The National Enquirer may be a rag, but it looks like they nailed John Edwards hard. In a nutshell, they stalked Edwards while he attempted a covert late-night rendezvous with a mistress at a Los Angeles hotel.

I have to disagree with the critiques - i think it’s brilliant satire. The rightwing pundits will try to argue that their critiques of Obama are "on the merits" but if you take their attacks literally (he's a crypto muslim, an extremist, a marxist, etc.) then the cartoon on the cover is in fact the logical portrait that results. Its a mirror reflecting all the ugliness about Obama in the right wing media at once.

L.K. Advani, of India's BJP party, is better known for fiery, nationalist, partisan rhetoric than he is for unity and change. At 80 years old, he's more McCain than Obama. However, as he makes his bid to be India's Prime Minister, he's trying to poach from the Obama playbook:

I've been forwarded one variant or another of the following email by several friends:

Subject: Help Fight America's Oil Crisis

An Open letter to All Airline Customers:

Our country is facing a possible sharp economic downturn because of skyrocketing oil and fuel prices, but by pulling together, we can all do something to help now. Visit www.StopOilSpeculationNow.com.

(continued...)

This is a very interesting editorial, making some points I hadn't quite seen before in this form. For one thing, it argues that part of the rationale for Barack Obama is 9-11:

Even as Pennsylvania looms like a storm on the horizon, the dry spell between primaries has left the fields of the liberal blogsphere in substantive-debate drought, ablaze with the fires of fraternal warfare. The lines of polemic have consolidated around several narratives:

- Hillary should resign, because she can't win - Obama is a weak candidate in the general election - Hillary is destroying the party by giving the GOP ammunition/using their attacks - Obama is just another politician who lies and panders - McCain is benefiting from the delay in choosing a nominee - The damage to the Democrats from this civil war is permanent

I like to think of these tropes as She's Lost, He'll Lose, She's a Traitor, He's a Liar, We're Screwed, and Why Can't We All Get Along, respectively. And yet all of these, every single one, is completely wrong.

Let's take a cool and clear-headed view at each in turn.

No one should mistake Daniel Larison for a fan of Barack Obama. However, Larison is an authentic conservative voice who expresses his opinion independently of party affiliations. His defense of Obama (and critique of McCain) is thus notable and appreciated:

I confess that I didn't know much about Eliot Spitzer prior to his meltdown. However, I am rather disturbed by what I am reading about the way in which Spitzer used the power of his office for vendettas in a manner that reminds me of Rudy Giuliani.

Spitzer's weapon of choice was the Martin Act:

The number of muslims in Congress has now doubled:

Democrat Andre Carson defeated his Republican rival tonight by a wide margin in a special election to replace his grandmother in representing the 7th Congressional District.
[...]
He called the win an "extremely humbling experience" and said his message of protecting Social Security, bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq and fighting for jobs and health care had resonated with the voters of the 7th District.
[...]
Carson will be the first Muslim to ever represent Indiana in Congress — and only the second Muslim nationwide in Congress.

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama congratulated Carson on "winning a hard-fought race."

Obama carried the major cities in Ohio yesterday but lost statewide. I can't help but wonder how much the "cryptomuslim" whispering smear campaign hurt him. There are some clues in the exit polls. Using the data from CNN, we see the following:

On May 17th, 2003, Joe Trippi posted a blog entry at the unofficial Dean Nation weblog entitled simply, The Perfect Storm. In that post, since reprinted many times elsewhere, he wrote like the prophet he is:

Today's Day by Day cartoon by Chris Muir:

It didn't take long, did it? This just goes to show how terrified of the Obamenon the right wing has become.

(Obviously, Obama has never proposed that Americans be forced to labor in camps. The context was about taking action, about giving something to your country, about being more than just a passive observer in your nation's affairs. This is the sort of definition of patriotism that conservatives used to value highly).

I was forwarded this by a reliably leftist progressive acquaintance.

Do you think that Barack Obama is going to fight for the common man, or will he - like every other candidate in the race - be beholden to corporate interests?  Well, guess who is the number one recipient of campaign funds from the following industries:  computer and Internet companies, commercial banks, health professionals, health services and HMOs, hospitals and nursing homes, lawyers and law firms, miscellaneous health care interests, pharmaceutical and health product producers, securities and investment interests (groups with serious cash), and television, movie, and music companies?

If you guessed Hillary Clinton, you're right!  Guess who's in second place?  A man by the name of Barack Obama.

If you think that BO is going to work for the common good of the common man, you may be a moron.

I assume the text above is excerpted from the counterpunch link appended, though I've no stomach to really click over.

A Bizarro World article in The New Republic by Brad Plumer argues inexplicably that the netroots favor Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama. The article appears to have been written prior to Edwards' dropping out, even though it was just published last week. As such it is hopelessly out of date, even if it's central premise were true, which Plumer strains mightily to prove with quotes from various netroots chiefs like Stoller, Markos, Hamsher etc. It's true that Obama has been heavily critiqued by the left for pursuing an inclusive, post-partisan theme rather than a transformative,  hyper-partisan theme, but to conclude that there's some kind of rift from this is really letting the thesis drive the story.

Well, it made RedState happy, at least. Let them take whatever solace they can.

Kudos to Kill at Feministe for raising the issue of how oppressive head-scarf bans are - just as oppressive in their own way as mandatory burqas. She quotes extensively from an article in the NYT written by a Turkish woman detailing her experiences with the ban at  Turkish universities. I found this particularly cogent:

Two great forces battling it out for market share, and then one side implodes as independents choose sides. Ultimately, even the biggest backers of the losing side has to acknowledge defeat and pull the plug.

Republicans vs Democrats? The migration of independent voters away from the GOP well, yes that too, but I was actually referring to Blu-ray vs HD-DVD. In some ways it's a parable of sorts.

It all started to go sour for HD-DVD when several big name studios jumped ship, but this past week the big death knell came with news that Netflix was going Blu exclusive. And, Best Buy was going to focus on Blu as well (though HD-DVD would still have some shelving space). Now it seems that Toshiba itself is pulling the plug.

I usually don't pay much attention to my Starbucks TWISIs¹ (though I do occasionally document the ones I receive on my twitter). Today's triple venti latte, though, had quite an interesting TWISI on it, which I found highly relevant to the political drama of the times. The author? George F. Will, "Pulitzer-Prize winning author and columnist" (the cup reminds us helpfully). The topic? "true" conservatives. (and, of course, liberals, because how else do they define themselves?).

^[1]"The Way I See It"

By azizhp at 2008-02-01

Five years ago today, Shuttle mission STS-107 was lost over the blue morning skies of Texas.

By azizhp at 2008-02-01

I remember that morning clear as day.

By azizhp at 2008-02-01