Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

Most politicians lie. Most people over 50, as I know all too well, misremember things. So here is the one compelling mystery still unresolved about Hillary Clinton’s Bosnia fairy tale: Why did she keep repeating this whopper for nearly three months, well after it had been publicly debunked by journalists and eyewitnesses?

-- FRANK RICH

The party ought to lay off the calls for Clinton to drop out, at least for now, because her presence at worst is making Obama a better candidate. The Wright flare-up was the first true political crisis of Obama’s national political career, which is remarkable given how close he is to being the Democratic nominee. Who knows when the Wright controversy would have circulated had the nomination been locked up.

Obama needed to prove he could handle a real media firestorm, something Clinton has done numerous times throughout her career. In fact, her political survival skills have been marketed as an asset by the campaign, something I think would have sold better in ‘04 when the party was looking for a tough survivor to put up against Bush.

-- CHUCK TODD

As much opprobrium as is being heaped on Obama's pastor Rev. Wright these days, what about the black folks who aren't speaking up? If anyone with an African forebear is black, and blacks are assumed to feel some sort of kinship with each other, how can any blacks take part in the Beijing Olympics this summer?

-- DEBRA DICKERSON

Rush Limbaugh won't be going to jail for encouraging Republican voters in Ohio to cross over and vote for Hillary Clinton in their primary.

His listeners were concerned that he might be charged with voter fraud, and Limbaugh apparently hoped that he would. "I wouldn't worry about it," Limbaugh told them. "Look at this as a badge of honor, ladies and gentlemen. If anybody gets indicted, if anybody has to go jail, it will be me-- and I'll do my program from jail . . . "

But the Democratic Attorney General of Ohio has calmed their fears and dashed his hopes. "We have no intention of prosecuting Rush Limbaugh because lying through your teeth and being stupid isn't a crime," a spokesman announced.

Politicians everywhere must be breathing a sigh of relief.

-- ROBERT STEIN

For people to be seizing on Obama's calling himself a "professor" as evidence of dissembling is somewhere east of insane...I guess they want him to insert a variation of the above explanation into every speech, every autobio, every book jacket, to hold him to a standard NO ONE on ANY CAMPUS adheres to. THIS . . . IS . . . riDICulous . . . Make it stop! Make it stop!

-- BUCKAROOSKIDOO

Now two months have passed since Edwards dropped out—tempus fugit!—and still no endorsement. Why? According to a Democratic strategist unaligned with any campaign but with knowledge of the situation gleaned from all three camps, the answer is simple: Obama blew it. Speaking to Edwards on the day he exited the race, Obama came across as glib and aloof. His response to Edwards’s imprecations that he make poverty a central part of his agenda was shallow, perfunctory, pat. Clinton, by contrast, engaged Edwards in a lengthy policy discussion. Her affect was solicitous and respectful. When Clinton met Edwards face-to-face in North Carolina ten days later, her approach continued to impress; she even made headway with Elizabeth. Whereas in his Edwards sit-down, Obama dug himself in deeper, getting into a fight with Elizabeth about health care, insisting that his plan is universal (a position she considers a crock), high-handedly criticizing Clinton’s plan (and by extension Edwards’s) for its insurance mandate.

The implications of this story are several and not insignificant. Most obviously, it suggests that the front-runner’s diplomatic skills could use some refinement.

-- JOHN HEILEMAN

1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 all saw the candidate without military service elected over the candidate who had served, in several cases heroically.

-- MATT STOLLER

Heather Arnet, a Clinton supporter who runs a Pittsburgh organization that lobbies for more women on public commissions and corporate boards, recently surveyed the Internet and found more than 50 anti-Hillary Clinton sites on Facebook. One of them, entitled "Hillary Clinton Stop Running for President and Make Me a Sandwich," had more than 38,000 members.

"What if one of these 38,000 guys is someone you, as a woman, have to go to and negotiate a raise?" she asks.

-- JONATHAN KAUFMAN and CAROL HYMOWITZ

I believe that loyalty is a cardinal virtue. Nowhere in the world is loyalty so little revered and tittle-tattle so greatly venerated as in Washington.

-- JAMES CARVILLE

Does all this mean I'm ready to come out and recommend that our Democrat readers choose Sen. Clinton in Pennsylvania's April 22 primary?

No -- not yet, anyway. In fairness, we at the Trib want to hear Sen. Barack Obama's answers to some of the same questions and to others before we make that decision.

But it does mean that I have a very different impression of Hillary Clinton today than before last Tuesday's meeting -- and it's a very favorable one indeed.

Call it a "counterintuitive" impression.

-- RICHARD MELLON SCAIFE

Cartoon by Glenn McCoy/Universal Press Syndicate