As a Michigan voter, the most important thing that happened today was the recognition–on the part of Mark Brewer and Carl Levin–that our January primary was not a real vote. That meant more to me as anything else that happened today–it was more important to me than the numbers that came out of the process.

The outcome makes me profoundly sad. But it was the least worst outcome.

The votes–in the end–were actually strong majorities. Democracy can be ugly. But as they say, it’s the least worst process. 

We will deal with Florida first, then Michigan. Limited debate.

Alice Huffman is speaking in support of her proposal to seat all of Florida. She got so much mail in support of seating Florida.

David McDonald opposing this motion, because it asks to go back to a time before it was complicated by campaign interests. The standard for FL getting a waiver is more complicated now than it was, given the documents produced (not sure what that means). This is not a problem that the voters in FL caused. It is a problem that impacts both those who went to the polls and those who did not.

Yvonne Gates also opposes. This is about respecting the rules. We’re not trying to penalize those individuals. When you have rules, they must be followed. If they’re not followed, you have chaos. I won’t be able to support the motion.

Hartina Flournoy. It saddens me that this motion has no chance of passing the body. I thought what drove these rules was being a party of inclusion. I’m sad about the fact that we will take a vote that does not bring FL back in. (She confuses MI and FL twice.)

Alice Germond. We told the voters the beauty contest had no meaning. Raises MLK. And Geraldine Ferraro.

Ickes. Want to associate myself with Tina Flournoy and Alice.

Mona Pasquill. Thanks for the gifts of food. There are sometimes when you have to revisit the rules. We talk a lot about respect. I want to be responsible to these voters.

Motion fails by 15-12. Chants of "Denver, Denver" throughout.

Ralph Dawson. Consider reduction of penalty to 50%. In view of offer by Obama’s campaign to afford certain delegates. 1) All pledged delegates be restored, at .5 vote. In addition, all pledged delegate positions shall be allocated Hillary 52.5, Edwards 6.5, Obama 33.5 delegate votes. Unpledged delegates cast one-half vote at the Convention. Fill delegate positions including right of approval.

Alice Huffman. Not the motion I would have liked. I also know that we cannot leave here and not do something, for Florida. When you can leave with unity, what this party needs is unity. We will leave here more united than we came. This is about finding a way to make whole, to some degree.

Lipstick on a pig, someone calls.

Alice Huffman. Do you believe in Democracy? That vote failed. Please conduct yourselves like proper men and women.

Ickes. Will vote for a half vote.

Alexis Herman. All delegates to be treated the same.

27 for Ausman position, Katz not voting. Qualifies as unanimous.

Allan Katz. While I wasn’t able to vote, it’s more pleasant than the last time I voted on a motion relating to FL.

Michigan Challenge.

Mame Reiley. One-half vote, pledged delegate. 69-59 delegates. All unpledged delegates cast one-half vote.

Fowler. Not my first choice. It is the result of a lot of discussions. In the best interest of the party and the best interest of electing a democrat in November. I say that to my friend Ickes. Harold, I respect and love you, but this is what I support.

Ickes. I’ve already stated my views and I represent Senator Clinton in this regard. We find it inexplicable that this body that is devoted t rules is going to fly in the face of–other than our affirmative action rules–the most fundamental rule in the delegate selection process. Analogous to First Amendment. That bedrock. This motion will hijack, remove 4 delegates won by Hillary Clinton, and most importantly reflect the preferences of 600,000 Michigan voters. This body of 30 individuals has decided they’re going to substitute their judgment for 600,000 voters. I’m stunned we’re going to substitute our judgment for 600,000 people. You bet your ass the process was flawed. This country has one of the lowest rates of participation. This is not an excuse. As Don Fowler pointed out, this is in the charter. Fair reflection.

Oops. Donna Brazile caught yawning on the screen.

Ickes. Not only will this motion hijack votes from Hillary, but it will assign 55 from uncommitted. Stripping those 4 delegates from Hillary is not the way to start down the path of unity. Mrs. Clinton has instructed me to reserve her rights to take this to the credentials committee.

(Ickes was not on the floor right after he came back. He must have called Hillary in the interim.)

Thomas Hynes. This does reflect a fair representation of MI. It is fairer it does fairly reflect the will of the voters of MI. By the testimony of Senator Levin and others, the primary on which Ickes basis is flawed. The state party went to come up with a conclusion that makes sense. I want to congratulate Senator Obama for his leadership.

Everett Ward. All of at this table committed to the rules. One of the reasons that I sit at this table is because of a person in this room. There’s a person in this room by the name of Lawrence Iyot. In 1964, along with a lady from NC by the name of Ella Baker formed what was called the MS freedom democratic party. When Fanny Lou Hamer and Ella Baker, it was because the rules of the Democratic party blocked people who looked like me out of the process. I do not come to this process to play games. I come bc there’s a linage and a history that says if we abide by the rules that we abide by fair play. There has been propaganda and words used by one of my colleagues that seem to suggest that the motion put forward by my colleague Ms. Reiley would hijack the vote. Not anywhere in this motion does it say the unpledged delegates will go to Obama. For a colleague that exercises selective amnesia, to suggest that it blocks voters and hijacks a process, I would encourage my colleagues, as we continue this process, that we continue to do it in spirit of Ella Baker. I hope we will end any further political posturing.

Liz Smith. Want to address this to my friends in MI. I cannot support the position fo the MDP on this challenge. The voters rule, they are the highest government of this country. I can’t allow a compromise that ignores the will of 600,000. We will have unity, but this is not the way to do it.

Brewer. Thank the committee for its very thoughtful consideration. I promise we will do everything we can to unify MI and carry the state of MI for the Democratic Party.

Motion carries 19 – 8. 

You gotta believe you’re going to be here for a while. I’m hearing estimates that this may go till midnight.

Joy.

We’re still waiting in the RBC members to return. Remember–they had lunch together, and there’s the sense that they’re close on at least FL, though probably not MI. But there’s also the question of whether they decide the FL challenge before deciding the MI one. After all, if they seat MI at full strength, they’d have to seat FL at full strength … wouldn’t they?

I’ll do a little bit more live-blogging as we go forward this PM, since the feds sound like they’re crummy. Let me know if that’s still true, once we get started again, alright?

Update: Just a heads up. Things are likely to get contentious here (that is, at the RBC meeting) this afternoon. So in an effort to keep things here (at EW/FDL) polite, we’re going to moderate threads as we would do at FDL.

As I said in this post, I was skeptical that Mark Brewer–the MDP Chair–would be able to make a strong case for the 69-59 split.

I was wrong.

The key to Mark Brewer’s success was in stating clearly that there was no way to measure the "fair reflection" of the intent of the voters who participated in the presidential selection process because, as he pointed out, there was no primary, convention, or caucus, that actually measured it.

And that’s the fundamental truth that made the Clusterfuck the Clusterfuck it was.

By starting from that premise, Mark managed to undercut the legal problem with the challenge–that the RBC doesn’t have the authority to arbitrarily impose a result. Because if the RBC seats a delegation based on the result of the January 15 Clusterfuck, then it will be violating one of its key principles.

This was the first time I’ve heard anyone from the MDP state that the Clusterfuck was not a measure of the will of the voters. I wish they had said so earlier. But I’m glad they’re making that point now.

For those wanting a primer on the fun ironies of those presenting MI’s case, btw, don’t miss this DHinMI post:

Opening the testimony will be Michigan Democratic Party chair Mark Brewer.

[snip]

I know Mark loved the process we used in 1996 through 2004, which was called a caucus but essentially worked like a closed primary. I’m quite certain that if it had been his decision alone, that Michigan would not have jumped the queue and created the mess that’s ensued. As party chair, he has to take strong cues from the governor, and much of this mess goes to Governor Jennifer Granholm. And since Jennifer Granholm has been so strongly supporting Hillary Clinton, it’s impossible to think that the Michigan mess wasn’t partly attributable to the Clinton campaign.

After Brewer will be Democratic Senator Carl Levin. Levin has been pushing to break the duopoly of Iowa and New Hampshire for years. In the past, Michigan threatened to go early in the process, but it never did. This year, with support from Granholm and other players in the state (who were with Clinton), Michigan finally jumped the queue.

Then, after Levin, we’ll have the advocates for the two campaigns, and this is where the dynamics between the players gets fun. In 2002, After three terms of ruining the state, Republican governor John Engler was finally term-limited, and there was a three-way race in the Democratic primary to succeed him. The winner was Jennifer Granholm, who went on to win in November, and is now in her second term as governor.

The second place finisher was Democratic congressman, and recent number two Democrat in Congress, David Bonior. The third place finisher was James Blanchard, the former governor whose horrible, arrogant campaign for reelection in 1990 gave Engler the way in the governor’s mansion.

Update: At this point, James Blachard is throwing loads of flying horse shit. He claimed that no one was saying our primary would not count. He must have been on vacation for December and January, because I sure heard–over and over–that the vote would not count.

Bill Nelson spoke on behalf of FL, supporting the Ausman challenge.

He did one thing that–as a voter from the Clusterfuck state–I found very important. He told the stories of the activists who have been working hard this election, registering new people and expanding their local parties. He described two women who have been elected delegates and who, if FL’s delegation will be seated, will represent the state in Denver.

And that, IMO, is what has been missing from this debate on all sides. Those women in FL–and a lot of the people here in MI, particularly the Obama supporters who got elected in District Caucuses–are what this process is about. Making sure those activists who will get a Democrat elected this fall go to join their colleagues from across the country.

Too often, in these debates, the activists in FL and MI have been forgotten. Thanks to Bill Nelson for remembering that this party lives and dies on the backs of activists like those two women.

Update: AZ Matt asked me whether the MI challenge has been presented yet. No. There’s one more speaker–Robert Wexler, representing the Obama camp–to speak on the FL challenge. Then the speakers on the MI challenge are, in order:

• Mark Brewer (the challenger)
• Carl Levin (representing the state)
• David Bonior (representing the Obama campaign)
• Jim Blanchard (representing the Clinton campaign)

Update: Here’s a diary from one of the two activists Nelson mentioned.

Senator Nelson just used my name to argue a position that I do not support.  Anyone who knows me or has read my diaries, knows that as a Florida grassroots organizer, I understood that Florida broke the rules. I played by the rules. I organized Tampa Bay area Obama supporters to help elect Senator Obama as our next president by fundraising, online networking and rapid response as well as phonebanking to and canvassing in other states. In fact the week before the January 29th primary, I was otherwise occupied getting out the vote in South Carolina.  I also traveled to North Carolina and phonebanked to Texas, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, etc.

I ran for pledged Obama delegate in Florida CD 9 to make sure that IF Florida’s delegation is seated, Senator Obama would be represented by a loyal supporter in my district.

Howard Dean has kicked off this meeting with a great speech. He emphasized the superb turnout Democrats have had this year. And he emphasized how strong we are to be able come together and disagree.

He condemned the sexist and racist statements made over the course of the primary. When he said, "on the part of the media" there were some grumblings.

He then told a story about when he was running for President. He was really really angry at what the Democratic Party had done. And he was ranting. (I imagine it went something like Argghhhhhh!!) And then Al Gore called. It took him about 20 minutes, but finally, Gore said, "Howard, this is not about you, this is about your country."

The speech made me proud to own a orange cap from Iowa.

Oh, and then he said, "we have to honor the voters who turned out, and also those voters who didn’t turn out in MI."

I got a lot of stares, up here in the media seats, for clapping loudly.

It was a good speech. We did good when we elected that man.

So, Jane and I are at the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting this morning, expecting to see a day of high tension and cranky moods. While we’re waiting to begin, I thought I’d explain what’s going on–and what to expect, both today and as we go forward.

As you no doubt know, MI had a clusterfuck (that is, a primary which only half the candidates attended) and FL had a primary in which neither candidate won. From the beginning, the stated rules said that neither state’s delegation would be seated. At the same time, the expectation has been that MI’s delegation would be seated, but in a way that it couldn’t affect the election.

So now we’re at the point where the party has to decide how to seat both delegations. But the problem is that the decision, arguably, could have an effect on the election–precisely what wasn’t supposed to happen.

The Two Plans

Today, a muckety muck from FL (Jon Ausman) and a muckety muck from MI (Mark Brewer) will present their proposal for how the delegations should be seated.

Ausman will argue the FL elected delegates should all be seated, but with half a vote each. He will argue that all the super-delegates should be seated with a full vote. There’s a technical reason for this seemingly arrogant stance: the DNC rules say that charter members shall (must) be seated, though Ausman expands the reading of the rules so as to argue that ALL the supers–and not just the DNC member supers–should be seated, where as the DNC rules say that only the DNC member supers, and not the elected official supers, shall be seated. In any case, Ausman’s proposal essentially boils down to halving the delegation.

Brewer will argue that MI elected delegation should consist of 69 Hillary supporters and 59 Obama supporters (currently, 55 Hillary supporters and 36 "uncommitted" supporters, most of whom are Obama supporters, have been selected). The 69-59 number is the halfway point between seating the delegates based on the results of the January 15 Clusterfuck and seating the delegates in a 50-50 split. But it also is just about what a number of other solutions would work out to be. In addition to the 69-59 split, he would seat all the super-delegates. The challenge for Brewer, though, is that he will propose seating a full-strength delegation, not a halved delegation like Ausman is proposing.

What Will Happen

The day will start with Ausman presenting FL’s challenge then Brewer will present MI’s challenge. Each candidate and state also get to make a presentation in response to the challenge.

That’ll take us to lunch.

Then, the RBC members will spend the afternoon arguing about what to do.

I suspect the committee will decide to seat a half-strength delegation from both states. I think it likely that the elected super-delegates will receive only a half vote, while the DNC super-delegates will get a full vote (because of the way the rules read). The FL delegation will be seated based on the outcome of their primary. As to the MI delegation? Your guess is as good as mine. On Wednesday, when I first saw the DNC analysis of the situation, I thought they might base it on the Clusterfuck results as well, with the added joy that we’d need to re-do our Distict Conventions so Obama could have some say on who got elected. But there are rumors that there will be some other resolution–perhaps closer to 50-50.

What Will Happen Going Forward

Understand, though, that this is really just a five-day solution.

On Tuesday, the final primaries will be held. At that point, Obama will have a clear lead in the elected delegates. On Wednesday, enough super-delegates will endorse Obama to allow him to reach whatever new "win" number comes out of today (they have to add the delegates that they decide to seat into the total). On Thursday or Friday, Hillary will likely concede. Once that happens, Obama will then graciously decide to seat both delegations at full strength.

So really, the important outcomes of today will simply be determining what the "win" number will be after Tuesday. And getting us into a position to close this thing out, hopefully by the end of next week.

There’s something disturbing in the Rules and By-Law Committee Meeting Materials handed out for Saturday’s meeting: the distinct possibility that the RBC will overturn the results of MI’s April 19 Convention, the only thing approaching a real exercise in democracy this year. It’s the problem of how to assign uncommitted delegates as supporting Obama.

First, the document pretty much throws out the possibility of doing a 69-59 split, which is what the MDP recommended.

If the RBC determines that any of the pledged delegate positions should be restored to the MDP, the first question presented is whether the results of the January 15, 2008 primary should be used in any way in allocating the results.

On the one hand, if the RBC does determine that Michigan should be allowed to send some pledged delegates to the Convention, there must be some basis for allocating those delegates among presidential candidates (preferences). A fundamental principle of delegate selection is expressed in the provision of the Charter requiring that delegates be chosen through processes which “assure that delegations fairly reflect the division of preferences expressed by those who participate in the Presidential nominating process.” Similarly, Rule 13(A) of the Delegate Selection Rules provides that, “Delegates shall be allocated in a fashion that fairly reflects the expressed presidential preference or uncommitted status of the primary voters….” In this case, it can be argued, there is no basis for ensuring “fair reflection” of presidential preference other than to use the results of the January 15 primary.

On the other hand, it can be argued that the primary as a whole could not possibly have served as a “fair reflection” of presidential preference because most of the candidates then running for the nomination were not on the ballot.

It then proceeds by considering a whole bunch of possibilities pertaining to the original Clusterfuck, the January 15 primary, apparently believing the RBC can only address those results. It rules out categorically giving all the uncommitted delegates to Obama.

Nevertheless, there is no specific authority whatsoever in the Delegate Selection Rules or the Call for the RBC to award delegate positions won by the “Uncommitted” preference to a particular candidate or candidates.

It continues to consider whether there’s a way to at least give the candidates who were not on the ballot (and therefore covered by "uncommitted") the ability to influence who gets picked as an elected delegate.

On the other hand, it can be argued that the voters expressing the “Uncommitted” preference were expressing a preference for at least one of the candidates whose names did not appear on the January 15 ballot, rather than rejecting the entire field. Therefore, following the principle of fair reflection of presidential preference, it can at least be said that the “Uncommitted” delegate positions should be considered as being allocated collectively to the candidates whose names did not appear on the ballot: Senator Barack Obama, former Senator John Edwards, Senator Joseph Biden and Governor Bill Richardson.

ased on this logic, a strong argument can be made that in awarding delegate positions to “Uncommitted” status in the unusual circumstances presented by the Michigan challenge, the RBC would at least have the authority to make special provisions for the exercise of candidate right of approval in the selection of delegates to fill these pledged “Uncommitted” positions.

[snip]

At the least it would appear that the RBC could grant to those candidates—the ones who withdrew their names from the January 15 primary ballot — collectively the right to exercise candidate right of approval with respect to the eligibility of persons to be considered to fill the “Uncommitted” pledged delegate slots. It is possible that these candidates—only one of whom actively remains in the race—could work out among themselves the mechanics of approving the persons to be considered for the “Uncommitted” pledged delegate positions.

This is a legalistic way of suggesting that maybe those candidates not on the ballot could decide, together, who should be eligible to become delegates (it doesn’t say so, but of course all the people not on the ballot in January–Biden, Richardson, Edwards, and Obama–are either supporters of Obama or are Obama).

But here’s the problem. To do that–to give the uncommitted delegates to Obama (which they sound inclined to do), they’d have to redo the District Conventions.

As noted, the MDP is in the process of completing the selection of delegates as if no sanction had been imposed, filling all delegate positions originally provided by the Call, and allocating those positions based on the results of the Jan. 15 primary. If a determination is made to award the positions originally allocated to the “Uncommitted” preference collectively to the candidates whose names were not on the ballot and to allow them to exercise candidate right of approval, then the RBC presumably would have to require the MDP to undertake a new selection process, including filing by delegate candidates and candidate right of approval, to fill those positions. [my emphasis]

Wonderful. Not only is our January primary the biggest clusterfuck in the nation. But our April District Conventions are on their way to becoming clusterfucks too.

Last fall, Jay Rosen wrote a post and I wrote a follow-up, both of which elicited much discussion. Jay quoted a member of the White House press corps explaining why the press corps continues to attend the White House press events even though they’re staged spin, rather than news. Here’s the exchange between Jay and the anonymous reporter.

Well, there are two phrases that I’d like to pass along to your readers. They mean more or less the same thing. “Body watch” means covering an event that will produce zero news on its own because you need to make sure the president doesn’t collapse. The other is SSRO — “suddenly shots rang out” — which is basically equivalent, just a bit more dramatic.

[snip]

When I emailed this to my friend, he asked whether we were responsible for the president’s safety, so I assume that others will have the same question. What we are responsible for is making sure that, if he collapses, or is shot at, we are in a position to get that information to our viewers/listeners/readers.

From what I know, a correct and concise statement of what the body watch is.

Think about how much JFK, RFK, MLK, Wallace, Squeaky, and Hinckley have shaped the logistical reality of White House coverage. The history of journalism is littered with stories of reporters who called it a day a bit too early, like the guy from the New York Times (if memory serves) who decided to head back to NYC hours before Wallace was shot. [my emphasis]

Basically, the press corps continues to attend all of Bush’s–or Presidential candidates’–events out of fear that something newsworthy might happen and they wouldn’t be present.

When I read this account of how the reporters covering the Hillary campaign learned of her RFK assassination comment–not to mention the fact that John McCain had a squamous cell carcinoma removed in February, in the middle of a Presidential campaign, without anyone reporting it–it made me want to further challenge the notion that the press corps has to follow the President–and Presidential candidates around–to make sure they, and not some random citizen with a video camera–reports on serious things that happen to the President.

Here’s how the NYT "covered" Hillary’s RFK comment (h/t Scarecrow).

In the morning the campaign, with its traveling press corps of about two-dozen reporters, photographers and camera operators, flew from Washington to Sioux Falls, S.D., to campaign in advance of the June 3 primary.

Mrs. Clinton had three events. First was a meeting with the editorial board of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader, which was live-streaming the interview, something a few newspapers just started doing in this election cycle.

The press corps, meanwhile, was on a bus from the airport to Brandon, a few miles away, to set up for her second event at a supermarket. (The media are sometimes in a different place from the candidate, usually when the event is private or small.)

Her interview began while we were on the bus, but Internet access was so poor, we could only pick up bits of her comments intermittently. We did hear her bat back reports that her campaign had made overtures to Senator Barack Obama’s campaign about some kind of deal for her to exit the race.

At the supermarket, we were ensconced in a café off the deli counter, where many reporters were writing about her denying the overtures while also trying to follow the live stream. Here, too, Internet access was spotty and the stream came over in choppy bursts.

Mrs. Clinton arrived from the newspaper in the midst of this, and began addressing a couple of hundred people who were seated adjacent to us, in the fresh produce section. Then our cell phones and Blackberries went off.

On the other end were editors who had seen a Drudge Report link to a New York Post item online. The Post was not with the traveling press _ and apparently had a decent Internet connection.

The initial N.Y. Post item read this way: “She is still in the presidential race, she said today, because historically, it makes no sense to quit, and added that, ‘Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June,’ making an odd comparison between the dead candidate and Barack Obama.”

So: the NY Post to Drudge to the editors to the reporters actually "traveling" with Hillary.

By way of comparison of how the blogosphere jumped on the story, here’s a John Aravosis post that describes his efforts to confirm this story–and, as a loud Hillary opponent, frankly turn it into news.

UPDATE: I just called the newspaper’s news room to inform them that they kind of have a huge scoop here if they can confirm. Their response: You can watch the video yourself it’s on our Web site. Uh, yeah, but is it true – did she say it? They don’t know. Nice. The Argus Leader didn’t sound very interested in finding out if they had a huge story on their hands, so who knows.

You can read the NY Post article and decide for yourself. I’m trying to listen to the interview now to find out what exactly she said and why.

The article just updated. Holy shit.

Hillary Clinton today brought up the assassination of Sen. Robert Kennedy while defending her decision to stay in the race against Barack Obama.

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don’t understand it," she said, dismissing calls to drop out.

Clinton made her comments at a meeting with the Sioux Falls Argus-Leader’s editorial board while campaigning in South Dakota, where she complained that, "People have been trying to push me out of this ever since Iowa."

Aravosis continued to update that post for two hours. One of the first recommended DKos diaries on the comment seems to rely on Aravosis and was posted sixteen minutes later. I don’t know whether Aravosis found the Post story himself or via Drudge.

Whether or not it was Aravosis or Drudge who decided this comment had to be a story (nice company, Aravosis), it was, at last according to both Aravosis’ account, some random guy reading the news who did so–he told them they might have a big scoop. And, ultimately, it was a newspaper reporter watching the live feed of an interview from someplace comfortable who first reported the comments–it was neither the press corp reporters who were traveling "with" Hillary nor editors of the Argus-Leader with whom Hillary was meeting.

Now I don’t mean to suggest that a comment about an assassination is as important an event as actual physical events undergone by the President or candidate–though that’s why I brought up the McCain carcinoma, which also went unnoted and, because of McCain’s success at managing the release of his own medical records, underplayed when discovered. But it is an event that–for better or worse, and I’ve got mixed feelings about that–has been deemed a very important campaign event. (I actually trust Rachel Maddow’s read on this the most–"this is a gaffe and a big mistake from a remarkably disciplined candidate"– since she has repeatedly defended Hillary against unfair attacks, but since she also has superb political judgment.)

There are some events that will be news independent of the editorial decisions surrounding them. But the coverage of the RFK comment affirms, I think, that news is rarely made in the presence of the press corps. It is "made" in the editorial decisions and by the blogger/Drudge publicity and the talking heads. That’s in no way an entirely good thing. But it does mean that one’s presence in the press corps largely means a reporter will only have privileged access to a media handler’s spin on a particular event, and not necessarily a better vantage on the event itself.

Update: Athenae addresses related issues: 

Which goes back to what we talk about here a lot, laziness and stupidity in addition to bias, as a media problem. The utter arbitrariness, in that what one person says passes without comment other than on the back pages of the Beaver County Tidbit (much to the chagrin of the Tidbit) and what someone else says gets blown up into a 24-hour Pig Fuck of a "firestorm," which incidentally if I never hear that word again … A bunch of things contribute to this: charged environment, relative stupidity of statement, availability of critics and ease of analysis with which to quickly put together a Sunday show, the latter being so much more crucial than people think. If you can’t get anyone on the phone to say "that was outrageous!" you can’t write a story about outrage.

I’m not defending her at all, at best it was a fucking dumbass thing to say and very uncool, at best. But the total lack of rules to this thing, the lack of dare I say it, standards to which journalists are always declaring they adhere, makes fighting back against it very difficult, and that’s a lesson that all Democrats should have learned four years ago, hell, eight years ago. It’s a lesson they’re going to need to learn damn quick in the coming months.

Though I would add that–as I think I’ve shown here–the arbitrariness is by no means limited to the journalists. The blogosphere is at least as much at fault here. 

Because he’s "dizzy."

Also revealed: He has occasional momentary episodes of dizziness, when he gets up suddenly. McCain first told a doctor about them in 2000 — a visit that also uncovered the melanoma — and intense testing concluded they were harmless vertigo. He didn’t report any episodes at his most recent exam.

So I guess in the McCain family, not only is John not the breadwinner of the family, but in spite of the fact that he has a beautiful blonde wife, he’s the dizzy one.