Burning an Irish flag at a St. Patrick's day parade.

I can't think of a progressive who doesn't support making those things illegal.

But since I was the one who raised the issue of flag burning on the other thread, I want to clarify a few things.

For me, as a liberal/leftie, the reason the flag burning issue is so hot button is rooted in the way the Dems (who've always presented themselves as the major party that is most progressive) surrendered the issues of patriotism and 'family values' during the morally bankrupt debates of the 'Moral Majority' era.

Rather than wade into the right wing's specious and sneering attacks on liberal ideas and values with any number of effective counter attacks or re-framing of the debate, the Dems caved. Big time, they caved, ceding important strategic ground to the Repubs and the right wing, ground they have held, to some extent ever since. I'm not  saying we could have completely defeated them on this. Probably not. But it's taken the Democrats too long to even try.

This was all in explanation for why I felt Senator Clinton is centrist, not left. It was pointed out to me that she sponsored this legislation in response to a far worse constitutional amendment, and that her bill (which was defeated as well) effectively killed off the amendment. Fair enough, but irrelevant to my argument. My point was not that Clinton was a rabid anti first amendment advocate (i.e. ignoring the idea that flag burning is protected speech/dissent). Mine was that this kind of strategic engagement is pure centrist practice. Does that make it bad? Only if you believe centrism is bad. I don't. I chafe against its excesses (!) sometimes, but years of this has the dominant pulse in what passes for the left in electoral politics as made a (shudder) pragmatist out of me. Not in my heart. Not in my thinking. But in the way I vote and the way I choose who to support. What, you thought I believed Obama was progressive? HA!

For me, with HRC in a safe senate seat, I have the luxury of indulging my disgust at this and not voting for her. If she is ever seriously challenged, I'll almost certainly hold my nose and vote for her, as I would have done were she now the nominee for president. Her first time around, I wholeheartedly and enthusiastically supported her, impressed with her campaign and (probably) unreasonably projecting my own leftie expectations on her.

But, this is at a time when McCain has seemed really weak.

 Bear in mind the last 15 primary races and how polls had Obama winning in several states but he lost by some rather large margins, including the final South Dakota one in which his campaign had thought they'd win by 8 points but he lost by 10 (which they rather frantically covered ahead of time by telling superdelegates to join now, before the primaries completed that day, or not be "remembered" by Obama -- and so his last unexpected loss faded away w/o publicity to the taunts that Clinton did not concede that same night though other candidates have taken 4 months to do that and some not at all.

  A loss in Kentucky was expected, by about 8 points, but it turned out to be about 35 points.  Don't even mention W.Va which no poll came close to.

  We've decided, as a group, to gamble in a really big way.

In general, I've found that the analyses that accompany their polling results use slightly more positive language toward Obama than McCain.  (their language toward Clinton went the other direction).

I haven't been much of a poll watcher until recently.  Is that why you said 'but it's Rasmussen'?  Or do they have a rep for being wrong?

It may mean something that the New Yorker finally is turning toward redeeming itself, though, and returning to some semblance of balance.  It has been nice for a few weeks now to not have to see Hertzberg's attack-poodle pieces and nothing else.

He coulda called a bunch of white women softball players "hos" and been rewarded.

Some might think that's not a nice way to talk about the issue.

Bernie Mac told a joke.

Some would say those mediums actually helped control the message, but I tend to disagree.

No candidate, surrogate or casual supporter is safe anymore because every word is disseminated and parsed before they have the chance to clarify or react to reaction.

And there are the rabid supporters who'll go to great lengths to manipulate the image and message of candidates (IMO, in Hillary's case, the ball of hate began rolling with that ridiculous Apple/1984 ad that an early Obama campaign worker put on YouTube)