Guest post by Grey

Jake Tapper, quoting, in part, Chris Cillizza’s postulation that Sen. Clinton is setting up an “I told you so” argument, isn’t sure that “comparing Clinton’s numbers to Obama’s right now is fair:”

Obama has been getting attacked fairly regularly by McCain, and until recently by Clinton. Conversely, I think it’s fair to say that Obama has been unable to fully attack Clinton on a number of issues on which she’d be vulnerable to GOP attacks during a general election — Clinton scandals, Bill Clinton’s business dealings. On the other hand, Obama has benefited from some embarrassingly obsequious media coverage, and Clinton from some of the roughest treatment a candidate’s experienced since the Nixon years.

Two points on that; one, even with the rough treatment Clinton has been getting and the “obsequious coverage” Obama has enjoyed, Clinton is still projected to clean McCain’s clock in November while Obama, on the other hand, is not. Everyone gets to vote in November, not just the base. Two, we’re all fairly well aware of Clinton’s “scandals” and she already carries that weight around; the negatives have been factored in for sixteen years now and she’s already been attacked for all of it. Obama, on the other hand, has barely been touched and they’ll go at him with a fervor I don’t think we’ve seen before. Guess which of the two can be painted as anything the Republicans want? I’ll give you a hint: it’s not the woman in the race.

As a counterpoint to my first argument, Andrew Sullivan and Ben Smith point to this electoral map from May 28, 2004, which shows Kerry at 327 electoral votes vs. Bush’s 211. Of course things will change between now and November, but that’s a “reality check” without reality; in the first place, Kerry never really had an opponent after his victory in Iowa, nor were the party’s loyalties divided. Second, Kerry lost at least in part because the GOP painted him as an “out of touch elitist,” which is precisely what will happen to Obama (among other things), but not to Clinton. The comparison is, at best, facile. In Alex Cabot’s immortal words, “You’ve offered a provocative theory. What it lacks in substance, it makes up for in pretty colors.”

Glenn Greenwald has a fantastic piece up about the media’s complicity and complacency in the run up to the war. Regardless of how you felt about it then or whether your opinion has changed, this is an incredible piece of journalism, a forceful indictment of the media and of “corporate executives [who] forced their news reporters to propagandize in favor of the Bush administration and the war, and censored stories that were critical of the Government.”

Jay Newton-Small, blogging about the McCain-Obama Iraq “tiff,” asks a question:

But what puzzles me is Obama’s campaign has long planned a victory lap abroad to underline his foreign policy credentials and Iraq has always been on the table for such a trip. See this Washington Post story from March 8 where “advisers” bemoan having to postpone the foreign trip because Obama lost Texas and Ohio. McCain took a similar victory lap when he won the GOP nomination. So which demographic is McCain trying to appeal to here? The Republicans who still support the war? The Independents who are worried about Obama’s foreign policy credentials? Is the war in Iraq really a great topic for McCain to highlight like this?

I’m probably going against the grain here, but I don’t think Iraq is a complete loser for McCain; Obama set foot there only once, in 2006, and he’s being roundly criticized for it already: see Jim Geraghty, John Hinderaker (with a note added by Paul Mirengoff) and John Tabin. The broader national security/military arguments will be mined to death in the general election no matter what Obama and his followers believe. The fact that most Americans want the war to end does not change the fact that McCain has credentials and Obama does not, and it’s not just Independents like me who care about this issue. Plenty of Democrats do, too, and my guess is that McCain is pitching to all of them.

Mark Ambinder on Obama’s first 100 days:

At a fundraiser in Denver last night, Sen. Barack Obama signaled that he would use the grace period of his first 100 days in office to push through national health insurance plan. In general, a fresh administration is given some latitude to pursue a single domestic policy goal; think of George W. Bush and No Child Left Behind — although Democrats were a bit shell-shocked then.

Would that be the national health insurance plan that leaves out about 15 million Americans? Just checking.

Guest post by Grey

Sen. Obama’s false assertion that his uncle was part of the U.S. brigade that helped to liberate Auschwitz is the talk of the wingnut blogospehere. Jennifer Rubin says that “Obama and his staff get a lot of history wrong (and a lot of other stuff wrong, too).” Jeff Emanuel thinks that Obama has “a pathological need to be part of history” and that his statement was “so profane that it borders on evil itself.” Dean Barnett wonders how smart Obama really is and adds that “The mangling of facts here isn’t a lie, just another misstatement and another surprising sign of Obama’s historical ignorance.” More generally, Hugh Hewitt contends that all that Ivy League education didn’t make Obama smart: “Because legal education values certain skills, success at it says almost nothing about a law student’s wisdom or grasp of history. What is becoming obvious is that Senator Obama simply doesn’t know a lot of what we take for granted in presidential nominees –an understanding of how America came to be and why it is so special, so exceptional.”

Jake Tapper cites Gallup’s swing state analysis, compiled by Lydia Saad, and concludes that the result “seems to re-affirm Sen. Hillary Clinton’s argument that she is likelier to beat Sen. John McCain than is Sen. Barack Obama:”

Are the Democrats about to nominate their weaker candidate? What say you?

I certainly hope not. Heck of a way to wake up, Jake.

Yesterday, Hendrick Hetzberg published a new puff piece about Chris Matthews; Andrew Sullivan disagrees with only one point:

[H]ating the Clintons is not reducible to some strange atheist idea of what a Catholic’s idea of forgiveness is. The reason so many people who were brought up in a traditional Catholic household loathe the Clintons – Dowd, Kelly, Russert, Matthews, Sullivan, et al. – is because we were taught the difference between right and wrong, and taught to believe it matters.

This makes me want to gnash my teeth. Catholics are not, in fact, the appointed moral arbiters for the nation and neither is anyone else; press credentials do not change that. Surely, the Clintons can be roundly and soundly criticized without using the altar for cover, something which would allow the great majority of us to do so without slumping hypocrisy on our shoulders. Judgments of what is right and what is wrong are, Andrew might agree, rather subjective even without consideration for the Church’s moral authority, which, at best, is erratic on all kinds of matters. In the future, Andrew might choose to reflect on some of his own writings on the matter before lashing out so enthusiastically and definitively on the lives of others.

Michelle Cottle and Amanda Fortini have a bit of a back and forth about “The Hillary Mystique.” Fortini:

I was surprised to read in a recent New York Times article that some of them have formed a group, “Clinton Supporters Count Too,” and that they plan to campaign against Barack Obama in November, which seemed very surprising to me and certainly counterproductive in terms of women’s rights.

How can it possibly surprise anyone that some women, unhappy with the tone and tenor of the campaign, would gather and plan how to move forward? And isn’t it interesting that, the moment women do decide to organize and buck the system, they’re immediately singled out as traitors to the cause? Naturally, Fortini reduces women’s rights to reproductive rights and equal pay for equal work. I’m a strong believer in both, of course, but that’s not all there is to women’s rights, though those are always the two cards Democrats use in order to cow women into supporting their candidates. If we really want to talk about the politics of fear, let’s look into that.

Cottle, for her part, attempts to explain why some women resent the “media bias against the idea of a female president:”

The best way I’ve found to explain it is through a contrast with the media’s reaction to Barack Obama’s candidacy. You have pundits like Andrew Sullivan waxing rhapsodic about how fantabulous it would be for America’s image, how great and glorious a morning it will be, when we have an African American taking the oath. You would never hear someone say that about a woman. Even if they’re talking about the historic nature of it, they don’t talk about it in such grand and soul-cleansing terms. And I think part of it is that in the history of this country, slavery, Jim Crow, and racism have been much uglier, more overt, nasty phenomena than sexism. [...] Feminism is a different cause than civil rights. Slavery is kind of a moral scar for America, so we can be poetic about how great it’s going to be when we, at last, elect an African American. And we just can’t talk that way about electing a woman. Plus, people seem to be embarrassed–women in particular–to talk about sexism, as though the very notion is kind of retro: “Aren’t we past that?” I think Gloria Steinem’s New York Times Op-Ed was, to some degree, pretty dead-on, and it’s something that younger women aren’t willing to admit to even if they have experienced it.

There is no question that racism is a scar on America’s soul, but the fact that we cannot admit the same about sexism – for different reasons, surely, and manifested in disparate ways – is problematic; whether the form it takes is benign or paternalistic is wholly besides the point. When prejudice is manifested subtly, its insidiousness and corrosiveness are no less present and have no fewer consequences, and it is precisely because it’s arguably more difficult to quantify the many forms sexism takes that it can take root unabated and unchecked.

There is something that is both disingenuous and frightening about our collective inability to discuss electing a woman the way we discuss electing a black man. Perhaps our inability to confront that inequality doesn’t quite underscore the dissimilarity in the prejudice, but that women are second-class citizens – just not second-class citizens enough. And that, in turn, is one of the reasons why this “Oppression Olympics” exercise in which so many are invested is horrendously flawed.

Guest post by Grey

Jake Tapper questions Sen. Obama’s decision to switch to general election mode given that the number of delegates needed to win the nomination might change on Saturday, pending the Rules and Bylaws Committee’s ruling on the seating of Florida and Michigan’s delegates. That, however, is not the only problem:

And what happens if 900,000 Puerto Ricans turn out on Sunday and vote 70-30 for Clinton? Won’t that seriously buttress her popular vote argument so that she doesn’t have to rely on that fuzzy math where she gives herself 320,000 votes from Michigan and gives Obama zero? And what happens if Obama doesn’t win Montana or South Dakota, states he’s expected to put in his column? Will he regret his time in Las Cruces?

I think Sen. Obama will probably win Montana and possibly South Dakota, but that’s not the point. Much has been made about “sore losers” in this contest, but there is just as much one could say about a (possible) winner’s lack of grace. Sen. Obama’s presumption might cost him in two very different ways; if Sen. Clinton’s November electoral college argument should convince enough superdelegates that she’s the stronger candidate – which it should, because many of the maps we’ve seen prove it – then Sen. Obama will just look like an arrogant buffoon. Conversely, should he win the nomination, he will soon realize that the new map he intends to draw will be the least of his problems. Sen. Obama should be focusing on women and blue-collar workers because, come November, a coalition of liberals, African Americans and the young won’t be enough. Whether Obama is willing to meaningfully reach out to Clinton’s voters is another matter; with history as my guide, I would not bet on it.

The Great Misconception of 2008 is that Sen. Obama attracts droves of new voters. According to an analysis done by Dick Bennett of ARG,

[...] Obama has had his greatest primary (and caucus) victories when turnouts have been low.

Anglachel has an interesting addendum:

My argument here is not that he lacks delegates, but that he has nowhere near the popular support that is claimed. He has lost big states and swing states decisively, with margins getting worse as the campaign goes on. There is no need to reference his increasingly embarassing [sic] poor showing against John McCain as he falls short of majority support within his own party.

That is exactly right; since February, Clinton has won 15 more delegates and 511,941 more votes than Obama. Paul Lukasiak thinks it’s “buyer’s remorse,” but given that Obama’s mathematical advantage materialized mostly thanks to caucuses rather than primaries, I wonder whether the original sale was ever made.

Mark Ambinder says that “the Obama campaign has, for the first time, really, begun to bank delegates:”

The campaign is determined that Obama not end the first week in June without securing the support of delegates numbering 2026 — or 2210, as the case may be.

That’s fine, and if it happens, Obama will then really be the presumptive Democratic nominee, but the vote of the superdelegates is non-binding until they cast their ballots at the convention. Sen. Clinton has told the voters of Florida and Michigan that, if they want her to, she will take their fight to the floor. What if she were to fight just as long and just as hard for her own candidacy? I suspect she would earn the nomination after the first few rounds, perhaps as early as on the third ballot, but that is her decision to make. Sen. Obama, for his part, should do all he can to conclude his run as decorously as possible. The party’s base is fractured and, if he should emerge victorious in August, in November he will pay very dearly for his abrasive, condescending attitude.

Isaac Chotiner claims that the MSNBC-Obama wedding isn’t good for candidate Obama because, one, it creates an echo chamber and, two, it actually helped Sen. Clinton:

In fact, MSNBC’s bias has actually hurt the Illinois senator. After all, it was the Obama cheerleading from MSNBC (among others) that helped lead to Clinton’s New Hampshire comeback. [...] The problem here is that when supposedly “straight” news anchors phrase questions in leading ways, and report one campaign’s spin as if it were fact, it distorts what is actually going on in the campaign–even for those of us who make a living obsessing over and writing about politics. And when anchormen themselves shill for Obama, the distinction between his talking points and the truth grows even blurrier still. So, as much as I find MSNBC entertaining, their creation of a parallel, pro-Obama universe is the type of thing I’d expect of Fox. That’s when I know it’s time to change the channel.

MSNBC’s gleeful coverage of Clinton’s third-place finish in Iowa might have contributed to her comeback in New Hampshire, but to assert it’s so without empirical evidence is yet another instance of the media’s grandiose sense of self-importance. Chotiner is right to say, however, that MSNBC has been singularly pro-Obama; it’s also been singularly anti-Clinton, and one must wonder just how readily the audience understood that campaign propaganda was being served as though it were news.

Max Blumentahl reports that Joe Lieberman will headline Catholic-hating, gay-hating, Jew-hating John Hagee’s Christians United For Israel Washington-Israel Summit on July 22. Oh, please: give me a break with that ridiculous title: no one (other than Joe) is buying the “conversion,” John. And, Joe: Please stop embracing hateful nutjobs and try to find your way ouf ot the snow.

The shot of sanity for the day comes courtesy of Joan Walsh, who writes about “a new low in Clinton bashing:”

The world is divided between people who consider Bill and Hillary Clinton monsters, and people who don’t. It used to be that the monster faction was limited to Republicans and certain mainstream media fixtures like Maureen Dowd and much of the MSNBC lineup. Now, increasingly, it involves too many Obama-supporting Democrats — and the Clinton-hate is in danger of damaging the Democratic Party.

Joan is right, I think, and the Democratic Party is in for a very rude awakening.

Update: Joan was on Hardball tonight. You can watch her segment here.

Guest post by Grey

Via The Buzz, word that Bill Daley and Donna Brazille don’t like that Sen. Clinton is comparing Florida 2008 to Florida 2000:

“That’s ludicrous,” former Gore campaign chairman Bill Daley told Buzz Thursday. “This isn’t like we woke up the day of the election and there are total screw-ups. Everybody knew the rules all along.” [...] Gore campaign manager Donna Brazille, ostensibly neutral and a key member of the panel that stripped Florida of its delegates, also dismissed the 2000 analogy: “It was an unfair comparison given the history of the recount and the politics of state officials who openly defied party rules.”

Quick: name two things that Daley and Brazille have in common!

Al Giordano is peddling a rumor 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.’” It’s juicy and irresistible to Markos, but even more so to Aravosis:

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. It’s a temper tantrum. And it’s destroying her family name and legacy.

You’ll have to excuse John’s temper tantrum; after all, he’s having an irrational, emotional, childish fit because he’s worried about Clinton’s “family name and legacy.” There, there.

Andrew Sullivan on Judgment Day:

Judgment Day was a long time ago. If I were forced to predict, I’d say she’s taking it to Denver. Yes, they’re that psycho.

“She” and “they.” Really? Not even going to pretend you’re never really just talking about Hillary, are you? Principles matter, and when actions are directed by and predicated upon principles, the hysterical insults hurled by cretins are a tribute. Voting is a civil right, and if you think rules should stand in the way of a legally cast vote, then that’s your lot. I know you don’t think “the Clintons” have any principles, which means that the civil rights argument is probably an affront to your own sense of morality, so let’s just hash it out in political terms: She has every right, every right, to carry her political battle as far as she wants. That’s politics, and all the players get to have a go at it, not just those you like. So sorry if that ruins your mood (but not really).

John Judis writes a post-mortem, but that’s not why he makes the Nightline. This is:

Obama, too, was, and is, history–the first viable African-American presidential candidate. Yes, Hillary Clinton was the first viable female candidate, but it is still different.

That line encapsulates everything that’s wrong with the Oppression Olympics. It’s not enough that both are historical candidacies? Do we really need to try and determine which one is more of a “breakthrough” based on our pathetic history with both racism and sexism? Can we do no better than this premise, that Obama’s run is more historic because all Presidents have been white, but Clinton’s is more historic because all Presidents have been men? That’s where we are, and it’s an astonishingly reductive and torpid argument. It’s lazy, it’s intellectually dishonest, to quantify which win is more determinative of our evolution because it’s impossible to do so without, as Judis does above, shoving the other -ism aside, even if only reflexively.

“But it is still different.” Why, because sexism is not as vicious? Not as corrosive? Not as pervasive? Less historically made of unequivocal and crashing failure? Bull. What will Judis and others like him argue next, that electing either Clinton or Obama will be proof that we’ve moved on and are, finally, a decent and respectable society? This is colossal lunacy. Neither Clinton nor Obama is running to dispense collective redemption or as a measure of our triumph over prejudice. Let them be candidates.

Guest post by Grey

Jake Tapper on Earth vs. Bizarro Planet:

“I’m told that more people have voted for me than for anyone who has ever run for the Democratic nomination,” Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, said last night after her impressive win in Kentucky. Point one — true or not, the claim is somewhat irrelevant. This is not a race for votes, it is a race for delegates. On Bizarro Planet, where popular vote winner Al Gore is finishing up his second term as president, maybe things like delegates and electoral votes don’t matter. But here on Earth they do.

Here on Earth, the Democratic Party’s process to pick a nominee is not the one used in the general election when, Tapper is quite right, it’s winning the electoral college that matters. Here on Earth, the DNC decided to create superdelegates, and they are free to support a candidate based on any number of things, popular vote included. Clinton’s point, therefore, is not at all irrelevant, though it may be inconvenient to those who don’t want to hear that Obama is losing the popular vote and is not the people’s choice.

There is no question that the DNC should swiftly move to eliminate the superdelegates and go to either a winner-take-all system similar to the one used by the GOP, or to a proportional system that accurately reflects the vote and neither rewards nor punishes districts based on the previous cycle’s level of participation. If the system is to remain proportional, then the candidate who wins a state by, say, 55%, should also get 55% of that state’s delegates, no more and no less. Irritating though it may be, that is not the current system; the popular vote is, in fact, an important metric, and arguably the one that most accurately reflects the will of the voters. Superdelegates may consider any number of things; the rules do allow for that, and Tapper knows it.

Via Ben Smith, news that Obama’s Chief Strategist David Axelrod has some thoughts on how to resolve Florida and Michigan:

“We are open to compromise. We are willing to go more than half way. We’re willing to work to make sure that we can achieve a compromise. And I guess the question is: is Senator Clinton’s campaign willing to do the same?”

You disingenuous prat. Sen. Clinton had an actual solution to the problem and your campaign nixed it. She had this revolutionary idea that people could vote again, and be counted, but you guys were too scared to lose a second time and decided that rules, compromised and arbitrarily changed as they were, were more important than letting people have another go at it, something which the DNC had sanctioned. No, sir: you don’t get to pretend the other camp either caused or compounded the problem because it is you who passed on every proposal. You can’t have it both ways, and it’s embarrassing to watch you try. Oh, and you’re on notice.

Chris Bowers celebrates the end of electability:

One of the best developments for Democratic Party this nomination campaign has been the dramatic decline of “electability” as a factor in the party’s nomination process. [...] Electability died in this primary season. Good. As long we win in November, it should be a long time before the party is dominated by that unproductive concept once again.

So, “we” are going to win in November because “we” don’t care about electability anymore? “We” tried that once, with McGovern; it was a more innocent and hopeful-changy time in America then, when Democrats decided not to care about electability and – oh, wait. This is fantastically baffling! I love this post so much I want to hold its hand and buy it flowers and take it out to dinner and go to the zoo with it. Can’t say what’ll happen once we get to the lions, though.

Oy vey!

Guest post by Grey

Anglachel writes about unity and makes the only point that matters:

Unity is not obedience or falling into line. It is being able to strongly and persuasively present yourself and your objectives and be victorious, but do so in a way that does not demand the humiliation, denegration [sic] or destruction of your opponents. It is to treat others as valued colleagues to be won over, not as enemies to be obliterated.

Yes. One candidate has campaigned this way, never faulting those who vote for her opponent, never denigrating their choices, never taking a single vote for granted and never once suggesting they would all fall in line and vote for her once the dust settled. Instead, Sen. Clinton has opted to take the media to task for their aberrant, presumptuous, hostile coverage, and rightfully so. Who’s the unifier again?

Big Tent Democrat praises Michelle Obama because, when asked about whether Sen. Clinton might join her husband’s ticket as Vice President, she said this:

“I think the world of Hillary Clinton. Particularly, as a woman, having watched her go through a lot of what I might be going through, and doing it with a level of grace, and raising a phenomenal daughter, which I have two girls. And I know how hard just in the little bit of exposure I’ve had to this what she’s had to deal with, and what she’s accomplished. So that being said, you know, there is no way that I would say absolutely no to one of the most successful and powerful and groundbreaking women on this planet. What I have said is that I think one of the things that the nominee has earned is the right to pick the vice president that they think will suit them. I think this should be Barack’s say, through and through.”

I agree with her position on the nominee having earned the right to select whomever he or she wants as Vice President, but BTD seems to think that the earlier portion of Michelle’s comments are worthy of praise. Taken alone, they may very well be. However, Mrs. Obama was asked about Sen. Clinton on February 4th, again for a segment shown on Good Morning America, and her take then was rather different:

Robin Roberts: So what if Senator Clinton defeats her husband, becoming the first woman nominee. Could you see yourself working to support the first woman nomination? Michelle Obama: I’d have to think about that. I’d have to think about that, her policies, her approach, her tone. Robin Roberts: That’s not a given? Michelle Obama: You know, everyone in this party is going to work hard for whoever the nominee is. I think that we’re all working for the same thing. and, you know, I think our goal is to make sure that the person in the White House is going to take this country in a different direction. I happen to believe that Barack is the only person who can really do that.

Mrs. Obama’s opinion of Sen. Clinton isn’t quite so gracious when it’s in context, is it? It’s easy to be magnanimous when things are looking up, but that’s not when one takes the measure of a person. Rather than commending Michelle’s late burst of faint praise, we should recognize it for what it is: a rather blatent attempt to pacify Clinton’s base should she not win the nomination. Some will fall for it, others will pass.

Andrew Sullivan thinks Obama should declare victory tomorrow night because “[t]he Clintons will never go quietly or gracefully:”

I know the dangers of provoking the wave of victimhood that Clinton will invoke if anyone dares to point out that she has lost. But at some point the sheer classless, graceless sore-loser tackiness of the couple requires an end to the enabling. Obama, one fears, is too much of a gentleman. You can’t always maintain class with people who have none.

Oh, the hilarity. So, Obama should go ahead and declare victory because he will have a majority of the elected delegates available even though that count does not take into consideration Florida and Michigan? A person with grace and class would surely wait until at least May 31, when the Rules and Bylaws Committee will let everyone know what the actual count should be. Yes, how terribly “classless” and “graceless” of Sen. Clinton to want her supporters to have a chance to vote for her. The reality is that neither she nor Senator Obama has enough total delegates to declare anything and that, in fact, having enough elected delegates is not a signal to the superdelegates to move en masse. That’s not what the rules say, is it? No. The rules say something else entirely, and Sen. Clinton is entitled to play by them without being excoriated by the likes of Andrew Sullivan, despite the alacrity and relentlessness with which he fashions himself moral arbiter of public behavior.

David Kurtz, Jake Tapper and Ben Smith covered Obama’s “lay off my wife” interview with ABC’s Good Morning America today. Sen. Obama was asked about this Tennessee GOP video, which mocks Michelle Obama for something she said while campaigning in Wisconsin last February: “For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country.” Sen. Obama responded this way:

“The GOP, should I be the nominee, can say whatever they want to say about me, my track record. If they think that they’re going to try to make Michelle an issue in this campaign, they should be careful because that I find unacceptable, the notion that you start attacking my wife or my family.” [...] “These folks should lay off my wife.” “Michelle loves this country. For them to try to distort or to play snippets of her remarks in ways that are unflattering to her is, I think, just low class. I think that most of the American people would think that as well.”

Get off that Unity Pony Unicorn of Hopium, why don’t you? First, spouses are always an issue in the campaign and you don’t get an exemption. Second, where was all this outrage when your campaign was making an issue out of Bill Clinton? In fact, you did a lot of the mud-slinging: what’s with the double-standard, Precious? Third, what Michelle said is unacceptable in any context and her remarks were not twisted in any way. If they make you uncomfortable, take it up with her. Fourth, should you decide to build a case of sexism – and understanding your campaign’s cynicism as well as I do, I will not be surprised when it happens – I will point to your behavior during this entire campaign as “low class.” When it came time to speak up and speak out about the way Sen. Clinton was being treated (still is, as a matter of fact), your word fog suddenly cleared and you had not one thing to say. I don’t share your outrage and I don’t feel your pain, Barry, especially since this is a wholly contrived controversy: the shame is all yours.

Guest post by Grey

Greg Sargent ponders NARAL’s move and thinks that one “can’t avoid the fact that this was a really mystifying decision for NARAL to make.” According to this piece in the Washington Post, NARAL chapters local to Pennsylvania, Missouri, Oregon, Washington, Texas and New York “have issued statements signaling their continued neutrality in the Democratic race and emphasizing that the national group did not speak for them on this matter. These groups represent nearly a quarter of NARAL’s state chapters.” The Missouri chapter felts so strongly about it that it “recorded a robocall in the wake of the announcement, which the group then sent to 8,500 households emphasizing its neutrality.” Good for them. Why in the world NARAL would choose to endorse a candidate who, in the State legislature, chose to vote “present” seven times in matters of choice is beyond comprehension. Why they would endorse a man whose campaign said “Obama supports those restrictions that are consistent with the legal framework outlined by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade” is mystifying. Every restriction has been found to be compliant and consistent with Roe’s “framework” by the U.S. Supreme Court. Will Sen. Obama find future restrictions to be just as consistent? Which restriction will be one too many? None? Back to the drawing board with you, NARAL.

Craig Crawford pins Kentucky on Edwards and plays the VP slot odds:

The impact of John Edwards endorsing Barack Obama on Wednesday can be measured in next week’s Kentucky primary. The Obama camp surely hopes to deny Hillary Rodham Clinton the chance for another blowout like what happened on Tuesday in West Virginia. Proving strength among voters who are not warming to Obama could give Edwards a shot at running mate, or at least indicate how he can be best used in a general election campaign.

Hum. Edwards did absolutely nothing for Kerry in 2004. Much has been made about his candidacy this time around, but I don’t think he’d have much street value in a general election since, contrary to popular belief, Edwards is not a “hero” to the working class. Kentucky might be a test, but it’s Obama who needs to pass it.

Joan Walsh ponders the lessons of Mississippi and draws the wrong conclusion from the special House race. Democrat Travis Childers beat his Republican opponent, Greg Davis, by 8 points which, Walsh believes, may be proof that efforts to tie Childers to Obama backfired:

Of special note, efforts to tie Childers to Obama seemed to backfire. If the Rev. Wright issue didn’t work in a safe GOP district in Mississippi, I’m not sure where it will work.

Perhaps Walsh failed to notice that Childers not only distanced himself from Obama, but also ran an ad so that no one would miss just how far away he was running.

Jay Newton-Small wades through Obama’s flag pin word fog. This whole affair is absurd. Patriotism isn’t measured by what one wears one one’s lapel or by how fervently one waves the flag. Patriotism is a matter of heart and of principles and, in that sense, Obama has been getting a raw deal, but he’s also been contradicting himself, which makes his position on the matter appear to fluctuate at the mercy of precarious political winds. False patriotism, which we have in abundance among the political classes (but not only there), is very lamentable, but so are Obama’s efforts to walk back a principled position.

A. Serwer writes about the “oppression Olympics” without even a hint of self-awareness:

Like Marie Cocco, I could come up with my own list of Media Matters clips and offensive merchandise that I could use to argue definitively that racism is worse than sexism. But I’m not sure what that would prove, other than that I believe the prejudice I’ve faced is qualitatively worse than the prejudice I know nothing about. I see racism and sexism as intertwined if not interdependent, so I don’t understand why for some people the Democratic primary has become a competition over who has it worse.

Good grief. If it’s not a competition, and I agree that it should not be, why are you debating the merits of Cocco’s op-ed vs. the merits of one you could write about race? Cocco’s concern is with the presence of sexism, not an assertion that racism hasn’t surfaced, and because she assumed some would not take her seriously (imagine that!), she turned the argument on its head. Her concern, one that I share, is that sexism has gone largely unchallenged, unchecked and unanswered, and that we are perhaps more vigilant when it comes to racism. That is a virtue, and we should be just as alert to other biases. Condescension is not the right response, and neither is nescience.

Today, in a 121-page opinion authored by Chief Justice Ronald George, joined by associate justices Joyce Kennard, Kathryn Werdegar and Carlos Moreno, California’s Supreme Court struck down the state’s statutory ban on same-sex marriage:

One of the core elements of the right to establish an officially recognized family that is embodied in the California constitutional right to marry is a couple’s right to have their family relationship accorded dignity and respect equal to that accorded other officially recognized families, and assigning a different designation for the family relationship of same-sex couples while reserving the historic designation of “marriage” exclusively for opposite-sex couples poses at least a serious risk of denying the family relationship of same-sex couples such equal dignity and respect. […] We therefore conclude that in view of the substance and significance of the fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship, the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples.

The blogosphere responds: Digby, Kevin Drum, Todd Beeton, Melissa McEwan and Glenn Greenwald.

Andrew Sullivan, who is often a foil for Nightline, has some of the more moving posts: The key points, a clear and correct rejection of those who argue the California Court engaged in “judicial activism,” a tearful reaction – yes, of joy! – and a family portrait.

This won’t be the last word on same-sex marriage in California but, for today, justice’s bells are ringing.

Guest post by Grey

Camille Paglia blathers about Hillary and gets it all wrong:

And her message maliciously undermines the presumptive nominee by targeting his presumed weakness in the general election. But the gifted Obama is just getting started on the national stage, while his opponent, John McCain, is a clumsy, fusty, narcissistic waffler whose party is in disarray and revolt against him.

Look, you ludicrous, pseudo intellectual, self-promoting, pontificating, meandering quack: this is a political campaign, not a bluegrass revival, okay? Clinton is running for President and, as a candidate, she has every right to question her opponent, his positions and his deficiencies, of which there are many. It is not her job to make Obama glimmer so you can adore him a little more, nor is it her responsibility to make what is unsavory about him palatable to the masses. It is wholly and absurdly disingenuous to act as though the Republicans would have no idea how to go about beating him if only it weren’t for Clinton, passing them notes during class. Give me a break already, and grow the hell up.

On to McCain; though I wouldn’t vote for him even if there were a gun pointed at my head, I don’t fail to see the appeal his candidacy holds for a large swath of the electorate. Republicans, by the way, have a legendary ability to get behind anyone with an ‘R’ after his or her name when it’s time to vote, so talking about a party “in disarray and revolt” against McCain is as myopic as it is a clear sign of your raw political dilettantism. But thanks for playing.

Joan Walsh gives Obama a pass on sexism:

I have occasionally wished Obama himself would say something about the often-sexist viciousness Clinton has faced, but it’s probably too much to ask in a campaign this contentious.

That is astonishingly wrong, and all the more disappointing since it comes from Walsh who, normally, gets it just about right. A “contentious” campaign is neither a reason nor an excuse not to address sexism, just as it gives no cover not to address racism, something Sen. Clinton, also in the middle of a “contentious” campaign, has done, and several times, just as she should have. Has it occurred to anyone that one of the reasons the campaign has been so contentious is that the chauvinism has run rampant and unchecked? Sen. Obama has not only not addressed sexism, but benefited from its ill-effects and engaged in some of his own; giving him a hall pass on it because he’s busy and tired is shocking.

Matthew Yglesias pokes Clinton’s West Virginia argument, which is that, since 1916, no Democrat has won the White House without winning West Virginia. Yglesias, sarcastically, adds that “therefore Obama’s primary loss shows that despite his large lead in the polls over John McCain, he can’t possible win the election,” but also this:

What’s even more interesting is that no Democrat has won the White House without carrying Minnesota since 1912 (it went for Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose party) so given that Obama won Minnesota and Clinton won West Virginia, McCain is guaranteed to win the general election unless the eventual nominee can somehow completely replicate the social and political conditions prevailing in pre-WWI America. The outlook, in short, is very grim.

Yes. Of course, West Virginia held a primary while Minnesota had a caucus. And we don’t use the caucus system on election day, do we?

John Aravosis raises his rhetorical fist, calls Clinton “a horrible human being” and loses it:

Good God. What is wrong with her? The Clintons and their campaign staff don’t give a damn that they are now hurting our electoral chances in the fall against McCain and against the Republicans in Congress. Their campaign isn’t happening in some vacuum, and they know it. Our candidates can’t fundraise because of her. Obama can’t focus on McCain because of her. Obama is wasting money on HER, rather than spending it on McCain, because of her. [...] Why is the media even covering her? The only stories that should be written about Hillary Clinton is how much damage she’s causing our party. How she’s hurting fundraising at the DNC – they even admitted it, they’re not raising the money they need to fight John McCain because of this woman.

This woman, eh, John? What in the world is this woman doing, ruining your party and your plans and your parades, what with her girly bits all over the place, littering your space. Someone page John and tell him his guy hasn’t won anything yet, and if he’s so worried about Obama wasting his time and money on Clinton, he should tell him to try not to lose states by 41%.

Reclusive Leftist, via Lavender Liberal, spins the wheel: Pocket Guide to the Obamaniac Behavior Cycle.

Guest post by Grey

Jake Tapper covers Arianna Huffington running for cover:

Web maven Arianna Huffington pushes Bradley Whitfrod and Richard Schiff to back her story that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, at a dinner party in 2001, said he didn’t vote for George W. Bush for president in 2000. [...] McCain alter-ego Mark Salter calls Huffington “a flake and a poser and an attention-seeking diva.”

No comment.

Michael Calderone goes behind the scenes at CNN, but begins with something that happened on air between Lanny Davis, who describes Tuesday night as “the worst experience [he] ever had on television,” and golden child Anderson Cooper:

Cooper: Lanny, let me start off with you. We haven’t heard from you tonight. Your take on Barack Obama’s speech earlier? Davis: You haven’t heard from me tonight. And I’m not sure – I’m not sure you want to hear from me tonight but - Cooper: We heard from Paul Begala. This is your big chance. Davis: Well, actually, I don’t think we heard very much from Paul Begala. We did hear an awful - Cooper: All part of the conspiracy against Hillary Clinton, I suppose.

Via phone, Davis tells Calderone that he “has decided not to appear on the network during election coverage” anymore. Davis also says that MSNBC is “shameless about their bias toward Obama,” while FOX “has been the fairest.” “[N]o matter how much you might criticize an ideological bent, in this campaign, they have been religiously middle-of-the-road, point-counterpoint.” Ouch. I just miss the old CNN, back when Wolf Blitzer wasn’t on for 20 hours of high-octane, breathless “reporting” on the latest blonde girl who’s gone missing and the kind of syrup Obama likes on his bitter, clingy waffle.

In a truly extraordinary post, Glenn Greenwald digs into the Pentagon’s “military analysts program” and focuses on the media blackout of this story, which was almost universal. Glenn tackled the issue before and, after his readers wrote to NBC’s Brian Williams to complain about the lack of coverage, the anchor addressed the concern via his blog:

I read the article with great interest. I’ve worked with two men since I’ve had this job — both retired, heavily-decorated U.S. Army four-star Generals — Wayne Downing and Barry McCaffrey. As I’m sure is obvious to even a casual viewer, I quickly entered into a close friendship with both men. I wish Wayne were alive today to respond to the article himself. [...] All I can say is this: these two guys never gave what I considered to be the party line. They were tough, honest critics of the U.S. military effort in Iraq. If you’ve had any exposure to retired officers of that rank (and we’ve not had any five-star Generals in the modern era) then you know: these men are passionate patriots. In my dealings with them, they were also honest brokers. I knew full well whenever either man went on a fact-finding mission or went for high-level briefings. They never came back spun, and never attempted a conversion. They are warriors-turned-analysts, not lobbyists or politicians.

In other words, NBC didn’t cover the story, originally published by The New York Times, because Williams looked into Wayne and Barry’s eyes and got a feeling for their dispassionate soul. This is your media, America.

Mark Ambinder thinks Obama’s database-building is “sophisticated” and offers the testimony of one of his own readers, TDE:

“I donated a small amount and supplied my work contact information below before the California primary. A few days later, I get a message on my home answering machine – not the numbers below and _not_ a listed number – thanking me for my support and inviting me to an event “at a neighbor’s house” two blocks from my house (miles away from the information I supplied below). I was not contacted at my work address. So they took my name from the donation and then located my unlisted home phone number and unprovided home address and put it in their database so they could contact me for a neighborhood meet up.”

Sophisticated? I do not think it means what you think it means. Try “creepy.”

Guest post by Grey

Al Sharpton to NY1, via Ben Smith:

As you know, I’ve been in the ministry of civil rights all my life but had dealings with entertainers because of James Brown. The worst thing in the world is when an entertainer doesn’t know when the show is over. The audience is gone, the lights are down, you’re getting ready to cut the mics off and you are still on the stage singing. It’s over, it’s all right, it’s over. Come sing another day, but this show is over, Sen. Clinton.

In your case, Al, the cleaning crew has emptied the ashtrays, taken out the trash, turned the chairs onto the tables, swept the floor, mopped it, vacuumed it, waxed it, gone on break, come back, and locked up. And you’re still inside, talking to the moth on the wall. Well?

Todd Beeton works out the math that comes along with Obama’s intention to declare some kind of victory on May 20. The numbers are not quite what his campaign says they are, and even Howard Dean, who is quoted in Beeton’s piece, seems uncertain. The total number of delegates needed depends on the fate of Michigan and Florida, a fate that will not be determined until May 31 (or later, should the Credential Committee get into it), when the Rules Committee will meet. As Todd says,

[T]here’s no getting around the fact that declaring victory with simply a majority of pledged delegates qualifies as moving the goal posts and changing the rules in the middle of the game, something Obama supporters have long chided the Clinton campaign for doing.

Hypocrisy has been part and parcel of the Obama campaign, but this isn’t it. This is declaring victory before having won; for a campaign that is often celebrated for its purported deftness, this strikes me as a rather foolish move, to say nothing of the calculated hubris.

DJShay gets “a shiver” courtesy of a friend of NBC’s Political Director Chuck Todd, who had this to say on Hardball today:

“Pennsylvania was an election of folks that were thinking about yesterday. North Carolina was sort of a future vote, that that is the future. You know, a tomorrow-type vote, a tomorrow-type of electorate.”

So, Chuck Todd’s “friend” had a thought, and Chuck brought it to Tweety, much the same way Maureen Dowd often finds “a woman friend” to share a thought about another woman, usually an insulting one, so that MoDo can then try to inoculate herself from all responsibility once the typically sexist drivel makes it into her op-eds. But I digress. Political analyst Chuck must have thought his friend’s opinion had merit, otherwise he would not have brought it to Hardball, and that opinion is that Pennsylvania voted for the past because it chose Clinton and North Carolina is all about the future because it picked Obama. That’s deep. And completely flawed. A better argument, and one that has the added bonus of not being intrinsically condescending, is that Pennsylvania and North Carolina have two different visions of what the future might look like. Then again, that kind or argument would not send a thrill anywhere near Tweety’s leg.

Hilary Rosen has had enough of the calls for Clinton to get out of the race and of the insinuation, made by “people who have never liked her and don’t know her” that what she actually means to do is tear the party apart and make it impossible for Obama to win in November (Is this a good time to note that, should Sen. Obama win the nomination, it’s not actually a given that he’ll be the next President? Because that’s all I’m reading today, and it’s only funny for the first four minutes):

I don’t know what Hillary Clinton will do in the next few weeks. But I do know that she is not going to take an unwinnable fight to the convention and spoil the party. She wants to beat John McCain in the fall. And she sincerely believes that she has the best chance to do so and that she would be a better president. However, if a majority of the superdelegates tell her in the ensuing days that they are going to be for Obama, then she will accept their decision. And she will resolve her campaign the way she has lived her entire career — with class, commitment and intelligence.

And that is the Hillary we all know.

Guest post by Grey

Ariel Alexovich rounds up the blogs for the Times and collects what seems to be the unanimous view of the blogospehere – with one very notable exception:

Blogger Taylor Marsh, an outspoken Clinton supporter, published a vehemently angry post, calling Mr. Russert, among other things, a “loud-mouthed, self-important elitist.” “Whose place is it to announce we have a nominee when neither candidate has enough delegates?” Ms. Marsh asked. “I’ll tell you who: no one.”

If you missed Taylor’s post today, go read it. In fact, go read it even if you already have because it’s one of the sweetest, most satisfying ass-kicking, ever.

John B. Judis says it’s over:

The Democratic primary is over. Hillary Clinton might still run in West Virginia and Kentucky, which she’ll win handily, but by failing to win Indiana decisively and by losing North Carolina decisively, she lost the argument for her own candidacy. She can’t surpass Barack Obama’s delegate or popular vote count. The question is no longer who will be the Democratic nominee, but whether Obama can defeat Republican John McCain in November. And the answer to that is still unclear.

This dance needs new moves. And a new abacus.

Jake Tapper has a To-Do list for Clinton. A few of the items will seem familiar to some of you:

4. Argue that Obama should have won Indiana; a post-game recalibration of expectations 5. Point to ugly exit poll data from Indiana showing 50% of Clinton supporters say they will not vote for Obama in the Fall 6. Push back on Obama “achievement” in Indiana that he lost white women by only 61%-39% — as opposed to larger losses in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Argue: What kind of crazy worldview is this? 8. MICHIGAN and FLORIDA …The number 2,025 no longer exists. 2,209…2,209…2,209… Make it a civil rights issue

Gosh, if only Sen. Clinton could think about doing any of that. And if only, when she did, the media were responsive, as opposed to ridiculing, and then didn’t pretend to come up with a To-Do list as though the items were original.

Craig Crawford asks the obvious question:

If Democratic superdelegates truly want Hillary Rodham Clinton to quit the nomination race, why don’t they just publicly endorse Barack Obama and get it over with? There are more than enough of them to make up the difference needed to give him the winning majority. Until she officially loses, Clinton has no reason to drop out. And if this fight goes all the way to the convention floor because Obama doesn’t have the required number of votes on record to formally claim the nomination, the blame falls on wimpy superdelegates — not her.

Eric Boehlert writes about “NBC’s bad week”; Boehlert chronicles Arianna Huffington’s invitation to promote her new book, Right is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe, and the way she was then summarily disinvited once NBC & Co. realized the book included several passages that are critical of Tim Russert. It doesn’t end there, and it only gets worse.

Jerome Armstrong has more on Indiana and correctly points out that Sen. Clinton won the gas tax debate.

Finally tonight, I want to end with a post by our very own Scan. He’s written about Sen. Clinton very movingly, very effectively, and I think that today is a good day to take another look at The One I’ve Been Waiting For.

Guest post by Grey

With a ridiculously worded subject line, Thomas Edsall reports that the Clinton campaign might use “the nuclear option” in order to count Michigan and Florida.

With at least 50 percent of the Democratic Party’s 30-member Rules and Bylaws Committee committed to Clinton, her backers could — when the committee meets at the end of this month — try to ram through a decision to seat the disputed 210-member Florida and 156-member Michigan delegations. Such a decision would give Clinton an estimated 55 or more delegates than Obama, according to Clinton campaign operatives. The Obama campaign has declined to give an estimate.

So, the DNC rules are acceptable only when they benefit Sen. Obama, and they get to be called “nuclear” when Sen. Clinton wants to use them? Let us all try to remember that DNC rule 20(c)(1) states that, If a “violation of timing” were to occur, then “the number of pledged delegates elected in each category allocated to the state pursuant to the Call for the National Convention shall be reduced by fifty (50%) percent, and the number of alternates shall also be reduced by fifty (50%) percent.” As it happens, it was the Rules and Bylaws Committee that decided to change the punishment from 50% to 100% so, if they were to rectify their very strange decision, I would find some poetic justice in that, wouldn’t you?

Craig Crawford wonders why Sen. Obama has “remained in attack mode” against Clinton in Indiana and North Carolina when that tactic didn’t work in Pennsylvania. I don’t mind negative ads, and they’re often effective, but Sen. Obama really should stop pretending he only goes negative after Clinton does because, one, it’s not true and, two, nobody cares about who goes first. If you’re going to do it, own it. Stop crying “uncle.”

Ben Smith covers a negative spot that is now running in Mississippi in which the Republicans link Travis Childers, a Democratic congressional candidate, to Sen. Obama. The main charge is that Childers lied about getting Obama’s endorsement, but it seems to me that the purpose of the ad is to try and hurt Childers with white voters.

Last Friday, Greta Van Susteren broke some news on the Ayers story and blogged about it after her show aired, but the media are not following up on it. SusanUnPC wants to know why, and so do I. Associations are legitimate issues, Sen. McCain continues to make this a question of judgment, and Sen. Obama is still clicking his heels to try and make this go away. It will not.

Andrew Sullivan suggests Sen. Clinton may now be running for Vice President. Don’t you love these men, trying to hand Clinton the keys to the Senate Majority Leader’s office, then of Gracie Mansion, and now of Number One Observatory Circle? If only she would drop out so that Obama could win! I don’t know what is on Sen. Clinton’s mind, but I doubt she’s running for VP, and am rather certain she’s running for the nomination because she believes she’d be a stronger candidate against Sen. McCain and dispatch him in the GE. I happen to think that’s true. Media types and bloggers alike would be far better served, and serve the rest of us far better, if they could only try to be a little more careful and a lot less patronizing and paternalistic. This is not a beauty run, and the media should let Clinton campaign without chiming in like a bunch of meddling, undisciplined children.

Chris Cillizza examines Clinton and Obama’s dueling gas-tax ads and concludes the debate is a matter of heart (Clinton) vs. head (Obama).

In Obama’s Chilly Spring, Howard Kurtz writes that “Obama aides, for their part, are somewhat taken aback” by recent media scrutiny, which is quite astonishing. What do they want, rose petals along the way? Toughen up, get some fortitude of whatever sort might apply, learn a lesson or two from the way Sen. Clinton has been dealing with the media (and the GOP) for the last 16 year and stop whining .

Mark Blumenthal takes a look at the demographics and argues that Obama’s slide in the polls is perhaps not due to lack of support, but to a more conservative African American voter turnout model.

Blumenthal’s theory leads to this article by Thomas F. Schaller, in which he argues that, had Sen. Clinton done better with African Americans and upped her percentage to 20, she would hold the lead in the popular vote even without including Michigan and Florida. He also says that she should have pursued black voters with more fervor even though, as Charlie Cook mantains in that same piece, “once Obama became perceived as a viable candidate by the African-American community — that is, after Iowa — Clinton never had a chance to get any significant black vote.” Both assertions seem to be true, which is what makes them practically mutually exclusive, but I do think that Sen. Clinton should make a more direct appeal to black voters, much the same way Sen. Obama is attempting to do with white, blue-collar voters.

What do you think?

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Blog Nightline
guest post by Grey

Craig Crawford on “Obama’s crowded bus”:

Maybe Sen. Obama should upgrade to a semi.

riverdaughter tells the DNC to “stuff it:”

I believe Sen. McCaskill has successfully auditioned for the role once played by Gen. Powell. At any moment, I expect she’ll roller blade out of the Senate while waving about her special superdelegate abacus.

Ben Smith has Rev. Jesse Jackson’s reaction to the Obama/Wright affair:

The circle is now complete; yesterday it was Sharpton’s turn, and today it’s Jackson’s. This is the only thing I want to know: in this duo, who is Batman, and who is Robin?

Jonathan Chait blogs about the “gas tax demagoguery” and lays out how Sen. Obama might benefit from it:

There are four points in the list, but I had to stop there because I’d like to know how candidate Obama can get past the “class split” when Clinton is out there telling people gas it too expensive and she wants to help (and hit the oil companies at the same time), while he’s waxing poetic about the gas tax only passing on a saving equivalent to a half tank. He’s not wrong on that, but there are two factors at work against him; first, we can generally rely on the American people to want immediate action no matter what the long-term consequences may be (not our finest trait, we can all agree) and, second, once you’re tagged as an “out of touch elitist,” sneering at a saving of a half tank is really not going to help you.

Andrew Sullivan is upset with the media, or maybe just with ABC:

Andrew. First, ABC extended the invitation to Sens. Obama and McCain, too. Second, are you teething?

Open thread.