Hillary Supporter Seems Connected With Wright's National Press Club Rant.

By Errol Louis
NY Daily News

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright couldn't have done more damage to Barack Obama's campaign if he had tried. And you have to wonder if that's just what one friend of Wright wanted.

Shortly before he rose to deliver his rambling, angry, sarcastic remarks at the National Press Club Monday, Wright sat next to, and chatted with, Barbara Reynolds.

A former editorial board member at USA Today, she runs something called Reynolds News Services and teaches ministry at the Howard University School of Divinity. (She is an ordained minister).

It also turns out that Reynolds - introduced Monday as a member of the National Press Club "who organized" the event - is an enthusiastic Hillary Clinton supporter.

On a blog linked to her Web site- www.reynoldsnews.com- Reynolds said in a February post: "My vote for Hillary in the Maryland primary was my way of saying thank you" to Clinton and her husband for the successes of Bill Clinton's presidency.

The same post criticized Obama's "Audacity of Hope" theme: "Hope by definition is not based on facts," wrote Reynolds. It is an emotional expectation. Things hoped for may or may not come. But help based on experience trumps hope every time."

In another blog entry, Reynolds gives an ever-sharper critique of Obama: "It is a sad testimony that to protect his credentials as a unifier above the fray, the senator is fueling the media characterization that Rev. Dr. Wright is some retiring old uncle in the church basement."

I don't know if Reynolds' eagerness to help Wright stage a disastrous news conference with the national media was a way of trying to help Clinton - my queries to Reynolds by phone and e-mail weren't returned yesterday - but it's safe to say she didn't see any conflict between promoting Wright and supporting Clinton.

It's hard to exaggerate how bad the actual news conference was. Wright, steeped in an honorable, fiery tradition of Bible-based social criticism, cheapened his arguments and his movement by mugging for the cameras, rolling his eyes, heaping scorn on his critics and acting as if nobody in the room was learned enough to ask him a question.

Wright has, unquestionably, been caricatured and vilified unfairly. The feeding programs, prison outreach and other social services he has built over more than 30 years are commendable, and his reading of the Judeo-Christian tradition as an epic story of people trying to escape slavery is far more right than wrong - and not something to be caricatured or compressed into a 10-second sound bite.

But Wright should have known - and his friend and ally Reynolds, a media professional, surely knew - that bickering with the press can only harm Wright and, by extension, Obama.

I hope that wasn't their goal.

elouis@nydailynews.com

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

It's High Time That The Remaining Super-delagates Put And End To This

As part of their kitchen-sink effort to set new lows for political indecency, the Clintons have now managed to transform the wholly unexceptional -- a run-of-the-mill political endorsement -- into a national spectacle.

First there was merely the exceptionally offensive as their own creation. One thinks, for example, of the Clinton camp's disqualification of its party's front-runner as commander in chief. Not even Joe McCarthy sank that low or wallowed that filthily within his own ranks.

Coincidental to that have been the Clintons' imaginative reformulations of what "win" means. With each passing primary (most of which counted) and bygone caucus (most of which did not), they issued regular updates on contemporary reality. Delegates counted, then delegates didn't. The popular vote was critical, then it wasn't. The "big states" were king, then only the cumulative electoral count counted. Stay tuned.

Kind of like what the meaning of the word "is," "is."

Most political parties have rules for this sort of thing -- determining who's ahead, that is. The Democratic Party does too, actually, but the Clintons are hoping the world will little note, nor long remember, what the party ruled so long ago. If they can just churn and muddy the waters long enough, so that disunity and disorientation become the norm, then perhaps all that stuffiness about preset conditions will go the way of a Green convention.

Indeed, as the Bushites learned from the Clintonistas, the Clintonistas have learned from the Bushites. Let chaos reign.

Now -- to pick up where we started -- they force feed us the unexceptional as the spectacular.

Poor Bill Richardson. He weighed and pondered, evaluated and brooded, and finally issued an endorsement. Nothing remarkable about that, right? Happens every day, every race, with nary an explosion of outrage and vilification. Such endorsements swiftly pass into the history books and voters' receding memory. No big thing. But poor Mr. Richardson weighed not the unique fury and calculated looniness of tactical Clintonianism.

It will be interesting when a high hoohoh, who is white, endorses Obama. I can't wait to see if he or, even worse, she will endure such wrath as Richardson has had to endure, or is that reserved for Hispanics whom the Clintons rescued from the political dog pound of political obscurity, or so they say.

It began much like the aftermath of any other political rebuff. "One adviser ... described Mr. Clinton as more philosophical than angry about it." Then high tactical-muckamuck Mark Penn chimed in with rather commonplace nonchalance, "play[ing] down the importance of the Richardson endorsement, suggesting that the time 'when it could have been effective has long since passed.'"

But of course Mr. Penn said that only because he knew it not to be true. He's one of our new barometers of truth. If he within the Clinton camp says it, something's fishy and a whopper of a storm must be brewing.

And sure enough, after a brief interlude of agonized huddling, the Clintons finally unleashed Frothy Dog Carville to deliver in scandalous terms what respectable tacticians always suppress with diplomatic restraint. "An act of betrayal," cried James on national television. "Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic."

Carville is absolutely apoplectic because he can't understand what's happening. Hillary is having a campaign. Obama has created a movement. Carville and Rove have more than I thought in common. They both believe in loyalty to a candidate above faith in the people and love of country, and it's our way or the highway politics.

And what did Carville's biblical outrage accomplish? Ah, there's the rub, for the Clintons. For it only highlighted in the press their most absolute of tawdry desperation; it was like waving the flag of surrender, without the actual surrender to follow. As the New York Times soon reminded us:

On their own, endorsements in contests like this — with two such well-known candidates — do not necessarily move votes.... But the audience now is less primary voters than superdelegates — uncommitted elected Democrats and party leaders — whose votes will be critical in helping Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Obama get the 2,024 delegates needed to win the nomination.

And Mr. Richardson? Well, he's "the 62nd superdelegate to endorse Mr. Obama since Feb. 5, compared with fewer than five who have moved into Mrs. Clinton's column since then." He is also now a short-list vice-presidential pick, who's also now as bloodied as Barack Obama, thanks to a leading ... Democrat.

All of which surely has that 63rd superdelegate somewhere out there thinking, I've had about enough of these bomb throwers. This intraparty madness must stop, or there won't be a party left to call home.

You got that right, Forrest Gump, superdelegate. Much more of this crape' deolla, and I'll be taking a long camping weekend with nary a voting booth nor a TeeVee insight on votin' day as they call it down here.

No, I can't vote for the PTSD guy, simply for the reason that I have it, much less acute, one must assume, than his and I wouldn't tour the White House let alone run for it or vote for myself. His brain must look like cottage cheese, shot through with buck shot. If he wins the White House, I am heading for the wilds and will pretend to be harmlessly crazy, while in the nearest village for supplies, which shouldn't be so hard to do since I've been getting there since 2000. A McCain win will definitely push me over the edge and "harmless loon" will be an easy role to play.

Only a few days ago most everyone concerned was content to proceed with business as usual at least through Pennsylvania. But the Clintons are, perhaps, now short-circuiting that comfort zone through their own electrifying offensiveness.

At this point, the number of Democrats whose endorsements could shake the race is down to Al Gore, the former vice president and presidential nominee; John Edwards, the former senator from North Carolina who dropped out of the race last month; and Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker. Aides to Mr. Edwards and Mr. Gore said that they did not expect either man to endorse anyone in the immediate future, if at all. Aides to Ms. Pelosi said she was unlikely to endorse at all.

But Ms. Pelosi doesn't need to; she has already unofficially endorsed Sen. Obama. That leaves only John and Al. And every passing day of forced Clintonian disunity increases the odds of that yet-named 63rd superdelegate saying, sooner than anyone expected, enough is enough.

There's an ancient observation from the Tao Te Ching that, for once, might have benefited the Clintons more than anything related in their cherished copy of Machiavelli's The Prince(ss). To paraphrase: The harder one grasps for something, the farther it slips from one's reach.

"The Truth waits for eyes unclouded by longing."

THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Speaker Pelosi Throws Some Ice-cold Water

But the MSM haven't quite figured it out yet; they've been too busy reporting on the rantings of two old senile people who aren't running for anything.

Who among us could run for anything, if we are to be held to account for everything our friends, pastors and employees say, especially when they are old and, probably senile.

Hey, MSM, let's move on, please, We have serious problems in this country, huge issues. I just heard that tent cities are going up in L,A. They ought to be on the National Mall, but nevertheless, the problems are staggering and they get more so every day.

Why are we wasting our time on this silliness.

And if we are going to start taping and showing sermons, lets get some on tape from the crusading crackpots. Some of those will raise the hair on the back of your neck. I know, I've heard some.

March 17, 2008

Of all the political statements and punditry that burst at the speed of light through an overburdened news delivery system, so many important statements get lost in the rush.

And that may be the case in the comments last week of one Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives -- and the "commander-in-chief" of the House Democrats. To put this in context in terms of the slimmest of hopes -- hanging by a scorched-earth policy of trench warfare for Hillary Clinton -- remember that every Democratic member of the House of Representatives is a Superdelegate to the Democratic Convention. And if you recall, that's well over 200 of the 750+ superdelegates. In short, while she doesn't control the House superdelegate votes, she does indicate which way the wind is blowing.

That is why much attention should be paid -- in a week when Obama gained 14 delegates on Clinton in states where primaries had already been conducted -- to a statement made by Speaker Pelosi last week. We will quote a large chunk of the Associated Press story so that you can get a feeling for the full potential impact of Pelosi's unambiguous, clear dictum:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says it would be damaging to the Democratic party for its leaders to buck the will of national convention delegates picked in primaries and caucuses, a declaration that gives a boost to Sen. Barack Obama.

"If the votes of the superdelegates overturn what's happened in the elections, it would be harmful to the Democratic party," Pelosi said in an interview taped Friday for broadcast Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

The California Democrat did not mention either Obama or his rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, by name. But her remarks seemed to suggest she was prepared to cast her ballot at the convention in favor of the candidate who emerges from the primary season with the most pledged delegates.

Obama leads Clinton by 142 pledged delegates — those delegates picked in nomination contests to date, in The Associated Press' count.

Barring an unlikely string of landslide victories by the former first lady in the remaining states, he will end the primary season with a delegate lead, but short of the 2025 needed to win the nomination.

That gives the balance of power to the so-called superdelegates, prominent Democrats who are automatically entitled to attend the convention because of their status as members of Congress or other leaders. Clinton leads Obama for their support in the AP count, 249-213.

Pelosi's comments could influence other House Democrats who are neutral in the presidential race and will attend the convention as superdelegates.

In her interview, Pelosi also said that even if one candidate winds up with a larger share of the popular vote than the delegate leader, the candidate who has more delegates should prevail.

"It's a delegate race," she said. "The way the system works is that the delegates choose the nominee."

Note that not only does Speaker Pelosi strongly endorse the candidate with the most pledged delegates; she also throws cold water on the Clinton strategy of trying to pass Obama in the popular vote (which he now leads) and then claim that the popular vote -- and Obama is likely to still end up leading in that category, too, barring some Clinton campaign-Bush 2000 like shenanigans such as using the race card to drive out the "Archie Bunker" vote to vote for "Hillary, the Great White Hope" -- supersedes the importance of pledged delegates.

Pelosi pretty much repudiates the Clinton campaign's hope of running up the negatives on Obama and praying hard for Obama to trip over himself with some mortal gaffe. Speaker Pelosi firmly announced, in translation: forget about the miracles, Hillary. I'm letting my House delegation know that I don't condone this divisive, unlikely low road to the Democratic Party nomination.

Indeed, Obama has climbed from around a 100 superdelegate deficit to just 30, and while he has incrementally been increasing his superdelegate count, Clinton has staid static for weeks.

Furthermore, Pelosi threw cold water on the Bill and Hillary Clinton phony enticement to undecided voters that Obama might make a good vice-president (even though Clinton has declared several times that John McCain is fit to be commander-in-chief -- a glaring error in judgment on Clinton's part -- but Obama isn't). Of the "Dream Ticket" gambit, Pelosi dismissed it with a wave of her hand: "It's not going to happen." In fact, her exact words were, "It's impossible."

So among all the top Democrats in Congress who have indicated in one way or another that Clinton should "hit the road, Jack," the most devastating blow may have been dealt last week by Speaker Pelosi.

It didn't hit the news big time -- what with all the controversy about Ferraro and Wright -- but you can be sure that uncommitted members of the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives heard it loud and clear.

BUZZFLASH EDITOR'S BLOG

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Keith's Scating Comment on Clinton Campaign

Last Night, Keith crystallized our frustration with the low-road tactics and the increasingly desperate aura of this campaign, and what it's doing to the discourse and the Democratic party.

Transcript follows:

Finally, as promised, a Special Comment on the presidential campaign of the Junior Senator from New York.
By way of necessary preface, President and Senator Clinton -- and the Senator's mother, and the Senator's brother -- were of immeasurable support to me at the moments when these very commentaries were the focus of the most surprise, the most uncertainty, and the most anger. My gratitude to them is abiding.
Also, I am not here endorsing Senator Obama's nomination, nor suggesting it is inevitable.
Thus I have fought with myself over whether or not to say anything.
Senator, as it has reached its apex in their tone-deaf, arrogant, and insensitive reaction to the remarks of Geraldine Ferraro... your own advisors are slowly killing your chances to become President.
Senator, their words, and your own, are now slowly killing the chances for any Democrat to become President.
In your tepid response to this Ferraro disaster, you may sincerely think you are disenthralling an enchanted media, and righting an unfair advance bestowed on Senator Obama.
You may think the matter has closed with Representative Ferraro's bitter, almost threatening resignation.
But in fact, Senator, you are now campaigning, as if Barack Obama were the Democrat, and you… were the Republican.
As Shakespeare wrote, Senator -- that way… madness… lies.
You have missed a critical opportunity to do... what was right.
No matter what Ms. Ferraro now claims, no one took her comments out of context.
She had made them on at least three separate occasions, then twice more on television this morning.
Just hours ago, on NBC Nightly News, she denied she had made the remarks in an interview -- only at a paid political speech.
In fact, the first time she spoke them, was ten days before the California newspaper published them... not in a speech, but in a radio interview.
On February 26th, quoting...
"If Barack Obama were a white man, would we be talking about this, as a potential real problem for Hillary? If he were a woman of any color, would he be in this position that he's in? Absolutely not."
The context was inescapable.
Two minutes earlier, a member of Senator Clinton's Finance Committee, one of her "Hill-Raisers," had bemoaned the change in allegiance by Super-Delegate John Lewis from Clinton to Obama, and the endorsement of Obama by Senator Dodd.
"I look at these guys doing it," she had said, "and I have to tell you, it's the guys sticking together."
A minute after the "color" remarks, she was describing herself as having been chosen for the 1984 Democratic ticket, purely as a woman politician, purely to make history.
She was, in turn, making a blind accusation of sexism -- and dismissing Senator Obama's candidacy as nothing more than an Equal Opportunity stunt.
The next day she repeated her comments to a reporter from the newspaper in Torrance, California.
"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."
And when this despicable statement -- ugly in its overtones, laughable in its weak grip of facts, and moronic in the historical context -- when it floats outward from the Clinton Campaign like a poison cloud, what do the advisors have their candidate do?
Do they have Senator Clinton herself compare the remark to Al Campanis talking on Nightline... on Jackie Robinson day... about how blacks lacked the necessities to become baseball executives, while she points out that Barock Obama has not gotten his 1600 delegates as part of some kind of Affirmative Action plan?
Do they have Senator Clinton note that her own brief period in elected office, is as irrelevant to the issue of judgment as is Senator Obama's…
…while she points out that FDR had served only six years as a governor and state Senator before he became President?
Or that Teddy Roosevelt had four-and-a-half years before the White House?
Or that Woodrow Wilson had two years and six weeks?
Or Richard Nixon… fourteen... and Calvin Coolidge 25?
Do these advisors have Senator Clinton invoke Samantha Power -- gone by sunrise after she used the word "monster" -- and have Senator Clinton say, "this is how I police my campaign and this is what I stand for," while she fires former Congresswoman Ferraro from any role the campaign?
No.
Somebody tells her that simply disagreeing with and rejecting the remarks is sufficient.
And she should then call, "regrettable", words that should make any Democrat retch.
And that she should then try to twist them, first into some pox-on-both-your-houses plea to 'stick to the issues,' and then to let her campaign manager try to bend them beyond all recognition, into Senator Obama's fault.
And thus these advisers give Congresswoman Ferraro nearly a week in which to send Senator Clinton's campaign back into the vocabulary... of David Duke.
"Any time anybody does anything that in any way pulls this campaign down and says let's address reality and the problems we're facing in this world, you're accused of being racist, so you have to shut up.
"Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white.
"How's that?"
How's that?
Apart from sounding exactly like Rush Limbaugh attacking the black football quarterback Donovan McNabb?
Apart from sounding exactly like what Ms. Ferraro said about another campaign, nearly twenty years ago?
Quote:
"President Reagan suggested Tuesday that people don't ask Jackson tough questions because of his race. And former representative Geraldine A. Ferraro (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that because of his "radical" views, "if Jesse Jackson were not black, he wouldn't be in the race."
So... apart from sounding like insidious racism that is at least two decades old?
Apart from rendering ridiculous, Senator Clinton's shell-game about choosing Obama as Vice President?
Apart from this evening's resignation letter?
"I am stepping down from your finance committee so I can speak for myself and you can continue to speak for yourself about what is at stake in this campaign.
"The Obama campaign is attacking me to hurt you."
Apart from all that?
Well. It sounds as if those advisors want their campaign to be associated with those words, and the cheap… ignorant… vile… racism that underlies every syllable...
And that Geraldine Ferraro has just gone free-lance.
Senator Clinton:
This is not a campaign strategy.
This is a suicide pact.
This week alone, your so-called strategists have declared that Senator Obama has not yet crossed the "commander-in-chief threshold"…
But -- he might be your choice to be Vice President, even though a quarter of the previous sixteen Vice Presidents have become commander-in-chief during the greatest kind of crisis this nation can face: a mid-term succession.
But you'd only pick him if he crosses that threshold by the time of the convention.
But if he does cross that threshold by the time of the convention, he will only have done so sufficiently enough to become Vice President, not President.

Senator, if the serpentine logic of your so-called advisors were not bad enough...
Now, thanks to Geraldine Ferraro, and your campaign's initial refusal to break with her, and your new relationship with her -- now more disturbing still with her claim that she can now "speak for herself" about her vision of Senator Obama as some kind of embodiment of a quota...
If you were to seek Obama as a Vice President, it would be, to Ms. Ferraro, some kind of social engineering gesture, some kind of racial make-good.
Do you not see, Senator?
To Senator Clinton's supporters, to her admirers, to her friends for whom she is first choice, and her friends for whom she is second choice, she is still letting herself be perceived as standing next to, and standing by, racial divisiveness and blindness…
And worst yet, after what President Clinton said during the South Carolina primary, comparing the Obama and Jesse Jackson campaigns -- a disturbing, but only borderline remark...
After what some in the black community have perceived as a racial undertone to the "3 A-M" ad... a disturbing -- but only borderline interpretation...
And after that moment's hesitation in her own answer on 60 Minutes about Obama's religion -- a disturbing, but only borderline vagueness...
After those precedents, there are those who see a pattern... false, or true.
After those precedents, there are those who see an intent... false, or true.
After those precedents, there are those who see the Clinton campaign's anything-but-benign neglect of this Ferraro catastrophe -- falsely or truly -- as a desire to hear the kind of casual prejudice which still haunts this society voiced... and to not distance the campaign from it.
To not distance you from it, Senator!
To not distance you... from that which you as a woman, and Senator Obama as an African-American, should both know and feel with the deepest of personal pain!
Which you should both fight with all you have!
Which you should both insure, has no place in this contest!

This, Senator Clinton, is your campaign, and it is your name.
Grab the reins back from whoever has led you to this precipice, before it is too late.
Voluntarily or inadvertently, you are still awash in this filth.
Your only reaction has been to disagree, reject, and to call it regrettable.
Her only reaction has been to brand herself as the victim, resign from your committee, and insist she will continue to speak.
Unless you say something definitive, Senator, the former Congresswoman is speaking with your approval.
You must remedy this.
And you must... reject... and denounce... Geraldine Ferraro.
Good night, and good luck.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

More Showing Clinton Panic

Manchester, N.H. -- A panicked and cash-short Clinton campaign is seriously considering giving up on the Nevada caucuses and on the South Carolina primary in order to regroup and to save resources for the massive 19-state mega-primary on February 5.

At the same time, some top independent expenditure groups supporting Clinton have been exploring the creation of an anti-Obama "527 committee" that would take unlimited contributions from a few of Clinton's super-rich backers and from a handful of unions to finance television ads and direct mail designed to tarnish the Illinois Senator's image.

The Clinton campaign has raised over $100 million, but has "only" $15 to $20 million left. It faces donor reluctance to give more in the face of the Iowa defeat and the prospect of a second loss in New Hampshire today. Even worse, the campaign fears defections among those fundraisers who want to be with a winner and who might be easily persuaded to support Barack Obama.

While the amount of money Clinton has would seem to be more than enough by past standards, the cost of competing in the February 5 states -- including New York, California, Georgia, New Jersey, Minnesota, Colorado, Tennessee, Massachusetts and Arizona - is unprecedented in the history of American primaries. She will face, in turn, an extremely well-funded Obama campaign, whose cash register right now doesn't stop ringing as donations are coming in over the Internet, by mail and in checks handed over in person.

The decision whether to take on Obama in Nevada and South Carolina will likely be made within the next 12 hours.

Both states look like probable defeats for Clinton. South Carolina has a large black electorate that is now likely to back Obama by wide margins, and the Democratic primary is open to all voters, including independents and Republicans, two other groups that in Iowa backed Obama decisively. Clinton had looked fully competitive in Nevada, but Obama's victories have boosted his chances there and now he appears almost certain to get the endorsement of the powerful Culinary Workers Union.

Arguing against pulling out of South Carolina and Nevada are Clinton aides who say that bowing out now would guarantee four defeats in a row - Iowa, N.H. lost at the ballot box, and South Carolina. and Nevada given up by default - would be a disastrous precursor to the February 5 contests. "You've got to put some points on the board. You can't just let the other guys run up the score and expect to come back in the fourth quarter," one Clinton aide said.

Three groups conducting independent expenditure campaigns in behalf of Clinton - Emily's List, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) - have explored the possibility of trying to put together a multi-million dollar effort privately dubbed the Anybody-But-Obama 527 Committee, but they have run into problems finding any Democratic operative willing to become the director of a campaign against the man who now is the odds-on favorite to become the party's nominee.

"You might make some good money in the short term, but your chances of getting any Democratic contracts in the future, especially if Obama wins, would be zilch," said one operative. "I wouldn't go there." The effectiveness of a 527 that goes negative was demonstrated by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which attacked John Kerry's war record in the 2004 campaign.

Sources familiar with the discussions about the creation of an anti-Obama 527 said that some of the Clinton campaign's major fundraisers have separately been exploring another similar proposal, but have not gotten very far yet.

"These things (527s) are not that easy to get rolling. There is a long way between talking and doing," said one source familiar with setting up 527 operations.

Federal tax law requires regular disclosure of both the donors to 527 organizations and the expenditures they make, so it is not possible for such committees to keep secret the identity of supporters and staff.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

The Clinton Campaign Blunder

Funny thing is, Shaheen is probably right. Obama will be questioned on his drug use, by the Republicans, should he become the Dem's nominee, unlike George W Bush, who should have been questioned, but wasn't. Obama, unlike Bush, shows no apparent brain damage from his teenage experimentation. Bush's affair with alcohol went on until he was forty. He was an admitted binge drinker. Binge drinking is probably the worst kind of alcoholic drinking when it comes to recovery.

There is every reason to believe that Bush may have hit the bottle again, in recent years. Alcohol was one of Bush's coping mechanisms for many years. The ordinary stress of the presidency is bad enough. Being the president when the country is attacked, as it was on 9/11, multiplies that stress by at least 10, I would guess. It would be normal for Bush to return to his old coping mechanism, especially when all his policies started unraveling and his lies revealed.

Teenage drug experimentation sets up no such danger.

By Tom Curry

National affairs writer

MSNBC

updated 2 hours, 38 minutes ago

DES MOINES, Iowa - “It was worse than a crime, it was a blunder.”

So said the French politician Talleyrand after Napoleon had ordered the murder of one of his political rivals.

Much of the rhetoric in the spin room Thursday afternoon after the Democratic presidential debate in Iowa was about an apparent blunder committed by Bill Shaheen, the master New Hampshire political operative and until Thursday the co-chairman of the Clinton campaign.

---

Shaheen had been forced to resign after remarking to a Washington Post reporter that Sen. Barack Obama’s youthful drug use would be fodder for Republican attacks if he were the Democratic nominee.

Obama’s admitted teen drug taking would “open the door,” Shaheen predicted, to questions such as “Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?” This would be “hard to overcome,” in Shaheen’s view.

Was Shaheen’s commentary truly a blunder? Had the incident helped Obama or created an opening for John Edwards?

Or might it turn out to hurt Obama and thus help Clinton?

Why take Shaheen seriously?

There was also another question that went unasked Thursday: since no one could mistake Shaheen for an objective commentator, why would anyone take his remarks all that seriously to begin with?

As of Thursday night it was too soon to tell, but as sometimes happens in presidential politics, a peripheral figure suddenly became for 24 hours the most crucial person in the campaign.

Shaheen, the husband of former New Hampshire governor Jeanne Shaheen, has a sterling record of success: he piloted the New Hampshire campaign of Jimmy Carter in 1980, when he beat back the challenge of Ted Kennedy, that of Al Gore in 2000, when he crushed Bill Bradley, and the John Kerry effort in 2004, when he finished off Howard Dean.

My vivid memory of Shaheen is of his utter self-confidence. At the lowest point of the Kerry campaign in New Hampshire in September of 2003, when Dean’s popularity was at its peak, Shaheen told me that Dean would come unstuck — and sure enough, he did.

On Thursday Shaheen said in a written statement, “I made a mistake and in light of what happened, I have made the personal decision that I will step down as the Co-Chair of the Hillary for President campaign.”

But it is difficult to imagine a strategist as canny as Shaheen is making a thoughtless “mistake.” A deliberate “mistake” — maybe.

He said in his statement that his comments “were in no way authorized by Senator Clinton or the Clinton campaign.” They need not have been to be effective.

How Trippi saw the 'blunder'

Edwards strategist Joe Trippi said the Clinton campaign was dogged by the reality that she has long been a Washington insider and can’t credibly campaign as a candidate who’ll radically break with the politics of the past, as Edwards and Obama each claim they will do.

“This (Shaheen episode) just makes them (the Clinton team) look even more political,” said Trippi. “They’re just digging themselves a deeper hole” into “the problem they’re trying to get out of.”

He added such attacks “are such a blunder” that they might help Obama.

But Trippi argued, using horse race imagery, “there’s a reason Obama has not run away from her and there’s a reason she hasn’t run away from him.” In other words, both horses are neck and neck on the backstretch.

“There’s a reason Obama hasn’t run away into the sunset and the reason is there’s a deep concern about his readiness to be president,” Tripp said.

Citing polling data on Obama, Trippi said, “A quarter of his own supporters think he’s not qualified to be president.”

Both Obama and Clinton are flawed candidates, he said, but “there’s another guy, John Edwards, who people here really like. They feel like they know him and they know he stands up for working people and they don’t have those kinds of doubts about him.”

Meanwhile, a few feet away from Trippi, Obama’s campaign manager David Axelrod was, in a restrained way, utterly enjoying the chance to spin reporters on the story line that the Shaheen episode cast a shadow on Clinton’s campaign.

CONTINUED: What did Clinton know?

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.