A red phone is ringing in the middle of the night as a voice-over intones “who do you want to answer the call in the middle of the night?” As a woman’s hand reaches for the phone, a man’s hand reaches it sooner. Bill Clinton says, “Let me get this, Honey; you need your rest.”

I know — it’s pretty insulting to both of them. I toss this idea into the Cloud. Let me know if it turns up on YouTube.

More seriously, whatever Hillary does to put down Obama is *nothing* compared to what the Republicans will do. This is a useful exercise, though it will be galling to see the same ad run by McCain in the fall. peace, mjh

For Obama, a Taste of What a Long Battle Would Hold – New York Times

Yet the shifting tone offers a glimpse of the Republican playbook as the party adapts to the prospect that it will be running against Mr. Obama rather than Mrs. Clinton.

It is a reminder that should Mr. Obama win the nomination, he will be playing on a more treacherous political battleground as his opponents — scouring through his record of votes and statements and his experiences before he entered public life — look for ways to portray him as out of step with the nation’s values, challenge his appeal to independent voters and emphasize his lack of experience in foreign policy and national security.

Some of this will almost certainly take the shape of the Internet rumors and whispering campaigns that have popped up against Mr. Obama since he got into the race, like the false reports that he is Muslim. Others will no doubt come from the types of shadowy independent committees that have played a big role in campaigns in recent years.

But others will simply draw on Mr. Obama’s voting record and speeches, interviews and debate appearances. Mr. McCain’s aides said their first line of attack would be to portray him as a liberal

For Obama, a Taste of What a Long Battle Would Hold – New York Times

Chicago Reader | Obama-rama: What Makes Obama Run?
December 8, 1995

What makes Obama different from other progressive politicians is that he doesn’t just want to create and support progressive programs; he wants to mobilize the people to create their own. He wants to stand politics on its head, empowering citizens by bringing together the churches and businesses and banks, scornful grandmothers and angry young. Mostly he’s running to fill a political and moral vacuum. He says he’s tired of seeing the moral fervor of black folks whipped up–at the speaker’s rostrum and from the pulpit–and then allowed to dissipate because there’s no agenda, no concrete program for change.

While no political opposition to Obama has arisen yet, many have expressed doubts about the practicality of his ambitions. Obama himself says he’s not certain that his experimental plunge into electoral politics can produce the kind of community empowerment and economic change he’s after.

“Three major doubts have been raised,” he said. The first is whether in today’s political environment–with its emphasis on media and money–a grass-roots movement can even be created. Will people still answer the call of participatory politics?

“Second,” Obama said, “many believe that the country is too racially polarized to build the kind of multiracial coalitions necessary to bring about massive economic change.

“Third, is it possible for those of us working through the Democratic Party to figure out ways to use the political process to create jobs for our communities?” …

Obama is the product of a brief early-60s college romance and short-lived marriage between a black African exchange student and a white liberal Kansan who met at the University of Hawaii. His critical boyhood years–from two to ten–were spent neither in white nor black America but in the teeming streets and jungle outskirts of Djakarta. Obama’s boyhood experiences in Indonesia–where his mother took him when she married another foreign exchange student–propelled him toward a worldview well beyond his mother’s liberalism.

“The poverty, the corruption, the constant scramble for security . . . remained all around me and bred a relentless skepticism. My mother’s confidence in needlepoint virtues depended on a faith I didn’t possess. . . . In a land where fatalism remained a necessary tool for enduring hard-ship . . . she was a lonely witness for secular humanism, a soldier for New Deal, Peace Corps, position-paper liberalism.”

Chicago Reader | Obama-rama: What Makes Obama Run? Lawyer, teacher, philanthropist, and author Barack Obama doesn’t need another career. But he’s entering politics to get back to his true passion–community organization. December 8, 1995

Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me | Tech news blog – CNET News.com

For one thing, under an Obama presidency, Americans will be able to leave behind the era of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and “wiretaps without warrants,” he said. (He was referring to the lingering legal fallout over reports that the National Security Agency scooped up Americans’ phone and Internet activities without court orders, ostensibly to monitor terrorist plots, in the years after the September 11 attacks.)

It’s hardly a new stance for Obama, who has made similar statements in previous campaign speeches, but mention of the issue in a stump speech, alongside more frequently discussed topics like Iraq and education, may give some clue to his priorities.

In our own Technology Voters’ Guide, when asked whether he supports shielding telecommunications and Internet companies from lawsuits accusing them of illegal spying, Obama gave us a one-word response: “No.”

(Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Edwards and Republican Ron Paul, for their part, came to the same conclusion in our survey.)

Obama: No warrantless wiretaps if you elect me | Tech news blog – CNET News.com

Obama pledges Net neutrality laws if elected president | Tech news blog – CNET News.com

Posted by Anne Broache

If elected president, Barack Obama plans to prioritize, well, barring broadband providers like AT&T and Comcast from prioritizing Internet content.

Affixing his signature to federal Net neutrality rules would be high on the list during his first year in the Oval Office, the junior senator from Illinois said during an interactive forum Monday afternoon with the popular contender put on by MTV and MySpace at Coe College in Iowa.

Net neutrality, of course, is the idea that broadband operators shouldn’t be allowed to block or degrade Internet content and services–or charge content providers an extra fee for speedier delivery or more favorable placement.

The question, selected through an online video contest, was posed via video by small-business owner and former AT&T engineer Joe Niederberger, a member of the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org. He asked Obama: “Would you make it a priority in your first year of office to reinstate Net neutrality as the law of the land? And would you pledge to only appoint FCC commissioners that support open Internet principles like Net neutrality?”

“The answer is yes,” Obama replied. “I am a strong supporter of Net neutrality.”

Obama pledges Net neutrality laws if elected president | Tech news blog – CNET News.com

My name is Mark Justice Hinton and I support Barack Hussein Obama for president. There are things I admire about Hillary Rodham Clinton, wife of William Jefferson Clinton, and a couple of things I don’t like about her. Still, we can all — including countless Independents and Republicans — celebrate the inevitable end to the reign of terror of George Duhbya Bush. (The duhbya stands for dumbass.)

What’s in a name? Are you embarrassed by your name? Has anyone abused you about your name since the third grade? If so, odds are that person was quite an idiot, possibly a bully. (Let me take this opportunity to apologize to John Dimdahl and Lush Limbaugh for anything I may have said to hurt them. I may be a hypocrite, but I’m no idiot nor bully.)

Everybody better get used to Obama’s full name. It’s going in the history books and it will be in the media every day for at least another four years, maybe eight. Like it or not.

I appreciate the sentiment John McCain expressed regarding treating one’s adversaries with respect. However, I don’t believe the childish prattle of his former supporter warrants censorship. Go ahead: Make an ass of yourself mocking Obama. It’s the essence of impotence.

While Big Mac was being so noble, someone should have asked why he didn’t rebuke the woman at one of his townhall meetings who asked “what are we going to do about the bitch?” Instead of rebuking her, he joined the laughter. That’s respect?

A supporter of Ariz. Sen. John McCain repeatedly used Barack Obama’s middle name, Hussein, while ridiculing him as a terrorist sympathizer in an introductory speech for McCain at a rally here this morning.

Immediately afterward, former Ohio congressman and former Bush administration official Rob Portman praised the supporter, talk show host Bill Cunningham, as an “extremely important” part of the McCain campaign.
Cunningham, who is known locally for his right-wing, fiery rhetoric on the radio, challenged the media to “stop taking sides and begin covering Barack Hussein Obama” as they do Republicans.
He used Obama’s middle name two more times and referred to him as “a hack, Chicago-style Daley politician who’s picturing himself as change. When he gets done with you, all you’re going to have in your pocket is change.”
He then mocked foreign policy statements of “Barack Hussein Obama,” calling him the “fraud from Chicago” and saying that if Obama were to be elected president he would meet with the leaders of enemy nations. He said the “world leaders who want to kill us” will be “singing Kumbaya together around the table with Barack Obama.”
Later in his comments, he said there is a big difference between Secretaries of State “Condoleezza Rice and Madeleine Albright, who looks like death warmed over. I think there’s a difference between Condi and Madeleine. “
He also referred to former Gen. Wesley Clark as a “Clinonista.”
McCain did not mention Cunningham’s comments in his speech to the enthusiastic crowd. But afterward, in comments to reporters, McCain apologized profusely for “any disparaging remarks” made about his Democratic rivals.
“Whatever suggestion was made that was in any way disparaging to the integrity, character, honesty of either Sen. Obama or Sen. Clinton was wrong and I condemn it,” McCain said. “I will take responsibility and I apologize for it.”

Pressed by reporters, McCain said he will “make sure nothing like that ever happens again” and said “I absolutely repudiate such comments.”

A spokesman for Obama said that “We appreciate Senator McCain’s remarks. It is a sign that if there is a McCain-Obama general election, it can be intensely competitive but the candidates will attempt to keep it respectful and focused on issues,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.
Portman said after McCain’s speech that Cunninghams is “often controversial” and that it did not surprise him that Cunningham would have made news with his comments at the rally.
But on stage earlier, Portman was effusive about Cunningham’s speech. “Willie, you’re out of control again. So, what else is new? But we love him,” Portman told the crowd. “But I’ve got to tell you, Bill Cunningham lending his voice to this campaign is extremely important.”
The sarcastic speech by Cunningham followed comments by another supporter, a local prosecutor from the Cincinnati area, who mocked Obama’s lack of military service and his message of optimism.
Joe Deters called Obama the “presumptive Democratic candidate” and predicted that Obama’s success will quickly fade as people see through his rhetoric.
He said that will happen “after the vortex of love for this candidate stops — and I feel so badly for the Clintons about this, don’t you? — and everybody sobers up and says what does this guy really stand for?”
Deters whipped up the audience of about 400 by accusing Obama of supporting policies that Republicans hate.
“How about raising your taxes? How about that?” Deters said, prompting loud “boos” from the crowd.
“How about universal health care?”
More boos.
“How about the Democrats fighting with each other on how quickly they will surrender to the terrorists in Iraq?”
More boos.
Deters then questioned Obama’s lack of military experience. He cited McCain’s well-known history of having spent five years in a Vietnamese prison cell and having two sons serving “in uniform,” and then accused Obama of having never risked anything.
“The only thing he has ever risked was a filing fee for reelection,” Deters said. “That’s the only thing he ever risked.”

McCain Supporter Disparages Obama; McCain Apologizes | The Trail | washingtonpost.com