Bill Clinton Reads My Blog

He basically threw down the gauntlet in Texas and Ohio.

Bill Clinton just said this about his wife's campaign while in Texas: "If she wins in Texas and Ohio, she'll be the nominee. If she doesn't, I don't think she can be. It's all on you."

That's just a bit of reality. This primary is looking more and more like it'll end on March 4.

Meanwhile, let me follow up on the latest "gaffe" from the Obama campaign, that exchange between Chris Matthews and Texas state senator Kirk Watson (the former mayor of Austin). Watson was stumped when Tweety asked him to name legislative accomplishments from Obama. He actually put up a funny post on his website about it.

So . . . That really happened.

On Tuesday night, after an important and historic victory in the Wisconsin Presidential Primary by Senator Barack Obama, I appeared on the MSNBC post-election program. “Hardball” host Chris Matthews (who is, it turns out, as ferocious as they say), began grilling me on Senator Obama’s legislative record.

And my mind went blank. I expected to be asked about the primary that night, or the big one coming up in Texas on March 4, or just about anything else in the news. When the subject changed so emphatically, I reached for information that millions of my fellow Obama supporters could recite by heart, and I couldn’t summon it.

My most unfortunate gaffe is not, in any way, a comment on Senator Obama, his substantial record, or the great opportunity we all share to elect him President of the United States.

Had I not lost my mind, here are the accomplishments I would have mentioned:

Senator Obama’s fight for universal children’s health care in Illinois.

His success bringing Republicans and Democrats together (a huge selling point for me in general) on bills such as the one in Illinois requiring police interrogations and confessions to be videotaped.

His leadership on ethics reform in Washington (the bill that lobbyists and special interests are complaining about right now has his name on it).

His bill to make the federal budget far more transparent and accessible to Americans via the Internet – we could use that openness in Texas.

And his vital work with Republicans to lock down nuclear weapons around the world.

By the way, Claire McCaskill gave a pretty solid answer to this question just now on Hardball, echoing the points Watson made in his post, and Tweety's reply was essentially "good answer, now let's get to the process politics of this thing." In other words, the substance of the policies didn't mean a GODDAMN THING to him. He even admits "I'm not a details guy." So the question last night was a little Village gotcha game, when you give them an answer with some meat on it they dismiss it as irrelevant, and you'll probably see Watson's answer as "evidence" that Obama has no accomplishments.

And the Hillary supporters who are somehow using this bite as "proof" that Obama isn't ready for prime time are buying into bullshit Tim Russert gotcha narratives where policy isn't important but what is said ABOUT policy is.

Kill your television.