In a nostalgic mood, DailyKos looks back on some of the highlights of Hillary's now-defunct for the presidency:
Who could forget:
* Geraldine Ferraro's claim that Obama has an unfair advantage because he was black.
* Bob Kerrey's happiness that Barack Hussein Obama attended a madrassa and had all that experience with Muslims.
* Billy Shaheen's concern over Obama's use of drugs and possible questions on whether he was ever a drug dealer.
* Andrew Cuomo saying that "You can't shuck and jive," in reference to Obama.
* And of course the First Surrogate, Bill Clinton, comparing Obama's win in South Carolina to Jesse Jackson's wins in the 1980's, and then being shocked at the suggestion that he was trying to paint Obama as "the black candidate."
Sniff. We're gonna miss you guys! Now go away. Seriously.
Other than the last line, which wasn't necessary and is, to me at least, inappropriate (and which I've cut), this is spot-on.
The Democratic Party is sleeping peacefully when it hears its phone buzz on the night stand. It rolls over and sees "Hillary" on the caller ID. It pauses briefly, considering pushing "END" and not dealing with this shit tonight. The thought is appealing but the Democratic Party knows that if it doesn't take this call, another one is only minutes away.
DEMS: ...Hello?
Hillary: Hey baby.
DEMS: C'mon Hillary. Enough with this.
Hillary: Don't you get it? You NEED me.
DEMS: No, I don't. It was fun while it lasted but I'm with Barack now. I made my choice, it's done.
Hillary: You can't really mean that. How can you say that after all the good times we had?
DEMS: To be honest, I started hanging out with you because Bill's pretty awesome.
Hillary: But I'm just like Bill!
DEMS: No, you're not. Bill is charismatic, inspiring, and gets me really good weed.
Hillary: Fuck you. You're elitist!
DEMS: I'm going back to sleep.
Hillary: No, no, wait. I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. Listen... there's still got to be a chance. Remember when people told George W it was all over. When the numbers were against him?
DEMS: Yeah but...
Hillary: Remember?! And remember how everyone said America didn't really want to be with George W? But they stuck it out anyway?
DEMS: Yeah and they're really fucked up now, Hillary.
Hillary: But WE'LL make it work. Forget Barack, baby. Just take me back and we can forget this ever happened.
DEMS: Look, I think you're a really good Senator... let's just keep it that way, OK?
You may have read that some idiots on the Internets, including the LA Times, are convinced that Obama flipped Hillary the bird during a recent speech in front of tens of thousands of people and dozens of TV cams. Yes, imagine Obama, possibly days away from finally knocking Hillary out of the race, and he says to himself, hey, maybe I should give Hillary the finger right now in front of an audience of millions of TV viewers! Uh huh. I'm sure.
Well, I decided to do what apparently no one else in the media or conservative/pro-Hillary blogosphere had the time or brains to do, I looked at a few other Obama speeches on YouTube to see if he has a habit of touching his face while he speaks. And what do you know? He does.
Media Matters went the extra mile and pulled a second video, from a different vantage point, of the famed "finger" speech, and lo and behold, Obama is actually using several fingers to scratch his face, not one. But I did have an extra laugh when researching this post. I found a great Obama speech in Erie, Pennsylvania in which, if you slow the speech down all the way, it looks like Obama is giving the vafangu (a la Antonin Scalia) to a Corning plant. Seriously. Watch for yourself.
Maybe we can get the LA Times to report on Obama's hatred of CorningWare too.
It was one of those typical questions from a reporter gaggle on Capitol Hill: Does Harry Reid think the protracted nomination fight between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will harm the party?
Reid didn't miss a beat.
"It makes me bitter," he deadpanned.
Reid has such a dry humor that you actually have to pause and look at him to make sure he's not being serious when he's attempting comedy. But his usual grimace in front of reporters quickly turned to a grin as he capitalized on the now infamous "bitter" comment made by Obama at a San Francisco area fund raiser.
In all seriousness, Reid said he believed the Democratic nomination "is all going to be over very soon," and he contended that "it has been healthy for our party."
Geraldine Ferraro—usually a class act—made recent statements that seem to establish a pattern: the Clinton campaign using surrogates to invoke and inject race in this campaign. The Ferraro event...the leaks to Drudge...BET founder Robert L. Johnson...Bill's South Carolina non-sequitur.
But for a classic moment of a Clinton rep (in this case Mark Penn) quietly inserting loaded language, check this out (about 3:50 in).
They play dirty.
While groups such as Factcheck.org have made compelling arguments against the likelihood the Clinton camp intentionally altered Obama's image...it's an odd argument that assumes anything in campaign commercials happens by accident. Check out the debate, judge for yourself.
Colbert at his best, interviewing Robert Reich (via Blogometer and C&L, which has the video):
Colbert: Are you endorsing Hillary Clinton? Reich: No, I decided not to endorse this round. Colbert: So, you're endorsing Barack Obama? Reich: No, I'm not going to endorse anybody. [...] Colbert: Okay, let me put it this way: if we were at a restaurant together and the waiter brought around the dessert cart, and the choice was ladyfingers or Black Forest cake, which way do you think you'd lean? Reich: Quite seriously, either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama would make a great president. Colbert: Let me put this a different way. If I were a waiter and I were to offer you two different slices of pizza, and one was half-Hawaiian and you weren't entirely sure what it was going to taste like. And the other was plain with cheese and had been under a heat lamp for 35 years, I mean, it had seen everything. Which would you go for? Reich: I don't think I'd be terribly excited about either of those slices. Colbert: Which movie would you rent? 'Big Momma's House' or 'Medea's Family Reunion'? Be careful, they are both about strong women who are actually black men. Reich: Um, gosh. I think I'd try both of them out."
Since it's Saturday, a bit of very funny humor by David Sedaris on the subject of health care in France compared to the US. I can definitely relate to his jokes His joke about the nurse bringing him an ashtray in the hospital (which is no longer possible, in theory, at least) while on demerol is really good too. Pay special attention at the end when he comments on the low cost of French health care because it's truly incredible how different the US and French systems can be.
Related (and above) is a photo I took during an emergency room visit to a hospital a year ago in the Drome, southern France. In local purchasing power, the euro is just like the dollar to Europeans but even with the ugly exchange rate, when is the last time you visited the emergency room (during the day) for 20 euro/$28? The doctor in my building charges 23 euro or about $32.50. National insurance picks up 60% of that and private insurance covers the rest but at these rates, who's counting?
You'll recall that we reported yesterday that the Republicans were rallying in support of Rush Limbaugh's bigoted comments about our troops in Iraq. A friend was able to get a hold of the first draft of the email alert the Republicans sent around for Rush yesterday. Here it is (click the image to see a larger, readable version):
