Obama’s people, including Ill. State Senator and president of the senate Emil Jones are saying O. is not to be criticized because he’s black, argues this fellow, convincingly:

Obama needs to distance himself from this crap, and fast, or he will risk losing my support (and I bet I’m not the only one). The prospect of having a president who will allow his surrogates to cry “racism” whenever anyone criticizes him — about anything, no matter how unrelated to race — is not something I want to deal with for four or eight years.

This is a principled defense of the Clintons, if you can believe it.

Fred T. makes the radar screen at NYT:

“But then last night — we hadn’t even been thinking about him — all of a sudden it was clear he was the one,” said Mr. Berenberk, a retired teacher [who had just watched the recent SC debate]. “The bluntness, the forcefulness. He was really impressive.”

Whether this was a new Fred Thompson, or just a sign of mirage-inducing campaign fatigue among voters, many people attending Mr. Thompson’s campaign rallies here on the day after the debate reported having similar revelations.

The wise campaign watcher will keep eyeballs peeled for this lawman from Tennessee.

Update:

A reader comments below on Fred’s lymphoma, telling how bad it is, but not reporting what his doc said last April:

About Thompson’s consideration of a possible presidential bid, [Dr. Bruce D.] Cheson said: “I would strongly encourage him, if this is what he wants to do, to go ahead with it. His disease and eventual treatment for this disease should not impact on his ability to perform this job.”

Some 22 percent of people with the disease have the type of lymphoma that typically follows a benign course, Lichtenfeld said.

Thompson appears to have that type, suggesting that “his outlook is, in fact, excellent,” he said.

Still, he added, “Nobody’s saying it won’t come back.”

It’s old news indeed, and self-refuting at that.  And speaking as one who recently left a Green Line train in fine fettle and now celebrates his fifth week of double-casting thanks to a fall from the grace of sprightly step, there breathes no man or woman who by thinking can add one cubit to his stature.  (Thus Matthew.  See also Luke.)

Another update: Reader D. offers some medical site items:

+ According to Associated Press releases (August 2000), U.S. Senator and war hero John McCain has been found to have a dangerous form of skin cancer, melanoma, for the second time. The senator who was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam may now be in for the battle of his life. Melanoma is the most dangerous form of skin cancer . . .
+ In 2000 the press had: Mayor Giuliani embarked on the fight of his life yesterday as he told the city he has prostate cancer. Standing alone at a podium . . . the mayor confirmed he had been diagnosed with the disease that killed his father in 1981 and has now thrown his Senate campaign into question.
+Barack is prone to Sickle Cell Anemia, no?
+Hillary, on the other hand, will do quite well if she continues to drink from the caldron containing eye of newt, bat wings, a wild onion and heifer blood.

I found the last observation especially noteworthy.

NYT politics writer Matt Bai has a point I brought up about Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.’s describing the Obama campaign in movement terms.  It has to do with O’s huge crowds, including older folks who had no chance to ask qq in a recent New H. appearance, and his reliance on the under-40 vote.  However persuasive the argument, and Bai is blessedly tentative about this (which you are allowed to be in a blog, where this appears), he says Obama

does seem to be entering a perilous moment where his well-funded campaign could easily become this year’s “cause” or “movement,” rather than a candidacy with the kind of broad support you need to get you through to the convention. Liberal causes built on beautiful speeches and campus rallies never really win the nomination; they just fade into noble lore, fondly remembered by that breed of Democrat who seems to view losing as a kind of moral validation.

 

Maureen Dowd telling what a reporter said while watching Hillary cry on TV in the NYT newsroom:

“Bill Clinton was known for biting his lip, but here was Hillary doing the Muskie. Certainly it was impressive that she could choke up and stay on message.

You’d think it was Jesus looking out on Jerusalem.

Among “highs” discovered in last night’s debate by Stephen Green was one for

Obama, for looking and sounding presidential. He still hasn’t said much, but more and more Obama knows how to make you feel comfortable with the idea of him as President. He’s fully developed that something that we call “presidential.” It’s not much of a high, but it was all he needed to prove himself tonight’s winner on the Democratic side.

He’s this year’s Chance the Gardener, a David Axelrod presentation.  Peter Sellers never looked so good.

Longtime conservative activist Richard A. Viguerie considers Huckabee’s Iowa win “bad news” for Republicans:

“Mike Huckabee is a Christian socialist. He is a good man, but with a Big Government heart,” Viguerie said in a news release late Thursday night. “He is the most liberal of all the Republican presidential candidates on economic issues.”

Viguerie said Huckabee is inclined to solve any problem by passing laws or launching another government program. “If you like President George W. Bush, you’ll love Mike Huckabee,” Viguerie said. “Conservatives in New Hampshire and the other early primary states had better wake up, and make certain the Huckabee victory is confined to the subsidized ethanol fields of Iowa.”

Well, if he finds as many right-wing Christians in New Hampshire, which we hear he won’t, it’s to worry.  Otherwise, not.

In a column remarkably welcoming to Huckabee, David Brooks talks divorce as economic trouble, even devastation:

Democrats talk about wages. But real middle-class families have more to fear economically from divorce than from a free trade pact. A person’s lifetime prospects will be threatened more by single parenting than by outsourcing. Huckabee understands that economic well-being is fused with social and moral well-being, and he talks about the inter-relationship in a way no other candidate has.

“More by single parenting than by outsourcing.”  Family values here.

This is a rather good concise rundown on how things are not as bad as they seem:

Only 36 percent of us approve of our president, and fewer still (18 percent) approve of our Congress. We say our confidence has been shattered, and three out of four think our country is “on the wrong track.” So we tell pollsters, as we slink into the new year.

Surprise: The economy added more than 1 million new jobs last year. It grew at an annual rate of between 3 percent and 4 percent. Share prices rose by over 5 percent, with tech shares up by double digits, these gains being recorded in weeks in which the financial markets are said to be in turmoil.

Exports soared, bringing down the long-standing trade deficit. In November, supposedly traumatized consumers splurged, increasing spending by the largest amount in 3½ years. Final figures for Christmas are not yet in, but my guess is that early pessimistic estimates will prove wrong.

Meanwhile, Peter Wehner and Yuval Levin point out in Commentary that crime is way down; teenage drug use, pregnancies, smoking and drinking are all on the decline; welfare reform is working, bringing down child poverty; and the divorce rate is falling.

There’s more.  In my opinion, we are victims of mass-media doomsaying.

Fred Thompson’s closing argument prompted this from a National Review Online commentator:

While the other contenders are frantically saturating the Iowa airwaves with 30- and 60-second attack ads—Romney is guiltiest, if only because he’s richest—Thompson has sat himself down, looked into a camera, and spoken for a quarter of an hour, calmly and straightforwardly making his case. I myself find this impressive—in a way, moving. Thompson seems to have stepped out of the eighteenth century. He trusts voters to think.

If you have 17 minutes, have a look-and-listen.