memeorandum: Sadr rebuffs Iraq government envoy as offensive sputters (Leila Fadel/McClatchy Washington Bureau)

9:15 PM ET, March 30, 2008

Top Items:

Gallup Daily: Obama Now at 52% to Clinton's 42% — McCain still has slight advantage over both Democratic opponents — PRINCETON, NJ — Barack Obama has extended his lead over Hillary Clinton among Democrats nationally to 52% to 42%, the third consecutive Gallup Poll Daily tracking report …

Discussion: The Swamp, The New Republic, Balloon Juice and American Street

Newsweek:

How to Win in a Knife Fight — The Democratic race could well come down to the first contested convention in years. Lessons on how to prevail. — After the last Democratic primary is held in early June, neither Hillary Clinton nor Barack Obama will have enough votes from delegates elected …

Discussion: Dean's World

Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:

BRAZILE EXPLAINS CREDENTIALS COMMITTEE — Donna Brazile was on This Week this morning and explained how the credentials committee works. If she's right, and I'm sure Brazile knows this stuff like the back of her hand, it's even worse for Clinton than I thought.

Discussion: TalkLeft, Balloon Juice and Donklephant

Big Tent Democrat / TalkLeft:

Obama To Blame If The Dem Contest Goes To The Convention — Obama supporter Josh Marshall: … (Emphasis supplied.) What did Clinton actually say? … (Emphasis mine.) Josh's reaction to this? … (Emphasis supplied.) Excuse me? Not even Barack Obama says MI and FL is resolved.

Discussion: Mad Kane's Political Madness

Josh Marshall / Talking Points Memo:

CLINTON: ALL THE WAY TO DENVER — Sen. Clinton gave a pretty astonishing interview to the Washington Post in which she appears to say she will stay in the race till the convention in August, where she will take her fight to the credentials committee to have the delegates from the non-sanctioned Michigan and Florida primaries seated.

Discussion: Matthew Yglesias, Scripting News, Brendan Nyhan, The Carpetbagger Report, The Mahablog and CNN

Aqeel Hussein / Telegraph:

Iraqi army forces defect to Moqtada al-Sadr — With gunfire and explosions echoing round him, Lt Hamid Abbas of the Iraqi Army was letting no car pass unchallenged at his makeshift roadblock on the outskirts of a Basra slum. — His closest scrutiny, however, was reserved …

MSNBC:
Iraq's al-Sadr orders fighters to stop

Discussion: Informed Comment, Associated Press, Taylor Marsh, Babylon & Beyond, Gateway Pundit, Reuters, The Glittering Eye, Buck Naked Politics, American Power, The Seminal, American Street, Donklephant, Winds of Change.NET and Times of London

CNN:
Al-Sadr calls off fighting, orders compliance with Iraqi security

Discussion: Danger Room and Donklephant

Allahpundit / Hot Air:
Cordesman on what's really going on in Basra

Discussion: Weekly Standard Blog, Commentary and New York Times

Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:
Remind me again — who's losing in Basra?

Discussion: The Long War Journal, Redstate, Los Angeles Times, Middle Earth Journal, Roads to Iraq, Liberty Street, rubber hose, PoliGazette, Instapundit.com and NewsBusters.org

Bill Roggio / The Long War Journal:
Mahdi Army taking significant casualties in Baghdad, South

Discussion: The Strata-Sphere, McClatchy Washington Bureau, Wake up America, American Power, Flopping Aces, Big Lizards and Informed Comment

New York Times:
In This Shiite Battle, a Marked Shift From the Past

Discussion: Commentary and The Left Coaster

Sholnn Freeman / Washington Post: Shiite Cleric Sadr Offers Conditions for Cease-Fire

Leila Fadel / McClatchy Washington Bureau:
Sadr rebuffs Iraq government envoy as offensive sputters

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, Middle Earth Journal and American Street

Kenneth P. Vogel / The Politico:

Cash-strapped Clinton fails to pay bills — Hillary Rodham Clinton's cash-strapped presidential campaign has been putting off paying hundreds of bills for months — freeing up cash for critical media buys but also earning the campaign a reputation as something of a deadbeat in some small-business circles.

Discussion: D-Day, Wake up America, Truthdig, Don Surber, Hot Air, Patterico's Pontifications, Pat Dollard, The Reaction, The Moderate Voice, Balloon Juice, Sweetness & Light, The Other McCain, Prairie Weather, Donklephant and JammieWearingFool

Richard M. Scaife / PittsburghLIVE.com:
Hillary, reassessed

Discussion: The Reaction, Liberal Values, Sweetness & Light, HillaryClinton.com, Political Punch, Buck Naked Politics, Donklephant, The Page and NO QUARTER

Steve Clemons / The Huffington Post:
The World is Watching and Wants More: Clinton-Obama Race Should Go All the Way

Discussion: The Raw Story, Agence France Presse and ABCNEWS

Michael Scherer / Swampland:

Say It Ain't So, Joe — It's not news that Sen. Joe Lieberman, the onetime Democratic VP candidate, is backing John McCain for President. Nor is it news that Lieberman takes a different view of the Iraq War than most Democrats. But what he said this morning on ABC's “This Week” is certainly news.

Discussion: Weekly Standard Blog

John Amato / Crooks and Liars:
Lieberman makes the Zell Miller transition final: ‘...the Democratic Party changed’

Discussion: American Power and Shakesville

Douglas Martin / New York Times:

Dith Pran, ‘Killing Fields’ Photographer, Dies at 65 — Dith Pran, a photojournalist for The New York Times whose gruesome ordeal in the killing fields of Cambodia was re-created in a 1984 movie that gave him an eminence he tenaciously used to press for his people's rights, died in New Brunswick, N.J., on Sunday.

Discussion: The New Nixon Blog, Political Machine, Jules Crittenden, The Swamp, Gothamist, LA Observed, On Deadline, Blue Girl, Red State, American Street and The Moderate Voice

JammieWearingFool:
RIP, Dith Pran

Discussion: Dean's World

Jane Hamsher / Firedoglake:

No, John McCain Can't Just Quit — Susan Milligan, writing in the Boston Globe, takes an all-too-rare foray into John McCain's campaign finance hypocrisy. But this bit, straight out of the McCain's disinformation machine, simply isn't true: … McCain took the money all right …

Susan Milligan / Boston Globe:
McCain's commitment to public financing questioned

Discussion: Hold Fast and DownWithTyranny!

Reuters:

Muslims more numerous than Catholics: Vatican — VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Islam has overtaken Roman Catholicism as the biggest single religious denomination in the world, the Vatican said on Sunday. — Monsignor Vittorio Formenti, who compiled the Vatican's newly-released 2008 yearbook of statistics …

Discussion: Atlas Shrugs, Gawker, Secular Blasphemy, PoliGazette and snapped shot

Think Progress:

Bush booed loudly while throwing out first pitch in Nationals home opener. — President Bush delivered the first pitch tonight at the new Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. to a resounding chorus of boos. After being announced, Bush was showered by boos as he strode to the mound.

Discussion: Associated Press and The Seminal

Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:

Rove: The horns are retractable — Karl Rove got interrupted during an appearance at George Washington University on Friday by demonstrators calling for his prosecution as a war criminal. Rove, who had nothing to do with war planning or execution — he ran the political side of the White House …

Discussion: Power Line, BLOGS FOR JOHN McCAIN and JammieWearingFool

Michael Dobbs / Washington Post:

Obama Overstates Kennedys' Role in Helping His Father — Addressing civil rights activists in Selma, Ala., a year ago, Sen. Barack Obama traced his “very existence” to the generosity of the Kennedy family, which he said paid for his Kenyan father to travel to America on a student scholarship and thus meet his Kansan mother.