Barak Obama is getting testy about the debate Wednesday night in Pennsylvania. He feels the need to explain to people how well he did, in case that fact passed folks by.<\/p>\n
I had a commander that used to do that; everytime he screwed up and it was obvious to the whole world, he’d sit us all down and tell us what really happened – the way he saw it.<\/p>\n
So Obama spent the day yesterday telling us how the debate really went (from the WSJ Washington Wire<\/a>);<\/p>\n \u201cI think we set a new record because it took us 45 minutes before we even started talking about\u201d the issues, Obama said at a town-hall forum in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday.<\/p>\n He lamented the fact that Washington encouraged manufactured debates and \u201cgotcha games\u201d to incite attacks. \u201cThey like stirring up controversy,\u201d he said of the news media, before getting in a dig at his rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton. \u201cSen. Clinton looked in her element. She was taking every opportunity,\u201d he said to jeers and laughter.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s her right to kind of twist the knife a little bit,\u201d he said to laughter and applause. \u201cYou know, that\u2019s why she\u2019s only airing attacks on the TV in Pennsylvania, like most places.\u201d<\/p>\n He called her tactics \u201ctextbook Washington\u201d as he tried to underscore his appeal as the antipolitician. \u201cThat\u2019s how our politics has been taught to be played. That\u2019s the lesson she learned\u201d when the Republicans \u201cwere doing the same to her back in the 1990s.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re running for president, then you\u2019ve got to expect it and you\u2019ve got to kind of let it,\u201d and he turned to brush off his shoulders while shrugging. He said he had tried to show restraint against Clinton, a fellow Democrat, but said he wouldn\u2019t \u201chave as much restraint with the Republicans.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n What will he use against Republicans? The only thing he has is bluster. All I can think we can expect from him is that he restrained himself from sitting in the middle of the stage and cry his eyes out. That’ll bring in the votes.<\/p>\n Bill Clinton told an audience in Pennsylvania that Obama is whining (ABC link<\/a>);<\/p>\n “When I watched that debate last night, I got kinda tickled,” the former President said at an American Legion Hall event in St. Mary’s, Pennsylvania, “After the [debate], her opponents’, oh, the people working were saying, ‘Oh this is so negative, why are they doing this.’ Well they’ve been beatin’ up on her for 15 months. I didn’t hear her whining when he said she was untruthful in Iowa or called her the senator from Punjab.”<\/p>\n “And, you know, they said some pretty rough things about me, too. But you know, this is a contact sport. If you don’t want to play, keep your uniform off,” Clinton told a loudly cheering crowd.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Howard Dean sees the damage that the battle against the Clintons is doing to the Obama campaign and called for the delegates to declare their intentions now (CNN link<\/a>);<\/p>\n An increasingly firm Howard Dean told CNN again Thursday that he needs superdelegates to say who they\u2019re for \u2013 and \u201cI need them to say who they\u2019re for starting now.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe cannot give up two or three months of active campaigning and healing time,\u201d the Democratic National Committee Chairman told CNN\u2019s Wolf Blitzer. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to know who our nominee is.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Peggy Noonan<\/a> writes that the press corps already ignores much of what Hillary says these days;<\/p>\n Mrs. Clinton is transmitting, but people aren’t receiving. She has been branded, tagged. She’s been absorbed, understood and categorized. People have decided what they think, and it’s not good.<\/p>\n […]<\/p>\n She’ll need more than four years to shake off the impression she made in 2008. And this is how you’ll know she’s making another bid for the presidency. She will wear skirts. Gone will be the pantsuits that made her look like a small blond man with breasts. It’s the new me, I wear skirts! Her first impulse is to think cosmetically. A long and weary life in politics has left her thinking this is the way to think<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Washington Times<\/a> reports that Obama’s campaign fended off endorsements (Jen at Demure Thoughts<\/a> wonders why);<\/p>\n Mr. Obama’s campaign yesterday was forced to reject an unsolicited endorsement by the Islamist terror group Hamas as the candidate worked to reassure leery Jewish voters, and his supporters derided Wednesday’s debate as unfair.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n