"I Refused to Allow a Massacre..."

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Now if he were just talking about the GOP war on America's middle class and workers and the jobless and the seniors and the children's education here in America, too.
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She Wore Brown

Maybe Hillary caught a bit of CBS Sunday Morning's pre-Oscar discussion of movie costuming. The bit about Indiana Jones wearing brown while all the villains wore black. She certainly did borrow the Indy motif with her continued assertion "I am a fighter."

Yes, and ordinarily I'd say if you are a fighter you don't have to tell anyone. They know.

But these are not ordinary times, and thanks to BushCo and the corporate media's American Idol-ized dumbing down of the public discourse, yeah, you do have to do a Mr. Whipple [please don't squeeze...] a bazillion times before it registers in the lizard brains of those asleep.

Plenty of people aren't asleep this time around, and more and more are waking up. Unfortunately for Hillary, Obama's the one waking them.

And let's lose the assertion that media have a pro-Obama bias. Tim Russert's sleazy questioning of Obama regarding Farrakhan was Karl-Rovian in its reach. Prairie wasn't the only one to take notice. As blogger Attaturk over at Firedoglake notes this morning,

After all, Louis Farrakhan is black -- Barack Obama is black -- therefore anything Farrakhan says must be automatically what Obama thinks because apparently to Tim Russert all black men have an intellectual osmosis that links them....

Maybe Michael Kinsley can opine about that one as he did about the NYTimes article on McCain and the lobbyist. Or not. As Digby points out, until we change the Russert culture, nothing's gonna change.

In the meantime, last night, Hillary wore brown, a somber color, not yet mourning, but not the vivid hey look at me colors she's worn on other occasions. She stayed late after the debate, hugging her daughter, then signing autographs, lingering... while Obama signed autographs for a short time but then moved purposefully on.

A sign of the times.

UPDATE: It's official, Georgia Congressman and civil rights era icon John Lewis has changed his superdelegate support from Clinton to Obama. First Dodd, now Lewis...the party greybeards are speaking out.

UPDATE 2: Prairie's own homestate Senator, Byron Dorgan, part of the Senate leadership team, endorses Obama. The true tide of inevitability?

Million Mega-Watt Smile

There's a difference between winners and also-rans. You can accept it with good grace, like George Clooney, acknowledging that Daniel Day Lewis is something in a whole ’nother stratosphere.

As is Tiger Woods to Phil Mickelson. And Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton.

Sportsmanship’s been on display a lot lately, more off the field than on. We’re getting a good education in what makes an iconic figure in a chosen field, be it baseball or golf, politics or film.

It’s not lost on Prairie that the stench of corruption has followed one man from Texas baseball to the “hardball” practiced by the White House team.

If you haven’t yet seen it, check out this 60 Minutes report on the political show trial and prosecution persecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman...now labelled felon sitting in prison.

This is stuff straight out of the old Soviet. Sorry times we’ve come to, indeed.

The man from Texas tells us he’s the decider, the commander in chief, the one lookin’ for those WMD under the desk in the Oval, that he doesn’t have a problem with dictators as long as he gets to be one.

On his watch, under his command: Hugh has a list that’ll knock your eyes out. The Siegelman story is only the latest.

In the meantime, though, give a thought to the power of a smile, and words of hope, and the seasoning to win and win and win again.

And never trust the smile of a man without lips. Nor truth in his heart.

Bringin’ the Heat

On a fridgery-cold winter's morning, nothing heats up Prairie Country like dashing out the door, unplugging the tank heater, and turning the key...and the car starts right up and settles about warming up with a nice purrrrr.

Kinda like that in politics these days. Team Obama brought the heat to Wisconsin—and Hawaii—and roundly trounced Team Clinton. Dominating numbers in a state where Clinton came in near the end trying to stave off just such a scheiss-kickin'. Didn't happen for her.

The game's turning into a rout now. Obama and his team are dancing circles around Clinton. It must be truly frustrating. Whether the metaphor's a horserace or a game of hoops or a cold start on a winter's morning, the truth cannot be denied.

The Obama juggernaut—week by week, primary [and yes, Wisconsin was a primary and Obama won in a landslide] by primary by caucus, delegate by delegate, and dollar by dollar—is pulling further and further ahead. He's got the mo... and the Clinton campaign is slipping back into "no."

It's time for Clinton to graciously acknowledge the tide of history that transcends intraparty politics and even a general election she would not win. It's time for Clinton to not listen to the Mark Penns whispering in her ear as they scuttle to the bank with the beaucoup checks. It's time for Clinton to stand aside for the rising tide.

The global warming that's going on right now is Obama.

Top Dogs

There are winners to celebrate this morning. Top dogs in politics and—who can resist 'em—in dogdom. Uno the beagle won the annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show last night, and hurray for the underdog. Although as the hours of Westminster played out, it was obvious he was the crowd favorite and the media darling. Salut! to Uno.

And sorry, politicians, you play second fiddle today. Maybe because the primary season, as important as those wins are, seems like an avalanche of primaries and caucuses coming at us pell-mell like a runaway train. But a shout-out to Barack Obama and his team today, continuing to pile up impressive wins, this time in the Potomac Primaries. And to Donna Edwards, the upstart candidate who defeated her incumbent opponent. Kudos to the Democrats for rallying stellar numbers of turnout. And yes, even the Republicans have awakened and taken notice and are turning out to vote.

We, the people will be the winners come November if this pattern sustains and the movement for change continues to grow and grow. We need, desperately, to be the winners.

Because there are men and women to be brought home from Iraq. And there must be homes for them to come back to. Healthy homes. This morning on the Imus Show, Senator Chris Dodd soberly discussed the dire state of the housing industry. This isn't just a subprime mess. This isn't just a regional mess, like the California housing bust a few years ago. This is, says Dodd, the worst national housing crisis since the Great Depression.

And its ripple effect is flowing through the entire economy. When a home mortgage is foreclosed, everybody in the neighborhood loses value on their own home. When the subprime market goes bust, even the prime-est of borrowers has a tougher time getting credit.

How did we get here? Seven years of no oversight, no cops on the beat, no guard dogs at the gate, no controls for a runaway pack of predators. Bad lending practices luring in the foolish and the naive. Dodd laid out the grim projection for the housing market that will prevail long after BushCo hightails it back to Texas. We'll be cleaning up his garbage for a long time, and it will be hard work. And in a year or two, don't let the rightwing barkers get away with saying it's not his crap.

So what is government, anyway? Is it dog eat dog? I don't think so. It is the team, working together, covering the Iditarod miles as champions, working at Westminster in spirited competition for best of show.

And showing us in primary after primary that underdogs can win...with a plan and a vision and championship attitude.

Prairie Quibble: Inner Irish

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell has repeated what Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama has noted on occasion. TPM Election Central reports that Rendell said, in a meeting with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s editorial board:

“You’ve got conservative whites here, and I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate.”

Seems to me there's only one answer: Barack must release his inner Irishman sooner rather than later. With a nod to the Black-Irish side of our own Sunshine family, we're ready for O'Bama, and we bet even the most "conservative whites" will be, too, if they take time to listen and refuse to be taken-in by the cynical political game of racial profiling. Unlike Rendell, I don't believe conservative white inherently means red neck.

Prairie Weather: Snow Job

Now that the Super Bowl and the Super Tuesday and even Groundhog Day are over, we can start looking forward to spring and the warming season. But there’s still some rough weather to get through.

Rough weather like the folks in Tennessee and Kentucky and five states altogether felt as lives were uprooted, ended, changed forever by horrific tornadoes. It pays to pay attention to the weather warnings when we have them.

Around Prairie Country, we’re bracing for Alberta Clipper, and the likelihood of a weekend blizzard and high winds and… well, we’ve learned it’s practical to carry “winter survival gear” even in town since Fargo decided to go and get sprawly.

There’s a good bit of Groundhog thinking going on these days. That all we have to do is just wait a year and check whether things will be different. That may work for the Democratic-led Congress, but some of us are a mite bit impatient at that. So on Super Tuesday, the numbers were awesome, the lines long, the voices raised.

No, we didn’t decide on a nominee that day, but we did decide that we’re all taking part.

It was nasty cold around here on Tuesday, but the grin on the face of the 80-something white guy walking out of the caucus site into the sunshine with the Obama sign tucked under his arm was a sight to behold.

Prairie Country’s pretty white around here, and it’s not just the knee-deep snow. But the times they are a-changin’, and we welcome new neighbors from the Himalayan foothills to the survivor camps of Sudan to just about any point on the map you can name.

The welcoming heart, the open door may be because around here most of us are mindful that our grandparents came in waves looking for their own opportunities. And those grandparents didn’t arrive with many fancy goods, but their children taught us well…lessons of history, and lessons of learning.

How to cut through the snow and recognize the snow job. We could use more of that these days.

Seems if you’ve got the biggest megaphone or the loftiest perch, you can catapult the propaganda. Or so it’s been. The times there, too, are a-changin’.

This morning Doris Kearns Goodwin chatted on the Imus Show about her Abe Lincoln book, Team of Rivals. Seems Barack Obama has said that book would be close at hand if he were in the Oval Office.

Lincoln, our greatest of presidents, valued the give-and-take of a leadership team that would challenge him. And lived America’s greatest values thereby. Compared to our current president who seems to value only his gut, his bike, his chainsaw, and his yes men. Or his puppeteers.

The contrast is marked.

There’s another noteworthy contrast, too, in Obama’s response to a question posed to candidates about their greatest flaw. While the other candidates spun an overzealous pushing of a self-perceived strength, Obama’s wry confession that he keeps a messy desk rings true.

So as the weather season and the campaign season move forward, read the weather signs. Think about who’s authentic and who’s giving you just another snow job. Because this time, yes, it really does matter. And one vote, your vote, does matter.

Isn’t there something reassuring that a candidate for president keeps a messy desk…and a copy of a biography of Lincoln and his team?

Instead of a blank desk…and My Pet Goat….

40 Years in the Wilderness

Watching the "I Have a Dream" speech aired in its entirely yesterday on the Imus Show, the resonance of hope and possibilities in the crucible of this year’s political campaign, brought back painful reminders.

Forty years ago, the year Dr. King was assassinated, the year an outsider took on a sitting president of his own party only to be supplanted by an entitlement candidate who was himself assassinated—it’s tempting to say, Nah, we’ve gotten beyond those times.

Sadly, I don’t think so. Last night’s South Carolina debate did nothing to change my mind. Two entitlement candidates—the first woman, the first African-American—while the candidate with the ideas, the candidate with the agenda of economic justice gets short shrift from the media, prodding to quit by the shills with their pundit masks on.

I’ve been thinking that we’re seeing 1968 play out all over again. Hillary = Humphrey. And a bit of a role twist, since Edwards was in there first, but I see him more in the Robert F. Kennedy role, the focused, scrappy fighter. Obama, the elegant academician Gene McCarthy. And we know how that turned out. Nixon, anyone?

[Disclaimer, I worked on the McCarthy campaign as a college kid, I was in LA primary night, I was in Chicago for the convention, and a bunch of primary state pit stops along the way.]

We’re seeing way too much reflection of the past this year. The dividing-up of the Democratic Party by tactics that may give quick wins along the way and cost the national election. There’s still time to correct the course. The disenfranchised want inclusiveness, not niching…not who’s in, who’s out. That can happen in groups as small as a handful or as big as a political party or nation. And this time, we need to get it right.

The cynical Republican race-baiting and stirring of old divisions and distrusts is already in play. Likely-looking nominee John McCain spends MLK Day in Alabama in a dandy moment of “who me? nah, I’m a good ol’ boy” wink-wink-nod-nod. The Clinton campaign is pushing The Restoration, the Golden Years of Bubba, fudging the line of just who would be the president. Seems more like The Atonement to me.

The president who promised to be a uniter not a divider has managed to unite all the Republicans…they don’t want to mention his name at all. Meanwhile, the Fed cuts interest rates ¾ point this morning…how’s that workin’ out for your retirement, Grandma? And Life after People on the History Channel seems the more likely scenario for the aftermath of BushCo’s saber-rattling than his fairytale of a blissfully Peter Pan-ish centerpiece of democracy.

As the tectonic plates of the Democratic Party shift and quake, those of strong constitution need to keep their resolve intact. Change is never easy, and this year is one that promises change…or being sucked back down into the familiarity of the status quo. Fear of the unknown—will it trump the hope, the desire, the demand for change? That’s up to every individual. The choices are out there…even if you have to wade through the fog of the media’s best efforts to make this a boxing match, a horserace, a triviality of personalities instead of a reasoned examination of critical issues.

An epic battle, Edwards calls it. Not a one of us should cut and run.

Because once the primaries and convention are over, we will learn if this is No Country for Old Men.

There’s an epic battle getting to Election Day, never mind the challenges that await the new president.

One thing I expect: There Will Be Blood.

Culling the Heard

Decisions are being made today, undecideds are finally deciding on someone. The first vote tallies are in from Dixville Notch, and Obama scores as many votes single-handedly as all the Republicans combined.

As the day unfolds, exit polls, pundits — the “experts” — will tell us what it all means. Or not.

We’re seeing a paradigm shift these days. There are all kinds of metaphors for what’s happening.

My personal favorite just because of the divine justice of it, post-Katrina, is that the Republican party is quaking and shuddering and slumping away like a levee hit by the rising Democratic tide. Their feats of clay aren’t made for walkin’ any more…

So maybe Tsunami Tuesday coming up on February 5 takes on a whole ’nother meaning.

There are some other decisions being made in the culture as well.

Last night we tuned in the Daily Show and Colbert Report. Not before trying to find out whether they were right with the WGA. And you know, there’s been about as much of a clampdown on that conversation as the mainstream media’s clampdown on coverage of presidential candidate John Edwards. Whazzup with that?

We ran across one little dustup over at Crooks and Liars down in a Huckabee thread…check it out for yourself, starting at comment 56. Some hot feelings. Where’s there’s fire, there’s smoke?

So today, New Hampshire gets its moment in the spotlight and then the swarm moves on to Nevada and South Carolina. Around here, we’ve already decided. For Edwards Before Iowa.

And Comedy Central’s stars and soon Bill Maher and already Letterman and Leno and Ferguson and Kimmel and…well, the vote’s not totally in. But in our household, by bedtime last night, regarding the Stewart/Colbert return, we’d decided we’re “ambivalent.”