LATE NIGHT MUSINGS IN THE NATION'S CAPITOL

I'm finally sitting in my hotel in Washington, D.C. after a loooonnnnggg day of meetings and a business dinner and reflecting on what I feel for this city. I travel here several times a year for work, which has always been a kind of thrill since it's the center of our government and the hub of our political system, and because it fills me with pride to look around at so many memorials and distinguished, even famous, edifices my company has built and contributed to the skyline of our capitol city.

But this trip I'm reminded of my visit during the 2004 presidential election, when one of my priorities was to make it to DNC headquarters and collect all the Kerry paraphernalia I could to take with me back to Dallas. Kerry was not my first (or second) choice for Democratic presidential nominee, but I had no problem throwing my wholehearted support to him. I have no such inclination now. I still haven't decided if I can even bring myself to vote for Obama, who of ALL those running for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, wasn't on my list at all. At first I assumed that Barack was simply attempting to raise his recognition level in order to support a run in 2012 or 2016. It just wasn't credible to me that someone with such limited experience, thin resume and practically non-existent list of accomplishments (apart from two well-selling and self-serving personal journals) could be a viable candidate for the presidency at one of the most critical times in our nation's history.

But thanks to a venal DNC, cynical party leaders, and a once-again complicit and trivial media, we have what is perhaps the most unqualified candidate of a major party ever. Jiminy cricket, even the totally inept Ulysses S. Grant had better credentials!

I feel like I'm moving through a fog of unreality. At every juncture I see shades of W's campaigns in 2000 and 2004. The fact that we're talking about a Democrat now instead of a Republican doesn't change anything. Lack of governing, executive or legislative inexperience, ignorance of public policy issues, and personal arrogance and sense of entitlement are just as worrisome to me in a Democrat as in a Republican (even W had more experience than BO, though I think it's fairly obvious that Obama bests him in the arrogance sweepstakes). Nothing matters except that the media is fascinated and charmed by The Chosen One (whether W or BO) and despises the alternative (Al then, Hillary now), and when the victor gets the spoils the media revels in its power and the glory of Access. Too bad for the rest of us.

I've voted nearly straight Democratic (two exceptions that I can remember) for more decades than I like to admit, not as a knee-jerk reaction but because the values of our party were, to me, vastly preferable to those of the opposition party. I can't say that anymore. I just plain don't trust that those time-honored Democratic values are shared by Obama or our current party leadership. And I'm unwilling to associate myself with a candidate in whom I can find no compelling vision for the nation, no core principles, no new solutions for the many, varied and critical problems we face, and no burning desire to advance the well-being of the common people that can compare with his burning ambition to elevate his own status (don't get me started on the faux presidential seal, the Invesco Field convention acceptance speech, the Brandenburg Gate rally, oh my!).

So it's a sad visit compared to four years ago. I so remember the elation The Sage and I felt in 1992 when Bill Clinton was, against all odds, elected president. We've been waiting a very long time to once more have that kind of confidence in our national leadership, and we surely thought that this would be the year that was.
And as much as I admire, appreciate and support Hillary, it just ain't about her. It's about Obama. And if I hear or read one more implication that if I don't support him I'm a racist, I'll be more than tempted to throw a really, really big wad of money John McCain's way.

Has anyone else ever observed that hotel toilet bowls seem to be much smaller and lower to the ground than those in our homes? Been meaning to ask that question for about 30 years.

WHEN PAT BUCHANAN IS A SANEST VOICE IN THE ROOM, YOU KNOW THE REST HAVE JUMPED THE SHARK

I've been in intense all-day meetings for most of this week and working on details of my daughter's impending wedding at night. While I've tried to follow events and blogs on my Blackberry Internet browser during infrequent breaks, I realize I'm woefully behind on things. So this morning I was disgusted to tune in to Morning Joe (absent Hillary admirer Joe Scarborough) to find Mika B. and David Shuster desperately trying to get everyone to agree (they had no problem with Peggy Noonan) that Hillary and Bill have gone openly racist.

(1) Gasp! Hillary in a conference call referred to Obama's growing weakness with white, working-class voters.
(2) How dare he! Bill told an audience of Hillary supporters that it is "you people" who are going to help her win this thing.

Mika and David believe there is something "insidious" with "long-term consequences" about Hillary using the word "white." They went over and over it with each guest, and it took conservative Pat Buchanan to point out that every pundit in every newscast for the past several weeks has speculated on the demographic results of the exit polls, which indicate that Obama has the AAs by upwards of 90% and has faltered in the past several primaries in reaching white, working-class voters. So what's with calling Hillary racist for doing the same thing? Did she say that whites SHOULDN'T vote for Obama? Of course not, it's ridiculous, and it's the kind of thing the Obama campaign and the media have used to tar the Clintons (and later, by extension, their supporters) as racist ever since South Carolina.

Then David Shuster had the "audacity" to say outright that clearly Bill Clinton meant "you white people" when he was speaking to his audience. Pat broke in and emphatically declared that that was grossly unfair to Bill Clinton. There were AAs, Latinos, Asians and others in that crowd besides whites, and in any case he obviously and on the face of it meant "you Hillary backers" of whatever identity.

When Pat Buchanan is the only fair-minded pundit on the panel, it's time to change the dial. Oops! It's the same on all of them ...

HILLARY STANDS FOR WORKING CLASS AMERICANS

This is the most important post of the day. Read it all, including the links.

It's why Democrats have lost so many presidential elections, why Bill Clinton won them, and why Obama is going the way of the losers. It's about the unreality of "progressives" supporting Obama, who uses the rhetoric of Joe Lieberman and the strategy of the "hated" DLC. It's about why Hillary Clinton would be by far the most electable Democratic candidate in the GE.

We can't afford to dismiss fully half the voting population. It's a losing strategy. It's wrong. And it's contrary to the principles and future of the Democratic Party.

Hillary Clinton is outperforming Obama among working class Democrats because she is addressing the issues that most matter to them. They believe she cares because she never stops talking about them. Obama and his surrogates, on the other hand, have plainly written off that 50+% of American voters as rubes, racists or Reaganites, who don't deserve a Unity Pony.

Read it. Absorb it. And spread it around. Before it's too late.

OBAMA CONFLATES BUSH AND CLINTON, AGAIN

What is it with this guy? He seems determined to undermine/destroy the good will generated for Democrats by Bill Clinton's successful presidency. Now he's saying that Clinton and Bush waited too late to push for a Middle East peace. Bush, sure, yeah, of course he did! But Clinton? Did I hallucinate all those ME peace initiatives he pushed dating from the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 through the Rabin assassination in 1995 to the Wye and Camp David attempts? No American president since Jimmy Carter has tried so hard to solve the "unsolveable" Middle East crisis. For a fairer reading of the situation, see the State Department's history.

White House hopeful Barack Obama on Sunday criticized both President George W. Bush and former President Bill Clinton for waiting too long to make a big push to achieve Middle East peace.

Obama, a Democratic senator from Illinois, said he would pursue an active diplomacy from the beginning to try to reach a peace accord between Israel and the Palestinians.
...
"On the other hand, what I also disagree with is a habit of American presidents which is every president in their last year, they finally decide, we're going to try to broker a peace deal," Obama added. "Bill Clinton did it in his last year and he ran out of time. George Bush tried to do it."

I'm getting to seriously dislike this man.

OBAMA AND GAY AMERICA

I'm mystified as to why prominent gay Americans such as John Aravosis would be so pro-Obama. Here's just a sample of John's previous posts about Obama's embrace of homophobic entertainer Donnie McClurkin. What has happened to make John so pro-Obama? He wasn't always.

I wonder if it isn't just a matter of wanting to be one of the Kool Kidz, like Josh Marshall and Markos Moulitsas, those intrepid Obamabots.

One of the first things Bill Clinton tried to do as president was to enable gays to serve openly in the military. That took a lot of guts, when it was obvious that the anti-Clinton armed forces (He tried to get a draft deferment, for gosh sakes! He opposed the Vietnam War!) would have a hissy fit. When Colin Powell and other top generals had that predictable swoon, he had to settle for the "Don't ask, don't tell" compromise, which was still an improvement over the past. Clinton's efforts to enfranchise gays into mainstream society could have, and effectually did, compromised his entire relationship with the military brass, which he knew was fragile at best. But he stuck his chin out nonetheless.

Some reward. Now Aravosis backs a candidate who promoted a gay-bashing entertainer to suck up to a fundamentalist South Carolina electorate.

"READING BETWEEN THE LINES"

Okay, you're going to hear about this -- I expect the media, the Obamabots and their so-called "progressive" blogs to be screeching about it all over the place. So I want you to hear the truth and decide for yourself whether or not their "new kind of politics" is real, or just an illusion, as they stretch the truth in every possible way.

Here's what happened and what was said:

CHARLOTTE, NC -- At a small VFW hall in Charlotte, NC, today, former president Bill Clinton contemplated a McCain/Clinton general election matchup, saying that it would one between "two people who loved this country" without "all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics."

Reading this, it sounds to me as if The Big Dog was telling the 80 people who attended this invitation-only event that a McCain-Clinton campaign would be a civil one about the issues. The friendship between Hillary and McSaint is well known, and since they differ so greatly on the issues, that would be the substance of the election, not the "politics of personal destruction" that has characterized so many of our election cycles over the past 40 years or so.

But NBC had to go further than just recording Bill's words. They had to speculate on what else he MIGHT have meant:

In the wake of controversy over comments made by Barack Obama's former minister, Clinton's comments could be seen as an effort to draw attention to the issue of patriotism in a state with a high population of veterans.

NBC couldn't wait for reactions to set in, and THEN report on them. No, in this new era of journamalism they had to INVITE others to agree with their own interpretation.

Sure enough, others followed the call to read Bill Clinton's mind. Daily KOS:

Bill Clinton Wants Two People Who Love Their Country...and Obama Isn't One of Them
...
Leaving aside the irony of Bill Clinton talking about "stuff" intruding on our politics, what in the hell was he thinking? Tearing down Barack Obama with rightwing talking points while praising John W. McCain is showing devotion to the interest of one thing and one thing only...and it's not our country.

KOS is being quoted everywhere, spreading the vile misinterpretation of Clinton's statement. Oliver Willis says "[T]he candidate who doesn't love his country is Bill Clinton."

Unfortunately, Bill has already gone on record (during the New Hampshire primary" as saying that ALL the Dem candidates love their country.

"This is crunch time in this election," Clinton said. "These people are smart, honest, good. They love their country. They've done their best to address the challenges of the day. You just have to figure out who would be the best President, and I don't think it's close."

And the MSM is eager to spread NBC's speculation, too. There's this, on the NYTimes. Other media outlets are sure to follow. They love to put the hate on Bill.

I don't see why anyone would suppose that Clinton was implying that Obama doesn't love his country, unless they're deliberately trying to stir up another hornet's nest and a reason to be angry with the Clintons ... or maybe trying to distract the voters from Obama's negative news cycle.

UPDATE: Alegre has more.