Opinion - HuffingtonPost.com

Well, this might have been his finest hour. Chris Matthews I mean, confronting Kevin James in the presence of Mark Green on tonight's Hardball. The topic: what it means to compare appeasement, meaning Nazis and Neville Chamberlain in 1938-39--that exhausted neo-con trope--to our current situation vis-à-vis Iran and etc. The exchange was pegged to Bush's political exploitation of Israel's 60th anniversary.

George Bush was in Jerusalem today doing what he and his fellow Republican operatives do best -- fear-mongering for crass political gain at a time when the Mid East fires are skipping their fire lines from all that hot air Bush is blowing across its parched landscape.

The naked truth about the soft machine of the American body politic is that we are incessantly manipulated by invisible forces orchestrated by a conspiracy of strategists with vastly superior intelligences.

Forget the so-called dream team scenario. It will not work. There are hundreds of very capable vice-presidential candidates waiting to be picked who are not named Hillary Clinton.

The California State Supreme Court just overturned the ban on gay marriages.

George W. Bush is unworthy of the presidency. He is a disgrace to himself, our Nation, and the high office he holds.

It's good (and also unusual) that the Bush administration has yielded to the scientists and declared the polar bear a threatened species. But it's clear from the press release that the Interior Department has little sympathy for the plight of beleaguered bear populations.

Donald Trump take note: apparently John McCain is running for Miss America.

In a shocking article from the Economist in March 2002, John McCain is described as having George Bush's foreign policy before George Bush had it.

I've watched a number of the debates now, both Democratic and Republican.

The New America Foundation brands itself as a vaguely progressive organization that exists to "bring exceptionally promising new voices and new ideas to the fore of our nation's public discourse." The organization raises funds from progressive donors -- funds that could go to all sorts of progressive causes. As a progressive you may be fine with that, except when you read this invitation:

To anyone who has lived through a strong earthquake, as I have here in California, the first thought that goes out to the Chinese in Sichuan province is one of great sympathy and sorrow.

After yet another crushing special election loss for the GOP, and with Obama's national numbers building strength against his rival, John McCain has realized the need to take a new direction, beginning today with a horrifyingly disingenuous speech.

So John McCain is outlining his vision for America this morning.

On March 18 of this year, Barack Obama delivered a powerful and much-needed address on race in America. It is past time for Hillary Clinton to do the same.

This morning in the FDL discussion of yesterday's victory in Mississippi, people were wondering about the progressive commitment not just to "more Democrats" but to "more and better Democrats." One might ask, better than what, of course, but one thing liberals is essential, are more Democrats like Donna Edwards -- genuine and energized progressive leaders.

Whores no more.

This endless Democratic primary season may or may not be good for the party, but it has certainly not been good for the media. Pages of newsprint and hours of airtime have been wasted parsing election results, exit polls, non-exit polls and the comments of the candidate's surrogates and pseudo-surrogates.

Those who say Hillary Clinton won't accept the Democratic Party vice presidential nomination are assuming that she wants all or nothing. The same can be said of those believing Obama would turn down VP.

"Occasionally we run across women who are worse warmongers than men," Ms. Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, told me in an interview. I had asked her opinion about Sen. Clinton's latest remark on the "obliteration" of Iran if it were to launch a nuke attack against Israel. Ms. Ebadi, who is one of the most outspoken human rights activists in the world today, continued:

My grandfather came from a small village outside of Minsk in Belarus. It was a real Fiddler on the Roof situation. Open farms, horses and hard times. You know anything about Belarus?

There should be a special place in hell reserved for stage parents. They should spend all eternity having to watch Hillary Clinton star as "Gypsy" and do her own singing.

Although mostly hidden by his campaign, on May 16, 2008--four days prior to the Kentucky Primary--Sen. John McCain will participate in the 137th NRA Annual Meeting in Louisville, Kentucky--in the same event as right-wing pundit Ted Nugent.

Even as thousands of Burmese continue to die in the swath of wreckage created by Cyclone Nargis, the ruling junta seems determined to keep the international community out -- an act of epic negligence, given that the aid is ready to flow, and international organizations ready to deploy thousands of relief workers. This situation has provoked various calls for action, the generals be damned.

U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has failed to come out against Proposition 98, the landlord scheme to end rent control in California.

Is she Barbara Stanwyck of Night Nurse and Baby Face? The pre-Code 1930s Stanwyck was a tough cookie who did not stay home baking them.

There's no sure career path, no sure relationship, no sure cure, no sure safe-haven, and basically no sure bet. The postmodern era is about shades of grey on a daily basis.