Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

Cancel the conventions, call off the debates and go straight to the Election Night scoreboard to see how large McCain's margin of victory has turned out to be. The pollsters and pundits are wrapping the story into a neat package: The Republicans went to school on Hillary Clinton's last-minute Obamacide and are finishing off what she started.

. . . We can turn our full attention to the Olympics, where the competition is keener and the judges aren't announcing the results before the contestants start their routines. Then, during the next two weeks of convention blather, we can all go to the beach and get a nice tan instead of watching political volleyball when we all know the score.

-- ROBERT STEIN

John Edwards cheated on his wife. The media found out about it. John Edwards will not be attending the Democratic convention.

Rudy Giuliani used public funds to cheat on his wife and used city agencies to cover his tracks. The media found out about it. Rudy Giuliani will be delivering the keynote at the Republican convention.

-- JONATHAN STEIN

When she was running, Hillary Clinton's campaign was largely about white, working-class voters. So why does her postscript cast Clinton as the lodestar for everything female in America? And why does this bother me so much?

Because it's phoney, and it shamelessly employs the mythic American woman (Mom jeans and all - the Clinton archetype is not young and hip) as yet another actor in the Clinton narrative. Now, Clinton is going to have her name "placed in nomination for the roll-call vote at the Democratic convention". NBC News' First Read notes: "It's 'likely' that Clinton will release her delegates to vote for Obama after her name is submitted. Clinton - who is a superdelegate - will cast her delegate vote for Obama."

And I suppose every single one of those delegates will be female. Or at least they will be in the pictures. Because that's what Clinton is about, right, women?

Wrong.

-- MORRA AARONS-MELE

Once again the Demowienies are in the process of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Why am I not surprised? So much for that much lauded theory from the usual Democratic pundits who haven't rubbed elbows with the common man in years. You know the theory that said that Obama had a better chance of beating McCain than Hillary would. This election cycle has been rigged since day one and anyone who thinks that things are going to change in January needs to share their psychedelics with the rest of society.

-- DEB

Two known Democratic supporters are outraged at their own party after being solicited to buy tickets to Barack Obama's acceptance speech at Invesco Field next Thursday, CBS4 reports. The seats were distributed for free to the general public.

-- MOLLY HUGHES

Think about this. [John]McCain said [John] Lewis would be one of the three wisest people he would rely upon for advice in the White House. But McCain has not asked Lewis for any advice in the two decades he has been in Congress with him. How else then to read McCain's references to Lewis other than as crass pandering and exploitation? After all, since Lewis entered the House in 1987 -- and even before that --McCain has had the opportunity to pick up the phone and say, "Hey, John, can you help me out with some advice." But he has not done so.

McCain is lucky that Lewis is a class act. He could make an issue out of this and cause McCain to look like a fool. Lewis has chosen not to. But for voters looking for authenticity, this is an indicator that McCain can be as phony as any non-maverick politician.

-- DAVID CORN

The big concern with a McCain presidency - a concern which I am surprised has not been vocalized more fully - is that the U.S. will lurch from crisis to crisis, confrontation to confrontation, whether it be with Iran, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc. The danger is that McCain's pundit-like rhetoric will entrap the U.S. in descending spiral of foreign policy brinksmanship. Just think about the very likely scenario of McCain giving Iran/Russia a rhetorical ultimatum and Iran/Russia ignoring it. Now we are stuck - either we lose face by not following through on our threats or we follow through and go to war. We can't afford such a reckless approach after the last eight years. For the next eight we need a president not a pundit.

-- MAX BERGMANN

A hilarious new study of late-night political jokes, due to be released later today, finds the network comedians clearly avoiding humor about Democratic candidate Barack Obama, while piling the jokes on President Bush and Sens. John McCain and Hillary Clinton.

The study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs finds that only cable's Comedy Central, whose primary comedians, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, more closely follow the day's headlines -- which have been dominated by Obama -- has slightly more jokes about the freshman Illinois senator.

-- LOS ANGELES TIMES

Cartoon by Tom Toles/Universal Press Syndicate