Obama @ AIPAC

Barack Obama has strongly backed Israel in his first foreign policy speech since becoming the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee -- just two days after he was accused of naivety by Republican challenger John McCain.
Obama said:

"Any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel's identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognized and defensible borders. Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided."

John McCain, speaking at the same gathering Monday, attacked Obama's Middle East policy. In particular he criticized Obama's stated willingness to meet with the leaders of countries like Iran, as well as voting against a measure to label Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.

Obama said:

"Contrary to the claims of some, I have no interest in sitting down with our adversaries just for the sake of talking. But as president of the United States, I would be willing to lead tough and principled diplomacy with the appropriate Iranian leader at a time and place of my choosing -- if, and only if it can advance the interests of the United States,"

Obama Names Veep Search Team

Sen. Barack Obama's vice presidential search team will consist of Caroline Kennedy, former Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder and Jim Johnson, former CEO of Fannie Mae, according to the AP.

Johnson led the vice presidential searches for both Sen. John Kerry in 2004 and former Vice President Walter Mondale in 1984.

Ben Smith: "Notably, none of these figures are particularly close to the Clintons, and the choice of Kennedy in particular -- the scion of a different dynasty -- may help damp down speculation that Clinton is in the running."

The Audacity Of Now

Something has already been done, hasn't it? A reader writes:

Tomorrow I will go to the African American cemetery outside of Chicago where my great-grandparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, neighbors, and my mother and father are buried. And I will tell them that they were right -- that if we studied hard, worked hard, kept the faith, fought for justice, prayed, that this day would come.

And it has.

Courtesy Andrew Sullivan

What would Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. think of this day?

The Democratic nominee for POTUS

Numb What? Very Funny...

What Does Today's Primary Mean?

(Q) Not much, according to this reader:

I'm a Puerto Rican reader and I currently live in PR after living a good chunk of my adult life in the US. I've been following the primaries in the US closely. I studied in the States, have a masters degree. Out of my very highly educated friends, I'm the only one who's paying attention to what's going on in this election year in the US.

You cannot use Puerto Rico as a basis for explaining any phenomenon in the US.

We are a colony. We do not participate in any of the US political processes, really. There isn't a general understanding of US national politics, nor of the "Republican" v. "Democrat" mentality. We are consumed by our local politics and whether we should become a state, an independent country or remain as we are.

Clinton's victory here means nothing. There's a lot of name recognition and her husband is a rock star here. That's it. Don't extrapolate the results into anything. We are not Latinos in the same way that Mexican Americans are Latinos. Our vote has nothing to do with Obama's "problem" with Latinos. Anyone trying to frame the PR vote into anything other than name recognition, has no knowledge of PR at all and is, in short, full of it.

Courtesy Andrew Sullivan

US Underestimating Inflation

On Wednesday, Dow Chemical Chief Executive Andrew Liveris made a high-profile announcement that Dow would increase its prices by as much as 20%, starting June 1. Dow, the top U.S. chemical company, said the plan was necessary to offset the impact of rising costs for energy and related raw materials. Over the past year, Dow has already increased its price by about 12%, but those price changes have been phased in gradually rather than implemented all at once.

In the interview, Liveris said he thinks the U.S. is underestimating the level of inflation in the economy and he expects the rise in energy costs is beginning to destroy demand. Liveris expects the price increases his company made will eventually be passed on to the consumer: Bounce 2 CNBC Video

Map Shows All

Energy and Hurricanes

Kobe Keys Lakers' Rally As L.A. Rolls To NBA Finals

Bounce 2 ESPN for game highlights

If they were running for president of Italy, England, France, Germany...

(Q) A new Telegraph survey finds Obama dominant in polls of European countries, with McCain in the single digits. McCain is in the running, oddly enough, only in the one country that isn't much of an ally: Russia.

Obama is especially popular in Italy, where a remarkable 70 per cent would vote for him if they could.

In France, historically the European country with the strongest anti-American sentiment, 65 per cent would back Mr Obama. In Germany, the Democratic Senator would get 67 per cent of the vote - while Mr McCain would receive a derisory six per cent.

Mr Obama appears to have made less of an impact in Britain than elsewhere in Europe. A relatively modest 49 per cent of Britons would vote for him, while 14 per cent would back Mr McCain - twice the totals favouring the Republican candidate in Germany or France....

The only country where Mr McCain can rival his opponent's popularity is in Russia, where anti-American feeling is strongest. The Republican appears to have made a striking impression on Russians, with 24 per cent saying they would vote for him if they could - a mere seven points behind Mr Obama.

McClellan Defends Memoir

Previewing Saturday's DNC Rules Committee Meeting

Here's some "pre-game" analysis:

1. While the room will be packed with lawyers, everyone should realize the decision will be less about actual rules than the politics and perceptions of the Democratic primary process. There is no way the DNC will let a rules committee decide the victor of the nomination.
2. Don't expect many fireworks. The Obama campaign is urging its supporters to stay quiet and protests by Clinton supporters could backfire and cause the committee to reject the challenges entirely.
3. The most likely outcome is that the rules committee will reinstate 50% of the Florida and Michigan delegates. According to a memo, party lawyers don't believe they have the authority to do any more than that.
4. The twist, as First Read notes, are the "uncommitted" delegates from Michigan's primary. "If the Rules committee decides to accept the January primary results then it's not clear, via the DNC charter, that it's within the party's rules to assign uncommitted delegates to Obama."
5. Although she will probably have succeeded in changing the "magic number" for the nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton will still likely be disappointed by the committee's decision. The math doesn't work for her now and won't work for her after Saturday either.

Think Gas is High? Try Europe

On Tuesday, hundreds of British truck drivers in London and Cardiff brought traffic to a crawl in a campaign to get their government to lower taxes on diesel fuel, which now costs over $11 per U.S. gallon (3.8 liters). Other businesses owners who rely heavily on gas use — including farmers, ambulance and taxi drivers, and private bus companies — have joined the protest movement or are preparing to do so.

Why so high?

One big reason for the difference is that European governments put a much higher tax burden on fuel than the U.S. does. State and federal taxes currently make up just 11%of the pump price in the U.S., according to the Energy Information Administration; in France and the U.K., taxes account for an average of around 70%. Bounce 2 Time to read full article.

Russert: Reacts to Scott McClellan's book

Kobe's 28 Points Leads Lakers Past Spurs

Meet The Press

A few things struck me about this. Number one, race isn't an "obstacle," racism is an obstacle. The problem isn't that Obama is black, the problem is that some folks have a problem with the fact that Obama is black. Courtesy Jack and Jill Politics

Portland's Shooting Guard

A Real Shocker!

A Newsweek poll homes in:

Who exactly are these high Racial Resentment Index voters? A majority, 61 percent, have less than a four-year college education, many are older (44 percent were over the age of 60 compared to just 18 percent under the age of 40) and nearly half (46 percent) live in the South.

And we wonder why Clinton won Appalachia....

The Lakers' Win Over The Spurs, Up 2-0