By Big Tent Democrat

Jamison Foser explains:

When The New York Times ran a 2,000-word article about the state of the Clintons' marriage in May of 2006, the paper passed on gossip about Bill Clinton and a Canadian politician named Belinda Stronach. . . . Chris Matthews, among others, loved -- loved -- the article. He discussed it again and again and again on Hardball. He -- approvingly -- described it as a warning from The New York Times to Clinton that "he better watch it" and "behave himself." . . .In short, Matthews did not criticize the Times article; he endorsed it.

More...

I guess Obama supporters don't support the right of other groups to get a message out to voters. (Background here.) Via the Wall St. Journal:

Three supporters of the Illinois Democrat mailed a complaint to the Federal Election Commission today charging that the pro-Clinton organization is violating election laws.

This is designed to create negative press for Hillary. How do we know that?

It is highly unlikely that the Obama supporters will get what they want from the FEC any time soon. For one, the FEC is notoriously slow. It took three years to settle similar complaints lodged against independent political entities that ran advertisements in the 2004 election.

For another: [More...]

By Big Tent Democrat

Via Chris Bowers, Obama "defends" liberalism. But Chris notices that Obama does not, um, actually defend liberalism:

How, exactly, is this considered defending the liberal label? I looked around for a transcript to see if there were other parts of the speech that I missed, but I was unable to find one. So, looking just at what NBC reporter Aswini Anburajan transcribed, I fail to see how this is in any way defending the "liberal" label. In fact, the transcription indicates that Obama is actually taking some of the more popular positions often associated with being "liberal" in America, and defining those positions as "common sense" instead of as "liberal." Further, in so doing, he appears to be defining himself as something other than a liberal. Overall, not only is that not defending the liberal label, but it seems to be draining the common American usage of the word liberal of many of its most positive aspects, and then distancing himself from being labeled a liberal. So, he distances himself from the term, and then makes the term seem even less appealing. How Aswini Anburajan interprets this as defending "liberal label" is beyond me.

How about that Chris? I am shocked that Obama denigrated liberalism. Aren't you? My question is how did Obama decide to discuss this anyway? What was that about?

Update: It's a do-over. They will hold another one at later date.

****

As noted earlier, the county delegates to the Nevada state convention were to be selected today. Those selected at local caucuses aren't binding. Both the Obama and Hillary camps did their best to get their delegates out today.

Most primaries and some Democratic caucuses are binding, meaning that national delegates won by the candidates must pledge to support them at the national convention this summer. Some high-profile caucuses, however, are just the beginning of a multistep process of selecting national convention delegates. In Nevada, precinct caucuses were held Jan. 19 to select delegates to county conventions this weekend. The county conventions will select delegates to the state convention in May.

The national delegates are elected at the state convention — the third step of the process. If all the delegates for each candidate show up at every step, the national delegates awarded Jan. 19 will remain unchanged. In Nevada, Obama won 13 delegates and Clinton won 12.

More...

By Big Tent Democrat

NYTimes Public Editor Clark Hoyt rips the McCain "story:"

The article was notable for what it did not say: It did not say what convinced the advisers that there was a romance. It did not make clear what McCain was admitting when he acknowledged behaving inappropriately — an affair or just an association with a lobbyist that could look bad. And it did not say whether Weaver, the only on-the-record source, believed there was a romance. The Times did not offer independent proof, like the text messages between Detroit’s mayor and a female aide that The Detroit Free Press disclosed recently, or the photograph of Donna Rice sitting on Gary Hart’s lap.

More...

Excellent news...Congress cut funding for Byrne Grants and local cops say the war on drugs will suffer.

Congress in January cut funding for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant by two-thirds, from $520 million to $170 million for fiscal 2008. Local agencies say that's a threat to the officers who do much of the law enforcement spadework.

One of the results of Byrne Grants: Tulia, Texas.

Best-known is a case in Tulia, Texas, where a 1999 Byrne-funded investigation led to the cocaine arrests of 46 people, most of them black, on evidence so flimsy that 38 were pardoned by Gov. Rick Perry in 2003. The undercover agent responsible for the arrests was convicted of perjury and the defendants got a $5 million settlement from the state.

The Texas ACLU has identified more than a dozen other Byrne-funded operations it says were abusive and several other states have investigated similar complaints. Texas has imposed strict limits on Byrne-funded drug task forces.

The meth busters are upset. They probably don't need to worry, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will help them out. They support Byrne Grants. Here's record on anti-meth bills. Of course, the problem with these meth bills is they end up increasing the supply from Mexico. [More...]

By Big Tent Democrat

Here is an interesting development, as Jeralyn notes, Hillary Clinton reacted strongly to an Obama mailer that she claimed is filled with untruths.

I am well past mentioning the hypocrisy of Obama's decrying negative attacks, and that of the Media, as [an Obama blogger and] Rick Hertzberg demonstrates in this quote at the Obama site:

[HERTZBERG -] "Going negative" has been a bust. It could never be anything but a bust, because there is no audience for it in the Democratic Party...

[OBAMA BLOGGER] - Let's let Hillary know that the American people are sick and tired of negative attacks and want something new.

No, I am too familiar with the Obama Rules by now. My REAL question is this - if this race is over, why is Obama attacking Hillary Clinton?

NOTE - Comments are now closed.

The AP and New York Times report Hillary Clinton is fighting back today.

“Shame on you, Barack Obama,” Mrs. Clinton said at a news conference after a morning rally, holding the flyers and shaking them in the air as she spoke. “It is time you ran a campaign consistent with your messages in public. That’s what I expect from you. Meet me in Ohio. Let’s have a debate about your tactics and your behavior in this campaign.”

....“Time and time again, you hear one thing in speeches and then you see a campaign that has the worst kind of tactics, reminiscent of the same sort of Republican attacks on Democrats,” Mrs. Clinton said.

The backstory, about the Obama campaign wrongly claiming Hillary said NAFTA was a "boon" is below:

Time for an open thread, you pick the topics.

Here's a few things I haven't gotten around to writing about:

• Nevada County Dems are picking state delegates today. The delegates picked at their county caucuses aren't bound by their pledge and today's tally may or may not match the caucus results. More here.

• Tavis Smiley is receiving threats from Obama supporters over his criticism of Obama for not attending his State of the Black Union event. Hillary is attending the Louisiana event and will be speaking there.

• Check out the new film, Taxi to the Dark Side, about the politics of torture. It tells the story of Dilawar, whom we've frequently written about.

  In December 2002 a young Afghan named Dilawar, proud of his new taxi, picked up three fares. Shortly afterwards he and his passengers were detained as Taliban sympathizers by American forces, and Dilawar – almost certainly an innocent bystander – was flown to the Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan. He died after a few days in detention there. Medical examiners reported that his legs, at the time of death, looked like they had been run over by a bus.

• California prison officials are re-examining its policy on strip-searching prisoners.

• The LA Times reports that restrictive sex offender laws may increase crime. (Via Sentencing Law and Policy.)

What are you reading about today?

By Big Tent Democrat

Speaking for me only.

Well, David Shuster has no regrets:

From the beginning of his suspension, MSNBC executives "were perfectly fair and upfront, from the top on down," Shuster says. "I have no bitterness, no regrets."

Well, maybe one. File it under "Lesson Learned." "I have the responsibility to make my point precisely and aggressively, without using coarse language. Clearly, it was inappropriate for a lot of viewers. I made a horrible mistake by allowing people to be distracted by some words rather than focus on the story."

What story David? That Chelsea Clinton was campaigning for her mother? That was the story?

It seemed inevitable after being defended by the likes of A-List blogs like Talking Points Memo that Shuster would not learn any lessons. Shuster defended Chris Matthews for his sexist remarks and took a sexist approach to his coverage of the Clinton campaign. And was defended for it.

Of course the Clinton campaign was right that a temporary suspension was not enough. And I am not talking about Shuster. That was plenty for him. It seems that no one at NBC will address its pattern of sexism and misogyny.

By Big Tent Democrat

NOTE- The DLC does not support either candidate officially. My post was not intended to state that, but to discuss why many DLC-type figure do support Obama. Sorry for any confusion.

There is something both sad and hilarious about Kagro X's outrage that that the DLC and Lieber-types like Dan Gerstein are on the Obama bandwagon:

Please, God, don't let Harold Ford clamber onto the back of this [Obama] bandwagon now. . . . Allowing them suckerfish themselves onto what Obama's managed to build for himself would be an unimaginable tragedy. Allowing them to do it while they're also endorsing Republicans for Congress is a recipe for disaster.

UPDATE: Lord help us, it's a trend:

2 . Friday February 15, 2008

. . . Bill Bennett discussed the political landscape with Democratic strategist and Obama supporter Dan Gerstein . . .

This is sad and hilarious because not for one moment can Kagro imagine WHY the DLC and Dan Gerstein might support Barack Obama. He can not imagine that Obama's Unity Schtick is precisely what the DLC and Joe Lieberman have been preaching for decades and that the progressive blogs were supposed to be fighting AGAINST.

Excuse me, but has anyone in the progressive blogs actually been paying attention to what Obama has been saying? Probably not, too busy slamming Hillary Clinton.

NOTE - comments are now closed in this thread.

Big Tent Democrat wrote yesterday about the controversy that's developed over Barack Obama's reference in the Texas debate to an army captain who told him or someone in his campaign that his unit in Afghanistan had to fight without proper equipment and training. ABC News spoke to the captain and said he confirmed Obama's account.

Now, the Pentagon is challenging it and Sen. John Warner, who chaired the Senate Armed Forces Committee when the captain was in Afghanistan, has asked Obama for details of the man's unit and when and where the alleged incidents happened. He intends to bring it up at a hearing next week.

What Obama said (from the debate transcript):

More...