"The Presidency of Al Gore, 2001-2009" by Norman MacAfee.

Ok. So it's an imagined account of what might have been (and the bit about Lieberman helping to broker a peace deal between Israel and Palestine, ultimately leading to the foundation of an internationally recognized Palestinian state, is pretty far-fetched . . .), but surely it would not have been as horrible as what we've wound up with. Perhaps--no, even very likely no 9/11 attacks succeeding. And Cindy Sheehan's son would still be alive. A whole lot of people would still be alive, like Saddam Hussein--and about a million other Iraqis.

But are you listening America? Are you paying attention? Much of the rest of the world thinks we're assholes because we literally are assholes to much the rest of the world. People are starving now so you can top off the tank of your fucking SUV and drive it solo back and forth over four city blocks with the aircon turned up high on the balmiest day of the year to pick up a twelve-pack of fucking-close-to-water "beer" from Wal-Mart. Gee, ain't it a great country?

You know . . . it might have been. Pay attention America.

"Hillary Clinton's Hornswoggling" by P. M. Carpenter at BuzzFlash.

"Sidney Blumenthal Uses Former Right-Wing Foes To Attack Obama" by Peter Dreier at Huffington Post. Blumenthal is the Clintonhead who coined the term "vast Right-Wing conspiracy" awhile back. He appears to have joined it.

"CNN Poll: George Bush Most Unpopular President In Modern History" at Huffington Post. Incurious George's approval rating is now lower than Nixon's was just before he resigned. There's still time left for Bush's approval rating to slip into single-digits; indeed, it almost certainly will if his administration stays on course for an attack on Iran, and it may do so by the end of his term even without attacking Iran.

In "Not Quite Double Digits for Clinton in Pennsylvania" John Nichols at The Nation succinctly illuminates exactly why Clinton's campaign spin of a single-digit win into a double-digit lie (and even Democracy Now! and Free Speech Radio News have inaccurately reported a 10% spread), matters and is even vital to her continued deception of the American people and her continued assault upon democracy.

20 does not round up to 100; 9.2 does not round up to 10. Unless you need the dough.

"Rounding Out the Pennsylvania Primary Story" by Dave Lindorff at BuzzFlash.

"The Clintons Campaign the Way Bush Governs" by Jerry and Joe Long at 23/6.

I don't know if he can "obliterate" Clintonism, but Obama sure needs to knock it back into the sordid hole full of lies and insane vanity out of which it crawled.

Whether she actually manages to steal it (which is just about the only way she can "win") or not. After her fabulous and (and utterly expected) single-digit "comeback" in Pennsylvania, where she went in a month's time from a 20% or better lead to a less-than 10% final outcome, Clinton is now on her way (yet again) to ascending the throne as Empress of the U. S. A.

DailyKos has an excellent and detailed analysis, with minimal spin, of the "electability" issue, which is going to be the bucket of do-do her wingnut campaign will flourish in the faces of the public in the coming tedious days (or weeks . . . sigh), with no doubt a great deal of help from Fox News and other Big Money media.

"Getting Mrs. Clinton" by Peggy Noonan at The Wall Street Journal.

Clinton forgot to mention the mine field she and Chelsea had to navigate on their way to eat lunch in the cafeteria. And the pill-box with the guy wielding a flame-thrower . . . .

"The On-High Message Sooner Than Later: Hillary Clinton, Enough Is Enough" by P. M. Carpenter at BuzzFlash.

"Clinton Praises Petraeus" by Patrick Healy at The New York Times. I think most vets of the Iraq war, like the soldiers who participated in the Winter Soldier event this week, would differ fundamentally in their opinion of Petraeus the Betrayer.

"Clinton's "Big State" myth" at Daily Kos.

"Keith Olbermann To Do "Special Comment" About Hillary Clinton Tonight — First Time Targeting A Democrat" by Rachel Sklar at Huffington Post.

"Texas Caucus Results Page." In other words, Oboma won Texas.

"Hillary’s kiss to McCain may become her own kiss of death" at Last Chance Democracy Cafe. Hillary should be John McCain's running-mate.

"Obama's "bad" week" at Daily Kos.

"Local Obama supporter shocked to see herself in Hillary ad" by Elisa Hahn at King5.com. I think that young actress Casey Knowles' suggestion at the end of the article has a stroke of genius to it--and somebody should go for it. Is anyone in the Obama campaign watching this one?

"Democrats pick up Hastert's seat" at Politico.com.

"Favorite fallacies of the Clinton 'wins the important states' argument" by David Shaw at BuzzFlash.

"Race mattered more in Ohio primary than in any other state" at Cleveland.com.

"Obama's Run Against McCain Begins Today" by David Bromwich at Huffington Post.

"Breaking the Final Rule" by Gary Hart at the Huffington Post.

"Girl In Clinton's 3am Phone Ad' Supports Obama" by Evan Miller at the Huffington Post.

"Olbermann Rips Into Clinton For Praising McCain" at Huffington Post.

And "Kucinich Prevails" by Matt Rothschild at The Progressive.

"Clinton Cribs from the Bush Florida Stolen Election in 2000" by Mark Karlin at BuzzFlash.

Arianna Huffington properly scrutinizes Clinton's BE VERY AFRAID tactics in her latest blog entry: "Democratic Scorecard: The Lizard Brain Wins Again!."

"Beware Hillary’s Tactics" by Ruth Conniff at The Progressive's website.

"Guess What? Obama Is Winning Texas" by Lisa Pease at Consortiumnews.com. And as for Ohio and Hillary's magical-thinking connection to winning in that state being a requirement for winning the Presidency, guess what? The two best Democrat presidents we've had in the last fifty or so years, FDR and JFK, both lost the Ohio primary--here. Somebody forgot about that, huh?

The hallucinogenic qualities of the latest--and probably last--cup of Clinton Kool-Aid should begin to wear off soon. Meanwhile, in case people haven't noticed, Obama and his campaign are still rolling: "A New Hope" is Rolling Stone's endorsement of Obama. And he's picked up yet another 'Crat superdelegate: "Dayton Mayor Endorses Barack Obama" at Ohio radio station WHIO's website.

"Let's Pay Tribute to the Spectacular Wrongness of William F. Buckley" by David Michael Green at AlterNet.

"Obama Glosses Colombian Attack in Ecuador; Clinton Calls for Escalation Against Venezuela" by Robert Naiman at Huffington Post.

"Richardson Criticizes Hillary's "Red Phone" Ad Hitting Obama; Praises His Judgment" again at TPM.

"Disloyal Democrat: Hillary Clinton picks John McCain over Barack Obama" at TPM.

"Anti-Hillary Sentiment On The Rise Among Leading Feminists" by Jon Wiener, at HNN (actually an older piece originally from the Huffington Post).

"Hillary's Disreputable Closer" by Ruth Coniff at The Progressive.

"Dems Debate: No Shoot-out in Texas, as Clinton Halfheartedly Goes After Obama" by David Corn at MotherJones.

"Nader Runs, Obama Responds Wisely" says John Nichols at his blog at The Nation.

"Hillary Clinton's NAFTA U-turn says something about her — and us" by David Sirota at the Seattle Times' website.

"Who Will Tell Hillary?" by Robert D. Novak at washingtonpost.com.

"Dispatch from Maryland" at Political Wire.

"Whistle-blower site taken offline" at the BBC.

"Iraq: They Call This Stability?" by Patrick Cockburn at AlterNet.

Yes. "Moore: I Am Morally Prohibited From Voting For Hillary" at Huffington Post.

"Super Tuesday: The Day After" at Huffington Post.

So the big question now becomes "electability." It's true. If Clinton wins the nomination, you'll see a "centrist" against a "centrist" (really a neolibcon against a neoconlib). Don't expect all of Obama's voting bloc to rally round her; her voting record is rotten with betrayals, and her campaign tactics have been ugly; she'll see a huge portion of the progressive Left and independants go with a real alternative candidate or simply not vote in despair, and she'll see the more Right-leaning and misogynistic arm of the Dems (whom she actually represents and relies upon to some degree), desert her for McCain. (And I don't think the dynamic would change much if Huckabee managed to win the Republican nomination--he'll be portrayed as a "moderate" no matter the reality . . . .) She would lose at both ends of the Left/Right measure. I feel sorry for her, in a way. We would see a close race, which she would almost certainly lose.

Anyhow, today's Democracy Now! has some illuminating commentary on yesterday's outcomes.

"The America I Believe In" by Avila at Daily Kos pretty much outlines why I'm going with Obama, and not Clinton.

My first choice might have been someone else, as far as who I would like to see in the office of the President, but I've known since the outset that a "realistic" bet would have been on Edwards, Clinton or Obama. The other guys just didn't have the dough, or the name, or, well, the glam,and yeah that stinks, yeah it needs to be changed because contrary to the Utopian agenda of the "free market" neolibcons, the fact is that money isn't "free speech," or any kind of accurate, objective gauge by which to measure any candidate's qualifications in a real democracy, something which barely exists in America today. So I decided, if there was a real chance of his winning the Dem nomination, I'd go with Obama, even though none of these three candidates would have been my first choice. Kucinich dropped out, and now Edwards is gone, and--perhaps the saddest indicator of the state of democracy in the U.S.A.--Mike Gravel has been reduced to a flyspeck on the ballot. I might have gone with Edwards, but even early on I guessed--correctly--that he'd falter in the voting-booth up against two candidates with enormous glam-appeal. Now there's only really Clinton and Obama. And I'm choosing Obama. And so what about Clinton?

What about her? She's a Republican, that's what. (And I'm not the only one who's said that, thankyouverymuch.) Or put it slightly differently she's the "alternative" Republican candidate. Leaving aside the matter of the "legacy" of Bill Clinton's Ronald Reagan-Lite tenure, which I do not recall with the nostalgia that seems to be afflicting some who call themselves liberals, there's her Senate voting record--not just the Iraq war vote, though that weighs heavily; it's also her much more recent vote for the Kye-Lieberman amendment, essentially giving the green light for Bush to bomb Iran; the anti-flag burning nonsense; her support for draconian bankruptcy legislation . . . . And then there's the Clinton campaign's tactics: like Matthew Rothschild at The Progressive, I think her campaign more and more seems to be taking pages from the Bush-Cheney-Rove playbook--dividing the unions in Nevada, in the television debates, trying to set the Latin-American vote against the African-American vote . . . and the corporate media swallows it all with relish and pukes it up instantaneously for a poorly informed audience to devour . . . it's pretty sickening.(And then there's the stupid race vs. gender issue . . . .)

But anyhow Clinton is, like Edwards and Obama, a political "centrist"--and these days that seems to mean anyone espousing a political ideology and agenda slightly to the Left of Mitt Romney. That's the rhetorical stance of all three, and what the media demands today; drift off from this "center," as Edwards did, and those holding onto power in the corporate media begin to act according to their free market interest, and they begin to shut you out. Like Rahul Mahajan at Empire Notes, I don't believe that Obama is some kind of "stealth socialist." I do however believe that he can be nudged by the public to take a stand in both foreign and domestic policies that is in fact and on the ground liberal and progressive. I don't believe that can happen with Clinton. Not that I'm unskeptical of Obama--as Ralph Nader said on Democracy Now! recently, "Obama knows the score" but will he do the right thing for the American public? I don't know. But I think he might. And that's more than what I can honestly say about Clinton. If the Dems front Hilary Clinton, I'm not voting for her in the general election . . . because I'm not gonna vote Republican.

Which sort of brings me to the Democratic Party strategy, of fronting a candidate who can actually win against the Republican candidate. And the Republican candidate is almost certainly going to be John McCain. John McCain. The "maverick" Republican who got screwed by Bush eight years ago. Who's against torture, against Guantanamo. John McCain who's an open war-monger. John McCain who, in all the polls I've seen, would likely run neck-and-neck in a race with Clinton, because a huge section of the American public will predictably buy into his public image--war hero, open-minded, a "moderate" . . . a "centrist." Neck-and-neck. Another close race. And you know what that means. The Republicans cheat. Ballots go missing, somebody presses a button and votes disappear, people in positions of authority with clear conflicts of interest begin to run games exploiting election laws, the Supreme Court steps in out of its proper jurisdiction. Real election reform--aside from a quite sensible retreat from computerized voting methods--has gotten absolutely nowhere since our 2000 debacle. No Democrat is going to come out the winner at the end of a tight race.

But with Obama the whole game-plan changes. Southern states written off as automatic Republican wins for over a decade will come into play. Obama didn't just win the South Carolina primary, he got more votes than both Romney and McCain put together. And he's proven that he can win big in well-established Democrat territory too. There is a window of opportunity here that should not be missed. That, more or less, is why I'm going with Obama.

I'm also voting for Barack Obama because he's a tall skinny guy. I'm a tall skinny guy too.

Susan Eisenhower, grand-daughter of Dwight "military-industrial complex" Eisenhower, is also voting for Obama, though she is not a tall skinny guy. " Where Would Obama Take the Nation?" by Robert Parry at consortiumnews.com.

I don't know about you, but I'm voting for Barack Obama because he's black. Chew on that one.

Joan Baez is also voting for Obama. "Joan Baez Backs Barack Obama in US Presidency Race: Folk singer throws her voice behind politician for first time" at CommonDreams.org.

I haven't made any posts here in awhile, and in fact I'm about to reshape this thing yet again . . . but I couldn't let this one pass: "Harold Bloom: 'What We Are Seeing Is the Fall of America'" at AlterNet.

"Mo. bookstore owner burns books to decry decline of printed word" at BostonHerald.com.