MADONNA FOR OBAMA!!!!

This revelation closes the New York Magazine's interview with her Majesty. Here's the soundbite:

Which presidential candidate do you think will make the least huge mistakes?
I’m excited about one of the candidates.

But you can’t talk about him because the other one’s husband is in your movie?
That’s not nice … Um …

(I'm assuming Bill is in her upcoming AIDS/Malawi documentary.)

Since Madonna for Obama has such a ring to it, I shall procrastinate writing my script for another hour by finding..... MADONNA FOR OBAMA ANAGRAMS! Highlights so far:



Manana, broad of om
A roof bandana mom
A bad man oaf moron
Abandon from a Mao
Baron and oaf ammo

and, finally,

Bandana Ram Of Moo

email me with other possibilities!

"The coolest subliminal pop cultural reference in the history of American politics"

I didn't say it, Ari Melber at the Nation did. About this. 

Picture of McCain attempts to demonstrate his teeth are real

And this here is, uh, not exactly a "new kind of politics" (or if it is new, it's not exactly noble) but, hell, I laughed. Keep clicking on the text. Picturing this guy. Please don't let this man be our next president.

Amending the Constitution to allow Hillary to Govern

This in from a lawyer friend of mine.

A Reno, Nevada man has filed a state lawsuit claiming that the U.S. Constitution would have to be amended to allow Sen. Hillary Clinton to appear on the presidential ballot.

Douglas Wallace, 80, argues that because the constitution refers to "he" and "his" in describing presidential duties, a woman can't hold the office.

"The use of female gendered pronouns 'she' or 'her' are not present in the document, making it conclusive that the framers never intended that a woman would be president of the United States," Wallace wrote in the suit.


Folks are crazy.

But I do think the "he" pronoun in documents intended to refer to both genders does stop people from imagining women in traditionally male roles. I have co-written numerous manuals and text books, and I make a point to switch up the pronouns. Instead of writing "s/he" or "he or she," sometimes I'll use she, sometimes he. I do enjoy inserting "she" in places where we're more accustomed to "he."

For example, I used to write SAT manuals. So I might explain a savvy SAT technique in a sentence like this one:

"The seasoned SAT-taker does not assume that all the data in the problem is useful, or even relevant. She will focus on the question being asked, and determine for herself what information she needs to answer the question."

Anyway, Hillary is really getting on my nerves, but I stand by my original stance on her: I'm grateful for her candidacy because I think that the nationwide undertaking of imagination that can conceive of a woman President of the United States has shifted what we see as possible. As a country we hadn't gone there yet. Now we have.

I am not going to explain why Reverend Wright is a great spiritual leader

Never for a second did I believe Reverend Jeremiah Wright had to be pardoned, explained away, dissociated from, etc. by Barack or anyone. I understood without reading this kind of article both how effective he has proved himself to be as a spiritual leader and how a type of comfort he offers his congregation is to voice some "damn this place is fucked up"-type thoughts.

Because, it is. And everyone knows it. And if not everyone, a whoooole lotta people in the south side of Chicago know it, whether their preacher tells it to them or not.

Anyway, I just wanted to dedicate one post to this link: the full text of his 1990 sermon called "The Audacity to Hope."

This is the painting he's referring to, entitled "Hope" by George Frederick Watts.

She 'Misspoke' about being FIRED AT BY A SNIPER????

WTF???

HOW TO YOU GET A STORY WRONG ABOUT BEING SHOT AT BY A SNIPER?!?!

I mean, "fired at by a sniper" doesn't have some secondary meaning I'm not aware of, right? Like after a long weekend, when you keep getting what day it is wrong, do we call that "getting fired at by a sniper?" No, right? We use those words to talk about a person with a gun, taking aim, and pulling a trigger and bullets coming out, and the bullets are near you in a bad way.

So how is Hillary gonna be like "my bad, when I said I was getting fired at by a sniper in Bosnia, I really meant...um, that I wasn't getting fired at. I misspoke." ??????????

Hey kids, next time your teachers and parents catch you lying, just explain that you misspoke.

Also, did she think she'd get away with that, both the lie and the explanation (misspeaking)??? I mean, we might be stupid but no one is that stupid. I can't hit the question mark button (control slash control slash control slash control slash) enough to satisfy how baffled I am by her attempt to pull this off.

'Cause like, you know, wouldn't we all remember the headline about a SNIPER IN BOSNIA taking a shot at the FIRST LADY AND TEENAGE DAUGHTER OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES? That would have been a really big story, and every time someone did a subsequent story about assassination attempts, the secret service, personal security of dignitaries, blah blah, the SNIPER IN BOSNIA SHOOTING AT HILLARY would have been mentioned. This woman has lost her mind.

Whew. Okay. Calm down, Kate.

Backing up: if you're not caught up, here's the story:

As part of her argument that she has the best experience and instincts to deal with a sudden crisis as president, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton recently offered a vivid description of having to run across a tarmac to avoid sniper fire after landing in Bosnia as first lady in 1996.

Yet on Monday, Mrs. Clinton admitted that she “misspoke” about the episode — a concession that came after CBS News showed footage of her walking calmly across the tarmac with her daughter, Chelsea, and being greeted by dignitaries and a child.

And here's the footage of her walking across the tarmac with Chelsea.

Two opinions on the Hillary campaign

...neither of which I can take credit for, but both of which I like.

One is here. It is David Brooks, a conservative who doesn't hate liberals, in today's Times. The most alarming bits are these:

Last week, an important Clinton adviser told Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen (also of Politico) that Clinton had no more than a 10 percent chance of getting the nomination. Now, she’s probably down to a 5 percent chance....

The Democratic Party is probably going to have to endure another three months of daily sniping....

For the sake of that 5 percent, this will be the sourest spring. About a fifth of Clinton and Obama supporters now say they wouldn’t vote for the other candidate in the general election. Meanwhile, on the other side, voters get an unobstructed view of the Republican nominee. John McCain’s approval ratings have soared 11 points. He is now viewed positively by 67 percent of Americans. A month ago, McCain was losing to Obama among independents by double digits in a general election matchup. NOW MCCAIN HAS A LEAD AMONG THIS GROUP.

For three more months, Clinton is likely to hurt Obama even more against McCain, without hurting him against herself. And all this is happening so she can preserve that 5 percent chance.

The second Hillary campaign opinion I like is here, from some lovely blogger name Dillon at Backalleymedia.org. Dillon suggests Hillary suspend her campaign for these reasons:

1) Every time she attacks Obama now she seems like a spoilsport in the eyes of a growing consensus of party leaders.

2) Her strategy now... has to be to wait for Obama to make a horrendous mistake.... If she cedes the field and lets Obama battle McCain for a few months, it’s possible that Obama will make such a mistake, proving himself unworthy to face a strong Republican opponent. If he screws up by late August, Clinton can ride to the rescue at the convention.

3) She’s got no money. Actually, that’s not quite true — she’s got a big chunk of money that she has to hold in reserve for the general election. If she suspends her campaign for now, she’ll stop losing funds.


By the way, here the Times reporting on how the Hillary campaign finance problems have her stiffing her vendors, even when she owes them as little $2,500.