First off, let me say that I have more respect for Glenn Greenwald than for any other blogger.  He writes what he knows, he knows it well, he writes extensively so as to cover every angle, and he constantly updates his material as the debate develops.  This is a standard of work head and shoulders above other bloggers', and he has been an invaluable resource.  

And I hope he'll keep doing that, because Glenn Greenwald screwed up, big time.  

Now that I have already done my due diligence, in going to Glenn's site and telling him what I'm about to tell you (which is as face-to-face as is possible in the blogsphere), I'm going to lay it out for you.  

Yes, that's right!  It's time for another round of "Hey, Dumbass!" where we try to get the attention of alleged journalists who seem to think it's their job to play dumb.  

First off, the following quote should be tattooed backwards on the forehead of every journalist in America.  

"If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election." - Barack Obama

Of course, every American journalist already knows what Obama said, and are only pretending he unilaterally promised to run a publicly financed campaign, no backsies, etc., so it's not like they actually need to see it every time they look in the mirror.  It's just that this way, American journalists will look as stupid as they sound.  

Once upon a time, these things only happened to other people.  

Catastrophe capitalists would arrive in some third-world country you never heard of, engineer an artificial shortage of something or just start a war (that's the catastrophe part), then use that to create social unrest, then use the social unrest to install a friendly regime, and then use that regime to help rape the country (that's the capitalist part).  

Then, they did it to California.    

Now, they're doing it to America, and the Republicans are committing political suicide in supporting it.  Why?  

By now you all know that McCain didn't even bother to show up for the Senate's vote on the Webb GI Bill.  This is no minor vote, this is setting up for a veto/override showdown.  

Obama, who voted for Webb's bill, had this to say:  

I respect sen. John McCain's service to our country. He is one of those heroes of which I speak. But I can't understand why he would line up behind the President in his opposition to this GI bill.

I can't believe why he believes it is too generous to our veterans. I could not disagree with him and the President more on this issue. There are many issues that lend themselves to partisan posturing but giving our veterans the chance to go to college should not be one of them.

At which point, McCain lost his fool mind.  

I read some tedious squealing from eriposte the other day at Soto's site about the "popular vote" and thought nothing of it.  But this morning, after reading this diary, I realized that this phony count, which leaves out states that are part of the nomination and includes states that aren't, is part of Clinton's latest assault on low-information voters.  

This is the kind of "I hope they're dumb enough to fall for this" bullshit that turned me away from Hillary months ago:  on healthcare, Iraq, and now even on the process itself, the Clintonistas operate just like freepers.  

But now, they're attacking the process itself, just like the Republicans did in the general elections of 2000 and 2004.  

I see that Jake Tapper is trying to spin the ABC debacle, saying that they went after the frontrunner and that is normal.  

Uh, no.  The crowd at ABC's debate openly booed the moderators for being stupid.  Even Gibson had to acknowledge it.  After the debate, therefore, ABC went into full spin mode, as if ABC itself was a candidate at the debate, a candidate who had stumbled badly.  ABC had to say that Obama "struggled," because he kept taking their stupid questions apart.  Seven different times.  In fairness to Tapper, who has some other good coverage, it's not that simple, but it should have been obvious.  

ABC even pressed one of its afternoon entertainment shows into service to repeat the network's ass-covering talking points.  But, within twelve hours, a sweep of the news cycle showed that ABC had failed.  The story is not that Obama stumbled, but that ABC is a joke.  Mark Halperin's legacy is complete.  So who is singing along with ABC, and why?  

I would just like to take the occasion of International Women's Day to point out all the times that Hillary has saved the world.  If it weren't for all the pro-Obama bias in the media, I wouldn't have to do this.  But it is the role of the blogsphere to make up for the shortcomings of the professional journalist, to fill the silences, as it were.  

It is truly astounding how many times Hillary Clinton has saved the world.  Only her admirable restraint at blowing her own trumpet has kept her from telling us all about it.  

I heard Hillary Clinton this morning, mocking Obama's supporters and putting words in their mouths, saying that after one of his speeches they wouldn't know what Obama is going to do.  If you want to know what Obama is going to do, go read Hillary's old stump speeches, because she used to talk about it.

But she was losing that debate, so now she's pretending it never happened.  She's avoiding all substance and blaming it on Obama, pretending that the substance she doesn't have the guts to talk about is somehow missing from Obama.

Hillary Clinton is betting the farm that the voters of Texas, and Ohio, AND RHODE ISLAND* are stupid.  

Kevin Drum highlights this story about the problems with the strategy behind "The Surge™!"'s supposed success.  The CLC's or whatever else you may call them are simply the latest extension of the "death squad option" so openly announced more than three years ago by the Pentagon.  Back then, it meant supporting local militias that were supposedly friendly.  Beginning last year, it meant throwing wads of cash at people, even if they have American blood on their hands, hoping they'll be nice for a while.

Via Matt Yglesias, we find once again that common sense is making a comeback.  Obama has had the audacity to state in public that America can pursue America's best interests, and owes a blank check to no one.

This quote in particular seems to be making the rounds:

"I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering pro-Likud ap-proach to Israel, then you're anti-Israel, and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel," leading Democratic presidential contender Illinois Senator Barack Obama said Sunday.

"If we cannot have an honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we're not going to make progress," he said.

Hooray for the bloody obvious.  As you may suspect, however, there are many Roseanne Roseannadannas going ballistic right now, making complete fools of themselves.

- every single erg that Hillary and her campaign spend will only hurt the Democrats

While the likes of Limbaugh and Ingraham are showing they control their audiences in much the same way as the Chinese do theirs, it's time for the rest of us to get our act together.  So I'll say it:

There is no further upside to the Hillary campaign, unless you're a Republican.

Watching the primary speeches last night (you know, "speeches," the things that don't matter?), I was particularly impressed by what a poor job John McCain was doing, playing the Republican that he isn't.  

In the long run, McCain is merely Governor Huckabee's foot-stool.  Huckabee is playing this like he's Ronald Reagan and this is 1976.  The Republican primary campaign is continuing only so that Huckabee can build his network, his name-recognition, and a ready supply of Evangelical disappointment that he can mine for a later presidential bid.

McCain's sole significance at this point is to be the foil for "Huckabee 2012," and judging by McCain's performance last night, I'm pretty sure the senator knows it.  

Let me tell you a story about a candidate.

He had a certain resonance with the blogsphere, not to mention a large grass-roots organization.  KOS gave some advice to his campaign early on, but didn't necessarily endorse him.  KOS also didn't censor any of the negative commentary about the candidate on Daily KOS, no matter how bad it got.  People got together in real life, met each other, and realized that not only were they not alone, they were legion.  And they were excited.  In the end, the corporate media simply crushed the campaign by smearing it for its own enthusiasm.

That was the Dean Scream.

Don't talk to me about God.  Because I don't care what a barbarian has to say about God.

Her ordeal began with a routine visit to the new Riyadh offices of her finance company, where she is a managing partner.

The electricity temporarily cut out, so Yara and her colleagues — who are all men — went to a nearby Starbucks to use its wireless internet.

She sat in a curtained booth with her business partner in the café's "family" area, the only seats where men and women are allowed to mix.

For Yara, it was a matter of convenience. But in Saudi Arabia, public contact between unrelated men and women is strictly prohibited.

"Some men came up to us with very long beards and white dresses. They asked ‘Why are you here together?'. I explained about the power being out in our office. They got very angry and told me what I was doing was a great sin," recalled Yara, who wears an abaya and headscarf, like most Saudi women.

Has it occurred to anyone that the reason conservatives can't agree with other conservatives about who is really a conservative is due to the fact that no one wants to be held responsible for the disasters wrought by conservatives?

Each of the three remaining, unimpressive Republican candidates represents a limb of the dismembered Reagan coalition.

Amazing.  Simply amazing.  Then again, I must be the one with the problem, because I'm the one who's amazed.  

Once again the Democrats stand with Rush Limbaugh, against the Democrats who speak the truth.  It's not just the cowardice that gets me, it's the ignorance.  It's not just that the Democrats don't want to win, it's that they are utterly clueless, as an institution, of how arguments work.  I'm sick of placing my hopes on morons, so fuck it.  

As I pointed out a couple of days ago, it's been weird but fun to watch American conservatives turn into the kind of "barbarians at the gate" they used to warn us about, only white.  The spawn of the Bush family, the Braniff of American political dynasties, hasn't helped matters much.  But no one could have anticipated that it would get this bad this quickly.  If you do consider yourself a conservative, it probably comes as something of a shock that even Wall Street is taking a big, healthy shit called "you."  

The reason for all this is, if you want my opinion, that the few remaining supporters of this self-discrediting political movement are likely to be what social scientists call "pretty fucking stupid."  How stupid?  Glad you asked:  "Look!  Shiny!  Shiny!  Oooo!  Pretty!"  

Even my two-year-old doesn't fall for that one any more.  

I understand that Keith Olbermann already tackled this last night, so I'm going to amplify what I said at the beginning of yesterday's missive.  

Rush Limbaugh's "walking on the moon" comment is what really hangs  him from day one.  With it, the Flying Fat Man sealed his fate, a week ago today.