By Big Tent Democrat

Memo to our friend Josh - put away the shovel and stop digging your hole deeper. His latest explanation is perhaps the most damning of himself. He writes:

Some readers seem to believe that Clinton is saying that it's not about suspensions or apologies. It's about MSNBC's need to reevaluate its pattern of behavior.

. . . I give the Clinton campaign the respect of knowing that they're no slouches with the written word. And the words in this letter were clearly chosen with great care. The point of that passage was that merely suspending Shuster was insufficient -- that he needs to be fired. That's what they meant. And I have little doubt that Shuster and the MSNBC execs understood the meaning the moment they read it. I think it would be wrong to shy away from making that clear.

(Emphasis supplied.) It is damning of Josh that he can not imagine that the point of the letter was this:

I would urge you to look at the pattern of behavior on your network that seems to repeatedly lead to this sort of degrading language.

(Emphasis supplied.) I agree with Josh that NBC might not see that that is the point - NBC's pattern of sexism is manifest and people oblivious to and accepting of sexism do not easily change their stripes. It is sad to see that Josh in this episode is one of those people too.

Here's a thread for the speeches delivered by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama at tonight's Virginia Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner. (Earlier thread on this here.)

Here is an AP summary of Hillary's speech.

Obama's speech sounds very similar -- almost a replica -- of this one he gave in Denver last week.

Update: 8:53 pm ET: There's your JFK references I predicted earlier, Ted Sorenson at work -- two in one parapgraph.

We’re the party of a man who overcame his own disability to tell us that the only thing we had to fear was fear itself; who faced down fascism and liberated a continent from tyranny.

And we’re the party of a young President who asked what we could do for our country, and the challenged us to do it.

More...and question for Obama supporters below:

Hillary Clinton's campaign tonight announced their fund-raising since Super Tuesday has topped $10 million from more than 100,000 donors.

Update: From the Louisiana exit polls:

Blacks were nearly half the Democratic primary electorate and Obama racked up one of his largest margins yet among them. He won nearly nine in 10 blacks, male and female, according to the exit polls for The Associated Press and television networks.

Most other Democratic voters were white and Clinton won them by about 40 points, a margin she has met or exceeded only in Alabama, Tennessee and her former home state of Arkansas among 19 Democratic primaries surveyed this year. Continuing a pattern seen in other Southern states, Obama won only three in 10 white men and did no better among white women.

The networks have called Louisiana for Obama. But, check out the counties Hillary won or is leading in substantially: Acadia, Allen, Avoyelles, Bearegard, Caldwell, Cameron, Catahoola, Grant, Jeff Davis, Lafourche, Lasalle, Livingston, Sabine, St. Bernard, Terrebone, Vermilion, Vernon, Washington, West Carroll and Winn. Map showing her counties and original post below the fold:

By Big Tent Democrat

Talking Points Memo continues its very poor journalism on this story. Now Josh Marshall approvingly publishes an e-mail that falsely characterizes Hillary Clinton's letter to NBC News President Steve Capus as calling for David Shuster's firing. What is particularly egregious about TPM's work is it minimizes, even omits, the REAL point of the letter - that NBC has demonstrated an unbroken pattern of sexism in its reporting and commentary and Clinton's demand that this pattern be addressed.

At this point, it simply can not be denied, TPM is choosing to ignore NBC's egregious pattern of sexism. That is very bad of TPM and Josh Marshall. This is part of a pattern of malign acceptance of sexism that we must all fight against.

Update [2008-2-9 22:10:28 by Big Tent Democrat]: After its egregious journalism on this story, TPM NOW compounds it by simply lying. Yes, I am calling TPM liars. Their LATEST headline Says "Clinton Backs Off Firing Demand." They NEVER demanded it. ONLY TPM said FALSELY they demanded it. Shame on TPM. Shame on Josh Marshall. Disgraceful work.

The votes aren't fully counted, but it's pretty clear that as expected, Barack Obama will win big today in Washington State, Nebraska and Louisiana. Hillary Clinton's campaign as released the following statement:

(Shorter version: We're concentrating on Ohio and Texas.)

Tonight there are contests in three states that the Obama campaign has long predicted they would win by large margins. According to a spreadsheet that was obtained by Bloomberg News, the Obama campaign predicted big victories in Washington State, Nebraska and Louisiana.

The Obama campaign has dramatically outspent our campaign in these three states, saturating the airwaves with 30 and 60 second ads. The Obama campaign has spent $300,000 more in Louisiana on television ads, $190,000 more in Nebraska and $175,000 more in Washington. [More...]

By Big Tent Democrat

Over at TPM, Greg Sargent is, in my opinion, completely misreporting what Hillary Clinton meant in her written response to NBC Clinton wrote:

Nothing justifies the kind of debasing language that David Shuster used and no temporary suspension or half-hearted apology is sufficient.

I would urge you to look at the pattern of behavior on your network that seems to repeatedly lead to this sort of degrading language.

. . .

(Emphasis supplied.) Sargent utterly misses Clinton's point. He thinks she wants Shuster fired. That is not what Clinton is demanding. She wants "the pattern of behavior [at NBC] that seems to repeatedly lead to this sort of degrading language" to change. Too often people miss the real problem. Jamison Foser got it. Greg Sargent did not. BTW, that is poor reporting by Sargent imo.

(larger version here).

The results of the Washington caucuses should be available soon. Here's a thread to discuss them.

CNN projects Mike Huckabee as the winner in the Kansas caucuses today.

With 76 percent of precincts reporting, Huckabee had 62 percent of the vote, compared with 22 percent for Arizona Sen. John McCain and 11 percent for Texas. Rep. Ron Paul. Kansas has 36 delegates at stake Saturday.

Experts say Huckabee can't make the numbers nationally and McCain will be the Republican nominee. Huckabee responds:

Well, I didn't major in math, I majored in miracles. And I still believe in those, too."

Almost 17,500 Washington voters in the state's primary (not caucuses) will not have their ballots counted. Why? Because they didn't follow the rules -- prominently stated in red on their ballots -- to declare themselves either a Republican or a Democrat.

Nearly one in four King County voters who mailed in their ballots did not identify themselves as Democrat or Republican, nullifying their votes in the presidential primary.

The elections office Friday called it a combination of protest and error. Some voters do not want to publicly declare a political party, even though their vote remains secret. Other voters might not know their votes will not be counted unless they choose a party.

It won't matter in terms of delegates. As Big Tent Democrat wrote earlier, the delegates in Washington are picked from the caucus results today, not next week's primary.

By Big Tent Democrat

Capus' statement is the best sign yet that NBC News is beginning to take seriously the lengthy pattern of inappropriate comments about women made by NBC and MSNBC reporters. (NBC News did not issue a statement about Matthews, allowing Matthews' overly narrow, on-air quasi-apology to stand as the closest thing to an official statement.)

But apologies and statements and even suspensions don't mean anything unless they are followed by an actual change in behavior. Things didn't change at NBC/MSNBC after the Matthews controversy; hopefully they will this time.

That is one of the big issues about this. We can not fall into the malign acceptance of sexism.

Obama delivered a good speech at the Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner in Iowa. Tonight there is another one, in Virginia.

More than 6,000 party activists and donors are expected to pack the Stuart C. Siegel Center to hear to Clinton and Obama as both campaigns increasingly view Virginia as the major prize of Tuesday's primary. Clinton is scheduled to speak at 8:30 p.m. About two hours later, Obama is planning to address the crowd.

Expect Obama's speech to be a good one...I also anticipate it will be laced with JFK references or else sound reminiscent of him. Why? Ted Sorenson, JFK's speechwriter is on board his campaign.

Sorenson, who turns 80 in May, has long been retired from actual speechwriting but he now feels compelled to lend creative service to who he feels is the country's best option right now: Illinois Sen. Barack Obama. "I endorsed Barack Obama for president... because he is more like John F. Kennedy than any other candidate of our time," Sorensen said recently.

Sorenson has experience working with Obama's young speechwriters.

According to reports, Sorenson has now become close with the young speechwriters in Obama's camp -- and has occasionally thrown in a creative phrase or a clever one-liner to be used during one of the senator's future exhortations. In addition, Sorensen is said to be giving advice and support to the Obama campaign.

As I've said here many times, speechwriters write speeches, candidates deliver them. No matter what words Sorenson feeds Obama, he is not JFK. [More...]