Goddamned the Goddamned Eliot Spitzer.  Client number Nine.

The question I have regarding Spitzer is in terms of quantifying levels of hypocrisy.  It is the same question I had with regard to Larry Craig.  Just as Larry Craig’s central concern never involved the Gay, Eliot Spitzer’s did not really involve the busting up of Prostitution Rings.  Spitzer’s claim to fame, and whyhis downfall is pretty disappointing — came with cleaning up financial frauds of major corporations.  Ask him to list his proudest accomplishments, Prostitution will not come up.  I suppose Craig shot himself in the foot by insisting “I am not Gay.  I never have been gay,”, effectively elevating his standard issue but bluster-less record on the on that account.

Start with the not so iron-clad law that you figure that you can either frequent service from prostitutes or you can prosecute Prostution, but not both.  Now we delve into laws of relativity from that spot.  Spitzer has made some hay out of prosecuting prostituion, but notably if you look at the AP bullet-list today, this falls under the purview of “Other Cases”, after a list of five major corporate cases where he earned his chits.  If this list were made over the weekend, you would have to wonder if they would even make the list.  But key in ascertaining levels of Hypocrisy is that the question is unresolved, with no clear “No”.  The lowest level of hypocrisy, roughly none, would be if Spitzer were actually fighting for the legalization of prostitution.  That is never  politically feasible, so you go to the next level of political hypocrisy, which would be if he were passively leaving the wheels in motion for prosecuting prostitution, but not making any deal about it.  Somewhere between there and Leading The Charge with Cleaning up the Scrouge of Prostitution as his raison d’ente is where Mr. Spitzer sits.

Oh well.  His political light had already dimmed a bit anyway.  And thus he falls all the way off into the graveyard of politics, victim of human weakness and a dash of hubris.

A five-month investigation by The Associated Press found low levels of pharmaceutical drugs — including antibiotics, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — in the drinking water of at least 41 million Americans.

The AP’s investigative team found traces of drugs in 24 of the 62 major metropolitan water systems it checked.

Have a glass of water in Philadelphia, for example, and you’re drinking tiny amounts of at least 56 pharmaceuticals or their byproducts.

Lake Meade, which is about 30 miles southeast of Las Vegas, supplies drinking water for Nevada, Arizona and California, and testing found trace levels of birth control, steroids, narcotics and other drugs in that water supply.

Tempted to suggest that the Conspiracy Theorists are right about this one, except here it is more like the Paranoid Schizophrenics, who are — after all — more a-tuned to some things than the rest of the population on some matters… after all.

Benjamin Grumbles, the EPA’s assistant administrator for water, recognizes that the pollution is “a growing concern and we’re taking it very seriously,” but overall there’s no reason to stop drinking water—not that you really have a choice.

That’s exactly how it works, right?  Captive audience, into the Essentials of life.  Just … like… them.

My initial thought concerning the super-delegates, as expressed on this blog back in December or January, was “The Tie goes to Clinton.”  Indeed it does. I just am not sure what counts as a tie, seeing as how we are largely set in stone — Obama will end this primary season with more delegates than Clinton, probably more than 100.

A bit of wisdom tossed at me from the Pundit class which I picked up and accepted because it made sense, and good gravy a lot of pundit class words of wisdom make no sense, is that whoever gets to a 100 delegate lead, as paltry as that sum is in terms of percentiles, will have a nearly insurmountable lead. And that seems to be the case, as Jonathan Alter’s “Math Problem” explains.  Barack Obama is still on the trajectory to the nomination, and the Super-Delegates will be hard pressed to reverse what is a significant delegate lead. Further, Barack Obama has consistently lead in polls of “head to head” match-ups over Clinton, and while I am not unsympathetic to the argument that this does not factor what an actual campaign contest will serve the polls are what they are, an additional factor Clinton will have to overturn in order to make a convincing case to the Super-delegates to over-turn the delegate count.  The only other factor Clinton has in order to win is that she will have to do somewhat better than my imagined “Best Case Scenario” in the remaining contests to serve as a momentum argument about Obama’s campaign stamina.

So, here’s how I view this campaign. Obama has been on the trajectory toward nomination since his Iowa victory.  Hillary Clinton‘s victory in New Hampshire bought her the chance to change the trajectory on Super Tuesday, but she would have to win the night decisively. The results were sufficiently muddled that while she won the night in the Media — California and Massachusetts and New Jersey — the next month’s worth of primaries and causes were so tailor-made for Obama that she still had to change the trajectory in her favor. She clearly knew her peril, as evidenced by the age-old desperation tactic of calling for a long lineof Debates — always a sure sign of a candidate who needs to change the dynamics of a campaign race. Which is why even as she did as well as she possibly could have on Tuesday’s election — a “mini-Super Tuesday”– and carried the night in the media — “Hillary Back In” blared our local newspaper front page headline — at the end of the day, when the dust settled, the cold hard reality for her was she had reduced Obama’s delegate lead by about 10 — an amount that would be wiped out by Obama’s victories in Wyoming (um… 7 to 5?) and Mississippi. Once again,she clearly knows the perils of her situation, as her pitch now includes the hinting that Obama would serve as her running mate — a gambit served as much with super-delegates in mind and one that softens her “All hands on deck” attack on Obama as Inexperienced in suggesting that he will have his chance in eight year. It strikes me as a “Hail Mary” — a necessary “Hail Mary”, Hail Marys are necessary — down a touchdown and the seconds have ticked off the clock, GO! — and also a pretty well executed Hail Mary, but a Hail Mary nonetheless. We’ll just have to see if it hits the tallest and most athletic Receiver. It is why we cannot shut the book on Hillary Clinton’s campaign just yet.

Basically, I hope Obama wins Pennsylvania in a few weeks, which I gather will effectively close Hillary Clinton‘s narrow path toward nomination, stopping her pitch that she can better win the Rust Belt. Which is actually not a bad argument toward electibility, as set against Obama’s argument that he could better win the West — a frontier tantalizingly close for the Democrats, made harsher by the presence of John McCain. A long nomination precess has probably served Obama well — forcing him to explicate “Hope” and “Change” slightly, as well building up Democratic Parties in various states. But a nomination process any longer than Pennsylvania will be detrimental.

The Republicans’ perchance for “Winner Take All”s has served to truncate their process well. If the Republicans had the Democrats’ Proportional Representation System, I think McCain just now would become the Presumptive Nominee, with Romney just now bowing out. The good news is we would still have Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee to kick around. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton would now be the nominee for the Democrats — or close to it — off of her California victory more-so than anything else.

I gather that Larouchies are sourering and re-scourering this blog of mine for various bits of Intelligence, clues of various items into the workings of their enemies, and contrived controversies of a supposed “Get Larouche Task Force”.  What else do I make of this comment, on this long past post of mine:

I do believe that Mr. Benton is correct in his statements against Dennis King. The materials in question do seem to originate from him and I honestly believe that his meal ticket does not have any more punches left for him to use. Dennis you should be ashamed and I don’t thing you should be bringing Erika Duggan in to this. Own up and deal with it!

Understand, the edict has been passed down to the LYM to get off the Internet — the explicit finale of what was implicit in the demagouging of various real and imagined concerns over the Internet.  Without ever having read “The Devil in Your Laptop” (I would need a physical copy.  For reasons clear to you if you’ve followed this, they don’t leave around physical copies of these things anymore.  Which makes them an Internet-hating cult that relies on the Internet), I can tell you that it concerns itself with how the British Empire, together with International Jewish Banking interests, have conspired to brainwash the Youth through the Internet, video games, and computer technology.

Thus, “Rubber necking” Larouchies online means that you are “rubber necking” their central committee.  Absurd as that sounds.

But this comment is rather audacious — it takes even more galls to get to this line than the lines proferred in the arguments in the “Comments” fight on the wikipedia entry on Kenneth Kronberg.  Nick Benton’s phrase does not literally mean what our Larouchian suggests it means, that this “originated with Dennis King”.  Benton’s gripe concerns matters of presentation — King originally presented this with a more bombastic headline than was strictly necessary.  His original problem was in imagining a “Baby Boomer Purge”.  This is a tricky term, because, strictly speaking, Larouche would have preferred Ken Kronberg remain ALIVE.  Demoralized and at the breaking point, but a useful scape-goat to the cult’s financial and recruiting troubles, as well always present though likely just out of reach legal problems, which is a better fit then their current square-block in a round hole spot of him as Martyr to the Cause.  Dennis King has stylistically changed some things, not least of which the address to his website.

Beyond that, Nick Benton can speak for himself, and has.  But at the end of the day, dear larouchie, you must understand that he regards Larouche as even more irrelevant and worthy of less time and space than King does, which is roughly where the “Meal Ticket” line comes in.  If the “last punch” of the ticket is being pushed, you realize that is a result of the decline and dwindle of your cult more so than anything else.  An ex-member of a cult can decide to what degree to linger over their unpleasant past.

Which brings us back to THIS.  Yes.  That.  An item which ORIGINATED IN THE BOILER ROOM IN LOUDON.  Not an order to suicide, but — as the Larouche media mill pumped out in demagouging that tragic story of those two wicked parents who thought it funny to create a fictional boyfriend for their 13 year old daughter’s former friend, only to have him dump her and suggest she kill herself — words have meaning, emotions have meaning…

If you desire me to further decrease my distance to King in that daily memo, I could go ahead and cut and paste this item and post it here?  And here’s Nick Benton’s original story for you!  What the hey.  It predates King’s posting of the document, King not being the official or only purveyor of meaning of the document — Benton’s point — nor originator of said — Larouchie commenter’s stupid bluff.  I do not, however, remember whether it was buoyed about on FACTNet before its printing.

More comments from frequent poster Rachel Holmes here.

All eyes are on Wyoming.  Actually no eyes are on Wyoming.  But they do hold a set of Democratic Caucuses this Saturday, a chance for the dozen or so Wyoming Democrats to get together and put in their two cents on Hillary Clinton versus Barack Obama.  In a phone booth.  (Actually, phone booths don’t exist much anymore, which goodamnedit if a Will Rogersism from the 1930s, in describing the state of the Republican party at the time, hasn’t fallen down the wayside.)

The state of the Wyoming Democratic Party?  They have a Democratic Governor.  Sort of.  Not one with any partisan predilictions, and one who once told a group of state party activists that “I’m afraid I am as Conservative as you fear I am.”  He might be a good governor — I don’t know.  Down the list of Democratic Interior West trend-lines to cheer up Democrats after the 2004 election was the fact that the county home of Dick Cheney voted for Kerry.  The outer edge of the trend, I suppose, as Wyoming was state #50 on the list of Democratic percentages, as I believe it was in 2000.  And there was a competitive House race in 2006, the Democratic candidate ready to try again in 2008.  But, then again, the DNC strategically stayed out of it lest the “D” serve to weigh the candidate down.

As a state, Wyoming angers me.  Its geographical dimensions are all wrong.  I had thought that Wyoming was square, based on some distorted maps I had seen.  Thus I gave it the unofficial nickname “The Square State”.  Then I learned that Wyoming was not square — and was no different than Colorado.  This is a problem.  The solution, so it seems to me, is for the bordering states to suck up or grant Wyoming bits of land.  Idaho needs to grab some land, and Montana needs to give some land, so that Wyoming can become Square.  I think Mike Gravel is still in the race.  Maybe he can make Squaring Wyoming his local cause amongst his national campaign — sort of how politicians tout Ethanol production when in Iowa.  I think Wyomingers want their state to be Square.  If they don’t, I will just have to move there in order to be an Activist to push the cause of Squaring Wyoming.

I really ought to key the name “Jeff Steinberg”.  It gets me odd little chestnuts, such as this one:

Transcription form Iranian television, January 8, regarding the Iranian – warship incident.

[Correspondent] Political analysts say the US approach is in line with Washington’s policy of confrontation with Tehran.

[Senior editor, Executive Intelligence Review, Jeff Steinberg] Many people in the US military who oppose military confrontation with Iran are very worried about the possibility of a minor incident in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, being the pretext that Cheney and company would use for a confrontation.

[Video shows an archive video of George Bush speaking]

[Correspondent] The incident comes days ahead of US President George Bush‘s visit to the Middle East. The trip analysts say is meant to confront Iran’s growing influence in the region by portraying it as a threat to regional states.
………………………

For good or bad, or for good and bad, and whatever merits and detriments this particular bit of Kremlinology holds, I can not help but view a mash of the output of Larouchian crap in terms of some Jeff Steinberg versus Helga Zepp Larouche dichotomy for Secession.  But I come to the conclusion at a certain point, I gather, that Steinberg is just as well looking past Larouche — that the “Political Intelligence” digests that have been popping up in the Larouche rss feed look suspiciously like a product that he can just move out from under the umbrella of Larouche and position into another corner of Political fringedom — see Webster Tarpley on his “9/11 Truth Movement” antics for fun and profit as a model — or Robert Dreyfuss — and read that spot on Iranian television and ask if he needs to be identified with Larouche.

But this game risks that of becoming an endless feedback loop.  Yesterday, flashing before me, I saw an item proclaiming that “Larouche Watchers” were “Stunned” by the appearance of “Helga Zepp” in a French magazine, and directing us all to the usenet forum “Alt. conspiracy-theory-watch”, where we have a string of commenters observing that… Helga Zepp made an appearance in Le Monde… and that shows those Usenet posting Larouche Watchers, don’t it!

Or… score one for the ascension of Helga?

So, I gather Steinberg is in the end counterproductive to post-Lyndon plans, and the need for a continually regenerating group of followers who will continue to chant his name from now through Eternity — but Helga — whatever her role is precisely — is probably essential.  She would at least keep the name “Larouche” center stage, not wandering out of the central fissure of Personality.

The problem, as constructed right now, falls out of the two gambits… #1, best expressed in the continual presidential bid from 1974 through 2004, as well various urgencies to stick him in charge of supposed crises through advisory roles, where his Cult pushes him to to be in charge of Re-Ordering the World.  #2:  He already is conferring with power players, his “proposals” being debated amongst them, thwarted by British and International Jewish Bankers (by as assortment of names), whose order is what he wants to replace with his World Order.  Either way, the fight requires him to be ALIVE.

I guess this means that what Lyndon needs now is to set up something whereby his advocates are promoting and pursuing “Larouche Principals” behind the scenes to World Elites.  This may be the reason behind the sudden spurt of pounding the need to “Get to the Original Source” (and if they simply mean “primary source”, as you learn all through K-12 education, why wouldn’t you just say so?) — beyond the clear requirement to knock down wikipedia.  Actually, this almost seems to be the only driving force for the “Larouche Youth Movement” upon its inception — to learn that principle.

Dennis King, at Factnet, had the more conscientious question of what happens to the Larouche Youth Movement (I gather specifically referring to members) upon Larouche’s death, under the supposition that the Movement itself is dead anyway, whatever Larouche has in mind to set up for after his death is not working out correctly.  Chicken with head cut off, I guess that’s time for a bit of a psychological break (and note that I am not using the word “psychotic”) amongst the… are we down to about a dozen dozen members?

Well, it falls into line with the popular cultural look at Larouche still, so I’m still in the clear.  Perenial nutcase presidential candidate, “Queen of England”, and #1: how does a Personality Cult set itself up to survive the death of its Personality?  and #2: How do the members of the personality cult set themselves up to survive the death of their Personality?

Carmen Kontur-Gronquist, the mayor of Arlington, Ore., whose personal photos of her posing on a firetruck caused a firestorm in the small town, was removed from office Monday in a narrow recall election, 142-139.

Hm.  Maybe I am wrong about the details of what happened in Arlington, as I did not really follow it minute to minute, second by second, but if I am wrong, just pretend that this is a hypothetical situation based on a hypothetical different town.

From what I understand, the mayor of Arlington was facing a recall petition before her underwear clad myspace photograph circulated, and before the national media swooped in for filler quirky stories.  She was facing trouble for basic municipal concerns over local governance — potholes unfilled and etc.

Which suggests to me that the underwear clad photograph complicated the recall effort.  Where before you line up for or against her based on whether her perceived inability to fill the potholes warranted the drastic step of bringing in new management immediately, now you also have to weigh your own as well outsiders’ perspective on her skivvies.  You can vote to keep her in based on how you view the management of municipal business, caring not a wit about her underwear.  Likewise, you may vote to keep her in as a stand against Puritanism, overriding what might otherwise be a a no confidence vote against her inability to fill the potholes.  You could likewise vote against her based on her government failures, overriding your need to send the message of approval over her underwear.  And you might take that moral stand against her public airing of her undies, even if otherwise you’d feel she ought to serve out her term.

The problem is that the national and regional media, and probably as importantly the wacky world of Internet nay-do-wells,  is covering the story and will judge your decision as though you are a bunch of Hicks making stands on Moral Authority, outraged by a photograph of your mayor in her underwear, and this will be the lasting impression of your town.

Which leads me to the suggestion that if you are a female politician anticipating turmoil down the road, you should keep a sexy photograph of yourself in the vault to unleash in order to confuse the issue.  The mayor of Arlington narrowly lost her recall, but maybe she would have lost it by a landslide if the need to defend  the town from an image of Puritanism didn’t override pot-hole management in the eyes of part of the electorate.

I watched a bit of “Election Campaign” coverage from CNN over this weekend.  And by “a bit”, I mean a bit.  It was incredibly asinine and stupid.  It is one thing to have a program with a bunch of talking heads commiserating and crafting the “Conventional Wisdom” of horse-race trading electoral politics.  It is another thing to cut into a live speech of Hillary Clinton’s speech, jam it up against a split shot of an empty podium where Barack Obama is going to make his stump speech in a few minutes, and then wade back and forth while they are are sharing time in lifting up Ohio or Texas in different spaces.

Flash to commercial break, where a horrid graphic of “Ballot Bowl”, and I start demanding to hear them jettison this altogether and explain the repurcussions of tomorrow’s election in Russia of Putin’s sucessor… or, I don’t know, the latest scientific advancements in the field of neurology.

It is becoming increasingly difficult when picking up an Oregonian not to wonder about editorial decisions.  But the questions are sort of scatter-shot, not following any particular line of progression — if I had to guess, my most common thought is a pained shaking of the head at whatever they decided would be on the first page upper fold.  Beyond that, the one thread that I can think would cover my questions is a theme of how a newspaper ought to adjust to the changing market and changing world of 24 Hour News sources and the Internet.  The answer has generally been, across the country, a resignation and shrinkage — which is obviously not the answer to an adjustment.

But if it is.  Today there was a campaign news “Analysis” feature which puzzled me a bit.  I think if the Oregonian were physically twice as long, or if their Election Campaign coverage ran a much longer gambit it might belong as a bit of a Curio, but as it were this article was featured prominently as a top campaign article, a sort of “Obama” half of a page for Obama campaign article and a Hillary Clinton article.

I swear to God, it was an article surveying a White Nationalists Conference for their opinion on this election.  Of all the article the Oregonian was going to pick up for their rather limited scope and coverage, they chose the one that tell us what the crucial voting block and influential thinking of the neo-Nazis, the White Supremisists, theoretically some of them might think of themselves not so much as White Supremisists as sort of “Separate But Equal” Racial Separatists.

Really?

In case you were wondering, there is thought that Obama — who is black, by the way, may be the lesser of two evils than McCain — Immigration and War.  Also, it is important for them to note that Obama is not 100 percent black, but here the conflict within this group rages, because good god there oughta be a law against this race mixing, as there was in some states when Obama was born.  Also, there is a good contingent of Ron Paul supporters amongst the group.   It may be a sign of the impending collapse of the Hillary Clinton campaign that the White Nationalists were not recorded as saying anything about her… she, being White, might be preferable.

An interesting article.  But I just don’t think it’s the best use of limited resources… you know?

So, on the front page of the shrinking and shirking local newspaper of record, there was this “Consumer Spotlight” feature telling us all that a large coffee chain of some fame is going to be closed for three hours.  A coup for this large coffee chain — a chain I do not have particular aminus against — it has created a market by which small coffee stores have thrived — meaning it is not Wal-Mart in its effect on local economies — though, at the same time they occasionally buy a small local chain for the sole purpose of eliminating that competitor — meaning it sometimes is Wal-Mart…

I am not entirely sure why I should have been alerted to their three hour publicity stunt on the front page of the local newspaper.  Did they pay for a front page advertisement in addition to their couple of news stories in the “Business” section over two days?

I will note that the paper’s front page has ceased blaring across the top fold of its front page the Trailblazers’ results for the previous game.  When the team was generally winning, particularly during their 13 game winning streak, this was de riguour.  I guess Blazer-Mania has a ways to go, and losing does not sell the papers as surely as winning does.  Say, have you heard — Oden has endorsed Obama.  Meaning what, who knows?