Ah, one of the few remaining nutbars will no longer be providing entertainment on the national stage:
Cleveland Congressman Dennis Kucinich is dropping out of the Democratic race for president.
Kucinich will make the announcement Friday at a news conference in Cleveland. In an exclusive interview with Plain Dealer editors and reporters, Kucinich said he will explain his "transition" tomorrow.
I'm surprised at all the commentary; then again Dennis the Menace never actually dropped out in 2004, so maybe the folks are getting in their pre-written political obits from four years ago. I was startled to see one writer at the Plank actually wrote glowingly about him:
...here was the man for me: A committed, principled progressive, a 6-term representative who needed to apologize for none of his votes on the trail, and--at least until Mike Gravel cherry-picked his role as the righteous, wacky outsider--a leftward force in the dialogue.
Says more about the writer (Dayo Olopade) than it does about Kucinich, but it's startling to see such a leftist writing at the bastion of the DLC crowd. Of course, she does have to state how appalled she is at the Kuke's prior anti-abortion stance:
Thumbs down to Kucinich's pro-Serb, pro-life stance in early incarnations of his ideology.
Okay, when you hear that Dennis Kucinich saw a UFO 25 years ago, you tend to roll your eyes. But when you hear where he saw it, you start rolling on the floor:
And what exactly did Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich see hovering above actress Shirley MacLaine's house 25 years ago?
AN Essex girl may be the first lady with a tongue stud to have set her sights on the White House. The wife of Dennis Kucinich, a left-wing Democratic congressman and 2008 presidential candidate, is a 29-year-old hippie chick from Upminster at the end of London Underground’s District line.
Elizabeth Kucinich, née Harper, has been on the stump with her husband, a 60-year-old anti-war campaigner from Cleveland, Ohio, mingling with the likes of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama backstage at the Democratic presidential debates. “There’s a kind of camaraderie,” she said.
A 6ft tall willowy redhead who has been compared to Arwen Evenstar, the Lord of the Rings character, she towers over her diminutive husband. “Who cares?” she said in an interview. “I like wearing high heels so I’m used to being taller than most men I stand next to.”
Anybody remember the contest in 2004 to win a date with Dennis (obviously prior to his marriage)? IIRC the second prize was two dates. ;)
A reporter from the Cleveland Plain Dealer encouraged USS Kucinich to contact planet Earth. "But Nancy Pelosi says this is not going anywhere," she pointed out.
"Have you talked to her today?" Kucinich shot back.
"Yes, I did," she replied.
Kucinich had not expected that answer. "Then I would say I have not talked to her," he acknowledged.
Read it all; it's quite a romp. Milbank goes after Kucinich for his height, for his rug, and for his kooky belief that the American public wants Cheney impeached. Of course, this is all really aimed at the Democratic primary voters for 2008, not at Dick Cheney.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), the most liberal of the Democratic presidential candidates in the primary field, declared in a letter sent to his Democratic House colleagues this morning that he plans to file articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney.
There is some real world analysis:
But Kucinich shouldn't hold his breath on getting anywhere with his impeachment plan. "We'll see a Kucinich Administration before we'll see a Cheney impeachment," quipped one Democratic aide.
