Who Will Rid Me of These Booger-Chomping, Testosterone-Deprived Sniggering Fratboy Dickheads?

The Sniggering Fratboy Posse is hanging out at Slate these days, big-time. Like "Little Mickey" Kaus, and his homies. Timothy Noah. Chadwick Matlin. All the Hillary Deathwatch Boyz.

They're sniggering and hanging loose elsewhere, too.

MSNBC. CNN. Faux. NYT. Evv-rywhere.

Grabbing their metaphoric public crotches, which are either openly empty or stuffed with smelly socks.

Want another gender-slur from Keith "Ladies First" Olberman?

Earth to Keith -- if you want to disparage Clinton, disparage her policies, not her gender. Would you tell Obama he should "go to the back of the bus"? Of course not. But "Ladies First"? That's okay.

Then there's yesterday's New York Times coverage of Clinton, which manages to name-call her repeatedly while leaving out any evidence that would suggest the gender-slur name-calling is in any way merited by facts: two headline featuring the attribute "Ruthlessness," and flinging this unsourced mud from "critics": "divisive," "a dirty fighter," "willing to do anything to win." It criticized her for having "baggage that makes Mrs. Clinton [not Senator Clinton] such a provocative political figure" while continuing to create that baggage right on the front page.

(The next day's Times featured an article that prominently feautured descriptions of her coiffure and makeup. I looked over the rest of the paper, and you know, I just couldn't find any other person whose hair and makeup was mentioned. Oh my. Hmm.)

Like an intentional fart in a closed car, the sniggering sexist fratboy fetor pervades the whole US media whore media, contaminating the culture at large.

Some of them sexist niggerers claim to be female. Most of them claim to be male.

But they're all all wet. They're all limp and pathetic.


They're all, you know -- dickheads. Inexcusable dickheads.



(& by this this metaphor I mean no insult to dicks.)

Hat tip to Tennessee Guerilla Women.

The Fog of Hope

Compare and contrast: fog versus facts, here.


(B-b-but -- new! Shiny! NewNew!

Change! Hope! Change!)

Joe Wilson Nails It: The Story of O

Legitimate Questions of Judgment, Experience.

Read it all. Then wonder why our media whore media is so brain-dead that they yap about flag pins and tears while ignoring issues.

" . . .Obama repeats the incorrect and politically irresponsible mantra that Sen. Hillary Clinton voted for the war and that therefore he is more qualified to be president. Unlike Obama, as the last acting U.S. ambassador to Iraq during the first Gulf War, I was deeply involved in that debate from the beginning.

President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell made it clear publicly and in their representations to Congress that the authorization was not to go to war but rather to give the president the leverage he needed to go to the United Nations to reinvigorate international will to contain and disarm Saddam Hussein, consistent with the resolutions passed at the time of the first Gulf War.

With passage of the resolution, the president did in fact achieve a U.N. consensus, and inspectors returned to Iraq. Hans Blix, the chief U.N. inspector, has said repeatedly that without American leadership there would have been no new inspection regime."

. . .The approach of tough diplomacy backed by the threat of military action was the correct one and it yielded exactly the desired results, a unanimously passed U.N. resolution and the capitulation of Saddam when he readmitted the inspectors.

The betrayal occurred not when the president was given the tools he needed to secure international support for inspections, but rather when Bush refused to allow the inspectors to complete their work and decided preemptively to invade, conquer and occupy Iraq.

That decision and power was his alone -- not the Congress' and certainly not Hillary Clinton's. Obama is wrong to turn Bush's war into Clinton's responsibility. And Obama is dangerously naive in failing to understand the need in international crises to blend tough diplomacy with the other foreign policy tools at our disposal to achieve a strong national security posture.

Last-Minute Hillary-Surge in Guam! Not Enough 4 Victory -- Obama Crushes Uppity Hillary Clinton by 7 Votes.

.Not that there's anything wrong with that.

A surprise surge, that is.

Having heard the media whore media pundits, one thought that The Man Who Would Be [Prom] King had Guam all sewn up!

"Even the Kentucky Derby wasn't this close.

In the strangest of circumstances that could only bring about the closest of races, Hillary Rodham Clinton finished with 49.9% of the vote of the Guam Democratic Caucus, just 7 votes shy of Barack Obama's total of 50.1%.

While Obama led for the vast majority of the night's tallying, Clinton needed a strong finish in the municipality of Dededo, Guam's most populous village. And she did - gaining 61% of the 822 votes counted by the Democratic Party of Guam.

Note: these are unofficial, uncertified results as tabulated by the Democratic Party of Guam. The DPG also noted a high number of spoiled ballots in Dededo."

Who'd a thunk it?

Hell Freezeth Over

And really, isn't it about time?

Via The Confluence, a great piece from garychapelhill, "It's 32.1 Degrees In Hell."



Meanwhile, we're drifting, we're drifting, here.

Update: The turkey soup has turned the corner, abruptly, is now curried turkey soup with coriander. (One just knew you'd want to know). Plus, Mr. NBFH and I are off to be very very French whilst viewing intrigue in a Spanish Court in 1519. So there. Feliz Dos De Mayo a todos!

New Poll: Senator Hillary Clinton Would Beat "Same Old Same Old" John McCain by Nine Points

This just in.

WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton has a better chance than Barack Obama of beating Republican John McCain, according to a new Associated Press-Ipsos poll that bolsters her argument that she is more electable in the fall than her rival for the Democratic nomination.

The survey released Monday gives Clinton a fresh talking point as she works to convince pivotal undecided superdelegates to side with her in the drawn-out Democratic primary fight.

Clinton, who won the Pennsylvania primary last week, has gained ground this month in a hypothetical head-to-head match up with the GOP nominee-in-waiting; she now leads McCain, 50 percent to 41 percent, while Obama remains virtually tied with McCain, 46 percent to 44 percent.

Hat tip to No Quarter.

Hillary-Hating Uber Alles: Karl Rove's Wet Dream Comes True

What is wrong with these people?

Click on this, and scroll down to this headline:

HILLARYLAND IS A FAR MORE CONNIVING AND RAGE-FUELED PLACE THAN YOU HAD IMAGINED: THE EXCLUSIVE INSIDE STORY

Ok, boys and girls -- it's 2008, and guess what?

We at the New Republic ha ha are proudly using classic sexist stereotypes to trash a candidate from our own party!

"CONNIVING" is classic sexist spin-speak for "actually has the nerve to run for president"!

"RAGE-FUELED" is classic sexist spin-speak for "why won't the angry bitch shut up and roll over and die along with all those other uppity angry bitches who just won't shut up and roll over and die -- who do they think they are, anyhow?"!

Click on, and it's even better: anyone like Hillary who won't roll over and die at Obama's feet must be suffering from a whole bunch of Schneiderian psychotic symptoms! Ooh! Voices in her head! Ooh! She must be craaaaa-zy! Look at her hysterics in this Dean-screamy unbelievably unflattering photo! That angry f*cking bitch is f*cking craaazy!

VOICES IN HER HEAD --
INSIDE HILLARYLAND'S FATAL PSYCHODRAMA

by Michelle Cottle (Proving that females can be just as sexist as males. Ooh. But we knew that already, Michelle, dear.)

By the time Hillary Clinton's campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle finally packed up her lovely corner office with its fresh blue carpet and mini-fridge full of Diet Coke, her exit must have come as a relief--even to many of her friends on Team Hillary. Since Iowa, colleagues had been conducting an uneasy deathwatch for her.

"Lovely corner office" -- "fresh blue carpet" -- "mini-fridge full of Diet Coke" -- hmm. Interesting word choices.

[Then follows a boring account of supposed internecine warfare and slagging of Mark Penn, who I believe got canned some time ago. People I know and respect seem to hate this guy, I don't know why, and seem to hate Hillary's candidacy even more because of him. Me, what do I know?]

And so the jockeying and layering and squabbling grinds on, even as Hillary's chances of capturing the nomination grow ever more remote. [Translation: shut up and die, bitch]. From the outside, the struggle for control of a campaign that likely won't be around much longer [Translation: jeez, bitch, why won't you just shut up and die??] may appear absurd.

Not as absurd as this article -- not to mention its inflammatory headlines.

Who are you people?

Why are you so stupid and so awful? Shouldn't you know better?

Sadly, no.



--------------------------
Here's an article for persons who didn't get why The New Republic's coverage was sexist and why being explicitly anti-sexist actually matters.

Ditto, from Feministe (& not a pro-Hillary blog, btw).

Here's "Keith Olbermann's Head Explodes."

Here's Corrente on Obama, Sexism, and the Infantile Id.

Here's Watermelon Shuffle, reprised.

--------------------------
Hat tip on the NR article to Tennessee Guerrilla Women, who saays:

Hillary Sexism Watch: Cancel Your Subscription to The New Republic
Why does the lefty New Republic look just like the righty Free Republic?

If you don't already have a subscription to The New Republic, why would you ever want one?

Hillary Rodham Clinton is a woman who has inspired mothers, daughters and sisters all over the nation with the hope that women and girls will one day be treated fairly.

Portraying the first woman to have a chance at the presidency as a raving lunatic is what we have come to expect from progressives and conservatives alike.

Anyone who has graduated from feminist studies 101 knows that the portrayal of uppity women as raving lunatics is as old as the patriarchy itself. And hasn't it worked out really well for the chauvinists?

I should be used to it by now. But if this is what it means to be Democrat, I am not one.

-----------------------------------------------------

Full story, here.

The G Spot, here.

The Bitter Poor Have No Bread? Why, Then, Let Them Eat Arugula! (Hey. It's Bitter, too!)

I said he was a timid centrist.

I said he was Not Ready for Prime Time.

And I'm right.


Now that people are listening a little harder to what Obama says, he's starting to get caught saying just what he means. And get caught not saying what he should say -- like never apologizing for Randi Rhodes at an Obama fund-raiser calling a Presidential candidate FROM HIS OWN PARTY a "big fucking whore."

"Bitter" Pennsylvanians? Oh? Those poor poor people. Those poor dumb poor people. Clinging to their faith.

No, Barry's not sounding out of touch. Nope. Not at all. He'll do just fine against McCain. Pinky swear, I promise!

Bitter bitter bitter. Bitter as arugula. Yep. Trash the working poor, why don'tcha?

It's so Bushist -- so "poor people are poor because they are lazy." It's all their fault. (Just like every time Obama puts his foot in his mouth, it's Hillary Clinton's fault. Hunh?)

Complaining about the high price of arugula?

That was a good idea.


FOOT IN MOUTH.

We're not electing a Prom King, people.


Really, we're not.



.

Obama's "F*cking Whore Fundraiser" Scandal: See No Evil? Hear No Evil? Really? Speak No Evil? Well, nevermind.

Obama's odd silence on the Fucking Whore Fundraiser Scandal is shocking, yet unsurprising. Somehow. And you'd think that this would be a major story for the media whore media, would you not? And yet that silence, too, is deafening.

Hmm. Whatup?

Presidential Candidate Barack Obama needs to denounce Randi "Clinton is a big fucking whore" Rhodes' comment. Right frickin' now. (Then Mr. Hope/Change/Hope can explain why he waited so long to do so, and why that behavior is not both sexist and majorly righwing.))

His continuing silence about this vulgar sexist attack gives consent and complicity, especially since it occurred at an Obama fundraising event.

Obama must denounce Rhodes' statements about both current presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and former vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, apologize for the sexist slurs being made at his fundraiser, and return all money that event made. [Update: didn't happen. Aint's gonna happen.]

And Randi Rhodes needs to have her head examined. (She's not the only one). I hadn't realized that the Democratic party was so severely infested with vulgar, sexist vitriolic boors masquerading as liberals -- so now there's a Pottymouth Cheney/Freeper wing of the Dem party, eh?

Makes me sick. Kos makes me sick, Progressive (sic) Dems of America makes me sick, BuzzFlash, Americablog, blah blah blah. Why do they think it's ok to behave this way? Shrieky hysterical mob mentality behavior from people who really really should know better -- but don't.

Shame on them. Feh.



More here, via No Quarter.

And good comments here at Anglachel:

[Update: I have to say that with every week, and with every passing day that brings more Hillary-hating hysteria and swiftboat slime, I am sliding further and further away from my vow of supporting the Democratic candidate whoever that might be. I have taken hard hits for supporting Hillary, both in RL and SL (oddly enough), and I'm telling you, I don't frickin' like it. Drummed out in RL of Americablog and HuffPo and Buzzflash and DU and Kos, I fled to the Hillaryblogs. Where I found myself with the similarly drummed-out with similar philosophies -- it sure feels like home. (And even SL is less so, though most I hang with have been very polite. I learned recently that one Obama supporter there was been spreading rumors behind my virtual back that I had said I was not going to vote for Obama, which I had never ever said. I'm adding that experience to my list of things that are starting to make me frickin' wonder.)

I don't like Obama's policies, and I don't like the way the more vocal of his supporters behave. My opinion of him has gone from generally favorable a few months back to generally unfavorable, as I have learned more about him. I think he is a timid centrist candidate who is not ready for prime time. I don't like how his team treats his opponent. At all. I don't like all this constant wierd-ass dismissive sexist crap, and I don't like what Leahy and Kerry and Kennedy and Carter are saying and doing; I don't like being vilified, I don't like the media whore media's sexist crap, especially not Frank Rich and Huffington and MoDo and Olbermann, and I particularly don't like the Faux-left's sexist crap, like that of Randi Rhodes, above. You act like that, you're not on my side. And I am not on yours. Forewarned is forearmed. So far I'm sticking to my pledge, but I'll tell you, as of about an hour ago, I've started wavering. And I am a big-time long-time ultra-progressive Democrat. A real one, not a timid centrist. Lose me if you dare.]

Joe Wilson Draws the Curtain Back: Obama the Wizard of Oz? Uh -- NOT

A brilliant piece.

A scary piece.

It makes Obama look not merely inexperienced, but stupid.

Dangerously stupid.

Link here.



Update:

I don't have time to comment, but if you're looking for some nice fresh new juicy sexism, it's here for free at WaPo.

Texas Debate: Sharp Wonkette Is Progressive, Presidential

The Aussies got it right.

Via the Sydney Morning Herald:
Plucky Clinton gives Texas her best shot

February 23, 2008

WITH Texas shaping as her Alamo - a victory or death struggle - Hillary Clinton grabbed the last word in the latest CNN debate held in the Lone Star state.

For the first time in weeks the audience on Thursday night glimpsed the real Hillary Clinton: a determined, feisty, woman, who has the toughness to be president.

The question that prompted it: "What's the biggest crisis you've faced?"

"Oh," said Senator Clinton, looking heavenward, as the audience suddenly straightened in their seats. "Well, I think everybody here knows I've lived through some crises and some challenging moments in my life."

She was interrupted by applause. "People often ask me, 'How do you do it? You know, how do you keep going?' And I just have to shake my head in wonderment, because with all of the challenges that I've had, they are nothing compared to what I see happening in the lives of Americans every single day."

She talked of injured veterans she had visited in a rehabilitation centre in Texas. And how her faith had called her to serve the American people. [And won a standing ovation from the very pro-Obama crowd.]

But she had trumped her opponent, Barack Obama, who had just answered the same question, but did not light up the audience.

Sharp Wonkette vs. Timid Centrist: Joe Wilson Backs Hillary

Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson:

With the emergence of Sen. John McCain as the presumptive Republican nominee, the choice for the Democrats in the 2008 presidential election now shifts to who is best positioned to beat him, in what promises to be a more hard-fought campaign -- and perhaps a nastier one -- than Democrats anticipated.

Sen. Barack Obama's promise of transformation and an end of partisan politics has its seductive appeal. The Bush-Cheney era, after all, has been punctuated by smear campaigns, character assassinations and ideological fervor.

Nobody dislikes such poisonous partisanship, especially in foreign policy, more than I do. I am one of very few Foreign Service officers who have served as ambassador in the administrations of both George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, yet I have spent the past four years fighting a concerted character assassination campaign orchestrated by the George W. Bush White House.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is one of the few who fully understood the stakes in that battle. Time and again, she reached out to my wife -- outed CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson -- and me to remind us that as painful as the attacks were, we simply could not allow ourselves to be driven from the public square by bullying. To do so would validate the radical right's thesis that the way to win debates is to demonize opponents, taking full advantage of the natural desire to avoid confrontation, even if it means yielding on substantive issues. Hillary knew this from experience, having spent the better part of the past 20 years fighting the Republican attack machine. She is a fighter.

But will Mr. Obama fight? His brief time on the national scene gives little comfort. Consider a February 2006 exchange of letters with Mr. McCain on the subject of ethics reform. The wrathful Mr. McCain accused Mr. Obama of being "disingenuous," to which Mr. Obama meekly replied, "The fact that you have now questioned my sincerity and my desire to put aside politics for the public interest is regrettable but does not in any way diminish my deep respect for you." Then one of McCain's aides said of Obama, "Obama wouldn't know the difference between an RPG and a bong."

Mr. McCain was insultingly dismissive but successful in intimidating his inexperienced colleague. Thus, in his one face-to-face encounter with Mr. McCain, Mr. Obama failed to stand his ground.

What gives us confidence Mr. Obama will be stronger the next time he faces Mr. McCain, a seasoned political fighter with extensive national security credentials? Even more important, what special disadvantages does Mr. Obama carry into this contest on questions of national security?

How will Mr. Obama answer Mr. McCain about his careless remark about unilaterally bombing Pakistan -- perhaps blowing up an already difficult relationship with a nuclear state threatened by Islamic extremists? How will Mr. Obama respond to charges made by the Kenyan government that his campaigning activities in Kenya in support of his distant cousin running for president there made him "a stooge" and constituted interference in the politics of an important and besieged ally in the war on terror?

How will he answer charges that his desire for unstructured personal summits without preconditions with a host of America's adversaries, from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Kim Jong Il, would be little more than premature capitulation?

Senator Obama claims superior judgment on the war in Iraq based on one speech given as a state legislator representing the most liberal district in Illinois at an anti-war rally in Chicago, and in so doing impugns the integrity of those who were part of the debate on the national scene. In mischaracterizing the debate on the Authorization for the Use of Military Force as a declaration of war, he implicitly blames Democrats for George Bush's war of choice. Obama's negative attack line does not conform to the facts. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I should know. I was among the most prominent anti-war voices at the time -- and never heard about or from then Illinois State Senator Obama.

George Bush made it clear publicly when lobbying for the bill that he wanted it not to go to war but to give him the leverage he needed to go to the United Nations and secure intrusive inspections of Saddam's suspected Weapons of Mass Destruction sites. Who could argue with that goal? Colin Powell made the same case individually to Senators in the run up to the vote, including to Senator Clinton. It is not credible that Senator Obama would not have succumbed to Secretary Powell's arguments had he been in Washington at the time. Why not? Obama himself suggested so in 2004. "I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports,' Obama said. 'What would I have done? I don't know." He also told the Chicago Tribune in 2004: "There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage." According to press reports, Powell is now an informal adviser to Mr. Obama.

In his tendentious attack, Obama never mentions that Hans Blix, the chief United Nations weapons inspectors, declared that without the congressional Authorization for the Use of Military Force the inspectors would never have been allowed into Iraq. Hillary's approach -- and that of the majority of Democrats in the Senate -- was to let the inspectors complete their work while building an international coalition. Hillary's was the road untaken. The betrayal of the American people, and of the Congress, came when President Bush refused to allow the inspections to succeed, and that betrayal is his and his party's, not the Democrats.

Contrary to the myth of his campaign, 2008 is not the year for transcendental transformation. The task for the next administration will be to repair the damage done by eight years of radical rule. And the choice for Americans is clear: four more years of corrupt Republican rule, senseless wars, evisceration of the Constitution, emptying of the national treasury -- or rebuilding our government and our national reputation, piece by piece. Obama's overtures to Republicans, or "Obamacans" as the Senator calls them, is a substitute for true national unity based on a substantive program. His marginal appeals have marginally helped him in caucuses in Republican states that Democrats won't win in the general election. But his vapid rhetoric will not withstand the winds of November. His efforts will be correctly seen by the Republican leadership as a sign of weakness to be exploited. While disaffected Democrats may long for comity in our politics after years of being harangued and belittled by the right wing echo chamber, the Rovians currently promoting Obama are looking to destroy him should he become the nominee. Obama's claim to float uniquely above the fray and avoid polarization will be short-lived. He is no less mortal than any other Democrat -- Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry -- all untouched at the beginning of their campaigns and all mauled by the end. We should never forget recent history.

In order to effect practical change against a determined adversary, we do not need a would-be philosopher-king but a seasoned gladiator who understands the fight Democrats will face in the fall campaign and in governing.

Theodore Roosevelt once commented, "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly."

If he were around today, TR might be speaking of the woman in the arena. Hillary Clinton has been in that arena for a generation. She is one of the few to have defeated the attack machine that is today's Republican Party and to have emerged stronger. She is deeply knowledgeable about governing; she made herself into a power in the Senate; she is respected by our military; and she never flinches. She has never been intimidated, not by any Republican -- not even John McCain.

Barack Obama claims to represent the future, but it should be increasingly evident that he is not the man for this moment, especially with Mr. McCain's arrival. We've seen a preview of that contest already. It was a TKO.