He doesn’t agree with him, but he won’t reject or denounce him. Read some of Hagee’s comments and you’ll see just how crazy this guy can get.

John McCain appeard onstage with John Hagee in order to pick up his endorsement. John Hagee is known for his controversial statements about the Catholic Church.

On the right, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League is objecting Hagee’s extremist writings, particularly his denunciations of the Catholic Church. For example, Donohue pointed to instances in which Hagee has referred to the Catholic Church as, “The Great Whore,” an “apostate church,” the “anti-Christ,” and a “false cult system.” Is Tim Russert going to repeat any of that to McCain, in the same way he read out Farrakhan’s “gutter religion” line about Jews?

“Senator Obama has repudiated the endorsement of Louis Farrakhan, another bigot,” Donohue wrote. “McCain should follow suit and retract his embrace of Hagee.”

Obama never sought the endorsement of Farrakhan and has repeatedly repudiated him. McCain, on the other hand, has embraced Hagee, just like he pandered to Jerry Falwell last year.

TPM might be the most influential blog on the net, having pushed the attorney purge story last year and then receiving a Polk award for their excellent work. It will be interesting to see if their coverage of this endorsement leads the national press to pick it up.

After Tim Russert’s ridiculous attempt at guilt by association against Obama in last night’s debate regarding Farrakhan, Attytood has some interesting questions for Tim Russert on whether he will “denounce and reject” Don Imus. Since he recently went back on his show, we shouldn’t hold our breath.

Of course, the whole issue is absurd. There’s nothing wrong with Russert asking Obama about this issue, but his “holier than thow” attitude was disgraceful, and his attempt to read Farrakhan’s outrageous statements AFTER Obama denouced them was a lame attempt to add some soundbites to the MSNBC-sponsored debate. Good taste and fairness be damned when you can get a controversial clip that will be played over and over again on all the networks.

A pro like Russert should know better, but he’s turning into a caricature of himself. Catching politicians in contradictions is important, but it’s not the ONLY thing that matters. At the Cleveland debate, issues like education, forclosures and poverty were not addressed.

It’s not just about Obama. Russert was extremely rude when he cut off Hillary numerous times during the debate. He repeated several times his assertion that she changed her position on NAFTA. As an Obama supporter I’m glad he brought up the point, but he showed little class in the way he asked the questions.

One wonders whether his ego has gotten the best of him.

For the fall, let’s hope all the network anchors are excluded from the debates and we rely on PBS and print journalists to moderate the debates.

The Bush economy continues, and they still want to keep spending billions in Iraq.

Howard Dean and the Democrats are not going to let McCain get away with his attempt to game the campaign finance laws. McCain is bound by the public finance limits unless he gets a letter from the FEC releasing him from that obligation. That might not happen since he decided to accept public funds and gained the advantage of having his name automatically placed on state ballots.

McCain has been making an issue of public financing with Obama, but McCain’s current problems with compliance will make it difficult for him to press that point.

Dick Morris lets her have it.

We are watching a grim re-enactment of all of the character traits that led Hillary to decompose in the healthcare debate of her husband’s first term. The blind reliance on a guru-delivered strategy, the religious insistence on following the same rhetorical line even when it obviously isn’t working, the inflexibility in adapting to one’s opposition, and the inability to formulate new strategies or to improvise tactics when her pre-conceptions are found to be so obviously faulty — this is Hillary at her worst.

As citizens, we are entitled to watch Obama’s skill, leadership style, and savvy sophistication and contrast it with Hillary’s doctrinaire insistence on approaches that aren’t working and to conclude that Hillary would be a disaster as president and that Obama would be pretty good. We can, at least, conclude that the same tenacity that led Johnson into Vietnam and may be inducing Bush to risk his party, his reputation and the attitudes of a generation in Iraq may be abundantly present in Hillary.

Clinton was terrible tonight and Obama won another clear victory. Clinton was angry and petty throughout the debate, even complaining about the order of the questions.

Her lowest moment was her attempt to take advantage of the Farrakhan exchange. She had an opportunity to be gracious and accept Obama’s denunciation of Farrakhan. Instead, she tried to scores some cheap political points, and she actually gave Obama another chance to explain his rejection of Farrakhan.

Obama looked more presidential again. He used humor to deflect many of her attacks, and his “driving the bus into the ditch” comment in response to her Iraq War arguments was brilliant.

He gets it, and he eloquently explains the importance of idealism “in the service of realism.”

Yet the striking thing about Obama, and the enthusiasm he has stirred up, has little to do with the specifics of the policies he advances. It is rather his almost pitch-perfect echo of the John F. Kennedy we heard in 1960 and the Robert Kennedy last heard in 1968. It is a call for national unity and national sacrifice — not in the interest of military prowess but in the cause of social justice, both in the nation and around the world. His appeal is for more civic engagement, not necessarily more government. He has the voice and wields the techniques of a community organizer (which he was on the streets of Chicago), asking people to join together, calling the nation to form a more perfect union. Not since the sixties has America been so starkly summoned to its ideals. Not since then has America– including, especially, the nation’s youth –been so inspired.

It is easy for cynics to write off Obamania as a passing fad, as lofty rhetoric that can’t and won’t hold up on close inspection — another bout of the kind of naive and romantic enthrallment that occasionally claims American voters until common sense sets in. This is surely what Hillary Clinton and my friend from forty years ago are counting on. But if the Clintons stop to think back to what they felt and understood in those years leading up to 1968, they may come to a different conclusion, as have I.

Neither John F. Kennedy nor his brother Robert were idealists. They were realists who understood the importance of idealism in the service of realism. They grasped the central political fact that little can be achieved in Washington unless or until the public is energized and mobilized to push for it; the status quo is simply too powerful. The ideals they enunciated helped mobilized the nation politically. That mobilization contributed to the subsequent passage of civil rights and voting rights laws, Medicare, and environmental protection. For purposes of practical electoral strategy as well as high-minded moral aspiration, they never tired of reminding the nation of its founding principles — most fundamentally, that all men are created equal.

Andrew tries to make sense of McCain’s latest statement.

One of the disturbing practices highlighted in Michael Moore’s “Sicko” involved insurance companies paying bonuses to employees who were able to find ways to cancel the policies of patients who became sick. The practice was simple and brutal - if a policy holder became sick with something like cancer, the insurance company would look for ways to cancel the policy and not cover the person’s medical expenses.

Fortunately, the courts are getting involved.

A woman who had her medical coverage canceled as she was undergoing treatment for breast cancer has been awarded more than $9 million in a case against one of California’s largest health insurers.

Patsy Bates, 52, a hairdresser from Lakewood, had been left with more than $129,000 in unpaid medical bills when Health Net Inc. canceled her policy in 2004.

On Friday, arbitration judge Sam Cianchetti ordered Health Net to repay that amount while providing $8.4 million in punitive damages and $750,000 for emotional distress.

“It’s hard to imagine a situation more trying than the one Bates has had to endure,” Cianchetti wrote in the decision. “The rug was pulled out from underneath, and that occurred at a time when she is diagnosed with breast cancer, one of the leading causes of death for women.”

It’s hard to imagine a more disgusting policy. The insurance company has admitted to the practice of cancelling policies, but claims it has ceased the practice. Who knows how many more Americans have suffered the same fate.

The award came a day after the Los Angeles city attorney sued Health Net, claiming it illegally canceled the coverage of about 1,600 patients. City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo also said the company illegally ran an incentive program in which it paid bonuses to an administrator for meeting targets of policy cancelations.

Health Net acknowledged that such a program existed in 2002 and 2003 but was subsequently scrapped.

“It’s hard to imagine a policy more reprehensible than tying bonuses to encourage the recision of health insurance that helps keep the public well and alive,” Cianchetti wrote in the Bates decision.

Those defending our current health care system must address these terrible practices. Is this the kind of health care they want in ths country?

This is one of the many reasons Americans are clamoring for health care reform.

Just when you thought the Clinton campaign was coming to terms with the fact that their campaign is doomed, Hillary ratchets up the rhetoric with a tough attack on Obama mailers. Perhaps they realize that her debate performance on Thursday night made her look like a candidate ready to concede defeat.

One of her lines went something like this - “Since when do Democrats attack other Democrats for proposing universal health care?” She drew a comparison to the Harry and Louise ads used by the GOP to tank her health care plan in the 1990s.

Well, the simple truth is that the initial attacks came from Hillary against Obama. She justifies this by claiming Obama does not really propose universal health care because his plan does not include a mandate. Obama responds that they have a philosophical disagreement on how to achieve universal coverage. Clinton has repeatedly attacked the Obama plan for not covering 15 million people, which the Obama campaign has disputed. Her campaign has relied on mailers just like the Obama campaign. The facts are simple - her plan has a mandate which would force people to purchase coverage, regardless of whether or not they could afford it.

Also, regarding NAFTA, is is indisputable that she publicly supported it. There are some reports that she had private misgivings, but she was out there supporting it in public. She takes credit for all the good economic accomplishments in the 1990s, but she won’t own up to her own public positions regarding controversial issues like her support of NAFTA. If her campaign had any integrity, she would explain why free trade is important and how NAFTA was an important accomplishment, but that it has had many flaws that need to be corrected. Instead she refuses to acknowledge or address her initial positions.

Her “shame on you” line is particularly ridiculous, given the track record of her own campaign’s tactics. They intentionally distorted Obama’s words about Ronald Reagan, and put out an ad in South Carolina with that false charge. They only pulled it after the Obama campaign put out an ad claiming that she would say anything to get elected. Her collapse in the national polls started soon therafter.

One of the most compelling arguments against the Iraq War at the time was that it would divert our efforts in Afghanistan and against Al Qaida, the ones who actually attacked us.

In the debate on Thursday, Obama made this point in response to Hillary’s ridiculous claim that only she is ready on day one to be commander-in-chief. He pointed out that she voted for the Iraq War, and that the war had disastrous consequences.

One of those consequences was a diversion from the war in Afghanistan. Obama cited a situation involving an Army camptain in Afghanistan.

“You know, I’ve heard from an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon — supposed to have 39 men in a rifle platoon,” he said. “Ended up being sent to Afghanistan with 24 because 15 of those soldiers had been sent to Iraq. And as a consequence, they didn’t have enough ammunition, they didn’t have enough humvees. They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief.”

Many conservatives challenged the veracity of the story, but now ABC News has contacted the captain and has backed up Obama’s story.

Just another set of facts demonstrating the stupidity of this war and the incompetence of the Bush administration. Hillary supported this policy, and she can’t spin that fact.

Looks like McCain’s flat denials regarding the lobbying issues in the New York Times piece might not be accurate:

McCain said and his office later released a statement claiming that McCain hadn’t met with anyone from either Paxson Communications (the broadcaster wanting the favors) or Alcalde & Fay (the lobby shop trying to get them the favors). Today, though, Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff dug up a 2002 deposition in which McCain said that he had discussed the issue directly with Lowell Paxson, the head of Paxson Communications. Now the Post has asked Paxson himself, now retired, and he says, Yep, I met with McCain and asked him to write the letters. And he thinks he remembers Iseman being in the meeting too.

Anyone who says Obama’s campaign is “all rhetoric” is not paying attention. Obama’s ground game, coupled with his Internet strategy, will be studied for years by acedemics and political strategists. This will go down as one of the best-run campaigns in our lifetimes.

Kos highlights some details from a reader about Obama’s ground game in Cleveland. It’s pretty amazing.

Obama’s vote totals and margins of victory have been exceeding the polls since Super Tuesday. Few reporters are focusing on this, as many of them are still stuck on the New Hampshire story where Clinton exceeded expectations.

In Ohio and Texas, the polls are tightening. It’s even in Texas and Obama is within single digits in Ohio. With his ground game and the enthusiasm of his supporters, I think he can win Texas and possibly pull out a shocker in Ohio.

John McCain often makes blanket statements that are untrue. Josh Marshall has some of the details.

With President George W. Bush, we had a president who made sweeping promises about the importance of fostering democracy around the world, to the point that many of his speeches reminded listeners to the utopian goals of Woodrow Wilson. Unfortunately, Bush and his advisors had no clue about the challenges facing those trying to bring democracy to places like the Middle East. Just as in Iraq, lofty goals were not backed up with preparation or hard work. Instead we had utter incompetence.

Joe Klein reports the following from the U.S,-Islamic World Forum in Doha:

The distress was deeper than exhaustion. Many of the Muslim delegates seemed stunned, finally, by the rush of history unleashed by the Bush Administration. “Everything the United States has favored is now radioactive, especially democracy,” said Rami Khouri, a Lebanese journalist. The Administration had pushed for elections in places like the Palestinian territories where the essential components of democracy—a free press, a free economy, the rule of law—did not exist. Religious parties had won, or gained momentum, in most of these elections, and the U.S. had backtracked, refusing to accept the Hamas victory in the Palestinian territories, re-embracing autocrats like Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. “Our indigenous democratic reformers,” Khouri said, “are in retreat across the region.”

This isn’t about conservative or liberal foreign policy. It’s about common sense. Conservatives like George Will and Pat Buchanan saw the folly of Bush’s policies, as did liberals like Ted Kennedy. The greatest tragedy is that real efforts to bring democracy to the world have been set back by this administrations incompetence.

In Hillaryland, numbers don’t matter, red states don’t matter, and voters who voted for Obama don’t matter.

They invent their own math, and they try to change the rules. They’ve been beaten by huge margins in their current 10-state losing streak, and every week we have a new strategy and new lame attacks.

The latest attack claims that only Hillary is qualified to be commander-in-chief. This from the Senator who voted for Bush’s disastrous war, yet claims that she thought he was only voting for resuming inspections. She cast this vote without even reading the full National Intelligence Estimate that was made available to Senators and which detailed the problems with Bush’s WMD claims.

I’m sure Obama welcomes this debate. Her Iraq War vote in my opinion should disqualify her from being commander-in-chief. She screwed up, and she won’t even admit it.

Of course, none of this matters in Bizarro World.

Here’s a very gracious (and humorous) statement issued by Texas State Senator Kirk Watson, the Obama surrogate from Texas who was stumped by Chris Matthews last night when he couldn’t cite any legislative achievements by Barack Obama.

In a USA Today Op-Ed piece, Barack Obama responded to the issue of spending limits in the general election. He will seek an agreement, but it will not be an easy agreement to craft since supporters on both sides can cheat the system.

Let’s see if the press is capable of reporting on this issue in a fair manner. They will actually have to dig in and understand the issue, which means it might take longer than a 30-second explanation. They have 24 hours per day available on cable news, so one would hope they could deal with this responsibly. Unfortunately, that might be too much to ask.

It’s a blowout.

If Hillary loses either Texas or Ohio she needs to drop out.