Is this a VP audition?

Clark offered opinions on the current state of American foreign policy, the Democrats' emergence as a more "full-service" party on security issues, and -- lest anyone doubt his potential use as a running mate for Obama -- the shortcomings of Sen. John McCain.

"I know he's trying to get traction by seeking to play to what he thinks is his strong suit of national security," Clark said of McCain while speaking from his office in Little Rock, Arkansas. "The truth is that, in national security terms, he's largely untested and untried. He's never been responsible for policy formulation. He's never had leadership in a crisis, or in anything larger than his own element on an aircraft carrier or [in managing] his own congressional staff. It's not clear that this is going to be the strong suit that he thinks it is."

In my opinion, and I have long been a Clark fan, if it can work electorally, Clark should get a long look for the VP slot.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

This is pretty funny from someone who joined the League of Outraged Bloggers Against Hillary Clinton:

. . . [W]e're right now in the middle of a major presidential campaign. The campaign, as campaigns tend to be, is waged by big league politicians. And I've heard Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and all the rest all try to mislead the voters on a whole variety of subjects over the course of the months. Nobody finds this particularly shocking. Indeed, anyone who doesn't recognize that there's a lot of BS and hocus pocus out there on the campaign trail would be dismissed as a naive child.

(Emphasis supplied.) Best check the archives of the A-List Obama blogs for the past 6 months. Seems like there were a lot of naive children blogging out there.

Speaking for me only

Overall, I don't have any strong feelings about who Obama ought to pick right now — though I don't think either Hillary Clinton or John Edwards would be good choices (and I'm not sure either of them wants the job), and I'm not keen on Webb either. Based on a fairly low information "blink" kind of test, I guess my top picks right now are Joe Biden and Kathleen Sebelius. But I could be pretty easily converted to half a dozen other candidates too.

I am curious, because Kevin does not explain it, why does he think Hillary Clinton would not be a good choice and why does he think Joe Biden or Kathleen Sebelius would be good choices? He sort of explains why he thinks Jim Webb would not be a good choice:

Might as well stick with the theme of the day.

This is an open thread.

Former NBA ref Tim Donaghy, awaiting sentence on charges of conspiracy to engage in wire fraud and transmitting betting information through interstate commerce, alleges in a letter to the court that NBA referees extended the 2002 Lakers-Kings Western Conference finals to seven games to maximize NBA revenues.

NBA commissioner David Stern vehemently denied the allegations, saying they are the desperate act of a convicted felon. He also disclosed that the league has already briefed members of the U.S. Congress on certain facets of the Donaghy investigation.

Expect Congress to halt work on substantive issues so that emergency hearings can address the latest scandal in the world of professional sports.

John McCain is going after the Jewish vote. He's attracting some major Democratic donors, including one who gave $80,000. to the DNC in 2000. Why? Israel.

Jewish Democrats are concerned about Obama for several reasons. While stumping in Iowa last year, Obama told Democratic activists, “Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people.”

Some Jewish voters interpreted the statement as a sign that Obama would be overly sympathetic to the Palestinian side in future peace negotiations with Israel. And some are concerned about a senior Obama adviser’s comments regarding the influence of American Jews on foreign policy. Merrill “Tony” McPeak, the former Air Force chief of staff, told the Portland Oregonian newspaper in 2003 that the political influence of the Jewish community had hampered efforts to negotiate peace in the Middle East.

More...

Barack Obama privately met with religious leaders in Chicago today. His spokesperson Jen Psaki told reporters on the campaign plane today:

Reaching out to the faith community is a priority for Barack Obama and will be a priority under an Obama Administration. This is one of several meetings he will have over the coming months with religious leaders....He's done it before. He'll do it again.

He did it in South Carolina, here's his mailer(pdf).

As for who was present at the meeting, it was a combination Evangelicals, Mainline Protestants and Catholics. Among them: [More...]

Libertarian candidate for President Bob Barr has written his first post at Huffington Post. He says he was wrong about the war on drugs. He now realizes it has been a failure.

I'll admit it, just five years ago I was "Public Enemy Number 1" in the eyes of the Libertarian Party. In my 2002 congressional race for Georgia's Seventh District, the Libertarian Party ran scathing attack ads against my stand on Medical Marijuana.

....For years, I served as a federal prosecutor and member of the House of Representatives defending the federal pursuit of the drug prohibition.

Today, I can reflect on my efforts and see no progress in stopping the widespread use of drugs. I'll even argue that America's drug problem is larger today than it was when Richard Nixon first coined the phrase, "War on Drugs," in 1972.

More...

Shermanesque:

Asked on NPR's "All Things Considered" if he is auditioning to be Obama's running mate, [Ohio Governor Ted] Strickland said, "Absolutely not. If drafted I will not run, nominated I will not accept and if elected I will not serve.

By Big Tent Democrat

From an email I just received from the DNCC:

To kick-off Convention week in a spirit of unity, the DNCC, in conjunction with the Democratic Party's Faith in Action (FIA) Initiative, will host an interfaith gathering on Sunday, August 24th, beginning at 2:00 PM at the Wells Fargo Theater located in the Colorado Convention Center.

This is the first time a celebration of this nature has been part of a Democratic National Convention and is symbolic of the Party's desire to bring multiple communities together under its "big tent." The gathering will include clergy of different faiths, Party leaders, elected officials and local community leaders. Speakers and musical guests will be announced later this summer. The event will be open to the public.

This has been in the works for a while. [More...]

I'm not into post-mortems and haven't and won't be writing any about Hillary's campaign. As I said Saturday, I'm moving forward, just like she asked us to. But I like this part of Richard Cohen's column today in the Washington Post and thought I'd share it:

I often had more problems with her critics than I did with her. Some of them, clearly, needed to be medicated.

Now, though, an eerie silence has settled over the land. With Hillary Clinton out of the race, thousands of computer keyboards have been stilled, dozens of books have been abandoned in mid-chapter, and enormously influential bloggers, most of them unknown to me, have vanished from the Web. Some anti-Hillary obsessives (see the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) must be feeling the sickening vertigo once experienced by Vaughn Meader, whose entire show business career was based on impersonating John F. Kennedy and who, in essence, died when Kennedy did.

It's over, ladies and gentlemen. Hillary Clinton lost. And so did you.

The hateful attacks that have appeared in comments at TalkLeft have slowed down. My intolerance for those who continue to post them has risen. I'm erasing these users rather than deleting their comments one by one. Life is too short to be consumed by irrational hate.

(Comments now closed.)

Could legislative mindsets really be changing? Raymond Lesniak, a New Jersey state legislator, regretted his 1982 vote to reinstate the death penalty.

He did so, he says, not because he thought it was right, but because he was afraid that if he did not support capital punishment, the voters would punish him. Over time, Mr. Lesniak, a Union County Democrat who rose to the State Senate in 1983, became haunted by his decision, by the immorality of putting people to death, and by the possibility that an innocent person would be executed under the law that he supported.

New Jersey abolished the death penalty last year, a legislative accomplishment that Lesniak championed. What about his fear of being punished by voters who might think him "soft on crime"?

Mr. Lesniak’s constituents were not nearly as angry with him as he had feared. He concluded that elected officials are much freer than they believe to vote their conscience.

Sometimes leaders need to lead. It's easy to take opinion polls and to play it safe, but on an issue of life and death, it isn't a bad thing for a politician to vote his conscience ... assuming he has one.