Barack Obama responded to Hillary Clinton's MTP appearance by proving he indeed is a rough and tumble political fighter, not for Democratic values, but for himself:

. . . Sen. Clinton made an unfortunate remark, an ill advised remark, about King and Lyndon Johnson. I didn’t make the statement. I haven’t remarked on it . . . the notion that somehow this is our doing is ludicrous

Stop right there. Obama's campaign in fact has pushed this talk for days now. Obama is being misleading at best and mendacious at worst. But he is just a pol fighting for his own political fortunes. Then Obama misleads on what happened on MTP today:

I have to point out that instead of telling the American people about her positive vision for America, Sen. Clinton spent an hour talking about me and my record in a way that was flat-out wrong.

Tim Russert spent an hour asking questions about you, Senator. How is that Senator Clinton's fault? Very misleading of Obama. Again Obama the political fighter for his own cause emerges. Finally, Obama is not honest when he says:

South Carolina may be the end for John Edwards if he comes in third. It seems, once again, he's displaying his preference for Obama over Hillary. At a campaign event at a predominantly black Baptist church today Edwards said :

"I must say I was troubled recently to see a suggestion that real change that came not through the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King but through a Washington politician. I fundamentally disagree with that," Edwards told more than 200 people gathered at a predominantly black Baptist church. ...."Those who believe that real change starts with Washington politicians have been in Washington too long and are living a fairy tale," he said.

and,

"As someone who grew up in the segregated South, I feel an enormous amount of pride when I see the success that Senator Barack Obama is having in this campaign," said Edwards. He the added, with a laugh: "Some days I wish he was having a little less success."

I'm not comfortable with Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano's endorsement of Obama. She's another law and order prosecutor-turned-politician. She's a former U.S. Attorney who also served as Arizona Attorney General. She's also been mentioned as a possible vice presidential candidate.

During her 2002 election campaign, she was heavily endorsed by that wacko sheriff, Joe Arpaio (the one puts juveniles on chain gangs, makes inmates wear pink underwear and dui offenders bury the dead, who has prisoners sleep in tents and whose immigration solution is to jail the undocumented.) Arpaio had big praise for Napolitano when an anti-Napolitano ad cropped up in her 2002 race:

Sherriff Joe: This Is Sheriff Joe Arpaio with an Urgent Message. Janet Napolitano Has Been Attacked with the Most Vicious TV Ad in Arizona History. The Ad Is Outrageous and Untrue. As U.S. Attorney, She Was the Number One Prosecutor of Child Molesters in the Nation. As Our Attorney General, Janet Napolitano Has Stood with Law Enforcement to Protect Our Families. This Is Joe Arpaio. Join Me in Rejecting the Attacks Against Janet Napolitano.

Napolitano is a Democrat in a red state with high approval ratings from Republicans. The New York Times says she allowed Arizona's enforcement-only, "toughest in the nation" immigration bill to become law there.

If Obama wants the backing of a law and order politician like Napolitano, fine. It's just one more reason I don't believe he will be a progressive on crime issues if elected President.

[Update below:]

Of course Senator Dick Durbin, a fine man and politician, is doing the work of the Obama campaign when he says:

I’m really troubled by his questioning the sincerity of Barack Obama’s opposition to the war in Iraq . . .

Durbin, a staunch Obama supporter had no qualms apparently when Obama was accusing Clinton and DURBIN (and McCaskill, Nelson et al) of fomenting war with Iran when they voted for the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment:

DemfromCt, the daily kos Contributing Editor, has always given pollsters a regard they simply do not deserve. This is reflected in his post on the excuse making from pollsters on their New Hampshire debacle. His post takes seriously all the excuse making they present and ignores what is obvious to anyone who can avoid buying the pollster spin - the Media Misogyny galvanized women voters to support Hillary. Instead Dem buys into this nonsense:

The "Wilder Effect (aka the Bradley effect)." This is worth a good look. Kohut raises this in his NY Times article from his own experiences a few years back with David Dinkins, running in NYC for mayor (he's the undistinguished Giuliani predecessor)

More . . .

Taylor Marsh provides the key clip:

Speaking for me only.

Besides the typical Russertian ripping of statements out of context, the topic that was most interesting to me was the discussion of Iraq and the records of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on Iraq.

First things first, Hillary's now familiar explanation of her vote - that she was not voting for war, she was voting to get the inspectors again - does not wash. She cites statements by the Bush Administration that it was not a vote for war, and those statements were made of course, but any rational being knew that was just cover talk. It WAS a vote for war and we all knew it.

Barack Obama stood tall in that moment and argued forcefully AGAINST war and against voting for the Iraq War Resolution. Barack Obama was clearly superior in judgment to Hillary Clinton at that moment.

Now when it comes to evaluating Barack Obama's actions after, including his statements in 2004 saying he did not know how he would have voted if he had been in the Senate, it is clear that Bill Clinton's descriptions of Obama's actions is completely accurate. Greg Sargent has the quote where Obama says he does not know how he would have voted: [More...]

Todd Beeton reporting on an Obama event in Nevada:

[I]mmigration, as you might expect, is going to be a big issue in Nevada, as it was not in NH. . . . There were two distinct schools of thought represented in the audience, a nativist demo and an immigrant demo and Barack threaded the needle quite ably when he said he supports a path to citizenship but that it's not fair to give them special priv[i]leges, the undocumented population must pay a fine and "must learn English!" That last one got a huge reaction. . . .

(Emphasis supplied.) Perhaps it becomes less surprising to learn, as Taylor Marsh reports, Latinos are firmly behind Hillary:

There is not only "no exodus," but Clinton Hispanic support is mushrooming. Leaders in that community are actively engaged for Clinton here and today had to mean a lot to all of them. Hispanic leaders that the community respect showed up, including local politicians.

One of the reasons I have tepidly supported Obama was because he was not playing to the nativist crowd. It seems that, again, I may have been mistaken.

There are still three contenders for the Democratic nomination. The third, John Edwards, hasn't been getting much press lately.

He's been campaigning in South Carolina, reminding people he was born there and understands their problems. A few hundred people turned out to hear him at one event today. As to being behind in the polls, he says:

....he was in fourth place at this time in 2004, and went on to win the state.

This really doesn't bother me. Not nearly so much as thinking Rudy Giuliani could get the Republican nomination.

If Mr. Huckabee can continue to galvanize evangelicals around his novel message while attracting other Republicans and perhaps independents, he will do more than advance his own campaign. He will also challenge the establishment of the Christian conservative political movement.

Young evangelicals are not only flocking to Huckabee but using grass-roots and net-roots to fundraise for him.

In Michigan, the Huckabee campaign had spent no money, hired no staff and had no office until last Wednesday, six days before the primary. But Gary Glenn, a conservative Christian advocate based in Midland, Mich., has been leading an informal effort to turn out evangelical voters. Some pollsters expect them to make up as much as 40 percent of the state’s primary voters this year. [More...]

Tristero at Digby's Hullabaloo goes off on Mike Huckabee today for his Wayne Dumond pardon. It's in the news again because of an anti-Huckabee ad by a 527 group.

Wayne Dumond's attorney, John Wesley Hall, who writes as Last Night in Little Rock at TalkLeft and I have taken a different view of the case from a legal perspective. We have provided the legal grounds upon which Huckabee might have believed Dumond should have been released -- and the argument that Huckabee succombed to anti-Clinton forces.

• Mike Huckabee's Tangled Web
• Huckabee and Wayne Dumond: Interview With Dumond's Attorney
  
• Huckabee and Dumond: Succumbing to the Anti-Clinton Zealots

And then, there's Mike Huckabee's Other Pardons. As I wrote there,

[More...]

Sully caught some dissent for his Obama support:

You write that Obama is "a pragmatic liberal," that "his judgments in the past have been largely practical and reasonable," and that he is neither "an ideologue" nor "an excessive partisan." And I, too, really want to believe this. But then I always come back to the John Roberts vote. . . . [H]e received "Yea" votes from both "pragmatic" Democrats like Lieberman, Jeffords, and Dodd, as well as principled liberals like Leahy, Feingold, Levin, and Kohl. Only the rank partisans cast "no" votes, and Obama was in that camp.

Not to worry:

It was the fall of 2005, and the celebrated young senator -- still new to Capitol Hill but aware of his prospects for higher office -- was thinking about voting to confirm John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice. Talking with his aides, the Illinois Democrat expressed admiration for Roberts's intellect. Besides, Obama said, if he were president he wouldn't want his judicial nominees opposed simply on ideological grounds. And then Rouse, his chief of staff, spoke up. This was no Harvard moot-court exercise, he said. If Obama voted for Roberts, Rouse told him, people would remind him of that every time the Supreme Court issued another conservative ruling, something that could cripple a future presidential run. Obama took it in. And when the roll was called, he voted no.

See? Obama did not really want to vote against Roberts. He was just pandering. Not a problem.

After a series of, at best, clumsy, remarks from Clinton supporters and surrogates, and even a misunderstood comment from Bill Clinton, the Clintons have done the right thing and addressed the festering sore in the campaign. Bill Clinton appeared on Al Sharpton's radio show:

In a call on Friday to Al Sharpton’s nationally syndicated talk radio show, Mr. Clinton said that his “fairy tale” comment on Monday about Senator Barack Obama’s position on the Iraq war was being misconstrued, and that he was talking only about the war, not about Mr. Obama’s overarching message or his drive to be the first black president. “There’s nothing fairy tale about his campaign,” Mr. Clinton said. “It’s real, strong, and he might win.”

In addition, Hillary Clinton addressed her NH comments about Martin Luther King and LBJ:

"You know," she continued, "I was inspired by Dr. King when I was a young girl. I considered him one of my heroes, a global symbol, an icon of everything that is the best about America and he worked his entire life to make the changes that we enjoy today so I hope that this kind of unfortunate political activity really just ceases because I don't think this is what we want this election to be about."

Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), the highest ranking African American in the Congress, had the best reaction in my opinion:

On Friday evening, Mr. Clyburn, who is traveling overseas, issued a statement saying he intended to remain neutral in the early race. . . . “I encourage the candidates to be sensitive about the words they use,” Mr. Clyburn said “This is an historic race for America to have such strong, diverse candidates vying for the Democratic nomination.”

(Emphasis supplied.) I thought the reaction from the Obama campaign was a bit disappointing:

“Voters have to decide for themselves what they think of this,” said Bill Burton, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, declining to discuss the matter further.

I would have preferred that the Obama campaign agree with and take to heart Rep. Clyburn's comment. But politics is politics.