A Horse Is A Horse, Of Course, Of Course

Or. Blowback's A Bitch

We hit on the Le Affair Edwards the other day, and I honestly didn't except to be returning to it so soon.

There's still, either a few more details to come out, or an Imelda-Marcos-like avalanche of shoes to drop.

Seemingly, in the past day or two, it appears the MSM, now that Edwards did his "I'm Guilty ...But I'm Not" interview, is less interested in the former Senator, and now aiming their notebooks at Lisa Drucker, aka Rielle Hunter, the self-styled femme fatale in this saga.

And, boy, there be some bizarre shit flying out of that closet!

It's not that Rielle is a New Age disciple, or the much publicized former gal pal of author Jay McInerny, according to ABC, "A party girl named Lisa Druck whose exploits in New York's cocaine-fueled nightlife during the 1980s inspired "Bright Lights, Big City" author Jay McInerny to model a character after her in his fiction."

No, No, No ...

This is one family's closet that may, very well, qualify for 'Riply's Believe It or Not'

Mister Sandman, Bring Me A Dream

And if you can't do that, make sure you show up with the wires and jumper cables.

"Good God! John Edwards was having sex with the daughter of the guy who taught Tommy Burns how to kill horses by electrocuting them!"

This comes from a fascinating article, "Edwards' 'other woman' revives memories of a gruesome scandal", by Lester Munson, with William Nack.

It seems that Little Lisa, aka Rielle, once owned a horse, a show horse.

Little Lisa's Daddy, James Druck, who was describe as "a criminally minded lawyer and conniver", at least, at one point, was in need of some serious moola;

When Jim Druck got strapped for cash, he tried to sell the horse; but the top offer was only $125,000 and the horse was insured for $150,000. You do the math; Druck did. So he talked Burns into killing the horse and showed him how to do it, revealing himself to be a man of some experience in this venal backwash of animal husbandry. Druck then bought Burns all the paraphernalia he needed, from the clips to wires.

Da-dah, a legend grew, with Burns going on to garner the nickname, "The Sandman".

As one prominent West Virginia horsewoman told me, "When Tommy arrived at a show, they would say The Sandman was around. They knew a horse would be put to sleep."

Hmmm ... Was Tommy Burns hanging around the Edwards campaign?

Probably not, however, by hooking up with James Druck's daughter, Rielle/Lisa, and then lying about it, Edwards should give a spiff to The Sandman, for the self-electrocution of his reputation and character.

Go read "Edwards' 'other woman' revives memories of a gruesome scandal", by Lester Munson, with William Nack, it is amazing.


Mister Sandman's Magic Beam Bonus Links

Woman in spotlight has lived on its edge; Rielle Hunter has drifted through high-profile scenes on both coasts

A Chronology

Mr SandMan - The Chordettes




Bonus Bonus!

We couldn't resist ... How could we do a story like this and not think about the Famous Mr. Ed.

Mr. Ed The talking horse

This Date ... On The Garlic

16 August 2007... On The Garlic

Six Degrees of Separation (Bush Grindhouse Edition)

Sorry Elvis, Tests Prove Bat Boy Love Child Of President Bush Is The Winner ... The Results - The Garlic's Weekly Poll

A Further Embellishment On The Appropriately Named CREEP


16 August 2006... On The Garlic

Top Ten Cloves: Other Ways Senator George Allen May Have Mispronounced The Word “Mohawk”


16 August 2005... On The Garlic

Stymied By Publishers, Google To Digitize Bazooka Joe Comics; If Impasse Prolonged, Google To Continue With Baseball Cards, Shopping Coupons

Male Chefs To Join Crawford Protest; Will Demand Answers Why Female Named To Exec White House Position

Top Ten Cloves: What Iraqi Assembly Will Do Over Next Week To Build Constitution

Hey Everybody, You're Forgetting The 2000 Election!

Oh Boy!

Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain is at it - again ...

This Georgia-Russia thing is like a case of Jolt Soda for him.

Heck, I'm prone to speculate he may be getting up as early as 7AM, so he can jump into his "I'm not the President, but I play one on the campaign" undies and go charging out there.

I'm surprised we haven't seen Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny splashing into the Atlantic Ocean, knife clenched in teeth, swimming and promising to take care of the situation, singlehandedly.

But no, he blurts out something like this;

McCain: Georgia conflict is the ‘first serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War.’

My friends, we have reached a crisis, the first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War. This is an act of aggression.

Jesus, it's like he took our advice from last month;

Jesus, he might as well just start walking around in a bathrobe, like that old Mafia guy did, to play out that he was crazy.

Just ride around in the Dead Campaign Express, make some stops (kicking away the empty beer bottles to exit), shuffle around in the robe and slippers, shake a few hands, maybe pick up a few Slim Jims at a convenience store ...Toss out a few bon mots on his heroism, his POW days, as he rips off a piece of Slim Jim, perhaps dribbling some of the dark juice on his bathrobe.

As you can imagine, a whole bevy of bloggers and pundits have noted, there's quite a long list to work through, before this little flare-up makes it into the club.

Andrew Sullivan: "Not the invasion of Kuwait? Or the first Gulf War? Or the Afghan war? Or the second Iraq war? Or Darfur? Or Bosnia? Or 9/11? It's this kind of emotional hyperbole that should worry people about McCain in the White House. He's a drama queen on these issues. With a finger on the trigger."

Kevin Drum: "This is, pretty obviously, factually wrong, since you could trot out the Gulf War, Bosnia, Kosovo, the al-Aqsa Intifada, 9/11, Afghanistan, and Iraq at a minimum as other serious international crises since the end of the Cold War."

Josh Marshall: "Let's run-down the list. Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, followed by the US expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait. Collapse of Yugoslavia and subsequent wars of aggression between successor states. US invasion of Afghanistan. US invasion of Iraq. There are a slew of other examples of serious international crises over last 16-18 years."

You get the picture (and there'll be more links to check out below).

Well, let me heave another one onto the pile, and it is one, that has degrees-of-separation, had it not occurred, the long list that Stumblin' Bumblin' Johnny long forgot about would have been impacted, perhaps in a number of cases, these "serious international crisises" may not have happened at all.

What does the Magic 8-Ball say ...

How's about the 2000 Presidential Election, and the Supreme Court-Appointment of George W. Bush as the 43rd President?

It was so then, and has remained so for the past 7.5-years, a red-flag, 5-alarm crises, both domestically and internationally.

Me thinks, Al Gore wouldn't have taken the country completely down the drain.

You can stand down now, Stumblin' Bumblin Johnny ... Take off the "I'm not the President, but I play one on the campaign" undies and go back to what you appear to do best - lie and baselessly smear Barack Obama.


Bonus Links

Maha: Irony Is SO Dead

Mustang Bobby: Are You Serious?

Michael J.W. Stickings: "My friends, we have reached a crisis, the first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War. This is an act of aggression."

Matthew Yglesias: We’re Still Not Georgians

Cernig: Crisis? McCain Will Give You Crisis!

For Peggy Noonan, Next Stop, Willoughby!

Willoughby? Maybe it's wishful thinking nestled in a hidden part of a man's mind, or maybe it's the last stop in the vast design of things, or perhaps, for a man like Mr. Gart Williams, who climbed on a world that went by too fast, it's a place around the bend where he could jump off. Willoughby? Whatever it is, it comes with sunlight and serenity, and is a part of the Twilight Zone.

Either Peggy Noonan is loosing it, like Gart Williams, on that Twilight Zone train, dreaming of a less-chaotic place, a much simpler way of life.

Or, she's back to aching for her dead Ronnie(well, actually, just about all her columns are about aching for her dead Ronnie).

Maybe, she just needs to see an eye doctor, for a good check-up.

She's whinny today, in her column "The End of Placeness";

The lack of placeness with both candidates contributes to a sense of their disjointedness, their floatingness. I was talking recently with a journalist who's a podcaster. I often watch him in conversation on the Internet. I told him I'm always struck that he seems to be speaking from No Place, with some background of beige wall that could exist anywhere. He leans in and out of focus. It gives a sense of weightlessness. He's like an astronaut floating without a helmet.

That's a little what both candidates are like to me.

She weeps and babbles throughout, running down the bevy of past candidates, and how identifiable they were by where it was they came from.

And, she mixes in a little xenophobia;

I miss the old geographical vividness. But we are national now, and in a world so global that at the Olympics, when someone wins, wherever he is from, whatever nation or culture, he makes the same movements with his arms and face to mark his victory. South Korea's Park Tae-hwan moves just like Michael Phelps, with the "Yes!" and the arms shooting upward and the fists. This must be good. Why does it feel like a leveling? Like a squashing and squeezing down of the particular, local and authentic.

In sum, her column today was that, as usual, neither Obama, or Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain is Ronald Reagan, so Little Missy Noonan is still in her loin-aching glum mood.

Blue Texan, over on Firedoglake, was equally annoyed, penning "Peggy Noonan: These Candidates Suck Because I Can’t Tell Where They’re From" and Steve Benen, on The Carpetbagger Report, was left shaking his head, asking "Can anyone explain why Noonan wrote this and the WSJ published it?"

Rather than the drivel that took up the space, the editors should have told to her chill out and they simply could have used five words that would have been more enlightening;

Peggy Noonan is on vacation

If her column today is any indication, it may have to be an extended one.


Bonus Peggy Perks

Nicole Belle: Meet The Press: Noonan Is Frightened By Richardson’s Beard, Relieved To Know Clintons Are Not Puppetmasters

Glenn Greenwald: Peggy Noonan is a serious "grown-up"

Blue Texan: Peggy Noonan Wonders If Obama Loves America, Has Ever Cried Thinking About Henry Ford

Top Ten Cloves: Possible Problems Julia Child Had As An OSS Spy

News Item: Julia Child, spy? Records reveal Julia Child was a World War II-era spy

10. Called in often, asking if she could work from her kitchen

9. Whenever she was told of a need, Julia thought they meant "knead" and would go off on a tangent, for hours, about Tuscan breads

8. Kept annoying, making suggestions to, management, for a television show, introducing French spies to American audiences

7. Sending secret messages on cheese cloth made it difficult for her colleagues to read

6. Her super-secret code, if she was in trouble, was to serve fish for lunch, without the heads - which she loathed to do

5. Though she hid them well in her trench coat, Meat Tenderizer and Oven Thermometer were not approved OSS equipment

4. Didn't do well at stakeouts - noise and odor from cooking gave away her position

3. When running after suspects, wind would blow apron up over her face

2. Failed self-defense training - kept hitting instructor, simulating attack on her, over head with frying pan

1. When interrogating a suspect, spent inordinate amount of time grilling them for recipes


Bonus Bon Appetite Links

Celebrity spies revealed - new details of Julia Child's pre-chef career released

John Bennett: Declassified: Julie Child's OSS Cook Book

Sara Dickerman: How To Read Mastering the Art of French Cooking - Six recipes Julia Child would want you to make

Cookin' With Julia & Jacques

Egypt Protests New U.S. Use of Pyramids; Says Mocking Historic Culture and Islam; Call for American Food Boycott

Clinton Joins Food Pyramid Protest; Says Won't Deter Child Obesity; Poll Shows Public Prefers The Sphinx

Male Chefs To Join Crawford Protest; Will Demand Answers Why Female Named To Exec White House Position

Retro Garlic ... Food Fight!

Google Fires Executive Chef; Caught Searching Recipes On Yahoo, MSN

This Date ... On The Garlic

15 August 2007... On The Garlic

Rudy ... You Like Jumpin' Those Sharks, Don't You!

Phil Rizzuto ... Great As He Was, The Scooter Didn't Always Have His Wheels On The Ground


15 August 2006... On The Garlic

Breaking News! Report Slams Seeds Of Democracy Currently Used “Worthless”; Stunning IG Reports Cites Use Of Cheap, Mail-Order Seeds Of Democracy For Iraq, Middle East; Spotlight On White House, Rumsfeld For Low-Cost Military Vision; Dirty Halliburton Water Also Cited

Top Ten Cloves: Other News Tidbits About CNN Headline News Anchor Chuck Roberts


15 August 2005... On The Garlic

Pope, Vatican Relieved New Sex Scandal Is Adultery; Videotape Flown To Rome; Teams of Lawyers, Denial Machine Stand Down

Bush Administration Grounding Iraqis Over Missed Deadline; Had Warned Playing With Friends, Staying Out Late Would Lead to Consequences

Top Ten Cloves: Things Overheard At Justice Sunday II

See Spot Vote

What is it with these Republicans and children's books?

What did kids ever do to them?

Is this some diabolical Rovian plan?

Is there deeply guarded secret data that says you can garner millions of votes by writing a children's book?

There is, of course, the penultimate, most iconic moment - My Pet Goat.

Then, keeping it in the family, we had last year, the First Lady, Laura, and Jenna Bush, the recently married daughter of The Commander Guy pump one out, not, as one's mind might go to, a first-person account on the singles scene when traveling in South America, but, rather, on "a boy who doesn't like to read."

And, two-years ago, Darth Vader's Misses, switched genres, leaving behind steamy lesbians stories, for a children's book on a family that traveled the 50 states.

Now, Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain's daughter is getting into the act.


















McCain Camp Targets Five to Ten-Year-Olds With Picture Book

The McCain campaign is making a play for the all-important K-5 demographic with a new picture book biography of the presumed GOP nominee, written by none other than Meghan McCain, Sen. John McCain's daughter and the head of the "Blogettes," who produce a blog about life on the campaign trail. Go ahead, take a look at the blog. Trust me.

And, from CNN;

The Simon & Schuster hardback, set to hit stores on September 2, is a brief, sentimental look at the familiar elements of McCain’s legendary biography, including his time in a Vietnamese prison and his run for the White House in 2000.

Several pages are devoted to McCain’s military background and his imprisonment in Vietnam, with relatively little attention paid to his youth (he “broke a lot of rules” in high school, the book says) and to his time in Congress.

Cindy McCain, along with Meghan's siblings Jack, Jimmy and Bridget, are described fondly in the book — but the children from McCain’s first marriage are left unmentioned.

Hmmm ... I wonder, how does she deal with Daddy's Keating Five Scandal?

Daddy, by mistake, accidentally broke some peoples' piggy banks, but he said he was really sorry about it

His first wife? ... The divorce?

Daddy wasn't, as some people say, a "flat-leaver" ... Daddy just found a better girlfriend who liked to do all the neat things Daddy likes to do ...

I'm sure the Right Wing Freak Show, the Dittoheads, the people that watch Hannity and O'Reilly, will be beating a path to the bookstores when this comes out, and there will, undoubtedly, be the inevitable book tour, with, perhaps, Meghan getting her own cruiser bus - "The Pandering Child Express".

Help Me Mr. Wizard!


Bonus Links

Wonkette: Details Leak About Presumed Worst Book Ever

The Guardian U.K.: How John McCain became a children's book hero - John McCain needs a new PR strategy for his presidential campaign. Luckily, his daughter Meghan has made him the star of an inspiring children's picture book

USA Today: Presidential race one for the books

Top Ten Cloves: Things About First Lady and Daughter Writing A Children's Book

Top Ten Cloves: Things Lynne Cheney Didn’t Get To Tell Wolf Blitzer About Her New Book

Garlic Exclusive! Edwards Affair Solved!

He's an Anglophile!






































He's pinin' for Camilla!

Not twins, but pretty darn close ...

I mean, look at the photos ... Around last call in a dark bar ...

Perhaps he didn't realize that Camilla isn't the royalty, so his road to become King was about as long as his lies.

Maybe, because it's August, the Dog Days of Summer, the lull before the conventions, that Le Affair Edwards isn't going away.

MSNBC's 'Hardball' (David Shuster subbing and slamming) and Dan Abrams have been hitting on it all week

As a sidebar, last week, one grave-dancer that I must point out was MSNBC's Mike Barnicle, who was sitting in for Tweety on 'Hardball'.

Barnicle, with each of his guests, couldn't use the word "hypocracy" too often enough (I double-checked the listing, to make sure I was watching 'Hardball" and not a new MSNBC Doc-Bloc, 'Hypocracy').

Why this is pertinent is that Barnicle was tossing his boulders of "hypocracy" from a glass house.

Barnicle has had his own waist-deep dive into human weakness, being his often, and repeated, skills of plagiarism and fabrication (read "Barnicle resigns from Globe; Fabrications found in 1995 column" and Salon's "Repeat Offender; Boston Globe columnist Mike Barnicle's active imagination finally brings him down")

And, just yesterday, the king of the Right Wing Freak Show came through, showing just how low in the gutter they could take this.

Now, I am not an advocate of lying and, as a matter of disclosure, here on The Garlic, we were, early on, rooting for the Edwards Team (that meaning, including, perhaps more-so, Elizabeth), so, like the many others, there was great disappointment (and not that a politician had a mistress. No Puritan fibers here ... Europe hasn't done too badly, hasn't fallen off the face-of-the-earth, with their history of their leaders sleeping around).

So now, it remains a waiting game, to flesh out any more lies by Edwards, not to mention the $64,000 question on the paternity.

And all that money being tossed around, to make sure Lisa Drucker, aka Rielle Hunter, isn't out in the food stamp line.

The bigger mystery, perhaps, stands with who took and released that photo, allegedly of Edwards, holding the baby?

It's not exactly like they were having this "catch-up" meeting out in the main lobby.

And that some are saying Rielle Hunter's sister went out of her way to dismiss that Hunter was setting up Edwards as a mark;

Hunter's sister said Rielle was being falsely portrayed as a "promiscuous person" and was not involved in "setting up" Edwards last month at a Beverly Hills hotel, where he was confronted by reporters from the National Enquirer.

Perhaps not, or, as Newsweek's Jonathan Darman described Hunter as a "New Age" person, maybe Hunter is just trying to share John Edwards' "financial energy".

Needless to say, this story will continue to have a trickle, at minimum (hey, The National Enquirer, now that they are getting kudos from the MSM on being right, certainly isn't going to give up the bone).

And it's still a story in need of an ending.

• That John Edwards is the father of the child, making him a triple, scumbag liar (1. The affair and lying about it, 2. Using his wifes' cancer remission as an excuse)
• It surfaces that Hunter was setting him up (perhaps as far as the sperm-in-the-freezer-turkey-baster thing)
• The National Enquirer dumps Edwards, clears him by dropping the bombshell that the baby is an "Elvis Love Child"

Bonus Edwards Affair Links

Steve Benen: A tale of two affairs

Digby: The Rulz

Michael D. on Balloon Juice: National Enquirer = Stopped Clock

Skippy the bush kangaroo: john edwards single handedly destroys the left's talking point about newt gingrich

Walter Shapiro: Johnny, I hardly knew ye. After covering John Edwards -- and liking him -- for years, what I thought I knew about him was wrong. But reporters often misjudge candidates

People Magazine - The Edwards Affair: Elizabeth's 'Excruciating Anguish'

This Date ... On The Garlic

14 August 2006... On The Garlic


Top Ten Cloves: Surprising Things About Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's New Blog

In The "Close Only Counts In Horseshoes" Department ...

Or: "There's No Crying In Venture Capital! ... There's No Crying In Venture Capital"

If you are burned out on the Olympics (aka "The Michael Phelps Show"), Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain's Low Road Express, previews of the new Cold War, or the endless yammering about John Edwards (yikes, we are planning on an Edwards post today), Hillary Clinton's planned coup in Denver, then you can reboot with this post.

Let's say you made a mistake, let a good thing get away, and want to stop beating yourself up, and realize that you are not the only person, ever, that has made a mistake and let something good get away, well, here's a good article for you to take a look at.

SiliconValley.Com had a feature the other day on "The Venture Deals That Got Away"

EVEN SILICON VALLEY PROS OFTEN MISS OUT ON THE NEXT BIG THING

"The most oft-told tale about Cowan concerns a visit to a college friend in Menlo Park eight years ago. She wanted to introduce him to Stanford University students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who were renting her garage and noodling on a search engine. But there were a lot of search start-ups back then.

Cowan asked her: "How can I get out of this house without going anywhere near your garage?"

The wealth of the Google guys has since been calculated as high as $18 billion each.

Check it out, it's rather entertaining ...


Bonus Silicon Valley Links

Life Imitates Art ... Or, Did Burt Lancaster Invent Google Earth?

Breaking News! Giant Search Engine Downed By GOP and RNC Staffers; Google Crashes! Besieged With “I’m Feeling Lucky” Searches From White House, Congress; Amazon, D.C. Novelty Stores Hit With Run On Magic 8-Balls

Apple Settles With Cisco!; Rolling Dice With New iBeckham Phone; Jobs Promises Aging Soccer Star Can Store "Billions of Photos" of Himself; New "Posh" Command Added

New iPod Phone Requires Downloading Calls

Top Ten Cloves: How The Amazon Kindle Can Effect The Legal World

HP To Auction CEO-For-The-Day On eBay

News In Brief - Wikimania Attendees Take Over Event; Wikimania Conference Ends Abruptly In Cacophonous Chaos; First Speaker Drowned Out By Attendees With Edits, Footnotes and Sub-Categories

This Date ... On The Garlic

13 August 2007... On The Garlic

Karl Rove ... How Do I Push Thee? ... Let Me Count The Ways

Perp Walk Delayed ... Rove Deep-Sixes Himself!


13 August 2006... On The Garlic

Weekend Special - Sautéed Cloves

Don't Say You Weren't Warned About The October Surprise ... Poll The Results - The Garlic's Weekly Poll


13 August 2005... On The Garlic

Weekend Special - Sautéed Cloves

No, He Will Never Be Accused of Knowing Too Much

Justice is said to be blind, and it will likely be viewed as humane, perhaps, that Lady Liberty was wearing a blindfold today, of all days.

Blind, yes, but not unctuously unconscious

We speak of, of course, the Crony General, Michael "See/Hear/Speak No Evil" Mukasey.

Mukasey Won’t Pursue Charges in Hiring Inquiry

Mr. Mukasey also said it would be unfair, and possibly illegal, for the department to go back and reassign or dismiss those lawyers and other employees who were hired in part because they were seen as trusted conservatives. “Two wrongs do not make a right,” he said.

Holy Cow!

"Two wrongs do not make a right"

How about hundreds-of-thousands of wrongs, you know, like the entire span of the regime of the Bush Grindhouse?

Just how many of their wrongs does it take to make a wrong?

Alex, from Martini Revolution;

Got that? Mukasey is not going to prosecute the political hacks who violated the law and hired less qualified political cronies selected for their political views and loyalty to the GOP cause — sort of a retarded Fuhrer principle. And he’s going to protect the illegally-hired underqualified cronies and GOP loyalists, thereby insuring that the original objectives of the illegal scheme are enduring achievements, because they are now protected by the same Civil Service laws which their very hiring violated.

"Two wrongs do not make a right"

Mukasey didn't stop at the preschool cupboard of Mother Hubbard just for that one, he also tossed the bon mots of "But not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime" and that "Negative Publicity’ Is Sufficient Punishment".

Damn, if I ever get bagged for something, I hope the roll of the judicial dice nets me a judge with the moniker of "Tabloid Ted", and just get a couple of months of "Negative Publicity".

Digby, though, offers the sobering, depressing take-away on this;

"The Democrats have achieved the worst of both worlds: conservatives will pay no price for the blatant politicization of the government during the Bush administration and the Democrats will be powerless to clean house once the government is in their hands. That worked out well."

So, as often as we have done here on The Garlic, when it comes to the Bush Grindhouse, we fade out with a link to this tune.

Tonight, we ramp it up, with the icon of pure goodness, Doris Day, from the Hitchcock gem "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (the second Hitchcock make of this, from the 1950's).

'Que Sera Sera' in "The Man Who Knew Too Much"




And, if we want to read into this, using little Hank as a symbol for lost, and trapped, justice, unfortunately, just singing this song won't bring these crooks, these dwarfs, finks, phonies and frauds, to the proper accountability they deserve.

Ahhh, if only life was like the movies.


Bonus Injustice Department Riffs

Emptywheel: I Hate to Say I Told You So…

Larisa Alexandrovna: Mukasey is no Elliot Richardson...

D-Day: Enforce The Laws? Sorry, Not My Job

Kate Klonick: Mukasey to Bar Association: "The System Failed"

Steve Benen: Attorney General tells ABA: Not every crime is a crime

Pass The Word ... Mukasey Lies!

Was The Mukasy Vote Part Of That Rovian New Math?

This Date ... On The Garlic

12 August 2007... On The Garlic

Shoutout For Lloyd!

Shoutout for Truthout!


12 August 2005... On The Garlic

Santorum Blames Boston Liberalism For St. Patrick's Msgr. Affair; Says Clark "Influenced" By Beantown Decadence; Also Tags "Hillary's Hand Mixed In This"

Rumsfeld Lays Out More Details For Sept 11th Bash; Says Festivities For "All Ages"; New Iraqi President Named Honorary Grand Marshall

Top Ten Cloves: Signs You're Having A Bad Summer Vacation

Please, Someone, Help Howard Wolfson Pull His Head Out of His Ass

Well, I guess it wasn't the sexism, the media, and all the Hillary-bashing afterall.

Hillary Clinton lost because John Edwards lied.

At least, that's the latest coming from former Clinton mouthpiece, Howard Wolfson.

From ABC News;

"I believe we would have won Iowa, and Clinton today would therefore have been the nominee," former Clinton Communications Director Howard Wolfson told ABCNews.com ... "Our voters and Edwards' voters were the same people," Wolfson said the Clinton polls showed. "They were older, pro-union. Not all, but maybe two-thirds of them would have been for us and we would have barely beaten Obama."

As The Wonkette pointed out;

Of course, then there are “facts” like these: “[Obama campaign] officials never bought the argument that Clinton was the second choice of Edwards voters. Immediately after Edwards dropped out of the race at the end of January, Obama won eleven straight contests in a row.”

Nate Silver, in his "Why Howard Wolfson is Out of a Job" notes;

As such, Iowa pollsters did a lot of work in trying to determine voters' second choices. And in virtually every survey, Clinton did rather poorly as a second choice: an average of several surveys in December showed that she was the second choice of about 20 percent of voters, as compared with 25 percent for Obama and Edwards (an even later version I have sitting on my hard drive showed the second-choice breakdown as Edwards 30, Obama 28.5, Clinton 23.5)

So the odds are that, if John Edwards had dropped out on the morning before the Iowa caucus, Obama would have won by more points rather than fewer.

I guess Edwards didn't get the memo.

As part of Hillary Entitlement Campaign, Edwards was duty-bound to either not have had his cheating affair, or, as soon as he did, he was required to fess up, bow out of the campaign, and demand all his supporters move over to Hillary.

Edwards needed to, before he informed his wife of his infidelity, and before he aided his wife in her illness, he should have been working 24/7 to secure the nomination for Hillary.

Jeepers! ... No wonder she went down in flames ...

Nobody was following the plans!

How the hell can you feel you are entitled to the nomination, and then have all these people dropping the ball?

What the heck is our political system coming to?

Perhaps Obama, or certainly Howard Dean, and others in the Dem Leadership, need a sitdown with Her Highness.

With Wolfson's babble, and all the talk of parades, rallies, a "cathartic roll call vote", the Grand Central Station Locker Creatures ("Hillary is back! The keeper of the light! All hail Hillary! All hail Hillary! Oh Hillary can you see by the dawn's early light...") are still holding on to the pipe dream that "something" is going to happen in Denver, and Hillary will emerge victorious, with the nomination.

It's over! ... Give it up! ... Hillary Lost!

Thomas Schaller, in Salon has it succinctly;

The macro reasons for Hillary's loss are still the same: They underestimated Obama, they didn't have a plan for winning delegates in caucus states, and they were caught flat in the period immediately following Super Tuesday. None of those fatal errors can be attributed to illicit affairs covered up by a supposedly complicit media or anything else Edwards, Obama or any of the other Democratic contenders did or did not do.

Bonus Wolfson, Head-Firmly-Up-Ass, Links

Christy Hardin Smith: The Wolfson And The Sour Grapes

CNN: Clinton aide: If affair pushed Edwards out, she would have won

Top Ten Cloves: Other Ways Hillary Clinton Can Ignore She Lost Primary Race

The Most Fabulous Object In The World

Forget About What Obama Said ... Check Out Wolfson's Defense of Hillary!

Hillary's Smelling Burning Rubber! Or: The Garlic Was Right - Hillary Has Built Her "Field of Voices"

A Cokie Roberts Daydream

We interrupt this campaign season for a brief, Cokie Roberts daydream.

Breaking News! Obama Ending Hawaiian Vacation, Jetting Family To Myrtle Beach

Plans On Meeting With ABC's Roberts, To Personally Apologize For Wrong Getaway Choice

Sources of have told The Garlic that Senator Barack Obama hurriedly packed up his belongings, and his family, jetting them quickly to Myrtle Beach, North Carolina, where he will meet with, and apologize to ABC News correspondent Cokie Roberts.

Yesterday, on 'This Week with George Stephanopoulos', Roberts criticized Obama for choosing to vacation in Hawaii, calling it "foreign and exotic".

Speaking to local reporters as he scattered to get on the plane, Obama was heard to say "I don't know what I was thinking ... I have to get better, and remember, even in my down time, my personal time, I have to make every decision a political one ...And we should probably think about bringing Cokie on as an advisor"

Obama also complimented Roberts, saying "I don't believe I have ever met anyone, with the grasp of geography as Cokie Roberts ... I don't know how many of the rest of the working press could, so rapidly, rip off that Hawaii is a state ... That is most impressive ..."

WTF?

From Media Matters: Cokie Roberts on Obama's vacation: "I know his grandmother lives in Hawaii and I know Hawaii is a state," but it looks "foreign, exotic";

ROBERTS: Yeah, that he has certainly come nowhere near closing the deal. As we've talked about before, in this year that should be such a Democratic year given all the other indices, he is tied in the polls and stage-sided in the polls and going off this week to a vacation in Hawaii --

VICTORIA CLARKE (former Pentagon spokeswoman): Right.

ROBERTS: -- does not make any sense whatsoever. I know his grandmother lives in Hawaii and I know Hawaii is a state, but it has the look of him going off to some sort of foreign, exotic place. He should be in Myrtle Beach, and, you know, if he's going to take a vacation at this time.

CLARKE: Well, and --

ROBERTS: And I just think that, you know, this is not the time to do that.

CLARKE: And there's plenty of time left. I mean, let's not forget, Barack Obama and his campaign beat the Clintons, which is no easy feat in any year. They beat them, and they beat by being pretty tough on Hillary Clinton sometimes when they felt they needed to. I think they realize that most people right now aren't paying attention. They don't need to do it quite yet. There is plenty of time after the conventions to do that, and I think you'll see the surrogates coming out of the woodwork just ready to redefine McCain. Buried in some of these stories in the last few days, one of the Obama advisers, of course on background, saying, just wait, by the time November comes around, people are going to have a different picture of John McCain.

Boy, it goes to show how deep in the tank Cokie Roberts is for Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain (or, at minimum, anti-Obama) when former DOD/Bush Grindhouse mouthpiece Torie Clarke looks like the liberal moderate.

The Jed Report has the video.

I mean, that's like The Time Tunnel meets Jurassic Park.

I am a bit surprised the studio didn't burst into flames after that exchange.

Or, at least, to play it safe, bring Bobby Jindal back, to perform an exorcism.

So, I guess, not only is Barack Obama not black enough, not ready to lead, not ready at 3AM, an arugula-eating elitist, worshiper of a devil-tongued minister, world-wide, airhead celebrity, now, the schmuck can't even get taking a vacation right ...

How is he ever going to last until November?


Bonus Crumbling Cookie Roberts Riffs

Bob Cesca: Great Wall of Duh: Hawaii Edition

Steve Benen: Targeting Obama for his choice in vacation spots

Joe Sudbay: ABC's Cokie Roberts: Hawaii is "some sort of foreign exotic place"

Digby: All American Insult

Oliver Willis: Barack Obama Joins 2.5 Million Fellow Americans In Vacation Elitism

Top Ten Cloves: Things That Can Go Wrong With Obama Announcing VP Choice Via Email

News Item: Text Messages and Tea Leaves

10. Intern in Obama Campaign communications gets creative, sends it out as a dirty limerick

9. RNC sends out fake email, saying Obama will have co-VP's - Paris Hilton and Britney Spears

8. If they are sending it this week, they better have the name "Michael Phelps" in the subject line if they want people to open it

7. Because its lengthy, or has a lot of hyper links, most service providers screen it out as Spam, and don't deliver it

6. For VP choice to work, you must forward email to 10 other persons, for good luck

5. Hillary sends her own email out, saying it would be cathartic to name her VP

4. Since he doesn't use computers, it will be weeks before Stumblin' Bumblin' John McCain finds out about choice

3. Email gets intercepted and VP Choice is, suddenly, a new prince from Nigeria, and is asking for your help in retrieving $10-Million

2. Email announcement Plan B; Original plans were to put it out via clues with Scrabulous, on Facebook

1. Email gets hacked; Millions receive message that voting for Obama will add inches to your penis


Bonus Links

LA Times: Obama's VP choice imminent via website, e-mail, text message

CBS News - Rove: Obama Will Make Political Veep Pick; Suggests Choice Of Virginian Tim Kaine Would Be An "Intensely Political Choice" That Ignores Responsibilities Of Presidency

FiveThirtyEight: The Persistent Myth of the Bradley Effect

Top Ten Cloves: Ways Obama Campaign Can Re-Introduce Michelle Obama

This Date ... On The Garlic

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A Lot of Heads ... A Lot of Asses ... And A Whole Boatload of Pulling


11 August 2006... On The Garlic

Coming To A Theatre Near You Soon - Republicans On A Plane!


11 August 2005... On The Garlic

Litigants Win First ABC Million Dollar Idea Prize - Before Broadcast; Cowell, Idol and Network Settle Case; Say Idea To Sue Was "Brilliant, Daring" and "Unexpected"

Top Ten Cloves: 'Extra Pork" Stuck Into Transportation Bill Signed By President Bush