I found Lester's willingness to jump onto the fake serial-killer bandwagon to be eminently believable. When I was a reporter, I got to know how cops think pretty well, and there isn't much they won't do when they're in the right mood.

As to the newsroom dialogue: That's the way big-city journalistas talk. Yeah, it's pompous and pretentious. Duh! Remember the Spalding Gray character in "The Paper"? I know that guy, he works at every paper I've ever seen.

I know the perspective you're coming from - namely, someone who understands how campaigns work and the cynical smoke and mirrors involved. I've been there, too. You understand what Ferraro meant because such conversations are common in the political world, and you and I know it. It's just the business.

But there is simply no sane way to discuss this with the public at large. They don't have our perspective and experience, and they don't understand how successfully their buttons have been pushed.

There's a larger issue here for Obama, though. While this sort of thing will help him in the primary, there's some serious fallout. One is that if Clinton wins the nomination, he has poisoned her for the general election with the charges of racism. (Funny, how the same people who were screaming that Clinton was doing the work of the Republicans for them by implying Obama wasn't ready to be commander in chief missed this one. Blind spot, anyone?)

The other thing, though, is that he's also shot himself in the foot for the general. His whole strategy was to run as a post-racial leader who could attract independents and moderate Republicans, and now he's become the Great Black Hope. There's some major backlash potential there.

The fact that his campaign has gone so far off message to push the racism meme tells me they're a lot less capable than people think.

And far too many of the other posters are living in the Land of Wishful Thinking.

I've been a senior campaign staffer, I know how voters think. The minute I heard that comment, I said to myself, "Well, there goes the little old lady vote."

Because elections hang on those moments. They shouldn't, but how does "shouldn't" help us beat John McCain?

People here are arguing a very narrow point - namely, the use of "whores" to describe politicians in general, and Clinton in particular.

This is more than a tad disingenuous. Because every other sexist pejorative under the sun has also been used for Clinton, and commenters are ignoring the broader issue to focus on the head of a pin.

For all their grousing about media bias, the Clintons have gotten off scot-free over the past year from any kind of serious, systematic examination of their sleaze-a-thon history from Little Rock to Foggy Bottom.

So the special prosecutor, impeachment hearings, relentless press coverage and the dozens of books written about them were - what? Just another day in Paradise?

How can you even take yourself seriously when you make uninformed comments like this?

Now we get to play yet another round of W.O.R.M. (What Obama Really Meant).

http://www.correntewire.com/what_obama_really_meant

I disagree, Joan. It really isn't about what he said - it's about how tone deaf he is to how his words sound in the larger world, and his inability to be succinct. This isn't like arguing before the Supreme Court, where we have time to admire the turn of a phrase. This is hardball politics, and television. When will he learn he's not teaching a graduate seminar?

He gets himself in trouble with unscripted remarks simply because he's in love with the sound of his own voice.

Like you, I have Irish-Catholic working class roots and there's nothing that gets my back up like hearing Obama describe classes of people as if they were bugs under a microscope. You get no sense of "we" when he talks about the working class, only "they."

Of What Obama Really Meant!

Wow, what fun it will be to play this for the next six months.

I remember when John Kerry was running, and the NY Times had an article about a linguistics class visually diagramming the speech patterns of Kerry and Bush. Kerry's was meandering and tangential, like those episodes of Family Circus where Billy's told to take something to the neighbor next door; Bush's were direct and to the point.

The professor who taught the course pointed out that the candidate with the most direct speech patterns always wins. I knew then Kerry was doomed.

Obama has more young supporters, who are spending a lot of time online anyway.

I have no doubt that Obama would be a better president for working-class Americans than John McCain. But they're the ones who will have to decide that for themselves.

I'm glad you understand that, Joan. But far too many "progressives" don't really believe in democracy, or that the "low information" working-class voters should be permitted to play a significant role in the election process. Hence their preference for caucuses over primaries, and hip urban centers over rural towns - and their insistence that any group that doesn't prefer Obama is somehow illegitimate. (Not to mention how gleefully they want to throw Michigan and Florida under the bus so their guy will win the nomination.)

Boy. And they say Clinton will do anything to win, including destroy the party.

Although I'll note here that Obama is mostly unimpressive, almost fumbling in his unscripted appearances (and yes, stump speeches are scripted). I'm much more interested in hearing what a candidate will do as president.

It bothers me that Obama supporters keep telling me "check the website." I don't want to - I want to hear it from the candidate. And no, "He'll hire the best people and figure it out" isn't reassuring, either. We just spent eight years under an incompetent boob who promised the same thing.