Barney Frank’s endorsement carries a lot of weight in smart, liberal circles. For America’s leading [out] gay politician to give Hillary his stamp of approval is a big deal:

I am particularly pleased by her commitment to reverse the economic policies that have created a situation in which as the country progresses economically, only a small number of Americans benefit. Her understanding of the need to implement policies that provide fairness for middle and working class people is very important. She has shown an ability to fight for progressive values in a way that is capable of appealing to the majority of our fellow citizens, and I believe that she is both politically and substantively the candidate best qualified to be our nominee.

Responding to the post about Clinton planting questions at a town hall, “Dirty Dennis” writes:

Tim,

I find your anger/disgust somewhat surprising. You think this is some new phenomenon? It’s been going on for as long as there’s been TV. Like Aggasi said, “Perception is everything.” Or some such thing.

Politics is a staged event. GOVERNMENT is a staged event. Everything is done according to the script. It’s how the game is played.

My point is that it’s a short a very slippery slope from what Hillary did to that staged FEMA presser a couple weeks back.

You bet I’m angry that the top Democrat in the field roped a young, idealistic college kid into her propaganda machine.

It’s not reasonable to expect candidates to free-ball every event. But politics is a hardball sport. Hillary’s team seems to want to reduce it to self-pitch softball.

How real American interrogation works:

After confessing to slaughtering 180,000 Kurds and plotting to build a doomsday nuke, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was so upset when his FBI interrogator left for home that he cried like a baby.

FBI Special Agent George Piro whipped out two Cuban Cohibas - Saddam’s favorite cigar - and they smoked on the patio behind his cell at Baghdad’s airport.

“When we were saying bye, he started to tear up,” Piro recalled… The self-effacing G-man was hardly surprised - he had spent nearly a year carefully becoming Saddam’s best friend in a successful ploy to extract confessions from the notorious brute…

Piro, then 36, began grilling Saddam in early 2004. Instead of bright lights, loud music or waterboarding, the Beirut-born Arabic speaker - who immigrated to the U.S. as a teen - built a rapport with the dictator nabbed in a spider hole. He treated him with respect and took care of his every need.

On his birthday, Piro showed Saddam news clippings showing that Iraqis no longer celebrated the date. But then the agent gave him baklava Piro’s Lebanese mother sent him in Baghdad.

They talked about sports and Saddam’s pulp novels, and soon the despot was spilling his guts over thick cups of Folger’s.

Hat Tip: Andrew Sullivan

CNN really nails the Clinton planted questions scandal.

The senior Clinton staffer … opened a binder to a page that, according to Gallo-Chasanoff, had about eight questions on it.

“The top one was planned specifically for a college student,” she added. ” It said ‘college student’ in brackets and then the question.”

Topping that sheet of paper was the following: “As a young person, I’m worried about the long-term effects of global warming. How does your plan combat climate change?”

My favorite part of the video is when Clinton, before responding, looks down at her notes and then says: “I find, as I travel around Iowa, that it’s usually young people who ask me about global warming.”

Everything according to script.

Some people that I respect have tried to minimize the importance of this incident.

To me it’s the epitome of what’s wrong with American politics. We’ve all become extras in the fucking script. There’s so much artifice that the actual concerns and questions of real people like this idealistic Grinnell student get smoothed down into a tasteless focus-grouped pablum — the kind of questions which, in turn, spur the candidate to regurgitate talking point f-18 [Global Warming for Iowa].

One of the glories of the YouTube era is that it has become so much easier to expose this sham for what it is.

UPDATE: Here’s CNN’s report:

As the former Arkansas Governor rises in the polls, Pat Toomey of the Club For Growth hollers louder:

Nominating Mike Huckabee for president or vice-president would constitute an abject rejection of the free-market, limited-government, economic conservatism that has been the unifying theme of the Republican Party for decades.”

Why don’t you tell us how you really feel, Pat.

Any friends of Mike out there care to rebut this?