AT LEAST, DO NO HARM

Usually, I admire what Charles Pierce writes, but when he wrote about the question and answer period following Hillary Clinton's speech at the Conference of the National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, he was obviously still feeling the Bern. Apparently, he can't get past his Sanders love to give Hillary Clinton a break, for this is one of a series of blog posts in which he, at best, damns Clinton with faint praise, or, at worst, is outright critical, often about trivia.  Read his post; it's not long. I repost my comments to his blog post below; they are long:

Oh my gawd, Charlie. You sound like nitpicking Chuck Todd. Is this your version of bothsiderism? Clinton is who she is, and she's not going to have a personality change to suit you or anyone else before the election. Get over your issues, or at least write about something else so you do no harm.

Further, still me:

By the end of the primaries, I liked watching Clinton speak a lot more than I liked watching Sanders speak. If I chose my candidate by likability or by which one I wanted to have a beer with, Clinton would have won hands down. But, if Sanders had won the primary vote, I'd have supported him without thinking twice.

What I would not have done is suggest that if he just changed this or that about his personal style, or if he'd just say something in a different way, he'd gather more support. Sanders is who he is, and expecting him to be other than he is, would have been completely unrealistic. It's the same with Clinton. If you don't like her, vote for Trump, write in a name, or vote for Stein or Johnson, and enable a Trump victory, but stop the bloody nitpicking about style.

TV talking heads do that stuff every day on TV, and I don't understand why a usually sensible blogger would join in. This is not even a serious policy discussion, which would be different and welcome from what we see all day, every day on TV. Yeah, I'm way down in a long thread of comments in a reply, at that, and I expect few people will read what I typed, but I sure feel better for having written.

Though my comments were way down in a long comment thread, I do have a Facebook page of my own and a blog, and I thought my comments worth sharing. I share; you decide.

THE NEWSPAPER OF RECORD IN THE RUN-UP TO THE IRAQ WAR

Charles Pierce at Esquire:

The "public editor" of The New York Times tells us today that the paper's coverage of the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War is likely to be less of a hoot than back in the drum-banging days when Judy Miller was standing atop a great pile of stove-piped bullshit while Bill Keller threw roses at her feet.

 How I wish I could draw a cartoon.

UPDATE from the comments by Paul (A.):

Then there is this letter from a veteran. (h/t Crooks & Liars).

No cartoon necessary.

The letter brought tears to my eyes.   What unnecessary suffering for many just so Cheney/Bush could flex their muscles and pound their chests. 

WHAT ARE WE CELEBRATING?

Each Memorial Day seems sadder and more difficult to get through than the last.  Yesterday was a bummer, a miserable day.  Perhaps next year I'll ignore the holiday altogether, although I'll probably feel guilty if I do.  What are we celebrating?  Because of my ambivalence about celebrating the day, Charles Pierce's headline resonated powerfully with me. 

Loving the Warrior, Hating the Wars: Our Memorial Daze

The entire article is very good.  I linked to it yesterday and again today.  We are quick to go to war, but why then do we treat our veterans and their families so badly?

Does war lead to anything but more wars?  That is the question, as dithering Hamlet said.

TWO THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

Newt Gingrich: "If I have idols," Newt told the crowd, "it's Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher."

Charles Pierce: On, lads! On to the Falklands! Or, perhaps, to the Oscars. Go get 'em, Meryl!

If you're not reading Charles Pierce at The Politics Blog at Esquire, you're missing a lot, and I mean A LOT. He writes like 20 posts a day, and it's hard to keep up, but certainly worth a try.

UPDATE: Thanks to Lapin for the poster.

OH MY! CHARLES PIERCE ON MITT ROMNEY

From The Politics Blog at Esquire:

Comes now this pure piece of manufactured product, this vacant replicant of American plutocracy, to lecture a country in the middle of a fragile recovery from an economic disaster brought on by the other soulless replicants on the topics of our vanishing work ethic, and the great moral cleansing power of onrushing poverty. And, because he cares less about the country he's planning to lead than he does about the next nickel he can squeeze out of it, he's doing so with rhetoric that owes more to George Wallace than it does to George Romney, who was a decent Republican in the days before greasy-beaked vultures like his spalpeen hijacked the party. (Which is pretty much what E.J. Dionne was saying recently.) Willard is working the old poor-people-are-robbing-you-blind melodeon again while his real targets are anyone who receives any kind of federal government assistance of any kind whatsoever. And don't fall for the old "states do it better" dodge. Willard knows full good and well that the states can't carry this kind of load, either, and that the costs will just get passed down to lower and lower levels of government until nobody can pay for anything, and the programs that he'd like to see eliminated because it will help him get elected simply disappear.

Charles Pierce always writes with intelligence, knowledgeability, and, quite often, irony that bites, but the piece is one of his best.

Read the entire article here.

Romney is so smooth looking, so well-coiffed and well-tailored, that he doesn't look real. Just look at his shining eyes in the picture. Does Romney look like a man who would ride his dog on the roof of the car on a family vacation?

According to a 2007 Boston Globe profile of the candidate, Romney’s oldest son, Tagg, yelled, “Gross!” as he noticed a brown liquid flowing down the back window from the Irish Setter Seamus, who had been riding on car’s roof for hours.

“As the rest of the boys joined in the howls of disgust, Romney coolly pulled off the highway and into a service station,” the Globe noted. “There, he borrowed a hose, washed down Seamus and the car, then hopped back onto the highway. It was a tiny preview of a trait he would grow famous for in business: emotion-free crisis management.”

When the Wall Street Journal questioned him about the incident, Romney said:

“Uh…,” Romney said, clearly caught off guard by the question. “Love my dog.”

“That’s all I’ve got for ya,” he added.

I've never forgotten the story of Seamus riding on top of the car. Perhaps Seamus could do without Mitt's version of doggie love.