As a lawyer, he knew exactly what he was heading into when he volunteered for Gitmo. He didn't follow the rules and he got busted. I don't have any real sympathy for him, the prisoners in Gitmo or Joe Conason who is using someone's poor judgement for political purposes.

BTW, the next president (and that includes Obama) is not stupid enough to release any Gitmo prisoners anytime soon, so the silly lefties who are hung up on this story should just move on.

If by a stroke of luck, Hillary wins the democratic nod, expect Obama to go the third party route, which will throw the election into total chaos. Conceivably, the three candidates would split the electorate 33% each and nobody wins 270 electoral votes. What happens then? Who wins in the House of Representatives? Probably Obama because there are few women and Hispanics to come to Hillary's side in the showdown vote. And I doubt McCain could get the majority to win because the Dems would never allow it under any circumstances.

Things could get very wierd.

Hillary is being abused largely because of her last name. There is this notion of entitlement that follows her around and it simply rankles people. I am enjoying her coming to terms with the fact that she will not win the WH in '08 under virtually any scenario short of tearing the country apart. It really has nothing to do with feminism or women's rights and everything to do with perceptions gone sour. GWB landed in the White house largely on the basis of his last name and we all know how that turned out. There is a mood in the country right now not to pick the next POTUS based on dynastic considerations.

If Condilezza Rice was running this year and had advanced this far, I doubt there would be as much "zero to bitch in 1.6 seconds" kind of talk that Hillary puts up with. The bottom line is that Hillary has not earned her way to where she is right now (independently of her husbnd) and people are having second and third thoughts about her presumed claim to be POTUS.

Obama let his guard down for a single minute and his head is spinning in circles. He made the mistake thinking he was on friendly territory in SF which is exactly why others are saying this is SF's fault. Hillary just received a "Hail Mary" pass and is back in business. Obama has just experienced his first "Macaca" moment. I have no idea what's going to happen. All I know is that McCain is looking better each day.

Obama could win the whole thing on his own. Or, if HRC gets the nod, he could go the third party route and throw the election into the House, or if he gets the nod AND does not think he can win outright, he could sucker HRC to do a third party try and still put the race into the House. Once it is in the House, Obama will win. McCain cannot win if it lands in the House, because the Repugs are in the minority. HRC is less likely to win in the House as most of the Senate abandoned her for Obama.

Considering that HRC has won all the relatively big states like NY, CA, TX, OH, NJ, MA and now PA how in the hell is she behind in all the key measures?

Joe,

What irks people the most about the Willie Horton ad was not its content but that it worked as well as it did. That's the problem with the Dems: they don't understand that negative ads really work. In a general election, it's the best return for the advertising buck as most Dem candidates have found out the hard way. The only recent Dem that kinda "gets it" is Bill Clinton and, of course, Hillary. In a nutshell, when the Dems go negative, it is seen as "mean", while, if the Repugs go negative, it is seen as "informative". This boils down to the target audience for the ad, namely, the undecideds or the "tilters" one-way or the other. Negative ads help "low information" voters make up their minds. On the other hand, "high information" voters, who are usually firmly situated in one camp or the other find them annoying or insulting. In 1988 GHWB was down 18-20% with 45 days to go because there was a very high "undecided" group that he felt was within his reach.

As recent history shows, the Dems have had a harder time changing the minds of republicans than the other way around. Thus for the Dems, negative ads don't hit the mark as effectively, so they tend to lose close elections or get blown out.

Shame on Dukakis if he thought giving weekend passes to convicted killers was a smart thing to do if he thought he was going to run for president someday. It's like Obama now figuring out that Rev Wright could cost him the election. Rev Wright will be Exhibit A for the Repugs as to why Obama is unfit to be president.