Yes, some young up-and-coming politicians tend to exagerate their role in the passage of legislation. Other (more senior) legislators (the ones who actually did the heavy lifting) add credibility to these claims because they want to help their friends. This is predictable as the sun rising. Sometimes committee staffers or LAs (the folks who stay up all night) get pissed. Ladeeda.

But how often do First Ladies fabricate stories about facing sniper fire in order to justify a controversial advertisement that claims they have credibility on foreign policy?

Chrristopher Hitchens in today's Slate, on Obama's combination of glibness, ruthlessness, and unscrupulousness, as suggested by today's piece (above) in the Times.:

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You often hear it said, of some political or other opportunist, that he would sell his own grandmother if it would suit his interests. But you seldom, if ever, see this notorious transaction actually being performed, which is why I am slightly surprised that Obama got away with it so easily. (Yet why do I say I am surprised? He still gets away with absolutely everything.)

Looking for a moral equivalent to a professional demagogue who thinks that AIDS and drugs are the result of a conspiracy by the white man, Obama settled on an 85-year-old lady named Madelyn Dunham, who spent a good deal of her youth helping to raise him and who now lives alone and unwell in a condo in Honolulu. It would be interesting to know whether her charismatic grandson made her aware that he was about to touch her with his grace and make her famous in this way. By sheer good fortune, she, too, could be a part of it all and serve her turn in the great enhancement.

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The entire article, which is vintage Hitchens, may be found at:

www.slate.com/.../2187277

VC: About as often as first ladies served as high level policy advisors.  

In a sane political world, African-American voters would question why the only African-American senator was working so hard to pass "green card amnesty" to millions of unskilled workers -- now there's a conspiracy theory for ya.  

Score, lymon1. I am with you.

It tires me to no end to hear it endlessly repeated that a) Hillary acquired no significant experience as a First Lady and that b) Obama is a grand uniter bent on bridging the partisan divide. As far as the first is concerned, I seem to recall Hillary earning negative points from plenty of Americans during the Clinton years for what they saw as too much meddling in presidential affairs. I even recall the question being posed of how democratic it was to have her so much in charge when Bill, not her, had been elected leader of the country. The right wing went insane with their hatred of her over her zealous attempts at being as active as possible in the policy - making process. Now, eight years later, she is placed on a scaffold for running on that same activism that once earned her such negative points with conservative sectors of body politic? Ridiculous.

As far as the growing mythology of Obama the uniter goes, it is only fair, albeit a waste of time in what is an increasingly less sane electon, to point out that honest dissections of his voting record reveal him as a loyal Democrat with a very thin record of reaching across the aisle to forge bipartisan compromises. Not that his loyalist votes rub me the wrong way - I believe I would be voting similarly myself if I were a congressperson. But to believe in his potential for bridging divides without a healthy dosage of skepticism is unreasonable, legions of the blissful notwithstanding.

At any rate, it was certainly his turn for a little bit of Sinbad treatment!

Arlen Specter is just a comedian.

What was the bill about, again? Immigration, you say? Nothing to see here, move along please