I guess now that Iraq has calmed down we can start focusing on trivial B.S.

Are we electing a president or voting someone off the island?

Classy, Hillary. Obama dismisses it as a misunderstanding, and you won't let it go.

I see via Mike (who noticed via Ben Smith ) that Obama's so-called "snub" of Hillary Clinton

Did someone just use class and Clinton in the same sentence? Seriously?

Speaking of class, the Chicago Tribune is reporting that the in a step "seemingly designed to avoid major news coverage", Obama's campaign announced tonight (during the Florida primary coverage) that it was dumping another 70,000 in RezkoBucks contributions. Way to step up to the plate guys.

Anyway, that's now a total of 150K in Tony related dough gone to charity. But that's it...no, really.

"Well Chris, I reached out my hand in friendship and unity, and my hand is still reaching out."

EEWWW! How smarmy can you get?

um i'm pretty sure obama has build his reputation on being the nice, hope-y guy.  if hillary wants to manipulate this nonsense, she can.

glug, glug.

Actually, there are a lot of stories out there now about Obama's personal nastiness, in different situations and with different people. They are cohering into a narrative, which is why the mass market is picking them up.

But what is really happening that is more important is that the details on the Obama-Rezko sham real estate transaction are becoming clear enough to understand. I think this will end Obama's candidacy, or result in a disaster against McCain in the Fall.

Yeah, PC, there are a lot of stories out there pushed by Clinton and her followers. Good luck getting that fictive narrative to take hold.

""Well Chris, I reached out my hand in friendship and unity, and my hand is still reaching out. And I look forward to shaking his hand when I see him at the debate in California."  "

I think I'm going to throw up.

Pccstello:

Nope, it won't. It's pretty boring and hard to understand. Plus, it doesn't approach pardoning felons for huge campaign contribution bribes.

ah--that was BILL Clinton, virginia. And not at all to the point, besides.

McCain would wipe the floor with Obama over having Rezko own half of his home. In addition, this either property is going to be impossible to sell, except in another coordinated sham transaction where Rezko and Obama sell the land at the same time to a new buyer. Rezko is trying to manuever around this by transferring title to his attorney, but that won't hide anything at this point. This is apparently one of the transactions that led the judge to revoke his bail and put him in jail. The prosecutor, btw, is Patrick Fitzgerald. It is only a matter of time before this ends Obama's candidacy.

Hillary is trying to prove Obama wrong -- maybe she isn't actually "likable enough".  At least she hasn't made the argument that Obama is Jesse Jackson. She let Bill offer up that gem. She is going to get clobbered on Super Tuesday.

Neil

Pccostello:

You should make a bumper sticker out of that paragraph! This is a great issue for Hillary to use against Obama, because it's so easy to understand.

PC:

If Hillary wants to take credit for all of the good things in the Clinton admin, then she should (AND WILL) take the blame for the bad things - especially where her brother was bribed $300k for a pardon...

The pardons issue is the sleeper general election issue that will destroy her. It never really got the full play it deserved in 2001 because the Bush folks were eager to move on and push their own agenda.

Yeah, McCain's totally clean. He wasn't part of the Keating Five or anything.

I left this comment about the snub elsewhere so pardon the repeat, but...

Remember the TNR poll where it seemed a majority of the Obama supporters said they would never vote for HRC in the general election while the Clinton supporters said they would?  "The snub" kinda fits that -- and maybe it should.  If Obama is "a new kind of politician" who seems to put other things ahead of policy, you suspect in his heart he'd endorse a clean-running McCain over the Clntons even if it was someone else the Clintons defeated with their tactics.  

Re: Rezko -- Carol Marin in the Sun-Times today weighs in against Obama on that topic -- I don't know how well known she is nationally but she's pretty respected here in town and definitely is not a Clinton fan.  

Someone hand me a tissue, Tito.

But hey, in all fairness, she can use whatever is given her fair and square, no one claimed making sausage was easy - least of all her. I just laugh at the idea of Thatcher, Merkle or Golda Meir (authentic feminists) stooping to selling their personal dignity like that.

Someone wake me when we have the first female President who can stand on her own two feet and her own accomplishments and skip the victimology altogether.

Unless Obama can start wa wa waing about being the poor victimized black man too - have Michelle hector the media about hit for him.  What about poor old Edwards?  Didn't he come from blue collar roots? Shouldn't he get a few classism votes just to round out the whole "poor me" vote trough?

I'm curious about all of those stories about Obama's nastiness - can you name a few? And not the media/debate created ones - you're likable enough Hillary has been done to death.  I mean whatever "about-to-break" stuff you've got.

I don't think even Hillary will dare go there too much with the Rezko stuff - I lost count a long time ago of how many donors of theirs have gone to jail, selling the Lincoln bedroom (which I personally have no problem with, but most people do).  I don't think she even wants to open that can of worms.  

But if that's all they've got - he's been mean to poor widda me and some crook owned half his house? They already tried to ghetto-ize him and that backfired.  They need to scrape the bottom of that barrel I guess.

I say this as someone who still knows this is Hillary's to lose - she's got the numbers and numbers don't lie.  

"I reached out my hand in friendship and unity, and my hand is still reaching out."

Kind of a nice image, but on the other hand kinda Evil Dead II ...

PC, though I am a Clinton supporter (nee Biden), you should know that the transfer of the Rezko's Lot to his attorney was not referenced in the government's successful motion to revoke Tony's bond and drop him in the pokey until trial. It's an unrelated albeit interesting transaction.

The attorney has put the lot on the market after he floated an idea for building six(!) townhouses on it and I gather was met with very unhappy landmark preservation locals compounded by the crummy market.

Frankly, I don't understand why Barack doesn't just buy the damn thing as I'm guessing he now has the money to do it via book sales, etc. Maybe because the attorney who owns it worked for Rezko and is also an Obama contributor, who knows. But it really is a mess and just keeps generating news and headlines.  

Once again and as usual with the Clintons, no class.  

What any adult would have done is accept Obama's explanation on face value and let it go.

But, noooo, the Clintons have to try to make political hay out of every circumstance no matter how trivial.

Obama may well have been the one who was peevish, childish, and impolite.  If Mrs. Clitnon had let it pass, she would have had the better of the incident.

But, even on the tiniest stuff, the Clintons can't get it right.  If she's not a fully fit adult, how can she be fit to be president?

Chan:  I'd submit that when you make the campaign about style/tone/leadership/character/ANYTHING except the issues, this is fair to throw in the mix.  Take any day here at TNR.com and read through the comments and you'll be hard pressed to find any discussion of substance.  Obama supporters pass this off by saying "there's no significant difference on the issues."  Tell that to someone who would get health insurance on one candidate's plan and not the other (point: Clinton).  There's no bigger foreign policy issue -- Iraq included -- than our energy policy -- Obama's is noticeably better.  I could go on and on, but it's wasting my breath, er, finger muscle strength.  Those discussions are spurned.  

PS  If somebody said "you're likeable enough" to your daughter and then snubbed her inappropriately at a public event, I wonder who you'd say the "adult" was, even if she didn't accept a self-serving, questionable apology.

For Barack Obama supporters, there have been a lot of encouraging sings over the last few days--the South

He *didn't* say it to your daughter lymon, he said it to a fierce competitor for President of the United States of America.  

If she wants to be treated with kid gloves because of her gender (which I doubt, she's just looking for the egde, being an opportunist - which is utterly fair and smart in my view - if disgusting to me personally as a feminst), then perhaps she should find other work.

People over-identify with Hillary.  Obama shouldn't have even bothered apologizing, unless she wanted to aplogize back for her numerous slams towards him in the weeks before, which of course would have been ridiculous.  This ain't nursery school.  

This whole over sensitivity thing about Hillary is insulting to women.

Also lymon, assuming Obama did snub Hillary (which I think is entirely a media creation grabbed onto by partisans for manuevering - a Clinton specialty, but I don't care either way, tough beans, this is the big time).  

If someone had sent out their henchmen to ghetto-ize your daughter based on entirely on her race - trying to draw out the worst in everyone in the process, bigotry hopefully, the minute she won a grueling primary battle, I hope this mythical daughter would have the good sense to snub the person responsible.  At minimum.

Hillary is tough enough to know she more than had it coming and smart enough to work this whole over-response to her advantage, I have to hand it to her - point Hillary.

lymon1, if your point is that only issues and policy pronouncements matter, I disagree with you fundamentally.

Issues are ephemeral.  The planks in a party's platform have a way of being ignored and going away during a president's actual term.

To me, what is most important about a candidate is their fundamental character.  Are they petty?  Do they lie.  Are they untrustworthy in their personal lives and with their colleagues.  Do they have a sense of proportion, some humility?

Supposedly little things like comportment, a sense of style and dignity, and, yes, how you handled a supposed public snub, these are all very telling, because they go to essential character.

The great and near great presidents, although not saints and not flawless, had attractive character traits.  Lincoln's humility and sense of humor.  Roosevelt's ability to deflect nasty attacks with aplomb.  Eisenhower's groundedness.

One thing that gives me pause about the Clintons is that neither of them has a sense of humor.   Although Washington was pretty sober, he made up for it by turning down the chance to be a near king.  Lincoln, Churchill, Roosevelt, JFK, all had great wit.  Which speaks to a sense of proportion.

Obviously on certain truly fundamental things, like war policy and small government vs large, intrusive "helping" government vs government that essentially trusts to individuals, philosophy counts.

But, if you only go by issues and ignore what you think is small and trivial, lymon, you are only using your left brain.  A major mistake, because "cool" analysis will never give you the correct answer in human affairs.

Robots, computers, and Mr. Spock are not fit to rule us.  And, the only reason Democracy works is that most people vote with their guts, not their heads.  

Which is why the collective wisdom of the American voter has, over 200 plus years, has on the whole been right.  And always been right when being right was most critical.

P.S., lymon, "you're likeable enough" was a quip, a throwaway line thrown out in the heat of debate.  

It was perhaps not the most gracious line he could have delivered.  But, it was hardly a vicious insult.  And, if Hillary weren't a woman, nobody would have taken the least umbrage.  And, I thought women running for president were above playing the "you can't treat a woman like that" card.

Meanwhile, the question about the snub was asked by a reporter, half a day after the event.  She had plenty of time to have practiced what her response was going to be to that inevitable question.

I dunno Channy, I'd say competence trumps everything you mentioned any day.  I can handle alot (clearly as a long time Clinton supporter) if someone is professional and does their job well.  It's perfectly lovely that George Bush is so respectful of Laura, but I'd be nervous to have him run my son's playground. He lies as much as Bill CLinton ever did as well.

In all fairness to Hillary, she *was* humble and gracious as a Senator - she had alot of dignity and I appreciated it.  She never whined once. That's why this poor me, I'm just a girl stuff is just ridiculous (if quite effective, you have to admit. She did say she was in it to win).  

Chan's right, coulda been a lot worse. He never called her a "special flower", as Roger Stone's gearing up to do weeklystandard.com/.../617oiaek.asp

Lymon, Marin didn't exactly stomp over Obama- most of her invective was against Blago (something I support, by the way).   She did say:

"There is no suggestion that the Democratic presidential contender is connected to the kind of illegal dealings for which Rezko will stand trial next month. But his judgment with regard to Rezko is distinctly in question."

Not exactly damning.  Not praising, but not campaign-sinking stuff. Also, Marin (whom I respect a lot) doesn't have the kind of influence she used to, which is a shame.  And, anyway, the Sun-Times, which seems to have been pccostello's biggest source of info in re: Rezko, had a story about Obama rubbing out the stain.  An ugly headline, to be sure, but a sign even the Times seems to be moving on.  

W:  read the entire context -- if we're putting it on Chan's plane, the analogy (imo) is appropriate.

Chan, I'm limitiing my response to your false dichotomy.  Are issues all that matter?  Of course not.  Are issues "ephemeral"?  I'd say no.  Does character count?  Sure, but so does experience and on policy matters the Clinton record is, imo, pretty good -- see Bob Woodward's "The Agenda" for starters.   "Trivial" is in the eye of the beholder -- I've seen the deep corruption of Chicago local politics for my entire life, so when Obama falls in line, time after time after time, with the Chicago machine (read that to include Cook County) versus the people in both parties who have tried to reform it, it's not trivial to me.  

"Which is why the collective wisdom of the American voter has, over 200 plus years, has on the whole been right.  And always been right when being right was most critical."

Spare me -- for every Truman there's a Nixon.  And I got news for you AND the Clinton supporters: the critical election was 2004, not 2008 -- the GOP "starve the beast" strategy of running up budget deficits and baby boomer entitlements will dictate the agenda of the next president far more than "character" will.  The president America needs right now is someone telling hard truths and preaching sacrifice -- that's the only thing we should be saying "yes we can" to.  I don't see him or her.  

PC:  I like this new one about Obama's "personal nastiness."  What the hell are you talking about?  Seriously, stop making stuff up.

You continue to misunderstand the Rezko thing.  I like how *now* you're saying it's easy to understand.  No, it's that now you think *you've* figured it out.  Of course, that didn't stop you from pontificating on it before you "understood" it.  More to the point, you still have it wrong.

The property wasn't subdivided in a coordinated transaction with Obama and Rezko.  The seller listed the parcels separately before Obama or Rezko had anything to do with it.  It is *common* to take a big house that has a big yard on the side and subdivide it in order to get more for the property.  The land has access to the street and is suitable for building on.  (I heard that, at one point, someone wanted to put several townhouses on it.)  It is not worthless.  In fact, the seller listed it for $625,000, and Obama said that he understood that there was another offer for at or near asking price other than Rezko's.  If Rezko hadn't purchased it, someone else would have.  Rezko's land sold first.  Meanwhile, Obama's land had been on the market for some time and, according to his real estate agent, was overpriced.  He made an offer for 300K under asking and got it.  Meanwhile, there was another even lower offer out there.  The seller, who was leaving town, wanted the closings on the same do for his convenience.  Obama has explained all this.  Those (such as Carol Marin) who keep asking him to "come clean" or "explain what happened" or "answer unanswered questions" should read the Sun-Times reports where he does exactly that.  There is no indication that the purchases were otherwise "coordinated."  Obama has said that he did talk to Rezko about the property and that Rezko was interested in it, presumably to build on.  The federal investigation was *not* (I believe) reported at the time of the initial purchases, although insiders had bad vibes about Rezko.  It was reported by the time of the second transaction, 6 months later, when Obama bought 1/6th of the Obama parcel.  You have asked before why Rezko would enter into that transaction, which makes his property worth less and Obama's worth more.  That's like saying, why would I sell you my car, when you get a car out of the deal and I lose a car?  Beause I'm getting *money* for it -- duh.  In fact, Obama paid substantially more than what the strip of land was worth, according to an appraisal he had done.  The more pertinent question, if this really was a "sham" transaction, is why Obama would buy *any* piece of Rezko's parcel.  Under your theory, Rezko bought his property basically to give it to Obama.  There's nothing to support that, but, even if it were true, why would Obama pay for 1/6th of something he was getting for free?

Bottom line on the Rezko deal:  Obama has not been accused of anything illegal or unethical or improper.  He never did any political favors for Rezko.  He got nothing from Rezko out of the land deal that he didn't pay a fair price for.  His record is not pro-Rezko generally.  He returned all the Rezko contribution money, and later returned other funds plausibly linked to Rezko in some way, even if remotely.  It was dumb for Obama to be involved with Rezko.  But that's it.  There's no hint of any corruption here.  When accusations were flying about Bill and Hillary, I thought it was important to separate out what was something and what wasn't.  I don't see it here.  The worst possible interpretation is that Rezko *thought* he was doing Obama some sort of favor, but there is no evidence that Obama looked at the deal that way or reciprocated.  Indeed, he went out of his way to play it by the book.

Sigh - here we go again. Yes, Obama got something.  He got campaign contributions -- he only returned them when the feds cracked down on Rezko.  He gave something: an internship for Rezko to trade for who knows what.  I'm tired of people saying "an internship is so minor" -- the friggin land deal was minor.  But it's worth something -- ask a kid who gathers recommendations and tries to get one ON MERIT how meaningless it is.  When one of the hundred or so applicants to Obama that year tells me they don't mind that Rezko got the internship for a friend just for the asking, then I'll drop it.  And billing records at big law firms just don't go selectively missing like this.  Stop telling us to suspend our common sense any more than we would for gaps in the Nixon tapes or George W. Bush's missing emails or (pick a Clinton analogy).  

lymon, I'm making no false dichotomy.  In my book, character trumps experience.

As to my belief in the wisdom of the voters, you're looking at eight years or certain elections.  I'm looking at 200 years and all our presidential elections.  At the most critical junctures, the right guy has won.

Jefferson over Burr.  Correct choice.  Lincoln over Douglas, right again.  Roosevelt over Hoover, Landon, Wilkie, good calls all.  Eisenhower over Stevenson.  Both good men, but Ike was right for the Cold War.

Now, Nixon is where my character policy gets into problems.  Nixon over Humphrey?  the right political call, because Humphrey would have had great difficulty governing in the wake of Johnson.  Humphrey had more decent character, but not the right characteristics to deal with, say, China.  

Nixon over McGovern?  Christ, what kind of choice is that?  McGovern never ought to have been nominated.  Foolish Democrats.

Bush over Gore?  Thank God.  What a disaster would the vacillating al have been after 9/11.  bush over Kerry.  Even more right over an even worse vacillator.

Your problem, lymon, as a Democrat, is how poor the Democrat candidates have been over the last 40 years.  I mean, Dukakis?

If you keep giving the electorate less than a Hobson's Choice, they're going to at least chose the stronger man.  So many modern Dem candidates have just been transparent wimps.  A character flaw.

Lymon-

You're right about 2004. No doubt.

Chan, your character thesis runs into problems earlier than that, leaving aside the obvious disagreements we're going to have about whether a (sez you) vacilator is worse than a guy who can be trusted to quickly and decisively go the wrong way.

Hoover over Al Smith, just before the depression?

Harding over Cox?

Hell, electing William Henry Harrison just so he could die a month later and bring up a pretty heavy duty constitutional crisis?

Sheesh. Hayes over Tilden? George Clinton over Bootsy? Seriously, man, get a grip.

Chan -- just so you know I'm not blowing you off b/c I'd like to agree/disagree with the examples but it's moving day and I gotta pack!

lymon, disagree about health care, mandates won't work politically and hillary will triangulate her plan so that it becomes a noose to wrap around poor peoples neck, and no it won't cover all  Americans. Permanent residents are left out unless their job covers them. And illegals, of course, can just die as far as she is concerned.

blackie, honestly you're a swell, smart, and good-hearted guy.  

But, if we provide free health care to every illegal, we might all as well move to the Northwest Territories.  Or maybe cross the Bering Strait and see if the Russians will let us set up a new country there.

shrek2000,

Thanks for the further info on the transfer of the lot to Rezko's attorney. It is transparent that there was never any real  interest in building condos on this lot since that would destroy the value of Obama's property, the US Senator for whom Rezko was doing the million dollar favor.

Certainly, Rezko--now under indictment for influence peddling--expected to obtain and hold onto considerable influence over a sitting US Senator. Not a bad purchase for a million bucks. After all, he now owned the US Senator's backyard.

What can one say about the judgment of a Senator who would enter into such a transaction with a person under active federal investigation for sham real estate transactions and influence peddling? Maybe Obama thought he was working undercover in a sting operation to lure Rezko into influence peddling and sham transactions?