Gail Collins is clever today:

[J]ust as [Hillary Clinton] was engrossed in her multiple concessions, [Obama's] campaign started using the same political shape-shifting that Obama had decried in the Clintons. . . . The Democrats could not care less. They want a winner, and most of them are prepared to forgive quite a lot of inconsistency in order to get one. A liberal opponent of the Senate wiretapping bill virtually wept with joy when Barack deserted the cause and voted with the law-and-order folk.

. . . You’d like to think that after 17 months of angst over its presidential nomination, the Democrats would not wind up with the exact same candidate they started out with, except for a different gender and a higher quotient of panache.

. . . . Take a lesson from the residents of Unity, Hillary fans. Everybody has to do their part. . . . Sometimes it’s trying to figure out how to get through a killer presidential campaign without losing every single quality that made people want to vote for you in the first place. And sometimes, it simply involves a lot of nodding.

Heh.

The Crosby Stills & Nash concert in Denver last night was terrific. More on that later, but first, two C,S & N songs relevant to today's unity announcement:

If you can't be with the one you love

love the one you're with

More...

Read the whole thing, but here is the key excerpt, it seems to me:

Olbermman then denies that he was justifying Obama's support for the FISA bill but then goes on to do exactly that:

Seriously, there is little in the polls to suggest McCain has anything to run with other than terror . . . . So why hand them a brick to hit him with -- Obama Voted Against FISA -- if voting Aye enhances his chances of getting himself his own Attorney General to prosecute FISA.

[MORE . . . ]

What a hilarious diatribe:

I think John Dean is worth 25 Glenn Greenwalds (maybe 26 Keith Olbermanns). Thus, as I phrased it on the air tonight, obviously Obama kicked the left in the teeth by supporting the bill. But anybody who got as hot about this as I did would prefer to see a President Obama prosecuting the telecoms criminally, instead of seeing a Senator Obama engender more "soft on terror" crap by casting a token vote in favor of civil litigation that isn't going to pass since so many other Democrats caved anyway.

. . . I don't know much about Mr. Greenwald and I didn't read his full piece, but I do know that the snippet he's taken out of the transcript of my conversation with Jon Alter last night makes it sound like I was saying defying the left was a good thing. I was actually contrasting it to not cowering to the Republicans, simply as a different thing. . . .

Sure you did Keith. Sure. Those of us who saw the segment know a bit better than that. And excuse me, John Dean is no Glenn Greenwald and no one who knows Glenn's work would even think to say such a thing. Unless of course you are a Keith Olbermann and what that has come to mean - Obama's O'Reilly. The man is a farce.

Speaking for me only

Glenn Greenwald writes:

On January 31 of this year, Keith Olbermann donned his most serious face and most indignant voice tone to rail against George Bush for supporting telecom immunity and revisions to FISA. In a 10-minute "Special Comment," the MSNBC star condemned Bush for wanting to "retroactively immunize corporate criminals[.]" . . . Olbermann added that telecom amnesty was a "shameless, breathless, literally textbook example of Fascism -- the merged efforts of government and corporations that answer to no government."

. . . . Now that Barack Obama supports a law that does the same thing -- and now that Obama justifies that support by claiming that this bill is necessary to keep us Safe from the Terrorists -- everything has changed. . . . There wasn't a syllable uttered about "immunizing corporate criminals" or "textbook examples of Fascism" or the Third Reich. There wasn't a word of rational criticism of the bill either. Instead, [Olbermann and Jon Alter] hailed Obama's bravery and strength -- as evidenced by his "standing up to the left" in order to support this important centrist FISA compromise . . . [MORE]

In the mail today -- a copy of William McKeen's new book Outlaw Journalist: The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson. It will be available on July 8 but you can order now at Amazon.

I'm especially anxious to read it because in the second section of eight pages of black and white photos of Hunter, is one I took of his wife Anita and son Juan. I've never been credited in a book before with "Photograph by..." and it's pretty exciting. Mr. McKeen contacted me a few years ago and asked for permission to use it. I asked Anita what she thought and she said it was fine.

Now, the book. [More...]

Since 2005, I've been following the case of Australian Schapelle Corby, sentenced to 20 years in an Indonesian hellhole of a prison for allegedly smuggling 10 pounds of pot into Bali in a boogie board on a vacation, despite some evidence the pot was planted, possibly by a ring of airline baggage handlers, although that theory has since been discredited.

Her story will be told in Ganja Queen, airing on HBO on Monday, June 30.

Ganja Queen is the harrowing story of Schapelle Corby, a young Australian woman who is accused of international drug trafficking after ten pounds of marijuana are found in one of her bags while on holiday in Bali. Proclaiming her innocence, she finds herself locked in a life-and-death courtroom battle. The film is a chilling reminder of the risks all travelers take when visiting countries with vastly different criminal justice systems and cultural mores.

On Friday, Schappelle was taken from the prison to an Indonesian hospital where she is on a suicide watch. Her last appeal was denied in March. [More...]

Digby writes one of the great grafs you will see:

What we have . . . is the portrait of a Village hero, the ultimate master of the only game that matters --- ostentatiously capitulating to conservatism. It's the biggest accolade a Democrat ever gets, like winning a congressional Oscar, and the preening Hoyer is happy to make his acceptance speech in the pages of the Drudge Daily. This one is sweeter than most because he managed to capitulate to the congressional minority and the most unpopular president in history on an issue of fundamental constitutional principle which contained little political risk to uphold. A truly bravura performance. In fact, it's worthy of a lifetime achievement award.

Surrender Steny would like to thank the Dean of the Washington Press Corps for his inspiration and support and of course, the new budding Dean, Joe Klein . . .

Speaking for me only

M.J. Rosenberg writes:

[I]t is silly to get bent out of shape when [Obama] says something he may or may not believe in order to win . . . That is precisely what I want him to do . . .

I suppose that is why Rosenberg supported the Obama campaign's saying:

Proving once again that [Hillary Clinton] will say and do anything to win . . .

All the "outrage" Rosenberg expressed about the Clinton campaign was just a big lie apparently. Now my own view is that ALL pols will say and do anything to win - the trick for us as citizens is to make the politically wise thing to do be the things we want the pols to do. That is why we hold their feet to the fire:

Richard Cohen writes:

the difference between McCain and Obama -- . . . McCain is a known commodity. . . . As his North Vietnamese captors found out, there is only so far he will go, and then his pride or his sense of honor takes over.

[McCain] embodies a quality for which the country yearns: integrity. He is a man of his word. . . . McCain must remain true to the principles he has enunciated in his disagreement with Bush over the Geneva Conventions and similar matters. Compromise is not a dirty word, but abandonment of principle is a different matter entirely. The United States cannot conduct itself as its enemies have. We do not torture. . . .

But John McCain voted against banning torture by the CIA:

As someone whose vote and support for Barack Obama for President in this election is unshakeable (I know what John McCain is and I want no part of a John McCain Presidency), I am decidedly NOT a fan of the PUMA movement. Indeed, I oppose it. But I was outraged by the behavior of the Media and the blogs towards Hillary Clinton and I will not soon forget what they did. John Cole, whose tin ear on the issues of sexism and misogyny is pretty well established, thinks that the PUMAs will not like this Rebecca Traister article. Since I am not a PUMA, I can not say for sure, but I know I liked these parts of the article:

Comedian George Carlin has died of heart failure at age 71. Here he is talking about death.

The New York Times wrote this extensive profile of him in 2004. Ann Althouse has an extensive group of clips and thoughts. The Nation has more, including his political views. Huffington Post has this interview with Carlin in March on blogs and political tv news. He told Tim Russet in 2004 he hadn't voted since McGovern.

Update: More history from the AP here.

R.I.P. George Carlin.