WTF is going on here?  The top diary on the recc list personally insults the site's founder, and comments w/i the diary go downhill from there?

I don't always agree w/ Markos.  I still think, for example, that he too casually dismissed the cloud of suspicion that hung around the 2004 election results.   I would never dream, however, of engaging in such personal invective against any poster on this site.  I sure as hell wouldn't do it against this site's founder.

Most of us recall WJC's "Sister Souljah Moment" in 1992 and how that term entered our national political lexicon.  That year, Sister Souljah was a hip-hop artist who made virulently racist comments after that spring's Rodney King riot in LA.  That summer, WJC publicly blasted Souljah at a Rainbow Coalition conference to which Jesse Jackson had invited both WJC and Souljah as speakers.

Since then, a "Sister Souljah Moment" has been defined as follows:

 a politician's public repudiation of an allegedly extremist person or group, statement, or position perceived to have some association with the politician or their party. Such an act of repudiation is designed to signal to centrist voters that the politician is not beholden to traditional, and sometimes unpopular, interest groups associated with the party, although such a repudiation runs the risk of alienating some of the politician's allies and the party's base voters.

As others have noted here, Sy Hersh's new piece in the New Yorker is enough to scare the s**t out of anyone who has followed the rumors about a potential attack on Iran.  Hersh is now giving interviews further sounding the alarm.  

It has been obvious for months that the Cheneyites want to bomb Iran.  The Olmert govt has made its plans equally clear.  The US buildup in the Gulf and the recent Israeli exercises all demonstrate the fragility of this moment.

As yesterday's NYT noted, Obama is now consciously tacking to the mythical "center" for his GE run.  It's not merely his pulling a 180 on telco immunity, nor is it his arguing both sides of the highly contentious 5-4 Heller decision on the DC gun ban.  It's his openly changing his tune on NAFTA, too.

I am not thrilled about any of these developments.  Like Jim Hightower (and Obama supporter), I believe that there's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow lines and dead armadillos.  Placing these developments in the context of a recent Esquire piece by Charles Pierce, however, makes them far more understandable.

Back on 2/26, Sen. Obama said the following in his remarks accepting Sen. Dodd's endorsement of his prez campaign:

We know it’s time to time to restore our Constitution and the rule of law. This is an issue that was at the heart of Senator Dodd’s candidacy, and I share his passion for restoring the balance between the security we demand and the civil liberties that we cherish.  

The American people must be able to trust that their president values principle over politics, and justice over unchecked power. I’ve been proud to stand with Senator Dodd in his fight against retroactive immunity for the telecommunications industry. Secrecy and special interests must not trump accountability. We must show our citizens – and set an example to the world – that laws cannot be ignored when it is inconvenient. Because in America – no one is above the law.  

I've been around the block more than a few times.  I understand that we live in a relative world and that we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  I knew all along that Obama had some obvious limitiations.  I never dreamed in a million years, however, that he'd pull a Hoyer on FISA.

Pelosi's recent incoherent double talk supporting the cave in of her and her House "leadership" colleagues was a disappointment.  It was, however, somewhat understandable.  She's not an attorney, and she appears to only have a dim grasp of the issues involved w/ this bill.  She has a ML who's desperate to pass it, and she has a restive bloc of Blue Dogs who currently hold the balance of power.  

Since no one diaried it yet, here goes.  Kos was in slot 4 on "Countdown" discussing Obama's approach to FISA.  He correctly noted that none of us will be supporting McVain, but our degree of enthusiasm will be affected by what Obama does between now and the final vote.

As much as I'd like to think that Obama will lead a successful filibuster stripping immunity from the final bill, there's currently no indication that he will do so.  Filibusters require spadework, and they require the development of a critical mass.  There's no indication that Obama has done any spadework for a filibuster, and there's no evidence of even the beginnings of a critical mass for one.

While Kos did a fine job representing all of us, I'll be very surprised if anything happens here.

There is, of course, considerable wailing and gnashing of teeth here about the imminent final capitulation on telecom immunity in the FISA bill.  There will be much more of it as the deal is consummated in the next few days.  While I respect and I understand this anguish, I will not be joining in it.

McJoan's 6/5 diary answered all doubts on this issue.  In just the first 3 mos of '08, the telcos spent $14mm lobbying on this issue.  They utilized former aides of Reid's and Hoyer's to steer this bill through.  God knows how much campaign swag they've given out in the past, and how much more they've promised for the future.

A column by David Carr at the front of today's NYT business section offers valuable perspective on the untimely passing of Tim Russert.  In particular, it places his death in the broader context of the waning influence of the TM in the political process.

Tim Russert the father, the son, and the friend obviously had many admirable qualities.  The profound sense of loss that KO conveyed Friday evening made it clear that Russert was an ally of KO's in a business in which, generally w/ good reason, KO has made his share of enemies.  The hagiography we've seen on NBC in particular and on network TV in general, however, has been disproportionate to his contribution to our public debate.

I read most of David Mendell's Obama:From Promise to Power on a long flight* yesterday.  There is much to recommend about this book, and I understand that Mendell issued a follow-up tome  .

There is much to digest from this bio, such as Obama's relationship w/ Rev. Wright, his becoming a client of Axelrod's, and his ties to the late Paul Simon.  The book reminds us that Obama is very much in the Paul Douglas/Adlai III/Simon lineage of IL good govt liberal senators.  Even more significantly, however, it gives us an in-depth account of how he came to give the speech on the IWR in 2002 that came to define his presidential candidacy.

*While the country looks big on a map, its size becomes more apparent when one flies round trip from Ft. Lauderdale to Seattle over 4 days.

40 years ago tonight, RFK was shot while walking through the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in LA.  The current occupant of his Senate seat recently reminded us that this anniversary was coming up.

There is nothing I could say here today about RFK and his legacy that has not already been said by those who are far more eloquent than I will ever be.  This Vanity Fair piece   offers as good a synopsis as any of what was and what could've been.  Suffice it to say, the likes of that campaign have really not been seen since then.

As others have noted here in considerable detail, yesterday, HRC may have pounded the last nail in the coffin of a campaign that has barely registered a pulse since 2/5.  Given my handle, I agree that her RFK comments were inappropriate at best and that they might imply some dangerous deeper feelings.  I also agree that her half-hearted "apology" for those commments made a bad situation infinitely worse.

That story, however, appears to be overshadowing the remarkable accomplishments of Obama's FL campaign in the past 3 days.  On Wednesday, I worried that his perceived weakness in the condo belt would make FL a decidedly uphill battle for him in the GE.  What I've seen since then has completely removed those fears.

Today's NYT FP has an in-depth story about Obama's difficulties in the condo belt running roughly from Boynton Beach in Palm Beach County down to Aventura in Miami-Dade County.  These retired Jewish voters from (mostly) the Northeast have been essential to the hopes of Dems running statewide campaigns for decades.  As the article indicates, Obama faces serious problems in appealing to those voters.

These voters are especially concentrated in 3 CD's,FL-19 (Wexler), FL-20 (W-S), and FL-22 (Klein).  These 3 CD's have, respectively, Cook Partisan Voting Indices of D+21, D+18, and D+4.

I stole the first half of the title from a Clapton song, but tears are my only reaction to the grim news about one of our party's true giants of the past 40+ years.  Like all heroes, Ted K has his feet of clay, but, at times like these, those feet are quickly forgotten.

My first real campaign was his 1980 challenge to Jimmy Carter.  I did a few things for the Carter campaign 4 years earlier, but this campaign meant much more to me.  RFK was already my political hero then, I was increasingly disenchanted and disillusioned w/ the Carter presidency, and I was looking for the passion and the inspiration that I hoped to see from the surviving Kennedy brother.

There's a FP story in today's NYT about McCain's need, in essence, to rely upon the RNC to bankroll his campaign.  There's also an NYT op-ed piece by William Kristol that supports McCain as the GOP's 2008 bulwark against the Dem tide.  These 2 items, read together, offer powerful evidence of the GOP's intentions for the GE.

The Kristol piece has a real "whistling in the dark" quality to it.  He cites the CA Supreme Court decision on gay marriage as one of 3 reasons to feel optimistic about McCain's prospects.  The other 2 are the WV primary results and W's Knesset speech.  He concludes:

If you talk to political pros in D.C. these days, you’ll hear them say that "gravity" — voters’ apparently settled low opinion of the Republican Party — will eventually drag McCain down. Perhaps. But we know that a Republican presidential candidate can win as his party loses.

I've seen every Special Comment thus far.  I've seen him repeatedly push the edge of the envelope.  Tonight, he burst right through it.

I've never seen a TV commentator, even on cable, totally eviscerate an incumbent prez and everything he stands for like that before.  I've never seen someone drive a stake through a tissue of lies like that before.  I've never seen that kind of passion and that kind of verve before.

In his column today, Nicholas Kristof, in his usual low-key style, explains why HRC's continued presence in the race primarily serves McVain's interests.  He guesstimates, in fact, that her presence is about 10 times more likely to serve McVain's interests than it is likely to serve her interests, and he (politely) suggests that she w/draw.

Nancy Pelosi, however, takes a different view.  In a quote that utterly boggles the mind, she commented:

"I'm not part of the Presidential elections so I think as long as the campaign is going and the candidates are in the race there's always a possibility," she said.
Asked about concerns raised by Democrats that the prolonged fight could hurt party unity, Pelosi insisted "the outcome either way is a good one for us."

When I retired last night, it looked like the political equivalent of "Groundhog Day" would finally end.  Like Bill Murray at the end of that movie, I expected that, when I woke up today, it would finally be a different political day.  Tweety, Timmy, KO, Gregory, Robinson, and Buchanan all told me it would be so, w/ Rachel Maddow being the only dissenting voice.

Sadly, I quickly learned after my alarm went off that Rachel was correct and the others were all wrong.  CNN told me that, although this morning's talk show appearances had been canceled, she was going to WV today after all.  As the day proceeded Team Clinton made it clear that it intends to have Groundhog Day continue indefintely.