The Pot Calls the Kettle, Dendrochronology, and Race Baiting In Hays County

Jim Mattox, a former Texas state attorney general, showed up at the Hays County Democratic caucus this past weekend and warned the delegates against bolting from the party in the general should their preferred candidate not receive the nomination:

Mattox referred to a recent national poll that found 16 percent of Democrats would rather vote for presumptive Republican nominee John McCain than for the other Democrat if their candidate loses.

“That defeats you right there. If you understand the math at all, that defeats you right there,” Mattox told delegates. “What’s more, if you are part of that 16 percent, you need to get up and get the hell out of here right now.”

If any Democrat cannot tell the difference between McCain and a Democrat, “you are a danger to yourself and society.”

“If I offend some of you, I mean to,” Mattox said to laughter.

Jim Mattox also discussed his carefully thought out rationale for supporting Hillary:

Mattox also reminded everyone that he supports Hillary Clinton, calling her a longtime friend. “I am a believer in the seniority system. I frankly think it is Hillary’s time,” he said.

There’s no word as to why Mattox didn’t endorse Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kuchinich, Bill Richardson, or Tom Vilsak, all of whom have more “seniority” than HRC.

Perhaps encouraged by the laughter, Mattox went on to channel his inner Archie Bunker:

[W]hen Mattox drifted into a rambling account of past Democratic defeat in presidential campaigns, then ewarned of a coming Republican smear campaign by playing the race card against Barack Obama, the grumbling began.

I believe we can expect more of this from HRC and her supporters as the campaign wears on.   Simply put: There’s nothing left for her to do other than tear down Obama at every juncture.  If the election were not primed for a Democratic victory this fall, I believe Clinton would have withdrawn by now or would  be running a much different campaign.  She knows that barring some unexpected and unlikely occurrence, either she or Obama will be the next president.  In other words, 2008 is it for HRC.  Combine that knowledge with the cognitive dissonance she must be experiencing from finding herself losing to Obama  and every day must be a fresh hell for her.

Obama By 3

Burnt Orange Report has the final Texas delegate count as Obama 98, Clinton 93.

The Acorn, the Tree, and Laundry

Bill Safire once called Hillary Clinton a congenital liar.  I wonder if he was right.  Most recently, Hillary was caught out in an elaborate lie about a visit to Bosnia.  It was an astounding incident because Clinton surely new she was lying, yet she repeated the story on several occasions.  I don’t know whether there is a single word for what incidents like these say about Clinton’s character.  Certainly, she shares some of Bill’s recklessness.  After all, this story was easily and conclusively disproved.  Short-sided: the brief benefit to her experience argument was drowned by the days’ long negative publicity the incident received and continued to receive.  Self-centered and delusional: the display of pique at having to address the issue and her excuse of sleep deprivation and being human was both entertaining and painful to watch.

Back to Bill Safire’s diagnosis.   On television this morning, I saw a clip of a talk Chelsea Clinton gave to a Young Democrats group.  In it she decried the sexism that her mother has faced while on the campaign trail.  She had a couple examples of other women expressing  sexist views.   It was her description of the iron my shirt guys that caught my attention: “a couple of young men said with all seriousness, ‘iron my shirt.’”  The victim theme is one the Clinton campaign pushes when it doesn’t have anything else to say, so it is not surprising that Chelsea Clinton would argue that her mother, a woman whose achievements are inextricably bound up with her husband’s political advancement (but not vice versa), is the victim of sexism.   It is her description of the iron my shirt incident that makes me believe she is every bit as delusional as her mother.  “A couple of young men said with all seriousness, ‘iron my shirt.’”  Can she even believe that comment for one second–with all seriousness?  Did these young men specify how much starch or when they needed their shirts back?  Are we really to believe that these guys thought the junior senator from New York was going to do their laundry?  These young men were crude, rude, and, yes, sexist.  What they weren’t were serious.  Like her mother, Chelsea Clinton just couldn’t stick with the truth, she just had to paint the lily.

We Are Clin•Ton

A very funny video via The Daily Dish:

A Gentle Denial from the Speaker; Hillary Agonistes

It wasn’t the “pound sand” response they deserve, but Nancy Pelosi responded to the Clinton donors’ blackmail by repeating her position that the superdelegates should not overturn the will of the voters.  The response came through her spokesman, Brendan Daily:

“Speaker Pelosi is confident that superdelegates will choose between Senators Clinton or Obama — our two strong candidates — before the convention in August,” Daly said. “That choice will be based on many considerations, including respecting the decisions of millions of Americans who have voted in primaries and participated in caucuses. The Speaker believes it would do great harm to the Democratic Party if superdelegates are perceived to overturn the will of the voters. This has been her position throughout this primary season, regardless of who was ahead at any particular point in delegates or votes.”

All-in-all, this is about as strong of a response as could be expected.  Pelosi refused to back down from her comment that instigated the letter and even used the occasion to repeat it.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton sat down for an interview with Greta Van Susteren, one of the oddest looking people on television.  Hillary says she’s in it to win (sort of like W is in Iraq to win).

“Nobody should be writing obituaries on this race, because it is a long way from being over,” [Clinton] said. “What I’ve seen in my last 14 months on the campaign trail is that every time people count me out — you know, pundits say it’s over, it should be over — the voters bring me back… because they believe that I will actually get up every day in that White House and work my heart out for all of our people.”

“Our people?”  WTF?  She went on to desribe the primary season as a long job interview:

“Because, you know, when you’ve been on a campaign for 14 months, you know, there’s all other kinds of distractions, but at the end of the day this is like a hiring decision. Who will people hire to get this country moving in the direction it should move in?”

There’s no indication in the article as to whether Clinton’s demeanor showed any recognition of the irony in this statement.  You see, Clinton’s comparison of the primary season to a job interview came in response to a question about  her Bosnia lies; lies she put forward to embellish her experience.   I’ve had the chance to make a few hiring decisions and I would never consider hiring someone who lies about their experience.

It’s Our Party, We Bought It

The Hillary Clinton campaign continues to hunt for a viable rationale for her being the nominee.  At the start of the primary season, she was Hillary!, elect me I’m the inevitable nominee.  The inevitable nominee morphed into HRH Hillary, the elect me, the nominee by divine right.  That didn’t gain traction, so she became Hillary , help me, I’m a victim.  That did pay dividends and she occasionally reprises the role when she thinks it will gain her a couple of votes.  After Hillary , she became the conscience of the nation, Shame on you Barack!  Hillary as the nation’s conscience was just laughable, and Hillary the fearless war-time diplomat was discredited about as fast as the lies came out of her mouth.  Lately her rationale is a bit baser: elect me I’m white!  At least that’s true.

Her supporters, no doubt in close coordination with the campaign, have a new one: We Own this Party.  Nancy Pelosi recently said this: “If the votes of the superdelegates overturn what’s happened in the elections, it would be harmful to the Democratic party.”  Pelosi didn’t mention either candidate in connection with the remark, which seems to me to be nothing more than a blinding glimpse of the obvious.  Pelosi did not opine that the superdelegates were bound to vote in accordance with the primary results, she just stated the effect of a candidate overcoming a pledged delegate deficit, i.e., losing the primary race, by way of superdelegates.   That didn’t sit well with the Clinton campaign.  A number of her supporters wrote Pelosi and essentially threatened to withhold their financial support if she didn’t toe the Clinton line of “the superdelegates should exercise their independent judgment,” a Clinton euphamism for “vote for me.”  (Lost on the Clinton team is the notion that a superdelegate’s independent judgment might agree with Pelosi’s sentiment).  The putative owners of the Democratic party wrote:

We have been strong supporters of the DCCC. We therefore urge you to clarify your position on super-delegates and reflect in your comments a more open view to the optional independent actions of each of the delegates at the National Convention in August. We appreciate your activities in support of the Democratic Party and your leadership role in the Party and hope you will be responsive to some of your major enthusiastic supporters.

They’re not even coy about why Pelosi should take the action they seek: “We’ve been strong supporters of the DCCC.  We therefore urge. . .”  Moreover,  these ersatz Daddy Warbucks not only demand Pelosi retract her comments about he superdelegates, they demand she endorse the current Clinton talking point that all delegates–pledged or super– are free to vote for whichever candidate they choose.

I suppose it would be asking too much for Pelosi to basically say “fuck you” to these fat cats and endorse Obama at the same time, but she should.  I’m sure these folks have contributed lots of cash to the Democratic party but I doubt it’s as much as Obama’s donors have raised and in the end analysis, they only get to cast one vote each.    There are thousands of people across this country who devote countless hours to the Democratic party.  I believe they are far more responsible for any success the party has than are the donors like these,  who act like high maintenance dogs, in constant need of attention and affirmation.  Sometimes a dog needs a pop on the nose.  Here’s hoping Pelosi gives them one.

Airstream Pick Up

I went to Big Spring this weekend to pick up my Airstream trailer.  From Friday to today, I drove a round trip of 947 miles, one-half of it pulling a 41-year-old trailer back to Houston.  It was  a quick trip; however, even a quick visit to West Texas is interesting.  As I drove into Big Spring, I could see a large plume of black smoke rising from the north side of town.

That’s the best I could do with my iphone while driving.  It turns out that the fire was  a large grass and  brush fire just off of I-20.  Later, my aunt told my mother and me that a forestry service helicopter was dropping water, which it pumped from Beale’s Creek, on the fire.  Now why the forestry service would have a helicopter in West Texas is a mystery to me, but we did see some helicopter, forestry service or not, doing just what my aunt said.  A large yellow helicopter would swoop in from the west, drop down below the level of the creekside, fill its tank with water, and circle back to the fire.

Of course, a good fire is something to watch and all around the north side of town, groups of people gathered to watch smoke and a helicopter making three minute runs.

Getting out of town with the Airstream was less exciting but more complicated than putting out the fire.  The trailer has been at my mom’s for the past three months.  In order to pull the Airstream with my new earth killing car, I had to buy a weight-distributing hitch.  It came in a box, some assembly required.

My mom asked my uncle James to help get the trailer set up on Saturday morning.  My uncle James is one of the best people you could ever meet and would do anything asked, but I knew I was in for a little trouble because of that weight-distributing hitch.  It’s not important as to what that type of hitch is, all you need to know is that it is more involved than just dropping the trailer on a ball and driving off.  In addition to the ball, it has two arms that attach to the trailer by chains and as I mentioned, some assembly is required.  I knew that James would be of the view that all I needed to do was to drop the trailer on a ball and drive off and I was right.  The first thing he told me was “You don’t need all that.  Just put the ball on the truck and go.”

Even if I was inclined to do that, and I wasn’t, another obstacle immediately presented itself.  We couldn’t get the trailer on the hitch.  James brought a ball for the hitch and we tried, and tried, and tried to get the trailer to latch onto the ball but had no luck.  If you’ve never tried to get a trailer hitched up, it’s not a quick process.  There’s much backing and pulling forward, by inches, by half-inches.  Turn the wheel this way, no, turn it back, a little more, stop, come back, pull forward, stop, come back an inch, no too much, pull it forward, wait, back, back, back, (metal crunching sound), too far, pull forward, hold it, back to the right by 2 inches.  Try hearing this in varied order for an hour or so.  Add in my mother cautioning James not to get his fingers caught in the hitch and warning me not to run over James and its even more stressful.   We managed to drop the trailer a couple of times, although no harm done.  Here’s what I could see:

After a while, another uncle, Boosie, and my aunt Sonia, came over and we all continued to work on the problem.  The debate finally was over whether we had the right size ball on the hitch.  2 5/16″ was the consensus as to the correct size (for some reason my trailer tongue did not have a size indicated on it).  After more than an hour, we called the local camper and rv shop, Casey’s Camper, and they sent someone around to pick up the trailer and take it in.

Turns out that a 2 5/16″ ball will not fit onto a hitch made for a 2″ ball, no matter how much backing and maneuvering and Wesson oil is involved.  Getting the Airstream hitched took the entire morning and several hundred dollars, but both were well spent.

I do need to say that I have the best family imaginable.  I didn’t even need to ask, and there was  nothing in it for them but a certain headache (and the possibility of a crushed finger); nevertheless, my mom, and various aunts and uncles (the youngest of whom is 66) spent their Saturday morning helping me with a pretty dirty and physical task.

Did Pawpaw Say That Again?

When we last left John McCain, he was talking about how Iran and al qaeda had set up housekeeping together despite the enmity between Sunnis (al qaeda)  and Shiites (Iran).  Joe Lieberman gently corrected McCain in front of an international press contingent, but it seems that his campaign hasn’t gotten the message.  According to an article linked at Talking Points Memo, McCain’s campaign has decided he was right, before he decided he was wrong that is.

I don’t know how Obama (or god forbid, Hillary) raises the issue, but it seems pretty clear that if McCain is elected, he’s likely to strike Iran militarily.  He seems pretty inclined in that direction to begin with and I cannot imagine that any Iranian regime would be willing to sit across  a negotiating table from him. It would be difficult in the best of circumstances to get some meaningful agreement with Iran on its nuclear program, but a difficult task turns impossible if McCain is elected. After all, McCain turned war with Iran into a ditty.  “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.”

McCain has a patina of gravitas and competence, but scratch that surface and you find a reckless, uninformed, grumpy old man.

The Riches

FX has two of my favorite shows, The Riches and The Shield.  Last night the second season of The Riches started.  On Sunday, the New York Times ran an interesting story about Eddie Izzard.

You Say Tomato. . .

John McCain highlighted his foreign policy expertise today when he repeatedly accused Iran of training al qaeda.  Now, one of the things about Islam that has been given much attention over the past 5 years is the Sunni / Shiite divide.  Al qaeda is a Sunni group and most Muslim countries are majority Sunni.  Iraq and Iran are the two majority Shiite nations.  The Republicans have been quick to buzz in with “al qaeda” as the answer to any question, but if McCain had the foreign policy expertise he claims, he would not have made this mistake.  Fortunately for McCain, his home health aide best friend forever and fellow warmonger, Joe Lieberman, was on hand to correct him.