See http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/3/5/1…

Apparently, he felt that working the refs (the media) worked. Now, my question is does this mean he believes he cannot win in a media environment that isn’t 90% glowing for him?

Because while the media were harder on him in the last week, they didn’t exactly let up on Hillary, so what kind of media environment does such a talented politician need to win. Nothing less than a fawning, misogynistic press will do.

And, not for nothing, the reason SNL’s satire worked was because, as with all good satire, there was truth in it. And I say this as someone who found the Hillary parts every bit as hilarious as the rest of the skits.

Classic case of dish it out but can’t take it.

Gee, charismatic but nice guy, stays in a bubble and never talks to the press, gets cranky when he has to, thin-skinned, uber-faithy…. Who am I talking about here?

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

In my experience comedy writers like to be contrarian. Assuming the SNL call really happened and wasn’t some joke by Obama the media didn’t pick up (the current WORM theory), it may do him more harm than good. I can easily see SNL doing another skit this week and then having Obama call and complain about it.

Personally, I loved all of both skits, even the parts that mocked Hillary (“it has always been my dream to lose Maryland”, HA!). I cannot imagine Obama going on SNL after a segment that mocked him as being “so annoying” the way Clinton did. Obama seems to have a decent sense of humor generally, but I haven’t seen any evidence it extends to himself.

And, of course, Obama hasn’t ever done a single negative thing in this campain. Not ever. Unless claiming Clinton will “do anything to win” is a compliment? Okay, I could see that actually, but I doubt that was the intent. How about Axlerod suggesting Clinton was responsible for Bhutto’s assassination? But that wasn’t Obama himself. So how about Obama’s argument that Hillary is arguing that she would be best president because she talked to Bill on occasion, is that negative? That seems pretty negative (and a bit sexist, but that’s not new).

See http://attacktimeline.com/

look at whatever he and his surrogates are accusing Clinton of doing or planning.

After all the Obama handwringing about Clinton going negative, what does his campaign do this morning? Go negative.

Via Marc Ambinder, http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/arch…, the Obama campaign releases memo asking “What Does Clinton Have to Hide.” It attacks her on her tax returns.

This type of attack is as old as politics (much like Hillary’s Obama won’t debate attack). But here’s my question, has anyone ever learned anything remotely relevant about a candidate from his or her tax return? I’ve been listening to these calls since I was a kid.

Having said that, Hillary is apparently planning to release her tax returns not already public on or about April 15. It’s probably a good idea that she releases them just to get this over as a topic of conversation.

Then we can move on to the valuation of Bill’s donated underwear on said tax returns, a discussion that I so enjoyed the first time it was had in the 1990s.

To ask Obama (have somebody ask) why he won’t disclose all of details of his relationship with Rezko. Not that there is likely to be anything more than has already been discovered, but Obama has been dodging a sit-down with reporters - doubtless on the advice of his lawyers - and until he is more forthcoming there will be a shadow. Going negative will work in Clinton’s favor, which is the only reason Obama has kept to the high road; not because of his inherent nobility.

First off, Obama was all over Clinton about her tax returns before the Clinton camp started talking about Obama releasing all his Rezko stuff.

As for Clinton’s tax returns, she should just tell Obama and the media to STFU, because everything about her finances are already a matter of public record, and the only reason the media want those records is to go over them with a fine tooth comb so they can endlessly speculate about her husband — and demand that the media focus on the issues that the voters are concerned about.

She should promise to release her tax returns after the last primary, because voters shouldn’t be subjected to the media’s twisted obsession with Bill Clinton — and after the last primary, the media can have all the fun they want to with the returns.

And she shouldn’t be afraid to play the sexism card — and ask Obama if he wants every single detail of his wife’s life subject to minute scrutiny, speculation, and smears based on meaningless things in her past.

Is anyone in the media talking about independent voters today?

Because last night, Obama “won” the independent vote in texas by only 2 points, and in Ohio by only 1 point.

Considering how many times Obama’s “superior appeal with independent voters” has been mentioned by the media, you’d think that the fact that Clinton basically tied with Obama for the independent vote yesterday would be a huge story.

While everything is still fresh in our minds.

[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

Who said what about whom when in the past doesn’t matter. What does matter is what gets said going forward. IMHO there is greater risk for Obama in getting more negative than there is for Clinton. There is a whole wealth of innuendo that could be dragged out from Chicago and overseas and Michelle and her not so politically sophisticated family that will damage Obama far more than anything in Bill’s tax returns will hurt Hillary.

Obama’s gotten away with the sotto voce misogyny and fake racist innuendo, but he can’t really get up in her face and still be Mr. Unity. She on the other hand is already the unscrupulous power-mad fiend and in spite of that slur she is still holding her own in the contest. A little blatant negativity won’t hurt her image, but destroys his.

Rachael Maddow (yes, I still quite like her; she is interviewing for Tucker’s time slot so she’s on double-strict probation and has to be “one of the boys” to get the job. Judge not lest ye be judged, say I.) made this observation last night (and I paraphrase):

People aren’t worried about whether or not Obama has specific policies; they’re starting to worry that he’s a bunny rabbit. Hillary has attacked and if he can’t figure out how to fight back now, how is he going to fight back against John McCain?

People are looking for a Leader. Obama got the jump on Clinton by announcing that he is a Leader, and very smartly putting in place all the trappings to make him self appear like one. But a big part of Leadership in America is demonstrating the ability to be appropriately belligerent, especially when you’ve been attacked. Obama has only had to try to deal with that once, and Bobby Rush kicked his butt all over town.

The list of Democratic presidential nominees who won by being consistently nice is not very long. The only winner of the bunch was Carter and how did that work out? Obama’s difficulty is that by positioning himself as an agent of change through the mechanism of transcendent affability, he either has to stand there and take it when he’s pummeled or stop being affable and be exposed as just another bad-tempered willing-to-do-anything pol.

That petard of his is there to be hoisted on in both the primary and the general, and McCain and the Republicans will be happy to help him do it. Best for the Dems to see how he deals with it here and now.

You should be happy to hear Paul that Clinton appears to be more or less following your advice. Via Ambinder again, Howard Wolfson email:

Faced with many legitimate questions about Senator Obama’s long-time relationship with indicted political fixer Tony Rezko, the Obama campaign has chosen to lash out at Senator Clinton. Here are the facts: Over 20 years of the Clintons’ tax returns are in the public domain. Their tax returns since they left the White House will be made available on or around April 15. This information will be in addition to 15 years of uninterrupted public financial disclosure reports. Instead of making false attacks, we urge Senator Obama to release all relevant financial and other information related to indicted political fixer Tony Rezko.

I’m betting on or around April 15 ends up being after April 22, what do you think?

And the more I look at the demos in Ohio and Texas, the more worried I suspect the Obama campaign is today. Probably not helping that Clinton has taken the lead in both the Rasmussen and Gallup tracking polls. I don’t think they’re worth much, but still not good news for Obama.

And I honestly don’t know what to think about Rezko. I don’t want to enable Whitewater all over again if Obama is the nominee. And via Digby, the judge in the case worked on the Whitewater investigation with Starr, among others (one reason why judicial appointments are so important). So I don’t want to make more of it than it is or should be. And, obviously, so far I haven’t seen anything that should disqualify Obama from being president over John McCain. However, that doesn’t mean it should be irrelevant in picking the nominee, although there is a fine line between vetting and setting Obama up for a GE fall.

Moreover, whatever is there is something I’d like to know about now and not in October. I doubt Obama is corrupt, but his bad judgment is worrisome. Who asks a guy under federal investigation for corruption for help buying a huge house that you can’t afford without his help? And a Talk Left commentator had a question about one of Obama’s votes that I thought was a good one - see http://www.talkleft.com/comments/2008/3/4/14231/39946/23#23.

So I go back and forth on Rezko. But two things seem clear to me, 1) a news story like the one in the video below from when Rezko first broke has the capacity to be a very messy thing for any politician:

and 2) it’s not going away any time soon, at least not in the Chicago Media. See the 3/4 Sun-Times editorial where the paper prints its phone number and asks Obama to call it to answer questions. (http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/823666,CST-EDT-edit04b.article)

Lambert… I want to wait until tomorrow, and then do the same googlenews search I did for “count whose vote 2” but for the previous 24 hours.

BD… I’d not push Rezko anymore than the Clinton campaign does. And I think that April 15 is a mistake — too close to the PA election, and Obama and the media will make an issue of it if they try to wait until after. Better to get them out immediately, or say “after the primaries, when you media vultures can’t use them to avoid discussing the real issues in this campaign”

And I look forward to reading your analysis of independent voters.

The Clinton campaign simply doesn’t have the time right now to vet their returns - and no one in their right mind would send them out until they were vetted.

The candidate I worked for last year had to release his return, and it was over 500 pages. We had to talk to the lawyers, the accountants, the brokers, his former business partners and then the consultants had to sign off on it. That was for ONE year, and it was over 500 pages. (The rich are different from you and me.) We faced questions like, “Did you know when you bought this stock that the company was cited for human rights violations in several countries?”

It’s a lot of work. They really don’t have time to do this right now. (Not to mention finding a team of accountants who will work on it full-time this close to April 15th! They’re a little busy this time of year.)

As to the Rezko stuff - I was a reporter who covered similar deals in a GOP-machine suburban county, and the whole thing smells to high heaven. Was Michelle Obama sitting on the preservation board when the subdivision was approved? If so, did she at least recuse herself?

And why did Obama volunteer to pay $60,000 more for the strip of land he bought from Rezko than the appraiser said it was worth? Very odd. He says he wanted to pay him 1/6 of what he paid for the property - but 60 grand? I find that hard to believe.