Perhaps all the emotions regarding June 1968 will serve useful purpose in that they will help us to understand what figure in recent US presidential campaign history Hillary Clinton most resembles.

People have tried comparing Barack Obama to other historical figures, such as Lincoln (inexperienced) or Martin Luther King (inspiring, but powerless).

Because of our  gender-dominated consciousness, we have been much less able to use historical figures to understand  Hillary Clinton.

Perhaps one possibility should be explored:  Hubert H. Humphrey

And I certainly trust no one will say - that's ridiculous, she's a woman!

You thought I would have learned from the MLK slam fiasco, but no, as usual, I have to learn hard lessons at least twice.

As soon as I saw the diary on the plausibly deniable Osama humor mudball thrown at Obama I was blasting my email list in outrage.

Then literally seconds after completing the blast I realized that is exactly what CNN and the Clinton campaign wanted....

As a former Krugman worshipper now bitterly disappointed in my erstwhile hero, I'll admit it:  I am well, er, um, rather somewhat obsessed with his stance on Obama, especially now.

His column today did not fail to dissapoint.

In Lessons of 92

He basically says that Bill was sunny in 1992, things got ugly anyway, don't expect anything different.

But deep in the article is a critical shift....

Many of us have been labeling the rapid fire barrage of attacks immediately before  Super Tuesday as as classic Rovian tactic:  "Swift Boating" as it has become known.

For this we have been received either scorn or simple wide eyed amazement, as if a Democrat could never use Rove's tactics, even less so kind Hillary Clinton.

But her gloating over her enjoyment at using such tactics has become too much.

One can reach a firm conclusion:

Anything brought up by the Clinton campaign so late must be presumed false until proven true beyond a reasonable doubt, something which could take weeks.

Today the true authority on "Swift Boat" tactics,  John Kerry, spoke out in a letter sent today to Obama supporters.

We have all struggled to interpret the Clinton campaign attacks of the past months. Applying old terms: racism (certainly not), race-baiting (not only) has proven unfruitful.  I believe that is because it is a combination of techniques custom-made to specifically irritate the Senator and his supporters at their vulnerable points.  I call it "Obama-baiting."

I learned of a new concept this week, something they did not teach me at the fancy graduate school where I got my history degree (OK, I was in non-US history): race-baiting.  Race-baiting is something which I have just learned must not under any circumstances be confusing with racism.

Many bloggers (perhaps with political science degrees) use political insider shorthand like race-baiting and "dog-whistling," as if we all knew the precise meaning of these terms when they describe numerous actions of the Clinton campaign.

But most of us don't.

This diary will attempt to unpack the terms with the fresh eye of a novice and apply them to recent events.

Two rec'd diaries above have suberbly documented HRC's comments belittling the role of MLK in the civil rights movement.

Unfortunately, mainstream media don't seem to be focusing on it yet.

Goodness knows what would have happened if Ben Smith from Politico hadn't been on hand to report it on the net to be be picked up by dKos and others.  Fox could have sunk it or edited out her "offensive statement".

This is one of those decisive moments where the netroots make a difference.

Now we need to make sure that the mainstream media picks this up and focuses on it NOW, in the NH primary news cycle.

We all need to depart our internal arguments on dKOS and comment on the mainstream media and other progressive sites, doing everything we can to make sure the story gets covered.  As HRC said "let the converstation begin!"

The latest political dispute centers on Obama supporters' disruption of Mrs. Clinton's speech yesterday in the Granite State.

As a devoted gentle reader of Miss Manners, I feel obliged to comment on what etiquette says about a party political rally.

Sorry for duplicate post:  I'm new to searching for posts in other diaries.

The New York Times is reporting http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/...
that an informal agreement on mutual support has been reached between the Obama campaign and the Richardson campaign:

David Plouffe, Obama campaign manager, responding to the report that Mr. Obama had reached an agreement for reciprocal support with Bill Richardson’s campaign, insisted the campaign had reached "no formal arrangements" with any of his rivals. But he said that "there are certainly places where our precinct captains want to work with Richardson" supporters — to gain second-choice support in cases where Mr. Richardson doesn’t reach the threshold to compete, or to lend Mr. Richardson surplus backers in instances where they can’t yield any additional Obama delegates.

Obama's ability for coalition building shines again!

All of Paul Krugman's articles between October 29 and December 28 have mysteriously disappeared from the site of the NYT. See http://topics.nytimes.com/...

There are numerous theories about their disappearance.

There are rumors of weird family strife between Paul and his unbeknownst-'til-now evil twin brother, Skippy.  Some think Bloggers have played a role, both his ever-devoted fans and the angry recently estranged.

What do you think?

As most of us know, in recent weeks we have all noticed some rather erratic and disconcerting behaviour from our journalistic hero Paul Krugman.  

Well, a blog entry yesterday shows that things are really slipping, logic-wise.

First a description of the condition: The issues he has chosen to support and focus on, health care mandates, and outside financing of political  campaigns, are important.  I mean as an uninsured middle-income person who might be financially affected by a lack of mandates, I could have some feelings, but our Paul is sadly obsessed with the issue.

However, I think all sane progressives would agree that the war is important, indeed more important than mandates.

In a his blog post yesterday, Krugman seems to be remembering this, as if trying to awake from a poison spell someone has cast upon him:

Dear Kossacks,

Today could be an excellent day for proving yet again the critical value of dKOS as a vital journalistic resource for our times.

I don't know how the result will turn out, it may even be beneficial for those who prefer another candidate over the  one I support, but the truth will  out in any case, and I have hope that some dKOS community journalists (sounds nicer than "blogger", eh?) can be the ones to break the real story.

In today's NYT http://www.nytimes.com/... Maureen Dowd devotes her entire column to an analysis of the thought of one of today's most respected commentators: Rush Limbaugh.

She uses the column to explicate that while men are, naturally, fiends, and worse, boringly unchanging fiends, women are to be pitied and rejoiced in as they age, with Hillary as the perfect model, one minute harried, the other radient.

These two are a perfect duet.  Limbaugh sets up a perfect dummy,  because he wants to see Clinton nominated (and defeated), then Dowd proceeds to play the gender card full force.

In his column in today's New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/... David Brooks (following colleagues Frank Rich and Roger Cohen) throws his weight behind Barack Obama.

Moreover it is not an anti-Hillary tract by any means.  It is a very articulate analysis of Obama's qualifications for president, an excellent companion to Andrew Sullivan's piece in the Atlantic.

As a progressive, I never thought I'd be heartily agreeing with Brooks over Krugman, but there you are.  That's the sort of campaign this is turning out to be, and Obama seems to be steadily but surely already fulfilling his promise of bridging the gap between right and left to move us forward, progressively.  Quotes from Brooks follow.....

It was OK for Bill Clinton to be President at 46 with little national or international experience, because the Boomers felt he was "one of us."

Now the boomers are older, and while Obama is also a boomer, he is a "baby baby boomer", and most boomers are older than him.

Voting for someone younger than you to be president just feels weird, and is yet another sign of aging.

I'm surprised the media has not latched on to this simple explanation.

Clinton and Edwards hold that mandatory health insurance this will lower health insurance premiums for all.

Obama says we can't mandate health insurance until everyone can afford it.

How to solve this chicken-and-egg problem???.....

Former Clinton administration officials Anthony Lake (National Security Advisor, Richard Danzig (Navy Secretary) and Susan Rice (Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs know the Clintons, their grasp of foreign affairs and their policies.

And they support Obama....(continued)  

I just scanned the whole Klein-bashing fest filled with exquisite analysis of Klein's mistakes in the extremely complex area of foreign intelligence surveillance.

Excellent.

I may be a little behind the power curve here, but bad as these things are, what left me aghast was not these errors, but Klein's breathtaking bias in the Time cover story of Nov. 19 "What Hillary Believes" (continues).....