Stephanie Miller's been doing it on her radio show every morning since Senator Clinton said it.

It's not limited to some blowhard on MSNBC. Air America has it too.

"Sometimes a cigar, is just a cigar".

Current Hillary haters are as ridiculous as the original round of Hillary haters who contended that she stuffed Vince Foster's body in a bag in her secret apartment, then dumped it in the middle of a public park (under the watchful gaze of the Secret Service, mind).

Other than that, I have no objections, your honor. :)

She was asked a direct question. She chose to qualify her response -- twice -- by saying that she took Obama "at his word" and that he was being honest "as far as she knows".

Imagine if 60 Minutes had asked Obama whether he believed the rumors that Clinton is a lesbian, and he responded that he takes her at her word and that there is no evidence to support those claims, as far as he is aware.

You don't have to be a mind reader to know Clinton was choosing to leave a sliver of doubt in people's minds. She could have simply said, "No, he's a Christian." She didn't do that, and I find it sad.

Forgive me Alex, but I thought the EXACT same thing Sunday night when I saw the interview. Maybe Howard overstepped basic journalism code of conduct (like it even exists anymore). Hillary (and Bill) Clinton don't do or say anything accidentally. I am a total nobody and I got the exact same impression that he did. I can assure you..I am not psychic. I could be totally off the mark here..but you know, opinions are like a**-holes..everybody has one.

I used to like Oberman (never Matthews or Russert), but even Rachel is on board with slamming Hillary- it's disgusting

See above. And as for the claim that, if Obama was asked whether Hillary was lesbian, he would have said something less qualified than what Hillary said about his religion, I don't think so. Seriously, think about it. Suppose you were Obama and someone asked you if you thought Hillary might be gay. You couldn't say, "no, she's not," because you don't really know. You'd really just be guessing. The only honest answer you could give is that, as far as you knew, she wasn't and that there's no reason you know of to think otherwise. Similarly, we don't really know how Obama spent his time in Indonesia, whether as a child his mother read him the Koran just a little, as his sister claims*, no doubt at the behest of the campaign, or a lot - none of that information is available to us, so all one can say is that there's no reason to think he's a Muslim. To make a categorical denial would be dishonest.

* NYT: Your mom has been described as an atheist.

Obama's Sister: I wouldn’t have called her an atheist. She was an agnostic. She basically gave us all the good books — the Bible, the Hindu Upanishads and the Buddhist scripture, the Tao Te Ching — and wanted us to recognize that everyone has something beautiful to contribute.

NYT: You didn’t mention the Koran in that list, although Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country in the world.

Obama's Sister: I should have mentioned the Koran. Mom didn’t really emphasize the Koran, but we read little parts of it. We did listen to morning prayers in Indonesia.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/magazine/20wwln-Q4-t.html?ref=magazine&pagewanted=all

There are a lot of TV talking heads who claim to be able to read Hillary's innermost thoughts -- and it's not confined to TV pundits. The pages of our most prestigious newspapers, news magazines and blogs are filled with similarly gifted psychics.

Apparently these paranormal gifts come at a cost: the inability to remember their own spectacular analytical failures from one day to the next. Reporting actions and events? Leave that to the historians -- it's "infotainment" that apparently gets the face-time.

This sorry state of our so-called "press corps" is what led to our collapsing economy and the bloody quagmire in Iraq. That's what happens when substantive reporting is replaced by cheap carnival acts aimed at the rubes.

Has anybody ever determined what the gadget on Bush's back was during his debate with John Kerry?

See:

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/10/08/bulge/index.html

If not, why not? Why hasn't anybody in the press asked the White House about it? Wouldn't it have been in the public's interest to know?

Howard Fineman and the rest of the capital gang (lower case) is the reason we are stuck in an immoral war in Iraq, waged by a dolt and a war criminal. Because this dumbass of a president and his evil VP were not, are not and probably never will be held to account for their mistakes.

I think you're parsing words here. Hillary could have declared adamantly that rumors of Barack being a Muslim were scurrilous. She didn't. Howard Fineman wasn't mind-reading. He was suggesting her answer was rehearsed to allow the accusation to stay afloat...I thought it just made her look bad.

The issue isn't Howard Fineman. It's what kind of person would stoop that low to win. George Bush? Yes. And Hillary.

Nemo

Didn't Media Matters for America already nail this one?

Anyay, you're questioning Chris Matthews' journalism now? Really? What's next -- are you going to claim the judging on American Idol isn't fair? It's a SHOW. Just like to some extent War Room is a show, with often random coverage that is often geared toward simply amusing people and occasionally geared toward really informing them (and, sometimes, geared toward copy-and-pasting whole campaign press releases verbatim).

I saw the Clinton interview segment and it can be read however anybody wants to read it. Clinton supporters will point out that she said no. Obama supporters will point out that her answer was very stammering and un-firm, and Clinton seemed to be taking the long way around to her no.

One notable thing about Clinton's response is her lack of simple directness. Clinton gives very firm, short-form answers when she wants to.

Even more notable, to me, is how unoffended Clinton is by the question. Shouldn't anybody in her position respond to such a question by mocking its absurdity? Clinton responded as if the question were legitimate.

There are still open questions regarding the level of involvement of the Clinton campaign in the photo of Barack Obama in Somali clothing. Has there been any follow-up on this? I think War Room should inform readers about such things rather than doing hit-and-run pieces designed to get reader comments and little else. I would certainly like to know what has been uncovered since that incident, since it is related to this one.

I would also like to know if there is any credibility to the reports circulating (starting on Daily Kos) that Obama's face was darkened for TV ads in parts of Ohio. I haven't seen much evidence other than some screen-shots, but this would be something worth looking into.

Ultimately this is a minor issue. We all know Clinton is loathe to do or say anything that would cast Obama in a favorable light at this stage of the negative-campaign game. But she did say no in her response, and it's hardly worth going after from the perspective of a big-network pundit. Move along, find something more substantial to talk about...

...like: The actual Texas delegate count. Who really wins Texas? I am very interested to hear the final count when caucus delegates are added in. Why no War Room article about Obama's statement that he's going to fight back harder?

Salon's approach to the specualtion about seating Florida/Michigan delegates has been journalistically weird. I think readers should demand full disclosure from Salon's editorial staff, from the top down, as to what exactly the bias level is and what the policy is on coverage. It seems so random, and at times balanced, and then suddenly somebody writes something that is absurdly slanted and makes me question why I ever trusted you to begin with. What's your policy? Why not make it clear? Let's have full disclosure!

If you're going to go around criticizing other people's journalism, Alex, then you owe us that much.