By Big Tent Democrat

Open Thread. No scurrilous rumormongering please.

Obama on the campaign trail today, explaining why he is experienced to be President:

"Look, I've lived overseas," said Obama. "I have family overseas. I have served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee."

I can't let that one pass. When did he live overseas? From the ages of 6 to 10 in Indonesia.

As to his service on the Foreign Relations Committee, do we need to mention again that the subcommittee on European Affairs that he chaired didn't hold a single hearing last year on NATO and Afghanistan, because he was too busy running for President?

Update: As Big Tent wrote earlier, there's good news for Hillary from the latest Texas and Ohio polls completed yesterday (More...):

By Big Tent Democrat

mcjoan has the details here, here and here:

It's developed from speculation to obliquely sourced possibility to pretty likely that the House is going to cave and give Bush his Protect AT&T Act. For no good reason at all.

Oh they have a reason - they are Democrats. And capitulating to the Republicans for the sake of High Broderist "post partisan unity" is what Democrats do. Anyone think Obama will change that? Me neither.

By Big Tent Democrat

Via Marc Ambinder, this is funny:

The Canadian Embassy and our Consulates General regularly contact those involved in all of the Presidential campaigns and, periodically, report on these contacts to interested officials. In the recent report produced by the Consulate General in Chicago, there was no intention to convey, in any way, that Senator Obama and his campaign team were taking a different position in public from views expressed in private, including about NAFTA. We deeply regret any inference that may have been drawn to that effect.

Um, Canada? There was no inference. It is what your memo says happened. And let's not be idiots, of course it happened. And of course it is true. Politics is politics people.

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

What is John Aravosis threatening?

So, what will the Republicans throw at Hillary in the fall? Lots. But I'm not going to detail those things today because I'm, surprisingly, still pulling punches with regards to what I write about Hillary. I don't want to damage Hillary should she become our nominee, as increasingly unlikely as that appears. I don't want to write about very real scandals in Hillary's past, scandals that we will be forced to revisit for the next 8 months, and 8 years. I don't want to write about the rumors about Bill that no one has written about to date, even though the rumors include lots of details which are at least just as true as Obama being a Muslim.

(Emphasis supplied.) I really liked the "at least as true as Obama being a Muslim" part. Obama is not a Muslim. So is Aravosis threatening to print lies? And what is his purpose in doing so? BTW, does Aravosis REALLY think he has something that has not been printed by the Right Wing Noise Machine? But I urge John to print his charges, if he has evidence of them. We can read the lies about Hillary anywhere. But real issues should ALL be aired. Don't pull your punches John. Let it hang out.

Note, comments closed.

Former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson (husband of Valerie Plame Wilson) writes in Huffington Post that Obama has shown "hollow" judgment on foreign affairs and has an empty record.

Among the points Wilson makes on Obama's 2002 statement on the Iraq War is one already conceded by Obama: that had he been in the Senate in 2003 and privy to the NIE and other information that the Senators were, he doesn't know how he would have voted:

During the 2002-2003 timeframe, he was a minor local official uninvolved in the national debate on the war so we can only judge from his own statements prior to the 2008 campaign. Obama repeated these points in a whole host of interviews prior to announcing his candidacy. On July 27, 2004, he told the Chicago Tribune on Iraq: "There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage." In his book, The Audacity of Hope, published in 2006, he wrote, "...on the merits I didn't consider the case against war to be cut-and- dried." And, in 2006, he clearly said, "I'm always careful to say that I was not in the Senate, so perhaps the reason I thought it was such a bad idea was that I didn't have the benefit of US intelligence. And for those who did, it might have led to a different set of choices."

More...

ABC News runs with the headline today, Obama: Witness for the Defense? The article has no facts, and is based on the opinion of one lawyer -- a federal prosecutor who was part of the team that prosecuted former Ill. Gov. George Ryan in 2006. Since the Ryan case, he's left the Government and has been a defense lawyer for a total of one year.

He says,

Sen. Barack Obama could be called as a witness for his longtime friend and accused Illinois fixer Tony Rezko, according to Chicago lawyers following the case.

...."I think it's realistic that that could happen during the trial," said Zach Fardon, a former Chicago federal prosecutor who was part of the team that convicted former Illinois Gov. George Ryan on corruption charges.

His theory: [More...]

By Big Tent Democrat

Note, this post has been corrected.

The latest PPP Texas poll has Clinton ahead 50-44, due to huge Latino advantage for Clinton.

I'll be updating this post with other Texas polling. As blogged earlier, Zogby has Obama up 3. Ras has it 48-47 Obama. Public Strategies has a 46-46 tie.

The world's greatest pollster, SUSA has Obama's lead in Texas slipping from 50-46 to 49-48:

Obama's momentum now slowed, and possibly stalled, according to SurveyUSA's final pre-Primary poll. . . . Now, Obama leads by 6/10ths of 1 point, effectively tied, and completely consistent with either candidate winning tomorrow by a narrow margin.

By Big Tent Democrat

From Obama

From Clinton:

For those wondering, the Obama ad is not available on YouTube. More . . .

By Big Tent Democrat

On a Media conference call, Clinton advisors were really touting the 3AM ad and arguing that it is working -- that voters are now focusing on the who is ready to be Commander in Chief question. One assumes they have polling that we do not.

In addition, they hammered the NAFTA question and the Obama advisor Goolsbee meeting with the Canadian consulate in Chicago. Howard Wolfson referred to it as NAFTA-Gate. In essence, Wolfson accused the Obama campaign of saying one thing in public in Ohio and something differently in private. Wolfson also stressed the dissembling from the Obama camp on the meeting. He pointed out that the Obama camp denied the meeting, then denied that even if there was a meeting, a discussion of NAFTA was denied. In essence, Wolfson is calling them dishonest. Me, I call them politicians and political operatives. That is what they ALL do.

MORE . . .

By Big Tent Democrat

The new world's greatest pollster, Survey USA, has a new Ohio poll out showing Hillary Clinton extending her lead in Ohio from 6 to 10:

Hillary Clinton appears to stop the momentum of Barack Obama by converting voters focused on health care. . . . At the wire, it's Clinton 54%, Obama 44% . . . One week ago, Clinton led by 6. . . .

[T]he 16 minutes that Clinton spent arguing with Obama about health care at this week's NBC News debate appears to have paid off. Slightly more voters now name health care as the most important issue, and among those who do, Clinton today leads by 24 points, up from a 7-point lead last week.

By Big Tent Democrat

Why won't Paul Krugman just shut up about Obama? Does he not not know of the power of UNITY? Apparently not:

After their victory in the 2006 Congressional elections, it seemed a given that Democrats would try to make this year’s presidential campaign another referendum on Republican policies. After all, the public appears fed up not just with President Bush, but with his party. . . .

. . . But a funny thing happened on the way to the 2008 election. Unless Hillary Clinton wins big on Tuesday, Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee. And he’s not at all the kind of candidate one might have expected to emerge out of the backlash against Republican governance.

. . . Mr. Obama, instead of emphasizing the harm done by the other party’s rule, likes to blame both sides for our sorry political state. And in his speeches he promises not a rejection of Republicanism but an era of postpartisan unity.

Clearly, Krugman does not agree with Mark Schmitt on Obama's theory of change.