I thought both commentators were over the top and seemed easily offended. Jeffrey Toobin OTOH seemed sharp in his criticism of the media that drives the narrative that white, blue-collar voters are critical to a Democratic win.

That was a juicy and revealing bit of television indeed.

Let's keep talking in the OTHER thread!!!!

This is just a transcript of a pretty typical cable-news dustup. Not much revealed here. Move along.

Oh Lord, Xrandadu Hutman is on to me. Drat. Curses. I give up.

Did you read the post? It's really interesting, don't you think?

Was this posted to bury the column about Obama's win?

Not possible, since the column about Obama's win is the lead article, and could therefore rightly be said to bury this article.

Your question lacks any justification, which could lead others to suspect your judgement.

Miserably.

...and the black ones and gay ones and wealthy ones, too, which is why running a campaign based on uniting people is such a fine idea.

And we don't need to just con them long enough to have an election—as so many detractors falsely accuse Obama of trying to do—we need them to feel and to be an important part of this process of self-governance that is the living Great Experiment (which is what Obama intends).

b.t.w I've done more blue collar jobs than many people I know, I have advanced degrees, and I grew up on U.S. military bases around the world. This egghead/sixpack business may have some limited utility, but it's a pretty tiny hole through which to view the world.

Did you read the post? It's really interesting, don't you think?

It is interesting.

Mostly it raises issues and questions without providing any resolution to any of them. Each leads to side issues and shades of gray and rabbit holes and red herrings and second-guessing and more issues and question. Any of these questions could be important - or none at all.

Professional pundits can delve into these for their own sake, but most people have neither the time nor the inclination. People have their own problems, and those take priority.

It gets a little overwhelming. When that happens, people tend to lean toward the Who Know, Who Cares, Why Bother perspective.

In view of the gravity of the nation's mounting problems - and the complexities of the politics - it is not even clear whether it would make a great deal of difference who is elected to the presidency. We might all be in for it no matter what happens.

And then again, we might not.

Here is there, and high is low.
All may seem undone.
What is true no two men know.
What is gone is gone

"He has reached out and he's won -- do you think that Barack Obama would be leading in the pledged votes, the delegate votes, the money, if it was simply because somehow or another black people somehow or another became the majority?"

This speaks volumes.

Wow, maybe I'll have to reorganize my opinion about Donna Brazille. That was awesome.

Really? Last couple of times I've seen her, she's been good. She was badass on Colbert. It's hard to avoid domination by Colbert, and I think she had him on the run at the end.

The larger point, a guess, is that Begala's obsessive reliance upon 1980s politics to inform his entire electoral (and probably political) worldview is telling.

I've seen it argued many times that indeed the demographics are changing and signalling long-term electoral shifts in the Democrats' favor.

I take Begala's point, but he seems so enmeshed in his trench (forgive the mixed metaphor--web of trenches, maybe?), that he can't be relied upon to offer clear analysis.

Moreover, it's rank cowardice to accept that state of affairs if it means a coalition beholden to racists (at bottom, not in general).

The Republicans are beholden to their wackos and we do not want that.

But if we must, in fact, embrace wackos, let them be our wackos. Let them be bomb-throwing Weathermen, I say.

(I'm not speaking literally, btw, so please don't anybody come along and say: AHA!--you admit it!! Obama's with the terrorists. That is not it at all. That is not what I meant at all.)

Not the other way around.

Good to hear. I stopped paying attention to her long ago.

I don't remember when or why, but at some point I developed the opinion that she was a glorified hack, at least as far as her television appearances revealed.

Maybe it's her partisanship that bothered me, I don't know.

But that transcript's dynamic. I'm really impressed.

We need more of that.

Of course, not so much that she becomes the next Reverend Wright.

Ok, CArol!

When Begala dismissed a coalition of black people and the intelligentsia, he either deliberately or mistakenly left out a group that was the linchpin of Brazile's argument: The young.

To whit, the young energized new voters, who by dint of being new are unfactored by the 'machine' and who span the entire spectrum of identifiable voting groups are a demographic that will be the fulcrum upon which this election will pivot.

That being said, Begala was either just plain wrong or deliberately trying to obfuscate. So he's either stupid or an asshole.

but I hope this exchange gets youtubed....let me know if it does at

itotallycommameanit at yahoo

Yes it is a good argument, I make it everytime O'Reilly tries to demonize some black pop-culture icon because he's so worried about the damage they are doing to the black youth. My response (made to no one in particular since my pulpit is my sofa, and probably best that it is so) is to say, "Bill, surely you don't think the BILLION dollar hip-hop industry is fueled by poor black ghetto kids do you?"

Brazile is right, if only because she practically offered Stephen Colbert some ass, on the air.

imeanitcommatotally yahoo

Do we have to?

Wow. What if someone had said Hill's coalition is just White Women and Crackers, how would that go down? Wouldn't the campaign boycott CNN?

Has anybody ever gotten more mileage out of a presidential victory than Begala and the other Hack, Carville? Can someone please REMIND THEM THEY ONLY WON BECAUSE ROSS PEROT had more than 10 percent of the vote. That's a huge amount and the only reason Bill won. Not because of some brilliant coalition put together by Bill Clinton. I'd have a lot more respect for those two men if they went out and helped other Dems get elected, instead of coasting into well-paid media gigs where they keep preaching from a rulebook that is circa 1990, instead of one made for 2008.

Plus, Carville married the woman who is one of Cheney's minions. I'm all for mixed marriages because we all know this country needs to heal its divisions some way. But I would sooner marry a literal toad than share a bed for someone who works every day for Dick Cheney.