Much of the liberal blogosphere is up in arms over Hillary Clinton's comments regarding white, working class voters.

To remove any doubt that her comments may have been misstatements or taken out of context, one need only look at similar comments from Clinton's chief strategist, Geoff Garin, yesterday. Garin was also pushing the "white vote" argument in the campaign's post-Indiana/North Carolina conference call with the media.

So the emphasis on "white voters" is no accident. It is part of Clinton's final "strategy" as her campaign enters its death spiral.

And who else but Bill Clinton to provide all the proof needed that this is, indeed, a "strategy"...

(more)

After spending the entire primary season bashing Barack Obama with lies, "radio host" Taylor Marsh (no, she does not have a radio show), today, began her pivot from Hillary-loving, Obama-hating, bile-spewer to "good Democrat."

The results could not have been funnier...

(more)

Too little attention was paid to Hillary Clinton's recent comment that the U.S. could "totally obliterate" Iran if Iran were ever to launch an attack on Israel.

Senator Clinton said:

"In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them," she said.

"That's a terrible thing to say but those people who run Iran need to understand that because that perhaps will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish and tragic," Clinton said.

Yes, Senator Clinton, that is terrible thing to say. And here's why...

(more)

This race will go on regardless of the outcomes of Indiana and North Carolina on Tuesday. (Oh, and Guam on Saturday!)

The reason Hillary Clinton is battling to the death in the face of insurmountable odds is because she knows that a Democrat will beat McCain in November. Any Democrat. Forget the head-to-head polls, the state-by-state polls, the inane "electability" arguments six months out from the general election.

We could nominate Daffy Duck and he'd whip McCain's sorry, old ass.

No wonder Joe Trippi is crying in his beer today about not telling John Edwards to stay in the race until the convention...

(more)

Now that Joe Lieberman has moved on, I am wondering if there is a bigger jackass in the elected Democratic ranks than good, ol' Evan Bayh.

Bayh has made a career out of being the Democrat who rips Democrats, especially anyone to his left which is just about everyone. Evan is the poster child for the Democratic Leadership Council and has been one of the most forceful advocates of the DLC's inane "more muscular foreign policy" hawkishness that brought us the Iraq war.

This is the same Evan Bayh who partnered with the despicable Rick Santorum in an effort to divert hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds to far right religious groups like Promise Keepers under the guise of "Healthy Marriages." (The bill failed but was later revived and passed.) Bayh's actions were particularly egregious because, had his bill passed, it would have funded these far right, "faith-based" organizations just before the 2004 general election.

In other words, the bill was a Karl Rove wet dream...

(more)

The political pundit class is regularly pilloried by the leading lights of the progressive blogosphere. Maureen Dowd, for example, is rightly ridiculed for her penchant to dwell on inanities rather than issues. David Broder, the "Dean" of the Beltway pundits, is mocked for his myopic, inside-the-Beltway vision of politics.

And the press, in general, is torn to shreds by top progressive bloggers for a variety of sins: getting facts wrong; focusing on side issues; failing to cover serious gaffes of a Republican frontrunner while giving overblown coverage to the smallest Democratic candidate misstep.

The performances of ABC's George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson in the last debate were horrendous, and progressive blog honchos (except for a few ardent Clinton backers) chastised the pair for their shallow, trivial circus act.

So one would think that top progressive bloggers, many of whom have been arguing that they are, indeed, journalists, would try and do better than the very media elites they so often criticize.

Oh, if only it were so...

(more)

Senator Joe McCarthy returns from the dead! And he has reappeared in the form of Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW) communication director and Clinton backer, Rick Sloan.

Edsall give the details at Huffington Post:

Clinton Backer Distributes Essay On How GOP Would Link Obama To '70s Radicals

A high-ranking labor supporter of Hillary Clinton is distributing to union leaders and to Democratic strategists a document detailing the radical activities of Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, two former members of the `70s group the Weather Underground, who decades later, in Chicago, crossed paths with Barack Obama.

The document - a three-page emailed essay by Rick Sloan, communications director for the International Association of Machinists as Aerospace Workers (IAMAW) -- takes both literary and political license to outline what Sloan believes would be the thrust of a hypothetical Republican campaign against Obama focusing on his tangential connection to Ayers and Dohrn.

The goal of the essay appears to be to discredit Obama as the prospective Democratic presidential nominee.

(more)

(Cross-posted at MyDD.)

As some folks know, Larry Johnson and his pal, susanhu (SusanUnPC) at the foul NoQuarter blog have been peddling this William Ayers garbage for months. And months. And more months. It was nice to see that they finally succeeded in getting someone in the media -- besides Hannity, Limbaugh or O'Reilly -- to ask "the tough questions" on Obama's relationship to `60's radical, Ayers.

Obama and Ayers served together on the board of The Woods Fund of Chicago from 1998 until 2001. Ayers was, and continues to be, a professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago and remains on the Fund's board. The Board of Trustees consists of 10 people, most of whom are academics or business leaders.

The foundation, for those who don't know, has a long history of doing great things for the underprivileged in Chicago, dating back to the Fund's founding in 1941.

(more)

(Cross-posted at MyDD.)

During this long primary campaign, Hillary Clinton has always been penned-in (no pun intended) by her own history. Years of being a target by media sources and Republicans raised her unfavorability numbers to near 50%, usually hovering around 45%-48%. This history makes it difficult for her to go on the attack because to do so plays directly into her unfavorables.

Clinton supporters have told me, over and over, that Clinton is a "known quantity," and, therefore, voters who don't like her already don't like her. In other words, her negative numbers were topped out.

Frankly, I never bought that argument. Her numbers could always go higher. And they have.

Which brings us to Obama's "bitter" comment...

(more)

(Cross-posted at MyDD.)

I know it has become conventional wisdom among the giant brains of Hillary backers that Barack Obama is personally responsible for stifling democracy in Florida and Michigan.

But do you mind if I ask a few questions?

• How is Obama personally responsible for the parties in Michigan and Florida moving up their primaries against the DNC rules?
• What role do the DNC sanctions have on the process?
• Were state party officials aware of the DNC sanctions and consequences?
• Who bears the greatest responsibility for the sanctions being imposed on these states, and, by extension, their voters? State officials, the DNC or Barack Obama?

(more)

(Cross-posted at MyDD.)

Just in over the wire...

Calipari suggests new rule be applied retroactively, giving Memphis win

(Sportswire, San Antonio)   John Calipari, head coach of the Memphis men's basketball team which lost the NCCA title game last night to Kansas, has called for a change in rules on three point shots to allow one foot of a shooter to be on or inside the three-point line at the time of the shot.

(more)

As kos points out in his current front-pager, the Clintonites in the Democratic Party are, once again, after Howard Dean's scalp. In reality, this has been a non-stop effort since the day Dean won the DNC chair and began instituting the 50-state strategy.

Following on the heels of ultimate Beltway insider, Terry McAuliffe, Dean's clearly articulated strategy of "building a bench" of qualified Democratic candidates at the local and state levels in every state was an anathema --  a threat, really -- to the cozy incestuousness of the Clinton-DLC-McAuliffe years when DNC money went McAuliffe pals in D.C.

Regardless of what one thinks of Obama, what we are witnessing may be the final struggle to define the party as the Clinton Party or the Democratic Party.

(more)

Reality bites. Very hard, apparently.

As Clinton's window continues to narrow, the bitterness and ugliness of some her backers has reached unprecedented levels. The rec list at MyDD is filled with vile diatribes, a number of which accuse Obama of being a racist:

Barack Obama is the George Wallace of the Left - This diary was the top-rated diary at My DD for most of the last day. It concludes with this line:

I could no more vote for Obama than I could vote for George Wallace, and the reasons are much the same.

The rest of the piece is equally as inspiring.

Also on the rec list most of yesterday and this morning was this fine piece of work by linfar, a steady spewer of Obama-hate going back months:

Typical White People

linfar includes this inspirational passage:

And I will not support a racist no matter what their color. You cannot tell me that all white people are racists and expect my vote. Hillary Clinton understands that.

Sense a pattern here?

(more)

Ah, the glory days! How we miss them!

James Carville, front and center, as the know-it-all political genius (married to the Republican public relations mastermind, Mary Matalin, who built the phony case for war in Iraq, to which Carville's good friend, Senator Hillary Clinton, subscribed).

The same James Carville who, today, reiterates his insult of fellow Democrat Bill Richardson for having the audacity to endorse Barack Obama.

[Author's note: Having read Carville's justification for reiterating his insult to Richardson, I have to ask... What has Hillary Clinton ever done for Richardson? Carville's piece seems to be all about how Bill Clinton boosted Richardson's career. Does that mean Richardson owes lifetime allegiance to  Bill's wife? Odd reasoning, indeed.]

Can we get enough of these guys in Washington? Carville, Terry McAuliffe, Mark Penn, the Clintons and their never-ending sagas and dramas?

Hey, superdelegates, can you please bring all of that back for us to enjoy?

(more)

(Cross-posted at MyDD.)

Peter Daou, the Clinton camp's online guru, has not had his incredible genius go unnoticed.

Earlier today, Daou posted this insightful rip on the idiocy of political pundits at the Clinton campaign's blog.

Every word, genius. And he is so right: Political pundits are idiots.

And then this afternoon, we discover Daou has "sent out another e-mail" touting Hillary Clinton's chances by citing... wait for it... a pundit!

This kind of hilarity has not gone unnoticed.

I have it on good authority that Jon Stewart has just now offered Daou a job as a staff writer at The Daily Show!

(more)

(Cross-posted at MyDD.)

Coincidence?

Yesterday, Hillary Clinton met with the very rightwing lunatic who spent millions of dollars trying to bring the Clintons down, including trying to connect Hillary to Vince Foster's death, Richard Mellon Scaife.

And today, the Clinton campaign (Phil Singer) leads off the day by circulating an article from loony rightwing rag and Scaife-funded, American Spectator that essentially calls Obama adviser, McPeak, an anti-semite and concludes that Obama "has a Jewish problem."

But the Scaife favors for Hillary didn't end there...

(more)

(Cross-posted at MyDD.)

Today, we get a report from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that quotes Hillary Clinton thusly on the matter of Reverend Wright:

"He would not have been my pastor," Clinton said. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."

...

"You know, I spoke out against Don Imus (who was fired from his radio and television shows after making racially insensitive remarks), saying that hate speech was unacceptable in any setting, and I believe that," Clinton said. "I just think you have to speak out against that. You certainly have to do that, if not explicitly, then implicitly by getting up and moving."

Keep in mind that a poll taken after Obama's speech on the matter showed that most voters (69%) thought Obama did a good job explaining his relationship to Wright. The poll was taken among all voters, so we can likely assume that Obama's speech was viewed even more favorably by Democrats.

(more)

(Cross-posted at MyDD.)

While much has been written about Clinton's Tuzla landing fable, the bigger picture of her exaggeration/fib goes well beyond undercutting her oft-repeated "Ready on day one" positioning.

According to a March 18 Gallup Poll, Clinton's Achilles Heel is that voters do not believe she is honest: