David Corn

"This will peeve his reluctant supporters on the right."

The rabid Reich-wingnuttia will still hate any liberal or progressive more than McCain. They will find a way to channel that energy directly at BHO or HRC.

They are just throwing stuff out there until something sticks.

BHO is getting better. If he is the nominee it will be interesting to see him and McCain on the same stage. It will be like polar opposites.

Bloomberg is smart enough to see that if Romney couldn't buy the primary money won't buy the general.

BHO now has over a million small donors. That is a heck of a message.

Mr Corn you say;

"McCain got into a fight with a rightwing radio host in Cincinnati. Talk about a unpresidential sideshow."

~~

I disagree, McCain was very presidential in denouncing the comments by this guy. It was a classy move and shows that he wants to run his campaign on the issues and not personal attacks even if it offends his base. Compare that to Obama who will say exactly what the left wants to hear to win the primary.

Yes Obama is a great debater but hasn't shown a great knowledge of foreign policy or showed us where all the money for his new spending programs will come from.

Lets have a civilized debate from the two and say no to the extremists on both the right and left.

More of Obama saying what the left wants to hear, where's the presidential integrity here?

The Politics Of Inauthenticity
By Pejman Yousefzadeh

It is to laugh:

Barack Obama has ratcheted up his attacks on NAFTA, but a senior member of his campaign team told a Canadian official not to take his criticisms seriously, CTV News has learned.

Both Obama and Hillary Clinton have been critical of the long-standing North American Free Trade Agreement over the course of the Democratic primaries, saying that the deal has cost U.S. workers' jobs.

Within the last month, a top staff member for Obama's campaign telephoned Michael Wilson, Canada's ambassador to the United States, and warned him that Obama would speak out against NAFTA, according to Canadian sources.

The staff member reassured Wilson that the criticisms would only be campaign rhetoric, and should not be taken at face value.

But Tuesday night in Ohio, where NAFTA is blamed for massive job losses, Obama said he would tell Canada and Mexico "that we will opt out unless we renegotiate the core labour and environmental standards."

Hillary, Buckeye Girl

[…]

If Hillary can win this one -- and if she doesn't, she is as cooked as reheated risotto

[…]

What's the Clinton campaign come to when she can't get equal denunciation time from a right-wing nut job?

****

An interesting piece and funny.

THE AUDACITY OF HYPE

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?i
d=aa0cd21b-0ff2-4329-88a1-69c6c268b304

The New Republic
Race Man by Sean Wilentz
How Barack Obama played the race card and blamed Hillary Clinton.
Post Date Wednesday, February 27, 2008
"Senator Barack Obama''s promises of a pure, soul-cleansing "new" politics and the calculated, deeply dishonest conduct of his actually-existing campaign."

"As insidious as these tactics are, though, the Obama campaign''s most effective gambits have been far more egregious and dangerous than the hypocritical deployment of deceptive and disingenuous attack ads. To a large degree, the campaign''s strategists turned the primary and caucus race to their advantage when they deliberately, falsely, and successfully portrayed Clinton and her campaign as unscrupulous race-baiters--a campaign-within-the-campaign in which the worked-up flap over the Somali costume photograph is but the latest episode. While promoting Obama as a "post-racial" figure, his campaign has purposefully polluted the contest with a new strain of what historically has been the most toxic poison in American politics."

"Above all, it is a commentary on the cutthroat, fraudulent politics that lie at the foundation of Obama''s supposedly uplifting campaign."

Insults, apologies fuel Obama's rise

“There is no better way to appear magnanimous and above the fray than in gracefully accepting an apology,” said Chris Lehane, a California political consultant who supports Clinton. "In this case, it actually represents not only a chance to come off as a good and hale fellow, but to also drive his central message of being a unifier and a new kind of leader.”

****

Barack is so sly. If he can manipulate others so well he will make a great president. Getting everybody to do his bidding, eh?

Capt:

He's manipulating you, too!!

(tee-hee!!!)

Wilentz's piece "reads as if written in an exciting evening of phrase-turning in Princeton after a nice, long chat with someone from the Clinton campaign," Sleeper writes. "The result is embarrassing to Wilentz, embarrassing to the New Republic, and offensive to those of us who've staked our credibility on wresting truth from storms of racial intimidation, insinuations, and lies."

"But Wilentz's real goal is not to act as some kind of press ombudsman, or to identify a previously unrecognized 'style' in campaign reportage," Sunstein continues. "It is to condemn the (hardly unanimous) press support for Barack Obama."

While some historians are passionately behind the Obama candidacy, one leading figure in the field is throwing his support to Obama's chief rival. In an interview with a blogger from Newsweek, Princeton historian Sean Wilentz endorses Clinton's candidacy.

Wilentz's analysis seems to hinge primarily on the issue of electability. "I think Hillary is important because the election really is the culmination of what's been a 40 year struggle for the Democrats to rediscover who they are," Wilentz says. "A 40-year struggle against what we'll call Nixon-slash-Reaganism. And, simply put, she's in the best position to be a president. Which is to say, she understands how American politics works."

As for Obama, Wilentz sees him as part of a long line of Adlai Stevenson-type candidates who are ambivalent about power. "There's always a Stevenson candidate. [Bill] Bradley was one of them. [Paul] Tsongas was one of them...It's beautiful loserdom," Wilentz argues.

"The fact is, you can't govern without politics. That's what democracy is. Democracy isn't some utopian proposition by which the people suddenly rule. We're too complicated a country for that. We have too many interests here. You need someone who can govern, who can build the coalition and move the country forward."

****

An independent source would be a little more believable to most folks.

Some would rather hope than face reality~~

Sean Wilentz Endorses Clinton

Goes with the above - format issues.

More troops for Iraq and Afghanistan, Defense Department says

The Defense Department says it needs more troops to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.

*****

We are turning a corner, the surge is working, just a few more troops, a little more time, we can’t give up our obvious gains, we are winning.

Just like Vietnam. It is groundhogs day again.

Barack Obama and the case for charisma

Charisma is more than a way with words and an attractive face. It's about inspiring America to greatness again.

[…]

When charismatic politicians such as Obama speak, they are able to turn a room full of strangers into a community rich in shared meaning, just as a great actor creates such a community within a theater. Whether such rock-star politicians talk about change or healthcare policy, they articulate a vision that those in the audience quickly make their own.

Charismatic leaders and their followers are interdependent; they feed and energize each other. The transformational leader gives the audience hope and makes it believe that, together, they can create a better future. Winston Churchill was a charismatic leader in this sense, as was Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Like Obama's, their rhetoric was suffused with optimism. They purveyed not fear, but shining new possibilities. Indeed, Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister, once said of Gandhi that he made India proud of herself.

*****

If BHO could just cut the charisma more people would like him - fer sure.

Clinton raises $35 million in February

WASHINGTON - Rebounding from weak fundraising in January, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton raised $35 million in February, a campaign official said Thursday, a remarkable recovery and her biggest fundraising period of her campaign.

Clinton raised nearly $14 million in January to Barack Obama's $36 million.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton would not disclose his campaign's fundraising total, but said: "We've raised considerably more than that."

******

I wonder what the presumptive GOP candidate raised? More than Ron Paul?

I wonder what the presumptive GOP candidate raised? More than Ron Paul?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Running for president shouldn't be about who has the most money or who can spend more than the other to buy the election.

The question is will Obama live up to principal or politics?

By David D. Kirkpatrick and Jeff Zeleny

updated 9:01 p.m. PT, Wed., Feb. 27, 2008

Just 12 months ago, Senator Barack Obama presented himself as an idealistic upstart taking on the Democratic fund-raising juggernaut behind Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

That was when Mr. Obama proposed a novel challenge aimed at limiting the corrupting influence of money on the race: If he won the nomination, he would limit himself to spending only the $85 million available in public financing between the convention and Election Day as long as his Republican opponent did the same.

Now his challenge to his rivals has boomeranged into a test of Mr. Obama’s own ability to balance principle and politics in a very different context. After taking in $100 million in donations, Mr. Obama is the one setting fund-raising records, presenting a powerful temptation to find a way out of his own proposal so that he might outspend his Republican opponent. And the all-but-certain Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, is short on cash and eager to take up the fund-raising truce.

Hmmm, interesting take on corrupting influence yet he now wants that corrupting influence.

That was when Mr. Obama proposed a novel challenge aimed at limiting the corrupting influence of money on the race:

Could it be that he knows his ideas will not stand up to McCains so he is depending on the corrupting influence of money to buy hope for change?

Another perspective inside the black community;

One of Britain’s most influential black figures today accused Barack Obama of cynically exploiting America’s racial divide and gave warning that he could prolong, rather than heal the rift.

Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, claimed that the Democratic front-runner would ultimately disappoint the African-American community and dismissed the notion that he would be "the harbinger of a post-racial America" if he becomes the country’s first black President.

Writing in Prospect, the monthly current affairs magazine, Mr Phillips suggested that guilt over transatlantic slavery was behind Mr Obama’s support from middle class whites.

"If Obama can succeed, then maybe they can imagine that [Martin Luther] King's post-racial nirvana has arrived. A vote for Obama is a pain-free negation of their own racism. So long as they don't have to live next door to him; Obama has yet to win convincingly in white districts adjacent to black communities," he wrote.

Mr Phillips compared Mr Obama to Bill Cosby and Oprah Winfrey, prominent black “bargainers” – those who strike a deal with white America not to make an issue of historical racism if their own race is not used against them.

But, in a warning to the Democratic candidate, he added that Cosby now cut a “sad and lonely figure” because he had abandoned the moral weapon used by figures such as Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X and Jesse Jackson in insisting that “in the end, salvation for blacks won’t depend on the actions of whites.”

It's a funny thing how the left is finally admitting how the the right has been correct about the Clintons for the last 16 years. It takes ya' all awhile to catch on but better too late than never.

Ha ha

Looks like not all the troops Obama wants to bring home actually want to come home;
~~~

After completing two tours in Iraq, Sgt. Wayne Leyde won $1 million from a scratch-and-win lotto ticket on Tuesday.

Soldier Hits The JackpotNow that he's won, Leyde, a 26-year-old member of the Washington National Guard, says he's still going to volunteer to go back to Iraq for a third tour and won't spend any of the money in the meantime.

Leyde was driving near his home in Mead, Washington when he stopped at a store on the side of the road and bought a ticket.
~~~~~

Could it be that he wants to win the war and not surrender like Obama?

Huckabee: Financing Could Stymie McCain

[…]

When asked about McCain's situation, Huckabee said the Arizona senator was facing obstacles set up by campaign finance reforms he championed.

"He wrote these laws and one of the reasons I think people need to continue this discussion and this debate is I think one of the worst things that's ever happened to American politics is the McCain-Feingold campaign finance act," Huckabee said. "It has created more problems than it has solved and it may very well be that the law that he pushed comes back to bite him."

If McCain is unable to withdraw from the public financing system, he would be limited to spending a total of $54 million during the primary season, which ends in September. As of the end of January, his campaign had already spent nearly $50 million.

*****

Chickens coming home to roost comes to mind.

The Obama Mojo doesn't seem to be working in all important Florida:

Posted by No Dems 2004
On News/Activism 02/28/2008 11:31:28 AM PST · 124 replies

MSNBC ^
McCain leads both Obama and Clinton in potential general-election match ups with either candidate in the all-important swing state of Florida, according to a Mason-Dixon poll out today. McCain leads Obama 47%-37% and Clinton 49%-40%. The Arizona senator leads the Democrats across the board. About 80% of Republicans are behind McCain. Only 66% of Democrats are behind Obama and 72% are backing Clinton in one-one-one match-ups with McCain. Currently, 17% of Democrats indicate that in a match up with Obama, they'd support McCain; 16% say so in a match up with Clinton. Seventeen percent of Dems also say they are...

LBH --- Us progressives never had much use for the Clintons.

McCain ‘Very Honored’ By Support Of Pastor Preaching ‘End-Time Confrontation With Iran’

Yesterday, hard-line conservative Pastor John Hagee, founder of Christians United for Israel, endorsed John McCain. Hagee said that McCain “is a man of principle, [who] does not stand boldly on both sides of any issue.” McCain, who had been courting the endorsement for over a year, said that he was “very honored by Pastor John Hagee’s endorsement.”

Demonstrating how wildly out of the American religious and political mainstream Hagee’s views are, McCain’s acceptance of Hagee’s endorsement was condemned today by conservative William Donohue, president of the Catholic League. Calling Hagee a “bigot,” Donahue said the right-wing pastor has waged “an unrelenting war against the Catholic Church” by “calling it ‘The Great Whore,’ an ‘apostate church,’ the ‘anti-Christ,’ and a ‘false cult system.’”

*****

Interesting how the kooks end up with the kooks, eh?

LBH --- Us progressives never had much use for the Clintons.

Damn DB, I'm at a loss for words - for once!

McCain ‘Very Honored’ By Support Of Pastor Preaching ‘End-Time Confrontation With Iran’
~~~~

Hey don't be knockin Pandomaniacs pastor he might actually come back and post his nonsense again!

I could've swore you were preaching end times yesterday with all that the future is bleak blather!

McCain ‘Very Honored’ By Support Of Pastor Preaching ‘End-Time Confrontation With Iran’

an appropriate comment on the mentioned blog....

"Hagee said that McCain “is a man of principle, [who] does not stand boldly on both sides of any issue.”

Right, he just stands boldly on one side, and then the other, and then back again…."

Comment by Bobwurst — February 28, 2008 @ 4:08 pm

LBH wrote "I could've swore you were preaching end times yesterday with all that the future is bleak blather!"

If you mean me, I posted a nifty comment in further reply, with links. Because it had four links, it went off to David Corn for approval. So far, he has not approved. Whatever that means.

But yes, the risk of end times grows daily as the climate moves into a regime about which there is no paleoclimate precident, the Anthropocene. Can be avoided, but requires immediate and very large scale action.

One link per post will always work. I think posts with more just fade away.

capt --- Thanks for the heads-up!

One link it is.

If you mean me, I posted a nifty comment in further reply

No DB, I was not referring to you. The one who cries wolf knows who he is!

the Anthropocene. Can be avoided, but requires immediate and very large scale action.

How do you know this? Any proof?

Wow! A progressive babe with brains~~

So much for the Democrats cut and run brain fart.

Huffington Post

Angelina Jolie has been busy. The actress-humanitarian-UN ambassador recently returned from a trip to Iraq and revealed she's pregnant. She has now written an editorial for the Washington Post on her trip and the need for humanitarian aide:

My visit left me even more deeply convinced that we not only have a moral obligation to help displaced Iraqi families, but also a serious, long-term, national security interest in ending this crisis.

Today's humanitarian crisis in Iraq -- and the potential consequences for our national security -- are great. Can the United States afford to gamble that 4 million or more poor and displaced people, in the heart of Middle East, won't explode in violent desperation, sending the whole region into further disorder?

What we cannot afford, in my view, is to squander the progress that has been made. In fact, we should step up our financial and material assistance. UNHCR has appealed for $261 million this year to provide for refugees and internally displaced persons. That is not a small amount of money -- but it is less than the U.S. spends each day to fight the war in Iraq. I would like to call on each of the presidential candidates and congressional leaders to announce a comprehensive refugee plan with a specific timeline and budget as part of their Iraq strategy.

LBH --- You could visit the Real Climate web site and actually learn something.

No time to go on and on about it now.

McCain's Iraq Fantasia

[…]

They'd be taking a country? Last time I checked, Iraq has a Shi'ite majority. McCain thinks the Shi'ites--the Mahdi Army, the Badr Corps (and yes, the Iranians)--would allow a small group of Sunni extremists to take over? In fact, as noted above, the vast majority of indigenous Iraqi Sunnis aren't too thrilled about the AQI presence in their country, either. (The usual caveats apply: AQI is barbaric, dastardly and intent on violating the Qu'ran by engaging in the annihilation of innocents. We can't get rid of them fast enough.)

The sadness here is that McCain knows better. He knows the complexities of the world, and the region. But I suspect he's overplaying his Iraq hand in order to win favor with the wingnuts in his party. That is extremely unfortunate: As McCain should know better than anyone, it is extremely dishonorable for politicians to play bloody-shirt games when the nation is at war.

I've watched his show, John Hagee scares the crap out of me. His show is the vilest of ultra right wing political nutjobbery vaguely masquerading as a religious program. It is a mystery how his church keeps its non-profit status.

*******
I could swear I made a post before with two links but I just tried some test posts and the maximum it would accept is one.

I think they limited the number of links in a single post to stop the pills, tickets, porn robo-dumps.

Seems to work.

I've watched his show, John Hagee scares the crap out of me. His show is the vilest of ultra right wing political nutjobbery vaguely masquerading as a religious program.
~~

Pandomaniac goes to Hagees church in Texas just goes to show that progressives are just damn confused!

I've watched his show, John Hagee scares the crap out of me. His show is the vilest of ultra right wing political nutjobbery vaguely masquerading as a religious program.
~~

Yet you watch his show- LOL

Into S&M are ya?

LBH, you fail yet again at reading. I said watched, as in past tense. I'm not a regular viewer. Some of us actually try to find out what someone is about on our own instead of taking others' opinions at face value before passing judgement.

Texas Setting Records For Early Voter Turnout

Texans continue to turn out in record numbers to vote early for Tuesday's Republican and Democratic primaries.

Early voting runs through tomorrow.

Officials say turnout in the Democratic primary had already surpassed the early voting record set in 2002.

As of mid-week, nearly 585-thousand Texans had voted Democratic.

The Associated Press reports Democratic early voting turnout is six times higher than 2004 in Dallas County and the Republican strongholds of Harris and Tarrant counties.

*******

A very motivated electorate. That is a very good thing.

Capt, that's good stuff to hear. I'm in Tarrant county. The area is still amazingly red but perhaps there is hope yet.

Amid McCain's new status, old scandals stir

Critics wonder what he learned from Keating 5

WASHINGTON - As William K. Black watches John McCain move toward the Republican presidential nomination, he thinks of a day 21 years ago that he considers one of the most troubling of his life.

Black, a senior federal savings and loan regulator at the time, attended a meeting at which he felt McCain and four other senators pressured federal regulators to back off from investigating the troubled Lincoln Savings and Loan.

"I remain very upset that what they did caused such damage," said Black, now a professor at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, recalling how Lincoln's bankruptcy cost the government $3 billion. Moreover, he said he believes McCain intervened partly because his wife had invested money with Lincoln chairman Charles Keating, a campaign contributor who let the McCains use his home in the Bahamas.

*******

The lesson most often learned by people that get caught is to try not to get caught again.

I'm sure all the turnout is made up of Bush supporters and McCain supporters that want to "stay the course"

Tee hee!

Maybe Angelina can be McShames Sec State?

I wonder if she will wear a vial of blood around her neck? She could unerase her "death" tattoo that would be a nice touch.

Marine regiment heads back for 5th Iraq tour

What is remarkable about this deployment is that his unit, the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, is the first unit in the Marine Corps to be sent to Iraq five times.

"Someone else will hit that magical number soon," said Lt. Col. William Visited, commanding officer of the 1,000 troops that make up the battalion. "But it keeps the Marines motivated to know they're the first."

*****

5t deployments for the 3rd Battalion, 4th marine regiment

Versus

Zero deployments for armchair generals and pro-war chicken hawks.

I guess the surge IS working for the latter but it is killing the former.

McCain Resurrected

The Arizona Senator has gone from laughingstock to presumptive nominee by campaigning for World War III. So why do conservatives fear him?

Lets have a civilized debate from the two and say no to the extremists on both the right and left.
Posted by: LBH | February 28, 2008 12:53 PM

REDSTATE.COM
The Politics Of Inauthenticity By Pejman Yousefzadeh
It is to laugh:
Barack Obama has ratcheted up his attacks on NAFTA, but a senior member of his campaign team told a Canadian official not to take his criticisms seriously, CTV News has learned.
Posted by: LBH | February 28, 2008 1:33 PM

Weren’t you the one who said “say no to the extremists on both the right and left” just thirty minutes before you posted that redstate.com bullshit about inauthentic which means phony? You also said “he [McCain] wants to run his campaign on the issues and not personal attacks even if it offends his base” but that clearly that doesn’t mean you won’t buy into the personal attacks on his opponent. You are so transparently full of shit.

Weren’t you the one who said “say no to the extremists on both the right and left” just thirty minutes before you posted that redstate.com bullshit about inauthentic which means phony?

Neil my friend,

NAFTA is debate about policy not about Obamas middle name or if he's muslim. Since I posted that the Candian Government has disputed that story. But, they still are worried that Obamas needs an education on NAFTA before suggesting sracping it.

I wonder if she will wear a vial of blood around her neck? She could unerase her "death" tattoo that would be a nice touch.

You bitter old troll!

I do not agree with her life style but she has done more for human rights than all you trolls and Corn combined. Heck, Rush Limbaugh has done more than all you trolls and Corn combined. You all are still waiting for the government to do it for ya!

Critics wonder what he learned from Keating 5

How about not being associated with Democrats? Four Dems to one Repub. Sounds like some of that lobbists influence you keep peddling~~

I said watched, as in past tense

Sure, I believe ya~~he he

Hey Neil, is this a better source for ya?

Opponents slam Obama after CTV story on NAFTA
Updated Fri. Feb. 29 2008 12:37 AM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Allegations of double talk on NAFTA from the Obama and Clinton campaigns dominated the U.S. political landscape on Thursday.
Thursday, the Canadian embassy in Washington issued a complete denial.

"At no time has any member of a presidential campaign called the Canadian ambassador or any official at the embassy to discuss NAFTA," it said in a statement.

But on Wednesday, one of the primary sources of the story, a high-ranking member of the Canadian embassy, gave CTV more details of the call. He even provided a timeline. He has since suggested it was perhaps a miscommunication.

The denial from the embassy was followed by a denial from Senator Obama.

"The Canadian government put out a statement saying that this was just not true, so I don't know who the sources were," said Obama.

Sources at the highest levels of the Canadian government -- who first told CTV that a call was made from the Obama camp -- have reconfirmed their position.

NDP Leader Jack Layton said in question period Thursday that Canada should take advantage of any openings to renegotiate NAFTA.

"Why won't the prime minister take the lead here, exercise some sovereignty and bring about some change here that would be good for workers?" he asked.

However, Harper had a warning to anyone contemplating renegotiation of the trade deal.

"If a future president actually did want to open up NAFTA, which I highly doubt, then Canada would obviously have some things we would want to discuss," Harper said.

But Harper also noted that assertions made in the heat of political campaigns should be taken with a grain of salt. During the federal election in 1993, former prime minister Jean Chretien threatened to back out of NAFTA's precursor -- the Free Trade Agreement, which was signed by the Tories in the 1980s.

With a report from CTV's Washington Bureau Chief Tom Clark and files from The Canadian Press

BTW I found some amazing analysis on Obama’s campaign. I haven’t seen anything like this mentioned anywhere in the MSM.
Check out “Al-Qaeda Gets Offended” www.savagepolitics.com/?p=162 and “Predatory Lenders and the Red Phone” on www.savagepolitics.com/?p=158

SAVAGEPOLITICS.com
This site offers brilliant writing & analysis. EVERYONE into politics should check it out!!!

Obama flubs are helping Hillary Clinton. In addition to Obama's ties to Farrakahn. Slum Lord, Rezko, etc. His lack of judgement is apparent.

It has been a bad week for Obama!

March 7, 2008
Obama's Week in Review
Posted by BLAKE DVORAK | E-Mail This | Permalink | Email Author
It's been one to remember. Here's a run-down:

* Samantha Power. The Bad: It does a campaign based on a new style of inclusive politics no good to have one of its advisers call the opponent a "monster." The Good: What is Power's gaffe compared to Howard Wolfson's comparison of Obama to Ken Starr?

* Susan Rice. The Bad: You can imagine the reaction in Obama HQ while watching one of its foreign-policy advisers admit that neither candidate was "ready to have that 3 am phone call."

* March 4. Losing is bad enough. But almost all talk of Obamamentum ended when the candidate couldn't pick off Clinton's core voting blocs, as he had done in Wisconsin, which is looking more and more like the exception to the rule. The Good: Wyoming and Mississippi. Knowing it will likely pick up two consecutive states is the campaign's silver lining to March 4.

* Rezko trial. The campaign saw this one coming, but the response from the candidate only made matters worse. Peppered by the media at a Monday press conference Obama walked out after taking just eight questions. Bad move. From the Sun-Times' Lynn Sweet to the Post's Dana Milbank, the wrath of the reporters was unleashed. (Side note: The Sun-Times' Steve Huntley has a good column on this today here.) The Good: There is no evidence (yet) that Obama is hiding anything about his relationship to Rezko that he hasn't already fessed-up to (i.e., the sweetheart housing deal). And with the trial almost guaranteeing that something is bound to come out, one would think the Obama campaign would want to control the story by admitting it first. Hasn't happened, which might mean there's no there there.

* NAFTA-gate. The Bad: The original CTV clip sped around the Web as fast as those celebrity paeans to Obama. But again it was the ham-handed response from the campaign -- first denials, then grudging acceptance -- which constituted the first real blunder by the Obama campaign. The Good: With Ohio behind him and reports that Clinton's people were also sending signals to the Canadians, NAFTA-gate might not have the legs to continue.

* It began a week ago today with the Clinton campaign's release of the "3 am" ad. It's always tough to gauge the effectiveness of any particular ad, and late deciders in the this campaign have consistently moved toward Clinton. But on the margins in Texas at least, where the fight was neck-and-neck, the ad might have made the difference. The Good: Clinton tax returns. The Obama campaign immediately made an issue of them the day after Texas and Ohio. Some suggest this is ruining the campaign's "purity." Please. Whatever purity existed was lost the minute the votes started getting counted and anyone who thinks that Obama can win this riding the white stallion is drinking some serious Kool-Aid.