Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment on Clinton’s Shameful Response to Geraldine Ferraro

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa6dCUWocbs]

In a Special Comment tonight (video above), Keith Olbermann blasted both Geraldine Ferraro for her recent statements about Obama and blasted Clinton for tolerating these statements as well as similar statements from others in her campaign. He warned Clinton that “your own advisers are slowly killing your chances to become president.” He also warns that she is “now slowly killing the chances for any Democrat to become president.”

The full text of the Special Comment is under the fold: (more…)

Scandals Great For Comics and Blog Traffic

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Scandals and resignations have dominated the news this week. The most prominent was today’s resignation of Eliot Spitzer for having answered the the ad above from the Emperor’s Club and appreciating Kristin’s “refinements.” In addition, Geraldine Ferraro resigned from the Finance Committee of Hillary Clinton’s campaign for her recent comments on Barack Obama and Dawn Wells who played Mary Ann on Gilligan’s Island was arrested for possession of marijuana. I always thought that Ginger was the bad girl.

Spitzer’s sex scandal has been great for late night comics and also great for blog traffic. Jon Swift described What Eliot Spitzer Should Say To Save His Career. The top search leading people to the site the last couple of days has been for “Spitzer Kristin.” Even though this pulled up a picture of Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars and Heroes) in a Google image search, a lot of people still clicked through to the site after seeing the thumbnail of Kristen Bell!

For the benefit of those looking for the Kristen involved in the Spitzer sex scandal, The New York Times has tracked her down and here’s her picture. You decide if it is worth spending over $4000 on her and giving up a promising political career. This just shows how much smarter Bill Clinton was. He got it for free, and remained in office.

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“Kristen” is actually Ashley Youmans, now known as Ashley Alexandra Dupré, and you can find out more about her at her MySpace page.

Gawker has some clips from Monday night’s jokes by David Letterman and Jay Leno. A clip from The Colbert Report is here. On Monday David Letterman presented the Top Ten Eliot Spitzer Excuses. Number one was ” I thought Bill Clinton legalized this years ago.” On Tuesday he presented the Top Ten Messages Left on Eliot Spitzer’s Answering Machine. Here’s some of the messages:

It’s Barack Obama. Remember our conversation about being my running mate? Nevermind.

Ralph Nader here, glad to hear I’m not the only politician who has to pay for it.

This is John McCain, if it makes you feel better, I once got caught having sex with Lincoln’s wife.

This is Senator Larry Craig. Do you ever go through the Minneapolis airport?

Paris Hilton here. I would have done it for free.

It’s Arnold Schwarzenegger. Thanks, I’m no longer America’s creepiest governor.

Here’s a selection from some of the jokes told the last couple of days:

“You know, I’m a half-full kind of guy. I always try to put a positive spin on stuff. Sure, it’s a horrible story. On the other hand, you look at it this way, he was supporting New York’s number one industry.” –David Letterman

“He went through this call girl thing. … He was known as a regular customer. He was known as Client 9. It looks now like Client 9 will soon be looking for wife number 2.” –David Letterman

“Here’s one that is kind of cute. He would get the hookers, the call girls, the prostitutes, the whores, and he would run them down, put them on the train, Amtrak. Like they need more publicity. And he’d run them down to Washington, DC, and they’d check into a beautiful suite and have the rendezvous at a place called the Mayflower Hotel. Now that’s the difference between a Democratic and a Republican sex scandal. The Republicans have their rendezvous at an airport men’s room” –David Letterman

“Do you know what the highest paid government position in this country is? Anybody know? … It is working under New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. It pays like $5,000 an hour.” –Jay Leno

“As I’m sure you know by now, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has admitted that he was involved in a prostitution ring. Now this is the same man who when he was attorney general went after the prostitution ring. So apparently, it was for not giving him good service.” –Jay Leno

“Well, you know something, this shows you how the whole world is backwards. I mean, you got Democrats. Now, they’re supposed to be poor, right? Don’t Democrats traditionally represent the poor people? They’re paying $5,000 an hour for sex. You got the Republicans. They’re supposed to be rich, right? They’re cruising airport bathrooms trying to get it for free. What’s going on?” –Jay Leno

“The really ironic thing about this case — today, the hooker said Spitzer was done in a New York minute.” –Jay Leno

“Do you ever notice politics is the only profession when a guy gets caught with a hooker, the wife has to stand by his side. You know, if this guy was a plumber and he got caught with a prostitute, he’d have his wife’s SUV tire tracks over his head.” –Jay Leno

“It’s just mind-blowing that he spent $4,300 on a hooker. It just shows how high the cost of living is in New York. That same hooker would cost $50 in Newark.” –New York comic Lisa Landry

The New York Times reported that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was a customer of a high-end prostitution ring, that the prostitutes knew him as Client #9. Client #9, yeah. Not surprisingly, clients one through eight were Charlie Sheen.” –Conan O’Brien

“Here’s what happened, it was one of those sting deals. And they caught Eliot Spitzer, Gov. Spitzer, with a wire, recording him soliciting a prostitute. And I’m thinking, ‘Holy cow, we can’t get Bin Laden, but we got Spitzer. We got Sptizer.'” –David Letterman

“The thinking is the governor may step down now to spend less time with his family. The good thing is, he was caught soliciting a hooker, but on the bright side, it did not involve an airport men’s room.” –David Letterman

“The New York Times says that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is linked to a prostitution ring. … Gov. Spitzer, this is the latest, responded, just a few hours ago. He said, quote, ‘I violated my obligations to my family and I violated my sense of what is right and wrong.’ … Spitzer also admitted violating someone named Amber.” –Conan O’Brien

“Spitzer held a brief press conference yesterday, where he apologized to his constituents and to his family. He didn’t take any questions but retreated to the privacy of his home, where his wife repeatedly kicked him in the testicles.” –Jimmy Kimmel

“Actually, she stood right next to him in the press conference. That is always amazing to me, how these guys get their wives to stand there and support them. … I don’t know what kind of zombie chow they put in these women’s food, but it’s mind-boggling. … I don’t want to rub it in to any of you visiting from New York, but here in California, our governor doesn’t have to pay for sex. When he wants it, he takes it.” –Jimmy Kimmel

Pentagon Tries To Keep Inconvenient Truth on Iraq a Secret

Yesterday a Pentagon study showed that there was no connection between al Qaeda and Saddam. This contradicted claims made by the Bush administration to invade Iraq. It appears that the Bush administration wants to keep this evidence that they were wrong, and probably lying, from being disseminated. ABC News reports:

The Bush Administration apparently does not want a U.S. military study that found no direct connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda to get any attention.  This morning, the Pentagon cancelled plans to send out a press release announcing the report’s release and will no longer make the report available online.

The report was to be posted on the Joint Forces Command website this afternoon, followed by a background briefing with the authors.  No more.  The report will be made available only to those who ask for it, and it will be sent via U.S. mail from Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia.

It won’t be emailed to reporters and it won’t be posted online.

Of course the Bush administration will deny that they are trying to keep this report a secret. When asked they responded, “We’re making the report available to anyone who wishes to have it, and we’ll send it out via CD in the mail.” A more honest Pentagon spokesman at least admitted that this report was “too politically sensitive.” While true, this does not justify these attempts to cover up the information.

Housekeeping Note–Blog Status and Emergency Plans

As I’ve note earlier, Liberal Values has grown to the point where we are in danger of exceeding what our current host can handle. It might be necessary to move, which would mean that this site could be unavailable for a couple of days. In the event we are down, updated information, and posting while the main blog is down, will be here:

http://liberalvaluesblog.blogspot.com/

I suggest that regular readers bookmark the site in case it is not possible to reach this site.

Part of the problem is the memory used by WordPress plugins. The last several days I’ve been making various adjustments, with some features coming and going while I monitor the effect.

I’ve also been using various cache plugins to reduce our memory use, which sometimes leads to bizarre results. Sometimes changes in the blog, and sometimes new posts, are not immediately seen. Often clicking on comments to a post and/or signing in will bring up a more recent version of the page out of the cache. The more powerful cache I’ve tried wound up conflicting with the Feedburner plugins used here so I had to move to a less powerful one last night. Today I have changed to different a different Feedburner plugin and if time allows will try the changing the cache plugin again tonight. Bottom line is that if you think that some of the features look or work differently from day to day, you are not imagining things.

Updated Delegate Counts

Here are some of the current delegate counts from various news services:

CNN: Obama 1,608, Clinton 1,478
CNN: Obama 1,402, Clinton 1,240 (Not counting supers)

NBC: Obama 1,610, Clinton 1,496
NBC: Obama 1,394, Clinton 1,242 (Not counting supers)

ABC: Obama 1,600, Clinton 1,484

CBS: Obama 1,591, Clinton 1,471

WaPo: Obama 1,596, Clinton 1,484
WaPo: Obama 1,385, Clinton 1,237 (Not counting supers)

NYT: Obama 1,510.5, Clinton 1,403
NYT: Obama 1,348, Clinton 1,210.5 (Not counting supers)

AP: Obama 1,596, Clinton 1,484
AP: Obama 1,385, Clinton 1,237 (Not counting supers)

CNN reports that Obama picked up 17 delegates in Mississippi while Clinton picked up 11. Counting is still underway in the Texas caucuses, where Obama has won. They estimate Obama will win 38 of Texas’s delegates, while Clinton will win 29 delegates. Recent estimates in California give Obama four more delegates and Clinton with four less than in the original estimates. I’m not sure how many of the estimates above have made these corrections in earlier states.

Marc Ambinder also presents a detailed chart of the count from the Obama campaign, whose counts have turned out to be pretty accurate. As this AP report notes, the Obama campaign is describing the race as coming down being able to maintain their lead in pledged delegates. In contrast the Clinton campaign is hoping to pick up enough super delegates, and possibly delegates currently pledged to Obama, to overcome Obama’s lead. The numbers suggest Obama should win it, and I doubt the super delegates would risk tearing the party apart by giving the nomination to Clinton, but this campaign is not over as long as there are so many super delegate votes which are uncommitted.