President Obama stubbed his toe his first week in office when he paid a surprise visit to the White House press room. He wanted to introduce himself informally to the press corps, and was taken aback when reporters began to ask substantive questions. “I can’t end up visiting with you guys and shaking hands if I’m going to get grilled every time I come down here,” said the president.

The press, for its part, took offense that President Obama dodged their queries. They also bridled at being excluded from the swearing-in redo with Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as the president’s first interview (an exclusive given to ABC). …

Franklin Roosevelt, however, adopted a hands-on approach. Rather than meet the press at a formal session in the East Room (as his predecessors had occasionally done), F.D.R. invited them into the Oval Office. Twice a week the White House press corps gathered around the president’s desk and fired away. …

In his first term, Roosevelt held 337 press conferences. That is no misprint. Three hundred and thirty-seven. Normally the conferences were held at 10 o’clock on Wednesday mornings for benefit of the afternoon press, and 4 o’clock on Fridays for the morning editions. When the war came, the conferences became less frequent, but altogether F.D.R. held 998 press conferences as president. [bolds mine-R]

When candidate Obama declared that he wished to restore openness to the White House, this is what I (and many of my press colleagues) had hoped for: A president who would answer questions, answer them himself and — most importantly — just answer them. Hence my dismay in his pre-inaugural “I’m going to let the justice system run its course” cop-outs to questions on the Blago scandal, even when it was pretty apparent Obama had done nothing wrong. I hope he is a great president, and I think he will be a much better one than his predecessor (who gave far fewer press conferences than any other president in the last century… I’ve been googling for a specific number, but can’t find it). Still, the bloom may be off the rose if by “openness” Obama means that everyone who signs up for email updates will get periodic spin bulletins from the White House press office.

PERSONAL FILE: Overworked and underfed

On Friday night, I think it was, I came down with a stomach bug that’s “been going around” (doctors are so precise!), and since then I have eaten eight chicken nuggets, some french fries, two half-bowls of chicken noodle soup, a half-piece of toast, a small helping of stirfry last night (when I was starting to feel better) and a half-bagel with cream cheese this morning. Worse, my 4-to-6-cup-per-day coffee habit has been whittled down significantly: Yesterday I had about six sips, and as of this writing I’ve gotten about 10 ounces down this morning. (Lewis has it, too, and since he’s not yet potty-trained, we’ve been changing diapers and washing clothes at an unheard-of pace.)

Meanwhile, I’ve been busier than ever: Trying to hone in on improvements that can be made at Spencer’s, putting in my 40 hours at the paper (where there’s ever less work to do, in fact, since ad sales are down, which brings the page count down with it), and doing some freelance writing that I’m really enjoying but probably shouldn’t disclose just yet.

All that to say, blogging has not been a top priority. I miss it, but can’t seem to allocate the time I don’t have. Maybe I’ll get better; maybe I’ll turn into one of those people who just updates his Facebook status and thinks that’s enough. Either way, thanks for reading.

Raise the roof, guv'nah! (AP Photo/Paul Beaty)

Sure, he was taped trying to solicit tens of millions in campaign contributions in exchange for Barack Obama’s Senate seat. Sure, his wife curses like a sailor. Sure, his hair is AWFUL (Stephen Colbert last night called it “his chinchilla brain cozy”). But Illinois Gov. Rob Blagojevich is purely American! In an age when politicians usually deal with scandal by repeating “no comment” as if it’s at the center of some transcendental meditation program, then stepping down before an investigation can even take place, old Robby is standing up to the media, his constituents, and basically anyone else with an iota of reason. Consider:

“The causes of the impeachment are because I’ve done things to fight for families.” Yeah! Those evil state representatives want you out so the poor will get poorer! The rich will get richer! The last name is hard to pronounce, encouraging literacy amongst the youngsters!
“To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” Quoting “Ulysses” here… this may a.) have something further to do with youth literacy or b.) show that, not only is he corrupt, he’s also spent his days in the office boning up on the classics in case Chicago is ever attacked by a giant winged creature.
“I’m going to fight every step of the way.” Spoken like a true American. A real American. A Bill O’Reilly type of American. (UPDATE: If sarcasm isn’t evident here, please be advised that… well, it’s there.)

Can he be an effective governor? Of course not. But this is way better than any “reality” TV show … I’ll take “Pride Cometh” over “Survivor: Cambodia” any day.

PAGING DR. GUPTA: I knew this was going to happen as soon as I heard Obama was considering Dr. Sanjay Gupta — best known for his oversimplistic medical commentary on CNN — for surgeon general. Via michaelmoore.com:

In fact, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman cited Gupta’s TV work in a Tuesday blog post opposing Gupta’s selection, writing, “I don’t have a problem with Gupta’s qualifications. But I do remember his mugging of Michael Moore over Sicko.”

That’s a reference to a dust-up between Gupta and Moore, the documentarian and liberal iconoclast, over a Gupta piece on CNN criticizing Moore’s documentary tribute to universal healthcare, “Sicko.” In the piece Gupta challenged some of Moore’ conclusions in the movie, which contended that Cuba offers its citizens better public health care than the United States.

Moore called Gupta’s piece “biased” and “trash” and alleged Gupta “refused to ask our leaders the hard questions and demand the honest answers” about the war in Iraq. Moore also extracted two CNN corrections related to the report and a follow-up debate with Gupta on Larry King Live.

Now, Moore is hardly an authority on responsible government, he of the convenient edit and “Fahrenheit 911″ fame. But “Sicko” was pretty fairhanded and really illuminating, and I recall Gupta having a rough time in his debates with the man. Maybe he’d make a great SG… I honestly couldn’t tell you what the job even entails, other than writing brief messages for the sides of cigarette boxes. But somebody’s mistaken here — either Obama’s advisers, who think Gupta’s a good pick; or Moore, who thinks he’s a terrible one; or every right-wing radio host, who continue to call Obama an “extreme leftist” in the vein of… you guessed it, Michael Moore.

One of the things (IMO) that got the press enamored with Obama — just as it had years before with McCain, prior to his campaign’s drastic leash-tightening — was his seeming penchant to speak at length about whatever was asked. Sure, he sidestepped some things, but Obama generally gave much more detailed, thoughtful answers than his competitors in a soundbite, CYA atmosphere. He also vowed greater transparency in government, and often urged the Bush White House to come clean with the American people about the topic of the day. (Note, please, that I think those sentiments a fine idea, part of the most attractive aspect of Obama ’08.)

In the face of the scandal involving his governor and his Senate seat, however, Obama is not giving me much hope for the transparency I’ve been waiting for. From Politico:

Obama refused to answer questions about his staff’s involvement with Gov. Rod Blagojevich over filling the vacated Senate seat and whether his successor should now be chosen by appointment or special election.

Obama, speaking to reporters after a news conference announcing his secretary of education, said the internal review he had ordered of his staff’s contacts with Blagojevich was complete but cited the request of the U.S. attorney’s office to hold off on disclosing the results until next week. … Obama flashed some irritation at the line of questioning, cutting off McCormick before he could finish his initial query. [bold mine-R]

This is the oldest trick in the book, and not a very convincing one. How many times in the past eight years has some White House spokesman refused to answer a legitimate question, citing the need for a “full investigation” or “findings to be disclosed” or some such thing? Journalists will write it, yes, but we don’t buy it for a second; it’s a hollow non-answer, and 99-to-1 a pretty blatant lie. Obama has been sidestepping (or refusing to answer) the Blago questions for more than a week now, despite the repeated assertion that Obama had no role in it and did nothing wrong. Truth be told, even most Republicans don’t think Obama was in the middle of Rod’s insane shenanigans, but it portends “more of the same” to hear Obama using the “we need to wait until the investigation is complete” line.

The state of education: Obama’s pick for Education Secretary needs to watch his pronouns:

“I want to thank our mutual friend John Rogers who has been a mentor and friend to me since I was ten years old. He gave my sister and I the opportunity to start a great school in the South side of Chicago…”

Do you see what I see?

Dick Cavett is still awesome: He writes an occasional blog for the Times; this installment is on the Senate Seat Salesman himself:

The question overhanging this sordid mess, you might agree, is, “How did such a specimen ever get elected?”

It’s as if a soldier, tested for his fitness as potential combat leader, passed his physical despite scurvy, pyorrhea, Jake leg, leprosy, the quinsy, contagious influenza and at least two trick knees.

(We all know from childhood that it’s not nice to make fun of people’s appearance. So I will confine myself to merely observing that whatever covers the governor’s head looks to me like a bowling-ball cozy.)

(Hat tip to my wife for the clever title of this post.)

Obama and his team of rivals, proving that blue is the new black.

Though you probably figured it out already, I cast my presidential vote for Barack Obama. I didn’t get too caught up in the hype, but was mainly voting for a.) a change in the demeanor of politics in general (a man who doesn’t answer debate questions with soundbites wins? Whoda thunk it?) and b.) a “change” in our nation’s approach to foreign policy.

Well, it looks like I can chalk that second one up to buyer’s remorse.

Don’t get me wrong: I think Obama’s temperament and (seeming) interest in reasoned discourse instead of steadfast ideology is going to serve us much better than McCain’s hard-nosed, “We must always WIN” attitude. But based on Obama’s newly named foreign policy team, I think that (where foreign policy is concerned) we were sold a decidedly false bill of goods. Consider:

Robert Gates, current secretary of defense, who will stick around, despite his earlier saying that he probably wouldn’t.

From the New York Times:

Mr. Obama’s best political cover may come from Mr. Gates, the former Central Intelligence Agency director and veteran of the cold war, who just months ago said it was “hard to imagine any circumstance” in which he would stay in his post at the Pentagon. Now he will do exactly that.

A year ago, to studied silence from the Bush White House, Mr. Gates began giving a series of speeches about the limits of military power in wars in which no military victory is possible. He made popular the statistic, quoted by Mr. Obama, that the United States has more members of military marching bands than foreign service officers.

He also denounced “the gutting of America’s ability to engage, assist and communicate with other parts of the world — the ‘soft power’ which had been so important throughout the cold war.”

Sounds nice, right? But consider this observation from the Huffington Post:

“Secretary Gates is a great choice,” said (Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham), who was reminded that he had once said he feared the day that Barack Obama became commander-in-chief.

Hmmm… Anyway, next is Gen. Jim Jones, a former NATO commander and soon-to-be national security adviser. Graham goes on: 

“Jim Jones, known him for a long time, former NATO commander. He opposed the surge early on, but he’s a four-star general with a lot of national security knowledge.”

McCain’s best friend Graham? A very partisan Republican? Gushing about Obama’s foreign policy picks? Something’s not right… But of course, there’s still the real elephant — or jackass? — in the room, Secretary-of-State-designate Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Clinton? The woman who made an ad suggesting she was the only one fit to answer the phone at 3 a.m.? Who said something to the effect of “McCain’s ready, I’m ready, Barack… I dunno”? Whose judgment Obama repeatedly called into question where the Senate’s vote on the Iraq war is concerned? I don’t find myself agreeing too often with avowed atheist and Islamophobe Christopher Hitchens, but his recent Slate column contains a lot of truth:

In matters of foreign policy, it has been proved time and again, the Clintons are devoted to no interest other than their own. A president absolutely has to know of his chief foreign-policy executive that he or she has no other agenda than the one he has set. Who can say with a straight face that this is true of a woman whose personal ambition is without limit; whose second loyalty is to an impeached and disbarred and discredited former president; and who is ready at any moment, and on government time, to take a wheedling call from either of her bulbous brothers? This is also the unscrupulous female who until recently was willing to play the race card on President-elect Obama and (in spite of her own complete want of any foreign-policy qualifications) to ridicule him for lacking what she only knew about by way of sordid backstairs dealing. What may look like wound-healing and magnanimity to some looks like foolhardiness and masochism to me. [bold mine-R]

And I would be remiss if I didn’t point your attention to The American Conservative’s Daniel Larison, (spinning off of a post by Philip Klein in The American Spectator, which is also worth reading):

So one of two things happened. Either Clinton has embraced Obama’s vision for fundamental change, or Obama has succumbed to “conventional Washington thinking.” —Philip Klein

Not to be a broken record, but of course it is the latter. Well, except that he didn’t “succumb”–he embraces the conventional thinking, just as he does wherever he goes. As his political universe has changed and expanded, the conventional thinking he has had to embrace changed as well. This is what his friends and admirers call pragmatism, and it is a function of the temperament that Obamacons invoke when pressed to explain their support. This has been reasonably clear for at least the past several months. When running against conventional Washington thinking suited him as an outsider and challenger candidate, he did that. Now that he is firmly ensconced in Washington, conventional Washington thinking will be all right. This isn’t an accusation or even that much of a complaint–I have given up complaining about Obama’s conventional ways. At this point, it is merely a description. As I said immediately after his election:

If you have a high opinion of the Washington establishment and bipartisan consensus politics, Obama’s election should come as a relief. If you believe, as I do, that most of our policy failures stretching back beyond the last eight years are the product of a failed establishment and a bankrupt consensus, an Obama administration represents the perpetuation of a system that is fundamentally broken.

Most people in the broad “middle” seem to be relieved by Obama’s moves in the last few weeks, so I have to conclude that they don’t have much of a problem with conventional Washington thinking, either. The majority is not just getting the government they deserve, but apparently it is also the government they want. When it fails them, as it is going to do, I don’t want to hear them complaining about the problems of the status quo. [bold mine-R]

Well, well… the lustre of “Obama for Change!” was bound to wear off — it seems that it’s wearing off sooner rather than later. But if you’d like to relive the glory days of the campaign, when everything seemed possible, fear not! As I found out from an Obama campaign email (yes, campaign … One would think that a billion dollars later they could quit sending these things out to every American who ever visited their website), you can, with your own personal sterling silver Obama keychain! (To drive, presumably, your new GM Bailout Coupe right off the lot.)

1.) “The Joshua Generation”: This in-depth piece from reporter David Remnick looks at how Obama used race to his advantage — and downplayed it as well — en route to the White House, and looks at what the victory ultimately means for black Americans in the 21st century. It’s not an altogether shiny, happy tale, but it’s informative for anyone interested in the racial, social and political divides in this country.

2.) “Battle Plans”: Ryan Lizza gives us an overarching view of how Obama’s advisers used an adept understanding of the nation’s political tide, as well as a cool-headed approach to usually white-hot presidential politics, to help Obama to victory.

All this from the same magazine that gave us the unforgettable cover above, in the name of satire.

The Obamas: Putting the "first" into the First Family

That Barack Obama won so handily came as no surprise to me (though the electoral numbers ended up even a bit bigger than the most positive polling suggested), given his message and the real wants and needs of mainstream America — not to mention the audacious atrocity that was the McCain campaign. For months, however, the actual narrative of Obama’s journey has been lost in the details (of attack ads and policy pronouncements, gotchas and gaffes, pitbulls and plumbers). It reared its head again on Tuesday as soon as the first results starting coming in, and it is this: Americans have elected a black man as president, and (in modern terms, at least) by a landslide. But a sad truth is that the epochal nature of this moment hasn’t hit everyone — in fact, I’ve talked to a number of people here in southcentral Kentucky who either don’t recognize what a moment this is or who cynically dismiss it as being of little real importance.

Interestingly, it’s a sad truth that Obama himself alluded to many times over the course of the campaign: Our politics has become so divisive that we throw out the baby with the water. A brief perusing of my Facebook “status updates” list will suffice as an example: On Election Night, a good number of my evangelical Christian friends posted updates such as “Oh crud…”, “Here come higher taxes”, “Pray for our nation”, etc. Over the course of the longest campaign in American history, Barack Obama, a liberal, Christian politician in the mold of John F. Kennedy or FDR was painted as an absolute perversion of all that is right and good; it was based on cherry-picked aspects of his minimal legislative experience, two or three associations with less-desirable people (as if each of us doesn’t have a few of these ourselves), the notion that Christianity and unfettered free-market capitalism must go hand in hand, and his more modest approach to using the world’s most potentially destructive military force overseas.

All these things and more may, in your eyes and others, make him undesirable as a leader, or certainly the lesser of two choices for commander-in-chief. This is within the bounds of both reason and human decency. But none of these things make him a “terrorist” or justify someone “kill him” or represent some sort of cosmic punishment visited upon us by God Himself. Hyperbole? No, just the sincere (if secret) thoughts of a too-large number among us. But put aside the vilest hate… What I am to point out is that otherwise good-hearted, loving people cannot see past policy differences and personal preferences to the fact that the election of Obama — whether he ends up a great leader or a merely adequate one — is much bigger than a four-year term. It is, quite truly, the beginning of a new era in American history, an era where every man, woman and child of every color (though certainly not of every religion) can see that here, all are equal (if not in equally sufficient circumstances) and all can achieve based on their intelligence, determination and passion — regardless of race.

I strongly suspect this is due to subtle racism or prejudice, often of the kind that is subconscious and would be heated denied if the label was applied. For people like me in heavily white areas, “black culture” or “the minority” is something we see on TV more than we come across it on the street. Meanwhile, the black people we really are acquainted with, we know them through work or church or school — in other words, we know them as sharing our world, and we don’t give much thought to the significantly different aspects of our lives, families, etc.

Yesterday I talked to a very fundamentalist white girl who told me that, while she didn’t vote for Obama or like many of his political views, she was really excited to watch him accept victory and usher in what I will now and forevermore call The Obama Era. Another friend relayed the story of a black man who told him that now he would not have to lie to his children — telling them that they could grow up to be anything they put their mind to — because now it is a provable truth, not a nice idea that’s yet to actually take place.

The Obama Era does not mean that race relations are “fixed” or that the socioeconomic struggles that show themselves so strongly among different ethnic groups are now gone. In fact, as the first black president, Obama will be under an enormous sort of reverse pressure, at least in his first term, to “stay away from race” and focus on “everyday Joes” — i.e. white, working-class people. This is good political advice, but it’s a shame that our politics demands it. For if Obama was to make addressing our nation’s color-line disparities in education and income and housing and drug abuse his main priority, he’d be easily put away in the next election cycle — if not ignored altogether during his first by a majority white, majority wealthy legislative branch.

Still, it is a huge moment in American history — and one with which Obama himself proved amazingly self-aware. His victory speech, while not dwelling in the civil rights movement, paid sufficient tribute to it and expressed a profoundly non-cynical view of the progress we’ve made and the progress we’ve yet to make. One of the chief criticisms of Obama initially (pre-Ayers, pre-Wright, pre-”celebrity) went like this: “He’s not proud of his country? What about America does he think needs to be changed? What would he fix? America’s the greatest place on earth, but he doesn’t think so!” The truth, however, is more nuanced, too nuanced to bog down a political campaign traveling the road of soundbites and cable news. What struck me most about Obama’s speech — almost brought tears to my eyes, in all honesty — was his tale of the 106-year-old black woman who had literally watched history unfold before her eyes. The description of her life was a stirring thing in and of itself, though in and of itself it ultimately meant very little. But what grabbed me was the image of her, 106 years old, casting her ballot for a black man as president — and Obama’s subsequent question: If his daughter lives a century, what history would have unfolded before her eyes?

There is change to be made, even if we don’t know what it is and can’t imagine how our nation could be made better. There is a reason to hold onto hope in America — hope on top of happiness and appreciation, not in place of them — and there is work to be done. All were created equal, our Fathers told us, and a great many of us believe it. After creation, however, is where the winnowing is done — and too many of us, through no fault of our own, ever make it back. A President Obama, no matter how good a leader he turns out to be, can do little of himself to change that. But the simple fact that he was elected may do a great deal more than anyone ever dreamed.

Barack Obama sheds a tear Monday as he talks about his grandmother, who helped raise him, and who died earlier that day at the age of 86. (Photo by Alex Brandon, AP)

Barack Obama’s election as 44th president of the United States will be seen different ways by different people. For blacks, obviously, it will be the top of the summit of the Civil Rights Movement. Racism is alive and well, of course (one need only look at eastern Kentucky’s primary numbers from the Hillary Clinton-Obama contest to see it), but tomorrow will be the crowning moment for our nation’s largest minority group. And, after all that America put these people’s parents and grandparents and ancestors through, they deserve it. For liberals, it may be (mistakenly) seen as an endorsement of their economic policy views, as a sign that mainstream America is coming around to the idea of a more powerful proactive government and that they’ve spoken with loud voice an “Amen!” to the stereotypical rallying cry of “the rich should pay their fair share.” For conservatives, it will be seen (rightly) as a referendum on the Bush administration and (wrongly) as the achievement of personality over policy.

This is a complex country… but the truth behind a Barack Obama victory, in my eyes, is so simple that it’s a bit embarrassing.

Hope.

It’s plastered on billboards and printed on shirts, and it sounds absolutely ridiculous. Truth is, though, that Americans like to hope: It’s why they’ve so often (though not this year) voted for tax policies that favor the wealthy — they hope, and somewhere deep down believe, that one day they’ll be the wealthy. It’s why they “cling” to religion in the face of science and rationalism and strange looks from their co-workers. It’s why they haven’t trusted Washington in a long time, and it’s why so many are willing to go out on a limb — in the face of very little strong evidence — for a guy whose name is hard to spell and whose resume is so thin.

The conventional wisdom is that the economy sunk John McCain, that it would have been impossible for a Republican, any Republican, to win this year. But that’s more cop-out that commentary; it explains away Hope, a notion that makes cynics gag (and take it from me, writers and journalists and pundit are, to a person, cynics). But think back to 2004: The country thought Bush had done a poor job with the war, and our economy was already starting to tilt. Karl Rove and cynical politics, however, won out… not because the strategy was so great, but because Kerry’s campaign bought into it and tried to defend against it.

Obama, however, doesn’t accept the terms of the debate. He’s lofty, heady, ethereal, syrupy… all adjectives that can be heard thrown at him day in and day out on talk radio. But what everyone is missing — everyone except Obama and his campaign advisers — is that he exudes Hope, and Hope is America.

JFK wasn’t elected because he had great tax policies — and he’s not remembered as transcendent because of his mistakes managing the Vietnam war. Reagan wasn’t elected because of his grand schemes, either, though conservatives like to remember it that way. These two men saw America’s best days ahead, and they weren’t afraid to get a little emotional (and a little cheesy) when painting that picture to voters. Sure, people are hurting, and plenty (myself included) are into the notion of getting a tax cut while the wealthier pay a little more… good policy or bad, at my materialistic core I’m just waiting for my check to show up. But average people don’t contribute some $350 million to a politician in hopes of getting a slight tax cut… if it were about that, they’d have booted Bush in 2004, saving our country hundreds of billions of dollars by electing a president who’d end the Long War.

Whether you believe him or not, Barack Obama is selling Hope. It’s why he always follows his criticisms of McCain, and his crowds’ subsequent boos, with “don’t boo, just vote!” It’s why he’s willing to try, as best he can, to explain to Joe the Plumber why his tax plan is supposedly better (I imagine McCain saying to a Marvin the Liberal Librarian, “My friend, we’ll just have to disagree” and moving on down the street). It’s why, in an interview tonight on ESPN, he told football fans that “no matter whether you vote for Senator McCain (not “my opponent”) or myself (Obama last?), this is an important election and your voice should be heard.”

“But!” you protest. “He’s just another slick Chicago pol! He’d do anything to win! He’s just like all the others!” And yeah, maybe you’re right. As a whole, though, Americans deep down are starting to tire of that notion. They still speak in sarcasm at work and with friends — it’s the language of the day, the only way to show that you’re cool. Somewhere in our souls, however, we’re getting tired of being cold.

Hope isn’t cool. In fact, it’s sort of dorky. But it’s making a comeback, and consequently it’s going to make history on Tuesday night.

If there are six days until the election, it must be time for a ginned-up phony controversy.  The phony controversy derives from the story about the L.A. Times‘ Khalidi tape combined with the confident foreign policy pronouncements of Joe the Plumber Geopolitical Strategist that voting for Obama is voting for the “death of Israel.” …

For those of you who have wisely been ignoring the final days of the campaign, here is the story about the tape: back in 2003 when Khalidi was about to leave Chicago to fill Edward Said’s post at Columbia after Said had passed on, there was a farewell party attended by Obama, and there was a video record of it that was leaked to the L.A. Times that the newspaper first reported on in April.  This party and Obama’s attendance at it have been more or less common knowledge to anyone who has spent much time following Obama’s career, and the party and the relationship between Obama and Khalidi have been made out to be meaningful evidence that Obama harbors some pro-Palestinian attitudes because of things he said at this party about Khalidi. …

Now some are claiming that the tape purportedly has a record of Obama saying things not just about Khalidi, but about Israel and Palestine as well, but as far as I can tell this is just more baseless rumormongering.  It seems that the only reason why anyone suspects that there is something “damaging” (i.e., something not reflexively “pro-Israel”) on the tape is that the Times won’t release it because of an agreement it made with its source(s), but if the Times were to break its agreement with the source(s) and release the tape it would then presumably be accused of violating ethical standards in order to vindicate its preferred candidate. This is a very odd case of a newspaper being accused of “suppressing” evidence after having published a report on the very thing it is supposedly suppressing.  Had it acquired the tape and never reported on it, that would be one thing, but it did just the opposite.  What is most bizarre about all of this is that from everything we do know about what Obama said, his remarks about Khalidi clearly implied that he didn’t agree with his colleague, which is why in classic Obama fashion he applauded Khalidi for challenging him and making him face his own biases. …

Perhaps Joe the Plumber can return to worrying about incipient socialism and leave foreign policy to others. [bold mine-R]

1.) Obama’s wink-and-nod on Palin: Actually, it’s Palin who’s winking and nodding, after a little background on McCain saying he’s not particularly knowledgable on the economy, and that he’ll “rely” on his VP for economic advice. MY TAKE: It’s a very wry, hard-hitting ad, but the fact that people have to read it and not hear it is a big negative. It’s a talkie! Why not use it?

2.) McCain’s dig at the big ad buy: Reminds me of the “Celebrity” ad, but less weird and more potent. It’s always seemed to me that McCain shouldn’t whine about being outspent, but spin it somehow into “look how much money he has to throw around on ads, crowning himself president while you struggle to make ends meet.” He seems to be doing this here, and while I don’t think it’s a game-changer, it certainly can’t hurt. He’s also, on the stump, blaming Obama for delaying the World Series with tonight’s ad (which Fox says isn’t true, they’re just cutting the pregame show) and playing up the “he thinks he’s president already!” angle, which could have an effect on any few rare voters to whom politics is like a football game that you don’t have a vested in (i.e. you vote for the underdog).

3.) Al Franken’s funny ad: The guy is a comedian, right? But he hasn’t followed his Republican ex-govenor Jesse “The Body” Ventura in making a lot of ludicrous ads. This one, however, is kind of funny…

4.) Norm Coleman’s “even Hollywood doesn’t like him” counterpunch: Cliff from Cheers and some other washed-up celebs appear in this ad against Franken. It would be a lot more potent if we’d seen any of these people on something besides re-runs in the last 10 years… but still, in a world of boring political ads, I approve of these messages.

Now, the most absolutely ridiculous ad I’ve seen this election isn’t available anywhere online (if someone finds it, I’ll give you a $5 gift certificate to my favorite coffee shop), but let me paint the picture: Charlene Rabold, a Democrat looking to unseat Republican state Rep. Jim DeCesare here in Bowling Green, has an ad that claims DeCesare is at least OK with, if not downright in favor of, legalizing marijuana. The source: A resolution he voted for, honoring economist Milton Friedman! (Who apparently suggested it would make economic sense to legalize marijuana in order to regulate and tax it.) She was later quoted in my newspaper as “Googling” his name to find this factoid. As a letter to the editor today put it, it should be of more concern that a Democrat who wants to fix the economy would have to Google Milton Friedman! Best of all, it ends with a stoned teenager stumbling out of a smoke-filled van, saying “Thanks, DeCesare doood!!!”

Priceless.