The appearance of even-handedness here is ludicrous. He is clearly a Clinton supporter if he comes up with this tripe. It stands in the face of what we have been witnessing in recent weeks, and doesn't speak well of the party insiders.

Right on, Peter. Somebody needs to knock their heads together. Quickly. I mean, hey, it's just our entire nation that's at risk here. Nothing to serious, now is it?

Since we're political small fry we're perfectly able to make distinctions of who and what. Making such judgements public isn't in DeFazio's interest nor would it serve his interest in getting the Primary less divisive. It would simply amp up the rhetoric.

Thanks Peter.

what??? Does anybody here doubt who I hold responsible?

So, DeFazio's message gets immediately lost as people immediately debate whether candidate A attacked more/less/earlier/later than candidate B. Chris believes DeFazio's message is "belated". Does that mean it is meaningless, unhelpful, and should be ignored? tj and Bill believe DeFazio reveals himself to be a Clinton supporter for daring suggest Obama deserves blame. Do you think his message would have been heeded had he come out and suggest Clinton had been more negative and attacking of Obama?

The point is, (not unlike the Merkley-Novick debates), we have a common goal: to win the presidency from Bush/McCain (to win the Senate seat from Gordon Smith). Regardless of who has been (or is perceived to have been) more negative, I think we would all agree that everyone would benefit from focusing on the issues and the pros of each candidate as opposed to the "negatives" of the same-party contender.

Hey Chris what the heck election have you been paying attention to?

"Hillary held out for a long, long time - through December - before her campaign put out any official message involving criticism"

Well congratulations your candidate held out until before the first state had even voted. Thats something to be proud of. Come to think of it, she held off her negative republican like attacks until she realized her inevitable nomination was not so inevitable. Pull your head out of the sand.

You both claim to be better suited than the other to take on the so-called Straight-Talk Express, so prove it.

What Straight-Talk Express? It is making so many U-turns it is going round in circles.

Who wants party unity? That's what nazis do. I have a prefrence for chasing the moderate weak ass centrist into the camp where they belong with Joe Liberman. Clinton or Mccain it's all more of the same. Folks have had enough. At least with Mccain folks won't fall back asleep.

Kari- "I'm baffled, Bill. Could you explain your reasoning?

I don't understand how calling on both candidates to stop fighting with each other is actually helping one candidate over another."

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My argument here is this: DeFazio is essentially saying that they are both crossing a line in undermining the party. I maintain that it is Clinton is undermining the party with her divisive attacks on Obama on two grounds, one that in comparison to her and to McCain he is not qualified to be commander in chief, and two, through surrogates, that he is really a marginal and unvetted black candidate who really doesn't deserve the presidency and is getting special treatment because he is black,which therefore makes him unelectable. Obama has attacked her on issues, primarily her judgment about the war and foreign policy and her reliance on special interest money. Those are not divisive issues per se. So it is wrong to suggest that Obama is making personal attacks undermining the party when he is not. And I would add that exit and other polling has consistently placed the "unfair personal attacks" squarely on Clinton's shoulders. Therefore to say, well they're both responsible for is a tactic of feigning an even handedness that doesn't exist. I hope I am wrong.

This is an illustration of why I critique DeFazio's feigned even-handedness.. Not a word from him about this. This is not leadership or party concern, it's cowardice or worse, an advocacy for these tactics.

"Clinton's suicide pact"- posted by Keith Olberman- from his Countdown special message to Hillary Clinton: A Special Comment On Clinton And Ferraro by Keith Olbermann Wed Mar 12, 2008 at 04:02:59 PM PDT

I do not do this lightly, and I do not do this happily. There is no exaggeration in this preamble, and when I say the words on "more in sorrow than in anger" on the air tonight, I will mean them and mean them profoundly. As ever, forgive me for quoting myself.

By way of necessary preface, President and Senator Clinton --and the Senator's mother, and the Senator's brother -- were of immeasurable support to me at the moments when these very commentaries were the focus of the most surprise, the most uncertainty, and the most anger. My gratitude to them is abiding.

My point tonight is that the resignation of Geraldine Ferraro from the Finance Committee of Senator Clinton's campaign is a lost opportunity for the candidate to do simply do the proverbial, cheesy,cornball, 'right thing.' Instead, the Comment will trace the path down which Senator Clinton's advisors led her:

Do they have Senator Clinton herself compare the remark to Al Campanis talking on Nightline -- on Jackie Robinson day –- about how blacks lacked the necessities to become baseball executives, while she points out that Barack Obama has not gotten his 1600 delegates as part of some kind of Affirmative Action plan? (snip) Do these advisors have Senator Clinton invoke Samantha Power-- gone by sunrise after she used the word "monster" -- and have Senator Clinton say, "this is how I police my campaign and this is what I stand for," while she fires former Congresswoman Ferraro from any role the campaign? No.Somebody tells her that simply disgreeing with and rejecting the remarks is sufficient. And she should then call, "regrettable," words that should make any Democrat retch.

There is much in the decisions made by the Senator and her strategists that was obvious, mistaken, and damaging. And there is the grimmer prospect. That these, as Howard Fineman suggested on Countdown last night, were not mistakes at all.

It sounds as if those advisors want their campaign to be associated with those words, and the cheap... ignorant... vile...racism that underlies every syllable. And that Geraldine Ferraro has just gone free-lance. Senator Clinton:This is not a campaign strategy. This is a suicide pact.

Posted by: Jeff Alworth | Mar 12, 2008 1:43:52 PM

Incidentally, I almost did an "in the news" piece here, but I'm an Obama guy, and I didn't want charges of bias. So now you know: I posted it.

It wouldn't be a problem is your name popped up after "in the news." Thanks for being aware though.

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Good for Peter. It's about time some of the party elders weighed in on these shenanigans.

Here is the problem with DeFazio's feigned "equivalence" about "fighting." Stated by Keith Olberman, much better than I can say.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23601329#23601329

Good for you, Peter.

Party unity of the "my party, right or wrong" is what dictatorships do.

People who debate onstage but remember to be polite to others offstage because this is only the primary is what adults do.

This is why contested primaries are good for many reasons, but divisive primaries (esp. where one candidate runs ads which come close to swiftboating against the other) are bad.

I would like to believe that the over-the-top comments will stop. I do believe that it has come from both sides. However, a lot of the anti-Clinton stuff did not need to be put out by the Obama campaign since so much of it echoes the tried and true anti-Clinton rhetoric crafted, polished, and disseminated in the Bill Clinton era. How can the Obama campaign be blamed for not refuting this received wisdom? Hey, the Republicans were right! who knew!
I can see that the country is ready for a change, as it regularly is. This is not the first time we have gone for a talented charismatic outsider with promise.
I have read Clinton supporters criticizing Obama as inexperienced and shallow and un-electable, and criticizing his supporters pretty much along the same lines.
I have read Obama supporters portray Clinton as personifying almost every negative adjective the Republicans have put out there since 1992 and criticizing her supporters as being Party Establishment or underinformed or racist or oldangryfeminist or complicit in the behavior implied in all those negative descriptors. ( Underhanded, calculating, racist, amoral, criminal, venal.) I voted for Hillary in my caucus (she lost) and I'm a much worse person than you'd ever dream of being ?

I did hear Hillary say that if Obama won the nomination she would encourage her supporters to vote for him. (Duh) Probably Obama has made the same statement.

At this point they BOTH really need to remind their supporters know that at the end of the campaign, they are BOTH Democrats, and that this country needs a Democratic President.

This is an email I sent to Mr DeFazio earlier today. Anyone who shares my sentiments might want to consider writing him an email as well.

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"I will start by telling you that I support Barack Obama. I am writing with my concerns about the letter you wrote to Mr Obama and Ms Clinton about the negative campaigning that has gone on in recent weeks.

It is true that in recent weeks the Clinton team has run an intensely negative campaign intended to tear down Barack Obama in the public media. They have stated that 1) Mr Obama is not ready to be Commander-in-Chief, 2) John McCain is better prepared to be Commander-in-Chief than Mr Obama, 3) Mr Obama can not win the general election in November; and 4) Mr Obama would not be where he is if he was not a black man. They have chosen to ignore the rules of fair play and the best interests of the Democratic Party and instead follow a scorched earth policy aimed at satisfying their own political ambitions.

The Obama team, on the other hand, has and continues to run a very positive campaign. There has been one significant episode in recent weeks where a member of the Obama team, Samantha Power, made an offhand remark to a reporter suggesting that Hillary Clinton was a "monster". Realizing that this was a blunder, Ms Power immediately tried to make that comment off-the-record. The reporter did not comply with her request and instead published her remarks. Ms Power, who was an important member of Obama's foreign policy team, promptly resigned.

For you to in any way equate the behavior of the Obama and Clinton teams is not only ludicrous on its face but it is also damaging, both to the Obama campaign, the Democratic Party and politics in America. It presents a false image of Mr Obama in the eye of the reader - that he and his team are somehow just like the Clintons and their team. It is an unfounded attack on one of the great assets Mr Obama has consistently shown he brings to politics and government -- the ability to bridge the partisan divisiveness that has plagued the political dialogue in America and undermined constructive policy making in our government. It allows members of the Clinton team to use your remarks to further blur the distinction between their negative tactics and the positive campaign run by the Obama team. And by blurring that distinction, it provides cover for members of the Clinton team to step up their negative attacks.

<h2>Many who have posted responses to your letter on the internet have stated that the feigned evenhandedness of your letter suggests that you are a Clinton supporter using the air of evenhandedness as part of a political calculus. At this point only you know if this is true. If it is not true, then at a minimum you are incredibly naive as to the unintended negative consequences of your letter. By failing to acknowledge and point out the conspicuous disparity between the negative campaign run by the Clinton team and the positive campaign run by the Obama team, you haven't helped solve the problem, you have helped perpetuate it."</h2>