Irish Trojan in Tennessee

CNN Breaking News

By CNN

The directors of Delta and Northwest approved a deal for the companies to merge and create the world's largest airline, Delta says.

Hollow scandals and ignored travesties

By Brendan Loy

Ezra Klein on Bittergate:

There's no actual attack being levied [against Obama] that anyone can rebut, or ideas being tossed out that anyone can argue. Instead, Obama has said something Politically Damaging. And it will Damage him. And we'll all watch to see how badly.

But let's be clear: It's not damaging because we think it foretells him doing something harmful to the country. It's not damaging because it suggests his policy agenda is poorly conceived, or his priorities are awry. If you think of policy and politics as two circles in a Venn diagram, this is damage that only exists in the politics circle, and doesn't even come close to the area of intersection. We reporters have to cover it, of course, because it's Really Important, and matters more than the housing plans of all the candidates put together. But it matters in a completely self-referential way, it matters only because it matters, not because it means anything about Obama, or illuminates anything about his potential presidency. It's a hollow scandal. Those housing plans, by contrast, don't "matter" in a way that convinces the media to cover them, or to relentlessly hound McCain about the inadequacy of his proposal. They don't "matter," but they are meaningful. And this is why I don't like writing about the campaign. It's full of hollow scandals and ignored travesties.

Meanwhile, it seems some Pennsylvanians have had enough of Hillary's manipulation of this particular "hollow scandal." Is it possible Hilldog is overplaying her hand here? It's hard to say, but I think she has at least damaged her case by focusing so much on the "bitter" portion of Obama's comments -- clearly the most easily defensible part -- rather than zeroing in, with laser-like focus, solely on the far more problematic comments about religion, guns and (especially) xenophobia and racism. As long as the debate is centered primarily on whether Pennsylvanians are "bitter," a lot of people are going to agree with the best political team on television that Hillary is, at best, cynically making a mountain out of a molehill, and at worst, demonstrating that she's out of touch with how pissed-off voters really are. I have an emerging sense that she has inadvertently thrown Obama a major lifeline with her chosen line of attack.

Fun with lolcats

By Brendan Loy

Last chance to help Sara!

By Brendan Loy

Last month, I blogged about Sara Crowther (née Alpsan), Becky's high-school classmate who is competing in an online contest that could result in her getting to sing on-stage with Rascal Flatts (and getting backstage passes and all sorts of other cool stuff). If Sara gets into the Top 10*, she'll be eligible to be hand-picked by the band -- and she stands a really good chance if that happens, as she's pretty clearly the best singer of the bunch.

At the time of my previous post, she was ranked #14. Votes, views and comments from the Irish Trojan crowd helped boost her to #12... but now she needs a final push before the deadline at 11:59 PM tomorrow night. That's where y'all come in (again). Vote for Sara! And while you're at it, leave a comment, pass on the link, etc. Pretty much any activity gives her "viral points" that help her climb up the charts. As she explained on the previous post: "you can vote once every 24 hours as a member or once every few hours as a guest. ... If you create a member name your vote counts for more and you can rate the reviews as helpful or not which gets more points."

Anyway, here's her video:

Thanks, everybody! Good luck, Sara!

*Actually, it may be enough to get into the Top 11, or even to stay in the Top 12, according to rumors that one or two of the current Top 10 are actually ineligible due to age and/or residency requirements. But regardless, Sara needs our support!