The word on the street is that John McCain is a bellicose hot-head, impulsive, erratic, and prickly. If I were considering hiring McCain for a CEO job of a major corporation, or the country’s top diplomat, or any position nearly as important as the presidency, I would have to think twice. I would have to ask, does he have the bearing, patience, good judgment and emotional stability needed?

Very recently McCain has given us new reasons to wonder if he’s a loose cannon. Reportedly, he offered Sarah Palin the vice-president job at his home last Thursday even though he’d only met her once before at a Governor’s conference. It even appears that he sent his team of vetters to Alaska to check out her background after making the offer. So his campaign had no less than five full months to make the best possible decision on McCain’s running mate, and this is the best they can do? McCain seems to have failed the first test of his presidential decision-making abilities.

Now there’s a short video from Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films to make the case that John McCain doesn’t have the right temperament for the presidency.

The star of the video is Phillip Butler, a man who has known McCain for 40 years, served closely with him, and was even another POW. Butler says:

John McCain would blow up and go off like a Roman candle at any possible time. The world is such a dangerous place and he has shown himself already to be bellicose. John McCain is not somebody that I would like to see with his finger near the red button.

Even if I were a Republican inclined to support McCain because I value his character and his policies, I would still be uneasy about McCain’s emotional stability. I would need to view at least a summary of a full psychiatric assessment of McCain examining his potential post-traumatic stress and any other lingering effects of his internment. I would also want the opinion of more than one psychiatrist as to whether McCain is emotionally up for the job. I would want to know whether he has ever had anger management counseling, or whether he needs it.

Why isn’t the media demanding more evidence that McCain is temperamentally and psychologically fit to be the president? Why don’t we hear more about the several GOP Senators who have said they are scared about the idea of McCain in the White House? Why has McCain seemingly received a free ride from the media so far on the temperament issue? It’s high time these questions were asked and answered.

Perhaps it’s just that the Democrats haven’t been willing to go on the offensive for fear that they will be perceived as attacking McCain’s honorable record of national service. If so, now it the time to get this issue out on the table and let the American people decide.

Technorati Tags: McCain, politics

I think it’s time to applaud the amazing summer for the magnificent Campaign Obama. David Axelrod, David Plouffe and company have succeeded in bringing home their central campaign theme, campaigning fiercely and boldly so that America knows exactly what Obama stands for:

“I am not a terrorist sympathizer.”

“I am not a closet Muslim, a black nationalist radical.”

“I am not single-handedly responsible for the rise in gas prices.”

“I’m against drilling for oil, but not so much that I would stop it.”

“I am not going to let people question my patriotism.”

“I am not going to let people say I’m going to raise taxes on Americans making $42,000 a year.”

“I don’t disrespect our wounded veterans overseas.”

“I am not an empty-headed celebrity like Britney Spears or Paris Hilton.”

“My supporters are not foolish, Kool Aid drinking, Dungeons and Dragons playing imbeciles.”

“Taking a stand on the beginning of life is above my pay grade.”

Notwithstanding Obama’s consistent, often-repeated message about John McCain…

“John McCain, let’s face it, he’s got a compelling biography.”

“John McCain is a man who is a genuine American hero and has served his country with distinction.”

All of which is succinctly summed up in the campaign’s new tag-line:

“I am not the Messiah.”

And last week’s winning theme:

“I may be a multimillionaire, but I’m not as rich and successful as John McCain.”

With such a strong and unmistakable message, it’s positively dumbfounding how Obama could possibly be lagging in the polls. It must be that many Americans are just too bitter to appreciate his message.

(cross-posted at TPMCafe)

Technorati Tags: Obama, politics

For far too long I have been neglecting my weight. Oh, I’ve had some good excuses some of the time (last year, I was frequently too sick to go to the gym; this year, I injured my back and took several months before I returned to a more-or-less normal amount of mobility). But the fact remains that I’ve let my body shape go, and I’ve finally got motivated enough to get (back) in shape.

It helps that I’ll have some great support for at least the first leg of this journey. Last Sunday, a friend and I decided to set the goal of losing 10 pounds in 5 weeks–a very difficult but not unattainable weight-loss goal. We took the dreaded “before” pictures. And NO, I’m not sharing mine! We took all the basic body part measurements. We weighed in. Then we entered into a “contest” with the winner and loser receiving various rewards and punishments…

I’ll wait until the end of the process before revealing my full details, but I will say that my BMI was 27.3. Here’s how the NHI evaluates the BMI numbers:

Underweight = <18.5
Normal weight = 18.5-24.9
Overweight = 25-29.9
Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater

What a wake up call! In the past two years of paying very sporadic attention to my weight, I gained about 20 pounds… What a mess I found myself in, and what a wake-up call. The BMI tells me that I’m in the mid-point of the Overweight range, half way from “normal” and going on “obese”! I probably put half that weight-gain on in April and May after my back injury, when “comfort foods” supplemented my daily dose of multiple pain killers to help me get through the pain.

The goals I set with my friend are still in progress, and I’m determined to lose all the weight that I can do quickly yet in a healthy way. The first week went well: I did cardiovascular exercise at the gym six days per week and improved my diet significantly, resulting in a weight loss of 1.1 pounds.

Unfortunately, my goal was 2.0 pounds, so I have had to crunch the numbers to see where I could improve … and quickly (only 4 weeks left). It seems that I had been eating relatively healthy foods, mostly natural and minimally processed. But I was eating too much. I crunched the numbers on my daily calorie count and realized that I was going to have to eliminate snacking almost entirely and adhere to a strict 1,500 calorie per day limit.

And I also gave into temptation last Wednesday and had a cheeseburger and three light beers. I also realized that as wonderful as it had been to get in 45 minutes on the exercise bike, if I wanted to succeed at my goal of 2.0 pounds per week, then I would have to boost my daily cardio to at least an hour.

My agenda for the next several weeks is simple: create a daily calorie deficit of roughly 1,000 calories per day by limiting my caloric intake to 1,500 while simultaneously doing about 1 hour of cardio (and some light work with weights, too). According to the math, I should create a calorie deficit of 7,000 calories per week, resulting in weekly fat loss of 2.0 pounds. By September 21, I should have a BMI of 25.8. Let’s see how the math holds up in the real world!

I know there are many ways to skin a cat, and I’m sure there are folks who have many great ideas that have worked for them, so I’m not saying my approach to weight-loss is the best or only approach. But it’s the approach that makes the most sense to me in light of my current goals.

I hadn’t planned to blog about my weight-loss goals, but I don’t see what harm it could do. I suppose the worst thing that could happen is I fail and everyone knows. But I don’t think I’m going to fail, and blogging might make the journey more fun. So I’m going to keep an online journal of my progress not merely over the next month, but over the next 12 weeks.

Why 12 weeks? Sadly, because I’ve gotten heavy enough that even if I adhere to an aggressive diet and daily exercise, I can’t expect to erase the pounds in only four weeks. It will realistically take at least another 12 to return to my ideal healthy weight, at a “normal” BMI (around 23.0 to 24.5). And even this goal is aggressive (however, I feel that an aggressive approach is the best for me).

12 weeks seems like forever at the moment, but it’s really not so long. Look for updates along the way!

Technorati Tags: health

Five questions reporters might ask Joe Biden … and the answers you’ll never hear from his press secretary.

5. Mr. Biden, what’s up with the hairplugs?

Have you ever considered that because the Senator’s first wife was tragically killed in a car accident, he may have wanted to look good for his second wife?

4. Mr. Biden, have you had a change of heart about saying that Obama may not be ready for the presidency?

It is truly beyond the pale of civility when you question the Senator’s integrity by suggesting that he, a survivor of a brain aneurysm, might now be inconsistent in his positions.

3. Mr. Biden, have you ever been guilty of being racially insensitive?

When Senator Biden was being sworn into the Senate at the hospital bedside of his critically ill sons, nobody questioned his sensitivity towards others.

2. Mr. Biden, what does it say about you that you plagarised some speeches 20 years ago?

Senator Biden has given many speeches from the heart, such as his eulogies for his deceased wife and infant daughter.

1. Mr. Biden, were you wrong to support the Iraq war?

Nearly 40 years ago, the Senator endured terrible, gut-wrenching hardships that have almost led him to drop out of the Senate. But the Senator proved he would always put his country ahead of narrow self-interest and has since become a True American Hero. Therefore, Americans must always give the Senator every benefit of the doubt and trust that he always does what he thinks is the best thing for America. How dare you ask such impertinent questions!

Cross-posted at TPMCafe.

Technorati Tags: Biden, McCain

There’s a problem with associating the impulse towards integration primarily with progress, growth, transcendence, and enlightenment. Those spiritual impulses may enable our potential, but they don’t embrace what’s actual. A more grounded spirituality marries spirit and soul–the impulses towards both evolution and involution. Happiness may be a sign of spiritual contentment, but not if it’s divorced from the natural need to express the full range of human emotions, including sadness.

A poignant article on the subject of America’s obsession with happiness and its harmful consequences has been written by Eric G. Wilson, a professor of English at Wake Forest University. Here are a few short passages concerning the virtues of melancholia:

I for one am afraid that American culture’s overemphasis on happiness at the expense of sadness might be dangerous, a wanton forgetting of an essential part of a full life. I further am concerned that to desire only happiness in a world undoubtedly tragic is to become inauthentic, to settle for unrealistic abstractions that ignore concrete situations. I am finally fearful of our society’s efforts to expunge melancholia. Without the agitations of the soul, would all of our magnificently yearning towers topple? Would our heart-torn symphonies cease?

My fears grow out of my suspicion that the predominant form of American happiness breeds blandness. This kind of happiness appears to disregard the value of sadness. This brand of supposed joy, moreover, seems to foster an ignorance of life’s enduring and vital polarity between agony and ecstasy, dejection and ebullience. Trying to forget sadness and its integral place in the great rhythm of the cosmos, this sort of happiness insinuates that the blues are an aberrant state that should be cursed as weakness of will or removed with the help of a little pink pill.

I’m not questioning joy in general. For instance, I’m not challenging that unbearable exuberance that suddenly emerges from long suffering. I’m not troubled by that hard-earned tranquillity that comes from long meditation on the world’s sorrows. I’m not criticizing that slow-burning bliss that issues from a life spent helping those who hurt. And I’m not romanticizing clinical depression. I realize that there are many lost souls out there who require medication to keep from killing themselves or harming their friends and families. I’m not questioning pharmaceutical therapies for the seriously depressed or simply to make existence bearable for so many with biochemical disorders.

Technorati Tags: emotions, psychology, soul, spirituality

It’s Bizarro day on Fivethirtyeight.com, so I just had to let my true political feelings be known…

As an avid John McCain supporter, I must say that all this vice presidential nonsense is distracting us from the truly important issues facing the next American president. And that is, whether the next Leader of the Free World will be a genuine war hero or a junior Senator who recently visited Pearl Harbor in order to buy a snow cone (which he prefers to call “shave ice”). His colors of choice? Lime green, guava orange, and communist red!

Naturally, I am in no ways questioning Mr. Obama’s patriotism; however, I have always felt that is the responsibility of the leading candidates for the presidency of this country ensure that the great red, white, and blue are always given their proper respect. I have no doubt that John McCain would have purchased a snowcone with cherry-pie red, vanilla white, and blueberry blue flavors.

Americans deserve an American President who will not disrespect the veterans and POWs (did I mention that John McCain is a POW?) who died for our country with their choice of anti-American snow cone flavorings.

Technorati Tags: humor, McCain, Obama, politics

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that a tree murderer is on the loose. He or she has intentionally killed three silver poplars and four Douglas firs — 30 year-old speciments about 70 feet high. The murders were successful on their second attempt, a previous effort to girdle the trees’ bark having failed. This time, the killer apparently injected a powerful herbicide into holes drilled around the trunks.

Suspicion falls on Seattle residents whose views are improved by the trees’ demise, particularly one resident whose request that the city remove the trees had bee rejected. Still, it’s a difficult crime to prove and tree vandals are seldom prosecuted.

One environmentalist’s response:

“I don’t think people understand the value of trees — that’s the main problem,” said London, whose nonprofit group is working to protect the city’s trees. “It’s important that people have a respect and understanding of how the trees are contributing to us, otherwise we’re going to continue to have these problems.”

Trees increasingly are being viewed as an asset to urban spaces. They clean pollution from the air and turn a key global warming gas into oxygen. They catch rainfall and slow the flow of contaminated stormwater from roadways into salmon streams.

Their presence is linked to higher sales in shopping areas and speedier hospital recoveries. Their shade cools buildings and cuts energy costs in the summer and can provide wind barriers in the winter.

Isn’t selfishness — the placing of one’s own interests and desires above all else, reflecting one’s own narcissism and solipsism — the root, so to speak, of all evil? This small tragedy is but one example of the need for humanity’s ethics to evolve. We need more than trees-are-good education. We need more empathy, more compassion, more willingness to place the needs of others, and the needs of the earth, above narrow self-interest.

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Technorati Tags: ecology, ethics

Blogging in the TPMCafe, Theda Skocpol gives the best assessment of the challenges facing camp Obama that I’ve read so far. Here’s part of her analysis:

For weeks, Obama has ignored or wheedled when McCain and Lieberman attacked his patriotism and judgement. He has repeatedly begged them to stop because, supposedly, they are more honorable than that. He has asked them to discuss the issues dispassionately. What an insipid approach! McCain has NOT been honorable or honest, and Obama and his surrogates need to hammer on that incessantly. Use words like “lying” and “losing himself” or ” (better) “forgetting what he is supposed to stand for.” Stop focusing on decades ago in the POW camp. Talk about now, about the last years and months. Make the really obvious point that no candidate for President at this time can really be putting country first if he runs a dirty, lying campaign of false smears. That betrays the public trust. Tell it like it is, Obama!

Politics is not just about issues, it is a metaphorical test of strength. If a man will not get immediately — if quietly — angry and fight back when his patriotism is attacked, why should we trust him to defend the country? And if he won’t punch back by explaining clearly why his approach to foreign policy is actually tougher and smarter, why McCain’s is thoughtless and reckless, why would we think he is better to be Commander in Chief?

And on issues like oil drilling, why not recognize that McCain has adopted an ACTIVE metaphor that makes emotional sense to people? He is saying we should act to tap U.S. resources, and people are not really concerned about how many years it would take to tweak pump prices. They hear action and will and resolve — and these are highly valued in a President! Obama can certainly get a hearing for other active steps, but he and the Dems should stop pretending that they can parry drilling with logic.

Obama is lucky he is not further behind already. And he is going to fade fast if he just runs a feel-good, bland convention about abstract “hope” and “change.” In addition to getting gritty and colorfully clear about his recipe for making Americans’ lives better — AND about his approach to make this nation safer and stronger in the world — Obama needs to signal all the major speakers at next week’s convention to go after McCain in a key part of each speech. We need to hear why McCain is wrong and dangerous and no longer so honest and honorable. It needs repeating with force and humor and passion.

Count me in the camp that believes this election is Obama’s to lose, and in the past several weeks he’s doing a pretty good job of it.

Here’s my greatest irritation: Barack Obama never just attacks John McCain. He always prefaces a criticism with praise, carefully saying what a great war hero John McCain is and how honorable he is … and then he begins a high-minded disagreement with the man’s policies.

Like when he said, “Most of us know John McCain’s biography and it is worthy of admiration. This is a man who is a genuine American hero and has served his country with distinction.” And that’s how he starts to ATTACK the man!

I would tell him to give it a break! He should just assume his audience is smart enough to know that John McCain was a POW and that nothing he’s saying is in any way anti-POW or anti-veteran.

I don’t think John McCain is prefacing every attack on Obama with praise for his character and appreciation for hisexperience. Enough with the McCain-is-a-genuine-hero bullshit. Everyone knows that’s a part of McCain’s biography, but what’s more relevant is who McCain has become: just another unprincipled politician willing to say or do anything or pander to any constituency to get elected. He’s temperamentally unfit for the presidency and is quite possibly too senile. Barack should just hit him back, and spare us the effusive praise that just helps to frame McCain based on things that happened to him forty years ago.

I swear, if I have to sit through the entire Democratic National Convention and listen to speaker after speaker softballing John McCain and telling America repeatedly what a great, honorable war hero he is, I will get angry as a green monster. You will not like me when I’m angry.

Please… please… please… Obama campaign, it’s time to take the gloves off.

Technorati Tags: McCain, Obama, politics

Although I have been too busy to post regularly on this blog (you all miss me terribly, right?), I’ve still been taking a great interest in political news and following the presidential race especially closely. So I thought I’d share a few thoughts on the overall state of the race, and give a few of my predictions.

Why Obama Will Win

I’m heartened by the fact that Barack Obama is leading in the popular vote tallies, even as the race in the battleground states appears to be tightening. But I’m not taking these polls seriously. I’ve been disappointed before when Kerry, Gore, and Dukakis led in the summer opinion polls only to see the Republican pull ahead in the fall. It’s quite possible that 2008 will have a similar dynamic.

I still expect Obama to pull off a victory, and quite possibly an electoral college landslide. If that happens, it will be for two reasons: first, the electorate is focused on domestic policy; second, Obama manages to neutralize voters’ concerns about his ability to be commander-in-chief.

My own experience of how I came to support Obama over Hillary Clinton seems instructive. Last year, I viewed both candidates as excellent overall, but each with significant flaws. It took me quite a while (more than a year, in fact) for Obama to clinch the deal and win my vote. It was only when push came to shove (the Washington state primary loomed) that I decided.

I know that most American voters pay far less attention to politics than I do, so I don’t expect them to warm up to a newcomer overnight. John McCain enjoys an advantage right now because he’s more familiar and has far more experience on the national scene.

Obama’s biggest electability problem has been well-known even before Clinton made “ready on day one” her mantra. Obama is a junior Senator who ran for the presidency with only a couple of years in the Senate. The media hype, fawning fans, and celebrity testimonials have contributed to the feeling (however unjustified) that he’s more style than substance.

My decision to support Obama over the more seasoned Clinton was agonizing. I felt that Clinton, for all her inauthenticity and her poorly managed campaign, was more than acceptable. She was the “safer” choice, and I deeply resented Obama’s decision to run for president in 2008 (instead of paying his dues and running in 2012 or 2016). How could he ask me to roll the dice and have faith that he could succeed at the most difficult job in the world? Luckily, I changed my heart and turned out not to be too cynical.

Now the opinion polls tell us that voters feel that McCain is “safer”, Obama is “riskier”. By nearly a 2:1 margin they feel McCain would be the stronger commander-in-chief. Basically Obama has yet to seal the deal.

But this isn’t such bad news when you consider that many voters won’t really be tuning on the campaign until the fall. By then, Obama will be a much more familiar face and images of him looking very presidential on his overseas tour will have changed many perceptions. Obama has a big job to do, but every day he continues to justify our faith in his superb competence and skills. He’s got plenty of time to succeed, even if the race gets even closer.

Why McCain Will Lose

Like most Americans, I have residual warm feelings about the John McCain who ran for president in 2000. He seemed the authentic maverick, a rare Republican who put his own ideals above party interest and often spoke uncomfortable truths (even if this image was partially manufactured by unduly biased media coverage). Now it seems this McCain is missing in action.

What an enormous disappointment his campaign has been! He has proven to be an underwhelming manager of a terrible campaign, bankrupting it twice and turning over its management team faster than a McDonald’s restaurant changes employees. He has repeatedly made alarmingly intemperate statements that paint his opponents and all who dare challenge him as unpatriotic traitors. He has flip-flopped on many issues in order to appeal to the right wing of his party. His reputation for “straight talk” is indelibly damaged.

Finally, he has made serious gaffes so often that I’ve become genuinely worried that he is not in sufficient command of his faculties to be qualified for the presidency. To put it bluntly, he’s past his prime. The more Americans see of him, the more they will conclude he’s too old for the job. I’m not being ageist. Maybe there’s a vigorous 71-year-old who’s up for it, but McCain’s not the one.

Perhaps McCain’s greatest failure has been his unwillingness to spell out his “vision thing”. Surely he will try to remedy this by urging some kind of Renew America’s Greatness theme at the Republican convention. I’m betting this effort won’t be enough for McCain to turn his campaign around. But who knows? If McCain’s surrogates and “shadow campaign” succeed in painting Obama as untrustworthy and therefore too risky, then he may yet pull off an upset.

Who Obama Will Choose as V-P

The most important decision Obama must make between now and November will be whether or not to select a vice presidential nominee who will be perceived to “beef up” the ticket’s foreign policy credentials. If he selects Joe Biden, Chuck Hagel, Sam Nunn, or Wesley Clark, there will be no doubt that Obama is trying to cover his weakness on foreign affairs. This might soothe the fears of swing voters and neutralize McCain’s strong suit, but it also might shift public attention away from domestic affairs onto foreign affairs. If Obama plays the game on McCain’s favored territory, he’ll be sorry.

I think the ideal candidate for Obama is one who is immediately perceived as a credible commander-in-chief, but who is not primarily known for his or her foreign policy strengths. Joe Biden could almost meet this hurdle, but he is so strongly identified with foreign affairs expertise that the media spotlight would probably turn too much away from domestic policy. Who could help Obama overcome his perceived “experience” deficit while still accenting his domestic policy strengths?

Among all the major names floated for vice president, I see only two candidates who can fit this bill: Hillary Clinton and Evan Bayh. Tough-as-nails Clinton is widely seen as possessing the knowledgeability and cool temperament to be commander-in-chief, but her passion is undoubtedly domestic affairs. Bayh, the two-term Indiana Governor, has impeccable executive experience. And he has a moderate reputation (former Chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council) and years of experience on the Armed Services and Intelligence committees.

If Obama’s decision comes down to Clinton or Bayh, the smart better should go with Bayh. Clinton’s many negatives are well-known (most importantly, her unpopularity with swing voters). But Bayh seems to have all the right mix of attributes: he’s telegenic, he has a national reputation, he has experience winning votes in red states, he hails from the Midwest and could help in Ohio and Michigan (even if Indiana is a lost cause), and he actually seems to want the job of vice president.

Bayh’s most important asset: he’s boring. When he’s partnered with a rock star presidential nominee, his blandness would help to give the ticket just the right temperament. Obama is the quintessential fiery Leo. Bayh is the quintessential earthy Capricorn. An earth sign veep grounds fire in a good way. Hey, if the astrology symbolism seems to fit, I’ll roll with it.

Who McCain Will Choose as V-P

I’m sorry, but I just can’t get excited about this question. If you can picture McCain as the GOP’s Snow White … (see, that wasn’t so hard, was it?) … guess who Pawlenty, Huckabee, Romney, Lieberman, Ridge, Palin, and Jindal are?

If I were a gambler, I wouldn’t place a bet. But what the hell, I’ll guess McCain goes with Florida Governor Charlie Crist. Crist has fans across the political spectrum, he hails from a swing state that McCain badly needs to win, his age and executive experience nicely complement McCain’s, and he seems to genuinely want the job.

I also imagine that McCain places a tremendous value on rewarding loyalty. Because loyalty is honorable and noble, of course, just the qualities McCain thinks of himself possessing. McCain owes his Florida victory to Crist’s timely endorsement, and he owes his primary victory largely to his campaign’s momentum coming out of the Florida contest. In the end, he’ll reward his “king-maker”.

Crist may seal McCain’s Florida vote, but he is unlikely to be a game changer. I can’t see that he’ll cost McCain any votes, though, unless some unflattering news comes prancing “out of the closet”, if you get my drift.

Postscript

I’m from Seattle. Locally, there are two very important concerns on the ballot for November that I know of; however, there hasn’t been much to watch closely yet.

The first issue is the Governor’s race, which is going to be a squeaker. In 2004, Christine Gregoire beat Dino Rossi by only 192 votes. Recent polls show the race tied (again) between the incumbent Democrat and the Republican nominee. Anti-Dino ads have been running nonstop for weeks. I think Gregoire will probably lose a very close race, a victim of the strong anti-incumbent mood in the state. But that’s no reason not to work for her election!

The second local issue is Sound Transit 2, a proposal that will expand the light rail system to the suburbs by raising the state sales tax from 6.5 to 7.0 percent. It looks like the smartest transit proposal that King County has seen in the last few years (since voters killed the monorail boondoggle), but I would bet the measure fails. Last year’s transit package got voted down, and voters are unlikely to raise sales taxes when they’re already concerned about the economy.

P.P.S.

I’m very frustrated that my blog’s home page has decided (on its own, I assure you) that it wants to be virtually all italics. There’s no code in my blog posts, css, or WordPress templates that should be causing it, so far as I can tell. Damn gremlins. Sorry about the hard-to-read italics. I hope eventually to find a fix.

The first draft of this post was published on TPM Cafe.

Technorati Tags: McCain, Obama, politics

“Kids don’t think about race.
Think like your kids for once.
Think the way they think.” — Chris Matthews

Hat tip to Daily Kos.

Technorati Tags: Matthews, Obama