Now this is a silly story. Buuut, just for a moment imagine if Hillary Clinton had said this:

I was not aware that I had voted no," [Obama] said that day in June 2002, asking that the record be changed to reflect that he "intended to vote yes." . . . Obama cast more than 4,000 votes. Of those, according to transcripts of the proceedings in Springfield, he hit the wrong button at least six times. . . . "I pressed the wrong button on that," he said.

Does anyone doubt it would be the top news for the next couple of days? The Media's hatred of the Clintons is outrageous and the way the so called progressive blogs have rolled over on this is awful. Consider this headline in the NYTimes:

Bill Clinton Accuses Obama Camp of Stirring Race Issue

Actually he accused the MEDIA of stirring the race issue. Why? Because they ran to him with Obama supporter Dick Hartpootlian's outrageous and false smear accusing Bill Clinton of playing the race and gender card and comparing him to Lee Atwater. You know where that part of the story appears in the NYTimes story? Graf 19!! I kid you not. What a ridiculous piece of journalism.

More...

This is bad:

In an interview with CNN's Jessica Yellin, Dick Harpootlian, a former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party and a supporter of Barack Obama, said some of Bill Clinton's recent remarks on the campaign trail were appeals based on race and gender. He said the comments were meant to "suppresses the vote, demoralize voters, and distort the record," and said they were "reminiscent of Lee Atwater."

Outrageous and false. And, from Obama's perspective, not helpful to his campaign. Consider this, the LAST thing Obama wants is for his big win next Saturday to be viewed as a race issue. Harpootlian feeds that narrative with his outrageous smear.

Obama himself strenuously denied that the Clinton campaign was playing race or gender games last week. Harpootlian does no one any favors with this outrageous smear. The Obama campaign should disavow them.

Speaking for me only.

As I have seen the context of Barack Obama's infamous remarks regarding the GOP being the party of ideas, I believe I was unfair to both Barack Obama and TPM. While I do believe Barack Obama does too much unity schtick and is entirely too easy on Republicans and their ideas, the context of his remarks makes his statement much more defensible than I originally thought.

Below the fold is the relevant portions of the text:

TPM is in full defend Obama mode but they misfired here - reminding us that Daniel Patrick Moynihan said the GOP was the party of ideas. If that is a comparison that is supposed to convince us of Obama's Democratic bona fides, then all I can say is you got to be kidding me. Daniel Patrick Moynihan was certainly not MY IDEA of the kind of Dem I would want. But I speak for me only there. Your mileage may vary.

A federal judge in Cleveland has ordered 15 inmates released from long prison terms and more may be coming, due to an DEA informant's lies.

Collectively, the men have served at least 30 years behind bars. They were sentenced to a combined 86 years. Federal public defender Dennis Terez called the release of so many people at one time unprecedented.

Fallout from the case is expected to spread beyond the federal courthouses in Cleveland and Akron, where the men were convicted of dealing crack cocaine in Mansfield.

Uncorroborated snitch testimony is inherently unreliable and our system has depended on it for far too long.

The case is a blow to the federal justice system, which relies heavily on informant-based testimony, lawyers said. The men, some with no prior run-ins with the law, were given long prison sentences based almost exclusively on the word of informant Jerrell Bray and Lee Lucas, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent who supervised Bray.

An investigation is ongoing into the conduct of the DEA Agent Lee Lucas who supervised the informant.

Also revealing is that most of the inmates to be released pleaded guilty. Here's why. [more...]

TPM again distorts this critique of Obama. Here is the text of the ad:

VOICE-OVER: “Listen to Barack Obama last week talking about Republicans.

BARACK OBAMA: “The Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years.”

VO: “Really? Aren’t those the ideas that got us into the economic mess we’re in today? Ideas like special tax breaks for Wall Street. Running up a $9 trillion debt. Refusing to raise the minimum wage or deal with the housing crisis. Are those the ideas Barack Obama’s talking about?”

BO: “The Republicans were the party of ideas.”

VO: Hillary Clinton thinks this election is about replacing disastrous Republican ideas with new ones, like jump-starting the economy. Putting an immediate freeze on foreclosures and mortgages. Cutting taxes for the middle class. And creating millions of new jobs. With the economy in crisis, we need a president with the ideas, the solutions that get our economy working for all of us. Hillary Clinton. Solutions for America.

TPM says Clinton implies Obama supported these GOP policies. TPM is wrong. The ad properly points out that Obama did not express any criticism of the GOP ideas. That is the problem. Obama's failure to speak out against these ideas. And this is not new. Obama has been a unity schtick candidate the entire campaign. The reason this ad works is precisely because Obama's has not been a partisan Dem campaign. Will he speak out now? Yes, because the Clintons are scoring points on him. That, my friends, is politics. TPM continues to distort this issue.

Congrats to Michigan lawyer Bill Swor, lead counsel for Jose Padilla co-defendant Kifah Jayyousi. (Background on Jayysousi here and here.)

In yesterday's sentencing decision, the Judge found the terrorism enhancements applied to his sentencing guidelines, raising them to a range of 30 years to life. Bill had presented the defense sentencing case and the Judge ultimately departed downward and imposed a sentence of 12 years and 8 months.

Another mild rebuke to the Bush fear and terror machine.

TPM argues that this is not testy:

"I am trying to make sure that his statements by him are answered. Don't you think that's important?" Obama shot back, while walking away. When Zeleny yelled a follow up question suggesting the Illinois senator had not answered the question, Obama fired back angrily, "Don't try cheap stunts like that."

That qualifies as testy. And the video does not change this conclusion.



Now the stupidity of all this is to even report on it. But excuse me, it was clearly a testy exchange.

Ezra Klein writes a post that to me simply distorts what the dispute was about regarding Barack Obama's statements about Ronald Reagan and Republican ideas. Ezra writes:

As Jake Tapper argues, there's really no dispute as to whether Hillary Clinton is distorting Barack Obama's statements on Reagan. She is.

Actually there is quite a dispute over this. I know I dispute it. I know Paul Krugman disputes it. And I know that in this dispute, the only people I see actually quoting what Obama said are people like me and Paul Krugman. Those who claim there is no dispute never actually cite what Obama said. That speaks volumes. Moreover, Ezra continues distorting the dispute when he writes:

Barack Obama will easily win the South Carolina primary Saturday. But because the win will be fueled by overwhelming African American support, the momentum of such a win may be blunted. There is a way for Obama to make that victory something transformational for his campaign -- he can announce in his Saturday night victory speech that he will be returning to Washington to join Chris Dodd in his fight against telecom immunity. As Glenn Greenwald says:

The only way for there to be any prospect of impeding Bush's most extreme demands for vast warrantless eavesdropping powers and immunity for lawbreaking telecoms is for the presidential candidates -- Obama, Edwards and Clinton -- to demonstrate (rather than speak about) real "leadership" and take a stand in support of Chris Dodd and his imminent filibuster.

Some will say Barack Obama can not do this when he needs to be in 2/5 states campaigning. I think they are wrong. The bully pulpit of a Senate filbuster will get Obama immense national coverage that will reach into all of the 2/5 states. It will prove that Barack Obama is indeed a Fighting Democrat, ready to take on extreme Republicanism. It will reassure liberals and Democrats that Obama will fight for Dem values. It will be good for Obama's political fortunes AND for the country. A perfect combination for him. He should do this.

Some things I'm glad I read today:

• BeliefNet has a new interview with Barack Obama about his religion and multi-culturalism.

• Eric Boehlert at Media Matters on the blogosphere's role in the Tweety Effect. Jane Hamsher says, More Boehlert, Less Bai. And Atrios adds,

  "It is encouraging that occasionally "The Left" can make some noise and actually get a response. A few years ago it just felt like we were just screaming into the vacuum."

• Crooks and Liars and Gleen Greenwald on the new FISA shenanigans.

• Sunday Times of London columnist Matt Rudd criticizes travel to the United States:

  "Traveling to the US offers experiences like nowhere else on earth...Nowhere else can a visitor expect such a spirit-crushingly frosty reception. A preflight e-interrogation, epic queues at immigration, thin-lipped questioning from aggressive border guards, and an outside chance of a rubber-gloved rectal rummage are all part of the fun. So, if Chertoff & Co. want to tighten Fortress America further, it's time we considered other more welcoming holiday options. Such as Iran or North Korea."

• The New York Daily News reports 20 of Brooklyn's drug cops have been suspended for taking "sex, drugs and cash from junkies and dealers." More here.

More...

A reader sent me the link to this four page Chicago Tribune article from April, 2007 about Barack Obama's first campaign for U.S. Senate.

It's quite an interesting read.

A close examination of Obama's first campaign clouds the image he has cultivated throughout his political career: The man now running for president on a message of giving a voice to the voiceless first entered public office not by leveling the playing field, but by clearing it.

I'll let you all take it from there.