As promised last week, today is officially Megan Fox Day at OTB.

This Megan Fox Open Thread is here for all red-blooded Americans (male or female), plus right-thinking people from anywhere else in the world, to feel free to express their affection, adulation, and genuine regard for Megan Fox.

IOW, post salacious pictures, funny quotations, salacious pictures, interesting interviews, salacious pictures…. Enjoy!

We do ask that you not post anything that isn’t work safe. If you have any items you feel may cross the line in this regard, I hereby volunteer to review them for you. So please feel free to send them to me.

The liberal blogs are in a tizzy about the cover of the July 21 New Yorker, an illustration by Barry Blitt which shows the Obamas in terrorist outfits, doing a fist bump with a big portrait of Osama bin Laden over their mantle with an American flag burning in the fireplace:

Given that this is the liberal New Yorker and that the magazine is aimed at liberal urbanites, it’s rather obvious that this is poking fun at conservatives, not the Obamas.  It’s provocative, sure, but how better to generate buzz and sell extra copies at the newstand?  Quick:  What was the last New Yorker cover that generated any discussion at all? No, I don’t remember, either.

That was essentially Kevin Drum’s initial reaction, too.  He quickly changed his mind:

Maybe it’s because this kind of satire just doesn’t work, no matter how well it’s done. But mostly it’s because a few minutes thought convinced me it was gutless. If artist Barry Blitt had some real cojones, he would have drawn the same cover but shown it as a gigantic word bubble coming out of John McCain’s mouth — implying, you see, that this is how McCain wants the world to view Obama. But he didn’t. Because that would have been unfair. And McCain would have complained about it. And for some reason, the risk that a failed satire would unfairly defame McCain is somehow seen as worse than the risk that a failed satire would unfairly defame Obama.

HuffPo’s  Rachel Sklar is similarly thoughtful:

Presumably the New Yorker readership is sophisticated enough to get the joke, but still: this is going to upset a lot of people, probably for the same reason it’s going to delight a lot of other people, namely those on the right: Because it’s got all the scare tactics and misinformation that has so far been used to derail Barack Obama’s campaign — all in one handy illustration. Anyone who’s tried to paint Obama as a Muslim, anyone who’s tried to portray Michelle as angry or a secret revolutionary out to get Whitey, anyone who has questioned their patriotism— well, here’s your image.

As one might expect, some were less nuanced.  Duncan “Atrios” Black takes the cake with, “Shouting ‘n****r’ is ok as long as you mean it ironically.”  John Aravosis gets honorable mention with:

Okay, what do we do about this? I want suggestions. This is what we have to deal with in America, as Democrats. A liberal media that bends over so far backwards to be “fair” that it becomes just as bad as FOX News. A liberal publication like the New Yorker thinks it’s funny to make Mrs. Obama some radical black panther, Barack Obama basically a terrorist (you’ll note that he looks just like Osama bin Laden on the wall), and they’re even burning the American flag in the Oval Office (that’s supposed to be the White House, get it?). They put Osama bin Laden on the wall of the Oval Office. And this is funny? Is the New Yorker so out of touch that they don’t realize that much of America, or at least too much of America, harbors these very concerns about Obama and his wife? I’m sure the New Yorker thinks they’re actually poking holes in the myth by making light of the stereotypes. Yeah, and tell us how this pokes fun at the stereotype? It reinforces it.

Taylor Marsh wonders, “Is the appreciation for political satire dead?”

The only way to combat a myth is to broaden it, hype it, make a satirical target out of it. The cover of The New Yorker does just that, but does it make the further statement? Does it go far enough, instead of simply repeating the smears in another form? Where’s the slap at the smear artists, which is obviously who the artist is mocking? The [Village Voice] Hillary image [featured and discussed in the post] has the same problem. It doesn’t depict the fighter rising from the battle. Is simply repeating wingnut talking points enough or does that provide more fuel for the smears instead of mocking them?

Barack Obama wasted no time in fanning the flames out outrage — and Team McCain joined in:

The Obama campaign quickly condemned the rendering. Spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement: “The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.” McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds quickly e-mailed: “We completely agree with the Obama campaign, it’s tasteless and offensive.”

Whether the image is “offensive” is a matter of opinion, I suppose.  Certainly, it’s far less so than any number of editorial cartoons that come out every day.  (Consider the work of Ted Rall, for example.)  But, yeah, it’s probabably “tasteless.” The cover of the New Yorker is simply different than a political cartoon inside a paper.

I do, however, think it will achieve its desired effects.  First and foremost, it’s already generating more buzz than any issue in the magazine’s recent history.  More importantly, though, it will lead to a round of discussion of the “Obama is a Muslim” nonsense on the various talking heads shows.  This, in turn, will force Republican operatives to state, over and over, that they don’t think Obama is a Muslim, a terrorist, an America hater, and so forth.  That’s probably the only way this silly meme goes away.

Memeorandum has tons more reactions: QandO, Top of the Ticket, HorsesAss.Org, Pajamas Media, American Power, Ketchup and Caviar, Taylor Marsh, BLACKFIVE, Blue Girl, Red State, Polimom Says, Macsmind, Gateway Pundit, Riehl World View, The Plank, The Page, Roger L. Simon, Althouse, JammieWearingFool, Doug Ross, The Strata-Sphere, The Volokh Conspiracy, Moonbattery, The Daily Dish, Blog of the Moderate Left, AMERICAblog News, Feministe, Wake up America, Pensito Review, The Raw Story, Michelle Obama Watch, Buck Naked Politics, Newshoggers.com, Ben Smith’s Blogs, The Corner, NO QUARTER, Scripting News, THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS, Flopping Aces, TalkLeft, The Confluence, FOX Embeds, Eunomia, The Sundries Shack, Sister Toldjah, TBogg, Pandagon, Macsmind and Viking Pundit

Tony Snow has died. He was only 53. CNN Breaking:

Former White House press secretary Tony Snow has died at the age of 53 after a second battle with cancer. Snow, who had been undergoing chemotherapy treatments for a recurrence of the disease, left his White House job September. 14, 2007, and joined CNN as a conservative commentator.

More from AP:

Tony Snow, a conservative writer and commentator who cheerfully sparred with reporters in the White House briefing room during a stint as President Bush’s press secretary, has died of colon cancer, Fox News reported Saturday. Snow was 53 years old.

Snow, who served as the first host of the television news program “Fox News Sunday” from 1996 to 2003, would later say that in the Bush administration he was enjoying “the most exciting, intellectually aerobic job I’m ever going to have.”

Snow was working for Fox News Channel and Fox News Radio when he replaced Scott McClellan as press secretary in May 2006 during a White House shake-up. Unlike McClellan, who came to define caution and bland delivery from the White House podium, Snow was never shy about playing to the cameras. With a quick-from-the-lip repartee, broadcaster’s good looks and a relentlessly bright outlook — if not always a command of the facts — he became a popular figure around the country to the delight of his White House bosses.

He served just 17 months as press secretary, a tenure interrupted by his second bout with cancer. In 2005 doctors had removed his colon and he began six months of chemotherapy. In March 2007 a cancerous growth was removed from his abdominal area and he spent five weeks recuperating before returning to the White House.

He resigned as Bush’s chief spokesman six months later, in September 2007, citing not his health but a need to earn more than the $168,000 a year he was paid in the government post. In April, he joined CNN as a commentator.

In that year and a half at the White House, Snow brought partisan zeal and the skills of a seasoned performer to the task of explaining and defending the president’s policies. During daily briefings, he challenged reporters, scolded them and questioned their motives as if he were starring in a TV show broadcast live from the West Wing.

Critics suggested that Snow was turning the traditionally informational daily briefing into a personality-driven media event short on facts and long on confrontation. He was the first press secretary, by his own accounting, to travel the country raising money for Republican candidates.

Although a star in conservative politics, as a commentator he had not always been on the president’s side. He once called Bush “something of an embarrassment” in conservative circles and criticized what he called Bush’s “lackluster” domestic policy.

His death, while hardly shocking given his health problems, is sad. Like so many media personalities, I had the sense that I “knew” Tony Snow after spending so many hours with him in my living room. He seemed like a decent guy and, certainly, 53 is far to young to die.

Tony Snow Tributes:

• Scott Johnson, Power Line: “Tony was one of the smartest, wittiest, and most humane men in our public life.”

• John Cole, Balloon Juice: “Fifty-three is just way too damned young, especially for a man with a family. Terrible. And, I should note, despite what you thought of Snow, he was the only competent Press Secretary of this administration.”

• Kim Priestap, Wizbang: “Why does it seem like only the good guys die young and not the evil ones like Chavez, Ahmadinejad, and Kim Jung Il?”

• Bruce McQuain, Q and O: “Tony was a gentleman who fielded every question and answered it without all the usual sidestepping spokesman do.“

• Matt Burden, Black Five: “A class act with sharp wit, keen intellect, and a huge heart – we’ll miss him greatly.”

• Joe Gandelman, Moderate Voice: “Snow was a public figure who truly seemed to have fun at his job and did it well. He was the quintessential broadcasting pro who put a professional TV face on the White House point of view.”

• Shannen Coffin, The Corner: “To call him a ‘rock star’ was an understatement. He brought substance to every meeting he was in and every subject he covered. . . . But what struck me most about him was his ceaseless optimism. Even when he was leaving his post, when his prognosis could not have been good, he was always in good cheer with his colleagues.”

• Michelle Malkin: “He was a true mensch, multi-talented–and one of the kindest people I had the honor to meet in the news business.”

• Ed Morrissey, Hot Air: “We lost a good man and a class act.”

• Warner Todd Huston, Stop the ACLU: “[I]t will be a tad colder and less friendly as well as a bit less optimistic now that this wonderful fellow has passed on to his just rewards.”

• Sister Toldja: “He was the best.”

• Faiz Shakir, Think Progress, links this Fox News tribute to their former colleague:

Louis Gray believes the importance of blog linkage is declining, noting that, “I’ve seen traffic from other blogs to be driving an ever-declining percentage of visits to my site, swamped by social media tools, aggregation sites, and of course, Google search.” He offers three likely explanations:

1. People are relying on aggregators to find them new sources of information, including Techmeme, Hacker News, Reddit, Mixx, FriendFeed and others.

2. People, especially those who read this site, are relying more on RSS readers, and many have subscribed to so many feeds that they are reading through stories in an effort to clear out their unread items, not clicking the embedded links.

3. People who actually read blogs on the site (outside of RSS) are clicking through to respond to the author with comments, rather than viewing links.

Indeed, I found his piece on Techmeme and had never heard of Gray before, despite his being a relatively big player in the tech-social media space.

Gray rank ordered his referrals from the last six months and, sure enough, search engines, social media sites, and aggregators delivered much more traffic than links from very popular blogs such as Scobleizer, TechCrunch, and Micro Persuasion.  None delivered more than 500 visitors!

My experience in the politics niche is quite different.  Yes, without question, Google and other search engines provide a significant share of OTB’s traffic.  For June, Google brought in 118,236 visits; Yahoo 10,574; MSN 4764; Google Images 2522; Ask 2147; and Windows Live 1914.  Aggregators memeorandum and RealClearPolitics brought in 1722 and 3635, respectively. Social media sites brought in negligible traffic:  Fark 1891, Digg 153, and StumbleUpon 129.

Still, blog linkage accounts for significant traffic and can bring in nice surges. In June, links from InstaPundit brought in 7502 visits, Balloon Juice 3812, Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish 2371, and Matthew Yglesias 1495.  And that’s only counting top-level referrals, as I’m not ambitious enough to add up referrals from individual URLs within those sites or www/non-www variants.   Certainly, though, plenty of them brought in more than 500 visits.  And that’s in a single month, not a six-month period.  Indeed, links from any of those sites and many more can bring in more than 500 visitors in a single hour.   The key variable there is the nature of the link.  One that (Like this post, I’m afraid. Sorry, Louis.) provides significant excerpts of a post and provides extensive original analysis tend to send much less traffic to linked sites than posts that provide only a teaser.

It may well be that the ethics of linking and the reader habit of clicking through is more engrained on the political blogs than other sectors of the blogosphere.  In the celebrity gossip space, where I’ve also got a presence (albeit mainly an ownership/management one) there is relatively little linking to other blogs and, indeed, outright theft of content without even a nod in the direction of attribution is the norm.

I suspect, too, that the reading habits of tech and politics bloggers are simply different.  The handful of the former I read, for example, seem to be much more engaged with Twitter and various other social media outlets than most of us in the political space.

Saddam’s supply of yellowcake has been secretly sold to a Canadian energy firm and flown safely to Montreal.

The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program – a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium – reached a Canadian port Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans. The removal of 550 metric tons of “yellowcake” – the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment – was a significant step toward closing the books on Saddam’s nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.

[...]

While yellowcake alone is not considered potent enough for a so-called “dirty bomb” – a conventional explosive that disperses radioactive material – it could stir widespread panic if incorporated in a blast. Yellowcake also can be enriched for use in reactors and, at higher levels, nuclear weapons using sophisticated equipment.

[...]

Tuwaitha and an adjacent research facility were well known for decades as the centerpiece of Saddam’s nuclear efforts. Israeli warplanes bombed a reactor project at the site in 1981. Later, U.N. inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the official said.

Daniel De Groot notes that “this uranium a) was not weapons grade and b) was well known to the UN and IAEA and was being stored legally by Saddam’s government. It was legally in Iraq according to international law.” Barbara O’Brien adds, “The critical point is that Saddam Hussein couldn’t do anything with this uranium because he lacked the equipment and technology to enrich it. So it had been sitting around for years in drums sealed by the IAEA. No nuclear program.” Here’s an extensive listings of IAEA Key Findings on Iraq’s Nuclear Program, listing extensively the materials we knew about before the invasion.

I’d add that the key line from the AP report is, “There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991.” So, while Joe Wilson may have lied about many things, the movement of yellowcake from more than a decade before his infamous fact finding trip isn’t evidence of a new one.

Al Qaeda in Iraq [AQI] is all but defeated, Marie Colvin reports for The Sunday Times.

A huge operation to crush the 1,200 fighters who remained from a terrorist force once estimated at more than 12,000 began on May 10.  Operation Lion’s Roar, in which the Iraqi army combined forces with the Americans’ 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, has already resulted in the death of Abu Khalaf, the Al-Qaeda leader, and the capture of more than 1,000 suspects. The group has been reduced to hit-and-run attacks, including one that killed two off-duty policemen yesterday, and sporadic bombings aimed at killing large numbers of officials and civilians.

[...]

American and Iraqi leaders believe that while it would be premature to write off Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni group has lost control of its last urban base in Mosul and its remnants have been largely driven into the countryside to the south.  Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s prime minister, who has also led a crackdown on the Shi’ite Mahdi Army in Basra and Baghdad in recent months, claimed yesterday that his government had “defeated” terrorism.

In a sidebar companion piece, Colvin explains how we got here:

The reversal of fortunes is attributed to the “surge” strategy of General David Petraeus, the commander of US forces, who targeted Al-Qaeda in Iraq above all else after securing an extra 30,000 troops last year. His officers exploited local resentment of the terrorists and promised to protect those who resisted them. Under Petraeus’s plan, they established awakening councils, or groups calling themselves concerned local citizens. These Sunni groups helped to drive Al-Qaeda from many of its bastions.

US and Iraqi forces were then able to retake large swathes of the country and complete the “clearing” of cities such as Ramadi and Falluja and large areas of Baghdad. The overall number of attacks in Iraq has fallen by 80% in the past year alone.

Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, has gone on in recent months to reassert control over Basra in the south and Baghdad’s Sadr City, the two main strongholds of the Shi’ite Mahdi Army.

TigerHawk observes, “Notwithstanding the operation against the jihadis in Mosul, we have now gone nine consecutive days without an American KIA (which, if memory serves, is the longest stretch without a single KIA since [May 2003]). The implication is obvious: Iraqis, not Americans, are now at the tip of the spear. That is evidence of a successful counterinsurgency.”

Indeed it is.  It is not, however, sufficient evidence that the counterinsurgency is a success.

Most obviously, AQI and other foreign fighters have always constituted a tiny fraction of the anti-government forces.  Indeed, AQI barely existed when the insurgency started.  They were, however, the most violent and ruthless element.  Further, well-timed terrorist attacks such as the bombings of the Askariya shrine in Samarra escalated a relatively minor insurgency into a major sectarian conflict.

Even if AQI stays on the mat and the tide of replacements coming in from Syria and elsewhere remains stemmed, there’s still the domestic elements with which to contend.  Most significantly, does the Mahdi Army continue its cease fire?  If Muqtada al-Sadr and company decide to make another stand, violence could escalate dramatically.

Turning to US domestic politics, it’ll be interesting to see how this plays.  One could argue that this is good news for John McCain, one of the earliest and staunchest advocates of the Surge.  His argument that the war would have been far more successful if his calls for a larger force had been heeded years ago are buttressed. At the same time, however, Barack Obama can reasonably argue that, if AQI is defeated, the already tenuous relationship between the Iraq War and the global war on terrorism is ended.  These positive developments actually undermine the argument that his calls for rapid withdrawal amount to surrender to the terrorists and acceptance of American defeat.  If AQI is no more, then we’re left with a simple “nation building” operation.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan summarizes the “We’re winning, Vote Obama” position nicely:

[I]f someone had told me a year ago that fifteen of eighteen benchmarks had been reached, that all the parties were in negotiation over future politics, that al Qaeda was close to dead at the hands of the US and the Iraqis, and that oil contracts were being handed out amid four-year lows in violence, I wouldn’t have believed them.

Of course, this all makes Obama’s 16 month withdrawal timetable more and more feasible.

TigerHawk retorts, “If we are, as Andrew says, to judge the judgment of the two candidates, then the answer is clear. Eighteen months ago John McCain argued that the safest way out of Iraq was to win, then withdraw. Barack Obama, parroting the received wisdom of the Democratic foreign policy establishment, said that victory in any meaningful sense was not only unlikely, but that the presence of large numbers of American soldiers actually fed the insurgency and decreased the prospects for stability.”

Jim Hoft believes that this is “a huge blow to Democrats,” especially Obama, “Who was wrong about the surge, wrong about the US military, and wrong about turning Iraq over to its dangerous neighbors, and still flip-flopping like a wet noodle on where he stands.”

UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds: “If you have to go to The Belmont Club to find out how it’s going, then it’s a success. Failure, the NYT has no trouble covering.”

Arthur Silber is, as am I, fascinated by the cult of personality surrounding Barack Obama.  He notes some anecdotal creepy gushing on a local radio show and then

Reactions of this kind to Obama are fairly common. No, they are not this extreme much of the time, but such statements are far from unusual. And many of Obama’s less obviously deluded supporters fall along the same continuum. Take a look at the woozily sentimental, intellectually reprehensible remarks collected at the beginning of “Obama’s Whitewash,” the third excerpt here, and the comments here. Moreover, this kind of reaction — an emotion-driven response utterly devoid of coherent ideational content, a response that leads far too many people to be enthusiastically willing to believe virtually anything that Obama might proclaim and to follow him anywhere — is one that Obama and his campaign explicitly seek to elicit.

People had better wake the hell up, and they had better study some history very damned fast. I have sometimes remarked, and I repeat the warning here, that the twentieth century was a nonstop train of horrors — yet in one sense, the most terrible and horrifying aspect of the twentieth century is that we learned absolutely nothing from it.

Among the horrors of the twentieth century were several notable leaders who initiated events that led to slaughter and destruction on an ungraspably monumental scale. These charismatic leaders evoked a response from their followers almost identical to that called forth by Obama. These leaders specialized in “personal stories of political conversion.” Doesn’t anyone see the connection? Doesn’t anyone remember any of this?

This, incidentally, from a man who can scarcely imagine voting for a Republican.

James Benjamin goes further:

Although I seriously doubt that Obama is the next Hitler, his followers are every bit as authoritarian as those who followed Bush (or Schwarzenegger, as I seem to recall) just a few years ago, and that’s something a despot, a strongman would want.

[...]

I would not be at all surprised if either Obama himself were revealed to be some sort of wild card authoritarian in his own right, and/or numerous of his followers were wild card authoritarians – i.e., those who can pose as “leftists” but once in a position of power begin to crack down on dissent much like the right-wingers we all know and loathe. Obama’s own embrace of warmongers, neoliberals, and of course of the awful FISA bill that is likely destined to pass does not bode well for those who wish to continue arguing that he is “progressive” (whatever that is supposed to mean any more). The behavior by groups of Obama fanatics on some of the community blogs (lots of bully tactics as I recall) and the apparent efforts by Obama partisans to shut down individually run anti-Obama blogs is a relatively mild expression of that authoritarianism; we should keep in mind that we’re still early in the game.

Jesse Taylor believes this line of reasoning has guano-level sanity and snarks, “While he lacks any political element of fascism in his platform, he makes up for it in some people liking him a lot, which is like 60% of fascism anyway.”

Obama is quite possibly the most charismatic politician of my lifetime.  Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both had superb oratorical skills and charismatic personalities but neither made crowds swoon to the extent Obama does.  John Kennedy was murdered before I was born and it’s hard for me to assess him apart from the strange fascination and conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination plot.  Perhaps Dwight Eisenhower and, certainly, Franklin Roosevelt had it.

Like Silber, it worries me when people get so emotionally involved in their leaders.  I’m not concerned that Obama is going to annex Canada and start the ethnic cleansing of white working class Appalachians and people named Larry;  Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin were evil men, not good ones who went mad with too much power.

Then again, I don’t think that George Bush or Arnold Schwarzenegger (or even Rudy Giuliani) are “authoritarians,” “despots,” or “strongmen,” either.  Executives naturally believe in the rightness of their cause and seek to push the envelope of their power when they’re being thwarted by inconvenient institutions.  Some do so more than others.

The problem with cults of personality in the American experience is it that it furthers our tendency to trust government to take care of us.  FDR was well meaning in constructing the New Deal and the vast machinery of government bureaucracy needed to support it to combat the unique challenges of the Great Depression; unfortunately, the solution long outlasted the crisis.  Similarly, I believe torture, rendition, habeus corpus suspension, the Department of Homeland Security, and the other over-reactions to the 9/11 attacks were well intentioned measures to make us safer.

Both Obama and his opponent, John McCain, have a streak of crusading righteousness in them that leads to a dismissiveness to criticism.  Some of our best and some of our worst presidents have had it.   Fortunately, we have a set of institutions — separation of powers, checks and balances, federalism — and a political culture that make realizing authoritarian ideals difficult.

via memeorandum

Barack Obama has a 12-point lead in the latest Bloomberg/LAT poll, giving those of us who thought the 15-point lead in last week’s Newsweek poll was an outlier some pause.

In a two-man race between the major-party candidates, registered voters chose Obama over McCain by 49% to 37% in the national poll, conducted Thursday through Monday. On a four-man ballot that included independent candidate Ralph Nader and Libertarian Bob Barr, voters chose Obama over McCain by 48% to 33%.

Obama’s lead — bigger in this poll than in most other national surveys — appears to stem largely from his positions on domestic issues. Both Democrats and independent voters said Obama would do a better job than McCain at handling the nation’s economic problems, the public’s top concern. In contrast, many voters said McCain was the more experienced candidate and better equipped to protect the nation against terrorism — but they ranked those concerns below economic issues.

McCain suffers from a pronounced “passion gap,” especially among conservatives who usually give Republican candidates a reliable base of support. Among voters who described themselves as conservative, 58% said they would vote for McCain; 15% said they would vote for Obama, 14% said they would vote for someone else, and 13% said they were undecided. By contrast, 79% of voters who described themselves as liberal said they planned to vote for Obama.

I’m still skeptical of the numbers but find the conclusions reasonable. Indeed, I didn’t need a poll to tell me that Americans care more about domestic issues than foreign policy, especially now that the war in Iraq has moved to the back burner, or that Obama has more intensity of support than McCain.

The numbers just don’t make sense. We now have two polls showing double-digit Obama leads, while most taken during the same time period show a very modest gap:

Aside from the fact that Newsweek and LAT/Bloomberg are sampling registered voters whereas Rasmussen and USA Today/Gallup are using likely voter screens, it’s not obvious what methodological differences might account for this degree of variation. More oddly, Gallup’s registered voter tracking poll shows a closer race than their likely voter poll for USA Today, albeit within the margin of error.

The bottom line is that we don’t have a very good read right now and, as I continue to emphasize, June polls are historically poor predictors of November behavior. The RealClearPolitics average of 7.5, though, is probably as good an indicator as any on where the national race stands.

Of course, we elect presidents via the Electoral College, so what really matters is how the candidates are doing in each of the 50 states. Nate Silver has it at 343.8 to 194.2. (He’s also got an intriguing hypothesis about Obama’s strength as a Midwestern candidate that I may revisit in a later post.) Electoral-Vote.com has it at Obama 317, McCain 194 with Florida too close to call. Those numbers are the ones to watch.

WaPo fronts a new poll they’ve commissioned in partnership with ABC News under the headline “3 in 10 Americans Admit to Race Bias Survey Shows Age, Too, May Affect Election Views.”

While it’s somewhat surprising that nearly a third of Americans admit to “at least some feelings of racial prejudice” (30 percent of whites, 34 percent of blacks, and 27 percent of “Others”), the offsets are more interesting. Let’s look inside the poll itself.

• Nearly double the number of people (40 percent) said that age was important as compared to race (23 percent), although those saying it was very important were about the same (12 percent and 13 percent, respectively).

• Obama has better favorables (63 percent) than McCain (56 percent) and much higher strongly favorables (35 to 18 percent). And virtually no one has “no opinion” of either candidate.

Only two issues rate double digits as “the single most important issue in your choice for president:” Economy/Jobs (33 percent) and Iraq/War in Iraq (19 percent). The only other answers with significant response were Health care (8 percent), Gas/Oil prices/Energy (6 percent), and Terrorism/National security (4 percent). Obama gets higher “trust more” ratings than McCain on virtually every issue:

Obama also beats or ties McCain on the important values questions:

Ideologically, 52 percent think Obama is “just right” as compared to only 40 percent for McCain. The internals, though, are more interesting:

• 36 percent think Obama is “too liberal” compared to only 5 percent who say he’s “too conservative”

• 34 percent think McCain is “too conservative” but 19 percent say he’s “too liberal”!

So, despite whatever damage the prolonged primary battle may have done to Obama’s support among Democrats, McCain has much more mending to do with his natural base. Interestingly, McCain’s “too liberal” numbers are comparable to what they were in 2000. His “too conservative” numbers have doubled.

Otherwise:

• On the national security front, the results split as to which candidates they favored. 65 percent support withdrawal from Iraq and 61 percent disagreed with the idea that “non-citizens suspected of terrorism . . . should be allowed to challenge their detentions in the U.S. civilian court system.” [UPDATE: Commenter Houston points out that I'm omitting the non-standalone questions in my analysis here. Indeed, if we look at those surveyed under "issues," national security is stronger for McCain. McCain leads 49-43 on "international affairs," 47-46 on "War in Iraq," and 53 to 39 on terrorism. The second of those is particularly odd given that 65 percent want us out of Iraq, which is much closer to Obama's position than McCain's.]

• And people value “New direct and new ideas” more highly than “Strength and experience” by a 50 to 43 margin.

• The only hopeful sign for McCain, seemingly contradicting some of the above findings, is that more people (56 to 52 percent) think he is a “safe choice for president” and slightly more people (46 to 42 percent) think Obama is a “risky choice for president. At roughly the same time in 2000, 59 percent thought George W. Bush was safe and 38 percent thought he was risky compared to 57 percent and 40 percent for Al Gore.

Also of interest:

• Slightly more (72 percent) of Obama’s voters say they will definitely vote for him as compared to 69 percent of McCain’s.

• Only 50 percent think Obama has “the kind of experience it takes to serve effectively as president.” (The question was apparently not asked about McCain.) Yet, 43 percent lean toward Obama compared to only 42 percent for McCain.

• 57 percent though McCain would “mainly continue in George W. Bush’s direction” vice 38 percent who thought he’d “mainly lead the country in a new direction.”

• 77 percent think a president “SHOULD be willing to meet with leaders of foreign countries that are hostile toward the United States because talking can improve relations and avoid confrontation.”

• 39 percent of Democrat leaners want to see Hillary Clinton get the nomination. Yet 75 percent are satisfied or enthusiastic about the outcome.

• 46 percent would like to see Hillary Clinton as Obama’s running mate. John Edwards, with 8 percent, is the only other candidate getting meaningful support.

• 50 percent favor “smaller government with fewer services” compared to 45 percent who favor “larger government with more services”

• Only 19 percent consider themselves to be “a feminist,” compared to 77 percent who did not

• 43 percent rate themselves as Moderates, 33 percent as Conservative, and only 21 percent as Liberal

The sample group seems to be somewhat skewed:

• 27 percent were aged 50-64 and another 16 percent 65+

• 54 percent had at least some college, with 11 percent having post-graduate degrees

• 18 percent made less than $20,000 a year

I’m skeptical of some of the other numbers, as well. For example, 75 percent claim to be following the election closely, with 34 percent saying they’re following “closely.” This roughly mirrors the numbers from this point in 2004 (78 percent) and is up a quarter from this point in 2000 (49 percent). 71 percent say they’re certain to vote and 81 percent claim they’re registered to vote at their present address. These answers simply don’t reflect reality. In 2004, which had the highest turnout in a generation, only 60.7 percent of eligible voters showed up. And this is a survey of “adults,” not registered, let alone likely, voters.

These answers — and perhaps those to the race questions, as well — are quite probably skewed by people telling pollsters what they think they’re expected to say rather than the truth. Indeed, the fact that nearly a third of respondents were willing to admit some racial prejudice (admittedly, after a strong of questions where they could demonstrate that they had friends of other colors and so forth) is surprising.

A Newsweek poll of registered voters shows Barack Obama with a whopping 15-point lead over John McCain, 51 to 36. Newsweek’s Michael Hirsh is stoked.

Barack finally has his bounce. For weeks many political experts and pollsters have been wondering why the race between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain had stayed so tight, even after the Illinois senator wrested the nomination from Hillary Clinton. With numbers consistently showing rock-bottom approval ratings for President Bush and a large majority of Americans unhappy with the country’s direction, the opposing-party candidate should, in the normal course, have attracted more disaffected voters. Now it looks as if Obama is doing just that. A new NEWSWEEK Poll shows that he has a substantial double-digit lead, 51 percent to 36 percent, over McCain among registered voters nationwide.

[...]

The latest numbers on voter dissatisfaction suggest that Obama may enjoy more than one bounce. The new poll finds that only 14 percent of Americans say they are satisfied with the direction of the country. That matches the previous low point on this measure recorded in June 1992, when a brief recession contributed to Bill Clinton’s victory over Bush’s father, incumbent George H.W. Bush. Overall, voters see Obama as the preferred agent of “change” by a margin of 51 percent to 27 percent. Younger voters, in particular, are more likely to see Obama that way: those 18 to 39 favor the Illinois senator by 66 percent to 27 percent. The two candidates are statistically tied among older voters.

Um, Tim, this is one poll. It’s safe to presume, then that voter dissatisfaction is already being factored into the Obama numbers.

Andrew Sullivan notes that, “You need to go back to Dukakis to find a similarly big Democratic lead.” Then again, as Eric Kleefeld reminds us, Dukakis “went on to lose the election.”

Furthermore, the Newsweek numbers are ridiculous. As Nate Silver observes, “Newsweek’s data tends to be fairly volatile, and we have a whole bunch of polling on both the state and national level that implies that Obama’s real margin is closer to 5 points.” And that’s including the Newsweek numbers! Here’s the latest poll aggregation from RealClearPolitics:

The latest Gallup poll, also released yesterday, found, “Among likely voters, Obama led McCain by 50%-44%, an insignificant change from his earlier standing of 49%-44%.”

As the chart of polls at Pollster.com shows, Newsweek has huge swings from month-to-month that just aren’t showing up in the other polls. Simply put, there’s either something serious wrong with their methodology or that of all the other major polls. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s the former. I simply don’t believe, for example, that Obama has a 7 point lead among men. Or that only 16 percent of Independents are undecided.

This campaign has been going on a long time. And people are particularly engaged in politics this season because of the war, gas prices, and a general sense that we’re “headed in the wrong direction.” But the fact of the matter is that most Americans are barely paying attention at this point. Polls taken in June, before the conventions and before the general election campaign begins in earnest, are just incredibly poor predictors of the future outcome. Indeed, more often than not in recent elections, the person ahead at this stage goes on to lose.

Further, as if it needs to be pointed out after the last two presidential cycles, national head-to-heads mean precisely squat. It’s the state polls and the race to 270 Electoral Votes that matters.

That said, my dismissal of the Newsweek findings goes to magnitude, not direction. I think the following are true:

• Obama is ahead nationwide and in enough states to win the Electoral College

• President Bush is the most unpopular president since Richard Nixon and McCain’s association with him is toxic

• The public desperately wants “change” and Obama’s youth, energy, party ID, and color make him the more plausible vehicle for that

• Obama’s a better campaigner than McCain

• Obama will have a huge financial advantage which should help him expand on the other advantages

Were the election held today, I’m pretty sure Obama would win. The only reasons I’m not absolutely sure is that Obama’s appeal is particularly strong with demographics that historically don’t actually show up to vote (although I think they will this time) and, frankly, I have no way of gauging the “Bradley effect,” since we’ve never had a person of color as a major party presidential nominee. As to the latter, I think it’ll be a factor but a rather minor one, since most of the documented cases are from quite some time ago and there’s evidence that it’s no longer much of a problem.

Of course, the election is not being held today.

In the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, Congress tried to reform our system of financing political campaigns. They attempted to “get the money out of politics.” They failed, miserably. So, too, did a long line of successive attempts.

John McCain, the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party, earned the enmity of a large swath of his party, myself included, by his co-sponsorship and championing of what, after seven years of defeats, eventually passed into law as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, better known as “McCain-Feingold.” Despite rather obvious restrictions of First Amendment freedoms, the Supreme Court upheld it by a 5-4 margin in McConnell v. Federal Election Commission.

Our long national nightmare may soon be over.

McCain is embroiled in charges that he’s violated his own law, the drumbeat of which has been anew with the attention of Josh Marshall and others, while his main opponent in the Fall, Barack Obama, has opted out of the system entirely.

I addressed the McCain charges back in February and nothing substantive has changed. He’s caught in a legal web of his own spinning and is prevented from getting a ruling from the FEC by the refusal of Democrats in Congress to vote on members, thus creating a lack of quorum. Whether this will change with the recent withdrawal of one of the more controversial commissioner nominees remains to be seen.

The reason this controversy is resurfacing, however, is yesterday’s announcement that Obama would opt out of public financing, preferring to take his chances with his tremendous fundraising machine. Given that Obama had promised to abide by federal limits if his Republican opponent did the same and that McCain has held up his end of the bargain, McCain is naturally trying to make hay of the situation. His opponents, naturally, want to change the story.

Obama’s move, while almost certain to have zero impact on the minds of the voters five months from now, has the editorial boards fuming:

“The Politics of Spare Change – Even $85 million wasn’t enough to get Barack Obama to keep his promise.” [WaPo]

. . . given Mr. Obama’s earlier pledge to “aggressively pursue” an agreement with the Republican nominee to accept public financing, his effort to cloak his broken promise in the smug mantle of selfless dedication to the public good is a little hard to take.

Public Funding on the Ropes [NYT]

The excitement underpinning Senator Barack Obama’s campaign rests considerably on his evocative vows to depart from self-interested politics. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama has come up short of that standard with his decision to reject public spending limitations and opt instead for unlimited private financing in the general election.

Analysis: Obama chose winning over his word [AP]

Barack Obama chose winning over his word.

The Democrat once made a conditional agreement to accept taxpayer money from the public financing system, and accompanying spending limits, if his Republican opponent did, too.

No more.

WaPo Fact Checker Michael Dobbs gives Obama “Three Pinocchios” out of four.

If anyone who isn’t a die-hard supporter of either candidate still cares about either of these controversies on the 4th of July, let alone Election Day, I’ll be very, very surprised.

Regardless, Dave Wissing is right: “we are that much closer to my hope and wish for the complete and total destruction of the idea that the Federal Government should be financing a Presidential campaign in any form whatsoever.” As he notes, in 2000, the Republican bowed out of the system for the primaries and in 2004 both major party candidates did. Now, for the first time, someone has eschewed pubic funding altogether.

Unless radical changes take place, it’s hard to imagine either major party candidate participating in 2008. Indeed, his pledge notwithstanding, Obama would have been a fool to agree to limit himself to $84 million when he can probably raise three, four, or even five times that amount on his own. And, certainly, it’s going to be hard for conservatives to argue that it’s a bad thing that he’s relying on his own money and leaving $42 million in matching funds in the public treasury.

Indeed, when word came out in April that McCain was “moving toward accepting public financing,” I was annoyed.

Frankly, he’d save the taxpayers $42 million if he just quit the race now. Barack Obama’s probably got $84 million laying around the office in checks he hasn’t bothered to deposit. McCain will likely be at a financial disadvantage either way but it would be political suicide to unilaterally disarm.

Sure, this is a bad year to run as a Republican and McCain isn’t the most popular guy at CPAC. But it’s bizarre that he’s hamstringing himself in this way. Whining about how Obama promised to do the same is going to be small consolation when he’s getting swamped in the ad wars.

Now, I wouldn’t quite go this far:

“It’ll be like George Steinbrenner’s Yankees in the ’90s — an All-Star at every position — against the ’90s Kansas City Royals, barely able to meet their payroll,” said Chris Lehane, a Democratic consultant who worked for Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004.

But, while $84 million seems like a lot to you and me,

“The reality is that the amount of money that comes from the government is not enough to run a modern presidential campaign,” said Larry Makinson, a consultant to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington group that tracks campaign donations.

At some point, there’s information saturation. People will certainly know who John McCain is come November 4th. It’s not like he won’t be able to hire the best pollsters, strategists, and advance teams. But Obama will be able to advertise more frequently in more media markets. If a state is anywhere near competitive, he’ll be able to afford to run spots there to see what happens. McCain will have to pick his battles.

That’s not an insurmountable obstacle. But it’s a handicap he doesn’t need in a race where his opponent is already a heavy favorite.

If a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, Barack Obama is a wise man, indeed.

He’s changed his mind a lot lately. The latest example is NAFTA. After having campaigned in Ohio and elsewhere on the need to renegotiate our trade agreement with Canada and Mexico and excoriating Hillary Clinton for her long-time support for it (all the while Austan Goolsby was telling the Canadians that this was just “policy positioning” and not to take it seriously), the presumptive Democratic nominee issued a major course correction yesterday. He’s told Fortune magazine’s Nina Easton that he may have been a bit hasty.

“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 has had a mild, positive effect on the U.S. economy.

Does that mean his rhetoric was overheated and amplified? “Politicians are always guilty of that, and I don’t exempt myself,” he answered.

Obama says he believes in “opening up a dialogue” with trading partners Canada and Mexico “and figuring to how we can make this work for all people.”

Not surprisingly, those on the Right are hammering Obama for his inconsistency while some on the Left feel betrayed. HuffPo’s David Sirota sniffs, “You Can’t Represent the Uprising While Undermining It.”

Obama is trying to find a “third way” on a binary issue. He’s trying to make everyone happy – and he seems to think you can simultaneously appease Corporate America and American workers on trade rules that inherently force politicians to take one side or the other. You either have trade rules that are aimed at helping ordinary workers, or trade rules that are aimed at padding corporate profits and enriching a transnational elite. The idea that you can have both – or worse, that the NAFTA model does both – is absurd.

But this is Obama’s M.O. – he wants to please everyone. The problem for him is that the public – based on polls – knows that these policies are binary and are screwing them. If he talks out of both sides of his mouth on this issue, he will fail to represent the uprising and take advantage of this populist moment – and he will likely lose the election. That would be a huge tragedy.

NAFTA isn’t the only major policy platform on which his position has conveniently evolved in a more centrist direction in recent weeks.

Obama has started recalibrating some of his stances for the general election, and this new [foreign policy adviser] team could steer him further away from some of the bolder positions he took in the primaries.

[Madeline] Albright publicly praised Clinton’s comments that she would not meet leaders of rogue nations without pre-conditions, after Obama said he would hold such meetings and criticized Clinton’s stance. While not taking on Obama directly, [Lee] Hamilton in a recent interview said “you cannot lock yourself into something in a fluid situation” when asked about setting a precise timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq.

Obama has indicated some flexibility on both issues in recent weeks, saying he would meet with leaders like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad only to advance U.S. interests, and he would consider revising his plan to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq in this first two years in office if the situation there suggested a different approach.

In the cases of Ahmadinijad and Iraq, I believe Obama has genuinely evolved. He began this campaign as a neophyte on the national stage and foreign policy has only recently been an object of serious focus for him. It’s quite reasonable to think that he gave an honest, gut answer to the debate question and has since been persuaded by wiser heads that reality is more complicated than theory. In the case of NAFTA, I’m inclined to agree with Doug Mataconis that Obama is guilty of sheer pandering given the contemporaneous comments by Goolsby.

Ed Morrissey quips, “Keeping track of Obama’s positions feels like being a spectator at a table tennis match.”

Jim Hoft asks, “Is anyone really surprised by this?”

They shouldn’t be. Obama’s right: “Politicians are always guilty” of pandering to their audiences. It’s especially true of presidential candidates, who invariably tack to the center after months of appealing to an ideologically rabid base to win the nomination. Bruce McQuain observed, “The more I see and hear of Mr. Obama, the more I realize there’s nothing at all ‘new’, in a political sense, about him.”

Perhaps that’s not such a bad thing?

While politicians should absolutely be called on politically convenient policy maneuvering to both punish them for demagoguery and to ferret out what they really think, it’s far better that they ultimately adopt reasonable positions rather than stubbornly holding to ill-advised pledges. Obama has rightly been criticized for the latter in getting trapped into supporting an “accidental foreign policy” rather than admitting he was too glib in answering a debate question.

There’s a better than even chance this man will be our next president. It is, as Dave Schuler observed on yesterday’s episode of OTB Radio, quite reassuring that he’s amenable to reason.

UPDATE: John Ibbitson makes a related point very nicely for the Globe and Mail.

[I]n any election, voters should be asking themselves: Would this candidate learn from failure, or would he reinforce it? Mr. McCain’s decision to fire his campaign staff and retreat to New Hampshire when all seemed lost suggests that he can adapt his tactics and keep up his spirits in the midst of political adversity.

Mr. Obama tried to place his attachment to Rev. Jeremiah Wright within the context of race and religion in America. But when Mr. Wright renewed his outrages, the candidate repudiated the pastor entirely.

Both examples are encouraging. What each man has on his CV is really not that big a deal. The big deal involves judgment, objectivity and a sort of political humility, which in a politician can be the most important, and most elusive, asset of all.

Quite.

Barack Obama gave a speech at a large black church in Chicago (no, not that one) yesterday. Appropriately enough, given that it was Father’s Day, his subject was absent fathers, a subject he with which he has some familiarity.

Addressing a packed congregation at one of the city’s largest black churches, Senator Barack Obama on Sunday invoked his own absent father to deliver a sharp message to African-American men, saying, “We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception.”

“Too many fathers are M.I.A, too many fathers are AWOL, missing from too many lives and too many homes,” Mr. Obama said, to a chorus of approving murmurs from the audience. “They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it.”

The speech was striking for its setting, and in how Mr. Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, directly addressed one of the most sensitive topics in the African-American community: whether absent fathers bore responsibility for some of the intractable problems afflicting black Americans. Mr. Obama noted that “more than half of all black children live in single-parent households,” a number that he said had doubled since his own childhood.

Accompanied by his wife, Michelle, and his daughters, Malia and Sasha, who sat in the front pew, Mr. Obama laid out his case in stark terms that would be difficult for a white candidate to make, telling the mostly black audience not to “just sit in the house watching SportsCenter,” and to stop praising themselves for mediocre accomplishments. “Don’t get carried away with that eighth-grade graduation,” he said, bringing many members of the congregation to their feet, applauding. “You’re supposed to graduate from eighth grade.”

[...]

On the campaign trail, Mr. Obama has frequently returned to the topic of parenting and personal responsibility, particularly for low-income African American families. Speaking in Texas in February, Mr. Obama told the mostly black audience to take responsibility for the education and nutrition of their children, and lectured them for feeding their children “cold Popeyes” for breakfast. “I know how hard it is to get kids to eat properly,” Mr. Obama said. “But I also know that folks are letting our children drink eight sodas a day, which some parents do, or, you know, eat a bag of potato chips for lunch. Buy a little desk or put that child at the kitchen table. Watch them do their homework.”

[...]

“I know the toll it took on me, not having a father in the house,” he continued. “The hole in your heart when you don’t have a male figure in the home who can guide you and lead you. So I resolved many years ago that it was my obligation to break the cycle — that that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father to my children.”

But he also acknowledged his own flaws as a father, citing the breakneck schedule of the presidential campaign and the rare days he spends with his children. “I say this knowing that I have been an imperfect father,” he said, “Knowing that I have made mistakes and I’ll continue to make more, wishing that I could be home for my girls and my wife more than I am right now.”

Powerful stuff, if rather obvious. Black preachers, even the likes of Al Sharpton, have echoed similar themes in front of black audiences. But Obama was speaking to a national audience as much as to the church’s congregation.

Obama is running for president, which, contrary to a questioner in a long-ago town hall debate, is not the same as our national daddy. There’s no public policy that a president can issue that will solve this particular problem. But the bully pulpit — the ability to persuade using the world’s largest megaphone — is perhaps the institution’s greatest power in domestic affairs.

In being the presumptive Democratic nominee, Obama can say things that white candidates can’t for fear of being labeled “racist.” This, more so than showing a black face to people of color around the world, strikes me as the most important aspect of Obama’s historic position. If he continues sounding this theme, he can do a lot of good over the next few months regardless of November’s outcome. And, as is rarely the cases in American politics, speaking truth to the public should be politically advantageous as well, helping him appeal to moderate white voters.

Today’s Manufactured Outrage of the Day* is that, on a mid-day Fox News program featuring Megyn Kelly and Michelle Malkin debating the impact of Michelle Obama on the race, the production assistant in charge of writing chyrons dubbed the would-be first Lady “Obama’s Baby Mama.” Apparently, this is a racial slur which suggests that she and Obama aren’t actually married and the children are illegitimate and therefore they should just head on back to Africa. Or something like that.

Salon’s Alex Koppelman has the most linked story about this on memeorandum and he’s got a video of the segment and the above screencap, which I’ve appropriated. Otherwise, he’s in Just the Facts, Ma’am mode. His colleague, Joan Walsh, is more apoplectic, bringing out the 1990s catchphrase “Oh, No They Didn’t” to show her hip displeasure.

Where do you even start when criticizing Fox’s slur? Do you try to explain that “baby mama” is slang for the unmarried mother of a man’s child, and not his wife, or even a girlfriend? Are they racist, or just clueless? Isn’t there racism even in their cluelessness, if somebody didn’t know what “baby mama” means, but used it anyway? Even at Fox, won’t somebody have to apologize? Am I wasting my time even thinking about that?

Yes, actually.

Oliver Willis helpfully suggests, “Hey Fox News, Just Call Her A N***** And Be Done With It, Okay?”

So here’s the thing (because during this campaign I’m apparently learning that we black people have our own secret code and hand signals so this stuff has to be explained like you are speaking to a child at times), using the phrase “baby mama” to describe this woman implies that like too many people in the black community, she is a mother on her own with no man around doing his job.

Except, Barack and Michelle Obama are the exact opposite of this, and that is one of the reason America – especially black America – are so proud of them.

They’ve raised their children? Electing them to the White House is the least we can do!

Michelle Malkin, who was on air at the time and has nothing to do with writing the “Obama’s Baby Mama” chyron that appeared below her, doesn’t know what’s up with that.

I don’t know if the caption writer was making a lame attempt to be hip, clueless about the original etymology of the phrase, or both. But I do know that it was Michelle Obama herself who referred to Barack as her “baby’s daddy” and has used the phrase “baby daddy” to describe Barack while on the stump this year.

I’m going with “both.” Malkin also provides a helpful link to a two-year-old Slate piece with the awkward headline “” that explains that celebrity gossip rags have “seized upon baby-daddy and baby-mama, two useful terms that have long appeared in hip-hop and R&B lyrics, and are slowly stripping them of their emotional fangs.” Apparently, such black luminaries as Tom Cruise and Keven Federline had been referred to as “baby-daddy” even though they were married to the mother of their child.

So, perhaps Fox was secretly signaling that the Obamas are Scientologists?

UPDATE (Alex Knapp) I don’t usually weigh in on this sort of thing, but I have to disagree with my colleague James on this one–Fox’s caption on here is enormously disrespectful. I wholeheartedly agree with this portion of sci-fi author John Scalzi’s take on the matter:

Calling Michelle Obama a “baby mama” isn’t just Fox News have a happy casual larf; it’s using urban slang to a) remind you the Obamas are black, b) belittle a woman of considerable personal accomplishment, and c) frame Barack Obama’s relationship to his wife and children in a way that insults him, minimizes his love for and commitment to his family, and reinforces stereotypes about black men.

If we still had such a thing as civility and manners in this country, Michelle Obama would be referred to in the media as “Michelle Obama” or “Mrs. Obama”. Even if there was no racial intent on the part of Fox News, using the phrase “Baby Mama” for the wife of the Democratic nominee for President just shows no class, decorum, or manners.

UPDATE (James Joyner) I agree with Alex and with Steven Taylor that “Michelle Obama” or “Mrs. Obama” would be preferable and avoid the these sort of controversies. My strong guess — and I admittedly don’t know anything about this particular program or its tendencies — is that this was an attempt at “hip” and “cutesy” that backfired.

I much prefer my news without the hip and cutesy, thank you. You report, I decide and all that. But that’s a criticism of the Oprahization of the news rather than of Fox in general or this gaffe in particular.

____________

*If someone with better PhotoShop skills than I submits a graphic I like for this, I’ll use it henceforth, crediting the creator.

One of Barack Obama’s key advantages in building grassroots support, especially among young people usually not apt to vote, has been his innovative use of the latest Web techniques, including the integration of social networking technologies. Not only did he lap the field in getting “friends” on Facebook and MySpace but he actually hired the guy who invented Facebook to work for him. This translated into a viral campaign and certainly boosted a staggering fundraising haul. Obama may have, as Micah Sifry suggests, built something that will sustain itself even after the campaign is over.

The down side of this, as anyone who has run a blog with open comments knows, any yahoo can put whatever they want on the site and some will naturally blame the site host for those comments. Charles Johnson knows that better than perhaps anyone, as one of the fabled Four Horsemen of the Ablogalypse and the owner of perhaps the most controversial comments section of the Right Blogosphere.

Johnson has joined John Hinderacker, Pam Gellar, seeDubya (at Michelle Malkin), Carl in Jerusalem, Stacy McCain, Doug Ross and many, many others in decrying an anti-Semitic screed on “How the Jewish Lobby Works” that appeared on the site for several hours until a blogstorm erupted and the site moderators took that down and apparently started a major effort to scrub the site for other potentially embarrassing content. Which, naturally, spawned charges of a cover-up.

Marc Danziger, Patrick Frey, Sean Hackbarth, Patrick Ruffini and others have very calm, rational takes on this that I hope will spread as the facts come out.

Danziger also has several good suggestions for Team Obama and any other institutional site which allows diaries and comments. Striking a balance between an energetic, open discussion and protecting the brand is difficult. MyObama has leaned too far towards the former and is apparently now correcting course. They’ve certainly got the resources to do that and they would have been foolish not to at this stage. And, it would seem, the McCain campaign needs to follow suit. The fact of the matter is that most people have no clue how these sites work and it’s far too easy to demagogue these incidents to take the risk of an absolute free-for-all under your logo if you’re running for high office.

UPDATE: Cernig and mattbastard suspect foul play involving Ron Paul, cutting-and-pasting, and some amorous rodents. No, seriously.

Yet another reason to monitor what’s being posted on one’s site.