After winning New Hampshire for Hillary Clinton by galvanizing women voters to support Hillary, the Tweety Effect (Media Misogyny pushing women voters to Hillary) has gone national:

Clinton is at 49 percent in the new poll, up nine points from the December survey, with Obama at 36 percent, which is a six-point gain from his December standing." . . . Clinton has re-established herself as the Democratic front-runner, especially among Democratic women," Schneider said.

Notice that Obama has also risen in this poll so it is not that Obama lost support, he is not blamed for the Media Misogyny, the Media is blamed. As it should be. Now we have a contest and hopefully, a chastened Media. May the best person win.

One of the more irresponsible takes on why the pollsters got it wrong in New Hampshire was discussed earlier by Jeralyn. Andrew Kohut of Pew Research's attributing Obama's loss to white racism was incredibly irresponsible. I refer Mr Kohut to the words of James Clyburn. CYA-ing for pollsters is no excuise for what Kohut has done. Worse than that, Kohut has no basis for saying what he said. John Judis dismantles Kohut's irresponsible speculation:

Media Matters has begun a campaign against MSNBC's Chris Matthews over his years of blatant bias against women on Hardball.

The action alert quotes Big Tent Democrat of TalkLeft as calling for his removal from coverage of the presidential race.

While, like Big Tent, I have criticized Chris Matthews for his sexist comments about Hillary Clinton, I'm more of a "change the channel" person.

If more people would watch the competition, his ratings would plummet. MSNBC would conclude pretty quickly it had a Chris Matthews problem and he'd be gone. Conversely, all the attention calling for his ouster is likely to raise his profile and gain him more viewers, even if they're only tuning in to hear his latest misogynistic rant. If his ratings go up, MSNBC is going to be thanking its lucky stars, not considering taking action against him.

More....

The D.C. Court of Appeals today upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit for damages filed by four Britons who had been detained at Guantanamo. Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Jamal Al-Harith had sued Donald Rumsfeld and other top military officers for ordering torture and religious abuse during the two years they spent at Guantanamo before being sent back to Britain. The trial court dismissed all of the claims except the one over religious discrimination. The appeals court dismissed that as well.

The Center for Constitutional Rights, which brought the suit on behalf of the men, reports:

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Bill Richardson just praised Daily Kos and bloggers involvement in the political process on Hannity and Colmes. He also said he was sorry he missed Yearly Kos due to a scheduling conflict.

In other comments, he continued to refuse to endorse either Hillary or Obama or to count Edwards out. Hannity asked him if he thought Hillary could win given her "unfavorability rating" and he said yes.

Despite a recommendation by federal prosecutors that Marion Jones receive 0 to 6 months in prison for lying to officials about her steroid use and a check scam involving her ex-husband, a federal judge today sent her to jail for six months -- followed 800 hours community service and 2 years of supervised release. Why? He said she let children down.

"Athletes in society have an elevated status," the judge said before imposing sentence. "They entertain. They inspire. And perhaps most importantly, [they serve] as role models for children around the world."

Those children, the judge inferred, were lied to by Jones who should instead have been a model for "hard work, sportsmanship," and the lessons of "how to win and lose within the rules."

Marion Jones didn't plead guilty to lying to children. She pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators. While the judge stayed within the prosecutor's recommendation, he came in at the top end and it seems largely because of her denials of steroid use contained in a book she authored that were not part of the case against her. Is it allowed? Yes. But I'd rather he based her sentence on her criminal conduct rather than on her civic responsibility.

And it does seem like she caught a break for lying about the check scam so perhaps it all balances out in the wash.

O.J. Simpson is back in custody pending a bail violation hearing next week in Nevada. The prosecutor filed this complaint (pdf) alleging he left a voicemail for his bondsman asking him to contact a co-defendant, Clarence Stewart, who is not cooperating, and tell him to not to change his story from what he had previously told O.J. O.J.'s voicemail:

"I just want, want C.J. to know that the whole thing all the time he was tellin' me that (bleep), ya know. I hope he was telling me the truth. Don't be trying to change the mother (bleeping) (bleep) now, mother (bleeping) (bleep) holes. I'm tired of this (bleep). Fed up with the mother (bleepers) changing what they told me."

A condition of O.J.'s bond is that he not contact witnesses, victims or co-defendants personally or through his agents.

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To my mind, Edwards made a grievous mistake, both as a question of politics and issues, when he decided to give Obama a free pass. It effectively ended his campaign, both as a question of issues and politics. But I must agree with this from Ezra Klein:

Much more so than Obama, it was Edwards who forced a new style of politics, untethered by the fear and timidity of the 90s, adamant that liberalism was an electoral boon and economic justice a popular sentiment. Knowing they had to defend against his challenge, both Hillary and Obama edged closer to his appeal. This left the Edwards campaign without much substance on which to distinguish itself, but it left the Democrats in a much stronger position overall, and forced them to argue for, and commit to, a much broader and more inspiring agenda than we otherwise might have seen.

Thank you John Edwards for that.

Markos gets some flak (most of it candidate support inspired imo) in the thread of his post advocating a Dems For Romney campaign in Michigan (where the Dem primary is unofficial.) Markos wants Romney to scramble the GOP field (I assume he also wants to hurt McCain's chances.) I am dubious of the efficacy of the effort but it does highloght the absurdity of the concept of "open" primaries. If a party is choosing its standardbearer, only members of that party should be allowed to participate. Or as Markos writes:

Open primaries are stupid. Should we be meddling in their primary? To be honest, open primaries like this Michigan one are ridiculous. As far as I'm concerned, if someone isn't a Democrat, they shouldn't get to decide my party's nominee. If someone isn't a Republican, they shouldn't get to decide the Republican's nominee. So if this little campaign adds impetus for closing primaries, so much the better. But as long as the law allows crossover voting, there is nothing wrong with picking up the ballot you think best helps YOUR candidate.

And any progressive member of the Democratic base should support this point of view. Open primaries are invitations to ignoring the base. This seems obvious to me.

Courtesy of the Dutch, you can answer a quick 25 questions and find the top Democrat (or Republican) that most closely matches your positions on issues -- you can even rank the issues in terms of importance to you before they calculate the final results.

VoteMatch USA 2008 is a product of the Dutch Institute for Political Particpation, made for and in cooperation with current affairs programme OneToday.

VoteMatch USA 2008 comprises eight candidates who will take part in the preliminary US presidential elections, three Democrats and five Republicans. These eight candidates are deemed most likely to win by authoritative research institutes such as Pew Research and Brookings Institution...

After you get the results, which are broken down by issue and specify on which ones the three Democrats agree and disagree with you, you can click and read their statements on those issues.

My results (and again, these are based only on the candidates' positions on issues)came out: John Edwards, very closely followed by Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama was third. There was a larger gap between Hillary and Obama.

Take the test, it's very quick, and let us know the results in comments.

From Time's Jay Newton-Small (I never heard of her either):

An interesting endorsement for Obama today. Pelosi's BFF George Miller. . . . [W]hen her top advisor [Top advisor? So that is what George Miller has been reduced to now?] who also happens to be a famous champion of women politicians endorses Obama, does it send the signal: is there room in Washington for both a Speaker Pelosi and a President Hillary?

Okaay. Can't have TOO many women with power in Washington now can we? Sheesh.

Bump and Update: The blogs are joining in the opening of the ACLU's "Close Guantanamo" campaign.

• Daily Kos
• AmericaBlog
• Second Life
• West Virginia Blue

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On the eve of the 6th anniversary of detainees arriving at Guantanamo Bay, the ACLU has commenced its "Close Guantanamo" campaign.

Guantanamo will forever be a stain on our national legacy. It must close. Please, join the ACLU in this historic and important campaign. Wear orange on Friday. [More...]