of aircraft and there's little evidence that we're better off because of their invention.  As an energy waster, the airplane probably has no peer.  Delivering fuel to the air bases in Iraq is one of the riskiest enterprises.  I don't even want to think about fuel tankers cruising overhead. 

rdorgan

I told the bomb threat story about the bus tour event that was "real" enough to keep 6-7000 people waiting on a sniffer dog, and you can bet that Obama has had his life threatened as well.

Hillary has been short of sleep for weeks now and who knows what the security briefing said, but I wouldn't doubt there was a concern about snipers in Bosnia, so that in her memory that trip and sniper threat are intertwined

she "mispoke"

Howard did that dozens of times when he was running and it was usually speaking off the top of his head after he had flown back to VT for a hockey game and came back short of sleep

it happens

25.

* rdorgan
Wed, 03/26/08


Well, all I know is that I really question Hillary's ability to be Commander-in-Chief, after lying the way she did.

U.S. soldiers honorably put their lives on the line to defend this country and it's president. We all know "Bush Lied, Soldiers Died".

Well, I don't want another president who is into fantasizing about reality.
----------------

ANYONE WILL!

Look into the history. Say, after IIWW (as we now know) everyone has lied one way or the other. Even the least liar (I don’t mean cheating) Kennedy has lied to public regarding removal of Turkish military installation as were agreed with Khrushchev.

That’s the natural part of representative’s job – to lie. The longer they serve the more “professional” (e.g. on the “state of the art”) their lie may only become.

Not because they all are initially bad guys, but the authority, the power, the hubris they are exposed to, sooner or later will make them to.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3...

Ditto 

11:25 AM EDT

http://www.strategypage.com/on_point/200832601913.aspx

by Austin Bay
March 26, 2008

...

Hillary Clinton is having her "Cambodian" moment -- her claim that she ducked sniper fire when she landed in Bosnia in 1996. Cameras, however, were rolling. The CBS News clip juxtaposing Clinton's stump speech rendition of her "snipers tale" to the tender hugs reality of her Bosnian excursion exposes the candidate's story as blarney.

This is blarney with damaging blowback, since Clinton's claim to superiority over her Democratic primary opponent, Barack Obama, is she possesses hard-core foreign policy expertise.

CBS earns qualified kudos. An Obama supporter, the comedian Sinbad, pulled the magic carpet from beneath Clinton's Bosnian crock. Sinbad was with Clinton in Bosnia, and he told a Washington Post political blog that "I think the only 'red-phone' (i.e., scary) moment was, 'Do we eat here or at the next place?'"

It appears that crack journalistic fact-checking by a major network did not catch Clinton -- breaking the duplicitous news took a celebrity anecdote relayed to a political gossip column in the midst of a nasty internecine Democratic Party political war. CBS had a reporter with Clinton in 1996 and a tape. Clinton has told "the sniper's tale" on several previous occasions.

...

Thanks linda b, i had on my 'gentleman' outfit there. lol
... and thanks for all you do!!

Gotta run. Love ya'll, mean it!!

This is the first time I ever heard a pres candidate lie about being shot at.
Having being winged by sniper fire and seeing friends and my own soldiers die from them, it isn't any fun.
Clintons are doomed; either by Obama or McCain. If she happens to have enough mud stick on the wall to get the nomination then McCain who really was severely injured will beat Hillary like a rented mule with the Bosnia lie.
As far as getting out, there is no way specifics can be mentioned eights months before execution is possible. All they can say is the general get the troops out as soon as possible and state the framework of how this will occur (get the neigbors involved, draw down troops a certain amount per month, force all sides to work out a solution by dangling money and withdrawel, etc). They should state that everyone is leaving. I don't like the idea of leaving people behind for training as the locals don't need it. We don't need to guard an embassy or bases because we won't have any. The locals can take care of al Queada.
Each side is trying to hedge their bets to appear militarily strong. They have to be smart about it and am not sure if either Obama or Clintons can be smart about Iraq. They can state that the surge allows ethnic cleansing in Baghdad but no one is really listening.
Those we bribed will turn against us when it is convenient for them. We essentially turn local bribed militias into a sick classification of employees. They are the Iraq equivelent of Blackwater. We tried bribing the locals in VN and all usually ever got were peolpe they didn't like. We never got any real NVNs from them. We ended uo offing someones brother in law, or rival suitor, even rival dope dealers. Sometimes we killed those who were helping us because our sources were working for the "bad guys".
We armed both sides to perpetuate violence and a poor reason for staying.
McCain wants to be the war president and Bush is going to give him a war to run on.
All Hillary and Obama can do is keep stating their opposite view and methods for pulling it off. Progressives will say it isn't strong enough - which it isn't. Hopefully both Dems will realize the Progressives are taking the lead on this one.

Clouding the issues are Iraq factions on both sides of the question. The seperationists want us to stay and enforce the religous divisions. The nationalists want us to leave so they can bring the country back together again. There are winners and losers on both sides of the issue.
So how does a candidate cut thru the ooze?
My preferred way is to measure the effect on children as in VN, kids paid the most terrible price.
Which is worse on the kids? Us staying and keeping the civil war going? Or us leaving and foceing all sides to work together? There will be violence unless somekind of an agreement is reached quickly.

What I seriously question about Hillary Clinton being Commander In Chief, besides her lies, are her deep ties with the lobbyists who, for the most part, are funding her campaign.

The health plans she touts would be nothing more than what we have seen in Plan D in Medicare (drug bill) that has largely been a failure because of the insurance and drug companies' influence. Nothing would change here.

I also question her vote for the Kyl/Lieberman resolution, the saber rattling of Iran. Hillary is also funded by companies involved in defense contracts.

Letting the tax cuts sunset at prescribed by the bills. How would her corporate ties influence that?

Fixing NAFTA may not be among her first priorities because, again, she is financially committed to those corporations shipping our jobs overseas, getting tax cuts for doing that and paying no tariffs on the return goods.

The Fifty-State strategy would be in question. No sense supporting anything that gives Howard Dean credit in any way.

There's just soooo many negatives for her beyond this.

Bosnia set the record for sniper deaths between the sides;and it would be pretty easy to mix up a briefing and a memory from twelve years ago unless you were actually shot at, Hillary does have first hand knowledge of what it feels like to be dropping into an airport on a transport doing defensive maneuvers. I just don't think Obama comes out ahead attacking her there.

she takes blogger sniper fire all the time

I'm with Joan, get back on the big issues. Howard mispoke at times and I still think he would make a great President.

Since my post will go into la la land, here goes.

Our Virgina Democratic Women's Caucus is now officially a sponsor at Democracyfest.

Also we just purchased 58 copies of Iron Jaw Angels to give to local college and high school groups so that young people can see how hard it was for women to get the vote.

By we I mean our women's group.

11:41 AM EDT

Well, since lying is not one of  "the big issues", I'll refrain from commenting here for awhile.

As far as Kerry in Cambodia...
He probably was or if not actually in Cambodian territory, he was within gunshot of the Cambodian rebel soldiers; which is the same thing.
The Mekong is a series of entangled rivers and streams and it is easy to be on either side many times. We operated near the border and probably crossed over. We never gave it any thought. We were just hunting the bad guys.
I may be wrong but I think we had a twenty mile border buffer that meant 10 miles on either side was considered Cambodia. It was the same in Laos and Thailand. So while Kerry was not in Cambodia per his Road Atlas, he was in Cambodia per the border variance. We never worried on which side of a line on a map we were fighting.

Phil,

I agree when you said people do misspeak.  I personally don't know how anyone can get mixed up about being shot at by snipers, but I guess it could happen.  But she did not say it once.  She has stated it several times.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/25/politics/main3967223.shtml

rd,

Please do not refrain.

41.

rae -

I'll just lurk for awhile.

I just hold TRUST to be the biggest factor in who I vote for in a President.  Frankly, I once trusted both Bill and Hillary -- after this campaign and seeing all their warts and all, I lost all trust of either of them.

If Hillary wins the dem nomination, neither my wife or I will be voting in the GE.

Kerry didn't lie or mispeak but just had taken an oath that wouldn't allow him to speak freely, which is a different issue. and his predicament gave an opening,

Clinton's offense was more "padding the resume", her failure to apologize for her original war vote is a bigger issue to me for sure rdorgan, but to each their own, people pick their candidates for all kinds of reasons.

Obama will mispeak at some time between now and November and I would hope it wouldn't disqualify him.

rae hart
Wed, 03/26/08

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

rae,

Hillary did NOT mispeak about getting shot at by snipers............she was 100% correct....the only thing she got wrong was the location...........she meant to say............Detroit.

Lol Michael

"What is she trying to prove? Can anyone imagine a freshman senator in her position remaining in the race. There is a reason she was so alarmed @ Bill Richardson endorsement....it's the beginning of her end."

Point of fact: Hillary Clinton is not the freshman Senator in this race.

rd,

I once supported the Clinton's too.  No more.  I won't vote for her either.  I won't vote for McCain either.

rdorgan
Wed, 03/26/08 I just hold TRUST to be the biggest factor in who I vote for in a President.  Frankly, I once trusted both Bill and Hillary

 I can see wil Hillary but after eight years of Bill Clinton can you honestly say it took this campaign to not trust him.  Come on!!!  "It depends on what the definition of is, is"  under oath.  that is a man you trust.  You must not have any daughters in their 20's.

If McCain vs. Obama, 28% of Clinton Backers Go for McCain

http://www.gallup.com/poll/105691/McCain-vs-Obama-28-Clinton-Backers-McCain.aspx

Our Virgina Democratic Women's Caucus is now officially a sponsor at Democracyfest.

Also we just purchased 58 copies of Iron Jaw Angels...

awesome, linda!  you've accomplished such amazing things just in the few years I've 'known' you - you're a true progressive role model to me. 

DFA, wake up and send this wonman some help - she's doing well on her own, but a little support and training in her area would go a long way!

 attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

bon voyage Fox get a taste of what that cheap dollar your tax cut caused while you are over there

lol! wonman - wth is that?!  s/b woman.  ;)

as for Hillary's tall tales, this just reinforces the negtives on her trustworthiness, which have always been pretty high and getting higher all the time.  big deal or not, this drip, drip, drip is doing her in.  and it tears apart her experience meme, one big experience at a time. 

some folks still like to say that there isn't much difference between Obama's and Clinton's stated policies - and they may be right.  but imo the big difference is in whether they would actually pursue what they say they will and ultimately HOW they would carry out those policies.  in other words, who can we really trust?  I trust Obama, hands down.  just watching his campaign convinces me more and more that working together we can, yes, we can tackle the big issues.  yes, we can come together and clean up after this 8 year nightmare. 

After the Bosnian lie, what few Hillary supporters I know have abandoned her. Most are going to Obama but a few are going with McCain. What few vets who supported her are going to McCain.
Obama needs to make a veteran policy speech right now to try and convince vets he really cares about all veterans and has an understanding of the place for our military in the Obama presidency.

new threaderino

what is it with republicans choosing candidates who sound like they skipped over English in school?  McCain is one of the absolute worst speakers I've heard, next to GW.  he doesn't mispronouce his words as much as George, but they're all disconnected - it's like he's doing a bad reading of a difficult script he hasn't had time to review.  and when he talks about terrorists his voice gets all deep and foreboding-sounding - it's almost laughable, until I think about what would happen if this person wins....

Pastor Of Clinton's Former Church: Don't Use Wright To Polarize

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/25/pastor-of-clintons-forme_n_93418.html

Of course by now everyone probably knows HRC is a member of a conservative Christian Fellowship Church.

Seems like the church teaches that its members are pawns of God.  Kind of sounds Bush-Like to me.

Looks like the Mother Jones article is no longer available.  But I find this article pretty interesting.

http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/224908.aspx

A couple of paragraphs from article:

Through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship. Her collaborations with right-wingers such as Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) grow in part from that connection. 

"A lot of evangelicals would see that as just cynical exploitation," says the Reverend Rob Schenck, a former leader of the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue who now ministers to decision makers in Washington. "I don't....there is a real good that is infected in people when they are around Jesus talk, and open Bibles, and prayer."

If McCain vs. Obama, 28% of Clinton Backers Go for McCain

http://www.gallup.com/poll/105691/McCain-vs-Obama-28-Clinton-Backers-McCain.aspx

that is because they ARE REPUBLICANS.

DON'T BE FOOLED BY GALLUP.

HECK IF HILLARY GETS THE NOM I WILL STAY HOME. SO THERE.

Excellent news about Gravel running as a Libertarian. It will give me someone to vote for with a clear conscience should HRC get the nomination, which seems to be a longshot at the moment.

linda b, Mike Gravel was crazy enough to filibuster long enough to get the draft rescinded.

I've met him - he's a character all right but his sanity is intact.

This strikes me as well-reasoned.

• First, many people have said that there are few policy differences between Obama and Clinton, but the truth is that their telecom policies could hardly be further apart from each other. Obama proposes exactly the sort of transformative, open telecommunications policy that we need to transform the media landscape in America, while Hillary Clinton's telecom proposals are nothing more than heinous corporate welfare. Without a transformed telecommunications landscape, we are going to have an extremely difficult time building a progressive America or passing any of our other legislation.
• Second, in terms of electability, in order to win the general election a candidate must first become the nominee. Simply put, I don't see many ways for Hillary Clinton to pull that off. Further, in order to win the general election, Democrats will need time to define McCain, and time to heal the party once the nomination contest is over. However, Hillary Clinton's only path to the nomination is through the convention in late August, and also through a intra-partisan civil war. In other words, Clinton's path to the nomination renders her unelectable in the general. There simply won't be enough time to heal the party and define John McCain.
• Third, how a candidate campaigns is a strong reflection on how that candidate governs. For example, we could tell from the 2000 election that George Bush would govern through a series of power grabs, Orwellian language, and with a total disregard for popular opinion. Barack Obama, by contrast, is campaigning through unprecedented national grassroots organizing, speeches that are becoming the stuff of legend, and the manifestation of a new political coalition that moves us away from the political alignment of 1968-2004. Too often, I have heard from the Clinton campaign and its surrogates about states and demographic groups that don't matter. Such statements are a stark reminder of a recent version of the Democratic Party that takes its base for granted, and only campaigns in a select few swing districts. We need a Democratic Party that organizes and governs based on Barack Obama and Howard Dean's campaign styles, rather than one that is based on Hillary Clinton's and Terry McAuliffe's.
• Fourth, coattails and movement building matter. In both of Blue Majority's victories so far in 2008, Donna Edwards in MD-04 and Bill Foster in IL-14, the energy and activism brought to bear by Barack Obama were key. The activism in support of Barack Obama has the potential to greatly enhance the political reach of the progressive movement, and also to provide Democrats with sweeping downticket victories. I once called this progressive movement symbiosis, and I still believe it is the most promising path to a truly progressive governing majority that I have seen in my lifetime.