Todd Beeton has a report on Chelsea Clinton's speech to the Texas Democratic Party:

"My mother wanted me to be very clear - we are going to [be] united," Chelsea told Texas Democrats. Her mother, she noted, will be endorsing her formal rival tomorrow. Hillary Clinton will reaffirm "her life-long commitment to support and elect Democrats and Sen. Obama in November," the younger Clinton said.

This is an Open Thread.

On Wednesday, Roger Simon of Politico:

. . . Obama is not, one of his senior advisers assured me Tuesday night, going to spend a lot of time in the next few months wooing Clinton supporters whose feelings may be hurting.

I wrote in response "So it turns out the Obama campaign has some not too smart people on his campaign too. Expect a swift rebuke from Axelrod over this."

More . . .

Sexism:

Now that a would-be first female president is ending her quest for the White House, the race is more about women than ever before. . . . Even the Democratic National Committee chairman is avidly trying to make up for accusations that he allowed sexism in the race to pass unchallenged. “The wounds of sexism need to be the subject of a national discussion,” the chairman, Howard Dean, said in an interview. “Many of the most prominent people on TV behaved like middle schoolers” toward Mrs. Clinton.

(Emphasis supplied.) This is true Mr. Chairman. The discussion COULD have come a little earlier. But, better late than never.

BTW, I highly recommend the entire article. Some of our readers are going to enjoy the sudden onslaught of wooing you are going to receive.

By Big Tent Democrat

Let's catch up on the Siegelman case (background collected here). Don Siegelman is free pending appeal of a questionable conviction in a politically motivated prosecution. As TalkLeft noted here, Siegelman filed his appellate brief a couple of weeks ago. This is the first argument heading in Siegelman's brief (pdf):

The prosecution was required to prove an “explicit quid pro quo” agreement on the conspiracy, mail fraud, and bribery charges. The District Court failed to instruct the jury on this point. Furthermore, the evidence was insufficient on this point.

Here's a snippet of an informed analysis of that "powerful and unique" argument:

This is it for me tonight. I'll start live blogging the goings on in Washington regarding Hillary Clinton's speech tomorrow around 9 or 10.

BSG is getting quite freaky if you ask me. But I have to see it through.

Oh and Big Brown goes for the Triple Crown tomorrow in the Belmont. It's been 30 years now since the last Triple Crown winner.

This is an Open Thread.

CNN Opinion Research Poll sez:

What would Hillary Clinton bring to a Democratic ticket? Answer: about three percentage points. A hypothetical Obama/Clinton ticket would currently get 52 percent, compared to 46 percent for a hypothetical McCain/Romney ticket. And if she's not on the ticket? Sixty percent of her Democratic supporters would vote for Obama, 17 percent would vote for McCain, and 22 percent say they would stay at home in November and not vote for anyone.

Earlier, a Gallup poll indicated Clinton gives Obama a 5 point bump. I think electorally, no one offers Obama what Clinton offers him. Will the Obama camp be professional about this? Or will it be driven by personal feelings?

By Big Tent Democrat

Baltimore police detective Charles Hagee was part of an "elite" team investigating drug trafficking. His credibility was important to the outcome of hundreds of cases. It is therefore distressing that the chief of the state's attorney's police misconduct division, Thomas Krehely, deliberately kept himself in the dark about misconduct allegations that called Hagee's integrity into question.

Krehely ... testified that he does not routinely review police misconduct files after he decides not to press criminal charges, mainly to avoid being subpoenaed by defense attorneys.

Krehely decided not to press criminal misconduct charges, without bothering to review the file, because internal misconduct charges that the police department leveled against Hagee -- charges that the department didn't pursue aggressively -- were resolved in a deal that favored Hagee with a dismissal of the charges that impugned his integrity. Krehely's "see-no-evil" approach meant that (in his mind, at least) he was not required to disclose information to defense attorneys that destroys Hagee's credibility as a police witness. Had Krebely done his job responsibly, resources would not have been wasted on the dozens of prosecutions that have been dismissed because they are tainted by Hagee's involvement. (more ...)

Just a heads up, I will be live blogging Hillary Clinton's speech tomorrow including the Media atrocities that will proceed it. I think it is scheduled for Noon tomorrow. It surely will be televised by all the cable news networks.

Another Open Thread.

There is no point to this post other than to point out how bad the so called political punditry can be. For years, Amy Sullivan, has been one of the worst imo. And that probably explains why she is a Time columnist now. And she continues to be bad. Look at this column. It may have a point to it but the obtuseness of the analysis just irks me. Sullivan writes:

One of the Democratic campaign's great misperceptions has been that Clinton held an overwhelming advantage among women voters. But that isn't the case. As expected, Clinton captured the over-65 vote, and Obama won over younger women. But women in the middle split almost evenly between the two. And while both Senators boasted historic candidacies, Obama's seemed to resonate more deeply, translating into 70%, 80% and even 90% of the black vote in primary contests. No one expected Clinton to sweep 90% of Democratic women voters, but 60% wouldn't have been an unreasonable accomplishment for the first woman to have a serious chance of winning the presidency. Instead, Clinton won just over a majority of women's votes. . . .[W]omen themselves cost her the nod. The reasons more women haven't voted for Clinton tell us something about the evolution of feminism and what the future may hold for female politicians.

What is wrong with this picture? Hint: some African Americans are women. Psst, Amy, if African American women were, say 25% of the female vote in the primaries and Obama won 90% of them, then it becomes hard to win 60% of the TOTAL women's vote. Sheesh. More . . .

You can continue the ongoing discussions regarding sexism, McCain's disdain for the Constitution, or any other subject you choose here. I do apologize to folks looking for discussion of criminal law, but believe me, you do not want me writing about it. Jeralyn is in Aspen and TChris is tied up apparently.

Open Thread.

Comments closed.

Digby wrote this a few days ago:

Whatever happens, Bill Clinton will still be the 42nd president of the United States and the first two term Democrat since Roosevelt. That's never going to change. Democrats should ask themselves, once the smoke has cleared, if it's really a good idea to discredit his accomplishments. However you personally may feel about him, there is value in a popular ex-president remaining popular. Political value. (See: Reagan legacy project.) The question is what they are valued for.

I see the Clintons as warrior chiefs against the hardcore conservative movement machine that nearly crippled this country (but which may have just run its course after drifting into decadence and hubris.) But, at the time of the movement's greatest power and influence, no one took more crap or was more deft at beating them back. I, for one, am grateful to both of them for taking a nearly unbelievable amount of heat from both the media and the Republicans during that era --- and surviving.

More . . .

Over at TAPPED, Christopher Hayes, the Editor of The Nation, writes:

What was most striking about her campaign was the sexist venom directed at her from so many corners of the establishment, and the steely resolve with which she faced it down. That dynamic is what, I think, helped her win New Hampshire, avoid an early demise, and inspire the passionate support she gained from white women of her generation. These women are the backbone of the Democratic coalition, and they live life within the chaffing confines of a culture that feels as if it has, depressingly, outrageously, grown more sexist over the last several decades. As a male writer, I can say this lived reality is probably too easy for me to brush aside. But as Dana Goldstein pointed out, the presence of these sentiments, in all their vulgarity, presented progressive men with ample occasion for introspection on the ways in which progressive politics, and the discourse we all engage in sometimes explicitly, and more often tacitly, reinforces this power imbalance. This will, I hope, I believe, have a profound lasting positive and progressive effect.

(Emphasis supplied.) Excuse me Mr. Hayes, too many so-called progressive men and, some women, say it is irrelevant. I am still waiting for that "profound lasting positive and progressive effect."

Speaking for me only

Comments closed