Hillary Clinton Supporters -- The Global Warming Deniers of Democratic Politics?

Cenk Uygur (Fri Apr 25, 2:12 PM ET)

Hillary Clinton supporters seem to have become the equivalent of global warming deniers in Democratic politics. If facts don't suit your argument, insist on the opposite. And even more importantly, insist that your non-facts get at least 50% of the coverage.

The Clinton team is now trying to make the specious argument that she is winning in the popular vote. The first problem with that argument is that it's not true. Obama still leads by over 500,000 votes. The second problem is that they try to include states like Michigan and Florida where all sides agreed not to campaign or have their delegates counted. Hillary Clinton's flip-flop on these states is even more absurd given that Obama wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan.

But the more fundamental problem with this popular vote argument is that it is the wrong metric. Nobody ever said they were running a campaign for more popular votes. If those were the ground rules, no one would have spent any time in Iowa or New Hampshire. Obama and the others would have been campaigning in California for six months to a year instead of those first primary and caucus states.

This is like saying we're counting only touchdowns in the middle of a basketball game. Well if I knew that was the game we were playing I would have put on a helmet and tackled you a long time ago. Why did I bother scoring all these baskets?

Look, this is absurd. Why is anyone humoring these arguments? Why do we have to cover Hillary Clinton's side as if it has as much validity as Obama's? This isn't about who is the better candidate; this is about facts and reality. She can claim to be better on healthcare, but she can't claim to have a lead in this race. One is subjective, the other is objective.

None of her arguments make any sense: She wins the big states - congratulations, go run for president in a country where there are only big states. The popular vote is now the relevant metric in this election - then you're disenfranchising all of the caucus states and changing the rules in the middle of the game. Obama is not electable - really, then why is he kicking your ass in this election?

I love the audacity of someone who is losing to another candidate claiming that candidate is not electable. So, what does that make you?

You might love Hillary Clinton, you might think she would make a great president and you might even have concerns about her opponent. You have a right to think all these things, but you don't have a right to your own math. Two plus two still equals four and Hillary's team shouldn't get equal time for claiming it equals five for her but only three for Barack.

We have got to stop treating these math deniers as if they have any legitimacy or credibility. They are spinning for their side and the tales they are spinning are comically wrong. And as always, the media is falling prey to the idea that every side of an argument must be presented equally rather than what the facts merit.

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Iran Chosen As Official Poster of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week

by Azadeh Ensha (Fri Oct 12, 4:56 PM ET)

The far right is taking its favorite catchphrase on tour. Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is coming to a campus near you.

According to FrontPage magazine's David Horowitz, the event was designed to "confront the two Big Lies of the political left: that George Bush created the 'war on terror' and that global warming is a greater danger to Americans than global jihad and Islamic supremacism." The week's events will include "awareness" speeches by Michael Ledeen, Rick Santorum, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter as well as Horowitz himself. With such a fair and balanced list, Islamo-Fascism Week will be the perfect environment to proselytize anti-Islamic propaganda to the under 30 crowd.

The official poster of Islamo-Fascism week shows a photo of a teenage girl being stoned to death in Iran (disclosure: my country of birth) and will also feature speeches from Iranians who were victims of persecution. As an Iranian-American, I appreciate that they're spreading the word about human rights abuses in my native country. Unfortunately, I think their goal has less to do with spreading awareness than it does with fostering fear, suspicion and bigotry.

Islamo-Fascism Awareness week is about telling you that Islam is evil and that Muslims are out to get you. When in fact, some crazy and violent people have hijacked the religion of billions of peaceful people.

As part of the festivities, the event will feature a series of one-sided films including Islam: What the West Needs to Know, which extols the worldview of good (Christianity) versus evil (Islam). According to FrontPage, the movie is designed to reveal the "violent, expansionary ideology of the so called 'religion of peace' that seeks the destruction or subjugation of other faiths, cultures, and systems of government."

The event will also include a petition drive designed to force "students and faculty to declare their allegiances: either to fighting our terrorist adversaries or failing to take action to stop our enemies." Students will be instructed to urge their classmates to sign and to call attention to those who don't -- reminiscent of the same public pressure to side with "us" or "them" that defined the McCarthy era. The program notably encourages confronting groups "who might be least likely to sign" the petition. Examples include school administrators and the Muslim Students Association.

So much for higher education.

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