• IN THIS SECTION

June 3, 2008

Exclusive: Tuesday, June 3

Presidential Watch

X-Ray of Senator Clinton's Soul

Armstrong Williams, Conservative Voice.com

There is much you can psychologically analyze when you have direct access to the inner workings of one's soul. Senator Hillary Clinton recently commented that Senator (and strong Democratic presidential contender) Robert F. Kennedy's assassination in 1968 gives her reason to stay in the 2008 presidential race. What a rare and candid revelation of a desperate and Machiavellian candidate.

Please consider the fact that the imaginative Senator from New York did not envision the possibility of assassination for herself or Senator John McCain, only for the black American Senator from Illinois. This was undoubtedly not a mere coincidence. Deep down, could she have been attempting to activate a code or signal for some crazy maniac to take Senator Barack Obama out? With a license to make June the decisive month of the campaign, by murderous means if necessary, has Clinton essentially put a price on Obama's head?

Furthermore, she told us last week that ailing Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) has been heavy on her mind of late. I dare you to believe that the thoughts are warm ones. You may be shocked to understand the true nature of her thoughts about the ailing icon from Massachusetts, and thus why they weigh so heavily. Is it possible that Clinton's bitterness over Kennedy's endorsement of Obama has burdened her with feelings of revenge and antipathy for the 76-year-old liberal icon?

Is she staggered by the reality that Old Teddy won't be campaigning against her in the near future, and may not appear with Obama between now and the November election? Isn't it fair game to suggest that her latest comments towards Obama indicate that she's hopeful that fate finally hands her the prize that she and her husband Bill feel they are entitled to receive? Ahhhhh those Clinton's, just when you think they have scraped the gutter clean, they always find a way to dredge up yet more muck. Read article.

The Clintons Just Have to Win

Morris & McGann, Vote.com

In January 1998, right after The Washington Post revealed President Bill Clinton's relationship with Monica, I spoke with him about his predicament. Shell-shocked and stunned at the calls for his impeachment, he knew he was facing the fight of his life. At first, he was vintage Bill Clinton: maudlin, sad and full of self-pity. But as we talked, he gradually changed his tone. Admitting that he was not innocent, but recognizing his diminishing support, he then told me defiantly: "Well, we'll just have to win."

Several years later, I was surprised to read in Sidney Blumenthal's memoirs that then-first lady Hillary Clinton had used the exact same words on the exact same day in a conversation with the White House aide. "We'll just have to win."

That's how the Clintons think - no matter what, they have to win. Winning is everything, and how you do it is not determined by any inner sense of values or ethics, but by a resolve to do whatever needs to be done, no more and certainly no less.

But now time is finally running out for the Clintons. They've stayed at the party too long, and it isn't a pretty sight. But they won't leave gracefully. No way. They still believe that there's a chance to win. And they'll do anything to make that happen.

Because they just have to win. Read article.

Dethroned

Mark Steyn, NRO.com

The conventional wisdom on the Clintons was promulgated by my then-senator, Bob Smith of New Hampshire, back at the end of the impeachment trial. "He's won," said Senator Smith, after dutifully if vainly casting his vote to nail Slick Willie's puffy butt. "He always wins. Let's move on."

They won through the Nineties. The Clintons' Democratic party was great for the Clintons, lousy for the Democratic party, which in the course of the decade lost Senate seats, House seats, governors' mansions, state legislatures, and on and on, until, in a final snook cocked at his comrades, Bill Clinton was unable to bequeath the White House to his vice president in a time of peace and prosperity - but his wife, campaigning for her first political office, managed to pick up a Senate seat in a state she'd barely spent 20 minutes in.

Yet even iron rules have their exceptions. This time the Clintons won't win. And it's the Democratic machine that wants to move on - notwithstanding that in the past three months former president-presumptive Rodham has won more votes from actual Democratic voters than Senator Obama, a weak candidate being propelled in slow motion across the finish line, the sputtering engine of his "inevitability" frantically augmented by media bobbysoxers pushing at the rear. Read article.

Hillary's Lament: Politics is just like high school.

Myrna Blyth, NRO.com

She is like the smartest girl in the class who didn't get into any college. The high-school senior who has always been told she is so smart, and has worked so hard to position herself exactly right - and only applied to the most prestigious schools. No safety options for a girl who is "in it to win it" and is certain she will. Besides, Daddy wanted only the very best for her.

But then she learns, to her horror, that Harvard and Yale and Princeton and Brown and Stanford have all turned her down. No wonder she is in denial; coping with the shock and the shame is hard to take at 17 and even harder at 60. Besides, everyone who always secretly hated "the smartest girl" for her hectoring manner and sense of entitlement is really enjoying her embarrassment. Politics is just like high school.

The teenager usually learns a lesson about life, licks her wounds, and gets on with it. Maybe it becomes the funny story she tells years later. But this long, difficult campaign will never be a joke to Hillary. And what she seems to have learned from it so far won't help her get on with it. She and her husband are still playing the blame game, though they are not blaming themselves. And as calculating as they usually are, they don't even seem to care that their biggest gaffes keep losing them the friends they will need. Read article.

McCain Pledges To Be "Chief Negotiator" In Middle East

Marc Ambinder, The Atlantic.com

Here's a bit of a new angle on Sen. John McCain's policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead of a hands-back approach preferred by President Bush, McCain pledges, in an interview with my colleague Jeffrey Goldberg, to be the "chief negotiator" between the two sides from day one. (You'll recall that it took President Bush roughly six years before he decided to become fully engaged -- what ex- U.S. ambassador Martin Indyk has called the "legacy syndrome" that afflicts presidents in their late hours.) Read interview HERE.

Healing the wounds of Democrats' sexism

Geraldine A. Ferraro, Boston,com

Last year at the beginning of the presidential primary season, Democrats were giddy with excitement. Not only did we have an embarrassment of riches in our candidates but we had two historic candidacies to enjoy. Once and for all our country would show that racism and sexism were not part of our 21st-century DNA.

more stories like thisHere we are at the end of the primary season, and the effects of racism and sexism on the campaign have resulted in a split within the Democratic Party that will not be easy to heal before election day. Perhaps it's because neither the Barack Obama campaign nor the media seem to understand what is at the heart of the anger on the part of women who feel that Hillary Clinton was treated unfairly because she is a woman or what is fueling the concern of Reagan Democrats for whom sexism isn't an issue, but reverse racism is.

The reaction to the questions being raised has been not to listen to the message and try to find out how to deal with the problem, but rather to denigrate the messenger. Sore loser, petty, silly, vengeful are words that have dominated the headlines. But scolding and name-calling don't resolve disputes. The truth is that tens of thousands of women have watched how Clinton has been treated and are not happy. We feel that if society can allow sexism to impact a woman's candidacy to deny her the presidency, it sends a direct signal that sexism is OK in all of society. Read article.

Obama's Electoral Problems Transcend Race

Jennifer Rubin, Pajamas Media.com

Barack Obama's difficulty luring white working class voters to his cause is well known. But he has plenty of other reasons to stay up at night.

It is no secret: Barack Obama's near-nomination rests largely on a coalition of African Americans, high income voters, young people and self-described "very liberal" Democrats. These voters have consistently turned out in primary races, giving him a majority of the pledged delegates (if you don't count Michigan and Florida). Many pundits, joined by Hillary Clinton, have focused on the absence of white voters in Obama's coalition.

The numbers are striking. Since the heady primary days of Maryland, Virginia and Wisconsin, white Democratic voters have in essence abandoned Obama, even after the mainstream media declared the race over. Read article.

Pfleger a headache for Obama. Axelrod documentary on Pfleger

Lynn Sweet, Sun Times.com

The Rev. Michael Pfleger's "I'm white! I'm entitled ... black man stealing my show" outburst about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton from the pulpit of the Obama family church, Trinity United Church of Christ, created a political problem for likely Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama that won't disappear.

Pfleger's crusades against guns, prostitution, porn and tobacco have made good copy for years for a fairly admiring local press corps hooked on cheering for the underdog, the poor and the powerless.

Pfleger is the subject of a documentary being made by Chicago-based David Axelrod, Obama's top strategist. On Friday, Axelrod told me in an e-mail that the film project has "been dormant for much of the last two years due to other commitments."

Pfleger -- a headline-making household name in Chicago -- steps onto a national stage at a time an international press corps is making trips to Chicago to dig into Obama's life to learn more about the man who may be president.

As the song goes, everything old is new again. CNN just did an "investigative" piece on how Obama knocked former state Sen. Alice Palmer (D-Chicago) off the ballot so he could run for her seat in 1996 without opposition. That Pfleger welcomed Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan to his St. Sabina Church on the South Side -- of interest to out-of-town reporters -- hardly caused a stir in the city because Farrakhan has long lived in Chicago and, well, he's part of the scene, having preached from his own mosque for decades.

With that context, consider the headache Pfleger created for Obama, whom Pfleger told me last April he has known since Obama came to Chicago as a community organizer. Read article.

Bam's Land of Losers

Adam Brodsky, NY Post.com

For all his soaring, hopeful rhetoric, Barack Obama chose an odd message this week to send Wesleyan's graduating seniors.

Face it, kids - he basically said - Americans are losers. Pathetic, needy dependents who can't make it without help. So forget your dreams, dear graduates. Go forth and aid your fellow deadbeats.

Never mind "The Audacity of Hope." Obama was trumpeting "The Ubiquity of Failure." "The Equality of Need." "The Endlessness of the Dole."

OK, I exaggerate - a little. Here are his actual words: "Our collective service can shape the destiny of this generation . . . Individual salvation depends on collective salvation."

That is, unless we come together and fix America's myriad flaws (like poverty, which never disappears), we're all doomed.

This went well past the standard graduation calls for community service and voluntarism. The senator chided those who seek life's material rewards: "Fulfilling your immediate wants and needs," he insisted, "betrays a poverty of ambition."

In fact, Obama himself was betraying a poverty of understanding U.S. history. Read article.

Bonior Joins Obama Team as Latest Anti-Israel Campaign Official

Suzanne Kurtz, Republican Jewish Coalition.org

The Republican Jewish Coalition today responded to the announcement that former Rep. David Bonior will be representing the Obama campaign at the Democratic National Committee meeting this weekend in Washington, D.C. As a Congressman, David Bonior was known for his strong opposition to pro-Israel policies, being called by some "the biggest supporter of the anti-Israel Arab lobby in Congress."[1] The RJC cited Bonior as the latest in a string of advisors and campaign officials to Barack Obama that harbor anti-Israel views.

"Barack Obama's path to strengthening ties with the Jewish community is severely blocked when appointing an anti-Israel figure like David Bonior.

While in Congress, Bonior refused to stand by Israel after repeated terrorist attacks, was known as a stalwart opponent to Israel, and is now a representative for Barack Obama. Bonior's appointment is the latest in a series that raises serious questions and doubts about Barack Obama's positions and judgments on the Middle East."

During his Congressional career, David Bonior repeatedly opposed pro-Israel legislation. In 1997, David Bonior was one of 15 Congressmen who signed a letter asking then-President Clinton to pressure Israelis into making concessions to the Palestinians. Read article.

Allies of Palestinians see a friend in Barack Obama

Joe Raymond, LA Times.com

It was a celebration of Palestinian culture -- a night of music, dancing and a dash of politics. Local Arab Americans were bidding farewell to Rashid Khalidi, an internationally known scholar, critic of Israel and advocate for Palestinian rights, who was leaving town for a job in New York.

A special tribute came from Khalidi's friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama. Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi's wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking.

They consider him receptive despite his clear support of Israel. His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation -- a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world."

Today, five years later, Obama is a U.S. senator from Illinois who expresses a firmly pro-Israel view of Middle East politics, pleasing many of the Jewish leaders and advocates for Israel whom he is courting in his presidential campaign. The dinner conversations he had envisioned with his Palestinian American friend have ended. He and Khalidi have seen each other only fleetingly in recent years.

And yet the warm embrace Obama gave to Khalidi, and words like those at the professor's going-away party, have left some Palestinian American leaders believing that Obama is more receptive to their viewpoint than he is willing to say. Read article.

McCain and National Security

David Limbaugh, David Limbaugh.com

I'm aware of the widely held assumption that John McCain's path to victory in November requires him to capture a healthy percentage of independents and even Democrats. But his strategy could backfire if he doesn't restrain his urge to betray conservatives.

Because of his military record, his POW experiences and his pro-defense Senate record, McCain has a decided advantage over Barack Obama on national security, the most important issue for many voters and plenty important for the rest, as well.

Even McCain's outspoken support of the "unpopular" Iraq war, ironically, adds to his favorable national security image. This despite the Democrats' propagandizing against the war, their attempt to sever it conceptually from the overall war on terror, and their phony yet persistent argument that we've diverted resources away from fighting al-Qaida. The Democratic Party goes into any election with the burden of proving it can be trusted with power during times of war.

Yet for all our talk about McCain's comparative advantage on national security, many conservatives are nevertheless mystified at some of McCain's anomalous positions on the war on terror and his penchant for moving to the left here, as in so many other areas. Of all policy areas, you would think McCain could score a 100 percent among conservatives on national security, but his apparent desire for mainstream media approval and his addiction to projecting an image of unpredictability must be overwhelming.

Just this week, The Washington Post reported that McCain appears to be flip-flopping on his earlier position in favor of granting telecoms immunity for cooperating with President Bush in Bush's warrantless surveillance program to monitor terrorist activities. Read article.