Tom Watson

Out With the Old

We close 2007 with the most appropriate video message possible - Leonid Brezhnev's historic 1970 New Year's address, the first televised January 1st address to the nation by a Soviet leader.

A strange choice, you say? We're living in strange times, I say. Old Brezhnev really livens up the joint. And he looks just like Jonah Goldberg's idea of a liberal.

Anyway, a happy New Year to my friends and readers. Not my idea of a holiday really; more of an obligation to flip the calendar and defrost Dick Clark.

UPDATE: Be sure to check out Jon Swift's truly inspired compendium of many bloggers' self-nominated best posts of 2007, my own included.

Kristol Clear

Has anyone else noticed that the hiring of discredited yapping terrier neocon Bill Kristol as a columnist on the Op-Ed page of the purportedly lefty New York Times makes Kristol something of a "Liberal Fascist?" Good title for his column, or perhaps some other deluded, second-generation, faux intellectual, right-wing hater's book...

A Life Well-Remembered

Every year, I find myself engrossed in the New York Times Magazine's collection of brief epitaphs of Americans, famous and not-so-much, who died during the previous year. But when I pulled the issue from the blue plastic wrapper this morning and thumbed through it, there was a stronger, more personal reaction to one remembrance.

Matt Bai's piece captures Steve Gilliard's life beautifully, and leans on his contribution to a national discussion from his perch in East Harlem. As readers here know, I was a big Gilliard fan - we were acquaintances and occasional correspondents. Steve was generosity personified, generous with links and advice; when I launched newcritics.com in January, he eagerly signed on as an occasional contributor, planning to write about his beloved classic rock. Sadly, those few, short posts came during the early part of his final illness - but they struck me as yet another example of how it was impossible to buttonhole Gilliard. He was an angry progressive with a love for military history, a black guy who dug the Beatles and the Stones, a generous, warm-hearted misanthrope. I think Bai captured the inherent conflicts in Steve's life that made him so interesting:

It was a life both short and loud. What began with a bad cough just after Valentine’s Day became a spiraling infection that ravaged Gilliard’s vulnerable heart and kidneys, and he spent most of his last four months hospitalized. The identities he kept separate for most of his 42 years collided in the days after he died; the few dozen mostly white bloggers who came to Harlem for the funeral saw for the first time the stark urban setting of Gilliard’s childhood, while his parents and relatives groped to understand what kind of work he had been doing at that computer and why scores of people had come so far to see him off. They must have been confused when Gilly’s online pals, sickened by the way some right-wing bloggers were gloating over his death, advised them not to disclose where he was buried, out of fear that someone might deface the site. The grave, like Gilliard himself, is known only to a few.

Please read the whole piece. I was saddened to come upon it this morning over my second cup of coffee, but also thrilled that Steve's prominence in our ongoing discussion was so well-recognized.

UPDATE: Wouldn't you know, seems to be some trouble over Bai's characterization of Steve's live and what some see as his description of a lone black blogger in an overly white blogosphere. Here's Jesse Wendel in the GroupNewsBlog (which succeeded Steve and Jen's blog after he died) and Pachacutec at FDL. Jesse writes:

Matt Bai was also wrong about Steve's life. Gilly didn't lead a lonely life. It was rich and filled day to day with his work, family, friends and sports. From his niece and nephew, his mother and father, to his co-publisher Jen, and the bloggers and friends he hung out with on a regular basis in person and on-line, this was a man who had a full, rich life.

And Pach is particularly tough on Bai: "...he keeps showing up like the guy who never really felt quite cool enough, who tried always to insert himself into the "it" cafeteria table by whatever means necessary." I think that's unfair - Matt Bai did a good thing by recognizing Steve's life in the Times' yearly "lives" issue. Now it's become a tussle over whether Gilliard's circle of blogging friends was multiracial, whether the lefty blogosphere and the Times are paternalistic, or whether some of Steve's mourner had ever been to Harlem before. Come to think of, Steve might be loving that.

UPDATE II: I like how Matt Browner-Hamlin handled this, and agree entirely with this sentiment so let his be the last word here:

Every time I spoke with him, I learned something, be it about military history, electoral successes, or Steve's unerring critique of the mainstream media. I've never met someone who responded faster to emails and I can recall debating with Steve into the wee hours over political strategy. Steve had one of the clearest moral compasses of anyone I've ever met. He was a blogger's blogger - someone who taught me how to write more clearly about what I believe by living the example himself every day.

Extremists Among Us: Obama Campaign Blames Clinton for Bhutto Murder

I cannot imagine Karl Rove doing this. I cannot see Lee Atwater going down this road. Heck, even Roy Cohn wouldn't go there. And yet there today was the top political adviser to Barack Obama pointing a finger for the tragic and truly horrific murder of Pakistani opposition leader, the former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto at...steady yourself, Democrats...

Senator Hillary Clinton.

Look, I thought it was an Onion post. But I was sadly wrong. Mark Halperin at Time has all the grimy details, and they're true. Just hours after Bhutto's death shocked the world and created a massive crisis in a grim, nuclear-powered powder-keg, there was David Axelrod tracing the bullets and suicide bomb of an assassin back to his client's political foe, days before the Iowa caucuses.

“She was a strong supporter of the war in Iraq, which we would submit, was one of the reasons why we were diverted from Afghanistan, Pakistan and al-Qaeda, who may have been players in this event today, so that’s a judgment she’ll have to defend,” Axelrod said. “I know Woody Allen said that 80% of life is just showing up but there’s actually more to being proficient in foreign policy than just having been around for a long time. You also have to have good judgment. Obama was willing to split with the conventional wisdom on Iraq and many of these other issues and I think events have borne out his judgment.”

Always great to use a Woody Allen line, I'll agree - but not in the hours after a brutal murder changes the fragile world of south Asia. And how nice that Axelrod laid blame for the murder of Bhutto on another political leader who considered the former Pakistani leader her personal friend - a symbol of modernism in a region where terrorists fight against rights for women, free speech, and democracy in all its forms. I understand that Bhutto's killing may be a dangerous political development for the thinly-experienced Obama, but that's a very poor excuse for the judgment Axelrod showed today.

There are still moments in this world, when other countries look to the United States for leadership. Today is one of those days. It's a day for seriousness of purpose, for careful statements, for quiet anger. In their strange and tortured attempt to link Hillary Clinton with the murder of her friend Benazir Bhutto, the Obama organization proves itself unworthy of leadership on the international stage.

In 1995, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton were Bhutto's guests in Islamabad and as Ben Smith points out today, she may have had the most personal connection with Bhutto of the presidential candidates. Along with being grouped together as female leaders, they had a warm meeting in Pakistan in 1995. As the Times reported:

After praising the uphill efforts of Ms. Bhutto (Radcliffe '73) to improve the lot of women and encourage family planning in a country where the average woman bears six children and is restricted to the role of wife and mother, Mrs. Clinton (Wellesley '69) added "a particular word of thanks for your emphasis on children."

Joe Biden was also close to Bhutto and is one of the most experienced foreign policy hands in the race. I like Biden and though I don't agree with him on everything (same with Clinton), I've always felt he was unfairly labeled "second tier" from the outset of the race. In any case, Biden showed how it's done - call it taking the junior Senator from Illinois to school:

"Like her father before her, Benazir Bhutto worked her whole life - and gave her life - to help Pakistan become a democratic, secular and modern Muslim country. She was a woman of extraordinary courage who returned to Pakistan in the face of death threats and even after an assassination attempt the day of her return, she did not flinch. It was a privilege to know her these many years and to call her a friend.

"I am convinced Ms. Bhutto would have won free and fair elections next week. The fact that she was by far Pakistan's most popular leader underscores the fact that there is a vast, moderate majority in Pakistan that must have a clear voice in the system....

"The way to honor Benazir Bhutto is to uphold the values for which she gave her life: democracy, moderation and social justice. I join with the Pakistani people in mourning the loss of a dear friend."

UPDATE: The Clinton campaign came out with a statement from spokesman Phil Singer: "This is a time to be focused on the tragedy of the situation, its implications for the U.S. and the world, and to be concerned for the people of Pakistan and the country’s stability. No one should be politicizing this situation with baseless allegations." Also, (generally horrified) reaction from TalkLeft, Taylor Marsh, Mark Ambinder, No Quarter

UPDATE II: Axelrod tries to back away but gets himself in deeper (via CNN). Meanwhile, Clinton gets personal in her memories of Bhutto.

UPDATE III: Here's a somber Clinton on Bhutto and what it means, and the risks involved in leadership.

Battle-Testing Hillary Clinton

Frank Rich used to wield an awesome power among Broadway's creative corps and financiers, able to close a heavily-financed show with the swipe of his fingers across the keyboard on West 43rd Street. But as a political columnist, Rich has moved from the knife's edge of powerful daily criticism to the backwash of a flabby Sunday Times column that regurgitates what we knew the week before last, applying a more-nuanced perspective to the political maelstrom. In truth, this can be valuable in longer, insightful looks at large issues, like the Iraq war or the economy. But in trying to write the elegy for Senator Clinton's presidential campaign, Rich looks like he's trying to close Les Miserables during previews.

Indeed, this weekend seems to be the time for the wishful political obituary where Hillary Clinton is concerned. But the Clinton haters in the Obama campaign and the Republican Party (a fascinating team of strangely-synced bedfellows of late) are whistling by the headstones before the calendar even shows 2008. Frank Rich may be the most elegant writer trying to close the Hillary Clinton show and consign it to the graveyard, but even he looks clumsy, ham-handed, and intellectually pathetic in reviewing a production that may well have more than 3,000 nights left to run.

Today, Rich joined the hypersexual fantasist Maureen Dowd in the Obama '08 propaganda bureau - otherwise known as the Times Op-Ed page minus Paul Krugman - in finding some pop psychology meaning in this year's polls, and you know, it just happens that this quackery tells him Clinton's experience may be trumped with the authenticity of Obama's calls for change. Disguising his last-minute salvo at Senator Clinton in a lead about McCain and Huckabee (like he cares), Rich quickly veers into the real reason for his column - a last pre-Christmas attack that may have some effect on the January 3rd vote in Iowa.

Experience, the experienced 60-something Times observer actually opines, is "toxic" in the 2008 election, linking both Bill and Hillary Clinton to the experience of John McCain and George W. Bush. Citing nothing other than his thumb in the wind, Rich then proclaims that if Bill Clinton hails his wife's resume, her knowledge of policy, and her travails in American politics as strengths, the 42nd President has pretty much lost his political touch.

Attention Bill Clinton: If that’s what this election is about, it’s already over. No matter how much Hillary Clinton, Mr. McCain or Rudy Giuliani brag about being tested and vetted, it’s not experience that will be decisive in determining the next president.

See how cleverly Rich links Clinton with two prominent Republicans? But Rich has a further linkage in mind - one that is almost an obscenity to the kind of Democrats who vote in primaries. Recounting the controversial statements of Bill Shaheen and Bob Kerrey, Rich spits on a leading Democratic candidate thusly: "The Clinton-camp denials that these tactics have been “authorized” sound like Karl Rove’s denials of similar smear campaigns against John McCain in 2000."

Hung up over the Clintons' marriage as Frank Rich is, just across the page his intellectual doppelganger (though you could also make that claim for Chris Matthews, Michael Goodwin and Andrew Sullivan) is the twisted, Gollum-like MoDo, caressing her Clinton hatred like "the precious." Of course, Dowd is back on her obsession with the "conjugal psychodrama" of the Clintons; it amazes me that the Sulzbergers pay her to write the same unoriginal sex column week after week. You know the drill: blind "friends of the Clintons" quotes, unsourced bimbo eruption libel, oh-so-clever references to skirts and cigars. For God's sake Maureen, put the robe back on - we've seen it all before.

This fall has been about a concerted effort of a large section of the national media to derail the Hillary Clinton express. You can see it in the spit that literally rises to the lips of Chris Matthews when he desperately - and with that shrill, feminine cackle of his - plays up any gotcha moment the campaign provides. You can see it the faux dese-dems-dose Archie Bunker populism of the effete, cuff-linked Michael Goodwin of the New York Daily News. And you can feel it in the anti-feminism served up as commentary by Andrew Sullivan, who actually uses the "some of my favorite public figures are women" defense today on his blog, before serving up the names of Margaret Thatcher and Condi Rice as paradigms of political women, people whose example in public life whose inspiration now leads him to support Barack Obama.

Yet, Hillary is still on the rails. This weekend, John Sasso (who ran the Kerry and Dukakis campaigns and knows something about the right-wing attack machine) contributed a sober analysis of the campaign to the Boston Globe. His take? That Clinton's rough ride is helping her make the case for her Presidency, that she'll be a better, tougher candidate in the long run:

Today Clinton has forged herself into a formidable political leader. She has undergone a remarkable journey. In the face of unending autopsies on her personal and political past, unrelieved targeting at both Democratic and Republican debates, the punishing demands imposed on a woman candidate, she is still standing unflinchingly in place.

....Why the most electable Democrat? Because after a year of being tightly measured, Clinton has won a public acceptance that she has the intellect and inner confidence to do the job. She has reached beyond her political inheritance and shaped a political presence all her own. Hillary belittlers still abound, to be sure. She is still caricatured as calculating. But the senator has taken on some different markings. Gone is the defensive bite, on hand is a new openness to concede mistakes, often with glints of humor.

Rock Those Holiday Blues

Regular readers may occasionally detect a case of Christmas jaundice around the edges of this normally ruddy blogospheric mein. But I really do enjoy the most Wonderful Time of the Year™ . Sort of, in small doses, all involving the observation of a certain childish delight I no longer possess. Lucky for me, my friends Neddie Jingo and Blue Girl groove to a more authentic holiday beat. In what's become a Yuletide tradition, they've once again bridged the digital miles in song with a brilliant musical mash-up of Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree. That's the Nedman on guitar and all other instruments, and Blue Girl on lead vocals. Ned's production is great, and the girl can bring the sing. The graphic's pretty groovy too, thanks to the Skimmer. Oh, and here's last year's number, Christmastime is Here, a wonderful recording. Pass the eggnog, this Christmas is looking up.

Scene and Heard: Campaign Edition

The lure of three-dot journalism is so strong, I can no longer fight its siren song. Besides, the pickings are rich indeed - so it's not laziness, really. Call it canny curatorial expertise, if you must but just enjoy the posts.

Lance Mannion takes on the loose tongue of Bob Kerrey, who the foaming lips of Chris Matthews and the like would have you believe is a simple agent of the evil Clinton campaign, doing the bidding of the anti-Obama forces. Lance thinks Kerrey erred, but not out of spite. Still, he notes: "Listen, folks, if saying Obama's middle name out loud is dirty pool, we've got a real problem if he gets the nomination.Because, guess what, the Republicans aren't about to keep quiet about it. Or about his skin color. Or about his father's religion.Or about the madrassa."

Mark Green defended Kerrey tonight on MSNBC's Softball for Obama, but the spewing Matthews and poor radio host Ed Schultz, apparently miffed that Hillary Clinton hasn't appeared on his show, tag-teamed the grand Clintonion conspiracy theory. Who else but Taylor Marsh to pick up on the hijinks, which could have passed for a spoof: "Matthews' desperation for relevancy, especially in the face of Keith Olbermann's brilliance and ratings power, seems all the more pathetic given the stakes. If Mr. Matthews understood the urgency of vetting the Democratic candidate, especially his legislative record, or really cared what candidate Democrats serve up against the Republicans he would do his homework before spouting off. But he doesn't care about Democrats, or that he's trying to destroy the first viable female candidate in U.S. history." Exactly right.

The creampuffery laid before the annointed candidate of hope has been in stark contrast to the Beltway media's open hostility toward Senator Clinton, according to Washington Post media critic Howie Kurtz. Quite so. As Kurtz writes: "Journalists repeatedly described Obama as a "rock star" when he jumped into the race in January. His missteps -- such as when his staff mocked Clinton's position on the outsourcing of jobs overseas by referring to the Democrat not as representing a state but as "D-Punjab" -- generated modest coverage, but rarely at the level surrounding Clinton's mistakes." Bill Moyers agrees.

And Josh Marshall laughs aloud at the Obama campaign's hilarious suggestion that he's received tougher scrutiny than Senator Clinton: "I really hope the Obama camp is kidding when they say Barack is the most scrutinized candidate in the race. If they're not, they're living in a fantasy world that makes me question whether they're up to the rigors of a national campaign. ... .. Then there's the collective assault that constitutes modern press 'scrutiny', especially for a Democrat who generally has to deal with the tag team of the national political press and the regrettably much more able and ruthless GOP oppo research cadre, which has an established feeding operation mainlined to most national political reporters. ... .. It ain't fair; it ain't right; but it's the reality. And if he thinks he's already gotten that, well ... what's he been smoking?"

Then there's Digby's priceless reaction to Rush Limbaugh, who wondered if America could stand looking at a 60-ish female age before their eyes as President - this after Drudge's massive play to a photo of Clinton that showed (gasp!) some campaign trail fatigue and (omigosh!) a few wrinkles. Said the Digster: "I don't think aging women should even be allowed out in public, personally, much less should anyone have to look at their revolting faces on television. There is no reason that handsome, virile chick magnets like Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, John McCain should have their aesthetic environment polluted with such hideousness." Ah, the joys of this sexism-free campaign.

An Orwellian Read

Is there a more over-used pseudo-intellectual descriptor in American media and politics than "Orwellian?" It's become such a flabby term despite its origins in a mind that despised lard-butted prose. (And the passive voice as well, but there you go). Every large-scale political organization of any type is Orwellian to today's commentators, and any big media company fits the bill as well. Indeed, almost any intervention by the many (or at least, by a bunch) over the less-many can be slapped with the name of a man who died in 1950. Once "Orwellian" has been cast, the usual references to "big brother" and the "thought police" are nigh.

Can the term be made relevant sixty years after the defeat of fascism in Europe and nearly a generation after the fall of the Soviets? The answer is a resounding yes, thanks to a new volume edited by my friend and colleague Andras Szanto.

What Orwell Didn't Know: Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics is a series of essays by contributors like George Soros, Francine Prose, Drew Westen, George Lakoff, Victor Navasky, Nick Lemann, Orville Schell, Samantha Power, Mark Danner, Farnaz Fassihi, Francis Fitzgerald, Michael Massing, Aryeh Neier, David Rieff, Geoff Cowan, and Patricia Williams. The book is timed to celebate the 60th anniversary of Orwell's classic essay on propaganda, Politics and the English Language.

It's become my "train book," a volume I turn to a bit at a time; I'm about three-quarters through and I think it's the right time to recommend it unreservedly.

Conservatives may be offended because many of the essays center on the use of politial language by the Bush Administration to bring this country to war; and the authors are indisputably left-leaning in their politics. Despite those two constructs, Andras and his parter   Orville Schell have still managed to build a vast canvas of contemporary media analysis - one that contains plenty of vicious brushstrokes for liberals as well, especially for our mass surrender to the language of the right over the past decade or so.

Indeed, the surrender of intellectual free will may have been the greatest of the secular sins described by Orwell - the lazy group-think we're prone to falling into, the very opening for those who use messages to control people. What Orwell Didn't Know: Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics takes on the Bush Administration for its wide use of disinformation, but it also points a finger at an uninvolved, disconnected, pleasure-obsessed public.

For anyone interested in media and politics, in the current rhetorical state of the republic, in causes and marketing and policy, it's a must read.

The Messianic Democrats

Let's get this out of the way: Barack Obama is not my political savior. And he's not yours either. He's nobody's savior. He's a talented freshman Senator out of the Illinois Democratic establishment. He looks good, sounds better, and writes really well. But the messianic tone of his corner of this Democratic race is disturbing.

It's the kind of talk we're used to hearing from the Republican side of the national scene, with politicians seeking office as the Lord's bidding, as a manifestation of divine will. But there was billionaire media mogul Oprah Winfrey last week invoking Miss Jane Pittman and the Bible in describing the tall, skinny pol from Chicago.

In Oprah's story-telling, an old woman who had survived slavery and the Civil War would ask every child, "Are you the one? Are you the one?"

"I do believe I do today we have the answer to Miss Pittman's question – it's a question that the entire nation is asking – is he the one?" Winfrey told the kind of stadium-filled religious gathering we used to associate with the Rev. Moon.

"South Carolina – I do believe he's the one."

"The One." The chosen man. The Messiah.

Even Mike Huckabee, an ordained minister and outspoken evangelical Christian, wouldn't go that far. I dislike the kind of language intensely. Does anyone else find this strange? Here's Frank Rich abandoning his secular view for the Church of Obama (you can almost see him make the Sign of the Cross in his column today), another gauzy-eyed, faith-drunk columnist, powerless before the Illinois Elmer Gantry:

For those Americans looking for the most unambiguous way to repudiate politicians who are trying to divide the country by faith, ethnicity, sexuality and race, Mr. Obama is nothing if not the most direct shot. After hearing someone like Mitt Romney preach his narrow, exclusionist idea of “Faith in America,” some Americans may simply see a vote for Mr. Obama as a vote for faith in America itself.

UPDATE: Paul Krugman, attacked by the Obama campaign, explains why the "audacity of hope" won't exactly get you too far with the Mitch McConnells of the world. From Krugman:

So what happens if Mr. Obama is the nominee?

He will probably win -- but not as big as a candidate who ran on a more populist platform. Let's be blunt: pundits who say that what voters really want is a candidate who makes them feel good, that they want an end to harsh partisanship, are projecting their own desires onto the public.

And nothing Mr. Obama has said suggests that he appreciates the bitterness of the battles he will have to fight if he does become president, and tries to get anything done.

 

Clearing the Smoke Around Obama

Watching the Obama campaign viciously attack perhaps the preeminent-eminent progressive economist, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, had the effect of waking me from some early winter political hibernation. Slammed with work of late, I'd been watching the polls from the corner of my eye and saw the slow leak toward the illusion of "hope" emanating from the favorite son of Illinois' political machine. The strange media-fueled Oprah mini-tour of arenas cast a pallid, intoxicating smog over the yacking televised classes, prompting Clarence Page to sweatily bleat "I doubted Chris, but now I'm sold!" on the newly-renamed Softball! with Chris Matthews, "brought to you tonight by Obama '08." So Page and Matthews inhaled, and the Obama campaign's win-the-media strategy continued on its course.

But that's big media, mainstream media, the "village" as Digby likes to put it. In blogland, things are turning on Obama, especially after his camp's tone-deaf Krugman slam. That was a wake-up call, a dash of cold water for progressives - and the question people are starting to ask now that the Clinton "inevitability" meme (always a lazy canard) has worn off is simply this - how does Barack Obama look as a general election candidate, as the Democratic nominee for President of the United States?

Which means, at least in part, how will Obama fare against the right-wing hit machine?

Oprah and the current media infatuation aside, I'd suggest "not so well" as one part of the answer - and "not nearly as well as Hillary Clinton," as the second part. In many ways, Barack Obama is a fat, hanging curve out over the plate for the slugging conservative attack dogs - and you can tell from reading the conservative blogs, plumbing their comments and links, just how much they hope Clinton will be dispatched this winter, rather than living to hurl high, tight fastballs next fall.

Look, I frankly admire Obama's message - both in its tone and its delivery.  I do believe that our country should set its sights a lot higher than we have in the past, that we've grown fearful and defensive as a people, and that good government is part of the solution. I do not dismiss Obama or his supporters, many of whom are friends and colleagues. But in the cold light of day, with the billionaire TV star safely back on her studio set and middle class Americans still looking for a better deal, the bar for defeating the Republicans in the fall is a lot higher for Obama than it is for Clinton.

To begin cleaning up this mess, we need two crucial ingredients, I believe: experience and the ability to win.

I've written much more about why I support Clinton, but it really does come down to those key arguments - she knows how to make it all work, and she's by far the best bet to fight the hit squads next summer. So why does Obama give me pause, make me worry, and frankly scare me as the Democratic nominee?

Regular commenter Bruce B., a progressive who also likes the Obama rhetoric, gets at the problem as well as I can: "who will be the strongest, most resilient candidate in the general election?" Like me, he worries that Obama's record is not well-known, that his public policy positions are not well-formed (he especially dislikes Obama's right-wing take on the Social Security "crisis" and his Krugman battle), and that he may have played his trump card (Oprah) far too early in the game.

The attack on Krugman was instructive to many on the left. Jerome Armstrong linked it with Obama's strangely conservative Social Security stance and said, "It's mistakes like these that make me think that if Obama gets the nomination, it's going to be disgusting to watch as he turns against progressives in his bid for the middle, and as he says, that's the way he'd govern too." Chris Bowers agrees: "During an Obama presidency, progressive media figures could face regular attacks from a Democratic White House. It is a fear that I still hold, and which keeps me from getting excited about Obama's improving position in the campaign." Ezra Klein says that "...Obama's rhetoric has become much, much worse than his plan. That it's ended with him having to go on the offensive against the most forthrightly progressive voice in major American media is evidence of that fact."

Then there's consistency. Today's Politico (which has gotten much better since an uneven beginning last year) has a piece by Ben Smith and Mike Allen about a candidate's questionnaire Obama filled out in 1996 when he ran for state legislature in Illinois. Some pretty standard stuff in the Q&A, which was issued by a voter's group - abortion, gun control, single payer health plan. And Obama gave short, liberal answers - literally "yes" or "no" on some of the toughest issues:

“Do you support … capital punishment?” one question asked.

“No,” the 1996 Obama campaign typed, without explaining his answer in the space provided.

“Do you support state legislation to … ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns?” asked one of the three dozen questions.

“Yes,” was Obama’s entire answer.

Frankly, I agree with most of Obama's answers. They're far more direct and progressive on domestic policy than his current campaign's positions. He's more nuanced now. Which is fine, he's a national candidate with a weather eye out for the general election. But the Politico piece brings up a larger question: it's three weeks to the first caucus vote, and this bit of research only now sees the light of day?

Say what you will about Hillary Clinton, she's been vetted. Fully. Completely. The skeletons aren't in her closet - they're on the front lawn. She's by far the best-known quantity in this race nationally, on either side. Heck, we also know far more about John Edwards, who underwent the full national scrutiny of a campaign in 2004. In some ways, they've been inoculated - you can expose them to the germs, but the disease won't take.

Not so, Obama. Politico's piece on Obama is just a hint of what the Republicans would use against him as the Democratic nominee. I believe the disgusting "Osama" slips and whispers, which I railed against last month, are just the merest hint of what would await the Senator if he prevails in the Democratic battle. There's Obama's admitted drug use, his "lost" early years, his local political career in Illinois, any connection he's ever had. All of that will be fertile territory - I'm not saying it's fair or has any bearing on his fitness for office. Indeed, I'm arguing that the attacks will be unfair.

So far, the nastiness on the right has been trained on Hillary Clinton. But just look at what's happening to Mike Huckabee now that the Republican establishment perceives him as a serious threat. Suddenly, he's not the mild-mannered, socially conservative, successful  and popular Governor of Arkansas anymore. Amazing how quickly he morphed into a rapist-pardoning, liberal, Mexican-loving, tax-and-spend, religious nutcase, isn't it?

That said, I advocate going straight at the attack machine - which still lives and breathes, despite the splintering of the Republican Party in the aftermath of the Bush presidency. To me, that requires the best weapon in the arsenal, the toughest warrior in the arena - somebody tougher than Al Gore or John Kerry, who both seemed tougher than Barack Obama.

I love the theme of the politics of hope.  But not if it puts a Republican back in the White House.

UPDATE: I'd forgotten to include a key post by my friend Fred Wilson, a prominent venture capitalist who doesn't consider himself particularly active in politics. Here's his take off of last weekend's "scar tissue" story in the Times:

And so the other part of my reluctant support of Hillary is this scar tissue thing. I really respect people who've taken their lumps and risen beyond them. I look for that in people in business all the time. I'd much rather have a partner who has taken some losses and learned from them than a partner who hasn't failed yet. Failure is an asset in my mind if you've learned from it.

UPDATE II: There's a great comment over at MyDD by dpANDREWS in response to Jerome Armstrong's latest Obama post that really sums up some of muy worries about Obama:

I have met a lot of very smart people in my life.  A few of them are the type that know that they are smart, and think they are smarter than they are.  They tend to over rely on their ability and it gets them in trouble.

I worry Obama might be one of these.  That he might think is so intelligent that he can get by or get around a problem with just its wits.  That he can talk his way out of it (or give a good speech).  He shows some signs of having this type of ego:

1) He appears thin skinned.  Novak and Krugman didn't do much to get way under his skin and to illicit a response that wasn't proportional to the percieved threat.

2) He doesn't take personal responsibility for mistakes.  He consistantly blames low level staffers when this blow up publically.

3) He appears leary to let us learn too much about him.  I have a real problem with the reasonsing that he gives for changing the names of friends and associates in his book.

Add to this that Obama has never been tested.  He has never ran a race where his opponent has taken it to him and knocked him down, forcing him to get off the mat.  You know that in a general that will happen.  Kerry got sent to the mat with the 'Swiftboats' and he got up, but he was slow to get up and it cost him.  Kerry was a veteran campaigner that had been in some tight spots previously.  Obama has no such experience to draw on.

Furthermore, what Democratic voters need to understand is that to win the general election you have to do more than make some movie star, or U of I prof, or some liberal activist in NH feel good.  You have to convince middle America, unaffiliated voters, who make will make a snap judgement in the final week, that you are the best person to defend them economically, militarily, etc. 

These voters are not going to stare starry eyed at Obama, gushing about a some mythical movement that no one else can see, as they listen to a long speech.

UPDATE III: Here's the latest from ABCNews - it finds "no upheaval in national preferences in the Democratic race, where, again among likely voters, Hillary Clinton leads Barack Obama by more than 2-1, 53-23 percent, with John Edwards at 10 percent, all essentially the same as last month." I hope that's true.