“Not to be outdone by his potential opponent for Congress in 2010, Rob Miller, who has raised more than $350,000 since Wilson’s now infamous “You Lie” outburst, the congressman has a new video in which he explains his behavior and then goes on to ask for… campaign cash.”

But, E.J. Dionne makes the convincing case that the Supreme Court’s decision to hear arguments a second time for the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is truly the more important of the two events. 

“Even the word “radical” does not capture the extent to which the justices could turn our political system upside down. Will it use a case originally brought on a narrow issue to bring our politics back to the corruption of the Gilded Age?,” he writes. 

If you thought politics were corrupt before, with corporations weilding too much influence in the American political arena, the Roberts Court has a chance to really open the flood gates and let corporations run wild.  Scary indeed.

I wanted to create something to look at a couple years from now to remember the election and hopefully present a good representation of what both sides of America were feeling on that day as evidenced by the response in the press and on the blogs. I didn’t capture everything, though I’ve certainly tried. I want to consume all of this information, have it put on a microchip in my brain. Until that’s possible, I just read a lot. I don’t know how many of these links will work in a year or 5 years, (when this doc might be helpful to show younger people who may not have ever remembered having a president who isn’t black), but here’s what I’ve got.

“Included are lots of videos, links to articles, reactions from the author’s friends, and even Facebook status messages as the election results rolled in, covering a nice cross-section of citizens from top politicians to the big media, to blogs, to normal people celebrating on the streets. However, I have a feeling that due to linkrot, much of this may not even be available online,” so says Jason Kottke.

Which will probably be true in a year or five years time.  But you can’t blame Matt for trying to put something like this together.

The Big Picture also has some amazing photos of Obama on the campaign trail.  It’s hard not to crystalize that night, that singular moment in time for what it was.  I hope that feeling is not forgotten soon, because unlike dead rockstars, Obama actually has to deliver.  That is, he’s become the inverse of dead rockstars.  We mythologize Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, et. al. because they never had the opportunity to suck. The same goes for JFK and his brother RFK.

The easy part for Obama is over.  He’s won; his “now what moment” a la Dustin Hoffman at the end of The Graduate has already occurred, or if it hasn’t then he has very little time to actually have that kind of moment.  The only downside to giving people hope and running on a campaign of positive change is that there is the pressure to actually deliver it.  Most historians wouldn’t revere James K. Polk if he hadn’t accomplished what he said he would during his one and only term as US President.  That is the reality Obama is facing.

Will everyone who supported Obama still be dreamy-eyed if he doesn’t deliver the change we need and want?  And furthermore how is he going to drown out the buzz of advice from know-it-alls like Al Gore on climate change, Mark Cuban on entrepreneurs, or the American food policy.  It’s probably not the end of people trying to advise him as he ushers America into the promise of it’s fourth republic.

Anyway, once Jesse Jackson started crying and then Oprah, the floodgates opened.  For real.   It was like the great flood when he promised his two daughters a new puppy.

Damn you Obama for going the new puppy route!  And forcing me to hide my man tears in front of so many people.

The truth is though, the stories that fascinate me the most about politics are not the end results, it is not Wil.I.Am appearing R2D2 holograph style on CNN, or the long protracted ballot recounts or whether John McCain blinks too much.

No, rather what interests me are the long form stories, the anecdotes, the setbacks, the frustrations, the triumphs and the chess-like gambits that are revealed afterward.  It’s the stories of Obama not wanting to run for President because he was worried about the effects on his daughters and wife or how an honorable man like John McCain ended so off course until he redeemed himself with a gracious concession speech.

Many times journalists get embedded with a campaign, but they’re under embargo to write anything until after the election.  And it is when the election is over that the good stuff comes out.  You can see it now with Sarah Palin.

I’m still looking for confirmation on whether or not Sarah Palin thought Africa was a country, but it’s interesting to see how the GOP instantly decided to throw her under the bus for their election night thumping.

More stories like this will come out, but to tide us over until then, Newsweek has launched a seven-part series by a group of writers covering John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.  It is the closest to a must read we have post-election.  Six parts have been posted.

Part One: How Obama decided to run for President and beat the long odds.

In some ways, running for president was a preposterous idea for someone who had served as a two-term state legislator and had spent only two years in the United States Senate. But Obama, a careful student of his own unique journey, could see the stars coming into alignment—the country was exhausted by the Iraq War (which he, alone among leading candidates, had opposed as “dumb” from the outset). As Obama saw it, the conservative tide in America was ebbing, and voters were turning away from the Republican Party. People were sick of politicians of the standard variety and yearned for someone new—truly new and different. Another politician with a superb sense of timing, Bill Clinton, perfectly understood why Obama saw a golden, possibly once-in-a-lifetime, opportunity. The former president believed that the mainstream press, whose liberal guilt Clinton understood and had exploited from time to time, would act as Obama’s personal chauffeur on the long journey ahead. “If somebody pulled up a Rolls-Royce to me and said, ‘Get in’,” Clinton liked to say, with admiration and maybe a little envy, “I’d get in it, too.”

Barack Obama can be cocky about his star power. On the eve of his speech to the Democratic convention in 2004, the speech that effectively launched him as the party’s hope of the future, he took a walk down a street in Boston with his friend Marty Nesbitt. A growing crowd followed them. “Man, you’re like a rock star,” Nesbitt said to Obama. “He looked at me,” Nesbitt recalled in a story he liked to tell reporters, “and said, ‘Marty, you think it’s bad today, wait until tomorrow.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ And he said, ‘My speech is pretty good’.”

Part Two: The comeback narrative of John McCain

McCain was never comfortable playing the front runner. His comment when he first walked through headquarters was “It’s awfully big.” McCain was ill suited to be the establishment’s man. He was suspect to the true believers on the right, the Rush Limbaugh “dittoheads” who regarded him as a RINO (Republican in Name Only). While the Republican right wanted to build a wall and keep out all the immigrants, McCain was trying to forge a compromise—with Ted Kennedy, no less. The party stalwarts had reason to be doubtful about McCain, who could be salty in his private denunciations. To a couple of his closest advisers he grumbled, “What the f––– would I want to lead this party for?” [...]

Along about Thanksgiving, reporters began to notice a change. The size of the crowds was increasing, and McCain began to creep up in the polls, especially in New Hampshire. He was blessed by the quality of his opponents. In the grim days of summer, when a NEWSWEEK reporter had asked why he shouldn’t join the rest of the press corps in reading the last rites for McCain’s presidential aspirations, Rick Davis had responded with an incongruously cheerful smile. Nothing personal, he said; our opponents are all good men, some of them are my friends-but politically speaking? “Look, at the end of the day,” he said, “the rest of these guys suck.” However crude, his judgment was not off base. Ex-businessman Mitt Romney seemed to treat the campaign as a management-consulting project, as if he were selling a product and trying to increase market share. He had no fingertips as a politician and came off as a phony, even when he was perfectly sincere. Rudy Giuliani seemed to be building a cult of Rudy, constantly talking about his performance on 9/11 to a nation that wanted to forget about the terrorist attacks, and he badly miscalculated by believing that he could wait until the Florida primary in late January to make his move. Former senator Fred Thompson seemed old and half asleep. Former governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas was emerging as an engaging showman and a lively dark horse-but as an evangelical minister with no foreign-policy experience, he almost certainly could not win.

They’ve posted six out of seven parts and though it’s a long read by internet standards, if you’re a political junkie and wondering “what now?” I would suggest you read up.  Part 3 (Clinton-Obama Siege), Part 4 (McCain retools to take down Obama), Part 5 (Obama sweats the Clintons, McCain gambles on Palin) and Part 6 (the great debates on the eve of the election).

I couldn’t sleep last night, it was like being a kid on Christmas Eve.  The past two years has all led up to today and for the first time in my life, I really feel like this election outcome matters.  And you want to know why I’m feeling pretty good?

Because the Washington Redskins lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers last night on Monday Night Football.

Since 1936, the last Redskins home game before an election has oddly predicted the outcome of the election. Yes, like Puxatawnee Phil has predicted the length of winter in Eastern Pennsylvania.

Here’s how it works: If the Redskins win their home game then the party occupying the White House wins the election; if the Redskins lose their game it means the party not occupying the White House will win the election.

What that means for superstitious liberals and crazy-ass Red Sox fans is that last night’s 23-6 loss by the Redskins at home essentially has wrapped up the election for the Senator from Illinois.  I’m glad that’s what it took for me to feel good about tonight.

Anyway, in perusing their site I came across an article by Jonathan Curley, a southern conservative banker who voted for the Bush family three times in the last two decades.  As he describes himself it’s clear that he is not exactly Sen. Barack Obama’s target voter and yet, at his wife’s insistence he spent a Sunday afternoon canvassing for the Illinois Senator.  Here is what he learned:

I learned in just those three hours that this election is not about what we think of as the “big things.”

It’s not about taxes. I’m pretty sure mine are going to go up no matter who is elected.

It’s not about foreign policy. I think we’ll figure out a way to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan no matter which party controls the White House, mostly because the people who live there don’t want us there anymore.

I don’t see either of the candidates as having all the answers.

I’ve learned that this election is about the heart of America. It’s about the young people who are losing hope and the old people who have been forgotten. It’s about those who have worked all their lives and never fully realized the promise of America, but see that promise for their grandchildren in Barack Obama. The poor see a chance, when they often have few. I saw hope in the eyes and faces in those doorways.

My wife and I went out last weekend to knock on more doors. But this time, not because it was her idea. I don’t know what it’s going to do for the Obama campaign, but it’s doing a lot for me.

And that is why, more than anything else, why I voted for Obama.  Not because I’ve drank the Kool-Aid, as so many derisively say.  But because when it comes down to it voting for McCain is like deciding to leave your car in neutral.  The country is probably going to idle for another four years.  Sure, you might roll down the hill at some point, but chances are you’re more likely to just stay in place.  At least with Obama it’s like putting the car in drive – sure you may crash at some point, but you’ve got to take the shot.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Also to think about: Obama spoke before 100,000 plus in Denver on Sunday and figured he had so much money in the bank he decided to purchase advertising on the side of the Straight Talk Express. Ouch! (and yes, I’m aware that last one is from The Onion but it still made me laugh)

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Here’s a decent interview with the director on how the video above fell into place.

Seriously?  Does he even know what he’s saying?  As David Sedaris would say, “I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. ‘Can I interest you in the chicken?’ she asks. ‘Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?’

“To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.

“I mean, really, what’s to be confused about?”

Unless of course, you’re John McCain and the whole thing seems confusing.  It’s almost like the cogs in his brain need a wee bit of WD-40 or maybe just slather them with grease because those things are starting to get gummed up.

And it was!  Last night Letterman good naturedly ribs McCain.  It’s awkward and funny!  McCain shows off his humor with weird jokes about his POW days, Denny’s Grandslam breakfast and then has the tables turned on him regarding the William Ayers issue. Oh snap!

Nevertheless, John McCain still ends up looking like Skeletor and I secretly suspect that that is the reason why no one wants to vote for him.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It says it all.  (Even more so than the ignorant supporters turning up at Palin’s rallies.)  Perfect, succinct, clear, simple and expressive.  Nope. No thanks, come again at some other time.  We don’t want you, we don’t need you, we think you’re pretty useless.  Maybe nope will become the new FAIL, which has already worn its course.

You’ve done the city proud Willamette Week and for that we salute you.

Here’s the original exchange between Senator Obama and Joe the Plumber, which prompted many of the exchanges last night.  Also, Obama is a Miles Davis cucumber.  Cool as cool can be.  Never once got rattled and deftly handled the Bill Ayers/ACORN landmines.

Click here to view the embedded video.

New York Magazine did a profile of Silver, and the most interesting aspect of the article, besides the little details about his life (online poker player making six-figures! loves burritos! seems a bit restless!) is the nuts and bolts of his sabermetric analysis applied to political polls.

Meanwhile, even as his primary model attracted attention, Silver was cooking up another idea. He figured there must be a better way to use the daily tracking polls to predict a candidate’s future, just as he’d once found a better way to use baseball stats to predict how many home runs a player might hit. His simple goal, as he explained on Daily Kos in late February, was to “assess state-by-state general-election polls in a probabilistic manner.” In other words, he wanted to find a way to use all those occasionally erratic, occasionally unreliable, occasionally misleading polls to tell him who would win the election in November, which at that point was over 250 days away.

It’s a tough business, being an oracle. Everyone cheers when you hit a bull’s-eye, but no one’s arrows fly true all the time. “Sometimes being more accurate means you’re getting things right 52 percent of the time instead of 50,” says Silver. “PECOTA is the most accurate projection system in baseball, but it’s the most accurate by half a percent.” That half-percent, though, makes all the difference. Silver’s work, in both baseball and politics, is about finding that slim advantage. “I hate the first 90 percent [of a solution],” he says. “What I want is that last 10 percent.”

Silver and his site (along with Sean Quinn) has become a life raft in a sea of partisan talking heads.  Over the past year, Silver has grown from a stats hound into an astute political commentator who remains above the fray despite being an unabashed Democrat.  His is the only political site that has felt necessary this election season.

Also, currently Silver has Obama at 94.9% chance to win the election currently racking up an astounding 359.8 electoral votes.  Though we’ll have to wait until November 4 to find out if he’s been right all along.

Just looking through their gallery you notice that both Barack Obama and John McCain’s names were mentioned quite a bit; Republicans loved to mention country and America, though POW was notably absent. �As for Democrats they seemed like like future, hope, and promise; surprisingly change was not prominent. �Again, neith of these facts are that surprising, given the campaigns they’ve built. �But it’s interesting nonetheless. �

Barack Obama

John McCain

Wordle is an online application created by IBM’s senior software engineer�Jonathan Feinberg. Using text entered by its users, it creates visually appealing “word clouds” that show you the frequency at which words occur within that text. The more often a word occurs, the bigger it appears in the cloud.

Wired has word clouds for all the major speeches including Joe Biden, Sarah Palin, and others.

Curiously, it wasn’t Obama and the Democrats raising these issues, they couldn’t even if they wanted to simply because of the campaign they have constructed.� You can’t very well attack the character of a female Vice Presidential candidate when your campaign is based on changing the usual politics.� So, Obama largely stayed above the shit river because the last thing he can afford to do is turn this election into a debate over cultural values/issues and Palin tackles the rumors head on and ends up looking the better for it.

Everybody wins.� Except for the media who now have nothing worth investigating otherwise looking vindictive or leftist or worse beating up on a female.� And also Palin’s 16-year-old daughter Bristol.� She might have needed something more than abstinence only education.� After all, it’s no secret that teenagers will continue to bang have sex no matter how many times you tell them no.� Doesn’t matter if you come from the poorest of families or the richest, come from neglected parents or the most overprotected.� Kids will sexual experiment and truly the only way to prevent pregnancies during teenage years is to ah, use birth control of some sort.� The whole pull out method is probably not the best solution to avoiding pregnancy.

So where does this leave us?� Well, the Republican Convention is being overshadowed by a downgraded Hurrican Gustav (hopefully the levees hold even at a Category 2 storm) and it’s back to campaigning as usual.� This won’t truly heat up until the debates.

In the meantime, McCain may actually want to take a page from Obama and focus on the issues at hand instead of harping about how popular Obama is.� Things like energy security, the economy, foreign policy, etc.� Things voters actually care about.

Full statement from Sarah Palin:

“We have been blessed with five wonderful children who we love with all our heart and mean everything to us. Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We�re proud of Bristol�s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support.

“Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family. We ask the media to respect our daughter and Levi�s privacy as has always been the tradition of children of candidates.”

A politician and a wonk.

From the WaPo:

Only a day earlier, when there was some unease among Clinton’s associates about whether he was being straitjacketed in what he could say in his speech, Obama tried to defuse the situation by saying Clinton could say whatever he wanted. Good call, as it turned out. Perhaps not even Obama himself could have conjured up an oration so powerful on his behalf. Not only did Clinton utter the words “Barack Obama” 15 times, they came in his first sentence and his last, and there were long riffs about the candidate in between.

At the start of the speech, Clinton joked that it seemed unfair that he had to follow the previous night’s address by his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who many believed had delivered the most flowing and soulful speech of her failed campaign. Fat chance. Clinton is always competitive, even in some ways with his wife, and the praise she received seemed almost to prod him to find ways to top her.

Why isn’t there video of this?� C’mon people with cellphone cameras and Flip Video Recorders?� When P. Diddy goes bowling does he drink PBRs like everyone else in Wisconsin or does he drink Crystal?

Click here to view the embedded video.

How about those speaches last night though?� Shit, Hillary was good and Mark Warner was okay as the keynote and Brian Schweitzer brought a certain yee-haw rowdiness to the Democratic party (god he sounds exactly like a happy Lewis Black).� Though the best zingers of the night belonged to Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D-PA) and Ohio Governor Ted Strickland.

Casey, and I’m paraphrasing here, said “McCain calls himself a maverick but he’s voted with President Bush over 95% of the time.� That’s not a maverick, that’s a sidekick.”

And Strickland, who seemed nervous and not a polished speaker, stumbled through his speech only to deliver this bon mot: “It was said the first President Bush was born on third base and he thought hit a triple.� Well after the prosperity of the Clinton administration, the second President Bush started his presidency on third base and ended up stealing second.”

What’s funny is you can tell which Democrat Governors come from predominantly Republican states in the way they speak.� Strickland spoke using baseball metaphors, which while seeming hokey certainly resonated not only with me, a baseball nutso, but I’m also guessing a large portion of people.� Yeah Obama’s a great orator, but he comes off as unrelatable (don’t shoot me!) at times.� You would never hear him use a good zinger to deliver a point or baseball metaphors while speaking.

I’m curious what Bill Clinton and Joe Biden do tonight, but from the speeches last night it’s clear there are three themes that are getting lobbed to Obama for the alley oop: we can’t afford four more years of the same policies, challenging the American people to rise up and meet the problems of the country and McCain is not a maverick.

But seriously, Pete Wentz and P. Diddy are bowling partners.� What do you think their bowling team name is?

Also, I can’t help but think that if this were an Obama ad it would be great. John McCain is reeeeeeaaaally old.

Her energy policy is a little suspect, but still. Harumph.

We’ll see you at the debates bitches, which according to the WSJ left ABC out of the loop entirely (thank god after Charlie Gibson’s and George Stephanopoulos’s performance in the Dem debates sucked, no other way to put it) and favored veteran news journos over tv pundits. Not sure if there is a difference, per say, but we’ll see.

PBS anchors Jim Lehrer and Gwen Ifill will moderate one debate each, with Mr. Lehrer hosting the first presidential debate Sept. 26 at the University of Mississippi, and Ms. Ifill hosting the vice-presidential debate Oct. 2 at Washington University in St. Louis.

Former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw will moderate the second presidential debate, Oct. 7 at Belmont University in Tennessee, and CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer will moderate the final debate Oct. 15 at Hofstra University in New York.

I actually like there choice of moderators. Lehrer might be the last great television news journalist left and Gwen Ifil is his right-hand woman. We’ll see about Brokaw and Schieffer, but I think they’ll do just fine.

Obama is getting showered with love from the people (even if he’s not as popular as Britney or Paris), not necessarily the media, and McCain can’t stand it. It also doesn’t help that Obama has largely ignored McCain on the campaign. He acts as if McCain is inconsequential to his march to the White House. Nothing more than a pesky mosquito, who only needs to be dealt with when said mosquito annoying tries to suck some blood.

Obama, by largely ignoring McCain, is in his head.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ultimately, you’ve got to wonder if the notion of Obama’s “youth” and “inexperience” are actually holding weight for people. He’s older than Bill Clinton when they both ran for the White House and JFK only served one term in the Senate as well. The thing is, I’m not sure that age and experience are factors that determine who makes a good president.

Afterall, while John McCain was a NAVY POW in Vietnam, graduated at the bottom of his class, doesn’t know anything about the internet, is staunchly anti-reproductive rights, seems to get confused on the campaign trail, is older than dirt and has served a lifetime in the Senate, I couldn’t tell you a single accomplishment he has had, except the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Bill, um, which he’s broken this year. Also, he didn’t vote to make Martin Luther King Day a national holiday several times during the 80’s.

Just thought I’d point that out. So in a sense, what exactly makes John McCain a qualified candidate for president? Why is no asking this question, when they seem so ready to ask it of Obama.

Is there such a thing as a Commander-In-Chief test that Obama hasn’t passed? Look, I’m not an Obama acolyte, I’d be this excited to vote for Clinton if she had won the nomination, it just seems that there is an inherent racism going on.

If Obama were entirely white (you know because he’s not entirely black coming from a mixed racial background) would people be asking these questions of him? No, they would probably championing his credentials in the same ways they praised Clinton or JFK.

One commenter on Hollywood-Elsewhere put it best: “yet the guy who graduated from the top of his class, was a law professor, a community organizer, a state senator and headed up Harvard Law review and wrote two books (no ghost writer) is not smart enough/fit to be president?

“I’m not someone who scream racism all the time but hello contrary to what Geraldine Ferraro says if Barack were white his “inexperience” and age would be a non-issue. He is older than clinton was when he ran. JKF and Edwards both served only term before they ran.

“I think some people can’t believe that this “uppity negro” beat the clinton machine “how dare he!” and might actually become president.”

That’s what this comes down to. Whether we admit it or not racism is playing a huge problem on this campaign.

It’s understandable that John McCain wouldn’t use a computer, but when he admitted he didn’t know how to use one, well, shit.� That’s just confounding.� My grandma uses a computer regularly to check email, surf the internet, play scrabble, etc.

She’s not alone:

How unusual is it for a 71-year-old American to be unplugged?

That depends how you look at the statistics. Only 35 percent of Americans over age 65 are online, according to data from April and May compiled by the Pew Internet Project at the Pew Research Center.

But when you account for factors like race, wealth and education, the picture changes dramatically. “About three-quarters of white, college-educated men age over 65 use the Internet,” says Susannah Fox, director of the project.

“John McCain is an outlier when you compare him to his peers,” Fox says. “On one hand, a U.S. senator has access to information sources and staff assistance that most people do not. On the other, the Internet has become such a go-to resource that it’s a curiosity to hear that someone doesn’t rely on it the way most Americans do.”

But the best part, and I’m not making this up, comes a bit further down in the article.� “”He’s fully capable of browsing the Internet and checking Web sites,” Brooke Buchanan, McCain’s spokewoman said. “He has a Mac and uses it several times a week. He’s working on becoming more familiar with the Internet.”

Ah, let’s get him a cookie and some milk and pat him on the head before putting him down for a nap.� You’re so cute, yes you are.� Yes you are.� You can check websites!

Actually, that’s about all I use the internet for.� Well, that and porn and stealing music so you know.� We have that in common.

It isn’t of course.� But politics is as much about symbolism and knee-jerk reactions and being slippery enough to not get caught and ultimately to convince other people that you represent their hopes and dreams and the safety of their children and Obama does all of this better than most.� In many ways, Obama has become a symbol himself, ceasing to be an actual person.

Much of that is his own doing, but a lot of that is the doing of his passionate supporters and that Shep Fairey “Obama Hope” poster that is itself like propaganda.

So if people think a politician’s patriotism is inversely proportionate to the pin they wear, then what would be an appropriate pin for Obama?

Heller got a slurry of opinions, some good, some bad, some comically outlandish. The one we liked best came from Tamara Shopshin, who created an Abe Lincoln pin seen above.

�The flag pin has for the time lost its meaning because it has become part of a politician�s uniform,� she says. For her, Lincoln represents America at its best.

Other ideas suggested included wearing many pins, a la Jennifer Aniston in Office Space so Obama could show his “flare” for America; ripping off the lapels of his jacket so he doesn’t have to wear a pin; creating a series of Obama pins that would become the new American Flag pin; and, one even suggested created a scary Bald Eagle necklace so it would look like the bird was flying out of Obama’s chest. [via]

By now you’ve all likely heard the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s hilarious and scathing comments about Sen. Barack Obama.� If not, they go a little something like this:

“Barack’s been talking down to black people … I want to cut his nuts off.”

Is it true?� Has Obama been talking down to black people?� I don’t know nor care; the second Hillary dropped out of the race, my attention dropped into my sneakers.

But Obama himself was not offended by the remarks, so why should anyone care at all?� If the target of the barb does not give a pigeon shit, no one else should either.

Therefore, Jackson’s apology is meaningless, just another penny in the well of our apology-obsessed culture, where apparently no one can say anything with even the slightest twinge of humor without getting cameras shoved in their faces and asked why they’re such demons.

And it’s funny.� Lighten up, people.

Said Haysbert, to whomever would listen, “If anything, my portrayal of David Palmer, I think, may have helped open the eyes of the American people. And I mean the American people from across the board — from the poorest to the richest, every color and creed, every religious base — to prove the possibility there could be an African-American president, a female president, any type of president that puts the people first.” Meanwhile, Keifer Sutherland scoffed, and was forced to remind the actor that 24 is a television show by torturing him with a ball-peen hammer.

It has to be said that Barack Obama missed the third most votes in the Senate.� The guy who came in second?� That would be South Dakota Democrat Tim Johnson, who didn’t work for a year after suffering a brain hemorrhage in 2006.

I know that both McCain and Obama have to be out campaigning and whatnot.� But is it really difficult to fly back to Washington for a night or two, vote and then get back on the campaign trail?� Representative democracy only works if our representatives are actually voting.

Inspiring.

It’s easier to avoid getting attacked on an issue if you didn’t actually vote on it. That way, you can tailor your position in a way that might be more politically acceptable than the actual bill was. Because of this, Obama will probably continue to miss fewer votes than McCain — Democrats control the Senate’s agenda and can protect Obama from having to vote on potentially controversial legislation.

Nice to see Al Gore climb out of his cave and hike up his boots for Obama. Though we’re guessing if Sen. Clinton won the nomination he would have endorsed her as well. Seems a bit, I don’t know. Cowardly isn’t the word and maybe his reluctance to get involved until the general election was intentional.

Either way Al Gore has endorsed Sen. Obama in a speech in Detroit, Mich. So now that’s two major endorsements that have taken place in Michigan. Anyone wonder if this will be a heavily contested state? It’s obvious that Sen. Obama is pushing hard there.

We’ll update once we get some video.

Press release after the jump.

Dear Friend,

A few hours from now I will step on stage in Detroit, Michigan to announce my support for Senator Barack Obama. From now through Election Day, I intend to do whatever I can to make sure he is elected President of the United States.

Over the next four years, we are going to face many difficult challenges — including bringing our troops home from Iraq, fixing our economy, and solving the climate crisis. Barack Obama is clearly the candidate best able to solve these problems and bring change to America.

This moment and this election are too important to let pass without taking action.

That’s why I am asking you to join me in showing your support by making a contribution to this campaign today:

https://donate.barackobama.com/…

Over the past 18 months, Barack Obama has united a movement. He knows change does not come from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or Capitol Hill. It begins when people stand up and take action.

With the help of millions of supporters like you, Barack Obama will bring the change we so desperately need in order to solve our country’s most pressing problems.

If you’ve already contributed to this campaign, I ask that you consider making another contribution right now. If you haven’t, please take the next step and own a piece of this campaign today:

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Even if you aren’t into politics this is a good primer to catch up on the hootenanny of the past year and wet your lips to looking ahead to November.

But Sen. Clinton refused to accept the obvious and go quietly into the night. From Maureen Dowd:

Barry has been trying to shake off Hillary and pivot for quite a long time now, but she has managed to keep her teeth in his ankle and raise serious doubts about his potency. Getting dragged across the finish line Tuesday night by Democrats who had had enough of the rapacious Clintons, who had decided, if it came to it, that they would rather lose with Obama than win with Hillary, the Illinois senator tried to celebrate at the St. Paul arena where Republicans will anoint John McCain in September.

But even as Obama was trying to savor, Hillary was refusing to sever. Ignoring the attempts of Obama and his surrogates to graciously say how �extraordinary� she was as they showed her the exit, she and a self-pitying Bill continued to pull focus. Outside Baruch College, where she was to speak, her fierce feminist supporters screamed �Denver! Denver! Denver!�

Even as Obama got ready to come out on stage for his victory party, the Clinton campaign announced that it had won a Wyoming superdelegate and Terry McAuliffe introduced her at Baruch as �the next president of the United States.� She gave a brief nod to Obama without conceding that he was the nominee before rushing through a variation on her stump speech. She clung to her fuzzy math about winning the popular vote, and in one last fudge she said: �Thanks so much to South Dakota. You had the last word� � even though the Montana polls still had 25 minutes to go.

And so, we are left to wonder why Sen. Clinton is staying in the race. To pay off her $20 million in debt or angle for the Vice Presidency or to create enough dissonance that Obama and the Democrats lose in November so she can smugly say “I told you so” on the crest of 2012?

It might be all of those, but I think it’s something everyone can relate to. When you come so tantalizing close to something you’ve been working towards and dreaming about your entire life it’s a difficult thing to throw in the towel and just call it quits. And though some people might be harboring ill will towards Sen. Clinton for that, on one level that sort of devotion is admirable.

Still, according to Halfricanrevolution, the piece still doesn’t go into the history of coal mining.

“After emancipation, coal mining companies sought an advantage over unions by hiring former slaves as scabs since, the unions were racist, wouldn’t allow blacks as members. The companies didn’t have to fulfill many obligations to this new, unorganized labor force, and a lot of white miners lost their jobs. So it actually makes sense that people would see race relations as a question of pure exploitation; with one side dominating the other. That’s the history of the region.

Exploiting racial tensions helped the coal companies make a buck. And that story was repeated in urban and rural areas all over the country for years. So who exactly benefited from all this racial tension? It wasn’t coal miners or factory workers.”

Click here to view the embedded video.