Making the Case for the Awesome Stuff We're Going to Get?

I'm almost dumbfounded by the way Ezra Klein, who's supposed to be some über blogger of the progressive left, discusses taxes in his new post up on the Democrats and taxation.

The way he pumps the story, it's almost like levying taxes creates some grab bag of goodies that the redistributionist left can just dig into to fuel its assorted spending largesse:

Howard Gleckman points out that while Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton aren't as egregiously out-of-touch as Charlie Gibson, they're pandering to the Gibsonian line on taxes, refusing to consider increases for families making less than $200,000 a year, and hamstringing themselves on needed revenue. This gets to a generalized problem in Democratic tax talk, which is that they're very unwilling to talk about taxes in terms of value. There are lots of government services which are actually a good deal for middle income families and should be sold as something that Americans would be wise to invest in. But rather than making a positive case around awesome stuff we're going to get, Democrats talk about taxes in complete isolation from the things that taxes buy, and begin with the premise that they're so odious and painful that they should only be levied on folks too rich to notice. It's not exactly the strongest argumentative ground.

"Awesome stuff"?

We're going to make a case for raising taxes because people are going to get "awesome stuff"?

I wonder what "awesome stuff" Klein's taking about, since from what I've learned of him, I doubt he was raised on welfare checks and food stamps.

This is a kid who grew up in affluent Orange County, California, attending University High School, one of the most prestigious public high schools in the state. But perhaps this is to be expected: Klein's young, at the tender age of 23, and he's still getting his analytical feet wet, after having been ideologically groomed while attending such colleges as the University of California, Santa Cruz, a campus notorious for its far left-wing fanaticism.

Maybe this is a case of the good, old liberal elitism we've been reminded of this last week?

What better way to demonstrate your left-wing bona fides than arguing that families making over $200,000 annually aren't having enough of their earnings confiscated to provide more "awesome" goodies to snotty but well-off kids who've graduated from premiere public educational institutions?

Oh, note too that Gibson's being praised for his pro-growth queries, which of course are anathema to those hostile to conservative tax policy restraint.

See more at Memeorandum; and also, Heidi's blog, "Don't Bemoan the LowTaxes, Pay More!!!"

Passion and Technology Drive New 21st Century Campaign

Ronald Brownstein, over at the National Journal, argues that a concatenation of forces this political season has created a model of electoral politics never seen before, "The First 21st-Century Campaign":

In scope and sweep, tactics and scale, the marathon struggle between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton has triggered such a vast evolutionary leap in the way candidates pursue the presidency that it is likely to be remembered as the first true 21st-century campaign.

On virtually every front, the two candidates’ efforts dwarf those of all previous primary contenders—not to mention presumptive GOP nominee John McCain. It’s easy to miss the magnitude of the change amid the ferocity of the Democratic competition. But largely because of their success at organizing supporters through the Internet, Clinton and, especially, Obama are reaching new heights in raising money, recruiting volunteers, hiring staff, buying television ads, contacting voters, and generating turnout. They are producing changes in degree from prior primary campaigns so large that they amount to changes in kind.

“This campaign does look dramatically different from any previous campaign,” says veteran Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. “My guess is, it is a watershed. The next time somebody runs for president, it is going to look a lot more like this than like 2000 or 1996 or even 2004.”

The transformation is visible in every direction. Through the end of February, Obama had raised more than six times as much money as John Kerry, the last Democratic nominee, did through the first two months of 2004, and Clinton had collected more than five times as much. In state after state, the two campaigns are organizing levels of voter outreach through phone banks and door-to-door canvasses previously seen only in presidential general elections—if even then. And through e-mail and the distribution of online videos, the candidates are communicating directly with previously unimaginable numbers of voters: By early this month, videos produced by the Obama campaign had been viewed 37 million times on YouTube. “I’ve never been in an election where the capacity you have to go door to door, or register voters, or you name the task is this enormous,” says Paul Tewes, a veteran Democratic organizer who ran Obama’s Iowa and Ohio campaigns.

Each of these advances is rooted in the same fusion of passion and technology: the intense emotions generated among Democrats by George W. Bush’s polarizing presidency combined with the relentless advance of information technology. “If I had to boil down what has really happened in the election cycle, it is [that] you are finally seeing the real fruition of the full power of … the Internet on politics,” says Peter Leyden, director of the New Politics Institute, a Democratic group that studies campaign tactics and technology.

This surge of activity has helped to fuel record participation in the Democratic competition....

More fundamentally, this transformation may be changing the model of what it takes to succeed in presidential politics. Since the first televised debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960, and the rise of the 30-second TV commercial later in that decade, the ability to communicate effectively on television has arguably been the key to winning the White House; a close second has been the ability to tap big donors for the money to air plenty of TV ads. Those traits remain enormously valuable today.

But now the ability to inspire large numbers of supporters to work on your behalf—by contributing financially, participating in outreach programs organized by the campaign, or informally talking to friends and family—is joining and, perhaps, eclipsing those television-inspired skills in importance. The change is still incipient, but the unprecedented scale of the Clinton-Obama race suggests that presidential politics may be moving from the television-based network era to an Internet-based networked era in which candidates who can attract and inspire vast networks of supporters will enjoy potentially decisive advantages over those who cannot.

This is an interesting argument, but only time will tell how robust is the thesis.

If it's that "the intense emotions generated among Democrats by George W. Bush’s polarizing presidency" have combined with other variables to produce this year's unprecedented state of affairs, then maybe after four years of Democratic Party rule in Washington - perhaps under a Barack Obama administration - we might see a return of complacency set in, which restores politics to the normal dynamics of change and consolidation that accompanies our periodic moments of revolutionary politics. Take away the youth generation's hunger for change - and this is the key group driving the dynamics of Brownstein's new politics - and American politics could recycle back to traditional patterns voter mobillization.

Voter turnout was higher in earlier eras of great transformation, in the 1960s, for example, just when television really took off as the technological catalyst that replaced parties as the central organizers of political campaigns. But young Americans got the vote with the passage of the 26th Amendment in 1972, and voter turnout declined for decades as the drama and tumult of the rights revolution and the war in Vietnam settled down into a post-1970s consensus and stability.

By 1996, when President Bill Clinton was elected to a second term amid relative peace and prosperity, voter turnout was 49 percent of the entire electorate, with young Americans the least likely to exercise the suffrage.

Perhaps after a decade of the new Internet-fueled politics during Democratic Party hegemony, we'll also see a decline of the polarization-driven voter mobilization, with the country returning to it's traditional patttern of generalized indifference among the college-age demographic cohort.

See more analysis at Memeorandum.

Distorted Antiwar Propaganda

I'm moved to write a second post on today's McClatchy story on the new Iraq research report from the National Institute for Strategic Studies.

In my earlier entry, "Antiwar Rush to Judgment on Alleged Pentagon Surrender Report," I noted that the left's ejaculatory outbursts of defeat need to be "discredited with reasoned, sober assessments and rebuttals."

With this concluding recommendation in mind, it's noteworthy to cite the remarks left at the post by a drive-by antiwar commenter:

Excuse me?!

You seem to think that the Miami Herald piece is scandalous and then go on to quote the author himself, Joseph Collins, as saying "The central finding of this study is that U.S. efforts in Iraq were hobbled by a set of faulty assumptions, a flawed planning effort, and a continuing inability to create security conditions in Iraq that could have fostered meaningful advances in stabilization, reconstruction, and governance. With the best of intentions, the United States toppled a vile, dangerous regime but has been unable to replace it with a stable entity."

That sounds like a good description of a debacle to me. I think you're hoisted on your own petard.

What's so instructive in this comment, offered by "Satchel Topeka," who's most likely pseudonymous, is that in ommitting key segments of the quotation of Joseph Collins from which I draw, "Satchel" is replicating the exact practice to which Collins takes offense: The selective use of quotations and sources in an effort to distort the message of the article for warped political purposes.

Note Collins' initial paragraph from the quote, which is found in its original location at Small Wars Journal:

The Miami Herald story ("Pentagon Study: War is a 'Debacle' ") distorts the nature of and intent of my personal research project. It was not an NDU study, nor was it a Pentagon study. Indeed, the implication of the Herald story was that this study was mostly about current events. Such is not the case. It was mainly about the period 2002-04. The story also hypes a number of paragraphs, many of which are quoted out of context. The study does not "lay much of the blame" on Secretary Rumsfeld for problems in the conduct of the war, nor does it say that he "bypassed the Joint Chiefs of Staff." It does not single out "Condoleeza Rice and Stephen Hadley" for criticism.

I often simply ignore - or even delete - such completely inane drive-by comments, but since "Satchel" is so representative of the mindless antiwar nihilism among the Bush-Petraeus bashing hordes, it's worth preserving in this more prominent follow-up entry.

But note as well Karl at Protein Wisdom (via Memeorandum), who's got a succinct post up on the antiwar blogosphere's reaction to the McClatchy hatchet job, "Leftosphere Recycles Distorted Antiwar Propaganda from McClatchy":

A McClatchy story about a study of the Iraq conflict by former senior Pentagon official Joseph Collins is blasted by Collins at the Small Wars Journal blog....

Of course, the usual suspects in the Leftosphere ran with the distorted McClatchy story. TPM’s Paul Kiel named it a “must read” — as opposed to the study itself, even though he linked it. Spencer Ackerman did an update post that does not link back to the original. ThinkProgress buries the link in its story, giving no indication that Collins is calling the story a distortion. The Carpetbagger Report simply parroted ThinkProgress. John Cole, to his credit, did a pretty straightforward update, though he might have mentioned that the study is not a NDU study and that most of it covers 2002-04, as opposed to telling his readers to read the study themselves. Curiously, the main post makes clear that Cole read the study, but he did not link to it until the update.

I've noted for the past five years, especially in discussions of the war with students in my classes, that there's nothing wrong with opposing the war on principle as long as those ideas are based on a rigorously and objective analysis of the facts.

Of course, so much of the left's opposition to the war's been based on distortions, lies, and smears that we're likely past the point of no return in reversing the slanderous illogic that paints the war as a "debacle."

Thus it's stories like McClatchy's which serve the vital function of exposing the left for what it is: Elliptical, irrational, and postmodernist in its fundamental hostility to journalistic and political reality.

A friendly thanks goes out to Karl for identifying a number of the irrationalist left's antiwar blogging contingent.

Antiwar Rush to Judgment on Alleged Pentagon Surrender Report

The left blogosphere's in a fit with the news from a new National Defense University study painting the Iraq war as "a major debacle."

McClatchy News and the Miami Herald have a posted a scandalous piece on the report, but a look beneath the headlines indicates a bit more going on.

The author of the report is a former Defense Department official, Joseph Collins. It turns out that Collins, according to his biographical sketch at Defenselink, worked under Deputy Defense (and arch neocon) Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and was later appointed to assistant secretary of defense for stability operations. Collins, in 2003, suggested Iraq had much greater potential for post-conflict stability than did Afghanistan, which at that time was in the early rebuilding stage following Operation Enduring Freedom:

Even though torn by the Iran/Iraq war and recovering from the recent regime change, the more-developed Iraq is in a better state than Afghanistan, he said. One key difference between the two is the higher degree of education and wealth due to oil resources in Iraq, which gives it "the potential to sort of pull itself up by the bootstraps."

Well, seeing that we are currently "pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps" after four years of ups and down - and widely acknowledged strategic mistakes - we might wonder what explains Collins movement away from his earlier upbeat aguments, particularly given his apparently close professional relations to top Bush adminstration Iraq war advocates.

For answers to these questions, check out Small Wars Journal, which reports that the media's taken Collins' study out of context:

The Miami Herald piece on a NDU "occasional paper" (Choosing War: The Decision to Invade Iraq and Its Aftermath), quoted alternately as a Pentagon or NDU study, raised some flags here at SWJ. So we asked the author, Joseph Collins, to provide some context. His reply:

The Miami Herald story ("Pentagon Study: War is a 'Debacle' ") distorts the nature of and intent of my personal research project. It was not an NDU study, nor was it a Pentagon study. Indeed, the implication of the Herald story was that this study was mostly about current events. Such is not the case. It was mainly about the period 2002-04. The story also hypes a number of paragraphs, many of which are quoted out of context. The study does not "lay much of the blame" on Secretary Rumsfeld for problems in the conduct of the war, nor does it say that he "bypassed the Joint Chiefs of Staff." It does not single out "Condoleeza Rice and Stephen Hadley" for criticism.

Here is a fair summary of my personal research, which formally is NDU INSS Occasional Paper 5, "Choosing War: The Decision to Invade Iraq and Its Aftermath."

This study examines how the United States chose to go to war in Iraq, how its decision-making process functioned, and what can be done to improve that process. The central finding of this study is that U.S. efforts in Iraq were hobbled by a set of faulty assumptions, a flawed planning effort, and a continuing inability to create security conditions in Iraq that could have fostered meaningful advances in stabilization, reconstruction, and governance. With the best of intentions, the United States toppled a vile, dangerous regime but has been unable to replace it with a stable entity. Even allowing for progress under the Surge, the study insists that mistakes in the Iraq operation cry out in the mid- to long-term for improvements in the U.S. decision-making and policy execution systems.

The study recommends the development of a national planning charter, improving the qualifications of national security planners, streamlining policy execution in the field, improving military education, strengthening the Department of State and USAID, and reviewing the tangled legal authorities for complex contingencies. The study ends with a plea to improve alliance relations and to exercise caution in deciding to go to war.

SWJ Editors Note: Unfortunately this is not the first instance - nor will it be the last – of highly selective use of source quotes and excerpts as well as distortion of context by members of the “mainstream media” in reporting on recent events and trends in Iraq…

This distortion will continue as long as we're in Iraq, for no amount of progress will satisfy war opponents who are politically committed to an American defeat in Iraq and the larger Middle East.

This is just one more antiwar rush to judgment, outbursts that need to be repeatedly discredited with reasoned, sober assessments and rebuttals.

Obama and the Radicals

Barack Obama's early ties to '60s-era radicals have emerged as Topic "A" since Wednesday's debate. This morning's Los Angeles Times adds its coverage this morning, "Obama and the Former Radicals":

Democrats have tried to heal their party's angry passions ever since violent protesters disrupted the Democratic National Convention here in 1968, a shock to America's collective psyche that helped Republican Richard Nixon capture the White House.

But some of the old fault lines were visible again Thursday as Sen. Barack Obama's suddenly defensive presidential campaign sought to distance him from Bill Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, aging academics who planted bombs in the Capitol, the Pentagon and other buildings to protest U.S. government policy. They are now widely respected community figures here.

The evidence linking Obama, who was born in 1961, to the two former militants, now in their 60s, remained thin, despite the appearance of a slickly produced, anonymously issued five-minute video titled "Obama's Terrorist Connections" on YouTube that sought to exploit the alleged tie.

Obama and Ayers moved in some of the same political and social circles in the leafy liberal enclave of Hyde Park, where they lived several blocks apart. In the mid-1990s, when Obama was running for the Illinois Senate, Ayers introduced Obama during a political event at his home, according to Obama's aides. Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, later contributed $200 to Obama's state campaign.

Obama and Ayers met a dozen times as members of the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, a local grant-making foundation, according to the group's president. They appeared together to discuss juvenile justice on a 1997 panel sponsored by the University of Chicago, records show. They appeared again in 2002 at an academic panel co-sponsored by the Chicago Public Library.

Ayers and Dohrn, an associate law professor at Northwestern University, did not return phone calls or e-mail Thursday about their relationship with Obama, their leadership of the militant Weather Underground or their decade as fugitives from the law.

Here's the video, "Obama's Terrorist Connections," via YouTube:

While mainstream media reports suggest a weak connection between Obama and the radicals, the Barack-osphere's attacking the media for their "gotcha" politics. Yet there's no denying that Obama's radical ties raise legimate questions of character, judgment, and integrity.

Check out the roundup at Huffington Post yesterday, "ABC's Democratic Debate: HuffPost Bloggers Respond," which includes over two-dozen entries attacking both Hillary Clinton and the media for McCarthy-ite shallowness.

But Taylor Marsh, who's included at the link, puts things in the appropriate perspective:

So no one should be surprised that Obama had a a nightmare night. He finally got real questions for which he should have had ready answers. Over the last year Barack Obama has gotten a complete pass on his record, his life and everything associated to his political rise....

The facts are that the progressive community and Obama supporters have done their candidate no favors by the kid glove treatment they've applied to all things having to do with him and his record, including his associations. What happened last night is a result of one year of people ignoring reality. That's right, reality. Because the closer Obama got to the nomination and the general election, the curtain would eventually be pulled back on every event in his life, good, bad and horror show, which includes Rev. Wright....

Again, I'd blame Gibson and Stephanopoulos, but it's not their fault that someone, anyone finally asked questions that have been out there for months and months. It's not tabloid to ask about Ayers any more than it was tabloid to question Bill Clinton about his past. Hillary's been asked about everything more than once, as they reload to ask it all over again.

Notice how Marsh starts to pin the blame on the moderators, and then takes it back as "not their fault."

Maybe she doesn't want to suffer the same fate as Mayhill Fowler, who's become the subject of vicious attacks, including some right there at Huffington Post itself.

And this Democratic primary's no more nasty than those of earlier era?

It may be time to revisit that history, and keep in mind, things are just now starting to get good!

No más! No más! Obama Nixes Future Debate Rounds

CNN reports that Barack "Roberto" Obama's saying "no mas" to further debates with Hillary "Sugar" Rodham Clinton!

Those toughies at ABC are trying to do me in ... aahhhaaa!! (via Memeorandum):

Sen. Barack Obama suggested Thursday that he doesn't see any point in having another debate with Democratic rival Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Clinton has agreed to a debate next week, but Obama has not accepted the invitation.

At an appearance in Raleigh, North Carolina, Obama said he has a lot of campaigning to do in a limited amount of time.

Obama said he had agreed to an earlier debate, but Clinton declined that one.

"I'll be honest with you, we've now had 21," he said. "It's not as if we don't know how to do these things. I could deliver Sen. Clinton's lines; she could, I'm sure, deliver mine."

Obama said he has to look at his schedule, considering the upcoming primaries.

The two Democrats went head-to-head in a debate Wednesday night on ABC.

During the first part of that debate, the candidates largely rehashed the controversies that have marked their past six weeks on the campaign trail.

Much of the fire was leveled at Obama, who once again answered questions about controversial statements by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and his own comments that some rural Pennsylvanians are "bitter."

Obama said it took too long for them to address anything substantial.

Anything substantial?

Oh sure, longstanding ties to the Weather Underground, "bitter" American smackdowns, and Wright's greatest hits aren't substantial, right ... it's all "trivial pursuit."

Maybe Obama had a stomach ache?

Democratic Debate in Philadelphia: Obama’s Waterloo

I noted in my previous entry, on last night's Democratic debate in Philadelphia, that the blogosphere's up in arms over alleged Lee Atwater-style attacks against Barack Obama.

But note the introduction to today's Los Angeles Times story, which suggests Obama might not have handled things so well, in any case:

The Democratic candidates for president debated forcefully Wednesday over who would prove more electable in November, with Hillary Rodham Clinton repeatedly raising questions about Barack Obama's past associations and Obama contending that her approach typified the blowtorch political style that Americans decry.

Obama, the Illinois senator, was thrown on the defensive for the first half of the nearly two-hour debate. The moderators, ABC News anchors Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, pressed him on his recent comments about "bitter" small-town Pennsylvanians; his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.; his acquaintance with a long-ago member of the Weather Underground group; and the absence of an American flag in his lapel -- though no one else on stage wore one.

Clinton criticized Obama as well. She defended those who she said were "taken aback and offended" by Obama's remarks at a recent San Francisco fundraiser that voters upset by economic downturns "get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment."
The New York senator repeatedly zeroed in on Wright and -- after Stephanopoulos opened the issue -- Obama's relationship with fellow Chicagoan William Ayers, the 1960s radical who is now an education professor at the University of Illinois. She noted that Obama and Ayers were at one point on the same philanthropic board.

"I think it is, again, an issue that people will be asking about," said Clinton, who repeatedly characterized herself as thoroughly vetted during her husband's administration.

I think Clinton's absolutely correct.

But Captain Ed takes the point further, suggesting that last night was "Obama's Waterloo":

The last Democratic debate has finally concluded, and perhaps the last chances of ending the primaries early. Thanks to a surprisingly tenacious set of questions for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton from ABC moderaters Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous, Barack Obama got exposed over and over again as an empty suit, while Hillary cleaned his clock. However, the big winner didn’t even take the stage tonight.

The first 45 minutes of the scheduled 90-minute debate (which went 15 minutes over) wound up focusing on the series of gaffes and stumbles from both candidates. Hillary more or less defused the Tuzla Dash by admitting she essentially lied about it, trying at one point to use the “sleep deprivation” defense. Obama, however, never did figure out the First Rule of Holes. Once again, he described religion as a refuge people use when government doesn’t work — a fatal misreading of religious faith in America. He not only came up with bad answers, he looked lost and tentative throughout the entire period.

Hillary didn’t let him off the hook, either, not when it came to Crackerquiddick or on the Wright Stuff. Noting that “you choose your pastor, not your family,” Hillary once again pounded Obama for not doing anything about Wright when he had the chance. She also jumped at the chance to note that former Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers was more than just a “neighbor”, as Obama described him. Hillary pointed out that Obama and Ayers worked on a foundation together for years, even after 9/11, even after Ayers said publicly that he didn’t regret his terrorism.

And what was Obama’s response? He compared Ayers to Senator Tom Coburn, who opposes abortion. Of course, Coburn hasn’t bombed abortion clinics, but Obama can’t tell the difference between a Senator and a terrorist. That won’t help him in Middle America either, and Coburn may have a few words for Obama after this night.

By the time Gibson got around to the issues, Obama looked lost and upset. It got worse when Gibson asked about capital-gains tax rates, which Obama has pledged to raise. When Gibson repeatedly pointed out that decreasing the rates actually increased the revenues, Obama simply couldn’t come up with an answer, stammering while trying to change the subject. On guns, both Hillary and Obama stumbled through tortured explanations of how they support a Constitutional right for individuals to own guns while backing gun bans like the one in DC.

The winner of this debate? John McCain. Both Democrats came out of this diminished, but Obama got destroyed in this exchange. If superdelegates had begun to reconsider their support of Obama after Crackerquiddick, they’re speed-dialing Hillary after watching Gibson dismember Obama on national TV tonight.

And kudos to ABC News for taking on both candidates fearlessly. John McCain has to feel grateful not to be included. Don’t forget that you can read through our live blog at any time.

Also, check the Los Angeles Times' analysis of the debate's implications, "Obama Says Debate Foreshadows GOP Campaign."

For all Obama's touted savvy transcendance, he's lately making Michael Dukakis look like a political superstar!

Obama Confronts ’60s Radicals as Troubling Campaign Issue

It had to happen sooner or later.

As those now buzzing around the blogosphere know, George Stephanopoulos questioned Barack Obama last night on his relationship to terrorist radicals of the 1960s.

I've discussed Obama's dangerous friends a nunber of times (see "Obama's Circle of Friends: The America-Hating Left"), but the New York Times picks up on the story in today's paper:

On March 6, 1970, a bomb explosion destroyed a Greenwich Village town house, killing three members of the radical Weather Underground and driving other members of the group even deeper into hiding. On Wednesday night, those events emerged as the focus of a sharp exchange between Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama at their debate in Philadelphia.

Mr. Obama was asked by a moderator, George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, about his relationship with Bill Ayers, a former Weather Underground leader who is now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In the early 1970s, the Weathermen, who took their name from a line in a Bob Dylan song, claimed responsibility for bombing the Capitol, the Pentagon, the State Department Building and banks, courthouses and police stations.

Mr. Ayers is married to Bernardine Dohrn, another Weather Underground figure. Both were indicted in 1970 for inciting to riot and conspiracy to bomb government buildings, but charges were dropped in 1974 because of prosecutorial misconduct, including illegal surveillance.

Mr. Ayers is listed as a member of the nine-member board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, an offshoot of the Woods Charitable Fund, founded in 1941 by a prominent lawyer and telephone company executive. According to the fund’s Web site, it has focused in recent years on “issues that affected the area’s least advantaged, including welfare reform, affordable housing” and “tax policy as a tool in reducing poverty.”

For a time, Mr. Obama was on the board with Mr. Ayers, though he no longer has a formal association with the group. At the debate, he described Mr. Ayers as “a guy who lives in my neighborhood,” but “not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.” Mr. Obama said he was being unjustly linked to “somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old.”

Mr. Stephanopoulos and Mrs. Clinton also referred to statements by Mr. Ayers in an article in The New York Times on Sept. 11, 2001, that Mrs. Clinton said were “deeply hurtful to people in New York.”

“I don’t regret setting bombs,” Mr. Ayers said then. “I feel we didn’t do enough.”

It turns out that ABC News - and Stephanopoulos in particular - is coming under fire for its handling of last night's debate.

A sampling of commentary shows, for example, that Wednesday night's was the "worst" debate ever, that "Lee Atwater Lives!!!," and that history will record the event as "Obama's Waterloo."

See the full roundup at Memeorandum.

Obama Reports Charitable Contributions to Trinity United

Barack Obama's tax returns show a reported income of more the $4 million for 2007, the Associated Press reports.

But what's particularly eye-popping here is the substantial tithe Obama paid to Trinity United Church of Christ, the home-pulpit of America-bashing black liberationist Reverend Jeremiah Wright:

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, made $4.2 million last year as widespread interest in the presidential candidate pushed the sales of his two books.

In tax returns the campaign released Wednesday, the Obamas reported a significant jump in their income from the previous year as profits from the books "Dreams From My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope" accounted for some $4 million. The Obamas paid federal taxes of $1.4 million and donated $240,370 to charity.

Their salaried income was $260,735, which included his $157,102 salary as a U.S. senator and hers of $103,633 as vice president of community and external affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

For part of 2007, Michelle Obama collected a salary for serving on the board of Westchester, Ill.-based TreeHouse Foods Inc., which produces pickles, nondairy powdered creamer and other products. She resigned in May after two years on the board.

The position had generated some complaints because TreeHouse is a supplier to Wal-Mart, and Barack Obama has criticized some of Wal-Mart's policies and treatment of employees.

The Obamas reported $29,443 from Treehouse Foods.

In 2006, Obama and his wife reported income of $991,296. The sum included Obama's Senate salary of $157,082 and his wife's earnings of $273,618 from her position as an administrator at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Michelle Obama also earned $51,200 in director's fees from TreeHouse Inc., a food distributor.

They paid $277,431 in federal taxes — an overpayment of $40,856, which they designated for estimated tax payments this year.

Among the charitable donations in 2007 was $26,270 to Trinity United Church of Christ, where the incendiary sermons of Obama's former pastor have created problems for the candidate. The Obamas' largest charitable donation was $50,000 to the United Negro College Fund. They also gave $35,000 to CARE.

The campaign released the returns just hours before a candidate debate with rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Think of the significance of this reporting:

Obama, a millionaire, can be situated among the Democratic Party's socioeconomic demographic most comfortable in condescending to lower status white voters (working class Americans were "aspirational," and not "downtrodden," according to recent commentary and analysis).

He also has given tens of thousands of dollars to a church which sponsors religious teachings holding that the United States itself is responsible for the 9/11 attacks, which killed nearly three thousand innocents.

Yet, while Obama has refused to renounce all ties to that hate-backing religious institution, his wife, Michelle, quit the board of Treehouse Foods because of ties to Walmart, a corporation that accounts for a major portion of the increase in living standards (through its low-price policies) for millions of the same lower income people that the Illinois Senator has attacked as bitter.

Now that is just disastrously symbolic of how out of touch - no, anti-American - Barack Obama really is, not just in his refusal to sever all ties to "GOD DAMN AMERICA" theology, nor in his elitist condescension, but in his abject, snobbily hypocritical pandering to the very interest group that he's dependent on for election in the fall.

Now that's something worthy of some attention!

For more on Obama, see the coverage of last night's ABC News Democratic debate.

Obama Support Holding Among "Bitter" Voters

It's seems like a juicy conundrum, but the very voters who Barack Obama dissed last weekend as bitterly clinging to their guns and bibles have yet to defect from the Illinois Senator's column.

Jeff Jones at Gallup has the report:

As Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton prepare for Wednesday night's debate in Philadelphia, Gallup's daily tracking indicates that Obama's support has yet to suffer following his widely reported remarks about small-town voters being "bitter." The remarks were first reported on April 11.

Obama said in essence that small-town voters are bitter because the government has not been able to help their economic plight. As a result, they "cling" to religion and drift toward narrow issues such as gun rights, and anti-trade or anti-immigration policies, instead of their larger economic interests.

Clinton has criticized Obama's comments on the campaign trail in recent days and is sure to remind Pennsylvania voters of those remarks in the debate Wednesday night.

Clinton and other Obama critics have characterized his remarks as being insensitive to less-well-educated, lower-income, and religious voters. If his comments are to affect any voters, presumably it would be voters in these subgroups. But an in-depth analysis of Gallup Poll Daily tracking data collected both before and after the controversy shows little or no change in support for Obama as the Democratic nominee among these types of Democratic voters.

The analysis is based on tracking data of Democratic voters' nomination preferences immediately before (April 8-10) and immediately after (April 12-14) Obama's remarks became a major campaign issue. Although Gallup's tracking data do not have a variable that identifies small-town residents per se, it can identify a number of groups that have suffered economically and are presumably the types of voters to whom Obama was referring.

Jones breaks down the data into variables for income, education, financial status, religion, and black versus white ethnicity.

So far, Clinton's been running stronger with lower-income and less-educated constituencies, but her numbers relative to Obama's with these groups are roughly unchanged, so apparently Obama's gaffe hasn't made much of a difference.

Also interesting is Jones' suggestion that despite Obama's comments most likely being directed at working-class whites, the data show no decline in support among these voters.

Here's the conclusion:

It certainly appears that, as of April 14 interviewing, Obama's remarks have not hurt him -- either among the Democratic electorate as a whole or among the Democratic constituencies Obama was referring to. Wednesday night's debate may shine a spotlight on those comments and make them known to a wider audience, so the possibility remains that Obama has not completely weathered the storm.

Conceivably, Obama could be hurt more in a general-election context, where voters with the characteristics he describes might already have an inkling to vote Republican, and such remarks could nudge them more in that direction. But Gallup's general-election tracking data -- like that for the Democratic nomination -- have so far shown no deterioration in Obama's standing versus presumptive Republican nominee John McCain.

Be sure to look at John Judis' analysis yesterday at the New Republic, where he cited new research indicating prior weaknesses for Obama among traditional working-class, rustbelt states in the November election.

Given that Republican and allied 527s envision a gold mine of "black liberationist-bitterness" attack-campaign fodder, the numbers on general election matchups bear watching closely if (and more realistically, when) Obama secures the nomination.

The Wright controversy's America-bashing sermons, followed up by video-snippet campaign-spots of Obama's "clinging" comments to the San Francisco socialist set, will provide a big one-two punch likely to rival in significance the GOP's "Willie Horton" ads from 1988.

Note here as well that there's been some very stimulating analytical online debates surrounding the possible socio-political implications of Obama's bumbling.

In particular, see Ross Douthat, "What Obama Really Got Wrong":

Timothy Noah, surveying the literature on the white working class and its voting behavior in the wake of Obama's San Francisco fiasco, tiptoes close to an important point about the roots of culture-war politics but doesn't quite get there. Citing a fascinating new paper by Ruy Teixeira and Alan Abramowitz....

Apparently Noah's review of Teixeira and Abramowitz found working-class Americans to be decidedly upbeat about their economic chances - they are more "aspirational" than downtrodden - and the least likely to find appeals to economic "bitterness" attractive. It's among the more affluent and educated constiuencies where "bitterness" pandering would find more traction.

Douthat takes this further:

If well-educated voters are more likely to base their party ID on culture-war issues than are voters without college degrees, then what's happening within the non-college educated contingent? Which working-class voters are most likely to base their party ID on culture-war issues? Well, given that the working class has trended away from the Democratic Party overall, even as - pace Thomas Frank - the relationship between party affiliation and income has grown stronger, not weaker, it seems like it's the more prosperous members of the working class who are responding to culture-war issues and trending GOPward. (And yes, much of the working class has grown more prosperous during the long GOP ascendancy, contrary to what you may have heard.) In other words, both within the no-college/some-college demographic and in the country as a whole, the Obama line has it exactly backward: Voting on issues like "God, guns and gays" is an artifact of (relative) prosperity, not immiseration....

One can argue, plausibly, that the Republican Party's response to these cultural anxieties of late has been insufficient or misguided, more concerned with finding scapegoats than solutions, and that the country needs a pro-family agenda that goes deeper than opposing gay marriage. But Obama didn't make an argument along these lines. Instead, he said something that wasn't just politically dumb - it was analytically dumb, as well. And that, pace Ezra and Andrew and sundry others, is why these comments matter: Because they suggest that Barack Obama buys into a narrative of American politics, and American life, that simply isn't true.

This debate will ring true to those familiar with the "post-materialist value change" hypothesis, which suggests that those at lower levels of material well-being have been driven toward conservative social issues in the post-WWII era, as the hardships of earlier crisis like the Great Depresssion and 1940s war-rationing have faded amid increasing societal abundance and relative economic security.

The more economically-secure, better educated (condescending) cohorts have gravitated to "post-material" issues such as gay rights, environmental protection, and gender equality.

What Douthat seems to be getting at is that the old party alignments - where the Democrats naturally were the party of unionized blue-collar voters - have become unsustainable when the traditional partisan cleavages of class standing have disappeared and hot-button social issues emerged as more compelling for traditional middle American constituencies. The "Reagan Democrats," for example, were voters who shifted to the GOP in the 1980s on questions of national defense, and particularly on polarizing wedge-issues such as race, rights, and taxes.

I think Douthat's right to suggest that Obama's words are more signifcant than some commentators have allowed.

I don't think that the Democrats are going to be able to make much additional headway into working-class GOP support, particularly if Obama's the nominee.

The Illinois Senator is badly out of touch with "fly over" America, and once we get into full general election campaign mode, Bittergate's going to come back haunting the Democrats like the devil.

Joe Lieberman May Give RNC Keynote Address

Senator Joseph Lieberman may give the keynote address at the Republican National Convention in September, The Hill reports:

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), the Democratic Party’s 2000 vice presidential nominee, is leaving open the possibility of giving a keynote address on behalf of Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) at the Republican National Convention in September.

Republicans close to the McCain campaign say Lieberman’s appearance at the convention, possibly before a national primetime audience, could help make the case that the presumptive GOP nominee has a record of crossing the aisle. That could appeal to much-needed independent voters....

Lieberman, a staunch Iraq war supporter, has taken the Democratic Party to task for its push to withdraw from Iraq, likening that approach to surrendering to al Qaeda. He has called for aggressive action against Iran and pushed measures that some Democrats have likened to war-mongering.

He continues to criticize the Democratic candidates for their foreign policy positions, and says the party has jettisoned its tradition of being strong on defense by pandering to its liberal base.

Making those points to a Republican audience in front of national primetime viewers would make a strong case for McCain’s candidacy, which is based largely on his national security experience, Republicans say.

“I think it would be a great idea,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), McCain’s closest Hill ally. “If you looked at economic issues and social issues, I bet you we disagree a vast majority of the time. But when you look at what the primary job of what a United States senator is in the age in which we live, we have pretty much universal agreement — and that’s to protect the homeland.”

“I think Sen. Lieberman would be a very powerful spokesperson,” said Sen. Mel Martinez (Fla.), a former general chairman of the Republican National Committee. “I think he really is someone who helps Sen. McCain break through to independent voters.”

Lieberman’s presence could potentially anger some social conservatives because of his positions supporting abortion rights and other liberal values. But Lieberman’s arguments that McCain is best suited to lead the country at a time of war would override those objections, said Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), a hero of the religious right.

“If he’s talking about security issues, Iran, Joe is fabulous on those issues,” Brownback said.

The greatest risk is to Lieberman himself, as Senate Democrats may never forgive him for backing the opposition so prominently (and thus Lieberman could lose power in Congress). McCain won't have too much difficulty on the right, actually, as many social conservative Malkin-tents and Rush-bots are still mad at McCain anyway, so far-right anger will be a replay from the primaries.

In any case, beyond reving up the independent vote, few figures in American politics can speak more authoritatively or eloquently on the Iraq war than Lieberman.

I look forward not only to a Lieberman RNC address, but to the screeching outrage among lefties for what will be alleged as the ultimate incantation of the Connecticut Senator's partisan apostasies.

See also, "Democrats Hijacked by Hard-Left Base, Lieberman Says."

Glenn Greenwald: True Hypocrite

It's interesting that Glenn Greenwald, in his new book, Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics, takes down John Wayne as the template for the prancing, hypocritcal he-man Republican.

I live in Orange County, California, where Wayne lived. On occasion I stop by his resting place, to sit under the tree by his headstone, and reflect aloud about life in the United States today. It's pieceful there; and while Wayne wasn't my favorite actor, I've always appreciated the "True Grit" he brought to his roles.

I don't think I've ever mentioned this before, but I was reminded of my Wayne visits in reading Dean Barnett's review of Greenwald over at the Weekly Standard, especially this passage:

Greenwald posits John Wayne as the archetypal Republican - a guy who acted tough and noble but whose personal life was ignoble and at times pathetic. Greenwald acidly notes, "John Wayne flamboyantly paraded around as the embodiment of courage, masculinity, patriotism, wholesomeness and warrior virtues" when in fact he was a Lothario who went to great lengths to avoid military service during World War II. (Worse still, Wayne inflicted "The Green Berets" on the movie-going nation in the 1960s, a cinematic crime that can never be fully forgiven.)

You'll want to take special note of Greenwald's none-too-subtle code language that has the Duke "flamboyantly parading." Throughout "Great American Hypocrites," neocons and other Republicans are reliably "prancing" or perambulating in some less than manful way. Greenwald stretches with both holding up John Wayne as a Republican idol and all his talk of prancing. For what it's worth, in my conversations with neocons, I've never heard a single one of them mention John Wayne. I've also noticed that they seldom "prance" let alone "flamboyantly parade." Well, maybe a couple do, but they are the exceptions.

I can't vouch for too many neocons, but I doubt Wayne's the biggest model for aspiring prancing-warmongers out there, but hey, easy strawman-ish case selection for Greenwald I suppose.

Barnett, interestingly, says that Greenwald's a good guy:

I KNOW THIS WON'T endear me to many of my fellow conservatives, but I like Glenn Greenwald. I've spoken to him a few times on the radio and have enjoyed our jousts.

I simply can't imagine having a rousing intellectual exchange with the guy, but at least Barnett's fair-minded when he notes:

The sad fact is that Greenwald often opts for personal attacks rather than reasoned argument.

It's sad because, frankly, Greenwald does have some intellectual firepower, but his ad hominems are so grating that one wants to let him have it upside the head.

But check Jules Crittenden as well:

There is no indication ... [that this is] in fact a serious book, or anything but a partisan bid for money and attention. You’re welcome, by the way, Glenn, for this bit of gratuitous attention. It’s my pleasure. However infantile the book is … [Barnett's] review itself is worth a read. Given Greenwald’s boundless self-admiration, I presume the cover has a big picture of the sockpuppet himself on it.

No, apparently it doesn’t. Astonishing. I would have thought the unself-conscious self-adoration would have trumped other artistic, marketing, humility, self-mockery concerns, etc.

You can admire Glenn and his curriculum vitae at the link, and also observe how busy he is going to be promoting himself and his latest great contribution to western civilization. It’s already got one, but for the second edition, here’s a suggested edit on the subtitle: Takes One to Know One.

Jonah Goldberg at The Corner, shrewdly wasting less time and space on this than I did, proclaims Greenwald “one of the most easily and profitably ignored voices in the blogosphere.” Considering the competition, that’s no insignificant accomplishment.

Prior Greenwald scholarship, with links to the important work others have done in the study of Greenwald:

Lacking Even the Ethics of a Journalist.

Here's this from book's blurb at Barnes and Noble:

More a partisan screed than a reasoned argument meant to persuade undecided readers, this repetitive text frequently devolves into personal attacks and vast generalizations.

But also note Barnett's conclusion:

Great American Hypocrites will likely be a big hit. Whatever the equivalent of red meat is for the angry left, this book is it.

That sounds about right.

Racial Stereotypes Alive and Well in Democrats' Battle

The debate on racial progress in America's taken some strange twists and turns lately.

It was just two weeks ago, on the 40th commemoration of the death of Martin Luther King Jr., when some commentators argued that the slain civil rights leader's words revealed not a nation living out the true meaning of its creed, but rather a country of implacable, irredeedable racism, a country mired in a system of hopelessly hierarchical minority oppression.

This, of course, is a dishonest misrepresentation of the King legacy, and the debate's not over.

Now, after a weekend in which Barack Obama's faced a massive political crisis over his intemperate claims of "bitter" middle Americans "clinging" to guns and bibles, it turns out that at base, it's all racism again!

Unbelievable?

Well, listen to David Shipler tell it at today's Los Angeles Times:

Whether by calculation or coincidence, Hillary Clinton and Republicans who have attacked Barack Obama for elitism have struck a chord in a long-standing symphony of racial codes. It is a rebuke that gets magnified by historic beliefs about what blacks are and what they have no right to be....

This could not happen as dramatically were it not for embedded racial attitudes. "Elitist" is another word for "arrogant," which is another word for "uppity," that old calumny applied to blacks who stood up for themselves.

In a country so changed that a biracial man who is considered black has a shot at the presidency, the subterranean biases are much less discernible now than when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. They are subtle, unacknowledged and unacceptable in polite company. But they lurk below, lending resonance to the criticisms of Obama. Black professionals know the double standard. They are often labeled negatively for traits deemed positive in whites: A white is assertive, a black is aggressive; a white is resolute, a black is pushy; a white is candid, a black is abrasive; a white is independent, a black is not a team player. Prejudice is a shape shifter, adapting to acceptable forms.

So although Obama's brilliance defies the stubborn stereotype of African Americans as unintelligent, there is a companion to that image -- doubts about blacks' true capabilities -- that may heighten concerns about his inexperience. Through the racial lens, a defect can be enlarged into a disability. He is "not ready," a phrase employed often when blacks are up for promotion.

When Clinton mocked Obama for the supposed emptiness of his eloquence, the chiding had a faint historical echo from Thomas Jefferson's musings in "Notes on the State of Virginia" that "in music they are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time," but "one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid."

This slander that blacks had more show than substance was handed down through later generations as a body-mind dichotomy, with physical and mental prowess as opposites. Overt "compliments" -- they've got rhythm, they can dance, they can jump -- were paired with the silent assumption of inferior intellect.

That's a pretty long stretch - if you ask me - from arguing that Obama's out of touch with Americans of the rustbelt, to suggesting he's of shortened mental comprehension.

It was just last year when people were talking rapturously about how far equal protection had advanced in a nation where the top Democratic Party contenders were a black man and a white woman.

Now we're being told that the grim, ghostly legacy of white supremacy has risen from the depths, casting a pall of "racial resonance" across the land.

I think folks should take a step back. What's happening is the natural interest groups battles of the Democratic Party are building to a climax. As Jerry Bowyer noted the other day, identity politics is now "playing out as both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama battle for votes among Democratic Party factions."

Perhaps this is good. Maybe we're seeing the kind national conversation on race that we failed to have during the 1990s-era of post-Cold War political retrenchment and DNC political moderation.

But this reactionary racial resonance line's taking things too far. Barack Obama's previously stressed themes of education and personal responsibility as the key avenues of black upward mobility in the 21st century.

If we can ever get the Democratic nomination battles settled, perhaps the Illinois Senator can return to the themes that put him in the national spotlight in the first place.

The moment won't come too soon.

The Jefferson Memorial Fascist Jackboot Controversy

There's been a big libertarian outrage over the Jefferson Memorial dancing controversy this last weekend. "' Footloose' vs. Fascism" is how "The Other McCain" characterizes the story.

Yet, as today's Washington Post points out, the libertarians haven't quite accurately nailed down Jefferson's ideals:

It is just before midnight at the Jefferson Memorial, and as the celebrants dance in honor of the founding father's birthday, wind whips across the Tidal Basin and spotlights gleam off the towering bronze statue in the echoing sanctum of the monument.

Suddenly, in a video and audio recording of the event, a shadow looms and a voice commands: "You gotta go. Leave. You're acting disorderly."

"Why?" a voice asks. There is a commotion. Protest. Cursing. A woman, a former ambassador's daughter, is handcuffed, arrested and taken away. And within moments, an event that participants say was a simple libertarian celebration of Thomas Jefferson's birthday turns into a tense encounter between police and the public.

This was Saturday, and the face-off between the celebrants and the U.S. Park Police and private security guards has splashed across YouTube and the blogosphere. It has also prompted complaints about what some say is a trampling of the individual rights that Jefferson championed.

The author of the Declaration of Independence would have been appalled at the conduct of the police, the celebrants say.

Not so fast, says one noted Jefferson scholar: The country's third president would more likely have been angered at the civic disobedience of the revelers, which he would have seen as a threat to orderly democracy.

The Park Police, for their part, say the group was violating a federal law that prohibits disturbances in the sanctuaries of hallowed memorials.

"They were dancing and just generally making a distraction, and the chamber is posted that you are to remain quiet so you don't disturb other visitors," said Sgt. Robert Lachance, a Park Police spokesman. "The chamber of the Jefferson Memorial is a restricted area for demonstrations or causing any kind of activity that could distract other visitors . . . [in order] to preserve a spirit of tranquility and reverence."

Jason Talley, 33, of Crystal City, whose recording of the incident quickly landed on YouTube, denied that the group was being disorderly. He said the late hour was picked to avoid disturbing others: "We were there to celebrate Thomas Jefferson and his ideas. We were not prepared for a police action...."

"So you're saying the state is going to reject us?" Talley says. "It's Thomas Jefferson's birthday. We're here to celebrate that. And the state is throwing us out. There is something wrong with America when we get thrown out of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial when we're silent and peaceful and celebratory!"

"Thomas Jefferson's looking down, and he'd be very dissatisfied," Talley says.

Quite the contrary, says Peter Onuf, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation professor of history at U-Va.

"What they're referring to here is Jefferson's endorsement of popular resistance to tyrannical authority," he said yesterday. "What these folks were involved in was provoking authorities into having to enforce the law. Jefferson was very anal about obedience to the law.

I love that last line.

I wonder if it's possible to be anal before the psychological concept was invented.

Photo Credit: Washinton Post

Obama Fight Hurting Democratic Prospects

The first thing to note here is Obama's flag pin in the picture above.

A veteran gave it to the senator at yesterday's campaign event, and Obama would do well to stick that on his lapel every day. It turns out, as the New York Times reports, things aren't going so well on the Democratic side:

The battle between Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama over whether Mr. Obama belittled voters in small towns appears to have hardened the views of both candidates’ supporters and stirred anxiety among many Democrats about the party’s prospects in the fall.

For five days, as Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama have tangled more ferociously than at almost any point in the last year, interviews with voters in Pennsylvania suggested little new movement toward either side as the primary campaign there entered its final week. A snapshot of public opinion, a poll by Quinnipiac University, showed no change in the race from a week ago.

“There’s a lot of truth to what he said,” said Ezar Lowe, 55, a pastor at a church in Ambridge, Pa., a city along the Ohio River that has been steadily draining population since steel mills began closing two decades ago. “I’ve seen it.”

The closing week of the Democratic primary race in Pennsylvania is awash in fresh accusations of elitism and condescension. After sparring over those topics from afar, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama will come together Wednesday evening at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia for their first debate in nearly two months, which will be televised nationally on ABC.

Cindy Phillips, 54, a flight attendant from Leetsdale, Pa., said she had intended to vote for Mrs. Clinton before the latest feud developed. But she said her position was solidified by Mr. Obama’s remarks that many small-town Pennsylvania voters, “bitter” over their economic circumstances, “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.”

“He just doesn’t know Pennsylvania,” Ms. Phillips said in an interview. “People here are religious because that’s their background, not because they’re mad about jobs.”

For six weeks, Mr. Obama had diligently worked to introduce himself to the voters of Pennsylvania. He visited small towns and factories, bowling alleys and beer halls, with every picture designed to allay any concerns that voters harbored about his presidential candidacy.

Now, though, advisers to Mr. Obama wonder whether those images — and, more importantly, the political gains that even his detractors believed he was making in the state — have been overtaken by criticism over what his rivals suggested was a profound misunderstanding of small-town values.

On Tuesday, as Mr. Obama campaigned about 30 miles south of Pittsburgh in Washington, Pa., he said he was “amused about this notion as an elitist.” Asked by a member of the audience if he believed the accusations were racially motivated, he said no, adding, “I think it’s politics.”

It is a diverse state, but the voters that seemed the toughest for Mr. Obama to win over were the same ones that had helped Mrs. Clinton defeat him in Ohio: working-class whites, especially those in regions that have suffered through decades of economic decline.

These Reagan Democrats — people who might lean Republican on national security and social issues but who look to Democrats on the economy — could determine whether Mrs. Clinton performs strongly enough against Mr. Obama in Pennsylvania for her campaign to continue.

They are also helping to test the limits of Mr. Obama’s appeal, a skeptical focus group that to varying degrees has become a proxy for his ability to calm concerns about his race, his values and whether he can connect with voters beyond the Democratic Party’s base.

“It seems he’s kind of ripping on small towns, and I’m a small town girl,” said Becki Farmer, 32, who lives in Rochester, Pa., another Ohio River town hit hard by the closed steel mills. “That’s where your good morals and good judgment come from, growing up in small towns.”

Indeed, advisers to Mr. Obama concede, his job has been made that much more complicated by his remarks about bitterness among small-town voters. Though it remains unclear what effect the episode will have in the long run, it has suddenly prompted a series of questions — and worry — from Democrats about whether Mr. Obama could weather a Republican onslaught in the fall, should he win the presidential nomination.

Well, actually, it's not that unclear. As John Judis pointed out yesterday, to win in November against John McCain, Barack Obama - as the Democratic nominee - will have to win "most of the industrial heartland states that stretch from Pennsylvania to Missouri."

The electoral math for Obama was already difficult before "Bittergate." Now it's even worse.

Photo Credit: New York Times

More at Memeorandum.

Hillary Clinton is GOP Mouthpiece?

I suppose it's an empirical question as to whether this year's Democratic race is nastier than primary battles of earlier years.

Some have argued that no matter how divisive the race gets, the implications for the November general election contest will be minimal: The party faithful will rally around their nominee to battle a common, despised GOP opponent.

Perhaps, but in the meantime the Obama forces are attacking Hillary Clinton as worse than Benedict Arnold:

Liberal bloggers are slamming Clinton for reinforcing conservative attacks on Obama:

• Arianna Huffington: "John McCain should go on vacation, Hillary Clinton is doing his job for him. [...] Clinton's cynical distortion of Obama's remarks is in keeping with her campaign's modus operandi. On the foreign policy front, we've been fed a steady diet of her RNC-patented attacks: No Democrat can be trusted with national security -- except her. Obama hasn't crossed the threshold to be commander-in-chief. Etc. Now she's turned to the domestic policy section of the RNC playbook, twisting Obama's words in a way that confirms every right-wing demagogic caricature of her own Party."

• Open Left's Matt Stoller: "While I find the whole 'don't repeat right-wing frames' kind of tired if useful, Hillary Clinton's charges of elitism are explicitly reinforcing right-wing charges. How do we know this? Well, because right-wingers are attacking [Obama] with her rhetoric."

• TPM's Marshall: "With the [Jeremiah] Wright business and now with this, the more nuanced version of the Clinton line has been that what 'we' think is not really the point. It's what Republicans will do with it in the fall. And that's a real concern that I definitely have. I won't deny it. I've never thought Obama was a perfect candidate. But as we get deeper into the primary calendar, increasingly so, this 'what the Republicans will do' line has become more of a simulacrum, or a license, if you will, to do what Republicans actually do do. That is to say, to grab for political advantage by peddling stereotypes about Democrats and liberals that are really no less offensive than the ones we're talking about about Americans from small town and rural America."

• Marshall continues: "And seeing Hillary go on about how Obama has contempt for folks in small town America, how he's elitist, well...no, it's not because I think she's either. I never have. But after seeing her hit unfairly with just the same stuff for years, it just encapsulates the last three-plus months of her campaign which I can only describe as a furious descent into nonsense and self-parody. Part of it makes me want to cry. But at this point all I can really do is laugh."

Meanwhile, Balloon Juice's John Cole unloads on Clinton: "I am well aware that I am beyond the point where I can discuss Hillary rationally, but I really can not stress enough how much I have grown to hate her. [...] This past week-end was just the final boiling point for me, as I watched her run to every microphone with a zeal that would impress Chuck Schumer to claim that America's blue collar workers are under assault from a San Francisco effete liberal latte-sipping out-of-touch Obama. [...] This would merely be stupid and offensive if she actually believed that Obama doesn't like or looks down on average Americans, but she knows that isn't true. As it is, though, it is far more than offensive and stupid, as she just thinks she has an angle where she can score some political points. [...] The woman is a moral black hole -- soulless, empty, calculating and nasty all the way to her core."

But at least the bloggers over at American Prospect are consistent:

TAPPED's Kate Sheppard: "I do think Obama's words were poorly chosen, but I don't think they merit 'Bittergate' as we're seeing it play out.

Compare to Ezra Klein: "As far as I can tell, few actually find the argument underlying Obama's statement controversial."

Spoke a little early on that one, no?