Maureen Dowd
New York Times

He’s never going to shake her off.

Not all by himself.

The very fact that he can’t shake her off has become her best argument against him. “Why can’t he close the deal?” Hillary taunted at a polling place on Tuesday.

She’s been running ads about it, suggesting he doesn’t have “what it takes” to run the country. Her message is unapologetically emasculating: If he does not have the gumption to put me in my place, when superdelegates are deserting me, money is drying up, he’s outspending me 2-to-1 on TV ads, my husband’s going crackers and party leaders are sick of me, how can he be trusted to totally obliterate Iran and stop Osama?

Now that Hillary has won Pennsylvania, it will take a village to help Obama escape from the suffocating embrace of his rival. Certainly Howard Dean will be of no use steering her to the exit. It’s like Micronesia telling Russia to denuke.

“You know, some people counted me out and said to drop out,” said a glowing Hillary at her Philadelphia victory party, with Bill and Chelsea by her side. “Well, the American people don’t quit. And they deserve a president who doesn’t quit, either.”

The Democrats are growing ever more desperate about the Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. With gas prices out of control, with the comically oblivious President Bush shimmying around New Orleans — the city he let drown — and Condi sneaking into Baghdad as rockets and mortars hail down on the Green Zone, beating the Republicans should be a cinch.

CNN dot com has a feature that I just discovered (maybe its been there a while, I dunno).  On the main page there are headlines and next to the ones that have video with them is a little video camera icon.  Next to some of them is a t-shirt icon.  So I clicked one.  It takes you to a screen where you can purchase a t-shirt featuring the headline you just read with the tagline, “I just saw it on CNN.com” with the time stamp next to that.

So, a significant developing international story that could affect the worldwide oil market has been reduced to an ad slogan, “Russian missile obliterates spy plane.”

I’m going to see Bruce Springsteen at the 28th and then Lou Reed on the 29th. I’m giddy.

Update: Lots of super rock. Both shows were awesome. Then I saw Superchunk and Arcade Fire on the following Thursday do a free show in Greensboro to support Obama. I’m still resting up…

Every time I try to do my own taxes, I end up owing the government money.  To be clear, I live far below the poverty line.  I take on huge debt through student loans every year.  I have no idea why I have to pay taxes.  The tax system is total bullshit.

The CBS News-New York Times poll released Thursday showed 81 percent of respondents said they believed “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track.” That was up from 69 percent a year ago, and 35 percent in early 2002. Read more

In a political climate like this one, where a majority of people are sick of this disastrous war and an overwhelming majority think that the folks currently in charge (Republicans) have screwed things up, you’d think the Democrats would get their shit together and clean up.

Nope.