Oh. My. God.

Generally, I can't stand Chris Matthews, but this clip makes me feel sorry for the guy. I'm serious. I wouldn't want his job if it meant dealing with people like...like...oh, just watch the clip.



Let's help Kevin James, shall we? Here's a short bio of Neville Chamberlain.

Where did Mr. James go school, anyway? Was this lady, perhaps, one of his classmates?



(Via Balloon Juice.)

I'd feel sorry for them if I weren't laughing

While Democrats keep winning in "red" districts and George Bush pretends that he's done sacrificed a lot in this here Situation FUBAR by not playing golf, the Beltway Republicans are trying to do damage control. How? By borrowing slogans from drug companies and trying the same liberal/race-baiting tactics that worked so swimmingly down in Mississippi. The Carpetbagger Report has more and points to this memo from Rep. Tom Davis.

“Hispanic voters are a swing group in this election and future elections. John McCain, being from a border state, may be out of sync with many Republicans but he has standing among Hispanics. Barrack [sic] Obama has not made the sale to Hispanic voters. Thus, this issue is a tar baby for anyone who touches it, with land mines everywhere.”

Forget the mixed metaphor. TAR BABY?!? Who does this guy think he is? George Allen?

THREE lost elections in a row? OWWWWW!

Travis Childers, Democrat, won the special election for Mississippi's First Congressional District. This is the third House seat--from a very conservative district, no less--to be won by a Democrat. Even losing Denny Hastert's seat doesn't sting quite this much.

Needless to say, the wingnutosphere really isn't taking the news very well. A handful of right-wing bloggers have become so unhinged that they've resorted to reprinting entire Ann Coulter columns. (Yes, I'm linking to Technorati. Really, if all you have to offer is a cut-and-paste Coulter post, you really aren't worthy of direct linkage.)

Ralph Nader must be green with envy

Yes, it looks like Bob Barr is going to take the third-party spoiler crown from Ralphie boy. The accompanying FDL link includes amusing footage of Sean Hannity blowing a gasket on Faux News.

Breibart's comments section is full of fed up conservatives. Like this guy:

There are many, many, MANY conservatives who are very unhappy with LIBERAL McCain. Barr provides an avenue for those of us who do not want a liberal in the White House. I believe Barr will do extremely well with the base, well enough even to capture the popular vote. If Barr performs well in the debates it will be a close race.

Not just Liberal McCain. LIBERAL McCain. There are people who really feel this way, and now it's okay to have fun at their expense.

Somewhere, Falwell's spinning in his grave

Via HuffPo comes this Seattle Times story about young evangelicals who are fed up with the GOP. They haven't floated into the Dem fold yet, but they have decided that some issues are more important than abortions and gay people. Like, say, the Iraq war. The story quotes a student at an evangelical university:

Most of us would never blindly follow the old Christian Right anymore. James Dobson has nothing to do with us.

In other words, count on a schism in the evangelical vote in the years to come.

And now some music for y'all

The Small faces, performing "Song of a Baker" and kickin' serious ass. RIP Steve Mariott and Ronnie Lane.

McCain on Bush: "Dumb as a stump"

Oh dear. The 28 percenters aren't going to like this.

Over the Fourth of July weekend of 1999, I had the good fortune to accompany my then fiancée (and now happily my wife) to the McCain vacation home in Sedona where she was interviewing them for a Home and Garden Television show. The interview itself was entirely apolitical, focusing on fabrics and furnishing in their lovely Oak Creek abode, topics about which I do recall the senator was less than comfortable discussing.

Always the goods hosts, the McCains also invited us to spend the day with them, including for barbeque, a favorite of John's. And as McCain flipped burgers, I could not help but ask his views about then candidate George W. Bush.

"He's as dumb as a stump," McCain offered. We then went on to discuss other matters (including Vietnam) but that quote remains seared in my memory.

I suspect more stories of McCain dismissing and ridiculing Bush are going to come out as this election cycle progresses.

Question

Is it just me, or is Jenna Bush's wedding just not interesting to read about? Seriously, neither of the Bush daughters is very interesting, not even when they're kicked out of Argentina.

Note to Terry McAuliffe

Maybe you should look for a new line of work. You were not much of a DNC head. You are not doing Hillary any favors. And don't even think of floating the idea of an Obama/Clinton ticket. You and the rest of Team Clinton have burned your bridges in that area.

More dispatches from Planet IOKIYAR

Rep. Peter King (R-Lawn Guyland) is now defending his li'l buddy Vito Fosella against the meanies who want him to resign. From Newsday:

King said Republicans "who are supposed to be his friends" should be giving the Staten Island-Brooklyn Republican "the time and opportunity to make that decision" -- whether to resign, to serve out his term but leave afterward or to stay in office and seek another term -- "himself."

That's really noble of you, Congressman. That reminds me--how did King react when Eliot Spitzer was caught in the prostitution ring? Funny you should ask.

“He has to step down. No one will stand with him,” said Rep. Peter King, a Republican congressman from Long Island. “I never try to take advantage or gloat over a personal tragedy. However, this is different. This is a guy who is so self-righteous, and so unforgiving.”

Self-righteous and unforgiving. Kinda sounds like that GOP party line that Vito Fosella was so fond of toeing, isn't it?

Vito Fosella, deadbeat dad

It's not enough that Rep. Fosella drove drunk. It's not enough that he's a classic do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do, socially conservative GOP congresscritter who cheated on his wife and sired a kid out of wedlock. Seems he isn't even supporting his second family. His dad and uncle are.

The guy opposes abortion but doesn't really care once a kid is actually born. Why is this not surprising?

Count on the Fosella, Vitter, and Spitzer kids to form a support group at some point.

SIGH...

If you're going to harp on making English the official language, shouldn't you, like, LEARN THE LANGUAGE FIRST?!?!?

An enlightening thought

Barack Obama and the Democratic party represent the views of millions of mainstream Americans, including plenty of independents and--gasp!--Republicans. The fact that GOP scions including Susan Eisenhower, Lincoln Chafee, and Julie Nixon Eisenhower are on Team Obama is proof of this. Barack and the Democrats are centrists. Not radical leftists.

Kids think the darndest things

Parenthetical Remarks has learned some new things since becoming a dad. His baby goes gaga for certain professional bloviators, and he thinks there is a reason for this.

Finally!

Supposedly, Obama is now doing what he's supposed to be doing: focusing on John McCain and not La Hill. Alas, McCain is taking all this personally, saying that Obama's making fun of his age. Lieberman, meanwhile, follows McCain like the neocon puppy dog he is. I'm sure he's jockeying for a VP slot. I also suspect that he won't get it. Just an instinctive thing. Both seem to be in serious denial--and I'm not talking about a goodwill trip to Egypt, either.

Anyhow, Obama's pointed out McCain's disconnect from The World as It Truly Is:

Speaking to a few dozen employees of a software company, Obama said McCain was "dead wrong when he said recently that he thinks our economy has made 'great progress' under George Bush. Is there anyone outside of Washington D.C., who could truly believe that?"

Meanwhile, McCain keeps insisting he did in fact vote for Bush in 2000. Next up: the wingnuts will be asking why they should vote for a guy who hobnobs with evil Hollywood liberals.

While the campaign gets really interesting, I'm sure Mitt Romney is somewhere envisioning how his 2012 presidential run will play out.

In other news, last night's Battlestar Galactica was great. Nana Visitor (Kira Nerys from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) had a guest spot and it reminded me how much I miss seeing her on the air.

Speaking of mind-boggling...

John McCain's efforts to introduce a third Bush administration have just hit a snag.

It turns out that hobnobbing with liberal blogger Arianna Huffington and the cast of NBC’s "The West Wing" on the left coast can be a risky proposition for a Republican with White House ambitions.

In Jersey City Friday morning, John McCain emphatically denied a report by Huffington on her blog that he confessed, during a Beverly Hills dinner party in 2001, that he had not voted for George W. Bush after his bitter defeat in 2000. But "West Wing" cast members -- who said in published reports they supported a Democratic ticket -- back up Huffington’s story.

I have only one thing to add to this:

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!!

The mind really boggles

Julie Nixon Eisenhower donated money to Obama's campaign.

Julie. NIXON! EISENHOWER!

If Tricky Dick were a poltergeist, I can't imagine what he'd do about this.

I'm baaaaaaack!

It's been one thing after another. I moved. I got sick (with a cold or a sinus infection? I still don't know). I had a lot of work. Now, I have my life back. Yay!

Le Sweetie alerts yours truly to...The Empire Strikes Barack!



What a difference a couple of weeks makes. La Hill wins PA and all of a sudden Obama has a "bubba problem." La Hill barely wins Indiana and loses NC. All of a sudden, she's the one with a problem, and the problem is that she doesn't know when to quit.

Oh yeah, and after 2004, when the wingnuts whined about Teresa Heinz Kerry's tax forms, they're weirdly silent on the fact that beer heiress Cindy McCain won't release hers. Welcome to Planet IOKIYAR, folks.

Now THIS is what I call scary

Boomerang's airing Voltron reruns. VOLTRON, people. Someone else besides me actually remembers these cartoons? Can they start airing Battle of the Planets instead? I loved that show.

Life. Don't talk to me about life

I've been packing for the big move. This has involved dragging lots of boxes back to la casa and selling off a couple of bookcases. I've been way too busy to follow the "big" Pennsylvania primary. Mostly, I consider myself fortunate to live in one of those states that voted in the big Super Tuesday primary.

La Hill's win was to be expected tonight. Bit this is one of those win-the-battle-lose-the-war moments. From the LA Times:

Even with the Pennsylvania win, Clinton still trails by nearly every measure: the popular vote, the number of states won, the delegates captured so far in primaries and caucuses. Obama also has narrowed Clinton's once-formidable lead in superdelegates to roughly two dozen.

Clinton faces "an uphill climb," said political scientist Quin Monson of Brigham Young University, because she must urge superdelegates to support her even though Obama remains ahead by those key measures.

"The best money is still that this just forestalls her exit from the race and draws out the nomination fight longer," Monson said.

Indiana and North Carolina are still to come, and Obama seems to be a lock to win the NC primary.

So far, La Hill won with 54 percent to Obama's 46 percent. Which still doesn't sound that hot.

Dethklok, Gibson, and Stephanopolous, linked!

I'm watching Metalocalypse, where a fictional thrash metal band called Dethklok has assorted misadventures. In the episode I'm watching right now, the band members try their hand at standup comedy. Metal bands are usually not known for humor. You can guess how the episode pans out.

Meanwhile, Wednesday's fiasco is destined to be remembered as Election 2008's answer to My Mother the Car.

Shoddy! Tawdry! A Televised Train Wreck! (Courtesy of Frank Rich--man is he on FIRE!)

How Much Did You Loathe ABC's Debate Coverage?

Debate Sours ABC Viewers

Broadcast Failure: The ABC Debate

Please, let this be the moment when the TV punditocracy jumped the shark. And here's a hint to whatever yahoo's moderating the next debate: We're still in Iraq. And it's still Situation FUBAR, with a fundie cleric threatening civil war.

A new rule for the 2008 elections

If you voted for Bush/Cheney in 2000 and 2004, you automatically forfeit the right to claim that "character counts" when choosing a candidate.