One does get more  and more turned off by the narcissitic egotism of these two.  How is it that more people don't see it?  or are some women so into identification?  "I'm not so likeable either.  No one really appreciates me enough either.  My husband cheated on me too..." or some such version of utter psychological garbage.

Marty, you're drunk.  I take it on faith that you wouldn't be so mean and churlish...and stupid...sober.

Monica was, in fact, a J.A.P. collecting trophies.  Of course she could retire to private life -- she bagged a president!  She's Heidi Abramowitz.  If you can't see that, then you really are an Obama-besotted twit.

So Martz, are you telling us Obama lied about wanting to make Bill part of his administration?  Think back to the early debates.  

"Apropos Michael Crowley's post today on The Stump about Monica being

invisible, I always thought that she had more self-respect than Bill

Clinton and certainly more respect for the public good than he had, ..."

what nonsense, if Crowley and his ilk had any respect Monica they would stop bringing her up every ten minutes in order to lambast the Clintons, and so would you, Marty.

Why can't we be more like the French. Sarkozy got divorced and remarried, his former wife just got remarried and the French Republic did not collapse. I also didn't see a 24/7 assault of the President for getting divorced or having an affair.

"Why can't we be more like the French."

Words I never thought I'd see on the Spine. I agree with you, Jackson.

Comparing the Sarkozy/Bruni relationship to the clandestine, tawdry, dispiriting Clinton/Lewinsky "relationship" is beyond stupid. Time has proven what decent people knew, and the sophisticated set refused to believe: America expects more of its presidents and will not be quick to forgive or forget.

I think when this is over, and historians take a dispassionate look at the causes of Hillary's defeat, they'll determine the most damage done to Hillary was by her husband.

He sure has caused her a lot of grief, hasn't he?

About the Euros:

"My European collegues (i write from an academic conference in Belgium) have a hard time understanding what happened, but they know that it is one of those things that could only happen in America, where the topic of sex drives otherwise reasonable people insane. In Germany and the Netherlands, prostitution is legal and regulated by public health authorities. A man who did what Spitzer did would have a lot to discuss with his wife and family, but he would have broken no laws, and it would be laughable to accuse him of a betrayal of the public trust. This is as it should be. If Spitzer broke any laws, they were bad laws... " -- from the New Yorker

www.newyorker.com/.../080324taco_talk_hertzberg

Nevertheless l'affaire Sarkozy has been damaging, not because of the immorality but because of the bad taste.  Et voilà, Clinton et Spitzer.

Give fougasseu another Obama pin to stick in his lapel.

So Jackson--what do you think of Hillary's humongous lie?  I'm surprising she didn't mention having to put on a flak jacket.  

"Why can't we be more like the French."  You mean, when it suits your purposes?

Jim:  Uh, could you please be just slightly less anti-semitic?  As a Jewish woman, I just love when men refer to my kind as "J.A.P."s.  I'm sure at least some of the definition of JAP would apply to me, as well as to pretty much every other woman on the planet.  Unless of course you talking subservient Geishas.  JAP's not only anti-semitic, it's misogynist.  

Moreover, I forbid the words "White Trash" to be uttered in my home,  nor do I like wop or dago.  Please extend the same courtesy to me.  You say, well, not all Jewish women are JAPs?  To plenty of anti-Semites out there, all of us are.

Moreover, if you put that passage from the New Yorker in a larger context, he was quoting a woman who'd just been in a conference with a bunch of European colleagues in academia.  He was viewing what she said with some skepticism.  

G'night.

Beside being churlish, this is ridiculous.  I happen to like Obama for a lot of reasons, and not high on that list is some sort of revenge ploy against the Clinton's.  They aren't going to fade into obscurity- she'll still be a Senator and he'll still be an ex-President, who, it is important to remember, didn't seek the spotlight after his Presidency.   He did fade a bit.  But to expect them to disappear?  Come on.  We still hear every time Old Man Bush gets a hankering for some parachuting (which is actually really bad-ass, and I approve of hearing about it).   I agree with jm- you must have been drunk.  

Monica disappeared?  If she didn't  stay in the spotlight , it wasn't from lack of trying.  Anybody remember her sitting her large derriere on stage in New York in an HBO special, weeping, retelling the whole story?  Admitting she didn't clean the infamous blue  dress because " It was the same way people will cherish a sweaty T-shirt from a rock star"

Yeah, she's a real class act.

www.newsweek.com/.../63508

www.sfgate.com/.../article.cgi

even Jimmy Carter still hasn't disappeared and it has been what, 87 years since he left the White House? But I agree with Marty that Bill is burning a lot of bridges, gone forever is the love he would have felt going into any Democratic venue.

Maybe Marty should disappear for a while; then, at least, we'd have some better journalism at TNR.

mollysimon said:   "So Jackson--what do you think of Hillary's humongous lie?  I'm surprising she didn't mention having to put on a flak jacket."

Lie, what lie? Did she not go to Bosnia?  CBS is an expert on lying. Of course, when CBS does it's covered by the first amendment.

""Why can't we be more like the French."  You mean, when it suits your purposes?"

When it comes to issues of sexuality the French are a lot more honest and less hysterical than we are.

Now, what about Mr. Wright, Ms. Simon? Do you think Obama explained the issue away?

An Open Letter to Senator Obama  by Lionel Chetwynd

“Dear Senator Obama:

I have now read and reread your speech, understanding you take this to be a “teaching moment,” I have applied myself to its lessons. But some questions have arisen and I need a little more clarification.

You tell me Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s horrendous remarks will take on a different meaning if I will but contextualize them and understand he has seen terrible things in his time, a burden shared by all African-Americans. A fair proposition; from Kant to Auden and beyond we learn we define by comparison and only by internalizing can we grasp true meaning. So I have done precisely that: looked inside myself to understand how hatred might need to be contextualized.

I did not have to look far. I remembered how, as a boy, I sat at the Passover Seder with my sister’s Polish-born husband and the remnants of his family. The remnants of five families to be precise, for the 12 weary souls around that table were all that remained of what had once been 300. The others – their loved ones, their sons, their daughters, their hopes and dreams – were gone, their lives consumed by zyklon-b gas, their mortal remains wisps of smoke from a Büchenwald chimney. These people, who had seen and suffered so much, read of my ancestor’s deliverance from Egypt exactly as the Bible instructed: in the present tense, as if it happened to them. “For with a mighty hand the Lord thy God raised thee out of Egypt and brought you from slavery to freedom.” But as they spoke – or really whispered such was the fear and holiness of the moment – they were not conjuring up Egyptian slavery as a present experience but recalling the horrors they themselves had witnessed, murder on a scope once unimaginable and only made possible by perverted technology. Though their Yiddish was foreign to me, I picked up the odd word. When they spoke of the Concentration Camp guards, they called them the Ukrainians. When they remembered the betrayal of their neighbors, I could distinguish the word Pole. But above all, it was the Germans, the hated Germans. The Hun. The Devil’s Scourge. And I was filled with a righteous hatred. Had I, in that moment, the power to end the life of every German on earth, I might have well done so. That is a shameful thought. I am humiliated by the memory. But perhaps, in context, you can understand my homicidal rage and forgive me, and should I have chosen to preach that doctrine in a place of worship and stir an audience to its feet as it cheered my righteous fury, I trust you would offer me the fig leaf of “context.”

As the Seder ended, my brother-in-law, seeing my rage, put his arm around my shoulder and asked what troubled me. I stammered the best explanation I could. He smiled, “Don’t be a fool,” he said, “the Germans left so many of us dead and stole the joy from so many that remain. So now you want to give them the final victory by allowing your own life to be consumed and twisted and deformed by the same hatred? Leave it to them. That’s why we, at this table, forgive. Not forget, but forgive. You just heard how Moses told the Israelites not to celebrate the death of the Egyptians in the Reed Sea. Learn.”

And then there is this:

“You say you are devoted to Reverend Wright because he brought you to Christ. I can only imagine how powerful a relationship that forges. But, my imperfect understanding of the Christian Faith tells me you can do him an equally magnificent service: You can help bring him back to Christ. Show him redemption and salvation lie not in the satisfaction of doing little dances in a pulpit while you slander good and decent people. Teach him that great leadership and Christian love abjures the very filth – and I pick that word deliberately – that he spews on an apparently regular basis. After all, Senator, you know our government did not invent the HIV virus to kill African-Americans. You know, Senator, this is not the United States of KKK America. You know the truth of 9/11. At least you should. Both you and Michelle have benefited mightily from the new spirit that has come to America in the last two generations. I thought you were part of that. I thought you were post-racial.

But in your silence, in your justifications, in your facile instruction to contextualize, you seem just a more presentable version of those dreary self-promoters, Sharpton, Jackson, Bakewell and the rest. Surely this is not you. Please, Senator, be brave. Lead. From a position of honesty where context is our daily reality, not drawn from bitter memories, no matter how justified they once might have been. Deny Jeremiah Wright your comfort of “context”. Be Presidential. To all Americans.”

Here is the complete letter:

pajamasmedia.com/.../open-letter-to-senator-obama

jackson, that's a beautiful missive.  A denunciation of hate speech, from the right.  Too bad it couldn't have come from a liberal.

Jackson, surely you jest about Bosnia.  You know damn well what lie.  Supporting Hillary doesn't mean ignoring her warts, my friend.

And Mr. Jackson, regarding Mr. Wright:  I really don't care.  Really, I don't.  Wright is a complicated man who's said  some stupid things.   And the big deal  is . . . ?  Obama was on the Harvard Law Review. I somehow doubt he believes that the U.S. gave Africa its AIDS epidemic.  As for the hate-America-first remarks, so what?  Are you also annoyed that Obama refused to put his hand to his heart when he said the pledge?  The anti-Obamites are making this a bigger deal than it needs to be.  They're turning this non-story into a narrative because it's all they have left.  

Enough said on my part.  I suppose I shouldn't have brought up Bosnia-gate, because the bottom line is that on this score we will never agree.  Such is life, my cyber-friend, whom I always enjoy encountering on this board.  Eternal agreement could get very dull.  

Scott Looper:  And that's the best you can do?

"Uh, could you please be just slightly less anti-semitic?  As a Jewish woman, I just love when men refer to my kind as "J.A.P."s."

Why don't you get off your politcally correct high horse and get a life?  I shouldn't have to explain to you that it's a term used by Jew and gentile alike, usually in a humorous way.  I can see, by the PC household you proudly rule with an iron hand, that living with you must be a dreary experience indeed.  If I were you I shouldn't brag about it.

Your reading of the New Yorker piece is bullshit.  He was not viewing what she said with skepticism but using the Belgian anecdote to bolster his Comment about the tempest in a teapot over Spitzer.

Your entire psyche is distorted by anti-Clinton hysteria, and if that stereotypes you, then blame yourself.  On this subject you really ought to recuse yourself.

"I'm sure at least some of the definition of JAP would apply to me"  

Oh, you mean you're like Monica?  Or Heidi?

"JAPs"?? Good lord, jm, you're making me feel _really_ old. I haven't heard that locution since about 1981

"A denunciation of hate speech, from the right.  Too bad it couldn't have come from a liberal." Liberals believe that it is impossible for blacks to indulge in hate speech. They are "only venting" to quote Bill Maher.  But when Hillary Clinton makes the historically accurate claim that LBJ was crucial in passing Civil Rights legislation, she is guilty of race baiting.

Jimmy, a case of projection for sure:  "Your entire psyche is distorted by anti-[Obama]  hysteria, and if that stereotypes you, then blame yourself.  On this subject you really ought to recuse yourself."

Yeah, lots of people laugh about JAPs, just like they have jokes dumb Pollacks and drunk Micks.  And how, dear Jim, would you have a clue as to how my household is run?  "Iron hand"?  I wish.  Or maybe not.  In any case, you have no idea what my life or my family or what my husband does for a living.  If you did, you'd be too embarrassed to show your face.  As for PC--oh, is that like, if I take exception to a racist joke?  You see, your side points to "PC" when you can't win on merit.  

When I point out that I have so-called "Jappy" traits, I refer to the ones that also apply to many woman in America.  We like to buy shoes!  Wow!  We like our men to treat us well.  Wow!  myself in a group that consists of pretty much every woman in the Western world.  Of course, you use this short-hand because it's easy.  You can instantly bring to mind whining women who talk about their nails, make reservations for dinner, and so on.  You were caught, Jim, and you're thrashing around like a just-caught Marlin who's been reeled on deck.

"Jackson, surely you jest about Bosnia.  You know damn well what lie.  Supporting Hillary doesn't mean ignoring her warts, my friend."

Hey Hillary is a bitch and so was Margaret Thartcher and so were many other heads of State. What counts is can he or she do the job.

As to her embelleshing her "war stories" it happens all the time and its no big deal Had you been in the service you would have knonw to discount 75 percent of all war stories. Had she said she was in Bosnia when she wasn't there it would have been a different story. For the rest, who gives flying f---ck. (Forgive my army lingo.)

It's all petty nonsense, Molly.

Obama's inability to deal with Wright's bigotry over a period of 20 years is much more serious. I hope you know that.

about the open letters above, the first was touching, the second rubbish, using Christianity as a cudgel.

Obama's job is to run for President, not to bring his Pastor to Christ. The writer says: "my imperfect understanding of the Christian Faith" imperfect is right. Christianity teaches us to love the sinner but hate the sin. The writers believes Obama should be the first to cast stones at his former minister, but of course Christianity teaches us that we can not. redemption and salvation lie soley in faith in Jesus Christ as Savior (nothing about dancing) and only God can determine the redemption and salvation of Wright, not Obama.

The writer knows practically nothing about Christianity, hence has no business speaking about how Christians should practice their faith.

He also said, I thought you were post-racial, which is the greatest bullshit. Nobody is post-racial, might as well say we are post-sexual or post-cultural, no one person can represent all races, cultures, or both sexes. To think anyone can is evidence of true delusion, but of course the writer never thought that. The most we can hope for is someone who can tap into all of our basic humanity, and who endeavors to be tolerant and understanding of those who don't share his racial, or cultural background.

As a Catholic I endeavor to be tolerant and understanding of Rev. Wright, and if I were ever to have dialog with him it would be first as a Christian, next as a fellow man, and lastly as another human. Dialog is possible, but first I must put down the stone. Obama has also chosen not to cast the stones.

Obama need not, indeed must not, renounce his own basic Christianity in order to be President. I am not saying he should put his faith above others, but I am not asking him to deny his own, unlike the many others hereabouts who believe they are without sin.

jm_rice said: "jackson, that's a beautiful missive.  A denunciation of hate speech, from the right.  Too bad it couldn't have come from a liberal."

yes, but as a liberal I don't check people's credential, I just want to know if what they said is logical, consistent. and true. Obama's excuses ddn't pass that test for me.

Had he said that he did more for civil rights than he actually did, or was involved with the Jewish community more than he was, I would have forgiven that since at least he would have been telling me what he wished he would have done.

As it is his speech tells me that he doesn't take the critics of Wright very seriously.

Wright's more an entrepreneur than anything else. Obama saw the man's dominant market position and hooked up with him to enhance his street cred in Southside Chicago. I don't see what faith has to do with this.

Goldie Hawn was adorable in Private Benjamin.

Obama will be the nominee and will lose big to McCain, maybe even losing NY and CA and certainly OH, MI and FL. Of course, Hillary will be blamed.

blackton said: "about the open letters above, the first was touching, the second rubbish, using Christianity as a cudgel."

it was all part of the same letter. Read the link.

It would have been better had Obama deal with the Wright issue by engaing in a discussion/debate either with the media or with some other person taking an opposite point of view.

jackson I had to grow up dealing with Catholic anti-semitism, and catholic anti-every other religion as well. Also I heard a priest once say the US was worse than Nazi Germany because the number of aborted babies exceeds the numbers of those killed in the holocaust.

personally, I don't take the critics of Obama seriously on this issue. To satisfy others I would have to renounce my church and my faith because of what some of the priests have said, even though I disagree with it. We are becoming a nation of sanctimonious assholes without the sanctimony.

For the record, I also don't care what any leader of the Mormon church has said or taught, or any religion. I judge my candidates on their words and actions, not their associates or pastors or cousins or neighbors. Least of all their pastors, simply because of separation of church and state.

then I don't get this guy at all "That’s why we, at this table, forgive. Not forget, but forgive." So Germans can be forgiven but not Rev. Wright, and not Obama for having been around while these words were uttered? He did not listen to his brother in law near well enough. Beyond that would he have been so quick to condemn an elderly Jewish rabbi who said vicious things about Germans nowadays? I doubt that seriously, he himself recognizes the danger of falling into that trap but is not willing to forgive others for doing so (as long as they are jewish that is, then it has context). To be honest I don't care what any Rabbi says ever. I have no desire or interest to listen to Joe Liebermans Rabbi about anything, he could be a charming wise man or he can be a lunatic, I don't care. But why aren't every one of that Rabbi's sermons posted online?

yeah Tep, and you know Obama's soul right? people treat faith way to lightly around here. Obama belongs to the United Church of Christ.

r-ennis, half of me hopes McCain does win regardless of who he is against. The only thing that makes me happy is that Hillary will never be President. She is a disaster.

blackton point taken, but one big difference between the Catholic Church is that some jerk of a Priest can say something stupid but there is a church hierarchy that doesn't support his views.

The Reverend Wright, on the other hand, is his Church.

I also don't care what Mormons or Catholics or ultra-Orthodox Rabbis say, but if someone was running for President who sat in a Mormon congregation or Catholic Church, or Synagogue for 20 years while his Priest or Rabbi was cursing out the US I would also have a lot of problems with that candidate.

I would also bet that the press wouldn't give that candidate a pass, especially if he were a Republican.

fair enough Jackson, and probably true. I just am a bit hyperdefensive about the rights of churches having belonged to an underground Catholic one during my 7 years in China. Believe you me, there was no recording of sermons (to be honest, i didn't really understand most of them anyhow, the regular church service I know regardless). In the Patriotic Catholic churches priests are forced to speak glowingly about China's leaders so I have a different take on cursing out injustice. Yes, Wright went way overboard but isn't it wonderful to live in a country where people can curse out their leaders (or maybe not, since it seems it is true only in theory that they can)

Tep:  In Benjamin, Goldie was being Goldie.  Adorable as ever. I doubt anyone could have played that part and walked the line so well.  

blackie, I don't care about Obama's soul. He's a politician. That's why he landed in the front pew of Wright's church. If he would just admit as much and cease with the BS, my respect for him would soar. He has my vote, in any case, which I'm sure is all he, being a politician, really desires.

I like tep's response above. Yes, politics first religion, a distant second.

blackton said:  "Yes, Wright went way overboard but isn't it wonderful to live in a country where people can curse out their leaders (or maybe not, since it seems it is true only in theory that they can)"

I don't mind Wright cussing out his country's leaders. I do mind his cursing his country, accusing the govt of spreading AIDS in the Black community, of attacking all or most whites as bigots (Obama seems to have learned his lesson well there with his quip about his grandmother being "typical white person"). Now I don't care what Wright said, he is not the issue, I care about Obama's 20 year involvement with him.

Who is to say at this point how much of Wright’s theology Obama observed even as he was being “critical” of some of it?

Hillary's constituents do not think she is a disaster. Even in rural upstate NY she has won them over. Her colleagues do not think she is a disaster and she works well with Rebublicans. The only people who think she is a disaster are Obama supporters and far right wackos.

Blackton, good point about anti-semitic priests. But my feeling is that there is so little anti-semitism in the US precisely because Christian clerics, to their credit, by and large, no longer preach it from their pulpits. Which is precisely the point. Black anti-semitism is through the roof because it is commonplace for black clerics to preach it, or, at least, fail to denounce it.  I suppose you wouldn't care if a Rabbi were caught on tape claiming that blacks belong to a gutter race. But, I guarantee you that such a Rabbi would not hold a positiion in any synagogue.