Daily Tidbits: April 17, 2008

• Andrew Sullivan preaches it: “Hillary Milhous Clinton”

“The Clinton camp is hammering the Weather Underground connection on the conference call this morning. The merging of the Clinton campaign with the very forces that once tried to destroy the Clintons is a fascinating moment. It does indeed show that for the Clintons, anything is possible in the pursuit of power. There are no permanent enemies, no permanent arguments, no permanent principles. Just the pursuit of power by all non-violent means. This, of course, has been the guiding, polarizing direction of American politics since Vietnam. It is the kind of politics that defined the Clintons and their generation. It is the boomer war fought by proxy: red-blue; patriot-wimp; American-unAmerican; faithful-Godless. And you cannot help but notice a kind of liberation in the Clinton camp, as they finally thrill to the full experience of deploying the cultural warfare and marginalization that they have been so used to Republicans using against them. And they get to use it against a black man in ways no Republican could get away with so easily. Man, that must feel good after all these years. No wonder she’s still smiling.

The Clintons began their career fighting Nixon. They ended up, in terms of political tactics, becoming him. Yes, it’s 1968 again. And the Clintons want to coopt the Silent Majority of their time. Their only problem is that it may no longer actually exist. We’ll see.”

• Chicago Mayor Daley says he knows Bill Ayers, and media/Hillary shouldn’t tar Obama for Ayers and re-fight 40 year old battles.
• A sampling of widespread and politically diverse criticism of last night’s debate here.
• With recent gains, Obama now leads in super delegates who are elected officials. Hillary’s super delegates are primarily unelected DNC-affiliated insiders. Who understands electability better: elected officials or unelected insiders who owe loyalty to a patron?
• Gallup daily tracking poll remains strong for Obama, 49-42%.
• Philly Daily News columnist writes open letter to Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos complaining how they conducted the debate.
• Clinton super delegate switches to Obama over constituent anger.
• Rasmussen daily tracking poll shows Obama’s lead unchanged, 48-41%.
• Tom Shales of WaPo blasts ABC debate as “shoddy”, “despicable”, “snide”, “another step downward for network news”, etc.
• Confirmation from the National Review Online that right wing hack Sean Hannity colluded with George Stephanopoulos in preparing debate questions.
• Philly Daily News endorses Obama. Hillary’s campaign counters with breaking news that the newspaper of the elitist Ivy League school Penn endorses Hillary.
• The Guardian (UK) unloads on the debate performance of moderators Gibson and Stephanopoulos.
• Thoughts of Josh Marshall of TPM about how the debate questions presumed the correctness of the GOP’s worldview.
• New York Times above the fold front page summary of the debate twice refers to “Obama’s association” with members (PLURAL) of the Weather Underground. It’s just one guy, who is 64 years old, and the Weather Underground dissolved long before Obama ever met the guy (and before Obama graduated grade school). The guy has apparently mellowed to a mainstream life in Chicago as a university professor and adviser to Mayor Daley. But NY Times decides to imply Obama’s chilling with a bunch of crazy radicals during his downtime.
• Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal interprets the Democratic race’s recent focus on red meat wedge issues like guns, faith, etc. as a surrender by Democrats to the GOP on “culture war” issues – “it’s over – the Democrats sued for peace.”
• Pittsburgh Post-Gazette notes debate kept Obama on defensive with its focus on “gotcha” politics.
• Obama picks up 4th superdelegate in last 24 hours, Reggie Whitten from Oklahoma.
• CNN’s poll of polls shows tripled margin for Obama.
• Politico notes that Obama was kept on the defensive by the steady stream of negative “gotcha” questions from ABC.