5/23: Can She Be Stopped?

Following Hillary Clinton's aggressive push for the seating of FL's and MI's delegates -- in which she invoked the civil rights movement, FL's 2000 recount, and the fraudulent election in Zimbabwe -- liberal bloggers are denouncing her conduct in some of their harshest language to date. Markos Moulitsas calls Clinton's behavior "yet another nail in the coffin of what used to be Bill and Hillary's positive legacy to the party," while Ezra Klein accuses Clinton of "pursuing a political strategy meant to defeat [Barack] Obama and ensure the party regrets his nomination." But how can liberal bloggers stop Clinton from doing (in their view) further damage to Obama's fall prospects? Arianna Huffington suggests that her readers "stop yelling at Hillary to stand down and start yelling at the superdelegates to stand up," arguing that the supers could end the nominating process if enough of them endorsed Obama. However, it doesn't appear likely that superdelegates will endorse Obama en masse anytime soon -- at least not before the much-anticipated DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting on May 31st.

CLINTON: Estranged

Liberal bloggers continue to decry Clinton's recent rhetoric about FL and MI:

• Ezra Klein: "It's hard to overstate the cynicism of Clinton's effort to equate the DNC's decision to strip Michigan and Florida of their delegates to the Florida recount, Zimbabwe's brutal 'elections,' the fight for women's suffrage, and the civil rights movement. [...] She's now pursuing a political strategy meant to defeat Obama and ensure the party regrets his nomination. She will do this by convincing voters in Florida and Michigan that his campaign has wronged them and should be severely punished. It's an attempt to poison the well, to deny his campaign 44 electoral votes, or about 1/6th the total needed to win. That's a take I've resisted for a long time, but it's the only plausible explanation left. The Obama campaign has expressed a willingness to seat Florida and Michigan's delegates, and do so largely as the Clinton campaign wants. Yet Clinton continues to compare a procedural decision she supported to Zimbabwe and Birmingham. She continues to sow resentment and anger against the likely Democratic nominee over a decision she supported. Where I once was solidly dismissive of the idea that Clinton was setting herself up for a 2012 run, now I'm agnostic. In any case, it's clear she's trying to set Obama up for a 2008 loss."
• TPM's Josh Marshall: "The evidence is simply overwhelming that Sen. Clinton didn't think this was a problem at all -- until it became a vehicle to provide a rationale for her continued campaign. Now, that's politics. One day you're on one side of an issue, the next you're on the other, all depending on the tactical necessities of the moment. But that's not what Clinton is doing. She's elevating it to a level of principle -- first principles -- on par with the great voting rights struggles of history. There's no longer any question that she's going to win the nomination. The whole point of the popular vote gambit was to make an argument to super-delegates. And that's fine since that's what super-delegates are there for -- to make the decision by whatever measure they choose. But they've made their decision. The super delegates are breaking overwhelmingly for Obama. They simply don't buy the arguments she's making. [...] What she's doing is not securing her the nomination. Rather, she's gunning up a lot of her supporters to believe that the nomination was stolen from her -- a belief many won't soon abandon. And that on the basis of rationales and arguments there's every reason to think she doesn't even believe in."
• Daily Kos' Moulitsas: "Yesterday I mocked Clinton's assertion that her battle is somehow akin to the civil rights struggle (as well as suffrage, Zimbabwe, and Florida 2000. Today, it doesn't seem so funny. [...This is] yet another nail in the coffin of what used to be Bill and Hillary's positive legacy to the party. She is now being openly mocked across the media and political spectrum. But I'm sure mentioning that is 'sexist', and that everyone criticizing the joke her campaign has become is sexist as well."
• The Huffington Post's RJ Eskow: "Hillary's rhetoric of the past 24 hours has gone from conciliatory to cataclysmic, turning on a high-speed dime like some UFO over the Florida swamps. An awful lot of Democrats are shocked and outraged at her use of civil rights rhetoric over the primary dispute, especially after winning two primaries with the help of some white voters who admitted their choice was influenced by race. [...] She knows these arguments won't sway the superdelegates to give her the nomination. What she's doing now is showing the Obama team and the Party's leaders that she has it in her power to cost them the election in November."
• Balloon Juice's John Cole: "This isn't an election anymore. This is a secret bet between Bill and Hillary ala Trading Places in which they bet how much bullshit they can make the electorate swallow. [The] Florida 2000 poison -- another bucket. And then the suffrage nonsense -- yet another bucket. And the co-option of the Civil Rights era after weeks of transparent appeals that whites won't vote for the black guy which JUST SO COINCIDENTALLY took form during the Appalachian primaries (which conveniently occurred after North Carolina, the last state with a large black population) -- buckets of bullshit over your head, in your face. And then Zimbabwe remarks, a bucket of bullshit so stupid that her audience probably didn't even understand it (I would kill to see video of the people in the audience during that). It just never stops."

As usual, TalkLeft's Big Tent Democrat disagrees with his fellow liberal bloggers: "Just so I understand the Obama blog argument, they say that calling for counting the votes is the most vile, most outrageous, most heinous act in the history of politics. Did I get that right?"

CLINTON II: Vying For The Veep Spot?

Time's Karen Tumulty reports that Bill Clinton wants Hillary to be Obama's running mate:

"What will Clinton's terms of surrender turn out to be? Her husband, for one, seems to have a pretty clear idea what he thinks she should get as a consolation prize. In Bill Clinton's view, she has earned nothing short of an offer to be Obama's running mate, according to some who are close to the former President. Bill 'is pushing real hard for this to happen,' says a friend."

Meanwhile, The Field's Al Giordano reports that Hillary told Obama that she wants to be his running mate and he said "no":

"The Field can now confirm, based on multiple sources, something that both campaigns publicly deny: that Senator Clinton has directly told Senator Obama that she wants to be his vice presidential nominee, and that Senator Obama politely but straightforwardly and irrevocably said 'no.' Obama is going to pick his own running mate based on his own criteria and vetting process."

Pro-Obama bloggers think Giordano's report -- if true -- would explain Clinton's abrupt shift in tone over the past few days:

• Moulitsas: "In matters like these, I won't put much stock on anyone's secret sources -- whether it's Time or the always excellent Al Giordano -- since there's so much bullshit, misinformation, and rumors floating around that it would be impossible for anyone to sift between fact and fiction. There are probably only a handful of people who would know whether this is true, and they're not publicly dishing. But as a theory, Clinton's over-the-top outbursts yesterday really would fit the pattern of someone scorned of a prize they felt they had rightfully earned. In the stages of grief, we may have gone from 'bargaining' back to 'anger'."
• AMERICAblog's John Aravosis: "Hillary's bizarre behavior of the past couple of days -- her return to a slash and burn campaign, seemingly intent on hurting Obama's chances against [John] McCain in the fall -- maybe be due to Obama having told Hillary directly (according to the latest rumor) that she won't be his VP. As I've written repeatedly, there's a certain illogic to Hillary's actions of late, and something is missing from the story -- something that would explain what she's doing and why. An irrational, emotional response to not getting the vice presidency is certainly one theory that explains her childish and destructive behavior."
• Mark Kleiman: "If [Giordano's report] were true, it would explain the otherwise hard-to-fathom nastiness of HRC's comparison of the situation in Florida, where the Democratic Party is acting according to previously-agreed-on rules, and the situation in Zimbabwe, where the ruling party is carrying out mass murder against the party that won the election. But one thing I'm sure of: HRC's behavior has made it virtually impossible for Obama to give her the second prize. What might otherwise have looked like magnanimity toward a defeated but worthy opponent would now look like appeasement. That has to be a deal-breaker."

MyDD's Todd Beeton, a Clinton supporter who believes that Obama should pick Clinton as his running mate, finds Giordano's report plausible: "I can't vouche for Giordano's credibility but I would buy it. Certainly, Obama's, shall we say, lack of enthusiasm for picking Clinton as his running mate has been made crystal clear by his surrogates in the media. Now that more people are reporting Clinton's interest in the number 2 spot, will the media pick up on it as conventional wisdom and will pressure mount for Obama to pick her?"

Other pro-Clinton bloggers are less keen on the idea of an Obama-Clinton ticket:

• TalkLeft's Jeralyn Merritt: "I don't want a unity ticket. I don't think [Obama] should ride Hillary's coattails to a PA, Ohio or Florida win. If he is the nominee, I'll vote for him and support him, but he should win the election on his own."
• Taylor Marsh denies that Clinton wants the VP spot: "By asking 'What Does Hillary Want?', Tumulty once again reveals how dense the traditional media is about Clinton's motives. She's got one: to win. [...] Clinton is campaigning on counting every single vote. But also that every Democratic delegate should be focused on who can win in November. Obama is campaign on disenfranchising voters so he can win, regardless of whether he's got the strongest case for November, which he does not. [...] So Ms. Tumulty, get a clue. Clinton doesn't want the vice presidency. She's shooting for the top job. She wants to be the Democratic nominee for president in 2008. Are you hearing me now?"

CLINTON III: How To Deal With A Clinton Gone Wild

Open Left's Chris Bowers urges his fellow liberal bloggers to ignore Clinton: "We in the blogosphere need to do our part in stopping a focus on Clinton, and shifting toward the general election. Keeping the focus off McCain is not helping us define him. Keeping the focus on Clinton is simply rubbing old wounds, and making it harder to unite the party. The blogosphere drives media coverage more than we often realize, and our continuing obsession with Hillary Clinton is just not helpful in accomplishing the latter two tasks."

Arianna Huffington urges her readers to stop complaining about Clinton and start urging the superdelegates to endorse Obama: "Let's see if we can put the focus on those with the power to bring to an end this political equivalent of a 50s horror movie (The Campaign That Just Won't Die!): the superdelegates. There are currently 212 uncommitted superdelegates (not counting Michigan and Florida). What are they waiting for? I understand there are still three more primaries to go. But there is nothing that is going to happen in Puerto Rico or South Dakota or Montana that is going to convince Hillary Clinton to leave the race. [...] And there is also no reason for the superdelegates to wait until the Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting on May 31st. Not even the Clinton camp is delusional enough to think it is going to walk away from the meeting with enough additional pledged delegates from Michigan and Florida to overtake Obama. So it's time for the uncommitted superdelegates to stop their dithering, come out of hiding, hop off the fence, endorse Obama and officially bring this nominating process to an end."

Aravosis agrees with Huffington: "Arianna declares war on the Superdelegates, and she's right. [...] If the Superdelegates aren't going to do their job, then we're going to make them do their job."

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, writing on the Huffington Post, argues that Clinton wants to fight all the way to the Dem convention: "Listen: you don't need a vivid political imagination to recognize that if what you really want is to be President of the United States -- a slim chance of becoming President (a fight at the convention) is better than no chance of becoming President (because you dropped out). The Clinton strategy, as best as I can tell, is to stay in the race. You can't win if you don't play -- conceding the nomination is sure defeat, not conceding means there's still a chance. The way for her to avoid conceding is for her to avoid conceding that the race is resolved. As long as the Florida and Michigan dispute is alive, and it is being used as the basis of Clinton's claim that the nomination is unresolved, we should expect that Senator Clinton will stay in the race."

Maddow concludes that enough superdelegates should endorse Obama by May 31st to allow for the FL and MI delegations to be fully seated: "So, how does the Democratic Party get a nominee before the convention? Seems to me there's two things that need to happen. [...] First, Obama's campaign should stop believing what most of the press says, and start believing what Clinton says -- she isn't budging. [...] Second, if the Democrats are to avoid a divided convention, the Florida and Michigan dispute will have to be taken off the table -- settled in a way that avoids the risk of a rules dispute that stretches the nominating contest out through the convention. I can think of only one way to do that, but there may be others. Here's my way: based on my read of NBC's delegate math, I think if the Clinton campaign won 100% of what they wanted on the Florida and Michigan dispute, Obama could still clinch the nomination -- even according to the most pro-Clinton math -- if 90 of the remaining 210-or-so undeclared superdelegates declared for Obama. If they so declared before May 31st, the Rules and Bylaws committee would have no reason to take up the Florida and Michigan dispute because it would be a moot point -- Obama's camp could concede every Clinton demand on the subject and still win the nomination."

MCCAIN: Throwing A Temper Tantrum?

Liberal bloggers are chastising McCain for skipping the vote on Sen. Jim Webb's GI bill, which passed the Senate yesterday:

• MyDD's Jonathan Singer: "Despite the fact that the vast majority of the Republican Senators who will be on the ballot this fall realized that it would be an act of extreme political malfeasance and tone deafness not to vote in favor of this important legislation, McCain not only would not vote for the measure, he went a step further and refused to show the courage or moral surety to even show his face on the floor of the Senate at the time of the vote to make his voice heard on the issue. Oh yes, this is a problem for McCain, one that will likely dog him all the way through election day."

Liberal bloggers are accusing McCain of throwing a temper tantrum after the GOP candidate released an "acidic" statement in response to Obama's remark that he "can't understand why [McCain] would line up behind the President in his opposition to this GI bill." Here is an excerpt from McCain's statement:

"It is typical, but no less offensive that Senator Obama uses the Senate floor to take cheap shots at an opponent and easy advantage of an issue he has less than zero understanding of. [...] I take a backseat to no one in my affection, respect and devotion to veterans. And I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did."

• Moulitsas: "Man, he isn't even under pressure yet, and he's already blowing his top? This election season won't be kind to him. [...] Can't you just picture the spittle flying from McCain's mouth as he dictated this to some poor sap of a staffer? Bottom line, McCain thinks if we offer our troops college education, they won't want to stay in the Iraqi killing fields. So the best way to 'protect our freedoms' is to keep our troops stupid and uneducated. [...] I'm not sure that's a winner, either politically or morally."
• The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum: "I think Barack Obama has accidentally discovered the easiest way to defeat John McCain this November: make him mad. We've all heard the stories about McCain's legendarily cranky temper, and he sure showed where those stories came from on Thursday when he erupted after Obama had the temerity to disagree with him about Jim Webb's GI Bill extension. Get a grip, Senator."
• Kleiman: "Barack Obama, after acknowledging McCain's service, criticized him for opposing the bill. Obama was too polite, and too wise, to say what he could have said: that McCain, the son and grandson of Admirals and the husband of a multi-millionaire beer baron's daughter, never had to rely on the GI Bill for an education or the VA hospital system for his health care, and that McCain's opposition to the Webb bill reflected his constitutional incapacity for empathy with anyone less fortunate than he is. [...] McCain responded with an astonishingly intemperate blast at Obama. [...] McCain's speech is convincing only to those who haven't seen the Obama remarks it responds to, which contained no 'cheap shot' and did not impugn McCain's motives. The only cheap shot is McCain's attack on Obama's lack of a service record, hardly discreditable in someone too young to have served in Vietnam and too old to have served in Iraq. And also of course it makes a hash of McCain's famous reluctance to exploit his own military record for political purposes. [...] You tell me: Which candidate sounded Presidential today? And which one sounded like a cranky old man?"
• AMERICAblog's Joe Sudbay: "Seems that if John McCain is so worried, he should have shown up instead of sending bitchy press releases from his campaign."

MCCAIN II: His Turn To Denounce And Reject

Liberal bloggers are buzzing about McCain's repudiation of John Hagee and Rod Parsley, two controversial pastors who had endorsed him:

• Marshall: "I don't doubt for a moment that the McCain camp didn't know about this Hitler quote. But if you know Hagee's history, it's hardly surprising. And Hagee's statements about Catholics, his claim that God destroyed New Orleans because of an over-the-top gay pride parade, and his claim that God was using Muslim terrorists to create a 'bloodbath' in America because of US support for a two-state solution in Israel-Palestine were right out there in the public domain. And certainly McCain's camp did know about them. [...] Given that McCain has now clearly rejected Hagee's endorsement, perhaps it's time that he, a la Obama, give a speech on the topic of Republican presidential candidates pandering to lunatic fringe right-wing preachers at election time. It could start a whole national conversation."
• Daily Kos' Hunter: "It's not like Hagee wasn't extraordinarily well known, before this election season, or somehow unvettable. I have Hagee's 2006 book, 'Jerusalem Countdown', sitting on my table; it's chock full of insulting statements, dire prophecies and interpretations of Scripture so, shall we say, 'unusual' that they bear far more resemblance to the ramblings of a UFO cult than to what many people would call Christianity. So here are the next questions. Will far-far-right evangelicals, of the sort that want to collect Jews into Israel so as to bring about the Apocalypse, forgive McCain for dumping one of their most prominent preachers under the bus? Will McCain learn anything from this about associating with far-right figures that use religion not just as little more than excuse for their own prejudices and bigotries, but as justification for violence and war? Will the media report McCain's repudiation with even one tenth as much vigor as they obsessed over Obama's 'preacher problem'? I predict the answers to be yes, no, and you've got to be kidding."
• TAPPED's Sarah Posner: "Although this may relieve McCain of having to answer for Hagee's extremist views, the fact remains that McCain sought his endorsement and needs to explain why he did that."
• The Carpetbagger Report's Steve Benen: "McCain was all-too pleased to not only seek out the support of these religious extremists, but to accept their endorsements, praise their 'leadership,' and even campaign alongside them. McCain now claims he didn't realize how crazy Hagee and [Rod] Parsley really are, but that's unsatisfying -- neither he nor his campaign Googled them for the year in which they sought the preacher' support? More importantly, even if we accept the notion that McCain and his aides wooed pastors they knew nothing about, McCain has been confronted with Hagee's and Parlsey's radical record for months. The Republican presidential candidate continued to embrace their endorsements anyway, until yesterday when McCain's campaign ran out of spins."
• Firedoglake's Scarecrow: "Americans have seen the Parsley/McCain videos, and more importantly, Muslims worldwide are watching them too. No President should have a Rod Parsley anywhere near the White House if he/she hopes to deal with a billion Muslims. But McCain has no one but himself to blame that the men whose extremist views were well known but whose endorsement he deliberately sought are now revealed to everyone as intolerant extremists and morally repugnant demagogues."
• The Atlantic's Matthew Yglesias: "John McCain, who didn't mind Rod Parsley being a bigot when only smallish liberal publications were complaining about it, is now eager to ditch the man since the story's hit the MSM. McCain, it seems, still regards the reporters at major news organizations rather than the conservative rank-and-file as his real base."

MCCAIN III: Under The Bus

Several liberal bloggers are wondering why McCain only renounced Hagee (who has a history of making controversial statements) after it was revealed that Hagee said that Hitler was fulfilling God's will:

• Sudbay: "Apparently, that was finally enough for McCain to 'officially' break up with Hagee. The Catholic bashing wasn't enough. The gay bashing wasn't enough. All the other hate speech wasn't enough. It took something this outrageous to create distance between Hagee and McCain. If it takes Nazi comparisons to get kicked out of John McCain's orbit, does that mean Bush is getting bounced after invoking the Nazis last week in Israel?"
• Hunter: "[McCain] only rejected Hagee now for another one of his asinine theories, this one being that Hitler was part of God's plan for 'hunting' the Jews and driving them back to Israel. For that one, McCain finally pulled the plug -- apparently you can insult Catholics all you want, but once you start into the crazy-ass End Times pseudo-Christian anti-Semitism, then you've finally gone too far. Good to know."

On the right side of the blogosphere, Townhall's Matt Lewis accuses McCain of "throw[ing] Hagee under the bus": "The attacks on Pastor John Hagee are nothing more than an attempt at character assassination. Of course, it makes sense that the Left would want to find a way to seek revenge or a 'pay back' for the Rev. [Jeremiah] Wright scandal (though if they really wanted to do that, they'd go after Hillary Clinton's pastor). It's also an attempt to win back Jewish voters to the Democratic Party -- especially since Obama has his own problems in this area (as I write this, Obama is delivering a speech about Israel). While we cannot control the Left's attempts to mischaracterize Hagee and McCain, we can expect John McCain to display more toughness than this."

Hot Air's Allahpundit: "Between [Parsley] and Hagee, the Straight Talk Express is starting to look like its 2000 model. Repudiationmania! [...] How much further can he go in playing chicken with Christian conservatives? 'Outreach' ain't going to carry him through so be on the lookout for media appearances by [Mike] Huckabee, whom McCain doubtless would love to have as his point man in defending this. [...] Exit question: Since Maverick's on such a roll with rejecting people, how about rejecting [NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg], too?"

MCCAIN IV: Is Amnesty Back On The Table?

Several conservative bloggers are slamming McCain after McCain "joined [CA] Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in calling today for comprehensive immigration reform, including guest worker visas":

• Michelle Malkin: "Straight from the campaign trail with Arnold 'Move Left' Schwarzenegger, McCain has shed every last pretense that he 'got the message' from grass-roots immigration enforcement proponents and is back to his full, open-borders shamnesty push. No surprise to any of you. But his complete regression back to the 'comprehensive immigration reform' euphemism is a notable milestone."
• Townhall's Jonathan Garthwaite: "Regardless of whether McCain or Obama is elected in November, we're going to have another battle against amnesty in 2009. 'Agents of tolerance' talk?"
• Right Wing News' John Hawkins declares that he "will no longer support John McCain for President": "Put very simply: John McCain is a liar. He's a man without honor, without integrity, who could not have captured the Republican nomination had he run on making comprehensive immigration a top priority of his administration. Quite frankly, this is little different from George Bush, Sr. breaking his 'Read my lips, no new taxes pledge,' except that Bush's father was at least smart enough to wait until he got elected before letting all of his supporters know that he was lying to them. Under these circumstances, I simply cannot continue to support a man like John McCain for the presidency. [...] I genuinely regret having to do this because I do still believe the country would be better off with John McCain as President as opposed to Obama or Clinton. However, I just cannot in good conscience cast a vote for a man who has told this big of a lie, for this long, about this important of an issue. [...] I will defend John McCain when I think he deserves to be defended, excoriate Barack Obama and/or Hillary Clinton at every opportunity, and I will continue to stand behind the sort of Republican candidates who actually deserve conservative support. But, what I will not do is vote for John McCain in November."

Hot Air's Ed Morrissey criticizes Hawkins' post: "Hawkins called McCain a 'liar' and says that he will not vote for McCain in the fall. Both seem like overreactions to me, and John ignores some unpleasant reality. [...] McCain never pledged to give up comprehensive immigration reform. He pledged to secure the borders first, but even in the extensive quotes that John has in his post, he never promised to stop seeking a comprehensive solution for illegal immigration afterwards. Even in this sequence, he talks about border security first. I don't see this as 'breaking his security pledge', as John puts it. John and I have debated this before, and I know him to be an honest, impassioned, and effective advocate of strict enforcement policies, and opposed to any kind of normalization. If he chooses not to vote for McCain, he will make that choice with integrity and commitment. But not voting is a choice with consequences in a two-party system, and those consequences will impact a lot more than border security. [...] That is what voters need to keep in mind, especially given the likely Democratic victory in both chambers of Congress this fall. Immigration and border security are important issues, but they're not the only ones, and stark differences exist between Barack Obama and John McCain. That's what our vote should consider -- all of the consequences of the election."

NRO's Jim Geraghty: "I doubt this will mitigate the anger of bloggers like John Hawkins much, but Team McCain tells me there's been no change in his stance on immigration -- secure the border first, deal with other aspects of illegal immigration once the border is secure. Recently, McCain made comments that seemed to suggest he was eager to get to the second part, which conservatives and border security types are understandably wary about. [...] Team McCain tells me the senator's comments were poorly worded. There's been no discussion within the campaign of altering their stance on illegal immigration, and as far as everyone on the campaign is concerned, the policy is still, 'secure the border first.'"

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: High Risk, High Reward

Liberal blogger Matthew Yglesias sees McCain's repudiation of Hagee as a sign that the GOP candidate may pivot sharply to the center: "In one interesting possible future, McCain reaches the conclusion that he's got the GOP nomination and conservatives have nowhere to go so he brings back the 'agents of intolerance' talk, maybe picks a pro-choice running mate, and makes a serious high-risk high-reward effort to definitively separate himself from the mire into which the rest of the party is sinking."

Conservative blogger Matt Lewis thinks Yglesias might be onto something: "Are Yglesias and I observing the same phenomenon?"

LEST WE FORGET: Inside The Mind Of The Sports Guy

ESPN's Bill Simmons offers some random observations:

• Congrats to John Mayer for officially replacing Adam Duritz as this generation's token "sensitive musician who has bagged so many Hollywood babes that every other red-blooded male is rooting for him to get into a disfiguring accident, so when he turns into a sweaty, overweight guy 15 years from now, we'll all feel a sick sense of satisfaction about the whole thing." Big year for him.
• OK, I finally figured out why Tom Brady settled down with Gisele [Bundchen]: She's the only woman on the planet who could make him jealous at this point. Every time it seems like he's getting bored, she only has to say something like, "Hey, Leo's in town. You don't mind if I get coffee with him tomorrow for old time's sake, do you?"...and he's sucked right back in. No other woman on the planet could play the Leo card with Brady. And that's why they're together.
• So wait, the hottest summer movie is a superhero flick starring Robert Downey Jr. and directed by Jon Favreau, and I'm not supposed to be stockpiling canned goods right now?