Senator Clinton's strategy is  to damage Senator Obama at any cost. This serves two purposes. 1st to damage Senator Obama's reputation to the point Superdelegates
overturn the people's candidate which isn't likely, and as I have now come to believe she damages his chances of beating Senator McCain  so that she can beat McCain in 2012. It has become quite clear she cannot catch up to Senator Obama and it's quite clear she can't wait for Senator Obama to serve two terms and then try again. 2012 is now the sole purpose for her continuing this race. Her number 1 "issue" is can he take the heat? What kind of heat are we talking about? Tough questions on the economy, Health care, The war. No she is throwing the "bathroom sink at him" I imagine the Republicans love this and for good reason. I want to see Senator Obama tested because he will be under fire from the enemy. But how far should we "test him on non issues? We need to come together don't we?

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Over the last five weeks, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has featured in her campaign stump speeches the story of a health care horror: an uninsured pregnant woman who lost her baby and died herself after being denied care by an Ohio hospital because she could not come up with a $100 fee.

The woman, Trina Bachtel, did die last August, two weeks after her baby boy was stillborn at O'Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio. But hospital administrators said Friday that Ms. Bachtel was under the care of an obstetrics practice affiliated with the hospital, that she was never refused treatment and that she was, in fact, insured.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/05 /clinton-under-fire-over-f_n_95218.html

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More on the Clinton campaign's continuing efforts to mislead us about how much money certain companies and industries are giving to the Obama campaign, her campaign today released another highly misleading memo that tries to paint another insidious picture about Obama.

Here's the memo:

False Advertising: New Obama Ad Falsely Claims He Does Not Accept Money From Oil Companies   

Phil Singer: "It's unfortunate that Senator Obama is using false advertising to explain why he can be trusted to do something about energy prices. Senator Obama says he doesn't take campaign contributions from oil companies but the reality is that Exxon, Shell, and others are among his donors. I wonder if they'll fix the ad."

A new ad by Sen. Obama running in Pennsylvania falsely claims that Sen. Obama does not accept money from the oil industry. In the ad, Sen. Obama says "I'm Barack Obama and I don't take money from oil companies or lobbyists and I won't let them block change anymore."

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Sen. Obama has received over $160,000 from the oil and gas companies. Two major bundlers for his campaign -- George Kaiser and Robert Cavnar - are oil company CEOs. Sen. Obama has accepted money from Exxon, Shell, BP, Chevron and just about every other major oil company. Just last month, Sen. Obama accepted another $8,400 from ExxonMobil, $12,370 from Chevron and $6,500 from British Petroleum.

In 2005, Sen. Obama voted for the Dick Cheney energy bill, which was written in secret with the oil industry. Hillary Clinton opposed Cheney's energy bill, has a plan to eliminate oil industry tax breaks, and would require oil companies to contribute to a $50 billion strategic energy fund to jumpstart research and investment in clean energy technologies.

Claiming that a candidate has "taken... money from" a certain entity or industry is false and misleading.

The above Clinton campaign memo is trying to incorrectly imply that Obama is accepting money from oil and gas-funded PACs and/or lobbyists.

The problem with this is that when they make the claim that "Sen. Obama has received over $160,000 from the oil and gas companies", they are relying on reports submitted to the Federal Election Commission by their opponents, which contain a variety of details on each of their donors. Federal law requires that these donor reports contain the name of each donor's employer.

As a result, when a candidate makes a claim that their opponent "accept[s] money from" a certain company they are simply saying that certain employees of that company made a donation to their opponent.In other words, it could be a VP of that company, or a Secretary, or a Janitor.

With this laid out there, I'm sure you see where I am going with this.

When Hillary Clinton says that Obama "Sen. Obama has received over $160,000 from the oil and gas companies", they are purposefully using this statement to implant an insidious implication in the listener that somehow the company or industry in question is somehow undertaking a company-wide effort to bankroll Obama.

However, if you stop and think about it, this is ludicrous.  Especially when you consider that corporations are prohibited by federal law from making donations to a presidential candidate!

As a thought exercise to flesh this out in your mind, go to a site like Open Secrets that lets you search the donor records for the presidential candidates. Then go ahead and search for donations by your employer or a well-known employer like Wal-Mart. If you do a Wal-Mart search, you'll see that a variety of people have donated to presidential campaigns, including a Dock Worker, a Buyer and a Computer Consultant.

Addressing the Clinton Campaign specific allegation about receiving donations from "oil and gas companies", you'll note from an Open Secrets search on Exxon that a variety of different types of people have donated to the Obama campaign, including a Physician, an Engineer, a Rackman, and a "Global Training Advisor.

Wrapping up this point, my ultimate complaint is that when Hillary Clinton says that Obama "Sen. Obama has received over $160,000 from the oil and gas companies", she is basically laboring under the assumption that we are either idiots or ignorant of what she's really talking about. She is intentionally trying to plant a false and misleading insinuation that somehow the subprime lenders are in the tank for Obama and making nefarious plans to get him elected. This is categorically untrue.

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We all have our opinions on the Wright controversy but I personally believe that it is inappropriate for Senator Clinton to tell Barack Obama where he should or should not worship.  

I understand the concerns out there about how badly the Wright controversy hurts Obama but, folks, have we really gotten into a situation in this country where a rival Democratic candidate for President should be sitting down with a right-wing wingnut newspaper (that previously accused her of plotting to kill Vince Foster) and stoking the fires of a religious controversy that can only help the Republican nominee in the general election.

Well, apparently a long list of ministers think that this is beyond the pale.

Here is the open letter they wrote to Senator Clinton:

Open Letter To Senator Clinton From Diverse Group of Prominent Religious Leaders

Dear Senator Clinton:

We write to you as people of faith from many backgrounds who love our great country and are concerned with the present tenor of your campaign.

Today, you took a new and disquieting step when you decided that it would be to your political benefit to wade into the waters of the issues surrounding Senator Barack Obama and his former pastor.  This crosses the line and brings us full force into the zone of the politics of personal destruction.

There are those among us who support Rev. Wright and believe his comments were deeply misconstrued.  There are others among us who reject his words outright, even in context.

But across these lines, we stand together, White and Black, Protestant and Catholic, Christian and Jew.

No candidate should use religion as a tool to divide the American people, as you have done today.  By engaging in the politics of personal destruction your campaign runs the risk of turning people off from participating in the democratic process - and that hurts us all. We need this race to be about the values that are important to the American people.

We need to end the war and promote peace around the globe.  America needs real leadership to address the housing crisis, a fighter who will help lift up our economy, and we need a leader in the White House who will tackle issues surrounding world wide climate change.

We urge you to join the debates over those issues instead of using valuable time making personal attacks that diminish both our democracy and our moral standing.

Sincerely,

Dr. T. DeWitt Smith
President
Progressive National Baptist Convention*

Dr. Michael Battle
President Interdenominational Theological Seminary

Sr. Jamie T. Phelps, O.P., Ph.D.
New Orleans, LA

Rev. Dr. Stephen John Thurston
President
National Baptist Convention of America

The Rev. Milton Cole
West Des Moines, IA

Rabbi Moshe Weisblum, Ph.D.
Annapolis, MD

The Rev. Chuck Currie
Portland, OR

Rabbi Abie Ingber
Cincinnati, OH

Rev. Dr. Joseph E. Lowery
Atlanta, GA

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