And ... he really said "Barack Hussein Obama"? Are you fucking kidding me? And if Team Clinton specifically sent him up thinking this would win them support, then this is pretty representative of why they're losing.

But I agree with you that Astin was pretty much a joke, beginning with his lateness and then continuing with the booing, shouts of "Obama!" and endless hissing that went on during his speech. I was mortified for him, and embarrassed to, once again, have to endure the frat-boy antics of Obama supporters. Whatever. The Hussein remark? I think you're a little paranoid, no one around me reacted in any way but to burst into cheers when he said that.

Despite all the silliness, the Clinton people were excited and enthusiastic, everyone was in a great mood and it was pretty cool to be part of the process. Too bad your experience was so incredibly lame. Maybe it's the company you keep?

Our Clinton guy was some New York intellectual. Some in the crowd didn't want to let him speak until an Obama proxy had been identified- bad form. Head of some School of Communication. Identified himself as gay, said Hillary has always supported LGBT.

Obama proxy was some nobody in the district who wasn't even a delegate- just an alternate. Clinton supporters in the crowd got uppity when he said "Hillary is a divisive figure." Then Obama supporters got pissed, shouted down the Clinton supporters, etc, etc, etc.

Credentialing took 5 hours. WTF? And why wasn't Darcy there to talk to us for 5 of those 300 minutes? Net net: 36 delegates for Obama, 12 for Clinton.

That's fine, but it should be plural: elenchoses, elenches, elenchi. Something like that.

"Ooh, he was in a MOVIE? I'd like to change my vote now."

And the Hussein name drop was clearly intentional, at least that was the read from myself and those around me.

Sean "Hussein" Astin has some 'splainin to do.

Must have been making my sign or something when the booing of the Pledge happened, missed that.

Obama gained two delegates in the 36th, which do not equal two delegates at the state level, but if the same happened elsewhere it would add up to an even larger Obama victory today than on Feb. 9. The 36th settled at 77% for Obama. Did Obama gain in Washington over-all today?

Hundreds of us campaigned to be elected delegates for Obama going forward. Some of those hundreds of candidates had marched with the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., others had personally campaigned for Obama in every election he has ever contested, including in the Illinois state legislature -- the incredible stories of personal roles in our history went on like that for hours, one twenty-second speech at a time.

For the 13 male delegate slots, and another 13 alternates, competition was about as fierce as for getting into Harvard Law School. Not that those odds stopped Sen. and Mrs. Obama.

McCain has more respect for Obama than Clinton does? Apparently so. This was not just someone who supports Hillary, this was someone flown here by her campaign as her official surrogate, giving remarks repeated in more than one LD (prepared and carefully worded).

I'm scratching my head over shouting down doing the Pledge of Allegiance. We all happily took the Pledge and also had a guy get up and sing a great version of the Star Spangled Banner that made me start craving a baseball game to watch...

That he did, he barley spoke to any of Obama's issues. I'm guessing he didn't need to since just about everyone there was for Obama.

Did you catch the Obama Rap by the lady who wanted to be a state delegate?

Good times in the fighting 37th, but very, very, very, VERY DULL!!

Rather than Obama saying he prays to Jesus and is a Christian, he should have just addressed the issue during his race speech that there is a fear of Muslims and Arabs in this country as well. It is not just a black and white world.

The pledge thing was silly. As I recall, we didn't have any trouble getting people to say the pledge during the 43-1353 precinct caucuses back in February.

I think that my fellow Obama supporters could try being more magnanimous in victory. I know the national campaign has been a bit rough, but jeebus, chill. Being nasty doesn't accomplish anything here. In particular, Mr. Guy Who Suggested Canning the HRC Surrogate's Speech: yes, it felt a little disrespectful to be made to wait for what turned out to be a Hollywood actor flown in to give the surrogate speech, but we knew going in that we were going to be there for most of the day. You could have just gone to get a hot dog.

Finally, for as much as they paid to put that thing on, you would think that the 43rd District Dems could have gotten instructions on the lighting written into the rental contract.

#34: I think her middle name is "fucking whore." I may be wrong but I think Randi Rhodes has the line on that.

@38... very good point.

It was swell to see Annie running for delegate and WIS doing his trot around the room with signs that most of the delegate candidates made.

1) Ironic highlight of the day was that the vote on the resolution urging Demo party unity this November split roughly 50-50! There's another Connelly column that just wrote itself.

2) As Fnarf pointed out, our pledge was non-controversial, although you could detect an audible drop in volume for "under god".

3) Couldn't believe Astin's "Barack Hussein Obama" quip. I'm an Hillary supporter, and this is another example of why she will lose the nomination.

4) As an HRC delegate, it was nice to wrap up our business by 4 pm. When I left, the Obama people were still hashing it out. They're probably still there. I now squarely support a party primary.

Yeah. I shouted for that too. :\

Turned out the school had locked up the controls for the stage lights - and the flag had been (surprisingly) left in its package in the Gymnasium where Obama delegates were.

44- I think his exact quote was "John McCain is the final Cylon." Made me laugh.

wimp. I was at the 37th for about 13 1/2 hours.

I am not kidding.

Still, for Sean Astin to bring it up in a back-handed compliment is completely without class. Just another reason not to support Clinton (as if any more were needed).

I saw Annie Wagner at the 43rd! Right in front of me! In fact, I said to my neighbour, "THAT'S Annie Wagner?!" I thought I had squealed too loudly and fangirl-like, but either Ms Wagner is used to that sort of thing and knows how to ignore it or she simply didn't hear me. ;->

The booing of the Pledge was crass.

Wow, such a sacrifice every four years...

it was no less wrong to raise "hussein" without clarifying intent because of the popular context in which "hussein" has been abused to smear obama and convince more than 1 in 10 americans that he is muslim. (he isn't. sadly bears repeating.)

equal time? so what.

saying "rodham" when one says hillary's name does not give carte blanche for dropping "hussein" without further explanation. let's say one was discussing that some muslims might hate america a little less if our president's middle name was hussein. in that context, intoning "hussein" isn't evil, it's obviously part of a discussion.

without resetting context away from the popular abuse of "hussein" however, its bare use was abuse. clinton should be called on it because the hobbit was her official surrogate.

I think that it ought to be Barack Obama who leads the way on "resetting the context". Now, I'll be the first to admit that I haven't followed all of Obama's remarks on the matter. However, from what I have seen, he's been slow and inconsistent on reframing the issue. The time that I did see him try to reframe, I was on the one hand glad that he did, but on the other hand felt that his remarks sounded a bit too much like "not there's anything wrong with (being Muslim)." I guess what I'm saying is: Obama is in a unique position to turn things to the positive, and he ought to do it more often -- rather than (implicitly or explicitly) hiding from his middle name and/or promoting the message that all speakers-of-Hussein are baiters. Tip-toeing doesn't do any of us any good.

I don't agree that we can necessarily impute ill intent to everyone who speaks Obama's middle name,

Sure you can, if for no other reason than it's discourteous to refer to people by names they clearly wish to not be referred to as. And in the case of Barack Obama, there's generally clear motive at work when people tack on his middle name.

If you make gratuitous use of his middle name, you're showing a certain amount of disrespect, and best you not pretend otherwise.

it's not disingenuous to equate 'Hussein' and 'Rodham'

???

Wow. Just let that sentence hang in the air, all on its lonesome for a second or two, and then tell us that you really beleive that to be true. Today. In greater America.

(cough-BULLSHIT-cough)

The thing that Astin should have kept in mind is that WE can say Hussein, but Clinton or McCain supporters can't, not without the presumption of ill-intent. As it happened, I thought his saying it was intended as an olive branch, as he said it in the context of affirming his support for Obama should he win the nomination, but that could be because I am predisposed to like him, due to his sweet narration of Meerkat Manor.

Regardless of his actual intent, when a Clinton supporter says "Hussein" he plays with fire, and he should have just skipped it because it didn't work.

Jus' askin'.

as part of a longer sentence,
in a discussion about politicians middle names,
and, specifically, whether one can say that "Hussein is to Rodham as Obama is to Clinton".

I am not intimidated by decontextualisation, thankyouverymuch.

You guys seem to be proud of booing the pledge of allegiance so why aren't you proud of Barrack HUSSEIN Obama's MUSLIM connections?

But hey, it's his name, so why not use it? Similarly Barack Hussein Obama is his name. No reason people can't call him by his full name. Should he be ashamed of it?

If any group of people could get McCain elected President, it would be the Democrats. Who thought up this Cage O' Death primary contest?

The flag, or any demonstration of allegiance to it as a symbol of a greater bond with one's country, is BAD otherwise. At least in certain Dem enclaves in Seattle.

Got it. Silly me.

But perhaps there is another reason to consider why we're not allowed to mention Obama's middle name. I don't necessarily agree, but it's an interesting take.

But dude, what's up with booing the pledge? Is this that the "unity" thing Obama supporters are looking for? Aren't we supposed to be on the same team? It's one thing to boo a player's performance on the field, but you only disparage yourself when you boo the pledge. That's your team. That flag represents you as well. I'd have a lot more respect for both Democrat candidates if they and their surrogates started acting like adults.

Boo the pledge and flag, get hyper about the phrase "under God" and then raise holy-hell when people notice that you are anti-American, anti-religious bigots.

Congrats on nominating the first full-fledge racist for President. Obama, his racist, anti-semetic "pastor" and his nutty wife are probably the first Democratic candidate ever to truly represent your true beliefs and ideas.

So stop your silly unity candidate nonsense and let Obama run on his anti-American, anti-Israel and get "whitey" platform and let see if that is what America really wants to represent them to the world.

Then we'd see some serious enthusaism.

Muslims are good. They are against abortion and gay marriage, but they're so darn multicultural.

Oh, darn it, did I just imply that Barack Hussein Obama is a Muslim? That's a lie! He's a good ol' fashioned America-hating black theologian, not a dirty Muslim. Not that Muslim are dirty.

Why?

???

I wish liberty and justice didn't apply to the far left nuts, but it does.

In the early days of colonizing America, we were being taxed by Britain without any representation or any say in how the money was spent. The battle cry was “No Taxation Without Representation”, we fought the Revolutionary War and won our Independence from Britain.

Taxes are a necessary evil for a civilized country. Someone must pay for the legitimate functions of our government. National Defense, infrastructure (roads, bridges, etc…), a means of dispute resolution and a local police force.

Consider a couple of questions:

As the breadwinner in your family, would you give binding votes to each member of your family to determine how your paycheck is allocated and spent?
If you owned 10,000 shares of stock in a company, would it be okay for a person owning just one share to have equal influence at shareholder meetings?
If you owned a business, would you give one binding vote to each employee and one vote for yourself to determine pay scales and how profits are utilized?
If you were on an airplane, would you allow yourself and each passenger a binding vote to decide if the contents of your wallet would be distributed to all passengers?
Any “reasonable” person would clearly answer NO to all of the above questions. Yet, for unexplainable reasons, the US Government is run exactly as described above. If you pay no Federal Income Tax, you still get one vote. If you pay tens of millions of dollars in taxes, you still get one vote.

People who consume more than they produce and who pay no federal taxes, or nowhere near enough to cover what they consume, can band together and vote to take more and more from those that do produce - just like in the examples above.

The sad fact is that this is exactly what is happening in this country today. Politicians from both sides constantly tell the so called “needy” that they have a right to ever increasing portions of my income.

Accepting any form of welfare used to be shameful, and should be, but they’ve turned it from shameful into an “entitlement”. Each generation grows up believing more and more that money grows on trees and all they have to do to get more is to vote for more welfare. Working for it is just too hard….

There is a fatal flaw in our political system in this country. Even Karl Marx was aware of it:

Democracy is a form of government that cannot long survive, for as soon as the people learn that they have a voice in the fiscal policies of the government, they will move to vote for themselves all the money in the treasury and bankrupt the nation.

– Karl Marx / The Communist Manifesto

Another unknown author said it even more clear:

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure.

From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship.

– author unknown –

The politicians have finally convinced enough people that they can have everything for free without working for it.

Just vote for ME and I will tax those bad bad “lucky” people who actually produce wealth and give it you without any strings or restrictions. At this point, almost everyone collects some form of handout from the government. Everyone wants to keep their share of the loot and get more free loot, more than the next guy, that’s how one gets ahead in America today. Piss and moan and complain and cry “poverty” and spend all your money, have all the children you want and demand to be taken care of cradle to grave. We now have those that produce the wealth in this country and the rest are “looters”.

The latest crop of Presidential candidates are falling all over themselves to promise more and more of my income to those that refuse to take care of themselves.

I believe in freedom, I believe everyone is owed the protection of most of the Bill of Rights. I do not believe that anyone that does not pay for all they receive back in services from the government has a right to vote - to express a voice on how the tax dollars they did not contribute to get spent.

But you say if everyone didn’t have the right to vote, that one group could abuse the other group, and reestablish slavery.

Funny you should mention that, because that is exactly what is happening in America today. Those that refuse to pay their own way in this world have banded together with short-sighted politicians to abuse those that actually do produce wealth. By voting themselves more and more of my earnings, I have been reduced to slave status, a sacrificial animal who is forced to work to support others.

Sound familiar? It’s called government enforced slavery through taxation.

In private industry, shareholders get one vote per share of stock in a company, the person with 10,000 shares gets 10,000 votes and a much larger say in how the company is run than the person with just one share. And of course, those who don’t own any stock get no votes at shareholder meetings. If a dividend is paid, the same amount is paid PER SHARE OF STOCK, it’s not paid per shareholder.

When we go to a restaurant, the price of our meals is the same for everyone. Nobody would accept being charged different prices for the same meal based on their income. When you take your family to the movies, you’re charged by the head, not by your income. The cost of providing restaurant food, or a seat in a movie house is a constant and not a variable based on your income.

The cost of our national defense, and courts and infrastructure and police force is a constant and not variable based on income.

If this country is to avoid total economic collapse, we need to stop now, once and for all, the “entitlements” for the able, keep a small safety net of “welfare” for the truly needy and take away the voting rights of those that do not pay their way in this country. The more one pays in Federal Taxes the more votes a person should get.

Want a vote? Earn it.

Earn one or more votes with actual work and production instead of pissing and moaning and crying poverty, take care of me, you owe me a living cradle to grave, it’s my entitlement, and voting to steal more and more of my earnings so you don’t have to pay your own way. Have some pride in yourself."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

These are the best of times.

The next time Hail to the Chief is played in D.C. will be to honor President McCain.

One day these old school hippies and their new age anarchists offspring will wake up standing in a pile of radioactive debris starving and blinking like a bewildered cow wondering "how did this happen?"

I really don't care if they dig their own graves but I am damned if I will let them dig mine.

And you wonder why normal Americans think the Left is out of touch...?

Listen, I hate fascism, racism in all its forms (including the soft bigotry of low expectations), and chauvinism, but the day that wanting to pledge allegiance to the flag of the USA marks one as RIGHT WING, then count me as a right winger. The problem with you lefties is you don't realize that you're so far over the edge with kneejerk America hatred that average moderate people feel alienation from you.
It's not weird to love what this country is and is becoming. It may be weird to ignore the past and to forget that we have a history full of sins, but it is equally weird to decide that it is irredeemable and unlovable. This is a great country because of our aspirations and because we do have guiding principles. Eschewing patriotism is stupidity! I would bet those that booed the flag would say "dissent is the greatest form of patriotism." Bullpuckey! Reactionary dissent is merely contrarian.

Obama gets in and we will see another Civil War. White against black…. Nobody should be shocked by it. Obama will split this Country…… Look at all his lies and racism, he’s what’s referred to as a Slick Willy…..
The 43 rd. Dem should move to Africa with Obama what idiots and somebody voted these fool in.....

that's right barack whitey obama.
he's the candidate of white supremacy.
don't let him fool you. he takes after the mama and granny who raised him!

You must be really hurting ever since the American people saw through your charade and voted you guys outta the Congress.

And now we're going to take the Presidency too. Double ouch for you!

You know why? Cuz you lied to much, your hypocrisy was shown to everyone, and now people don't trust what comes out of your mouth. Go ahead and call Obama a muslim or a communist or whatever terms you wanna throw at him. The only people who'll believe you is your own echo chamber.

And watching you melt down over McCain has been a blast as well. Talk about imploding. I'd wish you good luck but you already used all of yours up.

I'm praying for you.

Your intellect is sharp and your analysis exceptionally astute, Kristy! Please show the rest of us meandering dolts the path that leads to such superb wisdom as you have graciously revealed to us here!

Whether or not one supports a particular U.S. President (or candidate for the office), a comment like Kristy's amounts to nothing more than a shallow, thoughtless personal attack; similar to that which an immature elementary school child might craft after not getting his or her way on the playground.

Get a life, lady! :)