Mark Casey Online

• The latest Bigfoot hoax has been a pretty fun one. These guys say they discovered a “nest” of Bigfeet in Georgia, where one was dead and the others were alive. So, naturally, they stuffed the dead one into a refrigerator and shipped it to Palo Alto, CA — where else? Completely ignoring the idea that they found “several” Bigfeet, they are now demanding a book deal, and their DNA “evidence” was confirmed today to be one sample of human blood, and another sample of Opossum blood. Good try, boys.
• If you’ve been watching the Olympics for the past week, you’ve undoubtedly noticed — or at least heard about — some strange things happening in the gymnastics competitions. First, there was China’s age scandal, where at least one of their competitors has been proven to be just 14 years old. Now, the scoring itself has come under fire. Sports Illustrated’s E.M. Swift has a good analysis of what’s wrong with the system.
• Barack Obama is expected to announce his Vice Presidential pick this week, as the convention looms just around the corner. Speculation has amped up over Senator Joe Biden, which is great news. The other likely pick is Evan Bayh, a Democrat from my home state of Indiana. Bayh may bring Indiana, but is it worth losing a Democratic senator from a conservative state? Nor does Bayh have any sort of foreign policy cred, unlike Biden, who is a heavyweight. More on that in a post yet to come.
• Obama and McCain were interviewed this weekend about their faith and values by megapreacher Rick Warren. Warren stated repeatedly that, since the candidates were to receive the exact same questions, McCain — the second to be interviewed — was sequestered in a room with no TV to prevent him from preparing his remarks. On Sunday, however, Warren — who passionately endorsed George W. Bush in 2004 and demanded that his minion preachers do the same — admitted that McCain was not even in the building during Obama’s interview, and he had no clue what he was doing.
• In other VP news, Tom Ridge, the brilliant inventor of our color-coded, politically motivated “terror alert” scale, has been discussed as McCain’s possible VP, but also immediately dismissed, as he is one of those pro-choice conservatives. In response to this discussion, Ridge stated Sunday that conservatives would “accept” a pro-choice candidate. If that were true, I’d say it would be better news for Mr. Obama than it would for Mr. Ridge.

Okay, so it’s more than tens.

It’s 25,000 people who have “signed” an online petition, sponsored by a pro-Clinton group, “VoteBooth.” And considering the fact that online petitions regularly gather hundreds of thousands of votes, coupled with the fact that 18 million people voted for Hillary Clinton during the primaries, it seems to me that 25,000 people is a remarkably low number of participants.

And, to quote a colleague of mine over at Melted Reel, “we all know how effective online petitions are, and how seriously everyone takes them…” </snark>.

CNN, of course, is taking it very seriously. How odd! An international news outlet taking time out of its busy schedule to report on the tallies of various online petitions… I wonder why CNN is so interested in Hillary for VP.

Um… yes?

How about: painfully obvious code.

Clinton’s speech tomorrow, the media has *somehow* found out (I wonder how) will feature her saying things like she’s prepared to do “whatever it takes” to get a Democratic victory in November. Brilliant analysts at CNN have deduced that the phrase is a secret code for Hillary’s desire, or at least willingness, to be Barack Obama’s Vice President.

First, it’s no secret: that’s what the last two months of “no one can win but me!” have been all about. And second, CNN knows exactly what she’ll say, and exactly what she means, because CNN’s employees also double as Clinton employees.

This has been covered ad nauseum on this site.

But will Obama take the bait? He can do whatever he wants and not make a wrong decision — her message conflicts with his, and she represents ‘the old way.’ But also, her supporters would be soothed by her VP role — something which remains appealing, even though most of them have come home to Obama.

Well, we now know what Hillary Clinton has been up to these past few weeks.

Ever since May 6, when she lost heavily in North Carolina and barely managed to scrape out a win in Indiana — a state which was supposed to represent her base — Clinton’s behavior has been odd, to say the least.

Barack Obama’s status as the party’s eventual nominee seemed to be a certainty rather than a mere likelihood. But Clinton ramped up her rhetoric, choosing to loudly repeat her argument that Obama couldn’t win, rather than live out the remainder of her candidacy in reserved grace.

Some of her comments, such as repeatedly asserting that working class, white citizens would never vote for Senator Obama, seemed to be nothing more than political posturing — predictable, if damaging, ploys designed to rally her supporters in the remaining contests.

Other claims, however, were less obviously useful. And far less obviously true. For example, a mainstay of her campaign this month has been the idea that she is ahead in the popular vote, which she is not. Even if one assumes that she is softening our ears to the argument in preparation for the day it becomes true, which her campaign hopes will happen after Puerto Rico, it doesn’t change the fact that telling this lie with a straight face makes her seem either manically delusional or maniacally Karl Rovian — whichever you think is worse.

But now, today, we can safely say what it was all for. We know the argument that no one but her can win over certain demographic groups, bolstered by the claim that she is the new Al Gore — winner of the popular vote, but pitied loser of the prize — it was all meant to make her irresistible as a Vice Presidential candidate.

Read more…