Discussions, Discussions, Discussions

CORAL GABLES, Florida. — A day after Senator Barack Obama gathered a majority of pledged delegates in the Democratic presidential nominating contest, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton defiantly sent out new signals Wednesday that she might take her fight for the nomination all the way to the party’s convention in August.
Indeed, she will never stop.
Mrs. Clinton stumped across South Florida, scene of the 2000 election debacle, pressing her case for including delegates from Florida and Michigan in the final delegate tally. On the trail and in interviews, she raised a new battle cry of determination, likening her struggle for these delegates to the nation’s historic struggles to free the slaves and grant women the right to vote.
But behind the scenes, the campaigns were working with the Democratic National Committee to resolve the dispute over the delegates before May 31, when the party’s rules committee is to decide the matter. Mrs. Clinton has said she wants all delegates counted and apportioned based on the popular vote of the two candidates in both states, although Mr. Obama did not appear on the ballot in Michigan.
Mr. Obama has said he wants the delegates seated but has not said how or in what proportion. David Axelrod, his chief strategist, said in an interview Wednesday that the campaign was willing to go beyond halfway in the apportionment.
That’s changing the rules during the competition. If it has been known before, Barack Obama could have campaigned in the two states and his name – by then unknown – should have been on the ballot in Michigan. The well-known name of Mrs. Clinton was an advantage, but Mr. Obama has proven to campaign very effectively.
“If that means we have to make some sacrifices,” Mr. Axelrod said, “we are open to do so, within reason. Our sense is the folks in Florida and Michigan want to resolve this. They’re not looking to prolong this.”
Mrs. Clinton called this offensive… how, why?
The outcome on the Florida and Michigan delegates may be only symbolic anyway. Winning extra delegates, even under her rosiest scenario, would not help Mrs. Clinton catch Mr. Obama’s lead on that score.
The point is that she does not want the delegates to be counted, but only the popular votes and also not the caucuses. In that way she can win, only counting the states she wins and the winner takes all, because she is the best nominee the worlds has ever seen. It’s a good plan and in November she wants only the Democrats votes counted, because she is the best president the world has ever seen. Only her campaign was acting poor and the fundraising and the organisation and the strategic plan and the judgement and the Democratic members were not loyal enough, but look, she was already eight years in the White House and she is the best, right?
Both need superdelegates to get over the finish line. But winning additional delegates from Florida and Michigan might be Mrs. Clinton’s last glimmer of hope in bolstering her case to superdelegates that she would be the stronger candidate in November. In her victory speech Tuesday in Kentucky, she noted that the primary race was one of the closest in history.
Of course that’s true, one of the 50 closest.
Florida and Michigan have emerged as central to Mrs. Clinton’s effort to keep her candidacy alive. Both states jumped ahead in the primary calendar in January in violation of party rules. As punishment, the party stripped them of their delegates, leaving them excluded from a primary process that has galvanized the rest of the country.
Mrs. Clinton agreed by then with that punishment, else Mr. Obama should have run in those states and perhaps won them, because he is much better campaigning.
Mrs. Clinton told The Associated Press on Wednesday that she would support those states if they had to carry their fight to the convention.
Then she has a pseudo-legal motive to attack Obama still saying that Senator McCain should be a better president than Senator Obama… And then there comes the bullet what will make Senator Clinton the nominee.
“Yes, I will,” she said. “I will, because I feel very strongly about this.”
God has chosen her…right? You have to believe it and it will be. What kind of president will that make? Who’s giving her God’s messages?
And Geoff Garin, her pollster, told MSNBC that she could campaign beyond the primaries because “there are enough uncommitted delegates left for either candidate to earn a majority.”
And also those committed delegates are not committed. They all can change their votes, according to Clinton’s statement: “there are no rules for delegates!”
Mr. Obama crossed the threshold of amassing a majority of pledged delegates on Tuesday with his victory in Oregon.
Come on! Do we count votes for a black man because he is black? Are we racists? Do we count votes for a man because he is a man? Are we sexists? What is wrong with a poor hard working non-elitist beer drinking white woman, who carries a gun, spits on the ground, shooting dugs after church in the weekends?
Mr. Garin added that at some point, one of the candidates would have enough total delegates to win the nomination, “but we have not reached that point yet; we probably won’t reach that point on June 3.” Mrs. Clinton has signalled that she intends to stay in the race at least through the final primaries on June 3.
At least, but you have never enough delegates because, according to Senator Clinton, the delegates can change their votes anytime at random. Remember, there are no rules for delegates, right?
Mr. Obama ignored Mrs. Clinton’s arguments about the delegates in an effort, his aides said, not to legitimize her point of view.
Nah…
“I know there are some people worried about the Democratic Party being divided,” Mr. Obama said. “We will be united.”
But than has Senator Clinton te be the nominee. Otherwise: forget it! The Billary-crowd will vote for their appointed better president McCain.
That strategists are working behind the scenes on the matter raised the possibility that Mrs. Clinton’s newfound fervour was an effort to make sure her apportioning method prevails.
You see, out ruling the caucus-states counting Florida and Michigan, changing pledged delegates voices commanding superdelegates to vote for unity and Hillary Clinton for president.
It also raised the possibility that her campaign was split over how to handle the end game of what some have admitted privately is a lost cause. Some Clinton aides said that she was well aware of her uphill climb and that she was making a symbolic point. They said she was hesitant about declaring that she could overcome Mr. Obama’s lead, but at the same time did not want to be seen as surrendering.
Just like Senator McCain, you only leave the theatre with victory, never surrender. There is a war and the enemy has to be eliminated at 2.30 a.m. Phone me when it is done.
Her swing across South Florida on Wednesday seemed essentially to be a campaign-within-a-campaign, one that is about process and is directed chiefly at the party’s rules committee.
If there are no rules, why the heck there is a party rules committee?
“I’ve heard some say that counting Florida and Michigan would be changing the rules,” Mrs. Clinton said. “I say that not counting Florida and Michigan is changing a central governing rule of this country.”
But not counting caucus-states acting within the rules and did nothing wrong?
She also sought to whip up populist sentiment, telling voters in Boca Raton, where the 2000 election played out vividly, “You didn’t break a single rule, and you should not be punished for matters beyond your control.”
Lies, they broke the rules.
She argued with fervour that the nomination should be determined by popular vote. She has claimed to have the lead in the popular vote by including Florida and Michigan in her tally.
O, no single vote for Senator Obama from Florida and Michigan?
“The outcome of our elections should be determined by the will of the people, nothing more, nothing less,” Mrs. Clinton said. “And we believe the popular vote is the truest expression of your will.”
Yes, next chance for the people to vote is in November. Don't try to do it in July or August because that does not count.
“The lesson of 2000 here in Florida is crystal clear,” she said. “If any votes aren’t counted, the will of the people isn’t realized and our democracy is diminished.”
She should have made that statement before the rules and the punishment were established and she admitted the case.
She generally avoided mentioning Mr. Obama all day, but concluded a rally in Coral Gables on Wednesday by declaring: “Look at the states I’ve won. Look at the states I’m leading in. Look at the electoral map. It is clear I’m the stronger candidate.”
And she can’t even manage her campaign?
As her voice was drowned out with cheers, she added: “Stay with me. Let’s make history together.”
No, thanks. Let all the delegates of Florida and Michigan sit at the convention with a half vote each and free to vote for who they want, furthermore stick by the rules, removing the Clintons from the party. Out! The Democratic Party is no anarchistic community.
Pointer:
She makes herself a pariah in the party.

Arianna Huffington: Scotty Come Lately

Pointer wrote: this book is not a must read, but this article of Arianne Huffington about it has its own quality.
Scotty Come Lately
By Arianna Huffington
Seven takes on Scott McClellan's new book:

Take One: What Took You So Long?
In What Happened, Scott McClellan offers withering portraits of George Bush, Karl Rove, Condi Rice, and Scooter Libby, confirms that we went to war in Iraq under false pretenses, and that we were serially lied to about the outing of Valerie Plame.
Interesting stuff, Scott. But about five years too late.
It's George Tenet déjà vu all over again. How many times are we going to have a key Bush administration official try to wash the blood off his hands -- and add a chunk of change to his bank account -- by writing a come-clean book years after the fact, pointing the finger at everyone else while painting himself as an innocent bystander to history who saw all the horrible things that were happening but, somehow, had no choice but to go along?
McClellan told the Washington Post that he wrote the book to "provide an open and honest look at how things went off course and what can be learned from it." And he told Cox News Service, "My job was to advocate and defend [Bush's] policies and speak on his behalf. This is an opportunity for me now to share my own views and perspective on things."
Great. We need all the openness and honesty we can get. But it would have been a lot more helpful if he had taken the "opportunity" when it really mattered -- say before the 2004 election, when it could have potentially saved thousands of lives.
What Happened is page-turning reading. What Didn't Happen -- namely McClellan telling the truth in service to his country rather than in service to his book sales -- is a stomach-turning disappointment.

Take Two: The Rationale for Iraq is Even Worse Than We Thought
McClellan really lets it rip on Iraq. He says that Bush led a sophisticated "political propaganda campaign" to sell the war, was not "open and forthright on Iraq," managed the runup to war "in a way that almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option," "largely ignored or simply disregarded" contradictory intelligence on the war, and as the war went poorly responded by "never reflecting, never reconsidering, never compromising."
McClellan's scathing conclusion: "History appears poised to confirm what most Americans today have decided: that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder. No one, including me, can know with absolute certainty how the war will be viewed decades from now when we can more fully understand its impact. What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary."
Perhaps the most damning revelation regarding Iraq is McClellan's assertion that the real reason Bush wanted to invade Iraq was the "opportunity to create a legacy of greatness" by transforming the Middle East into a land of peace and brotherhood. Over 4,000 dead U.S. soldiers sacrificed for a neo-con wet dream of democratic dominoes across the region. How chilling is that?
McClellan also tosses in a pinch of Oedipal subtext: "The president had promised himself that he would accomplish what his father had failed to do by winning a second term in office. And that meant operating continually in campaign mode: never explaining, never apologizing, never retreating."
Such is the stuff foreign policy nightmares are made of.

Take Three: The Press Secretary Presses the Press
McClellan points an accusatory finger at the mainstream media -- he calls them "enablers" and says they were too easy on the administration during the selling of the war:
"The national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq. The collapse of the administration's rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. ... In this case, the 'liberal media' didn't live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served."
Great point, Scotty. We and many others made it back in 2003.
It's such a great point, it caused Karl Rove to act like something nefarious has happened to McClellan, transforming him from the lie-spouting sock puppet he has "known for a long time" into somebody who "sounds like a left-wing blogger." Have anyone specific in mind, Karl?

Take Four: Rove More Turd Blossom Than Boy Genius
Speaking of Rove, McClellan's tome continues the obliteration of the Rove mystique, reminding us what an out-and-out liar Rove was and is -- more than willing to assure McClellan that he wasn't involved in the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity when, in fact, he was up to his Turd Blossom in the sordid affair, having discussed Plame with Matt Cooper and Bob Novak in an effort to discredit Joe Wilson.
McClellan also makes it clear that the indelible, says-all-you-need-to-know-about-this-administration photo of Bush looking out the window of Air Force One during his too-busy-to-stop flyover of New Orleans in the wake of Katrina was a Rove special: "Karl was convinced we needed to do it -- and the president agreed."

Take Five: Truthiness in Government
Stephen Colbert satirized the Bush approach when he coined the concept of "truthiness": the truth we want, in our gut, to exist, without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.
McClellan reveals how much the joke matched the reality, saying that Bush's "leadership style is based more on instinct than deep intellectual debate." Citing Bush's assertion that he honestly couldn't remember if he'd ever done cocaine, McClellan says he felt he "was witnessing Bush convincing himself to believe something that probably was not true, and that, deep down, he knew was not true."
But who needs reality when you have faith? Who needs truth when you have truthiness? As George Costanza put it on Seinfeld: "Jerry, just remember, it's not a lie if you believe it."
A fantastic philosophy for a sit-com character. A disastrous philosophy for a sitting president.

Take Six: Truth in Government
According to McClellan, the Secret Service code name for the White House press secretary was "Matrix."
As any Keanu Reaves fan will tell you, the Matrix is a simulated reality used to pacify and subdue the human population in a dystopian future.
Who knew Secret Service agents have such an arch sense of humor?
Take Seven: Heckuva Job, Scotty!
On the day McClellan resigned as press secretary, Bush pictured a time down the road when he and his former aide would "be rocking on chairs in Texas, talking about the good old days and his time as the press secretary. And I can assure you, I will feel the same way then that I feel now, that I can say to Scott, 'Job well done.'"
Maybe not. Although, since, according to McClellan, Bush "has a way of falling back on the hazy memory to protect himself from potential political embarrassment," who knows?
I can already see the blurb on the back of the paperback edition of What Happened: "Heckuva job, Scotty!" - George W. Bush, 43rd president of the United States