Just typical Obama. Another example of his

demeaning attitude toward Clinton and women in general

He is constantly looking past her or with

his nose in the air when he is around her

His not so subtle attempt

to flip her off is so blatant and rude

Fuller Version

"Flipping the Bird"

Kudos to Obama for, like his finger , finally letting his true colors out.

It was needed. He is just as Machiavellian as any other politician.

And the Wright speech as much as the half-hearted Bitter-Gate apologies lacked honesty, the urgency of being right, because they were extracted, FORCED out of him once he was caught.

But that’s OK. No more Kumbaya bullshit. He’s part of the brothel.

Just like Hillary, Bill & McCain. Hey welcome to the whorehouse halleluiah! Now can we select the best girl in the house please?

This is one of those political moments that really needs few words.

We'll no doubt hear much more about this incident in coming days.

Right now, we'll just leave this video for you to view and judge for themselves. It's Sen. Barack Obama, according to the caption on YouTube posted just minutes ago, speaking to a friendly crowd in Raleigh, N.C., today [17 April].

He's talking critically about his opponent, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, and the kind of distasteful gotcha politics that occur in Washington. And he says, "That's all right. Sen. Clinton looked in her element."

Watch the video right then. The presidential candidate raises his right hand to seemingly scratch his cheek.

He pauses. He smiles slyly as the crowd begins to mumble and then he tries, somewhat distracted, to continue his remarks, smiling as the buzz spreads through the crowd.

He'll no doubt deny it later, but that mischievous smile seems to confirm plenty. And the crowd sure sees something.

He doesn't use his whole hand though. Just one finger. Briefly. A couple of strokes.

Obama: "The Whiner"

On Saturday Night Live, (Fake) Hillary Told (Fake) Obama To 'Man Up.' After Wednesday Night's Debate...

David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, sends out this e-mail to, well, everyone:

Did you see the debate last night?

If you did, you saw more gotcha politics and distractions than questions about the pressing issues affecting our country.

In fact, it took more than 45 minutes before Barack was asked about the economy, health care, or foreign policy.

Regrettably, Senator Clinton seemed all too comfortable with that type of debate. She's running a 100% negative campaign in Pennsylvania, taking every opportunity to make personal and discredited attacks against Senator Obama.

You can send a message that politics doesn't have to be played this way.

Make your first donation today, and someone who's already given will match whatever amount you decide to give. You can double your impact, and you'll even get to see the name and town of the fellow supporter matching your first online gift.

Will you make a $25 donation now?

In the car earlier, I thought about the contrast with McCain. The guy does town hall meetings everywhere he goes. He has reporters on the bus with him all the time. He does conference calls with bloggers.

Does he ever grumble about some questions? Oh, once in a while we'll see McCain get a bit curt with a New York Times reporter on his plane.

I remember him getting surprisingly defensive in response to a question about Israel on one of those blogger calls, and I'm sure we all remember the "thanks for the question, you little jerk. You're drafted!" (which everyone at the event understood as a joke, but was easy to take out of context).

But all in all, McCain's off-key answers have been pretty small potatoes. When the New York Times did that inane front-page story insinuating, but never quite coming out and accusing him of having an affair with a lobbyist, he took every question until no one had any left.

Meanwhile, Obama gets a couple questions on unpleasant topics — do you understand why your San Francisco comment bothered some Pennsylvanians?

Why did you ask Jeremiah Wright to not play a role in your campaign kickoff? Why don't you wear a flag pin? Can you explain your relationship with William Ayers?

His supporters go apoplectic, some even screaming Obama should retaliate against ABC as President. And his campaign whines that it's "gotcha politics and distractions."

Hey, welcome to the big leagues, rookie. You're gonna get some questions you're not going to like. Not everybody gets to have their main opponent's bid implode when their divorce records are unsealed and compete against Alan Keyes in a general election.

Seriously, if Barack Obama can't handle questions like this from Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopolous, maybe the portrait of the cracking-under-pressure whiner depicted in the Saturday Night Live sketch isn't as wild an exaggeration as we thought.

Obama supporters, are going to jump all over ABC for the choice of topics: too many gaffe questions, not enough policy questions.

I understand the complaints, but I thought the questions were excellent. The journalist’s job is to make politicians uncomfortable, to explore evasions, contradictions and vulnerabilities.

Almost every question tonight did that. Obama looked foolish at times, but that’s their own fault.

We may not like it, but issues like Jeremiah Wright, flag lapels and bittergate will be important in the fall. Remember how George H.W. Bush toured flag factories to expose Michael Dukakis. It’s legitimate to see how the candidates will respond to these sorts of symbolic issues.

The Democrats have a problem if they nominate Obama. All the signs point to a big Democratic year, and I still wouldn’t bet against him winning the White House.

But his background as a Hyde Park liberal is going to continue to dog him. No issue is crushing on its own, but it all adds up.

For the life of me I can’t figure out why he didn’t have better answers on Wright and on the “bitter” comments. The superdelegates cannot have been comforted by his performance.

Hillary Attacks; Barack Whines

I respect Hillary Clinton as an adversary. And every once in a while, when she demonstrates she has the guts to “go there” in front of a Democratic audience that want their debates to be criticism-free lovefests, I’m tempted to say, “I like the cut of your jib, Senator.”

It’s like watching a linebacker perfectly execute a blitz and flatten a quarterback from the blind side. It’s brutal, and tough to watch when it’s your guy being hit, but it’s within the rules and almost artistic when it’s perfectly executed.

Tonight, she had her stumbles. Her answer on the Bosnia sniper tales really didn’t help her out that much; she needed to explain something bewildering to the average Joe, which is remembering things that didn’t happen. She made a lame joke about not getting enough sleep, but oddly, Obama didn’t jump in by mentioning her “3 a.m.” ads.

But she tore into Obama on all of his weak spots. Relentlessly. For the most part, she avoided looking nasty while she did it. She focused on the ‘cling’ comment in the context of not understanding the role of religion in people's lives.

She repeated what Wright actually said the Sunday after 9/11, and probably introduced Wright’s blaming of America to a lot of people who had only heard Wright’s sermons through a media filter.

She twisted the knife when she noted that people don’t choose their families, but they choose their pastor. When Obama tried to downplay his relationship to William Ayers, she brought up the Woods Foundation.

After about forty-five minutes, David Axelrod probably should have thrown in the towel and stopped the fight.

Obama got a little better as the night wore on, but the damage was done. He looked terrible tonight. He said he disowned Wright – contradicting his speech line about being no more able to disown Wright than his own grandmother — then backed away and said he only disowned his comments.

When Hillary brought up Wright’s 9/11 comments, he merely lamented that some of his comments had been “objectionable.” He never quite explained why he stopped wearing the American flag pin, and he kept digging in deeper on William Ayers.

He dismissed the question, then described Ayers as an “English professor.” He completely downplayed Ayers’ terrorist past, and said they didn’t exchange ideas “on a regular basis.”

Then he compared his relationship to Ayers to his relationship with Senator Tom Coburn! Way to chase away the last of the Obamacans, Senator.

Hillary closed by saying she’s a fighter. She proved that tonight; if I were on Team McCain, tonight might have convinced me to hope for a showdown with Obama.

UPDATE: During the night, I wondered if Democrats would conclude she was too nasty and negative. But I don't think she ever came across as shrill or sneering in her delivery, like when she did with the "slumlord Rezko" line a few debates ago.

But I suppose it's possible that Wednesday night's performance backfires, that Democrats see her as tearing down their Obamessiah.

But my first gut instinct is that she's knocking him off his pedestal with all of this...