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Chuck Todd told Matt Lauer on Wednesday that the White House was “caught flat-footed” on the backlash against the prisoner swap for Sergeant Bergdahl. “I’ve had a few aides describe it to me as ‘we didn’t know that they were going to Swift Boat Bergdahl’,” Todd said, “And Matt, of course, that’s a reference to that political fight back in 2004 over John Kerry’s military service which became so controversial in that campaign. So there’s some fighting words there.”

WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — White House aides are accusing soldiers who served with Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl are “swift boating” him following his release over the weekend after five years in captivity. NBC News’ Chuck Todd reported Monday that the White House did not expect this sort of vitriolic backlash exchanging five high-level Taliban members held at Guantanamo Bay for Bergdahl, who left his Army post in 2009 in Afghanistan and was subsequently taken captive. “They did not expect this backlash on Bergdahl himself,” Todd reported on NBC’s “Today.” I’ve had a few aides describe it to me as we didn’t...

Another request for donations arrived in the inbox today. The messages supposedly are from any of a number of Obama people such as Michelle, Joe Biden, or the campaign manager. John Kerry is the “author” of the latest solicitation complaining that Bob Perry, who contributed to the organization, "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," that helped expose the more than lackluster Viet Nam "Service" of John Kerry, just donated $3 Million to the Republicans. He critically says, "One man. Three million dollars. And that's just the start." But, a million from Bill Maher is no problem. Could this be because Obama's...

While Archimedes-in-a-pantsuit tries to rewrite the laws of mathematics, the rest of the nation has properly begun to weigh the Presidential contest between Sens. McCain and Obama. Obama has, however, learned a valuable Clinton trick from this protracted primary--how to obliquely reference the "vast, right-wing conspiracy" to misdirect people's attention away from glaring, personal deficiencies. During his victory speech in North Carolina on Tuesday night Obama said, "We know what's coming...the same names and labels they (Republicans) pin on everyone who doesn't agree with all of their ideas." Actually, we have some new names and labels thanks to Mr. &...

In a rare interview, Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. said media organizations that circulated controversial sound bites of his sermons on the Internet wanted to paint him as "un-American" or "some sort of fanatic" in order to bring down Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. "I think they wanted to communicate that I am unpatriotic, that I am un-American, that I am filled with hate speech, that I have a cult at Trinity United Church of Christ," Wright told journalist Bill Moyers in the first interview he has granted since comments critical of U.S. policies surfaced on television and the Internet....

LANSDOWNE, Pa. - Sen. John Kerry reached out to veterans here on Barack Obama's behalf Saturday, saying he believes Obama is more prepared to be commander in chief than Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were when they took office. Kerry told the crowd he did not think Obama would be victimized by GOP attacks the way he was in 2004 by the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth." Kerry took responsibility for not fighting the Swift Boat assaults more effectively, but he said advisors, including Bill Clinton, suggested he not defend himself aggressively. "We didn't lose to them, I didn't lose...

Pay no attention to that woman behind the curtain. Be afraid. Be very afraid, for if you don’t obey the Great and Powerful Oz will turn her wrath on you. Yawn. Hillary Clinton’s favorite girlhood movie was the “Wizard of Oz.” But now, as the primaries clank along, her subjects are refusing to wear the green-tinted glasses and buy her act. She’s less and less terrifying every day, and fewer of those closest to her -- her Senate colleagues -- are intimidated. Despite their best efforts, the Clintons' powers seem to have gone on the fritz, and those Democrats who...

The New York Times' well-sourced Adam Nagourney reported on Saturday that, in response to calls for Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, to drop out of the race (from the likes of Obama-backing Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vermont), "In a conversation with two Democratic allies, she compared the situation to the 'big boys' trying to bully a woman, according to interviews with them." In the Washington Post Sunday, Clinton denied the report to Perry Bacon, Jr. Q. "There was a story today that said you felt the 'big boys' were trying to push you out, 'bullying' you. Did you use those phrases?" Clinton:...

What is it about Democratic politicians and their irresistible urge to lie? Even in the post-President Clinton era, lies continue to flow from the lips of prominent Democrats with regularity only matched by lots of fiber. Within the past two weeks alone, we’ve seen Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his former Chief of Staff, Christine Beatty, surrender to authorities after being indicted for conspiracy, perjury and obstruction of justice. Hillary Clinton said she was “sleep-deprived, and I misspoke” when she highly exaggerated about her trip to Bosnia as First Lady 12 years ago, and claimed she was under hostile sniper...

Sen. John McCain’s "Straight Talk Express'' will roll out for a nostalgia tour this week, a bus-storming tour of many of the touchstones in the senator’s long life. Yet, for the two Democrats still battling over their party’s presidential nomination, this will be a season to forget – if they can. *snip* How much will it matter this fall, should Obama claim the Democratic nomination, that he devoted two decades to a church whose pastor spoke of damning America for its racial practices? *snip* How much will it matter, should all or half of the delegations of Florida and Michigan...

Faced with a growing chorus to abandon the uphill battle against Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton is falling back on what she sees as her trump card - her gender.At other perilous junctures like the eve of the New Hampshire primary and the eve of Super Tuesday, the former First Lady highlighted her femininity during televised tearful moments. Now she is portraying the calls for her to quit as male chauvinism. In comments leaked to the New York Times, Mrs Clinton is said to have told aides that she would not be "bullied out" of the White...

Campaigning For Mom In N. Carolina, Clinton Says She Was Sheltered From Chauvinism (AP) Chelsea Clinton said Saturday that she didn't realize how much sexism remained in the United States until she noticed the issue at recent campaign stops for her mother. "I didn't really get how much sexism there still was in our country until I was at a rally with my mom in New Hampshire, and someone came up to me and said, 'I just can't see a woman being commander in chief,"' Clinton said during a stop in Research Triangle Park. She also noted another New Hampshire...

...Democrats are coming around to the point Jay Rockefeller made 10 days ago after introducing Obama in West Virginia: “Democrats always make a mistake by nominating people who know everything on earth there is to know about public policy. I introduced both Al Gore and John Kerry at their rallies. They knew all the policies, but people didn’t connect with them. You don’t get elected president if people don’t like you.” Despite Bill Clinton’s saying it was “a bunch of bull” that his wife should drop out, Democrats are trying to sneak up on Hillary, throw a burlap sack over...

...Which brings us back to our question: Why would so smart a candidate play political Russian roulette with virtually all the bullet chambers loaded? Sometimes only a shrink can decipher why some politicians persist in flagrantly taking giant risks, all but daring others to catch them in the act (see: Spitzer, Eliot). Carl Bernstein, a sometimes admiring Hillary Clinton biographer, has called the Bosnia debacle “a watershed event” for her campaign because it revives her long history of balancing good works with “ ‘misstatements’ and elisions,” from the health-care task force fiasco onward. But this event may be a watershed...

A golden rule in the game of American (or any modern professional) politics is that if you are behind in a campaign and you’re running out of time, you “go negative”. Twenty years ago I actually took a class in professional campaign tactics at Harvard University’s John F Kennedy School of Government. We examined case studies of campaigns in recent years and saw the very precise metrics that the professionals use to gauge how much you lose if you throw mud at someone – because you look like a sleazebag – compared with how much damage you can inflict. The...

For all their delight in soaring voter registration and strong poll numbers, some Democrats fear the contest between Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton might have a nightmarish end, which could wreck a promising election year. The chief worry is that Clinton may carry her recent winning streak into Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina and other states, leaving her with unquestioned momentum but fewer pledged delegates than Obama. Party leaders then would face a wrenching choice: Steer the nomination to a fading Obama, even as signs suggested Clinton could be the stronger candidate in November; or go with the surging...

Now that Obama and Hillary are offering images that are much weaker, LESS HONEST, and less solid and dependable, good old John McCain looks much better as he tours Iraq and Israel while Democrats rip one another apart.

Hillary Clinton distances herself from adviser who branded Lord David Trimble a 'crankpot' By Toby Harnden in Washington Last Updated: 2:41am GMT 28/03/2008 Hillary Clinton's campaign has disowned a senior adviser who branded Lord Trimble, former Northern Ireland First Minister, a sexist "crankpot" whose views were suspect because he was a Protestant. Under fire: Hillary and Chelsea Clinton are greeted by a smiling eight-year-old Bosnian girl in 1996 "It is not the campaign's policy to attack leaders from other countries," said Howard Wolfson, Mrs Clinton's communications director. Jamie Rubin, a former assistant secretary of state in Bill Clinton's administration, lashed...

The former congressman who shepherded the Family and Medical Leave Act through Congress sought Thursday to debunk Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) claim to the legislation, saying she “never had anything to do with it.” Former Rep. William Lacy Clay, Sr. (D-Mo.) is circulating an email disputing Clinton’s claim that the law is one of her more meaningful domestic accomplishments. The presidential candidate says she helped lobby for the bill’s passage and signing in 1993. But Clay, who was joined by Senate sponsor Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), said the bill had already passed by large margins when it passed in 1990...

The USA Today/Gallup survey clearly explains why Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is losing. Asked whether the candidates were “honest and trustworthy,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) won with 67 percent, with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) right behind him at 63. Hillary scored only 44 percent, the lowest rating for any candidate for any attribute in the poll. Hillary simply cannot tell the truth. Here's her scorecard: