You’ve run a fine campaign. You’ve shown that a vigorous and competitive process is an improvement over the usual method of ordaining whichever candidate happens to win the first few primaries. You’ve made huge leaps for women and politics, and shown that sexism, though still rampant, doesn’t have to be a barrier. So, all in all, I think you’ve done well.

But now it’s time to go. Throughout this race you’ve proven yourself willing and able to do and to say whatever it takes to move forward. You’ve reinvented yourself so many times that it’s hard to know who you are anymore. I understand, that’s politics. But the point is that we don’t want that politics anymore, and more than that we don’t need it. We have an alternative, in Barak Obama, who has told the same substantive story, who has made the same case, who has fought on the issues since the beginning of his campaign. More importantly, by every algebra but yours, he has won more states, more pledged delegates, more popular votes than you have. He’s won. So it’s time for you to step aside.

Yesterday’s DNC Rules Committee meeting was really your last chance to make any gains at all, I understand. (Though, as you know, even if all of the delegates had been seated at full strength, you would still be far behind in pledged delegates.) Thankfully, your attempts to influence the committee failed.

In my view the correct political decision but the wrong moral decision was made. Michigan and Florida need to have a voice, and we need them in the general election, so this was the right choice to that end. However, no reasonable person (without something to gain by it) could claim that the elections in those states were fair or unbiased. It’s not the voters’ fault, it’s the Rules Committee’s fault for invoking a bad punishment to begin with. But we can’t turn back time. As it is, you’ve come out ahead! You’ve gained delegates from unfairly contested elections - can’t argue with that!

So, now to the purpose of this letter. (The purpose other than filling up my blog.) Let’s see what happens in the last three primaries today and on Tuesday. Then, please, let that be that. You’ll have lost. Find a way to bow out gracefully, accept the accolades that are rightfully yours, and throw yourself full-tilt into the fight to get Obama into the White House. Please don’t take it to the Credentials Committee, please don’t let this drag on. Remember the serenity prayer, and go back to the Senate with new purpose.

All the best.

I think, in last night’s debate, both candidates showed their substance. Clinton, however, also showed her true colors as a petty, hypocritical, run-of-the-mill politician who is willing to tell lies, half-truths, distortions in order to get ahead.

Hilary accuses Barak of plagiarism:

The other shoe drops:

And again:

Silly.
(via Daily Kos. Thanks, Sundhar!)

Something’s happening, and it gives me hope:

Yesterday, as most everyone knows by now, Hillary Clinton narrowly won the New Hampshire primary over Barack Obama. I’m not sad - Clinton would make a great president. She is smart and capable.

But today, I am very frustrated - not really at her, but at a group of voters with short memories. Let’s examine a series of events. Obama wins big in Iowa with a message of change that appeals to young people. He is earnest and hopeful. He gives a MLK-esque victory speech, surrounded by young, passionate supporters who hang on his every word. Hilary comes in second by running a campaign focused on her experience and smarts. She gives a speech with Madeleine Albright, Wesley Clark and the rest of the rich, white, over-50 Democratic machine behind her.

This was all less than a week ago. On that day, give Clinton’s campaign credit for realizing they needed to change message. She softens her rhetoric, talks to voters more, has an ‘emotional moment’ in a diner, and wins New Hampshire. She gives a victory speech, this time surrounded by 19 and 20 year-olds (most of whom, I might add, looked totally bored, and more excited to be on TV than anything else).

Does any of this seem manufactured to you? I have said for months in political discussions that I like Clinton, but I feel like I don’t know who she is. Sure, all the candidates are ‘handled’ and orchestrated by their respective machines, but any commentator will tell you that the Clinton machine is unlike any other. She has armies of strategists who tell her where to go, what to say, and how to say it. She is a fantastic tool for all those smart people - she executes the plans they draw up well, adds her own significant intellect to the show. But when I see Clinton, I see a well-rehearsed act - granted a dynamic and evolving one.

Who knows why Clinton won New Hampshire after all the polls showed her an 8 point dog to Obama? If it’s because of her recent turnaround, though, that makes me angry. Obama has been hopeful, personal, genuine, and engaging for a year. Clinton does it for a week, and we all get right on board. Which is the real Clinton? I think it’s easy to tell. Watching her victory speech actually made me a little queasy as she said ‘you helped me find my voice.’ Oh yes, now we’re seeing the ‘real’ Hillary.

From the NYTimes: Senators Assert Right to Block Bush on Iraq

The problem with the argument that going against President Bush now by trying to cut-off funding or prevent additional troops from going to Iraq is that one could make that argument about any decision once it’s been made. The decisions become self-fulfilling prophesies if we believe that once they’ve been announced, contradicting them would ’send the wrong message.’

If there is a logical, reasonable argument in favor of sending more troops to Iraq (other than those that President Bush has already tried to make), let’s hear them. But the message I’d love for the world to get from a constitutional challenge to Bush’s insane bent on war is this:

Democracy in the US is starting to work again.

…certainly not George Bush. The New York Times reported today that Bush thinks those who support the recent ruling that the Federal wiretapping program is unconstitutional are ‘naive.’ According to him, they ’simply do not understand the nature of the world in which we live.’

Oh, the irony. I cannot believe that no one told Bush what an idiotic statement he was making. What *is* the nature of the world in which we live, Mr. President? Let’s extropolate a few simple axioms from recent statements:

• The fight against terrorism - whatever it is - is more important than your privacy.
• I am not interested in trying to fight terrorism and at the same time working to safeguard your privacy.
• This new world is so incredibly new - newer than the many new worlds that came before it - that it’s finally okay to disregard the standards set by the Framers and upheld since then.
• I can tell people what to believe.

You’ll note that only the first three are political. Debatable, maybe, though I think the two sides of that one are very far apart, and in both cases hiding their real priorities. It’s the last one, though, that I just can’t believe. How could it be that there is no anthropologist, sociologist, psychologist, or marketer in the White House to tell Bush that you cannot get anywhere telling huge swaths of Americans that they are wrong and naive for believing something? This is not a political issue. The Bush administration appears to be so dogmatic, so without nuance, that they can’t even recognize a public relations problem when it smacks them in the face!

They have so far had modest success making every last iota of politics about terrorism - but I think the veil is lifting, and the issues with true staying power are coming through. Terrorism will never be gone. But the public relations stunt that is *TERROR* will be gone soon. Privacy will be an increasingly important issue for the foreseeable future. No president will get by saying that Americans should subsume their beliefs about privacy to a national political agenda. It doesn’t work that way. And I can’t believe no one told Bush that.

The Democratic Staff of the House Judiciary Committee on Friday released a report called “The Constitution in Crisis; The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War, and Illegal Domestic Surveillance“.

It absolutely skewers the Bush administration for breaking dozens of laws. Why hasn’t this report seen any media coverage? Your guess is as good as mine.

(via The Mobtown Shank. Thanks Alex!)