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By Reese Erlich $17.90
By Adeed Dawisha $18.16
$20
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 Flickr / Jurvetson / World Economic Forum
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Ryan Lizza in The New Yorker quotes a Bill Clinton aide explaining why there has been so much tension between the former president and Barack Obama: “I think this campaign has enraged him. ... He doesn’t like Obama.” Why? Here’s one theory: While Hillary Clinton has adopted her husband’s legacy, Barack Obama has been assailing it.
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Satire by Andy Borowitz —
The Democratic race for president has descended to “a level of meanness and acrimony that is damaging to American politics,” the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth said today.
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Barack Obama has frozen out Fox News since he found himself the victim of the network’s attack journalism at the start of the campaign. Here he lifts the ban to run the gantlet with Chris Wallace on flag pins, the Rev. Wright and, to be fair, more substantive issues.
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 www.flickr.com/photos/emilymills
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By Bill Boyarsky — When looking at Sen. Barack Obama’s primary election results, I always check the white vote first. I imagine many Democratic National Convention superdelegates do, too. The reason is obvious: Obama is the first African-American with a strong chance of winning the presidency, and his prospects depend on whether whites will give him a vote.
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By David Sirota — If television is the nation’s mirror, then no two TV characters reflect the intensifying “two Americas” gap better than Chris Matthews and “The Wire’s” Jimmy McNulty.
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By Eugene Robinson — Who picked this movie? A few months ago, the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination looked as if it would be the feel-good political campaign of the decade, if not the century. Instead, we’re having to endure an endless loop of “Alien vs. Predator.”
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Perhaps it was inevitable: The Democrats’ battle for the presidential nomination has now led us into the thicket of race and religion.
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Lesser journalists continue to characterize the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s sermons as hate speech, without ever having heard more than snippets of them. As Wright tells the great Bill Moyers, the meaning of his sermons has been deliberately distorted to achieve a political goal, and it worked. Updated.
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There’s a seasonal sport going on in the media: the age-old tradition of primary prediction. Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary gave a whole host of TV hosts and pundits another shot at handicapping yet another big race between dueling Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama—but alas, as the contest concluded, heady excitement gave way to darker sentiments.
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RJ Matson, Roll Call —
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 flickr.com/photos/ttoes
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After yet another big push—and facing more of the same—Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are, unsurprisingly, feeling the strain of the long campaign trail. Meanwhile, top Dems Harry Reid, Howard Dean and Nancy Pelosi may make their own push—to urge superdelegates to make their presidential preferences known by July 1.
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NBC political director Chuck Todd, basking in hypotheticals, repeatedly explains that, while it simply isn’t done, “if we called things like this ... you would say, ‘OK, the pledged delegate count is over.’ ” Guess which of the candidates featured this video on his YouTube channel?
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By Marie Cocco — The Pennsylvania Turnpike was a highway to nowhere for Barack Obama.
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By Ellen Goodman — Whether Democrats view Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton as the ideal change agent comes down to how they think change is made.
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By Joe Conason — Nobody with a functioning memory should be too quick to condemn Jimmy Carter for daring to speak with the leadership of Hamas, as nearly everyone along the American political spectrum suddenly has felt obliged to do.
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We all know pollsters get it wrong from time to time, but you have to hand it to Public Policy Polling for refreshing candor. After the results were in, the only major polling group to predict an Obama victory in Pennsylvania posted on its blog: ” ... please do not call us or e-mail us and tell us we suck! We are well aware, and it does not feel good.”
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Security experts have managed to unravel the relatively simple exploit that allowed hackers to prank Barack Obama’s Web site just days before the Pennsylvania primary. Visitors to the site’s community blogs page found themselves redirected to HillaryClinton.com. Neither campaign wanted to talk about it with the Associated Press.
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 Flickr / seiu_international
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Hillary Clinton ended her Pennsylvania victory speech with a plea for donations in order to compete with Barack Obama’s campaign war chest. Her supporters have responded to the tune of as much as $10 million (in one day), according to the Clinton campaign.
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By Amy Goodman — As the media coverage of the Democratic presidential race continues to focus on lapel pins and pastors, America is ailing.
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Hillary Clinton reveled in victory Tuesday night, making the case for her ongoing campaign, while Barack Obama, as has become his custom, presented the race as a choice between two different kinds of politics.
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 Agence France-Presse
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By David Sirota — Hillary Clinton’s win over Barack Obama Tuesday highlights the racial motivations of at least some Pennsylvania voters.
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The New York Times editorial board, which endorsed Hillary Clinton early and enthusiastically, has had enough of negativity in the race for the White House: “It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.”
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 flickr.com/photos/philgarlic
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By Robert Scheer — How proud the Clintonistas must be. They have learned how to rival what Hillary once termed the “vast right-wing conspiracy” in the effort to destroy a viable Democratic leader who dares to stand in the way of their ambitions. Neither Karl Rove nor Dick Morris could have done a better job.
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 wyff4.com
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Pastor Roger Boyd claims he just wanted to get folks thinking last Thursday when he chose a controversial message to run on the sign in front of the Jonesville Church of God in Jonesville, S.C.: “OBAMA OSAMA HUMM ARE THEY BROTHERS?”
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 AP photo / Elise Amendola
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Hillary Clinton has scored a big, if expected, victory in Pennsylvania, a win crucial to her big-state argument to superdelegates. According to exit data, Obama won over new voters while Clinton appealed to those who made up their minds in the aftermath of the ABC debate. Clinton needed a double-digit win and she nearly achieved that, beating Obama by 9.2 points. Updated.
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Leave it to World Wrestling Entertainment to come up with something as hilarious, ridiculous and disturbing as a mock wrestling match between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
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Here’s the conventional wisdom as of the morning of the Pennsylvania primary: Hillary Clinton is leading in nearly every recent poll and has gained ground in the last few days. The good weather will probably benefit her more than Barack Obama. Unprecedented voter registration is a good sign for Obama, but it probably won’t be enough. Of course, this campaign has been anything but conventional.
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 Flickr / Photo Mojo
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Speaking over the phone to Philadelphia’s WHYY, Bill Clinton defended his controversial comments following the South Carolina primary, saying the Obama campaign had played the race card against him. After the interview, apparently neglecting to hang up, the former president could be heard using language not normally aired on public radio: “I don’t think I should take any s—- from anybody on that, do you?” Update: Denial.
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Poking fun at recent controversy, Jon Stewart asked Barack Obama Monday if, once elected, he plans to “pull a bait and switch ... and enslave the white race.” The candidate responded with a chuckle and a dig at ABC News.
Posted on Apr 22, 2008
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By Eugene Robinson — How on earth is the Republican Party going to sell John McCain? Once the Democrats stop doing the job, I mean.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The result of the 2008 election may come down to how voters decide to define Barack Obama. Is he Adlai Stevenson or John F. Kennedy? Updated.
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 johnmurneysblog.blogspot.com
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For presidential candidates, celebrity endorsements can be a mixed bag—especially when the star in question is a polarizing figure, as is the latest famous figure to give the nod to Barack Obama: audacious auteur Michael Moore.
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It’s getting ugly out there. With just a day to go before the much anticipated Pennsylvania primary, the Democrats are running a blitz of negative ads, like this one from Hillary Clinton that features a cameo from a certain bearded terrorist.
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 AP photo / Rick Bowmer
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By Chris Hedges — The failure of the American left is a failure of nerve. It has been neutralized and rendered ineffectual as a political force because of its refusal to hold fast on core issues.
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The “Real Time” host offers his own unique take on the bitterness fiasco: “If you think the Democrats are going to take away your Bible, you’re an idiot. If you think they’re going to take away your gun, you’re an armed idiot. And if you think they’re going to take away your gun and give it to a Mexican to kill your god, you’re Bill O’Reilly.”
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 Flickr / FourthFloor
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The Barack Obama campaign’s “culture clash” in Philadelphia goes beyond the unwillingness to pay out “street money.” The L.A. Times details the many challenges of trying to wage a new kind of politics in the city where our nation’s politics began. Update: “Ward leaders are pretty pissed.”
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 AP photo / Jae C. Hong
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By Bill Boyarsky — Journalists are famous for their dogged drive to “get the story.” But when it comes to situations like Wednesday’s campaign debate in Philadelphia, they have the ability to make stories, too—and the story ABC’s pundits created that night buried the most important issues of the day, at Americans’ expense.
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 AP photo / Jae C. Hong
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Why were so many journalists so aggravated by the latest presidential debate? According to Politico scribes John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei, it wasn’t about George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson’s less substantive questions—instead, the problem was that “this time there were more hard questions for Obama than for Clinton.”
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Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean is putting pressure on superdelegates to let their presidential preferences be known well before this summer’s convention—partly for logistical reasons, and also to let the healing begin.
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By Eugene Robinson — Once the meaningless inquisition about loose semantics and questionable acquaintances was done, Wednesday night’s debate between Obama and Clinton got interesting.
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Still railing against Barack Obama’s “elitist” comments, Hillary Clinton has found some of her own alleged words about the working class coming back to haunt her. The candidate’s campaign has denied that she said the following about blue-collar voters, as reported by the Huffington Post: “Screw ‘em. ... You don’t owe them a thing, Bill. They’re doing nothing for you; you don’t have to do anything for them.”
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With just five days left before Democratic primary voters go to polls to decide whom they want to be their presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois are locked in a battle that is too close to call, the latest Newsmax/Zogby telephone poll shows.
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 AP photo / Matt Rourke
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The Democrats met in Philadelphia Wednesday night for their 21st and probably finally debate. The Washington Post’s Tom Shales was horrified by what he saw, but not because of the candidates: “For the first 52 minutes ... Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news.”
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 World Economic Forum / Remy Steinegger
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British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is in the United States to discuss the global economy with President Bush, but the real excitement is over back-to-back meetings he has scheduled with the three U.S. presidential candidates.
Posted on Apr 17, 2008
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By Joe Conason — It is hard to blame John McCain for mocking Barack Obama as an “elitist” following that silly remark about bitter folks who cling to guns and religion. Rarely does the Arizona senator—one of the wealthiest members of Washington’s most exclusive club—encounter such a tempting chance to masquerade as a populist.
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By Ellen Goodman — I always thought that genealogy was for people whose blood ran blue. It was for folks who traced their ancestry to the Mayflower or the American Revolution, not those who came over in steerage one step ahead of the Cossacks.
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The columnist argues that Barack Obama’s “bitter” comments will indeed work against him with white working-class voters.
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