Democratic Debate - MSNBC - February 26, 2008

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Democratic Debate
February 26, 2008
MSNBC
Sen. Hillary Clinton
Sen. Barack Obama
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Brian Williams: Welcome to Ohio!! Home of 8 presidents - how the hell did that happen???

[applause]

Williams: this debate is like a Republican bathhouse - the only rule is that there are no rules!

Here to make me look even more handsome is Tim Russert

Russert: that's not what you said on Sept. 23, 1986

Williams: shut up Timmy

Williams: Hillary you flew into a rage at Obama do you have emotional problems

Hillary: dammit he said i was in favor of NAFTA

Obama: no that was BAFTA - i mean fuck daniel day lewis

Clinton: he said i would make people pay for their health care plan and that's not true because i would cover everyone whereas he would not and hates sick people

Williams: now let me flash the Drudge photo again and cite the Drudge Report twice

Clinton: oh for fuck's sake

Obama: well that's fine she denies the whole Drudge thing although a doubt it - but let's talk about health care -- she never lets a day go by without reminding people that I would leave 15 million people to die in the street without health insurance

Clinton: oh yeah that's true

Obama: well she only covers people with a mandate that would include garnishing wages

Clinton: but those are free riders

Obama: oh quit whining look at your Robo-calls

Clinton: no my lies on other issues are ok - but this issue is too important to send out bad mailings - its like the health insurance companies wrote it - i take on the insurers by requiring people to go out and buy health insurance

Obama: bullshit i care about sick people as much as you do

Clinton: we all must be in the same boat so insurers can't cherrry pick the sick people

Obama: criminy that does not make sense of course insurers like a mandate and how does her plan bring down costs

Clinton: He's Barack Mandate Obama when he requires parents to go out and get it's so wrong to make parents take care of their children

Obama: wrong wrong demmit

Clinton: no my plan is affordable because i have loads of subsidies and tax credits and i would limit the cost of premiums

Obama: its a gift to insurers

Clinton: health insurance is health care - there is no difference so ergo under your plan everyone dies

Obama: duh my plan makes parents get health insurance for their kids because it's affordable

Clinton: those young fuckers must be forced to buy health insurance they think they are immortal

Williams: maybe they're Highlanders

Clinton: Barack Obama is a big baby who needs a pillow and blankie

Obama: gawd 4 years of this will be friggin painful

Clinton: yes I was in favor of NAFTA but we need a plan to fix the mistakes i made in 1996

Obama: i have one too - elect me instead

Clinton: you need a time out like the one we need for trade i know that the blue collars joe sixpacks care and i guess that's ok

Obama: mighty white of you

Clinton: NAFTA killed Ohio but Obama keeps criticizing me and that's mean

Obama: jeebus of course she was in favor of NAFTA - when I worked on the streets of Chicago a quarter of a century ago i saw devastation caused by poor trade agreements

Clinton: i can't believe your mommy let you out that late at night

Russert: gotcha hillary you said dozens of times that NAFTA was great and courageous - will you pull out of NAFTA

Clinton: i will renegotiate it - but to be fair NAFTA really was a good idea and courageous

Russert: so was it a good idea or not??

Clinton: Tim you don't have the entire record sometimes i say it's good and sometimes i don't - i've been entirely consistent

Russert: can you prove that

Clinton: the Cleveland Plain Dealer said teh negro was lying

Clinton: this is NO FAIR Obama and i never voted on NAFTA

Russert: but you were co-president

Clinton: was i?

Russert: Borat will you pull out?

Obama: i luv american workers but let's face it free trade fucks us over i want to be the Worker President

Russert: u scare me

Obama: american retirees should not me making hamburgers

Russert: i can haz cheeseburger?

Timmy: are you sure that NAFTA isn't great i mean look at my underwear it's only costs $1 a pack and comes in XXXXL

Obama: well that's very nice Timmy but i'd like to talk about windmills

Russert: tonight will you pledge to revive the city of Buffalo

Clinton: Tim i'm running for president not Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot

Russert: but you lied about the jobs

Clinton: hey fatty i thought al gore would be president all we need to do is elect a democrat

Russert: good point - Brian you try her she scares me

Williams: Hillary says you are just like George W Bush with no experience

Obama: that's because she is a creature of Washington and she is another John McCain who wants to stay in Iraq for 100 years

Brian: but she is against the war now

Obama: she freaked out when i said i would get tough on Pakistan but i was right

Clinton: i liberated ireland and gave a speech in china

Williams: but he was right about Iraq

Clinton: no i would question his foreign policy judgment

Williams: give me an example of where he has been wrong

Clinton: he agreed with me on Iraq

Williams: wow that is dumb

Williams: but if he agreed with you then what makes you better?

Clinton: i went to 80 countries with the Bill Clinton presidency

Williams: were you qualified for that?

Clinton: shut up

Obama: look Hillary and George W. Bush drove the American bus into a ditch and i'm trying to get the bus out of the ditch but it's hard

Williams: you're a hot head

Obama: i never said i would bomb Pakistan i said we need to stop fucking around with the people who attacked on 9/11 it's about a speech it's a break with the Clinton-McCain Doctrine

Tim: if the iraqi government says we should leave but Bill Kristol says we should stay should we leave???

Obama: of course motherfucker

Clinton: duh sovereignty dood

Tim: what if Al Qeada resurges and Iraq GOES TO HELL?????

Clinton: why don't you go to hell fatty

Tim: will you re-invade if there is another civil war

Clinton: sure sounds delightful pumpkinhaid

Obama: we're fucked in Afghanistan now of course i will always reserve the right to invade anywhere monaco or Nantucket or wherever

Timmy: oh noes!!

Obama: fuck you timmy as commander in chief i won't be dicking around

Williams: Hillary mocked you dood

Hillary: celestial choirs!

Obama: sounds damm good

Hillary: ha ha ha ha

Williams: whut do u think Becky

Obama: look i get it she has this whole thing where she says I'm all about speeches well for 2 decades i've worked for people - sick people, wounded warriors, and unethical fucks in Congress - and i talked to working class white women and i said i'm not interested in talk or speeches and i'm interested in getting motherfucking shit done!

Clinton: hey giving bizarre speeches is my idea of fun - you know 15 years ago i failed at making universal health care plan happen so i know what i'm doing

Brian: naturally but what else

Clinton: take on credit cards companies, dick cheney, and special interest and i am a fighter

Obama Clip: you can't run away from some things in teh White House but not others

Williams: you have to take the good and take the bad

Obama: and there you have it those are the Facts of Life

Williams: was she co-presnit?

Obama: Look fighting is not enough she ended up fighting Pat Moynihan but look if you want a fighter high a black man from the mean streets of chicago and not a fucking goldwater girl

Williams: damm my negro gettin tough

Obama: she takes cash from special interests she's part of the problem

Tim: there is nothing more important than adhering to my arbitrary standards will you vote for John McCain

Obama: look stupid my funding comes from small donors McCain's comes from 527s

Tim: but your word!!! Your pledge!

Obama: McCain is going to game this system

Russert: I am now going to talk for a half an hour about bullshit - your tax returns hillary

Clinton: sorry i fell asleep while you were talking

Russert: will you release 10,000 pages from teh Archives

Clinton: i don't run the National Archives dumbass

Russert: do you accept the support of the Scary Black Louis Farrakhan

Obama: no i don't

Russert: but will reject his vote?

Obama: well I can't-

Russert: but he said judaism was a gutter religion-

Obama: shut the fuck up shithead

Russert: but you think Farrakhan epitomizes greatness what about the Jews!!???!!?

Obama: one more such question and i will reach across the table punch that grin off your fat face

Hillary: there's a difference between denouncing and rejecting -- Obama is clearly an anti-semite

Obama: well since Hillary is going to lose this debate and the election i will be nice and give her the word reject - i reject Farrakan

Hillary: yay i win

William: well thank god we settled the all important Farrakhan Question now the people of Youngstown will get those jobs back

Williams: how can you possibly run as a black man with a more liberal record than Ted Kennedy???

Obama: ooooh i must be a Scary Liberal because I wanted an Independent Ethics Office within the U.S. Senate

Williams: but you're scary

Obama: Republicans like me because I'm gonna fight for americans

Williams: you're a Magic Negro

Russert: who will be the next President of Russia?

Hillary: he's a hand picked scary dood who's name i can't remember

Russert: what's his name

Clinton: Medvedvy something

Obama: yeah whatever Timmy

Russert: what if he invades Kosovo???

Obama: i will send the National Guard to occupy the set of Meet the Press

Russert: oh noes!

Obama: i'm not kidding you dumb fat mick

Russert: any regrets

Clinton: my iraq vote - but i was against the war - really!

Russert: so to be clear you would like a time machine

Clinton: yes

Tim: will you pledge to expend funds on a flux capacitor

Clinton: what fucktard you are

Obama: look i like Hillary Clinton and we both have big egos but we have heard heart breaking stories and these people are just looking for a little help and i am sure that when I am the White Knight Standard Bearer i will be great

Brian Williams: please say something nasty about Hillary

Obama: oh fuck off i am not going to answer that vote for me or don't i've made my case

Clinton: seriously Brian I thought Tim Russert was bad but you are also a fucker look I am running to be the first woman and i do believe that i can make change happen better because i know where the bodies are buried and where the levers of power are and I will go to bat for the poor and middle class it's time dammit

Williams: I'm brian williams - big rush limbaugh fan - thanks and good night

Chris Dodd Endorses Barack Obama

Chris Dodd, hero of the FISA filibuster, scourge of the telecom companies, the man who stood up to the Bush climate of fear, will endorse Barack Obama.

Ferraro Explains How Wonderful Superdelegates Are

Geraldine Ferraro:

Democrats had to figure out a way to unify our party. What better way, we reasoned, than to get elected officials involved in writing the platform, sitting on the credentials committee and helping to write the rules that the party would play by?

So we created superdelegates and gave that designation to every Democratic member of Congress...

These superdelegates, we reasoned, are the party’s leaders. They are the ones who can bring together the most liberal members of our party with the most conservative and reach accommodation. They would help write the platform. They would determine if a delegate should be seated. They would help determine the rules. And having done so, they would have no excuse to walk away from the party or its presidential nominee.

It worked. In 1984 I headed the party’s platform committee. We produced the longest platform in Democratic history, a document that stated the party’s principles in broad terms that neither the most liberal nor the most conservative elected officials would denounce. It generated no fights at the convention. It was a document that no one would walk away from.

It worked so well that in 1984 the Democrats only lost 49 states! Awesome!

JOHN McCAIN TRIES TO WRIGGLE OUT OF ELECTION PLEDGE; FEC SAYS NOT SO FAST

FEC chair: McCain can't drop out of public financing system

"The government's top campaign finance regulator says John McCain can't drop out of the primary election's public financing system until he answers questions about a loan he obtained to kickstart his once faltering presidential campaign.

Federal Election Commission Chairman David Mason, in a letter to McCain this week, said the all-but-certain Republican nominee needs to assure the commission that he did not use the promise of public money to help secure a $4 million line of credit he obtained in November.

McCain's lawyer, Trevor Potter, said Wednesday evening that McCain has withdrawn from the system and that the FEC can't stop him. Potter, who was FEC chairman in 1994, said the campaign did not encumber the public funds in any way."

MAYBE HE'LL WRITE TO THE FCC FOR YOU, TOO

"In late 1999, McCain twice wrote letters to the Federal Communications Commission on behalf of Florida-based Paxson Communications — which had paid Iseman as its lobbyist — urging quick consideration of a proposal to buy a television station license in Pittsburgh. At the time, Paxson's chief executive, Lowell W. "Bud" Paxson, also was a major contributor to McCain's 2000 presidential campaign.

In an unusual response, then-FCC Chairman William Kennard complained that McCain's request "comes at a sensitive time in the deliberative process" and "could have procedural and substantive impacts on the commission's deliberations and, thus, on the due process rights of the parties."

McCain wrote the letters after he received more than $20,000 in contributions from Paxson executives and lobbyists. Paxson also lent McCain his company's jet at least four times during 1999 for campaign travel."

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"I've never done any favors for anybody — lobbyist or special-interest group. That's a clear, 24-year record," McCain told reporters.

Bush on Castro

Bush has just come out against two brothers manipulating elections to put one of them in power.


Uh-huh.

MEDAL OF FREEDOM, BABY!

Former CIA Director George Tenet has taken a job at a New York investment bank with a reputation for secrecy.

In keeping with the tradition of what Fortune Magazine once called a "very private family firm," Allen and Co. did not issue a news release last October when Tenet became a managing director there.

The appointment was first reported by the French publication Intelligence Online.

A former U.S. intelligence official close to Tenet confirmed to United Press International that he had started work at the bank in October last year, and said he stepped down from at least one other board as a result.

According to Fortune Magazine, the bank organizes a retreat in Sun Valley, Idaho, every July that "may be the biggest annual event on the corporate calendar" but otherwise maintains a low profile.

Hoover's company information service says the company is "viewed as something of a secret society" and "serves variously as investor, underwriter, and broker to some of the biggest names in entertainment, technology, and information."

MARK PENN QUOTE OF THE DAY

"Winning Democratic primaries is not a qualification or a sign of who can win the general election. If it were, every nominee would win because every nominee wins Democratic primaries.”

- Mark Penn

Just what would it take for this man to be fired?

YET ANOTHER REASON NOT TO HIRE MARK PENN

Even as Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign was blasting Sen. Barack Obama for his ties to the Exelon Corporation, the firm of Mark Penn, Clinton's chief strategist, was earning hundreds of thousands of dollars from the very same nuclear energy giant.

This past week, Burson Marsteller, Penn's powerhouse consulting agency, was paid more than $230,000 by Exelon to help renew a nuclear energy license in New Jersey, the Huffington Post has learned. The payment was for work that took place over several months, and Burson is still employed by the company.

It's pretty clear now that if Hillary Clinton does lose the nomination to Barack Obama, no one will be more heavily criticized than Mark Penn.

Full Story at Huffington Post

THIS IS A JOKE, RIGHT?

On a conference call with reporters, Hillary Clinton pollster Mark Penn unveiled the campaign's new message: Hillary, he said, is in the "21st Century solutions business," while Obama is in the "problems business."

GOV. ED RENDELL DARES WHITE VOTERS TO VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA

Via TPM:

"According to a columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Gov. Ed Rendell (D-PA) made the following argument in a meeting with the paper's editorial board as to why Obama could have some difficulty in his state's April 22 primary:

"You've got conservative whites here, and I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate."

Rendell, in the Hillary camp, is, aside from angering black voters, practically begging for white voters to vote for Obama to prove they aren't racists.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“She has consistently shown an electoral resiliency in difficult situations that have made her a winner,” Mr. Penn said. “Senator Obama has in fact never had a serious Republican challenger.”

In her Senate races in 2000 and 2006, Hillary Clinton defeated Rep. Rick Lazio and John Spencer, the former Mayor of Yonkers.

Tiger Lounging

I haz belly. U like?

GENIUSES BEHIND THE HOUSING CRISIS LIVING IT UP IN VEGAS

Creators of Credit Crisis Revel in Las Vegas

By Vikas Bajaj

In a gilded ballroom at the Venetian, the revelers sipped cabernet, dined on surf and turf and crowed as the Blue Man Group put on a private show. The partygoers had traveled to Sin City this week for an event that before the current credit squeeze might have been called the Predators’ Ball of this era.

This time, with mortgage securities replacing the junk bonds of the 1980s, the gathering felt more like group therapy. The occasion was, officially, the 5th annual conference of the American Securitization Forum, a celebration of the financial wizardry that supposedly turns risky mortgages and other loans into gilt-edged securities...

The four-day event at the Venetian drew more than 6,500 financial professionals from across the country. Many came in search of ways to ride out — or better yet, to profit from — the mortgage mess their industry helped to create.
LINK TO FULL STORY

SECRET PRISON CAMP FOR HIGH LEVEL DETAINEES DISCOVERED INSIDE GITMO

AP confirms secret camp inside Gitmo

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - Somewhere amid the cactus-studded hills on this sprawling Navy base, separate from the cells where hundreds of men suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban have been locked up for years, is a place even more closely guarded — a jailhouse so protected that its very location is top secret..

Guantanamo commanders said Camp 7 is for key alleged al-Qaida members, who must be kept apart from other prisoners to prevent them from retaliating against long-term detainees who have talked to interrogators. They also want the location kept secret for fear of terrorist attack.

Detainees have been held in Camp Echo and Camps 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Journalists cleared by the military have been allowed to tour some of these lockups, where 260 men are held, but aren't allowed to speak to detainees. Some lawmakers and other VIPs have passed through, and the International Red Cross has access, but doesn't divulge details of visits with prisoners.

Camp 7, where 15 "high-value detainees" are held, is so secret that its very existence was not publicly known until it was mentioned in December by attorneys for Majid Khan, a former Baltimore resident who allegedly plotted to bomb gas stations in the United States. Previously, many observers believed the 15 were being held in Camps 5 or 6, which are maximum-security facilities.

Full Story Here

Chris Matthews, Tuesday night:

"Everybody's going to be here all night. We'll be staying alive on pizza and cookies all night tonight. Eugene Robinson, thanks for that nice line about the injection by Bill Clinton."

This must have something to do with Chris Matthews's new book:

Life's a Slumber Party: What Sleepovers Have
Taught Me About Friendship, Rivalry, Reputation, and Success

.

IT'S OFFICIAL: WE'RE DUMB

Panel: Spy agencies
in dark about threats

In a scathing report on the intelligence community, a presidential commission Thursday said the United States still knows "disturbingly little" about the weapons programs and intentions of many of its "most dangerous adversaries."

The panel also determined the intelligence community was "dead wrong" in its assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities before the U.S. invasion.

WHY DID GOODELL DESTROY PATRIOTS' TAPES?

Answer: We still don't know

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell Defends Destroying
Evidence in Spygate Scandal
AP News

In the face of congressional pressure over destroying evidence from the Spygate scandal, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell defended his actions Friday.

Goodell also said he'd be willing to meet with Sen. Arlen Specter, who sent a letter to the commissioner the previous day asking why tapes shot by the New England Patriots in the cheating scandal were destroyed.

"The reason I destroyed the tapes is they were totally consistent with what the team told me," Goodell said during his State of the NFL speech. "It was the appropriate thing to do and I think it sent a message.

"The actual effectiveness of taping and taking of signals from opponents — it is something done widely in many sports. I think it probably had limited, if any effect, on the outcome of games.

"We wanted to take and destroy that information," he said. "They may have collected it within the rules, but we couldn't determine that. So we felt that it should be destroyed."

If this makes sense to you, let me know.