Biden?

Lance Mannion: It's like your parents told you they were going to give you a big surprise for your birthday, something you always wanted, and although you knew they couldn't have meant you were going to get the pony you always dreamed of you hoped that meant they weren't going to give you something boring like a new winter coat, but maybe it'll be a new bike, at least, but as you counted down the days to your birthday they kept hinting and hinting that it really might be the pony and you couldn't help it, you began to think it would be the pony, then the morning of your birthday comes, and your mother wakes you up early to give you your present, she even tells you it's out in the backyard, and you jump out of bed and rush downstairs, telling yourself it's the bike not the pony, it's the bike not the pony, and you fly out the back door and find...your dad holding up the new winter coat. The Rude Pundit: 1. Biden's son is heading to Iraq. That's the kind of political street cred it takes something like five and a half years in a prison camp to earn. 2. Biden is a tough motherfucker. God tried to take him out with brain cancer, and Biden kicked God in the nuts. Don't you want a Vice President who can kick God in the nuts and not be allied with Satan? 3. Ron Fournier of the AP is a little bitch. Biden must have pissed him off somewhere down the road. 4. Yeah, he ain't perfect (see the Clarence Thomas hearings and his anti-Obama comments that are already being used against him). But if you're complaining, would you seriously have wanted the media talking about the tension between Obama and Clinton(s) for the next four to eight years? And would you have wanted to explain to every non-Virginian just who the fuck Tim Kaine is? Digby: Who gives a damn at this point? If it isn't Jesus Christ or Elvis, it's going to be a letdown. Biden? The bankruptcy bill guy? Uh, O.K. He's not Hillary Clinton. He's not Joe Lieberman. He's not Dick Cheney. He's--ah, the hell with it. Just win, baby.

Oops

Police concerned about order to stop weapons screening at Obama rally By JACK DOUGLAS Jr. Star-Telegram Staff Writer DALLAS -- Security details at Barack Obama's rally Wednesday stopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena. The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security. Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence, head of the Police Department's homeland security and special operations divisions, said the order -- apparently made by the U.S. Secret Service -- was meant to speed up the long lines outside and fill the arena's vacant seats before Obama came on. "Sure," said Lawrence, when asked if he was concerned by the great number of people who had gotten into the building without being checked. But, he added, the turnout of more than 17,000 people seemed to be a "friendly crowd." The Secret Service did not return a call from the Star-Telegram seeking comment. Doors opened to the public at 10 a.m., and for the first hour security officers scanned each person who came in and checked their belongings in a process that kept movement of the long lines at a crawl. Then, about 11 a.m., an order came down to allow the people in without being checked. Several Dallas police officers said it worried them that the arena was packed with people who got in without even a cursory inspection. They spoke on condition of anonymity because, they said, the order was made by federal officials who were in charge of security at the event. "How can you not be concerned in this day and age," said one policeman. I remember years ago when I walked into a store to buy a newspaper and I saw on the front page the news about how three white men in Jasper, Texas tied James Byrd naked to the back of a pickup truck and dragged him to his death. There was another black man in the store who looked to be around my age and I heard him say in a voice choked with rage, "This is 1998! This ain't a hundred years ago! This shit ain't supposed to be happening!" He and I looked at each other and we understood, even though we were strangers, that we shared a painful history of loss and heartbreak. We remembered Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and those four little girls who died in a church in Birmingham, Alabama, and we realized that the brutal racism that killed those people so long ago wasn't gone and that it killed James Byrd. We were shocked, confused--and angry. The white guy behind the cash register appeared nervous. Thinking back on that terrible day, I thought, No, it's not a hundred years ago, but if a black man hitchhiking on a dark country road can be lynched, a black man running for President can still be assassinated. And it scares the hell out of me.

Why is anybody surprised?

I know it's not polite to say "I told you so," but is it okay to say "I drew you so"? CLICK FOR MORE Really, did anybody not know this was coming? We knew who Alito was when he was nominated. Yes, we were threatened with the "nuclear option," but was that ever more than just a threat? And if it was, what would have changed? Either way, we get Alito. Failing to use the filibuster under threat is the very same thing as not having it at all. And really, do you think the Republicans were willing to risk a filibuster-proof President Clinton, or Obama, or Gore? CLICK FOR MORE So we just decided to "keep our powder dry," for the next fight, as if we weren't right smack in the midst of the single biggest abortion fight we would ever see. Would we have lost? Perhaps, but at least there would have been no question who was responsible. Now, instead, we see craven cowards berating the very Court they helped, through inaction, to create. CLICK FOR MORE Why did we accept nomination hearings in which the nominee said absolutely nothing? Why didn't anybody stand up and say "answer the damned question, Judge, just answer the damned question?!" CLICK FOR MORE So here we are, working our way backward to where we started, lo so many years ago. Women will die because the Supreme Court elected Bush. Women will die because of 9/11. Women will die because Democrats had to wait in line for hours in Ohio. And women will die because our own Democratic Senators refused to fight the fight, assuring themselves that we would have lots of lovely dry powder to turn over to the victorious Republicans at the end of the war. CLICK FOR MORE