You may be sick of hearing or reading about Obama and Clinton by this point. I don't blame you, I am definitely sick of seeing Hillary trying to take down Obama. But I do have some thoughts on what happened last night that I would like to share.

Hillary:
I struggle to say anything nice about her. I don't for the life of me understand how people can have any pride in their support for her. She is absolutely devoid of any class or grace. Melinda Henneberger of Slat's The XX Factor Blog sums it up perfectly:

There has never been anything wrong with her decision to stay in the race; it's how she waged war that was at issue. There is nothing wrong with the fact that she did not concede last night, either. But her mouth says unity, and her feet say kick him where it hurts.

She has a very small window with which to use her influence. She is in real danger of overplaying her hand if she isn't careful. I was genuinely surprised at her speech. Had I been able to see The Daily Show at 6:00 p.m. when it tapes instead of 11:00 p.m. then I wouldn't have been as surprised.


Obama:
Obama delivered a soaring and inspiring speech that was full of class and grace. I thought he was generous to both McCain and Hillary. Something neither of them did for him. His speech made it clear to me that he doesn't need to have Hillary as his VP to win and here is why.

The next few months our political discussion will be the best it's been in generations. We are presented with two Presidential candidates who have very different notions on how America should be governed and what the needs of it's people are. And we are faced with stark contrasts in foreign policy philosophies. The stark contrast on issues will neutralize the race aspect of this election and even the necessity of Hillary being VP. People won't need to base their support on the fact that they aren't sure of a black guy being President or that their feelings are hurt that Hillary didn't win. People will be able to support or reject either candidate based on issues and policy direction rather than superficial things.

I plan to do whatever I can to make sure that the futures Levi and Zeke grow into is the one articulated and led by the next President of the United States, Barack Obama.

If you don't want to watch the whole thing, just skip to minute 7:00 and watch it till the end. The way Olberman sums up Hillary's "gaffes" brings to light just how Hillary has run her campaign.

The time has past for Hillary to bow out of this race on her own terms. Any more divisions or problems for the Democratic party lie squarely on the shoulders of the Super delegates.

If you are a fan of the Daily Show, then you will love this podcast I recently discovered. It's called, The Bugle - Audio Newspaper for a Visual World. Here's the description from their iTunes page:

Based respectively in a penthouse turret in metropolitan New York and a small lair in South London, John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman, with their combined height of 3.59 meters, will together canoe through the murky swamp of big stories, small stories and assorted hogwash that inundates our daily world. Comprising news, sport, comment, analysis, other stuff, and our unique audio crossword, The Bugle is the newspaper of the future, before the future actually happens.

Here's the link to the most recent episode (episodes come out once a week).

*****

I hope Hillary looses both Indiana and North Carolina tonight, AND that Jason Castro gets booted off American Idol. Politics and pop culture all on a Tuesday night! I happen to be partial to MSNBC (Tim Russert is the best analyst on TV). Will you watch the primary results tonight or are you lame or I mean busy.

*****

Saw this incredible headline (sorry no t-shirt available):
Post-War Suicides May Exceed Combat Deaths, U.S. Says

The number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care, the U.S. government's top psychiatric researcher said.

Community mental health centers, hobbled by financial limits, haven't provided enough scientifically sound care, especially in rural areas, said Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland. He briefed reporters today at the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting in Washington.

My jaw dropped when I read that. According to the WHO the suicides per 100,000 males are 17.1 (source). According the article 1.6 million U.S. troops have fought Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. If suicide rates were consistent with national rates for those 1.6 million soldiers then approximately 273 males would be likely to commit suicide.

There have been 4,560 soldiers killed in combat since 2001. If soldiers and veteran suicides do in fact outpace the death total from these two wars that would represent a 1,670% increase over the standard national suicide rate. Here's the damning part. A big part of the reason why there are so many suicides is because money isn't being spent to make sure the 53% of returning combat veterans who have PTSD get the help they need.

This from a country that spends over 700 billion every year on it's defense department (China is upping their spending to 53 billion). This injustice is sickening. We ask our young people to go to war for us, and then leave them hanging out to dry once they have done our dirty work for us. This will have ramifications for years and shows how insincere our Commander in Chief and congress is about supporting our troops.

Obama seemed defensive and didn't do as well as Clinton. He was not on his game. But Clinton didn't pull that far away from him either.

However...Charlie Gibson and George S. were terrible. The entire debate from the "Colbert-ish" set design, to constitution snippets, to spending the first 51 minutes on topics that don't mean jack crap. The first hour addressed nothing of substance. I mean bringing up the flag pin? Ridiculous, they should have just had Rush and Hannity moderate the debate. It was terrible and a waste of time.

I would love to know your thoughts.

Why would he do that? After Hillary Clinton has put the whole Bosnia thing behind her there he is bringing it right back up again. Here's the quote he gave at two separate rallies yesterday:

"A lot of the way this whole campaign has been covered has amused me," he said. "But there was a lot of fulminating because Hillary, one time late at night when she was exhausted, misstated and immediately apologized for it, what happened to her in Bosnia in 1995. Did y'all see all that. Oh, they blew it up. Let me just tell you...."

Come on Bill! As sure as you reading this someone is putting together the YouTube video showing at-least three of the times she told that story, all of which were well before 11:00 p.m.

The press had moved on from that lie she told, so why would Bill bring it back up again? Bill is a smart guy and I think he knows that people have a soft spot for Hillary when it comes to him "hurting" her. There has always been a rally of support to Hillary when it's perceived by the undecided Democrats that she is getting a raw deal at the hands of people she can't control. Bill is throwing himself under the bus. He can play dumb and say that he was just trying to help point out how unfair the press was to her in this one instance. The problem is EVERYONE knows she told the story multiple times. But I think that people don't think she should loose because of something Bill did to embarrass or hurt her....again!

Of course this could be some sort of way to bait Obama into delving into the whole Bosnia thing. Their calculus might be that if he goes for her on that, then they can talk about Rev. Wright. She told a blatant lie in an attempt to "pad" her resume. He should take her to task on that and stay on it for the next two weeks. That's not dirty politics, it's within the bounds of fairness.

I am wondering if Hillary supporters feel proud of their candidate? My friend who is a life-long Democrat says her supporters feel duty bound by either gender or Clinton loyalty to stay with her. ANYWAY...

So if you were Obama what would you do?

Colbert puts the SMACKDOWN on the Clintonion logic that "Size is What Matters" when it comes to winning the Democratic Primary..

The definitive word on the Ferraro comments and Hillary's 'at all costs' campaign. Olberman's passion is slightly dramatic, but he is spot on in his editorializing about Ferraro's comments.

Darn you Christianity Today!

"But when vigorous political discourse turns into bashing of public figures, it perpetuates a great lie: that they are merely the ideologies and symbols attached to them. When a candidate's ideology is mistaken for his or her personhood, it masks a crucial truth: that each person, no matter their political views, bears God's image and matters deeply to him.

While pundits see candidates as punching bags, evangelicals [Christians] are supposed to see candidates as, well, people."

Excellent words of truth that we should all be reminded of during this political season. I am just sorry it has to be said to Christians of all people.

Let me say that my problem with Hillary has to do with her lack of political integrity (ample evidence here), and I am not saying Obama is or will be perfect, but I trust his political character more than hers. A prime example is evident in her attempt to deal her way to the nomination via this big state win farce, Superdelegate conjoling, and trying to get MI and FL delegates seated. I don't have much faith in the Democratic leadership to bring the hammer down in the name of fair play and previously agreed upon contest parameters. Dean has already punted his leadership on this. Although enough Dems. understand how devastating giving the nomination to Hillary if Barack has the popular and delegate lead at the convention would be.

I feel good about Obama's chances (of course I do, he has simple math in his favor). Pennsylvania will be a difficult contest but he starts only twelve points down instead of twenty like he did in Ohio and Texas. I think he will learn from his mistakes in those states and won't repeat them in Pennsylvania. In clearer moments I think the continuation of the contest is good for him, because as the debates have made clear, I think he gets better and better as time goes on. I think she is going to overplay her aggressive hand. It's clear to me that she is still flailing about and looking for anything that lands.

Two things I hope he does (credit to The Field blog for these insights).

One, freshen up his stump speech. The press needs some different phrasing and color to comment on. Two, do a bus tour of Pennsylvania and bring the Obama crowds to these small towns between Philly and Pittsburgh so people can get a look at him themselves. This will be important considering how well known Hillary is compared to Barack.

Shout out BIG TIME to my little brother Ian (click link for his music site), who voted AND caucused in San Antonio for Obama. In fact he was elected as a delegate and will go to his County Convention March 29th.

Simplistically speaking I think this contest comes down to a generational argument within the Democratic party. Obama's supporters are telling the Hillary supporters that it's time for that generation to go. Busters vs. Boomers. Buster's have had enough of the Boomers having all the power. The boomer's have screwed up the environment, America's reputation, the economy and are seen as being hypocritical to their generations ideals coming out of the 60's. It's now time for the buster's to take the reigns.

The boomers are arguing that having hype and 'movements' aren't how the real world works. "Take it from us", they seem to be saying "we grew up in the 60's and all this movement crap isn't realistic. You have to annihilate your ideological opponents in order to advance your principles."

UPDATE:
Obama raised $55 million dollars in February with 90% of the donations being $100 or less. I am very proud to be associated with a campaign that can raise and manage money from the ground up. That is a lot of money to be sure, but when it comes from hundreds of thousands of small donations, I think it's inspiring.