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on this site in recent months we’ve had lively debates over the extent to which the sean bell verdict was a racial episode, and over the racial identity of the geico caveman. for some reason, race seems to be the one issue we almost always find something to argue about.

but can we agree that this crosses a line?

“I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article “that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”

“There’s a pattern emerging here,” she said.

without going into full-on egghead ivory-tower academic mode, isn’t the subtext here that “real americans” don’t want a black president, and hillary clinton is okay with that?

as nice as it is to see paulie again, i have to question the public relations wisdom at denny’s. someone there evidently thought it would improve the restaurant’s image to promote the idea that they’ve hired a fictional TV sociopath to muscle the competition. 

 

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move over, kevin bacon:

The latest right-wing game is to pin controversial figures, who might have said or done anything objectionable at any point in their lifetimes, to Barack Obama. Then make him apologize for them. Then make him denounce and reject them. And then say he hasn’t done enough to “distance” himself from them…
So, let’s play the six degrees of Barack Obama game and see who else he should denounce and reject… I invite all of you to play along. See how many degrees it takes you to get to Obama and how enthusiastically and vociferously he has to denounce you.

as if it wasn’t bad enough that he’s only two degrees away from cenk uygur, there’s more bad news news for obama: since i shook his hand at a campaign stop last year, he is now also directly responsible for every outrageous, unpatriotic, foolish thing i’ve ever said or written. if chris wallace ever finds about about this site, obama is well and truly fucked.

in fact, there’s a good chance that just by reading this post, you too have been tainted, and any political ambitions you may have harbored are henceforth invalidated. sorry! if you feel the need to distance yourself, i’ll understand.

This morning’s news out of the UK

“Government should invest 10% of its transport budget on cycling and walking initiatives, according to a coalition of health, transport and leisure groups.

The 70 organisations are calling on all UK governments and local authorities to help fight obesity by “taking action on active travel”. The groups launched a campaign yesterday for more cycle routes, better enforced traffic laws and 20mph speed limits to be enforced in residential areas.”

got me thinking about a few bikes I saw yesterday, the xtracycle

and Surly’s Big Dummy frameset. One feature of the S.U.B. is reconfigurability. For example, an off-the-grid smoothie making tool called the “Fender Blender”

also available in floor model:

as i’ve said before, i think barack obama has done a fine job of articulating the reasons behind many black americans’ receptiveness to remarks like the now-infamous ones by rev. wright. but here’s a much more succinct explanation:

Three detectives were found not guilty Friday on all charges in the shooting death of Sean Bell, who died in a hail of 50 police bullets outside a club in Jamaica, Queens, in November 2006.
…
“The people have not proved beyond a reasonable doubt” that each defendant was not justified in shooting, the judge said, quickly adding that the men were not guilty of all of the eight counts, five felonies and three misdemeanors against them.

…and yet, every time i turn on the TV i see white faces wearing puzzled expressions, voicing shock and disbelief at the idea that a jeremiah wright or an al sharpton could feel the way he feels and say the things he says. is it really that hard to grasp? honestly, is it just too much intellectual effort to disagree with the “god damn america” sentiment and still admit some inkling of where it comes from? this isn’t rocket science, white people.

with justice like this, what’s remarkable is that black folks in this country are not walking around in a constant state of outrage and despair.

this is such a transparent good cop/bad cop ploy. the GOP continues flogging the jeremiah wright meme while straight-shooting john mccain pretends to be above the mudslinging, and subservient political reporters are only too happy to let him have it both ways:

Amid Negative Ads, McCain Claims High Road

“For 20 years, Barack Obama sat in his pew, listening to his pastor,” an announcer says as the ad opens. That controversial pastor, Jeremiah Wright, then appears onscreen, saying, “No, no, no. Not God Bless America. God Damn America!” (The ad, which you can watch here, has been called “misleading,” since, according to Obama, he was not sitting in his pew when this particular sermon was delivered.)

Presumptive GOP nominee John McCain, who has pledged to run a “respectful campaign,” quickly condemned the ad. He suggested in a letter to the state party chair, which was released to the media, that the spot “degrades our civics and distracts us from the very real differences we have with the Democrats.”

it’s win-win-win for republicans. the scurrilous anti-obama message still gets through to the mouthbreathing constituency for whom it was always intended. meanwhile, right-leaning voters with more highminded pretensions — who were never going to go for obama in the first place, but were never completely comfortable with the race-baiting tactics either — swoon over the old-school classiness of john mccain, who scores maverick points for ostensibly bucking his party (wink-wink) once again.

for its part, the republican party is thinking ahead to november and thrilled to have hillary clinton’s help in tarnishing the likely democratic nominee. but if all the poop-flinging should ultimately help clinton get the nod, so much the better — that the republicans would much rather run against hillary than barack is the biggest open secret in politics.

it’s painfully obvious that the national media are too complacent, or too much infatuated with BBQ john, or just too fucking dumb to put it all together. here’s hoping the democratic superdelegates are not.

mine:

Clinton 53
Obama 47 

enough of this crap.

howard dean is right: we have to get on with it and nominate a candidate already. neither clinton nor obama can reach the magic number of pledged delegates before the convention, and nobody benefits from more of what we saw wednesday night except the GOP. superdelegates, it’s time to pick your pony.

i’m writing letters to the uncommitted democratic supers from my state urging them to grow a pair and help bring an end to this absurdity. find yours here. feel free to use my letter as a template:

Dear [hesitant super]:

As you know, DNC Chair Howard Dean has asked Democratic superdelegates to publicly commit to a candidate as soon as possible. I share his concern that the drawn-out nomination fight we are witnessing, with its increasingly negative tone and focus on increasingly trivial, non-substantive issues, is damaging the party’s prospects in November, to the benefit of neither candidate – nor, still less, that of the American people. With each day of ugly and pointless infighting it becomes clearer that to continue in this vein can only help John McCain.

As an Iowa Democrat, I am writing to urge you to act immediately on Chairman Dean’s request and make your choice of candidate known without further delay. Under the circumstances, I can see no valid reason why automatic delegates representing states that have already voted should continue to withhold their endorsements.

As a Barack Obama supporter, I would naturally welcome your endorsement of my candidate – especially since, as you are well aware, Senator Obama carried the Iowa Caucuses by a decisive margin. More than anything else, though, I am anxious to see a swift resolution to the nomination contest, regardless of which candidate is chosen, so that we may move on to focus on the far more important goal of ending Republican control of the executive branch.

Thank you for your attention to this important matter. I look forward to your prompt endorsement of either candidate.

this has gone on far too long — i can’t wait until august. at this point, my desire to see an end to this inane nomination fight has all but surpassed my desire to see barack obama on the ticket. if he’s the nominee, i’ll volunteer for his campaign, donate money, pimp him insufferably to everybody i know, whatever. if it’s hillary, i’ll hold my nose and vote (seriously — any nominal progressive who threatens to vote mccain if their guy/gal loses deserves nothing but ridicule). but it might not matter either way if this shit isn’t resolved soon.

if you’re not just a little bitter about the way things have been going in this country, you haven’t been paying attention.

if you don’t detect just a whiff of bitterness in the fact that 81% of us think ‘things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track,’ you fundamentally misunderstand the political mood of 2008.

and if you think pointing out something that’s obvious to anyone with a modicum of honesty and the ability to read a poll means Barack Obama is “out of touch,” guess what? you may be suffering from Irony-Cognitive Deficiency Disorder (ICDD), a serious disease afflicting thousands of american pundits and political figures, in which the victim’s ability to maintain a coherent self-image that accords meaningfully with external reality is drastically diminished, to frequently tragicomic effect. Read more…