THE CATEGORY IS: CORRUPTING THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS FOR TEN POINTS.

The roll call vote tonight is shaping up to be what the DNC wanted all along -- a show as fake and as rigged as a Fifties quiz show, where there will be no chance for an honest vote and no chance or an honest result and where the pre-scripted outcome has been rigged before hand. The question is will Clinton's delegates go along with the script? No one really knows except the delegates themselves.

The news is that Clinton has agreed to release her delegates prior to the vote but that Maggie Williams, her campaign manager told them they were free to vote their conscience. To show the depths that the Obama campaign, the DNC and the media have sunk, when news of this leaked it was interpreted and characterized by some in the Obama camp and the media as Clinton potentially trying to sabotage Obama. Think about that.The DNC, Obama and the news media have now gotten to a point where someone voting their conscience is considered "sabotage". Which makes the DNC have a lot more in common with the old soviet Politburo in 1968 than Philadelphia in 1789

If the news of Clinton's decision to release her delegates with instructions to vote for Obama is true, there is always the possibility that Clinton is doing this knowing her delegates will vote for her, at the same time allowing her to avoid criticism from party leadership.

The wisdom of doing that is questionable both politically and otherwise to say the least since had Clinton been willing to stand up to the party leadership on the grounds that it was corrupting the process and was being dishonest she would have had the backing of more than half the party and probably more than half the country. Yesterday

But Clinton's decision if true will change nothing for two reasons: first the Party belongs to its members not the leadership. If the members who support it stop contributing and stop supporting the leadership and the candidates they put forth, the Democratic Party leaders will have to go and in the future there will be a new leadership and a new set of candidates.

And for those concerned about the corruption of principles by the Democratic Party leadership headed by Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi as well those super delegates whose constituents voted for Clinton but who declared for Obama after taking cash bribes, they can punish those responsible the best way possible -- with their vote.

This is no longer about Hillary Clinton who is free to make her own choices and has to live with them. This election will be about the Democratic Party as an institution and what it stands for and whether a dishonest unqualified candidate with no principles promoted by people with no principles aided by a dishonest inept media with no principles, triumphs or whether they will be dealt an enormous defeat as punishment for their attempts at corrupting the process..That as a matter of what the country stands for as well as the party is as important as any issue facing America.As important as health care is, the country has survived 220 years without it. It would not have survived a day under the kind of corruption we've witnessed by the DNC during this primary season by the DNC.

for the first time in anyone's memory and for the majority of democrats the presidential election will not be about ideology. Its not going to be about health care, or Iraq or the economy or the respective qualifications of the candidates since the Democratic candidate, assuming its Barack Obama, doesn't have any and nothing he says about anything can be trusted anyway.

Its going to be about whether 18 million Democrats who rejected Barack Obama will sanction a corrupt process that sold out Democratic values and principles in their desperate desire to win, while in the process choosing the candidate that was clearly the weakest, the least qualified and certainly the most dishonest candidate to come along in anyone's memory and is most likely to lose, but who fit the agenda of a few.

This is also going to be about one other important idea Its going to be about country ahead of party and principle ahead of party.

This is not something we've seen the last 8 years from Republicans who went along with the most inept divisive, incompetent President in history and let him wreck havoc on the country and kept silent for party unity. Party unity is a Republican idea. its not a Democratic idea. It is also the hall mark of other political systems that are antithetic to democracy.It was Democrats who turned on a Democratic president over Vietnam. and it will be Democrats who will turn against a party that staged a rigged convention that never had an honest moment.

Handing the Democrats a resounding loss in a year that was supposed to be a cakewalk, like a mother forcing a sick child to take its medicine, could be the best thing that could happen for the Democratic Party in the long run. It will make a statement and help ensure that in the future what was seen during this entire process will never be tolerated or seen again and a huge defeat will purge the party of the people responsible.

What these people need to learn is that most Democrats think for themselves and put the country ahead of the party and cant be whipped into line. There will never be unity behind a corrupt system. The fact that Joe Biden said that Obama was ready to be President and lead on day one, shows the depths a politician is willing to sink for the sake of his own ambitions and that of "the party".

The degree to which the majority of Democrats can also punish those in the news media for not only aiding and abetting the corruption of the democratic process will depend on each individual. Nothing makes more of a statement than simply boycotting not only those media outlets who showed themselves to be journalistically corrupt but the advertisers they rely on. If the pressure and boycotts are real they will have no choice but to get rid of the editors and journalists that were willing to corrupt journalistic principles as readily as the DNC were willing to corrupt democratic ones.

Putting the country before party is going to be the next step in this process. For those people who cannot and will not support Obama or any Democratic candidate who supported the corruption of the process, there will be an alternative to supporting an unsupportable candidate and those in the party who in turn supported his candidacy. And that is simply don't for vote for him. That is the way to defeat the corruption that infected the process this year and even if McCain is President, the party could rehabilitate itself in two years and control the Congress.

The fiasco that has been the nominating process this year and the fiasco that is shaping up for the roll call vote has made a mockery of the party of Jefferson,Roosevelt, JFK or RFK. Listening to the tortured comparisons being made about Obama reminds everyone that he has more in common with Eddie Haskell than JFK .

The Denver Group is going to have something to say about this and an announcement will be made soon about the next step and the plan to hold those in the Democratic Party accountable, and to try and effect the kind of change in the Democratic Party that's really needed.

Then Obama will have finally helped to usher in a change people can believe in. Just not in the way he ever imagined.

HOWARD DEAN TO CLINTON SUPPORTERS: SHUT UP AND ACT LIKE REPUBLICANS.

Obama, Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi seem to have a big envy problem. And their problem seems to be that Democrats simply aren't Republicans. And wont shut up and act like them. They wish they would because you can almost hear them thinking that's the way to win a Presidential election since Republicans win most of them. But that has more to do with Democratic Party ineptitude at the top, massive miscalculation and incompetence and not really knowing what it takes to win as well as being afraid to just trust being honest. Just what we are seeing again. And, as Einstein has pointed out in his definition of insanity, it will surely bring the same results.

Only this time there is something of a revolt going on with more than half the party. And Obama, Dean, Pelosi, and Fowler can't understand it. They think just because you're a Democrat you're supposed to shut up and go along.But like everything else they think and do, they are being proved wrong.

For almost 8 years George W Bush not only initiated policies and judgements that visited the worst collection of man made catastrophe's ever visited on the United States by one President, (yes including Katrina which was made much worse because of the Bush administration's ineptitude) he also violated every conservative and Republican principle they have espoused for the last 150 years. And Republicans, for the most part ( with a few exceptions) kept their mouths shut.In fact Rush Limbaugh confessed after the Republicans lost congress that he was relieved because he didn't have to carry water for the Republicans anymore.

They were guilty of the worst thing a member of a political party can be guilty of -- putting their party ahead of their country. And 8 years of the Bush administration's policies shows how dangerous and destructive that can be.

That is exactly what the leadership of the Democratic party now wants from the party's majority who do not support Barack Obama. And they don't ( or won't) understand that those who refuse to support Obama are doing so because they are putting country and principle ahead of party and will refuse to sanction the subversion of Democratic principles that were the driving force behind the nominating process both during the primaries and, seemingly, at the convention.

But what Howard Dean,Nancy Pelosi, Donna Brazile and other DNC leaders wish is that those not supporting Obama would be more like Republicans. Just keep your mouths shut and fall in line even if you believe that the candidate they pushed is easily the worst candidate for President in the history of the Democratic party, the weakest based on the primary results, the most incompetent, underhanded, divisive and the most dishonest, that the Democratic Party has ever offered.

And they expect ( or is it hope?) that more than 18 million people will just forget all that and fall in line simply because they are Democrats. Did they really expect that their incomprehensibly bad judgement which chose Obama to be the nominee despite the outcome of the primaries would be ratified just because they say so?

That events have proved the majority of Democrats who voted against Obama right ( his serial lying, his reneging on pledges, reversing positions and the triteness and shallowness of his mind put on display by his phony Presidential seal not to mention his being landslided in the 13 biggest states in the country) may or may not affect super delegates who will actually decide the nomination on August 27. But if Obama is in fact the nominee, the biggest thing Howard Dean and Obama will have to worry about now is not the Republcians, but Democrats are not going to act like Republicans. They are not going to support a candidate they not only don't believe in but absolutely detest.

You don't support a candidate that you detest and have contempt for because of his lack of scruples,honesty and integrity, and who you think would be a disaster for the country just because the party hierarchy wants you to. That is the stuff of the Politburo not the party of Jefferson.

The Democratic leadership ( a term which has become an oxymoron) still thinks that for Clinton supporters it's sour grapes because their candidate wasn't chosen by the party hierarchy to be the nominee. But maybe that's because Clinton supporters have the quaint idea that it's who gets the most votes and demonstrates who is the stronger candidate that ought to determine who is the nominee.

Dean and the rest of the leadership at the convention after are going to have to face facts.

First, no one is going to buy that Senator Clinton after a grueling primary campaign that lasted 7 months, didn't want the nomination so there is no scenario in which she would release her delegates that will be believed as having not been pressured by the party to do so for the worst possible reasons. Remember, she goes into the convention only 49 pledged delegates behind Obama and the popular vote winner. Secondly, if it is perceived, as it is now, that Senator Clinton does not have an equal opportunity to win the nomination and that the vote will in fact be "symbolic' with delegates being instructed on how to vote and the outcome preordained, the Democratic Party will probably face the worst defeat in its history. Because more than half the party isn't going to simply shut up and take it.

They are not going to vote for Obama, and they may not vote for many of the Democratic candidates for Congress who supported Obama and went along with the corruption of the system, especially those from districts whose consituents voted for Clinton but who supported Obama after receiving cash bribes.

Instead of trying to get Democrats to behave like Republicans ( maybe it's because this is the candidate who said it was the Republicans who were the party of ideas) it might be best for them to remember the words of Will Rodgers who said, " I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Democrat".

Maybe it's too late for Howard Dean to start acting like a true Democrat. Or Nancy Pelosi or any of the super delegates supporting Obama. But it's not too late for the 18 million voters who rejected Obama and who the Democratic Party can't win without.

The great irony may be that those 18 million will send a message to the party leadership that Democrats aren't Republicans by getting a Republican elected which should make the message sink in like nothing else. And also remind those who wish that Democrats would act more like Republicans of the old adage: be careful what you wish for.

IT COULD BE ALL OVER BUT THE SHOUTING.

I will be in Denver for the week of the convention and while I don't know if I will be posting while there, I'm sure there will be a few things to say when I get back. As for now, the reality has to be considered that this part of the process may be over. It's hard to say for sure and anything can happen but super delegates now would have to take into consideration what the ramifications would be of choosing a candidate different from that which both the media and the DNC has been trying to sell for months. The naming of Biden is obviously a political move designed to try and head off any defections of super delegates to Clinton. It may work. It might no longer be a matter of who is the best candidate or more electable, but how many would be willing to undo the sense of inevitability that's been created.

Yes it would be short sighted. But that has not been in short supply during the entire process. Anything can still happen. There will obviously be protests especially involving the way the DNC handled everything.But at this point it would have to be considered an enormous upset if Clinton were to pull out the nomination because it will require super delegates to think for themselves. But upsets happen. A strong showing by Clinton in the roll call vote will still make a statement. But given the way everything has been handled, if she doesn't pull it out, the shouting could go on for a long time. And a Democratic victory in November would get more unlikely every day.

OF SYMBOLIC VOTES AND PHONY PRESIDENTIAL SEALS.

Yesterday's news that Senator Clinton was going to have her name placed in nomination (as it should have been in the first place) was completely undermined by a degree of political stupidity by Obama and the DNC so stupefying that one would think it was beyond even the most inept politician.

A few hours after the announcement that Senator Clinton's name would be placed in nomination, someone in the Obama campaign or the DNC, at the behest of the Obama campaign, put out a statement saying that Clinton's name in nomination and the subsequent roll call vote will be " a symbolic gesture" reducing it to something as fake as Obama's ill fated Presidential seal.

By stupidly claiming that Clinton's name in nomination and the ensuing roll call vote will only be a "symbolic gesture", the continuing idiocy of the Obama campaign and the DNC has reached new heights. Or depths.

One would have thought they had learned their lesson but apparently not. It seems once a snake oil salesman always a snake oil salesman and Obama just can't help himself, practically reversing all the good that was accomplished by the earlier statement.

Unless someone at the DNC is able to restore faith that the roll call vote will be authentic, they are on the road now to ensuring themselves of a very ugly convention if people perceive this as a rigged process.

Marc Ambinder in the Atlantic Monthly implied that the vote will be rigged in Obama's favor by making the comment that despite the roll call vote, "Clinton has no chance" at actually getting the nomination. That means either Ambinder has factual information that supports this or he is simply offering a political opinion that flies in the face of every piece of public information available. Since this is a year when a generic Democrat beats a generic Republican by 10 points and Obama can't get out of a tie with John McCain it should be no surprise that all the metrics always favored Clinton as the stronger candidate to begin with.

The only way Clinton would really have "no chance" as Ambinder claims would be if the roll call vote is rigged in Obama's favor with pressure being put on Clinton's pledged delegates to flip or have their credentials stripped, or other such unsavory and underhanded tactics. Otherwise, if one believes the survey conducted by Politico.com a few days ago ( and apparently Ambinder doesn't) the super delegate tally as of now is Obama 271, Clinton 268 and 160 undecided. That doesn't sound like "no chance" to me.

Maybe it was Obama's megalomania that has caused him and the DNC to try and spin it publicly as a "symbolic gesture". In reality as Heidi Li Feldman has pointed out on her blog, a vote is a vote regardless of how you want to spin it before hand. There is no such thing as a "symbolic vote". Unless, that is, you are rigging the outcome. And rigging the outcome means things like threatening Clinton delegates with being stripped of their credentials, or attempting to intimidate them if they don't vote for Obama. The problem with this is that eventually someone would speak out and if that proved to be the case the Democratic Party would end up the same shambles it is heading towards unless it conducts its business honestly.

I'm not saying they are rigging the outcome. But calling it a "symbolic gesture" starts to call into question the legitimacy of the entire process. A process whose legitimacy was called into a question a long time ago. And now what they have managed to do, like everything else Obama and the DNC has managed to do throughout this entire campaign, is create a public relations and political nightmare over something that at first, had everyone feeling a lot better.

But to show how inept Obama and the DNC really are, and how his megalomania causes problems even for himself, let's say it was true. Let's say they are working behind the scenes to ensure that the vote will go to Obama or that have a head count that is vastly different from Politico's and he is certain a roll call vote will result in his winning. How stupid is it then to make a public statement that the vote will only be "symbolic", making Clinton supporters, the very people he can't possibly win without, even angrier than they were before since no one will accept a "symbolic" vote that is nothing more than a dog and pony show. Not to mention how patronizing it is to 18 million voters.

Unless someone at the DNC wakes up and is able to undo the damage, they have managed to create a situation that could end up actually being worse than it was had they done nothing. Now they have to assure everyone that this vote will be a genuine roll call vote and an equal opportunity for super delegates to cast legitimate votes for either candidate with an outcome not preordained.

That they were capable of undoing all the good that came about by doing what they should have in the first place shows a degree of political stupidity and incompetence that one would think is not possible. Obama and the DNC seem to be trying to reduce the single most important process the country engages in as a whole, to the level of the kind of bait and switch tactics used by unscrupulous used car salesmen.

There is still one other nagging question to be dealt with. Today a freind of mine received as part of a mass emailing from Clinton, an email whose subject was "See you in Denver". In the email she extolled the virtures of Barack Obama and her support for him. I know there are things going on behind the scenes. I know there are "pressures" and negotiations. But Senator Clinton has every right to have her name placed in nomination and so do her supporters and voters. Neither she nor they need Obama's or Howard Dean's permission to do so. It is now past the point where publicly supporting Obama is being a good Democrat. It is becoming damaging to her and the process.

If she really believes and supports Obama then she herself should simply give up anything that could fall under the heading of a charade, release her delegates, withdraw her name from nomination and support Obama. She can also ask her voters to support Obama as much as she likes though it ought to be clear by now that that will never happen.

As long as she retains her delegates she is giving everyone the impression that she has not had some ephiphany where she woke up and realized Obama is the better candidate. That being said she is an adult. No one can make her do anything. She has to realize that Obama and Howard Dean are hardly the Democratic Party. They do not even represent the majority. They are just passing through. She has to tell them straight out that she has every right to have her name placed in nomination, so do her supporters and that she intends to go to that convention as a legitimate candidate for the nomination. If Obama and Dean and some others in the DNC don't like it, well that is just too bad. It isn't for them to like.

It should be plain by now that only the smallest portion of her voters will vote for Obama. There is nothing she can say or do to make it otherwise. It is an indpendent choice of all of her voters and its going to stay that way. So if Senator Clinton has had a change of heart about her desire to be President she needs to say so, she needs to release her delegates which would make it plain she supports Obama, and everyone can stop a charade which is fooling no one and which is only going to make things worse.

On the other hand if this is part of some seedy deal Obama and Dean have put on the table that she felt she had to go along with , maybe that has to be reconsidered and ended, since she doesnt need a deal to have her name placed in nomination and going along with one for whatever reason isn't doing anyone any good. This is not only about Clinton. This is about the entire integrity of the process and the Democratic Party which is either going to be honest or the Democrats will have to deal with their worst and most complete defeat in history. And deservedly so.

There is still the chance that the roll call vote will be authentic since nothing can really stop super delegates from voting their conscience ( except those who are spineless in the face of intimidation). But someone is going to have to clarify what is meant by "symbolic". Symbolic votes are what they have in Iran. It is what they used to do in the old Soviet Union. It is what they do now in China. It is not what we do in America.

The DNC needs to know that a symbolic vote is not good enough and that any individual or political party showing such little respect for how America goes about its business doesn't deserve to be in a position of authority anywhere. What they do deserve is a candidate who hides behind a phony Presidential seal, reneges on promises, lies about everything, has no moral compass or a single legitimate idea and had a 17 year relationship with a pastor who said America got what it deserved on Sept.11th. And everything that will come with it.

IT'S TIME FOR CLINTON TO TELL THE DNC THAT SHE AND HER SUPPORTERS DON'T DO WINDOWS.

After corrupting Democratic rules and procedures to try and force a dishonest, inept, and clownish candidate down the throats of the majority of the Democratic Party who have rejected him, the leadership of the Democratic Party (an oxymoron if there ever was one) have expected Hillary Clinton to put her own credibility on the line as well as give up her own legitimate candidacy for President to clean up the mess the DNC has made of the entire selection process, the impending disaster waiting at the convention, and Democratic chances in the fall, which, if Clinton does not have her name put in nomination, are nil.

They've been expecting Clinton to drum up support from her voters for a bogus and unelectable candidate who had no business being presented as the nominee in the first place based on Democratic rules and reality, and now the time has come for Clinton, for the sake of the party and her own credibility, to tell them enough is enough.

Corrupt is not too strong a word to use to describe what is going on among the leadership of the DNC, and their sycophants in the press (like the absurd op ed of August 10 in the New York Times by Michelle Cottle which shows, like most of her colleagues, she is either badly out of touch with reality or in Obama's pocket).

A glaring example of this unvarnished and what can only be called shameless corruption, is Bill Richardson who sounds more and more like someone stealing hub caps than someone who is the governor of a state. When he was asked by Jake Tapper in a recent interview about Clinton's name being placed in nomination and having a roll call vote this is what he said:

"I do not believe we should have a roll call vote but just get behind Barack Obama as our nominee and this is happening. We will be united at the convention therefore there is no need for a vote.

This is the corrupt politician Richardson has become. Call it the Obama Effect, Richardson is like a dog taking on the characteristics of his or her owner. Richardson is now ready to throw 18 million voters under the bus and pretend they don't exist in the name of faking party unity. This is the kind of lunacy that makes one think that Obama supporters like Richardson need to be on Prozac before they end up on parole for even greater corruption.

Even for those as stupid as Richardson who were taken in by Obama or corrupted by him from the beginning, his recent appeal to the credentials committee to allow the full seating of Florida and Michigan strips him of the 55 delegates he was awarded in the Michigan compromise which means that even including the bogus super delegate declarations that officially don't count, Obama does not now have the 2/3 needed to be the nominee and neither he, Richardson, nor the DNC have any right to call him the nominee.

That it continues is just further proof that Dean, Pelosi, Brazile, Fowler and sycophants like Richardson are willing to corrupt the process, the party and the rules to push a dishonest and false candidate. Given the choice between saving the Democratic Party or saving their face, they seem to be choosing to save their face.

As for Clinton and her charade of support for Obama, the Democratic leadership has expected Clinton to support Obama even while she was running against him, which is part of the reason the playing field was so slanted on his behalf. The press and their own corrupt bias made it worse.

Even so she won 8 of the last 11 primaries and Obama limped to the finish line like a punch drunk fighter. Then, as everyone knows, Dean and Pelosi browbeat a bunch of spineless super delegates into making symbolic declarations that didn't count for anything just so they could declare they had a candidate when according to party rules and processes they didn't.

Clinton has dutifully gone along with this charade long enough. She has been loudly supporting Obama even though a village idiot knows she is only doing what the Democratic Party is asking. But it has to stop. It has done no good. And it never will. People simply aren't as stupid as Dean, Pelosi and Brazile want to think they are. And, not too put too fine a point on it, unlike Pelosi, the people she is trying to persuade do not have a 9% job approval rating like she does, which is another reason nothing she says will go anywhere with the majority of the party.

Obama is an unelectable candidate. From the very beginning he's had all the earmarks of a con artist—a snake oil salesman with no moral compass, no principles, no ideas, nothing of any value to anyone except his own, arrogance, stupidity and ambition. He managed to get as far as he has because Dean and Pelosi corrupted the process and because Obama could impress the easily impressed and easily duped, which includes many of the water buffalo known as the news media most of whom would rather shoot a puppy than have to stand up on their own and tell the truth.

Richard Cohen, an early Obama supporter is a good example. He recently wrote:

He has been for and against gun control, against and for the recent domestic surveillance legislation and, in almost a single day, for a united Jerusalem under Israeli control and then, when apprised of U.S. policy and Palestinian chagrin, against it. He is an accomplished pol — a statement of both admiration and a bit of regret.

Cohen even now, in trying to see Obama for what he is, doesn't want to face the truth. Obama is not an accomplished pol -- he is an accomplished liar and there is a big difference. Cohen still doesn't want to face that he was taken in when tens of millions of other people weren't. Which is typical of people who have been conned. Ask anyone in law enforcement and they will tell you the single biggest reason con artists get away with their con is that people are too embarrassed to admit they were fooled and would rather not report it then face embarrassment. Add Richard Cohen to that list.

But with Clinton going along with this charade because it's what the Democratic leadership is asking, there is the danger of Clinton's own credibility being damaged by continuing to show support for a candidate who by the party’s own rules, is not the official candidate, who does not have the support of the majority of the Democratic Party, who has collapsing poll numbers and who he is now at a point where his own megalomania and serial lying has disintegrated into looking absolutely clownish.

Not only that, but there is evidence staring everyone right in the face that Obama is clearly afraid he will lose if Senator Clinton's name is in nomination.And the press seems to be blind to it.

I made this point today to an editor who was doing a follow up interview with me and I pointed out that if Obama really felt he had this nomination sewed up he would be the first one to place Clinton's name in nomination to win over her voters. If he were sure he had the super delegates he needed to win, it would be politically stupid for him not to. He can't possibly win a general election without her voters and conservatively right now I'd say he will lose a lot more than half. He cant win losing 10 million votes. So why is he so against putting her name in nomination?

In a recent interview he was asked about Clinton's name being put in nomination. He said her role was being worked out. The interviewer said, " so then you don't object to Senator Clinton's name being placed in nomination". His answer was, " I didn't say that".

It should be clear to anyone in the press or anyone with even a shred of political acumen that Obama doesn't want her name in nomination because he is afraid he will lose. There is no doubt that head counting going on within the Obama campaign ,just the way there is on Capitol Hill when a controversial bill is to be brought to the floor to see if the bill will pass and if there aren't the votes, the bill isn't brought up.

There is no doubt that Obama is realizing the votes may not be there, that he cant count on all of the 438 super delegate declarations he thought he could. And he is counting on Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi to do what they can to corrupt the process to make sure that cant happen. They'd rather corrupt democracy than have an honest but contentious convention where at least whoever emerged as the nominee could actually claim to be the legitimate nominee.

The time has come for Clinton to say to Howard Dean, " this is your mess not mine, you did it, not me and it's not for me to clean up. If you had played by Democratic Party rules in the first place, if you hadn't been so politically stupid, you wouldn't have this brewing disaster on your hands. Stop putting it on my shoulders. It's not my responsibility to make this clown an electable candidate when he isn't."

The only thing that can save the Democratic Party now is acknowledging that by their own rules they simply don't have an official nominee and wont till the roll call vote. They have to let party procedures play out and then let whoever wins win. And it has to be honest. Any hint of a backroom deal or pressure on Clinton to be anything other than a legitimate candidate with a legitimate chance, and the party will go completely down the drain in November and take all the down ticket Democrats with them. And they will deserve it.

Obama, and people like Richardson, Dean, Pelosi and Brazile have corrupted the party and its processes and Clinton can't in good conscience be a party to that anymore.

Including Florida and Michigan which Obama now acknowledges should count as per their original results, Democratic primary season ended with this result:

Obama, 1,711 pledged delegates, Clinton, 1,662, giving Obama a paltry 49 delegate lead out of more than 4000. Clinton won the popular vote with a 175,000 vote lead.

This is the result that caused the leadership of the Democratic Party and the sycophants in the press to declare Obama the winner over Clinton even though neither candidate had the 2/3 majority and no super delegate vote had been officially cast. These are the results that led Bill Richardson to say we shouldn't have a roll call vote, that Obama is the nominee and that the party should unite behind him.

And they are telling Clinton voters to get over it?

Right now, by any standard including HBO's Comedy Night, Obama as the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee is a joke. And unless there is a fair and open convention the Democratic Party will deserve to get wiped out in November which they most surely will, and then Clinton's voters can say " get over it."

At the risk of being redundant, Clinton didn't make this mess, they did. She didn't try and slant the playing field in Obama's favor, they did. She didn't usurp and trash Democratic Party rules and procedures when they just should have been allowed to play out, they did. And she didn't force Obama to display a phony Presidential seal, renege on every promise he made during the primary season, bribe people with food and a free concert to fake a big turnout at his speeches and prove himself to be a serial liar, he did all that on his own. It's not her responsibility that Obama cant get out of a tie with John McCain when almost any Democratic candidate would be up by double digits. Any candidate but Barack Obama.

It's their mess and its not Clinton's job to help clean it up. And its not up to her supporters to clean up the mess either.

No one doubts that Clinton feels she is the better candidate both for the Democratic Party and for the country. And obviously so do the 18 million who voted for her and saw through Obama's clownish facade from the beginning. The best thing Clinton can do for the country and the party now is to stop making these unequivocal statements of support on behalf of Obama. No one believes them anyway and they are not doing anyone any good. Obama's numbers are getting worse every day because of Obama not because Clinton isn't doing enough.

The only course of action for the Democratic Party now is to put an end to this charade, have Dean and Pelosi swallow what is left of their pride, have an open roll call vote with both candidates' names in nomination and let the super delegates do what they are supposed to do -- vote for either nominee. Let them take responsibility for their votes and the outcome of their votes, and let whoever gets the most votes wins. Which is the way it should have been in the first place.

Then let Dean, Pelosi, Obama and Brazile grab a mop and a broom and some window cleaner and when the convention is over, do their own cleaning up.

NOTE: I received a copy of this email reply to a Clinton supporter from the Mayor of Albuquerque NM, home of Obama sycophant and political water boy Bill Richardson. He didnt tell the supporter to do windows but he did tell her to get lost. His email address along with his reply is published here. I think he will be suprised about who represents what and what he thinks he knows. And how this attitude, if something doesnt radically change, is going to bring down Obama if he is the Democratic nominee and every Democratic candidate for office that supports him.

From: mailto:martychavez%40gmail.comDate: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 21:20:45 -0600To: "________" Subject: Re: Hillary in Nomination

First, you may have supported Senator Clinton but neither you nor Puma represent the people that voted for her. Only she does. Second, you have no place telling me how to do my job. Third, remove me from your e-mail list. Fourth, get lost.

FLORIDA AND MICHIGAN: TOO LITTLE FOR OBAMA BUT NOT TOO LATE FOR CLINTON

Obama's announcement of wanting Florida and Michigan delegates to have full voting rights is the act of a desperate man. Both he and the DNC know the Democratic nominee whoever that may be, cannot win the Presidency without Florida and Michigan.

Given all that happened in those states, and Obama's attempts at silencing those voters it's not likely anyone isn't going to see through Obama's ploy and why he's doing it.

Florida and Michigan were one of the earliest examples of how dishonest, two faced underhanded and fraudulent Obama can be, when he claimed in speeches that he stood for "voices being heard" and "every vote must count", and then clamped his hand over the mouths of almost 3 million voters in Florida and Michigan because he didn't like what those voices were saying, which was a loud "go home". And in all likelihood are still saying "go home and will continue to say it. Clinton beat him by landslide numbers in both states and this little act of political self preservation isn't going to fool anyone. Anyone, even an Obama supporter can see it's nothing more than another cynical political ploy to try and win back voters who were disgusted with him a long time ago because he needs them now.

I wrote more than a month ago that when it came to winning Florida, a state the Democrats almost certainly have to win, Fidel Castro had a better chance of winning than Obama and that is still true. His motive for asking the DNC credentials committee who, by the way, can now be found under Obama's bus, to restore the full seating of Florida and Michigan delegates is obviously Obama's attempt to try and do something about his collapsing poll numbers which have to be giving super delegates who declared for him concerns that Obama can't win. This is Obama's attempt to try and restore some faith in his eroding candidacy before the convention. It probably won't work. When a ship starts to sink there isn't much anyone can do to make it unsink. All anyone can do is jump ship. Including the rats.

What remains to be seen is whether Obama really means what he says, even if he is trying to bolster his eroding support or, like everything else, is one more fraud, one more try at suckering people into believing one thing when he intends something else.

What exactly does "restoring full voting rights" really mean to the candidate who was for the DC gun ban a year ago, but claimed he was never for it when the Supreme Court struck it down? Or the candidate who said he was a new kind of politician who would run for President with public financing until he reneged, or the candidate who said he would filibuster the FISA bill if it had retroactive immunity and then didn't, and was against off shore drilling until he was for it?

"Restoring full voting rights" can have only one plain meaning to the inhabitants of the planet Earth but Obama may have another meaning.Or try and pull one out of Jeremiah Wright's hat.

But the only plain meaning is this: the results of both primaries stand exactly as per their original results. And this means a number of important things. It means that Obama forgoes the 55 delegates he was awarded in the Michigan compromise that he didn't earn. It means that Clinton is returned the 4 delegates she did earn and that was taken from her. And it means the 19 net delegates Clinton won in Florida but were taken away by the DNC are restored.

Given all that, the math is now that Obama goes into the convention with only a 59 delegate lead over Clinton. Given that Clinton is the popular vote winner and that over 850 of Obama's delegates were won in states where he lost to Clinton by landslide margins and suspect caucuses, no super delegate can reasonably respect a 59 delegate lead out of 4200 as being representative of either the will of the people or the strength to win a general election. Especially when all the evidence is to the contrary.

Regardless of what Obama might pretend he "really" meant sometime in the future, this is the only true meaning of restoring "full voting rights". And a 59 delegate Obama lead is the practical effect of counting all the delegates in Florida and Michigan. Which makes the Disassociated Press' assertion yesterday in their story about restoring those voting rights that "Obama has clinched the nomination" not only ignorant of Democratic Party rules and factually incorrect, but, like Obama, maybe whistling past the graveyard.

THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS AND THEIR BOGUS CLINTON ARTICLE

Now that we know the Daily News story about Hillary Clinton taking her name out of nomination was totally bogus and there wasn't a single factual truth anywhere in the article, was it simply just two more bungling inept incompetent journalists in Obama's pocket looking stupid in a major newspaper? Or is there more to it? The answer is probably both.

Yes they are bungling and incompetent because they tried to get away with a completely fabricated inaccurate story which they knew was false even before Senator Clinton's statement to the contrary was made public and it was to Obama's benefit to push the bogus story.

The real question to ask is , who was the real source of the story because it's clear it was not someone in the Clinton camp and why did they go with it knowing it was false?

The article was not only factually false on every issue it touched; it went beyond false and into the realm of the preposterous -- so preposterous that no one with 2 cents worth of political knowledge would have fallen for it at face value.

First the article was ignorant of Democratic Party rules regarding the nomination process and that could have been checked. Another was the factually false assertion that Clinton had counseled her delegates to vote for Obama, which, having been in touch with some of her delegates myself, I know is factually untrue. Then suggesting that she would release her delegates on August 26 one day before the roll call vote was nothing less than bizarre.

Senator Clinton made it clear again she has no intention of releasing her delegates nor should she. Secondly the idea that if she was to release them she would do it August 26 one day before the roll call vote is so bizarre it's not possible two political writers could have fallen for it since releasing the delegates then would have no political value to anyone.

It's clear that Michael Saul and Tom Defrank didn't bother to check a single fact and their editor didn't require it. That alone should be a red flag. But what makes it even more suspicious is that Tom DeFrank is a veteran political writer for the Daily News. This is not some guy who just fell off the turnip truck. He had to know that this information was false because it made no political sense. But the editor had to be part of the collusion because anyone would know that if Clinton had made such a momentous decision it would have been on the front page not buried in someones political column.

These facts alone would have sent up a red flag to anyone with even a shred of political insight. Which of course hasn't stopped Matt Drudge from repeating it.

So the real story is, how did this get into print in the first place and where did it originate? We know where it didn't come from. It didn't come from anyone in the Clinton camp as the story falsely alleged. It didn't come from anyone even remotely close enough to have any real knowledge of even the Democratic Party's own rules and procedures.

So where did it come from? Who was really the source?

For one thing we know that The New York Daily News is a Republican leaning newspaper and we know that the Republicans would much rather run against Obama who they know they can beat. But the story itself has Obama's fingerprints all over it. It fits his profile in every way.

Obama got his start in politics using strong arm tactics to elbow Alice Palmer off the ballot in Chicago. We know that he and his political sycophants like Bill Richardson, Jonathan Alter, Pat Leahy, Joe Klein and writers at Politico.com tried as hard as they could to pressure Clinton to drop out as early as March. Given that she was the eventual winner of the popular vote which was clear to many including Michael Barone at US News, it's made it obvious that those attempts were simply Obama strong arm tactics trying to get Clinton out of the picture to leave a clear field for Obama which has been his only way of getting elected to anything.

The evidence is mounting that Obama is starting to run scared. His poll numbers are awful and getting worse and people are noticing. His fraudulent crowd in Berlin has been exposed as the function of free food and a free concert by the two biggest acts in Germany ( not exactly a JFK moment).And he has double crossed so many of his supporters that, adding to his inherent incompetence for the job he is seeking, he is in real trouble.

That Daily News story is telling. It was designed to do Obama a favor and it has the Obama campaign's fingerprints all over it. Senator Clinton has made it clear that she intends on having her name placed in nomination which her 18 million voters want, her 1886 delegates want, but that Obama doesn't want.

Since Michael Saul and Tom DeFrank were given false information that any political writer with any journalistic instinct would have known was false from the beginning, only one of two things can be true: they are either truly stupid and incompetent and without any political common sense at all and so is their editor, or there is a major scandal at the Daily News because two political reporters and their editor printed a story they knew to be false (which would explain why they never bothered to check the facts or get any corroboration) and it had to be done in collusion with the Obama campaign to benefit Obama as the nominee, which conventional wisdom says would benefit McCain in a general election. That would be the motive for the News colluding with Obama. No honor among thieves.

This is more than just two bungling Daily News reporters looking stupid. People should demand answers and find out how this story got into print and it may uncover something the Obama and his campaign won't so readily be able to deny.