There is so much talk going on all over the "tubes" lately about what Wes Clark said and meant.

To get a little perspective about how Wes Clark feels about Obama and what he has been saying about McCain, try reading his own words from his personal blog at WesPAC.

Bush's Third Term

Unite Behind Barack Obama

After reading his words and understanding where he is coming from, then listen to what he has to say. Check out all of the video and audio from the last few days by going here:
http://securingamerica.com

Dan Abrams on MSNBC, Good Morning America on ABC and on the Ed Schultz show.
http://securingamerica.com

Do any of you still think that Barack Obama, his campaign and Wes Clark are not working together?

This diary isn't really political so much as it is confessional.  Throughout this election season I have been a supporter of Obama and to varying degrees a detractor of Clinton.  I have been very concerned about racism in the media, but concerned about sexism to a lesser degree.  It seemed to me that it was prevalent but it seemed so petty that I didn't take it very seriously.  I couldn't figure out how wife jokes were really as damaging as black jokes.  I was wrong.  Here is the story of my "awakening" (to borrow the title of a feminist novel...appropriate I think).

I just tuned in five minutes late to Air America's The Rachel Maddow Show, which simulcasts MSNBC's Race for the White House in it's first hour, only to hear that Maddow is taking David Gregory's post as moderator today (I missed the explanation for why at the beginning).  This is very interesting, not least because Gregory is one of the front runners to take over Meet the Press.  It also speaks to the increasing inevitability that Maddow will soon get her own show on the network.  Race will be around until November, presubmably.  If Gregory does get MTP, it is possible they'll make her the moderator until then?

Cross posted at Clintonistas for Obama.

TalkLeft had an interesting post about a story in the The New Yorker, discussing requests by MSNBC executives to moderator Keith Olbermann to back off his sharp criticism of Senator Hillary Clinton:

At MSNBC, Phil Griffin was worried, and with good reason. The average "Countdown" viewer is fifty-nine years old, and forty-five per cent of the viewers are women, presumably Democratic--a fair description of a Hillary Clinton supporter. Griffin believed that Olbermann was beginning to alienate his core audience, and asked him to ease up a bit on Clinton, and possibly even make some conciliatory gesture to the Clinton camp.

The primary campaign has come to an end with Hillary's speech past Saturday. Our leader Hillary Clinton has told us that the time has come for the "two paths" to merge and support our party nominee Sen. Barack Obama. I agree with her.

For Hillary Clinton supporters one part of our struggle has just started. The media misogyny and bias against Hillary has been nothing short of savage and it continues even to this day under the guise of "Anatomy of Hillary's failure". Their snarky attitudes, their veiled bashing continues.

Hillary Clinton supporters on various websites are coming together and we plan to target MSNBC and their biased anchors. We plan to talk to various advertisers on MSNBC and organize boycotts. We plan to target other networks and their media personalities as well that have exhibited similar misogynist attitudes.

Here is a sample of how Hillary has been treated this primary season. Their behavior will not be swept under the rug:

The New York Times today has an article "
Injured Woman Wins Wal-Mart Saga"

about the positive effect extensive blogosphere publicity has had in embarassing WalMart out of taking the money that a brain injured woman had won in court after she had been hit by an inadequately insured truck..

As most of us probably already know, WalMart had a clause in its insurance policy that is incresingly common in corporate healthcare policies, that gave them as the right to "subrogation". This means to sue to seize any lawsuit awards won by insurees to reimburse the corporation for money they had spent for her medical care.

This second award was larger than what she had actually ended up with, leaving her both brain damaged, seriously injured and in need of extremely expensive care, and in debt.

A week after she lost her second court case - the lawsuit with WalMart, her son was killed in Iraq.

This evidently made her case unique, and news worthy.

MSNBC personality Keith Olbermann, outraged at WalMart - took on her case as an example of Walmart's infamous greed. Over the weeks, Olberman repeatedly brought the story up. Finally in April, there was an announcement from WalMart. Olbermann had apparently succeeded in embarassing WalMart into making an exception to their policy in Shank's case.

Deborah Shank, who was a shelf stocker at WalMart who had purchased company insurance - and later was hit by a truck while she was an employee, but was 'insured'. Her coverage included the now infamous clause, which WalMart claims is to protect their assets so that they can be used to help 'current employees'. Obviously, after she suffered severe brain damage when her car was hit by a truck, she could no longer work at WalMart. After fighting a long fight to get the money from the trucking company, winning a fraction of what she needed, and then being sued, by WalMart, fighting WalMart for it and losing, will get to keep the money to pay for at least some of her medical care.

(She still requires 24 hour medical care and will for the rest of her life.)

"The tactic, apparently, is not unusual. Many health plans include a "subrogation" policy that allows the plan to recover costs if a covered worker ever receives damages in a settlement related to the injury."

After they won the case, WalMart issued this statement:

    "This is a very sad case and we understand that people will naturally have an emotional and sympathetic reaction. While the Shank case involves a tragic situation, the reality is that the health plan is required to protect its assets so that it can pay the future claims of other associates and their family members. These plans are funded by associate premiums and company contributions. Any money recovered is returned to the health plan, not to the business. This is done out of fairness to everyone who contributes to and benefits from the plan. The Supreme Court recently declined to hear an appeal of the case, which concludes all litigation. While Wal-Mart's benefit plan was entitled to more than the amount that remained in the Shank trust, the plan only recovered the funds remaining in that trust."

Evidently, now, after Mr. Olbermann's repeatedly holding them up publicly as morally wrong in this situation, and after fighting her family for the money in court for several years, and now winning, WalMart has now decided, that even if they are legally 'within their rights' to recover what is left of her money, since they won the judgement, that the bad publicity in this case is bad for business. They will let Deborah Shank keep the $216,000 that remains to apply towards her future medical expenses and will not seek restitution of the over $250,000 she has already spent.

And so it begins.  MSNBC, affiliate of NBC, subsidiary of GE, one of the cornerstones of the military industrial complex, and one of the nation's largest military contractors, convenes its Wednesday morning 8 am political panel, Mika, Joe, Chris and Pat.

Chris Matthews, done with beating up Hillary (for now), starts on Obama:  Obama's "love of country" is "conditional", a "transaction" based upon "what it's done for him".  Obama doesn't "get" the "patriotism of the working class"  Obama's church affiliation and later disaffiliation were purely "cynical" and "political".  Obama appeals to the "upper end" and "the poor" but can't relate to "the middle" "the working class" "the guy who's proud to be an American".  They see "no evidence of his ability to connect with the average man" as opposed to Obama's "exotic life style".

Since I am feeling relatively good about the Mydd community right now and the comments and rec's from both HRC and BO supporters in my previous diary about the sick exploition of BO's comments on Auschwitz for political gain.  I thought I would give this one a try and see if we can get a balance of people standing up for what's right.

Joan Walsh of salon.com was on Hardball last night and was pretty vigilantly defending HRC from the ridiculous accusations stemming from her RFK comments.  This was refreshing to see, since HRC is very, very, very rarely defended by anyone in the media.  But IMO her remarks on this topic are pretty spot on.

Thoughts?