In the Nevada Debates, the candidates were all asked what their greatest weakness is. Let’s go to the transcript, Bob!

RUSSERT: You said each of you have strengths and weaknesses. I want to ask each of you quickly, your greatest strength, your greatest weakness.

OBAMA: My greatest strength, I think is the ability to bring people together from different perspectives to get them to recognize what they have in common and to move people in a different direction. And as I indicated before, my greatest weakness, I think, is when it comes to — I’ll give you a very good example.

I ask my staff member to hand me paper until two seconds before I need it because I will lose it. You know, the —- you know…

(LAUGHTER)

And my desk and my office doesn’t look good. I’ve got to have somebody around me who is keeping track of that stuff. And that’s not trivial; I need to have good people in place who can make sure that systems run. That’s what I’ve always done, and that’s why we run not only a good campaign, but a good U.S. Senate office.

RUSSERT: Senator Edwards, greatest strength, greatest weakness?

EDWARDS: I think my greatest strength is that for 54 years, I’ve been fighting with every fiber of my being. In the beginning, the fight was for me. Growing up in mill towns and mill villages, I had to literally fight to survive.

But then I spent 20 years in courtrooms fighting for children and families against really powerful well-financed interests. I learned from that experience, by the way, that if you’re tough enough and you’re strong enough and you got the guts and you’re smart enough, you can win. That’s a fight that can be won.

It can be won in Washington, too, by the way. And I’ve continued that entire fight my entire time in public life. So I’ve got what it takes inside to fight on behalf of the American people and on behalf of the middle class.

I think weakness, I sometimes have a very powerful emotional response to pain that I see around me, when I see a man like Donnie Ingram (ph), who I met a few months ago in South Carolina, who worked for 33 years in the mill, reminded me very much of the kind of people that I grew up with, who’s about to lose his job, has no idea where he’s going to go, what he’s going to do.

I mean, his dignity and self-respect is at issue. And I feel that in a really personal way and in a very emotional way. And I think sometimes that can undermine what you need to do.

RUSSERT: Senator Clinton?

CLINTON: Well, I am passionately committed to this country and what it stands for. I’m a product of the changes that have already occurred, and I want to be an instrument for making those changes alive and real in the lives of Americans, particularly children.

That’s what I’ve done for 35 years. It is really my life’s work. It is something that comes out of my own experience, both in my family and in my church that, you know, I’ve been blessed. I think to whom much is given, much is expected.

So I have tried to create opportunities, both on an individual basis, intervening to help people who have no where else to turn, to be their champion. And then to make those changes. And I think I can deliver change. I think I understand how to make it possible for more people to live up to their God-given potential.

I get impatient. I get, you know, really frustrated when people don’t seem to understand that we can do so much more to help each other. Sometimes I come across that way. I admit that. I get very concerned about, you know, pushing further and faster than perhaps people are ready to go.

And with those responses from Clinton and Edwards, the entire country rolled its eyes so hard that America had a seizure. David Brooks in the NY Times puts it better than I could ever hope to:

The third thing that happened tonight is that Hillary Clinton and John Edwards disgraced themselves in the minds of debate-watchers everywhere. At some point in each campaign, candidates are asked to name their greatest weakness. Only the lamest political hacks answer that question this way: Goshdarn it, I just care too much. I am too impatient for good things to happen.

Giving that answer is an insult to the art of politics. And yet Edwards and Clinton both gave that answer. They didn’t even give artfully disguised versions of that answer. They gave the straight, unsubtle kindergarten version of that answer. Obama, honestly, admitted that he’s bad at organizing his paperwork. Truly, here is a man willing to stand for change.

However, the Clinton campaign actually made this an issue. Because they are desperate. They’ve insinuated that his honest answer means he’ll be disinterested or disorganized in running the country.

Obama, for his part, added the dust-up to his stump speech, to great applause:

Because I’m an ordinary person, I thought that they meant, `What’s your biggest weakness?’ If I had gone last I would have known what the game was. And then I could have said, `Well, ya know, I like to help old ladies across the street. Sometimes they don’t want to be helped. It’s terrible.’

We knew getting into this race that Barack would be competing with Senator Clinton and President Clinton at the same time. We expected that Bill Clinton would tout his record from the nineties and talk about Hillary’s role in his past success … What we didn’t expect, at least not from our fellow Democrats, are the win-at-all-costs tactics we’ve seen recently.

That’s from an e-mail sent to supporters by Michelle Obama. It was also brought up by Barack at the South Carolina debate on Monday, when he said “Sometimes I’m not sure who I am running against.”

There’s no denying that Bill Clinton is an advocate for his wife during this political run. What’s increasingly clear, though, is that he’s pissing people off. Leading Democrats To Bill Clinton: Pipe Down

Prominent Democrats are upset with the aggressive role that Bill Clinton is playing in the 2008 campaign, a role they believe is inappropriate for a former president and the titular head of the Democratic Party.

The Financial Times: Davos Bill is tarnishing his brand

He has adopted tactics that, if he does not curb himself soon, may tarnish his global brand irreparably. That would be a shame, not only for him but also for the causes that he has placed his weight behind.
…
Instead of a non-partisan philanthropist, US voters see a partisan operative getting red-faced with anger as he bitterly rails against Mr Obama for, in Mrs Clinton’s words, “raising false hopes” that the US can be otherwise.

Real Clear Politics finds the whole thing “depressing”:

The worst thing about all this is what both Clintons are doing to their own legacy as pioneers of an approach that rejected, as Bill Clinton said in a 1991 speech, “the stale orthodoxies of left and right.” The great asset shared by both Clintons is their willingness to bring fresh thinking to old problems.

The LA Times sees an interesting dichotomy:

Bill’s back on the campaign trail, waxing eloquent about his White House days, pummeling Hillary’s rivals and promising more good times if Hillary becomes the Democratic nominee: You liked Clinton I? You’re gonna love Clinton II!

In contrast to 1992, though, the Clintons now officially pretend that they’re not a twofer. When critics — Barack Obama among them — complain that it’s hard to figure out which Clinton is actually running for president this year, Hillary responds with wide-eyed incomprehension: Goodness, what’s this fuss about Bill? “This campaign is not about our spouses, it’s about us,” she explained demurely to a South Carolina debate audience. “Michelle [Obama] and Elizabeth [Edwards] are strong and staunch advocates for their husbands, and I respect that.” Isn’t Hillary allowed to have a supportive spouse too?’

And here’s the Washington Post basically claiming Bill’s a liar. What it comes down to is that Bill is erasing a lot of the good will the younger generation had for him, and we kind of wish he’d shut the fuck up.

This flyer went around in New Hampshire in the days leading up to the primary there. It seems like it refuses to die. It continues to perpetuate the lie that Obama is pro-Abortion, because of his “present” votes. We’ve debunked that once, but if you don’t want to believe us, how about Newsweek or The Wall Street Journal.

The trouble is that in politics, “the facts” alone don’t always make things clearer. Take Obama’s abortion votes. It is true he voted present several times between 1997 and 2001. But it was part of a strategy designed by Planned Parenthood. Republicans in the Illinois Senate had repeatedly tried to pass bills restricting abortion. This put Democrats in a difficult position. They wanted to vote against the bills, but worried they would be smeared by Republican opponents for opposing legislation with names like “The Born Alive Infant Protection Act.” So Obama and a group of Democrats and moderate Republicans cut a deal with Planned Parenthood. The politicians would vote present as a bloc. The bills wouldn’t get enough votes, and the pols would have political cover. Everybody would win.

Luckily, the forces of Truth and Justice and fluffy bunnies are starting to win, as a backlash comes against this flyer. Check out the video below to see how this little dirty campaign trick turned the Former President of Chicago NOW against the Clinton campaign.

Have you or one of your family members received one of those nasty chain letters? One of the most popular ones going around accuses Obama of being a Muslim. This is one of the oldest attacks against Obama and should not even need to be discussed. Still, there have been reports of people still receiving these emails and one poster who goes by the name TubeSockFan drafted up a nice letter you can use to respond with if you ever receive this. Here is the email, please feel free to pass it around.

Hello,

I recently received a mass-forwarded e-mail about Barack Obama (Who is Barack Obama) and his supposed ties to radical Islam. This claim has already been rebuked through the media, but this is a very sensitive subject, capable of causing a lot of hate and pain if consistently misreported. I write not to persuade you to vote for or support Senator Obama, but rather to try to bring a little bit of justice into the marketplace of ideas.

I have no issue with people not liking Barack Obama based on his policies or even based on him personally, in a world as large as ours it’s a bit too much to expect that everyone will get along with each other. This is America and part of what I love about it is that we can all make our own informed decisions. When something is outright false though I believe we should do what we can to help inform our neighbors (even virtual ones). Please take some time and forward this along regardless of your political leanings because Democrat or Republican, Conservative, Moderate or Liberal no one should be making decisions on lies.
If you have any doubts about Obama and his religious background, please read this article from Snopes.com, the most reliable and reputable authority for the de-bunking of myths and rumors.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/muslim.asp

A couple brief excerpts from the article:

Barack Obama was, in fact, sworn in on a bible.

Barack Obama is a Christian, not a Muslim (As with everything else in the e-mail quoted at the head of the page, this is asserted as “fact” despite a complete lack of supporting evidence.) “Senator Obama has never been a Muslim,” Obama communications director Robert Gibbs said. “As a six-year-old in Catholic school, he studied the catechism.” Barack Obama has been associated with the United Church of Christ since the mid-1980s, describes himself as a Christian, and says that he is “rooted in the Christian tradition.”

“When he was a child in Indonesia, Obama spent a couple of years at a Catholic school and another couple of years at a school that was predominantly Muslim (because Indonesia itself is predominantly Muslim). In his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama elaborated on his early schooling, explaining that he attended both Catholic and Muslim schools in Indonesia; not out of any particular religious affiliation, but because his mother wanted him to obtain the best education possible under the circumstances.”

You can also find out more information on FactCheck.org Another site devoted to debunking untruths on the internet and in the press.

Again, please keep in mind that I’m not writing to try to persuade you to support Senator Obama. There is nothing wrong with disliking the man for his ideas and policies. However, the kind of misinformation that has been forwarded in emails like this are motivated not by politics but by prejudice, and can be very dangerous to our democracy.

Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
(Your Name)

If you feel this is a truthful message please forward it on.

Furthermore on Obama’s web site, they recently added a section with some similar letters responding to other attacks that have been made against him recently. All you need to do is put in the offending email address and it will send automatically send it. Check it out.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/factcheckactioncenter/

By now you’ve heard that there’s a kerfuffle about race. You may be confused as to who started it and what’s been said, so let’s break it down.

OK. Saturday, January 5, there was a debate, where Senator Clinton told Senators Edwards and Obama that “we don’t need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered.” Obama, the next day, began to incorporate this in to his speeches:

How have we made progress in this country? Look, did John F. Kennedy look at the moon and say ‘Ahhhh, it’s too far. We can’t do that. We need a reality check.’ Dr. King standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. ‘You know, this Dream thing,it’s a false hope. We can’t expect equality. False hopes.’

Let me tell you something about hope. I do talk about hope quite a bit. Out of necessity. There is no odds maker who would have said that I would be standing here when I was born in 1961. My parents come from different corners of the planet. They separated when I was two, My father left my mother. Single mom raised me with my grandparents. Could only offer me love and education and hope.

Then Hillary was asked about it.

“I would point to the fact that that Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the President before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done.”

This comment sparked a fervor. Voices in the African-American community found the remark disparaging of Dr. King. Now, I don’t think Senator Clinton in any way meant it the way it came across. I do not think she intended to dismiss Dr. King or the civil rights movement. But, for someone campaigning on “35 years of experience,” she should know to choose her words more carefully. Here’s my problem with what she said:

Dr King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do…

She’s correct here. However, Johnson was able to get this pushed through a still shell-shocked Congress only because Kennedy had been assassinated. In that case, I guess it really took a Communist sympathizer with a crazy accurate shot, or the CIA and Mafia, depending upon whom you believe, to bring about equality.

That dream became a reality, the power of that dream became real in people’s lives, because we had a president who said ‘we’re going to do it,’ and actually got it done.

Uh huh… So, what you’re saying is the women’s suffrage movement had nothing to do with giving women the right to vote. That dream became a reality because Woodrow Wilson was President, right? It had nothing to do with a 60 year movement, or with the amendment coming up every year in Congress for 41 years, or with the admission of Wyoming (which allowed women to vote) as a State, or Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive Party in 1912 becoming the first national political party to have a plank supporting women suffrage. None of that matters, because Wilson was president when it was passed and ratified.

What a totally bizarre argument for the first serious female contender for the Presidency to make.

People were still smarting over the comments made by Bill Shaheen, so piled on to this came the MLK/LBJ gaffe (and let’s be honest, that’s what it was), and this quote by Bill Clinton:

This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.

Meant as a blanket dismissal of Obama’s standing, it pissed off a string of bloggers, radio hosts, politicians, and cable news shows. Bill even made a call to Al Sharpton’s radio show to “clarify.”

But feet just keep entering mouths in this case, with Andrew Cuomo saying of Iowa and New Hampshire:

You can’t shuck and jive at a press conference. All those moves you can make with the press don’t work when you’re in someone’s living room.

The Guardian prints this quote from an anonymous Clinton “advisor:”

If you have a social need, you’re with Hillary. If you want Obama to be your imaginary hip black friend and you’re young and you have no social needs, then he’s cool.

So that takes us from January 5 through January 10. There has been no response from the Obama campaign regarding this at this point. On January 11, we finally get a quote from spokesperson Candice Tolliver:

A cross-section of voters are alarmed at the tenor of some of these statements. There’s a groundswell of reaction to these comments–and not just these latest comments but really a pattern, or a series of comments that we’ve heard for several months. Folks are beginning to wonder: Is this really an isolated situation, or is there something bigger behind all of this?

On January 13, Hillary Clinton went on Meet The Press, where she stated this:

Clearly, we know from media reports that the Obama campaign is deliberately distorting this.

And we’re off! Without a shred of evidence to back up this ludicrous claim, the media begin reporting that Obama and Clinton are now having “A Race War.” Obama speaks in a conference call with reporters on this issue for the first time:

Senator Clinton made an unfortunate remark, an ill-advised remark, about King and Lyndon Johnson. I didn’t make the statement. I haven’t remarked on it. And she, I think, offended some folks who felt that somehow diminished King’s role in bringing about the Civil Rights Act. She is free to explain that.

Later that very same day, at a rally in South Carolina, Bob Johnson, founder of BET, says the following when introducing Senator Clinton:

Bill and Hillary Clinton… [were] deeply and emotionally involved in black issues when Barack Obama was doing something in the neighborhood that… I won’t say what he was doing, but he said it in his book.

Which brings us full circle back to what Bill Shaheen was fired for a month ago. On January 14 it’s reported that the two campaigns “call a truce,” which is stupid, because Obama was never at war.

Ridiculous.

You can follow thew whole timeline here.

On January 15, Investor’s Business Daily ran this article about Obama’s “radical church.” Wait, haven’t we heard this before?

In 1991, when Obama joined the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, he pledged allegiance to something called the Black Value System, which is a code of non-Biblical ethics written by blacks, for blacks.

It encourages blacks to group together and separate from the larger American society by pooling their money, patronizing black-only businesses and backing black leaders.

Stop right there. Now I’m perfectly capable of going through the collection of douchebaggery that is this article, but right there, that quote shows their premise is completely wrong, and I have other things to do, like end world hunger and bring peace to the Middle East.

Clearly, the entire xenophobic article was written by someone who has no idea what the black power system is, and what it entails; fine, upstanding things like getting a job and supporting your family and doing outreach in your community.

Next up we have the Anti-Defamation league and their issue is two-fold. First, Obama’s church magazine honored Louis Farrakhan. Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam can be rather anti-Semitic, so we understand them being upset. Obama swiftly condemned Farrakhan’s bigotry.

This, however, is not enough for the ADL. No, they want him to condemn his pastor, the magazine, and leave his church.

In an interview with The Jewish Week, [ADL leader] Foxman said this must be just a first step. “He’s distanced himself from his pastor’s decision to honor Farrakhan. He has not distanced himself from his pastor. I think that’s the next step. One can now expect from Sen. Obama that he confront his minister.” Ultimately, said Foxman, if Obama is unable to influence Wright to alter his stands, “I think he has an obligation to leave.”

I recall a similar incident a few months ago…

“It’s not clear to me why I would be apologizing for someone else’s remarks.”

This isn’t a refutation of anything. This is a big round of applause to all of the Goons and non-Goon readers of this here blog. This is our time. One down, forty-nine to go.

How loooooooooooow can you goooooooooooooooo?

There are some things so horrible that they must simply remain unsaid, must be refuted when uttered:

“If you want to talk about tactical political maneuvering, it’s about one Democrat comparing another Democrat to George Bush. That’s the worst kind of tactical political maneuvering.” Clinton Spokesman Howard Wolfson

So what’s all this then?

“It is tempting any time things seem quieter for a minute on the international front to think that we don’t need a president who is up to speed on foreign affairs and military matters…Well, that’s the kind of logic that got us George Bush in the first place.” –Senator Clinton

It’s not enough to say he’s a sleeper-terrorist-Muslim-crack-dealer, but now she’s calling him George Bush? As Goon Jackfruit said:

The next step is a Godwin and I’m not surprised if they actually go that far.

To be fair, The original Wolfson quote appeared on CNN in July after Obama called Hillary “Bush-Cheney Lite.” He shouldn’t have said it, and he didn’t repeat it. Hillary had every right to be offended when he said it back in July. It’s been five months since July but now she thinks, two weeks from the first votes, that it’s totally OK?

Is it only not OK when she’s ahead in the polls?

Bob Kerrey, in his endorsement of Clinton, said this:

“The fact that he’s African American is a big deal. I do expect and hope that Hillary is the nominee of the party. But I hope he’s used in some way. If he happens to be the nominee of the party and ends up being president, I think his capacity to influence in a positive way without spending a penny the behavior of a lot of under performing black youth today is very important, and he’s the only one who can reach them.”

Kerrey continued, “It’s probably not something that appeals to him, but I like the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and that his father was a Muslim and that his paternal grandmother is a Muslim. There’s a billion people on the planet that are Muslims and I think that experience is a big deal.” He added, “He’s got a whale of a lot more intellectual talent than I’ve got as well.”

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh. OK, it may sound like a genuine compliment, and he may have meant it that way, but the timing was horrible, coming as it did on a day that Obama had press attending church with him in an attempt to finally put this stupid “secret muslim” meme to rest. And Dear Lord how I wish “Muslim” wasn’t a dirty word in America, but it is and I can’t change that.

So: New Rule. No one is allowed to say “Barack Obama” and “Muslim” in the same paragraph until 2009.

When I first saw this, I just laughed. It was a reflex action, because, come on.

Shaheen said Obama’s candor on the subject would “open the door” to further questions. “It’ll be, ‘When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?’” Shaheen said.

Yes, Mr. Black Senator, when was the last time you sold the crack cocaine? Are you now denying that the shorties on the street financed your Senatorial bid? Why can’t you just obfuscate on this issue like every other politician!?!?

Three problems. Let’s take them in turn:

1) I don’t recall anyone digging deep in to Clinton and Bush’s past drug uses with “Did you sell drugs? Did you share them with friends or give them away? Are you still a big ol stoner?” It ended with the pat answers of “I didn’t inhale” and “I quit all that stuff and found GOD.” There is an air of racism here that was not present with the two former drug using presidents.

2) He first publicly admitted his teenage drug use in a book published 12 freakin’ years ago! So how do you go about targeting this drug use he’s been so open about? By claiming that while you would never dare suggest such a thing, we have to be prepared for those dirty Republican tricks.

3) The actual argument in the article and the quote is telling the truth to the American people is bad bad bad. Which is completely anathema to what most Obama supporters are looking for!

The Clinton campaign distanced themselves from the quotes with this milquetoast release:

Senator Clinton is out every day talking about the issues that matter to the American people. These comments were not authorized or condoned by the campaign in any way.

And they made Bill Shaheen say he was sorry. And if you buy that, I have some beautiful beach front property to sell you in Montana.