Some quick hits

Obama:

"This is where I get to be honest and I hope I'm not out of school here. I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel. If we cannot have a honest dialogue about how do we achieve these goals, then we're not going to make progress. And frankly some of the commentary that I've seen which suggests guilt by association or the notion that unless we are never ever going to ask any difficult questions about how we move peace forward or secure Israel that is non military or non belligerent or doesn't talk about just crushing the opposition that that somehow is being soft or anti-Israel, I think we're going to have problems moving forward. And that I think is something we have to have an honest dialogue about."

More, please. Its not that Hillary Clinton believes or doesn't believe this. I have no idea. What I do know, is that she would never say it. I'm tired, so tired, of having politicians who are afraid of speaking the truth, because it might not sit well with certain constituencies.

Have we all successfully formed opinions on Obama and his dressing in traditional Kenyan attire? As if it matters? No, you haven't? Well, good. Because Hillary's flacks are here to help you form one:

Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones: "I have no shame, or no problem, with people looking at Barack Obama in his native clothing, in the clothing of his country." Hmmm, last time I checked, Obama was born in the USA.

As I said to my mother and aunt the other day, for God's sake Hillary Clinton's team does nothing but make her look bad. So either she has horrible judgement skills on who is spinning for her, or she's really trying to pull the wool over people's eyes and yell "boo...Kenya...muslim" and hope people vote for her. Sad. Better put by Christopher Orr:

"At this point, it seems to me there are really only two plausible interpretations: Either Stephanie Tubbs Jones is an imbecile, and the Clinton campaign is enormously unlucky that it keeps looking as though they're trying to paint Obama as an exotic, probably Muslim foreigner. Or the Clinton campaign is trying to paint Obama as an exotic, probably Muslim foreigner, and they think they can get away with the smear as long as they add, "not that there's anything wrong with that."

One of the reasons I lean towards Obama is that try as everyone might, he never seems to take the bait. He never pulls the typical, Democratic, tail-between-the-legs, bullshit responses. As Glenn Greenwald pointed out, he responds exactly as he should. On the holier-than-thou flag lapel pin controversy, intead of insulting my intelligence and telling me how much he loves America and hates The Terrorists, he said:

"A party that presided over a war in which our troops did not get the body armor they needed, or were sending troops over who were untrained because of poor planning, or are not fulfilling the veterans' benefits that these troops need when they come home, or are undermining our Constitution with warrantless wiretaps that are unnecessary?
"That is a debate I am very happy to have. We'll see what the American people think is the true definition of patriotism."

Exactly right. Obama has been taking some ugly attacks. So has Hillary. One has responded in the way that I have been wanting people to respond to these right-wing attacks for the past 7 years -- since 9/11, and thats Obama. The pickup of the Dodd endorsement today only strengthens his case, in my mind. Chris Dodd has not been very popular on the campaign trail, but he's been doing the unpopular work on the FISA debate and is not afraid to stand for something that others will mischaracterize as "giving the terrorists our rights"!

There are plenty of reasons to vote for Hillary. She is just not making her case very well, in my opinion and trying to scare people into thinking Obama is some exotic Muslim foreigner only makes her seem like a right-wing hack.