Post-SOTU Al-Kaidee-On-The-Run OPEN THREAD (3 UPDATES)

Wide open thread. I hope none of you got drunk toasting every time Lame Duck said “freedom” or “EEE-rak.” Here are some tidbits from the reporting post-SOTU:

     * Jonathan Singer, via MyDD: “Hmm… Hillary and Biden sitting next to one another. Are we going to be hearing something soon?”

     * The A.P.: “Sen. Barack Obama came first, followed closely by his new patron, Sen. Edward Kennedy. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton entered the chamber a few minutes later, equally mobbed by well-wishers. She reached out and shook Kennedy’s hand. Obama, nearby, turned away.”

UPDATE: Taylor Marsh has more in “Obama Turns Away from Clinton,” including the photograph I just added.

UPDATE x2: Obama was all smiles while he was chatting it up with George Bush before the SOTU. (Photo: Reuters/Yahoo.)

UPDATE x3: BELOW THE FOLD, and it’s not pretty. (Hint: The Baltimore Sun’s blog, The Swamp, has the story: “At SOTU, Obama’s Clinton snub was the news.”)

That immature rudeness (what else can one call it?) reminds me of Mr. Obama’s behavior after he lost in Nevada. He not congratulate Sen. Clinton on her victory, nor did he call her with congratulations. In contrast, on Saturday night after the South Carolina primary, Sen. Clinton called Sen. Obama to congratulate him, and did so too in her speech in Tennessee, carried live on C-Span.

There’s something arrogant — and ill-mannered — about the man when he’s “scoring” victories and endorsements. That is, if it can be said that he really “scored” today when he got the endorsement of Teddy Kennedy, despised by Republicans (who Obama is courting). The same Teddy Kennedy that an arrogant Obama attacked nastily in 2003:

“‘We’ve … got to call up Ted Kennedy and say, Ted, you’re getting a little old now, and you’ve been a fighter for us before I don’t know what’s happening now, Ted get some spine and stand up to the Republicans’.” — Huffington Post’s story, “Obama Called Out Ted Kennedy: ‘You’re Getting A Little Old…Get Some Spine’”

It reminds me of an article I read earlier today at Slate by John Dickerson, “Song of Myself — How much room does Obama have to boast?“:

UPDATE 3x:

[UPDATE] There’s buzz about this. The Baltimore Sun’s blog, The Swamp, has the story: “At SOTU, Obama’s Clinton snub was the news“:

[W]hat everyone in the House press gallery is talking about isn’t the speech. Rather, it’s the snub.

Sen. Barack Obama refused to make himself available to greet Sen. Hillary Clinton before the speech.

When members of the Senate entered the chamber, Obama came in before Clinton. He went out of his way to greet as many House members as possible and walked halfway across the chamber to greet members of the Supreme Court, the president’s cabinet, the military joint chiefs.

That made what happened next even more striking. Obama returned to stand by his seat next to Sen. Edward Kennedy who endorsed Obama today in a widely watched event that reverberated across the political world.

As Clinton approached, Kennedy made sure to make eye contact and indicated he wanted to shake her hand. Clinton leaned towards Kennedy over a row of seats and Kennedy leaned in towards her. They shook hands.

Obama stood icily staring at Clinton during this, then turned his back and stepped a few feet away. Kennedy may’ve wanted to make peace with Clinton but Obama clearly wanted no part of that.

The sense in the press gallery was that Obama didn’t cover himself in glory. Someone even used the word “childish.” (Not this writer.) Judging by how much conversation there was about this brush off in the press gallery, Americans will be hearing a lot more about this tomorrow and in coming days. …

From Dickerson’s Slate article, “Song of Myself — How much room does Obama have to boast?“:

This week Barack Obama’s campaign turned into a victory lap. In a four-day “Judgment and Experience” tour, the senator celebrated the fifth anniversary of his speech opposing the Iraq war. “On the single most important foreign policy issue of our time, I got it right,” Obama said. His Web site shows voters from around the country reading portions of his 2002 speech  to one another. Obama gave a new speech Tuesday that claimed he has keener insight than Washington politicians, the media, and the foreign policy establishment. Anyone who doubted that assertion, he said, was merely “bent out of shape” by having their assumptions challenged by someone who had “spent time serving in the wider world.” Namely: himself. This was a new strategy but not unrecognizable behavior. On the stump, Obama often tells voters how bold he is—talking about fuel efficiency in front of Detroit automakers and confronting powerful lobbies that other politicians are afraid to challenge. For a candidate so anxious to remind everyone that  he’s not a typical Beltway insider, Obama can sound a lot like a classic Washington type: the senator who regards himself too highly. [...]

Obama has put such focus on a single speech out of necessity. His opponents, particularly Hillary Clinton and her husband, question whether he has the experience to be president. Obama’s boasting answers critique and put Clinton on the defensive at the same time. It’s probably a smart tactic, but the posture is at odds with the reflective politician who in 2004 talked about not knowing which way he would have voted on the Iraq question if he’d been in the Senate at the time. [...]

Obama’s reliance on his anti-war position invites stories that question whether he is inflating his courage. This creates a double risk: résumé inflation suggests both dishonesty and a lack of anything else to boast about. Some Democrats say Hillary Clinton takes too much credit for her role initiating the SCHIP. (Ted Kennedy was the bill’s driving force.) But her bragging hasn’t sounded excessive, and voters will probably tolerate it. [...]

In a speech containing 80 uses of the first-person pronoun, Obama did have one line of quasi-humility: “I am not a perfect man and I won’t be a perfect president.” A more effective balance may be his wife, who regularly includes in her praise the comment that he is also human and able to admit his mistakes. He’ll need a dose of that when he gets home after his “I was right” tour.

Read all of “Song of Myself — How much room does Obama have to boast?.”

Confidence is a great trait. Cockiness is not.

My daughter just called me to report Obama’s own “Bushism” on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, in response to Cooper’s question regarding President Clinton:

“There have been times when factual statements were made that were inaccurate.”