On kos's fp story this morning Clinton, Obama and FISA, I got into an exchange with a poster who asked me "where do you draw the line? What would Obama need to do for you to issue a public condemnation?"  I answered by saying I cannot imagine anything Obama could do that would cause me to issue a public condemnation of him because (1) I want him to win and (2) I want McCain to lose and (3) I have a personal identification with Obama that supersedes any disagreements I might have with him over issues.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I was operating out of an even more basic personal philosophy: a philosophy of edification.

Yesterday was my birthday.

My second birthday without my mom.

2007 was a "big" birthday and last year I was surrounded by friends who went to a lot of trouble to make sure I wasn't alone for my milestone celebration. Although I was deeply stuck in a grief rut and almost canceled the dinner party several times, on the actual evening I did enjoy myself a little and greatly appreciated the love behind the gesture.

This year I spent my birthday alone.

It was very hard.

MsCharisma of Maryland on the "Bill Goes Insane" diary said "He is so obviously jealous of Obama."  Truer words were never spoken,  I believe that jealousy is the real source of the vitriol toward Obama from the Clinton camp.  They cannot be reasonable or rational because jealousy at this level is inherently unreasonable and irrational.  And I think that jealousy has been nakedly on display in recent days.

Funeral services were held yesterday in California for Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez. Vasquez Jimenez was a 17 year old woman working for a contracting company called Merced Farm Labor, and she died of overheating because rules about access to water, water breaks, and shade were ignored.  Newspaper reports indicate her body temperature exceeded 108 degrees.  She may not have known she was two months pregnant; her pregnancy was discovered as part of the investigation into her death.

Republicans and conservatives who claim to be "pro-life" while acting as though undocumented farmworkers are disposable people pushes all my righteous anger buttons.  I predict we won't see any outrage from the "pro-life" community about the unnecessary death of this young woman and her unborn child.

Hillary Clinton's remarks about the RFK assassination, alas, do not surprise me.

I have been speculating for quite some time that the Clinton team was thinking along these lines.

Several times I started to diary about it and pulled my punches because of not wanting to stir up the predictable reaction from HRC supporters accusing me of ascribing base motives to her without proof.

But now from her own mouth we have the proof.

Bill Clinton may have been the man from Hope, but Hillary Clinton is the anti-hope.

Jeremiah Wright is speaking and taking questions at the National Press Club and it is being aired live on C-Span and other cable outlets.

I thought people might be interested in liveblogging here and don;t see another diary so I'm putting this one up.

I confess I did not see the Moyers interview or the NAACP speech yet because I had to work extra hours this past weekend, but I will definitely be watching the National Press Club remarks in real time and would like to converse with other kogs as the event unfolds.

Here is a link to the stream on C-Span 2.  (realplayer)

PART FOUR IS UP
Go to Live Blog #4: Petraeus and Crocker

Please DO NOT recommend this diary.

Please click HERE and keep the mothership on the rec list.

There will be 2 Committee Hearings today.

This morning hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee (with McCain and Clinton) is airing live on C-Span.

The afternoon session Senate Foreign Relations Committee (with Obama) will air at 2:30 p.m EDT on C-Span3.

but I'm beginning to think that Hillary should stay in.

Not because I think she can win, because she clearly cannot win without a superdelegate coup that would create total havoc in the party, but because I am beginning to feel that keeping the race competitive for as long as possible may reap long-term positive benefits for the Blue Team.

Today would have been my mom's 71st birthday, but she died last year seven weeks before she would have turned 70.

I only vaguely remember how I spent her birthday one year ago.  I was stumbling through the days in a trance.  But this birthday is very different, and blessedly so.

I wasn't sure whether I should even volunteer for TGR tonight, since I am feeling relatively peaceful.  I do not want to take anything away from people who need to share that their grief is fresh and their pain is raw.  I know the last thing I wanted to hear in February 2007 was that things would get better and time would heal.

OTOH, perhaps there is a different kind of comfort in hearing first hand testimony from someone who is climbing out of the grief hole a little.  Many of you here have read my other posts and know how devastated I was as recently as Christmas.  So perhaps you will forgive me for sticking my head above ground and looking around to see what the world beyond my grieving might be like.

"You're using this conspiracy theory as an excuse to avoid having sex with me."

When the Allison character in Annie Hall says this to the Alvy Singer/Woody Allen character, he immediately realizes that she is right.  He doesn't know why he has been doing it, he doesn't have enough self-awareness to have figured it out for himself, but he has enough self-awareness to hear the truth and immediately recognize it as the truth.  But then where does he go from there?

Let's use this diary for liveblogging responses to the State of the Black Union panels and speakers.

State of the Black Union LIVE on C-Span now.

Here's a third diary for the Wisconsin Democratic Party Dinner.  The other thread is getting long and this is a new thread for liveblogging the Obama speech.  The second thread filled up very quickly so I hope people are redirected here.

Speech is on C-Span right now.

Let's finish out the speech here and then listen to the C-Span callers responding.

I can't believe I did this, but I want to send this bizarre conversation to friends via email so I transcribed the Ann Coulter "endorsement" video.   It was tough because there is a lot of crosstalk and overtalk and interruption but I think I got the flavor of it.  I'm posting it here for the convenience of people on dial up and people who refuse to watch or listen to her.  I've also asked kestrel 9000 to move the transcript into his own diary.

I've noticed recently that I'm working out some of my grief issues in dreams.  I'm dreaming about my mom, and I'm dreaming about my own death.  I'm dreaming about things I wish I had done while she was alive.  I'm dreaming about my own fears of what the end of my life will be like. I don't know whether this is good or bad.  Maybe it's neither.  Maybe it just is.

There is a widespread serious misunderstanding in this community about the definition of "hope". Apparently a good number of people don't even know what it means to hope any more!  They insist on confusing it with wishing and fantasy and kumbaya and fairy dust.  Hope is a much stronger word than that and a much more complicated concept than that and a much more effective power than that. Detractors say "you won't make anything happen by "just" hoping for it." Well who said we were "just" hoping?  Who says we aren't backing up our hope with action?  Hope energizes people to do the hard work required to get difficult things done.  Hope inspires people to push themselves farther than they ever thought they could.  Hope is believing in spite of the evidence and working until you watch the evidence change.

I apologize in advance to all the people who do not celebrate Christmas, but with Christmas Eve a week away I'm sort of preoccupied with the holiday, and it is a source of complicated feelings as I face my first Christmas without my mother, who loved Christmas so very very much.

I've been making calls all morning for Robin Weirauch and thought I'd take a few minutes out to write a quick how-to diary for dKogs who might want some how-to help.  If you are making calls today for Robin Weirauch for Congress and you are new to phone banking, here are a few tips from my many years of doing this kind of calling.

And if you're not making calls, please consider doing so:  send an email to phonebank4robin@gmail.com and they'll get you started.  We need people making GOTV calls all afternoon to remind people to get to the polls before 7:30pm.

I'm infuriated by Romney's speech for many reasons, none of which have anything to do with his membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I'm infuriated by the assumption that, just because the Creator is mentioned in our founding documents, that must mean the Founding Fathers intended this to be a Christian nation in the same way that fundamentalist theocrats want this to be a Christian nation now.  I'm infuriated by the implication that only people of faith can claim a moral heritage.  I'm particularly angry about the direct accusation that anyone who wants to respect people of all faiths and people of no religious faith by preventing the majority religion from dominating the public square must be some kind of Godless secularist himself.

But as it so often is with the R party, it's the two-facedness, the double standard, the naked hypocrisy, that offend me the most.  That is what makes Romney untrustworthy as a man and as a political candidate.  It is by that hypocrisy he deserves to be judged, and by that I do reject him, rather than because of any particulars of the LDS beliefs he professes.