Category: Politics & Elections

In McCain’s Court

The question, as always with McCain these days, is whether he means it. Might he really be a “maverick” when it comes to the Supreme Court? The answer, almost certainly, is no. The Senator has long touted his opposition to Roe, and has voted for every one of Bush’s judicial appointments; the rhetoric of his speech shows that he is getting his advice on the Court from the most extreme elements of the conservative movement. With the general election in mind, McCain had to express himself with such elaborate circumlocution because he knows that the constituency for such far-reaching change in our constellation of rights is small, and may be shrinking. In 2004, to stoke turnout among conservatives, Karl Rove engineered the addition of anti-gay-marriage voter initiatives to the ballots in Ohio and other states; last week, though, when the California Supreme Court voted to allow gay marriage in that state, only hard-core activists were able to muster much outrage. When it comes to the Constitution, McCain is on the wrong side of the voters, and of history; thus, his obfuscations.

Jeffrey Toobin

Follow the link to read more of Toobin’s analysis.

The Blues

A Democrat won a special election in Mississippi yesterday for the House seat in a district that went 62% for Bush in 2004.

It’s the third straight special election Democratic win of a formerly Republican seat..

Senators say whether they’d agree to be vice president

TheHill.com asked the other 97 senators if they’d agree to be vice president. Two of the answers:

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) : “Absolutely. Absolutely. I think I would be great. First of all, I know how to behave at weddings and funerals. And I know how to be commander in chief. I’d bring a lot of fun to the job. We would rock the Naval Observatory.”

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) : “I have a unique perspective on this. I am the only senator to have announced I am not running for president because there should be someone here to serve as the Senate’s designated driver. I intend to stay in that position. The Senate needs a designated driver to stay behind and work on healthcare.”

Update: Three Republican senators said they were too old — Thad Cochran, 70; Chuck Grassley, 74; and Pete Domenici, 76. Cochran is younger than McCain.

Senators say whether they’d agree to be vice president

TheHill.com asked the other 97 senators if they’d agree to be vice president. Two of the answers:

Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) : “Absolutely. Absolutely. I think I would be great. First of all, I know how to behave at weddings and funerals. And I know how to be commander in chief. I’d bring a lot of fun to the job. We would rock the Naval Observatory.”

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) : “I have a unique perspective on this. I am the only senator to have announced I am not running for president because there should be someone here to serve as the Senate’s designated driver. I intend to stay in that position. The Senate needs a designated driver to stay behind and work on healthcare.”

Update: Three Republican senators said they were too old — Thad Cochran, 70; Chuck Grassley, 74; and Pete Domenici, 76. Cochran is younger than McCain.

Best line of the day about the election

“I thought about voting for Hillary at the beginning. I don’t care that she is a woman. I need more than that. Neither [Obama’s] race, his gender, her race or her gender was enough. I needed something else, and the something else was his wisdom.”

Toni Morrison

And, on her remark that Bill Clinton was the first black president:

“People misunderstood that phrase. I was deploring the way in which President Clinton was being treated, vis-à-vis the sex scandal that was surrounding him. I said he was being treated like a black on the street, already guilty, already a perp. I have no idea what his real instincts are, in terms of race.”

Pundits Declare the Race Over

Who died and left Tim Russert in charge?

Very early this morning, after many voters had already gone to sleep, the conventional wisdom of the elite political pundit class that resides on television shifted hard, and possibly irretrievably, against Senator Hillary Clinton’s continued viability as a presidential candidate.

The moment came shortly after midnight Eastern time, captured in a devastatingly declarative statement from Tim Russert of NBC News: “We now know who the Democratic nominee’s going to be, and no one’s going to dispute it,” he said on MSNBC.

The New York Times

As she so often does, digby sums it up best:

Who the fuck anointed Tim Russert as the final arbiter of anything? His job is to analyze the political landscape not declare the decision as if he were some kind of Roman Emperor giving a thumbs up or thumbs down. It’s bad enough that these gasbags put those thumbs on the scale as hard as they do, but actually taking the initiative to say when the race is over is even worse. To coin a favorite Village phrase, “it’s not their place.”

There’s a story about LBJ and former Washington Post and Newsweek editor Ben Bradlee. Bradlee was at Newsweek (this was in 1964) and he predicted LBJ was going to remove J. Edgar Hoover as director of the FBI. The White House called a press conference and Bradlee expected to see his prediction announced. Instead, LBJ gave a testimonial about Hoover and exempted him from mandatory retirement. Moments before the announcement Johnson told press secretary Bill Moyers to call Ben Bradlee and tell him, “Fuck you.”

I’m eager for Senator Clinton to drop out, but not right now.

Factoid of the day

During one of the most difficult periods in the presidency of Bill Clinton, he addressed a group of clerics at an annual prayer breakfast in September 1998 just as the Starr report outlining his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky was about to be published.

Among those in attendance, was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. …

The Caucus

There’s even of photo of Wright and President Clinton.