This would seem to benefit Obama by introducing him to a wider audience and contrasting him with the older and less rhetorically artful McCain. But beyond the contrast of candidates it is an exciting opportunity to engage in a sustained discussion of various world views by ideologically open minded spokesmen. Certainly each has their partisan credentials but they also have temperaments of pragmatism and realism.

And the audience for this would certainly not be limited to US political junkies, but the entire planet looking to see what kind of leadership the US intends to offer.

The Booman Tribune wonders if Obama is facing even more challenges because the Secret Service is full of racists.

Secret Service supervisors shared crude sexual jokes and engaged in racially derogatory banter about blacks, and passed around an anecdote about a possible assassination of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, according to internal e-mail disclosed in a federal court filing on Friday by lawyers for black Secret Service agents.

If the Obama candidacy has done nothing else, it has exposed the raw bigotry towards non-white Americans that lies just under a thin layer of civility to which many white Americans point when they claim that racism and racial prejudice are no longer significant problems in our society. of course any non-white American could tell you otherwise, while laughing at anyone so naive as to believe racism is fading away.

The Lady Logician is concerned that the Republican party could be facing an uphill climb this fall unless a change in the message is crafted.

As we head toward the Convention and subsequent state central meeting, we need to decide what we as a party need to do to prevent what has the potential to be a slaughter of epic proportions. All options should be on the table as this election is quite simply going to be the difference between having an overwhelming DFL majority for the next generation or a viable competitive Republican Party. It really is do or die time.

Chris Bowers at Open Left asks readers to ponder how remarkable it is that the Democratic Party - a collection of “freaks and geeks” - has bonded so many different groups into a formidable force in American politics.

Whatever its flaws, the Democratic Party really is the party for “everyone else” in America. Virtually every ethnic, religious and sexual minority votes for Democrats by overwhelming margins. Vulnerable economic groups, such as single women, union members, and low-income voters also break for Democrats by overwhelming margins.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air takes the occasion of Jenna Bush’s wedding to ponder about media attitudes regarding such events and reminds us of some of the history of First Daughters walking down the aisle.

The idea that it takes “political capital” to stage a wedding for a child of the President is patently absurd. Who besides the most extreme lunatics would demand an end to someone’s wedding because their parent didn’t have political capital? Better yet, what credibility would Bush lose on policy after hosting a wedding reception for his daughter at the White House?

Avedon, at The Sideshow, thinks John McCain is way off base on how we should care for our veterans and has some news to share on the topic.

If you have some other favorite posts which we should all check out, use this as an open thread to point them out. I’ll add some of the good ones into this item later.

News Corp’s decision to walk away from Newsday is an unexpected twist in the three-way bidding war for the paper. Murdoch and Tribune Co Chief Executive Sam Zell had an agreement in principle to sell the paper to News Corp, with Tribune retaining a small stake to create a way to defer large capital gains taxes that a total sale would incur.

As recently as three days ago, Murdoch said on a conference call with investors to discuss News Corp’s quarterly financial results that the deal with Zell was nearly done.

“I don’t think Cablevision will prevail,” Murdoch said, responding to a question about why he has not raised his bid, which he characterized as “competitively priced.”

I find newspapers interesting; Rupert Murdoch, very interesting:

Murdoch is not prone to the whining and woe-is-meism that so many other newspapermen practice. He’s willing to invest in his properties. He’s willing to lose money. For a 77-year-old man, it’s almost as if he has begun the first year of a 20-year plan to modernize his media portfolio, so he’s a real optimist.

Remember when he started the Fox Television Network? Everybody in the country said, oh, there are room for three conventional networks. And when he started Fox News Channel, people said, oh, there’s really only room for CNN. There can’t possibly be room for another.

And time and again, he goes in and he defies the so-called experts because he’s a force of creative destruction.

He will go in and he will steal anybody’s bacon. And he generally steals it honestly by competing, and for that you really have to admire him.

That’s Slate’s Jack Shafer talking. Here he speaks to Murdoch’s conservative reputation:

I think you’re making a mistake when you call Rupert Murdoch a conservative. He is a political opportunist. If you take a look and see who he supported in the most recent Australian election, it was not the conservative. It was the liberal.

Likewise, in the United Kingdom, Murdoch eventually put all the support of his daily newspapers there behind Tony Blair. […]

He likes to back a winner. He likes to have access. He threw a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s reelection bid for the Senate in 2006. This is a mistake people make all the time about Rupert Murdoch, the idea that he is some sort of conservative ideologue who has come to the United States to, I don’t know, guarantee the Reagan restoration, when all he really is, is a political pragmatist.

RELATED: Rupert’s launching an old-fashioned newspaper war against The New York Times.

Both programs are likely to antagonize Russia, but if NATO was only to get one of the two (missile defense or NATO expansion) it should have gone with NATO expansion. I’ve written several times about the folly of deploying missile defense systems (quick summary of my view: it’s technically possible, but the threat of ballistic missile attack by a rogue state does not justify the massive amounts of money).

But NATO expansion is one of the most powerful pacific forces of the post-Cold War era. The transformation of NATO from a security organization to a democratization organization has resulted in democracy becoming entrenched in most of Central and Eastern Europe. Spreading NATO up to Russia’s borders will all but ensure that war in Europe is a thing of the past. Both Ukraine and Georgia have shown themselves to be willing and able allies of the US and the West, and Russia has demonstrated a disturbing willingness to involve itself in the affairs of its former partners.

It certainly has. Not surprisingly, the failure to extend Membership Action Plans to Ukraine and Georgia is a decision that is only encouraging such meddling. Towards Georgia, Russia has adopted a highly provocative approach in the past few weeks. Much to the ire of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Moscow last month extended diplomatic relations to the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Additionally, it has upped its troop levels in Abkhazia, a region where Russian “peacekeepers” have been stationed since 1992; a Russian plane also recently shot down a Georgian surveillance aircraft over Abkhazian territory. To the authorities in Tbilisi, such actions are a clear provocation.

Yet, without NATO’s clear backing, Georgia doesn’t have many cards to play. It can’t adequately threaten military action to remove Russian troops without NATO support, since there is no way its forces could compete against those of its neighbor. Russia, moreover, isn’t likely to back down unless international heavy-hitters line up in defense of Georgian sovereignty. This is not likely to happen, of course, as NATO so explicitly announced at its Bucharest summit. Moscow, not surprisingly, has taken advantage of the blood in the water. As the Wall Street Journal notes:

The spark for the latest Russian aggression… [was] Bucharest. Last month, at the NATO summit in the Romanian capital, Germany blocked plans to offer Ukraine and Georgia “membership action plans.” Rather than put these democratic countries on the long road to NATO, Berlin preferred to bend to Moscow. Georgia and Ukraine got a vague promise to join NATO one day and to review their “action plan” applications in December. In other words, their fate is up for grabs. The Kremlin can smell Western wobbliness better than most. Within days of Bucharest it pounced on Georgia.

No doubt Ukraine is already in Moscow’s sights.

The United Nations this week said the refusal of Burma’s government to allow workers into the country’s devastated agricultural region was unprecedented in the history of humanitarian relief. The human catastrophe produced by Burma’s refusal to permit aid in the wake of Cyclone Nargis has stunned the senses of a world that has watched this spectacle for a week.

…It’s time to kick Burma out of the United Nations. If the U.N. does not put in motion a process to suspend Burma from its U.N. membership, then, clearly, nothing is forbidden….Booting Burma out of the U.N. would be symbolic.

“Symbolic” indeed. Since it’s not a serious punishment, the only thing that such an action is likely to accomplish is the elimination of a much-needed avenue for dialogue and conflict-resolution. Perhaps it’s better for the United States to focus on leveling some real punishments, as part of a comprehensive carrots-and-sticks approach, than just resorting to feel-good gestures.

Ms. Vanderslice is part of a new wave of younger activists willing to reach across party lines for the causes they advocate. She has, for example, pushed legislation sponsored by a pro-life Democrat and a pro-choice Republican designed to reduce abortions by increasing support for family-planning programs (something Democrats like), and by increasing assistance for women who choose to keep their babies (something Republicans like). That puts her in the vanguard of like-minded activists who are starting to reshape the values debate…

It’s as though anxiety around the world over the ongoing battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is just as strong as it is among U.S. Democrats.

Referring to the remaining undecided Democratic superdelegates, Sabine Muscat writes for the Germany’s Financial Times Deutschland:

“There are moments in life in which a person must make a decision, even if you don’t know what decision is the right one. You can weigh the pros and cons, draw on the council of friends or see a fortune-teller. But calculating the probabilities only gets you so far since no one can know all the variables. All of which is why one must act on the basis of the information available at the time.”

Muscat concludes:

“If Hillary Clinton can’t recognize when its time to concede, then the remaining undecided superdelegates should offer a helping hand: with a swift vote in favor of the candidate who has emerged as the winner of primaries held so far: Barack Obama.”

By Sabine Muscat

Translated By Ulf Behncke

May 7, 2008

Germany - Financial Times Deutschland - Original Article (German)

Philadelphia: It’s about time that the superdelegates put an end to the clash between presidential candidates Clinton and Obama - even if Clinton doesn’t realize that it’s time to stop.

There are moments in life in which a person must make a decision, even if you don’t know what decision is the right one. You can weigh the pros and cons, draw on the council of friends or see a fortune-teller. Calculating the probabilities can only get you so far since no one can know all the variables. All of which is why one must act on the basis of the information available at the time.

That should be exactly the course of action now taken by the U.S. Democratic superdelegates, in whose hands lies the power to bring the clash of rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to an end. The information we now have is this: Obama’s has the balance of superdelegates needed to obtain the Party’s nomination.

With his huge victory in North Carolina, he neutralized Clinton’s win in Pennsylvania the week before. Clinton was unable to catch up to and overcome him. And the enthusiasm that a clear victory in Indiana would have generated is missing as well.

U.S. Democrats had half a year to compare presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and to verify that both uphold the same core Democratic values. At present, which of the two stands a better chance against Republican John McCain on November 4 is anybody’s guess. What’s clear right now, however, is that the margin between both candidates and John McCain is shrinking. The Democrats should worry less about …

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the U.S. election.

On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.

We’ve known since our first studies of how users read on the Web that they typically don’t read very much. Scanning text is an extremely common behavior for higher-literacy users; our recent eyetracking studies further validate this finding.

The only thing we’ve been missing is a mathematical formula to quantify exactly how much (or how little) people read online. Now, thanks to new data, we have this as well.

Don’t anybody tell Cory Doctorow! He’s a big advocate of the screen as book. He says the word “book” should be a verb and not a noun:

[My transcription beginning @ 43:20] Book is what you do when you’re reading. Book is not a literary form, because obviously we have literary forms that we’ve called books that weren’t published in book form starting with the Bible… That book was a scroll. You know, it wasn’t in book form at all. And then we have books like Charles Dickens books which were in fact published in newspapers as serials.

So clearly it’s not a literary form and it’s not a physical object, it’s a practice. It’s the thing that you do when you are reading things that are book-like… Book is not a thing, it’s a verb, it’s not a noun. So I think that when you consider that more people read more words off of more screens every day, and fewer people read fewer words off of fewer pages every day, then we have to conclude that what people are doing with screens is book.

On the other hand, how many of those NYTimes best sellers do you want to bet are sitting on people’s coffee tables and lining their book shelves unread?

I’m guessing at most 28%; 20% is more likely!

Let me be among those to wish the couple happiness, long life, good health, prosperity and all the best for the future. I would also like to take a moment to pass along some bits of accumulated wisdom for you as you set off on this journey.

Stand together, no matter what. Particularly for those who may be in the public eye, marriage comes with a lot of pressures. No partnership is ever without problems down the long road ahead, but always stand together against all outside forces and lend your support whenever possible. Everyone likes a cheerleader sometimes in their moments of triumph and struggle. By marrying each other you just signed up for that job. Don’t forget it.

Never go to bed angry. I know that sounds like an old saw, but believe me… there’s some truth in the time worn sayings. If you find yourselves at odds, find some way to calm yourself before bedtime and say, “This is what I’m upset about. Even if it’s not resolved, I just wanted you to recognize that. I’m still with you.” Leaving poison to fester overnight is never, ever a good idea.

Find time to say “I love you” once per day. Even on the days when they may seem less than lovable. And make sure to make room to give your partner a kiss at least once a day, except when physical distance makes that impossible. And, over the years, allow yourselves the freedom to spend some time apart, but don’t make such times too often or too long. Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but lonliness can breed anger and open the door to temptation.

Keep no secrets whatsoever. The only exception to this is a secret which you know in your heart your partner would be delighted to discover. And even then, make sure they discover it when the time is right.

Be open to new things. Never forget you are marrying an entire, other person. They have their own likes and dislikes. Nothing says you have to like all the same things, but be willing to try new things and be tolerant of those you don’t like.

Have your own friends. But never let them come before your partner. As much as we might wish it, no single person can “complete you” in all ways. Other friends in your social circle will allow you to full your life with joy. But they should never come before your spouse.

Be prepared. Even if you come from exceptionally fortunate circumstances, the future is never certain. Prepare for the hard times… financially, emotionally, physically. The hard times aren’t so hard if you’re ready for them before they arrive.

Adopt a pet. Or even a couple of them. It’s good practice for if and when you have children and they will brighten your lives. (Not to mention that so many of them need homes.) And when you do prepare for children, don’t give up on your pets. Contrary to mythic belief, cats do not suck the breath out of babies in the night, and any well raised, well loved animal will welcome a baby into the house and be no danger. Just be sensible about it.

Enjoy your youth together. While we all eventually find out that youth is wasted on the young, enjoy the strong, healthy days you share together now. They won’t last forever and will be some of the fond times you look back together on when your grandchildren gather at your knee.

UPDATE: Had to add one more from CStanley in the comments section because it really speaks the truth.

Grow in the same direction. Find time to reassess your priorities at intervals through the years and discuss them openly with each other. People grow- and the two of you won’t always grow in the same direction, but by sharing your evolving dreams you can be like two tree trunks that wind back and forth around one another instead of leaning farther and farther apart over time.

Again… best of luck to the newlyweds. Here’s wishing you all the best on your special day and in the future you will share together.

Sticking with RCP (sorry ABC): Clinton’s lead in superdelegates is down to two as of 9:07 am Central Time today.

(Once again, this is not an exact science.)

Cartoon by Bob Englehart, The Hartford Courant

Sandy Huffaker, Cagle Cartoons

One of the wags at The Onion wrote the other day that the number of acceptable phrases that a presidential candidate can use has dropped from 38 at the beginning of 2007 to a mere four.

They are:

Thank you all for coming, God bless America, These pancakes are great, and Death to the infidels.

Like all great humor, there is an element of truth to this, which leads me somewhat circuitously to get the jump on what is sure to be one of the more provocative story lines of the fall phase of the 2008 steel cage match for the White House.

That the race will be between a septuagenarian and an African-American.

John McCain’s age and Barack Obama’s skin color certainly would have come up however directly or indirectly. But we owe a debt of thanks (cough, cough) to Hillary and Bill Clinton for shamelessly lowering racial “discourse” to limbo-bar level.

Perhaps this is just the Clintons’ strange way of reaching out to the Democratic Party’s most loyal constituency, but all it has done is drive blacks who were on the fence into Obama’s arms and further cement their legacy as a destructive team of which I can recall no spousal antecedent in American politics. (John and Abigail Adams didn’t behave that way, did they?)

My own view is simple:

Many factors were fair game as to whether Hillary was qualified to be president, but not her gender.

Many factors are fair game as to whether Obama is qualified to be president, but not his race.

Age, however, is an entirely different matter when combined with McCain’s refusal to share his health records, and these factors demand to be discussed.

First, brace yourself for Clinton supporter and strategist Paul Begala clashing with uncommitted superdelegate and former Al Gore campaign manager Donna Brazile. In her devastating recent Wall Street Journal column on Hillary Clinton titled Damsel of Distress, Peggy Noonan wrote of this piece of video:

The Democratic Party can’t celebrate the triumph of Barack Obama because the Democratic Party is busy having a breakdown. You could call it a breakdown over the issues of race and gender, but its real source is simply Hillary Clinton. Whose entire campaign at this point is about exploiting race and gender.

Here’s the first place an outsider could see the tensions that have taken hold: on CNN Tuesday night, in the famous Brazile-Begala smackdown. Paul Begala wore the smile of the 1990s, the one in which there is no connection between the shape of the mouth and what the mouth says. All is mask. Donna Brazile was having none of it.

Watch it for yourself, and see if you agree:

Next, there was Clinton backer (and occasional Huffington Post contributor) Lanny Davis, who felt he was treated shabbily by a CNN panel that he felt was stacked with people who favored Obama (you’ll see Brazile again). Details about his side of the behind-the-scenes story are HERE.

But you could again hear the riiiiiiiiiip. Watch this TPM montage and judge for yourself:

My take on it? I think Noonan’s piece, which contains some original reporting, sounds right on the dime.

She explains a lot of what is going on, and what is NOT going on and why. What seems clear from this is that the same attitude George Bush has shown in trying to impose his will on the legislative and executive branches, is what the Clinton campaign is now showing in its attitude towards the Democratic party and its long range goals — not just of winning an election but of burnishing its Big Tent, keeping that Big Tent stable, and opening it up, so more more people can pour in.

Davis? He tried making his case and clearly felt outnumbered.

And Begala? He talked about inclusion at the end, but his words meshed with the controversy later in the week centering on Clinton’s comments about her getting more white votes.

Begala was old-school divide and rule politics delivered with a pasted-on smile.

Just like Noonan said.

Tab, The Calgary Sun

Olle Johansson, Sweden

Patrick Chappatte, The International Herald Tribune

Paul Zanetti, Australia

In chatting with the pastor later, he said that the point of the workshop was for the participants to understand their role in perpetuating racism and then doing something about it.

The whole thrust of the workshop was part of an initiative that has become a part of many churches called anti-racism. On one level, it seems like a good thing, to help us learn to be against racism. My problem is that it seems to do nothing to advance racial progress and might only exacerbate the issue.

I’ve been thinking about this in light of the whole Jeremiah Wright controversy. The United Church of Christ, the denomination that Wright is ordained in, has decided to make next Sunday, May 18, a day to have a “sacred conversation on race.” On the surface it seems to make sense; let’s talk about this issue that has had such a prominent role in American history. I’ve heard others talk about having a conversation about race and again, it sounds good. But in the end, this conversation ends up not really being a conversation at all. In some ways, it seems more like a play, where persons of color and whites have roles to play, where the script has already been written well in advance.

The pastoral letter on racism from the leaders of the United Church of Christ is interesting, in that it paints an extremely dark view of race relations in the United States circa 2008. This is a sample:

The Pastoral Letter on Racism documented what it called “a sobering truth” – namely, that despite the meaningful progress achieved during the civil
rights era, “quality of life for the majority of racial and ethnic people is worse today in many ways than it was during the 1960s.” The letter went
on to name a number of disturbing trends that signaled growing racial intolerance and hostility: increasing inequities between the rich and the
poor; charges of “reverse racism”and attacks on affirmative action; a resurgence of racially motivated hate crimes and; fear of “foreigners” surfacing in movements such as “English Only.” Seventeen years later, in 2008, we might wish to believe that we have made significant progress in addressing and reversing those alarming trends.
Lamentably, that claim cannot be substantiated.

We have witnessed a systematic assault on affirmative action policies at the state and national level. In the wake of the “war on terror,” our
Arab American and Muslim brothers and sisters contend daily with discrimination, racial profiling,and misunderstanding about the true nature of Islam. As unemployment rates soar and jobs are outsourced overseas, frustration and rage are
unleashed upon the most vulnerable within our borders – immigrants and those who some call “illegal aliens.” After more than two years, thousands
of dispossessed residents of New Orleans are still in diaspora, awaiting our government’s promise to help rebuild their homes and neighborhoods. The divide between rich and poor is greater than at any time since the Great Depression. Despite the rise of a Black middle class over the past 40 years, the average net worth of White families in 2008 remains 10 times greater than the average net worth of Black families. Racial segregation in our public schools has intensified and has now been condoned by the United States Supreme Court.

There is a lot here to agree with in some cases and also a lot to disagree with. On the belief that the quality of life for persons of color is worse than it was in the 60s, I have to respectfully disagree. I’ve said this before, but back in the 50s, my father could not get a hotel room or eat in a restaurant when he made trips to his native Louisiana from Michigan. Black people were getting killed by whites and all-white juries let them get away with it. Is life a racial utopia? No. We still have problems. We still have cops shooting unarmed blacks and too many who think hanging a noose is funny. But we are not the America of the 50s and 60s where whites were trying hard to keep blacks down.

The letter also seems to ignore the most important change of the last 40 years: a political party is on the verge of nominating a black man for President and all indications point to this same black man becoming the 44th President of the United States. A nation that once treated its African immigrants as property might very well elect someone of African heritage.

Barack Obama’s historic run for the presidency can’t by itself atone for America’s racist past, but it is important and can show that we have come a long way. To not hold this up is puzzling.

But maybe what is most puzzling about this letter is that this isn’t as much a conversation as a monologue. It lists a litany of problems and says white people don’t care and that life is hard for persons of color. I’m not saying any of this is a falsehood, but there isn’t much room in this letter for a conversation on race. It has one view and one view only.

The letter points out a problem that I have with both liberals and conservatives on their views on race. For liberals, the glass seems half empty all the time. They seem to ignore any racial progress and continually see America as a racist society.

For conservatives, there seems to be a belief that we can just jump from a racial to post-racial society in one leap. They look down on programs like affirmative action, not realizing that in the past, blacks were shut out of jobs and the walls of higher education and you just can’t say, “sorry about the racism, dude” and make it all better.

If we are going to have a conversation on race, then let’s have one, but let’s have a real one, where we are sharing our true selves and not some script. Maybe the best example of true conversation came from Obama himself. In his speech on race entitled “A More Perfect Union,” he talked about the frustration that both blacks and white have felt.

He says:

The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Obama’s speech was truly a conversation starter if there ever was one. He expressed the anger blacks and whites feel and then sought to find common ground. Unlike the pastoral letter, it wasn’t a one-sided affair but an attempt to listen to both sides.

That is what is needed today in America. We need to talk about race and racism and find ways to keep the dream of King’s Beloved Community alive. But that chat has to be honest and it also means telling truths both sides don’t always want to hear.

I need to say that I do respect the UCC. I have many friends in the denomination and I also have standing in the denomination. I just think this method is not the best approach.

We have come a long way as a nation in the area of racial justice and that should be celebrated. But we have a ways to go, so let’s get to having a real conversation and throw away the script.

Note: Like Rev. Wright, Obama is a member of the United Church of Christ.

Crossposted at Oscar the Pastor.

Will Obama have to make a clarification speech about it?

Will it turn up in Republican campaign ads this fall?

I would say….you can count on it (war planning, war policy, the economy, gas prices, health care can all wait a while..).

Details here.

And discussion HERE.

I mean, this IS the kind of issue people like to talk and rant about, right?

What are we thinking? What do we do? What can we do?

I do a lot of shlepping and have just good old analog FM in my car, so I’m mostly listening to NPR. Some of you may know that Diane Rehm is Lebanese. She sounded downright frightened and kind of desperate today - asking her guests, what will become of Lebanon and even saying at one point, with great, what sounded to me to be sincere emotion, “Poor Lebanon.”

It is so dramatically different in that region then when I was there in the mid-80s.

Anyone? I’m opening this up for thoughts, venting, reflection.

Here are some of the latest reports (chosen from results from a Google news search on “lebanon”):

Hezbollah takes charge of half of Beirut (Globe and Mail)

Hezbollah Shuts Down Future Media (Variety)

An editorial in The Guardian to be published tomorrow

The Lesson of Lebanon (Commentary Magazine)

And, for pretty gripping moment by moment coverage from what appears to be inside Beirut, Blogging Beirut

What are you reading, who are you following, what do you find convincing, what more should we be asking, what else can be done, what should be done?

Sigh.

The Friday Line: Veepstakes!

Ask someone who works for either Barack Obama (Ill.) or John McCain (Ariz.) about the search for a vice presidential nominee and, to a person, the response you get goes something like this: “It’s way too early to even be thinking about specific names.”

Bring up potential VP’s with people outside the direct orbit of the campaigns, however, and you get a panoply of names, discussions of running mate strategy, and handicapping of strengths and weaknesses.

Welcome to the veepstakes — where those who know the most are saying the least and, unfortunately, vice versa.

The Fix, as always, navigates these tricky waters for the good of our readers. Conversations with a variety of operatives who are in a position to have a general sense of the veepstakes have produced the lists you will find below. When it comes to picking a vice presidential candidate, we acknowledge it is something of a moving target — so if your preferred guy (or gal) didn’t make the list never fear, they could show up next time.

Also, since McCain and Obama appear to have the nominations locked up, we are, for the first time, ranking the five most likely veep picks. The number one slot on the Line is the candidate with the best chance — right now — of being picked.

Agree or disagree? Have a favorite of your own? Or even a full list? The comments section awaits.

[Lists Top 5 Republican Choices and Top 5 Democratic Choices]

For that matter, why assign it to white males? I know black males, white women, black women, and athletes of all ethnicities who use sports metaphors effectively, some as early as third grade, without impairing their worthier values.

All else being equal, I would consistently prefer a sports metaphor to a conflict reality. There are so many conflict realities, and declarative nouns to describe them. War. Economy. Gas prices. Globalization. Global warming. Violence. Murder. Myanmar. Rush Limbaugh’s “chaos.” Racism. Gender wars. Divorce. Politics. Karl Rove politics. George W. Bush.

I cry for relief. Toss me a sports metaphor, please. Quick, somebody, hit one out of the park. That’s what sports and their metaphors are for. Relief. The nominative realities are never going to go away. Humans came to accept this several thousand years ago. I am no anthropologist, but the acceptance of nominative conflict realities may have directly preceded the invention of games and game metaphors. In fact I would be willing to contend that human awareness of games metaphors occurred not too long after the discovery of infidelity and long before the discovery of fire.

Sports provides all the conflict with none of the realities, and no one really loses in the end. Doesn’t anybody realize that sports is nothing more than a multi-billion-dollar business based on not knowing who is going to win? In the media business, it’s called the “threat to the status quo,” which is one of the two definitions of news: “News is anything that changes, or threatens to change, the status quo.” It’s a dynamic, infinitely renewable definition. The Giants, third and long, two minutes left. Classic threat to the status quo. Memorable, even. They converted, scored, and New England didn’t make it to 19-0. Maybe next year.

This political campaign is another classic of the same threat. Lord have mercy, Ms. Faludi, if you want metaphors about who is going to win, listen to “Hardball” for an hour. Oops. “Hardball” must mean that Chris Matthews and his cohorts must make sense only to white males who know what it means to play hardball.

Do I sound a tad hot? I guess I am. I’m tired of being assigned white male constructs. For three minutes, I wish I was Don Newcombe on the mound, and Susan Faludi was at bat. Do you know how to spell chin music?

Lamentably, Faludi just grasped the idea of the sports metaphor and assigned it to white males to try to make a point about Hillary Clinton. How convenient. And then she closed her argument, not with a reality, but a metaphor. Glass floor. See how useful they are?

Tragically, this position is false — and it’s a conservative judge who is pointing it out….

Read the rest of this post….

The United Nations said it would suspend flights into Myanmar after the military government seized the food and equipment it had sent into the country.

But then, some small portion of detente began to be worked out between the UN with the US, UK, and Burma. We shall see.

Various and sundry claims by relief agencies are flying over the internet today, adding to the garble instead of keeping the facts straight, in part, because no one can get a large enough overview of the facts. By all reports, General Than Schwe, the dictator of Burma has declined to get into a helicopter and survey the damage at close range.

The bottom line for Burma regarding aid at the moment is that those aid workers, such as a small contingent of Doctors to The World, that was already in Burma doing malaria intervention and education, et al,– before the tsunami/cyclone hit– and some Red Cross workers and some church group workers who were already there also before the disaster hit, say they’d been distributing supplies from their cupboards, and those are now exhausted.

Otherwise, if, and it’s a big if, there are other aid workers landed in Burma, it is most likely they are tending to Than Schwe and his friends’ families, or the city where Than Schwe can watch over them. It is highly unlikely, on this, the sixth day after the disaster, that workers and supplies have been given effective and rapid access to those who truly suffer in the interior — which is more than 200 miles from where Than Schwe is enthroned with his junta.

When A Nation’s Leader Chooses Hubris over Humanity, and Why It’s Important To Allow Experienced Relief and Rescue Workers In To A Disaster Site
As a post-trauma specialist working two earthquake disasters in various ways, Armenia and Mexico City, I can attest to the fact that one can load all the aid workers onto transport planes, fill the hold with all the cargo it can carry, fly more than halfway across the world, stopping to refuel at least once, and finally land at the target tarmac….

and then sit on the tarmac in the destination country for days, even weeks, raring to go, fully inoculated for every creeping grunge disease under the sun, full of heart and especially filled with modern skills, and having all the best supplies in the world… and nothing happens, no aid expert is allowed to go to the dying, the ill, or the dead, because the leader of the leader of the country literally bars the way.

More so, in so-called rogue countries, in countries run by juntas, really in any country where the leader is naive or ignorant about catastrophic relief and rescue operations…. often the supplies so lovingly and quickly assembled and shipped are confiscated by the ruling class, and often given to their own first, or sold for profit, or in many cases as with perishable food goods, just stacked in shelters, left to rot.*

This is why it is so very important for a government in a devastated country that might have lots of soldiers, as Than Schwe has by conscription, but has little infrastructure, and perhaps plenty of experience in ignoring or assailing people, but no experience in helping/healing them… to allow experienced aid organizers and service givers to bring in and execute a known and time tested recovery and rescue plan.

For the leader, this means a relinquishment of a certain amount of control. One can see that in a leader who has more experience in personal hubris than in public humanity, this can be quite a leap; but it oughtnt take 6 days to pat Than Schwe’s ego.

It oughtn’t take a pile after pile of newly dead children’s bodies to convince anyone to allow medicine, food and water to those most afflicted in Burma. Those piles of children’s bodies that have come about because of Than Schwe’s lag time may be the very thing he wishes to hide most.

The international community is calling out to Than Schwe to stop perseverating on his own image, or his trying to cover up his own mistakes, and instead to turn to the works of mercy needed now.

If Than Schwe did so, even today, the world would suddenly believe Than Schwe has a heart.

This good article from Asia Pacific reporter Seth Mydans, New York Times, an hour ago:

BANGKOK — As misery grew for a sixth day for uncounted survivors of the devastating cyclone in Myanmar, the United Nations said Friday that the government had seized its relief supplies in Yangon, while a Pentagon official said that the junta had come to a breakthrough agreement to allow a single American aid plane to land on its territory.

Myanmar’s military junta said in a statement on Friday that it was willing to receive disaster relief from the outside world but would distribute supplies itself rather than allowing in relief workers. But aid agencies want to coordinate and control their own aid….

And on Friday, the United Nations World Food Program said the aid it had delivered had been seized. “All the food aid and equipment that we managed to get in has been confiscated,” said Paul Risley, a spokesman for the United Nations World Food Program in Bangkok.

After saying it would halt deliveries, the agency said flights would continue on Saturday while the issue is worked out. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged the Myanmar authorities to let aid into the country “without hindrance” and said the effect of further delay could be “truly catastrophic.”

His spokeswoman, Marie Okabe, said Mr. Ban had been trying for two days without success to get in touch by telephone with Than Shwe, the regime’s senior general. “We have been told that the phone lines are down,” she said….

You can read more of Mr. Mydan’s article here

A big one.

The Millennial Generation are those who are born between 1982 and 2003. There’s about a million more millennials than there are baby boomers, and twice as many than the generation that preceded it, Generation X.

Winograd and Hais discussed their book last night on The Newshour:

JUDY WOODRUFF: How do you characterize their — their political views? I mean, you point out that they are voting more Democratic than Republican. But is there a way of labeling them?

MICHAEL HAIS: Well, we refer to them as a civic generation. And that means that they are a generation that is not intent on — as other types of generations are — not intent on implementing their own personal moral values, but rather in rebuilding civic institutions, in acting together as a group to resolve political problems, which we expect the millennials to do, problems such as health care that have really bedeviled the U.S. political process for the last 40 years or so.

MORLEY WINOGRAD: So, their parents raised them share. And they had them watch “Barney” and make sure that everybody was treated equally. And we came to win-win situations.

So, they come to the political process with a collective point of view, and therefore tend to be Democratic. And, in fact, this is the first generation in about five decades where a greater number label themselves as liberal, rather than conservative.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Why is it — what is it about Barack Obama that has turned so many of them out?
MORLEY WINOGRAD: Well, he has a unifying message, so it’s — that’s important, because these are not a generation interested in the confrontational culture wars of the boomers.

But he — and his background, which is very diverse in and of itself, so he sort of captures that nature of this generation. But I think maybe the most important thing is that he’s combined that message with the right medium. He’s really organized on social network — around social network platforms to build the kind of support he’s been able to demonstrate, at least in many of the states.

Not so good for social conservatives:

JUDY WOODRUFF: To the extent this is a turning point, a makeover moment, as you call it, what should we expect from this generation? What are they going to do differently in the way — when they get control…
MICHAEL HAIS: Well, I would say at least two things.

One will be the style and tone of politics. Instead of the confrontation, instead of a situation where, as we have seen, again, for the last four decades, where you have extreme liberals, extreme conservatives banging at each other, and very little is accomplished, this generation will lead a realignment in which people will get together and they will try to come up with common solutions, win-win solutions that essentially can be used to benefit all of society. So, the style of politics will be different.

But also I think the kind of politics, political public policy that we will see will reflect this. We will see a decrease in economic inequality, for example, because this generation is very concerned with the welfare of the entire group. We will see less emphasis on social issues that have concerned the public, the things…

JUDY WOODRUFF: By social issues, you mean abortion and…

MICHAEL HAIS: Abortion, gay rights.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Gay rights.

MICHAEL HAIS: It’s a generation, for example, that two-thirds of its members have no problems with gay marriage. It just is a nonissue with them. And, so, they will move on to other, more basic economic and foreign policy concerns.

Just the tip of the iceberg:

MORLEY WINOGRAD: Significant policy changes. The American political landscape will change completely over the next decade.This election, only about 35 percent of the millennials are eligible to vote. They have already had a tremendous impact no matter how the Democratic primary contest ends. Now, think about in 2020, when 100 percent of this generation and its attitudes are in the electorate in those kind of numbers. It will be a completely different political scene.

Apparently some conservative churches want to be politically active AND keep their tax exempt status. I hope this issue provokes a serious reconsideration of the rationale for special tax treatment.

I have never been much of a fan of the idea of tax exempt status. It seems to me that these organizations use the resources of the community as much as anyone else: Police, Fire, EMS, Street maintenance, Water, Sewage… And to the extent that they do not share in the tax burden the rest of us have to pay more than our fair share. I can accept that these spiritual operations may be providing some services that benefit the community such as feeding the poor that deserve some consideration. Perhaps they can pay slightly lower taxes in proportion to the services they provide or the government can pay them for the services provided.

This is true also for the tax exempt status of government entities. Here in Austin the land and buildings owned by the State and Federal government do not pay property taxes and their holdings are significant. In downtown Austin the State owns more than 13,000 parking spaces in the form of lots and structures. Again, to the extent that these entities do not pay property taxes the higher are those taxes for the rest of us.

I used to think that the GOP would be the party to lead the effort to revisit the long term habits of government that may no longer be reasonable or justified. The current effort of the White House to resist excessive farm subsidies is welcome but it is only a tiny bite of a very large problem. All of our taxes would be lower if the exemptions were as few as possible.

As the Democratic primary nears its long-awaited conclusion, undecided superdelegates have been drowned under a sudden deluge of angry, sometimes vicious emails from Hillary Clinton supporters urging them to not fall in line behind Barack Obama.

The letter writing campaign picked up steam late Thursday evening when several superdelegates confirmed that a coordinated effort had been launched, apparently independent of Clinton’s campaign, to raise last-minute concerns about Obama’s candidacy and present the specter of voter defections should the Illinois Democrat become the nominee.

[UPDATE: Marsh has responded to the HP piece with a long post of her own blasting the report and stressing that she had nothing to do with what her readers decided to do. It begins:

I in no way have anything whatsoever to do with the narrative being pushed in Sam Stein’s post over at Huffington Post. Stop.

Whatever my readers are doing is their business. I am in no way involved. Stop.

Read it in its entirety. FOOTNOTE: Marsh has been a contributor to the Huffington Post herself.]

Back to the Huffington Post:

In more than dozen messages sent yesterday evening and shared with The Huffington Post, supporters of Clinton emailed a laundry list of political and exceedingly personal attacks on Obama’s candidacy, including criticisms of his prior associations and claims that he, not Clinton, had played the race card. The letters underscore the high emotional pitch of the late stage Democratic primary as well as the utter conviction among many supporters of both campaigns that their candidate is solely worthy of the nomination.

So have the letters made many superdelegates see the light and decide to announce that they’ll support Clinton — even though Clinton at this point isn’t ahead in the number of pledged delegates, the popular vote, campaign funding collections or even (by ABC’s recent claim) superdelegates?

Not quite:

Such campaigns targeting superdelegates have mostly been avoided out of fear that the party officials would react negatively to outside pressure. And at least four superdelegates on the receiving end of yesterday’s emails suggested that they did more harm to Clinton’s cause than good.

In one exchange, Donna Brazile, Al Gore’s campaign manager and a stalwart of the Democratic Party, responded with frustration to a writer’s threats of defection. “Honestly, this is the 9th email today,” she wrote before 8:00 pm. “So I believe you’re ready to not only destroy Roe versus Wade, voting rights, civil liberties and civil rights. Perhaps adding trillions more to the deficits through non-stop tax cuts to the wealthy and 100 more years in Iraq. Yes, please join Rush and McCain asap. The train has left. Catch it.”

The Clinton campaign did not return a request for comment as to whether it was behind the email campaign.

That last sentence means the Clinton campaign (a) is trying to figure out how to defuse this without alienating its committed supporters (whom students of politics could consider need to be committed for sending less than respectful emails to superdelegates who are their last hope), (b) doesn’t want to give this more publicity, (c) tacitly supports the effort.

Stein gives readers a bit of feedback on how some superdelegates are reacting to this new form of abusive political spam:

At least two other party insiders wrote the Huffington Post expressing concern over the scope (”I’ve received emails like this for weeks but tonight it started in mass) and negativity of some of the Obama attacks, including one red-state Democrat:

“I spent my entire life in the two reddest states in the entire U.S. so please excuse me if I fail to discern the nuances of the arguments sent my way this evening in what appears to be an orchestrated campaign to intimidate the remaining unpledged delegates by threatening to leave the party and vote for a third Bush term if I and others like me don’t vote for Sen. Clinton,” wrote the exasperated superdelegate. “I have been uncommitted throughout this campaign because I wanted to see how the candidates performed in a variety of settings. I am proud of them both. But I am horrified by this effort to threaten votes for McCain if super delegates don’t vote for Sen. Clinton. I have received hundreds of emails from both sides - but I can say without exception that I have not received a single email from an Obama supporter that threatened a vote for McCain if I didn’t support Sen. Obama. You really ought to be ashamed.”

If you look at what is going on now:

–Hillary Clinton created a controversy with her comments about being a better candidate because she appeals more to white voters.

–Bill Clinton will get lots of play (and some who see it will agree with him) in his latest public burst of anger.

–Paul Begala raised eyebrows by saying “”Obama can’t win with just the eggheads and African-Americans…” (OOPS! There goes the Humpty Dumpty vote..)

–Clinton supporters are flooding superdelegates with threatening emails. They seem to forget that politics also involves trying to persuade, not just intimidate.

Bill Clinton often talked about wanting to build a “bridge to the 21st century.”

But, increasingly, the Clinton camp seems as if in terms of common sense political coalition building, it’s trying to burn its bridges in the 21st century.