Greg might point to the first part of this quote from John Adams describing Samuel as another example of dissing your brother:

"always for softness and prudence..."

I wonder if adding the rest changes the context at all?

"...where they will do; but is staunch, and stiff, and strict, and rigid, and inflexible in the cause."

But you know, Michael, that these types of attacks always work. Just ask President Douglass who credited his 1860 victory to highlighting Lincoln's lack of experience.

I'm not happy with either Dem Candidate; Hillary's middle east votes; Iraq war, Levin amendment and Kyl/Lieberman, caused me to stop supporting her. This latest comment Michael refers to just adds to my disgust. As to Obama, I get the feeling someone's trying to sell me aluminum siding. His spiel is grand but there's something missing. Maybe what I feel is missing is a lack of "depth" in his commentary, he seems to address issues in a superficial way, lite on specifics.

Maybe in the back of my mind I'm remembering that old caveat: "Anything that sounds too good to be true, usually is."

Regardless of who the Dem candidate is, they will get my vote.

Both candidates, yes including Senator Obama, have said things in this primary that will be embarassing in the general election. Just for perspective, if HRC is the nominee and tries to do what she should do, and that is to focus on the economy and first and foremost healthcare, you will see the Republican attack ad provided by Senator Obama, in which he did, and still does, attack Hillary's eminently progressive idea that universal health insurance requires mandates. Just wait: you will hear it: "Senator Obama said that HRC would garnish the wages of American workers as part of her healthcare plan". Thanks Barack!

And Michelle Obama, back in early February, said she would have to think about whether she would vote for Hillary Clinton if she were the nominee. Does anyone know if the Obama campaign ever disavowed that?

If the Obama campaign is staffed by people who have demonstrated the kind of panic and rage and hissy fits that we have seen on this website since Wednesday, then the Obama campaign is indeed in a heap of trouble. Michael's post is about expressing frustration about what happened on Tuesday, when the good people of Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island said hold on, our votes count too and we prefer HRC. It has nothing to do with anything so lofty as historical precedent.

But those, like the good professor Michael who have time and again demonstrated nothing but disdain for Hillary Clinton, can now use this as another reason to just loathe her. And the loathers can even pretend that, before this, they thought Hillary was OK, but now, yes just now, they are disgusted and could never support Hillary Clinton in the general election. Please.

Call it a win-win situation: for Hillary, for really putting the Obama team on the defensive and for beginning to peel the teflon off, and for the haters of Hillary who can now feed their hate for an entire weekend. Hot diggety dog!

"'Senator Obama said that HRC would garnish the wages of American workers as part of her healthcare plan'. Thanks Barack!"

That's what she said will be done. Do you think the GOP is too stupid to use this. Which is why putting "mandates" before "affordablity" is an utterly stupid approach for the general. (Obama has made it clear that he'll consider mandates if they're needed - which they probably are under these non-single payer crazy-quilt plans they're all offering - but he's not handing that issue of using the IRS as a club to the GOP as a talking point. Hillary is. I've been trying to figure out what about that a supposedly smart guy like Paul Krugman doesn't understand, then I realize that his "liberalism" is the "new hat" of a freaked-out-by-Bush technocrat who has paid little attention to politics over the years. Hillary's already given us a GOP congress with her incompetence and arrogance on the health care issue back in '94. It could happen again after a couple of years of Clinton arrogance and melodrama in the Oval Office. She's the GOP's wet dream and the DLC's poster girl. And, of course, with her back to the wall - like Bill's eventually was, we'll start hearing stuff like "The era of big government is over" dripping from her DLC/SayAnything lips.)

Pull your raincoat collar up around your ears, skulk into the local drugstore phonebooth and drop a dime to the Rhetoric Police.

Uh oh, what's this? "I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixom and Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just tapped into what people were already deeling, which was we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to the sense of dynamism and entreprenuership that had been missing." And this - "I think it's fair to say the republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last ten, fifteen years in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom."

Well that can't be good, can it?

I'm actually happy that Hillary has shown her true colors. She did vote for the war. She did vote for Kyl-Lieberman. Her "35 years of experience" does not include enacting universal healthcare. I figure she'll choose guns v butter. At least the Republicans have a little integrity on telling you the truth in that respect. There's no way she's getting us out of Iraq or winding down the war folks. She is L-Y-I-N-G. Whose kid went to war? McCain's kid. Oh, and Prince Harry. Precious Chelsea works for a hedge fund. Hillary is Bush III. Same sense of dynastic entitlement without the accountablity or responsibility that goes with it. War is for other people's children.

Hillary better pray for global warming because I will vote for her when hell freezes over.

I thought you said "attack". I didn't read carefully enough.

However, Hillary's spin is that Michelle Obama was asked if she'd vote for Hillary. I remember she was asked if she would work for Hillary, and on that she waffled. She NEVER said she wouldn't vote for her.

So we have our versions of Al Gore inventing the Internet. When I see the media spread the distortions as truth, then I know we're in trouble. The campaign better get its act together ASAP.

If you Hillary Lovers think she'll be this vicious to John McCain, well I think the writing's on the wall with that. She's more and more Joe Lieberman every passing day. She thinks she'll win it on economic issues, and that might be true. She will not be able to insult her way with the Republicans to get her precious mandates. The first thing to be jettisoned will be mandates. And the Republicans thrive on her insults. She only works across the aisle when she caves, which is often. The M.O. in the Clinton administration was to give them what they wanted with the amorphous promise that they'd be nice to him. Hillary seems to be playing out of the same playbook. And when she doesn't get her way, she'll stomp her foot and cry victim and all the women will come to her defense to protect her. Again. But maybe not forever. They're expecting policies out of her and substantive changes and superior judgment. She's shown an uncanny ability to channel Bush in her ability to add slime to everything out of her mouth: "He's a Christian, as far as I know."

She could teach Karl Rove a trick or two. I'm marveling at her abilities these days.

I do not disagree with your point here that Obama used some GOP-talking points against mandates to fight off Clinton's attack on his plan for not covering everyone. (and in putting this order on things I am not necessarily saying she committed the original unfair attack). I think Obama's point on mandates was...not everyone can afford them and many therefore won't be covered as well...the situation we see with mandated but ignored auto insurance. If so, that is how he should have framed it...not mandates take money from poor people. But I do not recall him saying that McCain or Romney or Huckabee have credibility on health care, Hillary has her failed attempts in the early nineties. That would have been egregious, don't you think?

Actually, JohnW, a study a few years back of in-place single-payer health care systems, concluded that the French, of all people, had the best. It functioned much like our SS System.

Everybody pays, everybody is covered. One, and there are myriads, of the drawbacks to our highly disfunctional system is not everybody has health insurance - specifically the poor and the large number of 21-35 year-olds don't buy it. That increases the costs to the rest of us who do pay.

Of course getting big-insurance out of the mix is the best feature of a single-payer system.

Historic indeed. But what seems to be lost on the masses is just how indescribably weak the three major candidates truly are. At a time when the Free World is relying on American leadership (Western Europe, after all, has never in history been as impotent as it is now), we here at home have narrowed it down to a conglomerate of highly disparate nominees who all carry with them significant built-in enemies.

Barak Obama has zero experience in national politics. John McCain is a crass old man who is completely and utterly out of touch with a majority of Americans. And Hillary Clinton suffers from not only gender inequality, but also by possessing a last name that will no doubt draw the ire of every Congressional Republican.

These are an extraordinarily significant set of drawbacks because now more than ever we need a president that will work to overcome Congressional gridlock and get substantive, progressive legislation passed.

With Russia heading back toward Communism (Socialism at best), China continuing its economic domination in manufacturing, and the Middle East only one Franz Ferdinand away from a massive eruption of war; foreign policy will also play a significant role for our new president. And once again, it's pretty evident that all three of these candidates will be a little overwhelmed by these issues.

And why is it that the candidates refuse to stop the outsourcing of U.S. jobs? Hillary and Obama talk about creating "new jobs" but say nothing about curbing the deportation of our jobs.

Not that I'm a fan of Senator Clinton's tactic of praising some quality in a Republican as compared to a rival Democrat, but the outrage I see from Obama supporters has too much a quality of "the vapors."

Where were you M. Bérubé the three times (at least) over that last few months that Obama has stated that he'd like to have, as president, Republicans in his cabinet? Where was your outrage? Are there no Democrats Obama could have mentioned for cabinet? Where were you when Obama praised Saint Ronald Reagan as a great "uniter." If you'll recall, that Reagan praise happened at exactly the same time the Obama group was in hysterics over a Clinton claim that the dreams of Martin Luther King could not have happened if not for the mundane political efforts of a Lyndon B. Johnson. The "Camelot" king, "young" charismatic John F. Kennedy couldn't do it. The older and politically wiser LBJ could and did. Recall that Reagan began "uniting" America by going to the site of an infamous racist multi-homicide and proclaimed his concern for "state's rights," the Republican mantra for the protection and continuation of racist anti-African American practices and atrocities. Obama thought that "uniting" quality was something to be admired and emulated. I don't remember a peep out of you Bérubé.

Among the Republicans Obama has praised and mentioned as possible cabinet members and advisers, repeatedly, including within the last week, are Chuck Hagel, Richard Lugar, Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Warner and Tom Coburn. Most are extreme "conservatives." The remaining are feigned moderates.

Obama's call for an end to partisanship is a straight Republican line, without the slightest merit. Being bipartisan means doing whatever extremist Republicans want. I didn't need Glenn Greenwald to point out that it's Republicans that never cross over the divide of differences between Republican and Democratic concerns. It's been more than ten years that Republicans have voted as a parliamentary party. Any in their ranks that dare vote outside the extreme conservative line are quickly ostracized and even driven out of the party. "The majority of the majority" was never any sort of real majority but it wields an extremist whip that none dare risk the sting of. Even the Republican so-called moderates don't counter the extreme party view excepting when their support is not needed and can be used to feign some sense of sanity for their particular districts. This is the theme of post-partisanship that Obama repeats endlessly as if it's a problem with both the uncivil parties. Sound vaguely familiar? It's directly taken from that great Democrat, Joe Lieberman.

If you'll recall it was Obama that talked about "fixing" Social Security, a Republican meme for destroying that most valuable social program directed toward average Americans. It was Talking Points Memo that lead the drive to counter that bogus attempt at eviscerating the greatly valued FDR "socialist" program. Obama wants to bring that back. Maybe he'll have one of his admired Republicans deal with the problem of Social Security. Where was your outrage Bérubé when Obama made that anti-Democratic call?

Obama has been making age an issue, claiming some vibrancy both Clinton and McCain purportedly lack. He's dividing the electorate and the nation through generational differences. The Obama generation doesn't want to have to pay for the welfare of the old farts. That was one of the Republican memes attacking Social Security. But Reagan and Greenspan made sure those old farts pre-paid for their "social security." Those prepayments have already been spent by Republicans and what remains is the only credit available to cover the credit card war America is fighting and losing. Obama wants to fix that and he likes how Republicans think about it.

In the battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton we're seeing a fight between a Joe Lieberman "Democrat" and a DLC Democrat. The outrage of the current circumstances was the lack of strong support the "left" provided for the only populist Democrat that had a chance at the presidency, John Edwards. Any outrage at the campaign actions of either of these remaining groups is bogus. The Clintons are being the Clintons and Barack Obama is even beyond that, claiming messianic qualities for "change," above examination, challenge or reproach. How dare anyone look beyond the halo of the prophet of the "awesome God?"

"Bev is correct that the reason Obama spoke highly of the Gipper and the GOP was to attract more conservative Democrats."

No - totally falee. The reason he said it was to put conservative Democrats like the Clintons and their DLC buddies in historical context. He went on to eviscerate Reagan's policies and impact on the country in the same interview.

Let's have a bit of honesty. This is really starting to make Clinton defenders look like they don't pay attention to much of anything - or they believe that any assertion that works for them is fine, kinda like Hillary.

Petition Clinton to disclose her tax returns. In the comment section suggest asking that she please also disclose her records as First Lady and her and her husband's $500 million charity which also employed some of their key campaign staffers and received tens of millions in donations from their top campaign donors.

http://www.petitiononline.com/hcinctax/petition.html

Lest we be distracted from the original issue, the fact that Hillary is channeling the supposed GOP "opponent".... This is going on now, and dredging up faux outrage about Obama's Reagan comments weeks ago is just Clintonian crap again.

Like David Bromwich says: http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20080308/cm_huffpost/090538

"Last week saw an event in our politics so giddy that we have yet to absorb its implications. Hillary Clinton, flush from her "comeback" in Ohio, told reporters that John McCain inspired her confidence on foreign policy; McCain had certainly "crossed the commander-in-chief threshold." She herself had crossed it, too, she said; but as for Barack Obama, "you'll have to ask Senator Obama" whether he is really prepared to serve as commander-in-chief.
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Puzzling: a contender for the Democratic nomination, praising the Republican nominee as preferable to her Democratic rival. It was a rash act and probably unprecedented. Joe Lieberman did something like it, but only after he declared himself an "independent."

Nor was Senator Clinton finished. In the same session with reporters, she glowed at the thought of herself and John McCain together. "Both of us will be on that stage having crossed that threshold," she said. And again: "I think you'll be able to imagine many things Senator McCain will be able to say. He's never been president, but he will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will put forth a speech made in 2002."

As other observers have noted, this is the kind of thing you say if you are John McCain's running mate, not what you say if you mean to campaign fiercely against him. It was a remarkably destructive statement--a defection from party loyalty, and a subversion of the principle that is supposed to underlie such loyalty.

...this is the kind of thing you say if you are John McCain's running mate, not what you say if you mean to campaign fiercely against him. It was a remarkably destructive statement--a defection from party loyalty, and a subversion of the principle that is supposed to underlie such loyalty.

To speak so emphatically about the president's role as commander-in-chief is to speak in code. It means all of the following: that war is the foremost thing in our minds when we think of any president; that this is especially so because we are now entangled in a necessary war on many fronts; that what we look for in a president is "a war president" (George W. Bush's description of himself); that the war in question is indeed the "global war" initiated by President Bush; and that a worthy commander-in-chief must be an enthusiast for the perpetuation of that war.

Hillary Clinton is the social-democratic candidate of the war establishment.
John McCain is the right-wing candidate of the war establishment. Both Clinton and McCain know this. They look on each other kindly, and share a disdain that borders on contempt for Barack Obama...."

"Hillary was simply pointing out that McCain will be 72 when he takes office..."

Oh, really. That was all she was pointing out.

Well then, be one of the few people who will vote for the MONSTER, if you believe that.

"The Clinton v. Obama threads have hundreds of comments while the ones discussing substantive issues, e.g., organized labor and young voters, regulation of mortgage brokers, have maybe a dozen comments at most. So much for wanting to talk about "real issues"".

Well, I'm glad your amused as I would imagine it would be amusing from the outside looking in, but I hope you're not being critical while you are being amused. I'm sure you would agree that this contest between two fine Democrats is exciting, unprecedented, and frankly riveting. And, yes, we Democrats are talking and writing about it as never before. I think that bodes well for November, and I hope you're right: as a Hillary supporter I hope to be voting for her in November.

But, again, I do hope you're not being critical about what you see as a lack of attention to "substantive issues". Any such lack of attention doesn't mean that we don't care about those issues, but it's foolish to suggest that the election is not all-encompassing at the moment. Of course, many of us do other things with our lives besides posting on TPM, and some of us, including yours truly, deal with the issues you refer to on a daily basis and in the ordinary course of business.

But it's always nice to know we're amusing one of our lost brothers or sisters in the Grand Ole' Party. We do aim to please. :)

This is an election for PONTUS not just the DEM nomination. U.S. Rep. Steve King is correct: "I will tell you that, if he (Obama) is elected president, then the radical Islamists, the al-Qaida, the radical Islamists and their supporters, will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11 because they will declare victory in this War on Terror."

Hillary should go after the empty suit, how those community organizer efforts provide the necessary knowledge of the world, as well as Obama's PT job in that great deliberative body, the Illinois Senate, and of course the PT US Senate position where Obama has never held a hearing in his subcommittee and rarely shows up.

Even Ms. Susan Rice, a foreign policy adviser to Senator Barack Obama has stated "“Clinton hasn’t had to answer the phone at three o’clock in the morning and yet she attacked Barack Obama for not being ready,'’ Ms. Rice said. “They’re both not ready to have that 3 a.m. phone call.”

Anyway, it's the economy as issue #1.

The patience is with those of us who have quoted exactly what Obama said and I repeat in no possible world where English is the language can anyone construe what Obama said as anything BUT praise of Reagan.

In this very thread I quote extensively from the video clip verbatim. You seem to be the one who is not following the argument as it progresses