By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

The pro-Obama blog Huffington Post (with an assist from the Obama campaign?) appears to have taken Hillary Clinton's bait on the Wright issue. Sam Stein reports:

[T]he pastor at the church that Clinton did once attend has recently expressed public support for Wright. He's even proclaimed it a "grave injustice" to make a judgment on Wright based off of "two or three sound bites," and criticized those who would "use a few of [Wright's] quotes to polarize."

Not sure what the point of this story is (that Hillary's ex-pastor disagrees with her on Wright? So what?), but I do know this is the LAST story Barack Obama wants to have driving the news narrative today. Now Hillary has a good excuse to continue discussing Wright. She gets to be anti-Wright while Obama gets reinforced as being pro-Wright.

I imagine Hillary Clinton is thrilled that Huff Po detests her so much that they will push this anti-Obama issue in order to try and get at Hillary Clinton.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

When the Media and the Left blogs deplore the negativity of the Democratic presidential campaign, especially from the Clinton campaign, they ignore that they are a major reason why it has happened. Why? Because they attack the Clinton campaign no matter what it does while ignoring or defending every negative attack and questionable tactic of the Obama campaign.

The examples are legion. There is not an ounce of doubt that it was the campaigns challenging Hillary Clinton last fall that first engaged in negative attacks. The Media and some of the Left blogs were imploring the Barack Obama campaign to do that and certainly not a single word of reproach was written about it.

Led by Tim Russert and Brian Williams in the October 2007 debate, and followed eagerly by the entire NBC network and many Left blogs, the attacks on Hillary Clinton, especially on her character, were applauded on a daily basis. More.

Apropos of former NYC Mayor Ed Koch's op-ed today on Barack Obama's comments about Rev. Jeremiah Wright in his race speech. Koch notes that Obama's young daughters attend the church. Hate is taught. Are Wright's hate-filled sermons something he thought it was okay for them to hear and learn?

Why subject your children to the politics of hate?

This is an open thread. Please remember to be civil and respect the comment rules.

Update: Comments at 200 and now closed.

Harris County (Houston, TX) Clerk Beverly Kaufman today turned over 1,167 names of voters suspected of voting in more than one primary to the District Attorney.

Some of them, she says, voted in both the Democratic and Republican primaries. Others, she says, voted twice in the same primary.

“I’m convinced that there are some instances where people had strong feeling on both sides of the aisle where they wanted to vote for a candidate on both ballots thinking they wouldn’t get caught,” Kaufman said.

The DA will investigate. Was it confusion or voter fraud?

“Those people who actually voted in the Republican primary and then tried to mess with Democratic primary committed crimes, and they should be prosecuted,” said Gerry Birnberg, who is the Harris County Democratic Chair.

The sniping continued today between the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaigns.

Hillary says she mispoke about her Bosnia trip. Obama aides pounce. Hillary aides pounce back.

After Mr. Obama’s campaign mocked her Tuesday for her misstatements, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign went on the offensive, citing news reports that identified instances where Mr. Obama had exaggerated.

“Senator Obama has called himself a constitutional professor, claimed credit for passing legislation that never left committee and apparently inflated his role as a community organizer, among other issues,” said a Clinton spokesman, Phil Singer. “When it comes to his record, just words won’t do.”

McCain's aides took a more sensible approach:

A senior adviser to the presumptive Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, cited the Democratic skirmishing to note that politicians sometimes made misstatements.

This is such a non-story for me, but it's in the news, so if you want to discuss it, go ahead, beat it to death.

Rush Limbaugh got a little worked up today about Dan Abrams and my criticism of his "Operation Chaos" plot in Ohio to get Republicans to register as Dems to sway the Ohio vote.

As I listened to Dan Abrams and Jeralyn Merritt, don't you know that Josef Stalin would be so proud? Stalin would be trying to get out of that grave of his, and join the fray. This is exactly the kind of stuff that Stalin had in mind.

He says he thinks I should be defending him instead of calling his plan despicable.

Well, Rush, I did defend you here on TalkLeft more than once when you had your past legal troubles. Drug addiction is a disease and no one, not even you, should go to jail for it. Sorry I can't say the same about possible election fraud.

Even so, to set the record straight, while I explained what it would take to charge a voter or Rush and opined that if prosecutors could make the case they should prosecute to deter others from engaging in the same conduct, I didn't say I thought they had a case or that Rush should be convicted and jailed. Or that the government should spy on people's private internet communications. [More...]

Rev. Wright will not be speaking in Tampa this weekend after all.

The Rev. Earl Mason cited security concerns and said the three-night revival featuring Wright was turning into an "event" and media circus, rather than the celebration of the church's 10th anniversary that it was intended to be, so Mason asked him to stay in Chicago.

Good. Perhaps now we can get back to important issues like universal health care and ending the war in Iraq and how to count the votes of the 2.2 million voters in Florida and Michigan.

Rev. Wright is a distraction. Focusing on him puts us right in the midst of the Republican playbook. If he weren't Barack Obama's pastor, his remarks would be a blip on the radar screen.

Update: Comments mow closed.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

In my humble opinion, Hillary Clinton makes a grave mistake wading into the Wright waters:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a wide-ranging interview today with Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporters and editors, said she would have left her church if her pastor made the sort of inflammatory remarks Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor made. "He would not have been my pastor," Clinton said. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."

Previously Clinton has steadfastly avoided discussing the Wright issue. Rightly in my view. Of course it was no doubt frustrating to her campaign that she did not receive any credit for taking the high road here, but it is still is a grave mistake to now discuss the issue. I am disappointed that she chose to discuss it. Bad show Hillary.

Update (TL): Comments now closed, there's a new thread on Wright up.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

Does anyone believe this is a persuasive argument about the Florida/Michigan situation?

[T]he main obstacle to a satisfactory resolution of the Florida/Michigan situation is that Clinton continues to be in the race. . . . Only the fact that Hillary Clinton is trying to use the seating of the improperly selected delegates to actually overturn the results of the legitimate nominating process is creating a crisis situation that threatens Democratic prospects in the fall.

(Emphasis supplied.) Yet again an elitist blogger tells us that the problem is that Florida and Michigan Dems just do not understand what he understands. In the process he labels enfranchising the voters of Michigan and Florida as "overturning the results of the legitimate nominating process." Whoa. I can tell you from my personal encounters with Florida Dems (I am in Florida a good deal now) that they would deeply resent what they would perceive as ignorance from this elitist blogger. I urge Obama supporters to steer clear of this argument. Adopting this argument would be digging the hole even deeper.

Law Prof Paul Caron has examined the tax returns released by Barack Obama today for the years 2000 to 2006. You can read the returns over at his blog.

What is surprising, given the recent controversy over Obama's membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ, is how little the Obamas apparently gave to charity -- well short of the biblical 10% tithe for all seven years. In two of the years, the Obamas gave far less than 1% of their income to charity; in three of the years, they gave around 1% of their income to charity. Only in the last two years have they given substantially more as their income skyrocketed -- 4.7% in 2005 and 6.1% in 2006. (Of course, it is possible that the Obamas may have made gifts to other worthy causes that were not deductible for federal income tax purposes.)

An online petition drive by Florida and Michigan voters to have their delegates seated so their votes count has generated 8,500 signatures so far. The goal is 10,000. The petition will be delivered to Howard Dean and the DNC.

2.2 million voted in Florida and Michigan. The petition argues: [More...]

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only

Kos responds:

[I]f the supers overturn the popular will by siding with Clinton, they will spur civil war ("up in arms", as Armando says) -- not because they broke a rule in pulling off their coup, but because they will have subverted the will of the party electorate.

Here Markos and I agree. If Obama is the pledged delegate leader and the popular vote leader (as me, Kos and a cast of a thousand bloggers, NBC, etc, expect), then any action by the super delegates to subvert such a result would be outrageous and wrong, imo of course. But as Kos acknowledges, NOT against the rules. It won't happen. More . . .