While the corporate media sifts through McCain's speech to the Urban League today looking for something they can interpret as a problem for Obama, they seem to be missing a rather shockingly ignorant remark from McCain himself.

We should also offer more choices to those who wish to become teachers. Many thousands of highly qualified men and women have great knowledge, wisdom, and experience to offer public school students. But a monopoly on teacher certification prevents them from getting that chance. You can be a Nobel Laureate and not qualify to teach in most public schools today because they don't have all the proper credits in educational "theory" or "methodology."

Essentially, what McCain just proposed is letting untrained teachers loose on America's kids.

More below.

During Senator McCain's speech in Denver today, in the midst of the usual and expected mischaracterizations of Obama's Iraq position (and one or two outright lies), I heard something which genuinely shocked me.

Because of the choice we made and all the surge has accomplished, the time will soon come when our troops can come home. But we face another choice today. We can withdraw when we have secured the peace and the gains we have sacrificed so much to achieve are safe. Or we can follow Senator Obama's unconditional withdrawal and risk losing the peace even if that results in spreading violence and a third Iraq war. Senator Obama has suggested he would consider sending troops back if that happened. When I bring them home in victory and with honor, they are staying home.

Righteous indignation after the jump.

The Anal Protectorate is reporting that Bill Clinton has had discussions with Sen. Obama about campaigning for him, and that he's willing to do so.

"I told him that whenever he wanted me to do it, I was ready, and so it's basically on their timetable," Clinton said. "He's got a lot of things to do between now and the convention, of which this is simply one, so I'll do whatever I'm asked to do, whenever I can do it."

I admit I hadn't been paying much attention to The Denver Group, the adjunct of the No Quarter/PUMA madness that is demanding that superdelegates be given a chance to vote for Hillary Clinton at the Democratic Convention.

When I glanced at their recent ad in the Chicago Tribune though I noticed something interesting: a disclaimer at the bottom.

Paid for by The Denver Group (www.thedenvergroup.blogspot.com) and not authorized by any candidate, any candidate's committee, or any political party.

If the wording sounds familiar, it's because disclaimers such as these are required, by law, as part of any advertising done by a Political Action Committee (PAC).

More below.

Four years ago, the Democrats had a pretty good presidential candidate. Not a great one, but a pretty good one. John Kerry had a long record of mostly exemplary service in the Senate; he was a war hero. As the campaign unfolded, though, his major qualification for the White House seemed to boil down to one thing: he wasn't George W. Bush.

It wasn't enough. Bush kept his job.

More below.

I've been wrestling with Obama's decision to side with the compromise/capitulation side of the FISA debate.

It's not just that I disagree with it personally (see Something the Dog Said's diary, which states better than I could why I don't expect Obama to march in lockstep with every position I hold) it's that I don't understand the politics of it, from a purely pragmatic perspective.

Actually, scratch that. I think I understand it all too well. I just don't like the implications.

More below.

Dear Fellow Kossacks,

Over the last little while, since the primary season officially ended in fact, I've been noticing a disturbing undercurrent to some of the comments and diaries here on DK. I've registered my disapproval as I've noticed them, but at this point I felt like I had to say something a little more comprehensive.

To put it simply, a certain segment of the DK community seems to think it's perfectly fine to launch personal attacks against "the other side", and it's a trend I'd like to nip in the bud.

Just for fun, I dug through the exit polls from the Dem primaries, specifically looking for how many self-professed Republicans crossed party lines to vote for Democrats.

I'll warn you up front: there isn't too much value, if any, in these numbers. There's no guarantee of accuracy in exit polls, and no guarantees that every registered Republican even fessed up. Still, I wanted to take a look if for no other reason than to try and glean how much of an impact a certain increasingly irrelevant blowhard had on the primaries.

As a Discordian (hail Eris!) I've got a natural bias towards chaos. Chaos is just more entertaining than Order, when you get right down to it. But did the grandiosely-named Operation Chaos actually earn the right to that moniker, or had Limbaugh's knee-jerk sexism reached into a higher sphere and sullied the good name of a Goddess?

slinkerwink tossed this one out there and deserves whatever tips you want to give, but with everyone focused on McCain's "when the troops come home isn't important" crap this particular gaffe got lost in the shuffle.

On Friday during a campaign stop in Florida, McCain tried to paint himself as the 'green' candidate with the following:

Sen. Obama has no record of being involved in this issue that I know of. I will stick by my record and my commitment of many years to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Strong words, Senator. Strong, stupid words.

More below.

Goddammit... I need to start doing more diaries. The only ones I seem to do these days are attempts at voice-of-reason rebuttals to pieces by front pagers.

I posted a shorter version of this in the comments to the story by BarbinMD, which in turn was picked up from Atrios, but the comment is buried way down and I think bears repeating.

More below the fold.

Right now one of the top main page articles (from smintheus) and the top diary (from Steve Singiser) are about Mike Huckabee's off-the-cuff bad joke when talking to the NRA.

Slam Huckabee if you need to for "hate speech"; if that's what gets your adrenaline pumping, go to town. Personally I think the joke wasn't evil, just dumb.

Both the article and diary have as one of their foundations an entirely faulty premise though -- that the crowd laughed at the joke.

They didn't. The joke died a miserable, lonely death.

Evidence below the fold.

OK, on the one hand this is so monumentally insignificant in the grand scheme of things that it's laughable.

On the other hand, it completely typifies the campaign that Clinton has run, and perfectly encapsulates why I don't trust her as far as I could throw her, and would never vote for her.

You'd think that would be self-evident, but apparently it isn't.

In his speech today, just broadcast on CNN, McCain let loose some real zingers.

I come neither to bury Charlton Heston, nor to praise him, but merely to have some fun at the expense of his hyperbolic press agent.

Upon Heston's death publicist Michael Levine was quoted as saying, "If Hollywood had a Mt. Rushmore, Heston's face would be on it." Which begs the question: if Heston's face is on there, who the heck are the other three?

I think the "right-wing Hollywood version of Mount Rushmore" is pretty easy to populate. Heston, Ronald Reagan, John Wayne and Walt Disney spring to mind immediately, although you could make strong arguments for more recent figures such as Schwarzenegger and John Milius.

A "left-wing Hollywood version of Mount Rushmore", however, might be a little more interesting to debate...

Who would you put on your personal "Hollywood Mount Rushmore"?

A quick chronology:

- Hillary steps into a pile of something unpleasant with her Bosnia "misspeakings".

- Gov. Richardson endorses Obama on Good Friday.

- Over the weekend, before the next week's media cycle has really congealed, Carville makes an outrageous statement referencing Judas and his thirty pieces of silver when commenting on Richardson's decision.

Which "story" dominates CNN's Monday afternoon and early evening coverage? Do you really need to ask?

And when Carville says in his defense that his comments about Richardson had their intended effect, do you really need to ask what that effect was?

The Clinton campaign needed to blunt the impact of her Bosnian brain cramp, and Carville stepped up. Good job, Jimmy.

Greil Marcus gives us a preview of Bush's obit, from 2018.

Mr. Bush's life after his presidency was marked by misfortune. He soon lost interest in his status as the standard-bearer of his party and its chief fundraiser; many believed he had again begun drinking, and in any case he seemed to spend most of his time at private clubs in Houston, where he established residence in 2010 after selling his property in Crawford, Texas. ("At least I won't have to cut that f--- brush again," Mr. Bush was heard to say after his last election.)

Chances are even speaking satirically about the death of God's Chosen Tool has landed us both on some government black list. Yay us!

Let's look at these overall numbers for a minute:

Before the polls closed, based on the overwhelming anecdotal evidence, the pundits were projecting a turnout of 120 million.

Instead, based on the current numbers, we're looking at 113 million.

This makes no sense.

In 2000, there were 209 million people of voting age, and 105 million of them voted -- roughly 50.25%.

Since 2000, the population has increased by about 13 million; and about 16 million kids have been added to the pool of voting-age people.

Based on my quickie napkin calcs, that means the voter turnout -- despite the massive GOTV efforts from both parties -- increased by less than 1%.

Someone please tell me where my math went wrong, because right now this makes no sense whatsoever.