There's a reason Hillary Clinton has remained relatively silent during the flap over intemperate remarks by Barack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. When it comes to unsavory religious affiliations, she's a lot more vulnerable than Obama.

Via Chris Floyd: Saudis Prepare for "Sudden Nuclear Hazards" After Cheney Visit

Seems McCain was a "neocon" before Bush was.

Getting his "perception management" groove on, Clinton chief-strategist, Mark Penn, today lobbed the meme-theme of their triangulation strategy: "Senator Obama really can't win the General Election."  And it's pretty clear that destroying Barack Obama's presidential bid is a project Mr. Penn has undertaken not only in the interests of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, but in service to any number of his other clients.

Recent Bush Administration mutterings about an enduring "Status of Forces Agreement" (SOFA) between the US and Iraq, together with the still-pending passage of a new "Oil Law" in Iraq, inspires the following:

Watching the MSNBC Decision '08 crew unpack last night’s voting results, it was hard not to notice panelists Joe Scarborough and Patrick Buchannan rising up in their seats, fidgeting with glee, at the successes achieved by the Clinton campaign’s "fair use" of good ol' Atwater/Rove-style politics.  Showing their Republican colors, these two were obviously delighted by how big a dent all the "soft" bigotry recently aimed at Obama managed to make.  

Jeremy Scahill reports Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama will not "rule out" using private military companies like Blackwater Worldwide in Iraq. Obama also has no plans to sign on to legislation that seeks to ban the use of these forces in US war zones by January 2009. Despite their antiwar rhetoric, both Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton have adopted the congressional Democratic position that would leave open the option of keeping tens of thousands of US troops in Iraq for many years.

via Democracy Now [transcript, video/audio links]

Since posting a couple of YouTube videos spelling-out his support for the "Change" candidacy of Barack Obama, Stanford Law Professor, Lawrence Lessig now publishes "a video announcing the 'Change Congress' movement, and exploring the idea of Lessig running for Congress in CA12" --

10 minutes to announce two ideas

Peel back the whole distorted, exaggerated, and exploited GWOT overlay, and what is "the real purpose" underlying the US/British invasion and ongoing occupation of Iraq?

Given my own "knee-jerk-liberal" proclivities, it might have seemed unlikely that I would find deeply resonant the views of a Hoover Institution fellow and former senior adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.  Nonetheless, I found very captivating the commentary of Larry Diamond, author of, The Spirit of Democracy, in a Carnegie Council event broadcast on CSpan's BookTV.

Oh!, the ebb-and-flow, the to-and-fro, the ups-and-downs!  In the longest presidential primary in my lifetime; a primary that has involved more democratic, voter participation than any other, ever! (kudos to Dean, btw): Who's it gonna be?  Clinton or Obama?  And how are they going to get there?