So the goofballs over at RedState are beside themselves with glee over a Rasmussen poll suggesting that:

most voters said John McCain is the person they’d most want to answer the phone in the White House when a foreign policy crisis arrived.

How many is most?  More on the flip.

I’d like to ask first and foremost that if anyone is going to threadjack, abuse troll ratings, insult, or otherwise be obnoxious, that you do it elsewhere.

I’m an Obama supporter.  Have been since the start of the primaries.  Voted for him proudly.  At times I’ve been very upset with Hillary.  Check out my somewhat gloating diary from just a few short weeks ago---“Goodbye to All That”---if you don’t believe me for some reason.

But I am troubled lately.  I don’t see the fire in the Obama campaign and the will to win.  I see him getting slapped around by Hillary and doing nothing much in return.  I see one of his advisers, an intelligent woman who has done great work, cast aside on the basis of a stupid but minor comment.  I see weakness.

So I log into Daily Kos today and I find these two little buttons under each and every comment, saying "Recommend" and "Hide."

And it suddenly occurs to me:  After nearly four years of lurking, posting the occasional comment (and the even more occasional diary), what do you know?  I'm a trusted user.

I feel like Steve Martin in The Jerk.

William S. Martin: Good things are gonna start happening to me now.
[Crazy guy with gun scrolls through [Daily Kos trusted users]]
Sniper: Martin, William S... Sounds like a typical bastard.

So, Hillary and her surrogates keep floating this scorched earth policy, warning that if she doesn’t pull off the nearly impossible feat of utterly clobbering Obama at the polls on March 4th, she’ll fight this thing out until the convention, pilfering superdelegates and pledged delegates alike.  

She and her consigliores can only know what this will do, how it risks destroying the closest thing Democrats have had to a sure win in the White House since her husband couldn’t keep his hands of his intern.  But they’ve decided it’s worth the risk, that there is enough to gain by suggesting they’re willing to burn the party in order to save it.

Okay.  Fine.  Goodbye.

Not goodbye to DailyKos.  Not goodbye to the things I believe in.  Not “goodbye cruel world.”  Heavens no.

Just goodbye.

If you're like me, you used to love The West Wing, nearly a decade ago.  (My God, it hurts to think that almost nine years have passed since it premiered.)  It launched at the end of Bill Clinton's presidency, but for many of us it really took off after George W. Bush took up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.  

For millions of Americans, it was entertaining and escapist.  Eventually, it jumped the shark, as all good shows eventually do.  It wasn't so much that the show became contrived and unbelievable, but that reality itself did.

The more I see Hillary Clinton's campaign following the example of Karl Rove, attacking her opponent's strengths with ridiculous allegations, the more I worry that she'll eventually land the kind of knockout punch that killed John McCain's chances in the 2000 Republican primaries.

Yes, I hate to say it, but I'm worried about these rumors that Barack Obama may have fathered a black child.

This is just going to be a short diary.  I voted (for Obama) in DC this morning, and although I was there a few minutes after the morning rush hour, I was amazed at how empty the place was.  

I asked one of the poll clerks, and he said that turnout had been "so-so, so far."  

How quickly was I in and out?  So fast that the same new Cheryl Crow song that was on the radio when I parked my car was still on when I got back in to drive away.

So DC/MD/VA Kossacks, get out there and vote!

If you presume the result is a foregone conclusion, it won't be!

I don't believe in letting political opponents pick your nominee, but I do believe in trying to see things from the adversary's perspective so you know how to win a contest.  (Ironically, in the military, we used to call this "red teaming.")  With that in mind, check out this quote from RedState:

"The important thing is that Hillary wins, but in the most smoke-filled-room way possible."

It's true.  The best scenario for the GOP is a brokered Democratic convention in which Hillary wins based solely on the strength of superdelegates.  (Just as bad would be a brokered convention in which Hillary emerged as the choice of the people, but the superdelegates engineered their way to an Obama victory.  Unlikely as this seems now, the convention isn't for nearly six months, a lifetime in politics.)

There’s been a lot of natural speculation throughout this campaign regarding which presidential candidates are actually running for other jobs.  Bill Richardson for Vice President or secretary of state?  Barack Obama for Veep?  John Edwards for attorney general?

But most of that speculation seemed to presuppose that Hillary would actually be the Democratic candidate for president.  And the question was what would become of all of these other candidates?

That seems a lot less likely now.  I’m not counting her out, but clearly the inevitability of her campaign is no more.  And that leads me to ask the question:  if she’s not the nominee, what becomes of Senator Clinton?

This is a short diary about something that pissed me off.

I came across an ad this morning for Stephen Colbert on "60 Minutes."  Wow, cool, something I'd watch.  It turns out this episode aired in April 2006, but I'd never seen it.  So I clicked on it, and went to the Yahoo/60 Minutes website, where they had the entire episode in itty-bitty little pieces.

Perfect, a nice way to waste 10 or 15 minutes before the dog starts grumbling to go outside, right?

Wrong.  Why is after the flip.

As in too cute for his own good.  

As Adam B pointed out last week, the timing of his "announcement," scheduled for 12:01 a.m. on September 6th, had the convenient added bonus of letting him skip filing FEC campaign finance reports until Jan 31, 2007, after several of the GOP primaries.  

At 11:50 p.m. EST, on September 5, 2007, Fred's announcement was up and live.  "My friends I come to you today to tell you that I intend to run for president..."

A sign of the times if ever I've seen one.  The top story on Drudge right now:

CBSNEWS POLL: 34% (which links to a CBS News story headlined Poll: Bush Ratings At All-Time Low.

But what's even more amazing is the list of other stories.

* COAST GUARD RAISED CONCERNS ABOUT PORTS DEAL...

(more after the jump)

*    GOP congressional staffers would show up at all the liberal's speeches wearing orange hunting garb, melodramatically diving out of the way whenever he or she looked at them, and generally mocking and making spectacles of themselves.

*    Drudge would have his little siren thing going, with the LIBERAL SHOOTS MAN IN TEXAS in RED ALL CAPS for at least a week.

(more, of course)

Two men were jailed for years in Virginia for rapes that they did not commit, according to new tests of DNA evidence ordered by Virginia Governor Mark Warner.

The Washington Post reports that one of the wrongly convicted men served 20 years in prison.  The Post and Warner's office didn't identify the two men, saying that they had been released from prison and did not want publicity.

UPDATE: The original diary has been updated. I throw my hat in with those who say this was almost certainly an honest mistake all around. Trying to make a big deal out of this is a credibility waste.

Right now the the most recommended diary on this list is Washington Post's Hsu gave to GOP.  Only problem is, it doesn't look like he actually did make a donation.  

Instead, The Washington Post claims that the listing on OpenSecrets.com is simply inaccurate.  According to the Post, the supposed $1,031 contribution was actually remibursement for a hotel room that the state party had fronted Hsu at the 2004 GOP convention.

I don't write many diaries, but the idea that anybody might be thinking of arresting this kid moved me to write.

HOUSTON -- Thousands of refugees of Hurricane Katrina were transported to the Astrodome in Houston this week. In an extreme act of looting, one group actually stole a bus to escape ravaged areas in Louisiana.

About 100 people packed into the stolen bus. They were the first to enter the Houston Astrodome, but they weren't exactly welcomed.

[SNIP]

Authorities eventually allowed the renegade passengers inside the dome. But the 18-year-old who ensured their safety could find himself in a world of trouble for stealing the school bus.

http://www.newschannel5.tv/2005/9/1/4255/Taking-refuge-in-the-Astrodome

More below...

Is that "Send a White Feather to Jonah Goldberg" thing still going on?

Great news today for Jonah, who insisted that he the reason he hasn't joined the Army and volunteered for Iraq is that he's too old and hasn't served before.  Buried deep within today's front-page Washington Post article on the post-Iraq Army is this little nugget:

Yesterday, defense officials worried about recruiting announced that they will raise the age limit, from 34 to 40, for enlistment in the Army Guard and Reserve.

Not much else to say, but another cute picture...

At least a fair number of Kossacks are veterans of the Armed Forces. Kos himself ----------------> put in some time in the Army. And I know I've read posts here and there by folks who referenced the days before they got their DD-214's.

Nearly every day now, yet another American family learns the news that will make Veterans Day a more personal day for them for the rest of their lives.

Families like the family of Army PFC Dennis Miller Jr., 21, of Erie, Michigan, who .

American families like the family of Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Juan E. Segura, 26, of Homestead Florida.

And American families like the families of the 18 American troops killed so far in the battle for Fallujah.

Do I agree with the wars on terror and in Iraq? My answer is complex. But my message, whenever I have the opportunity to express it to the troops and their families, is not.

Thank you all for your service and your sacrifice.