Joe Klein nails Obama’s weakness as a general-election candidate:

But there was still something missing. I noticed it during Obama’s response to a young man who remembered how the country had come together after Sept. 11 and lamented “the dangerously low levels of patriotism and pride in our country, the loss of faith in our elected officials.” Obama used this, understandably, to go after George W. Bush. “Cynicism has become the hot stock,” he said, “the growth industry during the Bush Administration.” He talked about the Administration’s mendacity, its incompetence during Hurricane Katrina, its lack of transparency. But he never returned to the question of patriotism. He never said, “But hey, look, we’re Americans. This is the greatest country on earth. We’ll rise to the occasion.”

This is a chronic disease among Democrats, who tend to talk more about what’s wrong with America than what’s right.

Sorry, Joe. In fact, between the two Democratic candidates it is only Barack Obama who is infected with this disease. And he’s got it bad, as he made plain on The View [e.a.]:

“Had the reverend not retired and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn’t have felt comfortable staying there at the church,” Obama said.

See, he’s got to be even-handed about America. He’s got to indicate that he knows it’s deeply flawed.

He wouldn’t want anyone to think that he thinks this a great country or anything. And yet he wants to be its president.

How does this guy stack up in the general election against someone who reveres his country?  That’s hard to say. But let’s not put the cart before the horse.

A New York Times/CBS poll finds that:

Obama’s Support Softens

This is his support among Democrats. He is bleeding:

Mr. Obama’s big lead among men over Mrs. Clinton has disappeared during that period; in February 67 percent of men wanted the party to nominate him compared with 28 percent for Mrs. Clinton, while now 47 percent of men back him compared with 42 percent for Mrs. Clinton, a difference that is within the poll’s margin of error. Similarly, his lead among whites, voters making more than $50,000 annually and voters under age 45 has shrunk.

And still the NYT spins like a top:

The poll, taken March 28 through April 2, includes some encouraging news for Mr. Obama as he and Mrs. Clinton slog through what has become an extended fight for the nomination. Over half of those sampled continue to view him as having a better chance of defeating Mr. McCain. Most expect him to win the nomination. And Mr. Obama’s supporters are more enthusiastic about his candidacy than are Democrats backing Mrs. Clinton.

In other words, his devoted fans really love him. Everybody else has questions.

The way-back machine took me here.

Whoa, man.

It so happens that I watched (again) the great Milos Forman movie Amadeus last night,

Which reminds me of Hair

Let it fly in the breeze
And get caught in the trees
Give a home to the fleas in my hair
A home for fleas
A hive for bees
A nest for birds
There ain’t no words
For the beauty, the splendor, the wonder
Of my…

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair
Flow it, show it
Long as God can grow it
My hair

And I can’t believe that Bill and Hillary Clinton once looked like that.

The NYT’s Kit Seelye notes that Hillary Clinton has a remarkable glow for a woman who is under attack from every conceivable direction [e.a.]:

For someone supposedly in a heap of trouble, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is looking pretty relaxed these days. … [A]t moments she seems almost carefree, which is a jarring image for someone who has been called upon by members of her party to give up her quest for the Democratic presidential nomination. Her rival, Senator Barack Obama, has more delegates and more total popular votes. The longer Mrs. Clinton persists, her critics say, the more damage to the Democrats in the fall.

Of course Clinton’s relaxed air is jarring only to those who consider her evil incarnate, a She-devil focused like a laser on the presidency at all costs, just to satisfy her unquenchable personal thirst for power.

I’m bored silly by those accusations, and increasingly it looks like Hillary is, too. It’s pretty obvious that Clinton herself is feeling self-confident and impervious to the attacks on her, her family, her intentions, her character, her sex, her looks, her personal life, and her record, to mention just a few things.

More and more, she looks like a woman who is secure in the knowledge that she’s got nothing to lose in this contest—the anti-Tracy Flick, if you will. And it has loosened her up, to the great benefit of her image.

An interesting turn of events in this most pseudo-event-full political campaign in modern history.

At the Corner,Liberal Fascism author Jonah Goldberg, whose book has been on the New York Times bestseller list for more than ten weeks, gives a lively account of the ups and downs [e.a.]:

The most plausible explanation [for the books slide from the top 10] is the same one that explained why I leaped onto the Times list my first week out of the box. After all I opened at #10 even though I had a small first printing and it was hard to find the book in many stores. No one — except the Times itself — really understands how their formula works. But it definitely measures demand, perhaps not as much as sales, but enough to launch a book to the list if the demand is intense. In other words, the rate of sales — and presales — at all levels of the market (stores, clubs, wholesale etc.) are part of the formula. This week a whole slew of new books with big promotion budgets came online and the cross platform demand apparently shoved LF downward.

That’s an interesting perspective on the factors involved in achieving bestsellerdom on the New York Times lists, a mysterious process that was also mined last October by the NYT’s public editor, Clark Hoyt.

Goldberg also talks about how it feels to have written this book:

Obviously, I’d like to stay on the list as long as possible. …And it annoys all the right people the longer I’m on it, of course. … Three months on the NYT list — and hitting #1 — plus a dozen printings is far better than I dared hope. And yet I still hope the book does even better and has a wider following.

Son, you hit the lottery. STFU.