Obama's Big Speech
Thomas Lifson
It does not speak well of his campaign's crisis management skills that Barack Obama has taken five days to wheel out his heavy artillery and give a speech today on Jeremiah Wright, Jr. How can Obama get out of his hole? More

Is Obama Trying to Bamboozle Us with His Wright Denials?
Kyle-Anne Shiver
I thought I might have entered one of those political twilight-zone moments when I read this statement made by Obama Saturday, in response to reports on his pastor of twenty years More

The New Jimmy Carter
Bruce Walker
Thirty two years ago a Democrat politician with very little experience "transcended" politics as usual and was lifted on waves of good will to the White House. It seems to be happening again. More

Party of the 'Little Guy' (and big donors)
March 18, 2008
The top 100 political donors of the 2008 election cycle are listed in OpenSecrets.org . First, note how few of these big donors lean Republican: only 12 of the top 100. More

New Governor, Similar Problem
March 18, 2008
New York's new governor David Paterson has admitted he carried on extramarital affairs during a rocky period in his marriage. More

Supreme Court to take up Gun Rights
March 18, 2008
The most important 2nd Amendment case to make it to the Supreme Court in many years will be heard today as the Justices will be forced to address at least some gun control and gun rights issues: More

Obama: 'no sudden moves' when talking to whites
March 18, 2008
Judith A. Klinghofer cites a passage from Barack Obama's first autobiography to remember when listening to his speech today More

Tibet Violence Spreads
March 18, 2008
Violence that began last week in Tibet's capitol city of Lhasa has spread to neighboring provinces as sympathy demonstrations broke out in Sichuan and cities as far away as Beijing. More

Durbin Blows His Defense of Obama
March 17, 2008
In a crisis like the one facing Obama, one of the worst things you can do is send out spokesmen who give false statements or who contradict eachother. More

Damn chickens
March 17, 2008
White America was jubilant to be "post racial." People were spellbound by Barack Obama, as were Rev. Wright's congregants. More

The Trinity United Church of Christ memory hole
March 17, 2008
Barack Obama's church joins the Barack Obama campaign in deep-sixing embarrassing website postings. More

Sulzberger family capitulates on NYT outside directors
March 17, 2008
The New York Times today carries the news that, "The New York Times Company has struck a deal with a pair of hedge funds that want to shake up the company" More

Iraqi Poll: Confidence in future grows substantially
March 17, 2008
A poll conducted by several western news agencies and polling groups surveyed more than 2200 Iraiqs and found a considerable improvement in their outlook compared to a similar poll taken last August: More

Obama ready to take off the gloves against Clinton
March 17, 2008
Well, so much for the "politics of hope and change:" More

Lawyers and the Democrats
March 17, 2008
Bruce Walker's article "The Lawyer's Party" makes good points. But he neglects a crucial factor giving lawyers influence on the Democratic Party: money. More

Wright Connection Fatally Undermines Obama's Central Theme by David LimbaughThe racist, anti-American rantings of Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's spiritual mentor and …

Who is Barack Obama? by Dennis PragerWho is Barack Obama? The truth is that neither Sen. Obama's supporters nor opponents can …

Race and Politics by Thomas SowellThere is something both poignant and galling about the candidacy of Barack Obama.Any American, …

The plain things nobody can say

Wesley Pruden, Washington Times.com



We're doomed to a bitter, rancid presidential campaign, fraught with peril, and not just for John McCain. For Barack Obama, too. And let's not forget Hillary, as a lot of people are eager to do.



The Obama campaign, if not necessarily the man himself, seems determined to make tough questioning of the man and his qualifications off-limits. Mild, general criticism is OK, barely, but pressing too hard with the wrong questions is taken for racism, bigotry, fanaticism, zealotry and other forms of treachery. Once upon a time, presidential candidates labored mightily to find a log-cabin birthplace in their past, but some Democrats think they've come up with a candidate born in a manger.



As the sheen on the Obama image dissipates, as sheen surely will under the full weight of a presidential campaign, American voters will expect to indulge their right to say what they think about the candidates. If they must be ever-so-careful to criticize Barack Obama in the robust and rowdy way they feel free to criticize everybody else, reticence will quickly become resentment, and ultimately, just in time for November, revulsion. Read article.

The Clinton Runaround

Online WSJ.com



Have you ever been to a government office to pick up a document -- your driver's license, say -- only to be sent to another window, where the clerk sends you to another window, where a clerk sends you back to the first to start all over again?



That's what it feels like these days asking Bill and Hillary Clinton about their White House records. Last weekend, USA Today reported that it had finally received some records from the Clinton Presidency four years after making a Freedom of Information Act request. Except that hundreds of pages pertaining to the handling of Bill Clinton's 140 last-minute pardons had been redacted or withheld by the helpful folks at the National Archives.



The Archives told USA Today that they had referred all the excluded and redacted material to lawyer Bruce Lindsey, the longtime keeper of Clinton secrets who's responsible for vetting the records. But Mr. Lindsey refused; apparently he doesn't want to second-guess the Archives. The Clintons themselves, meanwhile, say that everything is in the hands of the Archives and Mr. Lindsey, even though the Archives are acting pursuant to Bill's personal instructions, and those instructions include a provision to allow Mr. Lindsay to second-guess the Archivists.



If you can't easily follow all that, maybe that's the idea. Read article.

illary: Hoist with Her Own Petard A.J. DiCintio, NMJ.us



How unforgivably arrogant, presumptuous, and contradictory is Hillary as she denies that if Barack Obama were to accept such an invitation, he would utterly destroy not just his credibility but his soul — even as he fails to stem the flight of voters repulsed by his agreeing to play Hillary’s bought man, obediently willing to alternate among the roles of Conduit to Blacks, Channel to White Liberals, and Ever at the Ready Hatchet Man who awaits orders from his seat in the back of the Clinton bus.



However self-destructive it is, the preceding ugliness doesn’t reflect the entirety of Hillary’s dire situation.



Why? Because the man Hillary Clinton is stink bombing, the man former Senator Bill Bradley told the Sunday Times is the victim of a campaign that believes “The bigger the lie, the better the chance [the Clintons] think they’ve got,” is a black American, a member of a group that has consistently given 90% of its vote to Democratic presidential candidates.



Those black voters are already plenty angry about “what Bill Clinton did” in South Carolina (as Peggy Noonan put it so well). How strongly will they react when the Clintons tell them they have to play Web Hubbell and “roll over one more time” so that a gang of party insiders can give Hillary what she’s “entitled” to?



And how will white Liberals and Obama Youth react when the Clintons bark the same command to them? Read article.

Senator Obama's Foreign Policy Judgment
Ed Lasky, American Thinker.com



Candidate Obama's initial opposition in the war did not necessarily show independence or wisdom. Opposition to the war was quite widespread among those on the left-end of the political spectrum, where Senator Obama has made his home for years. He was judged judged by the National Journal to be the most liberal member of the Senate .



He himself admitted that he might have considered his position differently had he been a Senator and had access to the information supplied to other Senators that led them to vote to give President Bush the authority to go to war. In any case, ever since his 2002 speech about Iraq, his views have shifted with the political winds. In light of this, as William Katz has observed in his fine blog Urgent Agenda, this is not judgment -- it was guesswork.



Here is but a sample of other pronouncements of Senator Obama that should give one pause come November and that bear on the issue of his judgment:



He disparaged Senator Clinton as the Senator from Punjab (thereby alienating a key ally and the largest democracy in the world-India). He later apologized, but damage had been done.



When criticized by Hillary Clinton for naiveté regarding the need for a President to be forceful, his knee-jerk response was not to dispute the charge but to strike out instead at an ally. He stated that he would be willing to bomb Pakistani Al Qaeda targets with or without the approval of Pakistan, another key-if frustrating-ally in our anti-terrorism efforts. He thus managed to accomplish a rare feat in the annals of America's dealing with South Asia: he alienated both India and Pakistan. Read article.

Rev. Wright touches a raw nerve
James Oliphant, Newsday.com



Remember when people said Barack Obama transcended race? It seems like a long time ago. (They may have been the same people who said the housing bubble would never burst.)



For some, he published remarks of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright have ripped wide open the divide in a contest that has already shown signs of becoming more polarized. Witness the black-white split in Mississippi this week.



Thomas Edsall of the Huffington Post writes that Wright's remarks have fomented a mistrust in Obama among conservatives that may not have been there before. Edsall writes:



"In the 24 hours after Friday's wall-to-wall airing of the Wright sermons on cable news networks, more that 2,700 posts were filed, most on right-leaning web sites, many of them questioning Obama's credibility as a presidential candidate and the legitimacy of his attempts to separate himself from Wright's past remarks."



"Obama is meant to be the man who transcends the divisions of race, the candidate who doesn't damn America but 'heals' it," wrote Mark Steyn on National Review Online. "Yet since his early twenties he's sat week after week listening to the ravings of just another cookie-cutter race huckster." Read article.

"America's Chickens are Coming Home to Roost"
Daniel Pipes, Daniel Pipes.org



The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr. of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, and Barack Obama's pastor since 1988, told his congregation in a sermon on Sept. 16, 2001 that "America's Chickens are Coming Home to Roost."



That last phrase has a history.



On Dec. 1, 1963, immediately after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Nation of Islam leader Malcolm X responded to that event with the comment that, "Being an old farm boy myself, chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they've always made me glad," prompting the audience, according to a newspaper account, "to loud applause and laughter."



There can be no doubt that Wright knows of the Malcolm X statement and, conscious or not, forty-five years later, chose to echo, repeat, and confirm it in the context of another new American tragedy. In 1963, Malcolm X denigrated the president; in 2008, Jeremiah Wright is closely tied to a presidential candidate – not a sign of progress. Read article.

Hornberger’s Blog
Tuesday, March 18, 2008

The D.C. Gun Ban Doesn’t Work
by Jacob G. Hornberger

In yesterday’s Washington Post, there was an article about gun traffickers who are robbing gun stores in Virginia in order to sell the guns to people in Washington, D.C. The story is timely given that the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments today in a case involving the constitutionality of D.C.’s gun ban.

According to the article,

“Firearms traffickers such as Lewis profit in an underground economy that has bustled for decades in the District, regardless of the city's long-debated prohibition on handgun ownership, one of the toughest gun-control laws in the nation.”

It is not a coincidence that a black market in D.C. handguns has been going on for decades and that the handgun ban in D.C. has been in effect for 32 years. The handgun ban itself gives rise to a black market in handguns, just as making drugs illegal has given rise to a black market in drugs.

At least one government officials seems to be aware of this economic phenomenon. As Edgar A. Domenech, head of the Washington field office of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, aptly put it, “You’re talking about supply and demand.”

There are two lessons to be learned from this.

First, making guns illegal gives rise to collateral crime — theft of guns. Why is this? Because the illegality makes the price of guns in D.C. artificially high, making it extremely profitable to steal them in Virginia and sell them in D.C. (The drug war has produced a similar cascade of collateral crime, such as muggings, thefts, and robberies in order to get the money to pay the exorbitant black-market prices of illegal drugs.)

Second, real criminals don’t give a hoot about gun-control laws. In other words, a robber or a rapist in D.C. isn’t going to say to himself, “I can’t use a gun to commit this crime because that would be illegal.”

Therefore, the people who are disarmed by a gun ban are not the violent criminals but rather the peaceful and law-abiding people who now are unable to defend themselves and their families from the violent criminals who don’t care that they are violating a gun ban by using a prohibited handgun in the commission of the crime.

Is it any surprise that Washington, D.C., has been called the murder capital of the United States? After enacting their gun ban 32 years ago, D.C. officials should have initiated a nationwide advertising campaign proclaiming: “Attention robbers, murderers, muggers, burglars, rapists, and thieves! Come to the most glorious model city in the country — Washington, D.C. — a gun-free zone, one where people are prevented from defending himself from you.”

Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

On Wright, What Took Obama So Long? - Richard Cohen, Washington Post
The Obama Bargain - Shelby Steele, Wall Street Journal
Obama Right For Keeping the Faith - Rick Daugherty, PA Morning Call
Why Obama Can't Escape His Preacher - James Kirchick, The Politico
Obama's Rationale for Bid in Jeopardy Over Wright - Tom Bevan, RCP
Clinton's Hopes for Florida Fade - Mark Halperin, Time
How Much Danger Are Democrats In? - John Dickerson, Slate
Israel Would Be Happy With McCain in White House - Amir Oren, Haaretz
Financial Fear and Loathing - Robert Samuelson, Newsweek
The Fed Can't Do It Alone - Alan Blinder, Washington Post
Was Bear Stearns the Sacrificial Lamb? - Larry Kudlow, RealClearPolitics
Bailing Out the Capitalists - E.J. Dionne, Washington Post
Is Lehman Next? - David Bogoslaw, BusinessWeek
7 Questions About the Financial Crisis - David Brooks, New York Times
Why China Thinks It Must Crush Tibet - Rosemary Righter, Times of London
Live From Lhasa - Anne Applebaum, Slate
Fighting for Our Right to Bear Arms - Robert Levy, Boston Globe
PA Quinnipiac: Clinton 53, Obama 41 / '08 Polls: Dem Nat'l, GenElection
RCP Blog: What Obama Should Say / Politics Nation: Obama's Moment

Editorials
The Wright Question - Washington Post
Guns on Trial - Washington Times
China Terrorizes Tibet - New York Times
Bear Naked Lenders - Wall Street Journal

Political News & Analysis
On Defensive, Obama Plans to Talk Race - New York Times
Bill Clinton Rejects Criticism Over Race - Associated Press
Florida Democrats Scrap Revote Idea - Miami Herald
New Rifts Over the Economy - Wall Street Journal

What Will Happen with Florida?
The Puerto Rico Wild Card
Overworking the Primary Data
Are the Chickens Coming Home to Roost?
An Email from a Smart Reader (And an Update to Today's Column)
How Clinton Won TX and OH
Clinton's "Moral Claim"
What's So Bad about the Super Delegates?
Who's the Better Closer?
Is It Over?

Transcripts & Speeches


Hillary Clinton: Clinton's Iraq Speech at GWU
The NewsHour: Barack Obama on "The NewsHour"
Special Report w/Brit Hume: Panel Discusses Obama & Race
Hannity & Colmes: Rove on Obama's Church on "Hannity & Colmes"
Secretary Paulson: Secretary Paulson Press Conference

Clinton Tries to Keep Plan for Two Revotes Alive
By JOHN M. BRODERChances grew dim for new balloting in Florida and Michigan, and analysts said Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton had the most to lose.

March 19, 2008
In Chicago, More Talk About Race After Speech
By SUSAN SAULNYThe phone lines lit up at Barack Obama’s church after his speech about race and his relationship with the church’s former pastor.

March 19, 2008
Choose, or Lose in November
By PHILIP BREDESENIf the Democratic Party lacks a clear presidential nominee when primary season ends on June 3, then a superdelegate primary should be scheduled.

March 19, 2008
Obama Urges U.S. to Grapple With Racial Issue
By JEFF ZELENYBarack Obama confronted the divisions between black and white as he sought to dispel the furor over statements by his pastor.

March 19, 2008
Mr. Obama’s Profile in Courage
What is evident is that Barack Obama not only cleared the air over a particular controversy — he raised the discussion of race and religion to a higher plane.

March 19, 2008
A Candidate Chooses Reconciliation Over Rancor
By JANNY SCOTTIn a speech that was frank but also hopeful and patriotic, Senator Barack Obama confronted race head-on, then reached beyond it.

March 19, 2008
Black, White & Gray
By MAUREEN DOWDOverriding aides who objected to putting race center stage, Barack Obama addressed a painful, difficult subject straightforwardly with a subtlety and d

It's Now Official: Bush Has Katrina-ized the US Economy.

by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review -

The group blog of The American Prospect
The civil union question.
Posted at 4:31 p.m.


A respectable liberal blog
Wall Sreet and Main Sreet.
Posted at 3:49 p.m.
[/color]

Dean Baker's economic commentary
[color="#800000"]The Washington Post vs. Social Security.
Posted at 10:15 a.m.

What Is McCain's Economic Agenda?
Jared Bernstein
March 17, 2008 | web only
John McCain claims he is all experience and straight talk, but his confidence seems to disappear when it comes to the economy.

But don't be fooled. The man who famously admitted that economics is not his strong suit wants to fundamentally alter the government's role in the economy.

Obama's Coming-Out Speech
Lee Cary
The candidacy of the man some have said transcends race turns out, after all, to be all about race. The light that forms his world view is refracted through a prism that splits into two colors -- black and white. More

It's Time to Call the Democrats on Race Demagogy
James Lewis
Democrats have protected, excused, and enabled race demagogues. Why not denounce all racial hatred, no matter what the source? More

The Real Agenda of Black Liberation Theology
Jeffrey Schmidt
Now, suddenly, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright is misunderstood. Suddenly, so-called black liberation theology is misunderstood. More

Gun Rights Case gets Historic Hearing
March 19, 2008
Several court watchers believe that the Heller case which challenges the Washington, D.C. gun ban will make history: More

Damn Chickens (continued)
March 19, 2008
Barack Obama can't abandon his pastor? Really, it's that he won't. It's a conscious choice he's making because he knows full well that doing so would cost him most of his Black support More

The Children of Hypocrisy
March 19, 2008
For 20 years, Obama's kids sat in a pew and listened to Reverend Wright spew his poison. But Obama says that the next generation will be the healers of our racial divide. How? More

Did Obama blow his chance?
March 19, 2008
Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters thinks Barack Obama blew his big chance with yesterday's speech, justifying instead of rejecting his Pastor's hateful rhetoric More

CNN Pro-Obama and Pro-Wright All the Time
March 19, 2008
On Tuesday, CNN fully lived up to its reputation as left of center, on a day when Sen. Barack Obama was desperately trying to put the Rev. Jeremiah Wright scandal behind him. More

More lawyerly evasions needed
March 18, 2008
Politico notices a contradiction between Obama's speech today and an earlier statement. More

Reactions to Obama's speech
March 18, 2008
Commentators weigh in. Will be updated as the day goes along. More

New Black Panther Party for Obama
March 18, 2008
The ever-alert Steve Gilbert of Sweetness & Light catches the Obama campaign website advertising the New Black Panther Party. More

No Go on Florida Revote
March 18, 2008
Florida Democrats have given up all hope of holding another nominating contest that would allow them representation at the Convention in August: More

Obamababble
March 18, 2008
If in their close twenty year association Obama was not able to move Rev. Wright off his divisive hatred and correct his many historical errors, why are we to suppose he could unite a nation, millions of whom didn't and would... More

Stepping up
the spending surveillance
US consumers blew twice as much on their credit cards in January as they did a month earlier, so the American way of life remains blissfully blind to the impending doom all around. Yet inflation-adjusted spending actually stalled for a second month. So nobody bought more! Things just cost more! A lot more. And those suckers weren't buying gold.

CREDIT BUBBLE BULLETIN
The worst-case scenario - live
The Fed's failure to forestall a run on Bear Stearns indicates that the US financial crisis has attained alarming momentum, with confidence in leveraged securities finance possibly irreparably damaged. The worst-case scenario is unfolding before our very eyes, and it all imparts a bad feeling. (Mar 17, '08)
Doug Noland reviews the previous week's events each Monday.

A Bankrupt Superpower

The Collapse of American Power
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

In his famous book, The Collapse of British Power (1972), Correlli Barnett reports that in the opening days of World War II Great Britain only had enough gold and foreign exchange to finance war expenditures for a few months. The British turned to the Americans to finance their ability to wage war. Barnett writes that this dependency signaled the end of British power.

From their inception, America's 21st century wars against Afghanistan and Iraq have been red ink wars financed by foreigners, principally the Chinese and Japanese, who purchase the US Treasury bonds that the US government issues to finance its red ink budgets.

The Bush administration forecasts a $410 billion federal budget deficit for this year, an indication that, as the US saving rate is approximately zero, the US is not only dependent on foreigners to finance its wars but also dependent on foreigners to finance part of the US government's domestic expenditures. Foreign borrowing is paying US government salaries--perhaps that of the President himself--or funding the expenditures of the various cabinet departments. Financially, the US is not an independent country.

The Bush administration's $410 billion deficit forecast is based on the unrealistic assumption of 2.7% GDP growth in 2008, whereas in actual fact the US economy has fallen into a recession that could be severe. There will be no 2.7% growth, and the actual deficit will be substantially larger than $410 billion.

Just as the government's budget is in disarray, so is the US dollar which continues to decline in value in relation to other currencies. The dollar is under pressure not only from budget deficits, but also from very large trade deficits and from inflation expectations resulting from the Federal Reserve's effort to stabilize the very troubled financial system with large injections of liquidity.

A troubled currency and financial system and large budget and trade deficits do not present an attractive face to creditors. Yet Washington in its hubris seems to believe that the US can forever rely on the Chinese, Japanese and Saudis to finance America's life beyond its means. Imagine the shock when the day arrives that a US Treasury auction of new debt instruments is not fully subscribed.

The US has squandered $500 billion dollars on a war that serves no American purpose. Moreover, the $500 billion is only the out-of-pocket costs. It does not include the replacement cost of the destroyed equipment, the future costs of care for veterans, the cost of the interests on the loans that have financed the war, or the lost US GDP from diverting scarce resources to war. Experts who are not part of the government's spin machine estimate the cost of the Iraq war to be as much as $3 trillion.

The Republican candidate for President said he would be content to continue the war for 100 years. With what resources? When America's creditors consider our behavior they see total fiscal irresponsibility. They see a deluded country that acts as if it is a privilege for foreigners to lend to it, and a deluded country that believes that foreigners will continue to accumulate US debt until the end of time.

The fact of the matter is that the US is bankrupt. David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the US and head of the Government Accountability Office, in his December 17, 2007, report to the US Congress on the financial statements of the US government noted that "the federal government did not maintain effective internal control over financial reporting (including safeguarding assets) and compliance with significant laws and regulations as of September 30, 2007." In everyday language, the US government cannot pass an audit.

Moreover, the GAO report pointed out that the accrued liabilities of the federal government "totaled approximately $53 trillion as of September 30, 2007." No funds have been set aside against this mind boggling liability.

Just so the reader understands, $53 trillion is $53,000 billion.

Frustrated by speaking to deaf ears, Walker recently resigned as head of the Government Accountability Office.

As of March 17, 2008, one Swiss franc is worth more than $1 dollar. In 1970, the exchange rate was 4.2 Swiss francs to the dollar. In 1970, $1 purchased 360 Japanese yen. Today $1 dollar purchases less than 100 yen.

If you were a creditor, would you want to hold debt in a currency that has such a poor record against the currency of a small island country that was nuked and defeated in WW II, or against a small landlocked European country that clings to its independence and is not a member of the EU?

Would you want to hold the debt of a country whose imports exceed its industrial production? According to the latest US statistics as reported in the February 28 issue of Manufacturing and Technology News, in 2007 imports were 14 percent of US GDP and US manufacturing comprised 12% of US GDP. A country whose imports exceed its industrial production cannot close its trade deficit by exporting more.

The dollar has even collapsed in value against the euro, the currency of a make-believe country that does not exist: the European Union. France, Germany, Italy, England and the other members of the EU still exist as sovereign nations. England even retains its own currency. Yet the euro hits new highs daily against the dollar.

Noam Chomsky recently wrote that America thinks that it owns the world. That is definitely the view of the neoconized Bush administration. But the fact of the matter is that the US owes the world. The US "superpower" cannot even finance its own domestic operations, much less its gratuitous wars except via the kindness of foreigners to lend it money that cannot be repaid.

The US will never repay the loans. The American economy has been devastated by offshoring, by foreign competition, and by the importation of foreigners on work visas, while it holds to a free trade ideology that benefits corporate fat cats and shareholders at the expense of American labor. The dollar is failing in its role as reserve currency and will soon be abandoned.

When the dollar ceases to be the reserve currency, the US will no longer be able to pay its bills by borrowing more from foreigners.

I sometimes wonder if the bankrupt "superpower" will be able to scrape together the resources to bring home the troops stationed in its hundreds of bases overseas, or whether they will just be abandoned.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

Obama's Unique Balancing Act - Wallsten & Nicholas, Los Angeles Times
Black, White and Gray - Maureen Dowd, New York Times
Obama Did Little to Address Pastor - Michael Gerson, Washington Post
Race, Wright and Obama's Candidacy - Jay Cost, RealClearPolitics
Racial Problems Transcend Wright Issue - Vandehei & Harris, The Politico
Landmark Speech is Road Map - Eugene Robinson, Washington Post
Hate is Not to Be Endlessly Analyzed - Mark Davis, Dallas Morning News
Superdelegates Should Decide by June 4 - Bob Beckel, RealClearPolitics
What Obama's Speech Really Meant - Robert Tracinski, Intellectual Activist
Wright's Rantings Won't Sink Obama - Dick Morris, The Hill
Court Weighs Right to Guns, and Its Limits - Linda Greenhouse, NY Times
The Iraq War: No Surrender - Fouad Ajami, Wall Street Journal
Has 5 Years of War Achieved Anything in Iraq? - Fred Kaplan, Slate
America Must Be a Good Role Model - Sen. John McCain, Financial Times
A New Deal for the New Economy - Rep. Rahm Emanuel, Wall Street Journal
Can Politicians Avoid Hoover's Mistakes? - Amity Shlaes, Bloomberg
What if The Fed Fails? - David Ignatius, Washington Post
RCP Blog: Daily 2008 / Politics Nation: AM Thoughts: Split Decision

Editorials
Obama's Brilliant Speech - Philadelphia Inquirer
Obama Merely Changes The Subject - Investor's Business Daily
China's Tibet Spin - Los Angeles Times
Iraq: Five Years Hence - Times of London

Political News & Analysis
Obama Speaks Bluntly on Race - Chicago Tribune
Obama Tackles Sensitive Topic for Disparate Audiences - Washington Post
McCain Missteps on Iraq, Democrats Pounce - New York Times
Clinton to Visit Detroit Wednesday - Detroit News

What Do Illinois, New Mexico and New York Have in Common? Death by Taser

by Pam Spaulding, Pam's House Blend - 6:26 AM


Who Cares If Hillary Was in the White House While Her Husband Cheated?

by William K. Wolfrum, Shakesville - 5:57 AM


Abu Ghraib Torturer Adopts Right Wing Rhetoric, Blames Media for Scandal

by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report - 5:27 AM


Is McCain Lying, Stupid or Both?

by Phoenix Woman, Firedoglake - 5:14 AM


Why America Can't Get Beyond Race

by Trish, Pensito Review - 4:48 AM

Obama Gets Real, Progressives Long for National Moment of Victory

Adrienne Maree Brown, WireTap

We have been mistreated, lied to and abused for so long -- I want us to have the highest standards for our next moment in history.

Jon Stewart: Obama's Race Speech "Spoke to Americans as Though They Were Adults" [VIDEO]

Post by Rachel Sklar
Video: Stewart's had easier targets of mockery than Obama delivering one of the most warmly received speeches of the campaign, but he gave it his best shot. More »

• Full Post

Politics Unusual: Obama Abandons Blame Game in Sophisticated Discussion of Race

David Corn, MotherJones.com

Election 2008: Obama tries to show the nation a pathway to a society free of racial gridlock and denial. (Full speech follows)

Southwest Passage
Thomas F. Schaller
March 20, 2008 | web only


John McCain represents Arizona, the fastest growing state in the nation's fastest growing and increasingly pivotal electoral region, the Southwest.

Couple his home region advantage with his prominent leadership role on the immigration issue, and you have a threat to the Democrats' plan to capture the Southwest vote.

The group blog of The American Prospect
On the subject of who giveth great speeches.
Posted at 9:27 a.m.


A respectable liberal blog
A guide for the perplexed.
Posted at 4:29 p.m.
[/color]

Dean Baker's economic commentary
[color="#800000"]The subprime crisis is passé.
Posted at 9:51 a.m.

The Palestinians Have no Interest in Peace
Richard Baehr
The latest survey on Palestinian attitudes should throw a glass of very cold water on the large class of Middle East peace processors. More

Our Imperfect Union
Lance Fairchok
Senator Obama's Tuesday speech in Philadelphia left the mainstream press rapturous, his wife teary, and the commentators that prefer emotion to fact calling it a defining moment in American racial and political history. More

Obama's Anger
Ed Kaitz
Back in the late 1980s I was on a plane flying out of New Orleans and sitting next to me was a rather interesting and, according to Barack Obama, unusual black man. More

Pastor Wright insulted Condoleeza Rice
March 20, 2008
Pastor Jeremiah Wright insulted, in a vile, sexist and racist manner, the Secretary of State. More

Unreality in Israeli-Arab talks
March 19, 2008
While Secretary of State Rice and her State Department and President Bush babble happily about Israeli-Arab "peace talks", reality violently intrudes. More

Reflections on Obama's Race Speech
March 19, 2008
Kyle-Anne Shiver has some very personal reflections on the Obama speech. Our frequent contributor now her own blog More

Pakistan elects first Female Speaker
March 19, 2008
The Pakistani parliament has been seated and their first order of business was the election of a female speaker - a first in Pakistan's history: More

And Now...The Paterson Tapes
March 19, 2008
Did they do nothing except partake in illicit sexual trysts in the Spitzer Administration? More

Revote plans in MI and FL appear dead in the water
March 19, 2008
Unless some miracle formula can be found in the next few days, it appears that revote primaries in both Michigan and Florida will not happen. More

Did McCain 'Mispeak' about Iranian help for AQ in Iraq?
March 19, 2008
The Democrats say he did. So does the Washington Post which, we all know, is basically the same thing: More

Reverend Wright: The Bible and No Jews
March 19, 2008
"I said that dirty word again, Israel." This was one of the many disparaging remarks Obama's pastor Jeremiah Wright made about Israel More

Gun Rights Case gets Historic Hearing
March 19, 2008
Several court watchers believe that the Heller case which challenges the Washington, D.C. gun ban will make history: More

Damn Chickens (continued)
March 19, 2008
Barack Obama can't abandon his pastor? Really, it's that he won't. It's a conscious choice he's making because he knows full well that doing so would cost him most of his Black support More

The Children of Hypocrisy
March 19, 2008
For 20 years, Obama's kids sat in a pew and listened to Reverend Wright spew his poison. But Obama says that the next generation will be the healers of our racial divide. How? More

Obama is Very Good at Rhetoric - Mort Kondracke, Roll Call
Obama's Extraordinary Speech Poses Challenge - Joe Klein, Time
Judgment, Character and Barack Obama - Peter Wehner, National Review
Clinton Facing Narrower Path to Nomination - Adam Nagourney, NYT
Racial Issues May Extend to Penn. - Carie Budoff Brown, The Politico
Hope & Change Amid Despair - Victor Davis Hanson, RealClearPolitics
McCain's Missed Iraq Opportunity - David Broder, Washington Post
Iraq: Justifiable War, Plagued by DC Incompetence - Ralph Peters, NY Post
It's Still Too Soon to Judge Iraq - Mark Moyar, Christian Science Monitor
Bush is a Failure - Robert Scheer, San Francisco Chronicle
Why Not Optimism? - Larry Kudlow, RealClearPolitics
Curious Deletions in Clinton's Calendar - Isikoff and Hosenball, Newsweek
Affirmative Action & the Obama Campaign - Steven Stark, Boston Phoenix
Why Obama's Words Will Be Remembered - Richard Reeves, RCP
David Mamet's Revision - Daniel Henninger, Wall Street Journal
Bring on the New New Deal - Harold Meyerson, Washington Post
Fed Has Economy in Uncharted Territory - Robert Novak, Chicago ST
HorseRaceBlog: The State of the Democratic Race - Jay Cost
RCP Blog: Daily 2008 / Politics Nation: Morning Thoughts

Editorials
Fantasies on Iraq - Washington Post
Petraeus Politics - Washington Times
Mission Still Not Accomplished - New York Times
Bush and the Broader War - Jerusalem Post

Political News & Analysis
Obama Pledges to Close War in 2009 - Charlotte Observer
Clinton Repeats Call for Withdrawal in W.V. - Charleston Gazette
Obama, Clinton, McCain Spar on Iraq - The Politico
McCain Stops in Sderot - Jerusalem Post

Obama's Was a Speech For The Ages - Rich Karlgaard, Forbes
Two Questions for Senator Obama - Lanny Davis, Huffington Post

The group blog of The American Prospect
Rejecting the politics of pitting race against race.
Posted at 3:25 p.m.


A respectable liberal blog
After the fact.
Posted at 4:15 p.m.
[/color]

Dean Baker's economic commentary
[color="#800000"]Bad debt tops $1 trillion.
Posted at 1:07 a.m.

UN Says it needs 25% Boost in Funding
March 21, 2008
The United Nations says it needs more money - lots more. More

Hamas op-ed on Rev Wright's 'Pastor's Page'
March 21, 2008
Blogger Tim Blumer did the work the MSM wouldn't, and examined the back issues of the Trinity United Church of Christ's Bulletin. More

Fewer Americans Identify themselves as Republicans
March 21, 2008
The highly respected Pew Research Cemter has published a new poll showing that Democrats own a decided advantage in party identification More

'Uttering' racial stereotypes
March 21, 2008
When Barack Obama uses an awkward expression in a scripted speech, it is deliberate; the text has been finely polished. More

Governor Richardson Endorses Obama
March 21, 2008
This isn't a huge surprise to campaign observers who saw Richardson's foreign policy stance much closer to Obama than Hillary. More

Obama's defihition of 'controversial'
March 21, 2008
For all his gifts with words, Barack Obama is raising more questions as he speaks about his relationship with Pastor Wright without benefit of the careful scripting of a speech. More

The Obama Passport Breach Flap
March 21, 2008
Two employees under contract to the State Department have been let go and another disciplined for violating the privacy of Senator Barack Obama and snooping in his passport files: More

Can Clinton Win Popular Vote, Superdelegates? - Ben Smith, The Politico
DNC's Dean Needs to Strike Grand Bargain - Doug Schoen, Wall St. Journal
Will Racial Politics Foil Obama? - Jake Tapper, ABC News
The Speech: A Brilliant Fraud - Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post
Don't Tar Obama With Wright's Words - Stafford Burns, Houston Chronicle
Not Fair to Judge Obama By Wright - E.J. Dionne, Indianapolis Star
Obama's Teaching Moment a Disaster - Wesley Pruden, Washington Times
Reliving the Banking Crisis of the 1930's - Paul Krugman, New York Times
Here's How to End the Panic - Steve Forbes, Forbes
The Other Side of the Economic Story - Ronald Brownstein, National Journal
A Review of the Pennsylvania Primary - Jay Cost, RealClearPolitics
Can McCain Hold the Southwest? - Thomas Schaller, The American Prospect
How Dems Stack Up vs. McCain - Michael Barone, US News & World Report
The End of Chainsaw Diplomacy - Peter Beinart, Time
Democrats Are Still Weak on Security - Karl Rove, Wall Street Journal
Iraq a Minefield for Candidates - Carl Leubsdorf, Dallas Morning News
Reasons For Good Friday - Michael Gerson, Washington Post

The Intellect Versus the Visceral - Dick Polman, American Debate
Yes, We Need a Dialogue on Race - Tom Bethell, The American Spectator
Obama's Real Problem is Racism - Gary Younge, The Nation
His Explanation Won't Fly in the Long Run - Rich Lowry, New York Post
Obama Versus the Gotcha Narrative - Steve Kornacki, New York Observer
Will Dean Cost the Dems Florida? - Tim Padgett, Time
Thoroughly Modern Do-Gooders - David Brooks, New York Times
US Needs 21st Century GI Bill - Harold Ford Jr. & Al From, Chicago Tribune
Iraq: The Real Story - Oliver North, FOX News
One of Wall Street's Great Collapses - James Cramer, New York Magazine
Democratic Tracking Polls: Gallup: Clinton +2 | Rasmussen: Obama +1
RCP Averages: McCain 46.0, Obama 44.6 | McCain 46.7, Clinton 45.4