Los Angeles Times endorses Barack Obama:

“Democrats preparing to vote in Tuesday’s California primary can mark their ballots with confidence, knowing that either candidate would make a strong nominee and, if elected, a groundbreaking leader and capable president. But just because the ballot features two strong candidates does not mean that it is difficult to choose between them. We urge voters to make the most of this historic moment by choosing the Democrat most focused on steering the nation toward constructive change: We strongly endorse Barack Obama.”

A very well-written, succinct, and compelling editorial.

Although I’m backing Obama for president, I was sorry to see John Edwards leave the fray this morning. I think Edwards is a good one as politicians go. But while he’s got great experience and a level head, he’s not really a dramatic change from the business of Washington, is he?

And the truth is that, as good a president as I think Edwards would be, I think Obama would be great. It’s really time for a radical change in how this country conceives of leadership. It’s time to abandon our militaristic protectionism and take steps to recover from our addiction to – our co-dependence with – fear.

I feel like Obama is just the fundamental change we need.

I hope that Edwards will find something better to do, something more fun than being president, maybe something that allows him more time with his family. As a case in point, I don’t know if Al Gore would have had the latitude to do what he has for environmental awareness, if he’d been sitting in the Oval Office.

Olbermann digests Chertoff’s gut feelings, and eats his lunch to boot. Oh, this is rich.

So I was minding my own beeswax, reading my (May 31) Time magazine, when I came, without warning, upon 10 questions for Tom Tancredo. He’s the Republican who is building his mostly hopeless presidential campaign on the narrow backs of illegal immigrants. (I should be careful about saying it’s hopeless; I didn’t think Bush had much of a chance against Gore, and I was almost wrong.)

I was so flabbergasted by the abject stupidity of his answers to these questions, I’m a little annoyed with Time for killing trees to give Tancredo a chance to prove what a moron he is.

One answer jumped out at me so forcefully, I almost stopped a stranger passing by to say, “Look! Look at this answer! Can you believe it? This … oh gosh … this man is running for president! Of the whole country!”

Are you ready?

Question: What evidence would convince you that global warming is a serious threat to the planet?

Answer: I have no doubt that global warming exists. I just question the cause and what we can do to ameliorate it. But I wonder why the Sierra Club isn’t going crazy about the environmental aspects of massive immigration into the U.S. The fact is, Americans consume more energy than anyone else, so if a person moves here from another country, they automatically become bigger polluters.

No! No, Tancredo! Bad Tancredo! You should be running for mayor of Non Sequiturville, not president of the US.

We Americans don’t consume more energy because of where we live. We consume more energy because of how we live. Just because someone moves here, doesn’t mean they live like us, consume like us, waste like us.

I think The Gong Show would be a great model for the political process. If somebody says something this dumb, the people shouldn’t have to wait for the primaries — just gong his ass now, and send him home. At the very least, model it after Survivor. (More people watch that than vote in an election anyway.) That way, we could see somebody voted off the island every week.

Decline and fall of the neocons — TimesOnline:

The writer Christopher Hitchens … says: “The main noise in Washington right now is that of collapsing scenery. The Republican party is in total disarray. They’ve been dropping their most intelligent people over the side while the presidential candidates are all outbidding each other to be nice about the revolting carcass of Falwell.”

Wolfowitz, the cerebral neocon, and Falwell, the braying theocon, had nothing in common personally. Indeed, Falwell blamed “the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians” for provoking the 9/11 attacks, an explanation uncomfortably close to the views of the Taliban. But the unlikely alliance between their two movements provided the brains and the brawn behind Bush. Now the neocons have been ousted, one by one, from their positions of influence and trust while the Republican party base is desperately thrashing around for a successor to Bush that it can back in 2008.

For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.

-Jonathan Swift