memeorandum: Influential Flying Pigs (Fester/Newshoggers.com)

10:30 AM ET, June 12, 2008

Top Items:

Alex Koppelman / Salon:

Fox News calls Michelle Obama “Obama's baby mama” — An alert reader wrote in just a little while ago to let us know about something he'd spotted on Fox News Wednesday afternoon. During a segment discussing conservative attacks against Michelle Obama, the wife of presumptive Democratic nominee Barack …

Discussion: The Swamp, Talking Points Memo, Ben Smith's Blogs, TownHall Blog, Firedoglake, The Opinionator, Outside The Beltway, Too Sense, The Carpetbagger Report, American Street, Bring It On!, AMERICAblog, Donklephant, ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES, Shakesville, The Political Carnival and News Hounds

Karen Tumulty / Time:

Exclusive: Obama's Anti-Rumor Plan — As long as there have been rumors in politics, there has been one widely accepted way for a candidate to deal with them. Basically, it's not to. Otherwise, according to prevailing wisdom, all a candidate achieves is to elevate the rumors to a legitimate story for the media to feast on.

Discussion: Marc Ambinder, Associated Press, Ben Smith's Blogs, Israel Matzav, The Strata-Sphere, NO QUARTER, The Campaign Spot, Where Was I?, TIME.com and TPM Election Central

Oliver Willis:

Hey Fox News, Just Call Her A N***** And Be Done With It, Okay? — Fox News refers to Michelle Obama as Senator Obama's “Baby Mama”. — So here's the thing (because during this campaign I'm apparently learning that we black people have our own secret code and hand signals so this stuff …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, MOMocrats, Pam's House Blend, Bang the Drum, Comments from Left Field, The Left Coaster and American Street

Michelle Malkin:

Durbin says: We're going to hell! Update: The Obama “baby mama” drama — Breathe a bad word about Michelle Obama and you'll be cast into the fiery bowels of hell, says Reverend Dick Durbin. — Here's my hell-baiting Fox segment on Michelle earlier this afternoon.

Discussion: The Daily Dish, Hot Air and NewsBusters.org

Joan Walsh / Salon:

Oh no they didn't — I don't watch Fox News, but an alert reader saw it, and Alex Koppelman found a clip: The pro-GOP network did, indeed, call Michelle Obama Barack Obama's “baby mama.” It wasn't some freelance commentator spouting off; it was a network-produced headline featured …

Discussion: The Democratic Daily, Big Brass Blog, The New Republic, New York Times and Don Surber

Nedra Pickler / Associated Press: Obama site confronts rumors

The Hill:

New Gang of 14 won't back McCain — At least 14 Republican members of Congress have refused to endorse or publicly support Sen. John McCain for president, and more than a dozen others declined to answer whether they back the Arizona senator. — Many of the recalcitrant GOP members declined …

Discussion: The Swamp, MSNBC, Comments from Left Field, American Street, The Political Carnival and michellemalkin.com

Ryan Grim / The Politico:
Some Hill Dems won't endorse Obama

Discussion: Real Clear Politics

Justin Rose / Times of London:

Robert Mugabe's militia burn opponent's wife alive — The men who pulled up in three white pickup trucks were looking for Patson Chipiro, head of the Zimbabwean opposition party in Mhondoro district. His wife, Dadirai, told them he was in Harare but would be back later in the day, and the men departed.

Discussion: Hot Air

Celia W. Dugger / New York Times:
American Aid Is Seized in Zimbabwe

Discussion: FP Passport

Rasmussen Reports:

Election 2008: Iowa Presidential Election — Iowa: Obama Expands Lead in Hawkeye State — Barack Obama, enjoying a bounce in national polling since clinching the Democratic Presidential Nomination, is also expanding his lead in Iowa. — The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey …

Discussion: TPM Election Central

Rasmussen Reports:
Election 2008: Washington Presidential Election

Discussion: The New Republic, Daily Kos and Donklephant

Mark Potok / Hatewatch:

President Obama? Many White Supremacists are Celebrating — With the nomination of Barack Obama as the Democratic presidential candidate clinched, large sections of the white supremacist movement are adopting a surprising attitude: Electing America's first black president would be a very good thing.

Discussion: Orcinus, Comments from Left Field and The Other McCain

Jackie Calmes / Wall Street Journal:

Obama Leads, but Margin Is Less Than Some Expect — Poll Has Democrat Continuing to Lag With White Males — WASHINGTON — Democrat Barack Obama begins his presidential race against Republican John McCain with a lead in the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, but not so great an edge …

Discussion: protein wisdom, New York Post, MSNBC, Obsidian Wings, Philly.com, The New Republic, American Power, Daily Kos, Gallup and Washington Wire

Andrew Malcolm / Top of the Ticket:
The secret friendship of Hillary Clinton and John McCain

Discussion: Spin Cycle

Mark Murray / MSNBC:
NBC/WSJ Poll: Post-primary bump for Obama

Discussion: TalkLeft, MyDD, Associated Press, The Carpetbagger Report, TPM Election Central, Newsweek, No More Mister Nice Blog and Gallup

Adam Liptak / New York Times:

Unlike Others, U.S. Defends Freedom to Offend in Speech — VANCOUVER, British Columbia — A couple of years ago, a Canadian magazine published an article arguing that the rise of Islam threatened Western values. The article's tone was mocking and biting, but it said nothing that conservative magazines …

Discussion: Jihad Watch, TigerHawk, American Power, BuzzMachine, NewsBusters.org, doubleplusundead, Oliver Willis and Little Green Footballs

Graeme Wood / The Current:
The Muftis of Cascadia — PHOTO BY FLICKR USER FLORIAN.B UNDER A CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE

Discussion: The Belmont Club, Pajamas Media, Little Miss Attila and THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS

WisPolitics.com:

WisPolitics.com: Obama bests McCain in first UW Dept. of Political Science/WisPolitics.com General Election Poll — CONTACT: UW Political Scientist Ken Goldstein at 608-263-2390, Charles Franklin at 608 263-2022. — In the inaugural UW Dept. of Political Science/WisPolitics.com survey taken immediately …

Discussion: Taegan Goddard's …, Marc Ambinder, DemConWatch, Open Left and The Political Carnival

McClatchy Washington Bureau:

GOP claim about Chinese oil drilling off Cuba is untrue — WASHINGTON — As Congress has debated energy policy over the past several days, an unusual argument keeps surfacing in support of drilling off the U.S. coastline and in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Discussion: The Volokh Conspiracy, Balloon Juice and RADAMISTO

Michael Ware / CNN:

Papers give peek inside al Qaeda in Iraq — BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — With Christmas 2005 approaching, the princes of al Qaeda's western command were gathering. They'd been summoned for something special: to plot a three-month campaign of coordinated suicide, rocket and infantry attacks on American bases …

Discussion: Weekly Standard Blog, Unqualified Offerings, Democracy Project and American Power

Jeff Coen / Chicago Tribune:

Prosecutors leaned on him, Rezko says — Letter to judge defended Obama and Blagojevich — Two months before he was convicted of federal corruption charges, political fundraiser Antoin “Tony” Rezko told his trial judge that “overzealous” prosecutors were pressuring him to tell …

Discussion: TalkLeft

Michael Luo / New York Times:

Obama Camp Courts Clinton Fund-Raisers — With Senator Barack Obama's campaign manager scheduled to meet Thursday with top fund-raisers for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in New York, there is resistance from at least some in her once-vaunted network to supporting Mr. Obama.

Discussion: Matthew Yglesias

White House:

Statement by the Press Secretary — President George W. Bush today announced recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Nation's highest civil award. Established by Executive Order 11085 in 1963, the Medal may be awarded by the President “to any person who has made an especially …

Discussion: Power Line and On Deadline