Nelson, a popular moderate in largely Republican Nebraska, said Obama has "the greatest potential to ending the bitterness and poisonous atmosphere in Washington."

Nelson said Obama's victory speech in Iowa was an effort to reach out to Democrats, independents and "enlightened Republicans," and that Obama epitomizes what Nelson has tried to do in Washington. [http://ketv.com/news/15032306/detail.html]

It's beyond the pale, and I'm astonished the Left is buying it.  

Bill Clinton refuses to include the last sentence in that quote he's trotting around from Barack Obama's 2004 Meet the Press interview at the Democratic Convention, and he refused again to do so on the Al Sharpton radio show.

Of course, it's good politics for Obama to want this endorsement.  I'm sure Clinton wanted it, too.  A Senator is a Senator in an election year.  

And btw, I'm sick of how all these RW and faux centrist types abuse the term "bipartisan". All that it really means is being WILLING to work with the other side and compromise and negotiate with it when necessary and possible, not CAVING into it just to look cooperative and avoid a real fight (and perhaps get something on the side in the form of campaign donations and cushy post-political jobs on K street or the lecture, pundit and book writing circuit).

When you TALK to the other side, you are being bipartisan. When you CAVE into it, you are being a shmuck (or worse). It's the other side that has refused to be bipartisan, not Dems, who've either stood their ground (while being willing to talk and come to REASONABLE and PRINCIPLED compromises)--and they've been in the minority--or caved into the other side. We need more tough, smart and principled Dems who are willing to talk to the other side because they know that they won't cave into it--i.e. genuine, not faux bipartisanship--and fewer faux bipartisan Dems--not to mention hyperpartisan Pubs.

Remember, this is what Ben Nelson believes. It doesn't make it true. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

I've been looking more at who's advising Obama on economic issues, and from that it seems he's going to be just more of the Republican-flavored same-old same-old. Then he starts talking like this and you've got to wonder:

He told them how, after graduating from Harvard Law School, he "turned down a job on Wall Street" to spend "three and a half years doing what the men and women of Local 226 are doing right here today, and that is organizing and working and fighting to keep the American dream alive for all people, not just some people."

He told of living on a pittance, with "holes in my shoes and holes in my car -- you all know what I'm talking about."

That experience, he said, taught him the importance of bottom-up change, of unity in the face of power, of ignoring the odds.

Obama hit on his themes of change, hope, and driving out the "fat cats" to clean up Washington; he speaks of wholesale upheaval, but also always emphasizes working together and finding ways for opposing parties to come to agreement, as if proposing a revolution that somehow wouldn't upset anyone.

"I'm running because I don't want to do business as usual," he said.