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Washington - Hillary Clinton ended her presidential campaign today with a call for her those who backed her to unite behind former rival Barack Obama.
In a speech to supporters at the National Building Museum in Washington, Clinton congratulated Obama saying, “I endorse him and throw my full support behind him.”
With her unqualified endorsement, Clinton pivoted from her role as determined foe to absolute ally of the first black to secure a presidential nomination.
As recently as Tuesday, the former first lady continued to cast herself as the candidate best able to defeat Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain.
Obama, who had enough delegates to clinch the nomination after Tuesday's primaries in South Dakota and Montana, planned to spend the weekend at home in Chicago.

wtvm.com

In 2004, John Kerry discounted advice that he should respond quickly and firmly to the swiftboating libels sweeping through the internet with the infectivity of Avian Flu in a chicken coop. He paid the price.
Barack Obama and his friends had learned that lesson, and when the scurrilous campaign began months ago suggesting that he was a Muslim, they worked hard to beat it down. To set the record straight, a new website has even been created: IsBarackObamaMuslim.com. Web surfers curious about the answer to the question posed by the site’s domain name are answered definitively: “No.”
Despite these efforts, however, the lies have continued to circulate over email and the internet. Now, in the run-up to this weekend’s primary in Puerto Rico, they seem to have taken on a new form. A viral email containing a Spanish-language Power Point illustrated with crudely photoshopped pictures of Obama repeats the old slander that he was born and brought up a Muslim and is, in effect, a terrorist sleeper posing as a Christian. It concludes by calling on voters - Latino voters, presumably - to “Vote for Hillary Clinton or John McCain but not for a radical Muslim, masquerading as a westerner, who wants to be in the most powerful position in the planet.” An apocalyptic image of Obama, with hellfire ringing his head, accompanies the message. Its caption reads: “America will bow down to Islam”.
An indignant friend sent me a copy that had been passed on blithely by a former employee in Latin America, who obeyed the injunction at the end of the vicious display to send it to all her friends in the US.
And they have been sending it. My friend and I tracked the email back through several iterations before the email addresses were deleted. But it obviously has already enjoyed wide circulation from people who really should know better. Just scrutinizing the fuzzy photo credits reveals that several of the images were lifted from a site, www.freakingnews.com that actually runs continual photoshopping competitions! But few readers will check these things before passing them on. Indeed the English version claimed it had been verified by Snopes.com the web’s main hoax detector - which in fact had categorically refuted its accusations.

commentisfree.guardian.co.uk

LOUISVILLE, Ky. | Kentucky bigwig Ben Chandler, a new U.S. rep and grandson of a former governor, will endorse Barack Obama today, Obama’s state campaign director said.
 The endorsement would give Obama the support of Kentucky’s two Democratic congressmen — who represent the state’s most urban areas — leading into the state’s May 20 primary.
 Carolyn Tandy, Obama’s campaign director in Kentucky, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that Chandler will announce his support for Obama at a late-morning news conference in downtown Louisville.
Chandler represents a central Kentucky district that includes Lexington. He entered Congress in early 2004 after winning a special election to fill the seat of Republican Ernie Fletcher, who defeated him in the state’s 2003 gubernatorial election. Chandler is also a former attorney general and state auditor.
 The Chandler name is one of the most famous in Kentucky politics. Ben Chandler’s grandfather, A.B. “Happy” Chandler, was twice elected governor, served in the U.S. Senate and was commissioner of baseball.
By The AP

primebuzz.kcstar.com

It seems Barack Obama got into some trouble over some unseemly remarks about the fears and attitudes of some of the middle class. Although his comments did not sound nasty or belittling to my ears, more like a concerned man trying to make sense of other people’s frustrations, noone claims he wouldn’t take the words back if he could, or that his supporters would deter him. Still you’d think by the all the hoopla this story has received, he’d raised his glass to Hitler.
Hillary Clinton, staunch defender of the middle class she’s recently lost steady ground to in Pennsylvania, will take any opportunity to kick Obama hard whenever he “slips” (which is rarely). Still- for a woman worth $100+ million dollars, who resides in a large, gated home in tony Chappaqua, New York, and has openly courted the American elite over the years, renting out the Lincoln Bedroom like The Four Seasons Hotel, assuming the mantle of the middle class is both transparent and an act of desperation. She calls Obama “elitist” and “out of touch”, and his comments “demeaning”.
This is ludicrous bunk, and pure political opportunism on Hillary’s part. No doubt about it- she knows how to fight dirty when she’s down. But I’m hoping and praying that enough Americans will see right through her.
Now here’s a sobering question: is there not some truth in what Obama said?
There were three main issues that surfaced in his words, all of them real and present in our society: the role of faith in politics, the controversial topic of gun control, and the impact of race and diversity in America.
First, here are lots of people in this country who choose not to abide by a fundamental tenet of our democracy: namely, the separation of Church and State. Just watch “Jesus Camp”, the eerie documentary about the evangelicals, a surprisingly large group in this country, and behold how their thoroughly indoctrinated kiddies pray for “W.” every day. The leader of their sect claims he delivered millions of voters to Bush (born again by Billy Graham after one too many D.W.I’s), and that they talk by phone each week. Can America now live with a President brave enough to say that his task as President has nothing to do with his faith? John Kennedy said so nearly fifty years ago, and even then it resonated. So, it would appear that whatever the fiery Reverend Wright has to say in his pulpit would likely not influence Obama’s presidential policies.

huffingtonpost.com

NEW YORK Bill Richardson has made his decision. The New Mexico governor and former presidential candidate will endorse Barack Obama in Portland, Ore., says Andrew Malcolm at the L.A. Times’ Top of the Ticket. Richardson, who was heavily courted by both candidates, may still be considering a vice presidential bid.
Geraldine Ferraro, a former Clinton adviser who left the campaign after insinuating Obama’s success was due to his race, repudiated the Illinois senator’s comparison of her to his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright in Tuesday’s speech, says Alec MacGillis at washingtonpost.com’s The Trail. Ferraro told the Daily Breeze in Torrence, Calif., that while Obama made a good speech, he didn’t condemn Wright enough, and surmised they did so because, “They’re looking at their base. Their base is African Americans. They’re looking at that and they’re trying to walk a very thin line. They don’t want to offend the African Americans, and this is the way he did it.”
Rev. Wright showed up with another person on the campaign trail. Pictures of the controversial pastor and Bill Clinton surfaced, courtesy of the Obama camp, says John McCormick at the Chicago Tribune’s The Swamp. The two men appear with other clerics at an annual prayer breakfast in 1998.
Two State Department employees were fired, and another reprimanded for improperly accessing Obama’s passport file three times since January, says Helene Cooper at The New York Times’ The Caucus. This isn’t the first time a similar breach of security occurred about a presidential candidate. In 1992, State Department officials accessed information about Bill Clinton during rumors that he tried to renounce his citizenship to dodge the draft.
The numbers are out about how much the candidates spent on their campaigns in February. The big news: Clinton and Obama together spent more in February than John McCain has in his entire yearlong campaign, says Mark Memmott at USA Today’s On Politics. Clinton spent about $1 million a day and Obama spent close to $1.5 million a day.

mediainfo.com

Some of the campaign and political news making headlines this morning:
• USA TODAY — Dems say it would be unfair for Clinton to win thanks to super delegates: "A majority of Democratic voters (55%) say it would be unfair for Hillary Rodham Clinton to win the presidential nomination through the support of ’super delegates’ if she lags among the convention delegates elected in primaries and caucuses, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. If that happens, one in five say they wouldn’t vote for the New York senator in the general election." Related post from yesterday: Both Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama are slightly ahead of Republican Sen. John McCain, but neither has a lead wider than the margin of error.
• The St. Petersburg Times — "Backroom dealmaking" is the only way Florida Dems will get to participate: Because the Florida Democratic Party has given up trying to hold another presidential primary, "any hope for allowing Florida to participate in the hotly contested nominating fight between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama lies with backroom dealmaking and the willingness of the major stakeholders, particularly the candidates, to find a solution."
Related story in the Detroit Free Press — Legislators start considering plan for new primary in Michigan: "Legislative leaders got their first look Monday at a draft bill that could be taken up as early as today ordering a second Democratic presidential primary in Michigan on June 3. The primary would be paid for with money that would be raised privately by the party. Democratic Party leaders who developed the plan, which also would move scheduled school elections from May 5 to the primary date, back it as a way out of the impasse between the campaigns of Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama over the legitimacy of the state’s Jan. 15 election, which was held in violation of national party rules."

blogs.usatoday.com

On this day in 1881, Vice President Chester Arthur broke a 37-37 tie to cast the deciding vote over competing Republican and Democratic slates of Senate committee chairmen and members. But the Democrats refused to budge on replacing the officers they had chosen in the previous Congress. The ensuing stalemate froze Senate business for the next two months.
The Senate had convened in a special session to deal with nominations for federal office submitted by James Garfield, the newly inaugurated president. In November 1880, the Garfield-Arthur ticket had won the White House by fewer than 10,000 votes.
Soon Republicans split over the issue of filling the New York customs post Arthur once held. Sen. Roscoe Conkling (R-N.Y.) held that senators should exercise personal control over federal appointments within state boundaries. Conkling had resisted efforts by the prior Republican president, Rutherford Hayes, to enact civil service reforms.
In response to Garfield’s failure to take the New York senators into account, both Conkling and Thomas Platt, New York’s new junior senator, resigned in May. They anticipated the New York legislature would soon reelect them and, in so doing, send the White House a message about how to deal with powerful senators. But that did not happen.
Their resignations gave the Democrats a two-vote Senate majority. In the spirit of compromise, the Democrats agreed not to press their numerical advantage and did not insist on resuming control of committees. In return, the Republicans allowed the Democratic staff holdovers to remain in office, at least until the next session.
After Garfield’s assassination in September, the Senate halted its internal management battle. Arthur moved into the White House to begin a surprisingly able run in the presidency.
People still listen when Greenspan speaks; AP reports U.S. military will soon suffer 4,000th death of Iraq war. Check out the most recent edition of Playbook.

politico.com

Days after Senator Barack Obama became embroiled in a controversy involving comments made by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., his longtime church pastor, Mr. Obama will give a “major address” on race and politics today in Philadelphia. He’s expected to begin at 10:15 a.m.
Jodi Kantor and Jeff Zeleny of The New York Times write that Senator Obama, who was still writing the speech on Monday night, believes it “could be one of the most important of his presidential candidacy.”
Mr. Obama said Monday that in his speech, to be given at the National Constitution Center, he would “talk a little bit about how some of these issues are perceived from within the black church community, for example, which I think views this very differently.”
After removing Mr. Wright from a religious advisory committee on his campaign on Friday, Mr. Obama concluded over the weekend that he had not sufficiently explained his association with the pastor. He told several aides he was worried that if voters did not hear directly from him — in the setting of a major speech — doubts and questions about him might grow.
Obama has been struggling to deal with the comments of Rev. Jeremiah Wright for several days, since videotaped sermons surfaced in which Wright said, among other things, that African-Americans should sing “God Damn America” instead of “God Bless America.”
Obama pointedly ended a speech at a community college in western Pennsylvania Monday morning with the words “God Bless America”—an uncharacteristic closing for him.
By the way, Bill Clinton said in a recent CNN interview that his remarks back in January comparing Mr. Obama with Rev. Jesse Jackson weren’t meant to be racist. Interpreting them as such is “a total myth and a mugging,” the former president said.
The Obama speech puts race back in the media spotlight after a day focused on Iraq and Wall Street. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, spent Monday in Baghdad with other members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com

Let’s just say it: some of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s theories and sermons have been, well, shall we say "out there."
Like, for instance, the notion that the U.S. government started the AIDS virus.
Or his "God damn, America!" speech.
Brian Ross took a look at Wright yesterday, the Wall Street Journal does today, and yesterday we pointed out that despite Obama’s attempt to dismiss these questions by portraying Wright as some kindly old uncle, the reverend has an official role on the Obama campaign.
The Wright issue is not going away for Mr. Obama. The campaign of Sen. John McCain sent out the WSJ op-ed this morning to reporters. His views will be painted as radical and anti-American, and Obama will be asked which ones he agrees with and which ones he doesn’t.
McCain, you may recall, was pushed to disassociate himself from some of the more controversial comments of Pastor John Hagee — and unlike Wright with Obama, Hagee is hardly McCain’s spiritual adviser, nor did he marry McCain to either of his wives.
But the Obama campaign seems to think that by holding its breath and closing its eyes this will all go away.
I don’t get the sense it will. What do you think?

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Should McCain Reject and Denounce Minister Rod Parsley?
by Sheila Musaji
Now things begin to get even more interesting, and if John McCain continues to pile up such supporters he will have more and more to reject, denounce, and apologize for - at least if there is any logic to the reasoning for the demands made for other candidates to denounce and reject particular supporters.
According to an article in Mother Jones McCain’s Spiritual Guide: Destroy Islam, “On February 26, McCain appeared at a campaign rally in Cincinnati with the Reverend Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church of Columbus…” The article further notes that ”Parsley praised the Republican presidential front-runner as a “strong, true, consistent conservative.””
So, it is clear not only that Parsley is supporting McCain, but that McCain is showing respect for the man.
This is the same Rod Parsley who published a book in 2005 Silent No More which includes a chapter (chapter 5) titled “Islam: The Deception of Allah.”In that book Parsley says: “I cannot tell you how important it is that we understand the true nature of Islam, that we see it for what it really is. In fact, I will tell you this: I do not believe our country can truly fulfill its divine purpose until we understand our historical conflict with Islam. I know that this statement sounds extreme, but I do not shrink from its implications. The fact is that America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.” In this book Parsley made further claims that can only be seen as hate speech.

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