Tripoli is falling to rebel forces

Another one bites the dust.  There are rumors that Qaddafi’s security detail has surrendered to the rebels. According to news reports, NATO air cover has been instrumental in allowing the rebel forces to succeed.  Tripoli is celebrating.  Libyans in the streets singing and beeping car horns.

But the US News media has some explaining to do.  Coverage of this event here in the US has been subdued.  There are no tweets from the State Department, which usually has Obama’s propaganda team taking credit for this kind of thing.  There are no live news feeds with one exception.  Andy Carvin’s twitter stream points to the live stream from Sky TV.

You can watch the events live here at LiveTVCafe.net  Alex Crawford has been reporting live as she accompanies the rebels as they advance on Green Square.  Green Square is the coup de grace.  The rebels are less than a kilometer away.  Crawford’s live feed has been temporarily loss.  Sky News is still covering the celebrations in Libya in the wake of the rebel’s path.

Update: There are reports that Qaddafi’s son, Seif, has been captured.

Qaddafi’s government mouthpiece, Musa Ibrahim, just gave a government response where he claimed a high body count and blamed NATO for the fall of the Qaddafi regime.  What was amusing about his speech was the Sky News split screen with Ibrahim on the right claiming that Libyans in Tripoli were terrified of the rebels with live coverage of those same Libyans partying in the street on the left side of the screen.  Some spin just doesn’t sell.  Ibrahim also says that the rebels are tribalists who are out to exact revenge against Qaddafi’s forces, which only goes to show you that if you’re going to be a dictator, you should practice a more moderate form of oppression.

Also, Here’s a pic of the celebrations of the events in Tripoli that are happening now in Benghazi courtesy of Al Jazeera.

Geek Tweet of the Day:
@WarWraith
Warwick
RT @Citizen_4537c84 Twitter tells me that Gaddafi is both dead & captured. He is clearly Schrödinger’s dictator. #Tripoli #Libya

Before Obama takes credit for the end of Qaddafi’s reign in Libya…

Let’s remember who had to drag Obama kicking and screaming to enforce a no-fly zone to keep up the momentum of the Arab Spring uprisings:

.As the United States and allies began their airstrike against Libya over the weekend, several news outlets reported on the growing tension between Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was allegedly annoyed that the president had been taking so long to commit to a plan in Libya. “Obviously, she’s not happy with dealing with a president who can’t decide if today is Tuesday or Wednesday, who can’t make his mind up,” a friend of madame secretary told The Daily’s Josh Hersh, whose delicious March 17 piece on Clinton’s frustrations is a must-read. The source continued, “And she doesn’t have any power. She’s trying to do what she can to keep things from imploding.”Clinton’s allies in her push toward action in Libya were, among others, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice and security adviser Samantha Power.According to this morning’s Playbook, “the front page of today’s Times of London, [contains] the tease, ‘The three women who persuaded the President to take action,’” accompanied by photos of Clinton, Rice, and Power.

According to Josh Hersh’s account of the tension between Obama and Hillary, Obama wasn’t above sarcastic remarks that smack of the same kind of s^%* you hear from a typical male who pisses you off:

Obama himself made light of her strong feelings for supporting the opposition in a speech last week at the Gridiron Club Dinner, an annual gathering that traditionally features a stand-up comedy act by the president.

“I’ve dispatched Hillary to the Middle East to talk about how these countries can transition to new leaders — though, I’ve got to be honest, she’s gotten a little passionate about the subject,” Obama said to laughter from the audience.

“These past few weeks it’s been tough falling asleep with Hillary out there on Pennsylvania Avenue shouting, throwing rocks at the window.”

Who knows if the rest of that article is true but the GridIron Club presumably records these events so we can probably assume that he really did say that.

I’m guessing it went something like this:

Let’s hear it for the girls.

The Power Hour

As many of you have no doubt heard, Samantha Power, Obama’s foreign policy advisor, resigned her position after an interview with the Scotsman quoted her as calling Hillary Clinton “a Monster”. Maybe she was talking about the Grendel’s mother kind of monster in the new version of Beowulf. It might have been a compliment, in her own unique way.

Unfortunately, very few other people saw the possible literary allusion in Power’s statement. But Samantha Power is no low level Billy Shaheen, carelessly speculating on how the media will eventually make mincemeat of Obama over his past drug use. No, this is much bigger than that. Greg Sargent at TPM tells us just how big a deal this is:

As David Kurtz says, it’s worth noting that Power is a very significant player in the Obama universe — his leading foreign policy guru and someone who’s been close to him for some time. So this isn’t like the resignation of that Hillary county volunteer who spread the Obama Muslim smear email or the stepping-down of that Obama precinct captain who spread the anti-Hillary lit.

Rather, Obama is losing a key adviser and very visible advocate on foreign policy at a time when national security is front and center in the Dem primary — an outcome that helps explain why the Hillary camp pushed so hard for her ouster.

So, it looks like Obama’s campaign has more egg on its face. It’s gone from a Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day on Tuesday to a Terrible, Horrible, No-Good Very Bad Week in General. Life is like that. You’re cruisin’ to the nomination for the most powerful person in the world one minute and cleaning up from the mess your campaign dumps on you the next. Que sera, sera.

I wonder how the Clinton campaign refers to Obama. May I suggest “Twinkle” because he’s no Beowulf.

One more thing:  I’m with Big Tent Democrat on Josh Marshall’s hypocrisy.  It seems that if Hillary’s camp makes a mistake, it’s desperation or incompetence or some other damn thing.  But if Obama’s camp steps in it, it’s because Hillary is getting inside his head and hammering him.  Sooo, according to Marshall, she’s the worst politician strategically *and* she’s a brilliant psy-ops mentat.  It’s hard to believe she can be both simultaneously.  But that’s Josh for you- not making a whole lot of sense these days.  He may have to adjust his rhetoric if he wants the ad revenue to come in at a steady stream from here on out.

Personally, I think that Obama’s camp is becoming unglued all by itself.  It can’t score the big ones, it’s running out of time and people are just now starting to notice that he gets more delegates by suppressing Clinton voters than by actually, you know, *winning*.  Not pretty.

Friday- Finally!

It’s a snark lover’s dream today in the left blogosphere. It’s hard to believe at times that some bloggers make a living spouting off nonsense and yet. Here are some of the prize winning idiocies from both bloggers and campaign surrogates from around the web:

• Take Chris Bowers, Please! The man gets a tingle in his leg whenever there is the prospect of a caucus. Yes, we’re just so into the jostling, misinformation, deceptive practices and locking Clinton people out of the caucus sites by the Obama supporters, we can’t get enough of that special brand of democracy. Ooo, Ooo, why don’t we calculate when the Clinton shiftworkers will be most inconvenienced and hold one *then*? Chris doesn’t even bother to feign ignorance about the obvious advantage that Obama has in the low-hanging fruit of the caucus state. From his post yesterday, Michigan Needs to Hold a Caucus, he writes:
  

  For Clinton to narrowly eek out a victory by means of the current 80-1 Michigan delegation would be horrendous… I think seating Florida’s delegation as is (105 Clinton, 67 Obama, 13 Edwards) and holding a new Michigan caucus (with 128 pledged delegates at stake) would be an acceptable compromise (more on my Florida position here). Clinton’s advantages from the lack of campaigning in Florida would be cancelled out by Obama’s advantage in caucuses.

  Oh, yes, we must make everything Even Steven. We can’t let Clinton have any delegates that would push her over Obama. What really strikes me as absurd in the Bowers’ post was the notion that “Clinton advantages from a lack of campaigning in Florida” and somehow this must be “cancelled out”. Forget the cancelled out bit for a second and tell me how it is that Clinton benefitted in Florida by not campaigning? Does he mean that she saved herself the $1.4 M that she might have spent if she’d followed Obama’s example and bought lots of cable TV ads in Florida? She did no campaigning the first time and beat him by 17 points. Hmmm, I’m having trouble wrapping my head around that, as well as the acknowledgement by Chris that caucuses are undemocratic ways of choosing a candidate but it’s ok in this case because it levels Clinton’s advantage with Florida. Settling Florida and Michigan should not be seen as an opportunity to tweak the numbers so that it is beneficial to Obama, Chris. We’re interested in making sure the voters are not disenfranchised so they don’t take it out on the Democrats in November. If reinstating them ends up as a loss for Obama, get used to the concept. Surely, Barry can make up for it by running to the fainting couch over illusory “race-baiting” comments by the Clinton campaign just before the NC primary.

• Apparently the Kossacks and Keith Olbermann (KO) are all in a tizzy about Hillary’s latest remarks about readiness to be commander in chief:
  

  “I think that since we now know Sen. (John) McCain will be the nominee for the Republican Party, national security will be front and center in this election. We all know that. And I think it’s imperative that each of us be able to demonstrate we can cross the commander-in-chief threshold,” the New York senator told reporters crowded into an infant’s bedroom-sized hotel conference room in Washington.

  “I believe that I’ve done that. Certainly, Sen. McCain has done that and you’ll have to ask Sen. Obama with respect to his candidacy,” she said.

  I don’t watch KO anymore so I can’t comment on the breathless, simmering outrage of his polemic on Clinton’s assertion. No doubt it was as orgasmic as the Kossacks report it to be. I hope it wasn’t over too soon. Maybe they can get Keith to do one nice and slow so they can roll with it. And no, I don’t think she’s said anything that will permanently damage Obama in the fall because there isn’t going to *be* an Obama leading the ticket in the fall. She is merely continuing to frame him as the junior partner in her upcoming joint ticket, just as she signalled on Wednesday that she was open to the idea of making him her VP. That along with the commander in chief remark is intended to condition the remaining voters to accept the battle in the fall as being between Hillary and McCain. It makes Obama look childlike and unready. It’s very clever as they start to campaign in PA and who knows, it might even make a difference in Wyoming. And she’s absolutely right about McCain going gung-ho on National Security issues. That’s his strong point and he and the media are going to milk his POW experience for all it’s worth. Obama is going to look like a soft, spoiled yuppy next to McCain. And if the lefty blogosphere is going nuts over the comment, hey, the truth hurts. Obama is NEVER going to win the national security argument against McCain. He’s going to have to win it on a different set of strengths like, oh, I don’t know. Think of something.

• Oh my, oh my, oh my! Following up on the last point, one of Obama’s campaign surrogates really sticks her foot in her mouth. At least she is honest about her own boss: She and Samantha Power must be good friends or something. By the way, have we any idea what the Clinton campaign calls Obama?
• Normally, I wouldn’t go near the Rezko thing. It just reminds me too much of Whitewater. But I do find it interesting that Obama might have been involved in getting patronage jobs for his staffers through Tony Rezko. It reminded me of something our commenter Lori found in Newsweek a few weeks ago about Michelle Obama interviewing for a job. The whole report of the job interview process was so atypical of any HR procedure I’m familiar with:
  

  One landed on the desk of Valerie Jarrett, deputy chief of staff to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. “I interviewed Michelle, and an introductory session turned into an hour and a half,” Jarrett tells NEWSWEEK. “I offered her a job at the end of the interview—which was totally inappropriate since it was the mayor’s decision. She was so confident and committed and extremely open.” Michelle was flattered by the quick offer. But though she came across as supremely confident to Jarrett, she had doubts about whether it was the right decision. She asked Barack to meet with Jarrett to discuss the job before she accepted.

  Jarrett, who is now a senior adviser to the Obama campaign, became Michelle’s mentor. She set Michelle to work with businesses caught in red tape between city departments. It wasn’t exciting work, and it paid far less than her law-firm salary, but Michelle saw it as a first step in her new career in public service.

  What the heck is going on here with Barack’s involvement?

• So, Barry made $55M in February. Good for him! Of course, he’s lost every major state so far except Illinois and Georgia. I guess Money *Can’t* Buy You Love.

Person Samantha Power

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