Apparently there is nothing that makes Republican strategists more nervous than the possibility of being photographed in front of a Nazi flag during the convention. Albeit, even if it is a historic memento and reminder of American servicemen fighting on the right side of what is perhaps one of the more socially justified wars in American history.

Throughout the past week, Republican party planners have made numerous requests to TRACES Center for History and Culture in St. Paul, that it remove a Nazi banner on display at the front of its museum in the Landmark Center, says Museum Executive Director Michael Luick-Thrams.

A RNC party is being planned for inside the building and the flag is visible from the room where the party will be hosted, says Dina Vaynerman, program and marketing manager for Minnesota Landmark, the company commissioned by Ramsey County to manage the building. However, the lights at the museum will be turned off during the event.

Initially staff at Minnesota Landmarks contacted the museum to take down the display, on behalf of a client. "We have lots of events going on during the convention and get a lot of high class demands," says Dina Vaynerman, program and marketing manager at the company. "I don’t think this has been ever asked of us before," she later added.

Vaynerman wont won’t comment on who the client is, but museum staff says they were told it was a large law firm. "It’s a big swastika flag and they were uncomfortable with that," says Vaynerman. "They were afraid someone might see it and get offended."

Luick-Thrams says he was told that the client renting the building next Thursday was worried that "a delegate or some official might inadvertently be photographed" by it.

"Both parties, during both conventions, care about impression management—but this move seems to my staff and me to go too far," said Luick-Thrams in a press release.

The museum is refusing to take down the display.

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As Jeff Shaw notes here, Michele Bachmann repeatedly referred to the "Democrat Party" on Larry King yesterday. It's a stupid slur invented by the Republicans as part of their platform in 1996. From Wikipedia:

Democrat Party is a political epithet used in the United States by some people (in many cases, conservative commentators or some members of the Republican Party in speeches and press releases) instead of the name (or more precisely, the proper noun) Democratic Party.

Many members of the Democratic Party object to the term. New Yorker commentator Hendrik Hertzberg wrote: "There’s no great mystery about the motives behind this deliberate misnaming. 'Democrat Party' is a slur, or intended to be - a handy way to express contempt. Aesthetic judgments are subjective, of course, but 'Democrat Party' is jarring verging on ugly. It fairly screams 'rat.'"

But Bachmann's continued use of the phrase puts her out of step with the GOP, which voted on Tuesday in Minneapolis to start referring to the Democratic Party by its proper name:

On Tuesday, members of the Republican platform committee meeting in Minneapolis voted down a proposal to call the opposition the "Democrat Party" in the 2008 platform. Instead, they'll go with the proper Democratic Party.

"We probably should use what the actual name is," said Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, the panel's chairman. "At least in writing."

This New York Times video still has to be the political photo of the week.

If not because of Mitt Romney's perfect Ken doll hair or McCain’s open-mouthed, ecstatic smile, then because the white backdrop almost makes the two executive branch wannabees look like they are in a mystical Republican Dreamland.

Why is it the Beauty School Drop Out scene from Grease comes to mind?

Never mind that, a photo like this, needs a caption!

Here’s what we like to think they are saying when the recorders are turned off.

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Like many Hillary supporters, I was distraught by the way her campaign was shredded in the news media. I was angered by her sometimes-petty political antics and downright livid that she couldn’t win the nomination.

Today, I sit at my desk pessimistic that she will not go down in history as the brilliant trailblazer she is, and rather she will be remembered as the woman who wouldn’t give up and lost.

But the political reality is that none of that matters anymore. What matters is that this is a crucial political tipping point. To Hillary supporters who want their candidate's values represented, nothing should matter more than putting the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, in office. Nowhere is this more true than on the issue of reproductive choice.

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Fox isn't even trying to disguise the racism any more. In this clip, the network called potential future first lady Michelle Obama "Obama's Baby Mama," clearly a reference to her race. Watch for the unintended irony when Michelle Malkin says conservatives aren't making "... gratuitous and cheap shots at her that have nothing to do with the substance of what she's saying ..."More >>

How low can Fox News go? Rupert Murdoch's propaganda wing has somehow turned the loving gesture of two spouses into some secret Manchurian Candidate voodoo.More >>

Rumors are swirling around the conservative blogosphere that somewhere there exists an alleged videotape of Michelle Obama using the slur "whitey." Don't believe it.

A blogger named Larry Johnson claimed he had five good sources who had seen the tape (as anyone who has gone to high school can verify, when five independent people all hear the same rumor, it has to be true). Yet Johnson has produced no hard evidence to back up his claim.

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The polite media can't say it, but you can't be too prudish when your paper has sex ads in the back. Yes, Joe Biden said bullshit.

Not "bullsh*t" or "a barnyard expletive." Joe Biden called bullshit.

He was referring to President Bush's thinly veiled swipe at Barack Obama in which the president compared the Democratic nominee to a Nazi appeaser.

In Israel, no less.

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