john hinderacker at powerlineblog.com on Samantha Power’s timely book.
You have to think that the Obama campaign is eagerly awaiting the end of Samantha Power’s book tour. Power, who was one of Obama’s top foreign-policy advisers, is making the rounds in Europe to promote her new book about Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN official killed a few years ago in Iraq. Look at her interview in England with the New Statesman. As Ed Lasky reports, Power told the interviewer that President Obama would engage with President Ahmadinejad, North Korea, and Syria. … Power was then asked whether “There is anyone [Obama] wouldn’t talk to.” She replied that there was no one among “elected heads of state” and that “he won’t talk to Hamas, but he would talk to Abbas.”
Uncle Jimbo at blackfive.net stands up for the troops.
From Britain’s Daily Mail: “RAF personnel have been ordered not to wear their uniforms in public after incidents of verbal abuse on the streets.
I have an Uncle J addition to the rule: Any able-bodied veterans who witness punk ass civilians verbally abusing the military forces of any decent nation are empowered to return said abuse and rain down upon them with great vengeance and furious anger those who would poison and destroy my brothers.
This is not an incitation to stomp mudholes in hippy asses. It is a call to defend the honor of those who shouldn’t have to defend it against trifling dung beetles like these.
Josh Marshal at talkingpointsmemo.com crunches the numbers.
It’s early; it’s just a snapshot; some of the numbers are within the margin of error and all that. But these 50 state polls put out by SurveyUSA are fascinating. The topline is that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton beat John McCain by the slimmest of margins – but they do it in starkly different ways.
Obama manages to beat McCain while losing Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Florida – which I would scarcely have thought possibly (i.e., that a Dem could win while losing those states). Meanwhile Hillary wins in a more conventional way – judged by the standards of the last 20 years. Most of the blue states are blue and red states red. But where she loses the Pacific Northwest she takes Florida.
Supporters of Clinton and Obama can both take from this that they’re backing solid general election candidates but it does show they’re very different – at least at this moment – in terms of the package of states they’d put together.
Americablog’s taxing debate:
Methinks the lady doth protest too much. Especially after it was Hillary who made “Mr. Lazio, release those tax returns” a key part of her 2000 Senate campaign against Republican Rick Lazio. Back then Hillary said it was “frankly disturbing” that a candidate would waffle over when they were going to release their returns. But now that she’s the one waffling, saying she may release them “around” April 15 (if we’re lucky), suddenly it’s the Spanish Inquisition to expect her to be true to her previous word. (Obama released his returns a year ago.)