As of right now, for now, I'm backing Obama.

Obama is aggressively going after Fox News today for pushing that smear-job report claiming that he went to an Islamic “madrassa” school as a child. The report has already been completely debunked by CNN, but Obama isn't letting up. The Senator's office has just emailed out a blistering memo targeting Fox....

His relative inexperience is often cited as a weakness - and it's a valid concern - but paradoxically, his inexperience gives him a position of cleanliness to fight back against the Oink Machine's farts. Because of his inexperience, he hasn't been stenciled with impermeable memes that only show more the more they're fought. HRC could wage a righteous war against her slurrers, which would only, perversely, reincorporate the slurs' stink. Obama can confront the slurs before they've had the chance to set.

And he's fighting back. Never forget that Meme One in Pigbook of Piggy Politics is Democrats are cowards who won't fight even to protect themselves. Obama, in the first test, is fighting back.

Which further convinces me Obama's got good political instincts and chops. And who do you think the RNC wants to face in 2008? Obama or HRC?

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Obama/Webb?

And here I would have posted
a youtube of Webb's speech last night,
but blogger.... aargh! Link above.

Populist. Telegenic. Tough. Just saying.

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No Kerry 08. Which is a good thing. The country would not be halfway to Bananastan if he'd won, but he's had his chance and been stamped LOSER. See above bullets about the resilience of memes (and think, maybe SOMEBODY - Obama - learned a lesson from the Pig Swifties).

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Why would anyone publish Ruth Marcus? Her strongest asset is the consistency of her stupid.

Drum cleans up the poo so you don't have to. Atrios, too.

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Chris Hedges on suburban despair and the Christian Right. Cheney still a Dick. The most smackable person in America. Don't forget to vote.

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I confess, I see two or three movies a year, max. I don't dislike movies, it's just that when I have free time it doesn't occur to me to go to movies. I enjoy them when I go, though the infrequency with which I do tends to make me over-hate or over-love whatever I see, having little to judge them against, compounded by the taint of novelty.

Last year I saw the second Pirates of the Caribbean, which was the single worst movie I've ever seen (I lost a bet with Planet and payback WAS hell), and Little Miss Sunshine, which I thought wonderful and dark and slightly heavier than slight. I was surprised to see it nominated for Best Picture, and Wolcott explains why that nomination is silly.

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Updike reviews new Smiley. Ilse tackles Hemingway and Dickens: their relative suckitude debated. Librarian whine.