Shuffletown Players

With Kevin Drum moving over to Mother Jones and Steve Benen moving from Carpetbagger Report to take Kevin's place at Washington Monthly's Political Animal, I'd thought I'd update the links on the side and see what they had to say about O-biden. First, Kevin's new digs:

This is just bizarre. Has any presidential candidate ever before run an ad mocking his opponent for not choosing a particular running mate?

I think the folks running McCain's war room are getting cabin fever or something. But who knows? Maybe an attack ad this transparent will be just the thing to finally get all those ex-Hillary supporters fully on board with Obama. Sort of the way trash talk from the Yankees ends up on the front page of the Boston Globe and fires up even fair weather Red Sox fans. That's pretty much how it would affect me, anyway.

Point taken. This whole thing may backfire and blow up in everyone's face.

And at PA, Steve's still working his magic as he takes on Bill Kristol's lovefest for poor Hillary:

As part of Kristol's "argument" -- I use the word loosely -- the Weekly Standard editor insists that it's outrageous Hillary Clinton wasn't considered for the ticket, especially given that she and Biden "have basically comparable foreign policy 'experience.'"

The transparently shameless stunt here is for far-right Republicans to incite as much intra-party tensions among Democrats as humanly possible. Indeed, it's not just Kristol. Republicans are hoping, desperately, to drive a wedge between Hillary Clinton's supporters and the candidate Hillary Clinton agrees with, enthusiastically endorsed, and continues to campaign on behalf of.

A few thoughts. First, it's fascinating to see Kristol suddenly become a feminist. He's never expressed any interest in gender equality before, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

Second, given Kristol's new-found interest in feminism, I'm sure he'll devote another column soon to decrying Republicans' aversion to promoting women into positions of political power.

And third, James Joyner notes, "Stoking the lingering resentments of the Hillary camp is probably smart politics, although doing it so brazenly could backfire and cause more of them to realize that they're playing into the Republicans' hands."

And so it goes. Good to have both of them still around...we're going to need them as we head into the heart of darkness ahead.