The International House of Bacon

Okay. Very few links today, just musings on what I’ve heard in the crossfire of the last few days and other meta notes. I essentially didn’t check my Google Reader regularly again until Saturday morning, so I missed about 800 possible links, and didn’t follow up on others - I’ll start catching up on links as the week progresses, and I have some other things mostly prewritten that’ll post at some point later this week. That doesn’t mean I’m completely unaware of what’s been happening, though.

* First, the DNC meeting was actually rather riveting to watch. I love this sort of thing, which was fascinating, and most of my thoughts may be completely off-base if Clinton in fact drops out later this week, but I have to say: a) that the DNC made rules that they have no way of adequately being able to force compliance on (re: primary dates) is ridiculous, and to penalize voters for those issues when the voters have even less say in it makes even less sense, b) Florida getting half-seating makes sense given the bylaws as I understand them, c) Barack Obama absolutely, unquestionably, unfairly benefited from the Michigan resolution. I understand why you assume that he would have gotten the remaining delegates, but that ornery Ickes guy got it right - the Democrats have a rule for uncommitted delegates already, and there was no logical reason to suspend those, especially when it hurts a candidate that much as a result. There was no good answer for Michigan, but I really think they picked the dumbest one.

I don’t think the DNC will remain fractured long-term. People are angry, but this isn’t THAT dramatic in the grand scheme of things - if you’re so aligned to a party as is, you’re looking at party over person already. I do think, however, this may be a harbinger of things to come in the general - Obama’s going to lose a bit of support in the general based on these shenanigans, and the Democrats have all but lost the “make every vote count” narrative that has worked generally well for them since the 2000 debacle. I’ve been wrong before, but that was some nasty stuff I saw there.

As for Clinton? I don’t think she’ll resign/concede, I think she’ll “suspend,” allowing for a challenge at the convention and the possibility of buyer’s remorse to set in on the Obama side while not having to work too hard. I hesitate to say that she was screwed by the system, since she ran a pretty horrid early campaign, but if the superdelegates are going to get behind Obama on this, I think that’s a mistake given the electoral maps. But hey - I’m jut a bystander.

* Scott McClellan’s book? Honestly, who cares? Really. At this point, assuming the leaking we hear is within context, we have a guy who stuck around for years doing something he was uncomfortable with for…what? And he was so comfortable being duplicitous in that role that we’re ready to trust him now because he’s saying things we want to hear? Okay. I mean, truly, I didn’t care about Feith’s book, I didn’t care about O’Neill’s book, and I don’t care about McClellan’s. Sadly, when the book proposal gets leaked, you know this is going to take up some cycles, and that’s just pathetic, and I don’t care any further.

* Obama left his church. We’re supposed to believe that you can’t ditch a crazy uncle, unless that crazy uncle possibly goes too far by calling you a politician, and maybe if that family decides to mock your Democratic opponent. I mean, I wonder if this helps him long term. I can’t imagine anything with this church can help him at this point. I dunno. It’s all so stupid and weird - to think that if he had left a year ago he could have avoided this should infuriate any Obama fan.

* I’m cautiously monitoring The Next Right. It’s a new conservative blogswarm created in part by Dale Franks (QandO) and Patrick Ruffini, and populated with mainpage guys who are conservative bloggers NOT in the Malkin/LGF mold. While I’m afraid of it turning into a conservative-style Daily Kos, I was cautiously optimistic enough to sign up for an account, and I’ll be crossposting New Hampshire information there unless it devolves into a morass of xenophobic lunacy.

* Speaking of xenophobic lunacy, Rachael Ray’s man hands are much more offensive than any scarf she may have been wearing. Enough already, please.