South of the Suwannee

Shorter James Lilek: If you think torture, secret prisons, detention without charges and warrantless searches are bad, just be glad you didn't have to live under FDR's NRA.

Ralph Nader is running again. On Meet the Press he dismissed the fear that his candidacy will make him a spoiler and throw the election to McCain:

"If the Democrats don't win this election in a landslide, they ought to disband as a political party." (I'm paraphrasing).

The conservatives' efforts to make people belive that Obama was a Muslim seemed to fail (although there appears to be enough pinheads around to keep the emails circulating), so how about that he may be a communist?

And for good measure a product of miscegenation!

Ah, a bit of the old red and black; a tried-and-true strategy that is firmly ensconced in the right-wing hall of fame.

Over at The Corner, Lisa Schiffren stirs this toxic stew:

. . . all of my mixed race, black/white classmates throughout my youth, some of whom I am still in contact with, were the product of very culturally specific unions. They were always the offspring of a white mother, (in my circles, she was usually Jewish, but elsewhere not necessarily) and usually a highly educated black father. And how had these two come together at a time when it was neither natural nor easy for such relationships to flourish? Always through politics. No, not the young Republicans. Usually the Communist Youth League. Or maybe a different arm of the CPUSA. But, for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or 60, there was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics.

This sort of drivel is what you would expect from Schiffren and her ilk, so it doesn't surprise me. What I do find amazing (and hard to believe) is that she still is in contact with some of her mixed-race classmates.

Then again, maybe she's counting late-night anonymous phone calls as "contacts."

Ann Althouse has been known to castigate those who comment on her blog for offensives as benign as referring to her by her first name. One would think that she expects a little decorum within her domain.

Unless the topic is the Clintons.

Ann Ms. Althouse is intrigued that Chelsea Clinton would be meeting a 21-year-old superdelegate for breakfast, to try to convince him that he should support her mother.

On to the comments:

"And if you are a super-duper delegate, you might just get an all-nighter or a trip around the world."

"I didn't read the whole article. Did it have a "happy ending"?"

"Ann's right, if you can't call Chelsea a whore, what CAN you call her?"

"By the way, what DOES a young attractive lady without a finance background actually do for a hedge fund? Hmmm?"

Plus a few involving speculations of incest that I am hestitant to quote in a family-friendly blog such as this.

and no one hears it . . .

The St. Pete Times' Steve Bousquet says the lack of hometown newpaper coverage of the Florida Legislature is a bad thing for Floridians.

(via Fla Blog)

It seems there is a movement to declare Democratic Party super-delegates to be subverting the will of the people if they do not endorse the candidate who is the frontrunner when the convention rolls around.

Donna Brazile, who is now threatening to quit the Democratic party if this happens was hardly worrying about he will of the people in September of last year when she put the rules of the party above the participation of registered Democrats in Florida to have a say in who is nominated. At that time she had an opportunity to oppose the super-delegates as well, but failed to do so.

Now, if we want to get into the fine points of maximizing the ability of the people to let their preferencces be heard in the nomination process, the DNC would get rid of caucuses.

James Wolcott is amused by the antics on the right:

What's comic is how the very rightwing pundits and radio hacks who detest and revile McCain are now specifying what he needs to do to win them over. They've spat out one rejection of him after another into print and the studio mike and now they expect to be wooed!

McCain seems plenty conservative to me, but in the right-wing world, you're wither 100 percent with the program or you are a worthless, liberal-loving multiculturalist.

Ann Coulter got a lot of cheers from the attendees at the 2007 CPAC convention when she used the word "faggot" in reference to John Edwards.

But 2008 is an election year and the right-wingers don't want the media to be reporting on issues like homophobia and other Coulterisms that might be seen as ill-advised outside the club.

Still the conservatives love their red meat.

Solution? She will attend and speak, just not "officially."

If government is necessary, bad government, at least for conservatives, is inevitable, and conservatives have been exceptionally good at showing just how bad it can be. Hence the truth revealed by the Bush years: Bad government--indeed, bloated, inefficient, corrupt, and unfair government--is the only kind of conservative government there is. Conservatives cannot govern well for the same reason that vegetarians cannot prepare a world-class boeuf bourguignon: If you believe that what you are called upon to do is wrong, you are not likely to do it very well.

Alan Wolfe, "Why Conservatives Can't Govern," Washington Monthly

James Wolcott expresses the feelings of many Democrats (myself included):

Like Paul Newman in Hud, I have a somewhat lenient approach to certain matters--sometimes I lean a little this way, sometimes I lean a little that. That's how I am in the Hillary-Obama contest. Muddle it over as I might, I'm still not sure who I'm going to vote for in the NY primary. Some days I lean toward Hillary, other days toward Obama; sometimes I'm for Obama in the morning, tilt toward Hillary around midday, and bend like a pussywillow back toward Obama after evening meditation.

He goes on to wonder about the vitriol being spewed by many who oppose Sen. Clinton:

But one thing I refuse to be, even if I don't vote for her, is a Hillary-hater. I'm not even a Hillary-disliker. What's baffling about the negativity towards Hillary is how personal it is, and yet how nebulous, especially when it emanates from other women. Some of the most articulate women end up resorting to pidgin English sign language trying to explain why they don't like her, pulling vague reasons out of thin air. Even writers who've had a bit more time to think about it can't quite ratchet into focus, reverting to the high school hallway Heatherisms that are Maureen Dowd's signature move whenever the subject is Hillary.

Turns out that Wolcott voted for Clinton in the New York primary:

. . . I may have been spurred somewhat by the sexist pile-on of the last few days on Hillary, such as the Chris Matthews panel that kicked off with a discussion of how genuine Hillary's near-tears were genuine . . . "

From the people who brought you the Terri Schiavo fiasco (Florida's Republican legislators) we may be getting "crack down on illegal immigrants" legislation.

Expect the usual demagoguery and buffoonish antics.

Also expect the right-wingers to go to procrustean efforts to make sure "illegal" Cubans are treated different than "illegal" Haitians.

Oh, wait! Maybe they won't have to . . . the U.S. government has already done that for them.

Michael Froomkin on why Obama's charisma is important in and of itself:

The power to inspire is the power to mobilize not just masses to turn out for rallies, not just voters to turn out to polls, but also to get people to make (and re-make) institutions.

As they say, read the whole thing.

Right-wing Republican Duane Patterson reflecting on election night videos:

Our side looked like a 60th high school reunion, and their side looks like the Peace Corps.

Speaking of "it's all relative," James Fallows commented on his trip from California to South Florida:

Being in the San Francisco Bay area makes me feel old, since everyone else is 25.

Being in the Boca Raton area makes me feel young. . .

One of the benefits of living here, I'd say.
_______________________

*Vinny Gambini: It is possible that the two yutes...
Judge Chamberlain Haller: ...Ah, the two what? Uh... uh, what was that word?
Vinny Gambini: Uh... what word?
Judge Chamberlain Haller: Two what?
Vinny Gambini: What?
Judge Chamberlain Haller: Uh... did you say 'yutes'?
Vinny Gambini: Yeah, two yutes.
Judge Chamberlain Haller: What is a yute?
Vinny Gambini: Oh, excuse me, your honor...
[exaggerated]
Vinny Gambini: Two YOUTHS.

(My Cousin Vinny)

You just knew it was inevitable -- the right-wingers are sending their swift boats after McCain.

It probably won't be long before they claim he became a POW on purpose, just to further his political ambition.

Naturally, we'll expect the cable TV pundits to give each side equal time. After all, McCain can't prove he didn't purposely run his Skyhawk into the SAM missle.

Louis A. Mangone asks why, if the Sun-Sentinel thinks Sen. Clinton was out-of-bounds for coming here after the "meaningless" Florida primary (see post below), did the newspaper bother to endorse Barak Obama in the contest?

I guess the Sun-Sentinel figured the primary was important enough before the vote, but somehow not after the polls closed.