There was a time when she didn't vociferously object to those sanctions, sure, because she was trying to appease the early states like everyone else.  But that's hardly the same as "support."  I'm so tired of the estoppel argument that goes "unless you were willing to commit political suicide by lodging an objection sooner, you can't complain now."

Everyone knew all along that Florida was a Clinton state.  In terms of demographics, it rates to be one of her very best.  The idea that Hillary would have ever said "hey, if I can figure out a way to keep Florida from counting, it will really help me" is not only factually false, it's just stupid to suggest in the first place.

After Leonid Brezhnev becomes premier, he invites his elderly peasant mother to visit him in the Kremlin.  He shows here around to his lavish rooms, gives her a ride in his personal helicopter to his enormous new dacha, treats her to a fantastic dinner with every possible delicacy served by a battalion of white-gloved waiters, excellent champagne, the works.

To his dismay, though, she shows no joy, she just looks more and more worried.  Finally, he can't stand it anymore and asks, "So Mother, what do you think of all these wonderful things your boy, the leader of the Soviet Union, has at his fingertips?  Aren't you proud of me?"

Overall, there is too much situational ethics in the campaign from all sides.

We have become a country of situational ethics, and it is connected to the overall corruption of the system.

Today, the media is looking at McClellan's book in amazement, and pretending that they did not play right along in failing to report the news to a public in which 70% came to believe that Saddam caused 9-11.

But then he drank the kool-aid.

If the author of this post was sincere in his wishes for FL and MI to be in the win column for the Democratic party, why can't he make this point known to those who frequent his blog now?

I think it would show political courage.  I feel though that the author of this post knows that would be deftly frowned upon by his audience.

Although I haven't seen anyone take a good look at this aspect of the story, a central element of Markos' movement is situational ethics. The whole concept of Crashing the Gates is based on copying  questionable anything-to-win tactics of movement conservatism, and turning the machine on any Dem who does not quite agree with the Netroots.

Markos rejects that CtG is about values, but about winning - this is practically the definition of situational ethics.

It's no accident, I think, that there has been a rigid, non-introspective party line inside of Obama's people powered politics, as if the movement is terrified it will all fall apart at the slightest admitted inconsistency, as if the slightest glance at principles will mean failure.

We old Dems* know better. We know that any campaign is about pragmatism, about getting the best possible flawed outcome with the most effective flawed candidate possible. We aren't likely to be very disappointed. The new guys and the idealists, though, they are going to have their hearts broken when they realize just how cynical and situational  really their movement actually is.

It's a little on the old-news side, but I finally caught up with the most recent Vanity Fair, in which James Wolcott writes about the DK blow up, reminds me of the Kos comment in response. The comment includes referring to people fed up with things at the site as "shrieking band of paranoid holdouts" who "wail and scream," before relating that Clinton is planning a "far more drastic, destructive and debilitating civil war."

What was clear, though, is that Clinton was fair game for shredding on DK--with at least the tacit approval of those in charge--long before Super Tuesday, long before it looked like Obama would win.

What links the posts is the overriding desire to win.  In the earlier post, his main criticism of Obama and Edwards wasn't that they were capitulating to the crybabies in Iowa and New Hampshire, but that they were kneecapping their chances to win.

As for the later post, the key phrase, in my opinion, is that Clinton's behavior "infuriates" him.  Infuriates?  Why?  Not, in my opinion, because Hillary has situational ethics (which I think is at least an arguable, if probably over-the-top claim), but rather because, in Markos' opinion, Hillary's expression of those ethics is hurting Obama's chances to win.  It's all about (Obama) winning.

Now, Markos seems to discount two arguments.  One, put forward by Hillary, her supporters, and BTD again and again, is that not counting the votes actually hurts Obama, if he is the nominee.  I'm assuming Markos has a rejoinder to that.  I don't know what it is, though, since I don't go to his site anymore, but if someone can enlighten me I'd be interested to hear it.

Remember Stephanie Herseth?

For the irony fans out there, I wonder if Markos thinks that when TL deletes comments that attack Markos, I wonder if he thinks that's undemocratic?

The Democratic Party is The Lord of the Flies.

Markos is certainly entitled to his opinions, however ridiculous I think they are, but what is the real shame in all of this is the loss of credibility and the morphing of blogs like his, and TPM and others, into the very thing they created their blogs to push back against.

For those who haven't been able to see that yet, I think it will become all too apparent along about the first week in November, and all I can say is:

Oh, well.  

C'est la vie.  

Markos quoted above: Remember, Clinton supported the Michigan and Florida sanctions when she thought she'd coast to the nomination.

Accepting this as true, which I will do for the purpose of discussion, mostly because I don't think that the premise is indefensible. If others are interested in researching the semantics, I'll let them do the research.

So if we accept the premise of the quote above, we need to ask ourselves: why would a candidate do this? Markos' answer, of course, is intellectual dishonesty.

My answer is that Clinton was confident that a nominee would be selected by Super Tuesday. Some would accuse her campaign of overconfidence, but that's not really what I'm saying. I'm saying that she most likely believed that the contest would be won or lost in time for the presumptive nominee to seat the delegations with no difficulty. Obama, himself was also talking about seating the delegations if he was the nominee so it wasn't a stretch to conclude that supporting the DNC in their efforts to maintain control over the schedule would not lead to chaos.

The unexpected thing that happened in all this is that neither candidate was able to deliver a knockout punch. Unlike many who like to find fault with the Clinton campaign, I don't think it was hubris to assume that a resolution one way or the other was a miscalculation. Quite the opposite, I think that it is the epitome of humility that she didn't anticipate the game changing support that she has recieved post-February.

As a consequence of there not being a clear presumptive nominee, Clinton had to re-assess the situation so she did. No more, no less; it happens all the time that different circumstances require a different solution.

It is fortunate for Clinton that the good of the party and the country coincide with her own interests. Her interests are on the right side of the issue. It's really not anybody's fault that Obama's interests are at odds with the good of the party and the country. Too bad for him.

The bottom line is a question: Can he win the nomination if full FL/MI delegations are participating? If he can, great...if he can't, well, he needs to cut his losses or he'll bring down the Party and the country.

Markos, as BTD notes, said it in January.

But it was virtually impossible to get any Obama supporter to agree to this in February.

Last August, when the DNC Rules Committee voted to strip Florida (and Michigan, if it persisted in clinging to its date) of its delegates, the Clinton delegates on the committee backed those sanctions. All 12 Clinton supporters on the committee supported the penalties. (The only member of the committee to vote against them was an Obama supporter from Florida.) Harold Ickes, a committee member, leading Clinton strategist and acknowledged master of the political game, said, "This committee feels very strongly that the rules ought to be enforced." Patty Solis Doyle, then Clinton's campaign manager, further affirmed the decision. "We believe Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina play a unique and special role in the nominating process," she said, referring to the four states that the committee authorized to hold the first contests. "And we believe the DNC's rules and its calendar provide the necessary structure to respect and honor that role. Thus, we will be signing the pledge to adhere to the DNC-approved nominating calendar."

Not a single Clinton campaign official or DNC Rules Committee member, much less the candidate herself, said at the time that the sanctions imposed on Florida or Michigan were in any way a patriarchal plot or an affront to democratic values. The threat that these rules posed to our fundamental beliefs was discovered only ex post facto -- the facto in question being Clinton's current need to seat the delegations whose seatings she had opposed when she thought she'd cruise to the nomination.

Lets at least be honest.  Many are turning this fiasco into some kind of voting civil rights case and using that as the justification to take this nomination to the convention.  Unfortunately, it just doesn't resonate with most people.  If this is truly a "civil rights" issue as many are trying to make this out to be, then it is reprehensible that both campaigns were essentially silent when the DNC originally ruled.  If you believe in the principle that every vote should be counted, then every person affiliated with both the Clinton and Obama camps ought to have been objecting to the DNC penalty.  Apparently no one had a problem with it at the time, save one lone Obama supporter.  So it reeks of rank hypocrisy to use that as a rallying cry now.  If it is wrong now, it was wrong then.  I think that was the point Kos was making.