Top Items:
Nedra Pickler / Associated Press:
DNC chairman under Bill Clinton: Unite behind Obama — WASHINGTON (AP) — A leader of the Democratic Party under Bill Clinton has switched his allegiance to Barack Obama and is encouraging fellow Democrats to “heal the rift in our party” and unite behind the Illinois senator.
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Southern Political Report:
InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion Survey: North Carolina Democratic Primary: Hillary Clinton Takes Lead Over Obama — A survey of 571 registered likely voters in North Carolina's May 6 Democratic primary shows Sen. Hillary Clinton having moved from a double digit deficit in an InsiderAdvantage poll taken …
Mark Murray / MSNBC:
NBC/WSJ Poll: Bush a liability for McCain — A new poll says Bush — not Wright or Bill Clinton — is voters' main concern — WASHINGTON - Sen. Barack Obama's ties to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright could hurt his presidential hopes. So could his comment about “bitter” small-town America clinging to guns and religion.
Roger Simon / The Politico:
Clinton playing by her own set of rules — Hillary Clinton leads Barack Obama in the popular vote, and this is her path to victory. — She will ultimately win the Democratic nomination by convincing the superdelegates that her popular vote lead makes it legitimate for them to support her.
New York Times:
A Strained Wright-Obama Bond Finally Snaps — Late Monday night, in the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill, N.C., Barack Obama's long, slow fuse burned to an end. Earlier that day he had thumbed through his BlackBerry, reading accounts of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.'s latest explosive comments on race and America.
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Spencer / Attackerman:
Hell No, No Premonition Coulda Seen This! — Seven months of declined U.S. casualties in Iraq are over — as even Bob Gates is acknowledging — with 48 fallen soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors taken from us in April. McClatchy reports that two soldiers were killed in Anbar last month …
Daniel Henninger / Wall Street Journal:
Where Were Obama's Friends? — It's tough being Everyman. — Way back when, before the angry and antic prophet Jeremiah rose to smite him, Barack Obama appeared before us as an open presidential vessel, into which many poured their political dreams. — Foremost were black Americans.
Jason Linkins / The Huffington Post:
Kerry Rips MSNBC On Wright: ‘You People Need To Let Go Of This’ — Today, John Kerry officially became the 87,436th person to receive one of the three or four versions of the same Reverend Wright question MSNBC has been asking everyone it comes in contact with, including their plants and pets.
New York Times:
Qaeda Chief in Somalia Killed by U.S. Airstike — NAIROBI, Kenya — Aden Hashi Ayro, one of Al Qaeda's top operatives in East Africa and the leader of the Islamist comeback in Somalia, was killed Thursday morning by an American airstrike, according to American and Somali officials.
Discussion:
Outside The Beltway
Washington Post:
Clinton Gas-Tax Proposal Criticized — A growing chorus — including a top congressional Democrat — labeled Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's proposal for suspending the federal gasoline tax ineffective and shortsighted yesterday, even as she continued to paint Sen. Barack Obama as insensitive to drivers' woes for not endorsing the plan.
The Big Trunk / Power Line:
WRIGHT'S WRONG — Barack Obama gave his “More Perfect Union” speech in Philadelphia on March 18 to tamp down the furor caused by the release of videos excerpts of his pastor's sermons. Obama himself had proclaimed the importance of his pastor to his life over the past twenty years in books and interviews.
Discussion:
TownHall Blog
Matt Stoller / Open Left:
Quit Acting Like Babies — I try to restrict my hectoring, but I've been sitting on some bad feelings for awhile and I think it's time I put words to what I've noticed about the explicitly liberal internet space. — This recommended diary on Jim Webb is typical at this point of the liberal internet space.
James Wolcott / Vanity Fair:
When Democrats Go Post-al — The vicious Clinton-versus-Obama rupture at Daily Kos, the most activist site in the liberal blogosphere, reflects a party-wide split. What really rankles, as Democrats tear at one another, is the free pass they've given McCain—and the White House.
Discussion:
protein wisdom, The Garlic, The Strata-Sphere, American Power, TalkLeft, The Belmont Club, The Other McCain, The Confluence and BuzzMachine