Obama and Edwards did that to Hillary in earlier debates and it was outrageous.

THAT is the line they should not cross imo.

I objected to Obama's Wal-Mart line (disclosure, I represent Wal-Mart) and Hillary's Rezko line in response.

Those are out of line.

When Obama brought up Walmart, Senator Clinton basically had her oh no you didn't moment and came back with a pretty vicious counterpunch.

In any case, there has been a lot of talk about how the Clinton-Obama spat may divide the party, and that a Clinton victory could depress African American turnout in November. This argument is usually made by Obama supporters, but I think they fail to see the other side of the argument as well. Yes, we have seen unprecedented turnout in all three states, but Hillary has received more votes in two of those states. There is a lot of talk about Obama bringing new voters to the polls, but nobody seems to mention that Senator Clinton has managed to draw even more new voters than him and that is why she has won. A lot of these new voters are older women who like African Americans, may not handle a loss by their favored candidate that well.  

If Obama does end up running against McCain, it may be difficult for him to recapture that vote after his "likeable enough" and Walmart comments.

Josh Marshall supports Obama over Clinton. He can deny it all he wants, but it really shows. Just look at his live blogging of the debate last night. There's obviously nothing wrong with being an Obama supporter. But I wish he would just admit it.

The slum lord comment is stupid.  He should have answered "Do you think we should spend as much as we did on Whitewater investigation or would you prefer that I tell you now how we have responded to the allegations against Rezko and which charities we have donated the money to?"

There has to be some of this in the debates now so that the edge is lifted off later in the GE debates.  Float out the mud that we know of right now, it makes for a more focused campaign in the GE.

I guess what I'm asking is how or why Clinton's statement was distorting the truth.

"In sharp contrast to his tough talk about ethics reform in government, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., approached a well-known Illinois political fixer under active federal investigation, Antoin "Tony" Rezko, for "advice" as he sought to find a way to buy a house shortly after being elected to the United States Senate.

The parcel included an adjacent lot which Obama told the Chicago Tribune he could not afford because 'it was already a stretch to buy the house'.

On the same day Obama closed on his house, Rezko's wife bought the adjacent empty lot, meeting the condition of the seller who wanted to sell both properties at the same time."

 Article on Obama and Wallmart

On Rizko, On the Rezko issue everyone is focusing on the donations. It's not the donations. It's the nature of community organizing. If you are a good organizer, your ear is in the street. You know what is going on and who is getting what, and where people are screwing the community. Well, Obama claims he did not notice the 30 failing   buildings Rezko had. The buildings that it took, which is usually true, the city years to figure out. Now he claims he only worked 5 hours on due dilligence paper work. Well, the due dilligence needed to be done before taking the money.

Any person with any care or love for a community would have checked out Rezko. You don't just do that in community organizing, take money from developers and not check them out. If you walk the Streets, you listen to what people tell you.

This is my concern, his style, his inexperience. He delgates and trusts. You have to do the work, you have to check these people. As a community organizer, worker and fighter I find this to be negligent. There is no excuse.

In the absence of comparative information, volunteers who were told a candidate would bring $2 million into the local economy did not have a good way to evaluate whether this was bold or mediocre planning. They did not need any comparative information, however, to know a DUI rumor was problematic. So they gave the candidate low marks. But when volunteers were able to compare the candidates, they could now see that a $2 million plan was tangibly better than a measly $1 million plan. This put the DUI concern into a new perspective -- it was just a rumor. The candidates remained identical, but the weight that volunteers assigned to the measures changed -- and this reversed the voters' preferences.

...the point of research by Lowenthal and many others is that victory is not decided by the characteristics of the candidates, but the relative weight voters assign to the different issues.

Former President Clinton said Tuesday he enjoyed the bickering.

"I know you think it's crazy, but I kind of like to see Barack and Hillary fight," Bill Clinton told a mostly white crowd of about 300 at a black church in Greenville, S.C. "They're flesh and blood people and they have their differences -- let them have it."

ABC