This is reprehensible. Senator Clinton said today,

“I think that since we now know Sen. (John) McCain will be the nominee for the Republican Party, national security will be front and center in this election. We all know that. And I think it’s imperative that each of us be able to demonstrate we can cross the commander-in-chief threshold,” the New York senator told reporters crowded into an infant’s bedroom-sized hotel conference room in Washington.

“I believe that I’ve done that. Certainly, Sen. McCain has done that and you’ll have to ask Sen. Obama with respect to his candidacy,” she said.

Calling McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee a good friend and a “distinguished man with a great history of service to our country,” Clinton said, “Both of us will be on that stage having crossed that threshold. That is a critical criterion for the next Democratic nominee to deal with.”

Clinton says she has crossed the “commander-in-chief threshold.” When, pray tell? Doing what? Can somebody explain that to me?

And I can ask the same question of McCain. I respect his prisoner-of-war experience, but being a POW doesn’t necessarily confer the commander-in-chief skill set.

Keith Olbermann is wondering if Clinton is a McCain Democrat or a Lieberman Republican. Richard Wolff suggests that all she has to do is kiss President Bush on the cheek and she’d be just like Joe Lieberman. Snort.

I have to assume that Clinton is equating “being a damnfool hawk on the Iraq War far too long” with being a strong commander-in-chief. And if that’s her game, she needs to be slammed down on this, hard.

See also John Aravosis.

Over the past few days there has been an ongoing flap regarding remarks about NAFTA allegedly made to the Canadian government by the Obama campaign. The story was that an Obama staffer had reassured the Canadians that Obama didn’t mean what he said about NAFTA. This story was pushed hard by the Clinton campaign even after the Canadian government denied it, andit may have played a role in Clinton’s recent win in Ohio.

Well, folks, guess what? The Globe and Mail says that it was the Clinton campaign that reassured the Canadians about NAFTA. The issue first came up in comments by PM Harper’s chief of staff, Ian Brodie.

At the end of an extended conversation, Mr. Brodie was asked about remarks aimed by the Democratic candidates at Ohio’s anti-NAFTA voters that carried serious economic implications for Canada.

Since 75 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S., Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton’s musings about reopening the North American free-trade pact had caused some concern.

Mr. Brodie downplayed those concerns.

“Quite a few people heard it,” said one source in the room.

“He said someone from (Hillary) Clinton’s campaign is telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt. . . That someone called us and told us not to worry.”

Government officials did not deny the conversation took place.

Mysteriously, the allegation about Clinton changed to an allegation about Obama somewhere between Ottawa and the CTV’s Washington Bureau.

Gracious, will Senator Clinton’s face turn maple leaf red?

The Clinton’s have been waving as “proof” a leaked memo written by a Canadian diplomat claiming that Obama economic adviser Austan Goulsbee had given reassurances about NAFTA during a conversation at the Canadian consulate in Chicago. The Obama campaign has said the diplomat misrepresented by Goulsbee said.

See also Steve Benen, Liza, Eric Kleefeld at TPM, publius, and Josh.

David Sirota has more on what he calls the “Clinton-Lieberman Connection“:

Confusion and misinformation are two of the most powerful weapons in a desperate politician’s arsenal. They were used by Joe Lieberman in the 2006 general election against Ned Lamont, and exit polls suggest that they helped Hillary Clinton blast her way through yesterday’s primary in Ohio.

Over the last few weeks, Clinton has been telling Ohio voters she never supported the North American Free Trade Agreement – an agreement that has become a symbol of corrupt economic policies to many working-class voters. Clinton has made these claims expecting everyone to forget her speeches over the last decade trumpeting NAFTA as a great success.

Her direct quotes praising NAFTA repeatedly are not up for interpretation – and neither are her absurd claims to “have been against NAFTA from the beginning.” We’re talking about pure, unadulterated lying here – and lying with a purpose: To confuse enough voters into thinking she actually did oppose NAFTA and that her strong support for NAFTA is somehow the same as Barack Obama’s longtime opposition to the pact.

Are you taking notes, Pennsylvania? Or are you going to be snookered the way Ohio was?

Pam of the House Blend says she is encountering increasing numbers of Clinton supporters who say they will not vote for Obama if he is the nominee. In fact, they plan to vote for McCain, she says. This is the reverse of a charge aimed at Obama supporters a few weeks ago — that we were “losers” who didn’t understand political reality and would not support Clinton if she were the nominee. Rich, huh?

At the Washington Post, Adele M. Stan objects to this column by Linda Hirshman. Stan writes,

Hirshman … makes her claims as a feminist, and then tars fellow feminists — those who vote differently than her — with the right’s “liberal elitist” brush. For flourish, she uses the sexist technique of ridiculing two women prominent in the Obama campaign by focusing only on their physical attributes. (Maria Shriver is reduced to a description of her hair, while Michelle Obama is mentioned in the context of her fashionable shoes.)

Feminists who support Obama, Hirshman writes, care little for the working-class woman. Their votes reflect nothing more than a “turn to solidarity with their own class.” The same goes for college-educated women of all stripes who support Obama, all of whom are presumed, in Hirshman’s argument, to be well-off, be they social workers or administrative assistants. If we cared for the working-class woman, she says, we would vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton because she was the first of the two to offer a paid family leave proposal and proposes a “slightly more generous” health plan than does Obama. If we vote on the basis of, say, something as esoteric as foreign policy, we’re being elitist, because presumably everybody knows that foreign policy has no bearing on the life of the working-class woman.

Um, whose children are being sent to Iraq, again?

I wonder about some of these “feminists” who insist we judge Senator Clinton as Prototype of All Women and not on her record or opinions or how she conducts herself. Being judged as individuals, on what we do instead of on our physical attributes, used to be the feminist ideal.

Also in WaPo, Ayelet Waldman writes,

I’m a longtime Barack Obama supporter, not because I’m a snob in thrall to his sex appeal, but because I’m heartily sick of candidates who preach populism while accepting donations from PACs and corporate lobbyists. Obama has amassed an astonishing war chest from over one million individual donors, many of whom gave small contributions. Clinton, meanwhile, held a “Rural Americans for Hillary” fundraiser at the offices of Troutman Sanders Public Affairs — the Washington lobbying firm that represents Monsanto. More like “Rural, Multinational Agribusiness for Hillary.”

There’s more; highly recommended reading.

Update: See also the BooMan, especially the second half of the post.

Update 2: Keith Olbermann is highlighting this.

Polls are saying that Senator Clinton is getting a late surge in voter support (with the help of Rush?) and could win the popular vote in Texas, although probably not the majority of delegates. She’s already favored to win Ohio and Rhode Island. If this turns out to be true, expect a long, nasty fight for the nomination that will damage both Dem candidates.

Contrary indicators: Just before the New Hampshire primary the pollsters said all the trends were moving toward Obama, which turned out not to be true. And the I Ching, which has been stubbornly ambivalent about the candidates for weeks, is now leaning a bit to Obama. My reading of the I Ching is that he’ll do Better Than Expected. However, both candidates will have cause for worry and regret and may be bitten by tigers. See also Michael Tomasky, “The Yeldarb effect.”

Whatever happens, I’m going to be on (workplace alert: don’t click unless your sound is on mute) Blog Talk Radio tomorrow from 1 to 2 pm eastern time, chatting about What It All Means. I’ll be out tonight until after 10 o’clock, but I’ll probably post something when I get home.

In the meantime, here’s some fun stuff to read:

H. D. S. Greenway, “Dancing on the Piano”

E.J. Dionne, “The Battle That Clinton Didn’t Expect”

And channeling Dylan Thomas:

HTML Mencken, “Rage, Rage Against The Undying of the Right”

Jonathan Chait, “The Clinton Campaign’s Dying Light”

Update: More —

RJ Eskow, “Comedians and Voters: Don’t Let The Press Bias Toward Hillary Throw You”

Nina Darnton, “Picking a President: A Feminist’s Right to Choose”

Michael Seitzman, “The Clinton Crystal Ball: What About Day Two?“