Some dismiss Barack Obama’s ability to inspire and unite the country.  That the post-Bush mess will be so big that only someone with Hillary Clinton’s experience could possibly clean it up.

Barack Obama supporters contend that his willingness to reach out to those who disagree with him is one of his biggest assets.  That the country is exhausted after years of partisan bickering, and ready to work together to solve our problems.  

Hillary Clinton says she has been vetted and that there are no surprises.  

"I’ve been tested. I’ve been vetted. I have been in the political arena in our country very intensely for 16 years. There are no surprises. There’s not going to be anybody saying, ‘Well why didn’t we think of that?’ or ‘What, my goodness, what does that mean?’" she said. "I am going to be able to go up against any Republican who they nominate."

The assumption is that Obama - fresh meat – is likely to be Swiftboated beyond even John Kerry’s nightmares.  

Except? Turns out that even Freepers respect Obama.

I  have had it up to HERE with hit diaries.

You think you're so tough?  

You haven't seen rough.  You bunch of pussies.

The Politico has an article up which suggests that contributions made to ActBlue, which is a registered political action committee (PAC), might  not be eligible for federal matching funds.

John Edwards doesn’t accept contributions from political action committees, but the lion’s share of his contributions have come through one particular PAC — ActBlue. And that could be a multimillion-dollar problem for the Democrat's presidential campaign.

Follow me over the jump for more...

I saw this story on both Politico and The Atlantic online blogs earlier today, but it's finally filtered to some legitimate news sites.

Details below.

The question of experience – or a lack thereof - has been raised from the moment it appeared that Barack Obama might run for President in 2008.  

Most here know that he was elected the junior Senator from Illinois in 2004; his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic convention thrust him into the national spotlight.  

What is not widely known, however, is Barack’s legislative record while in the Illinois General Assembly, where he served from 1997-2004.

According to his mentor in the State Senate, Sen. Emil Jones Jr:

"He was very aggressive when he first came to the Senate," said Jones, now president of the state Senate. "We were in the minority, but he said, 'I'd like to work hard. Any tough assignments or things you'd like me to be involved in, don't hesitate to give it to me.' "

Follow me over the jump, where I’ll give you a look at some of the successful bills Barack Obama sponsored while in the Illinois legislature.

I generally save the editorial pages for last because it's gotten to be the best part.  Like most of you, I guess, these days I usually already know most of the "news" from the Internet by the time the paper comes out.

When I got to the letters to the editor in the Trib, one of them just cried out for a smackdown, and I'm hoping all of you can help.  The subject of the letter was Katrina, and the title was "Bush haters."  

But now, for some strange reason, a month before his 40th birthday (the deadline for enlisting was recently raised to 39, am I right?), he wants back in. He's supposedly "positive" that he won't be sent to Iraq because his old unit just got back, so "there's no way they'll send them back again" any time soon.

Yeah, right.

This morning at 8AM, Air America returned to Chicago on 850AM.  
It's call letters are WCPT (Chicago's Progressive Talk).  

It's about fucking time!