Hillary’s Voice

My pre-debate prediction (by myiq2xu at Corrente)
I predict that regardless of what actually happens during tonight’s debate, immediately afterwards (if not sooner) the Boiz will hit the comments throughout Left Blogistan to proclaim that Obama not only won, he blew Hillary away. “He was masterful, magnificent, and most excellent! Hillary was shrill, shrieking and super old-looking. The election is over!” Anyone want to bet? (8pm EST on CNN)

Barack Obama can thank ‘citizen journalist’ for ‘bitter’ tempest
Mayhill Fowler … concedes that her early reports from the Democratic presidential campaign trail didn’t produce anything particularly newsworthy. But that all changed Friday, when her report on Barack Obama’s statements about small-town Americans — that job losses cause them to become “bitter” and to “cling to guns or religion” or other views — thrust the 61-year-old Oakland woman into a political storm that continued to rage Monday. Her article caused his election opponents to charge him with elitism, and it exposed the neophyte “citizen journalist” to waves of vitriol… Fowler said Monday that she had received about 200 e-mail messages that ranged from “creepy to threatening,” including a few death threats from purported Obama supporters.

Hey, Obama boys: Back off already! (Salon)
Young women are growing increasingly frustrated with the fanatical support of Barack and gleeful bashing of Hillary.

Didn’t I tell you?  From time to time, Obama reveals his true self.  He obviously has utter disdain for Senator Clinton.

Remember, he turned away from her at the State of the Union address, refusing to shake her hand.

Clinton Remarks on Trade From Pittsburgh
SEN. HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, D-N.Y.: We also need to immediately and aggressively crack down on China’s unfair trade practices. China should be a trade partner, not a trade master. I’ll start with currency manipulation. It is outrageous that China and other countries continue to manipulate their currencies to put our goods at a disadvantage. I’ve already cosponsored legislation to crack down on currency manipulation as president and I will finish the job. I’m also going to provide real relief for U.S. industries hurt by surges of Chinese imports. I’m talking about the special China safeguard in our trade laws, Section 421, which was a precondition for letting China join the WTO. The idea behind these safeguards is simple: Protect American manufacturers from being disadvantaged by an influx of Chinese goods into the American markets.

Obama questions Clinton on free trade
PITTSBURGH - Democratic Sen. Barack Obama on Monday questioned rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s opposition to free trade agreements that some voters contend have eliminated thousands of U.S. jobs and mocked her weekend visit to an Indiana bar as pandering to the working class.
Does that sound like a frontrunner?  And do we ever hear him offer his own policy proposals?  Only when he’s plagiarizing Clinton’s plans.  And how’s that strategy working out for you, Senator Obama?  See below.

Obama’s responses to controversy may be hurting him
[A]mid signs that the controversy is hurting Obama in Pennsylvania — one poll out yesterday showed Clinton opening up a double-digit lead again — some analysts are questioning whether all of Obama’s talking now is only helping to keep the story alive… Clinton … released a new ad yesterday featuring supporters in Pennsylvania blasting Obama’s comments that small-town voters “cling to” religion and guns in bad economic times. “It just shows how out of touch Barack Obama is,” says one man in the ad. But in one clear sign that Republicans also believe Obama’s comments would hurt him in the fall election, the John McCain camp yesterday sent out a fundraising letter to supporters with the postscript: “We cannot allow this elitist philosophy to make it into the White House.”

American Research Group

Indiana Men, Democrats, & Young Voters Move Away From Obama:
In a Democratic Primary in Indiana today, 04/14/08, three weeks until the primary, Hillary Clinton defeats Barack Obama 55% to 39%, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted for WCPO-TV Cincinnati and WHAS-TV Louisville. Compared to an identical SurveyUSA poll released two weeks ago, Clinton is up 3 points, Obama is down 4 points.

Did Obama’s remarks make Pennsylvania voters bitter? (McClatchy)
WASHINGTON — Barack Obama lashed out at his Democratic and Republican presidential rivals Monday for calling him an elitist, and spent another crucial campaign day trying to explain his comment implying that white gun owners and churchgoers are bitter about their lives. Democratic rival Hillary Clinton made sure that the comments stayed in the spotlight, and presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain joined the fray. In Pennsylvania, the site of the next big electoral test April 22, the impact of the firestorm on Obama remained unclear, however.
I guess McClatchy isn’t watching the polls.  They’ve been strangely willing to write positive things about Obama and negative things about Clinton.

TOO DEPRESSING: (by Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler)
Are Obama’s comments worth discussing? On the merits, we’d have to say they pretty much aren’t—like 90 percent of what gets discussed in our political discourse. But here comes a fact about electoral politics, a fact which often escapes liberal observers: Elections aren’t about what we at THE HOWLER may think. Elections are about the values, views, outlooks and reactions of 100 million-plus voters—people who may not see the world in the way we do. What will voters think about this flap? We have no way of knowing. But it’s depressing to see how many liberals seem to have no earthly idea what issues may be at play in this matter. This cluelessness has badly harmed progressive interests since the late 1960s. It’s depressing to see how widespread it is around the liberal web.

What’s the Matter With Obama? (by Mickey Kaus at Slate)
Yes, he’s condescending. It’s not just that in explaining everyone to everyone Obama winds up patronizing everyone. He doesn’t patronize everyone equally. Specifically, he regards the views of these Pennsylvanians as epiphenomena–byproducts of economic stagnation–in a way he doesn’t regard, say, his own views as epiphenomena… Once the Pennsylvanians get some jobs back, they’ll change and become as enlightened as Obama or the San Franciscans to whom he was talking. That’s the clear logic of his argument. Superiority of this sort–not crediting the authenticity and standing of your subject’s views–is a violation of social equality, which is a more important value for Americans than money equality. Liiberals tend to lose elections when they forget that.

Obama would ask his AG to “immediately review” potential of crimes in Bush White House (by Will Bunch at Attytood, the Philadelphia Inquirer)
“What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my Attorney General immediately review the information that’s already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued. I can’t prejudge that because we don’t have access to all the material right now. I think that you are right, if crimes have been committed, they should be investigated. You’re also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt because I think we’ve got too many problems we’ve got to solve. So this is an area where I would want to exercise judgment — I would want to find out directly from my Attorney General — having pursued, having looked at what’s out there right now — are there possibilities of genuine crimes as opposed to really bad policies.”
And there it is.  Your typical, mealy-mouthed B.S. from the junior senator from Illinois.  It sounds very much like his 2002 so-called anti-war speech, where he said he isn’t against all wars, only “dumb” wars.  But he never said he was against the IRAQ WAR.

‘Terrorist’ link puts Barack Obama under fire
A PAST association with a former terrorist has returned to haunt Barack Obama as the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination nears its end game. Republicans are turning on Obama for his connection with William Ayers, once a member of the Weather Underground, a terrorist group that bombed the Capitol, the Pentagon and the State Department in the 1970s… Larry Johnson, a former counterterrorism official at the CIA said: “They’re going to kill him with this. The guy is an unrepentant terrorist, so please, Barack Obama, explain why you aligned yourself with him. It is a fundamental question of judgment.
That is the same Larry Johnson who owns the blog No Quarter, from which I frequently post.

Obama mentioned at Rezko trial (The Swamp, Chicago Tribune)
Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama’s name came up again at the Antoin “Tony” Rezko corruption trial today in Chicago and in a way that earlier filings in the case did not telegraph. Stuart Levine, the prosecution’s star witness, said he and Obama were at a party Rezko threw at his Wilmette mansion on April 3, 2004, for Nadhmi Auchi, a controversial Iraqi-born billionaire who Rezko was trying to get to invest in a South Loop real-estate development. Auchi, now a citizen of the United Kingdom, has faced criminal charges in Europe… The Rezko party in 2004 was designed to induce Auchi to pour money into the South Loop investment. Obama’s presence at the party was not previously known. At the time, Obama was fresh off a surprise win in the Illinois Democratic primary for U.S. Senate and was riding a crest of national publicity.

Clinton Surrogate Bob Johnson Says Ferraro Was Right, Obama Only Is Where He Is Because He’s Black (by Jake Tapper at Political Punch, ABC News)
Billionaire Bob Johnson, the founder of BET, last seen publicly raising Sen. Barack Obama’s youthful drug use, then denying it, then apologizing for it, has stepped into the spotlight again. In an interview with the Charlotte Observer, Johnson says that former vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro was right. If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position,” she said, just before the resulting firestorm forced her to step down as an adviser to Obama rival Hillary Clinton.
Bob Johnson is black, so don’t go calling him a racist.  Obama has said the same thing himself.  This is from a Chicago Tribune article that is posted on Obama’s website: “Obama acknowledges, with no small irony, that he benefits from his race. If he were white, he once bluntly noted, he would simply be one of nine freshmen senators, almost certainly without a multimillion-dollar book deal and a shred of celebrity. Or would he have been elected at all?”  That’s why the flap over Ferraro’s remarks was so ridiculous.  Oh, and John Kerry said, not long after Ferraro’s statement, “the color of Obama’s skin makes him uniquely qualified for president and even reach out to the moderate Islam world.” (Click here for a link to the video.)

A Lapsed Principle
What happened to Barack Obama’s promise to rely on public financing in the general election?

Davis Apologizes: ‘A poor choice of words’ (by Ben Smith at Politico)
Rep. Geoff Davis, moving to contain the damage of a Saturday night reference to Barack Obama as a “boy” whose finger shouldn’t be on the nuclear button, has apologized.
So, what other words will we not be allowed to use, because they might offend The Anointed One?

God and GOP (by Martin Gale at Corrente)
Yet another friendly story about McCain [skipping the Faith in Public Life’s Compassion Forum]. If A Dem has skipped that forum, it would have been turned into an instant mini-scandal by the press. McCain skipped it, and it’s because he’s “private about his faith”; and he “comes from an older generation, one that is more private about its faith.” They throw in a few obligatory lines about battle to remind everyone of what a Great Hero Great McCain is, (what “battles” has McCain fought in?… Turn the article around — make it about Obama or Clinton — and the entire tone would have been radically changed. Suddenly, the candidate would be “risking the appearance of being indifferent to the concerns of the religious,” “tone deaf on the issue of faith,” “foolish,” and Joe Klein and his pals would rush articles into print titled “What was he/she thinking?” with the subtext “I don’t care about this, but the voters….”

Lots more really good stuff at MakeThemAccountable.com.

Carolyn Kay
MakeThemAccountable.com