but I couldn’t help but laugh.

Bill Maher in his 3/28/08 monologue said:

Hillary says if her pastor had said the things Pastor Wright said she’d leave the church but that if Monica Lewinsky had blown her pastor she would have stayed.

In another Hillary dig, Maher says Hillary is going to win the nomination or lie trying.

unfair politics but good comedy, I suppose.

I also laughed at his politically incorrect closing line:

There’s two things you can’t do if you only tell the truth: win the presidency and stay married.

I regret my deep cynicism, but that is funny even if the last part is (I hope) not true in all instances.

Obama has led Clinton for the past three days in Gallup’s tracking poll, but for the first time in the campaign he’s gone over 50%. So, this one is for you, Hillary:

First, an admission of bias: I’ve supported Sen. Obama since Iowa and still do.
Nevertheless, I am agitated and object to those who characterize Sen. Clinton as having evil motives in her campaign. Those who say she is selfish, cold, calculating and on and on have merely adopted long-term Karl Rove-like whisper campaigns from Right Wing talk radio. It’s insulting and manifestly untrue.
Likewise, I object to those who characterize Sen. Obama as unpatriotic and racist. This is also insulting and manifestly untrue.
I also object to those who support Sen. Clinton by tearing down Sen. Obama on grounds they object to the behavior of posting partisans. I agree that some Obama supporters go over the top very aggressively; however, Sen. Obama has often rejected these tactics and begged — literally pleaded — for an end to this type of campaigning. In addition, not ALL nor nearly a majority of Obama supporters engage in this type of discourse and it is a stereotype as pernicious as either misogyny or racism. It’s not fair to tar Sen. Obama by a guilt by association with the most extreme and emotional of his supporters, no matter how ill-advised the language of a few.
The very core of Sen. Clinton’s campaign is that she is a determined and persistent fighter for the things in which she believes strongly. Her life experience is that there are many battles in a campaign for important goals and that some will be lost, but the goal gained by never losing heart. She cannot be true to herself and simply quit only because she is faced by difficult obstacles.
No matter how desireable an end to the primary may seem to some, calls for her to throw up her hands in defeat when she is on the brink of winning the Pennsylvania primary — perhaps by a good bit more than 10 percent — are premature and futile.
I understand those who seek a more civil atmosphere and exchange in the primary campaign. I also understand the realities of elections and one of the few options of one who is behind is to go on offense and try to show one’s opponent in an unfavorable light. How far to go in that direction is a delicate and difficult choice and no choice will please everyone. After Sen. Clinton lost 12 states in a row in the aftermath of what was seen as a “draw” on Super Tuesday, the New York senator was justified in exploring that option: she was clearly behind, but her cause was far from hopeless at that time. Fingerpointing at her own staff for its failures during February would not solve her problem, it merely defined the problem.
Sen. Clinton showed her admirable qualities of grit and determination by digging in and winning Ohio and sorta-kinda winning Texas.
One thing not mentioned yet in these comments is that Sen. Clinton has a great many allies among the “uncommitted” superdelegates who have that status as a result of being placed by close Clinton associates on the Democratic National Committee (most of them were chosen by Sen. Clinton’s close campaign advisor and former DNC head Terry McAulliff). They cannot, for the sake of party unity and “good form”, announce their preference, but many of them are quite certainly supporting Sen. Clinton. It’s one of her Aces in the hole because the card remains hidden.
Sen. Obama’s ace in the hole is that he is the candidate most likely to come into the convention with the most declared delegates and, although not enough to automatically be declared the nominee (over 2024), but enough to hold the majority. This will give him control of the credentials committe and, therefore, control over the Michigan and Florida delegations. They will be seated, but according to Sen. Obama’s discretion and not Sen. Clinton’s. My best guess is that the decision as to the delegates will penalize the states by reducing their numbers of voting delegates and then Sen. Clinton will pick up delegates, but not enough to gain the majority of overall delegates.
Another Obama “ace” is Speaker Pelosi who was leaning to Obama and then was confronted with an insulting letter from some of Sen. Clinton’s donors attempting to use their money to influence the San Fransisco treat. She has a power and leverage over congressional superdelegates Sen. Clinton cannot overcome and the Speaker has already begun undercutting Sen. Clinton’s appeal to that group.
After Sen. Clinton loses both Indiana and North Cartolina shortly after Pennsylvania, there will be some well-timed endorsements for Sen. Obama from superdelegates, making the margin of declared delegates very nearly mathematically impossible any chance that she can catch up in the remaining 7 states. Sen. Clinton’s practical choices at that point make this a likely end point to the campaign as we now see it. Of the 7 remaining states, Oregon is likely to end all hope that Sen. Clinton can go into the convention in the lead by any reasonable metric.
At some point before June, Sen. Clinton will announce that she no longer has the resources to campaign but that she will fight for the things she believes in, including a universal healthcare plank, going into the convention as the acknowledged underdog, bloodied but unbowed.
We will hail her as a determined leader and an example of the very bestAmerica and our party has to offer and a gleaming example for all women in all walks of life.
While his campaign vets vice presidential nominees, Sen. Obama will spend three weeks speaking to “women’s issues” in an inspiring and transformational speech delivered to thousands of adoring supporters, increasingly composed of older, white women who have calmed down and know in their heart they cannot allow Sen. McCain to name 1-3 Supreme Court justices and keep sending their children to Iraq. These very die-hard supporters of Sen. Clinton are not in any way stupid, even if they may at times say provocative things in the midst of an exchange about their passionate beliefs.
Sen. Clinton will spend the month on the campaign trail bulldogging Sen. McCain’s support of tax cuts for the rich and the foreclosure of the homes of millions of “ordinary” Americans.
President Clinton will campaign for “downballot” races with energy and ferocity, seeking to build an unbeatable Democratic Party majority (and to burnish a legacy presently criticised as being the President who lost the House in ’94).
Everybody will be happy and the general election campaign will be off to a decent and winning start after showcasing its stars at the convention all singing “We Shall Overcome” and “Kumbayah”.
This is every bit as logical a projection into the unknown future as all the “sky is falling” guesses.
No campaign or candidate is perfect, they all have flaws of greater or lesser importance depending on one’s point of view. Nevertheless, there is no need for a black hat/white hate mentality; there need be NO villains. We can have our differences and grievances and still support two good people. It is unreasonable to believe that two such popular and intelligent and well-educated public servants are at this place in history have the evil attributes some have projected onto them. Whether it is Rev. J. Wright or Tuzla ceremonies, these are insufficient evidence of the deep flaws alleged; nothing involved in either of those controversies are significant compared to two lifetimes of exemplary human behavior and choices. It’s like the Chinese proverb: you may say 99 wise things and never get praise, but if you say one foolish thing you will certainly be reviled. Let’s get some perspective here.
Sorry, just had to get all that off my chest.

What lives, dies. What dies, comes back to life in another form. It is the cycle we see all around us, a cycle humans have celebrated since before there was history.

Today, we celebrate Easter. For Christians, it is a story of a man who lived, died and returned in a form less human and more God-like.

And, like Christmas that supplanted the pagan celebration of the winter solstice, it is a holiday we celebrate as pagans did at the beginning of spring. It is a holiday that lived, died and was returned in a different form.

It’s a holiday in which the pagan celebrations of fecundity are renewed with symbolic eggs and rabbits now juxtaposed with the Crucifix.

Secular history tells us there is no more evidence for this being the anniversary of Christ’s revival for the tomb than there is evidence that December 25 is the birthday of Christ. The timing of these holidays are no more nor less than the attempt by the early Christian church to compromise with the popular state religion that preceded it.

Do not be horrified. For me, this recounting of how we came to celebrate the biography of Jesus does nothing to lessen the power of the lessons of his life and death, nothing at all to lessen the power of his teachings that can only inspire any who read his words.

I write these things not to persuade you in any way about your faith nor lack thereof. For me, to say these things has no more power over my own Christianity, such as it is, than when I say with great conviction that the Theory of Evolution is far more likely to be true than the story of Genesis. Yet, I am a monotheist and believe in a Higher Power, a creative God that expresses the power of love throughout our lives.

These things are much on my mind this weekend, and not just because it’s the day we choose to celebrate the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

My mother is in the hospital. She’s 82 and I’ve had a moment with her in which her fragility is more apparent than it usually is because she’s such a strong and sharp woman most of the time.

Her current illness is unlikely to be life threatening. However, I cannot deny her mortality. Nor my own.

My sometimes close and sometimes arms-length friend Dzaster is obsessed with death. This, in my view, is error; it chooses one point on a circle and says it is somehow more important than any other point in the 360 degrees of arc. Yes, as a matter of fact, that point is there and it is important because the circle would not be complete without it. Neither would the circle be complete without the point marking birth, adolescence, toilet training, marriage, or high school graduation. I prefer to believe that death is simply one more place of mystery and miracle — even one more gift — out of many such points in the cycle.

No need to get bent out of shape about it. It simply IS.

Meanwhile, it does give us a point of reference I find helpful.

It gives me perspective.

When I’m upset about the price of a gallon of gasoline, how important is that?

This meditation leads me back to Easter. There are those Christians for whom this day represents the crux of Christianity. Belief in the Resurrection of Christ is the be-all and end-all of their faith. Either one believes in this miracle or one is not a Christian.

So be it.

I am not a Christian, by that standard.

For me, Christianity has a single hallmark: do you treat your fellow man non-judgmentally and kindly, as you would like all others to treat you? For me, an obsession with material well-being over charity is the hallmark of un-Christian behavior.

For me, if you cheat on your taxes, lie to your customers and steal from your boss and then go home and worry about your struggle to keep up with your neighbors, no fish on the back of your car makes you a Christian.

Easter is lost on those, in my opinion. Hiding eggs and eating chocolate bunnies is by far more appropriate, pagan celebration it is, than sitting in church in your finery listening to bromides about magic.

How did you spend your Easter?

More to the point, how will you spend your time on Monday morning?

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I’m obsessed.

I’ve been reading the violent reaction of people to the video of Rev. J. Wright. Shocking to me to read the vitriol and self-justified hate.

Obama was raised by a white anthropologist and spent most of his formative years in Indonesia and multicultural Hawaii. Do they REALLY believe he’s a racist and an extremist?

The Al Sharptons and Farrahkahns and, yes, Jerimiah Wrights will become relegated to minor figures by the very election of Sen. Obama. When a black man in America really can grow up to be president, some of the fire behind black anger must necessarily subside.

His success so far, it seems to me provides a new role model.

It seems to me that his candidacy has been a daily rebuke to those who think they can fulminate their way into power with loud denunciation, demands and florid angry tones.

He sat there for 20 years and listened to that insane America hating bile from the pulpit as his children sat in the pew next to him. God Damn America. Is that what Obama teaches his children? A thousand repititions proliferate across the internet as you read this.

I’m appalled to even have the thought, but it appears that far too many of my countrymen are willing to once again indulge in guilt by association and spiteful accusations amounting to branding another American as a traitor. Images of Max Cleland keep going through my head, Kerry with his medals branded a coward, now they’re trying it again and its working far too well for my peace of mind.

None of this says so much to me about Obama as it says to me about the American public.

And I am profoundly sad at what I hear.

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I’m led to believe that Sen. Obama wrote his speech today himself, working on it late into the night. Part of me hopes he wrote it out in longhand and that those pages survive, like previous precious documents. I think the speech was historic.

I can’t even think about the political implications of the speech: whether it helps or hurts him in the primary or general seems somehow beside the point.

The full text can be read on Obama’s website here.

This is not the kind of speech one hears during a heated election campaign.

Jack Kennedy’s “Ask Not” speech was his Inaugural Statement. “I Have a Dream” was by a minister and not a candidate for office. The Gettysburg Address was by a wartime president.

I do not think today’s speech was quite up to those comparisons except for the context: this is during an election campaign in the post television era when soundbites and bumper stickers substitute for policy positions every day.

This is a speech by a thoughtful, brave and honest man. It does not pander and it does not skirt nor obfuscate.

I am sure there are quarters in which this speech is mocked. I’m in no mood right now to hear it.

I identify with Sen. Obama’s narrative. I have a Mississippi grandfather and very southern uncles and all those men have attitudes about race that embarrass me. Yet, I love them all unconditionally and they are part of my family and heritage of which I am proud.

I am also tired of being driven by my fears and would rather be — no! insist on being — led by my hopes and aspirations.

It’s become commonplace to say Sen. Obama is an eloquent speaker, but this is truely remarkable for its content and not its rhetorical flourish.

This is the kind of man I want to be the president of the United States. This is the United States I’m proud of.

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It’s been nearly 1,800 days, 4,000 deaths and $700 billion since the United States launched an ill-conceived war in Mesopotamia. The war in Iraq is a longer war than World War II. We are, of course, fighting a second war that is almost never mentioned in the news anymore, in Afghanistan. The Taliban is alive and well, as is Osama bin Laudin.

Sen. John McCain, the Republican party nominee for president, believes the war is one we can win and is ready to commit our nation to another 10 years of fighting. He’s indicated he would also begin military action against Iran, although I’m not sure why or what he believes would be gained. I’m not sure what he means by “win”, for that matter.

Economics is often called “the dismal science” and it can certainly be daunting to understand. Nevertheless, there’s no need to be Milton Friedman to understand the American economic situation is dismal. Our good capitalist friends in the Republican party who assured us that tax cuts for the rich would trickle down to the rest of us if we would just let the hand of God move over the marketplace without government interference are now cheering the government interfering to prevent Bear Stearns from going under when the hand of God was less than kind about them speculating on risky mortgages. Gasoline is swiftly rising towards $4/gal., making it hard for Republicans to fill up their tanks on their SUVs. Way to go, guys.

Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s Day. I’m glad it’s supposed to rain on the parade here because it’s my least favorite day of the year. For one thing, it’s become an excuse to use alcohol to excess and not only do I not drink, but my tolerance for drunks is limited. I used to rail against the Irish because of James Joyce and a class I once had on Irish literature. This does not seem like the year for jokes about bigotry against any group.

Sinatra has spring fever, a really hard case of it. He’s restless and wants out and in and out and in and out and in. Being half Siamese, he’s very vocal about it.

I’ve let my hair grow very long — unmanageably long, in fact — and I’m of a mind to just let it go on getting more and more curly and thick. Except when I want to shave it to a nub.

It’s now been more than a year since I’ve had a girlfriend or even someone I’ve dated more than twice. Oddly, I don’t care. I saw the lovely Juliet for lunch last week and that was very nice and I was a little nostalgic about seeing her again, but mostly I’m glad that we’re still friends and just friends. I really haven’t met anyone for a very long time that sparked that galvanic “this could be the one” response. I also realize that not having met anyone like that is a function of not going out so much any more. I haven’t strayed very far from my comfort zone of friends for quite a long while.

As for Democratic Party politics, I seem to write about that all the time. There’s not much I have to say at this point, during this six weeks before the Pennsylvania primary. I’m glad that Obama sat down with the two Chicago papers and spent time answering all their questions about Rezko; maybe that’s one that can be put to rest. The Ferraro contretemps was just silly, IMHO, and I didn’t care much what she said and don’t care if she resigned, apologized or whatever. I feel about Obama and his pastor the same way I do my own pastor, Robin at Mayflower: I don’t agree with everything he says on any day, but it’ll be a cold day in hell before I’d repudiate the man I admire.

One of the dynamics of the Dem primaries does flamboozle me a bit. Obama’s folks generally criticize Hillary for her stand on the war and this and that. Hillary’s folks seem not to care all that much about Obama, they seem to still dismiss him as insignificant, but they are sure as hell angry with Obama’s supporters. This seems to me an odd disconnect. Nevertheless, it is important when the left blogosphere is so disputatous that Hillary supporters stage a walkout, strike, boycott or whatever-you-want-to-call-it at Daily Kos because they feel they’ve been attacked so unfairly by Obama people.

The Republicans offer neverending war, a failed economy, a dysfunctional bureaucracy and dogmatically ideological justice and courts and the Democrats seem intent on losing in November because they can’t talk politics with each other.

It’s enough to make a guy want to detach and listen to 7,800 versions of “Smoke on the Water.”

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Wow.

My take on NY Gov. E. Spitzer’s call girl problem is exactly the same as I felt about GOP U.S. Sen. Vitter. For that matter, the same as Mark Foley and David Craig and all the way back to Jimmy Swaggart.

The problem is the priggish and prudish public posturing. The lying and the coverup are a problem, but it’s the hypocricy most of all. The sex itself, whether gay, straight or purchased, not so much for me.

In public, it’s not just the politicians who are all moralistic and up on a high horse, it’s most of us.

Well, I call bullshit. In terms of actual behavior, about 70% of American husbands cheat. Used to be, around 1950, only 20% of wives cheated, but after The Pill, that number shot up to 30% and by the time the internet came along in 1986, the number of wives cheating was around 40%. We don’t have hard numbers after the early 90s, but the consensus is that it’s about 50% for wives these days. The difference in behavior of women doesn’t seem to be that they are different in sexual motivation and desires, just opportunities.

Meanwhile, this isn’t good for Hillary. Will she stand by her man … again? Mark Penn must be having a cow. Hey, Mr. Microtrends! Go get a bj, it’ll relax you.

Can you say “bimbo eruptions” boys and girls? Sure you can.

I can’t wait for SNL this weekend.

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