Tim Russert dies

At 58.  He was always one of my favorites.

Tactical Success vs. Strategic Success

People who say we should vote for McCain because of the surge don’t seem to know the difference between a tactical success and a strategic success.

Hell, Pearl Harbor was a tactical success for the Japanese, but it is largely considered to be a strategic failure due to their failure in utterly destroying the US fleet (especially the aircraft carriers) and it’s repair, reflueling, and maintenence infrastructure.  It’s a classic “we won the battle but lost the war” thing.

The US may be winning the battle as far as overall violence and US troop deaths in Iraq goes, but it may be, as result, losing the “hearts and mind” and “functional democracy” battles.

Thought of the Day

Today’s thought of the day:

I find it amazing that people can’t get it through their skulls (perhaps intentionally) what the difference is between a Birth Certificate and a Certification of Birth.

Second thought of the day:

I also find it amazing that people who have absolutely no training in spotting forged documents have all suddenly become experts in the subject.

And then I’m Reminded Why We Never Win Tennessee

This deserves a huge WTF:

“Maybe [it’s] the same reason I don’t want to — I don’t exactly approve of a lot of the things he stands for and I’m not sure we know enough about him,” Hobbs said when asked why he thought Davis wasn’t endorsing Obama. “He’s got some bad connections, and he may be terrorist connected for all I can tell. It sounds kind of like he may be.”

That from Fred Hobbs, a Tennessee Democratic Party Executive Committee Member on why Lincoln Davis may be slow in endorsing Obama.

I mean, WTF does he mean “It sounds kind of like [Obama] may be [terrorist connected]” ?!?  Exactly how?  I hope this isn’t some poor fool who somehow fell for the Madrassa bullshit.

This kind of makes me glad that I’ve migrated to Virginia.

Factions of the Clinton hold-outs

Since it’s Friday the 13th, I thought I would take a closer look at some ooga boogas – in this case the different splintering factions of the hold-out Clinton supporters.

Faction 1: The “Screw you guys, I’m going home” faction

This faction’s behavior kind of resembles this:

These are basically the “whaaaa! My candidate lost, so I’m just gonna screw the entire party because they weren’t as wise and sightful as I was.”  Many of the people who say they’ve left the party because Clinton lost are in this group.  Basically sore losers of the worst kind make up this group.  They rationalize their loss (and their dumping the party) via arguments like “Obama stole the election!” or “we’re wise and insightful enough, despite what everyone and everything says, to know that Obama is utterly unelectable.”

These people are often in the second stage of grief: anger.

Faction 2: The “Its my party, and I’ll cry if I want to” faction

This faction is the “how couldn’t they have nominated Hillary!” faction.  These people may vote for McCain,  they may vote for a third party, or they may consider voting for Obama at some point if he somehow proves himself (often by putting Clinton on the ticket.

I consider this faction to be probably the first one who will come back to Obama.  These people are largely people who invested a lot emotionally into Hillary’s campaign so that a woman can become president, and are angered that, once again, the men came along (and a less experienced one at that) and denied them that chance.  However, they’re going more through the third and forth stages of grief – bargaining and depression – and thus why I think they’ll be the first ones to come back.

Faction 3: The “They’ll never take our freedom!” faction

This faction kind of reminds me of a demented version of this:

This is basically the “Obama hasn’t won it yet! They don’t vote until the convention! Clinton can still persuade enough people that she’s won the most votes and she’s the most worthy! Something may still happen to Obama!”

There are perhaps the people most vicious in still attacking Obama because they don’t consider the nomination to be lost, even though Clinton has conceeded and has all but released her delegates.  They view Clinton’s lost as a grand conspiracy between Obama and the DNC, and see Clinton’s dropping out as being forced by party leaders (prematurely since she hasn’t technically lost yet).  Some have gone as far and said that Obama hasn’t even won a legitimate contest (though I have never seen this explained).

The biggest problem with this group is that they won’t even admit that their candidate lost and won’t win, and thus are in the first stage of grief – denial – and will likely stay there until after the Democratic National Convention, and as a result may not get through all 5 stages before the election.

Of course, some people may mix different factions and I’m sure some people might not match any of them, but after looking at these people of the past week or so, this clearly seem to be the breakdown of where they stand right now.  One can only hope that they’ll reach the 5th and final stage – acceptance – before the election.