memeorandum: Blackwater shooting highlights a U.S., Iraq culture clash (Los Angeles Times)

3:15 AM ET, May 6, 2008

Top Items:

Clinton (47%) Overtakes Obama (40%) Nationally On Eve of Indiana And North Carolina Primaries — Poll Shows Clinton Campaign Picking Up Steam With Democrats Nationally … Washington, DC - The latest Ipsos poll conducted over the weekend shows that on the eve of the Indiana and North Carolina primaries …

Discussion: Buck Naked Politics, Tennessee Guerilla Women, Hot Air, TalkLeft, Taegan Goddard's …, The Other McCain, The Moderate Voice, The Democratic Daily and The Page

WTVD-TV:

Poll: Obama clings to small lead over Clinton — RALEIGH (WTVD) — On the eve of the North Carolina Democratic Primary, with 25% of votes already cast, Barack Obama has no breathing room in his hope to defeat Hillary Clinton in popular votes. — According to SurveyUSA's 8th and final tracking poll …

Discussion: Buck Naked Politics, Weekly Standard Blog, The Moderate Voice, TalkLeft, Public Policy Polling and Zogby

Southern Political Report:

New InsiderAdvantage Survey — Obama Inching Closer in Indiana — Hillary Clinton is like one of those blow-up punching bags that keep popping back up when you slug them. For her to pop up and then pop back with a punch of her own, she must at least win Tuesday's Indiana primary.

Discussion: Daily Kos and Marc Ambinder

Nate / FiveThirtyEight.com:

North Carolina Prediction: Obama by Double Digits — In Pennsylvania and Indiana, the previous times that we conducted this exercise, the results from our regression model were closely in line with the composite polling averages in those states. In North Carolina, however …

Discussion: Public Policy Polling, Pollster.com, MyDD, CQ Politics, The Politico, Southern Political Report, Taylor Marsh, The New Republic, The Moderate Voice and The Field

Gallup:
Gallup Daily: Democrats Tied for Record 12th Day

Discussion: Donklephant

Arianna Huffington / The Huffington Post:

What John McCain Told Me, and What it Says About How Far He's Fallen — At a dinner party in Los Angeles not long after the 2000 election, I was talking to a man and his wife, both prominent Republicans. The conversation soon turned to the new president. “I didn't vote for George Bush” the man confessed.

Discussion: Crooks and Liars, Comments from Left Field, The Swamp, Media Blog, DownWithTyranny!, Wonkette, Hot Air, Gawker, Macsmind, Progressive Media USA and The Trail

Christopher Hitchens / Slate:

IS MICHELLE OBAMA RESPONSIBLE FOR THE JEREMIAH WRIGHT FIASCO? — So numbed have I become by the endless replay of the fatuous clerical rantings of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright that it has taken me this long to remember the significant antecedent. In 1995, there appeared a documentary titled Brother Minister …

Discussion: Fact Checker, Hot Air, BackyardConservative, NO QUARTER and protein wisdom

Jodi Kantor / New York Times:

With Right Props and Stops, Clinton Transforms Into Working-Class Hero — All over North Carolina and Indiana, crowds of teachers and truckers, salespeople and small business owners, have been hailing Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as one of their own. — “She's a working mom,” Tracy Zettel …

Discussion: TalkLeft

Ezra Klein / American Prospect:
THE STATE OF THE RACE. — This seems like a big deal. From The LA Times:

Discussion: The Jed Report, The Carpetbagger Report, TalkLeft, The Page and The Caucus

Jim Rutenberg / New York Times:
Attack and Counterattack — Senator Barack Obama of Illinois …

Discussion: The Swamp and The Caucus

Ariel Alexovich / The Caucus:
Obama Strikes Back With Negative Advertisement

Discussion: TalkLeft, Don Surber, The Fix and The Democratic Daily

Sandra Sobieraj Westfall / People.com:

John & Elizabeth Edwards: What We Like (and Dislike) About Clinton & Obama — Elizabeth Edwards likes Hillary Clinton's plan for universal health insurance. Husband John Edwards doesn't much care for Clinton's “old politics.” — So goes the his-and-her debate in the Edwards household …

Discussion: TPM Election Central and Donklephant

Paul Krugman:

Is Obama misrepresenting what I said? — I don't have a link to the ad itself, but apparently there's an Obama ad citing something I said about McCain's gas tax holiday as a way to attack Hillary Clinton. — I did not say that the Clinton proposal would increase oil industry profits.

Discussion: JustOneMinute, Buck Naked Politics, Political Punch, Washington Times and The Fact Hub

Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blogs:

Clinton: OPEC ‘can no longer be a cartel’ — Clinton's attacks on oil prices as artificially inflated, Enron-style, keep escalating, and today she appeared to threaten to break up the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. — “We're going to go right at OPEC,” she said.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Matthew Yglesias, The Page and Donklephant

Avram Goldstein / Bloomberg:

Post-War Suicides May Exceed Combat Deaths, U.S. Says — The number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care, the U.S. government's top psychiatric researcher said. — Community mental health centers …

Discussion: Jules Crittenden, Obsidian Wings and Political Punch

Paul West / Baltimore Sun:

Meet Bill Clinton, man of the people — DUNN, N.C. - If Barack Obama wants to connect with white, working-class voters, he could take a lesson from William Jefferson Clinton. — The former president has been on tour for months, almost exclusively in small towns and rural county seats …

Discussion: National Review and Spin Cycle

Isaac Chotiner / The New Republic:
Bill Clinton Goes After TNR Alum!

Discussion: New York Times and Daily Kos

Los Angeles Times:

Blackwater shooting highlights a U.S., Iraq culture clash — PRIVATE SECURITY: Blackwater employees, in plain clothes, join a gun battle in Najaf, Iraq, in April 2004. Last month, the State Department renewed the security company's contract for an additional year, a decision that enraged victims …

Discussion: Attackerman and The Other McCain

Matthew Yglesias:
Culture Clash

Discussion: Eschaton

Greg Gordon / McClatchy Washington Bureau:

Clinton disclosures didn't list $24 million of Bill's income — WASHINGTON — Sen. Hillary Clinton excluded nearly $24 million of her husband's earnings from Senate financial statements from 2004 through 2006, capitalizing on rules that permit senators to limit disclosures of some of their spouses' income.

Glenn Reynolds / Instapundit.com:

The Glenn and Helen Show: Fred Thompson on John McCain and Judges — With Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama still slugging it out in the Democratic primaries, John McCain has already cleared the way to the Republican nomination. He's spending his time laying out his positions for the general election …