At Eschacon this weekend, liberal bloggers declared war on the media.

What was Eschacon? As I noted Saturday:

Eschacon '08: Many leading progressive bloggers are in Philly this weekend...Atrios, Digby, Jane Hamsher, TRex and more...Thers at Firedoglake has details of the panels and participants, and via Avedon at Sideshow, I see Sifonian is live-blogging of some of the panels.

NYU Journalism professor Jay Rosen weighs in.

[T]hough I await further reports, talk of some blogospheric war makes little sense to me. We’re in a dynamic situation here. And one of the biggest unknowns is: will Obama match McCain in radical openness with the press?

Lots of suppositions here. [More...]

For all those calling for Hillary to drop out of the race, here's an all-female version of "You Ain't Going Nowhere" performed by Shawn Colvin, Mary Chapin Carpenter & Rosanne Cash at Bob Dylan's 30th Anniversary concert, with an introduction by Johnny Cash.

If you prefer the Byrd's version (and I confess I do) here's Roger McGuinn (with actor Steve Martin on banjo)

And yes, it's another open thread. For starters, I highly recommend Clinton campaign Internet Director Peter Daou's Pundits v. Reality.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

Eric Boehlert has the details:

How dreadful was the news coverage last week surrounding the official release of Hillary Clinton's public White House schedule from her eight years as first lady? So bad that I found myself in rare (unprecedented?) agreement with at least two prominent conservative bloggers who noticed the same thing I did: The Beltway press corps is, at times, a national embarrassment.

. . . Surveying the news coverage, conservative blogger Rick Moran posed the same question I had last week, "Do we really need to know where Hillary was when Monica Lewinsky was with her husband? Or where she was when Vince Foster committed suicide? ... And does it deserve this feeding frenzy from the media?"

Only a virulently anti-Hillary site (I am looking at TPM on this) could deny this obvious fact. Yes, Josh Marshall has denied that Clinton has gotten unfavorable Media treatment. I kid you not.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

Via corrente, Gene Lyons on MI/FL:

As recently as 2000, Democrats were outraged that, due to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bush vs. Gore, not all of Florida’s presidential votes counted. In 2008, advanced thinkers supporting Sen. Barack Obama have persuaded themselves that fairness dictates that none of them should count. Nor Michigan’s, either. Better that the voters of two critical swing states comprising close to 10 percent of the electorate be disenfranchised than that Obama’s inevitable nomination be delayed. Nobody’s expected to notice the main reason that Team Obama faulted every suggested revote plan: He wouldn’t stand the proverbial snowball’s chance of winning either state’s primary. Rather than face that unpleasant truth, his supporters proposed various compromises with one common denominator: that Obama be awarded delegates he hasn’t won. That this strikes them as reasonable reflects the deep unreality into which roughly half the Democratic party has fallen. Once again, with feeling: The votes belong to the voter, not the candidates.

REM, Losing My Religion

No explanaton needed, This is an open thread, enjoy.

Rush Limbaugh got a little worked up today about Dan Abrams and my criticism of his "Operation Chaos" plot in Ohio to get Republicans to register as Dems to sway the Ohio vote.

As I listened to Dan Abrams and Jeralyn Merritt, don't you know that Josef Stalin would be so proud? Stalin would be trying to get out of that grave of his, and join the fray. This is exactly the kind of stuff that Stalin had in mind.

He says he thinks I should be defending him instead of calling his plan despicable.

Well, Rush, I did defend you here on TalkLeft more than once when you had your past legal troubles. Drug addiction is a disease and no one, not even you, should go to jail for it. Sorry I can't say the same about possible election fraud.

Even so, to set the record straight, while I explained what it would take to charge a voter or Rush and opined that if prosecutors could make the case they should prosecute to deter others from engaging in the same conduct, I didn't say I thought they had a case or that Rush should be convicted and jailed. Or that the government should spy on people's private internet communications. [More...]

Eric Boehlert at Media Matters on the shameful press reaction to the release of Hillary Clinton's white house schedules:

How dreadful was the news coverage last week surrounding the official release of Hillary Clinton's public White House schedule from her eight years as first lady? So bad that I found myself in rare (unprecedented?) agreement with at least two prominent conservative bloggers who noticed the same thing I did: The Beltway press corps is, at times, a national embarrassment.

...Surveying the news coverage, conservative blogger Rick Moran posed the same question I had last week, "Do we really need to know where Hillary was when Monica Lewinsky was with her husband? Or where she was when Vince Foster committed suicide? ... And does it deserve this feeding frenzy from the media?"

More...

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

Via Bob Somerby, the "progressive" writer Barbara Ehrenreich writes:

She has displayed a “tormented search for identity, marked by ever-changing hairstyles and names: Hillary Rodham, Mrs. Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and now Hillary Clinton.”

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

I think most readers of Talk Left know that it is my opinion that because Florida and Michigan will not have a revote, Hillary Clinton's chances to win the nomination are slim at best. The key point here is it is my opinion, not a fact. And it does not become a fact because 3 other bloggers, Politico and NBC have the same opinion. You know what it is? Conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom is usually right. Sometimes it is not. It is not a fact. It is an opinion. Yesterday I wrote:

Leonard Cohen ( I actually prefer Don Henley's version but I couldn't find a video for it.)

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded

Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes

[More...]

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

We at Talk Left have always really liked John Cole and his site Balloon Juice, even when he was still a Republican. But I think he and other Barack Obama supporters do Obama no favors with these type of statements:

Queen at Wembley, 1986, Under Pressure

Related: Under pressure, Obama plans speech on race:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama plans a major speech Tuesday morning in Philadelphia about race, and addressing his relationship with Chicago pastor Jeremiah Wright, according to The New York Times.

“I am going to be talking about not just Reverend Wright, but just the larger issue of race in this campaign, which has ramped up over the last couple of weeks,” Obama said. According to aides, he was up until 3 a.m. Monday working on his remarks.

New York Times: On Defensive, Obama Plans Talk About Race

Mr. Wright’s statements, said strategists, threaten his greatest strength, his reputation as a unifying, uplifting figure, capable of moving the country past old labels and divisions.

“The problem is the complete contradiction between the message of the Obama campaign and the message of the minister who’s been his close friend and confidant for 20 years,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican consultant unaffiliated with any campaign.

Open thread, please keep it civil.

Update: Comments closed here, a new thread is up.