Twists the knife.

The dramatic reversal of fortunes has left the media establishment stunned and racing to keep up with fast-moving changes.
In its final poll before Iowa, CNN showed Clinton with a two-point lead over Obama. Editorial decisions were being made based on an understanding the Democratic primary race would be close, explained a network executive.

Update! Prepare to be nauseated: “Clinton Gets Emotional on Campaign Trail”. But the comments are where the real action is.

Croc. tears. Big saltwater croc.

And here’s a prediction;

Because Hillary can never be President of the United States of America, Bill Clinton has no further use for her. The Clinton’s will divorce within 2 years and it will come as a surprise to no one.

Barack Obama;

I welcome the genuine reductions of violence that have taken place, although I would point out that much of that violence has been reduced because there was an agreement with tribes in Anbar province — Sunni tribes — who started to see, after the Democrats were elected in 2006, you know what, the Americans may be leaving soon, and we are going to be left very vulnerable to the Shi’as.

More commentary here and video

I would like to hear Obama’s timetable to invasion of Pakistan after Bhutto’s assassination… is it more necessary now? How far would he push to ‘get that done’ under his administration?

Why do people read blogs? Because that’s a question you’ll never hear cross the lips of a CTV “political analyst”.

Via Newsbusters;

HOLT: It’s a fair point you make; you don’t engage in it. But you were the victim of some rumors on this subject of your viability and questions if you would drop out. How much did that hurt you?
THOMPSON: Well let’s think about that. It did hurt me, and the media lapped it up. It was put out by another campaign; made no sense at all.
HOLT: Which campaign?
THOMPSON: A few days before the election and made no sense at all, and I was coming strong, and the media took it up, and spread the rumor, and probably cost me two or three points in Iowa. So the lesson there is not, you know, politicians being politicians. The lesson there is that the news media really ought to check these stories out and come to me, and ask me, and take my word for it.
HOLT: Senator, fair shot against the news media, but what candidate were you mentioning that put that out there?
THOMPSON: I’m not gonna. I owe you nothing, frankly, in that regard and I’m not going to say anything more about it right now.

…”the Dem candidates will be kidnapping each other’s family members.”*

Stephane Dion throws Orchard into the ditch – and the riding association goes tumbling after…

Merasty squeaked out a narrow victory for the Liberals in the 2006 election, just more than 100 votes ahead of his Tory competitor.
The backroom manoeuvring to find a replacement for Merasty sparked bitter recriminations from supporters of one of Dion’s key leadership organizers, anti-free trade activist David Orchard.
Dion initially appeared to give his blessing to an Orchard candidacy but came under pressure to change his mind from Liberals, including House leader Ralph Goodale, who believe Beatty, an aboriginal woman, is best placed to hold the riding, which has a heavy aboriginal population.

The tv’s will be raffled March 17.

After following most of the returns on Fox, we turned to CNN to witness the most bizarre, gimmicky, amateurish, and visually confusing graphics I have ever seen on a network newscast – Star Trek meets the local curling club scoreboard. Just wow.
(The Corner has Republican side analysis as good as you’re going to get.)

Does anyone in media hear?

It has largely been the communication process that has been entirely dissatisfying for me. A multitude of letters on this issue and on others have gone unanswered. Suggestions and ideas go ignored. Requests for candidate support are filtered into a neverland and never addressed. No attention is given to this riding by the party, despite significant issues that ought to garner the attention of a party dedicated to social justice. Virtually all communication to me as a candidate has been unsolicited advertising and message packages to campaign on. A Jack Layton BBQ apron I never asked for, recorded telemarketing, the message box. What this tells me is that a candidate in an insignificant riding, I’m merely an advertising rep for Jack Layton. Communication is one-way and top-down. It just doesn’t seem to run the other way.

Ouch.

What was to be a carefully staged photo opportunity;

… with the Clintons and NBA legend Magic Johnson at a Des Moines, Iowa, coffee shop veered into near-bedlam, as Bill Clinton broke away from the small dining area and wandered through an adjoining grocery store, chatting up patrons and salespeople along the way.
Reporters, who had been stuck behind a rope line so as not to disturb the coffee shop customers, scurried to follow the garrulous former president as he meandered through the store. He stopped at one point to speak with a TV crew from “Entertainment Tonight,” ignoring his handlers’ pleas as he described how he and his wife spend their private “human being” time.
Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, stayed in the coffee shop area, nearly alone and mostly ignored amid the mayhem her husband created. It took several more minutes, and entreaties from her campaign staff, before he returned to stand by her side and cede the spotlight … if ever so briefly.

Bright side? It probably diverted attention from her “World Leader Pop Quiz” moment.

Today I had this story written about me regarding what I said at a Town Hall event in Burlington, Iowa by a reporter who wasn’t even at the event. Incidentally, I declined to be interviewed by this particular reporter yesterday for reasons which will soon be apparent.
In referring to me, she reported “he doesn’t like modern campaigning, isn’t interested in running for President, and will not be devastated” if he doesn’t win.
Below is a transcript of what I actually said in response to a question by a local Burlington resident which was the basis of the reporter’s story.
It is clear that there are those in the media who will exact a high price for candor and from those whom they consider to be insufficiently ambitious. But it is with increasing amazement that we see that those who are willing to slant or leave out important parts of a story to make their point.

More here at the Campaign Spot.

With this first-ever foray* into presidential politics, Winfrey forgets where Dr. Phil found his audience.

At this very moment, Liberal Party strategists are devising a plan in which Stephane Dion will bring down the Harper government on a confidence vote, then immediately board an international flight to spend the entire election campaign at an undisclosed location.

Investor’s Business Daily;

…direct donations [to the Billary Campaign], under the watchful eye of the Federal Election Commission, are mere chicken feed. The now over $500-million-rich Clinton Foundation is where the real action is.
The New York Times, which has discovered the identity of 97 donors who together gave or pledged $69 million early on, reports some of the million-dollar donors sought changes in policies and two of them were under Justice Department probes.
With the presidential election approaching, Clinton Foundation donations skyrocketed last year to $135 million, 70% more than the year before, with two-thirds of the booty from only 11 donors.
So much for Bill and Hil’s populist image.
The former president steadfastly refused to reveal the donors’ identities — including one super-rich donor giving $31.3 million.
We can certainly now see why. The $31-million-dollar man turned out to be Canadian mining mogul and founder of Lionsgate Entertainment (distributor of Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11”) Frank Giustra, who plans to give another $100 million, plus half his future earnings.

Emphasis mine.

” … a disturbing glimpse of not just Hillary’s politics but her vision of government. Her programs, which would cost billions and billions of dollars by even the most generous accounting, are simply “gifts” for the American people.”
Update! – This didn’t take long.

I wonder what the outcry might be if it were revealed that prominent Republican financiers were working behind the scenes to promote activist campaigns directly linked to Conservative Party of Canada political interests?

Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 17:19:04 -800
From: Ricken Patel – Avaaz.org [avaaz@avaaz.org]
Please note: you’re receiving this email because you signed a petition with MoveOn.org using the email address XXXXXXXX. MoveOn has merged it’s global effort with groups around the world in a new campaign called “Avaaz.org”. […]
Dear friends,
Wow – on Tuesday we aimed to get 25,000 Canadians to join the emergency call to Prime MInister Harper to stop blocking the crucial UN climate change talks in Bali – and we hit that target in just 18 hours! […] the petition ads are running in papers tomorrow, including the OTtawa Citzen and the Calgary Sun. At the Bali summit, it is touch and go – with almost the entire world vs. Canada and the US over whether to accept targets on harmful carbon emissions. The Draft agreement changes every hour with carbon targets dropping in and out. We now have just over 24 hours left for an all-out push to get Harper to do the right thing….

View original text
Background:

Case dismissed.

I suggested to friends in the Sask Liberals that their leader should team up with David Orchard. That way, they could travel the province together as “Wacky and Karwacki.”

Revisiting Hillary’s “any resemblance to Saddam Hussein* is purely coincidental” moment;

“I know you’re going to inspect me. You can look inside my mouth if you want.”

Perhaps. But bring soap.

“Remember that movie Independence Day, where invaders were coming from outer space and the whole world was united against the invasion? Why can’t we be united on behalf of our planet? And that’s what I want to do, to get more and more people to understand that and to be involved to protect our environment.”

“I’ve been to cattle barns before and sales before, in Arkansas, but I’ve never felt like I was the one that was being bid on,” Clinton told a crowd in western Iowa. “I know you’re going to inspect me.
You can look inside my mouth if you want. I hope by the end of my time with you I can make the case for my candidacy and to ask you to consider caucusing for me.”

“I will be a good president for dogs, I promise!”; she said, as the puppy jumped all over her slacks. “I love gingerbread houses!” she told a teacher who said she had been making them with her students that day.

None of the preceding is satire.
More at Newsbusters on…

“… what a few minutes of serious Gregory grilling did to Clinton this morning. It was by far the most intense — dare-I-say aggressive — examination of Clinton I’ve seen this campaign season.
Throughout, Hillary clung as if to a life preserver to the endorsement she received from the Des Moines Register, whose editor is that same mirthless Carolyn Washburn who moderated the past week’s debates. Strict School Marms of the World, Unite!

CPC Director of Political Operations Doug Finley has written an official letter of complaint to the CBC Ombudsman.

On the TV program Mike Duffy Live, Mike Duffy stated the following.
“Liberal researcher Jay Ephard approach him and say, no, Jean, it’s not true. The CBC didn’t write those questions that were asked by the Liberals. We wrote them. Yes, the CBC phoned us up and suggested questions we should ask but we actually typed them out ourselves.”

Previous.
Update – CBC has announced search for sacrificial lamb.