New York Post story nominated for "most ignored of 2008 award."

New York Post reporter Ginger Otis has been nominated for the prestigious Most Ignored Story of 2008 award, for her recent story, "Obama Robbed in New York." The story details how, in NYC, which happens to be Hillary Clinton's "home town," whoever counted the votes seemed not to notice that Mr. Obama had any.

From the article:

February 16, 2008 -- Barack Obama's primary-night results were strikingly under recorded in several congressional districts around the city - in some cases leaving him with zero votes when, in fact, he had pulled in hundreds, the Board of Elections said today
Unofficial primary results gave Obama no votes in nearly 80 districts, including Harlem's 94th and other historically black areas - but many of those initial tallies proved to be wildly off the mark, the Board of Elections confirmed.
Truth is, in some districts getting a recount, the senator from Illinois is even close to defeating Hillary Clinton...

In a predominantly black Brooklyn district for which Clinton was given credit for a 118-0 victory on Primary Night, the Board of Elections' latest figures indicate that she may not even come out the winner - Obama currently has 116 votes to her 118.

Since stories about possible electoral fraud are routinely ignored by the rest of the Media -- forgotten as if they'd never existed in the first place -- observers believe Ms. Otis's story has a fair shot at winning the award. "However," noted Brad Friedman, four-time past winner of the award, "it's early yet. We haven't even gotten to the general election, anything can happen." Indeed, Ms. Otis looks to be facing several other strong contenders. The story of 50,000 Los Angeles votes not counting has already been largely forgotten, and given the historic Democratic primaries and the omnipresence of school shootings, Britney Spears, and cleaver-murders, nobody seems to be paying much attention to stories about anything the current Administration or Congress are doing. But for now, Ms. Otis's story is an early favorite.

When asked for comment, Ms. Otis added: "What story?"

"Yes We Can" vs. "Me Me Me"

Obama may be more proficient in the vocabulary of leadership, but Clinton's speech proved her campaign right when they said she represents a real change. Most leaders use the words "we," "us" and "our" to draw in their listeners, to make them feel as if they're part of the team -- to make them feel invested in the leader's success. Not Clinton. Compare Obama's old school approach vs. Clinton's radically different one. She doesn't pander to the togetherist lobby. She turns conventional wisdom on its head by choosing language that gives the impression it's all about her. "I listened to you... I found my voice." That line in particular was brilliant. We know it was brilliant. If it had been a pathetic admission that she's given to falling out of touch with the American people, the Media would've told us so. But they told us it was brilliant, which, to me, was a big relief.

Let's compare Old School Obama to New Jack Clinton. Here's Obama's South Carolina victory speech...



...vs. Clinton's New Hampshire victory speech.



I have to admit, she lapsed a bit toward the end. A few "we" and "us" buzzwords crept in. But what a rousing start.

The Clintons smoked identity politics, inhaled big-time

The more I see of the Clinton campaign, the more I understand the burning hatred the right wing has always felt toward them, even if I don't (yet) share it. How can you not hate people who laugh and smile while they distort their opponents words and records? How can you not hate people who brazenly drag their opponents' race into the campaign repeatedly, and then feign indignation when their opponent calls them on it? How can you not despise the Clintons when they speak derisively of Barack engaging in identity politics, while at the same time reminding everyone at every turn that Hillary has ovaries?

The Clintons' latest not-quite-subtle attempt to marginalize Obama based on race:

Said Bill Clinton today in Columbia, SC: "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here."

This was in response to a question about Obama saying it "took two people to beat him." Jackson had not been mentioned.

Boy, I can't understand why anyone would think the Clintons are running a race-baiting campaign to paint Obama as "the black candidate."

Obama did win the vast majority of black South Carolinians' votes. But how does Bill Clinton explain Iowa? Did Jesse Jackson win Iowa and the history books forgot to record that?

Clinton follows Bush's lead on the Media

This is exactly what we need -- four more years of this crap:

Reporters who have covered the hyper-vigilant campaign say that no detail or editorial spin is too minor to draw a rebuke. Even seasoned political journalists describe reporting on Hillary as a torturous experience. Though few dare offer specifics for the record--"They're too smart," one furtively confides. "They'll figure out who I am"--privately, they recount excruciating battles to secure basic facts. Innocent queries are met with deep suspicion. Only surgically precise questioning yields relevant answers. Hillary's aides don't hesitate to use access as a blunt instrument, as when they killed off a negative GQ story on the campaign by threatening to stop cooperating with a separate Bill Clinton story the magazine had in the works. Reporters' jabs and errors are long remembered, and no hour is too odd for an angry phone call. Clinton aides are especially swift to bypass reporters and complain to top editors. "They're frightening!" says one reporter who has covered Clinton. "They don't see [reporting] as a healthy part of the process. They view this as a ruthless kill-or-be-killed game."

Despite all the grumbling, however, the press has showered Hillary with strikingly positive coverage. "It's one of the few times I've seen journalists respect someone for beating the hell out of them," says a veteran Democratic media operative. The media has paved a smooth road for signature campaign moments like Hillary's campaign launch and her health care plan rollout and has dutifully advanced campaign-promoted themes like Hillary's "experience" and expertise in military affairs. This is all the more striking in light of the press's past treatment of Clinton--particularly during her husband's White House years--including endless stories about her personal ethics, frostiness, and alleged Lady Macbeth persona.

It's enough to make you suspect that breeding fear and paranoia within the press corps is itself part of the Clinton campaign's strategy. And, if that sounds familiar, it may be because the Clinton machine, say reporters and pro-Hillary Democrats, is emulating nothing less than the model of the Bush White House, which has treated the press with thinly veiled contempt and minimal cooperation. "The Bush administration changed the rules," as one scribe puts it--and the Clintonites like the way they look. (To be sure, no one accuses the Clinton team of outright lying to the press, as the Bushies have done, or of crossing other ethical lines. And reporters say other press shops--notably those of Rudy Giuliani and John Edwards--are also highly combative.)

So far, the strategy has worked brilliantly. In the current climate, where the mainstream media is under attack from both conservatives and liberals, Clinton may have picked the right moment to get tough with the press. But, as the murmur of discontent among the fourth estate grows--and Hillary's coverage has taken a sharper tone since a widely panned debate performance late last month--even some Hillary supporters fear that the strategy may produce a dangerous backlash.

Assuming Clinton wins the presidency, I'd just like to thank the Clinton team in advance for providing "Candorville" with at least four years of material.

I don't think "robust" means what Bush thinks it means

From the people who brought us such hits as "Uraniam Tubes from Africa" and "Saddam Hussein blah blah blah 9/11" comes a new classic: "This economy sure kicks ass."

Apparently the White House feels its policies have created a more robust economy than existed during the late '90s. We all must have just imagined we were better off. Sure, the amount of people living in poverty has skyrocketed, but what does that matter?

If you keep in mind an early quote about the Bush administration's governing philosophy, allegedly from a White House aide, it all makes perfect sense:

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

Another quote that may be helpful when listening to the White House tell you why it's technically not such a bad thing that you've gone from working on a Ford assembly line to working at a Wal-Mart checkout line:

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."
-Mark Twain (or possibly Benjamin Disraeli)

Clinton spins the war vote

Oh, please...

From The Hill:

Former President Bill Clinton yesterday complained that “it’s just not fair” the way his wife, presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), is being depicted for her controversial Iraq war vote.

Speaking to hundreds of supporters on conference call, the former president said, “I don’t have a problem with anything Barack Obama [has] said on this,” but “to characterize Hillary and Obama’s positions on the war as polar opposites is ludicrous.

“This dichotomy that’s been set up to allow him to become the raging hero of the anti-war crowd on the Internet is just factually inaccurate.”

The ex-president’s aggressive defense of his wife’s position revealed frustration in the Clinton camp over how the issue is playing into the already-overheated presidential campaign.

On a conference call with Hillraisers, Sen. Clinton’s biggest donors, which The Hill listened to after being provided the call-in information, the former president said there was a stark difference between those who voted for the Iraq resolution and those who wanted to go to war.

In response to a question from one of the supporters on the phone about explaining Hillary Clinton’s Iraq vote to undecided voters, the former president jumped in front of former Democratic Party Chairman Terry McAuliffe, saying, “Let me answer this.”

He said he had re-read the Iraq resolution last week, and that his wife had voted only for “coercive inspections.” Clinton justified his wife’s refusal to apologize for her vote by explaining that she was acting out of concern that future presidents might need similar language authorizing “coercive inspections to avoid conflict.”

“It’s just not fair to say that people who voted for the resolution wanted war,” Clinton said.

Does he think anyone's going to buy that? Technically, he's right. Congress voted to authorize "coercive inspections," and for the President to return to the UN Security Council for approval before launching his invasion, and the President did neither. He pulled the inspectors out (and then claimed Hussein expelled them) and did not return to the UN until after he'd invaded to demand the UN retroactively give him authorization. Nobody would've expected the President to do that, right? Nobody except the millions of Americans who were sure he was going to war no matter the evidence or excuse. If the Democrats in Congress who voted for that resolution were among the segment of our population who didn't accurately assess Bush's intentions (which couldn't have been more obvious), that casts serious doubt on their judgement.

Either Bill Clinton is wrong and Senator Clinton did suspect this was a vote for war, or he's right and she was too naive to realize it was a vote for war. There's no way to put a good spin on this, so please, Mr. Clinton, stop trying.

Clinton on Faux: How could Roger Ailes be so confused?

There's been so much whine coming from the direction of the "Fair & Balanced" network that you'd think they were based in Napa. "Boo hoo, Bill Clinton raised his voice! Waaaah, Bill Clinton looked at me angry! Mommy! Mommy! Mommmmyyyyyy!" Today, Fox even tried to portray Clinton's forceful response to their interviewer as an attack upon all of journalism. Why Ailes confused Fox News with journalism, I have no idea.

To hear them tell it, Clinton ripped off his shirt, turned lime green and feasted on poor Chris Wallace's intestines before relieving himself on the First Amendment. That's not exactly how it happened.

Meanwhile Keith Olberman has a different take on it:

Clinton Unloads on Faux News

As anyone who's seen a brilliant trailer and then gone to find out that the movie was total crap knows, it's easy to give a false impression with a few simple editing tricks. For the past couple days, the Drudge Report and other right-wing sites have been downright orgasmic over a 50-second clip that they claimed showed Clinton coming unhinged and being forced by Fox News to admit he failed to prevent 9-11. Watch a longer version of that interview, which has just a little bit more substance following the "I failed" part than the Fox promo would suggest.