WTF??

Huckabee’s bizarre comments to NRA members defy understanding. The 10-minute front-runner in this year’s Republican presidential contest went a long way with these words toward reassuring evangelicals reluctant to support John McCain that the old guy is probably their best Republican option after all.

“That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he’s getting ready to speak. Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor.”

Several things jump out at you as you watch the video. First, how did he pop that out so fast? It was like he was waiting to say it. No pause, no hesitation. Did he put someone up to making the noise just so he could say this?

Second, how is this funny? What’s the joke here? “Somebody aimed a gun at him?” Does Huckabee realize how much danger Obama is in every second of every day in a country with gun nuts (a huge crowd of whom he was addressing) and religious wackos and racists? The Obama campaign met with the ugliest racism yet in the recent contests in Indiana and Pennsylvania, according to campaign workers.

Here’s the worst: In Muncie, a factory town in the east-central part of Indiana, Ross and her cohorts were soliciting support for Obama at malls, on street corners and in a Wal-Mart parking lot, and they ran into “a horrible response,” as Ross put it, a level of anti-black sentiment that none of them had anticipated.

“The first person I encountered was like, ‘I’ll never vote for a black person,’ ” recalled Ross, who is white and just turned 20. “People just weren’t receptive.”

For all the hope and excitement Obama’s candidacy is generating, some of his field workers, phone-bank volunteers and campaign surrogates are encountering a raw racism and hostility that have gone largely unnoticed — and unreported — this election season. Doors have been slammed in their faces. They’ve been called racially derogatory names (including the white volunteers). And they’ve endured malicious rants and ugly stereotyping from people who can’t fathom that the senator from Illinois could become the first African American president…

Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: “It wasn’t pretty.” She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn’t possibly vote for Obama and concluded: “Hang that darky from a tree!”

And Huckabee thinks “Somebody aimed a gun at him” is funny?

Third, it’s almost surrealistic how Huckabee goes from this loutish remark to instantly falling back into the preacher holier-than-thou cadence as he declares “a democracy cannot operate in a moral vacuum” and calls “for us to live more honestly and more ethically.” Like starting with you, Mikey?

Huckabee’s “apology” was even lamer than his joke.

During my speech at the N.R.A., a loud noise backstage, that sounded like a chair falling, distracted the crowd and interrupted my speech. I made an off hand [sic] remark that was in no way intended to offend or disparage Sen. Obama. I apologize that my comments were offensive. That was never my intention.

So what was your intention, Governor?

The producer speaks.

Kevin James went on “Hardball” yesterday to expound on George Bush’s assertion that Barack Obama is the new Neville Chamberlain. One tiny problem: Kevin James had no idea who Neville Chamberlain was or what he did that was so worthy of contempt:

Who is Kevin James?

Kevin James began his professional career in 1988 as a lawyer with one of Los Angeles’s largest law firms. Soon thereafter, Kevin spent more than 3 years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in LA, and then more than 10 years as a litigator in high profile entertainment matters.

Kevin’s legal experience is what initially brought him into the talk radio industry, regularly providing his legal expertise to talk radio stations in major markets around the country. In early 2004, Kevin decided to leave the legal profession to begin his full-time career as a radio talk show host at KTOK in Oklahoma City, where Kevin’s legal experience and his interest in news and the topics of the day resulted in tremendous success in the morning drive slot at KTOK.

Kevin’s rating success in Oklahoma City enabled his return to Los Angeles in early 2005 to host KABC’s “Red Eye Radio” — once again achieving great ratings success. Kevin hosted “Red Eye Radio” until April 2007.

Kevin has also served as a regular panelist for Court TV’s “Catherine Crier Live” and appeared on CNN as a commentator and legal analyst.

Kevin received his undergraduate degree from the University of Oklahoma and attended law school at the University of Houston.

Kevin brings a passionate and practical voice to the countless issues that affect the Southern California community, and also has the experience to provide an insider’s perspective into Hollywood’s never-ending wave of high profile conflicts and disputes that frequently relate to larger issues affecting the nation.

2. Who is Neville Chamberlain?

Arthur Neville Chamberlain (18 March 1869 – 9 November 1940) was a British Conservative politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1937 to 1940.

Chamberlain’s legacy is marked by his policy regarding the appeasement of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany with his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding part of Czechoslovakia to Hitler. In the same year he also gave up the Irish Free State Royal Navy ports.

The right is attempting to equate holding talks with our adversaries with appeasement. In fact, talking with Hitler was necessarily a bad thing, and it certainly was not appeasement. Chamberlain appeased Hitler by giving up half of Czechoslovakia.

— Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), German philosopher

Gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry in California, the state Supreme Court said today in a historic ruling that could be repudiated by the voters in November.

In a 4-3 decision, the justices said the state’s ban on same-sex marriage violates the “fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship.” The ruling is likely to flood county courthouses with applications from couples newly eligible to marry when the decision takes effect in 30 days.

“The California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples,” Chief Justice Ronald George wrote in the majority opinion.

Allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry “will not deprive opposite-sex couples of any rights and will not alter the legal framework of the institution of marriage,” George said.

In addition, he said, the current state law discriminates against same-sex couples on the basis of their sexual orientation - discrimination that the court, for the first time, put in the same legal category as racial or gender bias.

Hoping to drum up support for John McCain in the presidential election this November, conservatives are attempting to place an initiative on the ballot that would ban gay marriage by amending the state constitution. “Protect Marriage,” the group organized to promote the initiative, paid $1.5 million to petition-gatherers who claimed to have collected 1.1 million signatures — far in excess of the 694,000 signatures they needed. The signatures are currently being validated by county election offices.

While it is likely there will be enough valid signatures to qualify the initiative, civil rights experts point out that the petitioning was a mercenary operation — workers were paid for each signature they collected — rather than a volunteer, grass-roots effort. This could signal weak support among California voters in the fall.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has vetoed two bill that passed the legislature that would have legalized gay marriage, says he will oppose the ballot measure.

“Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” Bush said…

“We have heard this foolish delusion before … As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

Predictably, the White House then lied about lying — purporting that Bush was also referring to recent discussions held by former Pres. Jimmy Carter with leaders of Hammas:

…White House press secretary Dana Perino flatly rejected the idea that the Knesset remark was aimed in any way at Obama, and [White House spokesman Gordon] Johndroe said Bush was referring to “a wide range of people who have talked to or suggested we talk to Hamas, Hezbollah or their state sponsors.”

The Obama campaign responded in a statement:

“It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of Israel’s independence to launch a false political attack,” Obama said in a statement released to CNN by his campaign. “It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel….”

“George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the president’s extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel,” Obama’s statement said.

Obama favors “tough, direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions,” according to his Web site, “and is willing to meet with the leaders of all nations, friend and foe.” He does not favor talks with Hamas, which he has called a terrorist organization.

Bush’s motivation in lying about Obama’s position is to assist John McCain in trying to put a wedge between Obama and Jewish voters. Last week, McCain falsely claimed that Obama was the favored candidate of Hamas, the Palestinian political organization with ties to terrorism.

— Robert Green Ingersoll (1833 - 1899), lawyer and orator

Disturbed Over Delegates

Dear Disturbed:

I have to reiterate that it won’t be up to Dr. X (ed. note: Dr. Democrat’s playful nickname for Dr. Howard Dean) who gets seated at the convention. It will be up to Barack Obama, and as soon as Obama has enough delegates to win without Florida and Michigan, which I believe will happen after West Virginia and Kentucky, he will seat the delegations as they are configured now.

This whole thing has been a charade from the get-go, and Dr. X’s threat not to seat the delegations has been 100 percent horse hockey. Iowa and New Hampshire have extraordinary sway over the pols in both parties, and Dr. X had to do their bidding, but it was never up to him who would be seated at the convention, not for a second.

Obama will have to smooth the waters among the pols in Iowa and New Hampshire, but if they are at their least pliable a year before the primary/caucus, they are at their most pliable two months before the convention. This will cease to be a controversy in this cycle, but GOP pols have been watching and have learned how to make mischief.

The only chance Dr. X might have had to decide anything about who gets seated would have been if the contest hadn’t been settled before the convention. But even then, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (currently the most senior elected Democrat) chairs the convention rules committee and outranks him. In the unlikely event that the race is still undecided in late August, Clinton and Obama will negotiate, and if they can’t reach a compromise, it will go to the rules committee.

Dr. X’s job from the moment Clinton drops out of the race and leaves the field to Obama is to be the nominee’s number-one cheerleader and to make sure the convention’s trains run on time and to the liking of the nominee (who speaks when, etc.). Despite having been elected DNC chair, Dr. X now serves at the pleasure of Obama. It is not done for the nominee to replace the DNC chair before the general election but, come January, if Obama wins and he wants a new chair, he’ll have one. In the meantime, if he is unhappy with Dr. X, he’ll put someone in as assistant chair or special counsel or some such, who will really run things while Doc X twiddles his thumbs.

Conversely, quite often party chairs who do a good job are rewarded with the post of secretary of commerce in the new administration.

Dr. D

It looks like the GOP plans to continue its efforts to damage down-ticket Dems by tying them to Barack Obama — even though this strategy completely failed to defeat the Dem candidate who won a big upset victory in the Mississippi special election yesterday.

On a conference call with reporters today, NRCC chair Tom Cole confirmed that the party will continue using Obama to tar Dem House candidates, in much the way the GOP has historically used figures like Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi to do the same.

The NRCC and the local GOP candidate in Mississippi ran ads tying Travis Childers to Obama and even to Jeremiah Wright, but Childers won yesterday by a comfortable eight-point margin.

But Cole is undaunted by yesterday’s results, calling the anti-Obama strategy a “useful tool” for hitting Dems in conservative areas: “I think reminding people that we have a very liberal, and I think very inexperienced Democratic nominee, and that your opponent is likely to be supporting that individual, is interesting.”

The NRCC’s strategy of nationalizing the special elections is based on this sort of polling:

According to internal NRCC numbers obtained by The Hill, Obama has a 32 percent favorable and 58 percent unfavorable rating in Mississippi’s 1st district, where Republicans nearly lost a special election last week to a Democratic takeover. The race will go to a runoff May 13.

His numbers were better but similar, 37-50, in Louisiana’s 6th district, where a special will be held Saturday.

Pelosi’s numbers in those two districts were 18-39 and 24-47, respectively.

“We like the way that’s unfolding,” Cole said. “We would rather be running national elections.”

The flaws in the strategy aret a) the Republican Party disgraced itself while it was in power and no longer has credibility with anyone except the most hardcore GOP dead-enders and b) voters aren’t worried about the connection between the Blue Dog Democrats in these special elections and the party leadership.

Rep. Cole’s insanity is fueling talk that he might be replaced, and quick:

[A House GOP] leadership aide told Real Clear Politics that something new is going to happen at the NRCC. “People look at Cole, and they say, ‘What are you going to do to change?’ And if he doesn’t want to change, change is going to be forced on him.”

The leadership aide suggested that a former NRCC chairman, Virginia Rep. Tom Davis, could take on a larger role in the coming months. Davis, who is retiring after this session of Congress, ran the committee earlier this decade and currently serves as chairman of the NRCC executive committee. The adviser suggested, instead, that the wounded NRCC presents an opportunity for other members of the caucus to help out their fellow Republicans with political action committee donations, setting up future advancement for themselves.

Republicans are doomed to wander in the political wilderness until this generation of weak-kneed, no-vision, inarticulate, afraid-of-the-liberal
-media politicians are replaced.

Viguerie does not mince words when opening a can of WhupAss on the Repugs:

Republican leaders in the White House, the Congress, and the Republican National Committee and its affiliates, along with most Republican leaders at the state level, have failed — or outright betrayed — the conservative voters who put them in their positions.

The result is that the party’s “brand” has become a negative, to an extent greater than in the Watergate era, perhaps worse than in the days of Herbert Hoover.

When he’s right, I have to agree with the old right-winger:

The hard work of the last 50 years by millions of conservative campaign workers, donors, candidates, writers, intellectuals, and activists has been trashed. The conservative movement has been set back 10-20 years — possibly even permanently – by politicians consumed by power, including but certainly not limited to Denny Hastert, Tom DeLay, John Boehner, Roy Blunt, Mitch McConnell, Trent Lott, George W. Bush, Karl Rove, party chairman Mike Duncan, and their friends.

Viguerie builds to a crescendo of colorful hyperbole before invoking the Three Horsemen of Conservatism:

Republicans are doomed to wander in the political wilderness until this generation of weak-kneed, no-vision, inarticulate, afraid-of-the-liberal-media politicians are replaced mostly with principled conservatives in the mold of Bill Buckley, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.

Hey Richard, you left out greedy, larcenous, adulterous, bibulous, fatuous and generally morally bereft.

Viguerie didn’t get around to bashing John McCain in this post. He had bigger fish to rail at, namely calling for all Republican office holders at all levels of government to step down and allow for the next generation of REAL conservatives to step up.

Of the three comments on the post, my favorite was this excerpt:

McStain is closer to “The Manchurian Candidate” than anything else. There is no way I’m voting for him or the two pods from the Dumbcrat side. My choice was Ron paul. (sic)

With bright lights like that on his side, Richard Viguerie sure has his work cut out for him.