Barack Obama announced this morning that he will not enter into the public financing system for the presidential campaign, breaking his word to Common Cause and — by not discussing the issue with John McCain — to the late Tim Russert on national television. Entirely predictable, natch — and as noted earlier — he likely will pay no political price for doing so.  It is worth noting that Team Obama had

Glenn Greenwald (a/k/a “Rick Ellensburg,” “Thomas Ellers,” “Ellison,” “Wilson” and “Ryan”) excoriates Barack Obama for endorsing Rep. John Barrow (D-GA) because Barrow wanted to vote on updating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, an issue which has been stuck in Congress for most of the year: For all of Obama’s talk about the wicked ways of Washington, these incumbent protection schemes — whereby Beltway power factions all help each other stay in power

…At which point, we can chalk it up to the law of unintended consequences. Asks nishi, in Darleen’s earlier thread on same sex marriage and the church Tell me why homosexuals differ from african americans, or even from women who are now protected under anti-discrimination laws. Well, the quick answer is that they are not. Gays are, in fact, protected under anti-discrimination laws. But until it is determined that homosexuality

A blogger at The Bellman takes issue with a prior pw post from our host Jeff, the offending portion of which read as follows: …those who constantly remind us that giving “offense” is commensurate with “hate speech,” and as such, is worthy of special remedies (”diversity training” for benighted “haters,” a rather nuanced reconsideration of free speech that turns “tolerance” on its head, or — at best, the rise of “free speech

Barack Obama has now flipped (or is it flopped) on trade, telling Fortune magazine’s Nina Easton that NAFTA is not as bad a deal as he made it sound while campaigning in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania: “Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified,” he conceded, after I reminded him that he had called NAFTA “devastating” and “a big mistake,” despite nonpartisan studies concluding that the trade zone

ONE day, when Christopher Warren and Barry-the-Oh and Zbiglet were all talking together, Christopher Warren finished the mouthful he was eating and said carelessly: “I saw a Heffalump today, Zbiglet.” “What was it doing?” asked Zbiglet. “Just lumping along,” said Christopher Warren. “I don’t think it saw me.” “I saw one once,” said Zbiglet. “At least, I think I did,” he said. “Only perhaps it wasn’t.” “So did I,” said