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- I didn't write about Hillary Clinton's misty-eyed moment yesterday because I thought it was a stupid non-story. It still is, but unfortunately I don't get to make assignments for cable news stations which, as Think Progress put it, are, along with the rest of Media, "torn over whether to cast Clinton as 'weak' or 'calculating' over 'emotional' display." When I saw the clip, I thought it made her look like she was concerned about the future of the country because that's what she says she's "emotional" about. That article also has a great series of quotes to showing that tears from male politicians aren't treated as a big deal. As Katha Pollitt said more than a year ago, if people keep making sexist attacks on her I might have to vote for her.
- John Edwards, on the other hand, seems to want to throw away all the good will he's generated in his campaign by attacking Clinton for having feelings. As Todd Gitlin says, this kind of stuff "gives my entire sex a bad name." See also Katha Pollitt.
- Clinton also got in a great shot at Chris Matthews yesterday.
- On the other hand, some sort of karmic balance thing must be responsible for making her say that Martin Luther King Jr. wasn't a useful change agent ... or something. Mark Kleiman has more.
- Barack Obama, meanwhile, has been quietly lending his voice to efforts to end violence in Kenya, his father's homeland, despite being just a tad busy with other things.
- The Politico has the most detailed summary of the Clinton campaign's strategy for a New Hampshire loss I've seen yet.
- On the Republican side, the Washington Post has a brief summary of Mike Huckabee's post-NH strategy.
- Mitt Romney doesn't know what the Violence Against Women Act is.
- Steven M. Tales has the best liberal brief against Huckabee I've seen. The only thing it's missing is foreign policy which Steve Benen and Matt Ygelsias covered last month.
- And in the worst bit of analysis of the day Slate's Jacob Weisberg claims Obama and McCain are very similar (not that original, but OK) but then goes on to prove this by saying McCain (like Obama) has "serenity" (you can't take the sky from him) and that Obama "isn't an especially powerful public performer" and that he is "suspicious of charisma." I realize not all of Obama's speeches are as rousing as his Iowa victory one, but really, could you imagine a more wrongheaded description of his overall speaking ability or McCain's effect? Worse still Weisberg says that "my favorite scenario for the campaign has Obama and McCain vying for the same running mate—the Democrat-Republican-Independent Michael Bloomberg." Somewhere in Washington David Broder is taking a cold shower.
--Sam Boyd
