Daily Show Video: Obama’s Running Mate
Breaking: Scott McClellan to Appear on Daily Show
Scott McClellan is scheduled to appear on the Daily Show on Monday, June 2nd. He is the former Bush Press Secretary who is now promoting a book detailing everything he says the President did wrong.
Richard Clark, another former, angry Bush Aide will appear on the Daily Show Thursday night.
Video: Former Bush Aide: CIA Leak Turning Point
From the Today Show:
The former Bush administration pitchman making explosive election-year charges about how the White House handled the Valerie Plame case and built the case for invading Iraq said Thursday that he went to Washington to change it and became “disillusioned” when he realized he was just a pawn in the never-ending political game.
“The larger message has been sort of lost in the mix… The White House would prefer I not speak out openly and honestly about my experiences, but I believe there is a larger purpose,” Scott McClellan, the chief spokesman for the White House from 2003-2006, told TODAY co-host Meredith Vieira exclusively during his first interview since snippets from his new memoir hit the Internet on Tuesday.
“I had all this great hope that we were going to come to Washington and change it… Then we got to Washington, and I think we got caught up in playing the Washington game the way it is being played today,” said McClellan, who made only passing references to Bush himself.
McClellan’s candid comments about how administration officials made the case to invade Iraq in March 2003 reverberated throughout the Beltway and immediately became fodder for the two remaining Democratic presidential hopefuls after snippets from his memoir began appearing on the Internet on Tuesday night. McClellan said, however, that it wasn’t until he realized that he may have been led to deliver false information to the media about two senior administration officials’ roles in outing Valerie Plame as a CIA operative that he would someday have to tell his story.
“My hope is that by writing this book and sharing openly and honestly what I learned is that in some small way it might help us move beyond the partisan warfare of the past 15 years. There’s a larger purpose to this book. It’s about looking at the permanent campaign culture in Washington D.C. and how we can move beyond it,” he said.
I’m certainly not one to defend Bush, but this seems a bit naive on McClellan’s part. Everyone wants to go to Washington and change it. They all end up doing the same thing as everyone else before them. We saw this with Obama’s campaign. He started out “above it all” but was soon right down there in the mud with Hillary doing politics as usual. I think he’s caught himself, but I don’t think it will last long, especially not against McCain and Rove.
McCain’s Female Running Mate
Update
DONE DEAL: McCain chooses Palin
It’s been pointed out that the one Republican sitting out there who could really boost McCain to a victory as his Vice President is Sarah Palin. Who? That’s right. Sarah Palin. While everyone has been focusing on the Men in Trees version of McCain’s VP selection (Crist, Romney, etc.), the popular wisdom is now turning to Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
She is pro-life, pro-death penalty, pro-gun rights, anti-gay marriage, and wants to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration. She’s only been governor since 2006, but she’s about ready to shoot to national stardom. The blog authority on her can be found here.
A quick search reveals this about her:
- She’s 44.
- She’s a former television news journalist, beauty queen, and basketball player (apparently winning the state championship).
- And oh, yeah, she’s due to give birth this month.
I don’t know about the other women out there, but I don’t think taking on a national campaign would be the best idea right after giving birth. Palin, however, sounds like the type of “rough frontier woman” who just might do it. From FOX News:
The Republican governor, now in her second year as Alaska’s chief executive, said she does not believe the pregnancy will affect her ability to run the state. Palin has been mentioned as a potential running mate on the Republican presidential ticket.She said her work as Wasilla mayor had only a brief interruption when she had her youngest daughter, Piper, six years ago.
“I had Piper on a Monday and I was back to work on a Tuesday,” Palin said. “I even brought her to work with me.”
I don’t think running Wasilla (a small Alaska city) is as hard as running for the Vice Presidency, but maybe she’s the woman to do it.
h/t: blog reader Ted.
Dems and GOP Compete for Letterman’s Job
The GOP and the Obama campaign are listing all the gaffes each opposing candidate has made. Unfortunately for the GOP, they couldn’t quite come up with 10.
The Dem’s version of the McCain Top Ten Gaffe List:
1. McCain doesn’t even know who is in charge in Iran.
2. Iraq/Iran, Sunni/Shia: McCain doesn’t know the difference.
3. McCain still thinks Czechoslovakia (which split into two countries in 1993) exists.
4. McCain wrongly claimed that Baghdad was mostly normal.
5. McCain called Baghdad market safe.
6. McCain can’t even remember how little he knows about the economy
7. McCain falsely claimed he never requested pork.
8. McCain falsely claimed that tax cuts increased government revenues.
9. McCain’s claim to be untainted by special interest money is false.
10. McCain wrongly claimed he never supported amnesty.
The GOP Top, er, Six Gaffe List:
1. Obama said his uncle liberated Auschwitz when his uncle really liberated Buchenwald.
2. Obama said his parents got together because of the 1965 Selma civil rights march, but Obama was born four years earlier in 1961.
3. Obama said he was fluent in Indonesian when his teachers say he struggled with it.
4. Obama takes all the glory for the fight over asbestos at Altgeld Gardens when really others helped.
5. Nuclear bill Obama claimed to have gotten passed really died in the Senate.
6. Obama Said At Some Point In Fall 2005 He Got A Stockholder Letter. He Said He Believes It Was From AVI Or Skyterra, But He Couldn’t Remember Which Company. Apparently, a letter was never sent.
I think, if I were Letterman, and he’s not really looking for new writers, mind you, I’d go with the Obama campaign. Their list makes sense. It’s short, sweet, and to the point. The GOP is long, rambling and just not funny.
Hey, Hillary! Ever Heard of Teddy Roosevelt?
I wanted to follow up on a notion I suggested in a post about Hillary’s comments on Zimbabwe and how they relate to this election and the decision of the DNC not to seat the delegates. Of course, we all know by now know that there are many flaws in her argument, mostly that she agreed to it and her campaign chair was the mastermind behind the stripping of the delegates.
However, my point is this: if she truly believes she should be the nominee, and the DNC is going to reject it anyway, why doesn’t she run in the general election? I think the answer is obvious: the political fallout from such a move as well as the lack of money that would be made available to her would surely prevent such a candidacy. However, it’s not like it’s never been done before.
In 1912 Teddy Roosevelt lost the Republican nomination to Taft. Teddy pulled all his delegates from the convention, started the Bull Moose party and ran for President. Of course, this just split the Republican vote and allowed Woodrow Wilson to win the Presidency. I guess fans of McCain would say, “Go for it!”
The point is this: if you feel voters would prefer you, don’t allege a conspiracy, don’t compare the race to the outrageous situation in Zimbabwe, simply run for President.
Court Throws out FL Delegate Lawsuit – Fight Could Go To Supreme Court
Didn’t I just watch this on HBO Sunday night? Something called “Recount“?
The second attempt by a Florida man to get all the DNC delegates in Florida seated based on the election results has been thrown out by a federal district court.
Vincent DiMaio had asked a federal court to rule that it was a violation of due process for the DNC to deny Florida its delegates.
In a hearing today on a summary judgment motion, the court granted the motion for the DNC, tossing the suit.
From CNN:
Political consultant Victor DiMaio and his lawyer Michael Steinberg had compared the party’s decision to earlier prohibitions against allowing African-Americans to vote and invoked the trauma of the Florida recount in the 2000 contest between Al Gore and George W. Bush, both arguments also used by Hillary Clinton to support the seating of the state’s delegates.“This is nuts. This is not right. How can they remove Florida after all the things that Florida has suffered through– hanging chads, through Bush v Gore, and they’re sticking it to us again,” DiMaio said before the hearing.
The judge sided with the DNC, upholding case law that’s previously held the DNC is a private organization, one that’s able to set its own rules.
That is important to remember, especially when you hear Hillary asserting that this situation is as terrible as what happened this year in Zimbabwe. The federal government is not the one making the rules about what to do with delegates, nor is it based on the Constitution. These are rules that the DNC required its candidates to follow in order for them to compete in the election.
There is absolutely nothing that would prevent Hillary Clinton from running in November as either an Independent or a member of whatever party she wants to start. Unlike in Zimbabwe, she can still run for office and allow all those voters voices she thinks are being suppressed to be heard.
Daily Show Video: President Bush’s New Word: Awesome
Stewart on President Bush saying the word Awesome is apparently a Presidential word (due to his overuse of it): “It didn’t use to be. Previously it was used primarily to describe, you know, skateboarding, or pizza, or dog on a skateboard eating a pizza.”
Daily Show Video: The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy!
“The Clintons. Simple people who want but one thing: to live peacefully in a country they themselves run.”
“Now it appears the Clinton effort to return to their ancestral home [the White House] has galvanized a new enemy. No, not the American voter who has rejected them by almost all measurable standards and metrics, but – (cut to Bill Clinton saying there’s a frantic effort to get her out because she’s winning the general election and he’s not – and people want to cover it up) – oh, the media and the democratic party are covering up Senator Clinton’s victory! It is a vast left-wing conspiracy! Oh, my God, they’re being attacked by both wings! This conspiracy is bi-wing-wal.”
“The real news here is Bill Clinton believes his wife is winning the general election. Which, as you may know, has not occurred yet. It’s their final appeal to the coveted time-machine demographic.”
“By the way, Bill Clinton was referring to the conspiracy of silence over recent polls showing Hillary fairing better than Barack Obama in a head to head match up against John McCain. The silence amplified by the sound of the conspirators mentioning it, frequently, out-loud, on the television.”
“To go with, as we have been doing, actual voting over hypothetical voting, it is so elitist!”
Lieberman to YouTube: Take Down the Terrorist Videos
Now Homeland Security and Lieberman are taking on You Tube.
Lieberman: “The number one means by which people can become radicalized is the Internet.”
I would think that common sense and decency would tell you that you don’t want to show video of a U.S. Soldier getting shot and killed by a sniper. It just always makes me nervous when the government starts getting into the business of fishing through the Internet to remove “subversive” material.
