President Barack Hussein Obama

What is there to say, on this day of days? What can I add to the discussion? What has been left unsaid?

On Election Day, for the first time in years, I started to feel patriotism swelling in my veins. Today, it's complete. Today feels like America waking up from a deep slumber.

I saw Aretha singing "My Country 'Tis of Thee" and remembered what Martin Luther King said back in 1963 (six years before my birth):

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

That was what I remembereda while I heard Aretha singing, and I started getting tears in my eyes. Because it felt like today, just a little bit of his dream was realized. Not all of it. There's so much work that has yet to be done, so much wrong yet to be reversed, so much history that can't be erased.

But today, I sat with my wife and my son and watched Barack Obama take the oath of office, and it felt like America was suddenly a little bit of a better place.

Just like Martin said, we elected Obama because of the content of his character, not the color of his skin. Barack Obama was the best man for the job and he is exactly the man we need at this moment in our history.

Did you see that crowd? So many people of color. So many young people. People from all over the country, all making the pilgrimage to see this man become their president. So many people who probably didn't think of themselves as political at this time last year. Obama has rejuvenated the spirit of this country. This is very nearly a revolutionary experience. Overnight, the mood of our country has changed from despondency to optimism. In one day, we have become a hopeful nation, a proud nation, a nation of leaders, a nation prepared to lead.

Are you ready? As one of my friends said, we'd all better start taking our vitamins. If we're really going to take back our country, we're all going to have to start working at it tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

So get some sleep, because tomorrow, the hard work begins. Tomorrow, we're going to wake up, and Barack Obama is wake up for the first day as America's president, and we're all going to realize just how much work it's going to take to get our ship back on course.

Sleep well, friends.

Let Us Give Thanks

Anne Lamott reminds me that, besides being grateful for our friends and family and the people who love us, we should also be thankful for what has happened in this country in the last month. So let's pause and appreciate the moment.

This man is going to be our next president.

This man will not be our next president.

In two months, this man will no longer be our president.


He will not be replaced by this man.

Or this man.

Or this man.


Or this woman.
He will be replaced by a man named Barack Obama.


We will have a president who speaks in complete sentences and thinks about his words.

We will have a president whose press conferences are not causes for alarm.

We will have a president who restores dignity and honor to the White House, a president who is not a worldwide embarrassment, a president who truly listens to the people.

We will have a president of whom we can be proud.

Let us be thankful.

Mutt Like Me

I didn't cry until this morning.

I've gotten emotional this week, of course. Tuesday night was amazing. I watched Obama's victory speech in awe and astonishment. But I never cried until today, watching his first post-election press conference.

Oddly enough, it was a question about dogs. He has promised his girls a dog if they move into the White House, and he was asked a light-hearted question about the kind of dog they were considering. And he said that he needed to consider getting a hypoallergenic dog because one of his girls is allergic.

But he then said that his preference was to get a dog from a shelter, and "most shelter dogs are mutts like me." I pumped my fist and cheered. And then I got misty-eyed.

Barack Obama is a mutt. He's a mixture, a hybrid, a biracial blend. He is both black and white, Kenyan and Hawaiian and Kansan, a swirl of cultures all at once.

I know something about this.

My father is 1st-generation Mexican-American, by which I mean that his parents were Mexican-born. He was born in Michigan, an American citizen although his father never became a naturalized citizen. He grew up speaking Spanish and English.

My mother was French-Canadian and English, from western Massachusetts. When they married and he came to New England to meet her family, he found them all staring anxiously out the window as he approached. They had never seen a Mexican person before, you see, and they couldn't wait to see what he looked like.

My childhood was a mixture of identities. I was never white, but never as dark as the pure Mexican kids in my neighborhood. I was in-between. I had a Spanish last name, but I couldn't speak Spanish beyond perro and gato. I was a typical American kid in most respects, I like to think: cable tv, video games, Sesame Street. And yet, there was that other thing that was so inconsequential and yet set me apart from the other kids on my block. I was different.

When I was thirteen, my family moved to a rural town in Colorado and I had to adjust to a whole new speed of living. I went from city life to a farm town. I adjusted well, learned to love country music and the Denver Broncos. I found many friends, graduated near the top of my class. I was in six plays in four years, played two years of high school baseball, won my first writing contest.

I believe today that because of my in-betweenness, I learned to drift and float between cultures and identities. Because I was always something in-between, I learned how to adapt to people who weren't exactly like me and assimilate myself to be just like them. As long as I needed to - until I needed to adapt to another group for an hour or a week or a year.

There were Mexican kids in my school who were low-riders, dropouts, drifters. There were also kids who were great students, cheerleaders, football stars. They weren't like each other, and none of them was like me, and I wasn't like any of them. I was someone who moved into town just in time to start 9th grade. I was an outsider as the new kid, the different kid. And then I was just me.

When I look at Barack Obama, I see a life story like mine. I was born in Michigan to a father whose parents were born in another country. He was born in Hawaii to a mother from Kansas and a father from Kenya. I grew up a half-Mexican kid in Detroit and rural Colorado. He grew up a black kid in Honolulu and Indonesia.

I hear all these stories about how he crosses party lines, how well he works with political opponents, how he befriends his enemies. We do that. We see things from outside, always from outside, always sampling the other person's point of view. We wear different perspectives as a matter of course. We are always looking for the perspective that hasn't been expressed, for the point of view that isn't being noticed, the middle ground between the warring factions. We blend, and we try to bring together the seemingly irreconcilable as a matter of habit.

I have voted for presidents every year since 1988, and this is the first time I have been happy with my pick. No, more than that. I was overjoyed to select the name of Barack Hussein Obama to be my next president. He is of my generation - just eight years older than me. He is a parent of young children, like me. Like me, he married someone beautiful and intelligent and his equal, if not his better, in nearly every way. (Hi, sweetie.)

But it's deeper. Barack Obama has that complicated, hard-to-explain life story that I recognize all too well. He's several things all at once. He is at once African-American and white and neither of those things. He is a blend, multiracial, like me. He's a drifter between worlds, like me. He's a mutt, just like me, just like millions of Americans.

He's one of us.

The Future

That's the only prediction I'm going to make. Look, nobody comes to this blog to get cutting-edge punditry. Go to TPM or Kos or the Group News Blog.

Go vote, if you haven't already. I voted for Obama, Chris Gregoire, and I voted yes on Initiative 1000. I would have voted for Darcy Burner, but I'm not in her district. That's as much as I'm going to share about my choices.

Stop reading. Go vote. Do it now. Get yer free coffee or your free ice cream or your free I have no idea what this thing does, but go vote.

I'm on pins and needles waiting for the results to come in, but I think it's going to be a very good night tonight.

Are you registered to vote?

I know, most of you are pretty politically aware. But seriously - is every single person reading this message registered to vote?

Are you sure?

Have you moved in the last year? Did you switch your voter registration to the new address?

Is your spouse or partner registered to vote? How about your parents? Your kids (if they're over 18)? How about the people you work with?

This is going to be one of the most important elections in our lifetime, and there is no justifiable reason not to vote. Get to it now.

If you live in Washington, the deadline is coming very soon. If you're mailing in your registration or your address change, it needs to be postmarked by October 4. That's next Saturday.

Get it done now. Go to this website and find out how to register. (If you don't live in Washington, go here to find out what your deadline is and how to register.)

Don't sit this election out - there's just too much at stake.

Suspension?

He didn't suspend his campaign. McCain's lying again.

Suspend?! He didn't suspend shit. Since when you say you're going to quit work and then go do a live interview with Katie Couric?

Oh, and he also spoke at the Clinton Global Initiative after he, ahem, suspended his campaign. (So did Obama - but Obama isn't pulling this phony bullshit about suspending his campaign, so it doesn't matter. Obama knows how to run for president and also do his job as a Senator. McCain apparently forgot how.)

And he somehow found time to meet with her royal fucking highness Lady de Rothschild after he suspended his campaign.

He's throwing another Hail Mary pass. He's dodging the debates. He's trying to get Sarah Palin out of the debate with Biden. I don't know what his real game is, but he sure as hell didn't go rushing back to Washington D.C. to do the people's business. He had two stops first to do his own business. So don't let anyone try and say he suspended his campaign. It's a lie. Another lie by John McCain.

Congress didn't need his weaselly ass to get a plan put together. The real leaders in Congress actually worried that McCain's sudden appearance would slow down a deal, not speed it up.

Oh, and in case you haven't heard, he did blow off appearing on Letterman's show. And Letterman is deeply, seriously pissed about it.

He did not suspend his campaign. Pass it on. He did not act heroically - he claimed an emergency, cancelled a couple of things, offered a paperthin charade of bipartisanship, and then went about business as usual. He didn't suspend anything.

And by the way, the ultimate last word has to go to Barack Obama on this. He spoke shortly after McCain announced that the campaigns shouldn't try and both campaign and save Wall Street at the same time. Obama's responded this way:

"Presidents are going to have to deal with more than one thing at a time. It is not necessary for us to think we can do only one thing and suspend everything else."

The Organizers Strike Back

Note: thanks to Jaime Mulligan, whom I have never met, for the awesome picture.

---

"And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities." - Sarah Palin

Yeah, I'm still stuck on that one line. Because it pissed me off, friends and neighbors. Because it was a cheap shot at every organizer in the country. Everyone who's ever held a clipboard on a street corner, everyone who's ever knocked on the door of a stranger, everyone who's ever invited someone to a rally or a community event. Sarah Palin just spat in the faces of every single one of those people.

She attacked us.

And it wasn't just Palin who attacked us. Rudy Giuliani took a swing at community organizers. So did George Pataki.

Here's the truth, folks. Cesar Chavez was a community organizer. Ralph Nader was a community organizer. Martin Luther King Jr. was a community organizer. Mahatma Gandhi was a community organizer. Susan B. Anthony. Lech Walesa. Vaclav Havel. Aung San Suu Kyi.

But what about the other side? Gary Bauer and Pat Robertson were community organizers when they created the Christian Coalition. Focus on the Family's James Dobson, whether you like him or not, is doing community organizing. Hell, even Rush Limbaugh has a bit of community organizing to him. Change happens in this country and in this world because community organizers - on the left and on the right - are doing the hard, frustrating, thankless work they do. And Sarah Palin and her Republican buddies think we're all worthless.

Now, I could go on and on, but I'm not the only one who's offended by this. Some big names have joined the chorus of outrage against this cheap shot.

When Sarah Palin demeaned community organizing, she didn't attack another candidate. She attacked an American tradition --- one that has helped everyday Americans engage with the political process and make a difference in their lives and the lives of their neighbors.

All across the country, in every state and every community, there are community organizers helping people find shared solutions to the shared problems they face. The candidates for President and Vice President should be working to solve our shared problems, too, rather than attack others who are trying to do the same. - Deepak Bhargava, Executive Director of the Center for Center for Community Change

Contrary to Palin’s disparaging remarks, organizers have major responsibilities for creating policy changes. Feeding the hungry and housing the homeless are clearly responsibilities of people of faith. We do that by providing food and shelter and more importantly, by organizing to address the causes of injustice and inequity which lead to hunger and homelessness. - Kim Bobo, Executive Director of Interfaith Worker Justice and the co-author of “Organizing for Social Change"

Politicians should thank community organizers, not insult them. As a longtime organizer, I’ve seen time and time again the we are the ones who make government work for the poor, the powerless and the marginalized. Politicians’ policies and promises would amount to nothing without grassroots activists to hold them accountable. We are leaders of faith and stewards of democracy. In a time when the face of faith in politics is often ugly, community organizing is a valuable example faith’s positive role in public life.- Pastor Mark Diemer, senior pastor of Grace of God Lutheran Church in Columbus, Ohio and a DART community organizer.

These groups, and the millions of individuals they represent, are dismayed by the recent dismissal of their efforts in the form of political attacks. Community organizations have been at the heart of every major reform in modern history – from the Boston Tea Party to the civil rights movement for example, the quest for civil rights began when community organizers mobilized the disenfranchised. - USAction

ACORN members, leaders and staff are extremely disappointed that Republican leaders would make such condescending attacks on the great work community organizers accomplish in cities throughout this country. The fact that they marginalize our success in empowering low- and moderate-income people to improve their communities further illustrates their lack of touch with ordinary people. Every great movement in the history of the world has community organizing. - Maude Hurd, President, ACORN

(Note: I know I talk a lot of smack about ACORN, but they're doing good work and I've said that over and over again. And the fact that they underpay their community organizers doesn't change the fact that they're doing righteous work.)

This is just a sampling. More responses can be found here and here. And also, you must read this Kos diary.

Don't piss off community organizers. There are a hell of a lot of us, and we're proud. We work damn hard to make the change that happens in this world, and none of us are going to stand still while someone uses for a political punching bag.

Oh, and also this: community organizers don't just know how to use a rapid response network. We run the rapid response networks. We run the phone trees. We're activists. We're hellraisers. Don't pick a fight with people who fight for a living.

Democrats Don't Attack Working Mothers

Look, there are a hundred reasons to oppose Sarah Palin's nomination. One is that she was nominated by John McCain, who is a frightening prospect for president.

Her astonishing lack of qualifications. The lies about the Bridge to Nowhere. The lies about her connections with Ted Stevens. Her near-impeachment as mayor of Wasilla. The firing of the head of public safety for personal reasons. The earmarks she got to benefit her small town. The fact that she fought to keep polar bears off the endangered species list.

Lots of valid, political, meaningful reasons to oppose her nomination.

The fact that Sarah Palin is a working mother is not a reason to oppose her nomination. Mean-spirited attacks like Sally Quinn's piece are not going to help our case at all.

Is she prepared for the all-consuming nature of the job? She is the mother of five children, one of them a four-month-old with Down Syndrome. Her first priority has to be her children. When the phone rings at three in the morning and one of her children is really sick what choice will she make? I'm the mother of only one child, a special needs child who is grown now. I know how much of my time and energy I devoted to his care. He always had to be my first priority. Of course women can be good mothers and have careers at the same time. I've done both. Yes, other women in public office have children. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has five children, but she didn't get heavily involved in politics until they were older. A mother's role is different from a father's.

Mrs. B is a working mother. Do we really want to start attacking mothers for working outside the home? Take away the number of kids, the concerns about the kid with Down's Syndrome. This is an attack on working mothers.

And it's also an attack on fathers, incidentally. I was a stay-at-home dad for nearly a year of Oliver's life. He was still nursing when Mrs. B went back to work. I fed him bottles of breast milk. I put him to bed. I took care of him. He survived. A mother's role is different from a father's, true, but if Palin's husband is the chief caregiver in the family, there is no shame and no harm in that. And shame on Sally Quinn for insinuating otherwise.

We are attacking our own best interests as progressives and as Democrats when we attack Sarah Palin for daring to work while raise children. Let's get back to the issues at hand and not get distracted by the circumstances of her family. We're better than this.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Sarah Palin's place on the ticket didn't last the week. If/when she resigns her position as vice-presidential candidate, she will blame the Democrats for attacking her and her daughter. She will accuse us of trying to destroy her and her family, and she will say that the Democratic party is anti-working woman and anti-family. Sally Quinn's piece feeds into that argument. Every time a progressive gleefully talks about what a terrible mother Sarah Palin must be, they feed into that argument.

We're better than this.

Barack Obama, My Candidate

Barack Obama is just eight years older than me. He is of my generation - the generation that missed the sixties, the generation that grew up under the specter of the Cold War and Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. He is my candidate, the first candidate with whom I could truly emphasize.

I loved his speech tonight, but two parts in particular jumped out at me. He built a strong case for the power of government - yes, the federal government itself. The big bad bureaucracy. Like me, Obama believes that government is not only necessary, but is in fact the proper mechanism to tackle society's problems. Like me, he believes that government at its best works on our behalf and in line with our best instincts.

What is that American promise? It's a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have obligations to treat each other with dignity and respect.

It's a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, to look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road.

Ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves: protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools, and new roads, and science, and technology.

Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who's willing to work.

That's the promise of America, the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation, the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper.

That's the promise we need to keep. That's the change we need right now.

He also recognizes that not everybody believes him. He spoke directly tonight to the people who have given up on politics, on government, and maybe they've even given up on him. And he pointed out how that apathy was far from benign - that ignoring politics would merely let the bastards keep doing what they've been doing. Obama as just another politicians, in an effort to get them to sit out the election. He called on the sideline-sitters and the cynics to stand up and get involved.

I know there are those who dismiss such beliefs as happy talk. They claim that our insistence on something larger, something firmer, and more honest in our public life is just a Trojan horse for higher taxes and the abandonment of traditional values.

And that's to be expected, because if you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from. You make a big election about small things.

And you know what? It's worked before, because it feeds into the cynicism we all have about government. When Washington doesn't work, all its promises seem empty. If your hopes have been dashed again and again, then it's best to stop hoping and settle for what you already know. I get it.

He does get it.

Tonight confirmed everything I was hoping about Obama. He's not just resting on his laurels and his 80,000-strong rockstar receptions. He's ready to fight for this election, ready to fight McCain toe to toe and call him out on every lie and deception. He can deliver the soaring rhetoric and take roundhouse swings at McCain at the same time.

More reassuring to me was hearing that Obama believes what I believe about government. I won't agree with him on every decision, but I'm relieved to hear that he has the same understanding that I do of the role of government. Our finest presidents - Franklin Roosevelt, Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson - have used the power of the federal government to attack the deepest problems of society. Obama's not running from the legacy of the "New Deal" Democratic party - he's proud to be a member of that party. And I'm proud to be a part of his party.

"How Many Homes Do You Own?"

So have you heard the one where the reporter asks John McCain how many houses he owns? And McCain says he doesn't know how many houses he owns?

Seriously. This actually happened.

I'll let my good friend Barack Obama explain how it went down.

"...somebody asked John McCain, how many houses do you have? And he said, I’m not sure. I’ll have to check with my staff. True quote. I’m not sure. I’ll have to check with my staff. So they asked his staff, and he said, at least four. At least four. Now, think about that. I guess if you think that being rich means you’ve got to make $5 million and if you don’t know how many houses you have, then it’s not surprising that you might think the economy was fundamentally strong. But if you’re like me, and you’ve got one house, or you are like the millions of people who are struggling right now to keep up with their mortgage so they don’t lose their home, you might have a different perspective. And by the way, the answer is John McCain has seven homes."

Here's the video of Obama's response.

Here's the audio of McCain actually saying it.

Obama is going to town on this quote, and on McCain's fundamental inability to understand the economy or average Americans. Check out this list of campaign events, all focusing on McCain's bonehead line.

I don't want to just call it a gaffe, because a gaffe implies he said something he didn't mean. John McCain is a wealthy man. He owns more homes than he can keep track of. This isn't a gaffe - it's an accidental admission of his wealth.

I'm hoping this becomes the quote of the year. The "I voted for it before I voted against it" of 2008. Of course, I'll also be happy if he says something stupider than this, but this will work for now.

Ha.

Ha.

Ha.

The Vice President will be ...

So the NY Times is reporting that Obama has selected his vice-presidential pick, and he'll make the announcement soon.

Really soon.

Like, Wednesday.

So, being a pretend internet pundit, I have to get my pick in, so when Obama names my selection, I'll look all brilliant and prescient and insightful.

and so, let me punditize. Allow me to present to you the 2008 vice-presidential nominee for the Democratic party.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Brian Schweitzer.


And who dat, you may be asking yourself? Well, let me paste some stuff from Wikipedia tell you everything I know about him.

Brian Schweitzer is the Democratic governor of Montana, a state not exactly known for left-wing politics. Schweitzer served in the Clinton administration and, in 2004, ran for the Senate against incumbent Conrad Burns, and nearly beat him. (51-47.)

He ran for governor after Judy Martz (rhymes with ... um ... um ... Martz) stepped down. As kind of a shocker, he announced that he would be running with a Republican, John Bohlinger, as his lieutenant governor. (apparently, you run on a ticket in Montana.) See how nicely that fits Obama's message of a new kind of politics?

Montana's in the Rocky Mountain West, which is sizing up to be an important region in this election. Schweitzer is a Democrat that appeals to conservatives and independents. He's a non-traditional Democrat like Jon Tester or Jim Webb. Montana is only two states away from Colorado, so he'll get a hero's welcome in Denver.

As proof that I am not just pulling this out of my hat, here's the words of an actual pundit - Sean Q. from fivethirtyeight.com.

The first time I heard Brian Schweitzer speak, I thought: "This guy is going to be President." That is not a common reaction on my part to politicians. I've listened to hundreds and hundreds of Democratic politicians speak, and I've only had that reaction twice in my lifetime. The first was Barack Obama, the second was Brian Schweitzer.

People have asked me what it was that made me feel so strongly in reaction, and the way I'd put it now is that Brian Schweitzer and Barack Obama are the two "new Democrat" styles that are extremely effective in the post-Clinton era. Both emphasize solutions over partisanship. Both are suspected by Republicans of talking a good game of bipartisanship and hewing to traditional Democratic Party ideology. Both are great communicators, but with different rhetorical strengths. Obama rose from an mainly urban and intellectual background; Schweitzer's breakthrough is probably the single best example of why the Democrats chose Denver as the convention site this year.

So will it happen? I dunno. Probably not. But he's my pick. Brian Schweitzer. Write it down.

John Edwards

Many of my longtime readers know that I supported John Edwards' candidacy.

When I heard the rumors last year, and again a few weeks ago, I thought that it was baloney. I didn't deny that Edwards was capable of an affair - he's a good-looking, wealthy guy with a high profile and a strong opinion of himself. However, his relationship with his wife seemed rock-solid, and the evidence from the Enquirer seemed suspect. There were no photographs. There was no hard proof. And after all, it was a supermarket tabloid. I chose to ignore the rumors.

I don't know yet how I think about the confession by Edwards of his affair - his short-term affair that he says ended two years ago. I don't care, frankly, to know how long it went on, how it ended, how many times they slept together. None of it is my business.

He has spoken out and so has his wife. I bear both of their statements in mind.

John Edwards Statement

Elizabeth Edwards Statement

However, I cared about this man and I committed myself to his presidency. I was moved by his support of poverty issues, by his highlighting of issues being ignored by most other candidates. I would have willingly followed him all the way to the convention, and then to the White House.

Who knows when this would have surfaced if he had become the frontrunner instead of Obama? In New Hampshire? In Nevada? Before the nomination? Who knows, if he had become the candidate, what would have happened to his candidacy if this story had broken in September or October?

Edwards made a foolish mistake, as millions of men and women have also made. But he was running for president with this in his back pocket. He ended the affair - he announced his candidacy on December 28, 2006. He lied about this affair for nearly a year - beginning in October of last year - knowing that it was true. His wife knew the truth, but he strung the rest of us along for his entire candidacy and beyond. We believed in him, and when he said the rumors were bunk, we believed him because we believed in him. We were lied to, all of us. I cannot just let this go. I cannot reconcile this with platitudes about his privacy or about the fallibility of the human condition.

He lied to me, and the National Enquirer had to bring the news that he was a liar. Thank you very much, John.

Sure, it never should have become public. Sure. Sure, he deserves his privacy. But goddammit, he knew this was going to come back and bite him eventually. He's a public figure, and things like this do not just go away. (And if he wanted it to go away, what the hell was he doing visiting this woman in July 2008? He says he ended the affair in 2006 - why was he still visiting her last month?)

I don't know who I'm angriest with - the press or John Edwards. But Meteor Blades wrote a white-hot post on Kos that stuck with me.

You knew when you declared for the presidency that this affair hung over you, that it might easily come to light. That it could, had you gained the nomination, have wrecked the party’s chances for winning the White House, tamped down support for Democrats running for seats in Congress, and set progressives back a decade. You knew that when you kept your name in the hopper for the vice presidency.

But you kept running anyway. You lied. And you got others to lie for you. You did this knowing full well the damage that could be done, not to your marriage, but to the party and the aspirations for better governance of those who looked to you as a leader who could help bring it about.

Your populist message was and is a crucial one, the source of much of your support, the reason that many of us backed you even though your past record on an array of issues, including Iraq, gave us pause. We gave you credit for changing your mind. Your speaking out for the needs of a sector of the population previously ignored by other candidates created a powerful and loyal constituency.

You have made it clear that you cared more about yourself than about that constituency. Than about us. You were willing to take a chance that you would be nominated for the Presidency and that the revelation of this affair would put a Republican in the White House, ironically, a Republican who betrays and mistreats the women in his life, too.

So that's what Meteor thinks.

As I said before, I don't really know what to think about this. What do you think? Tell me where you're at on this. I hate having to talk about this, but we're here, and it's out, so we might as well talk about it.

Feel the Excitement

Gas Prices: "I Don't See How It Matters"

John McCain is so not ready for prime time.

Check out this brilliant exchange, from a phone interview with the Orange County Register. (You can also follow the link to hear the audio, just in case you thought this didn't actually happen.)

WICKSOL: When was the last time you pumped your own gas and how much did it cost?

MCCAIN: Oh, I don’t remember. Now there’s Secret Service protection. But I’ve done it for many, many years. I don’t recall and frankly, I don’t see how it matters.

He waits for a beat and then tries to add this "I feel your pain"-type comment.

I’ve had hundreds and hundreds of town hall meetings, many as short a time ago as yesterday. I communicate with the people and they communicate with me very effectively.

I'll bet that if you're reading this, you can remember how much you paid for your last tank of gas. (We filled up our Scion xB on Saturday, and it cost $42.) McCain doesn't know how much gas costs for the average American, and he doesn't care. Why should he? Only the little people worry about stuff like gas prices. He's too busy worrying about ...

um ...

what exactly is McCain an expert in?

Supreme Court Reverses Gore Endorsement, Awarding it to McCain

Mere moments after formally announcing his backing for Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama in an email to supporters, former Vice President Al Gore’s endorsement was blocked and reversed by a 5-4 Supreme Court decision, handing the Nobel Prize winner’s full throated support to Republican nominee John McCain.

Writing for the majority, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said that regardless of who Gore intended to support, a strict constructionist reading of his statement made it clear that, from a legal standpoint, his endorsement must be awarded to the GOP candidate.

Read the scoop at Really Serious News.

A Righteous Wind at Our Backs: Barack Obama circa 2004

Remember back when Barack Obama was an unknown? Remember that speech in Boston? Nobody know that his speech was going to be "the speech." Nobody knew how far that speech was going to carry him.

Except maybe the man himself. Obama wrote his speech at the Democratic Convention himself, and worked for weeks and weeks on it. By the time he turned it in, he knew he had something.

From a great article in Chicago Magazine:

Obama was buoyed, however, by the hordes of reporters and well-wishers who descended on him as he walked around the streets of Boston on Monday with his close friend Martin Nesbitt. "I said to Barack, ‘You know this is pretty unbelievable, man-you're like a rock star,'" Nesbitt recalls. "He said, ‘Yeah, but it might be a little worse tomorrow.' I said, ‘Really? Why do you say that?'" Nesbitt recalls that Obama then smiled and replied: "It's a pretty good speech."

It was a pretty good speech.

It was a piece of history. And it wasn't just the red state/blue state part that was memorable. The entire speech is damn near poetry.

"I believe that we can give our middle class relief and provide working families with a road to opportunity.

I believe we can provide jobs to the jobless, homes to the homeless, and reclaim young people in cities across America from violence and despair.

I believe that we have a righteous wind at our backs, and that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices, and meet the challenges that face us."

Read the article I linked above. Go back and watch that speech now, and think about how far this man, and this country, have come in four short years. It's seventeen minutes of history, and you'll be glad you took the time.

Here's Part One.

Here's Part Two.

We have come far, and yet, my friends, we still have work to do. Let's get to work.

$4.25

$4.25 a gallon. That was the price of gas this morning at the station down our street. For the cheap stuff! Premium gas is up around $4.50 or even higher. And I saw diesel being sold for $5.01 late last week.

Our esteemed president has no idea how to fix it. Hell, he didn't even know it was happening. On February 28th, this exchange happened during a press conference:

Q What's your advice to the average American who is hurting now, facing the prospect of $4 a gallon gasoline, a lot of people facing --

THE PRESIDENT: Wait, what did you just say? You're predicting $4 a gallon gasoline?

Q A number of analysts are predicting --

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, yeah?

Q -- $4 a gallon gasoline this spring when they reformulate.

THE PRESIDENT: That's interesting. I hadn't heard that.

Stupid little man.

Scaredy Cat Superdelegates

Look at that number, up in the top right corner of this blog.

Look at the number of superdelegates who are still uncommitted, the day after Obama wrapped up the nomination.

The number, right now, is 144.5. (That includes at least one person from Florida or Michigan who only gets a half vote, so it's actually higher than that.)

They actually have a candidate of the party, and they're still too chickenshit to cast their lot with Obama.

Gutless fucking wonders.

That number will tick down today, and tick down more by the end of this week, but those people ought to be publicly shamed for refusing to take a stand in what is surely the most contentious Democratic nominating process we'll see in our lifetimes. We can call them the Mugwump Brigade, because the Chickenshit Brigade (the name they deserve) won't make it on the radio, and will never be reprinted in a newspaper or on a t-shirt.

It is because of their sniveling cowardice that this race dragged on so long. If they had made their voices heard a month ago, this never would have gone to June 2nd. This would have been a done deal. But instead, the Republicans and Hillary Clinton got another month or two to bash away at Obama. Thank you very fucking much.

The only people who have any excuse not to have endorsed yet are the top echelon of party leaders - people like Jimmy Carter (who now has endorsed Obama) and Al Gore, who were holding back their endorsements so they could play peacemaker in case the nomination process got out of hand.

But the rest of them suck. They completely suck. They're a bunch of knock-kneed bedwetting chickenshit cowards, and you can quote me on that.

It's Over

TPM reports that he's a dozen delegates away from claiming the nomination.

This is an amazing moment, people. The Democratic nominee is going to be a second-generation American with an African father and a white American mother.

Barack Obama is going to be the nominee of my party.

Like my son, the nominee of the party is going to be a mixed-race kid with a funny last name.

Oliver is going to watch Barack Obama giving speeches all summer and fall. God willing, we'll see him in person again, when he comes out to Washington to stump for Darcy Burner and the other local Dems.

Barack Obama is going to be the nominee of my party. And if everything goes the way it should, Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States.

I have tears in my eyes right now.

Delegate Count - Checkmate

The AP is reporting that, based on public endorsements and private commitments, Obama now has enough delegates to claim the nomination.

There have been too many delegate announcements today to track. (You can watch them roll in by going here - it's easier to send you to their site than for me to steal borrow their data and pretend it's mine.)

I will note that my former Massachusetts state Rep, John Olver, was one of the announced supes today. Good to see he's still serving the people of western Mass. after all these years.

Obama's set to collect at least three, and as many as nine, Montana SD endorsements as soon as he claims victory in this state. I think it's over tonight.