CALIFORNIA YANKEE

Bill Clinton Tried To Stop Kennedy's Obama Endorsement

Former president Bill Clinton tried hard to convince Ted Kennedy not to endorse Obama over Hillary.

The Washington Post calls the Kennedy stamp of approval "one of the most sought-after prizes of the Democratic nomination battle." Both the Hillary and the Obama campaigns sought the Kennedy prize:

Obama had cultivated Kennedy's support for months. So had Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who along with her husband, former president Bill Clinton, had pressed Kennedy in recent days to at least remain neutral.

In the end Bill Clinton's failure to listen to warnings that his attacks against Obama had gone too far cost Hillary:

Kennedy's decision came after weeks of his rising frustration with the Clintons over campaign tactics, particularly comments by the couple and their surrogates in South Carolina that seemed to carry racial overtones. Kennedy expressed his frustrations directly to the former president, but to no avail. He came to his endorsement decision over the past week, after speaking to numerous family members, especially younger ones, and gave Obama the word on Thursday, people familiar with the endorsement said.

The New York Times reports that the "discussions " between the Clintons and Kennedy became "heated:"

Both the Clintons and their allies had pressed Mr. Kennedy for weeks to remain neutral in the Democratic race, but Mr. Kennedy had become increasingly disenchanted with the tone of the Clinton campaign, aides said. He and former President Bill Clinton had a heated telephone exchange earlier this month over what Mr. Kennedy considered misleading statements by Mr. Clinton about Mr. Obama, as well as his injection of race into the campaign.

The Kennedy endorsement is further evidence that Bill Clinton’s over the top attacks on Obama have gone too far and have hurt Hillary's candidacy. That's a fact the Hillary campaign subtly acknowledges:

Campaign officials, without acknowledging any faults on Mr. Clinton’s part, have said they will change tactics and try to shift Mr. Clinton back into the role he played before her loss in the Iowa caucuses, emphasizing her record and experience.

At Politico, Mike Allen and Carrie Budoff Brown also write about the Clinton's efforts to prevent the Kennedy Obama endorsement and call the rejection of Hillary as least as embarrassing as her 28-point loss in the South Carolina primary on Saturday.

Has the Clinton's race baiting boomeranged? We won't know the answer to that question until after the twenty-odd February 5, contests. We do know that Bill Clinton should learn to listen when party leaders tell him to shut up.

More On Obama's Kennedy Prize

NBC Nightly News reports on Obama's huge Win in South Carolina, and the Kennedy endorsements of Barack Obama:

I agree with Andrea Mitchell that the Ted Kennedy endorsement is huge. She makes the point that Kennedy and other Democratic Party leaders are very unhappy with Bill Clinton's negative campaign against Obama.

Bill should have paid attention when Kennedy told the former president to shut up.

Kennedy to Endorse Obama

Democratic Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy will endorse Barack Obama for president.

The endorsement will be announced Monday in Washington:

Obama would not answer questions about an endorsement from Kennedy during an appearance on television this morning:

"I'll let Ted Kennedy speak for himself. And nobody does it better," he said on ABC's "This Week." "But obviously, any of the Democratic candidates would love to have Ted Kennedy's support. And we have certainly actively sought it. And you know, I will let him make his announcement and his decision when he decides it's appropriate."

Kennedy's endorsement of Obama will follow that of his niece, Caroline Kennedy:

I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.

Generally I don't think endorsements mean all that much. But in Democratic Part politics the Kennedys have a special impact.

The Boston Globe calls the endorsement a huge blow to Hillary:

The coveted endorsement is a huge blow to New York Senator Hillary Clinton, who is both a senatorial colleague and a friend of the Kennedy family. In a campaign where Clinton has trumpeted her experience over Obama's call for hope and change, the endorsement by one of the most experienced and respected Democrats in the Senate is a particularly dramatic coup for Obama.

"The America of Jack and Bobby Kennedy touched all of us. Through all of these decades, the one who kept that flame alive was Ted Kennedy,'' said Representative Bill Delahunt, A Quincy Democrat who is also backing Obama. "So having him pass on the torch [to Obama] is of incredible significance. It's historic."

This is just huge. It may even be enough to swing Massachusetts to Obama on Super Tuesday.

Sgt. Jill Stevens - America's Favorite Miss America Contestant

She didn't win the Miss America pageant, but Sgt. Jill Stevens, is America's favorite Miss America contestant:

Miss Utah Jill Stevens was the winner of TLC's America's Choice, an online competition where viewers got the opportunity to vote for their favorite Miss America contestant. The contestant was announced at the beginning of the Miss America Live! broadcast and became the 16th Finalist to compete in the live finale.

Go Army!

By the way, Kirsten Haglund, Miss Michigan, was crowned Miss America 2008.

Photo by Joe Whiteko via Pageant News Bureau.

Gagarin Was NOT The First "Man In Space"

More than forty five years after the Evil Empire made Yuri Gagarin a hero of the Soviet Union, Pravda reports that Gagarin was not the first man in space, he was just the first man to survive a flight into space:

Gagarin was not the first man to fly to space. Three Soviet pilots died in attempts to conquer space before Gagarin's famous space flight, Mikhail Rudenko, senior engineer-experimenter with Experimental Design Office 456 (located in Khimki, in the Moscow region) said on Thursday. According to Rudenko, spacecraft with pilots Ledovskikh, Shaborin and Mitkov at the controls were launched from the Kapustin Yar cosmodrome (in the Astrakhan region) in 1957, 1958 and 1959. "All three pilots died during the flights, and their names were never officially published," Rudenko said.

If this is true, and it has to be because it is from Pravda, it should in no way diminish the significance of the Gargarin's successful flight. If Gagarin knew of the deadly attempts by Ledovskikh, Shaborin and Mitkov, we should be even more impressed with Gagarin's courage.

Thanks to Glen for the tip.

Happy "I Did Not Have Sexual Relations With That Woman" Day

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." - George Santayana

On January 26, 1998, then President Bill Clinton went on national TV and brazenly announced lied to the American people claiming he "did not have sexual relations with that woman:"

Context

After repeatedly denying an inappropriate relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, President Clinton finally acknowledged the affair in grand jury testimony on August 17, 1998.

On September 11, 1998, Kenneth Starr's four-year investigation into the president was made public in a 445-page report.

As a direct result of the Starr report, Bill Clinton became only the second president in American history to be impeached, when the House Judiciary Committee proposed articles of impeachment against President Clinton.

The Senate voted to acquit Clinton of the impeachment charges of perjury and obstruction of justice on February 12, 1999.

Thanks to Marc Parent for the reminder.

South Carolina Democratic Primary Prediction

As in New Hampshire, the South Carolina polls suggest a comfortable margin for Obama. My guess is that the result will look something like this:

Barack Obama - 42%
Hillary Clinton - 34%
John Edwards - 21%
Mike Gravel - 1%

Even as Obama wins the South Carolina, he loses. The Clintons have played the race card masterfully. After tonight, the Clinton's will be able to argue that Obama's audacity doesn't transcend racial lines.

Dick Morris explained the Clintons' race baiting on The "O'Reilly Factor" (January 24, 2008):

One has to wonder if the Clintons' Obama bashing will come back to haunt Hillary should she become the Democratic nominee.

Don't Short The Surge

Kimberly Kagan looks at the success of the surge and notes it may have a surprising result:

We won more than we had hoped, and now we may need to defend it more than we had planned.

Kagan's sobering analysis concludes we can't reduce American combat forces in Iraq below 15 brigades this year:

By the best estimates now available, 15 brigades is the absolute minimum force required to accomplish the mission that has brought us success in 2007. Any further reductions -- even by a single brigade -- may make that mission impossible.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' recent hope that the U.S. could cut its combat forces in Iraq from 20 to 10 brigades this year now appears overly optimistic.

Nevertheless, the progress in Iraq is real and the progress is political as well as military. American brigades in Iraq not only oversee combat, the brigades are also responsible for training, and governance missions in their area of operations:

Since the end of 2006, brigades have overseen the Military Transition Teams that train and advise the Iraqi security forces operating in their area, dramatically improving the coordination of Iraqi and American forces.

[. . .]

Since spring 2007, the brigades have housed the Embedded Provincial Reconstruction Teams that have jumpstarted local and provincial Iraqi government. The brigade helps these teams move through the area. The brigades have been instrumental in the Iraqi population's rejection of al Qaeda.

We need patience to attain victory in Iraq. Counterinsurgency is inherently a long-term proposition.

Last week, Micheal R. Gordan wrote about the "parallel universes" he experienced in his military reporting assignments in Iraq and tracking the campaign debate in the United States:

The American officers I met were hardly of one mind on how to proceed in Iraq, but they were grappling with decisions on how to try to stabilize a traumatized country with a hard-headed sense that although there have been significant gains, a long and difficult job still lies ahead — a core assumption that has frequently been missing on the campaign trail.

The politicians, on the other hand, seemed more intent on addressing public impatience with an open-ended commitment in Iraq, either by promising prompt withdrawal (the Democrats) or by suggesting that victory may be near (the Republicans).

Anthony Cordesman, a military specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who regularly visits Iraq, put it this way: “You have to grade all the candidates between a D-minus and an F-plus. The Republicans are talking about this as if we have won and as if Iraq is the center of the war on terrorism, rather than Afghanistan and Pakistan and a host of movements in 50 other countries.

The Democrats talk about this as if the only problem is to withdraw and the difference is over how quickly to do it.”

Iraq is one theater in the War against Islamic Extremism. Al Qaeda's two principal leaders, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, have repeatedly called Iraq the "front line" in their war against Western civilization. We have no choice but to find the patience to give the military the time it needs to complete the job we asked them to do. The alternative, advocated by the liberal/progressive left wing and the Democratic Presidential candidates, is to admit defeat, surrender to al Qaeda in Iraq after so much sacrifice and battle an emboldened enemy in other theaters until we tire there as well.

Obama's South Carolina Democratic Primary Landslide

Barack Obama didn't just beat Hillary Clinton in the South Carolina Democratic Primary, he buried her:

Barack Obama - 55%
Hillary Clinton - 27%
John Edwards - 18%

The landslide allowed Obama to extend his lead in delegates won in primaries and caucuses to 70-57, but when the Democrat's super delegates are included Hillary leads the delegate count:

Delegate Count
Clinton - 230
Obama - 152
Edwards - 61

Kucinich Quits

Democrat Dennis Kucinich, a liberal member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Cleveland, Ohio, told the Cleveland Plain-Dealer he would make his withdrawal announcement on Friday.