According to Nedra Pickler of the Associated Press, despite the recent controversy over Barack Obama’s former pastor Jeremiah Wright, the Illinois senator continues to gain on Senator Clinton in the super-delegate count. At the moment, Obama has 243 while Clinton has 263. But overall, Obama leads in delegates, 1,731.5 to HRC’s 1,597.5.

Aren't we all offended that Robert Reich and Barbara Mikulski only count as half-delegates?

The latest Fox News Poll:

Nearly half of Democrats (48 percent) think Hillary Clinton has a better chance of beating John McCain in November — 10 percentage points higher than the 38 percent who think Barack Obama can win, according to a FOX News poll released Wednesday. This represents a significant shift from March, when Democrats said Obama was the candidate more likely to beat McCain....

The ongoing controversy over Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, appears to have damaged how Americans view Obama. His favorable rating is now 47 percent, down 7 percentage points since February when 54 percent had a positive view of him. As may be expected, his unfavorable rating went up from 33 percent to 42 percent today.

There is a lot of good news in this poll for Team McCain. Another interesting note, Democrats find Hillary more trustworthy than Barack Obama, and only 23 percent of Democrats think Obama is "tough" versus 61 percent for Clinton. Oh, and 46 percent of Democrats and 41 percent of Independents think Rev. Wright's message is "anti-American." Which is still kind of frightening if it means that a majority of Democrats think preaching God damn America is a patriotic message.

Allahpundit has more analysis here.

It seems that Congressional Democrats may finally take up legislation next week to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the rest of 2008, and into 2009. Because so many liberal are unwilling to vote for a funding bill however, and because Congressional leaders won't pass a bill that Republicans approve of, they are forced into a convoluted strategy to try to approve the needed money:

With the hope of streamlining the process and finishing work on the measure by the Memorial Day recess, Democrats have signaled that their strategy for the supplemental could bypass both Appropriations committee markups and even a House-Senate conference on the bill.

But Republicans and even some Democrats are opposed to such a strategy, saying that if too many lawmakers are left out of the process, the result could be even longer delays in the bill’s enactment.

After weeks of discussions, several House aides confirmed that they could bring to the floor, probably next week, a bill that would be open to three specific amendments: one for over $170 billion in war funding, another for domestic spending items and a third for a series of Iraq-related policy provisions.

The process that Congress will use is still a moving target; there are plenty of Senators and House Members upset over this proposed gimmickry. The simplest thing to do would be to bring up a simple funding bill with no extra spending or policy provisions. That would garner a majority of Republican and Democratic votes. But this Congress continues to put political gamesmanship ahead of the mission, and the troops.

I wrote yesterday about Travis Childers, the Democratic candidate for Congress in Mississippi's first Congressional District. Childer's Republican opponent has been airing an ad that points out that Childers has received support from Barack Obama. In what seems a desperate attempt to preserve his general election chances, Childers has cut a stunning new ad:

Childers describes the association with Barack Obama as an attack. Is that what's in store for the likely Democratic presidential candidate from other Democrats in targeted districts? It's going to make for an awfully uncomfortable campaign if Obama gets such negative treatment from the candidates that Democrats are counting on to expand their Congressional majorities.

The special election is May 13.

I'm so over the Rev. Wright stuff. The question I've been obsessed with all day is this: How good a baller is Obama?

My interest was first peaked by a New York Post photo of Obama putting up a shot over UNC's enormously over-rated Tyler Hansbrough. Evidently, the Big O played in a scrimmage with the Tar Heels yesterday. So he's got to be pretty good, right?

Let's grant a few things right off the top: Of course the UNC players weren't going at it like it was the Final Four. Of course they were probably letting His Hopeness have some fun and not really challenging his dribble or his shot. But look: Basketball isn't golf. It's not like when a bunch of pros take a grinning political hack out on the course and trade jokes with him while he shoots a 107. Even if a bunch of Div I players are showing you a good time, you still have to be able to play just to hang with them on the court.

So how good is Obama? The still photos don't tell us much but the good folks at The Sporting Blog have some more info. We learn that Obama scored zero buckets, no surprise, really. But we also get this fantastic And-1 style tribute video, that includes some footage from the scrimmage:

Obama looks pretty good. He keeps his head up on the dribble, is obviously looking for passing lanes, and even knows enough both to throw head-fakes and to reset his attempt at penetration. I was particularly impressed with his left hand--until I saw him shooting and realized that he's a lefty. There's not a ton of footage here, but I don't see him go right much, which suggests to me that he may not have much of a right. The form on his jumper is classic playground--I don't know how much organized ball he played, but my guess is not much. But--and here's the big thing--he really moves nicely. Fluid, kind of graceful. He looks like he knows how to handle himself and would be a lot of fun in a pick-up game.

That said, if we were choosing teams with famous political players, I'd take the Wall Street Journal's Paul Gigot first. He's an assassin. For reals.

Maybe now is the time to buy stock in Barack. Futures contracts in Obama winning the election in November have tumbled more than 8 percent in the last week and are now trading at 43.4. Bettors now give Hillary a 25.5 percent chance of winning the nomination--up 50 percent over the last week.

McCain's value is climbing as well. He's up 5 percent over the last week and now has a 40 percent chance of winning in the fall according to the Intrade political prediction market. You can see the full results here.

I'm not sure you can put anymore faith in these numbers than polling, which is to say almost none at all, but it's an interesting reflection of perception, and clearly the perception is that Obama had a rough week.

Hot Air's Ed Morrissey notes an oddity in the Washington Post's water-carrying editorial that lauded Barack Obama's most demonstrative denunciation of Jeremiah Wright to date:

"But Mr. Obama is right when he says that his entire career is antithetical to the divisiveness of the Rev. Wright’s comments.”

To which I can only respond, "What career?"

Coming out of Harvard Law School in 1991, one would have expected young Barack Obama to set the world on fire. He was editor-in-chief of the Law Review, graduated magna cum laude, even penned a well-received memoir soon after his graduation. And yet for a dozen years after law school, Obama toiled away in obscurity as a community organizer, a lawyer at a small firm that had the infamous Rezko as a client, and as a lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School. This career path famously forced him and his wife to have to stretch to pay back their student loans.

Much of this was of course laudable on Obama’s part, passing up the big bucks to better serve humanity. But he didn't have a career that engaged in policy issues. He was an obscure figure whose efforts to forward his obvious political ambitions were uniformly thwarted until his successful run for senator in 2004. Besides, as Morrissey notes, if Obama’s "entire career" really has been "antithetical to the divisiveness of Rev. Wright's comments," it would have been swell if the Post had provided an example or two to support such a sweeping assertion.

Against the Post's unsupported hyperbole, there stands the formulation “20 years and $40,000.” For 20 years, Obama worshipped at Jeremiah Wright's church. And yet Obama's campaign would have us believe that he only became aware that Wright is a moral cretin on Monday. Perhaps even more bothersome is the $40,000 + in donations the Obamas gave to Wright's church in 2005 and 2006. Given Michelle Obama's repeated whining about the precarious state of the Obamas’ finances, we can assume they didn’t demonstrate such largesse without first giving the matter serious consideration.

It's a measure of how problematic the Reverend Wright situation will remain for Obama that his champions in the media have resorted to ludicrous exaggeration in a vain attempt to make it go away. They'd be better off standing by their tried and true (though still ineffective) method of shrieking "Distraction!!"

Hillary's been trying to goad Obama into scheduling another debate. He won't bite, and she's done everything but call him chicken (though her supporters have shown no such restraint). Yet Obama looked deep within himself to muster the courage for an appearance on Fox News Sunday this weekend, after more than a year of avoiding the harsh interrogation techniques of Chris Wallace. It sort of made Obama seem, if only momentarily, like he had a little backbone.

So what does Hillary do? She one-ups him with an appearance on The Factor tonight. It's the talk show equivalent of landing under sniper fire in one of the world's most dangerous warzones. Except Sinbad's not there. Or your teenage daughter.

It could get ugly, but she's got nothing to lose.

After several days of heavy fighting in the Mahdi Army stronghold of Sadr City, the press tells us that over 900 "people" have been killed during fighting in Sadr City over the past five weeks. But how many of those killed were Mahdi Army fighters? AFP doesn't even try to answer these questions, and in failing to do so, the reporting gives the impression that all of these “people” are civilians, and U.S. and Iraqi forces are using indiscriminate force in Sadr City.

I've made a count of the Mahdi Army fighters confirmed killed during engagements in and immediately around Sadr City since the fighting began on March 25. U.S. and Iraqi troops killed 173 from the period between March 25 and March 30, when the Basra offensive began until Muqtada al Sadr issued a ceasefire. Seventy-one Mahdi Army fighters killed from March 31 to April 19 during a relative lull in the fighting. One hundred and ninety-one Mahdi fighters were killed between April 20 and April 30, the period starting after Sadr threatened a third uprising and as U.S. and Iraqi forces took control of the bottom third of Sadr City.

That makes for 435 Mahdi Army fighters killed in and around Sadr City since the fighting intensified there after the government of Iraq launched its crackdown in Basra on March 25. Almost half of the “people” killed were Mahdi Army fighters. And the odds are even more of those killed were Mahdi Army fighters, as we have little way of knowing how many wounded later died of their injuries during battle. Sadr’s people control the hospitals in Sadr City.

The Mahdi Army is taking heavy casualties when running up against U.S. and Iraqi forces in Baghdad, and the high numbers have an impact on morale and recruiting over time. The media loves to tell us how many U.S. soldiers were killed during fighting--were told that 47 US troops were killed in Iraq this month, and more than 20 in Baghdad alone--but seems to shy away from reporting the number of enemy casualties. The fight against the Mahdi Army certainly won't be determined by body counts, but there clearly is a double standard in reporting. U.S. body counts are news, but Mahdi Army body counts are to be avoided.

CBS News reporter Richard Butler was rescued by Iraqi troops in Basra on April 10 after being held captive for two months. Throughout his ordeal, his hands were kept in restraints and a sack kept over his head, although he was able to hear plenty of Hezbollah propaganda and ringtones. His sparse diet caused him to lose 42 pounds.

Not pretty. But it could have been worse:

Butler said he felt it was better to be kidnapped in Iraq then taken into custody by Americans in Afghanistan.

"I was pleased I wasn't being mortarboarded in Guantanamo or being held for six and a half years like an Al-Jazeera cameraman, for instance," he said.

Absolutely. American troops are renowned for torturing network reporters. You read about that all the time. Poor bastards are dropping like flies at the hands of our soldiers. It's a real scandal.

In related news, the ratings for CBS News hit a record low last week.

Don’t worry about Richard Butler, by the way. He’s recovering at his home. In France. But you just knew that, right?

(And I know what you’re thinking: Hezbollah ringtones?!)

Commence firing:

A day after he called for a pause in his "Operation Chaos" plan to keep the Democratic primary going, Rush Limbaugh today opened up his show by urging his conservative listeners to keep up the hijinks.

"You are to go out and sustain the primary season by virtue of voting for Hillary Clinton," Limbaugh said....

Today he said "the operational pause is now lifted."

As Jonathan Martin says, "this may actually matter." The race could be very tight in Indiana, and Clinton will need all the help she can get. Of course the irony is that the netroots started it by asking Democrats to vote for Mitt in Michigan instead of 'undecided.' Kos explained the rationale for the campaign: "Because we can. Because it'll be fun." Rush couldn't have said it better.

Earlier this morning, House Republican Leader John Boehner gave this presentation to all of his colleagues in the House Republican Conference. Boehner’s message is straightforward and sobering -- House Republicans have a tough road ahead, but with hard work and a few breaks they could have good year. Previewing a new branding phrase, Boehner talked about how if Republicans can "earn back the majority in Congress," they will "fix a broken Washington."

Despite the ongoing problems with Republican party popularity, Boehner reminded his colleagues that the most recent polling (NBC News/Wall Street Journal) shows 37 percent of Americans describe themselves as conservative, 34 percent moderate and 23 percent liberal -- numbers that fit well with House Republicans ideological perspective.

He also believes McCain helps with down ticket congressional races, particularly against many of the new freshman Democrats first elected in 2006 -- 21 of whom are in districts carried by Bush in 2004. Boehner also argues Obama’s liberal policy views will either force congressional Democrats to run against the top of the ticket or play the politically awkward separation game.

As House Democrat grow increasingly reliant on liberal 527 organizations to supplement the Democratic National Committee, the latter strategy becomes trickier.

Money concerns, however, continue to trouble the GOP. The Republican leader notes Republicans were outspent in 2004 by $100 million. His presentation strongly encourages all of his colleagues to put their shoulders to the wheel when it comes to raising resources.

These are tough times for House Republicans given the large number of open seats (29 right now) they’ll have to defend. Boehner’s doing his best to lead, lift morale and focus his troops’ energy.

David Denby, the lesser half of the New Yorker's critical duo, made a revealing couple of comments in his review of Iron Man. First, he takes issue with the character's origin, deriding the fact that Tony Stark was "captured and enslaved by Wong-Chu--a chubby Commie tyrant. One might blush at this memory of sinister Orientalist Cold War pop, but the updating of the material for 'Iron Man' hasn't made it any smarter. The director, Jon Favreau, and two writing teams . . . have enlisted Iron Man in the war on terror."

Because, you see, just like the Communist threat in Vietnam, the terrorist threat in Afghanistan isn't worth worrying about! Oh, silly Favreau, why can't you just see that the terrorists just want to be left alone? Denby then goes on to write "the freelance fanatics . . . waterboard Tony Stark, which, considering what some American interrogators and their surrogates have done to suspects recently, is enraging to watch. Such are the ways of pop: we cast our sins onto others."

That's right: the filmmakers are merely projecting America¹s shortcomings on her enemies. After all, terrorists never do anything wrong. They treat their prisoners with compassion and respect. Nope, no torture or beheadings in the mountains of Afghanistan. If the terrorists really wanted Tony Stark to do their bidding, they would have reasoned him into submission. Thanks, Professor Denby.

[Check out Sonny's new blog at AFF. --ed.]

While the rest of the country debates the ongoing fallout from the Pastor Disaster, I want to take just a moment to address another urgent concern – the sagging ratings of American Idol.

While American Idol remains a ratings juggernaut, this year’s numbers have dropped significantly from previous seasons. In response, the producers of the show are seeking input from the show's fans. According to the Los Angeles Times (so consider the source), the producers are focusing on Ryan Seacrest as the potential culprit for the ratings decline.

I’ll save the American Idol people the bother of performing serious market research and convening endless focus groups. Seacrest is not the problem. Indeed, the way he effortlessly pulls off Idol's live broadcasts, shows that have roughly a million moving parts, is a marvel to anyone who has ever done broadcasting with hard commercial breaks.

“Hard commercial breaks” means the timing of the commercials is predetermined. Even if Simon Cowell were in mid-sentence or that dreadlocked kid in mid-caterwaul, the show would still go to commercial at the predetermined time. So if the show doesn't run on time, it becomes a train wreck.

It's Seacrest's job to keep the show on time and he makes it look easy - which it most definitely is not. For an object lesson on this point (if you can stand it), spend an hour of your life trying to watch brilliant political analyst Chris Matthews try to hit his hard breaks. And, needless to say, the Matthews show is much less of a production with far fewer moving parts than American Idol.

Idol's problem is that it has watered down its product and in so doing, broken faith with its audience. The audience loves the competition aspect of the show. And yet each week, for its "Results Show," Idol presents a hideously distended one hour broadcast filled with over-hyped drama, irrelevant musical performances, and pregnant pauses galore. Idol used to do its Results Shows in a half hour, and even that felt long. At an hour, they're borderline unwatchable without heavy reliance on the DVR.

This kind of abuse of your customers' goodwill will inevitably incur a cost. The cost here has been lost fans. It's particularly ironic that Idol's ratings are sagging this year since, as the show’s promotions endlessly bray, Idol has its most talented field of contestants ever. Particularly interesting is the dynamic between the two obvious frontrunners, talented rocker David Cook and saccharine, boring teen David Archueletta. In case the previous sentence was too subtle, I think Cook should win. I also think he will because I have an abiding faith in my fellow citizens. Regardless of who emerges victorious, Cook will be a much bigger star.

If American Idol wants a ratings rebound, its producers should focus on producing the best show they can rather than trying to figure out how to squeeze a dollop of extra milk out of their cash cow at their viewers' expense. American Idol viewers have been a loyal lot for the better part of a decade. As a matter of good business, Idol's producers should try to reward that loyalty rather than exploit it.

From TWS Online: Obama a Wimp? by Dean Barnett.

From the Wall Street Journal: Getting to Know John McCain, by Karl Rove.

From the Wall Street Journal: Hook-Up or Shut Up, by Harvey Mansfield.

From National Review: Obama Still in Danger, by Byron York.

From the Daily News: Ayers Tried to Kill My Family, by John M. Murtagh.

He’s good enough, he’s rich enough – but, doggone it, he isn’t smart enough:

Senate candidate Al Franken says he will pay about $70,000 in back income taxes in 17 states going back to 2003.

The Minnesota Democrat has been under attack by Republicans for failing to file tax returns in California for several years when the comedian-turned-candidate earned money there.

Franken tells The Associated Press he never intended to avoid paying taxes. He says during the years in question, he paid his entire income tax bill to the city and state where he lived.

Memo to Al: My wife and I use the H&R Block software to file our taxes. In addition to being mighty easy, it asks you questions like Did you earn any extra income outside your place of residence? Perhaps that might have jogged your memory regarding income earned from over one-third of the United States. A $44.95 investment in that software could have saved you 70 grand.

Or -- and here’s an idea -- if elected, help give the rest of us taxpayers the same break you gave yourself.

After Jeremiah Wright's recent speeches to the NAACP and the National Press Club, Obama took the advice of bloggers and denounced his former pastor once and for all:

Barack Obama said he was "outraged" by Wright’s comments at the National Press Club Monday, and "saddened by the spectacle."...

"The person I saw yesterday is not the person I met 20 years ago.”

Bloggers are skeptical that Obama never heard the true Wright. Michelle Malkin says, "Anyone with eyes...saw that Wright’s was a finely-honed, time-tested act." At the Corner, Byron York explains that "watching Rev. Wright for the last few days, watching the fluidity with which he moved from educational theories to musical theories to racial theories, it's hard to believe that that material hasn't been in the sermons Obama has heard Wright preach over the last 20 years, so I'm skeptical about Obama's new outrage over Wright's words."

As for Obama, Rich Lowry says, "What's been most disturbing about this entire episode is how dishonest Obama has been, from his pretense that he didn't know about Wright's radicalism to his excuse now that Wright has somehow become a different person." It simply "strains credulity," says Tom Bevan at the Real Clear Politics blog.

At Contentions, Jennifer Rubin asks, "How low did the poll numbers go? How many superdelegates had to warn him? What finally changed his mind? Because, as anyone following the story knows, Wright has been remarkably consistent." Goldfarb has the answer: "Obama sat in the pews for 20 years, indifferent to the hatred Wright spewed towards all quarters of American life. It was only when Wright turned on Obama that he repudiated him." At Pajamas Media, Rick Moran agrees that "he has only addressed his pastor’s hateful remarks when they have become a political problem for him."

But it seems that Obama might have even more problems now. Hugh Hewitt says, "Either way it creates a huge issue for voters. Is Obama a dupe, or just duplicitous? Do you want him in charge of the nation's security, making judgments about our enemies?" Hot Air's Ed Morrissey adds, "It doesn’t address questions of judgment at all to finally act after being backed into a corner." And NRO's Jim Geraghty says that it makes Obama's race speech "look ridiculous now"--to which Mary Katharine Ham adds, "If you'd Sister Souljah-ed [Wright] instead of your grandma, maybe you wouldn't be here now."

Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor in New York, is author of the new, much-discussed book Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad. I'm in the middle of reporting two pieces and haven't yet had a spare minute to read it, but it is my top priority when my current obligations are met (next Tuesday). I'll have much more to say about it here at that point.

McCarthy is a razor-sharp thinker and his writing reflects the clarity and precision of his thought. More often than not, when McCarthy sets out to challenge an argument he not only wins but leaves his opponents arguments in tatters. I can't tell you how many emails I've sent him, after reading one of his pieces, that begin with one word: Devastating.

I sent him another one today. Over at National Review Online, McCarthy takes on Laurie Mylroie's error-riddled review of his book. It is devastating. Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing, here, but let me just address two points.

First, on Iraq and terrorism. McCarthy writes of Mylroie: "Indeed, for commentators (like Steve Hayes, Tom Joscelyn, and I) who have argued that there were, in fact, important ties between Iraq and radical Islam, Mylroie has been a thorn in the side for years — the analyst whose zany assertions are routinely used to discredit credible evidence of cooperation." He's right, and that was the case not just with those of us outside the government, but those on the inside, too. Mylroie comes up In several of the books written about the Iraq War as a terrorism analyst who led the Bush Administration into making questionable claims about Iraq and al Qaeda. (George Packer, the New Yorker writer and author of the otherwise well-reported book, "The Assassin's Gate," makes this mistake.) This vastly overstates her role. Although her emails may have occasionally made their way to Bush administration officials, no one I know took her arguments very seriously. For good reason. Mylroie has seen an Iraqi hand behind virtually every terrorist attack on American interests. Indeed, in our one brief conversation, she faulted me for failing to understand that al Qaeda is little more than an Iraqi "front group." That's crazy. Iraq was an active state sponsor of terror and, as the recent Pentagon report confirms, a willing sponsor of al Qaeda leaders, their terrorist associates, and a wide variety of jihadist groups.

Second, in her review of McCarthy's book, Mylroie seems to misunderstand -- or misrepresent -- McCarthy's views on the proper U.S. policy approach to terrorism. She argues that McCarthy -- as a prosecutor and an author -- does not take seriously enough the role that states play in sponsoring jihadist terror. As I say, I have not yet read the book, but having discussed these issues with McCarthy on literally dozens of occasions, it's inconceivable that he is guilty of that offense. Indeed, anyone who has read his writings over the past decade knows not only that he understands the role of states but that he sees rogue states as a primary source of the terrorist threat against us.

So, I believe him when he concludes:

A central theme of my book is the incapacity of the criminal-justice system to deal adequately with a national security threat. Another is that, while the threat that confronts us is fueled by a strain of Islamic ideology, terror networks would not be able to project power on a consequential scale absent facilitation by such rogue nations as Iran, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and Sudan. Reading Laurie Mylroie’s review, a reader would come away figuring I must have argued, in contravention of what Willful Blindness actually says, that international terrorism is merely a crime and state sponsorship a trifle. Under the guise of reviewing a book, Mylroie ignores the book, using the opportunity instead to reprise her half-baked theories and cavalier dismissal of Islamic radicalism. It’s a shame the Sun let her do it.

Again, Obama at yesterday's press conference:

And as I said before, I continue to believe that Reverend Wright has been a -- a -- a leader in the South Side. I think that the church he built is outstanding. I think that he has preached in the past some wonderful sermons. He provided, you know, valuable contributions to my family.

But at a certain point, if what somebody says contradicts what you believe so fundamentally, and then he questions whether or not you believe it in front of the National Press Club, then that's enough. That's -- that's a show of disrespect to me. It's a -- it is also, I think, an insult to what we've been trying to do in this campaign.

Wright has showed so much disrespect to so many people, but only when Wright shows disrespect to Obama himself does the candidate take umbrage. Chickens coming home to roost? That doesn't rise to the level of throwing the guy overboard. The government created AIDS? You wouldn't disown your grandmother for saying that. How about God damn America? Surely you wouldn't abandon your community, your roots, just because your preacher damned the country that gave you every opportunity you've ever had. But disrespect moi? Well, every man has his breaking point.

In fact, the whole affair has a rather Beauchampian quality. Deny, deny, deny, nothing to see here. Then when that doesn't work, disavow selected items in the narrowest way possible so as to avoid the embarrassment of disavowing the whole. And when that fails and you have no other choice and the damage is already done, toss the guy overboard with a minimum amount of grace and a maximum amount of self-centered indignation. Oh, and get Andrew Sullivan to make your case well beyond the point when any such case is tenable, only to have him declare your judgment and management of the affair beyond reproach at the very moment you're forced to admit what everybody else has known for months.

Obama at the press conference yesterday:

Now, to some degree, you know -- I know that one thing that he said was true, was that he wasn't -- you know, he was never my, quote-unquote, "spiritual adviser."

He was never my "spiritual mentor." He was -- he was my pastor. And so to some extent, how, you know, the -- the press characterized in the past that relationship, I think, wasn't accurate.

Obama in January 2007:

"He's much more of a sounding board for me to make sure that I am speaking as truthfully about what I believe as possible and that I'm not losing myself in some of the hype and hoopla and stress that's involved in national politics."

So would it have been more accurate to describe him as a "life coach"?

Geraghty has some interesting poll analysis:

So while Survey USA is the only one putting North Carolina in single digits, their track record lately suggests we shouldn't expect them to be too far off the final results. Also note that Survey USA puts Hillary ahead in Indiana by 9 percent.

Geraghty tracks the firm's performance over the last few contests and thinks the most recent surveys may be indicating a shift away from Obama. More on that over at Slate as well.

First Obama said he could no more disown Wright than he could disown his own grandmother, or the black community. Leaving aside the fact that, in retrospect, this was an insult to the black community and his grandmother, the decision to distance himself now begs the question, what changed?

Wright had said horrible things about this country and many of the ethnic groups that comprise it, but all this was initially dismissed by Obama as an unfair caricature based on soundbytes taken out of context. Wright was just like a crazy uncle, we were told--harmless. But all of a sudden, Obama recognizes Wright as the malefactor that he truly is. Why the change of heart? Says Ana Marie Cox (she's respectable now, right?):

Is it overly cynical of me to think that Wright diminishing Obama as a mere politician was the true tipping point? Because that seems to be one of the few new arguments (ideas? rants? conspiracy theories?) that Wright made. Sadly for Obama, it may also be the only correct one.

This is the only possible explanation. Andrew Sullivan hit the nail on the head as to why the time had come for Obama to disown Wright: "He now has the obvious defense that Wright has attacked him and disowned him."

Obama sat in the pews for 20 years, indifferent to the hatred Wright spewed towards all quarters of American life. It was only when Wright turned on Obama that he repudiated him. That's the awful truth of the matter.

Pew Research released a new survey yesterday titled "Gen Dems: The Party’s Advantage Among Young Voters Widens," outlining a growing Democratic advantage with younger voters (age 18-29) in party identification. The report argues the shift in allegiance foreshadows even greater Democratic Party strength in the future. According to Pew:

Trends in the opinions of America's youngest voters are often a barometer of shifting political winds. And that appears to be the case in 2008. The current generation of young voters, who came of age during the George W. Bush years, is leading the way in giving the Democrats a wide advantage in party identification, just as the previous generation of young people who grew up in the Reagan years--Generation X--fueled the Republican surge of the mid-1990's.

The report shows a 58%-33% Democratic advantage in party preference for young Americans 18-29 in March of 2008. This compares to a smaller 49%-41% lead in 2000 and parity (46%-47%) in 1992.

These numbers underscore the Republican Party’s "brand" problem and are no doubt driven by President Bush’s low popularity numbers among those in this age cohort.

But a couple of caveats are also in order. First, I’m not sure that the numbers foretell a political realignment or an enduring sea change in public opinion. Party identification numbers in general are notoriously volatile. Those with weaker attachments to one party or the other often move back and forth between independent and "lean partisan" categories over time, shifting the numbers in significant ways.

Second, I looked back at some even earlier surveys to put the Pew research in a little broader perspective. First, in 1972, the same year Richard Nixon won a landslide reelection, Democrats held a 51%-29% advantage in party identification of Americans under 30 according to the American National Election Studies (ANES) at the University of Michigan. Eight years later, when Ronald Reagan was first elected, the ANES poll shows a 50%-26% Democratic edge in party ID among younger adults. So maybe the current Pew figures are just reverting back to historical norms--a circumstance that didn’t seem to hurt Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan’s electoral fortunes.

Republicans would obviously prefer higher numbers from the under 30 crowd, but partisan attachments are largely driven by short-term political circumstances, and sometimes less determinative of election outcomes than you might think.

The Battle for Sadr City is on. Several weeks ago, U.S. and Iraqi forces took control of the southern third of the city and began constructing concrete barriers to secure the area. Since U.S. and Iraqi forces moved into Sadr City, units have conducted patrols and distributed humanitarian aid to the Iraqis living in the neighborhoods. The U.S. military is also conducting aerial patrols of Sadr City, and is striking at Mahdi Army fighters as they plant roadside bombs, move weapons, and gather for attacks.

This has provoked a violent response from Muqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army, which is struggling to prevent the Iraqi government from maintaining a foothold in Sadr's power base in Baghdad. Over the past several days, Mahdi Army fighters have grouped for mass attacks. Each time U.S. and Iraqi forces beat them back, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy while suffering few of their own.

One of the largest engagements occurred today. A large force of Mahdi Army fighters ambushed a U.S. patrol on the border area where the wall is being built. U.S. forces responded and killed 28 Mahdi Army fighters while suffering six wounded. None of the casualties are life-threatening. On Sunday, 22 Mahdi Army fighters were killed as they massed to strike at a checkpoint in Sadr City. Sixteen more were killed in separate engagements that same day.

There have been numerous other air and ground engagements with the Mahdi Army in Sadr City and the surrounding areas over the past several weeks. Since Sadr threatened to conduct a third uprising nine days ago, U.S. and Iraqi troops have killed 186 Mahdi Army fighters in Baghdad alone. Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki has said he is serious about taking control of Sadr City and disarming and disbanding the Mahdi Army. There are no signs that he plans to halt the offensive.

As things currently stand, the Space Shuttle program will be suspended in 2010, as the existing orbiters reach the end of their useful lives. The U.S. will then have a window of approximately 5 years in which it will have no independent capacity for manned space flight until the Orion system comes on line. During that 5 year period, American astronauts are expected to travel to and from the International Space Station on Russian ships.

That plan took a big hit on April 19, when a returning Soyuz command module reportedly failed properly to separate from its service module, endangering the 3 astronauts on board (including one American). This was the second consecutive Soyuz mission that ended this way -- strongly suggesting a systemic flaw. With the Russians downplaying the problem, there's a real concern that it may not be safe to put all our eggs in the Soyuz basket.

Several NASA advocates in Congress -- Floridians Bill Nelson and Dave Weldon -- are beginning to suggest that we need some sort of plan 'B:'

"We could have six astronauts up on the space station and literally no way to get them down and all the people of the world will be in the sad prospect of watching them die as they run out of food and supplies," said Rep. Dave Weldon (R - Indialantic)....

Senator Nelson said one problem is President Bush has put in motion the plan to shut down the shuttle program during the next president's term. By the time the next president takes office, it will be too late to try to keep the shuttle program going.

In the wake of the latest Soyuz accident, the Orlando Sentinel argued for an additional $2 billion for the speedy development of Orion, to reduce the window between Space Shuttle and Orion from 5 years to 3 years. This is an issue that bears watching; right now $2 billion seems a small price to pay to for self-sufficiency.

Remember all that talk about how Barack Obama was a trans-partisan uniter who could help Democrats be competitive in solidly red states? He was going to help boost African-American turnout and bring out waves of new voters to back Democrats at all levels? Well, it's appropriate that as Obama desperately and disingenuously tries to distance himself from Jeremiah Wright, a surprisingly strong Democratic Congressional candidate is trying to distance himself from Obama.

Childers very nearly captured this strong Republican district without a runoff, and he may yet win on May 13. But there's no question that Obama's backing has become a thorny issue for the Democrat.

HT: Marc Ambinder

CBS reports:

“This lady right here makes Rocky Balboa look like a pansy,” said Governor Mike Easley, D-N.C., today, referring to Hillary Clinton. “There’s nothing I love more than a strong powerful woman.”

Lefties are getting their panties in a bunch over the fact that Easley used a word that could be interpreted as anti-gay. Apparently the dictionary agrees. Fine, more blue on blue identity-based violence.

Still, how could Hillary not defend Rocky's honor? She appropriated the myth when she was campaigning in Philadelphia, but as soon as she moves on to another state Rocky's a pansy? She stands by silently while Easley insults the greatest Philadelphia sports hero that never lived? Yo, Hill, where's the loyalty?

Allahpundit:

After 20 years of friendship, if Obama didn’t know Wright held these beliefs he’s a moron and if he did know he’s a fraud.

It's better for everybody that we assume Obama is a fraud, and it's almost certainly the correct explanation. As Bob Herbert wrote today, "Barack Obama went to Rev. Wright’s church as a young man and was blessed with the Christian bona fides that would be absolutely essential for a high-profile political career." It was the cost of doing business.

But Obama must think us all bitter morons to try and pass off this embarrassment as the product of some kind of ideological evolution on Wright's part. Is it that he didn't leave the church but the church left him? How many other members of the church do we expect will distance themselves at the sudden revelation that their (former) pastor is a vile racist?

Obama said today of Rev. Wright: "The person I saw yesterday was not the person that I met 20 years ago."

Obama's recollection in Dreams from My Father of his first time at Trinity United 20 years ago:

The title of Reverend Wright's sermon that morning was "The Audacity of Hope." He began with a passage from the Book of Samuel—the story of Hannah, who, barren and taunted by her rivals, had wept and shaken in prayer before her God. The story reminded him, he said, of a sermon a fellow pastor had preached at a conference some years before, in which the pastor described going to a museum and being confronted by a painting title Hope….

"It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks' greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere…That's the world! On which hope sits!"

And so it went, a meditation on a fallen world. While the boys next to me doodled on their church bulletin, Reverend Wright spoke of Sharpsville and Hiroshima, the callousness of policy makers in the White House and in the State House. As the sermon unfolded, though, the stories of strife became more prosaic, the pain more immediate. The reverend spoke of the hardship that the congregation would face tomorrow, the pain of those far from the mountaintop, worrying about paying the light bill…

Wright doesn't sound all that different.

Again, at the Indianapolis Star.

Statistical tie. And Frank Newport adds, "There have been minor changes in the shape of the national registered voter preferences for the fall, with John McCain now leading Obama by a slim two percentage point margin, while Clinton has a slight 2-point margin over McCain."

The question is, why has Hillary closed the gap? I suspect it's the PA bounce, but the Rev. Wright stuff can't be helping. The Indiana primary should shed some light. The demographics there may be even more favorable to Clinton than Pennsylvania. If she isn't able to recreate her PA victory in Indiana, then there's something wrong with her campaign. If she builds on her victory, then there's something wrong with Obama.

It's official – Barack Obama, however belatedly, threw his Meshugenah Minister under the bus at a press conference today. According to Obama's telling, Jeremiah Wright's appearance yesterday at the National Press Club made it clear to Obama that Wright is a crackpot, a lunatic, a nut. (The preceding are my terms, not Obama's.) So, in other words, Wright's oddness managed to elude Obama during 20 years of spiritual mentorship and while the Obamas were sending $40,000 worth of support to Wright, but yesterday Obama had a proverbial Road to Damascus experience. At the risk of being blunt, pull the other leg, Senator – there are bells on it.

Obama's style during the extended presser is worth some commentary. His delivery, as is ever the case when he doesn't have a teleprompter, was weak and halting. He claimed outrage, but instead he showed a low energy level form of sorrow.

I thought of three other political appearances while watching the Obama press conference:

1) Just prior to the Iraq War, President Bush gave a presser where he tried to emphasize his seriousness and not look at all cowboy-ish. The results were disastrous. The press labeled Bush as “slouching off to war” thanks to his grim, low energy efforts. Similarly, Obama should have shown some feistiness and fighting spirit today. Instead he looked like a beaten man. (Perhaps he had seen the latest SUSA Poll for North Carolina that shows Hillary Clinton pulling to within 5 points.)

2) Ted Kennedy's “Mudd Slide” – Ted Kennedy's 1980 presidential ambitions bit the dust when he stumbled over a series of innocuous questions that Roger Mudd asked him. That interview has long been the gold standard for a politician giving a disastrous interview. Like Kennedy during the Mudd Slide, Obama was strikingly inarticulate. Obama always says "um" a lot when speaking extemporaneously, but today's effort was particularly disastrous in that regard. Obama said he was outraged by Wright, but he spoke slowly and laconically, hardly traits that one typically associates with outrage.

3) Bill Clinton in the immediate aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing called the perpetrators cowards and vowed that they would face vengeance. Clinton was visibly angry, and appropriately so. It was the first time in his presidency that he obviously was telling the truth. His tone and his emotions matched the moment perfectly.

Obama needed to forcefcully and perhaps a bit angrily distance himself from Reverend Wright. Reverend Wright's comments would outrage just about every American, and Obama had more reason to be furious than most. And yet he spoke in measured and hesitant tones. Some might think this style evidences a heightened state of thoughtfulness. Regardless, Obama’s tone today did not match the moment.

As such, it will do nothing to put this issue to bed.

Any lingering doubts that the Obama campaign is a cult of personality should be erased by this news that the campaign is offering a "limited edition" car magnet for donors who give $15 or more before Wednesday.

The campaign is marketing its own collectibles!

(Will donors get a certificate of authenticity with their limited edition magnet?)

Mind you, the campaign is just cashing in on a market that's already thriving on eBay. There are 1,433 Obama items currently on offer under the "Collectibles" category. They range from fake license plates to designer ceramic tiles to original artwork. There's even a Barak Obama lock knife and