I Was There

I still can't find the words to describe it, but here's what I saw:

It was so emotional, and something I'll never forget.

Annals of Procrastination

Today, I would like to pay homage to Al Gore. Not for his environmental stand, although its awesome, but for inventing the internet.

But the internet is not only for porn! According to this article in the NYT magazine a couple months back it is actually the lack of porn that is what makes youtube so awesome.

One look at YouTube’s eccentric offerings, and I figured its days as a free-for-all “video-sharing site” were numbered. Sooner or later it would become a porn depot. But it did not. Chen and Hurley were committed to taking down videos that users objected to, and they maintained their own standards, too. Chief among the site’s assets, in fact, were top-secret pattern-recognition technologies that block porn uploads...By keeping obscenity in check, YouTube teems with video of near infinite variety, stuff that thrives when pornography, which is hard to contain once it takes root, has been banished. YouTube risked losing millions of viewers when it made rules against pornography. But it has gained radical variety, the kind that defines the most robust ecosystems.

So in the absence of infinite varieties of bizarro porn subgenres, youtube has become the site every other bizarre subgenre including my new favorite!

Real life enactments of free procrastination computer games!

First: Minesweeper

Favorite line:
"Soldier, why are you here?"
"Because I want to clear mines!"
"No, why are you really here?"
"Because, I'm bored"
"Good"

Second: Tetris

This is just weird. I am pretty disappointed, tetris definitely offers opportunities for much better drama.

Third: Frogger

I am speechless

P.S. Baracky II is out!!!!

P.P.S I am a big nerd and watch CSPAN at 3 am. But I happened to catch the replay of Dennis Kucinich's speech to the DNC last night and it was actually one of the best I have seen so far. It is only six minutes long, but it is a great concise explanation of what the Democratic Party should stand for.

Not buying it

My sister alerted me to this brand-new McCain ad:

I'm not sure where to start. There's one thing to be said about the fact that the GOP now thinks it's appropriate to use Hillary Clinton, circa New Hampshire, as their attack dog for John McCain, in the present. There's another lesson to learn about the dangers of an overly negative primary (forgive me, I just finished reading Josh Green's dissection of the Clinton implosion, so the whole Mark Penn thing is still stuck in my head). There's some gendered reading, which maybe I'll get to.

But the most obvious point is: This is very, very clear gender-baiting, and race certainly isn't absent from the picture, either. This is as close as the campaign can get to openly calling out women who are still unhappy with Hillary's primary loss without tossing around the word "bitter" (remember how that worked for Obama?). The subtext is: "Ladies, still upset about the primary? Vote your revenge - McCain '08!" I can think of no other reason why the McCain campaign would suddenly lionize a woman with whom its candidate has virtually no policy agreements. The ad reads remarkably like Jesse Helms' infamous "Hands" ad, which showed a pair of white hands crumpling a job rejection letter while the somber-voiced narrator blames it on affirmative action. Here again, the young upstart snatches the job from the deserving candidate, the one who had been waiting patiently in line (if you're a little uncomfortable with Obama's race) or the one who had overcome so much prejudice and broken so many barriers just to become a contender (if gender is your bag). He doesn't deserve it; he stole what is rightfully ours. John McCain will put things right again.

Here is how I wish we would respond: We're not buying it, and John McCain can't manipulate us. It's true that, no matter how hard we've tried to pretend, gender has been omnipresent in this election. Millions of women supported Hillary Clinton not only because they believed she would be the best leader for America, but also because they believed it was damn well time for a woman to break the highest glass ceiling in American politics. Millions of other women, including me, supported Barack Obama even as we recognized that Hillary's achievement was historic, inspirational, and groundbreaking. Gender was and still is a factor, yes, but John McCain can't just trot out photos of the most high-profile woman in American politics and expect to tug so strongly at our heartstrings that we'll just swing on over to his side. We won't buy that cheap trick, and here's why.

We won't buy it because, no matter what the GOP's strategists might think, women, just as well as men, can see right through emotional appeal when the facts demonstrate that John McCain has consistently stood in the way of equal rights and equal opportunity for women. If the Democrats do their job, women in the United States will be aware that John McCain, at least when he can recall, voted not once but twice against requiring insurance companies to cover birth control, so that income will not prevent anyone from gaining control over her body. We should know that McCain skipped the vote on, and would have opposed, the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would have helped women seeking legal remedies to pay discrimination. We ought to realize that McCain has an abysmal record when it comes to protecting a woman's right to choose, instead presuming that his belief that life begins at conception ought to be enshrined in policy rather than left for women to decide. We will remember that McCain supports federal funding for abstinence-only education, even though the curricula are ineffective and riddled with factual errors. The list goes on, but suffice it to say: Those of us who look at the facts are well aware that John McCain can try to exploit us by using Hillary Clinton's image, but we simply aren't having it any more.

Veepstakes

I think this Wall Street Journal article hit the nail on the head with their short-list of VPs for both McCain and Obama.

For Obama: Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, Tim Kaine, Jack Reed, Kathleen Sebelius.

For McCain: Charlie Crist, Carly Fiorina, Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, Rob Portman, Mitt Romney, John Thune.

I don't think Obama will choose Chris Dodd, Tim Kaine, or Kathleen Sebelius. Dodd because of his connections to the insurance and banking industries. Kaine because he just doesn't seem to offer that much to the ticket besides being from VA and another "outsider." He lacks foreign policy experience, national name recognition, etc. If Obama is inexperienced (of course he isn't, but...), Kaine is a baby. Sebelius because some former Clintonites might be offended that he would pick a woman who wasn't Hillary, and also for the same reasons Kaine is unlikely (no foreign policy experience). I think Bayh, Biden, Clinton, and Reed would all be excellent picks for different reasons, but Reed is still by far my favorite.

As for McCain, I think Crist, Fiorina, and Palin are unlikely. I don't have as many reasons for that. Just more of a hunch. My picks remain Portman, Romney, or Thune. Pawlenty has proven himself, at least in my opinion, to be really boring on the talk show circuit. Portman might also be boring, but he brings major economic street cred. Of course Romney Mittens Guy Smiley would be a dream come true. Thune would be a good pick, although being pretty far right wing, would have some major policy disagreements with McCain.

Guy Smiley on the stump.
How can people like this man? Seriously.

Hermione Rodham Clinton

Bush-rubber stamp Representative Heather Wilson (R-NM) wrote a letter to the New York Times.

She writes:

The Democratic nominating system favors the most liberal candidate — in this case, Barack Obama.

But there is a second reason Hillary Clinton lost that some are reluctant to openly acknowledge: a latent and lamentable sexism. She lost because the superdelegates — the Democratic establishment — went against her.

She became a caricature: too smart, too strong, too assertive, too rational, too competent. Think how the young Harry Potter and his male friends initially reacted to Hermione Granger and you get the idea.

I don't agree with her main point. Sure sexism was at play during the entire election, but I don't think it is the reason Hillary lost. Plus, if Ms. Wilson were correct we'd all be chanting Kucinich 2008...

But the Hermione comparison is quite astute, perhaps even better than the Tracy Flick analogy:

This scenario makes Barack Obama the electoral Harry Potter (fits), John Edwards into Ron Weasley (okay), and Bill Richardson into....Hagrid.

And of course all of this makes John McCain....Voldemort.

I think I'll start referring to McCain as He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named.

Obama is Finally the Presumptive Nominee.

With a surge of superdelegates and enough pledged delegates from South Dakota and Montana, Barack Obama has amassed the 2118 delegates needed to capture the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.

It has been a long, hard-fought primary season, and we've been treated to voter participation, fund-raising, and media coverage at scales never before seen. Hillary has yet to concede, but it's clear that she will in the coming days. She still has an opportunity to get out of this race with grace, and I think she will. While she'll certainly be a valuable asset to Obama's general election campaign, I don't think she'd be the best choice for VP, even though she's open to the idea. But that's a conversation for another day.

Now it's time for Obama to set his sights on John McCain without distraction. With the full power of the Democratic Party behind him, I honestly believe that Obama will face little challenge painting McCain as an out-of-touch flip-flopper who can't separate himself from Bush no matter how hard he tries. And I'm sure that all of us in the Harvard Democrats will be happy to help spread that message around campus and beyond.

FYI: included in the giant flow of superdelegates to Obama today was a favorite of ours: Sam Novey's man-crush/employer, Congressman John Sarbanes of Maryland's 3rd district. Mr. Sarbanes, who was uncommitted when he spoke to us this past spring, made it official this evening.

There Can Only Be One

a few thoughts

because i have a final tomorrow morning (my second of four! haaaaaaaaaay, great end of the semester), i want to a share a few thoughts - random, in no particular order, irrespectively, etc - before i go even more insane with academic saturation. (side note: today, in my usual display of pop culture allusions, i confused julia roberts with richard dreyfuss.) to retain some semblance of interest in things i won't be tested on, i've been reading TEH NEWZ constantly. so here's what i'm thinking about, politically and otherwise, seriously and not-so-seriously, before i creep into dementia and sing radiohead until i die:

• KARL ROVE is a jerk. a foul-mouthed, sick, disgusting, perverted jerk. i don't base this assessment on a newly-revealed sexual scandal - who'd have sex with death, anyway? - or a personal encounter. but you know what? giving barack obama "advice" on combating charges of elitism and then promptly criticizing him for those "bitter, cling, guns, antipathy towards other people, blah blah blah" comments of last century suggests a serious lack of human emotion. i bet karl rove is the one that killed that dude hillary clinton supposedly murdered. and then spread the rumors about clinton. and then clubbed kitties and puppies for fun. what an asshole.
• speaking of, MIKE HUCKABEE's a pretty funny dude. he thought he could win the presidency and everything, even though he taxed and spent, made love to "illegals," and didn't have any money other than the currency of The Jesus. so he makes a joke chronicled by our own brian kaufman, and only racists and rednecks laugh. because the joke's about shooting barack obama. i thought it was weird that huckabee's son would lynch a stray dog, but i guess not. the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, i suppose. (my guess is that mike huckabee probably ate the apple, but only after dipping it in sugar and coke and frying it in bacon grease).
• on an unrelated-ish note, BARACK OBAMA is shaping up to be a great general election candidate. hell, he's running like one, and the media loves it. (how do i know? i haven't read anything - except for this, maybe - about HILLARY CLINTON since wednesday, and that was a very bad day for her. more on that later.) at the same time, i think that for all the great things obama will do for our party - bringing heretofore excluded demographics (read: the youth) into the process, establishing a liberal majority for the rest of time - we might have a slight problem winning. time's swampland has a good post (and link!) on obama's electoral road map to winning the white house. i'm confident we'll win. but the trends in florida and ohio worry me, especially when hillary's strongly positioned to PWN john mccain in the rust belt and my VERY OWN sunshine state. i still think he should pick her as his VP. it'd solve so many problems at once, and it might make him much more appealing to all those racists the media loves to talk about.
• the SAME-SEX MARRIAGE RULING is an incredible thing, and i must say that i've never been more proud of a state i've come to pettily revile. (for clarification: i hate california because everybody from california just LOVES california, and i find it very irritating. fucking go to stanford and stop complaining about the weather, okay?) i hope it initiates a culture war, because i think we'll win. with "queer eye for the straight guy," andy dick, and ellen degeneres on our side - not to mention TGI friday's best patron ever - we're sure to beat back the religious right that doesn't have a candidate. at the same time, it'll be interesting to see how the dems and mccain run on the issue, because their positions are pretty similar. mccain will use harsh language to appeal to the crazies, but whatever. he won't be able to raise his arm in fury.
• JOHN EDWARDS endorsed obama. surprise! come on, everyone should have seen that coming. he called hillary a corporate democrat and regularly admonished her for her "support" of lobbyists (even though he took contributions from state lobbyists, those who represent and defend lobbyists, and former lobbyists). so he endorsed the similarly "anti-lobbyist" candidate, heralded themes of HOPE and CHANGE, etc. not sure if it'll do anything, but the media loves to talk about racist white people and how john edwards might help barack obama win them over.
• like many feminists, i, too, feel betrayed by NARAL. and it isn't because they chose to support a man instead of a woman; it's because they chose to support a one pro-choice candidate over another. obama and clinton have similar records on choice - though i think hers is stronger than his, if only because of his tactical "present" votes and his relatively short time in public life. so why endorse? why not wait until the end of the primary season? three weeks does not a winning pro-life candidate make, and a negative campaign against mccain doesn't necessitate a positive campaign for the obviously pro-choice democratic nominee. to me, the endorsement smacks of disrespect to senator clinton, effectively adding to the chorus of those irresponsible pundits that want to end her candidacy before she does. and it's made even worse by senator clinton's more than admirable record on agitation for women's rights.

and thus, in my mind, i've come full circle. because i need to study for my final on the history of women, gender, and sexuality in europe. onward!

in limbo

it's taken a while, but hillary supporters at harvard are starting to come out of the woodwork. it seems that the threat of an obama nomination--or, perhaps more accurately, the threat of a non-hillary nomination--has induced some students to assure me of their support. people whom i had never thought to support hillary (it's quite a thing for me not to know who supports hillary and who doesn't, really) have taken me aside, their voices grave, asking me for my thoughts. and my thoughts--at once optimistic and resigned--are of no comfort.

my point: i'm beginning to see the signs of disenchantment that the punditocracy blathers about endlessly. still, i'll work tirelessly to make sure we have a democratic president for the next four years. obama--though hardly my first choice--is a great man, a great american, and a great candidate. he is promising. and if he isn't particularly inspirational to me, the fact that so many of my peers are inspired by his candidacy is, in itself, pretty inspirational. i've come a long way in my resignation that he's the presumptive democratic nominee. but at this point, to fight the more bitter feelings of millions of clinton supporters, he might have to buck maureen dowd and ask hillary to be his vp.

operation chaos

when did a win become a loss? for the life of me, i can't understand why the media thinks that hillary should quit. because she lost one of two states she was expected to lose? because she only won indiana by two points? because she lost a southern state expected to heavily favor obama?

let's get real, folks. hillary clinton won a state that neighbors illinois and receives media from chicago, one in which she was heavily outspent, and one the obama campaign predicted to win by seven points. she won by two points, about sixteen thousand votes. granted, it isn't a huge margin. but she didn't win new hampshire by a huge margin, either. because she lost iowa by eight points, does it follow that she should have dropped out after winning new hampshire by three? obama handily outspent her in texas, and she won texas by four. should she have dropped out then?

granted, i've grumbled about the media's propensity to prematurely end her candidacy before. this isn't anything new. nevertheless, the fact that tim russert has the gall to de-legitimize her candidacy before full results from indiana came in says everything we need to know about the media. remember, media executives who determine front-page headlines and nightly news lead-ins also maintained--in the case of the AP--that britney spears died. and these are the people who gauge paris hilton as a representative of our generation, the people who covered her journey to prison for an entire news cycle.

and so these same people have pronounced her "toast," declaring that the race "is over," that she can't continue. (the new york post even has an online poll that blatantly ignores her candidacy.) well, here's my official response to our beloved "independent" media: fuck you. they've no right to determine an election's result until every vote is counted. they don't nominate our party's standard-bearers; voters do. until the punditocracy learns to curb its impulses to decide an election, our democracy is in danger. 

Sound policy choices

Clinton:

"I’m not going to put my lot in with economists."

(sound of my head slamming against a wall, repeatedly)

You know what really Grinds My Gears?

In case you wondered what sort of politics bother me more than little else...here's a prime example:

Hillary Clinton joins McCain in proposing gas tax break

Please tell me you are kidding, Hillary? I mean, I know this helps your current election strategy of painting Senator Obama as out of touch with the "normal folk" but seriously? This is the type of terrible public policy that is the exact reason Washington is broken.

I feel right now just like Peter Griffin does about Lindsey Lohan:

I'll expound later tonight on why this is so bad. My class is ending now...

Update: Tom Friedman explains in part

Update 2:

UMMMMMMMMMMMMM

some crazy at dailykos (a liberal blog for crazies) thinks barack obama is a mythic hero, hillary clinton is medusa, and barack is destined to save the planet by severing hillary clinton's head, etc etc etc. read the whole thing for a big dose of crazy, etc etc etc.

i really hope am really glad that this is satire. because if it wasn't, this post would just demonstrate that the far left, in its quest to manufacture a soothsaying wunderkind, will stop at nothing to destroy pragmatic politics and its purveyors. hillary clinton, for reasons left unclear, is medusa simply because she is, kind of like samantha power once said, "a monster that turns people into stone if they gaze upon her." and if that isn't enough, it's sooooo well-known (especially in the circle of prophesy-wielding crazies) that "Algol, Medussa's eye, has long been seen as one of the most malifec and evil stars in the heavens."

well, to quote an oft-used and tacky phrase, if loving medusa is wrong, i don't want to be right. i'd rather have a tested woman impervious to attacks than a man guided by perseus.

really, i like barack obama. but why do some of his supporters have to be so farcical?

UPDATE: duly noted, eva. samantha power did NOT say that hillary clinton was a "monster that turns people into stone if they gaze upon her"--that's from the dailykos entry, tenuously attributed by the comma that separates "is" and "like." i've added "kind of" to  emphasize the difference.

Heh Heh

This from the euphoniously monickered Rabbit Hussein Smorgasboard, over at TPM Cafe:

Fox and NBC are both calling it for Hillary.  

As a result, Obama will go into the remaining primaries with an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates, a strong lead in the popular vote, and a huge advantage in fundraising ability.

I had hoped that Obama could pull off a win here, and go into the remaining primaries with an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates, a strong lead in the popular vote, and a huge advantage in fundraising ability.  

I'm still holding out some hope that the results will be close enough that Obama will go into the remaining primaries with an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates, a strong lead in the popular vote, and a huge advantage in fundraising ability.  

I think that if Hillary wins by less than ten points then Obama will go into the remaining primaries with an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates, a strong lead in the popular vote, and a huge advantage in fundraising ability.

But if Hillary wins by more than ten points, then Obama go into the remaining primaries with an insurmountable lead in pledged delegates, a strong lead in the popular vote, and a huge advantage in fundraising ability.

It's white-knuckle time to be sure.

Bad news for Hillary from the NY Times

The New York Times, which endorsed Hillary but has since shown signs of ambivalence, finally seems to have turned against her:

 It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.

If nothing else, self interest should push her in that direction. Mrs. Clinton did not get the big win in Pennsylvania that she needed to challenge the calculus of the Democratic race. It is true that Senator Barack Obama outspent her 2-to-1. But Mrs. Clinton and her advisers should mainly blame themselves, because, as the political operatives say, they went heavily negative and ended up squandering a good part of what was once a 20-point lead.

It looks like Clinton will take PA by 8 or 9 points--just about what we expected, and not enough to dislodge Obama from the lead. And this is about as far as the Times can go in the direction of telling their endorsed candidate to call it quits, it seems to me:

 It is getting to be time for the superdelegates to do what the Democrats had in mind when they created superdelegates: settle a bloody race that cannot be won at the ballot box. Mrs. Clinton once had a big lead among the party elders, but has been steadily losing it, in large part because of her negative campaign. If she is ever to have a hope of persuading these most loyal of Democrats to come back to her side, let alone win over the larger body of voters, she has to call off the dogs.

Losing the NYT Opinion page won't hurt her with voters directly--but it could put off big donors and super delegates.