Showtime in Wyoming: Bill Clinton vs. Barack Obama
The Eagles, Doolin' Dalton/Desperado Reprise, 1974 (with Linda Ronstadt singing in this segment and she's not the one wearing Jersey number 12)

Well the stage was set the sun was sinkin' low down
As they came to town to face another showdown
The lawmen cleared the people from the streets
"All you blood -thirsty bystanders, will you try to find your seats?"
Watch 'em duelin'
Doolin-Dalton
High or low ,it's all the same

The AP:

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama has announced that he will visit Wyoming on Friday for a town hall meeting in Casper and a rally in Laramie.

...The Clinton campaign announced today that former President Bill Clinton will swing through Wyoming on Thursday on behalf of his wife's campaign.

Bill Clinton's stops will include a speech at 10:45 a.m. at Central Wyoming College in Riverton. He'll then travel to southwestern Wyoming for a 1:45 p.m. event at the Sweetwater County Events Complex in Rock Springs. The former president will wind up his Wyoming appearances in Laramie with a speech at the UniWyo Sports Complex at the University of Wyoming at 5 p.m.

Will it matter? I love the state, but it really is Dick Cheney country. In 2004, John Kerry won one county, Teton, with a total population of 18,000 and a population density of five persons per square mile.

The chances of a Democrat winning in November? When H*ll Freezes Over, Get Over It.

Update below: Hillary's going to Wyoming too.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

Donna Brazile has been the most divisive and destructive force in the Democratic Party this year. She engineered the Florida/Michigan fiasco, threatened to bolt the Party if the super delegates did not do her bidding and now has taken to publicly smearing the Clinton campaign:

Despite Obama's impressive victories in February, Clinton's comeback is based on sowing political seeds of doubt," said Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist and one of nearly 800 party leaders known as superdelegates for their ability to determine the nomination. "In order to clinch the nomination, he must anticipate the worst attacks ever."

. . . "If these attacks are contrasts based on policy differences, there is no need to stop the race or halt the debate," Brazile said. "But, if this is more division, more diversion from the issues and more of the same politics of personal destruction, chairman Dean and other should be on standby."

(Emphasis supplied.)

Check out the location.

Open thread, your turn.

Tonight's election coverage has started. We'll have several threads going, but here's one to post your comments about the media coverage of the results

Who's the biggest Horses As*? Who did you like?

What networks are you watching? I'm starting with CNN but I'll be switching back and forth between CNN, MSNBC and Fox News.

By Big Tent Democrat

Josh Marshall writes:

It's hard to say just what issues are responsible for the shift in momentum. It's hard to believe the NAFTA stuff hasn't played a role. The Farrakhan/Muslim/anti-Semitism stuff, which Clinton has pushed in concert with key press outlets, also probably plays a big role.

(Emphasis supplied.) I guess I missed it but I do not remember any Clinton campaign materials on Farrakhan, anti-semitism or Obama being a Muslim. Is Josh talking about Steve Kroft asking Hillary if Obama is a Muslim? Did Farrakhan and anti-semitism come up too? Anyone have any info on this? Do you know what Marshall is talking about?

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

The Goo Goo Dolls:

My favorite version: The Goo Goo Dolls at the 9/11 Concert for NYC for the firemen who died, it starts at 5:00 in, but watch John Rzeznik dance across the stage around 7:20. What a face, what energy. It also has a great shot of a fireman in the crowd just loving it (around 6:10.)

The Goo Goo Dolls have done fundraisers for both Hillary and Obama, two months apart.

Big Tent Democrat

Scott Lemieux replies to my post on his post about Jeffrey Rosen on Obama on civil liberties. Did you follow that? Hope so. Anyway, Scott writes:

Armando, like several commenters, isolates this passage in the Jeffrey Rosen op-ed I blogged about yesterday and uses it to reject the entire analysis:

Mr. Obama . . . is not a knee-jerk believer in the old-fashioned liberal view that courts should unilaterally impose civil liberties protections on unwilling majorities. [. . .]

The first sentence is, indeed, normatively problematic, and I don't think I can be criticized for being unwilling to criticize Rosen's criticisms of liberal "judicial activism."

Correct. Scott has, like me, been a severe critic of Rosen on this score. That is why his overlooking this critical passage surprised. In this followup, Lemieux rejects Rosen's view of Obama on this point. For the record I did not reject the entire analysis, I merely isolated this passage as the most critical and problematic part of Rosen's piece. I also must quibble with the rest of Lemieux's analysis:

By Big Tent Democrat

Note, see also Digby, we are no longer alone folks. Greg Sargent writes:

Both Glenn Greenwald and Digby today weighed in on the question of whether the media's been harsher on Hillary than on Obama -- and they both answered with a resounding Yes.

Digby, in an email to Greenwald, writes: "It's a fact that Clinton has received much harsher treatment than Obama." She suggests that media people will reach exactly the wrong conclusion about their own failings: "Instead of reevaluating their bias against Clinton and examining their sexism in general, they are now going to rectify matters by going after Obama on a bunch of irrelevant, superficial stuff to `make up' for their transgressions."

MORE . . .

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

What is John Aravosis threatening?

So, what will the Republicans throw at Hillary in the fall? Lots. But I'm not going to detail those things today because I'm, surprisingly, still pulling punches with regards to what I write about Hillary. I don't want to damage Hillary should she become our nominee, as increasingly unlikely as that appears. I don't want to write about very real scandals in Hillary's past, scandals that we will be forced to revisit for the next 8 months, and 8 years. I don't want to write about the rumors about Bill that no one has written about to date, even though the rumors include lots of details which are at least just as true as Obama being a Muslim.

(Emphasis supplied.) I really liked the "at least as true as Obama being a Muslim" part. Obama is not a Muslim. So is Aravosis threatening to print lies? And what is his purpose in doing so? BTW, does Aravosis REALLY think he has something that has not been printed by the Right Wing Noise Machine? But I urge John to print his charges, if he has evidence of them. We can read the lies about Hillary anywhere. But real issues should ALL be aired. Don't pull your punches John. Let it hang out.

Note, comments closed.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

VastLeft writes about Bill Maher's version:

By Big Tent Democrat

I have always loved Gail Collins. Her column today is a good reminder why:

Is it true that Hillary Clinton’s campaign is in shambles, awash with second-guessing and back-stabbing?

Well, let’s hope so. If they were chipper and confident at this point, you’d worry that they’d turned into some kind of cult.

. . .

Is there any chance Hillary can pull this out?

It looks hopeless, which was exactly the way it looked in New Hampshire right before she won. So, sure.

Another black mark for the Drudge Report. After leaking today that Prince Harry was serving on the front lines of Afghanistan, the Timesonline reports Harry now must leave for security reasons.

Emergency plans to extract Prince Harry from Afghanistan were being drawn up last night after the news leaked that he had been on a secret combat tour in Helmand province since before Christmas.

He has been working in Helmand province as a Forward Air Controller – responsible for providing cover for frontline troops – and has been personally involved in clashes with Taleban guerrillas. His four-month deployment had been kept secret because of a Ministry of Defence agreement with news organisations, including The Times, but the details can now be made public after the news leaked out overseas and on the internet.

One Australian news magazine, New Idea, reported Harry's deployment a month ago, but it was not until it was carried yesterday on the Drudge Report, a major American website, that the news embargo was lifted.

Harry no doubt will be disappointed. He wanted to fight in Iraq, but that was deemed too dangerous because he'd become a target so he was deployed to Afghanistan. [More...]