Afterspeech

After all the responses to Obama's speech on race throughout the day Tuesday, the media had mostly moved on by Wednesday.

The Michigan re-vote proposal apparently died the same death as Florida's: it's impractical if not impossible to organize in time. Hillary rushed to Detroit to try to save it, but Chuck Todd said on Keith that her appearance, as well as the appearance of a list of donors willing to subsidize another primary--all Hillary supporters--probably did more harm than good, because it made the idea a politically partisan one.

Records of Hillary's official schedule as First Lady were released, and after satisfying some prurient interests on where she was while Bill was being bad, journalists by day's end were beginning to uncover evidence that "often she was far from the site of decision making during some of the most pivotal events of Bill Clinton's presidency."

Hillary got endorsements from two super-delegates--her first announced pick-ups since February--but Hotline noted that in the interim, Obama had picked up 61--and then listed them.

Obama won the straw poll at the meeting of the progressive political organization, Take Back America--by 72% to 16% for Clinton.

But what everyone is waiting for is some idea of how the endless loops of Rev. Wright and Obama's speech on race will play out. A New York Times piece suggests that Clintonians view the effect of this as her only hope for the nomination.

Some polls show Obama slipping down. Clinton won the daily Gallup tracking poll, outside the margin of error for the first time in awhile. Other polls showed Obama's negatives up.

However, a CBS survey on race and gender, taken March 15-18 (in the midst of the Wright loops, and perhaps including Obama's speech) showed 62% of American voters professing that America is ready for a black President, and that 56% believe people they know would vote for a black President (including 55% of whites.) Respondents see racism as a much more serious problem than sexism (42% to 10%). These are not overwhelmingly encouraging numbers, but they are a pretty good floor.

Obama's speech on Iraq has been noted. The Iraq war version of the Winter Soldier hearings are ongoing, covered almost exclusively by Democracy Now! Now as then, the stories are tragic and real, while the media ignores those brutal realities and some people want to suppress this knowledge. When will we ever learn.