Who Will Gen. Colin Powell Vote For?

Obama: Man, those Klinton Kids are Something...

xpostfactoid Post:

keep reading that Obama is 'timid' or 'hesitant' or "whiny" in dealing with Hilllary's attacks. I've never thought so -- I've thought that he's blended his message about trust seamlessly into his message about building a working mandate -- but this is just pitch perfect:

He brushed off concerns about a loss of black voters in the general election should Clinton win the nomination after an ugly primary -- a worry that many others in the party have alluded to.

"Black voters shouldn't blame Senator Clinton for running a vigorous campaign against me," he said. "That should be a source of pride. It means I might win this thing. When I was 20 points down, I was a 'person of good character' and my health-care plan was 'universal.' The fact that we've got this fierce contest indicates I'm doing well, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that."

Obama struck a similar tone when asked about Bill Clinton's role in the campaign. "Let me sort of dispose of the whole issue of President Clinton. I have said this repeatedly. He is entirely justified in wanting to promote his wife's candidacy," Obama said. "I have no problem with that whatsoever. He can be as vigorous an advocate on behalf of her as he would like. The only thing I'm concerned about is when he makes misstatements about my record. That's what I'm seeking to correct."

More than once, Obama has played the adult in the Clinton sandbox. The lion tamer, the ringmaster. "Hillary, I look forward to taking advice from you..."

Related posts:
Obama's "what I meant" moments
Truth and Transformation
The lying Clinton meme
Obama praises (Bill) Clinton, and buries him

I'm Not Saying, I'm Just Saying

ON THE COUCH AGAIN....It's funny how sometimes you have to wait and see how you actually react to something to know how you're going to react to something. I've been sort of fitfully supporting Hillary Clinton for the past few months, but I have to say that I don't feel any disappointment tonight over her loss. Just the opposite, in fact. My arguments against Obama have mostly been fairly abstract ones, but emotionally I'm as susceptible to the famous Obama charm as anyone. And the idea of a young, charismatic, black guy as our next president is pretty damn inspiring. Just sayin'.


Of course we can't be sure that he'll win the nomination, although that seems likely right now, or that he'll be elected if he is the nominee -- though given the wounded candidates and intellectual collapse on the Republican side, that seems practically a lock. And as Bill Clinton has so helpfully pointed out, it's a roll of the dice what kind of president he would actually be. But to watch his statement live was to realize, even as it was happening, that you were seeing a moment of history people were likely to remember and discuss for a very long time.


Judge Him by His Laws
By Charles Peters

Consider a bill into which Obama clearly put his heart and soul. The problem he wanted to address was that too many confessions, rather than being voluntary, were coerced -- by beating the daylights out of the accused.

Obama proposed requiring that interrogations and confessions be videotaped.

This seemed likely to stop the beatings, but the bill itself aroused immediate opposition. There were Republicans who were automatically tough on crime and Democrats who feared being thought soft on crime. There were death penalty abolitionists, some of whom worried that Obama's bill, by preventing the execution of innocents, would deprive them of their best argument. Vigorous opposition came from the police, too many of whom had become accustomed to using muscle to "solve" crimes. And the incoming governor, Rod Blagojevich, announced that he was against it.

Obama had his work cut out for him.

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