As I remarked (in a comment) yesterday, I actually got a little queasy thinking about the discussion among the Bush speechwriters that hit on this idea of having the grandson of a Nazi sympathizer/financier/profiteer (you choose which) invoke the Holocaust to make a US domestic political point. . . while standing before the Israeli Knesset.

Bad enough that the president abandoned the “all politics stop at the water’s edge” axiom. Bad enough that he (or the speechwriter) was dumb enough to quote a Republican Senator’s wish of talking to Hitler. Bad enough that Bush would mar what was supposed to be a celebration of Israel’s founding with a nakedly political speech. Bad enough that he would cheapen the Holocaust and dishonor its victims by invoking it just to serve his partisan goals. And certainly bad enough that a sitting president would sink so low as to liken the Democrat running against Bush’s third term to a Nazi appeaser. . . but. . .

I know, I know. . . in year eight of the Bush-Cheney regime, we all know: things are not how they should be. They break our laws, take our money, and kill our children—and lie, lie, lie—it’s like breathing to them, and nothing should surprise us anymore. At this point, our cynical meters have pinned in the red zone; we console ourselves—or try to—with the knowledge that come next January, these criminals will be ushered into the dustbin of history. We’d like a little more accountability, but we’ll start with just getting these imperious, greedy cowards the fuck out of our White House.

And, yet, with all that scumbag fatigue, two stories from Wednesday’s news were still enough to spike my blood pressure, and dilate the pupils in my half-open/half-shut eyes.

First was the fourth part of a series called Careless Detention running in the Washington Post. The headline on page A1:

Some Detainees Are Drugged For Deportation
Immigrants Sedated Without Medical Reason

What do they say—timing is everything?

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina who bowed out of the presidential race in January, endorsed Senator Barack Obama at a rally here tonight.

Officials announced the news of Mr. Edwards’s endorsement shortly after Mr. Obama landed here late this afternoon. The campaign timed it to coincide with the start of the major evening newscasts, which would have otherwise focused on Senator Hillary Clinton’s landslide victory in West Virginia, which raised new questions about Mr. Obama’s strength with white working class voters.

Edwards has been out of the race for months, and yet still polled 7% in West Virginia. Doing this today—and in Michigan, no less—is a media coup.

Add to this NARAL’s endorsement of Obama earlier today, and this interesting statement from Senator Clinton, also from earlier today, and you can now see (not the end, not the beginning of the end, but) the end of the beginning.

John Edwards just gave a heck of a speech. In the words of Barack Obama at the same event: “I haven’t been seeing John as much—I forgot how good he is.” If Edwards can move Obama to the left on healthcare and poverty issues in exchange for his help with blue collar and more liberal Democrats, this could be a big win-win.

Your thoughts?

Robert Rauschenberg, one of America’s most prominent and prolific visual artists of the post-war period, died Tuesday. He was 82.

Much is sure to be written in the coming days and weeks about the work, meaning the artistic work, of Rauschenberg—and that attention is much deserved. But there will likely be much less said of his political work, which, though perhaps less transformational than his art, is certainly worthy of some praise, as well.

As the New York Times obituary mentions in passing, Robert Rauschenberg was not only an artist, but also a patron of the arts, an advocate for arts education, and a longtime supporter of (mostly) Democrats and Democratic causes.

In fact, the notice of his death during this political season had me curiously looking about the web for whom Rauschenberg had supported this cycle, and here I found a small surprise. Though Rauschenberg had supported many individuals (along with some PACs) in years past—mostly in his adopted home states of Florida and New York—in 2008, the artist had put his money behind only one candidate: Democrat Scott Kleeb of Nebraska.

And it wasn’t just a little money. Rauschenberg gave the legal maximum to Kleeb—for both the primary and the general.

Scott Kleeb is seeking the Senate seat now held by Republican Chuck Hagel, who is not running for reelection, and yesterday, only handful of hours after Rauschenberg’s death, Kleeb took the first big step, winning the Nebraska Democratic primary over a much older and wealthier (RR’s money notwithstanding) opponent. Kleeb will face former Nebraska Governor and GW Bush Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns in November.

My congratulations go out to Scott Kleeb and his wife Jane Fleming Kleeb—a very exciting victory—but the question of the night for me referenced Rauschenberg. How was it that the eighty-something East Coast artist came to max out for a thirty-something Plains State rancher and college professor?

There really is no limit to how low this pompous little shit will go to satisfy his fragile ego and retarded worldview. Speaking to the BBC in advance of a trip to Middle East, George W. Bush used the recent civil strife in Lebanon to again push his latest crusade (and I do not use that word lightly):

[Bush] said the US was helping the Lebanese army become effective enough to act against Hezbollah's armed wing.

"I don't see how you can have a society with Hezbollah armed up the way they are.

"In this case though, they moved against the Lebanese people, they're not moving against any foreign country, they're moving against the Lebanese people and it should send a signal to everybody that they're a destabilising force."

"The first step of course is to make sure that the Siniora government has got the capacity to respond with a military that's effective," he said.

Hezbollah would be nothing without Iranian backing, he said, adding that Iran was the source of much instability in the Middle East.

First, if the US is helping the Lebanese army the way we’re helping the Iraqi army, or the Pakistani army (or, frankly, our own army), then good luck to them—they’ll need it.

My friends in the blogosphere and I have spent weeks now pointing out just how disastrously similar a John McCain presidency would be to the current administration. Friday’s lead editorial in the New York Times shows that one slice of the establishment media now agrees:

The United States needs a clean break from eight catastrophic years of George W. Bush. And so far, Senator John McCain is shaping up as Bush the Sequel — neverending war in Iraq, tax cuts for the rich while the middle class struggles, courts packed with right-wing activists intent on undoing decades of progress in civil rights, civil liberties and other vital areas.

In a column that mostly focuses on the need for the Clinton and Obama campaigns to begin to come together for the Democratic Conventions and the fall campaign, the Times editorial board makes it clear why it is so important that the supporters of both surviving campaigns turn out for the Democratic nominee this fall in the same record numbers that have momentously marked this long primary season: A vote for McCain is a vote for McSame. Taking your ball and going home—and then staying home on November 4th—is not an option if you care about the future of this country.

Whatever our differences, whatever our problems with either Clinton or Obama (and, readers know, I have had my problems with both), these issues are nothing in the face of another term of Bushian rule.

Really crying on the outside, too.

One line in this AP report caused me to half laugh/half gasp:

A Kuwaiti who had been imprisoned in Guantanamo for more than 3 1/2 years carried out a recent suicide attack in Iraq, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi took part in one of three suicide bomb attacks last month in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, said U.S. Navy Cmdr. Scott Rye, a military spokesman.

. . . .

Al-Ajmi, 29, was transferred in 2005 to Kuwait, where the government was supposed to ensure he would not pose a threat. In May 2006, a Kuwaiti court acquitted him and four other former Guantanamo prisoners of terrorism charges.

. . . .

"It is unknown what motivated him to leave Kuwait and go to Iraq," Rye said. "His family members reportedly were shocked to hear he had conducted a suicide bombing."

“Unknown what motivated him”—really? What could have possibly happened in the last half-dozen years that would turn a man against US interests in the Middle East? Oh, wait, here’s something:

Military documents previously released to AP show that al-Ajmi was "constantly in trouble" while in Guantanamo and held in disciplinary blocks during his detention. He also allegedly told officials in August 2004 that "he now is a jihadist, an enemy combatant, and that he will kill as many Americans as he possibly can."

Tom Wilner, a lawyer who represented Kuwaiti prisoners at Guantanamo, said al-Ajmi had a broken arm during one of their meetings at the base in Cuba and that he alleged he had been injured by guards who interrupted him while he prayed.

Wilner called the alleged suicide attack a "tragedy" that could have been avoided with court hearings for prisoners held at Guantanamo, where the U.S. now holds about 270 men.

"The lack of a process results in tragic mistakes on both sides," the lawyer said.

I’m not sure how Wilner is defining “sides”. . . or “mistake,” for that matter. This just seems like one big, well-rounded tragedy.

From this morning’s New York Times:

Her campaign is deep in debt and believed to be near broke, and her advisers made the unusual move on Tuesday night of refusing to confirm or deny whether Mrs. Clinton had made a loan to her campaign to keep it afloat.

Now here’s why this is really important (beyond the usual questions about being able to compete with Obama on TV ad buys and the like): With Tuesday’s primaries in the books, there are now more publicly uncommitted super-delegates than there are uncommitted pledged delegates. Many of those super-delegates are Democratic officeholders—elected officials, many who themselves must run for reelection this cycle. To the best of my knowledge, there are no rules that prohibit the presidential campaigns from making campaign contributions to the super-delegates.

Yes, you are thinking correctly—in effect, presidential hopefuls can buy the votes of some super-delegates.

This is one of the things I hate most about the super-delegate system—in fact, I hate it far more than any general principle about how all convention delegates should be selected by popular vote (this being a rather thin argument given that every state allocates pledged delegates by slightly different—or sometimes very different—rules).

If Clinton’s campaign has no cash on hand, then it has no money to spread around to the SD camps. I will even go out on a limb and say that if HRC were to loan her campaign money only to have the campaign turn around and donate it to other campaigns, it might raise an FEC eyebrow or two (that is, if we actually had a sitting FEC). Loaning her own money to her campaign to buy delegates, to my mind, just ain’t going to happen.

Of course, by the time you read this, things may have changed. MSNBC is reporting that Clinton has cancelled all appearances for Wednesday—or at least all electronic media appearances. The Times article says that HRC has scheduled a rally in West Virginia for this afternoon.

I have also read that Hillary’s morning e-mail does not have a money ask included. That seems odd, but I can’t say how odd.

All this said, I, no fan of Clinton, would like to see her hold off quitting just yet. The rationale is best explained by Markos:

If Clinton were to drop out this week, we'd face an uncomfortable situation in West Virginia, with Clinton likely crushing Obama. That would look terrible for the presumptive nominee.

Better than that would be to garner enough superdelegate commitments this week, so that Oregon can push Obama past 2,024. That way, it isn't the supers who clinch it for Obama, but actual voters.

Given my and the rank and file’s current misgivings about super-delegates, I like this scenario/idea. However, I’m not sure that Clinton has the stomach—or the cash—to see it through.

Clinton was for economists before she was against them.

As I mentioned yesterday, in the course of pushing her gas-tax holiday, Yale and Wellesley educated anti-elitist Hillary Clinton dismissed economists’ critiques of her plan by saying, “I’m not going to put my lot in with economists.”

Except, of course, when she does. . . .

Take, for example, this February campaign ad touting the Clinton plan for universal health care:

You know it is truly the silliest of silly seasons when journalists get audibly excited (as WNYC’s Brian Lehrer did last week) because they get to take a break from covering Rev. Jeremiah Wright in order to cover what is being called an “actual issue.” I say the silliest of silly because that “issue” is the John McCain/Hillary Clinton proposal for a summertime federal gas-tax “holiday.”

In case you’ve been under a rock (or just too busy watching and re-watching youtubes of Rev. Wright), presumptive Republican presidential nominee John W. McCain proposed suspending the federal tax on a gallon of gasoline (roughly 18 cents) for the summer driving season. Democratic contender Hillary Rodham Clinton quickly added, “me, too!”

The tax “plan” purports to be a response to the financial pain felt by consumers as a result of skyrocketing gasoline prices (up over 50 cents this year alone): the theory being that by cutting 18 cents from the price of a gallon of gas, you save drivers something like $20 or $30 a month. . . and that will—I actually don’t know what it is supposed to do beyond that.

Oh, yeah, buy votes—but more on that in a moment.

It should probably be enough to say of any economic proposal that it was proposed by John McCain, and, therefore, must be ridiculous. But because the Clinton campaign seized on the gimmick as a way of differentiating their candidate from Barack Obama (who has rejected the tax holiday), the point bears reinforcing: A gas-tax holiday is one heck of a bad idea.