Fighting back

The sad farrakhan moment at the debate was almost enough to throw me in the Obama camp. In thinking about it this morning I find myself even more turned off by Clinton's response.

When. People talk about the challenge of small politics, they are very much imagining stunts like Russert's last night.

Whose ideas a politician associates themselves with is hugely important, since they tend to drive the policies pursued if that person wins. Remember, the point of elections is to pick who will be structurally empowered to shape and drive ideas, policies, and programs that impact people. Its not a beauty pagent, its a who is going to fix more problems than they create contest.

That is why the McCain lobbying story matters. If a candidate regularly borrows the corporate keys, is intimate with every lobbyist and spinster in DC, has no actual agenda for me to look at (beyond trust me), and has repeatedly lied about whether he has done favors for them it seems fair to assume his agenda will be whatever they tell him. That's a story the American people deserve to hear.

But the six degrees of separation gotcha game played by Russert and Mark Halperin is disguisting and unhelpful for the public interest.

If obama really wanted to win me over he would have - rather than apologizing a fifth time - looked into the camera and said to the American people 'I will never be able to apologize enough for Tim Russert, but I hope each of you will at least give me an honest look. Put aside all the innuendo for 30 minutes, go to my website, and find out what I stand for and what I have done to stand up for those values, then decide for yourself whether you - not some pundit or news man who makes a living conjuring the myth of partisanship and telling you problems cannot be fixed, but you - think I can be President '.