Kos wrote a mocking post about the crumbling PUMA movement. I happen to think the PUMA movement is nuts. But these are just citizens and voters expressing their views, however wayward and stupid I may think them. What really amazes me is the anti-PUMAs, those erstwhile Obama supporters who are attacking Obama for making unity noises with Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Leading the charge of course is the foolish and harmful Andrew "Bell Curve" Sullivan, along with the usual Clinton haters in the the Media, with MoDo playing her usual fool's role. Sullivan writes:

The total capitulation to the Clintons at the convention is particularly lame[.]

This is nuts. Having the last Democratic President, a two termer at that and still incredibly popular President and the Dem Senator from New York, who won half of the vote in the Democratic primaries, speak at the Democratic Convention is capitulation? Hatred is blinding. And when you could not see well in the first place, the Mr. Magoo act gets to be very serious. For people like Sullivan, hating the Clintons trumps all. They are at least as silly as the PUMAs.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

That is CNN's headline. And strictly speaking, it is true. But obviously it is a ridiculously misleading description of the situation. But that does not really matter. As Matt Yglesias writes (btw Matt, who I often disagree with but ALWAYS read, an interesting blogger you must agree, is now at Think Progress), American Media coverage is pretty irrelevant to this situation - something the Georgian President seems not to understand:

Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, perhaps seems to have been confused by the fact that he gets great press in the U.S. and Vladimir Putin gets terrible press. Thus, he made the puzzling decision last week to escalate the “frozen conflict” by launching an attack aimed at retaking South Ossetia. Russia, predictably, is now retaliating with results that look set to be disastrous for Georgia.

Putin could not care less what Fred Hiatt thinks of him. Someone may need to inform the Georgian President of this. As Stalin once asked of the Pope, "how many divisions does Bill Kristol have?"

Speaking for me only

Couldn't resist. Here's John Edward's birth chart. And yes, I used to be one too, although I was always taught it's the wise man who rules his stars and the fool who obeys them.

Here's an open thread for you, all topics welcome.

Are you watching the Olympics? What events impressed you the most?

If you're not watching and want to talk about the news or what you had for dinner, that's fine too.

This is an open thread.

Here's the transcript of the Nightline interview with John Edwards. (Short video clip from interview here.)

I think it raises more questions than it answers.

Here's the video of Edwards initial denial of the affair.

Thoughts before we put this story to bed?

Update: According to Nightline, Sen. Barack Obama told them today he didn't think either Elizabeth or John Edwards would be attending the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Update: I have a new theory, outlined below. It's just my speculation and it has nothing to do with Edwards' morality or elections. It's about crime. I orignally put it in the comments but it's too long for a comment. Read it and let me know what you think?

Here's a thread for the Olympics in case you're watching. I am.

There are also China protests going on around the world.

And I thought of all the bad luck,
And the struggles we went through
And how I lost me and you lost you
What are these voices outside loves open door
Make us throw off our contentment
And beg for something more?

...And the more I know, the less I understand
All the things I thought Id figured out
I have to learn again
Ive been trying to get down
To the heart of the matter
But everything changes
And my friends seem to scatter
But I think its about forgiveness
Forgiveness

Peace to John and Elizabeth Edwards. This is an open thread.

The great thing about Paul Krugman, and something bloggers should learn from, he is not afraid to take on other pundits, even those on his own team. Atrios gets the chance to riff off of the Tom Friedman "Suck on This" video yet again because Krugman calls out Friedman. Here is the video:

Here is what Krugman wrote:

I heard a number of people express privately the argument that some influential commentators made publicly — that the war was a good idea, not because Iraq posed a real threat, but because beating up someone in the Middle East, never mind who, would show Muslims that we mean business. In other words, even alleged wise men bought into the idea of macho posturing as policy.

More . . .

Reader, reader on the wall, who's the most fabulous of them all?

As McCain continues to hit at Obama's celebrity with yet another video ad, here's a better one to watch.

(Lyrics here since it's hard to hear the words over the music.)

And you were just too busy being fabulous

Too busy to think about us

This is an open thread.

The Green Bay Packers' management team has not been particularly adept in its handling of Brett Favre, who wants to return to his starting quarterback job, be released, or be traded (presumably to a team that has a decent receiver or two). It's likely that Packers management will compound that problem by hiring former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer "for one month to help them handle the public relations nightmare the situation has created."

When he wasn't helping Dick Cheney out CIA agents, Comical Ari's specialty was spinning lies to the media. The Packers really think he's equipped to help them clean up the mess they've made? Does Fleischer plan to accuse Favre of hiding WMD's in his locker? Unlike White House reporters, local sports reporters tend to know the difference between truth and lies. For the Packers, the nightmare has only begun.

Actor Morgan Freeman, 71, is in serious condition following a car accident in Mississippi last night. He was extracted from the vehicle with "the jaws of life" and airlifted to a hospital in Memphis.

Send good thoughts his way. Here's a famous clip from Shawshank Redemption where he meets the parole board and is asked if he's been rehabilitated:

My post, "A Fairy Tale Revisited" has elicited reactions from some quarters. The interesting reactions are the ones that insist that the Clintons are racists and that rejection of the Clintons is the way for Obama to go. August J. Pollak writes:

Jesus Christ, someone save us from the stupid. . . . Because the Obama campaign had the audacity to be upset about veiled racist attacks made against him in the primary, now it's already on the table for McCain to use. See, Obama only had one "race card" in his Magic: The Election deck, and he should have saved it for McCain. A smart candidate would have simply held off from responding to six months of suggesting that the black guy can't actually win.

. . . Armando and the rest of the baby brigade truly embody the most disgraceful and arrogant remnants of the Democratic Party. It's Obama's fault, you understand, that Clinton ran a disgraceful . . . campaign. . . . [I]t's Obama's fault that Hillary Clinton spent the last six weeks of a primary she was already statistically incapable of still winning having her surrogates practically write half of McCain's campaign ads for him.

(Emphasis supplied.) More . .