OK, so the numbers are out for fundraising for March.

As expected, Obama raised more than Clinton did for the month. Many had predicted that.

But did anyone expect the numbers to be quite so lopsided?

Below

I wrote a diary yesterday on a WaPo article about "accusations" that Barack Obama is a liberal.

The diary generated some very interesting [to several of us] discussion on exactly what was the meaning of liberalism. As a historian I find the classical roots of modern liberalism interesting, and several other people chimed in.

I learned alot.

One thing that came out of the discussion was the idea that maybe an open thread on liberalism might generate some light.

Today the Washington Post has a story on the front page of the online post with the title of, when I checked it at 5:30am CST, "Obama Tagged With the L-Word." The front page title immediately piqued my interest. "Obama's a lesbian? He's a Lilliputian? A Liger (pretty much the coolest animal)?" I had to find out.

I mention the time along with the title because the Post Online has a bizarre habit of using a rotating set of title online in order, I suppose, to get people to click on the story more than once. In this case, though, the front-page title more accurately reflected the tone of the piece.

Anyway, once I got inside, it turned out that the was a more benign "In Obama's New Message, Some Foes See Old Liberalism."

Stop the presses folks, Obama's a liberal. The Washington Post has the story.

More below the fold.

One of the more bizarre arguments to come out of the supposedly conservative, supposedly Republican Bush administration was the line that and international court had the power to, through BushCo, command a US state court to reopen a death penalty case.

SCOTUS begs to differ.

More below the fold . . .

OK, so, in the next week I will have the chance to meet with Senator John Warner on business related to my profession. My profession is not related at all to international politics or anything broadly political. My profession has nothing to do with that.

Still and all . . . .

Given that McCain has locked up the Repug nomination--and since they have nothing better to say about him--the press has begun to speculate as to who will fill his vice presidential slot.

In describing the long list of possibilities, Hendrik Hertzberg waxes in the March 11 New Yorker:

What shines through this list of names is the banality of the calculations behind it. All are off-the-shelf conservatives, ranging from the socially mild (Crist) to the fiscally rabid (Sanford, who labels himself "a right-wing nut"). All are white males. All, as governors or ex-governors, compensate for McCain’s dearth of administrative experience.

The solution to all their problems is below the fold.

OK, I'm as fed up as anyone about the tone of Sen. Clinton's campaign. I've written to the DNC and the DLCC, and urge others to do the same. Unfortunately, the Senators in Kentucky are both horse's asses, as is my lo cal House Rep (KY-02).

My letter below the fold.

[Another Not a Candidate Diary]
Thinking about so-called "compassionate conservatism," the role of religion in electoral politics, and the way that the right uses Christianity as a hammer with which to scare voters, I started to think about what it meant to be a Christian nation. Alot of this is influenced by a book I read a few months ago called The Myth of a Christian Nation.

Now, I would in no way call myself a good Christian. I believe in god, but I'm more of a Taoist than anything else.

(This is another Not A Candidate Diary)

So, yesterday my lo-cal newspaper ran Jonah Goldberg's recent column in which he celebrated the use of torture in the war on terror.

As I am wont to do, I decided to write a letter in response. Our lo-cal paper is still family-owned, which is great. That the family makes Goldberg look liberal is, in my opinion, not. Their regular op-ed columnists are Goldberg, falafel-man, Michael Reagan, and a few other wingnuts. I once wrote to them pleading that if they were going to run that kind of stuff, at least carry George Will. So much for the liberal media. Anyway . . .

Nevertheless, I was unprepared for what followed my letter. About an hour after I had sent the letter, I received a call from the guy who edits the opinion section [he's also the son of the owner of the paper]. He spent 10 minutes on the phone haranguing me about being a leftist, about spewing "Nancy Pelosi talking points," and about making assertions without evidence.

Eh? More below the fold.

This is another "Not a Candidate Diary."

I just thought that amid all the braying for our beloved candidates that we ought to remember why we, as Democrats, see this election as so important.

And so I thought it more appropriate than ever to note that while our brother and sister Democrats went to the polls in record numbers in Wisconsin and Hawai'i yesterday, three more U.S. soldiers died in Iraq.

OK, this is Not a Candidate Diary [feel free to borrow that header any time you want].

I want to spend a few moments talking about Cuba, Castro's Cuba, and Cuba after Castro, which are three different things.

Since 1999 I have traveled to Cuba nearly 10 times. As a historian I have gone there on a variety of projects. The first was for my dissertation-cum-monograph on the history of West Florida from 1785-1810. I've also traveled there for a preservation project with which I am associated, called "Ecclesiastical Sources in Slave Societies" project, which seeks to preserve records related to slavery in the circum-Caribbean. Finally, my most recent project is a coffee-table book on the history and culture of people living in Havana Viejo, the old part of the city.

During my visits there I spent a great deal of time walking around the Old  City, walking the neighborhoods, the Malecon, visiting with and talking to people, sitting in non-tourist bars, and generally getting to know a small segment of the Cuban population. I know a great many people there who I would call friends.

An up-front admission: I voted Nader in 2000. Another admission: I'm still proud of it. And finally: I hope he never runs again.

Why "never again?" Three reasons: He's made his point; he can't win; he'll hurt the Dems again

But he was correct in his essential point was that both parties are essentially slaves to the corporatocracy.

Hillary Clinton took up that point a few days ago in the ABC-Politico forum, when she leveled some serious charges against Barack Obama, saying:

"Sen. Obama has some questions to answer about his dealings with one of his largest contributors Exelon, a big nuclear power company; apparently he cut some deals behind closed doors to protect them from full disclosure of the nuclear industry," she said.

With all the recent bashing of superdelegates, I thought I might engage in a semi-spirited defense of those much-maligned vote-casters. After all, they didn’t ask to be enswirled in controversy. They exist under party rules set up long before most were in office. In fact, the rules even pre-date the birth of one of them.  Still, it’s easy to bash them. After all, no matter your candidate, these uber-voters have the potential to overturn the candidate with the most votes.

But that’s just as it should be. After all, the superdelegates represent the most hallowed traditions of original intent, and harken back to Madisonian fears about mob rule.

Follow be below the fold as I set the Wayback Machine for those heady, fearful days of the 1770s and 1780s. The nascent United States was trying to free itself from the rule of a nation so barbaric as to have asked its subjects to help pay off a war debt through a very slight increase in taxes. That war—which cleared the French, Spanish, and most of the powerful Native American tribes from the Appalachians out to the Mississippi—mostly benefited the people being asked to pay the taxes. But I digress.

Hop in, and let’s go back and see what "Original Intent" Madison would say.

I think [hope?] that even the anti-Hillary types here on Kos were dismayed by David Schuster's recent reference to Chelsea as being "pimped out" by the Clinton campaign.

As Taylor Marsh rightly noted over on HuffPo, Schuster was in many ways channeling Chris Matthews, who has a long history of sexist behavior and outright nastiness toward Hillary Clinton. The most recent of his ugly remarks came last month when he dismissed the Senator's experience, saying that she only had her current job because of Bill's infidelity. Jerk.

But Chris Matthews has something going for him. He makes money for his network masters. So, inevitably, the resurrection of Chris Matthews has begun.

Follow me:

Yikes, this guy is moving even further right in his speech to CPAC this morning. Some highlights:

OK, some confessions are in order before I get to the meat.

I'm a political junkie. I follow politics like some people [well, me included] follow college football. It's better than college ball, though, because it is year-round.

I consider myself a bit wonkish, following policy matters related to the environment.

I read two or three politics-oriented newspapers, and a few political blogs, each day.

I write to my congressman and my senators with some regularity, scolding them for bad policy decisions [easy to do, they're all Republicans]

And, I've never donated to a political campaign. Until tonight.

After reading a few diaries by Clinton supporters, and a few by Obama supporters, I started to get depressed. So, I moseyed on over to the open thread and posted a few inanities. But something that someone intelligent said got me to thinking about the current Barak/Hillary feud going on here at Kos.

We are all Frank Gorshin.

Well, color me surprised. GOPers, who have hated McCain for a decade or more, are suddenly "reassessing." Gee, really? Ya think? Is electing someone, anyone, more important than opposing McCain?