Quotes From Around Yon Blogosphere

“President Bush criticized Congress Tuesday for ‘letting the American people down’ on issues ranging from food and gas prices to foreign trade and intelligence . . . “

My operating assumption since Bush took office is that he will do or say the worst thing imaginable, and just when you think it can’t get any worse, he'll do or say something that ups the ante by an order of magnitude. I think with this quote, we've seen the end of that assumption, at least until the pardons start getting signed.

-- MATT

In Winston-Salem, Obama sharply attacks Reverend Jeremiah Wright and the substance of his remarks yesterday, a far sharper disavowal than he gave in Philadelphia last month.

The core of his message: That Wright was not only offensive, but the polar opposite of Obama's own views and politics.

-- BEN SMITH

The past seven states to hold primaries registered more than 1 million new Democratic voters; Republican numbers mainly ebbed or stagnated. North Carolina and Indiana, which will hold their presidential primaries on May 6, are reporting a swell of new Democrats that triples the surge in registrations before the 2004 primary.

-- ELI SASLOW

Can we stop pretending to be children about this? There's only one reason for a politician to make sure that all his assets are in his wife's name: it’s to make sure that no one knows anything about his assets. It's not as if McCain is the first pol to try this, after all.

Is the press really going to let him get away with this?

-- KEVIN DRUM

While watching the Rev. Jeremiah Wright hold forth yesterday at the National Press Club, I began to entertain the notion that perhaps the guy was a Republican mole - trained in secret and dispatched by Karl Rove, or by one of his proteges, with instructions to inflict maximum damage on the Obama campaign.

But no. There is no need for GOP mischief-makers to lift a finger, not when Obama's spiritual mentor seems capable of doing the work all by himself.

Here's Obama, trying to get his sea legs again after suffering a third consecutive big-state defeat, trying to convince downscale, modestly-educated whites in Indiana and North Carolina that he's not some scary apparition...and there's Wright, crashing into the news cycle four days running, offering up new provocative soundbites to replace the old.

-- DICK POLMAN

Eight years after the "hanging chads," experts say it is harder to vote in Florida than in nearly every other state.

-- DAMIEN CAVE

Obama wins North Carolina by double-digits? Or, taking it a step further, what if Obama wins the Tarheel State by just 9.2%? Will the media round it up to 10%, handing a race-ending victory to Obama or will it round it down to 9%, lamenting his inability to "seal the deal"? Just asking!

-- SEBASTIAN

I watched some of Reverend Wright this morning at the National Press Club. It seems obvious to me that he's doing everything he can to wipe out Obama's candidacy, and I'll tell you why I think it is. I think that people like Reverend Wright -- and I think there are a lot of other race business hustlers out there, by the way, who think this -- really upset that if a black candidate is elected president, that they're going to be somehow diminished in their task, at keeping everybody in their flocks all revved up and angry about the ages old sin of slavery and the ongoing discrimination.

-- RUSH LIMBAUGH

Politically, today’s cohort of 18-to-29 year olds came of age during the Bush presidency. It has turned them into Democrats.

-- JAZZ SHAW

In 2005, McCain decided Iraqis resent our military presence, so we should reject a Korea-like model for long-term troop deployment. He insisted that "U.S. 'visibility' was detrimental to the Iraq mission and that Iraqis were responding negatively to America's presence — positions held by both Obama and Clinton."

In 2006, McCain reversed course, and embraced the Korea model for a long-term military presence.

In 2007, McCain reversed course again, saying the Korean analogy doesn't work and shouldn't be followed. "[E]ventually I think because of the nature of the society in Iraq and the religious aspects of it that America eventually withdraws," McCain told Charlie Rose last fall.

And in 2008, McCain reversed course yet again, deciding that we should be prepared to leave troops in Iraq, even if it means 100 years or more.

-- STEVE BENEN

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) has requested nearly $2.3 billion in federal earmarks for 2009, almost three times the largest amount received by a single senator this year.

The Democratic presidential candidate's staggering request comes at a time when Congress remains engaged in a heated debate over spending federal dollars on parochial projects.

-- MANU RAJU and KEVIN BOGARDUS

Cartoon by Glenn McCoy/Universal Press Syndicate