Clinton will hate on his pathetic, grotesque ass so hard it’ll be a joy to behold. I want him facing an adversary who would gladly throw his ass down a flight of stairs.

I don’t know if she was calculating. But I don’t know if he was either. Yet he seems to get a lot of benefit of the doubt from folks who can’t see inside his head.

The pearl clutchers in the media have made sure that “political calculation” doesn’t play well in Peoria, and the GOP with some pretty nasty partisan hardball has done its part to discredit politics qua politics, but don’t people read their Madison anymore? It is political calculation, not principled stands, to which we are supposed to entrust our liberties … ya know, that whole “ambition must be made to challenge ambition” thing?

Of course, the neo-aristocracy boosters in the media do all they can to give bad PR to actual democracy, but their agenda in disdaining “politics” is, well, the promotion of apolitical aristocracy where we are led by folks to the manor born who nonetheless “have the common touch” so we commoners would want to have beer with them. That some scalawag could rise above his place by political calculation is horrifying to them.

But it is exactly how our system is supposed to work.

Let’s leave the denigration of political calculation to anti-democratic media pro-aristocratic lackies and pre-millenialists who think politics is teh evil ‘cause it’s worldy and remember that the whole point of our system is to channel political ambition into protecting liberty.

Given how good (apparently) the wingnut Koolaid served in the military is, I’m pretty confident there’s only one action on either Clinton’s part that would please them: Commit suicide on live TV. (note: I’m not advocating this…)

“…it should be well known that this ‘administration’ (::gag::) has gutted veterans’ benefits: surely those in the military KNOW this. Does it not matter to them?”

It doesn’t seem to matter. They value the political over anything else.

The impression I’ve got over the last 7-years is that Cheney could skull-fuck a double-amputee soldier injured in Iraq while Bush held him down, with a live broadcast to US military bases all over the world, and the brass would figure out a way to explain that it was good for morale or something. Chris Mathews would be gushing about how manly they looked doing it.

Life isn’t fair - if it was, GWB would be pumping gas at a filling station in Maine right now…

Now, I don’t know that is true, but why do we assume someone was principled just because they voted the way we prefer? It could be calculated as well.

I also know that Obama was willing to cut other people slack for voting the same way as Clinton when it served his purposes (ie for Kerry and Edwards in 2004). What’s changed today? The political calculation.

On the issue of Clinton getting along with the brass, she’s on Senate Armed Services and has been a very diligent committee member for seven years. Armed Services produces major policy every year (defense authorization).

Obama’s on Foreign Affairs which doesn’t produce much of anything in terms of policy and is primarily known as the home of blowhards like Biden and Chuck Hagel. Loved by the morning talk shows, but don’t really do anything substantive.

Also: it should be well known that this ‘administration’ (::gag::) has gutted veterans’ benefits: surely those in the military KNOW this. Does it not matter to them?

I’d love to see Fox and Friends lead off with that story.

Do those elements of the military that hate Clinton not hate Clark as well?

Indeed about the wingnuts. I am amazed at how liberal people outside of Cali think my state of origin is. I guess in terms of state-wide elections, there are more Dem. voters than GOP voters, but there are pockets of wingnutism the whackiest you’ll find in the nation … outside of the urban areas (even in the ‘burbs), Cali is a pretty wingnut filled place.

That being said, I don’t know how well Huckabee’s gestures toward economic populism will play in Cali, where they might be seen as “creeping comminism” or something along those lines. I bet the whole “FairTax” thing will play well, but other than that, Cali wingnuts would probably think Huckabee’s tendancy to actually adopt something other than a “the rich should be allowed to enslave the poor” economic stance will not play well in Cali.