P. Z. Myers Gains Fame Thanks To Creationists

Yesterday I reported on how P.Z. Myers was expelled from Expelled, a movie promoting creationism, while Richard Dawkins made it in. This story first gained a tremendous amount of coverage in the blogosphere, but now even The New York Times has picked it up. Both Myers and Dawkins appear in the film after having been interviewed under false pretenses and not being told the movie was being made to promote creationism.

The producers of the film allege that Myers was not allowed in because of being a trouble maker. Myers responds here. Of course if by trouble maker they mean he would go home and mock them mercilessly in blog posts, then he would be guilty as charged. Thanks to the producers of Expelled, Myers should have an even bigger audience in his future criticism of creationism and defense of evolutionary biology.

The Logic of the Limbaugh Democrats for Clinton

Here’s another reason to vote for Obama. This is actually presented as a conservative argument to vote for Clinton, as advised by Rush Limbaugh, in order to try to stop Obama. Democrats might find in this a strong reason to support Obama over Clinton:

Perhaps the idea is that, given Obama’s high positives amongst even Republicans, the only way to suppress Democratic turnout in the general election is to keep Obama from winning — or at least make him very much less attractive than he now is. After all, if Movement Conservatism is going to survive, it will need conservative Republicans to win seats in Congress, no matter who wins the White House.

But if Obama is still in the race — whether as the Presidential or VP pick — and still idolized enough to drive Democratic turnout, the chances of conservative Republicans winning congressional contests with their Democratic opponents are very much lowered. So, at least at this point in the game, the GOP’s interests (“Give McCain a Chance by Damaging the Dems!”) align with conservative interests (“Give Conservatives a Chance by Damaging Obama!”).

Momentum Shifts Back In Obama’s Favor

The last week was not one of the best periods for Obama’s campaign, but over the past day momentum has suddenly shifted back in Obama’s favor as the news has been dominated by stories which do not help Hillary Clinton.

The Washington Post did some fact checking on Clinton and gave her Four Pinocchios for her false claims about landing in Bosnia under sniper fire in 1996. Here’s a picture of her being greeted by snipers:

It appears that Clinton was greeted in the manner Dick Cheney erroneously predicted we would be greeted in Iraq, while Clinton falsely claimed she was greeted in Bosnia as Americans are actually greeted in much of Iraq.

From there it gets worse. The Washington Post also looked at her overall experience:

While Clinton’s advertisements have boasted that she is best prepared for a 3 a.m. crisis phone call, the schedules contain no evidence that Clinton was at the table during major national security decisions. They do not list her as attending National Security Council meetings or joining briefings in the Situation Room. She did not have a national security clearance. And the documents make clear that at moments of major crisis, Clinton was often busy with her own agenda.

If that isn’t bad enough, a story from The Politico which basically argues that Clinton has already lost has been widely quoted today. They report that not even Clinton’s people believe she has a meaningful chance to win:

As it happens, many people inside Clinton’s campaign live right here on Earth. One important Clinton adviser estimated to Politico privately that she has no more than a 10 percent chance of winning her race against Barack Obama, an appraisal that was echoed by other operatives.

If Clinton has any chance, it will be even harder as it now appears her campaign is in the red:

Despite a strong month of fund-raising in February in which she brought in $35 million, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton finished the month essentially in the red, once her campaign’s outstanding debts are factored in, as well as her personal loan, according to filings submitted late last night to the Federal Election Commission.

Losing the endorsement of Bill Richardson to Obama doesn’t help Clinton either. Her campaign looks even more foolish for claiming that it doesn’t matter considering that Both Bill and Hillary called Richardson as recently as eight days ago attempting to get his endorsement.

Speaking of Bill–it looks like he is at it again:

Adding a bit of fuel to the political fire, Bill Clinton made a bizarre comment on Friday, leaving the impression that he believed Barack Obama’s patriotism would be a general election issue.

MSNBC is reporting that on the campaign trail today in Charlotte, North Carolina, the former president said a general election matchup between his wife, Sen. Clinton, and Sen. John McCain would be between “two people who love this country” without “all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics.”

It’s difficult to determine exactly what Clinton meant by this. Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, said the former president was not implying that Obama didn’t love America. As for “this other stuff,” that Clinton referred to? He was talking about “the politics of personal destruction,” said Wolfson. “He was lamenting that these kind of distractions ‘always seems to intrude’ on our politics.”

Not everyone had the same interpretation. MSNBC, for example, was quick to suggest that the former president was implying there were doubts about Obama’s patriotism, and that those doubts would play a role in the general election. Which seems, on its face, hardly a stretch.

With all this bad news Mark Halperin presents a list of fourteen painful things Hillary Clinton knows, or should know. Obama is also well on his way to reversing one of the more serious obstacles in recent days as a CBS News poll shows his speech on race was well received:

Sixty-nine percent of voters who have heard or read about Obama’s speech say he did a good job addressing the issue of race relations, and 63 percent of voters following the events say they agree with Obama’s views on race relations. Seventy-one percent say he did a good job explaining his relationship with Wright.

Hugh Hefner Supports Obama

Hugh Hefner revealed that he supports Barack Obama in an article on him at Market Watch:

Besides the pictorial displays of sexy young women, the magazine’s signature has been the Playboy Interview. He smiled when he recalled that then-presidential candidate Jimmy Carter said during a Playboy interview that he lusted “in my heart.”

Hefner hopes to get Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to consent to interviews. In this campaign, Hefner says he’s supporting Obama, whose victory “would send a message” that the U.S. truly is a “country of dreams.”

(Hat tip to Libertarians for Obama)