By the time I got to Woodstock…um, Portland
First Steps to Unity
California leads the way at the State Convention:
For those on the far right hoping for blood in the streets of Denver, Sunday’s meeting of the California delegation to the Democratic National Convention was very bad news. Because of its size, California is sending even more Hillary Clinton delegates to Denver than her latest putative home state of New York. But Sunday’s meeting made it clear that both the Clinton and Barack Obama campaigns are ready to turn their swords into plowshares behind the impending nomination of Obama for the greater cause of defeating John McCain.
At the Nevada state convention Saturday, Twitter user ursulas reported that even Bill Clinton was singing the party unity song.
However, on NewsGang Live, we’re still divided…over the VP nomination and whether it will go to Hillary Clinton. I argue that it cannot, will not be Hillary Clinton, for two reasons. First, because she represents the politics he is turning away from; and second, because she (and her most ardent supporters) would not want to settle for second seat.
Unity is the most important goal. While NewsGang unity may depend upon what happens at the Democratic convention, let’s hope the candidates can pull their supporters in and begin to mend fences. It seems that it may be beginning.
This election is bigger than race and gender. Seriously. Race and gender feel big because they’re so personal. But what will really feel personal is a Supreme Court that bans abortion, sets back women’s rights 50 years, while President McCain leads us into privatized Social Security and another 100 years in Iraq.
Tuesday will end it. Let’s start figuring out how to begin the pathway to a Democratic landslide in the administrative AND legislative branches in November. There will be much for all of us to do. Hillary Clinton will remain a force to contend with and a voice for women across the country.
Best of all, George Bush will be dispatched to Texas with his tail between his legs, and at long last, we will not be subject any longer to the secret authoritarian regime known as the Bush Administration.
Gore Vidal: I knew JFK and Obama’s better
During the Clinton administration, Vidal admired Bill’s understanding of the poor and of black people. His devotion to the Clintons has now been laid aside, however. By clinging on to her campaign, waiting for the small chance that Obama will make a terminal mistake, Hillary has crossed a line, he believes.As for Obama, Vidal has taken time to warm to him. “I liked the idea of him, but he never managed to get my interest. I was brought around by his overall intelligence – specifically when he did his speech on race and religion.”
He is brutal when it comes to the Bush administration. I have a love/hate relationship with Vidal, but on his opinion of McCain/Bush, it’s love at first sight:
His views on the man the Democratic candidate will have to beat are even more brutal than his views on Hillary: “ You could beat McCain! I’ve never met anyone in America who has the slightest respect for him. He went to a private school and came bottom of his class. He smashed up his aeroplane and became a prisoner of war, which he is trying to parlay into ‘war hero’.”
In his view, McCain is “a goddamned fool. He was on television talking about mortgages, and it was quite clear he does not know what a mortgage is. His head rattles as he walks”.
However, in Vidal’s eyes, McCain is just a symptom of the real malaise affecting America today: the cynical subversion of the US constitution. “The Bush people”, he says, “have virtually got rid of Magna Carta and habeas corpus. In a normal republic I would probably have raised an army and overthrown them. It will take a hundred years to put it all back.”
By now he has worked himself up to a crisp fury: “Those neocons, lawyers, the big corporations – worse than that, extremists – want to get rid of the great power of oversight of the executive. See what they’ll try to do to Obama. They’re crooks. They’re just gangsters. They are the enemy of the United States. There’s no such thing as a war on terrorism. It’s idiotic. There are slogans. It’s advertising, which is the only art form we’ve invented and developed. It’s lies.”
Larry Johnson, Sen. Clinton, and Gutter Politics
What do you get when you put a former CIA operative and the trailing candidate for the Democratic nomination together?
A steaming, rolling pile of shit. I debated about whether to even write about this, but I think it’s important to talk about the bigger implications of the politics of personal destruction that sleazeball Johnson is now floating to the top of the bowl.
Let’s go back for a minute and think about who Larry Johnson is, what he represents, and why he isn’t believable.
- His history of failures in the intelligence arena is chronicled here. This is a guy who didn’t get Osama bin Laden right, yet loves to proclaim himself the king of the political smear.
- Johnson claims to be a Clinton supporter. If that’s really true — and I somehow don’t think it’s REALLY true, just sort of in-name-only-true in a disruptive, smarmy kind of way — then it is the goal of Hillary Clinton to forever fracture and destroy the Democratic party.
- Larry Johnson has been credited with the ‘madrassa’ smear back in the early days of the campaign. 1 Of course, Johnson denies this vehemently, but one would expect him to deny it. After all, CIA operatives are not well-known for stepping up, raising their right hands and admitting all truth with no hope of ‘plausible deniability’. Think back to the Iran/Contra days for shining examples of CIA “honesty”. I’m willing to take a preponderance of the evidence: Clinton operative + CIA clandestine officer + abject hatred of Barack Obama + blogger = opportunity and motive for perpetuating lies on the Internet. Credit where credit is due here. What I’m willing to suspend is the conclusion that Hillary Clinton herself supports such activity
Okay, with the background out of the way, let’s get to the current round of rumors. According to voila over at Daily Kos, Johnson is having an orgasm over a secret Republican video of Michelle Obama railing against “whitey” in church. And sure enough, if you’re willing to roll up your electronic cuffs, take off your shoes and wade through a lying sack of shit, you can see it for yourself over on Johnson’s blog, where he’s also got the video of the Tennessee GOP Michelle Obama smear commercial. My, my, what a thing for a loyal Democrat to have playing on their site!
This style of politics is exactly what Barack Obama’s campaign is turning against. The power churners of the past don’t like that very much. They especially resent the possibility that the new kids might open the doors and let light into the dark corners of our very ugly backroom dealings over these many years.
These are the days of doctored video, faux journalism, and shrill end games. Don’t be fooled. If this were something worth considering, it would have been released in time for the three special elections handily won by Democrats. The GOP would have pulled whatever they could out of their asses in an effort to retain their death grip on the southern states, and that tape would have been all over the airwaves.
What Johnson is selling is snake oil, wrapped in a generous helping of bullshit. Don’t buy it.
1 McClatchy, 5/8/2008
“One practitioner in Virginia, who hates Obama like a dog hates cats, led a reporter through his efforts. Because the man is a retired clandestine CIA officer, identifying him could endanger officers or operations that remain classified, so McClatchy will not reveal his name”
Technorati Tags: Larry Johnson, Michelle Obama, smear politics, Hillary Clinton, death gasps
Thanks to Hugh McLeod at gapingvoid.com for the cartoon
Larry Johnson is an Anti-Intellectual, Fearmongering, Lying Pig
Photo: Larry C. Johnson’s self portrait,
as published on the Huffington Post
If this guy is a friend of Hillary Clinton’s, she really doesn’t need any enemies. With screeds like this where imaginary terrorists named William Ayers become arguments against Barack Obama 5 days ahead of the West Virginia and Kentucky primaries, the excrable Larry Johnson displays the worst and ugliest of the Bush/McCain administrations while stumping for..
a Democrat. And not just any Democrat. Hillary Clinton.
His bio is revealing:
Larry C. Johnson is CEO and co-founder of BERG Associates, LLC, an international business-consulting firm that helps corporations and governments manage threats posed by terrorism and money laundering. Mr. Johnson works with US military commands in scripting terrorism exercises, briefs foreign governments on a regular basis on terrorist trends, and conducts undercover investigations on product counterfeiting and smuggling.
If you’re inclined to read the entire bio, you’ll discover two important facts. First, he was probably Barack Obama’s age (6) during the Weather Underground times and only knows what he’s read from biased right-wing liars. Second, he worked for the CIA at important, critical junctures, up to and including the year 1989, when the CIA should have been gathering and reporting the intelligence that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks. The CIA failures that caused George Tenet to fall on his sword. Yes, that CIA.
Of course, it also goes without saying that those same years in the CIA that have earned him such “acclaim” were also the Clinton years. Of course, it is true that they were a little distracted there at the end.
How unfortunate that he would go ballistic on Hillary Clinton’s behalf and write this:
Hillary’s only hope is that the super delegates will come to their senses and realize that Barack Obama’s relationships with the corrupt Tony Rezko, the racist-wife stealing Jeremiah Wright, and the unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers will provide the Republicans with ammunition they have never had at hand to use against the Democrats’ candidate. This is particularly true of that flag stomper, Bill Ayers.
No, those are no hopes at all for Hillary. None. Zero. I’d like to think she’s learned her lesson when it comes to relying on this stuff. See, this year the voters are all about authenticity. Even the ones who didn’t go to college are thinking. (Note: If you believe any of the guano Johnson is tossing, you’re NOT thinking. Start.)
In actuality, the flag stomper is Mr. Johnson, who qualifies in my book as the same kind of government shill that was doing the dirty work for the Bushies with the networks when they were loaned out by the government as “consultants and commentators“.
So, Mr. Johnson, let me put this plainly. Bill Ayers ain’t going to play much of anywhere other than backwater areas where they only get Fox News and actually believe the shit they try to pass off as fact. Why? BECAUSE BILL CLINTON PARDONED TWO WEATHER UNDERGROUND CRIMINALS AND BILL AYERS WAS NOT CONVICTED OF SQUAT.
Got it? Good.
The rest of Johnson’s rant is just irrational. It hasn’t worked for the past month and it’s not going to work now. Ayers isn’t going to play no matter how desperately Bob Novak (aka Mr. “Out Valerie Plame”) wants to think so.
And Mr. Johnson, consider this. Not one time has Barack Obama pointed out Whitewater, the White House travel scandal, the “Lincoln Bedroom for campaign cash” scam, or Bill Clinton’s impeachment. Not one time. Surrogates speaking for Hillary Clinton should consider their own conduct in this regard.
This desperate gasp on Mr. Johnson’s part confirms what I’ve believed all along. The GOP was desperate for Clinton to be the Democratic candidate, believing that they had 1200 pages of dirt to serve up in the upcoming national campaign. Now that the majority of voters (no matter how you cut it, with and without Florida and Michigan, by the way) have said they choose Barack Obama, the GOP knows the inevitable truth.
In November, they will lose the White House and the Congress. There will be a sweeping mandate, and there won’t be a goddamn thing they can do about it.
The Republicans’ chickens are coming home to roost.
Technorati Tags: Huffington Post, William Ayers, Bob Novak, GOP, Republican chickens, roost, chickenshit, head up his ass
Final Indiana Vote Count - Certified
According to the Indiana Secretary of State, the official totals were:
Hillary Clinton: 637,814 50.4%
Barack Obama: 626,642 49.6%
The difference: 11,152 less than 1 %
