He keeps hurling these charges against Clinton, and then cutting her off from responding to Obama's charges. Why is she being double teamed?

As an Obama supporter, I couldn't agree more.

Republican Health Care Plan: Be Rich or Die

Oh man, you have me laughing out loud.

for this guerrilla force.

just cause im a dem, don't mean i aint strapped with heat bitches.

and Obama lost the opportunity, given to him, to reject any association with Farakhan. And reason is very simple: Obama wants badly to keep hold on race-motivated black votes. Can you handle the truth?

it gives Obama air time, and allows him to answer really well

Which Cobra Commander though?  

Happens to me all the time in debate and election night threads.  Don't sweat it, it only lasts a few minutes.

Whatever- like she said, she's a little busy at the moment. She has until April like you and I.

And Russert's question was asinine- release your tax return so that we can see who is "bankrolling your campaign...." Jackass- what is he trying to say?

I thought her answer was fairly good there.

Of course she would have to go to that storage cabinet in her attic to get out the return, and she's just too busy to do so -- give me a break!  Too busy?  Like she doesn't have People to do it for her?

I'll support you. You can still do the jail time, however.

Me, too! I will vote for any candidate who throws the first punch to Tim Russert.

Well its not like they're in anyway linked to a computer savvy company.

Hmmm... well.. maybe Obama feared she might be.

That was too nitpicky by Hillary.  It gave Obama a softball to take a swing at.

And then let's bludgeon him with a large club!

I have to say that the denounce vs. reject thing was pretty silly.

not to the jewish community

Nah, Obama does like to tippy-toe around stuff when it's a lot easier to say "I don't want to have anything to do with Farrakhan and I don't want his endorsement."  

nope -- Jewish community remembers her for that SPECIFIC issue among others, and it was very important, especially here in NY.

Ordinary voter will be confused, Jewish population will remember

There's a clear distinction to the community between denouncing someone's words, and rejecting someone's support.

Yes I did look it up, guilty as charged :-) - if I am charged

yes -- see my comments right above yours

It is especially interesting because Obama just met with Jewish leaders

Yes, when he said he wouldn't be here without the Jewish community, I said "thank you."

Obama is not exactly giving a ringing endorsement of the term liberal, however.

no one on this stage has the right to interrupt clinton.

yes

sorry, no offense, but she's trying to slam BO for not taking a strong stand on farrakhan

As someone with ties to the Jewish community through ancestry and friends, I don't think she did.  I thought she was saying they both faced it.

I thought that's what she meant as well. Obama had been talking so long I had forgotten she was there.

Progressive is a better term than liberal, I mean Reactionaries get to call themselves conservatives so we should get to choose our nomiker as well.

Or a teevee studio.

Or a radio studio.

or a printing press.

or a PC.

Or a MAC.

Or a podium.

The moon maybe, but that's as close as I'll go.

"whatever hope of support Senator Clinton had from me completely evaporated."

Please.  As if she ever had a chance of getting your support?

Yes thank you! I agree with you wholeheartedly as a Jewish American.

Well, I am a Jewish American, and I understand the difference between "denounce" and "reject", and I liked Clinton's answer MUCH, MUCH better.

Obama said all chummy like "well, I can't tell someone who thinks I am a good guy to get lost".  Even if it is Louis Farrakhan.  

Yes, you can tell them to get lost.  And that was exactly Hillary's point.  And I think it is a great point - and something that Obama looked very naive to me in that he, as a Law professor, did not seem to understand.  Give me a break - he understands the difference perfectly well.

No, he didn't want to alienate anyone from his side, even if they are racist bigot supporters that have no place being his supporters.  They are "his" racist bigot supporters.  And I think he reluctantly said that he "rejects" them, for whatever that is worth, and only when forcefully prompted to do so by Senator Clinton.

I hope he doesn't need such tutoring when it comes to Hamas, Iran, et al, even if they "think Obama is a great guy".

FYI - Ohio is probably about 3% Jewish and Texas 1%.  Probably doesn't matter to appeal to them, but there are a lot of people out there who think we have no business with Farrakhan, myself included.

I would like to answer this.  Obviously, I would send in Scout first, with some explosive fire-arrows....

At the risk of stating the obvious:  Russert sucks

I have got to disagree. I think Obama pulled off looking WAY better than Clinton especially at the beginning. All the crowds reactions (as few as they were) were from something Obama said.

Show them a graphic

I was botherd by that, too. It's not tiny. It tells you a lot about his self-esteem.

I miss debate clocks.

I agree, mostly because debates hardly ever change anything, unless they're completely one-sided, like the first Kerry-Bush debate. And even that wasn't enough in the end.

amen

Um.... why did he look weak?

Post examples please...

Personally I think his debate strategy was perfect. He didn't let Hillary score any real points and didn't make any mistakes his own.

that doesn't really matter at this point. Most people are going to talk about the reject/denounce line.

horrible moderation.

"and she's a girl"?!?!?!

Care to explain that or are you just trolling?

After the crap about the "snub" he pretty much has to do anything polite.

It's called being a gentleman. Sorry if you haven't had experience with it.

She was hardly doing that. She was pointing out what she did differently in a similar situation. it may not resonate with you but there are those for whom it will.

Look, I support Obama and I find no merit to your charge.  It's not clear if she was trying to support Obama or appear more enthusiastic in her denunciation of hate groups.  Eithe way, she was not implying that Obama was anti-Semitic.

Did you even hear what she said? She said that she was endorsed by people she though were hateful and not only did she "denounce" their words as Obama said he's done, but she "rejected" their support, as Obama said he can't. It's really easy to reject someone's support. You say, "I reject Farrakhan's endorsement of me, because his support symbolically or no is not the kind of support I want."

"Jonathan is pretty disgusted by Hillary's attempt to paint Obama as anti-Semitic.  
How do you defend her actions?"

I had the exact opposite reaction to her pushing him on categorically rejecting the Farrakhan endorsement (note: my background is half Jewish, and this has been an issue for me). Her campaign here in NY has many people in it who have pointedly rejected Obama specifically because of his history of contact with Farrakhan which gives the appearance of tacit acceptance of his views, regardless of what Obama called his "denunciation" of him. This is specific feedback that his campaign supporters will not give him, because they are not in his campaign. It is a huge deal to some people, who can be extremely vocal and organized if they want to be. Quite a few articles have been written about this issue, because there are those in the Jewish community who do not trust Obama due to this Farrakhan connection. It is a political time bomb.

Hillary actually pushed him into outright public rejection of that Farrakhan endorsement, which may be to his long term benefit , and to the Democratic Party's benefit. The party leaders cannot be seen as soft on anti-semitism, it won't fly. Obama appeared to me to be hedging and refusing to reject that endorsement when asked to, and I could easily see that hedging blossoming into an ugly and divisive fissure in the party in the future.

There is a point where if Barack Obama want to be the nominee for president his views are no longer entirely his own to determine - he becomes the head of the Democratic Party, and must reflect basic core values without compromise or weaseling out. We have many Democratic elected officials who's seats also depend on their constituents feeling comfortable and trusting in the Democratic Party commitment to equality, and condemnation of anti-semitism. That is not to say there is not room for vigorous disagreement between party members and our standard bearer on other issues, but on some issues we must remain strongly united.

There is no reason to be soft on anti-semitism, or to think it can be coddled in a endorser. If someone was being equivocal about rejecting a white supremacist's endorsement it could not help but backfire.

There should be no question on Barack Obama's stand on Farrakhan, there is much too much rumbling going on in the background about his relationship with him. He may be glad in the end to have rejected that endorsement publicly. It was a trap set for him that he did not escape on his own when it was sprung on him, so going that extra mile to "reject" the endorsement was valuable.

That was my sincere impression of that very awkward and unfortunate exchange. Personally, I would have liked to swat him for refusing to publicly reject Farrakhan's endorsement. It was unacceptable to me, and his not "getting it" seemed very out of touch.

Yes.

Because McCain is an awful debater.

I watched most of the GOP debates.  He comes across as angry and somewhat hot-tempered... even irrational.

You use the term "experience" as if it means a single thing.  Well, neither McCain nor Obama has experience being president.  Moreover, sometimes people have the wrong kind of experience, such as being the waterboy for a terrible president.  McCain is one such example.

If the debate is held after 7pm Eastern time.

Senator McCain gets cranky if he's up past his bedtime.

Seriously, he looked terrible and tired at the GOP debates.

So Hillary can make those insinuations, but we're not allowed to address them?

Quite frankly, what she did there made me sick. Especially since it looked like she was going to chime in and back up Barack much like Barack did for Biden in the Des Moines debate, but she used it to score some cheap points.

Don't waste your breath. This is has been the MO of the Obama blogosphere since the campaign started.

Wonderful strategy for his campaign. The candidate stays above the fray while benefiting fully from the divisive, racist, and sexist tactics of his supporters.

How unfortunate for him and his supporters that no one will care when the GE starts. Right now the blogosphere looks important given his string of victories. But that is based on the media lying low until the General. His blogosphere support will mean nothing to the General Public.

I still believe that she will pull it out. But if she doesn't, a real evil part of me will love watching the take down that's coming.

(Given McCain's increasing erratic nature, Obama will pull it off. But it will be without the mandate he craves after months of press sliming. He's not USED to it. Wild adulation from his supporters doesn't help.)

"I urge you to immediately take back your insinuations that Hillary Clinton was accusing Barack Obama of being insufficiently hostile towards anti-Semitism."

As a Jewish liberal Democrat, I thought what Jon Singer said was beyond belief. Where in the hell do you come up with this crap? Hillary made an excellent point about condemnation vs. rejection and Obama was forced to concede the point. You don't just accept all the nice things Farrakhan said about Obama and simply fall back on a previous statement condemning his anti-Semitism, you should reject him outright.

She pointed out the fact that she got the first question a LOT is not to impress the audience. It is to warn Brian Williams and Tim Russert. It worked fine. I like that she tamed them.

I agree with you. Had Russert not followed up, it would have been left at that and nobody would have thought twice about it.

If she was being critical of Obama, she simply was chiding him for not going all the way in condemning Farrakhan. He hesitated just a little when Russert/Williams asked him if he would reject his support. There's a far cry from that and her saying that Obama actually agrees with Farrakhan.

It's a lot like when they talk about special interests. Both talk about how much influence they have. Then Obama says, well, you take their money. Is he implying that Clinton thinks lobbyists should be declared saints and will do whatever the lobbyists tell her? No, just that she should go further and cut them off altogether.

Of all the things that have irritated me this campaign, the casual and reckless throwing of charges of racism and race-baiting have annoyed me the most by far.

You would need to know the difference between inspiration and emotionalism.

If you want an inspirational speech, go his site and watch his speeches

If you want to hear him be a wonk, watch him be specific in a debate or read his policy positions

Obama's answer to the Hillary "sarcasm speech" was boring and flat... I wanted him to push back harder.  

After that?  He did great.  It seemed like he got easier questions.

Let's all trust the people and the process to decide who's ready to be president.  

His job in this debate was to show that he can do more than give an inspiring speech.  He did that. He handled policy details in a clear and direct way and demonstrated that he is most certainly not all fluff, all hat/no cattle.

or George W.

Come on!

What answer did he give that was shallow and insipid?  

Does announcing your candidate as a winner makes your candidate a winner?

I'm wondering if you've ever said one thing negative about Hillary CLinton or have ever once criticized anything that she or her campaign has done. I'm not criticizing you but instead offering a piece of advice: if you want to be taken seriously, show an ounce of objectivity every now and then.

As a Clinton supporter, I will say that it seemed she had a better night. However, Obama didn't do bad. I don't believe it was his goal was to "win". His aim was to just not make a mistake - and he succeeded. With the moderators allowing him to filibuster the whole time, it wasn't a very tall task.

Actually, this was brilliant.  Clinton needed to sharpen the differences between them and Obama prevented her from doing that -- except in issues where he had a clear advantage, such as NAFTA and Iraq.

did you miss ALL 19 of the previous debates?

I would have really liked to see that focus, but O and C are just not substantively that different enough on education to have a decent debate, especially right now.  They would have just tripped over themselves saying that NCLB isn't good enough and that our kids need music and art and science too... wouldn't have gone anywhere.  

We'll see the Dem contender match up (and hopefully embarrass) McCain on the issue.

I agree. The fraying around the edges was showing. But, everyone brings their own bias to these things and I'm sure we all thought our own candidate won.

It was an interesting atmosphere, with Russert playing a crude and relentless game of "gotcha" with both candidates. I often spotted each candidate carefully watch the other field a "gotcha" question with a hopeful and approving expression. They both know it's close to over, and neither one wants to see the Democratic nominee feed any ammo to McCain.

A lot of other consideration goes into choosing a church beyond the pastor or even the denomination.

It also occurs to me, a complete outsider on this subject (I am both white and completely non-religious,) that from an African-American Pastor's point of view there is a great deal more to Farrakhan than his anti-semetic views. I am not willing to throw Obama under the bus because his pastor happens to respect and admire Farrakhan (and I thought it was ridiculous that Hillary attacked Obama for not rejecting Farrakhan after he used the word denounce. I have the distinct feeling that if he had used the word reject she would have made the same attack and said "You should denounce him, Barack.")

"I'm not saying she deserves it, but she IS a polarizing figure.  "

Hillary is considered "divisive" because she has been demonized for the past 20 years by the right wing, who have told lies about her over and over and over until the lies cannot be easily undone. Democrats should have stood up long ago to that right wing demonization, but they didn't. It always blows me away when Democrats then call her "polarizing" instead of backing her up. Obama using it against her is one of the most unfair and unjust maneuverings I have ever seen.