TRAIN NEWS presents: “When Congressmen Attack”

Senator Barack Obama made news and inspired well-written blog posts earlier this week when he took Senator Lieberman by the hand and, to use the parlance of our times, made him a man. In this case, ‘making him a man’ refers to emasculating him in front of his allies and opponents in the Senate, the Republicans and Democrats respectively. While this has been hailed as a heroic act far overdue, it should be noted that this is not the first time in recent history when tempers have flared on the floors of the House and Senate:

• 2004: Dick Cheney, in his role as president of the Senate, drops the F-bomb during a discussion with Pat Leahy. This is generally acknowledged to be the least obscene thing Cheney has ever done.

• 2003: When Senator John Lofton collapses as he enters the Senate chamber, Bill Frist pauses his kidnapped kitten vivisection* to make a diagnosis from his seat hundreds of feet away. Although onlookers note that Lofton appears to be suffering from a heart attack, Frist concludes that Lofton seems fine and that he should recover imminently. Lofton’s death hours later enrages his colleagues, although the lack of consequences emboldens Frist, who then swears that from that moment on he will get EVERY diagnosis wrong.
  

• 2001: After the results of the 2000 elections are announced, lame duck VP Al Gore invites the senate to a special presentation. Instead of a rough working cut of his as-of-yet unannounced global warming presentation, however, this was revealed to be a crude prank which ends with Gore flashing shock site goatse.cz on the monitors until the disgusted senators leave the building.
  

Hopefully in the upcoming days other Democrats will take the opportunity to shake hands with Lieberman and yell at him for a few minutes. Getting Democrats (and Connecticut for Liebermanders) to work together can be harder than herding cats, but it will probably get easier as these cats realize that a steadfast refusal to do the right thing will earn them verbal abuse from their colleagues. Also, these cats won’t be offered Committee chairmanships. Finally if all else fails we can threaten to formally turn these cats over to the Senate Republicans, and see if they learned any uses for cats from their old friend Bill Frist.


*While the link leads to the Wikipedia article on the subject, it cannot be repeated enough: Bill Frist, by his own admission, took cats from animal shelters and killed them for experimentation. I would say this quite possibly makes Frist the worst person in the world, very much like those selected by Keith Olbermann. Unlike those selected by Keith Olbermann, however, Frist will remain the worst person in the world tomorrow, and the day after, and so forth into perpetuity.

Lieberman and Obama, coming full circle.

This wouldn't be so sweet if it didn't feel like it was coming around full circle. Let me explain and give this a bit of personal background. As soon as I first heard about Barack Obama back in 2003, I liked him. When I heard his positions, I liked him more. When I heard him speak, I started to get really excited, and my expectations kept rising. Before the 2004 convention, I was able to tell my friends and family to watch out for the keynote speaker, but I had no idea just how good he was going to be. I debated buying a T-Shirt for his senate run, but ended up making my own with only his picture because I thought it looked cooler (It may have looked cooler, but for historical value, I'm kicking myself for not buying one). When he was elected to the senate I was as excited about him as I'd ever been about an individual politician. (Until Donna Edwards this year!)

I had big hopes. Someone with Russ Feingold's politics but with Bill Clinton's command over a crowd. To say I had set the bar high was an pretty big understatement, and it was the Lieberman-Lamont race that brought me back to earth. As with most in the netroots, I followed the race very closely, and was passionate about Ned Lamont's campaign to unseat Joe Lieberman. When Obama spoke at Lieberman's fundraiser, and subsequently didn't use his starpower on Lamont's behalf in the general, I was stunned. In addition to the war, I figured that a Lamont endorsement or neutrality would be the ultimate repudiation of "old politics" and the everything else he had come to represent. It was one of those moments where I understood why he did it, I was just disappointed. I couldn't help but see him differently, there he was lining up behind Joe like the rest of the dems. I still liked him and remained a fan, I just didn't have the same expectations as I once had.

Throughout the primary I remained at fan level. I ended up leaning towards John Edwards, but I always enjoyed Obama during the debates and was in awe of the support he was building. When it came down to Clinton and Obama, I was one of those people who supported him because I thought (and still believe) the soul of the party was at stake, and I was thrilled to see him win. I watch a lot of speeches like most of us political junkies, but his speech on Tuesday really felt different, and you could definitely sense the importance of the moment through your television.

And then this happened:

Returning to the Senate after his securing the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama and Lieberman greeted each on the Senate floor in the Well as they were voting on the budget resolution.

They shook hands. But Obama didn’t let go, leading Lieberman - cordially - by the hand across the room into a corner on the Democratic side, where Democratic sources tell ABC News he delivered some tough words for the junior senator from Connecticut, who had just minutes before hammered Obama's speech before the pro-Israel group AIPAC in a conference call arranged by the McCain campaign.

Watch video of the encounter on the Senate floor HERE.

The two spoke intensely for approximately five minutes, with no one able to hear their conversation. Reporters watched as Obama leaned closely in to Lieberman, whose back was literally up against the wall.

Neither party is officially talking. But while Lieberman spokesman Marshall Whitman says the conversation was "a cordial and friendly discussion" and Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton says it was "private and friendly," Democratic sources tell ABC News that the conversation was a stern rebuke to Lieberman for his criticism of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee as had just happened on the conference call, as well as a discussion about how far Lieberman is willing to go in his advocacy of McCain, and the tone of the campaign.

It may not have been that big of a deal, but it was exactly the type of thing I've wanted to see from Obama all along. Lieberman had crossed a line and Obama had no problems telling him so right then and there, on the floor of the senate. This story is old news by now and has already been enjoyed by many around these parts, but it felt like a sort of glorious parallel to how I felt after his endorsement during the Lamont-Lieberman race. And for all the "stern words" and looking the other way that most senate democrats have done, it was great to see the new leader of our party take a stand and do something that has been long, long overdue. Democratic Leadership... it feels good to say those words one right after the other, huh?

OBAMA 08!

(If the style seems weird, I wrote it to put up on daily kos, which I haven't had the time to do yet)

Our long national nightmare is finally over!

Hillary Clinton's campaign for the democratic nomination is officially coming to an end. After her gracious performance on Tuesday night where she attempted to undermine the validity Obama's victory, she has apparently come to her senses and will endorse him on Saturday. Or was forced to her senses by her non-lunatic supporters:

... [A]nd to add to what Andrea was just talking about, there was another conference call involving senators, eight senators who were supporters of Hillary's, very hard core supporters of Hillary Clinton's.

And here's the added wrinkle to it: they were urged to assemble that conference call and to speak frankly to Hillary by some of the top strategists around Hillary -- I can't use the names -- but people you would associate with a hard-line defense of Hillary's position, who called the Senate and said "Look. You guys are Hillary's strongest supporters -- you gals also. Get in there and tell her to get out."

And we're talking about senators such as Barbara Mikulski, and Ben -- and Senator Nelson, and even Chuck Schumer, and others were reached out to by people around Hillary, strategists who said "You've got to get to her and get her out of this thing." And that's what they accomplished by this afternoon, so she will do it on Friday, she will get out of the race -- suspend, use whatever word you want -- but more important, endorse Barack Obama.

Wow, a class act till the end. Well at least John Cole(political blogger and Pittsburgh Penguins fan) isn't giving up the fight:

Dear Red Wings,

I want to congratulate you on the great race you have run, and it was an honor competing against you in the Stanley Cup. However, I want you to know that a lot of Penguins fans, in the millions, all over the country, supported us this season, and I am just not ready to make a decision tonight. Also, I would like to point out that we performed much better in our home games, and thus the away game structure of the Detroit games were systematically unfair. I would like all our fans to go to our web site and tell us what they think we should do.

A lot of pundits are asking, what does Sidney Crosby want? Well, I will tell you. A few more assists, maybe a hat trick or two, but most of all, some respect for the fans. So while it was fun playing against you, we need some time to think, and I think in the interest of fairness, we may need to play another game to really settle this.

*** Update ***

I would like to note we are open to talks about being Vice-Stanley Cup winners.

On to game 7!

Welcome to the 2008 Democratic Primary Cessation Appreciation Station!

If you haven’t already, please take a moment to forget my previous predictions- like almost everything based on a statement from the Clinton camp, they turned out to be indisputably false. Now that Hillary has more or less admitted defeat and left herself with only a few opportunities to claim “take-backsies” the rest of the Democrats can begin to put their party back together.

Obama himself will probably need some time to recover, as the shape of the campaign for the last 3 months has been Obama versus the unholy alliance of McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Bill Clinton. The idea that any two of those three people should work together seemed laughably silly a year ago, but every now and then mutual interests bring together a Republican senator, a Democratic Senator, and a former Democratic President to play a game of “tear down the Democratic presidential nominee.” It’s nice to see that Bill Clinton can transcend partisan politics in order to damage his own parties’ chances in the general election, all in the name of keeping his wife’s increasingly quixotic campaign on life support for just a little bit longer.

The following are the steps that Obama should be taking now, to get back on track for the general election:

• Throw a really awesome pizza party! Everyone loves pizza, even recently vanquished primary rivals. Obama can sit back, crack open brewskis, and laugh with Clinton about what a ridiculous waste of time the last 3 months have been. He can even invite the press and make it Chicago-style pizza. This will enable him to crack some joke about how they’re probably used to traditional pizza, a joke that will be repeated on cable news for days until David Brooks accuses him of being out of touch with which style of pizza blue-jean hard-workin’ regular guys eat. Then cable news can go on and on about how elitist Chicago-style pizza is until angry riots break out targeting Pizzeria Uno locations nationwide.
  

• Change themes! Obama has been extremely consistent since the beginning of his campaign, talking about hope and change and more or less restraining himself from mud-slinging. Now would be a great time to change it all up and choose a more traditional tack. Here are a few possible options not already openly claimed by another contender:

1. Despair and economic collapse
2. Resentment and frustration
3. Anger and misogyny
4. Racism and confusion
5. Indescribable horror and eldritch terror
6. Lunacy and contrarianism
7. Antediluvianism and befuddlement.

Surely whichever he chooses, he’ll be able to make it look good.

• Choose a VP! There’s been a lot of talk from the pundits about how incredibly likely an Obama-Clinton ticket is. A bunch of nay-sayers have claimed that this is almost certainly not going to happen, because it benefits no one and probably decreases the value of his ticket in many places. Throw those guys out of punditry; logic and reason have no place there! Here is a list of some other potential VP picks roughly as realistic as Hillary Clinton, hopefully Obama can spot someone he likes: Karl Rove, David Brooks, Mark Penn, George W. Bush, John McCain, Pope Benedict, Stalin, Satan, John Lofton, Jefferson Davis, Plato, King Leonidas, a ghost from Ghostbusters, and Nathan Explosion.
  

Whew! There’s more, of course, but this is probably enough advice for one day. Best of luck to Obama, and here’s to hoping he doesn’t read a word of this.

An Open Letter to Barack Obama

Senator Obama,

This seemingly endless nomination contest has finally come to an end, and let me be the first to say congratulations on your win. And if there's anything you need right now, it's unsolicited advice from someone who doesn't know what they're talking about, so here it goes.

I've been watching the stuff you've said about Hillary Clinton over the past couple of weeks, the effusive praise for her and her supporters, and the personal touch you added when you said she has made things that much easier for your daughters if they ever wanted to follow in her footsteps and run for political office. And I sure can't think of anything more empowering for young women everywhere than to dream of growing up to marry someone who goes on to a very popular president of the United States, then use that springboard of enormous amounts of money and a famous last name to become a do nothing senator for 6 years, and then feel entitled to the presidency. My cousin's an amazingly smart and ambitious young woman who is about to graduate high school this weekend... and god knows THAT'S the example I'd want her to look up to as she moves forward. In fact, it's on the card I'm gonna give her:

I wish you the best of luck during this important transition in your life. And remember, if you go through life always seeking the next move that will give you more power, and once in there you only that power to position yourself for your next move... one day you might convince a lot of people that you're a legitimate candidate for President of the United States! Congratulations on Graduating High School, Nina!

I swear, Hallmark must have assumed she'd win cause they printed a bunch of em' ... but I'll get back to the point.

In the next couple of days/weeks/months, there are going to be quite a few losers and stupid people out of work. Lets keep in mind, with the utmost respect for the remarkable race that you have run and the win you've pulled off, you owe your victory almost as much to their stupidity as you do to your own actions. They took someone with the best position to win the nomination, any institutional advantage you can name and former president campaigning on her behalf and ran her into the ground. They managed to blow 100 million dollars in the process, including over 10 million to this clod. They didn't understand the rules of the process, and DIDN'T EVEN PLAN for a race after Super Tuesday. This is incompetence worthy of the Bush administration, and should be kept as far away from your campaign at all costs. Democratic politics has been the only field where incompetent losers like theses get hired over and over and over to attempt their same failed strategies again and again. Uh... scratch that last sentence, but the point remains the same, we cannot let this cycle continue!

Mind-bending incompetence is a pretty good justification for sending this wing of the party out to pasture, but that's not even the most important reason there needs to be a clean break. The Clinton wing of the democratic party has an inherently different view of America than you or I. They may agree with us at heart on some polices, but they will always resort to a centrist strategy because they believe America is an inherently conservative nation. Just look at her career and her husbands for a blueprint. When in office, was there movement towards landmark progressive legislation? We got NAFTA, Welfare Reform, and the defense of Marriage Act to name a few. Do I honestly think these were things that Bill Clinton was passionate about? No, but he believed that because America was inherently conservative, he needed to take these centrist/right wing stands to win elections.

Look at her career. What did she champion while in the senate? China PTNR, Flag burning, video game violence, and the biggest examples of them all the Iraq war and Lieberman-Kyl. While in the senate in 2002 and already planning a run for president, she believed that she had to vote for the Iraq war to look "tough" if she were to run for president. Do I believe in her heart, Hillary Clinton would have done better things if she had voted with what she thought was actually right in a lot of these cases? It may surprise you, but I actually do. But when you believe that this an inherently conservative county and you have to sneak progressive ideas in when no one's looking, you will never bring about real change, and you are certainly not an asset to the movement that we are trying push forward. Senator Obama, although you were not my first choice in this race, I believe that you understand this divide, and in order to to move forward as a party, we must leave this way of thinking in the past.

And while the general election has just begun, you will already be making decisions that will greatly impact your ability to win this fall and then have a successful presidency. There's going to be a lot of pressure to bring the party together by giving theses people jobs, and the campaign has already begun to give the sorest loser of them second spot on your ticket. So please, please don't give in to their pressure and empty threats. Make a clean break with this faction of the party and bury their brand of triangulation and failure once and for all.

I hope you take this advice seriously, for I have 30 years of experience fighting for change. (Hey if she can say it, why can't I?)

-JJ

PS: During your speeches over the next couple of weeks, can you send warning next time you're going to bullshit on and on about how what a classy campaign she ran? I know you "have to do it" and all, I'd just like to make sure I'd finished dinner before hand.

Your Democratic Nominee...

Barack Obama

After scaring the living crap out of me, we managed to get this one right in the end. Well done.

Uhhh, Mr. President? This isn't a movie...

After 4 U.S. hired mercenaries were killed in Iraq, Bush apparently went into his best Braveheart impression during a meeting with his national security team. From a book by former General Ricardo Sanchez, via TPM:

During a videoconference with his national security team and generals, Sanchez writes, Bush launched into what he described as a "confused" pep talk: "Kick ass!" he quotes the president as saying.

"If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them! We must be tougher than hell! This Vietnam stuff, this is not even close. It is a mind-set. We can't send that message. It's an excuse to prepare us for withdrawal."

"There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong! Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to wipe them out! We are not blinking!"

A White House spokesman had no comment.

When one of the generals questioned him on how to deal with the "Vietnam mindset", he ordered them to report to his father's cabin for coke and booze until the war was over.

And nothing says a march to democracy like seeking people out and killing them!

His rambling speech would be a lot funnier if this wasn't what happened directly after words:

Powerful new evidence emerged yesterday that the United States dropped massive quantities of white phosphorus on the Iraqi city of Fallujah during the attack on the city in November 2004, killing insurgents and civilians with the appalling burns that are the signature of this weapon.
...
10,000 buildings were destroyed, with thousands more seriously damaged. At least 100,000 residents were permanently displaced, over 70 U.S. soldiers were killed, and the Iraqi death toll is unknown.

"Wipe them out", indeed.