What Andrew said.
As of tonight, officially, the only way Hillary Clinton can become the nominee is to over-ride the democratic electoral system.
Now, it's Obama time.
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May 20th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Still, expect a floor fight over the credentials of the Florida and Michigan delegates. Hillary Clinton will never give up, even if it means proposing that she and Obama settle it by playing rock-paper-scissors. You don’t think that she will be his running mate, do you?
May 20th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
“the only way Hillary Clinton can become the nominee is to over-ride the democratic electoral system.”
As opposed to the Democratic Party electoral system, which allows super-delegates to vote for whomever they want, without reference to the results of Democratic Party primaries.
This is exactly like listening to people argue that Al Gore is the rightful President because he won the popular vote, and because the Supreme Court ruled inconveniently, because it was lawfully dominated by Republicans.
Christ on the phone people, what about abiding by the rules that were set up Before the competition began? Barring some meltdown of epic proportions, Obama is going to win the nomination, anyway. What do you want, egg in your beer?
May 20th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Heard around Off the Record bar at Hay Adams hotel tonight: Hillary will be Obama’s VP choice by June 15. Negotiations ongoing.
May 21st, 2008 at 5:00 am
Selecting Hillary as VP makes perfect sense.
1. The most thorough, dramatic, unassailable way to demonstrate Democratic party unity.
2. The most thorough, unassailable way to invite comparison of the Bush era to the Clinton era.
3. Hillary and Bill are exceptionally articulate, knowledgable and supremely capable of representing Obama’s agenda.
4. Apoplexy and, it is to be hoped, speechlessness, for victims of Clinton Derangement Syndrome.
May 21st, 2008 at 5:05 am
Oh, and I almost forgot the most important point:
5. Hillary earned it.
The millions of Democrats who voted for her should not be ignored by the party just because her campaign tactics crossed the line of poor taste and bad judgment a few times.
Whatever you might want to say about Jim Webb or Al Gore or any of the others, none can claim to have just won the votes of almost half the party. In a lower and upper case Democratic party, that should mean something.
May 21st, 2008 at 5:34 am
Clinton’s campaign is $31 million in debt. That’s some management and leadership. Gee, how will they ever pay it off? Well, don’t wait for the check in the mail.
All the conservative radio talk shows will be thrilled if the Clinton’s becomes the V.P. (you know, two for the price of one). That will give Limbaugh et al. four to eight more years of fun material–but, this time Bill Clinton will have free time and can’t be impeached!
May 21st, 2008 at 6:01 am
I knew it! I knew it! So, where was the press on this besides posting accolades and big pictures?
Free Concert by Popular Band Preceded Obama’s Big Rally
Next week, free ice cream!
May 21st, 2008 at 6:44 am
Too bad Lawrence Welk is dead or McCain could be offering free concerts before his appearances too.
May 21st, 2008 at 6:52 am
Maybe McCain could get the Oak Ridge Boys; dutifully hitting those low notes like Bob Dole did in 1996 when he wasn’t falling off the podium.
May 21st, 2008 at 7:20 am
News update: What’s this? Can it be?? According to a story just in, Israel has been holding peace talks with Syria in Turkey. Can you believe this policy of appeasement? Don’t the Israelis know that Syria is a state sponsor of terrorism and that one should never talk to such folks? Don’t the Israelis know about Hitler and Munich and Chamberlain and all that? Haven’t they read their history books? I will bet George W. Bush and John McCain will have something pertinent to say about this very shortly.
Um, what’s that you say? Oh. Right. Never mind!
May 21st, 2008 at 8:27 am
MB, don’t you mean that we should condemn Bashar Assad’s policy of appeasement? Israel invaded Syria in 1967 and conquered the Golan Heights, not the other way around. I suppose both sides could be accused of having attenuated forms of herrenvolk ideology, but Zionism is a lot more successful than Arab nationalism and thus more dangerous. I don’t even want to think about who the Arab Churchill might be in this little simile.
I hate to say it, but Stott…is…right…about…
Bush v Gore. The GOP controlled the Supreme Court fair and square. Checks and balances don’t mean the judicial and executive branches *always* oppose each other. It may be that Jeb’s voter-roll fraud made the difference, but that’s a different issue. Don’t blame me, I voted for Nader
May 21st, 2008 at 8:32 am
>Too bad Lawrence Welk is dead
>or McCain could be offering free
>concerts before his appearances too.
Ah, but Lee Ving of Fear is still alive. “Let’s Have a War” would fit McCain’s platform pretty well, no? The classic song “I Don’t Care About You… Fuck You!” captures GOP social policy admirably.
May 21st, 2008 at 8:46 am
It’s nice that McCain can have Lee Greenwood play for him. Anyone who sings “Proud to be an American” would be out of place on the Obama campaign.
Of course, I see that none of you have a problem with the press concealing that the crowd at Obama’s talk was drawn there by a band concert. He’ll get a free ride by the media from here to November.
May 21st, 2008 at 8:52 am
“Too bad Lawrence Welk is dead or McCain could be offering free concerts”
You really do have a mean streak reg. A dark side. But I knew that already.
May 21st, 2008 at 8:54 am
“He’ll get a free ride by the media from here to November.”
That seems fair. It will even out the free ride the media has given to McCain up to now.
May 21st, 2008 at 9:43 am
Let’s see: Hillary wants the VP nomination as the consolation prize, so she continues to help John McCain by continuing to attack Obama. The problem for Hillary is that as of Wednesday morning, her attempts to continue the campaign are making her look like a fool. The longer she goes on, the more she makes herself the complete fool. Let us speculate how she will react as superdelegates by the dozens will be coming out for Obama over the next few days.
May 21st, 2008 at 9:57 am
He’ll get a free ride by the media from here to November
Georgia w[h]ine. Imagine that.
May 21st, 2008 at 10:03 am
Obama is in Tampa right now telling everyone what’s wrong with America. If only he could offer solutions.
Campaign song ruled out by Obama - “My Old Kentucky Home”
May 21st, 2008 at 10:10 am
Olmert to Syria: “Sell out the Palestinians”
Syria to Olmert: “Done. Give us back the Golan”
Olmert to Syria: “Stop supporting Hezboollah”
Syria to Olmert: “Fine. We need F.D.I.”
May 21st, 2008 at 10:58 am
“Anyone who sings “Proud to be an American†would be out of place on the Obama campaign.”
Purely on the basis of taste, of course.
May 21st, 2008 at 11:34 am
>Olmert to Syria: “Sell out the Palestiniansâ€
>Syria to Olmert: “Done. Give us back the >Golanâ€
>Olmert to Syria: “Stop supporting >Hezbollahâ€
>Syria to Olmert: “Fine. We need F.D.I.â€
Not sure such help as Syria or the other Arab states have given the Palestinians means much beyond lining the pockets of PA officials. If Bashar gets the Golan back and allows some of the hundreds of thousands of Syrian 1967 refugees to return, he will finally have a justification for dropping his career as an optometrist.
The direction of the future is to accept that a Palestinian microstate is no longer possible, nor necessarily desirable, and to fight a la the ANC for a single, democratic state. This was always the best solution, and it’s starting to look like the only possible one. It’s hard to see what help Arab states could possibly provide for this kind of project. In fact, support from the likes of Assad might make it more politically difficult.
On another topic, maybe I’m having one of those intermittent brain shutdowns that are in the news today, but what’s F.D.I.?
May 21st, 2008 at 11:59 am
Proud to be an American?
May 21st, 2008 at 12:29 pm
“Let us take a patriot, where we can meet him; and, that we may not flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish those marks which are certain, from those which may deceive; for a man may have the external appearance of a patriot, without the constituent qualities; as false coins have often lustre, though they want weight.”–Samue Johnson
Johnson also said, more famously, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” We have seen plenty of that in recent years.
May 21st, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Sorry, that’s Samuel Johnson, whatever happened to the preview button?
May 21st, 2008 at 12:42 pm
“Selecting Hillary as VP makes perfect sense.”
Hmm, okay, though I guess Hillary didn’t get the memo yet. So she’s bankrupting her own campaign, bankrupting Obama’s campaign, doing McCain’s dirty work by attacking Obama, allowing McCain to catch up in campaign funding… sure is a nifty way of preparing to be a VP candidate.
How long ago was it when Mitt Romney stepped down and ceded the way to Johnny Mac? Three months? Six? More and more I’m convinced that the Clintons’ goal is to sink the ship for an “I told you so!” 2012 run. Because isn’t that what matters in the end, that the Clinton monarchy is restored? Of course, Duke Jebbingham Bush-a-lot might have something to say about that.
May 21st, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Balter, do you even know the context of that quote or the specific intent of Johnson? Quotes are neat as long as it doesn’t matter who said them or what they meant.
Will you agree with Ronald Reagan quoting Thomas Jefferson?
May 21st, 2008 at 1:13 pm
FDI = Foreign Direct Investment. When it all comes down to it, Bashar wants a capitalist “modern” Syria, which is why he was so close to Hariri, reports to teh contrary notwithstanding.
Syria is geopolitically aligned with Palestinians, mostly the more radical groups.
May 21st, 2008 at 1:14 pm
I’m with you on on a one state solution though.
May 21st, 2008 at 2:11 pm
bunkerbuster’s pipedream of a corrosively married ticket takes another hit.
See, she was for the rules until she was against them, and violated them after saying she would honor them, but then pretended that she won MI and FL, and centers her hopes on this charade. And then she was going to drop out by June 3rd, but not anymore, now she’s going to take this fraudulent fight to the convention. Oh the principles she will stand up for. How noble.
What a false-faced charlatan dog she has turned out to be. Her supporters should be ashamed.
May 21st, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Well there was a link that went with that comment, but my links do not go through.
May 21st, 2008 at 3:39 pm
“Sorry, that’s Samuel Johnson, whatever happened to the preview button?”
The Firefox browser has a as-you-type auto-spell checker.
http://www.mozilla.com/
May 21st, 2008 at 6:37 pm
It looks to me that Hillary and her campaign have landed on a new tactic to prolong the agony. It’s no longer about the whiskey and the white folks. It’s about the sexism. She’s being denied because of misogyny and can’t pull out because of the many women who are counting on her to fight forever against this injustice, using Mich and Fla if necessary, to continue through the convention.
This new tactic is pretty damn clever since it doesn’t entail directly attacking Obama, which is now considered verboten and will only bring her criticism. Now the attack is against the media and certain blocs of voters (especially those mean, women-hating Obama supporters).
This is like a bad science fiction movie.
And it may never end.
May 21st, 2008 at 7:17 pm
You live in a racist and sexist country Michael. A UN Human Rights official is visiting us to determine the extent of the problem.
Your party’s obsession with race, gender, cultures, customs and all the other f–king ‘differences’ between Americans have made damn sure we remain sensitive, self-conscience. and ‘divided’.
We even award differences with college degrees. I think Michelle Obama has one, in Afro-American Studies.
The Chickens. Have Come Home. To.Roost.
May 21st, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Responding to Evet’s comment, not Michael.
May 21st, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Jim R….
So you are basically stating that the African American experience is not worthy of inquiry? By what standard do you appoint yourself worthy of setting such a standard?
May 21st, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Michelle’s degree at Princeton was in Sociology with a Minor in Afro-Amerian Studies, to be clear.
May 21st, 2008 at 8:42 pm
I went to a church service last night with a black preacher giving the sermon and who really knew how to get the congregation into it. That was an “African-American” experience worthy of inquiry.
May 21st, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Inquiry fine. A ‘program of studies’ no.
But if you’re never expected to have to get a job after graduation, and other working people aren’t having to pay for your unmarketable odd interests, your free to waste ‘your’ time and money ’studying’ in damn thing you want.
May 21st, 2008 at 9:15 pm
What gives you the right to make that judgment? Forgetting that it doesn’t occur to you that the experience of African Americans specifically is a far broader topic, in regards to human life, then many other programs in various institutions. The role of a university is inquiry, and most academics are compensated well, given that one of the few achievements of western liberal democracy is the tradition of inquiry in all facets of human existence.
Setting all that aside, where do you get off stating what should and shouldn’t be studied?
May 21st, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Woody…
The specific technique and hermeneutic of Southern Black liturgical tradition has had pages upon pages written about it.
May 21st, 2008 at 9:35 pm
‘The Chickens. Have Come Home. To.Roost.’
Jim R -
This is a sloppy use of the multiple emphatic period. The lack of space beteen ‘To.” and ‘Roost’ is especially glaring.
Your otherwise powerful argument is undermined by this negligence.
I’m. Therefore. Left. Unpersuaded.
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:54 am
jc, I missed those pages on Southern Black liturgical tradition and felt sort of out of place, especially when the preacher was looking right at me and I was in my usual Presbyterian solemn pose rather than clapping and shouting “amen.”
Well, that doesn’t have anything to do with the election, but it does seem that Obama has some of that skill or tradition within himself with which to excite a crowd.
May 22nd, 2008 at 7:31 am
>We even award differences with
>college degrees. I think Michelle
>Obama has one, in Afro-American Studies.
Jim, I have a BA in English Literature. Should I return it on the grounds that it’s ethocentric?
May 22nd, 2008 at 7:35 am
I got to chuck that minor in German Idealism!
May 22nd, 2008 at 7:38 am
I hear you Woody. I grew up in a “Reform” Jewish temple…when I went to New Orleans in 96 for Jazzfest and went to the Gospel Tent, I couldn’t believe what Iwas seeing.
May 22nd, 2008 at 8:33 am
Like I said guys, study anything you want on your on time and your on dime. A BA even in Navel Gazing is fine if you’re paying for it and not eligible for welfare if you have a college.
But as long as Universities and students are heavily subsidized by a working societies labor, and the political trend is for the total cost to be paid by others, that society and its people must have a high interest and say in what they are getting for their money.
A healthy society must have talented competitive disciplined young people that have been trained and prepared to take the high level jobs employers, and those paying for it, expect and need to be filled by highly educated college graduates. Damn capitalism…..and adulthood.
We in the US have a big problem here. It is nice and warm and touchy-feely nice to have minors in unmarketable navel-gazing Afro-American, Anglo-American, Indian-American, or worse German Idealism, but it takes valuable time away from the limited time available to ’study’ in one of the ‘disciplines’ that is likely going to stand a chance of getting you out of your mom’s basement, off the public’s dole, and out McDonalds working at minimum wage……while bitching like hell, between drug/booze depressions, the unfairness of that goddamn system that ‘lets’ others have way more than you!
May 22nd, 2008 at 8:35 am
that would be “…if you have a college degree.” in first para.
May 22nd, 2008 at 8:42 am
Jim R -
As someone currently paying 2 college tuitions, I have a hard time feeling that my kids are sailing through school on a “working societies labor”. More like my labor, and lots of it. Added tyo which, my daughter works 7 hours a day while taking a full course load at a tough school.
And by the way, ‘German Idealism’ isn’t some sort of multi-culural trifle. It includes many of the most important dead white male thinkers.
May 22nd, 2008 at 9:11 am
Jim R -
Yawn. The pursuit of happiness can take different forms, not all of which need to be approved by you. What someone minors in during college hardly qualifies as a “big problem.” I can think of 3 or 4 others that loom over this one.
You’ve taken a laser beam narrow position on an old debate. Liberal education should be focused on making good citizens instead of good cogs, so I find your whole thesis objectionable.
In college I consistently held down 2-3 part time jobs simultaneously. This was far more common than people living off the dole, at least at the school I went to.
Besides, I loved my Wittgenstein course even if it doesn’t have too much day to day application for me now.
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:32 am
>political trend is for the total cost to be paid by others
>unmarketable navel-gazing
First, there is ceratinly no “general trend for the total cost to be paid by others,” unless the “others” are the students’ parents. In fact, undergraduate education is generally a profit-making enterprise in which universities charge parents what the market will bear. I know this well, since I have just finished paying four years of tuition that were in excess of the annual US median family income.
For-profit companies make loans to help with this. They’re subsidized by the government, but that’s a case of politically connected companies like Sallie Mae raiding the Treasury for their own investors’ benefit, not of the gov’t subsidizing students.
As for unmarketable navel gazing, I make a pretty good living selling financial products even though my BA and MA are in fields that are unrelated to my occupation. Employers care about two things: a) student learned to get up in the morning and b) student learned basic white collar skills like writing, tailoring the work product to the audience, and brown nosing. No one ever asks me what I majored in.
May 22nd, 2008 at 11:43 am
“I got to chuck that minor in German Idealism!”
Maybe a refund?
May 22nd, 2008 at 1:17 pm
>Maybe a refund?
Expect JC will say that the GIs, excepting Saint Hegel, were basically deluded, so a refund might actually be in order
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Be sure to attend the St. Paul Saints baseball game on Sunday to get a Larry Craig bobble head doll.
On the election front, “…Senator Clinton has directly told Senator Obama that she wants to be his vice presidential nominee, and that Senator Obama politely but straightforwardly and irrevocably said ‘no.’”
How about McCain-Clinton? That would be hard to beat.
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Reality check: About half of the Batchelor’s Degrees awarded in this country are in “Business Administration.” Less than one in ten is in Science and Engineering. Yes “area studies” is controversial and may not make one employable - but then neither will a degree in English or Philosophy. And, for that matter, Ph.D.s in Partical physics - no basket weaving “gut” - drive cabs. Course the above “humanities” types just pospone life and go to Law School!
May 22nd, 2008 at 3:30 pm
>About half of the Bachelor’s
>Degrees awarded in this
>country are in “Business Administration.â€
What a waste of intellectual ability. I told my kids they could always go back to school later to learn job skills, and they should use their undergraduate time to study whatever they found interesting. That’s what I did and I have a better life because of it.
Some of the people I work with were Bus Ad majors, and they don’t have any advantages I haven’t matched by taking some marketing and accounting courses on the side. One of the most successful salespeople I work with was a Religious Studies major. My wife was a Women’s Studies-English dual major (how do you like that, Jim?) She earns about twice the US median family income in her technical job in the film industry. No one ever asks either her or myself what we majored in, unless they are making small talk.
May 22nd, 2008 at 4:23 pm
The Hillary Deathwatch now has her chances at 0.7%. So, there is a chance.
May 22nd, 2008 at 4:57 pm
German Idealists were incredibly informative in creating a framework that was turned on its head by materialism. You can’t have Marx without Hegel, and can’t have Hegel without the idealists.
Marxist Materialism, as pointed out in Theses on Feurbach, is not vulgar materialism, it simply sublates the discoveries of idealism into a materialist framework. Marx’s early work (pre Manifesto) is very important on this stuff (my personal preference is pre”Marx” Marxism, but I digress….)
The point that Jim R doesn’t get is that there is social utility in having an educated populace. There is also something to be admired about societies that privilege intellectual inquiry. I admire that about the US, though the likes of Pipes, Horowitz are trying to turn that around.
And count me as a conservative traditionalist, actually (and I’m not alone among Left academics) in that the whole “diversity” notion of “Dead white males” is limiting. I’m the first to criticize a lot of the “post colonial” diversity bullshit that is inspired by - btu was not approved by - Edward Said, not to mention the Althusserisan tinge of what passes for Marxism, the fact that the classical humanist essay form is no longer respected. So I’m a “Right Winger” in that sense, not politically, but in that the term “Dead White Male” pisses me off.
May 22nd, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Further, most grad students have to work (its a way for universities to get cheap labour) and also bust their ass to kiss foundations or government’s asses to get funding.
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:56 pm
After the win this November: President-elect Obama unveils Chelsea Clinton as the new
Secretary of the Treasury.
–hey, I’d buy that for a dollar!
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:25 am
“most grad students have to work..its a way for universities to get cheap labour”
Thanks for helping me make my point. Now the question is do College’s purposely offer useless boutique courses for their own self interest?
I think so. But not for cheap labour, but for cheap political indoctrination. I mean, how much cheap drivel can a professor inject into a skill-based course without getting identified by his students as un’profession’al having another agenda?
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:07 am
Jim R.
You really don’t know shit . I am involved in political theory. Students of political theory make up most governments. Most academics serve on boards, think tanks, etc.
This goes for the right as well as the left.
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:07 am
In Canada, you’d be the one laughed out of the room. Our “conservatives” are to the left of your “liberals”. Have fun going into hawk when you get cancer.
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:09 am
You’d cheer as Socrates drank hemlock.