The WomenCount Team has sent out the following message:

During the primaries, WomenCount PAC successfully placed ads in newspapers, putting the leadership of the Democratic Party and the media on notice: UNEQUAL TREATMENT IS UNDEMOCRATIC AND WILL NOT BE TOLERATED.

True to their principles, the WomenCount Team is determined to call out all examples of sexism - whether against Michelle Obama, Cindy McCain or Sarah Palin - that detract from our political discourse during this important election cycle.

Such bias as a form of attack is completely unacceptable.

WomenCount is asking for our views and is asking for our help.

CLICK HERE to tell WomenCount how you feel about the choice of Gov. Palin as the GOP vice presidential nominee.

CLICK HERE to report signs of gender bias and sexism in this election to WomenCount.

And CLICK HERE to join the WomenCount movement.

Thanks to Still4Hill for suggesting that we spread the word about this call from WomenCount!

All partisanship aside, congratulations to Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska!

When she accepts her Party’s nomination to run for Vice President of the United States of America, it will be another great day in the history of our country.

Governor Palin’s positions are largely a good fit for Senator John McCain, and, politically, choosing her was truly inspired.

Just when I thought that the Democratic Party’s failed leaders couldn’t make me more embarrassed to be a Democrat this year than they already have…

Tonight, on the final night of the Convention, Barack Obama’s image was projected on two huge screens that hung between columns which were set up to form what appeared to be a pair of Greek temples as crowds adored him and cheered and chanted “YES-WE-CAN! YES-WE-CAN! YES-WE-CAN!”

“O-BA-MA! O-BA-MA! O-BA-MA!”

And the Democratic Party’s failed leaders smiled all the while as though nothing was wrong with this picture.

On CNN, John King joined in the chorus and said, “This is a grassroots movement.”

No it isn’t.

It isn’t about us at all.

It’s about selling a carefully manufactured image that has been designed to fool the American people. It’s about erecting an idol of the Great Barack Obama. It’s about using smoke and mirrors to conceal the fact that Obama has no record of accomplishments to demostrate to the American people that he can - or even wants to - achieve anything that he is promising.

It’s all about using a cult of personality
in order to get power.

THANK YOU, HILLARY CLINTON!

The next two months are going to be interesting…

Beginning on the day that Hillary Clinton suspended her campaign - the same day that Barack Obama went off to play golf -, the nonsense started.

From Obama’s fans to media pundits, everyone has been insisting that it’s somehow Hillary Clinton’s responsibility to deliver an Obama victory in November.

It’s everywhere.

As I write, Michael Smerconish is on MSNBC’s “Race for the White House” spouting garbage about what Hillary Clinton has to do in her speech at the Convention tonight if she wants to earn the respect of Democrats.

What?

Even the hosts of C-SPAN are doing it.

This morning, Greta Wodele-Brawner pressed Awilda Marquez, a Clinton delegate, to explain what Hillary has to say tonight at the Convention in order to get Ms. Marquez to support Barack Obama as the party’s nominee.

Greta repeated the same question again and again.

And each time Greta reformulated the same question, Ms. Marquez’s answer was simple:

It’s not Hillary’s job to convince me to support Barack Obama. It’s Barack Obama’s job. If he wants to win, it’s his responsibility to convince the American people that he deserves to win. There’s nothing that Hillary can say.

Exactly right, and it’s getting more and more offensive to Hillary’s supporters that Barack Obama, his handlers, and most of the media keep pushing this nonsense. They seem to be spending more energy trying to manipulate Hillary into working hard to elect Barack Obama than doing the work to get Barack Obama elected themselves.

Terry McAuliffe, Hillary’s former campaign chairman, said it best yesterday: “You’re nominated to be president. It’s your campaign. At some point, quit talking about the Clintons and move on.”

Thank you, Terry McAuliffe!

Barack Obama, if you want to be President of the United States, MAN UP.

Stop whining about being attacked.

Stop trying to manipulate party leaders into carrying you.

Stop trying to manipulate the American people into voting for you.

Start acting like a real candidate who is qualified for the office, and maybe you’ll earn the votes you need to win.

For the last couple of months, this site has been getting hundreds of hits a day, some of which are Obama fans coming to leave angry messages that have nothing to do with advancing our goals and so never get through moderation.

Today, the number of hits has increased significantly.

And so have the number of angry comments from Obama fans.

Why mention that attacks from Obama fans - who took such great pleasure in spewing their hate against Hillary Clinton during the primaries - have increased today?

Because today is the first day of the faux-Convention in Denver, and rather than cheer their celebrity selectee, they’re coming to sites like this one to vent their frustrations.

They’re frustrated because Barack Obama has turned out to be a mediocre candidate who lied to them about his positions (an opportunist who hasn’t worked to change the establishment, but has always rather accommodated himself to it in order to advance his own interests, as the MSM is beginning to say about him).

They’re frustrated because Barack Obama has selected a running mate that they can’t get excited about.

And they’re frustrated because Barack Obama is not doing well in the polls as a result of his own mediocrity and bad choices.

But rather than blame Barack Obama for their frustration and anger - or blame themselves, for that matter - they’re blaming us for not falling in line behind a guy whom we always knew was too unknown, too inexperienced, too unqualified, and too unprincipled to run for President of the United States.

Why else mention that attacks from Obama fans have increased?

BECAUSE WE SHOULD NOT FORGET THAT WE’RE MAKING A DIFFERENCE!

As Wolf Blitzer and the gang at CNN debate whether the selection
of Joe Biden was a “great” choice or a “brilliant” choice,
let’s ask a few questions of our own.

How unhappy must the fans of Barack Obama be now that their leader, the One who can do no wrong, has chosen Joe Biden as his running mate?

Hasn’t Obama been exciting voters under 34 by framing the debate as being a choice between the future versus the past? Wasn’t this general election contest being billed as a generational battle?

Well, not anymore.

Biden has literally been in Washington longer than most of Obama’s base - his young fans - have been alive. Indeed, if Obama thinks that he will be President for the next eight years, then Biden, like Dick Cheney, will have to promise between now and November that he will not to seek to succeed Barack Obama as President of the United States.

Doesn’t that mean that Obama, by having chosen Joe Biden as his running mate, has just thrown away his chance to shape the future of the Democratic Party and the leadership of the United States for the next generation?

And didn’t Obama say over and over again that his opposition to the invasion of Iraq in 2002 is proof that good judgment is more important than experience?

Well, in 2002, when Biden was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he stated that Saddam Hussein was “a long term threat and a short term threat to our national security.”

Then he voted for the war in Iraq.

Great choice. Right.

Immediately after the Convention in Denver, the Republicans and the media are going to start hammering Obama for having chosen Biden.

Moreover, with his choice of Joe Biden, Barack Obama appears not to trust his young fans enough to put in them all his hopes for a victory in November. Indeed, he appears to be blowing off his base of young voters who helped him secure his selection as the party’s presidential nominee and to be hoping instead to attract voters over 40 - Hillary’s base - to secure his victory in the general election. Not that he needs to worry very much about offending the younger generation. He’s probably calculated that the craziest among them, once they’re done rationalizing his choice of Joe Biden, will still do their part by attacking McCain with the “McSame” nonsense.

And how about us, the supporters of Hillary Clinton? Should we now be happy with Obama, who has dissed us all by not even having vetted Hillary Clinton? He’s never reached out to us in any meaningful way. Does the Obama campaign seriously think that Joe Biden can be compared to Hillary Clinton as a leader, or that Biden’s presence on the ticket will make us want to fall in line behind Barack Obama?

Well, now that we know that Obama has chosen Joe Biden over Hillary Clinton, perhaps we too can rationalize the choice. After all, considering the nearly 18 million votes that Hillary received compared to, what, the ten or so votes that Joe Biden received during the contest for the nomination…

By the way, let’s all remember to thank Hillary Clinton for not having validated the selection of Barack Obama to be the Democratic Party’s 2008 presidential nominee!

And, while Barack Obama has given us all - Obama fans and Hillary supporters alike - so much to be unhappy about, perhaps we can at least come together happily in the knowledge that, in blowing off Chet Edwards, who was Nancy Pelosi’s choice for Obama’s running mate, Obama has told the Speaker of the House that he doesn’t care about what she thinks either.

Nancy, please stop by and tell us how happy you are now with this unknown, inexperienced, unqualified and unprincipled neophyte whom you so stupidly helped to push on us all.

We would love the opportunity to tell you what we think of what you have done to our party.

Poor Jack Cafferty at CNN still can’t accept the fact that
Barack Obama just isn’t up to the challenge ahead.

Last Friday, Cafferty was grumbling about Hillary Clinton having managed to ensure that she will dominate the 2008 Democratic National faux-Convention, despite being “the loser.” Cafferty was complaining about Barack Obama having been forced to accept “a laundry list of concessions” and about journalists having begun to ask whether Obama is “guilty of appeasing Clinton.”

CLICK HERE for The Cafferty File question “Has Barack Obama let Hillary Clinton take over?” at CNN’s Political Ticker.

Today, Cafferty grumbled in The Situation Room some more about Hillary Clinton having managed to ensure that she will dominate the 2008 Democratic National faux-Convention.

Though unafraid to spout his opinions as though they were products of serious analytical thinking, Cafferty proves daily that he is incapable of entertaining the obvious: that Barack Obama benefitted from having been a novelty early on in the contest for the Democratic Party’s nomination and that, as the novelty has worn off, Barack Obama is proving himself to be an otherwise mediocre candidate.

Well, in the world of Jack Cafferty, since Barack Obama is the One, the fact that Obama may just be a mediocre candidate whose one gift has been to be better than most at projecting a carefully crafted image of greatness to cover up his many flaws and his lack of a record of accomplishments can’t be the explanation. No. The fault must be… well, Hillary’s.

That Hillary Clinton has always been the better candidate isn’t the issue. No. Not for Jack. For Jack, the problem is that, in the weeks and days leading up to Barack Obama’s coronation, Hillary Clinton won’t stop running circles around Barack Obama so that we can all be touched by his greatness. It’s all her fault, of course.

The Cafferty File question of the day was: “Is the Democratic Convention the appropriate place for Hillary Clinton to raise money to pay off her campaign debt?”

CLICK HERE for today’s The Cafferty File.

To be fair, Jack Cafferty isn’t the only die-hard lover of Barack Obama who is utterly confused by what has been happening and is trying to blame Hillary Clinton for it.

Two segments on CNN’s AC 360 this evening have been dedicated to a Joe Johns’ report and to a conversation between Campbell Brown, David Gergen, Mark Halperin and Suzanne Malveaux on the question: Is John McCain lifting “entire chapters” from Hillary Clinton’s play book of attacks against Barack Obama?

David Gergen particularly enjoyed stroking the theory that everything that John McCain had to learn about attacking Barack Obama he learned from Hillary Clinton. Never mind that a primary contest and a general election contest cannot be compared as though anything about them were the same. The audience of a general election is entirely different, and during the Democratic primaries Hillary Clinton barely touched on the many ways by which the unflattering facts about Barack Obama can be made the issue again and again and again. The comparisons are nonsense. But so what? The point is to deflect attention away from Obama’s flaws by, well… blaming Hillary.

Can you say, “Worst Political Team on Television”?

Then, after Obama’s mediocre performance this weekend at Rick Warren’s excellent Saddlebeck Forum on Faith, pro-Obama media types worked hard to push the rumor that McCain was not in the “cone of silence” (nonsense that was started as a rumor by Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC):

CLICK HERE for the “story” at The Huffington Post.

Why push such an obviously ridiculous story?

To deflect attention from Obama’s stupid answers to questions that he should have spent a lot of time thinking about, of course…

Here’s just one example of the stupid answers that Obama gave:

“WELL, I THINK THAT WHETHER YOU ARE LOOKING AT IT FROM A THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OR A SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE, ANSWERING THAT QUESTION WITH SPECIFICITY, UH, YOU KNOW, IS ABOVE MY PAY GRADE.”

Barack Obama has only himself to blame for his bad performance.

Too bad that so many in the media can’t place the blame squarely where it belongs.

Governor Bill Richardson said today that he was a little “uneasy” about
the decision to place Hillary Clinton’s name in nomination at the
Democratic Convetion in Denver, but only “at first.”

“It’s going to be placed in nomination in recognition of the 18 million votes that she got — her historic candidacy. But then she is going to pledge her delegates to Sen. Obama so that it’s a unanimous — a unanimous election. That — that gives me comfort,” Richardson said this morning on CNN’s “Late Edition.”

CLICK HERE for “Richardson: I was a little ‘uneasy’ about
a Clinton roll call” at CNN’s Political Ticker.

So Bill Richardson thinks that there will be a unanimous vote for Barack Obama at the convention, does he?

And that thought gives him comfort, does it?

Well, some Clinton delegates are saying NOT SO FAST!

We received the following email from Sacha Millstone, the Clinton delegate who refused to be intimidated by certain officials of the Colorado Democratic Party:

Sorry, Governor Richardson, but it looks like Barack Obama
won’t be getting a unanimous vote at the
Convention after all…

Hillary Clinton continues to prove the point that
the Obama campaign is completely inept and that
Barack Obama is in way over his head.

As I write, Jack Cafferty is grumbling on CNN about Hillary Clinton having managed to ensure that she will dominate the 2008 Democratic National faux-Convention, despite being “the loser.” Cafferty is complaining about Barack Obama having been forced to accept “a laundry list of concessions” and about journalists having begun to ask whether Obama is “guilty of appeasing Clinton.”

The Cafferty File question of the hour is “Has Hillary taken over the convention?”

CLICK HERE for The Cafferty File question “Has Barack Obama let Hillary Clinton take over?” at CNN’s Political Ticker.

We at www.NotFallingInLine.org have been pointing this out - that Hillary Clinton has been running circles around Barack Obama - for at least a week now.

CLICK HERE for the post “Alter: Could he be Obambi after all?” (Aug 10).

CLICK HERE for the post “The Fight Continues!” (Aug 8).

Indeed, by having taken over the convention, Hillary has proven that Barack Obama is politically inept. But even more importantly, she has been proving the point again, and again, and again.

Is Barack Obama magnanimous?

No.

Is Barack Obama gracious?

No.

Can Barack Obama be forced day, after day, after day into reluctantly making concession (Hillary will speak at the convention Tuesday night), after concession (Bill Clinton will speak at the convention Wednesday night), after concession (Hillary’s name will be placed in nomination Thursday night), in such a way that the story of Barack Obama’s complete lack of magnanimity and grace will be kept alive through media cycle, after media cycle, after media cycle in the weeks leading up to the convention?

YES!

* * * UPDATE * * *
On our campaign to speak to the officials
of the Colorado Democratic Party.

Please see the post “Convention or Coronation?” (Aug 13) for some of the letters that members of www.NotFallingInLine.org have been sending to Colorado Democratic Party officials. See the responses of several state party officials in the comments to the post and note that Bill Compton, the political director of the Colorado Democratic Party who started the problem by trying to force a Clinton delegate to resign, is not among those who responded to us.

CLICK HERE for the post “Convention or Coronation?” (Aug 13).

Well, having initially questioned the honesty of Dan Slater, the state party’s vice chair, and Butch Hicks, the state party’s treasurer, the truth now appears to be that the officials who initiated the investigation were not honest with Mr. Slater and Mr. Hicks about their motivations.

Here are the letters exchanged via email this morning: