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We’re used to spintastic e-mails, but one from the Clinton campaign yesterday seemed especially dizzy. In an e-mail titled “Just Embellished Words,” the campaign wrote that "Sen. Obama consistently and falsely claims that he was a law professor” (which he has indeed done). The e-mail backs it up with links to Lynn Sweet and Hotline, both of which confirm that Obama was never a professor.
Unsatisfied, we triple-checked with the University of Chicago, where Obama purports to have been a constitutional-law professor. Sure enough, he wasn’t exactly a prof. Obama is considered a senior lecturer at the university, but he was never a professor. According to the Law School’s press office, he was plenty qualified to be a professor, but he just didn’t have the time. Instead of making him a professor, they gave him the senior lecturer gig, which means he didn’t have to publish scholarly works (and therefore wasn’t on tenure track).
Obama started teaching in 1993, when he taught a course called Current Issues in Racism and the Law. (He was a practicing lawyer at the time.) He taught a variety of courses every year through the 2003-04 school year, before he started campaigning in 2004 for his current Senate job.
So, on principle, Clinton’s spin is right—when Obama says he’s a professor of law, he’s misspeaking. Consider us spun.
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In our constant pursuit for the most inspired piece of election art, this Pokemon homage is our latest obsession. It's too bad Fred Thompson wasn't the GOP nominee—then the creators could have just used Snorlax.
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Ever notice how politicians taunt each other with the exact
same insults of which they themselves stand accused? Case in point:
From a McCain email today:
STATEMENT BY MCCAIN CAMPAIGN ON BARACK OBAMA'S OLD-STYLE
POLITICAL ATTACKS [Emphasis Added]
And from Politico’s Playbook:
“Senator Obama, returning to the campaign trail in Greensboro, N.C.,
plans to castigate Senator McCain for an economic plan that Team Obama describes
as ‘vapid.’ ” [E.A.]
Now it’s Clinton’s
turn to accuse both her opponents of being frigid Machiavellian ice robots.
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Everyone has weighed in on Hillary Clinton’s fantastic voyage to Bosnia—Sinbad, Clinton’s former speechwriter, military men, and reporters who were there at the time. Everyone! Except, that is, for Sheryl Crow.
Crow, who accompanied Hillary, Chelsea, and Sinbad on their trip in 1996, has kept mum on the subject. Repeated e-mails to her publicist, Dave Tomberlin, yielded this response: “We're not going to take part in this circus ... our focus is on her music right now.”
Probably a smart move. Unlike Sinbad, Crow’s career survived the '90s. She doesn’t exactly need the publicity. Hillary, on the other hand, could use a little help here.
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When the National Archives released Hillary Clinton’s White House schedules last week, reporters quickly sifted the entire 11,000-page doorstop for clues to her record on NAFTA, her foreign-policy experience, and her whereabouts during the "blue dress" incident.
Missing from the analysis, however, was one of our favorite bloggy pastimes: word counting. Thanks to the New York Times' searchable database of Clinton’s schedules, we were able to tally the number of times certain words appeared. Here’s our Harper’s Index-style analysis of her years as first lady:
(Figures indicate number of pages on which the words appear)
Kofi Annan: 4
Barbara Streisand: 5
Jean Chrétien (prime minister of Canada, 1993-2003): 2
Mickey Mouse: 2
Hollywood: 21
Iraq: 0
Whoopi Goldberg: 12
Benizir Bhutto: 5
Disney: 19
Islam: 2
Photo-op: 200 +
Policy: 76
Dance/dancing: 157
Debate/debating: 20
Celebration: 63
Economics: 4
Opera: 67
Nuclear: 1
Resort: 47
Barracks: 9
Party: 200 +
Legislation: 9
Princess: 52
Premier: 20
Concert: 54
Hearing: 8
Trailhead thanks Seth Stevenson and Rebecca LeGrand.
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Forlorn over the Democrats’ delegate scrap, Gov.—and therefore superdelegate—Philip Bredesen came up with a modestly novel proposal: After all the voters have fun at their primaries and caucuses, the superdelegates should stage their own fiesta in June—complete with a binding declaration of support for Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. Morevoer, they should have it in Dallas so that everybody can get there easily and the Dems can continue lavishing attention on a red state that has shown flashes of Democratic enthusiasm this year.
It’s a dynamite idea—one part common sense, one part idealism—and therefore exactly the kind of plan we’ve gotten used to the candidates eschewing this election. Yet, at a press conference yesterday, Hillary Clinton let out an unexpected glimmer of hope:
The governor from Tennessee suggested that there be a convention of superdelegates, and I think that it is an intriguing idea. I have not considered it long enough to have an opinion on it.
If she hasn’t “considered it long enough,” then that means she has considered it a little bit. (Clinton folks tell Ambinder they aren’t seriously considering the plan.) There’s hope yet! And, in the long run, that’s best for everybody. The superdelegate primary presents a rare opportunity for a win-win-win-win scenario for Clinton, Obama, the superdelegates, and the Democrats. Here’s why each party should be jumping at the chance:
Hillary: A June superdelegate primary silences the "drop out now" movement for a few months. Clinton has repeatedly said she’s staying in until June, anyway, and the specter of a superdelegate primary would give her justification for doing so. Plus, it buys her time in case she loses North Carolina and Indiana.
Obama: If Hillary isn’t going to leave the race until all of the states vote, anyway, then he may as well end it as swiftly and decisively as possible after that. A superdelegate primary would give him that venue, and he’d be favored to win since he would be the champ of pledged delegates and popular vote.
The superdelegates: Uncommitted supers get to defer their decisions for another three months, which prevents them from incurring the Clintons’ wrath if they side with Obama before all the votes are in. Plus, having a primary lends the superdelegate process a bit of integrity and transparency that might otherwise may get lost in translation at the convention.
Democratic Party: The sooner this fiasco ends, the better. Assuming Clinton stays in through June, this plan is much better than dragging the superdelegate-endorsement process through the dog days of summer. It already makes Howard Dean sweaty enough, as is.
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She wasn’t misspeaking this time. Hillary Clinton truly,
honestly believes that pledged delegates are going to change their minds and
this will help her win the nomination.
When she said
this in her Philadelphia Daily News
interview the other day, I figured it was a fluke:
And also remember that pledged delegates in
most states are not pledged. You know, there is no requirement that anybody
vote for anybody. They’re just like superdelegates.
But then she repeated it in a curious
new interview with Time’s Mark
Halperin:
[A]s you know so well, Mark, every delegate with very few
exceptions is free to make up his or her mind however they choose. We talk a
lot about so-called pledged delegates, but every delegate is expected to
exercise independent judgment.
That’s right. “So-called pledged delegates.” So now, we’re to assume, it’s not just superdelegates who will
overturn the pledged delegate count. Pledged
delegates are going to help overturn it, too. At this rate, why hold elections in
the first place? Let’s skip the rest of the primaries and go right to the
convention, where all the so-called pledged delegates can get down to the
business of ignoring the people’s votes.
The Clinton
camp vehemently denies
that it will actively pursue Obama’s pledged delegates. But then why float the
possibility? It makes zero
sense strategically. True, no one puts a gun to the heads of pledged
delegates and forces them to vote one way or another. But most of them would
never go switch their vote—that would mean burning bridges, betraying friends,
and reversing the will of their own constituents. And from a PR perspective,
it’s disastrous. The Clinton camp has been
screaming “disenfranchisement” in Florida and Michigan. Do they really
want to push an idea that would flush real votes down the toilet?
What began as a series of casual asides—first by Harold
Ickes, then by Clinton herself—is now starting to look a coordinated effort. We don't ask this question lightly, but what are they smoking?